Author: Vanyan Gary

US EXPLORES ALTERNATIVE AIRBASE AFTER ROW WITH TURKEY
Ian Bruce, Defence Correspondent

The Herald, UK
r.1759142.0.0.php
Oct 15 2007

The Pentagon is looking for emergency alternatives to its key Incirlik
airbase in Turkey in case a diplomatic row with Ankara cuts off 70%
of its airborne supplies to US forces in Iraq.

The possible loss of Turkish facilities follows US congressional
criticism over alleged "genocide" against Armenian civilians by
Ottoman Turkish forces during the First World War.

The dispute now threatens to turn into an international logistics and
intelligence-gathering crisis if Ankara decides to impose sanctions
over the use of its military facilities in retaliation.

advertisementThe Turkish authorities allow the US to use the giant
Incirlik base as a main supply hub for Iraq. Unmanned aerial drone
spy missions over Iraq and Iran are flown from there.

They also allow overflights of Turkish territory by US transport
aircraft, allowing them to reduce the risk of being shot down by
insurgents inside Iraq’s troubled northern provinces.

Pentagon officials confirmed yesterday that 70% of the military cargo
sent to Iraq goes via Incirlik or on routes over Turkey.

It could take months to increase operations in other logistical hubs,
including Jordan, Kuwait and at the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr in the
northern Persian Gulf, the officials added.

Turkey, a leading member of Nato because of its common border with
Russia, blocked US requests to allow part of its invasion force
for Iraq to use Turkish territory in 2003, forcing planners to make
last-minute changes to the plan to topple Saddam Hussein.

The Turkish government recalled its ambassador to Washington last
week in protest against American criticism.

More than one million Armenians died as the Ottoman empire collapsed
almost a century ago. The Turks claim that most died at the hands of
Kurdish raiders or from hunger and disease rather than from deliberate
attacks by Ottoman forces.

Banning the use of the Incirlik base and its wider airspace now
depends on whether US lawmakers approve a draft resolution condemning
the Armenian "genocide".

ELECTIONS TO BE HELD IN NAGORNO KARABAKH TOMORROW

Panorama.am
17:59 13/10/2007

On October 14, elections for the mayor and elders will be conducted
in Karabakh capital of Stepanakert. Today Stepanakert celebrates the
day of the town. It is the last festive event for the present Mayor
Edward Aghakebyan since he has not nominated his candidature.

Festivities have already launched in Stepanakert.

Expected are both official and cultural and sports events. There will
also be exhibition of pieces of art.

Vazgen Michaelyan, Ara Ghahramanyan and Albert Ghazaryan will compete
for the post of the mayor. The first is the relative of NKR President
Bako Sahakyan.

He is supported by "Free motherland" and Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (Dashnaksutiun).

Ara Ghahramanyan does not engage in campaign in essence, moreover,
he has announced that he nominated his candidature at the last moment
to ensure alternate choice. The campaign of the other candidate,
Albert Ghazaryan, is not attended by many.

PanARMENIAN.Net

First Genocide of 20th century befell not only
Armenian people but the whole humanity
12.10.2007 15:00 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `An attempt to call into question the right of
U.S. Congress to give an assessment to the events taken place in the
past and label them as `referring to history’ was made in the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs. The Armenian Genocide recognition is
represented as the issue of the Armenian-Turkish relations. However,
events which had grave consequences for two nations and states cannot
be defined as `merely historical,’ former RA Ambassador to Canada,
political scientist Ara Papian told a PanARMENAN.Net reporter.

According to international law, Genocide is a crime against humanity
and all are responsible for it, he said.

`It means that the first Genocide of the 20th century befell not only
the Armenian nation but the whole humanity. Consequently,
U.S. Congress has exercised its constitutional right and commitment to
give assessment to cases of human rights violation and call to account
those guilty. The House of Representatives should remember this when
discussing and voting. As to restitution, it’s not bound with
recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Armenia’s rights were infringed
long ago. Pursuing the policy of denial, Turkey wants cover up its
shameful act. But the criminal must not make use of the crime,’ Ara
Papian said.

