Author: Talalian Arpi

ARMENIAN AND FRENCH PRIME MINISTERS TO MEET TODAY

Panorama.am
16:58 25/10/2007

Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan arrived in France from
Washington D.C. on October 24 and started his official visit to that
country. During the first day of the visit, a reception was served
to the honor of the Armenian prime minister with the participation of
members of French Senate, National Assembly, mayors, French Armenian
organization leaders. The prime minister delivered a speech during the
reception saying the meeting shows commitment to the Armenian-French
friendship.

It is expected Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan will meet with French
Prime Minister Francois Fillon.

ARMENIAN WOMAN BEATS AZERBAIJANI IDP IN BAKU

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan

Oct 25 2007

Court hearing on the suit of IDP Mehluge Atakishiyeva, concerning the
documents privatized the in the name of Armenian Taisa Osipova was held
in Binagadi district court. The court told APA that Atakishiyeva’s
lawyer Mukhtar Mustafayev protested to the court composition. The
court announced break to consider the petition.

During the break Osipova and a man named Victor Kalyujin first insulted
Mustafayev. Then Osipova and Kalyujin attacked on Atakishiyeva and
inflicted brain injury. Supervisors bewaring of adequate steps against
Osipova and Kalyujin, sent them away.

Ambulance was called to the site and Atakishiyeva was taken to hospital
#6. Law-enforcement bodies were appealed concerning the incident. The
court hearing has been put off.

The flat, where Atakishiyeva lives now, was uninhabited and at
the disposal of State Housing Stock, and it was allocated to the
IDP family on August 3, 1993, by the order of the head of Binagadi
executive power. Appeals Court regarded the president’s executive order
issued on July 1, 2004, as contradicting the constitution and passed a
decision on removing the IDP from the flat and returning the flat to
its previous owners, Azerbaijani Armenians Vyacheslav Khachaturovich
Osipov, his wife Taisa Osipova and son Vilen Khachaturovich. /APA/

MAHMUD MAMMADGULIYEV: BSECO COUNTRIES SHOULD URGE ARMENIA TO RESPECT INTERNATIONAL LAW

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 25 2007

"Armenia’s keeping 20 per cent of Azerbaijani territories under
occupation, making over one million people refugees contradicts
international law and principles of Black Sea Economic Cooperation
Organization," Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Mahmud Mammadguliyev
said in the 17th meeting of Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization
(BSECO) in Ankara, APA’s correspondent reports.

Mahmud Mammadguliyev underlined that Armenia’s aggressive policy
impedes peace, stability and economic growth in the region.

"I call on the members of Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization
to approach the fact of occupation seriously and exert pressure on
Armenia to respect the organization’s principles and international
law," he said.

Mahmud Mammadguliyev seriously criticized the bureaucratic obstacles
in the work of BSECO and called to take new measures to make the
organization more dynamic.

SERGE SARGSYAN COMMENTED TO AP ON KARABAKH PEACEFUL PROCESS

PanARMENIAN.Net
23.10.2007 17:57 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ October 22, Armenian Prime Minister Serge Sargsyan
granted an interview to the Associated Press.

The Armenian PM briefed on the Armenian-U.S. relations, specifically in
political, security and defense sectors and commented on the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict settlement and Armenia’s relationship with neighbor
states. He also touched upon regional security issues and Armenia’s
endeavors against global terrorism, the RA government’s press office
reported.

PRESIDENT: NEWS OF IRAN’S PROGRESS IN AEROSPACE TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON

Islamic Republic News Agency
Oct 23 2007
Iran

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Tuesday that Iran has had
good progress in the field of aerospace the news of which will be
announced in the near future.

Addressing a group of Iranians residing in Armenia prior to his
departure from this country, he said, "Today, the bullying powers
are trying to create obstacles in the way of Iran’s progress under
any pretext."

Certain powers believe they are the owners of the world and they feel
concerned when they witness progress and development of other nations
therefore they try to prevent such developments.

President Ahmadinejad further stressed that the bullying powers are
not concerned over Iran’s access to nuclear bombs.

"If you are concerned about atomic bombs, you should close down your
factories operating in this field," said the president addressing
certain bullying powers.

"We opine that you are not concerned about Iran’s bomb. If the Iranian
nation was your subservient, you would permit the Iranian nation to
have access to the eighth generation of atomic bomb but since it is
not your subservient, you cannot even tolerate Iran’s fuel cycle for
access to peaceful nuclear energy."

Lauding Iran’s scientific progress, the president said the Iranian
nation has a long way to go.

President Ahmadinejad wound up his two-day official visit to Armenia
and left here for Tehran on Tuesday.

IT’S ABOUT TIME TURKS COME TO TERMS WITH THEIR PAST AND PRESENT
Rauf Naqishbendi, a software engineer in San Francisco Bay Area.

American Chronicle, CA
rticle.asp?articleID=40953
Oct 23 2007

Recently, two major issues have haunted Turkey. First, their impatience
to intrude militarily into Kurdistan in northern Iraq, and second,
the passing of two nonbinding resolutions by the United States Senate:
one in support of partitioning Iraq into three autonomous states,
and the other an acknowledgment that the World War I-era killings of
Armenians by Turks were genocide. The confluence of these has resulted
in widespread irrationality on the part of the Turks.

Sensible nations support their neighbors in the spirit of economic
cooperation and to promote national security in their region; they know
that turmoil in neighboring countries can drive waves of refugees over
their borders, and chaos could spill over into their country. But this
guiding principle clashed with the insensible Turkish government. The
case in point is the Kurds in Iraq, a young democratic nation that
has proven to the world that they are by far more democratic than
any other nation in the Muslim world. Turks begrudge this and make
every attempt to dampen this achievement by inciting chaos; Turkish
authorities daily threaten military intrusion into Iraqi Kurdistan. The
crazy thing is they are pursuing their arrogant aims at the cost of
alienation from the world community, their own self-destruction and
a major catastrophe for Mesopotamia.

For nearly a century, the Turks’ have shown extreme intolerance of
Kurds, not only the twenty million Kurds in their country (one-third
of Turkey’s population), but also Kurds in neighboring countries.

They are determined to liquidate the Kurds or at a minimum
disenfranchise them of their national and human rights.

For more than a century, Turks denied the existence of Kurds in
Turkey and instead labeled them "mountainous Turks". This went on
until the birth of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (known as the P.K.K)
and the recent rise of the Iraqi Kurds as an undisputed democratic
nation. Turks then changed their tune and claimed that an autonomous
or independent Kurdish state in Northern Iraq would entice their
Kurdish population (that they had always previously denied existed)
to demand the same. These circumstances forced Turks to admit the
existence of Kurds in Turkey. Did it ever cross the Turks’ mind that
they should apologize for their past and present atrocities against
Kurds? The answer is nay for Turks have no sense of humility; instead
they exonerate themselves, presenting poor and ugly justifications.

They only deceive themselves; the rest of the world knows the truth.

The aforementioned bigotry has been incorporated into Turkey’s law
through a constitutional declaration stating that every citizen
of Turkey is a Turk, robbing over twenty million Kurds of their
natural identity, and justifying their deprivation from the rights
of citizens. They have abandoned their language in public, official
and media sectors, and further hindered their rights to practice
their culture.

For every act of suppression and human rights abuse a sense of
indignation arises, sometimes in a peaceful manner and in extreme
cases, when civilized dialogue fails, with bloody resistance
to equalize the violent crimes committed. This is exactly the
situation for the Kurds in Turkey. First they pled for an equitable
system of social and economic justice in Turkey and their innocent,
peaceful demands were rebuked by a violent wave of mass arrests and
incarcerations by the Turkish authorities. They then had no choice
but to resign themselves to an armed struggle led by the P.K.K. Now
Turks are calling the P.K.K terrorists as if they were the ones who
started the conflict and ignore the fact that the P.K.K would never
have born if it weren’t for the terrorist system of government and
people of Turkey.

History shows us that when nations carried their bigotry to extremes,
they brought ruin to others and self-destruction on themselves.

Violence breeds revenge and revenge brings about a deep-seated
resentment. In most instances bigotry is engendered by a vigorous
self-pride and so often is unsubstantiated, as is the case with the
Turks. Their bigotry is not limited to Kurds – Armenians, Assyrian
Bulgarians, Serbs and Greeks all lament their bitter experiences at
the hands of Turkish rulers. Is the whole world wrong except for the
Turks? They killed one and a half million Armenians and Assyrians
because they didn’t resemble Turks and were Christians.

Unfortunately, the problem is not only the Turks who have engaged
in human rights violations for so long and against so many nations,
but also the other nations of the world who have remained aloof and
let the Turks go as far as they have gone. It is time for the world
to act on behalf of humanity and hinder further Turkish human abuses.

So often so little can be given and so much can be achieved if
obstinacy is overcome. Recognizing the rights of the Kurdish minority
in Turkey will bring peace, more security to Turkey, and will enhance
the public image of Turkey. If Turks were to confess their past wrongs
toward Armenians, it would make them by far more respectable than their
current precarious stand. Turks could elevate themselves from their low
standing to a higher ground of respectability if they desired. Do they?

It is well understood that no nation can destroy another without
going down with them. Turks would do much better if they didn’t let
their self-pride blind them to reality. However, if they continue in
their current path, they will burn themselves in the flames of their
own anger and hatred, and thus have no one to blame but themselves.

Rauf Naqishbendi is a contributing columnist for Kurdishmedia.com
and the American Chronicle and has written Op/Ed pages for the Los
Angeles Times. He has just completed his memoirs entitled "The Garden
Of The Poets" which reads as a novel depicting his experience and the
subsequent 1988 bombing of his hometown with chemical and biological
weapons by Saddam Hussein. It is the story of his people’s suffering.

MARCHERS CALL ON ISRAEL TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Infoshop News
ry=20071022153234116
Oct 23 2007

Armenians in Israel are calling on a state that should understand
their anguish to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Armenian-Israelis marched in Jerusalem’s Justice Square singing
and chanting Armenian songs and slogans. The protest was attended
by two parliamentary officials, Yaeer Tsaban and Khayeem Oron, who
both gave speeches castigating the denial of the genocide by the
Israeli government.

MARCHERS CALL ON ISRAEL TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE Oread Daily

Armenians in Israel are calling on a state that should understand
their anguish to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Armenian-Israelis marched in Jerusalem’s Justice Square singing
and chanting Armenian songs and slogans. The protest was attended
by two parliamentary officials, Yaeer Tsaban and Khayeem Oron, who
both gave speeches castigating the denial of the genocide by the
Israeli government.

Israel has acknowledged that massacres were perpetrated against
the Armenians and expressed sympathy for their suffering. But the
government has stopped short of calling it genocide.

So how can the Israeli government join the ranks of pragmatic
deniers? Just like US leaders, they don’t want to tick off the Turks.

But the Turks don’t seem concerned with saying things that sure as
hell ought to tick of the Israelis.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan on visit to Israel last week,
told The Jerusalem Post,

"All of a sudden the perception in Turkey right now is that the Jewish
people – or the Jewish organizations, let’s say, and the Armenian
diaspora, the Armenian lobbies, are now hand-in-hand trying to defame
Turkey, and trying to condemn Turkey and the Turkish people. This
is the unfortunate perception right now in Turkey. So if something
goes wrong in Washington, DC, it inevitably will have some influence
on relations between Turkey and the US, plus the relations between
Turkey and Israel, as well."

The Turks have implied that this whole episode could put the Jewish
community in Turkey at risk.

Tom Segev wrote recently in Haaretz:

"Israel has removed itself from the nations whose voice ought to be
heard on all matters pertaining to the violation of human rights;
its military and other interests in Turkey are even leading Israel
to lend a hand to the concealment of the Armenian genocide. The Turks
are putting the Jews, and Israel, at the center of this affair.

This galling threat is just as despicable as the denial of the
Armenian genocide itself, and just goes to show why decent people
need to demand that Turkey finally learn to look in the mirror."

Sergov continues:

"…The Turkish Foreign Ministry attributes the "lie" about the
Armenian massacre to two Jews – Henry Morgenthau and Franz Werfel.

Morgenthau was U.S. ambassador to Turkey, and much of what the
world knows about the Armenian genocide it learned from a book the
ambassador wrote after his return home. The Turkish Foreign Ministry
is careful not to identify Morgenthau as a Jew; it just paints him
as a foolish propagandist.

About Werfel, the Turkish Foreign Ministry writes that he published a
book entitled "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh," but that was just a novel
that can teach us nothing more than the film "Amadeus" might teach us
about the composer Salieri. In this equation, the Armenians are Mozart
and the Turks are Salieri, and just as Salieri didn’t murder Mozart,
the Turks didn’t slaughter the Armenians."

It is shameful for the government of Israel, a nation born out of
the Holocaust, to bow to political expediency and succumb to Turkish
pressure, lies and slurs.

At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, these words from Adolph Hitler
advising his general that the world would remain silent in the face
of German atrocities are etched on one of the walls: "Who, after all,
speaks today about the annihilation of the Armenians?,"

The following is from the Jerusalem Post.

Armenians: Call slaughter ‘genocide’

Jerusalem’s tiny Armenian community held banners and flags at a
protest Monday to demand that Israel recognize the mass killings of
ethnic Armenians in Turkey nearly a century ago as genocide.

About 100 people stood outside the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem,
singing songs in Armenian and holding banners. A group of teenage
girls stood in school uniforms alongside an elderly woman holding a
sign that read, "I am a survivor," in English and Hebrew, and others
waved colorful flags.

The mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish troops took place
between 1915 and 1917 as the 600-year-old empire collapsed. It was
again thrown into focus over US congressional debates about whether
to recognize those events as genocide.

Turkey says the killings were a result of widespread chaos and
political upheaval.

Israel has become a player in the US debate. Armenians expect Israel
to sympathize with their demands, because of the Jewish state was
built in the shadow of the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. But Turkey
has threatened to cool its ties with Israel if it doesn’t use its
influence in Washington to quell the campaign. Turkey is one of
Israel’s few Muslim allies.

Armenians say Israel is actively lobbying on behalf of Turkey in the US
Congress, where Democrats have pulled back from their attempt to label
the mass killing as genocide, under pressure from the White House.

"It’s frustrating for us, and it’s frustrating for Israelis," said
George Hintlian, an Armenian historian, who attended the protest.

Organizers of the protest said Israel "jeopardizing its claim to
moral high ground on the Holocaust" by not taking Armenia’s side.

Israel’s government has said previously that massacres were perpetrated
against Armenians and expressed sympathy for their suffering. But it
has stopped short of calling them genocide.

Thousands of Armenians fled to nearby states during the mass killing,
including to Jerusalem, where they established a neighborhood in
the walled Old City. Their numbers have steadily shrunk as younger
generations emigrate to the West, and now only about 1,000 Armenians
live in Jerusalem.

VALLEY ARMENIANS SET UP CHURCH: SMALL BUT TIGHT-KNIT COMMUNITY SEES RELIGION AS KEY TO THEIR BITTER HISTORY. REMEMBERING HISTORY.
Bill Roberts, The Idaho Statesman, Boise

The Idaho Statesman (Boise)
October 20, 2007 Saturday

Oct. 20–A small Armenian community in the Treasure Valley is growing
an orthodox church for members to gather and worship.

The fledgling congregation of about 30 people is taking root just as
Congress is embroiled in a controversy over whether to acknowledge
that the death of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Turks in
the early part of this century was a genocide.

The two events may seem far apart, but they aren’t.

Attending an Armenian church is not just an act of worship for people
like Boisean Mark Abajian and Kuna resident Johnny Kazian. It also
is a recognition that the million-plus Armenians lost their lives
over their refusal to deny their Christian religion in the face of
tyranny from the long-gone Islam-based Ottoman Empire, which once
ruled what is now Turkey.

Those Armenian mass murders became the prototype for Nazis when
they unleashed their Holocaust on Europe’s Jews during World War II,
the local church leaders said.

"Christianity is so important to Armenians," Kazian said. "You must
go to church."

The Armenian Apostolic Church of Idaho, which received its nonprofit
status from the state last spring, meets once a month at St.

Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church in Boise.

Abajian estimates about 60 Armenian families live in the Treasure
Valley and maybe up to 80 throughout the state.

Without an Armenian church in Idaho, many have already found a home
with other religious groups, he said.

"We won’t be getting them to come to church services," Abajian said.

Church is an integral part of the community for many Armenian
families. Besides worship, there are picnics and other times to gather.

"You can’t have a community without a church," said Kazian, who grew
up in Philadelphia near three Armenian churches — two Protestant
and one Catholic.

The tragic history of Armenian mass murder at the hands of Turks,
roughly between 1915 and 1923, is never far from their thoughts.

Jo-Ann Kachigian of Boise lost 40 members of her family in forced
death marches and killings. Her mother survived. So did the cross
her mother held onto, which Kachigian now wears around her neck.

"I didn’t know she hid this," Kachigian said.

Idaho issued a proclamation in 2004 recognizing the Armenian
genocide. Now Abajian, Kazian and Kachigian say it is past time for
Congress to do so.

Congressional support is waning under pressure not to spotlight the
deaths at a time when Turkey is considered an important ally to the
United States.

By Friday, only 211 members of the House of Representatives were
co-sponsoring the non-binding resolution, down from a high of 226.

President Bush is pressuring Congress to work on its legislative
agenda and not get involved in a resolution about Armenian genocide.

But without an acknowledgement from the Congress, many Armenians feel
they don’t have closure to one of the darkest periods of their history.

Kazian is one.

His father was the only family survivor of the killings in 1915. But
for the rest of his life, he always wondered whether people who shared
his name may have been kin, Kazian said.

"He never stopped looking for his family," Kazian said.

A congressional resolution labeling the killings as a genocide would
give his father’s life meaning, Kazian said.

"Did my father die for nothing?" he asked.

CIVIC ACTION CENTER MARKED ITS FIFTH BIRTHDAY

KarabakhOpen
22-10-2007 15:23:07

The Civic Action Center NGO was set up in October 2002. Till recently
one of the main strands of the NGO was the monitoring of penitentiaries
of NKR. The NGO monitored the penitentiaries of NKR from April 2003
to June 2007 with the authorization of the NKR government.

The chair of the CAC told this in a briefing. According to him,
the CAC reported the results of the monitoring to the CoE, the OSCE,
the UN Human Rights Council, the ICRC, Amnesty International, Penal
Reform International, the International Committee Against Torture,
other international and human rights organizations.

Currently the CAC s implementing a program of backing of former inmates
and their families. The aim of the project is to foster reintegration
of former inmates in the society and to support their families morally
and psychologically. The CAC is also involved in the search for the
missing in the area of the Karabakh conflict, helps former POWs and
hostages solve their social and economic problems.

In February-March 2005 the NGO implemented a program of rehabilitation
of the children of the missing people, POWs and hostages. The
organization held computer classes, lectures on tolerance and
recreation with an educational program for these children. The
psychologist of the NGO held individual and group therapy for those
children.

German MPs visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial

armradio.am
20.10.2007 15:01

October 17-20 the delegation of the Germany-South Caucasus Deputy Group
of the German Bundestag headed by member of the Social-Democratic Party
Steffen Reiche is visiting Armenia.

Today members of the German delegation visited Tsitsernakaberd to lay
flowers at the memorial to the Armenian Genocide victims. Later the
group visited the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute.