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ARTICLE BY ARAM SEPETJIAN

BEIRUT, LEBANON

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Azerbaijan/Armenia (non) relations developments

'INTERIM DECISION' ON KARABAKH FOUND?
PanARMENIAN.Net
30.06.2008 13:19 GMT+04:00

Yerevan and Baku have a golden opportunity to resolve the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict, according to OSCE President.

"We have been working to find a solution to the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict for several years. There is an interim decision which will
have a positive impact on the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. The
sides have a golden opportunity to resolve the conflict," Mr Goran
Lennmarker said in his address to 17th session of the OSCE PA in
Astana, Interfax reports.

Meanwhile, he mentioned, the Karabakh issue will not be discussed. "The
agenda includes issues referring to Georgia," he said. "OSCE member
states support Georgia's territorial integrity. Abkhazia is a part
of Georgia and a peaceful solution should be found in this vein."

It's the first-ever OSCE PA session held in Astana, the capital of
Kazakhstan, which will assume presidency in the OSCE in 2010.

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AZERBAIJAN'S ATTEMPTS TO TRANSFER KARABAKH PROBLEM TO

OTHER INSTANCES DO NOT PROMOTE RESOLUTION
PanARMENIAN.Net
30.06.2008 14:06 GMT+04:00

On June 28, NKR President Bako Sahakian in Stepanakert met with OSCE
Minsk Group Co-chairs, Ambassadors Matthew Bryza (the U.S.), Yuri
Merzlyakov (Russia) and Bernard Fassier (France) to discuss a wide
range of issues concerning the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement.

President Sahakian emphasized that final solution of the problem is
impossible without Nagorno Karabakh's participation in the talks.

At that he remarked that Azerbaijan's anti-Armenian propaganda
and bellicose rhetoric don't promote creation of an atmosphere of
mutual confidence and affect the negotiation process as well as
peace and stability in the entire region. "Hostilities provoked
by the Azerbaijani armed forces in the Martakert region on March 4
illustrate it," Mr. Sahakian said, adding that official Stepanakert
stands for peaceful resolution of the conflict and establishment of
a direct dialogue with Baku.

Noting that the Karabakh conflict should be settled in the framework
of the OSCE Minsk group, President Sahakian said that Azerbaijan's
attempts to transfer it to other instances do not further the
process. The Co-chairs agreed fully with the viewpoint.

They also expressed readiness to assist peaceful settlement of the
conflict and noted that NKR's participation in the negotiation process
is an issue of time.

NKR Foreign Minister Georgy Petrossian and Personal Representative of
the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk also attended the meeting.

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AZERBAIJAN SHOWS OFF MILITARY MIGHT
Voice of America News
June 26, 2008

Azerbaijan staged its first military parade in 16 years Thursday to
mark the anniversary of the founding of the country's armed forces.

Tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled through the streets
of Baku as military aircraft flew overhead in what news agencies
described as a show of force aimed partly at neighboring Armenia.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev told participants the Azerbaijani
people are tired of negotiations with Armenia over the breakaway
Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. He said the talks cannot go
on forever.

Mr. Aliyev said Azerbaijan continues to live in a state of war due
to the unresolved conflict.

The Azerbaijani leader said the country's annual defense spending
has risen to more than $2 billion, 10 times what it was in 2003,
and will continue to increase.

The two countries fought a six-year conflict after residents of
the largely-Armenian-inhabited Nagorno-Karabakh region declared
independence in 1988. A 1994 cease-fire halted the most serious
fighting, though sporadic exchanges of gunfire continue. The conflict
has claimed 35,000 lives.

WAR WITH ARMENIA STILL CONTINUING, AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT

State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
June 27, 2008

Azerbaijan is living in a state of war with Armenia and the war is
still continuing, said President Ilham Aliyev at a military parade
in Baku marking the 90th anniversary of the creation of Armed Forces.

A ceasefire is in force, said the President, adding it, however,
does not mean that the war is over.

We must be ready to liberate our native lands at any time, and this
is why we are building strong army, he noted.

Azerbaijan staged a military parade Thursday featuring troops, rocket
launch systems, tanks, helicopters and fighter jets.

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KHAZAR IBRAHIM: "IT IS AZERBAIJAN THAT WILL DECIDE WHICH WAY

TO CHOOSE TO RESTORE ITS TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY"
Today.Az
June 30 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani government voiced its position and noted that the conflict
can only be settled in the framework of territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan during the visit of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to Baku,
said spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Khazar Ibrahim
at a traditional briefing.

He said Azerbaijan's position remains changeless.

"As for the ways of resolution of Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan
has always made statements, based on realities. Azerbaijan is a country
which is developing and this development influences all spheres.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev stated that during the military
parade. Azerbaijan will restore its territorial integrity and will
choose the way to it itself", said Ibrahim.

