Author: Tavakalian Edgar

TURKEY: UNDISPUTED LEADER OF THE MIDDLE EAST

Arca Haber Ajansý, Occupied Northern Cyprus
Nov 29 2007

Although the Armenians and the Greeks played the Christian card quite
well in the 20th century and tried to push Turkey into the position
of the most underrepresented and discredited nation on earth, it
didn’t work well in the last century and won’t work in the 21st
century, either. The latest card player was Armenian camp-follower
Nancy Pelosi, who in fact put her personal interests above American
interests by pushing for passage of the so-called genocide resolution,
just like Armenian-Americans who think of Armenians’ interests above
those of Americans, unfortunately.

Since 2002, from the day the new driver, the Justice and Development
Party (AKP), took over Turkey’s steering wheel, a departure from the
country’s traditional foreign policy began and gradually quickened.

The new driver led the country to a brand new track, one more
temperate, social, constructive, modernistic and rather enterprising;
as opposed to the defensive and passive track of old.

This new track gradually led Turkey’s political prowess upward, and
Turkey is now becoming an important player in the Middle East, emerging
as an important diplomatic actor. Turkey’s greater activism in the
Middle East has also been reflected in its effort to strengthen ties
to Iran and Syria, and now Turkey’s political and economic relations
with neighboring countries are at the best levels ever achieved.

Ankara’s relations with Tehran and Damascus were strained in the 1980s
and 1990s, in part because Iran and Syria supported the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) in their effort to destabilize Turkey.

But relations have significantly improved in recent years, thanks
to the three governments’ shared interest in containing Kurdish
nationalism and preventing the emergence of an independent Kurdish
state on their borders.

Turkey’s cooperation with Iran has intensified considerably,
particularly in the security sphere. During Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoðan’s visit to Tehran in July 2004, Turkey and Iran signed
a security cooperation agreement that branded the PKK a terrorist
organization. Since then, the two countries have stepped up cooperation
to protect their borders. Energy has been another major engine behind
the warming of Iranian-Turkish relations; Iran is the second-largest
supplier of natural gas to Turkey (after Russia).

Ankara’s policy toward Israel and the Palestinians has also undergone
a shift. Turkey had maintained a close relationship with Israel since
1996, especially in the defense and intelligence areas. Cooperation
had benefits for both sides: It gave Israel a way of breaking out
of its regional isolation and a means of putting pressure on Syria,
and it gave Turkey new avenues for obtaining weapons and advanced
technology at a time when it faced increasing restrictions on weapons
procurement from the United States and Europe.

But more recently, under the AKP’s leadership, Turkey’s outlook toward
Israel has begun to change and Ankara has begun to adopt a more active
pro-Palestinian policy.

This change started when Erdoðan decided to send 1,000 troops to
participate in the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon — one of the
largest contributions of any European state.

Although not without risks, Erdoðan’s decision to contribute troops
to the UN mission had a number of important benefits. It both
underscored Turkey’s European credentials and showed that Ankara is
an important regional player. And along with Erdoðan’s criticism
of Israel’s military action, it allowed Turkey to demonstrate its
solidarity with key Arab governments in the region that supported
the peacekeeping mission.

The latest summit in Ankara held by President Abdullah Gul, between
Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,
exemplifies the position and importance of Turkey in the Middle East.

Turkey’s relations with Saudi Arabia in particular have been
strengthened recently, as was highlighted by King Abdullah’s trip to
Turkey in August 2006 — the first visit of its kind in 40 years–
and then again in the second week of November 2007.

Turkey’s greater engagement in the Middle East is part of the gradual
diversification of Turkish foreign policy since the end of the Cold
War. In effect, Turkey is rediscovering the region of which it has
historically been an integral part. Especially under the Ottomans,
Turkey was the dominant power in the Middle East.

Turkey’s recent focus on the Middle East does not, however, mean
that Turkey is about to turn its back on the West. Nor is the shift
evidence of the "creeping Islamization" of Turkish foreign policy,
as some critics claim.

Turkey’s new activism is a response to structural changes in its
security environment since the end of the Cold War. And if managed
properly, it could be an opportunity for the Western world to use
Turkey as a bridge to the Middle East.

Both Ankara and the Western world — the EU and US — need to accept
that the war in Iraq has created new realities and unleashed new
forces that must be accommodated and that no satisfactory results
can be achieved in the region without Turkey’s assent.

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MINIMUM SALARY WILL GROW BY 5 THOUSAND DRAMS

KarabakhOpen
30-11-2007 18:02:47

>From 2008 the minimum salary in Karabakh will be 25 thousand drams
instead of the current 20 thousand drams. It became known during the
meeting of government which affirmed amendments to the law.

According to the news release of the Ministry of Finance, over the
first three quarters of 2007 40,108 working people were registered,
which is up by 1790 from the past year. The average salary is 65,579
drams, which is up by 15.9 percent from last year.

EFFORTS TO MEND DEMOGRAPHY

KarabakhOpen
30-11-2007 18:03:16

The government decided to set up a department for demography in the
Ministry of Social Security to make the social policy of the government
meet the demographic challenges.

According to the minister of social security Narine Azaryan, next year
research will be done to reveal the effect of the social programs on
the state of demography in the country.

Apparently the government has realized the interdependence of the
social policy and the state of demography.

The minister says next year another department will be set up in
the ministry, the department of public relations. The department of
humanitarian affairs will be reshaped into the department of charity
programs.

The changes mean that the government has changed its attitude toward
social problems, namely treatment of individuals and their problems.

Vartan Oskanyan: OSCE political declaration will not be adopted

2007-12-01 00:34:00

ArmInfo. The OSCE political declaration will not be adopted as there is
yet no consensus on the problem of conflicts, Armenian Foreign Minister
Vardan Oskanyan told Armenian journalists in Madrid.

ArmInfo’s correspondend reports from Madrid that some OSCE member
states still have conflicts with respect to which OSCE has no general
approach yet. Oskanyan did not say what influence this might have on
the future work of that organization. He just said that there was
serious controversy, which prevented OSCE from reaching consensus on
the above problems.

Oskanyan pointed out that representatives of all the three OSCE Minsk
Group co-chair-states – the foreign ministers of Russia and France and
the US assistant state secretary – met this time. They presented their
approaches to moot questions. This discussion will be probably
continued during the next visit of the co-chairs to the region.

To remind, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in
Madrid today. Oskanyan said that they considered the possible date of
the next visit of the OSCE MG co-chairs to the region.

Public TV, Armenia
Nov 30 2007

Armenian president names judges to first instance courts

[Presenter] President [Robert Kocharyan] signed a directive
concerning assigning specialized judges to courts of first instance
in compliance with provision 11 of Article 55 of the Armenian
constitution and proceeding form the conclusions of the Justice
Council as of 27 November 2007.

KARABAKHI LAWMAKERS PASS ANTI-TERRORIST BILL

ARKA News Agency
Dec 3 2007
Armenia

STEPANAKERT, November 30. /ARKA/. The NKR National Assembly passed
the anti-terrorist bill at its Friday’s session headed by Speaker
Ashot Gulyan, the parliamentary press office reports.

Karabahki legislators also passed amendments to the bills on the
Prosecutor’s Office, Servicemen and their families. Bills on the
structure of the NKR Government, the supervisory body, wildlife
preservation were passed at the first reading.

The legislatives also discussed the budget execution report on
January-September 2007 made by the NKR Ministry of Finance.

The Government answered the questions of MPs during the session.

MP Romela Dadayan proposed changing the status of the Zangak NGO as
an orphanage and rendering government support to the organization.

NATHAN ENGLANDER WRITES ABOUT ‘THE DIRTY WAR’
by Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio

Minnesota Public Radio, MN
/11/15/englander/
Nov 16 2007

Nathan Englander’s new book "The Ministry of Special Cases" is set
against Argentina’s ‘dirty war.’ It was the time in the late 1970s
when thousands of people disappeared — kidnapped and murdered by
the military junta. Englander says the book grew out of a trip to
Jerusalem.

