Author: Jagharian Tania

ATOM EGOYAN TALKS ABOUT HIS NEW FILM, ADORATION
Paul Chaderjian

atom-egoyan-talks-about-his-new-film-adoration
Sat urday May 02, 2009

Auteur’s 12th feature stars wife Arsinee Khanjian and Scott Speedman

Beverly Hills, Calif. – Atom Egoyan’s 12th feature film, Adoration,
opened in Los Angeles and New York on May 1.The film will open in
other cities across the United States in the weeks ahead.

The Canadian-Armenian director-writer-producer was born in Egypt in
1960 and grew up on the western edge of British Columbia, Canada. His
films are familiar to audiences around the globe. He has scored
nearly 50 top prizes for his films, received two Oscar nominations,
and won multiple Canadian Academy Awards. His movies have premiered
and competed at Cannes.

Adoration, in classic Egoyan style, explores how individuals connect
to one another. The film is about an orphaned Toronto teen named
Simon (played by Devon Bostick) who reads an actual news story of
terrorism to his class and pretends that he is a key part of it. The
story – concerning a 1986 incident in which a Jordanian man put a
bomb in the luggage of his pregnant girlfriend – is also posted on
the Internet. The intriguing reactions and dialogue that ensue help
Egoyan explore how humans connect with one another, technology,
and the world. (See Vincent Lima’s review in the Armenian Reporter.)

Armenian Reporter: Why Adoration and why now?

Atom Egoyan: Because I’ve been thinking a lot about when I started
writing plays. Our son, Arshile, is at the age now when I started
writing plays, and it became this really huge revolution for me that I
could actually dramatize things in my life, and I put on these plays
for my friends, and parents, and school, and, of course, if I was
doing that now it wouldn’t be enough. I’d want more people to see it,
and I would presume that I could get more people to see it because
of this strange invention called the Internet, which allows anyone
to post and find a global audience if people are paying attention.

Creating drama around loss

So I started to write about a boy who is orphaned and wanted access
to his parents, and the only way he could find that access is through
creating drama around it. And that wasn’t quite working the way I
wanted to. It wasn’t developing properly, and I reacquainted myself
with this story that I remember happening in 86, where this Jordanian
man put his lover, his pregnant girlfriend, onto an El Al flight. She
was pregnant with his child, and, unbeknownst to her, he had put a
bomb in her handbag. And I remember thinking that was the most evil,
unimaginable act that any person could do to an unborn child.

Then I thought, What if this character, whose father has been
demonized, suddenly imagines that he is that child, and uses that
as a way of exploring his own lineage? And where the mother has been
completely transformed into an angel, and where the father has been
transformed into an absolute demon? And then a teacher, who gives
him the story, seeing the reaction, encourages him. And why would she
encourage him? Then questions begin to arise, and you find yourself
suddenly in the midst of it, and that’s what happens.

You start to explore something, and suddenly it raises other issues
– much like my previous works. Ararat, for instance, started to be
written as a conventional historic drama, and then that raised certain
issues and then you explore that, and you try to always ask yourself,
Why is this fascinating to you? Is that relevant? Is that story worth
being told? You make those decisions and then decisions about at what
scale you tell it. How many people are you expecting to watch it? –
because it is business, you have to be aware of that. You have to be
responsible to that.

So it’s a series of considerations that are both intuitive and also
rational. The intuitive side of you, as an artist, is trying to have
your antenna, feelings, your culture, and compel you to determine
the issues that are most important and pressing. But then there’s
this whole other side, which is quite rational, which is based on
the business of filmmaking.

AR: So what started as the idea of this one character, and his truth,
gave birth to a couple of themes you’re talking about in Adoration,
including how this character embellishes the truth, and how as humans
we present ourselves as something other than our true selves. Talk
about those themes.

Constructing a personality

AE: Those themes are the themes of surrogates, the themes of, actually,
how you get access to places that you’re not supposed to be in. I think
some of that comes from my experience as an immigrant. I remember
being in Victoria, and wanting to fit in. There wasn’t an Armenian
community to speak of, and so I really wanted to assimilate, yet I
was different than most of the other people in that very homogenous,
Anglo-WASP society.

So that process of constructing yourself and taking up certain manners
and learning another character so well that it became your own was
part of my upbringing, and I think it’s part of a lot of immigrants’
upbringing. A lot of them have the assurance of a community to
situate themselves in. But once you have that experience, you become
aware of the possibility that our characters and our personalities
are constructions. It’s a way you begin to see things. Sometimes I
wish I didn’t respond that way, but it’s a natural process for me
to ask that question which Christopher Plummer asks Raffi in Ararat:
"What has brought you to this place?"

There’s a multitude of different narratives that we bring to a moment,
where we interact with someone else.

Some will remain mysterious. Others will become really obvious, and
I’m fascinated by the mystery of a meeting between any two people. It’s
loaded with so many different possibilities and ways it can go. And in
many of these dramas it doesn’t go the way you think it might or it
should. And that can seem really troubling or disturbing. And things
don’t resolve the way they should. They don’t have the desired affect,
and that is true and warped as well.

I remember, when I was making Ararat, I just assumed that this would
provoke an incredible exchange with younger Turkish kids who would
relate. Now I wonder, What was I thinking? I mean, of course, the
film is a provocation, but I didn’t make it as a provocation. Then
I had to understand the waters I was swimming in, and realized that
the people who were reacting were people who would never even see the
film necessarily. They were people who were just provoked by the title.

So how something can be taken out of context is also fascinating to
me. And that’s what Adoration is about, maybe: these objects that are
taken out of context or interpreted in ways they weren’t designed to
be interpreted.

Religious systems have lost their value. Or indicators or markers or
sacred objects have lost their meaning. And this kid has to reorganize
them, has to go back to the original scrolls, if you will, has to
go back to his grandmother’s place, has to go back to his father’s
ancient scroll of the violin and understand what it was intended to
be and reformat that in the real world, and stop just receiving this
wisdom from other people.

Because some of that wisdom is false. The grandfather’s intentions
are so malicious, ultimately, so all that is very stirring and it’s
the stuff of drama for me.

AR: You were always fascinated with the dynamics between any two
individuals. Now, with Adoration, you’re exploring individual
identities in the new information age, within the context of the
Internet. Has this new medium, and the information age as a whole,
changed the psychological forces that drive how we identify ourselves
to others?

AE: It’s accelerated it. That’s what’s happened. I think that
there’s a velocity to this interchange, and – especially when it
becomes communal – there’s this sense that people are clamoring for
attention. So they’re embellishing and creating ways of presenting
themselves, which are misrepresentative, yet that’s something that
we absorb as a new natural, if you will.

Igniting memories

I think it comes to a peak in Adoration. When this boy resorts to
saying his father was responsible for this terrorist attack that never
happens, he suddenly ignites the memories of the people who were on
that plane, who suddenly form this very emotionally rooted group of
people mourning over this tragedy. And we forget that the group is
somehow fundamentally absurd. It would not exit in real space. These
people would not go into a car to go to a clubhouse to meet. Because
the moment they got in the car, they would realize this is absurd.

But because the Internet provokes immediate response, there’s an
emotional tenor which is, which feels, very real, but it’s the result
of washing into something without the normal physical boundaries that
would tame or perhaps even withhold behavioral responses, which are
now completely present and urgent.

When that man, for example, is saying, "I represent the dead,"
what’s he saying? But it seems very real. The most touching scene is
the one with the Holocaust denier, and there’s this girl who takes
her great grandmother and brings her to a medium that she doesn’t
even understand. But she uses the tattoo as this transformation
of a physical world, physical proof, into a place where it becomes
somehow trivialized.

AR: Why do you think humans need these objects: the tattoo with the
number, the tail of the violin? Why do they need those things to
identify themselves and their role in other people’s lives?

AE: It’s because we’re engineered to need physical totems. We live
in a material world. And these material objects and our fascination
with them, and our devotion to them, hold the key. We are concerned
and quite upset about the instability of any reference that we can’t
control ourselves. It’s about the ability to communicate a history.

Look at the example of Raffi and Ararat: he’s watching this Genocide
epic being made and something about this feels fake to him. That it’s
hard to communicate what he has understood that experience to be,
and this crazy journey he goes on to somehow record it digitally
or find plates for digital effects. This anxiety of it being
misunderstood. This anxiety of something not representing who we
are. Then he’s concentrated on certain objects which are understood
to be codes. And things we can pass down, and things that can be read
in the way they’re intended. And that, of course, presupposes that
there are people who still know how to read those codes.

That’s why, I think, Simon, in Adoration, empowers himself that he
can still read that code of his grandmother’s design or the father’s
design of the violin. He can read that and he can now interpret
it in terms of who he is at that moment, and that is a liberating
thing. Even the fact that the grandfather’s recorded statement,
which he now decides is false, he doesn’t delete it. He has to burn
it. There has to be something ceremonial about it, because that’s who
we are as well. This is like human beings burying their dead. This
is what makes us different.

AR: What stood out for me watching the film was how surprised I was
at the various turns of the story. What do you hope audiences will
be thinking and examining when they find themselves reflecting on
these story turns and twists?

Pushing the envelope

AE: The audience will have to trust the film, that it will come
together. The most challenging character is that of Sabine [played
by Arsinee Khanjian], because the complexity of what she’s doing,
and why she is doing it, will not be revealed for a long time [during
the movie], and the risk is that it may not be revealed until you’re
long past any hope of it making actual sense. And that’s always the
risk with these films, because I’m pushing them as far as they can
go. I think for the people who understand the language of what I’m
doing and trust it, the film has real rewards, but it’s probably one
of the riskiest and most extreme films I’ve done, because there are
things which you think are supposed to be signifying something quite
clearly, and characters say this is what they signify, but it’s not
so. And you really don’t have any understanding as to it being other
than that, except for a certain energy in the scene which doesn’t
quite feel right.

AR: This whole story is more than just entertainment in itself,
because it makes demands of its viewer. Is it your hope that someone
comes to this film and walks away trying to think as to where they
belong in this film? What are your expectations?

AE: My expectations of the viewer are to be exploratory, curious,
trusting, and self-aware. So they’re trying to situate themselves,
but that’s not to deny that there is a pleasure in that. That can
be very entertaining, but you just have to understand that there is
responsibility on your part, and you can at one level just let it
glide, wash over you, and interpret it later on. But if you’re trying
to come to terms with it on a moment-to-moment basis, it’s going to
be very challenging.

AR: As the filmmaker, are you expressing a certain point of view
about media, and our relationship to media technologies?

AE: I think, and I hope, the predominant thing it’s expressing is
that these media are with us, and they are an incredible means of
getting information and access to other people’s stories, but we
also have to understand what their limitations are. This is really
important. The Internet is an incredible tool, but it is not the
place to find catharsis. It’s not designed to be cathartic. It cannot
resolve itself. It, by nature, is open, and that’s the beauty of it,
and that’s the wonder of the Internet. And if you’re expecting that
you’re going to end your journey through the Internet, that’s just
wrong-headed. But you can certainly initiate and use it as a resource,
and also, like any technology, be aware of its limitations. The more
we understand the limitations of what we’re dealing with, the more
we are able to use it to our best advantage.

In Family Viewing, for instance, Van finds these tapes of his family,
with his grandmother and his mother, and his whole identity is awakened
to him by the tapes. The tapes are in the process of being erased
by the father. Nevertheless, even though the feeling in that film is
that the video is a device that oppresses people, [there’s also the
realization that] it’s through it that Van liberates himself and is
able to join his own history.

It’s actually interesting to think about that, because when we compare
Van in that film and Simon in Adoration, they’re both young men who
are using the technology that’s available to them today to come to
terms with who they are.

AR: One is using the tapes as memory to identify himself, and the
other one is using the Internet to identify himself in the present.

AE: And what’s very interesting too is that, at that time, the whole
idea of generational loss was something I was involved in, using it
as a metaphor in that film, but that’s irrelevant now. With digital
technology, there’s no generational loss. But at that point, all
the different video textures of the film were very much a product
of that time, and the idea of the physical aspect of the time –
the fact that Van would need to retrieve those objects – goes back
to your issue of these things as being sacred, as things you hold in
your hand. Tape is held in your hand – digital information is not. So
there’s a move away. You know, this is very interesting, even with
videotape. We were still in the biblical zone of an engraved image,
where there was a physical displacement of properties to communicate
information. So there was something, magnetic oxide, that was being
displaced, and we were still dealing with the engraved image up until
the end of dialogue. And suddenly we have shed that biblical code
and its terms of reference, and something major has evolved within
us, in terms of how we deal with the trading of images. It’s been
unleashed. There’s no limit to it.

AR: And there is no control.

AE: And there’s absolutely no control. And so the old rules don’t
apply at all.

AR: So is the digital-information age even a more difficult time and
place for humans to maneuver than the 80s?

AE: It’s less ominous in a weird sort of way, because it’s less
hierarchical with respect to control. Control is easier to wrest in
the physical world. You can control tapes. You can control scrolls,
but once something is on the Internet, it’s absolutely available to
anyone, so the real danger is not about who has control but rather
how we limit our own ability to be diverted by this endless amount
of information to process, and how we ascertain our own physicality.

AR: In our last minute, let’s talk about the actors in this
film. Obviously Arsinee is a very important part of your body of work.

AE: She’s a hugely important part. I wouldn’t have done any of this
work if we hadn’t met in our early 20s and had this dream of doing this
together. And we’ve had this incredible, very rare, path we’ve gone
on, where we had this common dream, and it took us to some remarkable
places. It started with a trip to Paris, where we saw these amazing
films being shown in funky cinemas on the Left Bank and dreaming
that one day we’d make something like the films we’ve made. We met
on the set of Next of Kin, and we fell in love, and that took us
all over the world, took us back to Armenia in the early 90s, and I
think Adoration is one of the most remarkable and genuinely daring
performances she’s given, because it’s uncharted territory. There’s
no other character ever created that’s remotely like her.

AR: She’s trying to set the world right.

AE: And she’s kind of misguided about it, but she does it at the
end. And Scott Speedman [who plays Simon’s uncle] does something
incredibly generous at the end too. After understanding that this woman
is potentially unstable, and certainly traumatized, but ultimately
the only person who can provide a direct history or an eyewitness
account of who Sammy was, he realizes that it’s imperative that he
bring Simon back to her apartment and see this shrine that she’s
created, and have him understand as best possible who this man was.

EUROVISION-2009: ARSHAKYAN SISTERS GET PREPARED

Panorama.am
11:51 04/05/2009

"The stage is too big. We were confused when we went on the stage first
time. We have seen our "personal stage" and everything was a little bit
unusual for us. Of course, we felt worried. It is confusing when you
go on such a huge stage first time. We do have some big concert halls
but this one is three times bigger then ours. We just can’t imagine
what sort of energy we should have to make the audience feel that. We
have got a good group and we are sure we’ll do the best," Inga and
Anush Arshakyans said after their first rehearsal of "Eurovision –
2009" song contest.

The Armenian representatives to "Eurovision – 2009" international song
contest are going to perform "Djan-djan" song. Armenian representatives
will go on stage on 12 May, in the first semi-finals.

ZHARANGUTIUN REPRESENTATIVE: UNLESS CO-RAPPORTEURS’ APPROACH BECOMES UNBIASSED, ARMENIA CAN RENOUNCE THEM

YEREVAN
MAY 4, 2009
NOYAN TAPAN

The discussion of the issue of Armenia at the April sitting of PACE
Monitoring Committee lasted nearly 20 minutes. Zaruhi Postanjian,
a member of the RA NA Zharangutiun (Heritage) faction and newly
appointed member of Armenian delegation in PACE, reported at the
May 4 press conference. In her words, head of Armenian delegation
David Haroutiunian and she gave speeches at the sitting. According
to Z. Postanjian, in difference to D. Haroutiunian, who spoke about
the positive process of PACE resolutions’ fulfillment, she mentioned
presence of political prisoners, persecutions for political views
going on, limitations to holding gatherings and marches. However,
Co-rapporteur on Armenia John Prescott opposed to Z. Postanjian saying
that examination of all that is underway and there is a positive shift.

Z. Postanjian told the other Co-rapporteur, George Colombier that the
Armenian people suspects the Co-rapporteurs of partiality and can send
letters of protest to PACE in connection with their activity. According
to Z. Postanjian, if the situation in Armenia continues like this and
if Co-rapporteurs’ approach does not become unbiassed, she as a member
of the Armenian delegation has a possibility of launching a process,
thanks to which Armenia can renounce Prescott and Colombier. According
to her, Armenia can have a possibility of a special Rapporteur,
which PACE gives.

The NA deputy had a meeting with Council of Europe Commissioner
for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg. The latter said that amnesty
would be the best solution for Armenia. According to Z. Postanjian,
T. Hammarberg said that he is sure that there is no well-grounded
proof confirming the charge on the "case of the seven."

ACCORDING TO ARMEN RUSTAMIAN, IF ARFD WINS YEREVAN COUNCIL OF ELDERS ELECTIONS, PROBLEMS ACCUMULATED IN ALL SPHERES WILL BE SOLVED

NOYAN TAPAN
MAY 4, 2009
YEREVAN

There are two opposite extreme approaches in Armenia’s home
political sphere to Yerevan Council of Elders elections. Armen
Rustamian, a Representative of the ARFD Armenian Supreme Body,
expressed such an opinion at the May 4 preelection meeting with ARFD
supporters. In his words, the first approach is that allegedly the
May 31 Council of Elders elections are the continuation of the 2008
presidential elections and by winning them it will be possible to
achieve a power shift. Such way of thinking, as A. Rustamian stated,
is misunderstanding, as a result of which ordinary voters will be
disappointed.

According to the ARFD figure, the second extreme approach is that
Council of Elders elections have purely local significance and
are aimed at solution of purely communal problems. According to
A. Rustamian, the reality is that the Council of Elders to be formed
by the May 31 elections will work within the framework of the formed
political system by becoming the body reserving its disgraceful
phenomena. The ARFD representative assured that if ARFD wins,
Yerevan’s power will rehabilitate country’s power system. "If ARFD
forms the Council of Elders, the problems accumulated in all spheres
will be solved, and a Yerevan resident will consider Yerevan its home,
where he will find compassionate attitude," A. Rustamian concluded.

NEGOTIATIONS ON BAKU-TBILISI-KARS RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION TO BE HELD IN ISTANBUL

PanARMENIAN.Net
04.05.2009 16:23 GMT+04:00

On May 9 Transportation Ministers of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia
will hold negotiations on Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway construction. A
private meeting will be held in Istanbul on the initiative of Turkey.

The Ministers will exchange views on railway construction project and
sign necessary agreements upon meeting completion, 1news.az reported.

esctoday.com
May 3 2009

Day 1: Sweden, Armenia and Andorra

After the lunch break, Sweden, Armenia and Andorra take to the
fantastic Moscow stage for the second session of Eurovision Song
Contest first semi final rehearsals in Moscow.

Song 5: Sweden

Next on stage is Sweden, represented by one of the country’s most
sought after opera performers Malena Ermans. She performs the Fredrik
Kempe composition La Voix. This song blends pop with opera which
perfectly highlights Marlane’s classically trained voice. She is
joined by 5 female backing vocals, Jessica Marberger, Dea Norberg,
Tine Matulessy, Malin Nilsson and Anna Maria Hallgarn all of whom are
dressed in black. Malena, the Ice Queen as the concept of her
appearance is, is dressed in a champagne coloured outfit with feathers
at the base of the dress.

The five female backing singers give that song a softer feel than the
version performed at Melodifestivalen. The routine is very similar to
the one we saw in the Swedish final with the same Comedia del’ arte
masks being used and the same white and green colours being used as
the stage backdrop. Malena gives a charismatic and elegant
performance.

Song 6: Armenia

Inga & Anush from Armenia are next on stage with an invitation for
Europe to dance the Nor par, a dance which they hope will spread hopes
for a new and better life. Singing their song Jan jan in both English
and Armenian, the Armenian sisters will be hoping to became the fourth
successive act representing Armenia to qualify directly to the
Eurovision song contest final and with today’s strong vocal
performance there will be every chance of this.

The girls give an uplifting performance to this up-tempo dance/folk
song. The influence of famous Russian trio Fresh Art employed to
develop the stage image and the performance has certainly paid
dividends. The song starts will the 2 singers joined on a platform
onstage to some gyrating by four dancers dressed n blue and black.
This song has been developed by combining a strong R&B groove with
ethic elements which combine very well to produce an unique sound.
Torwards the end of the song green laser light are projected from the
hands of the backing singers.

Song 7: Andorra

Denmark-born, Susanne Georgi will be aiming to become the first
Andorran entry to qualify directly to the final in six attempts as she
takes the stage for this afternoon technical rehearsal. She performs
her fresh pop song La teva decisio with plenty of energy and creates a
nice vibe for the song. Parts of her song are performed in both
English and Catalan.

She is joined on stage by five female backing singers who also play
guitars. This adds some freshness to the number. At the start of the
song Susanne also plays a guitar but this disappears who she briefly
dissapears from the stage and reappears with a hand held microphone.
The staging of the show is completely white and a wind machine is used
for the last third of the song.

Erdogan announces major Cabinet reshuffle

2009-05-02 17:17:00

ArmInfo. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced revisions in
the Cabinet on Friday after receiving approval from President Abdullah
Gul in the wake of the March 29 local elections and amid the ongoing
global financial crisis. Whereas eight ministers were excluded from the
Cabinet, nine new individuals started to carry ministerial titles just
hours before the start of the weekend. On the other hand, seven
ministers now have different seats in the 27-member ministers’ club,
including Erdogan himself.

Turkish media reported that with the revisions, Deputy Prime Minister
Nazim Ekren, Minister of Justice Mehmet Ali Sahin, Minister of Finance
Kemal Unakitan, Minister of Education Huseyin Celik, Minister of Energy
and Natural Resources Mehmet Hilmi Guler, Minister of State Murat
Basesgioglu, Minister of State Kursad Tuzmen and Minister of State
Mustafa Said Yazicioglu were left out of the Cabinet. Erdogan said
those removals from office have nothing to do with any mistakes made by
any of those former ministers. Whereas the aforementioned eight
ministers were removed from Erdogan’s Cabinet, nine new names stepped
into ministerial posts. The most striking appointments were those of
Bulent Arinc and Ahmet Davutoglu. Ar?nc became one of the three deputy
prime ministers, and Professor Davutoglu is now Turkey’s new minister
of foreign affairs, taking over the post from Ali Babacan. Babacan was
made a deputy prime minister as well and will be responsible for the
coordination of country’s economy. The last deputy prime minister is
still Cemil Cicek, who maintained his seat.

LETTER FROM EUROPE: STAKES HIGH IN ARMENIA-TURKEY TALKS
By Judy Dempsey

New York Times
April 29 2009
NY

BERLIN — For several months, the leaders of Turkey and Armenia have
defied the nationalists of both countries by holding secret talks in
Switzerland in a bid to end a conflict in a highly volatile region
on the fringes of Europe.

Nearly a century after the Ottoman Empire’s massacre of about one
million Armenian Christians in 1915, Turkey’s president, Abdullah
Gul, and his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan, have reached a
breakthrough in their immensely delicate negotiations.

Last week, they agreed to a road map that could lead to the resumption
of diplomatic relations and the reopening of the borders. If the
agreement succeeds, it will have huge significance for the region. "The
southern Caucasus could finally become stable and attractive for
investors," said Suat Kiniklioglu, a Turkish legislator and spokesman
for the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

If so, the powers that will dominate in the region will be neither
the United States nor the E.U., which have done little to encourage
this peace process.

Instead, it will be Turkey and Russia — two former empires — that
are attempting to re-establish their influence in a region rich in
gas and oil and an important transit route to Europe.

The biggest winner could be Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime
minister and leader of the pro-Islamist Justice and Development
Party. Since coming to power in 2003, Mr. Erdogan has forged ahead
with reforms designed to prepare Turkey for E.U. membership.

He has radically curtailed the influence of the military, which
had hindered reforms, fearing it would lose its political role. The
generals supported a vigorous pro-United States foreign policy at the
expense of relations with their neighbors. That undervalued Turkey’s
strategic role in a region sandwiched between Europe and Central Asia.

Mr. Erdogan changed all that. He devised a "Neighborhood Policy" in
which Turkey’s national interests would increasingly be defined by
its relations with its neighbors — Bulgaria and Syria, Azerbaijan
and Georgia, Iraq and Iran. And Armenia, the thorniest of all.

"The decision to seek normalization with Armenia is a Turkish
initiative," said Richard Giragosian, director of the Armenian Center
for National and International Studies, based in Yerevan. "It is not
a plan to please the U.S. or appease the E.U. It is about Turkey’s
national interests."

The United States has long called for the resumption of ties between
Turkey and Armenia. But successive U.S. presidents have come under
pressure from the powerful Armenian diaspora and nationalists who
insisted Turkey first recognize that the 1915 massacre of Armenians
was a genocide before restoring ties.

But under the influence of the army, successive Turkish governments
have made it a focal point of national pride not to admit to
genocide, even making it a crime to speak of the Armenian massacre
as such. Mr. Erdogan already had to take a very big step to agree to
establish a special historical commission with Armenia so that this
issue will not derail the diplomatic efforts.

The E.U. has played no constructive role as Turkey’s accession talks
with Brussels have become bogged down in recriminations. France and
Germany are staunchly opposed to Turkey joining the E.U. despite
Turkey’s strategic role in this part of Europe, and its reforms. As
a result, "The E.U. is less and less popular here, which is very
frustrating for a leadership that is serious about reforms," said Suat
Kiniklioglu, a Turkish legislator and spokesman for the Parliament’s
Foreign Affairs Committee.

So with the United States and the E.U. relegated to the sidelines,
Mr. Erdogan has embarked on a strategy that reflects Turkey’s national
interests but one that carries risks.

Domestically, Mr. Erdogan has to deal with fiery nationalists and
a dangerously disgruntled military, which oppose a rapprochement
with Armenia.

In the region, Turkey could spoil its relations with Azerbaijan,
a country linguistically and economically close to Turkey and rich
in oil and gas.

Turkey supported Azerbaijan during the 1992 war in Nagorno-Karabakh
— an ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. Since a cease-fire
agreement in 1994, ethnic Armenian forces have occupied at least
one-eighth of Azerbaijan while Turkey has sealed its borders with
Armenia, making Armenia dependent on Russia for its economic survival.

With Turkey’s shift in foreign policy, Azerbaijan is becoming
nervous. It fears that Turkey and Armenia would normalize relations
without resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"There is now a great opportunity to link the normalization of
relations between Turkey and Armenia to ending the conflict in
Nagorno-Karabakh," said Leila Alieva, director of the National
Committee on Azerbaijan’s Integration in Europe. "If there is no
linkage, the momentum could be lost, and it could change the direction
of Azerbaijan’s foreign policy." Indeed, if Azerbaijan felt betrayed
by the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, it could turn to Russia,
said Ms. Alieva.

Russia, which during the Nagorno-Karabakh war had supported Armenia
and even now controls Armenia’s telecommunications, energy and rail
networks, has already moved to set itself up as a peacemaker. With
Turkey’s support, it has begun to negotiate a pullout of Armenian
forces from occupied territories of Azerbaijan that could allow the
return of Azeri refugees.

The rewards are big. Azerbaijan would regain control of most of
its territory and Russia would be in a stronger position to seek an
energy deal with Azerbaijan — even though Azerbaijan is negotiating
with the E.U. to supply gas to Europe’s Nabucco pipeline. Russia
too could become the guarantor of any peace agreement by sending
Russian peacekeeping troops to Karabakh, bolstering its influence in
the region.

Finally, a normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey
would also weaken Georgia, which Russia invaded last August. Once
the borders are reopened, Armenia could become a new transit route
for energy and other goods, thus marginalizing Georgia, which is
Russia’s aim, according to Richard Giragosian.

For the United States and Europe, the result of this entire process
could be ambiguous. The volatile southern Caucasus, a breeding ground
for corruption, drug and human trafficking and miserable governance,
could become much more peaceful and prosperous.

But unless Europe and the United States embrace the big changes
taking place in Turkey, they could lose much influence, as Turkey
and Russia, the new regional superpowers, return to their historic
spheres of influence.

THE TROUBLE WITH THE ‘GENOCIDE’ LABEL
Salil Tripathi

Washington Post
/needtoknow/2009/04/the_trouble_with_the_genocide. html
April 28 2009

The Current Discussion: Today is "Genocide Remembrance Day "in the
Armenian community, a particularly strained time of year for Turkey and
Armenia. What’s a realistic first step forward toward reconciliation
for each of these countries?

Turkey and Armenia have begun the slow, tentative waltz of rebuilding
relations, after President Obama spoke in Istanbul, but did not use
the G-word.

That was perhaps a wise decision, notwithstanding the strong emotive
reason that propelled many to call a spade a spade, a machete a
machete, and a genocide a genocide, leading to the Congressional
Resolution. The truth is that ultimately only communities themselves
can make the decision to leave the past behind. International
leaders – even one as gifted as Barack Obama – can only play a
limited role. (Sudan’s conflict didn’t stop when Colin Powell called
the killings in Darfur a genocide, and few countries joined him in
condemning the Sudanese leadership.)

This is a peculiar period in the world annals of our coming to terms
with genocide. Cambodia is trying to account for genocide and killing
fields by indicting Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch. India’s ruling
party withdrew a candidate for Parliament, partially in response to
a shoe-throwing incident. (Credible human rights groups allege that
the candidate was involved in the 1984 Sikh massacre, after two Sikh
bodyguards assassinated former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.) Tamils
in Britain accuse the Sri Lankan army of committing genocide in
Sri Lanka. Bangladesh’s newly-elected government sets its sights
on bringing to justice those accountable for the Pakistani Army’s
widespread killings of Bangladeshis in 1971.

And then there is Rwanda. This month is the 15th anniversary of
the Rwandan genocide. In a recent issue of Paris Review, the French
writer Jean Hatzfeld recalls the uneasy aftermath of dealing with
released prisoners who had at one time massacred a community’s loved
ones. Hatzfeld’s books – The Machete Season (2005), Life Laid Bare
(2007), and The Antelope’s Strategy (2009) — are required reading
for anyone who wants to understand the psyche of the perpetrator and
the victim, of what makes a killer, and, as Hannah Arendt observed
in the context of Eichmann, the banality of evil.

The fixation with the word ‘genocide’ comes from its emotive
power. Among human rights abuses, genocide is arguably the worst,
which is why governments fight tooth and nail to prevent others from
calling their heinous acts as genocidal. The definition, developed
after we discovered the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, is written
bearing in mind the Nazi atrocities against the Jewish community. Those
abuses made every preceding abuse seem less significant. With the
definition was so precisely drafted, what were we to call Stalin’s
purges – or even Pol Pot’s bloody rule – where a single ethnic group
wasn’t targeted, and where the masterminds of those genocides did not
always get around to implementing policies that would prevent future
generations from being born? These were mass killings, massacres,
crimes against humanity. But they weren’t quite like the Holocaust –
just as the Holocaust wasn’t quite like what happened in Cambodia
between 1975 and 1979.

Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity are extremely powerful terms,
which is why governments resent such characterization. The sad
consequence is that diplomats then perform the delicate dance of
defining the term more precisely, and argue whether a particularly
horrendous abuse was genocide. Lost, amidst all this, are human
impulses – of ethics, morality, revenge, justice, redemption,
and compassion.

What happened in Turkey nearly a century ago – as indeed in Rwanda,
Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Sudan – must never happen
again. And yet Obama and other world leaders can only nudge governments
to do the right thing. Ultimately communities and nations must
develop the confidence and face the past, apologize where necessary,
and forgive as appropriate. That requires a moral core, not legalism
alone. The law helps and is of course necessary. But genocide is wrong
not because the law says so, but because it is against our conscience.

DASHNAKTSUTYUN ENTERED THE OPPOSITION

PanARMENIAN.Net
27.04.2009 19:00 GMT+04:00

ARF Dashnaktsutyun made a statement about its leaving governmental
coalition. The party refused 3 ministerial positions offered by
government.

The step was caused by Apr. 22 agreement signed between RA and Turkish
Foreign Ministries. The statement issued by the party says that
ARF Dashnaktsutyun, as of now acts as an opposition, Dashnaktsutyun
representative, RA NA MP Armen Rustamyan told a news conference today.

He also noted that at the moment differences in RA foreign policy
between ARFD and Government are insurmountable. The last meeting with
RA president became a proof to it.

It was clear even on Apr. 23 that the situation is serious, but as
the person responsible for country’s foreign policy, RA President,
wasn’t in Armenia, it was incorrect to announce our intention,
whithout discussing the issue with him.

"On Apr. 25, during our meting with Serzh Sargsyan, the
President assured us that Armenia’s foreign policy line won’t be
altered. Armenia will try to normalize ties with Turkey in reasonable
time limits, without sacrificing either NKR or Genocide issues to the
normalization." Dashnaktsytyun was not satisfied with the reply RA
President gave. Afterwards the party presented its views and announced
its decision.

"The party already decided upon its political line in the oppositional
filed. "Most probably, we won’t manage to cooperate with ANC, because
of serious differences. We’ll try to establish cooperation with
Heritage to form our oppositional field," Armen Rustamyan concluded.