Month: February 2012

RULING REPUBLICAN PARTY COMMENTS ON COALITION PARTNER’S RECENT MOVE

news.am
February 06, 2012 | 16:59

YEREVAN. – Ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) MPs consider
coalition member Prosperous Armenia Party’s (PAP) recent actions as a
PR move, violation of coalition agreements.

The ruling coalition’s Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) Parliamentary
Faction did not take part in National Assembly (NA) voting on the bill
concerning limitations to financial operations, and thus PAP
“torpedoed” the passing of the bill.

“It is a violation of coalition agreements. I believe the bill was
discussed very seriously and there could be no conflict of interests.

It was an anti-corruption bill, besides, a political team releases a
statement prior to being absent from the voting,” head of RPA
parliamentary group Galust Sahakyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

PRESIDENT HOPES FRENCH GENOCIDE LAW NOT TO TAKE EFFECT

News.Az
Mon 06 February 2012 14:09 GMT | 14:09 Local Time

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has met a delegation of French
senators, led by Nathalie Goulet, head of the France-Azerbaijan
working group.

The head of state thanked Goulet and the other senators for what he
described as their fair position during the French Senate’s discussion
of a draft law criminalizing the denial of Armenian claims of genocide,
APA reports.

The president described the law as an initiative that distorts
history, runs counter to democracy and freedom of speech and is based
on false and faked reports. He expressed the hope that it would not
come into effect.

A group of 72 French senators at the end of January asked the country’s
Constitutional Council to block the new law.

Goulet said that she and the other senators would do their best to
develop relations with Azerbaijan during their visit.

The visiting delegation includes another five – Sylvie Goy-Chavent,
Jean-Marie Bockel, Herve Maurey, Andre Reichardt and Jeanny Lorgeoux.

Big Body and Small Soul

Naira Hayrumyan

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 19:04:41 – 04/02/2012

The arrest of Haik Gevorgyan who is charged with running down an
unknown person is an occasion to start looking for the soul in the
giant body of the Police. In some people, the soul fills up the body,
making the person generous, and this person is able to forgive the
weaknesses of other people, and admit one’s own mistakes, and most
importantly to recognize the rights of other people.

However, the search found a tiny soul in the body which is able to
respond to others’ rights with a truncheon hidden behind its back.

It was a miserable sight to see the police officer who tried to
justify Haik Gevorgyan’s arrest in a press conference. He did not say
anything but his eyes conveyed that he had been told to go there and
tell the lie.

The officers pay for the soul of the boss. It is not a pleasure for
them to charge someone with something, knowing that their boss simply
wanted to teach someone a lesson.

A mean person takes up the truncheon hidden behind one’s back whenever
no other arguments are left, when one has nothing to tell the
reporters and when one thinks that God has given him more rights than
others without an obvious reason.

However, only a person with a big body and a small soul can think so
who contains nothing but selfishness and revenge.

Ha’aretz, Israel
Feb 5 2012

History in black and white

The family of Armenian refugee Elia Kahvedjian is fighting to preserve
his legacy: thousands of the finest photographs ever taken of
Palestine at the beginning of the last century.

By Nir Hasson

On the counter of the small photography shop Photo Elia in the Old
City of Jerusalem lies an early 20th century picture of the Western
Wall, which appears squeezed among the homes of the Mughrabi Quarter
that no longer exists. To contemporary Israeli eyes, there is
something striking about the scene of worshippers: Women and men are
praying together in public.

Another photograph shows the flight of the German Zeppelin here in
1931. The gigantic airship hovers in black and white like a strange
UFO above the Old City. In a third picture, large sailboats are seen
in the Yarkon estuary; in a fourth, a European-style clock tower rises
above the Jaffa gate and in a fifth the Kapulsky chain of cafes is
seen in its humble beginnings: a small coffee wagon with a sign that
reads “Kapulsky” at the edge of Jerusalem’s Zion Square.

The pictures are part of a collection of about 3,000 photographs taken
by Elia Kahvedjian, a refugee of the Armenian genocide and one of the
greatest photographers in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 20th
century. The pictures, which had been hidden away for 40 years, were
rediscovered 25 years ago and serve to help researchers and
aficionados of Jerusalem probe its past. Thus, for example, the
architects who reconstructed the Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter
(destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948 and rebuilt in 2010 ) were guided
by Kahvedjian’s pictures – as were the Antiquities Authority
researchers who wanted to reconstruct elements of the city’s walls and
gates.

Death march

The only certain fact that family members know about Kahvedjian is
that he was born in the region of Urfa in Eastern Turkey. They do not
know his date of birth or even his original name. Eli Kahvedjian, who
was named after his grandfather, tells that the elder Kahvedjian was
separated from his mother when he was a young boy, and did not even
know his surname. “At an orphanage they asked him what his surname was
and he didn’t’ know, so they asked him: ‘What does your father sell in
his shop?’ He said ‘coffee’ so they called him Kahvedjian,” recalls
the grandson, noting that “kahve” means coffee in Turkish.

“He went with his mother on the death march (the Turkish army marched
masses of Armenian civilians to desert regions of southern Turkey).
“His mother thought his life would be better if she gave him away. By
chance, a Kurdish man passed by them and agreed to take the child, but
sold him as a slave. In his new life Elia was called Abdu and he
operated the bellows for a blacksmith. One day the blacksmith got
married again and the new wife did not want Elia so he was thrown into
the street where he lived from begging,” continues Eli Kahvedjian.

“One day a man came up to him and offered him food, The man took him
into a cave and by chance Elia lost his balance, fell on the floor and
felt that the floor was full of human skulls. He realized he was in
danger and started to run away. The kidnapper threw a sword at him and
wounded him in the leg. Until the day he died he had a scar there.
When I tell this today I get the shivers,” says the grandson.

