Author: Nalbandian Eduard

Fresno Bee, CA
Jan 31 2007

Armenian genocide resolution renewed

Supporters hope reshaped Congress can vault over White House
opposition.By Michael Doyle / Bee Washington Bureau01/31/07 04:41:20

WASHINGTON – Armenian-Americans are putting their hopes in a new
Democratic Congress.

So are some Republicans.

On Tuesday, lawmakers and their politically active Armenian-American
allies introduced the latest version of an Armenian genocide
resolution. After years of trying, they now think they can prevail
over the Bush administration’s strong opposition.

"I’m very hopeful that this time we’ll be able to do this," said Rep.
George Radanovich, R-Mariposa.

Under the aged and watchful eyes of two genocide survivors – one of
them said to be 100 years old – Radanovich helped reintroduce a
resolution that will incite controversy even though it lacks the
force of law.

Joined by three other House members, one Republican and two
Democrats, Radanovich is sponsoring what’s being called the
"affirmation of the United States record on the Armenian Genocide."
Essentially, the 10-page resolution puts the House on the side of
Armenians and many historians who have studied the period between
1915 and 1923.

Some 1.5 million Armenians were killed as part of a policy of
extermination conducted during the final days of the Ottoman Empire,
the resolution asserts. The nonbinding resolution further calls upon
President Bush to use the word "genocide" in his annual April message
commemorating the horrific events.

Bush and preceding presidents, attentive to the concerns of Turkey
and the State Department, have delicately avoided using the term
genocide when referring to Armenia. Diplomatically, it’s a sensitive
issue. The last U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, appears to
have been forced from his post after he gave a public speech
affirming there was a genocide.

"Armenian Americans have attempted to extricate and isolate their
history from the complex circumstances in which their ancestors were
embroiled," the Turkish Embassy declared in a statement. "In so
doing, they describe a world populated only by white-hatted heroes
and black-hatted villains."

Turkey dismisses as "grossly erroneous" the claim that 1.5million
Armenians were killed. A member of NATO now hoping to join the
European Union, Turkey enjoys its own Capitol Hill clout with the
assistance of well-placed lobbyists, including one-time Congress
member Bob Livingston.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, is the Armenian genocide resolution’s
chief sponsor since his party took control of the House.

"I do think we have the best opportunity in a decade to succeed,"
Schiff said, "but no one should be under the illusion that this will
be easy."

Radanovich was the chief sponsor under Republican control, but had
the rug pulled out from underneath him by GOP leaders. Former House
Speaker Dennis Hastert first promised to let Radanovich bring an
earlier Armenian genocide resolution to the House floor, then
reversed himself at the last minute after receiving a call from the
White House.

Current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as a rank-and-file member in
previous years, was a supporter of the genocide resolution.

"We’ve got a speaker now who we think is receptive," said Paul
Jamushian, an activist who splits his time between Fresno and the
East Coast. "We’ve always had the votes."

Lawmakers acknowledged Tuesday that they had not yet received a
commitment from Pelosi, although they predicted she will face White
House pressure before April.

"Make no mistake," Radanovich said. "The speaker will get a call from
the president."

Resolution authors say they expect to rally at least 140 House
co-sponsors.

The new chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Rep.
Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, voted for a genocide resolution the last
time it appeared, although in previous years he opposed it.

AsiaNews, Italy
Jan 31 2007

Attack against Protestant church in Samsun

Vandals throw stones at Agape Church windows. For the past three
years its congregation has been victim of aggressions and has never
been protected by the police. A Catholic priest, Fr Pierre Brunissen,
was the victim of a knife attack last July.

Samsun (AsiaNews) – Turkey’s Black Sea coast continues to see attacks
and threats against local Christians. In the city of Samsun (Atakum
district) attackers vandalised a Protestant church this weekend,
shattering the windows of the Agape Protestant Church’s and
spray-painting its street sign early Sunday morning, the Compass
Direct agency reports after talking to Pastor Orhan Picaklar, who is
in charge of the local congregation.

