TURKISH NATIONAL TV SCREENS PRO-ARMENIAN ARARAT FILM
Kamil DUZAGAC JTW with news agencies 12 April 2006
Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
April 12 2006
RFE/RL reported that Kanal Turk, a Turkish national channell, will
screen Atom Egoian’s “Ararat” film on April 13 evening. TV Company
representative said the film will be shown uncut.
In his words, the decision on film show was taken due to the desire
of 72% of the audience.
The government or any Turkish authority did not ban the screening.
The Ararat film is considered the most ideological films of the Egoyan
films. The experts name Ararat as Armenian propaganda film.
The film was financed by the Armenian lobbying groups and supported
by the Armenian Government.
Any pro Armenian film or book can be sold in Turkish bookmarkets.
However no pro-Turkish study is allowed in Armenian bookstores or
universities.

GARABAGH ACCORD POSSIBLE DESPITE STALLING TALKS – MEDIATOR
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
April 12 2006
Baku, April 11, AssA-Irada
The latest round of Armenia-Azerbaijan talks to settle the Upper
(Nagorno) Garabagh conflict failed, but chances remain to strike a
deal, an international mediator has said.
The parties failed to agree upon the issues of principle during the
negotiations held by Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharian in
Rambouillet, France in February, which was followed by mutual threats.
“The OSCE Minsk Group (MG) co-chairs were very disappointed over
the fact no progress was achieved at Rambouillet. But don’t ask me
to elaborate on the details, as the meeting is left behind,” the
French co-chair of the MG Bernard Fassier told a news conference at
the French embassy in Baku Tuesday. He said the year 2005 was very
intense and prolific for Garabagh talks, considering the meetings
the mediators held with the top leadership of the two countries and
their frequent visits to the region.
“The initial principles of a peace accord to be signed were discussed
at all the meetings. The sides reached agreement on a number of these
issues during the talks.”
Fassier said that although the Rambouillet meeting was expected to
foster a common ground on more principles relating to the conflict
settlement, it has been impossible to accomplish the goal after the
presidential talks. “But this does not mean the negotiating process
is over.”
Fassier continued that the co-chairs welcome the fact peace talks
have not been disrupted after the latest meeting in France. He also
expressed concern over the fact that immediately after the discussions,
Azerbaijan and Armenia exchanged terse statements and the ceasefire
violations on the frontline intensified.
“Certainly, this is not normal, as the parties have a ceasefire they
agreed upon.”
The mediator went on to say that a resumption of military action
is not a way out and this has been repeatedly stated both by the
intermediaries and the countries co-chairing the Minsk Group.
“War is a very dangerous option, as the side launching the hostilities
could never be sure when the hostilities will end. This holds true
for superpowers as well.”
Fassier said that a start of military action would deal a blow on
Azerbaijan’s prospering economy. Foreign investors making considerable
investments in the country do not want to see this happen either.
Fassier said that President Ilham Aliyev has been conducting talks for
a long time. “He stated during the talks that he supports long-lasting
peace suitable for both parties. The president also said that the
talks will continue even if there is one out of a hundred chance for
a peaceful solution.”
The co-chair said there are currently greater chances for a peaceful
settlement, therefore, the mediators support the continuation of talks.
Fassier said he would inform the other two OSCE co-chairs from Russia
and the United States of the outcome of his visit to the region. The
two will further pay similar separate visits later this month,
followed by a meeting of the three mediators in Moscow to review
progress in the negotiations.
“After these meetings, the principles at the core of a future peace
accord will be developed. The three co-chairs will pay another visit
to the region early in May. The developed principles will be submitted
to the sides then.”
The French co-chair said the date and venue for the next meeting of
the Azeri and Armenian presidents has not been scheduled yet.
Fassier said the talks on Garabagh will continue further with the
intensity observed late in 2005.
“Our objective is to give an impetus to the stalling peace process.
But I cannot say with confidence that we will be able to achieve any
results by the year-end. The only thing I can say now is that there
are currently opportunities to move forward. But the co-chairs’ efforts
are not sufficient for this. As you know, Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev has been invited to the United States, while Russia invited
his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharian to Moscow.
This means the co-chairing countries are doing their utmost to settle
the conflict. However, we can only cite ideas and hold meetings during
our visits to the region, but cannot pass a decision instead of the
conflicting sides.”
Fassier said that a peace agreement to be reached in conclusion of
the talks will not fully justify expectations of either side, as this
practice is unprecedented around the world. However, it is possible
for the parties to uphold most of their interests, he said.
The mediator dismissed the reports saying the USA has laid out new
proposals on Garabagh during Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar
Mammadyarov’s recent visit to Washington.
“US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not present any new
proposals during her meeting with the minister…These suggestions
are nothing new. We are simply talking about advancing the proposals
already made by the co-chairing countries.”
Fassier termed as inappropriate the co-chairing countries’ presenting
proposals separately to the conflicting sides. During all the recent
meetings with Azeri and Armenian diplomats, Secretary Rice cited
proposals that had been agreed upon by all the three countries
in question. He said that prior to his visit to the region, he was
briefed by the US co-chair Steven Mann about the content of the talks
being held in Washington at the time.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NATO RECOGNIZES AZERI TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY, OFFICIAL SAYS
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
April 12 2006
Baku, April 11, AssA-Irada
“NATO recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. This has been
taken as a key principle in the organization’s framework agreement,”
Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov told a news conference on Tuesday.
He said that although the document contributes to upholding
international legal norms, taking measures against a country [Armenia]
that occupies the territories of a partner state is outside the
alliance’s authority.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

BOTH SIDES ‘SHOULD BE READY’ FOR WAR OVER GARABAGH
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
April 12 2006
Baku, April 11, AssA-Irada
The Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian has said Azerbaijan and
Armenia should be prepared for a possible resumption of hostilities
over Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh.
“Both countries’ defense ministries should be ready for the launch
of military action either tomorrow, or in two days,” he said.
The conflicting sides failed to agree upon the issues of principle
during the negotiations between Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Robert
Kocharian in Rambouillet, France in February, which was followed by
Azerbaijan’s threats to use force to liberate its territories from
under occupation.
As for the ceasefire violations on the frontline that have become
frequent of late, Sarkisian regarded this as “natural”.
“The gunshots have always been heard and there is no difference where
they are fired from,” the Armenian minister alleged.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

SHAKHIDS APPEAR IN AZERBAIJAN: IMPOVERISHMENT AND THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM OF KARABAKH TRANSFORM THE COUNTRY INTO A BRIDGEHEAD FOR RADICAL ISLAM
by Sokhbet Mamedov
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 10, 2006, p. 10
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
April 12, 2006 Wednesday
ACTIVIZATION OF RADICAL RELIGIOUS AND TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS IN
AZERBAIJAN: ANALYSIS; Activization of radical religious and terrorist
organizations in Azerbaijan: analysis.
National Security Minister of Azerbaijan Eldar Makhmudov made
a sensational statement the other day. Speaking of successes of
Azerbaijani secret services (they celebrated their 87th anniversary not
long ago), Makhmudov said, “We are fairly experienced in dealing with
radical religious and terrorist organizations, but we were shocked by
the reports that Al-Qaeda Caucasus, a terrorist group we liquidated,
intended to recruit Azerbaijani girls into the shakhid.”
According to the minister, as recently as five years ago most
terrorists arrested in Azerbaijan were on their way to other countries
or else they were using the territory of Azerbaijan to organize
terrorist acts elsewhere. These days, they plan terrorist acts in
Azerbaijan itself – either on their own or acting on orders from
international terrorist organizations.
Secret services encounter religious-extremist groups “bent on toppling
the secular democratic regime in the country and on having Azerbaijan
quit the international counter-terrorism coalition” more and more
frequently nowadays. Activization of radical religious and terrorist
groups in Azerbaijan is ascribed to its convenient location, major
international projects under way on its territory, existence of a
great deal of vital objects of infrastructure and transport, and to
some other factors. All of that transformed Azerbaijan into an arena
of a vicious struggle between different Islamic trends and schools –
Arab, Turkish, and Iranian. All of that generates considerable problems
for the authorities to handle.
The worst threat is posed by the forces and circles proliferating
Islamic fundamentalism in the republic. Missionaries from Arab
countries (particularly from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey)
are extremely active. The nucleus of the cells of extremists they
establish in Azerbaijan comprises young locals 20 to 25 years from
impoverished families, students of theology, and the unemployed.
These missionaries offer local youths free religious education in
Islamic countries. This practice is used to import the newly acquired
knowledge and views to Azerbaijan.
Just like in the Russian Caucasus, the Wahhabi are particularly
radical in Azerbaijan where they amass around all sorts of charity
foundations, religious establishments, and media outlets. According
to some estimates, the Wahhabi already number more than 25,000 men.
This Islamic trend is predominant in the northern regions of
Azerbaijan on the border with Russia, the ones with the mostly Sunni
population. Local newspapers call the Abu-Bekir, a mosque built with
money from Saudi sponsors, the center of Wahhabi in Baku. A great
deal of the believers who regularly attend the mosque are citizens
of Russia – ethnic Chechens residing in Azerbaijan. “The Wahhabi are
already a force capable of exerting serious clout with sociopolitical
life in the country,” political scientist Rafael Gasanov said.
Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies claim that liquidation of a
number of structures in the last ten years or so that shipped young
Azerbaijani abroad for combat training and that recruited mercenaries
for wars abroad. Secret services arrested and extradited numerous
activists of Al-Qaeda, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Al-Jamaa Al-Islamia,
Islamic Army of the Caucasus, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They
neutralized local organizations of Jeishullah, Hizb-ut-Takhrir,
Al-Qaeda Caucasus, Al-Muvahiddin. Baku offices of a number of foreign
humanitarian organizations were closed as suspected sponsors of
terrorism.
Studying radical Islamization of the Azerbaijani youth, political
scientist Sanan Nuri pins the blame on the growing number of illiterate
and desperate youths, the continuing occupation of 20% of the territory
of Azerbaijan by Armenia, and refugee camp where all sorts of external
forces operate under the guise of humanitarian organizations. Unless
these problems are addressed to and solved, Azerbaijan will remain
a perfect site for radical organizations and sects.

HUNGARIAN AMBASSADOR PRESENTS CREDENTIALS TO ARMENIAN PRESIDENT
Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
April 11, 2006 Tuesday
Moscow, April 11 (MTI) – Hungarian Ambassador Arpad Szekely presented
his credentials to Armenian President Robert Kocharian in Yerevan
on Tuesday.
Szekely, who represents Hungary in the same capacity in Russia, told
MTI that the Armenian president had inquired about the secret of
Hungary’s relatively smooth transition from communism to democracy
in 1990 and the success of all post-communist governments in fully
serving their terms.
Kocharian also showed interest in Hungary’s policy towards its ethnic
minorities and in the situation of ethnic Hungarian communities abroad.

TURKEY SET FOR NEW REFORMS TO STRENGTHEN DEMOCRACY
Agence France Presse — English
April 12, 2006 Wednesday 11:52 AM GMT
Turkey on Wednesday rejected criticism that it had lost its drive to
align with EU norms and announced fresh reforms to further limit the
powers of the military and expand the rights of non-Muslim minorities.
“Some say the reforms have stopped,” Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul
told a news conference. “This is not true. We are very determined to
go ahead with the reforms.”
Turkey opened membership talks with the European Union in October,
but the government has been accused since of failing to maintain the
pace of the reforms, turning instead to domestic matters ahead of
parliamentary and presidential elections in 2007.
A particular area of concern has been the new penal code, under which
prominent intellectuals have been brought to trial for criticizing
state institutions or “denigrating the Turkish national identity.”
The new reform plan foresees no further amendments to the penal code,
whose proper implementation, Gul said, requires time and a “change
of mentality” among the judiciary.
The package includes a bill that puts military spending — long a
controversial issue in Turkish politics — under the audit of the
Court of Accounts, which acts on the behalf of parliament.
The government also plans an amendment to the law dealing with courts
martial that will “reduce to a minimum the prosecution of civilians
by military courts,” Gul said.
Another draft, already before parliament, will lift restrictions on
the property rights of non-Muslim religious foundations, an issue on
which the EU has long pressed Ankara.
The bill, however, does not foresee the return to or compensation of
non-Muslim foundations for their properties confiscated by the state
and sold to third parties in the past.
Predominantly Muslim Turkey is home to small groups of Jews and
Christians, mainly Orthodox Greeks and Armenians, most of them
concentrated in Istanbul.
The plan contains no measures of direct concern to the sizeable
Kurdish minority, whose leaders are seeking broader cultural and
political freedoms.
“Reform is an endless process,” Gul said when asked about the package’s
shortcomings. “What matters is the direction one takes and Turkey’s
direction is toward more democracy and the expansion of rights and
freedoms.”
The package also aims to:
– make the funding of political parties more transparent,
– set up a parliamentary political ethics committee,
– step up the combat against corruption,
– introduce an ombudsman system to settle differences between
indsividuals and the state,
– and amend the Settlement Law to end discriminatory measures against
migrant populations, including the Rom.

TURKISH TELEVISION TO AIR FILM ON ARMENIAN KILLINGS
Agence France Presse — English
April 12, 2006 Wednesday 11:52 AM GMT
A private television station will broadcast a controversial movie
on the massacres of Armenians during World War I for the first time
in Turkey where the subject still arouses nationalist feelings,
a spokesman for the channel said Wednesday.
Kanalturk decided to show “Ararat” by Canadian director Atom Egoyan,
an ethnic Armenian, after a survey of viewers revealed that 72 percent
of the participants wanted to see the film, the spokesman said.
“We will show the movie with no cuts or censoring,” he added.
The film’s showing, at prime time on Thursday, will be followed by
a roundtable discussion by Turkish and Armenian intellectuals and
historians on the killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire,
the predecessor of Turkey.
Even though the Turkish government gave the go-ahead for the showing
of the film, which was released in 2002, an Istanbul company was
forced in 2004 to drop plans to screen the movie because of potential
protests that would have required police presence in theatres.
Turks have only recently begun to discuss the Armenian massacres
between 1915 and 1917, one of the most controversial episodes in
Turkish history.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings.
Turkey categorically rejects claims of genocide, arguing that 300,000
Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when the
Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided
with Russian troops invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
Egoyan’s film deals with the estranged members of a contemporary
Armenian family, who are faced with both Turkey’s denial of genocide
and their own individual plight.

US PLANS TO HELP ARMENIA OVERCOME POVERTY IN AGRARIAN SECTOR
by Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
April 12, 2006 Wednesday 03:45 PM EST
U.S. delegation arrived in Yerevan on Wednesday to present a grant
provided by the U.S. administration to Armenia under the Millennium
Challenges programme.
The 235 million U.S. dollar grant will be used to fight poverty in
Armenia’s agrarian sector.
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan received the delegation to thank
the U.S. government for its financial assistance. He believes that
the programme “is very important, because it may help to bridge the
gap in living standards between the capital and rural areas.”
The Chairman of the Appropriation Subcommittee for Foreign Assistance
at the U.S. House of Representatives, Jim Kolbe, said at a news
conference that the South Caucasus is the region that has a bright
future and may develop successfully if there is peace between its
countries.
He said the U.S. would not have started the programme, had it been
not confident of Armenia’s committment to free and fair parliamentary
elections next year and presidential elections in 2008, Kolbe said.
The U.S. will closely watch the implmentation of the programme and
reforms in Armenia, Millennium Challenges Executive Director John
Danilovich said.

BEST BETS TONIGHT
By Free Press News Services
London Free Press, Ontario, Canada
April 12 2006
Must-see
Human Edge: 10 p.m., TVO. Human Edge presents the world premiere of
The Armenian Genocide. Written, produced and directed by Emmy-winning
filmmaker Andrew Goldberg, the documentary explores the 1915-1923
genocide when more than a million Armenians perished, most under the
rule of the Ottoman Empire. It will be preceded at 8 p.m. by a panel
discussion on TVO’s Studio 2.