Author: Boshkezenian Garik

LOCAL MEMBERS PUT PRESSURE ON ADL
By Keith O’Brien, Globe Staff

Boston Globe, MA
Nov 2 2007

Seek more direct genocide wording

Local members of the Anti-Defamation League will push the
organization’s national leadership today to unequivocally acknowledge
the Armenian genocide after months of controversy that has tarnished
the image of the human rights organization in Massachusetts.

Already, across the state, seven communities have pulled out of a
popular ADL antibigotry program, citing the organization’s failure to
clearly acknowledge the World War I-era genocide of Armenians under the
Ottoman Empire and support a Congressional resolution to do the same.

Under pressure, the national ADL and its leader, Abraham H. Foxman,
reversed decades of policy in August and acknowledged for the first
time that the massacre of Armenians in modern-day Turkey between 1915
and 1918 was "tantamount to genocide."

But that carefully worded statement did little to appease ADL
critics. Massachusetts towns – led by Watertown, home to 8,000
Armenian-Americans – continued to pull out of the ADL’s "No Place
For Hate" program, and regional ADL leaders decided to ask the
organization’s national commission to approve a more direct genocide
statement.

"Addressing the issue of Armenian Genocide should not necessarily
hinge upon the erosion it has caused to the New England Region’s No
Place for Hate program," regional ADL leaders wrote recently in a
letter obtained by the Globe and sent to roughly 300 members of the
organization’s national commission. "Nor, should it rest upon the
potential unraveling of other long-standing ADL efforts. . . . What
is at stake here, at its core, is principle and the mission of our
agency."

Local leaders in the Jewish and Armenian-American communities agree
that the regional ADL must succeed in persuading the national
organization to take a clear stand on this issue when they meet
today. "This is a very significant moral issue," said Nancy K. Kaufman,
the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of
Greater Boston.

But not everyone attending today’s national commission agrees that
the ADL should approve a wording change, much less Congressional
acknowledgement of Armenian genocide. Foxman, who did not return calls,
has said for weeks that the ADL has gone far enough on this issue,
and other people attending today’s meeting share his point of view.

"I don’t think revisiting the issue is necessary," said Dennis Kainen,
chairman of the ADL’s Florida regional board. "I believe the statement
is clear and I think the ADL has gone a long way."

The item on today’s ADL agenda asks members to vote whether or not
to support House Resolution 106, a Congressional resolution that
would acknowledge the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century
ago as genocide.

The refusal by Turkey – an ally of Israel – to acknowledge the genocide
makes the issue complicated for the United States, Israel, and the
ADL. Last month, when the Armenian genocide resolution received
the approval of a House committee, clearing the way for a vote of
the full House, Turkey called home its ambassador in Washington and
warned that the resolution would "jeopardize a strategic partnership"
between Turkey and the United States.

The measure, which had enjoyed widespread approval, lost support.

Last week, sponsors shelved the resolution indefinitely.

In their letter to the national commissioners, the regional ADL leaders
in Boston say they are not urging people to consider the resolution,
but to drop the phrase "tantamount to genocide" and acknowledge the
genocide "in the clearest possible way."

WORLD WAR I: THE BIRTH OF A KILLING CULTURE
By Simon Sebag Montefiore

International Herald Tribune, France
Nov 2 2007

Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War
By Alan Kramer Illustrated.

434 pages. $34.95.

Oxford University Press.

‘Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Hitler supposedly said on Aug. 22, 1939, as he prepared his henchmen
for the savagery of race war and the slaughter of the Jews of Europe.

In many ways, this link between the genocide of the Armenians by the
Ottoman Empire in 1915 and the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis from
1941 to 1945 brings together the elements of Alan Kramer’s important
book, "Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First
World War." Kramer believes the two world wars may be regarded as
a single four-decade trauma, and he argues that World War I was
considerably more than simply a new industrial form of warfare that
brutalized the modern world.

