Author: Kajoyan Gevork

OZARARAT PRAISES TURKISH FM’S STATEMENT ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Dec 27 2013

27 December 2013 – 7:04pm

A key figure behind the scenes on reconciliation efforts between
Turkey and Armenia, Samson Ozararat, says Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu’s statement calling the 1915 deportation of Armenians
inhumane was very important, Hurriyet Daily News reports on Friday.

Ozararat argues however that Armenia has lost confidence in Turkey
following the failure to approve the protocols that would lead to
normalization, due to what he said was a change in Ankara’s policy.

An Armenian from Turkey’s central Anatolian province of Konya,
Samson Ozararat has been one of the key figures in every effort
to bring Turkey and Armenia closer in the last 20 years, the news
agency informs.

CHINA TO PROVIDE MILITARY AID TO ARMENIA

IHS Jane’s 260
Dec 27 2013

Jon Grevatt, Jane’s Asia-Pacific Industry Reporter, Bangkok – IHS
Jane’s Defence Industry

China will provide Armenia with military aid worth CNY5 million
(USD825,000) a year under an agreement signed by the two countries
on 26 December.

The Armenian Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a statement that the
funding was agreed during meetings in Beijing between Chinese defence
minister Chang Wanquan and his visiting counterpart, Seyran Ohanyan.

Neither the terms nor the time scale of the military aid were revealed
but, in line with China’s flexible approach to military exports, the
funds will almost certainly be used to support additional Armenian
purchases of Chinese materiel.

The Armenian MoD added that the two sides also pledged to enhance
collaboration in areas related to military medicine, education,
and training, as well as military-technical co-operation.

A MILESTONE VERDICT ON ‘ARMENIAN GENOCIDE’

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Dec 25 2013

YAÅ~^AR YAKIÅ~^

The denial of the so-called “Armenian genocide” will no longer be
considered a punishable act amongst the 47 member countries of the
Council of Europe, including Armenia, thanks to a historic verdict
made by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on a suit filed
by Turkish politician Dogu Perincek against Switzerland.

In a public statement made on May 7, 2005, in Lausanne, Perincek
said: “The claim that the Ottoman authorities perpetrated the crime
of genocide against the Armenians was an international lie.” At
the instigation of a Swiss Armenian association, a local Lausanne
court found Perincek guilty of racial discrimination because of this
statement. Perincek filed a lawsuit at the ECtHR against this decision
and the court decided that Switzerland had violated Perincek’s freedom
of expression.

The Armenians suffered a similar setback last year in France. In 2001,
The French Parliament had passed a law that consisted of one single
sentence, which reads as follows:

“France publicly recognizes the Armenian genocide of 1915.”

This text looks more like a political declaration than a law in due
form. But it was the first step of a bigger aspiration, namely the
criminalization of the denial of the Armenian genocide. In fact,
a law to achieve this goal was adopted by the lower chamber of
the French parliament in 2006, but it was overturned by the upper
chamber. The Armenians did not give up. In 2012, a French deputy,
Mme. Boyer, initiated another law containing similar content. This
time, the same senate, contradicting what it had done six years ago,
voted in favor of this law. But this time the French Constitutional
Council disappointed the Armenians by overturning the Boyer’s law. The
Armenian aspiration to make the denial of the genocide a punishable
offence was thus shelved once and for all in France. However, the
Armenians were hoping to achieve in other countries what they failed
to achieve in France. With the latest verdict of the ECtHR, this hope
is now gone for the member countries of the Council of Europe as well.

The ECtHR verdict has implications beyond recognizing Perincek’s
right of expression:

First, Turkey has so far been hesitant to go to international courts
to challenge the Armenian claim of genocide because of fear of losing
the case. Now, the verdict has eased Turkey’s hand.

Second, the Swiss Armenian association hoped to teach Perincek a lesson
on what not to do on the Armenian genocide issue, but it inflicted
irreparable damage to the Armenian efforts to criminalize the denial
of genocide because the verdict will now push several countries to
think twice before they consider passing a law in their respective
parliaments to recognize the Armenian genocide.

True, the recognition of genocide and punishing its denial are
two different subjects. But now that the denial has ceased to be
a punishable act, passing a law to recognize the Armenian genocide
will become an ineffective gesture to the Armenians at the cost of
antagonizing Turkey unnecessarily. Turkey should try to explain to
the member countries of the Council of Europe that passing such a
law is a futile exercise that is devoid of a field of application.

Third, the ECtHR verdict invalidates certain provisions of the EU
Framework Decision on Combating Racism and Xenophobia, especially
Article 1(c) that makes the denial of the crime of genocide
a punishable offence and probably Article 2(4), which authorizes
national tribunals to qualify an act as genocide. Therefore, the
framework decision will have to be adjusted to the new situation
created by the ECtHR verdict. Turkey should raise this issue with
the EU at the meetings of the Association Council.

Having said this, no matter how important the court verdict is,
we should not lose sight of the fact the verdict does not deny
that the Armenian genocide took place. It simply says that to state
publicly that a genocide did not take place should not be considered
a punishable act.

If wisdom prevails, both Turkey and Armenia may use this ECtHR
verdict to overcome their reciprocal prejudices and put an end to
their centennial conflict.

ROAD MAP FOR ARMENIA’S JOINING CUSTOMS UNION TO BE PUBLISHED IN MAY 2014 AT BEST

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Dec 25 2013

25 December 2013 – 3:19pm

The road map for Armenia’s joining the Customs Union will be published
no sooner than in May 2014, said Dmitry Polyansky, Deputy Director
of the CIS Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

It was a decision of all sides involved in the process, he added.

ARMENIA’S JOINING CUSTOMS UNION WILL NOT AFFECT KARABAKH PEACE PROCESS

December 25, 2013 | 19:21

Armenia’s accession to Customs Union (CU) and Common Economic Space
will not affect the process of the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict.

This was stated by Tatyana Valovaya, the Eurasian Economic Commission
Board Member and Minister for Macroeconomics and Principal Directions
of Integration.

“As you know, the president of Kazakhstan in his opening speech spoke
about Armenia’s preparedness to join the CU and Common Economic Space
and mentioned Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. As a result of debates,
president of Kazakhstan together with other participants of Supreme
Economic Council signed a decision approving the roadmap. No other
documents have been received from Kazakhstan,” Valovaya said in
an interview.

She stressed that CU and Common Economic Space are economic
structures. The member states have no plans to create a political
union, so Armenia’s accession to Customs Union will not in any way
affect the Karabakh peace process.

Armenia is getting closer to the Customs Union very fast, she said. It
took less than four months from the first statement of intention
to the moment of roadmap signing. For instance, the roadmap with
Kyrgyzstan has been discussed for two years, Tatyana Valovaya added.

“I hope that the interaction between the states, members of the Customs
Union and the Common Economic Space, and Armenia will be very active,”
the Minister noted.

Tatyana Valovaya said the roadmap of Armenia’s accession consists of
20 sections and includes 262 events out of which 150 should be carried
out by the time of joining the Customs Union. Over 30 seminars and
consultations have been held while the roadmap was being drafted.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

ARMENIAN OPPOSITION DOES NOT RECOGNIZE VOTE RESULTS FOR RUSSIAN GAS CONTRACTS

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Dec 24 2013

24 December 2013 – 8:31am

The Armenian National Congress, Dashnaktsutyun, Heritage and the
Prosperous Armenia Party have not recognized the vote results for
Russian contracts, Neft Rossii reports.

Yesterday, MPs gave 77 out of 131 votes for the agreement on
cooperation in shipments of gas, petroleum and unprocessed diamonds to
Armenia, the agreement on formation of gas prices for Armenia and the
agreement on sales of ArmRosgazprom shares to Gazprom. The documents
were signed on December 2.

The Republican Party and Orinats Yerkir voted for their ratification
yesterday. The votes were counter by the audit commission. The
opposition parties said that four of their members were not present
while the commission was counting the votes.

Prosperous Armenia Secretary Naira Zograbyan said that the parties
may address the Constitutional Court to resolve the dispute.

ARMENIA’S C.BANK CUTS REFINANCING RATE TO 7.75 PCT FROM 8 PCT

Reuters
Dec 24 2013

YEREVAN Tue Dec 24, 2013 8:26am EST

YEREVAN Dec 24 (Reuters) – Armenia’s central bank cut its key
refinancing rate to 7.75 percent from 8 percent on Tuesday after data
showed a decline in inflation.

Annual inflation came at 6.6 percent in November, the central bank
said, down from 7.1 percent recorded in October. That is still higher
than the government’s target range of between 2.5 percent and 5.5
percent for the whole year.

Monthly inflation in November was 0.9 percent, compared to inflation
of 0.3 percent in October.

The central bank cut refinancing rate to 8 percent in October.

(Reporting by Hasmik Lazarian; Writing by Margarita Antidze)

HENRIKH MKHITARYAN NAMED 2013 FOOTBALLER OF THE YEAR IN ARMENIA

23:36 24.12.2013

Armenia, Henrikh Mkhitaryan

Midfielder of the Armenian national team and Borussia Dortmund Henrikh
Mkhitaryan has been named Armenia’s footballer of the year by the
Football Federation of Armenia for the third time in a row.

Mkhitaryan collected 244 point; Yura Movsisyan came second with 177
points followed by Aras Ozbiliz (47 points).

“It is a true honor to be named 2013 Footballer of the Year in Armenia
and I share this with my teammates on the National Team,” Mkhitaryan
said on his Facebook page.

TURKISH ACADEMIA AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

ASSYRIAN INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCY AINA

Dec 23 2013

By Orhan Kemal Cengiz, AL Monitor
Posted 2013-12-23 07:19 GMT

Thousands of master’s theses and Ph.D. dissertations in the social
sciences are written each year in Turkey. The Higher Education Board
(YOK) keeps an electronic database of their topics and titles. A
search in the database of dissertations on the Armenian genocide
returns a striking result: Only four theses have been written on
the issue and, as their titles immediately suggest, they all reflect
Turkey’s official position on the massacres.

The four titles are as follows: “Armenian genocide claims in view
of international law,” “The importance of pressure groups, lobby
activities within the context of the so-called Armenian genocide,”
“Turkish-Armenian relations in history and the impact of Armenian
genocide claims on Turkey’s European Union membership process” and
“Armenian genocide claims in international law.”

That is all Turkish universities have been able to produce in terms
of theses on the topic of the Armenian genocide. How is this possible?

Are there no academics willing to write dissertations contesting
Turkey’s official history line and argue, for instance, that the 1915
events were a genocide? Or is there a state mechanism in place that
doesn’t leave it up to chance?

A Dec. 12 report in the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos reveals
that academics working on dissertations about the Armenian genocide
are under the close scrutiny of the Turkish Historical Society (TTK).

According to Agos, the TTK has asked YOK for the details of academics
studying the Armenian issue and the YOK chairman, in turn, has asked
universities to provide that information. A document Agos published
indicates that the YOK chairman had asked universities to supply
“the names of master’s and doctoral students working on the Armenian
problem, the titles of their researches and contact information,
in view of making them available to the Turkish Historical Society
in the work it conducts.”

As I mentioned in my previous article for Al-Monitor, various
government institutions in Turkey are busy making counter preparations
for 2015, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. The TTK
is one of them. The society is likely to have requested the said
information from YOK with a view of using it in those preparations.

When Agos asked the TTK why they needed that information, a TTK
official stated that scholarships might be offered to academics working
in this realm. Agos then asked whether the TTK would give a scholarship
to someone whose thesis qualifies the 1915 events as genocide. The
official responded that, since the TTK does not officially recognize
the Armenian genocide, providing a scholarship to such a study might
not be possible.

Agos argues that the TTK’s real motive is to control the academia
and keep records of those working on the Armenian problem.

A subsequent report in the Taraf daily backed up Agos’ argument that
those studying the Armenian genocide are being secretly profiled. Two
former presidents of Istanbul’s Bogazici University, interviewed
by Taraf, shed light on how the censorship mechanism works in the
academia.

Ustun Erguder confirmed he had received letters from YOK with requests
for information. “During my term as university president, YOK would
send such letters, but we would dismiss them as [those requests]
had nothing to do with our understanding of academic freedom. That’s
something that has been done for years. We had even received letters
suggesting we made sure that theses ‘supporting Turkish unity’ were
written. It is out of the question for me to approve of YOK requests
seeking out the names and details of those writing theses on the
Armenian problem,” Erguder said.

Another former Bogazici University president, Ayse Soysal, made
the following comments: “I used to receive similar letters from YOK,
while I was university president. It was routine. Two types of letters
would come from YOK. One would be in the form of [suggestions] that
we support studies backing the state’s official view on subject X or
subject Y.”

The insight the two former presidents provide on how the system
functions explains why only four dissertations have been written on
the Armenian genocide and why all happen to be in line with Turkey’s
official view.

In another article for Al-Monitor, I had written also about how
Turkey’s non-Muslims’ birth registries were marked with secret codes
and how the non-Muslims could not become army officers, judges or
policemen. And this latest example — the lack of even one academic
thesis contesting Turkey’s official position on the Armenian problem
— is another indication that certain taboo realms are besieged by
unwritten but stern rules.

True, the Armenian taboo has been broken in Turkish civil society
and intellectual life. Yet, it continues to exist in this or that
form in the “official” realm. Thanks to the exposure of practices
such as the TTK request for information about academics studying the
Armenian problem, we are getting clues on how Turkey’s official theses
are being produced and sustained.

No doubt, the exposed practices represent only part of the whole
picture. To understand fully why, how and in what atmosphere Turkey’s
official theses remain intact, the known pieces need to be brought
together with the pieces that remain beyond our knowledge. Only then
will we be able to know how Turkey’s official history theses are able
to survive unchanged.

Translated by Sibel Utku Bila.

Asbarez: Armenians should prevent outbreak of war a decade before
Azerbaijan wants to start it

00:50 22/12/2013 » REGION

When the oil runs out in Azerbaijan, Baku will try to provoke a war
with both Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, but the Armenians should be
farsighted and prevent the outbreak of war a decade before the enemy
wants to start it, reads the article written by Garen Yegparian
published in “Asbarez”.

`By all accounts, Azerbaijan’s oil will run out, practically speaking,
in a little more than a decade. This doesn’t mean there won’t be any
oil left underground. It means that given how much oil remains, where
it is. Newer, better technology might come on line. The price of oil
could go up making it economical to invest more and go for hard to
reach deposits. Regardless, the end of Azerbaijani oil is near. And
the decline in production has begun,’ the author writes.

It is noted that Azerbaijan also has natural gas reserves. Baku is now
negotiating with the big, international, companies to determine which
one(s) will get the contracts. As part of these upcoming deals, the
Azeris will also try to wangle improvements to the oil infrastructure
they now have in place so more of the remaining oil can be extracted.
According to the author this will buy the thieving leaders of the
country a few more years.

`Eventually, the fossil fuels will run out. The billions of dollars
pouring into the country will stop. Along with that, so will the
crooked leadership’s ability to pacify the populace through money.
Then what will they do? Of course, like all petty tyrants, forceful
repression will ensue. Riots, beatings, civilian deaths will ratchet
up the tension. What do leaders anywhere do in such cases? They will
find or create a distraction. War with an external enemy tends to mute
internal dissent,’ the author writes.

According to the author Azerbaijan will attack Armenian positions, or
try to provoke an Armenian assault so he has an excuse to `retaliate’
and start the war he desperately needs.

Yegparian believes that there’s also another reason that Azerbaijan
would start a war at such a point in its oil/gas history. With the
flood of money drying up, its ability to continue its
weaponry-purchasing binge will end. Arms and munitions get old,
replaced by better technology. So, Azerbaijan would have an incentive
to use what it already has before obsolescence takes its toll.

`The trick for Armenians will be to prevent that war from starting for
a decade beyond when Aliyev would want to start it,’ the author added.

Source: Panorama.am