Author: Chalian Meline

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March 5 2010

Armenian genocide turned Turkey red

Turkey react angrily on US lawmakers for branding Armenian killing in
World War I by Ottoman forces as `genocide’.

Turkey has recalled its ambassador after getting furious and address
to consider other responses as well. Government of Turkey, American
representatives and fellow Nato member have tried a lot to prevent
American congress not to vote on this issue, as this can harm the
relationships between Turkey and America. Even after strong opposition
the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the symbolic resolution on
Thursday.

Being an extremely sensitive issue in Turkey, it demands a call from
President Barack Obama to make sure that US foreign policy reflects a
correct perceptive of the `genocide`.

In order to influence commission to reject the resolution a Turkish
delegation had gone to Washington. It is being said that Turkey is
expecting the issue will not pass the House for a full vote as
happened two years ago.

Earlier also in 2007, it passed the committee stage, but then was
dropped after persuasion from the George W Bush administration.

Turkey agrees that killings were committed but disagrees that they
were part of the war and that there was no organized attempt to
demolish the Christian Armenian people.

Calling it `an important step towards the prevention of crimes against
humanity’ The Armenian government welcomed the votes.

There is an important part to be remembered that at the time of his
election campaign Mr Obama promised to brand the mass killings as
genocide. And last year in October last year, Turkey & Armenia has
done a notable agreement on stabilizing relations between them.

Turkey refuses to accept a crime that it has not committed, on the
other hand Armenia wants Turkey to recognize the killings as an act of
genocide

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died in 1915, when they were
deported en masse from eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Empire.

Thousands of Armenians died in 1915 due to starvation and disease.
They have also suffered sexual abuse, rapes and humiliations by the
troops.

More than 20 countries have supported Armenian to recognize these
killings as genocide

Read more: -genocide-turned-turkey-red-06199#ixzz0hKZqRee2

AOL News
March 5 2010

Turkey Angry Over US Vote on Armenian Genocide

(March 5) — Turkey reacted with anger today at a congressional
panel’s vote labeling the 1915 killing of Armenians as genocide,
warning it could harm its relations with the U.S.

President Abdullah Gül said Thursday’s 23-22 committee vote was "an
injustice to history," adding that "Turkey will not be responsible for
the negative results that this event may lead to."

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country, which recalled
its ambassador to Washington minutes after the vote, had been accused
of a crime it did not commit, and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
said Turkey would assess what other measures it would take.

In reaction to the House panel’s vote, Turkey recalled its ambassador
to the United States. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, here
at a news conference Thursday, said his country would consider taking
other actions.
Turkey is a key ally of the U.S., and its cooperation is seen as vital
in the war in Afghanistan, where it has sent about 1,700 troops. It
also holds a seat on the U.N. Security Council, and Washington was
looking to press Turkey to back a resolution calling for tougher
sanctions against Iran.

It remains unclear whether the resolution by the foreign affairs
committee will go for a vote to the full House of Representatives. A
similar resolution passed the committee stage in 2007 but was blocked
by the Bush administration because of its possible impact on
U.S.-Turkish relations.

The Obama administration voiced its opposition shortly before
Thursday’s resolution was passed, and Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton said, "We do not believe that the full Congress will or
should act upon that resolution, and we have made that clear to all
the parties involved."

But Turkey is not satisfied with Washington’s stance so far.

"The picture shows that the U.S. administration did not put enough
weight behind the issue," Davutoglu told reporters, The Associated
Press reported. "We are seriously disturbed by the result."

Many European countries and Canada have formally recognized the 1915
events as genocide in the face of Turkey’s protests.

Up to 1.5 million Armenians are estimated to have died in 1915 when
they were deported from eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Turks. The
deaths have been acknowledged by Turkey, a Muslim country, but it says
it was not part of a systematic plan to wipe out the Christian
Armenian people.

The two countries agreed to establish diplomatic relations in October,
but the accord has not been ratified by the two nations.

enian-genocide-vote-in-congress-angers-turkey/1938 4781

15:32 05/03/2010 » Region
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey warned by Ankara

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey James Jeffrey has been called to Turkish
Foreign Ministry, Hurriyet reported. According to the paper, Jeffery
declared that `we are against the resolution approved in the U.S.
House Committee on Foreign Affairs.’

According to the source, the U.S. diplomat has been seriously alarmed
by the Turkish officials. `Messages’ to Jeffery warned that the
approving of the resolution may deeply harm the Turkish-American ties
and the normalization of Armenian-Turkish ties.

Panorama.am recalls that Turkey has traditionally rejected the mass
killings of 1,5 million Armenians carried out early in the 20th
century and took the criticism of the West painfully. The Armenian
Genocide has been recognized by lots of states. It was first
recognized by Uruguay in 1965. Later Russia, France, Italy, the
Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Sweden,
Switzerland, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Canada, Venezuela, Argentina and
the US 42 states did the same. The Armenian Genocide has been
recognized also by Vatican, the Council of Europe, the World Council
of Churches.

Source: Panorama.am

Suite101.com
March 5 2010

1915 Mass Killings by Turks Condemned
U.S. Committee Labels Deaths of Armenians to be Genocide
Mar 5, 2010 Rupert Taylor

The House Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. Congress narrowly
voted to declare the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians to be an act of
genocide.

In 1948, the United Nations defined genocide as an action intended `to
destroy in whole, or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious
group.’ Nobody disputes that the Nazi attempt to exterminate all Jews,
or the 1994 Hutu butchery of Tutsis in Rwanda, were acts of genocide.
But defining some other acts as genocide can be controversial.

Choosing Sides in World War I
In 1915, Armenia was part of the crumbling Ottoman Empire of Turkey.
It was then, and still is today, a small nation to the east of Turkey,
with many ethnic Armenians spilling over the border into eastern
Turkey.

The First World War was raging and Russian forces were advancing on
Turkey. The Armenians threw in their lot with Russia. Muslim Turkey
suspected that the Christian Armenians were some sort of fifth column
that would rise up against the government. To forestall any attempted
rebellion hundreds of thousands of Armenians were rounded up.

Death March into Syria

The Armenians were then marched into Syria and Iraq and left there in
a desert without resources. Along the way, thousands were robbed,
raped, tortured, and killed.

Grigoris Balakian, who survived the mass killings, gave an eyewitness
account of the harrowing experience in his book Armenian Golgotha; a
translation of which was published by his great nephew Peter in 2009.

60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon visited (February 28, 2010) a place
in northern Syria with Peter Balakian and found the bones of thousands
of victims of the massacre lying just below the surface of a hill.

Simon reports that, `450,000 Armenians died in this spot in the
desert. `In this region called Deir Zor, it is the greatest graveyard
of the Armenian Genocide,’ [Balakian] explained.

`Deir Zor is to Armenians what Auschwitz is to Jews.’

Turkey Denies the Armenian Massacre was Genocide

Turkey admits to the tragic events taking place but says it was not
genocide. The official Turkish version is that terrible things often
happen in wars and the deaths of the Armenians is one such sad episode
among many.

Armenians around the world have campaigned to have the affair
officially recognized as genocide. Turkey, with equal vigor, exerts
pressure to stop the genocide definition from being made. So far, most
historians and many national governments have sided with the
Armenians.

United States Defines Armenian Deaths as Genocide

On March 4, 2010, by a vote of 23 to 22, the House Foreign Affairs
Committee defined the mass killings as genocide despite a plea from
President Barack Obama to not hold a vote. The Committee decision is
non-binding and may never come to the House floor for a vote.

However, the condemnation was enough to draw a scolding for the
Turkish government. Al Jazeera (March 5, 2010) quotes a Turkish
government statement as saying, `We condemn this resolution which
accuses the Turkish nation of a crime it has not committed.’ Further
evidence of Turkey’s irritation over the issue was the recalling of
its ambassador to Washington.

Upsetting Diplomatic Efforts at Rapprochement
The Obama administration has been trying to smooth relations between
Turkey and Armenia, as had the previous Bush White House. The
committee vote throws sand into the diplomatic gears.

Writing in the New York Times (March 4, 2010), Brian Knowlton
comments: `Committee members were clearly torn between what they said
was a moral obligation to condemn one of the darkest periods of the
last century and the need to protect a relationship with Turkey, a
NATO partner vital to American regional and security interests.’

Sources

`Turkey and Armenia’s Battle over History.’ CBS 60 Minutes, February 28, 2010.

`House Panel Says Armenian Deaths Were Genocide.’ Brian Knowlton, New
York Times, March 4, 2010.

`Denial.’ Canada and the World Backgrounder, September 2008.

`Turkey Condemns U.S. Genocide Vote.’ Al Jazeera, March 5, 2010.

ass-killings-by-turks-condemned-a209551

PRESIDENT: WASHINGTON MUST AVOID DAMAGING RELATIONS WITH TURKEY

Trend
March 4 2010
Azerbaijan

In a telephone conversation with his American counterpart Barack Obama,
Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Washington should not allow the
relations between the U.S. and Turkey to be damaged on the backdrop
of their peak of development, the Turkish media reported.

In his turn, President Obama has called on Turkey to speed up the
ratification process of the Armenian-Turkish protocols.

The telephone conversation between the two presidents took place on
the backdrop of discussions in the U.S. Congress committee on foreign
affairs over resolution on so-called "Armenian genocide".

The idea of bringing the question into debate was made by chairman
of the committee on foreign affairs of the U.S. Congress Howard Berman.

Three Armenian and eight Turkish MPs are watching the discussions.

Prior to discussions, the U.S. President Barack Obama advised Congress
not to adopt resolution on genocide, CNN Turk reported.

Armenia claims that the Ottoman Empire committed genocide against
Armenians living in Anatolia in 1915. Making greater efforts to promote
the issue internationally, Armenians have achieved its recognition
by parliaments of some countries.

Meanwhile the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a telephone
conversation with the chairman of the committee on foreign affairs
of the U.S. Congress said that the adoption of resolution jeopardizes
the Armenian-Turkish protocols.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Foreign Minister of
Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu urged the U.S. not to risk the progress made
in resolving the Armenian-Turkish relations, considering this issue.

"The United States has now two options: to turn all the progress made
in relations between Turkey and Armenia and in general in the South
Caucasus to no, or to continue promoting the peace process in the
region, said Davutoglu. – We think they will choose the second option."

Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols on October 10, 2009 to
normalize relations between the two countries.

After his official visit to Moscow, the Prime Minister of Turkey
Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Ankara in December that this process is
directly related to the solution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, despite
that some people have argued that the Turkish-Armenian relations are
separate from the Nagorno-Karabakh.

ARMENIA’S FOREIGN MINISTER PRAISES PASSAGE OF H. RES. 252

armradio.am
05.03.2010 10:56

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian issued a statement,
praising the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the United States House
of Representatives for adopting the Armenian Genocide Resolution.

"We highly appreciate the decision by the Committee on Foreign Affairs
of the United States House of Representatives to adopt Resolution
252 on the recognition of the Armenian genocide.

This is another proof of the devotion of the American people to
universal human values and is an important step toward the prevention
of the crimes against humanity."

ARMENIA RESPONDS TO ‘UPDATED’ KARABAKH PEACE PLAN

Asbarez
%e2%80%98updated%e2%80%99-karabakh-peace-plan/
Mar 4th, 2010

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)-Armenia has officially responded to international
mediators’ recently modified plan to end the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,
an aide to President Serzh Sarkisian said on Thursday.

The American, French and Russian co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group
announced in January that they have developed an "updated version"
of the basic principles of a Karabakh settlement. They have still not
disclosed changes made in a document that was formally submitted the
conflicting parties in Madrid late 2007.

The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents are understood to have
discussed the updated Madrid document at their January 25 talks in
Russia hosted by President Dmitry Medvedev. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov Serzh Sarkisian and Ilham Aliyev agreed to "prepare their
own concrete ideas and formulations" on their remaining disagreements.

According to Garnik Isagulian, Sarkisian’s representative to the
Armenian parliament and former national security adviser, the Armenian
side has already sent relevant proposals to the mediators. But he
said he is unaware of their content.

"Armenia has submitted its concrete proposals, whereas the president
of Azerbaijan, according to our information, has still not made any
proposals," Isagulian told a news conference.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said on Wednesday that
Baku has already accepted the Minsk Group’s modified peace proposals
"with some exceptions." "We want to find out the Armenian side’s
opinion about the amended document, and for that purpose I will meet
the Minsk Group co-chairs [in Paris] on March 5," he said, according
to Azerbaijani media.

In a recent interview with the Euronews TV channel, Aliyev again
claimed that the mediators’ peace proposals are "based on restoration
of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan." "Azerbaijan will never
agree to independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, or to any kind of mechanisms
or procedures which will eventually lead to secession," he said.

Armenian leaders insist that the proposed agreement does include such
a mechanism. They say one of the basic principles upholds the Karabakh
Armenians’ right to formalize the disputed region’s secession from
Azerbaijan in a future referendum.

STATE-SUPPORTED ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA COMPLETED

Today’s Zaman
March 4 2010
Turkey

Work has been completed on a three-volume Armenian encyclopedia in
English, exploring Armenian history, culture and politics, with the
support of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey
(TUBÄ°TAK).

The encyclopedia, which has yet to be published, was a result of a
project led by Abant Ä°zzet Baysal University Associate Professor Kamer
Kasım, who is also an expert on the Caucasus at the International
Strategic Research Organization (USAK), and the president of USAK,
Associate Professor Sedat Laciner.

Kasım and Laciner discussed the project with TUBİTAK in 2006. With
its recent increase in interest in social sciences, TUBÄ°TAK responded
positively to the project. The two academics recently completed their
four-year study, and a three-volume encyclopedia now stands ready to
be published.

Stating that there are dozens of works in Turkey on the topic of
Armenians, Kasım explained that they prepared the encyclopedia in
English because few sources produced in Turkey are in a language other
than Turkish. He also said the encyclopedia’s content is arranged
alphabetically, with articles on many subjects ranging from history to
cuisine and from music to politics. The work also explains in detail
the incidents of 1915, during which many Armenians died while being
forcibly deported. Kasım also said they worked to dispel stereotypes
and false beliefs held about Armenians.

TUBÄ°TAK previously supported another social sciences project involving
Turkish-Armenian relations. Titled "Ninelerimizin KomÅ~_uları"
(Neighbors of our Grandmothers), the book, written by Zekeriya
BaÅ~_kal, focuses on the peaceful aspects of Turkish-Armenian relations
and was published recently.

AZERBAIJANI POLITICAL SCIENTIST: "THE WEST DEMANDS ARMENIA TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PROCESS OF DRIVING OUT RUSSIA FROM THE REGION"

APA
March 4 2010
Azerbaijan

Baku. Elnur Mammadli – APA. The Political Innovation and Technologies
Center released monthly report on the outcomes of international and
regional socio-political processes. According to APA, head of the
center Mubariz Ahmadoglu said at a press conference eon Thursday that
one of the issues being in the focus of world’s attention last month
was the processes around Iran. The political analyst said not only
Iranian nuclear program, but whole country was a threat for the world.

He said "controversial statements by the Iranian leaders created
distrust of the world community in Iran. Iran is not a strong country
today and its economy became unsustainable". Ahmadoglu said Iran’s
nuclear technologies policy turned into the speculation.

Focusing on the South Caucasian processes, the political scientist
said as against the developments few months ago, the West didn’t
insist in full restoration of relations between Turkey and Armenia.

"It was some test for Armenia and the West was assured that Armenia
could obey to them. Today the West demands Armenia to participate in
the process of driving out Russia from the region".

Ahmadoglu said domestic situation in Armenia was not stable and some
political forces addressed the Armenian patriarch in Lebanon Aram I
complaining about the government. He said Nagorno Karabakh separatist
regime was also not satisfied with the Armenian government.

The report also covered information and comments on the developments
in Azerbaijan, Central Asia and other regions of the world last month.

4 DEPUTIES OF RA NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO LEAVE FOR WASHINGTON ON MARCH 3 AT INVITATION OF U.S. CONGRESSMEN

Noyan Tapan
March 3, 2010

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, NOYAN TAPAN. At the invitation of the
U.S. Congressmen Frank Pallone and Mark Kirk, the following deputies of
the RA National Assembly: leader of ARF faction Vahan Hovhannesian,
members of RPA faction Artak Zakarian and Koryun Nahapetian, and
member of Prosperous Armenia faction Armen Melikian will leave for
Washington on March 3.

During the visit, the Armenian MPs will meet with U.S. Congressmen
and foreign policy officials and present their opinions and approaches
regarding problems of mutual interest.