Author: Nahapetian Zhanna

Anadolu Agency, Turkey
Jan 28 2009

TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTER EXPECTS SOLUTION WITH ARMENIA IN 2009

DAVOS (A.A) – Turkey’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that 2009
could be a milestone in Turkish-Armenian relations.

Speaking to CNN Turk TV channel in Davos, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali
Babacan said that he expected the problems between Turkey and Armenia
to be solved in 2009.

"Actually, it would not surprise me if a solution was found this
year. 2009 can be a milestone in Turkish-Armenian relations as long as
both parties maintain their political will till the end," he said.

Upon a question on US special envoy to the Middle East George
Mitchell’s probable visit to Turkey, Babacan said that he had a phone
conversation with Mitchell the other night and currently they were
trying to set a date.

"He is on a fast tour. We are trying to determine the date on which he
could stop by Turkey or on which we could be available. However, he
expressed his desire to visit our country," Babacan said.

DEBATING DAVOS: PREENING, MONSTROSITY, OR PUNCTILIO?

Mondoweiss
mondoweiss/2009/01/debating-davos-preening-monstro sity-or-punctilio.html
Jan 30 2009

Here’s a dialogue about the Davos incident between Laurence Zuckerman
and Phil Weiss:

Zuckerman: I happened to watch the Davos panel on C-Span last
night. The portrayal of Erdogan’s actions as a walkout are not exactly
correct. He tried to continue speaking after the event ended. David
Ignatius, the moderator, tried to stop him. Erdogan would not relent,
promising to speak only for a moment. After he spoke for a while
and announced that he had made point no. 1, Ignatius stepped in
forcefully. The panel was way over and Erdogan was the only one given
a second chance to speak. When it was clear that they were going to
cut off his mike, Erdogan got up and stalked off saying he would not
return to Davos again. I had never seen Erdogan before but he struck
me as a posturing and preening pol. I was not surprised to learn that
Turkish elections are imminent.

[this is still Zuckerman] Here is a more detailed description of the
panel: Each of the big wigs spoke starting with Ban Ki Moon followed
by Erdogan followed by Abr Moussa and finally Peres. By the time
Peres got a chance to speak it was an hour of attacks on Israel in
rising level of vehemence. It felt like Peres had to wait a long time
to respond. When he finished, they were already way over time and
dinner was waiting. Erdogan insisted on speaking. Ignatius said no,
fairly firmly. It went back and forth and it wasn’t clear whether Klaus
Schwab, the organizer of World Economic Forum signaled to Ignatius to
relent. Erdogan promised him a minute and Ignatius said he would hold
him to it. Erdogan had spoken for 2 minutes or more when he finished
point no. 1. Erdogan claimed that Peres had more time to speak but
I don’t think that is the case. In any event. there is no doubt that
between Erdogan, Moussa, and Ban, all the grievances against Israel
were aired. As the only head of a government present, Erdogan may
have felt he didn’t get the respect he deserved but he was being a
prima donna. Peres gave a forceful rebuttal and challenged Erdogan
on his facts a few times so Erdogan might have felt it was a matter
of honor to reply but he didn’t directly address Peres’s charges.

Weiss: I only watched a few minutes. I think you’re talking about
context here. I get your point about timing. It was hard for me to
sense who felt more aggrieved in that bit, it felt like Peres had
been holding back and finally let loose, and had the crowd. And
I could see Erdogan going on too long. It seems like Ignatius was
rude. What’s wrong with letting him have his say?

I would stick by walkout. He did walk out, and Times characterized
it as same in headline, and he said that he was never coming back.

The whole thing strikes me as one of those great theatrical moments
that will be played and replayed, and I haven’t even watched it in
full. It’s like Clarence Thomas v Anita Hill. Of course I took sides
then, and you know, notwithstanding everything I’m on Erdogan’s side
here. Even with the Armenian genocide.

Zuckerman: I don’t think the crowd was with Peres more than the
others. In fact, I think Ban Ki Moon, Erdogan, and Moussa each got
a lot of enthusiastic applause. I was curious to see how the crowd
would react to Peres, who spoke last, so I listened carefully. He
got applause but slightly less than the others, I thought.

Ignatius’s role was tricky. We have all been at panels where the
moderator lays back and it goes off the rails. I have no insight
but to me it seemed like Ignatius was enforcing the organizer’s
agenda. The event had gone over time. Dinner was waiting. it was an
emotional topic, they had each had their say. It seemed unfair to
let Erdogan filibuster unless you were willing to let them all have
another round, which I agree might not have been a bad thing. Perhaps
Ignatius should have appealed directly to the organizers. But I bet
there was communication there. I would love to know what message
Ignatius was getting from Schwab, who was there, and came up to the
podium after Erdogan stalked off to smooth things over.

I know you are sympathetic to Erdogan and I don’t usually buy into the
everything-Israel-does-is-criticized argument, but I do think there
is a bit of a double standard here. It was Peres who was actually
personally insulted by Erdogan. (Peres said that Erdogan had his
facts wrong; Erdogan called Peres a joyful murderer.) Imagine if
after being attacked by the three speakers and then having his say,
Peres stalked off. He would get no sympathy.

The idea that Turkey’s honor was somehow compromised is absurd and
obvious to anyone who would take the time to watch the event.

Oh, and Ignatius’s question to each was how to get the peace process
back on track. It was supposed to be constructive.

Weiss: You know, not having watched it, I do feel like, This is
about slaughtering civilians. Period. Where is the international
response? Here it is, from a (former?) ally. Since I find Gaza
monstrous, and an insult to the peace process, such as it is, or has
been, I honor all efforts to publicize it and condemn it. I don’t
think the Hamas attacks excuse what Israel did in any way. Americans
learned this in Iraq, where we have shown some minor accountability on
the Haditha massacre. I’m sure Slobodan also had his provocations. So
that’s why I’m with Erdogan.

And it’s also why I find Ignatius’s punctilio under the circumstances
absurd. The emotion in these leaders was real, and the little guys
should have gotten out of the way. It would have been better if Peres
had talked about Armenian genocide, and American ethnic cleansing
of Indians…

Zuckerman: Your position is understandable given your feelings but in
the end the way to prevent future loss and help the people of Gaza
is a durable peace. Hanging Israelis as war criminals, however much
you think it is justified, is not going to get you there. Let’s stop
the bloodshed.

Erdogan is calculating and cynical. The guy is running for election. Do
you think he is surprised by the reaction he has elicited at home? I
am sure he would kiss Peres on both cheeks — and has probably already
kissed worse people — if it were in his interest.

ARMENIAN CHESS PLAYERS TO PARTICIPATE IN MOSCOW OPEN 2009 FESTIVAL

PanARMENIAN.Net
29.01.2009 21:40 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The best chess player of World Chess Olympiad
in Dresden, Gabriel Sargsyan and grandmaster Rafael Vahanyan will
participate in Moscow Open 2009 festival due from January 31 to
February 9.

Some 150 chess players will compete for top places in 9 groups of
various categories.

The festival’s prize fund is 7000000 rubles.

TURKISH FM MEETS ARMENIAN COUNTERPART IN DAVOS

Jan 29 2009
Turkey

The Turkish foreign minister met his Armenian counterpart in Davos,
Switzerland on Wednesday.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ali Babacan had a meeting with Armenian
Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian in Davos on the sidelines of the
annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

"I will have another meeting with Nalbandian later," Babacan told
reporters.

Babacan said that he had met Nalbandian for five or six times since
a national soccer game between the two countries in September 2008.

The Turkish foreign minister said that Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to meet Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev on Friday, and Armenian President Serzh Sargsian was also
demanding a meeting.

PERSISTENCE COULD PAY RESIDENT $1 MILLION DIVIDEND
By Rick Anderson

Seattle Weekly
s/persistence-could-pay-resident-1-million-dividen d/
Jan 28 2009
WA

But a curious hotelier is still without the Qwest Field details he
asked for in 1997.

Published on January 27, 2009 at 7:55pmIf you go back 10 years,
you see how little Armen Yousoufian was asking for: some papers. He
wanted to make sure that King County officials were being honest about
their deal-making for a new "$300 million" Seattle football stadium
(the true price tag ended up closer to $1 billion with interest and
other taxpayer costs). Yousoufian, a hotel owner in the University
District, was worried about the impact of a hotel-motel tax to fund
the stadium for billionaire Paul Allen. So he made a public records
request to see internal documents and splash a bit of sunshine into
the county’s back rooms.

The stadium, Qwest Field, has been operating for six years. Yousoufian,
now semi-retired, still does not have all the documents he requested,
nor does he have the full story of the county’s dealings with
Allen. But for his pissed-off persistence, he may soon have a million
dollars, he confirmed this week.

And he’d have been happy with less than half a million.

Yousoufian got the runaround under county executives Gary Locke and,
later, Ron Sims, who stalled Yousoufian’s requests for five years,
dating to 1997. He sued, and in 2001 a King County Superior Court
judge found the county’s actions "egregious," handing out a $5-a-day
penalty. The $114,000 barely covered his legal fees, and didn’t
send much of a message. So the sore winner appealed. A higher court
upped the daily penalty–a judge can impose from $5 to $100 a day by
law–and Yousoufian was eventually awarded more than $432,000. Again,
most of this sum went toward his legal fees. But he’d made his point,
and was willing to end the battle.

However, the county wasn’t. In 2007, it appealed. And on January
15, the state Supreme Court made it clear just how bad that move
was. The county, wrote Justice Richard Sanders, snubbed Yousoufian,
didn’t follow the law, and effectively penalized him for asking for
public documents, making him refile his requests 11 times over two
years. The case was sent back to a lower court to impose a penalty
of perhaps twice what Yousoufian has already been rewarded–closer
to $100 for each day of violation. As Yousoufian likes to say,
"They picked on the wrong Armenian."

The penalty, he said this week, "could be even more than a million,
depending on how the court calculates it." He wishes it were
county officials paying it out of their pockets, he adds, rather
than taxpayers. "But I hope this will finally send a very strong
message. These aren’t their records. They are the public’s records."

PACE PLANS TO DISCUSS ISSUE OF ARMENIA AT JANUARY 27 PLENARY SITTING

Noyan Tapan

Jan 22, 2009

YEREVAN, JANUARY 22, NOYAN TAPAN. By the draft agenda of the upcoming
PACE session in Strasbourg on January 26-30, the discussions of the
report on implementation of Resolutions 1609 and 1620 on democratic
institutions in Armenia which were adopted by PACE in 2008, as well
as the adoption of a resolution are scheduled to take place on January
27, at 10-12 am (1-3 pm local time).

As NT correspendent was informed by the Armenian delegation in the
PACE, it is envisaged that prior to being discussed at the session, the
issue will be discussed once again by the PACE Monitoring Committee,
taking into consideration the results of the co-rapporteurs John
Prescott’s and Georges Colombier’s repeated visit to Yerevan in
January.

To recap, in Point 9 of the draft resolution on Armenia adopted at
the December 17 sitting of the Monitoring Committee, it is proposed
that PACE suspend the voting rights of the Armenian delegation as
the Armenian authorities have not yet displayed a definite political
will to solve the problem of accusing and imprisonment of people
for political motivation in connection with the March 1-2 events
in Yerevan.

CHRISTIAN CROSSES INSTALLED IN GEORGIA’S AZERBAIJANI-POPULATED VILLAGES

Trend News Agency
Jan 23 2009
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan. 23/ Trend News, K. Zarbaliyeva, E. Rustamov/
Azerbaijanis in Georgia are concerned with the installation of crosses
in Azerbaijani-populated village of Georgia.

Local department of Georgian Patriarchate installed crosses with 7-10
meters of height in Gochulu and Kapanakchi villages of Bolnisi region
of Kvemo-Kartli (Borchali) territory populated by Azerbaijanis.

"Azerbaijanis living in Georgia have no idea why crosses are installed
in villages populated Muslims," resident of Gochulu village Dunyamali
Karam told Trend News in a telephone conversation from Georgia.

According to unofficial reports, about 500,000 Azerbaijanis live in
Georgia, primarily in of Kvemo-Kartli (Borchali) territory.

"Crosses are installed in prominent places. By doing so they want
to distort history and prove that Azerbaijanis did not live in this
territory since times immemorial," he said.

Azerbaijanis who live in these villages have appealed member of
the Georgian parliament Azer Suleymanov elected from Kvemo-Kartli
(Borchali) territory to clarify the situation. They await response
from official bodies.

Catholicos-Patriarch of all Georgia Ilia II, who was informed about
the concerns of Azerbaijani population, urged officials to be careful
of issue of installation of crosses in regions populated by Muslims,
head of inter-religion relations center at Georgian Patriarchate Lela
Zhezhelava said to Trend News in a telephone conversation from Tbilisi.

"Georgia has decided to install crosses everywhere. Local eparchy
did not mean to hurt local Azerbaijani population as cross is not
only symbol of Christianity, but also faith and love," Zhezhelava said.

According to statistics, Georgians make up majority (around 70 percent)
of Georgia’s population. Armenians make up 380,000, Azerbaijanis
350,000, Russians 207, 000, Osetins 150,000, Abkhazians 100,000 and
Greeks 80,000. Kurds, Assyrians, Udins, Avars and Kistins account
for the remaining part.

"If crosses are not eliminated from Azerbaijani-populated villages,
this issue will be raised in the Azerbaijani parliament," Azerbaijani
MP Nasib Nasibli told Trend News.

Some officials in the Georgian government see Azerbaijanis living
there as a threat for their statehood, he said.

Since 1992, majority of Azerbaijani place names was renamed into
Georgia ones in Bolnisi region which unreasonable, MP said.

Nasibli said the Georgian government should have a careful approach
towards such issues.

UKRAINE SPEAKER MEETS ARMENIA AMBASSADOR

NRCU – Ukrainian Radio
Jan 23 2009
Ukraine

Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn has
met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Armenia to
Ukraine Armen Khachatrian at the latter’s request, the parliamentary
press service reported.

The parties discussed a wide range of questions of bilateral
cooperation, including at the parliamentary level. The ambassador
noted that the Ukraine – Armenia relations in political and economic
areas are developing dynamically. Particularly, the bilateral trade
turnover nearly decupled in the past five years. In his turn, Lytvyn
assured that Ukraine highly appreciates the current level of bilateral
economic cooperation. In his words, Ukraine and Armenia must employ
their potential in this area in a full volume. In this context, the
Ukrainian Parliament Speaker pointed out the importance of exchanging
know-how in damping the aftermath of the finance and economy crisis,
and consolidation of the two countries’ efforts on the issue. The
parties also discussed interparliamentary cooperation at all levels,
including at international parliamentary organizations, and called
for its extension and intensification.

PRIME MINISTER UNDERLINES EXISTENCE OF SERIOUS POTENTIAL IN FOOD PROCESSING SECTOR OF ARMENIA

Noyan Tapan

Jan 21, 2009

YEREVAN, JANUARY 21, NOYAN TAPAN. A consultation on problems and the
development opportunities of the processing sector of food industry
was conducted by the RA prime minister Tigran Sragsyan on January
21. Heads of several companies in Armenia’s agricultural processing
sector, representatives of interested ministries and departments took
part in the discussion.

The prime minister said that the studies show there is quite serious
potential in the sector so it is possible to ensure its normal
development in 2009 and years to come in case of efficient joint
efforts of the state and private sector. With the aim of making
good progress in food industry, he attached special importance to
clarification of the sector’s priority directions and possible state
assistance by holding joint discussions. The prime minister announced
that the government has already made some calculations to find out
how much the capacities of the operating enterprises can be increased
in the sector – by commodities they produce.

However, according to him, receiving direct information about
the problems and proposals for development from the sector’s
representatives will make future decisions more realistic.

The RA minister of agriculture Aramais Grigorian presented the
situation in the sector and its development opportunities. The
discussion participants shared the opinion that the importers currently
have greater opportunities in food industry than domestic producers
(due to many factors) which is not conducive to expansion of the
production.

After discussing all the problems and the proposals made by
representatives of the ministry of agriculture and the private sector,
the prime minister instructed the ministries of economy and agriculture
and the RA State Revenue Committee to summarize them and submit a
program of measures within two days.

According to the RA Government Information and PR Department, the
prime minister conducted a consultation on problems of light industry
the day before.

TRIBUTE TO BLACK SEA’S DISAPPEARING CULTURES
by Vercihan Ziflioglu

Hurriet DailyNews
01/17/2009

ISTANBUL – ‘Sonbahar’ (Autumn), a recently popular Turkish film
directed by Ozcan Alper from the Black Sea region, is the first in
Turkey to use the Hemshin language. The film also reflects the magic
geography of the Black Sea.

The preservation of the Hemshin people, one of Turkey’s oldest
cultures, is the focus of Turkish film director Ozcan Alper’s, new
film "Sonbahar" (Autumn). The film is a tribute to the disappearing
culture of Hemshin people of the Black Sea region and was filmed
using the Hemshin language.

Alper, who defines himself as Hemshin, describes the people as
those who hid their Armenian identity and became Muslims in the 17th
century. Alper said the Hemshin people continue to speak Armenian,
but do not consider themselves Armenian or Turkısh. "Their lifestyle
and customs are totally different," Alper said.

He said he had never been affected by what he had gone through. "I
shot ‘Autumn’ in Hemshin, Georgian and Turkish languages. I didn’t
censor myself but sometimes worried if I would have a problem during
filming. This film is a kind of elegy for a disappearing geography
and culture."

Alper is the first Turkish director to shot a film in the Hemshin
language. His first short feature film "Momi" received great interest
at international festivals in 2000. Despite the film’s simple plot,
Alper said a suit was filed against him in the State Security
Court because of its language. "The artists who played the role of
grandmother and children were received fines even though the film had
no political elements. It was the story of a child who platonically
loved a woman," he said.

Before its release in Turkey, the film was shown at more than 10
international festivals including the Locarno Film Festival and arose
big interest. It will be screened for audiences at the Swedish Goteborg
and Dutch Rotterdam film festivals in the coming weeks.

The premiere of the film was in the Black Sea cities of Rize and
Artvin. "My aim was to see the reactions of Hemshin people. They don’t
like others to talk about their origins, but they have been more
tolerant in recent years. Moreover, if a person among them handles
this issue, they show more empathy," Alper said.

Alper said he adopted a manner against a possible reaction, adding,
"I challenge them if necessary. I say to them that this is my native
language and it is my right to talk about it."

Alper said even people who had never been to a cinema attended the
premier of the film and that reactions were very positive among people
who were seeing a film for the first time in their own language.

Reactions of Hemshin people seen first Alper, pointing out Turkey’s
cultural richness, said, "If this country becomes more democratized,
and a way is paved for art, there would be more success." He said,
despite "Autumn’s" political elements, he did not have the same
problems he had eight years ago from "Momi." "I think prejudices are
gradually fading away," he said.

In his films, Alper shows scenes from daily life. He said his aim was
to show the natural life and that the mother and villagers acting in
"Autumn" had been chosen from local people.

Yusuf’s love for Elka

The film tells the story of Yusuf who returned to the
CamlıhemÅ~_in-Fırt& #xC4;±na Valley after spending 12 years in prison for
a political offence. He spends his time with his childhood friend
Mikail. One day, Mikail takes him to a bar, where he falls in love
with a Georgian dancer named Elka. As his tragic end approaches,
Yusuf’s last hope is his love for Elka.

–Boundary_(ID_sjltVvU6U+/FRSA6+WA6MQ)–