TURKEY’S STRUGGLES WITH HISTORY
Armen Tamzarian
Los Angeles Times
September 12, 2005 Monday
Home Edition
In recalling Henry Morgenthau’s role as U.S. ambassador to the
Ottoman Empire, your editorial “Turkey’s war with history” (Sept. 8)
unfortunately accepts a one-sided perspective of history as fact.
Claims by Morgenthau of genocide at the end of the Ottoman period
have never been legally substantiated.
This issue, like many in history, defies one-sided interpretations.
As a result, Turkey opened its Ottoman archives to researchers. And
earlier this year, the prime minister issued an unprecedented proposal
to Armenia’s president for an impartial study of the matter by Turkish
and Armenian historians, the results of which will be shared with
the international community.
We hope Armenian expatriates in the U.S. and elsewhere will support
this endeavor, as we seek a reconciliation that will allow us to look
forward to a peaceful and prosperous future.
Regarding novelist Orhan Pamuk, although no authority can interfere
with the constitutionally independent justice system in Turkey,
all previous charges against him for similar acts resulted with no
grounds for further legal action.
ENGIN ANSAY o7Turkish consul general f7o7Los Angeles
*
f7In its editorial, The Times carefully avoided using the word
“genocide” to describe what happened to Armenians between 1915-1918.
There is no excuse for this omission. Every internationally accepted
legal definition of genocide applies. Rafael Lemkin, who coined
the term genocide, described the annihilation of the Armenians as
genocide. So too have prominent historians of the history of genocide
in the 20th century. It’s time for The Times to do the same.

IRAQ GROUP THREATENS TO KILL LEBANESE HOSTAGE
Agence France Presse — English
September 11, 2005 Sunday 7:10 PM GMT
A previously unheard of group in Iraq threatened to kill a Lebanese
hostage it accused of working with a liquor distribution firm that
“deals with the occupiers,” according to a video posted on the
Internet Sunday.
“The Group for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” said
it had “captured an importer of food and liquor in Baghdad who works
for a company that deals directly with the crusader occupiers of Iraq.”
It demanded the company’s “withdrawal from Iraq as soon as possible
in order to free the Lebanese hostage — otherwise woe on him and you.”
The hostage, who speaking in Arabic gave the Armenian name of Garabet
Jean Chekerjian, said he held dual Lebanese and Cypriot nationality.
He was shown in the footage sitting on the floor with his hands and
feet tied.
A hooded gunman pointed an automatic weapon at his head.
Official sources in Beirut said the government was aware of the
reported kidnapping and had given instructions to its charge d’affaires
in Baghdad, Hassan Hijazi, to contact the Iraqi authorities and
“any other party” that might help secure his release.
The hostage exhorted Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and the embassy
in Baghdad to put pressure on his employers to pull out of Iraq.
“I hold dual Lebanese and Cypriot nationality and I work with the
branches of the Jeto Trading company in Lebanon, Cyprus and Iraq. The
company supplies foodstuffs and alcoholic beverages to the occupation
forces and the Iraqi army,” he said.
“I urge the company to leave Iraq and I ask the Lebanese embassy to
put pressure on the company and its owner to sever links with the
occupation forces and the Iraqi army.”
Addressing his boss Gebran Tomeh, as well as Lahoud, the captive called
on all Lebanese companies to quit Iraq, which he said was occupied
“as Lebanon had been 15 years ago.”
Dozens of foreigners have been kidnapped by anti-US insurgents in
Iraq and some have been executed by their captors.
About 30 Lebanese working for private companies in Iraq have been
kidnapped and later freed, most of them in exchange for a ransom. But
in September 2004, one Lebanese national was killed by his captors
and three others died during an attempted kidnap.

REPRESENTATIVES OF SELF-PROCLAIMED REPUBLICS SET TO GATHER IN MOSCOW
RIA Novosti
September 12, 2005
MOSCOW, September 12 (RIA Novosti) – A conference dedicated to the
problems of self-proclaimed republics in the former Soviet Union will
be held in Moscow September 14-15, a spokesman for the CIS Institute,
a Moscow based think tank on the Commonwealth of Independent States,
said Monday.
Delegations from self-proclaimed republics, Russian parliamentarians,
academics, and prominent political scientists will attend the
conference, “A Parallel CIS: Abkhazia, Transdnestr, South Ossetia
and Nagorny Karabakh as realities of post-Soviet space,” which is
co-organized by the CIS Institute.
Igor Smirnov, the president of the breakaway republic of Transdnestr
in Moldova, Stanislav Lakoba, the secretary of the Security Council
of Abzkhazia, a self-proclaimed republic in western Georgia, and
Konstantin Pukhayev, the minister of culture of South Ossetia, a
self-proclaimed republic in northern Georgia, will all attend the
event, as will Kamo Atayan, the minister of education of Nagorny
Karabakh, a territory disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The participants will hold a round table September 15 “On freedom
of religion in the conflict zones,” which is organized by the human
rights committee of the InterParliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy.
The spokesman added that parliamentarians from Russia, Syria,
Palestine, Estonia, and Armenia, and church officials from conflict
zone countries around the world would contribute to the discussion.

ARMENIAN ELECTRICITY NETWORKS COULD BE PURCHASED BY RUSSIAN CONCERN
RIA Novosti
September 12, 2005
EREVAN, September 12 (RIA Novosti, Gamlet Matevosyan) – Midland
Resources Holding Ltd, a British company, has requested permission from
the Armenian government to sell its 100% stake in Armenian Electricity
Networks (AEN) shares, a spokesman for the Public Services Regulatory
Commission of Armenia said Monday.
According to Armenian energy legislation, the company is not entitled
to sell its shares in the AEN without obtaining permission from the
Armenian government and the committee.
Midland Resources, which acquired a 100% of AEN shares at $40 million,
lent shares to the Russian company Interenergo for a 99-year term at
an estimated cost of $73 million, while retaining its ownership of
the stock.
Interenergo is a joint venture, 60% owned by the Russian Inter Unified
Energy System, the asset of the state holding Russian Unified Energy
System, and 40% owned by the Rosenergoatom concern, a state-owned –
and the world’s largest – nuclear power generating company.
Inter UES, the export-import electricity operator, has trade deals
on electricity supply with Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan,
China, Moldova, Mongolia, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Ukraine
and Finland. It also manages energy facilities in Armenia, Georgia,
Moldova and Russia.

KATRINA BLOWS AWAY BUSH’S DEFENCES
New Statesman
September 12, 2005
It has been axiomatic in some polite circles, including those on the
British centre left, to sing the praises of the American approach to
enterprise and governance. The freewheeling US market is the example
zealously copied across much of the developed and developing world,
particularly when set against the “over-regulated” and “burdensome”
model of Old Europe. American con-sultants, and others schooled in
the American way, have reaped rich returns for advising Armenians
and Koreans and Estonians on the way ahead. They lecture on how
small government and low taxation provide the key to success and
contentment. Supposedly intelligent thinkers are falling for their
latest wheeze, the flat tax, whose flaws Nick Pearce explains on
page 19.
Hurricane Katrina has shattered the myths. The New Statesman makes this
point not out of schadenfreude or anti-Americanism. After all, the
victims of this horrific act of nature and horrific act of political
and economic neglect were already victims of a way of life that has
run to excess.
Ignore, if you can, issues of morality and equity. Focus purely,
as boardroom executives might suggest, on efficiency. In his essay,
on page 10, Andrew Stephen explains the underlying causes of the New
Orleans disaster. Across the US, the relationship between the private
sector and the public sector (where it exists) is dysfunctional. The
relationship between federal, state and local levels is, as Katrina
has demonstra- ted, confused. For all the talk of deregulation,
monopolistic practices dominate corporate life, from multinationals
to the US department of defence. The greatest restrictive practice
of all, however, has been the extreme ideology that took root under
Ronald Reagan and found its apogee, or nadir, under George W Bush. A
political system that denigrates the role of the public sector
(except the military) will ultimately pay the price, both socially
and economically. The White House saved tens of millions of dollars
by refusing repeated requests for assistance from Louisiana and other
state governments in recent years. Those sums were small in overall
budgetary terms; they will be an equally small fraction of the cost
of rebuilding an area as large as the British mainland. Anarchy and
civil strife make bad long-term economics.
Possibly, just possibly, something good might emerge from the
calamity. For the first time since Bush came to office, the usually
supine US media – which some sections of the British press had
fashionably praised for their “objectivity” – have begun to criticise
the president and his entourage. They have begun to ask those very
questions that we in Europe have never tired of asking. Is the
president not merely ideologically blinkered but incompetent, too?
How much damage is he inflicting on his own people, let alone those
abroad?
Mainstream journalists have even been challenging the extremes of
the US version of the market. Nicholas Kristof showed in the New
York Times that, according to several indices of quality of life and
standards of civilisation, the US lags behind. Infant mortality is
twice as high in Washington, DC as it is in Beijing. Some 1.1 million
more Americans were living in poverty in 2004 than the previous year.
The proportion has risen 17 per cent under Bush. Kristof concludes
that not only were funds for protecting New Orleans diverted towards
Bush’s Iraq debacle, but money earmarked for vaccinations for children
went towards tax cuts for the wealthy.
America is lumbered with one of the most dangerous presidents in its
history. The only consolation from the devastation of the past days
is that, finally, voters in that country may be realising why.
No academies for bigots
When 96 per cent of readers responding to our online vote (page 37)
endorse the proposition that Tony Blair should end his support for
faith schools, it is an indication, to put it no higher, of general
agreement. Few of the arguments put forward by those readers could be
called extreme: religion is a personal matter and not one in which the
state should meddle; tax receipts should not subsidise the promotion
of any religion; children deserve the broadest access possible to
ideas. Further, faith schools may have a tendency to “ghettoise”
communities, and they may teach as fact notions with no foundation
in science or history, without supplying the equipment to evaluate
those notions critically.
The government, which is to announce its plans in the next few
weeks, has already turned its back on these arguments. Though this is
regrettable and baffling, it is also the case that even if ministers
embraced such principles their hands are tied. Subsidised faith
schools have been around for 60 years and more, and to do away with
them would require an upheaval that only overwhelming public demand
would justify. Such demand does not yet exist, however much we might
wish it did. It is also the case that many of the faith schools eager
to join the state system are Muslim schools, and to slam the door
on them now, when Christian and Jewish schools have had public money
for many years, would be an act of religious discrimination.
The pass has been sold, but all principle need not be sacrificed. We
are entitled to insist that toleration and citizenship be taught
well in these schools and that pupils be exposed to ideas beyond the
confines of religious dogma. No pupil taught at state expense, for
example, should be left in ignorance of evolution and its scientific
basis. This government is besotted with Ofsted. Very well, let Ofsted
be deployed with unprecedented vigour to ensure that faith schools,
if they must have our money, are never academies for bigots.

