Armenian News

Monday, 5 January, 2009
Aliev Again Threatens New War For Karabakh
By Emil Danielyan

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliev has renewed his public threats to win
back Nagorno-Karabakh by force, telling his compatriots to be ready to
restart an all-out war with the Armenians `at any moment.'

Aliev's Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian, meanwhile, spent the New
Year's Eve inspecting Armenian frontline positions and celebrating the
holiday with soldiers stationed there.

A statement by Sarkisian's press office said he visited an undisclosed
section of the Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact with Defense
Minister Seyran Ohanian to monitor the day-to-day service of Armenian
troops and wish them a happy new year and merry Christmas. `The head of
state made a toast to the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia,' it
said.

Sarkisian made little mention of the unresolved conflict with Azerbaijan
in his New Year's address to the nation broadcast by Armenia's
television station at midnight on January 1.

`Nagorno-Karabakh is an ancient Azerbaijani land, and we will make every
effort to restore Azerbaijan's territorial integrity,' Aliev said in a
similar televised speech reported by Azerbaijani media. `We can use
political, diplomatic and, if necessary, military means. We do have such
a right. International law allows that.'

Aliev added that the Karabakh war, which was halted by a
Russian-mediated truce in May 1994, is not over. `Only the first stage
of the war ended, and we must be prepared to free our lands of occupiers
by any means and at any moment,' he said. `The military parade held [in
Baku] in 2008 demonstrated our military might to everyone.'

Aliev has regularly threatened the Armenians with another war ever since
he succeeded his late father Heydar as president of Azerbaijan in 2003.
He avoided making such threats in the months that followed the August
war between Russia and Georgia.

Sarkisian said in the wake of the brief war that Georgia's disastrous
attempt to restore its control over South Ossetia militarily will have a
`sobering impact' on Azerbaijani leaders. A senior U.S. official
likewise suggested in October that the threat of renewed fighting in
Karabakh has `somewhat receded' because the Russian-Georgian conflict
`reminded everyone in this region how terrible war is.'

In a joint declaration issued after their early November talks outside
Moscow hosted by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Aliev and Sarkisian
pledged to seek a `political settlement' of the Karabakh conflict. Top
diplomats from the United States, Russia and France subsequently urged
them to finalize an agreement on the basic principles of such a
settlement proposed by the three mediating powers. The mediators hope
that the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders will do that at their next
meeting expected early this year.

But in a sign of lingering Armenian-Azerbaijani disagreements on the
most important of those principles, Aliev again stated that Azerbaijan
will never accept the loss of Karabakh. Sarkisian and other Armenian
leaders, on the other hand, maintain that Karabakh's return under
Azerbaijani rule is out of question.


Turkey's Gul Critical Of Armenian Apology Campaign
By Emil Danielyan

Turkish intellectuals' campaign of public apology for the mass killings
of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire will reflect negatively on Turkey's
ongoing diplomatic rapprochement with Armenia, according to President
Abdullah Gul.

The Internet campaign was initiated last month by a group of 200 Turkish
academics, journalists, writers and artists disagreeing with the
official Turkish version of what many historians consider the first
genocide of the 20th century. Their petition, entitled `I apologize,'
was posted on a special website (www.ozurdiliyoruz.com) on December 15.
More than 26,000 Turks have signed it since then.

Although the petition stops short of describing the 1915 massacres as
genocide, it has drawn the ire of nationalists who regard it as an act
of national betrayal. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and
powerful military have also criticized it.

Gul initially distanced himself from the criticism, saying that the
unprecedented apology testifies to freedom of speech in his country. But
in a January 2 interview with Turkey's ATV television, he warned that
the campaign will damage efforts to normalize Turkish-Armenian ties.

"When we examine the latest debates in terms of their results, I do not
think they make a positive contribution," Gul was reported to say.
"Ideas that we like or not, support, or even fight against, can be
discussed if they do not target violence. However, the polarization
sometimes can reach serious dimensions due to the sensibility of the
subjects," he added.

An end to the decades-long campaign for international recognition of the
Armenian genocide has been one of Turkey's preconditions for
establishing diplomatic relations and opening its border with Armenia.
Ankara also makes that contingent on a resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict acceptable to Azerbaijan. Successive
governments in Yerevan have stood for an unconditional normalization of
bilateral ties.

Those relations have improved dramatically since President Serzh
Sarkisian took office in April 2008. Sarkisian responded positively to
Ankara's offers of a `dialogue' and invited Gul to visit Yerevan and
watch with him the September 6 game between the two countries' national
soccer teams.

Gul accepted the invitation, becoming the first Turkish head of state to
set foot in independent Armenia. His historic trip was followed by a
series of fresh negotiations between the Armenian and Turkish foreign
ministers. The Armenian Foreign Ministry expressed hope this week that
these `positive trends' will continue in 2009.

"Sometimes you work silently, sometimes you carry out works before the
public eye. But I can say that works are under way regarding this
matter," Gul told ATV, according to the Anatolia news agency.

According to some diplomatic sources privy to Turkish-Armenian talks,
Ankara now seems ready to stop linking improved relations with Armenia
with a Karabakh settlement if Yerevan accepts its proposal to form a
Turkish-Armenian commission of historians tasked with examining the
events of 1915. The proposal was rejected by Armenia's former President
Robert Kocharian. Sarkisian has indicated, however, that he does not
object to it in principle.


Hürriyet, Turkey
Jan 5 2009
Armenian patriarch to stay despite his illness

ISTANBUL - The Armenian Patriarchy is not an office that can function
without an acting patriarch, said the editor-in-chief of Armenian
daily Jamanak Ara Koçunyan, criticizing the decision of the
Spiritual Council not to replace Patriarch Mesrob II who is said to be
suffering from frontal lobe dementia.

As concern grows over the patriarchy without a patriarch, senior
members of the community say any comments about the health of the
patriarch attracts serious criticism from the conservative community
and the patriarchy.

Speaking to Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review,
Koçunyan, whose newspaper first broke the story about the
deteriorating health of the patriarch, said: "It is a very sensitive
subject. It can be perceived as disrespectful to the office of the
patriarch.

Koçunyan said the Spiritual Assembly met mid last year due to
increasing concern over the patriarch and asked for the community to
wait until the new year for a decision.

In a statement released by the Spiritual Synod last week, it was
reported that members recognized Patriarch Mesrob II as the spiritual
leader of the Armenian community in Turkey and that the patriarch was
capable of handling all his responsibilities. "Members of the
Spiritual Council do not believe it is necessary to cloud the
community's agenda with an issue such as the election of the patriarch
and advise members of the community to wait in faith and patience," it
said.

Koçunyan said the Spiritual Council did not have the right to
issue such a declaration and that the Armenian Church traditionally
did not have such an executive mechanism. "The Spiritual Council does
not elect the patriarch. It is trying to force a fait accompli on the
community."

Koçunyan said, "I would not like to judge the policies of an
ill patriarch, but he did not display the democratic sensitivities of
his predecessor," stating that both his newspaper and the Agos weekly
faced embargoes and other prohibitions from the patriarchate in the
past.


Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Jan 5 2009
Turkish Press
MILLIYET
RELOCATION IN FIGURES OF TALAT PASA

All details of Talat Pasha's notebook, on which he reported all
changes in Armenian population in all provinces, have come to
daylight.

According to the figures, Armenian population dropped by 972,000
people after the relocation. Death toll is indefinite.

Almost all notes of Talat Pasha, the interior minister in 1915 (the
time of relocation) have appeared in the new book of journalist Murat
Bardakci, "Talat Pasha's Abandoned Records".

The notes include comparative results of Armenian population in 1914
and after relocation in all provinces. According to those notes, the
Armenian population was 1,256,403 in 1914 and the number dropped to
284,157 after relocation.

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