Agence France Presse — English
September 24, 2005 Saturday 7:36 AM GMT
Disputed conference on Armenian massacres begins in Turkey
ISTANBUL
A disputed conference questioning Turkey’s official line on the
massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire began on Saturday
amid protests by nationalist groups against the participants and the
government.
Some 30 members of the ultra-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP)
called out “cad” and booed the participants as they entered the venue
of the two-day conference which brings together academics and
intellectuals disputing Turkey’s version of the 1915-1917 massacres.
“The Armenian genocide is an international lie” read a giant banner
carried by some 150 members of the minor left-wing Workers’ Party
(IP).
“The government must resign, treason will not go unpunished,” chanted
the protestors.
Several posters depicting Turks killed by Armenians were pasted on
the security barriers surrounding the venue where some 200 police
officers were put on duty.
The conference was to have opened on Friday, but a court suspended
the event late Thursday following a complaint by a group of
nationalist lawyers who called the organizers “traitors.”
The event had already been postponed once in May when Justice
Minister Cemil Cicek branded it as “treason” and a “stab in the back
of the Turkish nation.”
But the two universities organizing the conference, Bogazici and
Sabanci, refused to back down, rescheduling the event for Saturday
and Sunday.
The conference was moved to the Bilgi 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.
The court decision was heavily criticised both by the Turkish
government and the European Union with which Ankara is set to begin
accession talks on October 3.
The Armenian massacres constitute one of the most painful periods of
in the history of the two peoples.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their people were slaughtered in
mass killings under the Ottoman Empire, forerunner to the present-day
Turkish republic.
Ankara categorically rejects claims of genocide and 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 government, however, has encouraged researchers to discuss the
issue, arguing that it is a matter for historians and not politicians
to pursue.

The Washington Post
September 25, 2005 Sunday
Final Edition
In Istanbul, a Crack In the Wall of Denial;
We’re Trying to Debate the Armenian Issue
by Elif Shafak
ISTANBUL
I am the daughter of a Turkish diplomat — a rather unusual character
in the male-dominated foreign service in that she was a single
mother. Her first appointment was to Spain, and we moved to Madrid in
the early 1980s. In those days, the Armenian Secret Army for the
Liberation of Armenia, known as ASALA, was staging attacks on Turkish
citizens — and diplomats in particular — in Rome, London, Zurich,
Brussels, Milan and Madrid; our cultural attaché in Paris was
assassinated in 1979 while walking on the Champs-Elysees. So
throughout my childhood, the word “Armenian” meant only one thing to
me: a terrorist who wanted to kill my mother.
Faced with hatred, I hated back. But that was as far as my feelings
went. It took me years to ask the simple question: Why did the
Armenians hate us?
My ignorance was not unusual. For me in those days, and for most
Turkish citizens even today, my country’s history began in 1923, with
the founding of the modern Turkish state. The roots of the Armenians’
rage — in the massacres, atrocities and deportations that decimated
Turkey’s Armenian population in the last years of Ottoman rule,
particularly 1915 — were simply not part of our common historical
memory.
But for me today, and for a growing number of my fellow Turks, that
has changed. That is why I am in Istanbul this weekend. I came to
Bosphorus University to attend the first-ever public conference in
this country on what happened to the Ottoman Armenians in and after
1915. As I write, we are fighting last-minute legal maneuvers by
hard-line opponents of open discussion to shut the conference down. I
don’t know how it will turn out — but the fact that we are here,
openly making the attempt, with at least verbal support from the
prime minister and many mainstream journalists, highlights how far
some in my country have come.
Until my early twenties, like many Turks living abroad, I was less
interested in history than in what we described as “improving
Turkey’s image in the eyes of Westerners.” As I began reading
extensively on political and social history, I was drawn to the
stories of minorities, of the marginalized and the silenced: women
who resisted traditional gender roles, unorthodox Sufis persecuted
for their beliefs, homosexuals in the Ottoman Empire. Gradually, I
started reading about the Ottoman Armenians — not because I was
particularly interested in the literature but because I was young and
rebellious, and the official ideology of Turkey told me not to.
Yet it was not until I came to the United States in 2002 and started
getting involved in an Armenian-Turkish intellectuals’ network that I
seriously felt the need to face the charges that, beginning in 1915,
Turks killed as many as 1.5 million Armenians and drove hundreds of
thousands more from their homes. I focused on the literature of
genocide, particularly the testimony of survivors; I watched filmed
interviews at the Zoryan Institute’s Armenian archives in Toronto; I
talked to Armenian grandmothers, participated in workshops for
reconciliation and collected stories from Armenian friends who were
generous enough to entrust me with their family memories and secrets.
With each step, I realized not only that atrocities had been
committed in that terrible time but that their effect had been made
far worse by the systematic denial that followed. I came to recognize
a people’s grief and to believe in the need to mourn our past
together.
I also got to know other Turks who were making a similar intellectual
journey. Obviously there is still a powerful segment of Turkish
society that completely rejects the charge that Armenians were
purposely exterminated. Some even go so far as to claim that it was
Armenians who killed Turks, and so there is nothing to apologize for.
These nationalist hardliners include many of our government
officials, bureaucrats, diplomats and newspaper columnists.
They dominate Turkey’s public image — but theirs is only one
position held by Turkish citizens, and it is not even the most common
one. The prevailing attitude of ordinary people toward the “Armenian
question” is not one of conscious denial; rather it is collective
ignorance. These Turks feel little need to question the past as long
as it does not affect their daily lives.
There is a third attitude, prevalent among Turkish youth: Whatever
happened, it was a long time ago, and we should concentrate on the
future rather than the past. “Why am I being held responsible for a
crime my grandfather committed — that is, if he ever did it?” they
ask. They want to become friends with Armenians and push for open
trade and better relations with neighboring Armenia . . . . as long
as everybody forgets this inconvenient claim of genocide.
Finally, there is a fourth attitude: The past is not a bygone era
that we can discard but a legacy that needs to be recognized,
explored and openly discussed before Turkey can move forward. It is
plain to me that, though it often goes unnoticed in Western media,
there is a thriving movement in Turkish civil society toward this
kind of reconciliation. The 50 historians, journalists, political
scientists and activists who have gathered here in the last few days
for the planned conference on Ottoman Armenians share a common belief
in the need to face the atrocities of the past, no matter how
distressing or dangerous, in order to create a better future for
Turkey.
But it hasn’t been easy, and the battle is far from over.
Over the past four years, Turks have made several attempts to address
the “Armenian question.” The conference planned for this weekend
differed from earlier meetings in key respects: It was to be held in
Istanbul itself, rather than abroad; it would be organized by three
established Turkish universities rather than by progressive Armenian
and Turkish expatriates; it would be conducted completely in Turkish.
Originally scheduled for May 23, it was postponed after Cemil Cicek,
Turkey’s minister of justice, made an angry speech before parliament,
accusing organizers of “stabbing their nation in the back.” But over
the ensuing four months, the ruling Justice and Development Party
made it clear that Cicek’s remarks reflected his views, and his
alone. The minister of foreign affairs, Abdullah Gul, announced that
he had no problem with the expression of critical opinion and even
said he would be willing to participate in the conference. (As it
happens, he has been in New York in recent days, at the United
Nations.)
Meanwhile, the Armenian question has been prominently featured in
Turkish media. Hurriyet, the nation’s most popular newspaper, ran a
series of pro and con interviews on this formerly taboo subject,
called “The Armenian Dossier.” The upcoming trial of acclaimed author
Orhan Pamuk, charged with “denigrating” Turkish identity for talking
about the killing of Kurds and Armenians, has been fervently debated.
Various columnists have directly apologized to the Armenians for the
sufferings caused to their people by the Turks. And stories have been
reported of orphaned Armenian girls who saved their lives by changing
their names, converting to Islam and marrying Turks — and whose
grandchildren are unaware today of their own mixed heritage.
All this activity has triggered a nationalist backlash. That should
be expected — but organizers of the Conference on Ottoman Armenians
were nevertheless surprised last week by a crafty, last-minute
maneuver: a court order to postpone the conference pending the
investigation of hardliners’ charges that it was unfairly biased
against Turkey. The cynicism of this order was clear when we learned
that the three-judge panel actually made its decision on Monday; it
was not made public until late Thursday, only hours before the
conference was to begin.
Organizers said they would try to regroup by moving the site from
Bosphorus University, a public institution, to one of the two private
universities that are co-sponsors. We were encouraged by the
immediate public reaction: Not only did some normally mainstream
media voices denounce the court order, but Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, in televised interviews, repeatedly criticized it as
“unacceptable.” “You may not like the expression of an opinion,” he
said, “but you can’t stop it like this.” Foreign Minister Gul, in New
York, lamented what effect this would have on Turkey’s quest to join
the European Union: “There’s no one better at hurting themselves than
us,” he said.
Whatever happens with the conference, I believe one thing remains
true: Through the collective efforts of academics, journalists,
writers and media correspondents, 1915 is being opened to discussion
in my homeland as never before. The process is not an easy one and
will disturb many vested interests. I know how hard it is — most
children from diplomatic families, confronting negative images of
Turkey abroad, develop a sort of defensive nationalism, and it’s
especially true among those of us who lived through the years of
Armenian terrorism. But I also know that the journey from denial to
recognition is one that can be made.
Author’s e-mail: [email protected]
Elif Shafak is a novelist and a professor of Near Eastern Studies at
the University of Arizona. She commutes between Tucson and Istanbul.

Hayots Ashkhar, Yerevan, in Armenian
24 Sep 05 p 4
TURKEY GRADUALLY TAKING OVER CAUCASUS – ARMENIAN PAPER
Headlined “Turkish danger”
Turkey’s consistent invasion of Georgia by means of the
Turkish-speaking population (Azerbaijanis and Meskhetian Turks) is
becoming more and more noticeable.
At present, Turkey is acting in Georgia not only to ensure its own
geo-political interests: in this case, in order to settle Turks in
the region and gain access to Azerbaijan. Turkey is also trying to
occupy Georgia from inside by expelling Armenians from Javakheti and
returning Meskhetian Turks there and increasing the number of
Azerbaijanis living in the south of Georgia, to be short, turning our
neighbour into a Turk. Georgian press reports testify that the
Marneuli military airport, which has already turned into a Turkish
military base, is not a Turkish-Georgian, but a Turkish-Azerbaijani
military base now, as 90% of those who serve there are local
Azerbaijanis.
Turkey is also invading Abkhazia using the economic potential of
thousands of Abkhazians living in Turkey. In the Samtskhe-Javakheti
region, which is located along the border with Turkey, Turkey is
trying to use Meskhetian Turks who have already settled in
Akhaltsikhe.
Different Turkish foundations are financing the construction of
schools and mosques in the Azerbaijani populated regions of Georgia,
while Armenian Javakheti with its destroyed cultural, educational and
economic infrastructure is the only gap between these regions and
Turkey.
In such conditions, the implementation of the Turkish plan to expel
Armenians from Javakheti to Russia and to return Meskhetian Turks to
this region is the same as forming a homogeneous ethnic corridor
between Turkey and Azerbaijan, i.e. from the Turkish border to
Azerbaijan.

Anatolia news agency, Ankara, in Turkish
21 Sep 05
TURKEY MUST COMBAT “FALSE” ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CLAIMS – SEMINAR
Ankara: The final communique of the seminar entitled “The Armenian
Issue with All Its Aspects and the Historic Facts” has said: “The
struggle against the false Armenian genocide claims should be waged
within the framework of a long-term perspective and should continue
until results are achieved. It is necessary to ensure that the
Republic of Turkey’s reputation throughout the world is not
besmirched.”
The seminar entitled “The Armenian Issue With All Its Aspects and the
Historic Facts” that was held by the National Security Strategies
Studies Centre that operates under the Turkish Metalworkers’ Union at
the union headquarters ended with the reading of the final
communique. The final communique pointed out that the struggle
against the false Armenian genocide claims should be planned from a
single centre and should be waged in the national and international
dimensions. Furthermore, the communique drew attention to the
importance of using the institutions that were established for this
purpose efficiently and productively.
Also stressing that it is necessary to use the pro-Turkey lobbies in
the activities that will be conducted in the international arena, the
communique emphasized that it is very important for the Turks abroad
to start lobby activities as soon as possible. The communique
continued as follows:
“If these steps fail to achieve results, it is necessary to make use
of bilateral or multilateral relations against state/states,
individual/individuals, and institution/institutions that support the
false genocide claims. To this end, it is necessary to place
balanced, adequate, and effective political and economic sanctions at
the right time.
“If these measures are taken and if Turkey pursues a determined and
an effective policy regarding the Armenian claims and slanders,
Armenian racists will not be able to dare defying Turkey. Neither
will Western countries dare confronting Turkey with regard to false
Armenian claims. It is necessary to keep in mind that it is the
Republic of Turkey that is wronged with the slanders and therefore
those who govern this country should pursue an effective policy with
regard to this issue. Turkey should demand explanations for the fact
that it is wronged.”

Associated Press Worldstream
September 25, 2005 Sunday 7:23 AM Eastern Time
Genocide scholars again met with barrage of protests in Turkey
by BENJAMIN HARVEY; Associated Press Writer
ISTANBUL, Turkey
Demonstrators throwing rotten tomatoes and eggs and shouting protests
again greeted scholars debating the killings of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks early in the 20th Century on the second day of their conference
on Sunday.
The passionately opposed conference is the first public discussion in
Turkey about the massacre of Armenians, and the European Union said
it would be seen as a test of freedom of expression in Turkey, which
is a candidate for EU membership.
The group of about 20 protesters outside the conference venue was
smaller than the hundreds who showed up on Saturday, and organizers
of the conference say Turks have been surprisingly supportive of
their efforts, despite some panelists suggesting that Ottoman Turks
committed the first genocide of the 20th Century.
Discussing the mass killings of Armenians has long been taboo in
Turkey, and scholars who use the word genocide can be prosecuted
under a clause in the Turkish penal code on insulting the national
character.
The academic conference had been canceled twice, once in May after
the justice minister said organizers were “stabbing the people in the
back,” and again on Thursday when an Istanbul court ordered the
conference closed and demanded to know the academic qualifications of
the speakers.
“This is a fight of ‘can we discuss this thing, or can we not discuss
this thing?”‘ Murat Belge, a member of the organizing committee, said
at the conference opening. “This is something that’s directly related
to the question of what kind of country Turkey is going to be.”
The Armenian issue stirs deep passions among Turks, who are being
pushed by many in the international community to say that their
fathers and grandfathers carried out the first genocide of the 20th
century.
“There are so many documents in hand with respect to the destruction
of Armenians,” said Taner Akcay, a Turkish-born professor at the
University of Minnesota, and author of books on the subject
including, “A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of
Turkish Responsibility.”
On Saturday dozens of officers in riot gear kept hundreds of shouting
protesters at bay. Some protesters pelted arriving panelists with
eggs and rotten tomatoes.
Inside, the audience of more than 300 people was restrained, as only
those invited by the organizing committee and preapproved members of
the media were allowed past security.
The issue has been a taboo for many years in Turkey, with those who
speak out against the killings risking prosecution by a Turkish
court. But an increasing number of Turkish academics have called for
a review of the killings in a country where many see the Ottoman
Empire as a symbol of Turkish greatness.
Several governments around the world have recognized the killings of
as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire as
genocide.
Turkey vehemently denies the charge, admitting that many Armenians
were killed, but saying the death toll is inflated and that Armenians
were killed along with Turks in civil unrest and intercommunal
fighting as the Ottoman Empire collapsed between 1915 and 1923.
After the conference was shut down Thursday, Turkey drew condemnation
from the European Commission.
Organizers skirted the court order by changing the venue of the
conference.
The court-ordered cancellation Thursday was an embarrassment for the
country’s leaders, who are set to begin EU negotiations on Oct. 3.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul lamented that “there’s no one better at
hurting themselves than us,” and sent a letter wishing the organizers
a successful conference. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also
condemned the court’s decision, saying it did not befit a democratic
country.
The participants were all Turkish speakers and included members of
Turkey’s Armenian minority like Hrant Dink, the editor in chief of
Agos, a weekly Armenian newspaper in Istanbul. There are some 70,000
Armenians living in Istanbul.

ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
September 24, 2005 Saturday 5:57 PM Eastern Time
RAO UES to give up management of Armenia nuclear power plant
By Tigran Liloyan
YEREVAN
Russia’s RAO UES electric monopoly announced its intention to give up
the financial management of the Armenian nuclear power plant, saying
it has fulfilled its task.
The Russian company informed the Armenian government that it had
completed the plant’s anti-crisis program and financial
normalization, Armenian Energy Minster Armen Movsesyan told Itar-Tass
on Saturday.
Earlier, a RAO official stated that after two years’ management of
the plant’s financial flows, it accumulated a sufficient floating
capital and paid its debts for the nuclear fuels and large bank
loans.
Movsesyan said in the event the plant is shut down, the real source
of the alternative energy would be either the construction of a new
facility, or the production of gas-generated electricity.
The option to build a new nuclear power plant seems to be most
advantageous, but the project requires 800 million dollars which
Armenia presently lacks.
Nevertheless, Movsesyan is confident that his country will have no
problems with the international public opinion regarding the
construction of a new nuclear facility.
The European Union has been urging Yerevan to close its only nuclear
power plant, but it stated that its shutdown is only possible if
alternative sources of energy are found.
The Armenian nuclear power plant, commissioned in 1979, was shut down
in 1989 after a devastating earthquake.
In 1996, Russia helped Armenian demothball the plant and restart its
second reactor. The plant accounts for 40 percent of all electricity
produced in Armenia.

The Irish Times
September 24, 2005
Court ruling could harm Turkey’s bid to join EU
Nicholas Birch in Istanbul
TURKEY: In a decision widely seen as an attempt to sabotage Turkey’s
European Union hopes, an Istanbul court yesterday forced a major
state university to suspend a three-day conference on the fate of the
Ottoman Empire’s Armenians, for the second time.
Another university has said it would try to host the event.
Due to start today, the meeting would have been the first in the
country’s history to question official claims that it was
inter-ethnic war, not a deliberate state policy of mass murder, that
led to the deaths of up to one million in 1915.
The conference had been planned for this May, but was postponed after
Turkey’s justice minister accused organisers of “stabbing the country
in the back”. “If only I had not dispensed with my right to take them
to trial,” Cemil Cicek added.
Mr Cicek’s message was not lost on the judges of Istanbul’s 4th
Administrative Court.
Late on Thursday they informed Bosporus University the meeting
represented a potential breach of the peace and gave organisers 30
days to provide details about participants, speeches and funding,
information that has been known for months.
The writ is disingenuous, analysts say, and probably
unconstitutional.
Late on Thursday prime minister Tayyip Erdogan angrily described the
court’s decision as “incompatible with democracy, freedom and
modernity.”
With Turkey looking likely to start EU accession proceedings on
October 3rd, analysts describe the court’s involvement as evidence of
the depth of opposition to democratisation in bureaucratic and
judicial circles.
“It’s a copybook example of Turkey’s old political ideology”, said
political analyst Dogu Ergil. “Rather than accepting that the state
serves citizens, some still think everything citizens do must be
permitted by the state.”
Nowhere is the mentality that national interests supersede individual
freedoms clearer than in attitudes towards history.
Outside the gates of Bosporus University on Friday morning a group
opposed to the conference distributed leaflets describing
participants as “agents of imperialism . . . working to destroy the
country’s unity.”
“Turkey has the maturity and will to discuss 1915 democratically,”
said Bedri Baykam, opposition deputy and leader of the Patriotic
Movement. “Unfortunately, the other side has neither the courage nor
the brains.” Another protester dismisses conference participants as
agents of the Armenian genocide lobby.
It is a claim historian Aykut Kansu fiercely denies. His speech, he
points out, was due to be about Turks who saved Armenians.
“History in Turkey is too often seen as a matter of public policy,
adhering to ideology rather than free debate,” he says. “The taboo on
1915 is just an extreme version of that.” He knows all about the
political pressures on Turkish universities.
In July he was sacked from his history chair at a well-respected
private university for openly questioning near-hagiographical
official accounts of Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
The conference decision comes less than a month after another court
charged Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s best-known novelist, with “slandering
Turkey’s name.”
Pamuk could face up to three years in prison for telling a Swiss
newspaper this February that “one million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds”
had been killed in Turkey.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Independent (London)
September 24, 2005, Saturday
EU REBUKE FOR TURKEY AFTER JUDGES BAN CONFERENCE
BY STEPHEN CASTLE IN BRUSSELS
Turkey received a direct rebuke from the European Commission
yesterday after a Turkish court ordered the cancellation of a
conference of historians to discuss the massacre of Armenians early
in the last century.
Coming just 10 days before Ankara is due to open EU membership
negotiations, the court order prompted an unusually blunt
condemnation from the Commission, which described it as ‘yet another
provocation’.
Last night efforts were under way to salvage the conference and
bypass the legal ruling by holding it today at a new location.
But the court order, which was condemned by the Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, is a reminder of how far Turkey still needs to travel
to guarantee freedom of expression.
Evidence of the power of the conservatives in Turkish society is
likely to embolden critics of the country’s EU membership bid.
However Ankara’s supporters say that internal reforms will only
continue if Turkey is given the prospect of joining the bloc.
The row is unlikely to derail plans to start EU membership
negotiations on 3 October in Luxembourg. The two leading sceptics
over Turkey’s EU membership, France and Cyprus, have been placated by
language in a declaration stating that Ankara must recognise Cyprus
before it joins the EU. Austria is isolated in its efforts to inject
a new pledge that the negotiations could lead to a ‘privileged
partnership’ instead of full membership.
But the European Commission’s spokeswoman for enlargement, Krisztina
Nagy, said: ‘We strongly deplore this new attempt to prevent Turkish
society from freely discussing its history. The timing of this
decision the day before the opening of the conference looks like yet
another provocation.’ She said the court order ‘illustrates the
difficulties of Turkey, and in particular of the judiciary, to ensure
effective and uniform implementation of the reforms’.
The killing of Armenians during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
remains a sensitive issue. A number of countries have recognised the
massacres as genocide though that description is flatly rejected by
Turkey.
The furore comes after one of Turkey’s most acclaimed writers, Orhan
Pamuk, was charged with insulting the country’s national character.
The charges, arising out of comments made on Turkey’s killing of
Armenians and Kurds, could lead to a prison sentence of up to three
years.
The conference, which had already been postponed once, was scheduled
to be held at Bogazici University. Aydin Ugur, president of Istanbul
Bilgi University, said the gathering would take place this morning at
Bilgi. He said the court’s order was directed at two other
universities, and had ‘nothing to do with Bilgi’. But Laurent
Leylekian, executive director of the European Armenian Federation,
said: ‘We would be surprised if this kind of conference takes place
in Turkey. There is no will in the government to open the Armenian
file because this issue is deeply linked with the founding of the
Turkish republic.’
One EU diplomat described the court order as ‘stupid’ but added: ‘It
is not going to cause a problem between now and 3 October. The EU has
been very ready to criticise but not so ready to come through with
its commitments.’
The Commission said it would note the issue in its annual report on
candidate countries which is used as a yardstick of the membership
preparation.

The Independent (London)
September 24, 2005, Saturday
48 HOURS IN TEHRAN;
IT MIGHT NOT BE AN OBVIOUS DESTINATION, BUT THE IRANIAN CAPITAL IS
BY ANDREW BURKE
Night market: vibrant red pomegranates in a bazaar (above); workers
on the Imam Khomeini grand mosque EPA; Reuters
WHY GO NOW?
Tehran is the big, buzzing, beating heart of one of the world’s
friendliest, most beautiful and misunderstood nations. Autumn weather
is ideal for exploring Iran’s dynamic capital.
TOUCH DOWN
British Mediterranean flies daily from Heathrow to Tehran on behalf
of British Airways (0870 850 9850; ). Iran Air (020-7409
0971; ) also offers non-stop flights three times a
week from Heathrow. From Birmingham, you can fly twice a week on
Mahan Air (0121 554 1555; ). Connections are
available in a wide range of cities, including Amsterdam, Istanbul
and Dubai. Emirates (0870 243 2222; ) flies via the
latter from Gatwick, Heathrow, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow.
Flights coming from or via the Gulf states land at the new Imam
Khomeini International Airport (Ikia), 35km south of Tehran; a taxi
into town costs about IR90,000 (£5.50). Flights from Europe arrive at
Mehrabad Airport and taxis from here cost about IR40,000 (£2.50).
>From October 2 all international flights are supposed to land at
Ikia, but you should check with your airline before you leave. Recent
liberalisation of immigration means that many travellers can get a
seven-day visa on arrival ” but unfortunately this does not include
British passport holders, who should check www.iran- embassy.org.uk
for details of red tape. Women are required to wear a headscarf in
any public place, including the airport.
GET YOUR BEARINGS
Tehran sprawls across the southern slopes of the Alborz Mountains and
follows a loose north-south grid. Southern Tehran is older and
poorer, but is also home to many of the sights and hotels. Valiasr
Avenue runs 17km from the train station in the south to the clearer
air of Tajrish in the north. It’s lined by shops virtually the whole
way, with brand- laden boutiques more prevalent the further north you
go. The slowly expanding Tehran Metro () is
useful, though taxis are cheap and easier. Incredibly for a city of
14 million, there is no tourist information office.
CHECK IN
The Laleh International Hotel (1) on Dr Hossein Fatemi Avenue (00 98
21 8896 5021; www.lalehhotel. com) overlooks central Laleh Park and
has doubles for $ 152 (£85). More fun is the Hotel Naderi (2) on
Jomhuri-ye Eslami Avenue (00 98 21 6670 1872), where for $ 30 (£18) a
large double room comes complete with bakelite telephones and
1950s-era furniture. Light sleepers should get a room at the back,
however. Downstairs, the Cafe Naderi is a meeting place of artists
and intellectuals. For budget travellers, the welcoming Firouzeh
Hotel (3) on Dolat Abadi Alley, just off Amir Kabir Street (00 98 21
311 3508; www.firouzeh hotel.com), is the best choice with spotless
doubles for IR120,000 (£7).
TAKE A HIKE
Begin at Tajrish Square (4) and walk up to Darband, a village on the
side of the mountain that has in recent years been swallowed by the
spread of the city. Tehranis love the teahouses and trails that
spread out from Darband, and hiking for a couple of hours on a Friday
afternoon before stopping for tea and qalyan (water pipe) is the
quintessential Tehran experience.
TAKE A RIDE
Take the Tehran Metro to Behesht-e Zahra (5), the vast cemetery where
tens of thousands of soldiers ‘martyred’ in the Iran-Iraq War are
buried. Wandering through the graves, each topped with a glass box
containing photos and mementoes, is quite sobering. From here, walk
over to the gargantuan Holy Shrine of Imam Khomeini (6), which is
still under construction 16 years after the ayatollah died.
WINDOW SHOPPING
Tehran Bazaar is the largest market in Iran and while there aren’t
many windows, the 10km of covered alleys are home to just about every
consumer item you can imagine. The various commodities are grouped
together, with alleys dedicated to spices, goldsmiths, cobblers,
tailors, tobacconists and, of course, Persian carpet merchants.
Forget about navigating, just walk through the main entrance (7) at
15 Khordad Avenue and wander. If it’s carpets you seek, never fear ”
the vendors will find you.
LUNCH ON THE RUN
For a quick meal it’s hard to beat dizi, a delicious soup-stew
combination of lamb, chickpeas and flat bread cooked and served in a
stone jar. You’ll find it in any chaykhuneh (teahouse), though the
Azari Traditional Restaurant (8) on Valiasr Avenue (00 98 21 5537
6702) and Agha Bozorg (9) at 28 Keshavarz Blvd (00 98 21 8890 0522)
are good options.
CULTURAL AFTERNOON
Start at the National Museum of Iran (10) on Si Tir Street (00 98 21
6670 2061) where remarkable exhibits from the ancient Persian capital
of Persepolis include a bull-headed stone capital, a cuneiform
inscription immodestly describing Xerxes closeness to the gods, and a
magnificent frieze of glazed tiles from the Apadana Palace. It’s open
9am-4.45pm daily except Monday, admission IR10,000 (60p). From the
museum, head south a couple of blocks to the Golestan Palace (11),
just off Ark Square. The numerous palaces were built by the Qajar
shahs (1779-1926), who helped pay for these and other excesses by
selling state assets. The palace (00 98 21 3311 3335;
) opens 9am-3pm daily except Sunday and
Thursday, admission IR4,000 (25p) per building.
AN APERITIF
Alcohol is not entirely banned in Iran. If you must have a drink,
then head to the Armenian Club (12) at 68 Khark Street (00 98 21 6670
0521). In this somewhat surreal place, Tehran’s Armenian Christian
community and non-Muslim visitors are permitted to drink (in
moderation, of course) with their meals ” and, if you are a woman,
you may take off your headscarf.
DINING WITH THE LOCALS
Khayyam Traditional Restaurant (13) on Khayyam Street (00 98 21 5580
0760) in southern Tehran serves a good range of Persian classics in a
wonderfully restored, 300-year-old building. More local is Khoshbin
Restaurant (14) on Sa’di Street (00 98 21 3390 2194), which
specialises in mouthwatering Caspian cuisine and the heavenly mirza
ghasemi. There’s no sign in English; look for fish in the window.
SUNDAY MORNING: GO TO CHURCH
The Armenian Christian community attends mass at Sarkis Cathedral
(15) on Karim Khan-e Zand Street. The 1960s cathedral is no Notre
Dame, but worshippers are welcome on Sundays.
OUT TO BRUNCH
Jaam-e Jam Food Court (16) on the corner of Valiasr Avenue and Taheri
Street doesn’t sound that exciting, but Iran’s first food court is
ideal for people-watching. Sit with coffee and pastry and watch
heavily made- up women make eyes at eligible young men.
A WALK IN THE PARK
With no pubs, Tehranis love hanging out in parks in the afternoons
and evenings. One of the busiest is Mellat Park (17), off Valiasr
Avenue, where young couples hone their flirting skills over tea,
ice-cream and, for the more energetic, paddleboats.
ICING ON THE CAKE
If you like the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London, you’re going to
love the National Jewels Museum (18) on Ferdosi Street (00 98 21 6446
3785). Here in an underground vault are displayed the pick of the
diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls and gold amassed by various
dynasties of Persian rulers. Highlights include the 182-carat Sea of
Light diamond; the 34kg Globe of Jewels, with its 51,366 precious
stones; and the Peacock Throne (though it’s not the one stolen from
India). The museum keeps short hours ” 2-4.30pm Saturday to Tuesday,
admission IR30,000 (£2) ” so time your run.

Financial Times (London, England)
September 23, 2005 Friday
London Edition 1
Turkish academics grasp nettle on Armenians: Bosphorus University is
hoping to avoid trouble this weekend when it finally holds a
controversial conference,
By VINCENT BOLAND
There is no moresensitive issue in Turkey’s 20thcentury history. The
country’s most celebrated writer faces jail for mentioning it. But
this weekend Bosphorus University plans to go ahead with a
conference, on the fate of Turkish Armenians at the end of the
Ottoman empire, that has been delayed for months after a government
minister accused the university of treason.
The meeting will be the first to discuss the issue outside official
control and will be closely watched for any hint that Turkey’s
democratic credentials fail to meet the standards expected of a
candidate for European Union membership.
As it prepares to begin the long process of joining the EU, Ankara
seems ready to address many contentious issues, such as Cyprus or the
plight of the country’s ethnic Kurds. But it appears paralysed on the
question of the Armenians.
Armenia claims that 1.5m Armenians died as a result of genocide by
Ottoman troops beginning in 1915, before the republic of Turkey was
created. Turkey maintains the death toll was much lower and that the
deaths were caused by deportation, war and hunger. Many historians
and some governments take Armenia’s side.
Two recent events highlight the sensitivity of the issue and what
could be at stake in this weekend’s conference, which will be
attended and addressed solely by Turkish historians. When the
university announced the gathering, to be held originally in late
May, there were fierce protests by republican and nationalist
politicians and academics at other universities and a government
minister accused the institution of “stabbing the country in the
back”.
The university capitulated, worried that hundreds of students from
universities in Anatolia, which are far more nationalist than
Bosphorus, would descend on the conference and disrupt the
proceedings. It rescheduled the conference for this weekend, with far
less publicity and a heightened sense of security.
The second event, which has given the conference proceedings added
significance, is the prosecution of Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s most
celebrated writer. Earlier this year he told a foreign magazine that
“30,000 Kurds and 1m Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody
but me dares to talk about it”. He has now been charged with the
“public denigration of Turkish identity” for this statement, and
faces up to three years in jail if convicted in a trial set for
December.
The fact that this weekend’s conference is going ahead is a small
victory for civil rights in Turkey, while Mr Pamuk’s prosecution is a
large setback.
It is possible to discuss Armenia today in a way that was not
possible five years ago, some commentators say, but only on certain
terms. Ragip Duran, a journalist and communications lecturer at
Galatasaray University who has been jailed for his work, says: “It is
OK to talk about sensitive issues (such as Armenia), but only in a
certain national context. The Orhan Pamuk case is the best example of
the breaking of this taboo.”
The conference is not adopting Mr Pamuk’s provocative stance. Ayhan
Aktar, a professor at Marmara University who will attend, says it is
not aimed specifically at discussing or endorsing the genocide claim,
as some of its critics alleged in May, although participants may
choose to do so. The title of the proceedings – Ottoman Armenians
during the era of Ottoman decline – is neutral.
Still, it is significant that the conference is going ahead before
October 3, when Turkey begins its EU accession process.
The controversy in May rattled the government, despite the
contribution to the affair of Cemil Cicek, the justice minister, who
made the “treason” allegation against Bosphorus University.
Several participating academics say the government, which likes to
trumpet its pluralist instincts, urged the university to reschedule
the event for this weekend.
Nonetheless, ministers are being careful not to be identified too
closely with the event and the publicity it is sure to generate.
According to the university, there will be no official presence.
That is unlikely to affect the quality of the debate. But whether it
affects the public perception of the conference and its findings
remains to be seen.