Author: Andres-Papazian

GENOCIDE DENIERS SUE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, STUDENTS SUFFER FROM UNIVERSITIES’ PART-TIME FACULTY
By Jeff Dugas

Campus Progress

Dec 1 2010

The University of Minnesota was sued in federal court this week over
allegations that a website for its Holocaust studies center violated
First Amendment and due process rights in the way it portrayed a
Turkish-American organization. The Turkish Coalition of America was
named by the website as an “unreliable” source of information on the
treatment of Armenians during World War I. Though a consensus exists
among most genocide scholars that the treatment of Armenians by the
Turkish government during this period constitutes genocide, a number
of groups disagree, including the Turkish Coalition of America. The
University of Minnesota insists that the material naming the group
was removed as a part of a “routine review” and not as a result of
the allegations. [Inside Higher Ed]

College students may be learning from instructors who “lack the
time and training to use effective teaching practices” according
to a new study out of Michigan State University. The researchers
focused on the differences between full-time and part-time faculty,
and their findings show that part-time adjunct instructors are more
likely to use teaching methods that are both less time-consuming and
less effective. The researchers noted that they were not blaming the
instructors themselves for the shortfalls, but rather the conditions
under which they are forced to work. The researchers argue that
colleges and universities should focus on converting multiple part-time
positions into a few full-time positions, which is a change they say
would benefit both the instructors and the students.

[Chronicle of Higher Education]

Education reformer Geoffrey Canada and former U.S. Secretary of
Education Margaret Spellings met with prominent business leaders
in Denver on Tuesday with a very simple message: “If the business
community doesn’t get involved in [education reform], you are just
going to watch this country decline.” At the Denver Metro Chamber
of Commerce luncheon, Canada and Spellings urged business leaders to
encourage innovation and reform in education while citing the United
States’ low worldwide rankings in math and science as well as the high
dropout rates that have become the norm in much of the country. The
dropout rates, he said, are a matter of national security – the
Pentagon estimates that 75 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 are
ineligible to enlist in the military due to failure to graduate high
school, criminal records, or physical fitness issues. [Denver Post]

The Louisiana state school board is coming under criticism for its
approval of life-science textbooks that do not provide information
questioning the theory of evolution. Defenders of the textbook say
that the criticism is simply a veiled attempt to promote a religiously
infused creationist perspective on the origins of life. Those who have
criticized the textbook feel that the approval is a manifestation
of the “anti-Christian movement” in the country. The controversy is
one in a long history of such evolution debates that have occurred
in Louisiana since the 1980s. [Education Week]

Jeff Dugas is the online communications intern at Campus Progress. He
is currently completing his undergraduate education at George
Washington University.

From: A. Papazian

ALLIES AND THEIR COSTS
RICHARD REID

Hurriyet Daily News
Dec 1 2010
Turkey

How high a diplomatic cost should a country be willing to pay for
continuing to embrace a widely reviled or inconvenient ally? As the
cost rises, what’s the price for decoupling from the ally? How do
you calibrate the damages of scaling back the relationship?

Those are questions that China, the U.S. and Turkey are facing now.

For China, the problem is how to continue to relate to its rambunctious
dependent North Korea. Over the years, Pyongyang’s behavior has
dragged China into scrape after scrape, unbefitting a responsible
major power. Chinese credibility nose-dived last March when it had
to step in to shield its ally after the deadly sinking of a South
Korean warship. Last Tuesday all Beijing could do was to urge calm and
express “pain and regret” when North Korean cannon fire on a South
Korean Island killed four and wiped out numerous civilian homes –
this after, earlier in the month, Pyongyang had startled the world
by disclosing a new nuclear enrichment plant.

Shudders must be running through China’s upper ranks today as they
contemplate the prospect of working with the untested 20-something,
Kim Jong-un, once his clearly ailing father, Kim Jong Il, dies.

Although the U.S.’s outlay in embarrassment may be less, Washington
is also paying a painful credibility price for its relationship with
Israel. The ante rose with the Gaza flotilla incident. The costs
continue to climb with Tel Aviv’s stonewalling in the peace talks. How
much longer can Washington afford to give Israel the indulgence it
has become accustomed to? How many more times will Israel’s leaders
be allowed to pull the rug out from under the White House? Israel’s
intransigence on the settlements issue – the government’s fear of
the settler bloc in the Knesset – has brought President Obama’s
much-heralded peace negotiation process to a full stop. In effect,
the tail has again proven its ability to wag the dog.

Some in the isolationist wing of the Tea Party Republicans just elected
to Congress will wish to cut support to Israel, but not much can be
expected to come from it.

Turkey’s relational calculus today is not so different. It’s clear
that a close embrace of Israel did not fit into Ankara’s new set of
regional designs, and so the series of ruptures, from Davos to the low
sofa to the flotilla to harsh high-level language, was fated to play
out. But now that the government is making nice with Iran, has anyone
considered, for example, that Turkey’s most cosseted regional ally,
Azerbaijan, is in effect Iran’s enemy? Iran gave robust military
support to Christian Armenia, against Azerbaijan, in the 1991-93
Nagorno- Karabakh war, won by Armenia. The Armenia-Azerbaijan border
skirmish in two months ago that killed five soldiers from the two
sides – one wonders if that clash has brought about any re-thinking
in an Ankara that has looked toward reconciliation with Armenia? It
will be remembered, further, that efforts toward that reconciliation
were scuttled in 2009 mainly by Turkey’s fears of escalating outrage
in Azerbaijan.

It seems that now the Azerbaijanis are distancing themselves further
from easy friendship. On the back of surging oil income they have
built up a $3 billion military budget, and seem to be spoiling for a
war to take back Nagorno-Kabarakh, so as to reclaim their 1 million
co-nationals who are internally displaced there. Either imminent war
or actual fighting would bring Ankara headaches on several sides.

Turkey would rile Azerbaijan if it pushed to dissuade it from an
armed solution; Baku has waited 17 years for the world to do something
about Nagorno-Karabakh. A war would wreck any diplomatic bridges with
Armenia. Turkey would have to stand up for Azerbaijan in the face
of widespread global rebuke. Most critically, an Armenia-Azerbaijan
conflict would put at risk a vital Turkish future interest, the
Nabucco pipeline.

Should Ankara begin to decouple from Baku? Could it?

If China and the U.S. followed the doctrine of greatest prudence
in international relations, which is that nations have no permanent
allies, only permanent interests, Beijing and Washington would have no
qualms. North Korea and Israel would be squeezed into obedience. But
there are too many contingencies to allow things to work out that way.

North Koreans by the hundreds of thousands would force the Yalu
River border bridge and turn northeastern China into a refugee camp
if Beijing used its only real coercive tool – a food and fuel cut-off.

Even more ominous for China, drawn-out unrest and desperation in North
Korea, possibly paving the way to regime collapse, could foreshadow
unification with the South – inevitably meaning a new Korea built
along southern socio-political lines: in other words, a close ally
of the United States along more than a thousand kilometers of Chinese
border. Beijing would be looking at Uncle Sam over its backyard fence.

In reality, all China can do is hope for a less adventurist regime in
Pyongyang when Kim Jong Il’s death brings on the likely triumvirate
of his untried son, the son’s sister, and the son’s uncle. Now,
given Pyongyang’s shelling of the South Korean island, such a hope
seems far-fetched. The bombardment may in fact foreshadow a more
militaristic turn by North Korea.

For its part, the U.S. can never be expected to seriously shake its
alliance with Israel. U.S. domestic politics, quite apart from the
Zionist lobby, are powerfully pro-Israel, and will be at least as
long as there is a perceived jihadist threat. Fundamentalist American
Christians, led by the Baptists, see Israel as an untouchable uptake
base for the End of Days, when the righteous will be whisked to glory
from the soil of the Holy Land. As regards U.S. power protection,
Israel is the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” of John Foster Dulles’s
words, a formidable military and intelligence partner.

So China and the U.S. will go on putting up with their trying
co-dependents. As of now the alternatives have no appeal. Turkey,
having burned most of its bridges with Israel, executed (up to now)
a nimble dodge with U.S., and launched relationships with neighboring
others, will learn, not necessarily to its long-term loss, that its
new friends are seasoned friendship traders, more apt than most to
jilt at convenience.

Being or becoming a power, rather than just an ally, is like divorce.

It requires nerve, it is messy and risky, it leaves angry dependents,
and it holds no certainty. But for some that is better than a status
quo that settles for less than autonomy.

From: A. Papazian

TURKISH ARMENIANS SUE TURKEY OVER BELATED PATRIARCH ELECTION

Hurriyet
Dec 1 2010
Turkey

Lay representatives of the Armenian community have formed an initiative
to lobby for their right to select their own patriarch.

DAILY NEWS photo, Hasan ALTINIÅ~^IK

The Turkish Armenian community has filed two lawsuits against the
Turkish government, including one to get permission to go ahead with
a long-delayed election to select their own new patriarch.

“A committee composed of lay representatives from the community
filed two lawsuits,” the community’s attorney Sebuh Aslangil told the
Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review. “The first one is to make the
government allow an election for a patriarch to take place, and the
second is for canceling the substitute patriarch’s post.”

Aslangil told the Daily News that such a post does not exist in the
rules of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Lay representatives of the community, who have formed an initiative to
lobby for their rights to select their own patriarch, meanwhile held
a meeting Wednesday in Istanbul. The initiative previously organized
a petition campaign that gathered 6,000 signatures from Armenians in
Istanbul demanding that the election be allowed to take place.

Patriarch Mesrop II has been unable to fulfill his duties due to
dementia. Because of this, the Armenian community applied to the
Interior Ministry; the first was made by the patriarchate’s clerical
committee to elect a co-patriarch and the second was made by the lay
committee to elect a new patriarch.

Speaking to the Daily News, initiative spokesman Garo Paylan said
the fact that there were two applications posed a problem, but that
this should “not get the Interior Ministry off the hook for what they
have done.”

He said the ministry invented the post of “substitute patriarch”
in order to see the person they wanted installed in the patriarch’s
place. “The Turkish state needs to give the Armenian community what
they are entitled to and should not impede the election process,”
Paylan said. “It is our most deserved right to be able to elect our
patriarch. In no time in history has the Armenian Patriarchate in
Istanbul been persecuted to this extent.”

Secret meeting at the palace

In November, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a secret
meeting with Archbishop Aram AteÅ~_yan and a few prominent businessmen
from the Armenian community. The participants made no statement about
what was discussed at the meeting.

In subsequent months, AteÅ~_yan was assigned as substitute patriarch
through the intervention of the Interior Ministry.

According to Paylan, some prominent people from the community had an
interesting meeting with Interior Minister BeÅ~_ir Atalay last week.

“Atalay told us he was given information by AteÅ~_yan concerning
the election procedure,” the spokesman said. “We do not know what
is happening behind closed doors, but we know there is a post that
has been left unfilled for three years and that is the post of the
community’s spiritual leader.”

Paylan said the election must take place as soon as possible and
that it does not matter whether it selects a co-patriarch or a new
patriarch.

“AteÅ~_yan imitates the Turkish government’s official discourse
wherever he goes and says we have no problems with the Turkish state,”
he said.

“We want someone who is not afraid to speak his mind and who could
represent our community in a way that is true to reality.”

CLARIFICATION: This article was amended on Dec. 2, 2010 to better
clarify the distinction between the spiritual (clerical) committee
and the civilian (lay) committee.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIAN HISTORY REINTERPRETED SERGE MOMJIAN’S ‘MEMORIES OF THE PAST’ AIMS TO PRESERVE HIS PEOPLE’S CULTURAL HERITAGE
By Annie Slemrod
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Daily Star

Dec 2 2010
Lebanon

BEIRUT: It isn’t easy to narrate the story of a people that dates
back over 2,000 years. This is what Serge Momjian has attempted to
do, in a slim 190 pages, with “Memories of the Past.” This mix of
history and fiction sets out to inform the reader about Armenian
history and culture within the frame of the story of one survivor of
the Armenian genocide.

The narrator and protagonist of “Memories” is Vartan Apelian, an
older man who recounts his life story and that of the Armenians.

During the Armenian genocide, young Vartan flees his hometown of Urfa
(now Sanliurfa in Southeastern Anatolia) with his uncle Hovsep and
lands in Cairo.

He eventually finds himself in Michigan. While waiting tables and
studying landscape architecture, Vartan begins visiting an Armenian
cultural center and meets other members of the local Armenian
community.

Through an improbable series of coincidences, Vartan meets a man named
Latif Odoglu, who turns out to have been a “military official who was
responsible for carrying out the deportations and killings [in Urfa].”

Vartan confronts Odoglu with stilted dialogue – “to deport and kill
innocent people, that’s bullshit” – and, within a few pages, Oduglu
commits suicide by jumping out of his hotel window. Vartan is arrested,
tried and acquitted of murder.

At the book’s conclusion, Vartan discovers that his mother is still
alive and living in a Kurdish village in Eastern Turkey. After a
short reunion, he returns to Michigan, stating with a curious lack
of emotion, “You know, my mother is an old woman now, and while she
feels she belongs there, I feel I belong here.”

According to press materials released by Austin & Macauley Publishers,
Momjian is the author of three previous books, “Conflicting Motives”
(1994) “The Invisible Line” (2000) and “The Singer of the Opera”
(2004). These works largely appear to have passed beneath the radar
of the English-language press.

Nearly 100 years after it occurred, the Armenian genocide is still
a controversial topic. Scholars and politicians tend to agree that
between 1915 and 1916, at least hundreds of thousands of Armenians died
during their deportation from Eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Turks.

Estimates vary widely on exactly how many Armenians were murdered,
or died from starvation or disease. The Turkish state puts the number
at 300,000; the Armenian government and many scholars suggest the
number is closer to 1.5 million.

More than 20 countries have formally recognized the events as
genocide, and in March 2010 the US House Foreign Affairs Committee
voted to label the killings genocide. Turkey temporarily withdrew
its ambassador from Washington in response.

Turkey denies that what has been referred to as the “Great Calamity”
was genocide. It claims there was no premeditated plan to eliminate
the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian community.

In eliminating much of the Armenian population, the Ottomans
effectively destroyed the personal histories and memories of families
and entire towns.

Momjian is bent on correcting this state of affairs.

There are some problems with the book that emerge from his efforts.

English-language readers will find Momjian’s labor has not been well
served by its sloppy copy-editing, which is credited to Austin &
Macauley. But there are more essential difficulties here.

Vartan catalogues aspects of Armenian history from their beginnings
as documented by Herodotus, the formation of the Armenian language,
and the gods worshipped by pre-Christian Armenians.

The problem is that it is often difficult to discern whether Vartan’s
stories are myth or history, as he cites the stories of St. Gregory,
the patron saint of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church and Vartan
(the general and saint) as if historically verified truth.

For the most part, Momjian has chosen to detail Armenian history
via Socratic dialogues between Vartan and his wife, Alice, and their
children, Kevork and Vera. These are long speeches, with his family
members serving as Socratic-style yes-men.

This is a bit problematic, as the reader does not know which aspects
of Vartan’s tales are fact, and which are fiction. Even history takes
on a mythical quality and some of Vartan’s statements about Armenian
history are simply too simplistic to be believed by historically
informed laymen, let alone professionals.

When his son Kevork asks why the Armenians were driven out of Urfa,
Vartan replies, “Because they wanted to take our land.”

The Armenian genocide was indeed part of a land grab by the Ottoman
leadership, but the Young Turks also considered the Armenians to be a
fifth column and a potential liability in a new “ethnically Turkish”
state.

There is nothing wrong with historical fiction. When resting on a
bed of solid historical research, the genre can serve to make past
periods and people come alive for the general reader in way that dry,
inaccessible academic prose cannot.

A major problem with the notion of historical fiction of the
Armenian genocide (indeed, of Armenian history generally) is that
hard documentary history of the events is left wanting – especially
when compared to the exhaustive institutional and personal histories
that have been generated about the other major group extermination
effort of the 20th century, the Nazi Holocaust.

Because European Jewry’s horrendous collision with the 20th century
is so well documented, fictive and fictionalized treatments of that
experience have thrived in numerous popular media. From the Art
Spiegelman’s renowned graphic novel “Maus” to a range of Hollywood
movies – somber bio-pics such as Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List”
existing alongside ahistorical fantasies like Quentin Tarantino’s
“Inglourious Basterds.”

For various reasons, academic histories of Armenia and the Armenians
during the Ottoman genocide are far more rare. Consequently, when
artists have attempted to present work that leapfrogs documentary,
the reception has been ambivalent. A good case in point is Atom
Egoyan’s 2002 film “Ararat.”

This masterful piece of cinema uses the complex of genocide
recollection and representation as a means to examine stories of
personal grief and, ultimately, peoples’ need to inscribe meaning upon
death and loss. Yet because it didn’t treat the Armenian genocide for
itself, it was not necessarily warmly received within the Armenian
diaspora.

“Memories” falls within this conundrum. Not quite historical fiction,
it wants to be both history and fiction. Without any real evidence
of the author’s credentials or source materials, its authenticity is
hard to take at face value.

“Memories of the Past” is published by Austin & Macauley. It can be
purchased online at Amazon.

From: A. Papazian

TURKISH GROUP CLAIMS U OF MINN. ‘BLACKLISTED’ SITE

LaCrosse Tribune

Dec 1 2010
Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS – A Turkish advocacy group has sued the University of
Minnesota, claiming one department “blacklisted” its website because
of the group’s pro-Turkish viewpoint on the killings of Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire 95 years ago.

The university’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies listed
the Turkish Coalition of America’s site as “unreliable” because the
Washington-based group disputes that what happened to the Armenians
was genocide, The Minnesota Daily reported Wednesday. The center’s
list was removed from its website last month.

The coalition’s lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court, claims that
University of Minnesota students and professors generally avoid
using the group’s website because they fear “adverse consequence,
including the loss of academic standing.”

The suit alleges violations of constitutional rights and defamation,
and seeks unspecified money damages and any other remedies the court
deems appropriate.

The university’s general counsel, Mark Rotenberg, told the newspaper
that the lawsuit had no merit and the university would seek to have
it dismissed. Rotenberg said he was “perplexed” the plaintiffs sued
after the information was removed.

“The faculty and the university have a right to voice their opinions
on the reliability of source materials that are found on the Internet,”
Rotenberg said.

Turkey and Armenia have long been locked in a bitter dispute over the
deaths of Armenians in Turkey. Many historians estimate that up to 1.5
million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks in what constituted
genocide around the time of World War I. Turkey disputes the claim,
saying the toll has been inflated and those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.

The coalition said the genocide question is a “genuine historic and
legal controversy.”

Along with the university, the lawsuit names the Center for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies’ director, Bruno Chaouat, and the university’s
president, Robert Bruininks.

The center’s list of links had said students should not use the sites
because they denied genocide, were supported by unknown organizations
or contained “a strange mixture of fact and opinion.” The coalition’s
website was the first site listed.

Although the center removed the list after the Turkish American Legal
Defense Fund complained to Bruininks, Chaouat said he had long intended
to remove it as part of an update to the website.

“My rationale was quite simple: never promote, even negatively,
sources of illegitimate information,” Chaouat wrote on the site.

Besides the coalition, the plaintiffs include Sinan Cingilli, a
freshman from Turkey who said he was afraid to use the “blacklisted”
websites.

“The point of the case is to remove obstacles to free, critical
thinking,” Cingilli told The Minnesota Daily.

Larry Frost, an attorney for the plaintiffs, added: “The university’s
rules and regulations specify the right to research and write from
any source, and blacklisting sources does not comport well with that.”

From: A. Papazian

ALL SMILES IN FIRST GUL-ALIYEV MEETING AFTER WIKILEAKS DUMP

Today’s Zaman
Dec 2 2010
Turkey

President Abdullah Gul met with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham
Aliyev, and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov on the
sidelines of the OSCE summit in Astana on Wednesday.

President Abdullah Gul had his first bilateral talks on Wednesday
in Astana with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, who was
reported to have voiced remarks critical of the current Turkish
government in US diplomatic cables released recently by WikiLeaks,
a whistleblower website.

Following the release of a large number of sensitive US diplomatic
cables by the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website, Gul met with Aliyev
on the sidelines of the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) summit in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana, where
both discussed the currently stalled Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,
a territorial dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Speaking to a group of Turkish journalists on the sidelines of
the summit in Astana, Gul said Aliyev denied the report during
their meeting. Gul said Aliyev expressed his dismay over the cables
presenting him as being critical of Erdogan. “He denied the veracity
of the documents and expressed his sadness,” Gul said.

Documents leaked by WikiLeaks late on Sunday revealed Aliyev expressing
distaste for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, calling
Turkish foreign policy “naive” and its initiatives a “failure.” But
the Azerbaijani side denied the fact that Aliyev had talked about
“third” countries during his meeting with US administration
officials. “Aliyev, as a rule, does not usually talk about third
countries in his meetings,” Novruz Mammadov, head of international
relations at the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, said.

Gul also congratulated his Azerbaijani counterpart on the recent
parliamentary elections, which he defined as “successful.” The
Azerbaijani ruling party, which Aliyev chairs, won a landslide
victory in the Nov. 7 general elections, making the party a majority
in parliament for the fourth time.

The cables disclosed that Aliyev spelled out the reasons why Azerbaijan
decided to sell gas to Russia last year, noting that “‘Moscow had asked
and offered a good price for gas that was a surplus anyway.” But the
real reason, the cable quotes Aliyev, was that the sale illustrated to
“our Turkish friends” that they will not be allowed to create a gas
distribution hub.

Gul defined Aliyev’s alleged remarks as “contrary to the nature of
the job,” as he referred to Azerbaijan’s current cooperation with
Turkey on energy projects. “Why would Aliyev not want energy lines
to pass through Turkey?” Gul asked.

“Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan is working. This brings them much income. If
the Nabucco gas pipeline also passes through Turkey, Azerbaijan’s
energy resources will reach lucrative markets. In this sense, I told
him not to be sad. Even if you hadn’t said they weren’t true, we did
not believe them anyway,” Gul noted.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF TURKEY APPEALS TO ELECT ITS PATRIARCH

Today’s Zaman

Dec 2 2010
Turkey

Turkey’s Armenian community has collected approximately 5,000
signatures in order to have the right to elect its patriarch following
the appointment of a patriarchal vicar general as the current patriarch
is permanently ill.

Calling themselves the “We Want to Elect our own Patriarch Initiative,”
the group said in a press conference yesterday that they want to
elect their religious leader, who is supposed to represent their
community. The Armenian Patriarchate based in Ä°stanbul had turned to
the Turkish government to ask how to proceed with the election of the
patriarch since Mesrob II Mutafyan, who was elected patriarch for life
in 1998 by the Armenian community, has been permanently ill. One group
within the Armenian community is of the view that they should choose a
new patriarch; another group, however, objected to this, arguing that
it was against their traditions to choose a new patriarch while the
elected one was still alive, no matter how unfit for duty. However, the
internal conflict within the Armenian community on the issue continues.

The second group suggested choosing a “co-patriarch.” At the end,
both groups turned to the government for approval of the “election
procedure.” Even though there is no law, bylaw or regulation in
Turkey regarding this process, the Turkish government told the
Armenian community to appoint a patriarchal vicar general because a
new patriarch could not be chosen while the elected one is still alive.

Aram AteÅ~_yan was then elected as the patriarchal vicar general.

Speaking on behalf of the initiative, Harut Ozer said their right
to elect their own patriarch had been taken away even though the
Armenian Church has traditionally elected its religious leaders by
majority vote of its laity.

The initiative’s Tatyos Bebek said they tried to solve the problem
within the Armenian community, but since AteÅ~_yan refused to talk
with them, they had to go public with their demands.

Taraf daily columnist Markar Esayan, also from the initiative, said
their rights had been violated.

The initiative now plans to appeal to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan to voice its demands. “Our right to elect our own patriarch
has been taken away because the ‘patriarchal vicar general’ position
was created against the traditions of the Armenian Church. In a
democratic and secular state, we cannot accept such interference in
the patriarchal election, which is the right of the Armenian community
based on historical traditions,” their statement read.

From: A. Papazian

EXPERT: EITHER ALIYEV WAS FORCED TO MAKE A STATEMENT, OR HE WAS CONFUSED

news.am
Dec 2 2010
Armenia

The U.N. Charter is hardly referred to by the OSCE Minsk Group.

However, it has been unequivocally done this time, which is a novelty,
Mavel Sargsyan, an expert for the Armenian Center for National and
International Studies (ACNIS), told NEWS.am, commenting on the joint
statement by the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents and the OSCE Minsk
Group Co-Chairs. According to him, such a turning-point tells much.

“It was no co-incidence that the Azerbaijani President found himself in
a difficult situation just an hour later. He began making anti-Armenian
statements and was not disposed to talk with Serzh Sargsyan. He
behaved in an unfriendly manner,” the expert said.

According to him, President Ilham Aliyev must have been forced into
approving such a statement and actually making it later. “Or, he may
have failed to realize what he had agreed to,” M. Sargsyan said.

“The U.N. Charter lays emphasis on peoples’ self-determination,
which is hardly to Aliyev’s liking. This turning-point may cause
further developments not in Aliyev’s favor, the expert said.

He also pointed out that the OSCE Summit is taking place in a tense
atmosphere. “The WikiLeaks exposures played a serious role. The absence
of the U.S., French and British leaders arouses concern. Many of the
leaders think the OSCE has lost its power and has no mechanisms of
resolving conflicts. Russia and Georgia are known to have exchanged
hints at ultimatums. With such general atmosphere, a final declaration
may not be adopted, which would be an unprecedented event,” M.

Sargsyan said.

Considering the above, it is possible that by incorporating a reference
to the U.N. Charter the Co-Chairs, aware of their shaky positions,
are galvanizing the sides to a new format. Time will show,” the
expert concluded.

From: A. Papazian

ADVOCACY GROUP SUES U. OF MINNESOTA FOR DESIGNATING ITS WEB SITE AS ‘UNRELIABLE’

Chronicle of Higher Education

Dec 2 2010

In a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday, a Turkish advocacy group
accuses the University of Minnesota of defamation and of violating
the organization’s due-process and freedom-of-speech rights, The
Minnesota Daily reported. The dispute stems from a listing on the Web
page of the university’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
that described the Turkish Coalition of America’s Web site as an
“unreliable” source of information about the mass killing of Armenians
a century ago and advised students not to use it. The center removed
the list in mid-November. The university says that the allegations
are unfounded and that it will seek to have them dismissed.

From: A. Papazian

SERZH SARGSYAN: UNILATERAL CONCESSIONS OBSTACLES TO SETTLEMENT OF NK CONFLICT

Panorama
Dec 2 2010
Armenia

The attempts of Azerbaijan to extort unilateral concessions through
the threat of the use of force are doomed to fail upfront; they
continue to remain the major impediment on the way to compromise and
the settlement of this problem, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan
delivered a speech to OSCE Summit today.

Addressing to his counterparts, President Sargsyan stated that
Azerbaijan is the only country on the European continent that boasts
the manifold increase of its military spending.

~SHowever, no necessary actions are taken with regard to Azerbaijan
flagrantly exceeding the maximal levels on possession of treaty-limited
materiel set by the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe;
moreover, such offensive materiel is being sold to it, including by
states participating in the OSCE.~T

From: A. Papazian