Month: April 2007

LETTING GO OF HATRED A STEP TOWARD HEALING
By Kay Mouradian

San Gabriel Valley Tribune, CA
April 23 2007

MY mother was a survivor of the Armenian genocide.

In my youth she told me stories about her childhood in Turkey, but
those stories went in one ear and right out the other. At the time
I was not interested and didn’t care to understand what had happened
to the Armenians living in Turkey in 1915 during World War I.

Then at age 83 my mother’s physical and mental capacity began to
fail. She was not expected to survive her congestive heart failure,
but she returned from the edge of death. She lived for another five
years, but in that time she had three more near-death experiences,
and each time she became more alert than before, as if her brain
cells had been revitalized. Interestingly, she also became more
loving. Everyone around her felt it.

That’s when I decided to write about her childhood and the genocide
that had changed her life and had broken her heart. I spent more than
10 years researching and writing a novel based on my mother’s tragic
young life in Turkey.

In my mind’s eye, as I sat in front of my computer in my comfortable
home, I was there walking in the march with my mother and her family
as they, along with 2 million Turkish Armenians, were forced from
their homes and herded toward the barren deserts of Syria.

It was an emotionally painful experience for me as this wholesale
deportation of a people became a death march. More than a million
Armenians perished through disease, starvation and exhaustion. It
was much easier for those who were murdered wholesale for they did
not endure the daily suffering of struggling through each day not
knowing when they or their children would fall to their deaths by
the side of the road.

Turkey to this day denies that this historical event was genocide.

The U.S. government has supported Turkey in its denial and instead
prefers to use words such as mass killings, massacres, atrocities,
and annihilation, even as 39 of our 50 states recognize the Armenian
events of 1915-1917 as genocide.

With bipartisan support of 183 co-sponsors in the House of
Representatives, the Armenian Genocide Resolution (House Resolution
106) will present an opportunity for the United States to join those 19
countries that already recognize the Armenian catastrophe as genocide.

April 24, 1915, is marked as the beginning of the Armenian genocide
and tomorrow is a day of remembrance throughout the world.

My own research drew from the works of journalists, diplomats and
missionaries who lived in Turkey’s Ottoman Empire during that horrific
period. Many at that time stated that the Armenian deportations were
an attempt to exterminate the race.

Henry Morgenthau Sr., the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from
1913-1916, in his memoir, referred to this tragedy as the murder of a
nation. Dictionaries define genocide as the deliberate and systematic
destruction of a racial, political or cultural group. That simple
definition alone implies that genocide did occur against the Armenian
population in Turkey in 1915.

The word genocide did not become part of the world’s vocabulary until
World War II when a Polish lawyer, Raphael Lempkin coined the word to
bring attention to Adolf Hitler’s attempt to exterminate the European
Jews. As with all genocides, the intellectuals – the doctors, teachers,
lawyers, opposing politicians and those creative souls whose art and
writings inspire their people – are the first to be eliminated.

Those few Armenians who survived in the Syrian desert with practically
no sustenance, no shelter and wearing the same clothes they wore when
they were deported three years earlier, had only one concern at the end
of the war: to restore their bodies and find lost family. None had the
ability or wherewithal to think about rebuilding their culture. Now,
after the passing of a long 90years, Armenian creativity is beginning
to flower anew, especially here in America.

The protagonist in my novel is based on my mother and her family and
their trials during the Armenian genocide. As a victim my mother
held onto that hurt and its partner, hatred, for all of her life,
but during her last five years she let go of that hatred. Those five
years were both magic and mystical, and she is an example of what
can happen when a victim lets go of deep hurt.

How much better the world would be if perpetrators exhibited that kind
of humanness and took full responsibility for their actions. If the
Turks and the Armenians, whose hatred of one another is well known
throughout the world, can sit together and have a conversation about
the possibility of reconciliation, they could become role models for
those whose long-standing and encrusted tribal attitudes have caused
horrific pain to those who are not as they.

Then healing for both the perpetrator and the victim becomes a
possibility.

Kay Mouradian is a professor emeritus of health and physical
education for the Los Angeles Community Colleges. She lives in South
Pasadena. Her book "A Gift in the Sunlight: An Armenian Story" has
been out for a year.

CHRISTIAN CONVERTS LIVE IN FEAR IN INTOLERANT TURKEY
By Annette Grossbongardt in Istanbul
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Spiegel Online, Germany
April 23 2007

Turkish converts to Christianity fear for their lives after the
brutal murder of three people at a Christian publisher. Angela Merkel
has called for Ankara to promote religious tolerance, while secular
intellectuals ask why the 99-percent Muslim country can’t put up with
a few Christians.

Family members and friends of Tilman Geske gather at an Armenian
cemetery for his funeral in Malatya on Friday April 20.

Tilman Geske, 46, had a dream when he moved to Turkey. As a practicing
Christian, he wanted to live in peace among Muslims in a country that
was a cradle of early Christianity. The German immigrant gave language
instruction, established a consulting firm and translated Christian
literature. "He was a likeable man," says a Turkish accountant who
worked in the office next to Geske’s.

"Whenever I asked him how he was doing, he responded in traditional
Turkish: ‘Cok seker — very sweet.’"

His sweet dream came to an abrupt end last Wednesday, when five
Turkish fanatics armed with bread knives stormed into the office
of the Christian Zirve publishing house in the south-eastern city
of Malatya, tied up Geske and two other employees, before torturing
them and finally killing them by slitting their throats. One of the
victims was stabbed 150 times in a particularly brutal attack. A note
left at the scene read: "This should serve as a lesson to the enemies
of our religion. We did it for our country."

But the attack undoubtedly did their country more harm than good. The
damage the murders have caused could hardly be more devastating. The
"missionary massacre," as Turkey’s papers have called the unusually
brutal crime, has plunged Turkey into new turmoil. It has also shone
an uncomfortable spotlight on the question of whether the country
will succeed in its bid to join the European Union.

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in your publication. For critics of Turkey, including some in German
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union
(CDU) party, the incident merely confirms their warnings that the
country simply doesn’t belong to Europe. Italian Prime Minister Romano
Prodi said the crime "certainly does not help" the country’s bid for
EU membership.

Merkel, who currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said Sunday
that she expected Turkey to take action to show it was tolerant of
Christianity after the murders. "This episode has no influence on the
accession negotiations, which will continue with the result open. But
the episode is a cause for concern," she told the Munchner Merkur
newspaper in an interview for its Monday edition. "Everything must be
done to inhibit a climate that makes such appalling deaths possible,"
she told the paper. "I expect clear action from the government in
Ankara (to show) that intolerance of Christianity and other religions
has no chance."

Optimists, on the other hand, hope the murder was merely a provocation
by opponents of democracy intent on steering Turkey away from
its westward course. "Just as one cannot claim, in the wake of the
killings in Virginia, that all Americans are serial killers, it would
be wrong to hold the entire country responsible for this crime,"
warns sociologist Dogu Ergil.

Nevertheless, there is no longer any doubt that Turkey has run into
serious difficulties as far as the development of its civil society is
concerned. The murder of the Turkish Protestants exposes a deep-seated
problem: Turkey is at a standstill — or even regressing — when it
comes to key issues like tolerance and pluralism.

"In Germany, Turks residing there have opened up more than 3,000
mosques. If in our country we cannot abide even by a few churches, or
a handful of missionaries, where is our civilization?" wrote Ertugrul
Ozkok, editor-in-chief of leading secular Turkish daily Hurriyet,
in a hard-hitting editorial on the murders. "Where is our humanity,
our freedom of belief, our beautiful religion?" he asks.

Part 2: An Unholy Alliance of Left and Right

AP Orthodox worshippers attend a morning mass at the Patriarchal
Cathedral of St. George in Istanbul.

The danger does not come — as one might expect — from the usual
fundamentalist Muslims. Instead, it is an unholy alliance of
nationalists ranging from the left to the Islamic right that is
inciting hatred against free thinkers and those of other faiths.

According to Ergil, there is a "mixture of fanatical nationalism and
militant religious fervor" that prepared the ground for the Malatya
massacre — and that also appears to have been behind the murders
of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and Roman Catholic priest
Andrea Santoro last year. Experts like Ergil see the murders as part
of an unsettling new trend, in which fanatical nationalist-religious
groups see violence as a "cleansing force" and themselves as supposed
"saviors of the nation" — like the 19- and 20-year-old attackers
in Malatya, who were students and all lived in the same conservative
Islamic dormitory.

The hate speech comes from both the left and the right. Rahsan
Ecevit, the widow of popular former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and a
supposed leftist, routinely launches into tirades against foreigners
who buy land in Turkey. She claims that those who encourage citizens
to convert to another religion want to divide Turkey.

Christianity is gaining ground in Turkey, especially in the southeast,
the chairman of the far-right nationalist Great Union Party (BBP)
recently warned, even going so far as to accuse Christian missionaries
of being "supported by the CIA." The bolder such conspiracy theories
are, the more popular they seem to be.

And yet, all nationalist sentiment aside, Turks were shocked by the
brutal murders, which the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan was quick to condemn. Erdogan wants to bring Turkey into the
European fold. But to do so, says Joost Lagendijk, a Dutch member
of the European parliament for the GreenLeft party who is himself
married to a Turkish woman, it must "actively appeal to its citizens
to accept people of other religions and ethnic origins."

In some cases state institutions even help to promote the hostile
mood. As far back as 2001, the country’s National Security Council,
under then Prime Minister Ecevit, classified "missionary activities" as
a threat to national security. The government office of religion has in
the past distributed sample sermons targeted against missionaries. In
addition, Erdogan’s government, which is dominated by his right-wing
Justice and Development Party (AKP), undermines its credibility when,
for example, an official like Minister of State Mehmet Aydin claims
that missionary activities are not "innocent declaration of religious
beliefs, but rather a planned movement with political goals."

With politicians stirring up public anger, some segments of the
population seem all too willing to fall in line. The more aggressive
forms of Christianity, such as that espoused by free evangelical
churches, are especially suspect to many Turks.

Even the friendly Muslim who worked in the office next door to
Tilman Geske became skeptical when he heard that the German was
"proselytizing." To ease his doubts, he took a look around Geske’s
office to see if there were Bibles lying around, but he found
nothing. "This terrible murder brings shame upon us," says the
horrified accountant, who prefers to remain anonymous. And yet,
he says, he is not pleased about some of the things he hears, such
as the rumor that missionaries "place money in the Bibles that they
hand out in front of our schools."

For the beleaguered Christians, it is sometimes better not to be
noticed at all. There was no sign on the door of the Zirve publishing
company’s office in Malatya — a deliveryman was attacked there two
years ago and nationalists later staged angry protests in front of
the building.

Part 3: ‘We Are Experiencing a Witch Hunt’

AP Tilmann Geske’s wife Susanne, shown here with the couple’s three
children, says she will pray for her husband’s killers.

"We are experiencing a witch hunt straight out of the Middle Ages,
and the Malatya victims were certainly not the last," complains Ihsan
Ozbek, the chairman of the Salvation Church, a union of Protestant
groups which claims to have 5,000 members throughout Turkey. "We are
portrayed as traitors and potential criminals," he says. Tensions
are so high that Ozbek warns that it has become very dangerous to be
called a missionary. "That would be the equivalent of a death sentence
these days," he says.

Christians are reporting efforts to file lawsuits against supposed
missionaries, even though proselytizing is not officially against
the law in Turkey. In fact, the opposite is true. It is against the
law in Turkey — theoretically, at least — to prevent anyone from
practicing or disseminating his faith. But creative approaches are
sometimes taken to prosecuting unpopular infidels, says attorney Orhan
Cengiz. In Silivri, a town west of Istanbul, two converts are currently
on trial for the uniquely Turkish offense of "insulting Turkishness"
and for "incitement of religious hatred," both considered crimes
under the notorious Article 301 of the country’s penal code.

Necati Aydin, a local pastor and one of the publishing company
employees murdered in the Malatya killings, had already been arrested
once before for distributing Bibles and religious pamphlets.

"Villagers claimed that Aydin and his colleagues had insulted Islam,"
says his attorney. They were charged with distributing "propaganda
against religious freedom."

One of the most difficult positions is that of Turkish converts who
turn their backs on the "true faith." Sociologist Behnan Konutgan, 54,
converted to Christianity while still a student. "While all my fellow
students were constantly reading the Koran, I had a Bible sent to me,"
he recalls. "I read the New Testament with excitement."

Konutgan now works as a pastor and is translating the Bible. "Society
is our problem, not the laws," he says, describing his own
experiences. "The church is perceived as an enemy."

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The murdered Christians were members of Malatya’s small Protestant
community, which included a few foreigners like Tilman Geske and
15 Turks who have converted from Islam to Christianity. The liberal
newspaper Radikal estimates that there are about 10,000 converts in
Turkey, expressing surprise that they could be seen as a "threat"
in a country of 73 million people, 99 percent of whom are Muslim.

But it seems that this is exactly the case. According to an
opinion poll, 59 percent of Turks favor taking legal action against
missionaries, and more than 40 percent said they would not want
Christian Armenians or Greeks as neighbors.

Tilman Geske was buried last Friday in his adopted Turkish home of
Malatya. In an interview on Turkish television, his wife Susanne
said that he was a "martyr for Jesus" and that she would pray for
forgiveness for his killers.

Ugur Yuksel, one of the two Turkish Christian employees murdered with
Geske, had already been interred. Unlike Geske, though, he had been
given a Muslim burial, admitted a spokesman from the local Protestant
community: "His family insisted on it."

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TSARUKIAN PROMISES ‘PROSPEROUS ARMENIA WITHOUT OPPOSITION’
By Emil Danielyan and Astghik Bedevian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
April 23 2007

Businessman Gagik Tsarukian pledged to turn Armenia into a prosperous
country free of opposition parties as he resumed his participation
in the intensifying election campaign over the weekend.

Thousands of people attended campaign rallies held by his Prosperous
Armenia Party (BHK) in Yerevan’s Davitashen and Arabkir districts,
underscoring its status as one of the main contenders of the May 12
parliamentary elections. Many waved flags and held up BHK banners to
the accompaniment of the party’s campaign songs, one of them performed
by a hip hop band.

Addressing supporters in Davitashen on Saturday, Tsarukian claimed that
its victory in the polls would lead to a quick improvement in their
living conditions. "In no time, our country will become prosperous,
there will be smile on everybody’s face, everyone will do their job,"
he said. "And there won’t be an opposition because if a man can support
his family, then everyone will go about their business. Rest assured
that we will deliver."

The tycoon close to President Robert Kocharian again declined to
specify how his party would strive for economic betterment once in
government. He repeated instead that he is not seeking a government
position or greater wealth.

"Gagik Tsarukian opened a party not to get a post or make money by
using a post," the BHK leader said of himself. "Gagik Tsarukian has
everything. But Gagik Tsarukian does not care about of himself. He
also cares about his people."

"I set up the party not to lose popular respect but to double and
triple it," he added.

The Davitashen rally, followed by a pop concert, marked Tsarukian’s
first public appearance in more than a week. Senior BHK members gave
contradictory reasons for his conspicuous absence from campaign events
organized by the party last week. Some of them said he is ill.

Tsarukian confirmed this as he briefly spoke with RFE/RL in
Davitashen. "Don’t I have the right to be ill?" he said after his
speech. "I’ve already recovered and will now conduct our campaign."

As he walked off a makeshift podium there, the former arm-wrestler
was again mobbed by dozens of people keen to hand him letters or
shake his hands. His beefy bodyguards had trouble holding them back.

Tsarukian’s image of a generous benefactor is integral to his
increasingly obvious populist appeal. He is believed to have spent
millions on dollars on handing out humanitarian aid and providing
free medical treatment to scores of impoverished Armenians last fall
as part of the BHK’s preparations for the elections.

Critics, among them some pro-Kocharian politicians, have denounced
that as a wholesale buying of votes. Some also accuse Tsarukian of
large-scale tax evasion, pointing to a huge disparity between modest
taxes paid by his businesses and his massive wealth.

But the criticism has not prevented the BHK from attracting a large
following. "This party will really build a prosperous country,"
said Norik Nazarian, a middle aged Davitashen resident. "We see what
he’s done."

"We watch TV and see his benevolence," said Lid Hunanian, a local
pensioner. "That is why we joined his party."

"He is helping the people a lot without being in government" reasoned
her husband Sergey, also a BHK member. "If he comes to power, he’ll
probably do even more."

Natella, a young woman who also attended the Davitashen rally,
likewise praised Tsarukian for his "good deeds." But she said she
has not yet decided who to vote for on May 12.

The crowd was boosted by employees of a Tsarukian-owned cement plant
in the southern town of Ararat who were bused to the rally. "We trust
Tsarukian and believe that the work of his team will be good for the
country," said Vrezh Abrahamian, a production manager at the Ararat
Tsement company. In his words, more than 90 percent of some 1,300
people employed by the company are affiliated with the BHK.

"He gave us jobs, and we appreciate his work, his benevolent activities
in the town," said Alvard Umrikian, another Ararat Tsement worker.

Despite being one of Armenia’s biggest industrial enterprises operating
at full capacity, Ararat Tsement is only 107th on the list of the
country’s leading corporate taxpayers published by the State Tax
Service in January. According to the STS, it paid only 412 million
drams ($1.14 million) in various taxes in 2006.

AZERBAIJAN DELEGATION SNUBS U.S. OVER RIGHTS REPORT

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
April 23 2007

Azerbaijan on Sunday cancelled a high-level government delegation’s
trip to Washington to protest against a perceived snub by the
U.S. State Department in a human rights report.

The 2006 report initially included a reference to the disputed province
of Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani territory occupied the country’s
Caucasus neighbor and bitter enemy Armenia. This reference was later
deleted after diplomatic pressure from Yerevan.

The report’s Armenia section now says: "Armenian forces occupy large
portions of Azerbaijani territory adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenian officials maintain that they do not ‘occupy’ Nagorno-Karabakh
itself."

"In relation to the introduction of changes in the initial 2006
text of a U.S. State Department human rights report relating to the
Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the government of
Azerbaijan has taken the decision to cancel the visit," Azerbaijan’s
foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The introduction of corrections, distorting the essence of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict causes bewilderment
and doubts about the position of the U.S. as an honest broker in the
resolution of the conflict," it said.

A delegation of high-level government officials had been due to arrive
in Washington on Monday for two days of bilateral talks.

The United States said its policy had not changed. "Any interpretation
that our policy regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has changed is
not correct," State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck said Sunday. She
said the U.S. was aware of Azerbaijan’s statement announcing the
postponement and was in contact with its government.

"These talks are important and we look forward to them taking place
at the earliest date," Beck said.

On Friday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also said
there had been no change, adding: "The United States reaffirms its
support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and holds that
the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh is a matter of negotiations
between the parties."

The United States, Russia and France, under the auspices of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, have been
encouraging Azerbaijan and Armenia to resolve the conflict for more
than a decade.

BAGHDASARIAN CONDEMNS ‘COMPROMISING’ REPORT
By Ruzanna Stepanian and Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
April 23 2007

Opposition leader Artur Baghdasarian on Monday condemned a
pro-government newspaper for disclosing purported details of his
confidential meeting with a British diplomat that reportedly focused
on Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary elections.

The publication, "Golos Armenii," claimed on Saturday to have obtained
the audio of Baghdasarian’s dinner with an unnamed senior official from
the British embassy in Armenia which it said took place in a Yerevan
restaurant last February. The Russian-language paper published what
it described as excerpts from the secretly recorded conversation. The
former parliament speaker was quoted as urging the European Union
to strongly criticize the Armenian authorities’ handling of the May
12 vote.

In a written statement, Baghdasarian’s Orinats Yerkir Party, a major
election contender, charged that the report is part of a "well-prepared
smear campaign" waged against it by the Armenian authorities. But
it stopped short of explicitly denying the fact of the meeting or
specific comments attributed to its leader.

"We hope that you have the recordings of all of our meetings," read
the statement addressed to the authorities. "While listening to them,
you will become convinced that Orinats Yerkir says the same thing in
private and public meetings: Armenia’s upcoming elections must meet
international standards because that is required by the country’s
interests and the international community."

According to "Golos Armenii," during the conversation Baghdasarian
said that the ongoing election campaign has already been marred by
serious violations and wondered whether the EU will issue "some signal
of alarm" before the vote.

"They (the authorities) have to cross the line before we can do
something," the diplomat was quoted as responding. "But they don’t
do that. I suppose that they are smarter and wiser than we. And many
Europeans understand that. There has to be some blatant violation in
order for the EU to come up with such a statement."

The diplomat also allegedly claimed that only three of the eight EU
countries having diplomatic missions in Yerevan — Britain, Germany,
and Poland — are genuinely interested in the freedom and fairness
of the Armenian elections. Countries like Italy and France are
doing little to promote democratic change in Armenia, he was quoted
as saying.

"You can’t say that everything is alright if there are falsifications,
if people take to the streets, if 100-200 people get arrested, which
is inevitable," Baghdasarian is said to have countered. "And France
won’t be able to say that everything is alright if they beat people."

"Golos Armenii," which is staunchly supportive of President Robert
Kocharian and Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, said the conversation
was recorded on a compact disk sent to it by unknown individuals. The
paper claimed that it knows the identify of the diplomat cited in
the report but will not publicize it in the hope that he will provide
"clarifications on some parts of the dialogue."

The British embassy declined to comment on the report on Monday.

RUSSIA TO LOOK FOR URANIUM IN ARMENIA
By Shakeh Avoyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
April 23 2007

The Russian and Armenian governments agreed on Monday to jointly
develop Armenia’s untapped uranium reserves which they said could
make the country self-sufficient in production of nuclear energy.

A relevant agreement was signed in Yerevan by Prime Minister Serzh
Sarkisian and Sergey Kirienko, the visiting head of Russia’s Federal
Agency on Atomic Energy (Rosatom).

"The main purpose of the agreement is to look for radioactive materials
in Armenia and jointly develop those resources," said Environment
Minister Vartan Ayvazian.

According to Kirienko, the two sides will set up a joint venture that
will explore areas in the southeastern Syunik region which Armenian
and Russian geologists believe are rich in uranium. He was confident
that they will discover commercially viable reserves of the radioactive
metal used in nuclear power generation.

"Armenia will be able to meet its needs and sell [uranium] to others,"
the Rosatom chief told journalists "It is turning from an energy
resource dependent country to an energy resource exporting one."

A U.S. company, Global Gold, is already looking for uranium in another
region of Armenia.

