Category: News

New York Times
Dec 29 2004
New Hope of Syrian Minorities: Ripple Effect of Iraqi Politics
By KATHERINE ZOEPF
QAMISHLI, Syria, Dec. 28 – The Iraqi election next month may be
evoking skepticism in much of the world, but here in northeastern
Syria, home to concentrations of several ethnic minorities, it is
evoking a kind of earnest hope.
“I believe democracy in Iraq must succeed,” Vahan Kirakos, a Syrian
of Armenian ethnicity, said recently. “Iraq is like the stone thrown
into the pool.”
Though Syria’s Constitution grants equal opportunity to all ethnic
and religious groups in this very diverse country, minority activists
say their rights are far from equal. They may not form legal
political parties or publish newspapers in minority languages. More
than 150,000 members of Syria’s largest minority, the Kurds, are
denied citizenship.
Minority issues remain one of the infamous “red lines,” the litany of
forbidden topics that Syrians have long avoided mentioning in public.
But in the year and a half since Saddam Hussein was removed from
power in Iraq, that has begun to change, with minority activists
beginning to speak openly of their hopes that a ripple effect from
next door may bring changes at home.
And here in Syria’s far northeastern province of Hasakah, which
borders Turkey and Iraq, there are signs of a new restlessness.
In March, more than 3,000 Kurds in Qamishli, a city in Hasakah
Province on the Turkish border, took part in antigovernment protests,
which led to clashes with Syrian security forces and more than 25
deaths.
In late October, more than 2,000 Assyrian Christians in the
provincial capital, Hasakah City, held a demonstration calling for
equal treatment by the local police. The demonstration, which Hasakah
residents say was the first time Assyrians in Syria held a public
protest, followed an episode in which two Christians were killed by
Muslims who called them “Bush supporters,” and “Christian dogs.”
Nimrod Sulayman, a former member of the Syrian Communist Party’s
central committee, said Hasakah’s proximity to Iraq and demographic
diversity meant that residents of the province were watching events
in Iraq and taking inspiration from the freedoms being introduced
there.
“This Assyrian protest in Hasakah was caused by a personal dispute,
but the way the people wanted their problem solved was a result of
the Iraqi impact,” Mr. Sulayman said. “They see that demonstrating is
a civilized way to express a position.”
“Since the war in Iraq, this complex of fear has been broken, and we
feel greater freedom to express ourselves,” he added.
Mr. Sulayman noted that members of minorities in Hasakah had also
been energized by a sense of brotherhood with their counterparts in
Iraq.
“For example, when Massoud Barzani announced that Kurdish would be
officially recognized as one of the main languages in Iraq, the Kurds
in Hasakah were out in the streets celebrating, expressing their
joy,” Mr. Sulayman said, referring to the leader of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party in Iraq.
Taher Sfog, the secretary general of Syria’s illegal Kurdish
Democratic National Party, suggested that in some sense, Iraq and
Syria were mirror images of each other, as they shared a roughly
similar ethnic composition and a political heritage of Baathism, the
secular Arab nationalist policy of Mr. Hussein and Bashar Assad, the
Syrian president.
“Kurds in Syria feel relieved when we see Kurds in Iraq getting their
rights and holding news conferences,” Mr. Sfog said in his home in
Qamishli. “Democracy there will lead to a push in Syria, too.”
In fact, the Hussein government had long been estranged from Syria’s.
Before the American invasion of Iraq, many Iraqi politicians who
opposed Mr. Hussein made their homes in Damascus. Basil Dahdouh, a
member of the illegal Syrian Nationalist Social Party who represents
Damascus in Syria’s Parliament as an independent, said renewed
contact with Iraq, as well as the chance to observe the changes
taking place there, was leading many Syrians to actively question
their own political ideals. “The Iraq question has raised the idea of
what kind of state we want,” he said.
Emmanuel Khosaba, a spokesman for the Assyrian Democratic Movement, a
political party representing Iraq’s Assyrian Christian minority, said
Syrian political life could not help but be influenced by Iraq.
“In Syria, gradually it’s becoming safer to talk about minority
rights and human rights,” he said. But he cautioned against seeing a
single “Iraq effect” on the very different aspirations of Syria’s
minorities .
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“The interaction between minorities in Iraq and its neighboring
countries really depends on how particular minorities view their own
situation,” Mr. Khosaba said. “For example the Assyrians in Syria are
seeking a national solution within a democratic framework, while some
of the Kurds seek separation.”
Despite their sometimes startling optimism about an Iraqi democracy’s
longer-term prospects, the Syrian minority leaders became more sober
when discussing the violence in Iraq. Not only is it painful to see
Iraq convulsed with strife, they said, but instability in Iraq is
causing problems closer to home.
Bachir Isaac Saadi, the chairman of the political bureau of the
Assyrian Democratic Organization, said that throughout Syria, anger
over the American presence in Iraq had set off a sharp rise in
Islamist sentiment, which was creating difficulties for Syria’s
Christian minority.
“Christians in Syria aren’t afraid of the government any longer,” Mr.
Saadi said. “They’re afraid of their neighbors.”
Though the increase in Islamist feeling is troubling, minority
activists say, fear of the government and of publicly discussing
minority rights has eased to a degree which would have been
unthinkable only a few years ago.
Mr. Kirakos, the Armenian activist, has even begun a bid for Syria’s
presidency, an astoundingly brazen gesture in a country where the
Assad family has ruled unchallenged for more than 30 years.
The Christian Mr. Kirakos’s presidential run – which he announced in
September on , a pro-democracy Web site – is illegal, as
Syria’s Constitution stipulates that the president must be a Muslim.
But though he lost his engineering job as a result of his activism
and his family has received uncomfortable phone calls from the secret
police, Mr. Kirakos is unfazed.
“I carry a Syrian citizenship which is not equal to Ahmed’s
citizenship,” he said, using the common Muslim name as shorthand for
Syria’s Sunni majority. “It is the Syrian Constitution that must
change. We should be writing a constitution that guarantees equal
rights for everyone.”

Baku Today
Dec 29 2004
Azeri Refugees to Get IDB Assistance
Sponsored Links

by Habib Shaikh, Arab News 29/12/2004 06:34
The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) is to assist Azerbaijan government
in meeting some of the social needs of the country’s refugees,
particularly in education, health, water supply and sanitation, in
the territory occupied by Armenia.
Bank President Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Ali, who visited Azerbaijan, has
promised that the IDB would `very soon’ send a mission to identify
priority areas to help the refugees.
Previously, the bank had allocated $1.5 million as grant to provide
emergency assistance to these displaced people. It had also provided
a loan of $10 million to finance schools, water supply, irrigation
infrastructure and agriculture equipment for the benefit of the
refugees.
Dr. Ali, who visited one of the refugee camps, also promised that the
IDB would do its best to sensitize the international community on the
tragedy of these displaced people.
Earlier, during a meeting with President Ilham Aliev in the capital
Baku, the two focused on ways to enhance the `already excellent’
cooperation between Azerbaijan and the IDB.
Azerbaijan authorities and the IDB president agreed to redouble
efforts to promote intra-trade and intra-investment among member
countries and also enhance their capacity to export to other
countries. IDB expressed its readiness to assist in organizing
exhibitions in the UAE and Germany to present their products and
project their potentialities to investors in various sectors of
Azerbaijan economy.
Since Azerbaijan joined the bank in 1992, IDB has provided it
financing amounting to $130 million. The bank has also participated
in the financing of several roads connecting Azerbaijan to the
European markets. Currently, it is considering the possibility of
participating in the construction of another section of the road
linking the country to Europe (Yavlakh-Ganja), as well as the
North-South corridor linking Azerbaijan to Iran.
The bank is giving special attention to the energy sector in the
country, and is considering the possibility of participating in the
connection of the energy grid of Azerbaijan and the grid of Russia
and Iran, facilitating the export and import of energy from
Azerbaijan to the two countries.

St Petersburg Times, Russia
Dec 29 2004
China Wins 1st Internet Chess International
THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
The world’s first international chess tournament played over the
Internet ended Thursday with China clinching an unexpected victory
ahead of France, Russia and Armenia.
The Tigran Petrosian Internet Memorial tournament was held in
commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the birth of the late world
chess champion Tigran Petrosian, an Armenian. Each four-player team
played six rounds.
China was the lowest-ranked team, but finished with 14 points to
Russia’s and France’s 13, but France beat Russia on tiebreaks to take
second place. Armenia finished with 8 points.
The St. Petersburg Chess Federation with the support of the city
government and the Armenian community in St. Petersburg were among
the organizers of the competition, which took place Dec. 18 to 23.
The teams of the four competing countries fought it out for $55,000
in prize money without leaving their home countries.
The Russian team of Pyotr Shvidler, Alexander Khalifman, Alexei
Dreyev and Vadim Zvyagintsev played in St. Petersburg under
supervision of French referee Jean-Claude Templeur.
“Apart from the handshake, the playing conditions resembled the
conditions of any high-level tournament,” Templeur said. “Whether you
are playing on the Internet under official supervision or meeting
your opponent face-to-face seems not to matter much.”
“This tournament has shown that from now on it will be possible to
play chess under realistic sporting conditions from any part of the
planet, where you live,” he said. “Why don’t we dream of huge opens
played at 50 or 100 sites around the world. After my experience here
in St. Petersburg, I know that this is already possible.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Japan Times, Japan
Dec 29 2004
GANTLET OF REFERENDUMS AWAIT
Turkey’s long march to an EU wedding
By ANDRE FONTAINE
PARIS — Although a wedding date has yet to be set between the
European Union and Turkey, the two parties managed to conclude what
several participants at the Dec. 17 European summit have called a
formal “engagement.”
Such an outcome had long looked doubtful because a majority of the
public in EU countries that have a large number of Turkish workers
oppose Turkish membership in the EU.
In Germany, 55 percent are opposed; in Austria, 62 percent; and in
France, 67 percent. Such opposition has increased following the
murder of a popular filmmaker by a Muslim immigrant in the
Netherlands. In addition, the EU now has 25 members, making it all
the more difficult to attain the unanimous approval required for
Turkey to join the union.
Talks on the conditions of Ankara’s entry into the EU will begin Oct.
3, 2005. It will be a long process due to the need to harmonize
Turkish law with no less than 80,000 pages of European rules, and to
find the immense funds needed to provide Turkey the economic and
social help to which it will be entitled.
This means that Turkey’s entry into the union cannot possibly take
place before 2014. Furthermore, the eventual treaty of admission will
have to be submitted to a referendum in every member country if the
draft European Constitution — the subject of a special convention
chaired by former French President Giscard d’Estaing and unanimously
approved June 18 — is ratified, as the document makes such a step
compulsory for any enlargement of the EU.
Even if the draft constitution is not adopted, several countries will
still organize their own referendums. As French President Jacques
Chirac has made a strong commitment to such a move, count France
among these countries.
At 72, Chirac is unlikely to still be in charge when such a
referendum takes place. While initiating a referendum designed to
take place so long from now may sound strange, it was apparently the
only way he found to avoid a crisis not only with his European
colleagues but within his own party, the Union for a Popular
Movement.
UMP’s new chairman, Nicolas Sarkozy, and two former prime ministers,
Edouard Balladur and Alain Juppe, openly express their hostility to
Turkey’s entry, thus reflecting the mood of a majority of their
countrymen. D’Estaing has equally declared himself against it, as
have the Christian Democrat members of the Union for French Democracy
party.
All of these politicians prefer the formula of a “privileged
partnership” advocated by the German rightist opposition but
categorically opposed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
and an overwhelming majority of the Turkish public.
It’s easy to understand Erdogan’s reasons. For decades Turkey has
belonged to the Council of Europe, and it has been an associate
member of the EU since 1963. At that time, French President Charles
de Gaulle didn’t hesitate to hail Turkey’s “European vocation.”
Turkey has also joined the Customs Union created in 1995, and at the
1999 European summit its “partnership” was recognized.
In any case, another European referendum will take place in France
next year, probably in May, on the draft constitution. As France’s
Socialist Party has decided by a large majority to back this
agreement, the “yes” side is likely to win by a small margin.
Nevertheless, one cannot rule out a negative vote, which could in
turn affect the outcome of the talks on Turkey’s admission.
Referendums are not the only obstacles that could deal Ankara’s
application a fatal blow. In addition, the Dec. 17 agreement mentions
a formal condition: Turkey must make a decisive improvement in its
observance of human rights.
Nobody denies that Turkey has made significant progress in this area
since Erdogan took power following the 2002 general election. His
party, the AKP (Justice and Development Party), is supposed to be
both conservative and Islamic, but it resembles a Muslim version of
the Christian-Democrat parties of Western Europe, maintaining a
commitment to upholding human rights.
Turkey has abolished the death penalty — a prerequisite to enter the
EU — as well as a law that demanded the jailing of adulterous wives.
In addition, a law opening university doors to pupils of religious
schools has been “suspended” and the use of torture by police has
seriously diminished.
Much remains to be done as many abuses still take place in various
fields, particularly regarding women and the country’s Kurdish
minority. The EU Council has decided that if serious human rights
violations take place in Turkey, a vote by a third of its members
will be enough to halt the admission talks.
Two other “conditions” don’t figure in the Dec. 17 agreement but will
play a serious role in the future:
The first concerns the deaths of up to 2 million Armenians during
World War I at the hands of Turks, responsibility for which Ankara
has never accepted. The proud Turks despise the idea of having to own
up to such an act, but why should they not do so when Germany has
repeatedly apologized for its slaughter of millions of Jews in World
War II.
Chirac has been particularly insistent on the Armenian issue, as has
the European Parliament in Strasbourg. While approving in principle
Turkey’s entry into the union, the Parliament has insisted that
Ankara should clearly acknowledge the Armenian genocide.
The second issue concerns Cyprus, a British colony from 1878 to 1960.
The population of this beautiful island in the eastern Mediterranean
is roughly 80 percent Greek and 20 percent Turkish. An attempt by
Greek rightists to unite the country with Greece led the Turkish Army
to intervene in 1974 and occupy one-third of the territory.
Later Ankara created the Cyprus Turkish Republic, which no country
but Turkey has recognized. Although many mediation efforts have taken
place, the division issue remains unresolved.
Now that the Greek government of the island is member of the EU,
everyone thinks that Turkey will finally accept a reunification of
Cyprus in the framework of a confederation.
Important steps have been made, including the opening of the border,
allowing some 200,000 Greek Cypriots who had to flee their homes in
1974 to freely visit their former residences. And Ankara has signed
the Greek Cyprus regime. It’s difficult to imagine the Turks not
going further. But they clearly hate the idea, so it will take time.
Andre Fontaine is former editor in chief of Le Monde.

ASBAREZ ONLINE
TOP STORIES
12/28/2004
TO ACCESS PREVIOUS ASBAREZ ONLINE EDITIONS PLEASE VISIT OUR
WEBSITE AT <;HTTP:// 1) Gomitas Institute Donates Armenian Genocide Books to US Congress Members 2) Armenian Prime Minister Conveys Condolences 3) Saakashvili Tells Armenian Population Integration Necessary 4) Another Gas Poisoning Reported in Armenia 1) Gomitas Institute Donates Armenian Genocide Books to US Congress Members WASHINGTON, DC (Armenpress)--In commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the UK-based Gomitas Institute on Armenian Genocide studies has donated 500 copies of its latest publication, United States Official Records on the Armenian Genocide 1915-17, to members of the US Senate and House of Representatives. This initiative was taken at the request of a generous benefactor, and made possible through the support of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, as well as the Washington, DC based Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA); the move comes as the incoming 109th Congress faces consideration of the Armenian Genocide Resolution. "With the publication of this volume, the Gomitas Institute has, once again, provided a vital resource for all those working to overcome the Turkish government's shameful campaign to pressure the United States into complicity in Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide," said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. "The comprehensive and compelling evidence assembled in this book establishes the US response to the Armenian Genocide as a critical milestone in American history--one that Turkey should not be allowed to erase." United States Official Records on the Armenian Genocide 1915-17 was published by the Gomitas Institute and is the latest book among the expanding resources on the Armenian Genocide, currently utilized by students, scholars, and journalists. "The documents in this book provide a first-hand look at the efforts of US consuls and the American Ambassador in Constantinople to engage the US government in ending the systematic destruction of the Armenian people. Sadly, these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, the massacres continued, and most Armenians perished as a result. . . It is our hope that this publication will help educate America's leaders and the general public about the Armenian Genocide and the need for the US Congress to enact legislation that recognizes this tragedy as genocide. Finally, we must ensure that the lessons learned from this tragedy are used to prevent future genocides." write Congressmen Frank Pallone and Joseph Knollenberg in their forward of the book. A sister publication, United States Diplomacy on the Bosphorus: The Diaries of Ambassador Morgenthau 1913-1916, will soon be printed. Serving as an invaluable record of the Armenian genocide in all its complexities, the two books reveal to what extent the United States government knew about the Armenian genocide, as early as the summer of 1915. 2) Armenian Prime Minister Conveys Condolences Death Toll in Asian Disaster Approaches 60,000 GALLE (Reuters)--Armenian prime minister Andranik Margarian sent condolences to the prime ministers of Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India to express Armenia's anguish over the thousands of deaths and the scale of the destruction caused by Sunday's monster tsunami. The sea and wreckage of coastal towns around the Indian Ocean yielded up tens of thousands of bodies on Tuesday, pushing the toll to 60,000. The apocalyptic destruction caused by the ocean surge dwarfed the efforts of governments and relief agencies as they recovered countless corpses while trying to treat survivors and take care of millions of homeless, increasingly threatened by disease amid the rotting remains. Thousands more were injured. The United Nations launched what it called an unprecedented relief effort to assist nations hit by a devastating tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra. In a further threat to the region, disease could kill as many people as those killed by the wall of water, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official said. While grieving families in wrecked coastal towns and resorts buried their loved ones, others, including many foreign tourists, searched for friends and relatives still missing. In Thailand, where thousands of tourists were enjoying a Christmas break to escape the northern winter, many of the country's paradise resorts were turned into graveyards. In Sri Lanka, hundreds of people were killed when a wave crashed into a train, wrecking eight carriages and uprooting the track it was traveling on. The train was called "Sea Queen". Of the overall death toll so far of 59,186, Indonesia has suffered the biggest number of victims, with its Health Ministry reporting 27,174 dead. Nearly all the deaths in Indonesia were in the northwestern province of Aceh at the tip of Sumatra. Rescue crews were still trying to reach cut off areas. Separatist rebels announced a truce while people search for loved ones. Sri Lanka reported around 19,000 dead. India's toll of 11,500 included at least 7,000 on one archipelago, the Andamans and Nicobar. On one island, the surge of water killed two-thirds of the population. Hundreds of others died in the Maldives, Myanmar and Malaysia. The arc of water struck as far as Somalia and Kenya. Fishing villages, ports and resorts were devastated, power and communications cut and homes destroyed. The United Nations said the cost of the damage will reach billions of dollars. The tremor, the biggest in 40 years, ripped a chasm in the sea bed which launched the tsunami, possibly the deadliest in more than 200 years. 3) Saakashvili Tells Armenian Population Integration Necessary JAVAKHK (Civil Georgia)--Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili visited Akhalkalak on December 28, a predominately Armenian-populated town in southern Georgian region of Javakhk. In meeting with the local population, President Saakashvili addressed the necessity of integration into Georgia. "Our Armenian population [of Javakhk] is very patriotic, and requires more attention and care. Though you should be integrated, your language and your culture should also be preserved. I know that you face many problems, but we can solve them if we stand together," he said. Saakashvili stressed that the construction on a new highway connecting Tbilisi with Akhalkalak would begin in the coming year, "We have already allocated funds for this project." He also promised scholarships for students willing to continue their education in Tbilisi universities. 4) Another Gas Poisoning Reported in Armenia (AP)--A man and his wife were asphyxiated by a natural gas leak in Armenia, an emergency official said Monday--the fourth such incident this month. The deaths of the couple, aged 59 and 55, brings the death toll from gas leaks and poisonings this year to 16--with 12 in December alone. A spokesman for the emergency situations ministry said neighbors found the two bodies on Sunday at their home in the town of Ashtarak, north of Yerevan. Preliminary information showed that a poorly installed homemade gas heater and an illegal connection to municipal gas pipes were to blame. Many people in the poor ex-Soviet republic use homemade gas heaters, sometimes tapping illegally into gas lines, because their homes lack heaters, which are expensive. All subscription inquiries and changes must be made through the proper carrier and not Asbarez Online. ASBAREZ ONLINE does not transmit address changes and subscription requests. (c) 2004 ASBAREZ ONLINE. All Rights Reserved. ASBAREZ provides this news service to ARMENIAN NEWS NETWORK members for academic research or personal use only and may not be reproduced in or through mass media outlets.

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
Dec 28 2004
Armenia Trying to Withdraw Karabakh Problem From UN Session Agenda
Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov has told
Armenian media that the OSCE fact-finding mission, which will visit
Azerbaijan’s occupied territories soon, will conduct monitoring not in
Nagorno Karabakh itself, but only in the seven regions adjacent to it.
Merzlyakov said that Armenia will provide suitable conditions for the
work of the OSCE mission, while Azerbaijan will allegedly withdraw its
proposal to discuss the illegal settlement of Armenians its occupied
territories at the United Nations.
Azerbaijani officials have not expressed their position on the matter
yet.
Director of the Political Innovation and Technology Center Mubariz
Ahmadogu says that Merzlyakov’s statement was distorted by both
Azerbaijani and Armenian press.
`Even if his statement was not distorted, it still hurts Armenia’, he
added.

ArmenPress
Dec 28 2004
ARMENIA TO JOIN BOLOGNA DECLARATION NEXT MAY
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS: Armenian education and science
minister Sergo Yeritsian said Monday Armenia plans to join the
Bologna Declaration next May. He said the ministry had sent a report
on Armenian education activity, which was approved. Beofre Armenia’s
memebrship is ratified a group of experts will arrive here to carry
out a series of studies of the higher education establishments.
The Bologna Declaration was signed in 1999 by education ministers
from around 30 of European countries in Bologna, Italy, to establish
a single area of higher education by 2010.
The Bologna Declaration of 19 June 1999 involves six actions
relating to a system of academic grades which are easy to read and
compare, including the introduction of the diploma supplement,
designed to improve international “transparency” and facilitate
academic and professional recognition of qualifications; a system
essentially based on two cycles : a first cycle geared to the
employment market and lasting at least three years and a second cycle
(Master) conditional upon the completion of the first cycle; a system
of accumulation and transfer of credits; mobility of students,
teachers and researchers; cooperation with regard to quality
assurance; the European dimension of higher education.
Yeritsian said Armenia is able to meet these requirements. He said
a timetable of actions was planned which will become more specified
after joining the Declaration.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
December 27, 2004, Monday
02:05:08 Central European Time
Cyprus still facing uncertain future
By Masis der Parthogh
Nicosia
When Cyprus joined the European Union on May 1, celebrations on the
island were muted, unlike the mood in the nine other new enlargement
states. The year had kicked off uneasily after United Nations
Secretary General Kofi Annan had tried to secure a solution that
would have reunited the island after a 30 years of division. The U.N.
chief finalised a document initially conceived in November 2002 and
put it to separate referenda to the main Greek Cypriot and Turkish
Cypriot communities. The former rejected the plan outright as it
failed to guarantee the pullout of Turkey’s 35,000-strong garrison
stationed in the north since Ankara invaded and occupied the
territory in 1974. No other assurances were given about the reduction
of the 65,000 settlers from Anatolia either. On the other hand, the
majority of Turkish Cypriots embraced the “Annan Plan” in the April
24 poll, saying it brought them closer to autonomy within a federal
state of two equal partners. In theory, at least, Europe had expected
a reunited Cyprus to join the Union, with several phases of the U.N.
plan already implemented by summer, when a significant number of
Greek Cypriot refugees would have returned to the lands they lost
three decades earlier. However, the “No” vote of the Greek Cypriot
referendum left a bitter feeling among both communities, with the
Turkish Cypriots expressing greater mistrust and pushing them closer
to the patronage of Ankara. Incentives were supposed to come into
force throughout the year to encourage trade and movement along the
180-kilometre “Green Line” of division. Barbed wire still separates
the 700,000 Orthodox Greek Cypriots from the 200,000 Moslem Turkish
Cypriots, with only five checkpoints where people can make the
crossing to the other side. Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos was
widely expected to cast a veto at the December 17 summit in Brussels
and block Turkey from joining the E.U. unless it offered full
recognition to all ten new member states through an extension of the
Customs Union agreement. The Dutch Presidency intervened and reached
a compromise, partly satisfying the British and U.S. demands for
Turkey’s unconditional membership, while the Greek Cypriots may
exercise their veto prior to the October 3 start of accession talks
with Ankara. “I warned my (E.U.) counterparts that if Turkey does not
meet its commitments, we reserve the right to block the start of
accession negotiations, estimated to begin on October 3,”
Papadopoulos said in media interviews. But he ruled out any
re-engagement on the same U.N. plan he led Greek Cypriots to reject
in April. “As it stands, that plan is never going to be put before
the people again.” This is where Turkey’s abilities to reach a
compromise will come in, as it has to persuade the U.N. chief and
public opinion of its clear intentions to help resolve the Cyprus
dispute, while respecting human rights in its own country as regards
religious freedom, Kurdish rights and recognition of the Armenian
genocide in 1915. Failure to do so will put on hold all its hopes of
ever joining the European club within the next 15 years or so, during
which time the “Cyprus problem” would remain unresolved and the
Turkish Cypriots would still be over-dependent on handouts from
Ankara. dpa mdp ch

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
December 27, 2004, Monday
02:05:07 Central European Time
Villa of Norway’s Nazi leader to open as Holocaust museum
By Thomas Borchert, dpa
Oslo
The former mansion of Norwegian Nazi politician and occupation leader
Vidkun Quisling is due to be opened as a centre for Holocaust studies
in January. Following extensive building works, 25 historians and
other scientists are waiting to move into the huge villa which once
boasted 3,000 square metres of living space high above the Oslo
Fjord. The residence, in which Quisling – infamous for his
deferential collaboration with the Nazis between 1941 and 1945 –
mocked the lifestyle of his idolized Fuehrer, is scheduled to be
opened in September 2006 with a permanent exhibition about the
Holocaust. A series of other genocides will also be featured in the
exhibition, among them the 1905 killing of the Herero in South West
Africa, as well as the genocides in Armenia (1915), Cambodia (1975)
Rwanda (1994), and the Balkans (1995). “I am afraid that we might
have to include Darfur in Sudan, too,” says the centre’s director
Odd-Bjorn Fure. The 62-year old historian from Bergen plans to “bring
the Holocaust back into the entirety of history” with the exhibition.
He also refers to the fate of 15 million civilian forced labourers,
and that of the Sinti and Roma, homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses
under the Nazi regime. Including these groups and other genocides
into the perspective of the exhibition is morally correct and the
only way to point out the specific features of the Holocaust,
according to the historian, whose previous academic postings include
Zurich and Berlin. Fure’s position is supported by Oslo’s Jewish
community, which represents half of the board of the “Centre for the
Study of the Holocaust and the Position of Minority Belief Groups in
Norway”. In total, 735 Norwegian Jews were killed in the German
Holocaust, while only 50 survived. It was a former detainee of the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp, retired General Bjorn Egge, who
first suggested to turn Quisling’s former villa into a centre to
commemorate the Holocaust. The building, which resembles the massive
structures of Nazi architecture outside and inside, is beautifully
located on the Bygdoy Peninsula on the Western side of the Oslo
Fjord. Other popular tourist destinations on the peninsula are the
Kon- Tiki Museum of explorer Thor Heyerdahl, the Fram Museum, which
commemorates the achievements of Polar explorers such as Fridtjof
Nansen and Roald Amundsen, as well as Viking and maritime museums.
Neo-Nazis searching for traces of Quisling, however, will not find
much in the centre, even though the oak-furnished study of the former
Minister President of Norway’s Nazi occupation government has been
preserved, as well as the so-called jewellery room of Quisling’s wife
Maria. Visitors of the exhibition will only have access to his
furnished underground bunker which has been preserved the way it was
at the end of the Nazi regime in Norway, when Quisling was arrested
at the villa on May 9, 1945. The man, who had formed Norway’s fascist
Nasjonal Samling party in May 1933 and whose name eventually became a
synonym for traitor, was tried and executed by a firing squad on
October 24, 1945. Far from allowing history to be taken over by
sentiment, the new centre’s director emphasizes: “Here, we do not
want to appeal to feelings above all, as is the case at the Holocaust
Museum in Washington.” “We place much greater emphasis on rational
understanding and the question how similar events can be prevented in
the future,” he adds. dpa tb emc sc

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
December 28, 2004 Tuesday 1:50 PM Eastern Time
Georgia to have non-stop electricity supply on New Year holidays
By Eka Mekhuzla
`
TBILISI
The electricity supply will be non-stop throughout Georgia on
December 29 – January 3, Energy Minister Nika Gilauri said on
Tuesday.
He said they would be generating electricity at all the Georgian
power plants, many of which had been repaired. After the New Year
holidays the electricity supply will keep to the previous schedule
that depends on local payments for electricity, the minister said.
As for reasons for the energy crisis, Gilauri blamed “incompetence of
former energy ministers, corruption and ruin of the energy industry
for the past 12 years.” “The national energy industry was under
methodical destruction for the past 12 years, and it is impossible to
change things for the better within several months no matter how hard
we try,” he said.
Georgia receives about 20% of electricity it consumes in winter from
Russia, and another 5% comes from Armenia. The energy crisis in
Georgia began in 1992. In winter cities have eight to twelve hours of
electricity supply a day, while villages have two or four hours of
electricity supply a day.