Author: Ekmekjian Janet

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GENOCIDE ISSUES TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN ON
APRIL 20-21
YEREVAN, APRIL 15, NOYAN TAPAN. An international conference,
“Ultimate Crime, Ultimate Challenge. Human Rights and Genocide”, will
be held in Yerevan on April 20-21. According to the press service of
the State Commission for the Commemoration of the 90th Anniversary of
the Armenian Genocide, the RA President Robert Kocharian and
Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II will make opening addresses.
Former President of the Republic of Poland, Nobel Peace Laureate Lech
Walesa will deliver a special address, while RA Prime Minister
Andranik Margarian and President of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic
Arkady Ghukasian – opening remarks. Speeches will be made by
well-known scientists, experts, officilas and statesmen from 20
countries. The conference will be attended by a number of specialists
from Turkey and Israel, including Executive Director of Institute on
the Holocaust and Genocide Israel W. Charny (Jerusalem), a former
Israeli minister, member of the Knesset Yossi Sarid, Professor of
Minnesota-Twin City University Taner Akcam, Professor of Ankara’s
Bilgi University Murat Belge and others. UN high-ranking officials, as
well as the Diasporan Armenian scientists will make reports. The title
of the conference “Ultimate Crime. Ultimate Challenge” explains its
purpose – to attempt to understand once more the nature of such an
ultimate crime as genocide, expore its origins, work out formulas for
its prevention and counteraction, while the ultimate challange is the
search of ways to overcome the past. The conference will be broadcast
live by the program New Alik of Public Television and can be watched
by satellite in Europe, America, Russia and the Middle East.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AUSTRALIAN TOWN OF RYDE COMMEMORATES 90th ANNIVERSARY
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
YEREVAN, APRIL 14. ARMINFO. For the first time, an Australian Council
yesterday officially recognised the Armenian Genocide of 1915, and
called on the Commonwealth Government to do the same, Independent
Ryde City Councillor, Sarkis Yedelian announced today. In 1915, the
first genocide of the twentieth century took place, which led to the
annihilation of 1.5 million men, women and children. “As the first
Australian Councillor of Armenian ancestry, and a son of survivor of
the Armenian Genocide, I feel honoured to have moved this motion,”
Clr Yedelian said. “The motion ensures that crimes committed in the
past are never forgotten, and that we do all we can to prevent
similar crimes against humanity. According to the 2001 Census, 94,478
people live in Ryde City Council located in Sydney’s north-west, and
has the largest concentration of Armenian community anywhere in
Sydney.
The motion was passed in the presence of the Armenian Australian
community, including His Eminence Archbishop Aghan Baliozian, Primate
of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Associated Press Worldstream
April 14, 2005 Thursday 8:36 PM Eastern Time
Turkish taboos falling as Turkey grapples with the World War I
massacre of Armenians
by LOUIS MEIXLER; Associated Press Writer
ANKARA, Turkey
When one of Turkey’s most respected authors shattered a deep taboo by
saying earlier this year that 1 million Armenians were murdered in
Turkey during World War I, the reaction was overwhelming.
Three lawsuits were filed against Orhan Pamuk, accusing him of acting
against the state. “He shouldn’t be allowed to breathe,” said one
nationalist group. In Istanbul, a school began collecting Pamuk’s
books from students to return to him. The vote was 4-1 on a news Web
site that Pamuk’s statement was “treacherous” rather than “freedom of
expression.”
Turkey’s mass expulsion of Armenians during World War I – which
Armenians say was part of a genocide that claimed 1.5 million lives –
is one of the most sensitive subjects in Turkey, a dark chapter of
history barely taught in school and rarely discussed.
But slowly the veil of silence is being lifted, in part because of
European Union pressure on Turkey to come to grips with its past.
Turkey, which vehemently denies the killings were genocide, is also
eager to counter Armenian diaspora groups that are pushing European
governments and the United States to declare the killings genocide.
Increasing democratization in Turkey is also encouraging more people
to both speak out and listen.
“We are mutually deaf to each other,” said Yasar Yakis, head of
parliament’s European Union Affairs Committee who has invited two
ethnic Armenians in Istanbul to address his committee.
“Perhaps if we can create a climate in which we listen to what the
other side has to say, we might meet in the middle,” Yakis said.
Intellectuals like Pamuk have played a key role in raising the issue,
and Turkish and Armenian groups have held meetings in recent years
aimed at breaking the ice between the two sides.
“The subject is more and more no longer a taboo in this country,”
said Hrant Dink, editor in chief of Agos, a weekly Armenian newspaper
in Istanbul. “The box has been opened. It cannot be closed anymore.”
Recently, both Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign
Minister Abdulla Gul have addressed the issue, apparently in hopes of
heading off the Armenian push for international recognition. Erdogan
said that all countries should open their archives to scholars to
examine whether the event was genocide, and Gul called the claim of
genocide “pure slander.”
Over the years, Turkey has repeatedly denied the genocide claim,
saying that the Armenian death toll of 1.5 million is wildly inflated
and that both Armenians and Turks were killed in fighting during the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
But mostly there has been silence on the Turkish side.
“I grew up knowing nothing, absolutely nothing about the Armenians’
situation,” said Vamik Volkan, a member of the Turkish-Armenian
Reconciliation Committee. “It was not in the history books.”
The reconciliation committee, partly funded by the United States,
brought together leading Turks and Armenians starting in 2001 and has
fostered wider cultural exchanges.
Volkan, who was raised in the Turkish part of Cyprus, said he first
learned of the massacres in the 1950s after moving to the United
States and meeting an Armenian-American at a dinner. “He turned red
and had a seizure when I told him I was a Turk,” Volkan recalls.
He said the subject needs to be dealt with gently because “the
stubbornness on both sides is so great.”
For Turkey, the issue is not only confronting the killings of
Armenians, but looking back at the loss of the Muslim Ottoman empire.
As the empire faltered, minority Armenian Christians began asserting
their identity. During World War I, amid fears of Armenian
cooperation with the enemy army of Christian Czarist Russia,
Armenians were forced out of towns and villages throughout eastern
Anatolia, historians say. Many were killed, others died of disease
and starvation.
“The Armenians were relocated because they cooperated with the enemy,
the Russians, and they … killed Ottoman soldiers from behind the
lines,” Yakis said.
Volkan, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of
Virginia, said that after the brutal war the new Turkish republic
“wanted to look forward and not backward.”
“This silence is not in relation to Armenians alone,” Volkan added.
“Turkish silence was that we lost an empire. Turks never mourned over
losing prestige and empire because the Turkish loss was incredible.
Millions died.”
Turkey also fears Armenians will use the genocide claim to press for
compensation – either money or lost land.
Still, editor Dink sees Turks moving toward confronting their past
“at a very slow pace and with great difficulty.”
“A real democracy does not have the luxury of hiding taboos under the
carpet,” he said, “and in this process of speaking a solution will be
found.”

AzerNews, Azerbaijan
April 14 2005
Vice-speaker opposes discussions on Garabagh conflict in parliament

The Milli Majlis (parliament) vice-speaker Ziyafat Asgarov has
opposed the discussions of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Upper
Garabagh in the parliament, saying that they would be useful only
after specific results are achieved in the ‘Prague talks’.
The vice-speaker said that similar discussions of the Garabagh
problem recently held in the Armenian parliament turned out fruitless
and no specific decision was made afterwards.
“Such discussions are due to the situation Armenians are facing, and
they are simply trying to drag time.”
The Azerbaijani parliament, in its recent session, decided to put the
Garabagh conflict on agenda by May.

Journal of Turkish Weekly
April 14 2005
Let it be known that the Blue Book is baseless
Hurriyet
14 April 2005
To the sound of applause from an assembly of MPs in the Turkish
Parliament, PM Tayyip Erdogan and leader of the opposition CHP party
Deniz Baykal together signed a letter to be sent from Turkey to the
House of Lords and the House of Commons in England protesting the
truth of the contents of the Blue Book.
The 6 page letter, which proclaims that the “Blue Book” is a baseless
and non-historical depiction of events from the past, begins by
saying it would like to draw attention to the Ottoman-Armenian
tragedy of 1915. It goes on to say that “the book’s account of the
uprising of the Ottoman Armenians, and the response taken by the
Ottoman Empire are unsupported and not to be trusted.”
The letter says also “We need now more than ever to create an
international atmosphere in which a world reigned by tolerance,
friendship, and good will rather than judgement, hatred, and revenge
can be inherited by our children and the coming generations.”

Pan Armenian News
AUSTRALIAN RYDE CITY OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND CALLED ON
COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT TO DO THE SAME
14.04.2005 03:39
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ For the first time, an Australian Council yesterday
officially recognized the Armenian Genocide of 1915, and called on the
Commonwealth Government to do the same, Independent Ryde City Councilor,
Sarkis Yedelian announced today. “As the first Australian Councilor of
Armenian ancestry, and a son of survivor of the Armenian Genocide, I feel
honored to have moved this motion,’ Yedelian said. Yesterday evening Ryde
City Council unanimously passed the following motion: That this Council:
acknowledges this year as marking the occasion of the 90th anniversary
commemoration of the Genocide of the Armenians perpetrated by the then
Ottoman Government between the years 1915-1922, recognizes 24 April every
year as a day of remembrance of the Armenian genocide; condemns the
genocide of the Armenians and all other acts of genocide; calls on the
Commonwealth Government to officially condemn the Genocide of the Armenians
and any attempt to deny such crimes against humanity.

Pan Armenian News
GENOCIDE – A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE HELD
IN MOSCOW
14.04.2005 02:40
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today, on April 13 Genocide – a Crime against Humanity
International Scientific Conference, dedicated to the 90-th anniversary of
the Armenian tragedy, was held at the Institute of Scientific Information on
Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISISS of RAS), Regnum
news agency reported. The conference was organized by the National Academy
of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, ISISS of RAS, the Russian-Armenian
Commonwealth and the Union of the Armenians of Russia. Corresponding Member
of the RAS, professor, director of ISISS of RAS Yuri Pivovarov, director of
the Armenian Institute of International Law and Political Science, professor
Yuri Barseghov, deputy of the Russian State Duma, president of the
Urban-Ecological Association, member of the Serbian Scientific Society Vasil
Mancic, Academician of the International Academy of Sciences of Pedagogical
Education, co-chair of the Federation of Jewish communities of Russia Roman
Spektor, President of the World Peace-Making Organization Vadim Izhevsky, as
well as representatives of the leading scientific and research centers,
non-governmental and political organizations, legislative and executive
bodies, the media, foreign embassies. All those addressing the conference
noted the fact that being organized by Turks in 1915 the Genocide of the
Armenian people resulted in 1.5 million Armenian victims and is not
acknowledged by the Turkish Government yet. The Kurdish representatives all
those, who suffered from genocide by Turkey, `to unite to resist to the
enemies.’ In the opinion of FJCR chairman Roman Spektor, Turkey is also
responsible for `the genocide of Slavonic peoples in the Balkans in
1994-1995, of Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh, Baku and Sumgait in 1988-90 and
the constant genocide of Kurds in their territory.’ In Spektor’s opinion the
actions of Turkey regarding Kurds are qualified as genocide according to the
UN Charter definition. `Any states implicated in genocide practice should be
withdrawn from the UN and be totally boycotted,’ he stated in his speech.
Professor E. Margarian in his turn noted that `resulting from the
Soviet-Turkish agreements in 1920 and the Lausanne Peace Treaty genuinely
Armenian territories, never possessed by Turkey before, were included in the
Ottoman Empire.’ In the conclusion the conference its participants signed a
statement on the Commemoration Day of the victims of the Armenian Genocide
in 1915-23 that will be marked on April 24. The statement says that due to
political reasons and resulting from double standards policy, the fact of
the Genocide of the Armenian people has not been legally recognized by the
international community and the Government of Turkey. In the opinion of the
authors of the statement, as a result the fact that this was not punished
entailed the Jewish Holocaust during World War II and other genocides.
Establishment of good neighborly relations and peaceful coexistence
impossible unless Turkey recognizes the fact of the Armenian Genocide and
takes measures to eliminate its consequences.

A1plus
| 12:30:06 | 13-04-2005 | Official |
NEW RESIGNING AND APPOINTMENT
By the decision of the RA Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan, Aram Kocharyan
has been resigned from the post of the RA Lori region deputy governor. By
another decision he has been appointed deputy head of the RA State Social
Security Fund.
Samvel Gyulbekyan has been appointed deputy governor of the region of Lori.

MEETING AT NKR MFA
Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
13 April 05
On April 11 the NKR vice minister of foreign affairs Masis Mayilian
met with the director of the Karabakh office of the International
Committee of the Red Cross Morris Grundbaher who replaced Mireille
Benar in this position. During the talk Masis Mayilian appreciated the
high level cooperation between the ICRC office and the NKR
authorities. The participants of the meeting agreed that the
cooperation lasting for 13 years now will continue and develop. They
also discussed humanitarian problems mainly referring to the
possibilities of releasing the prisoners of war on both sides.
AA.
13-04-2005

A1plus
| 13:14:06 | 12-04-2005 | Social |
CINEMA TO SOLVE PROBLEMS OF INVALIDS
Some organizations have chosen a specific way to discuss the problems of
invalids. These days Armenian and foreign films dedicated to the problems of
disablement will be shown.
To note, similar programs are implemented in Georgia, Abkhazia, Azerbaijan,
Uzbekistan and Russia. Besides the demonstration of films, seminars with the
participation of children and adults will be held while the media will work
for developing public awareness and destroying the prejudice of the society
towards disabled people