Category: News

Baku Today, Azerbaijan
March 27 2004

Armitage Supports Opening Of Turkish-Armenian Borders

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said on Friday that
if Turkey opened its border with Armenia, the benefits would be swift
and plentiful, The Associated Press reported.
“It seems to me that the opening of the border between Armenia and
Turkey would benefit the peoples of both sides rather dramatically
and rather quickly,” he said, during a visit to the Armenian capital,
Yerevan.
Armitage’s statement came as a response to that of the Azerbaijani
President, Ilham Aliyev, who said Wednesday that Turkey’s opening its
borders with Armenia would make the Karabakh problem `absolutely
impossible to resolve peacefully.’

Aliyev noted that his country could lose an important lever in case
if Turkey were to open its doors to Armenia.

`It also would make it impossible to continue the peace talks and
would even bring the talks to an end.’

Armitage said the United States has discussed the issue with Turkey.

“I think to be fair, our Turkish friends have had their hands full
recently with concerns about northern Iraq and the ongoing Cyprus
talks, but I hope as those concerns are ameliorated that they will be
able to turn their attention to the reopening of the border,” Armitage
said, according to the AP.

He also warned that the solution to Nagorno-Karabakh can’t “be
imposed from top-down, from the outside.”

In his turn, the Azerbaijani President Aliyev called on the nations
`who have a say in the world politics’ not to press Turkey to open
the borders.

`If they want to see the Karabakh conflict resolved quickly, they
have to refrain from pressing on Turkey,’ the president said. But he
expressed hope at the same that Turkey could withstand all such
pressures.

`Turkey is a great and powerful state … and the Turkish-Azerbaijani
brotherhood is above everything,’ Aliyev stressed.

Armenian Foreign Ministry was also quick to react to Aliyev’s
statement. According to Arminfo, the Armenian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Gamlet Gasparian stated that the opening of
Turkish-Armenian borders would not impede finding a solution to
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but would help resolve it easily by
boosting regional cooperation.

Gasparian also expressed belief that that Turkey could more actively
engage in the region’s political and economic processes, if it
`refuses to side with Azerbaijan’s position.’

Turkey has no diplomatic relationship with Yerevan and has been
keeping its borders closed with Armenia since the latter gained
independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In return for establishing diplomatic relations and opening the
borders, Turkey demands Armenia give up propagating the alleged
genocide of Armenians under the Ottoman Turkey in early 20th century,
stop territorial claims against Ankara and withdraw from Azerbaijan’s
occupied territories.

The Globe and Mail, Canada
March 27 2004

Personal? Political? Phooey

Conflating a private medical crisis and the Armenian genocide, a
playwright’s performance is manipulative and presumptuous

By KAMAL AL-SOLAYLEE
Saturday, March 27, 2004 – Page R18
Rogues of Urfa
Written and performed
by Araxi Arslanian
Directed by Rebecca Brown
At Artword Alternative Theatre
In Toronto

Rating: *

Finally, something that the Turks and the Armenians can hate together
and find equally offensive. Joy to the world.

With her Rogues of Urfa, playwright and actor Araxi Arslanian may
have accomplished a feat that has eluded diplomatic efforts for
nearly a century; but she does so through a series of assumptions
that take her work out of the realm of theatre and into that of the
personal vendetta.

In this classic work of “victim art” — who says the eighties are
over? — the emphasis is solely and unequivocally placed on the
victim. The art — be it the writing, the performance, or the
emotional impact of a combination of the two — has been pushed to
the margins of this theatrical equation. Politically, it may seem
justified. Artistically, it’s worthless.

Rogues (which opened Wednesday in a production by Alianak Theatre) is
a monologue, written and performed by Arslanian, which connects two
stories that take place at the end, and the beginning, of the 20th
century. The first is an account of how the performer on-stage — and
there’s nothing to suggest she is anyone but Arslanian — has
survived a congenital brain disorder, and relates her subsequent
suffering at the hands of unsympathetic doctors, students and fellow
actors.

The second strand relates to the Armenian genocide at the hands of
the Turks in 1915, and is told through the story of her grandfather,
a young soldier from the doomed Urfa, “city of prophets.”

Both stories get equal stage time, and the implication is that the
annihilation of many can prove inspiring to the sick one. The two
stories are linked in the last two minutes in a line credited to the
performer’s father, and which counts as one of the most horrifically
manipulative and presumptuous theatrical devices I’ve ever
encountered: that the blood clot in the actor is the same blood of
Armenian victims, the blood of survivors.

Does this mean that atrocities perpetrated by the Turks are morally
equivalent to the nastiness of fellow actors or unsympathetic
university administrators? Is she invoking the memories of the dead
to keep their stories alive and away from historical distortions and
denials? Or is she simply seeking self-validation?

The work’s political and personal (and they are equated here not
because one is the other but because the personal trumps the
political) scheme could still have worked with a more sophisticated
approach to historical framing, ambiguity and critical distance that,
for example, make Atom Egoyan’s Ararat so much more fascinating as a
work of art.

But, like Mel Gibson, Arslanian is so certain in her convictions that
her writing has no need for such trifles as conflicts or
counterpoints. Everybody, from Turks to actors, are villains and
presented in broad stereotypes that kiss the notion of reconciliation
and forgiveness goodbye. More significantly they simplify, and
therefore render insignificant, the actions and responsibility of all
victimizers.

Perhaps it’s too much to ask for subtlety from an actor who made her
mark on-stage in a number of raucous performances. But even if her
range seems to stretch from loud to louder, she has always exhibited
an undeniable stage presence. Sadly, it’s Arslanian the avenger who
is centre-stage here, and it’s not a convincing or smart sight.
Rebecca Brown’s direction is basic and clichéd, which, at least,
perfectly fits with the modus operandi of the monologue.

Rogues of Urfa continues at Toronto’s Artword Alternative Theatre
until April 4 (416-504-7529).

Cyprus Mail
March 27 2004

House opposes Melkonian shut down
By Staff Reporter

THE PLENUM yesterday unanimously opposed the Armenian General
Benevolent Union’s (AGBU) decision to shut down the Melkonian
Educational Institute (MEI) and urged the government to declare the
school a historical site.

The deputies said the 78-year-old Armenian school was as much part of
Cyprus’ cultural and historical heritage as the Armenians’. They
added it was their duty to `undertake the necessary initiative to
prevent the fait accompli its New York handlers are trying to
create’.

The vote comes after the AGBU recently announced its plans to close
down the school in June next year, claiming it no longer fulfilled
the duties it had been set up to carry out.

The Armenian community in Cyprus has claimed financial interests are
behind the school’s closure as preliminary estimates suggest the land
is worth £40 million.

The House of Representatives said the school was an important
educational and cultural institution that helped education and
cultivate young Armenians, as well as reinforcing their identity. The
deputies added that thought should have been given and action taken
on how to support the school rather than shut it down.

The plenum unanimously condemned the AGBU decision and called on the
government to declare the school building and its surroundings an
environment of historical and cultural importance, thus thwarting any
plans for its development.

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan State Info Agency
March 27 2004

AZERBAIJAN-US RELATIONS TO ACQUIRE HIGHER LEVEL IN THE COMING YEARS

PRESIDENT OF AZERBAIJAN ILHAM ALIYEV RECEIVED THE UNITED STATES FIRST
DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE RICHARD ARMITAGE
[March 27, 2004, 16:17:19]

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev received at the
President Palace the United States First Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage and his entourage on 27 March.

Greeting the esteemed guests, head of the Azerbaijani state said that
the relations between America and Azerbaijan develop intensively. The
countries are very closely cooperating in numerous fields. With the
support of the United States, large-scale energy projects of world
importance are being realized in Azerbaijan. Construction of the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline successfully goes ahead, and this is
not secret for anybody that without support of the American
governments the Project could not be implemented.

Noting that the US Government renders huge assistance to the Country
in conducting of economic reforms and he hopes for boosting by the
United States of the current socio-economic development program,
President Ilham Aliyev emphasized that the two countries are well
cooperating in the military sphere, too. We are confident that this
cooperation will strengthen much more in the years ahead. Azerbaijan
allied to the United States in anti-terror combat. We are allies and
this policy will be continued in the coming years. All these show
that our countries are successfully cooperating and this will deepen
in the future.

Noting that security issues are very important, President Ilham
Aliyev confidently underlined that the peace would soon be
established in the region. But the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorny
Karabakh conflict greatly threatens this safety. We hope, the OSCE
Minsk Group will play positive role in settlement of this conflict,
Azerbaijan’s lands will be liberated from occupation, all the
international legal norms will be confirmed and territorial integrity
of our Country will be preserved. I appreciate your visit to
Azerbaijan and I am convinced that the relations between us, between
our countries will reach a higher level, President of Azerbaijan
said.

Expressing his gratitude for sincere reception and stressing that he
is not able to express his pleasure with the visit to Baku, the US
First Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, addressing the head
of Azerbaijani state said: `Mr. President, I would like to express
my thanks to You and the people of Azerbaijan for support of my
Country in the anti-terror combat, and that you are ally to us and
take part in the joint operations. In particular, I would like to
note courageous service of the Azerbaijani militaries. They render us
assistance in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, our goal, our intention
is to reach higher level of cooperation and that this cooperation
should cover economic, political, military, social and other spheres
as well’.

Touching upon the Armenian- Azerbaijani, Nagorny Karabakh conflict,
Mr. Armitage stated that the US, too, wants peaceful settlement of
this conflict. `We consider that the Caucasus, in the coming years
might be a very good ally and partner for the West. But, it needs the
existing conflicts here be solved. Therefore, I am also hopeful for
our talk. I hope our conversation will be attractive’.

Head of the foreign relations department of President Administration
Novruz Mammadov, the US ambassador to Azerbaijan Reno Harnish and
other officials participated at the reception.

PRAVDA, Russia
March 27 2004

Russian Interior Ministry’s troops celebrate professional holiday

source RIA Novosti

On Saturday the Russian Interior Ministry’s troops celebrate their
professional holiday.

In 1811 Emperor Alexander I ordered to form interior guard
battalions. It was one of the most important links in the state
defense system.

The battalions were to help the authorities implement laws and
execute sentences, catch and eliminate robbers, break up prohibited
rallies, keep order at fairs, folk and church holidays, convoy
criminals and money and carry out rescue works in case of fires and
floods.

Interior guards fought in the 1812 patriotic war against Napoleon and
other famous campaigns.

After the 1917 revolution the guards were reorganized on the basis of
new principles. In 1919 the Council of Workers and Peasants’ Defense
unified all the auxiliary troops and formed the troops of the
Republic’s interior protection. These troops fought in the Civil War
(1918-1920), battles against Japanese intervenors in 1938 and 1939 on
Lake Khasan and the Khalkhin Gol River, and the Soviet-Finnish War
(1939-1940).

Units of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) were
fighting in the Great Patriotic War, in particular, in border areas.
They defended Brest, Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Odessa, Voronezh,
Stalingrad, the North Caucasus and the Kursk Bulge. All in all, over
97,000 servicemen were killed and more than 100,000 were put forward
for state decoration.

In the recent years the Russian Interior Ministry’s troops have been
successfully fighting in hot spots: Nagorny Karabakh (an Armenian
enclave in Azerbaijan), Fergana (Uzbekistan), and in the North
Caucasian republics (North Ossetia, Ingushetia and Chechnya).

According to the Commander-in-Chief of the Interior Ministry Troops,
Army General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, the efficiency of the united
group of forces in the North Caucasus has increased by 50-100% since
the control over the counter-terrorist operation was transferred to
the Interior Ministry. “The Interior Ministry’s troops carried out
about 4,000 special operations. The crime level in many regions
reduced by 14 percent,” he said.

Catholic World News
March 27 2004

Trappist monk chosen for Good Friday meditations

Vatican, Mar. 26 (CWNews.com) – A Belgian Trappist monk, Father Andre
Louf, has been chosen by Pope John Paul II to write the meditations
for the Stations of the Cross this year.

Each year the Pope presides at the Stations of the Cross on Good
Friday in the Roman Coliseum. Pope John Paul II has made it his
practice to ask a different writer to compose meditations for that
event. In 1986 the Pope called on the French writer Andre Frossard to
provide the text; in 1994 it was the Orthodox Patriarch of
Constantinople, Bartholomew I; in 1997, the Armenian Apostolic
leader, Karekin I; in 2002 the Pope took another unusual step by
asking journalists who cover the Vatican to offer their meditations.

Andre Louf is a major figure in the post-conciliar renewal of the
Trappist order. Born in 1929, he entered the Cistercian monastery in
1949, taking the name of Andre (he was baptized as Jacque). He is the
author of many works on theology and prayer.

National Post (Canada)
March 27, 2004 Saturday Toronto Edition

Love the art, if not the artist, Egoyan says of Wagner opera

by Gord McLaughlin

Wagner’s Ring cycle of four operas, clocking in at 18 hours, is among
the truly monumental achievements of Western culture — and even
shares something with Apocalypse Now! and Bugs Bunny. Those are just
two of the shows that have purloined the 19th-century composer’s
best-known piece of music, the rousing and violent Ride of the
Valkyries.

“It has become a cliche,” admits filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who is
directing the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Die Walkure, the
Ring cycle’s second instalment. It runs for six performances at the
Hummingbird Centre beginning April 4, and will be remounted in 2006
when the COC takes up residence in the Four Seasons Opera House, now
under construction, and stages the entire cycle.

“It’s important to say that this is the first [production],” says
Egoyan, who suggests some directors have made a career of “instilling
their audience with the idea that this is just the first shot at it.
That is very much the spirit of this production.” The COC’s Ring
cycle was even designed for the new space, not the Hummingbird, and
refinements will come in ’06.

But the cliches stop right now. You’ll find no horns or wings on
these Valkyries, the immortal maids of Norse myth who spirit the most
valiant slain warriors to Valhalla. Michael Levine, the Toronto-bred,
internationally renowned designer, has dressed them in black corseted
gowns, with underwear showing through threadbare rips and holes.
“It’s sort of like moving nine women off the runway of Gaultier and
on to the Hummingbird stage,” Egoyan says.

Even though Ride of the Valkyries embodies some of the opera’s
intricate themes — the lust for power as well as the erosion of
power structures — Egoyan notes it hardly represents what you’ll
actually hear for the rest of this four-hour production.

“People who think it’s going to be this overpowering bombast should
know that 85% of the opera is two or three people onstage having
discussions,” he says. “It’s really intimate. The whole first act is
basically a very simple love triangle.” Of course, simple is defined
here as a brother and sister falling for each other.

Their father, Wotan (Odin), king of the gods, sired them with a
mortal woman. Some of Wagner’s most compelling libretto-writing,
Egoyan says, occurs when the goddess Fricka confronts her husband
about his betrayals, as well as the self-delusion he employs to
rationalize them.

Immersing himself in the composer’s era, Egoyan discerned the
parallels between Fricka’s insights and those of Wagner’s
contemporary, Immanuel Kant, who shook intellectual Europe with his
belief that reality existed on levels beyond what we perceive and
what we like to project as real. (Incidentally, the Valkyries’
peek-a-boo gowns are inspired by social-industrial trends of the same
era.) Egoyan riffles through a sturdy notebook jammed with quotations
and guiding thoughts gleaned from his research. “This is full of
these ideas that I then pretend to have as original thoughts,” he
jokes, “and [the cast] kind of nod their heads.”

Egoyan’s thirst for psychological motives helped to shape a previous
production of the opera Salome, which drew fire from Post critic
Tamara Bernstein when the COC remounted it in 2002. She accused him
of “pumping up” anti-Semitic and misogynist elements in the Strauss
opera based on Oscar Wilde’s play. Egoyan, who normally doesn’t
respond to reviews, gave as good as he got with an article in which
he demanded an apology, and their shots were heard round the opera
world.

Wagner’s deeply held, freely expressed anti-Semitism has made his
work ripe for examination by those looking for allegorical racism.
The most frequent suspect is the dwarf Alberich, who kicks off the
Ring cycle by fashioning a cursed ring that promises power but
ensures doom. (Think of him as Gollum from Tolkien’s Wagner-inspired
Lord of the Rings.) Armchair academics, as well as the other kind,
have pointed to the dwarf’s greed and stature as manifestations of
old stereotypes, though others have pointed out Alberich is one of
the few characters to survive the cycle’s end-of-the-world finale.

Egoyan sees other reasons to dismiss a race-based interpretation.
“For someone who wrote specifically about every decision he made
rationally, and for someone who wrote one of the most extraordinarily
anti-Semitic texts — Jewishness and Music is just horrifying to read
— I’m quite convinced that if he had intended any of these
characters to represent [Jews], he would have said it.”

Even so, Wagner’s reticence may have been uglier still. “He was so
anti-Semitic that he didn’t believe Jews were worthy of
representation on stage.”

Egoyan, of Armenian descent, cites his own experience of loving an
artist’s art but hating his politics. He can still visualize the very
page in George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London where he
read this heartfelt old saying: “Trust a snake before a Jew, a Jew
before a Greek, but don’t trust an Armenian.”

“It just hit me,” he says. “I thought, ‘This person would have had an
attitude about me if I’d met him.’ ”

Ever the intellectual, Egoyan finds it difficult to stop analyzing
the libretto’s psychodramas, “I think because it’s the easiest thing
to explain to people.” But he sounds genuine and not at all cliched
when he says, “The actual things that make the hair on your neck
stand up — the way a certain chord sounds, the way a light falls on
an actor — are inexpressible.”

– For tickets call 416-872-2262.

GRAPHIC: Color Photo: Dean Bicknell, National Post; Not all of
Wagner’s Ring cycle is bombastic, says director Atom Egoyan: “It’s
really intimate.”

Agence France Presse
March 27, 2004 Saturday

US deputy secretary criticises Azerbaijan rights record

BAKU, March 27

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said Saturday that
Azerbaijan’s human rights record needed improvement, during a visit
to the oil-rich former Soviet republic.

Speaking to reporters after talks with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham
Aliyev, and with opposition leaders, the senior US diplomat said:
“The situation with human rights could be much better. We hope that
it will improve.”

He added that he had told the Azeri president that the country’s
press and television should be allowed to operate free from
restrictions.

Human rights groups allege that Azerbaijan is illegally detaining
dozens of opposition activists — subjecting some of them to torture
— and that the government is suppressing freedom of expression.

Some critics say that the United States has muted its criticism in
light of Azerbaijan’s formidable Caspian Sea oil reserves, which will
soon be exported to international markets along a US-backed pipeline.

Armitage arrived in Azerbaijan late Friday from the neighbouring
republic of Armenia, where he also met officials. He left the Azeri
capital Saturday to return to Washington.

The Azeri president said he and Armitage had talked about energy
projects, military cooperation and Azerbaijan’s contribution to the
US-led war against international terrorism.

Azerbaijan is the only majority Muslim state to have so far sent
combat troops to Iraq to help the US occupation force there.

The Economist
March 27 2004

An historical heroine; Turkey and the Armenians

Sabiha Gokcen, a Turkish aviator

A row over the ethnicity of a Turkish icon

WAS she Armenian? The question was on the minds of generals marking
the third anniversary, on March 22nd, of the death of Sabiha Gokcen,
Turkey’s first woman pilot and the adopted daughter of modern
Turkey’s founder, Kemal Ataturk. The generals denounced claims that
Turkey’s feminist icon was an Armenian by birth when they appeared
last month in Agos, a Turkish-Armenian paper in Istanbul.

Any such debate mocked national values and was not conducive to
social peace, fumed the top brass. Hrant Dink, Agos’s managing
editor, counters that it shows that Turks cannot confront their
identity and past. He has been deluged with death threats and mobbed
by ultra-nationalists ever since publishing claims by Hripsime
Sebilciyan Gazalyan, an Armenian, that Miss Gokcen was her aunt. The
official version is that she was an orphan from Bursa, in western
Turkey, who was adopted by Ataturk in 1925. Mrs Gazalyan says that
Ataturk plucked her from an orphanage in the south-eastern town of
Sanliurfa, where she was dumped after losing her father in the mass
slaughter of Armenians in 1915.

Armenians insist that as many as 1.5m of their kin were murdered by
Ottoman forces in what they term genocide. The Turks say at most
300,000 Armenians perished, in a conflict Armenians instigated by
allying with invading Russian troops. The few Turkish scholars who
have challenged the official line have been called traitors. Taner
Akcam, the only Turkish historian to have talked of genocide, had to
seek refuge in America after a string of Turkish universities refused
to hire him.

Despite the row over Miss Gokcen, Mr Dink argues that attitudes to
Turkey’s 80,000 Armenians are changing. The mildly Islamist
government led by the Justice and Development Party has nominated
several Armenians for local elections on March 28th. Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, the prime minister, vows to restore an exquisite Armenian
church in the eastern province of Van. There is talk of resuming
diplomatic ties with Armenia – so long as the Armenians drop demands
that Turkey admit to genocide.

GRAPHIC: A magnificent Turk – or Armenian?

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
March 27, 2004 Saturday

US Dep State Secretary says US uninterested in bases in Azerbaijan

By Sevindj Abdullayeva, Viktor Shulman

BAKU

U.S. Administration has no interest in placing its military bases in
Azerbaijan, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told a news
conference here Saturday.

The U.S. does not have any such intentions, he indicated.

As he mentioned the problem of the 16 year-old ethnic conflict in
Nagorno-Karabakh, Armitage said the problem could not be solved upon
orders from above and the sides would have to reach agreement on
their own.

The Minsk group on Nagorno-Karabakh, set under the auspices of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is just a
mediator in a search for solution, Armitage said.

Had it been so easy to settle the Karabakh dispute, it would have
long been settled, he said.

Armitage did not rule out that conflict there might see new relapses
in the future.

Recent events in Kosovo show that the situation may change at any
moment, and that is why early settlement of the issue would
definitely meet the interests of all the sides, Armitage said, adding
that more efforts to reach peace in the Karabakh area would follow.

He stressed the U.S. Administration’s conviction that Turkey and
Armenia would do a good thing if they opened their common border.

This was one of the issues he had discussed with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev, who believes, however, that the
Turkish-Armenian border opening might impair progress the talks on
the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, Armitage said.

He underlined the reassuring changes that had taken place in
Azerbaijan since 1992, but said the country could have done better in
the field of human rights.

Armitage also insisted that more freedom must be given to the mass
media here.