The mountainous country was a major center of non-ferrous metallurgy
in the former Soviet Union and still exports copper and gold in large
quantities. But its uranium reserves, estimated at 30,000 metric tons
by Soviet geologists, have not been developed so far. Officials said
the real reserves may be twice bigger.

In Kirienko’s words, Armenia could become one of the few countries
of the world with a full uranium production cycle from extraction of
the metal to its transformation into nuclear fuel. Some of that fuel
would be supplied to the nuclear power station at Metsamor, he said.

The Armenian government plans to decommission the Metsamor plant by
2016 in accordance with its commitments to the European Union and the
United States. It announced plans last year to replace the Soviet-era
facility with a new plant meeting modern safety standards. The
government pushed through parliament a legal amendment allowing
it to look for foreign investors that would be willing to provide
an estimated $1 billion needed for its construction. Kirienko said
Moscow is ready to participate in the ambitious project.

TWO COMMEMORATION EVENTS HELD IN FRANCE

ArmRadio.am
23.04.2007 12:20

Two initiatives in France marked the commemorations of the 92nd
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, independent correspondent Jean
Eckian informs from France.

Thus, during the past two days, in front of the cathedral Notre-Dame de
Paris, several thousand people came to give their support for a joint
operation carried out by "Collectif VAN" Armenian association and
"Collective Darfour Urgency", which aimed at sensitizing the public
on the negation of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey and the urgency
to assist Darfour’s population’s exterminated.

In an another commemoration event, the French writer of Armenian
origin, Denis Donikian, and Michel Atalay, French of Turkish origin,
member of the political Greens Party, laid a wreath of flowers in front
of the Komitas’s statue , in the presence of representatives of the two
communities to pay homage "to all victims of the genocide perpetrated
in Ottoman Empire in 1915, and particularly to the Armenians."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKISH PARLIAMENTARIANS "OFFENDED" WITH NANCY PELOSI’S REFUSAL

ArmRadio.am
23.04.2007 14:28

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi failed once
again to respond to an appointment request by a Turkish parliamentary
delegation that will hold talks with US officials in Washington DC
to lobby against a resolution on the Armenian Genocide.

"Zaman" reports that the Turkish delegation "defending the national
dignity" was offended with Nancy Pelosi’s refusal.

"She did not even answer to our request to meet, and this comes after
we managed to organize meetings with some members of the US Congress,"
declared, Nabi Shensoy, the Turkish Ambassador to Washington.

Thus, the last Turkish delegation repeated the fate of the previous
ones, " Sabah" notes. "The first time we failed because the mission
of the Turkish parliamentarians coincided with the visit of Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul. But why did the same occur with the second
and third delegation?

Let us remind that the delegation of Turkish parliamentarians had
left for the US on April 16. They intended to lobby against the
Congressional Armenian Genocide resolutions, anticipating the support
of official Washington.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN DEPUTY FM TO PARTAKE IN THE SITTING OF THE CIS FOREIGN MINISTERS COUNCIL

ArmRadio.am
23.04.2007 14:40

On April 24 in Astana Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakosyan
will participate in the sitting of the CIS Council of Foreign
Ministers, R MFA Acting Spokesman Vladimir Karapetyan told ArmInfo.

The agenda of the sitting of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers
includes 19 questions. The Foreign Ministers will discuss issues
related to the activity of the Cultural Cooperation Council and the
Interstate Council of Natural and Technical Disasters.

Documents on deployment of coalition forces in the Abkhazian conflict
zone will be discussed.

ARMENIAN WRESTLER ACHIEVES A BRONZE MEDAL

ArmRadio.am
23.04.2007 14:56

On April 22 the European Free-Style Wrestling Championship came to an
end in Sofia, the capita of Bulgaria. Among Armenian delegates Shamil
Gitinov (96 kg, Yerevan) occupied the third position and achieved a
bronze medal.

Thus, only one from the 15 members of the Armenian free-style and
Greek-Roman style wrestlers achieved a medal at the European