Author: Hakobian Adrine

Anatolia News Agency, Turkey
Oct 19 2007

Turkish businessmen ask US Congress not to adopt Armenian bill

Washington, DC, 19 October: The Association of Turkish Industrialists
and Businessmen (Tusiad) sent a letter to US congressmen and
requested that an Armenian bill in the House of Representatives be
not adopted.

In its letter, Tusiad expressed deep sadness over the adoption of an
Armenian bill by the US House of Representatives foreign relations
committee.

According to Tusiad’s letter, the Armenian bill may develop results
of no return in the Middle East and Caucasus, and Turkish business
community cannot understand why a parliament would want to re-write
Ottoman history as in the United States.

In its letter, Tusiad said it is unfortunate that the Armenian bill
came up at a time when the US administration is not willing to
support Turkey’s fight against terrorist PKK [Kurdistan Workers’
Party] organization.

Tusiad’s letter said the adoption of the Armenian bill by the US
House of Representatives would cause the following:

– Initiatives which aim to normalize relations between Turkey and
Armenia would be hurt.

– Efforts, such as Turkey’s proposal to establish an international
committee to study the incidents of 1915, will be damaged.

– Forces against Turkey’s Western orientation will gain strength.

– Characteristics, such as mutual understanding, democracy and open
society, that are so important following 11 September, will get
damaged.

– Search for alternative partnerships will be justified.

"We invite the American people, congressmen and the US administration
to help block the arrival of the Armenian bill to the general
assembly of the US House of Representatives. We also invite the said
parties to support with more determination Turkey’s fight against
terrorist PKK organization," Tusiad said in its letter.

Meanwhile, the US secretary of defence, Robert Gates, said the USA
would pay a very high price if the Armenian bill gets adopted by the
US House of Representatives.

"Turkey is not bluffing. Turks think they would have to pay
compensation and give up land if the Armenian bill gets adopted,"
told Gates.

Gates also said a cross-border operation into north of Iraq by the
Turkish armed forces would lead to an international crisis.

ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT APPROVES BILL ON YEREVAN

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Oct 18 2007

YEREVAN, October 18. /ARKA/. Armenian government approved Thursday
the bill on local self-governance and territorial administration in
Yerevan, Armenian Justice Minister Gevorg Danielyan said Thursday at
a governmental briefing.

"The necessity of the new law emerged after Armenia’s population
approved constitutional amendments at the 2005 referendum", he said.

Danielyan said that the law changes the indirect status of the capital
– from the status of a separate part to the status of a municipal
unit with 11 administrative regions instead of 12 communities.

The minister said that some changes will be made in administrative
division. For example, former Nubarashen community will join Avan
and Nork Marash will join Erebuni.

"Each of these administrative units will has a council. The number
of this council’s members will depend on the number of the district’s
residents", Danielyan said.

He said that councils of those administrative units having less than
75,000 residents will be made up of ten members, those having up to
100,000 residents will consist of 12 and more members and 15-member
councils are intended for communities with over 100,000 residents.

Yerevan’s council will be composed of 55 members.

Danielyan said the bill will be put on National Assembly floor very
soon.

PATRIARCH MUTAFIAN: "THE ARMENIAN RESOLUTION IS A TOOL FOR POLITICAL FODDER IN THE US"

Turkish Press
The New Anatolian
Oct 17 2007

Mesrob Mutafian, patriarch of Turkish Armenians, yesterday said
the Turkish-Armenian community opposes the resolution regarding the
incidents of 1915 which was passed last week by a key US House of
Representatives committee. He added that the resolution is a tool
for domestic political fodder in the US.

GI Puts Hitler’s Globe on the Auction Block

Monday, October 15, 2007
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO – Days after the end of World War II, an American
soldier entering the wreckage of Adolf Hitler’s mountain stronghold
found that fierce Allied bombing had left the "Eagle’s Nest" in ruins.

Hitler was dead, and other soldiers had already looted the inside of
his private residence, even stripping the leather from
furniture. Nearly everything of value was gone – except for the
Fuhrer’s globe.

"Literally, the place is all bombed out and here this globe is sitting
there on the desk," said John Barsamian, now 91.

Now Barsamian is putting the artifact up for auction, along with all
the military paperwork that allowed him to bring it back to the United
States, including a certificate that reads "1 Global Map, German,
Hitler’s Eagle Nest."

Other globes presumed to have been owned by Hitler have been
extensively researched for authenticity. But there is no uncertainty
about the origins of Barsamian’s wartime trophy.

"This is probably the most airtight documentation I’ve run across in
some time," said Greg Martin, proprietor of the auction house that
will handle the sale. "We have pictures of the guy there at the time,
standing in the ruins holding the globe like a newborn baby. The guy
is a meticulous record keeper."

Barsamian found the globe in April 1945 in Berghof, Hitler’s home in
the Bavarian Alps town of Berchtesgaden. He boxed it up with a few
other keepsakes, including a pistol and a dagger, and shipped them
home.

For more than 60 years, he kept the globe at his home in Oakland. It
wasn’t displayed prominently, and he only told its story when close
friends would ask.

"Hardly anyone knew I had it," Barsamian said.

Today, the globe rests on a plain wooden pedestal and wouldn’t seem
out of place in a grade-school classroom. A weathered ribbon of
transparent tape encircles the globe at its equator.

For Barsamian, it evokes memories of another era, when he was a
28-year-old chief warrant officer.

Running his finger across a World War II-era map of Europe, he
described his division’s advance into Nazi territory and recalls every
battle.

"This is where we cleaned out the enemy," Barsamian said, tracing a
line eastward from Normandy.

But the war was also a painful time. "I lost those years," he
said. "Those years with my father and mother and brothers are gone."

After beating cancer and burying his wife, Violet, in 2004, Barsamian
is finally ready to part with the globe. He’s selling it now, while
he’s still alive, so he can personally tell the story behind it and
share his experience in the war, says his son, Barry.

The globe is to expected to attract bids from $15,000 to $20,000 when
it is auctioned Nov. 13 in San Francisco.

Other items up for auction include rare documents signed by Hitler,
and a box of cigars that belonged to Hermann Goering, a leader in the
Nazi Party.

Armenian crime amnesia?

Washington Times
October 16, 2007

Bruce Fein – Armenian crimes against humanity and war crimes against
the Ottoman Turkish and Kurdish populations of eastern and southern
Anatolia during World War I and its aftermath have been forgotten
amidst congressional preoccupation with placating the vocal and richly
financed Armenian lobby.

Last Wednesday, the Armenians hectored members of the House
International Relations Committee by a 27-21 vote into passing a
counterfactual resolution convicting the Ottoman Empire and its
successor state, the Republic of Turkey, of genocide. A historically
supportable resolution would have condemned massacres against
Armenians with the same vigor, as it should have condemned massacres
by Armenians against the innocent Muslim populations of the crumbling
Ottoman Empire.

Capt. Emory Niles and Arthur Sutherland, on an official 1919 U.S.
mission to eastern Anatolia, reported: "In the entire region from
Bitlis through Van to Bayezit, we were informed that the damage and
destruction had been done by the Armenians, who, after the Russians
retired, remained in occupation of the country and who, when the
Turkish army advanced, destroyed everything belonging to the
Musulmans. Moreover, the Armenians are accused of having committed
murder, rape, arson and horrible atrocities of every description upon
the Musulman population. At first, we were most incredulous of these
stories, but we finally came to believe them, since the testimony was
absolutely unanimous and was corroborated by material evidence. For
instance, the only quarters left at all intact in the cities of Bitlis
and Van are Armenian quarters … while the Musulman quarters were
completely destroyed."

Niles and Sutherland were fortified by American and German
missionaries on the spot in Van. American Clarence Ussher reported
that Armenians put the Turkish men "to death," and, for days, "They
burned and murdered." A German missionary recalled that, "The memory
of these entirely helpless Turkish women, defeated and at the mercy of
the [Armenians] belongs to the saddest recollections from that time."

A March 23, 1920, letter of Col. Charles Furlong, an Army intelligence
officer and U.S. Delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, to President
Woodrow Wilson elaborated: "We hear much, both truth and gross
exaggeration of Turkish massacres of Armenians, but little or nothing
of the Armenian massacres of Turks. … The recent so-called Marash
massacres [of Armenians] have not been substantiated. In fact, in the
minds of many who are familiar with the situation, there is a grave
question whether it was not the Turk who suffered at the hands of the
Armenian and French armed contingents which were known to be occupying
that city and vicinity. … Our opportunity to gain the esteem and
respect of the Muslim world … will depend much on whether America
hears Turkey’s untrammeled voice and evidence which she has never
succeeded in placing before the Court of Nations."

The United States neglected Col. Furlong’s admonition in 1920, and
again last Wednesday. Nothing seems to have changed from those days,
when Christian lives were more precious than the lives of the
"infidels."

Justin McCarthy of the University of Louisville concluded that a
staggering 2.5 million Anatolian Muslims died in World War I and the
Turkish War of Independence. More than 1 million died in the Six
Provinces in Eastern Anatolia, as Armenians with the help of Russia’s
invading armies sought to reclaim their historical homeland.

In contrast, best contemporaneous estimates place the number of
Armenians who died in the war and its aftermath at between 150,000 and
600,000. The Armenian death count climbed to 1.5 million over the
years on the back of political clout and propaganda.

The committee voiced horror over the Armenian suffering, but said
nothing about the suffering Armenians inflicted on the Muslim
population. Nor did the committee deplore the 60 years of Armenian
terrorism in the Ottoman capital Istanbul, including assassination of
the Armenian patriarch and an attempted assassination of the sultan as
he was leaving prayer. Armenian terror was exported to the U.S.
mainland and Europe by fanatics who murdered over 70 Turkish
diplomats, three of them in Los Angeles and one honorary consul
general in Boston.

Mourad Topalian, erstwhile head of the Armenian National Committee of
America, a lead lobbying group behind the resolution and major
campaign contributor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members,
was sentenced to 36 months in prison for complicity in a conspiracy to
bomb the Turkish mission at the United Nations. Yet Toplain has
escaped a terrorist label by either Armenian-Americans or their echo
chambers in Congress.

The home of the late Professor Stanford Shaw of the University of
California-Los Angeles was firebombed in retaliation for his academic
courage in disputing the Armenian genocide claim. Like Benito
Mussolini, Armenians believe truth is an assertion at the head of a
figurative bayonet.

In parts of Europe, disbelief in the Armenian genocide allegation is a
crime on par with Holocaust denial. But the Holocaust was proven
before the Nuremburg Tribunal with the trappings of due process.
Armenians, in contrast, have forgone bringing their genocide
allegation before the International Court of Justice because it is
unsupported by historical facts.

In contrast to open Ottoman archives, significant Armenian archives
remain closed to conceal evidence of Armenian terrorism and massacres.

If the resolution’s proponents had done their homework and put aside
religious bigotry, they would have reached the same conclusion as
author and Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton University: "[T]he
point that was being made was that the massacre of the Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire was the same as what happened to Jews in Nazi
Germany and that is a downright falsehood. What happened to the
Armenians was the result of a massive Armenian armed rebellion against
the Turks, which began even before war broke out, and continued on a
larger scale."

Brian Ardouny of the Armenian Assembly of America in a videotaped
interview for a documentary on the Armenian Revolt clucked: "We don’t
need to prove the genocide historically, because it has already been
accepted politically." Congress should reject that cynicism in defense
of historical truth.

Bruce Fein is a resident scholar with the Turkish Coalition of America.

Source: MMENTARY02/110160004

ARMENIAN ACTIVISTS WIN ONE MORE BATTLE IN THE WAR TO ISOLATE TURKEY
By Gwynne Dyer

New Zealand Herald
m?c_id=359&objectid=10470030&pnum=0
Oct 15 2007
New Zealand

Nothing much will happen right away. The Turkish Ambassador to
Washington has gone home for "consultations" after the Foreign Affairs
Committee of the House of Representatives approved a bill declaring
that the mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World
War I was a genocide.

But he will come back to Washington, and it will be weeks before the
full House passes the bill. This will be a slow-motion disaster.

The White House tried hard to stop this bill. President George W. Bush
declared that "this resolution is not the right response to these
historic mass killings". All eight living former US Secretaries of
State, Democratic and Republican, signed a joint letter to the Foreign
Affairs Committee urging it not to approve the bill.

But it did, by a 27-21 vote, and next month the full House will do
the same: more than half the members have signed up as co-sponsors
of the bill.

Bush promises that it will die in the Senate but by then the damage
will be done. The US-Turkish alliance will be gravely damaged and
American use of Turkey as a major supply line for its troops in Iraq
– 70 per cent of US air cargo for Iraq goes through Turkey – will be
at an end.

Advertisement

Advertisement"I can assure you that Turkey knows how to play
hardball," Egeman Bagis, an adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyib Erdogan, told reporters in Washington. Turkey may also send
its troops into northern (Kurdish) Iraq, destabilising the one stable
and fairly prosperous part of that country.

The United States will be the 23rd country to fall to the Armenian
campaign to link the Ottoman Turkey of 90 years ago with the Nazi
Germany of 60 years ago – and, by extension, to implicate the current
Republic of Turkey in the crime of premeditated genocide.

Once such a law is passed, to question the Armenian take on what
happened is to become the equivalent of a denier of the (Jewish)
Holocaust. The Armenian desire to have their national tragedy given
the same status as the Jewish Holocaust is understandable but it
is mistaken.

The facts are horrifying, and certainly justify calling the events in
eastern Turkey in 1915-16 a genocide, but the key elements of prior
intent and systematic planning that distinguish the Nazi Holocaust
are absent.

When I was a graduate student in Middle Eastern history, as a
translation exercise I was given the hand-written diary of a Turkish
soldier who was killed during the retreat from Baghdad in 1917.

Mehmet Cavus (Sergeant Mehmet) was a youthful school teacher who had
been called up in 1914.

At first he had a safe billet guarding the Black Sea entrance to the
Bosphorus but in 1915 his unit was suddenly ordered to march east to
deal with a Russian invasion and an Armenian rebellion.

And then, in the diary of this pleasant, rather naive young man,
I read the phrase "iyi katliam etmistik". Loosely translated, that
means: "We really massacred them".

I asked my teacher if it really said what I thought it did. "Oh yes,"
he said. "Those were different times."

That excuses nothing but it explains much. The foolish young officers
who led the Ottoman Empire into the war panicked when they realised
that the Russians were invading from the east and the British were
about to land somewhere on the Mediterranean coast.

At that point, Armenian revolutionaries (Dashnaks and Hnchaks), who
had been plotting with the Russians and the British to carve out an
Armenian state from the wreckage of the empire, launched feeble, futile
revolts to assist the invaders. The Turks responded by slaughtering
many Armenians in what is now eastern Turkey. At least 600,000 died,
and perhaps as many as 1.5 million. It was certainly a genocide but
it was not premeditated nor was it systematic.

Armenians living in other parts of the empire were largely left alone.

So why is the US Congress "recognising" the Armenian genocide but
not the more recent genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda? Because there
are not many voters of Tutsi descent in key Congressional districts.

This is all about domestic politics. Today’s Armenian activists aren’t
looking for "justice". They want to drive the Turks into extreme
reactions that will isolate them and derail the domestic changes that
are turning that country into a modern, tolerant democracy.

They do not want Turkey to succeed. And Western countries are falling
for it.

THE AMERICAN CONGRESS IS PERTURBING RELATIONS BETWEEN TURKS AND EUROPEANS

Courrier International
Oct 15 2007
France

The daily considers that "the angry reactions of Turks after the
resolution on the Armenian genocide adopted by an American Congress
commission on Wednesday, October 10th, show the scope of Ankara’s
susceptibility. This resolution has yet to be ratified in a plenary
session by the Chamber of representatives and, besides, the Bush
administration has already made it clear that it will not carry it
through. The limited knowledge the American Congress has of Turkey may
well weigh upon the country’s relationship with the European Union and
pointlessly question Ankara’s accession once again. This exaggerated
susceptibility cannot be a reason for the West to be silent on what
is considered by most historians to have been genocide. Above all,
Turkey should not stubbornly freeze and insist on halting the process
of historical introspection that it must go through."

TURKISH – U.S. TIES NEAR THE BREAKING POINT
By Semih Idiz

Turkish Press
Oct 15 2007

MILLIYET- Last week I had the opportunity to sound out the situation
in Washington for three days. Circles close to the administration
and Turkey analysts at leading think-thanks told me that the Bush
administration was taking Ankara’s warnings over the Armenian
resolution very seriously.

The way the administration rushed US Defense Undersecretary and
former US Ambassador to Ankara Eric Edelmen to visit Ankara, along
with Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried, is proof of that.

But at this point the Bush administration has become a ‘lame duck.’
Democrats who support the Armenian resolution, led by House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, are carrying out a merciless war of attrition against
the Bush administration.

US experts fault the Bush administration’s failings for the
situation. Supporters of the resolution have been attacking the
administration’s argument that US interests could be damaged.

They claim that Turkey is bluffing, adding that Ankara, well aware of
the importance of its ties with the US, won’t shoot itself in the foot.

Armenia is also pressing ahead with its lobbying efforts. Armenian
Premier Serzh Sargsyan is planning to travel to Washington on
Wednesday.

According to Washington insiders, Sargsyan has two goals:

First, he reportedly wants to counter the Bush administration’s
argument that if Congress passes the resolution, an improving dialogue
between Turkey and Armenia would suffer a setback. He will reportedly
say that brief contacts at certain international platforms do not
constitute dialogue. Secondly, he will argue that Turkey’s claim that
its stance on the events in 1915 is more sincere is ‘artificial.’

Following the murder early this year of Hrant Dink, which ended up
benefiting the Armenian lobby, the suspended jail sentence handed down
last week to his son Arat Dink – just as the committee was considering
the resolution – also helped those who support the resolution.

Pointing to this case as well as our controversial Article 301,
Sargsyan is expected to claim that Ankara’s proposal to establish an
impartial commission of historians is disingenuous.

In summary, Ankara has to prove that it’s not bluffing. Otherwise,
steps which don’t really hurt the US will obviously be used by the
Armenian lobby.

Anyway, in this atmosphere, recent efforts by the US State Department’s
Nicholas Burns to revive strategic ties seem dead. On the contrary,
ties between the two countries are growing more frayed and nearing
the breaking point. We’ll see whether this will be bad or good for
the two countries.

PanARMENIAN.Net

Turkish Consumers’ Union calls for U.S. product boycott
12.10.2007 18:00 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish Consumers’ Union called for a boycott on
U.S.-made products in response to adoption of the Armenian Genocide
Resolution by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

"We decided not to use U.S.-made products to protest the approval of
the resolution,’ said Bulent Deniz, a spokesperson for the Turkish
Consumers’ Union on Thursday, Xinhua reports.

In protest to the House Committee’s decision, cinemas screening
American films were closed, McDonalds employees did not appear at
work, Spiderman and Barbie dolls were burnt in some shops in Turkey.

AZG Armenian Daily #187, 13/10/2007

Culture

SECOND CONFERENCE OF ARMENIAN FOREIGN LANGUAGE WRITERS

On October 10-17 is being held the Second Conference of Armenian
Foreign Language Writers in Yerevan, Tsakhkadzor and Artsakh. The
motto of the conference is "National Essence and Literature".

"The First Conference was held in 2005 under the title "The Genocide
and Foreign Language Armenian Literature", informed the President of
Armenian Writers’ Union Levon Ananian at the meeting of the Armenian
writers from 18 countries with the journalists before the opening of
the conference.

30 delegates from 18 countries participate in the conference.

The conference is combined with the Day of Translators that will be
celebrated in Oshakan, where "Kantegh" prizes will be traditionally
awarded to the foreign language writers.

The conference will continue in Tsakhkadzor, and then RA Minister of
Culture Hasmik Poghosian will meet the delegates of the
conference. The delegates will be adopted also at the Holy Temple
Edzmiatsin.

To the question of a journalist "Which are the peculiarities of the
foreign language writers", the literary critic and publicist Ervand
Azatian (USA) answered,"The national issue is the same for the foreign
language writers as well. The important thing for a writer is that his
works should be written with artistic style and taste."

"Being a representative of his/her nation, the foreign language writer
writes in foreign language and develops the culture of other nation
and people. Can it have dual influence? These issues are on the agenda
of the conference", mentioned one of the initiators of the conference,
writer-translator Alexander Topchian.

The opening ceremony of the conference was held in the National
Academy of Sciences’ ceremonial hall on October 11. The President of
Armenian Writers’ Union Levon Ananian delivered the welcome speech. He
first congratulated the delegates on the adoption of Resolution 106 by
the House Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives of
the US Congress. The delegates applauded standing up and then
continued their works in the conference.

Oshin Keshishian (USA), Alexander Topchian (Armenia), Sargis
Kirakosian (Lebanon), Diana Ter-Hovhannisian (USA), Nancy Grigorian
(USA) made speeches. Diana Hambardzumian read the text of Hakob
Khachikian’s (Canada) speech. After the speeches, discussions took
place and the delegates submitted their proposals.

Summing up the meeting Ervand Azatian mentioned, "When Armenians left
their motherland, they began to write and speak in different
languages, and when they return to their motherland they seem to
return to the tower of Babel, as they understand each other hardly. If
there is a spiritual connection, we will also mechanically create a
language connection, in order the spirit, the language, the literature
and the culture supplement and complete each other. That is the aim of
the conference."

By Marieta Makarian, translated by L.H.