Author: Vardapetian Ophelia

OPINION: EU AND TURKEY TAKE HISTORIC STEP

Deutsche Welle, Germany
Oct 4 2005

Turkey’s boat has finally come in

The EU’s wrangling over the negotiation framework with Turkey over
accession has finally reached a happy conclusion. DW’s Baha Gungor
heaves a big sigh of relief.

Monday was to have marked the official launch of landmark entry talks
with Turkey. But as the day approached, it seemed more and more
unlikely that the negotiations would go ahead as scheduled. Chief
among the trouble-makers was Austria, which insisted that talks with
Turkey could only begin if accession negotiations were also opened
with Croatia.

But then, contrary to all expectations, a last-ditch deal was reached
after two days of tense debate — salvaging, just in the nick of time,
the EU’s reputation as a sturdy super-structure able to take the heat.

Strategic decision

The long-awaited start of Turkey’s entry talks represents an historic
step for the EU, and a key reinforcement of its security interests in
a strategic region. While Turkey once guarded Europe’s south-eastern
border as a member of NATO during the Cold War era, it now occupies
a key position within the Middle East conflict belt.

The ultimate aim of the talks is, inevitably, Turkish accession,
but entry is by no means in the bag. It will be years before the
decision is taken whether or not to allow a politically, economically
and socially transformed Turkey to join the EU as a full member. For
the time being, piling on the pressure is counterproductive — all
it will do is fan the flames of anti-EU sentiment within this mainly
Muslim country.

And the Turkish population’s reservations about too hasty a move
towards the EU are just as understandable as Europe’s wariness of
Turkey. The country is well aware it still has many obstacles to
weather, and it will be years before its vast regional disparities
can start to narrow. It’s a problem Europe has experienced itself
— and nowhere more painfully than Germany, a country that has been
trying to breach the gap between east and west for the last 15 years,
and paying a heavy cost in the process.

EU compatibility

But Turkey will also have to prove it is EU-compatible when it comes
to democracy, human rights, the Armenian question and the Kurdish
conflict — which will include demonstrating belief in European values
in its approach to problem-solving.

Sorting out Cyprus is another challenge Turkey faces, and will be a
key test of its willingness to compromise.

Turkey will have to adopt 35 chapters of EU law, and that means every
single EU member state has 35 veto opportunities, since every chapter
has to be unanimously agreed.

Austria’s shenanigans over the last few days are more than likely to
be repeated by one country or another, sooner or later. The risk of
failure is acute given that every member state will have to ratify
Turkey’s entry agreement, some of which by referendum.

After its speedy intake of eight new eastern European countries last
year, which it’s still belly-aching about, the EU now has another
set of problems to deal with. At least it realized in time that it
wouldn’t have been fair to vent its frustration on Turkey.

Baha Gungor (jp)

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Turkey and EU Agree on Membership Talks The European Union clinched
an 11th-hour accord with Turkey Monday to clear the way for landmark
talks with the vast mainly Muslim state to go ahead, after marathon
talks overcame Austrian objections. (Oct. 3, 2005) Turkey Brings EU
to “Edge of Precipice” With Turkey raising new obstacles and Austria
holding out against an accord to clear the way for talks with Ankara,
the European Union teetered on the brink of crisis Monday, and Turkey’s
EU hopes hung in the balance. (Oct. 3, 2005) Turkey Challenges EU
to Be “World Player” Turkey’s prime minister challenged the European
Union on Sunday to be a “world player” rather than a “Christian club,”
as the bloc deliberated whether to open formal membership talks with
the largely Muslim country. (Oct. 2, 2005)

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PRESS RELEASE
UCLA AEF Chair in Armenian History
Contact: Prof. Richard Hovannisian
Tel: 310-825-3375
Email: [email protected]

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2005

2:00-5:30 P.M.

UCLA–COURT OF SCIENCES 50 (YOUNG HALL)

“THREE TURKISH VOICES ON THE OTTOMAN ARMENIANS”

FEATURING PROFESSORS:

TANER AKCAM, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
(a new assessment of Ottoman documents)

ELIF SHAFAK, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
(memory and literature)

F. MUGE GOCEK, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
(the recent Istanbul conference on Ottoman Armenians)

SPONSORED BY ARMENIAN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION CHAIR
IN MODERN ARMENIAN HISTORY, UCLA

CONTACT: Richard Hovannisian = [email protected]

Open to the Public at No Charge. Parking Structure #2,
Westholme Entrance at Hilgard Avenue, Daily Parking Fee, $8.00

Pan Armenian News

RA MOD SIGNED MEMORANDUM ON UTILIZATION OF PROPELLANT

30.09.2005 04:51

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today Secretary of the Security Council at the RA
President, Defense Minister Serge Sargsyan and Head of the OSCE Yerevan
Office, Ambassador Vladimir Pryakhin signed a memorandum on utilization of
rocket propellant, RA MOD Spokesman, Colonel Seyran Shahsuvaryan told
PanARMENIAN.Net reporter. The propellant will be processed in an
ecologically clean fertilizer.

‘Turkey must recognise genocide’

The Daily Telegraph, UK
(Filed: 28/09/2005)

Turkey has rejected demands by the European Parliament that it recognise the
killing of Armenians as genocide before it can join the EU.

Armenians say that up to 1.5 million of their people were slaughtered in
mass killings under the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

But the Turkish government insists that the killing of Armenians was not a
systematic genocide. They maintain that a smaller number of Armenians died,
and that they perished unintentionally because of exposure, famine and
disease.

The request has angered Ankara, and the Turkish prime minister immediately
rejected the resolution.
“That resolution is not binding. It does not matter whether they took such a
decision or not. We will continue on our way,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan told
private CNN-Turk television.

Turkey has also come under pressure to recognise the Greek-speaking Republic
of Cyprus, an EU member, in the run up to membership talks.

Other issues of contention are Ankara’s record on human rights, religious
freedom and its treatment of minorities.

The resolution requesting the recognition of the genocide came as the
European Parliament backed the opening of EU entry talks with Turkey, due to
start Monday Oct 3.

They are largely a formality, but the approval of talks is seen as a
positive step.

There are concerns within the EU about Turkey joining the bloc. French and
Dutch voters recently rejected a planned EU constitution, in part over
concerns about the country’s bid for membership.
The largely Muslim country has been trying to join the EU for years.

The issue of Cyprus caused the lawmakers to postpone a planned vote on
Turkey’s extended customs union with the EU. They want Turkey to open its
ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus.

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CONSTITUTION ADOPTED

A1+
| 13:09:48 | 28-09-2005 | Politics |

Today the Parliament continued the special session and adopted the
draft Constitution by the third hearing with a distribution of votes
90-for, 0-against, 0-undecided. After that Arthur Baghdasaryan put the
decision to apply to Robert Kocharyan to fix the day of the referendum
to voting.

In this connection Viktor Dallakyan announced that the NA
regulation-law 60th article 5th clause has been violated. According
to it, the draft was supposed to be distributed to the deputies an
hour before the voting.

“Nothing has been distributed to us”, he said, but the coalition
deputies claimed the vice versa. “You are violating the law”, announced
Viktor Dallakyan. In answer to this Arthur Baghdasaryan said, “Let
them think what they want, and now let’s vote”.

Let us remind you that yesterday the National Unity had announced that
they will boycott the session, the “Justice” bloc is not participating
in the voting at all. After the break the draft was adopted, and the
special session was over.

THE VIOLENCE OF HISTORY, IN PICTURES
By Steve Kettmann The New York Times

International Herald Tribune, France
Sept 27 2005

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2005

ISTANBUL Tucked away for more than 40 years, the 120 black-and-white
photographs that were on display in a gallery here recently have the
stark appearance and potential emotional impact of evidence presented
in a legal proceeding.

And that, it turns out, is what they are.

One image shows a mob outside a row of stores, with some people
watching passively and others cheering as a shop is ransacked. A
young man stands with his fist raised in the air, as if he is
egging on the vandals; his other hand rests passively on his hip,
suggesting nonchalance. A boy stares up numbly, as if looking in
vain for answers. Above him, a man in the shell of the shop’s wrecked
building heaves a baby carriage to the street below.

Fifty years ago this month, erroneous reports spread that Greeks had
set fire to the childhood home of Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey’s
founder, in Salonika, Greece. The rumors prompted an angry mob to
converge on Taksim Square in Istanbul for an anti-foreigner pogrom
that left thousands of houses and many hundreds of shops destroyed.

Gallery officials said that about a dozen people were killed, but
the death toll has never been confirmed because of official secrecy.

Cemeteries were desecrated, dozens of churches were burned and many
schools were plundered.

Fahri Coker, a former assistant military prosecutor, served as a
legal adviser to the investigation of the events of Sept. 6-7, 1955,
an inquiry that historians describe as a whitewash. Coker had 250
photographs that had been taken by foreign news photographers and
government employees, and even a few by Ara Guler, one of Turkey’s
leading photographers. Coker held on to the pictures and left word that
they could be displayed only after his death, which occurred in 2001.

To mark the 50-year anniversary of the long night of violence, Karsi,
a gallery in the Beyoglu neighborhood, where the pogrom occurred,
organized an exhibition of the photos to open on Sept. 6. Although
curators were no doubt aware that the pictures would arouse strong
feelings, given the emotion surrounding historical discussions in
Turkey, they were surprised by the passions unleashed by the show.

The opening was disrupted by a group of nationalists who entered the
gallery, carrying a Turkish flag. Chanting slogans like “Turkey,
love it or leave it!” they vandalized some of the photographs and
tossed others out the window. They also threw eggs at the pictures.

“We left it that way, but unfortunately, after a few days it started
to smell,” Ozkan Taner, one of the gallery’s directors, said of the
exhibition, which the gallery then cleaned and restored, putting it
back on display until it closed this week.

News of the attacks spread quickly, and attendance was heavy, exceeding
expectations. On a recent day, dozens of people crowded into the
gallery to study the images. The pictures, as might be expected,
showed faces riven by anger and fear, but the photos were also packed
with small surprises.

One centered on the monument at the center of Taksim Square, so crowded
with young protesters that some were falling off as others rose to take
their places. At the top of the image, a small group was working to
hoist the Turkish flag, while a young man in a crisp, clean suit held
a small portrait of Ataturk over his head. But away from the monument,
the people in the crowd turning to face the photographer had blank,
uncertain expressions, as if they were as unnerved by the outpouring
as many of the gallery’s visitors were.

In the beginning, the photo exhibition was hailed as a major step
forward for a country that is trying to show a more democratic face
in preparation for possible membership in the European Union.

“For the first time in the history of Turkey, a shameful happening
has been brought out into the open,” said Ishak Alaton, chairman of
the board of Alarko Holdings and a leader of Turkey’s tiny Jewish
population. “Sept. 6, 1955, was our Kristallnacht.”

Ozcan Yurdalan, a freelance photographer who denounced the attacks
on the exhibition, said that the straightforward documentary style
of the photographs had made them more disturbing.

“They show directly what they saw in life,” he said. “If you take
straight photographs, they show the reality – the faces of the people,
some fearful, some thinking, ‘Yeah, we are doing something well
against our enemy.”‘

He added, “The pictures showed me this is not the past. We are still
living in the same condition today. I am ashamed of that, and also
very fearful.”

Greek-Turkish tensions over the future of Cyprus were running high
in 1955, and the future of Cyprus remains unresolved, threatening to
hold up Turkey’s bid to join the EU. More broadly, Western ideas of
the role of dissent have been limited in Turkey.

A best-selling novelist, Orhan Pamuk, has been charged with
public denigrating of Turkish identity for telling a newspaper:
“Thirty-thousand Kurds were killed here, one million Armenians as
well. And almost no one talks about it.”

Mehmet Guleryuz, an Abstract Expressionist-style painter who helped
organize a protest against the attack on the exhibition, said: “We’re
going through sensitive times. We have to have the ability to open
up hidden parts of our history and deal with it. We have to have the
ability to argue.”

Pan Armenian News

FINLAND PRESIDENT TO PAY FORMAL VISIT TO ARMENIA

23.09.2005 03:16

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ By invitation of Armenian leader Robert Kocharian
President of Finland Tarja Halonen and her husband Dr. Pentti Arajarvi will
pay a formal visit to Armenia September 26-28, RA President’s press service
reported. The purpose of the visit is the development of bilateral ties and
economic cooperation. The state leaders will also touch upon the EU-Armenia
cooperation and some regional problems. On September 27 Robert Kocharian and
Tarja Halonen will hold a tete-a-tete meeting followed by negotiations in
expanded composition. During the visit the Mrs. Halonen will also meet with
RA National Assembly Chairman Artur Baghdassyan and Prime Minister Andranik
Margaryan. In Holy Echmiadzin she will meet with Catholicos of All Armenians
Garegin II. Besides, the Finn delegation will attend the Memorial complex of
Tsitsernakaberd and lay a wreath to the Armenian Genocide victims. Tarja
Halonen is also expected to meet with the students and teaching staff of the
Yerevan State University. To note, the delegation is scheduled to visit
Georgia and Azerbaijan as well.

VERS UNE RECONNAISSANCE AMERICAINE DU GENOCIDE ARMENIEN.

La Croix , France
20 septembre 2005

La commission des affaires etrangères de la Chambre des representants
des Etats-Unis s’est prononcee jeudi en faveur de la reconnaissance
du “genocide” armenien, en depit de la “forte opposition” de
l’administration du president Bush. La commission a vote a de larges
majorites en faveur de projets de resolution invitant la Turquie a
reconnaître le “genocide armenien”. Adam Schiff, elu democrate de
Californie, va desormais s’attacher a convaincre les responsables
de la Chambre de mettre ces textes a l’ordre du jour de la seance
plenière, ce que le gouvernement voudrait eviter pour maintenir
les bonnes relations americano-turques. Le genocide, qui a tue 1,5
million d’Armeniens, a ete reconnu en 1985 par l’ONU, puis en 1987
par le Parlement europeen.

–Boundary_(ID_an1A4p7JiEWiYq8m2yAjjA)–

NO FRENCH COMPANY OPERATES IN OCCUPIED TERRITORIES – AMBASSADOR

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Sept 22 2005

Baku, September 21, AssA-Irada
French ambassador to Azerbaijan Roland Blatman has responded to the
letter sent by the hard-line Garabagh Liberation Organization (GLO)
chairman Akif Naghi.

Naghi expressed strong objection in his letter, saying that French
companies are cooperating with the separatist regime in Upper Garabagh
in the area of communications.

The ambassador wrote in reply that French companies are not working in
Garabagh and that the French government issued an instruction banning
their operation, considering situation in the region. “GLO should put
en end to its threats against the embassy of France and I am ready
for all kinds of discussions concerning this”, the letter said.

GLO, in turn, called on the French government to adhere to a ‘more
objective position’ in the region.*

International Herald Tribune
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2005

Oil-for-food: Far from a failure

by Benon V. Sevan

After nearly a year and a half and more than $35 million spent, the
Independent Inquiry Committee Into the United Nations Oil-for-Food
Program (IIC), led by the former Federal Reserve chairman Paul
Volcker, has faulted the management of the program, which I ran for
six years. It is easy to apply formal management and audit criteria
after the fact to a massive multibillion-dollar humanitarian program,
but as the recent crisis in New Orleans shows, what is critical when
people are dying is to bring food and medicine to affected
populations as quickly as possible. This we accomplished. There are
many thousands of people alive today because of the oil-for-food
plan.

There is a misconception, reinforced by the familiar echo chamber of
the Murdoch press, The Wall Street Journal, the UN bashers in the
U.S. Congress, and neocon think tanks, that the program was a failure
of epic proportions, riddled with corruption and pliant to Saddam
Hussein’s every manipulation. The reality is that the oil-for-food
program was highly successful in its fundamental mission of
addressing the acute humanitarian crisis caused by sanctions imposed
on Iraq, in channeling all but a very small percentage of Iraqi oil
revenues into food, medicine, and other approved humanitarian
supplies, and in helping to maintain international support for
sanctions, which in turn prevented Iraq from developing weapons of
mass destruction during the course of the program.

Volcker’s ‘public’ and other political constituencies are
nevertheless demanding heads on a platter, and the latest IIC report,
sadly, appears to capitulate to that pressure by unfairly targeting
the Secretariat, including the Office of the Iraq Program (OIP) and
me, for problems that were essentially inherent in the design of the
program and in the inevitable reality of politics among member
states.

The program was created by a series of Security Council resolutions
that carefully defined – and limited – the role of the Secretariat.
In particular, the Office of the Iraq Program did not have
responsibility for monitoring, policing or investigating sanctions
violations. That role was specifically reserved to the Security
Council; its so-called 661 Committee, which monitored the overall
sanctions regime and oil-for-food; and member states. The IIC knows
or should know this. Yet the IIC insists repeatedly on blaming the
OIP for functions, such as investigating sanctions violations, that
lay beyond its mandate.

The IIC also faults the secretary general, the deputy secretary
general and me for failing to provide information regarding Iraqi
demands for illicit kickbacks and surcharges to the Security Council
through formal rather than informal channels. But in setting forth
its charges, the IIC seems to confuse the decision not to convey
information through official channels with a decision not to convey
the information at all. On no occasion did OIP or I personally
withhold material information from the Security Council members, the
secretary general and his deputy. OIP informed the 661 Committee not
only on surcharges but also on at least 70 occasions of contracts
reflecting suspicious pricing (and hence possible kickbacks), yet the
committee declined in every instance to act. Similarly, I informed
the U.S. government, effectively the policeman for sanctions
violations in the Gulf, of maritime smuggling on a massive scale that
was occurring, to no avail.

It is now known that the United States and other member states
purposefully allowed this smuggling to occur, in addition to the
massive daily shipment of oil by land routes, putting billions of
dollars directly into Saddam’s pockets in violation of sanctions in
order to support Iraq’s trading partners, Turkey and Jordan, which
are also U.S. allies. It smacks of hypocrisy to criticize OIP for a
political compromise made to help the economies of American allies.

The IIC also engages in a lot of second-guessing as to whether I
delegated too much authority to senior managers on the ground in Iraq
instead of to bureaucrats in New York. I disagree with these
criticisms. Micromanagement from 8,000 miles away would have been a
recipe for disaster in an immense and complex program like
oil-for-food.

It is important to consider what those, including Security Council
members, who were observing our performance in real time had to say
about its management. Among others, in October 2003, Ambassador John
Negroponte of the United States, the president of the Security
Council (and now President George W. Bush’s director of national
intelligence), speaking in his national capacity, commended “the
outstanding work” that we had “done both in New York and in the
region over the years in the implementation of the program, as well
as the “exceptional professionalism and thoroughness” of OIP staff
“despite the obstacles and challenges that they face daily.”

The program was not perfect, nor was it ever expected to be. It was
implemented within the context of a very rigorous sanctions regime,
carried out in six-month extensions (and hence always on the verge of
closing down), beset by conflicting political pressures, situated in
a country in crisis and hindered by fundamental design problems –
most notably, the Security Council’s decision to allow Saddam to
select his own contractors for oil exports and imports of
humanitarian supplies, as well as to implement the program in the 15
governorates in the center and south of Iraq, which all but
guaranteed political manipulation.

At the same time, my colleagues and I were faced with the grave
responsibility of providing basic life necessities to a highly
vulnerable population. We took that responsibility both seriously and
personally. As the recent tragedy in New Orleans demonstrated, there
is a cost to overly bureaucratizing a crisis relief effort that the
IIC chooses to ignore. The people of Iraq desperately needed
humanitarian relief in real time. Thanks to the oil-for-food program,
they received it. That is the essential purpose of a humanitarian
program, and we accomplished that purpose, in nearly impossible
circumstances. Despite its shortcomings, the program made a major
difference in the lives of the Iraqi people.

(Benon V. Sevan is former director of the oil-for-food program for
Iraq.)