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RFE/RL Newsline, Vol. 5, No. 161, 01-08-24Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Newsline Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty <http://www.rferl.org>RFE/RL NEWSLINEVol. 5, No. 161, 24 August 2001CONTENTS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA
[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
[C] END NOTEORGANIZATIONS[A] TRANSCAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA[01] ARMENIAN PRESIDENT SAYS PROPERTY FOR DEBT SWAP WITH RUSSIA POSSIBLEPresident Robert Kocharian said on 23 August that the implementation of property for a debt swap with Russia is "quite possible" if Russian business is interested in the properties offered by Yerevan, Noyan Tapan reported. The same day, "The Moscow Times" reported that Armenia has offered a plant that produces robots and another that makes computer chips for defense hardware. PG[02] U.S. CONGRESSMAN VISITS KARABAKHRepresentative Adam Schiff on 23 August met in Stepanakert with the president of the unrecognized Karabakh Republic, Arkadiy Gukasyan, Russian and Armenian agencies reported. Gukasyan told Schiff that the process of regulating the Karabakh issue is practically frozen, and Schiff promised to raise the issue in the U.S. Congress upon his return to Washington. PG[03] BAKU DISMISSES IRANIAN COMPLAINTS ABOUT TURKISH AIR FORCE VISITIn reaction to a statement by Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi concerning the visit of Turkish military aircraft to Azerbaijan, Novruz Mammadov, the head of the foreign relations department in the office of President Heidar Aliev, said on 23 August that "Azerbaijan is a sovereign country and it has the right to cooperate with any country of the world, particularly with Turkey, with which Azerbaijan is expanding its relations on the basis of the 'one nation-two states' principle," Turan reported. Meanwhile, officials at the Azerbaijani Interior Ministry denied on 23 August that Baku had introduced forces into a northern section of the country populated largely by Avars as some Russian media have charged, Interfax reported. PG[04] AZERBAIJAN UNITY PARTY HEAD CALLS FOR RESIGNATION OF DEFENSE MINISTERTahir Karimli, the chairman of the Unity Party, has complained that only poor people serve in the military because the rich are able to escape service through bribes, Baku's "525 gazet" reported on 23 August. As a result, the suicides in the army are especially tragic, Karimli said, and he demanded that the defense minister resign. PG[05] COMMUNIST LEADER SEEKS PRO-RUSSIAN ALLIANCE IN AZERBAIJANRamiz Ahmadov, a parliamentarian who is also the chairman of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, is overseeing the expansion of the AzRus organization that seeks to promote pro-Russian parties in the country, Baku's "Bizim Asr" reported on 23 August. The group intends to push for closer ties between Azerbaijan and Russia. Meanwhile, a Serbian reporter was quoted by Baku's "Ekho" newspaper the same day as saying that the son of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic has found refuge in Azerbaijan. PG[06] LEBANESE BUSINESSMAN RESCUED IN GEORGIAGeorgian law-enforcement agencies freed Lebanese citizen Charbel Bachar Aoun, 34, who had been taken hostage in the Pankisi gorge area on 7 June, Caucasus Press reported on 23 August. PG[07] ABKHAZIA, TRANSDNIESTER REGION SIGN COOPERATION PROTOCOLThe foreign ministers of the self-proclaimed republics of Abkhazia in Georgia and Transdniester in Moldova on 23 August signed a cooperation agreement in Sukhumi, Caucasus Press reported. The two sides agreed to share information on issues of international recognition and the progress of negotiations and also to set up missions in each other's capital. PG[08] CENTRAL ASIAN RAPID REACTION FORCE CONDUCTS TRAINING EXERCISEOn 22 August, the first command staff exercise of the rapid reaction forces set up by the CIS Collective Security Agreement began in Bishkek, "Izvestiya" reported on 23 August. The force is intended to serve both to respond to any challenges to stability in the region and also work in peacekeeping operations. PG[09] MOSCOW GUARANTEES SECURITY OF LOADING TANKERS WITH KAZAKH OILThe Russian Transport Ministry on 23 August announced that it will guarantee the security of loading tankers at Novorossiisk with oil from Kazakhstan's Tengiz field, Interfax reported.[10] CRIME UP DRAMATICALLY IN KAZAKHSTANKazakhstan's statistics service on 23 August said that the number of crimes committed in that country during the first half of 2001 totaled 80,456, 10.3 percent more than the number during the same period in 2001, Interfax- Central Asia reported. Serious crimes, the statistical service added, have increased the most, rising 26.2 percent between those two periods. PG[11] RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CEMETERY DESECRATED IN WESTERN KAZAKHSTANUnknown persons have destroyed some 30 gravestones at a Russian Orthodox Christian cemetery in Aktau, Interfax-Central Asia reported on 23 August. A local state enterprise has set up a reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of those involved. The same city also faces a cholera outbreak, the news agency reported. PG[12] 'ASKAR AKAEV RECALLS HIS DEMOCRATIC PAST'With that subtitle, an article in Moscow's "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on 23 August reported about Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akaev's recent decision to pardon human rights activist Topchubek Turgunaliev, something that wouldn't have been necessary during the earlier and more liberal part of Akaev's presidency. The same day, Kyrgyz radio reported that Kyrgyzstan's government has reported that it is revising a draft law regulating the activities of nongovernmental organizations, political parties, and the media. PG[13] 12,000 TO BE RELEASED FROM TAJIK PRISONS UNDER AMNESTYFollowing a speech by Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmonov, the Tajikistan parliament unanimously passed an amnesty law on 23 August that will lead to the release of 12,000 people from the country's prisons, Asia Plus-Blitz reported. Among those to receive priority amnesties are 1,000 prisoners suffering from tuberculosis, pregnant women, veterans, deserters, and foreigners. Seven thousand other prisoners will see their sentences reduced, the news service said. PG[14] TURKMEN, IRANIAN PRESIDENTS SAY CASPIAN MUST NOT BE 'HOTBED OF TENSION'Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov and Iranian President Mohammad Khatami discussed the status of the Caspian Sea via telephone on 23 August, RIA-Novosti reported. The two agreed that whatever differences exist must not lead to a situation in which the sea will become "a hotbed of tension." Niyazov invited Khatami to visit Ashgabat, and Khatami said that Turkmenistan will be the first country he will visit following his recent re-election. PG[15] UZBEK PRESIDENT WANTS NEIGHBORS TO JOIN FIGHT AGAINST EXTREMISMUzbekistan's President Islam Karimov said in Tashkent on 23 August that the leaders of Central Asia now understand better than they did in the past the threats of extremism, drug trafficking, and international crime, but that the time has come for actions not words, Interfax-Central Asia reported. Meanwhile, Tashkent's "Khalq Sozi" reported the same day that Karimov's recently declared amnesty will result in the release of more than 25,000 prisoners, including some of his political opponents. PG[B] SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE[16] NATO, GUERRILLAS AGREE ON MACEDONIAN WEAPONS COUNTDanish General Gunnar Lange, who commands NATO forces in Macedonia, said in Skopje on 24 August that the alliance and the fighters of the National Liberation Army (UCK) have reached an agreement on how many weapons the guerrillas will surrender, Reuters reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 23 August 2001). NATO has asked the government for its comments. Lange noted that the figure, which he did not disclose, is more realistic than earlier UCK estimates of 2,000 weapons. The government claims that the rebels have 85,000 weapons, a figure that most observers regard as exaggerated. Part of the problem in estimating arms quantities is that a gun culture predominates in much of the Balkans, and many or most adult males in Macedonia own a rifle or pistol. Many such weapons are quite old, but plenty of new ones have come onto the market in recent years as a result of the wars elsewhere in former Yugoslavia and of the plundering of government arsenals in Albania in 1997. PM[17] PUTIN BACKS MACEDONIAN HARD-LINERSContinuing Russia's policy of supporting hard-liners among the Orthodox Slavs of the Balkans in order to gain influence there (see "RFE/RL Balkan Report," 23 March and 31 July 2001), Russian President Vladimir Putin told Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski in Kyiv on 24 August that the UCK are "terrorists, not rebels," dpa reported. He criticized NATO's mission as ill- conceived, said that the UCK will not surrender most of their weapons, and blamed the region's problems on poverty and crime. He added that "We should understand that we are confronted in Europe by fundamentalism, we are confronted by people with aggressive aspirations," RFE/RL reported. Trajkovski told newsmen that he agrees with Putin and wants NATO to take tougher measures to disarm the UCK. He added that both men agree that Kosova is the source of the problem. Western media have reported recently that