ABHaber, Belgium
EU-Turkey News Network
Oct 13 2007

FIDH is unhappy about Hrant Dink case (original text)

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Press release
Turkey

Hrant Dink case : harassment against Agos continues

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) strongly
deplores the continued harassment faced by journalists debating the
question of the killings of hundreds of thousands by the Ottoman Army
in 1915-1917 of Armenians in Turkey. Yesterday, Hrant Dink’s son and
one of his colleague from the newspaper Agos were sentenced to a
suspended prison sentence for « insulting the Turkish identity »,
pursuant to Article 301 of the penal code.

FIDH recalls that one year ago Hrant Dink, a Turkish journalist of
Armenian origin, former leader of the movement for democratic reforms
in Turkey, who personified dialogue between Turks and Armenians, was
charged with making « disparaging comments about Turkish identity »
after he called the 1915-1917 killings a genocide. On 19 January
2007, Hrant Dink was assassinated on a public street in front of his
office in Istanbul by a teenager close to ultra nationalist
movements.

Arat Dink and Sarkis Seropyan, respectively editor in chief and
director of Agos – a bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper – were
sentenced on the ground that Agos published in their columns an
interview of Reuters in which Hrant Dink called the 1915-1917
killings a genocide. Hrant Dink had been prosecuted several times and
sentenced to six-month of prison on the basis of Article 301.

FIDH is deeply worried about this continued pattern of infringement
to freedom of expression and opinion which constitutes a flagrant
violation of international standards and, in particular the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which was
ratified by Turkey in September 2003. We are very concerned about the
frequent use of Article 301on the denigration of «Turkishness », the
Republic, and the foundation and institutions of the State, to
prosecute non-violent critical opinions. The majority of cases
recently brought against journalists, publishers and writers are
based on Art. 301.

Despite the assassination of Hrant Dink, the Turkish authorities
continue to consider that discussing the nature of the 1915-1917
killings is an insult to Turkish identity, and thus expose the lives
of those opening the debate.

FIDH requests the Turkish authorities to:

take the necessary measures to ensure the respect of freedom of
expression and opinion and, in particular, amend domestic legislation
in order to comply with its international and regional obligations;

put an end to prosecutions brought against individuals under Article
301 of the penal code; and abrogate this article;

ensure that the trial of perpetrators and masterminds in the
assassination of Hrant Dink is conducted in a fair and transparent
manner and examine thoroughly the responsibility of the Government
and authorities which failed to protect a citizen who lived under a
threat that was known to all.

Voice of America
Oct 11 2007

US House Speaker: Armenian Genocide Measure Will Go Forward

By Dan Robinson
Capitol Hill
11 October 2007

Robinson report – Download (mp3) 634k
Listen to Robinson report

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, says a
resolution approved by a House committee this week characterizing the
World War I-era killings of tens of thousands of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks as genocide will go to a vote in the House. VOA’s Dan Robinson
reports from Capitol Hill, President Bush wants the resolution
stopped, saying it will harm relations with Turkey and U.S. interests
in the region.

Nancy Pelosi, 11 Oct 2007
Speaking a day after the 27 to 21 vote in the foreign affairs
committee approving the resolution, Pelosi reaffirmed her
determination to see the measure come to a vote in the House.

Some 224 House lawmakers have signed on in support of the resolution,
which Pelosi and House majority leader Steny Hoyer say will be
brought up at some point before the House is due to end its current
session, likely next month.

Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference that
congressional resolutions on Armenian genocide have been put off,
with various justifications, over the past 20 years.

There is never a good time to acknowledge that genocide has taken
place, Pelosi adds, whether in the distant past or the present.

"While that may have been a long time ago, genocide is taking place
now in Darfur, it did within recent memory in Rwanda, so as long as
there is genocide there is need to speak out against it," said Nancy
Pelosi.

In the wake of the committee vote, Turkey temporarily recalled its
ambassador in Washington for consultations, a traditional method of
diplomatic protest.

Speaking in Washington, Egemen Bagis, a member of Turkey’s governing
Justice and Development Party and advisor to Turkey’s Prime Minister,
called the House committee vote a mistake and warned of consequences.

However, Congresswoman Pelosi hopes U.S.-Turkish relations will
remain strong:

"The U.S. and Turkey have a very strong relationship," she said. "It
is based on mutual interest and I with all the respect in the world
for the government of Turkey believe that our continued mutual
interest will have us grow that relationship. This isn’t about the
Erdogan government [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan], this is
about the [former] Ottoman Empire."

Pelosi dismissed suggestions of any connection between the House
resolution moving forward and Turkish government plans for a possible
military incursion into northern Iraq against Kurdish rebels.

Wednesday’s House committee vote highlighted the divisions across
party lines on the resolution, with eight Democrats voting against
and eight Republicans voting for the measure.

At the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino reiterated President
Bush’s hope that the resolution will go no farther in the House.

"The president has expressed on behalf of the American people our
horror at the tragedy of 1915, but at the same time we have national
security concerns, and many of our troops and supplies go through
Turkey," said Dana Perino. "They are a very important ally in the war
on terror, and we are going to continue to try work with them and we
hope that the House does not put forward a full vote."

In its reaction, the State Department expressed regret over the House
committee vote, saying it may do grave harm to U.S. – Turkish
relations and U.S. interest in Europe and the Middle East.

U.S. HOUSE COMMITTEE APPROVES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

ARMENPRESS
Oct 11 2007

WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS: With a vote of 27 to 21, the
influential panel of the U.S. House of Representatives took a major
step October 10 toward ending U.S. complicity in Turkey’s denial
of the Armenian Genocide, adopting H.Res.106, the Armenian Genocide
Resolution, despite an intense campaign of threats and intimidation by
the Turkish government and its lobbyists in Washington, DC, reported
the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

The Committee decision opens the way for full house consideration of
the measure.

"The Foreign Affairs Committee’s adoption today of the Armenian
Genocide Resolution represents a meaningful step toward reclaiming our
right – as Americans – to speak openly and honestly about the first
genocide of the 20th Century, free from the gag-rule that Turkey has,
for far too long, sought to impose on our nation’s elected officials,"
said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA.

"As Americans, we must always remain free to speak openly about
human rights and should never outsource our nation’s foreign policy –
or our morality – to another nation."

"We want to thank Chairman Lantos, who scheduled this measure for
consideration by the Foreign Affairs Committee and voted for its
passage, Adam Schiff and George Radanovich, the lead authors of this
legislation, Brad Sherman and Ed Royce, who spearheaded the panel’s
adoption of the legislation, Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs Frank Pallone
and Joe Knollenberg, who generated the broad-based bipartisan support
for H.Res.106 and Armenian American Congresswoman Anna Eshoo – all
of who have worked tirelessly as the resolution moves toward passage
by the full House of Representatives."

Introduced on January 30th by Rep. Adam Schiff along with
Representative George Radanovich (R-CA), Congressional Armenian
Caucus Co-Chairs Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Joe Knollenberg (R-MI),
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Rep. Thaddeus
McCotter (R-MI), the Armenian Genocide resolution calls upon the
President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States
reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues
related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented
in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide. The
resolution is cosponsored by 226 Members of Congress from 39 states.

A similar resolution in the Senate (S.Res.106), introduced by
Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. John Ensign
(R-NV) currently has 32 cosponsors, including Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid (D-NV) and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D-NY).

Over the past nine months, Armenian Americans and human rights
advocates have joined with Members of Congress in educating their
colleagues about the Armenian Genocide and the importance of proper
recognition of this crime against humanity. The ANCA has mounted
several national grassroots initiatives including the highly successful
"Click for Justice" and "Call for Justice" campaigns as well as the
"End the Cycle of Genocide" Advocacy Days, cosponsored with the
Genocide Intervention Network.

PROTEST AT US BILL BRANDING TURKISH PAST AS ‘GENOCIDAL’

Evening Echo, Ireland
Oct 11 2007

Turks took to the streets today in protest at an American decision
to continue with a bill which describes the 90-year-old mass killings
of Armenians as genocide.

Despite intense lobbying by Turkish officials and opposition by
President Bush, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the bill
by a 27-21 vote.

Mr Bush had warned that it could harm US-Turkish relations, which
are already tense with Turkey considering a military offensive into
Iraq against Kurdish rebels. The US fears that could destabilise one
of the few relatively peaceful areas in the country.

At the centre of the issue is a claim that up to 1.5 million Armenians
were killed in a systematic genocide between 1915-17, before modern
Turkey was born in 1923.

Turkey says the killings occurred at a time of civil unrest as the
Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and that the numbers are inflated.

"Unfortunately, some politicians in the US have once again sacrificed
important matters to petty domestic politics despite all calls to
common sense," Turkey’s President Gul said after the US vote.

Mr Bush had urged Congress to reject the legislation, and Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates also
expressed concern.

Passing the measure "at this time would be very problematic for
everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Ms Rice said
hours before the vote.

The US Embassy in Ankara meanwhile urged Americans to be alert for
possible violence after the vote.

US Ambassador Ross Wilson said he regretted the committee’s decision,
and said he hoped it would not be passed by the House.

Robert Fisk: A reign of terror which history has chosen to neglect

The Independent
Published: 12 October 2007

The story of the last century’s first Holocaust – Winston Churchill
used this very word about the Armenian genocide years before the Nazi
murder of six million Jews – is well known, despite the refusal of
modern-day Turkey to acknowledge the facts. Nor are the parallels with
Nazi Germany’s persecution of the Jews idle ones.

Turkey’s reign of terror against the Armenian people was an attempt to
destroy the Armenian race. While the Turks spoke publicly of the need
to "resettle" their Armenian population – as the Germans were to speak
later of the Jews of Europe – the true intentions of Enver Pasha’s
Committee of Union and Progress in Constantinople were quite clear.

On 15 September 1915, for example (and a carbon of this document
exists), Talaat Pasha, the Turkish Interior minister, cabled an
instruction to his prefect in Aleppo about what he should do with the
tens of thousands of Armenians in his city. "You have already been
informed that the government… has decided to destroy completely all
the indicated persons living in Turkey… Their existence must be
terminated, however tragic the measures taken may be, and no regard
must be paid to either age or sex, or to any scruples of conscience."

These words are almost identical to those used by Himmler to his SS
killers in 1941.

Taner Akcam, a prominent – and extremely brave – Turkish scholar who
has visited the Yerevan museum, has used original Ottoman Turkish
documents to authenticate the act of genocide. Now under fierce attack
for doing so from his own government, he discovered in Turkish
archives that individual Turkish officers often wrote "doubles" of
their mass death-sentence orders, telegrams sent at precisely the same
time that asked their subordinates to ensure there was sufficient
protection and food for the Armenians during their "resettlement".
This weirdly parallels the bureaucracy of Nazi Germany, where
officials were dispatching hundreds of thousands of Jews to the gas
chambers while assuring International Red Cross officials in Geneva
that they were being well cared for and well fed.

Ottoman Turkey’s attempt to exterminate an entire Christian race in
the Middle East – the Armenians, descended from the residents of
ancient Urartu, became the first Christian nation when their king
Drtad converted from paganism in AD301 – is a history of almost
unrelieved horror at the hands of Turkish policemen and soldiers, and
Kurdish tribesmen.

In 1915, Turkey claimed that its Armenian population was supporting
Turkey’s Christian enemies in Britain, France and Russia. Several
historians – including Churchill, who was responsible for the doomed
venture at Gallipoli – have asked whether the Turkish victory there
did not give them the excuse to turn against the Christian Armenians
of Asia Minor, a people of mixed Persian, Roman and Byzantine blood,
with what Churchill called "merciless fury".

Armenian scholars have compiled a map of their people’s persecution
and deportation, a document that is as detailed as the maps of Europe
that show the railway lines to Auschwitz and Treblinka; the Armenians
of Erzerum, for example, were sent on their death march to Terjan and
then to Erzinjan and on to Sivas province.

The men would be executed by firing squad or hacked to death with axes
outside villages, the women and children then driven on into the
desert to die of thirst or disease or exhaustion or gang-rape. In one
mass grave I myself discovered on a hillside at Hurgada in present-day
Syria, there were thousands of skeletons, mostly of young people –
their teeth were perfect. I even found a 100-year-old Armenian woman
who had escaped the slaughter there and identified the hillside for
me.

There is debate in Yerevan today as to why the diaspora Armenians
appear to care more about the genocide than the citizens of modern-day
Armenia. Indeed, the Foreign minister of Armenia, Vardan Oskanian,
actually told me that "days, weeks, even months go by" when he does
not think of the genocide. One powerful argument put to me by an
Armenian friend is that 70 years of Stalinism and official Soviet
silence on the genocide deleted the historical memory in eastern
Armenia – the present-day state of Armenia.

Another argument suggests that the survivors of western Armenia – in
what is now Turkey – lost their families and lands and still seek
acknowledgement and maybe even restitution, while eastern Armenians
did not lose their lands.

Source: ece

TURKEY RECALLS ITS US AMBASSADOR OVER ARMENIA GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

Voice of America
Oct 11 2007

Turkey has recalled its ambassador in Washington for consultations
after a U.S. congressional panel passed a resolution describing the
early 20th century massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.

The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee passed
the non-binding resolution Wednesday in a vote of 27-21. It now goes
to the 435-member House for a full vote.

President Abdullah Gul, 26 Sep 2007 Turkey denounced the resolution,
saying in a statement that it is unacceptable that the Turkish nation
has been accused of a crime that it never committed. Turkish President
Abdullah Gul accused the lawmakers who voted in favor of the measure
of ignoring common sense in favor of petty politics.

The White House says U.S. President George Bush is disappointed about
the vote.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said Turkey is playing a critical
role in the war on terror, and the action is problematic for everything
the U.S. is trying to do in the Middle East. He said it will "cause
grave harm" to those efforts.

Armenian President Robert Kocharian welcomed the resolution, saying
he hopes it will lead to full recognition by the U.S. of the genocide.

The White House called on lawmakers to focus on domestic agenda items
instead of debating the Ottoman Empire.

Armenians accuse the Ottoman Turks of killing 1.5 million Armenians
from 1915 to 1923 in systematic deportations and killings to drive
them out of eastern Turkey.

Turkey rejects that a genocide occurred. It calls the death toll
exaggerated, and says a large number of people died in civil unrest
during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT TO BE DISCUSSED IN BRUSSELS

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 10 2007

Kazakhstan, Astana Baku / Trend corr. K. Konirova / The European
Union is doing its best in formulating a decision that will have
longevity regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Javier Solana,
the EU’s High Commissioner on foreign policy and security, said in
Astana on 10 October.

According to Solano, there is a method for settling the conflict.

There are good relations between Azerbaijan and the EU, which
is further bolstered by Azerbaijan’s inclusion into the EU’s New
Neighborhood Policy, Solano said.

Solano intends to meet with representatives of the Azerbaijani Foreign
Ministry in Brussels. Solano is also planning to meet with the Armenian
President, Robert Kocharian.