Author: Babajanian Karo

LIVING HAPPILY, AND TURKISHLY, EVER AFTER

Hurriyet, Turkey
Aug 17, 2011

In one of his speeches, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that
“Turkey and Iran share a very long, common history.” And in another he
said that “a common destiny, a common history, a common future is the
slogan of Turkey and Syria.” And in another, “we have a common history,
a common destiny and a common future, as well as cooperation between
Greece and Turkey,” prompting this columnist to wonder which countries
in the world Turkey does not have a common destiny, common history and
common future with. Most recently, as crowds in the rebel-controlled
Benghazi, Libya, chanted “Erdogan, Turkey, Muslim,” Mr. Davutoglu
told them “we have a common history and a future.”

That may be bad news for Turkey’s future relations with the Libyan
opposition. One of the countries with which Turkey has a common future
and history is sending one hostile signal after another to Ankara,
telling Mr. Davutoglu’s men to butt out of Syria, even accusing Turkey
of providing “terrorists” with arms. The other country with which
Turkey has a common history and a future is calculating where and when
the next Turkish act of hostility will come from. Speaking about that
country, Mr. Davutoglu said, “We have nothing to talk about.”

Ultimately, the visa-free trade zone linking
“common-history-and-future” friends Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan
seems to be in the political waste basket now.

Meanwhile, the other country with which Turkey has a common history
and a future is digging a massive, 120-kilometer-long area on its
border with Turkey. In the south, the islanders with which we have a
common history and future – although Mr. Davutoglu has not specifically
mentioned that – keep on vetoing EU accession chapters and going ahead
with their Exclusive Economic Zone plans despite Turkish objections.

The Bulgarians, Armenians and Georgians are lucky they don’t have
a common history and a future with Turkey. Bosnians may not be
equally lucky (yes, Bosnians are our neighbors since Mr. Davutoglu
expansively defines the Turkish neighborhood, as the vast space of
Ottoman dominion). A future visit to Sarajevo may risk ties with
Bosnia if the minister recalls our common history and future with
the Bosnians (if he already has not). It was alarming enough when
Mr. Davutoglu said that “the 16th century was the golden age of the
Balkans, and that the Ottoman era there needs to come back.” As one
Balkan analyst recently wrote, “Turkey will be judged by what it is
doing in the Balkans now, not by what it did 400 years ago.”

But I am particularly worried about Egypt where the post-Mubarak
political scene, with a touch of a common history and a future with
Turkey, could at any moment recall its anti-Ottoman past.

According to The Economist, “from North Africa to the Gulf the region
seems to be going through a Turkish moment.” How happy. “So is there
any reason why the Arab countries, having passed through their current
upheavals, should not live happily, and Turkishly, ever after?” the
newspaper asked (The Turkish Model: A Hard Act to Follow, Aug. 6).

According to The Economist, the coming to power of pious people did
not mean a dramatic rupture in ties with the West.

And, in The Economist’s analysis, we must live happily and Turkishly
ever after because “there is no suggestion that [Turkey] will leave
NATO or cut diplomatic links, however strained, with Israel.” There
is even better news: “So far, at least, Turkey is a long way from
any Iranian-style enforcement of female dress, let alone a clerical
class that has the final say in all big decisions.” How relieving!

The Economist probably forgot to mention another benign aspect
of Turkish Islamist rule: We still don’t behead criminals, stone
adulterers or build nuclear weapons. Mind you, the first two are in
the common culture of some of the countries we have a common history
and a future with. And our Ottoman forefathers would surely have gone
for the third had the technology of their times allowed them.

INTERSECTIONS: MISSING MULTICULTURALISM IN ARMENIA
Liana Aghajanian

Glendale News Press
Aug 17, 2011

Long before wars, closed borders and power struggles turned Armenia and
Azerbaijan into mortal enemies and carved out an almost exclusively
mono-ethnic population in both countries, they each had sizable,
ethnically diverse populations living and working together.

A 1970s travel guide from Russian travel agency Intourist even calls
the Caucasus the most multinational area of the Soviet Union where
“people of more than 50 nationalities,” including Armenians and Azeris,
“live and work there as a closely knit family.”

While Armenia has seen a rise in tourism – with Italian, French and
German tourists feeling adventurous enough to charter the mountainous
country full of ancient monasteries and historical sites and Peace
Corps volunteers that are placed in unsuspecting cities around the
country – Armenia remains largely, well, Armenian.

For this culture-loving Los Angeles native, with roots in Iran and
Greece and an affinity for Bollywood films, Mexican art and Pad Thai,
the mono-ethnicism of the country has been a difficult concept to
deal with.

As the weeks in Armenia have passed by in rapid succession, with
the unforgiving sun beating down during the day, while a flurry
of cooling thunderstorms have emerged in the evening, I am forever
craving diversity, the ability for ethnic groups to coexist peacefully
in this region, without the threat of war, nationalism or prejudice –
for the ability to realize that having an affinity for other cultures
doesn’t negate the importance or meaning of your own.

It was with this yearning for the diversity that Los Angeles affords,
with a bevy of faces and cultures intermingling together at any given
time that I took a trip to Tbilisi, Georgia, a city which turned out to
be an example of what this entire region, fraught with closed borders,
propaganda machines and nationalist rhetoric should be.

In Tbilisi, a city of astounding historic architecture and
multiculturalism, Armenians, Georgians and Azeris call each other
brothers. They do business together, toast together and spend
afternoons selling enough paraphernalia at Tbilisi’s swap meet –
the Dry Bridge Market – to enchant any Soviet-era sympathizer.

Sergei, an Armenian seller flanked by huge portraits of Stalin and
19th-century Armenian couples from Tbilisi, said the friction between
Armenians and Azeris is purely political.

“There are crazy people in every ethnicity, but we have no problems
here,” he said.

Further down, another seller, upon finding out I was Armenian,
joyfully told me his mother was Azeri and father Armenian. In an
Azeri tea house run by an Armenian family, an Azeri customer speaks
fluent Armenian. Locals that I seemed to spontaneously run into made
it a point to tell me the so-called “ethnic conflicts” were all down
to government decisions and had nothing to do with ordinary people.

With awe, I left Tbilisi and returned to Yerevan on a minibus,
realizing how important diversity, whether it be ethnic or otherwise,
was to my daily life and how stifling and claustrophobic its
non-existence in Yerevan was.

This region (and its history) is a complicated one, full of mourning
and tragedy, but it’s also a cradle of civilization and immense
culture.

And while my few days worth of conversation simplifies eons worth of
questions, concerns and situations, it was a glimmer of hope, however
small, that peaceful coexistence and the multicultural richness that
follows aren’t as elusive as they seem.

LIANA AGHAJANIAN is a writer and editor who has been covering arts,
culture and news in print and online for a number of years.

DISMANTLING OF YEREVAN KIOSKS TO BRING TO SOCIAL MINI-CATASTROPHE – OPPOSITION MP

news.am
Aug 17 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – Dismantling of Yerevan kiosks will cause a chain of social
problems for a wide range of society, said opposition Heritage party
MP Zaruhi Postanjyan to a press conference on Wednesday.

“The 3400 kiosks that they dismantle are not mere pieces of metal.

They have owners and employees, who have families to support. These
people pay taxes, work, they do business. Kiosks are legal property,”
she said.

According to Postanjyan, the owners of kiosks hold legal documents
in their hands, while the City Hall operates only upon the verbal
order of Yerevan mayor.

“I personally witnessed as they arrived to dismantle the kiosk, the
owner of which has a document proving that he has the right to run his
kiosk till January 2012. In the meantime, I did not see any document
asserting the legality of the actions of other side,” said the MP,
adding that this is a direct violation of the private property right.

Member of kiosks organizing committee Arevik Ghazaryan, who was present
at the conference, said that the City Hall merely robs the people.

“We woke up in the morning and saw that the kiosk has disappeared.

