Author: Chatinian Lara

A Survey of the Paintings, Drawings and Prints of Garo Antreasian, Sept. 6
-October 30
Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA

Friday, October 27 Conversation with the Artist

The large works on exhibit include The Red Brigade (Plate 4 of
4). Acrylic on wood, 66 x 24″. Courtesy of the Artist and Gerald
Peters Gallery (Santa Fe) Its severity balanced by the use of
intensely rich color. The Memorial Series (Plates I – IV), 2004, is a
dramatic and somber reference to commemorate all martyrs and has been
created using charcoal on paper.

The name of Garo Antreasian has been synonymous with creative
lithography in the United States for the past fifty years. In 1994,
Antreasian was awarded Printmaker Emeritus by the Southern Graphics
Council and he also holds the Honorary Master Printer Certificate
awarded in 1969 by Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles, where
he worked as Technical director. He was a Professor and Chairman of
the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico
from 1964 through 1987 as well as the Technical Director of the
Tamarind Institute of the University of New Mexico. Other honors,
among many, include fellowships for travel and study, and Visiting
Lecturer Fulbright Award from San Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
His work is a part of important collections including the Library of
Congress, Smithsonian Institute, and the New York Public Library.
“Conversation with the Artist” –5 pm, Friday, October 27.

ECHMIADZIN DEPRIVED OF ELECTRICITY
A1+
| 14:48:42 | 12-10-2005 | Politics |
October 16 in Echmiadzin the elections of mayor will be held. The
pre-election heated campaign promises to have a noisy outcome on
the election day. The main candidates are the ex-mayor of Echmiadzin
Yervand Aghvanyan, deputy Defense Minister General Manvel Grigoryan,
and Gagik Avagyan who is supported by the NA deputy Hakob Hakobyan.
Besides electoral bribery, promises and terror, actions against
campaign are also practiced in Echmiadzin. For example, when TV
channels broadcast programs about the opponents of Gagik Avagyan the
whole Echmiadzin is deprived of electricity as the above mentioned
candidate is in friendly terms with the officials of the Echmiadzin
electricity network.
The same took place yesterday when Yervand Aghvanyan was guest of
a program on Shant TV. A woman called and informed that Echmiadzin
is deprived of electricity, and the three candidates for the post of
the mayor have decided to exclude their candidacy in order to support
Yervand Aghvanyan.
The Echmiadzin Local Electoral Committee neither affirmed nor rejected
the information. They only informed that the Committee has not received
a written announcement.

ARMENIEN HOFFT AUF TURKISCHE ZUGESTANDNISSE IN EU-VERHANDLUNGEN
Associated Press Worldstream – German
Mittwoch, 5. Oktober 2005
Eriwan
Armenien erhofft sich im Laufe der EU-Beitrittsverhandlungen mit der
Turkei historische Zugestandnisse Ankaras. Außenamtssprecher Gamlet
Gasparjan sagte am Mittwoch in Eriwan, vor einer Aufnahme in die EU
sollte die Turkei die Verfolgung der armenischen Minderheit Anfang
des 20.
Jahrhunderts als Volkermord anerkennen. Eriwan hoffe daruber hinaus,
dass die Turkei als EU-Mitglied ihre Grenze zu Armenien offnet
“und echte Schritte zur vollen Garantie der Rechte und Freiheiten
nationaler Minderheiten einleitet”.
Der Osten der heutigen Turkei war das Kernland der armenischen Kultur
bis zum Zusammenbruch des Ottomanischen Reichs gegen Ende des Ersten
Weltkriegs. Nach armenischer Darstellung wurden bei Vertreibungen und
Verfolgung bis zu 1,5 Millionen Menschen getotet; Eriwan spricht von
einem Volkermord. Wegen des armenisch-aserbaidschanischen Krieges
schloss die Turkei 1993 ihre Grenze zu Armenien. Fur Armenien,
das keinen Zugang zum Schwarzen Meer hat, bedeutet das erhebliche
wirtschaftliche Nachteile.
–Boundary_(ID_C4UAGUpDpN7r7/faR6DOGA)–

TURKEY NOT FIT FOR MEMBERSHIP
By Matthew Nickson
Daily Texan, TX
Oct 10 2005
Last Monday at a ministerial conference in Luxembourg, the foreign
ministers of the European Union agreed to begin membership talks with
Turkey. The decision to open “adhesion negotiations” – taken after
overcoming an Austrian counter-proposal for a “privileged partnership”
– is a blow to the democratic goals of a unified Europe.
Since joining the European Economic Community as an associate member
in 1963, Turkey has consistently professed its reformist credentials,
eager to counter the world community’s outdated image of a thinly
veiled military dictatorship. But time and again – despite progress
in certain areas outlined in the 1993 Copenhagen Criteria for EU
expansion – the Turkish government has shown it is either unwilling
or unable to fully democratize and modernize. In its own country,
Turkey continues to systematically restrict freedom of expression and
oppress its minority Kurdish population. Abroad, Turkey maintains an
ever belligerent posture toward its neighbors, particularly Armenia
and Cyprus.
The latest example of Turkish repression came last Friday, when
a Turkish administrative court convicted an Armenian journalist,
Hrant Dink, of insulting the “Turkish identity” by writing about
the Armenian genocide. During World War I, the Ottoman Army and
its guerilla auxiliaries massacred more than one million Armenians
who refused to convert from Christianity to Islam. To this day, the
Turkish government illegalizes practically any admission of Turkish
guilt and threatens or imprisons individuals who speak out.
Nationalist officials trivialize the massacres as tragic but
inevitable consequences of war, or dismiss the Armenians as pro-Russian
traitors. Although Armenia is a small, underdeveloped country, Turkey
continues to blockade it by land, cutting off road and rail traffic.
Ironically – and in a sign of the Turkish court system’s perversity
– Dink was tried and convicted for writing that Armenians should
rid themselves of anti-Turkish anger. The court implied from his
admonition that Dink – who received a suspended six month sentence –
was somehow deriding the Turkish blood.
The fact is, unlike many former European colonizers, Turkey has
made few if any efforts to atone for its imperialist past. The Turks
have been unable, notwithstanding decades of co-membership in NATO,
to arrive at a truly permanent peace with Greece. As late as 1996,
the two countries nearly fought a war over the Imia islands in the
Aegean Sea. Furthermore, the Turkish government adamantly refuses to
recognize the independence of the Greek portion of Cyprus and the
sovereignty of the government in Nicosia. Although Turkey signed
a July 29 protocol extending its customs union with the European
Union to the 10 members admitted in 2004 – among them the Republic
of Cyprus – Turkey obstinately refuses to open its ports and airports
to Cypriot commerce.
Turkey also has a bad track record with its Middle Eastern neighbors.
The country has consistently been accused by Syria and Iraq of
siphoning an inordinate amount of water from the Euphrates River,
which Turkey has diverted for a massive – and environmentally risky
– development project involving the construction of 22 dams and 19
power plants.
The Southeast Anatolia Development Project has been touted as an
economic boon for Turkey’s minority Kurdish population. Yet Turkey
has engaged in a long-standing policy of political and cultural
warfare against the Kurds who live in southeastern Turkey, near the
Iraqi border by imprisoning Kurdish political figures and limiting
classroom instruction in Kurdish. As recently as the early 1990s,
Turkey conducted a Central American-style scorched earth campaign
against Kurdish villages suspected of harboring separatist guerillas,
killing as many as 30,000 people.
All the foregoing is not to deny that Turkey has enacted reforms
in its quest for EU membership. The country has abolished the death
penalty and retreated from its once total censure of Kurdish culture.
In the economic realm, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
repealed subsidies favoring the textile industry. If admitted to the
EU, Turkey holds out the promise of revitalizing laggard European
economies with its growing consumer market, cheap labor (an augury
of massive emigration) and increased trade.
But Turkey’s reforms are too little, and Turkish society has evolved
insufficiently since 1963. Treacherous fault lines still haunt the
political landscape, with Islamic fundamentalists on one extreme and
a military clique on the other, ever ready to intervene to defend
the ideological vision of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
The bottom line is that Turkey absolutely does not deserve an EU seat
alongside progressive, democratic nations like France, Great Britain,
Germany and Spain.
Nickson is a third year law student and executive editor of The Texas
International Law Journal.

ARMINFO News Agency
October 8, 2005
AUGMENTATION OF AZERBAIJAN’S MILITARY BUDGET REAL THREAT TO PEACE AND
STABILITY IN SOUTH CAUCASUS
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 8. ARMINFO. The augmentation of Azerbaijan’s
military budget is a great threat to peace and stability in the South
Caucasus, Vice Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Vahan Hovhannissyan
said during the NATO Rose Roth semiar in Yerevan today.
This is especially dangerous as after the USSR collapse Azerbaijan
got twice as much military hardware as Armenia – 312 T72 tanks
against 241, 545 infantry fighting vehicles against 298.
Concerning the Karabakh conflict Hovhannissyan says that Karabakh has
never been part of independent Azerbaijan. There had even been no
Azerbaijan as such before the proclamation of the Soviet Azerbaijan.
The territory of present day Azerbaijan had another name while the
Azeris were known worldwide as Caucasian Tartars. Karabakh was given
to the Soviet Azerbaijan in 1921 and proclaimed self-determination
after the USSR collapse like all the other Soviet republics and
according to the international law.

Hindu, India
Oct 9 2005
European Union will “watch” the trial of Turkish writer
Pamuk facing charges for writing about the deaths of Kurds and
Armenians
ISTANBUL: The European Union enlargement chief met on Saturday
Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk at his home in Istanbul, where the two
discussed freedom of expression ahead of Mr. Pamuk’s December trial
for allegedly insulting the Turkish identity.
A Turkish prosecutor used a clause in the penal code to open a case
against Mr. Pamuk, one of Turkey’s most successful writers, for
remarks he made about the deaths of Kurds and Armenians in Turkey.
The clause has also been used in recent days to convict an
Armenian-Turkish journalist, raising concerns about Turkey’s
tolerance of free expression.
The E.U. has said it will be watching closely when Mr. Pamuk goes
before a judge on December 16.
Controversial code
European Union Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, on the third day
of a visit to Turkey following the opening of the country’s E.U.
membership talks on Tuesday, met Mr. Pamuk for around an hour and a
half, NTV television reported.
Mr. Pamuk said he and Mr. Rehn did not discuss the case directly, but
talked about “human rights in Turkey in general,” the Anatolia news
agency reported.
The 301st paragraph of the new penal code says “a person who insults
Turkishness, the Republic or the Turkish Parliament will be punished
with imprisonment ranging from six months to three years.”
Some prosecutors have liberally interpreted the code and used it to
try those who question Turkey’s treatment of minorities, particularly
Armenians and Kurds.
On Friday, Turkey convicted Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink
under the same clause for an article he wrote earlier this year in
which he mentioned poison and Turkish blood in the same sentence.
The court said the article was “intended to be insulting and
offensive,” while Mr. Dink said his words were taken out of context.
Mr. Dink, who has lived in Turkey all his life, received a six-month
suspended sentence.
He said the conviction was an attempt to silence him and held back
tears as he said on Turkish television that he would leave Turkey if
he could not get his conviction overturned.
Genocide charge
A case was opened against Mr. Pamuk after he told a Swiss newspaper
in February, “30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in
these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it.” He was
referring to those killed during Turkey’s two-decade conflict with
Kurdish rebels and to Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks around the
time of World War I.
Armenians and several countries recognise those killings as the first
genocide of the 20th century, which Turkey denies.
“My trial isn’t something that worries me, but Turkey’s democracy,
human rights and freedom of expression are important details for all
of us,” Anatolia quoted Mr. Pamuk as saying. –

ic Wales, United Kingdom
Oct 8 2005
EU talks Turkey

Staff Reporter, Western Mail

At the end of a week that saw the EU agree to formally begin
membership talks with Turkey, Wales MEP Eluned Morgan gives her
verdict on the ‘Turkey Question.’
THE European Union’s success has always lain in its unique ability to
draw countries towards peace, democracy and co-operation through the
magnetic pull of prosperity and stability. This week we witnessed a
climax of this process as EU countries gave the go-ahead to embark on
a new and uncharted phase of development.
On Monday, 18 years after it first applied to join the European Union
and after days of fierce wrangling, Turkey was finally allowed to
open formal negotiations on becoming a member. The move has divided
public opinion, both here and in Turkey. Indeed not since the
break-up of the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago have Europeans agonised
so much over the “Turkish question”.
At the European Parliament last year I voted in favour of starting
these formal negotiations. For someone who as a young member of
Amnesty International wrote countless letters to Turkish leaders
appealing for them to improve their human rights record, it was a
difficult decision. But I believe it was the right one.
For the EU to have slammed its door on Turkey, and thus symbolically
the Islamic world, at this terrorist-infested moment in history would
have been tragic. Turkey’s membership talks should be seen more as an
opportunity for reform and progress than a threat. Moreover, Monday
night’s decision marked the beginning, not the end, of what will be a
long, difficult process of negotiation for Turkey. Success is by no
means guaranteed.
Turkey still has to travel a long and bumpy path of economic, social
and environmental reform. It is a poor country. Its average income
per head of population is a mere $US2,790 compared to $5,270 in
Poland and $28,530 in the UK. Infant mortality rates are telling: 41
deaths per 1,000 births, a rate twice as bad as either Bulgaria or
Romania, and far higher than recent EU entrants such as Poland and
Slovenia.
The country’s recent social reforms also leave much to be desired.
Little progress has been made on women’s rights and not enough is
being done to tackle “honour killings”. Earlier this month acclaimed
Turkish novelist, Orhan Pamuk, was charged with the “public
denigrating of Turkish identity” and faces prison merely because he
claimed certain topics were off-limits in Turkey. There also remains
a long way to go on relations with Cyprus, Armenia and Turkey’s 12
million Kurds.
The EU has opened the door for Turkey, but it is just an opening. If
they fail to make up sufficient ground on the economy, social and
environmental reform, the door will remain closed.
But despite the difficulties and the challenges that lie ahead, there
remains good reason to work towards Turkey’s entry into the EU.
Of course, there are those who argue that Turkey is not “European
enough”, meaning that it is “too Muslim”. But the doomsday-style
prophesies of a “clash of civilisations” are misplaced. Though
Turkey’s people are mainly very religious, it is a fiercely secular
democracy that has historically enjoyed a close relationship with the
West.
Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations, a member of Nato,
the Council of Europe, the OECD, and an associate member of the
Western European Union. Modern Turkey is also a fundamental part of
our lives as modern Europeans. Thousands of Brits holiday there every
year, belly-dancing is the fitness fad of the moment, and we enjoy
kebabs.
We cannot ignore the benefits a closer alliance would provide. Turkey
lies near the unruly Caucasus republics, the hotspots of Central Asia
and, of course, the Middle East. It is a leading regional power that
exerts a stabilising influence on those countries, and it is in
Europe’s long-term interest that Turkey should be firmly anchored
into the EU.
Acting as a bridge between Europe and the Middle East, Turkey’s
inclusion in the European Union would be a real boost to our security
and will help close down a busy and prosperous black market route
from Asia. Currently 65% of UK asylum applicants and 80% of the UK
heroin supply comes through Turkey. Common EU standards on law
enforcement will turn this situation around.
It is in our own strategic interest to give Turkey a fair chance to
demonstrate whether it is capable of meeting the EU membership
conditions.
And make no mistake, if Turkey meets all these conditions it will be
quite a different Turkey from the Turkey of today.
It will be a Turkey where the EU’s policies and standards are
implemented and where the principles of democracy and human rights
are a daily reality. A Turkey where the rule of law is firmly rooted
in its society and state. A Turkey where European values successfully
coexist among a predominantly Muslim population.
Such a Turkey would prove an invaluable crossroads between East and
West, Islam and Christianity.

Hindu, India
Oct 8 2005
Shekhawat conferred with honorary degree
Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI: Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was on Friday
conferred with a honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine by the Yerewan
State Medical University at Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
Mr. Shekhawat is the first Indian to receive this Armenian honour.
The degree along with a gold medallion was presented to Mr. Shekhawat
at a special convocation that coincided with the diamond jubilee of
the university, according to reports received here.
Speaking on the occasion, the Vice-President said that improving the
quality of education and providing effective healthcare were the two
primary means to achieve the objectives of human development and
happiness.
He said the challenge to build an affordable public health system was
very formidable and demanded an innovative approach.
Earlier, Mr. Shekhawat held talks with the Prime Minister of Armenia,
Andranik Margarian. He also visited the Holy Echmiadzin Church.

NO ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DETERMINATION IN NK PROBLEM: UK SPECIAL REP. FOR SOUTH CAUCASUS
ARMINFO News Agency
October 6, 2005
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 6. ARMINFO. After settlement of the Karabakh conflict,
Armenia will no longer need Russia’s military presence. UK Special
Representative for the South Caucasus Bryan Fall said at NATO “Rose
Roth” seminar in Yerevan, Thursday.
He said other states and organizations are also interested in
dislocation of their subdivisions in the region, this issue needs
consideration. The diplomat thinks inadmissible further freeze of the
Karabakh conflict. Armenia and Azerbaijan have different approaches.
The first one insists on the principle of the people’s right to
self-determination, the second one – on the principle of territorial
integrity. However, Helsinki Declaration says both the principles
are equally strong and there are no arguments against the principle
of self- determination in the Karabakh problem, he said.

STEPANAKERT SEES THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP REPORT AS ‘BIASED AND PRO-AZERBAIJANI’
Azg, Armenia
Oct 5 2005
The Foreign Ministry of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR] last week
commented on the International Crisis Group’s [ICG] report “Nagornyy
Karabakh: Viewing the Conflict from the Ground”, which was published
on 14 September.
The ministry’s comments show that Stepanakert is not satisfied with
the ICG report. The political experts and the NKR president’s adviser,
David Babayan, has told Azg daily that “the report was prepared in
the best interests of Azerbaijan and one gets the impression that
the document was prepared by an Azerbaijani ministry” and “instead
of bringing forward the settlement of the conflict, the report has
a negative impact on the settlement process”.
Babayan, who sees eye-to-eye with the Karabakh Foreign Ministry,
thinks that the report gives the impression that Nagornyy Karabakh is
a militarized state which is totally dependent on Armenia and that
the Karabakh conflict is a territorial dispute between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, which results from Armenia’s aggression. “It is a serious
shortcoming that the report ignores the fact that 90% of Armenians
were displaced as a result of ethnic cleansing, pogroms and police
actions organized by the Azerbaijani authorities in 1988-1991, whereas
85% of Azerbaijanis were forced to leave their homes only during the
hostilities that began in 1993. Moreover, no force was used to expel
them, they left together with the retreating Azerbaijani forces on
orders from the Azerbaijani authorities,” the NKR Foreign Ministry
says in the statement.
The report seems to be even more pro-Azerbaijani when it comes to
refugees and internally displaced persons. “The number of Armenian
refugees who the authors claim belong to the category that suffered
most of all is reduced by 35,000 (these are refugees from [Karabakh’s]
Shaumyan, Martuni and Mardakert districts). The number of Armenian
refugees is compared with 425,000 Azerbaijani refugees.
Favouritism towards Azerbaijani refugees is obvious in figures, too:
the Azerbaijani refugees are mentioned 186 times whereas Armenian
refugees only 40 times. The Armenian refugees are often mentioned in
a negative context as illegal inhabitants of the Karabakh-controlled
territories.”
“The first sentence of the report’s first chapter says that ‘Nagornyy
Karabakh is perhaps the most militarized society of the world’.
Saying that the Nagornyy Karabakh armed forces have 18,500 soldiers,
the authors fail to mention that the Karabakh defence army is forced
to contain 40,000 Azerbaijani soldiers on the opposite side of the
border,” the Foreign Ministry says in the statement.
Yet Stepanakert sees positive aspects in the report, too. It points out
that Nagornyy Karabakh has a point in claiming independence, that the
Karabakh-controlled territories are not occupied by Armenia and that
Azerbaijan’s allegations that there are 1.5m refugees and that 20%
of Azerbaijani territory is under Karabakh’s occupation are not true.
Touching on the negative aspects of the report, Stepanakert points out
that the interests of Armenian refugees and displaced persons have been
neglected, which is discrimination on the part of the non-government
organization, that the report says there is a danger that hostilities
in the conflict zone will resume, that the ICG does not recognize
the borders of the NKR and takes the Soviet administrative border
as a basis and that the authors tend to hold Armenia and Azerbaijan
equally responsible for the conflict (this approach was used by the
Soviet authorities in 1988-1991, which allowed Azerbaijan to invade
the NKR). The ICG will also publish its second report called “Voices
from the Negotiating Table”.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress