Author: Tambiyan Samvel

TURKEY PREPARES FOR RETALIATORY MEASURES IN GENOCIDE BILL AFTERMATH

Tert.am
13:58 ~U 10.03.10

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and the called-back-to-Ankara
Turkish Ambassador Namik Tan discussed possible retaliatory measures
as reaction to the US House Resolution on the Armenian Genocide being
approved on March 4.

Turkish daily Star, citing anonymous diplomatic sources, reports that
included in the retaliatory measures are issues related to security,
particularly with reference to Iran and Afghanistan.

"Davutoglu and Tan discussed what Ankara’s possible retaliatory
measures would be if US President Barack Obama uses the term
Genocide in his April 24 address. Possible measures include reviewing
cooperation in Turkish-American foreign policy, and delaying talks on
the Lockheed F-35 fighter jet, the $1.2 billion USD deal with Boeing
for 14 CH-47 Chinook helicopters, and Patriot missile sales.

"The first retaliatory steps will be resigning from supporting the
US in Iran and Afghanistan," reports the Turkish daily.

TIME FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA, MSM, TO TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
by Pamela Geller

Big Journalism
3/10/time-for-president-obama-msm-to-tell-the-trut h-about-the-armenian-genocide/
March 10 2010

Another stunning rebuke to Barack Obama: Armenian American groups
have for decades sought Congressional recognition as genocide of the
murder of just under two million Armenian Christians by the Islamic
Ottoman Empire. Last week, they cleared an important hurdle in getting
this recognition: the House Foreign Affairs Committee, over Obama’s
opposition, approved a resolution calling the Turkish mass murder of
the Armenians a genocide.

The Islamic supremacists haven’t infiltrated as deeply as they
thought. As long as Turkey was secular, we pretended it wasn’t
genocide. And now Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who
once said that "there is no moderate or immoderate Islam, Islam is
Islam and that’s it," is taking on the secular military in Turkey.

Traditionally, the secular army kept Turkey a "moderate" secular
Muslim country, but with the election of the devout Muslim Erdogan,
Turkish secularism is on the ropes. And now that Turkey is returning
to the dark side, we don’t have to lie for jihadis anymore.

The Turks were furious over the Foreign Affairs Committee vote,
and withdrew their ambassador to the U.S. Turkish President Abdullah
Gul issued a veiled threat: "Turkey will not be responsible for the
negative results that this event may lead to."

Turkey threatens…what? Another genocide?

This should be interesting. Obviously the Muslim world thinks it
can bully the U.S. President. Let’s watch and see if Obama heeds the
decent and humane call from the American people, or heeds Islam.

Unfortunately, the answer is already clear. The committee’s vote is
difficult for the Islamophilic Obama. He campaigned on the promise that
he would officially recognize the Turkish mass murders of Armenians as
a genocide. As with so many of his other promises, Obama lied and has
backtracked since he became President, as Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton admitted Thursday: "Circumstances have changed in very
significant ways," she said. And she said that the Obama Administration
would oppose the resolution as it goes to Congress:

We do not believe that the full Congress will or should act upon that
resolution and we have made that clear to all the parties involved.

Change you can’t believe in.

And my, isn’t Turkey very thin-skinned and sensitive, considering
its propensity for genocide? The Turks should be busying themselves
apologizing and making amends, as Germany did after World War II. But
no. Instead the non-Muslim world is still stepping and fetching and
covering up for over a millennium of jihad wars, land expropriations,
enslavements, and humiliations of the conquered non-Muslim populations
on three continents — and genocide.

Abdullah Gul also said:

We are determined to normalise Turkish-Armenian ties but we are
against this being secured through the intervention of third parties
and through pressure.

This is rich. How can you normalize relations when you mass murdered
close to two million of the Armenian people and won’t admit it, or
express regret and apologize? It was a genocide, and the covering up
of Islamic genocides must end.

Let us not forget the other Christian minorities who were massacred
in the same way and for the same reason. Approximately 250,000
Assyrian-Chaldeans were massacred, as well as 250,000 Greeks.

Countless others were forced to convert to Islam, especially young
girls. Another thing we should remember about this period is that
Greece itself was occupied by the Ottoman empire for centuries,
as well as Bulgaria and so on, and the non-Muslim populations in all
those countries were terrorized for centuries. These nations were only
freed because of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman empire.

This is a history we must not forget.

Above all, we must not forget that the Nazis were inspired by the
Armenian genocide.

The Turks used primitive gas chambers and developed other murderous
templates that were later adopted by the Nazis. Hitler was inspired
by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who was an officer
of the Ottoman empire who participated in the Armenian genocide,
and who during World War II met with Hitler and frequently with
high Nazi officials. During the Nuremberg Trials in July 1946, Adolf
Eichmann’s assistant, Dieter Wisliczeny, testified that Mufti was a
central figure in the planning of the genocide of the Jews:

The Grand Mufti has repeatedly suggested to the Nazi authorities –
including Hitler, von Ribbentrop and Himmler – the extermination
of European Jewry. … The Mufti was one of the initiators of the
systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator
and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan… He
was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to
accelerate the extermination measures.

Covering for Islam’s acts of genocide encourages more Islamic
genocide. Think Sudan. Congress should recognize the Armenian
genocide for what it was, and call on the Turks to stop covering up
and take responsibility for what they did. Barack Obama should do
the same thing.

And the media should finally tell the truth.

TURKEY TO TAKE ADEQUATE STEP TO U.S.

news.am
March 9 2010
Armenia

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered an interview
at the airport before leaving for Saudi Arabia.

Asked whether Turkey has designed steps towards the adoption of
Armenian Genocide Resolution by U.S. House Committee on Foreign
Affairs, Erdogan replied that Turkey will make an equivalent move by
all means.

Turkish PM leaves for Saudi Arabia to receive "King Faisal
International Prize".

TURKEY CAN TAKE A STEP FORWARD BY CONFRONTING ITS PAST

The Times
March 10, 2010
UK

The only way forward for a civilised nation is to accept that it was
responsible for bad things rather than ignore or deny them

(Adem Al Tania) Protesters, holding Turkish flags, shout slogans during
a demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara March 5, 2010.

Sir, I find Norman Stone’s apparent view (Opinion, Mar 8), that bad
things are best forgotten in the interest of economics and politics,
totally unacceptable, as I am sure do the survivors and relations of
family members who were the victims of the first ethnic cleansing of
the 20th century.

Professor Stone is correct to emphasise that our history is tainted
by many bad things that happened at the end of empires. However, I
am sure most would agree that the only way forward for a civilised
nation is to accept that it was responsible for bad things (as the
Turks undoubtedly were) rather than ignore or deny them, so that a
true reconciliation can happen. This is what happened with Germany and
the Holocaust, white South Africa and apartheid and other appalling
acts by aggressors through the ages.

Michael Marcar Cranleigh, Surrey

Sir, The UN Genocide Convention (1951) defines genocide as acts
"committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnic, racial or religious group".

The Turkish massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 came into this
category. Even the ambassador from Germany, one of Turkey’s First
World War allies, reported to Berlin that the Ottoman Government was
attempting "to exterminate the Armenian race in the Turkish Empire".

On the eve of the Second World War, Hitler told his troops of his
intention to exterminate European Jewry, asking: "Who speaks today
of the annihilation of the Armenians?" His question is inscribed on
a wall of the Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC.

Modern Turkey remains in denial over the scale, even the fact, of the
genocide committed under its Ottoman predecessors. With negotiations
towards Turkey’s EU membership grinding on, recognition now of the
reality of the Armenian genocide would signal Turkey’s coming of age as
a European democracy confident enough to come to terms with its past.

David Rudnick Harrow, Middx

Sir, Norman Stone’s selective view of the Armenian genocide
conveniently ignores the part played by religion. What he and other
apologists for Turkey consistently ignore is that Pontic Greeks
and Assyrians were killed in large numbers at the same time. These
communities were never nationalist groupings taking part in an
uprising against Ottoman Turkey and were not, therefore, killed in
the fog of war.

Stone’s comments on Cyprus were particularly insensitive because its
well-integrated Armenian community, having fled the Ottoman persecution
to British Cyprus, were then forcibly expelled again from their homes
in the north of the island after Turkey’s invasion in 1974.

Like the US Congress, the European Parliament believes that the mass
killings in Armenia constituted genocide, as we now define it. Turkey
would be far better off by confronting its past and making peace with
Armenia by reopening its border with its neighbour and re-establishing
diplomatic relations rather than waging a constant campaign of denial.

Dr Charles Tannock, MEP UK Conservative Foreign Affairs Spokesman

Sir, Turks and Armenians participating in the Turkish-Armenian
Reconciliation Commission, which I chaired, requested a legal analysis
on "the applicability of the Genocide Convention to Events during
the early Twentieth Century." The legal analysis employed a far more
rigorous definition than Norman Stone who simply defines genocide as
"the sort of thing Hitler did."

The crime of genocide has four elements – 1, The perpetrator killed
one or more persons. 2, Such person or persons belonged to a particular
national, racial or religious group.

3, The perpetrator intended to destroy in whole or in part that group,
as such, and 4, The conduct took place as part of a manifest pattern
of conduct. Since some Ottoman leaders knew that the deportation
of Armenians from eastern Anatolia would result in many deaths, the
legal analysis concluded that the perpetrators possessed the requisite
genocidal intent and thus the events include all the elements of the
crime of genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention.

The legal analysis also concluded that the Genocide Convention
contains no provision mandating its retroactive application. It
was, in fact, intended to impose prospective obligations to its
signatories. Therefore, no legal, financial or territorial claims
arising out of the events could successfully be made under the
convention.

The outcome was a win-win. It validated the suffering of Armenians
as genocide and freed Turkey from liability. Opponents of genocide
recognition may muddy the facts, but they should not distort the
legal definition of genocide embodied in the convention.

David L. Phillips Director, Programme on Conflict Prevention and
Peacebuilding, American University, Washington

Hovik Abrahamyan: triumph of historical justice can’t hamper
Armenia-Turkey rapprochement

06.03.2010 16:29 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Following the recent decision of US House Foreign
Affairs Committee on the passage of H.Res. 252, RA NA speaker
addressed a message to his counterpart in US House of Representatives,
Nancy Pelosi.

The message characterized resolution passage not only as a moral
tribute to Armenian nation, but also a fair response to the crime
against humanity.

On behalf of RA NA, Hovik Abrahamyan expressed gratitude to Speaker of
the House Nancy Pelosi, as well as all Congressmen who supported the
passage of resolution, expressing hope for its adoption at US House of
Representatives.

`Triumph of historical justice can’t hamper Armenia-Turkey
rapprochement, bringing, instead, the two people closer together,’ the
message concluded.

News.am, Armenia
March 6 2010

Mikhail Gorbachov: Nagorno-Karabakh cannot be part of Azerbaijan

11:00 / 03/06/2010 The first and last president of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachov admits that Nagorno-Karabakh was in a lamentable
state in 1980s, but the authorities did not pay any attention to the
region. `It was even impossible to get in touch with, say, Yerevan,
and Nagorno-Karabakh was not financed,’ Gorbachov said in his
interview with RFE/RL.

Speaking of the ways of settling the conflict, the former Soviet
leader pointed out that nobody wins in such conflicts. `An agreement
should have been reached, and we would have resolved the problem
somehow in late 1980,’ Gorbachov said.

`For example, I proposed republic status for Nagorno-Karabakh. The
then Azeri authorities ‘ I think Vezirov ` were on the point of
agreeing, but the plan failed. May be the problem could be resolved at
that time, but we cannot imagine Nagorno-Karabakh as part of
Azerbaijan now,’ Gorbachov said.

`We can hear new calls for war now. But a new war must not be allowed
in Nagorno-Karabakh. Negotiations are the only way out. War must be
ruled out; otherwise, great powers will be involved,’ he said.

`I think measures should have been taken to grant status to
Nagorno-Karabakh. Economic assistance should have been rendered as
well. People should have been enabled to keep touch with Yerevan. We
allocated funds for Karabakh later, I do not know how they were spent.
At that time they told me I loved Armenians and did not love
Azerbaijanis. Nonsense!’ said Gorbachov.

On the occasion of the 28th anniversary of perestroika (the policy of
reconstructing the economy, etc., of the former Soviet Union under the
leadership of Mikhail Gorbachov), the Gorbachov Fund released a
report. According to the authors, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is
among the causes of the USSR’s collapse. The authors points out that
the problem was the result of erroneous policy at the dawn of the
Soviet state.

T.P.

Le Monde, France
5 Mars 2010

Etats-Unis : les enjeux du vote de la résolution sur le génocide des
Arméniens
LEMONDE.FR | 05.03.10 | 13h45

Aux Etats-Unis, l’adoption, jeudi 4 mars, de la résolution HR 252
portant sur la reconnaissance du génocide des Arméniens, en commission
des affaires étrangères de la Chambre des représentants, comporte à la
fois des enjeux extérieurs et intérieurs.

Sur le plan extérieur, trois enjeux sont à relever :

Pousser la Turquie à ratifier le protocole signé avec l’Arménie. Les
Etats-Unis, très impliqués dans le rapprochement entre l’Arménie et la
Turquie, expriment ici leur impatience devant la lenteur du processus
de ratification du protocole de normalisation des relations entre la
Turquie et l’Arménie, signé le 10 octobre à Zurich (Suisse). Depuis
plusieurs mois, Washington avait plus ou moins averti Ankara que plus
la procédure de ratification tardait, plus les risques de voir le
Congrès se saisir de la résolution sur la reconnaissance du génocide
des Arméniens augmentaient.

D’où, pour la première fois, le peu d’empressement de l’administration
américaine à dissuader le Congrès de voter une résolution sur le
génocide des Arméniens. En effet, à plusieurs reprises, Barack Obama,
Hillary Clinton et Philip Gordon, sous-secrétaire d’Etat aux affaires
européennes et eurasiennes, ont signalé aux autorités turques
qu’Ankara avait tout intérêt à ratifier ce document. Or la Turquie
conditionne cette ratification à un règlement de la question du
Haut-Karabakh, théâtre d’une guerre entre les Arméniens et les
Azerbaïdjanais entre 1990 et 1994. Depuis l’accord de cessez-le-feu
signé en 1994, cette guerre remportée par les Arméniens est l’objet
d’un processus de paix mis en place par un groupe de contact de l’OSCE
appelé "Groupe de Minsk", co-présidé par la Russie, la France et les
Etats-Unis. A l’unisson, Américains, Russes et Français ont affirmé Ã
Ankara que les deux dossiers (Haut-Karabakh et normalisation entre
l’Arménie et la Turquie) étaient indépendants, et que toute
interférence de l’un sur l’autre pouvait créer une confusion générale
et faire ainsi échouer les deux processus. Le vote des congressistes
américains met désormais un peu plus la pression sur Ankara.
Orienter le Caucase du Sud vers Washington. Si l’administration Obama
a modéré ses interventions auprès de sa majorité démocrate au Congrès,
c’est aussi pour tenter de déplacer le curseur du Caucase du Sud vers
les Etats-Unis. Rival de la Russie, qui a enregistré un sursaut de
leadership dans la région depuis sa victoire sur la Géorgie en 2008,
Washington, avec cette technique du soft power (vote d’une
résolution), vise directement l’Arménie, alliée de la Russie.

Si ce vote permet à Washington d’obtenir davantage l’écoute d’Erevan
dans la région en lui faisant prendre ses distances avec Moscou, les
Américains s’ancreraient davantage dans les réalités du Caucase du Sud
et pourraient compter sur le soutien moins du régime de Sarkissian que
de la société civile arménienne. Ainsi ce vote s’adresse autant à la
Turquie qu’à l’Arménie et la Russie. Rappelons que la Russie est
opposée à la reconnaissance du génocide des Arméniens par Washington,
notamment pour des raisons stratégiques. Moscou avait en effet déjÃ
mal réagi à un vote similaire en 2007 à la Chambre des représentants.
Les Russes n’ignorent pas que Washington cherche à s’attacher les
faveurs des trois pays du Caucase du Sud à la fois pour des questions
stratégiques, politiques et énergétiques.
Pousser la Turquie à rompre avec sa diplomatie équivoque. Ce vote en
commission revêt également un mécontentement de la part de Washington
à l’égard d’une diplomatie turque équivoque au moins dans trois
dossiers : Iran, Israël, Russie. Membre de l’OTAN et du G20, la
Turquie s’est considérablement rapprochée de la Russie, tient un
discours ambigu à l’égard de l’Iran et critique systématiquement
Israël pour sa politique régionale. Contrairement aux Américains, aux
Européens et aux Israéliens, qui exigent de l’Iran un renoncement Ã
son programme nucléaire, les Turcs ont multiplié les appels à la
modération envers Téhéran, considérant qu’il fallait comprendre les
inquiétudes des Iraniens.

Israël, durement critiqué par le duo de l’exécutif turc Gül-Erdogan, a
vu ces derniers temps un sentiment pro-arménien se profiler à la
Knesset comme à l’étranger, notamment aux Etats-Unis, où le lobby
pro-israélien est particulièrement actif. Jusqu’à maintenant, Israël,
partenaire stratégique de la Turquie, a toujours refusé de reconnaître
le génocide des Arméniens, au nom de la Realpolitik. Mais, cette
année, plus de trente députés de la Knesset ont appelé Israël à le
reconnaître publiquement. Aux Etats-Unis, le lobby pro-israélien,
divisé sur la question arménienne, s’est, dans ce vote au Congrès,
manifestement moins impliqué qu’à son habitude en faveur de l’allié
turc d’Israël.
Ce vote revêt également trois enjeux aux Etats-Unis :

Répondre à une promesse de campagne. Lorsqu’il était candidat Ã
l’élection présidentielle, Barack Obama avait à maintes reprises
reconnu le génocide des Arméniens. Une fois élu, le nouveau président
avait profité du rapprochement arméno-turc pour renoncer au "G word"
(pour génocide), considérant que "tout en ne changeant pas de
position", il fallait laisser "les peuples arménien et turc trouver
les voies de la réconciliation". Ces déclarations ont secoué
l’électorat des Armenian-American (1,5 million de personnes aux
Etats-Unis), déçus par ce qu’ils appellent la volte-face de Barack
Obama. A quelques semaines de la date commémorative du génocide des
Arméniens, le 24 avril, ce vote en commission constitue en quelque
sorte un début de compensation répondant à une promesse de campagne.
Ce que les administrations précédentes n’ont pu faire,
l’administration Obama pourrait l’envisager…
Des élections de mi-mandat problématiques pour les démocrates. Ce vote
de la résolution HR 252 a lieu à sept mois des élections de mi-mandat
(novembre 2010) qui s’annoncent difficiles pour la majorité démocrate
au Congrès. En un an, l’administration Obama a, en effet, perdu
d’importantes élections partielles (gouverneurs, sénateurs), y compris
dans son bastion démocrate du Massachusetts (en remplacement du poste
de Kennedy). Plusieurs congressistes ont saisi cette occasion pour
limiter les dégâts, notamment les élus de Californie, de Floride, du
New Jersey, qui comptent d’importantes communautés arméniennes. La
présidente de la Chambre des représentants, Nancy Pelosi, élue de
Californie, tient à conserver sa majorité et donc son poste après
2010.
Un message du lobby pro-arménien à l’Arménie. La diaspora arménienne,
qui compte 4 millions de personnes est, sinon hostile, du moins très
réservée quant au protocole de normalisation des relations entre
l’Arménie et la Turquie. Aux Etats-Unis, entre les désillusions
provoquées par Barack Obama et les critiques envers le régime de
Sarkissian, signataire du protocole avec la Turquie, les
Armenian-American ont dépensé beaucoup d’énergie pour obtenir du
caucus arménien (groupe d’amitié) au Congrès l’introduction de la
résolution HR 252 avec l’espoir de provoquer la colère de la Turquie,
dont la réaction négative attendue compromettrait encore un peu plus
la ratification du protocole entre l’Arménie et la Turquie.
La balle est désormais dans le camp de la Turquie, qui vient de
rappeler son ambassadeur aux Etats-Unis, Namil Tan, "pour
consultations". Deux options s’ouvrent donc pour Ankara :

Hypothèse pessimiste : la Turquie, mal à l’aise avec ces protocoles
qui ne font pas l’affaire de son allié azerbaïdjanais, peut voir dans
ce vote de la HR 252 l’occasion de se retirer de la table des
négociations avec Erevan, sans endosser la responsabilité de l’échec
puisqu’elle imputerait ce résultat négatif à Washington.

Hypothèse optimiste : la Turquie introduit au Parlement le protocole
arméno-turc et le fait voter par sa commission des affaires étrangères
sans amendement, au risque de provoquer la colère de Bakou. Ce qui
permettrait à Ankara d’une part de "passer le bébé" des protocoles au
Parlement arménien, plaçant ainsi le focus international sur Erevan ;
d’autre part d’éviter une poursuite de la procédure d’adoption de la
résolution HR 252 à la Chambre des représentants.

Car le résultat du vote (23 voix contre 22) ne plaide pas en faveur
d’un examen de la résolution en séance plénière de la Chambre des
représentants. Ce scénario s’était déjà opéré en 2007 sous la pression
de l’administration Bush. Ce serait là une nouvelle fois une marque de
pondération de Washington envers son allié Ankara, incontournable pour
les intérêts américains en Afghanistan et en Irak. Rien n’indique en
effet que si la Turquie entame un examen favorable du protocole avec
l’Arménie, le Congrès américain poursuive la procédure d’adoption de
la résolution HR 252. Si celle-ci n’est pas adoptée d’ici à novembre
2010, tout serait annulé et devrait recommencer de zéro.

Gaïdz Minassian

/2010/03/05/etats-unis-les-enjeux-du-vote-de-la-re solution-sur-le-genocide-des-armeniens_1314781_322 2.html

Robert Fisk: Someone remembers this atrocity at last – to Obama’s dismay

Saturday, 6 March 2010
Independent/uk

George W Bush spinelessly caved in to the Turkish generals. And now
our favourite Nobel prize winner – another brave president who
promised to acknowledge the Armenian genocide if he was elected and
then declined to do so – went whinging and whining to the House
Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington and pleaded with them not to
tell the truth about the savage rape and murder of 1.5 million
Armenian civilians by the Turks in 1915. Good for the committee that
it did not give in. But it will do no good.

Sure, the Turkish ambassador has been recalled from Washington in a
huff. But equally certain is that there will be no vote on the
genocide by the full House of Representatives. And if there is,
there’ll never be a vote in the Senate. Obama will help see to that.
The man who wanted change doesn’t want change on the little matter of
a genocide that led directly to the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews.

The events in Washington prove a few things. The Armenian American
community have a more powerful and wealthier lobby than ever before.
More seriously – for the Turks – is that this year Turkey did not have
the Israeli lobby behind it. In the past, Israel, which disgracefully
claims that the Armenian Holocaust was not a genocide, has supported
its close ally Turkey. But this year, Israel and Turkey have fallen
out and the Israelis are still miffed at Turkey’s condemnation of the
bloodbath in Gaza.

The Turks sent their generals to bully Bush last time round. This
time, the Turkish Foreign Minister warned that "Turkish-US ties are
going through a very important phase in which they need strategic
co-operation at the highest level in their history." The message is
simple. Acknowledge the genocide, and the US will lose its airbases in
Turkey and the Turkish roads its military convoys use into Iraq.

The fact, unfortunately, is that these roads are the very highways
down which the Armenians were sent on their death marches in 1915.
That’s not mentioned, of course. Our faithful Turkish ally might even
pack up its support for the US in Afghanistan, where they are helping
fight "Obama’s war". But Robert Gates is still in Washington to remind
congressmen what he said last year; that America needed "those roads
and so on". Well, let’s just hope the American troops don’t halt their
convoys and dig in the fields around those roads in the coming years.
The skeletons are still there in their tens of thousands.

One wonders what would happen if Germany suddenly decided that the
Nazi Holocaust was not a genocide. Would Chancellor Merkel get away
with it? Would Obama lobby that Germany should be allowed to get away
with such an obscenity? Perhaps it’s worth remembering that in 1939,
Hitler asked his generals – before setting off into Poland to murder
the millions of Jews in eastern Europe – a simple question: "Who now
remembers the Armenians?" Well, Hitler got the answer he would have
wanted from Obama this week.

Ankara blames Obama over massacre vote
By Delphine Strauss in Ankara and Daniel Dombey in Costa Rica

FT
March 5 2010 18:05

Turkey on Friday warned of serious damage to its relations with the US
and blamed Barack Obama’s administration for failing to stop a
congressional panel approving a resolution that describes the
Ottoman-era massacres of Armenians as genocide.

The committee vote is a severe test of bilateral ties when Washington
is already struggling to persuade Ankara, a Nato member and key
regional ally, to back sanctions against Iran.

The Turkish government, which denies the genocide, recalled its
ambassador to Washington for consultations after the foreign affairs
committee approved the resolution by 23 votes to 22, and complained
that a last-minute plea by Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, to
stop the measure was not forceful enough.

`We expect a more effective policy from the administration,’ said
Ahmet Davutoglu, foreign minister, adding that Washington had
displayed `a lack of strategic vision’.

He also said the vote could harm Turkish and Armenian efforts at
reconciliation,, which had already stalled, as Turkey `never took
decisions under pressure’.

The Turkish cabinet would assess the situation on Monday after
consultations with Namik Tan, the country’s ambassador to the US who
was flying back from Washington, Mr Davutoglu said.

He said it was too early to talk of any retaliation. But US officials
expressed fears that the panel vote had hurt chances of winning an
already sceptical Turkey’s support for Iranian sanctions in the United
Nations Security Council, where it has a non-permanent seat.

`Getting Ankara on board for punitive actions against Tehran was
already going to be a challenge, but an Armenian genocide resolution
would make it nearly impossible,’ said Stephen A. Cook, a fellow at
the Council on Foreign Relations.

Similar resolutions have passed a committee vote before without
reaching the floor of Congress, and the US administration is
signalling that the pattern may be repeated.

`We understand that there will be no decision in full Congress. We are
against any new Congress decision,’ Jim Jeffrey, US ambassador in
Ankara, told reporters after being summoned to the foreign ministry on
Friday.

`I do not think it is for any other country to determine how two
countries resolve matters between them,’ Mrs Clinton said on Thursday,
adding that the administration did not believe the full House `will or
should’ vote on the resolution.

Nationalist and anti-American feeling runs high in Turkey, and
Ankara’s tough reaction reflects its need not to alienate voters
shortly before a possible referendum on constitutional reform, and
with elections looming in 2011.

Turkey denies that the 1915 killings of some 1.5m Armenians
constituted genocide, saying many Turks also died in the chaos that
engulfed the disintegrating Ottoman empire and that historians, not
politicians, should interpret the events.

The Armenian National Committee of America hailed the vote, but said
the real test was a full House vote.

Emmi to file lawsuit

04:23 pm | March 05, 2010 | Social

Twenty days have passed since the Armenian final for the 2010
Eurovision Song Contest but some of the contestants continue
questioning the credibility of voting results.

Next week singers Emmi and Mihran will appeal to court with a demand
to decipher the results of SMS voting which they find falsified. Emmi
is currently in the USA shooting a video for the song "Hey".

Emmi and Mihran are also preparing for a concert due in Yerevan in the fall.

"Emmi’s heart is broken but we continue telling her that her fans
second her," said Nadezhda Sargsyan.

Armenian entry for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest was selected in a
national final Sunday, February 14. Eva Rivas, was picked by a
combined vote of the TV public (sms voting) and an expert jury. Eva
Rivas received 6000 and Emmi 1400 votes.