Armenian News

ARCHBISHOP BEGINS ARMENIA VISIT
Martha Linden, PA
Press Association Newsfile
September 20, 2007 Thursday 2:46 AM BST

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams begins a week-long
visit to Armenia, Syria and Lebanon today.

Dr Williams will begin his tour in Armenia, where he will visit a
range of significant religious and national sites, as well as holding
discussions with the Armenian government.

The visit to Armenia comes after an invitation from the Catholicos,
His Holiness Karekin II, who heads the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Lambeth Palace said Dr Williams' visit to Syria and Lebanon would be
shorter and forms part of his continuing personal engagement with
Christian churches in the Middle East, and with leaders of other
faiths in the region.

The visit takes place at the invitation of the Anglican Bishop of
Jerusalem, Suhail Dawani, whose diocese covers these countries,
and is being arranged in collaboration with the Middle East Council
of Churches.

In Syria, as well as meetings with Christian leaders and the local
Anglican community, the Archbishop will meet with the Grand Mufti of
Syria and the country's President, Dr Bashar Al Asad.

PATRIARCH MUTAFYAN'S SPEECH CANCELLED BY DECISION OF GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION
PanARMENIAN.Net
24.09.2007 12:40 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "The decision to postpone the speech by Patriarch
Mesrob II Mutafyan, religious leader of Turkish Armenians was taken
by the Georgetown University administration after a meeting with the
Armenian community," Armenian National Committee of America Executive
Director Aram Hamparian told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

"We shared with Georgetown our concern that - as a leading American
center of learning - it should not allow itself to be used as a
platform for the Turkish government's hateful campaign of the Armenian
Genocide denial," Mr Hamparian underscored.

Patriarch Mesrob II, who arrived in the U.S. capital last week,
was scheduled to deliver a speech called "The Impasse between Turks
and Armenians Must Be Broken" at Georgetown University's Woodstock
Theological Center.

The Turkish Daily News reported that "the event had been cancelled
following pressure on the university by U.S. Armenian groups over
Partiarch's opposition to the Armenian Genocide Resolution."

A Turkish diplomat said the event did not take place because "the
Armenian lecturer doesn't share the opinion of the Armenian community
of the U.S."

Asked by reporters if his speech was canceled because of U.S. Armenian
pressure, the patriarch said, "it may have been."

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BAKU STAKES AT THE ARMY: AZERBAIJAN INCREASES ITS MILITARY EXPENDITURES
by Sohbet Mamedov, Alexander Zhelenin
Agency WPS
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
September 10, 2007 Monday
Russia

Azerbaijan is going to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem with
assistance of the armed forces; Azerbaijan received a new argument in
the dialogue with Armenia about the "occupied territories." President
Ilham Aliev has said that Baku stakes at the army and will increase
the military article of the state budget in the future. Expenditures
on the armed forces will exceed $1 billion. According to the President
of Azerbaijan, such measures are dictated by the situation because
"the country is in a state of war."

Baku is not going to keep tolerating the occupation of about 20% of
its territory which has continued for almost 15 years. President of
Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev, announced this at a consultation dedicated
to "problems of refugees and migrants driven from their native
lands as a result of the military aggression of Armenia against
Azerbaijan." Aliev holds these consultations once a year and they are
usually dedicated to the settlement of certain issues and a discussion
of the negotiation process on resolving the "Armenian-Azerbaijani
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict." Azerbaijani authorities insist on exactly
this definition when they speak about the conflict between the two
neighboring countries. The current speech of the president means
that Baku is discontent with the negotiation process. The President
of Azerbaijan states, "Armenia should understand that drawing out
the conflict may cause more serious consequences." He added that
he instructed the relevant agencies to plan an amount exceeding $1
billion in the state budget for 2008 for the needs of the army.

According to official data, there are 75,000 servicemen in the armed
forces of Azerbaijan now. The present-day Azerbaijani army is well
trained and is armed with modern armament and military hardware. The
restoration of the military industrial complex is being done quickly.

According to Yashar Dzhafarli, chair of the public association of
officers of the reserve and retired officers, in case of beginning a
second war, an attack on the Azerbaijani forces will be done not only
towards Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven occupied districts around it
but along the entire perimeter of the border with Armenia.

Alexander Sharavin, director of the analytical department of the
institute of political and military analysis, says that "although
the military budget of Azerbaijan is bigger than the entire budget
of Armenia, it is difficult to imagine that Azerbaijan has really
acquired such military might that it can defeat Nagorno-Karabakh."

The expert adds that Azerbaijan, like the other Transcaucasian
republics, is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization
and to achieve a serious advantage over Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh
it will need to quit the treaty.

In turn, Ivan Safranchuk, director of the Russian representative office
of the institute of international security, explains the statements
of Aliev saying that "after opening the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil
pipeline, Azerbaijan felt its importance for Europe and the West as a
whole." According to Safranchuk, Europe encountered the blackmailing
of a transit country like Azerbaijan for the first time. This meant
that Europeans encountered what Russia had experienced in its relations
with the Ukraine and Belarus through the territories of which Russian
gas and oil were flowing to the West.

Safranchuk adds that now Azerbaijan "as supplier and transit country
for energy resources supply to the West starts bringing its issues"
to the agenda of Europe and does this very harshly and not only in
the field of energy.going much further than the Armenians

[now read the following article in which te Azeris complain that Armenia does not respect

it internAtional military obligations. If there is any truth in this, then the Azeris do not

seem to realise that this implies that they are going much further than the Armenians]

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AZERI MINISTER ACCUSES ARMENIA OF VIOLATING EUROPEAN ARMS TREATY
Turan news agency
13 Sep 07
Baku

Baku, 13 September: In violation of the terms of the Conventional
Forces in Europe Treaty, Armenia has an arsenal of weapons and
munitions that considerably exceeds its quota, Azerbaijani Defence
Minister Safar Abiyev said at a meeting with members of the EU-South
Caucasus parliamentary cooperation committee today.

Most of these weapons have been placed in Azerbaijan's occurred
territories without any registration or control.

Abiyev called on international organizations and the EU to express a
"principled position" on this issue. All this compels Azerbaijan to
take "necessary measures".

He went on to threaten that Azerbaijan's patience is not endless.

"Both from an economic and political, and military point of view,
Azerbaijan is capable of restoring its territorial integrity,"
Abiyev said.

Abiyev also answered questions from the members of the European
Parliament concerning Azerbaijan's military budget and the Qabala
radar station.

[During the June 2007 summit of G8, Russian President Vladimir Putin
proposed that Russia and the USA jointly use Azerbaijan's Qabala
radar station.]

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