Author: Torgomian Varazdat

Pan Armenian News
US WILL NOT ACKNOWLEDGE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE THIS YEAR EITHER, US CONGRESSMEN
SUPPOSES
24.04.2005 05:30
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `Today Turkey is a strategic partner of the U.S., however,
when official Washington establishes relations with other Muslim countries,
such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the relations with Turkey will become
unimportant,’ stated US Congressman George Radanovich. In his words, just at
that time the US will acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. `I see that
prospect. Not this year, however sooner or later that prospect will become
real,’ he noted.

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: YEREVAN, ANKARA STILL LOCKED IN DISPUTE
ANSA English Media Service
April 22, 2005
MOSCOW
(ANSA) – MOSCOW, April 22 – Relations between Turkey and
Armenia are still strained even 90 years after the so-called
Armenian genocide in which some 1.5 people were killed between
1915 and 1923 by Ottoman Turks, showing that the old wounds are
still open.
Recently Turkey proposed a new effort to shed light on the
tragic events of 1915 by setting up a joint commission to study
the claims of genocide. The categorical stance of Armenia, as
always backed by Russia, was expressed by Prime Minister
Andranik Margaryan and Defence Minister Serzh Sarksyan.
“We have nothing to prove. Genocide did take place. It is an
indisputable fact,” said Margaryan.
“Turkey has to absolutely recognise the genocide and repent,”
Sarksyan said echoing the premier’s words.
At the opening of an international conference on the history
of the massacre on Thursday Armenian President Robert Kocharyan
underlined the importance of Turkey’s recognition of the
genocide for improving Turkish-Armenian relations adding that
this would allow the two countries to finally start looking
ahead.
So far the two countries have failed to give an inch as
regards their stance on the 1915-1923 massacres, seen as the
first large-scale genocide of the 20th century. The two
neighbouring countries even have no diplomatic relations today
because of the terrible events which happened at a time when
Armenia was part of the Ottoman Empire.
The border between the neighbours is closed as it was during the
time of the USSR.
Harbouring an undying animosity towards Turkey, Armenians are
gearing up to remember the 90th anniversary of the massacre on
24 April and in the capital Yerevan tens of thousands of people
will gather at the memorial complex at Tsitsernakaberd (Fortress
of Swallows) to honour the memory of the victims. On the day of
commemoration all shops will be closed and prayers will be held
in the local cathedrals.
The government in Yerevan, at the helm of a country of about
three million people living in poverty and making ends meet
mainly thanks to remittances of emigrants, has allocated three
million dollars for the commemoration cedremonies promoting a
series of round tables and symposia on the occasion in a bid to
keep the memory alive.
Prime Minister Margaryan defined Turkey’s idea of setting up
a joint commission as “senseless” as people in Armenia knew
about the genocide not from a textbook but from personal
experience, from their parents and grandparents. The genocide is
part of everyone’s life, no family has been spared from losing
close relatives and people during the events ninety years ago
when the Ottoman empire undertook the systematic extermination
of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915, he said.
Regardless of the stalemate on Turkey’s initiative, the
premier said he was ready to discuss with Ankara a possible
renewal of diplomatic ties and an eventual opening of the border.
Margaryan did not venture any guesses as to whether Turkey
could recognise the genocide in the next 50 years but he seemed
optimistic enough saying Turkey should change its stance at once
under the moutning pressure of global public opinion and the
process of Turkey’s European Union accession.
The prime minister concluded saying Armenia should boost its
efforts in a bid to convince more countries to officially
recognise the Armenian genocide in addition to the current
sixteen, among which Russia, France, Canada and Switzerland.
(ANSA) krc

ACTION OF GRATITUDE
A1plus
| 16:20:08 | 22-04-2005 | Social |
Today the members of the party «New Times» organized a special
action in connection with the 90th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide. Visiting all the foreign Embassies to Armenia they thanked
those countries which have recognized the Armenian Genocide.
According to Vardan Gevorgyan, member of the party «New Times»,
one of the aims of the action is to contribute to the recognition of
the Genocide by those countries which have not yet done it. According
to him, the Armenian authorities take measures in connection with
the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but the process is still
very quiet.
Mr. Gevorgyan is sure that much time will be needed for the issue of
the Armenian Genocide to be solved from the material point of view,
«The issue is developing by phases and maybe the coming generations
will confidently speak about material compensation».
–Boundary_(ID_ncyCZ4i4qYlRA24/kw+E2A)–

Statehouse ceremony today to mark anniversary of Armenian genocide
Providence Eyewitness News, RI
April 22 2005
PROVIDENCE, R.I. Ceremonies are in store at the Rhode Island Statehouse
today to mark the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.
The Rhode Island Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide begins
with a memorial service at 7 pm at Saints Vartanantz Apostolic
Church in Providence. Participants then will march to the Statehouse,
followed by a ceremony in the governor’s Stateroom.
About one-point-five million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman
Turks between 1915 and 1923.

Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR], Arkadiy Gukasyan links Karabakh’s security to status
Mediamax news agency
21 Apr 05
Yerevan, 21 April: Nagornyy Karabakh’s security “directly and primarily
depends on its status”, the president of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic
[NKR], Arkadiy Gukasyan, said in Yerevan today.
Gukasyan said that the problem could not be resolved without the
involvement of the Karabakh side and “if Azerbaijan is against this, it
means that the authorities of this country are in fact not interested
in the settlement of the conflict”.

POLAND RECOGNIZES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN OTTOMAN TURKEY
YEREVAN, APRIL 19. ARMINFO. The parliament of Poland recognized
the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey at the beginning of the
20th century.
As Public Television of Armenia informs, in the statement of the Polish
parliament the authors say that the parliament pays homage of memory
to victims of Armenian Genocide taken place in Ottoman Turkey during
the World War I. Besides, the homage of memory to the victims of this
crime and its condemnation is the duty of all humanity, all the states
and the peoples of good will. Armenia’s Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary to Poland Ashot Hovakimian informed that the Polish
parliamentarian adopted this statement unanimously.

Changing history part II
By Mehmet Basoglu
Published: 4/20/2005
Daily Targum , Rutgers College, NJ
April 20 2005
The Rutgers University Armenian Club hung up its genocide commemoration
banner Thursday in front of Brower Commons on the College Avenue
campus. The club organized its annual commemoration Saturday afternoon,
which marked the upcoming 90th anniversary of Armenian rebel arrests
by the Ottoman government. These activities coincide with the Armenian
Diaspora’s efforts to push their commonly accepted allegations to a
global scale as The Republic of Turkey moves into its accession phase
with the European Union.
Historians and scholars who have explored this issue have been bullied
by the Armenian Diaspora into either keeping silent on the matter or
accepting the Armenian version of events. The most radical example of
this trend took place on October 4, 1977 when UCLA history Professor
Stanford Shaw’s house was bombed by extremists after he refused to
accept the Armenian community’s accounts of World War 1.
Most notably, Princeton University Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern
studies Bernard Lewis, who has advised the U.S. State Department in
the past on issues concerning the Middle East, was sued by Armenian
civic organizations in France after expressing his views during an
interview with French newspaper Le Monde on November 16, 1993.
Lewis stated, “There was an Armenian problem for the Turks created
by the advance of the Russians … there was a population with an
anti-Turkish sentiment in the Ottoman Empire who sought independence
.. overtly sympathized with the Russians advancing from the Caucasus.
.. and the Turks had trouble to maintain order under the prevailing.
war conditions. For the Turks it was necessary to take the punitive and
preventive measure against a hostile population in a region threatened
by foreign invasion … No one has any doubt that terrible events took
place; the Armenians, as well as the Turks suffered and perished in
equal measure.”
It is hard to overlook the historical data that refutes Armenian
claims.
At the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire was effectually
controlled by the Allied Powers. British, French, Italian and Greek
forces occupied present-day Turkey and the remains of the Ottoman
Empire, including present day Iraq. During this period, Allied Forces
rounded up 144 Ottoman officials and conducted war crimes tribunals
on the island of Malta. Like the Nuremberg trials that followed World
War II, the Malta tribunals tried leaders of enemy forces based on
research findings. After three years of investigation, all of the
Ottoman officers tried by their enemy counterparts were released due
to a lack of evidence.
This is especially striking given the deep-rooted cultural mistrust of
the Muslim empire by European leaders. European states had been waiting
for the downfall of the Ottoman Empire for centuries while eyeing its
land as potential colonial possessions during World War I. The late
scholar Edward Said pointed at this widespread European attitude in
his scholarly work “Orientalism” when he noted, “Until the end of the
seventeenth century the ‘Ottoman peril'” lurked alongside Europe to
represent for the whole of Christian civilization a constant danger,
and in time European civilization incorporated that peril and its
lore, its great events, figures, virtues, and vices, as something
woven into the fabric of life.”
Despite these cultural biases, Allied Forces justly tried Ottoman
officials and gave authority to the rule of law.
According to Armenian-American newspaper Asbarez, the Turkish
government has opened its state archives and called upon Armenian and
Turkish historians to work together. The Armenian government openly
rejected this call, claiming that the work of historians is done on
this issue.
The Armenian Diaspora’s unwillingness to cooperate with Turkish
entities on this matter is a result of the organizations that lead
the community. The Dashnaksutiun Party (also known as the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation) was founded in 1890. In the Armenian
Revolutionary Movement, Armenian researcher Louise Nalbandian
chronicles the mission of the Dashnak Party established in a general
congress in 1892. According to Nalbandian, the congress declared aims,
which included, “To organize fighting bands … To use every means to
arm the people … To stimulate fighting and to terrorize government
officials, informers, traitors, usurers and every kind of exploiter
… To expose government establishments to looting and destruction.”
The Dashnaks, along with the Marxist leaning Hunchak Party, fought
against the Ottoman state well before World War I. Ottoman Muslim
communities in Eastern Anatolia comprised mostly of Turks, Kurds and
Circassians saw the brunt of Armenian terrorist activity in the late
19th and early 20th century. Turkish state archives document 523,955
civilian casualties committed by Dashnak and Hunchak separatists’
violent acts during this period, including a 1920 assault on Nakhchivan
(present-day Azerbaijan) that resulted in 64,408 deaths.
Turkish and Kurdish bandits savagely retaliated in many instances to
the attacks on their communities, in many cases killing thousands of
innocent civilians. On April 24, 1915, Ottoman authorities issued
arrests on the leaders and organizers of the Armenian revolts,
who they held responsible for intercommunal warfare between Muslims
and Armenians in Eastern Anatolia. It was still very difficult to
distinguish between normal Armenian civilians and terrorist elements,
so the Ottoman government relocated Armenian civilians in Eastern
Anatolia to the Western parts of the empire. Warfare between Dashnak
separatists and the Ottomans continued to rage well past the end of
World War I, until 1922, one year before the foundation of the modern
Turkish republic.
The very same organizations that orchestrated these acts form the
foundations of the Diaspora. The Armenian National Committee of
America, which is the second richest ethnic lobby in America after
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was founded by and is
still controlled by Dashnak Party leaders, as is Armenian-American
news outlet Asbarez.
According to most sources, 1.5 million Armenians resided in Eastern
Anatolia before the conflicts. Turkish sources claim about 300,000
Armenians perished during this time period while Armenians claim
genocide with numbers that would equal the complete decimation of the
Ottoman Armenian population. Armenian claims don’t fit the statistics,
since over 1 million Armenian Americans reside in the United States
today with another million in Europe and Canada combined, as well
as 6 percent of Lebanon, all descending from the Eastern Anatolian
Armenian refugee population.
The affluence of the Armenian community has created the strain in
this debate. Groups like ANCA pump millions of dollars around the
world into anti-Turkish lobbying in order to fulfill a revolutionary
national destiny.
The wealth and prosperity of the Armenian community can be attributed
to their merchant class status in the Ottoman Empire. One example of
this is the continuing success of the Zildjian drum and percussion
company. According to a December article in the Economist, Zildjian
is the oldest running corporation in America. It was founded in 1623
in Istanbul and moved its headquarters to Massachusetts in 1929.
Armenians and Turks co-existed in peace for nearly one thousand
years until ethnic nationalism emerged as an ideology in the crumbling
Ottoman Empire of the late 19th century. Today, generations of Armenian
Americans are raised to believe in an alleged genocide, which is based
on the slanted accounts of the British Blue Book that functioned as
war-time propaganda. True progress will never be made on this issue
until the Armenian Diaspora examines the roots of their own identity.
Mehmet Basoglu is a Rutgers College senior majoring in political
science, Middle Eastern studies and journalism. His column,
“Westernized Easterner,” appears on alternate Wednesdays. He welcomes
comments at [email protected].

Genocide in the eyes of children
By Tamar Gasparian
Yerkir/arm
April 15, 2005
Arshil Gorky Foundation, chaired by Badal Badalian, recently organized
an exhibition dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide and Arshil Gorky’s 101th birthday. Paintings, decorative
and applied arts samples by dozens of young artists were on display
at the Artists’ Union building in Yerevan.
The participants were from Armenia, United States and Lebanon. What
made the exhibition unique was that along with the works presented by
the young artists of the Hovard Karagiozian Foundation and students
of the Abovian Arts School, works by the young inmates of the Abovian
Correctional Facility were also presented.
Another thing that made this exhibition unique was that it featured a
stone on which young Arshil Gorky (Vostanik Adoyan) had ascribe carved
a cross; Badal Badalian brought it back from the great artist’s native
village of Khorgom in the Western Armenia last year.

Pan Armenian News
ARTUR BAGHDASARIAN INVITED PACE PRESIDENT TO VISIT ARMENIA
16.04.2005 04:50
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia intends to complete all legislative reforms before
the end of the year, Armenian Parliament Chairman Artur Baghdasarian stated
at a meeting with PACE President Rene van der Linden in Saint Petersburg,
the Press Service of the Armenian National Assembly reported. In his words,
today constitutional and electoral reforms are held in Armenia, specifically
referring to human rights, local self-government, as well as the judicial
and executive power. In his turn, Rene van der Linden welcomed the reforms
in Armenia and noted that the process should continue jointly with the
Venetian Commission and in compliance with European standards. In the course
of the meeting the parties also noted the importance of promotion of
interparliamentary ties between Armenia and the Netherlands. Thereupon Artur
Baghdasarian invited the PACE President to Armenia. Rene van der Linden
accepted the invitation.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Fuel smuggling continues in northern, eastern Iran – agency
Baztab web site, Tehran
12 Apr 05
The smuggling of fuel (under the name of solvents) has been spread
from the northern borders of the country to the southern borders,
Bazrab News Agency reports.
The report indicates that some organizations affiliated to a number of
influential people are smuggling a large quantity of fuel under the
name of gas-derivative solvents, to Armenia and other former Soviet
republics.
The fuel stored in metal barrels in cooperation with the Julfa
Standards Laboratory, is exported as chemical solvents.
As this route for smuggling became common knowledge, the smuggling of
fuel has shifted to the eastern borders of the country and a large
quantity of fuel has been sent to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The huge difference between the price of fuel in Iran and abroad has
led to smuggling of fuel with substantial illegal earnings.
The difference between a litre of gasoline, petrol and white spirit in
Iran and abroad is 2500 rials and for every barrel about 500,000 rials
and as a result of the officially-sanctioned smuggling 50 per cent of
the income is given to smugglers who enjoy special immunity.