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ACNIS Director Richard Giragossian comments on Turkish Press Report Claiming 'Breakthrough' over Nagorno Karabagh

ACNIS Press Release Yerevan--Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS) Director Richard Giragosian issued a statement today commenting on a recent report in the Turkish daily newspaper Hurriyet claiming that a new "partial agreement" has been reached between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabagh, brokered by Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan. The report alleged that Armenia and Azerbaijan reached a new agreement on four key points of a draft peace plan, including the reopening of road and rail links between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the deployment of an undefined international peacekeeping force to the region. While today's report in the Turkish media remains unsubstantiated by any Armenian, Azerbaijani or Turkish officials, the rather sensational claims of a sudden breakthrough over the unresolved Karabagh conflict raises several concerns. Most notably, the unconfirmed report reveals the danger posed by the overall lack of transparency and inadequate public awareness of the status of the peace process. By its very nature, the closed and secretive process of mediation by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk Group only fosters misunderstandings and misinformation, especially as neither the Armenian nor the Azerbaijani governments are doing enough to prepare their constituencies for a possible peace deal. At the same time, however, there is no viable alternative to the OSCE Minsk Group as a mediator for the Karabagh conflict. The Minsk Group is the sole international body empowered to manage the mediation effort aimed at resolving the Nagorno Karabagh conflict and has been long engaged in conducting delicate diplomacy toward that end. But the OSCE Minsk Group format is also structurally flawed by the absence of the democratically-elected representatives of the Nagorno Karabagh Republic (NKR) which, as a party to the conflict, must be afforded a more direct and formal role in the peace process. Moreover, the failure to incorporate Karabagh in the peace talks as a party of equal standing only questions the viability of reaching a negotiated resolution capable of meeting the minimum standards of security and sustainability. The recognition of the vital and primary role of the OSCE Minsk Group as the mediator for the Karabagh also means that Turkey can have no direct role in the peace process. By virtue of its close strategic relationship with Azerbaijan, and in terms of Turkey's open diplomatic, economic and military support for Azerbaijan, including its ongoing blockade of Armenia, Turkey can not been accepted as a neutral broker or mediator of the Karabagh conflict. On a broader level, the lack of information concerning the peace process only leads to misinformation, endangering the already fragile and delicate peace talks. For Armenia, the lack of information only fuels misunderstanding and fosters a deeper sense of apathy among the population. The Armenian government must do much more to educate and involve its citizens in the peace process. Equally important, Azerbaijan has also failed to properly prepare its public for any possible progress in the peace talks. In addition, the secrecy surrounding the peace talks has only strengthened the militant rhetoric of its leadership and has radicalized the discourse within Azerbaijani society. Although the August 2008 war in Georgia only reaffirmed the danger of a sudden outbreak of hostilities in the region, Azerbaijani leaders continue to dangerously promote an irresponsible language of aggression and threat, tending to exacerbate regional insecurity. Therefore, the recent revelations of the Turkish media suggesting a secret peace deal over Karabagh only serves to complicate efforts to forge a fair and lasting peace. Most crucially, the lack of information and transparency encourages a dangerous trend of misinformation and disinformation that entrenches stereotypes and emboldens more extreme views. Thus, the failure of all sides to prepare and engage their publics in the peace process only reveals the deficit of prudent statesmanship and proper leadership.

SPOKESMAN FOR AZERBAIJANI FOREIGN MINISTRY REGARDS NEWS OF TURKISH HURRIYET NEWSPAPER AS "NONESENSE"

Feb 11 - Azerbaijan Baku. Lachin Sultanova - APA. "The details of the negotiations on the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict reported by the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper are nonsense," spokesman for Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Khazar Ibrahim told APA. He said that the reports were not true. "As regards the deployment of peacekeeping forces in the occupied Lachin region, I would like to mention that we have repeatedly said peacekeeping forces can be deployed in the region in any stage. But this contingent can not consist of the servicemen of neighbouring or co-chairing countries," he said. The diplomat considers that those who spread this report want to create problem between the two brother countries. "But it is impossible," he said.

ANKARA NOT PART OF CAUCASUS DEAL

Hurriyet - February 11 - ANKARA - Turkey is not part of a plan for a settlement to the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani territory occupied by Armenia, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday. "The Nagorno-Karabakh problem concerns Turkey but Turkey’s involvement in a plan for a solution is not under consideration. We only receive information from the parties concerned," Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Özügergin was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. His remarks came after daily Hürriyet published an article that revealed a number of settlement areas would be handed over to Azerbaijan under a reconciliation plan on the Nagorno-Karabakh problem discussed between Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and Armenian and Azerbaijani officials. Babacan held talks with his Armenian counterpart as well as the Armenian president on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich over the weekend and flew to Baku for further consultations with his Azerbaijani counterpart and the Azerbaijani president. On route to Baku, Babacan revised the latest stage of the talks with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Memmedyarov, with whom he was on the same plane. Following the diplomacy traffic on the Munich-Baku track, Armenia was reported to be looking warmly toward the handover of six settlement areas densely populated by the Azeris to Azerbaijan stage by stage, said the daily. The Armenian Foreign Ministry denied the report and said it had not conducted negotiations for a settlement with Turkey’s mediation. Tigran Balayan, spokesman for the Ministry, said negotiations had been conducted through the mediation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation Group’s Minsk Group based on the Madrid proposals.

