PM’S ‘GENOCIDE’ COMMENT SPARKS ROW WITH TURKEY
Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, May 06, 2006
OTTAWA — Turkey has recalled its ambassador to Canada as the country
plots an official response to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recent
acknowledgement of the 1915 Armenian genocide — one of the most
disputed and politically fraught events of the 20th century.
Harper’s three-paragraph statement April 19 to mark the “sombre
anniversary” — the first time that Canada has made such a statement
— barely caught the attention of most Canadians, but it ignited a
furor in Ankara that appears set to boil over.
An official at the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa told CanWest News
Service that Aydemir Erman has not been formally withdrawn from
Canada over the prime minister’s comments, but he has been “called
back” to Turkey to discuss with government officials what steps will
be taken to express displeasure with the remarks.
Those options include the formal withdrawal of Turkey’s top diplomat
in Canada, a threat Turkey has made with Canada and other countries
in the past.
“The ambassador is now travelling to Turkey because our authorities
have asked him to join them for consultations and, indeed, it is
related to what’s been happening here in the last week or so here in
Canada with the prime minister’s declaration,” said Yoney Tezel, a
counsellor with the embassy.
Ottawa’s official position that 1.5 million Armenians were killed in
a “genocide” adds Canada to a group of about 25 other countries,
including France, Russia, Poland and Argentina.
“For us, this is a serious matter,” Tezel said. “The Armenian claims
are a direct attack on our identity, on Turkey’s history. We feel
it’s unfair. That’s why when these claims find some recognition we
always consider that something negative.”
Harper’s statement, delivered on the 91st anniversary of the
bloodbath, noted that both the Senate and the House of Commons have
adopted motions acknowledging that a genocide took place.
“My party and I supported those resolutions and continue to recognize
them today,” he said.
On April 25, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement accusing
Harper of exhibiting a “gravely prejudiced attitude.”
“Such statements … are not only counter-productive to the
atmosphere of dialogue we wish to build between Turkey and Armenia,
but also adversely affect the relations between Turkey and Canada,”
the Turkish government said.
A Turkish newspaper, Hurriyet, reported after Harper’s statement that
Canadian companies would be barred from bidding on contracts related
to the construction of a major nuclear power plan.
Arif Babikian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee
of Canada, said Turkey has reacted similarly in the past.
“In 2002, when the Senate passed a resolution, they also threatened
and blackmailed Canada that they are going to cut the relationship
and boycott Canadian companies and nothing happened,” he said. “They
did the same thing in 2004 when the House of Commons passed a
resolution. Now they are using the same tactics.”
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Ilham Aliyev: nothing new can be proposed on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue
settlement
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11:37 05/06/2006
“All possible ways of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement have already
been considered,” President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev stated on May
5 in Baku, Trend News Agency informs.
According to Aliyev, “at present, the Co-Chairs are intensively
consulting each other and considering various conflict resolution
options. And it’s possible that some novelties will appear.”
“I don’t believe that any new proposal may be put forward to solve
the issue. Some of the proposals which are being discussed could
be adjusted. I do not rule that out. If that is the case, it could
facilitate resolving theissue,”
Ilham Aliyev added.
According to the Azerbaijani President, his country’s position remains
unchanged. “We advocate application of international legal norms,
and a single standard should be used in this case,” Ilham Aliyev added.

Daily Telegraph, Australia
May 7 2006
Envoy recalled over genocide remark
>>From correspondents in Montreal
May 07, 2006
TURKEY has recalled its ambassador to Canada following Prime Minister
Stephen Harper’s recent remarks calling the killing of Armenians in
1915 genocide, a Montreal daily reported overnight.
Ambassador Aydemir Erman has not been officially withdrawn but was
called back to Ankara to help formulate Turkey’s response to an April
19 statement by Harper marking the 91st anniversary of the killings,
The Gazette, an English-language newspaper, said.
“For us, this is a serious matter,” Yoney Tezel, an official with the
Turkish embassy, was quoted as saying. “The Armenian claims are a
direct attack on our identity, on Turkey’s history. We feel it’s
unfair.”
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen were slaughtered in
an orchestrated genocide in the final years of the Ottoman Empire,
mainly from 1915 to 1917.
Turkey categorically rejects claims of genocide, arguing that 300,000
Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when
Armenians began fighting for independence in eastern Anatolia and
sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
Mr Harper’s statement noted that both houses of Canada’s parliament
have passed resolutions acknowledging the slaughter as the first
genocide of the 20th century.

Armenian Prime Minister: cannot speak of A-320 crash objectively
until investigation is over
Regnum, Russia
May 7 2006
Speaking of the situation that lead to the crash of the A-320 plane,
a unified objective assessment will be made, instead of several
subjective ones, Armenian Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan asserted
at a news briefing..
The Armenian Prime Minister suggested not to jump to conclusions and
wait for official results, a REGNUM correspondent reports. “We take
an active part in the investigation. Armenian defense minister is now
in Sochi, and we are thoroughly informed on the issue. Let us wait for
the official conclusions. Since it could happen that what seems obvious
is not actually true. This is a very serious issue, and I do not want
to make preliminary conclusions,” Andranik Margaryan confessed.
He thanked both the Russian and Georgian sides for the quick response
to the disaster. “France is also paying special attention to the
situation. They have sent their specialists to the plane’s crash
site. We needed data received by Georgian air traffic controllers.
Georgian authorities said they were ready to deliver the information,
and they did deliver it, for which we are grateful. As for the
participation of Georgian specialists in the investigation, that is
to be decided by the two countries,” Margaryan added.
Armenian Minister of Finance and Economy Vardan Khachatryan informed
reporters that a number of transfers have already been made to a
designated account: “There is a transfer from the Union of Armenian
Businessmen. The money will be donated to the victims’ relatives.”

Relatives cast flowers into sea for air crash victims
People’s Daily, China
May 6 2006
Armenia and Russia marked an official day of mourning on Friday,
grieving relatives cast flowers into the Black Sea at the spot where
an Armenian jet plunged into the waters, killing all 113 on board.
To the sound of mournful music and the boom of a fog horn, they
scattered carnations and roses over the waters six kilometres offshore
from the Russian resort of Sochi, where the Armenian Airbus A320
crashed on Wednesday.
A woman holding a photograph of two young newly-weds who died in the
crash fainted on the deck of the boat that took them to the site.
Several others also passed out.
Transport Minister Igor Levitin, who was in Sochi, said it was urgent
to find the corpses of the many victims still lost in the sea more than
half of the people on the plane. Only 50 bodies have been recovered
so far, according to the emergency situations ministry.
“It’s very important for us to raise the bodies. That’s our priority
now,” Levitin said.
A first plane carrying 26 bodies arrived at the airport in the Armenian
capital, Yerevan, on Friday after an initial delay, apparently due
to a lack of coffins.
“The victims’ bodies are unrecognisable, horribly disfigured. A mother
wouldn’t know her own son,” said one young man who had returned from
Sochi after failing to find his brother-in-law, his eyes red from
crying and fatigue.
Flags flew at half mast across Armenia, radio and television channels
played sad music and memorial services were held at churches across
the country.
Russian officials and members of the public also laid flowers at the
Armenian embassy in Moscow for the victims of the accident. The crash
has shocked the two countries, which have long had close ties.
Work continues
Meanwhile work continued to recover from the sea the victims’ corpses
and the black box flight recorders that might help establish why the
plane crashed. Bad weather is thought to be the cause of the crash,
according to investigators.
The latter said they had picked up signals from what seemed to be
the flight recorders at a location 680 metres below the surface,
where a large section of the plane’s wrecked fuselage lay.
Russia, whose investigators are being helped by experts from France,
is seeking assistance from other foreign countries to raise the black
boxes since its Black Sea fleet is not fully equiped for the task,
Levitin said.
A bathyscaphe submersible vehicle will be sent down to the site to
ascertain whether the signals that have been picked up are really
coming from a section of the plane, he added.
Relatives face the grim task of identifying their dead loved ones
from photographs pinned on a hotel wall in Sochi, many of the bodies
battered and bloated from submersion in the water.
On board the plane were 85 Armenian citizens, 26 Russians, one
Georgian and one Ukrainian, according to a list published at Yerevan
airport. Six children were thought to be among the dead.

Ilham Aliyev: nothing new can be proposed on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue settlement
Regnum, Russia
May 6 2006
“All possible ways of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement have already
been considered,” President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev stated on May
5 in Baku, Trend News Agency informs.
According to Aliyev, “at present, the Co-Chairs are intensively
consulting each other and considering various conflict resolution
options. And it’s possible that some novelties will appear.”
“I don’t believe that any new proposal may be put forward to solve
the issue. Some of the proposals which are being discussed could
be adjusted. I do not rule that out. If that is the case, it could
facilitate resolving theissue,” Ilham Aliyev added.
According to the Azerbaijani President, his country’s position remains
unchanged. “We advocate application of international legal norms,
and a single standard should be used in this case,” Ilham Aliyev added.

Owner of Armenian airline criticizes controller
Interfax, Russia
May 6 2006
YEREVAN. May 6 (Interfax) – Cockpit voice recordings “prove” that the
captain of an Armenian airliner that crashed off the Russian Black
Sea coast on Wednesday “was acting in a perfect way, something that
cannot be said of the [ground] controller,” said the owner of the
company that owned the plane.
“No one has ever blamed the crew and the captain of the aircraft for
anything. It’s simply a lot of rubbish that irresponsible people are
saying,” Mikhail Bagdasarov told the Armenian web portal “Panorama.”

Controller may have contributed to Black Sea crash – airline
17:50 | 06/ 05/ 2006
RIA Novosti, Russia
May 6 2006
YEREVAN, May 6 (RIA Novosti) – An aircraft traffic controller on duty
when an Armenian plane crashed into the Black Sea killing 113 people
may have played a role in the tragedy, the owner of the airline in
the tragedy said Saturday.
Armavia Airlines head Mikhail Bagdasarov said a complete version of
a recorded conversation between the air traffic controller at the
Russian airport and the pilot of the Armenian plane showed that the
pilot had acted correctly.
Bagdasarov said that a recording between Airbus pilot Grigory Grigoryan
and traffic controller at Adler airport previously made public had
been incomplete.
“The complete version of the taped conversation shows that the pilot
of the A-320 jet was doing everything right, which cannot be said
about the air traffic controller,” Bagdasarov said in an interview
with Armenian Internet site Panorama.am.
He said the ground controller had sent told the pilot to make a second
circle before landing when the pilot was almost landing already.
“He had nearly 200 meters left to the runway when he was sent back
to make a second circle. And this was at a time when the air traffic
controller had no right to order but could only advise,” Bagdasarov
said.
However, he added he did not blame the air traffic controller.
“In such situations, you cannot say that the air traffic controller
made the mistake that caused the accident,” he said. “The controller
made mistakes which made the situation worse.”
He said there could be a combination of reasons that caused the crash
but cautioned against putting the whole blame on the pilot.
“He was an experienced, good pilot, one of the best,” Bagdasarov said.
The Airbus was flying from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to Adler
airport, which services the popular Russian resort of Sochi, when it
crashed six kilometers off the Russian coast early Wednesday morning.
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said bad weather most likely
caused the tragedy.
In comments on rumors that the crew was incomplete, the Armavia owner
said the crew included both a navigator and flight engineer.
“How can a plane take off without a navigator?” he said. “There is just
a group of people who spend their time making up this sort of gossip.”
Armavia Airline set up on December 12, 1996 is Armenia’s national
airline company. On June 5, 2005, Bagdasarov, president of MIKA
Armenia Trading, became the owner of 100% of the company’s shares.
Armavia passenger traffic totaled 507,000 in 2005 against 380,000
in 2004.
Armenia’s civil aviation commission said it would hear comments from
air traffic controller of the Adler airport Saturday, spokeswoman
Gayane Davtyan said.
She denied rumors that the controller was being hidden for fear of
the victims’ families.
“Nobody is hiding the ground controller from anyone,” Davtyan said,
adding that he was working with commission experts on decoding the
recordings.

Five Years of Membership of Armenia to the Council of Europe
National Assembly of RA, Armenia
May 6 2006
On May 5 RA NA Artur Baghdasaryan received Jean-Louis Laurens, Director
General of Political Affairs of the General Secretariat of the Council
of Europe. Boyana Urumova, Special Representative of the General
Secretary of the Council of Europe in Armenia attended the meeting.
During the meeting the sides touched upon the achievements of five
years after the membership of Armenia to the Council of Europe and
prospects. It was noted that those years have been years of active
work and cooperation, during which the guidelines of the path from
the Council of Europe to the European Union have been outlined. RA
NA President Artur Baghdasaryan touched upon the process of the
fulfillment of the undertaken obligations of Armenia in the Council of
Europe, noting that after the constitutional amendments legislation
reforms are made in judicial, local self-government and territorial
management systems and Electoral Code.
Mr. Laurens, highlighting the success of democratic reforms in Armenia,
underscored the necessity of the existence of legislative bases and
political will for holding the general elections free and fair. In
Mr. Laurens’ opinion, five years ago the political course adopted
by Armenia in the aspect of getting integrated into European family
and the accepted value systems for the progress of Armenia is of
positive importance.

No more bodies found at A-320 crash site
Interfax, Russia
May 6 2006
SOCHI. May 6 (Interfax-South) – No more body parts have been found
at the site of the Armavia plane crash during the past 24 hours,
Sergei Aristov, vice-chairman of the commission investigating the
air disaster, told journalists on Saturday.
“Fifty-one bodies have been retrieved, as reported previously.
Forty-four bodies have been identified and 34 repatriated to Armenia,”
Aristov said.
The remains of seven passengers have yet to be identified.
An Armavia A-320 passenger liner crashed near Sochi while attempting
to land early on May 3. All passengers and crew aboard the plane were
killed in the disaster.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress