By empty (2/15/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Expediency Council Chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani reacted \"positively\" to a proposal made last week by visiting Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian to build a direct rail link between the two countries, RFE/RL\'s Armenian Service reported on 14 February, citing Deputy Foreign Minister Gegham Garibdjanian, who recently concluded a six-year stint as Armenia\'s ambassador to Tehran. Khatami has ordered a feasibility study for the proposed link, which is likely to prove expensive and logistically challenging given the mountainous terrain it would traverse. (RFE/RL).

By empty (2/15/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Kaan Soyak, a Turkish businessman who co-chairs the Turkish-Armenian Business Council, invited the Armenian Revolutionary Federation--Dashnaktsutiun (HHD) on 14 February to visit Turkey to embark on a dialogue aimed at overcoming the HHD\'s negative image in that country, RFE/RL\'s Armenian Service reported. The HHD, one of the two junior partners in the three-party coalition government, has in the past pegged a normalization of relations with Ankara to official recognition by the Turkish government of the 1915 genocide; it also opposes opening the Armenian-Turkish border. Soyak said on 14 February that bilateral trade has increased to $120 million and could triple if the border were opened, Noyan Tapan reported.

By empty (2/15/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Foreign Minister Askar Aitmatov told a news conference in Bishkek on 14 February that Kyrgyzstan has rejected a U.S. request to station AWACS aircraft at the U.