Author: Kanayan Tamar

GERMAN-TURKISH FILMMAKER FATIH AKIN: “THE CUT” HIGHLIGHTED GENOCIDE TO REVEAL PART OF TRUTH

Egypt Independent
November 12, 2014 Wednesday

Al-Masry Al-Youm

German-born Turkish Filmmaker Fatih Akin held a symposium on Tuesday
at the Cairo Opera House on his film The Cut, which opened the 36th
session of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) on 9 November.

Akin said that he did not come to Egypt to see the pyramids but
because he has Arab and Islamic origins and to form real image
of the incidents happening in Egypt. He expressed happiness about
participation in the festival.

He said that he selected the Armenian genocide as an idea for his
film adding that many issues are not approached by anyone, thus he
decided to spot the light on the genocide trying to reveal part of
the truth on it.

Akin also said that he filmed his movie in many countries like Jordan,
Cuba, Germany, Canada and Malta. It will be screened in Turkey on 5
December, he said noting that the criticism he received was totally
unbiased.

He denied presence of problems with the government or the current
regime in Turkey, from where he got the permission to shoot the film.

The only obstacle Akin faced was the censorship, as many laws were
applied on his film.

“The movie, which costed 15 million euros mainly from European
donations, will be screened in the US in April,” he said.

Regarding the financing of the film, which he took part at, Akin
considered himself lucky for getting the donations, that he expected
them to end soon explaining that the cinema industry in Europe is
about to vanish given the declining number of moviegoers.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON JEN PSAKI HOLDS A NEWS BRIEFING AT THE FOREIGN PRESS CENTER

CQ Transcriptions
November 12, 2014 Wednesday

[parts omitted]

Go ahead. I promised you in the front. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi. My name is Nikki Kazimova and I’m with Echo Newspaper
in Azerbaijan, and my question is about the earlier incident today in
Nagorno-Karabakh. Apparently there was an Armenian military helicopter
that was engaged in military exercises and that was shot by the
Azerbaijani side. Do you have any comment on that, and specifically
on military exercises at the time when there are negotiations and
when there is a cease-fire that — it’s a delicate situation.

PSAKI: Thank you. It certainly is. We — let me first say we regret
the loss of life as a result of today’s downing of a helicopter along
the line of contact. We extend our condolences to the families of
those killed or injured. Today’s events are yet another reminder
of the need to redouble efforts on a peaceful resolution to the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, including reducing tensions and respecting
the cease-fire. There can be no military solution to the conflict.

Retaliation and further violence will only make it more difficult to
bring about a peaceful settlement.

Obviously, we have seen those reports. We know there are different
comments being made by different sides, but I don’t have any
verification of any of those details, so our focus from here is
on just encouraging a redoubling of efforts to achieve a peaceful
solution in this conflict.

PRESS STATEMENT BY THE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS

Targeted News Service
November 12, 2014 Wednesday 9:16 PM EST

Targeted News Service

VIENNA

The U.S. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe issued the following news release:

The Minsk Group Co-Chairs (Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian
Federation, James Warlick of the United States, and Pierre Andrieu
of France) express our very serious concern about the downing of
a helicopter near the Line of Contact and the recent violence. We
regret the loss of life and express our condolences to the families.

The Co-Chairs are deeply worried by the events that prompted this
drastic incident, the first of its kind since the ceasefire agreement
was reached. We strongly appeal to the sides to avoid steps that would
escalate tension along the Line of Contact and Armenia-Azerbaijan
border. The region cannot afford another round of violence like we
witnessed this summer. Today’s events remind us of the volatility of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the urgency to intensify efforts
to find a lasting settlement. We remain resolved to assist the sides
in any way possible.

We remind the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan of their
responsibilities to respect the ceasefire and honour the commitments
they made in Sochi, Newport, and Paris to find a peaceful resolution
to the conflict. We also encourage them to adopt confidence-building
measures now that would increase transparency along the Line of Contact
and the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, and reduce the likelihood of events
like today’s incident.

ARMENIA CAN BOOST INCOME GROWTH AND YOUTH EMPLOYMENT THROUGH AGRICULTURE

Targeted News Service
November 12, 2014 Wednesday 2:26 AM EST

ROME

The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development
issued the following news release:

The government of the Republic of Armenia and the International Fund
for Agricultural Development (IFAD) signed a US$11.0 million loan
agreement to finance the Infrastructure and Rural Finance Support
Programme in the seven regions of Shirak, a province in the north-west
of the country.

With a total cost of $52.8 million, the IFAD-supported project is
co-financed with a $25-million contribution from the OPEC Fund for
International Development (OFID); $3.5 million from other bilateral
donors; $10.1 million from the government of Armenia; $3.5 million
from the rural women and men benefitting from the project and $0.9
million from national financial institutions. The financing agreement
was signed today in Rome by Armen Harutyunyan, Deputy Minister for
Agriculture and by Michel Mordasini, IFAD Vice-President.

Over 70 per cent of the land area in Armenia is used for agriculture
which provides employment to 44 per cent of the country’s population,
including 65 per cent of people living in rural areas. Agriculture
activities such as horticulture, viticulture and livestock production
are favoured due to the high altitude of the land, small average
farm size and abundant labour. This new IFAD-funded activity in
Armenia helps respond to rapid changes in the business, financial and
agricultural sectors as the country’s economy continues on the road
to recovery. It aims to improve the economic and social status of
the population by generating income growth and sustainable employment
opportunities.

The programme will target more than 66,000 beneficiaries, with
a specific focus on women-headed households which are now more
prominent as increasing numbers of men and young people are leaving
rural areas in search of jobs. The seven regions covered (Lori,
Tavoush, Gegharqunik, Vajots Dzor, Sjunik and Aragatsotn) have the
highest incidence of poverty in rural Armenia, but also have high
agricultural potential to lift beneficiaries out of poverty.

Since 1995, IFAD has invested a total of $78.2 million in 6 programmes
and projects in Armenia benefitting approximately 394,000 rural
households.

U.S. SAILORS ATTACKED IN TURKEY, HAVE BAGS PLACED OVER HEADS

November 12, 2014

(CNN) — Three U.S. Navy sailors were assaulted and had bags placed
over their heads during a stop in Istanbul, Turkey, according to U.S.

military officials.

The incident, captured on video, happened Wednesday when sailors from
the USS Ross were attacked by members of the Turkish Youth Union,
according to local Turkish press accounts.

“US Navy officials are working with the embassy and NCIS to investigate
the incident. The three sailors were unharmed and are safely back
aboard. They did not require medical attention,” Capt.

Greg Hicks, a spokesman with U.S. European Command told CNN.

The assailants appeared to be neo-nationalists shouting slogans like
“Yankee Go Home,” according to local press accounts. They did not
appear to be tied to ISIS, which is based in neighboring Syria.

“The incident does not reflect the hospitality nor the welcome
reception our ships receive in port in Turkey,” Hicks went on to say,
and added that leave for sailors from the ship was canceled for the
remainder of the day.

The United States Embassy in Ankara condemned the attack through its
official Twitter feed.

‘We condemn today’s attack in Istanbul, and have no doubt the vast
majority of Turks would join us in rejecting an action that so
disrespects Turkey’s reputation for hospitality.”

TURKISH ARCHITECTS CALL ON POPE FRANCIS NOT TO VISIT THE NEW PRESIDENTIAL PALACE

14:01, 12 Nov 2014

Turkey’s Chamber of Architects has penned a letter to Pope Francis,
calling on him not to attend a ceremony set to be held at the country’s
new presidential palace during his upcoming visit as the guest of
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

Pope Francis is set to be the first house guest at the Presidential
Palace, colloquially known as the Ak Saray (White Palace), on Nov. 28.

However, the managers of the Ankara branch of the Chamber of Architects
have penned a letter to the Pope, including a report that details case
documents and court decisions over the controversial construction of
the new palace.

The architects asked the pope “not to legitimize the construction,
which is illegal according to international laws, by attending the
ceremony to be held at the unlicensed building.”

The Chamber of Architects Ankara Branch Head Tezcan KarakuÃ…~_ Candan
said they would continue to write letters to all heads of state to
prevent them from attending ceremonies at the “unlicensed palace.”

“We have taken the fight for the Ataturk Forest Farm to an
international level. We will follow through on this and deliver our
reports and letters to all foreign guests,” Candan said.

The Ankara branch has also requested that the Vatican Embassy give
them an appointment.

On Feb. 2, 2012, the Ankara Regional Natural Reserves Commission
reduced the size of the forest’s protected area to seven hectares,
paving the way for the construction of an enormous complex. A previous
court decision had ruled for a halt on the construction of a new Prime
Ministry complex, citing violation of the principles of urban planning,
ecology and science and adding that the completion of the project could
“cause damage that would be hard to repair.”

The complex lies on a 150,000-square-meter area inside the historic
Ataturk Forest Farm, one of the most well-preserved green spaces in
Ankara, and hundreds of trees were cut down for its construction. It is
equipped with a number of high-technology systems aimed at precluding
eavesdropping with bugs and wires, and has a total of 1,000 rooms,
considerably larger than the White House, the Kremlin and Buckingham
Palace.

Controversy over the palace soared when Finance Minister Mehmet
Ã…~^imÃ…~_ek told a parliamentary budget committee last week that the
total cost so far was 1.37 billion Turkish Liras ($615 million),
around double the original price tag.

OBAMA RECEIVED $7,000 WORTH GIFT FROM AZERI OFFICIALS IN 2013

17:22, 12 Nov 2014

Top US officials, including President Barack Obama and first lady,
appear to have received expensive gifts from Azeri officials last
year, according to the State Department’s annual accounting of gifts
published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.

Elin Suleymanov, Azeri Ambassador to the US, presented President
Obama with a large Azerbaijani rug with red, white and blue geometric
designs worth $6,560 on December 5th 2013, while first lady Michelle
Obama received a traditional Azerbaijani red headscarf worth $435,
according to the official records.

Secretary of State John Kerry also was handed by the ambassador
a 24.5â~@³ O 39â~@³ hand-woven silk rug worth approximately $760,
last December in Washington DC, while his then-top diplomat to Baku
Richard Morningstar was given a 39.25â~@³ O 47.25â~@³ silk carpet
last November worth $625.

Safar Abiyev, Azerbaijan’s former defense minister presented Chuck
Hagel, Secretary of Defense wine serving set worth of $600, during
his trip to Washington, DC last August.

Besides gifts, the Azeri government officials also appeared to have
upgraded a bunch of top US gov’t officials travels to business class
while flying from Baku to Paris last August, according to the official
records.

The State Department’s report comes just hours before several top
American elected officials are reportedly to gather tonight at the
luxury gala dinner hosted by Ambassador Suleymanov and a son of an
Azeri multi-billionaire minister in the US Capital, Contact.az reports.

Dozens of guests from the US administration, Congress, diplomatic
corps and think tanks are estimated to attend the dinner named
“Celebrating the Natural Beauty of Azerbaijan,” at the Andrew W.

Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.

Among the “Honorary Host Committee” of today’s gala there will be dozen
of lawmakers, such as Congresswoman Corrine Brown, Senator Richard
Burr, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, Congressmen Michael Fitzpatrick,
Steve Cohen, Cory Gardner, Gene Green, Billy Long and many others,
according to the source. The official organizer of the event is shown
as Azerbaijani American for Alliance, a group chaired by Anar Mammadov,
son of Azerbaijan’s transportation minister Ziya Mammadov.

None of the mentioned above immediately returned a request for comment
on Tuesday.

Mammadov has paid at least $2 million for covering expenses of 2012
gala dinner, according to the official records.

Last year, Mammadov’s organization spent $5 million for a single
DC lobbying group Fabiani& Company to establish contacts with the
US officials.

Content-Type: MESSAGE/RFC822; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Description:

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
From: Mihran Keheyian
Subject: Obama received $7,000 worth gift from Azeri officials in 2013

Obama received $7,000 worth gift from Azeri officials in 2013

17:22, 12 Nov 2014

Top US officials, including President Barack Obama and first lady,
appear to have received expensive gifts from Azeri officials last
year, according to the State Departmentâ??s annual accounting of gifts
published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.

Elin Suleymanov, Azeri Ambassador to the US, presented President Obama
with a large Azerbaijani rug with red, white and blue geometric
designs worth $6,560 on December 5th 2013, while first lady Michelle
Obama received a traditional Azerbaijani red headscarf worth $435,
according to the official records.

Secretary of State John Kerry also was handed by the ambassador a
24.5â?³ Ã? 39â?³ hand-woven silk rug worth approximately $760, last
December in Washington DC, while his then-top diplomat to Baku Richard
Morningstar was given a 39.25â?³ Ã? 47.25â?³ silk carpet last November
worth $625.

Safar Abiyev, Azerbaijanâ??s former defense minister presented Chuck
Hagel, Secretary of Defense wine serving set worth of $600, during his
trip to Washington, DC last August.

Besides gifts, the Azeri government officials also appeared to have
upgraded a bunch of top US govâ??t officials travels to business class
while flying from Baku to Paris last August, according to the official
records.

The State Departmentâ??s report comes just hours before several top
American elected officials are reportedly to gather tonight at the
luxury gala dinner hosted by Ambassador Suleymanov and a son of an
Azeri multi-billionaire minister in the US Capital, Contact.az
reports.

Dozens of guests from the US administration, Congress, diplomatic
corps and think tanks are estimated to attend the dinner named
â??Celebrating the Natural Beauty of Azerbaijan,â?? at the Andrew W.
Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.

Among the â??Honorary Host Committeeâ?? of todayâ??s gala there will be
dozen of lawmakers, such as Congresswoman Corrine Brown, Senator
Richard Burr, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, Congressmen Michael
Fitzpatrick, Steve Cohen, Cory Gardner, Gene Green, Billy Long and
many others, according to the source. The official organizer of the
event is shown as Azerbaijani American for Alliance, a group chaired
by Anar Mammadov, son of Azerbaijanâ??s transportation minister Ziya
Mammadov.

None of the mentioned above immediately returned a request for comment
on Tuesday.

Mammadov has paid at least $2 million for covering expenses of 2012
gala dinner, according to the official records.

Last year, Mammadovâ??s organization spent $5 million for a single DC
lobbying group Fabiani& Company to establish contacts with the US
officials.

ARMENIA DOESN’T RECOGNIZE EXISTENCE OF “NAGORNO-KARABAKH REPUBLIC”

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Nov 12 2014

12 November 2014 – 3:33am

Today the consideration of the bill of the opposition party “Heritage”
in the parliament of Armenia “On concepts of military-political
bases of safety of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (Artsakh) and the
Republic of Armenia” has taken place within which, in particular,
official recognition of the sovereignty of the occupational mode of
Nagorno-Karabakh is proposed.

As the member of “Heritage” Zarui Postandzhyan declared, the time
for the recognition of the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh
separatists “has been coming for a long time.” “If Yerevan sets as
a goal the international recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia as
the subject of international law first of all is obliged to do so,”
Postandzhyan said, having explained that she was pushed to this idea
by conversations with foreign diplomats.

Parliament didn’t support the initiative of the opposition party and
refused to vote for the bill.

HISTORIC ARMENIAN CHURCH DESTROYED BY ISLAMISTS IN SYRIA

Christian Today
Nov 12 2014

Published 11 November 2014 | Cath Martin

A historic church in Syria dedicated to the one and a half million
Armenians murdered by the Turks in 1915 has reportedly been reduced
to rubble by Islamists.

According to The Independent, the destruction of the Armenian church
in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour appears to have been committed
by Jabhat al-Nusra rebels.

Irreplaceable archives dating back to 1841 – shortly before the
church’s 1846 construction – and which included documents on the
Armenian genocide have been reduced to ashes.

In a further act of insult, the bones of hundreds of genocide victims
have reportedly been removed from the crypt and strewn on the street
outside.

Overseer of the Armenian church in the Deir el-Zour district,
Monsignor Antranik Ayvazian, told The Independent’s Robert Fisk that
the militants tried to use the church as leverage, promising not to
destroy the priceless archive if he in return acknowledged them as
the legislative authority in the area.

He refused and they set about destroying the church.

“I refused,” he said. “And after I refused, they destroyed all our
papers and endowments. The only genocide victims’ bones left were
further north in the Murgada sanctuary and I buried them before I
left. They destroyed the church there, but now if I could go back,
I don’t even know if I could find where I put the bones.”

He only found out about the church’s destruction when a secret photo
showing the ruined building was smuggled to him.

It is not only the fact that the bones of genocide victims were stored
at the church; its place in Armenian history is poignant because the
priest at the time, Father Petrus Terzibashian, was killed by Turks
in front of the congregation, says Msr Ayvazian.

“Then they threw his body into the Euphrates,” he said. “This time
when the Islamists came, our priest there fled for his life.”

WHO BLEW UP THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MEMORIAL CHURCH IN DEIR EL-ZOUR?

Hyperallergic
Nov 12 2014

by Sam Hardy on November 11, 2014

Fifty days after the destruction of the Armenian Genocide Martyrs’
Memorial Church in Deir el-Zour, Robert Fisk has reported it in the
Independent, but his article is riddled with peculiarities, mistakes,
and historical inconsistencies.

Peculiarities and mistakes

For one thing, the report feels strangely timed. It declares that
the “act of sacrilege will cause huge pain” to Armenians around the
world — seven weeks after the attack was lamented by political and
religious representatives of the aggrieved community.

For another, Fisk writes searingly of Armenian suffering during the
Ottoman genocide and its exacerbation by Turkish state denial ever
since, then misplaces Armenian Genocide memorial day, saying that,
every year, “thousands of Armenians … gathered at their church in
Deir el-Zour on 25 April,” when it was on April 24.

Most unsettling, though, one gonzo narrative within Fisk’s new
Independent story concerns his exhumation of human remains. Moreover,
it directly contradicts another narration of the story that he
published in the Independent less than a year ago. This November,
he wrote:

When I investigated the death marches in this same region 22 years
ago with a French photographer, we uncovered dozens of skeletons in
the crevasse of a hill at a point where so many Armenian dead were
thrown into the waters of the Khabur that the river changed its course
forever. I gave some of the skulls and bones we found to an Armenian
friend who placed them in the crypt of the Deir el-Zour church –
the very same building which now lies in ruins.

And last December, he wrote:

Just over 30 years ago, I dug the bones and skulls of Armenian genocide
victims out of a hillside above the Khabur River … It was difficult
to find these bones because the Khabur River … had changed.

So many were the bodies heaped in its flow that the waters moved to
the east. The very river had altered its course. But Armenian friends
who were with me took the remains and placed them in the crypt of
the great Armenian church at Deir ez-Zour.

Confusingly, Fisk dates the building itself to 1846. Vartan Matiossian,
an historian and director at the Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian
Apostolic Church of America, told Hyperallergic that there was a
church, St. Hripsime, at the site in 1931 and a preliminary Armenian
Genocide monument in 1936, but no apparent evidence of a 19th century
structure on the site. The Armenian National Institute in Washington,
DC dates the current complex’s construction to the 1980s and its
dedication to 1990.

Jabhat al-Nusra or the Islamic State?

At the time of the attack, Catholicos Aram I of the Great House of
Cilicia and the Holy Sees of Etchmiadzin and Cilicia blamed the Islamic
State, as did others who investigated the attack independently. Thus,
the centrepiece of Fisk’s report is his apparent scoop that the
al-Nusra Front, “Jabhat al-Nusra [JaN] rebels appear to have been the
culprits.” (Many thanks to a Syrian archaeologist and to the CEO of
the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, Lynda Albertson,
who drew my attention to the Independent article.)

Fisk also notes that, “since many Syrians believe that the [JaN]
group has received arms from Turkey, the destruction will be regarded
by many Armenians as a further stage in their historical annihilation
by the descendants of those who perpetrated the genocide 99 years ago.”

Again, it feels as if it were written seven weeks ago. An Armenian
Turkologist Andranik Ispiryan and Arabist Armen Petrosyan had already
blamed Turkey indirectly, and refused to rule out the possibility
that “Turk[ish] soldiers, who are among the terrorists, played a huge
[direct] role,” within two days of the attack.

Even the scoop itself is somewhat confused and confusing. Fisk
variously attributes the attack to “Jabhat al-Nusra” and “the
Islamists,” where the generic term most immediately refers back to
“Isis and its kindred ideological armed groups,” while he explicitly
acknowledges that the attack occurred in an “Isis-controlled area.”

The report details that Deir el-Zour district priest Monsignor
Antranik Ayvazian “revealed to [Fisk] that before the explosions
tore the church apart … he received a message from the Islamists
promising to spare the church archives if he acknowledged them as
the legislative authority in that part of Syria. ‘I refused,’ he said.

‘And after I refused, they destroyed all our papers and endowments …

[and] destroyed the church.'”

Fisk then adds that “Ayvazian later received a photograph taken in
secret and smuggled to him from the Isis-controlled area, showing
clearly that only part of the central tower … remains.”

Who was in control of the territory at the time of the attack?

As I have discussed on Conflict Antiquities after the verification of
the attack, Islamist organizations had long fought over Deir el-Zour.

But, through May, June and July, the Islamic State subjugated or
expelled Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions, such as the Jaysh Al Qasas
Brigade, and Islamist paramilitaries such as Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra
Front) and Ahrar al-Sham. They were forced to pledge loyalty to IS
or withdraw from the city.

Since then, Deir el-Zour has remained “part of the Islamic State” —
in August, by which time JaN was “nowhere to be seen,” throughout
September and into October, when the Islamic State battled over
territory with the Assad regime, but not with Jabhat al-Nusra. The only
authorities in Deir el-Zour before, during and after the destruction
of the church were the Islamic State and the Assad regime.

And Assad’s forces were only in two neighbourhoods — al Qusour and
al Joura — while the church was in al Roshdeyah neighbourhood. So,
though weaker groups may have remained in the city under Islamic
State authority, the territory was under Islamic State control when
the church was destroyed. (Furthermore, rival Islamist coalitions have
split up — it is unlikely that they achieved an effective momentary
resurgence and dedicated it to the destruction of the church.)

It is possible, and intriguing, that the agents who implemented the
attack may have been subjugated former Jabhat al-Nusra fighters who
served under the flag of the Islamic State. But they would still have
been Islamic State fighters. It seems unlikely that Jabhat al-Nusra
itself snuck into IS territory, extorted Antranik with the demand that
he recognise their sovereignty over the territory from which they had
had to withdraw themselves, then destroyed the church and snuck out.