Arine

Azeris do not know the meaning of the word "genocide" and "terrorism". There can not be "genocide" when there are people getting killed in both sides and when that particular conflict is being considered a "war". ORGANISATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF TERRORIST ACTIVITIES BY THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA AGAINST THE REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN "The Member States of the United Nations solemnly reaffirm their unequivocal condemnation of all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, wherever and by whomever committed, including those which jeopardise the friendly relations among States and peoples and threaten the territorial integrity and security of States"; Acts, methods and practices of terrorism constitute a grave violation of the purposes and principles of the United Nations, which may pose a threat to international peace and security, jeopardise friendly relations among States, hinder international cooperation and aim at the destruction of human rights, fundamental freedoms and the democratic basis of society". From the Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism adopted by the United Nations General Assembly at its forty-ninth session (resolution 49/60) Together with its aggression against Azerbaijan, Armenia is actively engaged in subversive activity on Azerbaijani territory. The Armenian secret service and various Armenian terrorist organizations are systematically and deliberately perpetrating subversive and terrorist acts against peaceful citizens in Baku, Ganja and other major population centers in the Republic of Azerbaijan, targeting industrial units and means of transport. Existing data indicate that the Armenian terrorist organizations have substantial material and human resources at their disposal as well as ample "experience" in preparing and implementing terrorist acts. The many facts in the possession of the law-enforcement organs of Azerbaijan provide unconditional proof of Armenia's responsibility for the carrying out of terrorist activities against Azerbaijan and other States, its cooperation in the carrying out of such activities with various terrorist organizations and the assistance it has provided to such organizations by making its territory available to them for use as bases and training camps for the preparation and organization of terrorist acts against the States of the region. These facts thus provide sufficient grounds for including Armenia in the list of States which support terrorism at the State level. Evidence of the special relationship of Armenia to international terrorists can be seen, for example, in the fact that the signatures of 1,227,473 nationals of that country were collected in defence of the Armenian terrorist Varujan Karapetyan, who was sentenced in France to life imprisonment for placing an explosive device near the office of the Turkish airlines at Orly airport. The sixth grade at a school in Yerevan had already been named in his honour, and in Yerevan and Ejmiatsin exhibitions of his paintings were organised. Expressions of sympathy for terrorists by the highest political leadership in Armenia have included the appeal by the President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosian, to the President of France, Jacques Chirac, for a pardon for V. Karapetyan, and the participation by the President of Armenia in the memorial service, attended by 50,000 people, for the well-known international terrorist Monte Melkonyan and his presence at the latter's funeral in Yerevan. International Armenian terrorism The use of terrorism in the campaign to implement Armenia's annexationist plans has bloody historic antecedents. Armenian terrorist organizations began to emerge in the late nineteenth century in the form of the Institute of Violence, whose aim was the establishment of "Greater Armenia". Armenian terrorism assumed global dimensions in the early 1970s, when terrorist training bases appeared in a number of countries, the largest of them being established in the Middle East. The main activities of subversive groups from such terrorist organizations as the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), the Commandos of Justice of the Armenian Genocide and the Armenian Revolutionary Army were carried out in the countries of Western Europe and North America. Unlike the nationalist parties Gnchak and Dashnaktsutyun, which formulated an ideological platform based on a policy of assertion of territorial claims, these organizations fall into a strictly military-terrorist category, dealing with "practical problems" in implementation of the "projects" devised by their ideologues. They are to blame for the murder of hundreds of citizens of the United States of America, Turkey, the USSR, France, Azerbaijan and other countries. It is an established fact, for example, that the founder of the ASALA terrorist organization, Akop Akopyan, began his dismal career as a member of the terrorist group that massacred the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972. In January 1978, a terrorist group consisting of S. Zatikyan, Z. Bagdarsyan and A. Stepanyan caused and explosion in the Moscow underground railway system whose victims were innocent citizens, including women and children. The foremost acts of Armenian international terrorism occurred in the 1980s, when ASALA was involved in the organization of a series of bomb blasts in the French capital, Paris, one of them at the city's Orly airport. Ten people were killed and 150 injured as a result of these terrorist acts. It is no secret that there are close ties between the Armenian secret service and other known terrorist organization responsible for killing thousands of innocent people, in particular the Kurdish Worker's Party, militant members of which, according to the information available, are undergoing training at bases made available to them in the territory of Armenia. Since the late 1980s, Armenian terrorism in the territory of the former USSR has tended to increase, particularly following Armenia's open assertion of territorial claims on Azerbaijan and the launching of armed operations in the Nagorno-Artsax region of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In April 1992, Colonel Blakhotin, Commanding Officer of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR in the Northern Caucasus and Transcaucasus, was shot dead at the entrance to his home in the center of Rostov (Russian Federation). The arrested terrorists were individuals of Armenian nationality, one a resident of Yerevan, the second of Khankendi (during Soviet period - Stepanakert) and the third of Rostov. According to the authorities responsible for the murder investigation, the clues led to centers of terrorist organizations in the service of the official authorities of Armenia and their protege in Nagorno-Artsax region of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Terrorist acts on the roads and land transport in the territory of Azerbaijan The first entry in the tragic list of crimes by Armenian terrorists in the territory of Azerbaijan was made in 1984, when, in Baku, a passenger bus on the No.106 route was blown up, killing one women - mother of two children - and injuring several other people. Members of the Azerbaijani Special Service detained the terrorist responsible for that callous crime, identified as an Armenian named Vartanov, who was connected with underground Armenian terrorist groups in Armenia. In early 1988, terrorism in Armenia was raised to the status of State policy and its target was the territory of Azerbaijan. Weapons and ammunition were transported on a large scale from Armenia to the Nagorno-Artsax region of the Republic of Azerbaijan and into the hands of underground Armenian terrorist groups in other parts of the territory of Azerbaijan. In 1988 alone, more than 100 instances of the illegal manufacture and the theft of firearms were uncovered by the law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan. During the same year, Armenian terrorists carried out 32 terrorist acts in the territory of the Nagorno-Artsax region of Azerbaijan and in districts on the frontier with Armenia, the victims of which were primarily civilians. Terrorists cut off the roads between Azerbaijani villages, set ambushes on the main roads and on numerous occasions blew up bridges and other vital facilities, including the pipeline supplying Ganja (Azerbaijan's second largest city) with its drinking water. On 7 October 1989, the road bridge across the river Halfalichai on the southern edge of the town of Khankendi, was blown up. On 29 April 1992, the perpetrator of this terrorist act - one A. Abramyan - was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Over the period from 19 January to 17 February 1990, a terrorist group created in Yerevan (Armenia's capital) carried out numerous raids from the territory of Armenia on the innocent inhabitants of frontier villages in the Gazakh district of Azerbaijan, resulting in the death of F.Mustafayev, inhabitant of Khirimly village, and S. Magerramov and N. Guliev, shepherds from Sofulu village. The same terrorist group carried out an attack on a patrol vehicle of the Gazakh district division of internal affairs and plotted the destruction of a railway locomotive. Two members of the group, L.Arutyunyan and A. Mkrtchyan, detained by the law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan, were sentenced to five and six years imprisonment, respectively, by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan. On 18 February 1990, 13 people were injured by an explosion in an inter-city bus on the Shusha-Baku line, at the 105 km. marker on the Yevlakh-Lachin road. On 4 March 1990, Armenian terrorists blew up the Nabiyar-Shusha pipeline, which supplied the town of Shusha with its drinking water. On 11 July 1990, between the settlements of Getavan and Charektar in the Aghdere district of Azerbaijan, an armed assault was launched on a road convoy, travelling under troop escort and conveying people and goods to the town of Kelbajar. In that terrorist act, three people were killed and 23 injured. On 19 June 1992, the individual identified during the investigation as the perpetrator of this crime, one A. Airiyan, was sentenced by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan to death by firing squad. On 10 August 1990, in the Khanlar district of Azerbaijan, Armenian terrorists blew up an inter-city bus operating on the Tbilisi-Aghdam route, killing 20 passengers and injuring 30. The perpetrators of that terrorist act were arrested before they were able to carry out their plan to blow up, on 17 June 1991, a bus on the Aghdam-Tbilisi route. The Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan found A. Avanesyan and M. Tatevosyan guilty of those crimes and sentenced them to, respectively, death by firing squad and 15 years imprisonment. On the instruction of his leaders, M. Grigoryan, a member of the terrorist organization Yerkraparh, based in the territory of Armenia, set up a terrorist group composed of inhabitants of the Echmiadzin district of Armenia, which, in November 1990, was sent into the territory of Azerbaijan. This group was disarmed by the law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan while attempting to carry out acts of terrorism and sabotage. By its decision of 18 June 1991, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan handed down the following prison sentences on the members of the group: T. Khachatryan - nine years, Z. Oganyan - eight years and A. Grigoryan - seven years. On 9 January 1991, at the 5 km. marker on the Lachin-Shusha road in the area of Galadarasi village, Armenia terrorists fired on a UAZ-469 vehicle belonging to military unit 44688 of the city of Ganja, killing the driver, Sergeant I. Goek, the commander of the reconnaissance battalion, Lieutenant Colonel A. Larionov, the chief of staff in the commandant's office of military unit 3505 (the command center for the special units of the interior forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR), Major I. Ivanov, and a journalist from the newspaper "Molodezh Azerbaidzhana" - Ms. S. Askerova, born 1969, who left an orphaned infant son. On 23 March 1993, the perpetrators of this crime - A. Mkrtchyan, G. Petrosyan, A. Mangasaryan, G. Arutyunyan and G. Arustamyan, who, in addition to the case in question, had been responsible for other acts of terrorism and murders - were sentenced by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan to death by firing squad, and other members of the terrorist group to prison sentences of varying lengths. The law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan detained and disarmed two members of the Armenia-based terrorist organization Urartu, A. Tatevosyan and V. Petrosyan, who, on 2 August 1991, had carried out an armed attack on inhabitants of the Kelbajar district of Azerbaijan. The terrorists in question were sentenced by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan to ten and eight years imprisonment, respectively. Terrorist acts carried out by Armenia on the rail, sea and air transport of Azerbaijan In terms of the safety of transport facilities, the most vulnerable is rail transport which, as distinct from other forms of communication, lacks effective means of defending itself, for the simple reason that there is always the possibility for criminals, after they have been checked, to leave the scene of the crime. Quite apart from that, acts of terrorism on passenger transport are clearly capable of resulting in a considerable number of victims. After progressively stepping up military activity in the mountainous part of Artsax and at the same time inserting subversives and saboteurs, contract killers and agents provocateurs throughout Azerbaijani territory, Armenia outposted guerrillas to the rail links into Azerbaijan. In accordance with a previously arranged plan, a terrorist campaign began on passenger trains. On 27 May 1989, on a train from Yerevan to Baku, an Armenian citizen, V. Minasyan, was arrested and found to be in possession of an explosive device. In her statement she confessed that she had been intending to carry out an act of sabotage in Baku. The first attempt to carry out the plans did not succeed, but on 24 July 1989 there was an explosion on a train of Azerbaijan Railways at Karchevan station. On 30 May 1991 11 people were killed and 22 injured following an explosion on a passenger train from Moscow to Baku near Khasavyurt station (Russian Federation). In May 1991 officials of the law enforcement agencies arrested S. Aznaryan, an inhabitant of the Noemberyan