Author: Tatoyan Vazgen

GORAN LENMARKER: ISSUE ON STATUS OF NAGORNY KARABAKH IS
PRIORITY IN PROCESS OF SETTLEMENT OF KARABAKH CONFLICT
YEREVAN, MARCH 21. ARMINFO. The issue on the status of Nagorny
Karabakh is priority in the process of settlement of the Karabakh
conflict. Goran Lenmarker, Special Representative of OSCE Parliamentary
Assembly Chairman for Nagorny Karabakh, had stated during the Brussels
meeting with Armenian and Azerbaijani parliament members on March
17-18, Vice Speaker of Armenian parliament, Head of Armenian delegation
to OSCE PA Vahan Hovhannisian informed during the news conference in
Yerevan, Monday.
Vahan Hovhannisian expressed confidence in that this provision will
of course be included in the report of Goran Lenmarker concerning
Nagorny Karabakh. The vice speaker also informed that during the
meeting with Armenian and Azerbaijani MPs Goran Lenmarker said
that all the remaining issues, including the question raised by the
Azerbaijani side regarding the territories under the control of the
Armenian side and refugees, are only derivative problems. On the whole
Vahan Hovhannisian qualified the draft report of Goran Lenmarker on
Nagorny Karabakh as balanced. He stressed this fact roused a concern
of the Azerbaijani delegation, which in every possible way tried to
include in the document the provisions from the resolutions of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Nagorny Karabakh,
elaborated by the British MP David Atkinson. At the same time, Vahan
Hovhannisian stated that the efforts of the Azerbaijani delegation
at this stage did not have a succeed and their proposals were not
included in the draft report of Goran Lenmarker.
“During the discussions we have stressed repeatedly that one of the
consequences of the unbalanced report of David Atkinson on Nagorny
Karabakh was the violation of the cease-fire regime on the contact
line”, Vahan Hovhannisian mentioned. However, the head of the Armenian
delegation considered possible that when discussion of the document
at the summer session of OSCE PA, which will be held in Washington in
July, the Azerbaijani MPs will again try to add it with provisions
from the report of David Atkinson. In Hovhannisian’s opinion, the
parliamentarians of Georgia, Moldova and Turkey will support the
proposals of the Azeri delegation.

Armenian deputy speaker says Karabakh’s status most important in talks
Arminfo, Yerevan
21 Mar 05
Yerevan, 21 March: The final version of the report by the special
representative of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly [OSCE PA], Goran
Lennmarker, on Nagornyy Karabakh will be submitted to the Armenian
and Azerbaijani MPs in Vienna by the July session of the OSCE PA in
Washington, the deputy speaker of the Armenian National Assembly and
the head of the Armenian delegation to the OSCE PA, Vaan Ovanesyan,
has told a news conference on the results of the meeting between
Armenian and Azerbaijani MPs in Brussels on 17-18 March.
He said that during the meeting, the deputies of the two countries
would familiarize themselves with the final version of the report and
put forward their suggestions. Vaan Ovanesyan said the Azerbaijani
MPs insisted on holding the meeting in London, but the suggestion
was rejected.
“Perhaps, our Azerbaijani colleagues were hoping that if the meeting
was held in London, it would be attended by the author of the PACE
[Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe] resolution on
Nagornyy Karabakh, David Atkinson, because they are trying to include
some parts of his report in the document being prepared by Goran
Lennmarker,” the deputy speaker said.
He added that after Goran Lennmarker’s report on Nagornyy Karabakh, the
OSCE PA could adopt a resolution which, just as all the other documents
of international parliamentary organizations, will be of a consultative
nature. At the same time, the head of the Armenian delegation said
if the OSCE PA document is similar to the PACE resolution on Nagornyy
Karabakh, it may have bitter ramifications for the Armenian side.
“One negative document may remain without implications for us, but
not two,” he stressed.
The deputy speaker expressed his confidence that Goran Lennmarker’s
report would contain a provision saying that the issue of Nagornyy
Karabakh’s status is of priority importance in the Nagornyy Karabakh
settlement process, while all the other problems, including the issue
of territories controlled by the Armenian side, are derivatives.

Zaman, Turkey
March 21 2005
Gul: Genocide Allegations will not Influence Membership Process
By Anadolu News Agency (aa)
Published: Monday 21, 2005
zaman.com
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said there is no direct or
indirect relation between so-called Armenian genocide allegations and
Turkey’s full membership process for the European Union (EU).
Gul responded to a motion for question submitted to the Turkish
Parliament by the True Path Party (DYP) Deputy Ummet Kandogan that
Turkey had fulfilled the Copenhagen Criteria requirements to begin
accession negotiations with the EU and this was confirmed in both the
Progress report published on October 6, 2004 and the Advisory
document published on December 17, 2004. Determining that the
conditions of the negotiation process were defined for any candidate
and that Turkey’s full membership process would be realized under the
context of the EU acquis communitaire as is the case for the other
candidate states, Gul said, “There is no direct or indirect relation
between Turkey’s full membership into EU and the Armenian genocide
allegations. Although from time to time various circles bring this
issue to the agenda, Turkey’s pursuing a clear and decisive attitude
is known in the EU circles.”
Gul also disclosed that History Research Group under the Turkish The
Institute of History was formed and the group consisting of
distinguished historians were making prominent studies to strengthen
the Turkish thesis on the Armenian allegations and announced that
books that will be published following scientific studies by the
group and will be presented to the international and Turkish public
interests in the very near future. Confirming that the necessary
cooperation had been provided between the related institutions due to
policies developed against the Armenian genocides, Gul added that
Prime Ministry Promotion Fund provided the necessary sources for the
studies.

WoonsocketCall.com
The birth of genocide
MICHAEL HOLTZMAN, Staff Writer03/20/2005
PROVIDENCE – The template for genocide in the modern era happened in 1915 to
the Armenian people in their homeland of the Ottoman Empire, an acclaimed
author on this subject shared with an education-minded audience last week at
Rhode Island College.
Former President Theodore Roosevelt called the annihilation of 1-1½ million
Armenians “the greatest crime” of World War I, said Peter Balakian, a
Colgate University English professor and author of “The Burning Tigris: The
Armenian Genocide and America’s Response.”
Balakian, the keynote speaker, and other scholars and writers addressed an
audience of teachers, students and participants during a “genocide
symposium” of workshops titled “Remembering Our Past, Educating Our Future.”
Organizers distributed to teachers a California curriculum guide on human
rights and genocide, the first in the country focused on the Armenians as a
case- study of victims in the 20th century. World history teachers in the
San Francisco Continued from Page A-1
Unified School District prepared it.
“I think this history is in the process of an exciting recovery,” said
Balakian, likening this relearning to previous rebirths of African American,
Native American Indian and women’s history in recent decades.
He and other presenters encouraged educators to find opportunities to teach
about the Armenian and subsequent modern genocides.
Decades of continued Turkish government denial of the Armenian genocide
remains a potent weapon for keeping the event buried beneath world history.
At the same time, genocide scholars like Balakian say America retains “blood
on its hands” for its unacknowledged extermination of Native American
Indians tribes.
With Rhode Island one of a handful of states in the country to recently
legislate pursuit of teaching genocide and human rights issues — coupled
with the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide next month — Armenian
committees organized the symposium at RIC.
Crimes of these proportions, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, (D-R.I.,) told about 100
people, “are usually perpetrated by ordinary people. The people who actually
do it are not too much different than us,” he said.
Reed cautioned that Americans would not necessarily be different under
similar wartime circumstances. “We, individually, have a responsibility to
resist” atrocities like genocide, he noted.
In 1915, the most able-bodied Armenians in the Ottoman Turkish Army were
disarmed, thrown into labor camps and gunned down by their military
comrades. But an even more insidious, systematic extermination followed,
Balakian said.
On the night of April 24, 1915, and the following day, about 250 of the
cultural and community leaders in the capital city of Constantinople
(present-day Istanbul) were rounded up and tortured by the Turks. Most of
them were killed, reported Balakian, who in his award-winning memoir “Black
Dog of Fate” traced his own family roots to this genocide.
“After April 24 it would be easy to carry out the genocide program, for many
of the most gifted voices of resistance were gone,” Balakian wrote.
Subsequently, thousands of other Armenian leaders were quickly rounded up
and killed throughout the country.
He likened the killing the Armenian soldiers and intellectuals by the
Turkish government during World War I to “cutting out the tongue” and
“chopping off the head.”
The women, children and less able men became easy prey for a purpose Adolf
Hitler would openly emulate during his extermination of six million European
Jews during the Holocaust of World War II.
As the Nazi Armies invaded Poland, on Aug. 22, 1939, Hitler reportedly told
his commanding generals that any criticism of his planned genocide would
bring execution by firing squad. “Who, after all, speaks today of the
annihilation of the Armenians?” Hitler said.
The Holocaust has been followed in this century by Cambodian dictator Pol
Pot in the 1970s killing and starving 1.8 million of his people, the Hutus
eliminating 800,000 Tutsi in Rwanda and 200,000 to 300,000 killed and 1
million homeless during the ongoing Sudanese genocide in Darfur. Yet the
Armenian genocide, Balakian said, “remains a seminal event.”
“It was the first time Americans were confronted with unfathomable numbers
of the murder of innocent, unarmed civilians,” he said.
When Balakian said half to two-thirds of the 2.5 million Christian Armenians
perished at the hands of the Turkish government, one listener asked if it
was the responsibility of teachers like himself to place this history into
its proper place in the classroom.
“How did this fall off the map?” asked Marco McWilliams, a junior African
American history major at RIC.
Terry McMichael, who teaches social studies at Cumberland High School, said
the symposium information and resources she’s gained would help bridge the
gaps in instruction she provides her students.
“I know the history of the genocide has been neglected in the history
books,” said McMichael. “I think this is important enough to spend a few
days on it. I know about the Armenian genocide. I’m interested in Middle
Eastern history.”
McMichael said she immediately acquired Balakian’s books and two about the
Armenian genocide written for young adults called “Forgotten Fire” and “The
Road from Home” that she’d use in her classroom. “I feel a strong duty to
teach them social responsibility,” McMichael said.
As testimony to that aim, she said after discussing with students the
genocides in Rwanda and elsewhere around the globe, she wrote a letter to
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. She told him the United Nations
“was shirking its duties.”
“How can I teach my kids about the responsibilities of the U.N.?” she asked.
Beth Bloomer, a junior at Cumberland High who accompanied McMichael to the
symposium, said she’s enthusiastic about the Armenian genocide being taught
at her school. Her classmates, she believes, “will respond in a kind of awe
or shock that this was happening,” Bloomer said.
Her parents asked initially why she was going. “I’m into history and I want
to learn more about the world and people around us,” she said, “and how
other people survived.”
“In most history books, it’s not there,” agreed Lincoln High social studies
teacher Caroline Ricci.
“It’s originally a political issue,” said Ricci, who called the symposium
“very valuable.” If you’re at the forefront of a movement and are vocal, you
get your voice heard. And it took a long time to get their voices heard.”
Perhaps it takes a reading of the 400-page “Burning Tigris” and other
literature of the Armenian genocide to understand how it happened — and why
there have been so many obstacles to uncovering this critical piece of
history.
In a way, it’s stunning, because the history is well documented, Balakian
said. In 1915The New York Times published 145 stories, many on the front
page, about a “campaign of extermination” perpetrated upon upwards of 1
million of the Armenian people.
America responded with unprecedented aid to the “starving Armenians,”
sending more than $100 million at a time a loaf of bread cost a nickel.
As the horrors of the genocide unfolded, it was also a time that American
ambassadors in Turkey — most notably Henry Morgenthau — documented the
mass murders of Armenians in an effort to raise alarm and action back home.
Balakian said he used hundreds of those documents in the National Archives
in Washington, D.C. for “Burning Tigris.”
“It was a reminder of a time,” he said, “people in government wrote with
clarity and ethical purpose.” He said it was also shortly before America
adopted its new policies toward the Middle East in the pursuit of oil.
©The Call 2005

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
March 18, 2005, Friday
PEACEKEEPER OF THE CAUCASUS
SOURCE: Novye Izvestia, March 15, 2005, p. 4
by Mekhman Gafarly
GEORGIA IS PREPARED TO BECOME A MEDIATOR IN THE ARMENIAN-TURKISH AND
ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJANI RELATIONS
Foreign Minister of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili said on a visit to
Ankara that her country could become an intermediary in the
Armenian-Turkish and Armenian-Azerbaijani dialogues – provided
Ankara, Yerevan, and Baku seconded the initiative.
Tbilisi needs the tension in the Armenian-Turkish relations abated.
First and foremost, their improvement will allay the fears and
irritation Yerevan feels viewing Georgia’s friendship with Turkey.
Second, it will be quick pro quo: Zurabishvili appreciates the
positive role Ankara is playing in the Russian-Georgian political
dialogue. Georgia hopes with Ankara’s help to solve some problems
marring its relations with Moscow. Along with everything else,
Georgia is looking for support from the European Union and the United
States and, also importantly, from Turkey as its neighbor now that
Tbilisi’s own relations with Moscow are at so low a level. The matter
is both political and economic. When Moscow introduced the visa
regime on the border with Georgia, Russian cities became out of reach
for thousands and thousands unemployed Georgians seeking jobs abroad.
In an attempt to compensate for it, Tbilisi hopes to secure a
visa-free regime on the Georgian-Turkish border and intends to
establish a regular Batumi-Istanbul plane run. Success will enable
Georgians to find jobs in Turkey and stabilize the socioeconomic
situation in Georgia itself. Before it can accomplish all of that,
however, Georgia has to score some political points. From this point
of view, the role of an intermediary in the Armenian-Turkish and
Armenian-Azerbaijani relations will come in very handy. What it will
result in is a different matter altogether. Tbilisi already offered
its services to Armenia and Azerbaijan at war over Nagorno-Karabakh
in 1992. The offer was turned down then.
Ramaz Sakvarelidze of the expert council of the Georgian parliament
says in the meantime that the situation is different now and that
Tbilisi’s offer may be accepted. According to Sakvarelidze, the
political and economic situation in the region changes with the
years, and the warring sides know now that integration into Europe is
impossible with the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh remaining
unsettled. Moreover, construction of pipelines and establishment of
the TRASECA transport corridor force Ankara, Yerevan, and Baku to
seek ways of improvement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani and
Armenian-Turkish relations. Along with everything else, upper
echelons of the European Union and Parliamentary Assembly demand an
end to political and territorial disputes from these countries or
they may forget about integration into the European Union. From this
point of view, Zurabishvili’s offer is well-timed and therefore may
be accepted, Sakvarelidze said. A neutral intermediary, Georgia is
prepared to arrange a meeting of leaders of Armenia, Turkey, and
Azerbaijan for negotiations on its territory. Baku’s and Yerevan’s
reaction to the offer is not clear at this point.

ANSA Notiziario Generale in Italiano
March 18, 2005
RAITRE: IL GENOCIDIO DEGLI ARMENI TRA I TEMI DI ‘LEVANTE’
ROMA
(ANSA) – ROMA, 18 MAR – Nuovo appuntamento con ‘Levante’, la
rubrica settimanale della TGR in onda domani alle 11.30 su
Raitre. In questo numero: ‘Tabu’ Armenia’, di Costantino
Foschini. Svolta storica in Turchia: governo ed opposizione
mettono a disposizione degli studiosi di tutto il mondo gli
archivi sul genocidio degli armeni, finora sempre negato dalle
autorita’ di Ankara. Inoltre ‘Danubio Italia’, di Tito Manlio
Altomare. Dalla fine dell’800 nel delta del Danubio, in Romania,
vivono centinaia di famiglie italiane. ‘Montenegro in corsia’,
di Anna Rosa Macri’. Arrivano dal Montenegro le infermiere che
sono indispensabili per colmare i vuoti di organico negli
ospedali italiani. ‘Carmen gitana’, di Enzo Ragone. Goran
Bregovic racconta la sua Carmen. La prima vera opera zingara,
meta’ film, meta’ festa campestre, dove i dialoghi sono
registrati e la musica e’ dal vivo, come ai tempi del cinema
muto.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN PRODUCTION EXHIBITION TO BE HELD IN TBILISI IN LATE APRIL
YEREVAN, MARCH 18, NOYAN TAPAN. The first exhibition of the Armenian
goods and services, “Armenia Today Expo 2005”, will be held in Tbilisi
on April 21-23. It is organized with the support of the RA Ministry
of Trade and Economic Development, the RA Foreign Ministry and the
Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen. The exhibition will display
the main branches of Armenia’s economy – machine-tool construction,
stone working, chemical industry, electronics, electrotechnology,
production of foodstuffs, drinks, jewelry, building materials, paints
and lacquers, as well as tourism and passenger and cargo transportation.
The purpose of the exhibition is to increase exports of the Armenian
production, to establish a practical mutually beneficial cooperation
with Georgian businessmen and develop the already existing relations,
to strengthen the ties with the Armenian community of Georgia. NT was
informed from the Logos Expo Center that up to now 38 organizations
have submitted bids for participating in the exhibition.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PanArmenian News
March 18 2005
TURKISH PARLIAMENT TO DISCUSS GENOCIDE WITH ARMENIAN DIASPORA
18.03.2005 04:12
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Grand National Assembly of Turkey has decided
to put an end to speculations on the Genocide issue and invited
leaders of the Armenian Diaspora of Turkey to participate in the
discussions on the topic to be held April 5. Representatives of the
Armenian Diaspora Etienne Makhchupian and Grant Dink will also take
part in the debates.

CONCERT TIMED TO MOTHER’S DAY CELEBRATED ON APRIL 7 IN ARMENIA WILL
TAKE PLACE AT KAREN DEMIRCHYAN SPORTS AND CONCERT COMPLEX
YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMINFO. A concert timed to the Mother’s and Beauty
Day celebrated on April 7 in Armenia will take place at Karen
Demirchyan Sports and Concert Complex the same day.
The concert with participation of Armenian singers is organized by the
“Nig- Aparan” Charity Organization of Countrymen. Talking to ARMINFO,
Representative of the Organization Committee Ofelia Petrosyan says
that the entry to the concert is free.

LAW ENFORCEMENT BODIES OF ARMENIA MANAGED TO STOP TRANSPORTATION OF
100 ARMENIAN WOMEN ABROAD FOR SEXUAL EXPLOITATION IN 2004
YEREVAN, MARCH 17. ARMINFO. To effectively combat prostitution,
procurement and trafficking in persons, the corresponding legislation
must be toughened, Head of Armenian Police, Lt.General Hayk
Haroutiunyan says at parliamentary hearings “Activity of the
law-enforcement structures to prevent organized crime” today.
He says that in 2004 29 cases of procurement and 2 cases of
trafficking to the United Arab Emirates for sexual exploitation were
exposed. One case of trafficking was exposed due to operative measures
taken by the law- enforcement bodies of Armenia and Russia, he
says. As a result. A criminal grouping was detained in Russia, which
consisted of Armenia who tried to transport six Armenian women from
Russia to UAE. On the whole, in 2004 the law- enforcement bodies
managed to stop transportation of 100 Armenian women abroad for sexual
exploitation, with 730 prostitutes being brought administratively
responsible. -m-
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress