Author: Garnik Tadevosian

Zaman, Turkey
March 7 2005
Turkish FM: Reforms Underway
By Suleyman Kurt
Published: Monday 07, 2005
zaman.com
The EU Commission’s Enlargement Commissioner, Olli Rehn, and the EU
Term President, Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselbor, met with
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul yesterday while in Ankara for a
European Union (EU)-Turkey meeting. Gul assured them that the reform
process will be sustained.
Rehn said it is normal for Turkey to take a “breather” after the
December 17th EU summit, but that it is necessary to continue reform
work. Rehn referred to remarks made by the EU Commission’s Ankara
Representative Hansjorg Kretschmer who said, “Turkey has slowed down
on the reform process.” Rehn said, “Reforms in Ankara may have slowed
down, but there seems to be no problem in Brussels.” Meanwhile, Gul
reiterated Turkey’s expectations of the EU and said, “If the EU
remains loyal to its assurances, we are ready to take the process
further.”
Gul first met with Rehn and briefed him about Turkey’s performance
since the December 17th summit. The Turkish Foreign Minister stressed
that Turkey has confirmed its guarantee to sign the adaptation
protocol, saying, “This protocol, when the time comes, will be
signed. In the EU process, there is no slowing down because of us. We
decisively claim the reform process and its implementations.” Gul
also conveyed Turkish demands for the Accession Partnership Document
and underlined the sensitivities. He asked the EU to prepare the
document with consideration of Turkish sensitivities. Gul urged EU
not to discriminate against Turkey and not to act differently than
they did during the Croatian process. Turkey does not want Alevi,
Kurdish, and Armenian issues to be included in the documents. Gul
also raised the discarding of regulations to lift sanctions in the
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and emphasized that the
Greek Cypriots have prevented a solution. He warned that they are
seeking shelter behind the EU. Rehn admitted there are “difficulties
with the Greek side.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenian charities win huge settlement
By PAUL CHAVEZ, Associated Press
Associated Press
March 1 2005
LOS ANGELES – Four Armenian charities each received $333,000 Monday
as part of a $20 million settlement between an insurance firm and
relatives of Armenians killed 90 years ago in the Ottoman Empire.
As part of the settlement, New York Life Insurance Co. also has
agreed to earmark $11 million for the heirs of policy holders. The
policy holders died in what Armenians call the first genocide of the
20th century.
Armenians contend that 1.5 million people were executed between 1915
and 1919 by Turkish authorities who believed they helped the invading
Russian army during World War I.
The genocide claim has been rejected by Turkey, which says the
Armenians were killed in civil unrest during the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire. France and Russia have declared the killings a
genocide, but the United States has not made that declaration.
“The genocide is an important issue in the Armenian community.
Everyone has some relative who perished in the genocide,” said
plaintiffs’ attorney Brian Kabateck, who said his maternal grandparents
were genocide survivors.
Kabateck also praised New York Life for acknowledging the genocide
and fulfilling its obligation to policy holders.
The settlement was approved last year by U.S. District Court Judge
Christina A. Snyder and is believed to be the first connected to the
Armenian deaths.
New York Life has admitted that about 2,400 policies were issued
to Armenians in Turkey before 1915 that were never paid. People
who believe they are descendants of policy holders have a March 16
deadline to file claims.
The settlement calls for the original policies to be multiplied by
15.5 for inflation and interest.
The four organizations who received payments Monday were the
Burbank-based Armenian Church of North America Western Diocese; the
Los Angeles-based Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church;
Armenian Educational Foundation, of Glendale, and the Armenian Relief
Society, nationally headquartered in Watertown, Mass.
The organizations were singled out because they helped Armenians
settle in the United States after the genocide, Kabateck said.
Five Armenian organizations on the East Coast last month also received
equal amounts.
Martin Marootian, the 89-year-old lead plaintiff in the case, said
he was pleased that Armenian charities received payments.
“It means all Armenians will benefit from the settlement of this case,”
he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Russia and Armenia discuss cooperation
RosBusinessConsulting Database
February 17, 2005 Thursday 11:24 am, EST
Armenian President Robert Kocharian met with Russian foreign minister
Sergey Lavrov, who is on a two-day official visit to Armenia.
Kocharian said he was satisfied with the level of Russian-Armenian
relations, the ARKA news agency has reported with reference to the
president’s press service. The sides also discussed issues concerning
the activities of the Russian-Armenian intergovernmental commission.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Journal of Turkish Weekly
2005-02-01 21:03:28
Azerbaijan Celebrates Diplomatic Victory, But What Next For Karabakh?
Fariz Ismailzade
For the last several days, Azerbaijani politicians and the general public
have been celebrating a diplomatic victory. After several hours of intense
and heated debate on January 25, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe adopted a resolution on the Karabakh conflict. The resolution,
initially prepared by the British parliamentarian Terry David and later
concluded by his colleague David Atkinson, was approved by a vote of 123 in
favor and seven against (Turan News Agency, January 26).
The resolution contains a description of the Karabakh conflict as well as
recommendations for the warring sides. While the authors of the document
urge Azerbaijani authorities to enter a dialogue with the Armenian community
of Karabakh, something that Yerevan has desired for a long time, two
specific phrases have generated severe criticism from the Armenian side. The
document states, “Considerable parts of Azerbaijan’s territory are still
occupied by the Armenian forces and separatist forces are still in control
of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.” It also pointed out that the military
activities between 1988 and 1994 led to large-scale ethnic expulsions and
the creation of mono-ethnic areas that “resemble the terrible concept of
ethnic cleansing.” The Armenian delegation immediately objected to the words
“occupied” and “separatist forces” and proposed an amendment urging the
European lawmakers to substitute the words “separatist forces” with
“supporters of democracy.” The motion failed.
Both Azerbaijani and Armenian politicians rushed to label the adoption of
the resolution as a diplomatic victory for Azerbaijan. Vahan Hovannisian,
deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament and a leading member of the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun, described the resolution
as the direct consequence of the failure of the Armenian side to prevent
Azerbaijan’s efforts to induce international organizations to exert pressure
on Armenia over the Karabakh conflict (RFE/RL Newsline, January 31). Regnum
Agency quoted another Armenian politician, Aram Sarkisian, head of the
Democratic Party of Armenia and member of the parliamentary “Justice”
faction, as saying, “It will be difficult to move away from this terminology
[‘separatist forces’]” (Regnum, January 29). Sarkisian added, “Major players
— the U.S., Europe, and Russia, recognize Nagorno-Karabakh only as part of
Azerbaijan.”
Gultakin Hajiyeva, a member of the Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation to
the Council of Europe, told an interviewer, “Both sides have seriously
prepared for the debates in advance” (Space TV, January 31). Hajiyeva also
stressed that major Armenian Diaspora organizations in Europe have lobbied
hard to persuade European lawmakers to veto the bill. Indeed, on December
23, 2004, the Brussels-based European Armenian Federation issued a press
release ringing the alarm bells over the draft resolution. The release
declared, “The Atkinson report is the report for Azerbaijan” and “called
upon the European citizens and organizations to intervene with their
representative in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.”
Atkinson himself refuted all accusation that the report is biased,
reportedly telling the BBC’s Russian service, “The Council of Europe, just
like other international organizations cannot admit the independence of
Nagorno-Karabakh. Therefore, the principle of the “rights of nations for
self-determination” cannot be applied in the case of Karabakh” (Turan,
January 27).
Speaking at the PACE session, Atkinson also drew attention to the plight of
internally displaced persons, who are still denied the right to return to
their homes. “I was the [PACE] assembly’s first rapporteur on the refugee
situation, when my report described the temporary shelters in both Armenia
and Azerbaijan, [including] dilapidated railway cars outside [the Armenian
capital of] Yerevan, and appalling tent cities outside [the Azerbaijani
capital of] Baku, housing hundreds of thousands of displaced families,”
Atkinson said. “Since then, a time-bomb generation of young refugees has
grown up, as in Palestine, with nothing much to lose” (RFE/RL, January 25).
The PACE resolution comes as part of a series of diplomatic offensives that
the Azerbaijani side has launched lately. Prior to this decision, the UN
Security Council agreed to start discussion of an Azerbaijan-sponsored bill
on the illegal settlement of the occupied territories by Armenian families.
The Security Council decided to postpone its debate after the OSCE agreed to
send a fact-finding mission to the conflict zone. Furthermore, local media
have reported Iranian President Mohammad Khatami re-affirming his country’s
commitment to Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, while U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State Elizabeth Jones told the Moscow Times, “It is in Russia’s
interest for these areas — whether it is Transnistria, Abkhazia, South
Ossetia, or Nagorno-Karabakh — to be stable, for corruption to end there,
for criminal secessionists who rule there to be removed” (January 14).
While the Azerbaijani side celebrates its victory and the Armenian side
continues to oppose the document, some independent analysts are wondering
what would be the consequences of the PACE resolution. While noting its
importance for the negotiating stance of Azerbaijan, the analysts come to
the conclusion that the resolution will face the same fate as that of past
UN General Assembly resolutions on the conflict, namely existing on paper
only. Elkhan Mehtiyev, director of the Baku-based Center for Conflict
Resolution, summed it up neatly: “No resolution returns lands,” meaning that
adopting a resolution would not automatically return the occupied
territories to Baku (Yeni Musavat, January 31).
Source: EURASIA DAILY MONITOR, Volume 2 Issue 22 (February 01, 2005).
2005-02-01 21:03:28
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AUSCHWITZ REMEMBERED: The shadow of Auschwitz
John Lichfield
The Independent – United Kingdom
Jan 27, 2005
The turn-off is just past a BP petrol station, close to a Leclerc
supermarket. You leave a roundabout and cross a concrete flyover. You
could be on the edge of any town in early 21st-century Europe.
Ahead, through the swirling snow, looms a single railway line,
disappearing through a tower in a long, red-brick building – the
terminus of a short branch line to Auschwitz-Birkenau built in the
spring of 1944. Beyond are three long railway sidings, tall
barbed-wire enclosures, wooden watch- towers, and dark huts in neat
lines. Some huts are ruined. Others stand pristine in freshly fallen
snow, as if enchanted by a curse and frozen for all time.
All is symmetrical and orderly, the product of rational, intelligent
minds – modern, Western minds.
If you stroll to the end of the railway tracks, you find the rubble
of two buildings strewn in front of a small birch wood (Birke means
birch tree.) Two other ruins stand a little way over to the right. The
remains of two cruder buildings can be seen in the distance.
Inside, or just outside, these six buildings at least one million
people, almost all of them Jews, were gassed and cremated during 1942,
1943 and 1944. Birkenau, only part of the Auschwitz complex, was,
among other things, a factory, a purpose-built human abattoir, an
assembly line of death.
The factory’s raw materials were men, women and children, whose only
crime was to be Jewish or Gypsy. The Jews came initially from other
parts of Poland and nearby Slovakia. Later, they were transported for
hundreds of miles across Europe, from Greece, from Hungary, from
France, from Belgium, from the Netherlands, to be reduced to ashes,
their gold teeth, hair, clothes, false limbs recycled into raw
materials for the Nazi war effort. These, however, were merely
by-products. The chief purpose of Auschwitz- Birkenau was to destroy a
race and to obliterate the 800-year-old Jewish- European
civilisation. (In this second task, the Nazis succeeded.)
Auschwitz was not, in itself, the Holocaust. There were five other
Nazi death camps in Poland, some of whose names are still scarcely
known to the general public (Belzec, where 550,000 Jews are thought to
have died; Sobibor, where 200,000 died).
Auschwitz has, nonetheless, become the prime symbol of the
bureaucratically organised, orderly frenzy of killing in which at
least five million European Jews were murdered by the Nazis (maybe as
many as six million) between 1939 and 1945.
Many other victims were also deemed unfit to live by the perverted
Darwinism of Nazi, racial ideology: not just Gypsies but also
homosexuals and the handicapped. Pre-planned Nazi mass murders were
also carried out – it is sometimes forgotten in the West – of hundreds
of thousands of Russians and at least 1,500,000 Polish officers,
intellectuals, students, priests and randomly seized civilians. The
Poles were slaughtered to reduce their country to a slave state,
permanently colonised by Germans.
On a first visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the mind revolts against the
proximity of roundabouts and barbed wire, of supermarkets and gas
chambers; against the juxtaposition of the death camp and the pleasant
Polish town of Oswiecim, now as much part of the European Union as
Dorking or Macclesfield. In truth, this is no anachronism, but a
useful reminder. The Holocaust began three years after Walt Disney
made Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; 20 years before The Beatles and
Swinging London. Auschwitz is part of Modern Times.
Today, politicians from 40 countries will travel to the Birkenau camp
to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the discovery of Auschwitz by
Soviet troops in January 1945. Up to 400 survivors – the remaining,
fit survivors of the maybe 60,000 survivors in 1945 – are expected to
be there.
Among those at the Birkenau commemoration will be Raphael Esrail, 80,
who was taken to Auschwitz from France in February 1944, at the age of
19, and is now secretary general of the French association of
Auschwitz victims. “There have been other anniversaries and there will
be others still to come,” he said, “but this is maybe the most
important. First, because it will be the last big anniversary to have
so many living eyewitnesses. Most of us are already in our eighties.
“But it is crucial also for another reason. The world has changed. And
not in the way we had hoped. After the war, we comforted ourselves
that this terrible experience might finally teach mankind to love
mankind, but what do we see now? We see again the rise of
anti-Semitism and we see a world torn apart by fanatical hatreds and
by absolute certainties.”
In other words, the most important lesson that we can learn from today
is that Auschwitz is not just part of our history. It is part of our
present. This is a lesson that seems to have escaped the 45 per cent
of Britons – according to a recent poll – who have not heard of
Auschwitz.
In truth, the story of the Holocaust is imperfectly understood, even
by many of us who think we know what happened. (I was astonished by my
own ignorance when I visited Auschwitz, even though my father was
Jewish, even though some of my distant, Slovakian-Jewish relatives
almost certainly died there.)
The details are imperfectly known, even to honest, specialist
historians, because so much of the evidence was destroyed by the
Nazis. The story was further muddied by the Soviet domination of
Poland up to 1990 – years when Auschwitz was turned into an
“anti-fascist” shrine and the suffering of the Jews was pushed into
the background.
Did 5,000,000 Jews die in the Holocaust or 6,000,000? Even now, honest
historians disagree. The generally accepted figure of 1,100,000 dead
in Auschwitz alone (including 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles and 21,000
gypsies) is a “conservative estimate”, according to the head archivist
of the Polish state museum on the site, Piotr Setkiewicz. “It was
almost certainly more than that. These are just the people that we can
say with absolute certainty died here.”
One of the perverted oddities of the Final Solution is the mixture of
brazen pride and shame with which it was implemented. Intelligent,
educated men believed that they had a right to destroy millions of
fellow human beings. At the same time, they felt it was necessary to
lie about, and cover up, what they were doing. The same twin impulses
– denial on the one hand, and pride in the Holocaust on the other –
persist among Nazi apologists to this day.
The 60th anniversary has brought an abundance of new studies,
including the excellent BBC television series on Auschwitz, and the
accompanying book by Laurence Rees. All the same, confusions remain in
many educated and unprejudiced minds: confusions which are often
exploited by Holocaust- deniers and relativisers. There is,
especially, an abiding confusion about the different kinds of camps
which existed in the Nazi archipelago of evil.
Broadly speaking, there were labour camps, concentration camps and
death camps. Life in the labour and concentration camps, such as
Belsen, south of Hamburg, and Dachau, north of Munich, was
barbaric. Life expectancy was short. These camps had tens of thousands
of political prisoners, and resistance activists, from Germany and
from occupied countries – and some high-profile Jews.
Much of the confusion, in the West, arises because these camps, in the
western part of Germany, were liberated by the British and the
Americans. They provided the images which were first seared on to the
world’s memory and conscience: images of walking skeletons in striped
uniforms and heaps of emaciated bodies being cleared by bulldozers.
But these were not the death camps. There were no planned mass
killings – no gas chambers or crematoria – in Belsen or Dachau or
Ravensbruck or Mauthausen or anywhere within Germany’s pre-war
borders.
The Holocaust happened further east, in Poland, notably at Auschwitz
but also in five other camps, some of which were no larger than three
or four football pitches: Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno and
Majdanek.
The unfamiliarity of these names – apart from Treblinka –
is significant, and deliberate. They were dismantled, and the ground
ploughed over and planted with trees, by the SS at the end of 1943. By
that time, it is estimated that 1,700,000 people had been murdered
there, mostly Polish Jews, mostly killed by carbon-monoxide poi-
soning (Zyklon-B gas was an Auschwitz speciality.)
Mr Setkiewicz says: “We have very, very little direct information on
what happened in these places. There are few records, few eyewitness
accounts, no survivors. We know only that transports took Jews out of
the ghettos established by the Nazis in Warsaw and other cities and
they took them to these camps, which were set up as extermination
centres. There was no room for people to live or work in these
places. No one came back.”
Auschwitz was unique. It was the only site which contained both an
extermination camp and a labour camp (in fact 40 different camps,
spread over an area covering 40 square kilometres, the Auschwitz “zone
of interest”).
Because both kinds of camp existed side by side, there are survivors,
Jewish survivors and Polish survivors, to tell us what happened in
Auschwitz. But the existence of both kinds of camp on one site, or at
one complex of sites, is also fertile ground for the negationists.
Look, they say, Auschwitz had a swimming pool; it had a brothel for
inmates, an orchestra, a sauna. How bad could it have been? Yes,
Auschwitz had an orchestra but most of the 1,100,000 people who died
there never heard it play.
The complex has two main camps: the original Polish army barracks
taken over by the Nazis in 1940, and the much larger Birkenau camp,
three kilometres away, built by slave labour from October 1941.
The original Auschwitz camp – which looks like a pleasant army base or
a university campus – has its own horrific tale to tell. It was here
that the first mass killings of Poles and Russian prisoners of war
took place.
It was here that the camp commandant, Rudolf Hoss, devised methods of
mass slaughter with Zyklon-B in the first of the Auschwitz gas
chambers (built at the end of the garden where his children
played). It was here that the SS doctor Josef Mengele conducted
medical experiments on twins and pregnant women.
It was here that the orchestra, comprised of musically talented
inmates, played merry dance tunes and waltzes as the half-starved work
groups – kommandos – struggled in and out of the gate marked Arbeit
macht frei (work makes you free).
The swimming pool and brothel also existed – but only for the kapos or
inmates promoted to be overseers.
Tens of thousands of people died in the original camp but the greater
slaughter happened down the road at Birkenau, conceived originally as
a labour camp but then developed into an industrial killing-machine.
Another grim distinction needs to be made. The Belsen-generated image
of the Holocaust – emaciated people in striped uniforms being herded
into gas chambers – is largely false. Most of those who died at
Auschwitz never wore camp uniforms. They never received a number
tattooed on their forearm (another Auschwitz speciality which did not
occur elsewhere). Most were led, or taken in trucks, directly from the
trains to the chambers. They died, not as dehumanised skeletons, but
as people looking and feeling like citizens of the mid-20th century.
When a train arrived (from Hungary or Holland or France), the
prisoners – 1,200 to 1,500 on each train – were divided into columns
of men and columns of women and children. The SS doctors and guards,
often behaving with extreme politeness, selected maybe 200 young men
and women from each train to be admitted to the camp as slaves for the
Nazi war machine. The remainder were taken to the far end of the site
– to the place where tomorrow’s ceremony will take place. They were
made to undress and told they had to take a shower. They were led into
the gas chambers and murdered as they huddled in family groups. Their
bodies were removed by the members of the sonderkommando – the Jews
and other prisoners forced to do the most horrific work to protect the
minds of the SS guards. Gold teeth, rings and hair were cut from the
bodies before they were burnt. (The hair was made into, among other
things, socks for submariners.)
It is estimated that Birkenau, when functioning at its most efficient,
could murder and burn 20,000 people in a day.
How do we know all this? The Holocaust deniers say we don’t know; that
it is largely made up or exaggerated; that no evidence exists that the
gas chambers – destroyed by the SS in January 1945 – were gas
chambers. (On surviving plans they are described as “morgues”.)
In truth, the amount of direct and circumstantial evidence of what
happened in Auschwitz-Birkenau is huge. Twenty-five photographs were
taken by an unknown SS guard, discovered in an album when the camp was
liberated, showing the process of “selection” of trainloads of
Hungarian Jews in 1944. Eyewitness accounts have been given by SS men
and by survivors, including members of the sonderkommando, the few who
survived and others who buried their testimony in the earth of the
camp.
Plans show the “morgues” were designed to be gas-tight and have a high
ambient temperature – counter-productive for a morgue but necessary to
activate pellets of Zyklon-B. (One plan also exists which labels the
gas chamber not as as a morgue, but as a “gas chamber”).
Mr Setkiewicz says: “Do we have one piece of evidence which proves
beyond all doubt that the Holocaust happened? No. We have a thousand.”
The museum at the original Auschwitz camp presents this evidence in
crushing, disturbing mass. Human hair is piled behind a glass window
and covers the area of two tennis courts. Similar picture-windows
display heaps of shoes, spectacles, suitcases, false legs and arms,
crutches and clothes found when the camp was liberated six decades
ago.
A newer exhibition has also been opened in the “sauna” at
Birkenau. This was, in fact, the building where the few selected to
work and suffer, rather than to die instantly, were stripped, shaved
and tattooed. This display speaks of the individual ordinariness of
thousands of obliterated lives. It shows hundreds of photographs,
mysteriously found in a suitcase at the site – all of them pre-war
family snaps taken by Jews living in the town of Bedzin: snaps of
weddings and walking trips, grinning young men acting the fool,
brothers arm in arm, happy picnics and shopping expeditions.
In the next room is a display of objects, confiscated from Jews as
they arrived at the camp: banal objects, precious objects, objects
which suggest that many of those who arrived here had no conception of
the fate awaiting them. There are cigarette lighters and
cheese-graters, picnic baskets and kettles, razors and chess sets,
hairbrushes and cameras.
Once again, you are reminded that the Holocaust happened in a time
like the present, to people like you and me. Visiting Auschwitz, and
seeing sights like these, you wrestle with an impossible
question. What makes Auschwitz and the Holocaust different? Are they
different?
Massacres and genocides have been carried out throughout history, from
Genghis Khan to the Crusades, from the American Plains to Turkish
Armenia, Lebanon, Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia.
Even the numbers killed in the Holocaust are not unique. Stalin killed
more, for reasons of expediency and terror, than Hitler killed for
reasons of race and ideology. Studies in comparative evil are barren
and
pointless: all of these crimes are monstrous. And yet there is
something about the Holocaust which sets it apart, in its essence, if
not its enormity.
Here was a genocide willed and planned by a modern industrial state,
using all the paraphernalia of modernity, from trains to toxic
gases. Here was a genocide, willed not just because a people were
occupying space coveted by another people but because of a
self-induced, obsessive, racial fear and hatred. In no other genocide,
before or since, have hundreds of thousands of people been sought out
and shipped hundreds of miles, at great expense, to their instant
murder. In no other genocide have bodies been treated as industrial
raw materials. It took a very advanced state to conceive and organise
such an elaborate, bureaucratic genocide. It took all the resources of
modern politics and mass media to brain-wash an entire people so that
they were complicit in murder on an industrial scale.
What is the way to Auschwitz? The road does not just start beside a
roundabout and a BP petrol station.
Teresa Swiebocka, the senior curator at the Auschwitz museum said:
“The Holocaust did not begin in 1939 or 1941. It began many years
earlier. It began with an obsession that one nation, one race, had
absolute wisdom and absolute rights, superior to those of other races
or religions.
“The question people should ask when they come here, or watch the
anniversary ceremonies, is how can civilised people in a modern state
be brought so far and so low? How does it begin? At what point do you
take a turning which leads you eventually on to a road marked
Auschwitz?”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Ethnic Azeri leaders say US concern about Iran justified – fuller version
Ekspress, Baku
27 Jan 05

Excerpt from Nigar Almanqizi’s report by Azerbaijani newspaper
Ekspress on 27 January headlined “If USA bombs Iran…”
The Iranian parliament approved the country’s nuclear programme and a
uranium enrichment project last November. [Passage omitted: general
comments by unidentified experts on Iranian nuclear energy programme]
We wonder what organizations of Southern Azerbaijan [northern Iran
populated by ethnic Azeris] and other experts think about this. What
fate awaits our compatriots in the event the USA starts military
operations against Iran?
The head of the Baku office of the National Revival Movement of
Southern Azerbaijan (NRMSA), Huseyn Turkelli, has said that he is
against war in any country. “Our activity does not aim to have Iran
bombed or pressurized by foreign forces. The history of the struggle
of Azeri Turks to restore their rights is a century long,” Turkelli
said, adding that he was more concerned about Iran having access to
nuclear weapons. He believes that this could affect not only
Azerbaijan but all Iran’s neighbours and the Gulf states.
Apart from Armenia, Iran does not have normal relations with
Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar or its other neighbours,
he said. “A regime which has serious problems with the population
inside the country will become a new tragedy for the world if it gets
access to nuclear weapons. In preventing this tragedy, if there is no
choice but to bomb Iran’s strategic facilities, we cannot say no to
this option and we should accept this.”
Asked whether this could lead to Azeri Turks gaining independence,
Turkelli said that in Iran there would be no war, as has been the case
in Iraq. Turkelli also believes that even if the USA has plans, it
takes into consideration the people’s will. “Our organization is the
largest one in Southern Azerbaijan. The movement is currently facing
serious problems with disseminating its ideas among people. These
problems hinder the strengthening of the movement. But the movement
can still have its say,” Turkelli said. He believes that even if the
people of Southern Azerbaijan cannot gain full independence, they will
at least manage to establish an autonomous state with their own flag,
parliament and president.
The chairman of the defence committee of the NRMSA, Cahandar Bayoglu,
also said that the countries responsible for security in the world
were naturally concerned about the threats Iran posed to both the
region and world as a whole and that this concern was well
grounded. “Iran has turned into a dangerous country that does not
accept the rest of the world. The fact that this country produces
nuclear warheads causes justified concern in countries like the USA.”
Bayoglu said that the United States was looking into options to
eliminate this regime: “One of the options is a military
intervention. But the question is how this military intervention will
be implemented. The timing and ways are possibly being discussed.”
Bayoglu said that in the event of a US invasion of Iran, there would
be no need to use a large number of troops, as was the case in
Iraq. He thinks that during a US operation, not only the Azeri Turks
but also all the ethnic groups living in that country would revolt
against the Iranian regime.
[Passage omitted: Iranian general recently warned USA about
retaliatory actions Iran can take]
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Associated Press
Jan 26 2005
First checks distributed from Armenian genocide insurance settlement

By KAREN MATTHEWS
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK AP) _ Five New York-area Armenian charities received checks
for $333,333 each on Wednesday as part of a settlement between an
insurance company and descendants of Armenians killed 90 years ago in
the Ottoman Empire.
The checks are part of a $20 million settlement between New York Life
Insurance Co. and descendants of a community that suffered what
Armenians characterize as the first genocide of the 20th century.

“It’s a happy day,” said New York Life spokesman William Werfelman.
“This is the day that’s the culmination of a lot of hard work by a
lot of the parties to bring an amicable solution and resolution to
this matter.”
Armenians contend that 1.5 million people were executed between 1915
and 1919 by Turkish authorities who accused them of helping the
invading Russian army during World War I.
Turkey rejects the genocide claim and says Armenians were killed in
civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. France and
Russia are among countries that have declared the killings a
genocide, but the United States has not made such a declaration.
The settlement approved last year by U.S. District Court Judge
Christina A. Snyder in Los Angeles is believed to be the first ever
in connection with the events of the era.
Under the settlement, $3 million was earmarked for charities and at
least $11 million was set aside for the heirs of New York Life policy
holders, with $2 million used for administrative costs and anything
not spent on expenses going to additional charities.
The remainder of the $3 million will be handed out to four additional
Armenian charities in a ceremony in Los Angeles.
Brian Kabateck, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the
class-action lawsuit, said there were 2,300 policies issued to
Armenians in Turkey before 1915 that were never paid. People who
believe they may be descended from the policy holders have until
March 16 to file claims.
Under a formula taking inflation and interest into account, the
amount of the original policies will be multiplied by 15.5.
“We are here today urging people to make claims and urging people not
to forget the genocide,” said Kaboteck, who was joined by members of
Armenian religious and social organizations at a news conference at
the midtown offices of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, one of
the groups that received a check.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PanArmenian News
Jan 13 2005
ARMENIANS EXPATRIATED FROM NORTH ARTSAKH SETTLE IN KARVACHAR
13.01.2005 16:07
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “The territory of Karvachar (Kelbajar) is being
spontaneously settled by Armenians, expatriated from their residence
places in North Artsakh. Unfortunately, official Yerevan and
Stepanakert statements that there is no state policy on settling the
security belt territories are true,” Azg newspaper writes in its
today’s issue. Meanwhile, the article author notes that Azerbaijan
pursues an official policy of peopling of former Armenian settlements
in the territories of NKR that are occupied. Forced migrants from
Getashen, Shahumian and other places mainly live in Karvachar. In May
1991, the newspaper reminds, the soviet army and OMON (special
destination militia detachment) held an operation to deport the
residents of Armenian villages of North Artsakh. “Our houses stayed
on the other side of the Mrav Mounts,” the present residents of
Karvachar say. Getashen resident Yeghish Markosian has walked all
over the territory of the former Kelbajar region. He shows the
newspaper journalist innumerable khachkars (stone steles picturing
crosses), churches, monasteries. “Where from the Turks have
khachkars, churches, monasteries?” he asks. “Already 150 years ago it
was a land inhabited by Armenians.” When in 1992 Armenian forces
entered Kelbajar, in the regional museum of the city they found a
khachkar of the 10-th century with an inscription in Armenian, which
was presented to the visitors as a monument of the Azeri culture.
Dadivank famous monastery, where according to the tradition the
relics of St. Apostle Thaddeus, the Enlightener of Armenia, are kept,
is also situated in the Kelbajar territory. The name Kelbajar itself
is the distorted Armenian place-name of Karvachar. “This land was
Armenian and it remains Armenian,” the former Getashen resident
concludes.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA THIS WEEK
Monday, January 10, 2005

In this issue:

Parliament OK’s Armenia’s joining of U.S.-led coalition in Iraq
Senior European politicians call for formalizing Armenian control of NK
Heritage Foundation: Armenia remains regional leader in economic freedom
Baltic Times: Turkey must face the truth to be admitted to EU

PARLIAMENT APPROVES IRAQ DEPLOYMENT
A solid majority of the Armenian Parliament members voted last month to
approve the government’s decision to join the U.S.-led coalition in
Iraq. The 46-person task force drawn from professional military,
including commanders who have Kosovo peacekeeping experience, includes
transportation, de-mining and medical personnel and is due to deploy in
Iraq within two weeks. They will serve for at least a year as part of
the Polish-led multi-national division south of Baghdad.

Parliamentarians voted 91 to 23 with one abstention following seven
hours of closed-door debate that ran late into the night of December 27.
Defense officials led by Minister Serge Sargsian lobbied for the move as
important for Armenia’s national interest. Prime Minister Andranik
Margarian’s Republican Party, Speaker Artur Baghdasarian’s Country of
Law Party, United Labor Party of businessman Gurgen Arsenian, opposition
National Unity Party of Artashes Geghamian and a number of non-party
members voted in favor, while the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(Dashnaktsutiun) and the opposition Justice Bloc voted against.

In comments following the vote Sargsian said that “Armenia cannot have
stayed aside from actions by other states that are aimed at peace and
stability, and at combating terrorism. I think that the U.S. needs
Armenian support in Iraq, otherwise there would be no such decision.”
Dashnaktsutiun leaders, while voting against deployment, said they
“understood” the government’s motives. The Justice Bloc, along with
several non-government organizations, accused the government of exposing
the Armenian community in Iraq and Armenia itself to possible
retaliatory attacks by anti-U.S. insurgents and terrorists. A recent
poll found that just as in most other countries with forces in Iraq, the
majority of Armenians opposed the move.

Iraqi Armenians, as well as other Christian minorities in Iraq, have
already come under insurgents’ attacks. The Armenian government
officials argued that they would be at risk whether or not Armenia takes
part in Iraq’s stabilization. (Sources: Armenia This Week 12-13;
Associated Press 12-27; Interfax 12-27; RFE/RL Armenia Report 12-27,
1-7)

SENIOR EUROPEAN POLITICIANS PROPOSE FORMALIZING ARMENIAN CONTROL OF NK
Armenia should take “temporary control” over Nagorno Karabakh until a
new popular referendum is held there in five to ten years. This is what
the former Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio and the current chairman
of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Pierre Lellouche of France suggest as
a compromise way out of the current deadlock in the Karabakh peace
process. Palacio and Lellouche recently toured the Caucasus.

Nagorno Karabakh held a legally sanctioned referendum in 1991 that paved
the way for its formal separation from then Soviet Azerbaijan.
Successive Azeri governments refused to abide by results of that vote
and launched several unsuccessful offensives to take control of the
region and remove its population until the current cease-fire came into
effect in 1994. In 2001, following protracted negotiations, the late
Azeri President Heydar Aliyev was close to an agreement that would lead
to Karabakh’s incorporation into Armenia in exchange for the return of
most of the Azeri districts now held by Karabakh Armenian forces. The
Azeri government has since insisted on unilateral Armenian concessions
before agreeing on Karabakh’s status.

Armenian and Azeri Foreign Ministers Vartan Oskanian and Elmar Mamedyrov
are due to meet in Prague tomorrow to continue their discussions on a
new approach to settlement. The two officials are reportedly considering
combining mutually acceptable approaches from past proposals that had
been turned down. Last year, the “peace process” over Karabakh was set
back substantially, following Azeri President Ilham Aliyev’s comments
that he would not make compromises and would seek ways to put greater
pressure on Armenia.

Most recently, the Azeri government blocked rail traffic into Georgia to
tighten its economic blockade against Armenia. Azeri officials alleged
that some of the goods, like fuels from Central Asia shipped via Baku to
Tbilisi, were destined for Armenia. The move had no impact on Armenia’s
market, however, where prices for gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel
fell reflecting wider market trends. (Sources: Armenia This Week 12-13,
20; Arminfo 12-14, 1-10; Zerkalo 12-22; Le Figaro 12-21; Mediamax 12-21;
Noyan Tapan 12-22)

ARMENIA IMPROVES ECONOMIC FREEDOM RECORD, REMAINS REGIONAL LEADER
The annual rating of economic policies around the world, prepared by the
Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, a leading U.S.
conservative think tank, was published last week. Armenia has once again
improved its record, while continuing to lead its region in economic
freedom. Armenia was ranked 42nd out of 161 countries, just behind
Poland and ahead of France, and is the best rated “mostly free” economy
in the former Soviet Union. Georgia is ranked 100th, Azerbaijan – 103rd,
and Turkey – 112th.

The study notes the Armenian government’s sound fiscal policies, low
level of protectionism, but also continued problems with revenue
collection. While these revenues have grown significantly in recent
years, they remain low when compared to the overall size of the economy.
In his comments in recent weeks, President Robert Kocharian promised a
crackdown on tax and tariff evaders both in the business sector and
among corrupt government officials. (Sources: Armenia This Week 1-16-04;
Arminfo 12-27, 1-10; <; ) A WEEKLY NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED BY THE ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY OF AMERICA 122 C Street, N.W., Suite 350, Washington, D.C. 20001 (202) 393-3434 FAX (202) 638-4904 E-Mail [email protected] WEB 15.12.2004 The Baltic Times [Riga, Latvia] TURKEY MUST FACE THE TRUTH The debate over whether to include Turkey in the European Union crystallizes the essence of what it means to be "European." Not surprisingly, the range of answers is broad, often diametrically opposite. Geography, history, religion, economics and even mentality have been cited as reasons why or why not to invite the Muslim country to the world's biggest economic bloc. Simple "expansion-fatigue" within the 25-nation (and soon to be 27-nation) union is another. One thing you can't take away from Turkey: the country truly longs to be a EU member. Both its political leaders and the public, any the religious and the secular segments of society, want to build their future as part of Europe. They have had this desire for decades now, even throughout the multiple political changes and economic pitfalls the country has undergone. As a result, on Dec. 17 EU leaders are likely to give the green light to begin accession talks - e.g., to designate Turkey a candidate country for membership - at their summit in Brussels. This will entail 10 - 15 years of accession negotiations before the country is formally granted member status, and there are likely to be a number of stop signs and roadblocks along the way. But even on this score the debate is heated, with pro-Turkey advocates arguing that accession criteria for the 70-million-plus country should be no different than for, say, miniscule Malta. But they should. The choice of accepting an ant or an elephant into the family has radically different implications for the household, and those who are blind to that are likely to be the first to complain when something goes wrong later. Regarding Turkish membership, the real issue is not about size. It is about mentality. Specifically, the country has refused to acknowledge the genocide of 1915, when over 1 million Armenians were led to their death in the Syrian deserts or just slaughtered. The incident has been well documented and includes thousands of eyewitness accounts. Yet Turkey continues to deny it, saying a lot of people died at the time, including Turks (an argument Russia employs in regards to WWII, as Balts are well aware). The country has closed its archives and even banned use of the word genocide. Is this the behavior of someone ready for Europe? Imagine how different Europe would be today if for the past 60 years Germany had denied the Holocaust. Now transfer that image onto the Anatolian peninsula and you will see what is taking place today - Turks, Kurds and Armenians living side by side and in a state of deep animosity and suspicion. Thankfully, France has taken the lead in putting the genocide issue on the accession table. (France is one of the only countries that has recognized the 1915 Genocide. The United States hasn't.)* Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said last week that France wants Turkey to recognize the genocide as part of its membership requirements. "This is an issue that we will raise during the negotiation process. We will have about 10 years to do so, and the Turks will have about 10 years to ponder their answer," he said. It was the first time someone has tried to link EU membership with the Ottoman atrocities. As expected, the reaction from Ankara was swift and unequivocal, with one official saying that Turkey would never recognize the "so-called genocide." If that is the case, then the door to the EU should be closed. As a Polish poet once wrote, "How frightening is the past that awaits us." If a country cannot come to terms with its past - as Germany has - then the future will have precious little to offer it. In Europe, truth and reconciliation must come first. * AAA Note: The Armenian Genocide had been affirmed by the United States in the past. The April 21, 1981 proclamation by then President Ronald Reagan used the term Genocide in reference to the Armenian deportation and massacres, although subsequent U.S. presidential statements commemorating the events have avoided the term. The Genocide has also been affirmed by a number of national parliaments around the world, most recently by the Netherlands on December 21, 2004. Other countries, whose parliaments have affirmed the Armenian Genocide include: Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and Uruguay. Visit and to learn more. From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Pressure on Turkey
Fresno Bee
December 19, 2004
I was pleased to read of the continued effort of the European Union
as well as (dare I say) the French in stepping up to the plate on
Turkey’s human rights issue. The EU urged Turkey to “promote the
process of reconciliation with the Armenian people by recognizing
the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians” in 1915-1923.
The European Parliament also called on Turkey to reopen its border
with Armenia “as soon as possible.”
Turkey should comply, or simply be left behind. Turkey can continue
to have a plummeting economy, or it can do the right thing to embrace
the European economic community.
Turkey can show, through proper genocide acknowledgment, that it can
move toward respect toward humanity rather than defacing it as it
has for close to 90 years.
Self-interest foreign policy is something the United States, in
particular, has hidden behind long enough. What about the interests of
all the other countries in the world? What did they lose by doing the
right thing and holding Turkey accountable for its misdeeds? Turkey’s
“special relationship” with the United States didn’t count for much
when we needed them most. Our soldiers were left to double back on
our ships when they were forbidden to cross Turkey during the initial
invasion of Iraq.
I hope U.S. foreign policy can follow the international community’s
lead on human rights, because we definitely haven’t shown such
leadership thus far.
Richard Sanikian
Fresno
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress