Author: Badalian Vardan

SVANTE CORNELL: “THE NAGORNO KARABAKH CONFLICT HAS BEEN PUT ON THE INTERNATIONAL BACKBURNER” – INTERVIEW

Milaz.info
Nov 25 2011
Azerbaijan

“The current situation can lead to the breaking up of a new war in
the region”

“Serious senior figures as the presidential envoy in the US should
be appointed as the mediators”

APA’s interview with Svante E. Cornell, Research Director of the
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, and
a co-founder of the Institue for Security and Development Policy,
Stockholm

– After the Kazan meeting of two presidents, the negotiation process
around the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict went to the deadlock. How long do
you believe that the stagnation process around the conflict resolution
will continue?

– Well, I think that in the future there is nothing that shows that
there is going to be a significant change in the negotiations or
significant progress. I never believed that Kazan meeting is going
anywhere. What happens now is that the conflict has been put on the
international backburner and there is no serious engagement of the
part of the mediators or anyone else.

– Concerning the mediators, can you say that the position of the
international mediators in the face of the Minsk group is being biased?

– I think that the co-chairs are from the different perspectives. The
Russian co-chair has very clear and direct interest in the conflict,
which is not necessarily to the one or another country but to maintain
both in the state of weakness, maintain Russian predominance in the
Caucasus, and as Azerbaijan is a strong country, there are leaning
towards Armenia. In the principle I think it is a very pragmatic
policy. If you look at the French and the US policy I don’t think
that there is a bias as such. In fact, in Azerbaijan people are
complaining the lack of the objectivity, in Armenia people are saying
that all these countries are supporting the territorial integrity of
Azerbaijan, therefore they are biased. I think France and the US you
will find the influence of the certain lobby but in the US it is the
congressional issue.

– Considering the Russian role in this conflict can we estimate it from
the perspective of the military cooperation between Moscow and Yerevan?

– Of course, the military base and the mutual agreement. At the same
time they are selling arms to Azerbaijan as well. I usually say that
they are selling arms to Armenia on the cheap prices and to Azerbaijan
on the expensive prices.

– During the latest meeting to the region, the co-chairs proposed
new options to the both sides. Do you think that it may contribute
to rule out this deadlock in the process?

– No, because the co-chairs acting in isolation don’t have political
capital. What is necessary something to be achieved and the deadlock
to be broken that there is to be high level serious international
engagement. The co-chairs are middle level diplomats, they are not
senior people in any capacity. I am sure that they are very skilled
diplomats, but still are mid-career level diplomats. They are not
the type of people, the US for example are sending to the Middle
East, to the North Korea, or to Afghanistan. I will keep saying no
until there is an appointment of the serious senior figures as the
presidential envoy in the US. The moment that there is a person with
a serious experience in the conflict resolution, which is important
than experience in the region, and who has improved statue to make
a policy and not only to improve the discussion, then there will be
a serious possibility to break through.

– This year Azerbaijan got the membership in the Security Council
in the UN, how do you see the contribution of it to the solution of
the conflict?

– I don’t think it contributes at all to the conflict, directly.

Indirectly it amends the development that has been taking place for
many years that Azerbaijan is increasing in the region and in the world
and will be able to raise the issue in the Security Council. But in
terms of the actual policy, it may be used in the way to be productive
but I still think it will not make change, and the most serious
problem is the lack of the Western strategy towards the South Caucasus.

– Speaking from the European perspective, why do you think that
European Union pretends to be silent in the Karabakh process?

– I think for several reasons, one is that France would like to
maintain its supremacy as a European country in Minsk group alongside
with Russia and the US. The another is the internal problems of the EU:
if you look at the entire policy, the whole existence of the EU is in
the question for financial and economic reasons and this is not a good
time to make a sort of engagement in its eastern neighborhood. It is
not an amazing thing but at least they have done it. But in the couple
of years or the nearest future, we should not expect very much unless
there is a bog crisis in the region that force the international
community to act. I think in that respect, the third reason, there
is what you can call the Karabakh fatigue, and number two is that
time goes by and the status quo is more accepted. The conflict is not
the frozen and that is the problem. And I think what happened in the
past two years that the US have sent the signal to Azerbaijan that
this is not the priority and please accept that this is not going
to be priority. And Azerbaijan has a choice either to accept it to
do something about it, and that meant that you need to escalate the
conflict, and that what Baku did.

– And do you think that the current situation can lead to the breaking
up of a new war in the region?

– Yes, of course. It is always much easier and cheaper to prevent
a war, than intervene one to start it. And that should have done in
Georgia. The EU had to spend enormous political capital and financial
resources for Georgian economy in three billion dollar. If it had
invested the half before the war, they probable would be able the
escalation of the war. The international community should do is one
thing, and what they will do is another.

JUNIOR EUROVISION 2011 DELEGATIONS ARRIVING IN ARMENIA

Panorama
Nov 25 2011
Armenia

Delegations of three countries – Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus –
are arriving in Armenia tonight for Junior Eurovision 2011, head of
contest’s organizing committee’s press service, Artak Vardanyan told
a Panorama.am reporter.

Delegations of all countries are scheduled to be in Armenia by November
28, he said.

The 2011 Junior Eurovision Song Contest will be held at Yerevan’s
Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concerts Complex on December 2-3. The
contest hosts 13 countries – Armenia, Russia, Latvia, Moldova,
Bulgaria, Lithuania, Ukraine, Macedonia, The Netherlands, Belarus,
Sweden, Georgia, and Belgium.

Dalita will represent Armenia with her song “Welcome to Armenia.”

IT IS TIME TO SETTLE THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT – FORMER HEAD OF OSCE PA

news.am
Nov 25 2011
Armenia

It is time to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, former President
of Parliamentary Assembly, chairman of the Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation
Goran Lennmarker said in an interview with Azerbaijani APA agency.

According to Lennmarker, first of all that it is question of the public
opinion in Azerbaijan and in Armenia to have a debate about acceptance
of the solution that is good for people of the both countries, because
the negotiation process must be accepted by the people of Azerbaijan
and also by the people of Armenia.

He considers that otherwise there will be no solution to the conflict
and the status quo will be gone.

“I think that it is time in Azerbaijan to have a debate on that.

Because there is a possibility for the solution that is not only for
refugees who wish to come back. Another thing from the outside that
Europe could do more is that I think to give membership perspective
to Azerbaijan and Armenia and Georgia in the European Union.

Then it is up to Azerbaijan if it wishes to use it, it is voluntarily
and you must wish it yourself, but there is should be a perspective
for the European membership and insertion to reach a solution,”
he told APA.

Lennmarker believes solution depends on the negotiation process and
cannot be imposed from the outside.

“It must be negotiated. It must be a solution which is accepted by
the both sides, in other words, the compromise. Nobody will be 100%
happy because it is the nature of it. I think that the discussion
between Armenia and Turkey could be helpful, and here I have a
different opinion with the leadership of Azerbaijan. Because I
think that could help the solution. If they could get through their
complicated history in the whole manner, I think that could be a
good thing for Nagorno-Karabakh. That could help for the solution,
because this is the European experience,” he said.

YERABLUR WILL BE FULL OF PEOPLE TODAY: TODAY IS MONTE’S BIRTHDAY

Times.am
Nov 25 2011
Armenia

Today is Monte Melqonyan’s birthday. Name of Monte is especially dear
for those Armenians, who realize the importance of Artsakh liberation
war. Monte is a legend of our days, a phenomenon of Armenian hero.

Monte Melkonian (November 25, 1957 – June 12, 1993) was a famed
Armenian commander during Nagorno-Karabakh war. Melkonian had no prior
service record in any country’s army before being placed in command of
an estimated 4,000 men in the war. He had largely built his military
experience beginning from the late 1970s and 1980s where he fought
against the various splintering factions in the Lebanese Civil War,
against Israeli troops in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and was a
member of the Armenian organization ASALA.

An Armenian-American, Melkonian left the USA and arrived in Iran
in 1978 during the beginning of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, taking
part in demonstrations against the Shah. Following the collapse of
the Shah’s monarchy in 1979, he traveled to Lebanon during the height
of the civil war and served in an Armenia militia group in the Beirut
suburb of Bourj Hammoud. In ASALA, he took part in the assassinations
of several Turkish diplomats in Europe during the early to mid-1980s
and was later arrested and sent to prison in France. In 1989, he
was released and in the following year, acquired a visa to travel
to Armenia.

Throughout his tenure, Melkonian carried several different aliases
including “Abu Sindi”, “Saro”, “Timothy Sean McCormack” and “Commander
Avo”, the last of which was the name addressed by troops under his
command in Artsakh. The last years of his life were spent fighting with
the Nagorno Karabakh Defense Army. Monte was killed in the abandoned
Nagorno-Karabagh village of Merzuli in the early afternoon of June 12,
1993, with controversial reports about the circumstances of his death
and was subsequently buried at Yerablur cemetery in Yerevan,. He is
revered by Armenians as a national hero.

All these biographical facts can be found in the encyclopedias. But
we say nothing about Monte, if we tell just the facts. Monte’s friends
tell about him with proud, with admiration, as about the real hero.

Today the Yerablur will be full of people. Many youth organizations
organize marches to Yerablur to commemorate once more one of the
brightest heroes of our times.

CSTO COLLECTIVE RAPID REACTION FORCE EXERCISES TO BE HELD IN ARMENIA “AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL”

Mediamax
Nov 25 2011
Armenia

Yerevan/Mediamax /. Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO), Nikolay Bordzyuzha, said in Yerevan today that
the contingents making part of CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force
(CRRF) will be equipped with modern armament.

Secretary of the Armenian National Security Council, Artur
Baghdasaryan, and Nikolay Bordzyuzha signed a plan of joint measures
within CSTO in Yerevan today, Mediamax reports.

When asked about whether CSTO is going to render assistance to
Armenia in terms of armament, Nikolay Bordzyuzha said: “There are some
Russian centers and joint ventures dealing with the maintenance and
modernization of Armenian Armed Forces, which is already a significant
contribution to the provision of Armenia’s security.”

Commenting on the Action Plan, Artur Baghdasaryan said the document
envisages 15 events in Yerevan and Moscow on a wide range of issues.

He especially highlighted CSTO CRRF exercises due to be held in Armenia
next year, saying that “they will be held at the highest level.”

ARMENIAN MP PROPOSES 50% CUT OF AIRWAY TICKETS PRICES

PanARMENIAN.Net
November 25, 2011 – 14:36 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Armenian member of parliament Hayk Sanosyan said
he intends to introduce a bill envisaging 50% reduction of prices
for air tickets in the National Assembly.

“Cooperation mechanism between the government and airway companies must
be based on a principle of subsidies. Thus, in lieu of price reduction
the government may provide airway companies with fuel,” the MP said.

According to Sanosyan, the viability of the idea is proved by global
experience. “If implemented, the initiative will boost tourist inflow,
thus positively affecting the country’s economy,” the MP said.

ANC, ARFD HAVE SIMILAR VIEWS ON ARMENIA’S INTEGRATION TO EAU

PanARMENIAN.Net
November 25, 2011 – 18:08 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Armenia should continue European integration process
and wait until specific plans are drawn up for formation of Eurasian
Union, ARF Dashnaktsutyun Hay Dat and Political Affairs Office Director
Kiro Manoyan said.

For his part, Armenian National Congress (ANC) opposition bloc member
Vladimir Karapetyan noted that Armenia should consider joining Eurasian
Union after the latter comes up with specific documents.

On November 18, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan have signed a decree to
set up a joint body to oversee and regulate the economy and trade in
the three former Soviet countries. The Eurasian Economic Commission
will be set up in January to regulate and to gradually take over
functions in shaping and executing trade and economic policies from
Russian, Belarusian and Kazakh authorities in a way similar to the
economic bodies of the European Union.

EU AGAIN ‘INTERFERES’ IN KARABAKH ISSUE

04:12 pm | Today | Politics

EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in
Georgia, Ambassador Philippe Lefort, will visit Yerevan for the second
time on 28 November.

He will meet the President, the Foreign and Defence Ministers and
the Secretary of the National Security Council.

The topic of discussion will be the situation concerning
Nagorno-Karabakh. The visit is part of the European Union’s efforts
to support the work of the OSCE Minsk Group

HOLLAND MULLS INVITING GUL TO 400TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS

Tert.am
25.11.11

Holland is considering inviting Turkish president Abdullah Gul for the
400th anniversary of relations between Holland and Turkey, According
to the Assyrian International News Agency.

At a parliamentary debate yesterday the Party of Freedom (PVV),
expressed opposition to the invitation, citing the following regarding
Turkey:

– Turkey refuses to recognize the Assyrian, Greek and Armenian
genocides of World War One

– History text books in Turkey portray Assyrians as “traitors”
(AINA 10-2-2011).

– Discrimination against Christians in Turkey continues

– 60 journalist are currently imprisoned in Turkey.

For these reasons, Wim Kortenoeven of the Party of Freedom said
Holland should not invite Gul to the country for the 400th anniversary
celebration.

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Nov 23 2011

PM Erdoðan apologizes over Dersim massacre on behalf of Turkish state

23 November 2011, Wednesday / YONCA POYRAZ DOÐAN, ÝSTANBUL

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan holds a book by Turkish writer
Necip Fazýl Kýsakürek as mentions details of 1937 massacre in Dersim
on Nov. 23. (Photo: AA)

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan has apologized for a 1937 massacre
in the predominantly Alevi region of Dersim on behalf of the Turkish
state, but said the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP),
which was the only political party at the time, is the actual culprit
and called on the party’s current leader to apologize for the incident
on behalf of the CHP.

“Is it me who should apologize or you [CHP leader Kemal Kýlýçdaroðlu]?
If there is an apology on behalf of the state and if there is such an
opportunity, I can do it and I am apologizing. But if there is someone
who should apologize on behalf of the CHP, it is you, as you are from
Dersim. You were saying you felt honored to be from Dersim. Now, save
your honor,” Erdoðan said during a party meeting on Wednesday.

It was the first official apology from the Turkish government over the
killing of thousands of people in the southeastern town of Dersim —
now known as Tunceli as a result of a name change in 1936 — between
1936 and 1939.

Erdoðan was responding to Kýlýçdaroðlu’s demands that Turkey must face
its past. Kýlýçdaroðlu’s family is from Tunceli. The notorious
massacre took place in 1937 in Dersim, which was historically a
semi-autonomous region, as a brutal response to rebellious events. The
alleged rebellion was led by Seyyid Rýza, the chief of a Zaza tribe in
the region. The Turkish government at the time, led by former CHP
leader Ýsmet Ýnönü, responded with air strikes and other violent
methods of suppression, killing thousands of people.

“Dersim is among the most tragic event in recent history. It is a
disaster that should now be questioned with courage. The party that
should confront this incident is not the ruling Justice and
Development Party [AK Party]. It is the CHP, which is behind this
bloody disaster, who should face this incident and its chairman from
Tunceli,” Erdoðan said, targeting Kýlýçdaroðlu. The two politicians
recently clashed over the long-controversial massacre.

In the widening debate, Erdoðan said at his party’s group meeting in
Parliament on Tuesday that he planned to release a number of state
documents about the incident on Wednesday. He then read excerpts from
archive documents related to the massacre on Wednesday, saying
thousands of people, including women and children, were killed during
the Dersim operation and that the CHP was the party of the
single-party government of the time.

Referring to a document dated 1939, Erdoðan said a total of 13,806
people were killed in operations carried out against the people of
Dersim between 1936 and 1939. He said the document bears the signature
of then-Interior Minister Faik Öztrak. Another document Erdoðan
revealed related to the Dersim events was a Cabinet decree dated Dec.
23, 1938, which said 11,683 people were deported from Dersim and that
2,000 more were to be deported.

“All of these documents have the signatures of Ýsmet Ýnönü,” Erdoðan
said, criticizing the current CHP leader for organizing commemoration
ceremonies for Ýnönü but failing to confront the party’s past.

Contacted by Today’s Zaman, Chairman of the Confrontation with the
Past Association Cafer Solgun said that the prime minister’s apology
is of great value. “An apology coming from the prime minister of
Turkey is historical. It was a historical speech. I am excited as a
person from Dersim,” he said.

Solgun’s parents were about six or seven years old at the time of the
1937 and 1938 killings in Dersim. In his book, “Alevilerin Kemalizmle
Ýmtihaný” (Alevis’ Test with Kemalism), he questions the relationship
between Alevis and Kemalism.

“If Kýlýçdaroðlu were not the head of the CHP, his feelings would be
similar to mine [after the speech of the prime minister]. But the CHP
has a hard time facing the past,” he said.

Cemal Taþ, a writer who has been working on collecting oral history in
Dersim for the last 20 years, said that it was necessary to call on
the CHP to issue an apology as the prime minister did in Wednesday’s
speech.

“It was important for us from Dersim to hear that the prime minister
does not share the CHP’s views regarding this issue. This was
important for us to hear and heals our wounds,” he said.

Regarding what needs to be done after that, Taþ said the people of
Dersim need to know where the bodies of their sisters, mothers,
brothers and fathers are. In addition, he said that they need to be
assured of their rights as citizens of Turkey, where work is under way
for a new constitution.

According to Þükrü Aslan, a sociologist at Ýstanbul’s Mimar Sinan
University and a writer from Dersim, Erdoðan’s words were important.
“It was a first in Turkey for a prime minister to call what happened
in Dersim a massacre, and say that it was not a rebellion and was
planned well in advance,” he said. “This forces other parties, like
the CHP and the MHP [Nationalist Movement Party], to develop new
polices about it.” However, he said that the documents that Erdoðan
mentioned had previously been in the Turkish press. “What needs to be
done is to have the archives of the General Staff opened. This is what
the people of Dersim demand,” he stated.

Aslan also said that it would be better if the prime minister had made
associations between some people he mentioned, like Celal Bayar, who
was the prime minister at the time, and the conservative right.
“Because the prime minister associated many people responsible for the
Dersim massacre, like Ali Çetinkaya, Ýsmet Ýnönü and Þükrü Kaya, with
the CHP, it would have been better if he mentioned that some people
are associated with the conservative right in Turkey,” he said.

Hüseyin Aygün, a writer and researcher who is also from Dersim, said
that, next to the “double-faced” politics of the CHP, the prime
minister’s words were significant. “The world has a right to know what
happened in Dersim,” he said.

CHP Diyarbakýr branch responds to PM’s call, apologizes for Dersim
In an immediate response to Erdoðan’s call to apologize for the
killing of thousands of people in Dersim, the CHP’s Diyarbakýr branch
has announced that they apologize to the people of Dersim.

CHP Diyarbakýr provincial branch Chairman Muzaffer Deðer said hours
after Erdoðan’s call that the prime minister did what the CHP should
have done already by apologizing for the Dersim massacre on behalf of
the Turkish state. He said the CHP administration should also confront
its past and apologize.

However, CHP Deputy Chairman Gürsel Tekin reacted to Erdoðan’s words
in a written statement that read: “I congratulate the prime minister.
He put dynamite under the basis of unity in our nation and country
with his language, style and explanation. He has been successful in
creating animosity among the people. We learned our history, thanks to
him. What else is left to say? What is the next step for the prime
minister? What is the end goal of his campaign?”

‘Sabiha Gökçen Airport should be renamed Seyyid Rýza’
Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Muþ deputy Sýrrý Sakýk has
demanded that the name of the Sabiha Gökçen Airport be changed to
Seyyid Rýza, who allegedly led a rebellion in Dersim as the chief of a
Zaza tribe in the region.

Sakýk said in Parliament on Tuesday evening that it was inappropriate
to name the airport Sabiha Gökçen, who was Atatürk’s adopted daughter
and served as a pilot during the bombing of Dersim. “If you want to
make peace with Alevis and Kurds, change that name. Our suggestion is
to rename the airport’s name to Seyyid Rýza. When you say Sabiha
Gökçen, we remember bombs, massacres and genocide,” he said.

“Whatever Hitler means for Jewish people, we have similar feelings
toward the people responsible for those times,” Sakýk noted.

MHP Manisa deputy Erkan Akçay voiced opposition to Sakýk’s suggestion,
saying that Gökçen was a “hero,” and adding: “People who have
animosity toward Sabiha Gökçen hold animosity toward those who
established the republic. Those who ask for the name change regarding
Gökçen will ask to change the name of Turkey tomorrow.”