ARMINFO News Agency
September 30, 2005
UNION OF GEORGIAN ARMENIANS HOSTS ACTION FOR RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN
GENOCIDE BY TURKEY
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30. ARMINFO. The Union of Georgian Armenians “Nor
Serund” (“New Generation”) held an action in Tbilisi, Thursday. The
action demanded recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey as a
precondition for the latter’s joining the European Union.
“Nor Serund” press-service informs ARMINFO that about 100
participants of the action carried lighted-candles in commemoration
of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey and notes
of gratitude in the languages of all the EU member-states, as well as
in Georgian and Armenian.
“Nor Serund” Co-Chairwoman Marie Mikoyan read out an appeal to the EU
addressed to the Head of the European Commission Mission to Georgia
Torben Holtze and handed over the letter to the local Office of the
European Commission. For conclusion, the action participants put the
posters of gratitude in front of the EU building and encircled them
with the lighted candles.

ARMINFO News Agency
September 30, 2005
ARMENIAN-GEORGIAN INTERGOVERNMENTAL COMMISSION FOR ECONOMIC
COOPERATION CONVENES IN YEREVAN
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30. ARMINFO. The 4th sitting of the
Armenian-Georgian Intergovernmental Commission for Economic
Cooperation convened in Yerevan, Thursday.
The Armenian Governmental press-service reports that the results of
the third sitting and the fulfillment of the tasks were discussed at
the 4th sitting. In this connection, the two countries’ foreign
ministries were instructed to hold relevant discussions once in six
months. The sitting participants agreed to activate the preparations
for an intergovernmental agreement to combat hijacking.
The Armenian Ministry for Trade and Economic Cooperation and the
Georgian Ministry for Economic Development were instructed to prepare
an agreement of mutual recognition and protection of geographical
names and trade marks by the end of the year; to form a bilateral
working group to prepare a complex of proposals for settlement of
current problems in the trade and economic cooperation; to activate
the cooperation under the agreement of cooperation between the two
countries’ chambers of commerce and industry dated October 2004; to
contribute to development of cooperation and establishment of JVs; to
secure free information flow on the enterprises privatized.
The customs structures of the two states were instructed to prepare
an agreement of cooperation and mutual assistance in the customs
sphere by the end of the year. The parties agreed to prepare a
mechanism of border control to establish an uninterrupted passenger
railway communication. A proposal was made to modernize the bilateral
legal filed in the sphere of customs and border relations. The
ministries of transport and communication were to prepare a new
agreement of motor-transport communication and start its
implementation by April 1 2006. Besides, the ministries were
instructed to prepare an agreement of air communication, restore the
flight Yerevan-Batumi-Yerevan, and establish road and railways
communication between Yerevan and Batumi. The Georgian party
expressed readiness for contributing to development of train-ferry
Kavkaz-Poti.

Journal of Turkish Weekly
Oct 1 2005
Greek Cyprus Vetoes EU-Caucasus Relations
Greek Cyprus put veto on EU-Azerbaijan negotiations within the
framework of “Enlarged Europe. New Neighborhood” as the latter
launched air communications with the unrecognized Turkish Republic of
Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in July. The European neighborhood initiative
is designed for the three South Caucasian states (Azerbaijan, Armenia
and Georgia). Therefore EU postponed negotiations with all of these
three countries because of the Greek Cyprus. The Armenian media
argued that the EU betrayed its own principles by punishing the
region.
One of the private Azerbaijani companies fly to TRNC which is not
recognized by the EU and the Greek side. In fact the EU promised to
lift all the economic and political sanctions against the Turkish
Cypriots. However despite of the 2004 promises, the EU accepted the
Greek Cyprus as full member to the EU and kept the Turkish Cypriots
outside. After the membership, the Greeks on the island have been
very reluctant for peace negotiations. The Greek Cypriot Government
plans to `solve’ the problems inside the EU because the Turks are not
inside the EU. The Greek Cyprus also tries to veto Turkey-EU
relations. Thus a tiny member block the EU’s relations with the
Caucasus and 75-million-size-Turkey.
GEORGIA, AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIA ARE NOT HAPPY
At a joint press conference with Armenian foreign minister on Sept.
29, the EU special representative to the South Caucasus confirmed the
information by the Armenian and Azeri press that the European Union
has postponed negotiations with Armenia and Georgia because of the
Greek Cyprus.
Heikki Talvitie said that they decided to postpone the talks because
of some problems between Azerbaijan and a EU state Greek Cyprus). The
Finn diplomat said that unless those problems are settled in a month
the EU would apply `individual’ approach to each country.
“GREEK CYPRUS HIJACKED EU’S RELATIONS”
Dr. Sedat Laciner from ISRO said the decision would undermine the
EU-Caucasus relations. `A tiny country severely damage the EU’s
relations with whole region. The Greek Cypriots not only hijacked
Turkey-EU relations but also Caucasus-EU relations’ Laciner added.
JTW
Jan SOYKOK, 1 October 2005

The Independent, UK
Oct 1 2005
Analysis: Turkey – on Europe’s doorstep, but still so far from
joining the club
By Peter Popham
Published: 01 October 2005
Joining the European Union is the great Turkish dream.
However distant the goal, however bitter many Turks may feel about
the disdain in which their country has been held since it first
applied 40 years ago, that dream has endured.
Membership could transform the economy of this still impoverished
nation. The process of qualifying for membership has already changed
much in the country and will change more before it’s over.
Even if the diplomatic waters can be smoothed for negotiations to
begin on Monday, it will be at least 10 years before the 70
million-strong, predominantly Muslim nation becomes one of us: a
fully-fledged member of the EU.
Like the accession of any new member, the arrival of Turkey on
Europe’s doorstep is all about economics, trade, social reform,
democracy, criminal justice, media freedom – everything that
constitutes a modern state.
Many of these factors are already in Turkey’s favour: it is in many
ways far better prepared for membership than the former Warsaw Pact
countries. It was on our side of the Iron Curtain for all those
years. It is a key member of Nato.
It has had a customs union with the EU since 1996: trade in goods has
already been liberalised, and more than half of Turkey’s trade is
already with the EU. It has already adopted many EU rules, such as
those regarding intellectual property and competition. There is no
wholesale privatisation that must be undertaken. The democratic
system is looking increasingly stable and mature. The death sentence
has been abolished.
But uniquely in the case of Turkey, membership is not just about the
nuts and bolts of belonging to the EU. It is also a profoundly moral
issue, for both sides. Whether we admire or despise the EU we don’t
often think about it in moral terms. But with Turkey, the moral
questions cannot be dodged.
One week ago, a group of scholars in Istanbul braved the eggs and
rotten tomatoes of protesters to attend an extraordinary conference.
They were there to discuss the murder of 1.5 million Armenians in the
dying years of the Ottoman empire.
Raising this subject has been taboo in Turkey ever since. It is as if
Germany had risen again after the Second World War with no public
admission, ever, of how the Nazis murdered six million Jews, and as
if they had lived and prospered in denial for the best part of a
century. But despite hitches, threats, two cancellations by judges
and all-round hysteria, Turkey last Saturday finally got round to
discussing “the first genocide of the 20th century”.
Orhan Pamuk, the celebrated Turkish novelist, told a Swiss newspaper
earlier this year: “Almost no one dares speak about these things but
me.” To his country’s lasting shame, he is to go on trial in December
for mentioning what Turkey did to the Armenians and the Kurds. But
now at least he is not quite so alone.
The conference was the work of the EU. “This is a fight of ‘can we
discuss this thing, or can we not discuss this thing?'” a member of
the organising committee said at the start of the conference. Well,
the discussion finally went ahead. It was the EU’s – and Turkey’s –
finest hour for some time.
The question posed at last week’s conference was: “Is this country
forged out of the Ottoman empire’s ashes less than a century ago
mature enough to admit the ugly stains in its history and move
forward?”
If it’s not, the EU’s door will undoubtedly be slammed on it. But if
it can find those inner resources, the dream of Ataturk may finally
be realised.
Turkey, whose inhabitants down the centuries were masters of empires
as far-flung as the Mogul empire in India, the Safavids in Iran and
the Mamelukes if Egypt, can become a modern secular state to compare
with any in the West. For Europe the moral dimension is even greater
– intimidatingly large for many. How big is Europe, in its heart and
soul? Is it a cosy, well-heeled, Christian, white man’s club,
devoted, through things like the Common Agricultural Policy, to
keeping happy those who are already fat; keeping the Old Continent
looking picture-postcard perfect, while accepting with ever worse
grace a fraction of the huddled masses battering at the door? If
that’s what Europe is, it is obviously doomed, as all the latest
demographics make clear. It’s on the way out, as obviously and
miserably as was the South Africa of apartheid.
Or does it have the courage and the wit to avoid that fate? Most of
Turkey will never be European the way Vienna, Paris and Prague are
European. But Seville, Palermo and Venice are also European cities;
and in all of them, Christian and Islamic strands are interwoven just
as in Istanbul.
The identities of Europe and Islam are the products of more than a
millennium of bitter conflict. But Britain and France were enemies
for centuries as well: the European project is all about banishing
war and the threat of war.
Never before has a huge Islamic nation asked for Europe’s recognition
the way Turkey has been asking these past decades. Turkey is the
peaceful bridge to Islam of which the West is in desperate need.
Sticking points in Turkey’s progress towards full EU membership
Turkey’s status
Austria wants Turkey to negotiate “privileged partnership” instead of
full EU membership as advocated by the rest of the EU. Turkey has
warned it will not accept “second class” status.
Croatia
The Balkan state has become a bargaining chip in negotiations.
Austria wants talks on Croatian accession to begin immediately, but
issue is linked to co-operation with the war crimes tribunal.
Muslim issue
Austria isolated in opposing entry of a Muslim nation to the
“Christian” EU after France switched position to ally itself with UK
and Germany, which favour embracing Turkey.
Joining the European Union is the great Turkish dream.
However distant the goal, however bitter many Turks may feel about
the disdain in which their country has been held since it first
applied 40 years ago, that dream has endured.
Membership could transform the economy of this still impoverished
nation. The process of qualifying for membership has already changed
much in the country and will change more before it’s over.
Even if the diplomatic waters can be smoothed for negotiations to
begin on Monday, it will be at least 10 years before the 70
million-strong, predominantly Muslim nation becomes one of us: a
fully-fledged member of the EU.
Like the accession of any new member, the arrival of Turkey on
Europe’s doorstep is all about economics, trade, social reform,
democracy, criminal justice, media freedom – everything that
constitutes a modern state.
Many of these factors are already in Turkey’s favour: it is in many
ways far better prepared for membership than the former Warsaw Pact
countries. It was on our side of the Iron Curtain for all those
years. It is a key member of Nato.
It has had a customs union with the EU since 1996: trade in goods has
already been liberalised, and more than half of Turkey’s trade is
already with the EU. It has already adopted many EU rules, such as
those regarding intellectual property and competition. There is no
wholesale privatisation that must be undertaken. The democratic
system is looking increasingly stable and mature. The death sentence
has been abolished.
But uniquely in the case of Turkey, membership is not just about the
nuts and bolts of belonging to the EU. It is also a profoundly moral
issue, for both sides. Whether we admire or despise the EU we don’t
often think about it in moral terms. But with Turkey, the moral
questions cannot be dodged.
One week ago, a group of scholars in Istanbul braved the eggs and
rotten tomatoes of protesters to attend an extraordinary conference.
They were there to discuss the murder of 1.5 million Armenians in the
dying years of the Ottoman empire.
Raising this subject has been taboo in Turkey ever since. It is as if
Germany had risen again after the Second World War with no public
admission, ever, of how the Nazis murdered six million Jews, and as
if they had lived and prospered in denial for the best part of a
century. But despite hitches, threats, two cancellations by judges
and all-round hysteria, Turkey last Saturday finally got round to
discussing “the first genocide of the 20th century”.
Orhan Pamuk, the celebrated Turkish novelist, told a Swiss newspaper
earlier this year: “Almost no one dares speak about these things but
me.” To his country’s lasting shame, he is to go on trial in December
for mentioning what Turkey did to the Armenians and the Kurds. But
now at least he is not quite so alone.
The conference was the work of the EU. “This is a fight of ‘can we
discuss this thing, or can we not discuss this thing?'” a member of
the organising committee said at the start of the conference. Well,
the discussion finally went ahead. It was the EU’s – and Turkey’s –
finest hour for some time.
The question posed at last week’s conference was: “Is this country
forged out of the Ottoman empire’s ashes less than a century ago
mature enough to admit the ugly stains in its history and move
forward?”
If it’s not, the EU’s door will undoubtedly be slammed on it. But if
it can find those inner resources, the dream of Ataturk may finally
be realised.
