Author: Jalatian Sonya

Xinhua General News Service
March 12, 2010 Friday 7:10 AM EST

Turkey uneasy over Swedish parliament’s approval of Armenian genocide
resolution

ANKARA March 12

Turkish Foreign Ministry Friday conveyed Turkey’s uneasiness to
Swedish Ambassador in Ankara Christer Asp after the Swedish parliament
passed an Armenian genocide resolution, the semi-official Anatolia
news agency reported.

The ministry strongly condemned the decision and asked Sweden to take
serious steps which would compensate this decision, according to the
report.

Sweden’s parliament on Thursday passed a resolution recognizing the
killing of Armenians and many other ethnic groups in 1915 as genocide.

The 349-seat parliament passed the resolution with a narrow majority,
with 131 yes, 130 no and 88 abstention, according to the Swedish news
agency TT.

The ministry officials told Asp that the decision might seriously harm
the relations between Turkey and Sweden which had been developing in
the recent period, said the Anatolia report.

The Swedish ambassador was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry
early Friday after the Swedish parliament’s resolution.

Asp told reporters that he explained the Swedish government’s stance
on the issue to Turkish officials during his talks at the ministry.

Asp noted the Swedish parliament’s decision was not binding for the
government, adding that the decision would certainly not affect his
country’s support to Turkey’s EU bid.

On March 4, Turkey temporarily recalled its ambassador to the United
States after a U.S. congressional panel approved a resolution labeling
the incidents of 1915 as "genocide."

Turkey and Armenia have been bogged down in the row over the deaths of
Armenians, and have no diplomatic or economic ties since Armenia
declared its independence in 1991.

Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols last October to normalize
relations, however, the parliaments of the two countries have not yet
passed them.

AMBASSADOR: TURKEY DISAPPOINTED BY DETERIORATION OF RELATIONS WITH SWEDEN

Trend News Agency
March 12 2010
Azerbaijan

Turkey’s Ambassador to Sweden Zergun Koruturk on arrival in Istanbul
expressed her regret on deterioration of bilateral relations between
the two countries, Cihan Agency reported.

After approving the document, Ankara recalled its ambassador from
Stockholm for consultations. A similar decision was adopted by the
U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee 23 votes to
22 last week. Ankara recalled its ambassadors to these countries to
protest resolutions on the so-called "Armenian genocide" adopted by
the U.S. Congress and Swedish Parliament.

Turkey’s ambassador Koruturk said that she was recalled for
consultations in Ankara. She didn’t specify the date of her return
to Stockholm.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, while commenting the issue,
said that the adoption of the resolution on the so-called "Armenian
genocide" will be a serious blow to the steps towards the normalization
of Turkish-Armenian relations.

According to Foreign Minister, historical events must not be
politicized.

ARMENIAN ARMED FORCES NEUTRALIZE AZERI SUBVERSIVE GROUPING

PanARMENIAN.Net
12.03.2010 16:36 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ An Azeri subversive grouping which attempted to
penetrate into the Armenian territory was neutralized in Koty village
of Tavush region of Armenia on March 3 night, 1.30 am.

"The Armenian military detected a group of 5 people in civilian clothes
and armed with special devices. A warning fire followed by a skirmish
as result of which one of the Azeris was wounded and taken captive
but died on the way to hospital. The others escaped to Azerbaijan. To
prevent penetrations, the Armenian armed forces undertook extra
security measures," the Armenian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Earlier the day, another Azeri grouping was detected. 3 subversives,
who acted under the artillery cover of their accomplices, were dressed
in black and were armed with guns. Two of them were killed.

The personal belongings and tattoos on the bodies of the subversives
suggest that they served in Azerbaijan special forces and were members
of Wahhabi movement.

EX-PRESIDENT OF ARMENIA IS IN FRANCE ON PRIVATE VISIT

ArmInfo
2010-03-11 12:10:00

ArmInfo. Ex-President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan is in France on a
private visit, Kocharyan’s spokesman Viktor Soghomonyan told ArmInfo.

According to him, R. Kocharyan met ex-President of France Jacques
Chirac in Paris on March 9. "I am not aware what issues were discussed
during the meeting", Soghomonyan said and added that the details of
the visit will be known after return of R. Kocharyan to Armenia.

To recall, incumbent President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan also arrived
in France on March on official visit. The delegation, headed by S.

Sargsyan, will be back to Yerevan on March 11.

CLOSER RELATIONS BETWEEN ARMENIA AND EU POSE NO THREAT TO ARMENIAN-RUSSIAN RELATIONS

ARKA
March 11, 2010

YEREVAN, March 11. /ARKA/. Development of ties between Armenia
and European Union doesn’t put Armenian-Russian relations in
danger, Goran Lennmarker, special rapporteur on Karabakh and OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly’s special envoy for Georgia, said Wednesday
at NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s Rose-Roth seminar in Yerevan.

He said that Armenia is an independent state and decides independently
with whom to cooperate.

He is convinced that closer ties with European Union pose no threat
to Armenian-Russian relations.

He thinks there is no competition.

Speaking about European Union’s Eastern Partnership initiative,
Lennmarker said that this program let Armenia decide how close its
ties with European Union will be.

He said that his homeland, Sweden, welcomes the possibility of
Armenia’s membership in the European Union.

He added hat Armenia is a European country and pointed out adoption
of Christianity by Armenians yet in 301 as evidence of that.

GORAN LENNMARKER: SENSE OF SECURITY IS A CORNERSTONE FOR ARMENIA IN SOLUTION OF KARABAKH CONFLICT

ArmInfo
2010-03-11 14:02:00

ArmInfo. A sense of security is a cornerstone for Armenia in
solution of the Karabakh conflict, OSCE PA special rapporteur on
Nagorno Karabakh Goran Lennmarker said in Yerevan today during a
seminar "Regional cooperation in the South Caucasus. Challenges,
Opportunities, Perspectives".

According to him, a sense of security for Armenia is substantiated
by the historical past full of tragic events, therefore, a sense of
security is a cornerstone for Armenia in solution of this problem,
and the Azerbaijani party has to understand and respect this sense. He
also said that the Armenian party should also understand and realize
the problem of Azerbaijan, with a sense of abjection from defeat
and unfairness at the root of it. The rapporteur warned Azerbaijan
from fomentation of hatred both at the official level and in the
mass media. He said that fomentation of hostility, which is more
in Azerbaijan than in Armenia, is too dangerous and causes growth
of tension.

UNLIKELY THAT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL WILL MAKE IT TO FULL HOUSE VOTE: DEMIRCHYAN

Tert.am
16:52 ~U 10.03.10

The People’s Party of Armenia welcomes a US House panel’s recent
decision to approve an Armenian Genocide bill, however, the party
considers it unlikely that the issue will make it to a full House vote,
said party leader Stepan Demirchyan during a press conference today.

As for Armenian-Turkish rapprochement, Demirchyan noted that it seems
as though that process has come to a dead end. According to him, Turkey
won’t ratify the Armenian-Turkish Protocols – even with preconditions.

DON’T LOSE SIGHT OF THE BIGGER PICTURE!

Hurriyet Daily News
March 9 2010
Turkey

Last week the United States House Foreign Affairs Committee narrowly
voted in favor of recognizing the mass killings of Armenians in
1915 as genocide. Ever since, the Turkish media has been full of
speculations on what might happen if the full House would support
such a resolution, which would make it extremely difficult for the
American president not to give in to the central demand: to use the
G-word in his annual speech on April 24.

How should Turkey react? What would it mean for relations between
Turkey and the U.S.? What would be the fall-out for the already
stalling process of rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia?

The interesting thing is that in the international media, most
observers tend to believe a senior Obama administration official who
said, speaking on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press,
"There was an understanding with the Democratic leadership in Congress
that the resolution would not go to a vote on the floor of the House
of Representatives." The Washington Post, well connected on Capitol
Hill, came to the same conclusion. But I am afraid these sobering
thoughts will not have a big impact in Turkey.

I wish they had. What will probably happen is that in the next six
weeks, until April 24, most pundits will be engaged in making up
all kind of scenarios based on "What if …?" And although foreign
minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said Turkey is determined to press ahead
with efforts to normalize ties with Armenia, the net result of all
these hypothetical exercises will be that nothing positive will happen
in relations between Turkey and Armenia.

The protocols, signed by both governments, will not be approved by
the Turkish Parliament because the American resolution is the perfect
excuse to stop the ratification process. It comes on top of a decision
by the Armenian Constitutional Court some weeks ago to which many in
Turkey overreacted. According to most foreign specialists, the ruling
itself does not pose an obstacle for ratification but both government
and opposition politicians were quite happy to make it into one.

One would almost lose sight of the real reasons why the Justice
and Development Party, or AKP, does not want to use its majority in
Parliament to sanction the deal made by its own ministers. It’s very
simple: it is because Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself has
repeatedly linked ratification to progress in finding a solution to
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

When Davutoglu signed the protocols in late autumn he sounded very
confident that ratification would follow in the spring of this year. I
always thought that was because the foreign minister had received some
kind of guarantee from his American, French and, most importantly,
Russian colleagues present at the ceremony that this spring, Armenia,
pushed by these three countries, would move some of its troops out
of some occupied Azeri territories. In that scenario, Turkey would
get the best of both worlds: improved relations with Armenia and
something to show to the Azerbaijanis.

Until now Armenia has not moved one soldier. That could mean three
things: 1) I was wrong, there was no guarantee, in which case Davutoglu
was far too optimistic; 2) There was a deal but the Armenians could
not be pressured to give in; or 3) There was an agreement between
the big powers but the Russians are not willing to deliver.

Anyway, the result of these misjudgements could well be that Turkey,
Armenia and Azerbaijan all remain stuck in frozen conflicts. To
prevent such a disaster, after hopes were raised so high, the ruling
party should be clever enough to keep sight of the bigger picture,
rise above petty political squabbles in Washington and Ankara and
have the courage to ratify the agreements with Armenia.

Better to have an open border than a closed mind.

SOME ASPECTS OF TURKISH-US RELATIONS

The Messenger
March 9 2010
Georgia

On March 5 the First Deputy Foreign Ministers of Russia and Turkey held
negotiations in Moscow. Different issues were discussed, including
the resolution of the Karabakh conflict, the situation in Iraq and
the Middle East generally and Iran’s nuclear programme.

Turkish newspaper Sabakh suggests that now the Armenian genocide
issue is on the agenda of the US Congress Turkey is ready to respond
to the US position and has prepared political, economic, military
and strategic answers.

The same newspaper states that Ankara is ready to conduct dialogue
with Moscow in different areas including military co-operation.

Moreover Ankara will most probably have surprises for Washington
concerning Afghanistan. It could decrease the level of its presence
there and also start reconsidering the future of the US military
bases in Turkish territory.

The Armenian genocide issue will also be discussed in the Swedish
Parliament on March 17. However Ankara has already warned Stockholm
of the possible consequences of taking what it would see as a wrong
position on this.

TURKEY’S THREAT: $11 BILLION IN AEROSPACE DEALS WITH U.S. AT RISK

World Tribune
TARC/2010/me_turkey0183_03_08.asp
March 9 2010

WASHINGTON — Turkey’s status as a major client for U.S. aerospace
companies may be in jeopardy, according to industry officials.

Marion Blakey, who leads an association that represents major
U.S. aerospace companies, said the association had expected that
Turkey would order more than $11 billion in defense and aerospace
equipment and platforms in 2010.

"Critical national security, economic and diplomatic relations with
our ally Turkey are threatened," Blakey, president of the Aerospace
Industries Association, said.

Lobbyists said Turkey could suspend procurement of U.S. civilian
and military aircraft in the wake of the passage of a resolution
in Congress on the Armenian genocide during World War I. Turkey,
which has denied involvement in the killing of one million Armenians,
has threatened retaliation for the House Foreign Relations Committee
vote on March 4.

"Turkey and the United States have important and long-standing
strategic and economic ties," Blakey said. "Turkey is a strong
democracy, a fellow member of NATO and a critical partner in the war
against terrorists."

Blakey did not cite Turkish procurement projects. But industry sources
said Turkey had planned to submit its first order of the Joint Strike
Fighter as well as select the winner of a multi-billion-dollar utility
helicopter tender in 2010.

In his March 5 statement, Blakey urged President Barack Obama and
Congress to stop the Armenian genocide resolution. He stressed that
Turkey played a key role in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan.

"We’re urging President Obama and the Speaker of the House to ensure
that the resolution doesn’t go to the House floor for a vote," Blakey
said. "There is simply too much at stake."