district of Armenia, in a Baku-Tbilisi train at Shamkir station and removed from his possession two mines, a sub-machine-gun and maps of the Azerbaijan rail and road network. On 31 July 1991 a Moscow-Baku passenger train was blown up near Temirtau station (Russian Federation), killing 16 people and injuring 20. On 28 February 1993 11 people were killed and 18 injured near Gudermes station (Russian Federation) by a bomb placed in a Baku-Kislovodsk train. On 2 June 1993 a passenger carriage was blown up in a siding at Baku railway station. On 22 July 1994, I. Khatkovskiy was found guilty of committing this crime and sentenced to eight years imprisonment by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan. On 1 February 1994 a Kislovodsk-Baku passenger train was blown up at Baku station, killing 3 people and injuring more than 20. On 9 February 1994 a railway car was blown up at Khudat (Azerbaijan) station. On 19 March 1994 a bomb placed in one of the carriages of a train by terrorists exploded an underground railway station in Baku. As a result of this act, 14 people were killed and 42 were injured, some seriously. Recently in Baku, the trial took place of 10 members of the terrorist organization Sadval, the aim of which is to seize by force of arms part of the territory in the northern part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. During the investigation and trial, it was established that the Armenian secret service had co-operated in the establishment of Sadval and in providing funding and weapons for that organization and that the leaders of Sadval had repeatedly visited Yerevan and had meetings with various State authorities in Armenia. It was also established that, with a view to carrying out subversive and terrorist acts in the territory of Azerbaijan, 17 terrorists of the Sadval organization had, in April 1992, undergone special subversive training at a training center of the Ministry of Defence of Armenia located in the village of Lusokert in the Nairi district of Armenia. The court found the accused guilty and pronounced appropriate sentences on the members of Sadval for carrying out a terrorist act at the "20 January" metro station in Baku on 19 March 1994, as a result of which 14 people were killed and 42 sustained bodily injuries of varying degrees of severity. Only thanks to the alertness of the railway staff who on 26 March 1994 found an explosive device in a railway carriage at Kazy-Magomed station of Azerbaijan Railways was another tragedy averted. Six people were killed and three wounded at Dagestanskiye Ogni station (Russian Federation) on 13 April 1994 as a result of an explosion on a Moscow-Baku passenger train. On 3 July 1994 there was an explosion on a train between the "28 May" and "Gyanjlik" underground stations in Baku, killing 14 people and wounding 54. The heightened danger zone for flights is not comparable with that for terrestrial communications and is confined to the airspace over the Nagorno-Artsax region of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the districts of Azerbaijan which border on Armenia and are within range of Armenian anti-aircraft and rocket emplacements. In the majority of cases of Azerbaijani aircraft being destroyed in the skies over Azerbaijan, it has been from the ground. In December 1988 a military transport aircraft on the Baku-Yerevan route with rescue-workers and humanitarian aid for victims of the Armenian earthquake on board suffered a disaster near Yerevan in circumstances which remain unexplained. Some versions speak of firing, and others of the deliberate disorientation of the pilot by air traffic control at Yerevan airport (in view of the low altitude of the flight and the mountainous terrain) or the placing of a bomb on board. The underlying motive for this planned "air disaster" is completely unprecedented, in that the victims of this crime were 79 people who had been sent on a humanitarian mission from Azerbaijan to Armenia, despite the difficulties that had by then arisen in relations between the two republics. Civilian aircrafts of minor Azerbaijani airlines have been the most frequent targets for the criminal missile attacks of Armenian terrorists. For example, on 20 November 1991 an Mi-8 helicopter carrying a group of peace-enforcement representatives from Russia, Kazakhstan and the senior Azerbaijani leadership was shot down near the village of Karakend in the Khojavend district of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The killing of 22 people, including statesmen from three countries, effectively put an end to the first attempt to settle the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and prompted an escalation of violence in the region. On 28 January 1992 a civilian helicopter flying on the Aghdam-Shusha route was shot down by Armenian terrorists over the Azerbaijani town of Shusha, killing 41 passengers, most of them women and children, as well as the crew. On 17 March 1994 an Iranian C-130 transport aircraft was shot down in Azerbaijani airspace over Azerbaijani territory occupied by Armenian armed forces, resulting in the death of 32 people who were citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The single successful case of sabotage carried out by Armenian terrorists against vessels of the Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping line occurred on 8 January 1992. An explosion on the ferry "Sovetskaya Kalmykia" operating between Krasnovodsk (Turkmenistan) and Baku claimed the lives of 25 people and injured 88. The same year an attempt to carry an explosive device on to the steamer "Sabit Orujiev" was stopped in time. Information regarding the criminal case of I. Khatkovsky On 6 August 1993 Igor Anatolievich Khatkovsky, a Russian national born in 1959, correspondent for the newspaper "Demokratichesky Tilzit", resident of the village Gastelovo in the Slavsky District of the Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation, was detained in Baku by the authorities of the Republic of Azerbaijan. He was found to be in possession of TNT slabs and other special means of committing acts of sabotage. On that basis, criminal charges were filed against I. Khatkovsky and an investigation was begun. The investigation process revealed that in February 1993 I. Khatkovsky, with the help of the station chief's office of the Armenian secret service in the Russian Federation, came to Yerevan, where he was recruited by the head of the intelligence service of the Directorate for National Security (the former KGB) of Armenia, Lieutenant-Colonel Jan Anushavanovich Oganesyan, who is directly involved in the organization and conduct of subversive and terrorist operations in the territory of Azerbaijan. Working actively with I. Khatkovsky were Major Ashot Araratovich Galoyan, an agent of the Armenian Directorate for National Security, Boris Vasgenovich Simonyan and Valery Surenovich Petrosian, residents of Moscow, also suspected of collaborating with the Armenian special services. They gave detailed instructions to I. Khatkovsky on how to organise the bombing of transportation facilities, communications and vital services in Azerbaijan, gather intelligence information and commit terrorist acts in the territory of the Russian Federation. The investigation documented and proved that I. Khatkovsky was responsible for the bombing on 2 June 1993 of a passenger railway carriage in a train station in Baku and the mining on 19 May 1993 of a goods train in a station in the city of Derbent (Russian Federation). On the instructions of the Armenian secret service, Khatkovsky gathered information on the social, political and economic situation in Azerbaijan, and about government leaders and heads of political parties, schedules for trains travelling from the Russian Federation to Azerbaijan, border, customs and passport control procedures, the location of important transportation hubs and engineering installations, gas and oil pipelines and electric power lines along railway itineraries, as well as information about specific individuals living in Baku. Making frequent trips to Yerevan and Baku, I. Khatkovsky passed the information he had gathered on to J. Oganesyan, for whom he prepared several detailed written reports. As compensation and in repayment for expenses incurred in Yerevan and Moscow during February and March 1993, he received from J. Oganesyan, B. Simonyan and A. Galoyan funds amounting to 470,000 Russian rubles. Moreover, as part of the conspiracy, in exchange for the funds they had paid, they were given receipts from a commercial business called "Topan", which is in fact a cover for the intelligence service of the Armenian Directorate for National Security and is located in the Hotel Ani in Yerevan. On 22 July 1994, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan found I. Khatkovsky guilty as charged of the above mentioned crimes and sentenced him to eight years imprisonment. The Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan informed the Federal Counterespionage Service (FCS) of the Russian Federation of certain facts brought to light during the investigation concerning the terrorist activities of the Armenian secret service in Azerbaijan and in the territory of the Russian Federation using Russian citizens. As a result, on 13 May 1994 J. Oganesyan, B. Simonyan and A. Galoyan, and at a later date another agent of the local office, V. Petrosian, were arrested in Moscow by FCS agents. Upon their arrest, the suspects were found to have made caches containing large stocks of explosives, weapons and ammunition. The chief military prosecutor of the Russian Federation filed criminal charges against the above-mentioned individuals under articles 68 (subversive activities), 213 (terrorism) and 218 (illegal possession of ammunition) of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation. Despite persistent attempts by the Armenian authorities to avoid publicity concerning the participation of the Armenian secret service in terrorist activities and to influence the investigation, the case of the Armenian terrorists was handed over to the courts and the circumstances were the subject of reports by the mass information media. For instance, the Russian newspaper "Argumenty i fakty" reported the following facts: "Between 1991 and 1993, the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States suffered a series of brutal terrorist acts ... In Russian, Azerbaijani and Georgian territory, passenger and good trains headed for Baku began to be blown up with alarming regularity. The services responsible were run off their feet searching for the malefactors. In the summer of 1993, in Baku, a certain Igor Khatkovsky was arrested and found to be in possession of a whole set of explosive devices ... In the autumn of the same year, another operative, Soso Aroyan, an agent of the counterespionage service of the Transcaucasian Military District, was arrested while attempting to place a bomb on a train from Tbilisi to Baku. Both gave evidence, which reported to Moscow. The Russian secret services were involved in the case. After a carefully planned operation in May 1994, officials of the Federal Security Service (FSB) (at that time the Federal Counterespionage Service (FCS)) of the Russian Federation in Moscow arrested a group of terrorist organisers ... The head of the group was Lieutenant-Colonel Jan Oganesyan, the chief of the department of intelligence and subversive operations in the territory of an adversary, the Directorate for National Security of Armenia (counterpart of FSB). The second was his subordinate, Lieutenant-Colonel Ashot Galoyan. A third, Boris Simonyan, worked in FCS, in the department dealing with combating terrorism. All three were Russian nationals, residents of Moscow. The first two were consultant members of the Fund for the Technological and Intellectual Development of Russia (TIRR), which was headed by a certain Valery Petrosian ... " (Alexander Kakotkin, "Takoe ni v odnom detektive ne pridumaesh", "Argumenty i fakty", # 26 (819), June 1996). According to the information from the same source, the military tribunal of the Tambov garrison sentenced J. Oganesyan, A. Galoyan and B. Simonyan to various terms of imprisonment. In the same article in the newspaper Argumenty i fakty, it was further reported that, according to unofficial sources, "... Ashot Galoyan, after having attempted to hang himself in his cell, was promoted to colonel on his return to Armenia (after his release - Ed.)" (Alexander Kakotkin, ibid.).

Look what I found in www.president.az, under "Azerbaijan". Makes me laugh. Historical Outline Azerbaijan is one of the oldest spots of civilization, a country with a rich and ancient history. A rich cultural heritage has been created on its territory over the span of many millenniums, contributing to the treasure-house of World culture. The discovery of Azykh cave, the earliest habitation of man to be found in the world, and a number of habitations of the ancient stone age prove that Azerbaijan enters the zone of anthropoids to reveal the birthplace of mankind. The main traces of civilization are viewed in Azerbaijan. In the 3rd millennium B.C. the process of tribe formation was going on here and by the 1st millennium B.C. the first political formations had emerged. Azerbaijan State system was being formed in the 9th century B.C.: Manna state with high economic and cultural level had emerged. The pantheons of divinities were created. Manna believed in natural phenomena; the Sun, the Moon. In the first part of the 6th century B.C. Manna was conquered by Media. The official religion was Zoroastrism, the spread of wich was connected with selfkindled resources of oil and gas. A great part was played by the Atropatena and Caucasian Albania in the process of the formation of separate state structure on the territory of Azerbaijan in antiquity. The name of the country is connected with the name of the Atropatena ruler - Atropat which was later transformed into Azerbaijan. It is in Atropatena that the process of formation of Azerbaijan nationality began. In the 3rd-5th centuries the Azerbaijan state system was strengthening. Christianity was penetrating into Azerbaijan. In Transcaucasus one of the first apostolic Christian churches appeared spiritual and secular life was progressing. At the beginning of the 5th century the Albanic alphabet was introduced and promoted the development of education. The unique monuments of culture and literature, architectural traditions of that period have been preserved to the present. Azerbaijan was conquered by Arabs at the beginning of the 8th century and made part of the Arab Khalifat as the vilayet Arran. Islam became