AZERBAIJAN NOT TO BE REPRESENTED IN EUROVISION-2007

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Dec 4 2006

Azerbaijan will not be represented in Eurovision-2007, because
Azerbaijan Tele-radio Programs Closed Joint-Stock Company is not a full
member of European Broadcasting Union so far, APA’s bureau reports.

Georgia, Montenegro and Czechia will join the competition. 43 countries
appealed to participate in the competition. 29 countries will compete
in semi-final on May 10. 10 of them will pass to the final. According
to the results of Eurovision-2006, 14 countries, as well as Russia
and Armenia have already passed to the final on May 12.

Azerbaijan will join the competition in 2008, as AzTV will be a full
member of European Broadcasting Union, AzTV Music Office told APA.

Finland was the champion of Eurovision-2006.

KARL DE GUCHT: PROGRESS IN SETTLEMENT OF NAGORNO KARABAKH CONFLICT THIS YEAR

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Dec 4 2006

"Progress was made in the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict in
2006," Karl De Gucht, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Belgian Foreign
Minister said during the meeting of OSCE Foreign Ministers in Brussels,
APA Western bureau reports.

He said that the problems concerning Nagorno Karabakh and other
frozen conflicts will be discussed at the two-meeting of Foreign
Ministers.

THE COLOUR OF BLOOD IS SNOW
Prasenjit Chowdhury Kolkata

HardNews Magazine, India
Dec 4 2006

The trial of Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Laureate for Literature this year,
was also a trial of his native Turkey, a country unwilling to face
its hoary past

Orhan Pamuk’s trial was, to the larger world, also a trial of the
progressiveness of the entire nation of Turkey. Did Pamuk become a
Nobel Laureate at the expense of exposing his own country’s culture
of silence and oppression, genocidal record and state assault on
constitutional freedom to the whole world?

The most famous author from Turkey and Literature Nobel Laureate for
2006 spoke in February 2005 to the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger about
the Turkish genocide of Armenians. He has met with unmitigated hatred
ever since. His books were burned at a nationalist demonstration in
Bilecik; a district administrator ordered them to be removed from
libraries; and his photo was ripped apart at a rally in Isparta
province. Hurriyet, Turkey’s largest newspaper, called Pamuk an
"abject creature". He was initially forced to flee Turkey because of
the hate campaign being waged against him. But, then, there was an
international outcry, with Amnesty International, PEN (the worldwide
association of writers) and a collection of renowned authors (including
Gabriel García Marquez, John Updike, Gunter Grass, Salman Rushdie and
Umberto Eco) denouncing Turkey’s actions to curtail Pamuk’s right to
free speech. Pamuk was able to return to his country, possibly because
of this international outcry, as Turkey was afraid muzzling Pamuk would
undermine its chances for becoming a member of the European Union (EU).

Somehow, the trial of Pamuk has become more symbolic than the literary
oeuvre of a man who brought to light the traditionalist core of a
society covered over with a thin layer of ill-seated modernity.

Many commentators have stressed on the politics of the Nobel-Pamuk
being among the first writers to be put on trial for mentioning
the Armenian massacres of 1915, etc. Although Pamuk’s literary
excellence is indubitable, his trial got more attention than what he
does best-writing.

Pamuk’s writings focus on the religiosity and backwardness of
Turkey and its Ottoman roots, mixed with a harking back to lost
Islamic glory. They speak, too, of Ataturk’s legacy-without his elan
and vision-that tries to disown its past of the Kurd and Armenian
massacres, but is keen to be seen as a forward-looking nation-state
built on the remnants of a decadent empire. One gets most of this in
his eight novels, the most notable being My Name Is Red, The Black
Book, The New Life, The White Castle and Istanbul.

In his explosive comments published early last year, Pamuk was
quoted as saying, "Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians
were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about
it." This was a not-so-oblique reference to the conflict between the
Ottoman Armenians and the Empire’s armed forces during World War I,
as well as the hostilities ongoing since the mid-1980s between the
Turkish Republic and Kurdish separatists. For his remarks on the
alleged genocide of Kurds and Armenians in Anatolia between 1915 and
1917, he was charged by Turkish state prosecutors with "insulting
Turkishness"-a new offence, which carries a prison sentence of up
to three years as penalty. Pamuk’s trial opened on 16th December,
2005, and was rescheduled for 7th February, 2006-it posed a serious
question about the secular democratic credentials of Turkey pending
its entry into the European Union (EU). In <Snow> and <Istanbul>, too,
Pamuk punched a hole into the fragile nationalist pride by disclosing
Turkey’s hoary past. The lure of gaining access to the EU seemed to
act for him, as the Turkish government did not want to undermine its
human rights record; charges of insulting Turkishness against Pamuk
were dropped over a technicality earlier this year.

Pamuk has touched the raw nerves of the secular right-wing of Turkey.

Not that Turkey disputes the deaths of ethnic Armenians in the
conflicts that saw the Ottoman Empire fall. But it takes care to
stress that the killings were never part of a genocidal campaign,
arguing that many ethnic Turks also lost their lives during that
period. It also repudiates claims that its efforts to contain Kurdish
separatist uprisings can be classed as genocide. No two issues are
more loaded-political or divisive-and using any of them as fuel in
the anti-EU campaign is deemed risible in Turkey.

Apart from its past, Turkey, in more ways than one, is the brand
ambassador of the success of a Western-style secular Muslim state and
is, as such, considered a foil to radical Islam. Pamuk, in his novels,
writes about the crisis of identity that originates from living in a
Westernised fashion in a society that is essentially non-Western in
its ethos. He admits that, following the occidental, secular reforms
introduced by Kemal Ataturk, Turkish culture was divided into two:
the modern culture influenced by Europe and the Ottoman Islamic
heritage. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, all the cultural and
material wealth of the Middle East flew towards Istanbul. Turkey has
a highly-educated secular elite class. The founders of the modern
Republic of Turkey, Pamuk says, "naively" thought that a shortcut to
modernity-to Europe-would be to forget about the past; they crudely
suppressed Ottoman Islamic cultural history. "I write modern, some say
post-modern, avant-garde-inspired novels, which is a Western form, but
they carry that suppressed Ottoman culture, Islamic culture," he says.

Do present-day Turks see themselves as the grieving heirs of what
was once a world empire? In his novel, My Name Is Red, Pamuk paints
a picture of Istanbul the way it was at the height of Ottoman power.

The Ottoman period is, for most Europeans and Americans-and perhaps
for many Turks as well-a poorly-understood time. The Ottoman Turks
were the last of the great Eastern invaders-a group including the Huns,
the Arabs and the Mongols that swept into Europe. The images that have
trickled down are of moustachioed janissaries, pillaging in the name
of Islam, contrasted with the perceived opulent licentiousness of the
harem-images that have become synonymous with Islam in much-popular
thought. A murder mystery and love story, My Name Is Red is set among
the artistic intrigues of the Islamic miniaturists of the Ottoman court
in 16th-century Istanbul. It is a rich and complex work, narrated by
a range of voices that explores the tension between East and West,
Islam and Christianity.

Pamuk, therefore, serves as the much-needed bridge between the West
and the East, between an ancient Islamic culture and the contemporary
dream of an economically prosperous nation. His memoir, Istanbul,
for instance, chronicles the pervasive sadness and anger that attended
the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the wholesale cultural imitation of
the West. Snow is a tryst between tradition and modernity, the East
with the West, and the cultural encounters between Europe and the
turbulent Ottoman Empire, which underlined the European aspiration of
a Muslim nation. At some point in history, Istanbul was the centre
of both Islam and Christianity, and Pamuk’s work is often about the
melting of the two.

Pamuk is looked upon as the West’s mouthpiece in the Islamic world,
which believes that it is this dubious distinction that earned him
the Nobel. In 1989, when the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini was
haunting Rushdie, Pamuk had the guts to rise up in Rushdie’s defence.