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WASHINGTON ADVOCATES AZERBAIJAN'S ACCESSION TO NATO
Yuri Roks
RusData Dialine - Russian Press Digest
June 26, 2008 Thursday

During U.S.-Azerbaijani security consultations, to be held in Baku
in July, the sides may consider the possibility of Azerbaijan's
accession to NATO, Anne Derse, U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan, said
on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev plans
to visit Baku on July 3. Azerbaijan is the third country in the GUAM
block comprising Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, which the
West says should be admitted to NATO. As for Moldova, its non-bloc
stance may change after the presidential elections this fall.

The Baku authorities claim to be surprised by Derse's words. Kyamil
Khasiyev, Azerbaijan's representative at the bloc, said: "Azerbaijan
is not in a hurry to join NATO, although our cooperation with it is
proceeding quite well." He also denied the possibility of holding a
referendum on NATO accession, as Georgia did.

Political analyst Rasim Musabekov said: "The Azerbaijani authorities
have never voiced a desire to join NATO." He thinks this would
have more serious consequences for the country than in the case of
Georgia. "Only Russia is against Georgia joining the bloc, but in our
case we will also have to deal with the opposition of Iran. And don't
forget about the frozen war with Armenia," Musabekov said, adding that
the benefits of joining NATO were questionable. "The West wants this,
but what would Baku gain?"

Alexei Malashenko, an expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center,
said: "There is nothing surprising in the processes underway in
Azerbaijan. They are logical, and I don't think Moscow views them
as sensational. If Azerbaijan joins NATO, this will add a highly
interesting factor to the Karabakh conflict."

David Babayan, a political analyst from the disputed Nagorno Karabakh
republic, said: "The territory of Azerbaijan is one of the most
desirable parts of the Europe-South Caucasus-Central Asia structure,
with a potential link to China and India. In this sense, the West
will, predictably, do its best to encourage NATO cooperation with
Azerbaijan."

Babakyan said Azerbaijan's possible accession to NATO would influence
the situation in Nagorno Karabakh, because the West needs stability
in the South Caucasus and therefore settlement of the Karabakh problem
to carry out its challenging geopolitical project.

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ARMENIA DOES NOT PLAN TO JOIN NATO - PRESIDENT
Interfax News Agency
June 27 2008
Russia

Armenia does not plan to join NATO, Armenian President Serzh
Sargsyan said."We have always said and are saying now that Armenia's
foreign political agenda does not envision accession to NATO,"
Sargsyan said in an interview published in Kommersant on Friday.

"Armenia finds it beneficial to be a member of the CSTO [the Collective
Security Treaty Organization]," Sargsyan said. "We have built our
armed forces on the basis of the Soviet doctrine, and they are armed
with Soviet military hardware. Almost all the weapons we have today
are either Soviet or Russian," Sargsyan said. "All this needs to be
maintained, modernized, and replenished. The CSTO provides for such
a chance. We have privileged conditions for military-technological
cooperation there and are content with this," he said.

Talking about the settlement of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,
Sargsyan said, "The Azeri leadership is saying that the conflict could
be resolved in a military way. I believe that at least two people -
the supreme commander-in-chief and the defense minister - should
therefore presume that military actions could start even tomorrow."

"However, I do not consider this a proper way to resolve the
problem. We can settle everything in a peaceful way," he said.

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Important Houses of Parliament Meetings next week

Armenian Solidarity with the Victims of All Genocides

Tel: 07718982732

Centre of Halabja against the Anfalization of Kurdish People (C.H.A.K.)

Nor Serount Cultural Association

Seyfo Centre

A warm invitation to two important meetings next week:

We stress the importance of your attendance at these meetings.

Evidence will be revealed of how the government has been caught misleading parliament on the genocide

---

1 On Tuesday, 8th July at 2.00 p.m. in room P of Portcullis House (which houses the offices of Members of Parliament)

"Evidence from Kurdish sources on the 1915 Genocide"

in Room P of Portcullis House, (Westminster)Bridge St

(which houses the offices of Members of Parliament)

at 2.00 p.m. on Tuesday, 8th July

The speakers: eminent Kurdish historian Prof Kamal Mazhar Ahmad

Kurdish writer Rebwar Fatah .

The meeting is sponsored and chaired by David Drew MP

Portcullis House is on Victoria Embankment/Bridge Street corner next to Westminster tube station(facing parliament)

If you are planning to attend, RSVP if possible to eilian@nant.wanadoo.co.uk asap

---

2

The Lausanne Treaty of 1923.

Were the Armenians , Assyrians and Kurds betrayed?

On Wednesday, 9th July at 6.15 p.m.

in Room 3A of the House of Lords

Speakers:

Dr Kemal Miredali ( Kurdish writer)

Ms Soma Mallzada (Researcher for C.H.A.K.)

There will be the opportunity for questions and a discussion to consider the Treaty's validity in relation to these three nations which were not involved in its signing.

The meeting is sponsored and chaired by Lord Rea

RSVP if possible to eilian@nant.wanadoo.co.uk

Tel: 07718982732

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Armenian News

TURKISH PRESIDENT WILL DISCUSS THE PROPOSAL, IF HE RECEIVES AN INVITATION FROM SERZH SARGSYAN
armradio.am
27.06.2008 15:15

If RA President Serzh Sargsyan sends an invitation to Turkish President Abdullah Gul, it will be discussed, Press Secretary of Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Burack Ozyurgergin declared,
Turkish media report.

"The information connected with the statement Serzh Sargsyan made during his official visit to Moscow that he intends to invite Abdullah Gul to Armenia to watch the Armenia-Turkey match on September 6, was published in RA President's web site. However, we have not received
such an invitation so far. In case we receive it, the proposal will be discussed," MFA Press Secretary underlined.

In the framework of his official visit to Turkey President Serzh Sargsyan declared he would possibly invite the Turkish President to Armenia. "In the future I intend to undertake new steps to further the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. Most probably, I will invite Turkey's President Abdullah Gul to Yerevan to watch the match between the national football teams of Armenia and Turkey," Serzh Sargsyan had declared during the meeting with representatives
of the Armenian community of Russia.

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Panorama.am
16:17 28/06/2008
ARMENIA IN BEIJING OLYMPIC GAMES

Armenian delegation is going to take part in 29th Summer Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8-24, said the Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Armen Grigoryan, today. Armenia will have 25 rates of sportsmen and will present 7 types of sport, in particular, Greco-Roman Wrestling, boxing, weight lifting, track and field athletics, shooting, swimming and judo.

`Sport is in its highest level in the world that it is a must to get a certain rate and take part in Olympic games, and this is honorable for the country and the same is for Armenia too,' said
A. Grigoryan. According to the order all the Olympic committees which take part in the Olympic Games celebrate a national day in Beijing.

According to the Minister, on August 11 Armenia will celebrate Armenian Day in Beijing. The President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan will also take part in the ceremony.

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Profile: Ara Darzi
The Sunday Times
June 29, 2008

Labour's favourite doctor prescribes strong medicine, but patients and his colleagues may not swallow it The surgeon Ara Darzi likes to listen to Pink Floyd while he wields his scalpel. After a year-long operation, the music stops tomorrow when he publishes a review of the NHS that aims to revive the ailing patient on its 60th anniversary.

One of Gordon Brown's first acts as prime minister was to call on Darzi to undertake the task. He was duly ennobled as Lord Darzi of Denham and made a health minister. Brown's request `gobsmacked' the 48-year-old clinician, but stranger things had happened to Darzi.

Born in Iraq to Armenian parents and raised in the Russian Orthodox faith, he went to a Jewish school before studying medicine in Ireland and becoming an internationally renowned pioneer of keyhole surgery in London. His robot-assisted techniques have earned him the nickname
`Robo Doc'.

His years in Dublin have left him with an Irish lilt that marks his affable manner. Courteous, brainy and driven, Darzi has done nothing to embarrass his patron, unlike Brown's other coopted `outsiders' such as Alan West, the security minister, Mark Malloch Brown, the foreign minister, and Digby Jones, the trade minister.

He achieved heroic status last November by helping to save the life of Lord Brennan, a Labour peer, who had a heart seizure after attacking the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the Lords.

`I could see from the corner of my eye Lord Brennan was not very well,' Darzi recalled on Desert Island Discs last week. `He collapsed. You just forget where you are. So I started jumping on top of benches and ended up doing a mouth-to-mouth and heart massage to see if I couldn't get him back.' After several minutes of futile attempts, Darzi called for an electric defibrillator (`I used the F-word') and revived Brennan. `As I was shocking him I saw the Archbishop of York doing his
prayers.'

Darzi continues to perform operations on Fridays and Saturday mornings in London: he is honorary consultant surgeon at St Mary's hospital, professor of surgery at Imperial College and chair of surgery at the Royal Marsden. The rest of the weekend is set aside for his wife Wendy and children Freddie and Nina.

Having left political meetings abruptly when summoned for emergency operations, he is clear where his priorities lie. He does a humorous impression of aghast expressions in Downing Street when he raced off to treat a colleague. `From day one I told them: if one of my patients [needs attention], that comes first.'

Darzi seemed in need of pastoral intercession himself last October when the interim report of his NHS review proposed 150 polyclinics or `super-surgeries', open all hours and partly run by private enterprise, which would bring together family doctors and specialist consultants. Amid talk of a mass walkout from the health service and calls for Darzi's resignation, fears were raised that the innovation could spell the end of small practices run by family doctors, replacing them with a
wasteful, bureaucratic system.

The clamour has increased in recent weeks, with the British Medical Association's `save our surgeries' campaign raising 1.2m signatures. Scaremongering, protested Darzi, who accused doctors of `breaking their professional vows' by urging patients to oppose the plan. In last week's Sunday Times he singled out some doctors as `laggards', so intent on protecting their `professional boundaries' that they obstructed new treatments.

Since Darzi mooted the idea of polyclinics, all 31 London health trusts have submitted plans for the super-surgeries.

Tomorrow's review is expected to guarantee minimum standards of care, setting out the rights and responsibilities of patients - although plans to force people to lose weight or give up smoking in exchange for healthcare have been rejected. Darzi also proposes to give a bigger role to nurses.

Under his slogan `localise where possible, centralise where necessary', Darzi believes doctors and nurses must treat patients as customers, inviting them to grade the quality of their care so others can shop around: `When you go to a restaurant you look at a website and find out exactly what people said about that restaurant.'

He visualises the NHS structured like a pyramid with, at the bottom, patients receiving more care in the home - and being allowed to die there, if they wish - while the top tier would consist of centres of
excellence along the lines of the Royal Marsden. Complex surgery and critical care for serious illnesses would be provided by big hospitals serving a million or more people.

Critics say aspects of the plan smack of John Major's `patient's charter', introduced to little effect in 1991. They also cast doubt on Darzi's avowed reluctance to take on a political role (`I had sleepless
nights thinking about this'), claiming he was used as a pawn by the government in the 2004 Hartlepool by-election to reinforce its reassurances that the town's University hospital would not be closed.

His detractors point to a telling remark by Alan Johnson, the health secretary, on Brown's appointment of nonpoliticians to his `government of all the talents', known by the acronym `goats'. Johnson told The Guardian in January: `We don't have a goat problem in this department. Our goat is tethered.'

Darzi was born on May 7, 1960, into a family that had fled to Iraq from the genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915. His father's work as an engineer, developing power stations, often took the family abroad, but Baghdad was then a stable cosmopolitan city in which Saddam Hussein had yet to appear.

Darzi's Jewish school was highly disciplined: `Very academic, not even a playground. There was no such thing as sport, really.' At home he studied Armenian and served as an altar boy in church. He was expected to emulate his father's career, but while in hospital with a life-threatening case of meningitis, his doctor planted the idea of medicine.

His parents had friends in Ireland, which they considered safe for his studies, so at 17 he was packed off to Dublin: `Rain, cold, miserable.' Soon he began to fall in love with the place, visiting little towns in a sailing boat and frequenting Durty Nelly's bar in Limerick, which he
had been told had the most beautiful girls. Friends called him `Dara Darcy, the dark Paddy'.

To his mind there was a curious parallel between the conflicts in Ireland and Iraq: `Most of the troubles back in Iraq were between the factions of the Shi'ites and the Sunnis. In Ireland, is was between two factions of Christians. That had no logic to me. I found that quite challenging.'

As a student at the Royal College of Surgeons, Darzi took to hanging around hospitals to see if he could make himself useful and experience the reality of being a doctor. After conducting his first appendix operation, a year before qualifying, he said: `It was the most exciting day of my life.'

He met Wendy, the Protestant daughter of a dentist, at a college function. Their subsequent marriage in 1991 posed interdenominational problems: `We had to find a church in Ireland to get married, and also to have an Armenian patriarch to come and give us a blessing.'

Darzi first encountered keyhole surgery in Dublin. `Surgery in those days was a big cut - the bigger the cut, the more macho the surgeon was.' Enthused by accounts of less invasive techniques, he did his first keyhole operation and was struck by the patient's quick recovery time. `The same day we had done an open operation on the patient next door. It was like chalk and cheese.'

Moving to England to gain experience, he encountered resistance to keyhole surgery from his superior, who pronounced the procedure dangerous, until Darzi won him round by conducting an operation with him. `Very quickly we realised this was the tip of the iceberg.' The medical director of St Mary's hospital was so thrilled by the publicity that he offered Darzi a consultancy at the youthful age of 31. The student decided to wait until he had qualified a year later.

Showered with awards, in 2002 he was knighted for services to medicine and surgery; in 2003 he became a British citizen.

Darzi says his review of England's healthcare is like no other, incorporating the views of 2,000 medical experts. His watchwords are courage, innovation and best practice. `I am a great believer in bottom-up. When I want to change something in a ward environment, I go and talk to the student nurses on the ward, because they know exactly what is happening on the ward.'

It sounds invigorating, but whether doctors can surmount their `change fatigue' and give Darzi a sympathetic hearing seems open to doubt.

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