ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER AND UAE VICE PRIME MINISTER DISCUSS
ARMINFO News Agency
October 3, 2005
REGIONAL AND BILATERAL ISSUES
YEREVAN,OCTOBER 3. ARMINFO. Minister Oskanian visited Abu Dhabi, on
the occasion of the groundbreaking of the Armenian Embassy building
in the United Arab Emirates. Large number of representatives of the
government, together with the diplomatic corps, and members of the
Armenian community from throughout the Emirates were present.
In a brief ceremony, Minister spoke, followed by Ambassador Arshak
Poladian, and then the first stones were laid for what will be a
7,000 sq. meter building.
During his visit, the Minister also met with Deputy Prime Minister
and State Minister for External Relations, Sheikh Hamdan Ben Zayed Al
Nahanyan. The two discussed bilateral and regional issues, including
Armenia’s having provided suitable embassy state for the Emirates,
which will be opening an embassy in Yerevan.
The Minister also met with Ahmad Bakr, the Deputy Director of the
Abu Dhabi Development Fund. The Minister described Armenia’s economic
development and prospects for growth.
The Minister returned to Yerevan late Monday.

PROTEST ACTION AT BUILDING OF BRITISH EMBASSY IN ARMENIA
ARMINFO News Agency
October 3, 2005
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3. ARMINFO. A protest action against Turkey’s
accession to the EU took place today at the building of the British
embassy in Armenia.
Armenia’s Youth Union representative Zinavor Meghryan informs that
the action took place just there as Great Britain advocates Turkey’s
accession to the EU. “Armenian Genocide of 1915 is the most
large-scale international crime against the new history of mankind.
It aimed to annihilate the whole people.”
“As always, Turkey continues to deny the fact of Genocide and keep
Armenia in blockade. We call upon the EU countries not to start talks
on Turkey’s accession to the EU as long as this republic is to
recognize Genocide. If Turkey is to access to the European family,
the EU will loss its authority in the world people’s opinion”, the
message of demonstrators says.
Meghryan noted that delegations from the Middle East countries,
Canada, Iran, the USA, as well as Armenia’s Republican party joined
to the action.

ANKARA AND THE EU: TURKISH VOICES
by Helena Smith
The Guardian (London) – Final Edition
October 4, 2005
Ayhan Demetgul, 45. Tourism official, Istanbul “Europe is getting
older and Turkey can provide it with necessary manpower . . . Those
countries that oppose Turkey’s membership don’t have any vision”
Serap Yildirim, 20. Student, Istanbul “There does seem to be a
misunderstanding, it’s not us who will benefit as much from the
EU, as Europe will from Turkey. Our country is very big and will
automatically become a giant bazaar for European companies and exports”
Havva Can, 55. Housewife, Cerkezkoy, Thrace “I don’t follow politics
too closely but it will be much better for Turks if we don’t join . .
European culture is too open and not good for our society . . . I.
don’t want to remove my headscarf. If we join they’ll make me get
rid of it”
Huseyin Unlu, 55. Retired labourer, Izmir “If Europe lets us in as
we are now then I support joining it. Too many conditions have been
placed on us; next they’ll be demanding I shave my moustache”
Irfan Yavuz, 29. Railway worker, Istanbul “Europeans think we’re
barbaric and uncivilised, that we’re just like Iran and Iraq, because
they’ve watched Midnight Express . . . Europe has a hidden agenda . .
it supports Kurdish separatists and goes on about the so-called.
Armenian massacre”

TURKISH AUTHOR CALLS FOR FULL EU MEMBERSHIP FOR HOMELAND
Agence France Presse — English
October 3, 2005 Monday 5:31 PM GMT
As Turkey appeared close on Monday to reaching agreement with the
European Union to start accession talks, controversial Turkish author
Orhan Pamuk called for his homeland to be allowed full membership.
“Despite all the criticism of Turkey, I am in favour of it having
full membership of the European Union,” Pamuk said ahead of receiving
a cultural prize awarded by the German city of Darmstadt.
Turkey was due to begin membership negotiations on Monday but Austria’s
reservations over the talks with the predominantly Muslim state forced
foreign ministers into intense negotiations to resolve the standoff.
Austria had said it wanted the possibility written into the
negotiations that Turkey may eventually only be allowed special
partnership status rather than full membership, but late on Monday
it dropped its opposition.
Pamuk, who was recently charged under Turkey’s criminal code with
insulting the national identity after remarks he made about a massacre
under the Ottoman Empire, compared the opposition to his country
joining Europe’s club of 25 nations to someone hanging a “No Entry”
sign on the door.
“The people who have hung up this sign to protect their security,
their possessions and their beliefs, do they have any idea how much
they are insulting others?” Pamuk asked.
Pamuk, the widely translated author of such internationally renowned
works as “The White Castle” and “Snow”, is set to go on trial in
December for telling a Swiss newspaper in February that “one million
Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk
about it”.
He has said he has received several death threats since being charged.

IGNORANCE STILL CLOUDS EUROPE’S VIEW OF THE TRUE NATURE OF TURKEY
Canberra Times (Australia)
October 4, 2005 Tuesday Final Edition
I S TURKEY ready to join the EU? As the debate rages on, there is
only one constant -the appalling ignorance about the country and its
history. Begin with the constant references to Turkey as a moderate
Muslim state. It has, in fact, been a secular state for more than
80 years.
Continue with the other favourite line -that Turkey has no place in a
“Christian club”. Not only is this a slight to the 15 million European
Muslims already living in the European Union -it ignores Turkey’s
long service in that other Christian club, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation.
In Germany, France, Austria, Belgium andthe Netherlands, through which
millions of Turkish guest-workers have passed during the last 40 years,
there is the spectre of an immigrant flood. But the agreement Turkey
reached with the EU last December stated immigration would be subject
to severe limits only to be lifted when Turkey’s economy (which grew
last year by 9 per cent) was deemed sufficiently strong.
Even in countries friendly to Turkey, thereis a worrying fondness
for the “two-Turkey” thesis. By this line of reasoning, half of the
country is racing Westwards, while the other half -the part closest
to Syria, Iraq, and Iran -is mired in its old, Eastern ways.
While it’s true that Turkey is a land ofmany contrasts, it is not and
never will be a game of two halves. To give just one example, most
of Turkey’s Kurds live in the east. If they look poor on television,
it’s because the region is only just emerging from the Turkish army’s
long conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). If they support
Turkey’s EU bid, it’s because they dream of a social democratic future
in which all Turks, whatever their ethnic origins, can prosper.
If modern Turkey has one great untold story, it is the growing
grassroots movement to embrace its diverse ethnic roots, and to face
the less beautiful chapters in its history.
Though the EU has played a central role in this process, it was born
in Turkey
But there is one highly sensitive matter ithas handled very badly. A
bit of history here: at the end of the Ottoman Empire, there were
more Christians living in Anatolia than Muslims. But by the 1920s,
when the Republic of Turkey was founded, they were pretty much all
gone. Anatolia’s Greeks were exchanged for Greece’s ethnic Turks
following an agreement overseen by the Allied powers. The Turkish
state has never acknowledged what most of Europe holds to be true
-that between one and two million were systematically killed or
perished on forced marches; they say “only” a few hundred thousand
died during the chaos.
That the official line was underwritten bythe penal code became
world news last month, when prosecutors charged novelist Orhan Pamuk
with the “public denigration of Turkish identity” for asserting in
a Swiss newspaper that “a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were
killed and no one dares to talk about it except me”. By and large,
some European politicians saw this for what it was: an attempt by
anti-EU nationalists in the judiciary to spoil Turkey’s chances.
There is still a mind-boggling lack ofinterest in what Turks themselves
have to say. So -to give just one example -there was glancing interest
last northern spring in the government-condoned closure of a conference
organised in Istanbul by Turkish scholars to depoliticise the Armenian
question and open it up to serious, non-partisan study. There were
mentions of efforts to ban a second attempt at the conference last
weekend. But you will need a fine-toothed comb to find mention of
the conference itself -which was a resounding success.
Only a hundred demonstrators turned upto throw a few eggs -in Turkey,
this was viewed as a humiliation for the nationalists.
The burning issue last week was not the Armenian question but whether
or not Turks had the right to discuss it. The important news for Europe
should have been that, whether or not their penal code gave Turks the
right, there was more than one Turk daring to break a 90-year taboo.
There was, however, no mention of thiswatershed last Wednesday, when
the European Parliament made a resolution pinning Turkish entry on
an acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide. Once again, Christians
tell heathens what to do.
If Europe fails to bring Turkey into theEU, and if Turkey -angered,
misunderstood, and disrespected -moves away from social democracy,
Europe only has itself to blame.

HISTORY ENSURES AUSTRIANS REMAIN BITTERLY OPPOSED
by Stephen Castle
The Independent
October 3, 2005
Across Europe, opinion may be divided on whether Turkey should be
allowed to enter the EU. But in Austria there is little sign of a
debate because history ensures that the issue touches the rawest
of nerves.
In 1683 the Ottoman army of Kara Mustafa Pasha was routed at the
gates of Vienna in a defeat that marked the last Turkish effort to
take the city. All around the Austrian capital are reminders of the
battle and so strong is the event in the national consciousness that
newspapers have characterised Ankara’s EU bid as a new siege of Vienna.
To complicate matters further Austria is a strong supporter of
(Christian) Croatia, which also wants to join the EU. This step has
been held up because of a row over Zagreb’s lack of co-operation in
surrendering a suspected war criminal, Ante Gotovina.
Austrians feel it would be wrong to start talking to Turkey while
holding back on Croatia. Vienna’s critics suggest darkly that Austria’s
own past may prompt it to worry less about punishing war crimes than
other nations.
Taking a tough stance has proved politically popular for the Austrian
Chancellor, Wolfgang Schnssel, but his party was crushed in regional
elections yesterday.
Elsewhere in Europe, the echoes of history have played a part in the
debate. France, home to Europe’s largest Armenian population, has
sometimes had difficult relations with Turkey. In 2001 its parliament
formally recognised the Armenian genocide (during the collapse of
the Ottoman empire) provoking fury from Ankara.
Ironically Ankara’s biggest rival, Greece, has not sought to hold up
talks, believing that a Turkey inside the EU would be more modern,
restrained and susceptible to outside influence.

ARMENIA TO HOLD REFERENDUM ON CONSTITUTION NOVEMBER 27
Agence France Presse — English
October 4, 2005 Tuesday 5:05 PM GMT
Armenia will hold a referendum on November 27 on plans pushed by
the Council of Europe for constitutional reforms that would diminish
presidential authority, the president’s office said Tuesday.
In a statement, President Robert Kocharian’s office said that he had
signed a decree ordering “the holding on November 27 of a referendum
on the plan for constitutional reform.
The plan, drafted with direct participation of experts from the Council
of Europe, received final approval from the Armenian parliament in
a vote on September 28.
In addition to redressing the balance of power between the president
on the one hand and the parliament and government on the other, the
plan also calls for the abolition of laws banning Armenian nationals
from holding double citizenship.
That provision would permit millions of members of the Armenian
diaspora to obtain Armenian citizenship if they choose.
The proposed constitutional changes were described last month as
part of Armenia’s obligations to the pan-European Council of Europe,
a body that promotes democracy.
“During our meetings with representatives of the Council of Europe,
it was made clear to us that if the referendum fails we could face
severe sanctions, including the possible exclusion of Armenia from
this organization,” Rafik Petrossian, chairman of parliament’s legal
affairs committee, said on September 28.
The Council of Europe groups 46 states. Membership is open to all
European countries which accept the principle of the rule of law and
guarantee fundamental human rights and freedoms to their citizens.
Another senior Armenian lawmaker said the constitutional changes were
needed to ensure further democratic development in the former Soviet
republic in the Caucasus.
“The issue is not about avoiding sanctions from European bodies,”
Tigran Torossian, deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament, told
AFP last month.
“The adoption of constitutional changes is important for the country
as it marks the start of a second cycle of democratic development of
state bodies” in the country, he said.
The planned November 27 referendum would mark the second attempt
by the country’s leaders to win approval of the constitutional
modifications. A first effort in 2003 failed to win sufficient support
among voters.
To pass, the reforms must receive assent from at least half of the
voters who take part in the referendum, who must also number not less
than one-third of all eligible voters in the country.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA TO HAVE CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM REFERENDUM ON NOV 27
By Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
October 4, 2005 Tuesday 3:50 PM Eastern Time
Armenia will have a referendum on constitutional amendments on
November 27.
The parliament passed the draft on a constitutional reform in the
third reading on September 28. The existent constitution has been
in effect since July 1995, and amendments result from the Armenian
commitments to the Council of Europe. They will balance powers of
legislative and executive authorities.
European experts have approved the draft.
The amendments will lift the ban on double naturalization, which is
important for more than 5 million Armenians residing abroad.
The constitutional reform is very important for the European
integration of Armenia, President Robert Kocharian said.
Constitutional amendments have once been put on a referendum. The
referendum was held simultaneously with parliamentary elections in
May 2003 but did not gain support of voters.

CIS COUNTRIES REGISTER INDUSTRIAL GROWTH-EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
October 4, 2005 Tuesday
All the CIS countries have registered a rise in industrial production
over the first six months of the current year. The only exception
is Kyrgyzstan where the industrial slump amounted to 9.8 percent in
January-June, says a report by the Commonwealth Executive Committee,
circulated before a meeting of the CIS Economic Council, scheduled
for October 12.
Azerbaijan gained the highest industrial growth in the first six
months – 20.1 percent. It is trailed by Georgia – 12.8 percent,
Belarus – 10.5, Tajikistan – 8.9, Uzbekistan – 7.5, Kazakhstan – 7,
Ukraine and Armenia – 5 and 5.3, respectively. Russia and Moldova had
the lowest rates of industrial grown – 4 and 4.6 percent, respectively.
Oil production increased in all the CIS petroleum-producing
countries, apart from Ukraine where it slid by 0.9 percent down
to two million tonnes. Azerbaijan boosted petroleum recovery by 25
percent up to 9.6 million tonnes as against the corresponding period
in 2004. Kazakhstan’s growth in oil production edged up on 11 percent
up to 31.1 million tonnes, in Russia – three percent up to 230 million
tonnes and Turkmenistan – one percent up to 4.8 million tonnes.
Kazakhstan boosted its gas recovery by 29 percent over the six months
of this year as against the corresponding period in 2004, Turkmenistan
– 3.4 percent and Azerbaijan – 2.0 percent. The growth amounted to
0.7 and 0.9 percent in Ukraine and Russia, respectively.
The Russian Federation mined more coal by 3.0 percent, Ukraine –
by 1.0 percent and Kazakhstan registered a nosedive of three percent.
Moldova increased power generation by 13 percent over the above period,
Georgia – 6.0 percent, Ukraine – 5.0 percent, Azerbaijan and Armenia
– 4.0 percent each, Kazakhstan, Russia and Tajikistan – two percent
each. Belarus generated seven percent less power, and Kyrgyzstan –
0.3 percent.

FRENCH COMMENTARY SEES GOVERNMENT AT ODDS WITH PUBLIC OVER TURKISH EU ENTRY
Le Figaro, France (translated)
Oct 3 2005
Text of commentary by Luc de Barochez entitled “Paris’ and Istanbul’s
secret love affair” by French newspaper Le Figaro website on 3 October
Never in the Fifth Republic has French diplomacy been so at odds
with public opinion. Rarely has France’s foreign policy been so much
decided by a single person, the president, against the advice of his
parliamentary majority. Four months after the French people’s “no”
vote in the referendum on the European constitutional treaty, Paris
has just confirmed its go-ahead to negotiations whose stated aim is
Turkey’s accession to the EU. The debates that accompanied the 29 May
vote showed, however, how much concern the prospect of that country’s
accession to the European club causes to a large proportion of the
French people (footnote: Only 21 per cent of French people questioned
are in favour of Turkey’s accession, 70 per cent are against it,
and 9 per cent have no opinion, according to an Eurobarometre poll
conducted by the European Commission in July 2005.)
The two issues are not linked officially. Jacques Chirac stressed in
advance that they are “completely unrelated”. Voters were consulted not
about Turkey but about the draft constitution. And it is conceivable
that the EU could continue to expand without acquiring the means
to move towards political union. The paradox is that this path,
which French diplomacy now seems to be taking, is that which Paris
has always claimed to reject. Successive presidents have voiced the
wish, at least since Britain’s accession to the Common Market in
1973, that each enlargement be accompanied by an intensification of
European unity.
This link is threatened following the shelving of Valery Giscard
d’Estaing’s draft constitution. The Treaty of Nice, unanimously deemed
inadequate, marked the last advance towards EU integration in the
year 2000, during the French presidency. That treaty was intended to
prepare for the accession of the 10 countries that joined in 2004,
as well as that of Bulgaria and Romania. The start of negotiations
with Turkey, and soon with Croatia, shows how mistaken some voters
were in thinking that they could oppose enlargement by voting “no” on
29 May. Is France in earnest in encouraging the start of negotiations
with Turkey? The closer the fateful day has drawn, the less France’s
leaders have had to say about the subject. And if they have spoken,
it has been to stress that the talks would be long, complex and not
necessarily successful, and that even if they were successful the
French people could still disrupt everything by refusing to ratify
Turkey’s accession by referendum. None of this is very encouraging.
“How can membership negotiations be started unless this prospect is
considered both possible and desirable?” a French diplomat involved
in the negotiations asked. Valery Giscard d’Estaing was even more
explicit last month, when he lamented France’s “double talk”.
Though there is a before and after 29 May in French leaders’ public
statements, the basic line has not changed. Hence the impression
of embarrassment and vagueness that prevailed during the summer. On
2 August Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said: “It seems to me
inconceivable that any negotiations process could begin with a country
that did not recognize every member of the EU.” Since then Turkey has
still not recognized the Republic of Cyprus, the prime minister has
had to eat his hat, and that which was inconceivable is about to take
place. Chirac was very specific, addressing the Ambassadors’ Conference
on 29 August: “Pledges have been made that France will honour.”!
The policy of a single man, France’s endorsement of Turkey’s marriage
to Europe is also a promise kept. To Turkey, but also to Germany,
and to our other EU partners. In 1999 the Helsinki European Council
session, with the support of the French cohabitation government,
established that Turkey was “destined” to join the EU. It confirmed
that the criteria applied to that country, whatever its particular
religious, demographic or socioeconomic characteristics, would be “the
same as are applied to other candidate countries”. In December 2004
the European Council session in Brussels confirmed that negotiations
would begin on 3 October 2005 if Turkey satisfied in the meantime
a number of conditions, which included neither recognition of the
Armenian genocide nor recognition of the Greek Cypriot government’s
sovereignty over the whole of the island of Aphrodite.
Like a secret love affair, which cannot be revealed in public, the
relationship between Paris and Ankara remains very discreet. France
is still among Ankara’s allies within the EU. On every key issue the
president has opposed demanding from Turkey more than it can give, for
the present. Jacques Chirac believes that the interest of the West,
in the broad sense – Europe’s influence in the world, its relations
with Islam, and the imperative of guaranteeing the continent’s energy
supplies – combine to encourage progress with Turkey. “A secular
Turkey having fully adhered to the values of the rule of law and
building a modern and competitive economy would be an asset for the
EU,” one diplomat close to the Elysee [president’s office] said.
Officially, nothing is being said. And Istanbul and Ankara greatly
resent the vagueness of France’s policy. The Turkish elites,
traditionally pro-French, are moving away from a partner that they
now consider neither reliable nor honest. At the time of the latest
enlargement, France ruined the confidence that it enjoyed in Poland
because of an attitude that was perceived to be both hesitant and
arrogant. It could now achieve the same result in Turkey.