AMID DEEPENING CRACKS IN POST-SOVIET PACT, LEADERS OF FORMER REPUBLICS TO HOLD SUMMIT
By MIKE ECKEL
The Associated Press
08/25/05 13:19 EDT
KAZAN, Russia (AP) – Leaders from 12 former Soviet republics meet here
Friday amid deepening cracks in the alliance and growing efforts by
some members to temper Russia’s influence in the region and increase
ties with the West.
President Vladimir Putin will host the meeting of the Commonwealth
of Independent States against the backdrop of millennial anniversary
celebrations in this central Russian city some 720 kilometers (450
miles) east of Moscow.
Mass upheavals in Ukraine and Georgia, which brought pro-Western
leaders to power, have threatened to pull the CIS apart. Their
presidents – Viktor Yushchenko and Mikhail Saakashvili – met at a
Georgian spa two weeks ago and discussed setting up a new regional
alliance to champion democracy in former Soviet space.
The Commonwealth of Democratic Choice, the two leaders said in a
statement, would “help usher in a new era of democracy, security,
stability and peace across Europe, from the Atlantic to the Caspian
Sea.”
Such a group would further irk Russia, which has always dominated the
CIS. Both Georgia and Ukraine have made membership in the European
Union and NATO priorities, and Moldova has taken a sharp Westward
turn – and Moscow’s ties with all three countries have consequently
deteriorated.
Russia has already showed signs it is trying to devise a new rubric
for dealing with former Soviet republics.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow should base its
relations on “international norms” – a hint that Russia may eventually
stop providing its substantial energy resources to the three countries
at subsidized prices.
The Foreign Ministry also said during a meeting of CIS foreign
ministers in Moscow this week that ways to reform the bloc were
also discussed.
Sergei Karaganov, of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policies,
a leading think-tank, called the CIS a defunct organization.
“The CIS, in its old form, is dead. It is no longer an integration
organization but, rather, a forum for consultations between state
leaders in the post-Soviet space,” Karaganov was quoted as saying by
the Interfax news agency.
The CIS was set up following the demise of the Soviet Union with the
aim of preserving economic and defense ties. It does not include the
Baltic states.
Also expected on the sidelines of the CIS summit is a meeting between
Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliev. Tensions between the two leaders’ countries remains high, more
than a decade after a cease-fire was signed ending open fighting over
the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Tens of thousands were killed and more than a million displaced in the
fighting, and the lack of resolution over the status of the enclave
– now controlled by ethnic Armenians – has impeded development in
the region.

REVISITING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
By Guenter Lewy
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2005
The debate over what happened to Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during
World War I remains acrimonious ninety years after it began. Armenians
say they were the victims of the first genocide of the twentieth
century. Most Turks say Armenians died during intercommunal fighting
and during a wartime relocation necessitated by security concerns
because the Armenians sympathized with and many fought on the side
of the enemy. For genocide scholars, the claims of the Armenians
have become incontrovertible historical fact. But many historians,
both in Turkey and the West, have questioned the appropriateness of
the genocide label.[1]
The ramifications of the dispute are wide-reaching. The Armenians,
encouraged by strong support in France, insist on a Turkish confession
and apology as a prerequisite for Turkey’s admission into the European
Union. Ankara’s relations with Yerevan remain frozen because of
the dispute. Across the West, Armenian activists try politically to
predetermine the historical debate by demanding various parliaments
pass resolutions recognizing the Armenian genocide.
The key issue in this controversy is not the extent of Armenian
suffering; both sides agree that several hundred thousand Christians
perished during the deportation of the Armenians from Anatolia to the
Syrian desert and elsewhere in 1915-16.[2] With little notice, the
Ottoman government forced men, women, and children from their homes.
Many died of starvation or disease during a harrowing trek over
mountains and through deserts. Others were murdered.
Historians do not dispute these events although they may squabble
over numbers and circumstances. Rather the key question in the
debate concerns premeditation. Did the Young Turk regime organize
the massacres that took place in 1916?
Most of those who maintain that Armenian deaths were premeditated
and so constitute genocide base their argument on three pillars:
the actions of Turkish military courts of 1919-20, which convicted
officials of the Young Turk government of organizing massacres of
Armenians, the role of the so-called “Special Organization” accused
of carrying out the massacres, and the Memoirs of Naim Bey[3] which
contain alleged telegrams of Interior Minister Talât Pasha conveying
the orders for the destruction of the Armenians. Yet when these events
and the sources describing them are subjected to careful examination,
they provide at most a shaky foundation from which to claim, let
alone conclude, that the deaths of Armenians were premeditated.
The Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919-20
Following the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I, a new government
formed and accused its predecessor Young Turk regime of serious crimes.
These accusations led to the court-martialing of the leadership of the
Committee on Union and Progress, the party that had seized and held
power since 1908, and other selected former officials. The charges
included subversion of the constitution, wartime profiteering, and
the massacres of both Greeks and Armenians.[4]
By all accounts, the chief reason for convening military tribunals was
pressure from victorious Allied states, which insisted on retributions
for the Armenian massacres. The Turks also hoped that by foisting
blame on a few members of the Committee on Union and Progress,
they might exculpate the rest of the Turkish nation and, thereby,
receive more lenient treatment at the Paris peace conference.[5]
The most famous trial took place in Istanbul, but it was not the first.
At least six regional courts convened in provincial cities where
massacres had occurred, but due to inadequate documentation, the
total number of courts is not known.[6] The first recorded tribunal
began on February 5, 1919, in Yozgat, the province which includes
Ankara, charging three Turkish officials, including the governor of
the district, with mass murder and plunder of Armenian deportees. On
April 8, the tribunal found two defendants guilty, and referred the
third to a different court. Two days after they passed the verdict,
local authorities hanged Mehmet Kemal, former kaymakam (governor)
of BoÄ~_azliyan and Yozgat. A large demonstration organized by
Committee on Union and Progress elements followed his funeral. The
British high commissioner in Turkey reported popular perception
“regard[ed] executions as necessary concessions to entente rather
than as punishment justly meted out to criminals.”[7]
The main trial began in Istanbul on April 28, 1919. Among the twelve
defendants were members of the Committee on Union and Progress
leadership and former ministers. Seven key figures, including Talât
Pasha, minister of interior; Enver Pasha, minister of war; and Cemal
Pasha, governor of Aleppo, had fled, and therefore, were tried in
absentia. “Embedded in the indictment,” writes Vahakn N. Dadrian,
the best-known defender of the Armenian position, were “forty-two
authenticated documents substantiating the charges therein, many
bearing dates, identification of senders of the cipher telegrams and
letters, and names of recipients.”[8] Among these documents is the
written deposition of General Vehib Pasha, commander of the Turkish
Third Army, who testified that “the murder and extermination of the
Armenians and the plunder and robbery of their property is the result
of decisions made by the central committee of Ittihad ve Terakki
[Committee on Union and Progress].”[9] The indictment quoted another
document in which a high-ranking deportation official, Abdulahad Nuri,
relates how Talât Pasha told him that “the purpose of the deportation
was destruction.”[10] On July 22, the court-martial found several
defendants guilty of subverting constitutionalism by force and found
them responsible for massacres. Talât, Enver, Cemal, and Nazim Bey,
a high Committee on Union and Progress official, were sentenced in
absentia to death while others received lengthy prison sentences.[11]
Despite widespread hatred of the discredited Young Turk regime,
the Turkish public was lukewarm to the trials of the Committee on
Union and Progress leadership. On April 4, 1919, Lewis Heck, the
U.S. high commissioner in Istanbul, reported that “it is popularly
believed that many of [the trials] are made from motives of personal
vengeance or at the instigation of the Entente authorities, especially
the British.”[12] Opposition to the trials increased after the Greek
army occupied Smyrna (Izmir) on May 15, which led to an outburst of
patriotic and nationalistic feeling.
Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a highly decorated
Turkish officer, a nationalist movement emerged that would eventually
overthrow the sultan’s government in Istanbul. From the beginning,
the Kemalists criticized the sultan for his abject surrender to the
Allies, and they increasingly expressed the fear that the trials were
part of a plan to partition the Ottoman Empire. On August 11, 1920,
the Kemalist government in Ankara ordered a stop to all court-martial
proceedings; the resignation of the last Ottoman cabinet on October
17, 1920, marked the end of the trials.[13]
Armenian writers have praised the contribution of the military
tribunals for their elucidation of historical truth, but such broad
conclusions are problematic given both the procedures of the trials
and questions over the reliability of their findings. The tribunals
lacked the basic requirements of due process. Few authors familiar
with Ottoman jurisprudence have a positive assessment, all the more
so with regard to military courts. The Ottoman penal code did not
acknowledge the right of cross-examination, and the role of the judge
was far more important than in the Anglo-American tradition. The
judge weighed the probative value of all evidence submitted during
the preparatory phase and during the trial, and he questioned the
accused.[14] At the 1919-20 trials, the presiding officer acted more
like a prosecutor than an impartial judge. Ottoman rules of procedure
also barred defense counsel access to pretrial investigatory files
and from accompanying their clients to pretrial interrogations.[15]
On May 6, 1919, at the third session of the main trial, defense counsel
challenged the court’s repeated references to the indictment as proven
fact, but the court rejected the objection.[16] Throughout the trials,
the court heard no witnesses, and the verdict rested entirely on
documents and testimony never subject to cross-examination. Heck
expressed disapproval that the defendants in the Yozgat court were
tried on the basis of “anonymous court material.”[17]
Probably the most serious problem affecting the probative value
of the 1919-20 military court proceedings is the loss of all their
documentation. What is known of the sworn testimony and depositions
is limited to that related secondhand in selected supplements of the
official gazette of the Ottoman government, Takvim-i Vekayi, and press
reports. What is not known is the accuracy of the transcription and
whether the newspapers reprinted all or only part of texts entered
as evidence.
According to Dadrian, “before being introduced as accusatory exhibits,
each and every official document was authenticated by the competent
staff personnel of the Interior Ministry who thereafter affixed on
the top part of the document: â~@~Xit conforms to the original.'”[18]
However, few historians would take period officials at their word
without verification. The historical weight of the Nuremberg trials,
for example, rests upon the sheer mass of original documentation. The
historical significance of the Nuremberg verdicts would be undercut had
the record of the trials been lost or not subject to outside review.
In the absence of complete original documents, historians examining the
Armenian question have relied only on selected excerpts and quotations.
For example, Dadrian related how the deposition of General Vehib Pasha,
commander of the Turkish Third Army, described Behaeddin Å~^akir,
one of the top Committee on Union and Progress leaders, as the man
who “procured and engaged in the command zone of the Third Army, the
butchers of human beings â~@¦ He organized gallows birds as well as
gendarmes and policemen with blood on their hand and blood in their
eyes.”[19] Parts of this deposition were included in the indictment
of the main trial and in the verdict of the Harput trial,[20]
but an indictment is not proof of guilt. The context of the quoted
remarks has been lost. While the entire text of the deposition was
allegedly read into the record of the Trabizond trial on March 29,
1919, the proceedings of this trial are not preserved in any source;
only the verdict is reprinted in the official gazette.
Contemporary Turkish authors dismiss the military tribunals of 1919-20
as tools of Allied retribution.[21] At the time, the victorious
Allies considered them a travesty of justice. The trials, British
high commissioner S.A.G. Calthorpe wrote to London, are “proving
to be a farce and injurious to our own prestige and to that of the
Turkish government.”[22] In the view of Commissioner John de Robeck,
the tribunal was such a failure “that its findings cannot be held
of any account at all.”[23] When the British government considered
holding trials of alleged Ottoman war criminals in Malta, it declined
to use any evidence developed by the 1919-20 Ottoman tribunals.
The Role of the TeÅ~_kilat-i Mahsusa
Several of the courts-martial held in 1919-20 made references to
the destructive role of a unit called TeÅ~_kilat-i Mahsusa (Special
Organization). Many proponents of the Armenian cause accept this
accusation. Dadrian described the members of this unit as the main
instrument used by the Committee on Union and Progress to carry out
its plan to exterminate the Armenians. “Their mission was to deploy in
remote areas of Turkey’s interior and to ambush and destroy convoys
of Armenian deportees,”[24] he wrote. The Special Organization’s
“principal duty was the execution of the Armenian genocide.”[25]
The Special Organization, which developed between 1903 and 1907,
only adopted its name in 1913. Under the direction of Enver Pasha
and the command of many talented officers, the Special Organization
functioned like a special forces outfit. Philip Stoddard, the author of
the only full scholarly study of the group, called it “a significant
unionist vehicle for dealing with both Arab separatism and Western
imperialism.” At its peak, it enrolled about 30,000 men. During World
War I, the Ottoman command used it for special military operations
in the Caucasus, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. In 1915, for example,
Special Organization units seized key oases along the Ottoman line
of advance against the Suez Canal. The regime also used the Special
Organization to suppress “subversion” and “possible collaboration”
with the external enemy. However, according to Stoddard, this activity
targeted primarily indigenous nationalists in Syria and Lebanon. The
Special Organization, he maintained, played no role in the Armenian
deportations.[26]
Yet, the main tribunal’s indictment accused the Special Organization
of carrying out “criminal operations and activities” against the
Armenians. According to Dadrian:
The Ittihadist [Unionist] leaders redeployed the brigand units for use
on the home front internally, namely against the Armenians. Through
a comprehensive sweep of the major cities, towns, and villages,
containing large clusters of Armenian populations, the Special
Organization units, with their commanding officers more or less intact,
set to work to carry out Ittihad’s blueprint of annihilation. [27]
Turkish as well as German civilian and military sources, Dadrian
maintained, confirm this information, including the employment of
convicts in Special Organization death squads. But Dadrian’s references
do not always prove his claims. While the Ottoman government released
convicts during World War I in order to increase its manpower pool
for military service, there is no evidence beyond the indictment
of the main trial for the assertion that the Special Organization,
with large numbers of convicts enrolled in its ranks, took the lead
role in the massacres. Nor was the presence of convicts abnormal. Use
of convicts for military duty in wartime had precedent including use
by U.S. and British armies. During World War I, U.S. courts released
almost 8,000 men convicted of serious offenses on condition of their
induction into military service.[28]
Many of the allegations linking the Special Organization to massacres
are based not directly on documents but rather on the sometimes
questionable assumptions of those reading them. Dadrian has been
among the most prominent scholars making assertions for which the
original sources do not allow. He described a link between the Special
Organization and the Armenian massacres, but Stange, the German officer
who wrote the document in question, never actually mentioned the
Special Organization but instead referred to “scum.”[29] Nor is there
any indication that Stange had any role in the Special Organization,
as Dadrian asserted.[30] In view of the tension between Ottoman and
German secret services, it would be an unlikely assignment.[31] More
likely was that the German Foreign Ministry files were accurate when
they described Stange as commanding a detachment of 2,000-3,000 mostly
Georgian irregulars who had volunteered to fight the Russians.[32]
Another German officer related that the Stange detachment included
Armenians,[33] surely a curious fact in the case of a unit said
to have been part of an apparatus for the implementation of the
Armenian genocide. The question of who carried out the killings of
the Armenian deportees is difficult to resolve conclusively. While
it may be politically expedient to blame the Special Organization,
more likely, the perpetrators were Kurdish tribesmen and corrupt
policemen out for booty.[34]
Dadrian has taken similar liberties with a Turkish source that
deals with the leading Special Organization official, EÅ~_ref
KuÅ~_çubasi. At the outbreak of World War I, EÅ~_ref was director
of Special Organization operations in Arabia, the Sinai, and
North Africa. Captured while on a mission to Yemen in early 1917,
the British military sent him to Malta where he remained until
1920. British officers interrogated EÅ~_ref, but he denied any
involvement with the Armenian massacres. He died in 1964 at the age
of 91.[35] Dadrian has argued that EÅ~_ref admitted participating in
the massacres in an interview with the Turkish author Cemal Kutay.[36]
Closer inspection, though, reveals EÅ~_ref made no such admission. The
assertion was instead constructed by selective ellipses and inaccurate
paraphrasing.[37] Likewise, despite claims to the contrary, while the
indictment of the 1919 court-martial linked the Special Organization
to the Armenian massacres, neither the trial’s proceedings nor its
verdict support the claim. Rather, defendants described the Special
Organization’s role in covert operations behind Russian lines.[38]
Gwynne Dyer, one of the few Western scholars to have done research
in the Ottoman military archives, has characterized as “gossip”
the assertion that the Special Organization was complicit in the
Armenian massacres.[39] The archive of the Turkish General Staff is
said to contain ciphered telegrams to the Special Organization,[40]
but these documents have not been subject to scholarly inquiry. Until
new documents emerge, a link between the Special Organization and
the Armenian massacres is nothing but uncorroborated assertion.
The Memoirs of Naim Bey
The third pillar upon which the charge of Armenian genocide rests is
Aram Andonian’s Memoirs of Naim Bey. Aram Andonian was an Armenian,
employed as a military censor at the time of mobilization in
1914. After his April 1915 arrest and deportation from Istanbul,
he made his way to Aleppo where he obtained a permit for temporary
residence. After the British liberation of the city in October 1918,
Andonian collected the testimonies of Armenian men, women, and children
who had survived the deportations. As he relates the story, he also
made contact with a Turkish official named Naim Bey, who had been
the chief secretary of the deportations committee of Aleppo. Naim Bey
handed over to Andonian his memoirs, which contained a large number
of official documents, telegrams, and decrees, which, he stated,
had passed through his hands during his term of office. Andonian
translated these memoirs into Armenian. After some delay, they were
published in Armenian, French, and English editions.[41]
The documents reproduced in Naim Bey’s memoirs are the most damning
evidence put forward to support the claim of genocide. Particularly
incriminating are the telegrams of the wartime interior minister. If
authentic, they provide proof that Talât Pasha gave explicit orders to
kill all Turkish Armeniansâ~@~Tmen, women, and children. One telegram
dated September 16, 1915, notes that the Committee on Union and
Progress had decided to destroy completely all the Armenians living
in Turkey. Those who oppose this order and decision cannot remain on
the official staff of the empire. An end must be put to their [the
Armenians’] existence, however criminal the measure taken may be,
and no regard must be paid to either age or sex nor to conscientious
scruples.[42]
The utter ruthlessness of Talât Pasha is a recurring theme in
The Memoirs. Such a demonization, though, represents an important
change from the way many Armenians regarded Talât before 1915. On
December 20, 1913, for example, British embassy official Louis
Mallet reported the Armenians had confidence in Talât Pasha, “but
fear that they may not always have to deal with a minister of the
interior as well disposed as the present occupant of that post.”[43]
Similarly, the German missionary Liparit described Talât as a man
“who over the last six years has acquired the reputation of a sincere
adherent of Turkish-Armenian friendship.”[44] Even the American head
of the international Armenian relief effort in Istanbul recalled that
Talât Pasha always “gave prompt attention to my requests, frequently
greeting me as I called upon him in his office with the introductory
remark: â~@~XWe are partners; what can I do for you today?'”[45]
Talât Pasha may have turned into a vicious fiend, but the opinions
of his contemporaries do not support this characterization.
There are many doubts as to the authenticity of the documents
reproduced in Naim Bey’s memoirs. Several Armenian scholars suggest
that a German court authenticated five of the Talât Pasha telegrams
during the 1921 trial of Soghomon Tehlirian, who assassinated Talât
Pasha in Berlin on March 15, 1921.[46] However the stenographic
record of the trial, published in 1921, shows that defense counsel
von Gordon withdrew his motion to introduce the five telegrams into
evidence before their authenticity could be verified.[47]
Two Turkish authors, Å~^inasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca, who undertook
a detailed examination of the authenticity of the documents in the
Andonian volume, suggest that the Armenians may have “purposely
destroyed the â~@~Xoriginals,’ in order to avoid the chance that one
day the spuriousness of the â~@~Xdocuments’ would be revealed.”[48]
Orel and Yuca argue that discrepancies between authentic Turkish
documents and those reproduced in the Naim-Andonian book suggest the
latter to be “crude forgeries.”[49] In addition, the two authors
could find no reference to Naim Bey in the official registers and
cast doubt on his very existence.
When The Memoirs were published in 1920, Armenian activists described
its author as an honest individual driven to make amends for his
misdeeds. But according to a letter composed by Andonian in 1937,
Naim Bey was addicted to alcohol and gambling, and the documents he
provided were bought for money. To have “unveiled the truth about
him,” Andonian wrote, “would have served no purpose.”[50] More likely,
it would have undercut the very effectiveness of The Memoirs. Nobody
would have believed the word of an alcoholic and gambler who might
have manufactured the documents to obtain money.
The documents contained in The Memoirs of Naim Bey depict both the
Young Turk leadership and the general Turkish public as ruthless and
evil villains. These materials were to influence public opinion in
the United States and Western Europe and to provide the Armenians
lobbying at the Paris peace conference with ammunition to support
their calls for independence.[51] That is why the Armenian National
Union, formed under the leadership of the veteran Armenian statesman
Boghos Nubar Pasha, purchased the documents and entrusted Andonian
with bringing them to Europe. While telegrams from the Naim-Andonian
book were included in a dispatch sent to London in March 1921[52] and
also in the dossiers of the Malta detainees, the British government
never made use of these telegrams. The law officers of the crown
apparently regarded the Naim-Andonian book as another of the many
forgeries that were flooding Istanbul at the time.
Turkish authors are not alone in their assessment that the
Naim-Andonian documents are fakes. Dutch historian Erik Zürcher,
writing in 1997, argued that the Andonian materials “have been shown to
be forgeries.”[53] British historian Andrew Mango speaks of “telegrams
dubiously attributed to the Ottoman wartime minister of the interior,
Talât Pasha.”[54] It is ironic that lobbyists and policymakers seek
to base a determination of genocide upon documents most historians
and scholars dismiss at worst as forgeries and at best as unverifiable
and problematic. Conclusion
The three pillars of the Armenian claim to classify World War I deaths
as genocide fail to substantiate the charge that the Young Turk regime
intentionally organized the massacres. Other alleged evidence for a
premeditated plan of annihilation fares no better.
Whether to apply the genocide label to the events that occurred almost
one hundred years ago in the Ottoman Empire may be of minor consequence
to many historians, but it remains of great political relevance. Both
Armenian partisans and Turkish nationalists have staked claims and made
their case by simplifying a complex historical reality and by ignoring
crucial evidence that might yield a more nuanced picture. Professional
scholars have based their positions on previous works, often unaware
that these represented a bastardized interpretation of the original
sources. With the political stakes high, both sides have sought to
silence opponents and stymie a full debate. In one famous example,
in 1995 a French court partially upheld a civil complaint brought by
an Armenian group against eminent historian Bernard Lewis because they
objected to a letter he had published in Le Monde on January 1, 1994,
in which he had questioned the existence of a plan of extermination on
the part of the Ottoman government.[55] Turkish leaders have applied
diplomatic pressure and threats; the Armenian government has accused
those who do not acknowledge that the massacres constituted genocide of
being deniers who seek to appease the Turkish government. Some Turkish
and Armenian historians have suggested recently that it is time to
“step back from the was-it-genocide-or-not dialogue of the deaf,
which only leads to mutual recrimination” and instead concentrate
on empirically grounded historical research that seeks a common pool
of firm knowledge.[56] Time will tell whether it will be possible to
rescue history from nationalists who have plundered history to serve
their own political ends.
Guenter Lewy is professor emeritus of political science, University
of Massachusetts, and the author of “The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman
Turkey: A Disputed Genocide” (University of Utah Press, 2005).
NOTES
[1] For example, see Kamuran Gürün, The Armenian File: The Myth
of Innocence Exposed (Nicosia and London: K. Rustem and Brother and
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985), pp. 214-5 (the Turkish edition of
this book, Ermeni Dosyasi, was published by Türk Kurumu Basimevi,
Ankara, 1983); Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 3rd
rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 356. [2]
Turkish authors such as Gürün speak of 300,000 Armenian deaths. The
estimates of most Western scholars are far higher. [3] Aram Andonian,
comp., The Memoirs of Naim Bey: Turkish Official Documents Relating
to the Deportations and Massacres of Armenians (Newtown Square, Pa.:
Armenian Historical Society, 1965, reprint of London, 1920 ed). [4]
Taner Akçam, Armenien und der Völkermord: Die Istanbuler Prozesse
und die türkische Nationalbewegung (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition,
1996), p. 185. [5] Vahakn N. Dadrian, “The Documentation of the
World War I Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish
Military Tribunal,” International Journal of Middle East Studies
23(1991): 554; idem, “The Turkish Military Tribunal’s Prosecution
of the Authors of the Armenian Genocide: Four Major Court-Martial
Series,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 11(1997): 31. [6] Akçam,
Armenien und der Völkermord, p. 148. [7] Calthorpe to Foreign Office,
Apr. 17, 1919, Foreign Office, 371/4173/61185, p. 279. [8] Dadrian,
“The Turkish Military Tribunal’s Prosecution,” p. 45. [9] Akçam,
Armenien und der Völkermord, p. 204. For the entire indictment,
see pp. 192-207. [10] Dadrian, “World War I Armenian Massacres,”
p. 558. [11] The verdict is reproduced in Akçam, Armenien und
der Völkermord, pp. 353-64. [12] U.S. National Archives, RG 59,
867.00/868 (M 353, roll 7, fr. 448). [13] Akçam, Armenien und der
Völkermord, pp. 114-9. [14] Yilmaz Altug, trans., The Turkish Code
of Criminal Procedure (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1962), art. 232.
[15] Vahakn N. Dadrian, “Genocide as a Problem of National and
International Law: The World War I Case and Its Contemporary
Legal Ramifications,” Yale Journal of Law, 14 (1989): 297, n. 286.
[16] Taner Akçam, ed., “The Proceedings of the Turkish Military
Tribunal as Published in Takvim-i Vekayi,” part 1, 3rd sess., pp. 24,
27. This mimeographed edition of the trial proceedings represents
a German translation used by Taner Akçam and deposited by him at
the Armenian Research Center of the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
[17] Heck to State Department, Feb. 7, 1919, U.S. National Archives,
RG 59, 867.00/81 (M 820, roll 536, fr. 440). [18] Vahakn N. Dadrian,
The Key Elements in the Turkish Denial of the Armenian Genocide:
A Case Study of Distortion and Falsification (Cambridge, Mass.:
Zoryan Institute, 1999), p. 27. [19] Quoted in Vahakn N. Dadrian,
“The Armenian Genocide and the Pitfalls of a â~@~XBalanced’ Analysis:
A Response to Ronald Grigor Suny,” Armenian Forum, Summer 1998, p. 89;
Akçam, Armenien und der Völkermord, p. 204. [20] For the text of
the indictment, see Akçam, Armenien und der Völkermord, pp. 192-207;
for the verdict of the Harput trial, see Haigaz K. Kazarian, “The
Genocide of Kharpert’s Armenians: A Turkish Judicial Document and
Cipher Telegrams Pertaining to Kharpert,” Armenian Review, Spring 1966,
pp. 18-9. [21] See, for example, Gürün, The Armenian File, p. 232.
[22] Calthorpe to Foreign Secretary, Aug. 1, 1919, Foreign Office,
371/4174/118377. [23] De Robeck to London, Sept. 21, 1919, Foreign
Office, 371/4174/136069. [24] Vahakn N. Dadrian, The History of the
Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia and
to the Caucasus (Providence: Berghahn, 1995), pp. 236-7. [25] Ibid.,
p. 237; Vahakn N. Dadrian, “The Role of the Special Organization in the
Armenian Genocide during the First World War,” in Panikos Panati, ed.,
Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North
America, and Australia during the Two World Wars (Oxford: Berg, 1993),
p. 51. [26] Philip H. Stoddard, “The Ottoman Government and the Arabs,
1911 to 1918: A Study of the Teskilat-i Mahsusa,” unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, Princeton University, 1963, pp. 1-2, 52-8. [27] Dadrian,
“The Role of the Special Organization,” p. 56. [28] Second Report
of the Provost Marshal to the Secretary of War on the Operations
of the Selective Service System to December 20, 1918 (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919), p. 149. [29] Stange
to the German military mission, Istanbul, Aug. 23, 1915, Politisches
Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Botschaft Konstantinopel/170 (Fiche
7254); Johannes Lepsius, ed., Deutschland und Armenien, 1914-1918:
Sammlung diplomatischer Aktenstücke (Potsdam: Tempelverlag, 1919),
pp. 138-42. A reprint of this collection was published by Donat und
Temmen, Bremen, in 1986. [30] Vahakn N. Dadrian, “Documentation of the
Armenian Genocide in German and Austrian Sources,” in Israel W. Charny,
ed., The Widening Circle of Genocide: A Critical Bibliographical
Review, vol. 3 (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1994), p. 110. [31]
Walter Nicolai, The German Secret Service, George Renwick, trans.
(London: Stanley Paul, 1924), p. 138; Hans Werner Neulen, Adler und
Halbmond: Das deutsch-türkische Bündnis 1914-1918 (Frankfurt/Main:
Ullstein, 1994), pp. 166-7; Ulrich Trumpener, “Suez, Baku, Gallipoli:
The Military Dimensions of the German-Ottoman Coalition,” in Keith
Neilson and Ray Prete, eds., Coalition Warfare: An Uneasy Accord
(Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983), p. 40. [32]
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Weltkrieg, no. 11d, vol.
9 (R 21016), p. 31; Felix Guse, Die Kaukasusfront im Weltkrieg: Bis zum
Frieden von Brest (Leipzig: Koehler und Amelang, 1940), p. 38; Edward
J. Erikson, Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the
First World War (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001), pp. 54-5. On
the role of the Georgian volunteers see, William E. D. Allen and
Paul Muratoff, Caucasian Battlefields: A History of the Wars on the
Turco-Caucasian Border, 1828-1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1953), pp. 274-5. [33] Paul Leverkuehn, Posten auf ewiger
Wache: Aus dem abenteuerlichen Leben des Max von Scheubner-Richter
(Essen: Essener Verlagsanstalt, 1938), p. 33. [34] See, for example,
Henry H. Riggs, Days of Tragedy in Armenia: Personal Experiences in
Harpot, 1915-1917 (Ann Arbor: Gomidas Institute, 1997), pp. 127-8.
[35] Philip H. Stoddard in the prologue to EÅ~_ref KuÅ~_çubasi, The
Turkish Battle of Khaybar, Philip H. Stoddard and H. Basri Danisman,
trans. and eds. (Istanbul: Arba Yayinlari, 1999), pp. 21-32. [36]
Vahakn N. Dadrian, “Ottoman Archives and Denial of the Armenian
Genocide,” in Richard G. Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian Genocide:
History, Politics, Ethics (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992),
pp. 300-1. [37] Cemal Kutay, Birinci Dünya Harbinde TeÅ~_kilat-i
Mahsusa Ve Hayber’de Türk Cengi (Istanbul: Tarih Yayinlari, 1962),
pp. 18, 36, 78. [38] Akçam, “The Proceedings of the Turkish Military
Tribunal,” part 1, especially 5th and 6th session of the main trial.
[39] Gwynne Dyer, “Letter to the Editor,” Middle Eastern Studies,
9 (1973): 379. [40] Edward J. Erickson, “The Turkish Official
Military Histories of the First World War: A Bibliographical Essay,”
Middle Eastern Studies, 39 (2003): 198, n. 7. [41] Å~^inasi Orel
and Süreyya Yuca, The Talât Pasha “Telegrams”: Historical Fact or
Armenian Fiction (Nicosia, Cyprus: K. Rustem, 1986), pp. 2-4. [42]
Andonian, The Memoirs of Naim Bey, p. 64. [43] Louis Mallet to Foreign
Office, Foreign Office, 371/1773/58131. [44] Report of December 1914,
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Botschaft Konstantinopel
/168 (Fiche 7243). [45] Louise Jenison Peet, No Less Honor:
The Biography of William Wheelock Peet (Chattanooga: E.A. Andrews,
1939), p. 170. [46] Gerard Chaliand and Yves Ternon, The Armenians:
>From Genocide to Resistance, Tony Berrett, trans. (London: Zed Press,
1983), p. 93; Mary Mangigian Tarzian, The Armenian Minority Problem,
1914-1934: A Nation’s Struggle for Security (Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1992), p. 65; Jean-Marie Carzou, Un génocide exemplaire: Arménie
1915 (Paris: Falmmanion, 1975), p. 248. [47] Tessa Hofmann, ed.,
Der Völkermord an den Armeniern: Der Prozess Talaat Pasha (Berlin:
Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, 1985, reprint of Berlin, 1921
ed.), p. 69. [48] Orel and Yuca, The Talât Pasha “Telegrams,” p. 23.
[49] Ibid., p. 145. [50] Aram Andonian to Mary Terzian, in Comité
de Défense de la Cause Arménienne, Justicier du Génocide Arménien:
Le Procès de Tehlirian (Paris: Editions Diasporas, 1981). Translation
in Orel and Yuca, The Talât Pasha “Telegrams,” p. 9. [51] Andonian,
The Memoirs of Naim Bey, p. 225. [52] Embassy to Foreign Office
(Mar. 1921), Foreign Office, 371/6500/E3557, pp. 2, 6-8. [53] Erik
Jan Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 1997),
p. 121. [54] Andrew Mango, “Turks and Kurds,” Middle Eastern Studies,
30 (1994): 985. [55] Yves Ternon, “Freedom and Responsibility of the
Historian: The â~@~XLewis Affair,'” in Richard G. Hovannisian, ed.,
Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide (Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1999), pp. 243-6. [56] Selim Deringil,
“In Search of a Way Forward: A Response to Ronald Grigor Suny,”
Armenian Forum, Summer 1998, pp. 69-71; Ronald Grigor Suny, “Reply
to My Critics,” Armenian Forum, Summer 1998, p. 136.
–Boundary_(ID_EZTIRE5I0g1j1DXJ1WufCA)–

KOCHARIAN FLIES TO RUSSIAN KAZAN FOR CIS SUMMIT
Armenpress
AUG 25, 2005
YEREVAN, AUGUST 25, ARMENPRESS: Armenian president Robert Kocharian
is flying August 26 to Russian Kazan to attend a regular CIS summit
of heads of states. He will also participate in an extensive range
of events marking the 1000-th anniversary of Kazan foundation, the
capital city of a Russian Republic of Tatarstan. Kocharian’s press
office said the CIS leaders will first meet in narrow circle and then
will be joined by their foreign ministers. CIS reforming will be high
on the summit agenda. The leaders will also discuss their cooperation
in humanitarian area. They are expected to sign a dozen of documents
which are said to expand cooperation among CIS members. On August
27 Kocharian will meet with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev and
later on the day Kocharian and other Armenian officials will fly back.

AZERI PRESIDENT, US STATE SECRETARY DISCUSS KARABAKH, POLLS BY TELEPHONE
Azerbaijani TV Channel One, Baku
25 Aug 05
[Presenter] The following is a press release from the presidential
press service.
On 25 August, US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice had a telephone
conversation with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
During the telephone conversation, they expressed satisfaction with the
development of US-Azerbaijani relations in various areas. Condoleezza
Rice said that she attaches great importance to the meeting between
the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents on the Karabakh settlement
on the sidelines of the Kazan summit and hopes that the talks will
contribute to the peaceful settlement of the conflict.
President Ilham Aliyev also noted the significance of the Kazan
meeting with the Armenian president and expressed hope for the
positive outcome of the talks. The overall situation in Azerbaijan,
including the preparation for the upcoming parliamentary election,
were also discussed during the telephone conversation.
The Azerbaijani president and the US state secretary also discussed
issues of mutual interests.

THE KURDISH FACTOR IN THE MIDDLE EAST EQUATION ANWAR AL-BUNNI EXPLAINS HOW THE KURDISH QUESTION IS BECOMING MORE PROMINENT IN THE ENTIRE REGION
The Daily Star
Friday, August 26, 2005
Interview
Editor’s note: The following interview with Anwar al-Bunni, the head
of the Free Political Prisoners Committee and Syria’s leading human
rights lawyer, was conducted earlier this month by Joe Pace of Harvard
University in Damascus. It first appeared on ,
and is reprinted by permission.
Pace: Could you provide some background on the relationship between
the Kurdish and Arab opposition? Why is the relationship so tenuous
and is it improving or deteriorating?
Bunni: The Syrian authorities have always created barriers between
the Kurdish and Arab oppositions. It planted the fear within the Arab
opposition that the Kurds wanted to slice off a piece of Syria and
forge a separate state. And it scared the Kurds into believing that the
Arab opposition was incapable of delivering what the authorities could
deliver, and it convinced them that direct negotiation with the regime
would be more fruitful than coordination with the Arab opposition.
They also used the Kurds during Saddam’s rule to influence the internal
situation in Iraq.
Some of the barriers between the two oppositions have come down and
this is a frightening prospect for the regime. They began meeting
and engaging in dialogue, so obviously they began to understand each
other better. The Arab opposition began to realize that not all Kurds
want a Kurdish state and the Kurdish opposition began to realize
that the call for democracy could solve their problems – culturally,
economically, and nationally.
They have begun to engage in serious dialogue, despite the fact that
differences remain between them. They have participated in several
demonstrations and sit-ins together. Still, there lingers some mutual
fear that the parties’ official stances are not their true stances.
Q: What inspired the dialogue?
A: There were three basic factors. The first was the political opening
that allowed the birth of political movements. The second factor was
the pressure on Iraq and the Kurdish role there. It gave weight … a
role … a new importance to Kurdish parties in Syria. So people began
to address the Kurdish issue with newfound interest, especially the
Arab opposition. The third factor was the new openness on the part
of the Kurdish parties toward the Arab opposition, something which
resulted from the loss of faith that the Syrian authorities would grant
them their rights or relieve the economic and political pressure on
the Kurdish communities. So they began looking for an alternative,
in other words, better relations with the Arab opposition in Syria.
Q: We hear a lot that the Iraq war empowered Syrian Kurds, but in
what way? How did events in Iraq enhance their influence?
A: The Kurds began playing a larger political role in Iraq, something
which led the Arab opposition and the Syrian authorities alike to
pay closer attention to the desires of the Kurds.
Prior to the Iraq war, the Kurds did not play a political role in
Syrian politics. Their role was limited to demands placed upon the
authority – they didn’t engage in dialogue with the rest of Syrian
political society. But after the events in Iraq, the Syrian Arabs
began to feel that maybe the Kurds would assume a larger political
role in Syria, as they did in Iraq. So they had to pay attention to
their demands in order to contain them.
Q: But how does a larger role for the Kurds in Iraq translate into
greater influence for Syria’s Kurds?
A: It was first and foremost a psychological effect because they began
to feel as though there was protection; that they could depend at the
very least on moral and emotional support from the Kurds in Iraq. This
sort of support is of crucial importance, the mere face that someone is
asking about them – what they’re suffering from, what they’re saying,
etc. This is more important than military or financial support.
Now they have a shelter. Before, if a Kurd needed to flee there was
nowhere to go. He certainly couldn’t go to Iraq or Turkey. Here they
were attacking them, there they were attacking them. … But now they
have a shelter and it has emboldened them. If something happens to
someone here they can flee to Iraq.
Q: So what did the regime do in order to contain this new Kurdish
problem?
A: They tried to contain the Kurds by manipulating some of the Kurdish
parties, and by promising them nationality in order to keep the
parties in a relationship with the regime. They created the problems
in Qamashli in 2004 to weaken the Kurdish-Arab relationship and foster
divisions between them. They tried to get the two sides to distance
themselves from each other; of course, it didn’t work because people
realized that the government was playing them.
Q: So has this newfound influence emboldened the Kurds to issue more
demands for an independent or federalized state?
A: The world was previously oblivious to the Kurdish issue. And the
government was contending that the Kurds wanted an independent state.
But recently, people have begun to speak out and they are starting
to realize that the Kurds have a legitimate complaint. But at the
same time, Kurdish extremism is unacceptable. They aren’t going to
overcome these old suspicions with ease. There is this ingrained
suspicion that the Kurds want an independent state and what happened
in Iraq scared the Arabs even more.
The authorities have relied on qawmiyya (Arab nationalism) and
its grandiose slogans to legitimate its existence. And they have
endeavored to conceal Kurdish features from sight. They tried to
Arabize them; they took Kurdish land, Arabized the names of Kurdish
villages, deprived them of their citizenship, denied them access to
government jobs. Of course, there are Kurds in places like Damascus
who lead normal lives without any of those problems. The problem is
primarily in the northern regions.
These tactics caused a backlash: people began to cling to their culture
more, staking out more extremist positions. This is to be expected –
if you close the door of participation in front of someone, they’ll
find another partner to cooperate and communicate with. But among
all of the Kurdish parties, not one advocates seceding from Syria.
There is also the issue of ethnic nationalism – it is finished. It
failed. People now realize that they are never going to establish
countries on the basis of a single ethnicity, whether that be Arab,
Kurdish or Armenian. Even in Europe, no one proposes that Germany
be only for the ethnic Germans or France for the ethnic French. The
concept of an ethnically based nation-state is no longer valid. Of
course, an independent nation-state remains a dream among the Kurds,
but it remains just that – a dream. No one expects that it will ever
be realized. They realize that state is impossible so the advocacy
of such has begun to recede from their party platforms.
There are still a few extremists who maintain the dream or try to
realize it, and this is natural. But the rest see that the solution
resides in democracy, in a system that respects the dignity of every
human being and not under the flag of a country based on qawmiyya.
People see that qawmiyya brings them nothing but poverty, theft,
pillaging, and oppression. It hasn’t achieved economic growth, dignity,
or glory – it hasn’t brought them anything.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds in Europe and elsewhere live with
citizenship and full rights and none of them are clamoring to leave
their country and move to Kurdistan. The idea of a Kurdish state is
a dream – nothing more, nothing less. But reality will not permit
its realization.
Q: What about federalism in lieu of a separate state?
A: Federalism or state unity is something to be determined after
we reach democracy. But federalism is a just another political
arrangement; it doesn’t mean fundamentally changing the state entity.
Switzerland has 32 cantons. How has that impacted on the strength
of Switzerland? It’s still one of the stronger powers in the world.
America has 52 states, each with its own legislature, its own laws,
and its own constitution. How has that lessened the power of America?
On the contrary, this structure has enhanced its power. My thinking
isn’t, let’s create a federated state even if it means that the state
will be weak. My dream is to make my country stronger.
Q: What sort of reaction to this revival have you seen among the Arabs?
A: Extremism from one side always results in extremism from the
other. With the exception of the events in Qamashli there haven’t
been very many explicit manifestations of the extremism. Some serious
tensions have developed among the Arab tribes who reject this Kurdish
revival – some understand the issue, but others have responded with
their own brand of extremism. Even some of the cultured elite had a
negative reaction to the events in Qamashli.
The problem is the absence of a natural environment. If the
environment is diseased, it is going to produce more social diseases
in all circumstances. An environment characterized by oppression and
domination is not going to produce healthy thought – it’s going to
produce extremism.
That’s what we’ve been saying: a democratic environment will push
people to be more proper and more rational and it will stunt extremism.
Q: So what are the major differences between the Kurdish and Arab
oppositions?
A: The most fundamental difference is that the Kurds think – and
this is their right – that there is a uniquely Kurdish problem. The
Syrian opposition views it as an issue of just another group deprived
of its rights, but not a Kurdish problem in the sense that the Kurds
constitute a nation. And this basic difference ramifies into multiple
points of disagreement about the details of their predicament. But the
fundamental point of contention is whether the Kurds are a separate
nation or just normal Syrian individuals deprived of some of their
rights.
It’s not a problem if the Syrian Arabs say: “We are Syrian Arabs
who are part of the Arab nation.” But it’s not permitted for the
Syrian Kurds to say “We are Syrian Kurds who are part of the Kurdish
nation.” So there’s a contradiction.
Q: Most of the Kurds support America’s project of remaking the Middle
East. They call U.S. President George W. Bush “Father of Freedom,”
which I cannot imagine goes over too well with a lot Arabs. How does
the Arab opposition react to this?
A: No, in Syria you’ll find Arabs who say let Bush come here as well.
Q: But it’s a rarer sentiment among the Arabs than the Kurds?
A: No, it’s not rare among the Arabs. That’s what happens when
you block all other avenues for change. The Kurds may get the most
publicity because in some of their demonstrations they were praising
Bush. But even in Qadmus, where the ethnic conflicts erupted,
some of the Ismailis were calling for Bush to come. The same thing
happened in Misyaf three months ago. So you shouldn’t think of it as
a Kurdish predilection – it’s the natural result of closing the doors
in front of the citizenry. I heard an old man saying the other day:
“Let Israel come and rescue us from this state.” Israel! And he was
speaking in a loud voice in the middle of the street. These sentiments
are the byproduct of oppression.
Q: OK, then what about oppositional parties in general that differ
on the role of American intervention?
A: Of course, it’s a point of contention. But, in general, its one of
many points of contention. It’s a primary point that the nationalist
Arab opposition clings to. There is a segment that cannot comprehend
the concept of external powers playing a role in internal reform.
We used to lambaste America for supporting those dictators. But now
America is saying that it supports democratic leadership. And they
still criticize. What do they want? What do they want America to do?
When America supported despots they criticized her. Now America
has admitted to making mistakes and says it supports freedom and
democracy. So what do they want the Americans to do? What do they
want the position of the largest country in the world to be? Should
America be silent on everything?
Q: Then why do you think they continue to stand against America?
A: For two reasons. First, they have been raised to dislike America,
and especially because of its past mistakes, it has no credibility.
No one believes that America has the people in its interests. The
second reason is its position on the Israeli-Arab conflict. It has
yet to usher a solution to the conflict and that’s an extremely
sensitive point for Arabs. Then there is the Iraq war which left
some 400,000 people dead. And then what? They expect that America
will then withdraw and leave the people to die.
The only thing they are certain of is that America is looking to
protect its own interests. Defending human rights and democracy
consists of pressuring the regimes in order to secure their own
interests – it is not done in the defense of the people. So no one
has faith that they can rely on America.
I won’t rely on America but I am going to exploit American pressure
to realize my goals. Don’t be part of the American project, but you
should still position yourself to benefit from it. Allow America to
put pressure on the regime and reap the benefits. Don’t participate
in America’s project, but don’t fight it. They don’t understand
this equation.
Q: You say that the opposition benefits from foreign pressure. How?
Hypothetically, what would happen if foreign pressure came to a halt?
A: We’d all be imprisoned. It’s that simple.
The European Union has more credibility in the region and it’s taken
a more reasonable stance toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So
people are willing to rely on them more than America. And I made
this point to Ambassador Scobey before she returned to Washington:
America is in dire need of credibility in the realm of democracy and
human rights. How am I supposed to believe that America supports
democracy and human rights when they are supporting Hosni Mubarak
for his fifth term or Zaideddine Ibn Ali for his third term when
he is oppressing people in his country? There’s no balance in the
policy. They need to be promoting human rights everywhere, not just
in Syria, but then disregarding human rights violations elsewhere. It
has lost its credibility. But the more credibility the U.S. gains,
the larger its potential role becomes.
Q: The opposition is clearly divided over the role of American
influence. But to what extent does that constitute a major cleavage
that interferes with cooperation and unity?
A: This is an ostensible source of problems, but it’s not the
fundamental reason for lack of unity within the opposition. The real
reason for disagreements is that the opposition hasn’t managed to
reach the people. It speaks for its own interests and the interests
of opposition personalities rather than speaking for the interests
of the people. The people are absence from this opposition.
No opposition element has a complete program for action. I disagree
with someone because my platform doesn’t [connect] with his – but
here, no one has a real platform. And the people can’t evaluate the
platforms and decide which one is better. So where is there room for
disagreement? They disagree on personal issues.
There are some substantive manifestations of these disagreements: the
issue of Arab nationalism, the role of America, the role of Europe,
the position toward the regime. Is the regime capable of reform, can we
[have a] dialogue with it or not? Those are the apparent differences,
but the real reason is that there is no carrier for the message. They
don’t represent people, they represent themselves.
Q: So how do you solve this problem? Is this opposition salvageable?
A: In my opinion, this opposition exists only to oppose the regime.
It will collapse with the collapse of the regime. There are small
gatherings – and this hasn’t yet been widely noticed – of normal
people who didn’t previously have any relation to politics. And
these new groups have begun to organize their thoughts and produce
a new leadership. We have to rely on those people, not the current
opposition figures.
The current opposition figures dream that one day they will have
the power. But it’s a dream – it will never be realized. At best,
they may be part of a transition stage while the people determine
their stances and goals and the desired leadership.
People are becoming more aware. Because of [satellite technology]
and the Internet, they are beginning to realize how politics affects
them. We can’t determine how much power they will have right now, but
I imagine that in the near future their power will begin to manifest
itself. And they will not march to the tune of the current opposition.
Q: If the opposition doesn’t represent anyone, does the regime consider
even a united opposition a threat?
A: Of course, a united opposition would be a threat. Sheikh Khaznawi
[a prominent Kurdish Sheikh who was recently assassinated] became
a threat because of his good relations with the Muslim Brotherhood.
It’s not so much the Muslim Brotherhood that has weight in society as
much as the new Islamist trends which have been gaining steam as a
result of repression. I don’t think they’re worried that the Muslim
Brotherhood has a large, organized, explicit base in Syria. But the
meeting between a Kurd and the Muslim Brotherhood sends a signal to the
Islamists more than it entails the formation of an organized alliance.
But right now, the regime does not have anything to fear from inside
of Syria. The only time the regime fears the internal opposition is
when it coordinates or receives support from foreign powers. In short,
the regime fears foreign – not internal – pressure because the internal
opposition cannot influence the regime.
Q: What about the claim among many opposition figures that endorsing
foreign pressure or accepting foreign support would cost them
credibility on the street?
A: There has not been a revolution in ages that was purely internal –
they are always influenced by other powers. So that kind of talk is
a lie. There is no such thing as purely internal change.
Q: You spoke earlier about a new group of people that you think will
become the new opposition. What are the conditions for this inchoate,
popular opposition to succeed?
A: The international community needs to continue pressuring the regime
in order to protect civil society and human rights activists so that
they can take their message to the people. People began to speak
out, but the arrests resumed and people were intimidated and stop
discussing politics. The most important thing is the protection of
activists from arrest and murder. That would enable people to agitate
more for change. We need pressure for the government to pass laws
that protect civil society. That would create the conditions under
which a new opposition could emerge.
I hear a lot from average Syrians that there are two evils: the
greater evil which is the occupation of Palestine and Iraq, and the
lesser evil which is the government.
That’s regime propaganda. When did the Syrian regime ever do anything
to help solve the issue of Palestine and Iraq? Nothing. I can’t
say that there is a big evil and a small evil because the two are
interrelated.
Let’s assume for a second that we have two enemies: the regime and
America. If the two of them fight each other, I have one less enemy
to worry about. Both of them aim to oppress me. Now they are fighting
each other. Let them fight! If one of them is vanquished then I have
one less enemy.
But there are people who are unwilling as a matter of principle to
accept an American victory. How do you convince them that American
pressure is in their interests?
Those people are one element of many. There is no entity that wants
to see an end to American interference more than the Syrian regime
itself. But like I said, we need to exploit American pressure, not for
the sake of American interests, but for the sake of achieving our own
goals. And this is what the current opposition doesn’t understand. It
doesn’t understand how to play the game. Even regarding people like
Farid Ghadry – we have an expression in Syria: “Better the dog bark
with you than at you.” Let Farid bark with you. Don’t degrade him. The
opposition has no conception of how it is going to bring about these
grand political changes.
Q: This is why I say they will collapse with the regime. They have
no program; they have no role outside of opposing the regime’s
existence. Who are they going to oppose after the regime’s collapse?
A: The regime’s political strategy depends on planting land mines
throughout society. But the mine doesn’t explode if you place your
leg on it – it explodes when you remove your leg from it. The regime
planted the land mines then placed their legs on them so that if the
regime goes, the society will explode. We can expect the same thing
that happened in Lebanon to happen here. We suffer from the same
problems of competing nationalisms, sectarianism, and extremism. So we
are held hostage by a regime that says to us” “If I leave, the world
will end. You’ll suffer through civil war. Best leave me in place.”
We need to mobilize the people to build a new society and minimize
the potential for this explosion. But nothing is free. No country
can progress without paying a price, be it blood or civil war. Even
America had to undergo civil war before it could become a great power –
[thousands] of people had to die. Europe had to suffer through World
War II to become what it is today. Big changes require big prices. But
we need to work to minimize the price we will have to pay for progress.
This is the role for foreign pressures – to enable people to
mobilize and build a new society that will not explode as soon as the
totalitarian boot is lifted. To allow people to build a society that
will neutralize that landmine.
From: Baghdasarian

PRESS-SECRETARY OF OPPOSITION BLOC BECAME ONLY CANDIDATE TO PREFECT OF CENTRAL COMMUNITY
YEREVAN, AUGUST 25. ARMINFO. Press-secretary of the opposition
“Justice” bloc Ruzan Khachatryan has been elected the only candidate
from the bloc to the post of the prefect of central community of
Yerevan. Such a decision was made unanimously at today’s sitting
of the bloc. Leader of “Justice” Aram Sargssyan assured that the
participation of Khachatryan in the elections will help to reveal
once again the defects of Armenia’s apparatus.
To note, the elections in the Center community will be held on Sept
25. Registration of candidates to the prefect will take place on Aug
26-31. Besides Khachatryan, the acting prefect of the community Gagik
Beglaryan also will stand for this post.

AZERBAIJANI JOURNALISTS CALLS FOR ERADICATION OF “ARMENIAN PROBLEM”
YEREVAN, AUGUST 25. ARMINFO. Armenians and Azerbaijanis cannot live
as neighbors in Nagorny Karabakh, writes a certain A.Asalyati in
an article on the web-site MiK “Country is me, you and all us!” The
article was not so against Armenia as against their own authorities.
He says that as wise people Armenians are well aware that co-residence
in Karabakh in impossible that is why they do not yield in the issue of
separation from Azerbaijan, and will never do. He calls the authorities
to stop feeding the people with false promises and primitive lie. “Now
the authorities decided to do the same with Karabakhi Armenians, open
your eyes wider, it won’t work with Armenians!” “Karabakh problem has
become a chewing gum for repeated use for our deserving the title of
politicos at the best. Unfortunately, chewing of the problem will not
put an end to the historical caries of our dignity!” The journalists
writes: “the only way out is to eradicate this disease which has not
allowed us to live calmly for over 200 hundred years.”

ARF BUREAU BEGINS 3-DAY SEMINAR ON AUGUST 26
25.08.2005 15:50
YEREVAN (YERKIR) – A three-day seminar to discuss the political
developments in the region begins on August 26. ARF members from over
20 countries as well as from Armenia, Artsakh and Javakhk are to attend
the discussion organized by the ARF Bureau, according to Kiro Manoyan,
the director of the Bureau’s Hay Dat and Political Affairs Office.
The Bureau has decided to regularly hold seminars to discuss various
issues with the party members representing different regions,
Manoyan says.
“This seminar will be dedicated to the political developments underway
in the region,” Manoyan indicated. “We will discuss the approaches
of different countries and forces to this regions, as well as the
issues of Nagorno Karabakh, Javakhk and Armenia-Turkish relations.”

TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTER TO ADDRESS CONFERENCE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE -DAILY
Hurriyet web site, Istanbul
24 Aug 05
Text of report: “A surprising ‘yes’ to a surprising invitation”
published by Turkish daily Hurriyet web site on 24 August
A meeting on so-called “Armenian genocide,” which will be held at
Bogazici University on 23-25 September, will be opened by Foreign
Minister Abdullah Gul, who has accepted an invitation extended by
Prof. Ayse Soysal, president of the university.
Bogazici University announced that the meeting, which had been
postponed due to huge public debate it caused, would be held in
September. Meanwhile, another important development, which Prof. Soysal
did not mention in her statement, took place.
Soysal called Gul at the beginning of the week and asked whether he
could deliver the opening address. Gul responded: “I have to check
my schedule. I would be glad to deliver an address if there is not
a special event coinciding with the meeting”.
Gul’s decision, which was not disclosed before yesterday evening,
came as a surprise to both the academia and the guests invited to
attend the conference.
Responding to a question put by a Hurriyet reporter, Gul confirmed the
report and said: “The president called me and asked whether I could
deliver a speech. I said that I could. There is nothing that would
cause us to act hesitantly about this issue. Why should we bury our
heads in the sand? I also emphasized that when the meeting was put
off. There was no reason for postponing it. Our society may discuss
it without fearing anything.”
This scientific gathering is open to all kinds of criticism
It has been formally announced that the alternative Armenian conference
at Bogazici University, which had been postponed in May, would be held
on 23-25 September, which confirmed a report carried by Hurriyet two
days ago.
In a joint statement they issued yesterday, Prof Soysal and Prof. Tosun
Terzioglu, president of Sabanci University, said: “Academic studies
conducted in our universities can be shared by the academia in
different forms. This conference will be a gathering where such studies
with an academic content will be shared. Establishments would certainly
not be bound by opinions expressed in a conference and such opinions
would be open to all kinds of criticism within an academic context.”
The conference entitled “Ottoman Armenians,” which was to be organized
by Bogazici University in May, was postponed after Justice Minister
Cemil Cicek said in an address to the National Assembly: “This is
tantamount to stabbing the Turkish nation in the back. I wish I
had not delegated my power to institute lawsuits as the Minister of
Justice.” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the decision
to put off the conference. He said: “Postponing this event due to a
statement made by Justice Minister Cemil Cicek makes no sense.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address: Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel: (374 10) 517 163
Fax: (374 10) 517 301
E-Mail: [email protected]
August 24, 2005
HIS HOLINESS KAREKIN II RECEIVES PRESIDENT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE (PACE)
On August 18, His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos
of All Armenians received René van Der Linden, President of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), in the Mother
See of Holy Etchmiadzin. Mr. van Der Linden was accompanied by the
Vice President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia,
Tigran Torosian.
Welcoming the honored guest to the headquarters of the Armenian
Church, His Holiness reflected on the sacred mission of the Church
and the Mother See in the life of the Armenian people. His Holiness
expressed his appreciation to the PACE president for the assistance and
efforts being invested by the Council of Europe aimed at strengthening
democratic values in the newly independent Republic of Armenia and
its future successful integration into the European Union.
His Holiness, stressing the importance of solving the Nagorno
Karabagh conflict only through peaceful means, stated: “We are
hopeful that through the assistance of the Council of Europe, we will
be able to make unavoidable and inevitable the peaceful settlements
of the conflicts in this region, and through dialogue and mutual
understanding, thus secure a just and lawful solution specifically
to the Karabagh conflict which continues to concern us.”
President van Der Linden expressed his gratitude for the warm reception
granted by the Pontiff of All Armenians, and stated his conviction
that this meeting was especially important for him. Mr. van Der Linden
reflected on the democratic values and the protection of human rights
which form the core of the Parliamentary Assembly, noting that the
role of Churches and religions in these spheres was vital, and that
through inter-Church and inter-faith dialogue, society would greatly
benefit from their contributions and moral positions.
Also present in the meeting was His Grace Bishop Vasken Mirzakhanian,
Primate of the Armenian Diocese of Georgia.
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