Month: March 2007

OBSERVATORY OPENED IN NAGORNO-KARABAGH

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
March 10 2007

An observatory opened in the Artsakh State University.

The Nagorno-Karabagh Republic President Arkady Ghoukassian, National
Assembly Chair Ashot Gulian, PM Anoushavan Danielian, MPs and
government’s members participated in the opening ceremony.

According to Artsakh State University rector Hamlet Grigorian,
the establishment of the observatory in the Nagorno-Karabagh is an
unprecedented event.

"The students will use the observatory, and, undoubtedly, in 21st
century we’ll have several famous scientists-astronomers", Hamlet
Grigorian stated.

During a year the observatory will be provided with visual aids
for sightseers and students. In the future scientific works will be
carried out here, the NKR MFA Press Centre reports.

US BACKS EFFORTS TO REOPEN TURKISH BORDER: ARMENIAN FM

Agence France Presse — English
March 9, 2007 Friday 6:53 PM GMT

The US backs Armenia’s efforts to reopen its border with Turkey and
normalise trade and political relations, Armenian Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanian said Friday after talks in Washington.

The United States "has made it a goal to reopen the Turkish-Armenian
border … and has always made efforts to normalise relations"
between the two countries, Oskanian said at a press conference after
returning from Washington, where he met Monday with US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice.

But, he said, "Ankara’s intransigent position is an obstacle to
this process."

The 355-kilometre (221-mile) border was closed in 1993 at the height
of the Nagorno Karabakh war in which ethnic-Armenian separatists in
Azerbaijan took over almost a fifth of Azeri territory.

The closure has inhibited the economy of this country, which in
addition to Azerbaijan and Turkey also borders Georgia and Iran.

Armenia fully backed the separatists, while Turkey gave diplomatic
support to Azerbaijan. Years of negotiations have failed to resolve
the dispute between Azerbaijan and the separatists.

Armenia and Turkey are also in a dispute over Turkey’s refusal to
agree with Armenia that mass killings by Ottoman Turks of ethnic
Armenians in 1915-1917 constituted genocide.

Armenian and Azerbaijani diplomats will meet in Geneva Tuesday and
Wednesday for the latest round of negotiations on the status of
Nagorno Karabakh. Oskanian said he was optimistic about the talks.

"As long as there are no unexpected difficulties on the part of
Azerbaijan during the talks, there is a basis for the meeting in
Geneva to have a positive result," he said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NKR PRESIDENT: TRADITION OF POWER’S CIVILIZED DELEGATION SHOULD BE ESTABLISHED IN KARABAGH

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
March 10 2007

The Nagorno-Karabagh Republic President Arkady Ghoukassian stated
after tendering the President’s resignations he would stay in the
Nagorno-Karabagh and help the next President and government, if
necessary, Arkady Ghoukassian stated at a meeting with professorial
staff and students of the Artsakh State University held March 7,
DE FACTO own correspondent in Stepanakert reports.

Arkady Ghoukassian noted the NKR Constitution gave him legal basis
to seek the third term; however, moral side was more important for him.

"New traditions should be established in Karabagh, first of all the
power’s civilized delegation", the President underscored. He stated
he had decided not to seek the third term long ago, as "some things
cannot be overstepped".

Arkady Ghoukassian refrained from answering a question concerning
his political successor, noting the people were to choose. "Sure,
I have my own sympathies and antipathies, however, there will not be
a successor, there will be policy’s succession", the NKR head stated.

In this connection Arkady Ghoukassian underscored the course targeted
at the development of democracy in Nagorno-Karabagh should be resumed,
noting, "the international community can recognize only democratic
NKR". In his words, Nagorno-Karabagh was on the verge of dictatorship
not long ago, but they managed to build a state, where "a man lives
freely, without fear". He remarked Nagorno-Karabagh should not be
compared with Azerbaijan, where power passes from a father to his
son. "Democracy and Azerbaijan are antagonists. We have no right to
be compared with Azerbaijan, we should attain to the level of the
European countries", the NKR head said.

Speaking of the Karabagh conflict settlement process, Arkady
Ghoukassian stated Nagorno-Karabagh was ready for compromises,
which, however, cannot touch its basic principles, first of all
independence. "We know what we can concede and what we cannot, however,
brackets should not be opened in diplomacy", the President said. In
his words, "a political decision assumes a compromise, however,
if it will prejudice our interest, we’ll not meet half-way".

SWISS COURT CONVICTS TURKISH POLITICIAN

PRESS TV, Iran
March 10 2007

A Swiss court has convicted a Turkish politician of racial
discrimination for denying that mass killings of Armenians in Turkey
in 1915 amounted to genocide.

Nationalist leader Dogu Perincek, 65, was on trial for remarks he
made in a public speech in Lausanne in 2005. He was given a suspended
sentence and fined $2,450, BBC reported.

The Swiss parliament has labeled the killings as genocide. Turkey
firmly rejects the genocide allegation.

Perincek, the head of the Turkish Workers’ Party, has disputed the
charges. "I have not denied genocide because there was no genocide,"
he told the court earlier this week.

Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were killed in a genocide by
Ottoman Turks during World War I, either through systematic massacres
or through starvation.

Turkey says there was no genocide. It acknowledges that many Armenians
died, but says the figure was below one million.

A law criminalizing the denial of genocide was adopted in 2003 by
the parliament in the Swiss canton of Vaud, where Perincek made
his remarks.

Twelve Turks prosecuted in Switzerland on similar charges in 2001
were acquitted.

RA FM: BAKU’S STATEMENTS DO NOT ALWAYS CORRESPOND TO SPIRIT AND ESSENCE OF THE DOCUMENT ON THE NEGOTIATING TABLE

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
March 10 2007

RA and AR FMs’ Geneva meeting to be held March 14 may become positive,
RA FM Vardan Oskanian stated at a press conference held March 9,
IA REGNUM reports. According to the Minister, the meeting may be
positive, unless the Azeri party makes complications.

In his words, OSCE Minsk group Co-Chairs are seriously preparing
the two FMs’ meeting and hope after the Parliamentary elections are
held in Armenia a meeting of the two countries’ Presidents will
be organized. "The Co-Chairs wish positive shifts to be fixed in
the negotiation process at the Foreign Ministers’ level before the
meeting of Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan", Vardan Oskanian
noted, adding OSCE MG French Co-Chair Bernard Fassier, who had left
Yerevan for Baku, would again visit Yerevan March 12.

Touching upon the Azeri party’s last statements concerning the current
stage of Nagorno-Karabagh conflict settlement, Vardan Oskanian remarked
the Azeri party’s statements did not always correspond to the spirit
and essence of a document on the negotiating table. According to RA
FM, the Nagorno-Karabagh leadership is always informed of the talks’
course. "They can have their viewpoint, they may not agree with
something, however, we inform (the Nagorno-Karabagh authorities –
ed.) of the talks after every meeting with the Azeri party", Vardan
Oskanian stated.

RA FM also stated it was premature to speak of the Azeri refugees’
return to the places of their residence in the Nagorno-Karabagh.

"Until all the details of the possible conduct of a referendum
in Nagorno-Karabagh are verified, in part, the terms and who can
participate in it, it is premature to speak of the refugees’ return",
Vardan Oskanian summed up.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

"ZERKALO": WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE, ARMENIA WILL BE LOSER, IF USA ATTACKS IRAN
R. Mirkadirov

Ïðaâî Âûaîða, Azerbaijan
Democratic Azerbaijan
March 10 2007

Current stage of peace talks on regulation of Garabagh conflict was
discussed in Washington by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia,
Vardan Oskanyan and US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

As information and press section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Armenia informed, in the course of the meeting bilateral relations were
also focused on: realization of program "Challenges of millennium",
forthcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia, Armenian-Turkish
relations and USA’s mediation in this direction. We should remind
here that soon our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Elmar Mamadyarov,
will leave for Washington to meet US Secretary of State.

Most likely, official information in this connection will be
distinguished with the same scantiness. However, it is not difficult
to guess what issues are discussed by C. Rice, E. Mamadyarov and
V. Oskanyan. First of all we may say that Washington is making
last attempt to regulate Armenian-Azerbaijani and Armenian-Turkish
relations, at least, this year. Not long time ago, high rank
representatives of political and military leadership of Turkey visited
Washington. At least slight warming of relations between these 3 states
taking into account aggravation of situation caused by possible action
against Iran, is vitally important for Washington.

The matter is that permanent members of UN Security Council (Russia,
China, France and UK) having supported first resolution of Security
Council on Iran, initiated by USA, have deprived themselves of
any chance for manoeuvre. It is hard to imagine that anyone ever
believed that Iran would bend in UN Security Council’s will. Now
permanent members of UN Security Council should either support,
of course with minor reservations, new tougher resolution proposed
by USA, which will be ignored by Iran once adopted, or to recognize
their own weakness before Tehran’s regime. In first case USA will
make pressure on Iran with "compelled" support on the part of UN
Security Council, precisely, Russia and China, in the second case,
Washington will blame Moscow and Beijing for inconsequence starting
to act in alliance with London and Paris.

"USA’s attacking Iran will take place, but the question is what way
will it take place?", political scientist, Levon Melik-Shakhnazaryan,
who can’t be suspected in pro-American sentiments, declared at press
conference in Yerevan. It was informed by Panarmenian.net.

Accordingly to political scientist, Washington did too much for this
to go back.

Accordingly to him, USA has developed 3 directions of actions. "Fist
direction – "punctuated bombing" accordingly to method used
in Belgrade, when industrial objects get out of the order and
infrastructure suffers destruction. Second – direct land invasion
just like Iraqi scenario, and at last, third direction, "traditional"
– to cause unstable situation inside the country, making Turkish
speaking citizens and Persian speaking ones quarrel and to establish
pro-American regime", he stressed.

Armenian political scientist said that in last case the role of
Azerbaijan increases, on the borders of which Turkish speaking
population of Iran is living numbering "12-16 mln.". "Upcoming visit
of Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Elmar Mamadyarov,
to USA is connected with possible participation of Azerbaijan in
solving of Iranian issue", Melik-Shakhnazaryan stressed.

Political scientist also pointed out that USA’s allies for Iranian
campaign may be Israel, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Armenia will under no
circumstances join it as authorities of the country are not suicides.

If Baku joins Iranian campaign then Washington will grant bonus to
Azerbaijan not in the form of regulation of Nagorni Garabagh conflict
in favor of Azerbaijan, but in the form of part of Iranian territory,
as Armenian lobby in USA is strong enough.

However Armenia, as political scientist thinks, will be loser whatever
the case may be. "No matter what USA does regarding Iran, isolation of
Armenia will be complete. Unfortunately, this way Armenia can change
nothing. We have very influential diaspora, which should take steps
to prevent complete isolation of the country", said he adding that
US’s attitude towards Armenia is the most loyal. "The fact that only
Armenia is permitted to have commercial affairs with Iran can’t be
disregarded", said Melik-Shakhnazaryan.

However, Iran won’t be in somebody’s "debt". Political scientist
underlines that Iranian missiles may freely reach the above states
at the same time Americans need military basis on Middle East. "Even
today Tehran has drawn up plan concerning 900 "objects under attack"
in Israel, Azerbaijan and Georgia. However, not only Armenia can face
humanitarian disaster but also Azerbaijan. No economy will stand
such flow of refugees, especially such economy as Armenian. Don’t
forget that population of Iran is 80 mln., half of which living at
the border with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey", Melik-Shakhnazaryan
stressed. Armenian political scientist doesn’t rule out even fantastic
variant of developments, that is, possible conquer of Baku by Iranian
military forces.

Omitting some "trifles", such as number of Azerbaijanis living in Iran
and Melik-Shakhnazaryan’s oblivion concerning active military actions
of allies of Armenians – Kurds – against Iranian governmental forces,
then everything is almost truth. As for conquer of Baku by Iran,
Armenian political scientist went too far. It conflicts with Armenian
interests. Land forces of Turkey, commander of which, Ilker Bashbug
visited Azerbaijan, can march up to Baku. However it hardly can meet
Armenia’s interests. If we take seriously Melik-Shakhnazaryan’s saying,
then aggravation of situation brings nothing to Armenia…

–Boundary_(ID_jRZuqfwuU27JPIJXlA1QXQ) —

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN PATRIARCH CALLS FOR COOPERATION BETWEEN HISTORIANS

Anatolia News Agency, Turkey
March 10 2007

Istanbul, 10 March: Turkish Armenians’ Patriarch Mesrob II talked to
the Anatolia correspondent before the introduction of his book titled
"Armenians in a society of tolerance" at a conference sponsored by
the Erciyes University in Istanbul today.

Mesrob II indicated that "it would have been good if Mr Halacoglu,
chairman of the Turkish Historical Society, and Armenian historian
Ara Sarafian had come together. I support collaborative works by
politicians, historians and academicians."

Sources said that Sarafian sent an e-mail to Halacoglu about his
decision not to get together with Halacoglu for discussions on past
incidents.

Asked if Sarafian changed his mind in meeting Halacoglu due to
pressures from the Armenian diaspora, Mesrob II underlined "that
may actually be the case. However, I have no definite information on
the matter."

FACT OR FICITON?

The Economist
March 10 2007

Wikipedia’s wide variety of contributors is both a strength and a
weakness of the online encyclopedia

The idea of an encyclopedia-a compendium of all the best available
knowledge-is as tempting as it is flawed. Truth does not always come
in bite-sized chunks. And the notion of an infinitely elastic internet
encyclopedia, always up to date and distilling the collective wisdom of
the wired is even more tempting. When open to all comers, anonymously,
the problems are even more glaring.

This week a senior Wikipedia editor, who used the pseudonym Essjay,
turned out not to be a professor of religious studies as he claimed,
but in fact a 24-year-old college drop-out. That has highlighted
both the strengths and the failings of the world’s biggest online
encyclopedia, which now boasts well over 1.5m articles. The
"Encyclopedia Britannica", by contrast, has a mere 120,000.

Essjay (or Ryan Jordan in real life), got away with his pretence
because Wikipedians jealously preserve their anonymity. With most
entries, anyone can edit without even logging in; or they can create
an entirely fictitious online identity before doing so. The effect
is rather like an online role-playing game. Indeed, it is easy
to imagine some sad fellow spending the morning pretending to be a
polyglot professor on Wikipedia, and then becoming a buxom red-head on
"Second Life", a virtual online world, in the afternoon.

That anonymity creates a phoney equality, which puts cranks and
experts on the same footing. The same egalitarian approach starts
off by regarding all sources as equal, regardless of merit. If a
peer-reviewed journal says one thing and a non-specialist newspaper
report another, the Wikipedia entry is likely solemnly to cite them
both, saying that the truth is disputed. If the cranky believe the
latter and the experts the former, the result will be wearisome online
editing wars before something approaching the academic mainstream
consensus gains the weight it should.

Wikipedia has strengths too, chiefly the resilient power of
collective common sense. It benefits from the volunteer efforts of
many thousands of outside contributors and editors. If one drops out,
another fills his place. People are vigilant on issues that interest
them. When mistakes happen, they are usually resolved quickly. This
correspondent’s modest Wikipedia entry was edited this week by
an anonymous contributor who posted a series of entertaining but
defamatory remarks; a mere four minutes later, another user had
removed them.

Constant scrutiny and editing means even the worst articles are
gradually getting better, while the best ones are kept nicely polished
and up to date. Someone, eventually, will spot even the tiniest error,
or tighten a patch of sloppy prose. Mr Jordan, for all his bragging,
seems to have been a scrupulous and effective editor.

The most tiresome contributors do get banned eventually, though they
can always log in under a new identity. Other shortcomings are the
subject of earnest internal debate too, such as Wikipedia’s inherent
bias towards trivial recent events rather than important historical
ones. That is already changing, slowly, though subjects of interest
to northern white computer-literate males are over-covered, while
others are laughably neglected.

Wikipedia is the biggest collaborative online encyclopedia, but
not the only one. Citizendium, supposedly launching soon, aims to
be like Wikipedia but without anonymity, and with more weight given
to recognised experts. Conservapedia aims to offer a version of the
truth untainted by Wikipedia’s liberal secular bias on issues such
as evolution.

So how useful is Wikipedia? Entries on uncontentious issues-logarithms,
for example-are often admirable. The quality of writing is often
a good guide to an entry’s usefulness: inelegant or ranting prose
usually reflects muddled thoughts and incomplete information. A
regular user soon gets a feel for what to trust.

Those on contentious issues are useful in a different way. The
information may be only roughly balanced. But the furiously contested
entries on, say, "Armenian genocide" or "Scientology", and their
attached discussion pages, do give the reader an useful idea about
the contours of the arguments, and the conflicting sources and
approaches. In short: it would be unwise to rely on Wikipedia as the
final word, but it can be an excellent jumping off point.

WAVING ATATURK’S FLAG; TURKISH NATIONALISM

The Economist
U.S. Edition
March 10, 2007

istanbul and washington, dc Nationalism on the march

There has been a lethal upsurge in ultra-nationalist feeling in Turkey

SITTING in an office plastered with Ottoman pennants, portraits
of Ataturk and the Turkish flag, Kemal Kerincsiz, a lawyer, says
his mission in life is to protect the Turkish nation from "Western
imperialism and global forces that want to dismember and destroy us".

In the past two years Mr Kerincsiz and his Turkish Jurists’ Union
have launched a slew of cases against Turkish intellectuals under
article 301 of the penal code, which makes "insulting Turkishness"
a criminal offence.

Mr Kerincsiz has confined his nationalism to the courts. But
elsewhere new ultra-nationalist groups, some of them led by retired
army officers, have been vowing over guns and copies of the Koran
to make Turks "the masters of the world" and even "to die and
kill" in the process. In January one of Mr Kerincsiz’s targets,
a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, Hrant Dink, was shot dead by a
17-year-old, Ogun Samast, because he had "insulted the Turks". The
murder, in broad daylight on one of Istanbul’s busiest streets, was
a chilling manifestation of a resurgence of xenophobic nationalism
aimed at Turkey’s non-Muslim minorities and the Kurds-plus their
defenders in the liberal elite.

The upsurge threatens to undo the good of four years of reforms by
the mildly Islamist government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Indeed,
it is partly in response to these reforms-more freedom for the
Kurds, a trimming of the army’s powers, concessions on Cyprus-that
nationalist passions have been roused. The knowledge that many members
of the European Union do not want Turkey to join has inflamed them
further (the EU partially suspended membership talks with Turkey
in December because of its refusal to open its ports and airspace
to Greek-Cypriots).

Another factor is America’s refusal to move against separatist PKK
guerrillas who are based in northern Iraq. If the United States
Congress delivers its pledge to adopt a resolution calling the
mass slaughter of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 genocide, Turkey’s
relationship with its ally would suffer "lasting damage", says the
foreign minister, Abdullah Gul.

Murat Belge, a leftist intellectual who is being hounded by Mr
Kerincsiz, sees disturbing similarities between the racist nationalism
espoused by the "Young Turks" in the dying days of the Ottoman empire
(who ordered the mass slaughter of its Armenian subjects), and the
siege mentality gripping Turkey today. The perception, now as then,
is that Western powers are pressing for changes to empower their local
collaborators (ie, Kurds and non-Muslims), with the aim of breaking up
the country. "This social Darwinist mindset that implies it’s OK to
kill your enemies in order to survive" has been perpetuated through
an education system that tells young Turks that "they have no other
friend than the Turks," says Mr Belge. And it has been cynically
exploited by politicians and generals alike.

Mr Erdogan and Deniz Baykal, the leader of the opposition Republican
People’s Party, have proved no exception. When more than 100,000
Turks gathered at Mr Dink’s funeral chanting "We are all Armenians",
Mr Erdogan opined that they had gone "too far". Both he and Mr Baykal
have resisted calls to scrap article 301, though there have been
hints that it will be amended.

The politicians are keen to court nationalist votes in the run-up
to November’s parliamentary election. Mr Erdogan also hopes that
burnishing his nationalist credentials will help him to coax a blessing
from Turkey’s hawkish generals for his hopes of succeeding the fiercely
secular Ahmet Necdet Sezer as president in May.

Yet a recent outburst by the chief of the general staff, Yasar
Buyukanit, suggests otherwise. He declared that Turkey faced more
threats to its national security than at any time in its modern history
and added that only its "dynamic forces" [ie, the army] could prevent
efforts to "partition the country". These words, uttered during an
official trip to America, were widely seen as a direct warning to Mr
Erdogan to shelve his presidential ambitions.

Others do not rule out possible collusion between nationalist
elements within the army and retired officers who are organising
new ultra-nationalist groups (one is said to be training nationalist
youths in Trabzon, where Dink’s alleged murderers came from). "The real
purpose is to sow chaos, to polarise society so they can regain ground
[lost with the EU reforms]," argues Belma Akcura, an investigative
journalist whose recent book about rogue security forces known as the
"deep state" earned her a three-month jail sentence. It would not be
surprising if their next target were a nationalist, she adds.

Meanwhile prominent writers and academics, including Mr Belge,
continue to be bombarded with death threats. Some are under police
protection. Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel prize-winning author whom Mr
Kerincsiz took to court over his comments about the persecution of
the Armenians and the Kurds, has fled to New York.

Where will matters go from here? This week one court banned access to
YouTube after clips calling Ataturk gay appeared on it; and another
sentenced a Kurdish politician to six months’ jail for giving the PKK
leader, Abdullah Ocalan, an honorific Mr. But a private television
station also withdrew a popular series, "The Valley of the Wolves",
that glorifies gun-toting nationalists who mow down their mainly
Kurdish enemies, after the channel was inundated with calls for the
show’s axing. The battle for Turkey’s soul is not over yet.

SHAW: ICJ’S SERBIAN GENOCIDE VERDICT DOES NOT IMPROVE THE STANDING OF THE COURT
Selcuk GultaªLi Brussels

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 10 2007

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Bosnia has created
waves of intense debate, not only in Bosnia and Serbia but all over
the world.

As the ICJ cleared Serbian state of genocide, both Bosnian victims
and many scholars criticized the verdict as being political.

Professor Martin Shaw of Sussex University, one of the leading
experts of the issue, has strongly condemned the decision and
accused the ICJ of "engaging in the systematic denial of the Bosnian
Genocide." Professor Shaw answered our questions:

In your article "The International Court of Justice: Serbia, Bosnia
and Genocide," posted on the opendemocracy.net Web site, you argue:
"It is not too strong to say that in this case, the International
Court of Justice has engaged in systematic denial of the Bosnian
genocide." It is quite a tough statement.

Clearly the International Court of Justice did recognize that
genocide occurred at Srebrenica and indicted Serbia with its failure
to prevent the massacre there. This is important. However, while the
court recognized that acts that could constitute genocide had been
committed by Serbian nationalists across Bosnia throughout the years
1992-1995, it produced unconvincing, inconsistent legal reasons for
saying that genocide had not generally occurred. Thus I argue that
the court denied the full scale of the Bosnian genocide — because
it recognized genocide at Srebenica, this was a partial denial of
the Bosnian genocide, but a serious failure nonetheless.

Is this verdict a purely technical one or a political one? How one
can make that distinction?

The court argued its verdict in legal terms. However, because of the
unconvincing character of its legal arguments, one is bound to ask
whether political factors influenced the verdict.

If the decision was not taken not on purely legal grounds, what are
the other considerations?

Clearly the court could have wanted to avoid a verdict that would
have provoked further political conflict inside Serbia, where the
situation is currently delicate. But we cannot be certain that this
sort of consideration influenced the verdict.

Anthony Dworkin, also writing for opendemocracy.net, has criticized
your approach and implies that genocide is something serious and
cannot be applied wherever you like. He also argues that the Serbs’
intentions regarding the Bosnians were far from clear.

I agree that genocide is a serious charge. This is why it must not
be applied lightly — nor must it be rejected or minimized without
good reason. I think the Serbian intentions to destroy the Bosnian
Muslim and Croat communities, in the areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina that
the Serbian nationalists controlled or conquered, were very clear and
consistent from the widespread policies of expulsion, murder and rape
that they adopted from 1992 onwards. And they were, and still are,
largely successful — only a small number of non-Serbs remain in the
so-called Republika Srpska inside Bosnia.