Destruction, Kramer says, became a deliberate policy in many, perhaps
all, of the combatant countries. This made possible not only conscious
hooliganism against great cultural monuments (like churches) but also
the creation of an actual culture of violence.

Kramer, an associate professor of history at Trinity College, Dublin,
believes that as the fighting intensified, the combatants embraced
the annihilation of soldiers and civilians as a military and political
policy.

"The thesis," he writes, "is that there was a ‘dynamic of destruction’
which produced the most extensive cultural devastation and mass
killing in Europe since the Thirty Years War." An admirable work
of analysis and narrative, Kramer’s book shows that this killing
culture was hardly inevitable. Although there were many reasons for
the dynamic of destruction to be found in the peculiarities of the
different political cultures, ultimately, he declares, the orders
were given by men, mainly military men.

(This is an interesting difference with World War II, where civilians
– Stalin, Churchill, Hitler, Roosevelt – were in real command.) These
generals did not have to give these orders. "The dynamic of destruction
was not a law of nature," Kramer argues. "It was man-made, capable
of infinite variation . . . capable of being stopped before ultimate
self-destruction."

"Dynamic of Destruction" opens with a series of deliberate acts of
cultural vandalism by Germany at the start of the war: over several
days in August 1914, German forces in Louvain, Belgium, not only
murdered 248 innocent civilians in cold blood, but burned the city’s
ancient library to the ground. It was the start of a new style of
warfare. Kramer goes on to survey a European culture fascinated with
the purifying possibilities of violence, a culture that extended across
not just Germany but also Italy, Serbia and Russia, and the Ottoman
and Austro-Hungarian empires. This is the finest part of the book
because, while we tend to be very familiar with Germany and Britain,
the other participants are hardly known to Western readers at all.

Most of the Great Powers, except Britain, had aggressive war aims
that included the annexation of other countries. Such aims were
destructive to begin with, but became more so once it was clear
there would be no quick victory. For instance, Germany’s aims in the
East – the creation of a military-colonial state known as Ober Ost –
and its occupation of great swaths of Eastern Europe and Russia were
brutal and ruthless, providing a foundation for racial stereotyping
and merciless depredation. (Still, as Kramer takes care to note,
these were not "a pilot program for the Third Reich.")

In many ways, Kramer underlines the exceptionalism of Germany, where
the leadership really did crave a preventive war against its enemies.

But in some fine analysis, he shows that Germany wasn’t as exceptional
as all that. Italy was surprisingly aggressive, hoping to annex
portions of the Austro-Hungarian empire, while the Austro-Hungarian
military, under General Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf, was constantly
pushing for war. Their aim was "the total annihilation of Serbia." But
the Austrians needed Germany’s backing to launch their war, and Berlin,
as Kramer explains, did not have to give it.

It was understood by all the Great Powers that Russia would be unable
to stand by while its little Orthodox brother Serbia was threatened.

When the Russians mobilized, the Germans recognized it as a defensive
move. "I have the impression," the Prussian military attache in St.

Petersburg reported to Berlin, "that here one has mobilized for fear
of imminent events, without aggressive intentions." Kaiser Wilhelm
wrote on this: "Correct, exactly so."

In some ways, the war against Serbia had been fought already in
the two Balkan wars of 1912-13, caused by the nationalist goals of
the region’s new states in conflict with the tottering Ottoman and
Habsburg empires – and in conflict with one another. Kramer comments
that while the Western front of World War I at least had good medical
care and sanitation, the Balkan wars and, afterward, the fighting
on the Eastern fronts produced "endemic disease and mass fatalities
among civilians." The massacre of tens of thousands of civilians
in Macedonia and Thrace by the Bulgarians was "not merely . . . a
short-term by-product of war" but a "part of a longer-term project
of nation-state construction." Meanwhile, in crushing Serbia, Austria
and Germany killed 250,000 soldiers and 300,000 civilians out of 3.1
million. No combatant faced higher per capita losses.

War on the Eastern fronts was truly a war of annihilation, one with
racial overtones. Russia expelled 500,000 Jews and 743,000 Poles from
their homes near the front. And Kramer leaves us in no doubt that
the killing of a million Armenians was the deliberate policy of the
Ottoman Empire under Enver Pasha and the Young Turks.

The book’s survey of the Western front is less dramatic because we
know it so well. More gripping is the cultural material in the section
"War, Bodies and Minds," which contains truly jolting photographs and
excerpts from memoirs. I did not know that the British Army ran at
least two brothels in France. One memoir recounts the chilling sight
of French prostitutes plying their trade surrounded by the bodies of
dead men. An arresting photograph shows bare-breasted prostitutes at
a German brothel in Belgium, posing with German soldiers in spiked
Pickelhaube helmets. And there is no better illustration of the
self-mulitation that total war brings than the shocking photograph of a
"railwayman, mouth torn away and lower jaw gone." This destruction of
bodies and minds had two effects after World War I: the pacifism and
appeasement that were prominent in Britain and France between the wars,
and the worship of violence that gripped Russia, Italy and Germany.

The dynamic of destruction became a state religion through the savage
terror of Bolshevism in Russia, and the racial violence of nazism
in Germany.

Kramer is absolutely right to argue that Russian history should be
seen "in a continuum" from 1914 to 1921. World War I did brutalize
Russia, making revolution inevitable, but Kramer also points out
that the Russian civil war following the revolution was a disaster
that took 10 million lives (in battle, massacre, disease and famine),
many more than Russia’s losses in World War I.

During the civil war, the White terror was as bad as the Red terror.

I found in my own research into the letters and memoirs of Stalin and
his comrades that it was the experience of the civil war, not World
War I (in which few of the top Bolsheviks fought), that gave them their
taste for homicidal solutions. (Kramer might have added that Trotsky,
as a journalist reporting on the Balkan wars, was horrified by the
violence he witnessed – but then went on to mimic it when he was a
warlord in the Russian civil war.) This stimulating, scholarly and
shrewd book is as rich in original ideas and accounts of unfamiliar
aspects of World War I as it is energetic in its revisionism. But,
half narrative, half analysis, it is densely written and sometimes
pedantic. It may be hard going at times for general readers.

Nonetheless, everyone can learn something from Kramer’s nuanced and
sensible conclusion: "Total war," he writes, "which tends towards
annihilation, bears within it the potential for genocide. Yet genocide
was not an inevitable consequence of total war."

Simon Sebag Montefiore is the author of "Stalin: The Court of the
Red Tsar" and "Young Stalin."

/31/arts/IDLEDE3.php

NUMBER OF PEOPLE SERVED IN ARMENIA’S BANKING SYSTEM INCREASES BY 13.5THS IN AUGUST

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Nov 2 2007

YEREVAN, November 2. /ARKA/. The number of people served in Armenia’s
banking system increased by 13.5ths in August and totaled 851.5ths,
runs the information of the Armenian National Statistical Service
provided to ARKA.

At the end of July the number of legal entities totaled 42.3ths,
and individuals – 809.5ths.

As of August 31, the number of accounts recorded in commercial banks
totaled 980ths, 916.1ths of which are accounts of individuals. The
united accounts of "VTB Bank (Armenia)" (previous Armsavingsbank)
include 3 469 462 clients.

As of September 31, 2007, the remnant of deposits attracted from
population by banks totaled AMD 160.6mln, thus increasing by AMD
6.7bln or 4.3%, and as compared to the same period in 2006 – by AMD
53.2bln or 49.6%. ($1 – AMD 325.09).

PRESIDENT BAKO SAHAKYAN’S INTERVIEW TO THE NEWSPAPER

Azat Artsakh Tert, Nagorno Karabakh Rep.
Nov 2 2007

Which aims and questions are put by the president of the republic
republican newspaper? What newspaper would you like to see it? First
of all I must tell that the newspaper must become one of the basic
links between the population and the authorities. Republican newspaper
must understandably and clearly inform the people about intentions
and actions of the leadership of the republic, and on the contrary,
in the same way, inform the authorities about real stand of the things
among population and society, especially those questions and problems,
which have subjective character and not settled, because highly placed
officials do their duties badly and abuse their posts. How do you
accept an idea, that the heads of the ministries, departments give
an interview to the newspaper of "AA" once a month?

I approve such idea. Moreover, how the newspaper can fully carry out
the mission which it has. I will give an interview to the newspaper
periodically, why other responsible persons will be exclusive in
this case. Mr. President, at any rate, the newspaper is the state
newspaper, so state officials will take criticism in their address on
the pages of the newspaper sickly, so I would like to define both the
meaning of "constructive criticism" and the level of its deepness and
permissibility? Any criticism based on facts and logical argumentation
is not only permissible, but also wishable and generally useful,
for society as well as for the state, that’s for the authorities
which executes state government functions. True authorities even
more than any power else must be interested in such criticism, that’s
in turning out the diseases on the body of the state for which it’s
responsible. Those, who take correct criticism sickly, it means, they
don’t correspond to their posts. 1.Armenian philanthrophy Armenian
charity must not be looked into under the prism of organisation for
collection of money, construction of the roads, buildings and so on,
but as a main instrument in case of assembling, strengthening and long
continuation of the nation. It must be considered as the planting
of the sense of mutual aid between the members of the nation.Hense,
it’s necessary to treat the philanthropy not less attentively, than
the building of the statehood, all the more in our present instable
alarming situation.

The capitains of armenian ship did things exactly on the contrary.

Second sorted, ineffective cadres were brought to the front instead
of the best brains of armenian society. 2.Not once a year, but
once a week Not since old times, the jews have a tradition to
keep at home in a very visible place special charity money-box(
jewish koupat tsdaka).Little coins are put into it before morning
prayer, making long way or on returning home from the long way.When
people want to thank God or ask for help, sacrifice is put into
money-box.Housekeeper throws some coins into it every Friday before
lighting Saturday candles. When money-box is full, its containing is
given for charity aims to the cash-box of comunity. Charity cash-box
managing is one of the most respectable posts.Every comunity is obliged
to have such type office. For long years such behaviour became nearly
instinctive. 3.Masters of philanthropical cases (organisators) When
Max Fisher entered the room, the table around which he sat down, became
the main table.World jewish congress head Israel Singer remembers,-"He
spoke very calmly. The people had to come nearer to him for hearing
what he says". But no other word was passed. Many people strived to
go forward, but Max Fisher did not do it. American presidents and
the secretaries of State wished to talk to him, because he talked
directly with Israeli leaders, and the prime-ministers of Israel always
received him because he had a direct access to the presidents of the
United States. 4.Philanthropy as the justice In all the religions of
the world much attention is payed to the charity. But there is a big
difference between them. For example, jewish name of charity "tsdaka"
bears another meaning, it means "justice". This name emphasizes,
that the man is obliged to help his compatriot. Mutual obligedness
strengthens the group, let it be family, commercial firm, collective
farm, province or a country.

TO ACT SYSTEMATIC AND PURPOSEFUL

Azat Artsakh Tert
Oct 31 2007
Nagorno Karabakh Republic

Today a session of the NKR Government took place by the head of the
Prime Minister A.Haroutyunian. Before passing on the questions of
agenda, the Prime Minister announced, that henceforth the Government’s
session would be open and transparent. At the session, according to
the agenda, the Government made a number of changes and additions
in the decision adopted formely, a part of which Minister of the NKR
Economical development represented. The changes particularly refered
to the systems of gas supply, communication, water supply.A list
of viewpoints of the activity realized by the national operator of
postal communication is established at the session. Minister of Finance
S.Tevossian represented the NKR bill to the Government’s establishment
"About washing money and struggle against financing". According to
him, that bill corresponded to the international standards and drafted
by RA Central Bank. At the same time he pointed that the Government
had represented such bill to the NKR NA in time, but it hadn’t been
discussed. The Government decided to approve that bill and represent
it to the Parliament’s discussion.

By representation of Minister of Justice A.Mossian, the Government
approved the NKR bill "About Audit Chamber", which should be
sent to the discussion of the NKR NA. The Government passed a
resolution about creating closed joint-stock company on the basis
of "Azat Artsakh" official gazette. Regulations of "Azat Artsakh"
closed joint-stock company are established and Murad Petrossian was
appointed executive director of the company. Summerizing the session,
the Prime Minister gave assignments members of the Government and
leaders of separate departments and instructed to act systematic and
purposeful. (Administration of relations with the NKR Government’s
information and community).

INTERVIEW WITH TURKISH AMBASSADOR TO U.S.

CNN
October 28, 2007 Sunday

SHOW: CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER 11:00 AM EST

BYLINE: Wolf Blitzer, Ed Henry, Candy Crowley, Mark Preston

GUESTS: Mohamed ElBaradei, Barbara Boxer, Trent Lott, Nabi Sensoy,
Mike Huckabee, David Miliband

[parts on other interviews omitted]

Mr. Ambassador, thanks very much for joining us. Welcome to "Late
Edition." How close is your country, Turkey, to invading northern Iraq?

NABI SENSOY, TURKEY’S AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: Well, in the first place,
I wouldn’t like to use the term "invade" Iraq, because if there is
going to be a decision to intervene militarily in the north of the
country, it will have a specific target and a scope, and the target
will be the PKK terrorist organizations.

BLITZER: How close are you to that?

SENSOY: Now as you know, the government has taken authorization from
the parliament, if necessary, to go into Iraq militarily. Now so far
the Turkish government has shown remarkable, I think, restraint to
— not to use force in order to resolve this issue. We are trying
to employ and exhaust all the diplomatic possibilities and peaceful
possibilities before we think of the last resort, which is use to —
of arms.

BLITZER: There have been repeated reports that Turkish aircraft have
already crossed the line, have gone into northern Iraq and bombed
certain facilities. Are those reports true?

SENSOY: I’m not privy to those informations. There is a lot of activity
going in the south of the country, in the southeast of the country.

BLITZER: Of Turkey.

SENSOY: Of Turkey, in preparation. But I’m not really informed about
any kind of activity south of the border.

BLITZER: Have the Turkish forces massed 100,000 or so troops along
the border?

SENSOY: Well, there has always been activity in the south of the
country because of the activities of this terrorist organization,
so it is possible that they have now beefed up the forces in the
south of the country.

BLITZER: As you know, the U.S. government, the Bush administration,
is strongly urging you not to intervene in northern Iraq, in
Kurdistan. Listen to what the secretary of state said. Just listen
to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE: We don’t see that any effort
across that border by the Turks is going to help with the situation.

We have said to the Turks that a major — some kind of incursion into
Iraq is only going to cause further instability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. What do you say in response?

SENSOY: Well, that’s why we have shown so much restraint so far. But if
the countries — all the groups in the north of Iraq think that — or
do not assume their responsibilities to eliminate the PKK themselves,
they cannot expect Turkey to sit idly by to see that the Turkish
population is being slaughtered by the PKK.

BLITZER: Because here’s what the Iraqi government says — last Sunday
here on "Late Edition," the Iraqi government spokesman, Ali Al-
Dabbagh, was on this program, and he offered this explanation. Listen
to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALI AL-DABBAGH, IRAQI GOVT. SPOKESMAN: Even Turkey, they can’t
stop PKK. This is mounting. It’s a rough area. Fifteen years now the
struggle with Turkey. Twenty-four times Turkey had to close the border
and couldn’t get rid of the PKK. Now one more crossing the border
won’t solve the problem. It will be great problems for all of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: He says you haven’t been able to stop it even on your side.

Why do you think you can go into northern Iraq and stop the PKK?

SENSOY: Well, I think it should be interpreted that the Turkish nation
has taken enough measures so that these terrorist organizations, these
terrorists, have sought to go to the north of the Iraqi territory to
conduct hit-and-run attacks to Turkey.

Now, they have camped along the Turkish border in five places.

They’re conducting hit-and-run attacks. So we have lost more than
35,000 lives in the last 20 years. Now enough is enough.

And I saw the mood in Turkey, and within the Turkish public. It
is one of outrage. And that is why no government can really remain
unresponsive to the cries from the people.

BLITZER: On Tuesday, the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki said
this: "The PKK is a notorious terror organization, and we have decided
to shut down its offices and not allow them to operate on Iraqi
soil. We will take all measures to restrict its terror activities
that threaten Iraq and threaten Turkey as well."

Do you not believe him?

SENSOY: Well, in the first place, it’s small comfort that they are
going to close down the offices, because those offices were closed
down before to see the next day that they’re open next to the very
place that they have closed. So this is the very least that the Iraqi
government can do. But there are other things. Elimination of this
requires the end to logistical support that goes to the terrorist
organization from the north of the country. This is in the form of
arms, food, ammunition, every kind of logistical support. So this
has to be stopped in the first place in order to be able to eliminate
the present.

BLITZER: Some analysts have suggested that the consideration in the
House of Representatives here in Washington a few weeks ago of a
resolution condemning the Ottoman Empire for the, quote, "genocide of
Armenians" during World War I contributed to this tension, not only
tension with the United States but tension between Turkey and Iraq.

That resolution, among other things, said, "The Armenian genocide was
conceived and carried out by the Ottoman empire from 1915 to 1923,
resulting in the deportation of nearly 2 million Armenians, of whom
1,500,000 men, women and children were killed, 500,000 survivors were
expelled from their homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of
the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland."

How much of a factor was consideration in the House of Representatives
of this resolution in Turkey’s angry stance right now?

SENSOY: I can see no relationship between the two. With regard to the
Armenian resolution, I think it was a very bad idea, because as far as
the international law is concerned, the Armenians have no arguments
with regard to the 1948 convention. And that’s why they are taking
the issue to a political…

BLITZER: Your position is that there was no genocide.

SENSOY: Well, what we are saying is the events of 1915 needs further
investigation. And that is why we have proposed setting up of a
committee of historians between Turkey and Armenia to look into this
matter to go into the archives and to dig out the truth. Whatever
the truth is, we are going to accept.

BLITZER: We’ve got to leave it there, we’re out of time. Ambassador
Sensoy, thanks very much for coming in. Let’s hope that situation
remains calm or calms down. Appreciate it very much.

NYT
Editorial
October 26, 2007

Editorial

Putin Takes on the Election Observers

It was only with luck, Benjamin Franklin mulled during the debates of
the Constitutional Convention, that the framers would "produce a
government that could forestall, for a decade perhaps, the decline of
the Republic into tyranny." The American states had that luck. Russia
has not.

The latest sign of its sad decline is a diplomatic campaign by the
Kremlin, reported by C. J. Chivers in The Times this week, to curtail
the activities of election observers from the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe – just in time for Russia’s
December parliamentary elections and March presidential election.

President Vladimir Putin is not trying to bar the observers
altogether; that would be too obvious. What he wants is to cut the
size of the monitoring missions and stop them from immediately
releasing their reports, thus diminishing their impact.

We can see how foreign observers can grate on a country’s pride. But
what the Kremlin and its allies clearly do not want is anyone paying
too much attention to their antidemocratic ploys. Mr. Putin is
convinced that the European group’s criticism of elections in Georgia,
Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan helped foment the so-called "color" revolutions
that set the votes right. Russia pre-emptively sent its own
"observers" to elections in Belarus to contradict the organization’s
misgivings.

Mr. Putin’s K.G.B.-heavy government calls the monitoring "meddling in
internal affairs." We call it blowing the whistle, which is exactly
what the group is supposed to do.

Even a critical report from the observers would probably not alter the
outcome of Russia’s elections, since the problem there is not so much
voting procedures as the Kremlin’s near-absolute control over who can
run and who gets access to national television. In Russia’s last
presidential election, in 2004, an observer mission reported that "the
process over all did not adequately reflect principles necessary for a
healthy democratic election." It is far worse today.

It is telling that Mr. Putin’s current effort to change the procedures
is co-signed by Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan
and Uzbekistan, all states with compelling reasons to limit the
influence of independent observers.

Source: tml

Glendale News Press, CA
Oct 27 2007

Genocide vote gets postponed

With supporters dropping out, the bill’s author urges House speaker
to wait for a later date.

By Ryan Vaillancourt

GLENDALE – With support for a controversial House resolution
recognizing the Armenian Genocide wavering in Congress, the bill’s
key sponsors are looking to postpone a final vote on the measure
until it has clear majority backing.

In a Thursday letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had planned to
bring the resolution for a vote before Thanksgiving, its author, Rep.
Adam Schiff, and three of the bill’s most ardent advocates urged her
to put the issue on the back burner.

`We believe that a large majority of our colleagues want to support a
resolution recognizing the genocide on the House floor and that they
will do so, provided the timing is more favorable,’ the letter read.

The measure cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a 27-21
vote on Oct. 10, but support in the house has since dwindled. In the
weeks following the vote, 14 co-sponsors withdrew their sponsorship
amid warnings from President Bush’s administration that passage of
the bill would threaten crucial U.S. military relations with Turkey.

In an unprecedented show of support for a genocide resolution, 235
House members were at one time this year listed as co-sponsors. A
total of 24 former co-sponsors have withdrawn, including those who
dropped out after the committee vote, leaving 211 co-sponsors as of
Friday. advertisement

`I don’t have the level of confidence that I would need to have
recommended the speaker to take it up right now,’ Schiff said. `I
think it’s too close.’

The House approved similar genocide resolutions in 1975 and 1984, but
those measures failed to pass the Senate. The issue returned to the
House in 2000 and 2005, passing committee both times but falling
mercy to former Speaker Dennis Hastert who failed to bring those
bills to the floor for a final vote.

This year’s resolution has faltered in a different context. Where the
2000 and 2005 bills reportedly had clear majority support in the
House, a non-supportive Speaker blocked the measures by not calling
them for a vote.

In 2007, the resolution is backed by the speaker, yet majority
support for the measure appears tenuous.

`In this case, we have very close to the majority and it’s not very
clear whether it’s going to pass by a few votes or fail by a few
votes,’ said Harut Sassounian, publisher of the Glendale-based
California Courier and president of the United Armenian Fund.

Taking the bill to the floor poses a potentially perilous political
risk, he said.

`Neither the speaker nor the Armenian community can take a chance of
possibly failing, which will then be magnified a million times by
Turkish deniers,’ Sassounian said.

If the resolution were to fail in the House, opponents, including
Turkey, would spin the decision as affirmation by Congress that the
mass killings of Armenians in the early 20th century was not
genocide, he said.

Calls and an e-mail to the Turkish Embassy press office with request
for comment were not returned.

Though a postponement of a vote has no doubt deflated supporters’
hopes, backers of the resolution appear to side with the decision.

`It is a setback but we don’t consider it a defeat,’ said Elen
Asatryan, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of
America, Glendale chapter. `It’s going to go when it can be won.’

007/10/27/politics/gnp-genocide27.txt

EU CALLS FOR CEASEFIRE AND POLITICAL STEPS

BÝA, Turkey
Oct 26 2007

Condemning the PKK attacks, the EU has also called on Turkey to
refrain from cross-border operations. Turkey and Iraq are called upon
to seek lasting solution. Býa news centre 26-10-2007 Tolga KORKUT
The European Parliament (EP) has called on the PKK to announce an
immediate and unconditional ceasefire. It has also asked Turkey to
refrain from disproportionate military operations which would violate
Iraq’s territories. The assembly of the EP on Wednesday (24 October)
was joined by representatives of the European Council and the European
Commission. The EP debated the yearly progress report of Turkey. The EU
Commission will announce the full report within two weeks. Condemnation
of PKK violence, call for ceasefire The EP has strongly condemned the
PKK violence and has called on it to announce a ceasefire. It has also
called on the new government to work on initiatives which would lead
to a lasting solution to the Kurdish question. The parliament drew
attention to the fact that the southeast of Turkey is in need of an
extensive strategy in order to develop socially and economically. Call
on Turkey and Iraq to seek political solution The EP also emphasised
the importance of "fighting against terrorism in proportion with the
threat and faithful to legal organs and standards". It expressed its
worry about possible cross-border military operations into Northern
Iraq. The EP has called on Turkey and Iraq to cooperate in security
matters in order to prevent the terrorist activities coming from
Northern Iraq. Ollie Rehn, the Commissioner for Enlargement of the
EU, said that the Commission condemned the attacks of the PKK, which
was on the EU list of terrorist organisations, but called on Turkey
and Iraq’s regional authorities to seek a political solution of the
Kurdish question.

Action against extremism, reform of 301 Discussing other issues in
Turkey, the EP has strongly condemned the murders of journalist and
human rights activist Hrant Dink and the priest Andrea Santoro. It
emphasised the need for "immediate and effective action against all
kinds of extremism and violence". Pointing to the trials of many
people under Article 301 of the new Turkish Penal Code, the EP has
stated that press freedom and freedom of expression had to be one of
the government’s priorities. Rehn also said that a reform of Article
301 was indespensible in order for Turkey to become reconciled with
its past. More civilian auditing of army, secret services and police
Expressing its worry at the army’s continuing interference in politics,
the EP emphasised that full and effective civilian auditing of the army
needed to be aimed at. Furthermore, it called on parliamentary auditing
of Turkey’s secret services, the gendarmerie and police. Relations with
Cyprus and Armenia The parliament has called on the Turkish government
to fulfill the responsibilities put down in the Ankara Protocol. It
was particularly concerned about Cyprus and Armenia. The EP stated
that if Turkish forces were withdrawn from Cyprus, that negotiations
for a solution would be made easier. Rehn said that the Commission
would support such a process.

In addition, the EP has asked for a special EU Commission report on
the application and effectiveness of financial support means for the
Turkish society in Cyprus. The EP has also called on the Turkish and
Armenian governments "to initiate a process of compromise/solution,
both concerning today and the past". Praise and hope for positive
developments The EP has interpreted the election of the new president
as a sign of the strength of democracy in Turkey and has expressed
its pleasure at the new government’s dedication to developing the
reform process and initiating a new and civil constitution which would
protect basic rights and freedoms. Rehn has also called on the EU
to remain faithful to the enlargement perspective concerning Turkey
which was envisaged before negotiations were started.

–Boundary_(ID_y63MXC+/ekUA4hr9SfcO4A)–

CONGRESS POSTPONE ‘GENOCIDE’ MOVE

PRESS TV
Oct 26 2007
Iran

Branding the Ottoman Empire’s alleged killing of Armenians as genocide
has been called off tentatively by its advocates at the Capitol. The
four congressmen, Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman, Anna Eshoo and Frank
Pallone who were the undeterred supporters of the scandalous measure
have buckled under unabated pressure from the White House and postponed
the action for the time being. Deeming that the pursuit of the issue
called for a "more favorable timing", the four House members wrote
to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking her not to put the censure
of Turkey’s alleged World War 1 killing up for debate. The move
represents a climb-down for Democrats and comes in the wake of their
bitter foreign policy rows with the White House over Turkey’s backing
for US’s Iraq operations which Dems regarded as at stake. President
George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, wary of the
damage, the vote could cause the US-Turkey relations, recurrently
demanded that it be called off. The matter has aroused Turkey’s ire
and furious response and given rise to speculations that the country
could refuse US access to Turkey-based supply lines.