From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Caucasus Region Still at War
Date: 25 Dec 1992 21:42:06 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

12/25 Caucasus Region Still At War

   MOSCOW (AP) -- The parliamentary leader of Nagorno-
Karabakh said no peace was in sight for the disputed region
claimed by both Armenia and Azerbaijan, a news agency
reported Friday.
   Acting parliament chairman Georgy Petrosian told the
ITAR-Tass news agency that the combatants in the southern
Caucasus Mountains region "are not interested in ending the
war."
   Nagorno-Karabakh is predominantly Armenian, but
Azerbaijan was given control of the region in the 1920s by
Soviet leaders.
   Fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out in 1988
under the looser political policies of Mikhail S. Gorbachev
and has intensified since the demise of the Soviet Union.
The United Nations estimates that more than 3,000 people
have been killed in the last four years.
   Hundreds of thousands of people have also fled the combat
zone.
   "The war in the region will continue until Azerbaijan
finally gives up its attempts to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict by means of force, by military methods," Petrosian,
an ethnic Armenian, told ITAR-Tass.
   Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Tofig Gasimov on Thursday
said he rejected a suggestion this month from U.S. Secretary
of State Lawrence Eagleburger to lift Azerbaijan's economic
blockade of Armenia as part of peace talks.
   In the latest battle report, Armenia's Interior Ministry
reported Thursday that Azerbaijani units seized two villages
in fighting that killed 19 people --17 of them Azerbaijanis.

12/25  ARABS FACE ``SEA OF BLOOD'' TO GULF ISLANDS - IRAN

    By Sharif Imam-Jomeh
    TEHRAN, Dec 25, Reuter - President Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, pressing Iran's claim to three disputed Gulf
islands, said on Friday Gulf Arab states would have to
"cross a sea of blood" to reach them.
    But, saying Iran wanted peace in a region which has more
than half the world's oil reserves, he also invited Gulf
Arab governments to talks in Tehran to settle the row.
    "Iran is surely stronger than the likes of you (Gulf
Arab states)," he said in a mass prayer sermon in Tehran
University.
    "To reach these islands one has to cross a sea of
blood," he declared to approving chants of "Allahu Akbar"
(God is Greatest).
    Leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC), in a statement at the end of a summit in Abu Dhabi on
Wednesday, demanded that Iran reverse what they see as
annexation of Abu Musa island and pull out of the Greater
Tumb and Lesser Tumb.
    "We consider this (Arab) claim totally invalid,"
Rafsanjani said.
    "I wonder why they are repeating Saddam's mistakes," he
said referring to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's
territorial claims which prompted invasions of Iran in 1980
and Kuwait in 1990, leading to costly wars for Iraq.
    He said the timing of the GCC statement was particularly
bad because it distracted attention from the plight of more
than 400 Palestinians expelled by Israel into a south
Lebanon no man's land.
    Iran says the islands near the entrance to the Gulf have
historically belonged to it.
    The row flared earlier this year after Iran tightened
its control on Abu Musa, which it has run jointly for more
than 20 years with Sharjah, a member of the United Arab
Emirates (UAE).
    The GCC -- which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia as well as UAE -- and other Arab countries
closed ranks behind the UAE.
    Iran sent a delegation to Abu Dhabi for talks over Abu
Musa in October. The negotiations collapsed after the UAE
side demanded to enlarge the talks to include the Tumbs.
    "We sent a delegation. Now you come here, any time you
want. Let's see what you have to say. Let's cooperate on
issues before the Islamic world," Rafsanjani said.
    Iran, under the late Shah, moved into the three islands
in 1971 when Britain, which protected the Gulf Arab
Sheikhdoms, left the region.
    It reached an agreement over Abu Musa with the ruler of
Sharjah which left the question of sovereignty open. No such
deal was made over the Tumbs.
    Rafsanjani said Iran wanted peace and stability in the
region and Arab misgivings about an Iranian rearmament drive
to dominate the region were unfounded.
    "Our arms purchases relative to population and area is
smaller that each of you," he said. The GCC's combined
population is less than a third of Iran's 60 million.
    Rafsanjani said Iran did not not spend a lot of money on
arms when economic reconstruction was its top priority.