As you said in your article: "Yet in relation to the Srebrenica
massacre, the ICJ ‘sees no reason to disagree’ with the finding of
the [International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia] that
these acts constituted genocide." How can one possibly explain this?

It seems to me that this is a compromise verdict. The court upheld
the Bosnian claim that genocide was committed at Srebrenica, but in
other respects upheld the Serbian view that genocide had not been
committed. So both sides gained something.

Do you think the confidence in the court will now be in jeopardy with
the latest verdict?

This kind of verdict does not improve the standing of the court.

How do you think the verdict will contribute to the healing process
in the region?

I think the verdict will not help much since it is inconsistent and
enables both sides to stick to their original positions, saying they
have won something.

Do you think this verdict has once more punished Bosnians who were
victims and rewards the Serbian state by clearing it from the "crime
of crimes," i.e., genocide?

It is too strong to say that this has rewarded Serbia, since clearly
there are some serious indictments of it and there is more pressure to
yield Ratko Mladic to the Hague. But the Serbian state has certainly
escaped the more serious consequences that could have followed if
Bosnia’s case had been fully successful.

Have Bosnian Muslims interpreted the verdict as yet another decision of
the West against Muslims? How do you react to the Bosnians’ evaluation?

I think this is too simple. This was an international court with judges
drawn from a wide range of countries. And it does still reinforce
the prevailing view that the Serbians were the main criminals in the
Bosnian war and the Muslims the main victims.

Muslims in Europe, citing the cartoons of the Prophet of Islam
and the war in Iraq, argue that this verdict will not help in the
dialogue between civilizations. Do you think the verdict can have
such implications?

Genocide should not be an issue between civilizations. Muslims were
victims in Bosnia, but they were also victims in Iraq when Saddam’s
regimes massacred Kurds, and they are victims there today when Sunni
militias kill Shia, and Shia militias kill Sunnis. Muslims can be
perpetrators of genocide as well as victims; Christians can be victims
as well as perpetrators. From a human point of view we have to stop
all genocide — whoever commits it and whoever is the victim.

Another popular question among Muslims is if the Bosnians were
Christians and the Serbs Muslims, would the verdict be the same?

International courts and authorities often avoid recognizing genocide
whoever the victims are — look at Rwanda, where the UN turned away
from helping the Tutsis, who were mostly Christians. This weakness
of international institutions is not to do with anti-Muslim ideas.

Turkey has been accused of the Armenian "genocide" with no court
decision and you have referred to the events of 1915 as genocide in
your book "War and Genocide: Organized Killing in Modern Society?" Do
you think the court decision can create a jurisprudence for similar
cases? If Turkey goes to international arbitration, for example,
do you think it can be exonerated?

The International Court of Justice decision arose because Bosnia took
a case against Serbia to the court. In relation to the events of 1915,
no such case can now arise: this is now a matter for history rather
than law. However, just as Serbia will not be a healthy society until
it recognizes the Serbian state’s responsibility for genocide in Bosnia
and Kosovo, so Turkey will not be a healthy society until it abandons
the denial of the Ottoman genocide against the Armenians. Nearly
a century on, it should be possible for modern Turkish democracy to
fully acknowledge that this crime was committed, and to say that Turkey
today is a society in which this kind of policy will never again arise.

I don’t think I can answer your question about international
arbitration, as I don’t know enough about it. I’m not sure in any case
that the issues arising from the Armenian genocide are necessarily
issues between modern Turkey and modern Armenia, although if both sides
favored that, it could help. The ICJ decision by itself is only one
decision in the international jurisprudence of genocide, and needs
to be seen with other decisions by the tribunals and the new ICC.

Do you think it is wise to legislate laws to punish the deniers of
genocides or to legislate on historical events?

No, in general I think that it is better to deal with genocide denial
through argument and education than through law.

–Boundary_(ID_YMYzSXTIe+Nts2zLQwb26A)–