ANKARA SLAMS EU REPOT ON TURKEY ‘SLUGGISHNESS’
Written by The Media Line Staff
The Media Line, NY
Sept 6 2006
Turkey is dismissing a damning report from the European Union, which
claims Ankara is dragging its feet on reforms, imperative to paving
Turkey’s way into the EU.
A recent report adopted on Monday by the EU General Assembly’s
foreign affairs committee criticized Turkey for its slow progress in
democratic reforms.
But Ankara said the report “lacked common sense” and “smacked of
political bias,” Turkish Daily News reported.
The required reforms include the protection of minorities and freedom
of expression and religion.
The EU is also insisting Turkey recognizes Cyprus and has been
critical of Ankara’s refusal to recognize the killing of Armenians
during World War I as a genocide.
Dutch lawmaker Camiel Eurlings, who penned the report, said Turkey
must move forward with its efforts to incorporate reforms, or else
risk halting accession negotiations.
Last week the EU warned Turkey that its refusal to open ports and
harbors to transportation from Cyprus, an EU member, could cause a
crisis in the talks.
The committee report will be debated by the EU General Assembly later
this month.
Turkey is engaged in accession talks into the 25-member bloc. Talks
could take up to 15 years, and entry is not guaranteed.
Some governments are reluctant to see the mostly Muslim and relatively
poor Turkey enter the EU.

NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS HEAD VISITS ARMENIA
Panorama.am
18:25 06/09/06
Sheikh Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassun, a religious head of Syrian Arabic
Republic, is in Armenia by the invitation of Garegin B, Catholicos
of all Armenians.
“This person is not an ordinary religious head. He opens a way
in the Islamic world and tries to lay a bridge between Islam and
Christianity. He is often criticized by his co-brothers for his
open mind to Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and other religious,”
Archbishop Yeznik Petrosyan said while introducing the guest.
During his four-day visit, Sheikh Ahmad has changed his impressions
about Armenians. “While reading books about Armenia, I had the
impression that Armenians are serious personalities. During these
days, I realized that this nation has a lot of energy. I hope that
globalization will not affect the national face of this nation,”
the religious head says.
Sheikh Ahmad has met with NA Speaker Tigran Torosyan and Armenian
Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan. The religious head came to realize
that Armenians are a peaceful nation and they do not hate Turkey
or Azerbaijan.
Sheikh Ahmad raised his surprise at the statement made by Pashazade,
the religious head of Caucasian Muslims about jihad. The statement
said in particular, that Pashazade is ready to announce jihad for
the liberation of Azerbaijani territories. Sheikh Ahmad explains that
the best jihad “helps people to enjoy the blessings of life and not
to be killed.”

ANKARA STEPS UP EFFORTS FOR CHANGES IN EP REPORT
The New Anatolian, Turkey
Sept 6 2006
The Turkish Foreign Ministry criticized yesterday the European
Parliament’s highly critical report on Turkey, calling on MEPs to show
common sense and make making necessary changes before the report goes
to a vote in the full EP late this month.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Namik Tan in a statement said that
the report puts too much emphasis on “elements that have nothing
to do with Turkish-European Union affairs that won’t contribute to
relations and are far from being reasonable or objective.”
Tan said that some elements in the report are “far from reality and
penned with political motives, [and] don’t mesh with the European
Parliament’s respectability.”
“Attempts to impose conditions that are far from being objective —
such as the so-called Armenian genocide which requires a serious
academic study — were met with deep sadness,” he added.
Turkey’s permanent Ambassador to the EU Volkan Bozkir warned that
the report approved by the EP Foreign Relations Committee has many
parts that could damage Turkey’s relations with the Union, urging
necessary changes to be made immediately.
Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan also ruled out taking the report prepared
by MEP Camiel Eurlings seriously, stressing that Turkey will never
accept the Armenian genocide claims.
“Turkey’s stance and decisiveness on the so-called Armenian genocide
issue is clear and nobody should expect us to change that,” Erdogan
said. “European parliamentarians have already debated this issue and
rejected the genocide claims.”
Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission Co-Chairman Joost Lagendijk
warned the EP about dangers of approving the report in the assembly
saying, “If you increase your demands of Turkey every year, you will
give an impression that the EP is against Turkey’s membership in
the EU.”

MIKHAIL ZABELIN: “WE SHOULD INVITE THOSE TAKING NEGATIVE STANCE ON US TO AZERBAIJAN TO CONVINCE THEM THEY ARE WRONG”
Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 6 2006
“I was pleased that Russian prominent politicians did not attend the
latest events in Khankendi (Stepanakert),” Azerbaijani parliament
member, head of Russian community of Azerbaijan Mikhail Zabelin stated.
He said the community he leads sends an immediate inquiry after any
event that harms Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Stating that the number of cases on Russian politicians visiting the
Armenian-occupied Azerbaijani territories has decreased recently,
Mr.Zabelin said they should be invited to Azerbaijan in order to
change their mind, APA reports.
“I invited Russian parliamentarian Konstantin Zatulin, who was in
Nagorno Karabakh, to the meeting of the Presidium of International
Council of Russian Compatriots held in Baku. He accepted my invitation
and arrived in Baku. I took him to the Martyrs’ Alley and told him
the truths and even I asked him, “how it happened that you did not go
to Nagorno Karabakh this time”. He did not answer my question. I think
we’d better invite those taking negative stance on us to Azerbaijan. We
should change their mind, open their eyes to see the truths. Then they
would leave Azerbaijan as friends. I see my duty must be namely this,”
the parliament member underlined.
Commenting on considering the person visiting Nagorno Karabakh without
informing Azerbaijan as unwelcome, Mr.Zabelin disagreed with that.
“I would not do that. You need to convince an individual that he
took a wrong step. By declaring them unwelcome we make them move
away from us. As a result, they are dissatisfied and visit Nagorno
Karabakh when they are invited again. There are people, who have no
idea of Azerbaijan and its Nagorno Karabakh problem. We should work
with them,” he said.
URL:
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

IDEOLOGY CAN MAKE YOU SICK
Etyen Mahcupyan
Zaman Online, Turkey
Sept 6 2006
The fear of reality forms the basis of all mental illnesses, because
mental health implies harmony between the animate creature and nature
that is harmony with the reality in its environment.
Psychology examines this harmony through the person’s connections to
his social environment and to himself. Consequently, people we call
“sick” are those who are nurtured by an unreal image of themselves…
Similarly, some societies produce unreal valuations and evaluations
about themselves and embrace them with passion. They elevate them as if
they were qualities belonging to the divine. According to the science
of psychology, the reason for this is the societies in question that
lack the maturity to accept reality and their choosing to escape from
the truth rather than face their own weaknesses. As for situations in
which this escape has been made systematic and is nurtured by official
ideology, we are confronted with a chronic state of mental illness…
Turkey lived this state for years. The rapid disintegration of
the Ottoman Empire, the inferiority felt before the West, and the
communal rejection of every kind of religion and ethnicity for the
sake of elevation as a “fair ruler” resulted in shock. After this
period of disintegration in which a feeling of being looked down
upon and a determination of truly being worthless went hand-in-hand,
unfortunately the easiest path was chosen: Instead of trying to
perceive history from an objective perspective, first history was
produced by the state and then when this absurdity became apparent,
the past was frozen and put under an ideological shield. However,
it’s not possible to prevent scientific and literary efforts and
keep them within this molded history… For example, however mature
a society encountering a different history can behave depends on how
prepared it is to use this opportunity to “get better.” It can be
said that in general the public in Turkey is passing through this
threshold. We are finally aware that the history “presented” to us
is not tied very well to the truth and the works dealing with history
need freedom of interpretation.
However, some “sensitive” citizens and their natural equivalent
bureaucracy have not yet been able to pass over this mental
threshold. Consequently, for example, Elif Safak can be tried in court
for a character in her latest book who defends “Armenian genocide.” In
other words, our government doesn’t suffice with saying “there was
no Armenian genocide,” it even condemns characters in a novel who
say the opposite. Whereas, there are people who say “there was an
Armenian genocide…” External reality encompasses these people,
too. In short, what is said to a writer is that he/she can only put
a part of the truth in a novel. While the other part of reality is
ideologically deemed “unreal,” the author is forced to be a part of
the state of illness under the protection of the government.
But there are even more “dangerous “situations. In Ipek Calislar’s
biographical novel entitled Latife, it is said that Mustafa Kemal
escaped wearing a woman’s dress when Topal Osman’s men came. Of course,
this information comes directly from Latife Hanim’s memoirs… But
our government doesn’t accept this because Mustafa Kemal wouldn’t
have done something like that. In other words, we don’t try and
understand Mustafa Kemal according to what he did, but we establish
reality according to the Mustafa Kemal in our imagination. Plus,
we want to punish those who say anything contrary to it.
How possible is it to govern a society in a healthy manner and
interpret today in a healthy way with a perspective that is afraid of
the truth? Everyone needs mental health… But it’s especially needed
by a state that claims to represent “institutional intelligence.” For
when ideology begins to be perceived like a kind of mental derangement,
no “state” will remain except for brute force…

DOING BUSINESS IN RUSSIA HARDLY GETTING EASIER – WORLD BANK
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire
September 6, 2006 Wednesday 5:50 PM MSK
Russia has hardly improved in the past year as far as the conditions
for doing business are concerned, the World Bank and International
Financial Corporation (IFC) said in their latest report on Doing
Business 2007: How to Reform.
This is the fourth in a series of annual reports investigating the
regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it.
Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations
and the protection of property rights that can be compared across
175 economies – from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe – and over time.
Russia ranked 96th – one place below Bosnia & Herzegovina but one
above Ethiopia – according to an assessment of business conditions
conducted between January 2005 and April 2006.
Russian ranked 79th in last year’s survey of 155 countries, but
another 20 countries were included for the first time this year. The
method for calculating four of the indicators was also adjusted,
and Russia’s ranking among this year’s 175 countries would have been
97th last year, Simeon Dyankov, one of the report’s main authors,
told a press conference.
In other words, Russia moved up just one place this year.
Dyankov said the pace of reforms conducive to business had slowed in
the last two years, although there had been some improvements.
The unified social tax has been lowered and Russia has scrapped the tax
on securities transactions, the duty on the use of the words “Russia”
and “Russian Federation” and the tax on timber. Russia ranks 98th as
far as tax payments are concerned, Dyankov said.
It is also easier to start a business up. The requirement to register
a company stamp had been abolished, and the number of hoops had
been reduced from eight to seven. It now takes 28 days to register a
business, compared with 33 in the past, and the cost of registering
a business in per capita terms had gone down from 5% to 2.7%. This
catapulted Russia to 33rd out of the 175 countries for starting
up businesses.
The law on joint stock companies has been amended to give better
protection to minority shareholders, who now have the right to
challenge management decisions in court, for example.
“This is potentially a very important change but it will not be
possible to assess its full impact until the next survey,” Dyankov
said.
If these changes are put into practice, shareholder protection in
Russia will be comparable with that of Britain and the United States,
and Russia’s ranking will go up, Dyankov said.
The report said that export and import operations and licensing are
the areas most in need of reform in Russia. Russia is ranked 143rd
and 163rd respectively here.
It costs $2,240 to dispatch one standard container from Moscow to
Frankfurt, and that does not include transport costs, but just $335
to send one from China to Frankfurt. It can take 39 days to complete
the paperwork and other procedures necessary to ship a container from
Russia, but 18 days from China.
Russia ranks among the top ten countries in terms of the high cost
of licenses and the length of time it takes to obtain them. It takes
as many as 22 procedures and 531 days and the equivalent of 275.3%
of per capita income to get a construction license in Russia, compared
with 18 windows, 69 days and 16% in the United States.
The report also said that Russia needed to make is easier to obtain
credits. Russia is near the bottom in 159th place in this respect.
Russia had the best terms for doing business among the BRIC countries
(Brazil, Russia, India and China) last year, but this year’s
front-runner is China, up from 108th to 93rd in the overall rankings.
China also ranked among the top ten countries in terms of the
implementation of reforms.
Georgia was the leader in terms of reforms, rising from 112th to 37th
in the overall rankings. Of all the CIS countries, only Armenia,
in 34th place, provides more business freedom. Russia also lags
behind Kazakhstan, which rose to 63rd from 82nd, and Kyrgyzstan,
up from 104th to 90th.
Belarus was 129th, Ukraine 128th, Tajikistan 133rd and Uzbekistan
147th.
Singapore topped the overall ranking this year, up from 2nd last year,
while New Zealand fell from 1st to 2nd and the United States remained
in 3rd place.
The Democratic Republic of Congo was again last.

ARMENIAN CB FORECASTS HIGH GDP GROWTH RATE FOR NEXT 3 YRS
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire
September 6, 2006 Wednesday 5:41 PM MSK
The Armenian economy will continue to grow at a high rate over the next
three years, Central Bank Chairman Tigran Sarkisian said in a speech
at the Armenian-European Policy and Legal Advice Center (AEPLAC).
The forecasts in an AEPLAC report in many cases coincide with the
Central Bank’s forecasts, he said.
Armenia has managed to accumulate a significant potential to provide
for economic growth and GDP could reach two figures in the next three
years, Sarkisian said.
He forecasts that the Armenian dram will strengthen in the next few
years. The Central Bank’s monetary and credit policy will focus on
holding back growth in prices for consumer goods, he said.
Quality changes could take place in the country’s economy over the
next three years, Sarkisian said. Many leading companies could find
themselves bankrupt or reorganized if they don’t withstand competition.
“The fundamental problem for the Armenian economy is the high level of
competition on foreign markets,” Sarkisian said. “In the worst case,
the economy could slow in the next three to four years,” he said.
Armenian GDP grew 11.6% in January-July.
The Armenian budget envisions GDP growth of 7.5% in 2006. GDP rose
13.9% in 2005.

VOICE OF AZERBAIJAN TO BE BROADCAST ON TURKISH RADIO
Author: E.Huseynov
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Sept 6 2006
A new program – Voice of Azerbaijan – has started broadcasting on
the Turkish Radio Delta FM (87.5 FM). Fidan Guliyeva, presenter of
the program told Trend, a 2-hour program broadcasted 08:00 hours
to 10:00 hours [Baku time] reads news from Azerbaijan as well as
play Azerbaijani music. However, the priority of the program will
be to voice the truth on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over
Nagorno-Karabakh.
This is the first time such a project has been implemented in Turkey,
the broadcasting of which was transmitted without the assistance
of the Azerbaijani Embassy and Diaspora organizations. The internet
version of the radio program is available on

3-4 YEARS LEFT FOR THE “CAUCASIAN TIGER”
A1+
[06:34 pm] 06 September, 2006
In some 3-4 years Armenia will not have a chance to be proud of
its economic progress. This was the prediction made by Armenian and
foreign specialists during the presentation of the 2005 report titled
“Economic Development of Armenia”.
In order to have constant economic progress there must be institutional
reforms in Armenia, otherwise the country will not repeat its
phenomenon, said Roger Robinson, representative of the World Bank
in Armenia.
He invites attention to the fact that if several branches of economy
have marked constant progress throughout the past years, the same
cannot be said about the tax sphere. There are spheres where there
has been no progress at all, Mr. Robinson says bringing as an example
the investigations carried out by the World Bank in Armenia together
with the Euro Bank. In other words, Mr. Robinson tried to prove that
it is easy to make reforms when everything is so bad.
The representative of the World Bank found is difficult to mention
the name of someone who would be able to carry out institutional
reforms. He said that he has worked with the members of the RA
Government and that the Government is quite stable.
The report prepared by the Armenian-European center for economic policy
and law consultation outlined the stable development of the economy of
Armenia. What is especially impressive is that Armenia is the second
among 181 countries by its Gross Domestic Product (14%). Besides,
if Armenia and the EU countries preserve the average annual growth
of the last five years (12.2% and 1.8%), in 19 years Armenia will
reach the EU average index by GDP per person.
So, the analysis of the report shows that Armenia competes with the
countries which have oil and gas resources. President of the Central
Bank Tigran Sargsyan was also pleased with the report. He claimed that
the high tempo of economic development will be preserved as the country
has a potential which will be preserved for the coming three years.
Nevertheless, representative of the World Bank Roger Robinson warned
that the figures of economic development won’t be preserved for long,
and unless the strategy is revised, there may be no progress at all.

HOW TO VISIT A U.S. EMBASSY WITHOUT THE SECURITY CLEARANCE
Embassy Magazine, Canada
Sept 6 2006
Book Review
By Christina Leadlay
It’s more than just white guys at cocktail parties: This little
reference book sheds light on the often-misunderstood job of foreign
service officers who work in the world’s largest embassies.
It’s a surprisingly pretty and colourful cover on the paperback 2005
edition of Inside a U.S. Embassy, portraying an idyllic scene of
the world’s peoples coming together in front of an American foreign
mission. The chancery is a stately building in the neoclassical
style-reminiscent of the old U.S. embassy building on Wellington St.
across from Parliament Hill-with its tall, black iron gate open
welcomingly on top of a stylized map of the world. Fluffy, rosy
clouds rise above the building, which, coupled with the gates,
give a sort of heavenly image. The concrete bollards and security
cameras-ever-present features of the new U.S. embassy compound on
Sussex Drive-are omitted thanks to artistic license. It’s a much more
playful-looking book than I was expecting.
Open the pages and the content is presented informally, the typesetting
and tone harkening back to a student’s handbook. And there are some
handy references to be found, including a map and accompanying chart
of all the U.S. State Department missions around the globe and a
flow chart neatly showing who reports to whom and what they’re
responsible for at an embassy. The back pages include lists of
technical abbreviations and acronyms (my personal favourite is
“LABATT”, the Labor Attache).
In between all of that are profiles of foreign service officers from
every position and rank (from ambassador in Colombia to Marine security
guard in Armenia), some diary-style entries chronicling a day in the
life of various people who work at U.S. embassies all over the map,
and personal tales from the field, reporting some of the more exciting
and dangerous situations diplomats have found themselves in over the
years. Bruce Byers recalls being the press attache at the U.S. Embassy
in Afghanistan when his ambassador was kidnapped and assassinated
in 1979, while Suzann Reynolds writes about her month-long stint in
Kabul in 2002, reopening the U.S. Embassy after a decade of neglect.
“I think a lot of people don’t know what the role of an embassy is,
don’t have a very good sense of what the job of a diplomat is,”
says Shawn Dorman, the book’s editor, by phone from Washington,
D.C. “They have a very outdated picture of white men at cocktail
parties and don’t think of it as the sort of front line, dangerous
kind of work that it often is, especially today. So it’s nice to give
some real stories of real people who are actually out there doing it
that makes it come to life,”
A former foreign service officer herself, Ms. Dorman is also
the associate editor of the Foreign Service Journal, the monthly
periodical published by the American Foreign Service Association
(AFSA), a professional association and collective bargaining group.
Ms. Dorman says she took over the editing of Inside a U.S. Embassy:
How the Foreign Service Works for America in 2003. The book was first
published in 1995 and is in its third printing. Ms. Dorman says it
was updated in 2005 to include the U.S. diplomatic presence in Iraq.
Economic Officer Stephen Newhouse’s honest diary from Baghdad is
just over a page long, but in a few strokes gives a sense of the
challenges of working in a war zone, such as donning body armour for
routine meetings.
“One piece of AFSA’s mission is pubic education about embassies and
letting people know what the role of diplomats is, so [this book] fits
in exactly with what the AFSA mission is,” explains the soft-spoken
Ms. Dorman. “It’s been a very useful tool for letting people know
about the role of diplomats. It’s probably the same in Canada, but
people don’t seem to have any idea what a diplomat is and that there
are all these different jobs, so that’s the point of the book.”
Ms. Dorman says Americans who are interested in a career in the
foreign service, such as students of international relations, are
the book’s main readers. People preparing for the annual foreign
service exam also rely on this book, she says. “There isn’t very
much information out there about what this business is, so it’s been
a source for that kind of person.” She concedes that diplomats from
other countries might be interested in Inside a U.S. Embassy, to have
a peak into the scale and scope of goings on at what are often the
largest foreign missions in the world.
No one from the U.S. embassy in Ottawa made the cut this time around,
but Ms. Dorman says it’s time to start thinking about another edition.
[email protected]
Inside a U.S. Embassy Edited by Shawn Dorman American Foreign Service
Association 136 pp. $12.95 (US)