Author: Vorskanian Yeghisabet

INFORMATION OF THE NKR STATE COMMITTEE ON PRISONERS OF WAR (POWS), THE MISSING AND HOSTAGES

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
2009-01-15 18:27
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic

The Azerbaijani state committee on POWs, the missing and hostages
has recently published its closing statement of 2008, in which it
has particularly mentioned that 39 Azerbaijanis are allegedly in
captivity in Nagorno Karabakh.

The NKR state committee on POWs, the missing and hostages qualifies
this message as a regular disinformation, aimed at the defamation of
the NKR authorities, and as an attempt to mislead the international
community.The NKR state committee states with all responsibility
that there are no POWs and hostages in the territory, being under
the jurisdiction of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

The NKR authorities, strictly following the principles of the
Geneva conventions, after the military phase of the conflict with
Azerbaijan, have returned all the hostages to the Azerbaijani party,
through the mediation of the International Committee of Red Cross
(ICRC). At present, the NKR corresponding bodies timely inform
the offices of the ICRC and OSCE accredited in Stepanakert about
any fact of the Azerbaijani soldiers’ and civilians’ crossing the
Karabakhi territory, who, then, are returned to the Azerbaijani
authorities without any precondition. Representatives of the mentioned
international organizations have free access to all the institutions
of c onfinement, which rules out the possibility of hiding the fact
of the Azerbaijani hostages’ being in the NKR t territory.

The NKR state committee draws attention to the fact that repeated
suggestions of the republic’s leadership to establish direct contacts
with the analogous structure of Azerbaijan for solving the issue
of POWs, the missing and hostages effectively, have not been given
an adequate answer by the official Baku. Moreover, the Azerbaijani
authorities keep on politicizing such a humanitarian and sensitive
issue as the searching of the missing and the release of hostages,
for getting doubtful propagandistic dividends. The recent fact of
spreading the wittingly false information evidently testifies this.

"HERITAGE" HEARD A DIFFERENT STORY

A1+
[08:29 pm] 13 January, 2009

Members of the "Heritage" faction Armen Martirosyan and Anahit
Bakhshyan met today with prisoners Armen Khurshudyan and Gevorg
Manukyan at the "Nubarashen" penitentiary.

According to the press release of "Heritage", Khurshudyan and Manukyan
have made their statements regarding the official investigation of
the physical abuse in their cells on December 23, 2008.

Armen Khurshudyan stated that there had been abuse but he has no
complaints. Gevorg Manukyan expressed his complaints regarding the
press releases of mass media outlets according to which he has denied
the fact that there has been abuse.

He noted that he was physically abused, but will wait for his attorney
to return and only after consulting with him will he respond to the
official investigative body’s questions. Gevorg Manukyan also informed
that he is continuing the hunger strike and has health problems,
particularly headaches and problems with his right eye.

"There have also been cases of maltreatment registered by other
visitors. Thus, refusal to express complaints goes to show that
the pressures and abuse against the inmates is still in effect,"
as stated in the press release.

Let us recall that the penitentiary released information yesterday
according to which Khurshudyan and Manukyan state that they have not
been physically abused.

NKR PRESIDENT MEETS COMMANDERS OF MILITARY UNITS

armradio.am
13.01.2009 17:33

On 13 January President of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Bako Sahakyan
met the newly appointed commanders of some military units of the NKR
Defense Army, Central Information Department of the Office of the
NKR President reported.

Issues related to combat training of the servicemen and strengthening
defense capacity of the units were discussed at the meeting. The
supreme commander in chief noted that such meetings will be of a
periodic nature.

NKR Defense Minister Movses Hakobyan partook in the meeting.

TURKISH STATE TV SIGNALS FUTURE BROADCASTS IN ARMENIAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
12.01.2009 15:58 GMT+04:00

Turkey’s state-run Turkish Radio Television (TRT) is moving toward
cooperation with Armenia’s Public Television to promote dialogue
between the two neighbors.

After Abdullah Gul’s landmark visit to Yerevan, TRT general manager
Ibrahim Sahin, announced TRT may start broadcasting in Armenian.

TRT and Armenia’s First Channel have also signed a memorandum of
understanding which will promote dialogue between the two states
and exchange of information and experience, he said, adding that
broadcasting in Georgian and Russian is also under consideration.

APA, Azerbaijan
Jan 10 2009

Pakistani researcher’s book exposing Armenians’ false allegations
published in Azerbaijani – PHOTO

[ 10 Jan 2009 12:01 ]

Baku. Kamala Guliyeva ` APA. The book exposing Armenians’ false
allegations written by famous Pakistani researcher, Turkologist
Colonel Masud Akhtar Sheikh `Lies, Lies and More Lies’ has been
translated into Azerbaijani. Azerbaijan’s embassy in Pakistan told APA
that the book was published in English in Islamabad in
2007. Azerbaijan’s embassy published the book in Azerbaijani taking
into consideration that the book exposed historical roots and causes
of Armenians’ slanders and claims against Turks and Azerbaijanis by
facts based on unbiased and a number of foreign sources.

The book covers Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan, Nagorno
Karabakh problem, bloody terror attacks committed by Armenian
terrorist organizations in Azerbaijan, Khojaly massacre, the tragedy
of hundreds of civilians killed by Armenians.

The book `Lies, Lies and More Lies’ was translated by Azerbaijani
Babek Ahmadov studying in Punjab University of Pakistan, and printed
in `Tehsil’ Publishing House in Baku under the decision of Scientific
Council of History Institute of Azerbaijan National Academy of
Sciences.

Director of History Institute, Professor Yagub Mahmudov prefaced the
book. The book is edited by Azerbaijani ambassador to Pakistan Eynulla
Medetli.

Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Jan 5 2009

Turkish Press
MILLIYET
——–
RELOCATION IN FIGURES OF TALAT PASA

All details of Talat Pasha’s notebook, on which he reported all
changes in Armenian population in all provinces, have come to
daylight.

According to the figures, Armenian population dropped by 972,000
people after the relocation. Death toll is indefinite.

Almost all notes of Talat Pasha, the interior minister in 1915 (the
time of relocation) have appeared in the new book of journalist Murat
Bardakci, "Talat Pasha’s Abandoned Records".

The notes include comparative results of Armenian population in 1914
and after relocation in all provinces. According to those notes, the
Armenian population was 1,256,403 in 1914 and the number dropped to
284,157 after relocation.

CHP MEMBERS REACT TO RACIST REMARKS DESPITE PARTY INACTION

Today’s Zaman
Dec 25 2008
Turkey

Republican People’s Party (CHP) politicians have voiced their
objections to racist remarks made by CHP İzmir deputy Canan Arıtman,
who questioned President Abdullah Gul’s ethnic background, but
there have still been no disciplinary actions taken by the party
administration.

A deputy from the CHP recently apologized to the mother of President
Gul, whose maternal ethnic roots had been questioned by Arıtman
when the president did not object to an apology campaign launched
by Turkish intellectuals over the killings of Anatolian Armenians at
the hands of the late Ottoman Empire in 1915, which Armenians claim
constituted genocide. On a television program discussing the apology
campaign Tuesday evening, former ambassador and CHP Ä°stanbul deputy
Å~^ukru Elekdag said he would like to apologize to the mother of the
president. "I would like to apologize to someone and that person is
a woman, a mother. That woman is the mother of Abdullah Gul. I know
she has been quite disturbed by this discussion. For that reason,
I would like to say that I feel the same empathy for her that I would
feel for my own mother and I apologize to her," Elekdag said.

Arıtman’s remarks have drawn ire from CHP politicians, with many
stressing that they don’t share her beliefs. "Arıtman made a very
wrong statement. I don’t approve of such talk of ethnicity," CHP
Chief Accountant Mustafa Ozyurek said. In addition, CHP Adana deputy
Hulusi Guvel criticized the party administration for failing to act
in response to Arıtman’s statements.

The CHP administration issued a warning to Arıtman after she appeared
on two television programs to discuss her allegations about Gul
without the administration’s permission.

On the other hand, CHP parliamentary group leader Hakkı Suha Okay
has criticized Gul, who filed a symbolic YTL 1 lawsuit against
Arıtman for assaulting his "personal and family values, honor
and reputation." Speaking to the Anatolia news agency yesterday,
Okay said, "Filing this lawsuit is an injustice to our citizens of
Armenian roots," explaining that it implied that the president regards
"Armenian ethnicity" as an insult. Emphasizing that "everyone’s roots
deserve respect," he added that Arıtman’s words lacked "class,"
but that the president’s action was inappropriate.

Meanwhile, Arıtman said in a statement yesterday evening that the
media had launched a lynch campaign against her. "I have two questions
for the media outlets trying to lynch me. Has President Abdullah Gul,
who sued me for my words, not offended Armenians? You want my expulsion
from my party. Are you going to demand the president’s resignation,
too?" she asked. "If saying that your mother is British is not an
insult, neither is saying she was Armenian," she said, asserting that
the president had attached a negative meaning to the word "Armenian"
by suing her for her statement.

In light of the current debate, Turkish Religious Affairs Directorate
head Ali Bardakoglu said, "The biggest disservice to humanity would
be to take ethnic roots as a measure," adding that all people are
ultimately the "children of Adam and Eve." Bardakoglu was quoted by
the Milliyet daily as saying: "We have lost our tolerance toward each
other. Let’s leave the judgmental attitudes behind."

Gul: Roots, beliefs and ideas do not matter

In a Christmas message yesterday, President Gul said: "Regardless
of their roots, beliefs or ideas, all of our citizens are honorable
and equal members of our nation. People share all moments of life
together. The contemporary Turkish Republic is a secular and social
state under the rule of law and has adopted this principle with each
member of the society firmly together in unity and solidarity. … with
those thoughts I celebrate the Christmas holiday of all of our citizens
coming from Christian traditions and I wish them happy holidays."

Meanwhile, in response to reporters’ questions about the recent row,
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that he embraces
all of Turkey’s citizens. "Is somebody a citizen of the Turkish
Republic? Is his or her constitutional identity Turkish? That’s what
matters," he said, adding that nobody should be discriminated against
based on his ethnic origin.

–Boundary_(ID_jyMftS/+eXH+WfG0luwIxQ)–

OPEN LETTER REKINDLES TURKISH DEBATE ON ARMENIAN MASSACRE

The Irish Times
December 24, 2008

ANGRY DEBATES fuelled by an online initiative inviting individual
Turks to apologise for the ethnic cleansing of Armenians during the
first World War showed no signs of fading this week, as Turkey’s
president took an opposition deputy to court for an alleged racial
slur, writes NICHOLAS BIRCH in Istanbul.

Lawyers for Abdullah Gul announced on Monday that he was seeking
symbolic compensation from Canan Aritman after she hinted his mother
had Armenian roots.

"Gul should be president of the entire Turkish nation, not just of
those sharing his ethnicity," Ms Aritman said on December 17th. "Look
into Gul’s roots on his mother’s side, and you’ll see."

Her outburst followed Mr Gul’s description of the initiative, which
has attracted 20,000 signatures since it was launched on December 15th,
as compatible with a democratic society.

"My conscience does not accept the denial of the Great Catastrophe
that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915," the open letter
reads. "I reject this injustice . . . and empathise with the feelings
and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologise to them."

Mr Gul’s doveish tone was characteristic of a man who, in September,
became the first Turkish statesman to visit Armenia, triggering hopes
of a rapprochement between the two countries after nearly a century
of enmity.

Turkey and Armenia remain at loggerheads over what exactly happened
in 1915.

Turkey accepts that many Armenians were killed during the collapse
of the Ottoman Empire, but insists they were victims of interethnic
conflicts that claimed more Muslim victims.

For Armenians, and most western historians, the ethnic cleansing that
killed at least 600,000 Armenians amounted to genocide.

Ten years ago, openly debating 1915 in Turkey was all but
impossible. Today, universities organise conferences on the issue,
and bookshops sell books by western and Armenian historians, alongside
texts defending the official Turkish thesis.

Journalist Semin Gumusel ascribes the new openness to a general change
in attitudes in Turkey. "In the past, Turks used to listen to the
big men and nod their heads obediently," she says.

"But the days of blind obedience are over. People ask questions now."

Others attribute the initiative to the shock that followed the murder
of the Armenian-Turkish editor Hrant Dink. A leading advocate of a
more humane debate on the Armenian issue, Dink was gunned down by a
nationalist teenager in January 2007.

"When he died, it was as if a veil had been torn from the eyes of
the democratic-minded citizens of this country," says Nil Mutluer,
a feminist activist who signed the letter. "People realised there
was no time to be lost."

The road ahead looks hard. The chief organisers of the 1915 massacres
continue to be commemorated in street names across the country.

Ms Aritman has not been the only public figure to criticise the
open letter.

Senior generals said it damaged the country. Prime minister Tayyip
Erdogan was contemptuous: "[The signatories] must have committed
genocide themselves since they are apologising," he said last
Friday. "The Turkish Republic does not have such a problem."

Met with nothing worse than a mild slap on the wrist from her party,
meanwhile, Ms Aritman upped the ante on Monday.

"These days, scientists use DNA tests, not family trees, to identify
ethnic identity," she said, referring to Mr Gul’s insistence he was
of Turkish stock.

"My slogan is ‘happy is he who says I am a Turk’," she added, using
a well-known slogan of the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk.

Managing editor of Radikal , a liberal daily, Erdal Guven describes
Ms Aritman’s party’s failure to sack her as "a disgrace".

"It is a pity too that Gul didn’t make it more clear that it would
have made no difference if his granny had been an Armenian."

BIZARRE LAWSUIT: BATMAN, TURKEY VS. BATMAN, THE MOVIE
Harut Sassounian

Huffington Post
n/bizarre-lawsuit-embatmane_b_153175.html
Dec 23 2008
NY

In keeping wth the Holiday Season, I would like to present a rather
amusing topic this week, hoping to bring a good cheer to readers’
hearts.

Variety magazine and hundreds of media outlets worldwide reported last
month that the mayor of Batman, a small city in southeastern Turkey,
is planning to sue Christopher Nolan, the director of The Dark Knight,
and Warner Brothers studios for royalties from the hugely profitable
Batman movie.

Mayor Huseyin Kalkan accused the movie producers of using the city’s
name without permission. He was quoted by Variety as saying: "There
is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name
of our city without informing us."

Variety’s reporter Ali Jaafar wondered why it took the town of Batman
"so many years to take legal action." The reporter pointed out that
"Batman first appeared as a comic book character in 1939 and the Batman
TV series started in 1966. Tim Burton’s first big screen rendition
for Warner Brothers came out in 1989. Undoubtedly, the fact that
Dark Knight is about to pass the $1 billion mark … played a part
in stirring the ire of the Turkish hamlet."

Incredibly, Mayor Kalkan blamed the Batman movie "for a number of
unresolved murders and a high female suicide rate" in his town. He
attributed these problems to "the psychological impact that the film’s
success has had on the city’s inhabitants."

Natives of Batman have also encountered obstacles when attempting to
register their businesses abroad, the mayor claimed. Batman’s local
newspaper reported that former Batman resident Safii Dagh, currently
living in the German city of Wesel, was prevented from using Batman
as the name of his business. "I named my two restaurants Batman. But
six months ago, a team of employees from the production company of
the movie Batman made me change the title," Dagh said.

Lawyer Vehbi Kahveci, head of the Intellectual and Industrial
Property Rights Commission of the Istanbul Bar Association, stated
that Batman and his image are registered trademarks all around the
world. The Batman Municipality missed the deadline for objecting to
the registration of Batman’s name as a superhero.

This bizarre lawsuit was also fodder for several derisive video
postings on YouTube, google and Yahoo websites, generating hundreds
of comments from viewers. Most comments were so offensive that YouTube
had to delete them from its site.

The most hilarious video came from Comedy.com where a comedian
named Rob Delaney, posing as a Public Relations spokesman for Warner
Brothers, ridiculed the mayor of Batman and everything Turkish!

I have transcribed below Delaney’s comments, after removing the
countless swear words. Our aim is to make fun of the silly lawsuit
filed by the Mayor of Batman and not to insult Turks. Here is the
cleansed version of the transcript:

"We will crush you, just like you did the Armenians one hundred
years ago!

"Where were you in 1939 when Batman first appeared in comic books?

"Where were you in 1966 when Batman was a TV show?

"Oh, that’s right, you’re a backward third world country and you are
just now finding out about Batman. How convenient! It just happens
to be the same year our movie made more than your entire country did
in the last decade.

"Don’t get me wrong. We think your name is hilarious! Batman,
Turkey? Why don’t you sue turkeys while you’re at it? Why don’t you
sue the ottoman in the living room of one of my several houses?

"You do not want to tangle with Warner Brothers, Turkey!

"Why don’t you stick to what you are good at, like oil wrestling,
female weight lifting, and being a nation of gypsies?

"I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Warner Brothers will own
you! I’m considering suing your town for making Batman slightly less
awesome. Your land and women will be mine, Turkey! Consider yourself
warned…."

Maybe the mayor of Batman is not that stupid after all! By announcing
that he is planning to sue the producers of Batman, he has been able
to generate free worldwide publicity for his obscure city. He is
probably hoping that Batman fans will flock to his hometown, bringing
with them enough cash to rejuvenate the local economy! A Batman city
worker wisely observed: "We wouldn’t have had better advertising for
Batman, even if we had spent $1 million."

TURKISH EXPERT: "TURKEY’S INTENTION TO NORMALIZE RELATIONS WITH ARMENIA MAKE BAKU GET SILENT"

Today.Az
litics/49735.html
Dec 22 2008
Azerbaijan

"Azerbaijan’s reaction to Turkey’s idea to normalize relations with
Armenia is surprising. Azerbaijan does not react, resist and is calm",
said Burchu Gultekin, expert of the Center of European Studies of
Turkish Near Eastern Technical University.

"Moreover, we hope for resolution of the Karabakh conflict, which
may promote the development of economic relations in conditions of
unblocked borders of Armenia and Turkey. And in this sense the opening
of border with Armenia is not a sufficient provision for Turkey,
which would want to diversify routes of access to the Caspian region.

Turkey is also interested in opening of borders and its efforts for
normalization of relations with Armenia make Baku get silent. Moreover,
I think that such developments were viewed as a variant in the
resolution of the Karabakh conflict in Baku", noted Gultekin.