Month: April 2007

SHEIKH OF ALL CAUCASUS TO APPEAL FOR RELEASING ARMENIAN-CAPTURED AZERBAIJANI SOLDIER

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 24 2007

"I intend to appeal for releasing Azerbaijani soldier Samir Mammadov,
who has been captured by Armenians," Sheikhulislam Haji Allahshukur
Pashazadeh, chief of Caucasian Muslims Office said, APA reports.

Sheikh said that International Committee of the Red Cross is making
efforts to release the soldier.

"But I will also appeal for this," he said.

Pashazadeh also took a stance on arrest of a group of wahhabists by
law enforcement bodies. Sheikh said those who violate law on freedom
of conscience should be held accountable.

OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS AND CHAIRMAN-IN-OFFICE TO MEET IN MADRID

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 24 2007

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia), Matthew
Bryza (US), Bernard Fassier (France) and Personal representative
of OSCE chairman-in-office Andrzej Kasprzyk will meet with OSCE
Chairman-in-Office, Foreign Minister of Spain Miguel Angel Moratinos
on May 10 in Madrid, Russian co-chair Yuri Merzlyakov told the APA
exclusively.

The mediators for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will
debate on arranging a meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents
Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharian.

The co-chairs will visit the region in late May.

ARMENIANS COMMEMORATE 1915-18 MASS KILLINGS

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
April 24 2007

April 24, 2007 (RFE/RL) — Armenians around the world today
commemorated the 92nd anniversary of the start of of mass killings
and deportations of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

The killings, which have been recognized by some countries as genocide,
remain a major roadblock in relations between Armenia and Turkey.

A leading Armenian church official, Catholicos Garegin II, led
prayers today at a monument in the Armenian capital of Yerevan that
memorializes the hundreds of thousands of Armenians who were killed
from 1915 to 1918.

Throughout the day, mourners climbed the hill to lay flowers at the
memorial where a flame has burned since 1965 — the 50th anniversary
of the start of the mass killings.

Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian
were among those paying tribute to the dead.

For many Armenians — both within the country and from its large
diaspora — visiting Yerevan on April 24 has become an annual ritual.

That’s the day, in 1915, that Armenia says Ottoman authorities arrested
scores of Armenian academics and members of the intelligentsia amid
mass killings and deportations.

More than 20 countries — including Russia, France, and Canada —
have recognized the killings as genocide. Armenians say that Turks
killed up to 1.5 millions Armenians from 1915 to 1918 as the Ottoman
Empire was crumbling.

Ankara maintains that the killings were part of the wider conflict
of World War I, and that the number of Armenians who died was closer
to 300,000.

Yerevan Wants Recognition Of Genoicide

It is recognition that the Armenians want — international recognition
for what they say was an orchestrated policy of extermination.

Former Armenian Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian spoke to RFE/RL
about the dispute today at the Yerevan monument.

"I think we don’t have to focus on and be excited by the wave of
recognition, because the Armenian genocide and the loss of homeland
by our people are historical facts," Hovannisian said.

More than 20 countries, including Russia, France, and Canada, have
passed legislation recognizing the killings as genocide.

The genocide debate continues to negatively impact ties between
Armenian and Turkey.

Turkey and Armenia do not have formal diplomatic relations and
the 268-kilometer border between the two countries has been closed
since 1993.

Speaking to RFE/RL today, Hrant Margarian, the leader of the
nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun party,
said relations could be improved if Turkey would recognize the killings
as genocide:

"No state can live while denying its past," Margarian told RFE/RL.

"It can’t live [while] denying reality. It is good for Turkey to
recognize the Armenian genocide."

Ankara, however, doesn’t agree. Turkey has said that to establish
diplomatic relations it would require Armenia to drop its policy of
seeking international recognition for the killings as genocide.

Many countries are wary of doing so, fearing it would damage their
own relations with Turkey.

In the United States, the Congress — dominated by the opposition
Democrats — has endorsed a bill to officially recognize the Armenian
killings as genocide.

But despite lobbying from the United States’s powerful Armenian lobby,
the bill has met with opposition from supporters of the presidential
administration, which is eager to maintain good ties with its NATO
ally Turkey.

(RFE/RL’s Armenian Service contributed to this report.)

ARMENIANS MARK ANNIVERSARY OF 1915 GENOCIDE
Mariam Harutunian

AFP
Middle East Times, Egypt
April 24 2007

YEREVAN — Armenians Tuesday marked the 92nd anniversary of the killing
of more than 1 million of their compatriots under the Ottoman Empire,
an event recognized as genocide by many countries, but a flashpoint
in relations between Turkey and the West.

Amid heavy snowfall, thousands climbed to a hilltop memorial for the
victims in the Armenian capital Yerevan.

Flowers were laid at the foot of the memorial, where an eternal flame
has burned since its construction in 1965, when Armenia was part of
the Soviet Union.

Officials including President Robert Kocharian were among those
paying tribute.

"The memory of this evil deed will always remain in our souls,"
Kocharian said in a statement.

"The international community has realized that genocide is not only
a crime against a distinct people, but against all mankind and that
the denial and concealment of such a crime is as dangerous as its
preparation and execution."

Many from Armenia’s widespread diaspora descend on Yerevan every year
for the annual ceremony.

Among them this year was American filmmaker Karla Garapedian, whose
recently released documentary, Screamers, examines the efforts of
US-based rock band System of a Down to have the killings recognized
as a genocide.

The band’s members are all grandchildren of survivors of the massacres.

"We will speak the truth about our own history, about what happened
to Armenians," Garapedian said. "I know that Turkey wants to join the
EU. They have to apologize, to say: ‘We made a great mistake and we
are sorry.’"

Hrant Gazarian, 24, arrived from Turkey and said he would lay a flower
at the memorial this year in honor of Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian
journalist killed in Turkey in January after being branded a traitor
by nationalists for urging an open debate on the 1915 killings.

Eleven suspects have been charged in Dink’s murder.

"Unfortunately, this time I am laying one more flower at the eternal
flame for Hrant Dink," Gazarian said.

"It has already been 100 days and those behind his murder have still
not been found and punished … Turkey must recognize the genocide
so that there will not be more victims like Dink."

Armenians say up to 1.5 million died in orchestrated killings during
the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey strongly rejects claims of a genocide, saying that 300,000
Armenians and at least an equal number of Turks were killed in civil
strife during 1915 to 1917 when the Christian Armenians, backed by
Russia, rose up against the Ottoman Empire.

The dispute has been a major obstacle in relations between Turkey and
Armenia, which have no diplomatic ties and whose border has remained
closed for more than a decade.

It has also complicated relations between EU-aspirant Turkey and
many Western countries, especially those with large ethnic Armenian
communities.

More than 20 countries have officially recognized the killings as a
genocide, including Belgium, Canada, Poland, Russia, and Switzerland.

But many, including Britain and the United States, refuse to use the
term to describe the events, mindful of relations with Turkey.

In March, the Israeli parliament rejected a motion recognizing the
killings as a genocide. Israel has close diplomatic ties with Turkey,
one of the few Muslim countries with which it has relations.

Turkey froze bilateral military ties with France in November after
French lawmakers voted to make it a criminal offense to deny that
Armenians were victims of a genocide.

A resolution is pending in the US Congress to recognize the killings
as a genocide, but a vote on the bill has not yet been scheduled amid
intense lobbying against it from the White House and Turkey.

The US ambassador to Yerevan, John Evans, was recalled last year
after he used the term "genocide" in a speech to Armenian Americans.

YURI MERZLYAKOV: WE ARE CLOSE TO REACH AGREEMENT ON BASIC PRINCIPLES

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 24 2007

The meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign Ministers Elmar
Mammadyarov and Vardan Oskanyan in Belgrade was efficient, Russian
co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov told the APA.

Merzlyakov assessing the current state of the negotiations for the
settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict said that they are close
to reach an agreement on basic principles.

The co-chair said that the already agreed elements were reconsidered
in the latest two meetings of the foreign ministers.

"Theoretical changes can be made to the agreed elements, because
according to the procedure, basic principles of the settlement will
be considered as agreed after all the issues are agreed. Yet I can
say that the majority of principles have already been agreed", he said.

All the eight elements of the negotiation process were discussed in
Belgrade meeting. Russian diplomat reminded again that an agreement
on basic principles is not peace agreement.

"These principles will serve as "carrying elements", and all the rest
issues will base on these elements," he said.

The mediator said there can a step forward only after there is an
agreement on basic principles.

‘STOP ARMENIANS LIES’ RALLY HELD IN NEW YORK

Turkish Press
April 24 2007

Over the weekend New York’s famous Time Square became a platform
for both Turks and Armenians, of course at different times, to
express them over the "genocide" issue. On Saturday, the Turkish
American Associations Federation (TAAF) organized the third annual
"Stop Armenian Lies!" demonstration. As April 24th, the Memorial
Day for the 1915 events for Armenians approaches many Turks feel
very uncomfortable with the fact that there is still a resolution
pending in the US House of Representatives to accept those events
as genocide. On Sunday, it was the Armenians who gathered in Times
Square to remember their lost ones with the hope that this year
the genocide resolution could pass. In related news, Ankara expected
support for its call to establish ‘a joint history commission’ from US
President George W. Bush, who will release a message today to mark the
Armenian’s Memorial Day. Furthermore, Turkey’s Embassy in Washington
put full-page adverts in the US’ leading dailies expressing Turkish
view on the issue and calling on Armenians to face with their history
by examining archives together with Turkish historians.

ISLAMIC LINK TO MURDER OF MAN WHO PLAYED JESUS CHRIST ON TURK-7 TELEVISION
By Judi McLeod

Canada Free Press
April 24 2007

Necati Aydin, who played Jesus on TURK-7 television this Easter,
paid for it with his life.

An amateur actor, Aydin, husband and father of two children, was one of
three Christians murdered on April 18 in the city of Malatya, Turkey.

Authorities confirm that the three, workers of the Zirve Christian
publishing house, had been tied to chairs and tortured for three
hours before having their throats slit.

Aydin and his Christian colleagues were the victims of international
terrorism.

Four young men and a woman have been charged with terrorism offences
over their brutal murders.

The Courier-Mail reports that the four men, aged 19 and 20, were
captured at the crime scene where a German and two Turkish converts to
Christianity were slain last Thursday. They were charged with Òsetting
up a terrorist organizationÓ and murder, prosecutor Mustafa Demirdag
told Anatolia news agency.

An 18-year-old woman was charged with aiding a terrorist group,
he said.

Authorities identified her as the girlfriend of the alleged leader of
the gang, Emre Gunaydin, 19, who remains in hospital with a serious
head injury after jumping from the third-floor office of the publishing
house to escape arrest.

The alleged terrorists were found at the scene of the crime after a
local, suspicious of a locked door, notified police.

Given that a Catholic priest was killed while praying in his church
last year and that an ethnic Armenian journalist was slain in January
in an atmosphere where violence against non-Muslims is on the rise,
AydinÕs role as Christ one week before his death, was an act of
courage.

The Passion of the Christ, Turkey style, was featured on TURK-7Õs
Easter season programming.

ÒTURK-7 broadcasts on SAT-7 PARS, which is part of the Christian
satellite network created by and for the people of the Middle East and
North Africa.Ó (Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST Ministries, April 20,
2007). ÒWe are praying for the families, for the Church, and for the
nation of Turkey that God will bring some good out of this terrible
tragedy. Aydin, a man who portrayed Jesus on one of our broadcasts,
was himself the target of religious hatred simply because he worked
so that others would have a chance to understand the story of Christ
in Turkish.Ó

TURK-7 is an indigenous Turkish television ministry that broadcasts
four hours a day on SAT -7Õs Farsi and Turkish channel. Christians
make up less than one percent of the population of Turkey.

Launched in 1996, SAT-7Õs programs help equip the churches of a
minority Christian community and provide the wider non-Christian
audience a better understanding of the beliefs and teachings of
Christ. Christians make up approximately four percent of the Middle
East, down from about 20 percent in the year 1900. Each week between
nine and ten million people watch the channels in Arabic, Farsi
and Turkish (Intermedia research, 2004-2005), and those numbers are
growing in many countries. In 2005, nearly 40,000 people responded
to SAT-7 broadcasts by contacting counseling centers located across
the Middle East and Europe. SAT-7 can be viewed via satellite in the
Middle East, North Africa, Europe and much of Central Asia.

Programming can also be watched worldwide at

Meanwhile, the loved ones left behind by Aydin, take solace that one
of the last acts their husband and father performed before his brutal
murder was the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the rotating
presidency of the European Union, said she was troubled by an
Òunacceptable intoleranceÓ in Turkey, a membership candidate.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference also denounced the
murders. Its secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said he felt
compelled to condemn the Ògrisly crimes because their perpetrators
linked them to IslamÓ.

cover042407.htm

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GREEK POLICE CLASH WITH ARMENIAN DEMONSTRATORS OUTSIDE TURKISH CONSULATE
The Associated Press

International Herald Tribune, France
April 24 2007

THESSALONIKI, Greece: Riot police clashed briefly with demonstrators
outside the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki Tuesday, during a protest
over the mass killings of Armenians by Turks in the early 20th century.

Police said some 200 Greek Armenian protesters tried to break past a
police cordon outside the consulate building. No injuries or arrests
were reported.

Demonstrators chanted slogans and burnt a Turkish flag during the
protest, held to commemorate the massacre of up to 1.5 million
Armenians between 1915 and 1919 in what is now eastern Turkey.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: CONTEMPORARY REFLECTIONS
by By Dr. Harry Hagopian

April 24 2007

Today, on 24th April, Armenians will commemorate the 92nd anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide. They will remember their forbears – well
over one million Armenian men, women and children – who were killed
in various odious ways by Ottoman Turkey under cover of WWI.

The serious academic world is well beyond ‘researching’ the Armenian
Genocide. Many international associations and individual experts
specialising in the history let alone psychology of genocide have
established time and again the unarguable veracity of this event.

However, the modern-day Turkish establishment and its cohorts continue
relentlessly to deny this genocide with rehearsed and glib arguments
that are truly farcical were they not also shameful. Simply put,
Armenians were almost wiped off the Ottoman map during the period 1915
till 1923 in a dual policy that blended a Turkish Ottoman desire for
dominion over a pan-Turkic region with vengefulness for its bitter
defeat in WWI. One need only read Donald Bloxham’s thoughtful The
Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism and the Destruction
of Ottoman Armenians or Taner Akcam’s trenchant A Shameful Act:
The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility
that uses Ottoman Turkish state documents and contemporary Turkish
statements to corroborate that the genocide against Armenians was
a gripping historical reality. The city of Trabzon for example,
where Hrant Dink’s killer purportedly originated from, is simply one
example amongst countless others of "killing members of a group" or
"deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part" (according
to Art II [a] & [c] of the Genocide Convention 1948) where Turkish
authorities in 1915 herded thousands of Armenians on boats, set them
off into the Black Sea and later drowned them with sheer impunity.

Given this sobering reality, I believe that Turkish contemporary
refusal to admit the guilt of its predecessor regime of the crime of
genocide is due in part to a psychological phenomenon of individual and
collective defensiveness against the perception of being accused by its
enemies (Armenians) and by its non-friends (supporters of the Armenian
efforts for recognition). As was written in an editorial I read only
last week, if Turkey were to be candid about its past rather than hide
behind threats, intimidation and obfuscations, it would recall that the
Sultan tried to distance himself in 1916 from the actions of the CUP,
the ‘state within the state’, and reassured the British Government
that the perpetrators of those egregious crimes would be punished –
as was the case with the four trials whose proceedings were included
in the government gazette.

Today, this phase of denial intensifies once more despite the
encouraging initial steps adopted by Turkey when negotiations for its
possible accession to the EU started formally in 2005. Now, however,
instead of moving forward, Turkey shows perceptible signs of regression
as it passes laws such as Articles 301 or 312 of the Turkish Penal
Code that have prosecuted Turks and non-Turks alike, those living
in the country or abroad, either for "defaming Turkishness" or for
"insulting Ataturk". Those who have suffered the brunt of such
laws include the likes of Orhan Pamuk, Perihan Magden, Murat Belge,
Ismet Berkan, Hasan Cemal, Elif Safak, Semih Sokmen, Ibrahim Kaboglu,
Baskin Oran, Halil Altindere, Murat Pabuc, Eren Keskin, Ragip Zarakolu,
Ahmet Onal, Fatih Tas, Rahmi Yildirim, Erol Ozkoray, Osman Tiftikci
and Sirri Ozturk, Osman Pamukoðlu, EU Commissioner Joost Lagendjik,
HH Karekin II, Michael Dickinson, Ipek Calislar, Abdullah Dilipak
and Mehmet Sevki Eygi, Yalcýn Ergundoðan and Ibrahim Cesmecioglu,
Attila Yayla, Belma Akcura, Cuneyt Arcayurek, Tuncay Ozkan, Taner
Akcam, Attila Tuygan and Mehmet Ali Varýþ. In fact, merely defining
the Armenian deportations in 1915 as "genocide" is interpreted as
"defaming Turkishness". One such instance occurred when Erhan Akay was
convicted to five months of prison for his article in Cagri entitled
Time to Confront the Armenian Question After 90 Years.

But it is even more disgraceful in the institutional politics of denial
pursued by Turkey when international organisations that are meant to
uphold International law and speak out against genocide kow-tow to the
political pressures of denial. I cite here how the UN, under its new
leadership, bowed recently to Turkey’s demands and blocked a scheduled
opening of an exhibition at UN headquarters commemorating the 13th
anniversary of the Rwandan genocide solely because it had mentioned
the mass murder of the Armenians. Ankara was offended by a sentence
that explained how genocide came to be recognised as a crime under
international law: "Following World War I during which one million
Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged
the League of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international
crimes." The British-based organisers of this exhibition were willing
to omit the words "in Turkey", but this was clearly not enough for the
UN aficionados, and the exhibit has been put on hold. Nearer to our
own European shores, I also cite the [heretofore successful] Turkish
pressures exercised over Germany, as current President of the Council
of the European Union, to remove the case of the Armenian Genocide
as an illustrative example (the other two are the Jewish Holocaust
and Rwandan Genocide) for a pan-European law that is currently being
drafted to outlaw genocide denial in all twenty-five EU countries.

When will Turkey decide to follow a post-nationalist attitude
to history? When will it realise that every time it strives to
curtail any discussion of the Armenian Genocide, it only draws wider
attention to the subject and links today’s Turkey with the crimes
of its predecessor regime? When will certain elements within Turkish
society realise that their campaign of vilification, libel, lies and
smut on different Internet websites against prominent Turkish and
foreign scholars or journalists the likes of Taner Akcam, Robert Fisk
or Mike Joseph is not only scurrilous but depicts Turks in the least
favourable light? Should Turkey not underline – rather than undermine –
its Eurocentric credentials as it seeks to join the EU fold?

Indeed, it should revise the Turkish Criminal Code and stop applying
its Anti-Terror Law (TMY). It should also stop confiscating books,
suspending or trying writers, journalists, publishers, intellectuals,
translators and human rights activists, muzzling the press and
discriminating against its different minorities instead of protecting
them.

Once those rudimental changes are implemented and begin to take
root, when Turkish judicial chauvinism expires, and when the Turkish
establishment listens to some of its own academics and comes clean on
the genocide by recognising it, Armenians would then express their
responsibility by showing a necessary measure of soul-searching and
dealing politically with their ninety-two-year-old emotional pain.

Who knows, such a devolution might well lead toward neighbourliness
let alone prosperity and ultimately forgiven friendships between
Armenians and Turks – as was the case largely before the heinous
pogroms of the late 1800’s and the subsequent genocide.

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ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DEBATE
by Johan Huizinga

Radio Netherlands, Netherlands
April 24 2007

The Dutch Armenian Committee for Justice and Democracy march in The
Hague for the victims of the genocide (Photo ANP)

"Let’s unearth the truth about what happened in 1915 together". That
was the headline of a page-wide advertisement from the Turkish
government in some international newspapers. Ankara hopes to win
public support over the issue of the Armenian genocide in 1915.

The proposal to let Armenian and Turkish historians investigate
the matter together, however, is not new and neither is the support
from Washington for this idea. But the timing of the adverstisment,
just before the annual commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, was
very clever.

In the advertisement, Ankara invites Armenia to establish a joint
commission of historians to investigate the 1915 killings of thousands
of Armenians in the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Estimates range from
800,000 to 1.2 million Armenians who have died between 1915 and 1917
in the mass killings and deportation of Armenians. However, for mainly
nationalistic reasons, Ankara still refuses to acknowledge that what
happened was genocide, the planned extermination of an ethnic group.

Thorny issue

The genocide denial remains a thorny issue in Turkish relations
not only with Armenia, but with the US, the EU and several European
countries as well. That explains the advertisement, which also quotes
US President George W Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza
Rice who are backing the proposal. But according to Professor Eric
Jan Zurcher, Turkey expert at Leiden University, neither the proposal,
nor the American support is new.

The proposal is a few years old and has been categorically rejected
by the Armenian government. The Armenians claim no extra research is
needed to establish the historical facts. The Americans support the
Turkish proposal since they are bound by the need to maintain good
relations with Turkey and the demands from Armenian pressure groups.

So in the end, the advertisement very much looks like a publicity
stunt to win time for Turkey.

Fruitless debates

And the chances of any joint commission of historians reaching the
same conclusions are still very small, fears Mr Zurcher. Historians
appointed by the Armenian and Turkish governments will first of all
be selected for their loyalty to the national points of view on this
issue. So the attempt to find a common conclusion will most likely
end up in some fruitless debates.

Then there remains another possible pitfall, warns Professor Zurcher.

In the initial stages, Ankara hinted that such a joint commission of
historians would get exclusive rights on the issue.

That could bar independent historians from using Turkish archives,
for instance and it would possibly silence the debate on the Armenian
Genocide for the time being which might be exactly what the Turks
are after.

This leaves the Armenians, demonstrating at the Turkish embassy
in The Hague, with their clear demands: a penalty on denial of the
Armenian Genocide and no Turkish EU-membership without acknowledging
the genocide by Ankara. Whether the Armenians will have it their
way remains very doubtful however. Although more than 90 years have
passed since the atrocities took place, the discussion is a long way
from reaching a conclusion.

taffairs/gen070424mc