Author: Torgomian Varazdat

TURKISH AUTHOR FACES CRIMINAL CHARGES

United Press International
Sept 1 2005

Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk faces three years in prison if convicted
on charges of “public denigrating of Turkish identity,” his publisher
says.

Pamuk, 53, was charged after a Swiss interview in which he said
discussing certain topics such as the 1915 Armenian massacre and the
war with the Kurds were off-limits in his country, the Washington
Post reported Thursday.

Because no one talks about such topics, “therefore, I do,” he was
quoted as telling the newspaper Tages-Anzeiger in February.

Tugrul Pasaoglu, Pamuk’s publisher and an editor at the Istanbul
publishing house Iletisim Yayinlari, said the acclaimed novelist
faces trial for “public denigrating of Turkish identity” Dec. 16.

Pamuk’s attorney told the Post, “There is nothing that constitutes
a crime in this interview.”

Pamuk’s books including “My Name Is Red,” have been translated into
more than 20 languages.

AZERI, ARMENIAN PRESIDENTS’ KAZAN TALKS RAISE HOPES

AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Sept 1 2005

Hopes for a settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper Garabagh
conflict increased after another around of talks, Foreign Minister
Elmar Mammadyarov told journalists following the closed-door meeting
of the Azeri and Armenian presidents in the Russian Volga river city
of Kazan on Saturday.

The previous meeting of the two presidents in Warsaw raised
expectations for progress in the conflict resolution.

Prior to the Kazan meeting held on the sidelines of the Commonwealth of
Independent States summit, there were presumptions that the sides would
reach a specific agreement or sign a document. However, it became clear
after the meeting of the foreign ministers in Moscow shortly before
the presidents’ talks that considerable results would not be achieved.

As before, the presidents’ meeting was attended by the co-chairs of
the meditating OSCE Minsk Group Steven Mann of the United States, Yuri
Merzlyakov of Russia and Bernard Fassier of France, as well as the OSCE
chairman’s envoy Anzhei Kaspshik. The talks, which first started with
participation of the two foreign ministers and OSCE representatives,
were followed by a private meeting of the heads of state.

Although no extensive information was available on the details and
outcome of the meeting, Foreign Minister Mammadyarov’s statement
enables a conclusion that major results were not achieved. He said,
however, that the meeting cannot be considered fruitless, as talks
between the two presidents always yield results. “The hopes that
emerged after the Warsaw meeting further increased after the Kazan
talks.”

The Minister noted that new proposals were made at the Kazan
meeting and a week or two are needed to analyze them and assess the
situation. Although Mammadyarov did not elaborate, it is clear that
the mediators made certain proposals on the conflict resolution.

Touching on the timeframe for the next meeting, the Minister said
the sides agreed to consider it after analyzing the results of the
presidents’ meeting.

A spokesman for the Armenian President Viktor Sogomonian said
official Yerevan considers the meeting a ‘positive development’ in
the negotiating process. “The two countries’ foreign ministers will
continue working considering the agreements reached in Kazan”, he said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appealed to the two countries’
leaders prior to the Kazan meeting. In her phone conversations with
the Azeri and Armenian presidents, she said Washington attaches great
importance to the talks on the conflict settlement. Rice also voiced
a hope for a peaceful conflict resolution.

Mammadyarov said prior to the meeting that progress would be achieved
in peace talks if Armenia accepts the proposals made by Azerbaijan.

“The sides have mutual understanding on certain issues. If Armenia
is ready to accept all of our proposals, there will be a breakthrough
in the negotiations.”

The Minister noted that the mediators have stepped up their activity
and continue to put forth ‘compromise’ proposals.

Touching upon the Garabagh status, Mammadyarov emphasized the
importance of discussing the issue strictly within Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity. “There are different ways to resolve the
issue. Dialogue on the matter should therefore continue… The
main idea is for us to find a way for Azeris and Armenians to live
peacefully in a small territory. The sooner we find a way for this,
the more rapidly our states will develop, as the conflict is an
obstacle for our countries’ development. We should focus on the
processes ongoing around the world and look to the future.”

Meeting ‘was doomed to failure’ A well-known Armenian political analyst
said the meeting of Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharian was
‘doomed to failure’.

“The meeting certainly means some progress. But both Aliyev and
Kocharian understood well that it would be extremely difficult to agree
upon anything on the eve of the parliament elections in Azerbaijan”,
Andranik Migranian told Russian media.

“The pre-election situation has heated up in Azerbaijan so much that
any discussions on compromises are harshly disapproved there. The
meeting was therefore doomed to fail beforehand.”

Asked what Azerbaijan and Armenia should do to achieve success in the
conflict settlement, Migranian said ‘the conflicting sides cannot do
anything on their own’.

“In this case, the decision may be imposed by the international
community or the status quo in the current situation will remain.

This may continue until one of the sides deems itself strong enough
to solve the problem through military action.”

The analyst said that certain progress in the conflict resolution
could be achieved if superpowers ‘impose a compromise solution on
the conflicting sides’.

“Without this decision, it is difficult for the authorities of
Azerbaijan and Armenia to explain to their own electorate why they
would accept such unfavorable concessions.”

In reply to a question whether Russia may step up its mediating role
in the conflict settlement, Migranian said this country is involved
in the process anyway. “However, Russia’s current potential does not
allow doing more that it is doing now.”

“Russia has limited financial, economic and military-political
potential, not to mention the fact it has almost lost its influence
in Georgia and Azerbaijan…Many do not see Russia as a country that
has a key to the solution of the Garabagh problem any more.

Azerbaijan binds greater hopes for Washington or Brussels rather than
Moscow in this respect.”

The analyst said that the increase of Azerbaijan’s military spending
stated by President Ilham Aliyev earlier is a ‘move aimed at pressuring
Armenia’.

Migranian did not rule out that the Azeri government will be ‘tempted
to make a decision to fight back’. “When they build up certain military
potential, they may resort to fighting back”, he said.

ARMENIAN BUDGET DEFICIT AT 0.2% OF GDP IN 7 MTHS

Interfax, Russia
Aug 31 2005

YEREVAN. Aug 31 (Interfax) – The Armenian budget deficit stood at
1.426 billion dram, or 0.2% of GDP, in January-July 2005, the National
Statistics Service told Interfax.

Revenue and official budget transfers were 191.32 billion dram,
or 20.9% of GDP, in the seven months, up 24.5% year-on-year.

The Armenian budget deficit is expected to be 47.5 billion dram, or
2.3% of GDP, in 2005. Revenue is expected to be 327.92 billion dram,
or 16.2% of GDP, and expenditures will be 375.4 billion dram, or 18.5%
of GDP.

The official exchange rate on August 31 was 471.28 dram/$1.

Rice urges Armenian, Azerbaijani leaders to settle Nagorno-Karabakh
problem at summit

.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is urging the
leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to settle their lingering
disagreements over the Nagorno-Karabakh region at a summit conference
in Russia.

Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Robert Kocharian of Armenia
are meeting Saturday in the Russian Volga city of Kazan at a summit
conference of the Commonwealth of Independent States, 12 former
republics of the Soviet Union.

Rice telephoned Aliyev and Kocharian on Thursday to “stress to them
the importance that the United States attaches” to their meeting, the
State Department said.

The office of the department spokesman said in a written statement
that Rice expressed the hope to the two presidents that they “will
make the compromises necessary in order to reach a settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.” The statement said the two were upbeat
about prospects for progress.

A cease-fire has kept the fragile peace in the enclave since 1994, but
Nagorno-Karabakh’s status remains unresolved.

Fighting began after the legislature of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave
within Azerbaijan dominated by ethnic Armenians, demanded in 1988 to
be incorporated into Armenia. Both were Soviet republics at the
time. Thousands died and a million were displaced after full-scale
military offensives broke out in 1991, the year the Soviet Union
dissolved.

The State Department said Rice also stressed to Aliyev the importance
of free and fair parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan this November
and told Kocharian she hoped Armenia would work to enact
constitutional changes now before the parliament.

08/25/05 20:44 EDT

Newsweek
Aug 21 2005

My Secret Istanbul

Turkey’s best-known novelist recalls a childhood in the city that has
become his soul, rich in mystery.

By Orhan Pamuk
Newsweek International

Aug. 29, 2005 issue – I was born in Istanbul. Except for the three
years I spent in New York City, I’ve lived nowhere else. At the age
of 53, I am living again in the Pamuk Apartments, which my
grandparents built for our large extended family when I was an
infant. On summer evenings, when I stand at my window and peer
through the swaying branches of the old plane trees lining Tesvikiye
Avenue, I can just see the lights of Aladdin’s, the shop where my
father bought his cigarettes and newspapers, and where I would go for
chocolate, bubble gum, water pistols, plastic watches and the latest
issue of Tom Mix comics.

When I was a boy, Istanbul was a tired provincial city with a
population of a million; half a century later it is a metropolis 10
times that size, ringed with strange and distant neighborhoods I’ve
never seen, and whose names I know only from the papers. When I stand
at my window, it’s hard to accept that these alien outlying villages
are really part of my city. Not even in my dreams did I ever expect
the streets of my childhood to be as crowded as they are today. But
when you are as tied to a city as I am to Istanbul, you come to
accept its fate as your own; you come to see it almost as an
extension of your own body, your very soul. So when I see Istanbul
streets and shops and squares changing before my eyes (and over the
past few decades, I’ve seen all the most important cinemas,
bookstores and toy shops of my childhood close their doors), I react
in just the same way as I see my own body growing older. After the
first shock and dismay, I resign myself to my new shape.

Can a city have a soul? If it can, what is its soul made of? Does a
city’s soul come from its size, its culture and its history, or does
it rise out of the image its streets and buildings imprint on our
minds? Or does a city’s soul depend on how crowded it is or how
empty, how misty or how hot? Is it the river flowing through it, or
(as in the case of Istanbul) the sea that divides it in two? Where is
it that we feel this soul most keenly? Is it when we see it from the
top of a high hill, or when we’re walking through an underground
passage, our ears ringing with the din of the city and our nostrils
stinging with its damp and dirty air? Perhaps it’s when we’re all in
bed, listening to the city settle into sleep like a tired old animal,
and we hear a foghorn sounding on the Bosporus. In my view, a city’s
soul changes as the city itself changes. Today’s new and affluent
Istanbul is no longer the melancholy city I knew as a child.

But even now, it speaks to me of loneliness. On summer evenings, the
city’s soul resides in the old buses struggling through clouds of
dust, smoke and exhaust, taking their tired and perspiring passengers
home; it resides in the cloud of smog that hangs over the city as it
goes from orange to purple with the setting sun, and in the blue
light that bursts out from a million windows when the city turns on
its television sets at almost the same moment (and at just the same
moment women all over the city are frying eggplant for the evening
meal). At noon on cold, calm autumn days, when the city is humming
with activity, the city’s soul resides in the lonely man busily
fishing as his little old boat rocks in the wake of the ferries and
the great cargo ships passing up and down the Bosporus.

Everyone in Istanbul is an outsider, and so everyone is alone. When
the Turks arrived in 1453-or, rather, the Ottomans, for there were
Christians in their Army-they found a city waiting for them. And so
they were, by definition, newcomers. Those the Ottomans brought to
this city during their 500-year reign came from vastly different
countries and cultures; so they, too, were foreigners. When a city
goes from a population of a million to 10 million in the space of 50
years, then nine tenths of its inhabitants must also count as
foreigners. This is why, whenever I strike up a conversation with
someone on the street, or on a bus, or in one of the shared taxis
known as a dolmu, the first question they ask, after we have
complained about the weather, is where I’m from. If I admit somewhat
shamefacedly that I’m from Istanbul, they ask, somewhat suspiciously,
about my father’s father and my mother’s relatives.

Istanbul’s great secret is that even those of us who live here do not
really understand it, and we do not understand it because it defies
classification. To wander through our crowded streets is to sense the
many layers of history beneath our feet, but even as we are reminded
of the many great civilizations that came before us, we remember,
too, that we don’t own them. That is what gives the city its foreign
air.

I would go so far as to say that its soul resides in its very refusal
to be categorized or rationally understood. This, indeed, is what I
take from the popular historian Resat Ekrem Kocu’s strange and heroic
enterprise, the Istanbul Encyclopedia, which he began during the ’50s
but never took beyond the letter H: far from putting the city into a
clear order, this hardworking writer added to the confusion by
writing at length about his secret passions and the bizarreries of
Istanbul, to which he added fond accounts of his favorite drinking
companions.

Since childhood, the city’s older stores have seemed to me to be the
most eloquent expressions of its inspired disorder. When I’m standing
in a parfumerie-call it a pharmacy, if you will-and looking around me
at the array of colored bottles and boxes and jars, it seems to me
that the city’s soul comes not just from its history but from the sum
total of all the passions and dreams of all those who have ever lived
here. Like the Beyoglu shops I visited with my mother when I was a
child-Turkish on the surface, but Greek and Armenian underneath-they
remind me how many older cultures feed into our own, and how
unknowably rich their influence has been. In Istanbul, every object
carries its own secret history.

Pamuk’s most recent novel is “Snow.” He is also the author of
“Istanbul: Memories and the City.”

AZG Armenian Daily #147, 20/08/2005

Diaspora

HAMSHEN ARMENIANS TO CELEBRATE DAY OF ARMENIAN CULTURE

The Hamshen Armenians will mark “And the Zurna of Hamshen Will Blow
Again” celebration of the Armenian culture on August 27-28 in Tuapse
region of Krasnodar province, Russia. The celebration is dedicated
to the 1600 anniversary of the Armenian alphabet, Yerkramas newspaper
reports.

The “Hamshen” Armenian cultural organization of Tuapse will held
workshops and concerts with the participation of best Armenian national
ensembles of Kuban. The celebration of culture will open in the village
of Shahumian, which was an Armenian administrative center till 1956.

By Ruzan Poghosian

Le Cilicia ambassade flottante d’Armenie

Le Télégramme , France
16 août 2005

Depuis quelques jours, les visiteurs se succèdent au quai nord du
cinquième bassin : yachts de grand luxe ou voiliers races.

Lance en 2002 sur le lac Sevan, près d’Erevan, le Cilicia a ete
construit en chene et en pin, selon les methodes traditionnelles
retrouvees dans des manuscrits de l’epoque. Instruments de navigation,
accessoires et materiaux sont identiques a ceux utilises par les
navigateurs medievaux.

Long de 20 m pour 5 de large et d’un deplacement de 50 tonnes, le
Cilicia ne sera jamais un coursier des mers. Il peut atteindre une
vitesse de quatre noeuds, soit environ 7,5 km/heure. Mais ce n’est
pas le but recherche par Karen Balayan, son commandant, et ses 15
membres d’equipage.

Un long periple

Issus d’horizons divers (medecin, physicien, musicien ou encore
ecrivain, comme Zori Balayan), les matelots ont entrepris de demontrer
le rôle joue par les voyageurs et les marchands de l’epoque dans les
relations qui s’etablissaient entre des cultures et des civilisations
separees par les mers. Le navire est donc le symbole d’un moyen
d’unification. D’où le thème de ce periple : ” Navigation des sept mers
“.

Il en a deja parcouru un certain nombre puisque, parti de la mer
Noire, il a traverse la mer de Marmara, puis l’Egee et l’Adriatique,
pour parvenir a Venise où il a passe l’hiver dernier. Plus recemment,
il a vogue en Mediterranee et en Atlantique. Arrivant de La Corogne,
il passera deux jours a Brest, avant de rallier Portsmouth.

Tout au long de ce voyage, l’equipage du Cilicia, qui a deja fait
escale dans 23 ports de douze pays europeens et asiatiques, organise
des rencontres avec les autorites locales et les diverses communautes
pour des echanges culturels. Leur souhait : etablir des liens entre
les pays de tradition maritime où cultures et religions se sont
imbriquees et se sont enrichies mutuellement.

L’association Ayas, initiatrice du projet, a le soutien de particuliers
ou d’organisations, comme la fondation Gulbenkian ou le gouvernement
armenien. Ce soutien ne se limite pas a l’aspect financier puisque les
ambassades, dans les pays visites, sont egalement mises a contribution.

Visites de compatriotes

Lors de sa visite a Brest, le Cilicia a recu la visite de Souren
Pogossian, president d’une association representant une quarantaine
de familles de la diaspora armenienne etablies en Bretagne. Une
association symboliquement baptisee ” Menez-Ararat ” pour bien marquer
la double culture, bretonne et armenienne, dans laquelle baignent
maintenant ses adherents.

GRAPHIQUE: Photo, Legende: Souren Pogossian (a gauche), de
l’association ” Menez-Ararat “, a rendu visite a l’equipage du
Cilicia. Il a rencontre Zori Balayan, ecrivain (au centre) et Karen
Balayan, le commandant.

–Boundary_(ID_0yAscr34sTLPH07XDdkzBg)–

Azeri court releases would-be Karabakh guerrilla

Yeni Musavat, Baku
16 Aug 05

Text of unattributed report by Azerbaijani newspaper Yeni Musavat
on 16 August headlined “One more ‘Karabakh guerrilla released” and
subheaded “The cases of 12 people will be reconsidered on 30 August”

One more “Karabakh guerrilla”, Ilqar Ibrahimov, has been released
from jail under a Supreme Court ruling, the chairman of the Karabakh
Liberation Organisation (KLO), Akif Nagi, has told APA.

Nagi said eight of the jailed 21 “Karabakh guerrillas” have already
been released. But the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling
on [one of the would be guerrillas] Adalat Aga. He will serve his
imprisonment term until the end, Nagi said.

The Supreme Court is going to consider the cases of the remaining 12
prisoners on 30 August.

Armenians from Armenia and Karabakh receive awards in Hollywood contest

16.08.2005 13:58

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – Performers representing the Republic of Armenia and
Nagorno Karabakh Republic and currently residing in other countries
won medals in the 9th World Contest of Performing Arts wrapped up in
Hollywood, California.

As reported by Armenpress, violinist Ani Upujian and pianist Gayane
Melikian, who represented Armenia, won 3 and 4 medals respectively.
American Armenian and Canadian Armenian performers, in turn, won
awards for Karabakh.

World acclaimed tenor Vahan Mirakian, currently residing in Austria,
was a member of the jury.

Ecumenical Delegation to Visit Armenia to Bond East-West Church Relations

Christian Today, UK
Aug 16 2005

A five-member ecumenical delegation is set to visit Armenia from Aug.
24 to Sep. 1, 2005. The Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada,
Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, will take part in this visit.

Posted: Tuesday, August 16 , 2005, 12:27 (UK)

The Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Andrew
Hutchison, will take part in this visit which has been organised by
the Canadian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church.

(anglican.ca) A five-member ecumenical delegation is set to visit
Armenia from Aug.

24 to Sep. 1, 2005. The Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada,
Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, will take part in this visit which has
been organised by the Canadian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic
Orthodox Church. This comes in response to an invitation by His
Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians,
to visit the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

It will be recorded as the first ever visit to Armenia by a delegation
from Canada. The delegation, Led by the Primate of the Canadian Diocese
of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church, Bishop Bagrat Galstanian,
will discuss the role and mission of Christian churches in the future
and cooperation between the churches in the East and West.

Other members of the delegation are include Archbishop Sotirios,
Metropolitan of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Canada, Archbishop
Brendan O’Brien, President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic
Bishops and Professor Richard Schneider, President of the Canadian
Council of Churches.

The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin is located near Yerevan, the
capital city of the Republic of Armenia. The Mother see is the
pre-eminent centre of authority in the worldwide Armenian Apostolic
Orthodox Church.

The Armenian Orthodox Church is a member of the Orthodox family of
churches which includes Coptic, Syrian, Armenian, Ethiopian, Eritrean
and the (Indian) Malankara. The Anglicans and the Oriental family
are currently in the midst of theological dialogue, which follows
an agreed statement on Christology in November 2002 reached by the
Anglican-Oriental Orthodox International Commission.

Recommendations of the Lambeth Conferences of 1988 and 1998 stemmed
formal dialogue between the Anglicans and the Eastern Orthodox
churches. Talks were also sparked by the decisions of the Oriental
Orthodox Churches that the Anglican-Orthodox dialogue be upgraded
from a forum, in 1985 to 1993, to a commission.

Relationships between the Anglican Church of Canada and the Canadian
Diocese of the Armenian Orthodox Church goes back 125 years, when the
Anglicans offered the liturgical space and hospitality in Anglican
churches to the Armenians during the absence of Armenian sanctuaries.

The relationship between the Armenian Orthodox Church and the Canadian
Anglicans has been strengthened to become recognised more through
the Scholarship of St. Basil the Great, which is administered by
the Anglican Foundation. The scholarship was established by retired
bishop of Diocese of Ontario, Bishop Henry Gordon Hill, with means to
facilitate exchange between members of the Anglican Church of Canada
and members of the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Assyrian Church
of the East.