Author: Kalashian Nyrie

TWO TURKISH GENERALS HELD OVER PLOT TO KILL NOBEL LAUREATE

©independent.co.uk
Wednesday, 2 July 2008

Conspirators ‘planned armed rebellion to destabilise Turkey’

Turkish police have arrested two retired top generals they believe were
members of a state-backed gang suspected of a slew of high-profile
killings and a plot to murder the Nobel Prize-winning novelist
Orhan Pamuk.

The former military police chief Sener Eruygur and Hursit Tolon,
former army number two, were among 25 people taken into custody in
Ankara early yesterday in the latest twist in investigations that
began last year.

Dozens of people – including another retired general and a prominent
ultra-nationalist lawyer – are already in custody on charges of
"provoking armed rebellion against the government".

The plotters’ plan, allegedly, was to assassinate public intellectuals,
Kurdish politicians, even target military personnel, as part
of a campaign to destabilise Turkish society and force military
intervention.

The arrests mark a sudden intensification of a power struggle
consuming the country. The arrest of the two members of the secular
establishment came on the same day that the religious-minded ruling
party was fighting court charges aimed at shutting it down.

The country’s senior prosecutor has brought a case against the AK
Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accusing it of trying to
establish an Islamic state. If the prosecution results in the party
being banned it is likely to lead to political turmoil and an early
parliamentary election.

The latest developments hit the Turkish stock market and could dim
Turkey’s chances of joining the European Union.

The editor of the liberal daily Radikal, Ismet Berkan, compared the
plan to the civil unrest in 1960 that preceded the first of Turkey’s
three full-on coups. "It’s a classic model, a classic case of social
engineering", he said.

"The difference is that, this time, for the first time in Turkey’s
history, four-star generals – the big fish – have been hauled in by
a civilian prosecutor."

Not everybody shares his view. Coming just hours before the state
prosecutor in the case against the Islamic-rooted government argued
his case in court, the arrests are seen by many as the latest step
in an increasingly bitter power struggle between government and state.

"It’s not one coup d’etat Turkey is facing, it’s two," said Cuneyt
Ulsever, a liberal columnist for the mass market daily Hurriyet who
is critical of AKP’s increasingly authoritarian rhetoric.

The state prosecution issued the charges in March, saying the AKP
should be dissolved because it threatens Turkey’s secular principles.

Party leaders deny the charge. Prosecutors also are calling for about
70 AK party members, including Mr Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul,
to be barred from politics.

Belma Akcura, an investigative journalist, is also concerned about
the way the investigation into what Turks have dubbed the "Ergenekon"
network is unfolding.

"It’s been over a year and we still don’t know for sure what these
people are being accused of," she said. "I get the feeling the
government is using Ergenekon as a card in its own fight for life –
‘take me down, and I’ll take you down too.’"

Yet as the author of a recent book on what Turks call the "Deep
State", which means a paramilitary grouping of military and civilian
bureaucrats and mafia opposed to full democracy, Ms Akcura is not
surprised by the accusations or the identities of the people arrested.

Turkey’s army has long considered itself the final arbiter on the
nature of the country’s regime, she pointed out, adding "paramilitary
efforts to shape politics go back at least 50 years".

A well-known hardliner, Sener Eruygur, was revealed last year to have
played a central role in two aborted attempts to unseat the government
in 2004.

The first – codenamed "Yellow Girl", a popular Turkish name for cows –
was a plan for direct military intervention that foundered because
of the opposition of the Chief of Staff. The second, "Moonshine",
was closer to Ergenekon and its scheme to mould public opinion via
the media.

Mr Berkan said: "They came to talk to all the big media bosses in
2004 to ask for their support. They didn’t get it."

Mr Eruygur appears not to have forgotten the slight. When the staunchly
secularist lobbying group he has led since his retirement organised
massive protests last year, a favourite slogan was "buy one Tayyip,
get two Aydin Dogans free." (Tayyip is the Prime Minister, Aydin
Dogan is in charge of the country’s biggest media group.)

