What happened to the trade office of North Cyprus in Kuwait city?

21 May 2007
The New Anatolian
By Yuksel Soylemez

In the article below it says: "Turkey does not recognize Armenia, but has some trade with Yerevan, and, to my mind, should open a Trade Mission in Yerevan, as there is an Armenian representative in Istanbul visibly under the title of Representative to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Region Organization, who is probably taking care of such matters."

The Kuwait Prime Minister was recently the official guest of Prime Minister Erdogan. Their main agenda was the intention of developing economic and trade relations, facilitating Kuwaiti investments in Turkey and vice versa. Prime Minister Al Sabah was accompanied by the Turkish Minister of Finance on his visit to Istanbul where he met with Turkish industrialists and businessmen. All in all, it was a successful and beneficial visit.

One important outcome concerned the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus with an initiative to open a TRNC Trade Office in Kuwait City, so that Kuwaiti businessmen can do better business with TRNC and exports can be increased from Northern Cyprus to Kuwait.

Trade Offices over the world serve as economic and tourism agencies with no political bias. One such example is in China-Taiwan relations. China does not recognize Taiwan, but there is a huge trade volume and investment between the two. Turkey does not recognize Taiwan diplomatically, but there has been a Turkish Trade Office in Taipei since 1993.

I was in charge of the Turkish Trade Office in Taipei as Representative for three and a half years between 1995 and 1998. The first representative was retired ambassador, the late Metin Sirman. Beijing had no objection to a Turkish Trade Office in Taipei. Our official trade volume some ten years ago was around $500,000, but in actual terms it was probably about the $2 billion mark at the time, according to Turkish businessmen, if one includes a) luggage trade, b) trade from third countries and c) unregistered trade.

The Greek Cypriot administration in the South immediately reacted by political reflex against the Kuwaiti Cabinet decision to allow a TRNC trade mission in Kuwait City by making representations in Kuwait, saying that the Kuwaiti decision is an "unwanted development and they will use all means to stop this decision being materialized." By doing this, the Greek Cypriot leadership reminded themselves, as much as the Kuwaitis, that "this decision cannot mean granting legitimacy to the Turkish Cypriots." It was a statement of the obvious.

Taiwan has had a Trade Mission in Ankara since 1992 and is busy developing Taiwan's exports and investments to Turkey, especially in electronics and, more specifically. laptop computers. China has no objection to Taiwan's Trade Office in Ankara. By comparison, the Greek Cypriots' objection, as a matter of political reflex, to fight against its establishment is beyond reason or international practice.

Turkey does not recognize Armenia, but has some trade with Yerevan, and, to my mind, should open a Trade Mission in Yerevan, as there is an Armenian representative in Istanbul visibly under the title of Representative to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Region Organization, who is probably taking care of such matters.

Now some time has passed, and I am afraid no news is not good news, which presumably means that the Greek Cypriot leaders must have been active in getting the Kuwait Government to stop its Trade Office initiative and will to stand behind its cabinet decision and its Prime Minister's word to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. To open a trade office cannot be interpreted as recognition of TRNC and Kuwait was not wrong in suggesting this. It cannot be argued that it is a first step towards recognition, because there are precedents in favor of their decision. The Greek Cypriot leadership's efforts to block this initiative may prove counterproductive, if not negative, to their already negative and uncooperative image.

For more than three decades the Greek Cypriot leadership, with their economic blockade against the Turkish Cypriots have been trying to strangle the North Cyprus state economically. The European Union's decision to break this economic blockade has already been obstructed by the Greek Cypriot leadership in the south.

Trying to stop development of economic and trade relations between Kuwait and the Turkish Republic in the North is the latest example of their ill-conceived positions and uncompromising policies. Can, or will, the Kuwaiti Government surrender easily to negative Greek Cypriot pressure is the question. To stand their ground and to deliver on their Prime Minister's promise to open a Turkish Cypriot Trade Mission in Kuwait City is their sovereign right and may be in their own interests, a matter they should decide.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Turkey’s Armenians in crossfire between ‘fanatics’ on both sides

14.05.2007
Today’s Zaman
İstanbul

The article below says "The patriarch also expressed his opinion that it was time for Turkey to improve dialogue with Armenia and the diaspora. “Journalists, youth organizations, academics and civil society organizations should make frequent visits to both countries and improve humane relations between the two countries. Difficult issues could be dealt with later. First mutual confidence and understanding should be established.”"

I have the feeling that Turkey likes to order around and not dialogue. It will take a big change in Turkey for it to shed off its imperial past. If turning the Holy Cross church to a museum without a cross at its staple and not allowing the patriarchate to celebrate a mass is the kind of dialogue, Armenians can do without. The day of dialogue will come if Turkey allows Turkish Armenians to openly commemorate April 24 in Turkey.

Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan, patriarch to Turkey’s Armenian community, feels Turkish Armenians are caught in the crossfire as fanatics on either side attack one another.

Speaking to Zaman daily journalist Nuriye Akman, Patriarch Mesrob II expressed his frustration with religiously motivated attacks in Turkey, including last year’s killing of an Italian pastor and the more recent slaying of three Bible publishers in Malatya.

“I can say that we sometimes experience the feeling of ‘being stuck in between’ Turkish and Armenian fanatics. This sometimes appears to me as being stuck in a crossfire and sometimes two kinds of love. Two fires, for the nationalists on both sides are firing at each other unabated, which is harder on us as the Armenians of Turkey. Two kinds of love, because we have adopted and we love the language, traditions and culture of both sides. For this reason, as I always say, establishing peace between these two peoples would make Turkey’s Armenians the most happy.”

The patriarch also told Akman that having lived in a Muslim country for centuries offered the benefits of an environment of tolerance between different religions. “Church bells ringing and the Muslim prayer call mix with each other, particularly in İstanbul, and create a mystical atmosphere. At the end of the day both the church bell and the ezan praise God’s name and call believers to prayer. We should stand against any formation that might threaten this environment of tolerance.”

Mesrob II also said he found it hard to believe what was currently going on in Turkey. “In the neighborhood where I grew up we all lived together as Turks, Armenians, Greeks and Jews and played together as kids. Everybody used to know the dates of holidays for all religions and exchanged greetings during these times. Now that I look at these recent painful incidents we have been through I hardly know my country that I had known as well as my own life.”

The patriarch also expressed his opinion that it was time for Turkey to improve dialogue with Armenia and the diaspora. “Journalists, youth organizations, academics and civil society organizations should make frequent visits to both countries and improve humane relations between the two countries. Difficult issues could be dealt with later. First mutual confidence and understanding should be established.”

Patriarch Mesrob II also offered his belief that if Turkey’s Armenian community was represented in the Turkish Parliament it would contribute greatly to improving tolerance and understanding. “If our political parties were more supportive of Armenian students who might be interested in politics, they would have made a concrete step to improve the more abstract concepts of citizenship and tolerance.”

Common grounds between Islam and Christianity

The patriarch said there were many common points between Islamic and Christian mysticism. “Mysticism is actually tantamount to transcending the dogma. Is it possible not to agree with [Turkish Sufi thinker] Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi on most issues?” He said Mevlana’s message was most important, referring to Mevlana’s widely known poem, “Come, come again, whoever you are, come!” The patriarch interpreted Mevlana’s call as an invitation to the door of God. He also said he respected Islam’s Prophet Mohammed as the founder of a great civilization. “I feel great respect,” he explained.

Sarkozy in France

The patriarch expressed hopes that Nicolas Sarkozy, who recently won the presidential elections in France, would change his staunchly anti-Turkish discourse once he took office. In response to a question asking what would happen if a bill, taken up by the French Parliament earlier, criminalizing the denial of Armenian claims of a genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, the patriarch said if the bill reappeared on the agenda it would harm French-Turkish relations.

Instead, he opined that a board of Turkish and Armenian historians as well as French historians should be set up to investigate the allegations and the relations of the two nations throughout centuries. “True, painful events happened under the Union and Progress government [which came to power in 1908], however it would be wrong to leave an entire history behind the shadow of those incidents, given the friendly relations the Turkish and Armenian people have had since the fifth century.”

