Author: Emil Lazarian

CHIRAC APOLOGIZED TO TURKISH PRIME MINISTER
PanARMENIAN.Net
16.10.2006 13:13 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ French President Jacques Chirac in a telephone
conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
he felt sorry that the bill penalizing the Armenian Genocide denial
was approved and added he would try his best to prevent it from
becoming law.
According to the French leader, the adoption in 2001 of the law
recognizing the events of 1915-1917 as the Armenian Genocide was
sufficient for establishing the historical truth.
“The discussion on criminalization of the Armenian Genocide denial
is rather rhetorical than juridical,” Jacques Chirac said.
At that he asserted that the Armenian Genocide recognition should be
one of the conditions for EU accession.
Meanwhile European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso voiced
anxiety over the slow process of reform in Turkey. He told BBC that
Turkey will hardly become an EU member during earlier than in 15-20
years.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE OF ARMENIA AND TURKEY POSSIBLE
PanARMENIAN.Net
16.10.2006 13:35 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian and Turkey co-exist in peace, Armenian
Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said in an interview with the
Armenian Public TV. “Turkey is a big country and our neighbor. We
should resign ourselves to the thought that we live next to a nation,
whose ancestors perpetrated the Genocide,” Oskanian said. In his words,
the Armenian Genocide problem should be considered not at historical
but at political level. “Taking into account the current political
situation within Turkey the proposal of Prime Minister Erdogan on
formation of a historical commission is insincere and not serious,”
the RA FM said. In his words, this proposal was made for a mere PR
purpose to show Europe that Turkey is ready to discuss the issue. “If
a commission of historians is formed nothing will change. It will
consist of Turks denying the Genocide and of Armenians pressing
for its recognition,” Oskanian underscored. “This issue cannot be
considered at historical level with Turks, who themselves politicized
the problem,” the Minister said. According to him, the response of the
Armenian President on formation of an intergovernmental commission
is more logical and corresponds to the political reality, reports
newsarmenia.ru.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY MAY BE WAITING AT EUROPE’S DOOR FOR 20 MORE YEARS
>From David Charter, in Brussels
The Times/UK
October 16, 2006
THE timetable for Turkey to join the EU appeared to slip yesterday
when José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission,
gave his most pessimistic view of the country’s progress towards
membership since formal talks began a year ago.
Senhor Barroso said that it could be up to 20 years before Turkey
joined. He was highlighting a slowdown in reforms as he prepared the
ground for a critical assessment report.
Turkey’s case has suffered blows in recent weeks, including last week’s
vote by French deputies to criminalise denial of the First World War
Armenian genocide, an event never recognised as such by Ankara.
While Senhor 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. He told the BBC:
“We are concerned about Turkey because the pace of reforms is rather
slow from our point of view. 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 Olli Rehn, the
EU Enlargement Commissioner, who is due to give an update on Turkish
efforts to prepare for the 35 EU entry criteria on November 8.
When formal talks began with Ankara last year, Mr Rehn spoke of
“about ten to fifteen years timeframe” before conditions would be
right. Senhor 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, to
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 before a Turkish
general election next year Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister,
is said to have refused to give any further concessions while Turkish
northern Cyprus remains unrecognised by the international community.
Mr Rehn spoke in the summer 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.
Speaking before Senhor Barroso’s remarks, Mr Erdogan said yesterday
that Jacques Chirac, the French President, had expressed his regret
to him over the Bill. “Because of certain narrow-minded deputies,
the France we know as a country of liberties is forced to live with
this shame,” Mr Erdogan said. The Bill, opposed by M Chirac’s party,
was approved at first reading by the National Assembly but without
government backing is unlikely to become law.
Turkish business and consumer groups have threatened to boycott
French products.
Miguel Ã~Angel Moratinos, the Spanish Foreign Minister, met his
Turkish counterpart yesterday for talks backed by the EU on resolving
the Cyprus issue.
Senhor Barroso is expected to tell Tony Blair at a meeting today that
the Commission recommends that EU states do not restrict immigration
from new members during a seven-year transition period, even though
they have the right.
Britain has said that there will be some restrictions after the
arrival of large numbers of Polish workers after Poland’s entry in
2004. Senhor Barroso said: “If you look at the past, there was a fear
that Spanish workers would be flooding all over Europe. You know
what happened? Exactly the opposite. I can tell that Poland can be
a new Spain in some years. The growth of these countries is really
impressive,” he said.
–Boundary_(ID_5nkC21aVWMtw4JdpQoZdTw)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

New York Times
Oct 14 2006
EU backs Turkey over French law
By Sebnem Arsu The New York Times
Published: October 13, 2006

ISTANBUL Senior European Union officials sided with Turkey on Friday
in a growing controversy over legislation in France that would make
it a crime to deny that the killings of Armenians in Turkey during
and after World War I constituted genocide.

