Author: Kanayan Tamar

Baltic News Service / – BNS
December 30, 2011 Friday 8:59 AM EET

Estonian border guards catch eight Vietnamese, four Armenians near
Estonian-Russian border

TALLINN, Dec 30, BNS – Staffers of the Estonian Police and Border
Guard Board detained eight Vietnamese nationals and four Armenians
after they had illegally crossed the Estonian-Russian border on Boxing
Day.

The illegal border-crossing was detected by the team on duty at the
Luhamaa border guard base at 1:40 p.m. on Dec. 26 and the Vietnamese
and Armenian nationals who had entered Estonia illegally were
detained, spokespeople for the South prefecture of the Police and
Border Guard Board told BNS on Friday.

The detention was made on a field near Miikse village in the territory
of the southeastern rural municipality of Meremae.

Criminal proceedings have been opened with regard to the detained individuals.

National Public Radio (NPR)
Dec 28 2011

VIDEO: Monks Brawl With Brooms In Bethlehem’s Church Of The Nativity

There was a brawl today inside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.

A brawl between, of all things, “dozens of monks feuding over sacred
space,” The Associated Press says.

Armenian and Greek Orthodox clergymen scuffled inside Bethlehem’s
Church of Nativity today.

Bernat Armangue/AP Armenian and Greek Orthodox clergymen scuffled
inside Bethlehem’s Church of Nativity today.
The traditional site of Jesus’ birth, the church is shared by Roman
Catholics, Armenians and Greek Orthodoz parishioners. According to the
AP, today’s dispute between Greek and Armenian monks began when they
accused each other “of encroaching on parts of the church to which
they lay claim.”

The monks were cleaning the church at the time. One thing led to
another and soon brooms were being swung and thrown. Palestinian
security forces had to break up the brouhaha. No serious injuries were
reported.

This video from ITN News shows what happened

APA, Azerbaijan
Dec 30 2011

Azerbaijani Parliament addresses French Senate in protest against
decision on made-up `Armenian genocide’

[ 30 Dec 2011 13:48 ]

Baku. Parvin Abbasov – APA. Milli Majlis, the parliament of
Azerbaijan, addressed the French Senate in protest against the
decision on made-up `Armenian genocide’. The text of letter was read
by MP Sahiba Gafarova.

The letter reads that Azerbaijani parliament is very concerned about
the decision of the French parliament. `We call you to carefully
approach the remote historic events, Undoubtedly if this draft law is
adopted it will damage the basic principles of the democratic system –
human rights and freedoms. On February 26, 1992, Armenian armed forces
killed hundreds of peaceful Azerbaijanis in Khojaly with cruelty. If
all of these are taken into consideration, the attempts to asses the
historic events unilaterally can lead to disrespect to the historic
realities’.

It was emphasized in the letter that the adoption of such law will
cast doubt on objectivity of the French co-chairmanship in the OSCE
Minsk Group. `Milli Majlis of Azerbaijan calls the colleagues at the
French Senate to be attentive and sensitive during the discussions of
this issue and not to adopt the law’.

The letter was approved by the parliament.

APA, Azerbaijan
Dec 30 2011

New protest action held outside French embassy in Azerbaijan

Baku. Shahriyar Alizadeh – APA. The Organization for Liberation of
Karabakh held a protest action outside the French embassy in Baku on
Friday. The protesters chanted `Down with France!’, `Withdraw France
from the Minsk Group!’, `Khojaly!’, `French and Armenian are the enemy
of Turk!’ Then the protesters burned the flags of France and Armenia,
read a statement and submitted it to the embassy.

Trend, Azerbaijan
Dec 30 2011

Interview- Top official: Azerbaijan to make every effort to eliminate
double standards in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement
30 December 2011, 12:34 (GMT+04:00) Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 30 / Trend
M. Aliyev /

Azerbaijan will make every effort to eliminate double standards in the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, Azerbaijani Presidential
Administration Social and Political Department Chief Ali Hasanov said
in an interview with Trend.

“The main reason that the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict lasts more than 20 years, is the indifference of the
international community to Armenia’s destructive position,” he said.
“Nevertheless, we will try to eliminate the double standard and
indifferent attitude to the international legal norms by using every
opportunity.”

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno- Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. – are
currently holding the peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

“The fair international environment and relations are out of the
question in condition when a microstate and an outpost dictates the
terms to the UN that defines and regulates global politics, does not
recognize the resolutions and other documents and the world community
and the leading countries close their eyes to this in the 21st
century,” he said. “Hence, one of the main reasons of delaying the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement is the UN insipid position and
double standards. For example, the NATO and the leading countries
fulfilled the UN Security Council’s resolution on Libya within one
day. But they do not solve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue for many years.
They connive at Armenia, and turn a blind eye to massive bloodshed
perpetrated by the Armenians, the violation of human rights and
terrorism. As a result, it is clear that there is no fair system and a
mechanism to resolve the disputes fairly, to eliminate the problem on
the basis of international legal norms in the modern world. It is
unknown when it will be created.”

Hasanov said that at present, as a member of the UN Security Council,
Azerbaijan will regularly include this issue on the agenda. A specific
choice must be made, international legal norms must be fulfilled or
the truth must be recognized, Hasanov said.

Azerbaijan was elected a non-permanent member of the UN Security
Council for 2012-2013.

IsraCast, Israel
Dec 30 2011

Israel, Turkey & Armenian Dilemma

Friday, December 30, 2011

Israel Ponders Recognition Of Armenian Massacre And Her Strategic Need
To Improve Strained Relations With Turkey
Issue Remains Open After Prime Minister Netanyahu & Foreign Minister
Lieberman Appeal To Knesset Education Committee Not To Conduct Session

IsraCast Assessment: Israel Must Seek Balance Between Avoiding Further
Deterioration With Turkey While Not Dodging Her Moral Obligation

Israel’s government and her Parliament are at odds over whether the
Jewish state should officially recognize Turkey’s responsibility for
the massacre of some one and a half million Armenians in 1915. In
spite of appeals by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign
Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the Knesset’s Education Committee
discussed the issue but stopped short of voting on recognition.
IsraCast analyst David Essing is of the view that with the Iranian
nuclear crisis coming to a head in 2012, it is crucial that Israel
will not cause any further deterioration in the already strained
relations with Turkey.

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin has clashed with Prime Minister
Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Lieberman over a parliamentary
discussion of the massacre of one and half million Armenians by the
Ottoman Empire, the forerunner of modern Turkey. Netanyahu appealed to
Rivlin: ‘Don’t do it!’ The Speaker replied that the issue had arisen
in the Knesset not because of the current tension between Jerusalem
and Ankara. Nor was it an attempt by Israel’s parliament to settle the
score with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan who has jettisoned Turkey’s
long time alliance with Israel and who castigates the Jewish state at
every opportunity. Rivlin went on to say that the State of Israel,
after the Holocaust of six million Jews, was duty bound to discuss the
question of what had befallen the Armenians, no matter how important
the government’s diplomatic needs. And he added: ‘The Knesset
discussion did not relate to the present government of Turkey or the
current political situation’.

However the problem is that the Republic of Turkey, founded in 1923,
has catagorically rejected responsibility for the massacre of the
Armenians. Today in Turkey it is illegal to contend that Ottoman
Empire carried out a genocide of the Armenians. Twenty- one counries
including Canada, Italy, Russia, and Sweden have officially recognized
the Aremnian genocide. U.S. President Barack Obama has not referred to
it as genocide preferring to use the Armenian term Meds Yeghern. He
has described it as one of the worst atrocities of the twentieth
century and in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. Britain and
Australia have yet to officially recognize it. Recently, the lower
house of the French parliament passed a bill making it a crime to deny
the genocide of the Armenians punishable by a fine of 45,000 Euros and
one year in jail. It must also be approved by the French Senate in
order to become law.

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan reacted angrily by recalling his
ambassador to Paris and warning of ‘grave political and economic
consequences’. Erdogan also accused France of carrying out a genocide
of the Algerians during their war of liberation from 1954 to 1962.
Paris has been pressing Ankara to recognize its historic past in the
same manner that France has belatedly recognized that its own Vichy
government collaborated with Nazi Germany in the deporting of French
Jews to German concentration camps. But there are other international
cases as well. At the end of the nineteenth century, not long before
the Armenian massacre, King Leopold of Belgium carried out a
monsterous genocide in the Congo that murdered tens of millions of
Africans.

As documented by Harvard historian Caroline Elkins in her book
‘Imperial Reckoning’, the British reportedly massacred hundreds of
thousands of Kikuyu men, women and children during the Mau Mau
uprising in the fifties. Britain has refused to pay reparations
contending that the British government is no longer responsible for
what transpired during the colonial period. The point is should
Israel, in its unique role as representing the Jewish Holocaust, now
single out Turkey. Such an act could dash any hope of trying to repair
the strained relations between the countries; it could turn all
Turkish public opinion against the Jewish state and perhaps even make
Turkey a mortal enemy at a time that the Arab Spring may be spawning
even more dangerous threats.

Even the almighty United States of America has refrained from
officially recognizing the Armenian genocide due to its strategic
interests in the Middle East. And it’s not as if, the massacre was
ongoing like the recent blood-bath in Darfur that murdered up to
500,000, and where Israel did play a clandestine role in aiding the
Republic of South Sudan in achieving independence. By officially
joining the declarative campaign against Turkey, Israel would be
burning all her bridges with the former ally. Without going into
detail, it could even cost Israeli lives in the future. For example,
the U.S. and NATO are now building a-state-of- the- art anti-ballistic
missile system in Turkey. This missile defense is aimed at
intercepting ballistic missiles launched by Iran. Does Israel not have
a vital interest in doing everything possible to prevent any
disruption to this major bastion against Iran’s missile and nuclear
weapon capability?

David Essing

HETQ, Armenia
Dec 30 2011

After 22 Months of Captivity in Azerbaijan, Artur Badalyan Recalls the
Nightmares

23:40, December 29, 2011
Anush Bulghadaryan

For 22 months he had the tough planks as his bed and prayers as his
unquenchable hope. Somewhere far behind the mist was his 5-month son,
somewhere nearby – the mice, the non-stop voice of the metal and
humiliations.

Haghartsin village inhabitant Artur Badalyan, 32, carries in his mind
the nightmares of almost two years of the Azerbaijani captivity that
are engraved in his mind, dividing his life into before and after the
captivity.

Though he was back home on March 17, as a result of exchange of
captives, the nightmares, insomnia, the noises in his head and the
permanent feeling of pursuit do not leave him.

On May 9, 2009, Artur and his friends went to pick up mushrooms. In
the area of Berd town he lost his friends and his way and fell into
the enemy’s hands.

`Somebody asked for cigarettes in Armenian, I gave him. He said
nothing more. Only in Russian – don’t be afraid. Then several
approached and took me away,’ he recalls. `I was thinking the worst. I
thought I wouldn’t ever be back, they were going to slaughter me for
their bayram’.

At first, the Azerbaijanis took Artur to a border village military
unit, then to Ghazakh, then to Baku and then back to Ghazakh again.

The only good memory of Artur’s captivity in Baku’s lightless and damp
prison ward is the mouse with her young mice. They were born and grew
up before his eyes. He says they were his only friends in the days of
his nightmares.

He tells that the very second day of the captivity, in the military
unit of the unknown village, two men made him lie on the belly and
hurt his legs by beating him intensively. Afterwards, he was taken to
Azerbaijan’s Ghazakh town military unit, where they were switching
electric current through his arms.

`In Ghazakh I was kept lying one day with my hands tied. They wouldn’t
untie my arms, so that I could at least massage my legs. The next day,
too, they beat me and switched electricity to my arms. I felt the
current through whole my body,’ tells Artur with difficulty but in
details.

He tells that apart from the physical torture they would torment him
psychologically as well, aiming to make him commit suicide.

After Ghazakh, Artur stayed at one of Baku military units for a year
and 3 months.

`In Baku it was terrible. I was treated like a swine and not a human.
The ward had no window, there was no light. They would strike the door
with a metal item every day. I didn’t have a minute of rest.’

During those 2 years, the captive wasn’t allowed to walk, and very
often Artur had to do the deeds in the same ward, where he lived. He
was permitted to take care of his personal hygiene only once in 2-3
months in the yard. He recalls the freezing water jet on his body in
cold weather.

Many days he passed in hunger.

`It was a terrible situation. I washed my clothes only when they were
`cleaning’ the ward with chlorine. Then I had to close my eyes with a
piece of cloth, not to go blind. Whole night, naked, I was shaking my
clothes or lying on them to dry with the heat of my body. There was no
food. I was eating bad bread,’ tell the villager.

He says he was frequently catching cold and hardly being cured without
any medicine and care. It would be naïve even to dream of them.

In November 2010, Artur Badalyan was again moved to the same unit of
Ghazakh town. He says there he was given some medicaments in the food,
since he was feeling very bad, weak and almost insensible.

`They put a belt there for me to hang myself and there was a special
place for hanging, too’ says the survivor of Azerbaijani capture.

When he was in Ghazakh for the second time, he learnt some
representatives of the Red Cross would visit him – before that nobody
had ever paid him a visit.

`I told the Red Cross I went to Ghazakh to ask the Azerbaijani side to
send me to a third country. They had warned me if I failed to say so,
they would send me back to Baku. So, I had to obey, not to appear in
Baku again’, explains Artur Badalyan.

Artur is confident all the pressures he underwent had one aim – make
him go insane: `They were doing all that to make me mad, so that I
wouldn’t be be able to tell anything. They wanted my memory to become
weak, so that they could say I was crazy.’

Now is trying to recover with the help of his family. His son is 2.5
years old now.

For the tortures in captivity that Artur Badalyan suffered, Vanadzor
town’s `Populex’ bar office plans to sue Azerbaijan. This is the first
action in its form. They plan sending the suit to the European Court
of Human Rights within a month.

`A lot of things have changed. I have more goals now. I want to work
to help my family out of the hardships, to restore everything,’ dreams
Artur.

Translated by Narine Aghabekyan

The Jewish Daily Forward
Dec 30 2011

Recognition of Suffering, Far Too Late

Israel Only Marks Armenian Genocide To Settle Turkey Score

By Larry Derfner
Published December 30, 2011, issue of January 06, 2012.

Israel is definitely making progress on the subject of the Armenian
genocide. In late December, during the Knesset’s first ever open-door
debate on the issue, nobody was reported to have questioned whether
the deliberate killing of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915-’16 should be
called a genocide, nor whether the Ottoman Empire was the guilty
party, nor whether modern-day Turkey inherited that guilt. For once,
all this was taken for granted, as it has been for decades by
virtually all historians, notably Holocaust and genocide historians.

`As a people and as a country, we stand and face the whole world with
the highest moral demand that Holocaust denial is something human
history cannot accept. Therefore, we cannot deny the tragedy of
others,’ Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin told the Education Committee.

Hear, hear. But this is a far cry from the position taken, for
instance, in 2001 by then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who told a
Turkish newspaper that the Armenian genocide was `a matter for
historians to decide,’ and that Israel `reject[s] attempts to create a
similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations.’

No question, Israel has come a long way. When the U.S. Holocaust
Museum opened in 1993, Armenian-Americans lobbying for inclusion of
the Armenian genocide were met with a counter campaign organized by
Turkish officials and backed, according to museum officials, by the
efforts of the Israeli embassy.

For decades, official Israel not only `stood silent’ about the
Armenian genocide, it deployed the American Jewish Committee,
Anti-Defamation League and other lobbying groups to back up White
House efforts to ensure that Congress stood silent, too. As late as
2007, the ADL fired a senior official for challenging Abraham Foxman’s
opposition to a move in Congress for recognition of the genocide.

`Frankly, I’m pretty disgusted,’ Yehuda Bauer, Israel’s leading
Holocaust scholar, told me in 2005, when only a few academics and
liberal politicians were speaking out against Israel’s role as
blocking back for Turkey’s policy of denial. `I think that my
government preferred economic and political relations with Turkey to
the truth.’

That was then, but this is now, and now Israel’s relations with Turkey
are ice cold, so there’s a lot less to lose by recognizing the
Armenian genocide, and a great deal of satisfaction to be gained. `How
many times can they recall their ambassador?’ Knesset Member Uri
Orbach pointed out.

Shameless hypocrisy, that’s the only term for this Israeli spectacle.
The Knesset said nothing about the Armenian genocide all those years
when Israel wanted to preserve its alliance with Turkey, and now it
has the gall to pretend that it’s raising the issue `so that no one in
the world will think [genocide] can happen again,’ according to
Knesset Member Arye Eldad. The only Knesset members who come to this
issue with clean hands are those of Meretz, which over the years stood
alone among the political parties in demanding recognition of the
genocide and Turkey’s culpability for it.

I don’t know whose hypocrisy is worse – the Knesset’s or that of the
Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry, which oppose
recognition on the grounds that it will cause more bad blood with
Turkey, something Israel doesn’t need. National Security Adviser
Ya’akov Amidror reportedly told Israeli diplomats that now is the time
to `reduce tensions with Turkey, not pour more oil on the fire.’

Funny, but over the last two years, this consideration didn’t deter
the government from 1) sitting the Turkish ambassador on a low chair
to humiliate him in front of the TV cameras; 2) commandeering the
Turkish ship Mavi Marmara on its way to Gaza, which ended with the
killings of nine Turks aboard; 3) refusing to apologize for the
killings; and 4) just this last Thursday, canceling a $141 million
sale to Turkey of air force intelligence equipment.

Each of those moves was apparently worth deepening the rift with
Turkey. But not an attempt to end Israel’s collusion in the denial of
the 20th century’s first genocide, whose early disappearance from
history was cited by Hitler as proof that he could get away with a
genocide of his own.

In the end, though, I agree with the Prime Minister’s Office and
Foreign Ministry: Israel should not do a 180-degree turn and suddenly
recognize the Armenian genocide, especially not now. Like this week’s
`historic’ Knesset hearing, it would be too transparently false, too
embarrassing.

Israel has stood silent this long; let it remain silent.

World Socialist Web Site
Dec 30 2011

France prepares ban on denying a Turkish genocide of Armenians

By F. Dubois
30 December 2011

The National Assembly’s passage on December 22 of a law banning the
public denial of the Armenian genocide has provoked a major diplomatic
crisis between France and Turkey. In the days before the vote on the
law, the Turkish government tried to exert pressure to prevent the
vote, and reacted forcefully once the law was passed.

The Turkish state forbids the use of the term genocide to characterise
the massacres of Armenians perpetrated in 1915 on the territory of the
former Ottoman Empire.

The infringement of the new French law now carries the penalty of a
year in prison and a 45,000 fine.

The initiative for this law came from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s
government. During a visit to the Armenian capital Erevan in October,
he publicly pressed for the recognition of the Armenian genocide,
since `denial was not acceptable.’ Valérie Boyer, a deputy of the
ruling UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) for a Marseille constituency
with a large Armenian community, then proposed a bill on behalf of the
government.

Most of the deputies were not present for the debate before the vote.
The law was finally only voted on by some 50 majority and opposition
deputies, out of 577, with about 10 from both sides voting against.

The Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCF) voted with the
government in favour of the law, which, in fact, is a reprise of a
similar law passed by the National Assembly in 2006, which the UMP and
the government then opposed.

Historians who had already opposed such a law, again expressed their
hostility to the present law. In particular, they are worried that it
represents an attack on freedom of enquiry and freedom of speech, and
oppose giving the state the right to gag historians. The French
historian Pierre Nora, who opposes the voting of the law, in the name
of historians’ freedom, is quoted in Le Monde.

The law is deeply reactionary. It allows French imperialism to
hypocritically set itself up as a moral authority as it carries out a
military offensive in the Muslim world – with wars in Libya and in
Afghanistan, and an on-going intervention in Syria carried out with
the US and Turkey. It also facilitates dividing the working class
along ethnic lines, while giving the state anti-democratic censorship
powers.

One of Sarkozy’s more or less openly admitted motivations, in the
context of the campaign for the presidential election in April and May
2012, was to attract the Armenian vote.

Sarkozy is seeking re-election, as his government becomes ever more
unpopular. His inability to provide any solution to the economic
crisis and his repeated attacks on living standards, jobs and civil
rights as well as his defence of finance capital have provoked
hostility in the majority of the population. He is led in the polls by
the PS, and the neo-fascist National Front is close behind.

Sarkozy has systematically opposed the entry of Turkey into the
European Union (EU). The issue of the denial of the genocide, which
the new law penalises and puts at the same level as the Shoah, serves
as a further obstacle to Turkey’s membership of the EU.

As the former UMP minister and vehement supporter of the law, Patrick
Devidjan, admitted: `It’s a political act: just when Turkey wants to
join the European Union, and appear to be a country which defends
human rights, this law helps to reveal the attitude of Turkey on the
international arena and clearly shows that Turkey is not the country
of human rights.’

The announcement of the vote set off a major diplomatic crisis with
Turkey. The Turkish government and media reacted aggressively to the
vote. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened France
with economic and political sanctions, the freezing of military
cooperation, and diplomatic isolation in the Middle East.

Sarkozy’s initiative provoked incredulity and anger among many
bourgeois politicians, even within his own government. Foreign
Minister Alain Juppé (UMP) was quoted in the weekly Marianne saying:
`This bill is intellectually, economically and diplomatically
bullsh*t. We’re not going to get into a genocide competition. All that
just to get the votes of Frenchmen of Armenian extraction. It’s
ridiculous!’

Another rival presidential candidate, Dominique de Villepin, a former
prime minister who left the UMP in February 2011, has called the
voting of the law an `error.’ On December 25 on Europe 1 radio
station, he warned: `Let’s be prudent. We are opening up disputes
which will push us backwards and not forwards.’

That a section of big business should express its misgivings publicly
is not surprising. The past five years have seen a noticeable
rapprochement of France with Turkey, and a strong increase of French
investment in the country. Turkey has become an important export
market. France, which has 11.5 billion direct investments in Turkey,
sold 6.3 billion worth of exports there and bought 5.4 billion worth
of imports in 2010.

French car makers have 20 percent share of the Turkish market, and
French banks have obtain significant interest income there.

At a time when French imperialism is intervening in Syria, where it
partially depends on Turkey for assistance, Sarkozy’s initiative seems
very ill-chosen for large sections of the French bourgeoisie.

France has established close collaboration with Turkey in order to
intervene in the civil war which is developing between the Alawite
regime of Assad and the imperialist-backed Syrian National Council and
the Free Syrian Army. This imperialist intervention in Syria must be
seen in the broader context of a political, and potentially military,
imperialist confrontation with Iran throughout the Middle East.

Ever more pressing demands for a military intervention in Syria by the
imperialist powers, including France, are being expressed. Some days
ago, Bernard Valero, spokesman for the Foreign Office called on the
United Nations Security Council to vote `a firm resolution which
demands the end of the repression.’

According to the French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, and the
Turkish daily Milliyet, the Free Syrian Army is trained by British
soldiers and French intelligences service agents. For weeks the FSA
has been calling for `foreign air strikes’ (according to Le Monde of
November 24). France has committed itself to the establishment of a
`buffer zone’ between Turkey and Syria.

The French Senate must now debate the bill voted by the National
Assembly. The UMP Senator Roger Karoutchi pointed out yesterday that
it had not yet been written into the Senate timetable, adding that it
made him `uncomfortable’. According to Karoutchi, the Senate could
decide to place bill on the agenda for January 10, which would mean
that the Senate would debate it in February.

Zeynep Necipoglu of the French Chamber of Commerce in Turkey (CCFT)
has announced that the CCFT would carry out `a determined campaign
with the senators to make them aware…. of the great amount of damage
that [this initiative] is likely to cause.’ According to the CCFT,
this could enable the French political establishment to `act in order
for the bill to be voted down in the Senate.’

National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: Tell Me More 11:00 AM EST
December 29, 2011 Thursday

Turkey Prospers Amid Neighboring Nations’ Woes

GUESTS: Recep Tayyip Erdogan , John Peet, Rami Khouri, Ahmet Davutoglu

MICHEL MARTIN: I’m Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR
News. Coming up, it’s time for Kwanzaa, the week long celebration of
the African Diaspora. The holiday is supposed to emphasize family and
community and all things homemade, so of course, we’re going to talk
about food you might want to serve for your Kwanzaa celebration or
just because.

But first, as 2011 winds down, we’re taking some time to offer a twist
on the traditional end of year roundup here at TELL ME MORE and, in
fact, across NPR all week, we’re highlighting the people, movements
and ideas that had a good year.

Today, we turn to the country of Turkey. It was once called the sick
man of Europe, but all that has changed in the last decade. Just this
year, its neighbors to the west have gone through an economic crisis
that still threatens to topple the eurozone.

Turkey’s economy has been booming with an estimated seven percent
growth. Its neighbors to the east and south have gone through
widespread demonstrations and political turmoil, but Turkey has
championed the cause of the Arab Spring and is being increasingly
recognized as a regional player.

Let’s listen to this speech by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan addressed to the Syrian president. First, you’ll hear his
voice and then you’ll hear the voice of the translator. Here it is.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan : (Through Translator) If you believe in
yourself, if you are confident as a leader, you would call for
elections. If these ballot boxes take you to power, then you will come
to power and rule that country. You can remain in power with tanks and
cannons only up to a certain point. The day will come when you will
leave.

MICHEL MARTIN: We wanted to talk more about why this has been a good
year for Turkey, so we have called upon Rami Khouri. He is the
editor-at-large of The Daily Star in Beirut, Lebanon. We reached him
there. Also with us is John Peet, the Europe editor at The Economist
magazine and we reached him in Wilshire, England.

Thank you both so much for joining us. Happy holidays to you both.

JOHN PEET: Same to you.

RAMI KHOURI: Thank you.

MICHEL MARTIN: So Mr. Peet, I’m going to start with you because the
economy is such a concern in the U.S. and Europe at this time. So I’d
like to ask you why Turkey’s economy has had such a good year.

JOHN PEET: Well, it’s had a series of good years, but this year, 2011,
has been probably better than most of the previous ones. The Turkey
economy was in terrible state up to about 10 years ago. It went
through repeated high inflation, (unintelligible) crises, trouble with
the currency and they did a lot of economic reform at the time.

They sorted out their banks 10 years ago and the last 10 years have
been very good years, booming times, very strong exports to Europe and
increasingly to the region and through Asia and they’ve done well
again this year, so they’re much better off than the rest of Europe.
They look, really, like one of the BRIC countries.

MICHEL MARTIN: And has this rising tide lifted more boats than just
the few? I mean, has it, in fact, improved the living standard of
citizens in a way that they can feel?

JOHN PEET: Very strongly. I mean, the traditional visitor to Turkey
will go to Istanbul and life in Istanbul has been good for quite a
long time, but what I think has changed since I first went to Turkey
10 years ago has been the living standards right across the main
Anatolian land mass.

You go in to towns like Gaziantep or Kayseri in the middle of Anatolia
and living standards have increased very substantially in the last 10
years. People, you know – there are quite a lot of much richer people
and the average is much higher than it was. So it’s been a pretty good
time for most Turks.

MICHEL MARTIN: And Rami Khouri, let’s bring you into the conversation.
Here’s Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking to Al
Jazeera English about their policy toward the Arab Spring protests
this summer.

AHMET DAVUTOGLU: We established two principles. One is, now, it is
time for change in our region. There is a need of a new politics in
our region. Second, the method of this change should be peaceful
transformation.

MICHEL MARTIN: Now, of course, Rami, many, you know, diplomats from
many countries have been saying this, but they are not necessarily
believed. Tell us a little bit about what Turkey’s role has been in
the course of this tumultuous period. And are they seen as an
important player and to what end?

RAMI KHOURI: Well, Turkey has developed much greater influence in the
region and much closer – many closer, tighter connections in terms of
the business interests, some security interests, trade, tourism, open
borders, now they have open travel with many Arab countries. And this
has generated a sense that Turkey is not only a close partner, but
perhaps an influential big brother in some respects for some people in
the region and people look at Turkey in the Arab world, for the most
part, with a lot of admiration.

And almost everybody in the Arab world sees something in Turkey they
like. They like the business development, the economic boom, the
democratic transition, the rule of law. They like the Islamist
cultural influence, the fact that Islamist groups came into power.

Everybody sees something in Turkey that they like and the secular
nature of the system and, therefore, this has given Turkey some real
significant soft power influence in the region and it has tried to
learn over the last two or three years how to use that power, how to
use that influence in a constructive way, and as the foreign minister
pointed out, now they’re pretty much focused on trying to promote
democratic peaceful transitions, which is what they experienced in
their own country, so this is something quite positive and
significant.

How much Turkey can actually be involved inside Arab countries to
promote this remains to be seen and this is their big challenge now,
to translate a broad principle into actual foreign policy and actions.

MICHEL MARTIN: And as part of NPR’s year end series, we’re looking at
how 2011 was a good year for the country of Turkey. We’re speaking
with Rami Khouri of The Daily Star in Beirut and also John Peet of The
Economist.

Rami Khouri, pick up on that theme a bit, if you would. We’re saying
that Turkey is more influential in the region. How does it see itself?
You’re seeing its influence to what end, to help kind of ease the
transition to fuller participation in each of these countries and how?

RAMI KHOURI: Well, one of the things that Turkey is doing is that,
having become powerful, democratic, stable, self-confident, it’s now
learning how to use that potential power and influence that it has
around the region.

At the beginning of the Arab Spring, the Turks were a little bit
caught on the back foot. In mid-year, they weren’t quite sure in the
beginning what to do. They have huge business interests there. Then
they finally came down on the side of the people revolting for their
freedom.

And Syria, the same thing. They tried to intervene and then, finally,
they felt they were not treated honestly by the Syrian government and
they came out on the side of a democratic transition. So they’re
trying. They’re learning how to play the role of a regional power,
which is what they are.

They are doing this primarily for their own self-interests, as any
powerful country does. For them to have a democratic, stable,
prosperous and democratic Arab neighborhood is incredibly positive
because it drives their economy and then it helps in many other
strategic interests that they have.

MICHEL MARTIN: You know what’s interesting is that Turkey, for years,
at least from a marketing perspective and also diplomatically, in some
ways, has positioned itself as kind of the bridge and the buffer
between Europe and the Middle East. But for years, Turkey’s gone after
membership to the European Union with no results.

So John Peet, are Turks less interested now in joining the EU, you
know, as the European economies have struggled and as their own has
boomed?

JOHN PEET: I think they are. I think they are. You can see that when
you listen to Prime Minister Erdogan’s speeches or when you talk to
Foreign Minister Davutoglu, their goal clearly continues to be one day
to join the European Union. But to quite a large extent, they’ve been
rebuffed by the Europeans. The French and Germans have made clear that
they don’t want Turkey as a member and I think they are increasingly
seeing their role in the Middle East as not quite an alternative, but
as giving them some broader position that doesn’t just depend on
Europe.

MICHEL MARTIN: There are still concerns about Turkey’s human rights
record, are there not? This morning, we heard that a Turkish air
strike reportedly killed more than 30 people in a Kurdish area of
Iraq. Do you see these human rights concerns abating as time goes on
or is there still a concern that particularly the current regime kind
of has an authoritarian tilt that is of concern?

RAMI KHOURI: Well, the Turks are really making a transition, which is
a transition that any mature country or regional power goes through,
which is they come out of this idealistic, romantic world where they
say, as they have for years, that they want to have good relations
with everybody. They want to have no enemies in the region and that
worked for a few years.

But then their relations with Israel became tense. Their relations
with Iran may be getting a little bit more tense because of Syria.
They still have the Cypress issue that’s unresolved. The Armenian
issue is unresolved. The Kurdish issue.

So they’re really living in the real world, but it’s a real world in
which the assets and the positives that I mentioned of Turkey far
outweigh the negative ones. And it’s really exciting to watch Turkey
develop. And its problems are still there. They have to address them,
but I think they have the tools to address them more effectively than
has been the case in many other countries in the region.

MICHEL MARTIN: Rami Khouri is editor-at-large of The Daily Star in
Beirut, Lebanon. We reached him there. We heard also from John Peet.
He is the Europe editor at The Economist magazine and he was kind
enough to join us from Wilshire, England.

Thank you so much for speaking with us and happy holidays, once again.

RAMI KHOURI: Thank you and you, too.

JOHN PEET: Thank you. No problem.