Author: Nalbandian Albert

ARMENIANS HOLD ‘SO-CALLED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE’ RALLY

Zaman, Turkey
Oct 4 2005

By Cihan News Agency
zaman.com

A group of Armenians have demanded Turkey accept the So-Called
Armenian Genocide Allegations in Luxembourg where European Union
foreign ministers are in session for discussion on the Negotiation
Framework Document relating to accession talks with the country.

In front of the Luxexpo building, over 100 Armenians opened banners
written in French and asked Turkey to accept that the so-called
genocide allegations took place in 1915. The same group also called on
the EU ministers not to let Turkey into the EU unless Turks recognize
the so-called genocide. Armenians defend that Turks need to confront
their past.

LUZHKOV TO CONGRATULATE

A1+
| 14:44:38 | 03-10-2005 | Social |

On October 8-9 Yerevan will celebrate its birthday party. By the
Government decision the second Saturday of October has been announced
“The Yerevan Day” instead of the previous Erebouni-Yerevan. “All the
capitals in the world have their birthdays, why mustn’t Yerevan have
one? ” deputy mayor Arman Sahakyan said.

On October 8 at 10:30 a.m. the Yerevan history museum will be
opened. At 12:00 in all the Yerevan communities events will take
place which will end with fireworks. At midday in the cinema Moscow
the annual photo competition “Yerevan by my Eyes” will initiate.

According to Armen Sahakyan, about 80-100 million ARMD will be spent
on the celebrations. 11 delegations from different country will arrive
in Armenia.

>>From Russia, the delegation of Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov will arrive.

By the way, on October 6 the Moscow days in Yerevan will be
organized. A Gala concert will be organized in which about a hundred
Russian actors and singers will participate

Sunday Herald, UK
Oct 2 2005

Enlargement fatigue hits EU as it talks Turkey

ANALYSIS: By Trevor Royle, Diplomatic Editor

Diplomats call it `enlargement fatigue’ – the feelings of anxiety and
lack of energy that have suddenly checked the seemingly inexorable
growth of the European Union. Today in Luxembourg, EU foreign
ministers will test the syndrome to the full when they sit down at
emergency talks aimed at breaking the deadlock over Turkey’s bid to
join the European club in 2015. Unless agreement is reached, the
accession talks due to start tomorrow morning will be put on hold and
Europe will have a crisis on its hands.
Brussels saw warnings and protests yesterday as 4000 Turkish Kurds
marched through the city, demanding that the entry talks include
recognition for a Kurdish homeland in the southeast of the country.
Lord Patten, the former EU external affairs commissioner, also warned
yesterday that if negotiations break down over the coming days it
will `have very bad implications’. He added: `What the hell signal do
we send to the rest of the world if we can’t accept Turkish accession
to the EU?’

The deliberations will test Britain’s presidency of the EU to the
full – no other issue has divided the community so deeply in recent
years. Doubts have surrounded Turkey’s application ever since it was
mooted in 1999, resurfacing with a vengeance last week when Austria
gave notice that it was opposed to the move.

It mooted a compromise which would give Turkey a partnership with the
EU instead of full-blown membership. The proposal did not go down
well in Ankara: prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has angrily
insisted his country will walk away from the talks rather than
negotiate for what is seen in Turkey as a grubby compromise.

In some quarters, opposition to Turkish accession has been touted as
an anti-Islamic prejudice. Turkey’s population of 70 million is
predominantly Muslim, and there are lingering memories of the
massacres of 1.5 million Armenian Christians during the first world
war, an episode generally regarded as the first genocide of the 20th
century.

Although it seems perverse to use a 90-year-old incident as evidence
of a modern country’s unfitness to join the EU, the genocide is
usually mentioned in conjunction with accusations about Turkey’s
human rights record, not least its continued prosecution of writers,
notably of distinguished novelist Orhan Pamuk for criticising the
state.

There are also concerns about Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge Cyprus.
Critics point to the anomaly that would see Cypriot ships and
aircraft being banned from Turkish ports and airports while Turkey’s
application was being negotiated. But it is not just anti-Islamic
sentiment which is holding up the negotiations.

A recent poll across the EU found that there is only 35% support for
Turkey’s membership – in Austria, just 10% – and there is a
widespread feeling that the enlargement policy has gone far enough;
the EU has to fully absorb its current membership of 25 before it
starts adding others.

Ahead lie applications from Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the states
in the Balkans and the Caucasus and there is a growing feeling that
the enlargement policy has to be settled before entering into
negotiations with Turkey.