St. Paul, Minn. – Nathan Englander grew up in a deeply religious Jewish
family in the U.S. Looking for a way to escape the strictures of that
life he moved to Jerusalem, where he met people from all over the
world. In particular he was fascinated by the Argentinian Jews he met.

"As a group, just unbelievably sweet, unbelievably sensitive and also
unbelievably hardened and closed at the same time," he says.

They had escaped the junta, and told tales of "the disappeared." But
Englander was also taken by how loyal they were to their homeland.

"It is touching to me this love of a place that, for want of a better
word, regularly betrays its citizens."

In time, after the junta fell, he visited and fell in love with
Argentina too. Englander was looking for a way to write a novel about
community, and it was a natural spot.

"The novel is set in Buenos Aires in 1976 at the start of the dirty
war," he says. "Obviously there were a lot of victims in that country
but in the way that I believe fiction is truer than truth, or allows
you to tell the bigger story through focusing it, I thought the best
way to tell this story was through one mother and one father and
one son."

Lillian and Kaddish are the parents, Pato the son. They are the
Posznans. They live a normal life until one day, as Englander reads,
the world changes.

"As the four men from the Navy threw a career man from the window,
he was thinking his last thoughts. A retired colonel, his uniform
covered in the medals from the military regime. All those decorations
were upended with him as the blood rushed to his head.

"A medal came loose and clanked against the street. A chest full of
honors and what good did it do him?

"I should have served in the Air Force," he thought. "And then I
would have wings."

The coup brings gradual change to the Poznan’s life. Lillian works
in an office. Pato is a college student.

And Kaddish? Well, Kaddish makes his money in a strange way.

He is hired by prominent people to climb into a certain Jewish cemetery
where men and women who worked as pimps and prostitutes were buried in
decades past. His employers are descendants of the dead, who want him
erase some embarrassing history by chiseling off the names. Englander
laughs that he he has spent the last 10 years writing two stories
that the many in Argentina don’t want to the world to hear.

"Which is the dirty war, you know, everyone has worked so hard to keep
that story from being known. ‘It’s over and it’s done.’ The people keep
it alive, but this thing was just quashed. And then the story of the
Jewish community which had this little problem, you know representative
same as the French and everybody else there and not generally known
as a Jewish business but they had their representative segment of the
white slavery population of pimps and prostitutes and the community
did an excellent job of keeping that story hidden for a hundred years."

Kaddish is viewed as a vandal and a pariah within the community,
but still makes good money for what he does.

In "The Ministry of Special cases" Kaddish and Pato butt heads,
particularly because Pato has some books Kaddish thinks the authorities
won’t like. They fight and exchange harsh words, just as the secret
police arrive and take Pato away. Englander describes his parents’
desperate search for their son and how people react to them.

Englander says he has traveled around the U.S. and Europe, and each
country has reacted positively. He’s awaiting the Spanish translation
though, and perhaps his biggest critics when the book is published
in Argentina. Englander is sure he will be dismissed by some as a
whippersnapper, as he puts it, but he hopes they will give it a chance.

"It’s another thing that I have been interested in, how we are
bequeathed historical memories," he says. "I am from new York and my
family generations before are from Boston. You know this idea that
the Holocaust is my cultural memory was given to me and educated into
me because I am Jewish. And I said, why wasn’t I given the Armenian
genocide. But after 10 years with this book it is passionate for
me personally. The dirty war, it’s just a terrible crime and I
wish the whole world knew about it and personally I hope they get
my intentions."

ARMENIAN FOOTBALL TEAM LEAVES FOR FRANCE

Panorama.am
22:11 12/11/2007

Armenian national football team tomorrow starts its teaching and
training gathering. Our football team tries to get ready with Portugal
and Kazakhstan for 2008 European championship electoral stage.

According to the Football Federation press secretary today late in the
evening the Armenian youth team leaves for France, where on November
15 an electoral meeting will take place with French team. On November
20 our football players in the frames of Euro 2009 will play with
Lichtenstein football team. In our youth team except Czech Republic
members from Turkey, Ukraine, and Lichtenstein are included. Our
team lost the game in 0:4 and 0:2 score in the game with Ukraine,
1:1 with Czech Republic and 1:0 won Lichtenstein.

And our national team won in 2:1 score Poland, 1:0 – Kazakhstan,
1:1 with Portugal, 0:0 with Finland, and by 0:1 score lost the game
to Poland, Finland and Belgium.

ASSYRIAN GENOCIDE SCHOLAR TOURS U.S.
By Rosie Malek-Yonan

Assyrian International News Agency
Nov 12 2007

Like an umbilical chord still connected to its bitter past, the
Assyrians cannot detach from the events perpetrated against their
nation by the Ottoman Turks, Kurds and Persians in the shadows of
WWI. The past looms unsettled. The past waits patiently and stubbornly
to be made right so that the Assyrian nation can finally be at
peace. The Assyrian nation has been mourning its dead for 92 years. It
is time to lay them to rest with honor. It is our human right.

Assyrian nationalists and educators such as Mr. Sabri Atman are
doing their part to educate and create worldwide awareness of the
recognition of the Assyrian Genocide.

This week, Assyrians of America welcome Mr. Atman in their midst. His
arrival in the U.S. is indeed a bittersweet encounter for the Assyrians
of this region. We are reminded of the importance of remaining vigilant
today in safe guarding our history and our past to ensure our nation’s
future so that it may be free from oppression and persecution.

Mr. Sabri Atman, founder and director of the Assyrian Seyfo Center in
Europe, is presenting a lecture on the topic of the Assyrian Genocide
entitled "Genocide, Denial, and the Right of Recognition." The
five-city American tour that began in Los Angeles on November 9th
at the Assyrian American Association of Southern California, will
continue on to San Jose (November 10th), Turlock (November 11th),
Detroit (November 16th), and end in Chicago (November 17th) before
he heads for Armenia with the same powerful message.

I had the honor of attending Mr. Atman’s lecture in Los Angeles. He
presented the facts clearly and succinctly. But what was most striking
about his presentation was his unshakable conviction to demand justice
for his Assyrian nation from the Turkish government.

"Today we are not blaming every Turk or Kurd for the past events. But
this was done to us in their name," said Mr. Atman.

Indeed, the silence of the majority and the opposition of many today
to recognize the Genocide of the Assyrians, Armenian and Greeks,
only emphasizes the support of the denial of these Genocides.

Mr. Atman carried with him a palm size reddish stone from his homeland
in Southeast Turkey where he is banned from ever visiting.

The stone is a constant reminder of the bitter memories of not just
his family’s past but also the past of the Assyrian nation that is
perpetually battling 92 years of defiance by the Turks.

Like most Assyrian families, the death of his grand parents at the
hands of the Ottoman Turks, is a memory that follows him daily. "The
Assyrian nation has inherited incredible scars."

"We Assyrians live in many different countries, but our existence is
not recognized. Our fundamental rights are not recognized," said Mr.

Atman. According to him, the year 1915 was one of the dirtiest pages
of Turkish history and consequently, "the Assyrian people did not
just suffer a tragedy. They suffered a genocide!"

It is true that as children, we Assyrians grew up learning and hearing
about the atrocities committed against our nation during WWI.

"We shed tears of blood," resonated Mr. Atman. A statement I know
only too well when I remember the eyes of my own grandmother, who was
a survivor of the Assyrian Genocide. She was one of the lucky ones,
unlike the rest of her family.

"We are the grandchildren of the Genocide. They owe us an apology."

An apology that is long overdue.

TELE-MARATHON STARTS

AZG Armenian Daily
13/11/2007

"Armenia" all-Armenian foundation on November 14 starts the
telemarathon that has become traditional.

During the money-collecting marathon, the members of the executive
department of the foundation will call more than 2500 Armenian
enterprises.

The donations will be directed to the development of the villages of
Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.

As a rule, the annual TV-marathons are held on the threshold of
TV-marathons.

The TV-marathon will continue until November 16 inclusive.