Author: Karapetian Hovik

Journal of Turkish Weekly
May 5 2005

ANKARA:
Schroeder, ‘Turkey has fulfilled its promises to EU’

ANKARA – “Turkey has fulfilled its promises to the EU so far. I
believe it will fulfill its promises until October 3rd as well,”
said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Mr Schroeder, who has been a strong supporter of Turkey’s bid for
EU membership, said it was important for the EU to start talks with
Turkey as planned on 3 October.

Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted a dinner in honor of
Schroeder on Tuesday.

Schroeder conveyed his views to Erdogan about economic, political,
commercial and cultural relations between Turkey and Germany as well
as EU, Armenia and Cyprus issues.

‘ISOLATION OF NORTHERN CYPRUS SHOULD BE ENDED’

Supporting the end of the isolation over Northern Cyprus, Schroder
explained that Turkey should continue with its reforms and the Union
should ensure membership negotiations start on time. The German
Chancellor underlined that the Adjustment Protocol of the Ankara
Agreement should be signed before October 3.

Schroeder said, “we welcome Turkey’s steps regarding Cyprus issue. I
hope Turkey will sign Ankara Agreement Protocol before October 3rd.”

Erdogan and Schroeder expressed pleasure over positive and dynamic
relations between Turkey and Germany.

Both leaders agreed to pursue relations in trade and investment areas
with further cooperation between two countries.

SCHROEDER SUPPORTS TURKEY IN ARMENIAN ISSUE

Chancellor Schroeder has backed the initiative of Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on forming a historical commission to
study the historical disputes between Turkey and Armenia.
The first day of Schroeder’s official visit to Turkey, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroder over Armenian genocide allegations in a meeting in Ankara.
Erdogan reminded Schroder of the vote to be held in the German
Parliament for the recognition of the so-called genocide and said:
“If you recognize the genocide, it would be more difficult for many
Turks in Germany to integrate in your country. Our relations, which
are currently on good terms, would be jeopardized.”

“We welcome the proposal which was presented to Armenian President
Robert Kocharian. We will support every step which will be taken to
develop relations between Turkey and Armenia. We support the proposal
of opening archives mutually and historians to be included in the
issue. Joint study of historians will be an important step,”
Chancellor Schroeder said.

JTW
5 May 2005

PRESS RELEASE
South Florida Armenian Students’ Association
c/o 3990 Laurelwood Lane
Delray Beach, FL 33445
Tel: 561-716-6155
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

South Florida Armenian Community Embraces the
New Armenian Students’ Association

Unexpected record turnout stuns cookout organizers

Deerfield Beach, Fla. ~@” A little over 100 people from Miami to as
far north as Orlando turned out Saturday afternoon for the South
Florida ASA’s first function of the year, Cookout 2005, at Quiet
Waters Park. While the organization’s name is “Armenian
Students’…”, there was a definite family atmosphere; high
school and university students brought their siblings and families to
enjoy a day of Armenian food, fun and water recreational activities
at the event.

S.FL ASA President Michael Toumayan expressed his gratitude on behalf
of the executive committee to those in attendance. “Your presence not
only means a lot to us, but most importantly, it is a moral
support,” said Toumayan. The event also provided an opportunity
for members of the community to view the progress being made by the
six-member executive committee, who initiated the South Florida
branch of the organization that envisions in uniting the Armenian
student population in South Florida and representing their voices and
concerns in the community decision-making.

The picnic included appearances by influential leaders of the South
Florida Armenian community. Among the attendees were Bedo
Der-Bedrossian, Chairman of St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church;
Vicken Bedoyan, Chairman of Homenetmen of South Florida; Karina
Arzoumanova, President of Florida Atlantic University Pre-Law
Association; Taniel Koushakjian, President of Florida Atlantic
University Armenian Student Association; Carol Norigian, Board of
Trustee member of National ASA; and past ASA Board President, Edward
Eranosian, and Rev. Archpriest Vazken Bekiarian, Pastor of St.
Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church, who blessed the table. Recording
Secretary Adelin Alexanian states, “the blessing of our hard work
by a representative of the Armenian Apostolic Church is a great deal
for me not just as a member of the Armenian community but as an
Armenian Orthodox Christian.”

The cookout also attracted people who were fairly new to the Armenian
environment. Christina Berian Pelosky, a Ph.D. candidate from Lynn
University in Boca Raton, unexpectedly came across the picnic through
researching various websites for her dissertation on the inclusion of
the Armenian Genocide in higher education. Liz Telfeyan who is of
Armenian and Jewish ancestry, for the first time, attended her first
Armenian event and voluntarily helped out by serving food. Armen
Mkoyan who moved from Armenia two years ago and drove three hours
from Central Florida, has had difficulty finding young college-aged
Armenians like himself in Orlando. “I came to this event because I
wanted to meet people who share common Armenian values,” he says.

Taniel Koushakjian, who is the Corresponding Secretary, agreed,
“social events like this are a good way for young Armenians to
network with each other.”

The executive committee greatly appreciates all the men and women who
put time and energy in helping make the event a successful and
memorable one. “We also could not have done this without the
generous financial and moral support of the Central Executive
Committee and Board of Trustees of the National Armenian
Students’ Association,” said Vice-President Roupen Joubi.
Treasurer Arsho Kantarjian reported that, “incredible profit was
made as a result of raffle donations by the Alexanian, Ashjian, and
Toumayan families, of which we are grateful for.”

After innumerable questions of our next planned event, Advisor Alex
Aghyarian responded, “we don’t know yet, but let me tell you
that it will be bigger, better and even more youthful. This I promise
you!”

The South Florida Armenian Students’ Association (ASA) is focused
on educational pursuits by Armenians in Florida and the raising of
their intellectual standards, develop fellowship among them,
cultivate in them the spirit of service in the public interest, and
acquainting the entire American community with Armenian culture. To
learn more about the Armenian Students’ Association, please visit

UN hosts conference for Jews
By URIEL HEILMAN

Jerusalem Post
May 4 2005

NEW YORK — The Jews came from India, from Australia and from
Canada. They came from Estonia, Armenia and Kazakhstan. A few even
came from the United States.

It wasn’t the ingathering of Jewish exiles to the Promised Land, but
a gathering of Jewish leaders from around the world at the United
Nations-until recently, perhaps, the least likely of places for a
conference of Jews.

The Jews came at the behest of the UN Foundation, which invited the
50 or so delegates who already were planning on being in Washington
for a separate conference later in the week to come to New York to
meet with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

“Rarely have so many Jewish community leaders from around the
world gathered here at the organization’s headquarters,” Annan told
the delegates in a closed-door session Monday. “I would like Jews
everywhere to feel that the United Nations is their home.”

Acknowledging that the UN still has “some distance to travel” when
it comes to its relationship with Israel and the Jews, Annan said
the UN nevertheless is moving in an unmistakable trend toward “a new
level of confidence and mutual understanding” with Israel and Jewish
communities worldwide.

Annan has reached out to Jews several times over the last year. The
UN hosted a seminar on anti-Semitism last summer, the UN General
Assembly held a special session in January to mark the liberation
of the Nazi concentration camps and Annan went to Jerusalem in March
for the opening of the new wing of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

“I know that many of you are already on the front lines in your
communities-fighting against anti-Semitism, campaigning for human
rights and at times suffering for your commitment to these causes,”
Annan said Monday. “I hope you will leave here emboldened by the
knowledge that the United Nations strives hard to be your friend and
ally in the struggle for peace, human dignity and justice for all.”

The Jews had a mixed reaction.

Many said they were impressed by UN officialdom, as well as by meeting
with ambassadors from UN member countries including Israel, Jordan
and the United States. But that didn’t deter many delegates from
aggressively questioning officials about the UN’s record on Israel,
its tolerance for anti-Semitism in the Arab media and its role in
the Middle East peace process.

After directing a particularly forceful question in an off-the-record
session Tuesday to Jordan’s UN ambassador and Terje Roed-Larsen, UN
Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, one Jewish
delegate from Australia got an enthusiastic thumbs-up from her
counterparts around a packed conference room.

Leon Masliah, a longtime official with the French Consistoire,
France’s Jewish religious umbrella group, said he appreciated Annan’s
conciliatory tone but that words carry only so much weight at the UN,
where the real power lies in the votes of member states. “One thing
that Annan can’t change is the votes,” Masliah observed.

Abraham Kaul, president of AMIA, Argentina’s Jewish umbrella group,
said gestures also were significant. “It was very interesting for me,”
he said. “What Kofi Annan said wasn’t so important; it was important
that he came to meet Jewish leaders from all over the world.”

Kaul said he also pressed Annan about probing the 1994 bombing of the
AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, an attack that left 85
dead and still has not been solved by an investigation Jews widely
regard as deeply flawed and often half-hearted. Annan was receptive
to his complaints, Kaul said.

After two days of meetings at the UN, the Jewish delegates went
to Washington for the annual conference of the American Jewish
Committee, which also co-sponsored the meetings at the UN. The UN
Foundation paid for the travel and hotel accommodation related to
the delegates’ visit to New York, and the AJCommittee assisted in
bringing many of the delegates to the United States from their home
countries. The AJCommittee’s conference, which began Tuesday night,
runs through Friday.

The idea to convene the Jewish leaders from some 24 countries while
they were stateside came from the UN, according to Eve Epstein,
who coordinated the event for the UN Foundation.

Chatting with officials from the secretary-general’s office several
weeks ago, Epstein said, “I was explaining to them the whole concept
of klal yisrael and tikkun olam, and they said we really haven’t
heard enough from Jews all over the world, because usually it’s the
same old leaders from American Jewry.”

The UN was particularly interested in hearing from Jews in countries
on the “front lines” of the battle against anti-Semitism, she said.
There was heavy representation at the meetings from Eastern European
countries, including representatives from Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus,
Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia and Montenegro.

“We always talk about how to educate against intolerance. Well, the
Jews have a message: tikkun olam to help others have a better world,”
said Davor Shalom, secretary of the Federation of Jewish Communities
in Serbia and Montenegro.

Turkey not against officials joining Armenian genocide issue commission

Anatolia news agency
4 May 05

Ankara, 4 May: As brainstorming continued on the joint commission
thought to be formed by Turkey and Armenia to examine so-called
Armenian genocide allegations, Ankara is not against participation
of officials in this commission, sources said on Wednesday [4 May].

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan to set up a joint commission comprised
of Turkish and Armenian historians and experts to examine Turkish,
Armenian and third countries’ archives regarding the so-called Armenian
genocide claims.

Kocharyan responded to this proposal saying that this commission
should be intergovernmental.

Diplomatic sources in Ankara are not against the statement made
by Laura Kennedy, the US State Department assistant secretary for
European and Eurasian Affairs, that these two proposals could be
realized together.

Sources told AA [Anatolia] correspondent that Turkey did not think
that the commission must be comprised of historians alone when laying
this proposal down.

The same sources said that Turkey thought that historians, academicians
and scientists from France, Germany, Russia, Britain and the United
States could also participate in this commission as well as those
from Turkey and Armenia. Also, the same sources noted, the commission
should also include officials from Turkey and Armenia, and stated that
two commissions, one comprised of historians and one from officials,
could be set up.

The same sources said that the commission to be comprised of officials
could be at the level of technocrats.

Schroeder Urges Turkey to Implement Key Reforms Prior to EU Talks
By VOA News

Voice of America
May 4 2005

Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan, right, and German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder shake hands prior to a meeting in Ankara

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has urged Turkey to press ahead
with key reforms demanded by the European Union prior to accession
talks set for October.

Speaking after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
in Ankara Wednesday, Mr. Schroeder repeated EU demands that Turkey
sign a document extending its customs accord to the bloc’s 10 members
admitted last year. The demand is a key requirement before Turkey
opens EU membership talks.

Some EU members say the action would be considered de facto Turkish
recognition of the Greek-led government of Cyprus. Ankara has
repeatedly denied this.

Mr. Schroeder also backed a proposal by Mr. Erdogan to create a joint
Turkish – Armenian commission to study allegations the Ottoman Turks
committed genocide against Armenians during World War I.

PARLIAMENT TO VOTE ON MAY 5 ON ARF MOTION

Armenpress

YEREVAN, MAY 4, ARMENPRESS: The Armenian parliament is expected
to vote tomorrow on a motion that calls for an amendment to a law
on National Holidays and Days of Remembrance. It was initiated by a
coalition member-Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and says that
February 28 should be declared as the day of remembrance of victims
of Armenian pogroms in Soviet Azerbaijan and defense of rights of
thousands of Armenians who fled it to escape imminent death in the
hands of mobs, stirred by up the government officials.

Levon Mkrtchian, head of ARF faction said the motion should become
a retaliation to a massive Azerbaijani propaganda, which is trying
to distort the history by exploiting the issue of Azeri refugees,
who are kept in refugee camps for years to lament over their plight
at international organizations.

Mkrtchian said more than a decade has passed since the start of
Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan and a new generation of politicians
in international organizations have already forgotten about the real
causes of Armenian-Azeri conflict.

Acting start takes ambition

Metro Toronto, Canada
May 3 2005

photo: Eric Woolfe is starring in The Strange And Eerie Memoirs Of
Billy Wuthergloom.

photo: Hrant Alianak is currently co-producing The Strange And Eerie
Memoirs Of Billy Wuthergloom.

With over a hundred acting credits in television series, made-for-TV
movies and films under his belt, Hrant Alianak can be partly credited
with Canada’s entertainment industry being dubbed “Hollywood North.”

“I started in 1980,” says Alianak about his illustrious acting
career. “The first movie I did was Best Revenge with John Hurt and
Alberta Watson. I shot for a month in Spain. It was a great start to
the business.”

Among his television series credits are Robocop, More Tears, La Femme
Nikita and Nero Woolfe. He received a Gemini Award in the supporting
actor category for his role in the television movie, Family Viewing.
Alianak also appeared in the 1995 film, Billy Madison, starring Adam
Sandler and the 2004 HBO bio-pic, Going Down: The Rise And Fall Of
Heidi Fleiss.

So how did Alianak, who was born in Sudan to Armenian parents,
but came to Canada in 1967, get his foot in the door of such a
competitive industry?

“There was a wonderful teacher named Eli Rill who used to teach at the
Actors Studio in New York and he had his own acting school here (the
Eli Rill Acting School) where I went for several years,” he explains.

But Alianak was not satisfied with bringing someone else’s vision
to life. He mounted his first play, Tantrums, in 1992 at the Theatre
Passe Muraille in Toronto, under his then-newly formed company Alianak
Theatre Productions.

Now, in addition to writing plays, he also directs and produces them.
Alianak was never schooled in the craft of directing ~W he literally
learned on the job.

“I didn’t have that experience because someone else directed my first
play,” he says. “For a year, Paul Thompson, the artistic director
of the Theatre Passe Muraille, let me do these short plays that I
was writing so that I could learn how to direct. I did five or six
of them and then Paul let me direct my first full-length play. I
eventually started directing other people’s work.”

Other plays Alianak has written and directed include The Blues, Lucky
Strike and The Big Hit. He also produced the play Duse last year,
starring Nick Mancuso who also directed the play. In 2002 his play, The
Walls Of Africa was nominated for eight Dora Awards, which recognizes
achievements in theatre, dance and opera, of which it won three:
Best Actress (Tedde Moore), Best Production and Best Sound Design.

Currently Alianak is co-producing The Strange And Eerie Memoirs Of
Billy Wuthergloom written and performed by Eric Woolfe. The play is
a suburban-gothic horror melodrama about puberty and the supernatural.

Alianak Theatre Productions is in the business of spotlighting creative
minds who enjoy working on a small scale.

“I try to help people who are not being done by the major theatres,”
he says. “I give them a good production that is high profile, and
with proper advertising.”

The Strange And Eerie Memoirs Of Billy Wuthergloom runs till May 8
at the Cameron House. Call 416-703-1725 for more.

Terri-Lynne Waldron/for Metro Toronto

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Ermittlungen gegen Historiker
Neue Irritationen zwischen der Türkei und der Schweiz wegen Armenier

Vorermittlungen der Schweizer Justiz gegen einen prominenten
türkischen Historiker wegen Leugnung eines Völkermordes an den
Armeniern haben neue Irritationen in den Beziehungen zwischen der
Türkei und der Schweiz ausgelöst.

(sda) Sowohl der türkische Aussenminister Abdullah Gül als auch
Historiker und führende Mitglieder der armenischen Gemeinde in der
Türkei protestierten in am Montag veröffentlichten Stellungnahmen
gegen die Vorermittlungen der Justiz in Winterthur gegen Yusuf
Halacoglu, den Vorsitzenden der türkischen Gesellschaft für
Geschichte.

«Missachtung europäischer Grundwerte»Wie die Schweizer Botschaft
in Ankara auf Anfrage der Nachrichtenagentur SDA bestätigte,
gehen die Justizbehörden in Winterthur mit ihren Vorermittlungen
einer dort erstatteten Strafanzeige gegen Halacoglu nach. «Wir
protestieren», erklärte der türkische Aussenminister Gül dazu in
der Zeitung «Hürriyet». «Sie (die Schweizer Behörden) begehen
einen schweren Fehler.» Die Schweiz verletzte mit dieser Missachtung
der Meinungsfreiheit die europäischen Grundwerte, sagte Gül.

Auch der prominente türkisch-armenische Journalist Hrant Dink
erklärte in der Zeitung: «Ich verurteile diese Entscheidung.»
Ähnlich äusserten sich andere prominente Historiker und Journalisten,
die sich mit den Massakern an den Armenier im Osmanischen Reich
befassen.

Normales Vorgehen der Schweizer Justiz Nach Angaben der Schweizer
Botschaft forderten die Justizbehörden in Winterthur im Rahmen ihrer
Vorermittlungen mittels der internationalen Polizeiorganisation
Interpol nähere Angaben zur Person Halacoglu an, der zu den
prominentesten Verfechtern der türkischen Thesen zu den Ereignissen
von 1915 zählt.

Nicht per Haftbefehl gesuchtDie Schweizer Justiz sei gesetzlich
verpflichtet, einer Strafanzeige mit Vorermittlungen nachzugehen,
erklärte die Botschaft; über die Aufnahme voller Ermittlungen sei
noch gar nicht entschieden worden. Damit dementierte die Schweizer
Vertretung die in türkischen Medien erschienenen Meldungen, wonach
Halacoglu von der Schweizer Justiz mit internationalem Haftbefehl
gesucht werde.

;sid=5743876&cKey=1115036770000&ticker=true

Armenien: Gedenken an Völkermord 1915

–Boundary_(ID_R9pkhVIk2RbbuXgaDA3/fg)–

The Gazette (Montreal)
April 30, 2005 Saturday
Final Edition

Quebec history woven into family saga: Orphanage at core of story is
run by Christian Brothers

by CLAIRE HOLDEN ROTHMAN, Freelance

Le Silence de Mozart
By Vania Jimenez
Quebec Amerique, 379 pages, $24.95

You’d think that a woman with seven children and a job running
medical services at one of Montreal’s busiest downtown clinics
wouldn’t have time to read novels, let alone write them. You’d be
wrong.

Named Quebec Family Doctor of the Year in 1999, Vania Jimenez has
just published Le Silence de Mozart, a historical novel about the
Notre Dame de la Misericorde religious order and the orphanage it
operated from 1924 until 1976, when the Quebec government shut it
down.

Although Jimenez displays considerable knowledge about Quebec culture
and history, she is no Quebecoise de souche. Born in Egypt to parents
of Armenian descent, she came to Montreal at 18 to study medicine at
McGill University. She speaks five languages and works in one of
Montreal’s most culturally diverse neighbourhoods.

Le Silence de Mozart is her second novel. The first, Le Seigneur de
l’oreille (2003), featured a female doctor working in contemporary
Montreal. This second one moves deliberately away from autobiography.
The theme is fathers and sons and all but one of the multiple
first-person narrators are men.

The plot has nothing to do with the Austrian composer. Set in Quebec
in the 1930s and ’40s, it traces the life of a working-class man
named Mozart Menard, whose wife dies, leaving him with two young
sons. Emotionally and financially depleted, he gives the boys up to
the Church and eventually they end up at the Huberdeau orphanage, run
by the Notre Dame de la Misericorde Christian brotherhood. The older
boy, Guy, takes his vows and changes his name to Frere Laurier. His
younger brother, Louis, is adopted; contact between the boys is
broken.

The novel follows Mozart Menard, his sons and eventually his adult
grandson, Michel. In a stroke of Dickensian coincidence, Michel,
whose father Louis never mentioned his childhood prior to adoption,
ends up spending a night at Huberdeau. There, he meets Frere Laurier
and forges links with a family he was unaware he had.

Jimenez’s book is a fascinating portrait of Quebec from the 1930s
onward, focusing on institutions that have recently been the object
of controversy and scrutiny. Christian brotherhoods once provided
almost all of the education in this province for boys and young men.
They also provided care for destitute, orphaned, mentally ill or
delinquent children. In the 1940s, the period during which much of
the novel is set, there were more than 13,000 men in such groups.
Today, according to Jimenez, there are barely 1,200 in Quebec and, at
an average age of 70, they won’t last much longer.

Two of Jimenez’s main characters are likable, aging religious
brothers who argue that their order played a valuable role in Quebec
society. One of them offers an account of the Huberdeau Orphanage
from its founding in 1887 to its closing by the Parti Quebecois 90
years later. He chronicles the fire that destroyed the place in 1946,
leaving 400 boys homeless, and reminds readers that Notre Dame de la
Misericorde, which barely had funds to support its members, housed,
fed, clothed and schooled destitute children on its own, with almost
no government help.

While this history is fascinating, Jimenez fails in the writerly task
of delivering it in dramatic form. Because most of the book is in
monologue, she slips frequently into summary, forgetting that scene
is the lifeblood of fiction. The year 1945, she writes in a
characteristic passage, “marquera la fin de la guerre. Les hommes
sont-ils revenus au pays? Les femmes se sont-elles remariees?
Soudain, il semblera y avoir moins d’enfants malpris au Quebec.”

Characters with little at stake in the Menard family drama narrate
big chunks of the plot, while potentially dramatic incidents, like
one involving sexual abuse at Huberdeau, appear only peripherally,
with characters so minor that the reader has trouble caring much. Le
Silence de Mozart deals with an intriguing, controversial part of
Quebec’s past. Jimenez hasn’t quite managed to bring it to life.

Claire Holden Rothman is a Montreal writer and translator.

AzerNews, Azerbaijan
April 28 2005

Baku, Chisinau join efforts in resolving conflicts

Azerbaijan and Moldova support each other in their integration into
the European Union and settlement of conflicts over Upper Garabagh
and Dnestr, Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Vladimir Voronin told a news
conference in Kishinev on Thursday.

“We support Azerbaijan’s efforts at preserving its territorial
integrity and are ready to assist in resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan
conflict, as we face a similar problem”, the Moldovan President said.

President Aliyev said the Azeri government supports Moldova’s
position and the steps it has taken to solve the Dnestr conflict.
“Moldova and Azerbaijan have become victims of territorial conflicts.
Separatists block the development of our countries and our aspiration
to European integration.”
During President Aliyev’s visit, the parties signed agreements
covering air transport, information technologies, veterinary science,
TV broadcasting, labor and social security of the two countries’
citizens.