Author: Hunanian Jack

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| 21:36:16 | 29-09-2005 | Official |
RA AND GEORGIAN PREMIERS MET
Today the Georgian delegation headed by Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli
arrived in Yerevan on two-day visit. The meeting of the Prime Ministers of
both states has already taken place.
The parties positively assessed the active dialogue on Georgia’s state debt
to Armenia. Andranik Margaryan expressed satisfaction with the opening of
ferry communication between the ports of Caucasus and Poti. In this context
the Armenian Prime Minister reiterated Armenia’s position on opening of the
Abkhazian sector of the Georgian railway, what in his words, will be more
efficient from economic viewpoint.
The interlocutors also touched upon the current situation in Javakhk and
stressed the importance of elaboration and implementation of programs aimed
at improvement of the social and economic situation in the region. Andranik
Margaryan confirmed the position of the RA government to cooperate with the
Georgian authorities on the issue.
The parties also touched upon the construction of the
Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi railway, establishment of the Georgian-Armenian
University, construction of schools in Javakhk, development of cooperation
and a number of issues of mutual interest.
The meeting was followed by the fourth sitting of the Armenian-Georgian
interparliamentary commission on economic affairs.

UNION OF ARMENIANS IN RUSSIA FOUNDS STRUCTURE RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS PROGRAMS IN ARMENIA
Noyan Tapan News Agency
Sept 29 2005
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 29, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The Union of
Armenians in Russia intends to found in Armenia a universal structure
responsible for implementation of its program in the spheres of
business, culture, science, etc. At the September 28 press-conference
within the framework of Days of World Armenian Congress (WAC) and Union
of Armenians in Russia (UAR) in Armenia and Artsakh, Ara Abrahamian,
the President of the two organizations stated about this.
He mentioned that he was going to discuss this issue at the September
29 meeting with RA President Robert Kocharian.
According to Ara Abrahamian, though a number of programs has beem
implemented, the UAR has no concrete mechanism of cooperation with
Armenia till now, and in the case of existance of such a structure
the cooperation would be more effective.
Ara Abrahamian pointed out the active assistance of the UAR to Armenia
in the sphere of education: the UAR gifts a thousand of computers
to schools of Armenia every year, repairing works are also held
at schools.
During the five years of its existance, the UAR didn’t out the
Armenian science and culture of its attention. According to Ara
Abrahamian, the organization headed by him allocates few hundreds
of thousand dollars for needs of the RA National Academy of Science
every year. Among the UAR business programs in Armenia, the President
of the organization specially pointed out 50 mln dollars construction
works being implemented on the North avenue.
As for the issue if the UAR new structure will occupy itself with
political activity in Armenia Ara Abrahamian stated: “And without
us there are a lot of people here busy in politics. Besides, we
are citizens of Russia and have no right of being busy in policy
in Armenia.” He proved the information that the UAR supported the
Armenian Liberal Democratic Party during 2003 parliamentary elections:
“We supported the ALDP, we’ll support political forces of Armenia
during the 2007 elections as well, but we’ll do it with not violating
Armenian legislations.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

BRUSSELS’ SINCERITY ON TURKEY’S EU MEMBERSHIP
Journal of Turkish Weekly
Sept 28 2005
The European Parliament called Turkey to recognize the Armenian
allegations before the EU talks. The EP lawmakers issued a nonbinding
resolution saying recognition of the killings as genocide should be a
prerequisite for Turkey to join the EU. The MEPs, and parliamentarians
in the national parliaments in the EU spend hours and hours on
the 1915 events. The French Prime Minister, Austrian CUD leader
and many more EU politicians focus on the 1915 Armenian Relocation
Campaign and try to force Turkey to recognize the Armenian ‘genocide’
allegations. If you read the European newspapers, you may think
that the Armenian issue is the most vital problem of the European
peoples. However all the thingshappened during the First World
War before the EU and Turkey. It was Ottoman Empire years, and it
is really difficult to understand the connection between Turkey’s
EU talks and the 1915 Relocation Campaign. One may argue that the
European politicians are very sensitive about the human rights abuses
during the war and conflicts. However the same European politicians
say nothing about the Armenian occupation in Azerbaijan. Almost 20
percent of Azerbaijan has been under Armenian occupation for more
than a decade. About 1 million Azerbaijanis have been refugees, worst
than the Bosnian tragedy. Thousands of Algerians were massacred by
France forces, many were tortured, yet the French politicians refuse
to apologize from Algerian people. Paris is even reluctant to admit
1945 Massacres. French Prime Minister says “let’s leave all these
issues to the historians. This is not our business but historians'”.
However the same French leaders urge Turkey to take political
decisions. Turkey called Armenia to establish a joint committee to
discuss the historical disputes, but Yerevan strongly rejected the
offer. No EU leader did make any pressure on Yerevan to shift the
Armenia’s decision.
Many Turkish Cypriots were massacred in Cyprus during the 1960s
but the European parliamentarians do not ask anything about that to
their Greek Cypriots MEP sitting near them. The EU accepted the Greek
side as the only representative of the island though there are two
societies and two different states on the island. And now they ask
Turkey to recognize the Greek Cyprus as the only Cyprus Government.
They created the problem and they expect Turkey to solve it by
sacrificing Turkish Cypriots.
It is obvious that the European politicians are not sincere enough in
both Armenian and Cyprus issues. There could be two reasons for their
partial attitudes: First they are very sensitive on the Christians’
problems and they simply ignore the Muslims in Europe. As a matter
of fact that there is no significant differences between Greek
and Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus but religion. The EU accepted the
Christian Cypriots and kept the Muslims ones outside. Similarly when
the Christian Armenians massacred the Muslims during the First World
War and during the Karabakh War no EU parliamentarian condemned the
Armenians. The Armenian warriors committed a genocide in Khocali,
and the Armenian ASALA terrorists massacred more than 40 Turkish
diplomats during the 1970s and 1980s, and the European parliaments
just focus on the Armenian casualties of almost a century ago.
If the EU politicians are not racist or religiously-discriminative
they should be anti-Turkish. In that case they give no importance to
the Greeks or the Armenians but they simply do not want to see Turkey
inside. If this is the case, the anti-Turkish EU politicians abuses
the Greek and Armenian problems.
If the EU wants to be a superpower, the EU should be based on universal
values. The EU leaders and politicians should at least be honest and
sincere. They should not hide behind the Cyprus and Armenian problems.
Please remember, not the Ottoman Empire but Turkey is the candidate
for the EU, and you are not the MPs of European imperialism but of the
modern European Union. By sabotaging Turkey’s EU talk, the anti-Turkish
groups also undermines the EU’s interests, and ethnic-religious harmony
in the EU countries. More than 15 million Muslim EU citizens and all of
the Muslim world are aware of these dirty plays. You deceive nobody. By
the way the EU’s double standards and politic games to prevent Turkey’s
membership by indirect ways will cheer up Osame Bin Laden. He knows
that he can abuse the differences between civilizations as far as the
EU continues to its existing policies towards the Euro Muslims. There
are 5 Muslim states in the EU and none of them is EU member.

BAYBURDIAN INSTIGATES HATRED BETWEEN ARMENIANS AND GEORGIANS, COA OF JAVAKHK DECLARES
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Sept 28 2005
AKHALKALAK, SEPTEMBER 28, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The Council
of Armenian NGOs of Samtskhe-Javakhk made a statement, in which it
opposed the statements of Deputy of Georgian parliament Van Bayburdian
in connection with the third public forum of Samtskhe-Javakhk held
on September 24 in Akhalkalak.
In particular, Van Bayburdian expressed an opinion that the proposal
made by the forum regarding giving autonomy to Javakhk is ungrounded
and the Georgian power gave all authorities for ruling on the spot
to Akhalkalak and Ninotsminda.
Blaming Van Bayburdian for “incompetent statements and indecent”
steps, the Council of Armenian NGOs of Samtskhe-Javakhk persuades him
to study the Georgian legislation and then declare what authorities
Akhalkalak and Ninotsminda have. “Van Bayburdian must also know that
the resolution adopted by the forum refers to all the settlements of
Samtskhe-Javakhk and Kvemo-Kartli populated with Armenians and not
only to 2 regions,” the statement spread by the A-Info agency read.
The Council highlighted that the resolution adopted by the third public
forum of Samtskhe-Javakhk suggests giving such a status to Javakhk
in Georgian state structure which is suggested to South Ossetia by
the Georgian authorities. “If the authorities are ready to give the
widest autonomy to 40 thousand Ossetians living in South Ossetia, so
150-200 thousand Armenians living compactly in Georgia also deserve
autonomy, especially as they have always observed the laws and never
raised arms against the state,” the document read.
The Council is convinced that the bases of complicated situation in
Javakhk are mainly and first of all political and “in this respect
also Van Bayburdian living far from Javakhk and being unaware of
Javakhk problems misunderstood the situation.”
“It’s still obscure how the person praising Shevardnadze’s power and
considering it irreplaceable since the days of Soviet Georgia, appeared
in independent Georgia in Sahakashvili’s team having overthrown the
very Shevardnadze. The Council is convinced that Van Bayburdian is
a puppet in the hands of some dark forces and proceeding from his
own interests he can instigate destabilization of the situation and
hatred in Armenian-Georgian friendship,” the statement read.

EU PARLIAMENT SAYS TURKEY MUST RECOGNIZE “GENOCIDE”
Tehran Times
Sept 29 2005
STRASBOURG, France – The European Parliament said on Wednesday that
Turkey must recognize the killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule in
1915 as genocide as a pre-requisite for joining the European Union.
The EU legislature also postponed a vote on Turkey’s extended customs
union with the EU in a potential last-minute snag for Ankara’s EU
entry talks, due to start next Monday.
The non-binding resolution on the Armenian issue is likely to anger
Turkey, which insists that the killings of Armenians were not a
systematic genocide.

EU talks on Turkey threatened by disputes
By Dan Bilefsky
International Herald Tribune
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2005
ISTANBUL Just days before European leaders gather to decide whether to begin
talks with Turkey about its entering the European Union, Austrian resistance
to Turkey and unresolved disputes over Armenia and Cyprus risk derailing
negotiations.
As representatives from EU governments prepared to meet in Brussels on
Thursday to decide on a framework for negotiations with Turkey, people close
to the talks said that Austria remained determined to push for a “privileged
partnership” with Turkey that falls short of full membership. They said this
opposition could result in an emergency meeting of foreign ministers on
Sunday to try to salvage negotiations.
“Of course, we are hoping that talks will begin Monday as scheduled, but
right now tempers are high, Austria refuses to budge and the outcome is not
at all a done deal,” said a British official close to the talks. Under EU
rules, a decision to start talks must be unanimous.
The European Parliament gave grudging approval to the opening of talks
Monday, but it also said that Turkey must recognize the killing of Armenians
under Ottoman rule in 1915 as genocide or risk being left out of the EU. The
nonbinding resolution is largely symbolic, but it was met with a frosty
response in Ankara, which insists there was no genocide and is adamant that
no further conditions be attached to Turkey’s EU bid.
The European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, also postponed a vote that
was to have taken place Wednesday, to approve Turkey’s extended customs
union with the EU. Ankara has agreed to extend its free trade agreement with
the EU to all 25 member states, including Cyprus. But it refuses to
recognize Cyprus formally and denies Cyprus access to its airfields and
ports. In a heated debate, members of Parliament said this was unacceptable.
“Turkey has to recognize members of a club if it wants to join it,” said Jan
Marinus Wiersma, vice president of the Parliament’s influential Socialist
group.
The Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, warned Wednesday that forcing
Turkey to recognize Cyprus before the island’s division was resolved could
destroy prospects for peace and lead to civil war. Cyprus has been divided
since 1974 into a Greek-Cypriot controlled south and a Turkish-occupied
north.
In Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey publicly dismissed
the European Parliament’s statements. But people close to the prime minister
said he had been stung by them and had momentarily considered boycotting the
talks. Erdogan has reiterated forcefully over the past few weeks that he
would walk away from the talks if Turkey were offered anything less than
full membership.
Turkish analysts said Turkish public opinion was growing increasingly
frustrated with the EU’s stance and Erdogan could not afford a deal deemed
humiliating by many Turks. “Erdogan will not agree to talks if Turkey is
forced to make more sacrifices,” said Selcuk Gutalesi, a commentator for
Zaman, a conservative newspaper close to the government. Already, Turkey has
accepted unprecedented conditions to open EU negotiations, including an
open-ended halt to the movement of Turkish workers into the bloc.
While the EU’s invitation to Turkey last December was greeted with euphoria
in Turkey, the anti-Turkey sentiment expressed in recent votes on the EU
constitution in France and the Netherlands has prompted some Turkish
newspapers to splash headlines on their front pages accusing the EU of
double standards and calling on it to obey its own high moral laws. Turkish
officials say they fear the EU will try Monday to impose even tougher
conditions on Turkey’s EU entry to placate its own skeptical citizens.
The idea of accepting a poor, agrarian country into the bloc has been met
with deep resistance across the EU. Recent polls show a majority of French,
German and Austrian voters oppose admitting Turkey, and a majority of Danes
would rather see non-EU candidate, Ukraine, in the EU than an “Islamic
country” like Turkey.
That skepticism is likely to intensify in coming years, because leaders
viscerally opposed to Turkey’s entry are on the rise in two of the EU’s most
important countries, Germany and France. The Christian Democrat leader,
Angela Merkel, who may lead a German coalition government after finishing
ahead of the party in power in this month’s elections, favors a “privileged
partnership” for Turkey. In France, a likely presidential candidate, Nicolas
Sarkozy, also opposes Turkish membership.
Sinan Ulgen, a political analyst at Istanbul Economics, an Istanbul research
institution and consultancy, said Turkey was bracing itself for a long road
ahead. “The talks are likely to last at least 10 years, so this is only the
beginning.”

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Sibel Edmonds v. Department of Justice: A Patriot Silenced, Fighting to Keep
America Safe
September 26, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RLEASE
CONTACT: [email protected]
By ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson
WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union is urging the U.S. Supreme
Court to review a lower court’s dismissal of the case of Sibel Edmonds, a
former FBI translator who was fired in retaliation for reporting security
breaches and possible espionage within the Bureau. Lower courts dismissed
the case when former Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the rarely used
“state secrets” privilege.
Sibel Edmonds, a Turkish-American woman, was hired as a translator by the
FBI shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 because of her
knowledge of Middle Eastern languages. Judge Reggie Walton in the U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed Edmonds retaliation
case, citing the government’s `states secrets privilege.’ The D.C. Circuit
Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, and on August 4, 2005, the American
Civil Liberties Union petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Edmonds’
case.
The Supreme Court created the so-called state secrets privilege more than 50
years ago but has not considered it since. The privilege, when properly
invoked, permits the government to block the release in litigation of any
material that, if disclosed, would cause harm to national security. The need
for clarification of the doctrine is acute because the government is
increasingly using the privilege to cover up its own wrongdoing and to keep
legitimate cases out of court.
History has shown that the government has relied on the state secrets
privilege to cover up its own negligence. In the 1953 Supreme Court case
that was the basis for today’s state secrets privilege doctrine, United
States v. Reynolds , the government claimed that disclosing a military
flight accident report would jeopardize secret military equipment and harm
national security. Nearly 50 years later, in 2004, the truth came out – the
accident report contained no state secrets, but instead confirmed that the
cause of the crash was faulty maintenance of the B-29 fleet.
The government is engaged in a similar cover-up in the Edmonds case. In
2002, at the request of Senate Judiciary Committee members Charles Grassley
(R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the FBI provided several unclassified
briefings to Members of Congress in which it confirmed many of Edmonds’
allegations.
More than two years later, the Justice Department retroactively classified
those briefings, which were reported in the Congressional Record, and asked
Members who had the information posted on their web sites to remove certain
documents. This move was a blatant attempt to bolster the government’s
efforts to dismiss Edmonds’ case on state secrets grounds. After the Project
On Government Oversight filed a separate lawsuit challenging the retroactive
classification, the Justice Department agreed the information could be
distributed.
An unclassified summary of a report by the DOJ’s Inspector General, released
in January 2005, corroborates Edmonds’ allegations . The IG report concludes
that the FBI had retaliated against Edmonds for reporting serious security
breaches, stating that `many of her allegations were supported, that the FBI
did not take them seriously enough, and that her allegations were, in fact,
the most significant factor in the FBI’s decision to terminate her
services.’
Edmonds’ case is not an isolated incident. The federal government is
routinely retaliating against government employees who uncover weaknesses in
our ability to prevent terrorist attacks or protect public safety.
The states secrets privilege should be used as a shield for sensitive
evidence, not a sword the government can use at will to cut off argument in
a case before the evidence can be presented. We are urging the Supreme
Court, which has not directly addressed this issue in 50 years, to rein in
the government’s misuse of this privilege.
The outcome in Edmonds’ case could significantly impact the government’s
ability to rely on secrecy to avoid accountability in future cases,
including one pending case charging the government with `rendering’
detainees to be tortured.
We are asking the Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. appeals court’s decision
to exclude the press and public from the court hearing of Edmonds’ case last
April. The appeals court closed the hearing at the eleventh hour without any
specific findings that secrecy was necessary.
Fourteen 9/11 family member advocacy groups and public interest
organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Edmonds case
before the District Court, and many are expected to join an amicus brief
supporting Supreme Court review of the case, including the National Security
Archive.
Edmonds’ ordeal is highlighted in a 10-page article in the September 2005
issue of Vanity Fair titled `An Inconvenient Patriot.’ The article, which
chronicles FBI wrongdoing and possible corruption charges involving a
high-level member of Congress, further undercuts the government’s claim that
the case can’t be litigated because certain information is secret.

ONTARIO STUDENTS FIRST IN WEST TO BE TAUGHT DETAILS OF WARTIME ATROCITIES IN ASIA
By David Giddens CBCUnlocked
CBCUnlocked, Canada
Sept 26 2005
“See that?” John Stroud, Canadian Hong Kong War veteran, is pointing
a bony finger at a black-and-white picture taken 60 years ago of a
gaunt young man. “That’s me. In the Japanese slave camps.” He turns
to his audience of students, teachers and media in Toronto’s Jarvis
Collegiate auditorium. “I weighed 182 pounds when I was captured. I
was 62 pounds when I got out.”
“What we taught in the past was incomplete,” says Sarah Giddens,
history teacher and contributor to the successful effort to make
Ontario the first jurisdiction in the Western world to include a
section of history about the Second World War in Asia. “Most students,
most teachers, are shocked to learn the facts about this period and
place in history.”
Ontario’s new Grade 10 curriculum now includes specific examples of
such war atrocities as those suffered by Stroud and other prisoners
of war. They also include information on the 1937 Nanjing Massacre,
during which hundreds of thousands of Chinese were killed during
a six-week spree by Japanese troops, and the abuse of the “Comfort
Women,” Asian women forced into prostitution by the troops during
the war. Wartime history, including those incidents, is still the
subject of angry debate today between Japan and other Asian nations
including China and Korea.
Ontario’s Ministry of Education takes the position that the province
has a duty to train students to form broader perspectives on history.
Case in point: many, perhaps most, Canadians have been taught the
global conflict began in 1939 with the invasion of Poland, while many
Americans might argue the war really began at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
But for millions of Asians, the Second World War began a decade
earlier, when Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931. And that shift in
perspective is the entire point behind the new course material: The
Search for Global Citizenship: The Violation of Human Rights in Asia,
1931-1945.”
The project is due in very large part to the efforts of
Chinese-Canadian philanthropist Dr. Joseph Wong. Eight years ago,
he was instrumental in forming ALPHA, The Association for Learning &
Preserving the History of WWII in Asia-Toronto, because “very few
people in the world know about the truth. ALPHA is here to make sure
that justice finally prevails for those 35 million souls who perished
during the war in Asia.”
“I draw a parallel: postwar Germany made it a crime to deny the
Holocaust, and compensated victims of the Second World War, and truly
expressed remorse in making sure that all German children will learn
the truth about the war, but look at the aggressor Japanese nation
today. They still try to hide facts of the war. They still want to
change history in the textbooks, so that Japanese children are denied
the right to know about what happened during that particular dark
chapter of history.”
The Japanese government vehemently denies this assessment of history
and says its peacetime record since the war proves it is not an
aggressor nation. However the issue continues to sour relations
between China and Japan. Changes to Japanese textbooks this spring
led to a tense standoff between China and Japan, with Chinese crowds
attacking Japanese businesses in Beijing and other cities.
Every secondary school in Ontario now has documents, videos and web
information to support the revised curriculum. The foreword is by
Canadian journalist, author and social activist June Callwood: “If
world peace ever happens it will be built on knowledge. Young people
cannot understand the importance of defending existing protections of
human life and dignity without knowing that the wall between decency
and depravity is paper thin.”
The goal is not to isolate atrocities committed by the Japanese
Imperial Army, but to help students understand these events in the
same way they understand other crimes against humanity, such as the
Jewish Holocaust, the Armenian massacre or the Rwandan genocide. It
is not about vilifying Japan, but about enlightening a new generation
of students and leaders to the fact that humanity, in all parts of
the globe, has a history of committing human rights abuses.
Maria Y.M. Yau, project co-ordinator with the Toronto District school
board, admits that, within the Japanese community, this remains
controversial material, but adds, “As a global citizen, this is
not controversial. It is a history we should share with our younger
students … as citizens we are all entitled to know these facts.”
Yau’s regret is that recent history is still susceptible to political
manoeuvring. Among some in the Chinese communities, some of this
history is still viewed with skepticism, because students from China
have learned to distrust much of what they were taught under the
propaganda-laden Communist regime.
Linda Mowatt – president of the Ontario History, Humanities and
Social Sciences Teachers’ Association – says that distrust is part of
the reason the new curriculum is so useful: “This is history being
revealed in the time that students are learning it …. They are
getting critical skills about the act of revealing history. Students
are learning that the truth emerges slowly and methodically.”
Jack Fu, a Grade 11 student at Jarvis, had previously taken five
years of history in China. Upon moving to Canada, he says, “I was
surprised to not learn this in history classes here. I find a lot of
similarities between Nanjing and the Jewish Holocaust.”
Jasmine Li, now in Grade 12, says, “When I took Grade 10 history, I
learned about Europe … events in Germany and Austria and so forth,
but it is really important that people know what happened in the
whole world. Not just part of it.”
For his part, Dr. Wong is optimistic about the eventual impact of the
new course: “I see this as a step toward the closure of the Second
World War in Asia.”

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan, in Armenian
22 Sep 05
ARMENIAN PRESIDENT, VISITING US BUSINESSMAN DISCUSS JOINT PLANS
Huntsman Corporation plans to implement programmes in Armenia in the
spheres of education and health, well-known US businessman John
Huntsman said at a meeting with Armenian President Robert Kocharyan
in Yerevan today. The Armenian president said that the government
will help Huntsman to implement the programmes.
Robert Kocharyan noted that the Armenian people are grateful to
Huntsman, who had offered help after the devastating earthquake of
1988.
This time Huntsman came to Yerevan with the owners of the Sharp and
Associates, Reud, Morgan and Queen companies.
[Video showed the meeting]

ARKA News Agency
Sept 22 2005
THE RA AND AR MINISTERS OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS THINK TO DISCUSS THE
DETAILS OF THE NEGOTIATIONS ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT
YEREVAN, September 22. /ARKA/. The RA and AR Ministers of Foreign
Affairs Vartan Oskanian and Elmar Mamediarov are going to hold a
bilateral meeting to discuss the further details of the negotiations
on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the continuation of the work for the
search of the ways for peaceful settlement of the conflict, according
to the RA Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Arman Kirakosyan. At
that, he noted that there is no certain agreement on the place and
date for holding the negotiations. A.H. –0–