Author: Badalian Vardan

FAMILIAL MEDITERRANEAN FEVER

Health & Medicine Week
June 9, 2008

Research in the area of familial mediterranean fever reported from
T.K. Davtyan and colleagues

"Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is a relapsing autoinflammatory
disorder, caused by various mutations in the MEFV gene, which encodes
a protein called pyrin, expressed in neutrophils and activated
monocytes. Induction of monocyte endotoxin tolerance is observed in
FMF patients during attack, whereas monocytes from patients in the
attack-free period failed to induce lipopolysaccharide tolerance and
exhibited heightened sensitivity to bacterial endotoxin," scientists
in Yerevan, Armenia report (see also Familial Mediterranean Fever).

"In this study, we demonstrated that impaired lipopolysaccharide
tolerance induction in attack-free FMF patients correlates with
both increased lipopolysaccharide-induced proinflammatory cytokine
synthesis polarization and a different time-course pattern of
lipopolysaccharide-induced changes on monocytic surface expression
of CD14 and CD11b coreceptors. We found that this pattern is
characterized either by delayed turnover of CD14 or increased surface
retention of CD11b receptors on monocytes during stimulation with
lipopolysaccharide," wrote T.K. Davtyan and colleagues.

The researchers concluded: "In addition, enhancement of
lipopolysaccharide-induced apoptosis of neutrophils was observed in
FMF patients, and was confirmed based on the fact that neutrophils from
FMF patients previously unexposed to Salmonella enteritidis exhibited
heightened susceptibility to the lipopolysaccharide of this pathogen
similar to that of patients infected with this species."

Davtyan and colleagues published their study in Fems Immunology and
Medical Microbiology (Heightened endotoxin susceptibility of monocytes
and neutrophils during familial Mediterranean fever. Fems Immunology
and Medical Microbiology, 2008;52(3):370-378).

For more information, contact T.K. Davtyan, CJSC Armenicum, Armenicum
Research Center, Laboratory Immunology & Virology, 37 Nalbandyan Str,
Yerevan 0001, Armenia.

Publisher contact information for the journal Fems Immunology and
Medical Microbiology is: Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Rd.,
Oxford OX4 2DQ, Oxon, England.

Keywords: Armenia, Yerevan, Apoptosis, Familial Mediterranean Fever,
Immunology, Rheumatology.

Armenian National Committee of Canada
Comité National Arménien du Canada
130 Albert St., Suite/Bureau 1007
Ottawa, ON
KIP 5G4
Tel./Tél. (613) 235-2622 Fax/Téléc. (613) 238-2622
E-mail/courriel:national.office@anc-canad a.com

PRESS RELEASE

June 9, 2008
Contact: Roupen Kouyoumjian

Armenians Did Not Commit -Genocide- in Khojaly

Ottawa – There is no evidence that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabagh
committed "genocide against Meskhetian Turks of Khojaly," said
Canadian military historian Patrick Wilson Gore, during the launch of
his latest book here on June 6. Gore called the allegation as mere
claims of the Azeri propaganda machine.

The military historian made the statement at the launch of -Tis Some
Poor Fellow’s Skull—Post-Soviet Warfare in the Southern Caucasus- at
the embassy of the Republic of Armenia. The gathering was co-sponsored
by the Armenian Embassy and the Armenian National Committee of Canada
(ANCC).

After welcoming remarks by Arman Agopian, the charge d’affaires of the
Republic of Armenia and introduction of the author by Paul Douzjian,
board member of the ANCC, Gore presented a brief history of
Nagorno-Karabagh, the legal and political aspects of the crisis, the
origins of the war, economic background, battles, strategic
objectives, the aftermath, and the current state of the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe peace negotiation.

Gore stated that Saline’s annexation of Nagorno-Karabagh to Azerbaijan
was due to his "paranoia" of Armenians and a secret deal between him
and Ataturk, the Turkish dictator. The Canadian expert stated that for
70 years Armenians of Nagorno-Karabagh were treated as second-class
citizens under Azeri rule. The treatment of Armenians by Azeris was a
classic case of ethnic cleansing. After the Sumgait and Baku massacres
of Armenians in the early 1990s, the Armenians were forced to fight to
defend their families and their lives.

The author went over the Shoushi, Lachin, Shahumian, Khojaly and other
important battles, internal turmoil in Azerbaijan, and other
political, economic, and military factors which decided the outcome of
the war and the current status of the region.

In regard to the Khojaly incident, Gore said -Azeri troops ran faster
than the Meskhetian Turk civilians they had been using as human
shields-. Upon their retreat to Agdam, civilians of Khojaly were fired
upon by the Azeri OMON garrison of Agdam, mistaking them for Armenian
forces. He said that a day before the start of Khojaly battle, the
Azeri forces executed 32 Armenian prisoners of war.

Regarding the ongoing Azeri government threats of resumption of war to
take Nagorno-Karabagh, Gore said that -peace is for the benefit of
both sides-. It is true that the Azeri government is getting
emboldened with its new-found oil wealth, but the Aliev government has
to -consider that their oil and gas pipelines run 30 km north of
Nagorno-Karabagh, and Azeris have invested heavily in their Baku
facilities.- Gore questioned whether Azeris want to jeopardize their
vital pipelines and -risk their money sources-.

Gore also commented on Turkish government political and military
support to Azerbaijan, the use of mercenaries by the Azeri government,
the Minsk Group mediation, and other matters related to the
Nagorno-Karabagh conflict.

The timely publication of the objective and probing book is of vital
importance for the comprehension of the situation in the region and to
everyone interested in the future of the Caucasus. The solution of the
conflict is of vital importance because the war was fought in the
bottleneck between Russia and Iran, through which Central Asian and
Caspian oil and natural gas pipelines run, and through which U.S. and
allied air traffic to and from Afghanistan and Pakistan must pass.

The author of the 139-page book is a Canadian specialist in military
history and theory. He studied at Oxford, and subsequently graduated
from the National Defence College at Kingston, one of NATO’s senior
command colleges. Much of his career has focused on strategic
intelligence. This is his eleventh book. He used to be paratrooper and
marine commando.

***********
The ANCC is the largest and the most influential Canadian-Armenian
grassroots political organization. Working in coordination with a
network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout Canada and
affiliated organizations around the world, the ANCC actively advances
the concerns of the Canadian-Armenian community on a broad range of
issues.

——

Le CNAC est l’organisation politique canadienne-arménienne la plus
large et influentielle. Collaborant avec une série de bureaux,
chapitres et souteneurs à travers le Canada et des organisations
affiliées à travers le monde, le CNAC s’occupe activement des
inquiétudes de la communauté canadienne-arménienne.

Regional Chapters/Sections régionales

Montréal – Laval – Ottawa – Toronto – Hamilton – Cambridge – St. Catharines – Windsor – Vancouver

Assyrian International News Agency
June 6 2008

US Politicians, Scholars Helping Turkey Cover Up WWI Genocide

By David Holthouse

Early this year, the Toronto District School Board voted to require
all public high school students in Canada’s largest city to complete a
new course titled "Genocide: Historical and Contemporary
Implications." It includes a unit on the Armenian genocide, in which
more than a million Armenians perished in a methodical and
premeditated scheme of annihilation orchestrated by the rulers of
Turkey during and just after World War I.

The school board members each soon received a letter from Guenter
Lewy, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of
Massachusetts, rebuking them for classifying the Armenian genocide in
the same category as the Holocaust. "The tragic fate of the Armenian
community during World War I," Lewy wrote, is best understood as "a
badly mismanaged war-time security measure," rather than a carefully
plotted genocide.

Lewy is one of the most active members of a network of American
scholars, influence peddlers and website operators, financed by
hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from the government of
Turkey, who promote the denial of the Armenian genocide — a network
so influential that it was able last fall to defy both historical
truth and enormous political pressure to convince America’s lawmakers
and even its president to reverse long-held policy positions.

Lewy makes similar revisionist claims in his 2005 book The Armenian
Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide and in frequent
lectures at university campuses across the country. Speaking at
Harvard University in March 2007, he chalked up the ghastly Armenian
death toll to "bungling misrule," and stressed that "it is important
to bear in mind the enormous difference between ineptness, even
ineptness that had tragic consequences" and deliberate mass murder.

"Armenians call the calamitous events of 1915-1916 in the Ottoman
Empire the first genocide of the twentieth century," he said. "Most
Turks refer to this episode as war time relocation made necessary by
the treasonous conduct of the Armenian minority. The debate on what
actually happened has been going on for almost 100 years and shows no
signs of resolution."

But it’s not only Armenians calling the slaughter a genocide, and
there is no real debate about its essential details, according to the
vast majority of credible historians. Although Lewy’s brand of
genocide denial is subtler than that of Holocaust deniers who declare
there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, it’s no less an attempt to
rewrite history.

"The overwhelming opinion of scholars who study genocide — hundreds
of independent scholars, who have no affiliations with governments,
and whose work spans many countries and nationalities and the course
of decades — is consistent," the International Association of
Genocide Scholars stated in a 2005 letter to the Turkish government.

"The scholarly evidence reveals the following: On April 24, 1915,
under cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman
Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens — an
unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians
were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and
forced death marches. The rest of the Armenian population fled into
permanent exile. Thus an ancient civilization was expunged from its
homeland of 2,500 years." Double Killing

Despite this clear consensus of experts, Turkey exerts political
leverage and spends millions of dollars in the United States to
obfuscate the Armenian genocide, with alarming success even at the
highest levels of government. Lobbyists on the Turkish payroll stymied
a Congressional resolution commemorating the genocide last fall by
convincing lawmakers to reverse their stated positions. Even President
Bush flip-flopped.

Revisionist historians who conjure doubt about the Armenian genocide
and are paid by the Turkish government provided the politicians with
the intellectual cover they needed to claim they were refusing to
dictate history rather than caving in to a foreign government’s
present-day interests.

"This all happened a long time ago, and I don’t know if we can know
whether it was a massacre or a genocide or what," said U.S. Rep. John
Murtha (D-Penn.) after changing his vote.

"The last thing Congress should be doing is deciding the history of an
empire [the Ottoman empire] that doesn’t even exist any more," said
President Bush.

But experts in genocide saw things quite differently.

"Denial is the final stage of genocide," says Gregory Stanton,
president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. "It
is a continuing attempt to destroy the victim group psychologically
and culturally, to deny its members even the memory of the murders of
their relatives. That is what the Turkish government today is doing to
Armenians around the world."

Last year, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity issued a letter
condemning Armenian genocide denial that was signed by 53 Nobel
laureates including Wiesel, the famous Holocaust survivor and
political activist. Wiesel has repeatedly called Turkey’s 90-year-old
campaign to cover up the Armenian genocide a double killing, since it
strives to kill the memory of the original atrocities.

He was hardly the first. As long ago as 1943, law professor Raphael
Lemkin, who would later serve as an advisor to Nuremburg chief counsel
Robert Jackson, coined the term "genocide" with the Armenians in mind.

Stanton, a former U.S. State Department official who drafted the
United Nations Security Council resolutions that created the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, spoke this April at a
United States Capitol ceremony honoring victims of the Armenian
genocide — a ceremony held four months after the bill to commemorate
the slaughter was shot down.

"The U.S. government should not be party to efforts to kill the memory
of a historical fact as profound and important as the genocide of the
Armenians, which Hitler used as an example in his plan for the
Holocaust," Stanton said before an audience that included three
survivors of the Armenian genocide and more than 100 representatives
and senators.

Infiltrating the Academy

Efforts to kill the memory of the Armenian genocide began while
carrion birds were still picking over corpses in their desert
boneyards, with Turkey issuing a first official statement assuring the
world at large that no atrocities had occurred. Turkey’s primary
strategy for denying the Armenian genocide since then has shifted from
blanket denial to disputing the death toll to blaming the massacres on
Kurdish bandits and a few rogue officials to claiming the Armenians
who died were enemy combatants in a civil war.

Turkey began intervening in the U.S. on behalf of denying the genocide
in the 1930s, when Turkish leaders convinced the U.S. State Department
to prevent MGM studios from making a movie based on the book The Forty
Days of the Musa Dagh because it depicted aspects of the Armenian
genocide.

In 1982, the government of Turkey donated $3 million to create the
Institute for Turkish Studies, a nonprofit organization housed at
Georgetown University that pushes a pro-Turkey agenda, including
denial of the Armenian genocide. Three years later, in 1985, Turkey
bought full-page advertisements in The New York Times, The Washington
Post and The Washington Times to publish a letter questioning the
Armenian genocide that was signed by 69 American scholars. All 69 had
received funding that year from the Institute for Turkish Studies or
another of Turkey’s surrogates like the Ankara Chamber of Commerce, a
quasi-governmental agency in Turkey’s capital city.

The Institute for Turkish Studies has since received sizable donations
from American defense contractors that sell arms to Turkey, including
General Dynamics and Westinghouse. Turkey continues to provide an
annual subsidy to support the institute. In 2006, the most recent year
for which tax records are available, the institute awarded $85,000 in
grants to scholars. Its chairman is the current Turkish ambassador to
the U.S., Nabi Sensoy.

The first unassailable evidence of the extent of the Armenian genocide
denial industry’s reach in academic circles arrived in 1990 in an
envelope addressed to Robert Jay Lifton, a professor of psychology and
psychiatry at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and
John Jay College. It contained a letter signed by Nuzhet Kandemir, who
was then Turkey’s ambassador to the United States, protesting Lifton’s
inclusion of several passing references to the Armenian genocide in
his prize-winning book The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the
Psychology of Genocide. "It is particularly disturbing to see a major
scholar on the holocaust, a tragedy whose enormity and barbarity must
never be forgotten, so careless in his references to a field outside
his own area of expertise," Kandemir wrote. "To compare a tragic civil
war perpetrated by misguided Armenian nationalists, and the human
suffering it wrought on both Muslim and Christian populations, with
the horrors of a premeditated attempt to systematically eradicate a
people is, to anyone familiar with the history in question, simply
ludicrous."

There was nothing out of the ordinary about Kandemir’s letter.
Academics who write about the Armenian genocide were then and still
are routinely castigated by Turkish authorities.

What Lifton found intriguing, however, was a second letter in the
envelope, which the Turkish ambassador had included quite by
accident. It was a memo to Kandemir from Near East historian Heath
Lowry, in which Lowry provided Kandemir with a point-by-point cheat
sheet on how to attack Lifton’s book, which Lowry chummily referred to
as "our problem."

Lowry at the time was the founding director of the Institute for
Turkish Studies. He resigned that position in 1996 when he was
selected from a field of 20 candidates to fill the Ataturk Chair of
Turkish Studies at Princeton University, a new position in the Near
Eastern Studies department that was created with a $750,000 matching
grant from the government of Turkey.

Prior to joining the Princeton faculty, Lowry had never held a
full-time teaching position and had not published a single work of
scholarship through a major publishing house. As a result of that and
of what The Boston Globe described in 1995 as his work as "a long-time
lobbyist for the Turkish government," his appointment sparked a
firestorm of controversy. A protest group called Princeton Alumni for
Credibility published a petition decrying Lowry’s appointment that was
signed by more than 80 leading scholars and writers, including Kurt
Vonnegut, Arthur Miller, Cornel West, Joyce Carol Oates and many
historians and experts in genocide.

Peter Balakian, the director of Colgate University’s Center for the
Study of Ethics and World Societies and the author of The Burning
Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, called Lowry "a
propagandist for a foreign government."

Speaking at a 2005 symposium at Princeton commemorating the 90th
anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Balakian posed a rhetorical
question: "Would a university want someone who worked with a neo-Nazi
group to cover up the Holocaust on their faculty?"

The relationship of Turkey to U.S. scholars promoting Armenian
genocide denial is similar to that of the oil industry to fringe
climatologists who dispute the reality of global warming. The cause
and effect relationship is murky. It’s impossible to know for sure if
they’re making the claims to get the money or getting the money
because they make the claims. And many of those who receive money from
the Institute of Turkish Studies do little or nothing to support the
government’s version of what happened to its Armenian minority.

But a number of them certainly seem to, including Justin A. McCarthy,
a professor of history at the University of Louisville. McCarthy
claims that death tolls attributed to what he calls "this imaginary
Turkish plan" are grossly exaggerated and resulted from justifiable
wartime self-defense actions triggered by traitorous Armenians
conspiring with Turkey’s enemies.

McCarthy also points out that Armenians massacred Turks on at least
one occasion before the "so-called Armenian genocide." In other words,
they had it coming. "The question of who started the conflicts is
important, both historically and morally important," McCarthy declared
in a 2005 speech before the Turkish Grand National Assembly. "In more
than 100 years of warfare, Turks and Armenians killed each other. The
question of who began the killing must be understood, because it is
seldom justifiable to be the aggressor, but is always justifiable to
defend yourself."

He continued: "If those who defend themselves go beyond defense and
exact revenge, as always happens in war, they should be identified and
criticized. But those who should be most blamed are those who began
the wars, those who committed the first evil deeds, and those who
caused the bloodshed. Those who began the conflict were the Armenian
nationalists, the Armenian revolutionaries. The guilt is on their
heads."

Enforcing the Turkish View

In France and Switzerland, it’s a crime to deny the Armenian
genocide. In Turkey, it’s a crime to affirm it.

Enacted in 2005, Article 301 of the Turkish penal code makes it
illegal for any citizen or resident of Turkey to give credence to the
Armenian genocide. Numerous journalists and scholars have been
prosecuted for "denigrating Turkishness" under that statute, beginning
with Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, who was charged for stating, "A
million Armenians were killed in these lands." Turkish-Armenian
newspaper editor Hrant Dink was prosecuted three times for criticizing
the Turkish government’s longstanding policy of denying the Armenian
genocide.

Where the law failed to silence Dink, bullets succeeded. He was gunned
down in front of his central Istanbul office last January by a Turkish
ultranationalist. Footage and photos later surfaced of the assassin
celebrating in front of a Turkish flag with grinning policemen.

Dink’s friend and ideological ally Taner Akam, a distinguished Turkish
historian and sociologist on the faculty of the University of
Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, attended Dink’s
funeral in Turkey, despite the considerable risk to his own
life. Akam, a leading international authority on the Armenian
genocide, was marked for death by Turkish ultranationalists following
the November 2006 publication of his book, A Shameful Act: The
Armenian Genocide and The Question of Turkish Responsibility. The book
is a definitive history based in large part on official documents from
Turkish government archives.

"It would be better for world peace and truth if sewer germs like you
were taken off the planet," went one of the dozens of anonymous
threats Akam continues to receive in Minnesota. "Pray that the devil
takes you away soon because otherwise you’ll be living a hell on
earth. Who am I? You’re going to find out, Taner, you’re going to find
out."

Turkish ultranationalists have, in effect, targeted many other people
who, like Akam, affirm the genocide. Several of their websites include
home addresses, phone numbers and photos of these scholars.

Genocide deniers often disrupt Akam’s lectures. In November 2006, a
gang of Turkish ultranationalists attacked him at a book signing at
City University of New York.

"Denial of the Armenian genocide has developed over the decades to
become a complex and far-reaching machine that rivals the Nazi Germany
propaganda ministry," says Akam. "This machine runs on academic
dishonesty, fabricated information, political pressure, intimidation
and threats, all funded or supported, directly or indirectly, by the
Turkish state. It has become a huge industry." Convincing Congress

Academia is one of two major American fronts in Turkey’s campaign to
kill the memory of the Armenian genocide. The other is Congress.

As the only Muslim-dominated country in a troubled region to call the
U.S. and Israel its allies, Turkey wields significant political
influence that it uses to prevent the U.S. from joining 22 other
nations in officially recognizing the Armenian genocide as a
historical fact.

In 1989, the U.S. State Department released archived eyewitness
accounts that, according to State Department officials, showed that
"thousands and thousands of Armenians, mostly innocent and helpless
women and children, were butchered." That same year, a bill
commemorating the genocide was introduced in the U.S. Senate. But
Turkey responded by blocking U.S. Navy ships from entering
strategically important Turkish waters and by declaring a ban on all
U.S. military training operations on Turkish territory. The bill
quickly evaporated.

Last September, the matter came up again. The U.S. House Foreign
Relations Committee voted to bring a nonbinding resolution to the
floor of Congress condemning the mass murder of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks, placing the death toll at 1.5 million, and labeling the killing
a "genocide."

This time, Turkey responded by recalling its ambassador to the United
States and forecasting dire repercussions. "In the case that Armenian
allegations are accepted, there will be problems in the relations
between the two countries," warned Turkish President Abdullah Gul.

"Yesterday, some in Congress wanted to play hardball," said Egmen
Bagis, foreign policy advisor to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan. "I can assure you, Turkey knows how to play hardball."

The next day, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack apologized to
Turkey on behalf of the United States by issuing a statement
expressing "regret" for the committee’s actions, which, he cautioned,
"may do grave harm to U.S.-Turkish relations and to U.S. interests in
Europe and the Middle East."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates added his opposition to the resolution
and pointed out that 70% of the air cargo sent to U.S. forces in Iraq
and 30% of the fuel consumed by those forces is delivered via
Turkey. President Bush, perhaps forgetting his campaign promise in
2000 to push for official recognition of the Armenian genocide if
elected president, also came out against the resolution.

While Turkish officials made threats, lobbyists paid by Turkey
delivered money to congressmen in the form of campaign and political
action committee donations. Louisiana representative Bobby Jindal (a
Republican who’s now Louisiana’s governor) and Mississippi
representative Roger Wicker (now a Republican senator representing
that state) both dropped their sponsorship of the resolution and began
speaking against it — but only after receiving around $20,000 each
from former congressmen Bob Livingston, a Republican, and Richard
Gephardt, a Democrat, who now work for lobbying firms contracted by
Turkey to oppose any recognition of the Armenian genocide.

In 2000, while still in office, Gephardt had declared that he was
"committed to obtaining official U.S. government recognition of the
Armenian genocide." In 2003, he co-sponsored a resolution placing "the
Armenian genocide" in the company of the World War II Holocaust and
mass deaths in Cambodia and Rwanda that was voted down after a Turkish
lobbying blitzkrieg.

Since leaving office and accepting a $1.2 million-a-year contract to
lobby for Turkey, the former House majority leader has experienced a
profound change of heart. "Alienating Turkey through the passage of
the resolution could undermine our efforts to promote stability in the
theater of [Middle East] operations, if not exacerbate the situation
further," he wrote in an E-mail to the International Herald
Tribune. Last fall, as part of his efforts to help torpedo the
symbolic Armenian genocide resolution, Gephardt escorted Turkish
Ambassador Nabi Sensoy to meetings with Speaker of the House Nancy
Pelosi and other Democratic leaders.

Bob Livingston, whose firm has been paid more than $12 million by the
Turkish government since 1999, also pitched in. As part of the
lobbying effort last fall that U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one
of the sponsors of the resolution, called "the most intense I’ve ever
seen," Livingston shepherded Turkish dignitaries from office to office
on Capitol Hill.

As another part of that campaign, the government of Turkey took out
full-page advertisements in major American newspapers calling upon the
members of Congress to "support efforts to examine history, not
legislate it." The ads featured a testimonial from Secretary of State
Condoleeza Rice — "These historical circumstances require a very
detailed and sober look from historians" — that implied that
historians have yet to seriously study the Armenian genocide.

More than 100 supporters of the resolution reversed their positions,
and H.R. 106 was voted down.

The government of Turkey has since continued to call for a
"historian’s commission" of scholars to "study the facts of what
happened in 1915-1923." The proposed committee is marketed as a
high-minded quest for truth and reconciliation, a long overdue
arbitration of disputed history, and a chance to finally give equal
weight to both sides of the story.

But as the saying goes, a lie isn’t the other side of any story. It’s
just a lie.

"When it comes to the historical reality of the Armenian genocide,
there is no ‘Armenian’ or ‘Turkish’ side of the question, any more
than there is a ‘Jewish’ or ‘German’ side of the historical reality of
the Holocaust," writes Torben Jorgensen, of the Danish Center for
Holocaust and Genocide Studies. "There is a scientific side and an
unscientific side — acknowledgement or denial."

By David Holthouse

ews/20080606042720.htm

"ALL TALKS WILL BE WASTE OF TIME WITHOUT KARABAKH’S DIRECT PARTICIPATION"
by Victor Yadukha

What the Papers Say
June 5, 2008 Thursday
Russia

AN INTERVIEW WITH NAGORNO-KARABAKH PRESIDENT BAKO SAAKJAN; An interview
with Bako Saakjan, president of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will discuss Nagorno-Karabakh
at the informal CIS summit in St.Petersburg on June 6. The best
stable of all self-proclaimed sovereign states in the Commonwealth,
the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic views itself as a warring side and
insists on direct talks with Azerbaijan.

Here is an interview with President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
Bako Saakjan.

Question: Are Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh prepared to discuss status
of some liberated territories located beyond the administrative
borders of the erstwhile Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Republic?

Bako Saakjan: Armenia is a sovereign state. It is involved in the
talks with Azerbaijan because its national interests dictate this
necessity. On the other hand, there is sovereign Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic which is the principal side in this particular conflict. Its
priorities do not differ from the priorities of Azerbaijan, Armenia,
or any other country. Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia enjoy an impressive
degree of integration. We have a common economic space and a common
monetary system. It does not interfere with our sovereignty in
the least. We respect opinion of the people that proclaimed its
sovereignty and adopted the Constitution. Before advancing an opinion
on anything, we want to be sure that we are recognized as a fully
fledged participant in the talks. How can we discuss so serious a
matter as status of Nagorno-Karabakh is when we are not a participant
in the talks?

Question: Does Stepanakert insist on negotiations between three
countries or on separate talks between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan
and between Armenia and Azerbaijan?

Bako Saakjan: It does not matter. It’s just that all talks will be
a waste of time unless they are talks with Nagorno-Karabakh directly.

Question: What is your opinion of the war preparations in Azerbaijan
and of how its officials keep calling another war inevitable?

Bako Saakjan: If Baku thought to put us under psychological pressure,
it had better think again. Deployment of armies will result in
countless casualties on both sides but it will never solve the
problem. Firstly, there is a parity at the regional level. Secondly,
our own army is more than a match for the Azerbaijanis. Actually, it is
capable of doing better than just stopping the offensive cold. If need
be, the hostilities will be brought into Azerbaijani itself. And that’s
what we will surely do if attacked. Expansion of the security zone will
be the only way to ensure peaceful existence of Nagorno-Karabakh then.

Question: Yerevan hopes for some sort of bargain or compromise in
the talks over Nagorno-Karabakh…

Bako Saakjan: Baku’s behavior makes a compromise impossible. What
we are stone-cold confident of is that the conflict does not have
any unilateral solution. Everything comes down to whether or not
Azerbaijan respects our right to self-determination. So far, it has
only been threatening to eradicate our state and our people. Not
exactly good for compromises, is it?

Question: Azerbaijan suggests joint use of the Lachin corridor that
connects Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia provided the corridor itself is
recognized as belonging to Azerbaijan. What do you think of the idea?

Bako Saakjan: The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has never been approached
with any such offers or requests.

Question: Do you allow for the return of Azerbaijani refugees to
Nagorno-Karabakh?

Bako Saakjan: We do not rule out this possibility. Still, the firm
conviction in Stepanakert is that it should wait until after political
settlement of the conflict. After all, any haste in so sensitive a
matter may only subject refugees to new sufferings and result in new
tragedies. Azerbaijani refugees’ return should be synchronized with
the return of Armenian refugees. Unfortunately, nobody seems to care
about this latter aspect of the problem.

Question: The Azerbaijani authorities claim that Nagorno-Karabakh
leadership moved 25,000 people to Lachin and Kelbajar and that 30%
of them have already fled the districts again. What is happening
there? Would you mind saying a few words on Stepanakert’s demographic
policy?

Bako Saakjan: Population of these regions mostly consists of refugees
from the Shamumjan district, North Artsakh, and various settlements
of the erstwhile Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic.

Question: Do you view the Kosovo scenario of gaining recognition as
acceptable for Nagorno-Karabakh?

Bako Saakjan: Recognition of Kosovo by the international community
did set a precedent, you know. We abstain from drawing parallels
of course, but if recognition of Kosovo facilitates recognition of
Nagorno-Karabakh, it will certainly make us happy.

Question: Is there anything the Nagorno-Karabakh republic expects
from Russia? What does Stepanakert think of the part Moscow has been
playing in the OSCE Minsk Group?

Bako Saakjan: We owe peace in the region, fragile as it is, to
Russia. Sure, we would like to see Russia taking a more energetic
part in conflict settlement over Nagorno-Karabakh and in other regions
because Russia is responsible for what is happening in the region. On
the other hand, that’s surely a global problem and therefore global
responsibility. What I mean is that countries like the United States,
France, and Great Britain are responsible what is happening here
too. We understand that all of them promote their own interests,
but that is only to be expected.

FEW OPTIONS FOR BULLARD HIGH VALEDICTORIAN FACING DEPORTATION

KSEE
/19514859.html
June 4 2008
CA

Arthur Mikoyan is about to graduate as a valedictorian from Bullard
High School, but because his parents have been denied political asylum,
he may be deported to Armenia. His father is already in government
custody. While he and his mother are still free, the U.S. government
has set a June 20th date to deport them.

Multimedia Watch The Video The family has sought the help of local
Congressmen and others, but, so far, the only recourse Mikoyan may
have is to get in to college and apply for a student visa that would
let him stay in the U.S. for another 4 years. His mother would still
have to leave the country.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE: "THE EXACT EXTENT OF THE PROBLEM IN NAGORNO KARABAKH REMAINS UNKNOWN"

Azeri Press Agency
June 4 2008
Azerbaijan

Baku. Tamara Grigoryeva-APA. The U.S. Department of State released
the seventh edition of the report "To walk the Earth in Safety"
summarizing the 2006-2007 accomplishments of the U.S. Humanitarian
Mine Action Program, the world’s largest operation to clear mines
and explosive remnants of war (most of which are of non-U.S. origin),
teach mine risk education, and assist conflict survivors, APA reports
quoting the website of the US Department of State.

Azerbaijan-related part of the report says that Azerbaijan Conflict
with Armenia from 1988-1994, plus the presence of dilapidated former
Soviet bases on its territory, left Azerbaijan with a landmine,
explosive remnants of war, and abandoned ordnance problem.

"A Landmine Impact Survey completed in 2003 indicated that 643
communities were contaminated by landmines and/or unexploded ordnance
(UXO), located in 18 of 65 districts in the country. Between
1991 and July 2006, there were 2,297 landmine or UXO casualties
registered. According to the Azerbaijan Agency for National Mine
Action (ANAMA), in 2006 there were 17 reported incidents in which two
people were killed and 15 injured, including some deminers. The exact
extent of the problem in areas occupied by Armenian forces remains
unknown but is believed to be significant. ANAMA reports that it has
successfully developed a Mine Action Strategic Plan to eliminate the
humanitarian impact of landmines and UXO from accessible regions
of the country by 2008. In FY 2006, the Office of Weapons Removal
and Abatement (PM/WRA) in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of
Political-Military Affairs provided $3,106,246 for mine action support
to Azerbaijan, consisting of $2,326,840 for program operating costs and
$709,866 for technical support to ANAMA through the PM/WRA contractor
ArmorGroup. Additionally, PM/WRA granted the International Eurasia
Press Fund (IEPF) $69,540 to establish a sustainable Mine Victims
Association in the Tartar district that will provide support and
assistance in the social and vocational reintegration of landmine
survivors. In FY 2007, PM/WRA provided $2,487,000 to support
Azerbaijan mine action; $2.3 million of that support went to ANAMA
for ongoing clearance operations, and $187,000 was provided to the
IEPF to establish regional branches of the Azerbaijan Mine Victims
Association in the Fizuli and Aghstafa districts.

MONUMENT TO FALLEN HOME GUARDSMEN UNVEILED IN NKR MARTUNI REGION

DeFacto Agency
June 3 2008
Armenia

YEREVAN, 03.06.08. DE FACTO. A solemn ceremony of unveiling a monument
devoted to the memory of home guardsmen killed in the Karabakh war was
held in the village of Nor Shen of the NKR Martuni region on June 2.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic President Bako Sahakian participated in
the measure. In the course of the ceremony the state’s head presented
a group of home guardsmen, dwellers of the village of Nor Shen,
with awards, the Central Department of information under the NKR
President reports.

Armenian National Committee of America
1711 N Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel. (202) 775-1918
Fax. (202) 775-5648
Email [email protected]
Internet

PRESS RELEASE
June 4, 2008
Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Tel: (202) 775-1918

HASTERT JOINS LOBBY FIRM REPRESENTING TURKEY

— Speaker is Latest in Long Line of Former U.S. House Members
Joining Firms Representing Turkey’s Interests

WASHINGTON, DC – Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) became the
latest House member to join the army of Washington, DC public
relations firms working to cover up Turkey’s crimes, reported the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

Dickstein Shapiro, LLP announced that the former Speaker joined their
team in a press release last week. The firm, which represents a broad
range of entities including General Motors, Kraft Foods and Pfizer,
also represents the Government of Turkey "in connection with the
development and financing by private sponsors of the Baku-Ceyhan oil
pipeline and TransCaspian gas pipeline spanning from the Caspian Sea
to the Mediterranean."

According to an ABC News story, "Ex-House Speaker Hastert Finds New
Home" by Justin Rood, a Dickstein Shapiro representative "could not
say whether or not Hastert would be working on projects involving that
country." To read the complete ABC News story and to offer your
comment on this coverage, visit:
4990933&page=1

No stranger to Turkish American issues, as Speaker, Hastert led
efforts to block Armenian Genocide legislation from passage dating
back to October of 2000, when he withdrew H.Res.596, introduced by
Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA), from the Congressional docket just five
minutes prior to its consideration. Speaker Hastert cited a letter
from President Bill Clinton expressing concerns about the national
security implications of the resolution. In his subsequent terms as
Speaker, Hastert blocked a series of Armenian Genocide resolutions
from reaching the House floor, despite widespread Congressional
support and grassroots calls for legislative action. In 2004, when
the House adopted an amendment to the foreign aid bill blocking
Turkey’s use of U.S. funds for lobbying efforts to deny the Armenian
Genocide, Hastert’s response was swift, joining with Majority Leader
Blunt and Majority Whip Tom DeLay in sharply criticizing the measure:
"Turkey has been a reliable ally of the United States for decades, and
the deep foundation upon which our mutual economic and security
relationship rests should not be disrupted by this amendment."

In 2005, Armenian Americans joined with System of a Down band members
Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan in a rally in front of the Speaker
Hastert’s Batavia, IL office urging him to allow passage of the
Armenian Genocide Resolution. That effort was part of an eight- year
ANCA national grassroots campaign urging then Speaker Hastert to allow
Congress to have an up or down vote on the Armenian Genocide.

Vanity Fair Cites Hastert Ties with Turkish Government

An expose printed in the September 2005 issue of Vanity Fair revealed
possible ties between Speaker Hastert and Turkish nationals geared to
scuttle the Armenian Genocide Resolution. The magazine published a
10-page story on FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, who was fired after
"she accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving
Turkish nationals." According to the article by contributing editor
David Rose, Edmonds claims FBI wiretaps revealed that the Turkish
government and its allies boasted of bribing – with as much as
$500,000 – the Speaker of the House of Representatives as part of an
alleged deal to stop consideration of the Armenian Genocide
Resolution.

The article cited accounts by Edmonds regarding FBI wiretaps of the
Turkish Embassy and Turkish groups such as the American Turkish
Council (ATC) and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations
(ATAA), including, "repeated references to Hastert’s flip-flop in the
fall of 2000, over an issue which remains of intense concern to the
Turkish government, the continuing campaign to have Congress designate
the killings of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a genocide."

Rose is careful to point out that "there is no evidence that any
payment was ever made to Hastert or his campaign." According to the
article, "Hastert’s spokesman says the Congressman withdrew the
genocide resolution only because of the approach from [President]
Clinton, ‘and to insinuate anything else just doesn’t make any sense.’
He adds that Hastert has no affiliation with the ATC or other groups
reportedly mentioned in the wiretaps.’"

In 2007, the ANCA joined a broad cross-section of civil liberties,
public policy and human rights groups in calling on the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in Congress to hold
public hearings on the case of FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. No
hearings have been held to date.

Former House Members Line Up to Support Turkey

Ex-Speaker Hastert is the latest in a long line of former House
Members who have joined firms on the Turkish government’s payroll.
Former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO) and former House
Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) at DLA Piper led efforts to block
full House consideration of the Armenian Genocide Resolution
(H.Res.106 / S.res.106) for an annual fee of $1.2 million. Former
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston of the
Livingston Firm LLC, has, over the years, received over $12 million
from the Turkish Government. He was recently let go by Turkey, and
took on an even more lucrative agreement working for Libya.

Turkey’s efforts to buy influence in Washington DC and in U.S.
academic circles was recently outlined in a powerful editorial and
expose by David Holthouse in the Southern Policy Law Center (SPLC)
Intelligence Report. To read the SPLC analysis visit:

SPLC Intelligence Report: State of Denial
article.jsp?aid=935

SPLC Intelligence Report Editorial: Lying About History
/article.jsp?aid=933

#####

CHARLES AZNAVOUR PLEASANTLY SURPRISED AT CHANGES IN ARMENIA

armradio.am
03.06.2008 14:04

President Serzh Sargsyan today hosted world famous singer Charles
Aznavour and his impresario Levon Sayan. This time our renowned
compatriot has arrived in Armenia with his family.

"I feel great joy every time I arrive in Armenia," said Charles
Aznavour and noted with appreciation that now they have a family
member from Armenia, his grandchild’s wife is from here.

Welcoming Charles Aznavour’s recurrent visit, the President expressed
confidence that it will grant pleasant moments to our great compatriot.

Serzh Sargsyan assessed as invaluable Charles Aznavour’s service in the
direction of presenting Armenia to the world with his art and activity.

"Every Armenian is proud to have a compatriot like you and the attitude
toward Armenia is shaped due to you," the leader of the republic noted.

The famous singer shared his impressions from the capital, saying he
is pleasantly surprised at the changes.

During the warm and sincere conversation Serzh Sargsyan and Charles
Aznavour spoke about life in Armenia. Among the urgent issues Charles
Aznavour underlined the development of rural settlements. Noting that
equal territorial development is among the Government’s priorities,
Serzh Sargsyan said serious steps are taken in the direction of
solving the issue.

Attempts are made to distribute part of the accumulated resources in
the marzes.

LEADER OF ARMENIAN PROGRESSIVE PARTY TIGRAN URIKHANYAN INDIGNANT BECAUSE OF MEDIATION OF US EMBASSY IN THE INCIDENT WITH HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTOR MIKAEL DANIELYAN

arminfo
2008-06-02 18:58:00

ArmInfo. The leader of Armenian Progressive Party Tigran Urikhanyan
told ArmInfo correspondent he is indignant because of mediation of US
Embassy in the incident with human rights protector, head of Helsinki
Association Mikael Danielyan.

He also added that more than a dozen of public organizations have
already sent petitions to US Embassy in Armenia with a demand to stop
any mediation of its employees. Urikhanyan categorically disproved
all the accusations and event a hint that first he attacked Danielyan
and that the incident was connected with the activity of the latter
as human rights protector. He also said that attraction of US Embassy
and other organizations may worsen the situation around the incident
and "maybe an attempt to use all this for PR or other political
goals’. Urikhanyan is afraid that US Embassy and other organizations
may affect investigation and ‘at any moment the investigation may
become partial as a result of the western influences’.