Author: Kalantarian Kevo

AZG Armenian Daily #092, 21/05/2005
Armenian Genocide
APPEAL OF JEWS OF BELGIUM
‘Those denying Armenian genocide must be punished’
The Jewish Secular Community Center of Belgium (Centre Communautaire
Laic Juif) appealed on May 20 to the senators of the country to vote
for the 51/1284 bill which administers punishment for those denying the
Armenian Genocide. “The Turkish state has never officially recognized
the Armenian genocide by the Young Turks in 1915-1917. Belgium
recognized it in 1998 joining thus France, Canada, Poland and the
European Parliament. But, contrary to this, a handful of attacks by
the deniers in Belgium were not brought to court. Those attacks are an
insult to the Armenians’ memory and sufferings which is unacceptable
for a democratic state we live in. Hence, the voting of 51/1284 bill
will allow putting an end to impunity. We cannot remain indifferent
to indignation, anger and grief of Belgium’s Armenian community”,
the appeal reads.

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan
May 20 2005
SPEECH OF THE PRESIDENT OF AZERBAIJAN ILHAM ALIYEV
[May 20, 2005, 17:24:08]
Dear sportsmen,
I cordially greet all of you. Today, I have come to you. I am pleased
we are together again.
Three years ago, in 2002, the national leader of our people Heydar
Aliyev, having visited the Geranboy district, in details was
interested in work done here and was very pleased. And today I see
that Geranboy develops. Here, the new enterprises have been created,
many new accomplishments and very favorable political conditions,
high spirits created in the district. Despite of the fact that we
meet rare, nevertheless, people who have gathered here again express
their feelings.
It is very glad that all regions of Azerbaijan, including Geranboy,
develop. Geranboy is the ancient Azerbaijan land, historical
territory. It is necessary for all of us to try that work on creation
and accomplishment here was carried out even more intensively. Here,
the program of regional development is executed, and all measures
stipulated within the framework of the program will be executed.
Today, in conversation with the chief executive I have noted that all
problems available here, questions should find their solution. Some
problems can be solved on places, but there are also such, which
we shall solve in Baku. The chief executive will address me and all
questions should be solved.
I also shall assist henceforth to each region of Azerbaijan. I want
that regions of Azerbaijan developed. That each region developed, that
people lived better. I want that the difference between the capital
and regions was reduced, and in one of the days, has absolutely
disappeared; that poverty has been eliminated, that unemployment
was put an end. That there was peace, calmness, well-being and that
people lived safely that our children received good education. I
want that our sportsmen always highly carried the flag of Azerbaijan,
and increased greatly its sports glory.
In a word, all of us want that position of our country became even
stronger. That it has strengthened its position in the world, has
kept leading positions in region, for this purpose there are all
opportunities, all conditions. There is an intensive development of
economy. This year, Azerbaijan will become the leading country on
rates of economic development.
Due to functioning of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which we
shall soon put in operation, ample opportunities for development of
economy of our country, infrastructure, and regions will appear. I
do not doubt that very soon Azerbaijan will turn in a rich state. Of
this chance, these opportunities each citizen of Azerbaijan should
take advantage. For this purpose, all of us – the government, local
authorities, businessmen, and citizens – should work together. We
have one purpose, one idea – to achieve the further strengthening of
our Motherland, consolidation of the position of Azerbaijan.
Certainly, the major problem facing to us consists in settlement of
the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh conflict. We try, we use
for this purpose all opportunities. Political, diplomatic and other
steps; the results that are observed recently testify that the world
understands the fair position of Azerbaijan. The position of Azerbaijan
gets support, the international community already openly realizes, and
the main thing, accepts this position. We shall continue these efforts
and on all international actions, in the international organizations,
bilateral negotiations we shall not cede a span of our land, our
position is fair and bases on principles of international law.
At the same time, we should know that only strong country could
achieve desirable, and provide its interests. Therefore, we should
be strong, not to expect on anybody’s assistance. We are strong. The
Azerbaijani people are strong. The Azerbaijan land is rich. We have
powerful enough personnel potential, natural resources. Patriotism
of the people is high level. It is necessary for us, having mobilized
all these factors, to make its stronger.
For this reason, our programs of economic development are carried
out, regional programs are realized, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
oil pipeline will be commissioned. All this will allow Azerbaijan
to become even stronger; create powerful economic potential, and
therefore, Azerbaijan becomes even stronger in region.
We also give big attention to army construction and we shall continue
it. This year, charges on army have increased by 36 percent. In the
near future, new changes will be brought in the budget. I have charged
to reconsider charges on army and increase them up to a necessary
level. It is necessary for us to achieve the further strengthening
of our army, and enemies should know, that the Azerbaijan army at
any time is able to carry out all tasks put before it.
In a word, Azerbaijan will successfully develop. For this purpose,
we should unite. The society needs cohesion. We have one goal: to
liberate our lands, restore territorial integrity and provide the
people of Azerbaijan with better living conditions.
I wish all of you success in these works. I wish the Geranboy district
were more beautiful, became nicer, with modern constructions. I am
deeply satisfied with the works done here. I know that things are
getting on well. The local authorities also work duly. Your deputy at
the Milli Majlis represents you well. In short, I am very satisfied
with the works being done here. I have come to express my gratitude
and respect to you. I assure you I will do my utmost for strengthening
of the independence of Azerbaijan, increase its economic potential,
and I shall always be with you. The works we are going to do in the
years ahead, will allow Azerbaijan to strengthen, become powerful,
make our sovereignty eternal, irreversible.
I once again greet you, and embrace you. Thank you.
***
Then, President Ilham Aliyev warmly has met and talked to sportsmen.
Youth of Geranboy has noted that lives with desire to take part
in local and international competitions, having emphasized value
of creation for this purpose of such stadiums, athletic fields,
Olympic complexes, has expressed gratitude for care of sports in the
country, the conditions created for sportsmen. The head of state was
photographed with sportsmen for memory.

US companies fined for illegal cargo transportation
Azer News
19 May 05
US Garden Partner company has been fined $18,300 for illegally
transporting cargoes to Armenia through Azerbaijan, according to
Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Committee.
Aydin Aliyev said that 1,967 tons of fuel was confiscated from US
Carroll, Anna Busa, Burgana and ZZI International companies that
transported transit cargoes to Armenia as well.
Aliyev noted that Georgia’s Sakhnud Gas company was also responsible
for transporting cargoes to Armenia via Azerbaijan.
Investigation is under way into such violations by the mentioned
companies, he added.
Transportation of consignments to Armenia through Azerbaijani territory
was banned by the government, as Azerbaijan is currently at a state
of war with this country.

KIRK KERKORIAN ARRIVES IN ARMENIA
Armenpress
YEREVAN, MAY 19, ARMENPRESS: A spokesman for president Kocharian,
Viktor Soghomonian, has confirmed today press reports that an
American-Armenian billionaire Kirk Kerkorian arrived in Armenia
yesterday evening. Soghomonian said Kerkorian will spend here
several days.
Kerkorian’s Lincy Foundation, allocated US$177 million to
infrastructure and cultural projects in Armenia in 2002-2003. These
included the construction of 4,000 new homes in northwestern Armenia
(devastated by an earthquake in 1988), the refurbishment of most of
Armenia’ s museums and theaters, and the repair of 420 kilometers
of roads

Erdogan: Allegations Regarding Armenian Genocide Are Totally Baseless
Turkish Press
5/18/2005
WARSAW (AA) – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on
Friday that the allegations regarding Armenian genocide were totally
baseless.
Prime Minister Erdogan, who is currently in Polish capital Warsaw to
attend the Council of Europe (COE) Third Summit of Heads of State &
Government, held a news conference at the Royal Castle of Warsaw.
Replying to a question about the allegations regarding so-called
Armenian genocide, Prime Minister Erdogan said, “we have expressed
our uneasiness clearly on numerous occasions. Those allegations
are totally baseless. We have already opened all our archives. Now,
Armenia and the other third countries should open their archives to
historians, jurists and scientists. Then, we, as politicians, can
evaluate the issue and make a decision. Turkey cannot accept such
baseless allegations. No one can achieve anything by keeping such
baseless allegations on top of agenda.” “Future should be based on
peace and affection instead of hatred and enmity,” he stressed.
Recalling that Turkey had recognized Armenia, Prime Minister
Erdogan said that it was Armenia which failed to develop diplomatic
relations. “Also, the COE considered Armenia the occupier on the Upper
Karabakh dispute. First, Armenia should withdraw from Upper Karabakh
instead of putting forward such baseless allegations,” he said.
When recalled that Belgian Senate would debate a resolution envisaging
consideration of rejection of so-called Armenian genocide a crime,
Prime Minister Erdogan told reporters, “I cannot understand an
unrelevant country’s making such a decision. If they accept the
resolution, Turkey will launch a new initiative by approving similar
resolutions against countries which had committed genocide in the
past.” Upon another question about the decision of the European Court
of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding Abdullah Ocalan, the head of terrorist
organization PKK, Prime Minister Erdogan said, “the decision will be
debated by the COE Committee of Ministers. Then, Turkish jurisdiction
will take a decision. Turkish people have already closed the file of
Ocalan in their conscience.”

Turkey’s Erdogan dismisses foreign ‘lobbying efforts’ on Armenian killings
AP Worldstream
May 17, 2005
Turkey’s prime minister said Tuesday that his country rejects
outsiders’ “lobbying efforts” on last century’s mass killing of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks, and said other countries should open
their archives on the period.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comments at a summit of the 46-nation Council of
Europe came after Armenia’s president, speaking at the same gathering
Monday, underlined his country’s call for the killings to be recognized
as genocide.
Erdogan, whose country is under pressure to address the issue as it
prepares to open membership talks with the European Union, referred to
“the issue of the so-called genocide.”
“We say that we do not appreciate any lobbying efforts that do
not find their basis in documents,” he said, speaking through an
interpreter. “By taking action in other parliaments, this will not
have positive effects on the issue.”
Several countries, including Argentina, Canada, France and Russia,
have declared the killings a genocide, and there is strong pressure
from Armenians worldwide for the U.S. Congress to recognize the
killings as genocide as well.
Armenians say some 1.5 million of their people were killed as the
Ottoman Empire forced them from eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923
in a deliberate campaign of genocide. Turkey says the death count is
inflated and insists that Armenians were killed or displaced in the
civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Erdogan recently sent a letter to Armenian President Robert Kocharian
inviting Armenia to set up a committee of historians to jointly
research the killings.
“We are opening up our military archives and we ask for Armenia to do
the same _ open their archives,” he said Tuesday. “If other countries
have pertinent information, let them open their archives.”

RA DEPUTY OMBUDSMAN RECEIVES CO- RAPPORTEURS OF PACE MONITORING
COMMITTEE
YEREVAN, May 16. /ARKA/. RA Deputy Ombudsman Rafik Mkhitaryan
received the Co- Rapporteurs of PACE Monitoring Committee Yerzhi
Yaskernia and George Columbier as well as the Committee Secretary Bony
Theofilova. As the Public Relations and Information Department of RA
Ombudsman Administration told ARKA News Agency, the participants of
the meeting discussed issues on protection of human rights and basic
freedoms in RA, the process of honoring the commitments to PACE and
establishment of democracy in Armenia. L.V.-0–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IRAN AND ARMENIA AGREED ON CONSTRUCTION OF TWO ELECTRIC POWER STATIONS ON RIVER ARAKS
Pan Armenian News
16.05.2005 03:22
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Representatives of Iran and Armenia achieved
agreement on construction of two electric power stations on River Araks
at the common border of the two states. As the Iranian Company of Hydro
Resource Development informed, the appropriate decision was taken in
Tehran during the Seventh Sitting of the Joint Technical Committee
of Iran and Armenia held with the participation of Company’s Project
Assistant Naser Nemati and Armenian Deputy Energy Minister Karen
Sargsian. “As the common water border of Armenia and Iran stretches for
40 kilometers the parties decided to use the potential of the ricer”,
Nemati said. “In accord with the agreement the first plant with the
capacity of 130 Megawatt and an 18.3-kilometer tunnel will be built
at the Armenian territory while the second plant with the capacity
of 140 Megawatt and 17.5- kilometer tunnel will be built in Iran.
Presently the preparatory works are being carried out. By to date five
projects have been already approved and the essential consultations
on the soonest elimination of the problems available have been held”,
he added, Irna agency reports.

ARA ABRAHAMIAN CALLED TO DEVELOP ARMENIA-ISRAEL RELATIONS
Pan Armenian News
16.05.2005 06:11
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Chairman of the World Congress of Armenians
Ara Abrahamian called to develop the Armenian-Israeli relations,
ITAR-TASS reports. “Our Churches are bound by centuries-old history
however presently the bilateral relations are not satisfactory and need
development”, Ara Abrahamian stated noting that there is no Armenian
Embassy in Israel. “Armenia and Israel have a common part of history
and the affinity of cultural and national traditions can serve as a
basis for the development of bilateral relations”, he stressed. To
note, Ara Abrahamian served on the delegation to Israel headed by
Catholicos of All Armenian Garegin II. The Armenian delegation was
composed by Armenian Defense Minister Serge Sargsian, representatives
of the RA Foreign Ministry and RA Central Bank President Tigran
Sargsian. Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger accepted Armenian
Catholicos’s invitation to visit Armenia in the near future.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Close, but ‘not America’
By Joan Dupont
International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, MAY 17, 2005
CANNES — For the first time in decades, Canada has two films in
competition here. David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan, directors of the
extreme, from a place – Toronto – known as tame, make imaginative
and, some say, weird films, investigations into dark zones. But these
offerings look like sheer entertainment.
Cronenberg’s U.S.-produced “A History of Violence” depicts an
American family living in a Garden of Eden that turns into a snake
pit, and stars Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, William Hurt, and Ed
Harris. Egoyan’s Canadian-produced “Where the Truth Lies,” shot in
London studios, is about a Jerry Lewis/Dean Martin-style comedy team
that breaks up mysteriously. The story, told from different points
of view over three time periods, stars Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth and
Alison Lohman.
Their new films are adapted from American novels. “This was a world
where these men had access to whatever they desired,” Egoyan said. “I
wanted to show them as unbridled – drugs, sex, almost a narcoticized
feeling of sexuality, in scenes about power and control, shown from
different points of view.” He described his movie as a film noir.
Cronenberg said his film was not a realistic movie: “It’s about
creating another identity. We make choices. An identity isn’t given to
us, we create it. Everyday you wake up and assemble that person. It’s
possible to become somebody else.”
Both are champions of the competition and have been on the jury,
Cronenberg as president. He is excited to be back in competition, and
alongside Egoyan: “We’re close friends and support each other. We’re
comrades in arms rather than competitors.”
At the festival, their ventures are being looked upon as UFOs. The
trade magazines hail them as sleek and sexy, while the cinephile
press sniffs suspiciously, although “A History of Violence” was well
received Monday. Even if the films bear the imprint of the directors –
obsessions with truth, identity, violence and sexuality – both seem
to take place in a magnificently decorated but anonymous country,
and are also moral tales.
Since the 1970s, when French-language filmmakers such as Gilles Carle,
Jean-Pierre Le- febvre and Claude Jutra made their mark here, Cannes
has been supportive of Canadian cinema. These films spoke French
with a Canadian accent; they charmed, but were perceived abroad as
provincial. At home, this cinema is popular at the local box office.
Denys Arcand is an exception. His brilliant scripts and worldly
characters in films like “The Decline of the American Empire” and
“The Barbarian Invasions” speak a more universal language, win prizes
and are popular at movie houses. “The very first film I worked on,
a student film, went to Cannes at the Semaine de la Critique in
1962,” he said, referring to “Seul ou avec d’autres” (“Alone or With
Others”). “Most of my other films were screened at Cannes, and Cannes
has always been very good to me.”
Yet some Canadians, French- or English-speaking, feel they are
sometimes treated like poor relatives here, less glamorous and
important than their American cousins. Over the years, the Toronto
festival, which while noncompetitive is now ranked by many observers
as third after Cannes and Berlin, has changed that. The festival
boosts emerging directors from English-speaking Canada.
Piers Handling, who programmed at Toronto before becoming its director
10 years ago, has championed Cronenberg and Egoyan since the 1980s. “We
ran the first North American retrospective of David’s work in 1983,
when he was something of a pariah, a genre filmmaker on a scene where
Canadians looked for realism.” The festival also launched Egoyan with
“Next of Kin” in 1984. “Atom and David made the breakthrough for
Canadian art cinema,” Handling said. “Their new films became fixtures
at festivals.”
Handling finds “Where the Truth Lies” to be genuine Egoyan despite
the material. “There’s Atom’s interest in storytelling. Where does the
truth lie with characters who are chameleon-like? That’s part of Atom,
his obsessions. He’s an immigrant, born in Cairo of Armenian parents,
and he had to adapt a whole series of personas and masks.
“With both directors, their Canadianness is very much part of their
work. Look at Fritz Lang or Lubitsch, who came to America; did they
lose themselves or their talent? Yet French-Canadian films are truly
rooted in the land. Denys Arcand sets his films on the streets of
Montreal, the hospitals, the universities, whereas Atom and David
are like aliens traveling through their own cities.”
Robert Lantos, a Canadian whose career as a producer began with Gilles
Carle in 1976, was also behind Arcand, Cronenberg and Egoyan. He
will produce Cronenberg’s next film, “Painkillers,” and he produced
“Where the Truth Lies.” He finds it interesting that both directors
have chosen themes more accessible to bigger audiences.
In this film, Cronenberg says, his characters are mainstream. “Normally
I’m attracted to bizarre people, outcasts. This time, I thought it
would be interesting to see what happens when the characters start
out normal and slide into abnormality. In this film, the violence is
specifically American, but there is universal violence – the violence
in one person, the violence in movies.”
He observes that Marshall McLuhan felt he could comment on America
in a way that Americans couldn’t. “Canada is so close to America,
but it’s not America. Our movie is set in America with major American
actors, but not a foot was shot in America. Our cultures are very
different. We didn’t have a revolution or a civil war.”
Cronenberg added: “Violence is universal. We can’t eliminate it. Humans
are unique on earth as creatures that can imagine a world without
violence, where everybody is fed, and lives in peace. We can imagine
this, and not accomplish it.”