the leading religion in Azerbaijan, creating new traditions and culture. Azerbaijanis, like all other nations that accepted Islam, were called "Moslems" and participated in the development of Moslem culture. Azerbaijan enriched the world culture, gave the world a brilliant gallery of scientists, poets and architects. In the medieval centuries there was a succession of states: Gara-goyunly, Ag-gounly, Sefevids states were in power in a successive way. A rivalry between states to involve Azerbaijan into the sphere of their interests resulted in striking inner destabilization in 18th century A number of independent state formations - Khanates appeared. The contradictions between Russia, Turkey and Iran deepened in the 18th-19th century. Wars were waged over Azerbaijan. The Turkmanchay Treaty of 1828 between Russia and Iran separated Azerbaijan and its people: the northern part of Azerbaijan was conquered by Russia, its southern part became a part of the Iranian state. The 20th century entered the history of the Azerbaijan people as the period of radical changes in socio-economic, political and cultural life. A range of upstream and downstream industrial branches were intensively developing in Azerbaijan. Baku turned into the world center of oil extraction and refinery yielding more than half of the world's and 95% of Russia's oil extraction totals. The cultural life enlivened. Various branches of science were developing, newspapers and magazines started to be published. Formation of political societies, organizations and parties for dissemination of progressive, democratic ideas contributed to the process of becoming and developing a national identity and fueled the growth of the liberation movement of the people. February, 1917: The fall of the tsarist monarchy in Russia created favorable conditions for the development of national movements in its border lands. May 28, 1918: Azerbaijan rehabilitated its state structure - the Independent Azerbaijan Republic was established. Having existed for 23 months, it collapsed. Troops of the 11th Red Army came to Baku. In December, 1922 Azerbaijan became a part of the USSR and a socialist republic was formed with the attributes of state - Constitution, flag, national anthem, state emblem. In 1991 state independence of Azerbaijan was restored, the Constitutional Act of State Independence was adopted. The Constitution of independent Azerbaijan Republic was adopted on November 12, 1995. This event marked a new stage in the history of Azerbaijan people - the epoch of democracy and progress.

1. What´s your name? Arine Torosyan 2. Where and when were you born? Yerevan, Armenia 1983 3. Who are your parents - are they Armenian? Yes 4. What´s your profession? Student If you were born outside the US: 5. When and why did you come to the US? In 1994, cause the economy in Armenia sucks. 6. Why did you choose Glendale? Parents have many Armenian friends & dad has a great job in LA. 7. Did you come alone? no 8. Did you ever think of going back? Of Course. 9. What languages do you speak? ARmenian, Russian, English & French 10. Do you read and write Armenian fluently? YES 11. Are you engaged in Armenian cultural life? If yes: What do you do? Kind of, i attend the ARmenian church once in a while. 12. What´s your level of education? College student 13. Are most of your friends Armenian or American? Armenian & some odars 14. Are you married? no If yes: To an Armenian? If no: Could you imagine marrying a non-Armenian? I don't know. 15. How would you characterize the Armenian population in Glendale? 2nd Hayastan. 16. Who is Armenian? What´s your personal definition? Who's parents are ARmenian & who's Christian.

hagarag, I can assure you that anti-semitism exists among the Soviet Armenians also. Anti-Semitism exists all over the world.

Question: "Why do Jews have big noses?" Answer: "Because the air is free"

These Christians who are left in Azerbiajan are probably Russians, Greeks and other Christians.

Today morning after the mess said by John Paul II a group of refugees from Armenia was led to the Pope in order that they told him about "evil deeds" of Armenians. Does this sentence make any sense to you guys? Why would these ARmenian go to Azerbaijan as refugees? Why would ARemnians tell about those 'evil deeds" of other ARmenians? I'm confused, can anybody explain it to me?

I read Balakian's "Black Dog of Fate" when i was 18, about a year ago. I actually liked his memoir. I found the book to be interesting, especially the middle part and the ending. What are these "forces" that you guys are talking about? I think that he knows a lot about our nation, since he wrote about our history in his memoir, he has been invited to speak in many ARmenian related events and he's also active in Armenian community. Anyways, i don't really get why you guys are dissing him so much Give him a break. By the way, I wasn't born in New Jersey.