Author: Hovhannisian John

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 19 2007

Peter Semneby: European Union supports peaceful solution to Nagorno
Karabakh conflict

[ 19 Oct 2007 12:04 ]

South Caucasus is a very important region for European Union (EU), EU
Special Representative for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby said, APA
reports.

He stated that he met with Azerbaijani President, Interior Minister
and representatives of civil societies yesterday.
Mr. Semneby underlined that mutual relations of South Caucasian
countries is also of great importance for EU.
`EU supports peaceful solution to all conflicts in South Caucasus, as
well as Nagorno Karabakh conflict,’ he said. /APA/

PRESSURE’S ON PELOSI TO CALL OFF HOUSE VOTE
By Richard Simon

Seattle Times, WA
Oct 18 2007

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came under increasing pressure
from members of her Democratic caucus Wednesday not to bring a
resolution officially recognizing the Armenian genocide to a vote.

The California Democrat, who had promised to bring the long-debated
resolution to the floor, sounded uncertain about its fate as support
has waned in the face of denunciations from Turkey and realizations
that the symbolic resolution could disrupt U.S. military operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Whether it will come up or not, or what
the action will be, remains to be seen," she said.

The Bush administration and the Turkish government – aided by
high-paid, well-connected lobbyists – have ratcheted up their campaign
against the measure, which calls on the president to "accurately
characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000
Armenians as genocide."

Now top Democrats are leaning on Pelosi. Rep. John Murtha of
Pennsylvania, an influential Democrat on military matters, has urged
Pelosi not to bring the resolution to the floor. He said party leaders
miscalculated support for the measure. If the resolution is brought to
a vote now, he said, it would fail, with between 55 and 60 Democrats
opposing it.

Murtha, a close Pelosi ally who is a leader in efforts to withdraw
U.S. forces from Iraq, said he was worried the resolution could
lead Turkey to deny use of its land, ports and air space to supply
American troops.

Separately, a bipartisan group of 49 House members, including such
committee chairmen as Ike Skelton, D-Mo., of the Armed Services
Committee and Rep. Silverstre Reyes, D-Texas, of the Intelligence
Committee, sent Pelosi a letter urging her not to schedule a vote.

The resolution’s supporters weren’t ready to concede defeat.

They want to have a vote when they are confident they will prevail.

Pelosi has left it to the sponsors, led by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.,
to gauge support.

"We want to win," Schiff said. "We always knew this was going to
be tough."

Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America,
said Pelosi is "pretty committed" to the resolution. "At the end of
the day, we’re confident that there will be a bipartisan majority"
supporting the measure, he said.

At least a dozen lawmakers have withdrawn as co-sponsors of the
resolution since it was approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee
last week, leaving the list of co-sponsors short of a majority of the
House. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., who pulled his name as a sponsor
Wednesday, said, "We need to hold the perpetrators of genocide
accountable, but this is not the right time for this resolution."

Bush again requested that Pelosi not bring the resolution to a vote.

"Congress has more important work to do than antagonizing a democratic
ally in the Muslim world, especially one that’s providing vital
support for our military every day," he said.

But the resolution’s supporters took Bush to task for being willing
to anger China by meeting the Dalai Lama in public Wednesday but
worrying about offending Turkey.

itics/2003958150_genovote18.html

OSCE MG CO-CHAIRS TO VISIT REGION OCTOBER 24-27

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.10.2007 17:23 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ October 17 Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian met in Paris with OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs, Bernard
Fassier (France), Matthew Bryza (U.S.) and Yuri Merzlyakov (Russia)
to discuss the details of the mediators’ October 24-27 visit to the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict region and issues to be raised at meetings
with Armenian and Azeri Presidents, the RA MFA press office said.

"DE FACTO ABKHAZ OFFICIALS PARTICIPATE IN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN YEREVAN"

The Messenger, Georgia
Oct 16 2007

Temur Mzhavia, chair of the Supreme Council of the Abkhaz
government-in-exile, is protesting the inclusion of representatives
of the de factoAbkhaz National Bank, GarantBank and Fininvestbank in
the fourth international banking conference in Yerevan, according to
Akhali Taoba.

Armenian officials often call on Georgia to contribute to positive
neighborly relations, although in this case Armenia is not setting
an example. Akhali Taoba writes.

"This can be proved by the fact that representatives of de facto Abkhaz
financial structures have been invited as official representatives of
an independent country. I believe this is an affront to Georgia’s state
interests and international juridical principles," Mzhavia remarked.

He also said he will write an official letter to the Armenian
Ambassador to Georgia, Grach Silvanian.

"We will not object to de facto administration officials participating
in similar events if they are presented as regional representatives
of Georgia," Mzhavia explained.

The conference began on October 10 and will finish on October 16.

Organizers include the Russian Banks Association, Armenian Banks
Union and International Exchange Association of Moscow.

ACKNOWLEDGING A PROBLEM: DOES RECOGNIZING AN ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING?
By Sergei Markedonov

Russia Profile, Russia
Oct 16 2007

This month, the "Armenian Issue" once again became one of the main
items on the international agenda. A new initiative by the United
States to acknowledge the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire has seriously complicated the situation in the Middle East
and Central Asia.

On Wednesday, Oct. 11, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the
U.S. House of Representatives passed resolution #106. This resolution
calls the massacre of Armenians by the Turks in 1915 a "genocide."

Steps towards similar resolutions have been made before, but this is
the first time such an initiative has had sizeable support within
the American political establishment. And even this decision was
not unanimous – 27 members of the committee voted for the resolution
while 21 members voted against it.

Nevertheless, in the middle of November this resolution will be
reviewed by Congress and the chances of it being passed are higher
than ever. Of the 435 members of the House of Representatives,
226 of them participated in writing the resolution. On the night of
Oct. 11, the Yerkir Media TV Company, which has close ties to the ARF
(the Armenian Revolutionary Federation) Dashnaktsutiun – the oldest
political party in Armenia – broadcast the "historic" meeting of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs.

According to Yerevan-based political scientist David Petrosyan,
"the discussion demonstrated that the majority of the committee
members are well acquainted with this subject; they presented a
number of substantial arguments in defense of their position. This is
the result of work by the most powerful and authoritative Armenian
lobbying organizations in the United States: the Armenian Assembly
of America and the Armenian National Committee of America." This
discussion also showed that, although the leaders of the Armenian
government talk about strategic relations with Russia, the "western
vector" of Armenian foreign policy is very important.

Mixed Loyalties

Today the Russian expert community generally accepts that Armenia
is Russia’s most reliable ally in the South Caucasus. The prospect
of Armenia reorientating toward the United States or the European
Union countries is either not considered at all or thought to be
insignificant. However, outside the cozy world of political cliches
and ritual declarations of the centuries-old "Russian-Armenian"
friendship, it is obvious that Armenia’s foreign policy is much
more complicated. Strictly speaking, Armenia does not need to tend
towards the West, because it was never an "anti-Western" country,
unlike Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko or Saparmurat Niyazov’s
Turkmenistan. The presence of a pro-Western element in the history
of post-Soviet Armenia has always been an important factor in the
republic’s development.

Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia stepped out on
to the international stage and learned, with the help of its large
diaspora, to appeal to global public opinion and help turn this opinion
in a pro-Armenian direction. On May 17, 1999, the U.S. Senate passed
a resolution condemning attacks on peaceful civilians and firing at
unarmed civilians in reaction to a "cleanup" operation carried out by
troops of the Soviet Union’s interior ministry in the Armenian villages
of Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1992, Congress passed Amendment 907 to the
Freedom Support Act, which prohibited direct U.S. government aid to
Azerbaijan. And although today many provisions of this amendment have
been significantly "corrected," it has not yet been cancelled. Azeri
President, Ilham Aliyev demanded the cancellation of Amendment 907
during his visit to Washington last year. Despite the fact that the oil
lobby stands for complete cancellation of the amendment, the Armenian
lobby (primarily the Armenian National Committee of America – ANCA)
has been successful in its counter-efforts. Over the last 15 years,
the United States has provided more than $1 billion of economic
assistance to Armenia. More than 1 million ethnic Armenians reside
in the United States.

In July 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to guarantee
that no import or export funds would be used to support the proposed
construction of a railroad connecting the Turkish city of Kars to
the Georgian cities of Akhalkalaki and Tbilisi and ending up in the
Azeri capital Baku, bypassing Armenia. House Resolution 5068 says that
"taxpayers’ money will not be used for a greater isolation of Armenia,
which still suffers from a double blockade imposed by Turkey and
Azerbaijan." Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-New York), one of the congressmen
who supported this document, stated: "these measures will promote
stability in the Southern Caucasus, while financial support for such
a railroad construction project would contradict the US’s interests."

Now in 2007, the time has come for the issue that is the most important
for the world’s Armenian community – recognizing the genocide of 1915
and including this issue in the U.S. foreign policy agenda. The vote on
Oct. 11 has already received a negative reaction from Turkey. Officials
in Ankara hinted that the vote could decrease the amount of aid Turkey
provides for U.S. troops in Iraq; as U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates has noted, 70 percent of all air cargo and 30 percent of fuel
for U.S. forces in Iraq transits through Turkey. Moreover, President
George W. Bush has also strongly recommended that Congress not pass
this resolution.

Although the president cannot strongarm the congressmen into voting
his way, both the congressmen and the senators must understand how
important the Turkish factor is for U.S. policy both in the Middle
East and in the Black Sea region, particularly since there is already
an ethnic group separating Ankara and Washington – the Kurds. The
United States supports a de facto Kurdish state in the territory
of Iraq while Ankara considers Iraqi Kurdistan a nest of terrorists
providing support to the Kurdish separatist movement inside Turkey.

Turkey has the second-largest army in NATO, which is well trained
and prepared. Its special services are capable of liquidating their
foes and also brilliantly discredited politically the longstanding
Kurd leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The Turkish dilemma

Yerevan is accusing Turkey of committing genocide against Armenians
during World War I, when about 1.5 million Armenians residing in the
territory of the Ottoman Empire were killed. Turkey, in its turn, does
not agree that the deaths were genocide, claiming that actually the
number of Armenians killed was much smaller and that these deaths
were a result of inter-ethnic conflict. Even the Armenians do not
agree on the future of Armenian-Turkish relations. The first leader
of the Armenian Republic, Levon-Ter Petrossian, was willing to give
up overemphasizing the tragedy in favor of prospects for future
positive relations with Turkey. Despite the fact Robert Kocharyan,
Armenia’s second president, has taken a much firmer stand toward its
western neighbor, Yerevan has given up any territorial claims against
Turkey. Even the Armenian diaspora is split on the genocide as well
as on territorial claims and reparations.

According to well-known Yerevan political scientist Tigran Martirosyan,
"the current demands of the Armenian people regarding Western Armenia
[part of modern Turkey] are based on the world community accepting the
statute ‘The Necessity of Liquidating the Consequences of Genocide’
as an international norm. And this, in its turn, is based on charters
of international tribunals, resolutions of the UN General Assembly
and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, which was adopted on Dec. 9, 1948 and came into force on
Jan. 12, 1951."

In the meanwhile, Turkish historians and politicians studying the
Armenian issue have their own serious counter-arguments. According to
Professor Halil Berktay, "this is a very serious issue. It is a mistake
made by the Turkish Republic. Turkey is taking too long to determine
its official political and legal position on the Ottoman Empire. Turkey
has not quite realized and has not completely adopted the fact that
it overthrew the Ottoman regime and established a modern republic
in its place. And this contains a very serious contradiction. The
republic cannot be held accountable for these events… The Turkish
Republic today can say one simple thing: the republic was founded
in 1923. The events in question took place in 1915. The army of the
Turkish Republic and its governmental institutions had nothing to
do with these events. The Turkish Republic is a new state. From the
legal point of view, it is not the legal successor of either the
Ottoman government or the Unity and Progress party government [the
Young Turks]." Today many Turkish researchers of Armenian-Turkish
relations argue for depoliticizing the problem of 1915, leaving it
for historians. However, many scientists, bureaucrats and politicians
in Turkey consider even statements like Berktay’s to be extremely
"liberal," and Taner Akcam, the first Turkish historian to use the
term "genocide" to characterize the 1915 tragedy, is now teaching at
the University of Michigan, far away from his historical homeland.

At first glance, Ankara could have easily chosen to say farewell to
the past. It would have been enough to simply develop the thesis of
"liberal" Turkish historians that there is no legal succession between
the Turkish Republic and the Ottoman Empire. Such a stance has been
one of the key ideological points of modern Turkey since the time of
the republic’s founder, Kemal Ataturk. Once such a declaration was
made, the Turkish government could have condemned the Ottomans and
their killing of Armenians. Moreover, Ankara could have accepted the
"pass" from Yerevan when it gave up its territorial claims to Western
Armenia, which today is under Turkish jurisdiction.

By accepting the 1915 Armenian genocide today, Ankara could have
closed the issue it forever.

However, acknowledging the Armenian genocide and saying farewell to
the past is not so simple. Kemalist Turkey, which denounces the legacy
of the Ottoman regime in many ways, still carries out the familiar
old foreign and internal policies. This is true for the conflict over
Cyprus, relations with Greece and Bulgaria, the policy in the territory
of the former Yugoslavia and the policy toward ethnic minorities in
addition to the problems with Armenia. Moreover, throughout the 20th
century, the Turkish Republic was able to strengthen its position
in the world by skillfully manipulating the conflicts between the
world’s great powers, which is why Armenia and the Armenian diaspora
has expressed alarm about Turkey’s possible entry into the European
Union. Turkey has used NATO resources completely to its advantage,
without worrying too much about making its actions comply with the
high standards of the organization.

Today Turkey has its own interests in the South Caucasus and can turn
the issue of acknowledging the genocide of Armenians into an item
up for negotiation. Recognizing the genocide could become part of
the negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh, since Azerbaijan is Turkey’s
strategic partner. It is quite possible that Ankara will suggest an
"exchange of acknowledgments" between Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On March 26, 1998, then-President Heydar Aliyev issued a Presidential
Decree "On the genocide of Azeris." March 31 was proclaimed as the
Day of Genocide of the Azeris. The decree included such declarations
as "the dismemberment of the Azerbaijani people," the "division
of historical lands" of the Azerbaijanis, and the "occupation"
of Azerbaijan after the Gyulistan (1813) and Turkmanchai (1828)
peace treaties, which ended two Russo-Persian wars. The historical
responsibility for the genocide of Azeris was laid upon the Russian
Empire, the Soviet Union, Armenia and the Armenian people. Thus, it is
also possible that in return for acknowledging the Armenian genocide
of 1915, Turkey will ask Armenia, with the help of pressure from the
United States, to acknowledge the "Azeri genocide." Only time will
tell whether Washington will be ready for such a turn. And not just
time, but also the situation around Iran, the dynamics in Iraq and
the continued upheaval in the wider Caucasus region.

Sergei Markedonov is the head of the Interethnic Relations Department
at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis in Moscow.

eid=International&articleid=a1192521429

TIME TO RECOGNIZE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Vahe Gabrielyan, Armenia’s Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s

AZG Armenian Daily
16/10/2007

The Armenian ambassador to Britain on why he believes, nearly a
century on, Turkey should admit to a genocide

Throughout the twentieth century to the present day there has not been
any substantiated doubt about the character of the mass deportations,
expropriation, abduction, torture, starvation and killings of millions
of Armenians throughout Ottoman Turkey that started on a large scale
in 1915 and carried onto 1923.

Centrally planned by the government of the day and meticulously
executed by the huge machine of the state bureaucracy, army, police,
hired gangs and – specially released for that purpose – criminals
from prisons, the campaign had one clear aim expressly stated by the
government in secret directives: to rid Anatolia of its indigenous
Armenian population and settle the so – called ‘Armenian question’
for good.

An entire nation and its Christian culture were eliminated to secure
a homogenous Turkish state on territories where Armenians had lived
for many centuries.

Terms such as "genocide" or "ethnic cleansing" were not in circulation
then, so Winston Churchill later referred to the 1915 massacre of
1.5 million Armenians as an "administrative holocaust".

The Turkish authorities made no secret of the aim once it was achieved
and other governments and nations have known the truth since. One
of the early accounts of Armenian Genocide was published in 1916
in Britain.

The British Government at the time commissioned James Bryce and Arnold
Toynbee to compile evidence on the events in Armenia. The subsequent
report was printed in the British Parliamentary Blue Book series
"The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916". The
report leaves no doubt about what was taking place.

In 1915, thirty-three years before UN Genocide Convention was adopted,
the Armenian Genocide was condemned by the international community as
a crime against humanity. It is well acknowledged that Polish jurist
Raphael Lemkin, when he coined the term genocide in 1944, cited the
Turkish extermination of the Armenians and the Nazi extermination of
the Jews as defining examples of what he meant by genocide.

Amidst huge international pressure, the Turkish Government succeeding
the Young Turks had not only to recognize the scale and vehemence of
the atrocities but also to try the perpetrators in military tribunals
and sentence the leaders to death.

However, the sentences were not carried out and with the passage of
time moods changed not only in Turkey but also in some countries, such
as the UK, where Turkey is nowadays seen as a key alley. Still, even
in countries that have not yet for some reason recognized the Genocide
scholars have no doubts about the character of the events: they point
out that there is no scholarly issue, only one of political expediency.

Armenians throughout the world insist that there be an international
recognition and condemnation of what is often called the first genocide
of the twentieth century. We are past the stage of scholarly discussion
since a very few challenge the fact. To dispel any doubt, 126 leading
scholars of the Holocaust placed a statement in the New York Times in
June 2000 declaring the "incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide"
and urging western democracies to acknowledge it.

In 2005 the International Association of Genocide Scholars addressed
an open letter to Turkey’s Prime Minister R. Erdogan calling upon him
to recognize the truth. The evidence is so overwhelming that the only
question remaining is how to help the two nations close that shameful
page of the history, reconcile and move forward.

However, despite the affirmation of the Armenian Genocide by the
overwhelming majority of historians, academic institutions on
Holocaust and Genocide Studies, increasingly more parliaments and
governments around the world, and by more and more Turkish scholars
and intellectuals, the Turkish government still actively denies
the fact. So long as they do that, Armenians have no choice but to
struggle for wider international recognition.

This is however not an end in itself. It is important that Turkey
recognizes the Genocide, apologizes and condemns it. When the
Germans have apologized for the sufferings they had caused to the
Jews, the British for slavery, the Americans for their treatment
of native Americans etc, Turkey’s continuing denial, moreover,
increasing efforts and resources spent on the denial are alarming
signs, aggravated by their insistence not to establish diplomatic
relations with neighboring Armenia and by maintaining a blockade on
all ground communication. Armenia does not even set the recognition of
the Genocide as a prerequisite for normalizing relations and calls for
establishing diplomatic relations and opening of the border without
any preconditions.

As the killing this January of Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian
editor of the Agos bilingual periodical demonstrates, international
community cannot stand aside and watch. Hrant was persecuted under the
infamous 301 article for "insulting Turkish identity" and the hysteria
around someone daring to speak the truth created the fertile soil for
the hatred that killed him. His case was shamefully still open even
after his assassination and in a demonstration of absolute absence of
morality, Turkish courts yesterday sentenced Hrant’s son, as well as
another of Agos’s current staff to a year of imprisonment under the
same accusations, for simply daring to re-print Hrant’s words.

This is why the world should not yield to Turkish threats that are
outright blackmailing. The resolutions in various legislatures across
the world, and recently in the US House of Representative Foreign
Relations Committee are not merely the result of Armenian Diaspora’s
– which by the way, was created in the first place because of the
genocide in Turkey – influence. It is because there are more people
who believe in values and in putting the wrongs right.

A number of British MPs have tabled an EDM (Early Day Motion),
to raise the awareness about the Armenian Genocide and calling on
British Government to recognize it as such. Currently, around 170 MPs
across the party lines have signed an EDM which reads "That this House
believes that the killing of over a million Armenians in 1915 was an
act of genocide; calls upon the UK Government to recognize it as such;
and believes that it would be in Turkey’s long-term interests to do
the same."

Their number grows steadily. It is time the British Government followed
many others and re-affirmed the UK’s place among the standard-bearers
of democracy and human rights.

It is worth repeating that international recognition of the Genocide
cannot do harm to Turkish-Armenian relations since they simply do
not exist. It does not prevent a dialogue, on the contrary, creates
the necessary conditions to start a frank one. By recognizing the
historic truth and helping open the last closed border in Europe,
the international community can facilitate long-lasting stability and
prosperity in our region. And it is also probably time to show that the
human race’s evolution into the 21st century is evolution of ideals,
principles and a code of behavior that should take precedence over
political expediency or sheer commercial interest.

IT IS ALL FALLING APART
By winston

OpEdNews, PA
hp?p=opedne_winston_071012_it_is_all_falling_ap.ht m
Oct 15 2007

Just as experts predicted years ago.

It is not just the non-Kurdish part of Iraq destabilizing, or even
just Iraq. It is not only the US military that is committing atrocities
in Iraq.

As the article "Slog comments prove GWOT to be only a scam". click
here describes; "It has been bandied about before, but the US’
military dominance makes us less safe against terrorism, and W’s
(GWOT) tactics run counter to the accepted reality that never in
history has a super-power won an "asymmetric warfare" battle by use
of military might solely.

Presidential Decision Directive 62, issued in 1998, says, "America’s
unrivaled military superiority means that potential enemies (whether
nations or terrorist groups) that choose to attack us will be more
likely to resort to terror instead of conventional military assault."

With both the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Washington is trying
to turn a Fourth Generation war, a war with non-state entities, into
a Second Generation war, a war against another state that is fought
by the simple application of firepower to targets. History shows
that W’s (GWOT) will fail, and understandably alienate the world,
particularly the Islamic segment against us, but what are history or
reality to these GOP goons who believe that Rove can spin any set of
cold, hard facts, to GOP partisan advantage.

When Russia attacked Afghanistan the Soviets dealt with the Herat
guerrillas by bombing 75% of the city into rubble. That still failed
to stop the urban guerrilla tactics. See any relationship to Fallujah
and Baghdad? Fallujah was decimated but the insurgents survived.

McCain alluded to this in his "whack a mole" comments."

Every time W is spouting off that he is winning in "the everlasting
war against terrorism"-which has been changed to "those who are
against us", "GWOT" and "Islamofascism" you must realize that never in
"history has a super-power won an asymmetric warfare battle by use
of military might solely."

Whatever W calls it won’t change history and aren’t we supposed to
learn from the mistakes of the past or else we’ll just be repeating
past mistakes?

This article also notes George Will, a noted conservative lackey,
stated "The London plot against civil aviation confirmed that better
law enforcement, which probably could have prevented Sept. 11, is
central to combating terrorism. F-16s are not useful tools against
terrorism that issues from places such as Hamburg and High Wycombe,
England." Will, a stalwart Republican, went further: "Cooperation
between Pakistani and British law enforcement has validated John
Kerry’s belief expressed in one of the 2004 presidential debates that
although the war on terror will be ‘occasionally military,’ it is
‘primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation."

When you think about Iraq you worry about the Sunni against Shiite
and Sunni against Sunni in al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Shiites against
other Shiites, but not the Kurdish part of Iraq.

The article "PKK rebels say heading into Turkey from Iraq" at
s_say_heading_into_Turkey_from_Iraq_f
states "Kurdish separatist rebels said on Friday they were crossing
back into Turkey to target politicians and police after Ankara said
it was preparing to attack them in the mountains of northern Iraq.

A statement by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) could further increase
domestic pressure on Ankara to launch a major offensive that Washington
fears could destabilize a relatively peaceful area of Iraq and have
ramifications through the region."

Not only that but, as The article
"Tensions Rise in Turkey on Two Fronts" at
ticle/2007/10/11/AR2007101101276.html
states "The Turkish government warned Thursday that a congressional
committee vote labeling the mass killings of Armenians during the
Ottoman Empire as genocide would "endanger relations" with the United
States, and it summoned its ambassador from Washington for emergency
consultations.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee vote on the Armenian deaths — one
of the most sensitive issues in Turkish politics and society — came
as Turkish officials said they were preparing to seek parliamentary
authority to launch a military assault across the border in Kurdish
northern Iraq in retribution for Kurdish rebel attacks that have killed
29 Turkish soldiers, police and civilians in the past two weeks."

Turkey slaughtered all of those Armenians during the Ottoman Empire and
now they are ignoring the demands of the sovereign state of Iraq as
"Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul told reporters, "There is no need for
parliamentary authorization for a hot-pursuit operation" to chase
suspected PKK guerrillas.

However, Iraq has denied Turkey permission to conduct such raids."

You have to wonder why the Democrats in the House have to draw
attention to an ages old Turkish crime against Armenians. The Turkish
will just use it against the US and the Iraqis also.

The "bubble boy" should have followed his Secretary of State’s
"Powell Doctrine" before starting his Iraq theater of GWOT. Let’s
see–not enough troops, and of the meager number of them all were
ill prepared and equipped, possessing no plans for the occupation,
and no exit strategy-that about sums it up. All of those points were
failures from the point of the man who tried to dummy it down for the
"intellectually incurious" dummy W with the "Pottery Barn" phrase of
"You break it. You own it" being a clear prognostication of what
would inevitably ensue.

Just how atrocious is "Mission Accomplished"! The article
"U.N. Report on Iraq Details An ‘Ever-Deepening’ Crisis" at
ticle/2007/10/11/AR2007101102138.html
states "A U.N. report issued Thursday outlined an "ever-deepening
humanitarian crisis" in Iraq, with thousands of people driven from
their homes each month, ongoing indiscriminate killings and "routine
torture" in Iraqi prisons….

The assessment by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, which
covered a three-month period ending June 30, found that civilians
were suffering "devastating consequences" from violence across the
country. It documented more than 100 civilians allegedly killed by
U.S.-led forces during airstrikes or raids.

The report described Iraq in more dire terms than last month’s
congressional testimony from top U.S. military and embassy officials,
which stressed improvements in the security situation.

"The killings are still taking place, the torture is still being
reported, the due process issues are still unresolved," said Ivana
Vuco, a U.N. human rights officer in Baghdad.

The first draft of the U.N. report was completed in August, but release
of the final version was delayed for more than a month following a
request by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, according
to a confidential account by a senior U.N. official.

Crocker insisted that Iraq be given time to respond to the allegations,
according to the account. The United States then prepared critical
assessments of the U.N. investigation that were included in the
final report.

U.N. officials in Baghdad said the report was not intended to challenge
the U.S. military’s assertion that this year’s troop escalation helped
reduce violence in much of Iraq. The reporting period ended before
the time in which the U.S. military has described the sharpest drops
in violence. The U.N. agency said it was again unable to persuade
the Iraqi government to release civilian casualty figures.

Vuco said her organization was not trying to determine whether the
situation in Iraq had improved or deteriorated. "As long as there
are human rights violations, there are still concerns," she said.

Among the most serious issues raised in the report is the treatment
of detainees. The U.N. agency found that as of June, 44,325 detainees
were in Iraqi or U.S. custody, an increase of nearly 4,000 people
since April. Many of them, it said, remained in detention for months
without having their cases reviewed or with limited access to legal
counsel. The report also expressed concerns about overcrowding and
poor hygiene in detention centers, particularly pretrial holding
cells run by the Interior Ministry in Baghdad. The agency said it
"remained gravely concerned at continuing reports of the widespread
and routine torture or ill-treatment of detainees."…

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said
the ministry "totally rejects this report." Khalaf said politicians,
journalists and human rights workers have visited ministry facilities,
and "they didn’t witness any kind of abuse."

The UN was intimidated into delaying the release of the report,
but facts are facts.

And it is not only US soldiers who are doing the damage. These
private mercenaries–who everyone thinks are lining W’s pockets,
are more vile than any other group ever.

The article "Blackwater Guards Fired at Fleeing
Cars, Soldiers SayFirst U.S. Troops on Scene Found No
Evidence of Shooting by Iraqis; Incident Called ‘Criminal’" at
ticle/2007/10/11/AR2007101101030.html
states "Blackwater USA guards shot at Iraqi civilians as they tried
to drive away from a Baghdad square on Sept. 16, according to a
report compiled by the first U.S. soldiers to arrive at the scene,
where they found no evidence that Iraqis had fired weapons.

"It appeared to me they were fleeing the scene when they were
engaged. It had every indication of an excessive shooting," said Lt.

Col. Mike Tarsa, whose soldiers reached Nisoor Square 20 to 25 minutes
after the gunfire subsided.

His soldiers’ report — based upon their observations at the scene,
eyewitness interviews and discussions with Iraqi police — concluded
that there was "no enemy activity involved" and described the shootings
as a "criminal event."

Their conclusions mirrored those reached by the Iraqi government,
which has said the Blackwater guards killed 17 people."

It is all falling apart–just as experts predicted years ago, but W
still wants our apathetic populace to cower in awe at his might. That
is what the "Daddy Party" does!

Authors Bio: Winston is an ex-Social Worker, burnt out by too much
indifference regading our weak and weary who had too little interest
in politics until the illegal Iraq War started.

REJECTION TO JUDGE

A1+
[03:08 pm] 15 October, 2007

Today Gagik Hakobian, the shareholder of Royal Armenia Company appeared
in the courtroom handcuffed and escorted by policemen.

The court rejected advocate Ashot Sargsian’s petition to change the
preventive punishment.

To remind: Gagik Hakobian was detained at Zvartnots airport the
moment he returned from Spain. He had left Armenia to undergo
medical treatment in Spain and failed to attend the Appellate Court
hearings. The Court of Appeals ordered law-enforcement authorities
to locate and again arrest the businessman, dismissing his assurances
that he will return to the country after completing the treatment.

According to Ashot Sargsian, the court convened a sitting on October
8 and decided to engage Gagik Hakobian into the legal proceedings.

Ashot Sargsian presented rejection to Judge Suren Ghazarian and
accused him of unbiased and objective treatment. The judge retired
to the consultation room.

Le Monde, France
13 octobre 2007 samedi

Crise entre les Etats-Unis et la Turquie

La Turquie a rappelé, jeudi 11 octobre, son ambassadeur en poste à
Washington après l’adoption, la veille, par une commission du Congrès
américain, d’un texte qualifiant de génocide les massacres
d’Arméniens perpétrés sous l’Empire ottoman, au début du XXe siècle.
Cette résolution embarrasse la Maison Blanche et indigne la Turquie.
Elle pourrait empoisonner les relations entre les deux pays à un
moment où les Etats-Unis ont plus que jamais besoin de la Turquie.
Celle-ci est l’un des points de passage du réapprovisionnement des
missions américaines en Irak et en Afghanistan. Si le texte était
voté, Ankara pourrait prendre des mesures de rétorsion.

The Scotsman, UK
Oct 12 2007

US-Turkey alliance shaken by vote on Armenia ‘genocide’

ALEX MASSIE
IN WASHINGTON

ARMENIANS celebrated a landmark victory in Washington yesterday after
the US Congress moved a step closer to formally recognising the
Armenian genocide of 1915.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee defied President George W Bush
and the Washington foreign policy establishment by voting 27-21 to
put a resolution categorising the death of up to 1.5 million
Armenians as genocide to a vote of the full House of Representatives.

The resolution, which is backed by the Democratic leadership in the
House, will come up for a vote before the House retires for the
Thanksgiving recess next month.

Last night, Turkey withdrew its ambassador in the US for
"consultations".

The committee’s vote was a triumph for Armenian-American interest
groups who have lobbied Congress for decades to pass a resolution –
against the might of Turkish opposition.

After the debate, which was attended by elderly Armenian émigrés who
lived through the atrocities, the interest groups said they would
fight to ensure approval by the full House.

"We hope that this process will lead to the full recognition by the
United States of America of the fact of the Armenian genocide," said
Armenia’s foreign minister, Robert Kocharian.

"It is long past time for the US government to acknowledge and affirm
this horrible chapter of history – the first genocide of the 20th
century and a part of history that we must never forget," said Bryan
Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America.

Some committee members said backers were hypocrites or plain "crazy",
as Representative Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican, put it. "We’re
talking about ‘stiffing’ the one ally that is helping us over there
[in Iraq]. It just doesn’t make any sense," he told a packed hearing
room.

The committee’s decision paves the way for a month of furious
lobbying from both sides. Turkey denies that any genocide took place,
blaming the death of, by Turkish estimates, between 250,000 and
500,000 Armenians on the general confusion and horrors of war.

Turkey warned yesterday that passing the resolution would severely
compromise the health of US-Turkish relations. "This unacceptable
decision of the committee, like similar ones in the past, is not
regarded by the Turkish people as valid or of any value," said
President Abdullah Gul. In a letter sent to Mr Bush, Mr Gul vowed
that "in the case that Armenian allegations are accepted, there will
be serious problems in the relations between the two countries."

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives,
represents a California district with a large Armenian community that
has helped push her to backing the resolution, regardless of the
damage it may do to relations between Washington and Ankara.

"For most members, this is about domestic politics, not foreign
relations," said a senior Democratic aide who predicted that if the
resolution "comes to the floor, it will pass". The resolution’s
backers claim they have the support of 226 of the 435 members of
Congress – enough for a comfortable majority.

"The sad truth is the modern government of Turkey refuses to come to
terms with this genocide,” said Congressman Chris Smith, a
Republican from New Jersey. "It is this denial that keeps the
Armenian genocide a burning issue."

The fight over an often overlooked element of First World War history
has become a struggle between realpolitik and idealism as members of
Congress balance their obligations to their conscience against what
the resolution’s opponents say is the American national interest.

Eight former secretaries of state and three former defence
secretaries wrote to members of Congress warning that passing the
resolution would damage vital US interests in the Middle East.
President George W Bush – who backed recognising the genocide in 2000
– also warned that while "we all deeply regret the tragic suffering
of the Armenian people, this resolution is not the right response to
these mass killings."

Mr Bush said the resolution would do "great harm to our relations
with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror".

The debate has even embroiled American Jewish groups in controversy.

Turkey is the only Muslim country friendly to Israel and leading US
Jewish organisations have called upon congress to resist Armenian
entreaties that the genocide be recognised. "I don’t think
congressional action will help reconcile the issue. The resolution
takes a position; it comes to a judgment," said Abe Foxman, head of
the Anti-Defamation League earlier this year. "The Turks and
Armenians need to revisit their past. The Jewish community shouldn’t
be the arbiter of that history, nor should the US Congress."

Jewish reluctance to recognise another genocide has been criticised
by members of Congress and Armenian campaigners.

In London, the US Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, warned that the
consequences of the decision to have a full vote on the genocide
resolution could be severe. "The Turks have been quite clear about
some of the measures they would have to take if this resolution
passes."

Mr Gates said Turkey was vital to the US war effort in Iraq, with 70
per cent of US air cargo and 30 per cent of fuel shipped to Iraq
passing through Turkey and the country’s Incirclik airbase acting as
a vital hub for US operations.

The vote also came as Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships
attacked suspected positions of Kurdish rebels near Iraq, a possible
prelude to a cross-border operation that the Bush administration has
opposed. The US, already preoccupied with efforts to stabilise other
areas of Iraq, believes that Turkish intervention in the relatively
peaceful north could further destabilise the country.

Turkey did its best to confirm Mr Gates’ warning. "This draft
resolution will put US soldiers in danger," Egemen Bagis, an adviser
to the Turkish president, Tayyip Erdogan, told CNN. "If our ally
accuses us of crimes that we did not commit then we will start to
question the advantages of our co-operation.

"Yesterday some in Congress wanted to play hardball. I can assure you
Turkey knows how to play hardball."

He promised that if the resolution was passed "we will do something
and I can promise you it won’t be pleasant".

Public prosecutors in Turkey have previously used a law prohibiting
"insulting Turkishness" to silence some Turkish intellectuals who
spoke of atrocities endured by Armenians.

The son of a journalist killed earlier this year after calling the
massacre of Armenians genocide was convicted of insulting Turkey’s
identity for republishing his father’s remarks.

Arat Dink, editor of the Armenian newspaper Agos, received a one-year
suspended sentence for "insulting Turkishness", said his lawyer. He
said he would appeal against the sentences.

Mr Dink is the son of an ethnic Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink, who
was convicted of the same charge and then killed by a Turkish youth
in January.

THE BACKGROUND
IN THE late 19th century the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian minority,
numbering an estimated two million, was encouraged by exiled groups
in the United States, Geneva and in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, to
assert its nationalism.

Repression by Ottoman irregulars, mainly Kurds, led to the massacre
of some 30,000 Armenians in eastern Anatolia in 1894-6.

Several thousand more were killed in Constantinople in August 1896
after Armenian extremists seized the Ottoman Bank to draw attention
to their cause.

The massacres were halted after the Great Powers threatened to
intervene.

– WHAT HAPPENED IN 1915?:

As the Ottomans fought Russian forces in eastern Anatolia during the
First World War, many Armenians formed partisan groups to assist the
invading Russian armies. On 24 April, 1915, Turkey arrested and
killed hundreds of the Armenian intelligentsia. In May of that year
Ottoman commanders began the mass deportation of Armenians from
eastern Turkey thinking they might assist Russian invaders.

Thousands were marched from the Anatolian borders toward Syria and
Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and Armenians say some 1.5 million died either
in massacres or from starvation or deprivation as they were marched
through the desert.

It is widely acknowledged to have been one of the first modern,
systematic genocides, as many Western sources point to the sheer
scale of the death toll as evidence for a systematic, organised plan
to eliminate the Armenians. The event is also said to be the
second-most studied case of genocide. To date 21 countries have
officially recognised the campaign as genocide.

– TURKEY’S VIEW:

Turkey has always denied there was a systematic campaign to
annihilate Armenians, saying that thousands of Turks and Armenians
died in ethnic violence as the Ottoman Empire started to collapse and
fought a Russian invasion of its eastern provinces during the First
World War.

The modern Turkish republic was established in 1923 after the Ottoman
empire collapsed.

This article:
onal.cfm?id=1629662007