This attack is not the first of its kind. For the past three years,
the congregation has suffered a dozen stoning attacks and weekly
e-mail threats.

The pastor said a note was left inside the church but that police
refused to show him what was written on it, claiming that it `wasn’t
important.’ Samsun’s police chief later refused to include the note
in the official investigation, stating that it had `nothing to do
with this case.

Regular vandalism, negative media and e-mail threats against the
Agape church increased soon after the mayor of the city’s Atakum
municipality, Adem Bektas, stated in November 2004 that he would
never allow a church to be built there. However, a change in Turkey’s
laws allowed the Samsun congregation to register officially as an
association in November 2005 but did little to diminish social stigma
attached to the church.

Like in Trabzon, where Catholic priest Fr Andrea Santoro was killed a
year ago, Samsun is a place where several violently nationalist and
fanatically religious organisations exist. It is also the home town
of the young murderer of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink,

Here, on July 2, 2006, fidei donum Catholic priest Fr Pierre
Brunissen was wounded in a knife attack.

Samsum’s Christian community is tiny, mostly foreign workers from
former Soviet republics and a few Japanese.

Focus News, Bulgaria
Jan 31 2007

Human rights and Turkey EU entry

31 January 2007 | 21:49 | FOCUS News Agency

Sofia. A human rights group has called for the European Union to be
strict on Turkey’s moves to join the bloc, after Nobel-prize winning
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk cancelled a trip to Germany as concerns
for his personal security grow, Deutsche Welle informs.
The group PEN, that lobbies for persecuted writers, says the EU
should make it clear to Ankara that EU entry is only possible if
Turkey has a strong democracy. Pamuk’s safety became an issue after a
key suspect in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink
in Istanbul warned Pamuk to be careful. Pamuk was due to visit
Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Munich from the end of this week. His
German publisher says Pamuk gave no reason for cancelling the trip.

Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire
February 1, 2007 Thursday 1:48 PM MSK

Armenian telecom companies boost revenue in 2006

Telecommunication companies in Armenia posted revenue of 126.16
billion dram in 2006, up 36.9%, the National Statistics Service told
Interfax.

Revenue from the sale of telecom services to the population surged
52.4% to 538.5 million dram.

Revenue increased 7% to 36.07 billion dram for fixed-line services
and 89.5% to 63 billion for mobile phone services. Revenue from
postal and delivery services amounted to 2.52 billion, data transfer
revenue totaled 3.76 billion and TV and radio broadcasting revenue
was 2.93 billion dram.

The official exchange rate on January 31 stood at 360.07 dram/$1.

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 30 2007

Five civilian guns for every military firearm in Turkey, records show

The words of Rakel Dink, widow of slain Turkish editor of Armenian
origin Hrant Dink, are still fresh in our minds: `Whoever the
assassin may be, either 17 or 27 years old, I know myself that he too
was once a baby.

One cannot accomplish anything without first questioning how an
assassin was created from such a baby.’
The assassin, Ogün Samast, being 17 years of age caused as much
horror as the sudden death of Hrant Dink; lying on the ground, shot
to death through the back of the neck. People used to die as a result
of random shots directed into the air at weddings, soccer games and
similar occasions in Turkey; however, this latest incident showed
that young murderers are created through the ease with which they can
obtain weapons.
Turkey is fourth in terms of weapon usage and the number of threats
against life following the US, Argentina and Brazil.
There are 7 million guns and only 2 million of them are licensed.
Sixty percent of all murders are committed with guns, most of which
are unlicensed. Fifty percent of the perpetrators are young people.
The ratio of five civilian guns for every military firearm is another
serious issue.
While the memory of 16-year-old O.A. who killed Roman Catholic priest
Andrea Santaro in Trabzon was still fresh, 17-year-old Ogün Samast
traveled from his home city to kill Hrant Dink, a man he never knew.
The murder of Father Santaro, the attack on the Council of State in
Ankara and the murder of Hrant Dink have started a new debate on
political murders, the crime scenes and the murderers. With the
exception of Alparslan Arslan, the perpetrator of the attack on the
Council of State, the murderers all being under the age of 18 points
to a great danger. These are planned murders that are being committed
by young people. The danger is that teenagers have access to guns in
an environment where weapons possession is escalating.
Surveys estimate that there are around 7 million guns in Turkey. And
the number of civilian guns is fivefold that of the military, whereas
the ratio should ideally be one to one. Meanwhile, of all the weapons
in circulation in Turkey, only 2 million of them are licensed.
Seven million guns in the general population works out to one gun for
every 10 people. For various reasons, 3,000 people are killed with
firearms in Turkey every year.
A survey by Dr. Ayhan Akcan, coordinator of the Bakırköy
Psychiatry Treatment and Research Center (BAPAM), showed that 70
percent of the population has guns for purposes of both
self-protection and security. The survey also finds that 35 percent
of those who want to have possession of guns have difficulty in anger
control management and that they are likely to use guns at any time.
`The data on individual weapons are alarming for Turkey,’ Akcan said,
adding that the guns owned by adults are accessible to young people.
Akcan asserted that there is a relation between the increasing number
of political murders and the increasing number of weapons.
The Umut Foundation, which works on reducing personal ownership of
weapons, looks at this issue from outside of the aspect of `political
murders.’
Nazire Dedeman, chairwoman of the Umut Foundation, said, `One of our
biggest fears is that people might start massacres in order to raise
their voices, as in the cases of Argentina and Brazil.’ In order to
fight this, she demands that weapons not be presented as an
indispensable part of (Turkish) culture.
Former Prosecutor of Supreme Court of Appeals Ahmet Gündel said the
proliferation of weapons will increase murders of all kinds,
including political. `We should consider the ramifications of gun
ownership for daily occurrences as well. Little debates end up in
foul language and fistfights, and if either of the sides involved
have guns, then it ends in death. … Applications for guns should be
decreased to a minimum, and those applicants should have jobs
requiring the use of guns. We need serious regulations for that,’
added Gündel.
Psychiatrist Cemal Dindar says the main problem is that young bodies
are turned into weapons. He says that clear opposition to any kind of
activity that values weapons needs to be implemented.
As in the murder of Hrant Dink, the reasons and motives of political
murders, the murderers’ state of mind is not so simple as to be
linked only to `individual weapons possession.’ However, it should be
remembered the social and physical `culture of weapons’ is supported
by conditions in Turkey.

Agence France Presse — English
January 29, 2007 Monday 3:33 PM GMT

Russia to help Armenia mine for uranium

YEREVAN, Jan 29 2007

Russia is to help Armenia look for uranium to supply a Russian-run
nuclear power station near the capital Yerevan, Armenian officials
said on Monday.

"Uranium deposits were looked for in the Soviet era. There are
documents confirming their existence in Rosatom," Russia’s atomic
agency authority, presidential spokesman Viktor Sogomonian told
reporters.

"The uranium will not be enriched and will be produced exclusively
for the needs of the Armenian atomic industry," he added.

Armenia’s only nuclear power station, Metsamor, is operated by an
affiliate of state-owned Russian power group SEU and supplies around
40 percent of Armenia’s electricity needs.

MINISTRY OF CULTURE DOES EXTENSIVE WORKS IN INTERNATIONAL AND
LEGISLATIVE SPHERES IN 2006

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA Ministry of Culture and Youth
Issues signed in 2006 2 bilateral agreements: with Kazakhstan and
Tajikistan, and 4 programs: with Egypt, Russia, Romania and Cyprus, in
the direction of international cooperation. Minister Hasmik Poghosian
stated about it when presenting the 2006 annual activity report on
January 25 at the RA Government. The Minister also mentioned that
cooperation within the framework of the "Kiev Initiative" and "Cultural
Ways" programs being implemented by the Council of Europe, within the
framework of the ministerial meetings of the International Network on
Cultural Policy (INCP) was implemented during the year under review.
Besides, the UNESCO Conventions "On Intengible Cultural Heritage" and
"On Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions were certified.
The agreement on the program "Music of Armenian Duduk (national pipe)"
being implemented by the UNESCO Moscow Office and with the assistance
of the Government of Japan was signed. The program has already started.
Mrs. Poghosian also stated that extensive works were done during 2006
in the direction of improvement of the legal field of the sphere. The
Ministry worked out and the National Assembly affirmed the RA draft
laws "On State Emblem of the Republic of Armenia," "On State Flag of
the Republic of Armenia," "On State Anthem of the Republic of Armenia."
And "The Conception on Keeping Intengible Cultural Values, Protection
of its Viability" was approved by No46 decision of the RA Government
dated November 23, 2006. Schedule for implementing the events arising
of the conception is now being worked out to practically implement the
programs and issues fixed in the conception. The schedule will be
presented to the RA Government’s adoption. The RA draft law "On Theater
and Theater Activity" is presented to the RA National Assembly at
present. "The Conception on Non-Formal Education" was adopted. Other
legal acts relating to the spheres of culture were worked out.

Greek News, New York
Jan 29 2007

Maloney Statement on Assassination of Journalist Hrant Dink
Posted on Monday, January 29 @ 11:35:33 EST by greek_news

Washington, DC – Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14) released the following
statement about the assassination of Armenian-Turkish journalist
Hrant Dink: "I join with my friends in the Armenian community in
condemning the assassination of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant
Dink. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during
this very difficult time.

"Mr. Dink was an advocate for truth and justice. In 2005 he was given
a six-month suspended sentence because he had the courage to write
about the Armenian Genocide.

"The thousands of mourners who bid farewell to Mr. Dink today are a
testament to the strength of the human spirit. We must continue to
stand up for basic human rights.

"I call on the Turkish government to swiftly investigate this murder
and bring the perpetrators to justice."

News&file=article&sid=6175&mode=thread &order=0&thold=0

Turkish Daily News , Turkey
Jan 27 2007

Dink murder: A Catharsis or a test?
Saturday, January 27, 2007

Maybe the ‘higher power’ has tested us by laying Hrant on history’s
altar so that a new Ottoman society of tolerance can be created to
form a modern European Turkey mosaic in the 21st century

CENGİZ ÇANDAR
I have a Jewish friend. He is Istanbul born and bred. After high
school in Istanbul he went to the United States. He stayed there. Now
he is a U.S. citizen. He is a professor. He is a well-known name
among the Washington political elite. During the ceremony for Hrant
Dink at the church, I was standing on one side of the coffin and he
on the other, in the opposite aisle. Our eyes met for a second. He
told me some very interesting things the next day.

He said: `I did not know Hrant Dink personally. My being there on
that day, in that church, was a coincidence but it remained as a
dramatic memory. My eyes constantly scanned the eyes of the Armenians
present. I read in those eyes, `This place is finished for us.’ As I
too am a member of a minority I read those looks differently than
you. That was the day that this place came to an end for us, the
minority group members…’

I could not believe it. How could such a feeling be reached on a
day when tens of thousands of people marched with banners, chanting
`We are all Armenians’? `The Armenians did not hear that voice,’ he
said: `When we were kids, we were all together – Jews, Greeks,
Armenians, Muslims… We used to play together. We used to joke. We,
the minority group members, were aware of our ethnic identities but
there was no segregation. There was a wonderful cosmopolitanism.
Maybe you were not aware of our differences but there was no problem.
The situation is different today. The feeling `this place is finished
for us’ is very dominant. Maybe Hrant Dink’s death has done what many
things such as the Wealth Tax and the events of Sept. 6 and 7 did not
…’

This is `reading the situation.’ I do not know whether it should be
read that way.

The Armenian surprise at the Turkish reaction:

I went to Hrant’s house the day before yesterday; a day after I
heard these words and had been contemplating them. Rakel offered me a
seat next to her. As I tried to make myself at home and rid myself of
the uneasiness caused by being the only man in the room, a woman
visiting to give her condolences introduced herself and her friends
to me. They were the president and members of the `Trabzon Mothers’
Association.’ They had come all the way from Trabzon to
Bakırköy, Istanbul, to visit and express their condolences to
Rakel. `You can never guess the magnitude of sorrow and shame that
the people of Trabzon are feeling. We are questioning why we could
not raise our children better,’ she said.

She denounced the consequences of `poverty and ignorance.’ She was
trying to explain that Trabzon too was embracing Hrant. And she was
very sincere. They even had a photo taken with Rakel as a memento of
the day.

Then in a newspaper I read statements from some French Armenians
who had come to Istanbul and Turkey for the first time in their lives
to attend the funeral. The statements were published by French
newspapers. One of them said:

`I would not in my wildest dreams have thought I would see the
Turks chant, `We are all Hrant, we are all Armenians.’ But I did see
it in reality. This is a miracle. I am a religious person, I have
been praying for a miracle for years. The iron curtain of the USSR
fell into rubble with the earthquake in Armenia in 1989. So God helps
the good emerge from the bad. Why should we turn down the Turks’
friendship? There are also Armenians that we do not share the same
point of view. The Armenian patriarch in Istanbul told me, `Turks are
good people and they are very much like Armenians.’ Turkish Armenians
are much like a fish in the sea – they have become very much a part
of society. We need to distinguish between the Turkish state and the
Turkish population.’

Another was saying:

`There were representatives of the Armenian community from all over
the world. I was surprised when I landed in Istanbul. Everyone was.
And I guess the prejudices of some members of the community were
invalidated.’

I was most struck by Ara Toranyan’s words. I saw Mr. Toranyan
during the Asala court cases in France. He was the most militant
leader of the French Armenians during the 1980s. That is why his
following words were striking:

`This is a very nice reaction from the Turkish people. I was
expecting something but nothing to such a great extent. On the other
hand I never doubted that there were democratic, courageous people in
Turkey. There are extraordinary powers in this country, which can
withstand very hard conditions, which want to change things. This
ceremony is a remarkable message of hope; I hope that the pain we are
feeling is also felt and understood in Turkey. The Turkish people’s
affection has been proven. Militants, a part of the army, the state
and tribes participated in the events of 1915. The participation by
Turkish people was not great. I have never had any bad feelings or
hatred toward the Turkish people.’

All these are also `reading the situation.’ According to these
statements Turkey has entered a phase of maturation in which
minorities can rid themselves of the feeling that `this placed is now
finished for us.’

Beware of the boomerang effect:

At the beginning of the week Etyen Mahçupyan, in his article `The
Turks’ in Zaman, explained his despair as follows:

`We do not intend to understand or hold the hand of the `other
Turk’ who could not comprehend Hrant’s words or bear his presence. So
the murderer is not of age yet… `This is exactly the point’ Hrant
would have said `Are the Turks of age?’ We were aware that we had
been living in a society that was prevented from maturing. But maybe
it is time we ask ourselves this: Is this a society that was made
younger so that it could ritualize its own identity problem by
converting it into an act of violence on another? The issue in front
of `my Turks’ is very clear: To prevent a mass suicide that is
rapidly sliding toward mass pathology and to establish a medium where
everyone can feel themselves `human’…’

Maybe the `earthquake in the society’s soul’ caused by a murder has
helped our society that was `made younger’ to mature. At least we
hope so.

However, for this `social state of mind’ to be guided toward the
good from a `social feeling of shame,’ it needs to be translated into
politics. Here is how: by getting over the issues raised by Article
301, by passing an acceptable foundations law as soon as possible, by
freeing the schoolbooks from texts that incite feelings of animosity,
by determinately taking care of `crime producing social ateliers’ and
Internet sites that work like threat and death squads and by
stimulating awareness against `racism’ in the public.

