Author: Nahapetian Lilit

Zaman, Turkey
Dec 14 2004

WHY TURKEY?

Reasons for a Privileged Partnership between Turkey and the EU

by Hans-Gert Poettering
Chairman of the EP Christian Democrat Group

Few political questions have been debated both on European and
national level as intensively and as passionately as the question of
the accession of Turkey to the European Union. In fact it confronts
the European Union with the question of its own identity and the
discussion in the European Union therefore is as much about whether
the European Union is ready for this challenge as whether Turkey is
ready to join the Union. In the EPP-ED-Group, as well as in the other
Groups of the European Parliament, there are different points of view
as to whether the European Union can face this challenge or not and
whether Turkey should join the European Union or not. During the
coming weeks, we will discuss our position intensively in the context
of a European Parliament report by Camiel Eurlings (EPP-ED), which
will be voted in time before the European Summit on 17 December.

The accession of Turkey to the European Union would be an enormous
challenge for Turkey as much as for the European Union itself. In
fact, when defining the “Copenhagen criteria” in 1993, the European
Council also underlined the importance of the Union’s capacity to
absorb new members. This question therefore has also to be taken
seriously into account when deciding on future membership of Turkey.

There is no doubt that Turkey has made today progress with political
and economic reforms, although problems still persist in particular
with regard to the implementation of the political reforms, including
human rights. Civil and human rights NGOs in Turkey continue to
express their concern on this question. However, my main concern
today is the impact Turkey’s accession would have on the European
Union and its cohesion. If Turkey joins the EU in 2015, it will have
the same size in terms of population as Germany. By 2025 Turkey will
be the biggest country in the Union. But since it is at the same time
a comparatively poor country, full integration in all areas of EU
policies would lead to huge budget transfers at least if there is no
fundamental reform of the agricultural and structural policies of the
European Union. With Turkey’s accession and its borders being
extended to Syria, Iran and Iraq in the Middle East, Armenia and
Georgia in the Caucasus, the European Union will have to make the
step from a mainly regional player to a potentially global player
given the political sensitivity and importance of these areas.
Considering the incoherent European position during the Iraq crisis,
the European Union will still need a very long time before being able
to assume such a global responsibility. The foreign policy mechanisms
under the new constitution will need to be tested and proven before
the EU can envisage such ambitious objectives.

The European Union will now have to put the current enlargement into
practice and test the functioning of the new Constitution, which will
hopefully be ratified without delay in the 25 Member states. We have
to be very careful before thinking about a further enlargement that
could “over-stretch” the European Union’s capacities in many ways and
could eventually put at risk the EU’s achievements over the past 50
years.

At the same time, one has also to admit without any prejudice that
Turkey and the countries of the European Union have undergone a
different historical development with regard to political culture and
philosophical thinking. I am not speaking in this context of
religion, but about a more general cultural approach. This is
enriching for both sides in the framework of close cooperation, but
it could be difficult in the framework of integration and there is
reason to fear that this could cause problems for the internal
cohesion of the people of the European Union. That is why in some
member states public opinion is very critical with regard to Turkish
accession. This is a psychological problem, but European politicians
are also bound to respect the opinion of the citizens they represent.

For these reasons I believe that Turkey and the European Union will
have a more fruitful and satisfying relationship if they develop a
privileged partnership, where they work together as closely as
possible, but still remain autonomous in their decision-making.
Turkey is a strong regional power and as such an important partner
and ally for the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance. As a
privileged partner of the European Union, Turkey will maintain much
more independence of decision and in fact more influence in the
region than if it is bound to European decision-making on the basis
of a common denominator of more than 25 member states. On the other
hand, I believe that the European Union will loose its capacity to
act and part of its cohesion with a big regional power that
necessarily will confront the Union with many challenges and requests
which the European Union might not be able to solve within its own
structures, but which it could solve together with Turkey as a strong
partner.

Due to its size and geo-strategic position, its historical links and
its willingness to be part of the European family, Turkey will be one
of the most important partners and neighbors of the Union. With
mutual respect and understanding, both partners should intensify
their relations taking into account the complex political situation
on both sides.

If the European Council should decide in December by unanimity to
open negotiations, these should, in my view, not exclude possible
alternative options to accession, such as a “privileged partnership”
with Turkey. If such a partnership can be achieved in a reasonable
time this seems to be more interesting for both sides than very long
negotiations and insecurity about mainly the European Union’s
capacities to assume this enlargement.

* This article expresses the personal views of the author.

