Author: Karabekian Emil

Ahern calls for agreed EU policy on UN reform
By Denis Staunton in Warsaw

Irish Times
May 17, 2005

UN: Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern has called for a common
European Union position on reforming the United Nations and closer
co-operation between the EU and Africa in advance of September’s
decision-making summit in New York.

Speaking in Warsaw, where he is attending a summit of the Council
of Europe, Mr Ahern said the EU was close to agreement on many
elements of UN secretary general Kofi Annan’s reform proposals but
that important differences remained, particularly over the composition
of the Security Council.

Mr Ahern is one of five envoys appointed by Mr Annan to seek agreement
on reforming UN structures and activities.

“The whole process would get a huge shot in the arm if the EU had
a common position and it is the desire, I understand, of the EU
countries to have a common position on as much as they can, which
would be a substantial element.

“That would be seen as making a headline for the rest of the world’s
regions, if the EU can show cause,” he said.

Mr Ahern said the EU should build on its common interests with Africa
on issues such as Overseas Development Aid (ODA) and a proposal to
create a peacebuilding commission to marshal long-term international
efforts in post-conflict situations.

Mr Ahern defended Ireland’s opposition to a proposal by some EU
countries to fund development aid through an international tax on
airline fuel or airline tickets.

“If you’re paying â~B¬5 on a Ryanair ticket and then there’s in
effect a government tax of perhaps â~B¬20 or â~B¬30 on it, that’s
a huge additional cost. And for a country like Ireland, which has
a substantial tourist industry, it would be detrimental. There are
better ways of raising ODA,” he said.

Mr Ahern discussed UN reform yesterday in bilateral meetings with
ministers from Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Andorra and Armenia.

He will address the Council of Europe summit on the issue today and
hold meetings with counterparts from Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Leaders from every European country except Belarus will today agree
an action plan for the future of the Council of Europe and sign
conventions on terrorism, human trafficking and the freezing of the
financial assets of terrorists and organised criminals.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that the
Council of Europe, which is primarily a human rights organisation,
should focus more on the fight against international terrorism.

“Determining a proper balance between human rights and the need to
ensure society’s security, we recognise the necessity to comply with
universally accepted international norms,” he said.

The Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism to be signed today aims
to strengthen co-operation between member states on counter-terrorism
measures.

It includes a provision governing the protection and compensation of
victims of terrorist acts.

–Boundary_(ID_TkSrgnFVPVDYxeJMuXS0qg)–

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE TO WAY TO IRAN VIA SHIKAHOGH RESERVE

YEREVAN, MAY 16. ARMINFO. Ministry of Transport and Communication of
Armenia refuted the information on that the ministry has approved an
alternative project of construction of the motor-road to Iran passing
by the Shikahogh reserve.

Press Secretary of Ministry of Transport and Communication Tamara
Galechian informed ARMINFO, only the possibility of construction of a
highway passing by the reserve was discussed with specialists of the
Ministry of Nature Protection. Galechian informed that the Ministry of
Transport considered irrelevant the construction of a road according to
the project proposed by the Ministry of Nature Protection. The latter
increases the length of the highway by 19.5 km and has 20 sharp turns,
she said. At the same time, as Director of the information-analytic
center of the Ministry of Nature Protection Lev Haroutunian informed
ARMINFO, the ministry of transport and communication of Armenia has
approved the project of construction of a high-way passing by the
Shikahogh reserve. According to him, it was informed during Monday
regular sitting at the Ministry.

At the same tim, WWF made a protest, calling on the world community
to pay attention to the problem. According of WWF representative to
Armenia Karen Manvelian, the financing of the program for restoration
of the population of leopard, as well as other ecological programs are
suspended. Manvelian mentioned that a eries of other international
donors on financing of ecological programs have expressed a protest
against laying of the highway and stopped financing of the projects. In
the estimation of ecologists, the damage from the cutting of the
forest of the reserve will total 8 bln drams.

Council of Europe seeks to redefine its role at Warsaw summit
By JAN SLIVA

AP Worldstream
May 16, 2005

The Council of Europe will seek to redefine its role in the face of an
ever-widening enlargement of the European Union when government leaders
and heads of state meet here at a two-day summit starting Monday.

With democracy and the rule of law firmly established in the 25-member
EU and improving rapidly in the countries waiting at its doorstep,
the continent’s first pan-European political organization now acts
mostly as a human rights watchdog.

But with the European Union planning to establish its own human
rights agency, the Strasbourg, France-based Council of Europe is
asking political leaders to clarify its mandate.

“There must be no double standards, no new dividing lines in Europe.
The European Union should not duplicate our work but use the
experience, institutions and instruments of the Council of Europe,”
said Rene van den Linden, chairman of the Council’s Parliamentary
Assembly.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Ukrainian President Viktor
Yushchenko and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan are among
the 46 leaders _ each representing a Council of Europe member state _
taking part in the summit at Warsaw’s Royal Castle.

France will be represented by Foreign Minister Michel Barnier; Britain
is sending Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, and Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov is attending for Russia.

Barnier unveiled a monument to Charles de Gaulle, the former French
president, on Sunday in front of the former headquarters of the Polish
communist party’s politburo.

Polish authorities said 10,000 police officers would be deployed to
the capital for the event, in case of terrorist threats and to be
prepared for anti-globalization protests on Monday. The air space in
an 80-kilometer (50-mile) radius around Warsaw will also be closed.

More than 700 journalists were accredited to report on the summit.

The Council of Europe was created in 1949 _ originally to oversee
the democratization of western Europe after the end of World War II
and to standardize member states’ social and legal practices.

It is still the only exclusively European body where such former
Soviet republics as Moldova or Azerbaijan are represented, and is best
known for working to expose breaches of civil liberties and ensuring
that international human rights treaties are being adhered to across
the continent.

However, the EU is planning to launch a human rights agency of its
own by 2007 by expanding the mandate of its anti-racism center.

The Vienna-based European Monitoring Center of Racism and Xenophobia
keeps track of some human rights abuses, and the new agency would
have a wider role and make recommendations on how to protect and
promote human rights.

But with another body, the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe, whose members include the United States and Canada, also
partly fulfilling that role, the Council of Europe is worried its
own role will be diminished.

“There’s a lot of overlapping,” Council of Europe Secretary General
Terry Davis told journalists recently. “We need to establish who
does what.”

Also on the summit’s agenda will be the massive backlog of cases at
the European Court of Human Rights, which is directly supervised
by the Council, and the signing of three new treaties on fighting
terrorism and human trafficking.

The treaty on the prevention of terrorism calls on all European
countries to stop terror groups from recruiting new members, to improve
extradition and mutual assistance arrangements, and to ensure that
victims of terrorist attacks receive government compensation.

A second treaty on the financing of terrorism urges member states
to curb money laundering and ensure quick access to information on
assets held by criminal organizations, including terrorist groups.

The third treaty aims to combat human trafficking and ensure the
protection of victims’ rights.

“With these conventions, we are better armed to fight the evils of
human trafficking and terrorism across Europe,” Davis said. “I call
on all our member and observer states to sign and ratify them … in
order to ensure their speedy entry into force. We cannot wait for
more victims of terrorism and trafficking.”

On the sidelines, the leaders of Turkey and Armenia are expected to
discuss efforts to promote dialogue between the neighboring nations,
which do not have diplomatic relations.

The two countries sharply disagree over the mass killings of Armenians
by Ottoman Turks during World War I, which Armenians say was genocide.

Kurdish newspaper apologizes to Armenian people

13.05.2005 14:31

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – On its website, the Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem,
on behalf of the Kurdish people has offered its apologies to the
Armenian people for the years of silence and complicity in the
Armenian Genocide, Armenpress reported, citing Marmara, an
Armenian-language newspaper published in Istanbul, Turkey.

The paper has described the great suffering of the Armenian people in
stunning words, Marmara wrote. It has also apologized for its
reluctance to widely discuss the issue.

AZG Armenian Daily #086, 13/05/2005

Diaspora

LEBANESE-ARMENIAN PERIODICAL PRESS

Gevorg Yazchian, Diaspora-born historian, represented the Lebanese-Armenian
Periodical in a newly published volume. The book includes the bibliography
of about 50 Lebanese-Armenian periodicals and the links, as well as the main
points of the Lebanese law “On Publication.”

Besides, the author represented multilateral information on the contemporary
Lebanese-Armenian press.

The book also contains the photos of the periodicals’ titles and editors.

The author stated in the preface that the research can be useful for the
Lebanese-Armenian press and school, for those that are interested in the
history of the Lebanese -Armenian press.

By Armen Karapetian

Messenger Editorial, Georgia, May 11

The Guardian – United Kingdom
May 12, 2005

“In Georgia it can be expected that Mr Bush’s [popularity] will rise
following his visit to the country. What is less clear is whether the
visit will have any impact on Azerbaijan and Armenia – whether it
will, for example, persuade [their] peoples . . . of the benefits of
following a similar path as that taken in Georgia and Ukraine . . .

“There is no doubt that one reason for Mr Bush’s visit was to express
support for the type of political change that took place in Georgia,
and later in Ukraine. His message, it would seem, has reached the
Belarus opposition, and there is a possibility too that opposition
parties in Armenia and Azerbaijan will also have taken note.”

Assa-Irada. Azerbaijan
May 11 2005

Armenian FM to meet OSCE MG co-chairs

Baku, May 10, AssA-Irada
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian is due to meet with the
OSCE Minsk Group (MG) co-chairs on Saturday.
Oskanian told reporters that it is premature to say anything specific
about the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents’ planned Warsaw
meeting. `An initial agreement has been reached by the parties,’ he
said.
Commenting on President Ilham Aliyev’s refusal to attend the informal
meeting of CIS heads of state in Moscow on May 8, the day of
occupation of Azerbaijan’s city of Shusha, Oskanian said `meetings
should not be rejected at a time the parties hope for progress’.
The Armenian foreign minister has repeatedly avoided meeting his
Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov.*

Ottawa Citizen
May 10, 2005 Tuesday
Final Edition

A tulip by any other name: Turkey’s attempts to change politically
troublesome names should not extend to the beautiful Tulipa armena

by Antoine S. Terjanian, Citizen Special

It is that time of year after the Winterlude season is over, when
Ottawa starts attracting tourists again. It is the time of the world
famous Canadian Tulip Festival.

The festival originated with the generosity of Princess Juliana of
the Netherlands and the Dutch people. She expressed her gratitude to
Ottawa, where her family found refuge during the Second World War, by
sending us an annual gift of 20,000 tulip bulbs.

Ottawa photographer Malak Karsh, in love with the beauty of the
tulip, conceived the idea of the Tulip Festival. He founded it and
promoted it.

His Armenian family having moved from Mardin, after the Armenian
genocide of 1915-1923, Malak was familiar with the splendour of this
flower in his original homeland.

When it was decided that playing on the Tulipomania of the 18th
century would bring an exotic flavour to the Tulip Festival, Malak
worked on the idea and brought it to fruition. In his typical spirit
of “peace and friendship,” he involved the Turkish embassy in the
project, and a Turkish pavilion has been part of the Tulip Festival
for a few years now.

Some people now believe that tulips originated in Turkey, and a few
are even aware that Sultan Ahmed III bankrupted the Sublime Porte
(The Ottoman government) in 1730 because he speculated on tulips as
the bubble burst at the height of Tulipomania.

In her recent book The Tulip, even famous gardener-author Anna Pavord
forgets that when she went hunting for one particularly beautiful
variety of “brilliant red tulips” in “Eastern Turkey,” she had
actually set foot in historic Armenia. Pavord recounts her first
encounter with a truly indigenous variety of tulips there: Tulipa
armena. She writes: “On the road between Askale and Tercan [sic], we
came across an isolated group of tulips, with at least two dozen
flowers in full bloom. … We excavated one bulb and … established
that it must be T. armena, for it did not have much wool under its
tunic.”

Then, on the same page, Pavord goes to describe a strange encounter
with a wolf. She writes: “The … T. armena conundrum was rolling
around my head like a riddle. I opened my eyes to find a wolf
silhouetted against the sun. … Only inches from my eyes, were the
tulips, brilliant red blazes in the foreground. Behind them was the
wolf, stark against the sky. When I sat up, it bolted away,
disappearing into a low cave under a neighbouring rock crag. The
conjunction of the two was … enigmatic … I thought still of these
tulips, slashes of brilliant blood welling from the bare … slopes
of the mountain. Wolves were nothing to them. … Millennia had
passed by on this slope, while the wild tulip slowly, joyously had
evolved and regenerated itself. Even now … the tulips were plotting
new feats, re-inventing themselves in ways that we could never dream
of.”

I am as puzzled by this encounter with the wolf as Pavord seems to
be. It brings to mind the very recent attempt by the Turkish
government to change the scientific names of local animals. In a
story aired last March by the BBC, a Turkish official was quoted as
saying that many old names were contrary to Turkish unity:
“Unfortunately there are many other species in Turkey which were
named this way with ill intentions. This ill intent is so obvious
that even species only found in our country were given names against
Turkey’s unity,” a ministry statement quoted by Reuters news agency
said.

Some Turkish officials say the names are being used to argue that
Armenians or Kurds had lived in the areas where the animals were
found. The name changes affect the following: Red fox, known as
Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica, would become Vulpes Vulpes. Wild sheep,
called Ovis Armeniana, would become Ovis Orientalis Anatolicus. Roe
deer, known as Capreolus Capreolus Armenus, would become Capreolus
Cuprelus Capreolus.

Will the Turkish government also attempt to rename T. armena, the
brilliant red beautiful wild tulip? Will it try to change the name of
the apricot from Prunus Armeniaca? How far will Turkey go to try to
wipe out any evidence of Armenians from their historic homeland? How
far will the genocide extend?

I sincerely hope that Turkish citizens of good will, will on their
own put an end to these deceitful tactics of their government.

Perhaps Pavord’s vision was prophetic. Like the Armenians, the
brilliant red tulips did regenerate themselves. Gagach is the
Armenian name for tulips, and every year on April 24, mountains of
these gagachs, brought by individuals in memory of their fallen
family members, accumulate in front of the eternal flame at the
Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenia.

So next time you visit beautiful Ottawa in May for the Tulip
Festival, remember it might as well be named “Gagach Festival.”

Antoine S. Terjanian is an Ottawa resident who spent a year working
for sustainable development in the Republic of Armenia, as a
volunteer.

GRAPHIC:
Photo: Julie Oliver, The Ottawa Citizen; Flower Power: Malak Karsh
dreamed up the idea of the Ottawa Tulip Festival, since his family
immigrated to Canada from Armenia, he wouldn’t appreciate the attempt
to remove Armenia’s link to the flowers’ historic roots.

Acemoglu wins Clark Medal
By Sarah H. Wright, News Office

i-Newswire.com
2005-04-28

Professor Daron Acemoglu of the Department of Economics has received
the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years to
an American economist under the age of 40 for making a significant
contribution to economic thought and knowledge.

The Clark Medal, eminent in its own right, has proven a predictor of
future Nobel laureates: Of the 29 Clark medalists, 11 have gone on
to win the Nobel.

The American Economic Association, which presents the medal,
cited Acemoglu for his “valuable contributions to several distinct
fields, starting with labor economics and successively moving to
macroeconomics, institutional economics and political economy.”

Acemoglu, 37, has most recently focused on the role of political
institutions in economic development. His current work explores the
links among political structure, legal and market institutions, and
a nation’s long-run rate of economic growth. It takes into account
the differing effects of institutions established by colonial powers
in North America, South America and Africa on economic development
in countries in those regions.

Acemoglu received the B.A. degree from the University of York, U.K.,
and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees at the London School of Economics. He
came to MIT in 1993, was promoted to full professor in 2000 and was
named the Charles P. Kindleberger Professor of Applied Economics
in 2004.

Acemoglu is the fifth member of the present Economics Department to
receive the Clark Medal. The first was Paul A. Samuelson, Institute
Professor Emeritus, who received the award in 1947. Professor Samuelson
and Institute Professor Robert M. Solow, who won in 1961, both received
Nobel prizes. The Clark Medal was awarded to Professor Jerry A. Hausman
in 1985 and to professor emeritus Franklin M. Fisher in 1973.

A version of this article appeared in the April 27, 2005 issue of
MIT Tech Talk (Volume 49, Number 25).

US Makes Billion Dollar Aid to Armenia Despite of the Occupation

Journal of Turkish Weekly
May 8 2005

The US Government does not like military occupations. Washington
imposed embargos against Syria and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq for Lebanon
and Kuwait occupations. Serbia which breached international law in
Kosovo and Bosnia was bombed by the American air planes. However
Armenia which occupied 20 percent of another European country’s
territories (Azerbaijan) is not under such an American threat. As a
matter of fact that Washington prefers to give a gift to ‘occupier’
and ‘aggressive’ state as the EU named Yerevan:

The Millennium Challenge Account was unveiled by the Bush
administration in 2004 and Armenia is among 17 developing nations
eligible for the program’s first $1 billion aid allocation.Armenia
has already been a leading per-capita recipient of U.S. assistance
which has totaled more than $1.5 billion since 1992, when Armenian
forces poured into the Azerbaijani territories. More than 1 million
Azerbaijanis have been refugee since then. Baku accuses Armenia of
committing genocide in 1918 and in Hocali. The Economist (London)
described the picture in Hacali after the Armenian attacks as follow:

‘Some of the bodies of Azeri refugees slaughtered by Armenian fighters
as they tried to escape from the town of Khojally were clearly visible
from the helicopter. The town had been captured by the Armenians on
February 25th. A week later bodies of men, women and children lay
scattered where they had fallen in the bleak snow-covered mountains
of Nagorno-Karabakh. Several had apparently been shot at point-blank
range. One survivor told how he had seen Armenians shooting people
lying on the ground. Two of the men had been scalped, and one woman’s
fingers had been hacked off.’ (‘A View To A Slaughter’, The Economist,
7 March 1992.)

JTW 8 May 2005