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Armenia confirmed participation in opening ceremony of Akhtamar Church

16.03.2007 13:34

YEREVAN (YERKIR) - Armenian delegation will participate in the opening ceremony of Holly Cross Armenian Church in Akhtamar island, Turkey.

Armenian Minister of Culture and Youth Affairs Hasmik Poghosyan told a press conference in Yerevan that a few days ago she had received an official invitation to participate in the opening ceremony of the Church, PanARMENIAN.Net reported.

Poghosyan noted that either she personally or Deputy Culture and Youth Affairs Minister will head the delegation. “Alongside, several NGOs wished to be included in the delegation,” she said. Poghosyan also added Georgian Minister of Culture, Monuments Protection and Sport Giorgi Gabashvili wished to participate in the opening ceremony of the Church in Turkey, “Novosti-Armenia” reports.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Armenia discussing Turkish invitation for Akdamar

Friday, March 16, 2007
Turkish Daily News
By FULYA ÖZERKAN - ANKARA

Armenian official says it is too early to say Turkish move will open dialogue between Yerevan and Ankara but repeats Yerevan's willingness to establish diplomatic ties with Ankara with no precondition

Armenia has not yet made a decision over the Turkish government's invitation for the inauguration ceremony marking the renovation of 1,000-year old Akdamar church, located in eastern Turkey.

“We don't have any answer yet … and we're still discussing the Turkish invitation,” Vladimir Karapetian, acting spokesperson of the Armenian Foreign Ministry, told the Turkish Daily News in a telephone interview.

Turkey has invited Armenian officials as well as representatives of the Armenian diaspora to participate in the ceremony of the renovated church, a development that sparked questions whether Ankara's unilateral move could become a political gesture for normalization of bilateral ties between the two neighboring countries.

The Armenian official, speaking with the TDN, said it was too early to say that the Turkish move would open dialogue between Yerevan and Ankara but made clear that Yerevan was “in favor of establishing normal relations including the opening of the border without any precondition.”

But he said the Turkish side showed no signs of rapprochement with Armenia, apparently referring to Ankara's canceled plans to allow direct flights between Yerevan and eastern the Turkish province of Van for the ceremony.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry recently held a meeting with the participation of relevant authorities to discuss preparations, as well as plans to invite Armenian officials and members of the diaspora ahead of the inauguration of the church scheduled for March 29. An official suggested that Turkey open the gate or allow direct flight between Yerevan and Van just for once to help Armenian guests to cross into Turkey easily to attend the ceremony. But the idea has been shelved for the time being, sources said.

Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations, and the border between the two countries has been shut since 1993. Hopes have risen for normalization of Turkish-Armenian ties when the Turkish government invited Armenian officials and representatives of the diaspora to participate in the funeral ceremony of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was shot to death in Istanbul in January. But no visible development in the name of reconciliation between the two countries has been observed since then.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Queen's Turkey visit centers on business

Thursday, March 1, 2007
Turkish Daily News
ANKARA

The queen of the Netherlands yesterday met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the second day of her visit to Turkey on the sidelines of an economy meeting at the prime minister's residence.

“The Netherlands ranks first among the countries making investments in Turkey,” Erdogan said at the meeting. But he emphasized that commercial relations between the two countries should expand even more.

Accompanied by the Turkish premier, Queen Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard had talks with the representatives of Turkish and Dutch industrial organizations here in Ankara. Before her meetings in the Turkish capital, the queen went to the central Anatolian province of Kayseri.

There are interesting reasons behind the queen's visit to Kayseri, where many of the Netherlands' 350,000-strong Turkish community come from. Turks in the Netherlands own 15,000 companies and providing employment for 60,000 people. Turks have a say in a wide range of areas from Telecom to the insurance system.

On the other side, some 150,000 firms in the Netherlands that has an aging population risk being shut down because of a lack of heirs and the biggest hope for those firms now is Turkish entrepreneurs who moved to the Netherlands years ago from the Kayapinar district of Kayseri. After her short trip to Kayseri, the queen returned to Ankara on the same day. On Thursday, the royal party will be in Istanbul.

Late on Tuesday, Queen Beatrix avoided giving political messages in Ankara, while Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen spoke about the need for dialogue between Armenia and Turkey. Verhagen conveyed the message that historians alone cannot solve the so-called genocide discussions, suggesting that politicians come together to discuss and solve the issues, Dutch sources said.

He also conveyed the urgent need for amendment or abolition of Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) and called for an urgent action for clearing obstacles before freedom of expression in Turkey. The Dutch minister expressed the desire of European Union members for opening Turkish ports to Greek Cyprus.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Opening of Saint Cross Church in Akhtamar to take place April 14

21.02.2007

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Reconstruction of Saint Cross on Akhtamar island is of political and economic importance, Samvel Karapetian, historian and chairman of Era NGO said in Yerevan. The opening ceremony of the church will take place April 14, 2007.

“Saint Cross is a church that Turks did not dare to demolish even at the times of mass destruction of churches at the territory of Western Armenia. Thanks to its world fame the church was saved from vandalism. Now it’s being reconstructed. More and more tourists are coming to see it and this has a positive impact on the local economy,” he said. The Armenian historian considers that heads of province administrations come to understand what a great mistake their grandfathers had committed by demolishing ancient monasteries and churches, since now these sights could attract tourists. Karapetian underscored that “it’s the fault of Armenians who lost their importance and thus allowed Turks thinking of economic profit from reconstructing Armenian monuments.”

“It would be a miracle if an Armenian nameboard would be fastened next to the Turkish and English ones,” Karapetian said adding Turks will never do that, reports IA Regnum.

The Saint Cross Church was built in 915-921 by architect Manvel under the rule of King Gagik Artsruni. The reconstruction was started in May 2005 and finished August 30, 2006.

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Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Bryza: Yerevan and Ankara cannot reach reconciliation via political decisions

06.02.2007

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Political or diplomatic statements are not proper to solve the problem of determining the tragic events of 1915, stated U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, OSCE MG Co-Chair Matthew Bryza to journalists on the eve of Turkish foreign Minister’s visit to Washington. He assured that “we all are united in the opinion that the events in 1915 are terrible tragic.” “It is horrible. But this problem has so much sides and there are a lot of views on this problem that political leaders cannot provide justice just giving it a determination. We’d like educated people, professors, philosophers, historians to be given possibility to carry out positive and impartial discussions on the causes of what happened, which will allow Armenian and Turkish communities to reconcile with their past and with each other. You cannot reach it via political decisions,” Matthew Bryza stated, adding, “We’d also like to see Armenian-Turkish relations improved.” “As a CO-Chair of OSCE MG I understand how much it is difficult. I realize the role of Nagorno Karabakh in this problem very strongly. Despite it, we’d like to see corresponding steps aimed at improving relations between Armenia and Turkey, since it proceeds from interests of all sides. It proceeds from interests of Turkish businessmen, it is also a good chance for long term regional stability and peace. But I realize how all this is difficult,” the American diplomat stressed.

Speaking on possible steps of improving Armenian-Turkish relations Matthew Bryza reminded that Armenian and Turkish governments “speak about historic commissions and diplomatic debates.” After Hrant Dink’s tragic murder discussions over 301st article of Turkish Penal Code got more intensive character. We understand that it is difficult for the Turkish government to declare invalid this article because of political realities. But it would be fine if the issue of 301st article would be removed from the agenda, since it allows to condemn Turkey. We are friends for Turkey. We hope Turkey considers us as one of the closest friends in the world. And we want to do everything possible to assist traditions of tolerance and co-existence of all ethnic and religious communities in Turkey. 301st article yet hampers this problem. It has magnetic influence on Europe’s mentality and makes everyone concentrate on that problem and not on the whole Turkish history,” stated Mathew Bryza, Mediamax reports.

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'Genocidal' crisis in the making

Thursday, February 1, 2007
TDN
editorial by Yusuf KANLI

The move at the US Congress may hurt Turkey-US ties and hamper prospects of a rapprochement between Ankara and Yerevan

This is a Turkey-side rhetoric to scare off American Congress. USA recognition of the Holocaust obviously did not harm the relationship between the USA and Germany neither between Germany and the stage of Israel

What was feared ever since the dual Democratic victory in U.S. Congress has become reality. Pro-Armenian lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday introduced a resolution calling for the recognition of World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. The resolution, sponsored by Democrats Adam Schiff of California and Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Republicans George Radanovich of California and Joe Knollenberg of Michigan, has garnered written backing from more than 140 members in the 435-seat House of Representatives. The move to Democratic control of Congress and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's backing for genocide recognition has increased the chances of the resolution's successful passage.

The George W. Bush administration, as well as the Jewish lobby, will perhaps do whatever they can to block it, but the Democrats may insist on this issue to teach Bush a lesson on the changed real politik in Washington – very much like the 1975 arms embargo resolution, adopted despite the opposition of the then U.S. administration.

Once and once only:

The Armenian resolution is like a gun that can be fired only once. This issue has been exploited so much over the past decades, and Turkey forced to make such compromises over the years to avoid it, that perhaps its adoption will indeed be a service to Turkey in the long run, though in the immediate future we would be bound to have a serious crisis in Turkish-U.S. ties.

Even the most liberal of Turks cannot accept the description of the sad events of the first quarter of the last century, which produced immense sufferings to large segments of the Ottoman society of the time, as “genocide.” As members of a society proud of our past treatment of our minorities; after generations of history education that concentrated on nothing but the glorious victories of our nation; as descendants of Mehmet the Conqueror who issued that famous imperial edict ordering full respect to non-Muslim people of occupied territories; and as a result of thousands of other factors that are all related to the pride and honor of the Turkish nation, Turks cannot accept that their ancestors might have committed a heinous act on part of a population under their administration. The closest they may get it the acknowledgement of the sufferings of the Armenians and a show of empathy after the murder of a Turkish-Armenian journalist; attending the funeral chanting “We are all Armenians.”

There is a mental barrier. We may produce a long list of reasons trying to explain that what happened was not a systematic or state-sponsored effort to annihilate the Armenian element of the population of this land. The war with Russia. The collaboration of local Armenian gangs with the aggressor. The need to relocate the local population that aided and abetted the enemy. The ethnic confrontations between local Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish gangs. More Turks than any other minority, including Armenians, died in the violence produced by ethnic gangs due to the disruption in state authority as the empire crumbled. We can continue this list and cite hundreds of reasons more…

Prospects for a joint history commission:

However, at some point we have to accept that immense suffering was weathered by the population in the eastern provinces, particularly by the minorities, during those painful years of the dissolution of the empire. Acceptance of this fact, irrespective of whether what happened is described as a genocidal development or not, is the sole way of starting reconciliation efforts. Furthermore, this is also a must for us to begin a process of making peace with our own history.

Because of our “over sensitivity” for decades the Turkish state did nothing comprehensive on the issue and left international public opinion to be shaped by Armenian allegations. Only lately has this country started taking some meaningful initiatives, such as opening the Ottoman archives and Turkish academics researching that period. The real and meaningful political opening, however, came only very recently when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with the support of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), made a call to Armenia to launch a joint history commission, open to international historians, that would work under the aegis of the United Nations. That constructive move, however, has not yet been answered positively by Armenia, still unprepared to open a discussion on the “genocide” issue on grounds that such a discussion would cast doubts in the international community on the “reality” of the Armenian allegations.

Lately we have heard information – which could not be independently verified – that the Armenian administration has started tilting towards accepting the Turkish offer, provided a second commission is established to examine all “outstanding” issues between Turkey and Armenia and Turkey opens its border gates, allowing landlocked Armenia to have access to international trade. However, the move at the U.S. Congress will unfortunately have a backlash here in Turkey and may kill all such prospects of improved relations between Ankara and Yerevan.

This is a veiled threat not uncommon in Turkey's stance. Turkey takes the recognition of the Armenian genocide as a political contest to be won, it therefore ties it with other political conditions. Armenia insists on the other hand that no precondition should exist in the political normalization between Turkey and Armenia. This is a crisis in the making.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

YEREVAN'S PERSPECTIVE: NO SIGNS OF IMPROVED TURKISH-ARMENIAN RELATIONS

Posted February 1, 2007 © Eurasianet
Emil Danielyan

Ankara appears to be sticking to long-standing preconditions for normalizing Turkey’s historically strained relationship with Armenia, despite domestic appeals that followed the assassination of a renowned Turkish-Armenian journalist.

Senior Turkish and Armenian diplomats held rare talks in Istanbul in late January amid hopes for a rapprochement between the two neighboring states. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakossian’s talks with Turkish officials reportedly failed to make any progress, though.

"Differences in the parties’ positions on the discussed issues remain," Vladimir Karapetian, a spokesman for the Armenian Foreign Ministry, said in a January 26 statement about the meeting. He indicated that Turkey continues to oppose an unconditional establishment of diplomatic relations and the opening of its border with Armenia.

Prior to the bilateral meeting, Kirakossian attended the high-profile funeral of Hrant Dink, the ethnic Armenian editor of the bilingual Agos weekly whose January 19 killing sparked outrage both inside Turkey and far beyond its borders. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 as a gesture of support for Azerbaijan, its closest Turkic ally, which remains locked in a bitter dispute with Armenia over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Successive Turkish governments have conditioned the lifting of the economic blockade on the withdrawal of Armenian forces from Azerbaijani districts bordering Karabakh, and an end to the Armenian campaign for international recognition of the events of 1915 as genocide.[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Turkish leaders haven’t changed their position despite pressure from the United States and the European Union. Many officials in Washington and Brussels believe that a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement would significantly boost stability in the volatile South Caucasus. In late January, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul effectively ruled out any policy shift, saying that Armenia should first "review its negative feelings against us, and should not make unjust demands."

The Armenian drive for genocide recognition, meanwhile, appears to be gaining momentum. Influential Armenian lobby groups in the United States are pressing for the US House of Representatives to adopt a genocide recognition resolution. One of them, the Armenian National Committee of America, characterized Dink’s January 19 shooting as a "wake-up call to the United States and the entire international community to unite together in ending forever the Turkish government’s denial of the Armenian Genocide." A group of US lawmakers introduced a new recognition bill on January 30.

On the grassroots level, Turkish-Armenian dialogue may be easier to foster in the aftermath of Dink’s fatal shooting. The universal condemnation of the crime provided a rare moment of emotional unity between many Turks and Armenians. The latter were astounded by television pictures of thousands of ordinary Turks marching in the funeral procession for the slain editor and carrying banners that read, "We are all Armenians!" The images defied the negative Armenian stereotypes about Turks, prompting hopes to rise among many Armenians, in Armenia proper and living abroad, that the images reflected Turkey’s greater willingness to confront contentious questions of the past.

Yektan Turkyilmaz, a US-based Turkish scholar, said Turkish society will now be "at least slightly more sympathetic" to the Armenians, but cautioned against excessive expectations. Some Turkey-watchers in Armenia, meanwhile, remain skeptical, saying that the vast majority of Turks continue to trust their leaders’ assertion that Ottoman Armenians died in much smaller numbers and as a result of internal strife, rather than from a premeditated government effort. "I don’t think Turkish public opinion has changed since that murder," said Ruben Safrastian, director of the Yerevan-based Institute of Oriental Studies.

The final years of the Ottoman Empire, until recently a taboo subject, are being increasingly discussed in Turkey, with a growing number of local scholars and intellectuals openly questioning the official version of events. Some of them, including Dink and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, have been prosecuted under a controversial article of the Turkish criminal code that makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness."[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

According to Turkyilmaz, other dissenters are increasingly worried about becoming the next target of ultranationalist militants. "The anxiety and horror that the killing of Mr. Dink has caused among Turkish intellectuals is very deep," he said. "But the struggle will continue as we want to see our country become freer, more democratic and more peaceful. Turkey has a very deeply-rooted tradition of opposition, and I believe that it will eventually prevail."

Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and political analyst.

Posted February 1, 2007 © Eurasianet
http://www.eurasianet.org

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Yerevan's stance on Armenia-Turkey relations unchangeable

29.01.2007

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “Official Yerevan’s stance on the Armenian-Turkish relations is unchangeable. Our state is ready to normalize relations without preconditions,” RA President’s Spokesman Victor Soghomonian said at a briefing in Yerevan. In his words, in response to Turkish PM Erdogan’s letter the Armenian leader proposed to form an intergovernmental commission to consider the whole scope of issues referring to normalization of relations between the two states. “The Armenian President proposed this instead of formation of a commission of historians for investigating the past,” Soghomonian said.


Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Will Turkey learn from the tragic assassination of Hrant Dink?

January 20, 2007
www.usandworldpolitics.com
By Vahe Balabanian

On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King was shot dead in the southern US city of Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a march of sanitation workers protesting against low wages and poor working conditions.

On January 19, 2007 Hrant Dink a prominent newspaper editor, columnist and voice for Turkey’s ethnic Armenians who was prosecuted for challenging the official Turkish version of the 1915 Armenian genocide, was shot dead as he left his office on a busy street in central Istanbul.

In 1986, Martin Luther King Day was established as a United States holiday. In 2004, King was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. He was known as a great public speaker. Dr. King often called for personal responsibility in fostering world peace. King's most influential and well-known public address is the "I Have A Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Hrant Dink’s story still remains to be written in Turkey. According to Fatma Muge Gocek in her “In Memoriam: Hrant Dink, 1954-2007”, Hrant Dink’s unwavering belief in the fundamental goodness of all humans regardless of their race, ethnic origin, regardless of what they had personally or communally experienced; his unwavering vision that we in Turkey were going to one day be able to finally confront our past and come to terms with our faults, mistakes and violence as well as our so brandied about virtues; his unwavering trust that we all would manage to live together in peace one day.

It is now Turkey’s turn to demonstrate its greatness by making Hrant Dink Turkey’s Martin Luther King.

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Award-winning writer shot by assassin in Istanbul street

By Robert Fisk
Published: 20 January 2007

Hrant Dink became the 1,500,001st victim of the Armenian genocide yesterday. An educated and generous journalist and academic - editor of the weekly Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos - he tried to create a dialogue between the two nations to reach a common narrative of the 20th century's first holocaust. And he paid the price: two bullets shot into his head and two into his body by an assassin in the streets of Istanbul yesterday afternoon.

It was not only a frightful blow to Turkey's surviving Armenian community but a shattering reversal to Turkey's hope of joining the European Union, a visionary proposal already endangered by the country's broken relations with Cyprus and its refusal to acknowledge the genocide for what it was: the deliberate mass killing of an entire race of Christian people - 1,500,000 in all - by the country's Ottoman Turkish government in 1915. Winston Churchill was among the first to call it a holocaust but to this day, the Turkish authorities deny such a definition, ignoring documents which Turkey's own historians have unearthed to prove the government's genocidal intent.

The 53-year-old journalist, who had two children, was murdered at the door of his newspaper. Just over a year ago, he was convicted under Turkey's notorious law 301 of "anti-Turkishness", a charge he strenuously denied even after he received a six-month suspended sentence from an Istanbul court.

The EU has demanded that Turkey repeal the law under which the country also tried to imprison Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk. At the time of his trial, Dink appeared on Turkish television in tears. "I'm living together with Turks in this country," he said then. "And I'm in complete solidarity with them. I don't think I could live with an identity of having insulted them in this country."

It is a stunning irony that Dink had accused his fellow Armenians in an article of allowing their enmity towards the Turks for the genocide to have a "poisoning effect on your blood" - and that the court took the article out of context and claimed he was referring to Turkish blood as poisonous.

Dink told news agency reporters in 2005 that his case had arisen from a question on what he felt when, at primary school, he had to take a traditional Turkish oath: "I am a Turk, I am honest, I am hard-working." In his defence, Dink said: "I said that I was a Turkish citizen but an Armenian and that even though I was honest and hard-working, I was not a Turk, I was an Armenian." He did not like a line in the Turkish national anthem that refers to "my heroic race". He did not like singing that line, he said, "because I was against using the word 'race', which leads to discrimination".

Pamuk had earlier faced a court for talking about the 1915 genocide in a Swiss magazine. Leading Turkish publishers say that there is now an incendiary atmosphere in Turkey towards all writers who want to tell the truth about the genocide, when vast areas of Turkish Armenia were dispossessed of their Christian populations. Tens of thousands of men were massacred by Turkish gendarmerie - and by Kurds - while many Armenian women and children were raped and butchered in the northern Syrian deserts. The few survivors still alive have described the burning of living Armenian children on bonfires.

In fact, a book published in Turkey and in the United States by Turkish scholar Tamer Akcam gives documentary details of the orders passed down from the Ottoman government in what was then Constantinople for the deliberate and industrialised killing of the Armenians. Thousands were also suffocated in underground caves in what were the world's first gas chambers. Adolf Hitler asked his generals in 1939: "Who remembers the Armenians?" And he went on to begin the Holocaust of the Jews of Poland. Whether the police discover that Dink's murderer is a Turkish nationalist - or even, though it might seem inconceivable, an Armenian nationalist outraged by his earlier remarks - will be an important proof of the country's willingness to confront its past.

In Memoriam: Hrant Dink, 1954-2007

by Fatma Muge Gocek

As I sit in front of my computer and type in this first eulogy of my life with tears streaming down my face, I realize that what I will miss the most about my dear friend the journalist Hrant Dink's unexpected departure from this life are the big hugs he used to give me, to us, to all his friends, to humanity as a whole, those warm, comforting, loving hugs... I mourn that I will no longer feel that happiness surge within me as I saw his face light up on our next encounter, he will not say "Dear Muge!" and rush to me with his arms open to give me one of his wonderful hugs. The last image in my minds' eye will unfortunately be his tall, lifeless body lying covered on a pavement, mercilessly assassinated by a gunman in broad daylight in front of his newspaper in Istanbul on January 19th 2007.

I got to know Hrant closely in 2002 when he came to Ann Arbor, Michigan to attend the annual meeting of the Turkish Armenian Workshop of Scholars that my colleagues Ronald Grigor Suny, Gerard Libaridian and I held at the University of Michigan that year. After the initial meeting at the University of Chicago in 2000, we had decided to invite journalists as observers and he, as the columnist and editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian Agos newspaper, was among the invitees. Hrant was just as surprised as we were when he was issued a passport by the Turkish state to attend the workshop as he had been refused one for the last twenty years. At the workshop, he stunned all the participants by making several original contributions, specifically by his articulate standpoint as an Armenian living in Turkey, by his criticism of nationalist Diaspora politics, and by his peaceful vision of the future of Turkish-Armenian relations.

During our first meeting, I was personally struck by one thing in particular about Hrant Dink. At the time, I had been working intensely on the ethnic cleansing of the Armenians in 1915 and even just the mere act of reading about the historical events had made me so angry and hurt as a human being and as an ethnic Turk. I had also been born and raised in Turkey for twenty-four years prior to my arrival in the United States and therefore knew and was likewise very upset as a Turkish citizen about the prejudice and discrimination the minorities still faced in Turkey due to rabid Turkish nationalism. When I could not overcome my anger, when the Diaspora Armenians I met in the United States likewise struggled so much -- sometimes successfully and at other times unsuccessfully -- with their anger and hurt, how had Hrant Dink achieved, how had he managed to overcome that ever-consuming, destructive, dangerous anger to fill himself instead with so much love and hope for humanity, for Turkish society, for Turkish-Armenian reconciliation? How could he have done so in spite of the memory of 1915 and in spite of the subsequent prejudice and discrimination he faced in Turkey?

It was for me that particular quality which made Hrant Dink a great human being and a great role model: his unwavering belief in the fundamental goodness of all humans regardless of their race, ethnic origin, regardless of what they had personally or communally experienced; his unwavering vision that we in Turkey were going to one day be able to finally confront our past and come to terms with our faults, mistakes and violence as well as our so brandied about virtues; his unwavering trust that we all would manage to live together in peace one day.

Hrant was very excited about our scholarly activities and became our fervent supporter from then on. "You scholars are the ones who are ultimately going to solve this issue!" he kept saying over and over again. Last spring, when he was visiting the United States, I suddenly got a phone call from him to find out that he was on his way to Ann Arbor to especially meet with me: "Keep the dialogue between the Armenian and Turkish scholars going, that is the most significant endeavor we have for the solution of this problem and, no matter what happens, do not let things get politicized," he told me during our long meeting over coffee. He was aware, like many of us in the United States, Europe, Turkey and all over the world who belong to our Turkish Armenian network, that the solution to this problem lies in cooperation, in dialogue, and in reconciliation. He was aware that we need to tackle this issue as a community of scholars who, like him, believe in the ultimate goodness of humanity, and who, like him, fervently hope and strive on a daily basis to move that dialogue, the possibility of that reconciliation forward. Following his example, we shall attempt to overcome the deep anger we feel over his assassination, attempt to move beyond the narrow confines of our ethnic, national identities to reach for our common element of humanity so that our children, so that Hrant's children and beautiful grandchildren live in a world, in societies filled with love rather than hatred.

My dear friend Hrant, I promise you that I will continue, with the help of the community of friends and scholars that we have built around us, to keep reaching out with the same love, warmth and hope that you hugged all of us, and I will try to deliver the same message. And, while your rest in peace within the soil of your ancestors you so loved and cherished to death, you will nevertheless also be there alongside us in spirit.

Canadian-Armenians Condemn the Assassination

January 19, 2007
Armenian National Committee of Canada
E-mail:national.office@anc-canada.com
For Immeditate Release
Contact: Kevork Manguelian Tel. (613) 235-2622

Ottawa—Outspoken and well-known Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was assassinated in front of his weekly newspaper office today. He was shot four times by a young man. Dink's body could be seen covered with a white sheet at the entrance of the newspaper building.

Hrant Dink, publisher and editor of Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, faced number of legal cases for openly speaking about the Genocide of Armenians in 1915. Dink was given a six-month suspended sentence in October 2005 after writing about the Armenian Genocide. He was one of the most prominent voices of Turkey's dwindling Armenian community.


Dink, 53, a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, had received threats from nationalists who viewed him as a traitor, the Associated Press news agency reported.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Dink wept as he talked about some of his fellow countrymen's hatred for him, saying he could not stay in a country where he was unwanted.

Workers at the newspaper, including Dink's brother, who has also been put on trial in Turkey, were in tears as they consoled each other near Dink’s body.

Can Dundar, Dink's friend and fellow journalist, said he wished Dink had left the country as he had once promised.

“The assassinated journalist had complained in a letter that he had received no response from authorities after he had told them about threats of violence made against him,” the Turkish TV network NTV reported.

A colleague at Dink's newspaper, Aydin Engin, said Dink had attributed the threats to elements in the "deep state," a Turkish term that implies shadowy, deeply nationalist and powerful elements in the government.

Upon hearing of Dink’s assassination, Fatma Muge Gocek, a Turkish author, historian, and a friend of Dink, said: “ [we] have lost such a warm, compassionate friend with a great zest for life who believed so fervently in the goodness of humankind. Dink spent his unfortunately short life to get Turkey to reconcile with its past and paid for his efforts with his life. The dark forces in Turkey took him out but what he has instilled in all of us will not be quenched: we all will keep him alive.”

Reporters Without Borders said it was deeply shocked by the murder of Hrant Dink “This murder will distress and disturb all those who defend the freedom of thought and expression in Turkey and elsewhere,” the press freedom organisation said.

Aris Babikian, the executive director of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, held the Turkish Government responsible for the politically motivated assassination. “Successive Turkish Governments’ Armenian Genocide denial policy and the rewriting of history fanned flames of hatred against Armenians,” Babikian said.

“In a country where the educational system and the political culture mould the minds of the people with hatred towards ethnically non-Turkish citizens and where racist and extreme right-wing organizations occupy a place of power, this is a sad reminder that things haven’t changed much in Turkey since 1915. This vile murder proves once again that racism has deep roots in Turkey,” added ANCC’s executive director.

“Silencing Hrant Dink proves once again that the genocidal mentality in Turkey still prevails and the Turkish Government is not interested in reconciling with the Armenian people and in atoning for its crimes against Armenians. The Turkish Government should come clean and once and for all recognize the Armenian Genocide and put an end to the cycle of hatred,” concluded the Executive Director.

Turkish-Armenian editor shot dead in Istanbul By Paul de Bendern and Ercan Ersoy

19 January 2007
Yahoo News

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A high-profile Turkish-Armenian editor, convicted of insulting Turkey's identity, was shot dead outside his newspaper office in Istanbul on Friday.

Hrant Dink, a writer and journalist and a frequent target of nationalist anger, was shot by an unknown assailant as he left his newspaper Agos around 1300 GMT in central Istanbul, the paper said.

"Hrant was a perfect target for those who want to obstruct Turkey's democratization and its path toward the European Union," Agos writer Aydin Engin told Reuters.

Broadcaster NTV said Dink been shot three times in the neck and police were now looking for a 18 or 19-year-old man.

CNN Turk television said two men had been detained in connection with the shooting.

The attack is bound to raise political tensions in would-be EU member Turkey, where politicians of all parties have been courting the nationalist vote ahead of presidential elections in May and parliamentary polls due by November.

Protesters at the scene chanted "the murderer government will pay" and "shoulder-to-shoulder against fascism."

Television footage showed his body lying in the street covered by a white sheet, with hundreds of bystanders gathering behind a police cordon.

"This bullet was fired against Turkey ... an image has been created about Turkey that its Armenian citizens have no safety," said CNN Turk editor Taha Akyol.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry said in a statement it "forcefully condemned" the "loathsome attack."

Last year Turkey's appeals court upheld a six-month suspended jail sentence against Dink, a Turkish-born Armenian, for referring in an article to an Armenian nationalist idea of ethnic purity without Turkish blood.

The court said the comments went against an article of Turkey's revised penal code which lets prosecutors pursue cases against writers and scholars for "insulting Turkish identity."

The ruling was sharply criticised by the EU.

INSULTING TURKISHNESS

Dink was one of dozens of writers who have been charged under laws against insulting Turkishness, particularly over the alleged genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One.

Turkey denies allegations that 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic genocide. It says both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks were killed in a partisan conflict that raged on Ottoman territory.

But the government has promised to revise the much criticised article of the penal code amid EU pressure.

Dink was editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish and Armenian newspaper and one of the most prominent Armenian voices in Turkey.

"I will not leave this country. If I go I would feel I was leaving alone the people struggling for democracy in this country. It would be a betrayal of them. I could never do this," Dink said in an interview with Reuters last July.

Tensions have been growing ahead of presidential elections amid a rise in nationalism.

Turkey's powerful secularist establishment fears the ruling AK Party, which controls parliament and has roots in political Islam, will elect Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as president.

Secularists, including powerful army generals and judges, fear Erdogan -- a former Islamist -- would try to erode Turkey's strict division between state and religion if elected president.

Erdogan denies he or his party have an Islamist agenda.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Turkish-Armenian writer shot dead

Please keep a moment of silence for this senseless murder of a famous Armenian in Turkey because of expressing his views.

Friday, 19 January 2007
BBC news

The Turkish-Armenian writer and journalist Hrant Dink has been shot dead, Turkish media report.

Dink, the high-profile editor of newspaper Agos, was shot three times outside its offices in Istanbul, the paper said.

Dink was one of the writers who had been prosecuted under Turkey's strict laws against "insulting Turkishness".

He was given a six-month suspended sentence in October 2005 after writing about the Armenian "genocide" of 1915.

Turkey's NTV television said police were searching for a teenager wearing a white hat and a denim jacket in connection with the murder.

The channel showed pictures of a white sheet covering the journalist's body in front of the newspaper building's entrance.

Dink, 53, had received threats from nationalists who viewed him as a traitor, the Associated Press news agency reported.

He was a public figure in Turkey - one of its most prominent Armenian voices.

He once gave an interview with the Associated Press in which he cried while describing the hatred some Turks had for him, saying he could not stay in a country where he was unwanted.

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died in 1915, in what many Armenians say was a systematic massacre at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.

Turkey denies any genocide, saying the deaths were a part of World War I.

Turkey and neighbouring Armenia still have no official relations.




Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Economic Relations Can Initiate Yerevan-Ankara Political Dialogue

15.01.2007

YEREVAN (YERKIR) - Normalization of economic relations between Armenia and Turkey can initiate political dialogue, Co-chair of the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council (TABDC) Kaan Soyak told PanARMENIAN.Net.

In his words, economy is a priority line for normalization of cooperation. “I do not know who will derive greater benefit from opening of the Armenian-Turkish border. Istanbul businessmen target at the West. They are not interested in cooperation with Armenia.

But it’s very important for the residents of near-border regions. We work and do not lose hope that Armenia and Turkey will come to agreement sooner or later. Our organization has appealed to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. If you do not want to open the border tell us not to make our work purposeless, we say. Nevertheless, we do not lose hope,” Soyak said.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Local pianist's student makes 'personal and diplomatic breakthrough'

12/21/2006
Times Community Newspaper
By: Susan Anspach

Twenty fingers flew across two sets of facing keyboards against a backdrop of organ pipes that stretched to the ceiling.

In a concert hall in Yerevan, Armenia, an enlarged image of Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness smiled down on the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra's featured piano duo, Martin Berkofsky and Atakan Sari, the first Turkish musician to ever solo with the ensemble.

"There are just a boatful of articles on this coming from Armenia," classical pianist and musicologist Martin Berkofsky said. "The effect and reaction was the greatest reward."

The performance by the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, held Nov. 24 in the nation's capital, featured Hovhaness's Symphony No. 50 "Mount St. Helens," Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy," Hovhaness's Magnificat for choir and four soloists and his Concerto for two pianos and orchestra. Seated across from one another at the stools of their interlocking instruments, Berkofsky of Casanova, 65, and 25-year-old Atakan Sari of Izmir played the piece to an audience of thousands in the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall.

The reception, say the two musicians, was unlike anything else.

"The clapping just went on and on," said Berkofksy. "There were people coming up to me afterwards, telling me that with music, there is no race, no nationality ... (Sari) carried himself off with absolute dignity, making a personal and diplomatic breakthrough of the whole thing."

"It was honoring," said Sari in a recent interview. "It was bringing the music back to its own land, so to speak."

The teacher-student protege pair first recorded the concerto in Moscow in 2003, then performed it there in 2004 in Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, where Armenian diplomats heard the piece and invited the two to play in Yerevan.

"The idea was basically to establish a cultural bridge between these two countries," Sari explained. "It was the best of all performances. I believe the crowds really enjoyed it."

He added, "Some people in Turkey were against me going there. But I feel that one should take risks, and I was talking to Berkofsky every day almost about what we could do with our playing. I didn't have any fear."

Hovhaness, who wrote 67 symphonies before passing away in 2000, gave the Concerto for two pianos to Berkofsky in the 1970s.

"I had tried to put it on with so many other people," said Berkofsky, who noted earlier that he had been waiting for the right kind of person and musician with whom to premiere the piece. "This just happened to be the right set of circumstances. It took me 30 years of broken promises and failed missions to actually perform it."

Berkofsky, who himself had never before played with the Armenian Philharmonic prior to last month, was first introduced to Sari in Turkey by a former student at one of his international master classes. Of the 25 piano pupils who passed through the classes in the six seasons Berkofsky organized them, the student who best embodied the universal ideals Berkofsky embraces was Sari, the musicologist claimed.

"I organized these master classes here with the hope of not just developing young pianists, because frankly, anyone can do that, but of developing young pianists with the right character," he explained.

In 2000, then again in 2001, Berkofsky invited the young musician to play in Warrenton, the site of further classes. Soon afterwards, Sari was accepted to the Manhattan School of Music, from which he graduated with his bachelor's degree last February.

"Berkofsky," said Sari, "was always my favorite pianist. My dad taught me piano from an early age, but didn't want me to continue studies because of this preoccupation he had with the idea that's it's hard to find a job as a pianist unless you are a soloist."

For a brief period, Sari focused more on the viola than the piano.

"But then I heard (Berkofsky's) Franz Liszt recording," he recalled. "I was listening to him over and over again. Eventually he came to Turkey, and I was able to study under him."

Pausing for a moment of reflection upon his own story, he added, "it's pretty amazing, actually."

Sari is currently enrolled in a graduate assitanceship program at Ithaca College in New York, where he plans on earning his master's in music by 2008.

"He's trying to organize a night of all-Armenian music there with the Cornell Orchestra," Berkofsky said with a touch of pride.

A principle reason behind Berkofsky's enthusiasm is his personal interest in Hovhaness's work. A self-proclaimed advocate of the composer, he is currently working toward the construction of the Alan Hovhaness International Research Center in Yerevan, construction of which has already begun. Berkofsky estimates that 10 percent of the requisite funds have been raised so far. There is not yet a projected date of completion for the museum.

"I have this crazy confidence that you can start with nothing and make it happen," said Berkofsky. "But I've always believed in the impossible."

He noted that he's eager to return to Armenia to perform in the near future, as well as track the progress of Sari's own career as a pianist.

"I'm so happy to see he's developing not only as a fine professional musician but also as a fine diplomat that we strive to find in music," he said. "A Turk being applauded in Armenia ... that's unheard of."

E-mail the reporter: sanspach@timespapers.com

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Armenian FM Vartan Oskanian gives exclusive interview to TNA

04 December 2006
TNA

By Nursun Erel - Yerevan

Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said that Armenia doesn't see the "genocide issue" as a precondition to normalize relations with Turkey, but called on his Turkish colleagues to remove all their preconditions too. As a successor of the Soviet era, said Oskanian, Armenia recognizes all treaties including the Treaty of Kars, but he claimed the Turks are the ones violating the agreement by keeping the border closed.

Oskanian also pointed to the historical city of Ani as a good step for mutual cooperation and asked Turkey to open the border at least for visitors to the city. Oskanian also told us that Orhan Pamuk's two most recent books are on his desk and he will start reading them soon.

Our appointment with Foreign Minister Oskanian was on the day after our appointment with Yerevan State University students was cancelled by the personal initiative of University Rector Aram Simonyan, so when Oskanian brought up the Armenian press' great interest in our visit, I had to tell him about the cancellation too. Here's what Armenia's top diplomat had to tell us during our interview in his office in the Foreign Ministry building:

OSKANYAN: From what I see in all the newspapers, you've become a star in Yerevan!

TNA: Well I doubt it, because yesterday I was supposed to meet with journalism students at Yerevan State University but the rector cancelled our meeting.

OSKANYAN: Why?

TNA: From what I heard, he finds my opinions a "virus" that I could infect the students with, so he cancelled the meeting.

OSKANYAN: Well, I'm sorry to hear that and certainly that isn't good, and I don't think he made the right decision.

Missed opportunities

TNA: So thank you very much for your kindness in receiving me here for a second time, because back in 2001 I had another chance to interview you. But I can't say that I see much change in Turkish-Armenian relations. What's your view of this?

OSKANYAN: That's a pity and it's very unfortunate really because we're missing huge opportunities with every passing day. Turkey is classically not raising any option to see those opportunities and unfortunately doesn't want to establish diplomatic relations equally with all three Caucasus nations and play a more constructive role. So that opportunity was missed. The second opportunity has come out as closer cooperation with the European Union. At the same time that Turkey is negotiating its EU accession, today Turkey has the opportunity to play a role as a bridge between the Caucasus and Europe. That opportunity is also is being missed, but the biggest opportunity that we're missing is the interaction between our two peoples. Fifteen years have passed (since Armenia declared its independence in 1991), and no interaction is seen on the border. Our peoples don't know each other well and old memories are being reinforced, our focus today is the wrong focus. We've got to focus on new relations, open borders, establishing diplomatic relations and that's what I mean by saying missed opportunities.

TNA: Recently some people in Turkey have said that the government should seek arbitration in an international court on the issue of the events of 1915. What do you think of this? (NURSUN: I MEAN GOING FOR ARBITRAGE AM I RIGHT TO WRITE THIS WAY? LET NAZLAN HAVE A LOOK)

OSKANYAN: For us, there's no court case, we'll never talk about this, because we grew up with the real evidence, our parents and our grandparents. That living evidence of this tragedy, survival of genocide, I'm the son of one them. So for Armenians there has never been an issue where we ourselves have to prove this by going to court, that this genocide happened. The question for us is to get a political solution. Because the issue is neither historical nor legal, it's political. And Turkey has politicized this by pursuing a policy of denial at the state level. So the real issue isn't legal but political and it's between the governments of Turkey and Armenia.

Genocide recognition no precondition

TNA: Last week after your President Robert Kocharian visited Greek Cyprus, I read your statement to Agence France Press saying that the genocide issue would no longer be an obsession or dominant issue for Turkish-Armenian relations. Could you elaborate on that?

OSKANYAN: I've always said and will continue to say that. Genocide recognition isn't a precondition. It's an issue that's there and won't go away, it's our moral obligation to pursue recognition. But that shouldn't impede the normalization of our relations. As long as the Armenians don't say that unless Turkey recognizes the genocide we won't normalize our relations, Turkey shouldn't say the reverse, that Armenia should drop the complaint of genocide. Neither side should put any preconditions. We pursue recognition; Turkey is pursuing policies of denialism. I really cannot see the reason why the borders cannot be opened, so that our people would interact. That certainly would create more favorable conditions, so that we can address those issues in a more constructive manner at the government level and create new memories that certainly will create a more constructive manner.

TNA: But do you think it's democratic to punish someone who argues against the genocide thesis?

OSKANYAN: But is it democratic to punish those in Turkey who say the events of 1915 are genocide?

Article 301

TNA: Do you think it's a crime to say this in Turkey?

OSKANYAN: But the law is there, Orhan Pamuk, Hirant Dink (a famous novelist and an ethnic Armenian writer-editor both charged under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, TCK, for "insulting Turkishness"), and the others. What I'm trying to say here are two things: One, Turkey isn't in any position to criticize the French Parliament's decision (in September, passing a bill criminalizing denial of the genocide allegations), second, the French Parliament's decision is a reaction to the Turkish denialism. It is as simple as that. That has come as a community request, so that the law will be passed. But the French parliamentarians did it in reaction. If you listened to the arguments before the vote, the main issue was your Article 301. I was listening to the debate, and every single speaker said it's because there's Article 301 in Turkey. So it's a reaction. Because the frustration among the Armenian people is the fact that the events 1915 are denied. And every Armenian would say that it's a fact that genocide denial hurts. And it's natural that Armenians will react the way they were reacting. They will go to the parliaments of the countries they're living in and try to past these similar laws, and some parliaments will listen to their citizens and the laws will pass.

TNA: Do you think the wording is that important, even though everyone thinks that 1915 was a real tragedy and everyone must be sorry for that?

OSKANYAN: No, certainly it's, it's important… We've got to call things by their names, you can't just devalue what happened. Because as we speak, there are similar acts that are being committed. That is a whole study, if you say that this is a criminal act, then there would not have been the scholarship on genocide. It's a convention, it has a clear definition and it has become a science.

TNA: Even Turkish journalists are very critical of Article 301. If it were changed or eliminated altogether, do you think it would be positive?

OSKANYAN: You know the positive step will be when Turkish scholars will step out, and once they are all outspoken and have no more fear to call things by their names, we will see it. That will make for more healthy discourse without fear of punishment between Turkish scholars. So there will be more exchanges of ideas, more seminars, more conferences, and Armenians will be invited too. So that taboo will be removed when 301 is removed. I'm not saying that without recognition the Armenians will be satisfied, but we will create the normal conditions. We have to find a democratic environment for this discourse.

Pamuk's novels

TNA: Have you read any of Orhan Pamuk's novels?

OSKANYAN: Well, actually I have "Istanbul: Memories and the City" and "Snow" on my desk so I'm planning to read them soon.

TNA: But they haven't been translated into Armenian, so will you be reading them in English?

OSKA: I think they will be translated soon, but for now I'll be reading them in English.

TNA: When we were talking about positive steps to be taken, some in Turkey say that the Armenian Constitution has articles referring to your Declaration of Independence which speaks of "Western Armenia," meaning Turkish territories. And they also bring up how the Armenian Republic has yet to recognize the Treaty of Kars (which defines the Turkish Republic's eastern borders).

OSKANYAN: The Treaty of Kars is in force as far as I'm concerned. Because Armenia is a successor in recognizing the Soviet treaties. And as long as any treaty hasn't been renounced officially or replaced by a new one, it has been in force. But the problem is that the agreement has been violated so much by the Turkish side. If a legal expert looks at this agreement and the way it's been implemented, I'm not sure if the legal experts would conclude that this is a valid treaty. The violation is from the Turkish side, (because of) having closed its borders with Armenia, and this is a violation of the Treaty of Kars.

Armenian Constitution

TNA: And what of the Armenian Constitution referring to the Declaration of Independence?

OSKANYAN: First of all let's be correct, it's not the Constitution, but the Constitution makes reference to our Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence has one phrase that if we look carefully I don't think it reflects what you think it does. If you read it carefully, word for word, maybe you should look at it. It's a general statement about our past, not necessarily a statement about our future claims.

TNA: Earlier this year I visited Akhdamar Island in Van and had the chance to see the perfectly renovated Armenian church there. Do you think the Ani ruins in Kars could also be renovated through a joint initiative? Our culture minister told me they don't have the budget to do this, but that the Armenians wouldn't allocate money either because they have their own economic difficulties, and the Armenian diaspora wouldn't be interested because they have other issues to deal with, meaning their efforts to provoke world parliaments against Turkey.

OSKANYAN: Tell me if the Turkish government will agree to make Ani a common visiting ground for Armenians and Turks. The money would certainly come from international organizations. That would be an ideal confidence-building measure between Armenia and Turkey, an ideal cooperation between our two peoples. It's a common history. It's on your territory; it's been our historic capital. It can be a common visiting ground for tourists from both sides. I've been suggesting this to the Turkish governments. Open the borders, so that at least we can visit Ani. We can simply start with no Armenians or Turks, but with foreign visitors who carry foreign national passports. Imagine, you have tourists from America coming to Turkey and they can come to Ani, cross the border and go to Armenia and vice versa is possible too. But there's a wall there, an imaginary wall that Turks have erected, and that's very unfortunate. Ani can be a symbol of our cooperation and we call on Turkey to revise its position on this issue, but there's been no response.

TNA: If there isn't even agreement among the world's leading historians and experts on the 1915 tragedy, what was wrong with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's call last year to set up a joint committee of historians and experts to deal with the issue together?

OSKANYAN: I've got to be very honest with you here, we think it's not a genuine proposal, it's a smokescreen for Europeans to think that Turkey has made a positive step. Let me explain why we think it's a smokescreen.

Because of three reasons. One, there's already such a commission like many Turkish scholars, Armenians and foreign scholars have debated the issue, they have discussed the issue and they have declared their position. Those scholars wrote a letter to Prime Minister Erdogan when he issued this invitation and they said: Mr. Prime Minister, that issue has been already studied by different scholars and the conclusions are very clear. It is a genocide, so there's no need for further discussion. And second, with the law within Article 301, you can't be serious about such recommendations. I guess that if your scholars are on the commission, study this topic, they can't accept that it's a genocide. This is what it is. You have 301, that says if you say there's a genocide or even discuss the issue of the events of 1915, you can be punished. It's not compatible. Then today there's a vacuum between the Turkish and Armenian governments, between those two states, because there's no diplomatic relations. The border is even closed. So how do you imagine creating that commission among historians? How will they meet? Where? How will they interact? So there are many problems to be dealt with correctly.

TNA: Do you believe that someday a Turkish government will admit that Turks once committed genocide? If not, and if this issue remains a stubborn obstacle freezing Turkish-Armenian relations, do you see any way out in the future?

OSKANYAN: The way out isn't to set preconditions before each other. This is the way out. The rest will run in its normal course. Turkey is willing to become an EU member so all those laws, limiting society will be eliminated eventually, so the path towards a more healthy discourse will be opened, even to discuss the genocide. So now the task isn't to put forth any preconditions. And it's very unfortunate that many opportunities are being missed. So that we can't normalize our relations.

TNA: You've had many face-to-face meetings with our Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, so why do you think no concrete steps have followed?

OSKANYAN: We started very well with him but then things backtracked because of the preconditions. Karabakh, genocide and the rest of it. Once Turkey understands that its strategic interests are more important than their narrow ethnic interests, I believe things will change. Today unfortunately Turkey is being guided by Azerbaijan's demands, by their Azerbaijani brothers' narrow ethnic interest,s but Turks don't understand that there are broader interests, regional interests that are good for Turkey, good for the region and good for Europe. Turkey uses these opportunities to become a bridge between East and West as it always claimed to be. Between the East and West, between the Caucasus and Europe.

TNA: The last time I was here I came across a long line in front of the American Embassy and I learned that every day dozens of families are leaving Armenia. Now, coming back here five years later I asked about the situation, but some people joked that there aren't many people left in Armenia so there aren't any lines. How do you see the future of your country?

OSKANYAN: I'm very optimistic about Armenia's future and that the future can be achieved much quicker if we have normal ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

TNA: Would you also like to say some words about Nagorno- Karabakh and why the UN resolutions on it haven't been implemented by your government?

OSKANYAN: The UN resolutions are absolutely unhelpful. First there's no UN resolution yet and if it happens I believe it will hurt the process. But if you mean the Security Council resolutions, which put obligations on both sides, I believe that Armenia has done much more on behalf of itself, but I can't say the same for the Azerbaijanis.

TNA: So do you have any message to the man on the street in Turkey?

OSKANYAN: We have to change this status quo, we have to normalize our relations without any preconditions.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

For Turkey's Armenians, Painful Past is Muted

11-30-2006
AINA
Source:
By Anne Barnard
Boston Globe

ISTANBUL -- When Mesrob II, the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul and All Turkey, meets today with Pope Benedict XVI, the one topic he says he definitely won't bring up is the one that most intensely interests his people around the world: the Armenian genocide.

Getting Turkey and the rest of the world to acknowledge the slaughter of more than 1 million Armenians in the early 20th century, many by troops of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, is a cherished goal of the Armenian diaspora. The visit from the spiritual leader of 1 billion Roman Catholics might seem the perfect opportunity not only to draw attention to the problems of the tiny Christian minority here, but also to ask the pontiff to press Turkey for an apology.

But for about 68,000 Turkish citizens of Armenian descent, who -- along with 20,000 to 30,000 people from neighboring Armenia who have migrated here in search of jobs -- make up by far the largest Christian community in Turkey, the situation is much more complicated, even dangerous.

Armenians here must balance a deep need to preserve the memory of the killings, known in Armenian as metz yeghern, or "the big calamity," with safeguarding the small community that remains, which to them means avoiding conflict with the Muslim Turk majority or the nationalist government. Turkish citizens who mention the killings -- including Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish author who won the Nobel Prize this year -- have been charged with the crime of "insulting Turkishness," and risk fines, jail sentences, and even death threats.

The Armenian community is treading cautiously around the pope's visit. Leaders are seeking his support on general issues of religious expression; during his first two days Benedict has already stressed the importance of religious freedom. But they are being careful not to embrace too closely a pontiff widely seen by Muslims as having insulted Islam -- and they are avoiding any public reference to the genocide.

Many Armenians here say they have chosen to leave the past buried -- or partly buried -- in order to press for more immediate benefits. They want to persuade the government to ease onerous restrictions, such as laws that ban Christians from bequeathing land to the church or running independent seminaries to train priests. And they want to live in peace with the rest of this country of nearly 80 million people, about 99 percent of whom are Muslim and overwhelmingly ethnically Turkish.

Mesrob, the leader of the Armenian Orthodox Church here, is a case in point. Speaking the confident English he perfected at Memphis State University, he chose his words carefully in an hourlong conversation with three foreign reporters.

Asked whether he would discuss the genocide with the pope, he said he never brings up "local issues" with visiting dignitaries. Asked whether he could state for the record that a genocide took place, he fixed a reporter with a friendly gaze and was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "I acknowledge that people were killed."

But Mesrob, 50, spoke more readily when asked what had happened to his own family at the time. His grandfather's six brothers were all deported from the town of Izmit, during a time when many Armenians were shipped off to the Syrian desert. His grandfather, who escaped to Istanbul and became a baker, never heard from them again. He assumed most of them died.

Mesrob's parents and grandparents never told him the details. "They never talked about it. They didn't want us to be at odds with our Muslim neighbors," he said.

"There is no family that didn't share this situation," said Navart Beren, 51, an administrator at St. Mary's Church, across the street from the patriarch's residence on a winding street near the Sea of Marmara, where she was attending Mass last Sunday. Her parents were close-mouthed, too, she said: "They didn't want us to carry revenge in our hearts."

"All that is in the past," said her friend Margarit Nalbantkazar, 52. "But this did happen: My husband's father was 8 or 9 years old. He saw them take his father by hitting him on the back of the head with a gun. . . . They never saw him again."

Murat Belge, a Turkish academic who runs the publishing house that prints Pamuk's books, explained why Armenians inside Turkey walk such a fine line between forgetting and accusing.

Told of the patriarch's comments, Belge said: "If he had said there was an Armenian genocide, it's very likely that he would be assassinated by some fascists, the patriarchate would be burned, and Armenians leading their daily lives would be shot by unknown people."

Turkey has always insisted that the deaths, most of them in 1915, were part of a war in which a beleaguered Ottoman Empire was facing Armenian rebels allied with its enemies, which included the United States, Britain, and Russia.

But most historians agree that Armenians were systematically killed and driven out. The subject is extremely sensitive in Turkey because many of the military leaders of the dying Ottoman Empire went on to found the secular Turkish republic in 1923.

Also in the 1920s, hundreds of thousands of Greek Orthodox Christians were forced to leave Turkey as smaller numbers of Muslims were forced out of Greece, under the agreement that established the Greek and Turkish borders. Today, Christians make up less than 1 percent of the population.

US policy on the Armenian deaths is to respect the position of Turkey, an important NATO ally, though the 1.2 million Armenians in America fiercely lobby Congress to recognize the genocide.

Pope John Paul II called the events a genocide in a 2000 document, and in 2001 visited a memorial to the victims in Yerevan, Armenia's capital. In a speech there, he avoided the term genocide but adopted the Armenian phrase "big calamity."

The Vatican has given no indication of whether Benedict will mention the issue.

Mesrob said he hoped the pope's visit would improve interfaith relations, but whether it does "depends on what kind of language he's going to use," he added with a chuckle. He said the pope's September remarks, quoting a Byzantine ruler's criticism of Islam as violent, "jeopardized" Christian minorities.

A metal detector and security checkpoint stand outside Mesrob's ornate residence, and security will be extra tight during the pope's visit, he said.

Mesrob said Turks do not bear all responsibility for the killings of Armenians but have "the most important responsibility" because "they were ruling the country." He said many people believe "ethnic cleansing" was carried out to "remove Christians from public life."

When asked if Armenians in Turkey have a ceremony or memorial site to commemorate the killings, he said that they do not, but that people remember the date April 24, 1915, when Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul were rounded up and deported, as a kind of "beheading of the community."

Mesrob dismissed recent allegations that he forbids church officials to speak of the killings. "It's not a question of silence," he said. "How can you make friends with someone if you confront them?"

Instead, he recommends cultural exchanges between Armenia and Turkey to pave the way for an honest discussion of the events, he said. In the meantime, he said, when foreign governments raise the issue, ethnic Armenians in Turkey get nervous.

Aida Barsegian, 56, a house cleaner who moved here from Armenia, said it didn't help when France passed a law last month declaring it a crime to deny the genocide. "If they care so much, they should open the borders of France and let us find work there," she said after lighting candles at the church. "Here they give me work."


Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.