Author: Basmajian Ani

TURKEY AND ARMENIA TO RE-ESTABLISH TIES

United Press International
Oct. 6, 2009 at 4:30 PM

ANKARA, Turkey, Oct. 6 (UPI) — One of Europe’s longest-running
disputes could be resolved soon as Turkey and Armenia have agreed to
re-establish diplomatic ties.

"Traitor," the protesters shouted at Armenian President Serge Sarkisian
when he visited Paris last week. It was a rocky start to Sarkisian’s
trip to Armenian communities all over the world, a tour aimed at
raking in support for his bid to reopen a new chapter of diplomacy
with Turkey on Oct. 10.

Last month Sarkisian and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
said they would sign documents to re-establish ties and reopen the
countries’ mutual border. The move would help Armenia economically and
Turkey strategically, with energy security, Turkey’s EU membership
and relations with Russia and the United States playing a part in
the development. Washington and Moscow are backing the diplomatic
initiative, observers say.

But not everyone is happy about the thawing of relations. An estimated
5.7 million Armenians live abroad (including 1.4 million in the United
States), significantly outnumbering the 3.2 million living in the
small landlocked country itself.

Many of the Armenian expatriates are against the diplomatic detente
because they are descendants of families that experienced the 1915-1923
violence that killed up to 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman
Empire. Armenia has tried to convince European allies that genocide
took place, a charge Turkey vehemently denies.

The expats protesting in Paris last week feel Sarkisian is betraying
the Armenians killed. But in Armenia, people are eager to reap the
economic benefits the new Turkish-Armenian relations are likely
to bring.

But there are some more hurdles to take for the new diplomacy to come
into effect.

In Turkey, people are critical of Armenia’s occupation of
Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in neighboring Azerbaijan. In 1993 Ankara
severed ties with Armenia when it fought a Azerbaijan, a close Turkish
ally. Observers expect some sort of political horse-trading between
Turkey and Armenia on the genocide and Nagorno-Karabakh issues.

On Oct. 10 the foreign ministers from both countries are expected
to sign the accord; it will then be passed on to the parliaments
for consideration.

IMF EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS MISSION TO VISIT CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
08.10.2009 16:51 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A mission of Executive Directors of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) comprising Ms. Meg Lundsager, Messrs. Age Bakker,
Ambroise Fayolle, HE Jianxiong, Thomas Moser, Klaus D. Stein, and Jens
Henriksson will visit Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan
between October 9 and October 15, reported the press center of IMF
Yerevan office.

The Executive Directors will meet with the authorities of the four
countries, as well as with a wide range of stakeholders, including
representatives of civil society, the private sector, and development
partners. In Armenia, they will meet with President Serzh Sargsyan,
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan, Chairman of the Central Bank Arthur
Javadyan.

The Executive Directors will focus on how best the international
community, including the Fund, can assist these countries in their
response to the global economic crisis. They will also underline
the IMF’s commitment to supporting these countries. The discussions
during the mission will enhance understanding at the IMF Executive
Board of the challenges facing these countries and the IMF’s policy
advice. The Executive Board of the IMF is composed of 24 Directors,
who are appointed or elected by member countries or by groups
of countries, and it is responsible for conducting the day-to-day
business of the institution.

The mission will visit Tbilisi, Georgia, on October 8, Yerevan,
Armenia, on October 11, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on October 13, and
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on October 15.

"MIATSUM" SUPPORTERS MARCH TO GENOCIDE MEMORIAL; BURN PROTOCOLS IN EFFIGY

2009 /10/06 | 21:57

Society

Yesterday evening, members of the "Miastsum" movement marched from
the Mergelyan Institute in Yerevan to the "Tzitzernakaberd" Genocide
Memorial and symbolically burned a copy of the Armenian-Turkish
protocols.

The crowd carried signs and banners reading "Traitors, Get Out",
"No to the Turkish Protocols" and "Those Who Hand Over Lands Are
Traitors". "Miatsum" member Jirayr Sefilyan said that his organization,
contrary to others, rejects the protocols outright as well as the
process that has lead to their signing. "We have no illusions that
our symbolic burning of the protocols will stop the process. It is
simply an outburst of the majority of the people," Mr. Sefilyan noted.

A scuffle broke out between the protestors and police when
Mrs. Parandzem, a mother of a fallen freedom fighter, tried to burn
a photo of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

A top-ranking police official on the scene called "Miatsum" member
Tigran Khzmalyan a "failed artist" and suggested that the director
stick to making movies and sculpture. In response, Mr. Khzmalyan
stated that the actions and insults of the police only go to show the
deep level of alienation between the current regime and the public at
large. "The police should be defending the public and the constitution
and not the band of thugs who trample these values," he stated.

Mr. Sefilyan said they weren’t aware that the woman intended to burn
a photo of the president and that it was a spontaneous act.

"What took place was a spontaneous outburst but a citizen has the
right to express an opinion in the way he or she sees fit. It was a
symbolic act that will reverberate in the public’s eye," he noted.

Mr. Sefilyan declared that the organization would step up its
propaganda campaign against the protocols and that similar symbolic
burnings of the document and a signature petition would soon take
place in various Yerevan neighbourhoods.

ARMENIA, DOUBTS EMERGE
Zerin Elci and Hasmik Lazarian

Related News
Wed Oct 7, 2009 12:54pm EDT

ANKARA/YEREVAN (Reuters) – Turkey expects historic accords to normalize
ties with Armenia to be signed on Saturday in Switzerland in a step
toward ending a century of hostility, senior Turkish government
sources said on Wednesday.

But doubts have emerged in diplomatic circles about whether the
ceremony would take place because of pressure from the powerful
Armenian diaspora, as well as opposition within Armenia and to a
certain extent Turkey.

"There are no changes to those plans," a senior Turkish government
source, referring to the planned signature of protocols in Zurich on
October 10, told Reuters. Another government source, who also declined
to be named, agreed.

Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakossian told Reuters that
a decision had not yet been taken on when and where the protocols
would be signed but acknowledged they needed to happen shortly as an
agreed deadline was approaching.

"The signing ceremony is very important because Armenia has always
stated its desire to establish relations without preconditions. And
I hope that these protocols will be signed very soon," Kirakossian
told Reuters in Yerevan.

Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic ties because of hostility
stemming from the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during
World War One.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with fellow
Muslim Azerbaijan, then at war with Armenian-backed ethnic Armenians.

Turkey and Armenia agreed on August 31 to sign, within six weeks, two
protocols on the establishment of diplomatic ties, opening a common
border and for historians to investigate the events surrounding the
killings of Armenians in 1915.

But Armenia was taken by surprise when Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan announced in New York that the agreements would be signed on
October 10.

Turkish Foreign Ministry officials later told reporters each country’s
foreign minister would attend the ceremony in Zurich.

Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan is on a week-long intercontinental
charm offensive to calm concerns in the Armenian diaspora over the
historic thaw with Turkey. Diplomatic observers also fear the signing
could be disrupted by demands by some Turks for a resolution on the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

Armenian nationalists demand that Turkey acknowledge the 1915 killings
as genocide and protests have erupted in France and Lebanon. Ankara
rejects the term genocide, saying that many people died on both sides
of the conflict.

Once the protocols are signed they must be approved by the respective
parliaments. This leaves open the possibility that either side delays
the approval in case they face unexpected domestic opposition.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH

Hanging over efforts to re-establish ties is the specter of one of
the bloodiest and most intractable conflicts sparked by the demise
of the Soviet Union.

Ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia, fought a war with Azerbaijan
in the early 1990s over the mountainous territory of Nagorno-Karabakh,
an ethnic Armenian enclave located within Azerbaijan’s internationally
recognized borders. Some 30,000 people died.

International mediators are trying to put pressure on Armenia to
negotiate with Azerbaijan over Karabakh as part of a wider attempt
to secure a lasting peace in the region.

Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, has also said ties with
Armenia cannot be normalized until there is progress on
Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia insists the two issues are separate.

In the latest diplomatic round, two days before the Swiss ceremony,
the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will hold new talks on Karabakh
in Moldova’s capital Chisinau on Thursday.

Turkish government sources said they did not expect any major
breakthrough in Moldova but said the meeting itself would help push
a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute forward.

(Additional reporting by Margarita Antidze in Tbilisi; Writing by
Paul de Bendern; Editing by Charles Dick)

Press Release
Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden
Box 237
SE-177 24 Järfälla
Sweden
+46 707 73 33 83
[email protected]

On September 23, a letter asserting to represent the Armenian community in
Sweden was published on the subject of the Armenian-Turkish protocol. Let
it be known that this alleged letter was sent to the Armenian media by
Armenian individuals and does in no way represent the official stand of
the Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden, the official representative
of the Armenian community in Sweden. The organization calls on the
Armenian media to display more professionalism in their work, properly
checking their sources before publishing statements which are wrongfully
attributed to organizations or individuals.

The following, however, is the open letter which the Union of Armenian
Associations in Sweden, on behalf of the Armenian Community in Sweden, has
sent in writing to the President of Armenia, the Speaker of the Armenian
Parliament, and the President of the Constitutional Court of Armenia.

Open Letter to the President of Armenia, October 7, 2009
The Speaker of the Armenian Parliament,
The President of the Constitutional Court of Armenia

In the light of the published protocol between the Republic of Armenia and
the Republic of Turkey, regarding the normalisation of diplomatic
relations, the Union of Armenian Associations of Sweden, is highly
critical of the steps taken by the Government of Armenia, especially due
to its total lack of communication with the Armenian Diaspora in this
regard. Let it be clear that we do recognise the authority of the Armenian
Government and the rights invested with it as the official representative
of the Armenian nation, inside and outside Armenia. However, the
Government of Armenia seems to have totally neglected the role and the
situation of the Diaspora, the direct result of and the heirs to the 1915
Genocide in Turkey.

We looked forward to the meeting in Paris on October 2, 2009, hoping it
would be a dialogue. But, the meeting was rather a monologue, repeating
the same assertions regarding the protocol and its contents which we have
been hearing for the last weeks. It was said that `Armenia is ready to
normalize its ties with Turkey without preconditions’. The Union of
Armenian Associations welcomes and supports the normalisation of relations
between Armenia and Turkey, but firmly refuses to accept that the protocol
does not include preconditions. It is redundant to repeat the issues in
detail, since they are clearly known by the general public, and a short
recapitulation will suffice. While the creation of a commission to
re-evaluate `historical differences and problems’ and recognising common
borders only can refer to the Armenian Genocide and its legacy, the text
stating `non intervention in internal affairs of other states,’ does
clearly refer to the issue of Artsakh. While refuting to acknowledge the
semantics of these formulations, the Government of Armenia has failed in
total to present a viable explanation for why such sentences are included
at all. These concealed preconditions are not the basis of a sincere
rapprochement which this protocol is said to represent.

By entirely ignoring the views of the majority of the Armenian nation,
i.e. the Diaspora, the Government of Armenia is de facto losing its
eligibility as representative for the entire Armenian nation, an obvious
unwise step. The Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden, strongly
recommends the Government and the Parliament of Armenia to reconsider the
contents of the drafted protocol, which if ratified, will not only
seriously damage Armenian interests, crippling it morally and politically
on the international area, it will most definitely strike a serious blow
to the relations between the current Armenian Administration and its most
strategic foreign partner and resource, the Diaspora.

Nonetheless, let it be reminded once more that the Union of Armenian
Associations in Sweden is in favour of the normalization of relations
between Turkey and Armenia, but only on the basis of a sincere dialogue,
without any preconditions, obvious or concealed, attempting to downplay
the reality of the Armenian Genocide, its legacy, or subsiding the
Armenian support of Artsakh’s right for self-determination.

The Board of the Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden
Stockholm, Sweden

TURKEY AND ARMENIA NEAR FRIENDSHIP PACT
By Marc Champion And Nicholas Birchin

WSJ
OCTOBER 7, 2009

Erdogan Says Deal Will Come Saturday

Turkey dropped a key condition to signing a protocol on Saturday
that would reopen its border with Armenia and establish diplomatic
relations between the two nations, divided for generations by a
dispute over genocide.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said in an interview with
The Wall Street Journal that the signing wasn’t dependent on progress
at talks to be held in Moldova this week between the leaders of Armenia
and Azerbaijan over their territorial conflict in Nagorno Karabakh.

It was because of Armenia’s effective occupation of Nagorno Karabakh,
an ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, that Turkey closed the
border in 1993. An earlier attempt to sign the protocol in April
stalled when Mr.

Erdogan said it could go forward only if the Karabakh conflict was
resolved first.

"The agreement will be signed on Oct. 10. It doesn’t have anything
to do with what happens in Moldova," said Mr. Erdogan, speaking in
Istanbul on Sunday.

The travails of a large concrete monument to unity between the two
peoples, built last year in the Turkish border town of Kars, show
why a true rapprochement is proving so hard to pull off and could yet
derail. The statue of two 30-meter tall human figures, standing face
to face on a hill above the city, is incomplete: A giant hand that
would join the figures was never attached. It lies abandoned on the
gravel below. The monument is now under threat of destruction.

"Small-minded people blocked the monument and they will block the peace
process too," says Naif Alibeyoglu, who had the statue built when he
was mayor of Kars. His 10 years in office ended in March. "You wait and
see, [the deal] will end up like my statue: a statue without hands."

The parliaments of Armenia and Turkey need to ratify the protocol for
it to take force, something Mr. Erdogan said he couldn’t guarantee, as
parliamentarians in Ankara would have a free vote in a secret ballot.

In an exclusive interview, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
discusses Iran’s nuclear aspirations, Israel and the ongoing border
dispute with Armenia.

Mr. Erdogan also said the two processes — a resolution of the Karabakh
conflict and rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia — remain linked,
and that a positive outcome in Moldova would help overall. Turkish
officials have continued to indicate the border could take longer to
open than the three months set out in the three-page protocol.

The Turkish leader said the only obstacle to signing the deal on
Saturday would come if Armenia seeks to alter the text. "This is
perhaps the most important point — that Armenia should not allow its
policies to be taken hostage by the Armenian diaspora," Mr. Erdogan
said. Much of Armenia’s large diaspora opposes the protocol.

A spokesman for Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan declined to comment
on whether Armenia would seek changes to the protocol. He said the
government would make a statement on "steps" concerning the protocol
soon.

Mr. Sargsyan has spent the week on a multination tour to explain his
position to diaspora groups, some of which have protested against
it. They believe it will be used by Turkey to reduce international
pressure on it to recognize as genocide the 1915 slaughter of
up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in what was then the Ottoman
Empire. Mr. Sargsyan visited Paris, New York, Los Angeles and, on
Tuesday, Beirut, where 2000 Armenians turned out waving banners such
as "we will not forget," according to news agency reports. His last
stop will be in Russia.

The rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia has strong backing
from the U.S. and the European Union. They hope the change could
trigger a virtuous cycle, opening up and stabilizing a region that
is increasingly important for oil and gas transit and last year saw
war between Russia and Georgia.

In addition to eventually opening the border and establishing
diplomatic relations, the protocol would also recognize the current
frontier. It would set up a joint commission to review issues of
history, likely to include the 1915 massacres. Turkey says they were
collateral deaths during what amounted to civil war during World War I.

Mr. Alibeyoglu, the former Kars mayor, worked hard to improve relations
between his city — a former Armenian capital that changed hands
and populations several times over centuries — and its natural
hinterland, the Caucasus. He invited Armenian, Azeri and Georgian
artists to festivals, signed twinning agreements with cities across
the region and, in 2004, gathered 50,000 signatures for a petition
demanding the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border.

Kars would stand to benefit from the ability to trade across a border
40 kilometers away by train and truck. Currently, traders must drive
hundreds of kilometers via Georgia.

But history has created deep suspicions. When Russia took over Kars
in the 19th century, many Armenians returned, only to be driven out
again during World War I. Today, some 20% of the city’s population
are ethnic Azerbaijanis, who consider opening the border while Armenia
remains in control of a fifth of Azerbaijan’s territory a betrayal.

Sculptor Mehmet Aksoy says he had to abandon his plan to run water down
the statues to pool as tears, because nationalists complained these
would be tears of Armenian rejoicing at reclaiming territory. Indeed,
one complaint of nationalist opponents of the protocol in Armenia
is that the treaty’s recognition of current borders would prevent
any future claim to the swathe of Eastern Turkey that Armenia won
in a 1920 treaty, only to lose it again in the 1921 Treaty of Kars
between Russia and Turkey.

"Why is one figure standing with its head bowed, as if ashamed?" asks
Oktay Aktas, an ethnic Azeri and local head of the Nationalist Action
Party, or MHP, who wants the statue torn down. "Turkey has nothing
to be ashamed of."

In fact, the two figures in the monument stand ramrod straight.

Nationalists on the other side of the border have taken to the
streets to protest against the pact with Turkey. "Turkey will cite the
protocol and proceed with its efforts to rewrite history," and deny
the genocide, said Vartan Oksanian, a former Armenian foreign minister
from the nationalist Dashnak party in a recent speech. He called for
the clause on the joint history commission and on recognition of the
border to be removed from the text.

Mr. Alibeyoglu says he planned the monument as a counterweight to a
memorial in Yerevan to the 1915 massacres and a statue in the nearby
Turkish town of Igdir, close to Mount Ararat. The Igdir monument
commemorates a much smaller number of Turks who were killed by ethnic
Armenian militias around the same time.

Turkey and Armenia are "like two neighbors who do not know each
other," Mr.

Alibeyoglu says. "Is he a terrorist? A mafioso? We needed to break
the ice."

But Mr. Alibeyoglu was running ahead of his own party, Mr. Erdogan’s
ruling Justice and Development party, or AKP. The government began
secret talks with Armenia two years ago, and relations really only
took off in September 2008, when Turkey’s president went to watch the
Turkish football team playing Armenia in Yerevan. He was the first
Turkish leader ever to visit Armenia. Mr. Sargsyan is due to close
the circle by attending the return match in Turkey next week.

Mr. Alibeyoglu failed to get backing for his projects and was
shunted aside by the AKP in the run-up to municipal elections this
year. When Mr. Aktas applied to Turkey’s Commission for Monuments to
get construction stopped, on the basis that a viewing platform for
the monument was built without planning permission, the commission
ordered work the statue to be demolished. Its fate awaits a final
decision from the central government in Ankara

FRONT OF 11 PARTIES

s15432.html
17:09:43 – 06/10/2009

On October 6, it was stated in Yerevan about the setup of a joint front
composed of 11 parties to prevent the signing of the Armenian-Turkish
protocols. The front was formed by a statement with which the signing
parties condemned the content of the Armenian-Turkish protocols
and stated that their intention to struggle jointly to prevent the
signature of the protocols.

The ARF, HRAK, Nor Zhamanakner (New Times), People’s party, HDK,
HASK, Goyamart and other 4 parties signed the statement as well as
the Armenian Aryan Order expressed its readiness to sign. By the way,
the Head of the Order Armen Avetisyan being absolutely against the
protocols as well as the establishment of relations, said that no one
has to think that everything will pass just by singing. He recalled
about the factor of revengefulness and hinted that those singing the
protocols may feel it.

The Head of the Goyamart party was very rough too who just like Armen
Avetisyan considered the protocols a betrayal. The HRAK leader Harutun
Arakelyan says no one needs the fact that the government assumes the
responsibility for the protocols. According to him, if they cause
a disaster no one will need that responsibility. By the way, when
Armen Harutunyan and the Head of the Goyamart party spoke so roughly,
the ARF member Armen Rustamyan and the HDK head Aram Gaspar Sargsyan
looked at each other with a perplexed expression on their faces.

All the 11 parties and the Armenian Aryan Order voiced about their
joint efforts to prevent the singing of the protocols. They hope
their joint effort will be effective. But they do not know what
concrete joint steps they are going to make. They intend to discuss
it saying that they are going to make a decision by consensus. Now
it is clear that the joint front will hold a rally on October 9 to
the presidential residence and to the Genocide memorial.

Armen Rustamyan also stated that the statement, in other words, the
front is open for everyone. He noted that they have also appealed to
the Armenian National Congress not as one unite, but only separate
parties. According to Armen Rustamyan, though shared their worries in
connection with the protocols though did not join the statement. Armen
Rustamyan thinks the reason is political questions.

Armenians anxious over Turkish plan
Armenians in Lebanon have protested
over a proposed agreement between their country and Turkey.

As the BBC’s Jim Muir reports, they want Turkey recognise as genocide
the killing of some 1.5m Armenians under Ottoman rule during World War
I before any deal is signed.

Waving the red, blue and orange Armenian flag, chanting slogans and
brandishing banners condemning the proposed agreement with Turkey,
thousands of Lebanese Armenians converged on a luxury hotel in the
suburbs of East Beirut to leave President Serzh Sarkisian in no doubt
about their feelings.

Many came here on foot from the suburb of Burj Hammoud and other
nearby areas where Armenian survivors settled after fleeing Turkey 90
years ago.

Those survivors established now-thriving communities in bustling
streets where most of the shop signs and advertisements are now in
Armenian.

President Sarkisian flew to Lebanon on the latest leg of a mission to
the diaspora which had earlier taken him to Paris, New York and Los
Angeles.

He is trying to persuade anxious Armenian exiles that peace with
Turkey does not mean forgetting what they call a genocide in which 1.5
million perished.

` All around the world, we Armenians are one, and we are
against this protocol ‘
Mher Krikorian
In Lebanon, he will face an uphill task in talks with community leaders.

All the major political parties – which wield considerable influence
in the intricate and delicate Lebanese political system – are against
the proposed accord with Turkey.

So too are all the religious leaderships.

Lebanon’s 150,000 or so Armenians are virtually all descended from
survivors.

Most trekked overland through Syria, while a few arrived directly by
boat.

Generations may have passed since then, but the Armenian community is
tight-knit, memories are long and vivid, and feelings intense even
among the young for whom Turkey is a terrible myth.

"I was born and bred here, but I still feel very, very Armenian," said
Ani Didanian, who is 44.

"My great-grandfather walked to Lebanon. Two of his aunts froze to
death in the snow, an uncle was massacred, and his father and mother
were lost – they never found them.

"We’re here because we want to say no to the agreement. It is not
fair. You can’t just negate the past, and go on.

"The Turks should pay the price for all the stolen land, and the one
and a half million victims that died."

Fear of forgetting
Mher Krikorian, a 21-year-old student, said that Armenians of the
diaspora were worried that the horrors of the past would be glossed
over and forgotten.

"Our Armenian history is full of blood, and with this protocol they
will forget it. We want our culture, our history to be known around
the world.

"And we still have lands over there, inside Turkey. All around the
world, we Armenians are one, and we are against this protocol."

This was not just a demonstration by angry young men. There were angry
old ladies too.

"My grandfather was one of seven brothers in the same family, but the
other six were all hanged and only he escaped," said 70-year-old Sosi
Azadourian.

"My grandmother hanged herself, because they were raping all the
women."

Lucy Srabian, a 42-year-old journalist, said her grandparents made
their way to Lebanon as the only survivors from a family of 60 souls.

"When President Sarkisian says ‘We’re not going to forget the
genocide’, what is he going to do not to forget it?" she asked.

"If he is going to have a friendly relationship with Turkey, then
where does the genocide stand? We don’t know, and that bothers us
all."

"It’s the moral compensation we need, the recognition. We cannot deal
with it if they don’t admit they’ve done something wrong, and we feel
that they feel with us.

"Of course there is the issue of compensation, but we have to be
realistic. We must see in this world if we can live together. But we
don’t want to be fooled."

Unlike most of those demonstrating here against
the protocol, Rubina Markosian has a foot in both camps.

One of her parents was born in the diaspora in Lebanon, the other in
Armenia itself when it was part of the Soviet Union.

She has just returned to Lebanon with a different perspective after
living and working for the past 10 years in Armenia, where almost all
the political parties support the agreement.

"They [the diaspora demonstrators] want to stay hostile towards
Turkey, because they don’t know what their next step would be," she
said.

"I personally think Armenians have come to a dead end. We cannot claim
our land [in Turkey] back, and we’re demanding recognition which I
don’t know is going to satisfy us in the end.

"But the Armenian diaspora survives on the genocide, and there are a
lot of worries about what’s going to happen once the genocide is
recognised.

"Is the diaspora going to survive? It gives them a cause and an
identity, and they will lose both."

Story from BBC NEWS:
_east/8293896.stm

Tert.am
16:04 ¢ 03.10.09

National Initiative Miatsum Appeals to Nagorno-Karabakh’s Leaders

National Initative `Miatsum’ sent a written appeal to
Nagorno-Karabakh’s political and military leaders. In the letter, it
states:

`The Turkish `Protocols’ and `Madrid Principles,’ as diplomatic calls
to war thrown to Armenia and the Armenian people, have entered their
final stage which is the documents’ ratification and practical
implementation.

`It’s not necessary to prove to a single Armenian today that the
Turkish `Protocols’ puts the fact of the Genocide into doubt, with all
of the consequences that result from it, as well as compeling the
Republic of Armenia to confirm recognition of the 1921 Kars Treaty,
that is, Turkey with its present borders.

`A more tragic consequence might be if the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh
is resolved within the framework of the `Madrid Principles’, which,
for us, doesn’t exist [the Madrid Principles, that is]. For the
Armenian people, there is one major problem: that is the resettlement
of Karabakh and the liberated territories.

`It is already fact that on September 19, Serzh Sargsyan announced
that if Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized within the regional
administrative borders that it had during the Soviet period, then the
Republic of Armenia is prepared to hand over a `safety zone’; that is,
to surrender all seven regions of the liberated territories to
Azerbaijan.

`Armenians in the Republic of Armenia, as well as Armenians living
abroad, are against the `Madrid Principles’ and the Turkish
`Protocols,’ despite how much the Republic of Armenia’s leadership
attempt to loudly broadcast the opposite.

`We are convinced that Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh and their
political and military leaders realistically assess the full
seriousness of the processes taking place today and will express
appropriate will, preventing that policy, the downfall of the Armenian
people, which the Republic of Armenia’s governing authorities are
attem
ation.

`Unfortunately, from Armenia’s independence till today, we were unable
to use the opportunity provided to us, as well as the large period of
time, to establish national and state institutions. If those
institutions were established, today no such documents would
emerge. The only document which is capable of aborting this
treachorous process and to prevent it without shakes, is the
impregnable fortress in Stepanakert.

`Today, once more you have a historic mission: to be the vanguard in
protecting Armenians’ vital interests.’

Tert.am

Protests Against Armenian-Turkish Protocols Greet Sargsyan in Paris

12:00 ¢ 03.10.09
Protests Against Armenian-Turkish Protocols Greet Sargsyan in Paris

Armenia’s president has started his tour of Armenian communities
worldwide amid violent protests from members of a diaspora angry over
plans to establish ties with Turkey, reports the Associated Press.

French riot police are fighting back belligerent demonstrators in
Paris. A few dozen shouted "No!" and punched riot shields before a
planned event Friday with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

Police dragged several protesters away kicking and screaming. Sargsyan
appeared only for a few minutes; he placed a wreath by the Genocide
Memorial statue, then promptly left.

Photos courtesy of Russian-Armenian site