NOT REGISTERED
by Vasily Mikhailov
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
September 12, 2005, Monday
SOURCE: Voyenno-Promyshlenny Kurier, No 33, September 7-13, 2005, p.
1, 9
(…) On the international level, there is still no united treatment
of how one must struggle against terrorism. The lists of extremist
organizations vary.
(…)
In spite of the all-world acknowledgement of the terrorism existence,
each country decides independently, what principles to pay attention to
when determining rival groupings. As a sequence, there is no terrorist
organization, which is present in all lists simultaneously.
So, in the UNO list there is no Al-Qaeda, as the UNO committee on the
struggle against terrorism is not sure, that this organization exists.
(…)
In the European Union, the Framing decision from June 13, 2002, became
the basis for formation of the list of terrorist organizations. It is
oriented at struggle against terrorism at the expense of criminal codex
standards. At the same time, in the EU they decided not to involve
into discussions concerning the term “terrorism” and introduced the
concept “a terrorist crime”. That let Europeans treat queries of
other countries selectively, which concern extradition of terrorist
figures, as it takes place concerning Movladi Udugov, for instance,
who is accused of terrorism in Russia.
(…)
According to the estimations of political scientists, the American
list can also be doubted. There are two ways for any organization
to appear in it. The first one is very simple – to kill an American
citizen. The second one is more complicated – one must set out against
the government of that country, for which the US owes something. As
it is considered, because of the death of one American citizen during
the capturing of hostages in Moscow (fall of 2002), and not because of
some other reasons, three Chechen organizations appeared in the black
list of the State Department. These were considered to participate in
that act of terrorism by Americans – Islamite International Brigade,
Islamite Regiment of Special Destination and Brigade of shakhids
Riyadus Salihijn. At the same time, the representative of the state
department noted especially, that the US does not consider all Chechen
warriors to be the terrorists. (…)
British and Canadian lists are created in a simpler way. The Canadians
compile lists of the State Department and UNO, while the British take
the EU list as the basis and add the terrorist organizations, which
are supported in the territory of the United Kingdom. That is why,
in the British list, as nowhere else, there are so much Indian and
Pakistan groupings.
Work under formation lists of terrorist and extremist organizations is
done (at various stages, however) in almost all coalitional structures
in the post-Soviet territory. However, within the frames of Agreement
Organization on Collective Security (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan) national lists exist only in four
countries out of six. There are not any in Armenia and Belarus.
At present, within the frames of OASC there is work on forming The
United List of terrorist and extremist organizations, which are a
threat for the collective security of OASC.
Who is the main terrorist in the post-Soviet territory? This task
is being solved by the Antiterrorist center (ATC) in the CIS. But
this work, according to the data of our sources, is at the stage of
receiving and generalizing of national lists from states-participants
of the Community “on organizations and persons, involved in terrorist
and extremist activity”. Besides, the document to concord was sent to
the states, which is analogous to the “Way of formation the United
list…” the work under which is going on in the frames of OASC. In
the beginning of June 2005, head of the department on struggle against
terrorism and drug aggression of the Executive committee of the CIS,
I. Yurkin, declared that “competent organs prepare a common list of
terrorist organizations and groupings, abandoned in the territory
of the CIS”. But on the level of the managing organs, there were
not such decisions. They will hardly be made. Since, for example,
Azerbaijan considers the Armenian President to be the main terrorist.
In Shanghai Organization of Cooperating (SOC), the Regional
antiterrorist structure (RATS) solves this problem. By the present
moment, lists of the SOC-countries have been gathered together. “The
list of terrorist, separatist and extremist organizations” was approved
on its basis at the board of RATS council. The acceptance of any
coordinated measures of law enforcement character in the respect of
the given organizations and persons, is not foreseen. There was not
a single decision on the question on the level of the SOC managing
structures. At the board of the Committee of secretaries of Security
Councils of the SOC countries in June of 2005, only the decision “to
speed up the preparation of a common list of terrorist organizations
and persons involved in terrorism” was made.
In the Organization of Central Asian Union (OCAU) this task was set
in October 2004, at the board of Security Council heads. Heads of
security departments, law enforcement organs and structures on the
guard of the state boundaries will occupy themselves with its decision.
As we can see, the task of forming the lists of terrorist and
extremist organizations is set before many states and international
joints. However, there is a number of serious problems, among which one
can point out absence of norms of national antiterrorist legislations,
absence of united treatment of the concept “terrorism”, which is
politicized often.
The coalitional structures in the post-Soviet territory often face
the same problems. In particular, the work on forming the Concept
of the CIS countries on struggle against international terrorism is
restrained. It must have been approved in Astana (June of 2004!) at the
board of the Presidents. But it was sent for revision by a decision,
made at the united board of MFA heads, the Coordination Council
of General Prosecutors, the Council of Internal Affairs Ministers
and Special Powers, the Council of Boundary troops commanders, the
Coordination council of tax (finance) research heads, the Council of
heads of customs services of the CIS countries, which took place on
April 8, 2004, in Kyiv. The decision was postponed because of lots
of discords. (…)
According to the experts’ opinions, the introduction of concepts
“terrorism, separatism and extremism” to the Shanghai Convention
on the struggle against terrorism did not solve the problem. It is
important for SOC to pay attention to separatism, on the Chinese
initiative. Uzbekistan insists on struggle against religious
extremism. Almost all religious organizations existing in the republic
and their leaders were introduced to the SOC list, and all Uigur
organizations, on the Chinese initiative. It is clear, that other
SOC participants do not divide such treatment of terrorism. So, the
common treatment of terrorism will hardly appear at the international
level in the near future.
List of terrorist and extremist organizations, complied by OASC
countries
1. Al-Qaeda (in the Russian Federation list – Base)
2. Absat al-Ansar
3. Muslem Brothers
4. Eastern-Turkestan Islamite
5. Supreme military Majilisul Shura of Joint Forces of the Caucasian
mojaheds
6. Taliban movement
7. House of two relics
8. Islamite grouping
9. Islamite grouping (DI)
10. Islamite bloc of Turkestan
11. Congress of Ichkeria and Dagestan people
12. Lashkar-I-Tayba (LT)
13. People’s Congress of Kurdistan
14. Society of restoration of Islamite Legacy
15. Society of social reforms
16. Organization of Turkestan liberation
17. Bloc of Islamite liberation
18. Sacred war
19. Islamite Bloc of Eastern Turkestan
20. Sect Aum Senrike
21. Sect White Brotherhood
22. Sect Satan’s Church

LETTER TO THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
Rick Jones, Prague
The International Herald Tribune, France
September 10, 2005 Saturday
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR;
Europe in Turkey
Foreign Minister Jack Straw of Britain laid out a very compelling
case for Turkey’s admission to the European Union (“Shift Europe’s
boundary,” Views, Sept. 8).
Not only was Turkey’s long membership in NATO cited, but Turkey’s
recent efforts at making massive internal reform were noted as a
further reason to endorse the country’s bid for EU membership. What
Straw did not address was how EU membership would change Turkey.
In the near past, Turkey’s major cities, like other cities in
the Middle East, were multilingual, multicultural, with competing
religions. Major cities in Turkey were enclaves where foreign culture
ruled the day.
This did not come to pass by accident. It was the result of hundreds
of years of economic development and each non-Turkish group filled
in a gap in the marketplace.
Today, ethnic Turks or integrated minorities who have adopted the
culture dominate all spheres of life. Do Turks realize that one of
the major results of EU membership would be an opening up of Turkey
to foreign influences? Does the average Turkish citizen know that
alternative cultures, religions and languages will set up shop
in Turkey?
A European Turkey will not look like the Turkey we all know today. It
will be less Turkish, more Greek, more Armenian, more French,
more Italian.
On the road to prosperity many Turks will not only be exposed to
strange and foreign cultures but they will be required to accept
them. Are the people of Turkey up for that ?
Istanbul will once again become the cosmopolitan center for Eurasia.
The conservative and family oriented values that are prevalent in
Turkey are likely to come into conflict with modern European culture
in which almost anything goes. This may be a shock.
I fear that the Turkish government has painted a very rosy picture
and left out how Turkey will be transformed into a country that many
citizens would not recognize.

CSTO CHIEF TO WATCH JOINT RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN DRILL
ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
September 12, 2005 Monday 5:23 AM Eastern Time
Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO) Nikolai Bordyuzha flew to Armenia on Monday to watch a joint
Russian-Armenian drill, the CSTO’s secretariat told Itar-Tass.
The exercise practices protection and defense of CSTO member-states
by Russian-Armenia units,” Bordyuzha told reporters before flying
to Yerevan.
“Taking part in the military exercise are two motorized rifle
regiments, representing each of the party, as well as support units.
This drill is important for us as an element of combat training,”
he underlined.
Bordyuzha praised Armenia’s contribution to collective security
efforts.
The exercise will take place in Armenia from September 10 throughout
September 13, in line with bilateral accords. It involves Armenian land
troops and Air Force units and units from Russia’s 102nd military base,
the CSTO secretariat said.

AZERBAIJAN BLAMING AGAIN
A1+
| 14:40:04 | 12-09-2005 | Politics |
In the session of the UN Combat against drug trafficking sub-committee
which is taking place in September 12-18 in Baku, Azerbaijan is
going to raise the issue of drug trafficking “in the lands captured
by Armenia”.
Head of the State Committee for Combat Against Drug Trafficking,
deputy Prime Minister Ali Hasanov has announced that drug trafficking
puts the political, economic and social stability of the region at
hazard. According to Hasanov, the UN member countries must pay greater
attention to this problem.

TURKEY UNWILLING TO REACH FRIENDLY SETTLEMENT ON MINORITY FOUNDATIONS
Anatolia news agency
12 Sep 05
Ankara, 12 September: Turkey has no intention to reach a friendly
settlement agreement at this stage regarding the hearing before the
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) about real estate held by some
minority foundations, it was reported on Monday [12 September]. The
issue will be debated on 20 September.
Turkish MFA said the ECHR would hear the cases submitted by Yedikule
Surp Pirgic Armenian Hospital Foundation and Fener Greek Boys High
School Foundation, against Turkey.
Sources said MFA requested information, documents and views from
the related institutions pertaining to their allegations, and that
the jurists prepared a document reflecting the views of the Turkish
government.
Sources recalled that ECHR decided to hold a joint hearing on the
two applications, and stated: “Turkey has no intention for a friendly
settlement at this stage.”
The minority foundations claim that articles of the European Convention
on Human Rights about protection of property, anti-discrimination
and on right to a fair judgment, were violated by Turkey.
Related chamber of the ECHR will make its decision at a later date
after listening to the pleas of the lawyers of the foundations and
the Turkish government.