Month: October 2005

TVNZ, New Zealand
Sept 30 2005

Austria blocks EU Turkey agreement

Sep 30, 2005

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 UN war crimes
tribunal of its cooperation.

“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% 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 conditions Turkey could never accept and
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% 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 UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte
certifying that it is cooperating fully with her office in the hunt
for fugitive ex-general Ante Gotovina.

Kane County Chronicle
September 28, 2005

Rock band leads rally at Hastert’s office
By ERIC SCHELKOPF

[email protected]

BATAVIA – Batavia High School senior Julie Allen is
not a big fan of the rock band System of a Down.
But Allen said she appreciates that the band takes a
stand on social issues. That is why she attended a
rally Tuesday in front of U.S. House Speaker Dennis
Hastert’s district office.
System of a Down lead singer Serj Tankian and drummer
John Dolmayan urged Hastert to call for a vote on the
pending Armenian genocide legislation, which would
recognize that Turkey murdered 1.5 million Armenians
between 1915 and 1923.
“I think it is awesome what they are doing,” Allen
said.
Allen said she is concerned about the 1994 genocide in
Rwanda and recent genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
“I am concerned that genocide keeps reoccurring,”
Allen said.
The Armenian National Committee of America, Axis of
Justice and the Armenian Youth Federation also
sponsored the rally.
System of a Down’s four band members are of Armenian
descent. Tankian’s 97-year-old grandfather survived
the Armenian genocide.
“This is not just political, it is personal. If my
grandfather hadn’t survived, I wouldn’t be here,”
Takian said to crowd of about 125 people. “I really
believe there are a lot of good people in Congress who
are going to do the right thing.”
The rally was peaceful and no one was arrested.
“Everything has gone great,” Batavia Police Cmdr. Greg
Thrun said.
Tankian and Dolmayan gave Batavia police a letter
addressed to Hastert, who in turn gave the letter to
Hastert’s staff. The speaker was in Washington, D.C.,
on Tuesday presiding over Congress.
Hastert in October 2000 withdrew the Armenian Genocide
resolution from consideration shortly before it was to
reach the House floor.
“President Clinton asked the speaker not to bring the
resolution to the floor,” Hastert spokesman Brad Hahn
said. “He was concerned about how it would affect the
situation in the Middle East and how it would affect
diplomatic relations.”
The House’s International Relations Committee on Sept.
15 approved two resolutions that denounced the deaths
of Armenians early last century as genocide.
However, the State Department said in a letter to
committee members that the “resolutions could
undermine efforts to rebuild a partnership between the
United States and Turkey in pursuit of America’s broad
national security interests in the eastern
Mediterranean, Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle
East.”
“Discussion is going on. No vote is scheduled.
(Hastert) is taking a step back and letting the will
of the House work its way through the process,” Hahn
said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

MTV.COM News

System Singer Visits Congressman’s Office To Push Genocide Bill
09.28.2005

Band, meanwhile, is about to shoot a video for ‘Hypnotize.’

Singer Serj Tankian had some personal business to attend to this week
before System of a Down could shoot their next video. Personal and,
well, global.

Before the band left for the second leg of its fall tour with the Mars
Volta (see “System Of A Down/ Mars Volta Tour Dates Announced”),
Tankian promised his 97-year-old grandfather he would do his best to
convince Congressman Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) to bring the Armenian
Genocide Resolution to a vote, an issue long close to System of a Down
(see “System Of A Down Make The Political Personal At Souls
2005”). And he did just that Tuesday outside the Speaker of the
House’s Batavia, Illinois, office.

Tankian joined members of the Armenian National Committee of America,
the Armenian Youth Federation and his own Axis of Justice organization
in a rally and then read a heartfelt letter he delivered to Hastert’s
office in support of the pending legislation, which would officially
recognize Turkey’s slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and
1923.

With the resolution, which overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan
International Relations Committee, Hastert can either bring it to the
House of Representatives for a vote or let it expire.

“It’s all in his hands, he’s the man,” Tankian said of Hastert, who
spoke in support of recognizing the genocide on the House floor in
1994. “The thing is that a similar resolution was going around in 2000
as well and he was the speaker of the House then, but at the time
[President Bill] Clinton had written a letter asking him not to bring
it up to vote, citing concerns that had to do with Turkey. In 2004 he
also had the opportunity to bring another resolution to vote on …
and that didn’t happen either.

“I’m sure that there’s a lot of lobbying going on from the Bush
administration, from the military-industrial complex that sells a lot
of weapons to Turkey, and a whole host of corporate lobbyist firms
that don’t want this thing to pass, but the truth has to come out, and
more so in a democracy than anywhere else,” he continued. “So we’re
fighting the good fight.”

Hastert was not at his office Tuesday and was unavailable for comment
Wednesday (September 28).

Assyrian International News Agency
Sept 29 2005

Turkey After The Armenian Genocide Conference

(AINA) — After efforts of deterrence by the executive in May and
obstruction of the 4th Istanbul Administrative Court on September
23rd, the conference entitled, ‘Ottoman Armenians in the Final Period
of the Empire: Scientific Responsibility and Problems of Democracy’
has been successfully completed on the 25th of September. The venue
of the event had to be changed from one university to the other and a
three-day conference had to be telescoped to two days. The
participants and audience had to pass through a barrier of slandering
nationalist protestors throwing eggs and tomatoes. Yet two and half
institutions deserve credit for standing behind academic autonomy,
freedom of expression and culture of deliberation. The first is the
government who spoke through the Prime Minister. His resolve dwarfed
the initial resistance of the Minister of Justice who called the
initiative “treason” and “back stabbing the nation” in May. The
second is the university as an institution who defended the rights
and liberties that make it a center and advocate of freedom. The
third institution is the media; of course some of it, which is
conscious of the fact that, this conference was not all about the
Armenian issue that needs to be discussed impartially but it is
rather a matter of democracy.

The speakers, or better deliberators, were all Turkish scholars
serving at domestic or foreign universities to avoid prejudice
against ill-willed foreigners. Among a sundry of topics some like,
‘An Identity Squeezed Between the Past and the Present’, ‘Examples of
Forgetting and Remembrance in Turkish Literature: Different Breaking
Points of Silence’, ‘The Armenian Issue and Demographic Engineering’,
‘Scenes of Conscience through a Bitter History’, ‘From Heranush to
Seher: A Story of “Salvation”‘, ‘Mother Fatma, the Child of
Deportation’ and ‘Thinking About the Stories of the Survivors of
Deportation’, suggest that the issues were not limited to just
historiography and document rattling. That has been taking place for
a long time. Both the Armenian and Turkish nationalists and ‘official
historians’ have unfortunately narrowed down the discussion of this
important matter to the acceptance or denial of “genocide”. This
radical stance has not only impoverished scholarship but has
politicized the matter forcing individuals to take sides. In this
ado, unfortunately the human side of the matter, the suffering of
real human beings, no matter who they were, has been neglected.
Indeed what we ought to start discussing is the human condition at
the turn of the last century.

A multicultural society existed with different ethnic, linguistic and
confessional groups. They were torn apart, their age-old relations
were severed, an economy was shattered, the lives of ALL were changed
irreversibly and forever. The majority of them had little to do with
the fate they were forced to live through if they had not lost their
lives in the chaos of World War One years.

I will not go on into the arguments of “clashing nationalisms”,
“securing the eastern-front where a war was waged with occupying
Russian armies” or simply, “revenge of the Turks over the Armenians
where a part of the Armenians took up arms and tried to carve out an
independent Armenia by exterminating Turks in eastern Turkey”. All of
these are parts of the wider truth. But the truth is larger than that
and larger than the lives of individuals or groups that were caught
up in the turmoil of the decade between 1910-1920. Turks were
recruited to go to the Libyan (or Tripoli) campaign in 1911 to be
followed by the Balkan War next year that ended up by loosing all of
the East European lands of the Empire in 1913. In the next year WW1
broke up that ended with the dissolution of three major empires of
the time, the Ottoman being one. During that fateful decade, Ottomans
lost 2 million soldiers. No one knows how many civilians perished
during hostilities and following forced migration, by hunger and
famine. But a rough estimate is that five million Turks or Muslims
identifying themselves as Ottoman had to migrate into present Turkey
and remaining territories. They left behind dead family members,
their property and a life that had taken root on European soil in the
past centuries.

They were frustrated, impoverished, uprooted and bitter. However,
they had come to a friendly land where they were welcome and the
government of the day compensated their loss to a certain degree.
That is why they chose to forget. Did they forgive? Obviously not.
Historical evidence shows that the ruling cadre in the last Ottoman
decade was the government of the Committee of Union and Progress,
better known as the Young Turks. The leading group, including the
dictating triumvirate, Talat, Enver and Cemal Pashas of the Young
Turks were basically of Balkan stock. When they moved the
headquarters of their semi-secret organization from Selonica to
Istanbul in 1912, they brought their feelings of loss, betrayal (by
the non-Muslim peoples of the empire who had attained their
independence through painful struggles for national liberation by
fighting against Ottoman officers and officials who were mainly
members of the Union and Progress.

We all know what “never again” means. These new rulers of the Ottoman
terrain promised the remaining lands not become a second “Macedonia”
as they called the bulk of the Balkans. They made a conscious effort
to prevent a second catastrophe by adopting the method of demographic
engineering. There were two aspects of this engineering: 1) Removal
of the Christians; 2) Mixing of the non-Turkish Muslims. The first
method was territorial; the second was demographic engineering. The
Bulgarians living in Edirne and in Thrace (European part of Turkey)
was sent to Bulgaria or exchanged with Turks who felt victimized and
wanted to go to Turkey. Deterring Greeks from remaining in Western
and Black Sea regions was realized without overt exertion of force
but with a convincing determination. The policy was to cleanse the
Aegean littoral off Greeks 50 kilometers into the heartland. This
policy reached its peak point by population exchanges with Greece in
1924.

Territorial mopping concerning the Armenians was put into effect with
the official policy of deportation. It was an announced and
acknowledged government policy of the time. However, territorial
sterility was not only directed to these largest Ottoman peoples, it
encompassed all Christian peoples, large or small including the more
peaceful Assyrians in the southeast. How could the vengeful and
wrathful Young Turks could know that by scaring off the peaceful
Christians they would allow the Kurds to have sole control of
southeast Anatolia and the ‘later Turks’ would have to put up with
the unruly behavior of the more favored Muslims?

As regards the non-Turkish Muslims, the ratio of one-to-ten or 10%
was observed when they were moved from places where they were more
crowded into wider Turkish communities where they would be a
controllable minority. This plan was put into effect and the
Armenians faced the harshest fate of all because there was no
receiving state willing to compensate for their loss like the
Bulgarians and the Greeks. From the day when Armenian deportation has
started the event is no more a political matter born out of the
exigencies and vagaries of the day and its power struggles. It is a
human condition, which imposes on all of us, on all human beings, the
responsibility to understand and to reconcile with.

The present Turkish government bears no responsibility to what the
adventurous Young Turks who led the Ottoman State into demise had
done to the peoples whom they ruled over. They did not only deport
Christian subjects, they sent armies totaling two million recruited
from among Muslims to three continents and watched them perish in
pursuit of their ambitious scheme of creating a Turanian Empire out
of Turkic peoples. They depleted the Turkish stock of the motherland
too. The conference drew attention to these (other) angles of the
last decades of the empire during which the Armenian disaster took
place. It was not particular to the Armenians. It was a human tragedy
staged by an adventurous cadre who valued their imperial design more
than human life, without distinguishing between that of their own or
others. Their Machiavellian political methods justified the means
they used for their exalted end that never succeeded but consumed the
lives of millions as well as their own.

What befalls on us is to acknowledge what happened to the Ottoman
peoples of the time and why? No nation or nationality, no adherent of
any creed can claim that those fateful years are the mark of history
that denotes only their losses and grief. This is a shared calamity
that we all lived through and bare responsibility for, some much
less, some much more. Those days are left behind, not to be forgotten
though. We must remember what has taken place; what ambitions,
policies or impossible dreams have led to such large scale suffering
then, so that we do not commit the same mistakes again. However, our
primary duty is to understand what role our forbearers played and
what we can do to ease the pain of those who still suffer today
because they feel that their wounds are psychologically bleeding.

We need a little empathy just like the former Minister of Health, Mr.
Cevdet Aykan has said in the “Memories and Witnesses” section of the
conference said: “In 1915, Tokat was a part of the Sivas Province.
According to the 1908 Sivas Population Registrar, there were 240
Muslims, 24,000 Armenians, and 14,000 Greeks in the province. The
population of Tokat at the same time was 28,000. Of this number 8,600
were Armenian and they were all living peacefully together. When the
news of deportation reached Tokat and Sivas, the Turkish and Armenian
community leaders got together and sought for a solution. The
Armenian merchants and artisans transferred their property to their
neighbors and trusted their spouses and daughters to Turkish families
with mock weddings. Those who were sent away never came back”. Mr.
Aykan has told this story as a witness and added the most honorable
statement: “I am telling these to pay back my moral debt to my
Armenian citizens”.

This sentence tells all. Now, both the Armenians and Turks must get
together not to accuse each other for the injustices of the past and
how much suffering their great parents have inflicted on the other.
Humanistic stories can be produced just s much as inhuman ones like
officers committing suicide not to carry unjust orders or neighbors
hiding forbidden citizens forsaking their own lives. No, what we
ought to discuss is how we can heel the wounds that is no body’s
monopoly. If we do not want to carry the burden of history we must
unload our feelings and expectations by cleansing our thoughts and
souls from vengeance and hatred and wish for dialogue, which we can
hopefully turn into an agenda for peaceful coexistence and mutual
history building. Can we do it? Restless minds and souls only produce
hatred and violence. Let us leave the souls of our grand parents
alone to rest in peace. They have suffered enough and they do not
want to be awakened to fight another war just because we want them on
our side.

By Dogu Ergil

Associated Press Worldstream
September 29, 2005 Thursday

EU envoy praises Armenia’s constitutional amendments

YEREVAN, Armenia

An EU envoy on Thursday hailed constitutional amendments passed by
the Armenian parliament as a step in the right direction.

The nation’s parliament on Wednesday gave final approval to the
amendments, which are intended to impose a more strict separation of
powers between the judicial, executive and legislative branches.

“Now that the amendments are there, we can state that the country is
moving in the right direction,” said Heikki Talvitie, the EU’s envoy
to southern Caucasus.

Talvitie said that the EU is planning to expand its contacts with
Armenia and the ex-Soviet Caucasus nations of Georgia and Azerbaijan
under its initiative “Expanded Europe: New Neighbors.”

Tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains high more than a
decade after a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war that left the
disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Armenian hands.

Some 30,000 people were killed and a million displaced, and the lack
of resolution of the enclave’s status has impeded economic
development in the region.

A draft budget for next year approved by the Armenian Cabinet
Thursday envisages a 13-percent hike in defense spending to the level
equivalent to US$150 million ([euro]125).

The oil-rich Azerbaijan, which budgeted over US$300 million
([euro]250 million) for defense this year, will double its defense
spending next year.

The Times, UK
Sept 30 2005
,,13509 -1804495,00.html

Bloody past and racist present stand between Turkey and EU

By Ben Macintyre

Talks on Turkey’s membership of the EU begin on Monday, with the
issue dividing both the country and Europe. Today, in the first of
two articles, our correspondent looks at the case against letting it
join the club

ON A tiny island in the middle of Lake Van, on the far eastern edge
of Turkey, a team of architects is working feverishly to restore one
of the most beautiful religious buildings in the world.
Holy Cross Church, on Akdamar Island, was built by the Armenian King
Gagik in AD921 and was once the spiritual focus for more than a
million Armenian Christians.

Today there is no one left to worship in it. The entire Armenian
population here was killed or driven away by Turks and Kurdish
militias during the First World War, in what Armenians claim was the
first genocide of the 20th century – a charge vigorously denied by
the Turkish state.

For 90 years the church was left to rot. Its frescoes disintegrated
as the rainwater seeped in, and its delightful carvings were used for
target practice by local gun-toting shepherds.

In the run-up to EU accession talks next week, however, Turkey has
come under intense pressure to acknowledge its bloody past and
improve its treatment of minorities.

Four months ago the restoration work finally began, and today Muslim
stonemasons are busily rebuilding this church without a congregation.
The scaffolding-clad church is proof that attitudes are changing, but
it is also a poignant symbol of how much work – economic, political,
cultural and historical – still needs to be completed.

The membership negotiations are expected to take ten years or more,
and there is no guarantee that Turkey will ever enter this hitherto
white, Christian club, for the idea faces widespread public hostility
within Europe. For many, this poor, populous and overwhelmingly
Muslim country is simply a different culture, separated from, if not
actually inimical to, Europe.

Nowhere in Turkey feels less European than Lake Van, the starkly blue
inland body of water on the country’s volcanic eastern edge. At dusk
the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer, barefoot Kurdish children
herd ragged sheep, and a pair of women, ageless and faceless in the
all-enveloping burka, trudge through the dust to their mud-brick
home.

An hour to the east is Iran; to the south is blood-soaked Iraq, and
to the north, beyond Mount Ararat, lie Armenia and Georgia. Ancient,
biblical and Middle Eastern, this is the land of Noah; but if Turkey
gains admittance to the EU, it will mark Europe’s eastern border.

For many Europeans, that is a step too far. `No to Turkey’, rallies
in France cried before the EU constitution was roundly rejected this
year. On the shore at Copenhagen, the famous naked mermaid was draped
in an Islamic headscarf with a sign reading `Turkey in the EU?’
Turkey’s supporters are quick to point out that Europe is not a race
or a religion, but an idea. Yet the image of Turkey as an alien power
is deeply embedded in European history.

Indeed, the very concept of Europe was to some extent born out of
Christendom’s common cause against the great Muslim empire to the
east.

Gladstone, as Prime Minister, expressed the common prejudice against
a corrupt and violent Turkey threatening Europe’s very existence:
`From the black day they entered Europe, the one great anti-human
specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked
the track behind them.’

As archaic and racist as those ideas seem today, they still have some
currency, most notably in those parts of the former Austro-Hungarian
Empire that remember, with an inherited shudder, the Ottoman
Janissaries at the gates of Vienna.

Turkey’s critics need not look far to find evidence of cultural and
political incompatibility with European norms. Turkey’s military
continues to play an important (though reduced) role in the country’s
politics, while freedom of speech and other human rights lag far
behind the European standard.

Turkey has thrown off the Midnight Express image of official
brutality, but the rights and liberties of individuals are still
often at the mercy of an authoritarian state. Last year police
torture was still widespread, according to the Turkish Human Rights
Foundation.

Turkey has made significant reforms in recent years, but critics,
including many inside the country, worry that such reforms are skin
deep, a pragmatic shift to gain admittance to Europe rather than a
genuine change of heart.
Economically, despite a recent upswing, Turkey remains far behind the
poorest EU members, while many fear that an influx of poor Turkish
workers could flood European labour markets. Education levels are
below those of all European and most Latin American and Asian
countries.

Another fear is that Turkey’s addition to the EU would unbalance what
is already a fractious organisation, uncertain of its identity and
anxious about the future.

By 2010 there will be an estimated 80 million Turks. With population
determining voting power, this would give Ankara the same clout as
Berlin, Paris and London.

Meanwhile, the running sore of Cyprus remains; Ankara has yet to
recognise formally the Greek Government of Cyprus, already a member
of the club it now seeks to join.

The Turkish state remains staunchly secular, yet some argue that
bringing millions of Muslims into Europe could provide a springboard
for Islamist fundamentalism.

Turkey, after all, was until 1924 the seat of the Islamic Caliphate
which Osama bin Laden has repeatedly spoken of restoring to its
former power. Even Turkey’s most avid supporters agree that Ankara
has much more to do before this vast, teeming land straddling Europe
and Asia can be ushered into the EU.

Turkey has made progress towards addressing the EU political
requirements, but to join the union it would have to adopt
uncountable numbers of laws and regulations, ranging from maritime
safety to sewerage to food hygiene.

Even if Europe could be persuaded to admit Turkey, it is by no means
certain that Turkey will agree to be crushed into the preordained
European shape.

Support for joining the EU is falling in Turkey, from three quarters
a year ago to two thirds now. Many Turks have taken deep offence at
what is seen as foot-dragging by some European countries, and there
is a growing body of nationalist and traditionalist opinion, angered
by the abrupt changes in Turkish society, that would rather pull out
of accession talks altogether than submit to the Brussels
straightjacket.

The sense of former imperial glory is as pronounced in Turkey as it
is Britain; neither country relishes being told what to do by its
former European rivals.

That view is poignantly expressed by Ümit Özdag, a Turkish
Nationalist politician, who insists that EU membership is an
unachievable fantasy because Europe will keep shifting the goalposts.

Yet for many Turks, union membership remains attainable – and
logical. Even in remote Van, there is strong enthusiasm for
membership of a greater Europe, based on national pride as much as
admiration for Europe.

`We are a young country, we are a growing country, but Europe is
becoming old,’ declares Celal Basak, my huge Kurdish guide, as we
bounce along a rutted track that passes for a road in Van but would
dismay any European transport commissioner. `Turkey can help Europe
as much as Europe can help Turkey.’ Van is predominantly populated by
Kurds, who for decades have suffered discrimination at the hands of
the Turkish state. Kurds such as Mr Basak believe that EU membership
would give his people the autonomy and recognition they have long
craved. `I know Europe will end the troubles for my people,’ he
declares with a grin. `One hundred per cent.’

We are heading for the village known, in Turkish, as Koy. Another
former centre of Christian Armenian culture, the Kurds still refer to
it as Six Churches.

Turkey’s continued refusal to acknowledge the fate of the Armenians
has crystallised much of the opposition to Turkey’s EU membership.
This week the European Parliament declared that Turkey must
acknowledge the `genocide’ before it can be admitted.
Slowly Turkey may be inching towards that point. Yet the state stands
by its own version of events, insisting that just as many Turks and
Kurds perished in a civil war sparked by Armenian rebels. That view
is enshrined in Turkish law, though rejected by most historians.

The acclaimed Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is today facing
prosecution on charges of `belittling Turkishness’ for stating that
`30,000 Kurds and 1,000,000 Armenians were killed in Turkey’.

The whiff of wilful historical amnesia also hangs over Six Churches,
a once magnificent monastic complex in the mountains that is now a
ruin. When I ask the village headman, Mehmet Goban, about the fate of
the local Armenians, a chill descends on the warm afternoon. `Kurds
and Armenians always lived happily together here. We do not know why
they left. We don’t know what happened to them,’ he declares, after a
long, painful pause.

This wild and tribal land seems a world away from the Brussels of
suits and communiqués, where everything is ordered and regulated,
including the horrors of history. Whether Turkey comes to terms with
its past may decide whether it becomes part of Europe; that decision,
in turn, could redefine European identity for the next century.

A thin and beautiful cat picks its way among the lonely stones of Six
Churches. Eastern Anatolia, like neighbouring Persia, is famed for
its cats. Indeed, the symbol of the region is the Van Cat, a
beautiful, lithe creature with a genetic quirk that gives it one blue
eye and one brown.

As the debate over Turkey begins in earnest, this cat may stand as a
symbol not just for Van, but for Turkey itself: with one blue eye
trained westward on Europe, and one brown eye looking to the east.

MEASURING UP

Population 70 million

Population growth rate 1.09 per cent (EU average 0.15 per cent)

Unemployment rate 9.3 per cent (EU average 9 per cent)

Religion Muslim 99.8 per cent (mostly Sunni), other 0.2 per cent

GDP per capita £4,200 (EU average £15,300)

Life expectancy male 69.94 years (EU 75.1), female 74.91 (81.6)

Rank in Human Development Index (2003) 94 (Britain, 15; Germany, 20;
Cyprus, 29)
(Sources: CIA World Factbook, UN, Eurostat)

National Legal Internet Portal, Belarus
Sept 29 2005

Marina Dolgopolova: sincere bilateral interest in national traditions
is core of cultural cooperation between Belarus and Armenia

Cultural cooperation is an important component of the bilateral
relations between Belarus and Armenia, a component which has become
ever stronger over the recent years. Its core is sincere interest in
culture and traditions of the two peoples, a desire to promote
reinvigoration of what once was a single humanitarian space for the
today’s CIS countries, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenoipotentiary
of Belarus to Armenia Marina Dolgopolova told BelTA.

According to her the cultural cooperation between Belarus and Armenia
has notably invigorated over the recent years. Minsk widely
celebrated the 100th anniversary since birthday of a brilliant
musician Aram Khachiaturian. Last year Belarusian viewers got
familiar with the works of a famous Armenian Martiros Sarian. In the
near future the Belarusian capital is expected to host an exhibition
`Treasures of Echmiadzin’.

Yerevan held a large-scale photo-exhibition `The Heritage of Belarus’
which numbered 200 pictures illustrating centuries-old Belarusian
history. Today, Belarus and Armenia are mulling over the issue to
hold an exhibition of works of Mark Shagal. A book of his poetry has
already been published in Armenian.

According to Marina Dolgopolova, in 2004 for the first time Armenia
played host to the Days of the Belarusian Television organized by the
National State TV and Radio Company of Belarus and the Public TV and
Radio Company of Armenia. In May 2005 the return Days of the
Television of Armenia were held in Belarus.

The Public Television of Armenia broadcast live concert programs of
the international art festival Slavonic Bazaar in Vitebsk in 2004 and
in 2005. Besides, this year minister of culture and youth of Armenia
Ovik Oveyan was an honorary guest of this international forum. And
singer Kristi of Armenia participated in the contest of young
singers.

The diplomat believes that intensifying the cooperation between
Belarus and Armenia in culture promoted building up of the
legal-treaty base: in 2003 the culture ministries of Belarus and
Armenia concluded cooperation agreement and a plan of actions for
2005-2007 in 2004.

The television companies of the two countries signed the agreement to
bring the cooperation onto a new level. According to Marina
Dolgopolova, the move would let the citizens of the two countries to
learn more about socio-political, economic and cultural lives of the
two countries.

Marina Dolgopolova noted the role of the Belarusian diaspora in
popularizing the history, culture, national traditions of Belarus and
the Belarusian language in Armenia. Though being few (about 200
ethnic Belarusians) the community `Belarus’ with assistance of the
embassy takes an active part in the Slavic written language days,
children’s music festivals of the national minorities of Armenia, art
and folk art exhibitions. The community `Belarus’ was awarded
honorary diploma of the culture ministry of Armenia in 2004 at the
art festival of national minorities.

Associated Press Worldstream
September 29, 2005 Thursday

President: Azerbaijan not expecting Ukrainian- or Georgian-style
revolution

by AIDA SULTANOVA; Associated Press Writer

BAKU, Azerbaijan

President Ilham Aliev warned against foreign interference in
Azerbaijan’s upcoming parliamentary elections, saying the country did
not expect a Ukrainian- or Georgian-style revolution because he and
the ruling party enjoyed strong support in society.

