ARTAK ABRAHAMIAN TAKES 3RD PLACE IN INTERNATIONAL JUDO TOURNAMENT HELD IN TEHRAN
Noyan Tapan
Dec 8, 2008
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN. The International Judo Tournament
finished on December 6 in Tehran. Four sportsmen from Armenia
took part in it. Artak Abrahamian (73 kg, Yerevan) performed most
successfully. He gained 4 victories, was defeated once, and took the
3rd place.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
THE US ROAD THROUGH TURKEY
The Monitor
December 8, 2008
The two countries share strategic concerns. They should work more
closely together.
E-mail a friend Print this Letter to the Editor Republish
ShareThisE-mail newsletters RSS To celebrate Barack Obama’s election
as the 44th US president, villagers in a remote province of Turkey
sacrificed 44 sheep. It was a small gesture in a faraway land, but
one with a big message: hope for a revived relationship.
Polls show this NATO ally and Middle East powerhouse holds opinions
of America that are among the lowest in the world. That’s mostly due
to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and related issues. The incoming Obama
administration would do well to repair ties with this secular Muslim
democracy, and take greater advantage of Turkey’s role in a tense
region where the countries’ interests overlap.
To Turkey’s north lie authoritarian Russia and the Caucasus states,
site of frozen and hot conflicts. To the east sit the energy-rich
Caspian Sea basin, Iran and its nuclear program, and, beyond that,
Afghanistan. Directly south are Iraq and Syria, two troubled states
in the region.
Ankara, the capital, has taken on the ambitious goal of "zero
problems" on its borders and is trying to become a neighborhood
troubleshooter. After Moscow rolled over Georgia in August, for
instance, Ankara proposed a regional dialogue, but Georgia wasn’t int
erested in talking to the Russian bear that nearly swallowed it whole.
Turkey has brought Syria and Israel together to negotiate over the
Golan Heights. Last week, it hosted the leaders of Pakistan and
Afghanistan for antiterrorism talks. It is at long last reaching out
to Armenia – despite a controversial history over the 1915 massacres
of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire. Now it’s offering to mediate
between the US and Iran, and has been elected to a temporary seat on
the UN Security Council – center stage for the Iran stalemate.
Turkey has offered its land for an alternative gas pipeline network
for Europe and the Middle East, has greatly increased trade with its
neighbors, and is opening about a dozen embassies in Africa.
Call this diplomatic and economic expansion "Ottoman Lite."
The US has much to gain from Turkey’s emerging role, including
a region-altering breakthrough in talks between Israel and Syria
that need a big push from a President Obama. And Turkey will be an
important player as the US pulls out of Iraq. Ankara has faulted
the US for not doing enough to halt attacks on Turkey from Kurdish
terrorists in northern Iraq.
Even if the two countries smooth over tensions, though, the road
ahead will be as hilly as the Turkish capital.
At US election time, Turkish television obsessed over the prospect
of the new US Congress passing a resolution – with Mr. Obama’s b
lessing – that recognizes the Armenian massacres as genocide. Turkey
staunchly denies the claim. Yet in focusing on this, Turkey makes the
genocide controversy America’s problem, when it’s really Turkey’s to
resolve. The obsession hints at other issues to work out, including
human rights abuses.
The US, on the other hand, must not expect Turkey to be the automatic
ally of cold-war days. Russia has become its largest trading partner,
and the Muslim party now in power feels a greater kinship with its
Muslim brothers in the region.
Turkey is attempting to balance its allegiance with the West with a
new attentiveness to its neighbors. It is a tricky balance indeed,
but one that can also benefit Washington.
VIVACell-MTS MAKES THE DREAMS OF 11 HOMELESS FAMILIES IN GYUMRI COME TRUE
Lragir.am
19:47:00 – 08/12/2008
AMD 93,370,438 allocated by Armenia’s leading mobile operator for
obtaining 11 apartments for the homeless people in Gyumri
One day before the 20th Anniversary of the 1988 earthquake,
VivaCell-MTS made the dreams of 11 homeless families in Gyumri come
true. The good will of an Armenian Company who felt that something
should be done was motivation enough to extend helping hands to 11
needy families who now moved to their simple, decent and affordable
apartments before the Armenian freezing winter started and to meet
the New Year with rebuilt hope and new dreams. Now they can raise
their children in safe and decent conditions.
"We dare to dream because we believe in the future of Armenia,
and we care for our nation", noted VivaCell-MTS General Manager
Ralph Yirikian.
AMD 93,370,438 allocated by Armenia’s leading mobile operator for
obtaining 11 apartments for the homeless people in Gyumri
KARABAKH MEDIATORS URGE ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN TO DRAFT ACCORD SOON
Day.Az
Dec 4 2008
Azerbaijan
The three countries mediating a peaceful solution to the territorial
dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan have urged the two to start
drafting an agreement soon.
It said that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel
Fried had issued a statement in Helsinki regarding the resolution of
the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. In the statement, France, Russia and
the USA, which are the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, called on
Armenia and Azerbaijan to use the "constructive and positive impulse"
that was created at the meeting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian
presidents in Moscow on 2 November, Day.az said.
"The co-chair countries call on the parties [to the conflict] to
conclude work on the basic principles of [conflict] resolution in
the coming months and begin drafting an agreement," Day.az quoted
the statement as saying.
The co-chair countries also called on the sides to put an end to
sniper shooting on the front line to prevent civilians and servicemen
being killed.
ARMENIA SETS UP AGENCY TO HELP PREVENT FINANCIAL CRISIS
Mediamax
Dec 4 2008
Armenia
Yerevan, 4 December: Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan stated
in Yerevan today that the government should carry out operative work
within the framework of the crisis-prevention program.
Mediamax reports that, speaking at the session of the government today,
Tigran Sargsyan stated that to coordinate the works, a corresponding
committee is set up, headed by the Prime Minister, and it will work
in an operative headquarters mode.
Prime Minister stated that the year of 2009 will be difficult and
will require hard work from the leadership of the country.
"December and January will be months of hard work: we should take
all programs, started in 2008, to their logical conclusion and get
ready to overcome negative consequences of the global financial and
economic crisis," Tigran Sargsyan stated.
The Prime Minister charged the ministries with summarizing the
proposals, received from entrepreneurs. Tigran Sargsyan stated that
the management of enterprises should present a clear program with
description of existing problems and proposals for state assistance
to overcome those problems. The government also expresses readiness
to help enterprises in elaboration of business-programs and render
assistance for their realization.
"In this case we do not rule out share participation of the government
in those enterprises. Due to this, we will receive levers for efficient
realization of programs," the Prime Minister stated.
According to him, the tools, proposed by the government, are very
flexible and diverse. "We expect that the private sector will also
make efforts to get ready to withstand negative consequences of the
crisis," Tigran Sargsyan stated.
TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS ARMENIAN, AZERBAIJANI COUNTERPARTS
Anadolu Agency
Dec 4 2008
Turkey
HELSINKI (A.A) -04.12.2008 -Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan
separately met Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian and
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in Helsinki on Thursday.
Babacan is currently in Helsinki to attend the 16th Ministerial Council
Meeting of the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE).
Foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met on Wednesday with
Russian, French and US executives, the co-chairmen of OSCE Minsk
group. Babacan’s talks with the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign
ministers assessed the results of this meeting.
OSCE Minsk group assumes a mediating role in talks aiming to achieve
a peaceful solution to the problem about Upper Karabakh.
OBAMA’S TURKISH PARTNERS
By Mustafa Akyol
Newsweek
Dec 6 2008
A democratic Turkey that has respect in Muslim capitals is exactly
what the West needs.
For years Ankara’s foreign policy was fixated on a few narrow
topics–how to handle the Greeks, the Kurds and Armenians–and Turkish
policymakers seemed unable to solve even these chronic problems, let
alone the problems of others. But these days Turkey has tackled such
regional concerns with a new gusto–making the first real headway
on the Cyprus issue in decades, for instance–while playing a far
larger role in global affairs. In May Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan’s government mediated indirect peace talks between
Syrian and Israeli officials in Istanbul. The talks are now ongoing,
and further meetings have reportedly been scheduled. Erdogan also
recently stepped forward to offer help to U.S. President-elect Barack
Obama to deal with Iran, which Turkey’s prime minister and many others
expect to be Obama’s biggest foreign-policy challenge. On November
11 Erdogan told The New York Times his government was willing to be
the mediator between the new U.S. administration and Tehran. "We are
the only capital that is trusted by both sides," he reiterated later
in Washington. "We are the ideal negotiator."
This surge of interest in becoming something of a global
peacemaker is in part the result of the ongoing process of Turkish
democratization. The nation’s old elite consisted of the more
isolationist Kemalists, the dedicated followers of Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk, who established a republic without democracy in 1923 to
westernize and secularize the nation. For many decades to come,
society remained divided between the dominant Kemalist center and
the more traditional periphery it kept under its thumb. But things
fundamentally changed after the election victories of Erdogan’s
Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002 and 2007. The "other
Turkey" was now out of the periphery and into power, and while it
proved to be more religious than the old elite, it also proved to be
more pro-Western, and more committed to the European Union accession
bid than its growingly xenophobic secular rivals.
This was not simply a convenient tactic, as some have argued. Turkey’s
conservative Muslims had been undergoing a silent reformation since the
1980s, as evidenced by the country’s growing "Islamic bourgeoisie,"
which sees its future in global markets, not Sharia courts. Ideas
about the compatibility of Islam and liberal democracy flourished,
as recently evidenced by headscarved women rallying in the streets
for civil liberties for all.
Meanwhile, Ahmet Davutoglu, an erudite scholar who became Erdogan’s
chief adviser, outlined a new foreign-policy vision. Turkey had
unwisely denied its cultural links with the Middle East for decades,
he argued, but the time had come to turn Turkey into a "soft power"
that exports peace, stability and growth in its region. Hence came the
rapprochement in recent years and months with Greece, Lebanon, Iraq,
Iraqi Kurdistan and most recently Armenia, where President Abdullah
Gul paid an ice-breaking visit in September.
Kemalist Turks dislike this "neo-Ottoman" approach, which prescribes
closer relations with other Muslim nations. When Erdogan greets his
Arab counterparts "in the name of God," they are horrified and argue
that the country’s secular principles are under threat. And to garner
support from Westerners who are concerned about political Islam,
for good reasons, they try to depict the AKP as Taliban in sheep’s
clothing. But, in fact, a democratic Turkey that has respect in Muslim
capitals, that can speak their language and that is willing to use this
leverage for peace and reconciliation is exactly what the West needs.
Some in the West fear this approach as well, taking notice of AKP’s
interests in Islam and the rampant anti-Americanism in Turkey, and
sometimes conflating and confusing the two. Yet that anti-American
wave is a reaction to the Iraq War and its aftermath. By empowering
the Kurds in the north, the post-Saddam era unleashed the deepest
of all Turkish fears: the emergence of a Greater Kurdistan. In other
words, anti-Americanism is almost a derivative of anti-Kurdism, and,
not too surprisingly, is strongest in the nationalist circles, which
include the Kemalists. These groups, represented by the two main
opposition parties, deride the AKP as American puppets and Kurdish
collaborators. A 2007 bestselling book, whose Kemalist author was
covertly financed by the military intelligence, even argues that both
Erdogan and former AKP member President Gul are actually covert Jews
who serve "the elders of Zion" by undermining Ataturk’s republic.
Turkey’s new elites are not covert Jews as some fringe Kemalists
fantasize, of course. But neither are they creeping Islamists as
smarter Kemalists portray. In fact they are Muslim democrats, who
can both take Turkey closer to becoming a true capitalist democracy
and inspire other Muslim nations to follow a similar route. For
sure, they need to combat ugly nationalism inside their borders and
take continued steps toward deepening liberal reforms. With such a
combination of sound domestic leadership and visionary foreign policy,
they would be ideal partners for the Obama administration in its own
effort to reach out to the troublesome actors in the Middle East.
Akyol is a columnist for Istanbul-based Hurriyet Daily News &
Economic Review.
TURKISH INTELLECTUALS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN OF APOLOGY TO ARMENIANS
Vatan
Dec 4 2008
Turkey
A group of intellectuals, which includes university faculty members
and journalists, is launching a signature campaign regarding the
Armenian deportations of 1915. The name of the campaign, which will
begin on the internet at the new year, is "I apologize."
The things that took place during the 1915 Armenian deportations,
which the Armenians term the "Medz Yeghen", or "Great Catastrophe,"
are coming onto the agenda once again with the signature campaign. Led
by Professor Ahmet Insel, Professor Baskin Oran, Dr Cengiz Aktar, and
journalist and writer Ali Bayramoglu, the campaign, which will begin
on the internet with the new year, is named "I apologize." The text of
the campaign includes the following: "My conscience does not accept
indifference towards the Great Disaster that the Ottoman Armenians
suffered in 1915, nor its denial today. I reject this injustice, share
for my own part the feelings and the pain of my Armenian brothers,
and I apologize to them." A different path from the usual campaigns
will be followed in the campaign, upon which agreement was reached only
after lengthy debate. The goal is to secure as much participation as
possible on the internet over a year. Professor Insel, from Galatasaray
University, describes the campaign as an individual stance in the face
of historical responsibility. Professor Insel said: "We citizens have
the right, independent of official policy, to express our own views
regarding the history of Turkey. The campaign should not be turned
into grist for politics." Dr Cengiz Aktar, a faculty member in the
Economic and Administrative Sciences Faculty of Bahcesehir University,
also spoke with Vatan regarding the campaign.
[Q] How did the campaign come about?
[A] We set out on the basis of the view that the time had come, and
indeed was overdue, for a campaign that stressed the individual, and
individual sensitivity. We aim at making it a very broad campaign,
probably at the new year.
[Q] What is the goal of the campaign?
[A] The things that befell the Armenians are phenomena that are very
little known in Turkey, but were incited, and then people have been
made to forget them. Turks have generally heard about these issues
from their elders, from their grandparents. But the issue has never
been able to become an objective historical narrative. For this
reason, a great many people in Turkey today believe in complete good
faith that nothing happened to the Armenians. The view that this
was a very secondary issue, and indeed proceeded in the form of
reciprocal massacres, and was a sort of "normal affair" explained
by the conditions of World War I, has been repeated endlessly for
years now by official history. But the realities are, unfortunately,
very different. Perhaps there is one sole fact, and that is that,
in the final analysis, there are no longer any Armenians in Anatolia,
but the other elements, the Turks and the Kurds, are still here. The
subject of this campaign is individuals. This is a voice coming from
the conscience of the individual. Those who are sorry will apologize,
while those who are not will not.
[Q] Why is an apology being made?
[A] An apology is being made because throughout all this time, and
it will be almost 100 years, it has been impossible to mention this
topic or speak of it openly.
A First From France: Armenian Draft Not Being Brought Before Senate
The government in France has, for the first time, openly come out
against a draft law being put onto the agenda of the Senate that would
count rejection of the Armenian claims regarding the 1915 events
as a crime. The Minister Responsible for Local Administrations,
Alain Marleix, responding to an oral parliamentary question from
Socialist Party Deputy Rene Rouquet in the Assembly, said that the
government does not want to put the draft law, which was passed in
the Parliament in 2006, onto the agenda of the Senate. The French
Minister called for "parliamentary deputies to avoid interfering in
the work of historians" and pointed out that Turkey would react if
the draft were to be adopted.
GALA REWARDS PEACE PROJECTS
Sports Features Communications
.php?section=olympic-article-view&title=Gala%2 0rewards%20peace%20projects&id=44600
Dec 6 2008
UK
MONACO: Sport’s unique power to cut through barriers of politics,
religion, race and creed has been evidenced by a Peace and Sport gala
in which headline contributions were singled out in front a 300-strong
audience representing sporting, political, commercial and civic life.
The awards were presented at the International Peace and Sport Forum
by Prince Albert II of Monaco, patron of Peace and Sport, and by the
organisation’s founder and president Joel Bouzou.
The Image of the Year award was presented to Turkey and Armenia
for the photograph of the historic handshake between the countries’
state presidents, Abdullah Gul and Serge Sarkissian, at a World Cup
tie between the countries in Yerevan in September. The moment marked
the end of nearly two decades of diplomatic silence.
Prince Albert presented the award jointly to Armen Grigorian, Armenian
Minister of Youth and Sport, and to Mahmut Ozgener, president of the
Turkish football federation. Bouzou and David Tomatis, chief executive
officer of Sportel, described the photograph as "a symbol of hope for
two communities whose history has been marked by hostility and pain."
An award for the best peace project from an international sports
federation went to Judo for Peace, a commission created by the
International Judo Federation. The award was received on their behalf
by Marius Vizer, the IJF president, and by Jan Erick Scholtz, president
of Judo for Peace.
Organisational benefits
The initiative seeks to teach the practice and values of judo to
disadvantaged young people and thousands have alreadt benefited
from the project. Peace and Sport supports one of its projects in
Cote d’Ivoire.
A prize for Sports Event of the Year went to Rally Ireland which, in
November 2007, heightened cross-border co-operation between Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland through a joint organizing
committee. The award was presented to John Naylor, president of Motor
Sport Ireland and to Ronnie Trouton, president of the Association of
Northern Ireland Car Clubs.
The Non-Governmental Organisation of the Year prize was presented to
Serge Betsen’s Les Enfants de Biemassy – a project designed initially
to popularise rugby among the disadvantaged youth in Cameroon and
which expanded to preach the values of social integration, personal
fulfilment and educational access.
Former Olympic champions who attended the presentations gala included
Sergey Bubka, Dick Fosbury, Wilson Kipketer and Bradley McGee.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
OFFICIAL SAYS ARMENIA READY TO PARTICIPATE IN REGIONAL PROJECTS
ANS TV
Dec 4 2008
Azerbaijan
Armenia is ready to take part in regional projects being implemented
in the South Caucasus, Gagik Grigoryan, the national secretary in
Armenia for the Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA),
has said, as quoted by the private Azerbaijani TV station ANS.
Grigoryan was visiting the Azerbaijani capital Baku on 4 December
to attend a ministerial conference of the TRACECA Intergovernmental
Commission.
"When the transport corridor was being created within the framework of
the TRACECA programme we proposed reconstructing the transportation
system in the Caucasus. We are happy to take part in any project
and we have always wanted this. We want to integrate more into the
world economy and want to look forward from the viewpoint of regional
development. I think our region has a very developed infrastructure,
however, an effective use of it is more important. I would like to
thank the Azerbaijani government, the Transport Ministry and the
European Commission for enabling us to attend this conference. We
will try to make our contribution to this conference," ANS quoted
Grigoryan as saying.