Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
April 14 2005

Armenian President: Armenia Has No Territorial Claim Now, Future
Presidents Will

JTW – Armenian President Robert Kocharian said `Armenia has no
territorial claims to Turkey’, yet Kocharian surprisingly implied
that the future Armenian leaders may deal with the `territorial
demands’.

Meeting with Armenian university students on Monday, Kocharian
repeated that Yerevan has no territorial claims to Turkey and urged
Armenians to be more `realistic’ in their demands.

`None of our state bodies has ever raised any territorial issues,’
Kocharian added.

Kocharian said `on our agenda today is the issue of genocide
recognition. Future presidents and future politicians will deal with
legal consequences of that.’ Turkish Caucasus expert Dr. Nilgun
Gulcan said `there is a strong threat behind these words. Kocharian
says that we have no territorial demands for now. But the future
Armenian presidents will naturally have’.

Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan wrote to Kocharian to establish a joint
dialogue commission to discuss the historical debates and to improve
relations between Turkey and Armenia. However the Yerevan Government
immediately rejected thye offer. Kocharian had refused to join the
NATO Istanbul meeting despite of the official invitation from Turkish
Government in 20044

Armenian National Independence Declaration name Turkey’s east
`Western Armenia’. Many Armenian parties argue that Armenia will
capture the lost territories (Turkey’s eastern provinces). Tashnaks
in particular declared the next targets for Armenians to occupy will
be Turkey’s east, south-east Georgia and Nahcivan of Azerbaijain.

JTW

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
_________________________________________ ____________________
RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly
Vol. 5, No. 15, 14 April 2005

A Weekly Review of News and Analysis of Russian Domestic Politics

************************************************************
HEADLINES:
* KHODORKOVSKII CASE IS A SIGN OF THE TIMES
* TNK-BP HIT WITH LARGE TAX CLAIM — AGAIN
* BASHKIR OPPOSITION COMES TO MOSCOW
* AIDS AWARENESS CAMPAIGN OFF TO A SLOW START
* RIGHTS GROUP URGES MOSCOW TO REOPEN KATYN MASSACRE
INVESTIGATION
************************************************************

POLITICS

KHODORKOVSKII CASE IS A SIGN OF THE TIMES

By Victor Yasmann

The 10-month trial of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskii,
Menatep Chairman Platon Lebedev, and former Volna General Director
Andrei Krainov came to a close on 11 April, with Khodorkovskii giving
his final statement to the court. A verdict will be announced on 27
April, Russian media reported.
In his closing remarks, Khodorkovskii said that he
“didn’t make a good oligarch,” and that he had not fled Russia
despite being repeatedly advised to do so. He said that Yukos was the
target of “greedy bureaucrats” and that he was imprisoned to prevent
them from ransacking the oil giant. Khodorkovskii maintained his
innocence on all charges. “I sincerely tried to work for the good of
my country, and not for my own pocket,” Khodorkovskii said. “All that
I have left is an awareness that I was right, my business reputation,
and the power of my will.”
In the prosecution’s concluding statement on 29 March,
prosecutor Dmitrii Shokhin asked the court to convict Khodorkovskii
and Lebedev and to sentence them to 10 years’ imprisonment on
fraud, embezzlement, and tax-evasion charges, newsru.com reported.
Shokhin told the court the defendants “deserve” severe punishment
because they have refused to admit their guilt. He charged that
Lebedev “repeatedly demonstrated his disrespect to the court” and
that Khodorkovskii deserved particular severity because he had
“organized a criminal group.” Shokhin also asked the court to
confiscate the assets of Khodorkovskii and Lebedev that have already
been frozen, including a 60 percent stake in Yukos and a 30 percent
stake in Sibneft that belong to Menatep, “to compensate for harm they
caused the state.” He also asked the court to make the men ineligible
to hold senior public or managerial posts.
Shokhin asked the court to give Krainov a 5 1/2-year
suspended sentence because of his “repentance and partial admission
of guilt.”
Defense lawyers asked the court to acquit their clients on
all charges. Lebedev’s lawyer, Yevgenii Baru, said that “enough
evidence has been presented for any competent, independent court to
acquit Lebedev,” newsru.com reported on 6 April. Khodorkovskii lawyer
Genrikh Padva said Khodorkovskii not only did not commit the crimes
ascribed to him but that “no crimes were committed at all.” In his
statement, Padva meticulously went over all the prosecution’s
arguments in an effort to demonstrate that there is no evidence of
“the slightest signs of criminal activity.”
Padva paid particular attention to the charge that
Khodorkovskii and Lebedev had formed a criminal group. He denied the
existence of any such group, saying that the prosecution had not
shown “what the composition of the group was or what were the roles
of its members, and so on.” “The joint maintenance of a business
cannot be proof of a ‘criminal group,'” Padva told the court
on 7 April.
“I hope that on the day the verdict is pronounced, the iron
gates will swing open and the watchmen will release Khodorkovskii
into freedom,” Padva said.
Another Khodorkovskii lawyer, Yurii Shmidt, told RFE/RL on 10
April that prosecutors and the public continue to view Khodorkovskii
and other rich Russians as “criminals by definition.” In the case of
Khodorkovskii, he added, they are ignoring the fact that he owes his
fortune not only to his hard work and managerial skills, but also to
the fact that he invested his money into the loss-making Yukos in
1996 when oil was selling for about $8.50 a barrel.
Shmidt added that it will not be easy for the court to
deliver the verdict that the Kremlin expects. He noted that Deputy
Prosecutor-General Vladimir Kolesnikov said in October 2003, well
before the trial began, that Khodorkovskii should be sentenced to 10
years in prison, the very term that prosecutors at the trial are
seeking. However, Shmidt said, it will be difficult for the court to
convict without violating the law.
Karina Moskalenko, another Khodorkovskii lawyer, said on 7
April, according to newsru.com: “This case will not be decided in the
court, or the Moscow Municipal Court, or the Supreme Court, or the
European courts. It will be decided in the court of history, and the
court of history will be harsh with all of us.”
Throughout the trial, the Kremlin and the state-controlled
media did a lot to boost the perception that Khodorkovskii and his
colleagues are criminals. The arrests of Lebedev and Khodorkovskii in
July and October 2003, respectively, came in the wake of a scandalous
report by the National Strategy Council that asserted that the
oligarchs were plotting a quiet coup in Russia.
In September 2004, just as prosecutors began presenting their
case in court, NTV screened a documentary called “A Terrorist Act,
Paid In Advance,” which charged that Khodorkovskii used profits from
the sale of Siberian oil to provide material aid to Chechen
“terrorists.” The film included references to some events that
happened as early as 1995, before Khodorkovskii took over Yukos.
On 30 March, NTV showed a documentary called “Brigade From
Yukos,” in which Menatep shareholder and former Yukos executive
Leonid Nevzlin was directly accused of organizing paid killings and
Khodorkovskii was implied to have been involved. The film linked
Khodorkovskii to former Yukos security chief Aleksei Pichugin, who
was convicted of murder and attempted murder on 25 March. The
documentary included footage of Khodorkovskii, Nevzlin, and Pichugin
shooting rifles during a hunting trip or similar outing. The
information in this documentary was repeated on state-owned RTR the
same evening.
Moscow human rights activists have long argued that the case
against Pichugin, a former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer,
was manufactured to pressure him into revealing compromising
information against Khodorkovskii. The first jury in the Pichugin
case was released after it asked the court to dismiss the charges
against him, and a second jury was later convened, which convicted
him.
The cases against Yukos and Khodorkovskii are a pivotal
moment in the history of post-Soviet Russia. When Khodorkovskii was
arrested by the Alfa special-forces unit in Novosibirsk on 25 October
2003, Russia was a different country. Mikhail Kasyanov was the prime
minister and Aleksandr Voloshin was the head of the presidential
administration. Both were viewed as oligarch-friendly holdovers from
the regime of former President Boris Yeltsin. Many in Russia and the
West continued to believe cautiously that President Vladimir Putin
was leading Russia gradually but perceptibly toward a more democratic
future. Some believed that Putin was sincere in his desire to combat
corruption.
Putin’s policies in the ensuing period have cast such
claims in serious doubt. Many of those who believed Putin was
combating corrupt oligarchs have come to believe now that he was
merely fighting his political opponents and those who financed them.
Many of the old oligarchs have not only kept their properties, but
have seen their fortunes increase steadily during Putin’s
administration. At the same time, new oligarchs have emerged from the
bureaucracy and the secret services. As a result, Russia had the
second-largest number of billionaires (27) on the “Forbes” magazine
list of global billionaires that was released in March.

