ARMINFO News Agency
September 30, 2005
R. KOCHARYAN :CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS IN ARMENIA AIM TO MAKE THE
CONSTITUTION EFFECTIVE AND MAXIMUM ACCESSIBLE TO EVERY CITIZEN
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30. ARMINFO. Constitutional reforms in Armenia aim
to make the Constitution effective and maximum accessible to every
citizen. Armenian President Robert Kocharyan made this statement
opening the 10th Jubilee International Conference dedicated to the 10
years of the adoption of the RA Constitution and formation of the
Constitutional Court ‘The legal principles and political reality in
exercise of constitutional control’ in Yerevan. The event is
organized by combined efforts of the Armenian Constitutional Court,
CE Venice Commission and the International Constitutional
Association.
In his speech, Robert Kocharyan says Armenia has embarked on the road
of Constitutional reforms. The international experience shows how
dangerous can be Constitutional crisis. At the same time,
Constitutional reforms must be in harmony with the public processes
and stimulate them, the president says. ‘The actual Constitution had
a great part in development of democracy in the country and it’s
admission to the Council of Europe. However, in the succession of
time, it has appeared to have many serious conceptual omissions
hindering further development of democracy in the country. At
present, constitutional guarantees are required for establishment of
a legal state,’ Robert Kocharyan says. The years-long efficient work
of the relevant structures of Armenia with the CE Venice Commission
on draft constitutional amendments is nearing completion. Very soon,
draft amendments meeting international standards will submitted to
the public consideration. The draft ensures a considerable progress
in human rights protection, division and balance of the power
branches. The independence of the country’s judicial system will
considerably rise and the local self-government bodies will become
much more independent, Robert Kocharyan thinks. ‘I hope for the
discussions at the forum will sort with our reality. I have no doubts
in the deep international resonance of the conference,’ Robert
Kocharyan says.

PRESS RELEASE
St Nersess Seminary
September 28, 2005
150 Stratton Rd.
New Rochelle, NY 10804
Phone: 914-636-2003
Armeno-Turkish: Betrayal or Blessing?
It looks like Armenian but it’s not.
For about 250 years, from the early 18th century until around 1950,
more than 2000 books were printed in the Turkish language using the
divinely-inspired letters of the Armenian alphabet. On the surface,
the phenomenon of “Armeno-Turkish” would seem like yet another sad
chapter in Armenian history as Armenians gradually lost their
language, culture and identity under Ottoman tyranny.
Bedross Der Matossian sees the phenomenon not as a sign of the
deterioration of Armenian ethnic identity, but of its extraordinary
endurance and resilience. In an intriguing lecture delivered at the
Seminary on Tuesday, September 27, the young doctoral candidate in
Middle Eastern Studies argued that the tradition of writing Turkish
with Armenian letters is an overlooked example of the versatility of
the Armenian alphabet and “a creative mechanism for maintaining
Armenian identity in a multi-ethnic environment.”
Der Matossian’s lecture, entitled, The Phenomenon of the
Armeno-Turkish Literature in the 19th century Ottoman Empire, was the
first in a series of five public lectures being offered this Fall as
part of St. Nersess Seminary’s commemoration of the 1600th
anniversary of the creation of the Armenian alphabet.
Armenian? Turkish?
Armeno-Turkish books are not hard to find. If you know the 38
characters of the Armenian alphabet and you glance across the shelves
of an Armenian library or church office; or peek into the boxes in
medz-mayrig’s (grandma’s) attic, you will almost surely come across a
book printed in Armenian, which you will not be able to read–unless
you speak Turkish.
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire wrote books on history, fine arts,
religion, science, and philosophy in Turkish using not the
conventional Arabic script, but the ayp, pen, kim of our ancestors.
Armeno-Turkish business contracts, school books, dictionaries,
grammars, translations of European literature, Bibles, hymnals and
even prayer books were published in more than fifty cities including
Venice, Vienna, Trieste, Boston and New York.
This rich body of highly erudite writings can hardly be taken as the
last gasp of a dying culture. It marked a true cultural-intellectual
achievement. Der Matossian displayed a list of more than 30 distinct
newspapers published in Armeno-Turkish, which circulated during the
60’s and 70’s of the 19th century.
Der Matossian repeatedly referred to Armeno-Turkish as a “language.”
The Armenians who wrote Ottoman Turkish were not simply transcribing
the sounds of the Turkish language; they meticulously preserved the
Turkish words, syntax, punctuation and grammatical structures. This
triggered the publication of Armeno-Turkish dictionaries and grammar
books, many examples of which survive today. The famous Haigazian
Pararan, the preeminent lexicon of Classical Armenian published by
the Armenian Mekhitarist Fathers of Venice in the early 18th century,
gives an Armeno-Turkish equivalent for each word found between its
massive covers.
`As the language evolved, Armeno-Turkish gradually adopted Arabic and
Persian words and word forms,’ Der Matossian observed, “Expressions
which a Turk would probably not understand.”
An Armenian Oddity?
Not only Armenians read Armeno-Turkish, but the non-Armenian elite,
including the Ottoman Turkish intelligentsia, who were exposed to
European literature and emerging political ideas thanks, in part, to
the Armenians who translated these writing into Armeno-Turkish.
Turkish has no native alphabet. The Turks adopted the Arabic script
along with Islam.
“Arguably, the Armenian letters function better than Arabic as a
script for Ottoman Turkish,” said Der Matossian, a native of
Jerusalem, who is fluent in Armenian, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew and
English. “During the First Ottoman Constitutional Period (1876) there
was even the suggestion that Armenian be used as the official
alphabet of the Empire,” the young scholar said.
American Protestant missionaries also learned and used Armeno-Turkish
in their missionary efforts among the Armenians of 19th-century
Ottoman Turkey. `Grammatically Turkish is a simpler language than
Armenian but the Armenian alphabet is much easier to learn than the
Arabic script. This made Armeno-Turkish a highly effective tool for
the missionaries,’ said Der Matossian. `For many Armenians of the
time, the Bible was only accessible in Armeno-Turkish translations
produced by the missionaries. The Armenian Church used only Krapar
(Classical Armenian), which the general population did not
understand,’ he said. Protestant missionaries also produced an
Armeno-Kurdish translation of the Scriptures, as well as
Greco-Turkish (so-called Karamanli) and other versions.
For Those Who Do Not Know Armenian
Again and again Der Matossian insisted that the use of Armeno-Turkish
should be seen not as a betrayal of Armenian identity, but as a
creative effort to preserve it under the most unfavorable conditions.
Several elderly members of the audience were visibly moved when Der
Matossian read an Armeno-Turkish prayer that was dedicated `to those
who do not know Armenian.’ Giving thanks to God for the blessing of
holy communion, the prayer had only four Armenian words:
haghortootyoon(communion), Heesoos (Jesus), nushkhark (Eucharistic
bread), and pazhag (chalice). Der Matossian said that Armeno-Turkish
fully exploited the Turkish language but preserved certain `sacred’
words in Armenian as a way of maintaining Armenian ethnic boundaries.
`I am hearing a language that I don’t love express a thought that is
very precious to me,’ said Edward Yessayian, tears streaming down his
cheeks.
The Language of the State and Dominant Group
`As a result of Ottoman domination and compulsory conversion to
Islam, many Armenians of the Ottoman Empire gradually lost their
ancestral language but they adhered religiously to their alphabet,
teaching it to their children even though they could no longer speak
the words it was intended to record,’ Der Matossian said. `The
readiness of our people to apply the Armenian alphabet as a vehicle
for writing the language of the dominant group is astonishing and
highly significant.’ It is not that the Armenians could not learn the
Arabic script – the intelligentsia wrote and spoke Turkish fluently.
`Rather,” Der Matossian said, `It was their way of preserving,
consciously or unconsciously, their ethnic and religious identity and
maintaining boundaries around their distinctive identity. I would
even venture,’ Der Matossian said in response to a question, `that in
developing Armeno-Turkish, the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire sought
to `armenize’ or to consecrate for themselves a small sanctuary in
the hostile world they were living in. For Armenians, religion and
alphabet cannot be separated.’
“Bedross gave a 3-hour lecture in 40 minutes,” said Fr. Daniel
Findikyan. `Here is an entirely overlooked aspect of the creative
genius and theological depth of our Armenian-Christian heritage and
forebears.’
Der Matossian is a graduate of the Hebrew University and currently a
Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University in the Department of Middle
East and Asian Languages and Cultures. His concentration is on
inter-ethnic relationships during the Second Constitutional Period of
the Ottoman Empire.
“The great reward of being a teacher is to raise a good student,”
said Dr. Roberta Ervine in her introductory remarks. “We are in the
presence of something special when we meet a young man like Bedross
who has devoted his life to exploring, preserving and teaching a
precious culture.”
Ervine was Mr. Der Matossian’s teacher in the Holy Translators’ Soorp
Tarkmanchats School in Jerusalem. She called him “the best, most
perceptive student of Armenian history that I had had in 21 years as
a teacher in Jerusalem.”

The next scheduled lecture in this series will take place at the
Seminary on Monday, October 24 at 7:30 PM. Professor Michael Stone,
the noted armenologist from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, will
deliver a lecture entitled, `Why Have an Armenian Language?’

ARMINFO News Agency
September 30, 2005
ARMENIAN PRESIDENT APPOINTS NEW ARMENIAN AMBASSADOR TO MAROCCO
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30. ARMINFO. President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan
dismissed Armenian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to
Marocco Sergey Manasayan. Armenian Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary to Egypt Ruiben Karapetyan (residence in Cairo) will
combine his job with the post of Armenian Ambassador to Marocco. The
Presidential press-service told ARMINFO.

ARMINFO News Agency
September 30, 2005
ARMENIAN DEFENSE MINISTER AND HEAD OF OSCE OFFICE IN YEREVAN SIGN
MEMORANDUM OF MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMINFO. Secretary of the Armenian
Presidential Natinoal Security Council Serge Sargsyan and Head of
OSCE Office in Yerevan Vladimir Pryakhin have signed a Memorandum of
Mutual Understanding concerning the 3rd stage of the program of
propellant (melange) elimination.
Press Secretary of the Armenian Defense Minister Colonel Seyran
Shakhsouvaryan has informed ARMINFO that the melange will be
processed into harmless fertilizers for non-acid soil. Thanking
Armenian Defense Minister, Vladimir Pryakhin said the program was
implemented with support of highly-qualified specialists of the
Armenian Defense Ministry.

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