To do so, from a Muslim country, called for courage. His refusal to
accept the Turkish government’s award of ‘state artist’, in protest
against its repressive role in the treatment of his fellow writers and
the Kurdish freedom fighters in December 1998, is, again, a comment
on his political conviction.

A purveyor of the theme of clashes between civilisations and the role
of Islam, Pamuk’s works give us an understanding of the origins of
these clashes and the rise of political Islam.

2/684

–Boundary_(ID_cZFlnelbQRYvsn1oWYeeNQ)–

KAZAKHSTAN IS NOT GOING TO CHAIR THE OSCE IN 2009
Arkady Dubnov

Vremya Novostei, December 4, 2006, p. 2
Ferghana.ru, Russia
Dec 4 2006

Two-day session of the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers opening in
Brussels today is supposed to decide what country to choose for the
chairman in 2009. Diplomatic sources claim, however, that the session
will come up with no decision – because of Kazakhstan, one of the
claimants for the privilege, that all but made it its national idea
in 2003.

The first CIS country in the OSCE to aspire for chairmanship in
the European structure that unites West and East Europe, the United
States, Canada, and post-Soviet Central Asia, Kazakhstan has both
supporters and enemies in the matter. Needless to say, the former
include Astana’s partners in the CIS and some West European countries
– Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. Enemies of the idea
include the United States and Great Britain that do not think that
Kazakhstan is up to a number of democratic standards, particularly
in the sphere of human rights and readiness to arrange free and fair
elections. Since a consensus is clearly impossible, sources claim
that the decision will be postponed for until 2007.

The OSCE headquarters leans toward making Greece chairman in 2009,
Lithuania in 2010, and Kazakhstan – perhaps – in 2011. The last message
to this effect, not particularly clear, was sent to Kazakhstan during
the CIS summit in Minsk, Belarus, on November 28.

OSCE Chairman and Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Guht visited the
capital of Belarus this day. Senior state officials of the Belarussian
state including President Alexander Lukashenko himself are personae
non grata in the European Union. Officially, De Guht came to Minsk
to attend a meeting between presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan
Robert Kocharjan and Ilham Aliyev. The dialogue between Yerevan and
Baku over Nagorno-Karabakh has been under way for years, under the
aegis of the OSCE Minsk Group whose chairmen from Russia, France,
and the United States were also in Minsk that day.

Conversation at de Guht’s meeting with Belarussian Foreign Minister
Sergei Martynov was centered around the agenda of the session opening
in Brussels today. Sources in Vienna claim in the meantime that de
Guht also met with representatives of the Kazakh authorities. First,
de Guht told Astana that President Nursultan Nazarbayev needn’t bother
addressing the Brussels session in person to try and persuade opponents
that Kazakhstan deserved the honor of chairing the OSCE.

Second, he said that Kazakhstan could aspire for the privilege two
years later.

It seems in the meantime that official Astana itself has decided
to call it off. Well-informed and trustworthy sources there say
that Nazarbayev himself was extremely critical of the idea of OSCE
chairmanship at a closed conference the other day. It figures, if
Astana doesn’t want to lose face.

ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER TO HOLD DISCUSSIONS WITH AGO GROUP

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Dec 4 2006

Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian will come to Strasbourg
after the OSCE meeting held in Brussels, APA Europe bureau reports.

The aim of his visit to participate in the events held on the
occasion of Armenian Year in France. He will meet with the chiefs of
the municipalities. According to the exclusive information given by
the deputy secretary of CE Ministers’ Committee Christoph Puarelli,
Vardan Oskanian will meet with AGO Group. They will discuss Armenian’s
CE commitments and the current level of talks of Nagorno Karabakh
conflict.

ELMAR MAMMADYAROV PARTICIPATES IN 14TH MEETING OF OSCE FOREIGN MINISTERS’ COUNCIL

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Dec 4 2006

Today, Brussels hosts the 14th annual meeting of OSCE Foreign
Ministers’ Council, APA reports.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov participates in the
meeting which will last for two days and problem of OSCE reforms
and Kazakhstan’s bid for the OSCE chairmanship will be discussed
in the meeting. It should be noted that, Kazakhstan’s chairmanship
was supported in the CIS Summit three years ago. Kazakhstan Embassy
in Azerbaijan told the APA that, at present, Kazakhstan President
Nursultan Nazarbayev is in official visit in Brussels. If Kazakhstan’s
chairmanship is supported, it will be the first country in CIS to
chair this Organisation. Within the meeting, Azerbaijani and Armenian
Foreign Ministers will meet with the participation of OSCE Minsk Group
co-chairs. The meeting of the ministers was agreed at the meeting
of Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharyan which took place in
Minsk on November 28.

It should be noted that, it is also planned to hold the meeting of the
GUAM Foreign Ministers. Protracted problems in GUAM territory will
also be discussed in the meeting. According the information spread
by Russia mass media Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will make
speech in the meeting. Russia doubts to adopt Russia declaration,
because the positions on frozen conflicts differ. Moscow considers that
if the document containing the main principles of regulation of frozen
conflicts in OSCE is adopted, it would help regulation processes.

AZERBAIJAN WILL NOT RECOGNIZE RESULTS OF KARABAKH REFERENDUM – MINISTRY

Interfax, Russia
Dec 4 2006

BAKU. Dec 4 (Interfax) – Azerbaijan will not recognize the results
of the referendum on the Karabakh constitution set to be held in the
unrecognized republic of Nagorno-Karabakh on December 10, a statement
by the Azeri Foreign Ministry says.

"Any constituent document on the Karabakh self-government may enter
into force only in the course of a well-considered, legal, democratic
and peaceful process, in which the Armenian and Azeri communities
take part on equal terms," the statement says.

The December 10 referendum "in the occupied region of Azerbaijan would
breach not only the norms and principles of the Azeri constitution
but also those of international law," the ministry said.

"Azerbaijan will never recognize the illegal Armenian-sponsored
acts which derive from the policy of fait accompli and which are in
total opposition to attempts to achieve lasting peace and regional
stability," the ministry said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

TURKEY CONDEMNS ARGENTINIAN RESOLUTION ON "ARMENIAN GENOCIDE"

Anatolia News Agency, Turkey
Dec 1 2006

Ankara, 1 December: Turkey has condemned approval of a resolution
on so-called Armenian genocide [passed] by Argentinian House of
Representatives, noting that this initiative did not comply with
historical facts and the international law.

Releasing a statement, Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recalled
that Buenos Aires House of Representatives adopted a resolution making
2 April "the day of tolerance and respect among peoples in the memory
of Armenian genocide".

The statement noted, "Turkey offered that 1915 incidents should be
examined by Turkish and Armenian historians but this proposal was not
backed. We condemn the approval of resolutions (by various parliaments
on the so-called Armenian genocide)."

The statement also stressed that Argentina’s initiative did not comply
with spirit of bilateral relations between Turkey and Argentina.

OSKANIAN HOPES FOR NO UN RESOLUTION ON NAGORNO KARABAKH
By Nursun Erel, The New Anatolian

The New Anatolian, Turkey
Dec 4 2006

Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said that Armenia doesn’t
see the "genocide issue" as a precondition to normalize relations
with Turkey, but called on his Turkish colleagues to remove all their
preconditions too.

As a successor of the Soviet era, said Oskanian, Armenia recognizes
all treaties including the Treaty of Kars, but he claimed the Turks
are the ones violating the agreement by keeping the border closed.

In his exclusive interview to The New Anatolian, Oskanian also pointed
to the historical city of Ani as a good step for mutual cooperation
and asked Turkey to open the border at least for visitors to the
city. Oskanian also told us that Orhan Pamuk’s two most recent books
are on his desk and he will start reading them soon.

Our appointment with Foreign Minister Oskanian was on the day after
our appointment with Yerevan State University students was cancelled
by the personal initiative of University Rector Aram Simonyan, so when
Oskanian brought up the Armenian press’ great interest in our visit,
I had to tell him about the cancellation too. Here’s what Armenia’s
top diplomat had to tell us during our interview in his office in
the Foreign Ministry building:

OSKANYAN: From what I see in all the newspapers, you’ve become a star
in Yerevan!

TNA: Well I doubt it, because yesterday I was supposed to meet
with journalism students at Yerevan State University but the rector
cancelled our meeting.

OSKANYAN: Why?

TNA: From what I heard, he finds my opinions a "virus" that I could
infect the students with, so he cancelled the meeting.

OSKANYAN: Well, I’m sorry to hear that and certainly that isn’t good,
and I don’t think he made the right decision.

Missed opportunities

TNA: So thank you very much for your kindness in receiving me here for
a second time, because back in 2001 I had another chance to interview
you. But I can’t say that I see much change in Turkish-Armenian
relations. What’s your view of this?

OSKANYAN: That’s a pity and it’s very unfortunate really because
we’re missing huge opportunities with every passing day. Turkey
is classically not raising any option to see those opportunities
and unfortunately doesn’t want to establish diplomatic relations
equally with all three Caucasus nations and play a more constructive
role. So that opportunity was missed. The second opportunity
has come out as closer cooperation with the European Union. At
the same time that Turkey is negotiating its EU accession, today
Turkey has the opportunity to play a role as a bridge between the
Caucasus and Europe. That opportunity is also is being missed,
but the biggest opportunity that we’re missing is the interaction
between our two peoples. Fifteen years have passed (since Armenia
declared its independence in 1991), and no interaction is seen on
the border. Our peoples don’t know each other well and old memories
are being reinforced, our focus today is the wrong focus. We’ve got
to focus on new relations, open borders, establishing diplomatic
relations and that’s what I mean by saying missed opportunities.

TNA: Recently some people in Turkey have said that the government
should seek arbitration in an international court on the issue of the
events of 1915. What do you think of this? (NURSUN: I MEAN GOING FOR
ARBITRAGE AM I RIGHT TO WRITE THIS WAY? LET NAZLAN HAVE A LOOK)

OSKANYAN: For us, there’s no court case, we’ll never talk about
this, because we grew up with the real evidence, our parents and
our grandparents. That living evidence of this tragedy, survival
of genocide, I’m the son of one them. So for Armenians there has
never been an issue where we ourselves have to prove this by going
to court, that this genocide happened. The question for us is to get
a political solution. Because the issue is neither historical nor
legal, it’s political. And Turkey has politicized this by pursuing
a policy of denial at the state level. So the real issue isn’t legal
but political and it’s between the governments of Turkey and Armenia.

Genocide recognition no precondition

TNA: Last week after your President Robert Kocharian visited Greek
Cyprus, I read your statement to Agence France Press saying that the
genocide issue would no longer be an obsession or dominant issue for
Turkish-Armenian relations. Could you elaborate on that?

OSKANYAN: I’ve always said and will continue to say that. Genocide
recognition isn’t a precondition. It’s an issue that’s there and
won’t go away, it’s our moral obligation to pursue recognition. But
that shouldn’t impede the normalization of our relations. As long as
the Armenians don’t say that unless Turkey recognizes the genocide we
won’t normalize our relations, Turkey shouldn’t say the reverse, that
Armenia should drop the complaint of genocide. Neither side should put
any preconditions. We pursue recognition; Turkey is pursuing policies
of denialism. I really cannot see the reason why the borders cannot
be opened, so that our people would interact. That certainly would
create more favorable conditions, so that we can address those issues
in a more constructive manner at the government level and create new
memories that certainly will create a more constructive manner.

TNA: But do you think it’s democratic to punish someone who argues
against the genocide thesis?

OSKANYAN: But is it democratic to punish those in Turkey who say the
events of 1915 are genocide?

Article 301

TNA: Do you think it’s a crime to say this in Turkey?

OSKANYAN: But the law is there, Orhan Pamuk, Hirant Dink (a
famous novelist and an ethnic Armenian writer-editor both charged
under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, TCK, for "insulting
Turkishness"), and the others. What I’m trying to say here are two
things: One, Turkey isn’t in any position to criticize the French
Parliament’s decision (in September, passing a bill criminalizing
denial of the genocide allegations), second, the French Parliament’s
decision is a reaction to the Turkish denialism. It is as simple as
that. That has come as a community request, so that the law will be
passed. But the French parliamentarians did it in reaction. If you
listened to the arguments before the vote, the main issue was your
Article 301. I was listening to the debate, and every single speaker
said it’s because there’s Article 301 in Turkey. So it’s a reaction.

Because the frustration among the Armenian people is the fact that
the events 1915 are denied. And every Armenian would say that it’s a
fact that genocide denial hurts. And it’s natural that Armenians will
react the way they were reacting. They will go to the parliaments of
the countries they’re living in and try to past these similar laws, and
some parliaments will listen to their citizens and the laws will pass.

TNA: Do you think the wording is that important, even though everyone
thinks that 1915 was a real tragedy and everyone must be sorry
for that?

OSKANYAN: No, certainly it’s, it’s important… We’ve got to call
things by their names, you can’t just devalue what happened. Because
as we speak, there are similar acts that are being committed. That
is a whole study, if you say that this is a criminal act, then there
would not have been the scholarship on genocide. It’s a convention,
it has a clear definition and it has become a science.

TNA: Even Turkish journalists are very critical of Article 301. If
it were changed or eliminated altogether, do you think it would
be positive?

OSKANYAN: You know the positive step will be when Turkish scholars
will step out, and once they are all outspoken and have no more fear
to call things by their names, we will see it. That will make for
more healthy discourse without fear of punishment between Turkish
scholars. So there will be more exchanges of ideas, more seminars,
more conferences, and Armenians will be invited too. So that taboo
will be removed when 301 is removed. I’m not saying that without
recognition the Armenians will be satisfied, but we will create
the normal conditions. We have to find a democratic environment for
this discourse.

Pamuk’s novels

TNA: Have you read any of Orhan Pamuk’s novels?

OSKANYAN: Well, actually I have "Istanbul: Memories and the City"
and "Snow" on my desk so I’m planning to read them soon.

TNA: But they haven’t been translated into Armenian, so will you be
reading them in English?

OSKA: I think they will be translated soon, but for now I’ll be
reading them in English.

TNA: When we were talking about positive steps to be taken, some in
Turkey say that the Armenian Constitution has articles referring to
your Declaration of Independence which speaks of "Western Armenia,"
meaning Turkish territories. And they also bring up how the Armenian
Republic has yet to recognize the Treaty of Kars (which defines the
Turkish Republic’s eastern borders).

OSKANYAN: The Treaty of Kars is in force as far as I’m concerned.

Because Armenia is a successor in recognizing the Soviet treaties.

And as long as any treaty hasn’t been renounced officially or replaced
by a new one, it has been in force. But the problem is that the
agreement has been violated so much by the Turkish side. If a legal
expert looks at this agreement and the way it’s been implemented,
I’m not sure if the legal experts would conclude that this is a
valid treaty. The violation is from the Turkish side, (because of)
having closed its borders with Armenia, and this is a violation of
the Treaty of Kars.

Armenian Constitution

TNA: And what of the Armenian Constitution referring to the Declaration
of Independence?

OSKANYAN: First of all let’s be correct, it’s not the Constitution,
but the Constitution makes reference to our Declaration of
Independence. The Declaration of Independence has one phrase that if
we look carefully I don’t think it reflects what you think it does.

If you read it carefully, word for word, maybe you should look at it.

It’s a general statement about our past, not necessarily a statement
about our future claims.

TNA: Earlier this year I visited Akhdamar Island in Van and had the
chance to see the perfectly renovated Armenian church there. Do you
think the Ani ruins in Kars could also be renovated through a joint
initiative? Our culture minister told me they don’t have the budget to
do this, but that the Armenians wouldn’t allocate money either because
they have their own economic difficulties, and the Armenian diaspora
wouldn’t be interested because they have other issues to deal with,
meaning their efforts to provoke world parliaments against Turkey.

OSKANYAN: Tell me if the Turkish government will agree to make Ani
a common visiting ground for Armenians and Turks. The money would
certainly come from international organizations. That would be an
ideal confidence-building measure between Armenia and Turkey, an
ideal cooperation between our two peoples. It’s a common history.

It’s on your territory; it’s been our historic capital. It can be
a common visiting ground for tourists from both sides. I’ve been
suggesting this to the Turkish governments. Open the borders, so that
at least we can visit Ani. We can simply start with no Armenians
or Turks, but with foreign visitors who carry foreign national
passports. Imagine, you have tourists from America coming to Turkey
and they can come to Ani, cross the border and go to Armenia and
vice versa is possible too. But there’s a wall there, an imaginary
wall that Turks have erected, and that’s very unfortunate. Ani can
be a symbol of our cooperation and we call on Turkey to revise its
position on this issue, but there’s been no response.

TNA: If there isn’t even agreement among the world’s leading historians
and experts on the 1915 tragedy, what was wrong with Turkish Prime
Minister Erdogan’s call last year to set up a joint committee of
historians and experts to deal with the issue together?

OSKANYAN: I’ve got to be very honest with you here, we think it’s
not a genuine proposal, it’s a smokescreen for Europeans to think
that Turkey has made a positive step. Let me explain why we think
it’s a smokescreen.

Because of three reasons. One, there’s already such a commission like
many Turkish scholars, Armenians and foreign scholars have debated
the issue, they have discussed the issue and they have declared their
position. Those scholars wrote a letter to Prime Minister Erdogan
when he issued this invitation and they said: Mr. Prime Minister,
that issue has been already studied by different scholars and the
conclusions are very clear. It is a genocide, so there’s no need
for further discussion. And second, with the law within Article 301,
you can’t be serious about such recommendations. I guess that if your
scholars are on the commission, study this topic, they can’t accept
that it’s a genocide. This is what it is. You have 301, that says if
you say there’s a genocide or even discuss the issue of the events of
1915, you can be punished. It’s not compatible. Then today there’s a
vacuum between the Turkish and Armenian governments, between those
two states, because there’s no diplomatic relations. The border is
even closed. So how do you imagine creating that commission among
historians? How will they meet? Where? How will they interact? So
there are many problems to be dealt with correctly.

TNA: Do you believe that someday a Turkish government will admit that
Turks once committed genocide? If not, and if this issue remains a
stubborn obstacle freezing Turkish-Armenian relations, do you see
any way out in the future?

OSKANYAN: The way out isn’t to set preconditions before each other.

This is the way out. The rest will run in its normal course. Turkey
is willing to become an EU member so all those laws, limiting society
will be eliminated eventually, so the path towards a more healthy
discourse will be opened, even to discuss the genocide. So now the
task isn’t to put forth any preconditions. And it’s very unfortunate
that many opportunities are being missed. So that we can’t normalize
our relations.

TNA: You’ve had many face-to-face meetings with our Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul, so why do you think no concrete steps have followed?

OSKANYAN: We started very well with him but then things backtracked
because of the preconditions. Karabakh, genocide and the rest of it.

Once Turkey understands that its strategic interests are more
important than their narrow ethnic interests, I believe things will
change. Today unfortunately Turkey is being guided by Azerbaijan’s
demands, by their Azerbaijani brothers’ narrow ethnic interest,s but
Turks don’t understand that there are broader interests, regional
interests that are good for Turkey, good for the region and good for
Europe. Turkey uses these opportunities to become a bridge between
East and West as it always claimed to be. Between the East and West,
between the Caucasus and Europe.

TNA: The last time I was here I came across a long line in front of
the American Embassy and I learned that every day dozens of families
are leaving Armenia. Now, coming back here five years later I asked
about the situation, but some people joked that there aren’t many
people left in Armenia so there aren’t any lines. How do you see the
future of your country?

OSKANYAN: I’m very optimistic about Armenia’s future and that the
future can be achieved much quicker if we have normal ties with Turkey
and Azerbaijan.

TNA: Would you also like to say some words about Nagorno Karabakh
and why the UN resolutions on it haven’t been implemented by your
government?

OSKANYAN: The UN resolutions are absolutely unhelpful. First there’s
no UN resolution yet and if it happens I believe it will hurt the
process. But if you mean the Security Council resolutions, which put
obligations on both sides, I believe that Armenia has done much more
on behalf of itself, but I can’t say the same for the Azerbaijanis.

TNA: So do you have any message to the man on the street in Turkey?

OSKANYAN: We have to change this status quo, we have to normalize
our relations without any preconditions.

EX-SOVIET IMMIGRANTS FACE HOSTILE RUSSIA
by Dario Thuburn

Agence France Presse — English
December 4, 2006 Monday 2:46 AM GMT

They were once citizens of a single state. But 15 years after the
Soviet Union’s collapse, immigrants from former Soviet republics are
now considered undesirable foreigners in Russia.

"I see this every day," said Gavkhar Dzhurayeva, who heads the Law
and Migration centre in Moscow, an organisation that aids thousands
of labour migrants from across the former Soviet Union.

Many Russians refer to their former Soviet brothers with open contempt,
blaming them for crime and dirty streets. People from Central Asia
get called "churki" ("idiots"), those from the Caucasus "khachi"
("simpletons").

But Dzhurayeva, who fled from the Central Asian state of Tajikistan
after a civil war erupted in 1992, said she could not shake the
feeling that she ought to be welcome in Russia.

"For me it’s very difficult to change my consciousness and see Russia
as a different country. I still have a Soviet mentality," she said.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants leave their homes in poor former
Soviet republics each year to find work in Russia, mostly in major
cities like Moscow, and send money home to their families.

Many work on the rumbling construction sites that are ubiquitous in
Moscow and other Russian cities, or else work as cleaners, stallholders
and street sweepers, eking out a precarious existence in the shadow
of police abuses, organised crime and racist violence.

One of the most prominent and deadly cases of recent racist violence
came in August, when a group of ethnic Russian ultranationalists
detonated a bomb in a market frequented by many immigrants from
Central Asia and the Caucasus, killing 11 people.

"These foreigners are considered second-class citizens because of
their ethnic appearance," said Alexander Verkhovsky, head of the Sova
Centre in Moscow, which researches racism in Russia.

However they are treated, the influx of immigrants is turning Moscow
into a multi-ethnic city.

Between 1989 and 2002, the percentage of Russians in Moscow fell from
93.3 percent to 85 percent, while the proportion of immigrants from
the Caucasus states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia multiplied
five times to 4.5 percent, according to the Institute of Geography
at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Olga Vendina, an institute expert and author of a report entitled
"Ethnic Moscow," said southern parts of the capital had been most
affected, with the proportion of ethnic minorities rising from five
to 15 percent since 1989.

"Immigrants mostly try to fit into Moscow life and become like
everyone, not stick with their diasporas," Vendina told Russian media,
adding that the appearance of "ethnic ghettos" was linked to poverty.

President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year that the number of
immigrants, most of them illegal, may have reached 15 million, which
would give Russia the highest immigration rate in the world.

The trend is supported by the visa-free travel regime between most of
the former Soviet republics, which allows many immigrants to settle
in Russia illegally.

The high levels of immigration have led many in Russia, from
ultra-nationalist groups to mainstream politicians, to turn against
the visa-free regime.

"Everyone used to live in one country surrounded by barbed wire,
now everyone lives in a place that’s open to anyone and everyone,"
said Vladimir Zharikhin, head of the CIS Institute in Moscow.

"This is not normal," said Zharikhin, adding that the only solution
would be for individual countries of the former Soviet Union to
strengthen their borders with each other and impose visas.

Negative attitudes towards former Soviet immigrants are not shared
by all Russians, however, as many, particularly in older generations,
cling to the Soviet ideal of "friendship of the peoples."

A study conducted by the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public
Opinion in July found that 33 percent of Russians polled considered
citizens of former Soviet republics their "compatriots."

The leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine met in Belovezh Forest near
Minsk on December 8, 1991 and signed the Belavezha Accords dissolving
the Soviet Union.

Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation 17
days later.