AZERBAIJAN CONTINUES ITS ADOPTED POLICY
By Marieta Makarian
AZG Armenian Daily
12/10/2007
Though Azerbaijanis and Turks insist that table talks with Armenians
will change the present situation, they continue their adopted policy
of distorting facts. One more attempt was made during the International
Congress of Asian and North-African Study (ICANAS) held in Ankara,
where two Armenian scientists of RA National Academy of Sciences
(NAC) participated.
The Armenian ‘Marmara" daily touched upon the Congress works in his
September 14 and September 19 issues. The Congress was held in Ankara
Economic Institute hall.
2200 representatives of 57 countries participated in the
conference. The catchword of the conference was Ataturk’s words
"peace in the country and peace in the world".
Turkish government appropriated 1 mln dollars for holding the
Congress. About 500 speeches were made by the Turkish side.
>From Armenia Dr. of Musical Science of NAC Art Institute Lilit
Erngakian and Dr. of Historical Sciences of NAC Institute of the
Oriental Studies Hasmik Stepanian made speeches.
Prime Minister of Turkey Regep Tayip Erdogan delivered the welcome
speech of the Congress. Then the main four members of ICANAS:
representatives of China, Turkey, Russia and Hungary spoke.
"The aim of the Congress was to contribute to the progress of science,
the mutual understanding and conciliation of the scientists from
57 countries and possible origination of new books and researches",
mentioned one of our representatives Mrs. Stepanian.
But one of the main aims of 200 Azerbaijani delegates was to impede
and interfere in the speeches of Armenian scientists. "They profited
by the occasion and made anti-Armenian speeches during the round
table talks", mentioned Mrs. Stepanian.
Dr. Erngakian’s speech about the well-known Armenian composer Tigran
Chukhagian and the Armenian origin of his works aroused Turkish and
Azerbaijani delegates’ indignation, as Turkish musical traditions of
operas, marches and musical comedies from the Ottoman Empire times are
connected with Tigran Chukhagian. The Turkish and Azerbaijani delegates
insisted that Tigran Chukhagian was an Ottoman compatriot. But the
scientists of Russia and other countries shared the same opinion of
Dr. Erngakian.
Though "Milliet" daily mentioned that the Congress would not
refer to the issue of the Armenian Genocide, special round table
talks were held, participated by the whole Azerbaijani delegation,
Turkish scientists and diplomats, where they cast aspersions on the
Armenian scientists, especially Vahagn Tatrian and others. They "hit"
also Karabakh movement, RA President Robert Kocharian, Orhan Pamuk,
and others.
But the most ridiculous thing was that they condemned Armenians for
the murder of the academician Zia Buniatov. It was strange that
Pr. Halachoghlu, who conducted the talks, not only did not stop
the aspersions, but also encouraged them. Inspired with this the
Azerbaijani delegates announced, "Armenian people never exist as
ethnic unit; ethnos". "Armenia never exists as a country and the
geographical territory of Armenia is Azerbaijan". As a conclusion,
they added, "today Armenians have only government. We are rich; we
have oil… And it’s time to think of how to demolish Armenia with
our Turkish brothers" And those speeches ended with exclamations
and applauses.
In that situation the aim of our two delegates was to introduce the
reality to other delegates, and to make the organizers understand
what was going on.
At the end of the Congress, the four representatives delivered
their closing speeches. Russian Pr. Rubkov in his speech mentioned
that inappropriate politicization by some delegations distorted the
scientific process of the Congress. And persuaded the organizers to
ward off it after that.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress