Month: February 2015

PREMIER SAYS TURKEY WON’T “SUCCUMB” TO JEWISH, ARMENIAN LOBBIES

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Germany
February 9, 2015 Monday 8:29 AM EST

Istanbul

DPA POLITICS Turkey politics Premier says Turkey won’t “succumb” to
Jewish, Armenian lobbies Istanbul Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said
Turkey will not “succumb” to pressure from special interest groups,
including the Jewish and Armenian lobbies, the state-run Anadolu news
agency reported.

“We will not succumb to the Jewish lobby, the Armenian lobby or the
Greek lobby,” Davutoglu said on Sunday night.

Davutoglu appeared to be responding to a sharply critical opinion
piece published in The New York Times last week by Fethullah Gulen,
a US-based Turkish Muslim cleric who has been locked in a feud with
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his former ally.

Gulen’s article lamented what he saw as the rolling back of democratic
reforms in Turkey and said the current government was “leading the
country toward totalitarianism.”

The government charges that Gulen is running a “parallel state,”
and Davutoglu said he would not bow to his rival’s lobby either.

The authorities have carried out sweeping detentions against supporters
of Gulen, including police officers and journalists. Many have since
been released.

Turkey heads to parliamentary elections in June.

In April, Armenians will mark the centenary of the 1915 massacres in
Turkey which many deem a genocide.

TURKISH LEADER ACCUSES ‘JEWISH LOBBY’ OF PLOT TO TOPPLE REGIME

Algemeiner
Feb 10 2015

by Steven Emerson

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that his government would
not give into the “Jewish lobby,” which he claims is working against
the ruling AKP Party.

“I announce it from here: we have not and will not succumb to the
Jewish lobby, the Armenian lobby or the Turkish-Greek minority’s
lobbies,” Davutoglu said at a party gathering Sunday.

Arbitrary references to the “Jewish lobby” in the Muslim world can be
construed as anti-Semitic sentiment without factual evidence supporting
such claims. Leaders in various countries have historically blamed
Jews and Israel for internal woes to alleviate domestic pressure
and propagate the concept of an external enemy in order to cultivate
regime legitimacy.

The vague allegations come in the context of baseless accusations
by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who says that Mossad,
the Israeli intelligence service, was cooperating with the “parallel
structure,” or members within the government allegedly seeking to
topple the regime.

“The sincere people backing this parallel structure should see with
whom this structure is cooperating with … Shame on them if they
still cannot see that this structure is cooperating with the Mossad,”
Erdogan said on January 31.

Key Turkish leaders have made numerous controversial and anti-Semitic
statements in the past. Last year, Erdogan compared Israel to Hitler
and predicted that the Jewish state “will drown in the blood that
they shed” at a rally before his presidential election. The Turkish
president has also referred to Israel as a “crime against humanity.”

His government actively supports Hamas, a designated terrorist
organization that is committed to the Jewish state’s destruction.

Other senior Turkish officials have also blamed their country’s
problems on Jews.

The ruling AKP party mayor of Ankara also referenced the popular summer
2013 anti-government protests in Gezi as “a game of the Jewish lobby.”

“World powers and the Jewish Diaspora prompted the unrest and have
actively encouraged it,” said now former Turkish deputy prime minister
Besir Atalay in July 2013.

HOLOCAUST MUSEUM SPOTLIGHTS 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Chicago Tribune, IL
Feb 10 2015

By Mike Isaacs Pioneer Presscontact the reporter

Some 100 years later, the black-and-white photo, grainy and archaic
as it may be, remains ghastly and gruesome, documentation of grand
inhumanity still difficult to digest today.

The remains of a woman and two young children lay lifeless, starved
to death and apparent victims of the Armenian genocide that dates
back to 1915.

Tragically, other global genocide — whether the Holocaust waged by
Nazi Germany against the Jews or barbarity more recent and current —
have produced their own photos documenting systematic, brutal murder,
efforts to eliminate a demographic of human beings.

In marking the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide with a
symposium Feb. 8 at Skokie’s Illinois Holocaust Museum, a panelist
concluded that every genocide is unique and yet every genocide is
the same.

lRelated Skokie Lifestyles and EntertainmentSee all related 8

“The magnitude of them could be different, the causes of them could
be different, but there tends to be common elements that you see
persistently through most of them,” said Shant Mardirossian, chairman
of the Near East Foundation.

One of the most basic is dehumanization of a group of people.

Eventually targeted for persecution, those people become regarded as
less than human beings so attempts to eliminate them take on a warped
and skewed sense of morality.

The most publicized difference about the Armenian genocide, though,
is the controversial refusal of the Turkish government to recognize
a horrific chapter in history as genocide.

Turkey and some aligned with it have admitted atrocities have occurred,
but it has been steadfast in maintaining that they were not pre-planned
against a designated group, rather the results of the ravages of war.

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“The Ottoman state certainly deserves the blame for letting this
happen,” states the Stanford University Turkish Association. “However,
the evidence tells that it is the inability of the state to
control its provinces, rather than its intended plan, that lead
to the atrocities. The government authority in most of that area
in question was limited to a network of alliances with Turkish and
Kurdish warlords, over which it had limited control.”

It is a contention countered by the great majority of historians and
a continued source of pain for many Armenians who say the truth must
be recognized.

It’s estimated that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred during the
events of the Armenian genocide.

Most sources agree that there were more than two million Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire before the genocide. Massacres and deportations
reduced that number through 1923.

The University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide
Studies suggest its research shows there were 2.1 million Armenians
in the empire in 1914, 387,800 left by 1922.

According to Armenian genocide scholar Dr. Peter Balakian, there
remains only 30,000 to 40,000 Armenians in Turkey.

Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Lawyer of Jewish descent, first coined the
term “genocide” in 1944 to describe the systematic extermination of
Armenians and Assyrians during and after World War I.

“Lemkin did so much thinking about the extermination of the Armenians,”
Balakian told well over 300 people Feb. 8 at the museum.

“It was vital to his entire lifetime project.”

The museum symposium was not the first time the museum has shined a
light on the controversy surrounding the Armenian genocide.

Nearly two years ago, it hosted a talk about the Armenian genocide
followed less than a month later with a two-day conference on the
subject.

Dedicated not only to preserving the history of World War II genocide,
but in teaching about genocide all over the world, the museum describes
its mission this way: “Remember the past, transform the future.”

The Armenian genocide addresses both parts of that mission. Until
the truth is recognized, social justice leaders say, history remains
tainted and the future impacted.

Balakian called genocide denial the last step of genocide, echoing
a similar refrain from Jewish Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate
Elie Wiesel.

“Constant and aggressive” genocide denial means that first they kill
the victims, and then they kill their memories, Wiesel has said.

The beginning of the Armenian genocide is known as April 24,
1915, when the Turkish government arrested and executed hundreds of
Armenian intellectuals. That began aggressive persecution of Armenians
throughout Turkey, historians say.

Dr. Stephen Smith, executive director of the University of Southern
California Shoah Foundation – Institute for Visual History and
Education, noted that only 30 years marks the beginning of the Armenian
genocide and the end of the Holocaust.

Just as it did in recording the live testimony of Holocaust survivors,
the Shoah Foundation has played a role to preserve testimonies from
first-hand witnesses of the Armenian genocide.

Shown at the Feb. 8 symposium was a partial interview providing a
harrowing account of atrocities observed by a witness.

“I saw with my own eyes a neighbor of mine…They took hold of her
by the hair and [threw] her into the burning fire,” she recalls. Her
4-year-old sister died on a train during a deportation and was buried
by the side of the railroad tracks, she said.

The museum’s symposium also addressed American response to the Armenian
genocide during and after 1915.

The Near East Relief mobilized ordinary citizens to raise more than
$117 million for emergency relief and services — the equivalent to
$1.25 billion today.

More than one million Armenian refugees, including 132,000 orphans
were saved because of the effort, which became a model for citizen
and social justice philanthropy.

Most in the audience Feb. 8 were of Armenian descent, coming from
throughout the Chicago area to learn more about the Armenian genocide
and support its recognition.

Countries, including the United States, have been accused of dragging
their feet in making such a declaration — in large part because of
politics and their relationships with Turkey, panelists said.

“The United States Congress has not forgotten about this genocide,”
assured U.S. Rep. Robert Dold (R-10), chairman of the Congressional
Armenian Caucus.

Dold is one of the lead sponsors of an upcoming resolution on the
Armenian genocide.

“Simply put,” he told the crowd, “this resolution will shine a
spotlight on the genocide denial and show that the United States
Congress firmly stands on the side of truth.”

In some of the Feb. 8 comments, though, a relatively few still
questioned the legitimacy of calling the horrific events of 100 years
ago a genocide, in line with the position of Turkey.

Panelist Omer Ismail, senior adviser to the Enough Project and
eyewitness of the genocide in Darfur, had an answer for them.

He said it’s time to bury the hatchet, acknowledge the truth and to
move forward.

“Come out of this and be clean about it and tell your own government
to move on,” he said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SACRED JUSTICE

Huffington Post
Feb 10 2015

Marian Mesrobian MacCurdy , Writer, professor, singer, author of three
books–Sacred Justice, The Mind’s Eye, and Writing and Healing–and
essays,articles, and poems.

Posted: 02/10/2015 9:57 am EST

The year 2015 is the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in
which over a million Armenians were murdered by the Ottoman Turks. We
are already seeing articles that commemorate the Genocide, but one
story essential to understanding the Armenian response remains to be
told–that of the leadership of Operation Nemesis, a clandestine effort
to carry out the death sentences given to the Turkish architects of
the Genocide who had escaped punishment.

I grew up in my maternal grandparents’ small two-story frame house in
Syracuse, New York where heated, weighty conversations about Armenian
history and culture took place, but I knew nothing about Operation
Nemesis. I heard my how grandmother Eliza loaded rifles to protect the
town in the siege of Dortyol during the 1909 Adana massacres in which
30,000 Armenians were murdered; how her brother, Mihran stole past
Turkish guns to destroy the dam the Turks built to cripple the town’s
water supply. After the foreign consuls intervened to end the siege
Mihran was arrested and tortured for his efforts to save his people.

His Turkish jailors brought his bloody underwear home for his mother
to wash. My grandmother said she washed her son’s underwear with
her tears. When Eliza exhorted me to eat every last pea on my plate,
saying, “remember the starving Armenians,” it had more than rhetorical
power. I was raised on my grandmother’s stories of resistance, but my
grandfather never spoke of those days, and I, unconsciously respecting
his silence, never asked.

Aaron, my grandfather, spent most of his days in his red leather
chair near the wooden radio he listened to every day, silently
smoking his Camels with shaking fingers, perhaps from undiagnosed
Parkinsons that would, years later, steal my mother’s smile and cause
her shuffling gait. But when I was three, four, five, my medz-hairig
(grandfather), this quiet man who wore a three-piece suit nearly every
day of his life, who had private sessions with visiting dignitaries
and battle heroes like General Dro (Drastamat Kanayan), bounced me on
his foreleg, carried me through the doorways on his shoulders like
a coronated queen, and took me outside at dusk to survey the peach,
pear, apple orchards and the grape arbor beyond our back door. When my
grandmother and I made our weekly trip to Abajian Cleaners, I carried
his wool coat, hugging it to my chest, saying, “I love my medz-hairig.

I wish he would live forever.” My grandfather lived to 84, the last
few years in mental and visual darkness, his eyesight failing, his
prodigious brain’s neurons deadened from a series of strokes. No
one in our family knew until close to 25 years after his death that
my grandfather was the bursar and logistical leader of the covert
operation to assassinate the Turks responsible for the Armenian
Genocide. In 1990 tucked away in my grandfather’s files in the
upstairs study, the room I slept in as a small child, we found his
correspondence, some written in code, with his Nemesis comrades,
including Soghomon Tehlirian who shot Talaat Pasha, the primary
architect of the Genocide. Between 1920 and 1922 at least eight
perpetrators responsible for the genocide were killed. The men of
Operation Nemesis saw this effort as “a sacred work of justice”
as Shahan Natalie, one of the three leaders, described it.

When I was a small child our social life was organized around Armenian
events. The “vakh” vakh,” ladies, as we children called them, elderly
women dressed in black, who did not dance or laugh, whose signature
action was to wring their hands as they echoed the “vakh vahk” that so
defined them, were part of our landscape. As a child, I shrank from
these women. I knew they lived in an inner world that I did not want
to know. As children, we absorbed the meaning of the words “vakh vakh”
without being told: the phrase means “what a shame, what a pity.” But
I did not know then that “vakh” in Armenian means fear. We children
feared these women because we knew instinctively that we could become
them. The effects of genocide do not disappear by an act of will.

Researchers have shown that three quarters of Armenian survivors
interviewed asserted that they did not talk to anyone about their
experiences of the Genocide for fear of persecution and to protect
their children. But silence can exacerbate the effects of trauma,
which children can sense. Experiences as well as epigenetics–genetic
changes in response to traumatic life events–may affect our behavior
and perhaps that of our children. Perpetrators as well as victims
may also be affected by these problematic epigenetic changes. We
are left with the unsettling premise that not only the sins of the
fathers may be visited upon their children, but their responses from
being sinned against as well. If so, this means that the Genocide is
still happening–to both perpetrators and their victims.

At a lecture in Cambridge, MA on January 13, 2015 Turkish scholar
Taner Akcam was asked why he does the difficult work of telling
the story of the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath. He talked of
his family’s dedication to supporting human rights in Turkey and the
prison terms that generated. He spoke of his brother’s jailors sending
home his bloody underwear. Turk or Armenian–bloody underwear is the
same. His words remind me of those of Chief Seattle after the United
States government stole his people’s land, exiling them. With his
hand on the short governor’s head, the white conquerors around him,
and his people before him he said, “Tribe follows tribe, and nation
follows nation…. We may be brothers after all. We will see.” Let
us hope in this year of the centennial the door to truth and freedom
begins to open–for both Armenians and Turks.

ARMENIA’S C.BANK RAISES KEY REFINANCING RATE TO 10.5 PCT FROM 9.5 PCT

Reuters
Feb 10 2015

YEREVAN

Feb 10 (Reuters) – Armenia’s central bank raised its key refinancing
rate on Tuesday to 10.5 percent from 9.5 percent.

Annual inflation was at 4.3 percent in January, the central bank said,
down from 4.6 percent in December. Monthly inflation in January was
at 2.5 percent, compared to inflation of 3.0 percent in December.

The government forecasts annual inflation in a range of 2.5-5.5
percent in 2015, the same as last year’s target. (Reporting by Hasmik
Lazarian; Writing by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Jason Bush)

From: A. Papazian

TURKEY NOT READY TO BOW TO PRESSURE

Spy Ghana, Ghana
Feb 10 2015

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey will not “succumb” to
pressure from special interest groups, including the Jewish and
Armenian lobbies, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Ahmet Davutoglu

“We will not succumb to the Jewish lobby, the Armenian lobby or the
Greek lobby,” Davutoglu said on Sunday night.

Davutoglu appeared to be responding to a sharply critical opinion
piece published in The New York Times last week by Fethullah Gulen,
a US-based Turkish Muslim cleric who has been locked in a feud with
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his former ally.

Gulen’s article lamented what he saw as the rolling back of democratic
reforms in Turkey and said the current government was “leading the
country toward totalitarianism.”

The government charges that Gulen is running a “parallel state,”
and Davutoglu said he would not bow to his rival’s lobby either.

The authorities have carried out sweeping detentions against supporters
of Gulen, including police officers and journalists. Many have since
been released.

Turkey heads to parliamentary elections in June.

In April, Armenians will mark the centenary of the 1915 massacres in
Turkey which many deem a genocide.

GNA

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

5 THOUSAND PEOPLE IN JAVAKHETI SECRETLY BECOME CITIZENS OF ARMENIA

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 10 2015

10 February 2015 – 12:41pm

In Georgia, 5 thousand inhabitants of Javakheti of Armenian descent
have acquired Armenian citizenship, hiding this fact from the
authorities.

They took this decision in order to simplify entry to Russia as
labor migrants.

“We decided to acquire Armenian citizenship to be able to freely
travel to Russia and get work,” haqqin.az cited the new citizens of
Armenia with reference to the TV channel ‘Rustavi 2’.

However, everyone who acqired Armenian citizenship lost their
citizenship of Georgia, as the country’s constitution allows dual
citizenship, but it’s forbidden to have two citizenships.

ARMENIAN CITIZEN IS JUDGED IN SOCHI

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 10 2015

10 February 2015 – 1:13pm

A criminal case against an Armenian citizen, Ashot Arakelyan, has
been transferred to a magistrate’s court in Sochi.

Arakelyan filed a false report to the police about an impending
explosion in the Kremlin, the Krasnodar Territory prosecutor’s
office said.

The incident, for which the 37-year-old Arakelyan was taken into
custody, took place on January 15.

“According to the investigation, the Armenian citizen, who was
illegally in Russia, in order to attract attention phoned the call
center of the department of interior in Sochi, and deliberately made
a false report on an impending explosion in the Kremlin,” RIA Novosti
news agency cited the prosecutor’s office’s message.

The defendant could face up to three years in prison under the article
‘deliberate false reports about a terrorist act’.

From: Baghdasarian

CALIX POWERS ARMENIA’S GROWTH IN FIBER SERVICES DELIVERED BY UCOM

Marketwired
Feb 10 2015

Calix Innovation Award Winner Exceeds 75,000 Residential Subscribers
Leveraging South Caucasus Region’s Most Advanced FTTH Network

YEREVAN, ARMENIA–(Marketwired – February 10, 2015) – The citizens
of the Republic of Armenia are enjoying what is believed be the
most advanced Fiber to the Home (FTTH) broadband services in the
South Caucasus region thanks to a fiber network built by Ucom LLC
that leverages solutions from Calix (NYSE: CALX). Ucom, a 2014 Calix
Innovation Award winner and fast-growing fiber overbuilder in Armenia,
continues to expand its extensive gigabit passive optical network
(GPON)-based network throughout the country. It recently surpassed
the 75,000 residential broadband subscriber milestone in Armenia —
making it the country’s largest provider of FTTH residential wireline
broadband services by revenue, and a key infrastructure provider
for the country’s public services, including education, libraries,
government offices, and other services.

Ucom, established in 2009, provides advanced wireline FTTH and wireless
broadband services that leverage its fiber access network to connect
homes and businesses in most of the country’s major cities.

Recognizing an enormous opportunity to bring a world-class fiber access
infrastructure to a country previously underserved by an aging copper
infrastructure, the company decided to go directly to GPON technology,
and put in place a gigabit-capable fiber network.

Ucom initially built the network using the Ericsson BLM 1500 and
T-Series ONTs. However, after Calix purchased Ericsson’s fiber access
assets, and subsequent platform integration work, the company has now
switched to the Calix E7-2 and E7-20 Ethernet Service Access Platforms
(ESAPs) for future services, to keep up with the ever-increasing
broadband services demand.

Today, Ucom believes it operates the largest fiber network in
Armenia and, by far, the most advanced. The company now passes over
50 percent of the homes in Armenia and is targeting continued growth
of 33 percent in 2015.

“Using the power and flexibility of the Calix technologies, Ucom
has been able to build what we believe to be the most extensive and
advanced fiber optic network in Armenia,” said Aleksandr Yesayan,
executive director, Ucom. “Our steadfast focus on creating a unique
and powerful broadband experience over wireline and wireless for
Armenians that provides the best quality service at an affordable
price has allowed us, in a few short years, to become the nation’s
largest FTTH broadband services provider. Calix has played a key
role in our success to date, and we will continue to leverage this
fiber network as we launch new Wi-Fi and LTE services — making us
the first quad-play operator in Armenia.”

With the help of Calix, Ucom’s next generation network has already
benefited schools, libraries, and other public services offices in the
region by increasing their bandwidth tenfold, facilitating activities
like teleconferencing and global learning.

Andy Lockhart, senior vice president, international sales at Calix,
said: “The broadband infrastructure in Armenia has leapt forward with
Ucom’s high quality fiber-based networks. Our E7 solutions are ideal
to provide the operational efficiencies needed without sacrificing
deployment flexibility or service functionality. This leaves service
providers like Ucom to concentrate on revenue-generating, game-changing
service delivery options. The company is already offering a wide range
of opportunities for government, education, and library services
in Armenia, creating powerful new services that now pass over half
of the homes and business in the country and changing the lives and
opportunities for the a growing proportion of Armenians.”

Ucom’s 2014 Calix Innovation Award for its leadership in Armenia
will be highlighted at the Calix booth at the FTTH Council Europe
Conference, 10-12 February 2015 at EXPO XXI in Warsaw, Poland.

About Calix Calix (NYSE: CALX) is a global leader in access
innovation. Its Unified Access portfolio of broadband communications
access software, systems, and services enables communications
service providers worldwide to transform their networks and
become the broadband provider of choice to their subscribers. For
more information, visit the Calix website at For
more information about Calix enabled gigabit networks, visit

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are
based upon management’s current expectations and are inherently
uncertain. Forward-looking statements are based upon information
available to us as of the date of this release, and we assume no
obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking statement to
reflect any event or circumstance after the date of this release,
except as required by law. Actual results and the timing of events
could differ materially from current expectations based on risks and
uncertainties affecting the Company’s business. The reader is cautioned
not to unduly rely on the forward-looking statements contained in
this press release. Additional information on potential factors that
could affect Calix’s results and other risks and uncertainties are
detailed in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year 2013,
and other documents filed with the SEC and available at

Contact Information

Press Inquiries (Americas): Neila Matheny +1 707 766 3512
[email protected]

Press Inquiries (International): Brian Dolby Proactive PR +44 (0)7899
914168 [email protected]

Sheila Lashford Proactive PR +44 (0) 7986 514240
[email protected]

From: Baghdasarian

US CALLS FOR ‘FULL, FRANK AND JUST ACKNOWLEDGEMENT’ OF MASSACRES OF ARMENIANS

Tamil Guardian
Feb 10 2015

Tamil Guardian 10 February 2015

The United States called on Turkey to acknowledge the massacre of
Armenians, as preparations were underway to mark 100 years since the
killing of almost 1.5 million people.

Speaking on Turkish television, United States’ Ambassador to Turkey,
John Bass, said,

“Our policy is that we believe that a full, frank and just
acknowledgement of the facts surrounding those terrible massacres
and tragedies in 1915 is in the interest of the citizens of Turkey,
it is in the interest of the citizens of Armenia and it is in the
interest of the descendants of people who suffered in that period.”

The US Senate recognised the killings by Ottoman forces as genocide
last year, however Turkey has refused to do so.

Mr Bass’ comments come as Turkey prepares to commemorate the Battle
of Gallipoli on 24 April, the same day that Armenians will be marking
the centennial of the genocide.

“It is too early to say how we will be represented in Gallipoli,”
said Mr Bass. He further added,

“I would say, with respect to the timing of the commemorations,
you know there is so much depth of feeling and so much suffering
that occurred in 1915 among many populations that, I think, from
our perspective, we think that commemorations should occur in a way
that allows every community that suffered to commemorate the events
in a way and in a manner that is respectful of the dead and that
allows them in their own ways to acknowledge that suffering and to
commemorate their dead respectfully.”