Author: Tadevosian Garnik

Belfast Telegraph , Ireland (UK)
March 6 2010

Angry Turkey pushes on with Armenia diplomacy

Saturday, 6 March 2010

Turkey said yesterday it would push on with efforts to normalise ties
with Armenia despite a US congressional panel vote labelling as
genocide the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

Turkish leaders reacted with fury over the approval of the non-binding
resolution by the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs
Committee.

Although it was unclear whether the bill would be considered by the
full House, President Abdullah Gul, whose visit to Armenia in 2008 led
to the peace initiative, said the US vote would hurt efforts to bring
peace and stability to the South Caucasus, a volatile region with
pipelines taking oil and gas to the West. Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu said the US action had jeopardised chances of Turkey’s
parliament ratifying peace accords with Armenia, but that the
government would push on with efforts to resolve disputes with its old
foe.

`We are determined to press ahead with normalisation of relations with
Armenia,’ Davutoglu told a news conference hours after Turkey recalled
its ambassador from Washington.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has warned of possible damage to
relations with the United States because of the vote.

d-news/angry-turkey-pushes-on-with-armenia-diploma cy-14710045.html

news.az, Azerbaijan
March 5 2010

Karabakh tops Azerbaijani minister’s Paris agenda
Fri 05 March 2010 | 07:25 GMT Text size:

Elmar Mammadyarov APA news agency interviews Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

What is the main aim of your meeting with the co-chairs of the Minsk
Group during your 5 March visit to Paris?

Since 2004 the negotiations on the resolution of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, mediated by the
OSCE Minsk Group, have continued within the framework of the Prague
process, which envisaged a stage-by-stage approach to conflict
resolution. As part of this process, during the meeting held in Madrid
in November 2007 the foreign ministers of the countries co-chairing
the Minsk Group put forward the proposals on the settlement of the
conflict that reflect the positions of the conflicting parties.

These proposals were accepted as the basis for further negotiations
and since then the negotiations have been held around them. Over the
past two years the co-chairs paid a number of visits to the region and
numerous meetings were held at the level of the two countries’
presidents and foreign ministers. Hard work has been done on different
approaches to the proposals. I would like to recall that only in 2009
the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia met six times. Several
trilateral meetings were held at the initiative of the president of
the Russian Federation, Mr Dmitry Medvedev.

As a result, the co-chairs of the Minsk Group submitted to the
conflicting parties a new document which contained updated proposals
reflecting the positions of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The Azerbaijani
side further announced that it accepted the document in principle
after thorough analysis and with few exceptions. We would like to know
the reaction of the Armenian side with regard to the updated version
of the document and this is why I will meet the Minsk Group co-chairs
in Paris on 5 March.

As I said, in the last two years hard work has been done with the
participation of the co-chairs and there is now a document that
provides a basis for a comprehensive resolution of the conflict. The
existing situation shows the inadmissibility of the present status quo
and requires a solution to the conflict as soon as possible.

The joint statement by the presidents of the countries co-chairing the
OSCE Minsk Group made at the G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy on 10 July
2009, the joint statement by the foreign ministers of France and
Russia and the US deputy secretary of state, in their capacity as
heads of delegations of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries,
made at the OSCE Ministerial Council in Athens on 1 December 2009, the
statement by the Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos
during his visit to the region as European Union president, as well as
positions expressed by various government officials, international and
regional organizations show that the international community is
interested and committed to finding a solution to the conflict as soon
as possible.

The Armenian leadership says that any preconditions on ratification of
the Armenian-Turkish protocols and the opening of the border are
unacceptable. What is your opinion?

We have explained our position on this issue on numerous occasions.
Azerbaijan pursues a policy of non-interference in the domestic
affairs of other countries and in relations between countries. But it
is well known that Turkey closed its borders with Armenia in protest
at the latter’s occupation of Azerbaijani territories and this
occupation is still continuing.

There is a logical conclusion, therefore, that if Armenia wants to
open its borders with Turkey it should put an end to the occupation of
Azerbaijani land and withdraw its troops from the occupied
territories. Turkish officials have also stated that and we believe it
to be a sound position. At the same time, the last proposals
elaborated by the Minsk Group co-chairs and based on the positions of
the conflicting sides also consider the opening of all communications
in the region as part of the settlement of the conflict.

Hence, resolution of the conflict will lead to the opening of all
borders and communications, the restoration of infrastructure,
integration of the economy and generally to welfare and prosperity in
the region. For this to happen, first and foremost, the Armenian
troops should be withdrawn from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan and
the internally displaced Azerbaijanis should return to their
homelands.

APA

ARMEN MELKONIAN PLURALISTICALLY APPOINTED AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE OF ARMENIA IN LEAGUE OF ARAB STATES

Noyan Tapan
March 4, 2010

YEREVAN, MARCH 4, NOYAN TAPAN. RA President Serzh Sargsyan, on March
4, signed a decree on relieving Ruben Karapetian of the post of RA
Authorized Representative in the League of Arab States.

According to RA President’s Press Office, by RA President’s another
decree Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of RA in the
Arab Republic of Egypt Armen Melkonian was pluralistically appointed
Authorized Representative of Armenia in the League of Arab States
(residence Cairo).

AGREEMENT ON ENCOURAGEMENT AND MUTUAL PROTECTION OF INVESTMENTS TO BE SIGNED BETWEEN GOVERNMENTS OF ARMENIA AND ESTONIA

Noyan Tapan
March 4, 2010

YEREVAN, MARCH 4, NOYAN TAPAN. During the March 4 sitting, the Armenian
government endorsed the proposal to sign an agreement on encouragement
and mutual protection of investments between the governments of Armenia
and Estonia. Deputy Minister of Economy Mushegh Tumasian said that
the agreement will contribute to economic development and mutual flow
of private capital between the two countries. Under the agreement,
either side shall provide protection and ensure the security of the
other side’s investments and incomes in its territory.

The government also approved the proposal on economic, scientific and
technical cooperation between the governments of Armenia and Kuwait.

The agreement aims to develop friendly relations of the two countries
and to promote their economic, scientific and technical cooperation.

Armenia and Kuwait will cooperate in various sectors such as tourism,
science, technologies and innovation, transport, agriculture, ICT
sector, etc.

INVESTIGATOR IS ACCUSED OF BRIBERY

s17030.html
16:04:14 – 03/03/2010

The pre-investigation of the case regarding the investigator of the
National Security Service who was accused of taking bribe ended. The
investigator Vladimir Kotolyan took bribe of 4000 dollars from M.

Avetisyan and H. Gevorgyan not to call them for responsibility.

Kotolyan is accused of Article 311, Part 4.

AUSTIN BAY: THE STRUGGLE FOR TURKEY’S SOUL
By: Austin Bay

Washington Examiner
March4 2010

March 4, 2010 Over the last two weeks, the Turkish police have detained
and interrogated several dozen retired military officers allegedly
involved in plotting an intricate coup d’etat.

The government, led by the "moderate Islamist" Justice and Development
Party (AKP), has cause for concern. The Turkish military has toppled
elected governments four times since 1960. The European Union has made
continued civilian rule a key requirement for Turkey’s admission to
the EU.

Though the alleged coup was planned in 2003, the current situation is
quite serious. The Turkish press reports that Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug
have held intense discussions where they have addressed the arrests
and the evidence.

This domestic Turkish confrontation involves much more than a classic
"military junta versus civilian rule" media template, however. Turkish
law tasks the Turkish military with defending Turkey’s secular state
and the secular reforms of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic
of Turkey. The spring 2010 crisis in Ankara reflects what historians
have dubbed "the struggle for Turkey’s soul" and a long-term battle
for the terms of modernity.

Turkey’s journey since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918
has been remarkable. By the mid?1920s, after a bloody war with Greece
(in Anatolia, Thrace and Ionia) and an extended military and political
confrontation with French, British and Italian occupiers, nationalist
forces led by Ataturk regained control of the Turkish heartland. The
"Kemalist" Republic, using the armed forces as a source of stability,
focused on internal Turkish development — and the once "Sick Man of
Europe" became the Quiet Man of Europe.

Under Ataturk, the Ottoman’s Islamic superpower of four and a
half centuries embarked on a mission into "modernity" — a secular
government, Latin written script, women’s rights, public education
and a careful program of industrial modernization. A cornerstone of
the Turkish Republic was "non-recidivism": Turkey made no claims on
lost territory.

As the 21st century begins, Turkey has emerged as a regional
super-power of military, social, political and economic import. It
maintains the second-largest army directly committed to NATO.

Turkey, however, remains in the middle of a hot political crucible.

Iran is a neighbor and a major competitor. Turkey also faces
other troubles: a bleeding Kurdish insurgency in its southeastern
provinces that extends into Iraqi Kurdistan; conflict with Greece,
over Cyprus and the Aegean; resentment in the Balkans; lingering
claims of Ottoman-directed genocide by Armenians; and hard-left
radical terrorists (a Cold War hangover).

Turkey’s membership negotiations with the EU often sound more like
divorce proceedings than marriage arrangements, but today’s tough
rhetoric bests the war-littered past. For eight centuries, Turks and
Europeans battled in the Balkans and Mediterranean.

Yet Turkey has spent the last eight decades edging toward Europe,
politically, economically and culturally. Kemalists (Turks who favor
strong secular, nationalist institutions) believe Turkey is the
"bridge nation" demonstrating the path to genuine modernization for
other predominantly Muslim nations.

Then in 2002 the AKP, a party with Islamist roots, came to power.

There were reasons. Corruption and cronyism ripped the secular
parties. Some secularist politicians had played their own versions
of "the Muslim card" (appeals to conservative Muslim sectarian
sympathies).

The AKP challenges the Kemalist model. The Kemalists reject the
"re-Islamization" of Turkey and see the AKP-led governments as the
slippery slope to Muslim fundamentalist control (referred to as
"religious reaction").

In his book "The Kemalists," Turkish journalist Muammer Kaylan (former
editor of the influential newspaper Hurriyet and a Reuters reporter)
illustrates how the AKP uses EU membership requirements to strengthen
its position. Reforms required for EU membership are "the Islamists
dream … come true to expand their powerbase. The generals, however,
regarded some of the (EU) reforms … as potential weapons to subvert
the state. They feared that these reforms could change the state’s
ideology based on the Kemalist reforms and weaken their role as the
guardians against separatist and fundamentalist movements."

Over the next two decades, the struggle for Turkey’s soul will continue
to be Turkey’s most important domestic political clash. It may also
be the region’s most important strategic battle.

Examiner Columnist Austin Bay is nationally syndicated by Creators
Syndicate.

http://www.washingtonexaminer .com/opinion/columns/Austin-Bay-The-Struggle-for-T urkeys-Soul-86330002.html

TURKISH JEWS SEND LETTER TO CONGRESSMEN

APA
March 3 2010
Azerbaijan

Baku – APA. Jewish community in Turkey sent a letter to the members
of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Warning reflected in the letter is about – adoption of the so-called
"Armenian genocide" draft decision will damage Turkey-US relations,
APA reports citing Haberturk.

"Turkish Jewish community thinks, it is not realistic that evaluation
of historical events is being carried out by the parliaments. This
task should be left to historians. The Turkish-American relations
will certainly be damaged, the Turkish-Armenian relations will be
unable to enter the recovery process".

NKR MFA: official Baku learnt no lesson from Sumgait events

28.02.2010 15:18 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The events of late February 1988 in the town of
Sumgait shocked the international community with their savagery and
brutality. They became an embodiment of the Azerbaijani authorities’
policy of hatred towards Armenians conducted within the whole soviet
period.

`Unfortunately, the pogroms organized and implemented in Sumgait on
February 27-29 on a top state level haven’t got corresponding
political or legal assessment, and their organizers and basic
executors haven’t only avoided any punishment, but they still occupy
top positions in Azerbaijan. The official structures of the USSR
hurried to put veto on the Sumgait issue, artificially dividing the
mass massacre of Armenians into separate crimes. In other words, the
committed genocide was veiled, and its organizers and executors were
shielded on an official level.

The policy of concealment towards the genocide in Sumgait made
possible conducting ethnic cleansing in the whole territory of the
Republic by the Azerbaijani SSR authorities and led to further
unleashing a wide-scale military aggression against the people of the
Nagorno Karabakh Republic. Having suffered a crushing defeat in its
unleashed war, official Baku is not going to learn a lesson from the
recent past and keeps on intensifying its military rhetoric.

Official Baku’s unwillingness to face the truth only distances the
prospect of confidence building between Artsakh and Azerbaijan,
without which the Karabakh conflict settlement and solution of other
regional issues are impossible,’ NKR MFA statement says.

The pogroms of Armenians in Sumgait (a town located a half an hour
drive away from Baku) took place on February 27-29, 1988. The events
were preceded by a wave of anti-Armenian statements and rallies that
swept over Azerbaijan. Almost the entire area of the town with
population of 250 thousand became a site of unhindered mass pogroms.
Armed with iron rods, stones, axes, knives, bottles and canisters full
of petrol, the perpetrators broke in Armenian houses. There were
dozens of casualties, mostly burnt alive after assaults and torture.
Hundreds of innocent people were wounded and disabled. The story of
Sumgait marked the first entry in a long list of crimes against
humanity and ethnic cleansings of the end of the 20th century.

14:52 25/02/2010 » Economy
Chairman of Armenia’s Commission for Protection of Economic Competition resigns

The Chairman of Armenia’s Commission for Protection of Economic
Competition David Harutyunyan handed in his resignation to the RA
President, the Commission press secretary Armine Udumyan told
Panorama.am.

"He has resigned over assuming another post," the press secretary
said. Harutyunyan is due to continue performing his duties as long as
the President has not made a resolution on accepting his resignation.

David Harutyunyan was appointed as Commission Chairman on October 23,
2009 on a five-year term.

Source: Panorama.am

Mediamax, Armenia
Feb 26 2010

Armenian leader opposes Turkey’s mediation in Karabakh talks

Yerevan, 26 February: Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has told
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that he considers that Ankara
cannot be involved in the Karabakh conflict settlement process because
of the Turkish side’s openly biased stance.

The Armenian president and the Turkish foreign minister exchanged
views in Kiev on 25 February during a reception on the occasion of the
Ukrainian president’s inauguration, the [Armenian] presidential
administration told Mediamax. The presidential administration denied
reports that Serzh Sargsyan received the Turkish foreign minister.

During the exchange of views, the Armenian president told the Turkish
foreign minister that the ratification of the signed protocols should
be completed as soon as possible, otherwise Armenia would recall its
signature under the documents.

"The country that dreams of a region with no borders should itself
make a first step and stop the blockade of Armenia’s borders, that
will make it possible to open telecommunication and transport
infrastructures in the region. If Azerbaijan’s pressure does not allow
the Turkish parliament to ratify the protocols, nothing prevents
Turkey’s executive authorities from opening the border they had closed
prior to the ratification of the protocols," Serzh Sargsyan said.