Author: Andres-Papazian

Registration starts for Iran’s parliamentary poll
ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press
Updated 04:51 a.m., Saturday, December 24, 2011

Armenian President Serge Sarkisian, left, and Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad review honor guards during a welcome ceremony at
the Presidential Residence in Yerevan, Armenian capital on Friday,
Dec. 23, 2011. Photo: Hayk Badalyan / Photolure
Armenian President Serge Sarkisian, left, and Iranian President…..

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran on Saturday started registering potential
candidates for the country’s March parliamentary elections, a vote
that will be fought between supporters and opponents of President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The country’s major reformist groups are staying out of the race,
saying they won’t field any candidates because basic requirements for
free and fair elections have not been met.

In their absence, the poll for the 290-seat assembly is likely to pit
hard-line candidates who remain staunchly loyal to the country’s
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against conservatives who
support Ahmadinejad.

Whatever the outcome, the vote is unlikely to change Iran’s course.
The country is a theocracy and Khamenei has final say on all state
matters.

The March 2 elections will be the first nationwide balloting since
Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009, which the opposition said
was heavily rigged. That vote set off months of near-daily protests,
when hundreds of thousands took to the streets in support of
opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi who they claimed was the
rightful winner.

The wave of protests was the biggest challenge to Iran’s clerical
leadership since it came to power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But
a heavy crackdown suppressed the protests, and many in the opposition
– from midlevel political figures to street activists, journalists and
human rights workers – were arrested. The opposition has not been able
to hold a major protest since December 2009.

For the March elections, the Interior Ministry is in charge of the
weeklong registration process, which started Saturday. All Iranian
nationals between 30 and 75 years of age who have “proven themselves
to be loyal” to Khamenei are allowed to run. Once submitted,
candidacies have to be approved by the hard-line constitutional
watchdog, the Guardian Council.

The council’s chief, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, has earlier said the
reformists, whom he called traitors, need not participate. His
position was widely seen as an indication the hard-line body would
disqualify anyone perceived as a reformist from running.

In the previous, 2008 parliamentary elections, the council
disqualified thousands of reformist candidates.

Recently, Iran’s former reformist President Mohammad Khatami demanded
that political prisoners be freed and that Mousavi and another
opposition leader, Mahdi Karroubi, be released from house arrest.
Khatami said those were preconditions for reformists participating in
the March polling. None have so far been met.

Ali Mohammad Gharibani, a prominent reformist leader, confirmed last
week that the reformists will stay out of the race.

“Despite efforts … to create an appropriate election climate,
unfortunately more restrictions have been imposed,” said Gharibani,
who runs the Reformist Front Coordination Council. “Therefore, the
council has decided that it won’t issue any election list and won’t
support anyone.”

Hard-liners say the threat to the ruling system now comes from
Ahmadinejad’s supporters. The president has been the target of a
backlash since April for trying to impose too much autonomy in how the
government is run, including defying Khamenei on his choice for the
powerful post of intelligence minister.

Dozens of Ahmadinejad’s allies have been detained over the past months
– including four senior government officials last week – in the
evolving power struggle.

From: A. Papazian

Robert Fisk: Turkey’s long road to reconciliation

Robert Fisk

Saturday, 24 December 2011

Just for a moment, put aside the current Franco-Turkish war over the
20th century’s first Holocaust – of the Armenians – and remember that
Nicolas Sarkozy’s electoral venality (500,000 French-Armenian voters
want to hear him tell the truth) and Turkish nationalism (which feeds
on holocaust denial) make a bad cocktail.

So here’s a story of good cheer. I’ve just completed 21 interviews on
Turkish radio, television and in newspapers, on the Armenian genocide.
Not all of my talks were about the deliberate mass murder of a million
and a half Armenian Christians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 – there
was much discussion of Syria and Kurdistan and whether Turkey should
be a “role model” for the Arab world (another 24-hour wonder produced
by the Washington dream team) – but there was some serious discussion
about that most unmentionable subject.

The occasion was the launching of the Turkish-language edition of my
book The Great War for Civilisation – which includes an entire and
detailed chapter on the genocide – and which has just appeared in
Turkey without any imposition of the infamous law 301 (the
“anti-Turkishness” law) nor any threats to Ithaki, my Turkish
publishers. The chapter on the Armenians, which states repeatedly that
this first Holocaust of the 20th century was planned and executed by
the Turkish authorities in Constantinople (Istanbul), is titled in
Turkish “The First Genocide”. And, for the most part, Turkish
journalists and television presenters simply didn’t question the
veracity of what I wrote.

And I think I know why. For many hundreds of thousands of Turks, the
Armenian genocide is now a fact of history. The Turkish government
still officially denies these atrocities, claiming that they were the
outcome of a “civil war”, that some Armenians were aiding the Tsarist
anti-Ottoman army (true – though hardly the excuse for a genocide),
that only historians “from both sides” could conclude whether or not
this was a genocide. And imagine, as I always say, if “historians”
were to decide whether the Nazi genocide of the Jews actually took
place. But that’s not the point.

Thousands of Turks are digging into their own family histories. Why,
they are asking, did they have Armenian grandmothers and
great-grandmothers? What is this secret history that has to be guarded
by laws which can imprison you for merely discussing in public
Turkey’s responsibility for this genocide? And I asked, repeatedly, on
Turkish television and in the press, why a strong and brave country
like Turkey – whose victory at Gallipoli remains one of the world’s
great military achievements, whose soldiers were the only UN unit in
the Korean war who refused to be brainwashed – cannot acknowledge the
terrible deeds which took place before almost all of them were born?
There are no surviving murderers – though there are a pitifully few
surviving Armenian victims – and there can be no trials. Turkey still
wants to join the EU and in four years the world will commemorate the
100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

Why not acknowledge this history now? The Germans have apologised
1,000 times to the Jews; the US has apologised to native Americans for
their 19th-century ethnic cleansing; the Australians to the
Aborigines, the British to the Irish, the Ukrainians to the Poles for
their mass rape, pillage and massacres under German occupation after
1941. What is it with the Turks? But as I say, many Turks believe
their country should own up to its history, however inglorious.

Only a few weeks ago, Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged that the
Turkish army had massacred thousands of Kurds in the 1930s. The
newspaper Zaman asked whether this might open the way to an
acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide – and the newspaper did not
use the word “alleged”. It treated the genocide as fact. The only
journalistic denial I came across was in a pre-interview discussion,
when a producer described 1915 as a “mutual massacre”. Like Bosnia, I
asked? Silence.

Within the military police elite, of course, denial remains. After the
Armenian-Turkish editor Hrant Dink was murdered by a nationalist youth
from Trabzon in 2007, hundreds of thousands of Turks marched in his
memory. They believed Turkish law would deal with his murderers. But
cops were photographed posing beside the suspected killer after his
capture. And Bahattin Hayal, the father of one of the suspected
conspirators, now says that his son was mixed up with police
informers, and that after the murder the Trabzon police chief, Yahya
Ozturk, told the boy that he was “serving his country”. An
intelligence official, Hayal claimed, later sent him a message: “I pay
my respects to you. You have raised a patriotic son.” The court case
has now turned into a scandal. Papers have been lost. Government
departments unaccountably decline to help the trial prosecutors.

Not to mention the whole Kurdish catastrophe – and the Kurds, I should
add, have acknowledged their own role in the Armenian genocide in a
way that the Turks have not – and the threats against freedom of
speech, let alone the Hrant Dink trial, Turkey is scarcely a nation
which the Arabs should treat as a “role model”. But as I repeatedly
pointed out in Turkey, Erdogan was the first Muslim leader to
recognise and admire the Arab awakening. Never could I have imagined
the Turkish flag flying once more in Gaza and Cairo. Turkey is a
changed country.

There are miserable sides to all this. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Aziz
has written to tell me that an article of his on the genocide “got
heavily edited because in Pakistan we have this fallacy about the
Ottoman Empire being the last great Caliphate made up of saints and it
might have hurt some [sic] people”. Online, “it did manage to get my
point across judging by the number [sic] of hate mail that I got…”.
Aziz asked, “Why do human beings, when denying something of which they
are at fault, use personal attacks to refute the criticism?”

But as I say, be of good cheer. At one of my Istanbul book autograph
sessions, a young man asked me to sign a copy for his father who had
seen me on television and liked what he heard. I signed the book. “My
Dad,” the man said, “is the chief of police for Istanbul.”

From: A. Papazian

APA, Azerbaijan
Dec 23 2011

Ogtay Asadov: `The French National Assembly’s decision is a step taken
against this country’

[ 23 Dec 2011 13:28 ]

Baku. Parvin Abbasov – APA. `May be an Azerbaijani scientist delivers
a lecture in France and says that he doesn’t recognize so-called
`Armenian genocide’.

Will they arrest this person? If it is so, we will also ask the French
citizens coming to Baku that do they recognize Khojlay genocide? If
they don’t, we also should fine them’, first vice speaker of the
Azerbaijani parliament Ziyafat Asgarov said, APA reports.

Speaker of the parliament Ogtay Asadov said the decision of the French
National Assembly was a non-considered and puny policy. `This is a
step taken not against Turkey, but against France itself. Armenians
are miserable people. They can not administrate themselves, but are
administrated by others. I would like to believe that French president
will not approve this decision’.

Asadov said Azerbaijani state, parliament and people always supported Turkey.

From: A. Papazian

APA, Azerbaijan
Dec 22 2011

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry: `The turning of a group of French
parliamentarians into the hostage of Armenian Diaspora causes regret’

[ 22 Dec 2011 17:27 ]
`The parliamentarians voting for this law must also seriously approach
to Khojaly genocide occurred before the eyes of the world community’

Baku. Victoria Dementieva – APA. `The turning of a group of members of
the French parliament into the hostage of Armenian Diaspora causes
regret’, said spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign
Affairs Elman Abdullayev commenting on the French National Assembly’s
adoption of a draft law criminalizing the denial of made up `Armenian
genocide’, APA reports.

Abdullayev said that as a country conducting the mediatory mission in
the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict, France shouldn’t have
been turned into the hostage of Armenian Diaspora: `The
parliamentarians voting for this law must also seriously approach to
Khojaly genocide occurred before the eyes of the world community’.

From: A. Papazian

Trend, Azerbaijan
Dec 23 2011

Europe needs Turkey

23 December 2011, 20:48 (GMT+04:00) Trend Arabic News Service Head
Rufiz Hafizoglu

Official Ankara officially response to Paris after the lower house of
the French Parliament adopted the law on a criminal penalty for the
denial of the so-called “Armenian genocide”.
In response to the “humane” decision of the French Parliament, Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara imposes the first
stage of sanctions, consisting of eight points, against Paris.

These sanctions include Turkish ambassador’s withdrawal from France,
the freezing of bilateral economic, political and military talks, the
ban on the use of Turkish air bases and ports by French military
aircrafts and ships without a special permit, the cancellation of a
joint Turkish-French meeting on economic issues, the abolition of all
military exercises with France.
According to many political analysts, the sanctions imposed at the
first stage, will not rather affect on France. Turkey will not
seriously respond to the new law for the sake of joining the EU.

But the Turkish growing economy, Ankara’s role in the region and the
fact that Turkey plays a leading role in European energy security give
grounds to say that the imposed sanctions will harm the French economy
because Turkey can boycott French goods within the country, even if it
is unofficial.
If we consider the volume of total trade turnover, Turkey ranks the
eleventh place among the countries importing French goods (6 billion
euro) and France – the sixteenth place among the countries importing
Turkish goods (5.402 million euro).

The cars produced in France rank first among the goods which France
exports to Turkey. The production volume of the French car industry
exported to Turkey in 2011 amounted to 761 million euro.

Besides the cars, France exports aircraft engines, pharmaceuticals,
plastic raw materials to Turkey.
Turkey exported textile products to the amount of 412 million euro,
household appliances worth 292 million euro to France in 2011.

According to the statistics, the volume of investments of 350 Turkish
companies operating in France hit $ 500 million. Regarding the tourism
sector, the number of French tourists visiting Turkey hit more than
1.250.000 people last year.

However, it is possible that the French companies EDF, GDF Suez and
Areva, which plan to participate in the construction of a nuclear
power plant in Turkey, may be out of this process.
At present, Turkey is the only country using its geopolitical
position. It plays a role of a major transit country in supplying
energy resources to Europe. Thus, Turkey plays a significant role in
supplying Azerbaijani, Turkmen and Iraqi gas to Europe. Regarding the
lack of other alternative transit country for energy supplies to
Europe, the latter is in a state of dependence on Turkey.

If we take into account all these facts, despite the lower house of
the French Parliament adopted the law on a criminal penalty for the
denial of the so-called “Armenian genocide”, the Senate is unlikely to
adopt the bill directed against Turkey.

From: A. Papazian

Trend, Azerbaijan
Dec 23 2011

Azerbaijani Parliament’s Speaker: France’s decision on “Armenian
genocide” – an ill-conceived policy

23 December 2011, 16:24 (GMT+04:00) Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec.23 / Trend M. Aliyev /

The Azerbaijani Parliament’s Speaker called the French National
Assembly’s decision on the so-called “Armenian genocide” unreasonable,
ill-conceived and a weak policy.

“This step is taken not against Turkey, but firstly against France.
The Armenians are poor people who cannot control themselves. They are
controlled by others. I would like to believe that the French
President will not approve the decision of the National Assembly,”
Azerbaijani Parliament’s Speaker Ogtay Asadov said on Friday.

The Azerbaijani government, parliament and people will always be close
to Turkey, he added.

On Thursday, the French parliament adopted a bill criminalising denial
of the so-called “Armenian Genocide”.

Some 45 out of 577 French MPs participated in the voting, 38 of which
voted for, while seven voted against the adoption of the bill.

The bill envisages about one year imprisonment and a fine worth 45,000
euros for denial of the so-called “Armenian genocide”.

MPs from the French President’s “Union for Popular Movement” (UMP)
party which has the parliamentary majority, proposed a bill which aims
at criminalising denial of the so-called “Armenian genocide” to the
legislative committee of the National Assembly in early December.

Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that the predecessor of Turkey –
Ottoman Empire had committed the 1915 genocide against the Armenians
living in Anadolu and to date has achieved recognition of the
“Armenian Genocide” by the parliaments of some countries.

From: A. Papazian

Trend, Azerbaijan
Dec 23 2011

Turkish president: France has to stop its mediation activity in OSCE MG
23 December 2011, 15:35 (GMT+04:00) Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 23 / Trend
A.Badalova, A. Tagiyeva/

France has to stop its mediation activity in the OSCE Minsk Group
following the adoption of a bill criminalizing denial of the so-called
“Armenian Genocide”, TRT Haber TV Channel quotes Turkish President
Abdullah Gul as saying.

The president said the adoption of such a bill harms the stability in
the Caucasus, in particular it will further comlpicate the current
situation between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

On Thursday, the French parliament adopted a bill criminalizing denial
of the so-called “Armenian Genocide”.

Some 45 out of 577 French MPs participated in the voting, 38 of which
voted for, while 7 voted against the adoption of the bill.

The bill envisages about one year imprisonment and a fine worth 45,000
euros for denial of the so-called “Armenian genocide”.

MPs from the French President’s “Union for Popular Movement” (UMP)
party which has the parliamentary majority, proposed a bill which aims
at criminalizing denial of the so-called “Armenian genocide” to the
legislative committee of the National Assembly in early December.

Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that the predecessor of Turkey –
Ottoman Empire had committed the 1915 genocide against the Armenians
living in Anadolu, and achieved recognition of the “Armenian Genocide”
by the parliaments of some countries.

From: A. Papazian

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Dec 22 2011

Minister incites Turks to boycott French goods

ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

Turkey’s EU Minister warns that ‘Turks decide on their own’ implying
that they will boycott against French goods as they did before against
Italy if France approves the bill punishing denial of Armenian
‘genocide’.

Activists from the People’s Voice Party (HSP) and Hak-Ýþ, a trade
union known to be close to the government, lays black wreaths outside
the French Embassy in Ankara. DAILY NEWS photo, Selahattin SÖNMEZ
Turkey’s EU minister said Turkish people would react to France’s
Armenian “genocide” denial bill without any push from the Turkish
government.

“We saw in the past for the case of Italy, those who emptied wine onto
[the streets] and burned coats and cravats were this country’s people.
There is no need for suggestion, this nation’s people decide on their
own,” EU Minister Egemen Baðýþ told reporters yesterday.

Baðýþ said Turks would react by not consuming French goods in response
to the controversial bill.
Meanwhile, Turkish Science, Industry and Technology Minister Nihat
Ergün said Turkey would probably not assume an embargo policy against
France nor violate international agreements. However, France should
take into consideration the uneasiness that would emerge in Turkish
society, Ergün said.

Bülent Eczacýbaþý, president of the board of directors of Eczacýbaþý
Holding, said any boycott against the French firms in Turkey would
harm the Turkish economy. “It would not be wise to punish those
companies working in Turkey; by doing that we will hurt ourselves. We
should be calm and our steps should be outcome-oriented. We should
avoid taking steps with anger that could be detrimental to ourselves,”
he said.

Eczacýbaþý, who is also the chairman of Istanbul Foundation for
Culture and Arts (ÝKSV), said he is against a sanction being imposed
in the domain of art and culture. “Art and culture establish bridges
between people. If there are problems between people we need to make
more use of these cultural bridges,” he said.

In a last warning to France over the Armenian “genocide” denial bill,
Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek said bilateral ties were under threat
of “irreparable damage” and urged French lawmakers to use “common
sense.” The planned bill has united Turkey’s ruling and opposition
parties in Parliament, which in a joint declaration denounced it as a
“grave, unacceptable and historic mistake.”

“We strongly condemn the proposal which denigrates Turkish history,”
the parties said, urging France to consider its own past, including
its involvement in bloodshed in Algeria and Rwanda. The Nationalist
Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli urged the government to
stand firm against France, stressing that the crisis provided ground
to abandon reconciliation efforts with Armenia.

“A great honor struggle awaits the [ruling Justice and Development
Party] AKP. This is a precious opportunity for them to end their
lethargy and step back from the concessions given as part of the
opening to Armenia,” said Bahçeli.

Speaking outside the French Embassy, Republican People’s Party (CHP)
deputy Tanju Özcan he would personally travel to France if the bill
was passed and declare that the “Armenian genocide claims are the
biggest lie of the century.” CHP deputies Ali Özgündüz and Atilla Kart
resigned in protest from the Turkey-France Parliamentary Friendship
Group.

Activists from the People’s Voice Party (HSP) and members of Hak-Ýþ, a
trade union known to be politically close to the government, laid
black wreaths outside the French Embassy in peaceful demonstrations.
December/22/2011

From: A. Papazian

United News Network, India
Dec 24 2011

Sarkozy provoking conflict between the Christians and Muslims. Turkey

Paris (UNN) French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the mutual respect
of views between France and Turkey amid a row over France|s
criminalization of the denial of the so called “Armenian genocide,”.

I respect the views of our Turkish friends it is a great country, a
great civilization and they must respect ours,” Sarkozy said in Prague
where he is attending the funeral of late Czech president and
revolution icon Vaclav Havel.

France is not giving lessons to anyone but does not want them either,”
Sarkozy said.

Earlier Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that French
President Nicolas Sarkozy is against the Turks and Muslims.

He also added that Sarkozy is trying to promote his election campaign,
by provoking a conflict between the Christians and Muslims.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul said France has to stop its mediation
activity in the OSCE Minsk Group following the adoption of a bill
criminalizing denial of the so-called “Armenian Genocide”.

Under all circumstances, we must remain calm,” Sarkozy said, adding:
“France does not ask for permission, France has its convictions, human
rights, and respect for memory.”

On Thursday, the French parliament adopted a bill criminalizing denial
of the so-called “Armenian Genocide”.

Some 45 out of 577 French MPs participated in the voting, 38 of which
voted for, while 7 voted against the adoption of the bill.

The bill envisages about one year imprisonment and a fine worth 45,000
euros for denial of the so-called “Armenian genocide”./UNN

From: A. Papazian

TURKEY TO ABIDE BY WTO NORMS IN FRENCH BOYCOTT

Today’s Zaman

Dec 23 2011
Turkey

Turkey signaled on Friday that business reprisals against France will
be restricted, saying there are obligations it has to obey in line
with World Trade Organization (WTO) and Customs Union norms.

“Turkey has obligations. The Turkish state can’t do this given the
WTO and Customs Union rules,” Turkey’s Ambassador to France, Tahsin
Burcuoglu, told reporters when asked to comment on a possible boycott
of French goods in response to a French vote on Thursday to criminalize
denial of claims of Armenian genocide.

Burcuoglu did indicate, however, that the “man on the street” has
the right to decide what goods to buy and what not to buy.

The French National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament,
adopted a bill on Thursday that sets a punishment of up to a year in
prison and a fine of 45,000 euros ($59,000) for those who deny the
Armenian genocide.

Turkish businessmen earlier warned that French business interests
would be also harmed if such a bill were to become law, referring
to orders made by Turkish Airlines for Airbus aircraft and planned
investments worth billions of dollars in the energy sector for which
French companies would likely be bidders.

However, the French government has warned Turkey against imposing
unilateral trade sanctions, reminding Ankara of its obligations under
WTO rules and its Customs Union agreement with the European Union.

“We have to remember international rules and Turkey is a member of
the WTO and is linked to the European Union by a customs union, and
these two commitments mean a non-discriminatory policy towards all
companies within the European Union,” said French Foreign Ministry
spokesman Bernard Valero.

The Turkish government has ruled out an embargo, but hinted that
a boycott against French goods is not out of the question. “There
will be an effect on consumer preferences,” said Turkish Science,
Technology and Industry Minister Nihat Ergun.

Burcuoglu spoke to reporters upon his return from Paris. He flew
to Turkey on Friday after he was recalled indefinitely to Ankara
for consultation. His return to Ankara is one of several measures
against France that was announced by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan on Thursday.

Erdogan said Turkey was cancelling all economic, political and military
meetings with its NATO partner and said it would deny permission for
French military planes to land and for warships to dock in Turkey.

French Foreign Affairs Minister Alain Juppe, speaking to journalists
after the vote, urged Turkey not to overreact to the assembly decision,
calling for “good sense and moderation.”

Burcuoglu said the Turkish Embassy in Paris has received calls of
support from an unexpectedly high number of people, including from
French citizens of North African origin. He also said he was proud
of some 5,000 Turks who exercised their right to demonstrate in front
of the French parliament on Thursday to protest the bill.

The ambassador also noted France has not recalled its envoy from
Turkey. The French ambassador in Ankara left Turkey this week, raising
speculation in the Turkish media that his departure was linked with
tensions over the “genocide” bill.

Burcuoglu said the French envoy left for France for Christmas.

From: A. Papazian