Meanwhile we have rights for our property, we paid the taxes and
lived on account of that property,” she said.

Ghazaryan cited Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan as saying that he
believed the kiosks make the city look ugly.

“Does anybody at all give a damn what he thinks? Did he for once take
interest in the fates of ordinary people?” she added.

ARMENIAN CLERGYMAN CALLS TO PROMOTE CHURCH INSTEAD OF PLAYING ONLINE GAMES

news.am
Aug 17, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN.- Armenian clergyman called on followers of the Armenian
Apostolic Church to create online groups to spread information about
the Church instead of playing stupid online games.

Commenting on sects’ agitation on the Internet, Father Shmavon
Gevondyan said Internet users should create groups on various websites,
forums to invite more people.

“The Armenian Apostolic Church has many websites, some members of
the clergy also have accounts in social networking websites trying
to struggle the sects. However, Internet is a huge area, universe.

Whatever you say, sects prepare two answers in return,” he told
journalists.

“Nowadays church needs your help, help us,” he called on the followers
of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

CITIZEN OF ARMENIA ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF ROBBERY IN TURKEY

news.am
Aug 17, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. – A citizen of Armenia was arrested on charges of robbery
in Turkish city of Samsun.

Grisha M., 55 was detained after the police examined security cameras,
Haber3 website reports. However, the Armenian citizen denied he had
robbed a bag, saying he had entered the school to go to the toilet.

Following the pre-investigation, Grisha M. was taken to the
administration for foreigners to be deported from Turkey.

ARMENIAN DIASPORA THREATENS U.S. AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY FRANCIS RICCIARDONE WITH RECALL

APA
Aug 17, 2011
Azerbaijan

Ambassador’s recent written response to Senate inquiry caused
Armenians’ concern

Baku. Habil Suleymanzadeh – APA. The Armenian National Committee of
America (ANCA) called for an apology from U.S. Ambassador to Turkey
Francis Ricciardone over his recent written response to a Senate
inquiry, APA reports quoting the committee’s website. In his written
response Francis Ricciardone said “Most of the Christian churches
functioning prior to 1915 are still operating as churches”.

Regarding it as false, the Armenian National Committee of America says
Francis Ricciardone remains committed to denying “Armenian genocide”.

The Committee demands apology from Ricciardone, otherwise threatens
him with recall.

STATEMENT BY IRAN’S ARMED FORCES CHIEF OF STAFF ON AZERBAIJAN PART OF IRANIAN DIPLOMACY-ARFD REP

news.am
Aug 17, 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN. -The statement by Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Hassan
Firouzabadi on Azerbaijani President is a part of Iranian diplomacy,
Giro Manoyan, head of central Hay Dat (Armenian Cause) office, member
of ARF Dashnaktsutyun Giro Manoyan Armenian News-NEWS.am.

As reported earlier, Firouzabadi slammed Azerbaijani government for
measures contradicting principles of Islam. He warned Ilham Aliyev
would face a dark future since people’s awakening cannot be suppressed.

Manoyan emphasized Iran regularly makes such statements on Azerbaijan,
but not on Armenia. However, later official Tehran dismisses such
allegations, “This tactic is most likely to be a part of Iran-pursued
diplomacy. Iran hints at the possible consequences if Azerbaijan fails
to change its tactics against “Islamic awakening” in the country.”

Commenting on military experts’ viewpoints that “in case of an Islamic
awakening in Azerbaijan, where most of the population are Shia
Muslims, Azerbaijan will turn from Turkey to Iran,” Manoyan said:
“Baku’s statements on Turkey, particularly “one nation, two states”
are rather eloquent. It speaks for itself and religious beliefs in
this case would be of no importance. As they say, religion is religion,
politics is politics,” Manoyan stressed.

CARGO TRAFFIC VOLUME AT SOUTH CAUCASUS RAILWAY UP 8,1% FOR JAN-JULY

arminfo
August 17, 2011

The cargo traffic volume at South Caucasus Railway grew by 8,1%
for Jan-July and amounted to 1717,2 thsd tons, which is by 8,1%
more versus the same period of 2010.

The total of 237,9 thsd tons of cargo for export were transported at
SCR in Jan-July 2011. This is by 26,5% more than at the same period of
2010. As for import, 680,3 thsd tons were transported for seven months
of 2011, which is by 5,6% less that in Jan-July 2010.As for the local
communication, 799,0 thsd tons of cargo were transported over the
reported period, which is by 17,5% more versus the same period of 2010.

SARDARAPAT MOVEMENT: IN THEIR ENORMITY AND IMMORALITY THE PRO-LEVON YOUTH EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS

arminfo
Thursday, August 18, 10:44

To blame such heroes like Jirayr Sefilyan and Alik Enigomshyan for
cowardice is a very villainous and immoral act, which can be commented
on in no other way, representative of Sardarapat movement, film maker
Tigran Khzmalyan told Arminfo correspondent.

To recall, today activists of the opposition Armenian National
Congress, detained on 9 August as  a result of clash with policemen,
disseminated a statement in which the blamed Sardarapat Movement for
cowardice and aiding Armenian authorities. They said that at critical
moments they see neither Sefilyan nor his teammates at the incident
places, where is a potential danger to undergo violence. “But they
are right as at the pick of the political fight they can knive”, –
the statement says.

MIXED RESULTS FOR STATES WHICH SUCCEEDED THE FORMER SOVIET UNION

THE IRISH TIMES

THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2011

A Turkmen soldier guards a fountain with a golden statue of President
Saparmurat Niyazov, who turned the gas-rich country into a personal
fiefdom following the fall of the USSR.Photograph: Reuters

Since Russia led the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fortunes of
the other 14 republics have diverged widely, writes SEAMUS MARTIN in
Moscow

IN THE Soviet era the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
(RSFSR) was the largest component part of the USSR. Not surprisingly,
it led the way to the dissolution of the Soviet Union when its
president, Boris Yeltsin, met his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid
Kravchuk and Belarussian prime minister Stanislav Shushkevich at a
hunting lodge in Belovezhskaya Pushcha near the Polish border.

On December 8th, 1991, they issued a statement saying the Soviet Union
had “ceased to exist as a geopolitical entity”. The deal effectively
eliminated Mikhail Gorbachev as a political force.

He had been president of the USSR but now that there was no USSR he
was president of nothing. The move may have been unconstitutional but
it stuck, despite efforts by the Kazakh leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev,
to row back on the decision.

Once again Russia led the other republics, this time in dissolving
the union, but the experience of the other 14 Soviet republics in
the union’s aftermath differed greatly.

The three Baltic countries were never recognised as part of the
USSR by most western states and their de jure independence became de
facto immediately after the failed putsch of August 1991. All three –
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are now members of the European Union
and Nato, while Estonia has adopted the euro as its currency. Just
as it was in Soviet times, the standard of living is higher there
than in most former Soviet republics.

Moldova, on the other hand, is Europe’s poorest country and has a
“frozen” conflict on its borders in the form of the unrecognised
breakaway region of Transnistria, which has a mainly Slavic population.

Ukraine, bigger than France and with a slightly smaller population,
has become hopelessly divided. In the former Austrian-controlled
regions of the west, the Greek Catholic Church and Ukrainian natonalism
prevail. In the east, the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches are
dominant and the population is pro-Russian. In Crimea, the majority
is not only pro-Russian, it actually is Russian, while the Crimean
Tatars, exiled in Stalin’s time, have returned in considerable numbers.

Ukraine’s politics is factional in the extreme. Brought to power by
the “orange revolution” in the winter of 2004-2005, Viktor Yushchenko
overturned what had been generally viewed as the fraudulent election of
Viktor Yanukovych as president. Yushchenko was then elected president
but turned out of be something of a disaster. He outraged Poles and
Jews by declaring Stepan Bandera, a nationalist who co-operated with
Nazi Germany, as “hero of the Ukrainian people”.

It was his lack of progress economically and his sacking of fellow
“orange revolutionaries” that cost Yushchenko the presidency in
2010, when he received a little more than 5.4 per cent of the vote
and was eliminated in the first round. The winner of that election,
declared to be fair by observers from the Organisation for Security
and Co-operation in Europe, turned out to be the same Viktor
Yanukovych who had fraudulently won the presidency in 2004. Under
the Yanukovych administration former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko,
once Yushchenko’s ally in the orange revolution, has been imprisoned
while awaiting trial for fraud. This internal friction has not helped
economic development and Ukraine lags behind Russia in this respect.

The other Slavic republic of Belarus has been turned into a Soviet
theme park by its elected dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. Felix
Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police, has an honoured
place in the statuary of Minsk, the capital city. Opponents of the
regime are regularly imprisoned, freedom of expression is curtailed
far more severely than in Russia and the country is going through an
extremely severe economic crisis.

In Georgia, internal strife immediately followed the USSR’s
dissolution.

Its president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, ignited sectional tensions and was
deposed after a civil war in 1993. He died in mysterious circumstance
on the final day of that year. The Georgian regions of Abkhazia and
South Ossetia declared themselves separate entities and in the case of
Abkhazia there were heavy casualties and large numbers of internally
displaced persons as Abkhaz forces, aided in some cases by Chechen
volunteers, drove ethnic Georgians out of the territory.

There were high hopes for his successor, former Soviet foreign
minister Eduard Shevardnadze, but he too was ousted after allegations
of corruption in the “rose revolution” of November 2003.

Shevardnadze’s successor, Mikheil Saakashvili, has been extremely
pro-western, pushing through a referendum to validate a campaign for
Nato membership. His re-election as president in January 2008, after
a campaign that ran alongside the referendum campaign, was marred by
a large number of irregularities, according to international observers.

But it was the war with Russia in August 2008 that was the most
dramatic event of Saakashvili’s presidency. There have been claims
and counterclaims regarding responsibility for the conflict. The
most reliable and independent account emerged from the EU-sponsored
investigation led by the Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, whose team
included senior military officers from Switzerland and the UK.

Tagliavini’s report showed Saakashvili had started the war with an
attack on South Ossetia, although there had been provocation from all
sides (Russians, Ossetes and Georgians). The report also criticised
Russia for a response that was not in proportion to the original
Georgian assault.

Despite predictions that he would be ousted as an unpopular leader,
Saakashvili remains in power amid frequent scares, the latest of
which saw a group of photographers accused of being Russian spies.

There are also indications of a cult of personality as Saakashvili
is overseeing the construction of a lavish presidential palace in
a country whose infrastrucure was in a terrible state even before
the war.

Elsewhere, in central Asia, progress towards democracy has ranged from
slow to non-existent. Turkmenistan, a gas-rich country bordering the
Caspian sea, became the personal fiefdom of Saparmurat Niyazov after
the USSR fell. He quickly changed his name to Turkmenbashi (father
of the Turkmen people), built a concrete model of the Eiffel Tower in
the centre of Ashgabat and on top of this monstrosity placed a golden
statue of himself that rotated to face the sun in daylight hours.

His successor, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, has gradually dismantled
many of Niyazov’s excesses and has invited exiled opposition leaders
to contest the next presidential election.

In Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who tried to stop the dissolution
of the USSR, runs a country larger than western Europe with efficiency.

He has continuously been re-elected with more than 90 per cent of
the vote in elections roundly condemned by international observers.

Islam Karimov, communist leader turned devout Muslim, runs a
repressive, undemocratic regime in Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan, once
regarded as central Asia’s best hope for democracy, has been riven with
ethnic tension in which hundreds have been killed, while Tajikistan
has suffered an ethnic civil war.

In the Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan are still locked in dispute
over the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, another possible
cause of future instability but more stable than the Russian region
of Dagestan, where a full-scale insurgency is under way, with the
assassination of moderate Muslim clerics by extremists a worrying
feature.