Author: Maghakian Mike

NKR PRESIDENT SENDS CONGRATULATORY LETTER TO CAPTAIN OF VESSEL
“CILICIA”

STEPANAKERT, AUGUST 19. ARMINFO. President of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
Arkady Ghoukassian sent a congratulatory letter to the crew of the
vessel “Cilicia” and its captain Karen Balayan.

ARMINFO was informed in the press office of NKR president, in the
letter Ghoukassian in particular says: “I am very glad for the
completion of the voyage of the legendary vessel of Cilicia round
Europe. It is symbolic that your mission was over on the threshold of
the 14th anniversary of declaration of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,
whose flag along with the state flag of Armenia was flying proudly
over the Cilicia during its historical cruise”.

OFFICIAL WEB-SITE OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF MILLENIUM CHALLENGE ACCOUNT-ARMENIA OPENS

YEREVAN, AUGUST 17, NOYAN TAPAN. The official web-site of the Board
of Trustees of the Millenium Challenge Account-Armenia (MCA-Armenia)
opened with a goal to secure publicity of the process of working out
and implementation of the Armenian program of the “Millenium Challenge”
fund. The address of the web-site is Information concerning
the process of working out of the MCA-Armenia program is placed in the
web-site. In the web-site, special attention is paid to covering of
the consulting process to reach the goal of providing the publicity and
transparency of the process. At the same time, necessary conditions are
created for providing direct questioning and, with the help of a forum,
a retrospective tie with people not involved in the consulting process.

Poll Shows Turks Dislike al-Qaeda, But Blame Bush for Terror

A survey conducted throughout Turkey shows little of no support for
al-Qaeda and its methods, but ironically, 54% say Bush is ‘the number
one guilty party’ for terrorism, while only 22% blame Osama bin Laden

Sabah (Turkish daily newspaper)
August 7, 2005

Ninety-one percent (91%) of the Turkish public expressed a negative
opinion about the al-Qaeda organization, known for its terrorist
operations.

A poll conducted by the International Strategic Research Organization
(ISRO) under the coordination of Director Sedat Laciner and Ihsan
Bal revealed that none of the participants said, “I am happy with
al-Qaeda’s attacks” nor did any say, “al-Qaeda defends Muslim rights.”

The survey entitled “Perception of Terrorism” was conducted with
2,500 participants in Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Adana and Bursa.

Only 4% perceive al-Qaeda’s attacks as “jihad,” and 5% think the
network fights for independence. Thirty-four percent of Turkish
society thinks al-Qaeda harms Muslims, while 57% says its attacks
are acts of terrorism.

Those “ashamed as a Muslim of al-Qaeda’s attacks” were recorded at
18% and 31% say they are worried about the world’s future. Eighteen
percent think Muslims are humiliated by the al-Qaeda attacks, and
those saying, “I am happy with its attacks” was recorded at 0%.

Ninety percent say the bombing attacks that occurred in London,
Madrid and Egypt were “unfair,” while only 3% supported the fairness
of the attacks.

In response to the question, “Why did al-Qaeda attack Istanbul?,” 40%
said, “Because Turkey is the best alternative to al-Qaeda.” However,
36% said, “Because Turkey is a Western ally.”

U.S. President George W. Bush is shown as the number one guilty
party for terrorism, at 54%. Twenty-two percent indicated Sharon, 17%
indicated al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 4% indicated British
Prime Minister Tony Blair as being most responsible.

Sixty-six percent of participants blamed U.S. Middle East policy
as the cause of global terrorism, yet 20 percent pointed to the
inequality in income distribution and economic problems as the prime
cause for terror.

Only four percent of the Turkish public links terror with religion.

Genozid an den Armeniern

General-Anzeiger (Bonn)
10. August 2005

Genozid an den Armeniern Kommentar “Gedaechtsnisarbeit” von Hubert
Kleine Stegemann am 6. August In dem Kommentar findet sich die
Behauptung, “die Mitglieder der deutschen Militaermission in
Konstantinopel” haetten “der tuerkischen Regierung 1915 zur
Deportat…

Kommentar “Gedaechtsnisarbeit” von Hubert Kleine Stegemann am 6.
August

In dem Kommentar findet sich die Behauptung, “die Mitglieder der
deutschen Militaermission in Konstantinopel” haetten “der tuerkischen
Regierung 1915 zur Deportation der Armenier geraten”. Eine solche
Anschuldigung findet sich auch nicht ansatzweise in irgendeinem der
mir bekannten Buecher zum Genozid an den Armeniern, weder
beispielsweise bei Johannes Lepsius, Armin T. Wegner oder Yves
Ternon, noch in dem von Tessa Hofmann im Auftrage der Gesellschaft
fuer bedrohte Voelker herausgegebenen Band “Das Verbrechen des
Schweigens” (Bericht ueber die Verhandlung des tuerkischen
Voelkermords an den Armeniern von dem “Staendigen Tribunal der
Voelker” in Paris 1984), in dem eine Anzahl internationaler Fachleute
eingehend alle Aspekte des Genozids vortragen. Er findet sich auch
nicht in der Serie “Wir werden euch ausrotten” des Spiegels (1992).

Der gaengige Vorwurf lautet vielmehr, die Reichsregierung haette es
unterlassen, durch eine Intervention bei der Hohen Pforte die
Vernichtung der Armenier zu verhindern. Es wird unterstellt, dass
eine solche Intervention erfolgreich gewesen waere. Ich halte das
fuer eine Illusion.

Absurd ist die Behauptung, dass sich “die (sic) Mitglieder der
deutschen Militaermission spaeter unter dem NS-Regime unter den
Ausfuehrenden des Massenmordes an den europaeischen Juden befanden”.
Der Chef der deutschen Militaermission in Konstantinopel, General
Otto Liman von Sanders, ist 1928 verstorben. Sein Stellvertreter
General Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein ging 1929 in den Ruhestand
und starb 1948. Der juengste Offizier der Mission muss 1938 an die 60
Jahre alt gewesen sein. Die Massenmoerder waren wohl erheblich
juenger.

Horst Poetzsch

, Bonn

AGBU Press Office
55 East 59th Street
New York, NY 10022-1112
Phone: 212.319.6383, x118
Fax: 212.319.6507
Email: [email protected]
Website:

PRESS RELEASE

Friday, July 8, 2005

AGBU Swiss Chapter Accompanies Geneva Canton Delegation to Armenia

Geneva, Switzerland – The Swiss Chapter of AGBU accompanied the
Minister of Education of the Geneva Canton, Mr. Charles Beer, to
Armenia from April 24 to 28, 2005. Mr. Beer’s trip to Armenia was his
first ever and he was accompanied by two assistants, Ms. Vanessa
Mengel and Ms. Ivana Vrbica.

Minister Beer, great grandson of Rostom Zorian, one of the founders of
the Armenian Revolutionary Party, visited the capital as well as
several Armenian provinces and towns, including Dilijan and
Tsaghkadzor. Geneva authorities sent Mr. Beer to supervise the
implementation of the city’s Armenia programs.

He had great admiration for the country but said that there was much
to do in the sphere of infrastructure. Partners of the Geneva Canton
in their Armenia projects are AGBU’s Swiss Chapter, headed by Taline
Avakian, and the Armenian Social Investment Fund, whose director is
Ashot Guiragossian. The Canton, along with the Swiss AGBU covers 10%
of the project cost, while the remainder of the financial support
comes from the World Bank.

Minister Charles Beer enumerated all past and present community
programs that have been co-sponsored with AGBU, including the repair
of a hospital roof in Artik and the repair of village water pipelines
in various regional towns. Mr. Beer was convinced that the money has
been well spent and well administered by both AGBU and the Geneva
Canton government. A new project for repairing the Tsaghkadzor sewage
system was presented to Charles Beer during his visit.

Two years ago, Mr. Carlo Lamprecht visited Armenia through the
initiative of the Swiss Chapter of AGBU. The Canton of Geneva has a
special budget called “International Solidarity,” which allocates
funds for projects in developing countries.

During his visit, Minister Beer also highlighted another side of
Armenian-Swiss relations, namely his Canton’s close ties with the
local Armenian community. Many Armenians, including orphans, found
refuge in Geneva after the Genocide. Mr. Beer mentioned that his great
grandmother taught Armenian language lessons during the period.

On December 10, 2001, the Geneva Canton adopted a statement officially
recognizing the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Mr. Beer was a governmental
deputy at the time and one of the initiators of the declaration.

For more information on AGBU chapters around the world, please visit

Far Away Trial

News

Inside Higher Ed (Washington, DC)
August 11, 2005

By Doug Lederman

Academics and human rights advocates are warily monitoring a trial
unfolding in an Armenian courtroom, in which a Duke University doctoral
student from Turkey faces up to eight years in prison for allegedly
taking used books out of the country illegally.

Scholarly groups, which have waged a campaign to defend him, fear the
smuggling charges are a subtext for the Armenian government to crack
down on a researcher who is studying a politically sensitive period in
the country’s tangled history with Turkey.

Yektan Turkyilmaz, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in cultural anthropology
at Duke, in May became the first Turkish citizen to request and receive
access to the Armenian National Archives, where he sought information
for his dissertation, `Imagining `Turkey,’ Creating a Nation: The
Politics of Geography and State Formation in Eastern Anatolia, 1908-1938.’

Turkyilmaz is said to be one of a handful of Turkish scholars who have
critically assessed the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman in
1915 and 1916, which Armenians and most scholars have long characterized
as genocide, and the means by which Turkey took control of the eastern
region of the country known as Anatolia.

On June 17, according to the Social Science Research Council (which
supports his work with a field grant) and the Science and Human Rights
Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
authorities at Yerevan Airport in Armenia pulled Turkilman off an
airplane as he prepared to leave the country. They seized in the
neighborhood of 100 books that he had bought at secondhand stores and
compact disks that contained the fruits of his research in the Armenian
archives.

He was held without bail for nearly a month before being charged, on
July 21, with violating an article in the Armenian Constitution that
bars transportation out of the country of drugs, nuclear weapons and
certain `raw materials or cultural values’ without prior permission.
According to the scholarly groups’ reports, Armenian customs regulations
require travelers to declare books that are at least 50 years old, as
seven of Turkyilmaz’s books reportedly were.

Turkyilmaz’s supporters say that if he violated the customs policy, he
did so unknowingly, and that he is being far more harshly than the
charges warrant. They say that the first few days he was held in custody
were dominated by interrogation about his research and his political
convictions, and that the Armenian authorities pored over his archival
material, which arguably had nothing to do with the alleged book smuggling.

The arrest, the AAAS said in its report on the case, `sends a negative
signal that Armenia does not encourage independent scholarly research
into its history.’

More than 200 academics from around the world signed a letter to
Armenia’s president urging that Turkmilyaz be released and his archival
materials returned. Richard H. Brodhead, the president of Duke, where
Turkmilyaz is a John Hope Franklin Institute fellow, sent a similar
letter, in which he called Turkmilyaz a `scholar of extraordinary
promise.’ `His exceptional command of many languages is, I am told,
unique among scholars of this period and gives him an equally unique
opportunity, therefore, to help illuminate this critical historical
period,’ Brodhead wrote.

He added: `As the leader of a great country, you have the ability to
intervene in this matter and to determine the appropriateness of the
actions of your government and the Armenian prosecutors and police. You
also have the ability to release Mr. Turkyilmaz. With respect, I urge
you to do so.’

International PEN, the writers’ group, issued an alert on Turkyilmaz’s
behalf, and the former presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bob Dole
weighed in with a letter.

Those pleas did not stop the trial, which began Tuesday but was promptly
delayed, according to a report by Radio Free Europe. The agency reported
that Turkyilmaz’s new lawyer said he needed more time to familiarize
himself with the case, and that a delay was granted until tomorrow.

Ayse Gul Altinay, an assistant professor at Istanbul’s Sabanci
University and an organizer of the campaign for Turkyilmaz, said in an
e-mail message Wednesday that `we are hoping that the trial process will
not last long and that Yektan will be freed soon. It is also very
important that they return his research material, together with his
personal things, when he is released.’

For more information on Yektan Turkyilmaz, see:

Unfinished Business in Russia

Stratfor.com
Wednesday, August 10, 2005

By Peter Zeihan

It should come as no surprise that the most dynamic part of U.S. foreign
policy relates to Russia. Condoleezza Rice, appointed as Secretary of
State at the beginning of the year, began her government work during the
end of the Cold War, when she served as former President George H. W.
Bush’s Soviet expert at the National Security Council. Now that she is
in the big chair at Foggy Bottom, she has surrounded herself with
members of the same team from her previous stint in government service.
Of particular note are former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick,
former U.S. ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns, and Robert Joseph, former
special assistant to the president and senior director for proliferation
strategy, counterproliferation and homeland defense with the National
Security Council (NSC) — a wordy way of saying that he was really
important. The three now serve essentially as Rice’s No. 2, 3 and 4 at
State.

As we stated when Rice was appointed in January, the State Department is
now “staffed by a team that helped knock the Soviet Union off its
superpower perch. Russia can look forward to four years of a State
Department with the resources and the will to ratchet back Moscow’s
influence throughout the Baltics, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central
Asia and even its western Slavic flank. The confrontation over Ukraine
was just the beginning.”

Personnel changes have not been limited to the top tier. Vershbow’s
replacement as ambassador — William Burns — fits the mold set by Rice
and her top team. He served at the U.S. embassy in Moscow as
minister-counselor for political affairs during the 1980s, a position
and time that would tend to shape one’s political views. He is now
coming back to Moscow after several years of knocking Israeli and
Palestinian heads together.

In the case of Russia, however, the transformation is much deeper than
“just” a fresh ambassador, secretary of state and top management team.
The rank and file of the entire Russia desk at the State Department is
being overhauled. Considering that most State Department personnel swap
out positions every two to three years to avoid the dangers of going
native, a certain amount of turnover is expected, but the top-to-bottom
housecleaning in the case of the Russia team appears to be far more
thorough than any scheduled rotation.

The big shift began — and the direction of U.S. policy was set — at
the V-E Day celebrations in Moscow in May. During that trip, the Bush
team bracketed a whirlwind tour past a parade stand in Moscow between
deep, long and extremely friendly visits to Latvia and Georgia. The
message was clear: the United States is now more concerned with the
comings, goings and concerns of Vaira Vike-Freiberga and Mikhail
Saakashvili — the Latvian and Georgian presidents — than it is with
the Russians, and this message was sent on the Russians’ national day.

In the Russian mind, it is all snapping into place: color “revolutions”
in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine; NATO and EU expansion right up to
the Russian border; the commencement of pumping on the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline; and now a thorough personnel shift in
the State Department that is stocking the top ranks with people who were
present at — and played a role in — the Soviet defeat. The Kremlin’s
belief is that the West, led by the United States, is committing to a
full-court press into Russia’s geopolitical space in an attempt to
permanently remove Russia as a threat.

ARMENIAN PM RECEIVES OUTGOING INDIAN AMBASSADOR

YEREVAN, AUGUST 9, ARMENPRESS: Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Margarian received today the outgoing Indian ambassador to Armenia
Deepak Vohra who ended his mission in Armenia.

The governmental press service said during the meeting the prime
minister thanked the ambassador for his effective work and wished
success in his further mission. On his part, the ambassador noted that
it was great honor for him to work in Armenia and he leaves the
country full of great impressions and memories.

He said that his next mission will be in Sudan and he has already
managed to find information about the local Armenian community and is
going to establish close relations with its representatives. The
ambassador thanked the Armenian government and prime minister for
supporting him during his mission.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
August 8, 2005 Monday 1:28 PM Eastern Time

New Ukrainian-Russian plane begins flight testing in Armenia

By Vitaly Matarykin

KIEV

A new-generation Ukrainian-Russian joint regional passenger plane,
An-148, began flight-testing in Armenia on Monday.

The testing is taking place at Gyumri Airport (former Leninakan),
1,525 metres above the sea level, and will end on August 13.

Earlier the plane was tested for heat resistance in Uzbekistan and
for ice resistance in Russia.

All testing of the new plane is expected to be completed at the
beginning of 2006.

Movement chair arrested over cooperation with Armenian secret service

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Aug 5 2005

Baku, August 4, AssA-Irada – Head of a youth movement has been arrested
on charges of attempting to forcefully seize power with the aid of
the Armenian secret service. The apprehension follows a testimony of
a member of the organization, who appealed to the Prosecutor’s Office
on Wednesday.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, representative of the Yeni Fikir
(New Thought) movement Osman Alimuradov testified that on July 28-29,
he traveled to Tbilisi together with the movement chairman Ruslan
Bashirli, on an instruction of the major opposition Popular Front
Party (PFPA) chairman Ali Karimli. While in the Georgian capital, they
met with Merabi Jibutia, who presented himself as a representative
of Georgian ‘democratic forces’, as well as two other individuals,
Georgi Ispirian and a man named Vardan. “However, these individuals
actually represent Armenian secret service”, the Prosecutor’s Office
report said. These persons drew the movement representatives to
secret cooperation.

Alimuradov submitted a video tape and a receipt proving that Bashirli
received money from these individuals.

The investigation showed that in late June-early July, Georgian
citizen Jibutia visited Baku and met with the Yeni Fikir chairman
Bashirli. Bashirli then introduced him to the PFPA chairman Karimli,
which was followed by an hour-long face-to-face conversation.

Bashirli and Alimuradov met with Georgi Ispirian and Jibutia at a
private apartment in Tbilisi on July 29. Bashirli then said that the
‘forces’ he represents act on an instruction of the US National
Democratic Institute. He said that they have received ‘specific
instructions’ from NDI representatives to stage a ‘revolution’
in Azerbaijan. He said that NDI representatives arranged training
sessions for PFPA deputy chair Fuad Mustafayev and the Yeni Fikir
movement coordinator Nuriyev, in Poland.

Ispirian, in turn, said that the ‘democratic forces’ headed by
PFPA chair Karimli and Bashirli should try to stage a revolution
in Azerbaijan. Ispirian also promised that Armenian and Georgian
‘democratic forces’ would provide all kinds of assistance, including
sufficient funds. He said that if necessary, fear and confusion would
be provoked among the population and ceasefire may be breached for
a short period of time to ‘show the incompetence of the authorities’.

Ispirian also said during the meeting that he is capable of staging
shooting at one of the opposition rallies in Azerbaijan in order to
breach stability in the country.

After an agreement was reached to jointly struggle against Azerbaijani
authorities, Ispirian gave $2,000 to Bashirli and received a receipt
for the money. Besides, he promised Bashirli to give him another
$20,000 in a few days. The plotters then agreed that Bashirli will
receive $2,000 every month.

However, Alimuradov turned down the proposal to cooperate. He said
that the afore-mentioned man named Vardan told him that they represent
Armenian secret service and have video-taped the meeting with a hidden
camera. Vardan threatened Alimuradov that if collaboration is declined,
the mentioned video-tapes would be aired on TV channels. He also gave
a copy of the tape to Alimuradov.

The Azerbaijani law enforcement have arrested Bashirli and started a
criminal case against him on charges of ‘forceful capture of power’
and ‘forceful overthrow of the constitutional system’.*