Author: Tambiyan Samvel

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 1 2007

Seventh suspect charged in murder of Hrant Dink

Prosecutors on Wednesday charged a seventh suspect with alleged
involvement in the slaying of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

A prosecutor’s office said Salih Hacýsalihoðlu was charged for his
alleged involvement in the killing, without specifying the exact
charges. The 30-year-old was detained in the Black Sea city of
Trabzon earlier this week.
Salihoðlu was a university roommate of a key suspect in the murder,
Erhan Tuncel, news reports said. Reacting to the arrest, his father
said he did not believe his son had anything to do with the killing.

Dink was gunned down outside his newspaper Jan. 19 in a killing that
shocked the nation and raised concerns that Turkey, which aspires to
achieve EU membership, remains a country where intellectuals are not
free to openly express their ideas.
Last week, prosecutors charged six other people, including alleged
teenage gunman Ogün Samast and Yasin Hayal, a nationalist militant.
The latter served time in prison for a 2004 bombing and police say he
confessed to inciting the killing and to providing the gun and money.

[Congressional Record: January 30, 2007 (Extensions)]
[Page E215]
>From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr30ja07-28]

HRANT DINK’S DEATH A LOSS FOR MANY

______

HON. MICHAEL E. CAPUANO

of massachusetts

in the house of representatives

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Mr. CAPUANO. Madam Speaker, I supported H. Res. 102 and I condemn in
the strongest possible terms the cowardly murder of journalist Hrant
Dink in Istanbul on January 19. I find particularly contemptible the
actions of those who seemingly chose a seventeen-year-old youth–the
alleged killer–to commit this appalling crime. This despicable act
should not, however, obscure the inspiring solidarity of tens of
thousands of secular, Muslim, and Armenian Christian Turks who filed
past Mr. Dink’s bier and marched in his funeral procession. Western
news media have estimated the crowds between 50,000 and. 100,000.
Important Turkish officials, such as Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Ali
Sahin; Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu; the governor of Istanbul,
Muammer Guler; the head of the security forces, Celalettin Cerrah; and
two generals joined Arman Kirakossian, the deputy Foreign Minister of
Armenia, and other Armenian officials at the funeral service.
Everyone in the world who cherishes freedom and brotherhood must take
heart when signs proclaiming “We are all Armenians” are carried
through the streets of Istanbul. I wish to express my condolences to
the family and friends of Hrant Dink. I want also to express my
profound respect for all his fellow citizens who protested his murder
and mourned his death.

PanARMENIAN.Net

RA government and Microsoft signed cooperation agreement
31.01.2007 18:19 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Yesterday in Edinburg the Armenian government and
Microsoft Corporation signed an agreement on cooperation, reports the
press office of the RA Ministry of Trade and Economic Development. The
agreement was signed by Minister Trade and Economic Development Karen
Chshmarityan and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. According to the
agreement, Microsoft will carry out a number of educational,
investment and innovation programs in Armenia. Establishment of
Microsoft Innovation Center is also expected.

For its part, the Armenian government should exert efforts for
Microsoft copyright protection and assist in implementation of
Microsoft software in the state government system.

The agreement is a logical continuation of the process of cooperation
expansion with giants like Alcatel, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett&Packard.

LEADER OF NATIONAL-DEMOCRATIC UNION AND OSCE MG AMERICAN CO-CHAIR
DISCUSSED ELECTION PROCESSES IN ARMENIA

Yerevan, January 30. ArmInfo. The leader of the National-Democratic
Union party, Vazgen Manukyan and the OSCE MG American Co-chair, Mathew
Bryza, have discussed the election processes in Armenia, NDU leader,
RA Parliamentarian Vazgen Manukyan, said today.

Commenting, by ArmInfo correspondent’s request, upon the results of
his meeting with Mathew Bryza, Manukyan said he has deeply criticized
the amendments to the RA Electoral Code. According to V. Manukyan, h
old M. Bryza that the USA can help Armenia in case if they send more
observers to the elections, if they draw an objective conclusion on
elections without comparing Armenia with Azerbaijan and if they warn
the authorities about inadmissibility of force application.

The victorious army is 15 years old
Editorial

Yerkir.am
January 26, 2007

The Armenian army is 15 years old. We can state with no hesitation that
creation and consolidation of the army was one of the greatest
achievements since independence.

Our ancestors had nurtured the dream of having regular armed forces for
centuries believing the army was the guarantee for national security.
In the beginning of the last century the Armenian nation had a unique
opportunity to restore the statehood we had lost centuries ago, and the
army played the leading role in this process.

We will not be wrong to emphasize the role of the army since the new
structures of the nation state were in the stage of formation at that
time and the national army managed to prevent the enemy’s last attack
and ensured emergence of the independent state.

The newly established Armenian army emerged in the fire of thirty years
of national liberation wars. The army, created on the basis of guerilla
troops, fought for the homeland for two and a half years, and if it
left the homeland, it left a well-established and recognized state.
Seventy years later, the new Armenian army was once again formed in a
time of national liberation struggle.

Our army was born in very difficult conditions; it was born on the
battlefield in a time of war.

A nation that was deprived of a right to self-defense had to rely on
the self-sacrifice of volunteers. The volunteers joined the Artsakh
struggle in its earliest stage. And it was the volunteers’ efforts that
brought a breakthrough to the war and determined its outcome.

The national army that was formed on the basis of the volunteer troops
took up the fight and continued it when the struggle had already turned
into a full scale war. Boys of 18 shared the hardships of war with
their older fellow soldiers, so did they share the responsibility and
right to become martyrs if needed for the homeland.

We have all grounds to take pride in our army, not because it simply
exists but because it is a victorious army. At the same time, this puts
a heavy burden of responsibility on today’s and tomorrow’s soldiers.

This responsibility grows when you remember that the war is simply
frozen and not ended while the enemy continues threatening to break out
a new war. It is not a secret that these threats are not materialized
for the simple reason that the enemy knows that it cannot defeat the
other side. This in turn means that we must exceed our enemy in
military power to prevent the wheel of history from turning back.

It is wrong to think that greater military power means having stronger
weapons. The advantage lies with the soldiers and their spirit. The
army that cannot be defeated within itself will never be defeated by
the enemy. And the strength of the soldiers’ spirit comes from their
ideological stand and their conviction that they are fighting for the
fair and moral cause. Strong is the soldier whose rear is strong.

The army is part of our society. Therefore, it reflects all positive
and negative phenomena that exist in the society. If we want to have a
strong army we must have a just, strong and united country and society.
Without having a strong country we cannot have a strong army, and
without a strong army we cannot have a strong country.

As long as we live in a region with unsolved problems we must have a
strong country and army. We must value and appreciate our army and our
soldiers. The soldiers must be the most respected members of our
society. We should have high respect for the soldiers.

It would probably suffice to finish with praise and congratulation on
the Army Day but if we are proud with our army and if we want it to
enjoy our trust in the future we should also speak about our
expectations. Since the army concerns the whole society our words and
congratulations should be addressed to everyone.

We should first of all congratulate the soldiers who are defending the
borders of our country in very difficult conditions. We should
congratulate all those who have taken up military career. We should
extend our special congratulations to all those who have participated
in the Artsakh liberation war, and commemorate all those who sacrificed
their lives for the dignified and proud future of our country. Let us
finally congratulate the mothers of our soldiers, and congratulate each
other on the 15 anniversary of our army.

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Jan 29 2007

Yuri Merzlyakov: next meeting between Azerbaijani and Armenian
foreign ministers may be held in the second half of February

[ 29 Jan. 2007 19:02 ]

`OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs, mediator on the settlement of Nagorno
Karabakh conflict, are working on organization of a new round of
negotiations between Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers’,
Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Yri Merzlyakov told APA.

He said that next meeting between Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign
ministers may be held in the second half of February. It will depend
on the schedules of the ministers. He refused to comment on their
suggestion to hold presidents’ meeting at the last visit to the
region. He pointed out that it is necessary to continue negotiations
at presidents’ level.
`I think, the process will continue’, he said.
When asked how Russia can suggest the application of Kosovo
settlement variant to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Merzlyakov
stated that Russia always supports to reach general agreement between
Belgrade and Prishtine. Russia approaches the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict in this way.
`The sides should reach an agreement themselves. It is not right to
suggest them some receipts. If Serbia and Kosovo come to an
agreement, Russia is ready to support the agreement’, he said.
Yuri Merzlyakov noted that co-chairs’ next visit to the region is
possible after the meeting of foreign ministers. /APA/

Palm Beach Post Editorial
Belief in an ideal cost an editor his life
Sunday, January 28, 2007
BY DOUGLAS KALAJIAN

nion/epaper/2007/01/28/a1e_kalajian_commentary_012 8.html

Hrant Dink died last week because he would not let go of a crazy idea.

He believed in the essential decency of his fellow human beings.

As editor of the last Armenian-language newspaper in Istanbul,
Mr. Dink pleaded with his country to face its ugliest history by
taking responsibility for the mass slaughter of Turkey’s Armenian
minority in the years before, during and after the First World
War. This took remarkable courage.

Turkey not only disavows any such responsibility, it forbids the mere
suggestion that Armenians were subjected to genocide. Respected
Turkish author Orhan Pamuk experienced the consequences two years ago
after he acknowledged the Armenian Genocide: He was charged with the
crime of "insulting Turkishness."

Mr. Pamuk’s case led to an international outcry. The charges were
dropped, but the government continued to press similar charges against
a number of lesser-known academics and writers, including Hrant Dink.

To Armenians in diaspora, the prosecution of Mr. Dink echoed the
persecution of their parents and grandparents. My father survived The
Genocide as a child, but at a terrible price. He grew up without a
family, a home or a country.

Despite that, he remained remarkably free of bitterness or anger
toward Turkey and its people.

He found it almost impossible to speak about what he experienced, but
he insisted that I learn enough history to appreciate its lessons. He
believed, as Mr. Dink apparently did, that truth does more good than
harm.

The truth about the Armenian Genocide always has been
clear. Massacres, forced marches and mass starvation of deportees were
reported in numbing detail in The New York Times and other major
publications. A typical headline from Aug. 18, 1915:
"ARMENIANS ARE SENT
TO PERISH IN DESERT"
The story reported "a plan to exterminate the whole Armenian people."
It hardly was the world’s first or the last scheme of mass
extermination. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born Holocaust survivor,
surveyed not just the wreckage of postwar Europe but the wreckage of
history when he drew a common thread through the destruction of
Carthage and the mass murders of Armenians and Jews. He gave the world
its first word for barbarity on such horrific scale: genocide.

Turkey insists that the virtual disappearance of its once-vast
Armenian population was a consequence of war and not an act of ethnic
cleansing, but the artifice has become increasingly difficult to
sustain. Armenians have lobbied to make acknowledgment of the Genocide
a condition of Turkey’s entry into the European Union, a demand that
has infuriated the Turkish government.

Until last week, however, there was at least one powerful voice of
dissent in the Armenian community: Hrant Dink’s.

Mr. Dink was that rare creature – a man of principle. He did not think
Turkey should be wrestled into submission. He seemed to believe that
truth would triumph by its own virtue. He also believed in the country
of his birth, Turkey. Friends encouraged him to flee rather than face
charges, but Mr. Dink refused, even as taunts and death threats
mounted.

"I persevered through all this with patience awaiting the decision
that would acquit me," he wrote in his last column for his newspaper,
Agos. "Then the truth would prevail and all those people would be
ashamed of what they had done."

The column was published on Jan. 19. Mr. Dink was shot three times in
the head soon after leaving his office that day. Authorities have
charged a 17-year-old with pulling the trigger on orders of an
ultra-nationalist group. The government that bullied Mr. Dink and
sullied his reputation condemned the murder and hailed him as a
champion of free expression.

Hrant Dink was tragically wrong in believing that he would find
justice, but he also was right. The night he died, thousands of Turks
streamed into the streets of Istanbul to demonstrate that good people
never are insulted by the truth of history.

"We are all Armenians," the crowd chanted. "We are all Hrant Dink."

New York Times, NY
Jan 26 2007

A Loud Outcry Against Genocide

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: January 25, 2007

Like Atom Egoyan’s 2002 fiction film "Ararat," the documentary
"Screamers" takes as its jumping-off point the 1915 massacre of
Armenians by the Ottoman Turks. Unlike Mr. Egoyan, however, the
director Carla Garapedian has a wider agenda: to show how continued
refusal to acknowledge the genocide, by the United States and Britain
as well as by Turkey, has given governments all over the world
courage to instigate their own versions of ethnic cleansing.

Photo
"Serj Tankian with his grandfather, Stepan Haytayan in Screamers.

The relationship between denial of the Armenian tragedy and later
atrocities like the Holocaust, Rwanda and present-day Darfur remains
far from proven, but "Screamers" loses no power as a result of its
shaky argument. Focusing on the alternative metal band System of a
Down, whose members are descended from Armenian survivors, this
invigorating and articulate film unfolds at the sensitive
intersection of entertainment and politics. Interviewing fans, family
members and a wide range of public figures, Ms. Garapedian traces the
historical path of genocide and reveals the continuing success of the
band’s attempts to raise awareness about global suffering.

Part rockumentary, part howl of outrage, "Screamers" would have
benefited from less concert film and more historical background.
Though the decibel level occasionally threatens to drown out the
movie’s quieter voices, the harrowing reminiscences of the lead
singer Serj Tankian’s grandfather, one of the few remaining Armenian
eyewitnesses, make the suffering personal. "This band just started to
make you ask questions," Mr. Tankian tells his audience. That would
seem a good place to start. JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

"Screamers" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or
adult guardian). It has strong language and disturbing images of
genocide.

SCREAMERS

Opens today in New York, Chicago and Boston.

Directed by Carla Garapedian; in English and Armenian, with English
subtitles; conceived by Ms. Garapedian and Peter McAlevey; director
of photography, Charles Rose; edited by Bill Yahraus; score by Jeff
Atmajian; produced by Nick de Grunwald, Tim Swain, Ms. Garapedian and
Mr. McAlevey; released by MG2 Productions and Maya Releasing. In
Manhattan at the AMC Empire 25, 234 West 42nd Street at Eighth
Avenue. Running time: 89 minutes.

Featuring: System of a Down.

scream.html?ref=movies

Yuri Merzlyakov: The meeting with Arkady Ghukasyan was very substantial

ArmRadio.am
25.01.2007 17:03

NKR President Arkady Ghukasyan received today the OSCE Minsk Group
Co-Chairs. During the meeting the parties discussed the current stage
and perspectives of the Karabakh conflict settlement.

"The atmosphere of the meeting was wonderful, and we are very grateful
to Arkady Ghukasyan. We noted during the conversation that we feel
obliged to the President: for a long time we had not arrived in
Stepanakert with this staff to exchange views with him. It was
necessary, and that is why we are here. We had a very detailed
and substantial conversation. We discussed the current stage and
perspectives of settlement. I think the meeting was useful for both
Arkady Ghukasyan and us. We exchanged views and tried to come to
common conclusions on a number of questions. It’s worth mentioning
that there exists a common opinion," said Russian Co-Chair of the
OSCE Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov, ArmInfo correspondent informs from
Stepanakert. The mediator refused to disclose the details of the
talks on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, referring to the
confidentiality of the negotiations.

Let us remind that the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs visited Stepanakert
as part of their regional visit.

Tonight the Co-Chairs will arrive in Yerevan.

ANOTHER $1.4 MILLION FROM MILLENNIUM CHALLENGES ACCOUNT

Panorama.am
20:14 25/01/2007

Armenia has received the first part of the second trench from
Millennium Challenges Account Corporation in the amount of $1.4
million, Ara Hovsepyan, general executive director of Millennium
Challenges-Armenian foundation, told Panorama.am.

In his words, the second part is $2.209 million. The rest of the
money the foundation will receive in February-March. The money
will be spent on the works with the National Statistics Service,
Armenian Auto Roads CJSC and the winner of "Towards the market"
tender. Contracts are signed with the three institutions.

Reminder: The Armenian government and Millennium Challenges Account
Corporation signed a project costing $236 million on March 27,
2006. The project aims at poverty alleviation and development of
rural communities.

Source: Panorama.am