Author: Antonian Lara

TURKEY’S PARLIAMENT REJECTS CENSURE MOTION AGAINST FOREIGN MINISTER

The Associated Press
International Herald Tribune, France
Jan 18 2007

ANKARA, Turkey: Turkey’s parliament on Thursday rejected an opposition
motion to censure the foreign minister over accusations of mismanaging
the country’s foreign policy.

Abdullah Gul’s Justice and Development Party easily defeated the
censure motion filed by the opposition center-right Motherland Party.

The party had accused the minister of "making concession to the
European Union," of harming ties with the United States, failing to
pursue farsighted policies over Iraq and Cyprus and of failing to
counter Armenian efforts to push for the recognition as genocide of
mass killings of Armenians at the time of the Ottoman Empire.

The legislators held the vote – which was defeated by a majority show
of hands in the 550-member parliament – before discussing Turkey’s
policy over Iraq.

Opposition parties have called for troops to be sent in to northern
Iraq to wipe out Turkish Kurdish guerrillas there and to prevent
Iraqi Kurds from assuming control over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

Turkey is concerned over the spiraling violence in neighboring Iraq,
and has expressed dissatisfaction with U.S. and Iraqi efforts to
contain separatist Turkish Kurdish guerrillas who Ankara says have
been using bases in Iraq to fight for autonomy in Turkey’s southeast.

Thursday’s preliminary discussions on Iraq would be followed by wider
and closed-door debates on the issue amid growing calls from the main
opposition Republican People’s Party to allow the military to carry
out a cross-border offensive against Kurdish guerrillas.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with U.S.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns to discuss Iraq and Iran’s
controversial nuclear program.

Also on Thursday, Turkey called on Iraqi and U.S. authorities to
shut down the Makhmur refugee camp in Iraq. The camp houses an
estimated 9,000 Turkish Kurds who fled to Iraq in the early 1990s
during fighting between Turkish troops and Kurdish rebels. Turkish
authorities accuse Kurdish guerrillas of indoctrinating children in
the camp to become rebels.

Erdogan on Tuesday warned Iraqi Kurdish groups against trying to seize
control of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, saying Turkey will not
stand by amid growing tensions among ethnic Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds
in Iraq’s oil-rich north.

Iraqi Kurds, who claim the region as their own and hope to eventually
include Kirkuk in a region of self-rule in northern Iraq, accused
Turkey of interfering in Iraqi internal affairs.

Turkey fears Iraq’s Kurds want Kirkuk’s lucrative oil to fund a bid
for independence that could encourage separatist Kurdish guerrillas
in Turkey, who have been fighting since 1984 for autonomy.

Kirkuk, an ancient city that once was part of the Ottoman Empire,
has a large minority of ethnic Turks as well as Christians, Shiite
and Sunni Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians.

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, thousands of Kurds pushed
out of the region under Saddam Hussein’s rule have returned.

Kirkuk lies just south of the autonomous Kurdish region stretching
across Iraq’s northeast. Kurdish leaders want to annex the city,
and Iraq’s constitution calls for a referendum on the issue by the
end of next year.

THE JOINT EU-ARMENIA ACTION PLAN BEING IMPLEMENTED

ArmRadio.am
16.01.2007 17:13

Armenia is preparing to accomplish the joint Armenia-EU Action Plan in
the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy, RA Deputy Foreign
Minister Armen Baybourtyan told Armenpress correspondent. According to
the Deputy Minister, on the political level importance was attached
to the defense of human rights, reinforcement of democracy and
legal state. Priority was given to the accomplishment of Armenia’s
national plan. The third priority is the package directed at poverty
reduction. According to the observation of the European Commission,
the main aim of this package is the deepening of reforms in the
education system and accomplishment of a number of steps directed at
social security.

The European Union will allocate 21 million Euros in 2007 for the
implementation of the joint Action Plan.

Armen Baybourtyan did not rule out that during German presidency
the Neighborhood Policy will be strengthened and the programme of
the European Neighborhood Policy will be adopted. It will be come
clear in the firs half of the year. According to him, Bulgaria and
Romania’s joining the European Union will help focus the attention
of the structure on Eastern neighbors, since through the Black Sea
the EU has become the immediate neighbor of the South Caucasus.

NEW BUILDINGS MUST BE CONSTRUCTED INSTEAD OF ONES UNDER OPERATION OF OVER 50 YEARS, YEREVAN DEPUTY MAYOR SAYS

Noyan Tapan
Jan 15 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, NOYAN TAPAN. In 2006, Yerevan mayor’s office
made an inventory of apartment buildings with the aim of developing a
long-term program on their modernization in the future. Deputy Mayor
of Yerevan Kamo Areyan stated this at the January 15 press conference.

According to him, there are now 4,567 apartment buildings in the city,
20 of which have been operated for 10 years, 665 – for 11-20 years,
1,242 – for 21-30 years, 1,252 – for 31-40 years, 877 – for 41-50
years and 474 apartment buildings – for more than 50 years. In the
words of K. Areyan, it is envisaged to construct new buildings instead
of those operated for more than 50 years.

K. Areyan said that in 2003, studies of accident-prone buildings
in Yerevan were conducted. According to these studies, 86 were
recognized as accident-prone buildings of 3rd degree, and 15 ones –
as accident-prone buildings of 4th degree. The deputy mayor noted that
as of January 2007, 2 million drams (about 5.4 mln USD) was spent to
reinforce 28 third degree accident-prone buildings. Another 8 such
buildings will be reinforced thsi year, for which 620 million drams
has been allocated from the state budget.

It was noted that this year 3 residential buildings will be put into
operation instead of 3 fourth degree accident-prone buildings in
Yerevan’s Ajapniak community.

TURKS STARTED SPEAKING OF 1915 TRAGEDY NOT LONG AGO

PanARMENIAN.Net
15.01.2007 13:20 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "I do not know how many Armenians died in 1915 – half
million, three or five. There is nothing written in Turkish manuals
of history about it," Co-chair of the Turkish-Armenian Business
Development Council (TABDC) Kaan Soyak told a PanARMENIAN.Net
reporter. According to him, Turks started to speak about the
tragedy of 1915 not long ago. "When Armenian President Robert
Kocharian touched upon the subject in the UN our people started to
speak of it as well. In my opinion, the trouble is that we do not
contact. Armenians should know that Turkey wants to know her own
history," Soyak emphasized.

Tracinda Buys More MGM Shares

Associated Press 01.11.07, 5:16 PM ET

Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corp. said Thursday it
bought 444,466 shares of MGM Mirage tendered in its most recently
completed tender offer. The purchase boosted Tracinda’s beneficial
ownership in MGM from about 55.8 percent, or 158.4 million shares, to
about 55.9 percent, or 158.8 million shares.

MGM Mirage, the world’s second-largest casino company after Harrah’s
Entertainment Inc., owns the MGM Grand, Bellagio and other casinos in
Las Vegas, and gambling properties in other parts of Nevada and in
Atlantic City, N.J. MGM’s shares rose $4.94, or 7.8 percent, to end
at $68.55 on the New York Stock Exchange. Earlier in the session, they
set a new year high of $69.63, topping a previous year high of $64.37.
AP

Armenpress

ARMENIA INDEPENDENCE EXHIBITION OPENS IN SAIN RAFAEL

PARIS, JANUARY 12, ARMENPRESS: An exhibition
titled Armenia: Fifteen Years of Independence, opened
in the French town of San Rafael. It will be on
display until the end of February. The exhibition has
on display around 100 photographs taken by Armenia’s
ten most prominent photographers telling about how
Armenia was being established as an independent and
sovereign state- from the national liberation war in
Nagorno-Karabakh, sever energy crisis to stability and
peaceful development of today.
The exhibition initiated by Armenpress news agency,
was already displayed in Moscow as part of the Year of
Armenia in Russia.
The exhibition is part of a vast range of about 700
events marking the Year of Armenia in France. An
exhibition depicting Armenia’s 12 capital cities
opened last December in Paris. It will run until March
18.
Next month a post stamp symbolizing French-Armenian
friendship will be issued and Louvres will host an
exhibition of Armenian cross stones, old manuscripts
and other artifacts. It is titled Sacred Armenia.

POLITICALLY EXPLOSIVE ARMENIAN BILL COMING TO US CONGRESS NEXT WEEK

Zaman, Turkey
Jan 11 2007

The group of congressmen, consisting of Adam Schiff, George Radanovich,
Frank Pallone and Joe Knollenberg, have sent a letter to other members
of the US House of Representatives, announcing that they would bring
forward the resolution onto the House floor next week and requesting
their support for their initiative, sources said.

A vote on a similar resolution was postponed at the last minute in
2002, when then House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert,
a Republican, shelved it at the intervention of the US administration.

However, Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat who became the first woman to be
the speaker of the House of Representatives after mid-term elections
in the United States in November, promised her voters before the
elections that she would work for approval of the resolution.

The Democrats now have the majority in the House of Representatives
and a vote on the "genocide" resolution is widely expected to mean its
endorsement. The resolution claims that the Ottoman Empire, between
1915 and 1923, massacred 1,5 million of Armenians in Anatolia in a
genocide campaign.

The US administration is expected to work to persuade the congressmen
not to support the resolution, as it did in the past. Sources say
that the administration would try to put the resolution on ice for at
least a year. The White House is concerned that the passage of this
resolution would undermine dialogue and cooperation with Turkey on
a series of issues, particularly on the sensitive situation in Iraq.

Turkey is trying to prevent the draft resolution

Although the Democrats promised to their Armenian-origin voters during
the pre-election period that they would push for the resolution, Turkey
is still in a struggle to prevent its passage. The Turkish caucus in
the House of Representatives, the Turkish Embassy in Washington and
professional lobbying companies are telling the US Congressmen that
the passage of this resolution would create tensions in relations
with Turkey.

Turkey categorically denies allegations of genocide and says the
killings came when the Ottoman Empire was trying to quell civilian
unrest caused by Armenian revolts in the eastern Anatolia. Egemen
Bagis, an Istanbul deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party
(AK Party) and a close aide of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has
contacted notable Congress members, such as Democrat Congressman Robert
Wexler and Republican Iliana Ros-Lehtinen, explaining to them that
passage of the resolution would spell deep damage in Turkish-US ties.

As the Armenian Diaspora in the United States is preparing
to bring up the Armenian genocide allegations in the Congress,
U.S. President George W. Bush once again offered Richard Hoagland as
the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, although he was turned down by the
Senate elected in the end of last year.

Pro-Armenian lobby senators asked Bush to offer another candidate
instead of Hoagland. Armenians fiercely oppose appointment of
Hoagland, who denies calling Armenian claims as "genocide." Former
U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans was suspended from the office on
grounds that he countered official policy of the U.S. State Department
by using the expression the "Armenian genocide" during a meeting.

Suspension of Evans caused outrage among Armenians. Hoagland failed
to use the expression "genocide" during his address to the Senate to
get approval. Therefore, Robert Menendez, D-N.J., a supporter of the
Armenian lobby, blocked his appointment and was reported to have sent
a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with Democrat Senator
Harry Reid for naming another candidate to the post. U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State Nick Burns wrote a response to Menendez and Reid
telling them not to meddle the appointment of Hoagland with politics.

ARMENIA TO SEEK INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION OF DESTRUCTION OF ARMENIAN MONUMENTS IN AZERBAIJAN

Armenpress
Jan 09 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 9, ARMENPRESS: Foreign minister Vartan Oskanian said
today one of the foreign policy priorities this year will be to seek
international condemnation of destruction of Armenian monuments,
particularly, of a medieval cemetery in neighboring Azerbaijan’s
exclave Nakhichevan.

The government launched last year a traveling photo exhibition of
destruction of monuments at this ethnic Armenian cemetery.

The monuments in question are intricate stone-carved crosses in the
cemetery at Jugha – alternately known as Julfa – in Nakhichevan,
an exclave wedged between Armenia and Iran and Turkey.

Azerbaijani soldiers have systematically destroyed the crosses. Photos
supporting the claim were shown in Strasbourg, France, and will be
moved to a new city every two months.

Oskanian said today Armenian diplomats will work to have the Council
of Europe, UNESCO and other international organizations to condemn
this barbaric acts.

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION LIKELY TO BE ADOPTED IN CONGRESS

PanARMENIAN.Net
08.01.2007 15:50 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The possibility of discussion and adoption of the
Armenian Genocide resolution in the U.S. Congress is big enough,
ARF Bureau’s Hay Dat and Political Office Director Kiro Manoian
told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter. In his words, the resolution
will be submitted for discussion after numerous consultations with
Congressmen. "The possibility of adoption is big enough and we work
in this direction.

As to Turkey’s reaction on the possible adoption, I think this country
exaggerates its capabilities and weight in the U.S. America is not
France and the Turkish government has no instruments of influence
here. Relations between the U.S. and Turkey cannot be a decisive
factor in Armenian Genocide recognition issue.

7 years ago, at the times of President Clinton, an attempt to pass an
Armenian Genocide resolution was taken but the Republican congressional
majority blocked its adoption. Presently, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of
the House of Representatives stands for the adoption of the resolution.

A Show Trial and a Show Execution
Saturday, December 30, 2006 by _The Nation_ ()

by John Nichols

Convicted in a show trial that certainly appeared to have been timed
to finish on the eve of last month’s US elections, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein was hanged in a show execution that just as certainly
seems to have been timed to be carried out before the end of the worst
year of the Iraq War.

Hussein was a bad player — a totalitarian dictator who, with tacit
approval from the U.S. and other western nation during the 1980s,
killed his own people and waged a mad war with Iran. He needed to be
held to account. But even bad players deserve fair trials, honest
judgments and justly-applied punishments. The former dictator got none
of these.

According to _Human Rights Watch_
( ) , which has a long and
honorable history of documenting and challenging the abuses of
Hussein’s former government, the execution early Saturday morning
followed "a deeply flawed trial" and "marks a significant step away
from respect for human rights and the rule of law in Iraq." "The test
of a government’s commitment to human rights is measured by the way it
treats its worst offenders," says Richard Dicker, director of Human
Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. "History will judge
these actions harshly."

For fifteen years, Human Rights Watch had demanded that Hussein be
brought to justice for what the group has rightly described as
"massive human rights violations." But the group argues that Hussein
was not brought to justice.

In addition to objecting at the most fundamental level to the use of
the barbaric practice of state-sponsored execution–which is outlawed
by the vast majority of the world’s nations–Human Rights Watch notes
that Hussein was killed before being tried for some of his most
well-documented acts of brutality.

The group notes the trial that did take place was fundamentally
flawed. A niney-seven-page _report_
( 20/iraq14589.htm) by Human
Rights Watch, issued late last month, details the severe problems with
the trial. The report, based on close monitoring of the prosecution of
the former president, found that:
* "(The) Iraqi High Tribunal was undermined from the outset by
Iraqi government actions that threatened the independence and
perceived impartiality of the court."
* The Iraqi administrators, judges, prosecutors and defense
lawyers lacked sufficient training and expertise "to fairly and
effectively try crimes of this magnitude."
* The government did not protect defense lawyers–three of whom
were killed during the trial–or key witnesses.
* "(There were) serious flaws in the trial, including failures to
disclose key evidence to the defense, violations of the defendants’
right to question prosecution witnesses, and the presiding judge’s
demonstrations of bias."
* "Hussein’s defense lawyers had 30 days to file an appeal from
the November 5 verdict. However, the trial judgment was only made
available to them on November 22, leaving just two weeks to respond."

The report did not study the appeals process, But the speed with which
the tribunal’s verdict and sentence were confirmed suggests that the
Iraqi Appeals Chamber failed to seriously consider the legal arguments
advanced by Hussein’s able–if violently harassed–legal team.

"It defies imagination that the Appeals Chamber could have thoroughly
reviewed the 300-page judgment and the defense’s written arguments in
less than three weeks’ time," said Dicker. "The appeals process
appears even more flawed than the trial."

There will, of course, be those who counter criticism of the process
by pointing out that Saddam Hussein did not give the victims of his
cruel dictates fair trials or just sentences. That is certainly true.

But such statements represent a stinging indictment of the new Iraqi
government and its judiciary. With all the support of the United
States government, with massive resources and access to the best legal
advice in the world, with all the lessons of the past, Iraq has a
legal system that delivers no better justice than that of Saddam
Hussein’s dictatorship.

This is the ugly legacy of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq: An
awful mess of a country that cannot even get the trial and punishment
of deposed dictator right, a justice system that schedules the taking
of life for political and propaganda purposes, a thuggishly brutal
state that executes according to whim rather than legal standard.

According to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, "There was no comment from
the White House, which was determined that the execution should appear
to be an Iraqi event." The central role played by the US government in
the process was not lost on the Telegraph, however, as the newspaper
noted that: "the transfer of Saddam from American to Iraqi custody
meant his death was imminent."

The term "transfer" is of course being used in a loose sense, as
Hussein was hung not in an Iraqi prison but within the
American-controlled Green Zone in central Baghdad.

Now that the killing is done, the governments of Iraq and the United
States have confirmed what may have been the worst fear of those who
condemned both Saddam Hussein and the US invasion and occupation that
removed him from power. The crude lawlessness of Hussein has been
replaced by the calculated lawlessness of a new regime.

John Nichols, The Nation’s Washington correspondent, has covered
progressive politics and activism in the United States and abroad for
more than a decade. He is currently the editor of the editorial page
of Madison, Wisconsin’s _Capital Times_ ()
. Nichols is the author of two books: _It’s the Media, Stupid_
( 83220291/commondreams-20/ref=nosim)
and _Jews for Buchanan_
( 1565847172/commondreams-20/ref=nosim)
.