Author: Andres-Papazian

‘NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT PROBLEM OF TURKIC WORLD’

News.az
May 25 2010
Azerbaijan

Mustafa Kabakci ‘The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not only the problem
of Azerbaijan, but the entire Turkic world.

We all must try to settle this problem,’ told journalists in Baku
Mustafa Kabakci, chairman of a working group on Turkey-Azerbaijan
interparliamentary ties at the Turkish Parliament.

Touching upon Turkey-Azerbaijan relations, Kabakci described it as
‘indissoluble’ and ‘permanent’, stressing ‘it will always remain
the same’.

He also underlined ‘our fraternal relations should be an example for
other countries’.

From: A. Papazian

BAKU CALLS KARABAKH POLLS ATTEMPT TO CONCEAL ARMENIAN OCCUPATION POLICY

The Financial
May 25 2010
Georgia

The FINANCIAL — BAKU. Recent parliamentary polls in Nagorny Karabakh
were an unsuccessful attempt by Armenia to conceal its occupation of
the breakaway Azerbaijani region, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry
said on May 24, according to RIA Novosti.

The predominantly ethnic Armenian region, which has been a bone
of contention between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and
Azerbaijan since the late 1980s, elected its 33-seat parliament on
May 23.

“Yet another attempt by the Armenian Republic to conceal its
annexationist policy and occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories has
ended in inevitable failure. Through its actions, the Armenian side is
deceiving nobody but its own people,” the ministry said in a statement.

The statement added that Baku shared the concerns of its international
partners, that the parliamentary elections in the breakaway region
may have a negative impact on Armenian-Azerbaijani peace efforts.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh
first erupted in 1988, when the region claimed independence from
Azerbaijan to join Armenia.

Over 30,000 people are estimated to have died on both sides between
1988 and 1994, when a ceasefire was agreed. Nagorny Karabakh has
remained in Armenian control and tensions between Azerbaijan and
Armenia have persisted.

The foreign ministry statement said the conflict in and around Nagorny
Karabakh can only be resolved on the basis of principles that respect
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and the inviolability
of internationally accepted borders, as well as peaceful cohabitation
of Armenian and Azerbaijani communities in the Nagorny Karabakh region.

“Azerbaijan once again calls on Armenia to halt its destructive policy
and hold talks on the basis of goodwill in order to find a quick and
stable solution to the conflict,” the statement said.

The conflict has been mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group that comprises
the United States, Russia and France.

From: A. Papazian

CEMIL CICEK: “TURKEY IS ALWAYS WITH AZERBAIJAN SUPPORTING THEIR JOINT STRUGGLE”

APA
May 25 2010
Azerbaijan

Washington. Isabel Levine – APA. A top Turkish official, State Minister
and Deputy Prime Minister of Turkish Republic Cemil Cicek believes
that the Turkic communities of the world can solve their problems
when they join together.

“I came here to deliver a message for the Turkic communities to unite”,
Mr. Cicek said answering APA’s Washington correspondent during the
Turkish Festival day in US.

Speaking about the Armenians’ campaigns against Turks across the
world, Mr. Cicek pointed out that, “our heads up and minds are open,
soon or later the history will solve everything”.

The Turkish minister, who is conducting dialogs during the recent
days in New York and Washington DC, also mentioned that, Turkey is
always with Azerbaijan supporting their joint struggle.

On May 24th, attending to the Turkish Festival in New York organized by
Federation of Turkish American Associations, Minister Cicek reminded
that baseless allegations which blame Turkey are turned into a
U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee decision
because of the influence of certain lobbies in United States that
disappointed Ankara a lot.

“This issue should be handled by historians instead of politicians
and parliaments” – he added. Minister also added that, “we don’t have
any guilt behind the history. Turkish nation is clean.

From: A. Papazian

BILL GATES FUNDS GULEN ISLAMIST MOVEMENTPAUL WILLIAMS, PHD

Family Security Matters

May 25 2010

The Fethullah Gulen movement, which seeks to restore the Ottoman
Empire, has found a friend and benefactor in Bill Gates of Microsoft
fame. Mr. Gates is ranked the third wealthiest person on planet earth.

In 2007, through the Texas High School Project, the Gates Foundation
shelled out $10,550,000 to the Cosmos Foundation, a Gulen enterprise
that operates 25 publicly funded charter schools in Texas.

The Internal Revenue Service Form 990 for Cosmos shows that the Cosmos
Foundation received $41,570,721 from taxpayers.

At present, there are 85 Gulan madrassahs (Islamic schools) in the
United States, and all operate with public funding.

At the Gulen schools, students are indoctrinated in Turkish culture,
language, and religion so that they may be of service in making
Fethullah Gulan’s dream of a universal caliphate a reality. The
madrassahs sponsor Turkish clubs, Turkish language societies, Turkish
dance groups, and annual trips to Istanbul.

According to Stephen Schwartz of the Center for Islamic Pluralism,
the 85 Gulen schools advance and promote Islamic beliefs; present
the Ottoman Empire, which lasted from 1299 to 1923, as a golden age;
and serve to rewrite history by denying the Armenian holocaust under
the Turks during World War I.

Many of the teachers at these schools are Turkish émigrés with
questionable credentials. Some possess H-1B non immigrant visas which
should only be granted to individuals who possess “highly specialized
knowledge in a field of human endeavor.” The female faculty members
appear in their classrooms wearing hijabs and traditional Islamic
attire.

Critics can’t understand why the schools are staffed with imported
elementary and secondary school teachers when thousands of trained and
certified American educators are begging for teaching positions. But
are the schools really subversive?

Rachel Sharon-Krespin writes: “His (Gulen’s) followers target youth in
the eighth through twelfth grades, mentor and indoctrinate them in the
ıÅ~_ıkevi, educate them in the Fethullah schools, and prepare them
for future careers in legal, political, and educational professions
in order to create the ruling classes of the future Islamist,
Turkish state.”

Even more telling is a comment from Nurettin Veren, Gulen’s right
hand man for 35 years, who said: “These schools are like shop windows.

Recruitment and Islamization are carried out through nigh classes.

The use of the Islamic practice of taqiyya or deception to mask the
true nature of the schools has been upheld by Gulen himself. In a
1999 sermon, the Turkish pasha offered the following advice to his
followers:

You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing
your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the
conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If
they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and
Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like
in 1982 [in] Syria … like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in
Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you
are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire
world and carry it … You must wait until such time as you have gotten
all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power
of the constitutional institutions in Turkey … Until that time, any
step taken would be too early–like breaking an egg without waiting
the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the
chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now,
I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all -in confidence …

trusting your loyalty and secrecy. I know that when you leave here –
[just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the
thoughts and the feelings that I expressed here.

Fethullah Gulen has been called the “most dangerous Islamist” in the
world. He has amassed a fortune – thanks, in part, to the CIA – of $25
billion. This money has been used to transform the secular government
of Turkey into an Islamic Republic under the Justice and Democratic
Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma, AKP) – a party under the Gulen’s control.

Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s first Islamist President, is a Gulen disciple
along with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Yusuf Ziya Ozcan,
the head of Turkey’s Council of Higher Education. Under the AKP,
Turkey has transformed from a secular state into an Islamic country
with 85,000 active mosques – one for every 350 citizens – the highest
number per capita in the world, 90,000 imams, more imams than teachers
and physicians – – and thousands of state-run Islamic schools.

Despite the rhetoric of European Union accession, Turkey has
transferred its alliance from Europe and the United States to Russia
and Iran. It has moved toward friendship with Hamas, Hezbollah,
and Syria and created a pervasive anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and
anti-America animus throughout the populace.

Gulen has also established thousands of schools throughout central
Asia and Europe. Because of their subversive nature, these schools have
been outlawed in Russia and Uzbekistan. Even the Netherlands, a nation
that embraces pluralism and tolerance, has opted to cut funding to
the Gulen schools because of their imminent threat to the social order.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.,
is the author of The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the
Western World, The Al Qaeda Connection, and other best-selling books.

He is a frequent guest on such national news networks as ABC
News, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR. Visit his website at

From: A. Papazian

ARAB WORLD ‘SUPPORTS’ PEACEFUL RESOLUTION OF KARABAKH PROBLEM BASED ON AZERBAIJAN’S TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY

Today

May 25 2010
Azerbaijan

The Arab world supports a peaceful solution to the Armenia-Azerbaijan
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the basis of the principle of Azerbaijan`s
territorial integrity, Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit
told Azerbaijani Premier Artur Rasizade.

The Egyptian FM assured Rasizade that the Arab world “would always
stand by Azerbaijan in settlement of the Karabakh conflict”.

Aboul Gheit also praised Azerbaijan`s economic progress, saying “it
is a major factor making Azerbaijan much more powerful than Armenia”.

Rasizade informed the Egyptian FM of the ongoing peace talks over the
conflict, saying “due to a non-constructive stance of the aggressor
Armenia, the problem has not found its solution for long years”.

The prime minister reiterated that the conflict must be settled
on the basis of Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity and norms of
international law.

“However, if Armenia continues stalling on the conflict, Azerbaijan
will be forced to use alternative ways.”

The bilateral relations were also discussed during the meeting, and
both Rasizade and Aboul Gheit described them as “rapidly” developing
in particular in the political and economic fields.

From: A. Papazian

CORY WELT: IT WAS A MAJOR MISTAKE FOR THE U.S. NOT TO LINK KARABAKH PROBLEM WITH ARMENIAN-TURKISH RAPPROCHEMENT

Today

May 25 2010
Azerbaijan

Cory Welt is associate director of the George Washington University
Elliott School of International Affairs’ Institute for European,
Russian and Eurasian Studies.

It seems that U.S. forgot the Karabagh settlement and has changed it
for support Armenia by various means (economic assistance, pushing
Armenian-Turkish border issue etc). Is it happen because of influence
of Armenian lobby or there are any other reasons?

The Obama administration has not really adopted a more “pro-Armenian”
position than previous governments – this is a misperception. U.S.

administrations have all more or less worked from the same “playbook.”

Armenian-Turkish rapprochement was promoted, in part, out of a
genuine belief this kind of dramatic (peaceful) shift in context
would have the potential to unfreeze the conflict resolution process
over Nagorno-Karabakh. It was a major mistake not to talk about this
linkage more, engage Azerbaijan on the issue, persuade Armenia to
take the linkage seriously, and jointly to develop this idea into
some concrete suggestions.

Russia and Turkey has been developing a close collaboration, especially
during the last 2 years. What is your opinion, may this collaboration
be fruitful for the stability in the South Caucasus region?

Such a collaboration could be fruitful for stability in the South
Caucasus, but only if Turkey approaches the problem from the position
of both regional power and Euro-atlantic ally. I don’t think much
good will come of Turkish-Russian collaboration in the Caucasus that
does not take place within the context of broader European security
discussions and the continued development of European-Caucasus
relations.

Some experts agree, that the West is more and more losing its
positions on the post Soviet space… Can the Russian activity be
expected to increase?

First, recent history has demonstrated to us that policy shifts in
the post-Soviet space are cyclical. This is most clearly the case in
Ukraine but it is relevant for other states as well. Second, a problem
with this formulation is that most policymakers in the West, at least,
have never conceived of regional politics as a “fight” with Russia.

There are perfectly imaginable scenarios in which states of the region
have improved relations with Russia and still maintain very close
relations to Europe and the United States, particularly in the case
of Moldova and Georgia, where societies and leaders have not at all
turned away from the West. This is a long-term process and we should
not be so focused on what appear to be dramatic short-term changes.

In Azerbaijan, the same thing could be said. Of course, Russia is
developing a more active “soft power” policy toward all states of the
region (as well as throughout Europe), and it should be no surprise
that Azerbaijan is receptive to offers that are in its interest or
those of its leadership. I don’t think this means that Azerbaijan is
seeking a permanent transformation of its foreign policy orientation.

Moscow says that it CIS countries to decide to be a member of EU and
NATO or not. Do you think that Russia might agree with membership of
Azerbaijan or even Georgia in NATO?

The issue of NATO enlargement into the Caucasus is not as pressing as
it once was. The promise of NATO membership to Georgia, and implicitly
to Azerbaijan, remains, but this is now an even longer-term process
than it was before the Russian-Georgian war. The greatest chance for
membership will lie with the development of stable, democratic states.

Russia is unlikely to consent to NATO membership for Azerbaijan and
Georgia, but that won’t necessarily be the deciding factor. However,
there are many possible security arrangements for the Caucasus (and
Ukraine and Moldova), and it would be good to at least begin a serious
discussion about what the available options are that can truly provide
security to all these states currently stuck between NATO and the CSTO.

From: A. Papazian

RA NA SPEAKER HOVIK ABRAHAMYAN RECEIVES THE YOUNG PARTICIPANTS OF AGBU GORIZ PROGRAM

National Assembly
parliament.am
May 25 2010
Armenia

On May 24 the Speaker of the RA National Assembly Hovik Abrahamyan
received the young participants of the Armenian General Benevolent
Union (AGBU) Goriz program, led by the Chairman of AGBU Europe Office,
the board member of Ile de France (Paris region) Alexis Govciyan
and AGBU Armenian Representation Director Ashot Ghazarian. The young
participants represented the AGBU branches of France, Germany, Spain,
Belgium, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Russia, Syria, Turkey and Armenia.

Greeting the guests the Speaker of the RA National Assembly first
congratulated A. Govciyan on the occasion of being elected board member
of Ile de France in the elections of the local self-government-bodies,
which were held recently in France. Hovik Abrahamyan touched upon
the mission of the AGBU for the benefit of Armenians, which from the
beginning of the last century had launched the activity promoting the
Armenian people’s spiritual and cultural development. The Speaker of
the RA National Assembly noted that the AGBU initiatives, undertakings
and programs in the Diaspora and Armenia had their contribution in
preserving Armenian identity.

Hovik Abrahamyan highly assessed the Goriz initiative of the AGBU
Europe Office. According to him, the Armenian Parliament has young
MPs, who take part in the legislative activities. There is also an
intention to initiate youth parliament. The Open Lesson program is
carried out in the National Assembly, within the framework of which
senior classes of different schools get acquainted with the works of
the parliament, attend the sittings.

The Speaker of the RA National Assembly presented the young
participants the structure, the activities of the National Assembly,
touched upon the processes of the Armenian-Turkish relations and the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement.

Thanking for the meeting Alexis Govciyan noted that the AGBU Europe
Office was striving to make contribution in the European Union-Armenia
relations. The aim of Goriz program is to unite the Armenian young
people in different countries, create a global firm network of the
future Armenian leaders, educate and support with advice and involve
them in different programs being implemented in Armenia and Europe.

Highlighting such meetings Hovik Abrahamyan proposed the young
participants of the program to attend the sittings of the parliament,
visit different institutions. The Speaker of the RA National
Assembly expressed willingness to support the further procedure of
the initiative.

From: A. Papazian

SAPPER-ROBOTS “TO MEET” AT THE LOVERS PARK

Aysor
May 25 2010
Armenia

The Yerevan Lovers Park will host the final stage of the Sapper-Robots
Contest on May 28.

The contest’s organizers said that the event has military significance
as well. The participants in the contest must perform a variety of
combat engineering duties and should direct the robots to identify
and clear the mines.

Fifteen teams are included in the participants list; the winner will
be awarded with the money prize of 300,000 drams, the second-seeded
contestant will receive 200,000 drams and the bronze-winner will have
100,000 drams.

From: A. Papazian

SPOKESMAN FOR AZERBAIJANI DEFENSE MINISTRY: IF THE WAR IS LAUNCHED, ARMENIA WILL BE DEFEATED IN A SHORT TIME

Milaz.info

May 25 2010
Azerbaijan

“Armenian Army has losses three times more than our army during
the ceasefire.

But the leadership of the Armenian Army always tries to hide
these reports,” spokesman for Azerbaijani Defense Ministry,
Lieutenant-Colonel Eldar Sabiroglu said at the press conference on
the line of contact in Terter, APA’s Karabakh bureau reports.

Eldar Sabiroglu underlined that Azerbaijani Army is always ready
for war.

“The current situation of our Armed Forces gives ground to say that
the army is capable of fulfilling the task under any circumstances,”
he said.

Eldar Sabiroglu also commented on the recent military exercises
conducted by the Armenian Armed Forces.

“By bringing several tanks, guns to the firing point the enemy tries
to create an appearance. We also conduct military exercises, but our
aim is not to show something, but to increase the combat skills of
our army. Despite their exercises, their losses in March 2008 in this
direction demonstrated the combat skills of their army,” he said.

Sabiroglu said the country’s economy enabled us to supply the
Azerbaijani Army with modern arms. “It makes Armenia, double-standard
international organizations, as well as the countries with pro-Armenian
positions anxious. We are purchasing arms at our own expense, but
Armenians receive it as endowment.

Everybody understands that Armenian army’s situation is hopeless. The
Armenian army is drowning in bribery. The parents give a bribe to
the commanders that their children don’t die of hunger. The soldiers
are eating at home. If the war is launched, the Karabakh issue will
be solved in a couple of minutes. Armenia will be defeated in a
short time”.

Sabiroglu said military schools of the country were developed and some
foreign countries sent their citizens to Azerbaijan to get military
education. “The citizens of two countries are already getting education
in the Azerbaijani military schools”.

From: A. Papazian

PROSPEROUS ARMENIA’S CHAIRMAN TO VISIT CROATIA AT INVITATION

Aysor
May 25 2010
Armenia

Chairman of the Prosperous Armenia Party, Gagik Tsarukian, will head
a delegation to Croatia, a spokesperson to the party said. The visit
is being paid at the invitation of Croatian President Ivo Josipovic.

Among the visit’s agenda are reported meetings with Croatian
businessmen.

From: A. Papazian