Author: Jagharian Tania

Turkish History Institution President: Armenians Committed Genocide
Zaman, Turkey
Dec 24 2004
The so-called Armenian Genocide allegation backed by France seems to
be the issue which will trouble Turkey most during the negotiation
process for full membership to the European Union (EU).
Turkey has stayed on the defensive against these allegations until
now, but Turkish History Foundation President Professor Yusuf
Halacoglu proposes to take action instead of remaining silent.
“Turkey should not avoid an open discussion on Armenian claims of
genocide.” said Halacoglu. He emphasized that many studies had been
conducted in the archives of several countries, and mostly in that of
the Ottoman Empire, but they have not turned up a single document or
record mentioning genocide. Halacoglu asked Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan to found a commission which includes social
scientists in order to conduct research regarding the so-called
genocide claims. Halacoglu says that if Turkey undertakes this study,
the opposition will retreat. Halacoglu argues that contrary to the
claims of genocide, in fact Armenians killed 519,000 Ottomans and
said that names, birthplaces, and the fathers’ names of those
murdered by Armenians were kept on record in one of the archives.
Professor Halacoglu wants Turkey to take precautionary measures
without any anxiety. As this issue will be repeatedly raised in the
EU membership negotiations, Turkey should deal with it now. Halacoglu
stresses: “Our state should tell the EU that we should handle this
issue on a level on which our historians and social scientists can
discuss it. We should also establish a commission to report on what
we find.”
The professor signified that the claims that 1.2 million were killed
are inconsistent as according to official documents and records the
Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire was only 1.5 million.
Halacoglu notes that the Western sources also show the same number
and says, “The US archives give the numbers for Armenian migrants who
fled to other countries after the Lousanne Treaty in 1925 as
1,299,000 for those who migrated to countries other than Turkey,
Greece and Armenia. According to Turkish population censuses, there
were 281,000 Armenians living in Turkey. If we add these we already
have 1,681,000 Armenians. If we include 60,000 in Greek camps and
25,000 who emigrated to the US, we have a total of 1,760,000. Taking
into account population increase this corresponds to the Ottoman
Empire’s figures. So how, then, can it be claimed that 1,200,000
Armenians were killed.”
Professor Halacoglu calculates the loss of life by Armenian emigrants
in 1915 as 80,000, who died mostly of diseases and attacks from
bandit groups. Pointing out that diseases were spread all around the
world at that time, Halacoglu says: “The Ottoman army’s lost 400,000
through diseases in the World War I while the US lost 500,000, and
Italy 278,000 in 1918. Similarly many European countries lost
hundreds of thousands during the World War I.” He refers to records
in Ottoman archives including warnings to travel in groups for
security, and the spending of large amount of money for drugs and
food despite the war conditions as clear indicators of Ottoman good
will.
‘We will open 7 mass graves in 2005’
Professor Halacoglu announced that the Turkish History Institution
will open mass graves in spots they have identified based on archive
documents to prove that the Armenians committed massacres in
Anatolia. He noted that they have already begun excavation studies
and reminded that they most recently opened a mass grave of 336 dead
in the village Derecik near Kars in northeastern Anatolia. Saying
that they have identified about 100 mass graves in 20 different
places, Halacoglu says, “We have, for example, identified that
Armenians committed genocides in 21 villages in the Igdir region
alone. There are also regions of Cukurova, Erzurum, Ardahan, Kars,
Bitlis, and Mus. We will conduct excavation studies in 6 or 7 regions
because Armenians will make some important claims because of their
so-called 90th anniversary. That’s why we are trying to unearth what
really happened.”
12.23.2004
Erdal ªen
Ankara
–Boundary_(ID_Mu3J6FoUBN4dqPOUCYwvEw)–

ARMENIA THIS WEEK
Monday, December 20, 2004
In this issue:
Armenia’s top mining company sold for $132 million
Online chess and e-visas amid Armenia IT expansion
Azerbaijan wages worldwide anti-Armenian campaign
TOP MINING COMPANY SOLD IN MAJOR PRIVATIZATION DEAL
The Armenian government finalized last week the privatization of
the country’s largest mining enterprise. Germany’s Chronimet and
subsidiaries bought the Zangezur copper-molybdenum complex for $132
million, in what is the second biggest privatization deal for Armenia
since the $142 million takeover of Armentel by the Greek Hellenic
Telecommunications Organization (OTE) in 1998.
The privatization will be financed by German credit institutions,
including the Deutche Bank, with Chronimet pledging to invest at least
$250 million by 2012 and boost production by over 50 percent. Armenia’s
Industry Minister Karen Chshmaritian said that the government picked
Chronimet over the U.S. Comsup Commodities and Russia’s Soyuz Metal,
with Chronimet also pledging to process the molybdenum ore at its
Yerevan smelter.
The government further decided to allocate $32 million from the
proceeds to the town of Kajaran, where the mining complex is located,
with $25 million going to cover the 2005 budget deficit and the
remaining $75 million to the government’s special privatization
account.
Foreign investments in Armenia amounted to over $175 million in the
first three quarters of 2004 (without the Zangezur privatization),
up five percent year-on-year. Most of the investments came from
Greece ($61 million), Russia ($28 million), Argentina ($26 million)
and the United States ($19 million). Armenia’s rapid privatization
process, while frequently criticized domestically, has been praised
internationally.
Speaking in Tbilisi last month, the U.S. Undersecretary of Treasury
John B. Taylor urged Georgia to step up privatization to reduce
the size of government and encourage growth. Taylor noted that the
private sector in Armenia accounts for 75 percent of total employment,
compared to 40 percent in Georgia. Armenia’s Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) grew by 10 to 14 percent in 2001-3 and by another 10 percent
in the eleven months of 2004. (Sources: Armenia This Week 11-8;
U.S. Dept. of Treasury 11-22; Arminfo 11-30, 12-16, 20; RFE/RL
Arm. Report 12-14; Interfax 12-17)
ONLINE CHESS COMPETITION SEEN AS REFLECTION OF ARMENIA’S BURGEONING IT
SECTOR
Armenia is this week playing host for the world’s first-ever online team
chess tournament. Top players from Armenia, China, France and Russia are
competing for the $55,000 prize fund. The tournament is part of
year-long events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the birth of
Tigran Petrosian, a past chess world champion. The tournament organizers
hope to promote Armenia as a center for information technology, as well
as chess.
Two years ago, Armenia became only the second country in the world
(after Australia) to introduce an electronic visa system for foreign
visitors. In its first year, the new program saw over 2,200 applicants
and the number of e-visa users has grown monthly since. The overall
number of tourists visiting Armenia grew by 27 percent in 2003 and by a
further 30 percent in the first three quarters of this year.
Armenia’s breakthroughs in online chess and consular services are a
reflection of the growing size of the country’s information technology
sector. In recent months, Armenia saw the arrival of the U.S.-based
Synopsys, Inc. and expansion of the Netherlands-based Lycos-Europe, two
leaders in their respective fields of semiconductor design software and
provision of online portals. Lycos, which took over the Armenia branch
of then U.S.-based Brience Inc. in 2002 has since invested over $8
million in Armenia operations and plans another $7 million in
investments next year. Synopsis, which took over Armenia-based LEDA
Design last October, plans tens of millions of dollars in Armenia
investments. (Sources: ;
; ; ; Arminfo
10-27, 11-30; Noyan Tapan 12-2; RIA-Novosti 12-18)
AZERI LEADER DECLARES “COLD WAR” ON ARMENIANS
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev told his subordinates earlier
this month that he is waging a “cold war” against Armenia and
the ongoing negotiations were only a way to achieve unilateral
Armenian concessions on the Karabakh issue. Armenia and Azerbaijan
are currently engaged in what is typically referred to as a “peace
process.” Aliyev said that as part of this “war” he would continue to
boost Azerbaijan’s military spending and tighten the ongoing economic
blockade against Armenia. Speaking last week at London’s Royal
Institute for International Affairs, Aliyev said that he would not
engage in any confidence-building measures and that he had “no desire”
to tone down his country’s war-mongering and anti-Armenian propaganda.
As part of the campaign Azeri propagandists use rhetoric reminiscent to
the ‘traditional’ anti-Semitic discourse, arguing that all ethnic
Armenians should be treated “not as a nation, but as an organization,”
which is aggressive and dangerous, yet weak. At its core, this
disinformation campaign includes falsification of the nature and history
of the Karabakh conflict, as well as exaggeration of the size of the
territories that came under Armenian control as a result of the war and
the number of Azeri displaced and imprisoned.
This disinformation campaign also spreads into areas of global concern,
such as baseless accusations of support for Islamic terrorism, weapons
proliferation and drug trafficking, and into more “exotic” claims that
Armenians are behind everything from crop failures to unexplained
natural phenomena. (As strange as they are, some of these claims are
picked up by uninformed and/or unscrupulous foreign officials and
commentators.) Azeri officials’ claims that Armenia is a weak and a
‘dying’ country are contradicted by concurrent claims that the world
Armenian ‘cabal’ is behind all international criticism of Azeri
corruption and human rights abuses.
Last month, Azeri officials revealed for the first time that it was
their policy not to allow ethnic Armenians, no matter their citizenship
or political background, into Azerbaijan (although a few exceptions have
been made for state officials under pressure from foreign governments),
since their ‘security could not be guaranteed’ and since they themselves
pose unspecified security risks. The statement came after Baku airport
officials barred the entrance for a Bulgarian sports journalist of
Armenian origin, who arrived to cover the Bulgaria-Azerbaijan soccer
match. Azeri parliamentarians have this week called for a law that would
also bar all ‘pro-Armenian’ foreign citizens from visiting Azerbaijan.
(Sources: 525-ci Gazet 4-1-03; Armenia This Week 11-1, 15; Azad
Azarbaycan 11-18; Interfax 12-8; Azertag 12-16; Ekho 12-21)
Note to Readers: Armenia This Week will not be issued in the next two
weeks. It will resume publication on January 10. Happy Holidays!
A WEEKLY NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED BY THE ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY OF AMERICA
122 C Street, N.W., Suite 350, Washington, D.C. 20001 (202) 393-3434 FAX (202) 638-4904
E-Mail [email protected] WEB

Hadra: Turkey Should Continue Relations With Arab Countries
Anadolu Agency
Dec 22 2004
MERSIN (AA) – Turkish-Arab Businessmen Association Chairman Mehmet
Hadra said on Saturday that Turkey, who got a date from the European
Union (EU) to start full membership negotiations, should continue
relations with Arab countries.
Hadra told a press conference that the target of their association
was to improve trade as well as cultural and art relations between
Turkey and Arab countries.
Meanwhile, commenting on Turkey’s getting a date from the EU
for membership negotiations, former Parliament Speaker Husamettin
Cindoruk said, “yesterday’s result is neither a success nor failure.
Getting October 3rd, 2005 is an acquisition.”
Addressing a seminar, Cindoruk said, “the EU neither accepts us nor let
us go. EU will make a decision according to the performance of Turkey.”
Cindoruk said there were two difficulties in agreement reached with
the EU. “One in negotiations’ being ‘open-ended’ and the second is
the Cyprus issue.”
Cindoruk defended that Turkey could not start negotiations if Ankara
Protocol is not signed till October 3rd, 2005.
Sinan Aygun, the Chairman of Ankara Chamber of Commerce (ATO), said
when the newspaper headlines were considered, this was seen as a
success, but that it was not definite what would be brought in front
of Turkey till October 3rd, 2005.
Defending the word derogation as “limitation, prohibition”, Aygun said
Turkey would meet various limitations even if it becomes an EU member.
Aygun said Cyprus issue was a “question mark”, stating that, “it
is not definite what will be brought in front of us till October
3rd. Armenian issue, ecumenicalism, opening of Armenian border pass,
and allegations on Armenian genocide were not brought onto the
agenda. We can not know that would be asked from us from now on.”
Zafer Caglayan, Chairman of Ankara Chamber of Industry, said the
decision to start full membership negotiations with Turkey till October
3rd, 2005 was pleasing, stating that, “today is a new starting for
Turkey. However the efforts actually start today.”
Caglayan said Turkey entered a new period from now on, noting that all
sections of the society should undertake important responsibilities
from now on.
Meanwhile, the Motherland Party (ANAP) Headquarters issued a statement
and said a success was made in “making concessions” during the December
17th summit.
The statement said the demands, which have not been asked from any
country since the foundation of the EU, was imposed to Turkey.
Recalling that in the previous statements of Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister & Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah
Gul, it was reported that a negotiation process would be taken without
any condition and that Cyprus issue would never be brought onto the
agenda, the statement said, “we think that Mr. Erdogan does not
accept those as condition.”
Dogu Perincek, the leader of Labor Party, said the commitments made
by the government would not bind Turkey.
Perincek told a news conference at his party center in Istanbul
that, “we do not recognize the commitments made by the government.
We announce to the whole world that those commitments would not
bind Turkey.”
Mehmet Agar, the leader of the True Path Party (DYP) said, “we
consider the point that was reached as positive for continuation of
the EU process.”
Agar told a news conference that EU presented opening of full
membership negotiations with Turkey as a favor, stating that Turkey
was exposed to a treatment that was not shown to any country before.
Asked if DYP had a study in following EU process, Agar said DYP had
a special study group, and that this would be improved.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

French Prime Minister Raffarin uses ‘Genocide’ Term
Zaman, Turkey
Dec 22 2004
French Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin has followed the lead of
his Foreign Minister, Michel Barnier, in using the expression
“Armenian Genocide” publicly.
At a session organized at the French Parliament to discuss the
opening of membership negotiations between the European Union (EU)
and Turkey, Raffarin disclosed that they have prepared a law on
“Armenian Genocide” at the parliament and that the Armenian and
Kurdish issues will be raised with Turkey. Raffarin pointed out that
Turkey’s EU perspective was assigned in 1963 and that no French
administrations have considered Turkey’s EU membership as a subject
worth discussing since then. He emphasized that nothing can keep
Turkey out of Europe once Turkey fulfills all the requirements and it
will become an EU member.
12.22.2004
Ali Ihsan Aydin

THOUSANDS OF ARMENIAN CITIZENS REFUSED FROM SOCIAL CARDS
PanArmenian News
Dec 12 2004
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “Based on religious and legal reasons thousands
of Armenian citizens refused from social cards. Many of those, who
were forced to get the cards or were deceived to get them, today
convey them to the Armenian Center for Protection of Constitutional
Rights and ask us to return them to the Ministry of Labor and Social
Affairs, as respective services refuse to receive them,” the Center
President Gevorg Manukain noted at a press conference in the House
of Journalists. The requests of 130 citizens are complied. In Gevorg
Manukian’s words a note was received from the Ministry, which reported
that the personal records of the citizens, who refused from social
cards, are blocked. Virtually from January 1, 2005 hundreds of people
can be deprived of minimal means of existence – the opportunity
to get salary and pension. The Armenian Center for Protection of
Constitutional Rights and other human rights organizations state that
further steps on the way of fulfillment of the Law on Social Cards
are fraught with serious consequences.

Bridging east and west
The Toronto Star, Canada
December 19, 2004 Sunday
MÖDLING, Austria — A sure way to get the blood boiling when an icy
wind blows in this historic town is by mixing red-wine punch with
talk of Turkey joining the European Union.
Otto Kapper serves up both from an outdoor kiosk in the main square.
“The Turks have nothing to do with our culture and our way of life.
They’re much more Oriental than European,” says Kapper, 65.
“I have nothing against religion – it’s a personal choice. But they’re
mainly Muslim and we’re mainly Catholic. They just don’t fit in a
European world view.”
He then plops another steaming cup of Christmas-season punch on
the counter.
“There’s already a high percentage of Muslims all over Europe, in
France, in Germany. Look at Holland: It was such a calm country and
now it’s full of unrest because of the Muslims.
“And Austria certainly has enough. Our schools are full of them.”
Were it not for opinion polls indicating that 75 per cent of Austrians
oppose Turkey’s entry into the EU, some might chalk up Kapper’s
rejection to M‹dling’s history.
In 1683, an invading Ottoman army rampaged through the town on its
way to lay siege to nearby Vienna.
Most townsfolk took refuge in a 12th century ossuary next to St.
Othmar church. But the Ottomans burst in and slaughter ensued.
The ossuary, with bearded stone faces decorating its arched entrance,
still stands. Metres away, pinned to the church’s exterior wall is
a white plaque put up in 1933.
“On this place in July, 1683 almost the whole population of the market
town of M‹dling was massacred by hostile hordes when Turks were moving
towards Vienna,” it says.
Further commemorating the event is a wooden model of sword-wielding
Ottomans on horseback, made 50 years after the attack, on display in
the town’s only museum.
Two months after the M‹dling’s sacking, a Polish-led force routed
the Ottomans at the gates of Vienna, ending their 61-day siege of
the Hapsburg capital.
The upside of the invasion is that the Turks left behind coffee
beans, giving birth to a habit the Viennese embraced with a passion.
But a less savoury legacy has them eyeing Turkey’s EU membership bid
with suspicion.
Having stopped the Muslim push into the European heartland 320 years
ago, Austrians seem determined to defend the ramparts again. And
they’re not alone.
Last Friday, leaders of the 25 European Union countries took the
historic decision to begin negotiating Turkey’s entry into the
political and economic union next October.
The deal was struck after Turkey agreed to limits on migrant workers
allowed in member states, and promised to take a step towards
recognizing the Greek Cypriot half of the divided island of Cyprus,
which is an EU member.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey
has done much to meet the EU’s democratic and economic criteria for
membership. But reforms haven’t been fully implemented, and entry
talks are expected to last at least a decade.
If successful, a largely Muslim country of 70 million people will
join what has so far been an exclusively Christian club. The European
Union would stretch from Ireland in the west to the borders of Syria,
Iraq and Iran in the east.
U.S. President George W. Bush, a strong supporter of EU membership
for Turkey, says its entry would show the “clash of civilizations”
between Islam and Christianity to be nothing more than “a passing
myth of history.”
But Turkey, with 97 per cent of its landmass in Asia, remains a
tough sell.
Despite an economy growing at 6 per cent a year, its status as a
long-time NATO member and as an officially secular state looking
westward since 1923, its membership bid raises deep anxiety across
Europe.
While most European leaders back its entry to the club, many Europeans
see Turkey as too big, too poor and too Muslim.
Resistance is strongest in Austria, France, Germany, and the
Netherlands, while support is highest in Spain – the only place one
poll found a majority in favour – Italy, Ireland, and Britain.
Complicating the debate is a growing sense of cultural insecurity among
white, Christian Europeans unaccustomed to the hybrid or “hyphenated”
identities common in North America.
Some 15 million Muslims live in Europe, but suspicion of “the other”
remains strong.
In a recent speech, the former EU competition commissioner, Frits
Bolkenstein of the Netherlands, warned: “Europe is being Islamicized.”
Left unchecked, he added, referring specifically to Turkey’s membership
bid, “the liberation of Vienna in 1683 will have been in vain.”
With few exceptions, most European governments spent decades using
Turkish and North African immigrant “guest workers” as a source of
cheap labour. Neglect, and a belief that immigrants would one day
return home, meant they got little help to integrate.
When workers instead brought over their families, and when many more
arrived clandestinely in boatloads, right-wing populist parties made
inroads in the 1990s by declaring their countries “full.”
Incidents such as the Madrid train bombings last March and the murder
of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh last November by a man of Moroccan
background have raised fears that Islamic radicalism is taking hold
in Europe.
Van Gogh’s murder sparked dozens of tit-for-tat attacks against mosques
and churches that shattered the Dutch self-image of tolerance. An
Islamic elementary school was burned to the ground.
Adding to the fear is a widespread sense, fuelled in the media, that
Muslims reject European values such as secularism and women’s equality.
In France, a relatively small number of Muslim girls wearing
headscarves was seen as a threat to the secular pillars of its society
and banned by law last spring.
Governments that never practiced multiculturalism are now blaming it
for their integration woes.
“Multiculturalism has failed, big time,” says Angela Merkel, leader
of Germany’s opposition Christian Democrats, a group that opposes
Turkey’s membership.
Never mind that Germany, home to 2.2 million Turks, granted citizenship
until recently only to those deemed German by blood.
In today’s climate, warning of the hordes to come is seen as a
vote-getter.
Says Ronald Sorensen, head of the Rotterdam branch of the List Pym
Fortuyn, named after the murdered right-wing politician: “The way to
win the next election is with the slogan, ‘No to Turkey.'”
Xenophobia aside, some fear Turkey’s membership could bring down
the whole EU project, born in 1951 when historical rivals France
and Germany joined in a coal and steel trade agreement with four
other countries.
Erich Hochleitner, former Austrian ambassador to Portugal and Belgium,
argues Turkey will drain EU of subsidy funds, trigger a never-ending
demand for membership from other countries and make political cohesion
impossible.
That, he believes, is what the U.S. and Britain had in mind when they
spearheaded Turkey’s membership bid.
The U.S. fears a cohesive EU would eventually challenge its global
political dominance, he argues. As for Britain, long opposed to giving
up national sovereignty to EU bodies, it hopes to reduce the union
to a free-trade block, he adds.
“Quite frankly, people in Austria are thinking of how to get out
of the EU in order to protect what they’ve got,” says Hochleitner,
director of the Austrian Institute for European Security Policy.
Turkey’s bid has become the magnet for a long list of complaints
about the EU.
In M‹dling, on the outskirts of Vienna, Emmerich Bagi warms his hands
over the barrel he uses to roast chestnuts and rants about price hikes
due to the euro currency, the Egyptian who set up a competing chestnut
stand nearby, the Austrian butcher shop next door now transformed into
a Turkish-owned vegetable store and what he describes as organized
immigrant beggars on the streets.
All of it, it seems, is the fault of the EU.
A struggling economy, a cumbersome Brussels-based bureaucracy and
divisions over the Iraq war had already dampened support for the
union when it expanded last May.
The addition of 10 central and eastern European countries, all but
two of them former communist states, created a political entity of
450 million people. The move was hailed as the historic unification
of a continent with a blood-soaked past.
Next in line to join are Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia.
Crucial to making this expanded EU work is a new constitution that
streamlines decision-making, creates a full-time EU president and
foreign minister, and allows for a more integrated foreign and
defence policy.
At least 10 countries, including France and Britain, will hold
referendums to approve the new constitutions beginning next year. But
resistance to Turkey’s entry bid has raised concerns of a backlash
that could see those referendums defeated in protest.
A single referendum defeat is enough to veto the reforms and throw
a wrench in Turkey’s entry talks by leaving the EU with a structure
that won’t work for its existing members.
This risk pushed French President Jacques Chirac to demand that
negotiations with Turkey begin only after the referendum on
constitutional reforms he plans for next spring.
Chirac is a strong supporter of membership for Turkey. But 67 per cent
of French citizens, according to a recent poll in Le Figaro newspaper,
oppose it.
The xenophobic National Front party warns of massive Muslim immigration
to France, where 5 million Muslims already live.
More problematic for Chirac is opposition from the leader of his own
political party, former finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy, widely seen
as a likely candidate in the next presidential elections.
On Wednesday, Chirac requested a television interview in which he
insisted that Turkey’s membership is not guaranteed. Turkey must make
“considerable efforts” for the next “10, 15, 20 years” before it can
meet the criteria to join the club, he added.
At any point in negotiations, any European country has the right to
“stop everything” and end all talks, he said. He then stressed that
French citizens will have the final word in a referendum.
As if to demonstrate how demanding France would be, Foreign Minister
Michel Barnier said Turkey will be asked to acknowledge its role in
the mass killing of Armenians in 1915. But he stopped short of making
that a condition for joining.
In Austria, Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel makes clear he prefers
giving Turkey some kind of “special relationship” deal rather than
full membership. He also promises to give Austrians the final say on
Turkey in a referendum.
Schussel heads a right-wing coalition government. But in Austria,
even the opposition socialist party is against Turkey’s membership.
The anti-immigration Freedom Party, once led by Jorg Haider, saw its
support drop to 10 per cent in elections two years ago but remains
an important member of the ruling coalition.
“Austria has no more capacity to take in foreigners,” says Harald
Vilimsky, secretary-general of the party’s Vienna branch.
“If Turkey were to enter the EU, it would be a signal that our door
is open to countries like Morocco, Algeria and even Israel,” he adds.
In this country of 8 million residents, 9 per cent of the population,
close to 750,000 people, did not have Austrian citizenship in 2003. A
further 330,000 people, most of them from the former Yugoslavia and
Turkey, were born outside of Austria but at some point became citizens.
Three weeks ago, the government announced it was lowering the
already-tight immigration quota for non-EU citizens next year from
8,050 to 7,500. Almost all of the places will be reserved for family
reunification and senior managers needed in companies.
After decades of leaving immigrants to find their own means of
integrating, the government began obligating new immigrants 18 months
ago to enrol in German-language courses or risk being deported.
Two weeks ago, life suddenly got tougher for asylum-seekers,
says Elizabeth Freithofer, an official at the non-governmental
Integration House. The government quietly stopped giving social
benefits retroactively, from the day they entered the country, to
asylum seekers accepted as refugees, she adds.
A recent report by a government agency paints a portrait of a host
society that keeps non-native residents on the margins.
Non-European immigrants tend to work in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs,
live in segregated neighbourhoods, and are four times as likely to
suffer “acute poverty” than native Austrians, the report found.
Their children make up 9 per cent of the student population but 25
per cent of those in special education classes, says the report by
the International Centre for Migration Policy Development.
By analyzing survey data, the report concluded that “one-fourth to
one-third of Austrians can be classified as being tendentiously
xenophobic.” Foreigners most often felt xenophobia through a
native-Austrian’s “refusal to greet, to communicate and to take up
any form of contact.”
After so much rejection, it starts cutting both ways.
In M‹dling, a 20-year-old Turk describes how his parents insist he
find a bride in Turkey even though he’s spent all but two years of
his life in Austria.
“I feel like I’m between two worlds,” says Recep Ekilmis.
A teacher at the local high school complains that Turkish parents
don’t value education, and refuse to send their girls to school
outings. Turkish boys, meanwhile, refuse to listen to female teachers,
adds Christine Krone. “If you live in Austria for such a long time
you also have to try to take some of this country’s customs, just to
respect us,” Krone says.
Accommodating voices can still be heard, like shoe-store owner Iris
Lindner, who hopes Turkey’s membership in the EU would “produce more
understanding” between two cultures.
But at the start of this historic process, they’re being drowned out
in an EU with at least as many challenges to overcome as Turkey if
the union of Islam and Christianity is to occur without a clash.’The
Turks have nothing to do with our culture and our way of life.’
‘If Turkey were to enter the EU, it would be a signal that our door
is open to countries like Morocco, Algeria and even Israel.’
–Boundary_(ID_UA2P5imFy955g+6Zh/LBmA)–

EUROPEAN ARMENIAN FEDERATION
For Justice and Democracy
Avenue de la Renaissance 10
B – 1000 BRUXELLES
Tel: +32 (0) 2 732 70 26
Tel./Fax: +32 (0) 2 732 70 27
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
December 17th, 2004
Contact: Talline Tachdjian
Tel.: +32 (0)2 732 70 27
EU/TURKEY: EUROPE CAPITULATES WITHOUT CONDITIONS
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM – The European Council, in a meeting earlier today
in Brussels, voted to open discussions, without any preconditions,
on Turkey’s future admission to the European Union. The process is
set to begin on October 3, 2005.
Debate preceding the European Council vote were heated, with Turkey’s
failure to recognize Cyprus the primary obstacle. The specific point
of contention was the Turkish Prime Minister’s refusal to sign a
draft Customs Agreement between Turkey and the ten new members of the
European Union. Turkey’s signature would have implicitly recognized
the Cypriot State. In the end, the European Council yielded to Turkish
demands, agreeing to postpone this signature to next October.
The Council decided to open talks with Turkey despite the fact that
Turkey fell short of meeting the clearly identified expectations of the
European Parliament, as adopted in a resolution this past Wednesday.
Among these are calls for Turkey’s recognition of the Armenian
Genocide, recognition of an independent Cyprus, progress on the
Kurdish question, and human rights concerns. Significantly, European
Council members did not even raise the Parliament’s recommendations
at their meeting.
In a dramatic development that lowers the bar for Turkey’s eventual
acceptance into the Union, the Council abandoned its traditional
consensus model, in which one nation could essentially veto Turkey’s
membership. In its place, they stipulated that fully one third of the
EU members states would need to object before negotiations are halted.
“These were not negotiations; this was a surrender. The idea of an
integrated Europe has been seriously compromised,” declared Laurent
Leylekian, Executive Director of the European Armenian Federation.
“This unfortunate result is due to the weakness of the European Union’s
political structures and the failure of leadership on the part of
European heads of state in standing up the Ankara’s inflexibility
and outright rejection of European values.”
“We are, of course, gratified that our efforts over the last several
years have successfully placed the Armenian Genocide and Turkey’s
blockade of Armenia on the agenda of the highest levels of discussions
concerning Turkey’s possible acceptance into the European Union.
However, in light of the failure of European leaders to stand up
against Turkey’s aggressive and denialist government, we call on
citizens of the European Union to safeguard Europe’s values through
the exercise their democratic rights.” added Leylekian.
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Chirac: The Engagement Has Been Extended, But It Will End in Marriage
Zaman Online, Turkey
Dec 18 2004
French President Jacques Chirac said that he believed the
realization of the Turkey-European Union marriage.
Chirac, who held a press conference after the end of the European
Council meeting, answered a question on whether Turkey would become
a member after a 10 year engagement, “If we take Turkey’s current
history and culture as a criteria, I believe that the Turkey-EU
marriage will happen.” He also added that Turkey’s turn to the West
will be beneficial for Europe. Determining that negotiations might
go on for 10 or 15 years, Chirac advocated that the result could
not be predicted from now though membership would not be possible
before 2014. The French President announced that if Turkey does not
sign the extended protocol of the Ankara Agreement including Cyprus,
negotiations could not begin. On a question from an Armenian reporter
on whether Ankara’s recognition of the “Armenian genocide” could be
set as a pre-condition for the full membership, Chirac answered that
Turkey’s full membership would be taken to referendum in France. He
also added that in case Turkey does not “search its memory” concerning
the Armenians, the French public may say “no” for Turkey and went
on, “A search of its memory in the European spirit is a natural and
irreversible necessity.”

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany
Dec 17 2004
Setting the last stele
Holocaust Memorial in Berlin finished after years of debate
By Michael Jeismann
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The last steles of the central Holocaust Memorial in Berlin were
erected on Wednesday. There was a small celebration, and the group
parted in the knowledge that something had been accomplished after
years of debate.
Although it was a slow journey from the initial steps in the 1980s,
the context in which this symbol of remembrance stands appears to
have changed equally rapidly, almost secretly. Maybe architect Peter
Eisenman would have been well-advised not to set the last stele into
the ground at all – in the same way that the master builders of the
Middle Ages used to incorporate a little fault into their perfect
buildings, in order not to be accused of arrogance against God.
Meanings will soak in yet between the steles that we can at best
guess today. And a small irregularity could have shown how little
even the best architect is a master of remembrance.
Doubtless the most important change is the one which turned the
German memorial into a European one. Unlike back in the 1980s,
Eisenman’s field of pillars will no longer be able to be understood
sufficiently as a place of German remembrance. The memorial has been
made international. It hardly points implicitly at all to German
omissions and memory gaps – after all, the remembrance of the murder
of the Jews did not begin with this memorial.
Rather, the completed memorial unexpectedly refers of all things to a
historical gap and is directly connected, not only chronologically,
to the European integration process. The historical gap did not open
up in German or another European national history, but rather is
yawning in the community of states which is the European Union.
There is no doubt that up to a short time ago, the EU managed very
well without a history, and sometimes one might almost have thought
that the absence of history was a prerequisite for the functioning of
the community. If that was once the case, however, it is no longer
so. The European free trade zone has become a political community
where it is not only a question of the states’ budget balances.
Although historians like Jacques Le Goff or Wolfgang Reinhard have
carved out equally vividly and productively the common
characteristics of a European history, they too would not assume that
the structural common ground could be politically stylized in
symbolic acts and used for the widespread consolidation of
identities. What determines what the most recent European memory is?
After the fall of the Wall, the European unification process at the
political level and through national educational theories promoted
the remembrance of the genocide of the Jews, which functions like a
medium. It is unquestionably a means of the “assimilation of all
Europeans” of which Nietzsche spoke. A common European memory of the
extermination of the Jews received binding institutionalization at
the Stockholm Holocaust Forum four years ago. This was only feasible
because the persecuted and murdered Jews were understood in their
totality as belonging to the third category, something which could
not be defined in purely national terms.
Thus, since the 1980s, the policy of remembrance in Europe made the
Jews European. National governments thereby gained a common,
supranational point of reference for at least a theoretical added
value. It appears strange that the Holocaust memory is now to be
similarly cross-national and have a tendency to create unity, as
anti-Semitism did in certain epochs.
At least, in the past 20 years, a positive exclusion of the Jews took
place through which they were utilized as a means of Europeanization
which, unlike all other imaginable historical points of reference,
did not cause old national differences to resurface.
Every effort to cash in symbolically on a European history of
dispossession would in all likelihood lead to the greatest
calamities, for the dispossessed have not let themselves be stylized
as a third category up to now. Nor can they be denationalized, even
from a great distance – for the simple reason that their nationality
was, after all, the reason for their dispossession.
One only has to listen to what Armenians and Turkish people say and
demand with regard to the Holocaust for it to become clear how
differently, indeed, conversely, one can refer to the Europeanized
memory of the extermination of the Jews. The final stele is the first
stone in a fledgling European history.

Russian border guards in Armenia to pay more attention to Iranian border
Mediamax news agency
17 Dec 04
Yerevan, 17 December: This year officers of the border department of
the Russian Federal Security Service in Armenia detained 119 violators
of the state border – 30 people more than in 2003.
Mediamax reports that Lt-Gen Sergey Bondarev, chief of the border
department, said today in Yerevan that the Russian border guards
are to pay special attention to the Iranian section of the border
in connection with the growth in trade turnover, the start of the
construction of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline and the implementation
of a number of other joint economic projects.
Sergey Bondarev also noted a possible increase in the flow of Armenian
refugees from Iraq and Iran, as well as of Kurds form Turkey if the
situation in those countries deteriorates.