Turkey, whose inhabitants down the centuries were masters of empires
as far-flung as the Mogul empire in India, the Safavids in Iran and
the Mamelukes if Egypt, can become a modern secular state to compare
with any in the West. For Europe the moral dimension is even greater
– intimidatingly large for many. How big is Europe, in its heart and
soul? Is it a cosy, well-heeled, Christian, white man’s club,
devoted, through things like the Common Agricultural Policy, to
keeping happy those who are already fat; keeping the Old Continent
looking picture-postcard perfect, while accepting with ever worse
grace a fraction of the huddled masses battering at the door? If
that’s what Europe is, it is obviously doomed, as all the latest
demographics make clear. It’s on the way out, as obviously and
miserably as was the South Africa of apartheid.
Or does it have the courage and the wit to avoid that fate? Most of
Turkey will never be European the way Vienna, Paris and Prague are
European. But Seville, Palermo and Venice are also European cities;
and in all of them, Christian and Islamic strands are interwoven just
as in Istanbul.
The identities of Europe and Islam are the products of more than a
millennium of bitter conflict. But Britain and France were enemies
for centuries as well: the European project is all about banishing
war and the threat of war.
Never before has a huge Islamic nation asked for Europe’s recognition
the way Turkey has been asking these past decades. Turkey is the
peaceful bridge to Islam of which the West is in desperate need.
Sticking points in Turkey’s progress towards full EU membership
Turkey’s status
Austria wants Turkey to negotiate “privileged partnership” instead of
full EU membership as advocated by the rest of the EU. Turkey has
warned it will not accept “second class” status.
Croatia
The Balkan state has become a bargaining chip in negotiations.
Austria wants talks on Croatian accession to begin immediately, but
issue is linked to co-operation with the war crimes tribunal.
Muslim issue
Austria isolated in opposing entry of a Muslim nation to the
“Christian” EU after France switched position to ally itself with UK
and Germany, which favour embracing Turkey.

The Times, UK
Oct 1 2005
Bury a painful past – or dig it up?
Ben Macintyre

WHILE TRAVELLING in Kenya as a student, I met an elderly white man
who had helped to put down the Mau Mau rebellion, the bloody Kenyan
revolt against British colonial rule that erupted in the 1950s. We
got talking at the hotel bar, and this leathery white hunter
described how he had helped British forces to track and kill the
rebels in the Kenyan forest. He summoned over the barman. `You know
who this is?’ he said, pointing to the African in his apron. `This is
General Chui, former commander of the Mau Mau.’ The Kenyan barman
gave an unreadable half-smile, and slipped away to get more drinks.
I remember thinking what an extraordinary example of historical
reconciliation I had witnessed. Here were two men who would happily
have killed one another three decades earlier, tacitly agreeing to
overlook the past. `We just don’t ever talk about what happened,’
explained the white man. `It’s better that way.’ At the time, I
thought he was right. Today I am far less certain.

After an episode of acute trauma, should societies bury the past,
cauterise history by an effort of intentional amnesia, and move on?
Or should they seek an accounting, punish the guilty and establish
the truth? Is it better to remember, or to forget?
Two recent events have raised those questions with new insistence.
Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter who died last week, excavated and
preserved the memory of what had happened to him and other Jews in
the Second World War as a sacred duty, a moral obligation incumbent
not just on those who lived through the conflict, but on all who came
after, forever.
By stark contrast, the Algerian people yesterday voted to forget the
grim civil war that has claimed 150,000 lives since 1992. The new
charter for `peace and national reconciliation’ is a sweeping amnesty
that pardons the few guerrillas still at war who lay down their arms
and, by implication, the police officers and security agents who also
committed terrible crimes. This was a mass exercise in national
amnesia.
The charter makes no provision for the 10,000 people still missing,
les disparues, taken from their homes and probably killed. This is a
guarantee of impunity for the police and army, for the charter
states: `The sovereign Algerian people reject all allegations
intended to hold the state responsible for a policy of
disappearances.’
No one can blame the Algerian people for wanting to draw a line under
the recent, terrible past. It was hard enough to get the world to pay
attention when the slaughter was at its height. The news seldom got
out, for journalists were themselves targeted by the killers, and
even when it did the overlapping stories of terrorist and
state-backed atrocity were almost impossible to tease apart. After
the nightmare of squalid and complex murder, Algeria wants to rest
from remembrance and judgment, only to forget.
But history shows that the act of remembering, of digging out the
truth, however awful, is the only way to defy the killers. `The
struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against
forgetting’, declares a character in Milan Kundera’s Book of Laughter
and Forgetting. Organised amnesia is only a temporary palliative.
In the aftermath of horror, many nations have caught their breath,
hoping to create the stability to rebuild by setting aside questions
of guilt. But the confrontation with history is thus delayed.
Sustainable peace can only be built, in Algeria as elsewhere, by
coming to terms with the violent past, as both Chile and South Africa
have shown. The act of forgetting silences the victims, leaving the
wounds to fester. Turkey’s bid to join the EU may yet be derailed by
its determination to forget what happened to the Armenians of Eastern
Anatolia, murdered in their thousands in 1915 as the Ottoman Empire
disintegrated.
The salve for historical pain is not revenge or time – and still less
monetary compensation – but truth, and the justice that comes from
knowing it has been unearthed.
Which brings me back to the Mau Mau, and a dingy act of amnesia by
Britain that has never been acknowledged, or investigated. Two new
books, by David Anderson and Caroline Elkins, have revealed the full
horror of what happened in this murderous little conflict. British
troops killed and tortured with impunity and largely without scruple.
The Kikuyu tribe, from whom the Mau Mau recruited their adherents,
were herded en masse into concentration camps. The rebels were
depicted as subhuman beasts and brutally suppressed, while British
officers encouraged `loyalist’ Kenyans to do their worst; their worst
was truly unspeakable.
When it was all over, 150,000 people were dead (just 32 were white),
and Kenya’s independence was brought forward. Leaders on all sides
agreed that peace required forgetfulness. Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s
first President, dismissed the Mau Mau as `a disease which has been
eradicated and must never be remembered’. No British official was
ever investigated. The past was buried in a mass grave.
Sure enough, half a century later, memory is stirring again, as it
always does. A Kenyan Government investigation is under way, though
Britain has so far maintained a dismissive silence on the matter. The
few surviving Mau Mau deserve no compensation; they were often as
brutal as their adversaries. But neither should the past be
deliberately ignored.
Wiesenthal urged: `Only remember.’ I will not forget a white man
insisting that we forget the past – and the pained half-smile of a
Kenyan barman that I think I finally understand.

Financial Express, India
Oct 1 2005
No key in sight for Turkey’s EU bid

Why is so much going wrong for a major western ally?

SUBHASH AGRAWAL
Posted online: Saturday, October 01, 2005 at 0028 hours IST

If there is a country even more buffeted than India by contradictory
geopolitical pulls and pressures in a post-9/11 and post-Iraq world,
it is perhaps Turkey. The country’s painful quest for a clear
definition is mirrored in the sharp contrasts in Istanbul, an
amazingly beautiful and historical city which straddles two
continents with just the slightest hint of self-consciousness.
The Eurasian interface can often be sharp, with ancient mosques
sitting in proximity to nightclubs, or the burqa and bikini mingling
on Black Sea beaches. In the daytime, Istanbul is a visual collage of
majestic minarets, labyrinthine bazaars and winding alleys, all with
a rather Ottoman buzz, but in the evening large parts of the city
come to resemble Berlin or Stockholm, pulsating in a very
cosmopolitan way to the sound, sight, smell and rhythm from hundreds
of shops, restaurants, bars and art galleries.
Turkey is a happening and waiting-to-happen place all at once, a
country that surprisingly finds itself still being viewed with
hesitation by the West even though it has travelled further than any
other to consciously jettison its historical baggage in fundamental
ways.
Under Kemal Attaturk, modern Turkey, coming out from under the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire, began its quest for a European
character and visage. It declared itself secular, replaced its
millennia-old Arabic script with the Roman script, and passed laws
obliging people to adopt western dress. This cultural big bang was
followed by quiet consolidation of its political links through much
of the 20th century. It joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(Nato) and then the Council of Europe, and during much of the Cold
War, it was a key western bulwark against the dreaded might of the
Russian bear.
The end of the Cold War has not been very kind to what is perhaps the
only true westernised democracy in the whole Islamic world and what
is clearly a sizable military and economic power, even though its
importance has been reinforced by a growing network of hydrocarbon
pipelines from the oil-rich Caspian region that pass through it.
A range of political issues are dangerously poised against Ankara
these days: the Kurdish problem has revived, the country is under
renewed global pressure to accept, if not atone, its Armenian
history, and relations with its single biggest ally, the US, remain
frosty over the Iraq war.
However, Turkey’s single biggest concern at this time is its bid for
EU membership, a doggedly pursued and emotionally charged enterprise
over which formal negotiations are to begin this coming week in
Brussels. This is once again in trouble, this time strongly opposed
by Austria and not just by France, Poland and the Vatican. Turkey
even risks losing its biggest supporter, Germany, if Angela Merkel,
the CDU/CSU leader, manages to head the next government, as is widely
expected under a fragile coalition. Merkel is firmly opposed to
Turkish entry into the EU, favouring a privileged partnership, which,
of course, Turkey sees as an insulting downgrade and will not accept.
While the cultural nuances and discussion points of this
I-Am-European-No-You-Are-Not are endless, what is increasingly
evident is that Turkey now risks losing ground over the 30 year-old
Cyprus dispute. Turkish commentators and foreign policy experts are
now witnessing a horror in slow motion, with the possibility of an
externally forced solution (as a pre-condition for EU membership)
increasing every day.
Turkey’s bid to wrest a separate state based on ethnicity was always
unviable and without any global support, but till last year there
were hopes that the Turkish and Greek sides of the divided island
state might get more or less equal status. That now looks
increasingly unlikely.
The irony is that this overcharged debate over EU membership has
distorted many pragmatic attempts to find a reasonable and
face-saving solution over Cyprus. Now, it just may be that by pushing
Turkey on this issue, the EU will unwittingly erode much of the
pro-western sentiment in a country already internally divided among
the modern Istanbul elite and the rural Anatolian masses. As a recent
op-ed in the International Herald Tribune put it: `Turkey is still
just muddling through toward modernity’ and is delicately poised,
pulled in two different direction by its two different social
classes.
The whole nature, tenor and direction of European debate about
Turkey’s membership in the EU is very important for India because of
the multiple layers of cultural, geopolitical and Kashmir-related
issues. First, how the world settles a bitter dispute like Cyprus may
be a curtain raiser on their positions over Kashmir, should we allow
the issue to become international instead of bilateral. Second,
Turkish membership in EU will test the true limits and sincerity of
European multi-culturalism. And lastly, it will have an indirect and
but eventual fallout on the debate over the clash of cultures and
moderate versus radical faith.
The writer is editor, India Focus

Sun-Sentinel.com, FL
Oct 1 2005
Festival Miami takes on a Russian accent
By Alan Becker
Special Correspondent
Festival Miami continues to offer some enticing concerts at a time of
year when the cupboard seems bare. Wednesday’s program, at the
University of Miami’s Gusman Theater, presented Russian composers and
artists, with one exception in each case.
The justification for the presence of Aaron Copland on the program
was his Russian Jewish lineage and the presence of a Jewish folk
theme in his “Vitebsk” Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano.
An abrasive work with clashing sonorities dating from 1925, the Trio
showed violinist Sviatoslav Moroz and cellist Semyon Fridman at their
best. Each player had absorbed the idiom fully, bringing insight and
imagination to the music.
Performing in all the works with piano was University of Miami
faculty member Paul Posnak, who has the digital control and authority
to assert himself as an equal partner with any ensemble. During
Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake excerpts with Moroz, he undertook the role of
orchestra.
If the piano arrangement seemed awkward at times, the violinist did
his best with the mostly original solos.
Three of Gliere’s engaging pieces for violin and cello easily
demonstrated what a creative composer could do with a string duo,
rather than relying on a keyboard to fill in the harmonies.
While only the slow movement from Rachmaninoff’s beautiful Sonata for
Cello and Piano was performed, it provided a striking contrast to the
splashy emptiness of Rodion Shchedrin’s take on Albeniz for Cello and
Piano.
Alexander Arutiunian’s Impromptu is another matter altogether, and
provided a joyful and fiery alternative to the Armenian composer’s
more frequently heard Trumpet Concerto. The language is almost pure
Khachaturian, and the composer weds this to an arresting rhythmic
exuberance. Fridman, with his luxuriant tone, milked the piece and
had a field day with Arutiunian’s tricky rhythms.
Shostakovich’s Op. 67 Trio has a vicious, sardonic intensity in its
two faster movements, and wears a doleful countenance for the
remainder of the work.
Considering that it dates from the war years and contains a portrayal
of the Jews being horribly forced to dance just before their
slaughter by Nazis, the composer avoids most of his depressive
tendencies. It was given a reading that, while not note-perfect,
conveyed the music’s stature and feeling.
Alan Becker is a freelance writer in Davie.

Durham Herald Sun, NC
Oct 1 2005
Duke student talks about Armenian ordeal

BY PAUL BONNER : The Herald-Sun
[email protected]
Sep 30, 2005 : 10:22 pm ET
DURHAM — Unreality began to set in for Yektan Turkyilmaz about the
time a woman at a counter took his passport and, looking around
nervously — looking everywhere, in fact, but at the passport —
stamped it.
He took two steps and a man who had been following him was joined by
seven or eight others who surrounded him.
Turkyilmaz, a doctoral student at Duke University, was in the airport
in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, where for six weeks he had been
doing research for his dissertation. He was planning to fly to his
family’s home in Turkey, then return to Duke for the beginning of the
fall semester.
>From June 17, when he was arrested and jailed, until he was convicted
and released on a suspended sentence 60 days later, Turkyilmaz was
the focus of an international outcry over the state of academic
freedom in the former Soviet republic.
His crime: He had 108 secondhand books and pamphlets in his luggage.
Some were old political tracts from the early 20th century. He had
bought them from ordinary secondhand book vendors. They were for his
dissertation research, he told the security agents.
Now back at Duke, Turkyilmaz reflected on his ordeal during an
interview Friday in his office at the John Hope Franklin Institute,
where he is a humanities fellow.
Some of the 20 books that were returned to him are on his shelves
there, still with numbered tags put there by the “KGB.” The agency’s
name translates to “National Security Service.” But even its agents
still refer to themselves by the acronym of the infamous Soviet
internal police, Turkyilmaz said.
Like UFO to captors
Turkyilmaz is Kurdish, of Turkish birth, which alone could raise
suspicions among some Armenians. Animosity by Armenians over their
decimation and forced removal in 1916 from the eastern part of the
region that is now Turkey still smolders.
The books were valuable, he told the agents, but only to him in his
research into modern Turkey’s political genesis in the early 20th
century. And whatever their idea of Turks might be, his research
respects Armenians’ claims of genocide. He speaks Armenian and has
many Armenian friends.
“That wouldn’t make any sense to them,” he said. “The task for me was
to tell them who I was working for. Eventually, they understood what
Duke University was.”
It took them eight hours to list all the books, with Turkyilmaz
helping them decipher some Old Armenian titles. They were more
comfortable with Russian.
At their headquarters, they wanted to know his political views, who
his family was, whom he’d been talking to. Did he have any links to
Turkish intelligence? He answered all their questions until, after
many repetitions, he grew weary.
Then he was put into a prison cell. It measured about 15 feet square,
with two high windows and five beds, although he never had more than
one cellmate and seldom saw anyone else but guards.
In a region that has long been a tinderbox of ethnic strife, he had
trouble persuading his interrogators that he was not defined by it.
“But they have their nationalist, primordial categories in their
minds,” he said. “I was like a UFO, an unidentified object for them.
That’s why they targeted me.”
The unreality became his daily existence. He thought of all the
theoretical works about imprisonment he had read and even taught, and
of Franz Kafka’s famous “The Trial.” At least he got the
Armenian-language immersion course he had wanted, with radio,
newspapers, the few books he was allowed and conversation with his
cellmate.
The law under which he was arrested dealt with missiles and weapons
of mass destruction, lumping with them “strategic raw materials or
cultural values,” which the prosecutor said meant his books.
His cellmate told him that he could be held a year without trial.
When he was permitted a visit, he told a friend, “I don’t think we
should be that optimistic.”
Many people, starting with his dissertation adviser at Duke, Orin
Starn, called attention to Turkyilmaz’s situation and petitioned
Armenian President Robert Kocharian. A letter signed by 225
international scholars, including both Armenians and Turks, called
for his release. The U.S. Embassy in Yerevan went to bat for him.
U.S. Sen. Bob Dole sent a scathing letter, and the next day,
Turkyilmaz got a trial date.
Wants to go back
After his trial and release, he eventually found the Armenian
cultural ministry which prosecutors had said maintained a list of the
culturally significant books, the one on which seven of his titles
supposedly appeared.
“They said, ‘We don’t have a list, but we have the criteria.’ I said,
‘OK, tell me about the criteria and who decides?’ So they say,
‘Council of ministers.’ I say, ‘OK, so what are your criteria?’
‘Cultural significance,’ ” they replied.
He appreciates all the support he received and just wants to resume
where he left off.
“I’m not bitter,” he said. And despite doubts he will ever again be
allowed into Armenia, he would visit again.
“I want to go back, because I don’t want them to win,” he said.
By which he means not the majority of Armenians, who he’s convinced
are embarrassed by their country’s big-brother ways, but “a couple of
old-style people with Soviet style of thinking, with overtones of
xenophobic patriotism.”
Despite having to leave behind many other books and articles he
needed for his dissertation, Turkyilmaz is writing it and plans to be
finished next academic year.
He takes solace in believing that the episode could lead to improved
relations between the two neighbors.
Already, many Armenians have come to appreciate his intellectual
quest and its sponsors.
“Duke is very popular in Armenia these days,” he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Washington Times
Oct 1 2005
Turkey wary of EU intentions
By Sibel Utku Bila
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey yesterday girded for a showdown with the
European Union as anger and frustration simmered over what Turks see
as European backpedaling on pledges to admit the Muslim country to
the bloc.
With just three days left before the start of membership talks,
EU countries were still wrangling over accession terms for Turkey,
leaving Ankara on edge and its decades-old dream of integrating with
Europe shrouded in uncertainty.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said he would not go to Luxembourg
for the start of the talks Monday if Ankara is dissatisfied with the
EU’s conditions.
“Undoubtedly, there is the risk of not starting membership
talks,” Mr. Gul conceded late Thursday. “We are facing serious
problems.”
In an 11th-hour bid for a breakthrough, the EU will hold an
emergency meeting of foreign ministers tomorrow to seek a compromise
on a negotiating framework — the guiding procedures and principles
for the talks with Turkey.
The deadlock is blamed on Austria’s insistence to offer Turkey
“privileged partnership” as an alternative to full membership, an
option Ankara flatly rejects.
Mr. Gul said he would not board the plane for Luxembourg before
seeing the final document, but remained hopeful of a compromise
despite the time pressure.
Turkey has been trying to join the EU since the 1960s, but its
place in Europe has come increasingly into question, especially since
French and Dutch voters rejected a planned EU constitution, partly
over concerns about the membership of this sizeable and relatively
poor Muslim country.
The European Parliament fueled angry accusations that the
admission bar is being deliberately raised for Turkey when it urged
Ankara earlier this week to acknowledge that the Ottoman Empire —
predecessor of the Turkish Republic — committed “genocide” against
Armenians in World War I, as a condition for joining.

RIA Novosti, Russia
Oct 1 2005
The CIS and Baltic press on Russia
ARMENIA
If Yerevan wants to be independent of Russia, it should integrate
with Europe. This opinion was expressed by Armenian experts in the
local press. “We must develop bilateral relations with Russia with a
prospect of becoming a member of the united European family rather
than a Russia-Belarus-Armenia threesome.” (Aravot, September 21)
Experts believe that blunders of Russian politicians in the South
Caucasus in the context of U.S. vigorous policy will soon oust Russia
from the region altogether. “If we compare the unprecedented increase
in the U.S. current spending with Russia’s astronomical revenues from
skyrocketing oil prices, we will have to dismiss at once any talk
about Russia’s inability to compete. Moreover, the South Caucasus is
directly adjacent to Russia, and it should invest there much more
than any other country, if it really wants to increase its role in
this region. In the meantime, all Russia is doing there is buying
energy installations in a bid for monopoly.” (Hayots Ashkar,
September 23)
Another theme of discussion is the adverse aftermath for Armenia of
Russia’s potential entry into the WTO. “After joining the WTO Russia
will have to respect the rules of that organization and pursue its
common price policy. As a result, the price of Russian commodities
will approach the price level of exports both in the CIS, and inside
Russia itself. The resulting spiral in prices on energy carriers in
Armenia will sharply increase the costs of all Armenian goods, making
them absolutely uncompetitive.” (Aikanan Zhamanak, September 21)