Author: Babajanian Karo

ARMENIE-TURQUIE
Hrant Dink écarté du journal turc « Birgun » parce qu’il était arménien !

La chaîne de télévision CNNTurk a révélé que Hrant Dink avait été
écarté d’un travail à cause de son origine arménienne. Lors d’une
émission, un débat vif a opposé la journaliste Nakehan Alce et Enver
Aysever lors d’une évocation de Hrant Dink. Lors de ces discussions
très tendues, Nakegan Alce a affirmé que Hrant Dink fut écarté de la
rédaction du journal « Birgun » du fait de ses origines arméniennes et
uniquement pour cela. Déclaration qui a provoqué la colère d’Enver
Aysever. N. Alce a alors surenchéri en affirmant « ne faites pas de
spéculations ! Hrant Dink fut renvoyé du journal parce qu’il était
arménien ! C’est ce qu’à affirmé son proche ami Etien Mahcupian ».

Krikor Amirzayan

samedi 28 janvier 2012,
Krikor Amirzayan ©armenews.com

Jackson Pollock ‘transcends time and fashion’

Friday 27 January 2012
Telegraph.co.uk

Jackson Pollock’s centenary, on 28 January, reminds us that the
American is one of those artists whose heroic achievements transcend
time and fashion.

Image 1 of 3
A section of “No5, 1948” an Abstract Expressionist work by Jackson
Pollock. The painting was sold for $140 million in 2006.
Image 1 of 3Jackson Pollock at work in 1945. He was born a century
ago on 28 January 1912. Photo: Everett Collection / Rex Feature.
Image 1 of 3Artist Jackson Pollock, who was born in Wyoming, died in
a drink-driving car accident on August 11, 1956, at the age of 44.

By Mark Hudson

Art today, we are constantly being told, is about ideas rather than
objects. Painting has been reduced to a marginal, niche activity,
while `expression’, the working out of feelings through art, is about
as `out’ as it possibly could be.

So who then at the cutting edge is interested in Jackson Pollock, the
father of so-called Action Painting, who became internationally
notorious for letting it all hang out on canvas? The answer is, just
about everybody. For Pollock is one of those artists whose heroic
achievements transcend time and fashion. He is one of the people who
got us where we are today, not only in terms of art, but in
understanding who we are.

When Pollock, who was born 100 years ago on 28 January 1912, began
painting in the 1930s, progressive American art was a hickish offshoot
of the European avant garde. Arshile Gorky, the Armenian painter who
was to become a major catalyst in American art, observed that his
American contemporaries not only didn’t understand the European models
they were drawing on, they didn’t even comprehend the significance of
their own work. Pollock and his Abstract Expressionist cohorts –
Rothko, de Kooning, Newman et al – were the artists who changed all
that, who made American painting the dominant phenomenon in
international art, shifting the focus of the art world from Paris to
New York. Yet Pollock’s significance extends far beyond his impact on
American art.

Before Pollock, paintings were created on easels, conceived, executed
and seen from one direction only, as they had been for centuries. Not
even Picasso changed that. But Pollock, wrestling with the problems of
Surrealism, of how to get deeper into the internal subject of the
work, began to work on the floor on unstretched canvas with very
liquid paint, leaving the idea of a pre-meditated subject far behind.
While the resulting paintings, dripped, rather than daubed onto the
canvas, were hung on the wall with a definite `right side’ up, they
were approached in their making from several angles at once – an
effect the critic Clement Greenberg described as `all over’ – with the
artist standing on the canvas, physically inside the painting as he
was creating it.

It was one of those moments, as pivotal as Masaccio’s adoption of
perspective and Picasso’s cubistic renunciation of it, that change the
way we see art and the world. It was a challenge to human perception
that provoked a massive, and largely hostile response.

If just about all the great Modernist breakthroughs had been made by
1920 – and the seeds even of Pop Art are apparent in the Dadaism of
the First World War – Pollock’s breakthrough feels like something that
could only have taken place in the Post-War period, and only in
America. The sheer size of his paintings – which makes European
Modernist works appear pygmy-like, even tentative – is, as has often
been observed, analogous to the scale of the American landscape. His
work’s aspiration towards total freedom is synchronous with, and to a
degree precipitated, the great opening up of the human spirit, the
democratisation of self-expression, that began in the 1950s and is
still going on today.

Yet if Pollock’s work appears anarchic, great paintings such as `Blue
Poles’ and `Autumn Rhythm’ are in fact carefully organised with a
symphonic feel for shifts in rhythm and scale.

Finally, Pollock’s tragic personality – his alcoholism, bi-polar
condition and death at 44 in a car crash – is intrinsic to the way we
see his work. Like van Gogh he is one of those artists who we feel
sacrificed themselves for their art, to whom we feel a kind of
gratitude for what they were able to bring back from the troubled
extremities of the human soul; a gratitude that is romantic, but not
entirely unwarranted. Pollock’s work doesn’t shock the way it once
did. Most of us would now love to have a Pollock in our sitting room.
Yet it continues to ask powerful questions about the limits of human
expression, aspiration and perception – questions the rest of us are
just beginning to get to grips with.

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 27 2012

Spokesman says Dink was bait, AK Party target

27 January 2012 / TODAYSZAMAN.COM,

Turkish ruling party spokesman has said killing of a prominent
Turkish-Armenian journalist in 2007 was a bait to target the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and to foment chaos in the
country.

A man who was believed to be behind the 2007 killing of prominent
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was sentenced to life in prison
recently in a verdict that drew criticism from rights groups for
failing to explore alleged complicity of state officials.

Editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos and Turkey’s best
known Armenian voice abroad, Dink was shot in broad daylight in a busy
Ä°stanbul street as he left his office.

Dink had angered Turkish nationalists with articles on Armenian
identity and references to a Turkish “genocide” of Christian Armenians
in 1915 — which the Turkish state strenuously denies. The case was
seen as a test for democracy and human rights in European Union
candidate Turkey.

The judge at an Ä°stanbul court sentenced Yasin Hayal to life
imprisonment and acquitted 19 defendants of a charge of being part of
a terrorist group. A juvenile court sentenced Dink’s assassin, Ogün
Samast, to 22 years and 10 months in jail last July. He was 17 when
the killing took place.

`Dink was chosen as a bait, the real target in AK Party,’ Hüseyin
Ã?elik, who is also AK Party deputy chairman, said in a news
conference.

Ã?elik added that the prosecutor of the Dink case said the murder is a
work of an organization, referring to the killing to be an organized
crime. He said that he believes it was not only several people who
assassinated Dink and there is evidence that makes him and public
believe otherwise.

Ã?elik said those who killed Dink wanted to foment chaos in Turkey and
instigate instability in the country.

He also ruled out claims that six outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK) terrorists were also killed in a botched military strike, which
claimed the lives of 34 civilians in southeast Turkey in December,
describing such allegations as `a conspiracy theory.’

`The government has no such information. These [allegations] are a
conspiracy theory. The state admitted that it made a mistake,’ he
said.

Claims have recently emerged suggesting, according to wiretap records
of conversations seized by intelligence units, that six members of the
outlawed PKK were also killed by the military airstrike in Å?ırnak’s
Uludere. According to the conversation, the PKK took the corpses to a
PKK camp in Haftanin. Ã?elik also said the PKK might from time to time
try to use civilians as human shields. In the meantime, Ã?elik also
announced on Friday that citizenship of Anter Anter, son of Musa
Anter, a Kurdish author who was assassinated in 1992, will be
restored.

Anter Anter left Turkey in 1991, a year before his father, a prominent
Kurdish intellectual and peace activist, fell victim to what remains
one of many unsolved assassinations that took place at the time. Anter
appealed to the Turkish authorities to end the ban last year and was
allowed to enter the country on Tuesday, Jan. 24, after receiving
special permission from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an.

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Jan 27 2012

Foreigners leave Turkey amid new residence law

Vercihan ZiflioÄ?lu
ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

A high nubmer of Armenian and Georgian people working in Turkey are
leaving the country in the wake of a recent law implementation that
complicates working permits for foreign people. While workers complain
of extreme financial difficulties, Labor Ministry announces that there
will be exceptions for house workers

Armenians and Georgians are rushing to exit Turkey before a new law
complicating residence procedures comes into effect Feb 1. Many
workers from the countries have implored PM Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an to
quash the law, saying it will make it impossible for them to continue
living in Turkey.

A new law that will make it more difficult for foreigners to continue
living in Turkey without a residence permit has prompted an exodus of
Georgians and Armenians who want to leave the country before new
regulations go into effect Feb. 1.

`I am pleading to Turkish Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] ErdoÄ?an [to
prevent] this law from going into effect. I am feeding and educating
my kids with money that I earn here,’ said Sofiya, a 47-year-old
Georgian citizen, as she was getting ready to travel back to Tbilisi.

`The Law of Foreigners’ Residence and Travel in Turkey’ has also put
the Emniyet Bus Terminal in Istanbul’s Aksaray district into a frenzy,
as Georgians and Armenians who are mainly employed in house labor,
babysitting and patient care are rushing to leave Turkey to avoid
incurring any penalties.
`Bread has no country. Wherever there is bread, we, the economically
vulnerable people, go there. We have to live and support our families.
We have no other chance,’ HayganuÅ?, an Armenian citizen, said in
reference to the tough rhetoric employed by ErdoÄ?an in response to a
draft bill on Armenian genocide allegations that came before the House
of Representatives in the United States in 2010.

Regulations

Until now, many foreigners have done `visa runs’ to neighboring
countries, exiting Turkey after their 90-day visa ends and then
immediately re-entering with a new 90-day visa. However, the new law
prepared by the Labor and Social Security Ministry will only allow
foreign citizens entering the country with a tourist visa to stay in
Turkey for three months, after which time they will be obliged to wait
for another three months abroad before they can return.

Authorities have provided one convenience for foreign workers,
however, in recognition of Armenian, Kyrgyz and Gagauz home laborers.
Such house workers will pay the same premiums as a Turkish citizen and
will be allowed to continue working even if a Turkish citizen demands
the same job.
`Those employed in house labor will continue working by paying
premiums like a Turkish citizen,’ Labor and Social Security Minister
Faruk Ã?elik said.

As many Armenian, Kyrgyz and Gagauz residents in Turkey work in such
services as home labor and patient care, they will also be able to
take advantage of this provision.

Foreign citizens who arrive in Turkey by means of a tourist visa and
later obtain a work permit will be allowed to extend their stay in the
country for a year or more, Ã?elik added.

Foreign workers, however, will then be obliged to pay a hefty premium
of 400 Turkish Liras as well, while they will also be barred from
obtaining employment in a sector where Turkish citizens demand work.

Prime Minister Tayyip EroÄ?an last year expressed that some 170,000
Armenians live in Turkey.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry, however, said only 15,000 Armenian
citizens currently reside in Turkey.
Armenians in Turkey on the other hand, seem worried.

`As Armenian [citizens], we always lived in fear of being sent back.
Such a return would mean chaos for my family. I can neither find food
nor take a leave for three months and return back, or find a job,’
said HayganuÅ?, who has been taking care of an elderly woman in
Istanbul.
January/27/2012

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 27 2012

Clinton says judgment on history opens dangerous door, French bill
faces further int’l reaction

27 January 2012 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, ANKARA

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed caution regarding
legislation that passes judgment on history, referring to a bill
recently passed by the French Senate that criminalizes denying that
the killings of Armenians in 1915 constituted genocide.
`To try to use the power of the government to resolve historical
issues, in my opinion, opens a door that is a very dangerous one to go
through,’ Clinton was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as
saying on Thursday. Clinton’s call for caution when handling
historical issues signaled an attempt to sidestep the ongoing dispute
between Turkey and France, the AP commented.

In response to questions demanding why the US has refrained from
passing a bill that would match the recent move of the French
government, Clinton said that Washington was wary of compromising free
speech and the issue was best left for scholars to handle.

Late on Wednesday night, US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone
told a group of media representatives in the city that Turkey must
face its history to fully become the country it wants to be, noting
that he had seen signs the country was moving in that direction.
Ricciardone noted that all countries had painful moments in their
histories, but it was necessary to acknowledge them alongside the
glorious moments.

Although the US unofficially recognizes the killings of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks at the onset of World War I, US presidents have
traditionally refrained from describing the incidents as `genocide,’ a
term belonging to the sphere of international law. Every April, when
Armenians all over the world commemorate what they believe to be the
beginning of the alleged genocide almost a hundred years ago, eyes
turn to the US president to see whether he will publically use the
term. So far, no US president has used the word genocide when
referring to the killings.

Although there is political support for the French bill, which is due
to become law next week, after formally receiving the French
president’s signature it was slammed by French civil institutions as
well as international organizations, which stress that such a
punishment confronts the French ideals of freedom of expression.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published an open letter, in which its
Secretary-General Jean-François Julliard addresses the French
parliament, to reiterate the organization’s concerns about the
proposed law.

`The exchanges between the law’s supporters and opponents, involving
leading figures and going to the very heart of our fundamental rights,
have been so heated that even its supporters must realize that the
Constitutional Council’s opinion is indispensible,’ Julliard stated in
the letter, with reference to the argument that the bill, if it
becomes law, might violate the French constitution. `We therefore urge
you to demand its referral to the Council,’ he added.

`There are four key aspects of the law that disturb us: A conflict
with the principle of the right to free expression, a lack of
proportionality between the offence and penalty, a violation of
parliament’s competence and a lack of clarity in the wording,’
Julliard added, highlighting his organization’s concerns.

Ara BaÅ?lık: Bosnia-Herzegovina calls on France to recognize genocide
in Srebrenitsa

In the belief that France was moving toward adopting a bill that
passes judgment on a disputed historical event, the parliament of
Bosnia-Herzegovina has urged Paris to draft a law on the Bosnian
genocide of the `90s, Turkey’s Star daily reported on Friday.

A Bosnian lawmaker, Safet KeÅ?o, has prepared a proposal for his
parliament to penalize denial of the Bosnian genocide in Srebrenitsa.
During the period thousands of Bosnian civilians, including women and
children, were systematically killed by the Bosnia-Serbian army, which
is speculated to have been supplied by Serbian troops. Bosnians now
seek to send a proposal to the French Parliament, as KeÅ?o stated that
everybody, including France, was witness to Srebrenitsa. `It would
make much more sense if they [The French Parliament] showed interest
in genocides recognized and witnessed internationally; it is
ridiculous of them to deal with incidents they did not even witness,’
KeÅ?o was quoted as saying by the daily.

TRT, Turkey
Jan 27 2012

Turkey Watches Developments Regarding Armenian Bill

Friday, 27 January 2012 14:45 .

Turkey is going to wait for the new time-table related to the Armenian
bill approved by the French Senate.

Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan has told TRT that Turkey is waiting
to see if French politicians are going to stand by their decision, if
a legal process is going to be launched by some parliamentarians and
what the outcome of their internal debates on the matter will be, and
noted that if Turkey sees that all other channels have been exhausted
for the reversal of the decision, it will undoubtedly have something
to say and do against it.

Asked if Turkey’s reaction was going to include some economic
sanctions, Babacan said Turkey was a big country and one acting with
reason and what it was going to display should be compatible with its
standing but determined at the same time.

TRT

Vancouver Sun, BC, Canada
Jan 26 2012

Turkey and France in diplomatic rift as Sarkozy courts Armenians in
presidential vote

By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun

Facing rejection by voters in the upcoming presidential election,
French leader Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative party is being accused of
making a crass appeal to the country’s 500,000 ethnic Armenians in an
attempt to stave off defeat.

On Monday the French Senate passed by 126 votes to 86 a bill which
will make it a criminal offence to deny that the 1915 deaths of
hundreds of thousands of Armenians as the Ottoman Empire collapsed was
a genocide.

The bill now only needs Sarkozy’s signature to become law, which he is
expected to provide by the end of February.

But, as when the bill passed the lower house of the French National
Assembly in December, this week’s development has caused a massive
diplomatic rift with Turkey, the modern child of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the French
legislation, which threatens offenders with up to a year in prison and
a fine of up to $57,000, displayed a `racist and discriminatory’
attitude toward Turkey.

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, echoing many French political
commentators, said `relations between the republic of Turkey and
France have been sacrificed to considerations of political agenda.’

Turkey has threatened some as yet unspecified sanctions against France
if Sarkozy ratifies the bill.

The mayor of Ankara, the capital, has mused about erecting a memorial
outside the French embassy to the thousands of Algerians killed by
French troops in the 1950s and 1960s as Paris tried to quell an
independence uprising in its North African colony.

But since both countries are members of NATO, there may well be
pressure for a resolution from other members of the alliance.

There are already doubts about the legality of the French legislation.
So it is likely that the necessary 60 lawmakers will request a
reference to the country’s highest court, which will then decide on
the bill’s constitutionality.

Successive Turkish governments have never denied that in 1915 hundreds
of thousands of Armenians died when the Ottoman Turks deported them
from eastern Anatolia to Syria. The Ottoman Turks, who fought with
Germany in the First World War, claimed the Armenians were pro-Russian
saboteurs preparing to support a czarist invasion.

What the Turks do dispute is the numbers. Armenians say up to 1.5
million of their people died while Turks put the number at between
200,000 and 300,000, adding that many thousands of Turks also died of
disease and starvation in this criminally bungled operation.

Turkey also disputes that what happened was a genocide in the true
meaning of the word, which is defined by the United Nations as a
premeditated campaign `to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation,
ethnic, racial or religious group.’

The survivors of the 1915 atrocities, about 500,000 of them, found new
homes around the world and the diaspora now numbers about seven
million people.

In several countries that are now their homes the Armenians represent
a significant voting bloc. This has aided persistent campaigns by many
of these communities to persuade their governments to recognize the
events of 1915 as a genocide.

Canada, Argentina, Italy, Russia, Belgium and France are among about
20 countries that have formally recognized the Ottoman Turks’ action
against the Armenians as a genocide.

But some other countries such as the United States, Britain and Israel
have shied away from using that highly emotive word.

The controversy over the genocide bill comes as Sarkozy’s campaign for
re-election in the two-round presidential vote on April 22 and May 6
appears to be in free-fall.

Indeed, in a supposedly off-the-record chat with reporters
accompanying him on a visit to French Guiana on the northeastern coast
of South America on Sunday Sarkozy confessed his fears of defeat.

`For the first time in my life I am faced with the possibility that my
career is coming to an end,’ Sarkozy, 56, is quoted as saying.

He was first elected to the presidency with his Union for a Popular
Movement party in 2007, but is trailing the Socialist Party candidate
Francois Hollande in the polls.

The most likely outcome is that Hollande will win on the second ballot
in May when the fistful of smaller party candidates drop off after the
first vote.

But many socialists or left-leaning voters see Hollande as an
uninspiring candidate when they had hoped to be led by Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, whose prospects burned out in a New York hotel room in
May last year.

And Sarkozy is a formidable campaigner who may well be able to claw
back some of his lost support by such niche voter market ploys as the
genocide bill.

Wall Street Journal
Jan 27 2012

France Should Step Back From Genocide Bill “Mistake” – Turkey Min

JANUARY 27, 2012, 6:51 A.M. ET

ISTANBUL (Dow Jones)–Turkey’s economy minister Zafer Caglayan said
Friday that France should step back from ratifying a so-called
Genocide bill that would make it a crime to deny that the massacre of
Armenians at the end of the Ottoman Empire constituted genocide.

Speaking at a meeting with French companies in Ankara, Caglayan said
that the bill didn’t reflect the views of French citizens or French
business.

The bill, passed on Monday by the French senate, must now be signed
into law by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Turkish officials hope that dissenting senators can gather 60
signatures to appeal the decision to the French constitutional court.

-By Joe Parkinson, Dow Jones Newswires

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Director
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

Watch our latest videos on YouTube here:

THE GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
DR. OLAV FYKSE TVEIT MEETS WITH HIS HOLINESS ARAM I

On Saturday 28 January 2012, the General Secretary of the World Council of
Churches (WCC), Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, met with His Holiness Aram I in his
office. After Dr Tveit informed the Catholicos of the activities of the WCC,
they discussed the impact of the WCC on the life of the member churches.

At the end, His Holiness Aram I shared his views on the Council as the
privileged instrument of the ecumenical movement, and said that it should
enable the churches to respond to the current challenges posed by the Global
Order. The suggestions of the Catholicos were based on his experience as
Moderator of the WCC from 1991 to 2006.

At noon the General Secretary was invited to have lunch with His Holiness
Aram I.
##
Photo:

IAN BREMMER: THE DAVOS GIFT BASKET INCLUDED THE ‘MOST POLITICALLY CONTROVERSIAL GIFT I EVER RECEIVED’

Business Insider
Jan 27 2012

Sam Ro

Business Insider

Ian Bremmer, Founder and President of the Eurasia Group, is one of
the leading authorities in geopolitical risk. He is also one of the
many thought-leaders attending the World Economic Forum’s gathering
in Davos, Switzerland.

But, it also seems that Bremmer can’t help but notice the political
implications of everything he sees.

When he first checked into his hotel room in Davos, he noticed two
gift baskets.

One gift was a box of chocolates and a note from the CEO of Nestle.

Harmless and sweet.

The other wasn’t as much a gift as it was an information packet. It
was a bag full of DVDs, post cards and a statement courtesy of the
Heydar Aliyev Foundation, which is run by Azerbaijan’s First Lady
Mehriban Aliyeva.

Sounds harmless, right?

Not really.

Leave it to Bremmer, a political risk expert, to call the bag
of freebies the “most politically controversial gift” he had ever
received. The bag included a statement regarding the Garabagh region
between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Bremmer described it as “delivered
from a starkly one-sided point of view.” Here’s an excerpt of what
the statement said (h/t Ian Bremmer via ForeignPolicy.com):

Unfortunately the conflict ignited as a result of unfair territorial
claims brought against Azerbaijan. The occupation by Armenian invaders
of Garabagh… [has] turned the bright representatives of the Mugham
art into internally displaced people… grief, sorrow, and melancholy
is being felt today in their performance.

And here’s Bremmer’s take:

The package was giftwrapped in cellophane, so it was sure to be missed
by any personnel intent on keeping such subjective perspective out of
the hotel rooms. You have to hand it to this Azeri organization for
so craftily injecting their thoughts into the summit. The takeaway:
Davos truly is the biggest annual global political event – and you
can’t underestimate how far actors will go to get their message heard
on the global stage.

Not many people are familiar with the history between Armenia and
Azerbaijan. So, it would actually make perfect sense that they are
out trying to raise awareness.

Business Insider’s editor-in-chief Henry Blodget is at the World
Economic Forum now. Earlier this week, he published photos of
Azerbaijan’s gift to the attendees.

Admittedly, we did not appreciate the full significance of the gift.

Indeed, when our famished Henry first arrived in Davos, he tore through
the gift to find a series of packages that resembled exotic boxes of
chocolates, including one box with the word “fondu” on it.

Click Here For Our Pictures Of Azerbaijan’s Controversial Gift: