Author: Jagharian Tania

October 12, 2007

THE WORLD FROM BERLIN

‘The West Needs Turkey as a Reliable Ally’

Tensions between the US and Turkey are growing as Ankara considers
attacking PKK bases in northern Iraq and a congressional committee in
Washington pushes forward a resolution calling the World War I
massacre of Armenians "genocide." German commentators are concerned at
the deteriorating relations between the NATO allies.

Relations between the United States and Turkey have hit a new low
point as a US congressional committee labels the Armenian massacre as
genocide and Turkey prepares the ground for military operations in
northern Iraq.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that Ankara
was prepared to face up to international criticism if his country
launched an attack on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

"After going down this route, its cost has already been calculated,"
Erdogan told reporters when asked about international reaction to such
an operation. "Whatever the cost is, it will be met."

Erdogan’s government has decided to seek approval from parliament next
week for military incursions into northern Iraq to pursue Kurdish
rebels there. The bill would give the government a one-year
authorization to launch military operations across the border against
the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

On Wednesday, Washington warned Turkey against unilateral action in
northern Iraq. The US does not want to rock the boat in what is Iraq’s
most peaceful region, fearing that a Turkish offensive could
potentially destabilize the wider region. Turkey is a key US ally and
has the second-largest army in NATO.

US-Turkish relations have also been soured by a move on Wednesday by
the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committtee to approve a resolution
that would label the Ottoman massacre of Armenians during World War I
as genocide. The resolution now goes to the floor of the House of
Representatives, with a vote expected by mid-November. The resolution
is supported by the powerful Armenian-American lobby.

The decision, which is expected to ramp up anti-American sentiment in
Turkey, was strongly condemned in the country, with street protests
erupting in Ankara and Istanbul. Expressing its diplomatic
displeasure, Turkey on Thursday recalled its ambassador to the US for
consultations, and the government in Ankara said the resolution, if
passed, would damage US-Turkish relations.

Commentators writing in Germany’s main newspapers Friday expressed
concern at the deteriorating relations between the two allies.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"The (congressional committee’s) decision could cause great damage, on
two levels: on the one hand to fundamental realpolitik interests, but
also to efforts to deal with the past in Turkey itself. … The United
States and the West need Turkey as a reliable ally. The country has
the second-largest army in NATO and is an important anchor of
stability in an increasingly hostile and unstable region. … However,
it is the timing which is fatal: The resolution coincides with a
rising wave of anti-American and anti-West rhetoric in Turkey. … It
is hardly a coincidence that Ankara’s motion on cross-border military
operations in northern Iraq comes at the same time as the resolution
in Washington."

"Something strange has been happening in Turkey in recent years. The
old taboos have started to crack as intellectuals, writers and
journalists push for a genuine reappraisal of the massacres. …
Resolutions by foreign parliaments do not help these timid attempts to
come to terms with the past. On the contrary, they play into the hands
of the nationalists and those who deny the massacres."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"The decision … is a lesson in American politics. In this lesson, a
whole variety of people and factors are in play in the background: the
influence of a strategically placed lobby, the meaning of history and
human rights in conflict with security and political interests, the
relationship between Congress and the president, the calculations of
leading politicians, and so on … . It’s clear that Ankara henceforth
will have less regard for Washington’s interests and wishes."

The Financial Times Deutschland writes:

"Politically, it’s a inexpensive gift to a few voting blocks in the
US, and a very expensive affront to Turkey … An open fight between
Ankara and Washington mostly endangers supply-chains for troops in
Iraq that arrive through Turkey. … The timing for an uproar over
history and etiquette could not be more inauspicious."

"American representatives appear little interested: Recently they
officially concluded it would be best to have Iraq divided into
Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish areas … For Turkey, a neighboring
independent Kurdish state is a horror to imagine."

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

"From the Turkish viewpoint, yesterday’s resolution looks like a
provocation. The reputation of the United States has long been at a
low point. You have to go back a long way to find a similarly bad
atmosphere — perhaps to 1974, when Washington and Ankara fell out
over Cyprus."

"Since the US invasion of Iraq, the Kurdish PKK has operated from
northern Iraq against targets in Turkey without being hindered by the
US Army or its allied Kurdish militias. This is a catastrophic
political failure on both sides. The United States — whether out of
ignorance or calculation — has allowed its Kurdish allies in northern
Iraq to play the PKK card… . If the US government does not visibly
act to hinder PKK attacks in the coming weeks, then there is the risk
of a new theater of war emerging in Iraq."

— David Gordon Smith, 11:30 a.m. CET

Source: ,1518 ,511077,00.html

Turkish FM: "We must learn lessons from the Holocaust"

EJP

Updated: 12/Oct/2007 13:10

JERUSALEM (EJP)—When he signed the guest book of the Yad Vashem
Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem during his visit earlier this week,
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan wrote:

"This museum reminds us all the heart-breaking memories of the
Holocaust. We must learn lessons from the Holocaust; the way the evil
took hold, the insidious appeal of its ideology, co-option of many
apparently respectable people.

If we understand the danger of fight against evil doctrines, to
scapegoat, despise and dehumanize any religion and people, our
children will certainly live in a better world. Genocide, ethnic
cleansing, racism, anti-Semitism, Islam-phobia, Christian-phobia,
xenophobia, all historical yet contemporary evils that the
international community shares a solemn responsibility to combat.

On behalf of the Turkish people and the Turkish Government, I want to
express our reverence for the victims of the immeasurable evil.
Blessed be their memory."

Source:

MIRZOYAN EUROPEAN CHAMPION

A1+
[01:20 pm] 11 October, 2007

The European Youth Championship in heavy athletics was launch
in Tenerife, Spain, where the Armenian national team would also
participate.

Arayik Mirzoyan (69kg) became European Champion. The young athlete
won a gold medal.

Pargev Muradyan (77kg), Taron Tovmasyan (85 kg), Sevak Sahakyan (94 kg)
and Ruben Alexanyan and Artak Lazarian (105kg) have not competed yet.

Among the girl athletes are Meline Daluzayn (63 kg) and Hripsime
Khurshudyan (75 kg), who will represent Armenia during the
championship.

ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN RUSSIA BECOME LARGER AND BLOODIER WITH EVERY YEAR

Pravda
Oct 10 2007
Russia

Ethnic conflicts have become a common event in present-day Russia.

The bloodiest clashes between ethnic Russians and so-called
individuals of Caucasian nationalities occur in March-April and
August-September. As a rule, such conflicts start with one single
murder, which triggers massive pogroms against Russian Caucasians.

A young Russian man was killed in a night club in the town of Kletskaya
(the Volgograd region of Russia) in August of 2000. His funeral service
quickly turned into a mass meeting of local citizens who demanded all
Chechens be expelled from the town. The funeral ended with spontaneous
arsons of houses where people of Chechen nationality lived.

Cossacks caused serious damage to Chechen property in Russia’s
Rostov region in March 2001 after a massive fight in the village
of Bogoroditskoye.

About 200 people participated in a pogrom at a Moscow market on April
21, 2001. Ten people suffered various injuries as a result of the
attack; most of them were vendors from Azerbaijan.

The next massacre took place on October 30 2001. A crowd of 300 young
men wielding metal bars attacked street vendors of Caucasian origin
at three markets in Moscow. Four were killed in the attack, over 80
were injured.

Ethnic conflicts continued to intensify in 2002. A massive fight
between Russians and Chechens with the participation of about 400
men took place in May of that year in the town of Chastozerye, the
Kurgan region. Another conflict took place in the town of Uglich,
the Yaroslav region, after Chechens killed a Russian teenager at a
local dance party. In the Moscow region, young men attacked several
Armenian families and asked the local authorities to clean the town
of non-Russians after an elderly Armenian man stabbed a 26-year-old
Igor Samolyuk in a bar.

Two massive fights took place in the city of Nalchik in September
2003. The local population fought with Chechen students. Over 50 were
injured in the fight of 200-300 people. Everything started with a
dispute in a local bus, when several Chechens brutally beat a local
Russian resident.

About 200 Cossacks smashed several shops and cafes owned by natives
of Armenia in the city of Novorossiisk in March 2005.

The year 2006 marked the crucial point in the history of ethnic
conflicts in Russia. About 540 people suffered as a result of
ethnic strife and national hostility; 54 of them were killed,
official statistics says. National diasporas in Russia have their
own information. According to the Migration Service of Tajikistan,
206 natives of the republic were killed in Russia in 2006.

Young nationalists blew up a bomb on Moscow’s largest market on
August 21, 2006 killing 13 people. Another large-scale ethnic conflict
took place in the town of Kondopoga the Karelia Republic, when local
residents attacked Caucasian town-fellows.

Specialists analyzing the recurrence of ethnic clashes in Russia came
to conclusion that most of the conflicts occur at the end of summer
and in the beginning of autumn.

BUSH WARY OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DECISION

ABC News, USA
Oct 8 2007

The US President George W Bush has spoken out against a move by
Congress to define the mass killing of Armenians during World War I
as genocide.

Mr Bush says the resolution has the potential to damage the US’s
relationship with Turkey.

The Turkish Government disputes Armenian claims that 1.5 million
Armenians died under Turkish rule in the last days of the Ottoman
Empire.

Mr Bush has urged members of the House of Representatives Foreign
Affairs Committee to vote against the resolution.

"We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people
that began in 1915," he said.

"This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass
killings and its passage would do great harm to our relations with
a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has echoed Mr Bush’s saying
Turkey is a major hub for US military operations in the Middle East.

"The passage of this resolution would be very destabilising to our
efforts in the Middle East, very destabilising to our efforts in Iraq
and Afghanistan," she said.

"Turkey, as an important strategic ally is very critical in supporting
the efforts we’re making in these crucial areas.

2 JERSEY RESEARCH SCIENTISTS WIN GRANTS FROM FOUNDATION
By Kitta Macpherson

The Star-Ledger , NJ –
Oct 10 2007

Two young researchers from New Jersey, one intrigued by the exotic
realm of the supercold, the other working to find a way to guarantee
the security of computer systems, have been awarded prestigious grants
from a California foundation.

Rutgers University physicist Emil Yuzbashyan, 36, will be the first
scientist at the New Brunswick institution to win a Packard Foundation
fellowship for science and engineering, along with $625,000 in
"no-strings" research funding for five years.

Yuzbashyan, who joined Rutgers in 2004 after earning his doctorate
in physics from Princeton University, is studying properties of
matter at temperatures close to absolute zero — the point where all
motion ceases. Particles at these temperatures interact with each
other in unusual ways. Understanding those interactions, he said,
could promote powerful new technologies such as quantum de vices
and superconductivity.

Cryptographer Boaz Barak, a 33-year-old computer science professor,
won the honors for Princeton University, along with the grant. His
work is theoretical and consists of constructing mathematical proofs.

Computer users, whether they are logging into their bank ac counts,
buying items online or sending confidential e-mails, want to know they
are using a secure system. "I’m not asking what can we build that
will not be broken today," said Barak, a native of Israel. "What we
are looking at is what can we prove that’s simply impossible to break
within, say, the computing resources that exist in the universe."

He doesn’t use computers in his work, just mainly "pen and paper." He
employs complexity theory in his thinking, an area that exists,
he says, "at the intersection of mathematics and computer science."

Both are among 20 fellows that the foundation selected from
nominations at 50 of the nation’s top private and public research
universities. Recipients are in the first three years of their faculty
careers and have shown exceptional creativity in individual research.

"The fellowship will help me build a skilled team of doctoral stu
dents, postdoctoral research fel lows and visiting scientists to
pursue this research and collaborate with others doing related work
worldwide," Yuzbashyan said.

His research delves into condensed matter physics, exploring the
physical properties of solid and liquid matter. He has recently
developed a new theory related to superfluidity, or how a liquid
cooled to near absolute zero can flow endlessly in a closed loop
without any outside sources of energy to sus tain that motion.

He was born in Armenia and came to the U.S. in 1998 to pursue his
doctoral studies.

"Having one of our faculty win this award is a landmark for Rutgers,"
said Torgny Gustafsson, chairman of the university’s physics and
astronomy department.

David Packard is the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, the computer
company. He started the fellowship program in 1988 to strengthen
university-based science and engineering programs and support unusually
creative researchers early in their careers.

US ENVOY TO ANKARA: TURKEY NEEDS TO MAKE CAREFUL CALCULATIONS ON INCIRLIK

Hurriyet, Turkey
Oct 8 2007

The US Ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, has replied to statements
from a top level AKP foreign affairs consultant, Egemen Bagis,
regarding Ankara’s plans to cut logistic support to the US endeavors in
Iraq if the US Congress passes the Armenian genocide bill. In regards
to the US use of Turkey’s Incirlik Air Force base for logistical
efforts throughout Iraq, Wilson noted yesterday that Turkey needed
to plan carefully on its next moves.

Responding to questions on CNN Turk, Wilson noted "We are worried that
our relations could be damaged. Of course, the Turkish administration
will make its own calculations. But these calculations better be
good. The logistical support coming out of Incirlik for our troops
in Iraq, and even for non-military Iraqis, is very important.

But here is what I think: If the stability and land unity of Iraq
weren’t important also for Turkey, it wouldn’t have offered its
support in the first place."

TURKISH SPEAKER TELLS PELOSI ARMENIAN BILL WILL HARM TURKISH-US TIES

Anatolia News Agency, Turkey
Oct 7 2007

Ankara, 7 October: Turkish Speaker of Parliament Koksal Toptan has sent
a letter to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
Nancy Pelosi on a resolution regarding the incidents of 1915 and that
supports Armenian allegations, it was reported on Sunday [7 October].

In his letter, Toptan reminded Pelosi about the strong relations
between Turkey and the US for the past 50 years.

"A resolution giving support to one sided claims, if adopted, would
make the Armenians less willing to compromise," told Toptan in
his letter.

"If adopted, the Armenian resolution would encourage Armenians to
introduce the incidents of 1915 as those accepted by the US and
this is how the Turkish society would perceive the decision of
the US Congress. It would be very difficult to stop the negative
impact such a resolution would have on the Turkish public opinion,"
underlined Toptan.

"The adoption of an Armenian resolution in regard to the incidents
of 1915 in the United States House of Representatives would not serve
the interests of neither the Turkish people nor the American people.

Furthermore, the resolution would hurt Turkish-US relations and have
a negative impact on the normalization of relations between Turkey
and Armenia," said Turkish Speaker of Parliament Koksal Toptan, in a
letter sent to the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy
Pelosi, on Sunday.

In his letter to Pelosi, Toptan indicated that Turkey and the US
have been close friends and allies for over 50 years. "We share
common values such as plural democracy, the rule of law, and free
entrepreneurship. Both nations have a desire to boost relations
further.

We work together in many parts of the world to preserve peace and
stability," noted Toptan.

Toptan stressed that the adoption of the House Resolution 106
pertaining to the incidents of 1915 would very seriously hurt
Turkish-US relations.

In his letter, Toptan reminded Pelosi that in 2005 the Turkish
government extended an invitation to Armenia to establish a joint
historical commission to study the incidents of 1915. No response
came from Armenia to date.

Toptan indicated that "hopefully, logic will prevail in the US House
of Representatives and the resolution would not be adopted."

Toptan added that the adoption of the Armenian resolution in the
US House of Representatives would injure Turkish-US relations whose
repair may take decades.

FOREIGN MINISTER OF AZERBAIJAN IS CONCERNED WITH THE ABSENCE OF RESULTS IN NEGOTIATIONS FOR SETTLEMENT OF CONFLICT WITH ARMENIA UNDER THE AEGIS OF OSCE

ArmInfo Agency, Armenia
Oct 4 2007

ArmInfo. The Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov delivered
a speech during the general political discussion of the 62nd session
of the UN General Assembly during which he drew attention to that
"Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains the most
serious security challenge" in the region. As it is stated in UN’s
official site, the minister said that the negotiations for the conflict
settlement, which have been held within the frames of OSCE since
1992, so far have had no success. Elmar Mammadyarov once again told
"about 20% occupied territories of Azerbaijan". He recalled that "the
conflict led to mass displacement of people and presently, there are
about 1mln refugees and internally displaced persons in Azerbaijan".

The foreign minister said that Armenia keeps not complying with the
resolutions of the Security Council, destroying everything, which is
associated with Azerbaijan’s heritage on the occupied territory and
carrying out illegal activity there, as before. "UNO mustn’t allow such
actions", the minister said. He emphasized that, in the settlement
of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, it is
necessary to base on the principles of international law and four
resolutions of the Security Council, which foresee the sovereignty
and territorial integrity of his country.

"From this platform I want to urge the Armenian nation to accept that
its policy of peace-breaking and destabilization of the region has
very dangerous, counterproductive and destructive consequences for
the prospects of Armenia’s progress. I am sure that Azerbaijan will
restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is only a
matter of time", Elmar Mammadyarov emphasized.

The Azerbaijani representative told about the efforts of the
authorities to ensure complete transparency and accountability in
extractive industries and Azerbaijan’s contribution in ensuring global
security of energy supply. He also told about economic conversions in
Azerbaijan, poverty and unemployment rate reduction, the growth of the
population’s prosperity and emphasized that all this was not only due
to the oil and gas incomes, but also to the government’s consistent
course and its commitment to protect the rights of the investors.

FRENCH FM KOUCHNER ARRIVES IN ANKARA TOMORROW FOR TALKS ON EU, ARMENIAN CLAIMS

Hurriyet, Turkey
Oct 4 2007

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is set to arrive in Ankara
tomorrow for talks aimed at clarifying France’s stance on Armenian
claims of genocide, as well as the French position on Turkey’s quest
for EU accession.

Kouchner’s visit to the Turkish capital will be the first high level
Turkish-French meeting since last week’s talks between Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French President Nicholas Sarkozy in New
York. An official from the French Embassy in Ankara noted that the
visit by Kouchner would be brief but helpful, commenting "Kouchner
is coming to help construct an energetic relationship with Foreign
Minister Babacan."

The same official noted: "We are prepared to warm relations with
Turkey, and to open up channels of communication. This visit is a
signal that the dialogue between the two countries is getting better.

Sarkozy is maintaining his position on Turkey. But he also
wants reforms to continue in Turkey, and he will not interfere in
this…..When the reforms are complete, it will be time for France
to make some decisions."