Author: Mamian George

OSCE MG: OSKANIAN-MAMMADYAROV TALKS WERE RICH

PanARMENIAN.Net
09.10.2006 17:36 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The talks held with the Azerbaijani and Armenian
Foreign Ministers on October 6 in Moscow were very useful and
rich, Russian Co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov
said. According to him, both Ministers positively assessed the
consultations. "I think that the Co-chairs share their opinion,"
Merzlyakov stated. The diplomat pointed out that after getting a
response from both parties as to the presentation of the proposals
regarding "fundamental principles" of the settlement, the mediators
continued talks. During the Moscow meeting, the Minsk Group Co-chairs
were unanimous in their opinion with regards to the elements of
several principles having differences, Merzlyakov said, adding,
"We hope to achieve mutual understanding in the talks that will
continue on 24 October in Paris."

The diplomat emphasized that during the Moscow meeting, debates on
the organization of the next meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian
Presidents were not conducted. This question will be discussed in
Paris. In addition, Merzlyakov refuted the previous statement that
the meeting of the leaders of the conflict parties may take place
at the CIS Summit on 17 October in Minsk. As a matter of fact, the
diplomat said, the CIS Summit is scheduled for November, reported
Trend news agency.

SARKOZY MOVES ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL
By Swaha Pattanaik

Independent Online, South Africa
Oct 9 2006

Paris – French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday set three
conditions for Turkey to avoid a vote by French deputies on a bill
making it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide at the hands
of Ottoman Turks.

Parliament, dominated by the Union for a Popular Movement that Sarkozy
leads, is due on Thursday to discuss an opposition Socialist bill on
Armenian deaths during World War One.

Turkey strongly denies the 1,5 million deaths constitute genocide.

Though the conservative majority in parliament opposes the bill, Turkey
fears many opponents will vote for the bill for fear of upsetting
France’s 400 000-strong Armenian diaspora ahead of presidential and
parliamentary elections next year.

Sarkozy, conservative frontrunner for the presidential race and
a long-standing opponent of Turkey’s EU entry, said he had set out
conditions for avoiding a vote in a telephone call with Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan.

"The first is that there is a bilateral commission between Armenia and
Turkey which has equal representation, so that these two countries can
conduct the work of acknowledging history," he told France Inter radio.

"The second condition is that Turkey reopen its borders with Armenia.

And the third condition is that Turkey gives up its penal law which
forbids people speaking of the genocide in Turkey."

He said he was not sure whether he had convinced Erdogan but added
that the Turkish premier had taken note of them.

Erdogan on Sunday criticised the bill and Turkish lawmakers warned
last week that illegal Armenian immigrants in Turkey may be expelled
and French trade hurt if the measure were passed.

Ankara strongly denies estimates that 1,5 million Armenians perished
at the hands of Ottoman Turks in a systematic genocide, saying large
numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in a partisan
conflict raging at that time.

Sarkozy also said Turkey was not guaranteed EU entry even if it
accepted calls for it to admit Armenians suffered genocide.

President Jacques Chirac has suggested recognition of the Armenian
"genocide" should be a condition of Turkish EU entry, but Sarkozy
said this would not be a sufficient condition.

"For me it is not a precondition to enter Europe. Because, to enter
Europe, the fact that a country has a duty to acknowledge its history,
as Germany did, is the minimum," Sarkozy told France Inter radio.

"But it is not because one does one’s duty of acknowledging one’s
history that one has the right to enter Europe."

Sarkozy, who says the European Union cannot expand indefinitely
and must have fixed borders, again criticised Ankara for failing to
properly recognise EU member Cyprus because of a dispute over the
divided island.

Turkey began its EU entry talks last year, though is not expected to
join for many years.

TURKISH MPs THREATEN TO EXPEL 70,000 ARMENIANS FROM TURKEY

Armenpress

PARIS, OCTOBER 5, ARMENPRESS: A group of Turkish parliamentarians
in Paris threatened they would press for expulsion of thousands of
Armenian citizens living and working illegally in Turkey if France
adopted a legislation criminalizing the denial of the Armenian
genocide.

One of the group, Sukru Elekdag from the main opposition Republican
Democratic Party was quoted by Reuters as saying that some
70,000 Armenian citizens work and live in Turkey without proper
permissions. He said they all would be forced out of the country if
France adopted the law.

The French National Assembly is set to discuss the bill in question
on October 12. In May when the bill was presented by the opposition
Socialist party, Turkey recalled its ambassador in Paris.

SAHAKIAN SAYS HE OBLIGES HHK DECISION

Panorama.am
14:46 05/10/06

"I have always been disciplined in my actions and, naturally, because
of that discipline I oblige the decision of the Armenian Republican
Party (HHK)," Arman Sahakyan, HHK board member and former vice mayor,
explains his refusal to nominate himself for the community head
elections at Ajapniak.

In his words, he had taken a right decision. However, he said he would
propose his candidacy if the present community head Artsrun Khachatryan
also ran for election. "Running for community head has never been
an end in itself for me. I was trying to fight not against a person
but the situation created in Ajapniak community for years. He said
Ajapniak "is not a community of 21st century" whereas his dream is to
live in "a normal, civilized, clean, beautiful community." Sahakyan
expressed his readiness to render further support to the community
of Ajapniak. /Panorama.am/

AZERI PARTY HAMPERS PACE MISSION’S VISIT TO THE REGION

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Oct 6 2006

October 5 the sitting of the Subcommittee on cultural heritage was
held within the frames of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe fall session. In the course of the sitting the time of
the PACE fact-finding group’s dispatch to the South Caucasus region
was discussed.

To remind, a decision on the organization of the PACE fact-finding
group’s visit to the region to estimate the cultural and historical
monuments’ condition was rendered earlier. Armenia has repeatedly
engaged the European structures’ attention to the barbarian
destruction of the Armenian monuments in Nakhijevan and other
territories controlled by Azerbaijan.

According to the information DE FACTO got at the RA NA Press Service,
the Azeri delegation’s representatives were absent from the sitting,
which caused the indignation of the Commission’s members. A member
of the Armenian delegation in PACE, RA NA deputy Stepan Demirchyan
noted Armenia was ready to receive the PACE mission. Stepan Demirchyan
expressed his indignation on the behavior of the Azeri party hampering
the mission’s organization.

The Subcommittee has decided to give a month to Azerbaijan, and,
unless the issue is set in motion, the Azeri party will be sent a
letter with the appropriate assessment of such behavior.

RETURN TO HIS ROOTS BROUGHT DAVID TO TEARS
Ian Wylie

Manchester Evening News, UK
Oct 3 2006

EMOTIONAL JOURNEY: David DickinsonTEARS flow as antiques expert
and TV presenter David Dickinson embarks on a poignant and touching
personal journey.

"Most people will have their mother and father and will know their
roots and will never question them. In my case, there’s always been
a question," he explains.

Stockport-raised David’s voyage of discovery takes him from Manchester
to Istanbul via Jersey and provides Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC1,
October 4, 9pm) with one of the best editions in the current series.

He was born in 1941, the illegitimate son of an Armenian woman
called Eugenie Gulessarian, the result of an affair she had with a
married man.

In the moral climate of that time, his mother could not keep David.

He was adopted by Jim and Joyce Dickinson when he was just a few
months old, and brought up in Cheadle Heath.

"I always felt a little different," he recalls.

At the outset of his TV research, David adds, "I’m excited about the
thought of tracing my grandfather’s origins, because I think that’s
what I’m about. I think I’m really east meets west, in a way."

Now 65, David didn’t discover he was adopted until he was 11, finding
his birth and adoption certificates in his granny’s desk. That’s when
the questions began. "Where have I come from? What kind of people
were they? Why did they have me adopted?"

He was 28 when he traced his birth mother Eugenie – known as Jenny.

They exchanged letters for two decades. But when she died in 1989,
they had never met face to face.

Jenny met and married another man called Bert, some two years after
giving David up for adoption. They had a son called Ken and moved to
Jersey, deciding never to tell anyone about David’s birth.

Jersey

Whenever David offered to visit his mother, she refused. Having
landed in Jersey with the TV team, he says: "I could have got on a
plane at any time and come over here. I had all the confidence in the
world and I could have just walked up to the door, but I considered,
‘Why should I do that? Why should I enter this woman’s life and turn
it topsy-turvy and cause her grief?’

"She was scared, she was nervous. She said to me that her husband could
be rather difficult. The truth may be she just couldn’t face up to
meeting the child that you give away. And I think I respect that also."

If you look at the photo of Jenny as an older woman, you can
immediately understand her fears that others would realise David was
her son, long before he was a well-known TV face.

"She used to say to me, ‘People will put two and two together. People
will recognise you.’ She was, obviously, alarmed at that thought."

After the death of his natural mother, David made contact with his
half-brother Ken and his wife, Sue. They live in the same house in
Jersey where Jenny and her husband Bert lived for 40 years.

There are plenty of tears as the two brothers again discuss those lost
years and their mother. Recalling their very first meeting, Ken says,
"When you walked through the arrivals hall, I could feel the hairs
on the back of my neck standing on end because it was just like a
reincarnation of her.

"I thought, ‘Here I am. I’ve had the love of this wonderful woman all
throughout my childhood, and all you’ve got are these letters.’ Very
emotional."

More tears flow when David walks along the beach, reflecting on the
mother he never met. "She did what she thought was the best. Coming
over here and seeing Ken happy there with his wife in the house which
his mum, and dad, brought him up in … a bit tearful today, really."

Back in Manchester, David discovers more about his grandfather,
Hrant Gulessarian, a wealthy textiles merchant who came to the city
from Istanbul in 1904.

With Christian Armenians facing persecution in Turkey, Hrant became
part of a thriving Armenian community in Manchester.

After joining an uncle already set up here in business, he became a
millionaire in his twenties.

Blackpool hotel

But Hrant later lost most of his fortune, spending his last years
living alone in a Blackpool hotel room before his death in 1963.

Although, at the time he never knew his grandfather or his background,
David actually followed in his footsteps and believes he inherited
the family genes for toughness.

"I’m not really a Dickinson. I’m definitely a Gulessarian. Since I
was 11, I’ve been chasing the Gulessarian name. Perhaps I’ve been
trying to prove something."

He visits the Armenian church in Manchester and finds records of his
grandfather’s wedding, plus details of his mother’s birth. Hrant lived
the life of an English country gentleman with his wife Marie-Adelaide,
the daughter of a Moss Side baker, in Great Warford, Cheshire, just
20 minutes’ drive from David’s present-day home.

But their marriage did not last. Hrant’s business was failing and
the couple drifted apart. Divorce papers mention her frequent adultery.

David asks, "What can you say when your grandmother turns out to be
a bit of a tart?"

He visits the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry and uncovers
more about his grandfather’s 1920s city centre business.

There are a few last pieces of the jigsaw waiting for him as he
travels to Istanbul to find out what happened to the Turkish branch
of his family, including the discovery of a new-found relative.

His ancestral quest at an end, David is happy his questions have
finally been answered. "Now the circle is completed as far as I’m
concerned. It’s put to rest."

k/entertainment/filmandtv/s/224/224639_return_to_h is_roots_brought_david_to_tears.html

HRANT DINK DOES NOT THINK TURKEY WILL RUSH TO AMEND THE PENAL CODE
Marlena Hovsepyan

Public Radio of Armenia
Sept 2 2006

Surprise was awaiting Hrant Dink on his return to Turkey after the
Armenia-Diaspora Third Forum in Armenia: he learned from media that
a new case was launched against him according to Article 301 of the
Penal Code for offending Turkishness. This time the reason was the
interview with "Reauters" agency. To the request to characterize the
events that occurred at the turn of the century, Hrant Dink said,
"How can these be called, if not genocide? The people that lived on
the land for four thousand years does not live there. What is this,
if not genocide?"

In an interview with "Radiolur" Hrant Dink declared he has not
received a notice of appointment so far, and he has no idea hoe the
events will develop this time, but even Turkish intellectuals have
raised noise connected with the new lawsuit.

Recently the European Parliament set as precondition for Turkey’s
accession to the European Union the amendment of the Penal Code.

Certainly, pressures of the international community have certain
influence, but Hrant Dink does not consider that Hrant Dink will rush
to amend the Penal Code.

"I don’t think any change will be implemented in this direction before
the parliamentary elections next year. Xenophobia has proceeded,
and the chauvinists stand against this."

One of these days Turkish TV again referred to the Armenian Genocide
issue. The guest of the NTV Channel Hrant Dink said that inviting the
Armenians of the world to Turkey to discuss the Armenian Genocide is
double-dealing, "You call the Armenians of the world to come to Turkey
to speak about the Genocide. Do you think the Armenians will not use
the word "genocide?" Will you sue them? If you don’t charge them, then
why do you charge me? Is it my fault that I am a citizen of Turkey?"

We can only hope that the Turkish court will not consider these words
offensive for Turkey and will not launch the third case against Dink.

SEPT 27 OPPOSITION PARTIES TO SIGN STATEMENT ON START OF ANTI-CRIMINAL MOVEMENT IN ARMENIA

ARMINFO News Agency
September 25, 2006 Monday

This Thursday almost 20 opposition parties of Armenia will sign a
statement on the start of anti-criminal movement in the country.

The initiators of the project discussed today several drafts of the
statement and instructed a working group to finalize it by Sept 27.

One of the leaders of the Republic party, former interior minister
Suren Abrahamyan says: "We must demand that the government immediately
clear the country from criminal, otherwise we will raise a wide
national movement and will change them."

Commenting on the last tough words of Prime Minister Andranik
Margaryan that the initiators of the anti-criminal movement have no
proofs that crime and government have inter-penetrated, the leader
of the New Times party Aram Karapetyan says: "Today, they say that
the head of the investigation department of the State Customs Service
Shahen Hovassapyan might have been killed by Armen Virabyan, nicknamed
Schwarz. Isn’t he the same Schwarz who went to Moscow several years
ago for organizing the attempt on the life of Serzh Jilavyan? How
come he is still in the state administration system and has even got
promotion. So, here you have specific example of inter-penetration
of crime and officialdom," says Karapetyan.

The leader of the Fatherland and Honor party Garnik Margaryan says:
"Territorial Administration Minister Hovik Abrahamyan owns over 10
plants and as many wine factories in Ararat region. I wonder how much
a person who was car washer and spare part seller in 1988 should earn
to buy so much," says Margaryan.

[Zoryna note: The following article was translated from Turkish by the
Zoryan Institute, which does not necessarily agree with nor endorse
the contents of the article.]

"Easy Fame!"
By Ruhat Mengi
Vatan, September 20, 2006

Orhan Pamuk was able to have his name heard and have supporters in Europe,
when he made an international statement about a subject that he did not know
nor researched, even though this subject was critically important for
Turkey.

Elif Shafak, on the other hand, became famous when she was taken to court
about her book in which it was explained that "Turks butchered the Armenians
like lambs," and when she said that ‘When I came to the US, the Zoryan
Institute educated me, I solved the Genocide problem."

Even the TUSIAD intervened on behalf of this woman, stating that "but the EU
is really watching this trial."

You see how easy it is to become famous?

As Serdar Ortac’s song says, "if you can really move it like a belly dancer,
if your spine is flexible enough to distort the history even if detrimental
to your country, if you can defend positions similar to those of the
Armenian Diaspora by ignoring the true history, and if you can forget the
murdered Turkish diplomats years after these events, it is so easy.”

FR online
URL:
/sport/aktuell/?em_cnt=975863

Frankfurter Rundschau

Arthur Abraham verteidigt WM-Titel gegen Miranda

Wetzlar (dpa) – Blut, uberall Blut: Die Boxer in Rot getrankt,
das Blau des Ringrichter-Hemdes rosa gefarbt, Ringboden und Seile
verschmiert. Ende einer Ringschlacht. Box-Weltmeister Arthur Abraham
bezahlte den großten Sieg seiner Karriere in Wetzlar mit einer
schweren Verletzung.

Der 26 Jahre alte Berliner musste nach seinem einstimmigen Punktsieg
(114:109, 115:109, 116:109) uber den Herausforderer Edison Miranda
(Kolumbien) mit einem Kieferbruch sofort in ein Krankenhaus
eingeliefert und operiert werden. Zwolf Stunden spater sah die
Welt fur den Box-Profi schon wieder freundlicher aus. "Arthur ist
schon wieder gut drauf", sagte ein Sprecher nach einem Besuch der
Sauerland-Promotion-Fuhrung im Krankenhaus. Die Operation sei ohne
Komplikationen verlaufen und Abraham in die normale Krankenstation
verlegt worden. Dem Schutzling von Trainer Ulli Wegner war bei dem
Eingriff eine Titanplatte in den Kiefer eingesetzt worden.

Der in nunmehr 22 Kampfen unbesiegte IBF-Champion im Mittelgewicht
hatte in der Nacht zuvor eine starke Willensleistung abgeliefert. "Ich
kann mich nicht an Vergleichbares erinnern, und ich habe schon einiges
gesehen. Das war sensationell von Arthur", sagte Promoter Wilfried
Sauerland nach dem Box-Ereignis des Jahres in Deutschland.

Schon nach vier Runden saß Abraham mit schmerzverzerrtem Gesicht
in der Ecke. Blut schoss aus seinem verletzten Kiefer. Als dann
auch noch ein vermeintlicher Kopfstoß von Miranda folgte, stand das
Duell vor dem Abbruch. Der Ringrichter wollte, der Supervisor aber
nicht. Abraham schon gar nicht. "Arthur hat mir gesagt, er wolle nur
aufhoren, wenn er ganz sicher gewonnen hatte", schilderte Ringarzt
Walter Wagner die dramatische Situation.

Ware der Champion aus dem Ring genommen worden, hatte er durch
Technischen K.o. verloren. Das wollte aber bis auf die gegnerische
Seite niemand. So boxte Abraham ungeachtet der hollischen Schmerzen
mit standig geoffnetem Mund weiter, schlug weiter, punktete weiter
und landete einen Sieg uber sich selbst. "Ich habe noch nie erlegt,
dass einer mit so einer Verletzung acht Runden durchgehalten und dann
noch gewonnen hat. Davor ziehe ich den Hut", sagte Wagner.

Der erfahrene Ringarzt geht davon aus, dass Abraham seinen Titel
fruhestens in einem halben Jahr wieder verteidigen kann. Die nachsten
vier Wochen steht fur den geburtigen Armenier, der seinen ersten Kampf
mit deutscher Staatsburgerschaft bestritt, erst einmal ausschließlich
Flussignahrung auf dem Programm. In etwa drei Monaten ist wieder an
wettkampfnahes Sparring zu denken.

"Selbst die amerikanischen Kommentatoren, die ja einiges gewohnt
sind, waren beeindruckt", berichtete Sauerland. Der Fight war live
im amerikanischen Fernsehen zu sehen. Insgesamt 35 Lander hatten sich
Ubertragungsrechte gesichert.

Miranda und sein Umfeld waren enttauscht. Sie hatten ihren
Mann, der selbst nach Abrahams Verletzung nicht das Format eines
Pflichtherausforderers nachwies, als Abbruchsieger gesehen. "Sie
haben mit der Entscheidung weiterzuboxen, die Karriere eines jungen
Champions zerstort", sagte Promoter Leon Margules.

–Boundary_(ID_CjlTT0/y6s5JiA+0xZa6Tg)- –