Author: Maghakian Mike

Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust foundation to become part of university
.c The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation, a repository
of Holocaust testimonials, is becoming part of the University of
Southern California’s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Spielberg, the foundation’s chairman and a USC trustee, said moving
the collection to USC will ensure its preservation and access to the
public.
“All of us know that the survivors and witnesses have given us a
precious gift whose wise use will build a better world for this and
future generations,” Spielberg said in a statement.
The repository’s 52,000 testimonials from survivors and witnesses will
be transferred Jan. 1 to USC indefinitely under an agreement announced
Friday between the university and the Survivors of the Shoah Visual
History Foundation.

09/17/05 18:15 EDT

Fresno Bee
Sept 15 2005
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 — ListProcessor(tm) by CREN
Turkey in denial
Bid to join European Union entangled in genocide dispute.
(Updated Thursday, September 15, 2005, 5:55 AM)
For nearly a century debate has roiled over what the Turkish
government and most Turks call a human tragedy brought on by the
chaos of World War I and what most of the world – including The Bee –
call the Armenian genocide.
Now the issue has become enmeshed in Turkey’s faltering effort to
join the European Union. How the conflict turns out is important –
for Turkish-Armenian relations and for the future of Turkey, a
country that straddles Europe and the Middle East.
Turkish officialdom has always denied that forces of the collapsing
Ottoman Empire sought to exterminate Turkish Armenians starting in
1915, when ethnic Armenians say the Turks killed as many as 1.5
million Armenians over eight years. Turkish officials agree that
hundreds of thousands of Armenians died, but say that disease, famine
and exposure, as well as fighting caused by Armenian guerrilla raids
against retreating Turkish troops, were the primary causes.
There matters stood until last spring, when Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited foreign scholars to study Ottoman
archives to determine what really happened.
That encouraging gesture has had little hopeful result. Scholars have
run afoul of Turkish officials and military leaders, who forced
cancellation of a conference. An ethnic Armenian publisher has been
accused of defaming Turkey by calling himself “an Armenian of
Turkey,” and a prominent Turkish novelist faces a similar charge for
saying in an interview that Turks killed 1million Armenians and, more
recently, 30,000 Turkish Kurds in a guerrilla war, and that “no one
but me dares to talk about it.”
The timing of these charges – just weeks before negotiations are to
begin on Turkey’s application to join the EU – has raised suspicion,
and charges that some nationalist elements, already angered by
growing European opposition to Turkish EU membership, are trying to
sabotage the process. The criminal charges fly in the face of
extensive changes in Turkish law, including abolition of the death
penalty and ending a ban on speaking Kurdish, to satisfy EU
requirements for membership. France opposes Turkey joining, and if
the Christian Democrats win Germany’s election, another prominent
negative voice would be added.
What’s at stake goes well beyond the Armenian issue, coming as
millions of Europeans – even in such liberal bastions as the
Netherlands – are rethinking their traditional welcome to immigrants.
And Muslims rank highest in this reassessment.
Turkey, with an overwhelmingly Muslim population but a staunchly
secular political system, is seen by many as a bridge between the
Christian West and the Muslim East. But as Europe’s welcome mat is
pulled away, many Turks resent what they regard as rising religious
and cultural bigotry among Europeans.
Although it’s hard to envision Turkey’s secular leaders rejecting the
West and embracing Islamic tradition, the roadblocks in the path of
Armenian-Turkish reconciliation raise again the question of whether
Turkey and Europe can ever share a common home.
There’s a simple solution, though it would by no means be easy:
Turkey should simply recognize and acknowledge the past. That would
both smooth Turkey’s path toward EU membership, and begin to right a
historic wrong.

AZG Armenian Daily #166, 16/09/2005
Karabakh issue
RESUMPTION OF WAR IN KARABAKH IS VERY PROBABLE
ICG’s Report Contains A number of Unpleasant Moments for Armenia
The lasting Nagorno Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is the
most significant obstacle to peace and stability in the South Caucasus. On
September 14, the International Crises Group made public its first report on
Karabakh regulation titled “Viewing the Conflict from the Ground”. “Whatever
is being done at the internationally mediated negotiations, at ground level
resumed war appears a real possibility”, the report says. The 30 page long
report presents situation in Nagorno Karabakh, in 7 Armenia-controlled
territories as well as the living conditions of the Azeri refuges in special
refugee camps.
The report contains a number of unpleasant formulations for Armenia and NK.
“Nagorno Karabakh has inspiration for independence and argues with some
reason that it has a democratically-elected government that is meeting the
preconditions of statehood… Nagorno Karabakh has mono-ethnic institutions
and become one of the world’s most militarized societies”
“Nagorno Karabakh forces, reinforced by many conscripts and contracted from
Armenia, occupy some 13.4 per cent of Azerbaijan’s land (11.722 sq. km.).
This includes some 92.5 per cent of the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous
Oblast (NKAO), five districts outside Nagorno Karabakh, and significant
segments of two others. The occupied territory outside the former NKAO
amounts to 7.409 sq. km., close to double the territory of the former Soviet
oblast… This includes part of the districts of Martuni and Mardakert (327
sq. km.), which were in the NKAO, as well as the pre-war Shahumian district
and Getashen Settlement (701 sq. km.) northeast of the NKAO. Stepanakert
authorities claim these last two should be part of present day Nagorno
Karabakh as they also declared secession from Soviet Azerbaijan in 1991. In
addition they consider Lachin (1.835 sq. km.) to be part of Nagorno Karabakh
and say ‘it cannot be subject to compromise, as it connects Karabakh to the
outer world’, even though it was never part of NKAO, and no Armenians lived
there before the war”.
“Probably some 413.000 Armenians fled Azerbaijan and regions in Armenia
bordering it, and 724.000 Azerbaijanis (and Kurds) were displaced from
Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts… Before the war
the 424.900 inhabitants of those districts were almost exclusively Azeris,
none of whom remain. Towns like Agdam (28.200), Kelbajar (8.100), Jebrail
(6.200) and Fizuli (23.000) have been systematically leveled so that only
foundations remain. Even electrical wiring, pipes, and other infrastructure
have been sold as scarp. Authorities in Stepanakert have done nothing to
stop the destruction process”.
“Stepanakert’s settlement policy in Lachin and Kelbajar, and to lesser
extent Agdam, appears to be a violation of international law and is likely
to complicate the implementation of any political settlement… As the chair
of the Nagorno Karabakh parliament said, ‘once Armenians start burying their
dead there, it will be difficult to move them again'”.
A chapter of the report title “Life in Nagorno Karabakh” says that though
internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh is
independent de facto and its military and economic safety is guaranteed by
Armenia.
The report provides detailed account of construction of Karabakh’s armed
forces. “NK may be the world’s most militarized society. The highly trained
and equipped Nagorno Karabakh Defence Army is primarily a ground force, for
which Armenia provides much of the backbone. A Nagorno Karabakh official
told Crises Group it has some 20.000 soldiers, while an independent expert
estimated 18.500. An additional 20.000 to 30.000 reservists allegedly could
be mobilized… According to an independent assessment, there are 8.500
Karabakh Armenians in the army and 10.000 from Armenia. If these figures are
accurate, Nagorno Karabakh’s 65 persons per 1.000 inhabitants under arms
would surpass almost all other countries for proportion of population in the
military”. Based on hundreds of interviews and observations, the ICG arrived
at a conclusion that the NK armed forces played a significant role in
politics. The situation has changed after the then commander-in-chief of the
army was imprisoned.
The report underscores that Armenia fills up half of Karabakh’s budget. “The
US is the only other state that provides direct governmental assistance [to
Karabakh]”.
A whole chapter deals with Azeri IDPs (internally displaced persons). It
says that they keep on living in terrible living conditions and meanwhile it
cites accusations that the IDPs have turned into “political pawns” in
Azerbaijan’s politics.
The most serious obstacle to dialogue and reconciliation between Armenian
and Azeris is nationalism, the report says. The report ends with a very
unpleasant sentence for both Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. The ICG quotes
the words of an Armenian student who says, “I am Yerevani and refuse to
serve in the army once I graduate. I will simply leave Armenia because
people from Karabakh are even worse than Azerbaijanis. Why do we have to
serve them?”
By Tatoul Hakobian

Armenian premier, US reps discuss Millennium Challenge programme
Arminfo
14 Sep 05
YEREVAN
As part of his visit to the USA, Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Markaryan has met the interim chief executive officer of the US
Millennium Challenge Corporation [MCC], Charles Setness, and the MMC
vice-president for country programmes, John Hewko.
Markaryan stressed the importance of Armenia’s cooperation with the
MMC and said that the Armenian delegation would visit Washington soon
to clarify mechanisms of cooperation. The participants in the meeting
voiced satisfaction with cooperation between working groups.
The MMC representatives said they pleased that Armenia had
substantiated economic indices in a draft programme it submitted
within the framework of Millennium Challenge programme.
For his part, Markaryan said that the programme paid special attention
to agriculture and particularly the development of farms.
The MMC representatives said that it was important that Armenia
ensured transparency during the elaboration and implementation of its
programme.
Markaryan said that the Armenian government was ready to involve
members of public organizations and public representatives in the
process to ensure transparency.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA WILL NOT BE AN OBSTACLE
A1+
| 13:27:39 | 14-09-2005 | Politics |
Azerbaijan will not cooperate with Armenia within the framework of
the World Trade Organization (WTO) till the final establishment of
peace. The Azeri deputy Foreign Minister Mahmoud Mamedkuliev mentioned
about it, day.az reports.
According to the deputy Minister, this does not contradict to UN
provisions taking into account the fact that Armenia has taken up
the commitment not to hinder Azerbaijan~Rs entering the WTO.
According to Mr. Mamedkuliev, in the initial phase of negotiations
with WTO Azerbaijan managed to make the RA Foreign Minister take up
the commitment.
Armenia has been member of the organization since 2001.
According to the deputy Minister, the fact that Armenia was quicker
than Azerbaijan is accounted for by the fact that Armenia had applied
earlier and has been accepted with certain concessions.

ARTHUR BAGHDASARYAN: POLICY OF SQUABBLE IS EXHAUSTED
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12. ARMINFO. “The boycott by the opposition is of
political nature, but it does not mean that oppositionist MPs must
boycott parliamentary sittings for 4 years,” Armenian Parliamentary
Speaker Arthur Baghdasaryanm said at a press conference today.
Expressing respect for the political position of all the forces,
the speaker called on the opposition to return to the parliament.
Baghdasaryan promised to meet with all the parliamentary forces
shortly to find out their position on the ongoing boycott by the
opposition. “The policy of squabble has been exhausted, all the
political forces should be consolidated to solve the country’s current
problems and to ensure its active participation in regional process,”
the speaker thinks.
Several minutes after the press conference, the parliamentary faction
of the Justice opposition bloc confirmed its decision to boycott
parliamentary sittings, at the same time enlarging the circle of
discussions to be attended by the faction. Another opposition faction
National Unity participates in the sittings. In this connection,
Representative of the Justice bloc Vazgen Manukyan thinks the
difference in the positions will not affect the cooperation of the
two forces.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

MOSCOW TO HOST CONFERENCE OF SELF-PROCLAIMED REPUBLICS
RIA news agency
12 Sep 05
Moscow, 12 September: The conference “Parallel CIS: Abkhazia,
Dniester region, South Ossetia and Nagornyy Karabakh as realities of
the post-Soviet space” will be held in Moscow on 14-15 September,
RIA-Novosti learnt today at the press service of the Institute of
CIS Countries, which is one of the organizers of the event.
The agency’s source said the forum will be attended by representatives
of self-proclaimed states, Russian State Duma deputies, scientists,
experts and famous Russian political scientists. The Dniester region
will be represented by the president of this self-proclaimed republic,
Igor Smirnov, Abkhazia by Security Council secretary Stanislav Lakoba,
South Ossetia by culture minister Konstantin Pukhayev and Nagornyy
Karabakh by minister for education, culture and sport Kamo Atayan.
As part of the conference, a round table discussion, “The right to
religious freedom in conflict zones”, will be held on 15 September. The
discussion will be chaired by the human rights commission of the
Interparliamentary Orthodox assembly. The press service of the
institute reported that the discussion will be attended by MPs from
Russia, Syria, the Palestinian National Authority, Estonia and Armenia
and by clergymen for conflict zones.

OPEN DISCUSSION OF THE CONFLICT
A1+
| 15:07:51 | 05-09-2005 | Official |
Today the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, the Slovenia Foreign Minister
Dimitrij Rupel who has arrived in Armenia on a 2-day official visit
will meet the President of the Nagorno Karabakh republic Arkadi
Ghoukasyan. The meeting will take place at 09:00 p.m. by local time
in the hotel Yerevan.
It is noteworthy that the meeting is not closed as journalists have
been invited to highlight the meeting.
The NGR President has already arrived in Armenia.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr. Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
Armenian version:
HIS HOLINESS MEETS WITH THE AMBASSADOR OF ARMENIA
His Holiness Aram I met with the Ambassador of Armenia in Lebanon
Arek Hovhannisian on August 31.
The two discussed issues related to Armenia-Diaspora cooperation in
light of the Armenia-Diaspora Intellectuals’ conference held at the
Catholicosate recently.
His Holiness and the Ambassador also talked about the current situation
of Lebanon and the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh.
##
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates
of the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about
the history and the mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may
refer to the web page of the Catholicosate,
The Cilician Catholicosate, the administrative center of the church
is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

650 TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS REGISTERED IN ARMENIA IN JANUARY-JULY, 2005
ARKA News Agency
Aug 31 2005
YEREVAN, August 31. /ARKA/. A total of 650 traffic accidents were
registered in Armenia in January-July, 2005, which is by 0.9% higher
than the accidents registered during the corresponding period in 2004,
the RA National Statistical Service reports. The statistics reports
that 129 individuals died in these accidents (by 4% higher than
in January-July, 2005), and 922 individuals were injured (by 9.2%
higher than in January-July, 2004). A.A.