Author: Antonian Lara

The News Tribune, WA
Oct 12 2007

A poor moment to antagonize Turkey

THE NEWS TRIBUNE Published: October 12th, 2007 01:00 AM

There shouldn’t be a statute of limitations on genocides. But maybe
there should be one on politically driven resolutions against
genocide offered almost a century too late.
The congressional resolution in question condemns the Turkish
campaign to starve and murder Armenians during World War I and just
after. Today, the U.S. House of Representatives is moving to
officially label that campaign `genocide.’ The House Foreign Affairs
Committee endorsed the measure Wednesday.

What the Armenians suffered was genocide. But the House is a little
tardy coming to the issue. Congress might have been of more help had
it acted in, say, 1916. The modern Turkish government denies that the
killings amounted to genocide. That’s self-interest speaking. But so,
to some extent, is the resolution itself.

Its chief sponsor, Rep. Adam Schiff, represents more than 70,000
Armenian-Americans in his California district. Some of House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi’s major contributors are of Armenian descent. Armenians
have good reason to be infuriated by Turkey’s denial of history, but
Congress should have the sense not to court their favor in a way that
threatens to antagonize a key U.S. ally.

In Turkey, this resolution is viewed as a national insult. This isn’t
the time to be inviting Turkish hostility.

U.S. diplomats now are desperately trying to prevent Turkey from
invading northern Iraq to stop cross-border attacks from Kurdish
guerrillas. The Turkish public is already annoyed that its government
is assisting the United States in Iraq and elsewhere.

An eruption of anti-Americanism in Turkey could weaken what has been
a close strategic partnership and jeopardize U.S. access to air space
and key Turkish bases.

For these and other reasons, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
all her living predecessors have asked the House not to proceed.
Washington’s House delegation is divided. Reps. Norm Dicks,
D-Belfair; Jim McDermott, D-Seattle; and Adam Smith, D-Tacoma, oppose
the resolution. Others support it.

McDermott doesn’t like the mixed message. `The Turks have been our
allies,’ he said. `Now we’re calling them mass murderers.’

At this particular moment, that’s not the message Congress ought to
be sending the Turks.

16.html

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 11 2007

Azeri pundits say genocide resolution to damage US-Turkey ties

Azerbaiijani pundits have warned of serious repercussions for
UK-Turkish relations if the US House of Representatives approves a
resolution recognizing mass killings of Armenians in the early 20th
century as genocide as recommended by the congressional foreign
affairs committee. They all noted the high likelihood of the
resolution being passed, highlighting the role of the Armenian
Diaspora in lobbying for the resolution. One of the analysts said
that Turkey’s tough response could jeopardize US military operations
in Iraq, which could end in "a catastrophe". The following is an
excerpt from report by Azerbaijani news agency Trend:

Baku, 11 October: The adoption by the US House of Representatives
Committee on Foreign Affairs of a resolution recognizing the
so-called "genocide of Armenians" will deal a serious blow to
US-Turkish relations, Azerbaijani political scientists say.

"It is very likely that the Congress will adopt the resolution. If
the Congress adopts the resolution on the so-called ‘genocide of
Armenians’, this will deal a painful blow to US state interests,"
Democratic Reforms Party MP Asim Mollazada said in Baku today.

[Passage omitted: background to the resolution]

Mollazada believes that the recognition of the so-called "genocide of
Armenians" will damage US relations with its biggest ally in the
Middle East. "A blow will also be delivered to joint US-Turkish
programmes," Mollazada said.

He said the resolution was adopted to meet the interests of the
Armenian ethnic group living in the USA. "The US administration is
well aware that the recognition of the so-called ‘genocide of
Armenians’ will deal a blow to Washington’s interests. President
George Bush’s protest against the committee’s decision is proof of
that," Mollazada said.

Mollazada believes that the US Congress still has time to correct the
mistake by holding discussion and adopting a resolution on the most
terrible tragedy of the 20th century committed by Armenians – the
Xocali tragedy [massacre of Azeris in Azerbaijan’s breakaway Nagornyy
Karabakh region on 26 February 1992]. "The US Congress can turn the
situation around by recognizing the Xocali tragedy committed by
Armenians," he said.

Independent political scientist Rasim Misabayov thinks that the
Armenian lobby, which managed to convince the congressional committee
to adopt the resolution on the so-called "genocide of Armenians"
pursues the sole aim of delivering a blow to US-Turkish ties. "This
cannot be allowed to happen. Turkey’s response should be
well-measured," Musabayov said.

He said that the issue is yet to be discussed in the House of
Representatives of the US Congress and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is
interested in putting the resolution to the vote. "The likelihood of
the US House of Representatives backing the resolution on the
recognition of ‘Armenian genocide’ is very high. But the resolution
is not a law and is not legally binding. The US president simply gets
a recommendation that in his foreign policy he should take into
account the fact that Armenians were subjected to ‘genocide’. But
George Bush has openly stated that he will take no account of that,"
Musabayov said.

In his view, the resolution will have no impact whatsoever on the US
position on the Middle East or the policy the USA pursues in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Musabayov believes that Turkey may respond by severing
its relations with the US Congress. For its part, the Turkish
parliament may adopt a resolution that the USA subjected Indians to
genocide and killed Muslims.

In his opinion one of the possible consequences could be a sharp
worsening of Ankara’s attitude towards the US policy on Iraq. This
could entail serious problems for Washington.

"The resolution adopted the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US
House of Representatives must be approved by the House of
Representatives to gain the status of a document. I think there is
still time to prevent the biggest mistake of the 21st century," a
member of the political council of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party
and member of Azerbaijan’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly
of the Council of Europe [PACE], Aydin Mirzazada, has said.

He said that the Democrats, who hold a majority in the Congress, seek
to gain the votes of the Armenian lobby in the coming presidential
election by adopting the resolution. "The Democrats have taken an
unfair decision and lost the votes of US citizens of Turkish origin,"
Mirzazada said.

He believes that even though the decision is advisory, it may still
lead to serious consequences for US foreign policy.

Mirzazada noted that 70 per cent of Iraq-bound cargoes being
transported by air by the US military and 30 per cent by land pass
across Turkey. He said that if Ankara slaps a ban on those transport
operations, the Iraq war, which has cost billions of dollars, may end
in a catastrophe.

NTV, Turkey
Oct 11 2007

Newspaper editor, publisher sentenced for "insulting Turkishness"

Arat Dink is the son of Hrant Dink, the former editor of Agos who was
murdered in January outside the paper’s office.

Istanbul: Arat Dink, editor-in-chief of the weekly Turkish Armenian
language newspaper Agos, and Serkis Seropyan, the paper’s publisher,
have each been sentenced to one year in prison on charges of
insulting Turkishness by an Istanbul court Thursday [11 October].
However, the Basic Criminal Court of the Sisli District of Istanbul
decided to suspend the prison terms as neither Dink and Seropyan had
previous criminal records.

Both were found guilty under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code,
which covers the crime of insulting Turkey, Turkish identity, the
state or the people.

The European Union and human rights groups have been pushing Turkey
to remove the article from the statute books, saying that it
restricts freedom of speech.

Mediamax, Armenia
Oct 11 2007

Armenian leader hails US Congress’ genocide recognition efforts

The Armenian president has praised the Foreign Affairs Committee of
the US House of Representatives for its decision to debate the bill
recognizing the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as "genocide".
Kocharyan said this at the time when the committee was still debating
the bill. Turkey and the US administration warned the US Congress
against adopting the bill, saying it would damage US-Turkish
relations. The bill was endorsed by the committee on 10 October.
Following is an excerpt from report by Armenian news agency Mediamax:

Yerevan, 11 October: President of the European Commission Jose Manuel
Barroso thinks that Turkey and Armenia should "make real steps
towards reconciliation".

Barroso said this at a joint briefing with Armenian President Robert
Kocharyan on 10 October, a Mediamax correspondent reported from
Brussels.

[Passage omitted: Barroso said sensitive issues should not be
politicized]

In turn, Kocharyan welcomed the US Congress’ efforts to recognize the
Armenian genocide. "The recognition of historical injustice cannot
harm bilateral relations," he said. He recalled that although tension
arose after the recognition of the Armenian genocide in France, one
year later Turkish-French trade increased by 50 per cent.

Commenting on remarks about reconciliation between Armenia and
Turkey, Kocharyan said "the simplest formula would be the start of a
dialogue without preconditions". He recalled that Yerevan had been
offering Ankara to start this dialogue over the past 15 years.

Chicago Tribune (Illinois)
October 11, 2007 Thursday

Panel OKs ‘genocide’ bill: House committee defies Bush warning

by Bay Fang, Chicago Tribune

Oct. 11–WASHINGTON — A key House committee defied forceful
opposition from the Bush administration and Turkey on Wednesday and
passed a resolution labeling the Ottoman-era killings of Armenians as
"genocide."

President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense
Secretary Robert Gates warned that passage of such a resolution would
be "highly destabilizing" to U.S. goals in the Middle East.

"Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in
NATO and in the global war on terror," the president told reporters
at the White House, hours before the 27-21 vote in the House Foreign
Affairs Committee.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), long a supporter of the
measure, is likely to bring it before the full House for a vote
before Congress breaks for the Thanksgiving recess.

"I believe that our government’s position is clear," said House
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), "that genocide was perpetrated
against the Armenian people approximately 90 years ago during the
course of the First World War … remembering that and noting that is
important so that we not paper over or allow the Ahmedinejads of the
next decade or decades hereafter to deny the fact." Hoyer was
referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Although the resolution has been introduced in years past, this is
the first year in which it has the support of more than half the
House. Also, Democrats now control both chambers of Congress and they
appear more likely to bring the measure to a vote than the
Republicans were.

Ankara campaigns against bill

Administration officials said the non-binding measure would
jeopardize cooperation by Turkey in Iraq and Afghanistan. Turkey has
warned of serious consequences if the resolution is approved and has
launched a vigorous campaign against it, including full-page ads in
newspapers and buttonholing lawmakers.

Appearing with Rice just after a weekly briefing with military
leaders in Iraq, Gates said 70 percent of all air cargo going into
Iraq and a third of the fuel consumed there goes through Turkey.
"Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would be
very much put at risk if this resolution passes," he said, "and the
Turks react as strongly as we believe they will."

The measure comes at a sensitive time for U.S.-Turkey relations.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who telephoned Bush last
week about the Armenian resolution, said his government would submit
a motion to Turkey’s parliament on Thursday to authorize a
cross-border incursion into northern Iraq to strike a Kurdish rebel
group known as the PKK, after 15 Turkish soldiers were killed in
attacks in recent days. The Turks are scheduled to hold the next
ministerial-level conference of Iraq’s neighbors in Istanbul next
month.

"It will be hard to do much of anything collaborative with the Turks
for a while," a senior administration official said.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, predicted mass
demonstrations in Turkey, especially at the U.S. military base in the
south.

"Anti-Americanism in Turkey is already at an all-time high, and
people think the U.S. is protecting the PKK by not doing anything
against them, so this rubs salt on an open wound," Cagaptay said.
"They will not just see it as a House resolution but as the U.S.
government making a judgment on Turkish history."

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara is likely to prepare for a backlash by
increasing security around the embassy and other American properties
in Turkey.

Numbers, beliefs conflict

The Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were killed by the
Ottomans in a campaign of genocide during World War I, but Turkish
officials say that widespread strife and forced relocations during
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire caused the deaths of 250,000 to
500,000 Armenians and that an equal number of Turks died at the time.

The House resolution says the killings should be fully acknowledged
in U.S. policy toward Turkey. "This is a historic day and a
critically important step forward on this issue," said Bryan Ardouny,
executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America.

One senior administration official likened the resolution’s impact to
the amendment on federalism in Iraq sponsored by Sens. Joseph Biden
(D-Del.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), which passed last month.

"After it passed, every Iraqi political party except the Kurds made
statements denouncing it, and it set back the federalism cause by a
year," said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak to reporters. "Sometimes Congress is so focused
on near-term political gains that it loses sight of the repercussions
of its actions on long-term foreign policy goals."

KOCHARYAN WILL NOT DECIDE KARABAKH DESTINY

A1+
[08:26 pm] 11 October, 2007

Armenia and Azerbaijan will not come to an agreement in regard
with the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict until the upcoming
Presidential elections.

"My estimation of the current negotiation process, is that it
is impossible to reach to an agreement on the principles of the
conflict settlement until the presidential elections", announced
Robert Kocharyan in a press conference with the Jose Manuel Barroso,
President of the European Commission, after the negotiations with EU
officials of in Brussels.

The RA President welcomed "the efforts of the US Congress towards
the Recognition of the Armenian Genocide".

"The recognition of the historical truth may not harm the relations
between the US and Turkey", pointed out Robert Kocharyan, reflecting on
the considerations of some congressmen on the outcomes of the adoption.

As to the necessity of reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey,
according to ITAR-TASS, Robert Kocharyan said: "The best resolution in
to start negotiations without preconditions". He reminded that Yerevan
had offered to start such dialogue with Turkey for the last 15 years.

CU EXPERTS WATCH U.S.-TURKISH RELATIONS
By Paula Pant Colorado Daily Staff Writer

Colorado Daily, CO
Oct 12 2007

International affairs experts at CU are keeping close tabs on
U.S.-Turkey relations, which were threatened Wednesday when the
U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a bill recognizing
the Ottoman Turkish government’s treatment of Armenians in 1915 as
"genocide."

Turkey, which borders Iraq to its north and is the easternmost flank
of NATO, is a key ally in the U.S. conflict in Iraq. The U.S. depends
on Turkish ground and airspace as it maneuvers around the Middle East,
and it lauds Turkey – a secular Islamic state – as a beacon for the
rest of the region.

But that relationship has come into question with the Congressional
committee’s vote, which has infuriated Turks.

On Thursday the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. responded to the House
declaration by returning to Turkey for at least seven to ten days.

"It’s an issue of nationalism," said CU professor of history and
international affairs Robert Schulzinger. "For the Turks, this is
an absolutely forbidden subject, and people suffer very seriously if
they’re charged with genocide."

It is illegal to "insult Turkishness" in Turkey, and many scholars and
journalists have been jailed for even posing the academic question
as to whether or not the Ottoman government – the precursor to the
modern-day Turkish republic – committed genocide against ethnic
Armenians living in eastern Anatolia in 1915.

Earlier this year Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor
openly critical of Turkey’s genocide denial, was assassinated in
broad daylight in Istanbul by a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist.

CU scholars say factual evidence leaves no question that 1915’s
tragedy was, indeed, genocide, and not – as Turks argue – an act of
civil war pitted against a World War I backdrop.

"As a matter of historical fact, it was genocide," Schulzinger said.

But Turkey’s "genocide denial is not uncommon," said CU anthropology
professor Paul Shankman. "You even have Holocaust deniers today who
have large audiences in parts of the world."

U.S. politicians "on both sides of the aisle ~J recognize that this
event ~J wasn’t a civil war, it was a genocide," Shankman said. The
House Foreign Affairs Committee has considered non-binding resolutions
to declare it a genocide for more than 20 years, but pressure from the
Clinton and the first George Bush White Houses, which were worried
about straining relations with Turkey, has historically kept the
"genocide" label at bay – until now.

CU scholars say the committee’s decision to recognize it as genocide
wasn’t partisan and wasn’t intended to undermine President George
W. Bush, who strongly urged Congress not to pass it.

"This is just a straight moral issue," Shankman said.

But it could have broad current-events implications – particularly
considering that Turkish military and warplanes have recently been
situated along the Turkey-Iraq border. The Turks have grown weary of
Iraq’s Kurdish rebels, who Turks claim have been crossing the border
to attack Turkish troops.

"There are people who are arguing that if this resolution goes all
the way through [Congress], it will alienate Turkey from the United
States and allow them to pursue a unilateral move against the Kurds,"
Shankman said. "But I’m not convinced."

Turkey severed military and economic ties with France last year
after it declared the 1915 tragedy a "genocide." The two nations
re-established economic ties after six months.

A spokesperson for Mark Udall, the congressman who represents
Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District which includes Boulder and
Eldorado Springs, could not reach Udall by the Daily’s deadline to
report his stance on the issue.

/10/11/news/c_u_and_boulder/news1.txt

Trial unnerves Turkey’s Armenians

By Sarah Rainsford
BBC News, Istanbul
2007/10/12

A court in Istanbul has found two Turkish-Armenian journalists guilty
of "insulting Turkishness" for reprinting an interview that referred
to the mass killing of Ottoman Armenians by Turks in 1915 as genocide.

The ruling came one day after the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US
Congress approved a resolution that recognises the killings as
genocide, infuriating Ankara, which denies any such thing.

"I think this is the retaliation of the judiciary to that decision of
Congress," says Ozlem Dalkiran, who followed the trial for the
Helsinki Citizens Assembly, a European human rights group.

"It’s a judicial scandal," she says.

The newspaper journalists were prosecuted under the now notorious
Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code for publishing comments made by
their then-editor, Hrant Dink, in an interview with the Reuters news
agency last summer.

Hrant Dink was an outspoken critic of state policy here on the events
of 1915, a rare voice in Turkey’s small ethnic Armenian community.

In January he was shot and killed outside the office of his newspaper,
Agos. A teenage nationalist gunman is on trial for murder along with
his alleged accomplices.

‘Dangerous decision’

One of the journalists convicted of insult on Thursday is Hrant Dink’s
son, Arat. The other is Agos newspaper colleague Sarkis Seropyan.

Hrant Dink himself had been tried and convicted of insulting
Turkishness in another article on the Armenian issue before he was
killed.

