IranMania.com , Iran
Sept 23 2005
Iran’s ?Nightingale Papers? published in Armenia
Friday, September 23, 2005 – ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, September 23 (IranMania) – The book ?Nightingale Papers?
written by Iranian poet Zia-eddin in the fourteenth century was
published in Armenian language by a translator from Armenia.
According to ISNA, Herans Antonyan completed the translation
following 13 years of intense work. ?I came across the
Russian-language translation of the book for the first time. I read
the book and was impressed. I felt sorry that the Armenian people did
not have such a masterpiece at its disposal.?
In a meeting with Iranian cultural attache in Yerevan, Antonyan said
that he funded the translation and printing of the book without
financial considerations.
?My aim in translating and printing the book was to introduce such a
high quality book to Armenia?s culture and literature.?
Iranian cultural attache Otoufi said that translation of the book was
a great stride towards strengthening cultural ties between Iran and
Armenia.
He described it as a great event for cultural relations between the
two countries.

IranMania.com , Iran
Sept 23 2005
Armenia-Turkmenistan road link via Iran planned
Friday, September 23, 2005 – ©2005 IranMania.com

LONDON, September 23 (IranMania) – Armenia is planning to create a
road transportation network with Turkmenistan via Iran.
According to the Turkmen press, Yerevan and Ashkhabad will use
Iranian territory to establish a road link. The initiative is
expected to significantly boost transit of goods via northern Iran.
Iran has favorable economic relations with both the former Soviet
republics.
Tehran?s permanent trade center, which will be set up in Yerevan,
Armenia at a cost of four mln euros, will present Iran-made goods to
the Armenian market. Goods produced in Iran will be offered in 300
stalls at the center.
Visitors from other Caucasian republics are also expected to visit
the center and purchase goods.
Iran has been trying to bolster bilateral interaction with Armenia in
recent years and plans to build a terminal on its border with Armenia
to transfer oil derivatives to Yerevan.
Armenia views the terminal as important in boosting economic activity
in the Magri region bordering Iran.
Iran and Armenia have also signed a memorandum of understanding to
bolster cooperation in the field of electricity also. Under the MoU,
the two countries reached consensus on implementing the third 400-kw
two-circuit transmission line project, valued at $90 mln.
The two countries are also slated to implement the second phase of
Iran-Armenia pipeline project.

New York Times
Sept 23 2005
Seminar on 1915 Massacre of Armenians to Go Ahead

ISTANBUL, Sept. 23 – After a Turkish court’s decision to cancel an
academic conference on the killing of hundreds of thousands of
Armenians during World War I, the conference’s organizers said Friday
that the event would go ahead at a new location on Saturday. The
organizers were encouraged by a wave of support from the European
Union and senior Turkish government officials.
A court on Thursday blocked Bogazici University in Istanbul from
holding the event, a debate and symposium on the killing of Armenians
by Ottoman forces in the eastern part of what is now Turkey. In its
ruling, the court called into question the credentials of the
scholars taking part.
It was the second time the courts blocked the conference at the
request of nationalist groups. The event was canceled in May as well,
and at that time Justice Minister Cemil Cicek condemned continued
attempts to hold the meeting as “treason” and a “stab in the back of
the Turkish nation.”
But the conference’s organizers said it would go ahead on Saturday,
after Bilgi University in Istanbul agreed to be the new host. One of
the leaders of the conference, Prof. Halil Berktay, said integrity of
scholars was “beyond the judiciary” to decide.
The conference is to be the first time in Turkey that the killings
have been publicly examined. More than 50 intellectuals, scholars and
writers are to analyze the massacres, which took place from 1915 to
1917 and have been recognized as genocide by several European
governments. Turkey has long maintained that the deaths were part of
a war in which an equal number of Turks died.
The court’s action on Thursday came as a blow to supporters of
Turkey’s application for membership in the European Union, who have
considered the conference as an opportunity to prove that the country
had the potential for greater democratization and freedom of speech.
Turkey’s chief negotiator with the European Union, Ali Babacan, said
the decision was part of an attempt by nationalists to sabotage
Turkey’s membership talks, which are to start on Oct. 3. The ruling
also was condemned by Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Gulf Times, Qatar
Sept 24 2005
Summit on Armenian massacres goes ahead
Published: Saturday, 24 September, 2005, 10:37 AM Doha Time

ISTANBUL: A conference on the massacres of Armenians under the
Ottoman Empire will go ahead, despite a delay following a court
ruling that drew criticism from the Turkish government and the
European Union as Ankara seeks to join the bloc.
The controversy came just days before Turkey is to start accession
talks with the EU on October 3, keen to avoid any move that might
cast a pall on its commitment to democracy and human rights.
The conference, already postponed once in May, was to have opened
Friday to question Ankara’s official version of the 1915-1917
massacres, but a court suspended the event late on Thursday following
a complaint by a group of nationalist lawyers who called the
organisers `traitors’.
But the two universities organising the conference, Bogazici and
Sabanci, refused to back down, rescheduling the event for today and
tomorrow.
The conference is to be held at another university which opened its
doors for the event out of solidarity in order to circumvent the
court ruling that barred the event from taking place at the original
venue.
`Our university decided to offer its halls for the conference in the
name of freedom of expression and thought,’ Bilgi University
president Aydin Ugur said.
The academics and intellectuals who would attend the conference
dispute the official version of the killings whose discussion in
Turkey remains largely taboo and which several countries, to Ankara’s
ire, have recognised as genocide.
`The court has cast a shadow on the process of democratisation and
freedoms in my country,’ Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
late on Thursday.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul put the blame on opponents of Turkey’s
EU bid.
`As October 3 approaches, those at home and abroad who want to
obstruct us are making their last efforts … there are few nations
that can inflict such damage upon themselves,’ Gul said in New York,
Anatolia news agency reported.
The EU also condemned the court decision as a `provocation’.
`We strongly deplore this new attempt to prevent the Turkish society
from discussing its history,’ said the European Commission’s
spokesman on enlargement, Krisztina Nagy.
She warned that if the conference does not go ahead, the situation
would figure in the commission’s annual report on Turkey’s EU
membership aspirations.
Turkey categorically denies that the Ottomans committed genocide
against the Armenians and has reacted angrily against countries which
recognised the killings as such.
The government, however, has encouraged researchers to discuss the
issue, arguing that it is a matter for historians and not
politicians.
Armenians claim up to 1.5mn of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings.
Turkey argues that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died
in civil strife during World War I, when the Armenians took up arms
for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian troops
invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern
Turkey.
Organisers first postponed the conference in May after Justice
Minister Cemil Cicek branded the initiative `treason’ and a `stab in
the back of the Turkish nation’.
Erdogan, however, called Cicek’s outburst `a personal statement’ and
encouraged researchers to carry out their work.
The ruling against the conference came under fire from the media and
non-governmental organisations.
`Court blow against freedom of expression,’ trumpeted the liberal
daily Milliyet, while the left-leaning Radikal said: `Justice
padlocks science.’
The History Foundation said the significance of the event had now
exceeded its original objective.
`What is being debated is in fact whether Turkey will be governed by
taboos or democracy … whether we will turn to history for peace and
understanding or for rejection and hostility,’ the statement said.
Several nationalist groups backed the court ruling and activists
pasted pictures of Turks killed by Armenians outside the Bogazici
University, Anatolia reported.

Focus News, Bulgaria
Sept 24 2005
Conference on Genocide against Armenians Takes Place in Istanbul
24 September 2005 | 10:16 | FOCUS News Agency
Istanbul. A two-days international conference opened today in
Istanbul on genocide against Armenian people during the Great War,
RIA Novosti reports citing an announcement of the TV channel NTV.
The security measures have been increased in the region of the Bilgi
private university where the conference is taking place. The
authorities in Istanbul don’t exclude possibilities for provocations
from nationalists who announced yesterday that they will block the
building of the university and will not allow the conference to take
place.

Burbank Leader, California
Sept 24 2005
A step forward, two steps back
The fight to prevent future genocides lost one of its greatest
crusaders this week, but inched forward as a bill acknowledging the
genocide of 1.5 million Armenians passed the House International
Relations Committee.
Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor who relentlessly tracked
down Nazi war criminals after World War II, once said that “When
history looks back, I want people to know the Nazis weren’t able to
kill millions of people and get away with it.”
Wiesenthal died Tuesday, but his message should resonate in Glendale
and Burbank and beyond to Washington D.C., where last week a
resolution to recognize the Armenian Genocide, moved on to the House
of representatives.
Embedded in Wiesenthal’s message was a need to establish justice and
moral values for humanity.
That is why it is so hard to come to grips with why the United States
government has yet to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, brought on
at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, although the answer is easy to
come by: Politics.
Even with the mark-up last week, passing this resolution will be an
uphill battle, just like past efforts to push such a resolution
through.
The next step in that fight is convincing House leadership to commit
to moving the resolution forward, Rep. Adam Schiff said.
The resolution’s backers will have to convince House Majority Leader
Tom DeLay (R-Texas) to allow the resolution on the House floor for a
vote. That will be difficult given what we know about the politics of
officially recognizing the genocide.
It was DeLay who once released a statement with Reps. Dennis Hastert
(R-Ill) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), saying that such an acknowledgment
would upset the U.S. relationship with Turkey, which has been a
reliable ally of the United States for decades.
Germany, too, has been an ally. Yet, the Holocaust, is recognized,
much because of Wiesenthal’s dogged efforts to bring its perpetrators
to justice, as a specific historical moment with devastating
consequences.
Why is it that this nation’s leaders — who tout freedom of religion,
speech and the need to transform despotic nations states into
democracies — cannot collectively agree that the Armenian Genocide
is just that: a genocide?
What good are Wiesenthal’s efforts against prejudice against all
people if because of politics, the killing of 1.5 million people
cannot be officially recognized by the United States?
Rep. Brad Sherman, who sits on the committee, said the denial of a
genocide is a genocide’s last act.
Wiesenthal must have known that. Why doesn’t our government?
Maybe this time, the push of local representatives, the e-mails, the
faxes and the letters to legislators will make a difference.
Let’s hope so. Unfortunately, no timetable has been set for even the
possibility of a floor vote, leaving the possibility of yet another
push for recognition falling through the cracks.
Recognition of the Armenian Genocide should not be a game of
politics, up for a battle every so often. These killings were real.
And it is a horrific moment in history that needs to stay in living
memory, just as Wiesenthal kept the horrors of the Holocaust in the
collective memory.
“If we pardon this genocide, it will be repeated, and not only on
Jews,” Wiesenthal said of the Holocaust. “If we don’t learn this
lesson, then millions died for nothing.”

Minneapolis Star Tribune , MN
Sept 23 2005
Concert review: System of a Down is strong upper
Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune
September 24, 2005 SYSTEM0924

Most concerts have an energy level that ebbs and flows as much as a
Twins season, but not Friday night’s performance by political
neo-thrashers System of a Down at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
This one was like a marathon run at a sprinter’s pace.
You had to be 16 and high-strung to stay up to the energy level of
the 90-minute show by the Ozzfest veterans. Fortunately, most of the
10,146 fans fit that description.
The security guards who were down in front of the stage were the
hardest-working guys in town Friday night. Throughout the show, they
handled a constant flow of sweaty kids crowd-surfing over the stage
barrier, like salmon swimming upstream to spawn.
Following a solo intro of “Soldier Side” by guitarist Darion
Malakian, the concert erupted right away with SOAD’s current (and
most bombastic) single “B.Y.O.B.,” which was soon followed by the
topsy-turvy rockers “Revenga” and “Deer Dance.”
The show kept rolling at breakneck speed. By the time the band got to
its 2001 hit “Chop Suey” (a half-hour into the set), the pandemonium
stretched out into the center of the arena, where several mosh pits
broke out on the seat-less concrete floor.
Hardly just a testosterone-fueled thrash-metal band, System displayed
its many unique elements throughout the show. The stormy epic “War?”
hinted at the four members’ Armenian heritage with its moody guitar
bits and unusual tunings. The ironically brawny “Cigaro” hinted at
their sharp wit. And then there was their politics.
“They got us divided into blue and red states, but let’s make one
purple one,” Malakian said before “Sad Statue.” The song’s lyrics are
a little more poetic: “We’ll go down in history with a sad Statue
Liberty and a generation that didn’t agree.”
A week after Green Day had teenagers cursing the president at the
Xcel Center, System’s beady-eyed singer, Serj Tankian, had more of
them chanting the radical words to “Prison Song” and “Science.” That
the fans even still had the breath to sing along was the big
surprise.
Opening band the Mars Volta gave the young crowd a lesson in what too
many drugs and rock-star egotism did to ruin the ’70s. The band’s two
leaders seem so ashamed that they helped spawn emo-rock with the now
defunct At the Drive-In (actually a great band), they subjected the
crowd to 10- and 15-minute songs with no real structure and lots of
annoying saxophone outbursts, DJ static and wailing, insufferable
aria-like vocals. No thanks.

Reuters, UK
Sept 24 2005
Turk nationalists rally outside Armenian conference
Sat Sep 24, 2005 7:26 AM ET
By Jon Hemming
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Hundreds of Turkish nationalists chanting
slogans and waving flags protested on Saturday against a
controversial academic conference on the World War One massacre of
Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.
The conference had been due to open on Friday at two universities in
Istanbul but a last-minute court order blocked it, causing acute
embarrassment to the Turkish government just days before the start of
its European Union membership talks.
Organisers circumvented the court ban by moving the conference on
Saturday to a third university in the city.
“This conference is an insult to our republic and to the memory of
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,” Erkal Onsel, head of the Istanbul branch of
the leftwing but nationalist Workers’ Party, told protesters gathered
outside the private Bilgi University.
Ataturk is the revered founder of the modern Turkish Republic on the
ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.
The demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Treason will not go
unpunished” and “This is Turkey, love it or leave it”.
The issue of the Armenian massacres is highly sensitive in Turkey.
Armenia and its supporters around the world say some 1.5 million
Armenians perished in a systematic genocide committed by Ottoman
Turkish forces between 1915 and 1923.
Ankara accepts many Armenians were killed on Turkish soil during and
after World War One, but says they were victims of a partisan
conflict that claimed even more Turkish Muslim lives as the Ottoman
Empire was collapsing. It denies any genocide.
But in a bid to defuse the issue, the government has opened up
Turkey’s archives to scholars, saying it has nothing to hide, and has
urged Armenia and other nations to do likewise.
The academic conference was originally scheduled for May but was
canceled after Justice Minister Cemil Cicek accused those backing the
genocide claims of “stabbing Turkey in the back”.
This time, with a nervous eye on Brussels as the clock ticks toward
the start of its long-delayed EU entry talks on October 3, the
government has strongly backed the conference.
The court banning order, announced on Thursday evening just before
the conference was due to start, drew swift condemnation from Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan as well as from the European Commission,
which spoke of a “provocation” by anti-EU elements.
“If we have confidence in our own beliefs, we should not fear freedom
of thought,” Erdogan told a separate gathering of academics in
Istanbul on Saturday.
“I want to live in a Turkey where all freedoms are guaranteed,” the
prime minister said.
Lawyers behind the original court ban condemned Bilgi University’s
decision on Saturday to host the event regardless.
“We will file a legal complaint against all of those people behind
this conference,” lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz told Reuters.
The court blocked the conference pending information on the
qualifications of the speakers and also wanted to know who was
participating and who was paying for it.
Despite a flurry of EU-inspired liberal reforms in recent years,
promoting certain interpretations of Turkish history can still be
deemed a criminal offence under the revised penal code.
The protesters said the organisers of the conference were not really
upholding freedom of speech.
“They don’t let us inside… they don’t give us a chance to put our
case. They forget those of the Turkish nation killed by Armenians,”
said Kemal Ermetin, who runs a nationalist magazine.
The protesters displayed photographs of what they said were Azeris
killed by Armenians in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh
during fighting in the early 1990s.
Turkey closed its border and cut diplomatic ties with tiny ex-Soviet
Armenia in 1993 to protest against Armenian occupation of
Nagorno-Karabakh, part of the territory of Azerbaijan, a regional
Turkic-speaking ally of Ankara.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Kathimerini, Greece
Sept 24 2005
Misbehaving in the waiting room
The legal case against novelist Orhan Pamuk and the court decision
halting an academic conference dealing with the massacre of Armenians
under the Ottoman Empire (which will go ahead nevertheless),
organized by three Turkish universities, suggest that the Armenian
genocide is more than just a taboo in the neighboring country.
Pamuk’s prosecution and the conference ban are not isolated incidents
that can be attributed to the excessive zeal of specific judges.
Rather, they seem to fit a more systematic pattern. The Turkish
political establishment has a long tradition of using courts to lend
repression a veneer of legitimacy. Freedom of historical research is
one of the victims of this repression.
Interestingly, the freedom of expression violations took place on the
eve of Ankara’s talks with the European Union – and despite growing
skepticism over Turkish ambitions. In a clear sign of Ankara’s warped
mentality, the awkward juncture facing Turkey was not enough to stop
the establishment from provoking democratic sentiment on the
continent.
The question is how can a country like Turkey begin accession
negotiations in 10 days? Ankara went through many different stages
before making its way into the EU’s waiting room. It signed a customs
union agreement with Brussels, it won candidate status, and, at the
summit meeting last December, it finally got a date for the launching
of EU membership talks.
Even if we accept that Turkey’s cultural identity should not be an
obstacle to joining the European home, there are still doubts about
the extent to which it has met the formal conditions for membership.
Has Ankara really passed all the previous stages after fulfilling all
the necessary requirements? Not quite. The truth is that American
pressure made sure Brussels lowered the bar for Turkey when
necessary.
Now Europe has to pay the price. Many Europeans are shocked at the
consequences. The truth is that Ankara never tried to blanket its
human rights violations, its torture practices and its awkward policy
toward its neighbors. Never did Turkey try to hide its willingness to
join the EU on its own terms and not as a country that is seeking to
adapt to the norms and principles of European culture. This is
Europe’s problem, not Turkey’s.

PR Web (press release), WA
Sept 24 2005
Anouncing the Results of the 2005 Vakhtang Jordania International
Conducting Competition

Top Three Finishers From Armenia, Italy and the United States
New York, NY (PRWEB) September 24, 2005 — The Vakhtang Jordania
International Conducting Competition has announced the results of its
2005 competition held in Kharkov, Ukraine between August 29 and
September 4. This year’s competition featured 29 competitors from 16
countries around the world.
The jury did not award a Jordania Grand Prize, but did decide on two
William L. Montague, Jr. Second Prizes – Harutyun Arzumanyan of
Armenia and Matteo Pagliari of Italy. Third Prize was awarded to
Christopher Chen of the United States.
Mr. Arzumanyan is a graduate of the Yerevan State Conservatory as a
violinist and conductor. He founded the Armenian Chamber Orchestra
and has frequently conducted at the National Opera and Ballet Theatre
of Armenia. He was the first prizewinner of the 1999 National
Competition for conductors and was 3rd Prizewinner of the 8th
Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors in Katowice,
Poland.
Mr. Pagliari currently holds assistant conductor positions to both
Riccardo Frizza and Roberto Abbado. He has made many guest
appearances with opera companies and orchestras throughout Italy and
the United States. He holds a conducting degree from the
Conservatorio Arrigo Boito in Parma, Italy.
Mr. Chen is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory and is currently
Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Opera. He is a frequent guest
conductor in Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and Finland. He
was recently selected as one of eight conductors in the American
Symphony Orchestra League’s 2005 National Conductor preview.
As William L. Montague, Jr. Second Prizewinners, Mr. Arzumanyan and
Mr. Pagliari will receive concert engagements during the 2006-2007
concert season with orchestras in Ukraine, the U.S., and other
countries to be named.
Third Prizewinner Mr. Chen will receive a concert engagement during
the 2006-2007 concert season with an orchestra in Ukraine.
The Orchestra Favorite prize was awarded to Boguslav Kobierski of
Poland, who is the current conductor of the Etela-Karjala Sinfonietta
of Finland.
The Audience Favorite prize and a special distinction certificate was
awarded to Shigekazu Yonezaki of Japan, who is a regular guest
conductor of many orchestras in his country, including the New Japan
Philharmonic.
Jennifer Bailey of Australia was also a Third Round participant and
special distinction certificate awardee. She is the Conductor and
Director of the Orchestra at St. Mary Magdalen in Oxford, England.
Other participants in the competition included:
Kerim S. Anwar, a citizen of Canada who lives in the Czech Republic,
Rihards Buks of Latvia, Shawn Eugene Burke-Storer of the United
States, Timothy Dixon of the United States, Lawrence Golan of the
United States, Yasuhiko Ishige of Japan, Vladimir Kern of Russia,
Sergey Kiss of Russia, Maksim Kuzin of Ukraine, Sang-Hwan Lee of
South Korea who lives in Austria, Tai-Wai Li of Hong Kong, Christian
Lombardi of Germany, Octavio Mas Arocas of Spain, Paolo Paroni of
Italy, Georgi Patrikov of Bulgaria, Benjamin Rous of the United
States, Elior Sharivker of Israel, Yosyp Sozanskyy of Ukraine, Jin
Tanaka of Japan who lives in Wales, Yasutaka Tsuda of Japan,
Viatcheslav Valeev of Russia, Shin Watanabe of Japan and Alexander
Zverunov of Russia.
The competition jury was composed of Jooyong Ahn of the United
States, Yuri Alzhnev of Ukraine, Giorgi Jordania of Republic of
Georgia, Joan McNeill Murray of the United States, Jonathan Sternberg
of the United States and Yuri Suchkov of Moscow.
This year’s Third Round Contemporary Compositions selections were a
new orchestral work by Yuri Alznev, Christopher Kaufman’s Island,
Dana Paul Perna’s Bucks County Ballad and Judith Lang Zaimont’s
Stillness – Poem for Orchestra.
The 2005 Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition was a
great success, both artistically and as a means for continuing to
bring the Kharkov Philharmonic Orchestra
() to the rest of the
world. In addition to the lively competition, contestants also
participated in a series of Master Classes and special events and
enjoyed the opportunity to have individual and small group
instruction and interaction with jury and orchestra members. Also
important was the chance to meet and spend time with other conductors
from around the world. More about the competition at
Building on the great success of this year’s event, planning for an
expanded and even more international 2006 Vakhtang Jordania
International Conducting Competition has already begun.