Anatolian Times, Turkey
May 14 2006
Turkish Parliamentary Delegation Continues Meetings In France
PARIS – Turkish Parliamentary delegation continues its lobbying
activities in Paris against the draft law which envisions
imprisonment to those “denying“ so-called Armenian genocide
(submitted by French Socialist Party).
The delegation, which is comprised of Justice & Development Party
(AKP) parliamentarians Mehmet Dulger and Musa Sivacioglu as well as
Republican People`s Party (CHP) parliamentarians Onur Oymen and
Gulsun Bilgehan Toker, held its first meeting with Herve de Charette,
deputy chairman of Foreign Affairs Commission of French Parliament.
Following the meeting, Dulger told A.A that parliamentarians of
French ruling Popular Movement Party (UMP) promised to do their best
to prevent adoption of the draft law at Parliament.
On the other hand, Oymen said, “we conveyed parliamentarians that if
the draft law is adopted, it will ham Turkish-French relations on a
large scale. From now on, relations between the two countries should
be based on a more different structure to eliminate lobbying
activities against Turkey.“
CHP parliamentarian Toker said, “this draft law is not moral. Even
if it is rejected, the draft law has already harmed Turkish-French
relations.“
The draft law will be debated at French Parliament on May 18th. It
must be accepted at senate to become law.

Anatolian Times, Turkey
May 14 2006
Letter To French M.Ps
ANKARA – ”Members of the Turkish-French Parliamentary Friendship
Group have sent a letter to French parliamentarians in which they
express their objection to the resolution that considers denial of
Armenian genocide a crime”, said Omer Ozyilmaz, the deputy chairman
of the group.
Ozyilmaz told a press conference at the parliament that the mentioned
resolution will be debated at the French parliament in coming days,
and their letter has been sent to French parliament speaker, chairmen
of political groups at the parliament, chairmen of parliamentary
commissions and delegations, dignitaries of the Socialist Party, and
the members of the French-Turkish Friendship Group.
In the letter, Turkish MPs have stressed that it is an unjust move to
define the incidents which occurred during the World War I and which
have not been clarified yet, as ”genocide”, Ozyilmaz noted.
Ozyilmaz said that the letter refers to the joint press conference
that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and CHP (main opposition
Republican People’s Party) leader Deniz Baykal held last year in
which they announced that Turkish archives will always be open to
historians.
However, Armenia has not responded to Erdogan’s and Baykal’s call
yet, he stated.
Expressing belief that bilateral relations get harmed if this
resolution is adopted at the French parliament, Ozyilmaz said that
historians and researchers are the ones who should actually deal with
this matter.
On the other hand, Ankara Chamber of Commerce (ATO) Chairman Sinan
Aygun sent letters to Jean-Francois Bernardin, president of the
Association of French Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ACFCI), and
Pierre Simon, chairman of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, expressing
his reaction to French draft law which aims to criminalize denial of
so-called Armenian genocide.
In his letters, Aygun stresses that Turkish-French relations should
not be harmed due to populist initiatives of a few irresponsible
politicians.
Aygun notes that an EU member France, which is one of defenders of
freedom of expression, wants to restrict freedom of speech through
this bill, which is a contradiction.

Anatolian Times, Turkey
May 14 2006
FRENCH AMBASSADOR ON SO-CALLED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ALLEGATIONS
ANKARA – “I think that any one with common sense can see that I have
no intention to intimidate anything between Turkey and France,“ said
French Ambassador to Turkey Paul Poudade.
Answering questions of reporters, Poudade indicated, “they tried to
derive a sensational meaning from my words, but it is not so. What I
said was so clear. Those who read my remarks can understand what I
mean.“
Poudade said that Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted to express
his concerns during his meeting with executives of French companies
investing in Turkey.
“My duty is to convey these concerns and sensitivities to the other
party,“ he noted.
Poudade indicated that PM Erdogan is in fact trying to preserve
friendly relations between Turkey and France. “This is everybody`s
aim,“ he added.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic
May 14 2006
Turkey Threatens Sanctions Over Armenian ‘Genocide’ Law

May 14, 2006 — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is today
quoted as threatening France with trade sanctions if it adopts a bill
making it illegal to deny that the 1915-17 massacre of Armenians in
Turkey was “genocide.”
The Turkish newspaper “Hurriyet” quotes Erdogan as saying sanctions
will be imposed if French lawmakers pass a bill making denial of the
“Armenian genocide” liable to a five-year jail term and a 45,000 euro
($58,000) fine.
Legislators are expected to vote on the measure on May 18.
Armenians allege up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917, while the Ottoman Empire
was falling apart.
Turkey rejects the claim that the killings were systematic.

Zaman Online, Turkey
May 14 2006
French Company Trading with Turkey Warns France Against Genocide Bill
By Erkan Acar, Marseilles
Published: Sunday, May 14, 2006
zaman.com
Tension between Turkey and France is mounting over a bill to
criminalize denial of the Armenian genocide due for discussion in the
French Parliament on March 18.
French companies with commercial ties with Turkey are most concerned
over the escalation tensions between the two countries.
French companies are expending every effort to persuade French
parliamentarians to vote against the bill that they fear will cause
them to suffer immeasurable commercial losses from future embargoes
imposed by Turkey, as the bill is chiefly designed to win Armenian
votes.
The De Villepin administration received a strong warning over the
Armenian bill from Eurocopter, one of the world’s largest helicopter
manufacturers with French partners, as the company fears losing a
contract to supply attack helicopters to the Turkish military late
this summer.
Fabrice Breiger, chief executive of Eurocopter, pointed to the
temporary nature of the crises that will eventually be overcome by
ties of friendship between the two countries:
`I am not a politician; I am the manager of an international company.
But that does not necessarily mean that I am not familiar with news
articles; it also does not imply that company managers cannot form
ideas about what is going on outside. As European industrialists, we
conveyed the necessary messages to European countries.’
Turkey had planned to buy attack and exploration helicopters for its
fight against terrorism, as part of the ATAK Project launched in
1996.
The Project, expected to cost $1.5 billion, was delayed for five
years and the previous tender was cancelled during a Defense Industry
Executive Commission meeting in May 2004.
After the cancellation of the tender, studies began in search of a
new model that aimed at meeting the military’s needs in a shorter
time and make more cost effective use of Turkey’s domestic capacity.
For this purpose, a new tender invitation was released on 10 February
2005.
Several defense companies applied to participate in the tender that
closed in December 2005.
Those companies include: Eurocopter with the Tiger helicopter, the
Italian Agusta company with the A-129 Mangusta, Russia’s
Rosoboronexport with the MI-28 Havoc, and the South African Denel
Company with the CSH-2 Rooivalk helicopter.

Zaman Online, Turkey
May 14 2006
French Tension High Ahead of Armenian Bill
By Cihan News Agency
Published: Sunday, May 14, 2006
zaman.com
Tension in France has been rising ahead of French parliamentary
resolution which criminalizes denial of so-called Armenian genocide,
as Turkish and Armenian organizations are set to hold demonstration
before parliament on May 18 when the bill will be voted.
A group of Armenians sneaked into the congress of ruling Union for
Populist Movement (UMP) in Paris on Sunday, protesting against the
rejection of similar resolution at the French National Assembly
Judiciary Affairs Commission.
The protest of the Armenian Collectif Van group at the UMP congress
was blocked by the security forces. The group members chanted slogans
against Turkey.
The draft bill to be voted in the French parliament on May 18 brings
in up to a year of imprisonment and a fine of up to 45,000 for those
who deny the “Armenian genocide”.
The fate of the Armenians under the Ottoman Empire during WW1 is a
sensitive issue in Turkey. Armenians claim that over 1 million
Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed as part of an
campaign during World War I.
Turkey rejects the allegations saying that 200,000 Armenians died
during forced migrations due to cold weather and bad transportation
conditions. Turkish historians argue that same numbers of Turkish
citizens were killed by the Armenian gangs.

Zaman Online, Turkey
May 14 2006
Armenians and Greek Cypriots Lobby Against Sale of Missiles
By Cihan News Agency
Published: Sunday, May 14, 2006
zaman.com
Armenian and Greek Cypriot lobbies in Washington have launched a
joint campaign against the selling of 50 SLAM-ER smart missiles to
Turkey, NTV channel said.
Four MPs including Michael Bilirakis, Carolyn Maloney, Frank Pallone
and George Radanovich sent a letter to the US Congress, asking senior
officials to revise the selling of the missiles to Turkey. They
claimed that the selling of missiles would allow Turkey to threaten
Armenia and would break the arm balance in Cyprus.
The US Department of Defense has been seeking permission from the US
Congress to sell 50 SLAM-ER smart missiles to Turkey.
The SLAM-ER air-to-ground missiles will be attached to Turkey’s F-16
warplanes.
The statement from the US Department of Defense said in late April
that the $162 million purchase offer from Turkey had been accepted.
The Boeing Company will produce the missiles and the payment will be
meet through military sale credits to Turkey.
The sale will be finalized within upcoming day if Congress does not
raise any objections. It is expected that Congress will ratify the
sale.

Chicago Tribune
May 14 2006
Breakaway regions `two black holes’ for Georgia
By Alex Rodriguez
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published May 14, 2006
TSKHINVALI, Georgia — The separatist government in this crumbling
war-scarred city at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains has its own
flag, anthem, president and prime minister–and little else.
Most of the economy in South Ossetia, of which Tskhinvali is the
capital, vanished two years ago when Georgian troops shut down a
large open-air market that they insisted was a haven for smuggling.
Buildings half-destroyed in the region’s 1991 war with Georgia have
never been rebuilt. People scrape by on $50 a month or less.
Still, it’s a life that suffices for the tiny, unrecognized state’s
65,000 people, a life they say they will fiercely defend to the last
person.
“We can’t live very well here, but somehow we survive,” said Timur
Tskhovbrov, one of thousands of Ossetians who fought Georgian troops.
“Here in the mountains, we can fight in the woods for a long time.
They will win, of course, but we’ll cause them a lot of trouble.”
That kind of defiance poses the greatest challenge for Washington’s
strongest ally in the Caucasus region, Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili, as he steers his country Westward.
Since leading the Rose Revolution that ousted Eduard Shevardnadze in
2003, Saakashvili has replaced his country’s entire police force to
rein in corruption, stewarded strong economic growth and returned the
breakaway province of Ajaria back under Georgia’s control.
But he has yet to live up to his promise to regain authority over
Georgia’s two other breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
And as Saakashvili strives to move Georgia out of the Kremlin’s orbit
and into Europe’s, his administration realizes South Ossetia and
Abkhazia stand in the way.
“These are two black holes,” said Giorgi Khaindrava, Georgia’s
conflict settlement minister. “They’re open doors for smuggling, for
illegal militias, for drug trafficking. They’re two serious wounds,
and until we cure them, we can’t begin to talk about the health of
the whole country.”
Lasting separatist conflicts
The Soviet Union’s breakup in 1991 yielded 15 new nations, but it
also spawned several lasting separatist conflicts that have inflicted
a swath of misery and poverty from Eastern Europe’s Dniester River to
the Caucasus range on Russia’s southern border.
In Europe’s poorest nation, Moldova, pro-Moscow separatists have
clung to a sliver of land along the Dniester, calling their
unrecognized state Transdniester. In 1991, Armenians in
Nagorno-Karabakh, a fertile, horseshoe-shaped patch of land in
Azerbaijan, declared their de facto independence after ousting Azeri
forces.
For decades, ethnic Abkhazians and Ossetians endured a tense
relationship with their Georgian neighbors while Georgia was a Soviet
republic. After Georgia declared its independence in 1991, civil war
broke out between both ethnic groups and Georgian troops. Abkhazians
defended their lush homeland of orange groves and palm trees along
the Black Sea coast; Ossetians fought Georgian forces in the forested
mountainsides and valleys of South Ossetia.
Cease-fires ended major combat in South Ossetia in 1992 and in
Abkhazia in 1994. Separatist leaders established governments, setting
up foreign ministries, parliaments and defense departments. However,
those governments survive solely as a result of backing from the
Kremlin, which has peacekeeping troops in both regions.
Georgia has effectively cordoned off Abkhazia and South Ossetia from
trade with the rest of the country, but the regions border Russia,
giving them a conduit for Russian goods and arms. Russia also has
given citizenship to virtually all South Ossetians and about 80
percent of Abkhazia’s population.
Russia’s military and economic presence in Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, as well as in Transdniester, has become even more important
to the Kremlin as Georgia and Moldova have shifted their allegiances
to the West. For the Kremlin, control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia
provides leverage against a Georgian government that sees its destiny
under the wing of NATO.
For many Ossetians, however, the dependence on Russia is
disconcerting.
“Now we live on Russian aid only, and that’s very bad–it’s like
we’re drug addicts,” said Alan Parastayev, head of the Civic Society
Movement, an Ossetian non-governmental organization based in
Tskhinvali. “It wasn’t like this before 2004.”
10,000 lost livelihoods
Citing concerns about smuggling, Saakashvili’s administration in 2004
shut South Ossetia’s market, where Georgians and Ossetians bought and
sold gas, cigarettes, produce and other goods amid a sea of
corrugated metal stalls and wooden shacks. The market’s closing cost
10,000 Ossetians their livelihoods, officials say.
“They were only interested in establishing an economic blockade and
shutting down the breath of the people,” said Boris Chochiyev, South
Ossetia’s deputy prime minister and its representative at peace talks
with Georgia, Russia and the Russian republic of North Ossetia.
Ossetian officials are convinced Georgia’s next step will be
military. They point to the Georgian government’s recent decision to
move its military hospital to the city of Gori, just outside the
South Ossetian border, as well as sizable increases in Georgian
defense spending. Georgia also recently opened a military base
outside Abhkazia.
Khaindrava, Georgia’s conflict settlement minister, says fears about
Georgian military action are misplaced.
“The only way out is political pressure on Russia and international
law,” he said.
Ossetians believe their only recourse is to brace for war. Khaindrava
says Russia has supplied Ossetian forces with tanks, armored vehicles
and anti-aircraft artillery. The region’s prime minister, Yuri
Morozov, would not discuss his military’s arms or troop strength, but
he said his government is convinced that Ossetians living in Russia
and Abkhaz forces would come to the region’s aid if fighting broke
out.
In Tskhinvali, Ossetians say another round of conflict in a war that
has shadowed them for 15 years is the last thing they want–and
foremost on their minds right now.
“Women, old men and even our children will protect our homeland,”
said Jana Meshchereykova, an Ossetian doctor. Her 24-year-old son
died when Georgian gunmen ambushed a busload of Ossetians in 1992.
“Each person has to die on the land where he was born. We don’t want
war, but we will protect ourselves.”

Duluth News Tribune, MN
May 14 2006
Armenian keeps IBF title
ZWICKAU, Germany – Armenia’s Arthur Abraham retained the IBF
middleweight title Saturday in a rousing 12-round brawl with Kofi
Jantuah.
On the same card, Germany’s Markus Beyer retained the WBC super
middleweight title against Australian Sakio Bika when a head butt
stopped the fight.
The fight was ruled a technical draw after Bika’s fourth round head
butt opened a cut under the German’s right eye and it swelled shut.
About 4,000 spectators gave Abraham, 21-0 with 17 knockouts, a
standing ovation after the action-filled fight. He was awarded a
115-112, 116-111, 117-109 decision against Jantuah, who lives in Las
Vegas.
Jantuah (30-3, 19 knockouts) was staggered numerous times from the
fifth round on and looked as if he was going down in the 11th when
Abraham buckled his knees with a left, but never stopped pressing the
fight.
Abraham kept trying to knock him out, even in the 12th, when he had a
big lead to protect.
Bika rattled Beyer with a short left uppercut, then chased him around
the ring. The German tagged him with some hard lefts beforehand and
recovered to put him into the ropes just before the bell.
Beyer entered the fight 34-2 with 13 knockouts, while Bika was 20-1
with 13 knockouts.
– In Sheffield, England, Clinton Woods stopped Jason DeLisle in the
sixth round to retain his IBF light-heavyweight title in his second
defense.

Aljazeera.net, Qatar
May 14 2006
Violence robs Iraq of Christian heritage
By Firas al-Atraqchi
Sunday 14 May 2006, 8:32 Makka Time, 5:32 GMT

Christian children sing carols in a church in Baghdad last year

The flight of religious minorities escaping violence in post-war Iraq
is threatening to rob the country of its once diverse Christian
heritage.
In the early 1980s, Iraq’s Christian population numbered 1.4 million
but economic strife brought on by the war with Iran and UN sanctions
after the 1991 Gulf War pushed some in the ancient community to
emigrate.
Nevertheless, the Christian community continued to enjoy religious
freedoms in the majority Muslim country until the US-led invasion of
2003, says Adli Juwaidah, a former director of cultural relations in
Iraq’s ministry of higher education.
“The relationship with the [former Baathist] ruling regime was good
and it trusted them, but it is important that significantly this was
because the Christians did not interfere in politics and did not have
political ambition,” he told Aljazeera.net.
But after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, the Christian community
found itself under attack and tens of thousands have since fled the
country in fear of religious persecution.
“The days of officially preached religious tolerance during Saddam’s
rule are gone and freedom to worship now gives way to fear about an
impending Islamisation of Iraq,” a United Nations High Commissioner
on Refugees (UNHCR) study of Iraqi Christians said in 2004.
On August 2, 2004, more than a dozen Christian worshippers were
killed when five Armenian, Assyrian and Chaldean churches came under
co-ordinated attacks in the capital Baghdad and the northern city of
Mosul.
Nine other churches were attacked before the end of the year.
Shop owners threatened
In addition to church bombings, Christian shop owners selling alcohol
have been targeted by groups trying to enforce Islamic laws.
Stores selling music tapes and CDs, mostly owned by Christian
merchants, have also been firebombed and their owners told to stop
“corrupting Islamic society”.
In 2004, leaflets were left at the homes of Christian families
warning the “men of the households” to adhere to Islamic law and
ensure that women were dressed “conservatively”, which often refers
to Islamic attire.

Churches in Baghdad and Mosul
have come under bomb attacks

Young Christian women have reported harassment and intimidation in
the streets to don veils or scarves to cover their hair.
Fayrouz Hancock, an Iraq-Australian computer programmer now living in
the US, says Iraqi Christians are fleeing “because of the
difficulties of practising their faith and leading normal social
lives in a country that has turned conservative due to the threats
from extremists”.
She also blames the breakdown in security in the country.
In early May, the United States Commission on International Religious
Freedom (USCIRF) warned that religiously motivated attacks signalled
“an exodus that may mean the end of the presence in Iraq of ancient
Christian and other communities that have lived on those same lands
for 2,000 years”.
Michael La Civita, assistant secretary for communications for the
Pontifical Mission, a Vatican development agency working in the
Middle East, says there is no “outright” persecution of the Christian
community.
Social discrimination
However, “there is social discrimination of Iraqi Christians. And
since the collapse of central authority (beginning with the second
US-led invasion), Iraqi Christians have been targeted by extremists”,
La Civita told Aljazeera.net.
“As a result, large numbers of Iraqi Christians are leaving Iraq,
settling in Jordan, temporarily. Because Middle Eastern Christians
are typically middle class, well educated, speak a number of European
languages and have family in the diaspora, they find refuge in the
West.”

Practising their faith has become
difficult under extremist threats

Exact figures of how many Christians have left since the US invasion
are hard to come by. The Iraqi government has not issued any figures
on the community and many who have left do not register with any
refugee or aid organisations.
“Western sources seem uninterested in writing about their number or
situation,” says William Warda, an Assyrian researcher and webmaster
of Christians of Iraq, a website that monitors news and information
on the community.
“Christians of the Middle East have practised a pacifist form of
Christianity and have always strived to live in peace with their
neighbours regardless of their religion,” he said, adding that the
Iraqi Christians are afraid to complain fearing retaliation.
Terrified community
Soon after the August 2004 church bombings, reports from the
Iraq-Syria border indicated 40,000 Iraqi Christians had fled to
Damascus and Aleppo, with thousands more crossing into Turkey.
La Civita says figures from the Holy See indicate less than 300,000
Catholics (Chaldean, Syriac and Armenian Catholics) remain in Iraq.
“The days of officially preached religious tolerance during Saddam’s
rule are gone and freedom to worship now gives way to fear about an
impending Islamisation of Iraq”
UNHCR report

NA, a 35-year-old Christian woman in Basra, who agreed to be
identified by her initials only, is alarmed by the new Iraq and the
militias which roam the streets of her once beautiful city.
A few weeks ago, as she walked to her church a few blocks from her
home, she and a female friend and their children were accosted by two
men on a motorbike who shouted anti-Christian slurs.
“The police were standing there without trying to prevent them from
harassing us, I was terrified, not only for myself but for the whole
group and especially the little ones,” she said.
The men on the motorbike left once the entourage entered the
sanctuary of the church.
But Basra area churches are also declining in number.
Death threats
In previous weeks, two churches closed when their reverends fled for
Jordan after receiving death threats.
“The number of Christian families leaving is growing,” NA says.
“I don’t know the exact number, but from around me each month more
than 10 families are fleeing, and that’s just the families I can see
at the Catholic Church.”
While she says she refuses to don the headscarf, she will leave the
country at the first chance she gets.
“I fear for my life because they are killing people without any
reason, and making others leave their jobs just because they are
Sunni or Shia and the Christians in here are like a very weak old
person … we don’t know what to do or where to go,” she told
Aljazeera.net.
Sectarian havens
With Baghdad and other cities unofficially becoming demarcated into
sectarian neighbourhoods, Christian families have found themselves
particularly vulnerable.
While the cities of Mosul and Falluja, for example, are considered
Sunni safe havens and Karbala and Najaf are Shia safe havens, there
are no regions where Christians are a majority and therefore could
escape to.

With no militias to protect them,
Christians are feeling vulnerable

The result has been that many have left the country entirely.
Furthermore, Christians do not have the support of militias which
many Sunnis and Shia are afforded because of tribal affiliations.
“At least the Kurds, Shia and the Sunnis [have] well equipped
militias to protect them from wholesale attacks against them, and
they have allies who will come to their help if there is a civil
war,” Warda said.
Friar Yousif Thomas, a Chaldean Catholic in Baghdad, says all-out
sectarian conflict means Christians will be caught in the middle.
“If a civil war is declared between Shia and Sunni, it is
comprehensible that Christians cannot defend themselves. The choice
of going out is very bitter for the majority of them, but do they
have any other choice?” he says.
Grim future
Despite the difficulties in practising their faith and threats, an
Iraq bereft of Christians is difficult for the community to grasp.
Christians pre-date Islam by some 700 years and have lived in the
area known as Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) since St Thomas the
Apostle preached in 30 CE and founded the East Syriac Church.
“I can’t imagine an Iraq without Iraqi Christians, says Hancock.
“Iraqi Christians contributed to Iraq with their skills and loyalty
to the country. It is sad to watch what happened to them for the last
three years.”