Month: December 2008

Azerbaijan Business Center, Azerbaijan
Dec 20 2008

Baku hopes that Turkish authorities not to follow tastes of supporters
of action `Armenians, Forgive Us’

Baku, Fineko/abc.az. Baku hopes that action `Armenians, Forgive Us’
that has been spinning up in Turkey lately will not lead to making of
decisions at the official level.

Nizami Jafarov, the chairman of the Milli Majlis Permanent Commission
on Cultural Affairs, says that the action is certainly quite a biased
event.

`The cause of behavior of the action initiators lies in ignorance of
their people, their nation and at the same time unwillingness to see
real events, tragedy in Khojali, events in Nagorno Garabagh,’ Jafarov
considers.

He reminded that simultaneously another wave of the action opponents
started in Turkey.

`Our ambassadors have already voiced protest on the occasion,’ Jafarov
emphasized.

The MP does not think it expedient that the Azerbaijani parliament
should pass any statement concerning the action.

`There is clear position of both parliaments of Turkey and Azerbaijan
and our governments. Acceding of certain number of people to this
initiative cannot serve a reason for making a decision at the official
level,’ Jafarov believes.

The initiator of the appeal with apologies towards Armenians is
Turkish scientist Chengiz Aktar who is the supporter of rapprochement
between Turkey and European Union. On 15 December the appeal under the
name `Armenians, Forgive Us’ was placed in the Internet and gathered
more than 8,000 signatures within a day.

More than 60 former ambassadors of Turkey expressed their protest
against this campaign pointing out that it is `fraught with negative
consequences for national interests’.

At the same time one more campaign entitled `We Await Apologies’
started in Turkey as well. It was created a special website which was
placed photographs of Khojali genocide, names and data of Turkish
diplomats assassinated following acts of terrorism by Armenian
terrorists.

In its turn, Azerbaijan-Turkish Historical Research Fund (ATAF)
established to study the Armenian problem in the history of Azerbaijan
and Turkey and bringing real information to the whole world, came
forward with a statement saying that today the campaign organized in
Turkey under the veil of democracy can cause grave damage to the
future and security of the unity and equality of the country, by
dividing people into groups artificially.

`ATAF reproaches the persons who launched this campaign and regrets
that these persons are lacking enough knowledge of the issue of
Armenian-Turkish relations. This confirms once more the necessity to
realize enlightening works planned by the Fund,’ ATAF informs.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

New York Times, NY
Dec 20 2008

Armenia: Former Official Goes on Trial

By REUTERS
Published: December 19, 2008

A former Armenian foreign minister and six other opposition figures
went on trial in the capital, Yerevan, on Friday on charges of seeking
to overthrow the government during protests in March. Ten people died
when protests against the results of presidential elections turned
violent. The opposition says that the trial of the former foreign
minister, Alexander Arzumanyan, and his co-defendants is politically
motivated and that the government has done little to investigate
allegations of police culpability.

Foreign Affairs Magazine
Dec 20 2008

Change They Can Believe In

To Make Israel Safe, Give Palestinians Their Due
Walter Russell Mead

Foreign Affairs, January/February 2009

Summary: If it hopes to bring peace to the Middle East, the Obama
administration must put Palestinian politics and goals first.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD is Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for
U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Reviving the Middle East peace process is the worst kind of necessary
evil for a U.S. administration: at once very necessary and very
evil. It is necessary because the festering dispute between the
Israelis and the Palestinians in a volatile, strategically vital
region has broad implications for U.S. interests and because the
security of Israel is one of the American public’s most enduring
international concerns. It is evil because it is costly and
difficult. The price of engagement is high, the chances for a solution
are mixed at best, and all of the available approaches carry
significant political risks. A string of poor policy choices by the
Bush administration made a bad situation significantly worse. It
inflamed passions. It weakened the position of moderate Israelis and
Palestinians alike. And it reduced the U.S. government’s credibility
as a broker.

Even without the damaging aftermath of eight misspent years, the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute will not be easily settled. Many people
have tried to end it; all have failed. Direct negotiations between
Arabs and Jews after World War I foundered. The British tried to
square the circle of competing Palestinian and Jewish aspirations from
the time of the 1917 Balfour Declaration until the ignominious
collapse of their mandate in 1948. Since then, the United Nations, the
United States, and the international community have struggled with the
problem without managing to solve it. No issue in international
affairs has taxed the ingenuity of so many leaders or captured so much
attention from around the world. Winston Churchill failed to solve it;
the "wise men" who built NATO and the Marshall Plan handed it down,
still festering, to future generations. Henry Kissinger had to content
himself with incremental progress. The Soviet Union crumbled on Ronald
Reagan’s watch, but the Israeli-Palestinian dispute survived him. Bill
Clinton devoted much of his tenure to picking at this Gordian knot. He
failed. George W. Bush failed at everything he tried. This is a
dispute that deserves respect; old, inflamed, and complex, it does not
suffer quick fixes.

As Kissinger has famously observed, academic politics are so bitter
because the stakes are so small. In one sense, this is true of the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute as well: little land is involved. The
Palestine of the British mandate, today divided into Israel proper and
the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, was the size of
New Jersey. In 1919, its total population was estimated at
651,000. Today, the territory counts about 5.4 million Jews and about
5.2 million Arabs. Two diasporas in other parts of the world — some
7.7 million Jews and 5.2 million Palestinians — believe that they,
too, are entitled to live there.

But the conflict is about more than land; many people on both sides
feel profoundly that a compromise would be morally wrong. A
significant minority of Israelis not only retain a fervent attachment
to the land that makes up the Eretz Yisrael of the Bible but also
believe that to settle and possess it is to fulfill a divine
decree. For these Jews, it is a sin to surrender land that God has
given them. Although most Israelis do not share this belief with
dogmatic rigor, they would be reluctant to obstruct the path of those
seeking to redeem the Promised Land.

It may be difficult for outsiders to understand the Palestinians’
yearning for the villages and landscapes lost during the birth of
Israel in 1948. The sentiment is much more than nostalgia. The
Palestinians’ national identity took shape in the course of their
struggle with Zionism, and the mass displacement of Palestinians
resulting from Israel’s War of Independence, or the nakba
("catastrophe" in Arabic), was the fiery crucible out of which the
modern Palestinian consciousness emerged. The dispossessed
Palestinians, especially refugees living in camps, are seen as the
bearers of the most authentic form of Palestinian identity. The
unconditional right of Palestinians to return to the land and homes
lost in the nakba is the nation’s central demand. For many, although
by no means all, Palestinians, to give up the right of return would be
to betray their people. Even those who do not see this claim as an
indispensable goal of the national movement are uneasy about giving it
up.

A TALE OF TWO PEOPLES

The conflict is not just fiendishly hard to resolve; history and
culture make it difficult for both the Israelis and the Palestinians
to make the necessary choices. The two peoples had very different
experiences in the twentieth century, but both have been left with a
fractured national consciousness and institutions too weak to make or
enforce political decisions.

For the Israelis, determining the relationship between religion,
ethnicity, and citizenship is a perpetually difficult question. Is the
return of the Jews to their ancestral home a basically secular
objective with religious overtones, like the goals of other
independence movements among minorities in the Ottoman Empire,
including the Greeks and the Armenians? Or is it a fundamentally
religious project? Other countries face similar questions, but the
issue is particularly acute for Israel given its position as the
world’s only Jewish state.

Another complication is that although the Jews are an old people, the
Israelis are a young one. Jews have come to Israel from very different
societies and cultures and from all over the world, bringing very
different expectations, and they have established a political society
as varied and fragmented as their respective histories. Ashkenazim and
Sephardim, Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox, secular socialists and secular
liberals, post-Soviet Russians: this diversity — with the tensions it
brings heightened by the pressure of Israel’s existential anxieties —
is reflected in the country’s political landscape. A predictable
combination of weak governments and explosive politics hinders
decisive official action: more than most, Israel’s leaders must keep
looking over their shoulders to gauge public opinion.

For complete article, go to
105/walter-russell-mead/change-they-can-believe-in .html

Georgiandaily, NY
Dec 20 2008

RUSSIA’S STRATEGIC CHALLENGES IN THE SOUTH CAUCASUS: AZERBAIJAN MOVES
CENTER STAGE

December 20, 2008
By Roger N. McDermott

Russia has emerged from the war with Georgia in August 2008 with
considerable long term strategic challenges, both within the South
Caucasus and in its dealings with the United States.

Whilst Moscow indulges in self congratulation over the failure of
Georgia and Ukraine to secure a timetable for NATO membership,
believing it has gained a victory over a divided and weakened Alliance
and President Dmitry Medvedev expresses his hope that the new Obama
administration in Washington will presage compromise over missile
defence, Russia will face growing problems in reconciling its
self-generated image of resurgence with economic downturn and lack of
support from close allies in the CIS.

BACKGROUND:

Moscow’s wider diplomatic efforts in the South Caucasus have yielded
mixed results. The declaration on the Nagorno-Karabakh resolution
which was signed by the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian presidents
on November 2 urges a political solution to the conflict. In Moscow,
this was portrayed as a diplomatic triumph partly connected with its
victory in August and its newfound penchant to promote peaceful
conflict resolution. Amongst its neighbours in the South Caucasus,
these views are less credible. Azerbaijani President Aliyev, for
instance, according to Azad Azarbaycan TV believes the document showed
that the conflicting parties are Armenia and Azerbaijan: an important
concession, since Yerevan has maintained that it is an issue between
Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Moreover, interviewed on Italy’s Rai International TV channel on
November 27, Aliyev said that despite the Moscow agreement, Azerbaijan
reserves the right to resolve the dispute by force, if necessary. `No
one can find in that (Azerbaijani-Armenian-Russian) declaration a
commitment by Azerbaijan to refrain from a military option (of
resolving the conflict). The fact that it says that we think a
political settlement must be in place does not mean that we refuse our
fundamental rights,’ Aliyev explained. In fact, he used the
opportunity to highlight the fragility of peace in the South Caucasus,
which had been underscored as a result of the war in Georgia last
August, though he expressed his preference to see a political
solution, questioning the international community’s intentions or
interest in this. `Armenia has been violating the Azerbaijani people’s
fundamental rights for over two decades and nothing is happening. We
hope that attention to the issue will increase, especially after the
latest developments in the Caucasus which showed how fragile peace
is,’ Aliyev said. Despite Russian protestations otherwise, the South
Caucasus is no less volatile after the Georgia conflict.

The transit of military cargoes to Armenia, which has used Georgian
territory to do this since 1994, has been made more complex in the
aftermath of the August conflict. This not only has implications for
the transit of Russian military hardware and supplies for Russia’s
base in Armenia, since Georgia will not permit this to occur using its
territory, it also affects Yerevan’s procurement options. For example,
should Armenia purchase tanks from Ukraine, these would now be subject
to Armenia-Georgia bilateral cooperation, as the tanks would be
shipped to the Georgian port of Poti and then by rail to Armenia. In
this sense, Russia has inadvertently boosted the strategic importance
of Georgia within the region. The alternative supply route is through
Azerbaijan, but this is subject to longer term fluctuations, and of
course Baku can monitor the exact nature of all Russian military
cargoes to the base in Armenia. This will remain problematic for
Russia’s MoD.

IMPLICATIONS:

In late November, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry raised serious
reservations over a recent bilateral defence cooperation agreement
reached between Armenia and Georgia. The terms of that agreement
appear to give Armenia transit rights through Georgia’s territory for
non-Russian military cargo. Additionally, the agreement foresees
Armenia sending its tanks for maintenance to the Tbilisi tank repair
facility, something Baku considers could be a potential security
concern for Azerbaijan. While this situation remained unresolved,
Tbilisi, buoyed by the reaffirmation of NATOs support for its eventual
membership of the Alliance in the aftermath of the NATO foreign
ministers’ meeting in Brussels 2-3 December 2008, carried out a
government reshuffle designed to bring more experienced politicians
into the Georgian government. Baku has also stressed its strategic
partnership with Tbilisi as a way of ensuring a favourable resolution
of concerns over the Armenia-Georgia defence cooperation
agreement. Tbilisi, on the other hand, has positioned itself well to
raise its own objections about Azerbaijani territory being used as a
transit route for Russian military cargo at a time when Russia is an
occupying power on Georgian territory. Moscow has limited leverage in
these issues.

Similarly, NATO’s role may be changing in the South Caucasus, but it
has hardly relinquished its interests as the Kremlin would like to see
happen. Turkey’s embassy in Baku organized meetings at NATO
headquarters on November 17-18 2008, attended by delegations from
Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. Although a wide range of issues were
discussed, the central focus was how to improve the delivery of NATOs
Individual Partnership Action Plans (IPAP). This presaged the mooting
of the idea at the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in December to
develop annual action plans, rather than concentrating on the more
controversial Membership Action Plans (MAP), which were denied to
Georgia and Ukraine. Moscow, contrary to the statements made by its
political leadership on the issue of NATO `backing down’ on the MAP
issue for Georgia and Ukraine, is in reality powerless to prevent the
Alliance from developing more targeted and systemic assistance for its
partners in the South Caucasus.

Azerbaijan’s first phase of IPAP, endorsed in April 2005, was
completed in January 2008. Since April 2008, talks have centered on
moving the second phase IPAP beyond its current draft stage. NATO
would like to have the new IPAP agreement with Baku published in full
in order to promote transparency and defuse unnecessary speculation on
Alliance assistance to Azerbaijan’s armed forces. NATO wants to
further support the transformation of the Azerbaijani military
education system and strengthen the professionalism of sergeants
amongst other tasks in order to help promote bringing military
training and standards into line with NATO standards.

NATO has pressed for the formation of a joint headquarters in
Azerbaijan’s military structures, which Baku has agreed to implement
by late 2009 or early 2010. These advances combined with an undoubted
interest in further modifying IPAP to suit its needs, suggest that
Baku is open to closer cooperation with the Alliance. Baku needs
assistance in strengthening these aspects of its armed forces, which
NATO members are able to provide. NATO is encountering an appetite for
`graduated relations’ with the Alliance amongst its partners in the
South Caucasus.

CONCLUSIONS:

Russia is subject to the impact of the global financial crisis,
shoring up the ruble, flight of foreign capital since the war in
August, and faces the prospect of a continued slide of world oil
prices. It has committed to building new military bases in Abkhazia
and South Ossetia which will be expensive and an additional security
and financial drain on the Russian state. Equally, its recognition of
the `independence’ of the two breakaway regions in Georgia has not
elicited any support from its CIS neighbors. NATO’s cooperation with
Azerbaijan and Georgia ` far from being minimized ` is likely to
witness deeper assistance individually tailored to the host country
needs and promoting defense and security sector reform, while
stimulating further Euro-Atlantic integration. Russian power, after
the war in Georgia, may be more illusory than real.

AUTHORS’ BIO: Roger N McDermott is a an Honorary Senior Research
Fellow, Department of Politics and International Relations, University
of Kent at Canterbury (UK) and Senior Fellow in Eurasian Military
Studies, Jamestown Foundation, Washington DC. He specializes in the
militaries and security issues in Russia, Central Asia and the South
Caucasus.

URL:

tent&task=view&id`04&Itemid=132

Associated Press Worldstream
December 19, 2008 Friday 7:12 PM GMT

Armenian election violence trial begins

YEREVAN Armenia

A former foreign minister and three lawmakers have gone on trial for
their role in riots that broke out in the Armenian capital after the
February presidential election.

Demonstrators protesting alleged vote fraud clashed with police in
Yerevan, leaving 10 people dead, hundreds injured and prompting a
sweeping state of emergency.

Prosecutors have charged ex-Foreign Minister Alexander Arzumanian,
three parliament members and three others in connection with the
violence.

Western observers gave an overall positive assessment of the vote, but
noted serious flaws. Serge Sarkisian, an ally of outgoing President
Robert Kocharian, won the election.

The trial is being closely watched by Armenia’s political elite, as
well as foreign observers.

Interfax, Russia
Dec 19 2008

Armenian government afraid of stronger opposition – Ter-Petrosian

MOSCOW Dec 19

Armenia’s ex-president Levon Ter- Petrosian has dismissed an ongoing
trial over opposition members, whom the authorities accuse of staging
mass riots and a coup attempt, as "political reprisals."

"The authorities are doing everything possible to shoulder their
responsibility for their own crimes – I mean the usurpation of power
through a rigged vote and orders to open fire on peaceful
demonstrators -onto the opposition. The investigation has deliberately
fabricated charges and the court has upheld them cynically and
violating all possible procedural canons," Ter-Petrosian said in an
interview with Russia’s Kommersant newspaper published on Friday.

Asked to assess the objectivity of the trial, the former president
said that "any impartial court would smash all of these charges."

"However, the courts have been ordered to punish, and they are
fulfilling this order "with dignity". All of their guilty verdicts are
groundless," he said.

"The authorities fear that the nationwide opposition movement will
grow stronger. They are using exclusively repressive methods. To all
appearances, they realize how much society hates them. But they do not
see any other methods to remain in power. But this position is very
short-sighted," the former president said.

Only a new election is capable of settling Armenia’s profound
political crisis, he said.

Commenting on the fate of election headquarters chief Alexander
Arzumanian, Ter-Petrosian said that "Arzumanian and the remaining six
defendants are accused of usurping power and organizing mass riots
during which people died." "However, the indictment offers no
evidence," he said.

"The true "guilt" of these people is only that they tried to fight for
the restoration of the constitutional order through peaceful
protests. But the authorities responded by using violence and bloody
reprisals. I would like to stress once again that all these cases were
gravely fabricated," the ex-president said.

The Armenian authorities have failed to fully honor PACE’s Resolutions
1609 and 1620 to ensure freedom of speech and freedom to hold rallies
and assemblies, he said.

"The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s appropriate
commission disagrees with it. It took a decision yesterday to suggest
stripping Armenia’s PACE delegation of its vote. The authorities are
simply imitating the implementation of these resolutions, seeking to
mislead European organizations and to avoid possible sanctions. But it
looks like that the international community’s patience is running
thin," Ter-Petrosian said.

The democratic situation in the country is "worse today than it was
before the elections," the former president said. Before them,
"Armenia had never had political prisoners and political show-trials,"
he added.

Armenia’s opposition led by Ter-Petrosian refused to recognize the
outcome of the country’s February 19, 2008, presidential elections and
staged large-scale protests. Ten people were killed and more than 250
injured when opposition members clashed with police on March 1.

tm nb

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Turkish Daily News
Dec 19 2008

APOLOGY A STEP TO ‘COMING TO GRIPS WITH GENOCIDE,’ ARMENIAN GROUP SAYS

A leading U.S. Armenian group late Wednesday said a move by a group of
Turkish intellectuals to collectively apologize for World War I-era
killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire effectively meant the
beginning of a process that would lead to Turkey facing "its genocidal
past."

"An irreversible trend has commenced in Turkey. Over 12,000 people in
Turkey want history to be recorded truthfully, having already signed
the Internet-based petition apologizing for what they call the ‘great
catastrophe’ that befell the Armenians of Ottoman Turkey in 1915,"
said Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of
America, or AAA.

"This public apology is a first step in that direction and will
inevitably lead to Turkey coming to grips with its genocidal past,"
Ardouny said, according to an AAA statement.

However, Cengiz Aktar, widely considered the mastermind behind the
petition, told the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review that the
purpose of the petition was not about genocide. "Let anyone say what
they will, this is not a campaign about the genocide debate." "This is
about private individuals, citizens, acting according to the voice of
their conscience, and apologizing for the last 90 years this topic was
not even discussed," said Aktar, a Bahcesehir University
academic. Pointing out that the topic had always been a taboo, but
still so far 13,500 signatories have broken it, he said. "It has never
been discussed like this before. Next time it comes up, everybody
should take into account the 13,500 people who feel this way."

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it clear Wednesday he would
not join the apology effort, and said, "I personally do not support
this campaign. If there was a crime, then those who committed it can
offer an apology. My nation, my country has no such issue."

More than 60 former ambassadors, other diplomats and some lawmakers
have also denounced the apology campaign.

Despite this, Ardouny said, "Momentum is building and support
continues to increase dramatically. Within a few hours of the
apology’s release, over 2,500 people added their signatures and made
encouraging comments."

He said U.S. President-elect Barack Obama pledged to recognize the
Armenian killings as genocide if elected president.

Turkey has warned that any such recognition by the United States will
hurt bilateral relations in a major and lasting way.

[HH] New leader at House

In another development, the Armenian caucus in the U.S. House of
Representatives, a powerful lobby of pro-Armenian lawmakers, has
selected Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, as its next Republican
co-chair.

Kirk will replace Joe Knollenberg, a Republican from Michigan, who
lost the Nov. 4 congressional election in his district to his
Democratic rival.

Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, continues to be the
Armenian caucus’ Democratic co-chair.

"After 20 years of working with the Armenian-American community to
advance U.S.-Armenia issues, I am honored and excited to serve
alongside congressman Pallone as co-chair of the Caucus on Armenian
Issues," Kirk said.

"The Caucus on Armenian Issues is well-known for its work to
strengthen the U.S.-Armenia relationship and recognize the Armenian
genocide," he said.

Pro-Armenian lawmakers are expected to introduce a fresh resolution
calling for U.S. recognition of the Armenian killings as genocide
shortly after the new Congress takes office Jan. 6

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
December 19, 2008 Friday

NEW YORK TO HOST TURKISH DIASPORA ORGANIZATIONS CONFERENCE

Baku 19 December

An international conference of Turkish Diaspora organizations is
scheduled to be held in New York next May, Adil Baghirov, CEO of the
organization US Azeris Network, told AzerTAc reporter. He noted his
organization is based in California, a home to the largest Armenian
community outside Armenia. It is very important to acquaint the world
with history and ideology of Azerbaijan. Let everybody know that
Azerbaijan was the first ever democracy in the Muslim world, and was
the country to grant women the right to vote even before it happened
in Europe, Baghirov said. US Azeris Network was established in 2006

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
December 19, 2008 Friday

ARMENIAN DIASPORA EXPRESSES CONCERN ABOUT STRENGTHENING OF AZERBAIJANI
DIASPORA`S POSITION

Baku 19 December

Armenian Diaspora expresses concern about strengthening of Azerbaijani
Diaspora`s position throughout the world, Head of State Committee on
Work with Diaspora Nazim Ibrahimov said at the meeting Azerbaijan –
the East`s Gateway to the World.

According to Ibrahimov, the Azerbaijani Diaspora operates based on
ideological tactics across the world.

Our Diaspora is very sensible on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The
fact that the Diaspora`s position has strengthened will contribute to
the dispute`s settlement, said Nazim Ibrahimov.

Moj News Agency, Iran
December 20, 2008 Saturday

Iran, Armenia to Expand Agricultural Ties

Iran and Armenia could cooperate in the fields of agricultural
technologies exchange, animal husbandry, veterinary, leather, hide,
wool, live and frozen fish and desalination of the salty soils,
Mohammad Reza Eskandari said. Iran can offer technical helps to
Armenia for saffron cultivation, he said announcing readiness to
export agricultural technologies and nitrogen fertilizer to the
neighboring country. He also asked for formation of joint work groups
on animal husbandry and technical, engineering, farming and
horticulture fields. Referring to Iran`s valuable experiences in water
field he also announced readiness to expand cooperation in irrigation,
water desalination and watershed management. The Islamic Republic of
Iran has achieved modern technology of caviar production by cesarean
way, he said adding that based on the way the sturgeon fish will be
returned to water to continue its life. 2008/12/20