Author: Jagharian Tania

TURKISH LEADERS PRESS RICE FOR ACTION AGAINST KURDISH GUERRILLAS
By Helene Cooper

International Herald Tribune, France
Nov 2 2007

ANKARA: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came under pressure Friday
from Turkish leaders seeking strong American action to rein in Kurdish
guerrillas in northern Iraq.

During a string of meetings in Ankara before heading to Istanbul,
Rice took pains to demonstrate support for Turkey, while at the same
time calling for restraint in an attempt to forestall any military
incursion of Turkish forces into northern Iraq.

But whatever restraint Ankara has demonstrated so far may be reaching
its limits.

"Our expectations of the United States are very high," Foreign Minister
Ali Babacan said, standing next to Rice during a press conference. "We
want action. This is where the words end and action needs to start."

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has given the United States a
de facto deadline of Monday, the day of his visit to Washington for
talks with President George W. Bush, to satisfy Turkish demands for
American action. The Turkish military has indicated that it is willing
to wait for Erdogan’s return before launching any operation into Iraq.

But with their forces already stretched thin in Iraq, American military
commanders have balked at taking action against the Kurdistan Workers’
Party, known as the PKK, which hides in mountains in Iraq and has
made cross-border attacks on Turkish forces. Thus far, the Bush
administration has done little besides call on Iraq’s Kurdish leaders
to take action against the PKK.

America’s relationship with Turkey is at perhaps its lowest point
since March 2003 when the Turkish Parliament refused to authorize
movement of American ground troops through its territory during the
initial invasion of Iraq. Things hit another rough patch last month
after a House committee, with the support of the speaker, Nancy Pelosi,
approved a resolution condemning the mass killings of Armenians during
World War I as an act of genocide. Although the full House ended up
not voting on the resolution, Turkey reacted angrily, threatening to
shut off the American military’s use of its territory as a resupply
hub for Iraq, and recalling its ambassador to Washington.

The Bush administration opposed the Armenian vote and has worked to
smooth things over since. Rice delicately referred to the Armenian
issue on Friday as "the events of 1915" but made no mention of the word
"genocide," a term the Turks strongly reject.

Still, many Turks are now openly criticizing the United States for
failure to do more to stop the PKK attacks.

Even within the Bush administration, there has been internal criticism
that the United States, in more than three years in Iraq, should have
done more to rein in the Kurdish guerillas. A retired U.S. Air Force
general, Joseph Ralston, until last month the U.S.

special envoy for countering the PKK, told McClatchy Newspapers that
U.S. inaction on the PKK issue might force Turkey to act. Ralston
resigned his post, administration officials said, because he was
frustrated with the failure of both the Iraqi government and the
United States to do more in northern Iraq.

"I think it’s fair to say that we all need to redouble our efforts,"
Rice acknowledged during the press conference. She added: "All across
the world we’ve seen that it’s not easy to root out terrorism."

But she maintained that "effective action means action that can deal
with the threat, but that’s not going to make the situation worse."

She said that Turkey and the United States "really need to look for an
effective strategy, not just one that’s going to strike out, somehow,
and not deal with the problem."

ILLEGAL TREE CUTTING WILL TAKE PLACE

Panorama.am
22:46 30/10/2007

This year, as always, illegal tree cutting will take place, especially
now that the cold season has just started. Such stated "Armenian
Forests" social organization president Nazeli Vardanyan while talking
with a Panorama.am journalist.

"I think that illegal tree cutting will be less this year,
since natural gas has been supplied to our villages," she
expressed. Vardanyan is convinced that illegal tree cutting lessens
each year, but that "in any event, what occurs causes damage to
the country."

According to the organization’s statistics, last year 400-500 thousand
cubic meters of trees were cut, while in 2003 the figure stood at
800 thousand cubic meters.

We note that legal tree removal is 60-70 thousand cubic meters per
year. "Armenia Forest" assistant director Ruben Petrosyan, this year
52 cubic meters of forest are set to be cut. This work is already in
progress. According to the organization’s statistics, from November of
2006 to June of this year 1,264 trees were illegally removed, which
is 1,325.39 cubic meters. "A fine is imposed for illegal cutting,
depending on how many are cut," Petrosyan said. In any event, Vardanyan
said she made a suggestion to the ministry of nature protection that
no tree be cut for 10 years, but "my suggestion was turned down."

Vardanyan also said she suggests that the importation of wood products
increase.

DIOCESE OF THE ARMENIAN CHURCH OF AMERICA SENDS LETTER TO ADL CHAIR

KarabakhOpen
31-10-2007 12:56:54

Washington, DC — The Armenian Assembly of America would like to call
your attention to the following letter sent yesterday from Archbishop
Khajag Barsamian of the Eastern Dioceses of the Armenian Church of
America to the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
Abraham Foxman, calling upon the ADL to condemn all genocide and
crimes against humanity.

Below is the full text of the Archbishops letter to Foxman:

Dear Mr. Foxman, I hope this letter finds you well. I know that you
are preparing for a leadership meeting of the ADL so I wanted to
follow-up on my letter of 28 August.

Again, I reiterate my appreciation for the ADL leadership taking up
the issue of the Armenian Genocide. I know that organizational change,
especially on sensitive, long-standing policy issues is difficult,
yet a further clarification will be important for our two communities.

The Jewish ethic of Tikkun Olam, perfecting our broken world, requires
us all to move out of our comfort zones, especially when matters of
justice and human rights are at stake. While the ADL’s position on the
recognition of the genocide has become clearer, I urge you and your
colleagues to take the next, necessary step and make unequivocally
clear the condemnation of the Armenian Genocide. Only by removing
any language the does not fully express uniform recognition and
condemnation in the most resolute terms possible, by the ADL and/or
any other body, can the fullness of justice be achieved.

To acknowledge the Armenian Genocide only to speak against resolutions
condemning it sets a terrible, moral precedent. Recognition leads
to condemnation and without that, there can be no steps towards
prevention.

Recognition without condemnation does not promote justice. The last
century, and sadly the first decade of this century, have seen man’s
continued assault on the fundamental right to live, most notably in the
Armenian Genocide, the Shoa, Cambodian Genocide, Rawandan Genocide,
and sadly the Genocide that now rages on in Darfur. We cannot expect
the protection of our own human rights if we are not courageous enough
to speak out in favor of human rights for all. When the rights of
our own human rights if we are not courageous enough to speak out in
favor of human rights for all. When the rights of one are diminished,
all are diminished.

As you know, in law, silence is tantamount to acquiescence, therefore
we must not condone and therefore share in preferential selection of
one race against another through our silence. We cannot allow the
political considerations that whisper today to define our resolute
condemnation of all crimes against humanity, for such a decision
would resonate for eternity. We must give full and unwaivering voice
to our commitment to humanity.

I urge you and all members of the ADL leadership, to join in removing
all objections to the condemnation of any and every genocide and crime
against humanity. Because of the good work the ADL has done throughout
the decades you have a unique ability to speak out. Please use that
voice resoundingly in this moral imperative.

With Prayers, Archbishop Khajag Barsamian Primate

URGING ACTION ON ARMENIANS
By Kathryn Skelton , Staff Writer

Sun Journal , Maine
Oct 30 2007

After watching his father, an Armenian priest, cut to pieces when
he wouldn’t forsake God, Negoghos DerBoghosian escaped their Turkish
village. Years later he fled to America. Before he had raised enough
money to bring his wife and three children over with him, they were
killed, too, victims of a long, bloody period in Armenian history.

Negoghos married a woman named Baizar in 1922, an Armenian immigrant
with her own sad story. They raised a new family. Neither said a word
about their brutal past.

Jerry DerBoghosian of Lewiston, their oldest son, says it all came
out several years ago at a family reunion through written accounts.

Baizar’s first husband had been killed in a raid. Her children starved
to death.

"I don’t remember my mother being there, and there it was, in black
and white," said DerBoghosian, 84.

Early this month, the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. House
agreed to pass along a measure to the full body that calls on
the U.S. to affirm that the killing of 1.5 million Armenians from
1915 to 1923, carried out by the Ottoman Empire, was genocide. The
congressional action is something Turkey’s leaders vehemently oppose.

DerBoghosian thinks it’s time.

All four members of Maine’s congressional delegation have backed the
bill or a Senate version of it. Despite the activity, U.S. Rep. Mike
Michaud said last week through a spokesperson it looked unlikely the
resolution would get a vote. There’s a possibility it could linger
indefinitely.

"Many have expressed concerns about damaging our relations with Turkey
and further destabilizing the situation in northern Iraq, potentially
putting our soldiers in greater danger," Michaud said. "I believe
that this consequence is worth very serious consideration."

Gerard Kiladjian is president of the Armenian Cultural Association
of Maine, a group with 1,000 members, some of them second- and
third-generation Americans. At their peak, Armenians ran 27 grocery
stores in Maine and 24 barber shops, most in Portland, where Kiladjian
lives.

In his role as state chairman of the Armenian Assembly of America,
he planned another round of congressional lobbying this week.

"It’s a way to get closure. It’s always been in our history something
that had happened, but it’s difficult to talk to our kids (about it).

It’s not studied, yet it’s the first genocide of the century,"
Kiladjian said.

Related Info PDF PDF Text of the House bill describes Adolf Hitler
referring to the mass slaughter of Armenians by the Young Turks right
before he invaded Poland unprovoked, saying "(w)ho after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

On his wife’s side, Kiladjian said, an uncle, then a little boy,
escaped one of the frequent attacks that targeted every man in a
village by hiding in his sister’s clothes.

She "put him under her skirt and walked out of the city," he said.

"That’s how he survived."

In 2001, the Maine Legislature passed a joint resolution to honor
Armenian Americans and commemorate the genocide. And last April 24,
on the 92nd anniversary of the genocide’s start, a Portland state
senator sponsored a legislative sentiment.

On that date, in 1915, hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, business
and religious leaders were taken from their homes and killed. Among
the many sources of conflict, Armenians were largely Christian and
Turks largely Muslim.

Nearly a century later, the killings are a source of fierce debate
among scholars and others. Turkish leaders, for instance, reject the
characterization of the killings as genocide.

DerBoghosian, who retired from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, said
quite a few Armenians used to live in Lewiston-Auburn when the shoe
shops were booming here. The community’s much smaller now.

Most of his family lives in Massachusetts. His parents died within
10 months of each other in 1968.

"The sweetest people I ever met in my lifetime, God bless them,"
he said.

The stories uncovered in his family tree were gruesome. After her
father and her first husband was killed, Baizar was forced into the
desert with her children. The kids died of malnutrition.

His grandfather on his father’s side survived a raid on his village
only to be attacked and slaughtered two days later.

"They cut him up. My grandmother died of a broken heart," he said. "I
hope to live to see the U.S. Senate and House pass this so it will be
known they did this genocide. After that, I can rest in peace. Then
I can die."

U.S. House Resolution 106 calls for:

"… the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United
States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning
issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide
documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian
Genocide and the consequences of the failure to realize a just
resolution and … (in an annual message) accurately characterize
the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians as
genocide and to recall the proud history of United States intervention
in opposition to the Armenian Genocide."

36271-3/MaineNews/Urging_action_on_Armenians/

Pravda, Russia
Oct 30 2007

EDITOR SENTENCED OVER ARTICLE ABOUT POSSIBLE US ATTACK ON IRAN

Eynulla Fatullayev, an Azerbaijani newspaper editor was sentenced to
8½ years in prison. He sent to the press an article asserting that
the ex-Soviet nation could support a U.S. attack on neighboring Iran.

The Court for Grave Crimes convicted Eynulla Fatullayev, the founder
and editor of the Russian-language weekly Real Azerbaijan and the
Azeri-language daily Everyday Azerbaijan, on charges of making a
terrorist threat and inciting interethnic conflict.

Fatullayev denounced the court’s verdict as politically driven.

"That’s evidence of political pressure on me as a journalist," he said.

Fatullayev’s case is the latest in a series of prosecutions of
independent media figures in the oil-rich Caspian Sea nation that
have raised concerns in the West.

The charges against Fatullayev were filed in response to the article
in Real Azerbaijan which claimed that Azerbaijan’s President Ilham
Aliev could support a U.S. military action against Iran.

The article, written under an alias, listed sites in Azerbaijan that
could be attacked by Iran if Baku were to support Washington in the
event of military action against Iran.

Aliev’s government has cultivated close ties with Washington and
contributed troops to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and charges
against Fatullayev reflected official concerns about angering Iran.

Tehran has feared a U.S. attack and threatened to strike back at
any country that cooperates with it. The Azerbaijan government has
pledged its territory won’t be used for military action against
Iran, but people living along the border were nervous, pointing to
a U.S.-built radar facility and the upgrading of an airport near the
border with Iran. Both projects are U.S.-financed.

Both Fatullayev’s newspapers were forced to suspend publication in
the spring after authorities had evicted them from their offices.

Fatullayev has been in prison since April when he was sentenced to
2½ years in prison on charges of disseminating false information
related to the country’s six-year war with Armenia over the territory
of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Previously, Fatullayev had received a two-year suspended sentence
for libeling a top law enforcement official.

Aliev, who took over from his father in a 2003 election denounced
by opponents as a sham, has faced persistent criticism over the
heavy-handed treatment of independent media and opposition parties.

–Boundary_(ID_guZxCrz0NVKUoL3hIRErOg)–

ARMENIAN PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION LEAVING FOR SAINT PETERSBURG

armradio.am
29.10.2007 10:18

October 29 the Armenian parliamentary delegation headed by NA Speaker
and Head of the Armenian delegation in the CIS Interparliamentary
Assembly Tigran Torosyan will leave for Saint Petersburg to participate
in the 29th plenary session of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly.

The delegation comprises member of the NA Standing Committee on
Economic Issues Hermine Naghdalyan, members of the Standing Committee
on Defense, National Security and Domestic Affairs Michael Manukyan
and Vardan Khachatryan.

Analysis: Turkey-Iraq spat may hit energy
Published: Oct. 26, 2007 at 9:00 AM

By JOHN C.K. DALY
UPI International Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) — As Washington, Baghdad and Ankara
intensively seek a last-minute diplomatic solution to Turkey’s
intention to invade Iraqi Kurdistan to deal a decisive blow to
Kurdistan Workers Party guerrillas, the ominous consequences of an
invasion are becoming clearer.

While a Turkish military operation carries the possibility of
inflaming the one remaining area of Iraq relatively free of insurgent
operations against coalition forces, the destabilization produced by
an attack could quickly spread far beyond northern Iraq to engulf
eastern Turkey’s regions, which have a significant Kurdish population,
and threaten not only Iraqi oil exports but a significant portion of
Caspian production as well — both the Kirkuk-Ceyhan and
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipelines terminate at the same Turkish
Mediterranean port.

There are already clear indications that PKK militants are considering
attacking energy assets if a Turkish military offensive is directed
against them. In seeking to avert a Turkish military assault, the
PKK’s Abd-al-Rahman Chadarchi told Al-Sharq al-Awsat in a telephone
interview that in such an instance his group would assault oil targets
"since they bring huge amounts of money to Turkey."

"The military regime in the country will use this (energy revenues) to
develop its war machine to utilize it against the Kurdish people in
Turkish Kurdistan," he told the paper.

On Oct. 20, Kurdish Roj TV carried an interview with PKK Executive
Council Chairman Murat Karayilan in which he said: "If you want to
prevent an attack by an opposing force, the first thing to do is
weaken that force’s resources. It is highly likely that the
guerrillas will attack the oil pipelines transiting Kurdistan because
they provide the economic funding for the Turkish army’s aggression."

With oil prices hovering around $90 a barrel, the consequences of such
a clash on the global economy are ominous and nowhere is this better
understood than in Ankara — Turkey imports around 90 percent of its
energy needs. Furthermore, Turkey in the past has taken massive
financial losses from a cessation in the flow of Iraqi oil to Botas’
Ceyhan terminal. During eight years of U.N.-imposed sanctions on
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Turkey estimated that it lost $80 billion in
transit revenues from Iraqi oil exports to Ceyhan and other trade with
Iraq.

Since the U.S. military operation in 2004 that toppled Saddam, Iraqi
oil exports have resumed to Ceyhan, but the port’s importance
increased dramatically when in May 2005 the $3.6 billion,
1,092-mile-long Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline began operations,
carrying Azeri crude from the Caspian. Securitywas a key consideration
in the BTC’s design and the pipeline was buried to help thwart
possible attacks. While the pipeline is secured from immediate attack,
its eight pumping stations (two in Azerbaijan, two in Georgia and four
in Turkey) are above ground, as are their electrical power grids,
presenting "softer" targets. More than half the pipeline’s length
traverses 669 miles of Turkish territory, nearly all of which contains
significant Kurdish populations, as does the route of the
Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline.

Turkey expects to earn about $300 million annually in transit fees
from BTC. Ceyhan is one of the largest oil facilities in the
Mediterranean, containing seven storage tanks, a jetty capable of
loading two Very Large Crude Carrier tankers of up to 300,000 DWT
tonnage and metering facilities. Ceyhan figures prominently in
Turkey’s ambitions to turn the country into a major energy transit
hub, as the projected Trans-Anatolian Pipeline running from Samsun,
which would carry Russian and Caspian oil while relieving tanker
pressure on the Turkish Straits, is also planned to terminate there.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Iraq produces
about between 1.6 million and 2.1 million barrels per day of crude
oil, of which roughly 100,000 bpd are exported via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan
pipeline. But growing insurgent attacks against the pipeline render
consistent exports problematic at best. In a worst-case scenario, if
Kurdish militants expanded their attacks beyond the Kirkuk-Ceyhan
pipeline and raided the BTC in Kurdish regions inside Turkey, the
economic losses could quickly spike oil to well over $100 a barrel as
the world struggled to cope with the loss of up to 1 million bpd
production.

Besides Baghdad, Washington and Ankara, NATO is also paying close
attention to the PKK issue. On Wednesday in Noordwijk, Turkish
National Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul, during an informal meeting of
NATO defense ministers, briefed his colleagues about the latest PKK
attacks in Turkey as well as the motion adopted by Turkish Parliament
authorizing military action.

The Azeri, Georgian and Turkish governments may not have to go it
alone in providing BTC protection, as NATO is already considering the
issue of BTC pipeline security. Speaking after a recent NATO summit in
Riga, Robert Simmons, the NATO secretary general’s special
representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, said the issue of
protecting energy infrastructure belonging both to NATO members and
their partners was on the agenda. Given the rising level of tension
over PKK activities, the global energy community can only hope that it
is not a case of too little, too late.

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 27 2007

Levon Ter-Petrossian: There is an abyss between the development of
Azerbaijan and Armenia

[ 27 Oct 2007 14:00 ]

`Armenia has continued to maintain the status quo during the past
decade. The international community didn’t show any reaction as it is
the number 1000 issue for them,’ Novosti-Armenia quoted Armenian
former president Levon Ter-Petrossian as telling a public meeting in
Yerevan on October 26.

He added that current efforts to keep the status quo is a correct
course theoretically because the world community will sooner or late
get fed up with the situation and recognize the independence of
Nagorno Karabakh and there is such a precedent in the world practice.

He said that this planned approach go right in the case of equal
balance of forces while there is a abyss (abysmal difference) between
the development level of Azerbaijan and Armenia.
`We should move to the philosophy of solution from the philosophy of
status quo. We shouldn’t be afraid of a compromise because it is the
only way leading to the effective settlement of the conflict,’ he
added.
The First President of Armenia noted that for him Karabakh issue has
always been a matter of human rights but not the problem of land or
territory.
`150,000 people aspire to live in freedom, pride and welfare. The
world community sees 150,000 people of Karabakh as a statistical
factor or national minority. However, Karabakh is not an ethnical
unit and not the Convention on National Minorities but the principles
of Self-Determination should apply to this problem,’ he said.
Levon Ter-Petrossian added that the problem is not that there is a
religious antagonism or non-possibility of coexistence between
Armenians and Azerbaijanis but the problem is that Azerbaijan will
not be able to provide security and welfare to the people of
Karabakh. /APA/

US DELAYS ARMENIA ‘GENOCIDE’ VOTE

Story from BBC NEWS:
americas/7063502.stm
Published: 2007/10/26 10:45:58 GMT

Supporters of a resolution in the US Congress to label as genocide
the mass killing of Armenians in Turkey after 1915 have called for
it to be delayed.

The four main sponsors of the vote said they still believed a majority
of their colleagues would support it, but only if the "timing is
more favourable".

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she respected their decision to
postpone.

Turkey recalled its envoy over the vote and President George W Bush
warned it could damage ties with the US ally.

READ THE RESOLUTION

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The four Democrat co-sponsors of the resolution – Adam Schiff, Brad
Sherman, Anna Eshoo and Frank Pallone – said they planned to table
it again later this year or in 2008.

The vote had seemed ready for consideration by the House of
Representatives after it was passed by the House Foreign Affairs
Committee earlier this month.

Turkey, an important regional operational hub for the US military,
accepts many Armenians died during World War One, but denies they
were victims of systematic genocide.

Analysts say Ankara could deny American access to Incirlik airbase,
or other supply lines crucial to US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan,
in response to the passage of such a vote.

Sponsors of Armenian genocide resolution ask Pelosi to delay vote

Associated Press
THE JERUSALEM POST
Oct. 25, 2007

US lawmakers sponsoring a resolution that would label the 1915 killing
of Armenians in what became Turkey a genocide have asked the leader of
the House of Representatives to delay a vote on the measure because
they feared it would fail.

Support for the resolution deteriorated this month, after Turkey
recalled its US ambassador in protest and several lawmakers said they
feared it would cripple US-Turkey relations.

"We believe that a large majority of our colleagues want to support a
resolution recognizing the genocide on the House floor and they will
do so, provided the timing is more favorable," the lawmakers told the
House leader, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a letter on Wednesday.

The letter was signed by four primary sponsors of the resolution, all
Democrats.

The group said they would continue to work with leadership "to plan
for consideration sometime later this year, or in 2008," they added.

Source: 656790&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull