Zaman, Turkey
March 11 2006
UK: No Armenian Genocide Took Place
By Foreign News Desk, Istanbul
Published: Saturday, March 11, 2006
zaman.com
Apparently, the British government does not regard the 1915-16
incidents during the Ottoman era as “Armenian genocide.”
In a letter sent by the British Foreign Ministry upon the initiatives
of a UK-based Turkish institution, it is stated the incidents do not
fit the category of genocide. British diplomats speaking to Zaman
also confirmed this. London refutes the claims in the Blue Book (Mavi
Kitap) that caused a crisis between Turkey and UK. The book, said to
be “the biggest support” for the so-called Armenian genocide, claimed
more than 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered during the
incidents.
The Committee for the Protection of Turkish Rights (CPTR) fighting
against the claims of Armenian genocide with the participation of
various non-governmental organizations has reached a new point in
their works. The committee has been trying to annul the unilateral
“so-called genocide” decisions of the municipalities of Gwynedd and
Edinburgh and has obtained a letter from the Foreign Ministry about
the result of a meeting it held with top level ministry officials.
According to the letter, the evidences on the incidents “are clearly
far from convincing the British government.” Therefore, “the 1915-16
incidents do not fit the definition of genocide in the UN Convention
on Genocide in 1948.” The letter also points out “it is very hard to
fully understand the incidents that took place more than 90 years ago
and developed under the circumstances of the First World War,” and
reasserts that the official view on this issue is quite “clear”.
British diplomats Zaman met in London said the 1915-16 incidents are
a massacre and tragedy, but confirmed they do not have sufficient
evidence to describe the incidents as genocide, according to the UN
Convention on Genocide in 1948.
British sources added both the present and former governments
followed the same line for the 1915-16 incidents. The fact that the
British Foreign Ministry clarified its attitude about the Armenian
incidents has been appreciated by the Turks.

Today, Azerbaijan
March 11 2006
Vardan Oskanian “Military solution of Karabakh conflict ruled out”

11 March 2006 [17:18] – Today.Az

Armenia’s Foreign Minister ruled out Saturday a military solution for
Nagorno Karabakh.

“Azerbaijan must realize that the problem cannot be resolved other
than by peaceful means. The military option is ruled out. Azerbaijan
will not be able to intimidate the Armenian side or force it to
change its position,” Vardan Oskanyan said in an interview with the
Armenian TV company Shant.
He said Azerbaijan was not ready for war.
“If the Azerbaijani side is not ready or will not risk resolving the
problem through simple compromise, it will never risk using force,”
the minister said.
Earlier, Oskanyan reiterated Armenia’s position that Nagorno
Karabakh’s right to self-determination was crucial for a peace
settlement, RIA Novosti reports.

URL:
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Prime News Agency, Georgia
March 11 2006
Population Of Akhalkalaki Held Protest Action Outside Building Of
Local Administration
Tbilisi. March 11 (Prime-News) – Population of Armenian nationality
held a protest action outside the building of Akhalkalaki
administration on Saturday regarding the incident that occurred in
Tsalka settlement.
During the incident Gevorg Gevorkyan, 24, was killed.
According to participants of the action resident of Tsalka settlement
was killed owing to his Armenian nationality.
Participants of the action appealed Georgian president with the
demand to allow using Armenian language in office work in
Samtskhe-Javakheti region, most part of which is Armenian population.
Mass scuffle occurred in Tsalka settlement on March 09.
As a result of scuffle Gevorg Gevorkyan, 24, was killed and died on
the spot, two other people were injured.
People who participated in the quarrel and suspected in murder are
detained.

RIA Novosti, Russia
March 11 2006
Karabakh’s self-determination key to settlement – minister
13:38 | 11/ 03/ 2006

YEREVAN, March 11 (RIA Novosti) – The right of the breakaway region
of Nagorny Karabakh to self-determination is crucial for a peace
settlement, the Armenian foreign minister said Saturday.
“Whether Azerbaijan likes this or not, it will have to deal with the
problem as it is on the agenda, and in this context, Azerbaijan is
coming under considerable pressure,” Vardan Oskanyan said.
“If we can reach a compromise solution, I think we could restart the
peace process,” he said.
Earlier, the Armenian defense minister said that Azerbaijan’s
attempts to extend the settlement in the conflict surrounding the
breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh beyond the current framework
posed a potential threat to Armenia.
“These attempts are accompanied by a disinformation campaign
conducted by Azerbaijan’s propaganda machine, which Baku uses to
score points with international organizations unfamiliar with the
conflict,” Serge Sargsyan, who is also secretary of the Armenian
president’s National Security Council, said in his report on the
country’s security strategy.
The Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Minsk Group
was set up in 1992 to facilitate peace talks between Azerbaijan and
Armenia. It is co-chaired by Russia, France, and the U.S. and has
representation from Turkey, the U.S., several European nations,
Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
The conflict between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and
Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh, an Azerbaijani region with a
largely Armenian population, first erupted in 1988, when the region
claimed independence from Azerbaijan to join Armenia.
Over 30,000 people were reported dead on both sides between 1988 and
1994, and over 100 others died after a ceasefire was concluded in
1994, leaving Nagorny Karabakh in Armenian hands, but tensions
between Azerbaijan and Armenia have persisted.

Louisville Courier-Journal, KY
March 11 2006
Pamuk’s rambles through Istanbul
By Alan G. Brake
Special to The Courier-Journal
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk’s year is looking up. His memoir
Istanbul: Memories and the City was nominated for a National Book
Critics Circle Award [it lost to Francine du Plessix Gray’s Them,]
and the Turkish government dropped the sedition charges against him.
Accused of denigrating Turkish identity by speaking openly about the
genocidal killings of Armenians and Kurds, Pamuk had become a symbol
of Turkey’s aspirations: Would the country choose a transparent,
European Union-friendly path, or a closed, fundamentalist one? By
dropping the charges against him without embracing free speech, the
Turkish government sidestepped the question and took a middle course.

Further complicating the situation, Pamuk is a writer who is
interested in identity, place and perception. Istanbul is equal parts
love letter and critique of a country, a city, a people and himself.
Those looking to Istanbul for a precise portrait of the metropolis
will be disappointed, for our guide confesses he is “drunk with
memories” (but then as a recent domestic literary controversy tells
us, it is unwise to turn to memoirs for facts).
Pamuk studied painting and architecture, so he is a keen observer,
but he refuses to limit the frame of his portrait. The kaleidoscopic
book includes memories of Pamuk’s family, sketches of neighborhoods,
analysis of 19th Century landscape paintings and excerpts of visiting
and native writers’ depictions of the city, among other elements.
Scattered throughout are dozens of photographs and a handful of
paintings, illustrations and engravings.
Pamuk has borrowed this archival technique from the late novelist
W.G. Sebald, and though Pamuk places the images with less skill and
surprise than Sebald, they still have a hypnotic quality that helps
to ground the reader in the place as his narrative shifts through
time, space and literary forms. He depicts a city consumed by a
collective melancholy, something he describes as uniquely Turkish, in
contrast with Western melancholy, which is a more individualistic
experience.
The purpose of the book is, at first, unclear, but midway through
Pamuk casually makes this observation: “According to [Walter]
Benjamin, the enthusiasm for seeing a city from the outside is the
exotic or the picturesque. For natives of a city, the connection is
always mediated by memories.” As an unabashed admirer of the West,
Pamuk has always counted himself among an elite minority and thus
something of an outsider in his native city. In Istanbul, Pamuk is
attempting to construct a portrait of the city — and thus of himself
— that balances the outsider’s view of the picturesque aspects of a
place with native memory. Istanbullus see the rotting wooden houses,
the poverty, the ancient ruins and the jumbled streetscapes as
evidence of a civilization in decline, while outsiders see the same
elements as charming and atmospheric.
Later in the book he writes, “Perhaps it was that I wished to
convince myself that … by looking at Istanbul, so much more defeated,
ruined and sorrowful, I would forget my own pain.” In his
characteristically oblique fashion, Pamuk backs away, continuing,
“But to say such a thing would be to talk in the language of Turkish
melodrama…” Notice, he does not deny he is trying to comprehend the
city’s condition in place of understanding his own. He merely states
it is unwise to admit it.
Like a rambling walk through tangled streets and alleys of an
unfamiliar city, Istanbul provides us with an understanding of the
place that is richer than a tour of major monuments — the book is
introspective, challenging, beautiful, and fleeting.
Alan G. Brake is a writer and critic on architecture, design, and
urbanism.

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
March 11 2006
14th anniversary of Azeri Internal Forces marked

Source: Trend
Author: E.Javadova

11.03.2006

A solemn event was held on the 14th anniversary of the Azerbaijani
Internal Forces on Saturday. In his remarks, Ramil Usubov, the
Internal Affairs Minister, noted that during the Armenian aggression
against Azerbaijan the Internal Forces like other law-enforcement
bodies showed selflessness in defense of our territories and
liberation of lands, Trend reports.
According to Usubov, the Azerbaijani leadership keeps social security
of the staff of the Internal Forces in the center of the attention.
Over the last several years the Internal Forces decisively
participated in prevention of some mass illegal actions, aimed
against the statehood. Besides, the Minister mentioned the role of
the Internal Forces in the defense of the national interests and
internal peace in the country.
Over the last time the military units of the Internal Forces formed
groups from professional officers of special-purpose and appointed
high wage for them. As a result of the measures the Internal Forces
ensured organization of military trainings, provision of military
units with modern arms and special means in the high level.
The officers of the Internal Forces were granted with premiums at the
end of the event.

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
March 11 2006
Amin Zekhov: `Armenia is the Belarus of the South Caucasus’
[ 11 Mar. 2006 12:56 ]
The conflicts in the South Caucasus are topic of discussion in the
north of the Caucasus too. Most of local military and political
experts say it is high time to eliminate all these conflicts.
Some experts think the conflicts should be solved by peaceful way,
without Russia’s mediation. Council member of the Public Organization
Adijei People’s Assembly, military expert, Colonel Amin Zekhov, who
favors the aforementioned opinion, told the Dagestan bureau of APA
that the so-called Abkhazia and South Osetia Republics should
seriously consider their future.
`Georgia is an independent state. So, Russia cannot bombard it. Peace
cannot be achieved by tanks. Russian citizens should live in Russia.
Leaders of Abkhazia and South Osetia should negotiate with Georgia
with mediation of the Caucasus nations’ confederation representatives
not with Russia’s mediation. Russian peacekeeping forces should be
withdrawn from these territories. Abkhazia and South Osetia would
better accept Georgia instead of joining Russia, which will lead to
destruction of their histories and cultures. The peoples of these
republics should take a lesson from us,’ Zekhov said.
The military expert thinks that Azerbaijan is the closest strategic
ally of Georgia in the South Caucasus. Touching on the Nagorno
Garabagh conflict, Zekhov said this problem should be solved by
peaceful way too. Referring to Armenia’s role in the South Caucasus,
Zekhov said: `Everyone knows that Armenia is the Belarus of the South
Caucasus.’/APA/

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
March 11 2006
Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs to visit
Azerbaijan

Source: Trend
Author: R.Abdullayev

11.03.2006

Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried
will travel to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey March 13-17,
2006. He will be accompanied by Senior Advisor for Eurasia Steven
Mann, Terry Davidson, the Division Chief of the Press and Outreach
Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, told Trend.
On March 13-14, Assistant Secretary Fried will meet with senior
Azerbaijani officials to discuss our bilateral relationship,
democracy, and Nagorno-Karabakh. He also has meetings scheduled with
civil society and business leaders in Baku.
On March 14-15, Assistant Secretary Fried will meet with senior
Georgian officials to discuss U.S. support for Georgia’s democratic
reforms, the peaceful resolution of separatist conflicts in Abkhazia
and South Ossetia, and Georgia’s ties to Euro-Atlantic institutions.
On March 15-16, Assistant Secretary Fried will hold meetings in
Yerevan with senior government officials to discuss our bilateral
relationship, democracy, and Nagorno-Karabakh.
On March 16, Assistant Secretary Fried will depart for Ankara,
Turkey, where he will meet the Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister for
U.S. Bilateral Affairs and discuss his trip to the Caucasus.
Assistant Secretary Fried will return to the United States on Friday,
March 17.

Florida Today, FL
March 11 2006
Army colonel to be laid to rest
BY RICK NEALE
FLORIDA TODAY
MELBOURNE – A decorated U.S. Army intelligence officer whose portrait
hangs in the Hawaii Army Museum Gallery of Heroes will be
memorialized during a funeral this morning in Melbourne.
Col. John Kizirian, 77, died Feb. 26 after a brief illness at Holmes
Regional Medical Center. He fought nine battle campaigns in Korea and
Vietnam, earning dozens of medals and accolades for battlefield
bravery and behind-the-scenes brainpower far from the theater of
operation, family members said.
Kizirian spoke fluent Armenian — his parents were immigrants — plus
Persian, Indonesian, Spanish and English.
He was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for “extraordinary
heroism and devotion to duty” during a prolonged May 1967 firefight
against Viet Cong forces, according to information provided by museum
curator Judy Bowman.
Family members say he helped predict the Tet Offensive, the
wide-ranging 1968 attack by North Vietnamese forces, by reporting the
massing of enemy troops in the vicinity.
“My three brothers were looking through this, and they were crying
because of all the lives that Jonathan saved,” said his wife, Carol
Kizirian, fighting back tears and flipping through a thick file
folder of military photographs and documents. “I didn’t even know. He
was very modest, and he didn’t talk about those things.”
The funeral service takes place at 11 a.m. today at St. Paul’s
Anglican Church, 7200 N. Wickham Road, Melbourne. He will be buried
March 24 in Arlington National Cemetery, Carol said.
Kizirian’s niece, Lesley Kissick of Montara, Calif., believes he
should receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Last August, she
wrote a letter to U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Indialantic, asking for
legislative help on her uncle’s behalf.
“I really wish it would have happened when he was alive,” Kissick
said of the accolade. “But posthumously is OK.”
Weldon’s press secretary, Jaillene Hunter, said family members must
first sign a privacy waiver before background research can begin.
Kissick said she will contact Weldon’s office to do so.
Kizirian grew up in Whitinsville, Mass., where he became the tiny
city’s first-ever Eagle Scout. He quit high school during his junior
year and joined the military at age 17, right at the tail end of
World War II, according to a transcript of a 1993 interview provided
by his wife.
He retired from the Army in 1975 but returned to active duty in 1980,
serving as a defense official in the U.S. Embassy in
Jakarta-Indonesia. He retired for good in 1984. Then-Secretary of
Defense Alexander Haig later offered Kizirian a high-level defense
department job, but he declined the post so that he could care for
his ailing wife, Edith, his obituary states.
After Edith’s death, Kizirian moved from Hawaii to Melbourne seven
years ago. He asked Carol to the movies, they dated and then married
in May 2001, she said.
Kizirian commanded authority, even when socializing at the Eau Gallie
Yacht Club. Carol recalled how, when necessary, he spoke in “his
booming colonel voice that would scare the beejeebies out of anyone.”
But she also said he had a tender, loving side. An avid boater, he
enjoyed flying, storytelling and collecting ornate objects from
around the world.
Photo: Hero. In this 2000 family photo, Col. John Kizirian stands
next to his own portrait in the Hawaii Army Museum Gallery of Heroes.
Kizirian fought nine battle campaigns in Korea and Vietnam, earning
dozens of medals. For FLORIDA TODAY
e?AID=/20060311/NEWS01/603110318/1006

calendarlive.com, CA
March 11 2006
Music Review
London Philharmonic fill-in wields a cannon for a baton
By Mark Swed, Times Staff Writer
Osmo Vänskä is a vivid conductor. He’s a deft musician, an intensely
physical leader, a manic musical chef whose hands and arms never stop
stirring, chopping, blending, stirring some more. He seems everywhere
at once, making sure that each section of the orchestra and each
individual instrument does his bidding. The sounds he gets are
intense, resonant, three-dimensional, powerfully inviting. He goes in
for loud, blow-you-away climaxes.
What Vänskä wants, Vänskä gets.

The Finnish conductor has been a big hit stirring, chopping, blending
in Minneapolis since taking over the Minnesota Orchestra in 2003. He
was a big hit with the audience at UCLA on Thursday night when he
made a last-minute Los Angeles debut conducting the London
Philharmonic Orchestra at UCLA.
Kurt Masur, the LPO’s music director since 2000, became ill last
weekend while conducting in Dublin and was rushed to the hospital
during intermission. He is now recovering from a viral flu. It is not
yet known whether he will be able to rejoin the orchestra on its U.S.
tour, which began Wednesday in Santa Barbara and reaches the Orange
County Performing Arts Center next week. Though a more sober
interpreter than Vänskä, Masur’s a control freak as well.
So what happens when one control freak fills in for another? I can’t
cite the physical or psychological laws involved, but what transpired
Thursday in Royce Hall had something to do with more becoming an
unreasonably whole lot more but seeming like less.
Vänskä accepted Masur’s relatively lightweight program of engaging
early works by Benjamin Britten, Mozart and Richard Strauss, along
with Khachaturian’s gooey Violin Concerto, and made everything
equally heavy. In fact, he made it weigh a ton.
I suppose the critic’s job here is to try to distinguish between the
levels of showing off that were gaudily on display in Royce. Like
Esa-Pekka Salonen and the many other Finnish conductors spectacularly
populating the international scene, Vänskä is a product of Helsinki’s
Sibelius Academy. But he is also, in a way, the anti-Esa-Pekka.
Salonen sided with the Modernists; Vänskä fell in with the
neo-Romantics.
He built his career not on the international stage but in the small
Finnish town of Lahti, at the same time attracting international
attention for hyperemotional, flashily recorded CDs of Sibelius
rarities.
Like Vänskä in Lahti, the LPO also has an outsider image. Of the five
major London orchestras, it ranks near the bottom in reputation. The
London Symphony is the most glamorous. The Philharmonia is known for
its spunk. The BBC Symphony is adventurous and not only media savvy
but part of the media. Only the languishing Royal Philharmonic gets
less respect than the LPO.
But just as he did with the New York Philharmonic, Masur, a
well-known disciplinarian, has clearly whipped the LPO into shape. I
might even say that the LPO sounded too good Thursday, which is where
Vänskä comes in. He began by blowing up Britten’s “Simple Symphony”
into an overinflated “Strenuous Symphony.”
A minor score for string orchestra written by an impossibly bright
and clever but still dorky teenager, the slight symphony charms with
its promise of things to come. Here, Vänskä got from the LPO such an
intense, extraordinary, suffocating thick string sound that the
“Sentimental Sarabande” slow movement became pompously lugubrious.
Pomp weighted down Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 too. Vänskä almost got
away with his big-orchestra approach, because he is such an
accomplished detail man, able to bring out all kinds of little inner
lines without ever breaking up the larger line of the piece. Still,
early Mozart can be only so sonically heavy without seeming
lumbering.
After intermission, a showy young violinist, Sergey Khachatryan, was
the sensation in the Khachaturian Violin Concerto. Even the program
notes, a fraction the size of those for the evening’s other works,
avoided the issue of the music, barely bothering to defend this
once-popular Soviet score by an Armenian composer.
Yet there could be no question that Khachatryan believes
wholeheartedly in the concerto. Born in Yerevan, Armenia, in 1985, he
is a soulful young violinist with a dazzling technique. He seemed to
know exactly how much sentiment was needed where, and how much
bravura.
Vänskä, however, didn’t. His too assertive, too poignant approach
sounded, in this score, phony. Khachatryan has just made a beautiful
recording of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto (in a pairing with the
Khachaturian), and it’s too bad Vänskä couldn’t have been
accompanying that.
Strauss’ “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks” was a very noisy
conclusion to a long, noisy night. It was not merry. It was
overbearing. The LPO played superbly, and once more many interesting
details emerged from the massive onslaught. But enough was enough.