Author: Khoyetsian Rose

ARMENIAN PATRIARCH CONDEMNS ANTI-TURKISH RESOLUTION

NTV MSNBC
Oct 15 2007
Turkey

Ankara has warned that the resolution will harm Turkish-US relations
and has vowed to lobby against its being ratified by Congress.

DEMRE – The head of the Armenian church in Turkey said he opposed the
passing of a resolution by the US House of Representatives Committee
on Foreign Affairs acknowledging claims the Ottoman Empire committed
an act of genocide against its Armenian citizens in World War One.

Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan said the resolution had become a tool of
US domestic policy and that he and other Turkish Armenians would do
everything in their power to prevent the resolution being passed into
law by a vote of the US Congress.

Last Tuesday, the Committee on Foreign Affairs voted 27 to 21 in favour
of the resolution, which is opposed by the Bush administration. Senior
US officials, including President George W Bush and Secretary of State
Condalezza Rice, have spoke out against the resolution and promised
Ankara they will work to prevent it from passing into law.

Speaking in the southern Turkish town of Demre Sunday, where he was
visiting the Church of Saint Nicolas, Patriarch Mesrob said that
criticisms over the resolution should not extend to Turkey’s own
Armenian community.

The proposal by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Erdogan to set up
a joint commission of historians with Armenia to study the issue was an
important offer, and one that should be acted on, the Patriarch said.

TURKEY BRISTLES AT FOREIGN AFFAIRS RESOLUTION
By: Edward I. Koch

NewsMax.com, FL
0/15/41036.html
Oct 15 2007

When I was a child, I read "The Forty Days at Musa Dagh" by Franz
Werfel, a fictionalized account of actual events, which told the
story of how the Turks persecuted and killed Armenians in 1915.

>From that time on, I was on the side of the Armenians and against
the Turks.

This was back in the days before the word "genocide" had entered our
vocabulary. To this day, I still believe the Turks killed 1.5 million
Armenians because of tribalism and their hatred of Christians. In 1915,
during World War I, the Ottoman Empire was on the side of the German
Empire, then led by Kaiser Wilhelm II.

At its high point, the Ottoman Empire stretched from Greece to Egypt
and everything in between, including Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine,
Saudi Arabia, and the coastal strip of North Africa.

When I was in Congress from 1969 through 1977, I joined with Ben
Rosenthal, D-N.Y., who is now deceased, John Brademas, D-Ind.,
and Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., as one of those supporting the Rosenthal
amendment which called on Congress to cut off military aid to Turkey
unless it removed its invading army from Cyprus.

A coup in Cyprus had endangered the Turkish minority on that island
and precipitated the Turkish invasion and the establishment of a
Turkish controlled area in the north of the island.

Let me digress for a moment and relate a short anecdote which appears
in my book, "Politics." "When the Rosenthal amendment was ratified
by the House, Rosenthal, Brademas, Sarbanes and I were invited by
the Greek Patriarch of North and South America, Archbishop Iakovos,
now deceased, to his birthday party held in Manhattan and attended by
more than a thousand guests at which Paul Sarbanes and John Brademas
were to be honored.

Well, the star was Rosenthal.

When he came in, the place erupted. You had a thousand Greeks in
there. It would be like a thousand Jews on something involving Israel
of momentous importance to them. The Rosenthal Amendment had carried
at that point, and I’ve never seen such a response for the size of the
group. It was wonderful. And Rosenthal made one of the best speeches
I’ve ever heard.

It was a very short one. He said, "I was wondering what I would say
here tonight, and I thought I’d tell you a story. You’re probably not
going to appreciate it in the way that it’s meant, but I’m going to
tell you anyway."

He went on: "I had lunch with my mother, who lives in New York, today;
and she asked me what I was doing tonight, so I said, ‘I’m going to
a dinner, Mama, that will honor two of my friends in Congress, John
Brademas and Paul Sarbanes. And, you know, Mama, they’re probably the
two smartest men in Congress.’ My mother said, ‘Are they Jewish?’ and I
said, ‘No, Mama, they’re not Jewish – they’re Greek.’ My mother said,
‘Are you sure they’re not Jewish?’ I thought a moment and then I said
to my mother, ‘Mama, I think they’re half Jewish.’ And then he said
to this crowd, holding out his hands, ‘Tonight I’m half Greek.’" And
the place erupted in cheers and applause.

I think it’s the best story I’ve ever heard for an audience of that
kind. It was wonderful, just wonderful.

Now back to the present. Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee
led by Chairman Tom Lantos, voted 27-21 to denounce the slaughter
of the Armenians in 1915 as an act of genocide by the Turks. The
Turks have always taken the position that the killing of Armenians
on their eastern border – their border with Russia, then on the side
of the allies in World War I – occurred because, they alleged, the
Armenians sided with the Russians, thereby committing treason against
the country in which they lived, the Ottoman Empire.

In support of their defense against committing an act of genocide,
they point to the fact that Armenians living in Constantinople,
then capital of the Ottoman Empire, were not killed.

The Turks now in a newly created country – formed in 1917 – led
by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who secularized a then theocratic Islamic
remnant of the Ottoman Empire, wanting to establish a new Turkey that
included all minorities to be equally treated in a democratic state,
made it illegal to disparage the new state.

The Turkish government, enraged at the action of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, has threatened retaliation if the Congress,
both House and Senate, passes a final resolution. The retaliation
threatened is to close the port in Turkey which permits the entry
of 30 percent of all U.S. fuel used for military vehicles in Iraq
and the closure of the Turkish airport through which a large part of
U.S. military supplies are airlifted for use in Iraq.

On my Bloomberg radio program on WBBR 1130 AM on the dial, I gave
my position on the issue and entered into a dialogue with a young
man who identified himself as Armenian. I said that while I still
believed what the Turks did in 1915 was an act of genocide, I would
not have voted for the resolution, because it endangers the security
of American troops and simply provides the Armenians with a political
victory and nothing else. Therefore, it is not worth the danger the
congressional action will cause to American troops.

While we did not get into it in this discussion, I have on other
occasions stated my support for using American troops to defend
the people of Darfur in the Sudan from suffering genocide which
is occurring today. I also mentioned on the program that during my
tenure as a congressman, I did not sufficiently appreciate how valued
an American ally the Turks had become. I regretted my failure to
appreciate their positive role as our ally, particularly at a time
when Greece was hostile to both the U.S. and Israel, while Turkey
was friendly and supportive to both the U.S. and Israel.

My listener was surprised, he said, at my position on the resolution.

I replied that the paramount duty of all Americans is to safeguard
the well-being of American troops in Iraq. That comes before all
other considerations in my judgment. He responded that he did not
believe they would be endangered.

I disagree and don’t think we should chance it.

Chicago Sun-Times, IL
Oct 14 2007

Pelosi to move on genocide resolution that Hastert blocked

October 14, 2007
BY ROBERT NOVAK Sun-Times Columnist

Former Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, a registered lobbyist for
Turkey, failed several months ago to get his successor as top House
Democrat, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to withdraw her support from a
long-pending resolution condemning alleged Turkish genocide of
Armenians in 1915.

The Bush administration had urged Congress not to offend Turkey, a
U.S. ally, but the measure passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee
on Wednesday. Pelosi has pledged House action this year on the
genocide resolution that in the past was blocked by Rep. J. Dennis
Hastert (D-Ill.), her Republican predecessor as speaker.

In addition to Gephardt, the Turkish government also hired a top
Republican lobbyist: Bob Livingston, former chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee.

Hillary’s adviser
Prominent Democrats, while minimizing the revelation that Sandy
Berger is advising Sen. Hillary Clinton on foreign affairs, emphasize
that the disgraced former national security adviser would have no
role in her presidency.

Clinton says Berger is strictly an unofficial adviser. Berger avoided
a prison sentence for illegally removing classified documents from
the National Archives, agreeing to a $50,000 fine, 100 hours’
community service and two years’ probation, along with losing his
security clearance.

Berger’s role in the Clinton campaign is explained by the senator’s
supporters as stemming from close family ties forged when he was a
senior official in President Bill Clinton’s White House.

Romney’s blunders
Mitt Romney, who tries to come across as a picture-perfect candidate,
committed his second off-the-cuff blunder at Tuesday’s Republican
presidential debate in Dear- born, Mich.

Asked whether he would go to Congress for authorization to take
military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, the former
Massachusetts governor said: ”You sit down with your attorneys and
[they] tell you what you have to do.” He added that ”we’re going to
let the lawyers sort out” the problem.

Two months earlier in a town hall event at Bettendorf, Iowa, Romney
was asked whether any of his five sons were serving in the military
and, if not, how they supported the war against terrorism. He
replied: ”One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation
is helping to get me elected.”

Lobbying to override veto
Newspaper and television ads in Rep. James Walsh’s Syracuse, N.Y.,
district this week promoted the 10-term Republican congressman’s
support of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program vetoed by
President Bush.

The advertising, not produced by Walsh and a surprise to him, was put
out by the Americans for Children’s Health coalition seeking support
for the expansion of government-provided health care.

The ads, purchased in Walsh’s district and districts of other
Republican congressmen who broke with Bush on health care, push them
to override the veto.

The coalition consists of member organizations of health care
industries: the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America,
the American Medical Association, the American Health Care
Association, Families USA and the Federation of American Hospitals.

Sen. Richardson?
Sen. Charles Schumer, the Senate Democratic campaign chairman, is
pressing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to give up his presidential
bid and run for his state’s Senate seat held by retiring Republican
Sen. Pete Domenici.

Republicans hope to hold the New Mexico seat with Rep. Heather
Wilson, since the most popular Democratic prospect, Rep. Tom Udall,
has decided not to run. Richardson, a former congressman and Clinton
administration Cabinet member, has been a popular governor and would
be heavily favored for the Senate.

However, friends of Richardson predict that he will resist the
pressure to be the Senate candidate. Although he is given no chance
to win the presidential nomination, Richardson has broken through to
the top of the second-tier candidates and is a serious prospect to
become Sen. Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential running mate. Party
strategists see Richardson, a Mexican American, appealing to Latino
votes in four Western states that could swing the 2008 presidential
election: Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.

,CST-EDT-novak14.article

The Guardian / The Observer, UK
Oct 14 2007

Al deserves to be spared the curse of the Nobel

Jasper Gerard
Sunday October 14, 2007
The Observer

Celebrities have long warned of the ‘curse of Hello!’: you know, the
TV talent-show host grants the magazine a gawp at his beautiful new
hacienda near Chingford and his wife’s even more generously appointed
new breasts; then within days, he is caught auditioning Becki and
Nikki, a pair of local beauty therapists, and – bang! – he can’t even
get a gig on Strictly Come Dancing. The Nobel Peace Prize is becoming
a slightly posher version of this.

If there is a curse of Nobel, we should fear for Al Gore. American
and British climate-change deniers heckle and tell us just to look at
earlier recipients. Aung San Suu Kyi banged up under house arrest.
David Trimble, FW de Klerk et al could feature in that column ‘Where
are they now?’
The rest – Betty Williams, Rigoberta Menchu – would struggle to make
it into a feature titled ‘Who were they then?’ As for Yasser Arafat’s
peace prize – well, the award can seem more like a desperate plea
than a deserved reward.

The former Vice-President is certainly easy to mock. He looks like
he’s eaten too much lobster thermidor on the elder statesman circuit
and surely must be the first Nobel Prize winner to be berated by a
judge for factual inaccuracies. He has not apologised for
exaggerating, as if being on the ‘right’ side somehow frees him from
the need for rigour.

And you don’t have to be a climate-change denier to balk at all this
intercontinental back-slapping. Swells are never happier than doling
out baubles to their own, be they Nobels, Orders of the Garter or
stupendous book advances (penned your thank you note to Rupert yet,
Tony?). And if Gore is largely right, what’s to celebrate? Always one
sighs; why didn’t you do more when in power? On Kyoto, he never
persuaded Bill Clinton, let alone America.

Yet despite all that, sometimes we should accept received wisdom is
basically right. Isn’t it better Gore got people debating sea levels
and melting icecaps?

An Inconvenient Truth might contain convenient untruths and global
warming might be a greater chimera than global cooling. If so, we owe
deniers an apology. But to assume they are right and Gore wrong is
pretty brave, isn’t it? Where is the insurance if, by some miracle,
virtually the entire scientific community is proven right? I’ve read
countless books on this, yet wouldn’t dare pontificate on the
science. But the politics are obvious: with the stakes so high, Gore
is right to denounce those who say: ‘Carry on gas-guzzling.’

As a presidential candidate, Gore was a bit of a bore, not very
Hello!. He was cursed long before this prize and there seems little
chance of his following The West Wing’s Josiah Bartlet, a fictional
Nobel winner, into the White House. But even many of his fiercest
critics quietly wish the leader of the free world was President Gore,
not President Bush. So, finally, let’s applaud the man who refuses
merrily to kiss the world goodbye.

Oh dear, Donald’s been bunkered

Donald Trump’s Scottish golf course is being bunkered by a thoroughly
curmudgeonly farmer who refuses to sell his scruffy smallholding hard
by the second fairway. Good for him. There is something evil about
golf and, as for Trump, well, civilisation could probably take his
disappointment on the chin.

Trump, whose luxuriant thatch could surely stand in for a stretch of
gorse in the heavy rough off the long 14th should he be shy of the
odd acre, refuses to accept a polite ‘no’. Instead, he responds in
the only way he knows how: offering more money. He calls Michael
Forbes’s land ‘disgusting’, with ‘rusty tractors’. Well, yes, Donald,
it’s a farm. In a choice between rusty tractors and gleaming golf
buggies, give me tractors.

Yet increasingly, farmland is viewed as dead space waiting to be
turned into something useful. We hear this in the call to develop the
green belt; much of it, we are told, is ‘nondescript agricultural
land’. What is it meant to be? A giant, pornographic art
installation? An outdoor leisure facility to assist the al-Qaeda
youth training scheme? A polar bear sanctuary with dancing girls? If
only England had its Michael Forbeses so we could trump all the other
cynical little Donalds.

Accept the utility premise to determine land use and you can kiss
your countryside goodbye. Any development will always be judged more
‘useful’ than farmland, even a golf course.

Even if green-belt land never sprouts another turnip, it is still
worth keeping, because otherwise it will sprout concrete. Farmland
should be preserved because it is beautiful – rusty tractors and all.

Quick, screen the nurses …

Belief in the NHS is the nearest Britain comes to a religion and to
criticise nurses is blasphemous. Yet 90 people have died in my Kent
NHS Trust from a ‘superbug’ (bugs, like supermodels, are subject to
grade inflation), so could this be the time to question our faith?
Clearly, it would be grossly unfair to lay all blame on nurses, but
would you leave patients to wallow in excrement?

Florence Nightingale made ‘angels’ of an entire profession. Her image
of the sainted nurse is bolstered by Keira Knightley in Atonement; a
fresh generation of nurses stoically tending the wounded from yet
another war. Sentimentalising nurses continued in peacetime, but
strangely, this warm glow doesn’t extend to others who treat us,
dentists, say. To nurses, we ascribe the fibre of Mother Teresa and
the foxiness of Kylie Minogue. Think of a dentist and it’s Josef
Mengele meets Olivier’s psycho in Marathon Man.

Just the other day, at one of the now notorious hospitals, the Kent
and Sussex (‘Kent and snuff it’ to locals), my toddler wedged a
carrot so far up his nose we couldn’t retrieve it. The nurses were
keener on chatting than fixing my son’s admittedly minor ailment.

In a restaurant, we would complain; in a hospital, we shower our
obsequies. The Lady with the Lamp has much to answer for.

…because hospitals need a fast cure

The hospital, by the way, looks like one of those places where germ
warfare experiments took place in the Fifties. While hospitals I’ve
visited up north look so improved you could almost be somewhere first
world – Portugal, say – many down south resemble the stage set of a
disaster movie.

And this is why ministers must take ultimate responsibility. In a
sane country, hospital managers would be accountable to patients
rather than to Whitehall targets and money would be raised locally. A
new report shows taxpayers in the south east subsidise the rest of
the country by £2,400 each.

Redistribution was clearly necessary, but it’s no surprise that four
of the five primary care trusts with the lowest per capita spending
are in the SE. Voters are starting to notice they are paying, but
there is no pay-back. The middle-class labrador has rested
somnolently by the fire these new Labour years. No wonder it’s
starting to bark.

Remind me, what is the war on terror for?

The world is viewed through the prism of a war on terror. President
Bush dismisses the attempted slaughter of a people as a ticklish
detail. He rejects a historic Congressional decision to call Turkey’s
murder of 1.5 million Armenians ‘genocide’. And not because he denies
butchery took place; rather, Turkey is a key ally, so best let
sleeping Armenians lie. One sees his point, naturally. The friendship
of a Muslim nation provides cover. Plus nationalist Turks, successors
to the ‘young Turks’ who nearly snuffed out the Armenians, are
itching to invade northern Iraq. So best placate Turkey…

But what is the war on terror for? Isn’t it a response to a war of
terror, whose first shot was fired in 1915, when Turkey’s interior
minister ordered Armenians to be ‘terminated’? Why does the death of
3,000 in New York weigh heavier than 1.5 million? And if the war on
terror possesses moral as well as military force, shouldn’t it be
about principle as well as pragmatism?

Otherwise, aren’t we just the other side’s enemy combatant?
Guantanamo, rendition, detention: staring through the prism, we’ve
lost perspective.

So long and thanks for all that bigotry

Had Vlad the Impaler been British, by the time he toddled towards his
dotage, he would have been hailed as a national treasure. There is
nobody, it seems, over whom we won’t sigh: ‘Ah! They don’t make ’em
like that any more.’ Even Ann Widdecombe. The announcement of her
retirement has inspired profiles of ‘Dear Doris’. But in her time,
she has supported hanging, opposed equalising the age of consent for
‘buggers’ and pretty well anything done by single mothers, and
thought it humane to keep prisoners handcuffed while undergoing
surgery, though conceded it was a bit much when wardens chained a
woman who was giving birth.

A Conservative party with John Redwood at its heart evidently still
has far to travel, but let us celebrate that never again is someone
as intolerant as Widdecombe likely to be elected.

Sports betting previews, UK
Oct 13 2007

Armenia vs. Serbia – Preview

Armenia made few surprises in their last two matches, winning against
Poland and drawing with Portugal, both of these matches were played
at their home Republican stadium. Still I rate this team very low and
they won those matches mostly because their opponents underestimated
them. Armenia has only the pride to play for and they will play
without pressure and that is big plus for them. At home Armenia
showed like hard nut to crack in these qualifications and with
defending for whole match, they will, for sure, make troubles to the
Serbian team.

Serbia is currently on 4th position but they have played one match
less than first placed teams Finalnd and Poland and one point less
than big favorite Portugal, which means that this match is crucial to
them. Their coach said that he will start carefully with only one
striker upfront, Zigic or Lazovic, with Stankovic behind that
striker. They will try to score a goal with that formation and if
they fail to do so, in the second half we will se another attacker in
the line-up.

Manucharyan injured, Arzumanyan doubtful for Armenia, both are
important team players, and Serbia will be without Vidic their best
defender.

I believe that it won’t be easy match for Serbia at all, they had
already some slip-ups so far against weaker teams and the pressure
will be on their side. I think that Serbia has plenty of talented
players who can decide the match with individual effort. The
motivation should be their biggest advantage and I am on them today.

PanARMENIAN.Net

EAFJD: to pass in silence over Genocide becomes a serious act of
complicity with Turkish denials
13.10.2007 14:46 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `We greet the political courage of the deputies of
the Foreign Affairs Committee which knew how to reject the cynicism of
Ankara’ declared Hilda Tchoboian, the President of the Euro-Armenian
Federation, and continued, `We also want to pay tribute to the
hundreds of American activists, organizations of defense of the human
rights, people from all religions, all minorities, and to the Armenian
organizations of the United States which carried out this struggle of
civilization against cruelty’.

The Euro-Armenian Federation points out that Mr. Babacan, with whom
Europe negotiates the accession of Turkey, recently threatened openly
the Jewish minority of Turkey because the United States Jewish
community supports the resolution H.R.106. It also informs that the
Prime Minister of Turkey, Mr Erdogan has asked the Turkish Parliament,
which is controlled by his party, the AKP, to authorize the invasion
of the North of Iraq in reprisal to the vote of the American
representatives. The U.S. State Department has issued a warning to the
American residents in Turkey of possible violence against them, the
EAFJD told PanARMENIAN.Net.

`These extreme and disproportionate measures show that the Turkish
government has a long way to go before reaching the values and use of
moderation which are those of Europe. They also prove that Turkey
which fallaciously sells to us that it is a factor of peace and
stability, in fact constitutes a regional threat’ continued the EAFJD
President.

`In the United States as in Europe, to pass in silence over the
Genocide becomes a serious act of complicity with the Turkish
denials. We expect the European Parliament to become, once again the
voice of conscience of Europe,’ concluded Hilda Tchoboian. The
Euro-Armenian Federation requests the European Parliament that it
demands, in all European acts and resolutions on Turkey, that the
latter stops its practice of denial. It announces that the 2nd
Convention of the Armenians of Europe which will be held in the
European Parliament on 15 and 16 October 2007, will pay tribute to the
European members of Parliament who voted, 20 years ago, the first
international recognition of the genocide. The session on the
afternoon of the 16th, will be dedicated to the topic of the
recognitions and the denials. Mr. Aram Hamparian, director of Armenian
National Committee of America (ANCA) will give an account of the vote
in the American congress.

Hayots Ashkharh Daily, Armenia
Oct 13 2007

Our Nancy

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Palosy has
announced that she is not going to yield to the pressures from Turkey
and the White House and is determined to put to discussion Resolution
# 106 on the Recognition of Armenian Genocide. ` I have already
underscored that once the bill is adopted by the US House of Foreign
Affairs Committee it will be included in the agenda of the plenary
session. Now the bill has been discussed by the Committee and it is
going to `enter’ the House of Representatives.’
In response to the question `Why should you complicate the
situation, being under the pressure of US administration and Turkey?’
‘As you know I have been working in Congress for the last 20 years
and during these 20 years people repeat the same. After the collapse
of the Soviet Union (during the years of cold war) Turkey’s strategic
significance, from the geographical point of view, used to be of
great importance. It was followed by the war in Persian Gulf. During
Bill Clinton’s presidency they attached great importance to air
borders and oil-ducts. At present we are facing another war. This
means we will never have the proper time to pass the Resolution,’ the
Speaker said.

The Irish Times
October 12, 2007 Friday

God’s gift to a strict post-Soviet regime

AZERBAIJAN: Oil and gas have given Azerbaijan the fastest-growing GDP
in the world, writes Arthur Beesley in Baku

President Ilham Aliyev has lofty plans for Azerbaijan, a post-Soviet
state on the cusp of great wealth thanks to its abundant reserves of
oil and gas.

Squeezed between Russia and Iran on the eastern shores of the Caspian
sea, Aliyev’s secular Muslim country of 7.9 million people is in the
midst of a vigorous boom that has hugely increased its strategic
importance. Aliyev commands a deeply authoritarian regime that
suppresses dissent at home but has many friends in the West because
its provision of energy helps reduce Russia’s leverage in
international markets.

The opening in 2005 of a 1,768km (1,100-mile) oil pipeline linking
the Azeri capital, Baku, with Ceyhan on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast
– via Tblisi in Georgia – provided the first opportunity for Caspian
producers to bypass Russia when exporting to Europe and further
afield.

With multinational groups such as BP arriving en masse in Baku to
trade with the state oil company, Aliyev’s low profile on the global
stage is at odds with his increasingly powerful position in the
international energy market.

Describing oil as a gift from God, he said Azerbaijan has the
potential to produce nine billion barrels of the stuff – current
production is almost 800,000 barrels per day – and enough gas to
maintain supplies for 150 years at current extraction rates.

That’s a glittering prize in energy terms, although rampant
corruption in Azerbaijan and an ambivalent attitude to democracy are
a big cause of concern to the international community.

A further concern is Aliyev’s belligerent rhetoric about Armenia’s
occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories in Nagorno Karabakh, over
which the countries went to war between 1989 and 1994. With peace
talks inconclusive since then, Aliyev has relentlessly ramped up his
annual military budget to the tune of $1 billion (EUR 702 million).
"Next year it will be much higher . . . We must be ready for any
outcome," he said in a group interview for European journalists.

Aliyev inherited power in a disputed 2003 election from his late
father, Heydar, a Soviet grandee and former chief of the local KGB
who dominated Azeri politics for more than 30 years. It was the first
such transfer of power in the former Soviet empire.

Even today, his father’s image hangs prominently on posters
throughout the dusty streets of Baku in the mode of dear leaders
elsewhere. On those same streets, the presence of sleek Mercedes
beside fruit-laden Ladas is evidence of a chasm between the wealth of
the country’s elite and those left behind by the boom.

Aliyev will stand for a second and final term in a presidential
election next year, a contest he is widely expected to win. On the
sixth floor of the enormous presidential palace overlooking Baku, his
remarks do not augur well for the democratic cause. "Frankly
speaking, I don’t believe that international observers will say that
these elections were in full accordance with international
standards," he said.

While observers of the 2003 poll for the Organisation for Security
and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) witnessed ballot-box stuffing and
tampering with result protocols, Aliyev claims such statements were
"politically motivated" and far from reality.

Igbal Agazadeh disagrees. An opposition MP who was severely beaten
during the 17 months he spent in prison after disputing the outcome
of the 2003 poll, he plans to contest next year’s election. Agazadeh
speaks in confident terms about his prospects, but readily highlights
a litany of shortcomings in political and budgetary accountability in
the Aliyev regime. "It’s an imitation form of democracy," he said.

For all that, Aliyev insists he is moving his country decisively
towards greater transparency and openness and said he wants to go
much further.

Lauding the EU for providing the "best experience in the world" in
terms of economic development, political freedom, living standards
and security, he said Baku was keen to develop ever closer ties with
the union.

So does Aliyev want Azerbaijan to join the EU? "In principle yes
sure, but we must be realists," he said. "If the EU is ready, or when
it’s ready, we will of course be happy to be part of this structure."

The reality is that Azerbaijan itself is far from ready for the EU.
Aliyev recites impressive figures about Azerbaijan’s rapid economic
advance – a 35 per cent rise in gross domestic product last year, the
fastest in the world – but it remains unclear as to whether his
government will successfully manage the growth.

Public spending next year will rise to the equivalent of $12 billion,
up from $1.4 billion as recently as 2003. While such an expansion
would challenge even the most advanced administration, Aliyev said
the construction of new schools, roads, hospitals and power stations
was all for the benefit of the Azeri people.

Aliyev’s government maintains it is fighting a noble fight against
corruption, but his critics charge that such a rapid uplift in
expenditure provides ample scope for the illicit siphoning off of
public money for private gain.

"The spending area is totally corrupt. Money is stolen – not in the
oil well – in government spending. It is becoming uncontrollable,"
said political analyst Ilgar Mammador, a member of the Azerbaijan
Euro-Integration National Committee.

The committee cannot provide concrete examples of corruption,
although its concerns are shared by the EU and other international
organisations. In Baku, the boom continues. The city has more cranes
over its skyline than Dublin ever had in the heyday of the Celtic
Tiger.

DEADLY RESOLUTION

Savannah Morning News, GA
Oct 12 2007

A House committee vote could endanger the war effort in Iraq.

WEDNESDAY’S VOTE by the House Foreign Affairs Committee spotlighting
the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians almost a century ago is either
boneheaded bad timing or a deliberate attempt to sabotage the American
war effort in Iraq.

While historians agree that the deaths occurred, the committee vote
branded the atrocity with the politically charged term of genocide
on the part of Turks at the end of World War I.

Although the vote has yet to go to the floor of the full House, the
committee’s action could endanger our military’s use of its base in
Turkey, and foul the delicate balance of peace in northern Iraq.

House Resolution 106 has for years been the subject of
vigorous lobbying from both sides of the issue by Turkey and
Armenian-Americans. Turkey claims the number of deaths has been
inflated and that Turks also died in the civil war that roiled the
area at the end of the wider World War I.

However one might feel about recognizing the plight of the Armenians
more than 90 years ago, it is difficult to imagine a worse time to
anger Turkey, an important NATO ally.

According to the Associated Press, some 70 percent of U.S. air cargo
bound for Iraq and a third of the fuel used in the war goes through
Turkey.

What’s more, it is only through fervent diplomatic efforts that the
United States has convinced Turkey not to cross the northern border
of Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish separatists agitating for independence
from Turkey. Both the United States and the European Union label the
Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK, as a terrorist organization.

However, the U.S. strongly opposes a military incursion by Turkey
into Iraqi Kurdistan for fear it would destabilize one of Iraq’s only
peaceful sectors.

It should also be noted that after France’s lower house of parliament
passed a bill last year making it illegal to deny the deaths were
genocide, Turkey cut off military relations with that country. And
that’s even though the measure was never passed by France’s upper
house to become law.

Analysts say Turkey is not likely to take such drastic action in
relation to its much broader military relationship with the United
States.

But Turkey is a democracy as well, and its leaders are subject to
public pressure.

That means our soldiers on the ground could see some repercussions from
the foolishly timed action of American politicians safely ensconced
at the Capitol.

Many more deaths caused by rebels based in northern Iraq, and Turkey’s
leaders might succumb to public outcry to put an end to the violence.

Heaven help the 19 Democrats and eight Republicans who voted the
measure out of committee if House Resolution 106 triggers a new
eruption of violence in Iraq.

AKP’S BAGIS: "ARMENIAN RESOLUTION BELONGS IN THE GARBAGE CAN"

Turkish Press
Star
Oct 11 2007

Press Review

In Washington , visiting parliamentary deputies yesterday met with
members of a US House of Representatives committee set to vote today on
a resolution on the Armenian genocide allegations. Speaking about the
resolution, Justice and Development Party (AKP) Deputy Chair Egemen
Bagis said, "The resolution before the US Congress on the Armenian
allegations about incidents of 1915 belongs in the garbage can."