OSCE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY DELEGATION DUE TO VISIT ARMENIA
Panorama.am
15:58 08/03/2010
Politics
The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly delegation chaired by PA President
Joao Soares is due to pay a visit to Armenia March 10-13, according
to Georgian media reports.
The delegation is due in Georgia March 9-10. The regional visit will
be concluded in Azerbaijan March 13-16.
OSCE PA Rapporteur on Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia Goran Lenmarker
will be among the delegates.
MINOR VICTORY: PASHINYAN GIVEN AMNESTY, FIRST COURT’S RULING UPHELD
Tert.am
13:42 ~U 09.03.10
The RA Court of Appeal today denied appeals made by both Haykakan
Zhamanak ("Armenian Times") chief editor Nikol Pashinyan’s defense
lawyers and the prosecution. The prosecution wanted Pashinyan acquitted
under charges of not only Article 255 Section 1 of the RA Criminal Code
(organizing mass riots), but also Article 316 Section 1 (assaulting
representative of the authorities).
The Court of Appeal ruled to uphold a January 19 ruling made by
the Court of First Instance of Center and Nork-Marash Communities
of Yerevan in which Pashinyan was sentenced to 7 years in prison
(for being deemed guilty of Article 255 Section 1 only).
The court, citing a June 19, 2009 RA National Assembly decision,
however, granted Pashinyan amnesty, thereby cutting his sentence by
half (3.5 years instead of 7).
CANADIAN VOIP WHOLESALE COMPANY LISTS KARABAKH AS ‘ARMENIAN KARABAKH’
Tert.am
14:21 ~U 09.03.10
On the list of per-minute rates for countries around the world on its
website, Canadian company VoipJet, a service for carriers and emerging
VoIP providers, has noted Nagorno-Karabakh as belonging to Armenian
territory – a decision which has upset Azerbaijan, reports 1news.az.
The Azerbaijani news agency is calling on its readers to join them
in a letter of protest aimed at the Canadian company.
THE INDEPENDENT: SOMEONE REMEMBERS THIS ATROCITY AT LAST – TO OBAMA’S DISMAY
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
08.03.2010 14:34 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Obama pleaded not to tell the truth about the savage
rape and murder of 1.5 million Armenian civilians by the Turks in 1915,
Robert Fisk wrote in the British Independent on March 6.
"George W Bush spinelessly caved in to the Turkish generals. And
now our favorite Nobel prize winner – another brave president who
promised to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide if he was elected and
then declined to do so… Good for the committee that it did not give
in. But it will do no good," the article wrote.
According to the author, 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, since 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,"
Robert Fisk wrote.
According to the newspaper, this year Turkey did not have the Israeli
lobby behind it, while in the past, Israel, disgracefully claiming
that the Armenian Holocaust was not a Genocide, has supported its
close ally Turkey. This year, 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 Independent wrote.
"The fact, unfortunately, is that these roads are the very highwaysdown
which the Armenians were sent on their death marches in 1915. 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," Robert Fisk wrote.
"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, " The Independent concluded.
TURKISH-AMERICAN ASSOCIATION REACTS TO CNN BROADCAST ABOUT GENOCIDES
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
08.03.2010 16:25 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On March 7 CNN showed Scream Bloody Murder,
a documentary about Genocides prepared by a known TV journalist,
Christian Amanpour. The author tells about the Armenian Genocide,
the Holocaust, the Genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, as well as
the massacres of Kurds during Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.
Releasing a statement on CNN’s program, Ali Cinar, vice president of
the Assembly of Turkish American Associations -ATAA, said that the
timing of the broadcast was significant, and called on everybody to
protest the TV channel immediately.
Cinar said "US TV channels’ displaying a unilateral stance with the
Armenian Diaspora’s financial support did not comply with objectivity
and journalistic ethics".
Noting that CNN’s broadcast would harm Turkish-US relations, Cinar said
associating the incidents of 1915 with the Holocaust and with what had
happened in Cambodia, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfour was a "major ignorance".
Cinar also said that the Turkish-American community would continue
to react against the unilateral stance displayed by the US media on
such matter, the Anatolia News Agency reported.
Alalam News Network, Iran
March 7 2010
Clinton vows to stop Turkey ‘genocide’ bill
Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:47:41 GMT
US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has said that the Obama
administration will `work very hard’ to prevent a congressional bill
being passed, which describes the World War I killing of Armenians by
Turkey as "genocide".
On Thursday, a congressional panel approved the resolution, making way
for a vote by the House.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that if such a bill
were passed it would certainly damage US-Turkey relations.
The resolution – approved by 23 votes to 22 by the committee – calls
on President Barack Obama to ensure US foreign policy reflects an
understanding of the "genocide" and to label the killings of Armenians
as such.
The same committee tried to pass a similar bill two years ago, but
this was also blocked by then-president George W. Bush.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Friday called on
Washington to stop the US Congress panel’s resolution, warning of
damage to bilateral ties.
Having recalled its ambassador immediately after the resolution was
adopted, Ankara warned that Washington risked a showdown with a key
Muslim ally if the resolution advanced to a full vote at the House of
Representatives.
Leylekian: Armenian Genocide Denial: The Turkish Vietnam
/leylekian-armenian-genocide-denial-the-turkish-vi etnam/
By Admin – on March 5, 2010 –
By Laurent Leylekian
Once again, Turkish diplomacy is facing a dead-end. Once again, they
thought they could succeed by throwing the Armenian Genocide into
oblivion with the notorious protocols process. But their own
inconsistency and lack of sincerity prevented them from
blocking – through the final ratification of these protocols – the course
of genocide recognition and the issue of what Turkish-occupied Western
Armenian territories.
Thus, once again, platoons of Turkish diplomats will have to go to
Washington, D.C., Stockholm, Switzerland, or elsewhere to try to
prevent new resolutions, new momentum, new TV broadcasts, or any kind
of new genocide-related initiative somewhere in the world.
Turkey is sending its massive PR artillery with the same lack of
discernment with which the U.S. used its B52s in Vietnam. Through huge
napalm-like injections of money, through nauseous orange agent-like
corporate lobbying, through special operations and despicable
briberies, they have generally succeeded in temporarily putting out
the fire. But as soon as a blaze is supposed to be cooled down,
another one appears somewhere else. Italic text is (of course) the
lyrics of `The End’-The Doors.
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again
And the brave Turkish diplomats are more and more in despair on the
diplomatic front. Year after year, young inexperienced envoys are sent
by Turkey to the front – a front of disenchantment Turkey has created
for itself – to fight for a cause they don’t share nor care about. They
sometimes win certain rearguard battles with the help of their
superior diplomatic and political equipment. But it is becoming harder
and harder for them to win the hearts and minds of the people they
intend to free from `genocide allegations.’
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need…of some…stranger’s hand
In a…desperate land
Lost in a Roman…wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
And increasingly, they can see the contempt in their interlocutors’
eyes. And more and more often, Papa Erdogan has to be sent here or
there, as a Bell `Huey’ helicopter, to save doomed squadrons of
private Mehmets from ambush. And actually, Huey Erdogan often succeeds
but it doesn’t change the fact that those Turkish commandos who are
supposed to bear the denial gospel are less convinced than the ones
they are supposed to convince.
And they bitterly realize that without any money, without uniform,
without counting on blackmail, but with sincere commitment and with
the incomparable weight of Truth and Morality – like a rice bowl they
are fed daily – the Hay-Minh from Armenia and the Hay-Congs from the
Armenian Diaspora are far more credible. That their special operations
trying to split the Western Hay-Congs from the Eastern Hay-Minh is
totally failing.
There’s danger on the edge of town
Ride the King’s highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake…he’s old, and his skin is cold
And some young Turkish citizens who were supposed to be `good
patriots’ are now wondering why they have to support hatred
ideologies. Why they have to affirm with such suspicious insistence
that they are `truly Turks’ and hate Armenians. Why they have to use
the word `Agri’ instead of `Ararat.’ Why some of their old grand-aunts
sometimes seem so sad and prudishly look away when Armenians are
mentioned. And why they start feeling some sympathy for Hrant Dink,
for Armenians, for Assyrians, for Alevis.
The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and we’ll do the rest
The blue bus is callin’ us
The blue bus is callin’ us
Driver, where you taken’ us
And polls are now showing that more and more Turkish citizens are fed
up with this insane denial policy and would like their country to be
normal, to be democratic, to be open, to be hate-less, to be Susurluk
and Kizil Elma and Ergenekon and Bozkurt-less, while their political
leaders keep on burning millions of dollars. But now, even some of
these leaders are wretchedly looking for unlikely B-plans. Today,
after so many years of useless denial, they can’t confess that their
state ideology is based on heinous lies.
The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and…then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door…and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother…I want to…f*** you
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin’ a blue rock
On a blue bus
Doin’ a blue rock
C’mon, yeah
And the mask of respectability is now falling apart. Turkey’s leaders
still try to appear as honest brokers in the Caucasus, in the Middle
East, with Iran. But with their own rogue reputation, with their
country’s poor record, and with their inability to put an end to the
cycle of violence and impunity, they are simply failing. They cannot
even appear as honest brokers for their own Turkish society, a society
that is increasingly shaken by riots, violence, and rumors of plots,
of conspiracies, of `balyoz’ plans.
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
And the time is probably not so far away when, after countless Hué,
Khe Sanh, and Tet offensives, ultimately Turkish `Hueys’ will have to
evacuate their left-behind credibility from the rooftops of
ideological embassies – surrounded by Hay-Congs, Hay-Minhs, and allied
genocide recognitions, motions, calls, demonstrations, and sittings – to
carriers overcrowded with genocide deniers, retired ambassadors,
crooks and crooked lobbyists, losers, and wheeler-dealers.
It hurts to set you free
But you’ll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end
And the time is probably not so far either, when Turkey will collapse
as did other people’s prison houses, under the unbearable weight of
its own contradictions between what it ought to be and what it is,
under the intolerable curse of hate against anyone and everyone,
against others and itself, under the insupportable actuality of a
genocide and of its denial. And this will be the end.
Laurent Leylekian is the editor of the biweekly
France-Arménie( t). From 2001 to December 2009, he
was the executivedirector of the European Armenian Federation for
Justice and Democracy(). He is married, with two children.
The author thanks Jirair Momjian for copyediting the article.
APA, Azerbaijan
March 5 2010
Onur Oymen: We can not obey the outside pressures and sacrifice our
friendship with Azerbaijan
[ 05 Mar 2010 18:08 ]
Ankara. Mayis Alizadeh ` APA. `The decision of the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs is very wrong and disappointing. The protocols signed
with Armenia should be immediately withdrawn from the parliament. We
should do it without delay,’ deputy chairman of the Republican
People’s Party (CHP), parliamentarian, former ambassador Onur Oymen
told APA’s Turkey bureau.
`There is no need to make efforts to prevent the decision Committee on
Foreign Affairs from bringing to the agenda of the House of
Representatives. There is no need to prolong this game. We should
prove to Armenia that it will not make Turkey admit its wishes through
the outside pressures. We can not obey the outside pressures and
sacrifice our friendship with Azerbaijan,’ he said.
UNSURE ON ARMENIA RESOLUTION, ELLISON SAYS U.S. NEEDS TO ACKNOWLEDGE GENOCIDE HERE
By Andy Birkey
Minnesota Independent
March 4 2010
Rep. Keith Ellison says he hasn’t yet made up his mind about whether or
not Congress should recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915 committed
by the Ottoman Empire. A hearing is set for Thursday in the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs, of which Ellison is a member.
Ellison told the Turkish news service Hurriyet that the United States
needs to acknowledge its own past genocides before pointing the finger
at other countries.
"I am still developing my position. I would like to know how this
affects Turkey and Armenia’s relationship. Is it going to help the
relationship, improve it or degrade it? I need to know the answer on
that before I decide on this resolution… Is this resolution going
to improve the well-being of people in Armenia or Turkey or anywhere?"
Congressman Ellison also said America still has not recognized its own
genocide or genocides that it committed, yet tries to give lessons
to the other countries. Ellison said: "And you know, we have not
acknowledged yet the genocide that was committed against the Native
American tribes."
The issue is complicated by hard-right American Christians who use
the killings as evidence of Christian persecution, many times for
anti-Islam purposes, as well as by Muslim Turks who view the push
for genocide recognition as part of an anti-Muslim sentiment from
Western nations.
Though Turkey, one of few Western democracies in the Muslim world,
has good relations with the United States, Turkey has threatened to
scale back its support for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
if Congress passes the resolution.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty issued a proclamation in 2005 to recognize
the Armenian Genocide. Forty-two other states have done so.
on-armenia-resolution-ellison-says-u-s-needs-to-ac knowledge-genocide-here
ANKARA TO RECALL ITS AMBASSADOR IF US HOUSE PASSES GENOCIDE RESOLUTION
Panorama.am
18:41 04/03/2010
Politics
If the Foreign Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives
passes the Armenian Genocide Resolution today, Ankara may recall its
Ambassador Namik Tan, Turkish FM Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying
by CnnTurk.
"We need to take every step into account since as an alternative Ankara
considers the issue of reacalling the Ambassador," Turkey’s FM said.