ARMENIAN AND AUSTRALIAN FMS DISCUSSED BILATERAL RELATIONS
Pan Armenian
10.10.2005 12:55 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian departed
yesterday for Australia on a formal visit, RA MFA press office
reported.
Today the Armenian FM met with the Australian Minister for Foreign
Affairs and Trade Alexander Downer to discuss the prospects of the
Armenian-Australian relations and exchange views on the international
situation and regional developments. Vartan Oskanian familiarized
the interlocutor with the Nagorno Karabakh settlement process and
Armenia’s relations with the neighbor states. The parties noted the
importance of strengthening bilateral relations and activation of
trade and economic ties.
The Foreign Ministers also voiced satisfaction with the
Armenia-Australia cooperation within international structures. Upon
completion of the meeting Minister Oskanian invited his Australian
counterpart to Armenia.
Within the visit framework the Armenian FM met with Minister for
Vocational and Technical Education Gary Hardgrave, Minister Assisting
the Prime Minister, Minister for Human Services Joe Hockey MP,
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade, Senator Sandy
Macdonald and Chairman of the Armenian-Australian parliamentary
friendship Maris Pein. Besides, Vartan Oskanian met with leaders of
the Armenian community of Australia and attended the liturgy in the
Armenian Church of St. Harutyun in Sidney, where he delivered a speech,
and also met with the chairman of the Armenian-Australian Chamber of
Commerce and the Armenian media.

ARMENIAN HEALTH AUTHORITIES BRACING UP FOR POTENTIAL BIRD FLU OUTBREAK
Armenpress
Oct 10 2005
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 10, ARMENPRESS: Armenian health authorities have
developed a national program of measures to withstand a potential
outbreak of bird flu and will send it to government approval. Cases
of bird flu reported last week by Romania and Turkey have increased
fears that it may reach Armenia.
Lilit Asatrian, head of a health ministry department, said experts
fear the H5N1 virus could mutate into one which spreads easily among
humans, creating a pandemic that might kill millions. Last week Turk
television quoted Turkish farm minister Mehdi Eker as saying bird
flu had been discovered in Turkey for the first time. The television
station said turkeys had died of the disease on a farm in Balikesir
province near the Aegean Sea in western Turkey.
According to Lilit Asatrian, examinations were conducted in all large
poultry farms in Armenia to identify their readiness in case of an
outbreak of the disease. She said agricultural ministry has promised
to report about any case of birds deaths.
Asatrian said there is a lot has be done to be prepared for the
disease’s possible spread into Armenia-to set up laboratories and
prepare personnel.
She said Armenian health authorities expect WHO’s assistance to
implement the anti-bird flu program.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RA PRESIDENT NOTED ROLE OF GREECE IN ARMENIA-NATO AND ARMENIA-EU RELATIONS
Pan Armenian
10.10.2005 13:54 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian President Robert Kocharian met today with
newly appointed Geek Ambassador to RA Panayota Mavromichali, who handed
him her credenials, RA leader’s press service reported. Congratulating
the diplomat on the appointment the RA President noted the role of
Greece in the development of bilateral relations and in cooperation
with the NATO and EU.
As for the Armenia-EU relations the parties emphasized the importance
of elaborating the action plan within the New Neighborhood Policy. They
also marked upcoming Robert Kocharian’s visit to Greece as a stimulus
for the Armenian-Greek development.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

MONUMENT TO COSSACKS – HEROES OF RUSSIAN-PERSIAN WAR ERECTED IN YEREVAN
Pan Armenian
10.10.2005 13:02 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A monument to the Cossacks killed during the
Russian-Persian wars in 1826-1827 was unveiled and consecrated near the
Russian Orthodox Church in Yerevan. Words “To the Cossacks of Russia
from grateful Armenian people” are inscribed on the gravestone. The
construction of the memorial was financed by the Armenian community of
Rostov with the assistance of the Yerevan City Administration. Russian
Ambassador to Armenia and RA Ambassador to Russia, governor of Rostov
Oblast Vladimir Chub, Mayors of Rostov-on-Don Mikhail Chernishev and
of Yerevan Yervand Zakharian as well as the RA Minister of territorial
integrity, head of the national security service and chief of the
Armenian police were present at the ceremony.
When delivering a speech Yervand Zakharian noted that the monument
was inaugurated in the place where a Cossack regiment, whose soldiers
gave lost their lives defending Armenia, was quartered. “This fact
once again proves that the friendship between Armenia and Russia is
eternal and we laid one more stone in the fundament of our friendship”,
he said, Interfax reported.

CARGO TRANSPORTATION IN ARMENIA INCREASED 8.5%
Pan Armenian
10.10.2005 15:27 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The average volume of cargo transportation (without
pipelines) within the CIS member-countries (excluding Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan, whose statistical services did not present information)
made 104% against the last year data. According to the CIS statistical
committee, the volume of cargo transportation in Armenia increased
8.5%, in Belarus – 8.3%, in Georgia – 7.8%, in Kazakhstan -2.9%,
Tajikistan – 2.9% and in Russia – 6.3%. Decrease of cargo
transportation volume was observed in Ukraine, Kyrghyzstan and Moldova.

JOURNALISTE TURC CONDAMNE POUR DES PROPOS SUR LES ARMENIENS
SwissInfo, Suisse
7 Octobre 2005
ISTANBUL – La justice turque a condamne vendredi a six mois de prison
avec sursis un journaliste turc de souche armenienne pour insulte a
l’identite turque. Il entend faire recours jusqu’a la Cour europeenne
des droits de l’Homme.
Hrant Dink, redacteur en chef de l’hebdomadaire bilingue “Agos”, qui
paraît en turc et en armenien, a precise qu’un tribunal d’Istanbul
l’avait declare coupable d’avoir insulte et affaibli l’identite turque
dans un article sur les Armeniens. Le papier date de fevrier 2004.
M. Dink appelait dans ce texte les Armeniens a “se tourner maintenant
vers le sang neuf de l’Armenie independante, seule capable de les
liberer du poids de la Diaspora”.
Dans cet article consacre a la memoire collective des massacres
d’Armeniens commis entre 1915 et 1917 en Anatolie, il invitait
egalement les Armeniens a rejeter symboliquement “la part alteree de
leur sang turc”.
M. Dink se defend de ces accusations. Il affirme au contraire avoir
voulu inviter les Armeniens de la diaspora a oublier leur colère
envers les Turcs.
La question du genocide des Armeniens sous l’Empire ottoman en 1915
reste très sensible en Turquie. L’ecrivain turc le plus connu, Orhan
Pamuk, risque ainsi une peine pouvant aller jusqu’a trois ans de
prison pour des critiques a l’egard de l’attitude d’Ankara. Celles-ci
ont ete publiees dans la presse suisse,
Lors d’un entretien publie le 6 fevrier dans “Das Magazin”, le
supplement hebdomadaire du quotidien zurichois “Tages-Anzeiger”,
l’intellectuel avait notamment declare que 30 000 Kurdes et un million
d’Armeniens avaient ete tues en Turquie. Selon lui, personne d’autre
n’ose en parler.
–Boundary_(ID_P/o+uYzGNBeimLldMlNCGw)–

FOREIGN COUNTRIES ASPIRE TO MILITARY PRESENCE IN ARMENIA – BRITISH OFFICIAL
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
posted Oct 10 2005
Baku, October 7, AssA-Irada
The withdrawal of Russian military bases from Armenia should be
achieved after the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper Garabagh conflict is
settled. This is due to the fact that other countries intend to
station their military units in this country, Great Britain’s special
representative to the South Caucasus Brian Fall has said.
The British representative told the Rose Roth seminar organized in
Yerevan by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly jointly with the Armenian
parliament, that ‘after this it will be impossible to freeze the
Garabagh conflict’.*
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZERBAIJAN NOT CONSIDER EU STATEMENT AS SERIOUS
Azerbaijan News Service
Oct 7 2005
A high-ranking European Union official has warned Azerbaijan may
“fall behind” in the EU New Neighborhood Policy due to its forging
ties with the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
(TRNC), Armenia media reported. The European Commissioner for
Foreign Affairs Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the international
community recognizes a united Cyprus. This country is currently
blocking the progress achieved by Baku within the mentioned program
due to the opening of direct flights with TRNC, she said. I have
informed Azeris that if they do not change their decision, we will
continue collaborating only with Georgia and Armenia within the
New Neighborhood Policy. Nonetheless, we hope Azerbaijan will find
a solution for the problem, said Ferrero-Waldner.In his turn Azeri
official do not consider the statement as serious. Tahir Taghizadeh,
head of the information of the Ministry of foreign affairs of
Azerbaijan said official Baku did not receive any letter on the
issue. In his interview with ANS TV, Mr. Taghizadeh said during his
visit to New-York within the 60th session of UN, Elmar Mammadyarov,
foreign minister of Azerbaijan met with his Cypriote (Greek Part)
Colleague and no excitement was heard from that part. In any case we
are not going to change our position. Because position of Azerbaijan
coincides with one of the United Nations, European Union and other
countries who call to eliminate problems and bring the Northern Cyprus
from isolations. Relations with Northern Cyprus are only commercial
and no need to politicize the case.

WE CANNOT LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN
Turkish Daily News
Oct 9 2005
‘How many great poets, like Nazim Hikmet, could we have had if in
the past hundred years our culture had not been suppressed,’ Yasar
Kemal had once lamented. He would know the answer better than anyone.
Himself an ethnic Kurd, Kemal has always been outspoken on issues
of human and minority rights not only via his writing but also via
his activism.
Elif ªafak “How many great poets like Nazim Hikmet could we have had
if in the past hundred years our culture had not been suppressed,”
Yasar Kemal once lamented. He would know the answer better than
anyone. Himself an ethnic Kurd, Kemal has always been outspoken on
issues of human and minority rights not only via his writing but also
via his activism. In 1995 after publishing an article in Der Spiegel,
he was given a suspended sentence of 20 months in prison. During
Kemal’s trial 1,000 intellectuals had claimed responsibility for
the book in which his article had appeared in order to stand behind
him. Among these intellectuals, 99 went on trial at the Istanbul
State Security Court (DGM).
Viewed from this perspective, it looks like nowadays an old pattern
is repeating itself. Once again an acclaimed Turkish novelist is
being put on trial for his views. Orhan Pamuk will go to court in
December for the views he expressed during an interview with a Swiss
paper. In that interview Pamuk had claimed, “Thirty thousand Kurds
and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but
me dares to talk about it.” Once this statement was heard in Turkey,
it triggered a huge reaction and nationalist uproar. At the same time
there was an intricate debate in the Turkish media, full of twists
and turns. The debate was not between “black” and “white” but between
“shades of gray.” Not many Western journalists have paid attention to
the nuances of this debate, and not many Turkish intellectuals have
tried to explain the nuances to foreign journalists. As a result,
civil society in Turkey has been depicted as more black-and-white
than it really is.
There is no clash of civilizations. Instead there is a clash of
opinions and values. As in many countries, in Turkey too there
is a clash between two forces. On the one hand there is the
“state oriented.” They comprise a crooked alliance: army officers,
conservative bureaucrats, some diplomats, ultranationalist groups,
some Kemalists and some groups on the far left. All these people
can act together if they suspect that “Ataturk’s legacy is being
challenged” and that the state is in danger. For them the state
machinery is above everything, above society and the individual. They
all respond with a nationalist reflex when a Turkish intellectual
voices a critical opinion outside Turkey. The desire to look “good”
in the eyes of the Western world runs deep in the subconscious of this
group. Anyone who taints Turkey’s image in the eyes of the Western
world is seen as a “traitor.” This group is strong, as it is backed
by state apparatuses. Yet, it is also problematically heterogeneous.
The second major force in Turkey today is the “civil
society-oriented.” These, too, compose an alliance: liberals,
libertarians, some social democrats, some conservative Muslims critical
of an excessively centralized regime, many Kurds and Alawis and Sufis
and all open-minded intellectuals. This second alliance is pushing
the country harder and harder towards a multicultural, cosmopolitan
regime and strongly favors Turkey’s accession to the EU.
This group is strong. The problem is, the more they gain pace, the
more the backlash against them.
Turkish media and civil society were recently stirred by a critical
conference that was held for the first time in Istanbul: a conference
on Ottoman Armenians. Over the last four years, similar workshops and
conferences had been organized by open-minded Turkish and Armenian
scholars in different parts of the United States. Yet this conference
differed from the previous ones in three aspects: It was held in
Istanbul, organized collectively by three Turkish universities and all
its keynote speakers came originally from Turkey. For the first time
critical-minded Turkish intellectuals came together to jointly explore
what had happened to the Ottoman Armenians before, during and after
1915. Though highly diverse in other ways, the participants shared one
thing in common: their belief in the need to face the atrocities of
the past, no matter how distressing or dangerous, in order to create
a better future and a more democratic society in Turkey. Despite a
last-minute legal maneuver by a lawyer to prevent it from happening,
the conference was held and openly supported by Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan. All papers were presented without censure, and even
the taboo word “genocide” was publicly uttered. The next day Turkey’s
Milliyet said “Another Taboo Has Been Smashed.”
Though there has been an accompanying nationalist smear campaign,
the number of Turks supporting the network of intellectual solidarity
between Turkish and Armenian intellectuals is on the rise. Through
the collective efforts of academics, journalists, writers and media
correspondents, 1915 is finally being opened to discussion in Turkey
like never before. All this is accompanied by a series of important
steps that the government has taken to improve its human rights record.
Therefore, Pamuk’s case will be received within such a complicated
framework in which two forces are in conflict. We are in need of
collective efforts for the civil society-oriented to preside over
the state-oriented. Turkey is a country where in the past, social
transformation was always introduced from above, imposed by a cultural
elite on the rest of society. This time it has to be different. For
a true democracy to exist, change has to come from below and from
within. This is what we are struggling for.
Turkish intellectuals will stand by Pamuk on the day of his trial,
just like they stood by Kemal in the past. Our country has already
hurt and isolated many of its great poets and writers in the past. We
cannot let it happen again.
–Boundary_(ID_COyhDwRn5uic7+LA23/slw)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EU SUPPORT FOR TURKEY ‘GENOCIDE’ WRITER
By Amberin Zaman in Istanbul
The Daily Telegraph, UK
Oct 10 2005
A senior European Union official has underlined concern for Turkey’s
human rights record by joining the acclaimed author, Orhan Pamuk,
for lunch in Istanbul. An Istanbul court provoked outrage last month
when it charged Mr Pamuk with violating laws that forbid description
of the mass killings of Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman
Empire as genocide.
The author, who is due to appear in court on Dec 16, could spend
up to three years in prison if found guilty of “insulting Turkey’s
national dignity”. The charges were filed after Mr Pamuk told a Swiss
newspaper in February that “a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were
killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talks about it”.
Olli Rehn, the EU’s enlargement commissioner who lunched with Mr Pamuk,
hinted that negotiations with Turkey over its entry to the EU might
be interrupted if the author were to be convicted.
From: Baghdasarian