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05/25/2005
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1) Turkey Postpones Armenian Conference, Calling it `Treason’
2) Key East-West Oil Pipeline Launched, Breaks Russia Grip on Caspian Energy
3) Chirac Says EU Constitution Would Put Back Turkey Accession
4) Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia Sign Agreement for Construction of New
Railway
5) Charles Aznavour Arrives in Armenia
1) Turkey Postpones Armenian Conference, Calling it `Treason’
ISTANBUL (Reuters)–A Turkish university facing accusations of treason has
postponed a conference that offered a platform to academics questioning a
national policy that denies any World War I genocide of Armenians.
The conference, due to start on Wednesday at Istanbul’s Bosphorus University,
was organized as Muslim Turkey faces mounting pressure from the European Union
to accept that mass killings of Christian Armenians starting in 1915 was
genocide.
Turkey’s pro-European government has broken with past administrations and
said
it is willing to discuss historical differences with Armenians, but official
policy still vehemently rejects claims that 1.5 million Armenians were
slaughtered.
It accepts that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed by Ottoman
Turks but says even more Turks died in a partisan conflict that erupted as the
Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said in parliament on Tuesday the conference by
Turkish historians who say genocide occurred was a “stab in the back of the
Turkish people.’
“We must end this treason, the spreading of propaganda against Turkey by the
people who belong to it,” he said.
Bosphorus University said it had decided to put off the conference because of
the prevailing climate.
“We are anxious that, as a state university, scientific freedom will be
compromised due to prejudices about a conference that has not yet
occurred,” it
said in a statement.
Edhem Eldem, a Bosphorus University historian, said organizers had not yet
decided whether they would hold a conference at a later date or cancel the
event completely.
“The side that will suffer the greatest loss is, unfortunately, Turkey,”
Eldem
said.
In a letter to her colleagues, Sociology Professor Fatma Muge Gocek from the
University of Michigan, `It is with a very heavy heart that I write this
e-mail
message to you from Istanbul.’ Gocek, who was one of the participants,
continued, `As to my personal assessment of the matter, I think that the fact
that such a conference was seriously organized to be executed, and that there
was such a groundswell of interest in it demonstrates there is significant
segment in Turkish civil society already mobilized to tackle this issue in a
way that counters the hegemonic state view on the matter.’
EU PRESSURE
The European Union has said it wants to see Turkey improve ties with
neighboring Armenia before it begins EU entry talks later this year. Some
European officials have gone further, saying Turkey must acknowledge
wrongdoing
before starting talks.
An EU diplomat called Cicek’s remarks “unbelievable.”
“It not only kills the government’s policy on the Armenian issue. It will
also
kill support for Turkey’s EU drive,” the diplomat said.
Hrant Dink, editor of the Armenian weekly Agos, echoed that view. “This
(decision) strengthens the hand of those outside Turkey who say, ‘Turkey has
not changed, it is not democratic enough to discuss the Armenian issue.”
“It shows there is a difference between what the government says and its
intentions.”
Several European nations, including Poland, France and Greece, have passed
resolutions that recognize the genocide.
French President Jacques Chirac, whose country is home to Europe’s largest
Armenian diaspora, urged Turkey this week to recognize the genocide and said
failure to do so could harm Ankara’s drive to join the EU.
Turkey has accused Europe of using the Armenian issue to mask efforts against
Turkey’s inclusion in the affluent bloc.
2) Key East-West Oil Pipeline Launched, Breaks Russia Grip on Caspian Energy
BAKU (AFP)–A major new US-backed pipeline to bring oil directly from the
Caspian Sea to Western markets and break Russia’s longtime grip on the
region’s
vast energy resources was formally launched Wednesday in a ceremony
attended by
presidents and dignitaries.
US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who participated in the opening ceremony,
read delegates a letter from US President George W. Bush in which the American
leader hailed the four-billion-dollar project as a “monumental achievement.”
“This pipeline can help generate balanced economic growth, and provide a
foundation for a prosperous and just society that advances the cause of
freedom,” Bush said in the letter.
The presidents of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan were joined by
other VIPs including Bodman and the head of British energy giant BP, John
Browne, for the formal launch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special representative for international
energy cooperation, Igor Yusufov, had been expected to attend the event. A
Kremlin spokesman told AFP in Moscow that he had been forced to cancel his
planned trip to Baku at the last minute due to illness.
The pipeline is expected to become a major competitor to traditional export
routes for Caspian oil that pass through Russia.
In a step likely to irritate Moscow, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan
Nazarbayev signed on to a declaration committing some of his country’s vast
Caspian oil reserves to transport through the pipeline just prior to the
ceremony.
The move will help extend the BTC’s life expectancy past 2010 when Azeri oil
production is forecasted to begin its decline if new fields are not developed
soon.
The former Soviet republic’s participation in the project has until now
remained under question as it navigated choppy diplomatic waters between
Washington and Moscow.
“The East-West energy corridor plays an important security role in the region
and it’s clear that economic growth and stability would not be possible
without
the export of oil,” Turkey’s President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said at the
opening.
He said the pipeline would take pressure off Turkey’s tanker-clogged
Bosphorus
Straits that link the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, another major maritime
transport route for oil.
Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili stressed the geopolitical changes
afoot in the region after the fall of the Soviet Union.
“After the fall of a big empire we want sources of hydrocarbons to be
protected and provide for stability of their transport,” he said.
The 1,770-kilometer-long (1,094-mile) pipeline will transform the Caucasus
and
Turkey into an energy bridge between the Caspian and the rest of the world and
has shifted geo-strategic alliances in the Caucasus region and Central Asia.
But the presence of senior officials from the United States and other
countries at Wednesday’s ceremonies was tainted by a controversy as Azeri
authorities continued to hold opposition members detained in connection with
the pipeline’s opening.
Police badly beat and arrested scores of people attending a peaceful rally
last Saturday as part of a wider opposition crackdown. Authorities justified
their actions on grounds that the rally was held too close to the pipeline
opening ceremonies, a claim questioned by Western officials.
Baku was the sight of some of the first industrially developed oil fields in
the world at the beginning of the 20th century.
The British oil giant BP holds a leading 30 percent stake in the consortium
running the pipeline. Other consortium members include Azerbaijan’s state oil
company SOCAR, Amerada Hess, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Inpex, Itochu, Statoil,
Total, TPAO and Unocal.
BP’s Browne said the “BTC will take new supplies of oil to the world market
and help to demonstrate that security is best achieved by having multiple
sources of supply and trade routes.”
SOCAR president Natik Aliyev called the pipeline the “realization” of a
national dream on Wednesday.
The Caspian region produces a light crude of high quality but has suffered
from its distance from the world’s major consumers–North America, Europe,
China, and Japan.
The pipeline is to ship one million barrels of Caspian oil, roughly one
percent of global oil production, to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast daily
once it
is fully up and running by the end of the year.
3) Chirac Says EU Constitution Would Put Back Turkey Accession
PARIS (AFX)–President Jacques Chirac said that the adoption of the EU
constitution would extend the timeframe for Turkey’s accession into the
union.
Chirac’s comments came in a letter to the France-based CCAF association of
Armenian organizations, and at a time when key proponents of the constitution
ramp up efforts to convince the electorate ahead of the referendum on Sunday.
Polls released over the past two weeks have indicated strongly that a vote
against the treaty is likely.
Chirac told the CCAF that Turkey ‘still has a long way to go’ in its bid for
EU membership, and that this will become even harder under a constitution
which
will ‘recognize fundamental rights and liberties…and guarantee them to all
European citizens.’
The Armenian community in France, some 400,000-strong, has been expected to
lean towards a ‘no’ vote as a means to stop Turkey’s accession. Community
leaders have insisted that France urge Turkey to acknowledge the Armenian
genocide as part of the accession talks.
4) Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia Sign Agreement for Construction of New
Railway
BAKU (Combined Sources)–The presidents of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia
signed on Wednesday an agreement for construction of the Kars-Tbilisi-Baku
railway. Turkey’s president Ahmet Necet Sezer and Georgian president Mikhail
Saakashvili were in Baku to attend the inauguration of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil
pipeline.
The Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway comes as an alternative to Kars-Gyumri railway
that used to connect Turkey with the South Caucasus. It was operational before
the Turkish government imposed a transport blockade of Armenia.
The 98-kilometer railway will stretch between the city of Kars and
Akhalkalak.
The project, with a 68-kilometer stretch in Turkey and a 30-kilometer stretch
in Georgia, is estimated at $400-450 million.
Its implementation will allow transporting 3 million tons of cargo–mainly
oil–a year. Currently, oil is transported via Azerbaijan from Kazakhstan and
Turkmenistan to Georgia’s Black Sea ports.
5) Charles Aznavour Arrives in Armenia
Yerevan (Armenpress)–World famous French Armenian singer Charles Aznavour
will
arrive in Armenia this week to attend the presentation of the Armenian
language
edition of his book–`Past Days.’ Armenian officials say Aznavour also agreed
to join thousands of other Armenian for a circle dance around Mount Aragats on
May 28.
Aznavour is planning also to visit Georgia’s Javakhk region, where his
parents
lived before emigrating to France. Proceeds from the sale of the book will be
donated to the Aznavour Pour l’Armenie charity organization.
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