Author: Garnik Zakarian

STATE IS CALLED TO SECURE IMPLEMENTATION OF LEGAL GUARANTEES FOR MEDIA ACTIVITY, YOUTH STRUCTURES OF A NUMBER OF PARTIES STATE
Noyan Tapan
Sept 11 2006
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 11, NOYAN TAPAN. The blameworthy act of violance
taken place towards “Iravunk” newspaper editor Hovhannes Galajian
is continuation of not enough steps taken by corresponding state
bodies in the direction of revealing and undertaking balanced actions
towards authors and organizers of similar acts of violance, cases
of violences committed towards journalists, threats, obstracting
of professional activity or fulfilment of not balanced punitive
measures. It is mentioned in the joint statement of the youth
structures of the “Orinats Yerkir” (Country of Law), NDU, ARF, ANM,
ANA, “Hanrapetituin” (Republic) parties, Democratic Party of Armenia
and a number of public organizations. The statement was made public
at the September 8 press conference.
OYP youth wave chairman Samvel Farmanian mentioned that if men
commiting acts of violence remain unpunished this time as well,
and corresponding bodies display inactivity, the wave of violences
will grow larger during the coming elections. The statement authors
are anxious with the fact that in parallel to approach of the coming
parliamentary elections, they become evidences of a new wave of acts
of violence and threats towards journalists. They are sure that “the
atmosphere in which the coming state elections will be held, will be
considerably provided by the circumstance to what extent corresponding
state institutes will be able to keep the public-political life and
democratic institutions of the country from assaults and violences
of criminogenic elements.”
According to the statement, media freedom and legal guarantees for
journalists’ professional activity are important preconditions on the
way of improvement of democracy, and the state is called to secure
indubitable implementation of those legal guarantees. And “those
violences, threats and pressures are committed and put and encouraged
by those people and forces who are against improvement of a democratic
and free society in Armenia as well as are anxious with the fact that
some aspects of their activity will become the society’s property with
the help of media.” The press conference organizers stated that they
are going to pass the joint statement to the RA Prosecutor’s General
Office, at the same time expressing confidence that they will not
receive any response from the prosecutor’s office. S.Farmanian menioned
that they will be consistent and, in the case of not getting a response
from the prosecutor’s office, they will organize an action of protest.

Armenian Vice Speaker: “Armenia is not ready for NATO membership”
Journal of Turkish Weekly
July 9 2006
“NATO membership means rebuilding relations with that organization –
something Armenia is not ready for today,” the vice speaker of the
Armenian parliament Vahan Hovhannissyan said during a roundtable with
NATO representatives.
Armenia has close military co-operation of Russia. Yerevan is
considered the only Russian ally in the region while Georgia,
Azerbaijan and Turkey have close military ties with the US, EU and
the NATO, Regnum reported.
Hovhannissyan said that since the Soviet times Armenia has regarded
NATO as some military organization – some alliance formed for
protecting the European democratic values. “It later turned out that
many countries join NATO not so much for adopting these values as for
feeling more protected, for gaining some cover,” Hovhannissyan said.
“Obviously, the new NATO and EU members from Eastern Europe were not
ready for that. Unlike its neighbors, Armenia believes that the key
goal of NATO membership is to attain conformity with the European
standards so that this membership be natural rather than artificial.”
Hovhannissyan noted that membership in NATO means rebuilding relations
with that organization – something Armenia is not ready to do yet.
Asked by British delegate Franck Cook what challenges Armenia is
faced with today, Hovhanissyan said that for many years already
Turkey has been keeping Armenia in blockade and laying pre-conditions
for establishing diplomatic relations with it, which makes mutual
improvement impossible. Turkey and Armenia have never confronted in
the past. When Armenian forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijani
territories and thretened to occupy Nahcivan province, Turkey closed
its borders with Armenia. Turkey was one of the states recognised
Armenia’s independence. Another problem is Armenian ‘genocide’
claims. Turkey does not see Armenian claims as a pre-condition to
restore diplomatic relations. Ankara offered to establish a joint
commission to discuss the historical disputes, yet Armenia rejected
many times these offers. Armenian Constitution and some other documents
do not recognise Turkey’s national borders and some of the Armenian
politicians call Eastern Turkey as ‘Western Armenia’.
Armenia also does not recognise the Kars Treaty.

Today, Azerbaijan
June 3 2006
Elmar Mammadyarov: “Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict affects negatively to
peace, stability and integration in the region”

03 June 2006 [10:57] – Today.Az

Yesterday Azerbaijani FM Elmar Mammadyarov received Defense Minister
of Tajikistan, general-colonel Shirali Khayrulloyev.

As APA reports, the guest highly appreciated Azerbaijan-Tajikistan
all round relations’ development.
In his turn, Elmar Mammadyarov stated high development of economic
and political relations between two countries, stressed possibility
of opening of the Embassy in Tajikistan in nearest future, this step
will provide expansion of relations between two countries.
Giving information on Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict settlement, the
Minister said that conflict affects negatively to peace, stability
and integration in the region. Elmar Mammadyarov said that as a
result of occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenians,
cultural heritage of Azerbaijan is destroyed in occupied territories
as well as in the territories of Armenia.
Regional security issues were also touched upon. The Minister spoke
of important economic projects Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline,
Baku-Tbilisi-Arzurum gas pipeline, Baku-Tbilisi-Akhalkalak-Gars
railway station, informed about the implemented works in the
development of non-oil sector of Azerbaijan.

URL:

US PROBLEMS WITH PUTIN
By Dimitri Sidorov And Bill Thomas
UPI Outside View Commentators
United Press International
March 9 2006
WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) — The recent visit to Moscow by leaders
of Hamas should not be viewed as just another attempt by the Kremlin
to create confusion in Washington.
The Hamas meeting, coupled with Russia’s agreement to sell arms
to the terrorist group now in charge of the Palestinian Authority,
indicates something much more problematic in U.S.-Russia relations,
namely Moscow’s desire to return to the Middle East with a well-planned
campaign to unite all parties dissatisfied with American policy in
the region.
In fact, the Kremlin’s latest moves suggest that Russian President
Vladimir Putin may be reviving the cold war-era Primakov Doctrine.
Originated by former Soviet hard-liner and current Putin adviser
Yevgeny Primakov, the strategy was designed to challenge the United
States and its NATO allies on every major political and strategic
front.
Some Kremlin experts in Washington believe Russia has only a reactive
foreign policy, responding to events as they occur without any specific
long-term agenda. But an arms sale to Syria, a missile deal with Iran
and the get together with Hamas hardly fit that pattern.
All of this indicates a growing political struggle between Washington
and Moscow. “U.S.-Russia relations are clearly headed in the
wrong direction,” concluded a new report by the Council on Foreign
Relations. The Kremlin wants to be a player again in the old Soviet
sphere of influence, and its ambitions have gone largely unchecked
by a White House preoccupied with Iraq.
Moscow has insinuated itself into the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict;
become an obstacle in territorial disputes going on in independent
Moldova and Georgia; increased political pressure in Ukraine, trying
to reverse its failure in last year’s presidential election; and
formed an alliance with Uzbekistan after a popular revolt and the
expulsion of the U.S. military from that country.
Following a trial run in the ex-Soviet republics, the Kremlin has
turned its full attention to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.
Unlike the Soviet policy of backing rogue terrorist groups, Putin
and his Kremlin colleagues have set out to create a support network
of rogue nations dedicated to frustrating the United States and
its allies.
Helped by the war in Iraq, Moscow has strengthened ties with several
neighboring countries unhappy about Washington’s policies, particularly
Iran where American and European resolve faces a crucial test.
For more than a decade the White House tried unsuccessfully to persuade
Russia to end its nuclear cooperation with Iran. American suspicions
about “peaceful, financially based” relations between Moscow and Tehran
grew stronger when Russians began work on an Iranian nuclear facility.
Moscow has not only continued to assist with Iran’s potentially
threatening nuclear program, the Russian government has some in the
West convinced it can be trusted to enrich Iran’s uranium, though
talks on the matter between Russian and Iranian negotiators have so
far gone nowhere.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration seems uncertain about what its next
move should be. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice still insists the
United States “has very good relations with Russia, perhaps the best
we’ve had in the long time.” The report issued by Council of Foreign
Relations sharply disagrees with that assessment.