And that is the rub. The EU is no longer the buoyant, wealth-filled
institution which thought that it could grow like Topsy, regardless
of cost, convenience or constitutional change. France has already
voiced its disapproval by voting `No’ in the recent referendum on a
European constitution, largely in protest against Turkey’s
application, and there is similar disquiet in older EU members, such
as Germany and the Netherlands.

That opposition has led to calls for the European institutional
framework to be put in place before Turkey’s application is
considered. As a German diplomat told the Sunday Herald last week:
`We don’t even have a constitution for 25 states, so how can we
stretch it further to embrace 35?’

One way out of the impasse could be provided by the country which
leads the objections to Turkey’s membership. Austria supports
Croatia’s bid to join the EU, which began earlier this year but was
put on hold until Zagreb co-operated more fully with the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Given
Austria’s traditional friendship with Croatia, it would not surprise
anyone if it were brought into the equation ahead of tomorrow’s
crucial meeting.

Mobile Register, AL
Oct 1 2005

Symphony welcomes guest violinist
Saturday, October 01, 2005

By THOMAS B. HARRISON
Arts Editor

Achange of seasons brings a change of venue for Mobile Symphony
Orchestra, and seldom has a concert more aptly fit the space.

Call it kismet, serendipity, a lucky break or a happy accident, but
next weekend the orchestra and its audience will be precisely where
they should be when the MSO presents an intimate evening highlighted
by Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” (See information box.)

Not that it was designed this way. Hardly that.

As it does every October, BayFest takes over downtown Mobile for the
weekend, so Mobile Symphony was compelled to leave the friendly
confines of the Saenger Theatre for Midtown.

Thus, one Saturday evening concert will become a Saturday-Sunday dual
performance in the auditorium of the Alabama School of Mathematics
and Science at 1255 Dauphin St.

The intimate setting and tranquil melodies of Vaughan Williams,
Handel and Vivaldi should offer a respite from the madding crowds and
relentless noise of downtown’s high-decibel bacchanal.

The space seats fewer than half the Saenger’s 1,900 capacity, but the
acoustics are excellent and the theater should accommodate Vivaldi as
well as the other two selections on the program: Handel’s Concerto
Grosso in F Major, Op. 3, No. 4; and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ lovely
“Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.”

Under the direction of Scott Speck, the orchestra will be joined by
violin soloist Ida Kavafian, known for her intensity, exemplary
musicianship and experience playing chamber music.

Born in Istanbul of Armenian parents, Kavafian is an active chamber
musician and has played chamber festivals and series worldwide. She
has toured and recorded as violist with the Guarneri String Quartet
and is an active participant with the Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center, of which she is an artist member.

Christina Littlejohn, executive director (and cellist) for Mobile
Symphony, says the program offers the sort of challenge a growing
orchestra requires.

It’s important for the orchestra to play different styles of music,”
she says. “As we grow, it is important for us not to play just
Tchaikovsky.

“The nice thing about Vivaldi is you have to listen really hard, and
it forces you to remain focused. With the other music, the melodies
just capture you and send you away, but with Vivaldi and chamber
music your ears have to be wide open. It’s so intimate you’re really
working as a team.”

Littlejohn cannot recall the last time the orchestra performed
Vivaldi — certainly not in the past decade since Mobile Symphony was
reconstituted. Same with Handel’s Concerto Grosso.

The last performance of Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia” likely came
during the hurricane-delayed 1998-99 season under then-interim
conductor Jerome Shannon.

Because of the move and the Sunday matinee performance, there will be
no open dress rehearsal for the “Four Seasons” concert, says
Littlejohn.

Next week also brings the first of the orchestra’s three composers in
residence. Kenji Bunch, the talented violist, composer and teacher,
will be in Mobile throughout the week for a series of educational
outreach programs and performances at area schools and libraries.

Mobile Symphony received a $150,000 grant from “Music Alive,” created
in 1999, a joint program of Meet the Composer and the American
Symphony Orchestra League. Funds allow a three-year residency
project, beginning this season, with Bunch, Mason Bates and Kevin
Puts.

The residency offers each an opportunity to create a new symphonic
work and to interact with the orchestra on educational activities.

Mobilians are quite fond of Bunch, who enjoyed a two-week residency
in 2003 and returned for concerts in Fairhope and the University of
South Alabama, where he performed “A Bunch of PDQ Bach.”

For Mobile Symphony the composer will produce a commissioned work,
“The Face of Mobile,” to be performed during the orchestra’s 10th
anniversary season, 2007-08.

Littlejohn says Bunch might join the orchestra next weekend during
Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia.”

Speck describes Bunch as “a phenom,” and superlatives seem to follow
the young composer wherever he goes. A superb violist, Bunch has
played with Yo-Yo Ma, and he has developed quite a following for his
bluegrass career.

Bunch will bring the “citified” sound of his group Citigrass to town
in June 2006 for the season-ending pops concert, “A Bunch of
Bluegrass.”

“I don’t know anything he hasn’t been able to do,” says Speck.

Bunch might well add to his list of accomplishments during BayFest,
where he hopes to take the stage and perform at least one tune with a
group he admires: Widespread Panic.

Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Sept 30 2005

ROBERT KOCHARIAN: ARMENIAN-GEORGIAN PARTNERSHIP’S EXPANSION IN ENERGY
SECTOR MAY BECOME A REAL PROGRAM OF REGIONAL COOPERATION

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, NOYAN TAPAN. At the fourth session of the
Armenian-Georgian Intergovernmental Commission on Economic
Cooperation Issues, the sides discussed the urgent problmes in the
bilateral relations and found mutually acceptable and beneficial
solutions to almost all of the issues. The Georgian Prime Minister
Zurab Nogaidely said this at the September 30 meeting with the RA
President Robert Kocharian in Yerevan.

Special attention was paid to the issues of cooperation in the
energy, transport and customs sectors. R. Kocharian and Z. Nogaideli
considered new opportunities for exporting electricity from Armenia
to Georgia. The Armenian President attached special importance to the
expansion of cooperation in the energy sector, which, in his opinion,
may become a real program of regional cooperation.

The sides underlined the necessity for new transport opportunities.
They considered it important to organize direct Yerevan-Tbilisi and
Yerevan-Batumi flights, as well as Yerevan-Batumi railway
communication. They also stressed the need to promote cooperation
between the customs departments of the two countries with the aim of
preventing the illigal turnover of goods subject to excise taxation.
The interlocutors noted that smuggling has been considerably reduced,
but the problem still remains.

According to the RA Presidental press service, R. Kocharian and Z.
Nogaideli also addressed the problem of the socioeconomic situation
in Javakhk. The Georgian Prime Minister said the government intends
to implement a 5-year program on repairing motorways in Javakhk with
funds provided by the Millennnium Challenges Fund and the state
budget allocations. The government of Georgia also intends to carry
out educational programs for the Armenian-speaking citizens and take
an active part in school construction in Javakhk.

EU parliament says Turkey must recognise “genocide”
Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:21 PM BST

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) – The European Parliament said on Wednesday that
Turkey must recognise the killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule in 1915 as
genocide before it can join the European Union.

The non-binding resolution was a political slap in the face for Ankara, which
insists there was no genocide, but it should not derail the planned start of
Turkey’s EU membership talks next week, since accession is at least a decade
away.

The EU legislature also postponed a vote, which had been due on Wednesday, to
approve Turkey’s extended customs union with the EU, in a bid to pressure
Ankara to open its ports and airports to traffic from EU member Cyprus.

Despite a plea from the executive European Commission, lawmakers backed a
last-minute move by the conservative European People’s Party, led by Germany’s
Christian Democrats, to delay giving assent to the so-called Ankara Protocol.

They demanded an undertaking that when the Turkish parliament ratifies the
protocol extending the customs union to new EU member states, it would not
attach a government declaration refusing to recognise Cyprus.

The European Parliament resolution endorsed the start of accession
negotiations next Monday but included a series of criticisms of Turkey’s record on human
rights, religious freedom and minorities reflecting sceptical public opinion
in Europe.

The vote followed an emotional debate in which many deputies, especially on
the right, poured out their hostility to the prospect of the poor, populous,
mainly Muslim nation joining the 25-nation bloc.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn appealed in vain to parliament not to
score “an own goal” by refusing to approve the extended customs union.

But Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said the delay should not
affect the start of entry talks.

“It is not a condition for opening accession talks with Turkey on October 3
since it was signature of the Ankara Protocol which was a condition and not
ratification,” she told a news briefing in Brussels.

However, she added that eventual ratification by the European Parliament was
essential.

RA FM AWARDED VENETO SPECIAL PRIZE

Noyan Tapan News Agency
Sept 26 2005

VERONA, SEPTEMBER 26, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. On September
24, RA Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian was awarded the Grosso d’Oro
Veneziano prize in the Italian city of Verona. V.Oskanian was bestowed
the prize of the Masi Foundation for his personal contribution to the
process of Armenia’s integration to European structures and extension
of Armenian-Italian contacts.

On this occasion Minister Oskanian made a speech at the 25th
awards ceremony held in the St George Cathedral (of VIII century) in
Verona, where he, in particular, touched upon Armenia’s resolution to
develop in accordance with the European standards, country’s internal
development, Armenian-Italian relations, as well as spoke about the
Armenian-Italian Days to be organized in Armenia in early October.

The Masi Foundation was created and is now headed by the descendants
of Italian poet Dante Alighieri. Famous representatives in the sphere
of literature, art, science, economy are awarded prizes of the Masi
Foundation every year. The prizes are mainly given to the Italians.

Up to this day only former Slovenian President Milan Kucan among
foreign high-ranking state and political figures has received the
Grosso d’Oro Veneziano prize.

Below is V.Oskanian’s speech submitted to Noyan Tapan by RA Foreign
Ministry’s Press and Information Department:

Honorable Senator Volcic, Honorable members of the Board of Directors
of the Fondazione Masi, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am privileged to
receive this prestigious award, il Grosso d’Oro Veneziano. This
is a special day for me. And this is, of course, a special place,
a special foundation and a special family with a glorious history of
650 years stretching all the way back to one of the greatest poets of
all times, Dante Alighieri. Dante’s descendants valued their heritage
and helped pass on his legacy. This legacy clearly manifests itself
in modern Italy and the Region of Veneto. Italy and Veneto also share
a legacy with Armenians. There is much symbolism in the fact that
Armenia’s coming back to Europe is being noted and celebrated here,
in Italy. Armenian-Italian connections are based on rich and ancient
traditions. It was in Italy in 1512, that Hakob Meghapart published
the first book ever in Armenian. The Urbatagirk (or Book of Days)
was followed in 1513 with the first published Armenian calendar. The
renowned Briton, Lord Byron, referred to the Venetian island of San
Lazaro as a fortress of Armenian independence, since the Armenian
monks of the Order of Mekhitar had found refuge there in the early
1700s. For the last three centuries, that haven has turned into a
scientific and cultural locus. Today, if you ask the Mekhitarist
fathers whether they are Venetian, they will say yes. If you ask
them whether they are Armenian, they will say yes. One can say that
they were pioneers in establishing a common European identity, about
which we speak proudly, yet with some apprehension. If it used to be
religion that bound Europe together a millennium ago, it certainly
isn’t any longer. Nor is it the economic advancement that was specific
to Europe two centuries ago. It isn’t ideology either, which was both
adhesive and encumbrance for decades in the last century.

Europe is more than its common history, more than geography, more
than a club for members. All those who’ve said Europe is an idea are
right. It is the idea of a Europe that is the common, if unattainable
ideal. Even those living outside this space have imagined and desired
a Europe which can be addressed collectively, a partner which can be
enlisted conveniently, a Europe to which they yearn to belong.

Armenia is Europe. This is a fact, it’s not a response to a question.

The collapse of the USSR brought us to a point of economic and
political crisis. I remember our discussions in Armenia, before our
entry into the Council of Europe. There were many questions about
the choice of path to take.

Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those
who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. I’m happy to
say I won’t be going there because I was among the loudest advocates
of the European path. The choice was clear. Armenians believe in the
values of the European enlightenment, of European civilization. The
moral, ethical and existential choices that bring individuals and
societies to select democracy over other forms of government, rule
of law over rule of man, human rights over selective rights, those
choices have been made. A people who have lived under subjugation,
have seen ethnic cleansing and genocide even before the terms existed,
have lived as a minority without rights, now belong to a world where
warring neighbors have found that they can accept new borders based
on realities on the ground and move on. Europe’s nation-states have
found that they can transcend borders, without diminishing or ignoring
cultural spaces, without expecting historical identities to vanish. The
European Neighborhood Policy brings Armenia back home since Armenia’s
foreign policy priority is the gradual integration of Armenia into
European institutions. In his presentation, my good friend, Senator
Demetro Volcic described in ponderous detail my country’s foreign
policy priorities. I must admit that he is well aware of them not
as a common bystander, but as a caring and thoughtful professional,
who has proven to be instrumental in helping to integrate Armenia
into the modern European architecture. The double digit GDP growth,
which Armenia achieved each of the last five years, the successful
admission into the WTO, the spirit of the free enterprise, the
changing political system and society are promising signs that we are
on the right track. However, it is too early to say that the European
standard is round the corner. It is not as close yet as Europe itself,
as Venice, as Verona, as the shared cultural and religious values of
the past and present. To highlight and share those values, we will
be launching a two-month long Days of Italy in Armenia, beginning in
early October.

This project has received the blessing and patronage of President
Ciampi, President Kocharian and Governor Galan. The centerpiece of
these important events will be an exhibition of the riches from the
Isla Armena. In light of all this, then, the Fondazione Masi has,
in bestowing upon me this award, put a great stamp of approval on
Armenia, its foreign policy directions, its European orientation,
its future. I thank you.

Despite Late Challenge, Scholars Finally Hold Meeting in Turkey on Armenian
Genocide

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Monday, September 26, 2005

An academic conference on Turkey’s controversial “Armenian question” took
place over the weekend in Istanbul, despite legal maneuvering by Turkish
nationalists that had threatened to prevent it. The conference was
originally to have taken place in May, but was postponed at the last minute
under pressure from government officials.

The meeting was rescheduled for this past weekend at Bogaziçi, University,
also known in English as Bosphorus University, but was once again postponed
on the eve of its opening, this time because of a legal challenge that
questioned its scientific validity and the qualifications of its
participants. The challengers also said it was inappropriate for Bogaziçi, a
public university, to be the venue for such a gathering, which they said
contravened its mission.

Academics from Bilgi University, Bogaziçi, and Sabanci University, three of
Turkey’s leading higher-education institutions, organized the meeting, which
they described as the first conference on the Armenian issue in Turkey not
organized by state authorities or government-affiliated historians. Bilgi
and Sabanci are private.

Armenians have long contended that the killings of up to 1.5 million
Armenians in 1915 and subsequent years, during the waning days of the
Ottoman Empire, constituted genocide by Ottoman Turkish forces. Turkey
officially rejects that view. Turkish historians and other academics have
become increasingly outspoken in challenging the nationalist line on the
issue, however, and growing international attention has also focused on the
matter. Talks on Turkey’s bid to join the European Union are set to begin
this week, and the government’s inflexibility on the Armenian question
remains a sticking point.

The conference, titled “Ottoman Armenians During the Demise of the Empire:
Issues of Democracy and Scientific Responsibility,” was postponed in May
after its organizers decided they could not guarantee participants’ safety
(The Chronicle, May 10).

Last week, participants had arrived in Istanbul and the rescheduled meeting
looked set to begin on time when the fresh legal challenge against it came
to light. A three-judge panel of an administrative court had ruled, 2 to 1,
that a legal investigation of the conference’s validity should take place,
even though its organizers were notified of the decision only the day before
the conference was to begin. With that inquiry pending, Bogaziçi could no
longer play host to the conference without being held in contempt of the
court’s ruling. Organizers hastily shifted the venue to Bilgi so the
conference could proceed.

The official response to the threat to the rescheduled conference differed
starkly from the government’s approach in May, when the justice minister
took to the floor of Parliament to brand the meeting “treason” and a “dagger
in the back of the Turkish people.” This time, in comments broadcast on
television, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was saddened by the
new threat to the conference. He characterized the legal challenge as an
“anti-democratic development” to which he was opposed.

Aybar Ertepinar, vice president of the Council of Higher Education, a
government-financed organization that oversees all Turkish universities,
said on Sunday that although his group had not been invited to take part,
the conference should have been allowed to proceed at Bogaziçi. “Our
Constitution grants academic and scientific freedom to universities,” he
said. Taking up the opponents’ challenge “was an unfortunate decision of the
court that went beyond the borders of its responsibility,” he said.

With the more than 350 participants once again assembled in Istanbul, the
conference’s organizers decided that “we can either do this now or we cannot
do it all again,” said Fatma Müge Gocek, an associate professor of sociology
at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor who was on the meeting’s advisory
committee.

Organizers had selected Bogaziçi as the venue for the meeting precisely
because it is a public institution, but they decided they had no choice but
to relocate to Bilgi. The rectors of all three sponsoring universities
welcomed the participants, who met in marathon sessions to condense into two
days a program that was to have been spread over three.

Because the conference had received so much attention in the Turkish news
media, participants did not even need to be notified of the change, said Ms.
Gocek. Opponents were also aware of the new location, and about 100
protesters showed up on Saturday to heckle participants and pelt them with
eggs and tomatoes, she said.

As the conference concluded, Ms. Gocek said she felt a real “paradigm shift”
had occurred. “We had lots of Turkish journalists there who said they are
not going to use the word ‘alleged’ from now on, in terms of talking about
the genocide. They may refer to ‘genocide claims,’ but they will no longer
talk of an ‘alleged genocide,'” she said.

Papers from the conference will be published immediately in Turkish, which
was the working language of the gathering, and as soon as possible in
English, Ms. Gocek said.

AZG Armenian Daily #171, 24/09/2005

UN-region

UN FAVORS KARS-AKHALKALAK RAILWAY PROJECT

UN Deputy Secretary-General Advarul Choudhuri stated in New York that the UN
approves of the negotiations between Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan over
construction of Kars-Akhalkalak-Tbilisi-Baku railway. Radio Liberty quoted
Choudhuri as saying that the railway will allow the countries of the Caspian
basin to transport passengers and goods to Europe through Turkey. Director
of the UNDP in CIS and Eastern Europe, Kalman Mijei, also highlighted the
railway as an important

TURKEY: COURT BANS CONFERENCE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Istanbul, 23 Sept. (AKI) – An Istanbul court has dealt a blow to
freedom of expression in Turkey, banning an academic conference which
questions the official view that the 1915-21 mass killings of
Christian Armenians under Muslim Ottoman rule never took place. The
decision on Thursday came one day before the conference was due to
start. Turkey’s government slammed the court ruling, saying that “it
goes against democratic and civilised society.” Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul said he saw the decision as an attempt by some political
forces to sabotage Ankara’s integration with European Union.

The remarks from both men contrast with those uttered by the country’s
justice minister, Cemil Cicek, whose harsh criticism of conference
organisers prompted them to postpone the gathering’s original May
opening date. On that occasion Cicek said the conference was
tantamount to “a dagger in the back of the Turkish people.”

Following the decision by the Fourth Administrative Court the
organisers’ spokesman, Halil Berktay, said that they would seek a new
date for the conference, entitled “Ottoman Era Armenians During the
Collapes of the Empire: Intellectual Responsibility and Democratic
Problems.”

The court’s decision came after the Lawyers’ Union Foundation, a group
of nationalist lawyers, filed a complaint against the event.

Before the court’s ruling many nationalist groups announced that they
would stage protests against the conference. Some of these groups,
including the National Powers and Retired Military Officers
Associations, staged a demonstration at the entrance to Istanbul’s
Bogazici University, the conference venue.

The European Commission also said it was disappointed with the
decision and called Court’s decision “a provocation” less than two
weeks before Ankara is due to start entry talks with the EU. `The
absence of legal motivations and the timing of this decision a day
before the conference looks like yet another provocation,” said
Krisztina Nagy, the EU executive’s spokeswoman for enlargement.

Pro-EU newspapers in Turkey reacted negatively to the court’s
decision. Liberal daily Milliyet said that the decision spells trouble
for Turkey. `This decision is a black spot in Turkish justice
history. For democracy, for justice and for the academic freedoms this
conference had to be held,’ a well-knonw columnist, Hasan Cemal,
wrote.

`Court stopped science’ is the headline of another pro-EU paper,
Radikal. The editor-in chief, Ismet Berkan, argued that the ruling
represents the biggest attack by the country’s courts on academic
freedoms and the freedom of scientific research.

`After this decision it is pointless to get angry with Greek Cypriot
politicians who try to block Turkey’s membership of the EU since we
ourselves destroy the way towards the EU more than any others’, wrote
Abdulhamit Bilici, in the pro-Islamic Zaman.

Many historians say that some 1.5 million Armenians were
systematically murdered by the Turks during the 1915-21 period. Turkey
says a much lower number of Armenians died during mass deportations
which the Ottomans ordered after Armenian fighters and their Russian
allies killed Turkish and Kurdish civilans in fighting on Turkey’s
eastern fringes during World War I.

According to the official Turkish view the Armenian deaths were not
due to a policy of genocide, but were caused by epidemics and other
hadrships suffered during the long marches were part of the
deporatation process.

Last month, another Istanbul court opened a case against Orhan Pamuk
the internationally acclaimed Turkish author. He is due to appear in
court on 16 December on charges of insulting Turkey’s national dignity
by telling a Swiss newspaper that one million Armenians and 30,000
Kurds were killed in Turkey and that nobody dared to say so.

(Vah/Aki)

Sep-23-05 14:57
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