CROONER AZNAVOUR TAPS CUBAN RHYTHMS
The West Australian, Australia
Oct 18 2006
At the age of 82, French crooner Charles Aznavour is still looking
for new ways to capture an audience and has turned to the hot rhythms
of Cuban music to convey his songs.
Aznavour teamed up with Latin jazz piano virtuoso Chucho Valdes to
record 11 songs, Aznavour said before heading home after eight days
in a Havana studio.
His new offerings include songs about environmental degradation and
last year’s race riots in France.
“To have Cuban music with such lyrics will draw us closer to the
public. It’s not a question of selling records but of conveying ideas
to people, not political but important human ideas,” he said at a
news conference.
It is not Aznavour’s first encounter with Cuban musicians.
In 1999, he recorded the song Morir de amor (Dying of Love) with the
late Compay Segundo of Buena Vista Social Club fame.
“That was a marvelous experience. Between smiles, cigars and music
we managed a duet,” said the blazer-clad singer.
Born in Paris of Armenian immigrants, the raspy-voiced Aznavour was
discovered by Edith Piaf in the 1940s.
His breakthrough in America was not on the stage but on the screen
in Francois Truffaut’s 1960 film, Shoot The Piano Player.
Ray Charles, Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby sang songs written by
Aznavour.
“Songs are a powerful weapon. Important statements disappear from
the newspaper the next day, but songs remain. They penetrate walls
and keep important ideas alive in the human spirit,” he said.
Aznavour’s new record, scheduled for release by EMI early next year,
was recorded in Havana’s Abdala studio with Chucho Valdes and musicians
from his Iraquere band.

BAYKAL’S TARGET WAS AðAR
Sabah, Turkey
Oct 18 2006
The chairman of CHP (Republican People’s Party) Deniz Baykal responded
harshly to the words of the chairman of DYP (True Path Party) Mehmet
Aðar saying: “Baykal does not understand me.” He responded to Aðar
that: “You were not misunderstood; you have spoken wrongly just
like the Pope.” Baykal added that the government does not give real
reaction to the Armenian genocide denial bill of France except a flash
in the pan. Baykal stated that political fight should be accompanied
by jurisdical fight.
–Boundary_(ID_LZEUV5g50/lNMZNdDuQGzg)–

GRAND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF TURKEY CONDEMNS FRANCE AND REMINDS OF THE NEAR HISTORY
Sabah, Turkey
Oct 18 2006
General council of Grand National Assembly of Turkey responded
the denial of genocide bill harshly: “You caused the death of one
million people in Algeria, Indian China, Madagascar and other African
countries. Gul said: “The irreparable wounds have been opened.”
Grand National Assembly of Turkey responded the French Parliament
which enables jurisdiction of the ones denying the Armenian genocide
with a communiquThe Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Gul
warned France in a harsh tone: “If the bill is accepted as a law,
our relations in political, economical and security field will be
wounded irreparably.” The communiquaccepted by the council unanimously
briefly stated that Grand National Assembly of Turkey condemns the
legal bill seriously and all Turkish citizens including the Armenian
ones react against this bill. France which caused the death of over
one million innocent people in Algeria, Indian China, Madagascar and
other African countries with its applications in the near history,
should speak carefully about other countries’ historical events.

EXTREMISTS MANAGE TO KEEP EACH OTHER HAPPY
By Gwynne Dyer
Hamilton Spectator, Canada
Oct 18 2006
Words matter. The Holocaust of the Jews in the Second World War
was genocide. The mass deportation of Chechens from their Caucasian
homeland in the same war was a crime but not genocide, though half of
them died, because Moscow’s aim was to keep them from collaborating
with German troops, not to exterminate them. Which brings us to the
Armenians and the Turks.
On Oct. 12, France passed a law declaring that anyone who denies that
the mass murder of Armenians in Turkey in 1915-17 was genocide will
face a year in prison. But the French foreign ministry called the law
“unnecessary and untimely” and President Jacques Chirac called Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan to apologize.
Why would the conservative majority in the French parliament
deliberately set out to annoy the Turks, knowing the law will
eventually be vetoed by the president? Because they hope to provoke
a nationalist backlash in Turkey that will further damage its already
difficult relationship with the European Union.
French public opinion is already in a xenophobic mood over the last
expansion of the EU, with folk tales of “Polish plumbers” working for
peanuts and stealing the jobs of honest French workers causing outrage,
especially among right-wing voters who never much liked foreigners
anyway. The prospect of 80 million Muslim Turks joining the EU, even
if it is at least 10 years away, is enough to make their blood boil.
So a row with Turkey should attract votes to the right’s presidential
candidate in next May’s election. That’s likely to be none other
than current Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy who said last month that
Turkey should never be allowed to join the EU: “We have to say who
is European and who isn’t. It’s no longer possible to leave this
question open.” The new law is not really about Armenians or Turks.
It’s about the French election.
Meanwhile, in Turkey, anti-EU nationalists have their own game. As
Turkey was busy amending its penal code to conform to EU standards in
the past few years, hard line lawyers and bureaucrats smuggled in a
new law, Article 301, that provides severe penalties for “insulting
Turkishness.”
In practice, that mainly means trying to ban public discussion of the
Armenian massacres. Some 70 prosecutions have already been brought
by the ultra-right-wing Union of Lawyers against Turkish authors,
journalists and other public figures.
For several generations Turkey flatly denied any guilt for the Armenian
massacres, insisting they didn’t happen and if they did, it was the
Armenians’ own fault for rebelling against Turkey in wartime.
Latterly, Turkish intellectuals have been saying that a million or
more Armenians did die in the mass deportations and that Turkey needs
to admit its guilt and apologize, though most still refuse to call
it genocide as that would put it in the same category as the Holocaust.
The prosecutions for “insulting Turkishness” — even against Turkey’s
greatest living novelist, Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk — are
not just attempts to stifle this dialogue among Turks, or between
Turks and Armenians. The ultra-nationalists also want to derail the
negotiations for EU membership by painting Turkey as an authoritarian
and intolerant state that does not belong in Europe. They are, in
effect, Sarkozy’s objective allies.
But Prime Minister Erdogan will probably repeal Article 301 once next
year’s elections are past. France’s law, which requires people not to
deny the Armenian massacres, the talks that 301 bans, will probably be
vetoed by Chirac. And Turkey’s best-known Armenian journalist, Hrant
Dink, who has already been prosecuted several times under 301, has
just announced he’ll go to France “to protest against this madness and
violate the law … and I will commit the crime to be prosecuted there,
so that these two irrational mentalities can race to put me into jail.”
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles
are published in 45 countries.
p/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Articl e_Type1&c=Article&cid=1161121814335&ca ll_pageid=1020420665036&col=1112188062581
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

FRENCH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY MAKES DENIAL OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE A PUNISHABLE OFFENCE
By Peter Schwarz
World Socialist Web Site, MI
Oct 18 2006
The decision by the French National Assembly to make denial of the
genocide of Armenians in 1915 a punishable offence is a reactionary
provocation.
The prohibition primarily serves domestic purposes. In line with the
ongoing campaign against Islam, this latest ban uses religious and
ethnic issues to divert attention from increasing social tensions.
The new bill does absolutely nothing to help explain one of the
darkest chapters in the history of the last century. Quite the
contrary, the intrusion by criminal law into historical debate is
an attack on free speech and actually obstructs the clarification of
historical questions.
The law, which was passed by the National Assembly last Thursday by
106 votes to 19, threatens those who deny the genocide of Armenians
during the Ottoman empire with one year in prison and a fine of 45,000
euros. The new law supplements a law unanimously passed by the National
Assembly in 2001, which officially recognised the genocide conducted
against the Armenians.
The new law was introduced by the main opposition party, the Socialist
Party. Forty Socialist deputies voted in favour of the bill with two
voting against. The law was also supported by the French Stalinist
Communist Party (PCF).
The Gaullist government rejected the law on the basis of foreign
policy considerations. But the governing UMP (Union for a Popular
Movement) cleared the way for the law by freeing its deputies from
party discipline and recommending non-participation at the vote. In
the event, 49 UMP deputies, led by former minister Patrick Devedjian,
who is of Armenian origin, voted for the new bill with 17 voting
against. The vast majority of the Assembly’s 577 deputies did not
attend the vote.
In order to become law the bill has to be agreed by the second
chamber, the Senate. It is up to the government to decide if and when
it introduces the bill into the Senate and it may well be the case
that this will never happen. Nevertheless, the vote by the National
Assembly has already had significant consequences.
Reaction has been particularly pronounced in Turkey, which has its own
law making the opposite claim, i.e., affirmation of the genocide of
1915, a punishable offence. The extreme-right Nationalist Movement
Party (MHP) had organized demonstrations against the French bill
even before the vote was taken. Other organizations have called for
a boycott on French goods and the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has
threatened to retaliate with economic sanctions, including calling
off a planned French-Turkish armaments deal, and a ban on French bids
to construct a nuclear power plant.
Significantly opposition movements and representatives of the Armenian
community in Turkey have also condemned the French law. They fear
that it plays into the hands of right-wing, nationalist forces and
could provoke repressive measures against the Armenian people.
They are also opposed to the fact that France wants to enforce
recognition of the Armenian genocide with the same measures Turkey
is utilising denying it-i.e., penal law.
“How can we in future argue against laws that forbid us to talk about
a genocide if France, for its part, now does the same thing? That
is completely irrational,” commentated Hrant Dink, publisher of
the Armenian Turkish weekly Argos. Dink, who was condemned to six
months in prison on probation last year over the Armenian question,
and currently faces renewed repression over the issue, has even
threatened to go to France and, contrary to his own opinion, deny
the genocide in defiance of the new law.
Another Armenian journalist, Etyen Mahcupyan, from the daily paper
Zaman, sees a danger that the tenuous discussion begun in Turkey
over the Armenia question could be jeopardised by the French law. For
the first time ever a congress has been held in Istanbul to publicly
discuss the Armenian question. Mahcupyan warned: “The action of the
French parliament brings the Turkish population nearer to the state,
which can then manipulate them more easily.”
Prominent historians in France have also expressed their vehement
opposition to the law. In a statement entitled “Freedom for history”
they condemned the law as an attack on the “freedom of expression.”
The law served to reduce “teachers once more to the status of
hostages.”
The French government and the European Commission have expressed
objections to the law because they fear a deterioration of relations
with Turkey. There is much at stake for French businesses. Should
Erdogan stick to his threat then orders of up to 14 billion euros
are at risk. Additional losses could be recorded by the French
supermarket chain Carrefour, which has a substantial share of the
market in Turkey, as well as the auto concern Renault, which has a
big factory near Istanbul.
Nevertheless, all this has not prevented the National Assembly from
passing a law that punishes undesirable opinions on an event which
took place 90 years ago and in which France played no substantial role.
The only other similar law in France is one which forbids any denial of
the Holocaust, in which the French Vichy regime did play an important
role. Other crimes with much more immediate relevance-such as the
torture and massacres carried out by French colonialism in Algeria
and Indochina-are not subject to legal sanction and are occasionally
officially denied.
Just last winter, when the government sought to pass a law emphasising
the “positive role” of French colonial policy in school textbooks,
the Socialist Party argued that parliament had no right to issue
laws dealing with history and that politicians could not determine
historical issues. Now they have thrown this principle overboard and
are doing the same themselves.
Why this law?
The principal aim of the new law is to garner electoral support. Both
Segol ène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy, the probable candidates of the
Socialist Party and the UMP for the presidential elections next year,
have declared their support for the new law. Both candidates are
seeking to win support from the approximately half million Armenians
living in France, the majority of whom back the law.
However there is more at stake than the Armenian electorate. The new
law is also aimed against Turkey’s plans to join the European Union.
President Chirac led the way in this respect 10 days ago when, during
an official trip to the Armenian capital of Yerevan, he declared
that Turkey must recognize the genocide of the Armenians before being
accepted into the European Union-a condition that the European Union
does not require.
Right-wing politicians throughout Europe have used agitation against
Turkish membership in the European Union as a means of mobilising
backward layers of the electorate. In a similar manner to the current
campaign being waged against immigrants and Muslims this question is
being exploited to encourage xenophobia and divert social fears and
tension away from the ruling elite. While Conservative politicians
generally argue for the “defence of the Christian civilisation,”
French socialists are using the Armenian question for the same purpose.
The fact that the French Socialist Party has undertaken such an
initiative with the active support of the Communist Party speaks
volumes over the extent of the decline of these organizations. Unable
to provide any sort of answer to the growing social crisis, they are
both playing the card of xenophobia.
The officer’s daughter Segol ène Royal, who has been systematically
groomed by the media as the Socialist presidential candidate, has
sought on a number of occasions to outflank her UMP rival Nicolas
Sarkozy on the right-for example with her appeal to entrust the army
with the education of rebellious young people. She has now gone even
further with her advocacy of the Armenian law.
As usual the Communist Party is seeking to shout even louder.
Communist deputy Frederic Dutoit praised the new law before the
National Assembly as an “immense progress for the Armenian cause
and for humanity as a whole.” He then threatened, “It is a first
step, others must follow.” The newspaper La Marseillaise, which has
close links to the PCF, celebrated the “prohibition of denial” as an
“expression of respect for universal values.” In the world of the
French Stalinists censorship remains the highest form of freedom!
Following a series of strike movements and revolts in recent years
directed at both Gaullist and Socialist Party-led governments, the
Socialist and Communist parties are prepared to go to any lengths to
prevent a further intensification of social protest.
–Boundary_(ID_FIVFUo4sSOuQWAJNfCjviw)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

THE SITUATION IN EUROPE ISN’T SO BAD
By Taha Akyol
Turkish Press
Oct 18 2006
MILLIYET- Turkey isn’t opening its harbors to the Greek Cypriots, and
the European Union isn’t lifting the embargo on the Turkish Republic of
Northern Cyprus (TRNC). It’s a deadlock, isn’t it? It seemed this way,
but EU Term President Finland suggested a solution. So we saw that
there may be searches for interim solutions and meanwhile Turkey’s
membership talks with the EU can continue. This is a very important
development. Instead of asking us to open our harbors this year,
a new terminology is being developed. According to this, Luxembourg
wants us to do it in the following months or years. This was said by
EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn. So Turkey will continue
its membership talks, while the issues of harbors and isolation are
being discussed. Our image of a country engaged in EU membership
talks attracted $20 billion in capital to Turkey. This image will
continue uninterruptedly. Meanwhile, strong EU countries are against
the idea of suspending the process of Turkey’s membership talks,
and the Greek Cypriot administration isn’t strong enough to suspend
it. However, for example, the Greek Cypriot administration can hinder
the opening of certain chapters on transportation. Then Turkey would
continue its membership talks, in other words, the train would go on
its way. In Luxembourg, when I talked with Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gul’s advisors during the breakfast break, I heard that this is what
they are thinking.
Another problematic issue for Turkey is Article 301. When we were
talking on the plane, Gul said, ‘Turkey is a free, democratic
country. Everybody can talk and write freely. All the charges filed
under Article 301 ended in acquittal. Of course we know our problems
but we’ll address them. Turkey is developing in the areas of the
economy and democracy. France is the engine of the EU. You saw
what’s going on even there!’ Stating that the EU criticized France
for removing freedom of thought on the Armenian issue, Gul said that
the Turkish public should know this and shouldn’t think that only
Turkey is always criticized. Diplomats are looking for a solution
about Article 301. This issue will be discussed a great deal.
During the press conference later, nobody had a sour face and the
atmosphere wasn’t tense. Rehn started by saying that there are good
developments. It seems that what Gul said about Article 301 had a
positive effect. Finland’s intercession to solve the Cyprus deadlock
on harbors and isolation softened the atmosphere. Nobody is especially
stressing the Cyprus issue. So what will happen if the Finnish plan
doesn’t work? Finnish Foreign Minister Erki Tuomioja and Rehn gave
the same answers to this question. They said that now this was on the
table and that they don’t want to think of another possibility. These
are all positive developments. We can say that the Nov. 8 EU progress
report won’t be as harsh as expected. The situation in Europe isn’t
bad at all.

PARLIAMENT TO DISCUSS DEVELOPMENTS IN WAKE OF FRANCE’S PASSAGE OF ARMENIAN BILL
Turkish Press
Oct 18 2006
Parliament is due today to discuss a bill criminalizing denial of the
so-called Armenian genocide passed last week by France and developments
in its wake. Parliament is expected to give a harsh response to France
over the bill. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul is due to brief the
assembled deputies on the issue. After Gul addresses the deputies,
members of the opposition parties will make speeches. A declaration
condemning the decision of the French Parliament is expected to be
released following the speeches.

ARINC: “WITH THE ARMENIAN BILL, FRANCE ROUSED TURKISH OPPOSITION AND FAILED THE SINCERITY TEST”
Turkish Press
Oct 18 2006
Speaking yesterday at a press conference marking the beginning of
Parliament’s new legislative year, Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc
said that the whole nation had reacted against the bill criminalizing
denial of the so-called Armenian genocide passed by the French
Parliament last week, adding that France should know that the bill
will hurt it in the future. Asked whether he believed that French
President Jacques Chirac, who recently telephoned Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan to apologize over the bill, was being sincere,
Arinc stated that if a child were asked this question, he would give
the same answer. “The whole Turkish nation gave the same answer to
France,” said Arinc. “France has failed the sincerity test.” Later,
Arinc flew to Saudi Arabia for an official visit.

BABACAN: “ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CLAIMS ARE MEANT TO PROVOKE TURKEY”
Turkish Press
Oct 18 2006
State Minister for the Economy and chief European Union negotiator Ali
Babacan said yesterday that the so-called Armenian genocide claims
were meant to provoke Turkey, adding that the Turkish nation could
lose if it doesn’t keep its calm. “We can’t get anywhere if we’re
overly sensitive,” said Babacan. Commenting on Turkey’s EU bid,
Babacan stated that the screening of chapters was completed on Oct.
13, adding that Turkey had completed its screening process in a year
compared to other EU candidates’ 18 months. Cautioning that 2007
would be difficult for Turkey’s EU bid, Babacan added that Ankara
would focus on the official negotiations. Babacan further denied
claims that the government had lost its EU enthusiasm.

TURK HOUSE RAPS ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL
Gulf Times, Qatar
Oct 18 2006
ANKARA: Turkey’s parliament yesterday backed a declaration condemning
the French National Assembly’s approval of a draft bill that would
make it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide by Ottoman Turks
in 1915.
But the government stopped short of taking measures against French
interests and companies, aware this could harm Turkey’s economy more
than France’s.
Diplomats say the genocide bill, approved by the lower house last
Thursday, is unlikely to become law due to resistance from the upper
chamber, the Senate and President Jacques Chirac.
Turkish lawmakers said much damage had already been done.
“Naturally, approval of the draft by the French parliament will
inflict irreparable damage on political, economic and military
relations between Turkey and France,” said the declaration which had
the backing of all political parties.
It said Armenia would pay a “heavy price” for using lobbies in France
and in other countries against Turkey, although it did not say what
that might entail.
Turkey has no diplomatic relations with Armenia due to the tiny
ex-Soviet republic’s occupation of territory belonging to Ankara’s
Turkic-speaking ally Azerbaijan.
France is home to Europe’s largest Armenian diaspora.
Ankara denies Armenians’ claims they suffered a systematic genocide in
Turkey during World War I, saying both Christian Armenians and Muslim
Turks died in large numbers in a partisan conflict that accompanied
the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.
In yesterday’s debate in the Turkish parliament, Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul said the “baseless” Armenian claims were nothing more
than political propaganda.
“We hope this bill stops halfway and that the French come to their
senses,” Gul said.
He said the French bill violated the principle of free speech, a key
requirement of the EU, which Turkey hopes to join. He said Ankara
would fight the bill in international courts if it ever became law
in France. – Reuters