Author: Nahapetian Lilit

New Anatolian, Turkey
May 29 2006

Azerbaijani parliamentarian: Key to solving Nagorno-Karabakh is in
Russia’s hands

Senem Caglayan – The New Anatolian / Ankara

Azerbaijani parliamentarian Akram Abdullayev said that the
Nagorno-Karabakh problem is a legacy of the Soviet Union to
Azerbaijan and Armenia and therefore the key to a solution rests in
Russia’s hands.
Speaking to The New Anatolian in an exclusive interview, Abdullayev,
who describes himself as a close friend to Turkey, also dismissed the
efforts of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia towards finding a solution
to the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, saying that the issue is
more complicated than was predicted. He urged the big powers to work
in cooperation with Russia in order to find a solution.
Warning against the dangers of a failure to find a diplomatic
solution to the disputed enclave, Abdullayev said that the
Azerbaijani people might think of military options since it is
unacceptable for them to give these lands to Armenia. Citing the
growing Azerbaijani economy and military, and predicting that the
Azerbaijani military budget will equal Armenia’s in the years to
come, Abdullayev stated that time is on Azerbaijan’s side.
Abdullayev, a member of the Turkish-Azerbaijani Interparliamentary
Friendship Group, expressed his hope for further development and
strengthening of relations between the two countries in various
areas, calling on Turkey and other Turkic nations to bring the
genocide committed against the Turks to the agenda of European
parliaments in retaliation for Armenian genocide claims.
Touching on the Iranian nuclear standoff, the Azerbaijani
parliamentarian said his country favors a diplomatic solution to the
crisis, warning of the dangers of military action against Iran for
the region. Abdullayev also hinted at Azerbaijan’s readiness to act
like a bridge between the U.S. and Iran to bring the nuclear standoff
to an end, citing his country’s good relations with the U.S. and
historic ties with neighboring Iran.
Amid the current row between the Iranian Azeris and Tehran over an
Iranian newspaper’s publication of humiliating cartoons of Iranian
Azeris, Abdullayev stated that although the Iranian Azeris play an
important role in their country’s politics, they would not push for a
regime change in the country, despite the assertions of some U.S.
circles. Warning against any kind of foreign intervention in the
domestic affairs of a country, Abdullayev said, “The Iranian people
choose their presidents and their regime. Foreign intervention would
create dangerous results and many problems.”
Here’s what Akram Abdullayev had to tell us:
TNA: How do you see the level of relations between Turkey and
Azerbaijan, and what could be done to further develop relations?
Abdullayev: I see no problem in bilateral relations. During the
latest visit of Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to Azerbaijan,
the two sides had consultations on how to further develop relations,
and this visit was also the confirmation of strategic friendship and
cooperation between the two countries. Whenever Azerbaijan faces a
problem during Council of Europe (CoE) meetings, Turkey is the sole
supporter of Azerbaijan. The mutual support during the Council of
Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) meetings is another indicator of
our warm relations and friendship. I hope our relations will be
further developed in various areas.
TNA: What’s your idea about the Nagorno-Karabakh problem? Are you
hopeful about a solution?
Abdullayev: Certainly, all the problems have solutions. Talks to find
a peaceful solution to the dispute will continue. President Ilham
Aliyev also discussed this issue during his meeting with U.S.
President George W. Bush in Washington. But should no peaceful
solution be found to the disputed enclave, the Azerbaijani people are
in favor of regaining these lands through military means. We won’t
give up these lands. We won’t present them to Armenia. If a solution
isn’t found through peace, the last resort for us is war.
TNA: What are your expectations from Turkey in this dispute?
Abdullayev: In this problem, Turkey is Azerbaijan’s political
partner. Turkey has an important role in the process of finding a
solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute but at the same time Turkey
has its own problems with Armenia. Armenians brought the Armenian
genocide claims to the agenda of the world in order to create a
headache for Turkey. Turkey has to work for the benefits of
Azerbaijan.
TNA: Could the process of normalization of relations between Turkey
and Armenia contribute to efforts to find a peaceful solution to the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute?
Abdullayev: This problem can’t be solved even if Turkey establishes
diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan or within the process of
normalization of relations because the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute isn’t
the problem of the region. The efforts of Turkey, Azerbaijan and
Armenia aren’t enough to solve the problem. We need the efforts of
big powers and organizations. The key to a solution is especially in
the hands of Russia. The Russian Army is in Armenia and if Azerbaijan
tries to find a solution through military means, it will face the
Russian Army.
It seems to me that finding a solution to the divided enclave is very
difficult. But time is on Azerbaijan’s side. This year Armenia’s
total budget is $1 billion, and the Azerbaijani military’s share of
the total budget is $600 billion. According to Aliyev’s estimates,
the Azerbaijani military’s share of the budget will be higher that
Armenia’s budget in the years to come. Azerbaijan is building up its
military but Armenia is unable to do that. Azerbaijan’s total budget
is more than $4 billion this year and it will be more than $6 billion
next year. As our country will develop economically, we will take our
deserved place among the world states and will have a big position.
TNA: Why aren’t Russia and other big powers working for a solution?
Do they have any interests in the continuation of the dispute in
Nagorno-Karabakh?
Abdullayev: There are visible and invisible sides of politics. The
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute didn’t start yesterday, it stems from the
1988 events while Gorbachev was president. Fifteen republics split
off from the Soviet Union. At that time the Soviet Union created
problems for each split-off republic in order to stop their
development. For instance, it created the Abkhazia problem for
Georgia, the Crimean problem for Ukraine and the Nagorno-Karabakh
problem for Azerbaijan and Armenia. At that time nobody wanted the
dissolution of the Soviet Union but this process was inevitable in
general. The Nagorno-Karabakh dispute is the legacy of the Soviet
Union to Azerbaijan. For these reasons, a solution could only be
found as a result of negotiations between Russia and other big
powers.
TNA: What is Azerbaijan’s position towards the Armenian genocide
claims and the French bill introducing prison terms for people who
question these claims?
Abdullayev: While bringing the genocide claims to the agenda of
European parliaments, Armenia aimed at creating an obstacle for
Turkey’s membership bid in the European Union. Those who brought the
issue to the French Parliament are the European parliamentarians well
paid by the Armenian lobby. Today, neither the Turkish genocide nor
the Armenian genocide is important for France.
Turks are a nation which faced a brutal genocide. But they didn’t
make their voices heard in the world. I think both Turkey and other
Turkic nations should bring the genocide committed against the Turks
to the world’s agenda and should work for the recognition of the
genocide by the international community.
TNA: What’s the position of Azerbaijan towards the nuclear standoff
between Iran and the West?
Abdullayev: Azerbaijan supports finding a diplomatic solution to the
nuclear crisis and it opposes military action against Iran.
Azerbaijan is a historic neighbor of Iran and the two countries have
good relations. There are some 20 million Iranian Azeris living in
Iran. Therefore, Azerbaijan can’t accept military action against Iran
and can’t stand to shed the blood of our brothers.
TNA: Can Azerbaijan play a mediator role between Iran and the U.S. in
the nuclear crisis, given the role of the Iranian Azeris?
Abdullayev: It might be or might not be. Since 2001 Azerbaijan has
become a member of the anti-terror coalition. It has good relations
both with the U.S. and Iran. Besides, it has cultural ties with Iran.
Iranian Azeris play a role in Iranian politics. For those reasons,
Azerbaijan can be a bridge between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. hasn’t
suggested that Azerbaijan play such a role yet, but the Azerbaijani
Parliament might consider debating this issue.
TNA: Can the Iranian Azeris be a catalyst for regime change in Iran,
as asserted by some U.S. circles?
Abdullayev: I don’t accept the intervention of any country in the
domestic affairs of another. If the Iranian citizens want to change
the regime, they will vote in accordance with this aim. The Iranian
president and regime are determined by the votes of its citizens.
Therefore, this issue should be left to the citizens. Even if the
U.S. wants to change the regime, it would be very difficult, and
intervention in Iranian politics would create dangerous consequences.

SPRING SOWING PROCEEDS SLOWLY IN SYUNIK BECAUSE OF UNFAVORABLE WEATHER

KAPAN, MAY 29, NOYAN TAPAN. As of May 26, spring sowing work was done
on 5.8 thousand ha out of the planned area of 7-8 thousand ha in
Syunik marz (3.4 thousand ha was sown with grain crops). Deputy head
of the agriculture and nature protection department of the regional
administration Vahram Avanesian told NT correspondent that the work is
proceeding slowly due to unfavorable weather. It was noted that
although the number of rodents has considerably declined in
agricultural zones of the marz in recent years, the local farms will
be allocated chemical pest-killers. However, weeds have grown in the
areas under crops because of high humidity this year, which will also
hinder the work. At the same time, according to V. Avanesian, the
Armenian government has supplied the marz with 19 thousand tons of
nitric fertilizer at low prices. The process of transporting the
fertilizer to the marz and its distribution has entered its final
stage.

Bush urges Azeri leader to be consistent in Karabakh settlement

Turan news agency
26 May 06

Baku, 26 May: US President George Bush has congratulated Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev on the national holiday – Day of the Republic
(28 May).

Recalling his meeting with Aliyev in Washington last month, Bush
called it a “historical opportunity” for the development of “common
interests in the sphere of security, energy and democracy”. “Your
government is continuing to build a successful future full of hope for
the Azerbaijani people,” Bush wrote. He expressed the hope that the
Aliyev government will continue democratic and economic reforms to
ensure Azerbaijan’s success in the future.

