KURDS GO SAME WAY, AS ARMENIANS IN OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN 1915
PanARMENIAN.Net
19.04.2006 00:35 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ At present Kurds follow the same way as Armenians in
Ottoman Empire in 1915, Agos Istanbul-based newspaper editor-in-chief
Hrant Dink stated at a forum in Malatya Turkish town. The conference
was organized by Malatya Businessmen Association (MIAD). “Armenians
made a mistake by believing the UK, Germany, France and Russia
that the superpowers will save them from deportation. And now Kurds
believe the US that they will get independence in North Iraq. That is
America. It will come, do what it needs to and will go away. And after
that you will fight with each other,” he said, reminding that after
WWI European powers did the same, the Zaman Turkish newspaper reports.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSKANIAN AND RUSSIAN DEPUTY FM DISCUSSED CONFLICT SETTLEMENT IN SOUTH CAUCASUS
PanARMENIAN.Net
19.04.2006 01:11 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian FM Vartan Oskanian met with Russian
Deputy FM Grigory Karasin, who is in Armenia within a regional
visit. According to the Armenian MFA Press Service, during the meeting
matters of dynamically developing relations between Armenia and Russia,
urgent regional issues were discussed. The interlocutors exchanged
views on ways of settlement of conflicts in the South Caucasus,
restoration of the transport system. Events around Iran, as well as
Armenian-Turkish relations were discussed at the meeting.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EUROPE’S SECOND WARNING TO AZERBAIJAN
AZG Armenian Daily
19/04/2006
“The verdict for Ramil Safarov became a verdict for the entire
anti-Armenian policy of Azerbaijan,” Hayk Demoyan, representative of
RA Defense Ministry at the trail of Ramil Safarov, said at today’s
press conference. Azeri army officer Safarov killed his Armenian
colleague Gurgen Margarian in Budapest, on February 19 2004. On April
13, 2006, the Court of Hungary sentenced Safarov to life imprisonment
with eligibility for parole in 30 years.
“This is the second time since the beginning of this year that
Europe warns
Azerbaijan that the settlement of issues through middle age barbarian
measures is not acceptable for the world and Europe, in particular,”
Demoyan said, reminding that the European Parliament adopted a
resolution condemning the destruction of the Armenian medieval
graveyard in Nakhijevan. He said that publications in the Hungarian
mass media and the meetings with Hungarian public show that the
society of this country finds the verdict for Safarov fair, moreover,
they state that the verdict is proceeded from the national interests
of Hungary.
Nazeli Vardanian, the Margarian family attorney, informed about the
details of April 4-13 court hearings. She said that the April 4 speech
of the prosecutor who demanded to sentence Safarov to life imprisonment
with no right to amnesty for 30 years was quite a strict one. The
prosecutor emphasized that the crime was plotted. He proved this by
reminding about the ax that was bought beforehand, Safarov’s attempt to
kill the second Armenian officer Hayk Makuchian, as well as his yells
when threatening to kill the rest of the Armenian servicemen. It was
stated that the murder of Makuchian was averted by the policemen. The
prosecutor emphasized that Safarov trespassed on Hungary’s hospitality
and he should bear the most severe punishment to avert the repetition
of such cases in the future. Hungarian lawyer Gabriella Kaspar,
representing the legal successors of Margarian, pointed out that
extreme brutality of Safarov is rooted in national hatred and demanded
to sentence him to life imprisonment. While the lawyer of Safarov
suggested to take into account the results of the expertise proving
that the Azeri officer was fully or partly insane. She also tried to
prove that Safarov was in “the post-war physical state.” In response,
the lawyers of the Armenian side reminded the court that Safarov
has never fought in a war. Moreover, our lawyers also disputed the
statement that Safarov doesn’t speak Russian well enough so that he
can’t deny the testimonies he gave before. In his April 13 speech,
Safarov expressed regret for his actions, insisted on his insanity
and said that, seeing the Armenians, he totally lost control. Safarov
added that he wasn’t going to kill, and if he intended to kill the
Armenians, he would have done that in Azerbaijan and Turkey where
there are Armenian communities. It’s noteworthy that if Safarov is
pardoned he entry Hungary will be closed for him for 10 more years.
Vardanian said that in response to the claim Safarov’s lawyer
to involve the Azeri experts in the trial, as Safarov belongs to
non-European culture, the judge said he doesn’t know a single culture
that approves a murder with an ax. In response to the question about
the appeal against the sentence or extradition of Safarov, Vardanian
said that the judiciary systems both in Armenian and Hungary are
three-staged. But the Appeal Court of Hungary doesn’t hold a double
investigation and considers only the existing documents. They
can appeal to the Causation court only in case new circumstances
resurface. She said that the appeals of Safarov’s lawyers will hardly
be satisfied.
As for the extradition probability, Vardanian said that the
Azeri side keeps demanding that from the very beginning of the
trial. Particularly, she said that thanks to the efforts of Azeri
lawyers, the Court of Hungary was going to pass the case for the trial
in Baku but the Armenian lawyers averted that. “At present, there
is no relevant agreement on Safarov’s extradition between Azerbaijan
and Hungary even if it occurs that will not apply to him. At present,
Safarov’s extradition is impossible,” Vardanian said.
She added that the Armenian side also instituted a civil suit on
compensation of the moral and material damage. According to preliminary
data, the volume of the suit will amount to $500 thousand. The suit
will be considered at a separate trial. Vardanian and Demoyan thanked
RA Defense Ministry, particularly, minister Serge Sargsian and deputy
defense minister Artur Aghabekian for assistance in the course of the
court investigation. Besides, they thanked the Armenian mass media
for highlighting the trial.

KIEVERS OPPOSE CONSTRUCTION OF ARMENIAN CHURCH
By Nana Petrosian
AZG Armenian Daily
19/04/2006
A Temporary Problem?
In 1992, Kiev authorities granted the Armenian community of Ukraine
a territory of 1022 square meters as a church site. The Armenian
community raised the necessary sum and begun the construction works
but residents of the city have recently knocked down fences around
the construction site declaring that they will allow no construction
in a green zone.
Kievers said that no one is allowed to destroy the park Armenians,
Moslems or Ukrainians regardless. Even the Jews, old residents
of Kiev’s Podol, built no synagogue even though they had such
plans. According to RFE/RL, Vahe Stepanian, head of the Armenian
community of Ukraine, voiced concern and stated that he is ready
to protect the rights of Armenians in court as the community has
all necessary documents and, besides, has already spent money for
the construction.
Regnum news agency quoted Oksana Vovk, secretary on humanitarian
issues at the Ukrainian Embassy in Armenia, as saying that this is
a temporary problem.
Reminding the recent meeting between Ukrainian ambassador Alexander
Bozhko and the head of Armenian diocese in Ukraine, Grigoris Buniatian,
Vovk informed that they had no discord over the would-be construction:
“This is not the first church to be built in Ukraine, therefore no
serious problem should emerge.”

MEKHITARISTS’ STOLEN TREASURES FOUND
By Nana Petrosian
AZG Armenian Daily
19/04/2006
More than 55 works of art, including 54 books and a medieval world
map, belonging to the Mekhitarist Congregation were found after a
two-year-long series of stealing.
Lebanese-born 31-year-old man came to the Mekhitarist Congregation
in Venice to study theology and philosophy. Later on he was included
in the Congregation’s choir and served at the newly built library
compound. For two year he has been selling the Congregation’s books to
an antique shop in Vienna sending his profit of 40.000 euros to his
family in Lebanon. The false seminarian’s thefts remained unnoticed
until the November of 2005 when Haji Ahmad’s world map dated 1559
disappeared. Noticing the loss, Mekhitarist representatives informed
the police. By then, the Lebanese had sold the map for 15.000 euros;
the buyer spent additional 10.000 for the map’s restoration. All 55
items of art are now returned to the Congregation, and the suspect
is detained and has confessed to stealing.

100TH ANNIVERSARY OF AGBU CELEBRATED IN YEREVAN
AZG Armenian Daily
19/04/2006
On April 15, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian General benevolent
Union was celebrated in Yerevan.
Among 150 guests that Van hall of Golden Palace Hotel hosted were old
and new members of the AGBU, students from Aleppo and Beirut, head of
Aragatsotn diocese Torgom Tonokian, former consul and ambassador to
Aleppo and Damascus, Levon Sargsian, Melgonian Educational Institution
graduate painter Hakob Hakobian, writer and translator Karpis Surenian,
president of Tekeyan Cultural Association Ruben Mirzakhanian, president
of Gevorg Momjian Fund Romen Kozmoyan, author of “AGBU History” Eduard
Melkonian, Lebanese member of AGBU, philanthropist Armen Harutyunian,
actor humorist Ashot Ghazarian, rector of the Academy of Fine Arts
Aram Isabekian, head of the American University of Armenia Anahit
Ordian with American and Armenian staff members, actor from Aleppo
Vahe Samvelian and others.
After the blessing of Father Torgom, Hovik Yordikian, secretary of the
Armenian Embassy in Lebanon, opened the dinner party. Ashot Ghazarian,
head of AGBU Yerevan office, held a brief speech representing the
work of AGBU in Armenia after its independence. In a short while
the participants had a chance to watch on a big screen the Public
Television’s film about AGBU’s activities in Armenia and Artsakh.
Later on the orchestra and 4 singers performed folk songs and a lottery
was held. After serving the jubilee cake young couples conquered the
dance floor.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

THE RA IS READY TO NEGOTIATE WITHOUT THE NKR STATUS CLARITY
A1+
[07:37 pm] 18 April, 2006
INSIDE THE HALL
“We always claimed that the NKR status must be finally decided so
that the Armenian side could negotiate and implement the procedure of
abolishing military conflict outcomes; territory, refugee and security
issues,” the RA Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan said today in the
8th session of the EU – Armenian Parliamentary Cooperation Committee
and added that this position already changed as a compromise from the
Armenian side and today’s position is as follows, “We simply say that
the Azeri side accepted the fact that the population of Karabakh has
a right to self-determination and even if the self-determination is
to be realized in the future the Armenian side is ready to discuss
the abolishment of the conflict outcome; the territory, refugee
and security issues. I think this is a serious compromise from the
Armenian side.” According to him the Azeri side has not responded
yet and they have much work to do with the Azeri side so that they
will make a “step ahead in favour of Armenia’.” Vardan Oskanyan also
spoke of a one concerning matter – the Azeri militarist announcements,
“If this problem had a military solution it would have been solved
long ago. There is no solution, Armenians participated in two wars and
won both of them but we don’t consider ourselves winners. We won the
battle but the menace of the war is still apparent as Azerbaijan is
inclined to make militarist announcements; but we need peace.” Then
Vardan Oskanyan asked the Europeans to make the Azeri stop their
militarist oratory, “They must be clearly told that nobody will allow
them to launch a war with Armenia, this will be very essential and I
think that the EC will be involved in this procedure, Azerbaijan must
realize that there is no other alternative for peaceful settlement.”
OUTSIDE THE HALL
The Foreign Minister told the journalists after his speech during the
briefing, “Even judging from the Azeri announcements we can assume that
the compromise spirit is not the same with the two sides. We stepped
into a phase which requires compromise spirit and political will
power. Without them the prospect of the conflict peaceful settlement
is improbable and obscure. The Azeri announcements arouse concern and
it is very vital that the EC and other European institutions put the
question directly before Azerbaijan.” The Foreign Minister informed
that the co-chairs’ separate visits mustn’t be covered in other way,
“There is no political matter, just the dates and schedules didn’t
match; the co-chairs will visit the region together at the beginning
of May.”
Asked the question whether the Minister is sure the Armenian society
will accept the authorities’ decision to go on a compromise in
such a way Oskanyan answered, “They are unaware of the details, the
principle of regional wholeness has always been prevailing, that is
why it is important today that the Armenian side fixes the right to
self-determination at first and then goes ahead. Only after it we
can share with the population.”
By the way, Vardan Oskanyan informed the Europeans in his speech
that the meeting of the Presidents in Rambouillet was not a failure;
“The Rambouillet meeting didn’t turn out well as the matter was not
solved; the Presidents were not able to solve the issue but this was
not a total failure of the procedure.”
he also stated that there was serious ground for the co-chairs meeting
with the Presidents in Rambouillet, “It was agreed upon in 2005 and
was put on the agenda of the day and it gave a hope for having certain
progress and achievement in the next months,” said Vardan Oskanyan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

A NUMBER OF OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVES OF PACE TO VISIT ARMENIA IN CURRENT YEAR
Noyan Tapan
Apr 18 2006
YEREVAN, APRIL 18, NOYAN TAPAN. PACE ad hoc commission on the isssue of
Nagorno Karabakh conflict will visit Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno
Karabakh in October of the current year. Head of the PACE Armenian
delegation, RA NA Vice-Speaker Tigran Torosian informed about it at
the April 17 press conference.
He informed that during the PACE spring session held on April 10-13
in Strasbourg the head of the Armenian and Azeri delegations met with
the Chairman of the above-mentioned commission Lord Russel Jonston
for the purpose of discussing the further work. In particular, they
reached an agreement on reconsideration of the commission’s staff: it
is envisaged that two delegates from Armenia and two from Azerbaijan,
two co-reporters on issues of Armenia and Azerbaijan in PACE from
Armenia and two from Azerbaijan, a representative from each group of
the Assembly will take part in the further work. According to Torosian,
at the meeting it was also established that henceforth the commission
should take control of the fulfilment of the recommendatioms of the
Assembly Resolution N 1416. T.Torosian informed about the Assembly
representatives’ visits to Armenia. In particular, at present Russian
deputy in the Assembly Vera Oskina is in Armenia. She is preparing a
report on the position of women in the South Caucasian countries. In
late May – early June, British deputy in PACE Edvard O’Hara will
pay a visit to Armenia for the purpose of preparing a report on the
condition of the monuments in the South Caucasus. On June 5-9 ,
PACE deputy from Netherlands Leo Platvoet will visit Armenia for
the purpose of preparing a regional report on missing people. On
September 25-27, two co-reporters on the issue of Armenia from the
Monitoring Commission will pay a visit to Armenia for studying the
further application of the constitutional amendments in the Armenian
legislation. According to T.Torosian, after the 2007 parliamentary
elections the co-reporters will make up a final report on fulfilment
of the commitments of the country towards CE. According to the
preliminary agreement, in mid-October a sitting of the Assembly’s
Monitoring Commission will be held in Armenia and the sitting of the
Commission on Political Issues in 2007 spring.

ROUND TABLE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN SLAVYANSK
AZG Armenian Daily
19/04/2006
On the initiative of social and political circles of southern Russian
town of Slavyansk, Kuban, a round table on the Armenian Genocide will
be held at Pedagogical Institute on April 19. According to Yerkramas
newspaper, the following issues will top the meeting agenda: Armenian
Genocide as a crime against humanity; international recognition and
Turkey’s legal responsibility; Genocide recognition by Turkey itself;
ideology of Pan-Turkism as a real threat to Europe and the world;
solution to the Armenian Cause. Yerkir Media TV has prepared film
“I Condemn” to be shown at the round table.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSMAN’S DREAM
By Caroline Finkel
Wall Street Journal
April 11 2006
(Basic Books, 660 pages, $35)
The Ottoman Empire passed into history in 1922, a mere lifetime ago.
Yet in a certain way it feels as distant as ancient Athens or Rome,
known to us mostly through architectural relics, a few striking events
and a mythical aura. Kemal Ataturk’s secular Turkish republic, the
empire’s successor state, consciously rejected much of the Ottoman
heritage and most of its traditions, while the empire’s colonial
outposts have reverted to the imperatives of their local identities.
Yet the religious aspect of the 9/11 attacks has made the Ottomans,
who led the Muslim world for half a millennium, topical again. The
sultans are famous for sacking Constantinople in the 15th century and
besieging Vienna in the 16th. Both events became symbols of Muslim
aggression against Christendom. And the “barbarian Turk” is still
a villain in the folklore of the empire’s northern reaches. Yet
such caricature fails to do justice to the remarkable Ottomans,
whose story is a corrective to the perceived wisdom that Islam is
inherently unable to reconcile itself with the West.
Caroline Finkel takes the title of her Ottoman history from a founding
myth, apparently invented in the 1500s, nearly two centuries after
the death of the first sultan, Osman. It was said that, one memorable
night, Osman dreamed of a beautiful, enormous tree growing from his
navel, a tree whose shade “compassed the world,” including distant
mountains and mighty rivers. It was a tale heavy with imperial
symbolism, meant for a young state that, despite humble beginnings,
had come to dominate parts of Europe and would eventually extend
across northern Africa, including Egypt, through the Middle East and
eastward toward Persia. Osman’s tribe was, after all, only one of
many Turkomen groups that had ventured into Anatolia from Central
Asia and fought against other Muslims for supremacy.
The Ottomans first got Europe’s attention by conquering parts of
Byzantium, the eastern half of the Roman Empire and the protector
of the eastern Christian church. They went on to take the Balkan
peninsula and moved northward toward Hungary. Indeed, for much of
their history, the Ottomans were a notable European power — and not
only geographically. For all the empire’s exoticism, it was flexible
enough, as it spread across continents, to accommodate local laws and
customs, even local ideas and religions. Unlike many European states
of the day, the Ottoman regime was tolerant, multiracial and highly
decentralized, all apparent keys to its success. Jews and Christians
weren’t forced to mass convert, although many did in order to pursue
a better career or lower tax bill.
When Spain expelled its Jews in 1492, the Ottomans opened their arms.
“Can you call such a king” — i.e., Spain’s Ferdinand — “wise and
intelligent?” asked Sultan Bayezid at the time. “He is impoverishing
his country and enriching mine.” Even so, the Ottoman embrace was
limited. To take but one example: The Jews brought the printing press
to Ottoman lands from Spain and Portugal, but Sultan Bayezid II soon
made publishing a crime punishable by death. Only two centuries later,
during the so-called Tulip Age, when European influence was at its
height, did the Ottomans allow the printing of books in Arabic script.
Throughout the empire’s history, architecture expressed its blending
character. Ottoman mosques are decorative and warm by comparison with
those in Arab countries. They often resemble Christian churches,
which isn’t surprising, since Armenian architects designed a lot
of them. When Sultan Mehmed II captured the seat of the Orthodox
Christian church in Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia (the Church of
Holy Wisdom), he turned it into a mosque with only a few alterations.
Practicing a more tolerant strain of Islam, the Ottomans clashed with
fundamentalists, like the Wahhabi who rose up against them on the
Saudi peninsula in the 18th century. This conflict rages on today in
different forms. In the Balkans and now in Iraq, Saudi money pays for
the razing of Ottoman houses of worship. The zealots prefer glass-and-
steel mosques.
The peak of the Pax Ottomanica came in the 16th century under Suleyman
the Magnificent, who ruled, lest we forget, at the same time as
Britain’s Henry VIII and Russia’s Ivan the Terrible. He surpassed both
in the glories of his court, the arts of his culture and the extent
of his lands. Suleyman defied tradition in one crucial respect: He
fell in love with a slave girl, Hurrem, and had five sons by her; by
convention, concubines were to bear only one. When the sultan married
her, “Hurrem was accused of having bewitched him,” writes Ms. Finkel.
While the empire’s source of legitimacy was the Islamic caliphate in
Istanbul, religion played a fitful role in political life, just as
it did in Christian lands. Wars were justified as “holy” often after
the fact. At various times the French, British and Germans — even the
pope in Rome — stood with the Ottomans against Russia, the Hapsburgs
and the Poles. Such affiliations were built on the universal concept
of self-interest. Before joining the Axis powers in World War I, the
Ottoman rulers called for jihad against the Allies, but geopolitics
obviously had more to do with the alliance than religion.
Ms. Finkel describes the rise of the Ottomans in exhaustive detail,
and their fall, too. Financial trouble, internal strife, wayward
foreign ventures and rising local nationalism — all helped to hasten
the empire’s decline. Napoleon seized Egypt at the turn of the 19th
century. By the middle of it the Ottoman Empire was the “sick man of
Europe,” a phrase coined by Russia’s Nicholas I, who did his share
to enfeeble his own country, not least by leading Russia against the
Ottomans and courting defeat in the Crimean War.
One wishes that Ms. Finkel had taken up the hard questions about
the empire’s end. Was there a fatal flaw — imperial overreach, for
example, or the lack of a renaissance in the Ottomans’ intellectual
culture? Was there something in Islam itself, even the Ottoman version,
that could not adapt to modernity? Ms. Finkel does not say.
But her clear prose keeps the story going right up to the end, where
we get another surprise: After the Turks killed more than a million
Armenians in 1915 — the number, the reason and the responsibility
are hotly debated to this day — the Ottoman powers investigated the
soldiers involved and started to put on “the first war crimes trials
in history.”
Ataturk put a quick stop to the trials, drawing a black line through
parts of the past after his new Turkish state was born in the so-
called 1921-22 war of independence (from whom, exactly?). Just as
the Ottomans replaced the turban with the fez in the late 1820s,
aiming to “Europeanize” their culture, Ataturk forced the brim-hat
on his people, to de-Islamicize his own. His experiment in social
engineering went well beyond clothing design.
Will Ataturk’s imperfect secular creation morph into a thriving
democracy or fail again to modernize itself? The jury is out. Yet in
no small part thanks to the remnants of the Ottoman heritage, it is
hard to think of a Muslim country that has a better chance than Turkey
of putting in place a modern economy and a liberal political order.
Mr. Kaminski is editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal
Europe.