Month: October 2008

TURKEY MAY IN FACT BECOME A REGIONAL POWER THROUGH THE UNSC
Karine Ter-Sahakyan

PanARMENIAN.Net
14.10.2008 GMT+04:00

The vacant seat of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)
non-permanent member is meant for a European country, a position
Turkey can be considered to hold with great reserve.

Ankara has rather definitely realized that the way to a regional
power passes not only through cooperation with regional states and
a convenient transit for exporting hydrocarbon, but also through
membership in the UNSC. Somehow it so happened that the "five-day war"
of Mikhail Saakashvili proved to be most advantageous for Turkey, and,
as a result, it can now run for a seat in the UN. The United Nations
has been making hardly any decision recently, and even if it made,
its decisions were all based on strange interpretations of basic
principles of the international law.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ However, it is of no significance. The leading role
in the UNSC is played by Russia and the United States. Turkey holds
normal relations with both of these world powers and, who knows,
it may establish such relations with China and France as well. Great
Britain is, naturally, not counted as it is accurately moving through
the course of American interests. According to Turkish Foreign Minister
Ali Babacan Turkey deserves a UNSC seat, which comes to a vote on
October 17. "Ankara’s growing influence on international affairs gives
it a basis to calculate on a seat among the non-permanent members of
the UNSC," considers Babacan and, on the whole, he is right.

This process started still back in 2004. The site Turkish Policy
Quarterly (TPQ) was opened then, which was called to report to
politicians and diplomats the viewpoint of Ankara on different
matters of world politics. A similar purpose serves also the site
TurkishNY.com. However, in all probability, a leading role in this
process is played by the Israeli lobby in the USA, which badly
needs Turkish membership in the UN for the mere purpose of adopting
pro-Israeli resolutions.

With present state of affairs it is of utmost interest how the
permanent members of the UN Security Council will vote. The
United States and Great Britain will naturally vote "for", while
the standpoint of China and France is still in question. However,
skillful propaganda can have positive results. As for Russia, taking
into consideration the latest events in the Caucasus and its sudden
Â"affectionÂ" towards Turkey, there must be no doubt that the Russian
representative will vote "for" too, especially when almost all the
transit pipelines from Moscow to Europe have some connection with
Turkey. Here is the latest example: Russian company "Stroytransgas"
has signed a contract on constructing a pipeline from Aleppo in the
north of Syria to the Turkish coast. The deal will cost US$71 million,
the pipeline length being 62 kilometers. Thus, Turkey has more chances
against the other candidates – Austria and Iceland. However, there
is a delicate point here: the vacant seat of the UNSC non-permanent
member is meant for a European country, a position Turkey can be
considered to hold with great reserve. Anyway, for the last 30 years
the world community seems to have been indifferent towards such kind
of geographical "trifles"… By the way in two years’ time, which
is the term of service of non-permanent members of the UNSC, it is
possible to accomplish what one could not achieve through lobbying
in the corridors of the Organization.

And what will Armenia be faced with in case the situation has a
positive outcome for Turkey? In all probability we shall face nothing
good: the Turkish representative will push forward Azerbaijan’s
resolutions on "regulating" the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which, in
such state of affairs, will be definitely passed. Naturally, at first
no one will pay attention to these resolutions, but it will be only
for the time being until the X hour arrives and the mediators decide
that Nagorno Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan and try to bring the
Karabakh people back under Baku’s control with the proved method of
twisting arms. And what will be afterwards? Definitely there will be
a new war, but whether it will end up with a contract between Nagorno
Karabakh and Azerbaijan or whether Yerevan will urge Stepanakert to
yield to the world community, in this case to Azerbaijan is still a
question. As for the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide
(by calling it "international" we still mean Turkey first of all),
Ankara will have an opportunity to openly speak against any case of
mentioning the events of 1915 in the UNSC documents. In any case,
the weakness of Armenian diplomacy in the UN will once more be an
evident and grievous fact.