TURKISH JOURNALIST PUBLISHES IN “MILLIET” NEWSPAPER HIS IMPRESSINS
FROM VISIT TO GENOCIDE MUSEUM IN YEREVAN

ISTANBUL, December 13 (Noyan Tapan). Turkish journalist John Dyuntar
continued the publication of his impressions from the visit to the
Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan and his conversation with
Director of the Museum Lavrenty Barseghian in the December 8 issue of
the “Milliet” newspaper.

John Dyuntar writes that that the work on preparation for the “90th
Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide” (quotation marks are his –
“NT”), which will be marked on April 24, 2005, is being carried out at
the Genocide Museum-Institute. 250,000 people visit the museum every
year, which is under repair now. Young historians work in the museum
at present. L. Barseghian noticed that 14 parliaments have recognized
the Genocide till now and the National Assembly of Turkey was the
first of them in 1918.

Lavrenty Barseghian regretted in connection with the fact that the
Turkish community is not adequately informed about the crimes of the
Young Turks, and for that reason the guilt for the crime falls on the
Turkish people. “What is the guilt of the Turkish people in the crimes
of the past? Why does today’s government take the Young Turks’ guilt
upon itself? Why doesn’t President of Turkey Sezer beg the Armenians’
pardon like as it had been done by Bismark in his time,” emphasized
the Director of the Museum.

At the end of the article John Dzyuntar described Tsitsernakaberd and
reported that the names of different Turkish cities and tows,
i.e. Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Kesaria, Kharberd, Malatia, Mush,
Van and others, where the blood of the Armenians was shed in 1915, are
in the stone steles.

PanArmenian News
Dec 13 2004

ARMENIAN STUDENTS, WHO GAVE INTERVIEW TO NEW YORK TIMES, SAY THEIR
WORDS WERE DISTORTED

13.12.2004 18:18

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “The most interesting thing is that the topics we
have focused our discussions at were not covered in the article at
all”, student Zara Amatuni, who is mentioned in reporter Susan
Sachs’s article called “For Young Armenians, Promised Land without
Promise” and published in New York Times on December 9, says. The
reporter “has omitted all the good that was said and left only what
was interesting to her. I said, I will do my best to stay here
because it is my country however hard it would be to live in it;
moreover a lot of improvements had already taken place. But she did
not publish it stressing the words that were said incidentally. At
that she agreed with me on everything, what, I think, is the worst of
all”, Zara Amatuni continues debating on the article on
forum. “Mister Aghababov is mentioned in the article as a 21-year-old
programmer, who earns all in all $650 (in the US he would receive
several times more), who has Russian citizenship, relatives with
private flat in Moscow, Sisko certificates and some offers to work in
a Moscow IT company, decided to live in Armenia”, says another
participant of the debate. “It is a provocation”, says Aghababov,
“Why did not she write that we all think that Armenia is
developing?”. By the way, we did not hold discussions in English
chats, we just participated in forum, which was in the Russian
language”, he continues. The interviewees also state that they did
not know that their photos and names would be published. They
consider that their rights were violated and are going to address a
letter to New York Times editorial office.

A1 Plus | 21:52:00 | 13-12-2004 | Social |

STUDENTS HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT CORRUPTION

UNDP and the Armenian government continue their studies as part of the
struggle against corruption.

Research conducted in Yerevan universities showed many students even
have no idea about what corruption is.

Lusine Margaryan, director of National Center for Liberalization
Processes Monitoring, said talk-shows will be staged in the republic and
a program on the dissemination of information will be launched to
enhance public awareness of the subject. She said the media will play a
big part in the campaign.

ACCORDING TO IRAQ’S NATIONAL BOARD CHAIRMAN, ASSAULT AGAINST CHURCHES
IN MOSUL HAS PURELY ANTICHRISTIAN CHARACTER

YEREVAN, December 9 (Noyan Tapan). The RA Ministry of Foreign Assairs
issued a press release about the assault made against the Armenian
Apostolic and Chaldean churches in Iraq that reads:

“After the explosion of two mosques in Iraq on December 5 an assault
was made against the Armenian Apostolic and Chaldean churches in
Mosul. Before that these armed groups had stated that a church would
be exploded for each exploded mosque. On December 7, at noon unknown
armed people broke into the Armenian church under construction, forced
all the people out of the building and declared they were going to
destroy it. After that a car with explosives was driven to the church
entrance and exploded, as a result of which the building was severely
damaged.

By the same scenario an attack was made on the Chaldean church, the
only difference being that a great fire broke out there destroying all
the property inside. There were no victims in both cases. On the
morning of December 8 some armed people appeared again at the Armenian
church and started looting everything.

According to the opinion expressed by Iraq’s Armenian National Central
Board Chairman, these asssults have purely anti-Christian character
witout any ethnic nuance.”

Iraq, fatte esplodere due chiese cristiane

La Padania, Italia
mercoledì 8 dicembre 2004

MOSSUL – Un commando ha fatto saltare in aria la chiesa caldea di
Mossul, nell’Iraq settentrionale. Un gruppo di persone armate ha
fatto irruzione nella chiesa e ha costretto quanti vi si trovavano a
radunarsi in un cortile. Il commando ha poi fatto esplodere diverse
cariche di esplosivo all’interno della chiesa. I caldei fanno parte
della minoranza cristiana irachena, che ammonta complessivamente a
circa il 2% della popolazione. Un attentato analogo è stato portato
quasi contemporaneamente contro una chiesa armena della città. Anche
in questo caso gli attaccanti hanno fatto uscire tutti i presenti e
hanno fatto saltare cariche di esplosivi.
Un marine americano è stato ucciso ieri durante uno scontro a fuoco
con la guerriglia ad ovest di Baghdad, nella provincia di Al-Anbar.
Il presidente russo Vladimir Putin ha espresso forti riserve sulle
prossime elezioni in Iraq: «Francamente – ha detto durante un
incontro con il premier iracheno Ayad Allawi – non posso nemmeno
immaginarmi come sia possibile organizzare elezioni in un paese sotto
occupazione straniera». E’ il secondo “sgarbo” che Putin fa a Bush
dopo quello di pochi giorni fa, quando ha detto di sperare che “Bush
possa imparare la lezione irachena», ed è probabilmente la “vendetta”
per l’appoggio dato dagli Usa alla “rivoluzione arancione” in
Ucraina, che ha portato all’annullamento della vittoria del candidato
di Putin. Le elezioni, fissate per il prossimo 30 gennaio, potrebbero
essere scaglionate in 15-20 giorni nelle diverse province: lo ha
detto lo stesso Allawi per dar modo a tutti – “sciiti, sunniti,
cristiani, curdi, turcomanni” – di votare . Un meccanismo del genere
– ha spiegato – permetterebbe di creare un dispositivo di sicurezza
adeguato
Forze Usa hanno arrestato 18 sospetti ribelli in un raid a Tikrit, a
nord di Baghdad, sequestrando armi e bombe. Tikrit è la città natale
di Saddam Hussein e punto focale della resistenza.

–Boundary_(ID_dJ3CpbmH7AqYRF4c8WUWwA)–

VIII EUROPEAN REGIONAL CONFERENCE HELD IN YEREVAN

Azg/arm
8 Dec 04

The convention signed in Iranian Ramsar city in 1971 is the only
one that is directed to preservation of concrete eco-systems, in the
given case, the preservation of wet territories, the dwelling places
of water birds. Armenia joined this convention in 1993, representing
the Lake of Sevan and the Arpi Lake with its neighboring swamps in the
list of preservation and restoration. In the course of the membership
the fund of the convention financed 4 Armenian projects.

A new project was elaborated for the Javakhk areas of special
preservation. KFW bank will allocate $2,2 million for the
implementation of the project.

European regional meeting is being held in Yerevan on December
4-8. 70 foreign ecology experts are participating in the meeting. The
participants of the conference will visit the national part of Sevan,
Ayrivank and Sevan Hydro.

By Karine Danielian

PR Newswire US
December 7, 2004 Tuesday 02:00 PM GMT

American Red Cross Chapter Translates Its Web Site to Reach the
Growing Immigrant Communities it Serves

NEW YORK Dec. 7

NEW YORK, Dec. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Bowne Global Solutions
(BGS), the world’s leading provider of translation, localization and
interpretation services, recently volunteered its services to a
California chapter of the American Red Cross in order to help the
chapter improve its service to the local Korean, Spanish and Armenian
ethnic communities it serves. BGS translated mission-critical Web
site content related to disaster preparedness. This outreach effort
has received local media coverage and, since publishing the
translated content, the chapter has seen a 20% increase in the number
of visits to its site.

BGS translated the “Together We Prepare” portion of the
Glendale-Crescenta Valley Chapter’s web site, including directions on
how to prepare a home or workplace for disaster and where to go to
donate blood. For any business or governmental agency, translation
into the languages of the ethnic communities that surround it makes
good business sense. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the number
of immigrants in the United States will increase by more than one
third by the year 2025.

“We have to consider the multi-ethnic nature of America when serving
those in our community who depend on us,” said Irena Efremian,
Assistant Chapter Manager of the Glendale-Crescenta Valley chapter.
“Our community is rich in cultural diversity, but our Web site was
only reaching a limited sector of it because only those who speak
English could read it. We needed to ensure that each translation —
Armenian, Spanish and Korean — would have the same fluency and
literacy level as the English version. Because BGS is recognized as
the premiere provider of quality translation services, we contacted
them to translate our site. We are more than satisfied with the
result.”

“Because the site is now translated into the languages of the local
ethnic communities, the Glendale-Crescenta Valley chapter can help
these communities prepare for disaster,” said Larry Wade, Senior Vice
President of the Americas for BGS. “It can also reach more people who
are potential blood donors. More and more of our clients are seeking
growth by targeting ethnic groups in their domestic market. BGS is
uniquely positioned to support them. We have more than 2,000
in-country project managers, linguists, translators, publishers and
programmers, who cover more than 60 languages and dialects.”

About the American Red Cross

Governed by volunteers and supported by community donations, the
American Red Cross is a nationwide network of nearly 900 field units
dedicated to saving lives and helping people prevent, prepare for and
respond to emergencies. Led by 1 million volunteers and 36,000
employees, the Red Cross annually mobilizes relief to families
affected by more than 70,000 disasters, trains almost 12 million
people in lifesaving skills and keeps U.S. military families
connected worldwide. The Red Cross is the largest supplier of blood
and blood products to more than 3,000 hospitals across the nation and
also assists victims of international disasters and conflicts at
locations worldwide. Marsha J. Evans is the President and CEO of the
American Red Cross.

About Bowne Global Solutions

Bowne Global Solutions (BGS) is one of the world’s leading providers
of multilingual solutions for products and documents, marketing and
communications, regulatory compliance, training and e-learning, and
globalization strategy. With employees in 24 countries, BGS is
ideally positioned to help companies adapt their products and
communications to reflect the unique linguistic and cultural
characteristics of their target markets worldwide. Supported by
proven project management methods and innovative technologies,
including the Elcano(TM) translation portal, clients have come to
rely on the BGS team for all of their translation, localization,
technical writing and interpretation needs. For more information,
visit .

Bowne Global Solutions is a business unit of Bowne & Co., Inc.
(NYSE:BNE), a global leader in providing high-value solutions that
empower our clients’ communications. In addition to BGS, Bowne &
Co.’s diversified business units include Bowne Financial Print, the
world’s largest financial printer, and Bowne Enterprise Solutions, a
leading provider of digital printing and electronic delivery of
personalized communications. For more information visit
.

CONTACT: Norma Hopcraft of Bowne Global Solutions, +1-917-339-4833,
[email protected]

Web site:

SOURCE Bowne Global Solutions

DURING 10 MONTHS, PRODUCTION IN ARMENIA MADE 424 BILLION 924 MILLION DRAMS

YEREVAN, December 3 (Noyan Tapan). According to the data from
Armenia’s 2,131 industrial enterprises, in January-October of 2004,
industrial products of about 424 billion 924 million drams (about
849.8 million dollars) were turned out in Armenia, while sales
amounted to more than 420 billion 108 million drams. Products of
39,815.1 million drams were sold in CIS countries, products of
116,024.3 million drams – in other countries. The physical volume of
industrial production increased by 0.5% in comparison with the same
period of 2003. According to the RA National Statistical Service,
during the indicated period, the processing industry’s share in the
industrial production structure was 64.2%, that of electricity, gas
and water production and distribution – 19%, and mining industry’s
share – 16.8%. Food and drinks production accounted for most part –
50.3% of the processing industry. The sales of the finished goods at
current prices in this sector amounted to 134 billion 890 million
drams, and the physical volume increased by 4.2% as compared to the
same period of last year. Metallurgical production made 19% (59
billion 603 million drams), jewelry – 5.3% (14 billion 83 million
drams). Metal ores’ extraction accounts for 97% of the mining
industry. Finished goods of 71 billion 321 million drams were
produced, of which the goods of 61 billion 674 million drams were
sold. The production volumes of 69 from the 113 main product types
increased during the indicated period.

ANSA Notiziario Generale in Italiano
Dic 4, 2004

UE: TURCHIA; PAGLIARINI, NO SE NON AMMETTE GENOCIDIO ARMENI

ROMA

(ANSA) – ROMA, 3 DIC – “Se non arriva da parte della Turchia
l’ammissione del genocidio degli armeni, la domanda di
ammissione all’Ue presentata da Ankara non puo’ nemmeno essere
presa in considerazione”. Lo ha dichiarato Giancarlo Pagliarini
commentando l’informativa urgente del Governo sulle prospettive
della candidatura della Turchia in Europa.

“Il Consiglio europeo, tra l’altro, sembra non rispettare
prosegue Pagliarini – la volonta’ espressa chiaramente dal
Parlamento europeo che ha approvato almeno due documenti che
vanno proprio in questa direzione”. (ANSA).