IRAN TO BUILD 170M POWER PLANT IN ARMENIA
Mehr News Agency, Iran
Sept 26 2005
TEHRAN, Sept. 26 (MNA) – Mohsen Shaterzadeh, an official of MAPNA
International Company, said on Monday that Iran would construct
a combined cycle power plant in Armenia at an overall cost of 170
million euros within the next three years.
Initially, several gas units will be added to the current steam
units. The Harazdan Power Plant was constructed by Russia nine years
ago with 80 percent physical progress. However, it remained incomplete
due to the internal situation of Russia after the collapse of the
USSR and separation of Armenian, he stated.
Shaterzadeh added that in his recent visit to Iran, the Armenian
energy minister held negotiations with the managing director of
MAPNA Co. as well as the Iranian energy minister of the time, and
called for completing Harazdan by the Iranian company. Finally, the
cooperation agreement was signed between MAPNA and the Armenian part,
he further said.
According to the agreement, the Iranian expertise team was dispatched
to Armenia last winter for conducting the primary estimations; they
set the figure at 9 million euro for completing the fifth unit of
Harazdan Steam Power Plant, he explained.
He also maintained, “The production capacity of Harazdan power plant
is 325 MW and the whole equipment were provided by Russia.” MAPNA
has allocated credit facility of nearly $2 million to the Armenian
part to conduct the primary studies.
The construction project of the combined cycle power plant comprises
three phases, he said. “In the first phase, the standing steam power
plant is to be completed by 2007 based on the projections made. Since
the majority of the equipment has been provided by Russia, we held
discussions with an Armenia-based Russian engineering company whose
experts will soon pay a visit to Iran to finalize the cooperation
agreement.” Therefore, the steam power plant will be jointly completed
by the Iranian and Russian engineers, he added.
In the second phase of the project, a gas power plant will be set up
by the Iranian engineers and the local Armenian workers. In this phase,
the Iranian equipment will be used, he noted.
He added, “In the third phase of the construction, the Iranian and
Russian engineers will have a joint cooperation.”
According to Shaterzadeh, Armenia has held negotiations with the
Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to receive a loan and the bank has
given a positive go-ahead on approving it.

BAGHDAD PATRIARCH WARNS AGAINST IRAQI CONSTITUTION
ChristianToday, UK
Sept 26 2005
Iraqi bishops have warned that the draft constitution “opens the door
widely to passing laws that are unjust towards non-Muslims”.
Catholic bishops in Iraq are growing increasingly fearful that the
draft Iraqi constitution “opens the door widely” to discrimination
against Christians and other non-Muslims, the patriarch of Baghdad
for the Chaldeans has told Iraqi officials.
The Prime Minister of Iraq, Patriarch Emmanuel III Dely, pushed for a
last-minute change to the constitution in a meeting with the president
after bishops argued that the constitution contradicts itself on the
issue of religious rights for minorities.
According to Internation Christian Concern, President Jalal Talabani
and Dely discussed a recent statement by the country’s 12 bishops,
including prelates from the Chaldean, Armenian, Latin and Assyrian
Churhces, in which they voiced fears for the future of the Christian
community in Iraq.
In the statement, the bishops praised Articles 2.1(b) and 2.2 which
provided for freedom and religious rights but denounced Article 2.1(a)
which states: “No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed
rules of Islam.”
The bishops concluded in the statement: “The bishops’ conference
expressed a grave concern and fear…about Article 2.1(a). This opens
the door widely to passing laws that are unjust towards non-Muslims.
The conference insists that this clause be amended or deleted.”
On the release of the statement to the international charity Aid
to the Church in Need, Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Abouna of Baghdad
stressed that the problem was not the propagation of Islam as the
majority-religion: “We are definitely not against the fact that in
Iraq Islam is the religion of the state.
“We know that the majority in Iraq is Muslim but the problem is that
the constitution is not clear. There are parts of the constitution
that are good but what about the other parts? For example, would
Christian women have to wear the veil?”
The bishops remain fearful that the “vague” constitution will fail
to protect Christians if the Iraqi government becomes less tolerant.
A referendum will be held on the constitution on 15 October.

CONFERENCE ON ARMENIANS CONCLUDES
NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Sept 26 2005
A conference discussing Armenians in the declining years of the
Ottoman Empire found there was strong evidence that massacres and
widespread deportations had been carried out, but stopped short of
describing the acts as genocide.
Guncelleme: 04:29 ET 26 Eylul 2005 PazartesiISTANBUL – Turkey could
not be held responsible for the actions of a state that no longer
existed, Professor Oran said.
The conference, dealing with what has been described as the last taboo
in Turkey, concluded in Istanbul Sunday, despite delegates having to
run the gauntlet of nationalist protestors throwing eggs and tomatoes
at them as they entered the conference hall at Bilgi University.
The conference was staged even though on Friday an Istanbul court
had imposed a ban on its being held. After the ruling by the court,
deans of many of Turkey’s universities said they would opposed the
decision, saying it threatened the autonomy of their institutions.
Addressing the conference on Sunday Professor Baskin Oran of Ankara
University’s Political Sciences Department said that the event had
broken down the last taboo in Turkey. “Concept of class, criticisms
of Ataturk, Cyprus, socialism, communism and Kurdistan are no more
taboos in Turkey,” he said. “There was only one taboo left, and it
was Armenian issue. Now, it is no more a taboo.”
According to Associate Professor Taner Akcam, the leaders of the Party
of Union and Progress had decided to remove those non Turkish-ethnic
groups not of Turkish in the part of the Ottoman Empire that is
now Turkey.
“The Ittihat and Terakki Party (Party of Union & Progress) had a plan
to purify whole Anatolia of the non-Turks, starting from the Aegean
Region, before the World War I, and this plan was carried out in entire
Anatolia during the years of the war,” Taner told the conference.
“Ottoman documents indicate that the decision to relocate the Armenians
was made to end a deeper problem defined as the ‘eastern problem’
and to end the dissolution process of the Ottoman Empire.
This decision was not a result of a need that erupted during the war.
There are many documents in hand with respect to the destruction
of Armenians.”
However, Dr Ahmet Kuyas of Galatasaray University said that the policy
of relocation, decided upon by four of the leading figures in the
Ittihat and Terakki Party, had had a darker side, with a series of
massacres also taking place. Those responsible for these acts were
the Minister of War Enver Pasa, Talat Pasa, Dr Bahattin Sakir and Dr
Nazim, he said.
A surprise speaker in the conference was Cevdet Aykan, formerly a
minister from the long defunct right wing Justice Party (AP), who
spoke on the Armenian community in the Tokat region in eastern Turkey,
which he had covered in his published memoirs. According to Aykan,
out of Tokat’s population of 28,000 in the early years of the 20th
century, 8,800 were Armenian. He said that in the census of 1924 the
Armenian population was down to about 700.
“It was not a good thing,” he said “Thousands of Armenians lost their
houses, country, homeland and some cases their lives,” he said. Aykan
said he had chosen to take part in the conference to repay debt
of conscience. The events of 1915 were interpreted differently by
different parliaments and that Turkey should not see the civilised
world and those that run it as enemies, he said.
Another delegate at the two day conference, Professor Dr Ilhan
Cuhadaroglu, said that he felt a feeling of mourning at the conference
that almost moved him to tears.
“I feel like asking was I in Bulgaria or Greece,” he said.

LIONS, CHEETAHS ON THE PROWL
Mumbai Newsline, India
Sept 26 2005
Express News Service
Mumbai, September 25: There are whispered apprehensions that rugby in
India may go the soccer way – with foreign players shaping the outcomes
of the first round matches in a big way, at the 72nd Hutch all-India
and South Asia tournament, currently underway at Priyadarshini Park.
The grumbling turns into a convenient excuse, if the team in question
has lost its opening encounter.
The irony is that all teams, save the cops and armymen who fought
valiantly before going down to the UK-based British Asian Rugby
Association (BARA), have included players with some degree of
experience abroad and the general consensus is that their presence
can only improve the standards of Indian rugby, as long as the trend
is tempered and number restricted to four.
Meanwhile, holders Chennai Cheetahs, had an indifferent first half,
sluggish by their standards (leading 21-0), against Delhi Hurricanes
as they kicked off their title defence.
Led by their Armenian duo of Emil Vartazarian and Henrik Trechonian,
the Cheetahs did go full blast after the changeover. Second-half
introduction Kiwi Brad Cari spurred them on with his twin-tries as
they finished with a convincing 62-0 margin against the minnows.
BARA – the Cheetah’s potential roadblocks to the finals, were
tested initially by Indian Army ‘A’, but were loaded with too much
muscle-power to trouble their opponents on way to a 37-0 win.
Delhi Lions won the third match of the day 34-18 against Kolkata
Police.
Results Chennai Cheetahs 62 (Emil Vartazarian 1 try, 6 conversions,
Antony Rehutai, Suresh Kulathuagan, Moorthy Vinayaka, Conrade Gomes,
Manmandir Samra (1 try each), Henrik Trechonian and Brad Cari 2 tries
each) bt Delhi Hurricanes 0 (HT 21-0). Delhi Lions 34 (Saminder Davas
3 tries, Davinder Lauchab 1 try, Aadesh Kumar 1 try, Rajesh Kumar 1
try, Happy Lauchab 2 conversions) bt Kolkatta Police 18 (Ajit Rehman,
Subroto Das, Subrotoik Pramanik (1 try each), Pintu Das 1 penalty
conversion) (HT 17-3). BARA 37 (Phill Khan 2 tries, Rashid Mehmood 2
tries, Manny Rehmaul, Zenad Malik (1 try each), Paul Akaday 1 try &
1 Conversion) bt Army ‘A’ 0. (H T – 15-0).

JUSTICE MINISTER ATTENDS ARMENIAN EMBASSY RECEPTION
WAM – Emirates News Agency, United Arab Emirates
Sept 25 2005
Abu Dhabi, 25 Sept. 05 (WAM) – Mohammed bin Nakhira Al Dhahiri,
Minister of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Awqaf attended here today a
reception hosted by Arshak Poladian, Armenian Ambassador, to celebrate
his country’s national day anniversary.
The reception was also attended by Abdullah Al Masoud, Speaker of
the National Consultative Council, Obeid Salim Al Zaabi, Director of
Protocol at the Foreign Ministry and heads of the Arab and foreign
missions accredited in the UAE.
;pagename=WAM%2FWamLocEnews%2FW-T-LEN-FullNews&c=WamLocEnews&cid=1126589546736&p=1041248621847

ARMENIAN LULU KABOBS GOBBLED UP
By Jennifer Kapiolani Saxton
Belleville News-Democrat, IL
Sept 25 2005
Lincoln Place festival celebrates diverse neighborhood
GRANITE CITY – For Mary Firtos of Granite City and her two friends,
the Lincoln Place Heritage Festival meant a chance to get authentic
ethnic food.
“We got Hungarian, Armenian and Mexican food,” Firtos said as she
and her friends left the one-day festival Saturday afternoon.
The aroma of Armenian Lulu kabobs and the sound of Scottish
bagpipes filled the streets of Lincoln Place neighborhood near the
community center on Niedringhaus Avenue in one of the city’s oldest
neighborhoods.
The Lincoln Place Heritage Festival drew more than 1,000 to enjoy
cultural foods from Hungary, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Armenia and Mexico.
“(Lulu kabob) is the Armenian version of a hamburger,” said Nancy
Avdoian, who was volunteering at the festival for the St. Gregory
Armenian Church in Granite City. “They have a lot more flavor than
your ordinary hamburger. It’s got a lot of kick to it.”
Using ground lamb, the meat is mixed with seasonings and onions, then
topped with a tomato-parsley mix. It is covered with a yogurt-garlic
sauce and placed in pita bread.
“It’s a common dish in most Armenian houses,” Avdoian said.
Also, on display at the festival were memorabilia provided the
association by the descendants of the immigrants who once lived in
this neighborhood.
Varsenig “Vee” Throne, 83, moved back in the 1990s after being married,
raising her children and traveling the world. As a child, Throne grew
up with her four brothers and sister in the brick house across from
the Lincoln Place Community Center. She lives there again today.
“It was different back then,” Throne said. “It didn’t make a difference
what nationality you were. Everybody was very close to one another.”
Throne and her daughter, Norma Asadorian, who is president of the
Lincoln Place Heritage Association, are working to bring back the
heritage and life to this neighborhood.
“Norma and I and a handful of other people are trying really hard to
revitalize this place,” Throne said.
The revitalization process has included flower pots along Niedringhaus
Avenue, which runs down the center of the neighborhood; a welcome sign;
and in the future, antique light fixtures along the avenue.
For more information about future association activities, send an
address to Lincoln Place Heritage Association P.O. Box 476 Granite
City, IL 62040.

USAID TO HELP ARMENIAN POLICE
Washington Technology
Sept 26 2005
The U.S. Agency for International Development seeks proposals from
vendors for designing and establishing an information system for the
Armenian police. The agency has issued the requirement on behalf of
the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Office of the U.S.
embassy in Yerevan, Armenia.
The selected vendor will automate collection and processing of
crime-related data by using new technologies and techniques for
information gathering and handling.
The project includes methodological and legal/regulatory frameworks,
information, software, hardware and training and guidance components.
Responses are due by Oct. 31. Contact Armen Tamazyan at
[email protected].

ONCE UPON A TIME: KUMKAPI
Turkish Press
Sept 26 2005
Fishing, a Bohemian life style and taverns were things which went
together in the ports of the past. In Istanbul the pungent smell
of wine and sound of music rose on the air of the fishing districts
between Samatya on the Marmara Sea and Poyrazkoy on the Bosphorus.
Kumkapi has been home to a fishing community and taverns for many
centuries. During Byzantine times it was known as Kontascalion (Small
Quay), and had a busy harbour and a shipyard. After the harbour silted
up the beach was a convenient source of sand, and the city gate near
here became known as Kum kapi or Sand Gate.
Following the conquest in 1453 the area was mainly settled by
non-Muslim Karamanlis, and by the seventeenth century was famous
for its taverns according to the Turkish writer and traveller
Evliya celebi. His contemporary and author of a history of Istanbul,
Ereemya Celebi Komurciyan, records the district’s Greek and Armenian
churches and fires which destroyed it. In his Topography of Istanbul,
Hovhannnesyan describes the grand houses of Kumkapi, a royal palace
here, katir Han (an urban kervansaray) and bazaar.
Little remains from the pre-19th century buildings of Kumkapi due
to fires, but it remains a district famous for its taverns and fish
restaurants.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

DOUBTS OVER TURKISH JUSTICE CAST SHADOW ON EU ACCESSION TALKS
By Vincent Boland
Financial Times, UK
Sept 26 2005
Nobody yet knowswhether the progressives or the reactionaries have
won thebattle over free speech that has raged in Turkey for the past
few days. One thing is clear, however: despite years of reforms,
the country’s justice system is riddled with loopholes. The result,
observers say, is arbitrary justice, which undermines people’s faith
in judges, prosecutors and police.
Although it is making changes as it seeks to join the European Union,
Turkey still endures a justice system that puts the rights of the
state above those of the individual. Recent events suggest that reforms
made last year to the fascist-era penal code, which were supposed to
make the system fairer and less punitive, are not working.
A court last week banned an academic conference that was to discuss
the mass killings of Armenians as the Ottoman empire collapsed 90
years ago. The conference went ahead at the weekend amid a heavy police
presence and demonstrations by small groups of protesters. A few weeks
earlier, Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s most acclaimed writer, was charged
with treason for remarks about Turkey’s denial of Armenian suffering.
The two incidents suggest how criminal justice and judicial
systems steeped in decades of nationalist ideology, reinforced by an
authoritarian constitution, can betray a reforming government’s best
intentions. They did little to enhance Turkey’s democratic credentials
a few days before it begins the formal EU accession process. The
attempt to silence the conference will have been noted in France,
which opposes Turkey’s EU membership and is home to Europe’s largest
Armenian diaspora community.
Joost Lagendijk, chairman of the Turkey delegation at the European
parliament, says the ban on the conference demonstrated the inadequacy
of the new penal code. Some legal experts claim the court in which
the judge sat had no authority to hear such a case. Turgut Tarhanli,
director of the Human Rights Law Research Center at Istanbul Bilgi
University, says the judge who ordered the ban did not allow the
organisers – two Istanbul universities – to mount a defence, a clearly
unconstitutional act.
“I hope this is an individual case that does not represent the Turkish
judicial system, but I am not so confident,” Mr Tarhanli said. “The
judicial system is a taboo in Turkey and nobody ever questions it. But
we should be asking judges whether they take the principles of the
constitution into account in their daily work.”
Others believe the constitution itself is the problem. It came into
force after a military coup in 1980. The constitution has since
been heavily revised, but the context in which it was drawn up –
when Turkey perceived herself surrounded by enemies aiming to break
up the country – appears still to influence how it is interpreted.
Guler Sabanci, head of the Sabanci Holding conglomerate and Turkey’s
leading businesswoman, says the constitution is “like an ill-fitting
suit”. “It was a suit we put on in extraordinary circumstances [after
the coup] and now it is too tight. It needs to be refitted for Turkey
in the 21st century.”
Ms Sabanci says opponents of reform can find “legal discrepancies”
that allow them to interfere almost at will, not just in the criminal
and judicial systems, or in attempting to silence historians, but in
efforts at privatisation or measures to do with the economy.
One effect of the controversy, Ms Sabanci and others say, is that
it may persuade the government to go further in strengthening free
speech provisions in the penal code and launching a wider campaign for
tolerance of dissent and controversial opinions. The prime minister,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, won praise from academics for his quick and
forthright questioning of the court decision.
But some noted that he reacted with seeming indifference when one
of his ministers scuppered the historians’ first attempt, in May,
to hold the conference, by accusing them of treason.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NATIONALIST TURKS PROTEST ARMENIA MOVE
Irish Examiner, Ireland
Sept 26 2005
HUNDREDS of Turkish nationalists chanting slogans and waving flags
protested over the weekend against a controversial academic conference
devoted to the WWI 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 EU membership talks.
Organisers then circumvented the court ban by moving the conference
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 left wing 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. Armenia and its supporters around
the world say 1.5 million Armenians died in a systematic genocide
committed by Ottoman Turkish forces between 1915 and 1923.
Ankara accepts many Armenians died on Turkish soil during and after
WWI, but says they were victims of a partisan conflict which claimed
even more Turkish Muslim lives as the Ottoman Empire was collapsing.
It denies any genocide.
Turkey is under pressure to change its stance if it is to become the
first Muslim country to join the EU.
The conference had originally been due to take place at Istanbul’s
Bosphorus University in May but was cancelled 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
towards the start of its long-delayed EU entry talks on October 3,
the government has strongly backed the conference. Despite a flurry
of EU-inspired reforms recently, promoting certain interpretations
of Turkish history can still be deemed a criminal offence under a
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