IBF MIDDLEWEIGHT BOXING CHAMPION, ARTHUR ABRAHAM BECOMES GERMAN CITIZEN
By Roger T. Tubajiki
ringsidereport.com, VA
Aug 6 2006
At the registration office in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Germany, the
IBF Middleweight Champion, Arthur Abraham had to give up his Armenian
citizenship to become, after a long and successful naturalization
process, a German citizen. Now, Abraham joins the German WBC Super
Middleweight Champion, Markus Beyer to become yet another German
boxer to hold a world title.
“I was born indeed in Armenia, have, however, grew up in Germany.
Here is where I have become what I am today, and therefore I am in
debt to Germany for all. I really enjoy my life here and will always,
“stated the Champion.
In his next title defense bout against Edison Miranda on Sept. 23,
2006, in Wetzlar, Germany, Abraham will be honored by the German
National Hymn.

REFUSAL OF TWO VERSIONS
Anna Israelian
Aravot.am
05 Sept 06
Poet David Hovhannes leaves the contest commission of the text and
music of the RA national anthem.
David Hovhannes explains the reasons why he left the commission.
“I went out angrily after the sitting of the commission on 28 August
refusing to participate in the works of the commission. But “Aravot”
had written that it had become obvious that the author of text for
Ervand Erznkian’s music under Ararat B pseudonym was Razmik Davoyan,
the member of commission. The main point is that it didn’t become
clear, that’s why I went out. The authors of music of 5 compositions
that have passed second stage but two authors of texts are unknown. I
mean nobody knows Arsen Soghomonian who is the author of the text
written for Aram Khachatrian’s music. Ararat B was also unknown. I
have always voted in favor Ervand Erznkian’s melody. I suggested at the
beginning of the sitting of the commission on 28 August to find out the
authors of those two texts. Unexpectedly I faced obstacles. Everybody
was against my suggestion. Everything was done not to publish those
two names. I didn’t understand why it was a secret. After an hour I
managed to find out that Arsen Soghomonin was a chief of department
in the ministry of culture. I was asked what changed it. I answered
that it changed a lot of things: finally it became clear for me why
that unprofessional text passed the second stage. It is a pun as
other 42 texts. This participation was inadmissible both morally
and technically.
As regards “Ararat B”, they were strongly opposing not to declare
his name.
It became clear for me who that person was, following his panic and
miserable condition. /As David Hovhannes didn’t say the name, we were
interested whether Razmik Davoyan was present at that sitting. A.I./
I just mean him. I don’t pronounce names but I have always asked who
“Ararat B” is. When that version passed the second stage, I suggested
finding out who he was. Maybe that person is a Turk, enemy of the
nation, he can be the member of commission alluding to him. They
spoke of human rights. I say, I also have human rights and as the
member of commission want to know who is under this pseudonym. Is it
a state secret or matter of national security?
The commission has its working order, and I specified once more from
Nora Dayants, the secretary of commission that the participation of
any member of commission as the author of text or music is forbidden
in this contest.
Everybody in the commission knew who “Ararat B” was, and everybody
was trying to keep it in secret. That’s why my patience was exhausted,
and I made a declaration that I stopped my participation in the works
of commission.
Now I’m sure, only three versions from 5 can be put for voting. The
text version for Aram Khachatrian’s music must be put out. I have
nothing against Ervand Erznkian’s music but the author of its text
is the member of commission, so it must also be put out.”

LAWYER WHO’S TAKING ON THE EU (AND ANYONE WHO INSULTS TURKEY)
Benjamin Harvey In Istanbul
Scotsman, United Kingdom
Aug 6 2006
KEMAL Kerincsiz believes Turkey is one of the greatest, most free
countries in the world.
But insult it, and you could find yourself facing him in court.
To some of Turkey’s 70 million people, the ultra-nationalist lawyer
is the voice of a proud people against a patronising West. To others,
he is the voice of intolerance – a major embarrassment that could
derail Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.
As the ubiquitous, mustachioed leader of the Turkish Lawyers’ Union,
Mr Kerincsiz is the reason writers and intellectuals are regularly
put on trial in Turkey.
Mr Kerincsiz gained international notoriety this year for dragging
the celebrated novelist Orhan Pamuk to court for allegedly insulting
Turkishness. Mr Pamuk, often cited as a candidate for the Nobel prize
in literature, was acquitted.
But the lawyer has met with success in less high-profile cases, winning
a conviction against an Armenian-Turkish journalist for the same
offence. He has also opened dozens of other cases against journalists,
writers and intellectuals, including one set to go to court this
month against the Arizona-based Turkish novelist Elif Shafak.
Mr Kerincsiz and his organisation of some 700 nationalist lawyers
have exasperated not only EU officials – who have said the cases must
be stopped or Turkey will jeopardise its hopes of joining the EU –
but also Turkey’s intellectuals and its leadership.
The lawyer believes Turkey’s future is in the East and represents
a growing, powerful faction of Turkish society tired of being told
it must aspire to be more like the West. Recently, his view appears
to be gaining traction in the government, with Recep Tayyip Egdoga,
the prime minister, increasingly making foreign policy overtures to
the Middle East – and away from Europe.
“The easterner has to insult himself and degrade his own culture to
ingratiate himself with the West,” Mr Kerincsiz said. “Our place is
in eastern culture, our real aim is finding allies among our own
people.” By that he means primarily the Turkic peoples of Central
Asia, which he hopes to see included one day in the “Turkish Union”
led by Turkey.
He admits this is a far-off dream, but it is possible, he says,
especially when one looks at the mishmash of different cultures
joined together in the EU. Mr Kerincsiz makes no effort to hide his
view that the European Union is an enemy of Turkey.
In the year that has followed Turkey’s opening of EU negotiations
last October, it has become clear that even if they don’t entirely
share Mr Kerincsiz’s view, Turks are cooling in their enthusiasm for
accession, and he is tapping into the sources of their discontent.
The latest “Eurobarometer” survey found only 44 per cent of Turks
surveyed thought EU membership would be a good thing for Turkey,
compared to 55 per cent last autumn. Last spring, 66 per cent said
they supported EU membership.

EVEN EU LAUGHED AT GENOCIDE TRILOGY REPORT
Sabah, Turkey
Aug 6 2006
The report of European Parliament which requires Turkey to recognize
the so-called Armenian genocide as well as Pontus and Syrian
genocides was even reacted by European Union circles: “Let’s not
offend Turkey. We are being ridiculous. This report has no balance.”
This report has no balance
Even EU circles have reacted against the Turkey report of EP which
says: Turkey must recognize Pontus and Syrian genocides too.” EU
circles said: “We are making a fool of ourselves. This has no
plausibility.”
The Turkey report which was prepared by Camuel Eurlings asks
Turkey to recognize Armenian genocide as well as Syrian and Pontus
genocides. With this report, Pontus and Syrian genocides have entered
in an official EU report for the first time. Stating that he is
not happy with the report of Eurlings, Mixed Parliament Commission
Co-chairman Joost Lagendijk said: “Instead of encouraging Turkey’s
membership, Eurlings has put more provisions. Turkey will think that
the European Parliament will keep demanding new provisions every
year. The report confused me, it does not have a balance.”

EU PARLIAMENT REPORT SAYS TURKEY SLOW ON PROMISED LEGAL REFORMS
Katerina Ossenova at 11:16 AM ET
JURIST
Aug 6 2006
[JURIST] The Foreign Affairs Committee [official website] of the
European Parliament [official website] approved a report Monday taking
Turkey to task for slow progress on a variety of legal and other
reforms agreed to by Ankara as part of its bid [EU backgrounder] for
membership in the European Union [JURIST news archive]. Among other
things, Turkey was criticized [press release] for its “persistent
shortcomings in areas such as freedom of expression, religious and
minority rights, the role of the military, policing, women’s rights,
trade union rights and cultural rights.”
The parliamentary committee also called for Turkey to acknowledge
responsibility for the Armenian genocide [JURIST news archive] that
took place during World War One, an admission Turkey has until now
rejected. On the positive side, however, the report also acknowledged
Turkey’s progress [EU Observer report] in opening the first chapter
of EU legislation, introducing new laws to fight corruption and
broadcasting in minority Kurdish.
The text of the report will be debated by the full European Union
Parliament [official website] in September and a formal progress report
on Turkey’s accession progress is due on October 24; the EU has urged
Turkey to make tangible improvements by that time. The European Union
Parliament has never vetoed a past accession bid but if the reform
process is not “reinvigorated,” the accession talks could be placed
on hold.

TURKEY VOTES TO DEPLOY TROOPS IN LEBANON
Ya Libnan, Lebanon
Aug 6 2006
Beirut & Ankara- Turkey became the second Muslim country to commit
troops to Lebanon to monitor a tense cease-fire between Israel and
Hezbollah after a parliament vote in favor of the deployment despite
widespread protests.
Parliament voted 340-192 in favor of the deployment with one lawmaker
abstaining. The decision came more than two hours after U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Ankara. The government has
not specified the number of troops. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
said the number of Turkish troops is not likely to exceed 1,000.
Many Turks regard the expanded U.N. peacekeeping mission as a dangerous
adventure that could lead to clashes with fellow Muslims.
But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party insisted on
contributing to an expanded U.N. peacekeeping force arguing that it
would raise European Union-membership aspirant Turkey’s profile on
the international stage.
Armenians in Lebanon protested against Turkish UN peacekeepers
Lebanese Armenians demonstrated in front of the United Nations House
in Beirut, Lebanon on Aug. 31, 2006 against the participation of the
Turkish troops in the peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Armenians say
up to 1.5 million Armenians died or were killed over several years
during World War I as part of a genocidal campaign to force them out
of eastern Turkey.
Top Picture: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left,
talks with his deputy and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul during a
meeting at the parliament in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2006

AUTHOR FACES JAIL FOR SAYING HERO DRESSED AS WOMAN
>From Suna Erdem in Istanbul
The Times/UK
September 05, 2006
THE author of this summer’s Turkish bestseller is to stand trial for
allegedly insulting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the country’s revered
founding father, in her popular revisionist biography of Latife,
his wife.
The case is the latest in a series of high-profile lawsuits initiated
against writers and intellectuals that has brought attention to the
shortcomings of the supposedly reformed Turkish legal system with
regard to freedom of expression in the European Union candidate
country.
Ipek Calislar, the respected journalist and writer, has been charged
by an Istanbul prosecutor over an anecdote in Latife Hanim in which
Ataturk dons a woman’s chador to leave his besieged house with a
party of women and children, bringing back reinforcements to foil an
assassination attempt. Latife remains inside and communicates with
the attackers to give them the impression that Ataturk is still there.
The previously unrecorded version of the attack by “Lame Osman”,
which took place in April 1923, was told to Mrs Calislar by one of
Latife’s surviving relatives, who heard it from her sister, Vecihe,
an eyewitness.
However, it aroused the ire of a reader of Hurriyet newspaper, which
ran extracts of the book. The reader, Huseyin Tugrul Pekin, applied
to the prosecutor ‘s office in the Istanbul district of Bagcilar,
on the grounds that “To claim and write that Mustafa Kemal Pasha,
whose courage no man, nor any of us, could dare to doubt, did such a
thing is the greatest insult to him, his nation and particularly to
myself”. Mrs Calislar now faces 4½ years in jail for infringing the
special laws in place to protect Ataturk. The trial begins on October
5. An editor of Hurriyet will also be tried.
Mrs Calislar said that her book was not intended to belittle
Ataturk, lamenting that “the most striking report in the book for our
male-dominated society turned out to be of Ataturk disguising himself
in a chador in order to evade an assassination attempt”. She told The
Times: “If a leader is under siege, his ability to break this siege
with an ingenious method does not diminish him .”
Mrs Calislar’s account of Ataturk’s wife overturns the long-held
belief that Latife was a shrewish woman whose tantrums ended their
marriage. Instead, we get the portrait of a Western-educated woman
who spoke several European and Oriental languages, played the piano
to concert standard and was a driving force behind many of Ataturk’s
reforms for the emancipation of women, including giving them the vote
well before some EU countries. The book has had nine print runs in
two months.
Mrs Calislar joins Elif Safak, who will go on trial next month over her
popular novel The Bastard of Istanbul, in which a fictional Armenian
character refers to “Turkish butchers” who killed large numbers of
Armenians in Turkey during the First World War. Similar charges of
“insulting Turkishness” also put Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s most famous
author, in the dock this year. Perihan Magden, a journalist, stood
trial for her support of conscientious objection.
Mrs Calislar said that Turkey did not deserve such trials as hers. Most
are thrown out of court but the violent environment created outside
the courthouse makes writers’ lives very difficult, she added. At
Mr Pamuk’s trial, supporters were heckled not just by protesters but
also by violent nationalist lawyers in the courtroom itself.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Government points to the
high acquittal rate from these trials. Ms Magden and Mr Pamuk were
both acquitted, but a High Court decision this month to convict a
Turkish-Armenian journalist on similar charges proved that the show
trials are not just empty threats.
–Boundary_(ID_yh/3XYACVLp0SiorIbL9lg)–

MEPS: TURKEY MUST RECOGNISE CYPRUS AND OPEN ITS BORDERS TO CYPRIOT VESSELS
Financial Mirror, Cyprus
Cyprus News Agency
Aug 5 2006
The European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee urged Turkey to
recognize the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member state since May 1,
2004, and open its borders to Cypriot vessels and airplanes.
In a report adopted on Monday, the Committee urges Turkey “to take
concrete steps for the normalization of bilateral relations with
Cyprus as soon as possible” and refers to the EU Council declaration
of 21 September 2005, which said that continuing negotiations would
depend on Turkey opening its borders to Cypriot vessels and airplanes
and that the recognition of Cyprus is a necessary component of the
negotiating process.
Regarding Cyprus itself, MEPs welcomed the meeting between the leader
of the Greek Cypriot community Tassos Papadopoulos and the leader
of the Turkish Cypriot community Mehmet Ali Talat, that led to the
agreement of 8 July, 2006.
The Foreign Affairs Committee called on Turkey to recognize the
Armenian genocide as a precondition for its EU accession and although
welcoming the start of the accession negotiations with Turkey, it
expressed regret that the reform process in Turkey has slowed down.
The report, prepared by Camiel Eurlings (EPP-ED, NL) and adopted
by 53 votes in favour to six against with eight abstentions, notes
“persistent shortcomings” in areas such as freedom of expression,
religious and minority rights, the role of the military, policing,
women’s rights, trade union rights and cultural rights. It urges
Turkey to “reinvigorate” the reform process.
MEPs repeated that negotiations do no lead automatically to accession
and said that whether or not negotiations are successfully concluded,
Turkey must remain “fully anchored in European structures.”
It also called for a lowering of the threshold of ten percent of
the votes below which political parties cannot enter the Turkish
parliament.
The text will be debated by the whole Parliament during the EP plenary
session of 25 – 28 September.
Before the start of the vote, Eurlings said that “unfortunately,
reforms have clearly slowed down” and expressed hope that the Turkish
government would regard his report “as a signal and an incentive to
reintroduce the vigorous speed of reform it had shown in the year
before accession negotiations started.”
President Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish Cypriot leader Talat
agreed on July 8th 2006, during a meeting here in the presence of
UN Undersecretary General for political affairs Ibrahim Gambari,
to begin a process of bicommunal discussions on issues that affect
the day to day life of the people and concurrently those that concern
substantive issues, both contributing to a comprehensive settlement
to the Cyprus problem.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT REPORT CRITICAL OF TURKEY
NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Aug 5 2006
The report was also damning in its condemnation of the terrorist
group the PKK, which has stepped up its activities targeting Turkey.
Guncelleme: 21:36 TSÝ 05 Eylul 2006 SalýSTRASBOURG – The European
Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs has adopted a report
prepared by Christian Democrat MEP Camiel Eurlings that criticises
Turkey’s slow pace of implementing reforms as part of its European
Union accession process.
In a vote held Monday evening, 52 committee members voted in favour
of accepting the report, while six voted against and eight abstained.
A general session of the European parliament will vote on the report
sometime between September 25 and 28.
The report said that Turkey has slowed down its program of putting
in place reforms required by the EU as part of its membership process.
It also called on Turkey to recognise the so called genocide committed
by the Ottoman Empire against its Armenian citizens. The report
also claimed that Turkey committed genocide against Pontus Greeks
and Syrians.
The slow pace of enacting reforms strengthening human rights, freedoms
of expressions, and religious rights for minorities was also cited
in the report.
–Boundary_(ID_YGJpizyXdYfWaA6LpVdSww)–

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARY REPORT NOT BINDING ON TURKEY: ERDOGAN
NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Aug 5 2006
Turkey’s position on the so-called Armenian genocide is clear, the
Prime Minister said.
Guncelleme: 21:36 TSÝ 05 Eylul 2006 SalýANKARA – Turkey’s Prime
Minister has dismissed elements of a report adopted by the European
Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on his country’s progress
towards meeting the criteria of European Union membership.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the European Parliament
was dreaming if it felt that Turkey would change its position on issues
such as accepting claims that the Ottoman Empire had carried out an
act of genocide against its Armenian population during World War One.
“The resolutions adopted by the European Parliament are not binding,”
Erdogan said during a press conference in the Turkish capital. “We
have not accepted anything about the so-called Armenian genocide. Our
stance on that issue is obvious.”
The report, tabled Monday evening and approved by the EP’s
Foreign Affairs Committee, chided Turkey for not doing enough to
strengthen human rights, freedom of expression and religious rights of
minorities. It also had articles added to it saying that recognition
by Turkey of the so-called Armenian genocide should be a condition
of Ankara’s accession process.
–Boundary_(ID_MklfSi9TzQOSDxIgFEjfqg)–