A statement by José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European
Commission, coincided with satisfaction in Turkey that Orhan Pamuk,
who has been involved in controversy over the Armenia issue, had been
named the first Turkish novelist to win the Nobel Prize in
Literature.

“We don’t think that this decision at this moment is helpful in the
context of the European Union’s relations with Turkey,” The
Associated Press quoted Barroso as saying in Helsinki. “This is not
the best way to contribute to something we think is important.”

The French National Assembly approved the bill Thursday and it now
moves to the Senate for action. Turkey has denounced the legislation.

The EU commissioner for enlargement, Olli Rehn, also quoted by The
AP, said the bill, “instead of opening up the debate, would rather
close it down, and thus have a negative impact.”

“We don’t achieve real dialogue and real reconciliation by
ultimatums, but by dialogue,” Rehn continued. “Therefore, this law is
counterproductive.”

Many Turkish newspapers, meanwhile, showered Pamuk with praise, but
some also noted the irony that a writer who had faced charges of
“insulting Turkishness” for saying that “one million Armenians were
killed in Turkey” during World War I, was awarded the prize on the
day of the vote in France.

“Pamuk who is given the Nobel Prize, accepts the Armenian genocide,”
said Ozdemir Ince, a critic of the novelist. “Turkey has been put on
sale and Turkish history has been sold in an auction at the lowest
price.”

Bulent Arinc, the speaker of Parliament, praised Pamuk but called on
him to help clarify the debate surrounding his prize. “Since he is a
writer, what are his thoughts on the law in France that massacres
freedom of expression?” Arinc asked. “Not only the Turkish society
but the whole world is curious about it.”

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Pamuk in New York on
Friday to congratulate him. The writer is teaching at Columbia
University for a semester.

Turkey has denied charges that it committed genocide against the
Armenians and asserts that Armenians and Turks alike were killed in
civil unrest during World War I. The issue often results in charges
against intellectuals and writers in court: The genocide claim is
regarded as an insult to Turkish identity and is considered a crime.

Many writers voiced support for Pamuk. “We welcomed his prize with
great joy,” Vecdi Sayar, the head of PEN in Turkey, said in Milliyet
newspaper. “Various interpretations are being and will be made but I
think this prize will make serious contributions to Turkish
literature.”

Yasar Kemal, another of Turkey’s best-known novelists, who has
himself faced prosecution, congratulated Pamuk. “I trust that you
will continue writing new novels with the same passion. I have no
doubt that you will also stand by what you believe in with full
determination,” he said in a message printed in the Turkish press.

Pamuk, in a news conference in New York on Thursday declined to
respond to accusations that his selection was a political decision.

In a statement to the newspaper Radikal, he said: “I consider this
prize as one given to Turkish culture, literature and writers as a
whole. I would like my country to be proud and help me carry it.”

ISTANBUL Senior European Union officials sided with Turkey on Friday
in a growing controversy over legislation in France that would make
it a crime to deny that the killings of Armenians in Turkey during
and after World War I constituted genocide.

A statement by José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European
Commission, coincided with satisfaction in Turkey that Orhan Pamuk,
who has been involved in controversy over the Armenia issue, had been
named the first Turkish novelist to win the Nobel Prize in
Literature.

“We don’t think that this decision at this moment is helpful in the
context of the European Union’s relations with Turkey,” The
Associated Press quoted Barroso as saying in Helsinki. “This is not
the best way to contribute to something we think is important.”

The French National Assembly approved the bill Thursday and it now
moves to the Senate for action. Turkey has denounced the legislation.

The EU commissioner for enlargement, Olli Rehn, also quoted by The
AP, said the bill, “instead of opening up the debate, would rather
close it down, and thus have a negative impact.”

“We don’t achieve real dialogue and real reconciliation by
ultimatums, but by dialogue,” Rehn continued. “Therefore, this law is
counterproductive.”

Many Turkish newspapers, meanwhile, showered Pamuk with praise, but
some also noted the irony that a writer who had faced charges of
“insulting Turkishness” for saying that “one million Armenians were
killed in Turkey” during World War I, was awarded the prize on the
day of the vote in France.

“Pamuk who is given the Nobel Prize, accepts the Armenian genocide,”
said Ozdemir Ince, a critic of the novelist. “Turkey has been put on
sale and Turkish history has been sold in an auction at the lowest
price.”

Bulent Arinc, the speaker of Parliament, praised Pamuk but called on
him to help clarify the debate surrounding his prize. “Since he is a
writer, what are his thoughts on the law in France that massacres
freedom of expression?” Arinc asked. “Not only the Turkish society
but the whole world is curious about it.”

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Pamuk in New York on
Friday to congratulate him. The writer is teaching at Columbia
University for a semester.

Turkey has denied charges that it committed genocide against the
Armenians and asserts that Armenians and Turks alike were killed in
civil unrest during World War I. The issue often results in charges
against intellectuals and writers in court: The genocide claim is
regarded as an insult to Turkish identity and is considered a crime.

Many writers voiced support for Pamuk. “We welcomed his prize with
great joy,” Vecdi Sayar, the head of PEN in Turkey, said in Milliyet
newspaper. “Various interpretations are being and will be made but I
think this prize will make serious contributions to Turkish
literature.”

Yasar Kemal, another of Turkey’s best-known novelists, who has
himself faced prosecution, congratulated Pamuk. “I trust that you
will continue writing new novels with the same passion. I have no
doubt that you will also stand by what you believe in with full
determination,” he said in a message printed in the Turkish press.

Pamuk, in a news conference in New York on Thursday declined to
respond to accusations that his selection was a political decision.

In a statement to the newspaper Radikal, he said: “I consider this
prize as one given to Turkish culture, literature and writers as a
whole. I would like my country to be proud and help me carry it.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Duke University, NC
Oct 14 2006
French Bill Harms Understanding of Armenian Massacre, Says Duke
Scholar Arrested for His Research on Killings
Note to Editors: Yektan Turkyilmaz can be reached for additional
comment at [email protected].
Durham, NC — A bill passed Thursday by the French National Assembly
that labels the World War I massacre of Armenians as `genocide’ hurts
the cause of those trying to educate Turkish citizens about the
tragedy, says a Duke University graduate student.
The Strange Case of Yektan Turkyilmaz: An International Incident
International
The student, Yektan Turkyilmaz, was detained in an Armenian KGB
detention center for several weeks without charges being filed in
2005 while studying the conflict’s history. Turkyilmaz was released
after several American leaders, including former U.S. Senate Majority
Leader Bob Dole and Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Duke President Richard
Brodhead, urged Armenian officials to intervene in the matter.
`I would like to see the entire world community, including Turkey,
recognize what happened to the people in Armenia,’ said Turkyilmaz, a
graduate student in cultural anthropology at Duke. `But decisions
like this [by the French parliament] only fuel reactionaries in
Turkey, who use this as an example of Western animosity. It doesn’t
encourage discussion at all.’
Turkyilmaz, a Turkish citizen of Kurdish decent, said some Turkish
scholars are already seeking to shed light on the Ottoman killing of
Armenians, as evidenced by a conference last September on the topic.
`”People do this despite this infamous code in Turkey that penalizes
`insulting Turkishness,” he said. `We can call what happened to the
Armenians `genocide,’ `tragedy’ or `massacre;’ the point is we need
to learn what happened and educate people about it.’
The French bill `jeopardizes the position of progressive people in
Turkey,’ he said.
`I would totally understand it if it were a principled decision about
genocide everywhere, but this is more about disturbing Turkey than
learning about the Armenian tragedy,’ he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Cyprus Mail
Oct 14 2006
Historical truths belong to no political policy
THE LOWER House of the French Parliament on Thursday adopted a bill
criminalising denial of the Armenian genocide in a move that has, not
surprisingly, infuriated Turkey.
One can be cynical about France’s motives: look at the influential
Armenian lobby and the looming elections, suggest that perhaps the
bill has as much to do with unease at possible Turkish membership of
the EU as it does with historical memory. One can also point (as
Turkey has done) to France’s (and others’) failure to come to terms
with an often shameful colonial past.
The move will certainly not have eased the growing tensions between
Europe and Turkey, as Ankara nears its progress report next month,
facing a possible `train crash’ over its refusal to meet commitments
over Cyprus. Many will rightly point out that confronting Turkey at
such a stage is more likely to create a nationalist backlash than
facilitate a political maturity that would allow acknowledgement of
past crimes.
But the fact remains that Turkey’s blinkered refusal to confront its
brutal past is illustration of how distant it is from the values on
which the EU has been built. It was only a few months ago that Nobel
prize winner Orhan Pamuk was put on trial for `insulting Turkishness’
in comments he made about the Armenian question.
Of course, not all of Europe is perfect in this regard. Far right
groups routinely revise history across Western Europe, while
questions of collaboration with Nazi Germany or with Communist
authorities in the former Eastern bloc remain extremely sensitive in
many countries.
But society is watchful to guard historical truth against political
revisionism. In much of Europe, holocaust denial is a crime, with
France now adding Armenian genocide denial to the same category. In
Turkey, genocide denial is state law, with those who speak out about
it facing jail. If Turkey ever hopes to join the EU, that has got to
change.
Rats, we’re all settlers
RAUF DENKTASH once famously said that the only true Cypriot was the
donkey, the others were Greeks and Turks.
The time has come to revise that view. After all, the donkey was
brought to the island from somewhere, by someone, a Mycenaean,
perhaps, or a Phoenician – the zoologists will know.
No, the real Cypriot it turns out is a mouse, Mus cypriacus, which,
we learned this week, established itself in the Cypriot environment
several thousand years before the arrival of man and has survived as
a unique species to this day.
So the indigenous population is not Greek or Turk… but rodent. The
rest of us are settlers, human visitors who have been colonising the
island in waves, from Neolithic times until today.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Globe and Mail (Canada)
October 13, 2006 Friday
Genocide denial – and its enemies
MICHAEL MARRUS
Should it be a crime to deny the genocide of as many as a million
Armenians at the hands of the Turkish authorities in 1915, during the
dying days of the Ottoman Empire? This is what the overwhelming
majority of the French National Assembly, the lower house of the
French parliament, declared on Thursday, as it voted 106 to 19 in
favour of a Socialist-backed law that would punish what the French
call la négation du genocide arménien with a year in prison and a
hefty fine of $65,000.
The French law, which still needs the ratification of the Senate and
approval of the president of the Republic, might never see the light
of day – but only if cooler heads prevail than those that supported
the bill in parliament yesterday. According to its proponents, some
of whom published a manifesto in Wednesday’s Le Monde, the Armenian
genocide law was all about the campaign against genocide wherever it
exists. Genocide denial, wrote a group of anti-genocide lawyers, was
part of genocide itself, and as such called for both a political and
a juridical response. “Free expression,” their argument goes, “does
not include the right to manipulate history nor to deny historical
evidence.” Those who do, the legislators insisted, should be
punished. Proponents referred to weighty precedents: a 1990 law
against Holocaust denial, among other things, and an official
recognition of the Armenian genocide in 2001. “It is a question of
courage and a need for justice,” claimed the signatories.
The context of this law, however, is somewhat wider than that. Not
entirely absent from the minds of the legislators was the electoral
impact of the French Armenian community of close to 500,000 – one of
the largest in Europe. These certainly seemed to have counted for
more than Armenians in Turkey, for whom this lawmaking was pronounced
an “imbecility,” or for that matter of the French-Armenian deputy
Patrick Devedjian who tried in vain to present an amendment exempting
academic research from the harsh penalties of the law. Ever-present,
as well, were the concerns of those who have been doing their best to
torpedo not only improving Franco-Turkish relations, but also to
undermine the entry of Turkey into the European Union, a proposition
fervently championed by the French government and which may well not
survive the high-profile controversy the debate has provoked.
At least as important, however, are deep divisions among the French
about the role of government and the law in determining how history
should be understood and written. Less than a year ago, French
society was deeply split over another law that involved history. This
time it was the right, not the left, that was concerned with imposing
its notion of correct history, leading to the passage of a law that
required French high-schools to teach the “positive values” of French
colonialism and to “acknowledge and recognize in particular the
positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North
Africa.” Charging that legislators had no business defining
historical truth, the historical profession mobilized against this
law, which was eventually scuppered by French President Jacques
Chirac. But not before much political bloodletting, not to mention
severe diplomatic bruising from France’s former colonial subjects and
those who had fought against the French Empire.
There is a final element of context that lurks just beneath the
surface of these debates. Like all Europeans, the French feel
increasingly threatened by the blandishments of political Islamicists
who have challenged liberal notions of free expression, on issues
extending from the Danish cartoons to Pope Benedict XVI’s quotation
of a Byzantine Emperor’s disparaging remarks about the Prophet
Mohammed.
That is why editorial opinion in Paris yesterday, expressed by
newspaper editors who have, after all, much to lose from restrictions
on what people can or cannot say, seemed to be powerfully opposing
the moves of the parliamentarians. Free expression, we are seeing
once again, is indivisible: What is right for speech we might think
worth hearing, must also apply for speech that is detestable – as
many would think is the denial of the Armenian genocide.
“Committed to the defence of human rights,” wrote the editorialist in
Le Figaro, “attentive to dialogue among peoples, France stands tall
when it is the messenger of peace and the values of civilization, but
it makes itself look ridiculous when it becomes a public prosecutor,
in the name of a supposed universal memory.”
Michael R. Marrus is Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of
Holocaust Studies at the University of Toronto and the author of The
Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-46: A Documentary History.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Ottawa Citizen
October 13, 2006 Friday
EARLY Edition
National: Armenian minister heading to Ottawa
Armenia’s foreign minister, Vartan Oskanian, will pay a politically
charged visit to Ottawa next Wednesday, six months after the Harper
government formally recognized the Armenian genocide and angered its
NATO ally Turkey in the process. In April, Prime Minister Stephen
Harper acknowledged the Armenian genocide of 1915 in which 1.5
million people were killed. The statement angered Turkey, resulting
in the country’s ambassador to Canada being called back for
consultations, and the Turkish air force pulling out of a training
exercise in Alberta.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Ottawa Citizen
October 13, 2006 Friday
EARLY Edition
France passes law on Armenian genocide
by David Rennie, The Daily Telegraph
LONDON – The French parliament yesterday triggered a fresh crisis in
Turkey’s relations with Europe by approving a bill that would make it
an offence punishable by jail to deny that Armenians suffered a
genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks.
The Turkish foreign ministry said the vote had dealt “a heavy blow”
to bilateral relations.
Ali Babacan, Turkey’s economics minister, said it was too soon to
know whether the Turkish public would heed calls from nationalist
groups to boycott French goods.
“As the government, we are not encouraging that, but this is the
people’s decision,” he said. “I cannot say (the vote) will not have
any consequences.”
The Turkish parliament scrapped plans for a tit-for-tat law that
would have made it illegal to deny that French colonialists committed
genocide against the Algerians in their war for independence. Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told MPs, “you don’t clean up dirt with
more dirt.”
He repeated calls to Armenia to jointly research the killings by
opening the archives of both countries to historians.
The European Commission, which will next month unveil a key report on
Turkey’s progress toward meeting EU admission standards, said the
vote threatened to silence the first signs of debate inside Turkey on
the issue of Armenia.
Krisztina Nagy, the commission’s enlargement spokesman, said, “it is
important to see that there is an opening in Turkey to conduct debate
on that issue.” The bill, if it became law, “could have a negative
effect on debate”.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Germany
October 12, 2006 Thursday
Turkey outraged by French support for Armenian genocide bill
DPA POLITICS France Diplomacy Turkey EXTRA: Turkey outraged by French
support for Armenian genocide bill Ankara
Turkey has expressed outrage Thursday at a vote in
the French National Assembly in favour of a bill that would make it a
crime to deny that Turkey committed genocide against the Armenian
people more than 90 years ago.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry in Ankara characterized the
assembly’s move as an “irresponsible action” that rested on the “weak
assertions by a few French politicians,” which would deal “a massive
blow” to Franco-Turkish relations.

The ministry added that Turkey would “deeply regret” approving the
bill.

Turkish Parliamentary President Bulent Arinc said the proposed law
was “humiliating” and a “inimical stance” towards the Turkish people,
adding that it would be “a blow against freedom of opinion and
thought” and “unacceptable” to Turkey.

Turkey, which vehemently maintains that the mass deaths of
Armenians during the First World War should not be considered
genocide, has threatened France with economic sanctions should the
Western European country pass the legislation.