In the end, Kahvedjian was saved by an American aid organization that
brought tens of thousands of orphans out of Turkey to the Middle East.
Kahvedjian entered an orphanage in Nazareth when he was about 10 or 11
years old, the family estimates. There he was exposed to photography
for the first time, when he served as a porter for one of the teachers
at the orphanage who also worked as a photographer.

Eventually he moved to Jerusalem where he lived in a sort of housing
project for orphans. He started working for the Hananya Brothers, a
well-known Christian family that ran a photography shop adjacent to
the place known today as Israel Defense Forces Square in the center of
the city. When the brothers wanted to close up shop he took out a
large loan and bought it. He very quickly won commercial success.

His grandson believes the explanation of this surprising success lies
in a certain photograph he found a few months ago, in which the
grandfather is seen in a group portrait of the Jerusalem Order of the
Freemasons – a surprising discovery to the family. “Clearly someone
high up helped him but it’s strange that he kept this a secret. His
relationship with us was pretty close,” he says with a smile, hinting
that his grandfather had connections with the British authorities by
means of the Masons. The help from “above” was manifested in projects
Kahvedjian photographed for the British.

He received further help two days before the outbreak of the War of
Independence, relates the grandson. “A British officer came to him and
told him: ‘Get rid of your things and get out of here.’ He took his
negatives to a storeroom in the Armenian Quarter and closed the shop.”

Kahvedjian fled to the Old City and by 1949 he had opened the small
shop in the Christian Quarter that remains there to this day.

Hidden treasures from the storeroom

The thousands of negatives that were hidden in 1948 came to light
again only in 1987, when the family put the storeroom in order.
Eventually the family realized they had a treasure in their hands. The
first exhibition of his works was held in 1990 at the American Colony
Hotel in Jerusalem. According to Eli Kahvedjian, “People went wild –
they were hungry for this material. We knew it was a success, but we
didn’t understand just how much of a success.”

Since then the shop has become a small museum of black and white
photographs from the early 20th century in high quality prints. Most
of the customers are tourists. Beyond their historical and
anthropological value, the photos are stunning in their precise
composition and capture of inspiring moments and perspectives. For the
most part, the pictures deal with everyday life: vendors in the
market, shoeshine boys (including a Jew polishing an Arab’s shoes )
and caravans of camels.

One of the photos became the focus of a political controversy last
year. The picture, a portrait of a Palestinian family taken in a
citrus grove at the end of the 1930s, served as the basis for artist
Eliyahu Arik Bokobza’s painting “The Citrus Grower.” MK Aryeh Eldad
(National Union ) protested the Knesset’s purchase of the painting for
its permanent exhibit, claiming that it was an attempt to depict the
past from an Arab perspective, and suggest that “we robbed and
expelled them.”

In 1998 the family published a volume of several dozen photographs
entitled “Jerusalem Through My Father’s Eyes,” sold only in a small
shop in the Christian Quarter (for NIS 230 ), which became a
collectors’ item. The grandson relates that there are those who buy
the book in order to sell it and make a profit. “They sell it for the
same price on the Internet, only in dollars.” And indeed, a look at
the Amazon site confirms that it is possible to buy the book for $225.

The family is especially proud of the quality of the book – the paper
was purchased especially in France and the printing was done under
their supervision. In recent years, however, cheap imitations – using
inexpensive paper and low-quality reproductions – have been appearing
in souvenir shops and bookshops in Jerusalem. “I don’t want to get
rich from this – it’s part of the family’s history,” says Eli
Kahvedjian, “but it hurts me that people are disrespectful. With me
there are no compromises in quality. I give the pictures the respect
they deserve.”

Eventually the family sued three shop owners who refused their demand
to stop selling the pirated book. The defendants tried to argue that
they had not been involved in the forging of the book, but only in its
distribution, and did not know it was a forgery. They also argued that
the photographs do not belong to the Kahvedjian family because the
grandfather had inherited them together with the Hananya Brothers’
studio and there was no proof that he had taken the photographs.
Jerusalem District Court Judge Joseph Shapira rejected their
arguments, prohibited the defendants from continuing to distribute the
book and ordered them to pay the family NIS 63,000 in damages.

“The question of copyright was not with regard to each individual
picture “but rather with regard to the book as a collection,” explains
Deuel Peli of the law firm of Agmon & Co., one of two attorneys who
represented the family. “Somebody forged the whole book but at a very
inferior quality. We hope the trial has created a deterrent effect and
in the near future we will be seeing fewer pirated books. But we still
don’t know who printed the books.”

Today, a photo of Elia Kahvedjian gazes down from the wall at the
family’s shop, hanging among antique cameras that still work. He died
in 1999, at the age of 89, according to the family’s estimate. “He was
an incredibly strong man. He had to have been,” says his grandson,
“otherwise he would not have survived all that he did.”

Sunday’s Zaman , Turkey
Feb 5 2012

Zero problems with neighbors revisited
by Richard Falk*

Pundits in Europe and North America in recent months have delighted in
citing with a literary smirk `zero problems with neighbors,’ the
centerpiece of Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu’s foreign policy agenda since he became
foreign minister on May 1, 2009, having previously served as chief
advisor to both the prime minister and foreign minister.
These critics point to the heightened tensions with Syria and Iraq,
the persisting inability to overcome the hostile fallout from the Mavi
Marmara incident with Israel, and even the renewed salience of the
long unresolved dispute with the Armenian diaspora sparked by a new
French bill that makes the denial of genocide associated with the 1915
massacres of Armenians in Turkey a crime.

Troubles to be sure, but should these be interpreted as `failures,’
and more precisely as `Turkish failures’? Perhaps, DavutoÄ?lu was
insufficiently cautious, or alternatively too optimistic, when he
articulated the zero problems diplomacy, but was it not an accurate
way of signaling a new dawn for Turkey’s approach to neighbors,
especially its Arab neighbors, and actually, to the world as a whole.
And DavutoÄ?lu followed through with a dizzying series of initiatives,
conceiving of the neighborhood in a broad sense and managing to banish
many of the bad memories associated with Ottoman rule over much of the
Arab world.

It should be recalled that Turkish foreign policy began charting a new
course years before DavutoÄ?lu became foreign minister. In an important
sense, the turning point came in 2003 when the Turkish government
refused to allow the United States to use its territory to stage an
invasion of Iraq. At the time the anti-Justice and Development Party
(AKP) opposition called the decision the biggest mistake in Turkish
republican history. In retrospect, it was a transformational moment
that showed Turkey, its neighbors and the world that it could think
and act for itself when it comes to foreign policy, that the Cold War
was over and that Washington could no longer take Ankara for granted.
And yet this move did not mean, as some critics immediately claimed, a
turn toward Islam and away from the West. As recently shown, Turkey
still values its NATO ties even to the extent of allowing radar
stations on its territory that is linked to missile defense for
Europe, Israel and the Gulf in relation to Iran.

Forgetting Turkey’s past

By now it is almost forgotten that it was Turkey that encouraged peace
talks between Syria and Israel that seemed to be headed for dramatic
success until their abrupt breakdown, a development attributed at the
time to the Israeli attacks on Gaza at the end of 2008, but in
retrospect better understood as the unwillingness of Israel to give up
any of its 1967 conquests. Turkey also sought to be a peacemaker
further afield in the Balkans and the Caucasus, doing the seemingly
impossible, bringing Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia together in a
manner that moved their two antagonistic governments on a path leading
to peace. Even more ambitiously, in collaboration with Brazil, Turkey
used its new stature as an independent player in May 2010 to persuade
Tehran to accept an arrangement for the storage of much of Iran’s
enriched uranium in Turkey, thereby demonstrating the plausibility of
a peaceful alternative to the United States/Israel posture of
sanctions and warmongering.

To be sure, the earlier sensible effort to have friendly relations
with Syria backfired, but not until the regime in Damascus started the
massive shooting of its citizens and refused to meet the demands of
its people for far reaching reforms. Arguably, the same reversal of
outlook in Ankara occurred in relation to Libya after Muammar Gaddafi
threatened to massacre his opposition, leading even to extending some
Turkish support to the UN-backed NATO intervention in Libya in 2011
that shaped the outcome of an internal struggle for control of the
state. Also, there is no doubt that the refusal of the European Union
to shift its one-sided stance on Cyprus has soured relations with
Greece, producing a temporary deterioration that has taken place
despite the Turkish show of reasonableness and exhibiting a spirit of
compromise.

Even with Israel, despite the strong sympathies of the Turkish public
with the struggle of the Palestinians, the AKP leadership has done its
best to restore normalcy to the relationship between the two
countries. After all, the May 31, 2010 attack by Israel’s navy in
international waters on the Mavi Marmara carrying humanitarian
activists and assistance to Gaza and challenging the Israeli blockade
was not only a flagrant breach of international law but resulted in
the death of nine Turkish passengers. Turkey has demanded an apology
and compensation for the families of the victims, a reasonable set of
expectations that was on the verge of acceptance by Tel Aviv, but
collapsed when challenged by the internal opposition to Benjamin
Netanyahu led by the super-hawk foreign minister, Avigdor Liebermann,
now under indictment for fraud.

What this brief overview argues is that Turkey has consistently tried
to avert recourse to intervention and war in the Middle East and to
promote diplomatic approaches that rely exclusively on soft power. It
has, to be sure, resisted geopolitical rebuffs, as in relation to its
efforts to end the confrontation with Iran, impressively refusing to
stay in line behind the bellicose leadership of the United States and
Israel. DavutoÄ?lu has correctly affirmed Turkey’s resolve to act on
the basis of its values and convictions in the post-Cold War politics
of the region and not blindly follow directives from Washington. Iran
is a striking case where the Turkish approach, although incapable of
stemming the drift toward war being mounted by the West, is both wiser
and more likely to achieve the goal of reassuring the world that
Tehran means what it says when it insists that it does not intend to
acquire nuclear weapons. As in every other foreign policy setting,
DavutoÄ?lu is exhibiting his belief that in the 21st century persuasion
works better than coercion, not to mention the avoidance of death,
devastation and displacement.

In sum, the zero problems with neighbors as a touchstone to Turkish
foreign policy in the Middle East and the world needs to be understood
as an aspiration and strong preference rather than as an invariable
guide to practice. There are too many contradictions embedded in
political realities to be slavishly tied to a rigid doctrine incapable
of taking account of context. For instance, in Syria and Libya the
Turkish government was forced to choose between siding with a regime
slaughtering its own people and backing the population in its efforts
to democratize and humanize the governing process. Zero problems needs
to be understood as a framework for addressing the relations between
countries, not just governments, and in situations of strife choices
must be made. Arguably Turkey went too far when it backed NATO in
Libya or not far enough when it failed to show support for the Green
Revolution in Iran after the stolen elections of June 2009. These are
difficult interpretative choices that do not invalidate the principled
positions that DavutoÄ?lu has repeatedly affirmed as being as important
as realist calculations in shaping foreign policy in complex
situations. Possibly, if the Green Revolution had shown more
persistence or the regime had engaged in more widespread killing of
its people Turkey would have made a `Syrian choice.’