For Alper Gormus, left-leaning editor of the investigative magazine
that revealed the 2004 coup plans last year and was shut down for
its pains, Mr Eruygur’s arrest is evidence of a fundamental change
in the balance of power between the elected government and the state.

"People say Turkey is in crisis and they are right, but what revolution
comes to pass without a political crisis?", he asked.

"What we are living through today are the birth pangs of a new regime
– the death of 60 years of limited democracy, the birth of a Turkey
that has the full democracy it deserves."

*Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, has arrived in Ankara where
he is expected to discuss bilateral relations and regional issues,
including efforts to resolve the standoff with Iran over its disputed
nuclear programme. Mr Lavrov’s visit to Turkey, which borders Iran,
comes amid renewed demands for more diplomatic pressure on Iran over
its nuclear activities.

Who is Orhan Pamuk?

A best-selling novelist at home and abroad, Orhan Pamuk became the
first Turkish author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006.

His achievement met with an ambiguous reaction in his home country,
where his literary reputation had been all but forgotten amid a
scandal over comments he made to a Swiss newspaper the year before.

"Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in
these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it," Pamuk told
Tages-Anzeiger in February 2005. A prosecutor promptly charged him
with "insulting Turkishness" under the most notorious of a raft of
Turkish laws limiting freedom of speech. He was cleared in January
2006, but not before the car ferrying him to court had been attacked
by an angry mob of nationalists. Facing death threats, he left Turkey
and now spends most of his time in the United States.

Talking about Turkey’s conflict with Kurdish separatists and the ethnic
cleansing of Armenians in 1915 remains taboo among conservative Turks.

But possibly his greatest crime, in a country which can feel positively
Sicilian in its insistence that dirty washing be kept "in the family",
was to talk to foreigners about it.

Most Turks remain convinced that Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize
for political, not literary, reasons.

–Boundary_(ID_4w0ZisgQWnMfveufSONfBQ)–

ARZU ABDULLAYEVA: "ANDRES HERKEL IS ON AZERBAIJANI SIDE IN THE KARABAKH ISSUE"

Today.Az
01 July 2008
Azerbaijan

"The report of PACE monitoring committee co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan
Andres Herkel was objective", said human rights activist Arzu
Abdullayev at a press conference by results of the visit to Strasbourg.

According to her, Andres Herkel supports Azerbaijan in the Karabakh
issue and civil community in the formation of democratic institutions.

Human rights activist Saida Gojamanly noted that Herkel’s report
reflected issues, related to law offenses, imprisonment of journalists,
release of sick prisoners based on humanism.

Gojamanly announced that during the visit the human rights activists
held meetings in various CE structures, with human rights commissioner
Thomas Hammerberg, Venice commission secretary Janni Bukikkio,
members of the Ago monitoring group and others.

DMITRY MEDVEDEV AND PRESIDENT OF ARMENIA SERZH SARGSYAN MADE A JOINT STATEMENT.

Official Web Portal of the President of Russia
June 24 2008

After high-level talks in the Kremlin, the heads of state issued a
statement that said, in part, that the views of Russia and Armenia
on current international problems are either identical or very close.

The two sides plan to cooperate closely in creating foreign policy
on a bilateral basis and within the framework of international
organisations in order to strengthen peace, stability and security
on both a regional and global scale.

"IF THEY HADN’T OPENED FIRE, WE WOULD HAVE MORE VICTIMS"

A1+
27 June, 2008

"If the police hadn’t opened fire, we would have more victims on
March 1 and the consequences would have been much more serious," Serzh
Sarkissian said during an interview with Russian "Komersant" newspaper.

"Force was employed against those who broke shop windows, robbed
everything on their way, threw grenades at policemen and shot at
armed forces. What measures were we supposed to take under the given
situation?" said Serzh Sarkissian.

He said the shooting took place a long way from the demonstrators,
about a kilometer away. The demonstrators took up arms against
policemen who were trying to keep public order.

Did the investigation prove that all the victims had been robbers?

"It is not a dry fact. But I can say one thing for sure-all the ten
people died a long way from the square. The investigation is underway
and I think that it will expose all wrongdoers," he added.

A MODERN OTTOMAN THE TURKISH CLERIC FETHULLA
Ehsan Masood

Prospect Magazine
June 25 2008
UK

The Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, winner of our intellectuals
poll, is the modern face of the Sufi Ottoman tradition. At home with
globalisation and PR, and fascinated by science, he also influences
Turkish politics through links to the ruling AK party

Is it possible to be a true religious believer and at the same time
enjoy good relations with people of other faiths or none? Moreover,
can you remain open to new ideas and new ways of thinking?

Fethullah Gulen, a 67-year-old Turkish Sufi cleric, author and
theoretician, has dedicated much of his life to resolving these
questions. From his sick bed in exile just outside Philadelphia,
he leads a global movement inspired by Sufi ideas. He promotes
an open brand of Islamic thought and, like the Iran-born Islamic
philosophers Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Abdolkarim Soroush, he is
preoccupied with modern science (he publishes an English-language
science magazine called the Fountain). But Gulen, unlike these
western-trained Iranians, has spent most of his life within the
religious and political institutions of Turkey, a Muslim country,
albeit a secular one since the foundation of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s
republic after the first world war.

Unusually for a pious intellectual, he and his movement are at home
with technology, markets and multinational business, and especially
with modern communications and public relations–which, like a modern
televangelist, he uses to attract converts. Like a western celebrity,
he carefully manages his public exposure–mostly by restricting
interviews to those he can trust.

Many of his converts come from Turkey’s aspirational middle class. As
religious freedom comes, falteringly, to Turkey, Gulen reassures his
followers that they can combine the statist-nationalist beliefs of
Ataturk’s republic with a traditional but flexible Islamic faith. He
also reconnects the provincial middle class with the Ottoman traditions
that had been caricatured as theocratic by Ataturk and his "Kemalist"
heirs. Oliver Leaman, a leading scholar of Islamic philosophy, says
that Gulen’s ideas are a product of Turkish history, especially the
end of the Ottoman empire and the birth of the republic. He calls
Gulen’s approach "Islam-lite."

Millions of people inside and outside Turkey have been inspired
by Gulen’s more than 60 books and the tapes and videos of his
talks. Why? A combination of charisma, good organisation and an
attractive message. What Gulen says is that you can be at home in the
modern world while also embracing traditional values like faith in
God and community responsibility–a message which resonates strongly
in Turkey.

Gulen (pictured, right) insists that he is not a Sufi leader, but his
thinking is certainly influenced by Sufi ideas: he says, for example,
that a reader who wants to truly understand the Koran needs to invest
his heart as well as his intellect. Another belief he shares with
Sufism is the idea that God, humanity and the natural world are
all linked, and might even be part of a single entity, a sort of
cosmic trinity. This idea has practical consequences. For example,
it suggests that a believer will love and respect humanity and the
natural world as they would God. It also means that no one should
be seen as an outsider. Hence Gulen’s insistence on friendship among
people of all faiths and none.

Hakan Yavuz, co-editor of Turkish Islam and the Secular State: the
Gulen Movement (Syracuse), describes the Gulen movement as comprising
a small inner cabinet along with a network of perhaps 5m like-minded
volunteers and sympathisers, rather than an organisation with a
hierarchy or formal membership. Others say it is more like a cult,
with no deviation from Gulen’s word allowed. The network’s largesse has
meant that the movement now boasts newspapers and magazines, television
and radio stations, private hospitals and, by some estimates, more
than 500 fee-paying elite schools in dozens of countries. These schools
are mostly in Turkey and the Turkic-speaking ex-Soviet republics like
Azerbaijan, but a few can also be found in Africa, China and the US.

The Gulen movement sponsors international conferences to debate
his ideas. (The most recent one in Britain was held at the House
of Lords.) These ideas cover three main areas: Gulen’s attempts to
marry science and religion; his large body of work on interpreting
Islam for the modern age; and his role in Turkish politics through
his influence on the governing Justice and Development (AK) party.

***

Fethullah Gulen was born in 1941 in a village near Erzurum in eastern
Anatolia, near the border with Iran and Armenia. After a period of
Islamic education, in 1959 he began work for the religious ministry as
an imam–imams in Turkey are public servants–a post he held until 1981
when, shortly after a military coup, he struck out on his own. The life
of a government imam will not have suited someone with his creativity
and charisma–those who have heard his sermons say he frequently
reduces audiences to tears–and Gulen did well to last over 20 years.

While still an imam, Gulen joined the Light movement, a Sufi-inspired
network for followers of the Turkish thinker Said Nursi, who died
in 1960. Gulen later broke away, but continued to be influenced by
Nursi’s ideas on accommodating Islam to modernity and finding harmony
between scientific reason and religious revelation.

Science and technology are important to Gulen for two reasons. First,
he attributes the underdevelopment of many Muslim nations to a
neglect of modern knowledge. For Gulen, a failure to study science is
a dereliction of Islamic duty, as learning is repeatedly emphasised
in the Koran. More controversially, he says there can be no conflict
between reason and revelation, and that science should be used as a
tool to understand the miracle of the Koran.

Gulen does not follow those Muslims who believe the Koran contains
all that is necessary for scientific understanding. He knows that
scientific discoveries are mostly provisional and that science is
an incremental business. But he also believes that as researchers
refine their understanding of physics or biology, they get closer
to revealed Koranic truths, such as the existence of a creator. His
approach has a parallel in the west in the Templeton Foundation, with
its generous grants and prizes to scientists sympathetic to religion.

***

Sufism is integral to Ottoman as well as wider Islamic history, and
in spite of attempts at repression, it remains popular and powerful in
many Muslim countries. In its most traditional sense, it is marked by a
master-disciple relationship in which a Sufi master is linked through a
chain of living and dead Sufi masters to Muhammad himself. These days,
however, Sufi leaders are more mentors than svengalis, particularly
in the west.

Two of Turkey’s leading Sufi networks are the Mevlevis and the
Naqshbandis. The Mevlevis were founded by the 13th-century Persian
poet Rumi, and they include among their network the famous whirling
dervishes. The Naqshbandis, founded in 1389 in central Asia, retain
Sufism’s hierarchical structure but adhere to a more orthodox brand
of Islam. The Naqshbandis were the leading Sufi order in the Ottoman
empire’s last years. Many in the ruling AK party are members of
Naqshbandi lodges. Some, however, have a higher regard for Gulen than
for their Naqshbandi co-religionists.

Gulen has not involved himself directly in Turkish politics, and has
always set his face against political Islam. Religion for him is about
private piety, not political ideology. He was a stern and public critic
of Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of the Welfare party–the forerunner
to AK–who in the late 1990s briefly led a coalition government with
the conservative True Path party. Gulen even backed the army’s "soft
coup" of 28th February 1997, which forced Erbakan to resign.

After the tense period of the 1980s and 1990s, Gulen and the AK
leaders have now become closer, although they have different social
bases: AK’s base is the urban poor, Gulen’s the provincial middle
class. Encouraged by Gulen, the AK party has softened its Koranic
literalism, embraced the idea of human rights and given up dreams
of introducing sharia or re-establishing the Ottoman caliphate. Its
abandonment of Islamism has in turn emboldened Gulen to become more
critical of the Turkish military. Gulen’s media outlets, above all
the popular newspaper Zaman, give their backing to the AK government.

***

And the government needs all the backing it can get. Despite winning
a landslide election victory last year, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the
prime minister, President Abdullah Gul and many AK parliamentarians
are fighting for their political lives in a battle with the Kemalists
over, among other things, the wearing of headscarves in universities.

About 32 per cent of Turkish boys and 43 per cent of girls leave
education after primary school. Polls indicate that five in ten
women cover their hair, and the government argues that girls are put
off staying on in education by hijab bans. In February, parliament
voted by a large majority to amend the constitution and repeal the
headscarf ban in universities, which had been in place since 1989. Yet
on 5th June, this decision was annulled by Turkey’s constitutional
court. (Turkey has a grand tradition of legislating for headwear:
the turban was outlawed in 1829 and the fez introduced, only to be
banned in turn by Ataturk in 1925).

Separate, but related, is the recent decision by the constitutional
court to hear an application from the chief prosecutor to have
AK shut down on the grounds that party members have violated the
constitutional principles of secularism. The case could last eight
months, during which time what little progress has been made on EU
accession will effectively grind to a halt.

The banning of political parties is not new in Turkey–26 have been
dissolved since 1960. AK was created from the embers of the Virtue
party (banned in 2001), which itself was formed by former members
of the Welfare party (banned 1998). Anticipating such a move for the
third time, the chief prosecutor has asked for any AK members found
guilty to be banned from politics for five years. If that happens,
Turkey is headed for years of political unrest.

Many Kemalists see the repeal of the headscarf ban as just the
first step towards an Iranian-style revolution. "Khomeini is alive
and well in Ankara and being supported by the EU," a senior member
of the nationalist Republican People’s party told me. (And Michael
Rubin, a leading American neoconservative, recently predicted that
as political tensions in the country become unbearable, Gulen would
make a triumphant return to Turkey, Khomeini-style, and trigger an
Islamic coup.)

Yet Gulen himself is in favour of compromise on the headscarf ban. And
outside the Ankara political village, the issue is not such a big
deal. One poll found that in 2006, proportionately fewer women were
wearing headscarves than in 1999. And just 3.7 per cent of respondents
said it was one of Turkey’s most pressing issues.

***

The AK party is a sophisticated organisation surrounded by a cluster of
think tanks and thinkers–men such as Ibrahim Kalin, a philosopher of
science who heads the SETA think tank, and Ahmet Davutoglu, a former
international relations professor, now Erdogan’s chief foreign policy
strategist.

AK leaders, and Gulen too, have been pushing hard for EU membership
for Turkey, partly to entrench religious freedom. (The Kemalists
want membership for the opposite reason–to put a secular brake on
the religious parties.) But now that Turkey’s prospects of accession
are receding, some AK thinkers are downplaying the economic benefits
of membership, and Davutoglu talks about a global, rather than just
a European, role for Turkey.

Even in the event of EU-enthusiasm returning in Turkey, there remain
many objections in Brussels to Turkey’s political norms. One of
them, of course, is the continuing involvement of the military in
politics. There is also the issue of minority rights, only now being
tackled. The republic has hitherto functioned on the basis that all
Turks are Turkish-speaking Sunni Muslims. All other expressions of
faith, language and culture have been suppressed. Even AK, in favour
of more religious freedom, has been slow to promote the rights of
Turkey’s Kurdish and Alevi minorities.

Gulen has always publicly supported the establishment and its organs
of state, including the National Security Council. He has had the
backing of both former centre-right president Suleyman Demirel and
Bulent Ecevit, hero of the Turkish left in the 1970s. However, many
Kemalists do not trust him, and see his support for the AK government
as vindication of their stance that he is a Trojan horse for political
Islam. Gulen has been indicted on anti-secularism charges, but was
acquitted in 2006.

For the past several years, he has lived in self-exile in the US,
where he has not been in good health. Rumours persist that he is
ready to return to Turkey, though in the current climate, with talk
of political bans in the air, this seems unlikely. Meanwhile, he has
used his time abroad to build his overseas support and his network
of schools–the latest has just opened in Pakistan.

Traditional Sufi leaders anoint a successor before they die. Gulen
has not done so. Perhaps there is no need, as his ideas will live
on through his books, DVDs, MP3 recordings and websites in 21
languages. Whether or not he returns to the country of his birth,
Gulen’s legacy as a thoroughly modern Sufi is secure.

ECONOMY MINISTRY: ONLY 5.8% OF ARMENIA’S POPULATION USE INTERNET

ARKA
June 24
YEREVAN

Only 5.8% of Armenia’s population use Internet, Armenian Deputy
Economy Minister Vahram Ghukasyan.

"The situation in Armenia worse than in the majority of Asian
countries, where 13% Internet users were recorded", he said at the
seminar on advanced international experience in tourism, information
technologies and business services areas.

He also said that Armenia lags behind its neighbors. In particular,
either Azerbaijan or Georgia has twice greater number of Internet
users than Armenia.

The deputy minister pointed out that 13-percent economic growth
was recorded in Armenia amid sluggish development of information
technologies.

He thinks that vigorous development of telecommunication technologies
will spur the country’s development. Ghukasyan said that Armenian
Government intends to take certain steps.

"First of all, the Government will create the network of Internet
communications all over the country. The network will ensure reliable
and available communication", he said.

Armenian Government intends to develop e-government document
circulation to 50%.

The Government considers information technologies among its
top-priority focuses.

Armenian Economy Ministry says annual foreign investments in IT area
total $10 million and output grows 30%.

Some 190 organizations function in this area. According to statistical
data, 3.2 million people live in Armenia.

KARABAKH WITHOUT A MINISTER OF CULTURE

KarabakhOpen
25-06-2008 17:52:35

Norek Gasparyan was released from the duties of the minister of
culture and youth because he is going to take up a new position. The
new position is member of the Public Television and Radio Council. The
president signed both decrees today.

"USA HAS NOT MANIFESTED ITS EXACT ATTITUDE TOWARDS NEW AUTHORITIES OF
ARMENIA," KIRO MANOYAN SAYS

NOYAN TAPAN

JU NE 24

The promises of U.S. presidential candidate of Democratic Party Barack
Obama with regard to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, in
difference to the previous candidates’ ones, are more convincing. This
opinion was expressed by Kiro Manoyan, Director of the ARF Bureau’s Hay
Dat and Political Affairs Office, at the press conference, which was
held on June 24. According to him, the latter has publicly reaffirmed
the importance of the recognition of the genocide.

"Irrespective of the fact that guarantees in politics are rather
difficult things, in difference to the previous candidates, Obama
makes those statements not only as a presidential candidate but also
as a member of the Senate," he said. In the words of Kiro Manoyan,
Turks have had meetings with the advisers of Obama. "They have told the
Turks that they should have a second plan as in case Obama is elected,
he will recognize the genocide," Kiro Manoyan said. According to
him, Obama touches upon not only the issue on the recognition of the
Armenian Genocide, but also the regulation of the Nagorno Karabakh
problem on the basis of fair principles. By the way, in the opinion
of Kiro Manoyan, no new step will be recorded in the negotiations
concerning the regulation of the Nagorno Karabakh issue until the
end of the presidential elections in the United States of America.

Kiro Manoyan also mentioned that the United States of America has not
manifested its exact attitude towards the new authorities of Armenia
so far.

"The United States of America is obliged to show that it does not
put a question on the legitimacy of the new authority of Armenia,"
he mentioned.

MIKA YEREVAN WINS IN ARMENIAN CHESS CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP

NOYAN TAPAN

JU NE 24

The Chess Club Championship of men finished in Yerevan on June 21. Mika
has received the title of the winner with 10 points. FIMA and Bank King
share the second and third places with 8 points each. They are followed
by Hrazdan with 4 points, Yerevan 2 points and Gyumri 0 points.

Mika and FIMA earned right to take part in the European Cup Tournament
to be held in the city of Kalitea of Greece between October 16 and 24.

KARABAKH PARLIAMENT MEMBERS MET WITH RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT MEMBERS

KarabakhOpen
19-06-2008 11:31:50

The speaker of the NKR parliament Ashot Ghulyan said in a news
conference two days ago that on June 9 to 12 he was in Russia for
a working visit. The purpose of the visit was to set up relations
between the parliaments of the two countries.

The first meeting was at the NKR representation to Moscow, during
which it was noted that the parliamentary delegation of Karabakh had
not visited Moscow for a long time.

There were also official meetings with the members of the Russian Duma
who are in charge of work with the countries of the post-Soviet space,
settlement of conflicts, relations with parliaments, as well as the
representatives of political forces.

"These meetings will become a serious basis for setting up permanent
relations between our parliaments and their representatives. During the
meeting the current state and prospects of the talks for the settlement
of the problem, the democratic reform in NKR, humanitarian and other
issues were discussed. We also met with analysts and experts," Ashot
Ghulyan said.