TNK-BP HIT WITH LARGE TAX CLAIM — AGAIN

By Jeremy Bransten

At first glance, the scenario seems all too familiar.
Following an audit, Russia’s Federal Tax Service presents a major
oil company with a bill for unpaid taxes dating back several years.
The initial sum is relatively modest, but it gradually grows
as the tax service uncovers more and more alleged arrears. That is
what happened to Yukos, landing its chairman Mikhail Khodorkovskii in
court and burying his company under $27 billion of tax debt.
Now, TNK-BP, a Russian-British joint venture that is
currently Russia’s No. 2 oil producer, is being hit with similar
claims. For now, the tax bill is much lower than it was for Yukos —
but the sums being demanded have been growing exponentially in recent
weeks, raising concerns among investors.
TNK-BP initially received a revised tax bill for 2001
amounting to 4 billion rubles ($144 million). This week, the company
announced the tax authorities are now demanding an extra 22 billion
rubles ($791 million), bringing the firm’s total tax liability to
nearly $1 billion. And that is just for the year 2001. Russia’s
Federal Tax Service says it cannot exclude the possibility that
arrears for the following years will also be found.
All this happened just days after Russian President Vladimir
Putin flew to Hannover, Germany, where he tried to boost foreign
investor confidence. Putin reiterated on 10 April that his government
will limit prosecutors’ ability to review privatizations and that
the Kremlin does not intend to interfere with business.
“Any allegations that Russia is preparing to revise the
privatization results are groundless. On the contrary, we are
currently considering reducing the statute of limitations on
privatization deals from 10 to three years to stabilize ownership
relations and not to allow any possibility of redistribution [of
property],” Putin said.
How should investors interpret this apparent mixed message?
Dmitrii Loukashov, an oil analyst at Aton Capital, a Moscow-based
brokerage house, believes there is no cause to worry at this time
that another Yukos-style affair is in the making. Not all recent tax
claims in Russia, he notes, have ended in victory for the tax
authorities.
“[People] probably forgot that there have been other outcomes
in modern Russia — different outcomes than in the Yukos case. As an
example, everyone should remember the Vimpelcom charges, which
amounted to $1 billion as well and were reduced to meaningless
figures,” Loukashov told RFE/RL.
Indeed, to back Loukashov’s point, there was news on 13
April that a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco in Russia has won a court
victory against the tax authorities for an arrears bill amounting to
$79 million.
But on the other hand, many foreign business leaders say the
timing of the claims against TNK-BP is too coincidental for comfort.
John Bamford, head of the International Business Management
and Computer Consultancy that matches British investors with
investment opportunities in Russia, noted that the announcement about
the TNK-BP tax claims came in the middle of the Russian Business
Forum in London. The forum is the leading annual gathering of
politicians and entrepreneurs from both countries.
Bamford said many participants at the forum could not help
but think politics — as in the Yukos affair — may be playing a
role. “It’s quite extraordinary that this particular thing should
come up exactly to make the headlines in the newspapers for
discussion at the forum,” he said. “Somebody’s trying to make a
point, I think, and I don’t necessarily think it’s the tax
collectors. I think that the timing is probably a little more than
just a nice innocent tax collector saying, ‘We’ve found this
gap.'”
Bamford also said the fact that the tax authorities are
looking into arrears from the year 2001 also contradicts Putin’s
statement on 10 April that a three-year statute of limitations would
be imposed on such investigations:
“There was supposedly this line drawn under past taxes, which
has been brought back from 10 years to three years, and one
wasn’t expecting this one — which is to 2001, which is rather
more than three years,” Bamford said.
It all adds up to some worried investors. Back in 2003, when
the TNK-BP merger took place, the deal was one of the largest by a
Western company in postcommunist Russia and seen as proof of the
forward momentum of economic reforms. If the company is now under
attack, investors fear the business climate in Russia could turn
sour.
Loukashov said the worst-case scenario, which remains
impossible to verify, is that members of President Putin’s own
administration are trying to undermine him — using the tax service.
The implications, he said, are too grim to contemplate — especially
if one sees Putin as a guarantor of economic stability.
“What I’m afraid of is that these charges were not
authorized by the president and the president’s office, which
could mean that the president is losing his grip,” Loukashov said.
For his part, the British head of TNK-BP, Robert Dudley, said
on 12 April that he does not believe his company will find itself in
a “Yukos situation.” But he added that state authorities in Russia
were gradually reasserting their influence over the economy —
something he said should be a cause for concern.