`Great historical transformations’

DavutoÄ?lu on more than one occasion has expressed enthusiastic support
for the upheavals grouped together under the banner of the Arab
Spring. He calls these upheavals great historical transformations that
are irreversible and expressions of a thirst by young people for lives
of dignity and democratic freedoms. There is nothing that Turkey has
done to thwart these high ideals.

In this respect, I think it is possible to reach an assessment of
Turkish foreign policy as of early 2012. It has charted a course of
action based on — to the extent of which it is feasible — soft power
diplomacy, taking initiatives to resolve its conflicts with neighbors
but also to offer its good offices to mediate conflict to which it is
not a party. Its credibility has become so great that Ä°stanbul has
replaced European capitals as the preferred venue for conflict
resolution whether in relation to Afghanistan or even Iran. It is
notable that despite Washington’s annoyance with Ankara regarding Iran
or due to the simmering dispute with Israel, the US government seems
to favor Ä°stanbul as the most propitious site for negotiations with
Iran concerning its nuclear program.

At the same time, as Syria and Libya show, it is not always possible
to avoid taking sides in response to internal struggles, although
Turkey has delayed doing so to give governments in power the
opportunity to establish internal peace. In a globalizing world
boundaries are not absolute, and sovereignty must give way if severe
violations of human rights are being committed by the regime, but that
still should make armed intervention a last resort, and one only
undertaken in extreme instances on behalf of known opposition forces
and in a manner that has a reasonable prospect of success at
acceptable costs for the targeted society. Such conditions almost
never exist and so intervention is rarely if ever, in my judgment,
justified, although conditions may quite often create strong
interventionary temptations.

We can only hope that Turkey stays the course, pursuing every opening
that enables positive mutual relations among countries and using its
diplomatic stature to facilitate conflict resolution among others.
Rather than viewing `zero problems’ as a failure, it should be a time
to reaffirm the creativity of Turkish foreign policy in the course of
the last decade that has shown the world the benefits of soft power
diplomacy. This diplomacy, as supplemented by Turkey’s economic
success and political stability, helps us understand the great
popularity of and respect for the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip
ErdoÄ?an, throughout the region and the world.

*Richard Falk is a professor emeritus of international law and
practice who taught at Princeton University for 40 years.

Sunday’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 5 2012

Dink murder case should go back to square one, says journalist Aslan

5 February 2012 / FATÄ°H UÄ?UR, Ä°STANBUL
Considering the fact that the final court ruling in the murder case of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007 has not fulfilled the
public’s sense of justice, Bugün daily Ankara representative Adem
Yavuz Arslan said the investigation into the murder case of Dink
should be taken back to square one and this time handled with
determination to thoroughly resolve the case.
`What actually needs to be done now is to re-handle the Dink murder
case as if the murder took place today, and to do this with
determination to resolve it,’ Arslan told Sunday’s Zaman.

The late editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, Dink was
shot dead in broad daylight on Jan. 19, 2007, by an ultranationalist
teenager outside the offices of his newspaper in Ä°stanbul. The gunman,
Ogün Samast, and 18 others were brought to trial. The investigation
into his murder was stalled, but the suspected perpetrator and his
accomplices were put on trial. However, the final ruling of the
Ä°stanbul 14th High Criminal Court issued last month failed to please
those expecting justice to be served. During the process, lawyers for
the Dink family and the co-plaintiffs in the case presented evidence
indicating that Samast did not act alone. Samast stood trial in a
juvenile court because he was a minor at the time of the murder. He
was recently sentenced to 22 years, 10 months in prison by the court.
In a separate trial, two gendarmerie officers were convicted on
charges of dereliction of duty in the run-up to the Dink murder.

Another suspect, Yasin Hayal, was given life in prison for inciting
Samast to murder. However, Erhan Tuncel, who worked as an informant
for the Trabzon Police Department, was found not guilty of
masterminding the murder. The prosecution believes the killers are
affiliated with the Ergenekon network, a shadowy crime network that
has alleged links within the state, whose suspected members are
currently standing trial on charges of plotting to overthrow the
government.

Arslan is also the author of the book, `Bi Ermeni Var: Dink
Operasyonunun Å?ifreleri’ (There’s this Armenian: The Codes of the Dink
Operation), which was published last year seeking to shed light on
some of the shady aspects surrounding Dink’s murder. According to
Arslan, the court made its final ruling exactly in line with the
expectations of those who masterminded Dink’s murder, which he
described as the indisputable success of Ergenekon. `Although five
years have passed since the murder, the big brothers, I mean the real
masterminds of the murder, could not be reached. Those who planned and
masterminded the murder and prepared the groundwork for it were not
even investigated. Such a professionally committed murder has been
covered up by attributing it to several boys who were playing football
on a field. The court’s ruling has confirmed how Ergenekon is still
very strong,’ said Arslan.

Considering the fact that the prosecutor conducting the investigation
into the assassination of Dink, Hikmet Usta, announced his opinion
last September as to who masterminded the assassination and said the
murder was committed by Ergenekon’s cell in the Black Sea province of
Trabzon, Arslan commented on the court ignoring the prosecutor’s
opinion by not finding any connection to an organized gang in the Dink
murder and pointed out some misfortunes during the trial.

`One of the misfortunes of this case was the replacement of
prosecutors and judges during the trial. The former presiding judge of
the case [Erkan Ã?anak] was taken off the case due to his alleged
relations with drug barons. The former prosecutor of the case was also
taken off the case for another reason. The name of this prosecutor was
on the list of members of the judiciary who would benefit from the
Sledgehammer coup case. This detail is important and because of this,
both the court and the prosecutor’s office skillfully warded off
attempts to deepen the case during the five-year-long trial. They
either rejected such attempts or left them to time. Another misfortune
was the conduct of another operation over the Dink murder. Ergenekon
circles diverted our attention to another point. They diverted our
attention to other points that hypnotized us and made us fail to see
the obvious,’ explained Arslan.

