Author: nina hovnanian

EXPERTS OF ATLAS: FRANCE CANNOT BE IMPARTIAL IN KARABAKH SETTLEMENT

MilAz.info
Dec 23 2011
Azerbaijan

Adoption by the French National Assembly of a bill on criminalizing
denial of the “Armenian genocide” demonstrated that the French
state is increasingly becoming a spokesman for the interests of the
Armenian lobby.

Thus, France can no longer be regarded as an impartial mediator in
the Karabakh settlement. The statement was made by the head of the
Research Centre Atlas, Elkhan Shahinoglu at a press conference on
the results of negotiations on the Karabakh settlement in 2011.

He recalled that during his visit to the South Caucasus, French
President Nicolas Sarkozy also demonstrated pro-Armenian sympathies,
which resulted in the statements made in Yerevan and the visit to
the monument “to the victims of genocide.”

The decision adopted by the French National Assembly affects not only
Turkey”s interests, but also Azerbaijan and Baku has already announced
specific measures, which it will take in the event of approval of
the document and its coming to legal force.

One of these steps may be raising the issue of removal of France
from the co-chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group. The expert also
said the government has to call the company Total to influence the
French government and convince it not to take any steps that would
cast doubt on the French impartiality.

In the past year there were two meetings between the leaders of
Azerbaijan and Armenia through the mediation of Dmitry Medvedev,
but no progress has been made.

Progress is not expected either in the next two years in connection
with the period of presidential elections in Azerbaijan and Armenia
and in the intermediate countries – Russia, the USA and France.

However, a new trend is increasing attention of the EU in the
conflict. Appointment of a new EU Special Representative for the South
Caucasus which, unlike his predecessor, will be engaged only in solving
conflicts, gives grounds to speak about the activation of Brussels.

As for Russia, in the opinion of another expert of Atlas, Nijat
Samedoglu, after the election of Vladimir Putin for his third term,
Moscow”s policy on Karabakh will not change.

Experts of Atlas presented the results of their survey on how to
resolve the Karabakh conflict, conducted in Tartar, Barda and Goychay.

The study found that the majority of the population was for a “peaceful
settlement”. And in the frontline Tartar district the supporters of
the “peaceful way” were 85%, while in Barda and Goychay there were
60%. In all the three areas, the population is in favor of dialogue
with the Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh at the level of civil
society activists.

The surveys were conducted among the politically educated population,
and the community discussions were organized under the project New
Media of the American organization IREX.

EN DIRECT DE L’ASSEMBLEE NATIONALE
Jean Eckian

armenews.com
jeudi 22 decembre 2011

cliquer ICI

Selon les observateurs, plus de 3000 turcs, brandissant drapeaux
francais et turcs, hurlent au passage des deputes qui entrent en
seance. Des pancartes indiquent que “Le debat historique n’est pas
debat politique”. ou “l’Histoire ne doit pas servir la politique”.

Le quartier est entièrement bloque.

Dans les Grandes gueules (RMC), aujourd’hui, interviewe en direct
de l’Assemblee nationale, un representant turc a nie l’existence
du genocide armenien. Il a ete repris par Karim Zeribi et Jacques
Maillot, lui disant que meme des historiens turcs ont reconnu le
genocide. Ce qu’il a denie. On lui a rappele de ne pas s’en tenir a
la propagande officielle et de dire ce que lui pensait. Il a maintenu
sa declaration, embarrasse.

Un auditeur turc, Murat, etait plus pose sur ses propos, rappelant que
meme les turcs de Turquie ne connaissent pas cette histoire. Ajoutant
qu’il acceptait bien la reconnaissance.

A l’Assemblee, Christian Estrozzi a rappele qu’on ne peut cracher
ainsi a la face de tout un peuple. Il a egalement cite les ecrits du
poète Rouben Sevag et votera le texte.

FRANCE PASSES GENOCIDE BILL, ANGRY TURKEY CUTS TIES
By John Irish and Ibon Villelabeitia

Montreal Gazette QC

Dec 22 2011

PARIS/ANKARA – France moved on Thursday to make it illegal to deny
the 1915 mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks amounted to
genocide, prompting Ankara to cancel all economic, political and
military meetings.

Lawmakers in France’s National Assembly – the lower house of parliament
– voted overwhelmingly in favour of a draft law outlawing genocide
denial, which will be debated next year in the Senate.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan described the bill put forward
by members of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling party as
“politics based on racism, discrimination, xenophobia”.

He said Sarkozy, was sacrificing good ties “for the sake of political
calculations”, suggesting the president was trying to win the votes
of ethnic Armenians in France in an election next year.

Erdogan said Turkey was cancelling all economic, political and military
meetings with its NATO partner and said it would cancel permission
for French military planes to land, and warships to dock, in Turkey.

French Foreign Affairs Minister Alain Juppe, speaking to journalists
after the vote, had urged Turkey not to overreact to the assembly
decision and called for “good sense and moderation”.

Juppe said Turkey had also recalled its ambassador from France,
a decision he regretted.

“What I hope now is that our Turkish friends do not overreact about
the French national Assembly decision. We have lots of things to work
on together,” Juppe said.

Armenia, backed by many historians and parliaments, says about 1.5
million Christian Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey
during World War One in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by
the Ottoman government.

Successive Turkish governments and the vast majority of Turks feel the
charge of genocide is an insult to their nation. Ankara argues that
there was heavy loss of life on both sides during fighting in the area.

“I don’t understand why France wants to censor my freedom of
expression,” Yildiz Hamza, president of the Montargis association
that represents 700 Turkish families in France, told Reuters outside
the National Assembly.

Earlier, about 3,000 French nationals of Turkish origin demonstrated
peacefully outside the parliament ahead of the vote, which came 32
years to the day since a Turkish diplomat was assassinated by Armenian
militants in central Paris.

The authorities in Yerevan welcomed the vote. “By adopting this
bill (France) reconfirmed that crimes against humanity do not have a
period of prescription and their denial must be absolutely condemned,”
Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian saying in a statement.

France passed a law recognising the killing of Armenians as genocide
in 2001. The French lower house first passed a bill criminalising
the denial of an Armenian genocide in 2006, but it was rejected by
the Senate in May this year.

The latest draft law was made more general to outlaw the denial of
any genocide, partly in the hope of appeasing Turkey.

It could still face a long passage into law, though its backers want
to see it completed before parliament is suspended at the end of
February ahead of elections in the second quarter.

National Assembly speaker Bernard Accoyer said on Wednesday that he
doubted the bill would pass by the end of the current parliament,
as the government had not made the bill priority legislation.

TURKISH ANGER, FRENCH ELECTIONS

The French government has stressed that it did not initiate the bill,
which mandates a 45,000-euro fine and a year in jail for offenders,
and says Turkey cannot impose unilateral trade sanctions.

Faced with Sarkozy’s open hostility to Turkey’s stagnant bid to join
the European Union, and buoyed by a fast-growing economy, Ankara has
little to lose by picking a political fight with Paris.

With Turkey taking an increasingly influential role in the Arab
world and Middle East, especially Syria, Iran and Libya, France could
experience some diplomatic discomfort, and French firms could lose
out on lucrative Turkish contracts.

France is Turkey’s fifth biggest export market and the sixth biggest
source of its imports. About 360 French companies operate in Turkey,
employing more than 80,000 people, according to export consultancy
UbiFrance.

“Turkey is a democracy and has joined the World Trade Organisation so
it can’t just discriminate for political reasons against countries,”
Europe Minister Jean Leonetti told France Inter radio. “I think
these threats are just hot air and we (have) to begin a much more
reasoned dialogue.”

The French bill feeds a sense shared by many Turks that they are
unwanted by Europe and it fires up nationalist fervour. However, in
a more self-confident Turkey, popular reaction has been more muted
than in the past.

France has been pushing Turkey to own up to its history, just as France
belatedly recognised the role of its collaborationist Vichy government
during World War II in deporting Jews to Nazi concentration camps.

YEREVAN TO MARK PUBLIC TELEVISION, RADIO ANNIVERSARIES

PanARMENIAN.Net
December 22, 2011 – 17:47 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – On December 24, Alexander Spendiarian National
Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet will host a celebratory concert
dedicated to 55th and 85th anniversaries of Public Television and
Radio of Armenia.As the director of Public Radio of Armenia Armen
Amiryan told a news conference in Yerevan, 160 artists~V dancers,
popular and opera singers will be featured in the staged performance.

The concert will highlight popular hits, folk and opera music by
Armenian and foreign composers.

ANCA CHAIRMAN: TURKEY WILL KEEP THREATENING FRANCE OVER GENOCIDE BILL

PanARMENIAN.Net
December 22, 2011 – 16:53 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Upon adoption at lower house of the French
Parliament, the bill penalizing Armenian Genocide denial will go
before French Senate, Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)
Chairman said.

As Ken Hachikian told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, “adoption of the
bill at Senate will likely take several weeks and I believe, Turkey
will continue to attempt to blackmail and threaten France to try to
prevent passage.”

On December 22, French National Assembly passed the bill criminalizing
the Armenian Genocide denial. The number of votes ‘in favor’ and
‘against’ is not announced yet.

The vote followed the December 7 decision by the Judiciary Committee
of the National Assembly to adopt the bill introduced by MP Valerie
Boyer (UMP).

The draft law envisages a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros
for those who publicly deny the Armenian Genocide in France.

Turkey has piled pressure on France to drop the law ahead of the
vote, with President Abdullah Gul and a Turkish delegation to Paris
warning its adoption will spark a diplomatic crisis and have economic
consequences.

THE FIFTH UNIT OF THE HRAZDAN THERMO POWER PLANT TO START OPERATION FROM JANUARY 1 2012

ARMENPRESS
DECEMBER 22, 2011
YEREVAN

The fifth unit of the Hrazdan Thermo Power Plant will be put into
operation January 1 2012, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources
Armen Movsisyan told a news conference today. According to him,
all the works have been completed and the testing has started. “As a
result we have already produced 20 million kilowatt/hour electricity,”
the Minister said.

Thanks to the change of technology the power of the fifth unit of
Hrazdan Thermo Power Plant will make 480 megawatt. The electricity
produced by the fifth unit is intended for the export to neighbor
countries.

FRANCE TO VOTE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LAW

France 24

dec 22 2011

The lower house of the French parliament will vote Thursday on a
bill that would make it illegal to deny that the Ottoman Turks’ mass
killings of Armenians in 1915 were a genocide. Turkey has threatened
to withdraw its ambassador over the bill.

By News Wires (text) AFP – Turkey is increasing pressure on France on
all fronts as French lawmakers prepare to debate a draft law making
it a criminal offence to deny the Armenian genocide on Thursday.

The planned legislation has united Turkey’s ruling and opposition
parties which in a joint declaration denounced it as a “grave,
unacceptable and historic mistake.”

“We strongly condemn the proposal which denigrates Turkish history,”
the lawmakers said, urging France to consider its own past, including
its involvement in bloodshed in Algeria and Rwanda.

Around 100 people demonstrated on Wednesday in front of the French
embassy in the Turkish capital, chanting slogans.

The protestors unfurled banners reading, “Genocide master imperialist
France,” “What were you doing in Algeria?” “What were you doing in
Rwanda?” and “Liar Sarkozy.”

The group later dispersed without incident.

The French parliament is on Thursday expected to approve the bill,
which would see anyone in France who publicly denies the genocide
face a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros ($58,000).

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their forebears were killed during
World War I by the forces of Turkey’s former Ottoman Empire, a figure
Ankara disputes.

Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bagis said the legislation
was against “EU principles, the spirit of the French revolution
and reason.”

Turkish media are highly critical of the genocide bill initiated by
a lawmaker from the ruling party of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“Ugly Monsieur,” ran the headline in the opposition newspaper Sozcu,
in reference to Sarkozy, charging that the bill was an electoral
tactic aimed at wooing the votes of the Armenian diaspora.

France’s estimated 400,000-strong ethnic Armenian population is seen
as an important element in Sarkozy’s support base as he prepares for
a tough re-election battle in April next year.

“Sarkozy has nothing to lose,” Semih Idiz wrote in his column in
Milliyet daily.

“If winning the votes of French citizens of Armenian origin is
eventually going to facilitate his re-election as president, he will
end up a winner,” said Idiz.

“But if he loses the elections despite the support, he will then
leave the (political) stage with the joy of scoring a historical goal
against Turkey,” he added, recalling Sarkozy’s vocal opposition to
Turkey’s European Union bid.

Turkey and France have enjoyed close ties since Ottoman Empire times,
coupled with strong economic links, but relations took a downturn
after Sarkozy became president in 2007 and raised vocal objections
to Turkey’s EU accession.

A delegation of Turkish lawmakers and businessmen lobbied in France
this week in an attempt to head off the genocide bill.

But Turkey’s business sector is advising against a boycott of French
products, saying such a move would also harm Turkish interests.

The government however has warned of “serious and irreparable”
consequences for Franco-Turkish relations if the bill is adopted by
the French lower house.

Ankara is considering diplomatic and trade sanctions against Paris,
including recalling the Turkish ambassador in Paris for consultations
and asking the French ambassador in Turkey to leave.

It is also planning trade sanctions targeting French interests in
the country and excluding French companies from public contracts.

Turkey is an important economic partner for France with about 12
billion euros in trade between the two countries in 2010.

Some analysts have criticised the government for brushing aside
for years its proposal to set up a commission to probe the 1915
events while Armenian nationalists lobbied hard for recognition of
the genocide.

“Establishing an independent research commission, … scanning
accessible foreign archives and revealing the facts do not come to
our mind,” wrote Mehmet Yilmaz in Hurriyet daily.

Turkey rejects the term genocide and says between 300,000 and
500,000 Armenians, and at least as many Turks, died in combat or
from starvation when Armenians rose up and sided with invading
Russian forces.

France recognised the killings as genocide in 2001.

FRENCH LAWMAKERS URGE TURKEY TO END DENIALISM

Tert.am
22.12.11

The French parliament is continuing the debate over the bill
criminalizing the denial of Armenian Genocide.

Several members of the National Assembly, the lower chamber of the
country’s chief lawmaking body, have delivered speeches, backing the
legal initiative.

Francoise Holland of the Socialist Party said he will vote in favor of
the bill authored by Valerie Boyer. He called upon the other lawmakers
to follow his example “to finalize the draft”

Referring to Turkey’s threats, Boyer said such policies demonstrate
the country’s disrespectful attitude to France’s hegemony. She too,
called upon her colleagues to approve the bill, adding that it is
not directed against any country.

Most of the lawmakers urged the Turkish authorities to face their
own history, putting an end to the current denialism.

LAGARDE TO ERDOGAN: FRENCH LAWS ARE ADOPTED IN FRANCE, NOT IN TURKEY

PanARMENIAN.Net
December 22, 2011 – 15:21 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Turkey is not empowered to tell France what to do,
a member of the French National Assembly said.

“The adoption of this bill is dictated by the will of the French
nation. We do not condemn Turkey but the policy of denial is
unacceptable for us,” Jean-Christophe Lagarde said during the December
22 debate.

“I would like to remind Mr. Erdogan that French laws are adopted here,
in this hall, but not in Ankara,” he said.

The French parliament is debating the bill, which envisages a year
in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros for those who publicly deny the
Armenian Genocide in France.

KAJARANTS DIARY: PSEUDO-INTELLECTUALS IN DEFENSE OF STATE INTERESTS
By Artur Grigoryan

hetq
11:53, December 22, 2011

Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia has seen a growing
bond between a bunch of pseudo-intellectuals and the oligarchs that
run roughshod over the country.

These self-proclaimed intellectuals periodically appear, as if on cue,
on the social stage to sound off on the hot issues of the day. Why
they deem it necessary to make such appearances remains a mystery
for, disguised under the cloak of patriotism, most merely defend the
interests of the state and the concept of eminent domain.

Such a show happened recently in the Syunik village of Kajarants. A
group of us activists had heard that the residents were waging an
uphill battle with the Kajaran Copper-Molybdenum Combine; a majority
owned German firm. We rushed to lend the villagers our support.

Early that morning, we went around to all the houses in Kajarants,
one by one. The story that we heard was the same.

~SWe will not hand over our village to anyone and we won~Rt accept
any compensation to do so.~T

The villagers were adamant ~V no one was ready to pack up and leave,
despite official pressure to make way for mining interests.

Kajarants residents told us that they could never leave their village
and their deceased loved ones lying in the local cemetery.

We’ve shed blood to defend and keep this village. How can you put a
price on blood,” was their unanimous battle cry.

The same afternoon, we were told that Syunik Governor was to visit
and that he wanted to talk to us.

There was a person in the Syunik delegation that introduced himself
as an intellectual.

The man had written an article, alleging to be unbiased, that appeared
in the Aravot newspaper.

There’s a video clip going round the internet showing what this
intellectual and the Syunik Governor had to say to the villagers.

According to them, the villagers trusted their provincial officials and
had agreed to accept compensation in return for abandoning Kajarants.

For the moment, we’ll cool our desire to pass judgement on this
intellectual wearing the black fedora.

Let the people judge him and the values he represents- this holdover
from the Soviet period who speaks out in the name of lofty state
interests and shows his face from election to election.

Thank God there are true intellectuals coming out of the ranks of
the post-Soviet generation.

These are the people that we can join with in the work that lies ahead.

(An environmentalist who visited Kajarants)