Author: nina hovnanian

Anadolu Agency, Turkey
July 5 2012

FM Davutoglu meets French counterpart in Paris

PARIS (AA) -July 5, 2012 -Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met
his French counterpart Laurent Fabius in Paris on Thursday.

In a joint press conference with Davutoglu, Minister Fabius said that
they discussed Syria, Afghanistan, the developments in the Middle
East, Turkey-EU relations, as well as commercial and cultural issues.

France is determined to see Turkey carry forward its relations with
the EU. In a region of instability, our ally Turkey is an
indispensable actor and a factor for stability, Fabius stated.

Our perspective on Syria is highly close to that of Turkey, Fabius stressed.

There are many Turkish citizens living in France and they could act
like bridges between our two countries, Fabius noted.

We want to eradicate differences in views with a sincere approach, Fabius said.

Davutoglu, in his part, said that Fabius was an important statesman
and that he was honoured to meet him in Paris.

We are here to show a will to begin a new term with France.
Turkish-French diplomatic relations are important for the history of
world diplomacy. We had a friendly and comprehensive meeting today.
Differences in views are clear. We have decided to eradicate such
differences not with concerns of domestic politics but through a
common vision, Davutoglu stated.

Our bilateral relations have an important potential. We aim to carry
our our mutual trade volume to 15 billion USD. We could develop
important projects in transportation, energy and tourism, Davutoglu
noted.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul will be highly pleased to host his
French counterpart Francois Hollande in Turkey, Davutoglu indicated.

Turkish sanctions that were implemented against France after a law on
the incidents of 1915 were adopted at the French Parliament were
lifted during Davutoglu’s current visit to Paris.

Minister Fabius informed us that he gave the necessary directives to
French officials so Turkey could open consulate generals in Bordeaux
and Nantes, Davutoglu stressed.

-Turkey-EU-

Fabius underlined that Turkey was an important and indispensable actor
in the region.

Asked if France would lift its veto on five chapters in Turkey’s EU
negotiations, Fabius stressed that the new French government was
closely going over the files in its hands.

We want to solve the problems with a good will, Fabius said.

In response to a question on the possibility of the new French
government’s preparation for a law that would criminalize the
rejection of Armenian allegations on the incidents of 1915, Fabius
said that the issue was a sensitive one for French politicians.

As you know, a related law at the French Parliament was not accepted
by the French Constitutional Court. If we follow the same path, it is
evident that the law would get rejected by the French Constitutional
Court. It does not seem possible for us to follow the same path,
Fabius said.

Minister Davutoglu reminded that Turkey in 2005 made a proposal to
relevant sides to leave the incidents of 1915 to historians.

We are ready for all forms of cooperation without politicizing
history, Davutoglu underlined.

We are against all forms of exploitation of the people’s pains with
one sided approach by politicians, Davutoglu also said.

Kviris Palitra, Georgia
June 25 2012

Which Armaments worth 108M dollars did Tbilisi Sell to Baku?

by Irakli Aladashvili
[Translated from Georgian]

Readers will find it hard to believe that Georgia does not only buy
armaments but also sells them, and at quite a significant price too.

Still, according to Azerbaijani website Defence.az, Georgia used to
supply Azerbaijan with weapons along with Ukraine and Russia.

The Azerbaijani website says that, in 2003-2008, Ukraine and Russia
supplied Azerbaijan with armaments worth 364m dollars and 128m
dollars, respectively, while little Georgia [provided weapons worth]
as much as 108m dollars (!).

Those were the very years before the August [2008 Georgian-Russian]
war when the Georgian Army itself was acquiring large quantities of
weapons and had emissaries travel all over the world to secure
deliveries of armaments.

Is it possible that, at such a time, Tbilisi had any kind of weapons
that it did not need and sold to neighbouring, friendly Azerbaijan?

Azerbaijan and Georgia have unofficially traded weapons since 1992.
For example, during the [1992-1993] war in Abkhazia, [Georgian
paramilitary group] Mkhedrioni bought several rockets of the Uragan
multiple launch rocket system in Azerbaijan (members of Mkhedrioni
offered a peacock in addition to money because an Azerbaijani warlord
was very fond of the bird). However, they were unable to use the
rockets because of technical flaws.

Subsequently, after the Abkhazia war, the [Georgian] military sent
D-20 howitzers to their Azerbaijani counterparts but the weapons were
seized by Igor Giorgadze, who was the [Georgian] minister of security
at the time.

However, those were isolated cases and could not have been described
as serious military and technical cooperation between Georgia and
Azerbaijan.

In the middle of 1990s, Azerbaijan bought several Su-25 attack planes
from Georgia for the first time. They were delivered by Georgian Air
Force Commander Valeri Naqopia, whom the security service briefly
placed under house arrest for this.

The first official document confirming the sale of Su-25 attack planes
to Azerbaijan is a record from the UN Register of Conventional Arms
dated 30 June 2006.

According to this document, the Azerbaijani side officially notified
the relevant UN body that it had purchased six Su-25 attack planes and
one Su-25UB two-seat trainer aircraft from Georgia in 2005. However,
it is clear that no one would have paid the Tbilisi Aviation Plant
108m dollars for seven combat planes (even though the two-seat variant
is more expensive). The price of each plane is unlikely to have been
even 5m dollars.

An analysis of the UN Register of Conventional Arms revealed that
Azerbaijan had also signed a similar deal with the Georgian Government
earlier. A register record dated 21 August 2003 says that Georgia sold
six Su-25 attack planes to Azerbaijan in 2002. However, the price of
13 attack planes would still not have been 108m dollars.

A tragic incident occurred at one of Azerbaijan’s military airfields
27 December 2011. An Su-25’s jet engine sucked a specialist from the
Tbilisi Aviation Plant into an air intake and, unfortunately, he died.

The fact that Georgian specialists have been sent [to Azerbaijan]
suggests that the Tbilisi Aviation Plant could still be selling the
Su-25 attack planes (or their fuselages) to Azerbaijan and the 108m
dollars figure calculated by the Azerbaijani military experts could
include the price of this deal too.

It is worthy of note that Georgia has not sent arms sales data to the
UN Register of Conventional Arms since the August 2008 war.

In 2009, Azerbaijan bought five Su-25s again but Belarus was the
supplier this time, which was confirmed by a document dated 5 November
2010.

Incidentally, Azerbaijan has the highest number of Su-25 attack planes
in the South Caucasus region today (24-30 units), followed by Armenia
with 15 attack planes (Yerevan bought 10 units of this combat aircraft
from Slovakia in 2004). Georgia is in last place with 12 attack
planes, despite the fact that the Tbilisi Aviation Plant alone has
been producing Su-25 single-seat attack planes since 1979….[ellipsis
as published].

P.S. Azerbaijan has begun buying weapons worth 1.6bn dollars from
Israel. These include Gabriel anti-ship missiles, Barak antiaircraft
missiles, and Heron strategic UAVs. The Georgian-Azerbaijani military
and technical cooperation is nowhere near this scale of relations.

The Herald (Glasgow)
July 4, 2012 Wednesday
1 Edition

Mulling over a lesson in teaching musicians

Kate Molleson on a bid to develop new talent in a low-risk and fun environment

The sun was setting low over Duart Castle, the CalMac fleet
criss-crossed the Sound of Mull and, through a midge-infested
twilight, strains of Bruckner and Mozart filtered up from the grand
banqueting hall below. This was the annual Mendelssohn on Mull
festival, so-called after Felix Mendelssohn s famous trip to the
Hebrides in 1829, and special because it does more than simply
parachute nice concerts into posh places.

There is that too, but the emphasis here is on developing young
professional musicians in an environment that s low-risk and fun. The
festival is part-summer school, part-concert series for a hand-picked
bunch of burgeoning players who have just finished or are nearing the
end of their formal training. They come here to soften the harsh jolt
between music student and freelance musician.

The format is simple. The participants spend a week working
intensively alongside mentors.

During that week they give concerts around Mull and Iona: in village
churches, stately homes, the odd decaying castle and the highlight for
many Iona Abbey. Tickets are free, and are snapped up by locals and
tourists, and the pubs of Tobermory host gaggles of musicians late
into the night.

The atmosphere is warm, constructive and I can testify participatory.
Last year I went along to review concerts but was more or less ordered
to bring along my clarinet and play in one of the concerts. Unorthodox
press coercion? Well, as a tactic for imparting the spirit of the
festival, it worked a treat.

The man who s been in charge of the festival for the past 10 years is
Levon Chilingirian, first violinist of the Chilingirian Quartet and a
committed chamber musician and pedagogue. Born in Cyprus to Armenian
parents, he emigrated with his family to the UK in the early 1960s and
came of age in a London full of music-making.

I started playing in small groups at college, he told me, but mostly I
learned about chamber music from amateurs. There was a circle of
Jewish émigrés in London who gathered once a week. They lived for
this. More than the professionals, these amateurs had an incredible
love and knowledge of the repertoire.

Chilingirian now teaches at the institution where he studied, London s
Royal College of Music. But he s more interested in what can be
learned outside the college gates.

Take young musicians into beautiful and remote places, and they can
focus and experiment. That s why Pablo Casals took groups to Prades in
rural France; it s why Sándor Végh set up Prussia Cove on the cliffs
of Cornwall, and why Marlboro [a summer school in small-town Vermont]
still attracts Mitsuko Uchida and Richard Goode as directors.

At Mull it s partly environment, partly ethos that does it.
Chilingirian hand-picks his participants: a combination of those who
have been before and new players; some very new to chamber music, some
dead scared when they arrive and then we see them flower. He also
hand-picks his mentors. Whether they re members of his own quartet,
soloists, teachers or orchestral players, they all share a core set of
musical values.

Over a group dinner halfway through last year s festival, Chilingirian
told the assembled musicians: I m glad to hear so many of you playing
in the right way. Remember: don t be tempted by the dark side. By dark
side he meant a certain style of playing. There is a strong sense at
music colleges these days that the ideal is to be a soloist, he later
explained. It encourages the wrong mentality.

The greatest soloists listen to what the orchestra is doing. They
spend their summers playing chamber music. And they teach. That, above
all, is the important thing.

Many of Chilingirian s colleagues spent time at Prussia Cove, and the
set of values he encourages good articulation, good phrasing, good
sound, sympathetic ears; musicians who will be totally part of the
group, not individuals is a typically Véghian mantra.

Chilingirian broadens the heritage: I m not sure I d call myself a
disciple of Sándor Végh in the way that others are, he says, but
certainly we re all trying to uphold the marvellous central-European
school of the Amadeus Quartet and [Austrian musicologist] Hans Keller.
The ideal is that we teach without saying too much.

So he and the other mentors impart their experience by playing
alongside their students. Keller coined the phrase wordless functional
analysis , in which music is analysed through sound alone.
Chilingirian s approach, then, could be called wordless functional
teaching .

Judging by the shrieks of laughter cutting through the dreamy sunset
at Duart Castle, his positive pedagogy has worked on the morale front,
at least. These students are running on a low-sleep,
high-encouragement euphoria. When I sat to rehearse Brahms s Clarinet
Quintet with the Chilingirian Quartet, I got a taste of it too. I hadn
t practised for years. I was dreading the humiliation of playing with
a serious string quartet. But as the violins sang their opening
thirds, as cellist Stephen Orton added his restless counterpoint and
smiled at me for my entry, I forgot my self-pity and got on with
playing. Two days later my performance was as rough as I deserved but
I enjoyed every minute of it.

Mendelssohn on Mull is at venues around Mull and Iona until July 7.

Press TV, Iran
July 6 2012

Ankara restores relations with Paris, revoking sanctions

Ankara has decided to restore diplomatic and economic relations with
Paris following the new French government’s decision to end its
efforts to pass a bill to criminalize denial of Armenians genocide,
Press TV reports.

During a meeting in Paris on Thursday, foreign ministers of the two
countries (Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey and Laurent Fabius of France)
agreed to improve the strained relations between the two countries
over the Armenian genocide bill.

Following the meeting with his French counterpart, Turkish foreign
minister said: `as a result of the few difficulties which we
experienced in the past, Turkey took a series of measures against
France, but I would like to announce that these measures have been
completely removed.’

Former President of France Nicolas Sarkozy had previously proposed a
bill to the French parliament to criminalize denial of the Armenians
genocide by the Ottoman Empire, the modern-day Turkey, during the
World War I, in a bid to garner the vote of the Armenian population of
the country during the Presidential elections.

However, the proposal which had caused widespread protests across
Turkey and infuriated the Turkish establishment, was ultimately
declared illegal by the French Constitutional Court.

France had accused Turkey, and its forerunner the Ottoman Empire, of
committing genocide against the Armenian population of the country
during the last days of the Ottoman Empire before it collapsed in
1915, an accusation Turkey has always strongly denied.

Turkey has always resisted the term `genocide’ being applied to the
mass killing of the Armenian minority, arguing that they were not
specifically targeted and thus the mass killings cannot properly
constitute a genocide.

At the meeting, Fabius hailed `a new period of relations on every
level’ between the two countries.

In response to a question about Turkey’s adhesion issue, Fabius
implied that such a decision will require a referendum, adding `at the
end of the day things will come down to the decision of the people,’
However, on the other hand, President Hollande had previously stated
that he did not foresee Turkey’s acceptance into the EU bloc during
the next five years.

RM/MY/JR

Agence France Presse
July 5, 2012 Thursday 12:36 PM GMT

Turkey’s top imam backs re-opening Orthodox clergy schools

ISTANBUL, July 5 2012

Turkey’s top Muslim cleric urged the re-opening of Orthodox clergy
schools during a landmark visit paid to the spiritual leader of the
world’s Orthodox Christians on Thursday.

“The fact that any religious community in this nation has to depend on
other countries to raise their own clerics just does not befit the
grandiosity of this country,” said Mehmet Gormez, the head of Turkey’s
Religious Affairs Directorate.

The top imam’s call for the re-opening of theology schools came in
response to reporters’ questions about whether the Halki seminary,
where the Orthodox patriarchate used to train clergy, would be
operational once again.

Whatever religious rights Muslims enjoy in Turkey should also be
available to the followers of any other religion, Gormez told
journalists after the rare visit.

The Halki seminary located on an island off Istanbul was closed in
1971, after Turkey fell out with Greece over Cyprus.

“If we get the permission today, we can make the school operational
tomorrow,” the Patriarch, Bartholomew I, said following Gormez’s call
on the government.

“Our government has a positive attitude (toward re-opening of the
theology school), that’s what we want to be believe,” he noted.

Both the United States and the European Union, which Turkey aspires to
join, have increased pressure on Ankara to re-open the Halki seminary
as well as introducing further rights for religious minorities in the
new constitution it is currently drafting.

The patriarch was consulted in February by the Turkish parliament,
which he addressed for the first time, about the role of religious
minorities in the new text of the constitution for the Muslim majority
but secular nation.

Turkey refuses to recognize Bartholomew I’s title as head of the world
Orthodox Christians, considering him only the spiritual head of
Turkey’s tiny Greek Orthodox minority.

Today the Greek Orthodox population numbers little more than 2,500
people in Istanbul. There are also some 60,000 Armenians and 15,000
Orthodox Syrians among the minority religious groups.

ck/boc

House of Commons Debate
Vote on Account 2012-13 – Home Office: Foreign and Commonwealth Office –
UK-Turkey Relations (4 Jul 2012)Stewart Jackson (Peterborough, Conservative)

I yield to no one in my enormous respect for my colleague in the
Inter-Parliamentary
Union and his great love for Turkey and affinity for the country. I
bear no malice as a
candid friend to the wonderful, decent people of Turkey but I quote
Leo Kuper, who
was an eminent academic at the University of California, Los Angeles and said:
`The Armenian genocide is a contemporary current issue, given the persistent
aggressive denial of the crime by the Turkish government – notwithstanding its
own judgment in courts martial after the first World War, that its
leading ministers
had deliberately planned and carried out the annihilation of
Armenians, with the
participation of many regional administrators.’My point is not that
that series of events did not happen at the end of the Ottoman
empire in Anatolia, which is now part of modern Turkey, but that a key issue in
assessing the suitability and fitness of a country seeking to be part of a club
founded on the bedrock of legality, fairness and equality is the fact
that it should
acknowledge past mistakes and crimes that took place almost 100 years ago. In
that respect, just as the Turkish Government have to move on the issue
of Cyprus and
countenance the right of the Cypriot people to self-determination,
democracy and
freedom, they must accept that the Armenian genocide happened. They have to
apologise and move forward, as happened in Northern Ireland, South Africa and
elsewhere, with a truth and reconciliation process to put to rest that
disastrous,
despicable, appalling series of events almost 100 years ago.
We have had an interesting debate. I do not agree with everyone who has spoken,
but these issues are of such great importance and clarity historically
that they must
be raised.

For the full debate, click on

FRANCE
Les chefs de la diplomatie française et turque scellent une nouvelle ère

Les ministres français et turc des Affaires étrangères, Laurent Fabius
et Ahmet Davutoglu, ont scellé jeudi une `nouvelle étape` dans les
relations Paris-Ankara symbolisée par la levée effective des sanctions
turques contre la France à propos du génocide arménien.

La Turquie est `un grand pays avec lequel la France entretient une
tradition d’amitié à l’égard de laquelle nous voulons donner une
nouvelle étape`, a déclaré devant la presse M. Fabius, à l’issue d’un
entretien avec son homologue. Durant cette rencontre, `nous avons eu
l’occasion (…) de montrer notre volonté d’ouvrir une toute nouvelle
ère dans nos relations bilatérales`, a abondé M. Davutoglu.

Le ministre turc a indiqué que la levée des sanctions politiques et
militaires contre la France à propos de la question du génocide
arménien, annoncée en juin, était devenue effective.

`En raison des quelques difficultés que nous avions connues par le
passé la Turquie avait pris une série de mesures à l’encontre de la
France. Je voudrais l’annoncer ici officiellement ces mesures ont été
totalement levées`, a-t-il dit. M. Davutoglu a également indiqué que
la France avait signé les formalités nécessaires à l’ouverture `le
plus rapidement possible` de deux consulats turcs à Bordeaux et
Nantes.

Après le vote d’un texte par l’Assemblée nationale française en fin
d’année dernière réprimant la négation du génocide arménien sous
l’empire ottoman (1915-1917), nié depuis toujours par la Turquie,
Ankara avait annoncé la suspension de sa coopération politique et
militaire avec la France. Ce texte de loi avait par la suite été
censuré par le Conseil constitutionnel.

Cette instance `a décidé que la proposition de loi qui avait été
présentée par les parlementaires (de la précédente majorité de droite)
était contraire à notre Constitution donc il n’est pas possible de
reprendre le même chemin sinon le résultat sera évidemment le même`, a
noté M. Fabius.

vendredi 6 juillet 2012,
Stéphane ©armenews.com

According to Hranush Kharatyan, the President Has Given Guarantees to
Hayrapetyan

July 4, 2012 14:38

`One can be sure that it is a compelled text and naturally, he didn’t write
it. They gave it to him, considering his language and questions asked, in
order that he said that he was deeply moved with Vahe’s death. It is
written by a man who has preferred not to speak about his suffering and not
to visit in these past 12-15 days,’ social anthropologist Hranush
Kharatyan, a member of We Demand to Punish Those Guilty of What Happened at
Harsnakar public group, said, in response to a question of
impression Ruben Hayrapetyan’s decision to resign
the MP office had
made on her, particularly given the fact that there had been rather
heart-rending descriptions.

In Ms. Kharatyan’s words, even Zori Balayan, who tries his best, puts
all-out effort to inform the society and make it clear for it that the
government hasn’t ignored that incident and the developments that followed
it, that Rita Sargsyan, Derenik Dumanyan have visited, cannot find any
words to say about how Hayrapetyan has responded. Even Seyran Ohanyan who
told about the phone conversation between him and Ruben Hayrpetyan,
according to Ms. Kharatyan, actually they both agree that it is
unacceptable, but they try their best to present it in a more mitigated
way, `They both don’t agree that it is an obvious crime. The same Samvel
Alexanyan, Rubo’s closest friend, says what Rubo is to blame for. So the
people surrounding him and close to him have not found a term that would
show that Ruben Hayrapetyan felt regret and suffering for the past 15 days.
There was no response from him. However, in the end we have a text in
writing, which shows his feelings, how he regrets that he couldn’t grasp
fists, which were raised to kill that boy.’

In Ms. Kharatyan’s assessment, however, those fists were very well-trained
by Ruben Hayrapetyan to do what they did and it was not the first time they
did it. Moreover, `Ruben Hayrapetyan has had many opportunities to grasp
those fists, but perhaps he has often been one of those who raised their
fists. He beat up personally. After those cases, he never felt pain and
hatred and only now, after death, and most probably under the president’s
pressure, perhaps, even getting guarantees from the president that his
privileges wouldn’t be restricted, if he wasn’t a National Assembly member
anymore, he has spread this text in writing.’

Besides forces supporting Hayrapetyan obviously, in our interlocutor’s
opinion, there hasn’t been anyone in our society who treated his regret
with understanding or trust. In response to a question of
www.aravot.amwhether at the end of the day, Hayrapetyan’s resigning
the office didn’t
change anything in our reality, Ms. Kharatyan said, `I think it has changed
something. In a certain case, consistent social pressure has caused some
attitude.

The usage of the phrase `they don’t give a damn’ is changing and in case of
big consistency, there will be some breakthrough. Certainly, it is a big
change.’

*Nelly GRIGORYAN*

Tokhmakh Mher’s Nephew Detained

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 12:25:22 – 05/07/2012

According to news.am, in the evening of July 4, Arman Badalyan, the
nephew of NA member Mher Sedrakyan aka Tokhmakh Mher, was detained.

The Hraparak daily runs that Arman Badalyan’s name is associated with
the murder of Suren Zoroyan, who is a representative of the thieves’
world, on June 22.

Mher Sedrakyan is a RPA faction member and member of the NA standing
commission on defense, national security and internal affairs.

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
July 5 2012

Russia and Armenia to form fund for humanitarian cooperation

Constantine Kosachev, head of Rossotrudnichestvo, is on a two-day
visit to Armenia to meet Russian compatriots, Armenian counterparts
responsible for humanitarian cooperation in education, culture, attend
the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Yerevan, discuss
prospects for cooperation with Armenian cities, News Armenia reports.

The Russian official noted that he met Armenian president, ministers
of foreign affairs, education and science, culture and economy.
Kosachev proposed formation of a bilateral fund for humanitarian
cooperation. A similar structure has been formed for the CIS, the
Interstate Fund forHumanitarian Cooperation.

A bilateral fund has good prospects. Success of the new structure
would allow creation of such funds with other states.

Kosachev said that Armenian president visited Moscow and signed an
agreement on humanitarian cooperation. The framework agreement should
be backed by a program of joint actions for 2013-2016.
Rossotrudnichestvo will compose one, the official said.

The sides discussed hosting the second Russian-Armenian interregional
forum in Yerevan for innovative industrial enterprises of Russian
regions in October.

The first such forum was held in Yerevan on April 18-19, 2011,
supported by the Russian and Armenian presidential administrations.
Over 500 officials took part in the forum.

Kosachev wants more attention to Russian companies in Armenia. He
believes that Armenian legislature needs modernization.

The head of Rossotrudnichestvo will present the Armenian content of
the website of his organization in Armenia. He will meet active
cooperators of his organization, lay flowers to the memorial tree to
mark the 185th anniversary of the Oshakan Battle (Russian-Persian War)
and attend the start of the Russian-Armenian youth marathon.