"The fact Hrant was prosecuted under Article 301 was an important
factor in his assassination. That way, the prosecution singled him out
as a target," Agos journalist Markar Esayan underlined shortly after
the latest court ruling on Thursday.

"This latest verdict of insulting Turkishness is a very serious
accusation which may have very serious consequences. This court
decision puts lives in danger."

The European Union has long called for the controversial insult law to
be changed or repealed.

Article 301 shot to international attention when it was used to bring
charges against the author and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, again for
his comments on the fate of the Armenians.

"This new conviction is a particularly distressing and alarming
verdict. It demonstrates once again the serious nature of Article
301," says Emma Sinclair-Webb of Amnesty International.

"It shows its implementation is still very problematic," she says.

She argues the law must be abolished.

"There also seems to be a pattern that this law is used against
particular groups, Armenian or Kurdish. If so, that is extremely
alarming," she says.

Frightened into silence

Other newspapers in Turkey reprinted Hrant Dink’s comments. Only
Turkish-Armenian Agos was prosecuted.

Just last week, President Abdullah Gul suggested changes to A301 were
a possibility. But the Turkish government has shown no sign it is in
any hurry.

A nationalist backlash against the US Congress resolution on genocide
is likely to stall things even longer.

That debate in America has also affected Turkey’s ethnic Armenian community.

Many people were frightened into silence by the murder of Hrant Dink.
Now they are even more withdrawn.

"If this bill passes it will have an impact on us. But we are already
facing problems," says one ethnic Armenian.

"Someone threw a sound bomb into a schoolyard recently. People in all
neighbourhoods here are now courageous enough to do such things."

Published: 2007/10/12 09:47:15 GMT

(c) BBC MMVII

Source:

FILM IS AN OBSTINATE ART

A1+
[03:45 pm] 11 October, 2007

"So many interesting things happen in Yerevan, there is so much life
in Yerevan that should make filmmakers look around more attentively
and find a lot of topics to touch", said Gohar Danielyan-Dubost,
co-chairman of "Kino+" magazine and the head of "DG Contact"
organization. She ensured that the aim of the magazine was to arouse
love and interest toward film art. "We want to stimulate this field
and smooth the path of talented youth", said Danielyan-Dubost. This
is why the young initiators should have free ideas and feel it in
their activities.

"It is very important that they would express their ideas freely,
although all new is difficult to express. That should not frighten
them. The material that is worth to pay attention to may not be ignored
or rejected by our great masters" mentioned Gohar Danielyan. She
called on the young generation to work hard and with love since
"some day they will be noticed and appreciated".

The co-chairman of "Kino+" magazine is going to organize competitions
and to publish booklets which will promote the young generation
to create and be the best. One of those initiatives would be the
competition of the best scenario. "One of the standards for the
best scenario will be the presentation of Armenian daily reality,
which we sometimes pass by indifferently. We are tired of old,
historical subjects. And in my opinion, here the material prize is
not as important as being the best".

The "Kino+" magazine works with film producers, journalists, art
critics and analysts.

By the way, Gohar Danielyan mentioned that she would pay a great
attention to critical materials; they must be serious analysis,
discussions and debates. "We will give chance to opponents to express
their ideas and argue. We will not evade of criticism. I hope that
will be done in a civilized manner since the role of the magazine
will be neutral. We should not raise only the negative side of things,
we should touch the positive as well", she said.

According to her, there is always a truth in criticism: "If I were
in the place of the criticized producers, we would make use of the
expressed ideas.

Cinematography costs much, especially feature films.

>>From this point of view, producers need financing. But not everything
may be concealed behind finances. There are films on which great
amount of money was spent but they did not have success. Film is
an obstinate art and the advertisement of films if very important",
added Gohar Danielyan-Dyubost.

OSKANIAN: EU COMMISSION SHOULD FORCE TURKEY TO OPEN ITS BORDERS WITH ARMENIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
10.10.2007 18:10 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "The European Commission should force Turkey to
open its borders with Armenia immediately, since the current border
closure is a violation of the Copenhagen criteria," Armenian Foreign
Minister Vartan Oskanian said when addressing the European Parliament
Committee on Foreign Affairs in Brussels.

Minister Oskanian said the border closure also negatively affects
the relationship between the EU and the Caucasus region. "Turkey’s
membership to the European Union may come in 10-15 years. Should
Armenia wait until then? This is unacceptable," he said.

"If Turkey does not come to terms with its past, its EU accession
prospects will face serious difficulties.

The European Union should consider this issue within the framework
of human rights," Minister Oskanian said.