Author: Tambiyan Samvel

TONINO GUERRA IS LEAVING, TAKING WITH HIM INTERMINABLE IMPRESSIONS OF ARMENIAN MIRACLES

Noyan Tapan
Oct 18 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 18, NOYAN TAPAN. "Another two days and this miraculous
journey will draw to its end. However, it will draw to its end with a
festival, just as it started. This miracle started last lear, when I
came to Armenia for the first time for the purpose of taking part in
the "Golden Apricot" international festival." Thus, Tonino Guerra,
a poet and a sculptor, the Italian legendary film scenario writer,
shared his impressions and feelings with journalists and his admirers
on October 17.

"It seems to me that the journey to Armenia cannot be a simple one. It
also seems to me that to make a journey to Armenia means to make a
journey to the sky. During this visit I again went to the museum of
S. Parajanov and again looked for the mistery of his talent and depth
of his art. There I once again made sure that to visit Armenia means
to go up to the sky, as I feel a mighty outburst of imaginations
inside me," the great scenario writer mentioned.

Tonino Guerra also told journalists that he has visited Jermuk:
"That is a magic place. I wonder how it happened that this miracle of
nature appeared at a height of 3000 meters." The maestro also spoke
about another miracle of Armenia: Noravank, and mentioned that the
government of Armenia should put all the miracles of the country
together in a right way and make them available for visitors.

"I will leave for Moscow from here, then for Italy. I want to remember
Armenia as a source of outburst of imaginations before going to
sleep," the maestro confessed. Saying good-bye to the participants
of the meeting, Tonino Guerra added that Armenia is full of talented
people and stunning fruits.

At the end of the meeting the Italian musicians, who had arrived in
Armenia within the frameworks of the "Tonino Guerra and his friends"
festival, played for the participants. Pianist Andrea de Paolo and
accordeon player Mario Stefano Pietrodarki played some of the works
of Astor Piatsola, an Argentinian musician.

"NIG-APARAN" HAS BECOME SOLID AND EFFICIENT STRUCTURE WITHIN FIVE YEARS

Noyan Tapan
Oct 16 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 16, NOYAN TAPAN. The "Nig-Aparan" Patriotic Benevolent
Non-Governmental Organization has managed to become a solid and
efficient structure within the five years of its existence. According
to the information provided by Tigran Petrosiants, a member of the
Council of the "Nig-Aparan" Patriotic Benevolent Non-Governmental
Organization, at the third conference of the organization held on
October 13, "Nig-Aparan" has always been prominent with its actions of
national significance, in particular, such as the round dance organized
in 2004 around the mountain Aragats and the tree planting of 2006.

In the words of Tigran Petrosiants, the number of the members of
the "Nig-Aparan" Patriotic Benevolent Non-Governmental Organization
currently surpasses 93 thousand. There are figures from the spheres
of art, culture, science, literature, and sports, as well as famous
political figures among them.

In the words of Tigran Petrosiants, due to the efforts of the
leadership of "Nig-Aparan", the square of the city of Aparan has been
named after Tigran Petrosian, a famous Armenian chess player, and the
statue of the latter has been set up there. And in 2006 T. Petrosian
scholarships were determined in the Yerevan Physics-Mathematics School,
the Yerevan State and the Yerevan State Medical Universities due to
the sponsorship of the organization. It was mentioned that 100 socially
unprovided excellent students from the higher educational institutions
of Armenia will receive scholarships making a sum equivalent to 100
U.S. dollars since 2007.

FAMILIES OF 11 OFFICERS OF KARABAKH ARMY HAVE NEW APARTMENTS

KarabakhOpen
16-10-2007 12:07:25

Yesterday a block of 11 apartments for the families of officers of
the NKR Defense Army was dedicated in Stepanakert. NKR President
Bako Sahakyan, Prime Minister Ara Harutiunyan, Defense Minister
Movses Hakobyan, other officials were present, Regnum reported. The
NKR President handed out the documents to the officers. The officers
also got gift TV sets and DVD players.

TEHRAN-43: WRECKING THE PLAN TO KILL STALIN, ROOSEVELT AND CHURCHILL

RIA Novosti, Russia
Oct 16 2007

Interview with Russian intelligence veteran Gevork Vartanyan.

The historic significance of the Big Three conference in Tehran, Iran,
was enormous – at stake were the destinies of millions of people and
the future of the world. The deadline for the opening of the second
front was the main issue on the agenda.

Fully aware of this, the Nazi government instructed the German
intelligence service, the Abwehr, to assassinate Joseph Stalin,
Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. The number one Nazi saboteur,
Otto Skorzeny, planned an operation code-named Long Jump.

The security of the Soviet, American and British leaders was mostly
the responsibility of Soviet troops and security agencies. Acting
under the Russian-Persian Treaty of Friendship of 1921, the Soviet
Union sent troops into Iran’s northern regions in August 1941 to curb
the operations of German agents. Britain deployed troops in the south
of the country to guarantee the flow of British-American land-lease
supplies to the U.S.S.R. from the Persian Gulf.

The conference itself was held in the Soviet Embassy. It was the
perfect site for secret talks – a big mansion surrounded by a stone
wall, with buildings of light-colored brick scattered across the
park. One of these was converted into the U.S. president’s residence.

For security reasons, Roosevelt accepted Stalin’s invitation to
stay there. The U.S. diplomatic mission in Tehran was located on
the city’s outskirts, while the Soviet and British embassies were
(and still are) located across the street from one another. Soviet
soldiers broke down the walls, blockaded the street with six-meter
shields and built a temporary passage between the two diplomatic
missions, guarded by anti-aircraft- and machine-gunners. Four rings
of security surrounded the embassies. Nobody could break in.

If Roosevelt had stayed at the U.S. diplomatic mission, either he,
or Stalin and Churchill, would have had to travel to the talks through
Tehran’s narrow streets, where Nazi agents could easily have concealed
themselves in a crowd.

On his return to Washington D.C., Roosevelt said that he had stayed in
the Soviet Embassy because Marshal Stalin told him about a German plot.

Nazi intelligence learnt of the time and place of the conference in
mid-October in 1943, after cracking the American naval code. In 1966,
Skorzeny confirmed that he had been instructed to abduct or kill the
three leaders in Tehran.

Moscow received a cable about the plot against the allied leaders from
Dmitry Medvedev’s guerrillas operating in the Rovno forest [in Ukraine
– ed.]. Among them was the legendary Soviet intelligence officer
Nikolai Kuznetsov. Posing as a German Oberleutnant by the name of Paul
Siebert, Kuznetsov became friendly with SS Sturmbannfuehrer Ulrich
von Ortel, who even promised to introduce him to Skorzeny. Heavily
inebriated, Ortel boasted that he was going to Iran for the meeting
of the Big Three: "We will repeat the Abruzzi jump [a daring airborne
operation in which Skorzeny rescued Mussolini – ed.]! But it will
be the Long Jump! We will eliminate Stalin and Churchill and turn
the tide of the war! We will abduct Roosevelt to help our Fuehrer to
come to terms with America. We are flying in several groups. People
are already being trained in a special school in Copenhagen."

Following this report the [intelligence] center made us responsible
for security at the conference.

Tehran at that time was flooded with refugees from war-ravaged
Europe. For the most part, these were wealthy people trying to escape
the risks of the war. There were about 20,000 Germans in Iran, and
Nazi agents were hiding among them. They were aided by the pre-war
patronage extended to the Germans by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
who openly sympathized with Hitler. The German field station in Iran,
headed by Franz Meyer, was very powerful.

Long before the conference – from February 1940 to August 1941 –
our group of seven intelligence officers had identified more than
400 Nazi agents. When our troops entered Iran, we arrested them all.

Meyer went deep underground. It took us a long time to find him –
he had grown a beard and dyed it, and was working as a grave-digger
at an Armenian cemetery.

Our group was the first to locate the Nazi landing party – six radio
operators – near the town of Qum, 60 km from Tehran. We followed them
to Tehran, where the Nazi field station had readied a villa for their
stay. They were travelling by camel, and were loaded with weapons.

While we were watching the group, we established that they had
contacted Berlin by radio and recorded their communication. When
we decrypted these radio messages, we learnt that the Germans were
preparing to land a second group of subversives for a terrorist act
– the assassination or abduction of the Big Three. The second group
was supposed to be led by Skorzeny himself, who had already visited
Tehran to study the situation on the spot. We had been following all
his movements even then.

We arrested all the members of the first group and made them make
contact with enemy intelligence under our supervision. It was tempting
to seize Skorzeny himself, but the Big Three had already arrived
in Tehran and we could not afford the risk. We deliberately gave a
radio operator an opportunity to report the failure of the mission,
and the Germans decided against sending the main group under Skorzeny
to Tehran. In this way, the success of our group in locating the
Nazi advance party and our subsequent actions thwarted an attempt to
assassinate the Big Three.

After the conference, Stalin went with Kliment Voroshilov and
Vyacheslav Molotov to the Shah’s palace in order to thank Mohammad
Reza Pahlavi for his hospitality. This was a very smart and important
step, which had a big effect on Iranian society. It did not occur
to either Roosevelt or Churchill to do so. The Shah was moved by
Stalin’s attention. When the Soviet leader entered the throne room,
the Shah ran up to Stalin and tried to kiss his hand. But Stalin did
not let him and raised him to his feet.

At that time, Stalin’s authority in the world was absolute – everyone
understood that the outcome of the war was being decided on the
Soviet-German front. Both Roosevelt and Churchill admitted this.

Churchill recalled in his memoirs that everyone stood up when Stalin
entered the hall of the conference. He resolved not to do so again.

Yet, when Stalin entered the hall on another occasion, some unknown
force again brought Churchill to his feet.

Gevork Vartanyan was not even 16 when he went into intelligence. His
farther was sent to Iran by Soviet intelligence in 1930 and worked
there for 23 years.

Gevork was declassified only on December 20, 2000. He and his wife
Goar, a member of his group, immediately received five decorations:
the orders of the Great Patriotic War, Battle Red Banner and Red
Star. The Gold Star Medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union was conferred
on Gevork in 1984 for his performance during the Great Patriotic War
(1941-1945) and the Cold War. He received the Order for Services to
the Fatherland when he turned 80.

Vartanyan believes that his biggest achievement was his and his wife’s
45 year-long record of successful service and safe return home.

"We were lucky – we never met a single traitor. For us, underground
agents, betrayal is the worst evil. If an agent observes all the
security rules and behaves properly in society, no counter-intelligence
will spot him or her. Like sappers, underground agents err only once."

Transcript by Yury Plutenko.

22320.html

ARE THE UNITED STATES AND TURKEY ON A COLLISION COURSE?
By Gallia Lindenstrauss, special for the Jerusalem Post

Jerusalem Post
Oct 16 2007

Turkish-American relations face two significant challenges. One has to
do with the Turkish inclination to enter northern Iraq in order to deal
with Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters operating there. The other
is connected with an upcoming US House of Representatives vote on a
resolution to recognize as genocide the mass killings of Armenians
by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Both challenges touch on
very sensitive issues for the Turks, who are convinced that the US
is insufficiently attentive to their needs and demands.

The Turks have threatened to intervene in northern Iraq on several
occasions since the fall of Saddam Hussein, but they now appear more
determined than ever to do so. In addition to the massive buildup near
the border, the government has now decided to ask for parliamentary
approval to send forces into Iraq. This decision follows the killing
of 30 soldiers and civilians by the PKK in the last two weeks, in
what are considered unusually severe actions by the PKK. According to
the Turks, the US has consistently failed to act against PKK fighters
hiding in the Kandil area of northern Iraq and does nothing to prevent
attacks on Turkey from that region.

The approval of the resolution by the House Foreign Affairs Committee
on October 10 prompted severe condemnation by Turkish leaders
and led Turkey to summon its ambassador in the US to Ankara for
consultations. President Abdullah Gul accused American politicians
of sacrificing big issues for petty games of domestic politics.

Given the Democrat majority in the House, it was expected that the
resolution would be approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee despite
strong opposition by the administration. Nevertheless, its passage
has added to Turkish frustration at the state of relations with the
US, and the expected majority for the resolution in the full House in
November has strengthened the perception of the Turks that they have
less to lose in terms of Turkish-US relations if they do act in Iraq.

Given that Turkey is more determined to do so and less likely to heed
American warnings not to intervene, it is possible that the US will
decide to minimize the negative consequences of Turkish intervention
by providing at least partial cooperation.

The publication of reports about secret plans for such cooperation
suggests that the possibility has already been extensively discussed
by the two sides, notwithstanding American concerns about stability in
the Kurdish-controlled autonomous area in the north of Iraq and about
a hostile reaction on the part of the Kurds, who have been the most
loyal American allies in Iraq. Indeed, these concerns suggest that
if the Turks do intervene, the Americans may also have to undertake
more aggressive actions. Given American failures in Iraq up until now,
it is doubtful whether the administration can permit another failure
in the form of unilateral Turkish intervention seemingly in defiance
of the US.

Such intervention would have negative consequences that could by
neutralized, at least with respect to Turkish-US relations, if the
Americans actually cooperated. By contrast, Turkey is unwilling to
compromise on the Armenian genocide issue and the administration
cannot impose its will on Congress. It is therefore difficult to
see how the damage to bilateral relations of the likely forthcoming
Congressional resolution can be limited.

Turkish policy indicates that while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
and Gul are acting to promote domestic reforms that run counter to
the Kemalist legacy, in foreign affairs they act in conformity with
the hard-line Turkish tradition.

It is true that close ties with the United States are also a
traditionally important component of Turkish foreign policy,
but it is increasingly difficult today for Turks to reconcile the
contradiction between their interests and those of the US. Since the
American invasion of Iraq, Turkish public opinion has also become
more anti-American, and that influences decision makers to adopt
uncompromising positions regarding the Kurdish issue and ignore
American attitudes.

Although Turkish-American relations appear to be headed toward a
crisis, both sides remain aware of the importance of those ties and
therefore try to deal with the challenges they face.

But despite the common desire not to harm bilateral strategic
relations, there is a clash between Turkish and American interests that
may very well further convulse the already complicated reality in Iraq.

ARMENIA, GEORGIA VOW JOINT EFFORT TO ATTRACT FOREIGN INVESTMENT
By Shakeh Avoyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Oct 15 2007

Armenia and Georgia pledged to boost bilateral trade and join forces
in attracting badly needed foreign investment into their economies
on Monday.

Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian and his visiting Georgian counterpart,
Zurab Noghaideli, said they agreed to create a "common investment
environment" that would make their small countries more attractive
to large foreign investors.

"We are going to start working on presenting Armenia and Georgia
as a single investment and trade entity to investors interested
in working with us," Noghaideli said after a meeting in Yerevan
of the Georgian-Armenian inter-governmental commission on economic
cooperation.

"Only together can we be of interest to big foreign firms," said
Sarkisian. He argued that the small size of Armenia’s and Georgia’s
populations is a major factor discouraging foreign direct investment.

"Whereas several years ago we were talking about how to make sure our
cargos go through Georgian territory without problems and unfettered
electricity supplies [to Georgia,] we are now discussing issues that
are more important to our peoples. One of those issues is the formation
of a common market," Sarkisian added at a joint news conference.

Neither premier would say how the two countries plan to harmonize
their investment and other economic legislation. A separate statement
issued by the Armenian government also gave no details, saying only
that the idea was high on the agenda of the commission’s meeting.

The meeting also focused on ways of increasing the still modest
volume of Georgian-Armenian trade. According to official Armenian
statistics, it rose by 16 percent to $51 million in the first half
of this year. The figure is equivalent to less than 3 percent of
Armenia’s overall external trade during this period.

"Georgia mainly produces goods that are not produced in Armenia and
vice versa," he said. "We are not competitors and can complement
deficiencies of our markets."

Noghaideli agreed, singling out the chemical and food-processing
industries. The government statement also cited him as stressing the
need to boost the capacity of Georgia’s railway network that processes
the bulk of cargos shipped to and from Armenia.

It was not clear if the two sides discussed the situation in Georgia’s
restive Armenian-populated Javakheti region or the persisting
Georgian-Russian tensions.

US DEMS PRESS ON WITH ARMENIA BILL

PRESS TV
Oct 15 2007
Iran

Despite Turkish furry, top US Democrats promise to press ahead with
a bill condemning the mass killing of Armenians as genocide.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemns the massacre.

"Genocide still exists, and we saw it in Rwanda; we see it now in
Darfur," she said on ABC television.

The White House and the Republicans oppose the resolution. "We
continue to strongly oppose this resolution which may do grave harm
to US-Turkish relations and to US interests in Europe and the Middle
East," said White House Spokesman Tony Fratto.

Turkey’s top general said military ties between US and its key NATO
ally won’t be the same if an Armenian genocide resolution passes in
the US Congress, a report said Sunday.

Gen. Yasar Buyukanit voiced regret that The House foreign affairs
committee last week labeled the World War I-era killings of Armenians
a genocide.

The Jerusalem Report
October 15, 2007

ADL SPARS WITH ARMENIANS ON U.S. GENOCIDE BILL

by Eve Price
THE REPORTER; Pg. 4

The tables have been turned on the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League,
a nearly century-old organization known for wagging its finger at
those accused of anti-Semitism, which is itself now facing charges of
slighting another ethnic minority.

Armenian-Americans in the Boston area are battling the influential
New York-headquartered Jewish group over its reluctance to support a
proposed Congressional resolution that would recognize the World War
I-era expulsion and massacre of more than 1.5 million Armenians in
Turkey as genocide.

The Armenians have been pressing for the legislation for decades, in
the hope of forcing Turkey to reverse its adamant refusal to
acknowledge that any genocide of Armenians took place from 1915-1917.
Now that they finally have a shot at winning its approval, in a vote
expected in Congress this fall, the ADL, a powerful organization on
whose support they have long relied, has stunned and insulted the
Armenians by publicly objecting to the initiative, labeling it
"counterproductive" and asserting that the Armenians should discuss
the issue with Turkey instead.

"Would they convene a conference to debate the Holocaust?" asked
Anthony Barsamian, public relations chairman for the Armenian
Assembly of America, in a comment on the ADL’s position, which he
interpreted as tantamount to asserting that the fact of the massacre
should be up for discussion. "We in the Holocaust and genocide
community need to be firm against any denial," Barsamian told The
Jerusalem Report.

The ADL seems trapped between its roles as an arbiter of Jewish
community relations within the United States, and a representative of
a pro-Israel lobby facing considerable pressure from both Jerusalem
and Turkey to thwart the legislation. Turkey is a strategic ally of
Israel, in an otherwise hostile Middle East.

ADL national director Abraham Foxman has indicated the organization
would be hard put to reverse its stand on the resolution. He told the
Jewish Daily Forward in New York that the Armenians were confronting
a problem of the past, while Jews, and particularly their state,
continue to live under shakier circumstances. "No Armenian lives are
under threat today or in danger," Foxman maintained. "Israel is under
threat and in danger, and a relationship between Israel and Turkey is
vital and critical, so yeah, I have to weigh [that]."

The dispute between the ADL and the Armenians has so far played out
mainly in the greater Boston area, which is home to some 100,000
Armenians, largely descendants of the Turkish massacre’s survivors.
(There are about 1.5 million ethnic Armenians living in the U.S.)
Three Boston-area town councils, Newton, Belmont and Watertown, have
responded to the ADL’s position by dropping the ADL’s flagship school
campaign called "No Place for Hate," a tool used to monitor bigotry
toward Jews and other minority groups. Additional towns, including
Lexington and Needham, have threatened to join the boycott.

The Congressional motion introduced last January by a Jewish
congressman, Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, home to one of
the largest U.S. Armenian communities, calls to "ensure that the
foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate
understanding and sensitivity" to evidence of crimes that include
"the Armenian genocide." The resolution would have little direct
influence over American policy toward Turkey, but the Bush
administration has also opposed it as a potential embarrassment to
its key NATO ally in the Middle East, whose help it often needs in
times of crisis.

President George Bush expressed opposition to the Armenian resolution
after Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayypid Erdogan telephoned him to
complain about the measure coming up for a vote in a Congressional
committee. Bush feels the legislation would be "harmful" to U.S. ties
with Turkey, a White House spokesman said.

The controversy with the Armenians has driven a deep wedge between
the ADL and other Jewish groups, many of whose leaders rushed to the
side of the Armenians. The ADL’s New England director, Andrew Tarsy,
was fired for condemning Foxman’s stand as a "morally indefensible
position" that amounted to fighting Holocaust denial while passing on
denying the genocide of another group. Tarsy has since been
reinstated as part of the national ADL’s efforts to gather more
Jewish support for its position, as well as heal the rift with the
Armenians.

Amid the objections of Jewish leaders in Boston to the ADL’s stand,
many seem equally disturbed by the possible repercussions a boycott
could have for the group’s anti-bigotry program. Many of these
leaders are concerned that the ADL’s position could boomerang against
the Jewish community at some point. "I totally understand, as an
American Jew, that nothing would be worse than someone saying the
Holocaust didn’t happen," said Nancy Kaufman, executive director of
the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, an advocate
of recognizing the genocide against Armenians, in remarks published
in the Boston Globe.

Turkey raised its voice when Foxman, in an unsuccessful bid to
reconcile with the Armenians, issued a statement in August
acknowledging for the first time that the ADL indeed viewed the
killings of Armenians in Turkey some 90 years ago as a crime
"tantamount to genocide." But the ADL’s statement also antagonized
the Armenian community by making clear that the organization
continued to object to the proposed resolution, saying efforts to
have the U.S. Congress decide the Turkish-Armenian dispute would be
"counterproductive."

Ankara has long denied that Turkey slaughtered Armenians,
acknowledging only that many were deported during the World War I era
and saying that those who were expelled were security threats to
their country. Turkey’s president called Israeli President Shimon
Peres to complain about Foxman’s statement, and Israel’s Ambassador
to Ankara, Pinhas Avivi, also took heat from the Turkish Foreign
Ministry. Avivi responded that Israel was "not taking sides" in the
dispute.

Turkey also appealed directly to the ADL, as well as to more than a
dozen other pro-Israel groups, in a meeting between representatives
of these groups and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan at the United
Nations in late September. Erdogan told the groups he expected their
continued support, the Turkish newspaper Zaman reported. Foxman
assured the Turkish minister he would not back down on the ADL’s
objections to the proposed resolution, the newspaper said.

Barsamian, the Armenian-American spokesman, said there would be a
temporary "cooling-off period" pending the ADL’s next decision on the
issue at a meeting scheduled for November. He accused Foxman of
"placating the Turks" and "putting practicality above morality." But,
Barsamian added, "eventually, I think, morality has to win out."

DIE WELT
12. Oktober 2007

Armenien-Resolution löst heftige Reaktionen in der Türkei aus

Lars-Broder Keil

Washington – Ein US-Kongressausschuss hat mit seinem Votum für eine
Resolution zur Anerkennung des Völkermordes an den Armeniern in der
Türkei heftige Kritik ausgelöst. Präsident Abdullah Gül äußerte sich
empört, Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan sprach von einer Gefährdung der
strategischen Partnerschaft. Außerdem wurde der Botschafter in
Washington zurückgerufen. Die Mitglieder des Auswärtigen Ausschusses
des Repräsentantenhauses hatten sich am Mittwoch mit 27 zu 21 Stimmen
über Warnungen von US-Präsident George W. Bush hinweggesetzt.

Gül bezeichnete die Resolution, die die Verfolgung und Vertreibung
von Armeniern im Ersten Weltkrieg als Völkermord einstuft, als "nicht
akzeptabel". Während der Massendeportationen kamen bis zu 1,5
Millionen Armenier ums Leben. Bis heute reagiert Ankara uneinsichtig
auf dieses Thema. So verurteilte ein Strafgericht gestern den Sohn
des ermordeten armenisch-türkischen Journalisten Hrant Dink für den
Abdruck eines Interviews über den Völkermord wegen "Beleidigung des
Türkentums". DW

Agence France Presse
Oct 13 2007

US officials in Turkey to cool genocide row

ANKARA (AFP) – Two top US government officials arrived in Turkey on
Saturday to try to cool a diplomatic row sparked by a US
congressional vote labelling the mass killings of Armenians by the
Ottoman Turks an act of genocide.

"We thought it would be very good idea for two senior officials to
go," said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who along with US
President George W. Bush opposed Wednesday’s resolution in the the
House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

"We are certainly working to try to minimise any concrete steps the
government might take (such as) restricting the movement of our
troops," Rice said in Moscow. "I am hopeful we can prevent that."

The officials — Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman,
a former US ambassador to Ankara, and Assistant Secretary of State
for European Affairs Dan Fried — were due to have talks later
Saturday with Turkish foreign ministry under secretary, Ertugrul
Apakan, a Turkish official said.

Edelman told reporters as he arrived at Ankara airport that his visit
was to express regret for the resolution being passed. The two had
been accompanying Rice in Moscow and their diversion to Turkey was
unscheduled.

"Mr Edelman knows Turkey well, he is a friend," said the Turkish
official on condition of anonymity, adding: "They wanted to come to
Ankara."

Turkey’s anger over the vote on Wednesday in the US congressional
committee continued to make itself felt with Minister of State Kursad
Tuzmen, an influential member of the Turkish government charged with
external trade, cancelling a visit to a US-Turkish business meeting
in New York.

Tuzmen was the second Turkish official to cancel a planned visit to
the United States after the Turkish Navy commander Admiral Metin Atac
scrapped a trip in the wake of the Armenia vote.

Turkey had warned Washington that passing such a resolution could
seriously damage bilateral ties and after the vote Ankara recalled
its ambassador to the US.

According to Armenians, at least 1.5 million Armenians were killed
from 1915 to 1917 under an Ottoman Empire campaign of deportation and
murder.

Ankara acknowledges that 250,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as
many Turks died in the conflict after Armenians took up arms for
independence but staunchly rejects the tag of genocide.

Turkey’s furious reaction to the congressional vote has fuelled fears
within the Bush administration that it could lose access to a crucial
military base in NATO ally Turkey.

Though the resolution is non-binding, it is likely to come before the
full House in November although bringing a legislative measure to the
floor does not guarantee that it will proceed to a full vote.

Rice said in Moscow that the White House was trying to limit the
damage to US-Turkish relations and would try to stop a vote going to
the House floor although she said this would be "tough."

She added that she had spoken on Friday to Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan following the
vote.

"They were dismayed," she said.