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SNIPPET - quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Baku Increased Security Awareness CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Europe - Azerbaijan 11 Dec 2009 U.S. Embassy Baku issued the following Warden Message on December 11: The Azerbaijani press is reporting that an Azerbaijani citizen, Azer Misirkhanov, was killed in a U.S. missile strike in Afghanistan. Misirkhanov was said to be the commander of a paramilitary group in Afghanistan that was engaged in fighting U.S. and Afghan forces, and was also alleged to be a leader of a radical religious group in Azerbaijan. In addition,...

Azerbaijan and Armenia held a presidential summit on Sunday amid warnings that a full blown war is brewing over a festering territorial dispute. Azerbaijan and Armenia held a presidential summit yesterday amid warnings that war was brewing between the countries over a festering territorial dispute. Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, said the negotiations in Munich were a final attempt to avert a military confrontation. They were convened by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe as part of efforts to find a peaceful solution to a problem that has divided the two former Soviet republics since the 1991...

Two Azerbaijani bloggers were sentenced to jail on Wednesday. Charged with "hooliganism", the pair were arrested shortly after posting a satirical video online which mocked the government's alleged purchase of a dozen - suspiciously priced - 41,000 dollar donkeys from Germany. After already four months of detention, Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli are now beginning sentences of two years, and two years six months, respectively. They were charged for fighting with a pair of men in a cafe in Baku, something which they immediately reported to the police as an unprovoked attack, but which led to their arrest the same...

eputy US army chief, Gen. James Cartwright and defense secretary Robert Gates amplified President Barack Obama's statement on the US missile shield in East Europe in Washington Thursday, Sept. 17, by announcing that a new and better anti-missile missile system would be deployed in Israel and the Caucasus. DEBKAfile discloses exclusively that the system would be installed at a Russian military base in Azerbaijan. Referring to the Israeli component, he said: "It is already working perfectly." DEBKAfile's military sources disclose he was referring to the advanced American FBX-T radar system deployed last year in Israel's Negev base at Nevatim, which...

MOSCOW -- Undeterred by the global slowdown, Russia's state-run energy leviathan Gazprom has pushed ahead with an expansion masterplan of huge ambition that has raised questions over its true motives. Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller has warned Europe — keen to break Russia's stronghold on gas supplies — against turning the issue of energy diversification into a “fetish.” But analysts say it is the Russian gas giant's own actions that are now bordering on the abnormal, with deals often being motivated by factors like politics or pride rather than economic sense. “Gazprom has acquired the function of the foreign energy...

Azerbaijan media publish segments from hearing of 2 Lebanese, 4 locals accused of planning terror attack on Israeli embassy in capital city, Baku. According to indictment, suspects admit to being sent by Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and al-Qaeda Ynet Published: 07.09.09, 00:20 / Israel News

Iran has recalled its ambassador to Azerbaijan for consultations after a visit by President Shimon Peres to the Islamic Republic's northwestern neighbor, an Iranian news agency reported on Monday. Quoting an informed source, ISNA said the envoy was recalled to Tehran after Peres' visit to Azerbaijan on June 28 and "threats" which it said the Israeli ambassador in Baku had voiced against Iran, without elaborating. The semi-official Fars News Agency carried a similar report.

Azerbaijani officials have blamed Iran for interfering in the country`s domestic affairs. Commenting on Iran`s strongly-worded statements opposing Israeli President Shimon Peres` visit to Baku scheduled for late in June, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said Azerbaijan does not interfere with other countries` internal affairs and will not allow other states to do so. He added that his country is pursuing a foreign policy in line with its national interests. Earlier, the news on the Israeli leader`s expected visit drew fire from Tehran. Hassan Firouzabadi, Iran`s chief-of-staff of the armed forces, labeled the visit as disrespectful to the Islamic world and...

ONE OF THEIR TARGETS WAS THE GABALA RADAR STATION The Gabala radar station is evidently capable of detecting Iranian missile launches. The facility was built by the Soviets and is now leased back from Azerbaijan by Russia. There has been talk of US/Russian cooperation in operating the site for the purpose of monitoring Iranian actions, much to the chagrin of the mullahs.

Azerbaijan is accusing Hizbullah and Iran of planning to attack the Israeli Embassy in the capital Baku to avenge the Feb. 2008 assassination of the Shiite group's military chief Imad Mughniyeh, the Arabic daily aSharq al-Awsat reported Sunday. The report comes with the start of a closed-trial of four Lebanese and four Azeri nationals who were detained last year on charges related to terrorism, espionage and other crimes, the paper added. According to authorities in Baku, the cell members were deatined over a year ago after intercepting calls between "local armed men and two members of Hizbullah." They said police...

TBILISI, April 30 (RIA Novosti) - The Georgian ambassador to Azerbaijan confirmed on Thursday that a Georgian national was responsible for a massacre at a college in Baku earlier in the day. "Official sources have confirmed the information," Nikoloz Natbiladze said. At least thirteen people were killed and 11 wounded when a gunman opened fire at the State Oil Academy in Azerbaijan's capital on Thursday morning, according to the country's health ministry. Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry named the shooter as Georgian national Farda Gadyrov, born in 1980 and of Azerbaijani origin. Gadyrov was reported to have killed a security guard and...

At least 10 people were shot dead this morning and eight injured after a student went on the rampage at his campus in Baku, the capital of oil-rich Caspian state of Azerbaijan. The student opened fire after a dispute with other members of his college faculty, the Russian news agency Interfax reported this morning. He then shot himself. According to witnesses a quarrel erupted on the campus of the Azeri state oil academy in Baku. One student produced a pistol and started shooting at the others point-blank. He then ran into the academy building and continued to fire. The news...

From correspondents in St Petersburg | April 13, 2009 Article from: Agence France-Presse AN Azeri immigrant in Russia's northern city of Saint Petersburg has been charged with hiring hit men to kill his 21-year-old daughter for wearing a mini-skirt, police said today. The man's arrest follows the detention last week of two other citizens of Azerbaijan, a majority Muslim state in the Caucasus, who confessed to murdering the girl, a university medical student. “They admitted to being paid 100,000 rubles ($4140) by the girl's father. They said he wanted to punish his daughter for flouting national traditions and wearing a...

The very latest addition to the "Compromised International Embassies Series" are the Hungarian and Pakistani embassies of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which are currently iFramed with exploits-serving domains.

Talks this week in Geneva between Russia, Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia reached a minor milestone with an agreement on "incident prevention" mechanisms intended to give international monitors access to the entire zone of conflict following last year's Russia-Georgia war. But EU sources say it remains unclear whether Moscow and the Russian-backed authorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia have a genuine desire to see the deal work. The scheme commits both sides to cooperate on preventing security incidents in and around the breakaway regions of South Ossetia -- where Moscow and Tbilisi fought a war in August -- and Abkhazia....

The air force chief of Azerbaijan, an oil producing state in the fragile southern Caucasus region, was shot dead outside his home on Wednesday, officials said. General-Lieutenant Rail Rzayev was the most senior official to have been killed in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, a country where Russia and the United States vie for influence, since the 1990s. It was not immediately clear whether the motives for the killing were political. "At approximately 8 a.m. (0400 GMT) at the entrance to his home the head of the air force and missile defense system was shot in the head and later died of his...

Reports of free Russian arms supplies to Armenia, denied by Moscow and Yerevan, have led many in Azerbaijan to think twice about the country’s long-held policy of balance between the Kremlin and the West. President Ilham Aliyev has remained faithful to his late father’s policy of walking a tightrope between Russia and the West. He has not sought NATO membership and has stopped short of giving full support to the Nabucco pipeline, designed to carry Caspian and Central Asian gas to Europe via a route bypassing Russia. Good personal relations with Russian leaders, especially Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have usually...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 2008 – The number of daily attacks in Iraq has dropped nearly 95 percent since last year, a U.S. military official said yesterday. Iraq suffered an average of 180 attacks per day this time last year. But over the past week, the average number was 10, Army Brig. Gen. David G. Perkins, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said. “This is a dramatic improvement of safety throughout the country,” Perkins told reporters during a wide-ranging news conference in Baghdad yesterday. He added that the country’s murder rates have dropped below levels that existed before the start of American...

Three years ago this week, Azerbaijani soldiers entered a medieval Christian Armenian cemetary and smashed the intricately carved six-foot tall headstones - no two alike - into bits and threw them into a nearby river. Not only Christian graves were desecrated, but a priceless archeological treasure was lost to humankind. So what did George ("We are not at war with Islam") Bush do? Nothing - as usual. The Europeans passed a "resolution" that "condemned" cultural genocide. Bottom line: The Muslims - who are at war with Infidels, make no mistake - got away with it. Please read more at: Azerbaijan...

Soldiers with the 1st Azerbaijani Peacekeeping Company stand in formation during a ceremony at Camp Ripper, Al Asad Airbase, Iraq, Dec. 3, 2008. Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Jason Bortz, 1st Marine Division Public Affairs. CAMP RIPPER — For the past five years, servicemembers from a small country approximately the size of South Carolina have been providing vital security for one of Iraq’s major sources of power, the Haditha Dam. On Dec. 3, Coalition forces recognized the hard work and efforts made by Soldiers from the 1st Azerbaijani Peacekeeping Company during the past year, for their mission in Iraq is over...

Saida Mouradova "A journey of a thousand miles, begins with a single step," said Lao-tzu. For Designer, Saida Mouradova... her journey in to the world of Fashion, which brought her to The Parson School of Design in Paris, and then to New York City, began at age 15 in her native Azerbaijan. Fashion Time: Saida, you are from Azerbaijan, a small country to the north of Iran, bordering the Caspian Sea. Can you share with us something unique about Azerbaijan, that no other place in the world possesses? Saida Mouradova: I don’t think I can speak for the whole world,...

It seems that US Vice President Dick Cheney caused a scene during his recent visit to Azerbaijan when his hosts declined to follow his script.Over the past few days, details have leaked out that indicate that Cheney’s September 3 visit to Baku was a spectacular diplomatic failure.

Looking for the next South Ossetia. Late one Saturday night last month, I found myself in a Greenland bar conversing with an extremely drunken member of the Royal Danish Navy. When he found out I was American, he lurched over and shared his belief that the United States was preparing to invade and annex Greenland, which currently belongs to Denmark, though it is peacefully moving toward independence. Washington, he explained, was worried about its key missile-defense radar site in far northern Greenland and didn't trust politicians in Denmark or Greenland to guarantee continued American access. "Of course, we know that...

Some political analysts are speculating about Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili’s motivation for acting so robustly against South Ossetian separatists and doing so while the eyes of the world were focused on the international spectacle in Beijing. The theory floating around is that Georgia moved on the Russia-backed region with the intention of “provoking” an attack, against which Georgia was knowingly unable to defend herself. In this way Georgia hoped to get the sympathetic attention of the West. If such a gambit has been played, it is certainly the most cynical bit of statecraft employed by any present-day democracy. (In any...

If you googled “Invasion of South Ossetia” on Monday of this week one of the sites near the top of the list was the vitriolic anti Georgian propaganda web site “war.georgia.su” which detailed Georgian atrocities and planned atrocities against the peace loving people of South Ossetia. When I first saw it, the first thing that caught my eye (other than the over the top blood dripping pro anti Georian propaganda) was that the domain name itself. It did not end in “ge” as in Georgia but “su”, the domain name of sites in the former Soviet Union. This made me...

With its invasion of Georgia, Russia has announced to the world that its superpower status is back. The Kremlin is once more flexing its military muscles -- the same way it did between 1945 and 1991, and the results are turning out to be just as bloody. There are already hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded and refugees. The tiny region of South Ossetia, located in the Caucuses mountains of southern Russia, is at the center of these tensions. It is a complicated conflict within conflicts. Georgia, which broke away from the Soviet Union after its collapse in 1991,...

The conflict could endanger U.S. aspirations to secure an emerging energy corridor linking Central Asia to Europe and deals a blow to its plans for bringing the former Soviet republic into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's orbit. Azerbaijan halted oil exports through the Georgian ports of Batumi and Kulevi because of the fighting, the head of the state oil company said yesterday, according to Reuters and Agence France Presse. Georgia is a key link in a U.S.-backed ``southern energy corridor'' that connects the Caspian Sea region with world markets, bypassing Russia. The BP Plc-led Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline to Turkey runs...

The force of Russia’s attack against Georgia this weekend sends a strong signal that Moscow is determined not to relinquish control over the oil-rich Caspian region. Georgia has scant energy resources of its own, but hosts pipelines built by international oil majors to carry Caspian oil and gas to western markets. Its railways also transport substantial volumes of oil from the region to Black Sea ports. The east-west energy corridor across Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey established with strong political backing from the US, has eroded Russia’s stranglehold over energy exports from one of the world’s few remaining untapped oil...

YEREVAN -- Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has called for closer ties with Turkey, 15 years after the two nations severed diplomatic relations over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They are also at odds over the question of whether ethnic Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks during World War I were victims of genocide. Armenia and Turkey broke off diplomatic links in 1993, when Ankara closed the border and backed Azerbaijan during its war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a mainly ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. "The improvement of ties between Armenia and Turkey is mutually beneficial," Sarkisian told a news conference on...

Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has decided to try a little "football diplomacy" to defuse longstanding tensions with neighboring Turkey. During a visit to Moscow in June, Sarkisian made waves by publicly announcing that he would like his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, to come to Yerevan to watch a World Cup qualifying match between the two countries in September. The Armenian leader repeated the invitation in a commentary titled "We Are Ready To Talk To Turkey," published in the U.S. daily "The Wall Street Journal" on July 9. "There is no real alternative to the establishment of normal diplomatic relations between...

ASTARA, Azerbaijan -- The teahouses of Astara, as usual, are filled with the chatter of men discussing their everyday problems as they sip tea produced in the southern Azerbaijani district bordering Iran. Their spirited conversations come to an abrupt halt with the introductory jingle of a popular news program. But while this Azerbaijani-language programming, which has attracted so many locals' attention, offers much fodder for tearoom debate, it is also a key part of what some see as a one-sided Iran-Azerbaijan information war. The source of the programs is Iran's state-run Sahar TV, whose efforts to broadcast to Azerbaijan in...

NATO condemns any attempt to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict by use of force. “NATO supports the peace process in the OSCE Minsk Group framework,” Jean-François Bureau, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, said during presentation of “NATO-Armenia. 10 years of progress” book in NATO information center in Yerevan. “The sides should understand that regional problems should be resolved via cooperation. NATO welcomes the initiatives intended for establishment of security and stability on the region,” he said.

Iran has demanded that Azerbaijan deliver a Russian shipment of nuclear equipment that it blocked at its border with Iran almost three weeks ago. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini says his country has asked the Azerbaijani ambassador in Iran to get his government to deliver the shipment as soon as possible. He spoke Sunday at his weekly press briefing. The shipment is headed to a nuclear reactor the Russians have helped build in the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr. Azerbaijan has said it was seeking more information about the shipment due to fears that it might violate...

Azerbaijan halted a Russian shipment of equipment intended for Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, demanding more information for fear of violating United Nations sanctions, officials said Monday. The Russian state-run company Atomstroiexport said one or two trucks carrying the equipment were stopped two weeks ago at the town of Astara, on the Azerbaijani-Iranian border. Agency spokeswoman Irina Yesipova said officials were holding talks with both Azerbaijan and Iran. She said the shipment contained "heat-isolating equipment" essential to the plant's operation and that the holdup was not likely to delay the start-up of the plant, which Russia is building in the...

Azerbaijan has warned that Baku will re-examine its relations with France, Russia and the United States after the three countries voted against a UN motion on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The UN General Assembly on March 14 adopted a non-binding resolution demanding the "immediate, complete and unconditional" withdrawal of all Armenian forces from Azerbaijan's territory. Thirty nine countries voted in favor. But more than 100 countries abstained. Seven countries, however, including Russia, the United States, and France, voted against. The three countries are co-chairs of the Minsk Group, which is trying to facilitate a negotiated settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They...

BAKU, March 4 (Reuters) - Azerbaijan's president said on Tuesday his country was ready to take back breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh by force if need be and was buying military equipment and arms in preparation. President Ilham Aliyev linked his comments to the newly-declared independence in Kosovo which he said had emboldened ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh. In a sign of disapproval of Kosovo's independence Azerbaijan's parliament later voted to withdraw a 33-strong Azeri peacekeeping team that has been serving there under NATO command since 1999. Former Soviet Azerbaijan has been trying to restore control over Nagorno-Karabakh, where ethnic Armenian separatists threw...

YEREVAN (Reuters) - Kosovo's independence will strengthen a bid by the Armenian-backed breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh to be recognized as a state, Armenia's prime minister Serzh Sarksyan told Reuters in an interview. Sarksyan drew a link between the Serbian province which will declare independence on Sunday and Nagorno-Karabakh, where ethnic Armenian separatists broke away from Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s but have failed to win international recognition. "We are getting a rather favorable position," said Sarksyan, front-runner in the February 19 Armenian presidential election. "Recognition of Kosovo's independence can be welcomed by us. "If countries recognize the independence...

‘Large-scale horrifying’ assault planned; U.S. Embassy among targets BAKU, Azerbaijan - The National Security Ministry said Monday it had thwarted a radical Islamic group's plot to conduct a "large-scale horrifying terror attack" against government structures and diplomatic missions in the Azerbaijan capital, Baku. It said that one suspect was killed and several others were detained in a weekend sweep outside the capital. The British Embassy in Baku closed temporarily and the U.S. Embassy scaled back its operations in response to the threat. The ministry said in a statement that the radical Islamic group included an army lieutenant who had stolen...

The US embassy in Azerbaijan was on full alert on Monday after security forces in the oil-rich republic said it had been the target of a planned attack by a group of radical Islamist fighters captured outside Baku, the capital, at the weekend. Azerbaijan’s Ministry of National Security said it had prevented a “large-scale horrifying attack against government structures and diplomatic missions”, including the US embassy in Baku. The ministry conducted a swoop near the village of Mashtagi about 20 miles from Baku in the early hours of Saturday morning. “Several people belonging to a Wahhabi group have been detained....

Text of report by Azerbaijani news agency Turan Baku, 27 October: The National Security Ministry carried out a special operation against a group of armed people in country house No 104 in the settlement of Mastaqa [near Baku] this morning. Two men were arrested and one was killed while putting up armed resistance, Turan has learnt from informed sources. When proposed to give himself up, one of those inside the house threw a grenade at special squad soldiers and then was gunned down. Three assault rifles, several grenades and other ammunition were discovered at the country house during the search....

Five ex-communist countries sign oil pipeline deal bypassing Russia by Jonathan Fowler 1 hour, 50 minutes ago VILNIUS (AFP) - Five former communist-bloc countries signed a deal Wednesday to extend an oil pipeline that bypasses Russia, in a move that could diversify supplies and cut Moscow's energy clout. ADVERTISEMENT The presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Poland, Ukraine and host nation Lithuania looked on as government ministers and state oil company bosses inked an accord creating the "Sarmatia" consortium, which is to build the new network. Most ex-communist countries -- and much of the rest of Europe -- rely heavily on energy...

Azerbaijan to supply Odessa-Brody oil pipeline Eric Watkins Senior Correspondent LOS ANGELES, Sept. 27 -- Azerbaijan has tentatively agreed to supply oil for the 674-km Odessa-Brody pipeline, with plans now being studied for an extension of the line to Poland. Poland's economy minister Piotr Wozniak said a joint venture will be created to include Azerbaijan, Georgia, Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania, with other parties, including Slovakia and Kazakhstan, welcome to join. The pipeline was designed and built as a route to bypass Russian territory in transporting Caspian region oil to European refineries. Although completed in 2001, it had insufficient oil throughput...

Text of report by Azerbaijani news agency Trend 21 September: A group of Wahhabis has been detained in the town of Saki as a result of an operation conducted by officers of Azerbaijan's National Security Ministry and the Saki police department. Trend's regional correspondent has reported that the Saki town department of the National Security Ministry does not disclose information on the operation held. The deputy head of the Saki police department, Maqsud Masimov, has confirmed the detention for Trend. Masimov said that materials calling [on people to join] the Wahhabi movement, religious books of various trends, recordings and other...

Georgian [the country south of Russia, not the US state ] customs officers sent a car carrying a mixture of plutonium and beryllium back into Azerbaijan after foiling an attempt to smuggle the materials over the border, Georgian television reported. Customs officials found the materials, which can be used in nuclear bombs, in what appeared to be a routine check as the car was driven over the border from Azerbaijan, the Imedi television station reported.

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany - Russian President Vladimir Putin, bitterly opposed to a U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe, told President Bush on Thursday that Moscow would drop its objections if the system were located in Azerbaijan. Putin told Bush he would not seek to retarget Russian missiles on Europe if the United States agreed to put the radar-based system in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic bordering the Caspian Sea. Bush's reaction to Putin's idea was: "Interesting proposal — we have to have our experts look at it," according to White House National Security Adviser Steve Hadley. Hadley was in their hourlong...

HEILIGENDAMM, June 7 (RIA Novosti) - The presidents of Russia and the United States agreed Thursday to cooperate on missile defense issues, and discussed the possibility of jointly using a radar installation in Azerbaijan. ... Putin offered the United States the joint use of a radar installation in Azerbaijan in an apparent attempt to ease tensions sparked by Washington's plans to deploy elements of missile shield in Europe. The meeting in Germany's Baltic resort of Heiligendamm was the leaders' first since Washington announced the planned missile shield. ... A senior U.S. official commented on the Russian proposal that it had...

Poland, ex-Soviet states secure energy Posted : Sat, 12 May 2007 00:04:00GMT KRAKOW, Poland, May 11 Poland and six former Soviet countries signed a deal to extend the Odessa-Brody pipeline and send energy supplies to Europe bypassing Russia. The presidents of Poland, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania and Ukraine, and the Kazakh deputy energy minister, meeting in Krakow, Poland, Friday, signed a resolution declaring joint energy security planning as a major policy decision, RIA Novosti reports. The Odessa-Brody pipeline, which sends mostly Russian oil to the Black Sea port, will extend to the port of Gdansk in Poland and the Plock refinery....

Azerbaijan likely to buy JF-17 multirole fighters from Pakistan [ 23 Apr 2007 13:41 ] Azerbaijan Defense Minister Safar Abiyev and Defense Industry Minister Yavar Jamalov are scheduled to make an official visit to Pakistan, APA reports. The meetings during the visit are to cover cooperation between Azerbaijani and Pakistan in defense industry. Azerbaijani Embassy in Pakistan and Foreign Ministries of the two countries are preparing for the visit. Safar Abiyev and Yavar Jamalov are said to hold several official meetings in the Pakistani Defense Ministry. Defense Industry Minister Jamalov will talk with the Secretary of Pakistan Defense Ministry Shaig...

A video showing Muslim soldiers destroying an ancient Christian cemetery is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZu2zqFE_gI. The vandalism of Djulfa archaeological site was compared to the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, but the world kept silence. Featuring a never-seen-before satellite image of a vandalized medieval cemetery at the Iranian-Azerbaijani border, "The New Tears of Araxes," a five-minute film, tells the tragic story of thousands of ancient Armenian headstones flattened to the ground by the Azerbaijani authorities in Djulfa (Jugha), Nakhichevan. On December 15, 2005, eyewitnesses across the River Araxes videotaped Azeri soldiers destroying Armenian burial monuments - khachkars (cross stones) - some...

On Wednesday, December 6, Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupryanov confirmed recent press reports that Gazprom will abruptly slash gas supplies to Azerbaijan to 1.5 billion cubic meters in 2007, down from 4.5 billion cubic meters in 2006, and that it would raise the price as of January 1, 2007, to between $200 and $230 (“European price”) per 1,000 cubic meters, up from $110 in 2006 (Interfax, December 6). These Gazprom decisions are correlated with its declared intention to stop gas supplies to Georgia as of January 1, unless Georgia agrees to pay the extortionate $230 price. Gazprom hardly bothers to adduce...