AFGHANISTAN 20 YEARS AFTER THE SOVIET WITHDRAWAL By Benon Sevan

SUNDAY February 15 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. On that day, the last Soviet soldier, Lieut. Gen. Boris V. Gromov, the commander of the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, walked across the “Friendship Bridge” linking the Afghan border town of Hayratan with Termez, in the Soviet Union, bringing to an end the costly and disastrous nine-year Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan, which began in December 1979. The withdrawal of the 100,000 Soviet troops from Afghanistan was completed on February 15, 1989, pursuant to the Geneva Accords, signed on April 14, 1988 between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the United States and the Soviet Union serving as guarantors. I was present in Kabul during the military parade on May 15, 1988 to mark the beginning of the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The Soviet Union did not consider the troop withdrawal as a military defeat but rather, as General Gromov put it, as “the completion of an international mission and the fulfilment of the Geneva Accords; none of our units, even the smallest one, have retreated. That is why there is no talk of a military defeat.” for the rest of the article click here

Benon Sevan was former United Nations Under-Secretary-General. He served as the Personal Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the period 1989-1992.

UNITED NATIONS ORDERED TO PAY LEGAL FEES TO BENON SEVAN TOTALLING $ 880,300

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N.'s highest internal judicial body has ordered the United Nations to pay legal fees to the former chief of its oil-for-food program, who has been accused of accepting money to illegally influence the $64 billion humanitarian program in Iraq. The program was the biggest humanitarian program in U.N. history, but an U.N.-sanctioned investigation found widespread corruption, involving thousands of parties, that bilked the humanitarian program of $1.8 billion. The program chief, Benon Sevan, has been charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for allegedly accepting $160,000 to illegally influence the program. The Administrative Tribunal's judgement, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, said the United Nations must pay "all reasonable legal fees" incurred by Sevan until February 2005, subject to an independent audit of the lawyers' invoices. The judgement said Sevan and his lawyers were seeking $880,300, plus interest. Under the oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, Iraq was allowed to sell oil provided most of the money went to buy humanitarian goods. It was aimed at easing Iraqi suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and was a lifeline for 90 percent of the country's population. But a 18-month U.N.-sanctioned investigation led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found massive corruption in the program. Its final report in October 2005 accused more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of colluding with Saddam Hussein's regime to bilk the humanitarian program of $1.8 billion. In 2004, it accused Sevan of accepting $147,184 in kickbacks for steering oil-for-food contracts to a company of his choice. At the time, the U.N. agreed to pay Sevan's legal fees. But when the investigation accused then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan of a role in the scandal, Annan reversed the payment decision. Annan then rejected the ruling when the U.N. Joint Appeals Board upheld Sevan's appeal in February 2006. Sevan took his case to the Administrative Tribunal, which ordered the U.N. to pay reasonable legal fees in its judgement dated Nov. 26, 2008. Both the appeals court and the tribunal said it had no evidence that Annan's chief-of-staff ever imposed conditions on the payment agreement. "We abide by all the decisions of the Administrative Tribunal, which is the highest appeals body within the U.N. system," said U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq. Sevan resigned from the U.N. in 2005 and returned to his native Cyprus. He has not been extradited to the United Nations. In January 2007, federal and state prosecutors charged Sevan with taking a $160,000 bribe to influence who could buy Iraqi oil under the oil-for-food program. The indictment charged Sevan with bribery and conspiracy to commit fraud. At the time, his lawyer, Eric Lewis, said Sevan was being made a political scapegoat and that he had accounted for every penny, helping to save "tens of thousands of innocent people from death by disease and starvation."

COOPERATION WITH DASHNAKS POSSIBLE SAYS GEMAYEL

Daily Star Feb 12 2009 Lebanon BEIRUT: Former President Amin Gemayel said on Wednesday that he will be soon meeting with MP Michel Murr to discuss possible ways of cooperating in the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for June 7. Speaking at a news conference at the Phalange Party headquarters in Beirut, Gemayel added that he was also open to cooperating with the Armenian Dashnak Party. "Despite deep wounds, we are ready to cooperate with the Dashnak based on the circumstances of the electoral battle," the former president said. Gemayel's relations with the Armenian party reached their lowest level during the Metn by-election in 2007, when the majority of Armenians voted against Gemayel, who was running to replace his slain son, former Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel. The former president lost the election to MP Camille Khoury of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM). Gemayel's announcement came in line with earlier remarks by Murr, who said that his main allies in the qada (district) of Metn would be the Phalange and Dashnak.

FINAL PUSH FOR GENOCIDE RECOGNITION BEGINS IN THE US

Adam Schiff joined by George Radanovich and Armenian Caucus Co-Chairmen Frank Pallone and Mark Kirk in Seeking Bipartisan Support for Armenian Genocide Resolution

WASHINGTON, DC - A letter seeking U.S. House cosponsors for a renewed drive to secure the adoption of the Armenian Genocide Resolution was circulated on 12th February 2009 on Capitol Hill by the legislation's lead authors, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and George Radanovich (R-CA), and Armenian Caucus Co-Chairmen Frank Pallone (D-NJ), and Mark Kirk (R-IL), reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). "We join today with millions of Armenians throughout the United States, in Armenia, and around the world in welcoming the launch of this new drive toward U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide," said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA. "It's always the right time to take a stand against genocide. Now - with longstanding advocates of this noble and necessary cause in the White House, leading the State Department, serving in the Cabinet, heading up both Houses of Congress, and chairing key Congressional committees - we are set to overcome the final barriers to full and formal U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide." In the letter, the four legislators invited their House colleagues to join the resolution as original cosponsors, which will mean that they will be listed as supporters starting from the day of its introduction. During the recently concluded 110th Congress, an identical measure secured the support of 212 cosponsors, was adopted by the Foreign Affairs Committee, but was eventually blocked from a vote on the House floor by sustained attacks by then-President George W. Bush and his Administration. In urging early support for this human rights measure, the four lead sponsors noted that, "By properly acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, we reaffirm the willingness of the U.S. to speak plainly about genocide, and renew our commitment to prevent other occurrences of man's inhumanity to man." The Armenian Genocide Resolution reaffirms the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide by ensuring that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide.

URGENT ACTION ALERT: Armenian Genocide Affirmation 2009

February 14, 2009 - NEW YORK - The Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA) encourages Cypriot activists, and all Hellenes and Philhellenes around the world to send in letters of support and participate in actions to make 2009 the year of Armenian Genocide Affirmation. Emails and letters to President Obama are being sent in from around the world. Updates and further actions and news on the Armenian Cause are available from the Armenian National Committee of America ANCA, website: www.anca.org

TURKEY SUMMONS ISRAEL ENVOY OVER ISRAELI DEFENCE FORCE OFFICER'S CRITICISM OVER CYPRUS, KURDS AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

By Reuters - Turkey on Saturday called on Israel to explain remarks made by Israel Defence Forces Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrachi that questioned Turkish policies toward Kurds and Cyprus, saying ties between the Middle East allies could be at stake. The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Saturday summoned Israeli Ambassador Gabby Levy to protest comments in Haaretz made by Mizrahi, commander of Israel's land forces. Mizrahi was quoted as saying Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan should have "looked in the mirror" before slamming President Shimon Peres last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Mizrachi also said that Turkey was not in a position to criticise Israel's actions in the Palestinian territories when it stations troops in northern Cyprus. He also accused Turkey of repressing its Kurdish minority and massacring Armenians during World War I. The Turkish military said on Saturday that Mizrachi's criticism threatened to harm relations between the two countries. It was the latest sign of tension between Turkey and Israel, who maintain close military ties but whose alliance has been strained by the Israeli offensive on Gaza. Erdogan accused Peres of "knowing very well how to kill" in a public debate last month at the World Economic Forum. The Turkish General Staff, in a statement carried by the state-run Anatolian news agency, said Mizrahi's remarks were completely unacceptable. "The comments have been assessed to be at the extent that the national interests between the two countries could be damaged," it said. Turkey and Israel's military cooperation includes allowing Israeli jets to use Turkish airspace for training. Erdogan told Reuters on Friday there were no plans to halt that agreement. Turkey keeps about 30,000 troops in northern Cyprus after invading the island in 1974 to thwart a coup attempt by Greek Cypriots. It is the only country to recognise a Turkish Cypriot administration there. Turkey has also fought a 25-year war against Kurdish separatists seeking to establish a homeland in the southeastern part of the country. Turkey denies accusations that it committed genocide against 1.5 million Armenians during World War I.

AZNAVOUR TO BECOME ARMENIAN ENVOY

BBC News - The veteran French-Armenian singer, Charles Aznavour, says he has agreed to become ambassador to Switzerland for his ancestral homeland of Armenia. Mr Aznavour, 84, told Armenian TV that although initially hesitant, he had accepted the offer with "pleasure, joy and a deep feeling of honour". He was born Shahnur Aznavourian in Paris in 1924 to Armenian immigrants. Even during the Soviet era, Mr Aznavour maintained close ties with Armenia. He was granted citizenship in December. After an earthquake in 1988 killed 25,000 people, he set up the Aznavour for Armenia committee to help survivors. The following year, he wrote and recorded a charity single, Pour Toi Armenie, which sold more than a million copies. "It is a great honour that Armenia proposed that I become its ambassador," said Mr Aznavour, who currently lives in Geneva. "At first I hesitated, as I thought that this is no easy matter. But then I thought that, in the end, what is important for Armenia must be important for all of us. I accepted the proposal with pleasure, joy and a deep feeling of honour." Mr Aznavour, dubbed the "French Frank Sinatra", performed his last major concert in 2001 after more than six decades of entertaining. He is best known for romantic love ballads such as Yesterday When I Was Young, and had a number one hit in the UK in 1974 with She.