All of these are within the power of the administration, i.e. the
Turkish government. It is under its job description, which can no
longer be neglected. The Hrant Dink murder, with a week gone by, has
become a `catharsis’ – a personal and social purification for both
our society and the individuals it is comprised of.

On the other hand, this should be prevented from becoming `social
masochism’ that will return to hit society like a `wild
racist-nationalist boomerang.’

Therefore the government must take steps for more freedom and
democracy without any further negligence. It does not matter whether
the steps are taken according to the Copenhagen or the Ankara
criteria.

Who knows? Maybe the `higher power’ has tested us by laying Hrant
on history’s altar so that a new `Ottoman society of tolerance’ can
be created to form a `modern European Turkey mosaic’ in the 21st
century.

Let’s not fail this test…

Journalist’s murder triggers a rare bout of Turkish soul-searching
By Vincent Boland in Ankara
FT
January 24 2007 02:00

Hrant Dink was a controversial and even marginal figure during his
life. In death, the 52-year-old Turkish-Armenian journalist, murdered
in Istanbul on Friday, seems to have pricked an often introverted and
insecure nation into a rare bout of critical thinking.

"We are all Armenians," declared the placards carried by some of the
tens of thousands of mourners who attended Dink’s funeral
yesterday. The dignity of the occasion was undoubted.

Whether it is significant in the longer term is the real question
facing Turkey as it begins to ask why Dink was murdered and what his
death might mean.

The fact that the alleged killer – police say he has confessed – is a
teenager from the eastern city ofTrabzon has deepened the sense of
bewilderment.

Some said the murder was the product of ignorance and exploitation of
vulnerable youngsters by extremists of whatever stripe. Commentators
noted that Trabzon was where a Roman Catholic priest was shot dead
last year during the furore over cartoons of Mohammed that were
published by a newspaper in Denmark.

"As a society we are facing an enormous problem," wrote Ertugrul
Ozkok, editor of Hurriyet newspaper. "There is a climate of hatred
being nurtured in the cities of Anatolia and in our poorer, back-hill,
outskirts areas. We need to start thinking about how we put out these
flames of hatred, from today."

Mehmet Ali Birand, a veteran commentator, blamed the refusal to amend
or abolish a clause of the penal code that allows writers to be
prosecuted for "insulting" the state. Dink was given a suspended
prison sentence under this clause in 2005.

Still others said his murder was a symptom of unthinking
nationalism. Ina ferocious assault on Turkish public discourse, Omer
Taspinar, co-director of the US-Turkey project at the Brookings
Institution, wrote: "Over the last few years a poisonous
ultranationalist environment has befallen our country. The political
class, mass media and state bureaucracy are all responsible for
fuelling a schizophrenic form of nationalism. That such nationalism
begets violence should not be surprising."

As debate rages, one question has emerged. Will the murder bring about
a change in the confrontational relationship between Turkey and
Armenia and in the state of denial in Turkey about hundreds of
thousands of Armenians massacred during the collapse of the Ottoman
empire? Armenians say this was genocide, an accusation Turkey rejects.

The sympathy for Dink, even from a nationalist establishment that
hated his views and from a government largely indifferent to issues of
free speech, is genuine. But it may not be deep. There is no sign that
officials are willing to rethink the Armenian issue.

Nor is the journalist’s death likely to persuade more Turks to accept
his view that Turkey must face up to genocide.

Hasan Unal, professor of international relations at Bilkent
University, said:"We are not all Armenians now. We are Turks and we
will remain Turks."

The nationalist turn in Turkish politics, especially notable in recent
months, comes before a general election in November and amid a fraying
of relations with the US and the European Union. It may be reinforced
as the US Congress considers a resolution that would recognise the
massacres as genocide, joining countries such as France.

Nicholas Burns, the number three diplomat at the State Department,
said last week that the Bush administration would oppose the
resolution. But if it is adopted, say diplomats, it would almost
certainly prompt a crisis in US-Turkish relations, which may become
the most serious casualty of Dink’s murder.