By empty (3/31/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Nearly 3,000 ethnic Armenian residents of the southern Georgian Djavakheti district held a demonstration on 31 March protesting the possible withdrawal of the Russian military from its Akhalkalaki base there. The demonstrators also reiterated a list of demands submitted to Georgian authorities at an earlier demonstration on 13 March. Those demands included an end to the ban on teaching Armenian history in local schools, the adoption of new legal guarantees for the rights of ethnic minorities, and the official recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Georgian government.

By empty (3/31/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Al Jazeera reports on Chechnya are obviously made to order and aimed at poisoning the atmosphere of Russian-Arab relations, the Russian Foreign Ministry\'s information and press department said in a statement received by Interfax on Thursday. \"The channel has been regularly broadcasting reports of this kind in recent days. We have to say that these reports distort the actual state of affairs in the Chechen Republic and ignore consistent efforts of federal and local authorities to rebuild the economy and achieve public and political normalization,\" the statement says.

By empty (3/30/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will require painful compromises from Armenia and Azerbaijan, Armenian Defense Minister and Security Council Secretary Serzhik Sarkisian said on Wednesday. \"I am absolutely sure that the settlement of the Karabakh crisis will be painful for the Armenian as well as for the Azerbaijani people,\" Sarkisian said at parliament hearings devoted to the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. \"A compromise presumes concessions, and nobody can make concessions without difficulties,\" he said.