Rising political tensions before the Nov. 6 vote have led some
observers to predict that Azerbaijan could see a mass uprising
similar to those that brought opposition leaders to power in Georgia,
Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

In an interview with Finnish state television, published Thursday in
Azerbaijani newspapers, Aliev said that any unrest in the run-up to
the election would be the fault of opposition forces attempting to
destabilize the country.

He said the opposition was led by “a small group of political losers”
who had already been in power in 1992-93 and allegedly ruined the
country.

“They have lost every parliamentary and presidential election between
1993 and 2003,” Aliev said. “We realistically assess the situation
and possibilities in the country.”

He said the opposition had support from unnamed foreign countries,
where “there are forces that do not want Azerbaijan to develop
normally, strengthen its economic potential, integrate into European
structures and be a modern, democratic state.”

Azerbaijan, a mostly Muslim nation of 8.3 million, is the starting
point for a pipeline that will ship oil and gas from the country’s
huge offshore reserves to a Turkish Mediterranean port.

“Those who are planning something in Azerbaijan should know that we
will not allow this. We are adherents of a normal political process
and very carefully look into all questions connected with interfere
in our life,” he said.

Aliev – who succeeded his late, strongman father Geidar Aliev in a
2003 election the opposition said was rigged and which triggered
violent clashes between police and demonstrators – has pledged
repeatedly that the November elections would be free.

Opposition leaders have said, however, that they strongly doubted the
vote would be fair, and have rallied their supporters for
pro-democracy protests virtually every weekend – with some marchers
displaying portraits of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Two opposition activists have been detained in connection with a case
alleging that a youth movement leader, Ruslan Bashirli, met with
agents from Azerbaijan’s rival neighbor, Armenia, aimed at organizing
an uprising by pro-democracy forces in Azerbaijan.

Tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains high more than a
decade after a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war that left
Nagorno-Karabakh, a mainly ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, in
Armenian hands.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azeri official chides breakaway Karabakh’s “independence” party in US
Congress

ANS TV, Baku
28 Sep 05

A ceremony to mark the 14th anniversary of independence of the
self-proclaimed Nagornyy Karabakh Republic held in the US Congress on
28 September does not reflect official Washington’s position, the
Azerbaijani commercial TV station ANS has said.

In an interview with ANS, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Xalaf
Xalafov said: “However, we denounce this ceremony and see it as a
propagandist meeting aimed at supporting separatism.”

The deputy foreign minister said that the ceremony was held in a room
rented by the pro-Armenian congressmen. He said that Azerbaijani
representatives also held meetings of this kind several times.

Xalafov went on to say that Baku would express its protest to the USA
over the issue.

In its report, ANS quoted the US embassy in Azerbaijan as saying that
the USA did not recognize the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic and
supported Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.

Iranian envoy in Azerbaijan blames West for ignoring UN Karabakh
resolutions

ITV, Baku
29 Sep 05

Iranian ambassador to Azerbaijan Afshar Soleymani has said that great
powers have no interest in implementing four UN resolutions on
Karabakh demanding the withdrawal of Armenian forces from Azerbaijani
occupied districts.

In an interview with the “Real Truth” programme of the Azerbaijani
Public TV on 28 September, the ambassador said: “Let them have the
resolutions implemented. Why do not they do this? They would have
them implemented, if they wanted. Moreover, there are a lot of
resolutions. They are not being implemented. The UN still has a
problem, i.e. great powers do not allow the UN to work effectively.”

The ambassador praised the current level of Iranian-Azeri ties.

“Our ties are very good and are developing in the political,
economic, cultural and security spheres. We have agreements on
military cooperation and they are working,” the ambassador said.

Soleymani said that ties would further develop during Mahmud
Ahmadinezhad’s presidency.

Commenting on some forces’ criticism of Iran for cooperation with
Armenia, the ambassador said that the level of Iran’s relations with
Armenia was very low compared to those with Azerbaijan. He said Iran
always supported Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and helped
refugees and displaced persons.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress