Author: Kanayan Tamar

ARMENIA NOT IN DANGER OF FINANCIAL COLLAPSE
Panorama.am
19:52 16/10/06
Financial collapse may happen in Armenia only if the national currency
is fixed, Tigran Sargsyan, head of Central bank, told a parliament
hearing today referring to the example of Latin America.
In his words, the national currency was fixed in these countries
under the conditions of liberal economy.
“Power authorities did not allow the market to formulate the exchange
rate and that brought to financial collapse in those country,”
Sargsyan said.
After studying this experience, the Armenia authorities decided that
fixing currency exchange is not preferable for Armenia. “That is
why we are conducting a policy of freely floating exchange rate,”
Sargsyan mentioned.

CE COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS CONSIDERS FORTHCOMING ELECTIONS IN ARMENIA AS POSSIBILITY TO CONTINUE DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENTS
Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Oct 16 2006
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 16, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. On October 14,
RA National Assembly Speaker Tigran Torosian received Council of
Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Tommas Hammarberg.
According to the report submitted to Noyan Tapan from RA NA Public
Relations Department, NA Speaker informed the guest about the
parliament’s work. It was mentioned that the reforms of the Electoral
Code will be completed by the end of the year, which will become a
good legislative basis for holding the forthcoming state elections
in accordance with democratic standards. In this respect tolerance
of political forces towards one another and their cooperation was
mentioned as especially important, as the elections are not only a
way of forming the power, but also are an indicator of the state of
democracy and a possibility of its further deepening.
In addition to another issues, the meeting participants also touched
upon the possibilities for human rights protection, reforms in court
and legal and local self-government systems, creation of reserving
mechanisms and counter-balances among state government wings created
as a result of the constitutional reform.
The sides mutually attached importance to reforms in the court and
legal system in the respect of weakening of political influence and
prevention of corruption.
Touching upon the forthcoming elections, Mr Hammarberg considered
them as a possibility to continue democratic developments. He attached
importance to full fledging of ombudsman’s institution, civil society
and freedom of media in the country for the latters to be able to be
unbiassed when covering the events.
Boyana Urumova, Special Representative of CE Secretary General,
and Ambassador Christian Der-Stepanian, Resident Representative of
Armenia to PACE, also took part in the meeting.

POLITICS LOOMS IN PAMUK’S NOBEL SPEECH
Agence France Presse — English
October 15, 2006 Sunday
Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish author who has won this year’s Nobel prize
for literature, plans to use his acceptance speech to explain his
views on several subjects, German magazine Der Spiegel said on Sunday.
Pamuk told the news weekly he was preparing “a thought piece in the
good European tradition” for delivery when he accepts the award from
Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on December 10.
“For the moment I am thinking of making it in the form of an essay,”
he said.
“I plan to use the opportunity to put across my point of view on
several issues,” he added, but declined to reveal the content of
the speech.
Pamuk, 54, on Thursday became the first Turkish writer to win the
prestigious prize.
The politically outspoken author, whose books focus on Turkey’s
struggle between Islam and secularism and its ties to Europe, has
clashed frequently with the Turkish establishment.
Pamuk was put on trial after telling a Swiss newspaper last year that
30,000 Kurds and one million Armenians had been killed during World
War I under the Ottoman Turks.
But the case was dropped after it drew widespread international
protest.

FRANCE’S ATTITUDE CHANGING COPENHAGEN POLITICAL CRITERIA
By Suleyman Kurt
Zaman, Turkey
Oct 16 2006
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has criticized France for its Armenian
genocide denial bill, claiming that France’s attitude has changed
the Copenhagen political criteria.
Minister Gul arrived in Luxembourg yesterday to attend the “Turkey-EU
troika” meeting, where Turkey’s reform process and additional protocol
will be discussed.
Gul will mention his views on the Armenian genocide bill, while the
EU side is expected to reiterate its request for Turkey to fulfill
the additional protocol.
Current EU term president Finland’s Cyprus plan will also be on the
agenda. The Turkish side will most likely stipulate improving Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus access to the outside world, as well as
modifications to some points regarding the start of negotiations to
open ports.
Asked if Turkey had changed its stance regarding Article 301 of the
Turkish Penal Code, Gul said that as long as the opinions expressed
do not advocate violence, people could freely express their thoughts
in Turkey.
Before leaving for Luxembourg, Gul told reporters that he would remind
the EU side that France’s current attitude had changed the Copenhagen
political criteria.
“Turkey is not a full member of the EU and it is aware of what it is
lacking. …. We are a country that is exerting extreme efforts to
eliminate such shortcomings,” Gul said.
Gul informed reporters that he had communicated the concerns of Turkish
Prime Minister Reccep Tayyip Erdogan to French President Jacques Chirac
in a telephone conversation, emphasizing that both the international
community and the EU has criticized the recent developments in France.
Turkish-French relations have suffered a great blow and France’s
prestige has been damaged, Gul said, expressing optimism that French
politicians would realize the severity of the situation and take
appropriate measures.
In regards to Finland’s Cyprus proposal, Gul recalled that there were
two sides on the island, Turkish Cyprus and Greek Cyprus, and added
that a solution approved by both sides would be favored.

FRENCH TRY TO END TURKS’ EU BID
By Kerstin Gehmlich
Gulf Times, Qatar
Oct 15 2006
PARIS: French deputies hailed a vote to make denial of the Armenian
genocide a crime as a triumph for human rights, but analysts said
Thursday’s vote had more to do with fears of Turkey’s EU entry and
an election next year.
Despite harsh criticism from Ankara and business fears of a Turkish
backlash, the lower house of parliament passed a law imposing prison
terms on anyone who denies Armenians suffered genocide in 1915 at
the hands of Ottoman Turks.
Parliamentarians celebrated the Socialist-sponsored bill, which
still needs Senate approval, as “immense progress…for the cause of
humanity” and a “proposal for civil peace”.
But analysts said the impulse for the initiative was more prosaic,
coming barely six months before parliamentary and presidential
elections and amid a climate of strong French voter opposition to
Turkey’s European Union entry.
“There is a very strong Armenian minority (in France) but there also
is the issue of bringing Turkey into the EU,” said Hall Gardner from
the American University of Paris.
“(The law) is meant to block Turkey’s entry into the EU. That’s the
strategy of some people,” he said.
Conservative presidential frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out
strongly against Turkey’s EU entry.
Segolene Royal, his likely Socialist rival has not yet stated her
position on Turkey’s membership but said on Wednesday Ankara needed
to recognise the Armenia genocide to confirm its candidacy.
A recent survey showed some 60% of French opposed to Ankara entering
the bloc. Critics say Turkey is too big, too poor and too culturally
different to become a fully integrated member of the EU.
Concerns about Turkey’s possible EU membership was blamed in part
for French voters’ rejection of the EU constitution in a referendum
last year.
Turkey denies accusations of a genocide of some 1.5mn Armenians during
the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, arguing that
Armenian deaths were a part of general partisan fighting in which
both sides suffered.
France’s Armenian community, which is up to 500,000-strong and one
of the largest in Europe, had pushed hard for the bill and found
cross-party support in parliament.
“Several deputies with strong Armenian communities in their districts
told themselves to ensure re-election, they are standing by those
who demand punishment for denial of the genocide,” said political
scientist Didier Billion.
Turkey was quick to condemn the vote and its Foreign Ministry said it
had dealt a severe blow to French-Turkish ties. Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan this week told France to examine its own colonial past rather
than preach to Turkey.
Some French critics asked whether their own country had learnt anything
from its empire having ended in bloody wars in Indochina and Algeria.
A French law urging teachers to stress the “positive role” of the
French overseas presence sparked a heated national debate and large
protests earlier this year, forcing President Jacques Chirac to order
its repeal.
Analysts said the controversy over France’s colonial past made the
human rights rhetoric behind the Armenia bill less credible.
“For some deputies, there is a moral duty to say France, as the home
of human rights, must take a position on these issues,” said Billion
of the IRIS institute.
“But … rather than being proud about our universal message on human
rights, we have to address some problems linked to our own history,”
he said.

The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
October 13, 2006 Friday
Early Edition
French genocide bill angers Turks
by: David Rennie, The Telegraph
The French parliament has triggered a new crisis in Turkey’s
relations with Europe by approving a bill that would make it a crime
to deny that Armenians suffered a genocide at the hands of Ottoman
Turks.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Thursday’s vote in the French
national assembly had dealt “a heavy blow” to bilateral relations.
Turkey denies that massacres of Armenians between 1915 and 1923
amounted to genocide, saying large numbers of Turks and Armenians
died in civil war.
Ali Babacan, Turkey’s economics minister, said it was too soon to
know whether the Turkish public would heed calls from nationalist
groups to boycott French goods.
“As the government, we are not encouraging that, but this is the
people’s decision,” he said.
The Socialist-backed law was widely criticized in Turkey as another
attempt by European politicians to place obstacles in the path of
Ankara’s painful progress toward membership in the European Union.
Polls have shown that 60 per cent of the French public is opposed to
Turkish entry into the EU.
France would impose a one-year prison term and a fine of more than
$200,000 Cdn for anyone denying the Armenian genocide, following the
lead of an earlier law on denying the Nazi Holocaust.
The vote came months ahead of French presidential and parliamentary
elections, in which the 400,000-member Armenian community in France
will form a formidable voter bloc.
The bill doesn’t have government support and seems likely to fall in
the Senate.
Both President Jacques Chirac, and Segolene Royal, the Socialist
presidential front-runner, say that Turkey must acknowledge the
genocide of the Armenians before joining the EU. Nicolas Sarkozy, the
conservative front-runner, is opposed to Turkey’s EU entry under any
conditions.
Meanwhile, the Turkish parliament scrapped plans for a tit-for-tat
law that would have made it illegal to deny that French colonialists
committed genocide against the Algerians in their war for
independence.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told MPs: “You don’t clean up
dirt with more dirt.”
He repeated calls to Armenia jointly to research the killings by
opening the historical archives of both countries to historians.

Agence France Presse — English
October 13, 2006 Friday
France’s ‘genocide’ bill a ‘booby trap’ against Turkey’s EU bid: press
France has blackened its name as a country of freedom by voting a
controversial bill Thursday on the World War I massacres of
Armenians, Turkish newspapers said Friday, denouncing the draft as a
bid to block Turkey’s struggling bid to join the European Union.
“Genocide of thought,” the mass-circulation Hurriyet said on its
front page, one day after the French National Assembly adopted a bill
— by 106 votes to 19 in the 577-seat house — making it a jailable
offence to deny that Armenians were the victims of genocide by
Ottoman Turks betwen 1915-17.
“106 stupid men,” the popular daily Vatan blared, describing the
lawmakers who voted for the bill as “Les Miserables”, after French
author Victor Hugo’s classic novel.
The mass-circulation Sabah ran, in French, the headline “J’accuse” —
after the title of another French author’s, Emile Zola’s, landmark
1898 article in favor of human rights — and described the bill as
“an unjustified decision that has hurt all Turks”.
“France has guillotined democracy,” the popular Aksam newspaper said.
Many commentators said the bill aimed to thwart Ankara’s membership
talks with the European Union, which began last year amid widespread
scepticim on whether this mainly Muslim country has a place in
Europe.
“The bill aims to booby trap Turkey’s path to EU membership rather
than touch our sore spot concerning the allegations of Armenian
genocide,” a commentator in Sabah said.
“Turkey’s opponents… will now watch from the sidelines to see if we
fall for the trap and, if we do, they will create pandemonium,
arguing that Turkey has failed to adapt to European culture,” he
wrote.
“Arrogant France does not want to become equals in the EU with the
Turks it despises,” wrote the popular Vatan. “It is trying with this
unjust act to anger Turkey and make it feel insecure in order to sap
its will and determination” to join the EU.
A commentator in the liberal Radikal described the bill as a “blow
below the belt” to discourage Turkey from EU membership, an
alternative to coming up with concrete reasons to oppose Ankara’s
European aspirations.
Milliyet, another liberal daily, said the bill could result in a drop
of already waning public support in Turkey for EU membership.
It said the EU too should oppose the bill, which it described as
“indefensible anywhere in the world.”
“This (bill) is a legal freak that the EU should oppose as firmly as
Ankara,” it said. “The EU should remind France of the Copenhagen
criteria,” the bloc’s basic tenets on human rights and freedoms.
Turkey has threatened retaliatory measures for the bill, which must
be approved by the French Senate and the president before it becomes
law, including barring French companies from potentially lucrative
projects.
Civic groups have said they are considering calling for a public
boycott of French goods.
But many commentators argued that Ankara should think twice before
going down that road and opt for legal action rather than economic
sanctions, which could have a bruising effect on Turkey.
“What we need to do is take steps that will deliver the biggest blow
to France without inflaming the public,” a commentator in Sabah said.
“I hope we handle this well, because irrational xenophobia is the
last thing a country financing a… 30 billion dollar current
accounts deficit with foreign investment needs.”

NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Oct 13 2006
Genocide bill betrays France’s own values: Arinc
There is no evidence to suggest that the Ottoman Empire carried out a
systematic genocide of Armenians, a leading Turkish historian said
Friday.
Güncelleme: 16:34 TSÝ 13 Ekim 2006 CumaANKARA – By making the denial
of the alleged massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire a criminal
offence, France has betrayed its on principles, the speaker of the
Turkish parliament said Friday.

Saying that it was a great disgrace for the French parliament to have
passed such legislation, parliamentary speaker Bulent Arinc said that
the Turkish parliament would probably approve a resolution formally
condemning the decision.
On Thursday, the lower house of the French parliament approved
legislation that foresees fines of 45,000 euros and up to one year in
prison for those convicted of denying that the so-called Armenian
genocide took place.
`This is a big shame for France, and it has betrayed its own values
if any,’ Arinc said `It made this decision, violating all its
principles.’
Another to criticise the vote was Doctor Yusuf Halacoglu, the
chairman of the Turkish History Society. Speaking at a meeting of
representatives of Turkish non-government organisations to discuss
the new French legislation, Halacoglu said there was no indication or
document proving that Turks committed genocide.
In order to prove such allegations, there must be an open intention
to annihilate in a genocide, he said. However what had been
experienced by the Armenians during the Ottoman era was a relocation,
Halacoglu said.
`Not only the Ottoman documents but also the reports of the US
consuls indicated that these people were paid some allowances during
relocation,’ he said. `You won’t allocate appropriations to people
whom you want to annihilate. So it is impossible to define as a
genocide legally what the Armenians had experienced during World War
One.’

Sunday Times, Australia
Oct 14 2006
Armenians rally to support genocide billFrom correspondents in
Yerevan
October 14, 2006 02:30am
AROUND 1000 students rallied in the Armenian capital overnight to
thank the French parliament for backing a bill that would make it a
crime to deny that Turks committed genocide against the Armenians in
the early 20th century.
“Thank You France!” and “Hail French Justice!” read two of the
placards held up by the students from a nationalist youth group, who
waved flags of Armenia and France as they marched through central
Yerevan.
Participants at the rally laid flowers by the French embassy
building.
“With this march we want to express our gratitude to the French
parliament and the French people,” said Aik Asatryan, head of the
Dashnaktsutyun group that organised the march.
“We want to say thank you. Despite threats from Turkey, they were not
afraid and took the right decision,” Mr Asatryan said.
Participants at the rally presented France’s ambassador to Yerevan,
Henry Cuny, with a letter that read: “With this step France has once
again shown its support for defending human rights and freedom of
speech.”
The French parliament on Thursday approved on first reading a bill
that would make it a crime to deny that the 1915-1917 massacres of
Armenians by the Ottoman Turks constituted genocide.
The bill still needs the approval of the Senate and the president to
take effect.
Turkey, which strongly rejects the use of the term genocide in the
sensitive Armenian issue, slammed the vote, saying France had dealt
“a heavy blow” to longstanding bilateral relations.

A1+
FRANCE IS NOT EU YET
[04:01 pm] 13 October, 2006
According to European Union Commissioner for External
Relations and European Neighborhood Policy Benita
Ferrero-Waldner, the decision of the French Parliament
to criminalize the negation of the Armenian Genocide
will not influence the process of the membership of
Turkey in the EU, Radio station «Azatutyun» informs.
«What happens in France differs from what the EU does
with the country which wants to join the EU»,
announced Benita Ferrero-Waldner on Friday.
The European Union Commissioner also said that «the
issue of the Armenian Genocide is raised in France
periodically because there is a large Armenian
community in the country».