Author: Zaminian Bedik

Baltic News Service
April 26, 2005

ESTONIA’S ARMENIAN ASSOCIATIONS ISSUE STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO
WARNINGS BY AZERIS

TALLINN, Apr 26

Representatives of Estonia’s Armenian community have dismissed the
tone of a recent statement by local Azeri associations concerning the
events commemorating the 1915 massacre of Armenians in Turkey as
hostile and not fit for a democratic society.

The statement by the Armenian community organizations is addressed to
the same parties as the Azeri statement a week ago, which accused the
Armenians of spreading lies and said the commemorative events were
prone to lead to an ethnic conflict in Estonia.

Addressing the president, the parliamentary speaker, the prime
minister, the population minister and the chairs of the city councils
of Tallinn and Tartu, the ethnic Armenian organizations express
surprise at the tone of the statement by the Azeri associations at
the end of last week.

According to the Armenian organizations, the Azeri statement accused
Armenians of inciting ethnic hatred and threatened with violence. The
Armenian organizations say such behavior reveals unconcealed
hostility toward Armenians and their historic memory as well as
contempt of democratic society and its values.

The letter says that only with sick fantasy it’s possible to regard
the events dedicated to the memory of the genocide committed in the
Osman empire in 1915 as an insult to the national dignity of Azeris.

It says that similar events are being held right now, on the 90th
anniversary of the tragic events, in many countries, including in
parliaments and at conferences, and the same topic has been raised in
Turkey.

“… it is not understandable how Azeris are linked to the genocide
of Armenians committed in 1915 and why leaders of the Azerbaijani
community have assumed the unrewarding task of justifying one of the
most horrendous crimes of the last century,” the letter says.

Threats and ultimatums that are addressed by one ethnic group to
another are to be qualified as a variety of terrorism, it says.

The section of the statement by the Azeris that warns of
deterioration in Estonia’s relations with Turkey, a fellow member of
NATO, is viewed in the letter by the Armenian organizations as
blackmail that is insulting to the Estonian state.

The authors of the letter underline that all the events staged by
Estonia’s Armenian community to remember the genocide of Armenians
were held in abidance by Estonian and European laws, without
insulting anyone’s national dignity or banning anyone from the event.

The letter is signed by the Armenian National Association of Estonia,
the Armenian National Association of South Estonia, the Tallinn
Armenian National Society, and representatives from the St. George’s
congregation of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Estonia.

Ethnic Azeri associations of Estonia warned last week that
commemoration of the anniversary of genocide of Armenians may led to
a conflict between the two ethnic communities in Estonia. As the
Azeri representatives argued in the statement, with their actions
that conceal history and disseminate false information the Armenian
community representatives are provoking Azeris to take counter-action
and that Estonian officials’ participation in the events may harm
ties with Turkey, which helped Estonia become a member of NATO.

Azerbaijan News Service
April 26 2005

STEVEN MANN, MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRMAN SPEAKS ABOUT MEETING BE HELD IN
FRANKFURT ON APIRL 27
2005-04-26 20:52

Steven Mann, American co-chairman of OSCE Minsk group didn’t want to
reveal details of the meeting of co-chairmen and Azerbaijani FA
minister that will be held in Frankfurt on April 27. Meanwhile he
said there is nothing new and unexpected for both two sides-for
Azerbaijan and Armenia among the issues that will be discussed in the
meeting. He also expressed his opinion over Azerbaijan’s intention to
bring report of OSCE fact-finding mission to the discussion in the
settings of the UN. I wouldn’t go into details. We have to be
confidential. But I can say there is no new and unexpected for both
sides issues in the agenda of the meeting. It is important for all of
us to focus on any potentials within the frames of the talks said
Steven Mann.

ARRANGEMENTS DEDICATED TO 90th ANNIVERSARY OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN
OTTOMAN TURKEY HELD IN STRASBOURG

YEREVAN, APRIL 25. ARMINFO. Arrangements dedicated to the 90th
anniversary of Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 were held
in Strasbourg, Sunday.

ARMINFO was informed in the State Commission for organization f
arrangements dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Armenian Genocide,
Head of Armenian delegation to PACE, VIce Speaker of Armenian
parliament Tigran Torosian, a representative of Strasbourg’s
municipality, representatives of General Consulate of Russia in
Strasbourg and Armenian community in Strasbourg put wreaths to the
Memorial of the lost, Republic Square of Strasbourg.

New York Post
April 25 2005

ARMENIANS MARK 1915 GENOCIDE

April 25, 2005 — Hundreds of Armenian-Americans gathered in Times
Square yesterday to observe the 90th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian
Genocide, in which 1.5 million people died at the hands of the
Ottoman Turkish empire.
They demanded that the mass extermination, which they say served as a
model for Hitler’s “final solution,” finally be acknowledged by
Turkey.

Tatiana Deligiannakis

The Hellenic Radio (ERA)
April 24 2005

Events of Remembrance

By Betty Savourdou

Ninety years today, Sunday, since the genocide of Armenians living
within the borders of the then Ottoman Empire, and on Sunday night
10,000 people took to the streets of Yerevan holding lit candles and
calling Turkey to recognize the massacres as genocide. Wreaths will
be laid at the monument of the fallen men on Sunday afternoon, while
at the end of the day Mass will be held in Yerevan and a one-minute
silence will be observed around the country. In a televised
interview, Armenian President Robert Kocharian excluded the
possibility of asking Ankara for financial compensation in exchange
to recognize the killings as genocide. He also added: “Today
Armenians marched not only in commemoration and in mourning. They
also marched to voice their demand for the restoration of human
rights infringed by Turkey too many years ago, and are calling this
country to admit the mass killings amounted to genocide.”

Turkey: “Merely WWI Casualties”

Ninety years after the massacres, the anniversary unites the
Armenians of the Diaspora, who exceed 9,000,000, that is three times
more than the actual population of Armenia.

On this day in 1915 Ottoman Turkey started executing Armenians. Over
the next two years nearly 1.5 million Armenians were reportedly
killed or died during deportations from Turkey and now Armenia urges
the European Union to take the past into consideration, before
opening negotiation talks with Turkey.

Ankara continues to refer to the 1915 victims as mere casualties of
WWI. The only indication of retreat is the suggestion to form a
common Armenian-Turkish committee to look into the past.

Events in Athens Too

Events to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide
were held in Athens too.

A central cinema of the Greek capital showed archive material issued
by the Armenian national committee, while government and other
political representatives addressed salutations.

After the event, there was a march towards Syntagma Square and
wreaths were laid at the monument of the unknown soldier.

Minister for the Interior Prokopis Pavlopoulos represented the
government and underlined in his speech that “the matter in the
troubled world we are living in, is that we cannot be certain there
will never be such incidents again, if we don’t decide not to ever
tolerate those who actually triggered them, since they haven’t taken
their responsibilities and haven’t evaluated relevant experiences
based on the past.”

“Such anniversaries concern us all. They concern all counties, they
concern all nations. Because the establishment of human value, the
implementation of International Law in its total, the establishment
of the principles that correspond to our times, are lessons that we
all need to always remember,” stressed the minister.

Regarding the recognition of the Genocide, which is the main demand
of this year’s events, all speakers referred to the fact that an
increasing number of governments are already doing so, most recent
among them being Poland and Germany.

Translated by Sofia Soulioti

Armenians refuse to let genocide be forgotten

By Nick Allen in Moscow and Amberin Zaman in Ankara

The Daily Telegraph/UK
(Filed: 25/04/2005)

Hundreds of thousands gathered in Yerevan yesterday to mark 90 years
since the murder of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman empire
and to add their voices to an international campaign to press Turkey
to admit genocide.

Authorities led by President Robert Kocharyan hoped for 1.5 million
people to visit a giant hilltop memorial in the capital of Armenia as
the former Soviet republic seeks international recognition of the
genocide of its people under Turkish rule.

“Recognition and condemnation is not just an issue for Armenia today
but one of international politics,” Mr Kocharyan said, as streams of
people filed to the site.

Many members of the Armenian diaspora worldwide converged on Yerevan
for remembrance ceremonies and to join the Christian republic’s 3.8
million inhabitants in a minute of silence at 7pm.

While Turkey acknowledges the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of
deaths, it denies that there was a state-sponsored extermination plan,
a stance that has complicated its hopes of joining the European
Union. Accession talks are due to start this year.

France, one of 15 countries to recognise the Armenian genocide, has
called on Turkey to make an effort to set the record straight before
it can join the union.

Faced with growing pressure from the EU, Turkey has for the first time
invited international scrutiny of its past.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, wrote to the Armenian leader
this month proposing a joint commission to investigate the claims of
genocide. He said: “Teams of historians from both sides should conduct
studies in [Turkey’s] archives.

“We do not want future generations to live under the shadow of
continued hatred and resentment.”

Western diplomats welcomed the move as a breakthrough while critics
have shrugged it off as a ploy, saying that incriminating documents
have been purged from the Ottoman archives.

Mr Kocharyan, who has not officially responded to Mr Erdogan’s letter,
told a Russian television channel that its contents did not “offer
hope that our problems will be solved any time soon”.

On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Turkish government arrested hundreds of
Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, most of whom were
quickly executed. That was followed by the mass relocation of ethnic
Armenians from Anatolia through desert to Mesopotamia and what is
today Syria.

Starvation, disease, attacks by bandits and the brutality of the
escorting troops resulted in mass fatalities over the next two years.

Western sources estimate there were at least one million deaths in
what has been widely referred to as the first genocide of the 20th
century, though Armenians put the figure at 1.5 million.

Ankara maintains that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were
killed in “civil strife” when the Armenians rose against their Ottoman
rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

In one key change, EU-inspired laws have enabled a small and vocal
group of Turkish academics and intellectuals to challenge the official
version of what happened in 1915.

The Jerusalem Post
Apr. 24, 2005 18:59
Armenians mark 90th anniversary of genocide
By SARA FISCHER

;cid=111 4322082590
Armenian demonstration in front of Turkish Consulate in Jerusalem
Photo: Sara Fischer

While many gathered with family and friends to celebrate freedom from
tyranny this Pessah, Israel’s small Armenian community remembered the
fateful years of the Armenian genocide.
Armenians gathered outside the Turkish Consulate in the Sheikh Jarrah
neighborhood of Jerusalem on Sunday to demonstrate against Turkey and
remember the massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, which took
place 90 years ago. The demonstrators urged Ankara to acknowledge the
violent events under Ottoman rule.
Officially, Turkey today says that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks
died during civil strife. Ankara earlier this month called for the two
countries to jointly research the killings.
Turkey, which has no diplomatic ties with Armenia, is facing increasing
pressure to fully acknowledge the event, particularly as it seeks membership
in the European Union. France, Russia and many other countries have already
declared the killings were genocide; Israel and the United States both have
not.
The issue is extremely sensitive in Turkey, and Turks have faced prosecution
for saying the killings were genocide.
In Jerusalem, young and old congregated, jointly singing the Armenian
national anthem, waving the Armenian flag, holding signs admonishing the
Turkish government and pictures depicting the atrocities. “The struggle will
continue on until we get the recognition and justice,” community leader
Abraham Shemmessin said.
On Monday, hundreds of Armenians will gather in Jerusalem’s Old City for a
memorial service in St. James Cathedral followed by a parade and a
candlelighting ceremony at the Armenian memorial on Mount Zion. Other events
are scheduled throughout the day.
“The genocide is a sign of memory and resurrection and an important ritual
which has been denied, what we want is recognition,” Armenian historian
Albert Aghazarian told The Jerusalem Post.
Nearly every Armenian here has a story of his own connected with the
killings, despite being the second, third or fourth generation of survivors.
Garo Sandrouni, owner of the Jerusalem Armenian Art Center, lost his
grandfather in the massacre. He was survived only by Sandrouni’s grandmother
and father who fled to Lebanon and then to Jaffa. Growing up, he said, his
father never spoke about the genocide.
“He never talked about that… it was very hard to accept… he never wanted
to share his sadness with us, he never wanted to remember those years,”
Sandrouni said.
However, Sandrouni and his children think differently when it comes to
speaking about the genocide. Sandrouni said, “we should remember that and
never forget so that other countries will not make the same mistake with
other people. This is the way and so I always talk about it.”
In Armenia yesterday, hundreds of thousands marked the anniversary of the
mass killings with candles and a moment of silence, vowing to press their
case to have the killings recognized by Turkey, and the world, as genocide.
Turkey began arresting Armenian intellectuals, diplomats and other
influential leaders in Constantinople on April 24, 1915, as violence and
unrest grew, particularly in the eastern parts of the country. Armenia
claims the Young Turk administration attempted to ethnically exterminate the
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
Michael Stone, a professor of Armenian Studies at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, said the Armenian people must preserve their language and culture
and remember what happened so that the world would know. “We need to learn,
understand, love and remember,” he told a gathering in Bat Yam Thursday
evening.
For now, the Armenian community in Jerusalem stands united in its struggle,
as the back of T-shirts Armenians are wearing around the Old City state: “90
years on, the march for recognition still continues.”

Armenpress

PRESIDENT KOCHARIAN’S MESSAGE TO THE NATION ON THE OCCASION OF THE 90-TH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE GENOCIDE

YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS: On the occasion of the 90-th anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide President Robert Kocharian addressed today a
message to the nation, which reads as follows:
“Dear country fellows, today we pay respect to the memory of the victims
of the Armenian Genocide. Ninety years ago on this day the government of the
Ottoman Turkey ordered the start of the planned extermination of Armenians.
It was an unprecedented crime, neither in the history of our people nor
in the humanity’s history, committed at a time when even no word was coined
to define it. Millions of people were killed and millennia-long spiritual
and cultural legacy of Armenians was destroyed.
The year of 1915 became a dividing line in the fate of all parts of our
nation. It changed their lives drastically and disrupted the path of its
normal development. Its heavy consequences are felt today in the lives of
Armenians living both in the Republic of Armenia and Diaspora.
The international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian genocide
is not Armenia’s case only. It must be reviewed today in the context of
regional and international politics.
We have made our position heard many a time. We are not motivated by the
feelings of revenge and once again repeat today our willingness to build
normal relations with Turkey, but its continued denial of that crime, causes
the perplexity of not only Armenians, but also of the international
community.
The Armenian genocide was possible due to a combination of numerous
conditions and factors. None of them can be cited to justify the
perpetrators. The absence of Armenian state at that time was the key reason
of why such unspeakable events could take place.
Today we bow to the memory of our martyrs, we are filled with pain, but
also with belief that the Armenian state is the best guarantor of security
and immortality of all Armenians.”

Armenia still withholds captives

AzerNews, Azerbaijan
April 21 2005

The fate of three Azerbaijani soldiers withheld by Armenia in Khankandi
for about two months remains uncertain.

“Although an agreement was reached to return them at a meeting
of the relevant joint commission, Armenia is not addressing the
problem”, says coordinator of the international working group on
prisoners, hostages and missing people on Azerbaijan Avaz Hasanov.
Hasanov told journalists that Armenia continues ignoring appeals from
international organizations. The working group has already appealed
to the newly-appointed head of the International Committee of the
Red Cross on Upper Garabagh to step up efforts at releasing the Azeri
soldiers soon, said Hasanov.

In compliance with the ceasefire signed in 1994 and international
conventions, both sides are required to return prisoners and hostages
immediately.

LECH WALESA: “IF WE FORGET ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS, GOD WILL TURN AWAY FROM US”

Pan Armenian News
21.04.2005 04:49

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “If we consign victims of the Armenian Genocide
to oblivion, the God will turn away from us,” former President of
Poland Lech Walesa stated at an international conference on the
90-th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan today. In
his words, within the past 17 centuries Armenia was independent for
only 300 years and in early 20-th century it tried to throw off the
Ottoman yoke, however the Young Turk Government decided the Armenian
issue via deportation and massacre of the Armenian people. It
was the first genocide of the 20-th century, L. Walesa stated,
adding the West limited itself to urging the Turkish authorities
and did not try to prevent the Armenian Genocide. “Today’s Turkish
authorities aggressively refuse to acknowledge the crime committed
by their ancestors, while Europe has denounced that crime twice
(in 1987 and 2000) and qualified it a Genocide,” the former Polish
President noted. To solve the current world integration problems at
present Mr. Walesa pointed out the need to use the most efficient
tool of the globalization – the dialogue between nations, cultures
and civilizations.