So does a former CIA official, citing the administration’s lack of
leverage with Moscow as one reason for escalating tensions over Iran.
At this point the Russians are pretending to cooperate, he added. The
moment of truth will come when Kremlin strategy shifts to outright
opposition, in other words when the Primakov Doctrine gives way to the
approach perfected by longtime Soviet Foreign Ministry Andrei Gromyko,
whose penchant for defying the United States earned him the nickname
“Mr. Nyet.”
And that’s when Washington’s real problems begin.
—
(Dmitry Sidorov is the Washington correspondent for Kommersant Daily.
Bill Thomas is the author of “Red Tape: Adventure Capitalism in the
New Russia” and other books. They are writing a book on US-Russia
relations.)
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of Australia & New Zealand
10 Macquarie Street
Chatswood NSW 2067
AUSTRALIA
Contact: Laura Artinian
Tel: (02) 9419-8056
Fax: (02) 9904-8446
Email: [email protected]
12 March 2006
PRIMATE RETURNS TO SYDNEY FROM INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS
Sydney, Australia – In the late evening of Thursday, 9 March, 2006 His
Eminence Archbishop Aghan Baliozian, Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian
Church of Australia and New Zealand was welcomed at Sydney airport by Church
clergy and Church Council members after a journey of international
assemblies and fraternal meetings. Before returning to the Prelacy, a
prayer service, led by His Eminence and accompanied by Very Reverend Father
Vardan Navasardyan was held in the Armenian Apostolic Church of Holy
Resurrection thanking the Almighty for safe passage and return.
In early February, Archbishop Baliozian left Sydney commencing his 5-week
journey with a fraternal visit to the Diocese of Argentina as a guest of His
Eminence Archbishop Kissag Mouradian. This visit would be a prelude to his
travels in South America where he subsequently joined the delegation from
the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin for the 9th Assembly of the World Council
of Churches held in Porto Alegre, Brazil from 14-23 February. The
delegation of the Armenian Apostolic Church comprised of 14 ordained, lay,
women and youth representatives.
At the Assembly, His Grace Bishop Vicken Aikazian and Yeretsgin Paula
Devejian from Etchmiadzin were elected to the Central Committee of the WCC
with Bishop Aikazian elected to the Executive Committee. His Eminence
Archbishop Aghan Baliozian completed his term as a member of the Central
Committee representing the Armenian Apostolic Church since 1998.
At the conclusion of the Assembly, Archbishop Baliozian left for Sao Paulo
to visit with His Eminence Archbishop Datev Gharibian and the Armenian
Community before embarking on his passage to the Mother See of Holy
Etchmiadzin for the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council Meeting that was held
between 1-3 March.
Presided by His Holiness Karekin II Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All
Armenians, the Catholicos opened the Meeting with the Lord’s Prayer and in
his welcoming address appealed for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead
the participants in the decision-making process. The Meeting primarily
examined issues relating to the daily life of the Church.
The Supreme Ecclesiastical Council is made up of His Holiness as President,
the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople as Chairmen, 12 clergy and 8
laymen. The function of the Council is decision-making on matters
pertaining to the Armenian Church and an advisory role to the Catholicos.
Archbishop Baliozian made his return journey to Australia via the United
States with a brief stay in Los Angeles where he paid a fraternal visit to
His Eminence Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, Primate of the Western Diocese of
the Armenian Church of North America.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: Weekend Edition Saturday 12:00 AM EST NPR
October 15, 2005 Saturday
Voices of Turkey; Street of the Cauldron Makers
ANCHORS: SCOTT SIMON
SCOTT SIMON, host:
Turkey emerged in the 1920s as a new nation, fundamentally different
from the old Ottoman Empire. Modern Turkey would be secular and
Western. Its people would look forward, rarely back. But today,
Turkey’s past looms over its future. This month, Turkey and the
European Union began talks to determine whether that nation belongs
in the European Union. A variety of factors will be discussed,
including Turkey’s history of human rights abuses, and ethnic
resentments against Kurds, Cypriots and Armenians date back to the
Ottoman era. Memories long buried are cropping up again.
Excavating Turkey’s past is a central theme in the work of novelist
Elif Shafak. In this next story, part of the documentary series
Worlds of Difference, the author explores her nation’s past on a sad,
hilly street in Istanbul, where she once lived and wrote. It’s called
“The Street of the Cauldron Makers.”
(Soundbite of people’s voices, traffic)
Ms. ELIF SHAFAK (Novelist): At the first glance, there’s nothing
extraordinary about the place, just another narrow, winding street in
Istanbul–only this one sharply slopes down to the Bosphorus, which
divides Europe from Asia. From where I can stand, I can see that band
of water in the distance, a shimmering silver.
(Soundbite of music)
Ms. SHAFAK: At the top of the street, nearly hidden behind a green
iron fence stands an ageless tomb. It is the tomb of the saint who
protects the street against all evil. Yet given the street’s history,
I tend to think this is a saint that has been sleeping on the job.
Unidentified Person: (Shouting in foreign language)
Ms. SHAFAK: Or perhaps he isn’t sleeping. After all, his tombstone is
written in the Ottoman script, long ago banished by the engineers of
the modern Turkish state in favor of the Western alphabet.
(Soundbite of people’s voices)
Ms. SHAFAK: Perhaps the patron saint has simply been trying to convey
a message from the past, but in a script the new generations can no
longer understand. Our conversation with the past has been broken,
but our history, our stories lie here in the layers just beneath our
feet. As a storyteller, it is my job to collect them.
(Soundbite of door being opened)
Ms. SHAFAK: (Foreign language spoken)
MEHMET (Grocer): (Foreign language spoken)
Ms. SHAFAK: (Foreign language spoken)
Right across from the saint stands a small grocery. The owner of the
place is a slim, balding man in his 60s.
MEHMET: (Foreign language spoken)
Ms. SHAFAK: Mehmet is here every day from early morning till dusk.
After dark, his son takes the shift.
MEHMET: (Foreign language spoken)
Unidentified Man #1: (Foreign language spoken)
Ms. SHAFAK: You can find almost everything here, from pomegranates to
laundry detergents, from candy bars to alcohol, which some
conservative grocers refuse to sell.
MEHMET: (Through Translator) This grocery is open 24 hours. I don’t
sell much in the day, but at night I sell more; bread during the day,
beer at night.
(Soundbite of a clink, cat meowing)
MEHMET: (Foreign language spoken)
Ms. SHAFAK: Other than the usual customers–Muslims and non-Muslims
alike–the grocer also serves the Russian and Moldavian working girls
living in a grimy hotel up the street.
MEHMET: (Through Translator) I dread to see a child or adult, someone
who doesn’t have enough money to pay for something. I feel bad and I
usually don’t ask. Someone says, `I’m hungry,’ I give bread, and my
children and my kids get angry at me.
(Soundbite of cat meowing)
MEHMET: (Foreign language spoken)
Ms. SHAFAK: He even cares for the street’s army of cats, some
incredibly majestic…
(Soundbite of cat meowing)
Ms. SHAFAK: …some so miserable.
(Soundbite of cat meowing, rain, creaking sound)
Ms. SHAFAK: The grocer and I, we look outside to a cascading rain.
Water gushes down in a river toward the Bosphorus. Sometimes I think
of my old street as a boat traveling through time, a street boat
expelling its passengers every few years, only to take on new ones
who have no memory of the past. The water streams as if to remind us
of how easily things can be washed away on Kazanci. But it’s not only
rainwater that has been pushed down the steep street throughout its
history.
(Soundbite of rain, clinking sounds)
MEHMET: (Through Translator) On the 6th of September, there was a
nationalist uprising, 1955.
Ms. SHAFAK: Fifty years ago, this street was populated by Turks,
Jews, Armenians and Greeks. In 1955, throngs of Turkish nationalists
gathered here, chanting slogans and anthems before they razed to the
ground virtually every store operated by ethnic minorities. There was
so much shattered glass all around that the whole neighborhood
glittered like a mirror in the sun. On that day, some among the mob
dragged out the newly introduced, pasty white, rounded refrigerators
and rolled them one by one all the way down our street, cheering with
the fall and crash of each machine.
MEHMET: (Through Translator) There were wheels of cheese. They rolled
it down the street because the grocer was Greek, they took his cheese
and rolled it down a street. Of all Turkey’s neighbors, the Greeks
are my favorite. Yes, I am sad. We are sad because we were so fond of
them. Also as a grocer I was very fond of them. They were good
customers. They know quality. The Greeks, they like artichokes a lot.
(Soundbite of store activity)
MEHMET: (Through Translator) Half of our customers were Greeks and
Armenians. They were afraid to stay here. They left Turkey.
(Soundbite of door being opened, traffic, rain, man singing)
Ms. SHAFAK: Once in a while in my dreams I see refrigerators spinning
down our street, only those make no noise, do not tumble. Instead,
they float light as a feather along the searing river of rainfall.
(Soundbite of rain)
NICK (Jeweler): OK, this is classified …(unintelligible). If you
like this, I can put the glue here. I mean, whichever you like.
Ms. SHAFAK: In another part of Istanbul, inside the Grand Bazaar,
this is Nick, an Armenian jeweler whose family was pushed off the
Street of Cauldron Makers. He grew up hearing all about the events of
1955.
NICK: Those days was very terrible. Lots of shops are actually
broken, you know?
Ms. SHAFAK: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
NICK: And people were coming by hundreds by hundreds, you know? And
they were just like animal. They were crazy. They were breaking
everywhere.
Ms. SHAFAK: He goes to America very often, as he has relatives and
business partners in California. He sells basterma, a kind of spicy
pastrami so dear to both Turks and Armenians. I ask him, despite all
this that happened, why hasn’t he wanted leave Turkey? Why hasn’t he
settled in America or elsewhere?
NICK: All my latest children’s boyfriends are there, and each time I
go somewheres they keep asking me when I’m going to move. And I think
I’ll never move this township. Sometimes they–when they hear my
name, they say, `Oh, we are Armenians. When did you come?’ I say, `We
were here before you come. We are here since 3,000 years.’
Ms. SHAFAK: The ethnic minorities weren’t the only ones our street
boat disgorged. During the 1970s, this street of cauldron makers
became notorious for its cluster of seamy residents, Istanbul’s
underbelly of drug dealers, pimps and transvestites, prostitutes.
They used to live here, all of them, in the flats where later we
would live. This used to be their street; now only a few remain and
remember.
Unidentified Man #2: (Foreign language spoken)
Unidentified Man #3: (Foreign language spoken)
Unidentified Woman: (Foreign language spoken)
Ms. SHAFAK: Madame Trukianna(ph) lives in a dingy basement room with
bare walls and meager furnishings. Six other transvestites, much
younger, sit on their haunches and listen to her respectfully.
Trukianna has been living on this street for more than 30 years. She
knows its story. She blames the transvestites themselves for their
expulsion from the streets.
Unidentified Man #4: (Foreign language spoken)
Madame TRUKIANNA (Transvestite): (Through Translator) We should
behave well, I told them. We shouldn’t lose these houses. But they
didn’t behave well. They kept on showing their bodies in the windows,
so they were kicked out of those houses.
Ms. SHAFAK: Istanbul police broke down doors and forced them out.
Those who resisted were beaten with hoses.
Madame TRUKIANNA: (Through Translator) They were kicked out of those
houses into the street. On the streets, they had to hitchhike. They
began to do prostitution on the roadsides.
Ms. SHAFAK: Many began doing business on the highways, only to make
the inside pages of Turkish newspapers when killed in hit-and-run
accidents.
Madame TRUKIANNA: (Coughs, foreign language spoken)
(Soundbite of traffic)
Ms. SHAFAK: During the years to follow, our street boat took on yet
another group of passengers. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, a
large number of jobless people, especially women, found their way to
Kazanci from Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Moldavia. Some were
transients; others came to stay, working as dancers in glitzy
nightclubs.
(Soundbite of people’s voices)
Ms. SHAFAK: The flow of women from the ex-Soviet Union coincided with
the flow of students from central and north Africa, and this went
hand in hand with migration from the little towns in the province of
Anatolia, coming to the big city for better jobs and living
standards.
(Soundbite of traffic, people’s voices)
Ms. SHAFAK: I now stand at the end of Kazanci, near the bottom of the
street and its second grocery store. Here there are no beer cans, nor
raki, the Turkish brandy. This is Gusun(ph), the conservative grocer.
She’s from Anatolia, too.
GUSUN (Grocer): (Through Translator) I don’t get out and encounter
other people much. The ones I do see, the ones I talk to are fine.
There is no problem with them, thanks be to God. Since I don’t go
anywhere else, I don’t know. I just go from here to home each day.
Ms. SHAFAK: The differences between ethnic, religious or sexual
minorities have been sharply drawn throughout the history of the
street of cauldron makers. And yet, there came a time when such
differences entirely lost their meaning: the night of the earthquake
in the summer of 1999.
GUSUN: (Through Translator) That night, God forbid it should happen
again. We were sleeping. We mostly woken up with the noise and the
shaking. There is a bright red thing like a flame, like fire.
Ms. SHAFAK: Only on that night, only when they were survivors in the
shared misfortune, did the conservative grocer on Kazanci offer a
cigarette to an aging transvestite and an old Greek neighbor, and
they all smoked their cigarettes together. Even so, the very next
day, the ground had settled again and old boundaries were quickly
redrawn.
GUSUN: (Through Translator) Because you can’t get along with
everyone, some people have lost themselves. We can’t be close to
whoever we meet. Allah will not come to that. That’s the way it is.
Ms. SHAFAK: Yaniburday(ph): That’s the way it is.
(Foreign language spoken)
GUSUN: (Foreign language spoken)
Ms. SHAFAK: Thus they and their stories came and went: the Armenians,
the Greeks, the transvestites, the Africans, the Russian working
girls. All these people seemed to have but one thing in common: All
have been fleeting passengers of the street of cauldron makers. And
then in the late 1990s, artists, musicians, bohemians, activists,
feminists boarded our street boat, carrying a new set of stories. I
came here around the same time.
(Soundbite of people’s voices)
Ms. SHAFAK: I’m inside a coffeehouse on Kazanci.
(Soundbite of dice)
Ms. SHAFAK: At one table, I notice a hippie-like woman playing
dominoes alongside Kurdish revolutionaries and the pizza boy. These
new groups are open-minded, critical, and they have the will to
co-exist in a way their grandfathers didn’t.
(Soundbite of dice)
Ms. SHAFAK: They only know Kazanci as it is today. Their eyes are
fixed on the future.
(Soundbite of laughter, people’s voices, music)
Ms. SHAFAK: Outside again, in the sudden silence that envelopes the
street, I breathe in the smell that follows a torrent of rain.
(Soundbite of traffic)
Ms. SHAFAK: I wrote a novel here on Kazanci. On the fringes of the
book is an old woman who secretly collects the artifacts that the
other residents are so eager to discard.
(Soundbite of metallic clanking)
Ms. SHAFAK: Sometimes I liken my writing to walking in a pile of
rubble. Atop the pile I stop and listen for the sounds of breathing
amid the stones. Perhaps this is what the saint at the top of the
street was trying to tell us: Look to the stories beneath your feet.
(Soundbite of traffic)
SIMON: Elif Shafak’s piece is part of the Worlds of Difference, a
documentary series on global cultural change. It was co-produced by
Sandy Tolan and Melissa Robbins. Worlds of Difference is a project of
Homelands Productions. For more information, you can visit our Web
site at npr.org.
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I’m Scott Simon.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EducationGuardian.co.uk, UK
Oct 8 2005
Turkish delight?
Chris Morris’s The New Turkey is a brave attempt to chart the
challenges facing the EU’s new applicant, says Andrew Finkel
Saturday October 8, 2005
The Guardian
The New Turkey: The Quiet Revolution on the Edge of Europe?
by Chris Morris
288pp, Granta, £17.99
“Happy is the one who says ‘I am a Turk’,” is the much quoted maxim
of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. What sweet agony, by contrast, for the rest
of us trying to follow the corkscrew path to modernity taken by the
republic he founded. Ask the Pentagon, which confidently expected the
cash-strapped Turkish government to accept the multi-billion dollar
inducement to support the war in Iraq; or the Turco-sceptics in
Europe who never believed the ultra-nationalists would reprieve the
convicted leader of the PKK by voting to abolish the death penalty;
or Turkish liberals who still support a prime minister who, as a
youthful radical, sat at the feet of the proto al-Qaida warlord
Gulbeddin Hekmatyar, as the best way of safeguarding the country’s
secular democracy. Getting at the heart of contemporary Turkey is a
bit like peeling an onion modified by Escher.
Happy we all are, therefore, to have a new Turkish primer by Chris
Morris which cuts a brisk and lucid way through the great themes of
Turkish life today, from the army’s shrinking role in public life to
the dynamism of a business community that works hard and avoids
paying taxes. The eponymous New Turkey might even be able to come to
terms with its past. Morris is full of affection for his former beat
as BBC correspondent, but he enjoys poking the scars left by the
ancien régime. Why does Turkey find it hard to look at the Ottoman
empire’s treatment of its Armenian population in 1915 and treat even
the cultural expression of Kurdishness as subversive? “You never ask
the questions we want to answer,” one officer tells him, providing
him with an epiphany on a plate.
Morris has served in Brussels and is therefore better placed than
most to answer the most complicated question of all: can a
fast-evolving Turkey soft-land in 10 or 15 years’ time inside a
European Union whose institutions are also in a state of flux? This
really is rocket science and, not surprisingly, Morris hedges a few
bets.
He is unequivocal, however, in believing that the prospect of EU
membership has already prompted a “quiet revolution on the edge of
Europe”. Like other nations that stood in the enlargement queue,
Turkey is undergoing regime change by consent. The other factor in
this revolution is that the old system quite literally collapsed. The
1999 earthquake, not unlike the natural disaster in New Orleans,
sought out not just the fault lines in the Earth but in society as
well. Ordinary people, already impatient with a self-seeking
political class, discovered that the bureaucracy and military too
were late in helping them in their hour of need. The government kept
sawing away at reforms, never believing the branch on which it sat
would finally collapse. The twin financial crises of 2000 and 2001
sealed the politicians’ fate. The post-war political machine they
created had simply run out of fuel.
Morris describes the slow transfer of power from a democratically
elected but Soviet-style state to the institutions of civil society.
We are reminded of an attempt by military intelligence in January
2004 to collect information on “divisive” trouble makers, including
Satanists, ethnic minorities and “individuals known to support the
United States and the European Union” (ie the armed forces
themselves). It doesn’t pay to underestimate the professionalism of
the Turkish army – a mainstay of Nato which has polished its
peacekeeping skills in Somalia, Bosnia and Afghanistan, but every now
and then it shoots itself in the foot.
Yet another lesson of the earthquake was that Turkey needed not just
a less heavy-handed government but a more efficient and transparent
one. It was civil society itself that defied planning procedures and
building codes and nurtured corrupt politicians. It will come as a
rude shock to those who rant against the tyranny of Brussels that to
many Turks, EU membership holds out the promise of being better
ruled.
Europe is more inclined to see Turkey as a challenge to its entire
civilisation – one which many conservative parties in Europe balk at
but which the left is more eager to accept. Morris quotes Joschka
Fischer: “To modernise an Islamic country based on the shared values
of Europe would be almost a D-Day for Europe in the war against
terror.” This is not an argument that appeals to Turks, who feel
patronised by attempts to depict them as the well-behaved Muslim
nation. They already see themselves as an important part of the
European economic zone. Many, frankly, are less bothered about being
a full member than with the immediate rewards that simply being a
candidate can bring. Europe means stability and as the Turkish
economy grows so too will the demand for European goods and services.
At present Turkey consumes at the level of Belgium; in 15 years the
population will exceed that of Germany. Think about it, Turks tell
their European friends. It’s win-win.
And if it goes wrong? Morris recognises that Turks would be more
likely to react to a European rebuff with an excess of nationalism
rather than a retreat into religious fundamentalism. A Turkey in
isolationist mood would be more dangerous to regional stability than
a nation absorbed in its own piety.
In some ways Turks now have the advantage. They have long realised
there is no alternative to change. For those who still think Europe
should define itself by whom it can exclude, not whom it can embrace,
The New Turkey is an eloquent nudge in the ribs.
· Andrew Finkel was a correspondent in Istanbul for many years and
has just completed a fellowship at the National Endowment for
Democracy in Washington DC. To order The New Turkey for £16.99 with
free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop.
,10595,1587422,00.html
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Pan Armenian News
GEORGIAN EXPERTS TO ASCERTAIN SAFETY OF ANPP
30.09.2005 07:38
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian and Georgian Prime Ministers achieved an
agreement according to which Georgian experts will be rendered an
opportunity to attend the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant and ascertain of its
not being dangerous for the neighbor states. To note, Greens of Georgia
insist that the Armenian NPP being located in a seismically active zone
represents a danger to Armenia and the neighbor states, RFE/RL reported.

Associated Press Worldstream
September 29, 2005 Thursday
President: Azerbaijan not expecting Ukrainian- or Georgian-style
revolution
by AIDA SULTANOVA; Associated Press Writer
BAKU, Azerbaijan
President Ilham Aliev warned against foreign interference in
Azerbaijan’s upcoming parliamentary elections, saying the country did
not expect a Ukrainian- or Georgian-style revolution because he and
the ruling party enjoyed strong support in society.
Rising political tensions before the Nov. 6 vote have led some
observers to predict that Azerbaijan could see a mass uprising
similar to those that brought opposition leaders to power in Georgia,
Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
In an interview with Finnish state television, published Thursday in
Azerbaijani newspapers, Aliev said that any unrest in the run-up to
the election would be the fault of opposition forces attempting to
destabilize the country.
He said the opposition was led by “a small group of political losers”
who had already been in power in 1992-93 and allegedly ruined the
country.
“They have lost every parliamentary and presidential election between
1993 and 2003,” Aliev said. “We realistically assess the situation
and possibilities in the country.”
He said the opposition had support from unnamed foreign countries,
where “there are forces that do not want Azerbaijan to develop
normally, strengthen its economic potential, integrate into European
structures and be a modern, democratic state.”
Azerbaijan, a mostly Muslim nation of 8.3 million, is the starting
point for a pipeline that will ship oil and gas from the country’s
huge offshore reserves to a Turkish Mediterranean port.
“Those who are planning something in Azerbaijan should know that we
will not allow this. We are adherents of a normal political process
and very carefully look into all questions connected with interfere
in our life,” he said.
Aliev – who succeeded his late, strongman father Geidar Aliev in a
2003 election the opposition said was rigged and which triggered
violent clashes between police and demonstrators – has pledged
repeatedly that the November elections would be free.
Opposition leaders have said, however, that they strongly doubted the
vote would be fair, and have rallied their supporters for
pro-democracy protests virtually every weekend – with some marchers
displaying portraits of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Two opposition activists have been detained in connection with a case
alleging that a youth movement leader, Ruslan Bashirli, met with
agents from Azerbaijan’s rival neighbor, Armenia, aimed at organizing
an uprising by pro-democracy forces in Azerbaijan.
Tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains high more than a
decade after a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war that left
Nagorno-Karabakh, a mainly ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, in
Armenian hands.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

MINISTERS OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF BELARUS AND ARMENIA TO SIGN COOPERATION PROTOCOL
De Facto Agency, Armenia
Sept 28 2005
Ministers of Internal Affairs of Armenia and Belarus are to sign
a bilateral Protocol on interaction between Ministry of Internal
Affairs of Belarus and RA Policy for 2006 – 2007 in the course of
the sitting of CIS Internal Ministers Council that is to take place
in Yerevan on September 29 – 30.
According to Regnum Ministers of Internal Affairs of Armenia and
Belarus are to discuss the issues referring to struggle against
corruption and other problems.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress