Author: Kalantarian Kevo

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 1 2012

Azerbaijan uneasy over France’s mediating role in dispute with Armenia

1 January 2012 / MAHIR ZEYNALOV, Ä°STANBUL

It was a signal designed to send chills through Paris: Azerbaijani
parliamentary members warned in a letter to the French Senate that
France may cast a shadow over its neutrality with regards to its
mediating role within a body assigned to peacefully solve its dispute
with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh following the passing of a
controversial bill by the French parliament that made it a crime to
deny the World War I-era killings of Armenians as genocide.
The letter sent to the French Senate Friday simply echoed Azerbaijan’s
concerns over the genocide-denial bill the lower house of the French
parliament adopted a week ago.

IIn the latest twist in the saga, a group of Azerbaijani activists
burned a French flag in front of French embassy in the capital city of
Baku on Friday, demanding France leave its position in the Minsk
Group, a platform of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) aimed at mediating peace talks between Azerbaijan and
Armenia.

Ali Hasanov, head of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration’s
Social and Political Department, added fuel to an ongoing debate in
Azerbaijan as to whether or not France could be an honest broker in
the two-decade long conflict that has kept peace away from the South
Caucasus. Recalling Turkish President Abdullah Gül’s earlier remarks
about France’s role in the Minsk Group, Hasanov told reporters
Thursday that France’s mediating role in the group will be discussed
at the next meeting.

The Turkish president urged France on Friday to withdraw from the
Minsk Group if the bill recently approved by the French National
Assembly becomes law.

The bill sets a punishment of up to a year in prison and a fine of
45,000 euros ($59,000) for those who deny or `outrageously minimize’
the alleged genocide of Armenians in eastern Anatolia during the final
years of the Ottoman Empire, putting such action on par with denial of
the Holocaust. The bill now needs to be passed by the Senate, the
upper house of parliament, before it comes into effect.

The disputed genocide of 1915 has been a matter of fuming discussions
between Turks and Armenians, as Armenians claim Ottoman Turks carried
out a systematic mass murder of Armenians with the aim of eradicating
them from the country. Turks say Armenians were deported when they
took up arms against the state at a time of chaos as the Ottoman
Empire crumbled and modern day Turkey’s founders fought a political,
armed war against foreign forces that tried to take over the country.
Most of the casualties occurred when deported Armenians were not able
to survive on the road to their destinations under extreme
circumstances, although Armenians raise allegations that the deaths
were intentional.

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry officials declined to comment on the matter.

Earlier this week, however, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman
Elman Abdullayev said that considering France is one of the co-chairs
of the Minsk Group, it is saddening to see that some members of the
French parliament have become hostages of the Armenian diaspora. He
said if France takes a principled approach to certain issues, it
should also look into the Khojaly massacre, where hundreds of
Azerbaijani civilians were slaughtered by Armenians in 1992.

Rovshan Ibrahimov, a professor with Azerbaijan’s Qafqaz University,
played down tensions between Azerbaijan and France over the
genocide-denial bill. Recalling Turkish Economy Minister Zafer
Ã?aÄ?layan’s statement that Turkey is not going to boycott French goods,
Ibrahimov questioned why Azerbaijan should bother.

Ã?aÄ?layan said last week that French investments in Turkey are safe,
ruling out any boycott to French goods but suggested that `consumers
might take matters into their own hands.’

Ibrahimov, who also presides over the foreign policy department at
Baku’s Center for Strategic Studies (SAM), said it is difficult to
link the French bill to France’s mediating role in the OSCE Minsk
Group, yet he said France’s political approach to a matter that needs
historical interpretation raises serious questions as to whether or
not it will put the same scenario into play with respect to the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

`France has totally lost its reputation by endorsing this bill,’ Asim
Mollazade, leader of Azerbaijan’s Democratic Reforms Party, said. He
added it is obvious that the French leadership is under the influence
of the Armenian diaspora.

Mollazade, who is also a member of the Azerbaijani parliament, said
Azerbaijan must work to replace France with the European Union as a
mediator in the Minsk Group, which he said may push progress in the
perpetual conflict.

According to the Azerbaijani politician, the French parliament has
intervened in something that is out of its jurisdiction. He said the
bill, restricting freedom of expression and thought, in fact is
against the `spirit of France and Europe.’

He added that he thinks the French bill has primarily been designed
and calculated for the presidential elections in France slated for
April of next year. `This plan is all about [French President Nicolas]
Sarkozy and his party’s aim to benefit from [the] Armenian diaspora
during the elections,’ Mollazade said, adding that French authorities
had stopped the bill several times in the past and that the declining
popularity of their party has forced them to shift their position.

State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
December 27, 2011 Tuesday

Oleg Krapivin: France, isn`t it a lot of scandals for one year?!

Kiev December 27, 2011

As is known, in the Turkic world, in all civilized and democratic
community a protest wave was caused by the decision of a group of the
French members of parliament to approve the bill providing punishment
for negation of the so-called Armenian genocide. Correspondent of
AzerTAc in Kiev Oleg Krapivin, president of the international public
organization “Institute of Azerbaijanism”, the founder of the
Ukrainian-Azerbaijani educational, scientific-cultural, sports center
after Heydar Aliyev, the known sportsman, the trainer and patron of
art, to express his opinion in this regard. He, in particular, said:

As a person born in Azerbaijan, living in Baku the most part of my
life, perfectly knowing the true history of Turkic world, I am well
aware of the pain and sufferings of my people as a result of
occupational and aggressive policy of the Republic of Armenia towards
Azerbaijan. I was deeply surprised by the decision of the lower
chamber of National Assembly of France.

However, if to analyze some political tendencies which are taking
place in this country as repressions rendered recently by the French
power, law enforcement bodies upon the people for carrying of Muslim
clothes, the mentioned decision of the members of parliament looks one
more link in the chain of the measures directed on ousting from France
of the immigrants, first of all, from the countries of the Turkic
world.

We have not forgotten the events when in streets of Paris, other
cities of the country there took place meetings against xenophobia,
tens of were burnt, store windows of boutiques and supermarkets were
trashed.

We remember and the sexual scandal connected with one of the real
candidates to presidency of France, the former head of the
International Monetary Fun Dominic Gaston Andre Strauss-Khan, which
caused an indignation storm in world public opinion.

The decision accepted by the French members of parliament on
insistence of the Armenian lobby is antidemocratic and, at least,
incorrect… France, isnt it a lot of scandals for one year?

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Dec 30 2011

Old church turns into culture center
ISTANBUL – Anatolia News Agency

Vortvots Vorodman Armenian Church reopened on Dec 28. The church has
not been used since World War I and turned into a culture center after
restoration.

Turkish Customs and Trade Minister Hayati Yazıcı inaugurated Vortvots
Vorodman Armenian Church Culture Center in Istanbul Dec. 28, using the
opportunity to discuss Turkish-Armenian relations.

Referring to a recent French resolution that criminalizes the denial
of Armenian allegations regarding 1915 incidents adopted by French
Parliament, Yazıcı said it was wrong to assess Turkish-Armenian
relations within the range of only a short period of time during World
War I. The Turkish-Armenian friendship was nearly 1,000 years old, he
said.

Yazıcı said Armenians were defined as `loyal people’ during the
Ottoman Empire period, and said there had been no problem between
Turks and Armenians until the 20th century. Today, according to
unofficial figures, nearly 100,000 Armenians are living in Turkey,
said Yazıcı.

Noting Turkey’s views regarding the 1915 incidents were based on
archives, documents and scientific research, Yazıcı said it would be
the most correct thing to leave the issue to historians of both
countries. Parliaments should not act like courts and should not make
judgments relating to such issues, said Yazıcı, adding involvement in
this process for political advantage by third countries like France
was wrong.

The Lower House of French Parliament recently passed a resolution
criminalizing rejection of Armenian allegations pertaining to the
incidents of 1915. Only 70 of 577 parliamentarians joined the voting
of the resolution, which passed after winning the vote majority.

The resolution proposes a one-year prison term and a fine of 45,000
euros for those who deny genocide recognized by French laws. French
Parliament already officially recognized the 1915 Armenian `genocide’
on Jan. 29, 2001.

Vortvots Vorodman (Children of Thunder) Church, which opened for
worship Oct. 14, 1828, has not been used since World War I. The
building was restored as part of the scope of projects initiated
around Istanbul European Capital of Culture 2010.
December/30/2011

Hurriyet, Turkey
Dec 30 2011

WWI inflicted pain on everyone, DavutoÄ?lu says

Friday, 30 December 2011

DavutoÄ?lu says not only Armenians but also Turks suffered during World
War I and calls on other nations that suffered at that time to share
and respect it.

Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu has called on Armenians and other
nations who lived under Ottoman rule to share the pain suffered during
World War I but also show respect to Turkish suffering.

Speaking at a conference in Edirne yesterday, DavutoÄ?lu said French
politicians `are trying to build a new history on the suffering of
others.

`Every nation thinks its suffering is unique; however, we can
understand the suffering of all nations because we suffered the most,’
the minister told the conference at Trakya University titled `From
Balkan War to Balkan Peace: Turkish Foreign Policy on its 100th
Anniversary.’

`We respect our neighbors with whom we lived together for 10
centuries. We invite them to share our common pains on condition they
respect ours,’ he said. He also pointed to the huge loss of life Turks
suffered during the dissolution years of the Ottoman Empire when it
was invaded by Western powers. `To expect people to forget their own
pain and to declare a nation guilty by birth without even giving it
the right to self-defense is unacceptable,’ the minister said. `A
common history does not mean a history with one-sided suffering that
forgets the suffering of another nation.’

Referring to the French bill criminalizing the denial of Armenian
`genocide,’ DavutoÄ?lu called on the French Senate, which is the next
legislative stage for the bill, `not to make imperialist plans on the
suffering of others.’

He pointed to the example of the Republic of Turkey founder Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk, who embarked on a mission of reconciliation with Greece
after he led the Turkish victory against invading Greek troops during
the Turkish War of Independence.

`He did not build a nation upon hostility. He could have incited his
people as the founder of a new nation state, and could have made his
nation keep its pain alive. However, he did not do so but instead
extended his hand to [Greek leader] Venizelos, because a leader like
Atatürk was the outcome of a 10 century blend,’ DavutoÄ?lu said.

`I am not saying it only for [French President Nicolas] Sarkozy.
French leaders have progressed by making other nations suffer, and now
they are trying to build a new history on the suffering of others,’ he
said.

In further remarks, DavutoÄ?lu urged the European Union to lift visa
restrictions for trips between Balkan cities and Turkey. `Those who
put visa barriers between Turkey and Europe are the ones who stand in
the way of the normalization of history,’ DavutoÄ?lu said. He charged
that some countries were `trying to build a wall between Edirne and
Skopje,’ but `one day that wall will collapse.’

Friday, 30 December 2011

Open Democracy
Dec 30 2011

Armenia-Turkey: the end of rapprochement
Vicken Cheterian, 30 December 2011

A diplomatic process designed to normalise relations between Armenia
and Turkey led to the signing of two protocols in 2009. Its failure is
rooted in the miscalculations of both sides, says Vicken Cheterian.

The genocide museum in Yerevan lies north of the Armenian capital at
the top of a hill called Tsitsernakapert. The physical effort of
walking to the summit is an appropriate spur to the visitor to reflect
on the hardship of hundreds of thousands of Ottoman citizens of
Armenian origin, who in 1915 and subsequent years were forced by their
state to walk to the Syrian desert, there or on the way to die of
hunger, exhaustion or by an act of murder. Today, the end-point is the
sight of a sober, forty-four-metre high stele pointing skywards, as if
claiming justice; and beside it, a circular monument of twelve basalt
slabs that both open to and protect the eternal flame.

On 24 April each year, the day of commemoration of the Armenian
genocide, thousands of people gather at Tsitsernakapert to place a
flower at the monument – and then walk down the other side of the hill
where, on a clear day, there is a magnificent view of Mount Ararat,
with its white glaciers as if hanging from heaven. It is a poignant
sight, for Ararat is both the visible totem of the Armenians yet
remains unreachable to them, since it lies on the other side of the
border that divides Armenia from Turkey. The two countries’
300-kilometre-long frontier, which runs only 40 kilometres from the
centre of Yerevan, is closed: the last closed border of the cold war.

I went to Tsitsernakapert to visit Hayk Demoyan, the director of the
genocide museum which is part of the cluster of monuments on the site.
“This museum tells the history of not only the Armenian people, but
also that of the Turkish people”, Demoyan tells me. He refers to the
the diplomatic exchanges since 2008 that sought to normalise
Armenian-Turkish relations, saying that he expected these to prompt “a
flow of Turkish visitors”. It has proved a vain hope. “The
international community, especially the Americans, did not exert
enough sustained pressure on Turkey to open up the border”, Demoyan
says. “Now the process is at a dead-end”.

>From blockade to diplomacy

The complicated relationship between Armenia and Turkey is rooted in
the events of the great war of 1914-18, when the Ottoman
administration deported en masse its Armenian citizens from their
towns and villages in Anatolia, the prelude to the anihilation of
almost the entire Armenian population of the empire. The legacy of
this bitter history was such that only in the early 1990s, amid the
break-up of the Soviet Union and Armenia’s attempts to secure its
independence, did a chance arise for Armenia and Turkey to move beyond
deep antagonism and create normal relations.

At the time, Armenia’s new political leadership was trying to escape
Moscow’s influence and prepared to establish diplomatic relations with
Turkey without preconditions. But the escalation of the conflict in
Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave inside the new state of Azerbaijan with a
majority Armenian population, posed a major obstacle to this course.
Turkey’s then leadership supported Azerbaijan in this conflict,
refused to open diplomatic links, and (in 1993) joined Azerbaijan in
imposing an economic blockade on land-locked Armenia in an effort to
force it to end its backing for the Karabakh Armenians’ quest for
self-determination.

A frozen conflict ensued, until the war between Russia and Georgia in
August 2008 overturned the region’s geopolitical map. Ankara saw a
chance to address this anomaly of its Caucasus policy. On 8 September
2008, Turkey’s head of state Abdüllah Gül visited Yerevan during a
football world-cup qualifying match between the two national teams,
and this was followed by a series of diplomatic meetings where
practical steps were discussed.

In fact, secret diplomatic talks had been held in Bern since 2007,
mediated by the Swiss foreign ministry. The chain of diplomatic
contacts culminated in the signing in Zurich on 10 October 2009 of two
“protocols”, dedicated to establishing diplomatic relations and on
opening the borders. The ceremony, hosted by Swiss foreign minister
Micheline Calmy-Rey, was attended by international dignitaries such as
United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Russian foreign
minister Sergei Lavrov.

“What is ironic is the fact that during the cold war this border was
not so hermeticaly closed as it is now. At the time, trains travelled
regularly between Kars and Leninakan [now Gumri]”, says Tatul
Hakobyan, a Yerevan-based author who is finishing a book on
Armenia-Turkey relations. Hakobyan’s interpretation of the failure of
dialogue is interesting: “The expectations of the various sides were
based on wrong calculations. The Armenian side thought that it was
possible to change the status quo on Armenian-Turkish relations
without changing the status quo on the Karabakh issue. Turkey thought
that dialogue with Armenia will lead to Armenian concessions on
Karabakh. And the international community did not pay enough attention
to details.”

The protocol-signing process in Zurich was fraught: the Turkish side
wanted a public declaration linking the protocols with the Karabakh
negotiations process, leading the Armenian delegation to boycott the
ceremony, meaning that in the end there was no declaration. “In
Zurich, the sides showed that they were not ready to compormise.
Turkey wanted Armenian concessions on Karabakh, not just on the
question of genocide and fixing the current border”, says Hakobyan.

The results of failure

When the process began, both presidents took risks in the hope of
bringing peace and stability to their countries. For Armenia’s Serge
Sarkissian, entering a dialogue with Turkey was a particularly bold
step; he was already challenged by a powerful domestic opposition that
contested the legitimacy of his election, and the diplomatic move so
angered the Tashnaktsutyun party (which has a large diaspora base)
that it left the government coalition in protest. The signing of the
protocols also created a schism between Yerevan and Armenian
communities abroad, which Sarkissian experienced directly when, during
a foreign tour of diaspora communities, he was faced by demonstrations
in Paris, Los Angeles and Beirut.

For Turkey’s diplomacy, the policy of rapprochement with Armenia was
part of a wider effort to ease tensions in the Caucasus’s several
conflict-zones, especially that of Karabakh. They believed that
ameliorating Ankara’s relations with Armenia would facilitate
negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Instead, they were
confronted by a vehement reaction from Azerbaijan that accused Turkey
of betraying Baku’s interests. Baku threatened to suspend relations
with Ankara and to cancel future hydrocarbon deals. As a result, the
Turkish leadership insisted that Armenia made concessions over
Karabakh on the grounds that this would enable the protocols to be
ratified by the Turkish parliament. Ankara was here not just seeking
measures additional to those foreseen in the protocols, but reverting
to its earlier position that Armenian-Turkish relations can only move
forward if Armenia complies with Azerbaijani demands on the Karabakh
conflict.

Thus, both Armenia and Turkey entered the process of negotiations
without anticipating all the moves they might be expected to make, and
were surprised along the way. Yerevan’s diplomats proceeded to sign
the protocols without consulting diaspora communities, amid protests
by diaspora communities against the president of Armenia for the first
time since independence. Ankara similarly misjudged its capacity to
resist opposition from Baku, and even a reversal of its policy has not
allayed Azerbaijani suspicions.

The failure of the protocols is so great that it will have long-term
consequences. “The failure of Armenian-Turkish negotiations will
harden the Armenian position on Karabakh negotiations”, according to
Ara Tadevosyan, the director of the Media Max news agency in Yerevan.
Even worse, what started as personal initiatives and cautious trust
has turned into mistrust. Today, the Armenian leadership feels
deceived by its Turkish equivalent: it signed two protocols for which
it had already paid a political price back home, only to be asked to
make further concessions on Nagorno-Karabakh.

This perceived deception will harden Yerevan’s position in relation to
Turkey, only three years before the centenary commemoration of the
Armenian genocide in 2015. Turkey’s official reaction to the proposed
outlawing of the denial of genocide in France shows that attitudes on
its side are becoming even more intransigent. The hopes of 2009 look
ever more distant.

Irish Times
Dec 30 2011

Irish experience to guide search for solutions to ‘frozen conflicts’

Twenty years after the end of the Soviet Union, Ireland is seeking
ways of bringing peace to the jagged edges of the old empire, writes
DANIEL MCLAUGHLIN

IN GEORGIA, Azerbaijan and Moldova, rebel regions have run their own
affairs since fighting free of government control in the early 1990s,
but they are still locked in `frozen conflicts’ that trap their people
in political limbo, insecurity and poverty.

Senior Irish officials say they intend to draw on experiences in
Northern Ireland to help tackle these complex disputes when Ireland
takes the chair of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) on January 1st.

The 56-nation group is a key player in talks aimed at ending the
conflicts, rebuilding trust between communities and ensuring the
`frozen’ disputes do not erupt into fighting – such as when Russia
invaded Georgia in 2008 to stop Tbilisi reclaiming South Ossetia.

South Ossetia shrugged off Tbilisi’s control in a 1991-1992 war that
claimed about 1,000 lives. In 1992-1993 the Black Sea region of
Abkhazia also took up arms to break with Georgia, and some 10,000
people died in the ensuing violence. After flooding the regions with
troops in 2008, Russia – which had propped up both areas since the
early 1990s – recognised them as sovereign states.

Moscow accused OSCE monitors along the de-facto border between Georgia
and South Ossetia of keeping secret Tbilisi’s preparations to attack
the breakaway region in 2008. The following year, Moscow refused to
allow the OSCE mission to continue working in Georgia.

But the OSCE is a co-chair of regular talks between Russia and Georgia
in Geneva, and the US and EU are pressing Moscow to allow a full OSCE
mission to return to Georgia.

Pádraig Murphy, former Irish ambassador to Moscow, will next year
co-chair the Geneva talks as a special representative for the South
Caucasus. `Ireland’s chairmanship faces a lot of challenges,’ warned
Georgia’s foreign minister Grigol Vashadze.

`Russia is constantly increasing its forces . . . There are more than
10,000 occupying troops in both regions and a range of missile
systems, tanks and all their other toys,’ he said.

`The main tasks now are to de-occupy Georgia and have Russia respect
the ceasefire agreement of August 2008, and to return internally
displaced persons and refugees in safety and dignity to their
birthplaces and residences.’

Mr Murphy’s brief will also cover Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian
enclave in Azerbaijan that was at the centre of a 1988-1994 conflict
that killed about 25,000 people.

Fierce fighting between the neighbouring states also displaced about
one million people and shooting incidents on the ceasefire line still
claim lives each year. The issue stirs intense passions in Armenia and
Azerbaijan, and no leader of either country has been willing to make
the concessions necessary to agree even on the principles of a final
peace deal.

Armenia suspects that Azerbaijan might try to use force to reclaim
Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku, meanwhile, accuses Yerevan of prolonging the
stalemate by refusing to withdraw troops from Azeri territory.

Both sides blame each other for the repeated failure of talks
spearheaded by the OSCE’s so-called Minsk Group of countries, which is
chaired jointly by Russia, the US and France.

And the search for a solution is not getting any easier. Ankara and
close ally Azerbaijan are furious over a bid by French president
Nicolas Sarkozy’s party to make it illegal to deny that Turkey’s mass
killing of Armenians in 1915 was genocide. Turkish officials suggest
Mr Sarkozy is wooing France’s large Armenian diaspora before next
year’s elections, and Azeri politicians have accused Paris of bias
towards Yerevan on Nagorno-Karabakh issues.

`An arms race, escalating front-line clashes, vitriolic war rhetoric
and a virtual breakdown in peace talks are increasing the chance
Armenia and Azerbaijan will go back to war over Nagorno-Karabakh,’ the
International Crisis Group warned this year.

Experienced diplomat Erwan Fouéré will be the Irish chairmanship’s
special representative to Moldova, where the OSCE is seeking a
negotiated settlement over the separatist region of Transdniestria.

This sliver of land beside the Dniestr River, wedged between the rest
of Moldova and Ukraine, broke away from Chisinau’s control in a 1992
war that killed about 1,000 people.

This Russian-backed region has just elected a successor to its
president of 20 years, Igor Smirnov, who was widely accused of
allowing Transdniestria to become a haven for organised crime. Its new
leader, Yevgeny Shevchuk, has already dashed Chisinau’s hopes of major
change by ruling out reunification with the rest of Moldova.

Petra News Agency, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Dec 30 2011

Armenian air charter arrives in Aqaba

Aqaba, December 30(Petra)– An Armenian air charter arrived on Friday
at the King Hussein International Airport in Aqaba.

The flight is part of a program that will include the arrival of 400
Armenian tourists during the coming two days.

The Governing Authority of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone, ASEZA, has
launched recently an initiative to support charter flight operations
to Aqaba to make a contribution to the marketing costs which are
needed to open new tourism markets and to support existing ones.

The initiative aims to encourage tour operators to include Aqaba in
their programs and to increase the destination’s exposure through
joint marketing.

//Petra// SD

The Herald (Glasgow)
December 27, 2011 Tuesday
1 Edition

Israelis debate 1915 genocide

JERUSALEM

Israeli lawmakers yesterday debated recognising the 1915 mass killing
of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide but were warned by the
Foreign Ministry about further damage to relations with Turkey.

The issue has stirred deep emotions in Israel, where some legislators
have said the Jewish people, who suffered six million dead in the Nazi
Holocaust, have a moral obligation to identify the Armenian tragedy,
even at the risk of a Turkish backlash.

No decision was taken by parliament s Education and Culture Committee,
which said it would hold another session at a future date.

I can say that at this time, recognition of this type can have very
grave strategic implications, said Irit Lillian, a Foreign Ministry
official. Our relations with Turkey today are so fragile that there is
no place to take them over the red line, she added.

Ties between the two former allies were strained by Israel s killing
of nine Turks in a commando raid on a Gaza-bound ship in 2010. Turkey
withdrew its ambassador to Israel after the incident.

Zahava Gal-On, from the left-wing Meretz party, said Israel has a
moral and historical obligation … to recognise the genocide of the
Armenian people and ensure the subject is taught in its schools.

Last week, Turkey cancelled all meetings with France after the French
National Assembly voted in favour of a draft law outlawing genocide
denial.

Armenia, backed by many historians, says about 1.5 million Christian
Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey during World War
One. Successive Turkish governments feel the charge of genocide is an
insult to their nation.

Washington Times
Dec 28 2011

Embassy Row
BYE BYE, BRYZA

Matthew Bryza, a career diplomat highly regarded at the State
Department, bid farewell to top officials in Azerbaijan on Tuesday
after the Senate refused to confirm him to a full term as U.S.
ambassador to the oil-rich nation in the Caucasus.

Mr. Bryza met with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and with Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, who both praised him for his 11-month
tenure.

The Azerbaijan Business Center noted that Mr. Bryza “finished his
bright ambassador mission.”

The ambassador’s journey from Washington to the Azeri capital of Baku
was one of the bumpiest in recent U.S. diplomatic history.

Mr. Bryza drew opposition from two top Democratic senators and
politically powerful Armenian-American organizations. They accused him
of favoritism toward Azerbaijan in a bitter and sometimes bloody
dispute with neighboring Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, an
ethnic-Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan.

They also claimed he had close, personal ties to Turkish and Azeri
officials, and questioned whether he could strongly represent U.S.
interests as ambassador. Mr. Bryza repeatedly dismissed those
accusations.

Despite objections from Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Robert
Menendez of New Jersey, President Obama appointed Mr. Bryza during a
congressional recess last year. The ambassador arrived in Baku in
February but only for a one-year assignment.

As recently as last week, Mr. Bryza held out hopes that the Senate
would overcome Armenian objections and approve him for a full term.

“If I were an Armenian, I would support my candidacy,” he told the
Azerbaijan Press Agency.

Orange County Weekly
Dec 29 2011

The Hilarious Haters
Ergun Kirlikovali, Coto de Caza Armenian Genocide Denier Supreme,
Threatening Legal Action Against UC Davis Professor

By Gustavo Arellano Wed., Dec. 28 2011 at 2:00 PM

Earlier this year, for some bizarre (or telling?) reason, the Assembly
of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) allowed Ergun Kirlikovali to
become its president. You remember Ergun–the whackjob Coto de Caza
resident who’s perhaps this country’s most notorious denier of the
Armenian genocide, a historical fact accepted by any sane human but
rejected as propaganda by Turkish nationalists like Kirlikovali.

Anyhoo, Kirlikovali and his gang of outraged Ottomans are messing with
a UC Davis professor because the profe stated the truth: that people
like Kirlikovali and groups like ATAA are useful idiots in Turkey’s
campaign to discredit the Armenian genocide.

The controversy started with an article that Keith David Watenpaugh,
director of the UC Davis Human Rights Initiative, penned for the
university’s magazine in February about how the Armenian genocide was
a linchpin for the modern humanitarian movement. The article drew a
response in the fall issue from one Gunay Evinch, a past president of
ATAA who just happens to do legal work for the Turkish embassy in the
United States. He repeated the same tired line that the Turkish
government instills in its citizens–that there was no Armenian
genocide, that Turks suffered as much as Armenians during the
post-World War I period, and that any suffering that Armenians had to
bear was their fault.

Watenpaugh responded to Evinch in the same issue, destroying his
arguments and adding this barbed paragraph:

“What is most important to understand is that the Assembly of Turkish
American Associations has been at the forefront of a Turkish
government-sponsored effort in the United States to deny that what
happened to the Armenians was genocide. The attack on my work in Mr.
Evinch’s letter is part of that project and should be understood in
this light. At UC Davis, we teach our students that history is more
than just a collection of facts, but rather is the starting point for
an ethical relationship with the past.”

BURN! But that’s when Kirlikovali and his ilk butted in, crying foul.
In October, he wrote a letter to the magazine claiming Watenpaugh had
defamed ATAA by insinuating that they take money from the Turkish
government for spreading their vile Armenian-genocide denying–no,
see, they do it for FREE! The implication that ATAA was ready to get
sue-y with Watenpaugh, in turn, drew a November response from the
Middle Eastern Studies Association to back off.

“We do not believe that legal action is the proper way to resolve
disputes about historical interpretation, and we fear that legal
action of this kind, or the threat thereof, may undermine the ability
of scholars and academic institutions to carry out their work freely
and to have their work assessed on its merits, in conformity with
standards and procedures long established in the world of
scholarship,” they wrote.

Kirlikovali, for his part, isn’t backing down, telling Inside Higher
Ed, “freedom of speech does not include defamation. Defamation is an
important exception to freedom of speech.” But his move has now drawn
the attention of the Armenian-American press, who started reporting on
the controversy this month, which means this issue will be far from
over.

All we know is that in our dealings with Kirlikovali–to paraphrase
the famous Western aphorism–he’s all fez and no carpet. And earlier
this year, another organization with which Kirlikovali has associated
and which has OC ties, the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA), sued
the University of Minnesota because the school’s Center for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies deemed TCA’s website as “unreliable” due to their
Armenian genocide-denying. A federal judge tossed out that lawsuit.
Stand strong, UC Davis…