Month: June 2005

FRENCH “NO” TO EU CONSTITUTION CASTS DOUBT ON EU ENLARGEMENT
Pan Armenian News
31.05.2005 04:06
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Chairperson of the CDU Angela Merkel stated that
the negative outcome of the referendum in France over the passing
of the European Constitution confirms that the opinion of the CDU
over Turkey’s accession to the EU is correct, reported the Yerkir
newspaper referring to Zaman Turkish edition. In her wards, CDU/CSU
parties should reconsider their opinion over the talks on Turkey’s
accession to the EU. In his turn, Saarland Prime Minister Peter Muller
noted that the French “no” to the Constitution casts doubt on the EU
enlargement. He also emphasized that after the latest expansion the EU
needs rest and, like the Turkish case, the questions of accession of
Romania and Bulgaria to the EU should be reconsidered. On the other
hand, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer noted that in spite
of the negative response of the French to the European Constitution,
he respects their decision. He noted at the same time that it would
create difficulties for the EU.

FRENCHMEN WILL NEVER FORGIVE TURKEY
Pan Armenian News
31.05.2005 05:51
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “Ankara will never be accepted to the EU. France will
oppose that. The French have not forgotten the monstrous Genocide and
will never forgive Turkey annexing part of Armenia,” stated famous
French composer, arranger, conductor and pianist Michel Legrand. In
his words, such a country as Turkey is not entitled to accession to
the joint Europe. “If our Government and President Jacques Chirac
try to impose accession of Turkey to the Frenchmen, it will result
in a revolution,” he said. In an interview with Izvestia newspaper
Legrand stated the father of his mother was an Armenian, who had
to flee from his country during the Genocide in 1915 – “he came
to France and married my grandmother – a Frenchwoman. Thus, I am a
quarter Armenian,” the Yerkir newspaper

Assembly of Turkish American Associations
May 31 2005
The Armenian Issue Revisited
An Armenian and Muslim Tragedy? Yes! Genocide? No! By Bruce Fein
I. Both Armenians and Muslims in Eastern Anatolia under the Ottoman
Empire experienced harrowing casualties and gripping privations
during World War I.
Hundreds of thousands perished. Most were innocent. All deserve pity
and respect. Their known and unknown graves testify to President John
F. Kennedy’s lament that “Life is unfair.” An Armenian tombstone is
worth a Muslim tombstone, and vice versa. No race, religious, or
ethnic group stands above or below another in the cathedral of
humanity. To paraphrase Shakespeare in “The Merchant of Venice,” Hath
not everyone eyes? hath not everyone hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the
same weapons, subject to the same diseases healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer…If you prick
anyone, does he not bleed? if you tickle him, does he not laugh? if
you poison him, does he not die?
These sentiments must be emphasized before entering into the
longstanding dispute over allegations of Armenian genocide at the
hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War I and its aftermath.
Genocide is a word bristling with passion and moral depravity. It
typically evokes images of Jews dying like cattle in Nazi cyanide
chambers in Auschwitz, Bergen-Belson, Dacau, and other extermination
camps. It is customarily confined in national laws and international
covenants to the mass killing or repression of a racial, religious,
or ethnic group with the intent of partial or total extermination.
Thus, to accuse Turks of Armenian genocide is grave business, and
should thus be appraised with scrupulous care for historical
accuracy. To do less would not only be unjust to the accused, but to
vitiate the arresting meaning that genocide should enjoy in the tale
of unspeakable human horrors.
It cannot be repeated enough that to discredit the Armenian genocide
allegation is not to deny that Armenian deaths and suffering during
the war should evoke tears in all but the stone-hearted. The same is
true for the even greater number of contemporaneous Turkish deaths
and privations. No effort should be spared to avoid transforming an
impartial inquest into the genocide allegations to poisonous
recriminations over whether Armenians or Turks as a group were more
or less culpable or victimized. Healing and reconciliation is made of
more magnanimous and compassionate stuff.
In sum, disprove Armenian genocide is not to belittle the atrocities
and brutalities that World War I inflicted on the Armenian people of
Eastern Anatolia.
I. Sympathy for All, Malice Towards None “War is hell,” lamented
steely Union General William Tecumseh Sherman during the American
Civil War. The frightful carnage of World War I confirmed and
fortified that vivid definition.
The deep pain that wrenches any group victimized by massacres and
unforgiving privation in wartime, however, frequently distorts or
imbalances recollections. That phenomenon found epigrammatic
expression in United States Senator Hiram Johnson’s World War I quip
that truth is the first casualty of war. It is customary among
nations at war to manipulate the reporting of events to blacken the
enemy and to valorize their own and allied forces. In other words,
World War I was no exception, about which more anon.
II. The Armenian Genocide Accusation
The Ottoman Turks are accused of planning and executing a scheme to
exterminate its Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia beginning on
or about April 24, 1915 by relocating them hundreds of miles to the
Southwest and away from the Russian war front and massacring those
who resisted. The mass relocation (often mischaracterized as
“deportation”) exposed the Armenians to mass killings by marauding
Kurds and other Muslims and deaths from malnutrition, starvation, and
disease. After World War I concluded, the Ottoman Turks are said to
have continued their Armenian genocide during the Turkish War of
Independence concluded in 1922.
The number of alleged Armenian casualties began at approximately
600,000, but soon inflated to 2 million. The entire pre-war Armenian
population in Eastern Anatolia is best estimated at 1.3 to 1.5
million.
A. Was there an intent to exterminate Ottoman Armenians in whole or
in part?
The evidence seems exceptionally thin. The Government’s relocation
decree was a wartime measure inspired by national self-preservation,
neither aimed at Armenians generally (those outside sensitive war
territory were left undisturbed) nor with the goal of death by
relocation hardships and hazards. The Ottoman government issued
unambiguous orders to protect and feed Armenians during their
relocation ordeal, but were unable because of war emergencies on
three fronts and war shortages affecting the entire population to
insure their proper execution. The key decree provided:
“When those of Armenians resident in the aforementioned towns and
villages who have to be moved are transferred to their places of
settlement and are on the road, their comfort must be assured and
their lives and property protected; after their arrival their food
should be paid for out of Refugees’ Appropriations until they are
definitively settled in their new homes. Property and land should be
distributed to them in accordance with their previous financial
situation as well as current needs; and for those among them needing
further help, the government should build houses, provide cultivators
and artisans with seed, tools, and equipment.”
“This order is entirely intended against the extension of the
Armenian Revolutionary Committees; therefore do not execute it in
such a manner that might cause the mutual massacre of Muslims and
Armenians.”
(Do you believe that anything comparable has been issued by Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic to his troops in Kosovo?)
The Ottoman government prosecuted more than one thousand soldiers and
civilians for disobedience. Further, approximately 200,000 Ottoman
Armenians who were relocated to Syria lived without menace through
the remainder of the war.
Relocation of populations suspected of disloyalty was a customary war
measure both at the time of World War I and through at least World
War II. Czarist Russia had employed it against Crimean Tatars and
other ethnic Turks even in peacetime and without evidence of
treasonous plotting. The United States relocated 120,000 citizens and
resident aliens of Japanese ancestry during the Second World War
despite the glaring absence of sabotage or anti-patriotic sentiments
or designs. Indeed, the Congress of the United States acknowledged
the injustice in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which awarded the
victims or their survivors $20,000 each.
In sum, the mass wartime relocation of Ottoman Armenians from the
Eastern front was no pretext for genocide. That conclusion is
fortified by the mountains of evidence showing that an alarming
percentage of Armenians were treasonous and allied with the Triple
Entente, especially Russia. Tens of thousands defected from the
Ottoman army or evaded conscription to serve with Russia. Countless
more remained in Eastern Anatolia to conduct sabotage behind Ottoman
lines and to massacre Turks, including civilians. Their leaders
openly called for revolt, and boasted at post-World War I peace
conferences that Ottoman Armenians had fought shoulder-to-shoulder
with the victorious powers. Exemplary was a proclamation issued by an
Armenian representative in the Ottoman parliament for Van, Papazyan.
He trumpeted: “The volunteer Armenian regiments in the Caucasus
should prepare themselves for battle, serve as advance units for the
Russian armies to help them capture the key positions in the
districts where the Armenians live, and advance into Anatolia,
joining the Armenian units already there.”
The Big Five victors -Great Britain, France, the United States,
Italy, and Japan acknowledged the enormous wartime service of Ottoman
Armenians, and Armenia was recognized as a victor nation at the Paris
Peace Conference and sister conclaves charring the post-war map.
Armenians were rewarded for their treason against the Ottoman Empire
in the short-lived Treaty of Sevres of 1920 (soon superceded by the
1923 Treaty of Lausanne). It created an independent Armenian state
carved from large swaths of Ottoman territory although they were a
distinct population minority and had always been so throughout the
centuries of Ottoman rule. The Treaty thus turned President Woodrow
Wilson’s self-determination gospel in his Fourteen Points on its
head.
The Ottoman government thus had overwhelming evidence to suspect the
loyalty of its Armenian population. And its relocation orders
responded to a dire, not a contrived, war emergency. It was fighting
on three fronts. The capital, Istanbul, was threatened by the
Gallipoli campaign. Russia was occupying portions of Eastern
Anatolia, encouraging Armenian defections, and aiding Armenian
sabotage. In sum, the mass relocation of Armenians was clearly an
imperative war measure; it did not pivot on imaginary dangers
contrived by Ottoman rulers to exterminate Armenians.
The genocide allegation is further discredited by Great Britain’s
unavailing attempt to prove Ottoman officials of war crimes. It
occupied Ottoman territory, including Istanbul, under the 1918 Mudros
Armistice. Under section 230 of the Treaty of Sevres, Ottoman
officials were subject to prosecution for war crimes like genocide.
Great Britain had access to Ottoman archives, but found no evidence
of Armenian genocide. Scores of Ottoman Turks were detained on Malta,
nonetheless, under suspicion of complicity in Armenian massacres or
worse. But all were released in 1922 for want of evidence. The
British spent endless months searching hither and yon for evidence of
international criminality- even enlisting the assistance of the
United State yet came up with nothing that could withstand the test
of truth. Rumor, hearsay, and polemics from anti-Turk sources was the
most that could be assembled, none of which would be admissible in
any fair-minded enterprise to discover facts and to assign legal
responsibility.
None of this is to deny that approximately 600,000 Ottoman Armenians
perished during World War I and its aftermath. But Muslims died in
even greater numbers (approximately 2.5 million in Eastern Anatolia)
from Armenian and Russian massacres and wartime privations as severe
as that experienced by relocated Armenians. When Armenians held the
opportunity, they massacred Turks without mercy, as in Van, Erzurum,
and Adana. The war ignited a cycle of violence between both groups,
one fighting for revolutionary objectives and the other to retain
their homeland intact. Both were spurred to implacability by the
gruesome experience that the loser could expect no clemency.
The horrifying scale of the violence and retaliatory violence,
however, were acts of private individuals or official wrongdoers. The
Ottoman government discouraged and punished the crimes within the
limits of its shrinking capacity. Fighting for its life on three
fronts, it devoted the lion’s share of its resources and manpower to
staving off death, not to local law enforcement.
The emptiness of the Armenian genocide case is further demonstrated
by the resort of proponents to reliance on incontestable falsehoods
or forged documents. The Talat Pasha fabrications are emblematic.
According to Armenians, he sent telegrams expounding an Ottoman
policy to massacre its Armenian population that were discovered by
British forces commanded by General Allenby when they captured Aleppo
in 1918. Samples were published in Paris in 1920 by an Armenian
author, Aram Andonian. They were also introduced at the Berlin trial
of the assassin of Talat Pasha, and then accepted as authentic.
The British Foreign Office then conducted an official investigation
that showed that the telegrams had not been discovered by the army
but had been produced by an Armenian group based in Paris. A
meticulous examination of the documents revealed glaring
discrepancies with the customary form, script, and phraseology of
Ottoman administrative decrees, and pronounced as bogus as the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Donation of Constantine.
Ditto for a quote attributed to Adolph Hitler calculated to liken the
Armenians in World War I to the Holocaust victims and to arouse anger
towards the Republic of Turkey. Purportedly delivered on August 22,
1939, while the Nazi invasion of Poland impended, Hitler allegedly
declared: “Thus for the time being I have sent to the East only my
Death Head units, with the order to kill without mercy all men,
women, and children of the Polish race or language. Who still talks
nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians.”
Armenian genocide exponents point to the statement as evidence that
it served as the model for Hitler’s sister plan to exterminate Poles,
Jews, and others. Twenty-two Members of Congress on or about April
24, 1984 in the Congressional Record enlisted Hitler’s hideous
reference to Armenian extermination as justification for supporting
Armenian Martyrs’ Day remembrances. As Princeton Professor Heath W.
Lowry elaborates in a booklet, “The U.S. Congress and Adolph Hitler
on the Armenians,” it seems virtually certain that the statement was
never made. The Nuremburg tribunal refused to accept it as evidence
because of flimsy proof of authenticity.
The gospel for many Armenian genocide enthusiasts is Ambassador Henry
Morgenthau’s 1918 book, Ambassador’s Morgenthau’s Story. It brims
with assertions that incriminate the Ottoman Turks in genocide.
Professor Lowry, however, convincingly demonstrates in his monograph,
“The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story,” that his book is
more propaganda, invention, exaggeration, and hyperbole than a
reliable portrait of motivations and events.
According to some Armenian circles, celebrated founder of the
Republic of Turkey, Atatürk, confessed “Ottoman state responsibility
for the Armenian genocide.” That attribution is flatly false, as
proven in an extended essay, “A ‘Statement’ Wrongly Attributed to
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,” by Türkkaya Ataöv.
Why would Armenian genocide theorists repeatedly uncurtain
demonstrative falsehoods as evidence if the truth would prove their
case? Does proof of the Holocaust rest on such imaginary
inventiveness? A long array of individuals have been found guilty of
participation in Hitler’s genocide in courts of law hedged by rules
to insure the reliability of verdicts. Adolph Eichmann’s trial and
conviction in an Israeli court and the Nuremburg trials before an
international body of jurists are illustrative. Not a single Ottoman
Turk, in contrast, has every been found guilty of Armenian genocide
or its equivalent in a genuine court of law, although the victorious
powers in World War I enjoyed both the incentive and opportunity to
do so if incriminating evidence existed.
The United Nations Economic and Social Council Sub-Commission on the
Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities examined
the truthfulness of an Armenian genocide charge leveled by Special
Rapporteur, Mr. Benjamin Whitaker, in his submission, “Study of
Genocide,” during its thirty-eighth session at the U.N. Office in
Geneva from August 5-30, 1985. The Sub-Commission after meticulous
debate refused to endorse the indictment for lack of convincing
evidence, as amplified by attendee and Professor Dr. Ataöv of Ankara
University in his publication, “WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN GENEVA: The
Truth About the ‘Whitaker Report’.”
B. If the evidence is so demonstratively faulty, what explains a
widespread credence given to the Armenian genocide allegation in the
United States?
As Napoleon once derisively observed, history is a fable mutually
agreed upon. It is not Euclidean geometry. Some bias invariably is
smuggled in by the most objective historians; others view history as
a manipulable weapon either to fight an adversary, or to gain a
political, economic, or sister material advantage, or to satisfy a
psychological or emotional need.
History most resembles truth when competing versions of events do
battle in the marketplace of ideas with equally talented contestants
and before an impartial audience with no personal or vested interest
in the outcome. That is why the adversarial system of justice in the
United States is the hallmark of its legal system and a beacon to the
world.
The Armenian genocide allegation for long decades was earmarked by an
absence of both historical rigor and scrupulous regard for reliable
evidence and truth. The Ottoman Empire generally received bad reviews
in the West for centuries, in part because of its predominant Muslim
creed and military conquests in Europe. It was a declared enemy of
Britain, France, and Russia during World War I, and a de facto enemy
of the United States. Thus, when the Armenian genocide allegation
initially surfaced, the West was predisposed towards acceptance that
would reinforce their stereotypical and pejorative view of Turks that
had been inculcated for centuries. The reliability of obviously
biased sources was generally ignored. Further, the Republic of Turkey
created in 1923 was not anxious to defend its Ottoman predecessor
which it had opposed for humiliating capitulations to World War I
victors and its palsied government. Atatürk was seeking a new,
secular, and democratic dispensation and distance from the Ottoman
legacy.
Armenians in the United States were also more vocal, politically
active and sophisticated, numerous, and wealthy than Turks. The
Armenian lobby has skillfully and forcefully marketed the Armenian
genocide allegation in the corridors of power, in the media, and in
public school curricula. They had been relatively unchallenged until
some opposing giants in the field of Turkish studies appeared on the
scene to discredit and deflate the charge by fastidious research and
a richer understanding of the circumstances of frightful Armenian
World War I casualties. Professor of History at the University of
Louisville, Justin McCarthy, and Princeton Professor Heath Lowry
stand at the top of the list. Professor McCarthy’s 1995 book, Death
and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, is a
landmark. Turkish Americans have also organized to present facts and
views about the Armenian genocide allegation and other issues central
to United States-Turkish relations. But the intellectual playing
field remains sharply tilted in favor of the Armenians. Since public
officials with no foreign policy responsibilities confront no
electoral or other penalty for echoing the Armenian story, they
generally acquiesce to gain or to solidify their standing among them.
The consequence has been not only bad and biased history unbecoming
an evenhanded search for truth, but a gratuitous irritant in the
relations between Turkey and the United States. The former was a
steadfast ally throughout the Cold War, and Turkey remains a
cornerstone of NATO and Middle East peace. It is also a strong
barrier against religious fundamentalism, and an unflagging partner
in fighting international terrorism and drug trafficking. Turkey is
also geostrategically indispensable to exporting oil and gas from
Central Asia to the West through pipelines without reliance on the
Russian Federation, Iran, Afghanistan or other dicey economic
partners.
Finally, endorsing the false Armenian genocide indictment may
embolden Armenian terrorist organizations (for example, the Armenian
Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) to kill and mutilate
Turks, as they did a few decades ago in assassinating scores of
Turkish diplomats and bombing buildings both in the United States and
elsewhere. They have been relatively dormant in recent years, but to
risk a resurgence from intoxication with a fortified Armenian
genocide brew would be reckless.
III. Conclusion
The Armenian genocide accusation fails for want of proof. It attempts
to paint the deaths and privations of World War I in prime colors,
when the authentic article is chiaroscuro. Both Muslims and Armenians
suffered horribly and neither displayed a morality superior to the
other. Continuing to hurl the incendiary charge of genocide on the
Turkish doorstep obstructs the quest for amity between Armenia and
the Republic of Turkey and warmer relations between Armenians and
Turks generally.
Isn’t it time to let the genocide allegation fade away and to join
hands in commemorating the losses of both communities during World
War I and its aftermath?
Letter from Mr. E. Vartanian, an Armenian-American Volunteer in the
Russian Service, to His Brother-in-law in Egypt; Dated 9th /22nd
July,1915, and Published in the Armenian Journal “Houssaper,” of
Cairo.
” We have been here three days. Some of us are going to be sent to
Erivan; the rest of us are starting in two days for Van.
The enthusiasm here is very great. There are already 20,000
volunteers at the front, and they are trying to increase the number
to 30,000. Each district we occupy is placed under Armenian
administration, and an Armenian post is running from Igdir to Van.
The Russian Government is showing great goodwill towards the
Armenians and doing everything in its power for the liberation of
Turkish Armenia.
When we disembarked at Archangel the Government gave us every
possible assistance. It even undertook the transport of our baggage,
and gave us free passes, second class, to Petrograd.
At Petrograd we received an equally hearty welcome, and the Governor
of the city presented each of us with a medal in token of his
sympathy. The Armenian colony put us up in the best hotels,
entertained us at the best restaurants, and could not make enough of
us. This lasted for five days, and then we continued our journey,
again at the Government’s expense, to Tiflis.
Everywhere on the way the population received us with cheers and
offerings of flowers. Just as we were leaving Archa gel, a young
Russian lady came with flowers and offered one to eaeh of us. I also
saw a quite poor man who was so moved by the speech in Russian that
one of our comrades had made, that he came and put his tobacco into
the pipe of a comrade standing next to me, and kept nothing for
himself but a bare half-pipeful. A third, an old man, was so moved by
the speech that he began to cry and nearly made off, but a little
while after I saw him standing in front of the carriage window and,
with a shaking hand, holding out a hard-boiled egg to our comrade the
chemist Roupen Stepanian. Probably it was his one meal for the day.
And so at every step we found ourselves in the midst of affecting
scenes. At Petrograd Railway Station the crowd was enormous. There
was an Armenian lady there who offered each of us a rose. There were
boys and young men who wept because they could not come with us. At
Rostov a young Russian joined our ranks. He was caught more than once
by his parents at the stations further down the line, but he always
succeeded in escaping them and reioining us. We have christened him
Stepan.
When we arrived at Tiflis, we marched singing to the offices of the
Central Armenian Bureau, with our flag unfurled in front of us, and
the people marched on either side of us in such a crowd that the
trams were forced to stop running.
That is enough for to-day. My next letter shall be written from
Armenia itself..
Please say nothing to my sister about this resolution that I have
taken. I hope, of course, that she would know how to sacrifice her
affection for her brother to her love for the nation and for
liberty.. I should curse any of my relations who lament my
resolution; they would have committed treason against the nation.
There are five of us brothers; was it not imperative that at least
one of us should devote himself to the cause of a national
emancipation ? Let us keep up our courage, realise the urgency of the
moment and do our duty. ”
Author is an attorney and Adjunct Scholar of ATAA.
–Boundary_(ID_iJZ4bxhY84NQXPh9FQ1P9A)–

International Symposium on Armenian Allegations in Baku
Journal of Turkish Weekly
May 31 2005
source: Hurriyet
At an international symposium on “Armenian Claims and the Reality
of Azerbayjian” held in Baku, Azerbayjian, the head of the Ataturk
Culture, Language and History Foundation, Professor Sadik Tural,
spoke about Armenian allegations of genocide in Turkey.
According to Tural, whose speech came at the opening of the symposium,
the source of Armenian “propoganda” in many European countries was
a German priest by the name of Johannes Lepsuis, who toured Anatolia
in 1915.
Lepsuis, said Tural, wrote letters filled with lies and distrotions,
which the Armenians then began to use in their own campaign against
the Turks.
Tural asserted in his speech that Turkey faces a systematic attack on
thematter of the Armenian claims. Said Tural, “France, which gives
great support to the Armenian claims, wiped 8,000 villages of the
face of the earth in Algeria.
They are also responsible for the deaths of 3,000 Algerian
intellectuals.” Tural also labeled England as being a country with
genocide in its past.
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev sent a letter of support to the members of
the symposium, saying in it that Turkey and Azerbayjian had for years
been subjected to the relentless and unfounded claims of the Armenians.
Aliyev also noted that in the last two hundred years, hundreds of
thousands of Turkic peoples living in the Caucasian region had been
“ethnically cleansed” from the area, and that their historical lands
had been invaded.
Said Aliyev further “Historical and intellectual truths have been,
in a systematic and plotted out manner, been sacrificed to Armenian
propoganda.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ERDOGAN: ISTANBUL CONFERENCE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE SHOULD TAKE PLACE
Pan Armenian News
31.05.2005 05:44
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The postponed conference on the Armenian Genocide
initiated by the Bosphorus University should take place, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated in an interview with the Turkish
Daily News. “People should not be afraid of expressing their viewpoints
publicly,” the Turkish PM said, reported the Yerkir newspaper.

The Messenger, Georgia
May 31 2005
Georgia, Russia ready to ink deal on base pullout
Akhalkalaki base to be gone by October 2007, Batumi base by January 2008
By Mary Makharashvili
The entrance to the Russian base in Akhalkalaki; on Monday Russian
and Georgian officials agreed to immediately begin closing down the
base and withdrawal at least 20 tanks by September 1
After nearly six years of gridlock, Tbilisi and Moscow are two
signatures away from finalizing the agreement concerning the last
remaining Russian military bases in Georgia.
The two sides finally completed negotiations Monday, May 30, during
talks between Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Salome Zurabichvili
and her Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov. The latest meeting followed
a round of talks in Tbilisi last week.
Tbilisi sources claimed it was Russia that agreed to a compromise
though Georgia’s commitments in the agreement have not been fully
disclosed. According to reports, the Russian government agreed to
start withdrawing from Akhalkalaki first, followed by the base in
Batumi. This process should last until January 1, 2008, which gives
the Russian army around two-and-a-half years to close the bases.
“I am happy to announce that the negotiations dealing with the final
document concerning different issues in Russia-Georgian relations
are over. In this document, a significant importance is given to
the process of the withdrawing Russian military bases – first from
Akhalkalaki and then from Batumi,” Lavrov said at a press briefing
after the negotiations.
According to Zurabishvili, the talks marked an important landmark
in negotiations. “A very constructive and important step was made,”
she said. “We achieved the aim we were working on.”
Gela Charkviani, the presidential spokesman, said that the decision
to have this latest meeting was the result of a telephone conversation
between the Georgian and Russian presidents on May 26.
In a briefing on Monday evening he also read aloud certain sections of
the document. According to the agreement, the Russian military bases
will suspend their activities and exist in a “withdrawal regime.” The
withdrawal of heavy equipment will begin this year and at least 40
pieces of heavy equipment will be removed by September 1, including
20 tanks.
It is not clear, however, where the Russian army will transfer the
equipment to. Reports that it could speed the withdrawal by taking
the arms to Armenia were met with heavy protests in Baku.
The document also specifies that the Russian side has until June 15,
2005 to transfer ownership of a tank repair factory in Georgia. They
have until September 1 to transfer other factories and buildings that
do not support the bases in Georgia.
The schedule for the pullout is laid out clearly according to reports
of the agreement. “After the signing of the document, Russian soldiers
will organize the withdrawal of equipment and other belongings. The
withdrawal of heavy equipment from Akhalkalaki should occur by the
end of 2006. The withdrawal of the entire base of Akhalkalaki will
be completed by October 1, 2007,” the document stipulates.
While all politicians in Georgia welcome the news, some fear that
Georgia was forced into some unreasonable compromises, such as creating
joint anti-terrorist units.
“I am satisfied since just two or three months ago there was talk
of eleven years and USD 500 million was one of the terms to begin
negotiations on this issue. Now this process is almost finished,”
said Chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs Kote
Gabashvili.
However, MP Zurab Tkemaladze said that the most important thing
is the terms forcing Russian soldiers out of Georgia and he is
not satisfied that those demands were met. “I want to say that if
these anti-terrorist centers replace these bases, the agreement is
senseless,” he said.
But Temur Yakobashvili, the vice president of the Georgian Foundation
for Strategic and International Studies, believes the agreement
reached on May 30 is a positive continuation of the Istanbul agreement.
In an interview with The Messenger, he said that the fact the sides
finally agreed on the issue to withdraw the bases is itself a positive
moment that supports the theory that Russia’s attitude toward Georgia
has changed.
“All this means that Russia has made a step toward cooperation with
Georgia,” he said. “Russia was requesting 11 years for withdrawing
its bases from the Georgian territory and now they agreed to three
years. That already means a lot.” He added that while three years
still seems like a long time to withdraw two small bases, the most
important thing is that an agreement was reached.
According to agreements signed at the OSCE Istanbul Summit in 1999,
Russia has already withdrawn from the Vaziani military base and
declared that the Gudauta base is no longer functioning. However,
Tbilisi demands that an international monitoring group confirms that
the base is completely closed.
Based on the information released by the Prime News Agency, there
are over 3,000 Russian military personnel at the military bases
in Akhalkalaki and Batumi. Also on Monday, the ministers agreed to
finally delineate the countries’ shared borders, sections of which
had not been determined since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

DEMOCRATIC REFORMS IN ARMENIA AIMED AT DEMOCRATIZATION
Pan Armenian News
31.05.2005 06:48
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Parliamentary Speaker Artur Baghdasarian met
with head of the Department of Interterritorial and Cultural Ties with
Foreign States at the Russian President Modest Kolerov in Yerevan,
reported the Press Service of the National Assembly of Armenia. In
the course of the meeting Kolerov informed Baghdasarian about the
meeting with the parliamentary groups and factions for familiarization
with their opinion over the process of democratic reforms in Armenia,
election of local government bodies, constitutional reforms and the
referendum. At the instance of the guest Mr. Baghdasarian detailed the
constitutional reforms draft, noting the legislative reforms in Armenia
are aimed at democratization, passing laws complying with international
standards that will ensure development in the future. The parties also
discussed regional issues, as well as other matters of mutual interest.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian Prime Minister to participate in CIS Forum in Tbilisi
The Messenger, Georgia
May 31 2005
Prime Minister of Armenia Andranik Markaryan will attend a meeting
with the heads of CIS governments during his working visit to Georgia
June 1-3. Black Sea Press reported that he will also speak to members
of the Georgian government about projects in the humanitarian and
financial spheres.
Markaryan will also meet with speaker of the parliament Nino
Burjanadze, and Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli. According to the
government of Armenia, he will be in Georgia to discuss commercial
and economic cooperation.
The leaders of CIS governments will visit Mtskheta for a special
cultural program. They will visit with Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili on June 2, Black Sea Press reports.

Euro-reporters.com, Belgium
May 31 2005
Turkey under pressure
Written by David Ferguson in Brussels
Tuesday, 31 May 2005
“Turkey’s will to reform is the deciding factor. If Turkey wants
to make sure that accession negotiations start on 3 October 2005,
it must not deter from its current course of reforms,” said German
Green MEP Cem Ozdemir, himself of Turkish origin. “The image that
Turkey is currently projecting must be changed immediately,” continued
Ozdemir, also a member of the European Parliament’s Turkey delegation.
“Violent police action on International Women’s Day, the recently
cancelled Armenia conference in Istanbul and recent calls to burn
the books of authors like Orhan Pamuk are intolerable relapses into
a bygone era.”
Ozdemir does not expect the French rejection of European Constitution
to hold up further enlargement: “Ten member states have already
approved the constitution. The ‘no’ in France is a large burden for the
European Union to bear, but the ratification process will continue,
as planned, until October 2006.” Turkey’s latest application to join
dates back to 1987 and, if all conditions are met, the country should
begin accession negotiations in October 2005.
“The outcome of the French referendum does not stand in the way of
accession negotiations with Turkey. The EU must also be ready to take
on new members. It is in Europe’s own interest to reform itself as
quickly as possible, in order to remain functional with 25 members
and soon 27 members. If Turkey joins the EU within the target time
period of ten to 15 years, it will become part of a stronger union.”
Turkey is under great pressure to maintain and extend press freedoms
and human rights. But doubts have been increasingly raised over the
pace of change in Turkey. In April, Ankara announced a two or three
month delay for reform of the country’s 79-year-old penal code to
meet the EU’s political standards. One of the draft articles of the
revised code still deemed it an offense calling for Turkish withdrawal
from Cyprus or talk of an Armenian genocide.

OVER 20% OF COMPLAINTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN ARMENIA SOLVE POSITIVELY
Pan Armenian News
31.05.2005 07:13
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Over 20% of complaints referring to violation of
rights of private persons are decided positively, Armenian Ombudsperson
Larisa Alaverdian stated in the course of an on-line interview
with OpenArmenia.com. In her words, the indicator is considered a
positive one in the international practice. As noted by Alaverdian,
the statistics over the complaints, received by the Ombudsperson
Administration, are published in the Ombudsperson’s Annual Report and
it will appear on the website one of these days. At that she noted that
the most number of complaints from Armenian citizens were received over
questions of violation of civil rights, specifically, property rights
(256 complaints). Complaints of functionaries breaking the Criminal
Code are on the second place (218 complaints). “Complaints are made
of the violation of human rights due to “bad administration”, there
are 126 “complainants”, which include groups of persons and working
staffs of enterprises that were privatized or became bankrupt, as
well as enterprises, which do not fulfill their obligations to their
workers. Violations of the Labor Code and the human right for labor
on the whole are registered in 108 complaints,” she stated.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress