Author: Chalian Meline

HUNDREDS RALLY IN ISTANBUL AGAINST FRANCE’S ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL

Agence France Presse — English
October 14, 2006 Saturday 3:51 PM GMT

Several hundred people rallied outside France’s consulate in Istanbul
on Saturday to protest at the French parliament’s support for a bill
that would make it a crime to deny that Turks committed genocide
against Armenians in the early 20th century.

Riot police stood by in the city centre district of Beyoglu for
demonstrations organised separately by left-wing and right-wing
nationalist parties.

Brandishing Turkish flags, the left-wing nationalists called on Turks
to boycott French products. The right-wingers also accused the Turkish
government of not responding forcibly enough.

The French parliament on Thursday approved on first reading a bill that
would make it a jailable offence to deny that the 1915-17 massacres
of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks constituted genocide.

The bill still needs the approval of the Senate, or upper house of
parliament, and the president to take effect.

Turkey, which strongly rejects the use of the term genocide in the
sensitive Armenian issue, strngly criticised the vote, saying France
had dealt "a heavy blow" to longstanding bilateral relations.

The government has threatened retaliatory measures if the bill
becomes law.

PUBLIC ADVOCATES UNION TO HOLD SEMINAR IN YEREVAN

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Oct 16 2006

YEREVAN, October 16. /ARKA/. Public Advocates Union is to hold a
seminar on Tuesday in Yerevan.

The union’s press office says the seminar aims to present programs
being implemented in provinces, to estimate the current situation
and to outline ways for problems solution.

Representatives of Armenian Public Utilities regulation Commission,
companies providing public utilities, NGOs and international
organizations are invited for the event.

BLEAK REVIEW SENDS ANKARA SLIDING DOWN EU ORDER
David Charter, Brussels

The Australian, Australia
Oct 17 2006

THE timetable for Turkey to join the European Union appeared to slip
yesterday when European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso gave
his most pessimistic view of the country’s progress towards membership
since formal talks began one yearago.

Mr Barroso, highlighting a slowdown in vital reforms as he prepared
the ground for a critical assessment report, said it could be up to
20 years before Turkey joined.

Ankara’s case has suffered blows in recent weeks, including last
week’s vote by French deputies to criminalise denial of the World
War I Armenian genocide, an event never recognised as such by Turkey.

While Mr Barroso has made clear that this is not a criterion for EU
membership, he gave a clear signal that Turkey was failing to meet
formal demands that include guarantees for freedom of speech and
greater civilian control over the military.

"We are concerned about Turkey because the pace of reforms is rather
slow, from our point of view," he said.

"I believe it would be great to have Turkey, if Turkey respects all
the economic and political criteria.

"This is not yet the case. It is a country that comes from a different
tradition. There are efforts in the right direction, but nowadays there
is news that is not encouraging in terms of them coming closer to us."

This was a warning to expect a bleak assessment by EU Enlargement
Commissioner Olli Rehn, who is due to give an update on Turkish
efforts to prepare for the35 EU entry criteria on November 8.

When formal talks began with Ankara last year, Mr Rehn spoke of a
time frame of "about 10 to 15 years" before conditions would be right.

Mr Barroso has been reluctant to put his own target on the process
but yesterday showed how much Turkey’s case had slipped in 12 months,
saying: "We cannot expect Turkey to become a member in less than 15
to 20 years."

His assessment will provoke fresh concern in Ankara, which is coming
under intense pressure to step up reform and, in particular, resolve
its blockade of vessels from Cyprus.

A failure to do so before the end of the year could lead to a
suspension of the formal EU accession talks.

But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to have refused to give
any further concessions before a Turkish general election next year.

Mr Rehn has spoken of the need to avoid a "train crash" in Turkish
accession negotiations. Austria and France want to hold national
referendums on further enlargement, adding to the hurdles that Turkey
must overcome.

VARDUHI WAS UNABLE TO KEEP HER PROMISE: SHE LEFT HER SON ALONE

A1+
[01:41 pm] 16 October, 2006

The friends and fans of singer Varduhi Vardanyan have been coming to
State Theater of Song with flowers and candles since yesterday in
order to pray for her soul. As a result of a car crash the beloved
singer died yesterday on her way to Yerevan from Martouni where she
was participating in a concert.

Yesterday at about 02:30 p.m. on the 17th kilometer of
Sevan-Martuni-Getap highway Varduhi Vardanyan who was driving her
"BMW 520" lost control of the car which got out of the road and turned
over. The singer died on the spot.

The fans and relatives of the singer have been gathered near the State
Theater of Song since early morning. They still cannot believe that
they will never see their dear Varduhi again.

40-year-old Mrs. Anna came here with flowers.

According to her, although she did not know the singer personally,
she loved her voice and her songs very much and highly appreciated
her. Mrs. Anna was especially sad about Varduhi’s little son. She
recalled her song "My baby" where Varduhi sang that she would never
leave her son alone and they would always be together.

By the way, the other two passengers in the car, Arman Khachatryan
(b. 1977) and Yeghish Herdzyan (b. 1974) were taken to hospital with
corporal injuries.

La Stampa website, Turin,
8 Oct 06

ARMENIAN QUESTION ADDS TENSION TO POPE’S TURKEY VISIT – ITALIAN DAILY

"Genocide of Armenians is Turkish trap for Pope"
by Giacomo Galeazzi

Vatican City: [Pope] Benedict XVI has "reopened" the Armenian
question, in defence of the freedom of religious minorities. Vatican
diplomats are reassuring the Turkish authorities, and are frantically
working to avert the risks of a new diplomatic incident with a
country which has a Muslim majority. "The trip to Turkey is a great
opportunity to cool down tensions by means of talks," officials in
the Vatican have said, damping down tensions, while signs of concern
are coming in from Turkey’s episcopate, in light of the serious
misunderstandings and the row which followed the Pope’s references to
Islam in Bavaria.

On the afternoon of 30 November, in Istanbul, the Pope is to meet
with the Armenian apostolic patriarch, Mesrop II. "It is an important
step towards the unity of Christians, and it must in no way be
interpreted as a hostile action with regard to the government in
Ankara," explained the archbishop at the papal court, Francesco
Gioia, who is in the front line in inter-religious dialogue. However,
the wounds caused by the ethnic and religious genocide of the
Armenian people, for which Turkey has never wanted to acknowledge
responsibility, are still open. The Secretary of State’s office is
trying to avert and attenuate the possible negative repercussions.
Sources at the third loggia of the Apostolic Palace [as received]
have highlighted the fact that the European Parliament has just
decided to eliminate acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide from the
list of preconditions for Ankara’s membership of the European Union
(unlike the terms of the first version of the text), whilst still
underlining the fact that it is "indispensable" for Turkey to deal
with the question. "The invitation to the Pontiff is a brave decision
by the Turkish Government, and the constructive intention in it
should be appreciated – Gioia specified – As well as the Armenian
apostolic patriarch, Benedict XVI will also meet in Turkey with the
spiritual leaders of the other minorities: the Syrian Orthodox
archbishop, the representatives of the evangelical churches, and the
Greek Orthodox patriarch."

A decision which is "a determined one, which will lift the veil on a
very severe situation," to the extent of making Joseph Ratzinger
[Pope Benedict XVI] the spokesman of the claims of all Christians, as
the theologist Don Gianni Baget Bozzo underlined. "Although he will
not make an explicit mention of the extermination of a million and a
half Armenians, which was carried out in 1915 by the Young Turks –
argues Baget Bozzo – by meeting in Istanbul with Patriarch Mesrop II,
the Holy Father is turning the spotlight on the lack of respect for
religious freedom, and on the denial of the rights of worshippers."
All the more so given that Benedict XVI has always spoken very clear
words of condemnation of genocide. "Embracing the patriarch will be a
testimony of truth with regard to the sacrifice and the suffering of
the Armenian community – said Luigi Amicone, a member of CL
[right-wing religious movement Communion and Liberation], who is the
editor-in-chief of the theo-con weekly Tempi.

As already happened in the case of the speech in Regensburg on
Mohammed, the Pontiff is showing that he is not scared of
exploitation for political purposes, which will also be targeted at
this historic gesture on his part." Card Pio Laghi observed that the
Pope’s thoughts will be directed at the suffering which the Armenian
people has endured in the name of the Christian faith, "in the years
of the terrible persecution which remains in history under the sadly
meaningful name of ‘Metz Yeghern,’ the great evil."

So it will be a meeting which, at the same time, is "a sign of
gratitude and a concrete intervention" for the Armenians and the
other Christians who, in the land of Islam, "continue to bear
witness, still today, to their faithfulness to the Gospel." Genocide,
sources at the papal court remarked, represents one of the darkest
and most forgotten chapters of the last century. Joseph Ratzinger
intends to re-read it not so as to condemn Turkey, but in order to
pay tribute to those who, under the Ottoman Empire, sacrificed their
lives to their faith in Christ, and so as to lay claim to the rights
which are denied to today’s believers. He is inspired by the memory
of the denunciation by [Pope] Leo XIII of the general silence over
the Armenian tragedy, and Benedict XV’s cry of pain over the "very
wretched people of Armenia." This closeness, and this solidarity will
be the guidelines at the meeting in Istanbul. "But his gesture also
has an ‘internal’ significance, inasmuch as it serves to call for
greater efforts to reconstitute unity between Christians," Laghi made
clear.

Day.az, Azerbaijan
13 Oct 06

POLICE DISPERSE ANTI-FRENCH PROTEST IN AZERI CAPITAL

13 October: The United People’s Front of Azerbaijan Party attempted
to stage a picket outside the French embassy at 1300 [0900 gmt] today
[protesting against Armenian genocide bill].

Officers of the police department No 39 dispersed about 15 active
party members. Two party members Samil Mahmudov and Bazer Isayev were
detained during the incident.

Despite police pressure, the protesters could read out a resolution
which called on the Azerbaijani population to boycott French goods,
urged the Milli Maclis [parliament] to recognize the genocide of
300,000 Algerians committed by France in 1954-61 and reject Paris’s
mediation in the resolution of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict as part
of the OSCE Minsk Group. The resolution also urged the government to
cease all economic ties with France.

Spiegel Online, Germany
Oct 13 2006

French Law Outrages Turks
By Jürgen Gottschlich in Istanbul

French lawmakers have voted to make it a crime to deny that the mass
killings of Armenians that occurred in Turkey during World War I
amounted to genocide. The decision has caused outrage among both
politicians and critical intellectuals in Turkey. Now France faces
economic retaliation from Ankara.

"There is a century-long friendship between Turkey and France. Now,
with this decision, France is destroying the basis of that
friendship," says Onur Oymen, a Turkish parliamentarian and member of
the opposition Social Democrats. Oymen, who was visibly shaken as he
spoke, is one of three Turkish members of parliament who travelled to
Paris in response to French lawmakers debating a bill on the mass
killings of Armenians that occurred in Turkey during World War I.

Turkey didn’t give up hope until the very last moment that lawmakers
in the lower house of the French parliament would vote against the
bill, which criminalizes statements denying that Turkish mass
killings of Armenians during World War I constitute genocide. The
bill passed by 106 votes to 19, despite the fact that the government
of French President Jacques Chirac opposed it. Many lawmakers simply
chose not to attend the session during which the vote took place.

Now, intense outrage is expected to erupt on Turkish streets.
Followers of the far-right National Movement Party (MHP) have already
staged demonstrations during the past days, and popular outrage at
France is expected to peak during the days to come. Most Turks view
the bill as just the latest humiliation from France — a symbolic
rejection of Turkey’s bid for membership in the European Union.

A broad majority of people in the West believe the mass killings of
Armenians that occurred in Turkey during the decline of the Ottoman
Empire fit the definition of genocide. But criminalizing the opposing
viewpoint is unlikely to change the minds of Turks who feel their
country is being unjustly accused.

Forum

Is Europe treating Turkey unfairly?
Discuss the issue with other SPIEGEL ONLINE readers!

58 Posts,
Latest Post: 07/14
By Conrad J. Boogeyman Prior to the French vote, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that "a lie is still a lie, even
if another parliament decides otherwise." Of course, he made that
statement with support from a majority of the Turkish population. At
the same time, Erdogan also sought to assuage tensions between France
and Turkey, explicitly rejecting a proposal from his governing
faction to respond to Paris by declaring French war crimes in Algeria
to be a case of genocide. But Turkey has officially said it will
respond to the French law by means of economic retaliation.

The Turkish government has announced it will call off a
French-Turkish business deal involving military technology, in
addition to excluding French companies from the bidding process for
construction of a planned nuclear reactor in Turkey. Political
parties, patriotic groups and other associations will also demand a
boycott of French products — a move that will likely have even more
serious effects on French-Turkish economic relations. If the boycott
gains traction, French companies stand to lose a great deal. For
example, car-maker Renault has a major plant near Istanbul. Turkey is
also an important market for the French supermarket chain Carrefour.
In the run-up to the vote, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
alluded to France’s economic dependence on Turkey. "If this bill is
passed, Turkey will not lose anything," he said, "but France will
lose Turkey."

Turkish intellectuals reject French decision

But it’s the democratic forces that have been fighting to defend
freedom of expression in Turkey for years who have been most damaged
by the bill. These groups have long tried to raise public awareness
of the mass killings of Armenians, and the fact that freedom of
expression will now be curbed in France creates a paradoxical
situation for these groups. "How are we supposed to argue against
laws that prohibit us from talking about genocide, when France is now
doing exactly the same, just the other way round?" asks Hrant Dink,
one of Istanbul’s most prominent Armenian intellectuals. "It’s
completely irrational."

Dink is editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, which
has tried in recent years to promote a public debate on Turkish
crimes against the Armenians. Along with other Turkish and
Turkish-Armenian intellectuals, Dink organized a conference on the
Armenian question in Istanbul last year. It was the first time that
the official version of Turkish history was publicly debated in
Turkey. "If this law goes into effect, I’ll be the first to travel to
Paris to violate it," says Dink.

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He is unlikely to be the only one. Take former Maoist Dogu Perincek,
now the leader of a nationalist sect, who may prove unable to resist
the opportunity to stir up trouble in France. Last year in Berlin, he
organized a demonstration to mobilize Germans against the "genocide
lie." He has also already been arrested in Switzerland, where a law
similar to that voted through in France has already been in effect
for some time. The arrest was a propaganda coup for Perincek, and
Swiss Justice Minister Christoph Blocher confessed during a visit to
Turkey two weeks ago that the law has been a major headache for the
country.

Additionally, the Armenian minority population in Turkey is expecting
trouble. The Armenian patriarch in Istanbul, Mesrop Mutafyan, says
the French law will have a detrimental effect on attempts to
establish a dialogue and a sense of mutual understanding between
Armenians and Turks. In recent years, Armenians have been viewed more
positively than they used to be, and the same has been true for
Turkey’s other Christian minority, the Greeks — especially in
Istanbul. But the French vote could now prove to be a setback for
these minority groups.

Relations between Turkey and the neighboring state of Armenia may
also be negatively affected. The informal talks initiated between the
two countries last year will probably be discontinued. The talks
represent an attempt to explore the possibilities for normalizing
Turkish-Armenian relations, if only at a purely bureaucratic level.
Turkish nationalists are already demanding that the roughly 70,000
Armenians who work illegally in Turkey — and who have until now been
quietly tolerated by the government in Ankara — be expelled.

,1518,44242 2,00.html

Sabah, Turkey
Oct 13 2006

J’accuse! (I blame)

Putting itself in a judge’s position, the French Parliament has
signed an unjust decision which has offended Turkish nation. The same
France, 112 years ago, issued another injustice by imprisoning its
own army officer, thinking he was a spy.

Years ago, when Officer Dreyfus was blamed for being a spy, the
French government imprisoned him without having acquired sufficient
evidence. The famous author Emile Zola defended him in L’Aurore
Newspaper’s headline: "J’accuse! (I blame) she wrote to the French
government. That same government went on to convict Emile Zola as
well.

After many years passed, France accepted both Dreyfus’s and Zola’s
innocence and had to apologize to both. Yesterday’s decision has
reminded everyone of Zola’s "J’accuse!" headline. Ignoring Turkish
protests, the French parliament approved a bill and made it a crime
to deny that Armenians suffered from a genocide in 1915 at the hands
of the Ottoman Turks. The motion was carried by 106 votes to 19.

HAMKOR BANK REPRESENTATIVES TO ATTEND CONFERENCE IN YEREVAN

UzReport.com, Uzbekistan
Oct 10 2006

The Third Open International Banking Conference on "Money transfers.
Retail banking services" will take place on 11-14 October at Marriott
Armenia Hotel in Yerevan (Armenia). The representatives of the Uzbek
Hamkor Bank will attend.

Among the participating banks are the largest banks of Russia
and the CIS, foreign and Russian money transfer systems, large
financial technology producers, analytical and banking publications,
international financial and banking associations.

On the agenda are the issues concerning the expansion and development
of the range of retail banking services, the liberalization of
the legislation on currency, the methods of solving technological,
economic and other challenges facing the banking community.

Hamkor Bank provides a wide range of services including foreign
currency conversion, and money transfers by means of international
money transfer systems of Western Union, Anelik, Contact, Unistream,
and Bystraya Pochta.

ANOTHER OSKANIAN-MAMEDYAROV MEETING ON OCT 24

AZG Armenian Daily
10/10/2006

On October 7, Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers met in Moscow
under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group. According to Armenian
Foreign Ministry’s press release, the Armenian side assesses the
meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry as useful pointing out that
the issues raised by the co-chairs will be seriously discussed in
Yerevan before the upcoming meeting of the FMs.

Day.az agency of Azerbaijan reported that the upcoming meeting is
slated on October 24 in Paris.