Moscow and Kyiv are sending massive arms shipments to Skopje (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 22 August 2001). Russia and Ukraine deny this. Russia has little to offer the region except weapons and natural gas, for which it drives a hard bargain. PM[18] GERMAN LEADER FIRM ON MACEDONIAN MISSIONChancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in Berlin on 23 August that "the cabinet...has just agreed on the participation of German armed forces in the NATO mission in Macedonia. It involves the deployment of up to 500 soldiers in a French-led battalion for 30 days," RFE/RL reported. He added that "no mission such as this is completely free of risk... We require a mandate, a robust mandate, which allows the right to self-defense and the capacity to withdraw if the mission should fail, against all expectations." Parliament must now approve the deployment (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 17 and 22 August 2001). Schroeder has stressed that Germany needs to participate in Operation Essential Harvest to maintain its credibility with its allies. He has accused critics of playing politics with national interests. PM[19] MACEDONIAN MILITANTS SEEKING TO ARM?Erich Rathfelder, who is "Die Presse's" veteran Balkan correspondent, wrote on 23 August that elite units of the Macedonian security forces as well as nationalist paramilitaries are using the 30-day period of Essential Harvest to arm themselves. Quoting unnamed diplomatic sources, the correspondent wrote that the elite Scorpion, Tiger, and Wolf units are 5,000-strong (see "RFE/RL Balkan Report," 15 June 2001, and "RFE/RL South Slavic Report," 7 and 14 June 2001). The paramilitaries include up to 8,000 men drawn from soccer clubs and nationalist political parties. They include formations called Macedonia 2000, Macedonia 2001, and the Snakes. As for the Albanian side, observers note that problems could arise from the fact that the UCK seems to lack an integrated and effective command structure. Extremists on either side could stage provocations either during or after Essential Harvest. PM[20] MACEDONIA HEADED FOR GOVERNMENT CRISIS?Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, whose nationalist Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO-DPMNE) has been slipping badly in the polls lately (see "RFE/RL Balkan Report," 24 August 2001), accused ethnic Albanian Justice Minister Hixhet Mehmeti of stalling in seeking the extradition of "terrorist" Semi Habibi from Germany, Deutsche Welle's Albanian Service reported. Georgievski circumvented the minister's authority and sent the German authorities an extradition request in his own name, the broadcast added. Georgievski wants to fire Mehmeti, who is from the Party of Democratic Prosperity. Mehmeti said that he acted according to legal procedures and that any attempt by the prime minister to act on his own would be a "violation of legal norms." PM[21] BOSNIA GETS NEW ELECTION LAWParliament approved the long-awaited election law on 23 August, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. It allows voters to cast ballots only for members of their own ethnic group in elections for the three-member presidency. Critics charge that the measure guarantees nationalists a hold on those posts because candidates will not have to seek the votes of people from other ethnic groups. Many Serbs and especially Croats feared that an open election would enable the more numerous Muslims to outvote them. The law angered nationalists, however, by requiring persons living illegally in others' homes to vote where they lived before the conflict began in 1992. Leading figures of the international community hailed the law, the passage of which is a requirement for Bosnia to join the Council of Europe, which obliges members to have election laws. PM[22] SERBIAN CRIME INVESTIGATOR SLAMS GOVERNMENT FEUDINGAleksandar Radovic, who heads the anticorruption commission, told Reuters in Belgrade on 23 August that the war of words between Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and Serbian President Zoran Djindjic over what is known as the Gavrilovic affair is making his work more difficult (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 23 August 2001). "They don't even have to help me. They just have to give me a bit of peace to work in." He added that several leaders of the governing Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition have tried to interfere with his work. PM[23] SERBIAN PRIME MINISTER: CLEAR UP GAVRILOVIC AFFAIRIn Krusevac on 23 August, Djindjic said that the Gavrilovic affair will have to be cleared up completely before there can be any review of his government's work, as Kostunica has demanded, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported. In Belgrade, Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said that the Gavrilovic affair could lead to the undoing of all that DOS has achieved since ousting President Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000. Mihajlovic called for the government to "get serious" and draft a comprehensive anticrime and anticorruption program. PM[24] FRANCE WANTS TO LIFT SERBIAN ARMS EMBARGOA Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Paris on 23 August that the time has come to end the embargo on arms sales to Serbia, Reuters reported. The government will introduce a motion to that effect in the UN Security Council. Belgrade requested such a move in June (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 19 June 2001). PM[25] ROMANIAN PREMIER REACTS TO OPPOSITION CRITICISM OF NATO PREPARATIONSPrime Minister Adrian Nastase on 24 August criticized Democratic Party leader Traian Basescu for having said the previous day that NATO documents demonstrate that Romania is not considered to be a viable candidate and that the government is not doing enough toward advancing accession, Mediafax reported. Nastase said Basescu should make public the documents, as "there are tens of thousands of NATO reports" and it is difficult to know which report Basescu has in mind. One of the two reports mentioned by him is dated January 2001, and it is hardly fair to attribute criticism in it to his cabinet, which at the time had only been in power a few months, he said. Basescu said that the two reports indicate that Romania is facing problems of political stability, corruption, and with military reforms, as well as with the integration of the Hungarian and Jewish minorities. Nastase said that before "washing the dirty linen in public" the opposition should heed his call for "an armistice on NATO accession." That call has been rejected by both the Democrats and the National Liberal Party. MS[26] ROMANIAN MINISTERS ON EU VISA REQUIREMENT, ACCESSION TALKSInterior Minister Ioan Rus on 23 August told journalists that Romania has fulfilled all the conditions requested by the EU for abolishing visa requirements for its citizens, RFE/RL's Bucharest Bureau reported. Vasile Puscas, the chief negotiator with the EU, said the same day that Romania will open negotiations on all chapters of the aquis communautaire by 2002 and hopes to end those negotiations and "provisionally close" most chapters by the end of 2004. MS[27] GREATER ROMANIA PARTY COMPLAINS OF 'JEWISH CENSORSHIP'The Greater Romania Party's (PRM) weekly "Romania mare" on 23 August advised "the Jewish mafia" to "let Romania off its hook." Reacting to the Federation of Romanian Jewish Communities complaint against the publication of PRM deputy Vlad Hogea's chauvinist book "The Nationalist" (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 23 August 2001), the weekly said that "we shall let no one gag the Romanian press and culture" and warned "Zionist agitators" not to "mix up Romanians and Palestinians... We are fed up with Gauleiters and are too poor and too wretched to continue tolerating blackmail and the foreigners' yoke." PRM Deputy Chairman Gheorghe Buzatu, who heads the Iasi institute that published the book, announced on 23 August that a second edition of 10, 000 copies, which follows the first run of 1,000 copies, will be published and that this edition will no longer be under the auspices of the Romanian Academy. Buzatu said that he considers the book to be "a document that in 20 years will truthfully render the end of the last century and millennium." Mediafax reported that Buzatu, who is a Senate deputy chairman, has asked the Senate Bureau to provide him with bodyguards, claiming he is "being shadowed on the street" and that he has received telephone threats on his life. Public Information Minister Vasile Dancu welcomed on 23 August the Prosecutor-General Office's decision to launch an inquiry into the book's publication. MS[28] TRANSDNIESTER AGREES TO PROVIDE DATA ON MILITARY STRENGTHThe Transdniester delegation at the Joint Control Commission (JCC) has been for the first time authorized by Tiraspol to provide data on the military strength of the separatists, Infotag reported on 23 August. The agency cited Moldovan JCC Co-chairman George Roman as saying that Chisinau has long proposed this "exchange of information" but the authorities in Tiraspol had hitherto refused to authorize their representatives on the JCC to do so. Chisinau says its own National Army has 8,500 men, while the Transdniester armed forces number 7,500. According to Chisinau, when territorial size and the size of the two respective populations are taken into account, this amounts to a 1 to 3.5 percent proportion in favor of the Transdniester. It says Moldova has 2.16 soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants, while the Transdniester has 6.4 soldiers per 1,000. Tiraspol challenges these figures. Moldova also says it has three motorized infantry brigades, while the Transdniester has four, with each side having one artillery regiment. MS[29] MOLDOVA TO HOLD MILITARY PARADE ON INDEPENDENCE DAYA military parade -- the second in Moldova's history -- will be held on 27 August to mark Moldova's 10th anniversary of its independence, RFE/RL's Chisinau bureau reported on 23 August. MS[30] SMIRNOV SAYS MOSCOW 'BETRAYS TRANSDNIESTER INTERESTS'In a message to Russian President Putin, separatist leader Igor Smirnov says Russia is "betraying the interests of Transdniester," Flux reported on 23 August. Smirnov complains about the scrapping of Russian military equipment in the region, saying the operation "contravenes all agreements signed by the two sides" on the future of the Russian equipment and ammunition. "The presence of the Russian contingent ensures our security, but the process of armament scrapping, without its prior synchronization with a normalization of relations between Chisinau and Tiraspol, may have most undesirable consequences," Smirnov wrote. MS.[31] LARGE SUPPORT FOR BULGARIAN PREMIERAn overwhelming majority of 75 percent has confidence in Bulgaria's new premier, Simeon Saxecoburggotski, AFP reported on 23 August, citing the results of a poll conducted by the MBMD institute. The cabinet's youngest member, Deputy Premier and Economy Minister Nikolai Vassilev, scored support of 61 percent -- almost double his score a month ago. However, only one in 20 Bulgarians said they intend to vote in the upcoming presidential elections for a candidate of the National Movement Simeon II, while 42 percent support incumbent President Petar Stoyanov. Simeon Saxecoburggotski has been barred from running for head of state by a Constitutional Court decision. MS[32] BULGARIAN FINANCE MINISTER SAYS IMF HAS 'NO OBJECTIONS' TO ENVISAGED MEASURESFinance Minister Milen Velchev on 23 August said the government has consulted the International Monetary Fund on its envisaged economic and social measures and the IMF has "no objections" to the plans, BTA reported. Velchev admitted, however, that the fund "expressed concern" that the package could result in an "excessive budget deficit." He said that "talks on the concrete parameters" of the package will be discussed in September, when an IMF delegation will visit Bulgaria. MS[C] END NOTE[33] AZERBAIJAN MOVES TO IMPOSE TIGHTER CONTROL OVER RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONSBy Liz FullerIn late June, Azerbaijan's President Heidar Aliev decreed the creation of a State Committee for Relations with Religious Organizations and appointed orientalist Rafik Aliev to head it. The committee will supercede the old Religious Department within the Cabinet of Ministers, and have a much larger staff. Its primary function will be to monitor the activities of religious organizations engaging in missionary activity in Azerbaijan, whether Christian or Islamic. The presidential decree on creating the new state committee specified that its work is not intended to restrict the freedom of religion guaranteed by Azerbaijan's Constitution. But Rafik Aliev's statements in a 25 July interview with Turan, and at a press conference in Baku on 10 August, make clear that the committee aims to introduce more stringent regulations to govern the activity of both religious organizations and individual religious activists, and monitor compliance with those regulations. It will be entitled to collect, and to submit to the Interior Ministry and other law-enforcement agencies, information on persons engaged in religious propaganda. And it will be empowered to ask a court of law to suspend the activities of any religious organization that engages in illegal activities, incites interethnic discord, or engages in "religious-political diversive activities aimed at undermining national security." Rafik Aliev said that of the total estimated 2,000 religious organizations in Azerbaijan, only 410 are formally registered. Those that have not yet undergone registration will be asked to do so beginning in October 2001, a process that Aliev estimated will take some six or seven months. All mosques must be subordinated to the Baku-based Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Caucasus. Aliev added that the number of foreign pastors granted permission to engage in proselytizing in Azerbaijan will be limited, and restrictions will be imposed on the length of time they may stay in the country. He also said that the legal ban on allowing "foreign nationals" to work as teachers in Azerbaijani medreses (Islamic institutes of higher learning) will be strictly enforced, noting that 90 percent of those medreses are not registered with the state. The textbooks and other teaching materials used at those medreses will likewise be vetted for suitability. In addition, the committee will monitor the import of religious literature and may impose specific quotas for individual religious groups in order to ensure that the number of religious texts a religious community imports is commensurate with its current members' needs. If a community of 500 people seeks to import 5,000 copies of a religious text, Aliev said, this suggests they intend to engage in "propaganda." Rafik Aliev did not say, however, whom the new restrictions are primarily directed at. There are at least three currents of religious activity that could be construed as posing a potential threat. The first of these is proselytizing by Shiite religious emissaries from Iran. The second is "Wahhabism," which in the Azerbaijani as in the Russian context appears to be a shorthand term for any brand of Islamic extremism originating in the North Caucasus that the state leadership cannot control. And the third are the various Christian and other sects whose missionaries are currently active in Azerbaijan. Ever since the demise of the USSR, Western observers have been watching attentively for indications of a crusade by Iran to export its own particular brand of Islam to Azerbaijan. While Iranian mullahs are active in Azerbaijan, until very recently they have not been publicly identified as a serious danger. But "Vremya novostei" reported on 25 June that "extremists dispatched from Tehran" are the primary target of the new state committee, and that Azerbaijani intelligence agencies consider them a threat to Azerbaijani statehood. Moreover, "Vremya novostei" quotes Azerbaijani intelligence sources as saying that "although the Iranian clergy does not officially support Wahhabism, the Wahhabis who are engaged in illegal activity in Azerbaijan have direct links with Iranian intelligence." Speaking at a seminar in Baku in early May, Azerbaijan's Deputy National Security Minister Tofik Babaev claimed that a number of religious organizations sponsored by Iran or Arab countries are engaged in inciting domestic political conflicts with the ultimate aim of seizing power in Azerbaijan. Babaev estimated the number of Azerbaijani converts to Wahhabism at some 7,000, noting that Wahhabi missionaries seek above all to recruit representatives of ethnic minorities and persons of mixed parentage. Northern Azerbaijan and three mosques in Baku were identified as the main strongholds of Wahhabism. The Iranian Embassy in Baku promptly rejected Babaev's claims as "unfounded" and "irresponsible." Whether fundamentalist Islam in whatever form has already made such inroads in Azerbaijan that it has become a significant political force is difficult to judge. On the one hand, most Azerbaijanis' conscious religious identification as Muslims does not extend beyond the observance of rituals that have evolved from the strictly religious to become part of national culture. On the other hand, economic collapse and the resulting rise in unemployment could predispose the most disadvantaged members of society to seek consolation in religion. While Babaev focussed primarily on the perceived Iranian/Wahhabi threat, Rafik Aliev also spoke with concern over the number of Azerbaijanis who have converted to Christianity, Hinduism, or Bahaism. He admitted that no precise figures exist, but estimated the number of such converts as between 5,000-6,000. ("Sharq" last December gave a higher estimate -- 9,368 converts over the previous decade -- while the head of the now defunct Religious Department within the Cabinet of Ministers, Mustafa Ibragimov, told Turan in early January 2001 that the total figure was approximately 3, 000.) One reason why the Azerbaijani leadership appears so concerned about such conversions was divulged during the Baku seminar in May by the city's mayor, Hajibala Abutalibov, who claimed that missionary activity is aimed at weakening Azerbaijan's statehood and its armed forces. Possibly in an attempt to minimize the effects of such proselytizing, the Spiritual Board of Muslims of the Caucasus has formally requested permission from the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry to introduce the post of religious councilor in military units in order to "strengthen servicemen's faith and patriotic feelings," "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported on 9 August. The paper cited the Caspian News Agency as reporting that in some military units a special room has already been set aside for servicemen wishing to perform the namaz. 24-08-01 Reprinted with permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
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