Elaborating on the point Ergenekon circles tried to attract the
public’s attention to, he said these circles tried to undermine those
carrying out the Ergenekon investigation and damage the prestige of
the court hearing the Ergenekon trial.

`Unfortunately, they have been successful in their attempts to a
certain extent. So, everyone had their own `gang’ and suspects they
wanted to see in that gang. Or else, it is very obvious that the Hrant
Dink murder is an operation included in the Cage Operation Action
Plan,’ he said.

The Cage Operation Action Plan is an alleged military plot to
intimidate the country’s non-Muslim population by assassinating some
of their prominent community figures. It was uncovered by the Taraf
daily in late 2009. The Cage plan was detailed on a CD seized in 2009
from the office of retired Maj. Levent BektaÅ?, who was arrested in
April 2009 for suspected links to a large cache of munitions buried in
Ä°stanbul’s Poyrazköy area. That discovery came as part of an
investigation into Ergenekon. The CD exposed the group’s plans to
assassinate prominent Turkish non-Muslim figures and place the blame
for the killings on the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). The
desired result was an increase in internal and external pressure on
the party, leading to diminishing public support for the government.

The Cage plan called the killings of Dink, Catholic priest Father
Andrea Santoro and three Christians in Malatya an `operation.’
According to the police report, the mastermind behind the Cage plan
was Ä°brahim Å?ahin, the former deputy chief of the National Police
Department’s Special Operations Unit.

`When we look at the murder of Dink in general and its planning in
Trabzon and Ä°stanbul, we see the signs of Cage Operation Action Plan.
Let’s remember those days. In 2003 and the ensuing period, there was a
debate that could not be well understood on missionary activities and
loss of religion. These debates culminated in 2004 and 2005. ¦ The
necessary environment [for the attacks on non-Muslims] was prepared in
this way. There was an aim to create a neo-nationalist front against
the AK Party. There was a need to create a public unease over the
prospects of losing religion. When we look at the murder of Father
Santaro [in Trabzon in 2006], Hrant Dink and the killing of three
Christians in Malatya [in 2007], we see that the perpetrators were all
influenced by this wave. They attacked churches and killed
missionaries out of fear that religion [Islam] was slipping from the
hands of the nation. In brief, in order to understand Dink’s murder
and its goal, we need to look at the game that has been skillfully
played since 2003,’ Arslan said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 5 2012

Researchers reflect on Turkish- Armenian civil society activities

5 February 2012 / YONCA POYRAZ DOÐAN, ÝSTANBUL

Civil society initiatives between Turkey and Armenia have flourished
during the last decade and a half, and researchers are shedding light
in a new study on whether or not these initiatives have been
effective.

In their introduction to the study, researchers Esra Çuhadar and Burcu
Gültekin Punsmann noted the Armenian-Turkish conflict is different
from other conflicts because there is no violence at the moment,
although the past is a violent one.

“Unlike in other peace-building contexts, preventing or ending
violence is not an issue. It is more about healing a broken
relationship, rebuilding trust and coming to terms with the past,
while also building positive and constructive relations between the
two neighboring states,” the researchers stated in the study,
“Reflecting on the Two Decades of Bridging the Divide: Taking Stock of
Turkish-Armenian Civil Society Activities,” published by the Economic
Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV). The study was conducted
with the support of the German Marshall Fund’s Black Sea Trust for
Regional Cooperation.

As their driving questions, the researchers asked: “What can citizens
and civil societies do to positively contribute to this process? How
can they do better? Can we empower them in a way that they become a
positive driving force for their governments to make peace?”

The researchers first compiled a detailed inventory of all civil
society efforts carried out from 1995 to 2011. Then, they selected a
handful of these projects, especially ongoing ones, in order to do an
in-depth study and explore dynamics on the ground. The researchers
conducted two field trips, one to Yerevan in 2010 and another to
Ýstanbul in 2011, where they interviewed about 25 civil society
activists.

During the third stage of the project, they gathered in Ankara in July
2011 a smaller group of Armenian and Turkish practitioners from
Armenia, Turkey and the Armenian diaspora in order to have them
further discuss and elaborate on some of the themes identified.

“There have been some civil society initiatives that have been
connected to politics, and there have been some that have not been,”
said Gültekin Punsmann.

The study identified the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council
(TABDC), a private sector-driven initiative, as the first initiative
to open a track-two channel, or an unofficial diplomacy channel. TABDC
was co-founded in 1997 in Turkey and Armenia to foster creation of
trade links between the two countries, and TABDC played a significant
role in the shipment of earthquake aid from Armenia to Turkey in 1999.

According to the study, civil society activities between Turkey and
Armenia showed a sharp increase in 2001-2003, as this period coincided
with a large grant scheme funded by the US government. The Turkish
American Reconciliation Commission (TARC) was a high-profile
initiative during those years, and more than a dozen track-two
diplomacy projects between the two countries were implemented.

Then, another sudden upturn occurred in 2005 with the renewal of
activism at the official level, as Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoðan and Armenia’s President Robert Kocharian created the
impression of dialogue.

“A new momentum was indeed launched by two public proposals — one
Turkish and one Armenian. Prime Minister Erdoðan, in his letter to
President Kocharian, called for the creation of a joint commission to
study the historical developments and events of 1915. This was
accompanied by President Kocharian’s proposal for an
inter-governmental commission to meet and discuss all outstanding
issues between the two countries, with the aim of resolving them.
These would have to be sustained by practical steps aiming at the full
normalization of bilateral relations,” the study noted.

The final steep surge in civil society initiatives occurred in 2008,
during the most publicized period, featuring football diplomacy marked
by the last negotiation initiative that led to the signing of two
protocols between Turkey and Armenia to normalize their relations and
open borders.

“Although there was another decline in 2009, most likely due to the
stumbling protocols, compared to the 1990s, the initiatives were still
at a historic high in 2010,” the study stated.

In addition, the study noted that Turkish interest in Armenia and
Armenians increases in the spring, as there are activities that aim to
prevent the president of the United States from qualifying the
massacres of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire as genocide in his
annual White House statement. On the other hand, during the same
period, Armenian activists mobilize for the opposite purpose.

“Armenian and Turkish diaspora organizations based in the US engage in
a frontal opposition. The period between mid-March and the end of
April is therefore the least favorable time for any Turkish-Armenian
initiative aiming at normalization or reconciliation,” the study
stated.

When it comes to who carries out most of these civil society projects,
the study stated that most of the projects so far have been carried
out by grassroots-level participants, such as youth, artists and civil
society activists.

“In other conflicts too, it is quite common to see grassroots-level
initiatives more frequently than elite-level initiatives. This may be
for several reasons, but one is that a larger pool to draw from is
available at the grassroots level. Secondly, the inter-communal aspect
of some conflicts, like the Turkish-Armenian conflict, requires close
attention to the grassroots level,” Gültekin Punsmann said.

However, one deficiency she pointed out in those initiatives is that
most projects target a group of people who are already convinced of
the need to develop Turkish-Armenian relations and have a keen
interest in discussing the issue. In that regard, the study stated
that new projects should go beyond this and include those groups that
have not been included before, such as women, nationalist and
conservative youth, and young entrepreneurs.

At the end, the study suggested the Turkish-Armenian peace-building
process in coming years should adopt a strategy that aims to build and
strengthen relationships; build the capacity of civil society and
organizations to better address the conflict; and create institutions
or processes to constructively address the conflict.

The priority activity of civil society has been relationship-building
so far, however, very little is known about their effectiveness.

Do they change attitudes? Do they improve relations? There needs to be
systematic assessments required by donors concerning
relationship-focused initiatives, the researchers pointed out.

Gültekin Punsmann said TEPAV will have civil society initiatives
involving Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and in addition, it will
have more initiatives to solve trade problems between Turkey and
Armenia.

Study suggests activities for Turkish, Armenian civil society

TEPAV researchers recommended a series of activities for the civil
society actors from both Turkey and Armenia:

Build cross-border professional partnerships through practical
projects because they are more likely to involve mainstream actors.
Cooperation on trans-boundary issues, such as environmental protection
and public health, presents new possibilities for professional-level
cooperation.

Establish information channels between the two societies; these
information channels need to be not only free of prejudice but also
strengthened and institutionalized.

Establish a new high-level track-two process to jump start the frozen
negotiations: Aside from TARC, the researchers haven’t come across a
similar initiative. Now that the track-one level is stuck, it is the
right time to start a TARC-like high-level track two.

Assist in the rediscovery of the common past and shared memory with
Turkish-Armenian cross-border initiatives. Even the most technical
ones allow a re-reading of the past that binds peoples of the region
together. Furthermore, unraveling the shared memory and the common
past before 1915 will create a new cognitive space for the two
societies, which hold extremely polarized views at the moment.

0
Post your comments / Share your thoughts

Display Name (What’s this) Your e-mail address

Comment (Required) Characters Remaining:

Enter the following code:

Refresh

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are
on-topic and not abusive. For more in formation, please see our
Comments FAQ.

National Other Titles

‘General Staff knew Uludere victims were civilians ahead of strike’

Match-fixing prosecutor may be investigated over privacy violation

Five PKK terrorists killed in southeast Turkey

General Staff promises legal action over BDP’s ‘herding’ remark

Kozinoðlu’s death was not caused by heart attack, preliminary forensic
report shows

Illegal foreign gambling websites threatening Turkey

Girl sold by father found in Sivas, reports say

Minister Nihat Ergün says Uludere was caused by error

Woman found dead under bridge in Gaziantep province

Anter: Not acknowledging Kurdish question makes it worse

Gov’t pushes for new law to prevent terrorism financing

Ibrahim: Turkey gives Muslim world hope in the Arab Spring

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Today’s Zaman
Feb 5 2012

Contradictions that beset Turkey

DOÄ?U ERGÄ°L
[email protected]

Those of us who live in Turkey know there is more than one Turkey,
both in economic and socio-cultural terms.

We take these differences and contradictions for granted. But when a
foreigner points out one of those Turkeys we know of and behaves as if
the others do not exist, we get furious and feel indignant. However,
Turkey is really a surprising country with conflicting and
contradicting realities. Let me share with you a few simultaneous
happenings.

According to Reuters, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an warned last
Wednesday of rising racism and Islamophobia in Europe. He mentioned
the French bill outlawing the denial of Armenian genocide that France
has already officially recognized. He said the French bill was a
`serious manifestation of an insidious danger in Europe.

`There is an undeniable racist approach, a racist mentality ¦ hidden
behind this bill.’ Mr. ErdoÄ?an added, `I would like to sincerely warn
our friends in Europe that the situation in France is a serious
manifestation of an insidious danger.’

Listening to the prime minister, one would find him very principled
because he advocates common human values and warns of the dangers
against democracy.

The same news agency, Reuters, on the same day, Feb. 1, shed light on
a different Turkey, relying on the rhetoric of the same person. Prime
Minister ErdoÄ?an branded acclaimed novelist Paul Auster ignorant for
refusing to visit Turkey in protest of an increased number of jailed
journalists.

What Mr. Auster points at is the fact that more than 100 journalists
are presently jailed in Turkey. This is one of the highest numbers
worldwide. The government insists they are not being prosecuted
because of what they wrote but because they have engaged in terrorism
or have been affiliated with terrorist organizations.

Mr. ErdoÄ?an expressed his wrath against the renowned author in the
following way: `If you come, so what? If you don’t come, so what? Will
Turkey lose prestige?’ He criticized the 64-year-old Auster, author of
no less than two dozen books published in Turkey, for visiting Israel,
accusing the Jewish state of repression and a multitude of rights
violations.

`Supposedly Israel is a democratic, secular country, a country where
freedom of expression and individual rights and freedoms are
limitless. What an ignorant man you are,’ ErdoÄ?an said, while accusing
Auster of being disrespectful to Turkey.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP), a socially conservative
party, won its third consecutive term in power since 2002 on a
reformist ticket that promised demilitarization of the system,
economic development and democratization that would end inter-ethnic
and inter-sectarian disputes. Almost all democracy-oriented, liberal
and leftist authors and intellectuals have supported the AKP in its
quest. But as the party reached the limits of its reformism, it began
to be criticized by the same people who supported its democratic
advances.

Another Turkey is painted by the Platform of Solidarity with
Imprisoned Journalists on the Media Line, which stated that 105
journalist in Turkey were behind bars. This places Turkey ahead of
such repressive regimes as Iran and China for the largest number
jailed journalists in the world, according to the platform.
Considering that Turkey has been pointed out as an exemplary country
for reconciling democracy and Islam, the fall of Turkey by 10 places
to 148 out of 179 countries on the Reporters without Borders’ Press
Freedom Index is noteworthy.

Critics say the judiciary, which is directly responsibility for the
arrests, makes little effort to distinguish between people covering
controversial issues and the people and movements they are covering.
Observers primarily blame the judiciary for the arrests. Turkey’s
Counterterrorism Law (TMK) and the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) give it a
lot of latitude to detain people and keep them locked up without
filing formal indictments. But then these laws can easily be changed
with the AKP majority in Parliament. The government keeps its silence
when such criticisms are leveled against it.

Mr. ErdoÄ?an and his government desire a shiny image for the country
they run and accuse other countries of being unfair to Turkey. Last
week, he said, `Turkey does not deserve the negative image portrayed
to the world by the ¦ opposition and some journalists and writers.’

These three simultaneous developments depict a country that has not
yet institutionalized its democracy and rule of law. But it acts as if
it is a done deal. That is the biggest contradiction.

From: Baghdasarian

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 5 2012

Intolerance record of the week in Turkey

ORHAN KEMAL CENGÄ°Z

Last week was so terrible in terms of witnessing intolerant attitudes
from the government and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an. So many
alarming and concerning developments happened one after another.

ErdoÄ?an has taken up his old habit of suing journalists for their
alleged defamatory remarks once again. We learned ErdoÄ?an has brought
some court cases against two writers from the Taraf daily. One was
Ahmet Altan, editor-in-chief of Taraf, for an article he wrote about
the Uludere massacre in which he criticized ErdoÄ?an very harshly.
ErdoÄ?an brought one civil and one criminal case against writer Perihan
MaÄ?den as well. Ironically, ErdoÄ?an’s cases target Perihan MaÄ?den’s
criticism of ErdoÄ?an’s intolerant behavior and the compensation cases
he had brought against her before. These are alarming developments if
you consider that ErdoÄ?an after the elections had left behind his
habit of suing journalists. He had dropped all cases he brought
against journalists as a goodwill gesture on his part, but once again,
we are returning to the old days.

Not only has he brought cases against journalists, but he also engaged
in quite nonsensical and unsophisticated discussion with novelist Paul
Auster, who said that he will not come to Turkey because of
journalists jailed here. If you ask me, Auster was ill-informed about
the situation in Turkey; however, ErdoÄ?an’s remarks have just
justified Auster’s erroneous assessment about Turkish democracy.
ErdoÄ?an called Auster `ignorant’ for choosing to visit Israel while
criticizing the limits on free press in Turkey. This nonsensical
debate between ErdoÄ?an and Auster was continuing while I was writing
this article. Auster’s final remarks were as follows: `All countries
are flawed and beset by myriad problems, Mr. Prime Minister, including
my United States, including your Turkey.’ We are all curious now if
ErdoÄ?an will continue his quarrel with Auster, one of my most favorite
novelists by the way.

The Malatya Municipality has just demolished structures that were
constructed in the Armenian cemetery with funds collected by the
Armenian community. Local Armenians stated they built these structures
by getting prior permission from authorities, and they could not
understand why the municipality destroyed them. The municipality
neither gave any explanation nor warned Armenians about their
intention to demolish these structures.

I am seriously concerned about the attitude of the Malatya
Municipality. Most probably this is `local’ retaliation against the
French bill. Intolerance always operates like this. When your prime
minister reacts strongly to something, then local authorities take a
cue from it and act accordingly. And when local authorities do
something, locals also get a message from their actions and act
accordingly. This is quite dangerous. I call on the government to
investigate the demolition of the structures in the Malatya Armenian
cemetery, which seems to me quite arbitrary and illegal.

My final bad news is about missionary paranoia, which has popped up
once again. I heard that the Directorate of Religious Affairs
(Diyanet) decided to combat missionary activities `in Turkey and
abroad.’ To be honest, I did not understand this `abroad’ part at all.
What are they planning to do? Last time this missionary paranoia was
raised, it created terrible consequences, leading up to the Malatya
massacre in which three missionaries were killed. I also want to call
on the government to investigate the policies of the Diyanet with
regard to missionaries and members of other religions. They do not
have any right to spread intolerance about people from other religions
while they get their salaries from the taxes collected from citizens
of this country, who are Muslim, Christian, Jewish and so on.

Well, as I said, last week was exceptionally bad in terms of
witnessing different expressions of intolerance. I hope this is not an
indication of a trend but rather a few separate incidents coming
simultaneously.

Finally, a terrible, manipulative article was published in the UK’s
Guardian newspaper. Penned by a Turkish journalist and bearing the
title `Turkish journalists are very frightened — but we must fight
this intimidation,’ the article presented the last photo of Hrant
Dink, lying on the street. The article was so terrible, portraying
Turkey as a first-class dictatorship in which journalists are
imprisoned for what they write day in and day out. And unfortunately,
Hrant Dink was also abused and exploited for this incredibly poor
analysis of Turkey, which even gives the impression he was killed by
this government.

I strongly recommend to ErdoÄ?an that he read this `analytical’ piece
in the Guardian to see how some shortcomings of Turkish democracy are
presented in the Western media, allowing him to ponder how he has
contributed to this surrealist picture of Turkey by suing journalists
for defamation.

StarNewsOnline.com, NC
Feb 5 2012

Armenian winter does not cool enthusiasm for area couple

By Judy Smith
Special to the StarNews

Editor’s note: This is part of an occasional series by retired
Wilmington residents and Peace Corps volunteers Dave and Judy Smith,
who started their assignment in Niger in 2010 but were transferred
last year to Armenia.

The first heavy snow of 2012 has fallen in Dilijan, Armenia. It lies
quietly over the landscape, covering streets and sidewalks, leaving
fluffy mounds of white in the evergreens and topping the mountains
with white accents resembling cake frosting.

It’s beautiful, but our water is frozen. The college where I work is
closed until Feb. 1 to save heating fuel for the even colder months of
February and March. My husband, David, continues to go to work but
rides a small, crowded bus instead of walking the usual 45 minutes to
his office, even though he dislikes the shoving and pushing of others
also trying to get on this mode of transportation. Small children
trudge through the snow, bundled up from head to toe and faces wrapped
in scarves, leaving only their small noses and eyes visible. Warmth
should reward their trek to school, but most classrooms are without
insulation and only minimally heated; school corridors can be colder
than the frosty, white world outside.

This is our first winter in Armenia, a mountainous, landlocked country
situated to the east of Turkey. It began with an early snow in
October, then the weather relented, allowing us to enjoy a cold though
not frigid fall. David and I are two of the older volunteers serving
with the U. S. Peace Corps in Armenia. Our group of older volunteers
now numbers 11 – the Armenian AARP, as we call ourselves. One of our
peers chose to return to the U.S. early for various reasons, so why
are the rest of us still here? Why are we doing this when we could be
home enjoying holidays and other celebratory events with family and
friends who speak our language, eat foods that we like and share our
cultural outlooks and mores?

Many younger volunteers voice the same questions as the harsh, cold
winter sets in. Wood stoves that require constant attention to provide
adequate heat, water that freezes inside the house, sporadic
electrical power outages and visits from small gray rodents are
challenges not always off-set by the natural beauty of a country
blanketed in crisp, white snow.

Those of us who persevere in Armenia are committed to finishing what
we started, difficult as it may be. Dave and I share our service in
the Peace Corps with amazing individuals of diverse ages, talents and
backgrounds. These volunteers bring experiences, from editing
children’s books to working at the United Nations for 20 years. Others
have experience in insurance, real estate, small business development,
computer technology, education and research.

We are all trying to teach English or help with business development
in an emerging country suffering from a depressed economy. We also
work hard to promote a better understanding of Americans by Armenians
while also communicating with Americans about life in Armenia.

The slogan, “Life is calling – how far will you go?” is frequently
voiced by Peace Corps recruiters. With the number of early retirees
and baby boomers reaching 65 increasing every day, there is a growing
pool of potential volunteers for Peace Corps service. For people with
curiosity about the world, a desire and willingness to travel and to
learn a new language, as well as a desire to do something interesting
and meaningful in their mature years, Peace Corps service is certainly
an opportunity worth pursuing.

Take note of comments from our peers regarding their Peace Corps service.

Terri recalls that her childhood dream was to live in another country
and share her life with locals.

Barbara says, “I am still the 23 year-old I was in 1968.” Her husband,
a former Peace Corps volunteer in the `80s, agrees that it’s now her
turn to be in the Peace Corps.

Skip, an older volunteer serving without his wife, says that he wants
to prove, “I am not a statistic,” referring to the fact that
reportedly only about 3 percent of married volunteers serving without
their spouse make it to their closure of service date.

Karen, age 69, acknowledges the challenges faced by older volunteers
but is serving for a second time because of her awesome first Peace
Corps experience 20 years ago.

Retired from a UN career, Judith joined the Peace Corps to lend a hand
to countries in need, to broaden her horizons by seeing more of the
world and to stay active at age 72.

Martha, whose father was a Foreign Service officer, says she yearned
for a return to stimulating international life and wants to help
people secure their livelihood through small business development in
an emerging market.

Other peers desire to help Armenian youth become more competitive in
the world job arena by teaching English as native speakers.

David and I have learned that older volunteers should carefully
consider where they agree to serve; to be prepared for the stresses of
a slower pace in life; and to expect to re-adjust one’s thinking
related to finances when in a different country.

Visit the U. S. Peace Corps website for more information at