–Boundary_(ID_BgI9HBBuEQFg8X1dtYPEpg)–

"MYSTERIOUS SUPPER: FROM ARMENIAN TRADITION TO LEONARDO"

Panorama.am
20:05 15/10/2008

"Mysterious Supper: From Armenian Tradition to Leonardo" book by
Vardan Devrikyan has been published recently. The author of the book
said that the work covers Christian and Armenian pictures and the
creations of Renaissance masters.

"It becomes visible the typology of the current theme: allegoric
notions and comments found in literature," said the author. Note that
the book is illustrated by Armenian handicrafts.

SHIRAK TOROSYAN’S REQUESTS REMAINED UNANSWERED

Panorama.am
15:35 16/10/2008

The representative of Georgian Embassy in Armenia Nino Aptsiauri for
many years has worked in Armenian Language and Literature department
in Pedagogic University of Tbilisi. In a meeting discussion on
Armenian-Georgian relationship N. Aptsiauri said that he is proud
of that.

"Currently nobody studies in that department. What is the reason to
that? Doesn’t Armenians want to study there?" he said.

Shirak Torosyan, the chairman of "Djavakhq" union and member of
Republican fraction in National Assembly was present at the meeting
and he said: "Mrs. Nino, the reason why Armenians don’t want to study
there is the national discrimination."

Shirak Torosyan has made various requests about the language problem,
education, schools, books which Armenians in Djavakhq are forced
to study, army problems. N. Aptsiauri was not able to answer all
the requests.

INTERNATIONAL STOMATOLOGICAL CONGRSSES STARTED

Panorama.am
15:36 16/10/2008

Armenian stomatological second meeting, sixth international congress
of stomatologists and the preliminary stage of third pan European
congress started in Yerevan. Current events devoted to the stomatology
will last till October 18.

"We should be aware of changes in stomatology, its developments
and achievements. The Ministry of Healthcare, the association of
stomatologists of Armenia and the World Union of Armenian Dentists
organized this congress to exchange experience with developed European
countries," said Ashot Gevorgayn the president of the Association
of Stomatologists.

Delegations from 15 countries – USA, Canada, France, Israel, Turkey,
Holland, Lebanon, Sweden, Georgia, Nagorno Karabakh are invited to
take part in the congress.

ARMENIANS SLAM ISRAEL’S ARM SALE TO AZERBAIJAN, URGE TO REVERSE ACTION

Hurriyet
Thursday, October 16, 2008 14:25
Turkey

A prominent Armenian activist urged the Jewish community in the
U.S. to reverse the "dangerous" action of Israel’s potential arm sale
to Azerbaijan, Turkish Daily News reported on Thursday. (UPDATED)

U.S. Armenians have denounced Israel over press reports that it has
agreed to sell arms and munitions to Azerbaijan, which is involved in a
dispute with Armenia over the ongoing occupation of Azerbaijani lands.

A leading Armenian activist has also accused the American Jewish
Congress, or AJC, a major Jewish association in the United States,
of "supporting Azerbaijan".

The Armenian Assembly of America (AAA), one of the two largest Armenian
groups in the country, earlier this week sent to its subscribers
an article by Jirair Haratunian, the former chairman of the AAA’s
board of directors, denouncing the close ties of Israel and the ACJ
with Azerbaijan.

The United Press International, quoting Israel’s daily Haaretzi
reported on Sept. 26 that the Israeli government has agreed to sell
mortars, ammunition and military radios to Azerbaijan. Former Israeli
Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer had previously said Azerbaijan
would be a valuable ally for Israel due to its supply of oil and gas.

"A dangerous pattern is emerging in the Caucasus with new reports
that Israel is continuing to sell advanced military armaments to
Azerbaijan, costing hundreds of millions of dollars," Haraturanian
said in his article.

"They sell these arms at a time when Ilham Aliyev, the president of
Azerbaijan, has repeatedly threatened to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh
by military force," he said.

The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia began in 1988 due to
Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan.

Since 1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20 percent of
Azerbaijan including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven
surrounding districts.

FORGET ‘MEMORY LAWS’
By Timothy Garton Ash

Los Angeles Times
October 16, 2008
CA

It is not the business of any political authority to define historical
truth.

Among the ways in which freedom is being chipped away in Europe,
one of the less obvious is the legislation of memory. More and more
countries have laws saying you must remember and describe this or
that historical event in a certain way.

The wrong way depends on where you are. In Switzerland, you get
prosecuted for saying that the terrible thing that happened to
the Armenians in the last years of the Ottoman empire was not a
genocide. In Turkey, you get prosecuted for saying it was. What
is state-ordained truth in the Alps is state-ordained falsehood
in Anatolia.

Of all the countries in Europe, France has the most intense and
tortuous recent experience with "memory laws." It began rather
uncontroversially in 1990, when denial of the Nazi Holocaust of the
European Jews, along with other crimes against humanity defined by
the 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal, was made punishable by law. In 1995,
historian Bernard Lewis was convicted by a French court for arguing
that, on the available evidence, what happened to the Armenians might
not correctly be described as genocide according to the definition
in international law.

A further law, passed in 2001, says the French Republic recognizes
slavery as a crime against humanity and that this must be given
its "consequential place" in teaching and research. A group
representing some overseas French citizens subsequently brought
a case against the author of a study of the African slave trade,
Olivier Petre-Grenouilleau, on the charge of "denial of a crime against
humanity." Meanwhile, yet another law was passed, from a very different
point of view, prescribing that school curricula should recognize the
"positive role" played by the French presence overseas, "especially
in North Africa."

Fortunately, at this point a wave of indignation gave birth
to a movement called Liberty for History. The case against
Petre-Grenouilleau was dropped and the "positive role" clause
nullified. But it remains incredible that such a proposal ever made
it to the statute book in one of the world’s great democracies and
homelands of historical scholarship.

This kind of nonsense is all the more dangerous when it wears the mask
of virtue. A perfect example is a directive drafted by the European
Union in the name of "combating racism and xenophobia." The proposed
rule suggests that "publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivializing
crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes" should be
"punishable by criminal penalties of a maximum of at least between
one and three years imprisonment."

Some countries with a strong free-speech tradition, including Britain,
objected to this, so the proposed agreement now also says that "member
states may choose to punish only conduct which is either carried out
in a manner likely to disturb public order or which is threatening,
abusive or insulting." So in practice, countries will continue to do
things their own way.

Despite its manifold flaws, this proposed directive was approved by
the European Parliament in November 2007, but it has not been brought
back to the Justice and Home Affairs Council for final approval. I
e-mailed the relevant representative of the current French presidency
of the EU to ask why, and just received this cryptic but encouraging
reply: "…It is suspended to some outstanding parliamentary
reservations." Merci, Madame Liberte.

Let me be clear. It is very important that nations, states and peoples
face up, solemnly and publicly, to the bad things done by them or in
their name. The West German leader Willy Brandt’s falling silently to
his knees in Warsaw, before a monument to the victims and heroes of
the Warsaw Ghetto, is, for me, one of the noblest images of postwar
European history. To face up to these things, people have to know
about them in the first place. So they must be taught in schools as
well as publicly commemorated.

But before they are taught, they must be researched. The evidence must
be uncovered, checked and sifted. It’s this process of historical
research and debate that requires complete freedom — subject only
to tightly drawn laws of libel and slander.

This week, a group of historians and writers to which I belong pushed
back against these kinds of dangerous memory laws. In an article
published in Le Monde last weekend, we stated that in a free country,
"it is not the business of any political authority to define historical
truth and to restrict the liberty of the historian by penal sanctions."

The historian’s equivalent of a natural scientist’s experiment is to
test the evidence against all possible hypotheses, however extreme,
and then submit his most convincing interpretation for criticism by
professional colleagues and for public debate. This is how we get
as near as one ever can to truth about the past. How, for example,
do you refute the absurd conspiracy theory, which apparently still
has some currency in parts of the Arab world, that "the Jews" were
behind 9/11? By forbidding anyone from saying that, on pain of
imprisonment? No. You refute it by refuting it. By mustering all
the available evidence, in free and open debate. This is not just
the best way to get at the facts; ultimately, it’s the best way to
combat racism and xenophobia too.

Timothy Garton Ash, a contributing editor to the Opinion pages, is
a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and professor of
European studies at Oxford University.

ATC CHAIRMAN SAYS TURKEY EXPECTS US SUPPORT FOR N IRAQ COOP

Thursday, 16 October 2008 12:23
Turkey

A U.S. executive expressed thought on Thursday that Turkey was
expecting the support of the United States for a cooperation with
the regional administration in Iraq.

Brent Scowcroft, the chairman of American-Turkish Council (ATC),
said that he thought that the Turkish government was expecting
U.S. support to ensure cooperation with authorities in the north of
Iraq, particularly with Massoud Barzani–the head of the regional
administration in north of Iraq–regarding PKK.

Iraq problem was related with the PKK issue at a certain extent,
Scowcroft told reporters in Istanbul.

On Armenian allegations regarding the incidents of 1915, Scowcroft
said if Turkish government tried to establish relations with the
Armenian government, it would help prevent adoption of a resolution
in the United States regarding those allegations.

Scowcroft said that this would convince legislators that these
allegations were an issue concerning the two countries, and therefore
they (the legislators) should take a backward step and leave the
solution of the problem to the two countries.

The chairman said that he was optimistic that dialogue between Turkish
and Armenian governments could be maintained and this was the best way
to prevent adoption of a resolution regarding the incidents of 1915.

Retired general Brent Scowcroft served as the national security
adviser of former U.S. presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush.

Scowcroft met Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul, Premier Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, and Energy & Natural Resources Minister Hilmi Guler on Monday,
and later proceeded to Istanbul.

As one of the leading business associations in the United States,
American Turkish Council is dedicated to effectively strengthening
U.S.-Turkish relations through the promotion of commercial, defense,
technology and cultural relations.

The goals of ATC are to help resolve problems and disputes that
affect U.S.-Turkish commercial, defense and cultural relations;
to encourage trade and investment between the United States and
Turkey; to educate the public and private sectors on the importance
of the strategic alliance between the United States and Turkey; to
increase the understanding and appreciation of the history, culture
and traditions of the United States and Turkey; to promote awareness of
U.S.-Turkish issues; and to facilitate dialogue between the government
agencies of both Turkey and the United States and the private sector.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT TO ARRIVE IN YEREVAN ON OFFICIAL CALL

De Facto
Oct 16, 2008

YEREVAN, 16. 10. 08. DE FACTO. On October 20 President of the Russian
Federation Dmitry Medvedev will arrive in Yerevan on a two-day
official call.

According to the RA President’s Press Office, the visit will be held
on RA President Serge Sargsian’s invitation. The details of the visit
have not been elaborated yet.

NEWS: ‘MARGARET GARNER’ BUILDS A BRIDGE BETWEEN OPERA, BLACKS
By Mark Stryker, [email protected]

Detroit Free Press
October 16, 2008
United States

When "Margaret Garner" receives its world premiere next week at the
Detroit Opera House, African Americans will have the rare chance
to see an opera forged from the marrow of their history, minus the
racial stereotypes that remain the Achilles’ heel of George Gershwin’s
"Porgy and Bess."

Inspired by a true story, composer Richard Danielpour and Nobel
Prize-winning author Toni Morrison tell the tale of a fugitive
slave who kills her children in order to save them from a return to
bondage. The A-list creative team and cast, including mezzo-soprano
Denyce Graves, has the opera world buzzing. But the opera is also
galvanizing newcomers and financial supporters within Detroit’s
black community.

Critics will debate the artistic success of "Margaret Garner" beginning
on opening night, but in terms of outreach and bridge-building,
the opera is already a hit.

"We’re in a city that’s more than 80 percent African American, so
if we’re going to be an opera company in this metropolitan area,
we have to do things that invites that community to be involved with
the art form," says David DiChiera, general director of the Michigan
Opera Theatre.

DiChiera says he has always believed that a night at the opera can
celebrate the ethnic and cultural diversity of a city and build bridges
into the community out of the scaffolding of art. "Margaret Garner"
stands as a monument to his vision.

"Opera is a perfect vehicle to involve people in something that
reflects their culture because it combines music, narrative, theater
and visuals," he says. "So many operas in so many countries have been
based on historical or mythological subjects and styles that reflect
those cultures."

Despite a history of world-class African-American opera stars, opera
audiences remain overwhelmingly white. Economic and cultural factors
and the historical shadows of elitism and racism are blamed for the
low attendance.

A 1999 study said MOT’s audience was 8 percent black. Company officials
estimate the number has increased to 12 percent today – three times
the national average of 4 percent measured by a 2002 study by the
National Endowment for the Arts.

Strong anecdotal evidence suggests MOT’s audiences are more diverse
ethnically than those in most opera companies. Experts cite 30 years
of outreach – from casting minority singers to producing rare operas
like the Armenian national opera "Anoush" and Scott Joplin’s ragtime
opera "Treemonisha"- as a reason for MOT’s relative success.

"MOT has done as much as any opera company in serving its entire
community and involving leaders from various communities in Detroit to
participate in the life of the company," says Marc Scorca, president
of Opera America, a service group in Washington, D.C.

In honor of "Margaret Garner," Opera America’s annual national
conference will be in Detroit next week. The theme is diversity.

MOT has partnered with more than a dozen African-American churches,
fraternities, sororities and service groups to raise awareness of
and sell hundreds of tickets to "Margaret Garner." Meanwhile, a
fund-raising committee, chaired by MOT board member Betty Brooks, an
African American, has raised nearly $1.2 million of the production’s
$2-million budget.

Much of the money has come from large corporations, but MOT has
raised tens of thousands of dollars from black-owned businesses and
African Americans like Odell Jones III, who owns Jomar Building Co. in
Detroit. Jones donated $25,000 to underwrite a school curriculum
guide about the opera.

Jones was struck by the parallel between Margaret Garner’s
doomed aspirations for her children and the despair felt by some
poverty-stricken mothers in Detroit. "I think this will be a true
and moving story, and I think it was important to be a part of it,"
he says.

On another front, the Detroit chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, an
African-American service sorority, bought 105 discounted tickets to
resell to members to raise money for scholarships. Many of these will
go to people attending their first opera, including teenagers.

"We want to promote our history and understanding of our own stories,"
says sorority member Marcia Jackson.

If "Margaret Garner" allows African Americans to see themselves on
stage, the opera will offer others a window into their neighbors’
cultural heritage. Still, while the story is rooted in slavery,
Danielpour and Morrison have tried to avoid a civics lesson set to
music, aiming instead for universal themes of freedom, a mother’s
love and familial conflict. The creators see the opera as a vessel
for healing.

Strengthening community ties Diversity has been a way of life at MOT
since its founding in 1971. To deepen ties with local ethnic groups,
DiChiera has programmed 19th- and 20th-Century European nationalist
operas, including the American premieres of "Anoush" and the Polish
opera "Haunted Castle." Each time, DiChiera turned to the Armenian
and Polish communities to drive fund-raising.

MOT has always championed African-American singers. Kathleen Battle
made her professional operatic debut in Detroit in 1975, and DiChiera
says that if he has a choice between two equally qualified singers
and one is an African American, that’s who he casts.

MOT has staged four productions of "Porgy and Bess" as well as
"Treemonisha," but the American canon is woefully lacking in operas
rooted in the black experience. DiChiera wanted to fill the void.

"Margaret Garner" came to his attention when Graves told him about the
project in 1999. DiChiera was intrigued, especially by the marriage
of Danielpour – a lyrical, singer-friendly composer – and Morrison,
a world-class novelist graced by celebrity glitter. But when an
African-American friend expressed concern about a work mired in the
ugliness of slavery, DiChiera grew worried.

He did not want to be viewed as a patronizing white knight, and vowed
not to produce the opera without broad support. DiChiera convened a
retreat, inviting three dozen community leaders, most of them black,
as well as Danielpour.

Planting a seed "Some people didn’t want to open up the wounds,"
remembers Brooks, head of the fund-raising committee. But in the end,
the group reached a consensus that the opera told an important story
about history, survival, cultural memory and love.

MOT still faces the post-"Margaret Garner" challenge of luring
first-time black patrons back for standard fare. Brooks insists
that if "Margaret Garner" is effective musically and dramatically,
newcomers will return for operas without specifically black themes.

Once the seed is planted, anything can happen. Remember Jones, who
donated $25,000 for a "Margaret Garner" curriculum guide? He met
DiChiera as a 14-year-old in the lobby of Music Hall, where DiChiera
had booked jazz singer Cleo Laine. DiChiera noticed the star-struck
Jones after the show and took him backstage to meet Laine.

Jones never forgot the gesture and kept tabs on DiChiera as he built
MOT. Jones sprouted a fondness for opera and began attending MOT
productions. Now at 50, he has the means to donate $25,000.

When MOT builds bridges to the opera house, it’s people like Jones
who walk across the expanse.

TURKISH NOVELIST DENOUNCES GOVERNMENT AT BOOK FAIR
By Motoko Rich

IHT
October 16, 2008

FRANKFURT: Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist and Nobel Prize laureate,
publicly and forcefully denounced the Turkish government for its
treatment of writers in a speech he gave at the opening ceremony of
the Frankfurt Book Fair on Tuesday evening as the president of Turkey
sat listening.

Every year, a nation is chosen to be guest of honor at the fair,
an annual rite of the international publishing industry, and this
year it is Turkey.

Hundreds of thousands of publishers, editors, agents and authors are
gathered here from 100 countries to talk about and negotiate deals
for upcoming books in what has become the most important annual event
on the book-publishing calendar.

At Tuesday’s opening ceremony in a packed auditorium, Pamuk spoke
quietly but intensely as Abdullah Gul, the president of Turkey,
sat in the audience.

"A century of banning and burning books, of throwing writers into
prison or killing them or branding them as traitors and sending them
into exile, and continuously denigrating them in the press — none of
this has enriched Turkish literature — it has only made it poorer,"
Pamuk said.

Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006, was the subject
of criminal charges of "insulting Turkishness" after giving a 2005
interview to magazine in which he condemned the mass killings of
Armenians in Turkey in World War I and the killing of Kurds by Turkey
in the 1980s. The charges were dropped, but many nationalists have
not forgiven Pamuk.

"The state’s habit of penalizing writers and their books is still very
much alive," Pamuk said in his speech. "Article 301 of the Turkish
penal code continues to be used to silence and suppress many other
writers, in the same way it was used against me; there are at this
moment hundreds of writers and journalists being prosecuted and found
guilty under this article."

When he was working on his latest novel, "Museum of Innocence,"
Pamuk said he used YouTube to research Turkish films and songs. Now,
he said that YouTube, along with many other domestic and international
Web sites, are blocked in Turkey "for political reasons."

President Gul, who spoke immediately following Pamuk, said that Turkey
was "really proud" of his Nobel Prize and the fact that Turkish
literature was being recognized more generally as well as at the
Frankfurt Book Fair.

He did not address Pamuk’s criticisms directly, but said that "today,
I can state with happiness that in Turkey, thanks to political
and economic reforms that have gradually and more intensively been
integrated," his nation is coming closer to fulfilling the conditions
necessary to join the European Union. "Although we have not been
fully successful and there is a lot yet to be done," he said, "If we
compare it to the situation before, we can say that in Turkey there
has indeed been a positive development."