Author: Badalian Vardan

Inaugural ANCA-WR Meet and Greet a Big Success

asbarez
Thursday, June 9th, 2011

ANCA-WR Board members fland Assemblymembers Achadjian and Portantino

GLENDALE – California State Assemblymembers Anthony Portantino and
Katcho Achadjian were welcomed by a full house at the inaugural
Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region (ANCA-WR) Meet
and Greet at Phoenicia restaurant in Glendale yesterday evening.

The two representatives had flown down from Sacramento just for the
event in an opportunity for them to meet members of the community and
talk to them about the important issues California was facing today.
Both representatives were on a plane back to the state capital after
the event.

Attendees of the first Meet and Greet filled the room to capacity,
enjoying their food and drink and socializing until the program
started.

`It’s never easy to know how a first-time event will go but with the
popularity of Assemblyman Portantino in our community and with the
addition of Armenian American Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian, I was not
surprised that our event was a huge success,’ said ANCA-WR Board
Member and lead organizer for the event, Pattyl Aposhian.

`What we learned was that there is a high demand for events like this
where members of our community come and meet their elected
representatives and leaders while also networking and socializing with
each other,’ Aposhian concluded.

After a short introduction by ANCA-WR staff, Portantino, who is in his
last term, took center stage to discuss the work that he had done as
an Assemblyman in Sacramento. A recurring theme throughout the night
was the state budget and what legislators, along with Governor Jerry
Brown, were doing to make sure that a deal is reached in the near
future.

Although the two representatives come from different political
parties, Portantino being a Democrat and Achadjian a Republican, they
both emphasized the importance of working across party lines to do
what is best for California. In a more lighthearted moment,
Portantinto quipped that, `it was the Armenian community that finally
brought Democrats and Republicans together.’

Both Portantino and Achadjian expressed their thanks and gratitude to
the ANCA-WR for being a leader and a voice for the Armenian American
community and for their initiative in putting the Meet and Greet
series together.

The Meet and Greet series is based on a program started by the
Armenian National Committee of Glendale, a local chapter of the
ANCA-WR, where citizens were given the opportunity to hear and
question local leaders on issues of concern to them.

The Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region is the
largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots advocacy
organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination
with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the
Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country,
the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community
on a broad range of issues.

`Entire Village is on its Feet’: Aragats Village Residents Protest,
Ask Officials to Inspect Village Councilor

06.10.2011 20:00
epress.am

A dozen or so villagers were protesting outside the Armenian
parliament building today. The protestors were from the village of
Aragats in the region of Paran in Aragatsotn marz (province) and they
were asking the National Assembly Control Chamber to carry out
inspections at their village council’s office.

One of the protestors, Vahan, speaking to Epress.am, described the
issue in detail:

`Our village is the largest village in the area – it has 4,600
residents – but today everyone wants to leave the village. It’s a
terribly tense situation. No one understands what’s going on in the
village, how the village councilor is working [i.e. what he’s up to].
He’s divided up the villagers into those who are his own folk and
those who aren’t [i.e. he gives preferential treatment].’

Vahan said they handed over their appeals with signatures to the
Armenian presidential residence, the parliamentary chair, and the
Armenian government, but they have not yet received a response.

`There are so many problems in the village, you can’t imagine. Land
estrangement is taking place; the villagers know nothing about it. The
village councilor is transferring students’ tuition, but transfers are
ensured for the children of families, not the vulnerable, and there
are so many people in the village that are in debt, have loans, and
they can’t pay their children’s tuition. Then, elite barley seeds have
been given to the village on the government’s behalf, for the village
councilor to give to needy families, but till now we don’t know where
that barley has been sown, where the seeds went,’ he said.

Vahan informed Epress.am that their village councilor, Gagik
Poghosyan, has held his post for 12 years and recently registered with
the ruling Republican Party of Armenia.

`We want them to come perform inspections, to find out what’s going
on, for these people to be a little more calm. Otherwise, if the
responses to these appeals are negative, the entire village is on its
feet, is ready to come out in front of the government [building],’ he
said.

Armenia’s vision of future is fully related to cooperation with EU – president

21:40 – 10.06.11

Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan has said the issue of rapprochement
with the European Union has always been one of the most important
issues for Armenia since its independence.

At a meeting with Miroslav Laichak, the managing director of EU’s
foreign affairs’ service on Russia, Easter Neighborhood and Western
Balkans, on Friday Sargsyan also said that cooperation `is gradually
it is obtaining more importance’.

`The issue of rapprochement and cooperation with the European Union
has been one of the most important tasks for Armenia since its
independence, and gradually it is obtaining more importance,’ Sargsyan
said.

`We realize that it is mutually-beneficial process and reforms
implemented in our country and generally we are tying our vision of
future entirely to that cooperation,’ Sargsyan added.

According to a press release by the presidential office, Sargsyan
congratulated him on the occasion of the appointment, and said that
EU’s foreign affairs’ service will give a new impetus to the Union’s
unified foreign policy.

Miroslav Laichak, in turn, said that the EU has created the foreign
relations service so that its policy to each country or region will
reflect the Union’s needs, requirements and agenda issues.

Further, Laichak expressed content for the progress achieved with the
European Neighborhood Policy and for the achievements and
goal-oriented approach of the Armenian side in the talks over the
Associative Agreement.

Tert.am

Catholicos’ historical meeting in Georgia starts earlier than reported

20:51 – 10.06.11

His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All
Armenians made Friday a historical visit to Georgia where he met with
Catholicos of All Georgia Ilia II in Tbilisi.

The meeting of the spiritual leaders of the two countries in Saint
Trinity Church (Sameba) took place more than half an hour earlier than
reported.

His Holiness Karekin II is the first Armenian Catholicos to visit
Georgia in the recent century.

Ilia II expressed hope that Karekin II’s visit will contribute to
enhancing the historically brotherly relations between the Armenian
and the Georgian nations. He also said he would personally do
everything to strengthen the existing mutual ties.

His Holiness Karekin II, in turn, said that his visit is aimed at
discussing `issues of further cooperation and overcoming the
difficulties that have existed so far’.

He also expressed his condolences over the political unrest in late
May in Georgia that left at least two people dead, several wounded and
dozens arrested.

Further, Karekin II is expected to visit the predominantly
Armenian-populated region of Samtskhe-Javakheti and meet with the
local population.

Tert.am

Family Safe After Freak Apartment Shooting
KTLA News

8:45 PM PDT, June 10, 2011

GLENDALE (KTLA) — A 19-year-old woman is lucky to be alive after a
bullet shot through the floor of her family’s one-bedroom apartment.

Anashe Torosian was lying on the living room floor of her family’s
second-story apartment around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday when she heard an
explosion and felt something whiz past her face.

Heranoush Torosian was sitting at a table less than two feet away from
her daughter. When her father Soltan Torosian came in, he recognized the
object as a bullet.

The bullet pierced through the floor of her apartment and ricocheted off
a cabinet before the family realized what had happened.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt.

“If it was a little towards my mom, she would have been killed. If it
was a little toward me, I would have been killed,” Anashe said.

According to police reports, downstairs neighbor Darren Moses was
fiddling with his .40-caliber Smith and Wesson handgun when it
discharged and shot through the ceiling.

Police said Moses, 42, had been off of work and drinking all day when
the shooting occurred.

“It was an accident…I just went upstairs and apologized to my
neighbors who I dearly love,” Moses told KTLA.

He was booked on suspicion of discharging a weapon and is being held on
$250,000 bail.

Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region
104 North Belmont Street, Suite 200
Glendale, California 91206
Tel: (818) 500-1918

PRESS RELEASE
June 10, 2011
Contact: Haig Hovsepian
Telephone: (818) 500-1918

ANCA-WR EXPRESSES CONCERN REGARDING FIRST DRAFT REDISTRICTING MAPS

LOS ANGELES, CA—The Armenian National Committee of America-Western
Region’s (ANCA-WR) Elections Committee’s 2011 Redistricting Task Force
expressed grave concern today regarding the first draft of legislative
district boundaries proposed by the Community Redistricting Commission
(CRC). The maps were released earlier today and can be viewed online
at

The CRC is the body responsible for drawing the new districts. It
released its first draft district maps today based on feedback it
received through public hearings and written testimony.

“We are disgusted with the first draft of the CRC’s maps,” said Garen
Yegparian who leads the ANCA-WR task force. “The core of our community
in the North Hollywood-Crescenta Valley-Glendale-Burbank-Hollywood
area has been unacceptably splintered among State Assembly, State
Senate, and Congressional Districts.”

Yegparian also expressed concern with some of district lines which
split the Armenian communities in the greater Montebello area as well
as in Orange County. However, he noted, only a couple of the proposed
districts respected the testimony provided by the community in the
greater Los Angeles area.

California is home to the largest Armenian community in the United
States. The ANCA-WR task force has been working with local ANCAs
throughout the state to help raise awareness of the redistricting
process and how it impacts the Armenian community in California. Over
the past two months, Armenian Americans have attended public hearings
to educate public officials regarding the dynamics of the community.

“These preliminary maps demonstrate that we need to be more vocal in
educating the CRC about our community dynamics,” remarked Yegparian.
“These are not the final maps. We can only change things for the
better through increased Armenian community participation in the
process.”

Every 10 years, the State of California redraws its federal and state
legislative district boundaries to more accurately reflect the state’s
residents’ demographics and overall dynamics.

This year, the process is being led by a 14-member commission, the
CRC, as established by the Voters FIRST Act which was voted into law
by Californians in 2008. Previously, the State Legislature was
responsible for redistricting.

The CRC is made up of five Republicans, five Democrats, and 4 not
affiliated with either of those two parties but registered with
another party or as decline-to-state. The CRC must draw the district
lines in conformity with strict, nonpartisan rules designed to create
districts of equal population that will provide fair representation
for all Californians.

The CRC must hold public hearings and accept public comment. After
hearing from the public and drawing the maps for the 80 State Assembly
districts, 40 State Senate districts, House of Representatives
districts, and four Board of Equalization districts, the CRC must vote
on the new maps to be used for the next decade.

To approve the new maps, the maps must receive nine `yes’ votes from
the Commission – three `yes’ votes from members registered with each of
the two largest parties, and three `yes’ votes from the other members.

For more information about the CRC, how its work impacts the Armenian
community or how someone can get involved in the process, individuals
can contact the ANCA-WR at [email protected].

The Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region is the
largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots advocacy
organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination
with a network of offices, locals, and supporters throughout the
Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country,
the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community
on a broad range of issues.

ARMENIA TREE PROJECT
65 Main Street
Watertown, MA 02472 USA
Tel: (617) 926-TREE
Email: [email protected]
Web:

PRESSS RELEASE
June 10, 2011

ATP Celebrates World Environment Day & International Children’s Day at Mirak
Family Reforestation Nursery

YEREVAN–Armenia Tree Project (ATP) celebrated World Environment Day and
International Children’s Day on June 1 at the John and Artemis Mirak Nursery
in Margahovit Village. The event was attended by the staff from ATP’s
Yerevan Office and the Mirak Reforestation Nursery, along with their
families.

“The children made friends instantly and started playing together,”
explained ATP Community Development Specialist Vardan Melikyan. “The nursery
workers invited musicians from the village to take part in our gathering and
the kids had fun dancing to traditional live music in the fresh mountain
air. The boys were impressed with ATP’s agricultural equipment such as
tractors and an all-terrain motorcycle, while the girls enjoyed gathering
field flowers.”

ATP’s Environmental Education staff presented notebooks and the children
drew beautiful pictures of nature and trees which now decorate the inside of
the small building at the nursery. After an outdoor lunch, ATP specialists
showed the children how to plant trees and they planted five symbolic
evergreens at the nursery. “Everyone, especially the children, had a great
time and ATP hopes to organize similar events with our stakeholders in the
future,” concluded Melikyan.

International Children’s Day is celebrated on June 1, when activities are
organized for children including outings with families. The day is dedicated
to children worldwide and is often marked with speeches on children’s rights
and well-being.

World Environment Day is a widely celebrated global day for environmental
action held on June 5. The UN Environment Programme describes it as a day
for people from all walks of life to come together to ensure a cleaner,
greener, and brighter outlook for themselves and future generations, and
this year’s theme was “Forests: Nature at Your Service.”

ATP’s mission is to assist the Armenian people in using trees to improve
their standard of living and protect the environment, guided by the need to
promote self-sufficiency, aid those with the fewest resources first, and
conserve the indigenous ecosystem. ATP’s three major programs are tree
planting, environmental education, and sustainable development initiatives.
For more information about ATP, please visit the web site

Hope is high for man who may become Turkey’s first Christian MP for 50 year

Thomas Seibert
Jun 10, 2011

ISTANBUL // A 47-year-old former refugee has a chance to become the
first Christian member of the Turkish parliament in half a century.

If he succeeds in parliamentary elections on Saturday, Erol Dora, an
attorney, could also go some way in adjusting the electoral status quo
in this mostly Muslim nation that critics say does not provide its
religious minorities with fair representation.

“There has not been a Christian MP since the 1960s,” Mr Dora said in
an interview from his campaign in the south-eastern city of Mardin
this week. “I don’t think that’s normal.”

Mr Dora is a Syriac Christian, an ancient community that numbers about
13,000 in Turkey and that still uses Aramaic, the language spoken by
Jesus.

The region around Mardin is the traditional home of Syriac Christians,
but many fled to Istanbul or western Europe when Turkey’s south-east
became a battleground between Kurdish rebels and the government in the
1980s.

If elected, Mr Dora has promised to speak for Syriac Christians in the
national assembly and “work for democracy as a Turkish citizen”.

Mr Dora is running as an independent backed by the Party for Peace and
Democracy, or BDP, Turkey’s main Kurdish party.

Political parties in Turkey must gain at least 10 per cent of the
national vote to enter parliament, but that clause does not apply to
independent candidates.

The BDP, which holds 5 to 6 per cent in the polls, hopes to send
deputies to Ankara by having them run as independents.

In Mardin, a region with an ethnic and religious mix of Turks, Kurds,
Arabs, Muslims, Christians and Yezidis, Mr Dora has a chance of being
among the five deputies the province will send to Ankara.

His life story resonates with voters in the region. Mr Dora was born
in a Syriac village that was evacuated by the military during the
fighting between rebels and soldiers in the 1990s.

The village’s inhabitants, like millions of other people in the region
of south-eastern Anatolia, lost their homes and became refugees in
their own country.

Mr Dora, who lives and works in Istanbul, said he would like to
rebuild his village once the fighting between rebels and the army was
over for good.

“We want this war to end,” he said.

Mr Dora claims his background is nothing special in this region known
for its ethno-religious diversity.

“We have been living together for millennia here. If people were
prejudiced against Christians, I would not have been able to run,” he
said.

His candidacy is seen by some as an extraordinary development for
Turkey, where national unity is prized above cultural diversity.

Christian and Jewish communities number about 150,000 people in a
country of roughly 74 million. The small voting base, however, is not
the only reason non-Muslim deputies have been rare.

Although it is a secular republic, the Turkish government has
traditionally regarded Christians and Jews with suspicion because of
alleged links to hostile foreign powers.

Nationalists view Islam as the force that binds the nation. Political
reforms inspired by Turkey’s bid to join the European Union have
improved the situation for non-Muslims in recent years, but those
improvements have yet to be translated into a larger minority presence
in government.

Sahin Alpay, a political scientist and newspaper columnist, said: “We
have had extremely few non-Muslims” in parliament. An election victory
for Mr Dora in Mardin, he said, “would be significant”.

The last Christian member of Turkish parliament was Berc Sadak Turan,
an Armenian politician in the 1960s.

Cefi Kamhi, a Jewish businessman who served as a deputy in Ankara in
the 1990s, was the last non-Muslim politician in parliament.

Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, or CHP,
has a Jewish candidate, Mari Gormezano, on its ballot in Istanbul for
the upcoming election.

Yet Ms Gormezano’s low rank on the CHP list means it is unlikely she
will enter parliament.

Antoni Vilkosevski, a Catholic politician of Polish descent, is
running for the People’s Voice Party, or HAS, an offshoot of an
Islamist party.

Mr Vilkosevski has virtually no chance of entering parliament, as the
HAS party will stay well below 10 per cent, Adil Gur, head of the
polling firm A&G, told the Vatan daily this week.

Some observers say Turkey’s main political parties still have a long
way to go in opening up to religious diversity.

Reha Camuroglu, a deputy of the ruling Justice and Development Party,
or AKP, and a member of the Alevi ethnic minority, said his party had
turned its back on minorities.

Turkey has an estimated population of 15 million to 20 million Alevis,
followers of a branch of Shiite Islam who are sometimes viewed as
heretics by members of the country’s Sunni majority.

At the last election in 2007, the AKP fielded several Alevi candidates.

For Saturday’s election, however, the party reckoned that this
strategy was “no longer profitable”, Mr Camuroglu said. The party also
declined to let him run for re-election.

The CHP is fielding more than 40 Alevi candidates in viable positions,
according to news reports. Even so, Mr Camuroglu said the main
problems of religious minorities remain unsolved.

“It’s just tactics, just window dressing,” he said.

*.html

Ten tasks for Turkey’s new government
by Hugh Pope*

New cities, high-speed trains, suspension bridges, airports, tax
holidays, a `crazy’ grand canal parallel to the Bosporus waterway,
iPads for all — the campaign trail ahead of Turkey’s June 12
parliamentary elections is strewn with promises of great times coming.

Resolution of vexed questions in the domestic and foreign policy
sphere has been relegated to the list of things `to be done after the
election.’ These more mundane challenges will, however, resurface as
soon as the political class gets back to work.

So, based on the Crisis Group’s four years of reporting in Turkey —
and not counting the many challenges of the country’s booming economy,
or what its external partners should also do — here are 10
outstanding diplomatic and political tasks that we think should be
tackled with determination by the new Turkish government.

1. Relaunch Turkey’s EU accession process

The EU’s internal divisions and some European politicians’ hostility
to Turks joining the club have done much to harm the EU’s appeal in
Turkey. Indeed, the fact that Turkey’s EU membership negotiations in
progress since 2005 have virtually ground to a halt has barely been
mentioned in the election campaign. But Turkish (and European) leaders
should remember that if there is one single factor that makes Turkey
stand out in its troubled region, it is the country’s convergence with
Europe – arguably nearly two centuries old, but treaty-based for
nearly 50 years. EU standards are the locomotive of Turkish reform,
some four million people of Turkish origin live in Europe, half of
Turkey’s trade is with Europe, most tourists to Turkey come from
Europe, NATO is the cornerstone of Turkish defense and two-thirds of
Turkey’s foreign investment comes from EU states. Turkey and Europe
shared many of these fundamental interests for decades, and the two
sides stepped back from the brink with an attempt to restart the
process in 2009. Yet Turkey’s EU process is now hanging by a thread,
since there are almost no negotiating chapters left to open. Turkey
holds the key to unlocking EU blocks on at least eight of these
chapters (see Cyprus below). EU politicians’ talk of an alternative
`Privileged Partnership’ for Turkey seems empty, as the Crisis Group
has argued. But with Europe distracted by its internal struggles, the
idea is being pushed back on the agenda. The new Turkish government
must proactively find a way to allow lifeblood back into the
relationship.

2. Fix Cyprus

Ankara must refocus on the strategic goal it set itself in 2004:
removing the Cyprus problem from the international agenda through
achieving the reunification of the island. An easy first step is to
implement the Additional Protocol, namely, opening Turkey’s ports and
airports to Greek Cypriot traffic, a commitment Ankara formally signed
in 2005 as a condition for starting EU negotiations. The EU could have
helped by allowing direct, preferential trade to Turkish Cypriots – as
the Crisis Group pointed out here – but it did not, and Turkey’s best
interest is now to help itself. Implementing the Additional Protocol
has no direct link to any Turkish position on a Cyprus settlement and
serves a double purpose: freeing several blocked EU negotiating
chapters, and helping to normalize relations between the Turks of
Turkey and Greek Cypriots. As the Crisis Group argued in its 2011
paper Six Steps to a Settlement, and on our blog, a mutual absence of
trust between Ankara and Nicosia is the single biggest obstacle to
reunification of the island. The new government would also do well to
start a real, structured dialogue with Greek Cypriot officials to give
a new impetus to ongoing talks to solve the Cyprus problem. Failure to
achieve a compromise settlement will cause real damage, as set out in
our 2009 report Reunification or Partition.

3. Undertake broad, inclusive constitutional reform

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has promised a
reformist, inclusive new constitution. As the Crisis Group detailed in
its 2008 report on the Decisive Year Ahead, implementing AKP’s ideas
for a new constitution promised in the 2007 election campaign would go
far to reduce ethnic tensions and modernize the way Turkey is governed
(for instance, by removing ethnic attributes from Turkish citizenship,
making Turkish the official and not the only recognized language,
removing parliamentarians’ immunity). EU-oriented reforms over the
past decade have already changed about one third of the 1982
Constitution, drawn up under military rule. The AKP has promised a
whole new text. For it to stick, it must be the product of a genuine
consensus, including the Kurdish national movement, not a top-down
imposition. Changes must first reduce sources of domestic conflict,
before trying potentially divisive new ideas like moving to a new
presidential system. At a minimum, any marks of ethnic discrimination
should be removed and freedom of expression further anchored. The idea
of increased powers for local government, a main demand of many ethnic
Kurds, is now supported by some opposition parties including the
biggest Republican People’s Party (CHP).

4. Broaden and deepen reforms to solve the Kurdish problem

The AKP’s taboo-breaking ‘Democratic Opening’ to reach out to Turkey’s
approximately 15 percent Kurdish community, helped put a long-term
settlement of the Kurdish problem within reach and will be the subject
of a forthcoming Crisis Group report. As the strongest party to the
conflict, the new government must broaden and deepen this initiative,
offering permission to towns and villages to revert to their original
names, more local government and the right to bilingual education. The
AKP has scored genuine breakthroughs, prosecuting members of now
inactive death squads, granting respect to Kurdish culture and
embracing the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq (see the Crisis
Group’s 2008 analysis of Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds). Consequently, an
apparent majority of Turkish Kurds no longer profess an ambition for a
separate state in Turkey’s Southeast, nor support the use of force by
the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

5. Sustain Turkey’s engagement in the Middle East

The revolts in the Arab world set back Turkey’s hopes of rapid
progress to a more stable, prosperous neighborhood, evaluated by the
Crisis Group in its 2010 report Turkey and the Middle East: Ambitions
and Constraints. But Ankara should continue to work towards Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s `zero problem’ foreign policy goals: a
better-governed, more interdependent region with more efficient
borders, integrated infrastructure, visa-free travel and free trade.
Turkey is too unique to be a one-size-fits-all model, as we pointed
out here, but Ankara should continue to use its influence and
experience where it can to urge regional regimes towards more
representative government. It should also remember that it is the
charisma, investment and higher standards that have flowed from the EU
accession process that have helped Turkey rise above the troubles of
the Middle East and made the country such an object of regional
admiration.

6. Seek chances to normalize relations with Israel

A voyage planned by a new international flotilla to break the Israeli
blockade of Gaza at the end of June will pose an early test for the
new government. Turkish NGOs plan to participate in large numbers
amongst the approximately 10 ships from around the world. Ankara says
there is nothing it can do to stop them, but taking into account the
risk of a repeat of the Israeli killing of nine Turkish members of
last year’s flotilla, the potential for further damage to Turkey’s
relationship with the US, Egypt’s opening of its border with Gaza and
Israel’s partial lifting of its blockade, the government is showing no
more inclination than in 2010 to participate directly in the flotilla.
After the 2010 disaster, the Crisis Group detailed Turkey’s
miscalculations, and Israel’s rapid use of deadly force in Turkey’s
crises with Israel and Iran, and we analyzed a pertinent UN
investigation. Going forward, Turkey should seek chances to normalize
relations with Israel in the consciousness that its international
leverage is most effective when it has productive ties with all
parties in the region.

7. Seize any opportunity to normalize relations with Armenia

Two ground-breaking protocols signed between Turkey and Armenia in
2009 on normalizing relations, explained in our Opening Minds, Opening
Borders, have floundered on a Turkish condition that Armenia first
withdraw from at least some Azerbaijani territory occupied around
Nagorno-Karabakh (see our blog here). Since then, a growing number of
armed incidents, soaring military budgets and belligerent rhetoric
threatens to trigger new conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as
the Crisis Group recently warned in Preventing War. Disappointment in
the failed protocols increases intransigence in Armenia, while better
Turkish-Armenia relations could support conflict resolution. The new
Turkish government should seize on any breakthrough to find ways to
implement the protocols on re-opening the Armenian border and
establishing diplomatic relations.

8. Finesse the Aegean Sea dispute

The new government can take bold steps to resolve Turkey’s 40-year-old
territorial disputes with neighboring Greece over the Aegean Sea.
Ankara and Athens have done much to consolidate normalization since
1999, as the Crisis Group detailed in 2007 in The Way Ahead. Official
talks on the Aegean since 2002 now seem tantalizingly close to
agreement. In private, both sides agree that the time has come to
settle the dispute, especially since it is more psychological and
political than real. As will be laid out in a forthcoming Crisis Group
briefing, the new government can help by preparing the rhetorical
ground for compromise, along with similar steps by Greece’s
leadership, which has an urgent interest in reducing defense spending.
Turkey is far more powerful militarily and can help by eliminating
Turkish military flights over inhabited Greek islands and
demonstrating that theoretical Aegean disputes can be talked about
rather than fought over.

9. Seek long-term domestic improvements, prioritizing the judiciary,
the education system, women’s rights and freedom of expression

In the first two terms in office, the AKP government, building on the
work of its predecessors, registered remarkable progress. Torture
almost disappeared from Turkish jails, single-party government brought
more policy consistency and better municipalities have brightened the
face of most Turkish cities. Looking forward, four more areas of
domestic governance still need attention. Firstly, Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rightly made reform of Turkey’s judiciary a
major goal, and judicial publications are filled with articles by
judges, prosecutors and lawyers about how to make the system work
better. Secondly, UN indexes show Turkey’s education system lagging
behind Iran, Algeria and Tunisia and in need of a well-planned
overhaul. Thirdly, Turkey must address its shocking neglect of women’s
rights – in 2010, it ranked 126th of 131 countries in the World
Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report – and plug the legal, educational
and policing gaps that result in 42 percent of women in the country
experiencing physical and sexual abuse (according to the first
comprehensive report on the issue by Hacettepe University in 2009).
Fourthly, laws and regulations and judicial mindsets must be changed
across the board to prevent ethnic groups, journalists or critics of
the government from being jailed or prosecuted for the simple
expression of peaceful opinions.

10. Continue to widen democratic participation

The democratic legitimacy of Turkey’s elections make it the stand-out
country in the region – ballot-stuffing, intimidation and violence are
remarkably rare. Now it is time to raise the democratic level of the
system itself, as set out in the Crisis Group’s The Decisive Year
Ahead. Political parties need to move to a system that is more
bottom-up and less top-down, to end the scandalously low participation
of women in politics and to encourage more young people to join
parties and work their way up them. The 10 percent threshold for a
party to win election to Parliament is by far the highest among the 47
member states of the Council of Europe (double that of the next
country, Germany’s 5 percent threshold) and should be lowered.
Finally, parliamentary regulations need to be reformed to allow more
efficient legislation drafting and to win greater public trust in the
assembly’s workings.

*Hugh Pope is Director of International Crisis Group’s Turkey/Cyprus
project and author of three books on Turkey, the Turkic World and the
Middle East. This article was first published on the International
Crisis Group Website, , on June 10.

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

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THE SUNDAY SCHOOLS DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMENIAN CATHOLICOSATE OF CILICIA
SPONSORS THE “DZIADZAN”
CHILDREN’S THEATRE GROUP

On June 1 2011, on the occasion of the International Day of the Child, His
Holiness Aram I received in his office the children of the theater group
“Dziadzan” (Rainbow), led by their director Harout Harboyan and accompanied
by Rev Ghevont Pentezian, Director of the Sunday Schools Department.

Catholicos Aram I congratulated the children for their performance in the
musical “The Rights of the Armenian Child”. As a sign of his appreciation
for their contribution to the 2011 Year of the Armenian Child, he announced
that the theatrical group will now be sponsored by the Sunday Schools
Department of the Catholicosate.

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The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the
jurisdiction and the Christian Education activities in both the
Catholicosate and the dioceses, you may refer to the web page of the
Catholicosate, The Cilician
Catholicosate, the administrative center of the church is located in
Antelias, Lebanon.