Author: Tambiyan Samvel

Turkish PM threatens to expel illegal Armenians

The Irish Times

March 18, 2010 Thursday

ANKARA Turkey s prime minister has threatened to expel thousands of
illegal Armenian immigrants after US and Swedish lawmakers passed
votes branding the first World War-era killings of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks as genocide.

Muslim Turkey, a Nato member and candidate to join the European Union,
recalled its ambassadors to Washington and Stockholm earlier this
month after the non-binding votes and warned they could hurt a fragile
effort to reconcile with Christian Armenia after a century of
hostility.

Asked about the votes in an interview with the BBC Turkish service,
prime minister Tayyip Erdogan said: There are currently 170,000
Armenians living in our country. Only 70,000 of them are Turkish
citizens, but we are tolerating the remaining 100,000. If necessary, I
may have to tell these 100,000 to go back to their country because
they are not my citizens. I don t have to keep them in my country.

Commentators have said the US vote could affect Washington s use of
the Incirlik Air base in southeast Turkey, which provides vital
logistical support for US troops going to and from Iraq.

Mr Erdogan s comments were met with a stern reaction from Armenia.
This kind of political statement does not help improve relations
between the two states, said prime minister Tigran Sarksyan. I agree
with the assessment that when the Turkish prime minister allows
himself to make such statements, the events of 1915 immediately return
to our memory, he added.

Thousands of illegal Armenian immigrants, mostly women from the
impoverished countryside, work as cleaning ladies and in other
low-skilled jobs in Istanbul, where many settled after an earthquake
in their homeland in 1988.

The exact number of Armenian immigrants in Turkey is unknown. But
Turkish-Armenian groups say Turkish politicians inflate numbers of
illegal workers and threaten expulsions whenever tensions escalate
between Ankara and Yerevan.

Mr Erdogan said Armenian immigrants had been allowed to work in Turkey
as a display of our peaceful approach, but we have to get something in
return .

Aris Nalci, an editor at Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper Agos, said
it was not the first time Mr Erdogan had made such remarks. We are not
taking it as a serious threat, he said.

Muslim Turkey and Christian Armenia signed historic accords last year
to establish diplomatic ties and open their border. But the deal has
yet to be ratified by their respective parliaments and the governments
have accused each other of trying to rewrite the texts.

Mr Erdogan s comments could further strain the process of normalising
ties that have been burdened by the deportation and killing of
Armenians during the chaotic end of the Ottoman empire almost a
century ago.

Mr Sarksyan said the issue of illegal immigrants should be solved
through diplomacy and for that to happen the two countries should
normalise relations.

The deportation threats will be frowned upon by European governments
that have voiced support for Turkey s EU bid, and have backed the
peace accords with Armenia. Suat Kiniklioglu, foreign affairs
spokesman for the ruling AK Party, played down Mr Erdogan s statement,
saying the premier felt the need to remind the public about Armenians
living illegally in Turkey. He said Mr Erdogan was not talking about
something that would happen today or tomorrow .

ERDOGAN GOES BACK ON HIS WORD

PanARMENIAN.Net
19.03.2010 17:06 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on
Friday defended his statements about deporting undocumented Armenian
workers and criticized the media for misinterpreting his remarks.

He said the media was wrong to compare Roma and Armenian citizens to
illegal immigrants, saying his comments in London were distorted.

Erdogan said Tuesday in an interview with the BBC Turkish service
that illegal immigrants from Armenia would be expelled, sparking
outrage among the opposition and media.

Things are evaluated differently for citizens within the framework
of the law, he said at the ruling Justice and Development Party,
or AKP, headquarters on Friday, adding that citizens are different
than people who reside in the country illegally.

Erdogan said the foreign press had misinterpreted his definition of
"illegal". He said he was not addressing Turkish citizens of Armenian
descent.

He criticized those asking for an apology. "We know very well who
that apology should come from," he said.

Erdogan made the threat after U.S. and Swedish lawmakers
approved a resolution recognizing the Genocide of Armenians,
Assyrians/Syrians/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks.

During his speech on Friday, Erdogan reminisced about Sunday’s meeting
with nearly 13,000 Roma in Istanbul. "The enthusiasm at this meeting
did not wane for a moment," he said.

"The Roma citizens are my citizens, and they have not benefited from
citizenship laws for the last 10 years," he said. "We will fix these
problems. If there is a need to apologize to them, I will apologize
to them now in the name of the Turkish state.

"The Roma are not a minority but an essential element in this country,"
he said, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . . .

Wall Street Journal
March 18 2010

. . . Armenia doesn’t need enemies.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week told the BBC he
could deport 100,000 undocumented Armenian immigrants. The cue for his
threat was the recent U.S. and Swedish "nonbinding resolutions" saying
the mass expulsions and serial murders of Armenians by Ottoman forces
95 years ago ought to be called a genocide. Not content to have done
more damage to Turkish-Armenian relations than anything Ankara has done
recently, the U.S. House of Representatives has not ruled out taking
up the declaration by the Foreign Affairs committee in a full vote.

Mr. Erdogan’s diatribe was most likely a bluff. Ankara tends to
inflate its numbers of illegal Armenian workers, either to display its
goodwill toward that country’s nationals, or to threaten them–whatever
seems most opportune at the time. But that’s not to say that the
increasingly heavy-handed Turkish premier can’t make life difficult
in other ways for however many Armenians live and work in his country,
whether they’re within the law or not.

For now, bluster is begetting bluster. The feel-good meddling from
Stockholm and Washington, and Mr. Erdogan’s bombastic reaction, has
drawn equally unhelpful rhetoric from Yerevan, where officials are
branding his threat a potential abuse of human rights, and saying
his words smack of the Ottomans’ World War I-era atrocities against
Armenians. The two countries in October struck a landmark deal to
normalize relations and open their common border, though the pact has
yet to be ratified. Given the recent tumult courtesy of American and
Swedish lawmakers, that doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon.

Meanwhile, Moscow is reportedly eyeing the U.S.-Turkish and
Turkish-Armenian spats and wondering how it can benefit. Hooray for
Congressional exercises in statecraft.

It remains to be seen how the American declaration will affect
Turkey’s heretofore stalwart support in Afghanistan, not to mention
its reluctance to back sterner action against Iran’s nuclear program.

But in the meantime, other lawmakers eager to set other countries’
nearly 100-year-old records straight might reflect on the hazards of
empty-gesture diplomacy.

24052748704743404575127691898212242.html?mod=googl enews_wsj

OSCE MG CONSIDERS TALKS WITH RA FM CONSTRUCTIVE

news.am
March 18 2010
Armenia

"The talks between OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and RA Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian were held in a constructive spirit and will be
continued during the forthcoming travel of the Co-Chairs to Yerevan
and Nagorno-Karabakh," OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs issued a statement.

They discussed Armenian comments on the Co-Chairs’ latest formulations
of the basic principles for the peaceful settlement to Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict, the statement reads.

As NEWS.am reported previously, March 16, RA Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandian met OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Robert Bradtke,
Bernard Fassier, Yuri Merzlyakov and Personal Representative of the
Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk in Paris.

HILLARY CLINTON TO DEPART FOR MOSCOW, MEET WITH SENIOR RUSSIAN OFFICIALS

Tert.am
16:05 ~U 16.03.10

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, accompanied by US Special
Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, will depart for Moscow on
Wednesday for a two-day visit.

In Moscow, Clinton will participate in a meeting of the Quartet with UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov,
and European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton, as well as
Quartet Representative Tony Blair, to discuss efforts to promote Middle
East peace, according to the US Department of State official website.

The Secretary will also meet with senior Russian officials to discuss
progress on a successor agreement to Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
(START), cooperation on nonproliferation, counterterrorism, regional
security issues, and the work of the Bilateral Presidential Commission.

On the eve of her visit, Clinton said she expected a new US-Russia
nuclear arms reduction treaty to be inked soon, reports RTT News.

"I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to complete this agreement soon,"
Clinton said in an interview with Russian magazine The New Times
published on Monday.

LA RECONNAISSANCE DE FACTO DE L’INDEPENDANCE DU KARABAGH EST LA FACON LA PLUS COURTE DE RESOUDRE LA QUESTION
par Stephane

armenews
lundi15 mars 2010

Il n’y a eu aucun changement considerable dans le processus de
negociations du règlement du conflit du Karabakh et l’attente
d’evenements radicaux ne serait pas correcte a declare le President de
la commission des Relations avec l’etranger de l’Assemblee nationale
du Karabagh Vahram Atanesyan lors d’une conference de presse.

Les pourparlers ont ete cales, puisque l’Azerbaïdjan essaye depuis
toujours de deformer l’essence de la question. Selon Vahram Atanesyan,
l’Azerbaïdjan a sa propre methodologie d’interpreter la declaration
des Presidents des co-presidents du Groupe de Minsk de l’OSCE et
la Declaration Ministerielle de l’OSCE. La question se refère en
particulier a l’interpretation par l’Azerbaïdjan du droit des peuples
a l’autodetermination.

" Dans le Nagorno Karabakh le droit a l’autodetermination est concu
comme la reconnaissance internationale de ce droit, c’est-a-dire
l’identification de facto de l’independance " a dit Vahram Atanesyan.

Selon lui, c’est la facon la plus courte de resoudre la question. En
plus, la resolution de la question est impossible et peu realiste
sans la participation du Nagorno Karabakh.

" Neanmoins, le format des negociation est deforme et il doit etre
reconstitue " a dit le President de la commission des Relations avec
l’etranger de l’Assemblee nationale du Karabagh.

ARMENIAN AMBASSADOR ATTENDS CHILEAN PRESIDENT’S SWEARING-IN CEREMONY

ArmInfo
2010-03-15 11:41:00

ArmInfo. Armenian Ambassador to Chile Vladimir Karmirshalyan attended
the swearing-in ceremony of Chilean President Sebastian Pinera in
Valparaiso, on March 11.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry told ArmInfo presidents of a number of
countries, foreign delegations and diplomats attended the ceremony.

Earlier on March 10 Ambassador Karmirshalyan met with the ex- president
Michelle Bachelet and extended condolences with disastrous earthquake
in Chile on behalf of the Armenian President. The Ambassador expressed
support to the Government and the people of Chile on behalf of the
Armenian Government and people.

Armenian St. Georgy church destroying in Feodosia

13.03.2010 13:27 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian St. Georgy church of 14th century in
Feodosiya is destroying and falling down. The church has been long
under the threat of destruction and unfit for liturgy. Four years ago
Holy Father Yeremia (reverend of the Surb Khach situated near
Hovhannes Aivazovsky’s grave) attempted to organize the restoration of
the church. However, the project had to be elaborated and approved,
which was costly and difficult to achieve due to bureaucratic hurdles,
kafa-info.com.ua reported.

`Armenian community representatives simply cleaned up the area near
the church and left it closed. Recently the door has disappeared and
the church is open now. Its interior is in state of decay, though the
location and the church are really spectacular. If restored and
cleaned, the place can become one of the most popular sights of
Feodosiya,’ kafa-info.com.ua reads.

ARMENIAN PROSECUTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE: EREBUNI COMMUNITY INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT MADE ITS OWN INTERPRETATION OF THE CASE ON NUBARASHEN SPECIAL SCHOOL NO11

ArmInfo
2010-03-12 11:06:00

ArmInfo. The Police have at last initiated a criminal case on the
fact of sexual abuse of minors at the Nubarashen Special School No.11.

Earlier on Nov 13 2008 the Armenian Public Television program "Haylur"
reported of sexual abuse of certain D.A., a pupil of the Nubarashen
special school No.11, by her teacher Levon Avagyan.

After the report, the Erebuni Investigation Department accused
Marian Sukhudyan, participant in the monitoring of the given school,
the well-known activist of the green Movement, instead of the actual
guilty party. She was charged with Article 135 part 1 of the Criminal
Code of Armenia (slander), then with Article 333 part 2 point 3
(false denunciation for illicit gain) and then again with Article
135. Later all these charged were removed.

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Armenia told ArmInfo that the
Yerevan Investigation Department of the Chief Intelligence Department
of the Armenian Police revealed that the Erebuni Community Department
made its own interpretation of all the proofs. A criminal case on
the facts of sexual abuse of minors has been initiated.

"DOCTOR DEATH" WAS NOT ALLOWED INTO YEREVAN-BOUND AIRPLANE

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.03.2010 15:22 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The controversial American "Doctor Death" Jack
Kevorkian was not allowed into Berlin-Yerevan airplane, well informed
sources told PanARMENIAN.Net. Kevorkian probably had some document-
related issues.

On March 9, Jack Kevorkian was supposed to arrive in Yerevan from
Berlin, where he visited his sister, but missed the plane. He later
decided not to come to Armenia and immediately return to the United
States.

"Doctor Death" Jack Kevorkian is an American pathologist, right-to-die
activist, painter, composer, and instrumentalist. He is most noted
for publicly championing a terminal patient’s right to die via
physician-assisted suicide; he claims to have assisted more than
hundred terminally ill people to that end. In each of the above
mentioned cases, the individuals themselves allegedly took the final
action which resulted in their own deaths. He famously said that
"dying is not a crime." Between 1999 and 2007, Kevorkian served eight
years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence for second-degree murder. He
was released on parole on June 1, 2006, due to good behavior.