REGIONS

BASHKIR OPPOSITION COMES TO MOSCOW

By Claire Bigg

The place where Bashkortostan’s opposition chose to stage
its demonstration in Moscow on 7 April had a certain significance.
Protesters met on Lubyanka Square in front of Russia’s Federal
Security Service (FSB) building and near a monument to the victims of
Stalin-era political repression.
They were calling on the federal authorities to dismiss
Murtaza Rakhimov from his post as president of Bashkortostan. The
authoritarian Rakhimov has ruled the Muslim-majority republic in the
South Ural mountains since 1993.
One of the protesters held a placard reading “Rakhimov’s
regime is arbitrary, corrupt, and violent.” A handful wore striped
uniforms supposed to represent those worn by prisoners in Nazi
concentration camps.
Airat Dilmukhametov, leader of the Bashkir National Front,
one of the republic’s more radical opposition movements, told
RFE/RL that Rakhimov has presided over a dictatorship where human
rights are regularly violated.
“Over the past 15 years there have been many cases of death,
murder, poisoning, car crashes, torture, illegal punishment,”
Dilmukhametov said. “A dictatorship has been established [in
Bashkortostan]. This is why people are disappointed and many of them
are scared.”
The Bashkir opposition also accuses Rakhimov of corruption.
It charges that the oil companies controlled by Rakhimov’s son,
Ural, have mismanaged millions of dollars through tax evasion.
The demands of the Bashkir opposition, however, are likely to
fall on deaf ears. Dilmukhametov said he has little hope that
Rakhimov, who was reelected president in 2003 with the support of
Russian President Vladimir Putin, will be sacked. The Kremlin is
widely regarded as turning a blind eye to Rakhimov’s alleged
abuses in return for his loyalty.
Unrest in Bashkortostan has been growing since police
detained and injured several hundred people in a violent sweep of the
town of Blagoveshchensk in December 2004.
Rights groups say more than 1,000 people were arrested and
taken to police stations, where they were reportedly beaten and
humiliated.
Dilmukhametov said he hopes the recent protest will draw
Moscow’s attention to the republic’s problems in the face of
growing unrest. “We are doing this [protesting] in order for our
conscience to be clear in case the situation in Bashkortostan takes a
different turn,” Dilmukhametov said. “We are now warning the public
and the federal leadership. This is one of our last warnings.”
Dilmukhametov told RFE/RL the opposition movement in his
republic was inspired by the recent mass protests that recently
toppled the government in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.
Boris Kagarlitskii, a political analyst who heads
Moscow’s Institute for Globalization Studies, said he believes
the Russian authorities will ignore the protest. But he argued that
Bashkortostan’s government is not viable and that the crisis
could eventually destabilize the Kremlin.
“If you don’t sacrifice Rakhimov, if you do not react to
the demands of the opposition, which I think is going to be the case,
then the movement will radicalize,” Kagarlitskii said. “From being a
movement against a local leader it will become a movement against
Moscow as well.”
According to the Bashkir opposition, Rakhimov’s
government has spared no effort to try to sabotage the protest.
Opposition leaders were delayed for five hour on 8 April
after additional security checks at the airport in Ufa, the capital
of Bashkortostan. The oppositionists said the checks were ordered by
the Bashkir government.
They said airport officials also tried to confiscate boxes
containing the lists of over 150,000 signatures in support of
Rakhimov’s dismissal. The boxes were later delivered to
Putin’s administration by the protesters in Moscow.
The Bashkir government was swift to fend off the allegations
and branded the protest an attempt at undermining it.

MEDIA

AIDS AWARENESS CAMPAIGN OFF TO A SLOW START

By Robert Coalson

Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Zhukov created something of a
media sensation on 30 March when he appeared at a Moscow conference
and acknowledged that the spread of HIV/AIDS in Russia has become a
threat to the country’s security and development. The theme of
the conference was public-private initiatives to combat the epidemic
and one of the main projects discussed was a $200 million,
three-year, public-service campaign by Russian media to raise
HIV/AIDS awareness.
Gazprom-Media Chairman Aleksandr Dybal told the conference on
30 March that his company and other media outlets, including REN-TV,
Muz-TV, MTV, and the radio stations of Russian Media Group are
donating $200 million in cash, airtime, and print space to the
effort.
Gazprom-Media controls NTV, NTV-Plus, TNT, Ekho Moskvy, and
other media properties and is wholly owned by the state-controlled
natural-gas giant Gazprom. Gazprom played key roles in the de facto
nationalization of the empires of former oligarchs Vladimir Gusinskii
and Mikhail Khodorkovskii.
Russian Media Group is controlled and headed by
Kremlin-connected businessman Sergei Arkhipov. He told “The Moscow
Times” on 18 March, “I do have friends in the Kremlin,” although he
denied that he discusses his business with them. In 2004, the company
staged a free concert for people who could prove that they had voted
in the presidential election, a move that was viewed as part of the
Kremlin’s effort to boost turnout in an election in which
President Vladimir Putin faced minimal competition. The company’s
plans to turn its flagship station, Russkoye Radio II, to a largely
news and information format has been viewed by analysts as part of a
Kremlin effort to consolidate its control over the information sphere
in the run-up to the 2007 and 2008 Duma and presidential elections,
respectively.
Despite Dybal’s “announcement” of the public-service
effort on the heels of Zhukov’s speech, the campaign was actually
launched at a 29 November press conference at state-owned
RIA-Novosti, to considerable media fanfare in connection with the 1
December World AIDS Day event. At that time, RIA-Novosti was also
named as a participant, “Vechernyaya Moskva” reported on 9 December.
Interfax reported on 29 November that the newspapers “Komsomolskaya
pravda,” “Izvestiya,” and “Vedomosti” would also participate, but
Dybal did not mention them in March.
At that press conference, participants also announced that
the “Stop AIDS” campaign would mostly include a new, locally produced
series featuring people living with HIV. Dybal did not mention this
project at the 30 March conference.
In November, it was announced that “technical and financial”
support would be provided by a number of Western foundations,
including the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. In addition, Dybal said at that time that he expected the
state media to join the effort. “You might say that we consider this
our patriotic, humanitarian duty,” Dybal said, according to
“Vechernyaya Moskva.” “We have already signed up nearly 30 large
companies and, of course, we certainly expect ORT and RTR to join our
ranks — [and we] hope that they will join our project. We are also
talking to regional companies, whose support is very important to
us.” Dybal added that he expected the “active participation” of
American actor Richard Gere in the campaign.
The online newspaper vsluh.ru reported on 2 December that the
“Stop AIDS” campaign will include not only public-service
announcements, but also the development of information resources and
briefings for journalists.
Zhukov’s appearance at the AIDS conference and recent
calls by President Putin and other administration officials for
businesses to do more to help the country give some reason to believe
that “Stop AIDS” might gain some traction now.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

RIGHTS GROUP URGES MOSCOW TO REOPEN KATYN MASSACRE INVESTIGATION

By Claire Bigg

In 1943, German soldiers discovered a mass grave in the Katyn
forest near Smolensk, in western Russia. The grave held the bodies of
thousands of Polish soldiers, priests, doctors, and intellectuals
killed three years earlier by the NKVD, the Stalin-era secret police.
Human rights groups and historians believe up to 21,000
people were murdered in what became known as the Katyn Forest
Massacre. A Russian government investigation into the case has been
ongoing since the early 1990s. However, the government closed the
investigation on 11 March.
Boris Belenkin is a historian who works for Russia’s
prominent human rights group Memorial. He says his organization on 7
April sent a letter to the Russian authorities asking for the Katyn
investigation to be reopened.
“The reason behind this letter was the general military
prosecutor’s announcement about the closure of the Katyn case and
his claim that the death of 1,800 people had been confirmed with
absolute certainty, when we know that at least 14,000 have died,”
Belenkin told RFE/RL.
Belenkin said that the government has failed to provide any
other official information as to why the investigation has been
closed.
Russia has been reluctant to acknowledge that the killings
constituted a war crime. It wasn’t until 1990 that Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev admitted his country’s involvement in the
massacre.
As a reconciliatory gesture, in 1992 the Russian government
handed over to then-Polish President Lech Walesa previously secret
documents testifying that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had ordered
the killings.
Russia’s recent decision to close the investigation,
however, could face criticism ahead of the grand ceremonies planned
for 9 May to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the World War
II.
Estonia and Lithuania have also dealt a blow to Russia by
turning down its invitation to attend the May celebrations in Moscow,
after saying their countries were oppressed by the Soviet regime.
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has accepted an invitation to
attend the celebrations.
The Katyn issue could further erode relations between Russia
and Poland. Polish lawmakers last month renewed calls for Russia to
classify the massacre as genocide and bring the remaining
perpetrators to justice.
Belenkin views Russia’s decision to close the
investigation as a sign of the growing patriotic and nationalist
trend under the government of President Vladimir Putin.
But Sergei Markov, director of the Institute for Political
Studies in Moscow, said Moscow is mainly trying to protect its image.
“Moscow is trying to minimize the damage done to its image by
talk about the Katyn case. Katyn is one of the tragedies of the
Second World War — a tragedy that was not admitted for a long time
by the Soviet Union, which did not want to hurt relations with its
ally, socialist Poland,” Markov said.
Markov also speculated that Russia could be trying to avoid a
potential series of damaging and costly lawsuits from descendents of
victims if it fully admits to all the killings that took place.
“One can isolate several concrete episodes in the Second
World War, and if Russia admits its responsibility in every one of
these cases it might be sued for all of them,” Markov said. “There
would be a lot of economic consequences. I think Russia doesn’t
want to create the possibility of such lawsuits taking place.”
Russian-Polish relations have been particularly strained over
the past months, with Poland announcing in March that it planned to
name a square in Warsaw after the slain Chechen separatist leader
Djokhar Dudaev.
Moscow responded by threatening to rename the street in which
the Polish Embassy has its seat in Moscow after Mikhail Muravev, a
Russian Army general nicknamed the “hangman” for his ruthless
suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863.

POLITICAL CALENDAR

15 April: Duma expected to vote on second reading
of amendments to the law on forming the State Duma that would
introduce the proportional-representation system and eliminate the
single-mandate districts.

15 April: Russian spacecraft scheduled to launch new crew to
the International Space Station from the Baikonur cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan.

16 April: Opposition in Bashkortostan planning a major
demonstration calling for the resignation of republican President
Murtaza Rakhimov.

17 April: Krasnoyarsk Krai and Taimyr Autonomous Okrug to
hold referendums on the question of merging.

18 April: Moscow Arbitration Court to begin hearing case
against Yukos regarding suspected tax arrears for 2003.

27 April: Verdict expected to be announced in the case of
former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskii and Menatep Chairman Platon
Lebedev.

27-28 April: President Putin to visit Israel and the
Palestinian Autonomy.

9 May: Commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of
World War II.

10 May: Russia-EU summit to be held in Moscow.

30-31 May: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to visit Japan.

19 June: Referendum in Samara on dismissing Mayor Georgii
Limanskii.

23 June: Yukos shareholders meeting.

24 June: Gazprom shareholders meeting. Date by which merger
of Gazprom and Rosneft to be completed, according to RBK.

4 July: 750th anniversary of the founding of Kaliningrad.

6-8 July: G-8 summit in Scotland.

August: CIS summit to be held in Kazan.

September: First-ever Sino-Russian military exercises to be
held on the Shandong Peninsula.

1 November: New Public Chamber expected to hold first
session.

2006: Russia to host a G-8 summit in St. Petersburg.

1 January 2006: Date by which all political parties must
conform to law on political parties, which requires at least 50,000
members and branches in one-half of all federation subjects, or
either reregister as public organizations or be dissolved.

*********************************************************
Copyright (c) 2005. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.

The “RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly” is prepared by Robert Coalson
on the basis of a variety of sources. It is distributed every
Wednesday.

Direct comments to Robert Coalson at [email protected].
For information on reprints, see:

Back issues are online at

EurasiaNet Organization
April 13 2005

EURASIA INSIGHT

RUMSFELD’S BAKU TRIP STIRS CONTROVERSY
Alman Talyshli 4/13/05

“Rumsfeld is interested in oil!” read a headline in the April 12
edition of the popular daily Echo. The April 12 visit of the Pentagon
chief to Azerbaijan was a natural target for local media hungry for
sensational news. But not only the press is looking for answers.
Rumsfeld’s visit took place under extreme secrecy, with limited
public information, leaving many local analysts and pundits to
speculate about the reasons for the US secretary of defense’s trip,
the third such visit in the past 15 months.

Most observers look to the issue of US military bases in Azerbaijan
as a possible cause. Last year, considerable speculation focused on
the possibility that worsening relations between Washington and
Tehran would push the American military to seek bases in Azerbaijan,
Iran’s northern neighbor, in preparation for any possible attack on
the Islamic Republic. Although the White House has since opted for
diplomatic negotiations to deal with Iran’s nuclear energy program,
many Middle East experts continue to believe that military force
remains an ongoing option.

The Pentagon and US Azerbaijan embassy web sites contained no
information on Rumsfeld’s one-day visit to Baku, and Azerbaijani
officials preferred to keep their explanations general. The purpose
of the defense secretary’s visit, Ali Hasanov, head of the
presidential administration’s political department, told the ANS
television news station on April 10, “is to hold new discussions on
the principles of cooperation between Azerbaijan and the USA in the
sphere of security and [to] solve problems present in this sphere.”
Hasanov also emphasized Azerbaijan’s role in the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization’s Partnership for Peace program, citing
Rumsfeld’s participation “in cooperation issues implemented within
the framework of NATO.”

But, given the recent redeployment of US military forces from
Germany, some Azerbaijani observers take a different view.
Independent military expert Uzeyir Jafarov, in an April 9 interview
with Echo, stated that Rumsfeld was coming to Baku to get a final
answer about establishment of a US military base in Azerbaijan.
Jafarov added that he believed the answer would be positive, and
could come as early as mid-April. Pro-government political figures
such as Jumshid Nuriyev, former head of Azerbaijan’s customs service,
however, disagree with Jafarov, and have argued that Azerbaijan would
never agree to its territory being used for an attack on Iran, a
country with which Azerbaijan shares close cultural and historical
ties.

Analysts’ views on the chances for a US military presence in
Azerbaijan coincide with shifts in Pentagon plans for deployment of
US forces. In a February 2004 visit to Uzbekistan, for example,
Rumsfeld outlined the concept of “operating sites” in Asia that would
allow the US and its allies “to periodically and intermittently have
access and support.” In times of crisis, these “sites,” usually
manned by small groups of personnel, could be expanded to handle
larger numbers of troops and supplies.

Recent statements from Pentagon officials about strategic needs in
the Caspian Sea region appear grounded in this “rapid reaction”
strategy. General James Jones, commander of US troops in Europe,
confirmed in recent congressional testimony the Pentagon’s interest
in creating a special “Caspian guard” that would protect the Caspian
Sea’s oil infrastructure as well as the nearly finished
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The Wall Street Journal on April 11
reported that the US plans to spend $100 million on such a “Caspian
guard” capable of responding to crisis situations in the Caspian Sea
region, home to one of the world’s largest reservoirs of oil. This
would include the development of a command center in Baku,
responsible for monitoring ships in the Caspian Sea.

Most analysts believe any kind of American military base in
Azerbaijan would have to be only of a temporary, mobile nature. In
2004, the Azerbaijani parliament adopted a law prohibiting the
stationing of foreign troops on the country’s territory, a move
widely believed to be a gesture towards Moscow and Tehran, which both
oppose any strengthening of military ties between Azerbaijan and the
US.

With that opposition in mind, President Ilham Aliyev has so far shown
restraint in addressing Azerbaijan’s military cooperation with
Washington. Though expected to meet with Rumsfeld, Aliyev instead
departed April 12 on a two-day visit to Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijani opposition parties have speculated that
Rumsfeld’s visit also carried a political message. Upcoming
parliamentary elections in November 2005 promise to be heated, and
some media outlets, such as ANS TV, have argued that official
Washington would close its eyes to the Aliyev administration’s
progress with democratic reforms – and with them, any potential
election falsifications – if Azerbaijan would agree to deployment of
US military forces in the country. Pro-government members of
parliament have also not stopped short of charging that recent
closed-door meetings by US Ambassador Reno L. Harnish with regional
opposition leaders make up part of the Pentagon’s negotiation scheme.

In his April 12 interview with ANS, Ali Hasanov rejected these
rumors. “America is a democratic country and would never try to
impose its interests on others,” Hasanov said. “We are a sovereign
state and have our own interests, too.”

Editor’s Note: Alman Talyshli is a freelance political analyst in
Baku.

I-NewsWire Press Release
April 14 2005

UNICEF praises Armenian progress towards a protective environment for
all children

UNICEF has hailed Armenia’s ratification of the Optional Protocol to
the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of
Children in Armed Conflict and ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms
of Child Labour. Both were signed by President Kocharyan today after
being cleared by the Armenian National Assembly on 21 March 2005.

i-Newswire, 2005-04-14 – `The ratification of these two international
instruments paves the way for the implementation of the country’s
ten-year National Plan of Action for Children. It is a key step in
ensuring a `protective environment’ for Armenia’s children,’ says
Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative in Armenia.

The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed
Conflict raises the minimum age for direct participation in
hostilities to 18 years from the minimum age of 15 years specified in
the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It also raises the age of
mandatory recruitment to the armed forces from 15 to 18 and the
minimum age for voluntary recruitment to 15 years.

‘Hundreds of thousands of children are being exploited in conflicts
throughout the world,’ says Yett. `Through the ratification of this
protocol, Armenia pledges to ensure that children in this country
will never have to face the prospect of actively participating in
hostilities, consequently spending the rest of their lives scarred by
conflict.’

The Optional Protocol on Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict
has been ratified by 89 countries, including Armenia.

ILO Convention 182 calls on the parties to the Convention to take
immediate actions to remove all children below 18 from labour that is
detrimental to their health and dignity.

UNICEF estimates that 250 million children worldwide are engaged in
child labour. Many are working in horrific conditions, working in
mines, working with chemicals and pesticides and working with
dangerous machinery.

`They are everywhere, but they are invisible,’ says Yett. `They are
toiling as domestic servants in homes, labouring behind the walls of
workshops and kneeling in the mud of the world’s fields.

`Child labour reinforces a cruel cycle of deprivation. On one hand it
is symptomatic of widespread poverty. On the other hand, because
child labour usually keeps children out of school, in poor health and
exposes them to psychological and physical abuse, it reinforces this
poverty by keeping yet another generation from fulfilling its
potential.’

The new labour code of Armenia adopted earlier this year is largely
consistent with ILO Convention 182 and other international
instruments regulating child labor.

`UNICEF is working with the Government of Armenia to ensure that all
children have access to quality education,’ says Yett. `But we also
need to work actively at community level so that children and parents
see school as a better immediate option than work.’

Armenia is the 154th country to ratify ILO Convention 182.

On 19 March 2005 the Government of Armenia ratified the Optional
Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of
children, child prostitution and child pornography.

****

UNICEF established its presence in Armenia in 1994. UNICEF is
mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the
protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic needs and
to expand their opportunities to meet their full potential.

For further information, please contact:
Emil Sahakyan, Communication Officer, UNICEF Armenia
Tel: ( 374 1 ) 523-546, 566497,580-174
E-mail: [email protected]

Arlington Advocate, MA
April 14 2005

Film explores Armenian Genocide
Thursday, April 14, 2005

In honor of the 90th Armenian Genocide Commemoration this month,
videographer Roger Hagopian will show his film “Memories of Marash:
The Legacy of a Lost Armenian Community” on Thursday, April 21, 7
p.m. in the Community Room at the Robbins Library in Arlington.

This 70-minute video traces the ancient history of Marash,
located in present day Turkey, from ancient times through the series
of massacres committed by the Ottoman Turkish government from the
late 1800s to 1923 and the final expulsion of the Armenian community.
Marash was a cultural, religious and educational center with
Armenians maintaining most of the economy. The unique and colorful
style of Marash embroidery is a lost art as demonstrated in this
video.

While the Turks, in conspiracy with the Germans, were the
obvious perpetrators, the documentary examines the actions of the
British and French in denying the Armenians a last chance to reclaim
their homeland. Broken treaties and revised agreements were the order
of the day, with Turkey the prime beneficiary.

However, the infusion of Turkish culture with Armenian,
especially the language, music and foods is irrefutable and, as the
video shows, a few Armenians avoided the deportations and were saved
by “good Turks.”

The film consists of interviews with Genocide survivors as well
as their children and experts on Marash, which was situated in
Cilicia, the south coastal region of Asia Minor. Also included are
family and historical photographs, silent movies from post-World War
I, present day video scenes of the homeland and authentic music
provided by Professor Leon Janikian of Northeastern University.

The idea for the video originated with Hagopian’s desire to tell
a family story within the context of historical events. In the
research process, the theme of the story shifted from the plight of
his grandmother to the tale of the city itself.

“Along the way, I discovered a lost, yet vibrant way of life
that had existed prior to 1915. Whenever I make these video
presentations, I always feel like I’m bringing the story home. It’s a
story that needs to be told in order to keep history alive – and not
see it forgotten. If my emotions show, that goes along with the
experience. For me, it’s a way of presenting genealogy in a way
that’s informative, educational, and enlightening. A lot of hours and
many books went into this project. It’s a legacy I wanted to
preserve,” he said.

While the story focuses on one ethnic group, the Armenians of the
Ottoman Turkish Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century, the
theme is universal. The ethnic cleansing that occurred there was the
first genocide of modern times. Although it was well documented at
the time by soldiers, relief workers, missionaries and reporters,
this holocaust has been not been properly recognized by the United
States for fear of offending Turkey, its NATO ally.

Armenians have been put in the position of having to write
books, create films and develop high school and university Armenian
Genocide study curriculums for the purpose of imploring to the world
that an entire nation of 2.5 million was, in fact, removed from its
homeland of 3,400 years through genocide, massacres and deportations,
resulting in the death of 1.5 million people in 1915.

In 1939, prior to the invasion of Poland, World War II and the
subsequent Jewish Holocaust, Adolf Hitler met with his leading
officers and exclaimed, “Who speaks today of the extermination of the
Armenians?”

Hagopian is a film maker from Lexington. A previous work on this
topic was “Journey of an Armenian Family: The Struggle of a Nation,”
the story of his father, Hurire, a Genocide survivor. He is on the
board of directors of the Middlesex Canal Association and has
produced a documentary on the earliest major canal in America.

This film is co-sponsored by the Armenian Cultural Foundation, a
private library and museum dedicated to the preservation and
enhancement of Armenian history, culture and letters. Located at 441
Mystic St., this institution was incorporated in 1945 by Vahan
Topalian (1886-1983), a well-known Armenian book collector and by a
number of his friends and benefactors. Its current president is
Robert Mirak and the curator is Ara Ghazarian.

A question-and-answer period with the producer will conclude the
evening.

NKR, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
April 2005

THE NKR FOREIGN MINISTER: NAGORNO KARABAKH WILL OBTAIN THE
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF ITS INDEPENDENCE

Delivering a speech at March 29-30 listenings on “The Problem of
Nagorno Karabakh. The Ways of Settlement” at the Parliament of
Armenia, the NKR Foreign Minister stated on the Nagorno Karabakh
Republic’s intention to consecutively obtain its international
recognition.

The Minister stressed the impeccability of the legal basis and the
procedure of declaring the NKR independence, on the basis of which
Stepanakert was constructing its foreign policy. At the same time
Arman Melikian noted that the NKR leadership deferred the goal of
achieving the international recognition of the NKR from the one of
the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. “The goal of the settlement
comes from the one of liquidation of the consequences of the war
unleashed by Azerbaijan, and can’t follow the goal of achieving the
international recognition of the NKR. We conduct this process
separately and we intend to lead it to its logic end”, he noted.
According to the NKR Foreign Minister, the Karabakh leadership found
the necessary prerequisites for the international recognition of the
NKR and aspired to create them in its practical policy for achieving
the aim.

Speaking on the current situation in the negotiation process on the
Karabakh settlement, Arman Melikian noted the presence of the
elements in it causing Stepanakert’s definite anxiety. Nagorno
Karabakh actually appeared out of the frames of the negotiation
process in the period of the so-called Paris process, when, as it was
confirmed, the parties were very close to the mutual understanding
and compromises. However, via the denial of the compromise variant,
the Azerbaijani party tried to present Armenia as an aggressor and
has conducted this policy up to this day. “It causes our anxiety. We
think it necessary to take effective steps to overpass the
Azerbaijani policy consequences which become more noticeable”,
Melikian said.

At the same time, the NKR Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that he
could not affirm that the situation developed negatively for the
international recognition of the NKR. “There are changes that can
lead to actual realization of the NKR international recognition in
future and we’ll try to quicken this process”, Melikian said. In this
connection, he noted that on March 29 at the session of the NKR
Government a package of draft laws had been discussed which were
aimed at the settlement of the activity in the foreign policy sphere.
This package includes also draft laws on the NKR joining to two
international conventions – on diplomatic relations and on consular
relations. The NKR Foreign Minister denied the outward appearance of
an unrecognized state’s joining to the international conventions by
the example of demands made by the International Committee of Red
Cross (ICRC) to Nagorno Karabakh as a state which had joined to the
Geneve conventions in early 90s. “We plan to take steps regarding a
number of other serious international documents as well. And this is
one of the serious elements of our foreign policy”, the head of the
NKR MFA said.

He considered it necessary to remind about one more important factor
which “being fundamental, for some reason came out from the
negotiation relations”. The issue regards the Armenians who once
lived in Azerbaijan. When the talk touches upon refugees, as a rule,
they usually mean Azerbaijanis displaced from Armenia and Nagorno
Karabakh to Azerbaijan, and partly – the Armenians who escaped from
the NKR Shahumian, Martakert regions and other Karabakh territories,
which are fully or partly occupied by Azerbaijan. “We constantly
forget about a great number of people, who found themselves out of
the process and whose interests are not protected by anybody at the
international stage. The NKR authorities consider it their duty”, the
head of the NKR MFA stressed.

Trying to follow these people’s destiny, the Karabakh leadership held
a monitoring in one of the regions of Russia, where many Armenians
lived. According to the data received, about 45 thousand Armenians
from Azerbaijan have found refuge in that Russian region since the
beginning of the Karabakh events. Almost half of them got Russian
citizenship. A small part of them – about 1000-1500 people – became
citizens of Armenia. The rest have no citizenship yet. Melikian noted
that such was the situation only in one region of Russia. He pointed
out the necessity of consecutive dealing with this problem, like
Azerbaijan did, and the ability to present the interests of the
Armenian refugees at the international stage including the
restoration of the material and other losses suffered by them. “It’s
a very important goal at the resolution of which the law on
citizenship worked out in the NKR is directed. It is almost ready.
After the expert stage, in the nearest 10-15 days, the draft law will
be discussed”, Melikian said.

The head of the Karabakh MFA called the development of democracy and
democratic institutes in the republic the most important part of the
NKR policy. The Minister called the coming June elections to the NKR
National Assembly a regular test on this way. “We expect that
representatives of political forces of Armenia will attend the
elections as observers. Observers from other states will also be
invited but Armenia’s relation to this event is very important for
us”, the head of the NKR MFA said.

The Minister pointed out also the necessity of taking into
consideration the international situation and the development of
world processes. Melikian said that various international
organizations with the ulterior motive observed the development of
the events around Nagorno Karabakh and tryed to affect them
proceeding mainly from good intentions, though sometimes negative
influence also took place. “But that’s not the point. We must clearly
realize that we are not alone in the world, and be able to correlate
our steps with serious international interests which become apparent
today in serious changes in the world. It is both the expansion of
the Europe and the exaggeration of the idea of Great Nearest East, as
well as the processes taking place in more remote regions. If we
can’t correlate the processes taking place in our country, with the
ones which have global international implication, we can face quite
serious difficulties”, Melikian said.

Answering the questions of the listenings’ attendants, Melikian said
that the recently exaggerated idea of conducting a referendum in
Nagorno Karabakh was regarded in the NKR as a recognition of the NK
people’s decisive vote in the issue of its self-determination. At the
same time the Minister stressed the necessity of concretely defining
the region of conducting the referendum and Azerbaijan’s readiness to
admit its results. Only if these questions found their answers it
would be possible to talk about the prerequisites for conducting a
referendum, he said.

Answering the question on the current border between Nagorno Karabakh
and Azerbaijan, Arman Melikian said that the actual border of the NKR
and Azerbaijan passed along the contact-line of the NKR and
Azerbaijani armed forces.

The Minister noted that the regions of Nagorno Karabakh – Shahoumian,
Shankhor, Khanlar, etc, which were occupied by Azerbaijan, were
actively settled, and according to the present data, not only by
refugees from the territories which had passed under the control of
Nagorno Karabakh in the course of the war, but also other
Azerbaijanis. At the same time, Arman Melikian expressed his
dissatisfaction by the process of settling the territories controlled
by the Karabakh party, by Armenians. “There are definite omissions in
this process”, Melikian said.

El Pais, Montevideo – Uruguay
Miércoles 13 de abril de 2005

EDITORIAL
Se cumplen 90 años

DENTRO de unos días se cumplirán nueve décadas del genocidio de los
armenios, una masacre planeada, ordenada y cometida por las fuerzas
del Imperio Otomano, que comenzó el 24 de abril de 1915 mientras en
Europa se libraba el segundo año de operaciones de la primera guerra
mundial. Ese conflicto bélico de gran alcance – en el que los otomanos
figuraban como aliados de los imperios centrales, Alemania y Austria –
puede haber funcionado como deliberada cortina de humo aprovechada
por los turcos para que la masacre de armenios pasara inadvertida,
pero de todas maneras luego del horrible episodio, que se prolongó
largamente a través de la ruta de huida de los armenios desde las
montañas de Anatolia hacia el Mediterráneo, las autoridades otomanas
sólo reconocerían unos pocos miles de muertos, cuando la contabilidad
más creíble sobre esa carnicería hace subir el total de víctimas a
1:500.000 personas.

SEGUN se ha dicho, el genocidio armenio fue “el primer plan de
exterminio sistemático de un grupo humano en el siglo XX” dato que
podría retocarse si se incluye en esa categoría la matanza colosal de
los pobladores del Congo por parte del rey Leopoldo II de Bélgica,
que cubrió desde fines del siglo XIX hasta 1905, por lo menos, y
liquidó a millones de personas bajo el empuje de un insaciable
espíritu de lucro y tomó finalmente una notoriedad internacional que
obligó al monarca belga a detener el método y pasar el Congo – que
hasta entonces era una suerte de feudo personal – a la administración
colonial de su país. Desoladoramente, el caso del Congo y luego el
espanto de la masacre de los armenios no cerrarían el capítulo
genocida en la historia reciente, porque serían continuados por la
mortandad provocada en la Unión Soviética con la colectivización
forzada del agro y el desplazamiento masivo de comunidades bajo
Stalin, luego de lo cual vendría el holocausto de millones de judíos
europeos durante el gobierno nazi, así como la muerte de decenas de
millones de chinos bajo el Gran Salto Adelante (y después la
Revolución Cultural) ordenados por Mao.

No todo terminó allí, en materia de genocidio, ya que después vendría
el exterminio de camboyanos en la década del 70 bajo el régimen de
los Khmer Rouges (que ultimó a la mitad de la población de ese país
indochino) y finalmente la masacre de la comunidad tutsi por orden de
sus rivales hutu en Ruanda durante los años 90, donde murieron
800.000 personas en unos pocos meses. Tanto espanto no debe
condicionar la memoria, empero, de manera que al cumplirse noventa
años de la persecución de los armenios el hecho debe recuperar todo
el horror que le corresponde, como si hubiera ocurrido ayer. En la
perspectiva del cruento siglo que pasó, es uno de los picos de muerte
que ningún inventario de las crueldades humanas debe saltear.

UNA de las lecciones duraderas que pueden dejar al hombre de hoy esos
episodios de ayer, es el de un convencimiento colectivo: el de que no
deben repetirse jamás.

Mientras sigue en ejercicio la Corte Penal Internacional instalada en
La Haya desde julio de 2002, y funcionan asimismo dos tribunales
penales especiales para la guerra de la ex Yugoslavia y la mencionada
matanza de Ruanda, puede razonarse que esas instancias judiciales
marcan una ventaja con respecto al mundo del pasado reciente: hoy ya
no es posible que alguien cometa crímenes de guerra o crímenes contra
la humanidad y pretenda quedar impune, porque esas cortes penales
sabrán echarle el guante, como ocurrió con Milosevic, sin ir más
lejos. Es notoria la zozobra con que se mueve hoy Henry Kissinger
luego de ser requerido por la Justicia francesa para hacer frente a
alguna de las múltiples acusaciones que pesan sobre él por las cosas
que permitió hacer a otros (en Chile, en Timor o en Vietnam, por
ejemplo) mientras se desempeñaba como secretario de Estado.

YA no será posible que esas cortes juzguen a los culpables de otros
hechos más remotos: la muerte natural o el suicidio los ha salvado de
enfrentar a un tribunal. El genocidio de los armenios ha quedado muy
atrás, pero lo que sigue vivo es el recuerdo del horror, junto a la
necesidad de no perder el recuerdo de ciertas manchas que han
oscurecido la historia contemporánea.

Reivindicación

En tiempos de reivindicaciones históricas, es importante recordar un
hecho que marcó el futuro de este país. El 11 de abril de 1831 el
gobierno de la flamante república del Plata decidió utilizar a su
ejército para hallar una solución definitiva y terminante al tema
“charrúa”. No fue una batalla frontal ni un enfrentamiento honorable
entre guerreros y soldados, sino una emboscada, una masacre o matanza
– como se desee llamar – , pergeñada recurriendo al engaño y a un cierto
nivel de confianza que aún existía entre líderes de ambos bandos, que
habían peleado juntos contra los invasores extranjeros de este
territorio.

La masacre de Salsipuedes significó un punto de inflexión en nuestra
historia, porque terminó con lo que quedaba de una unidad cultural y
étnica de los pobladores originales de estas tierras.

Nuestros aborígenes nómades, que vivían en la edad de piedra y que
nunca aceptaron asimilarse a esa nueva sociedad, poseían un estilo de
vida antagónico con el de la sociedad criolla. Como nunca se les
reconoció derecho alguno sobre su suelo, el paso del tiempo no hizo
más que agravar el conflicto de intereses existente entre ellos. Han
transcurrido 174 años desde aquel luctuoso día.

Lo que sigue pendiente en el seno de la sociedad uruguaya es la
reivindicación de ese colectivo, especialmente en lo que tiene que
ver con su consideración y presencia en la historia oficial de este
país.

Turkish press
April 13 2005

Turkish Parliament Sends Letter To Britain On Armenian Claims

ANKARA – Turkish parliament sent on Wednesday a letter to British
House of Commons and House of Lords regarding the so-called Armenian
genocide allegations.

The letter was signed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
and Deniz Baykal, the leader of the main opposition Republican
People’s Party (CHP).

Demanding that the ”Blue Book” should be declared invalid and
baseless as a historical document, the letter said, ”the Blue Book
was used as an ethic ground for dreadful terrorist crimes committed
by Armenian genocide justice commandos and ASALA.”

The letter also demanded that the fact should be declared that the
book entitled ”Treatment towards Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
between 1915-1916” was actually a tool for propaganda prepared by
the British War Propaganda Office during the World War I.

Noting that the ”Blue Book” did not include words of other sources,
the letter said, ”the Blue Book did not touch on killing of tens of
thousands of Muslims by Armenian rebellions in eastern Anatolia.”

The letter pointed out that the ”Blue Book” did not say that
hundreds of thousands of Armenians who were outside the war area
continued to live in peace and stability.

The ”Blue Book” did neither mention killing of Ottoman officials,
cutting of communication lines, mass killing of Turks in (eastern
city of) Van, and forced migration of more than one million Muslims
from their homes by the Russians and Armenians, the letter said.

The letter stated that a decision made by Malta Court in 1921
indirectly declared that the documents and claims in the ”Blue
Book” were baseless.

Journal of Turkish weekly
April 14 2005

Turkish PM Erdogan: Turkey is not Afraid of History

ANKARA (JTW) – Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said `Turkey is
not afraid of its history’. Erdogan argued that there should be an
open discussion on Armenian allegations about the Ottoman policies
towards its Armenian citizens during the World War One.

Addressing a meeting of parliamentary deputies of his Justice and
Development Party (AKP) in Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan repeated his call for an open and objective study of the
allegations. `Our archives are open to all. The Armenians and others
should open their archives and should be open to dialogue’ Erdogan
added.

`Medicine has yet to find a cure for those who do not want to open
their eyes to history,’ Erdogan said. Erdogan argued that some are
biased on the issue and could not be convinced with the archive
documents or any other proof.

Armenian side had rejected Turkish calls to open all archives.
Tashnaks’ Boston Archive is still closed and many documents regarding
relations with Turks and Germany are still missing.

The Armenians rioted during the First World War against the Ottoman
Empire and the Istanbul Government took the Resettlement Decision.
Thousands of Armenians were resettled to the provinces far away from
the war theatre. Many Armenians joined the Russian army and attacked
the Turkish and Kurdish towns. More than 500,000 Muslim Ottoman
citizens were massacred by the Armenian armed gangs.

JTW
14 April 2005

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, PA
April 13 2005

Turkey? No problem

By Graham Fuller
Thursday, April 14, 2005

Who lost Turkey? That’s the theme of a rash of articles in the U.S.
media over the past two months. Apparently, there’s a growing
consensus in Washington that our old ally has been gradually becoming
more anti-American.
In 2003, Turkey denied Washington the use of Turkish bases only
months before the war on Iraq began. Just recently, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld blamed Turkey’s noncooperation for many of the
problems today with Iraqi insurgents.

A number of critics have pointed to the rise of anti-American public
sentiment in Turkey over the past two years. The Marshall Fund found
that 82 percent of the Turkish public was hostile to the United
States, one of the highest figures anywhere, especially for a NATO
ally. The Islam-oriented government in Ankara has harshly criticized
close U.S. ally Israel for its occupation policies in the West Bank.
And Turkey does not concur with Washington’s efforts to pressure Iran
and Syria.

Although these events indeed represent a new Turkish reality, it
would be erroneous — indeed dangerous — to assume that Turkey’s
widespread opposition to many of the Bush administration’s policies
are symptomatic of a broader strategic hostility.

In reality, U.S. interests have been exceptionally well-served by
this Turkish government, which has brought broad democratic reforms
to the country as part of its explicit commitment to gain European
Union membership. Turkey has taken positive steps toward relieving
Kurdish dissatisfaction and has moved to improve relations with all
its neighbors, including longtime opponent Armenia. The economy is
moving forward, and inflation is way down.

The Turkish public, including those with no special desire for
Islamist policies, find the performance of this government to be
generally on the right track; politics have been more stable than at
any other time in the past decade. Most interesting, several of
Turkey’s Arab neighbors are paying attention to its experience in
producing a competent Islam-oriented government — one that can be
proudly independent yet democratic, reformist and a candidate for EU
membership. Nothing could be a more positive model for the rest of
the region.

Ankara no longer is automatically acquiescent to following the U.S.
lead, especially when it believes that U.S. policies run counter to
Turkish national interests. U.S. policy in Iraq, Iran and Syria is
seen by Turkey as adventuristic and needlessly destabilizing to
Turkish interests.

Right now, opposition to U.S. policies is the nearest thing to a
national consensus in Turkey. Major elements across the political
spectrum — Turkey’s strong secularists, nationalists, Kemalists and
leftists — are even more harshly critical of Washington than the
government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Efforts by Washington to intimidate a popular, representative Turkish
government or to bring it in line with U.S. government policies will
almost surely backfire. In the new world order, unilateralism has its
limits.

Turkey is not lost to us; we just need to take a more realistic view
of the limits of our own power, be sensitive to the risks of ignoring
other states’ nationalist feelings and interests, and adopt a
longer-term, more enlightened view of our own interests.

Turkey is doing fine.

Graham Fuller is a former chairman of the National Intelligence
Council at the CIA. His latest book is “The Future of Political
Islam.”