Author: Antonian Lara

DENIAL OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE STARTS BECOMING PROBLEMATIC IN U.S.-TURKEY RELATIONS

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
May 08 2007

WASHINGTON, MAY 8, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The United States
Commission on International Religious Freedom mentioned in its
report that Turkey’s consistent denial of the Armenian Genocide
started becoming problematic in the America-Turkey relations. Aram
Hambarian, the Washington Office Executive Director of the Armenian
National Committee of America expressed satisfaction that this state
commission clearly touched upon the Armenian Genocide and recognized
it. A. Hambarian also emphasized the fact that the commission will
analyse consequences of the Turkish denial.

The above-mentioned commission said in its annual report addressed to
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that though the Armenian
Genocide issue was not touched upon during the visit paid by
its members to Turkey, "but the consistent refusal of the Turkish
government to recognize the Armenian Genocide continues remaining a
source of argument in the relations of Western countries and especially
the United States with Turkey."

The commission also touched upon in its report Agos weekly editor
Hrant Dunk’s murder and ill-famed Article 301 of the Criminal Code
of Turkey which limits the freedom of expression.

AMERICAN ARMENIAN ATTORNEY VARTKES YEGHIAYAN’S BOOK ABOUT 1919-1922 ETHNIC ANNIHILATIONS IN ANATOLIA PUBLISHED

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
May 08 2007

LOS ANGELES, MAY 8, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The Armenian Memory
Center published American Armenian attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan’s
book which presents the report about the ethnic annihilations in
Anatolia prepared by one of subdivisions of the British Government,
the Armenian-Greek department, in 1919-1922.

The report is addressed to the British Foreign Ministry and involves
87 documents which tell how Turk nationalists, headed by founder of
the modern Republic of Turkey and slaughterer Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
annihilated in Anatolia the Armenian and Greek ethnic elements and how
they mopped up churches and educational institutions and occupied 40%
of the Armenian lands.

V. Yaghiayan writes: "And when it became clear that the Britons
can not liquidate Ataturk any longer, they closed that subdivision,
left Constantinople and left Armenians and Greeks at Turks’ command."

KRAMNIK WANTS A RETURN MATCH

Panorama.am
18:28 07/05/2007

Levon Aronyan, won (4:2) over Vladimir Kramnik, world chess champion,
in a chess tournament here in Yerevan from May 4 to 6. Aronyan won
three continuous victories after the first defeat and played two draw
games. After the 5th game, it was clear that Aronyan is the winner
of the tournament.

Kramnik admitted that Aronyan’s credentials as a chess player. He said
Aronyan is "one of the best in the world in quick chess." Kramnik
expressed willingness to meet Aronyan in a return match in case
of possibility.

Dialogue will carry out culturological studies

05-05-2007 10:38:57 – KarabakhOpen

The Dialogue Center for Culture Study was set up in July 2006. The
main goal of the organization, according to the chair Vardges
Safaryan, an archeologist, is to work out and implement scientific and
practical projects for the development of culture study in
collaboration with local and foreign organizations.

>From the first day the organization has collaborated with the Tree of
Life Armenian cultural center, the Promised Land NGO, the Ethnos
Center for Ethnic and Culture Studies, as well as Artsakh State Museum
of History and Ethnography.

`The primary objective of the organization is to carry out
archeological, ethnographic, sociological, culturological studies of
the cultural legacy, modern art and the perception of the world of the
Armenian people. The organization is likely to implement projects on
the conservation, use and propaganda of the cultural legacy. We will
record the cultural values, make catalogues, as well as organize
methodological workshops for the development of cultural tourism,’
said Vardges Safaryan in an interview with the KarabakhOpen.

The head of the organization said a project on the study of monuments
of Artsakh 4 BC – 3 AC will be implemented in 2007. The goal of the
project is to study and propagate the historical Armenian monuments
with a vivid ethnic coloring.

`The fact that Artsakh was populated by Armenians until the 18th
century can be proved by archeological studies only. Therefore,
discovery and exploration of historical monuments is highly
important,’ said Vardges Safaryan and emphasized that no complex
studies have been carried out so far.

Recently innumerable materials have appeared in the Azerbaijani media
and Web sites, falsifying the history of Artsakh, and the Armenian
monuments are referred to as Azerbaijani. One of the goals of the
organization will be presenting real historical facts to the world.

ANCIENT EPIC ARMENIAN POETRY COMES TO LIFE IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
By Arthur Hagopian

AZG Armenian Daily
05/05/2007

Jerusalem – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has spearheaded the
publication of an English translation of a virtually unknown Armenian
medieval epic that graphically expresses the yearning of the first
people to convert to Christianity for salvation and paradise.

The translation into English, the first ever, was the work of the noted
Armenologist, Michael Stone, director of the university’s Armenian
studies program, balancing literary felicity with faithfulness to
the original, uncovering medieval Armenian poetic tradition through
its more than 6,000 gracefully translated lines.

Stone’s work has brought alive the brilliance of paradise, the
wickedness of Satan, and the inner struggle of the first man and woman,
Adam and Eve, in his rendition of the early 15th CE epic "Adamgirk:
The Adam Book of Arakel of Siwnik."

Stone notes that the theme of Adam and Eve has fascinated Armenians
for centuries.

"By the time Arakel composed his treasure in 1401, the Armenians had
nurtured an extensive apocryphal literature about the first couple,"
he says.

"Yet, although there were Adam and Eve poems before Arakel, none is
as long, complex and intriguing as his work. Faced with the pressures
of external events, with the erosion of the church and its faith,
Arakel’s interweaving of theological tradition and text with lyrical
language and vivid imagery produced a remarkable work," he adds.

Arakel, who was an abbot of the famous University Monastery of Tatew,
depicts Adam as a "newborn flower" whose "body shone like a spark,
for the light of the spirit inflamed him," in a resplendent vision
of Paradise.

At the time he wrote his epic, Armenia was suffering under the yoke of
foreign subjugation, following the collapse of the Kingdom of Cilicia,
and provided just the right kind of succor for his people.

Stone says the work is comparable in scope and range to classics such
as John Milton’s "Paradise Lost."

He has not attempted to retain any meter or rhyming pattern.

"My aim was to navigate between the Scylla of over-literalism and
the Charybdis of inaccuracy for the sake of literary effect," he says.

Arakel was born about 1350 CE in ‘Siwnik, a region separated from
the central Ararat province by a range of mountains, and enjoying a
sort of autonomy with its own which was kingdom founded in 987 CE and
lasted until the 12th Century when the Mongol hordes overran Armenia.

Under the Mongols, the region prospered thanks to the sagacity and
diplomacy of the ruling princely family.

With Prince Elikum Orbelian at the helm, Siwnik became a cultural
and religious center, attracting artists, architects, writers and
intellectuals.

Arakel has a distinguished ancestry. His maternal uncle, and mentor,
was none other than Grigor of Tatew. He was ordained bishop of Siwnik
by 1401 and was Abbot of Tatew in the early fifteenth century.

Grigor held his nephew in great esteem referring to him as "my humble
nephew in the flesh, born poet, virtuous Arakel."

"Grigor and Arakel, labored from within the walls of the important
monastery of Tatew to make Armenian tradition secure and, through the
educational system they developed, to transmit learning and faith to
their students," Stone notes.

At Grigor’s urging, Arakel began an epic poem on the story of Adam
and Eve, producing four versions, which Stone has now translated
into English. Arakel also composed a second biblical epic, the Book
of Paradise, which is shorter and held in less esteem. "Adamgirk"
is being published by Oxford University Press and is available at
all good bookshops or directly from OUP (
in the UK and in the US).

"Arakel writes extremely powerful narrative poetry, as in his
description of the brilliance of paradise, of Satan’s mustering his
hosts against Adam and Eve, and Eve’s inner struggle between obedience
to God and Satan’s seduction," according to the blurb.

"In parts the epic is in dialogue form between Adam, Eve, and God. It
also pays much attention to the typology of Adam and Christ, or Adam’s
sin and death and Christ’s crucifixion. By implication, this story,
from an Eastern Christian tradition, is the story of all humans,
and bears comparison with later biblical epics, such as Milton’s
Paradise Lost," it adds.

AZERI PRESIDENT SAYS PEACEKEEPERS MAY BE DEPLOYED IN KARABAKH

ANS TV, Baku
4 May 07

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said that peacekeepers may be
deployed in the disputed area of Nagornyy Karabakh.

Azerbaijan’s ANS TV at 1000 gmt on 4 May showed Aliyev telling
displaced persons in an unspecified location what the TV described as
"main principles" of the Nagornyy Karabakh talks that have been kept
secret so far.

"Peacekeeping forces may be brought. What is more, this has not been
our desire, we do not find it necessary. However, we see that Armenia
is very much afraid of us and wants to ensure its security there. In
principle, we do not mind peacekeepers being temporarily deployed
there," Aliyev said.

Turkey

The battle for Turkey’s soul

May 3rd 2007
The Economist print edition

If Turks have to choose, democracy is more important than secularism
AT A time when Muslim fundamentalism seems to be on the rise all around the
world, the sight of somewhere between half a million and a million people
marching through Istanbul in defence of secularism is a remarkable one. But
then Turkey is a remarkable place. As a mainly Muslim country that practises
full secular democracy, it is a working refutation of the widespread belief
that Islam and democracy are incompatible.

That’s not the only reason why Turkey matters. It is a big and strategically
important country, has the largest army in NATO after America’s, offers a
crucial energy route into Europe that avoids Russia and is the source of
much of the water in the Middle East. If the negotiations under way for its
entry into the European Union succeed, it will be the EU’s biggest country
by population. But the reason that the world’s eyes are fixed on it this
week is the possibility that the army might intervene to limit Islam’s role
in government. For if Turkey cannot reconcile Islam and democracy, who can?

Cyber soldiers
Over the years Turkish democracy has shown itself to be vibrant yet fragile.
A string of military coups and interventions stand as testimony to the
army’s self-appointed role as the guardian of Kemal Ataturk’s secular
republic. The most recent instance came a mere ten years ago-the so-called
post-modern coup that led to the ousting of a previous moderate Islamist
government.

On April 27th the army suggested that it might do the same again. Just
before midnight, after a day of inconclusive parliamentary voting for a new
president, the army’s general staff posted a declaration on its website that
attacked the nomination of Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister, for the
presidency, and hinted none too subtly at a possible coup against the mildly
Islamist Justice and Development (AK) government led by Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, the prime minister who nominated Mr Gul. On May 1st the
constitutional court annulled the first round of parliamentary voting for
the president, saying not enough members were present. Mr Erdogan promptly
said he would call a snap parliamentary election. Street protests, first in
Ankara and then in Istanbul, have heightened tension. The cities’ coffee
houses are buzzing with conspiracy theories.

Given the fractious state of the main opposition parties, and his
government’s record over the past four years, pollsters expect Mr Erdogan to
win another thumping majority. He may then choose to stick with Mr Gul for
the presidency, or he may look for another candidate. But he is unlikely to
pick one who meets the objections of the army and the secularists.

Turkey’s secularists have always mistrusted the AK Party, which has Islamist
roots and in government has sometimes toyed with moderate Islamist measures.
They especially dislike Mr Gul and Mr Erdogan because their wives sport the
Muslim headscarf, which in Ataturk’s republic is banned in public buildings.
They fret at the prospect of such people controlling not only the government
and parliament, as now, but the presidency as well. They fear that once the
AK Party has got that triple crown, it will show its true colours-and that
they will be rather greener. Given that a fundamental reading of Islamic
texts sees no distinction between religion and the state, and that
fundamentalism is spreading in the Muslim world, it is understandable that
people should entertain such fears.

Yet they do not justify a military intervention such as that of April 27th.
However desirable it may be to preserve Ataturk’s secular legacy, that
cannot come at the expense of overriding the normal process of
democracy-even if that process produces bad, ineffective, corrupt or mildly
Islamist governments. Algeria, where 150,000 people died in a civil war
after an election which Islamists won was annulled in 1992, holds a sharp
lesson about what can happen when soldiers suppress popular will. Of course,
Turkey is not Algeria; but armies everywhere should beware of subverting
elections. It is up to voters, not soldiers, to punish governments-and they
will now have the opportunity to do so in Turkey.

They may not want to. Mr Erdogan’s government has been Turkey’s most
successful in half a century. After years of macroeconomic instability,
growth has been steady and strong, inflation has been controlled and foreign
investment has shot up. Even more impressive are the judicial and
constitutional reforms that the AK government has pushed through. Corruption
remains a blemish, but there is no sign of the government trying to overturn
Turkey’s secular order. The record amply justifies Mr Erdogan’s biggest
achievement: to persuade the EU to open membership talks, over 40 years
after a much less impressive Turkey first expressed its wish to join.

Who cares what Europe thinks?
Unfortunately, the EU’s enthusiasm for Turkish entry, never high, has
visibly waned. Were Nicolas Sarkozy to win the French presidency on May 6th,
that would be another setback to Turkey’s ambitions: he is categorically
against the notion of it ever joining the EU.

In practice there is no chance of Turkey actually signing on the dotted line
for another decade. But the perception in the country that so many current
members are against it matters, for it reduces the EU’s influence. Were the
prospects of EU membership obviously brighter, the army would not have
intervened as brutally. As it is, the EU’s mild condemnation was shrugged
off in Ankara, especially when the Americans said nothing at all. Their
influence in Turkey is also much diminished, mainly because the war in Iraq
has inflamed anti-American feeling.

Given the West’s declining influence on their country’s actions, Turks
themselves must resolve their political crisis. The best way to do that
would be to reject the army’s intervention by re-electing the AK Party. The
secularists’ fears of the creeping Islamisation are understandable; but the
AK Party’s record does not justify it, and military intervention is no way
to avert it. For the sake of the state they are trying to protect, Turkey’s
soldiers should stay out of politics.

SECURITY MEASURES TAKEN FOR THE MILITARY DEMONSTRATION

KarabakhOpen
03-05-2007 10:36:21

A military demonstration will be launched in Stepanakert on May 9. The
previous show of force in Karabakh was held 10 years ago. This show
of force will be the biggest ever in Karabakh, said the NKR minister
of defense Seyran Ohanyan.

The necessary security measures were taken. "Besides, a military
demonstration is also demonstration of readiness. It has happened
that in case of provocation the military left the show for an
operation," said Seyran Ohanyan, who is the chair of the commission
for organization of celebration of May 9.

Foreign military and reporters have been invited to the
demonstration. " Thanks to the analytical offices more is known about
the Karabakh army abroad than in Karabakh itself," said Seyran Ohanyan.

WHAT KIND OF WATER DRINK FRENCH PEOPLE, HOW AND WHERE DO THEY GET IT FROM? HOW MUCH DO THEY PAY FOR IT?

AZG Armenian Daily
03/05/2007

In 2005 "Yerevan Water and Sewerage" company’s 10-year Lease Contract
was awarded to the French biggest company ‘Generale des Eaux’,
‘Viola water’ in 2006.

The company has 150 years of experience in the sphere of water
supply. It was founded in 1853 and signed its first contract in
Lion. Jan Patris Puarie, director of the branch of South-East Europe
and Middle Asia, told about this to the members of the Armenian
delegation: officials and specialists of the water supply sphere,
reporters and representatives of NGOs, who were invited to France.

The branches of ‘Viola’ Co. are not only in France, i.e. Paris,
Marcel, Lion, etc., but also in such biggest cities as Prague, Berlin,
Bucharest and also Yerevan.

Private operators organize water supply of 75 percent of population
in Paris, and the leader of this sphere is ‘Viola’ Co., the second
one is ‘Suez’ and the third – ‘Soar’, which was awarded a four-year
management contract in Armenia, in 2004.

In order to see how the water supply service is organized in France,
we visited one of the stations of the company. Before the water gets
to the consumer it passes a long way of cleansing and filtering. 1m3
of this water costs from 3 up to 3.5 Euros. 32 % of this price is
sewerage cost. Prices of water in different places are different in
France. It depends on the quality, territory and other conditions. The
prices are in the range of 1.5 to 4 Euros. According to Jan Patris
Puarie, a French family of four members pays only 0.8% of its budget
for water supply service.

French has got a high level of consumer service in this sphere. We
saw it in Lion; all the complaints of the subscribers immediately
appear on the electronic screen, here you can see how many phone
calls are registered at that moment, how many workers are free,
who are ready to answer the calls, and how many calls are already
answered. Besides of these, in the computers of the company are
registered all the data of the subscribers and shown the figures of
their water measurers. We asked Jan Patris Puarie, if we could hope
for having the same management system in Armenia. The answer was:
"We will have half of it".

H.RES.106 IMPORTANT NOT ONLY FOR ARMENIA AND DIASPORA BUT ALSO FOR U.S.

PanARMENIAN.Net
02.05.2007 17:36 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "The Resolution includes 30 findings which accurately
recount the United States’ own record in response to and in recognition
of the Genocide. The sooner Congress acknowledges that record the
better – until then the United States is a legitimate target of
criticism that it will even change its own history for the sake of
short term political expediency, in this case because of fear of
the Turkish retaliation. That does not help the United States, nor
is it reflective of the American people and the type of government
they want. For Armenia, the sooner the United States reaffirms its
record and stays on the right side of the issue, the better the United
States-Armenia relationship will be," he said.