Author: Tatoyan Vazgen

IT’S ALL TRUE
By W R Marshall

AXcess News
Oct 16 2007

(AXcess News) Washington – Last week, in an effort to restore some of
the crumbling public support of the United States Congress, the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, in a bi-partisan effort, stepped forward
and delivered the kind of legislative bravery not seen since Nobunaga
deposed the Shogunate and centralized Japanese government in 1567.

No, the war in Iraq still rages and there’s still a health care
crisis in America, but in a 27-21 vote the Committee passed a daring,
non-binding resolution officially recognizing the Armenian genocide at
the hands of the Turks. The Committee members could no longer sit idly
by and do nothing about this ninety year old tragedy. After furious
debate and many a sleepless night, they hammered out a toothless piece
of paper that clearly states something bad happened in some other
part of the world between 1915 and 1923 and they want us to know
that they know. (And soon Hillary Clinton will introduce the same
legislation in the Senate, the same legislation her husband killed
back in 2000.) In one fell swoop Congress has regained the trust and
respect of the American people, and with the wind of this victory
fresh in their sails, they are presently crafting a Congressional
Scolding of Spanish Inquisitor-General Torquemada, who did a bunch
of bad stuff that no one expected in 1492.

In related news, George W. Bush – no, he didn’t sign anything
expanding health care for anyone, and yes, he still wants to nuke
Iran – has chided Congress for dunning the Turks, one of our allies
in his pre-emptive war of last resort against Iraq. With Dick Cheney
locked in a closet somewhere in the West Wing, all the President’s
other men and women are jumping in front of every microphone they
can find wagging their tongues and fingers at Congress for being so
indelicate. After all, John and Jane Q Public might have forgotten,
but history will remember that this was the President who told Bin
Laden to "Bring it on." He’s the Commander Guy who almost negotiated
one on one with North Korea, who nearly stepped in to stop the carnage
between Hezbollah and Israel, and who almost barely tried to get Saddam
to change his evil ways. This is a man who knows diplomacy the way
he knows horses. When it’s time to talk, it’s time to talk and George
W. Bush has proven, perhaps more than any other president, that he has
a special way with words. And they gave Al Gore the Nobel Peace Prize?

This just in: Dick Cheney has announced he will not retire at the
end of his term, but accept the new Justice Department position of
Inquisitor-General.

Speaking of Al Gore, in addition to being Vice-President from
1992-2000, and President in 2000, he can now add Nobel Peace Prize
recipient, 2007. The man who made the Internet everyone’s favorite
place to find free pornography (Bill Gates just happened to be in
the right place at the right time) has claimed the prestigious award
for his tireless efforts as Earth’s biggest fan. Tree Hugger One,
as he’s called by insiders, has traveled across the globe, flown to
its farthest reaches, driven from pole to pole, in a singular effort
to get people to be more energy conscious, to leave a smaller carbon
footprint. There is no longer any scientific doubt that global warming
is a reality and Gore is taking the message everywhere – along with
a bunch of electrical equipment for a multi-media show.

The Nobel Committee split his prize with a U.N. Committee doing
the same kind of work. While the Peace Price generally goes to an
individual for some specific effort to bring about peace, Nelson
Mandela in South Africa, Jimmy Carter in the Middle East (there’s talk
of taking that one back), they felt the work Gore and the Committee
are doing could have a long term effect for peace on the planet,
as there will still be a planet on which to have peace.

Republicans, who don’t believe in global warming or peace, have
congratulated Gore nonetheless. However just to cover their bets,
they’ve given Halliburton a no-bid contract to terraform Mars and
most of the Republican leadership has already signed on to rule the
Red Planet. Rumor has it they will no longer be called Republicans.

The new party name will be "The Only Party That Will Ever Lead Because
God Said So." George W. Bush was not invited to serve as the first
Emperor-Pope; in fact, he doesn’t even know it’s going on. But Ann
Coulter has accepted the position of Concubine-Fuehrer and has pledged
to keep the planet Jew free.

Okay, so it wasn’t all true, but most of it was, and that’s really
depressing…really, really depressing.

les/show/id/12742

YOUNG WINGS OF NUMBER OF OPPOSITION PARTIES EXPRESS READINESS TO SUPPORT LEVON TER-PETROSIAN

Noyan Tapan
Oct 16, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 16, NOYAN TAPAN. Calls for removing the current
regime and uniting around Levon Ter-Petrosian sounded during the
October 16 event, which was dedicated to the anniversary of the first
presidential elections of the Third Republic. The event was organized
by the Alternative non-governmental political initiative, the young
wings of the Conservative, Republic, Social Democratic Hnchakian and
Armenian National Movement parties.

Karen Karapetian, the Head of the young wing of the Armenian National
Movement party, mentioned that the difficulties the Third Republic
faced would not be possible to overcome if the authorities of those
times did not enjoy the confidence of the people and did not conduct
a democratic policy.

According to him, Armenia suffered colossal damages during the 9 years
of the tenure of the current authorities, even the Karabakh conflict,
which was speculated by the current authorities for the purpose of
coming to power, was not settled during their tenure and entered
deadlock, in fact.

Suren Sureniants, a member of the political board of the Hanrapetutiun
(Republic) party, mentioned that the aim of Levon Ter-Petrosian’s
return into big politics is to build a new system and not restore
the old one.

Aram Sargsian and Lyudmila Sargsian, the leaders of the Hanrapetutiun
(Republic) and Hnchakian parties, called to the young for taking an
active part in the forthcoming political processes, in the nomination
process of the first president, in particular.

PELOSI PUSHES FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION DESPITE TURKISH ANGER

RTT News, NY
date=10/15/2007&item=5
Oct 15 2007

10/15/2007 2:54:42 AM Speaker of the US House of Representatives
Nancy Pelosi continued her crusade Sunday to get a resolution passed
calling the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World
War I genocide despite concerns raised by the White House that the
move had the potential of derailing their relationship with Turkey.

A congressional community had on Wednesday, approved the Armenian
resolution, sponsored by a California lawmaker whose district has a
large Armenian-American community.

"This resolution is one that is consistent with what our government
has always said about … what happened at that time," Pelosi said
on ABC’s "This Week."

Holding a vote on condemning the massacre, even many years after the
fact, is "about who we are as a country," Pelosi said adding "Genocide
still exists, and we saw it in Rwanda; we see it now in Darfur."

Pelosi dismissed possible reprisals affecting Turkey’s cooperation
with the US military, as "hypothetical" that would not derail the
resolution.

The measure will now be sent to the House of Representatives
by mid-November. President George Bush has strongly opposed the
resolution.

"We regret that Speaker Pelosi is intent on bringing this resolution
for a vote despite the strong concern expressed by foreign policy and
defense experts," White House spokesperson Tony Fratto said adding the
move "may do grave harm to US-Turkish relations and to US interests
in Europe and the Middle East."

PONTIFF PRAISES CHURCH, AMERICA
By Waveney Ann Moore, Times Staff Writer

St. Petersburg Times, FL
Oct 15 2007

Armenian Apostolic Christians celebrate church’s completion.

PINELLAS PARK – In a more than three-hour service Sunday, the leader
of the world’s 7-million Armenian Apostolic Christians consecrated
a new church and celebrated Divine Liturgy in the standing-room-only
sanctuary.

As a gift, he presented the church with a communion chalice made in
Armenia by an Armenian jeweler.

During his visit to the Tampa Bay area, His Holiness Karekin II,
Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, also touched on
a delicate diplomatic matter, Armenians’ almost 100-year belief that
they were victims of genocide.

They say more than 1.5-million Armenians were massacred, starved to
death and persecuted between 1914 and 1922 by the Ottoman Turks. They
describe the attempted annihilation as genocide. The Turks strongly
disagree.

Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a resolution
recognizing the deaths as genocide. The pontiff praised the committee’s
action. President George W. Bush, however, warned the action would
complicate foreign policy.

"It was greatly consoling to us that the voice of justice and
righteousness resounded louder than political and military interests
in this case," the pontiff said in an interview after Sunday’s service.

"More than 22 different countries and states have already recognized
and condemned the Armenian genocide and we are hopeful that not in the
too distant future Turkey as well will recognize it, which will benefit
the normalization of the relations between our two countries," he said.

"And we believe that the condemnation of the genocide of the Armenians
will greatly benefit the prevention of similar crimes against
humanity in the world in the future. And no tyrant shall ever again
say the words that Hitler said, ‘Who, after all, today remembers the
extermination of the Armenians?’ "

Sunday, though, was for St. Hagop’s, a congregation that struggled for
decades to build the 250-seat church off Belcher Road in Pinellas
Park. Countless chicken dinners, aluminum can drives and other
fundraisers are the foundation of the $2-million sanctuary whose
stucco will be covered with a pink stone mined in Armenia.

As rainbows created by the church’s enormous shimmering chandelier
danced on the congregation’s clothing, the red carpet and newly
painted walls, the faithful excitedly greeted old friends.

They had traveled from far and near. Nanzy Kazarian and her husband
had come from Naples. The self-described snowbirds from Racine, Wis.,
couldn’t be in that state when the pontiff visits later this month,
Kazarian said, so they drove to Pinellas Park.

"He’s our pope," she said. "We also wanted to support this new church,
because they struggled for many years to build it."

Armenian military based at MacDill Air Force Base also joined the
celebration. Lt. Col. Mesrop Nazaryan was accompanied by other military
personnel from countries including Singapore, Mongolia and Ukraine.

Some of those who helped make the new sanctuary a reality were honored
Sunday. Steeped in ritual, the service began with Catholicos Karekin
consecrating the bare altar with holy oil from Etchmiadzin, Armenia,
the spiritual and administrative headquarters of the Armenian Church.

A highlight of the morning’s ceremony was the blessing of 16 crosses,
each representing a saint. In keeping with tradition, a godparent
was appointed for each cross. As with a godparent, that person is
expected to play a continuing role in supporting the church.

Leon Sarkisian, whose sister Louise Yardumian and late parents, Edward
and Priscilla Sarkisian, played a key role in organizing and helping
to build the church from the beginning, was named the godfather of
the doors of the new building.

"We are very happy that this day has come," Sarkisian said, adding
that the only thing that makes him sad is that his parents and others
like them did not live to see it.

The pontiff bestowed his highest honor on Gregory H. Ekizian and
his wife, Alysia – a relative of the famous writer William Saroyan –
for their work at St. Hagop’s and charities in Armenia. The couple
received St. Gregory the Illuminator medals, in honor of the man who
was responsible for making Armenia a Christian state in 301 A.D.

After the service, Catholicos Karekin said he is proud of the
contributions Armenian-Americans continue to make to this country. He
also spoke about his hopes for the Armenian church.

"It is our desire and our aspiration that the commandment and the
message of Jesus Christ take their deep roots within the souls of
our people and they continue to live by the rich tradition and rich
culture of their Christian faith and with the sacred faith of their
forefathers," he said.

"We believe that the diversity of ethnicities and religions and faith
in the United States is the richness of this country. May God bless
the United States and all its people."

The Dignity Agenda

By David Ignatius

Sunday, October 14, 2007; B07

"We talk about democracy and human rights. Iraqis talk about justice
and honor." That comment from Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, made at a
seminar last month on counterinsurgency, is the beginning of wisdom
for an America that is trying to repair the damage of recent years. It
applies not simply to Iraq but to the range of problems in a world
tired of listening to an American megaphone.

Dignity is the issue that vexes billions of people around the world,
not democracy. Indeed, when people hear President Bush preaching about
democratic values, it often comes across as a veiled assertion of
American power. The implicit message is that other countries should be
more like us — replacing their institutions, values and traditions
with ours. We mean well, but people feel disrespected. The bromides
and exhortations are a further assault on their dignity.

That’s the difficulty when the U.S. House of Representatives pressures
Turkey to admit that it committed genocide against the Armenians 92
years ago. It’s not that this demand is wrong. I’m an Armenian
American, and some of my own relatives perished in that genocidal
slaughter. I agree with the congressional resolution, but I know that
this is a problem that Turks must resolve. They are imprisoned in a
past that they have not yet been able to accept. Our hectoring makes
it easier for them to retreat deeper into denial.

The most articulate champion of what the administration likes to call
the "democracy agenda" has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
When she talks about the universality of American values, she carries
the special resonance of an African American girl from Birmingham,
Ala., who witnessed the struggle for democracy in a segregated
America. But she also conveys an American arrogance, a message that
when it comes to good governance, it’s our way or the highway.

That’s why it’s encouraging to hear that Rice is taking policy advice
from Kilcullen, a brilliant Australian military officer who helped
reshape U.S. strategy in Iraq toward the bottom-up precepts of
counterinsurgency. Sources tell me Kilcullen will soon be joining the
State Department as a part-time consultant. For a taste of his
thinking, check out his Sept. 26 presentation to a Marine Corps
seminar (available at ).

As we think about a "dignity agenda," there are some other useful
readings. A starting point is Zbigniew Brzezinski’s new book, "Second
Chance," which argues that America’s best hope is to align itself with
what he calls a "global political awakening." The former national
security adviser explains: "In today’s restless world, America needs
to identify with the quest for universal human dignity, a dignity that
embodies both freedom and democracy but also implies respect for
cultural diversity."

After I mentioned Brzezinski’s ideas about dignity in a previous
column, a reader sent me a 1961 essay by the philosopher Isaiah
Berlin, which made essentially the same point. A deeply skeptical man
who resisted the "isms" of partisan thought, Berlin was trying to
understand the surge of nationalism despite two world wars.
"Nationalism springs, as often as not, from a wounded or outraged
sense of human dignity, the desire for recognition," he wrote.

"The craving for recognition has grown to be more powerful than any
other force abroad today," Berlin continued. "It is no longer economic
insecurity or political impotence that oppresses the imaginations of
many young people in the West today, but a sense of the ambivalence of
their social status — doubts about where they belong, and where they
wish or deserve to belong."

A final item on my dignity reading list is "Violent Politics," a new
book by the iconoclastic historian William R. Polk. He examines 10
insurgencies through history — from the American Revolution to the
Irish struggle for independence to the Afghan resistance to Soviet
occupation — to make a stunningly simple point, which we managed to
forget in Iraq: People don’t like to be told what to do by outsiders.
"The very presence of foreigners, indeed, stimulates the sense first
of apartness and ultimately of group cohesion." Foreign intervention
offends people’s dignity, Polk reminds us. That’s why insurgencies are
so hard to defeat.

People will fight to protect their honor even — and perhaps,
especially — when they have nothing else left. That has been a
painful lesson for the Israelis, who hoped for the past 30 years they
could squeeze the Palestinians into a rational peace deal. It’s
excruciating now for Armenian Americans like me, when we see Turkey
refusing to make a rational accounting of its history. But if foreign
governments try to make people do the right thing, it won’t work. They
have to do it for themselves.

The writer is co-host of PostGlobal, an online discussion of
international issues. His e-mail address is
[email protected].

Source: le/2007/10/12/AR2007101202147.html

eFluxMedia
Oct 14 2007

Turkish Artillery Opens Fire on Kurdish Border Villages

by Diane Smith 13:16, October 14th 2007

After the US congressional committee cataloged the First World War
massacre of Armenians in what was then the Ottoman Empire as
genocide, there wasn’t sure how much influence the top US envoys sent
on Saturday would have on Ankara. Their mission, besides talking
about the genocide resolution, was to convince the Turkish
authorities to reconsider their plans of a military incursion in the
autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

However, over night, the Turkish army hit the villages close to its
country’s border with Iraq using heavy artillery. If the abandoning
of the next month’s visit to the US by the Turkish Trade Minister
Kursad Tuzman wasn’t convincing enough, the shelling of the villages
suspected of sheltering the members of the Kurdish Workers’ Party
(PKK) rebel group surely showed how dissatisfied Ankara is about the
Wednesday resolution passed by the US congressional committee, in
which the mass killings of Armenian people during the First World War
were labeled as genocide.

There were no human losses reported in last night’s offensive which
targeted the Nasdour area, a part of the mountainous Matin region,
the witnesses cited by independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI)
said.

The killing of at least two dozens Turkish soldiers and civilians
after rebel Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) attacks, were accompanied by
public outrage that increased the pressure on the Turkish government
to launch a military operation against the PKK camps.

After Turkey announced its intentions of launching a military
incursion into northern Iraq in order to destroy PKK camps, Kurdish
authorities slammed the caveat and with it a security agreement that
Baghdad’s government sealed last month with Ankara.

On Saturday, Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman urged Baghdad to cancel
the security agreement. Othman said the Kurdistani Alliance, which
has 53 seats in Iraq’s Council of Representatives, will request a
meeting with Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani after the Muslim
festival of Eid al-Fitr in order to talk about the security agreement
he signed with Ankara.

However, the Interior Ministry spokesman Abdel-Karim Khalaf answered
that the Iraqi central government "is alone responsible for signing
foreign agreements," thus it doesn’t need to consult with `regional
administrations.’

"The centralized government is solely responsible for protecting the
international Iraqi borders. The regional government is part of the
state, and so they should not be concerned with foreign pacts,"
Khalaf told VOI.

The above mentioned security agreement was signed on September 28 by
Baghdad and Ankara and it stipulates that Iraq will cooperate with
Turkish authorities in hunting down PKK rebels close to its borders.

After some reports Iraq agreed to cooperate, but refused to grant an
absolute right to Turkish troops to cross the border in order to
annihilate the PKK camps. Other accounts said that Turkey was given
the right to chase the rebels, although the Iraqi government
officials strongly denied such a thing.

Despite the statement issued by government spokesman Ali al-Dabagh
which said that Iraq would never allow Turkish troops into its
territories, Turkey was already massing troops along the Iraqi border
on Saturday.

"Any Turkish attacks will be met with wide resistance from the
(Kurdish) Peshmerga and the people," Kurdish government leader Qader
Aziz said before the shelling.

But a unilateral Kurdish response is doubtful, especially after
Othman said on Saturday that a reaction to any Turkish incursion
would by coordinated with the central government as well as the US
forces in Iraq.

The PKK, on the other hand, said on Saturday they do not intend to
leave the region if the Turks attack and also that their members do
not launch any military strikes from that region.

"We have militants in Turkey who carry out the attacks. This is not
new to Turks," Abdel-Rahman Chaderchi, who is in charge of the PKK’s
foreign relations, told VOI.

He also added that Turkey hides behind the alleged hunt for PKK
rebels its real intentions of eroding the rights of the Iraqi Kurds
in the region

tillery_Opens_Fire_on_Kurdish_Border_Villages_0959 4.html

A1+

DALUZYAN IS THE SECOND
[06:25 pm] 12 October, 2007

Armenian weightlifter Meline Daluzyan won a silver medal in the world
youth weightlifting championship in Spain.

Daluzyan lifted 98 kilograms in the snatch and 123 kilograms in the
clean and jerk. With the combined weight of 221 kilograms, she merited
the title of co-champion of Europe.

Russian Tays Antonava took the first place with a total of 231
kilograms.

Jewish groups wrong to join push for `Armenian genocide’ resolution

The Jewish Standard (New Jersey)
October 12, 2007

By Jason Epstein

In a battle recently described as "pitting principle against
pragmatism," some in the American Jewish community have chosen a third
way to handle the longstanding and bitter dispute between Turks and
Armenians – "the path of least resistance."

I first understood the meaning of the term when working on Capitol
Hill in the early 1990s. An irate and borderline irrational letter
arrived from one of the congressman’s constituents and, instead of
informing the writer precisely how many steps he should take in order
to jump off the Santa Monica Pier, the preferable method was assuring
him that his representative would give his concerns "all due
consideration."

Jewish groups wrong to join push for `Armenian genocide’ resolution

In a battle recently described as "pitting principle against
pragmatism," some in the American Jewish community have chosen a third
way to handle the longstanding and bitter dispute between Turks and
Armenians – "the path of least resistance."

I first understood the meaning of the term when working on Capitol
Hill in the early 1990s. An irate and borderline irrational letter
arrived from one of the congressman’s constituents and, instead of
informing the writer precisely how many steps he should take in order
to jump off the Santa Monica Pier, the preferable method was assuring
him that his representative would give his concerns "all due
consideration."

That term resurfaced in my consciousness following August’s events
involving a group of Armenian-American activists and the
Anti-Defamation League’s regional director in New England. They
pressured him to oppose his national organization’s position against a
controversial congressional resolution that, if passed, would
recognize the tragic events during the chaotic final days of the
Ottoman Empire as "genocide" against Armenians; in response he
publicly repudiated the ADL policy.

The resulting firestorm led to an embarrassing crisis in
Turkish-Jewish relations and could ultimately threaten U.S.-Turkish
ties at a time when the American military relies heavily on Turkey for
its ongoing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee was
expected to approve a resolution this week, over strenuous objections
from Turkey, which asserts that hundreds of thousands of Armenians
perished in intercommunal violence that also killed many Turkish
Muslims and not as a result of an Ottoman conspiracy to liquidate an
entire people.

For many years a radical segment of the otherwise honorable
Armenian-American community has bullied Jewish organizations,
synagogues, and politicians to endorse its view of what caused the
deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during World War I.

Instead of pursuing a congressional resolution that, if passed, may
threaten the security of American service members, these
Armenian-American activists should invest more of their time in
beseeching the Armenian military to pull its soldiers out of territory
in Azerbaijan, an American ally. Doing so would allow Yerevan to stop
relying on Tehran and Moscow for regional support.

In lieu of pressuring Jews and the Israeli government to equate the
massacres of 1915 with the Holocaust, they ought to be urging the
Armenian government to unequivocally condemn Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmedinejad’s denials that the Holocaust ever took place.

Their motives are at least twofold: to put the massacres on par with
the Holocaust and to label anyone who dares question whether the
events really did constitute genocide as a despicable "Holocaust
denier."

Never mind that a highly respected group of scholars, including but
not limited to Bernard Lewis, Andrew Mango, Norman Stone, Stanford
Shaw, Guenter Lewy, and Justin McCarthy, recognize that hundreds of
thousands of Armenians were killed during World War I but decline to
categorize the tragic events as genocide.

For example, Lewy, a professor emeritus of political science of the
University of Massachusetts and author of "The Armenian Massacres in
Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide," has argued that "major elements
of the decision-making process leading up to the annihilation of the
Jews of Europe can be reconstructed from events, court testimony, and
a rich store of authentic documents," but "barring the unlikely
discovery of sensational new documents," he says "it is safe to say
that no similar evidence exists for the tragic events of 1915-16."

What is so disturbing is that an increasing number of Jewish
organizations, in the face of pressure from Armenian-American
activists and in the absence of an effective Turkish-American counter
lobby, have chosen the path of least resistance and endorse the
disputed Armenian-American narrative. In the process, however, they
have trivialized the importance of centuries of Ottoman and Turkish
protection of Jews.

To be sure, other forces are also at work. Many left-wing Jewish
groups are already taking action against what many believe to be
ongoing genocidal violence in Darfur, rendering them easy allies for
those who have long sought recognition of their own claims of
genocide. In the process, these left-wing groups fail to acknowledge
the acute concerns of Turkey, a democratic nation of 70 million Muslim
inhabitants that Israel considers a close ally.

Alternatively, there is a loud minority of marginal voices on the
right who take an "all-Muslims-look-alike" approach in how they view
Islam. In their world there is no variance between a Turk, an Arab and
a Persian, and certainly little difference between an observant Muslim
and one who elects not to practice.

"Jewish leaders should refuse to be blackmailed by Muslim extremism,"
Steven Goldberg thundered in a recent opinion piece in The Jewish
Journal of Greater Los Angeles, completely unaware and/or indifferent
to the fact that secular Turks are perhaps even more outraged than
their religious brethren at being labeled "genocide deniers," as they
perceive the charge as an attack against the modern Turkish state’s
founder, Kemal Mustafa Ataturk.

Admittedly, national Jewish organizations are not without blame. Most
have tended to shy away from educating regional leaders or local
synagogues on the complexities of this topic; that the Jewish
community in Turkey is understandably offended by the facile
comparisons to the Holocaust; that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan proposed in 2005 the creation of an independent commission of
scholars to review both sides’ claims (according to the Turkish
government the offer remains on the table); that Armenian-American
organizations need to call upon Armenia to rethink its close ties with
Iran and Russia.

Not surprisingly, the Armenian-American activists filled this vacuum
by skirting the New York and Washington headquarters of the ADL, B’nai
B’rith International, and the American Jewish Committee, and instead
targeted local Jewish communal leaders.

Jak Kahmi, a successful business executive in Istanbul and longtime
leader of the vibrant Turkish Jewish community, argued last month that
the "particular Jewish duty to protect historical truth" should lead
the Jewish community "not to silence scholarly argument by pretending
a consensus exists, nor to dilute the Holocaust with comparison to
events of a completely different nature, but to facilitate the
establishment of the historical truth in the first place."

Too bad that, for more and more Jewish officials, and particularly
those at the local level, the path of least resistance is far more
appealing.

Jason Epstein is a consultant based in Washington. He was an adviser
to the Turkish Embassy in Washington from 2002 to 2007.

wish-groups-wrong-to-join-push-for-`Armenian-genoc ide’-resolution

Joint Chiefs chairman tries to defuse Turkish anger

CNN
2007/10/12

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, has telephoned his Turkish counterpart to assure him that
the U.S. military is aware of the potential for a crisis between the
countries, an official said Friday.

Turkey is outraged over a resolution passed by the House Foreign
Affairs Committee on Wednesday, which declares that the deportation of
nearly 2 million Armenians from the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and
1923 — resulting in the deaths of 1.5 million people — was
"systematic" and "deliberate," amounting to "genocide."

The Bush administration has been trying to mend frayed relations with
Turkey, which recalled its ambassador on Thursday, and to keep the
resolution from being approved by the full House.

Mullen contacted Gen. Yasar Buyukanit and assured him that the
Pentagon was working hard to warn Congress of the military
implications if the Turks were to cut off U.S. access to the air base
at Incirlik, Turkey, according to a senior U.S. military official.

Seventy percent of the American air cargo going into Iraq and 30
percent of the fuel for U.S. troops in Iraq flies in through Turkey,
according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Also straining U.S.-Turkish relations is the possibility of a Turkish
raid into northern Iraq to attack Kurdish rebels there, which the U.S.
opposes.

In the phone call, Mullen expressed condolences over the recent death
of Turkish soldiers on the Iraqi border, the official said. VideoWatch
why the resolution stirs strong emotions »

Tensions have increased as the full House moves closer to voting on
the House resolution. A vote could come as early as Friday.

On Thursday, Turkey recalled its ambassador for consultations. The
recall is only for a limited period of time, said a U.S. State
Department official who has talked to the ambassador.

A top Turkish official warned Thursday that consequences "won’t be
pleasant" if the full House approves the resolution.

"Yesterday some in Congress wanted to play hardball," said Egemen
Bagis, foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan. "I can assure you Turkey knows how to play hardball."

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos, D-California, was unmoved
by the Turkish government’s protests.

"The Turkish government will not act against the United States because
that would be against their own interests," he told CNN. "I’m
convinced of this."

But Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, sent a
letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposing the resolution, and said
the backlash threatened by Turkey could disrupt "America’s ability to
redeploy U.S. military forces from Iraq," a top Democratic priority.

Turkey, a NATO member, has been a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.

U.S. commanders "believe clearly that access to airfields and roads
and so on, in Turkey, would very much be put at risk if this
resolution passes and the Turks react as strongly as we believe they
will," Gates said.

Bagis said no French planes have flown through Turkish airspace since
a French Parliament committee passed a similar resolution last year.

He said the response to the U.S. might not be the same, but warned if
the full House passes the resolution that "we will do something, and I
can promise you it won’t be pleasant."

In a statement on his Web site, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said
the resolution was "unacceptable" and "doesn’t fit a major power like
the United States."

In a letter to Bush, Gul warned "in the case that Armenian allegations
are accepted, there will be serious problems in the relations between
the two countries."

Turks strongly reject the genocide label, insisting there was no
organized campaign against the Armenians and that many Turks also died
in the chaos and violence of the period.

CNN’s Barbara Starr and Zain Verjee contributed to this report.

Source: ndex.html?iref=newssearch

PRIME MINISTER RECEIVES AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA

Panorama.am
21:02 10/10/2007

Today Prime Minister Serge Sargsyan received Marius Kaligaris as
Austrian ambassador to Armenia. Law states that Kaligaris, who will
work from Vienna, will be Austria’s ambassador for Armenia, Georgia,
and Azerbaijan. This news was distributed by the government press
service.

The prime minister and the ambassador discussed several issues related
to advancing Armenian-Austrian relations. The ambassador assured he
would visit Armenia as often as was needed to strengthen and advance
the countries’ relations. The two pointed out that their political
relations had become more active in recent years.

According to the prime minister, Armenia has entered the road
of integration into Europe, including closer relations with EU
countries. Sargsyan spoke positively about cooperation between the two
countries, especially the mutually beneficial work in international
structures concerning the Karabakh conflict, about which Sargsyan
appreciated the neutral, balanced stance Austria conducts on the issue.

The two placed importance on continuing advancements in the political
and economic spheres, including the intergovernmental committee on
trade and technology.

Kaligaris noted the interest Austrian firms were taking in the Armenian
economy during the committee’s last session. The ambassador believes
economic relations between the countries have much opportunity to
advance and grow.

During the meeting, the two went over developments in negotiations
to solve the Karabakh conflict.