Author: Karagyozian Lena

RAMIL SAFAROV’S EXTRADITION EXCLUDED
Public Radio, Armenia
Nov 15 2006
Members of the Constitutional Court of Hungary do not have
the authority of speaking about Azeri Officer Ramil Safarov’s
extradition. Attorney Nazeli Vardanyan told “Armenpress” that the
Constitutional Court has never addressed the issue and extradition
is not its function.
Let us remind, that according to Azeri media, one of the Constitutional
Court members declared in Baku that Safarov might carry his punishment
in Azerbaijan.
“At this moment Ramil Safarov’s extradition is ruled out. The protest
of the Azerbaijani side has not been discussed yet. There are other
criminal cases launched against him for getting into conflict with
guards. Before the completion of the investigation of all the cases
and announcement of verdicts extradition is excluded,” said Nazeli
Vardanyan.
Besides, the chances of Azerbaijan are very small, since in case of
life imprisonment extradition has never been applied in Hungary.
Let us remind that Ramil Safarov, who brutaly killed Armenian
Officer Gurgen Margaryan on February 19, 2004, was sentenced to
life imprisonment.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH PRESIDENT DISPUTES FIRES AND NUMBERS, OIL AND UN, IN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH INNER CITY PRESS
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee, Correspondent at the UN
Inner City Press, NY
Nov 14 2006
UNITED NATIONS, November 13 — Of the so-called frozen conflicts
in the world, the one in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan,
claimed by Armenia, heated up this Fall — literally.
In August and September 2006, Azerbaijan and Armenia traded volleys
of draft resolutions in the UN General Assembly, about a series of
fires in the Nagorno-Karabakh region which on most maps is Azerbaijan,
but is not under Azeri control.
The subtext of the fight was that Azerbaijan wants the dispute to
be addressed in the UN General Assembly, while Armenia prefers the
ten-year process before the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe, the OSCE. In the UN General Assembly these frozen conflicts
are often treated as footnotes, particularly to a press corps which
covers the Security Council in the most minute detail, at the expense
of most other activities undertaken by the world body.
Last week Inner City Press sat down for an interview with the president
of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Arkady Ghoukasyan, and asked him
about the fires, about the UN and other matters.
“The fires were provoked by Azerbaijan firing,” Mr. Ghoukasyan
said. “They used special bullets that would ignite wheat fields.”
In the UN, “the countries of the Islamic Conference are present and
Azerbaijan is hoping to use their support,” said Mr. Ghoukasyan. He
added that most countries in the UN know little of the Karabakh
conflict, so “Azerbaijan can try propaganda in the United Nations,”
in a way that it can’t with the OSCE “experts.”
By contrast, the situation in Abkhazia is routinely put on the UN
Security Council agenda by Russia, with representative of Georgia
often excluded from the meetings and resorting to sparsely-attended
press conferences outside, most recently on October 12.
President, flag & correspondent
On Nagorno-Karabakh, UN observers see Turkey backing Azerbaijan, while
the NKR is represented, if one can call it that, by Armenia. The
interview, originally scheduled for a hotel across from UN
Headquarters, was moved six blocks south to the Armenian mission
in a brownstone on 36th Street, to a second-story room with the
Nagorno-Karabakh flag on the table. Through a translator, Mr.
Ghoukasyan argued that no negotiations that do not involve
representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh can solve the problem. “The
prospects are diminishing, without Nagorno-Karabakh involvement,
it’s just impossible to come to a resolution,” he said.
Hot Words From Frozen Conflicts
Inner City Press asked Mr. Ghoukasyan to compare Nagorno-Karabakh
to certain other so-called frozen conflicts, two of which are before
the OSCE: Transnistria a/k/a Transdnestr, and South Ossetia, where a
referendum was held on November 12, the results of which no country
in the world recognized.
“We already had our referendum,” Mr. Ghoukasyan said, “back in 1991. We
would only hold another one if Azerbaijan and the co-chairs of the
OSCE group agreed in advance to recognize its results.”
Mr. Ghoukasyan said he had come to the U.S. less to build
political support or to propose a referendum than to raise funds for
infrastructure projects in Nagorno-Karabakh, mostly from “different
circles of Armenians in the United States.” He is on a whirlwind tour:
“Detroit Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and maybe Fresno, we
are still finalizing our West Coast program,” he said. A highlight
will be a telethon from Los Angeles on November 23.
Speaking of funds, and of infrastructure, Inner City Press asked
about the impact of the Baku – Tbilisi – Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline
on the conflict.
“Azerbaijan is trying to get maximum political dividends from fact of
this pipeline,” said Mr. Ghoukasyan. “Since the West is interested in
undisruptible oil, Azerbaijan tries to beef up their price for this
stability. This emboldens Azerbaijan, making it more aggressive and
less willing to come to agreement.”
What would an agreement look like?
“In any resolution, we think that Karabakh should have physical land
connection with Armenia,” said Mr. Ghoukasyan.
At a press conference about the BTC pipeline earlier this year,
the Azeri Ambassador told Inner City Press that twenty percent of
Azerbaijan’s territory has been occupied by Armenia.
On the disputed numbers of displaced people, Mr. Ghoukasyan quipped,
“I always suspected they are bad in mathematics.”
He estimated it, “maximally,” to be 13%, and put the number of
displaced Azeris at “only” 650,000, rather than the one million figure
used by Azerbaijan. Mr. Ghoukasyan admonished, “There is information
in books.”
And so to the library went Inner City Press. Therein it is recounted
that while “in 1989, the Armenian Supreme Council made Nagorno-Karabakh
a part of Armenia, this decision was effectively annulled by NKR
declaring its independence in 1991. Whether the decision to declare
independence was made cooperatively with Yerevan is not yet known.”
The UN’s role is dismissed: “with one exception the UN never
condemned the capture of Lachin, the strategic link between Armenia
and Nagorno-Karabakh. The UN passed Security Council Resolutions 822,
853, 874 and 884… Each UN resolution reiterated the international
body’s support for the OSCE Minsk Group process.”
Going back, some pundits blame the conflict on Stalin: “he took a part
of Armenia and gave it to Azerbaijan, and now so many people are dying
while trying to correct his foolish mistake. Now redefining the borders
is as painful as cutting someone’s flesh when that person is alive.”
Fast forward to 1977, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast’s
first secretary from 1973 to 1988, Boris Kevorkov, told visiting
journalists that Karabakh Armenians were happily separated from the
Armenian republic, saying that “the history of Nagorny (Mountainous)
Karabakh is closely interwoven with Azerbaijan’s… By contrast,
the region is close to Armenia geographically but is separated by
high mountains, which were an insuperable barrier in the past for any
extensive contacts.” (Quoted in Claire Mouradian’s “The Mountainouse
Karabagh Question”).
Also found are rebuttals, including from Azeri poet Bakhtiyar Vahadzade
in his 1988 Open Letter, that “since 1828, our people have been
divided into two parts,” and that both Azeris and Karabakh Armenians
“emanate from the same ethnic stock: the Caucasian Albanians.” Others
say Turkey always takes the Azeri side. There are references to the
shoot-down of an Iranian C-130 aircraft in 1994 as it crossed the
Azeri-Karabakh line on contact, and of Iran’s demand for an apology.
Going back, a volume by Mazda Publishers in Costa Mesa, California
entitled “Two Chronicles on The History of Karabakh,” contains
the full texts of Tarikh-e Karabakh (History of Karabakh) by Mirza
Jamal Javanshir and of Karabakh-name by Mariza Adigozal Beg. In the
introduction, translator-from-Persian George A. Bournoutian reports
that “Armenian historians maintain that all of Karabakh was, at one
time, part of the Armenian kingdom and that the disputed region of
Nagorno-Karabakh has had an Armenian majority for several hundred
years. Azeri historians assert that the region was never part of
Armenia and that the Armenian population arrived there from Persia
and the Ottoman empire after the Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828) when,
thanks to the Russian policy that favored Christians over Muslims, the
Armenians established a majority in what became Nagorno-Karabakh.” In
a footnote he addresses nomenclature: “Nagorno-Karabakh is the Russian
designation. The Armenians call is [sic] Artsakh or Gharabagh and
the Azeris Karabag.”
Finally, on the question of numbers, Arif Yunosov in “The Migration
Situation in CIS Countries” opines that the conflict has caused
353,000 Armenia refugees and 750,000 Azeris — less than the one
million figure used by Azeri President Aliev, but large, and 100,000
larger than acknowledged in the interview. And a more solid figure than
Aliev’s 20%, but more than was acknowledged, is 13.62 percent. The
search for truth continues. If the comparison is to the original,
Soviet-defined Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, it must be noted
that NKR is claiming, beyond the Oblast, the territory of Shahumian.
By the end of the interview, Mr. Ghoukasyan was focusing on two
regions of the old Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast over which now
Azerbaijan has de facto control: Martakert and Martuni.
While Mr. Ghoukasyan’s point was that these should be subtracted from
the 13 percent, they raise a larger question, that of break-aways
from break-aways.
The analogy, to Inner City Press, is to the serially-opening or
“nesting” Russian dolls. Inside one republic is another, but inside
the breakaway is another smaller portion, that either wants to remain
with the larger, or to itself be independent.
Northern Kosovo comes to mind, and the portion of Abkhazia into which
a Tbilisi-based government is trying to relocate.
How small can these Russian dolls become? And how will the UN-debated
status of Kosovo, now frozen into 2007, impact or defrost other frozen
conflicts? Developing.
Feedback: editorial [at] innercitypress.com
UN Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 212-963-1439
kh111406.html

RA AMBASSADOR HANDED CREDENTIALS TO CZECH PRESIDENT
PanARMENIAN.Net
10.11.2006 17:22 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ November 7 newly appointed Armenian Ambassador to
Czechia Ashot Hovakimian handed his credentials to Czech President
Vaclav Klaus, reported the RA MFA press office. During the meeting
the interlocutors assessed highly the friendly relations established
between the two states and remarked that there is still much to be
done in political, economic and cultural fields. They also touched
upon the cooperation with using the possibilities provided by the
Armenia-EU Action Plan within the New Neighborhood Policy. Completing
the meeting President Klaus wished every success to the newly appointed
Ambassador in performing his high mission. Ashot Hovakimian also met
with a number of top officials to discuss the Armenian-Czech bilateral
relations and approve some measures for their encouragement.

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
Nov 11 2006
SPEAKER OF AZERBAIJAN PARLIAMENT MEETS ITALIAN DELEGATION
[November 10, 2006, 22:22:51]
Speaker of Milli Majlis of the Azerbaijan Republic Ogtay Asadov
November 10 met with the delegation led by President of the
Constitutional Court of Italy Franco Bile visiting the country to
take part at the international conference held at Constitutional
Court of Azerbaijan in Baku.
The friendly ties between Azerbaijan and Italy successfully develop,
Mr. Asadov noted. The negotiations President of Azerbaijan carried
out in Italy in February 2005 and the signed documents have opened a
new phase in development of relations. As stated, today the goods
turnover between two countries has reached $1,5 billion. All the
large-scale economic projects in region have been initiated by
Azerbaijan and now the country plays importunate role in Europe’s
energy safety, the Speaker of Azerbaijan stressed.
Ogtay Asadov spoke of the inter-parliamentary links between the Milli
Majlis of Azerbaijan and Italian Parliament. He also updated the
guest on ensuring human rights and freedoms in the Republic, the
Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh conflict and the UN Security
Council’s resolutions to solve the problem.
President of the Constitutional Court of Italy Franco Bile expressed
gratitude for hospitality they were shown during the event in Baku.
`Azerbaijan develops intensively and ensures human rights at high
level. We are convinced that reciprocal visits will have positive
influence on development of our relations’, he underlined.
The sides also had exchange of views on a number of other questions
representing mutual interest.

ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 10 2006
STUDENTS COUNCILS OF ARMENIA ON THE HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION REFORMS
Representatives of the Students Councils of Armenia discussed
prospects of high school educational reforms in the Congress Hotel
today. The workshop was organized under the initiative of the ‘Nikol
Agbalyan’ students union of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(ARF) ‘Dashnaktsytyun’. Levon Lazarian, Minister of Education and
Science of Armenia and a member of ‘Dashnaktsytyun’ party, attended
the meeting.
L. Lazarian said that he will support students’ initiatives
concerning reforms in high education system. As part of it,
regulations of Armenian declaration signed in Bologna will be
realized. He said that it is important that Armenian educational
system integrated into the international systems. “In order to be
successful, educational system of a small country should partake in
the international processes”, concluded L. Lazarian.

MOSTRA SU ARMENI DEVASTATA, REGIONE PIEMONTE LA ACQUISISCE ; ASSESSORE CULTURA OLIVA, GIRERA’ SCUOLE PER RICORDARE GENOCIDIO
ANSA Notiziario Generale in Italiano
November 6, 2006
TORINO
(ANSA) – TORINO, 6 NOV – La Regione Piemonte acquisisce la mostra sul
genocidio armeno che durante l’inaugurazione ieri a Varallo Sesia
(Vercelli) e’ stata danneggiata da un giovane turco che ha preso a
calci i pannelli e rovesciato a terra preziosi volumi storici. Lo
annuncia l’assessore alla Cultura Gianni Oliva, sottolineando che
l’iniziativa sara’ accompagnata dall’organizzazione di un incontro
con lo scrittore turco Orhan Pamuk, premio Nobel 2006, che lo scorso
anno venne incriminato nel suo paese per avere espresso parole di
condanna del genocidio armeno.
“La Regione – ha detto Oliva – si impegna ad acquisire la mostra
e a farla girare nelle province e soprattutto nelle scuole di
tutto il Piemonte, perche nessuno dimentichi questo triste pezzo
di storia. Insieme alla diffusione della mostra – ha aggiunto –
organizzeremo una iniziativa pubblica con Orhan Pamuk, incriminato
in Turchia per le sue dichiarazioni sul genocidio degli Armeni, e
con lo scrittore Guenter Lewy, che da pochi mesi ha pubblicato per
Einaudi un significativo libro dal titolo ‘Il massacro degli Armeni,
un genocidio controverso'”.
La mostra di Varallo Sesia, ora presidiata dalla polizia, raccoglie
fotografie di Armin Wegner ed e’ curata da Pietro Kuciukian, armeno
figlio di uno scampato al genocidio del 1915, autore di vari libri
sul tema. Tra i pannelli semidistrutti dal giovane turco (che e’
sposato con un’italiana e vive a Varallo Sesia da circa due anni),
ne figurano due che riguardano i Papi.
Uno e’ dedicato a Benedetto XV, che per primo nel 1915 cerco’ di
fermare il massacro appellandosi al sultano ottomano del tempo.
Un altro ricorda il viaggio che fece Papa Wojtyla in Armenia nel
2002.(ANSA).

TURKEY RISKS EU NEGOTIATIONS IF CYPRUS NOT RECOGNISED: FRANCE
Agence France Presse — English
November 8, 2006 Wednesday 3:25 PM GMT
France called Wednesday for the timetable governing Turkey’s talks
to join the European Union to be revised if Ankara does not change
its defiant stance on the divided island state of Cyprus by the end
of the year.
“If by the end of the year Turkey still does not recognise the 25
(EU) member states, including obviously Cyprus, then it seems to
me necessary to review the membership timetable for Turkey into
the European Union,” Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told
parliament.
Earlier, the European Commission issued a report warning Turkey
to meet its obligations, in particular toward Cyprus, or else its
“overall progress” in EU membership talks would be affected.
The report said there was no resolution in sight over Cyprus, which
is divided between an internationally-recognised Greek Cypriot
administration in the south and a northern self-declared statelet
under Turkish patronage.
Although Turkey is keen to join the European Union, it has not modified
its stance on Cyprus, which it invaded in 1974 in response to a Greek
Cypriot coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece.
“Today, it has to be noted that Turkey still does not accept opening
its ports and airports to ships and planes, not only (southern)
Cypriot ones, but also those that come from (southern) Cyprus. It
is therefore evident today that Turkey is not responding to its
obligations,” Douste-Blazy said.
The minister said current EU president Finland was doing everything
to resolve that and other outstanding issues with Turkey by the end
of the year.
But he stressed that the European Commission report said that Turkey’s
EU negotiations were “accumulating delays” because of Ankara’s lagging
reform in the areas of freedom of expression, religious freedom and
minority rights.
Although French President Jacques Chirac has said he was in favour
of Turkey one day joining the European Union, relations with France
and Turkey have frequently been strained over the issue.
In the latest row, Turkey last month expressed fury at a French
parliamentary bill which would make it a crime in France to deny that
the World War I massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks constituted
genocide.

BRUXELLES RENONCE A PUNIR LA TURQUIE
De Notre Correspondante A Bruxelles Alexandrine Bouilhet
Le Figaro, France
08 novembre 2006
MALGRE la remise par ses propres services d’un rapport très critique
sur l’evolution de la Turquie, malgre l’impasse sur la question
chypriote, la Commission europeenne ne recommandera pas aux Vingt-Cinq,
aujourd’hui, la suspension des negociations d’adhesion avec Ankara. ”
Personne, a Bruxelles ou dans les capitales des Etats membres,
ne veut porter la responsabilite d’une crise avec la Turquie ” ,
explique-t-on a la Commission. Pour ne pas donner l’impression de
fuir ses obligations, face a des Etats membres sous pression de leurs
opinions, l’executif europeen promet de faire une recommandation au
Conseil avant le sommet des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement prevu le
15 decembre.
La bataille n’est donc que partie remise. À Bruxelles, on compte sur
un plan de sauvetage finlandais pour resoudre a temps le casse-tete
chypriote. La bienveillance de la Commission a l’egard de la Turquie,
qui se voit octroyer un delai de cinq semaines pour ouvrir ses ports
aux navires chypriotes, irrite plusieurs Etats membres. ” La question
chypriote va polluer le Conseil europeen ! ” redoute un diplomate
francais. La France, l’Autriche, les Pays-Bas, la Grèce et Chypre
figurent parmi les pays les plus sevères envers la Turquie. Mais
aucun d’entre eux n’ose demander a Bruxelles la suspension des
negociations. ” Personne ne veut porter le chapeau d’une rupture ”
, resume un connaisseur du dossier. Embarras de Paris Bete noire
d’Ankara depuis le vote de l’Assemblee nationale penalisant la
negation du genocide armenien, la France est très prudente. ” Ce
n’est pas a nous de bloquer ” , confie-t-on côte francais. L’embarras
de la France laisse les mains libres a Olli Rehn, le commissaire
finlandais a l’Elargissement. Refusant la rupture avec la Turquie,
c’est Olli Rehn qui a eu l’idee de reporter de cinq semaines l’avis
de la Commission. Il est soutenu dans sa demarche par Jose Manuel
Barroso et l’ensemble du collège, a l’exception du Chypriote Markos
Kiprianou. Egalement d’accord avec cette approche en deux temps,
le Francais Jacques Barrot n’aurait qu’une seule exigence : fixer la
date butoir au 12 decembre pour la recommandation de la Commission. À
court terme, les manoeuvres de la Commission font le jeu d’Ankara,
qui accuse l’Europe de vouloir lui claquer la porte au nez sans
respecter ses engagements. À moyen terme, elle peut se reveler tout
aussi douloureuse pour la Turquie. ” Si la Turquie n’ouvre pas ses
ports aux bateaux chypriotes d’ici a la fin de l’annee, comme prevu,
il y aura des consequences sur les negociations “, assure-t-on
a Bruxelles. En attendant, la tactique d’Olli Rehn n’est pas sans
resultats. Le premier ministre turc, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a annonce
une revision de l’article du Code penal qui punit les insultes a ”
l’identite turque “. ” C’est la preuve que le premier ministre turc
est engage en faveur de la liberte d’expression “, s’est felicite
Olli Rehn, persuade de pouvoir regler de la meme facon la question
chypriote, pourtant beaucoup plus complexe.
–Boundary_(ID_H47nrpqyGishssW1CmaP5Q)- –

Armenian Assembly of America
1140 19th Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-393-3434
Fax: 202-638-4904
Email: [email protected]
Web:
PRESS RELEASE
November 9, 2006
CONTACT: Christine Kojoian
E-mail: [email protected]
ARMENIAN ISSUES SUPPORTERS TO LEAD IN DEMOCRATIC SENATE
REID, DURBIN & BIDEN POISED FOR KEY POSITIONS
Washington, DC – One day after winning majority control in the House of
Representatives, Democrats took back the U.S. Senate, with Armenian
issues supporters Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and Richard Durbin (D-IL)
positioned to serve as Majority Leader and Majority Whip respectively,
in the 110th Congress. Senator Joseph Biden, Jr. (D-DE), also a staunch
supporter, is expected to chair the powerful Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, which oversees policy concerning Armenia and Nagorno
Karabakh.
All three Senators have raised awareness of the Armenian Genocide as
cosponsors of S. Res. 320, a resolution reaffirming the U.S. record
which is currently pending before the Foreign Relations Committee.
Reid, Durbin and Biden also voted to maintain Section 907 of the Freedom
Support Act in an historic Senate floor fight in 1999 of which, Senators
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) led the effort in
maintaining Section 907 at that time. Sarbanes announced his retirement
from the Senate earlier this year and did not seek re-election. The
Assembly awarded him for his longstanding support of Armenian issues
during the National Advocacy Conference and Banquet in March of this
year.
“The Assembly will continue its bipartisan approach in the Senate and
looks forward to working with our Senate friends, as well as reaching
out to the new class of incoming Senators,” said Executive Director
Bryan Ardouny. “We have much at stake and will continue to promote an
aggressive agenda to ensure a strong, prosperous and democratic
Armenia.”
Ardouny also noted that Reid and Durbin, along with House Speaker-to-be
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who is running for Majority
Leader, have been consistent supporters of Armenian issues. Their
anticipated leadership positions in the next Congress will provide new
opportunities for advancing key issues.
Additionally, Senator John Ensign (R-NV), who introduced S. Res. 320
with Durbin last year, was re-elected for a second term. Supporters of
the resolution who also won re-election include Senators Maria Cantwell
(D-WA), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Edward
Kennedy (D-MA), Herbert Kohl (D-WI), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Robert
Menendez (D-NJ), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).
Senate Democrats Russ Feingold (WI), John Kerry (MA), Barbara Boxer (CA)
and Christopher Dodd (CT), who also support S. Res. 320, are positioned
for Subcommittee Chairmanships on the Foreign Relations Committee.
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is in line to chair the important State,
Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee, a position
currently held by Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky
lawmaker, who has been instrumental in securing humanitarian, technical
and economic development assistance for Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, is
expected to serve as the Subcommittee’s Ranking Member in the next
Congress.
Several other Armenian issues supporters are slated to chair full
committees, including Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) – Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions; John Kerry (D-MA) – Small Business and
Entrepreneurship; Carl Levin (D-MI) – Armed Services; Tim Johnson (D-SD)
– Select Committee on Ethics; Herbert H. Kohl (D-WI) – Select Committee
on Aging; and Christopher Dodd (D-CT) – Banking, Housing and Urban
Affairs. Furthermore, Senators Charles Schumer (NY), Jack Reed (RI),
Dianne Feinstein (CA), Tom Harkin (IA), and Barbara Mikulski (MD) – are
all poised to chair various subcommittees.
Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), who has worked against the Armenian
community’s efforts to reaffirm the U.S. record on the Genocide, is in
line to chair the full Appropriations Committee.
Senator George Allen (R-VA), an ardent supporter of Armenian issues,
conceded his re-election bid today, while Congressional Caucus on
Armenian Issues Members Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Benjamin Cardin (D-MD)
both won seats in the Senate. Brown and Cardin both voted for Section
907 in the House floor fight in 1998 and support Armenia-specific
legislation in the current Congress.
As previously reported, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was re-elected
for a second term, while Republican Rick Santorum was defeated in
Pennsylvania’s Senate contest.
The Armenian Assembly is the largest Washington-based nationwide
organization promoting public understanding and awareness of Armenian
issue. It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt membership organization.
####
NR#2006-098
Editor’s Note: Photographs available on the Assembly’s Web site at the
following link:
/2006-098-1.jpg
Caption: Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) with Board of Trustees
Executive Committee Member Lisa Esayian.
098/2006-098-2.jpg
Caption: Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (D-MD) with Board of Trustees
Executive Committee Member Annie Totah at the Assembly’s National
Advocacy Conference and banquet in March 2006.

TURKEY MAY RELAX FREE SPEECH LIMITS
By Dan Bilefsky
New York Times
International Herald Tribune
Nov 7 2006
ISTANBUL Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signaled that he is
prepared to amend a law limiting free speech, in an apparent 11th-hour
attempt to prevent a crisis with the European Union.
The surprise move Sunday by Erdogan came just three days before
the European Commission is expected to publish a report criticizing
Turkey for sluggishness on reforms necessary if it wants to join the
25-member bloc.
“The move looks desperate,” said Ilker Domac, a Turkish economist.
“It shows how badly things are going with Turkey’s EU membership
prospects.”
Talks with the EU have reached an impasse that could result in the
suspension of the country’s EU membership talks, some Turks fear.
Such a move would hobble a key European and American ally in an
unstable region and would risk slowing the pace of its political and
economic reforms.
The commission, the EU executive branch, has been particularly
concerned by Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes
insulting Turkishness a crime. The law attracted global criticism
earlier this year when the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who was awarded
the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, was put on trial for telling a
Swiss newspaper that more than a million Armenians were massacred by
Ottoman Turks during World War I. The case was later dismissed.
In an apparent attempt to gain favor with the European Union before
the commission’s report is released Wednesday, Erdogan signaled that
his party, Justice and Development, might be willing to amend the law.
“We are studying several options for how we can handle Article 301 in
harmony with the spirit of the reforms,” he said without elaborating.
Turkish analysts said this would likely entail narrowing the legal
definition of what constitutes an insult to Turkishness and amending
the law to make it compatible with the European Court of Human Rights.
Erdogan, who faces strong pressure from nationalists not to change
the law, all but ruled out doing so last week. But Turkish officials
said he had tempered his resistance after furious lobbying by human
rights groups, trade unions and the business community, which fear
that a break in EU membership talks would undermine Turkey’s stability.
EU officials cautiously welcomed the move, but warned that Turkey’s
membership bid still faced enormous obstacles, in particular a
simmering dispute over Cyprus that shows little sign of resolution.
“This is a positive signal, but there are other big hurdles that still
need to be overcome,” said Joost Lagendijk, the chairman of the Turkey
delegation in the European Parliament and a member of the Green group.
Turkey has said it will not open its ports to ships from Cyprus,
an EU member, until the European Union lifts trade restrictions
against Turkish Cypriots in northern Cyprus, which is recognized
internationally by Ankara alone. The Cyprus impasse has proved so
intractable that last week Finland, which holds the Union’s rotating
presidency, canceled talks because the parties refused to be in the
same room.