Author: Tashjian Arbi

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)
October 5, 2005 Wednesday

History lesson Turkey and genocide

THE NEXT time a reluctant student or clueless adult says that history
doesn’t matter, it’s time to talk Turkey. As in Turkey the somewhat
democratic country that’s located mostly in what used to be called
Asia Minor.

Over there, a long-festering political sore has broken open. It seems
that some of the country’s professors are insisting that their
countrymen face up to Turkey’s dark past, aka the Armenian genocide.
An estimated 1.5 million Armenians are believed to have been
systematically massacred by the Turks between 1915 to 1923.

It’s a touchy subject in Turkey, where national pride in the old
Ottoman Empire still runs strong. To accuse the old regime of
practicing genocide is an accusation still so offensive that
participants arriving at the conference on the subject were pelted by
fresh eggs and rotten tomatoes.

It seems the history of events now almost a century old still
reverberates. Turkey is up for membership in the European Union, and
the Union has objected to the difficulties organizers encountered in
setting up such a conference on Turkish soil. The conference had to
be canceled twice, once by Turkey’s minister of “justice” and a
second time by a Turkish court. The minister accused those organizing
the conference of “stabbing the people in the back.” The court
demanded to know the academic qualifications of those who would speak
at the conference. Free speech this isn’t.

The meeting did finally get off the ground, but the European Union
still has questions about just how free its newest candidate for
membership may be. The consequences of trying to censor an ugly past
aren’t just emotional. It turns out they’re economic and political,
too.

The excuses for refusing to deal with the past are all too familiar
by now. What’s the point, the apologists ask. It’s all ancient
history. Those living today-at least most of them-aren’t responsible.
They didn’t participate in those crimes. But the simplest excuse of
all is the falsest: It never happened. The Turkish version of denial
goes like this: Yes, some Armenians may have died back in the bad old
days. But not as many as the critics claim, and lots of Turks also
died in the unrest that came with the First World War and the
collapse of Ottoman rule.

Such denial is common in Japan, too. That society has yet to fully
face its crimes against humanity during the Second World War and the
runup to it. The Rape of Nanking is an especially horrific example.
In what some Japanese textbooks now call an “incident,” Japanese
troops systematically slaughtered the Chinese residents of Nanking in
a six-month orgy of violence in 1937-38. An estimated 150,000 to
300,000 died. The Japanese may downplay it, but the Chinese aren’t
about to forget. Neither should the rest of the world. Incident,
indeed.Compare the way the Japanese have played down their past with
Germany’s response to the Holocaust. Bitter as it had to be, the
German government accepted that nation’s responsibility for the
Holocaust. That doesn’t change what happened, but it provides an
opportunity for conciliation and even redemption. Facing the past is
the first step toward freeing ourselves of its iron grip. It is
truth, not denial, that sets us free.

Turkey has a long way to go. But this conference in Istanbul shows
that at least a few Turks are willing to look at the past. That way
lies a better future.

This article was published 10/5/2005

BBC NEWS
7 October 2005
Turkey sentences Armenian writer

Journalists have raised concerns about aspects of the penal reforms
A journalist in Turkey has been found guilty of insulting Turkish identity
and given a suspended six-month jail sentence by a court in Istanbul.
Hrant Dink, of Armenian-Turkish descent, wrote a newspaper column which he
argued was aimed at improving relations between Turkey and Armenia.
The prosecution interpreted one part as an insult, but Mr Dink has said he
will appeal against the ruling.
The verdict follows criminal code reforms as Turkey seeks to join the EU.
The reforms were intended to improve freedom of speech in Turkey.
The article written by Mr Dink addressed the killings of hundreds of
thousands of Armenians during Ottoman rule in 1917.
Armenians, supported by several countries, want Turkey to recognise the
events as a genocide. Turkey rejects that description, saying the deaths
occurred in a civil war in which many Turks were also killed.
Humiliation
A paragraph in the article calling on Armenians to symbolically reject “the
adulterated part of their Turkish blood” was taken as offensive.
” If I’m guilty of insulting a nation then it’s a matter of honour not to
live here” Hrant Dink.
The judge ruled that Mr Dink’s newspaper column implied that Turkish blood
was dirty.
He is the editor of a bilingual Armenian-Turkish newspaper, Agos.
The BBC’s Sarah Rainsford said the judge ordered a suspended sentence as it
was Mr Dink’s first offence.
But the nationalist lawyers who brought the case were disappointed.
“There was an obvious humiliation and result of this case should be at least
two and a half years or three years criminal charge,” one said.
“But I think that Turkish courts are under big pressure due to these
European Union accession talks.”
‘No crime’
Mr Dink’s lawyer Fethiye Cetin said the ruling showed how little had changed
under Turkey’s new criminal code, despite international and internal
pressure.
“There was no crime here,” she told the BBC. “We expected our client to get
off.”
Our correspondent says human rights lawyers believe his case shows there are
still no-go areas for discussion here and the new laws leave substantial
room for interpretation.
Mr Dink says he will appeal against the ruling. But if he cannot clear his
name, he will leave the country.
“If I’m guilty of insulting a nation,” he told the BBC, “then it’s a matter
of honour not to live here.”

ARMENIAN BUSINESS HOTEL COMPLEX DELIVERED TO AUA MANAGEMENT

Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Oct 6 2005

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 6, NOYAN TAPAN. The ceremony of renaming Armenian
Business Complex after Vardges and Hasmik Barsams took place on
October 6. During the ceremony, Mr. Vardges Barsam stated that Armenian
Business Hotel Complex is delevered to the management of the American
University of Armenia (AUA) for the purpose of assisting the program
on enrollment of regional and foreign students.

With a financial assistance of the USAID’s organization “American
Schools and Hospitals Abroad”, the AUA need to make an investment
of about 300 thousand USD inorder to repair and technically re-equip
the building.

To recap, Armenian Business Hotel Complex was set up in 1990.

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER AND UAE VICE PRIME MINISTER DISCUSS

ARMINFO News Agency
October 3, 2005

REGIONAL AND BILATERAL ISSUES

YEREVAN,OCTOBER 3. ARMINFO. Minister Oskanian visited Abu Dhabi, on
the occasion of the groundbreaking of the Armenian Embassy building
in the United Arab Emirates. Large number of representatives of the
government, together with the diplomatic corps, and members of the
Armenian community from throughout the Emirates were present.

In a brief ceremony, Minister spoke, followed by Ambassador Arshak
Poladian, and then the first stones were laid for what will be a
7,000 sq. meter building.

During his visit, the Minister also met with Deputy Prime Minister
and State Minister for External Relations, Sheikh Hamdan Ben Zayed Al
Nahanyan. The two discussed bilateral and regional issues, including
Armenia’s having provided suitable embassy state for the Emirates,
which will be opening an embassy in Yerevan.

The Minister also met with Ahmad Bakr, the Deputy Director of the
Abu Dhabi Development Fund. The Minister described Armenia’s economic
development and prospects for growth.

The Minister returned to Yerevan late Monday.

ARMENIAN POLITICIANS, US INTELLIGENCE CHIEF DISCUSS SITUATION IN COUNTRY – PAPER

Iravunk, Armenia
Sept 16 2005

Headlined “‘Velvet season’: it smacks of a ‘velvet’ revolution”

Today it is difficult to say what political developments will take
place in Armenia this year. Will the opposition manage to topple the
authorities by means of a revolution or in some other way? One thing
is already clear: autumn will be full of unexpected and interesting
meetings.

According to a source close to the US embassy, such a meeting has taken
place at the US embassy. Some opposition leaders Aram Sarkisyan [leader
of the Anrapetutyun Party], Ovanes Ovanesyan, Aram Karapetyan, Stepan
Demirchyan [leader of the opposition Justice faction in parliament],
Viktor Dallakyan [secretary of the Justice faction] and Vazgen Manukyan
[leader of the National Democratic Union] were officially invited to
meet the head of the Eastern Europe and Russia department of the US
National Intelligence Council, Martin Schwartz.

This information is interesting because this is the first time that a
top official of the US secret services has officially met the leaders
of the Armenian opposition. It is remarkable that the format chosen
by the opposition for the meeting was not homogeneous in terms of
its geo-political orientation.

According to the same source, the meeting lasted for a long time and a
wide spectrum of local and foreign political issues were discussed in
detail. Incidentally, Mr Martin Schwartz also met some media chiefs
and even a reception was organized in his honour at the US embassy
at the end of his visit.

Newsweek
Oct 2 2005

The Enemies Within
Not all Turks want to join the European Union.

By Owen Matthews And Sami Kohen

10, 2005 issue – It looked like the bad old days when Turkey’s
universities were hot-beds of political strife. On one side of the
police barriers were dozens of young students, many with their mouths
taped shut to symbolize their support for free speech. On the other
was an older crowd of about 200 ulkucu – mostly mustached
ultranationalists waving Turkish flags and banners. Slogans were
chanted, then abuse; a few missiles sailed through the air. In
between, some rather bewildered international historians scuttled
into a conference hall amid shouts of “Traitors!” Their subject? The
fate of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenians during World War I.

In truth, it wasn’t 1915 that roused such passions last week at
Istanbul’s Bilgi University. The real issue is what kind of country
Turkey will become. There are those who want Turkey to openly examine
its past, rid itself of the legacy of military rule and become truly
European. And there are others, mostly conservative nationalists, who
cling to the past and fear that interference from Brussels will
change their way of life and undermine Turkey’s independence.

It’s no coincidence that the Armenian flap erupted just days before
the start of Turkey’s formal negotiations to join the European Union.
It was, in fact, a well-orchestrated plan, set in motion by a man
named Kemal Kerincsiz, a lawyer with links to the Nationalist Action
Party, who filed a complaint that a conference on the Armenian issue
would violate Turkish laws on insulting the state and its founder,
Kemal Ataturk. A panel of like-minded judges agreed, and banned it.
“Those at home and abroad who want to obstruct us are making their
last efforts,” railed Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a
leading advocate of joining the EU, when he heard of the court’s
order. Citing the damage the banning would do to Turkey’s image at
such a sensitive moment, Gul and his government quickly circumvented
the ruling, and the conference went ahead – but not without
accomplishing exactly what the obstructionists had hoped.

This was not the only such incident. Over the last two months,
Turkish nationalists and their sympathizers in the judiciary and
state bureaucracy have done their utmost to sabotage Turkey’s efforts
to present itself as a modern European nation. They have succeeded in
lodging criminal charges against a prominent publisher, Ragip
Zarakolu, for allegedly “insulting Turkish identity and the security
forces,” because he was about to publish translations of two American
books on the Armenian massacres. And last month prosecutors filed
similar charges against Turkey’s leading novelist, Orhan Pamuk, for
“insulting the state” after he told a Swiss magazine that “a million
Armenians were killed” in 1915. Though few expect him to be thrown in
jail, the case brought back memories of military rule, when tens of
thousands of intellectuals were imprisoned. “Right or wrong,” says
Pamuk, “don’t people have the right to express their ideas peacefully
in this Turkey?”

All this is fodder for skeptics who say Turkey is not ready to join
Europe. Almost unwittingly, “the rejectionists in Turkey and in the
EU seem to have formed an unholy alliance,” says Dr. Can Baydorol, an
EU expert at Bilgi University. And though Turkey’s ultranationalists
are on the political fringe, there’s a danger that their views could
become mainstream. Gripes about Europe are already common. One is
that the EU is all take and no give: “We have a monster in front of
us,” complains Emin Colasan, a columnist at the popular centrist
daily Hurriyet. “Whatever we give does not satisfy it.” Another is
that the EU does not keep its word. Negotiations for full membership
were supposed to begin without conditions. Now various EU members are
trying to renege. No issue is more touchy than divided Cyprus. Ankara
bent over backward to promote a U.N. unification plan, only to see it
defeated by the Greek Cypriots – who are now using their position
inside the Union to lobby against Turkey.

Two thirds of Turks still want to join the EU, according to a recent
poll by the German Marshall Fund. But that’s down from 73 percent
last year, and EU foot-dragging will push those numbers down further.
And for all their pro-Europeanism, top officials in the ruling
Justice and Development Party say they could well walk away if the EU
continues to erect new obstacles to Turkey’s membership. Even if it
doesn’t, the rigors of accession may well dampen Turks’ enthusiasm.
Complying with Brussels’s 80,000 pages of EU law (covering everything
from air quality to street-food hygiene and the strength of
cigarettes) will not be easy – or popular. All that’s grist for those
who want the project to fail.

Journal of Turkish Weekly
Oct 1 2005

Greek Cyprus Vetoes EU-Caucasus Relations

Greek Cyprus put veto on EU-Azerbaijan negotiations within the
framework of “Enlarged Europe. New Neighborhood” as the latter
launched air communications with the unrecognized Turkish Republic of
Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in July. The European neighborhood initiative
is designed for the three South Caucasian states (Azerbaijan, Armenia
and Georgia). Therefore EU postponed negotiations with all of these
three countries because of the Greek Cyprus. The Armenian media
argued that the EU betrayed its own principles by punishing the
region.

One of the private Azerbaijani companies fly to TRNC which is not
recognized by the EU and the Greek side. In fact the EU promised to
lift all the economic and political sanctions against the Turkish
Cypriots. However despite of the 2004 promises, the EU accepted the
Greek Cyprus as full member to the EU and kept the Turkish Cypriots
outside. After the membership, the Greeks on the island have been
very reluctant for peace negotiations. The Greek Cypriot Government
plans to `solve’ the problems inside the EU because the Turks are not
inside the EU. The Greek Cyprus also tries to veto Turkey-EU
relations. Thus a tiny member block the EU’s relations with the
Caucasus and 75-million-size-Turkey.

GEORGIA, AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIA ARE NOT HAPPY

At a joint press conference with Armenian foreign minister on Sept.
29, the EU special representative to the South Caucasus confirmed the
information by the Armenian and Azeri press that the European Union
has postponed negotiations with Armenia and Georgia because of the
Greek Cyprus.

Heikki Talvitie said that they decided to postpone the talks because
of some problems between Azerbaijan and a EU state Greek Cyprus). The
Finn diplomat said that unless those problems are settled in a month
the EU would apply `individual’ approach to each country.

“GREEK CYPRUS HIJACKED EU’S RELATIONS”

Dr. Sedat Laciner from ISRO said the decision would undermine the
EU-Caucasus relations. `A tiny country severely damage the EU’s
relations with whole region. The Greek Cypriots not only hijacked
Turkey-EU relations but also Caucasus-EU relations’ Laciner added.

JTW
Jan SOYKOK, 1 October 2005

Too soon for Turkish delight

Sep 29th 2005
The Economist Global Agenda

Formal talks are about to begin on Turkish membership of the European
Union. Within Turkey and outside it, there are questions about the
predominantly Muslim country’s readiness for Europe-but also encouraging
signs

Corbis

Get article background

BARRING last-minute upsets, never to be ruled out as the diplomats
continued haggling this week, Turkey is on the brink of realising its
fondest national dream: on Monday October 3rd, formal talks will begin
on Turkish membership of a European Union at whose gate it has been
waiting for 40 years.

But as so often happens, the settlement of one question-should Turkey
step all the way into the EU’s ante-room?-has quickly given rise to a
host of others. People are already asking how long rapprochement with
the EU can be sustained, in the face of opposition in Europe to
Turkey-and in Turkey to Europe.

Scepticism over the Turks surfaced again this week in the European
Parliament. The legislators, while endorsing the start of talks with the
government in Ankara, balked at ratifying Turkey’s inclusion in a
customs protocol-on the grounds that the ships and aircraft of Cyprus,
an EU member, are still barred from Turkish ports. Dominique de
Villepin, the French prime minister, had earlier said that Turkey must
recognise Cyprus in order to join the EU. Nicolas Sarkozy, a popular
Gaullist who is well placed to win the French presidency in 2007,
opposes Turkish membership. So does Angela Merkel, who is favourite to
take Germany’s chancellorship following its recent elections, which
ended in a hung parliament. Overall, just 35% of EU citizens support
Turkish membership, according to a recent poll by Eurobarometer.
Europeans are queasy about the idea of taking in a big Muslim member,
and of hordes of Turkish job-seekers overwhelming the EU’s current
members.

But the other part of Turkey’s Euro-question is even harder: how much
resistance will there be among the Turks to the changes-legal, economic,
and above all cultural-that the EU is demanding?

For Turks who want a European future, there was a dollop of hope last
weekend, when brave historians managed to hold a conference in Istanbul
to discuss the fate of the Ottoman Armenians. It was the first time
Turkish pundits were permitted to challenge publicly the official line,
holding that the mass deportation of Armenians in 1915 did not amount to
a conspiracy to kill them. As participants read out letters between the
“Young Turks” then ruling the empire, a rapt audience was left with no
doubt that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were deliberately slain.

Planned originally for May, the Armenian forum was called off then at
the behest of Cemil Cicek, the justice minister. It was nearly scuppered
anew last week, when an Istanbul court used a technicality to order its
cancellation. This time Mr Cicek offered a way out-changing the venue.
And Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, condemned the court
ruling: the first time an elected leader had so publicly rebuked
Turkey’s courts. It was also the first time that Mr Erdogan had so
clearly given a lead to public opinion instead of pandering to populism.
The establishment media fell in behind him, decrying the noisy
nationalists who pelted the conference delegates with eggs.

Cynics, who recall Mr Erdogan’s earlier moves to appease conservatives
by criminalising adultery, see his recent outburst of liberalism as a
last-ditch effort to clinch the October 3rd date. Be that as it may,
people close to the prime minister insist he has pinned his political
fortunes on further reforms, with or without the EU. “He can’t compete
on nationalism with the ultra-nationalists, so it’s in his interest to
keep on reforming,” says a western diplomat.

This may explain some other recent moves by Mr Erdogan: he dared to
admit, in a speech in the Kurdish stronghold of Diyarbakir, that Turkey
had erred in its dealings with the Kurds. These frank words enraged
nationalists, including some members of his own party. In the country as
a whole, nationalism has been bubbling: it has been rising since June
2004, when the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ended a five-year
truce.

Chauvinism has surfaced in ugly ways. There have been attempted
lynchings of Kurdish civilians outside their native south-east region. A
recent poll shows the jingoistic Nationalist Action Party, which failed
to enter parliament in the 2002 elections, would gain seats today.

As well as countering this dark mood, Mr Erdogan must cope with foes in
the army who fear that rapprochement with Europe will reduce their
power-and who see in Turkey’s internal conflicts a chance to restore
that influence. But Mr Erdogan has rebuffed army demands to re-introduce
a draconian anti-terror law. Solving the Kurdish problem requires more
democracy, not repression, he insists. He may have to take further
risks-for example by endorsing, despite army opposition, a deal that
would coax 5,000 PKK fighters from their mountain strongholds, both in
northern Iraq and within Turkey.

The coming year will be a big test of Mr Erdogan’s leadership. Austria,
a sceptic on Turkish entry, takes over the presidency of the EU in
January. The Austrians will doubtless promote their idea of a
“privileged partnership” between Turkey and Europe, instead of full
membership. Next year will also see the retirement of General Hilmi
Ozkok, a liberal chief of the general staff. His likely successor is the
land-forces commander, Yasar Buyukanit, a more old-fashioned type of
soldier. It is to keep such secularist hawks at bay that Mr Erdogan has
ignored some demands from his pious voters, such as boosting religious
education and easing curbs on the headscarf.

Another challenge, in his dealings both with sceptical Europeans and his
own voters, is to honour his claim to be giving Turkey its first clean
government. Charges of irregularity in the sale of shares in the state
refinery, Tupras-and also in a tender for the operation of Istanbul’s
Galata port-have weakened that claim. Unless he deals with sleaze, Mr
Erdogan may lose the trust of his own citizens and his European
partners. That would be a pity, when the prime minister has risked so
much for Turkey’s European future.

AUSTRIA PUSHES EU TURKEY WRANGLING TO 11TH HOUR
By Paul Taylor

Reuters, UK
Sept 29 2005

Accession Begins With Acceptance

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Austria blocked European Union agreement on
Thursday on a mandate to start entry negotiations with Turkey next
week, forcing EU foreign ministers to call an emergency meeting for
the eve of the talks to seek a deal.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said it was possible negotiations
might not start on Monday as scheduled, although intense efforts were
continuing to solve what he called serious problems.

A 24-1 deadlock at a meeting of EU ambassadors means the vast, poor,
overwhelmingly Muslim candidate country will be kept on tenterhooks
until hours before Gul is due to fly to Luxembourg to open the talks.

Diplomats said Austria stuck to its demand that Turkey be offered
an explicit alternative to full membership if it failed to meet
the criteria for membership or if the EU was unable to absorb it —
something Ankara vehemently rejects.

Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel also insisted in newspaper interviews
that the EU open talks immediately with Croatia, Austria’s historic
ally and Roman Catholic neighbour.

Those negotiations were due to have started in March but have been
frozen because of Zagreb’s failure so far to satisfy a U.N. war
crimes tribunal.

“We are facing serious problems with the start of negotiations. We are
in intense negotiations,” Gul told a hastily arranged news conference
in Ankara.

Asked if there was a possibility that talks would not begin, Gul said:
“Undoubtedly there is but there are intense efforts…. We still have
time to solve the problems.”

He said he would not go to Luxembourg until there was clarity on the
negotiating mandate.

A spokesman for EU president Britain said foreign ministers would meet
on Turkey on Sunday evening. He rejected any linkage with Croatia’s
candidacy, which he said would only be discussed on Monday.

DEMOCRACY

Austria demanded substantial changes that Britain had told the envoys
would require a political decision to go back on EU leaders’ unanimous
agreement last December that the objective of the talks was accession,
diplomats said.

Schuessel, whose conservative Austrian People’s Party is battling
to avert defeat in regional elections in the province of Styria on
Sunday, said European politicians should learn from the failed EU
constitution votes in France and the Netherlands.

“Democracy means you have to listen to the demos,” he told the
International Herald Tribune.

His comments reflected strong public opposition in western Europe
to admitting Turkey, which opinion polls show 80 percent of his own
electorate opposes. Austria holds two other regional elections later
in the month after Sunday’s poll.

Gul did not comment directly on a non-binding European Parliament
resolution on Thursday that sought to pose new conditions unpalatable
to Ankara, including recognition of the 1915 killing of Armenians
as genocide.

But he said there were issues which Turkey could never accept and
that members of the bloc were well aware of this.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan earlier said it was up to the
EU to demonstrate its good faith, underlining the strategic benefits
to Europe of embracing his country.

“If the EU is not a Christian club, this has to be proven,” the state
Anatolian news agency quoted Erdogan as saying.

“What do you gain by adding 99 percent Muslim Turkey to the EU? You
gain a bridge between the EU and the 1.5 billion-strong Islamic
world. An alliance of civilisations will start.”

Austria takes over the EU presidency from Britain in January and
its stance could jeopardise its relations with the United States,
which strongly backs Turkey’s accession process.

Schuessel accused European governments of applying double standards
to Turkey and another EU candidate, Croatia.

“If we trust Turkey to make further progress, we should trust Croatia
too … It is in Europe’s best interest to start negotiations with
Croatia immediately,” he told the Financial Times. “It is not fair
to leave Croatia in an eternal waiting room.”

Other EU countries say the start of talks with the former Yugoslav
republic depends on chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte
certifying that it is cooperating fully with her office in the hunt
for fugitive ex-general Ante Gotovina.

(Additional reporting by Zerin Elci in Ankara, Annika Breidthardt in
Vienna, and Marie-Louise Moller in Brussels)

Mediamax news agency, Yerevan, in Russian
26 Sep 05

Incumbent prefect of Armenian capital’s community re-elected

Yerevan, 26 September: According to preliminary results of the
Armenian Central Electoral Commission [CEC], the incumbent head of
Yerevan’s Kentron [Centre] community, Gagik Beglaryan, has been
re-elected.

Gagik Beglaryan received 32,484 votes; a representative of the
opposition Justice bloc, Ruzanna Khachatryan, won 4,430 votes, the
CEC press secretary, Tsovinar Khachatryan, said. Forty three per cent
of voters took part in the election.

[Passage omitted: other details]