Author: Nahapetian Samvel

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| 14:14:33 | 30-04-2005 | Politics |

PEOPLE SHOULD GET BACK THEIR RIGHT

Presently the laws and amendments to the Constitution can be put to
referendum at the suggestion of the National Assembly or the President.

Justice faction secretary Victor Dallakyan considers that in the civilized
world the power belong to the people. It is an elementary principle of
democracy. Article 2 of the Constitution says that the people express their
will via referenda, elections, local self-government bodies and officials.
`Consequently, people’s right to initiate referenda is rather logical. The
law on referendum adopted in 1991 says that the President and parliament
have the right to initiate a referendum. However the resolution on
conducting a vote of confidence by the Constitutional Court of April 16,
1995 says that the people should have the right’, Victor Dallakyan says.

He considers that the issues referring to the sovereignty of the republic,
state budget, territorial integrity and so on cannot be put to referendum
while people should have the right to make amendment to some laws and the
Constitution. He brings the example of California, where people can dismiss
a governor, pass laws, withdraw a local senator, etc.

As for the periodicity of holding referenda, Victor Dallakyan considers that
it can be once a year, however without any strict limitations.

National Unity faction secretary Alexan Karapetyan considers that well
formed legitimate powers are essential for the establishment of the
institute of referendum. `Referendum can be held once in six months or once
a year on the issues referring to the global changes, foreign policy and
future of the people’ he says.

Diana Markosyan

Agence France Presse — English
April 29, 2005 Friday 9:09 AM GMT

Turkey makes new offer to Armenia over genocide claims

ANKARA April 29

Turkey could normalize relations with Armenia at the same time as
undertaking a study of the massacres of Armenians by Turks in 1915
which Turkey refuses to acknowledge as a genocide, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a newspaper Friday.

“Political relations could be established while the work of the study
is conducted,” Erdogan told the newspaper Milliyet.

Turkey has previously demanded that Armenia abandon its campaign for
the recognition of the World War I massacres as genocide before
formal diplomatic relations can be established between the two
countries.

In 1993, Turkey also shut its border with Armenia in a show of
solidarity with its close ally Azerbaijan, which was at war with
Armenia, dealing a heavy economic blow to the impoverished nation.

On Tuesday, Armenian President Robert Kocharian accepted in principle
a Turkish proposal to create a joint committee to study the genocide
allegations but demanded that Ankara first normalize relations with
Yerevan without pre-conditions.

However Erdogan emphasised Friday that the establishment of formal
diplomatic relations with Armenia would depend on its “sincerity” to
undertake a joint study with Turkish experts to clarify the events
surrounding the massacres during the final years of the Ottoman
empire.

Ankara fears that the genocide allegations could fuel anti-Turkish
sentiment in international public opinion at a time when it is vying
for membership of the European Union.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen perished in
deportations and orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917.

Ankara argues that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died
in what was civil strife during World War I when the Armenians took
up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian
troops invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

Armenians across the world Sunday marked the 90th anniversary of the
beginning of the massacres, which have already been recognized as
genocide by a number of countries.

The Turkish parliament called off a series of meetings with lawmakers
from the Polish parliament next month in protest at the latter’s
acknowledgement as genocide of the killings of Armenians.

Egypt Today, Egypt
April 2005, Vol. 26, issue 04

Happenings around town

[parts omitted]

ARMENIAN CELEBRATION

Armenian Ambassador in Egypt Rouben Karapetian, organized a party
last month, inviting all the Egyptian PhD graduates in Yerevan since
Armenia’s independence. The party was held at the ambassador’s
residence in Zamalek. And included Minister of Higher Education and
Scientific Research Amr Ezzat Salama. Pictured: Karapetian and Salama
with graduates.

Zaman, Turkey
April 28 2005

Press Review:
Turkiye

ANKARA PROTESTS POLAND AND RUSSIA

Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc yesterday sent a letter to his Polish
counterpart condemning the Polish Parliament’s passing a resolution
that recognizes the Armenian allegations of genocide. In addition, in
a protest move, certain parliamentary activities to take place next
month with Poland have been cancelled. Moreover, a resolution last
week in Russia’s Duma on the matter was also condemned by the Foreign
Ministry by delivering a note of protest to Russia, and Russia’s
charge d’affaires was also summoned yesterday to the ministry to
convey Ankara’s disappointment. Speaking to reporters, Foreign
Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said that Ankara had noted with regret
the parliaments of different countries passing such resolutions. He
added that Turkey was also trying to stop a similar attempt in
Germany. /Turkiye/

Ukraine Mulls ‘Russia Bypass’ Pipeline to Carry Additional Turkmen Gas
Supplies

Global Insight Daily Analysis
28 April 2005

By Andrew Neff

Ukraine is raising the prospect of constructing a gas pipeline from
Turkmenistan that would supply Ukraine and European markets but avoid
Russia, according to Alexei Ivchenko, chief executive officer (CEO) of
Naftogaz Ukrainy, the state oil and gas holding company. Ukraine is
seeking to form an international gas transportation consortium to
bring Central Asian and Russian gas to Ukraine and on to European
markets, pushing a proposal that would include Turkmenistan,
Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine (see CIS Regional: 31 March 2005:
Ukraine Pushes Gazprom for ‘Normal’ Gas Sector Relationship and CIS
Regional: 4 April 2005: Ukraine Seeks Increase of In-Kind Payment for
Turkmen Gas Supplies).

Ivchenko said that if Russia does not participate in the consortium
and refuses to allow Turkmenistan to boost its exports via the Russian
pipeline system, then Ukraine – which is heavily dependent on Turkmen
gas imports – would consider building a ‘Russia bypass’ pipeline to
ensure its energy security.

Significance: Geography would seem to make it quite difficult for a
potential gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan to Ukraine without
crossing Russian territory. Ivchenko said that such a pipeline could
be routed via the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, then to Georgia and via
the Black Sea to Ukraine, although this would require a rapprochement
between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, which are at odds over their
maritime border. An alternative route could be directed from
Turkmenistan via Iran and Turkey and the Black Sea to Ukraine, but
this also seems highly unlikely, given that Iran wants to be a gas
exporter (rather than merely a transit state) to Ukraine and Europe in
its own right.

Who Remembers the Armenians?

Forward Forum

The Forward (Published Weekly in New York)
April 29, 2005

By Christine Thomassian and Shabtai Gold

Adolf Hitler was confident that the world would remain indifferent to
the plight of the Jewish people he was planning to exterminate. After
all, he reportedly told Nazi commanders before the outbreak of World
War II, who remembers the Armenians?

The answer to Hitler’s rhetorical question remained much the same as
the 90th anniversary of the Turkish genocide of an estimated 1.5
million Armenians was commemorated last weekend.

Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum and the world’s central
address for commemorating the horrors of genocide, recently opened a
new wing to its museum, with much international fanfare. There is not
a single mention in the new museum of the Armenian genocide, which
paved the ideological way for the Jewish genocide perpetrated by the
Nazis.

For its part, the Turkish government – much like today’s Holocaust
deniers – continues to disclaim its involvement in the genocide and
the very occurrence of such a horror, expending large sums of money in
this campaign. Some in Turkey admit that a few “individuals” committed
massacres against the Armenians, but they are quick to assert that
these acts were provoked by the Armenians themselves in order to
receive aid and sympathy.

Not satisfied with this accusation, this week the Turkish State
Archives announced that more than a half million Turks were killed by
Armenians. True, many Armenians collaborated with the Russians as
irregular fighters against Turkey in World War I, and they may have
killed as many as 75,000 Turks. But given the anti-Armenian pogroms
initiated by Turkey during the 1890s that set the stage for the
full-scale genocide in 1915, Armenians’ partaking in the fighting is
easily understood – no one should be expected to go like sheep to the
slaughter.

Sadly, the Turkish government is not alone in its campaign. Indeed, it
is receiving support from some very odd sources, including a number of
prominent Jewish organizations in Washington and the Jewish state
itself. Noble Peace laureate Shimon Peres, while serving as Israeli
foreign minister in 2001, called the Armenian genocide nothing more
than a “tragedy,” saying “nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred.”

Much energy, effort and money is justifiably spent on attempting to
ensure that the world will never forget the Holocaust. Wouldn’t it
meet our standards of morality to include all such horrors?

What about the Assyrian Christians murdered along with Armenians by
Turkey? What about the Roma, homosexuals and other “undesirables”
massacred by the Nazis? And what of the more recent killing fields in
Cambodia, Rwanda and now Darfur?

Shouldn’t “never again” be applied to all men, women and children who
are starved, beaten, obligated to undergo torturous medical
experiments, marched through forests or deserts, forced to dig their
own mass graves or herded into gas chambers? Is “never again” an
admonition over which the Jewish people can maintain a monopoly?

Shouldn’t the American Jewish community be doing more to help gain
recognition for the Armenian genocide, 90 years after the fact? After
all, the first American human rights movement to focus on issues
overseas was founded to stop the travesties being committed against
Armenians. And it was Henry Morgenthau, America’s Jewish ambassador to
the Ottoman Empire, who led the campaign to alert the world to the
horrors being perpetrated by Turkey.

Denial is, without a doubt, the final stage of genocide. It murders
the memory of the horrors, and of the dead. We must always guard
against denial becoming accepted as legitimate discourse, let alone as
fact. Will we allow Turkey to successfully continue its campaign of
denial?

If we do, we will be condemning our children to repeat these horrors
and to have these horrors repeated unto them, as American philosopher
George Santayana famously warned a century ago. But if we act now, if
we insure that our children and our children’s children are properly
educated about the Armenian genocide, then just maybe we can prevent
“never again” from becoming an empty saying.

Christine Thomassian and Shabtai Gold are university students who lost
members of their family in, respectively, the Armenian genocide and
the Holocaust.

Turkey Pressed to Admit Armenian Genocide

World

National Public Radio (Washington, DC)
All Things Considered
April 26, 2005

By Ivan Watson

Turkey’s massacre and deportation of ethnic Armenians during World War I
has long been a taboo topic among Turks. But as Turkey pushes to join
the European Union, the issue has become a political football. Some
European lawmakers have joined Armenian groups demanding that Turkey
formally recognize that genocide took place.

;sourceCode=RSS

Armenians complain mainly about police – ombudsman

Mediamax news agency
26 Apr 05

YEREVAN

In January-March 2005, the Armenian ombudsman received more than 570
complaints, 438 of which were submitted in the written form.

The number of complaints received from the republic’s regions totalled
165, ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan said today.

Most of the complaints are connected with the activities of the
police, Larisa Alaverdyan noted. The police are followed by local
government bodies, the Social Security Ministry and courts.

Newropeans Magazine, France
April 26 2005

Turkey, Armenia, and the Sweet Hereafter: Will There Ever Be a
Post-Genocide Era?

Written by Raffi K. Hovannisian
Tuesday, 26 April 2005

The Armenian Genocide and its final act turn ninety last week. The
lack of recognition, redemption, and closure of this defining
watershed for Armenians and Turks alike has been driven by power
politics and the hedging of history, aggressive revisionism and a
strategic incapacity of the perpetrators, the victims, and their
generations to call it like it is and move beyond.

The lessons, risks, and dangers flowing from the Genocide and its
contemporary continuation are all the more poignant because the
Armenian case was not only the physical murder of most individuals
making up the nation, but also the violent interruption and forcible
expropriation of its millennial homeland and way of life. This
pivotal distinction constitutes a primary source, different from the
Holocaust, for the denialist demeanor of the Ottoman Empire’s
successor regime, the quest for justice and personal integrity of the
battered and scattered Armenian survivors, and the vicissitudes of
international diplomacy.

The legal, ethical, educational, material, and territorial components
of this landmark catastrophe have proved too complex a challenge for
any party or power to meet. It is the truly unique underpinning of
the Armenian experience that accounts in large measure for why a
historical, world-documented nation-killing remains in suspense to
this day and continues to serve as an instrument for polemics,
politics, and a variety of “national interests.”

Absence of a meeting of modern Turkish and Armenian hearts and minds
means a history that is off limits but ever present, a frontier that
is undelimited but closed, and a relationship (or lack thereof) that
is hostage to the heritage of homeland genocide. It is this very
relationship, between Turkey and Armenia and their constituencies,
that is the key to creating a brave new region where the interests of
all players converge to form a single page of security and
development. And it is this relationship, if honestly and
efficiently forged, that would become the foundation for the
strengthening of respective sovereignties, for cooperation in matters
of education, culture and historical preservation, for an enduring
peace in Karabagh, Nakhichevan and the broader neighborhood, for open
roads, skies and seas, and for the guaranteed choice of a rightful
return of all refugees and their progeny to their places of origin.

As it stands, however, an unrequited past still doubles as an
unsettled present, leaving unchecked and unpredictable the many
future impediments to peace, stability, and reconciliation. How long
can this commingling of tenses go on? How can all concerned frame a
process for a resolution of substance? Can the heirs to Turkish
perpetration translate self-interest into seeking atonement, and can
the descendants of the great Armenian dispossession agree to move on?
Will we, or our children, ever see the light, let alone reflect back
from the heights, of the post-Genocide world?

Turkey’s and Armenia’s initially separate paths to European
integration might provide them one, perhaps penultimate opportunity,
against their own odds, to assume history, draw the line, and embrace
a promising epoch as sound, if unlikely partners in regional and
global affairs.

New benchmarks and new leaders and a new discourse are in order.

Raffi K. Hovannisian, formerly Armenia’s minister of foreign affairs,
is founding director of the Armenian Center for National and
International Studies in Yerevan.

AZG Armenian Daily #074, 26/04/2005

Armenian Genocide

MUSEUM OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN WASHINGTON

Planning Works to begin Soon

Ruben Adalian, head of the Armenian National Institute, held a speech
entitled “Contributing to Recognition of the Armenian Genocide by a Third
Side” at the genocide congress. Mr. Adalian gave an interview to Azg in
which he told about the current stage of the establishment of the Genocide
Museum in Washington.

“The most important thing is that Anoush Matevosian, Hrayr Hovnanian and
Gerard Gafeschian, three benevolent-founders of the museum, helped us to
enlarge the area envisaged for the museum. Thus, the programs, concerning
the museum, were enlarged too. We envisage to create a working group by
getting in touch with the heads of the Armenian museums and make the first
steps for the implementation of the project, i.e. choose an architect, begin
planning, etc. The specialists think that the establishment of the museum
will last 5-7 years, at least,” he said.

Mr. Adalian believes that the history of the Armenian Genocide is already
recognized in the United States. The whole matter is to achieve the
political recognition of the Genocide. This process has reached its
culmination. Each year, on April 24, the American Armenians are waiting for
the president of the country to use the term “genocide” at last but it
doesn’t happen and we remain being disappointed.

“Turkey’s position concerning the genocide has already been smashed. Nobody
believes that, even the Turks themselves, but they don’t look for another
way out. The Turks avoid using the term “genocide,” while the Turkish press
has been literally flooded with this word. They can escape from that. Being
a powerful country, they have no courage to recognize the Armenian
Genocide.”

The scholars expressed the opinion at the congress that the establishment of
the Genocide Museum in Washington will greatly contribute to the political
recognition of the issue. Professor Yehuda Bauer from Israel expressed the
idea that such a museum should open in Ankara, as well, bringing the example
of the Holocaust Museum in Germany.

“It goes without saying that the museum will play an essential role in the
recognition of the Genocide, as it will help all the nations living in the
US be thoroughly informed about the massacres of the Armenians,” Ruben
Adalian added.

He also said that very frequently the leading American mass media and press
touch upon the issue of the Armenian Genocide. One could hardly imagine
something like that 10 years ago. They used to avoid using the term
“genocide” to describe the massacres of the Armenians in 1915. Today, this
word prevails in almost all the publications.

By Ruzan Poghosian