Bush also expects Aliyev to conduct a consistent policy to achieve a
peaceful solution to the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict.

[Passage omitted: Aliyev has also received congratulations from other
world leaders]

KARABAKH REPUBLIC HAILS MONTENEGRIN INDEPENDENCE VOTE

Mediamax news agency
25 May 06

Yerevan, May 25: The foreign ministry of the Nagornyy Karabakh
republic today issued a statement about the referendum on independence
in Montenegro.

The statement says the following:

“It is a positive event that a referendum on independence was held
in Montenegro and the international community showed its readiness
to recognize its results. We are sure that the respect for a nation’s
right to self-determination exercised through a nation-wide referendum
is a cornerstone of the settlement of similar situations and is a
tool for establishing political stability in a conflict region.

“In this connection, it is expedient to recall that the disrespect
for the right of the people of Nagornyy Karabakh, who voted for
independence at a referendum on 10 December 1991, in fact resulted
in Azerbaijan’s military aggression against the Nagornyy Karabakh
republic which led to human casualties and destruction.

“In the process of settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict,
the disregard of the right of the people of Nagornyy Karabakh to
self-determination and to political independence and economic and
military security, will reduce the possibility of finding a mutually
acceptable solution and establishing lasting peace and mutual
understanding in the region.”

FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway

The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief

========================================== ======
Wednesday 24 May 2006
TURKMENISTAN: “WHAT WILL REGISTRATION GIVE US?”

Despite making several registration applications, the Armenian Apostolic
Church community in Turkmenistan’s capital Ashgabad has still not been
given state registration, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Some religious
communities have considered registration – including Protestants, Catholics
and the Jehovah’s Witnesses – but have not yet applied. Protestant
congregations are sceptical about their chances of gaining registration.
Forum 18 has been told that during interrogations of ethnic Turkmen
Protestants, they are told to report everything that happens in their
churches to the authorities. “You have to do this if you’re registered,”
they are told. A Catholic parish has not applied for registration, as they
are not allowed to have a foreign priest leading the parish. Jehovah’s
Witnesses told Forum 18 that “there’s still the very important question:
what will registration give us? Others have got registration and it hasn’t
helped them.”

TURKMENISTAN: “WHAT WILL REGISTRATION GIVE US?”

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <;

Back in February, the Armenian Apostolic Church community in
Turkmenistan’s capital Ashgabad [Ashgabat] lodged an application for state
registration. “Although three months have gone by the Justice Ministry has
made no response,” an Armenian who preferred not to be identified told
Forum 18 News Service from Ashgabad on 22 May. “This is the third or
fourth application the community has lodged.”

No-one at the Registration Department of the Adalat (Fairness or Justice)
Ministry was available to explain to Forum 18 why the application by
Ashgabad’s Armenian community has not been processed. Reached on 22 May,
Maysa Sariyeva, who is head of the International Legal Affairs and
Registration of Public and Religious Organisations Department, put the
phone down as soon as Forum 18 explained who was calling. Subsequent calls
went unanswered. Also not answering his telephone on 22 and 23 May was
Serdar Valiev, who reports to Sariyeva and has responsibility for
registering religious communities.

The Armenian ambassador, Aram Grigoryan, was out of the country on 22 May
and no-one at the Embassy was able to comment on the stalled registration
application from the Ashgabad Armenian community. Nor was anyone available
for comment at the Armenian Foreign Ministry in Yerevan on 22 May, or at
the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Echmiadzin near the
Armenian capital.

The registration application was lodged exactly one year after the
authorities destroyed the last surviving pre-revolutionary Armenian
Apostolic church in the country, in the Caspian port town of Turkmenbashi
[Türkmenbashy, formerly Krasnovodsk], on the orders of President
Saparmurat Niyazov. The authorities had previously refused to hand it back
to the local Armenian community for worship (see F18News 23 May 2006
< e_id=786>).

In the absence of any Armenian Apostolic church in Turkmenistan, Armenian
Christians who wished to worship have had to attend Russian Orthodox
churches (although the Armenian Church is of the Oriental, not the
Orthodox family of Churches). An estimated one sixth of parishioners at
Turkmenistan’s Russian Orthodox churches are ethnic Armenians.

Meanwhile, other religious communities which have been considering lodging
registration applications – including Protestant Christians, the Catholic
parish in Ashgabad and the Jehovah’s Witnesses – have not yet done so.

Forum 18 has learnt that several Protestant congregations are preparing
registration applications, but many are sceptical that the Adalat Ministry
will grant it. “All the churches wanting to get registration are made up of
ethnic Turkmens and it is not so easy,” one Protestant told Forum 18 on 22
May. “The authorities don’t like this.” The Protestant said that the
Protestant congregations the Adalat Ministry was forced to register under
international pressure from 2004 – including the Adventists, Baptists,
Pentecostals, Greater Grace, Light of the East and the Church of Christ –
were all made up of ethnic Russians. “When the persecution was at its
worst five or six years ago, ethnic Russian churches suffered, but Turkmen
believers suffered the worst.”

Even today, the Protestant added, every time officials interrogate any
ethnic Turkmen Protestants they tell them they should report everything
that happens in their churches to the authorities. “You have to do this if
you’re registered.”

The Jehovah’s Witnesses remain cautious. “Nothing has moved on the
registration issue,” one Jehovah’s Witness told Forum 18 on 22 May. “The
authorities show no real desire to register us. There’s still the very
important question: what will registration give us? Others have got
registration and it hasn’t helped them.” Contacts in 2005 with the Adalat
Ministry were “not very encouraging”, the source added. However, the
Jehovah’s Witnesses have not ruled out trying to get registration and are
still working on preparing the necessary documentation.

Ashgabad’s Catholic parish has not yet applied for registration, as it
remains unhappy with the terms of the Religion Law and has not been able
to meet Adalat Ministry officials to discuss the wording of the statute.
“We want to explain to the Ministry the absolute impossibility for the
parish to be led by a local citizen,” one Catholic familiar with the
process told Forum 18 on 23 May. “The authorities have to allow us to
build up a community and only with time will there perhaps be a local
priest who could lead the community. We want to discuss this point with
the Ministry and we hope they’ll understand it.”

The Catholic said the community is grateful that the Turkmen authorities
have allowed two Polish priests to serve the community. Mass is currently
held on Vatican diplomatic territory in the Nunciature in Ashgabad.
Eventually the Catholics would like to build a church to replace the one
destroyed by an earthquake in Soviet times. “But the church is the
community, not the building,” the Catholic stressed to Forum 18.

Other religious communities registered since May 2004 are the Baha’is, the
Hare Krishna community and the New Apostolic Church. Already registered
were about a hundred Sunni Muslim mosques. Shia Muslim mosques are
unofficially barred from registering. Most of the country’s 12 Russian
Orthodox churches were finally re-registered in November 2005, though the
Dashoguz [Dashhowuz] parish was stripped of registration in 2003 and has
been unable to regain it. The parish has also been prevented from
completing building work on its church (see F18News 3 April 2006
< e_id=754>).

Conditions that have been imposed on registered communities are highly
restrictive, including bans on meeting for worship, including in private
homes, and on printing and importing religious literature (see F18News 28
February 2005 < 521>), tight
financial restrictions and a ban on foreign citizens leading religious
communities (see F18News 13 May 2004
< e_id=320>). Many religious
believers in Turkmenistan strongly object to these conditions, describing
religious freedom in the country as “fictitious” (see F18News 16 February
2006 < 728>).

Among the problems communities have experienced since registering are that
nationally registered communities have had their regional communities’
registration denied by officials in police raids (see F18News 19 December
2005 < 707>); and unwritten
extra-legal obstacles have been placed in the way of unregistered
communities registering, or registered communities meeting (see F18 News 9
December 2005 < 702>).
Registered congregations are also pressured to subscribe to the cult of
personality around President Niyazov, and the Ruhnama, his alleged
“spiritual writings” (see F18News 1 March 2005
< e_id=522>).

Unregistered religious activity remains illegal (see F18Nerws 24 May 2004
< e_id=326>).

Although extreme harassment of religious communities has eased off
recently, incidents are still occurring (see eg. F18News 19 January 2006
< e_id=717>). Among recent
incidents, two teachers of the Koran in the village of Kongur near the
south-eastern town of Mary were summoned by the Ministry of State Security
(MSS) secret police early in the year and banned from teaching the Koran,
Jumadurdy Ovezov, a correspondent for Radio Free Europe’s Turkmen Service
told Forum 18 from Mary on 15 May.

Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 that in March, one of their members was
detained in Ashgabad while he was on his way to visit a fellow-believer. A
police officer hit him on the head several times, forced him to get into a
car and took him to the police station. There he was interrogated and had
his Bible and other religious books confiscated, but was released later
that day. In April, two female Jehovah’s Witnesses were coming out of a
block of flats in Turkmenbashi when they were detained by police. They
were taken by car to the local police station where they were searched and
interrogated. “Officers used the usual crude words during the
interrogation,” one Jehovah’s Witness told Forum 18. The two were forced
to write statements before being freed.

Protestants have complained that some are still being prevented from
travelling abroad for religious purposes, including a group who had visas
but were not handed their pre-paid tickets ahead of their planned
departure from Ashgabad airport in April. “We don’t know why this
happened,” one Protestant told Forum 18. “The travel company and all the
other people at the airport kept putting the blame on each other.”

Hare Krishna devotee Cheper Annaniyazova is still in jail, on a seven year
jail term believed within Turkmenistan to have been inspired by the MSS
secret police to intimidate the Hare Krishna community (see F18News 3
April 2006 < 754>). (END)

For a personal commentary by a Protestant within Turkmenistan, on the
fiction – despite government claims – of religious freedom in the country,
and how religious communities and the international community should
respond to this, see < 728>

For more background, see Forum 18’s Turkmenistan religious freedom survey
at < 672>

A printer-friendly map of Turkmenistan is available at
< s/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=turkme& gt;
(END)

© Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved. ISSN 1504-2855
You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to
F18News

Past and current Forum 18 information can be found at

ROBERT SIMMONS: “NATO DOESN’T OBJECT TO RUSSIAN BASE IN ARMENIA”

Today, Azerbaijan
May 23 2006

NATO has nothing against the Armenian wish to have a Russian military
base on its territory, special representative for the South Caucasus
and Central Asia Robert Simmons said on Tuesday.

He is finalizing a two-day visit to Armenia, Itar-Tass reports.

NATO does not insist on the Armenian affiliation, as well as limited
contacts with other states, he said. The alliance and Yerevan develop
cooperation on the basis of political and economic reforms, which do
not contradict Armenia’s relations with other countries, he said.

NATO wishes to have good relations with all partners, including
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) members, he said.

Six months have passed since the adoption of the Armenia-NATO
individual partnership plan, and an intermediate report on the plan
fulfillment will be made at the Brussels meeting of the Armenia-NATO
Council on June 14, Simmons said. A final report will be drafted in
a year, he added.

A NATO information center will open in Yerevan in accordance with
the Armenian government’s pledge, he said.

As for Karabakh settlement negotiations, Simmons said that NATO is
not taking part in the dialog but hopes that the conflicting parties –
Armenia and Azerbaijan – will find a mutually acceptable solution.

Simmons said they support the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group for
Nagorno Karabakh. It is important for the sides to reach an agreement,
and then decide which peacekeepers to invite, he said.

NATO is not going to send peacekeepers to the Karabakh conflict zone,
he remarked.

URL:

KOSOVO TALKS TO STEP UP GEAR AFTER MONTENEGRO VOTE – RUSSIAN MP

RIA Novosti, Russia
May 22 2006

MOSCOW, May 22 (RIA Novosti) – Discussions over the status of Kosovo
will become more intense after Sunday’s referendum on the independence
of Montenegro, a senior member of the lower chamber of Russia’s
parliament said Monday.

The elections commission has said that 55.4% (with 55% required)
of votes were cast in favor of Montenegro seceding from its union
with Serbia, which on paper still includes the province of Kosovo,
even though it has been UN protectorate since 1999.

Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the State Duma’s international
affairs committee, said the discussions on Kosovo’s controversial
status – ethnic Albanians are pushing for independence from Belgrade
– would inevitably be taken to a new level, though he warned against
making any decision without taking into account the interests of the
minority Serbs.

If this were to happen, he said it would “set a far-reaching precedent
for other situations (northern Cyprus and the Basque country).”

Kosachev said the status of Kosovo, which NATO troops first entered
after Serbian forces were accused of committing atrocities against
ethnic Albanians, should be considered as part of a UN Security
Council resolution.

The MP said the division of Serbia and Montenegro was unlikely
to provoke negative consequences. “Serbia and Montenegro have
long co-existed de facto in the form of two states with a single
supranational foreign and defense policy,” he said.

Kosachev said Russians had to obtain visas to enter Serbia but could
enter Montenegro without visas, so the process to divide the two
states had obviously been prepared.

“I hope this [process] will take place without problems,” he said. “I
do not expect any new conflict situations to emerge.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said May 19 that talks Kosovo’s
status should be concluded by the end of the year, a view that is
shared by the other members of the six-nation Contact Group: the
United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

Earlier, some Russian politicians expressed concern that independence
for Kosovo in what was once Yugoslavia would create a precedent for
recognizing breakaway regions in the former Soviet Union.

Moldova is dealing with a separatist regime in Transdnestr and Georgia
has two breakaway regions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Nagorny Karabakh, a largely ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan,
has long been a source of friction between the two Caucasus states.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: TURKEY’S STANCE IS HARD TO FATHOM

PanARMENIAN.Net
19.05.2006 16:09 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey’s self-destructive obsession with denying
the Armenian Genocide seems to have no limits. The Turks pulled out
of a NATO exercise this week because the Canadian prime minister used
the term “genocide” in reference to the mass killings of Armenians
in Turkey during and after World War I.

Before that, the Turkish ambassador to France was temporarily recalled
to protest a French bill that would make it illegal to deny that
the Armenian genocide occurred. And before that, a leading Turkish
novelist, Orhan Pamuk, was charged with “insulting Turkish identity”
for referring to the genocide (the charges were dropped after an
international outcry), The New York Times writes.

“The preponderance of serious scholarship outside Turkey accepts that
more than a million Armenians perished between 1914 and 1923 in a
regime-sponsored campaign. Turkey’s continued refusal to countenance
even a discussion of the issue stands as a major obstacle to restoring
relations with neighboring Armenia and to claiming Turkey’s rightful
place in Europe and the West. It is time for the Turks to realize
that the greater danger to them is denying history.

Turkey’s stance is hard to fathom. Each time the Turks lash out, new
questions arise about Turkey’s claim to a place in the European Union,
and the Armenian Diaspora becomes even more adamant in demanding a
public reckoning over what happened. Granted, genocide is a difficult
crime for any nation to acknowledge.

But it is absurd to treat any reference to the issue within Turkey as a
crime and to scream “lie!” every time someone mentions genocide. By the
same token, we do not see the point of the French law to ban genocide
denial. Historical truths must be established through dispassionate
research and debate, not legislation, even if some of those who
question the evidence do so for insidious motives.

But the Turkish government considers even discussion of the issue
to be a grave national insult, and reacts to it with hysteria. Five
journalists who criticized a court’s decision to shut down an Istanbul
conference on the massacre of Armenians were arrested for insulting
the courts. Charges against four were subsequently dropped, but a
fifth remains on trial,” the article says.

ARMENIA DEPRIVED OF INTERNET CONNECTION SINCE EARLY MORNING

Yerevan, May 18. ArmInfo. Two fiber-optic cables of ArmenTel company
providing Internet connection throughout the territory of Armenia have
been damaged since early morning today, on May 18. Hasmik Choutilyan,
Head of the ArmenTel Communications and Public Relations Office, told
ArmInfo that the cable near the town of Charentsavan was damaged early
in the morning because of a certain unsanctioned construction. As a
pure coincidence, the reserve cable near the town of Ashtarak proved
damaged in the same period of time.

H. Choutilyan said ArmenTel has applied to the Police for investigation
of the incident circumstances. The company promised restoring the
Internet connection today by 2:00pm.

THE HOMELAND OF MY IMAGINATION
by Abdel-Qader Yassine*

Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt
May 18 2006

As empires shift and die, victims of violence and destruction on the
margins are unwelcome in the heart of the colonial countries that
robbed them of citizenship and the possibility of going home, writes

What happens to a person suddenly deprived of his home, his homeland,
his history and his identity; who becomes a refugee? If you belong to
the Third World, someone else is dictating the parametres of your
life. Not even as a writer can one maintain integrity and claim
membership of some universal community.

For 25 years I have dwelled in the dubious terrain of a territory
I often refer to as “the country of my imagination”. I find it
daunting to attempt to explain or elaborate why I have had to weave
a country out of the intricate web of a need; why I have felt that
the construction of this country was necessary through a score of
troubled years.

For one thing I have had to parley my anxiety all these troubled years,
for another I cannot help assuming that it would be something close
to a miracle to get across the workings of such a denizen’s mind in
an idiom accessible to other people, many of whom have always lived
in the same place, who live where they were born, who have resided in
a country with a physical existence as prominent as the international
boundary lines on a map.

Maybe such communication seems difficult because I have always
considered countries to be no more than working hypotheses, portals
opening on assumptions of loyalty to an idea, allegiance to the notion
of a nation: a people pledging their eternal vows to a locality which
happens to be where they were born, and which they choose to call
home, a place with whose physical geography, climate and vegetation
they are familiar.

Alternatively, one may pledge allegiance to another, equally valid
idea; a putative idea, a hypothesis brought forth by a dream, something
to do with one’s ambition; the seedbed of migration: the possibility
of a wealthier probability for one’s own economic self-improvement,
for one’s family’s well- being, or for one’s immediate safety.

During the long travel out of one hypothesis into another, one journeys
further away from one’s self. Somewhere between fleeing and arriving
at the new destination, a refugee is born — who, in effect, is the
citizen of a country too amorphous to be favoured with a name but one
delivered out of the womb of sublime hope; a country whose not-yet
spoken language is imbued with the rhetoric of future visions.

I ask what becomes of a person — indeed what becomes of a people —
when their country-as- hypothesis ceases to function? How full of
tragedy, how full of inexpressible agony is the instant when it dawns
on one that one’s country does not anymore exist, neither as an idea
nor a physical reality.

I can remember when Palestine, the country of my birth, became dead
to me in the construct of my logic, like a postulate that has been
discarded. In that instant I felt at once displaced and incredulous,
as though a mirror had broken. Eventually I would ask myself if on
account of what had taken place, I would become another.

I remember standing in a flat in London and holding a dead telephone
receiver in my hand. I was leaving for home, and had rung my elder
brother in Jerusalem requesting that somebody please pick me up at the
airport; he advised me not to return. His words have stayed with me:
“Forget Palestine, consider it buried, dead, think of it as if it no
longer exists for you.”

A few minutes later, still clutching the receiver, I felt as though
something live was surging up from inside of me. In that moment another
country was fired into existence, a new country with its own logic
and realities. Born of psychic necessity, this new country stole
in upon my senses as quiet as a moth approaching the lit window to
one’s world: quietly, like the moth of my sanity. This moth became of
necessity a butterfly, circling the crystallising fruit of my exile:
an exile that perforce jump-started the motor of my imaginative powers.

Still, I must ask what becomes of a man or a woman upon whose sense
of imaginative being, upon whose night, no moths tap? What if, at the
portal of one’s cosmos, no imagined fruit is given a crystalline form
and no butterfly pays a visit? What becomes of a man or woman whose
economic and professional position does not afford them the privilege
to create another country out of his or her sense of displacement?

In other words, what happens to a people who cannot go back to
the hypothetical reality of their homes, neither to their actual
residences? Is this the clay out of which the refugee is moulded?

Given the suddenness of the decision that had been imposed, I wondered
if I would manage to cope — a Palestinian writer stranded in Europe,
barely known outside his “former” country. I found myself combing the
arid brush of my memory, recalling my years in the hope that these
might somehow help me to better see my predicament. I had hailed from
a region in the eastern Mediterranean with a history of tumultuous
dislocations, a region that has known more years of strife than it
has stability and peace.

And I remembered how my family was caught up in war; I remembered
how my whole family had fled across a border whose existence we,
Palestinians, had refused to acknowledge; I remembered how in Beirut,
our new place of refuge, we started to reconstitute our identities
from an idealism that had its ideological correlates in a sense of
nationalism. At the time the newly minted idea of the nation was in
the heart of all Palestinians.

As I reminisced, I recalled the games of invention I had played
in my youth: how, as a boy, I would mentally assume animal forms,
metamorphosing into new states — birds, lions, horses, cows, donkeys,
dogs. I wondered if I could hold triple citizenship, migrate from
one country to another; from that of my birth, say, to that territory
newly-fired into existence by the need to remain loyal to the ideals
of the writer’s vocation, and thence from there to London, my new
home. Thanks to the kind intervention of friends I was able to fulfil
the obligations of my triple citizenry, with the moth flying here
and there, its shadows falling on the window to my creative energy,
past the opaqueness of a writer’s self- doubts.

It was during this period of self-questioning that I ran into an old
friend from Denmark to whom I explained all that had taken place,
adding that I intended to keep my country alive by writing about it.

My Danish friend was of the opinion that no matter what the economic,
political or asylum status of a writer — whether he or she has papers
or not — a scholar is no refugee. We parleyed, she and I, and agreed
on defining a refugee as a person who has lost the ability to express
the fullness of his or her nature, and who flees across borders if
necessary in order to articulate the essence of his or her being,
his or her human nature.

I came to understand that colonial subjects die a kind of death when
they lose the birthright to define themselves in the terms of their
birth, as they are made to respond to the multiple identities imposed
upon them by others: when they are forced to see themselves as someone
else’s invention. There is a perverse ingenuity to these invented
identities, the malefic effects of which can often go unnoticed for
great stretches of time. Only when things go awry do people take
notice: whether in the Middle East or the former Yugoslavia, in the
Indian Sub-Continent or the Horn of Africa.

Whenever or wherever new empires are created in place of old ones,
a mass of humanity necessarily is made refugees. The Palestinians,
the Kurds, the Armenians, the Somalis, the Cambodians, the Vietnamese
and the Tamil share a common condition: all these peoples have all
been coerced into becoming part of an empire, and then cast off, and
recast again as a new empire is constructed in place of the one that
has been dismantled. In drawing arbitrary imperial borders, builders
of empires create a network of political and economic tensions with
a legacy both explosive and implosive.

It has become increasingly obvious of late that the world is going
through a radical transformation, and that these profound changes
are making us take a fresher look at ourselves, and our neighbours,
as everything falls around our ears. We cannot take anything for
granted anymore. Most strikingly, one sees in the expressions of
one’s interlocutors a distinct unease, the tincture of distrust.

Values of humanity and decency, the humane principles that have held
many a community together the world over, are increasingly devalued.

New times have brought along new anxieties for many of us. An ugly
temper is rising across European capitals, as a sense of gloom,
paranoia and unjustified dread unsettles these citadels. Newspapers
describe the “human flood”, tributaries of asylum- seekers, rivers
of refugees, flotillas of boatpeople, ramshackle rafts bearing bogus
men and women arriving at European ports of entry in search of haven,
as immigrants or refugees.

Thirty-eight years ago the British Conservative Enoch Powell warned
that increasing immigration would lead to “rivers of blood”; we listen
today, with the same predictable horror, to the ugly noises coming
out of respectable quarters in France and Germany, not to mention
the rhetoric of neo-fascists and acts of savagery as they throw
petrol bombs at specially designated hostels housing asylum-seekers,
to intimidate them. The presence of these migrants touches on the
political and economic anxieties of the so-called developed parts
of the globe, anxieties that are spectacular in their far-reaching
implications.

These fears are comparable to those of the turn of the 20th century,
ironically the very period when the legal shape of the present-day
world was determined, the period when the undeveloped world was divided
into unequal portions among European powers, boundaries assigned by
the inexact but grand design of capitalist zeal.

Two world wars and a century later the inhabitants of that world are
standing at the crossroads yet again. Where, now, are the architects
of empire? Or do we now confront a world divided, a world of desiccated
empires and small minds, islands of insularity?

Or are we witnessing a sorrier spectacle, one in which the West
abandons ship at the “end of history”, at the same moment that it
claims to be its undisputed captain? No doubt we are seeing a radical
change in the attitude of empire building at the very breaking-point
when the wounds caused by Europe and North America have not ceased
to bleed.

For centuries, Europe had as its basic policy an aggressive, relentless
imperialist expansion. Europe invaded, looted and colonised the rest
of the world, transforming worldviews and tampering with the cultural
values and identity of those subjugated.

Europe prospered; its cities became metropolitan centres. Africans
were brought as slaves; Asians imported as indentured labourers;
destitute people the world over admitted into Europe as migrants,
or Gastarbeiter (guest workers). And now that the rest of the world
has been turned into a collection of shantytowns, cramped cities of
cardboard and zinc, slums compared to Europe — now, Europe has lost
interest in the rest of the world.

The trajectories of empire, and its attendant identities, can only
be understood against the backdrop of shifting political situations
that formed their construction. But the closing of European and
North American minds and hearts to the question of refugees precedes
the disintegration of the Soviet empire. Laws curbing access to the
European Union differed from one country to another, but legislation
limiting the possibility of coming into Europe was in place long before
the arrival of Afghani, Sri Lankan, Somali or Assyrian refugees to
these shores.

In Britain, this sentiment was first codified in legislation in the
early 1970s, following Idi Amin’s expulsion of Ugandan Asians. The
British home secretary of the day introduced legislation limiting
the number of aliens to be granted entry into the United Kingdom. For
hundreds of years there had been “recruitment drives” aimed at enticing
blacks to emigrate, to swell the ranks of the menial working class;
unskilled labourers from the West Indies arrived in boatfuls, and
although these were not treated with civility, they were nonetheless
allowed in and given the right to stay in the country.

Hundreds of thousands more came from the far- flung corners of
the former empire, and restaurants opened to the joy of Britain’s
citizenry. One at last began to eat well and cheaply. All the same it
soon became clear that there was a racist logic to the immigration
laws, for one was treated differently if one came from what was
referred to as the “Old Commonwealth”. In short, one was treated
humanely if one was of European stock, whether or not of convict
ancestry. Ready to join another empire of a more sophisticated
order, the European Community, Britain negotiated away its imperial
responsibility.

The key words are “integration” and “disintegration” of empires,
and both notions challenge the old ideas that they aspire to replace.

Empires and alliances have largely been eclipsed by a series of
exclusive clubs — the G7, the EU, the nuclear club — with membership
limited to nations with the right credit rating. One is left with the
impression of a political establishment bereft of vision, lacking
ability to deal with the intricacies of the situation at hand. For
how does one explain this “return” to 1930s politics; how does one
explain the rise of the neo-Nazi right? How, indeed, can one explain
the recourse to blood, the cultivation of ethnic absolutisms?

Even as the EU is the single most cohesive economic unit the world has
ever known — the wealthiest and most powerful entity in history —
the peoples of this empire are barricading themselves in, aided in
this by the rhetoric of fear and helplessness: fear of the nameless,
foreign flood of humanity; helplessness at the escalating violence
enacted to staunch that flood. But if refugees are a challenge as
well as a reproach to our humanity, if refugees are a lament raised,
a cry spoken, if refugees are the bastards of the idea of empire,
then how can one blame this highly disenfranchised, displaced humanity
for all the ills of Europe?

* The writer is a Palestinian researcher at the Institute for Migration
Studies in Sweden. He has published 15 books and scores of articles
on Middle Eastern issues. His latest book, Fundamentalism: A Critical
Approach , will be published in August.

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