Armenian News...A Topalian...[the Turkish article is particularly interesting] And Damming

The Times
Pope sparks furious row with Turks over Armenian genocide
By Tom Kington Rome
13 April 2015 
The Pope has described the murder of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks 100 years ago as genocide, sparking a diplomatic crisis with
Turkey, which it denies it took place.

Speaking yesterday before a Mass at St Peter's Basilica to mark
the centenary of the killings, the Pope defined the slaughter of as
many as 1.5 million Armenians as the "first genocide o the 20th
century" quoting a statement by Pope John Pul II in 2001. 

'The remaining two were perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism",
he said. And more recently there have been other mass killings,
like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia".

Though he is not the first pope to use "genocide" to describe the
Armenian massacre, his speech carried extra weight since it was
given on the anniversary of the slaughter, in St Peter's and in the
presence of of President Sargsyan of Armenia and Armenian
church leaders, who attended the service.

In response, Turkey summoned the Vatican's ambassador to
complain about the remarks, citing "great disappointment and
sadness" and recalled its ambassador from the Holy See. The
Turkish foreign ministry accused the Pope of "ignoring the atrocities
suffered by the Turkish and Muslim peoples who lost their lives".

Turkey claims that half a million Armenians does in the fighting
when they rose up against their Ottoman rulers during the First
World War.

The Pope now risks losing Turkey's support as he seeks to defend
Christian communities that are being persecuted by Isis in Syria
and Irak.

Describing those communities yesterday, the Pope spoke of the
"muffled and forgotten cry of so many of our defenceless brothers
and sisters who, on account of their faith in Christ or their ethnic
origin, are publicly and ruthlessly put to death - decapitated,
crucified, burnt alive - or forced to leave their homeland".
Christians in the Middle East. and suggested that playing down
the Armenian slaughter 100 years ago had in part led to the present
killing.

"It is necessary, and indeed a duty, to honour and their
memory", he said of the Armenians killed, "for whenever memory
fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester. Concealing
or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without
bandaging it". 

In a speech at St Peter's before the mass, Karekin II, the patriarch
of the Armenian Church, used the word "genocide" 13 times.

"With a deliberate plan, with horrific atrocities, one and half Armenians
 were slaughtered", he said.

"Our ancient people were uprooted from their cherished cradle of
life - their historic homeland - and scattered over different countries.
Our centuries-old Christian heritage was ruined, obliterated and
seized."

While 3.2 Armenian live in Armenia today, another eight million
live outside the country, 

Vatican Information Service
Mass for the centenary of the Armenian Metz Yeghern: Jesus 

fills the abyss of sin with the depth of His mercy

Vatican City, 12 April 2015 (VIS) – On the second Sunday of Easter, 

or Divine Mercy Sunday, Pope Francis celebrated Holy Mass in 

St. Peter's Basilica to commemorate the centenary of the 

“martyrdom” (Metz Yeghern, or Great Evil) of the Armenian People, 

and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church St. Gregory of Narek 

(c. 951 – c. 1003), Armenian monk, theologian, poet and philosopher, 

whose feast day is celebrated on 27 February.

His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, Patriarch of Cilicia 

of the Armenian Catholics concelebrated with the Holy Father, in 

the presence of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and 

Catholicos of All Armenians and His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos 

of the Great House of Cilicia. The president of the Republic of 

Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, also attended the Mass.

In his homily, the Pope commented on the Gospel of St. John, 

who was in the Upper Room with the other disciples on the evening 

of the first day after the Sabbath, and who tells us that “Jesus 

came and stood among them, and said, 'Peace be with you!' and 

He showed them His hands and His side; He showed them His 

wounds. And in this way they realized that it was not an apparition: 

it was truly Him, the Lord, and they were filled with joy. On the 

eighth day Jesus came once again into the Upper Room and 

showed His wounds to Thomas, so that he could touch them 

as he had wished to, in order to believe and thus become himself 

a witness to the Resurrection”.

To us also, on this Sunday which Saint John Paul II wished to 

dedicate to Divine Mercy, “the Lord shows us, through the Gospel, 

his wounds. They are wounds of mercy. It is true: the wounds of 

Jesus are wounds of mercy. 'With His stripes we are healed'. 

Jesus invites us to behold these wounds, to touch them as 

Thomas did, to heal our lack of belief. Above all, He invites us 

to enter into the mystery of these wounds, which is the mystery 

of His merciful love”.

“Through these wounds, as in a light-filled opening, we can see 

the entire mystery of Christ and of God”, said Pope Francis: “His 

Passion, His earthly life – filled with compassion for the weak and 

the sick – His incarnation in the womb of Mary. And we can 

retrace the whole history of salvation: the prophecies – especially 

about the Servant of the Lord, the Psalms, the Law and the 

Covenant; to the liberation from Egypt, to the first Passover and

to the blood of the slaughtered lambs; and again from the 

Patriarchs to Abraham, and then all the way back to Abel, whose 

blood cried out from the earth. All of this we can see in the wounds 

of Jesus, crucified and risen; with Mary, in her Magnificat, we can 

perceive that, 'His mercy extends from generation to generation'”.

He continued, “Faced with the tragic events of human history 

we can feel crushed at times, asking ourselves, 'Why?'. Humanity’s 

evil can appear in the world like an abyss, a great void: empty of 

love, empty of goodness, empty of life. And so we ask: how can 

we fill this abyss? For us it is impossible; only God can fill this

 emptiness that evil brings to our hearts and to human history. 

It is Jesus, God made man, Who died on the Cross and Who fills 

the abyss of sin with the depth of His mercy”.

The saints teach us that “the world is changed beginning with the 

conversion of one’s own heart, and that this happens through the 

mercy of God. And so, whether faced with my own sins or the 

great tragedies of the world, 'my conscience would be distressed, 

but it would not be in turmoil, for I would recall the wounds of the 

Lord: “He was wounded for our iniquities”. What sin is there so 

deadly that it cannot be pardoned by the death of Christ?'”.

“Keeping our gaze on the wounds of the Risen Jesus, we can sing 

with the Church: 'His love endures forever'; eternal is his mercy. 

And with these words impressed on our hearts, let us go forth 

along the paths of history, led by the hand of our Lord and Saviour, 

our life and our hope”, concluded the Pontiff.

Pope's message to the Armenians 

Vatican City, 12 April 2015 (VIS) – At the end of the Holy Mass 

celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica to commemorate the centenary 

of the Armenian “martyrdom” (Metz Yeghern) and the proclamation 

of St. Gregory of Narek as Doctor of the Church, the Pope met 

with His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos 

of All Armenians, His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great 

House of Cilicia, His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, 

Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenian Catholic Church, and the 

president of the Republic of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan. He handed 

to each of them a signed copy in Italian of his message he read 

at the beginning of the celebration, with a translation in Armenian. 

The following is the full text of his message.

“On a number of occasions I have spoken of our time as a time 

of war, a third world war which is being fought piecemeal, one in

 which we daily witness savage crimes, brutal massacres and 

senseless destruction. Sadly, today too we hear the muffled and 

forgotten cry of so many of our defenseless brothers and sisters 

who, on account of their faith in Christ or their ethnic origin, are 

publicly and ruthlessly put to death – decapitated, crucified, 

burned alive – or forced to leave their homeland.

Today too we are experiencing a sort of genocide created by 

general and collective indifference, by the complicit silence of 

Cain, who cries out: 'What does it matter to me? Am I my 

brother’s keeper?'.

In the past century our human family has lived through three 

massive and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely 

considered 'the first genocide of the twentieth century' (John 

Paul II and Karekin II, Common Declaration, Etchmiadzin, 

27 September 2001 ), struck your own Armenian people, the 

first Christian nation, as well as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, 

Assyrians, Chaldeans and Greeks. Bishops and priests, religious, 

women and men, the elderly and even defenseless children and 

the infirm were murdered. The remaining two were perpetrated 

by Nazism and Stalinism. And more recently there have been 

other mass killings, like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi 

and Bosnia. It seems that humanity is incapable of putting a halt 

to the shedding of innocent blood. It seems that the enthusiasm 

generated at the end of the Second World War has dissipated 

and is now disappearing. It seems that the human family has 

refused to learn from its mistakes caused by the law of terror, 

so that today too there are those who attempt to eliminate others 

with the help of a few and with the complicit silence of others who 

simply stand by. We have not yet learned that 'war is madness', 

'senseless slaughter'.

Dear Armenian Christians, today , with hearts filled with pain but 

at the same time with great hope in the risen Lord, we recall the 

centenary of that tragic event, that immense and senseless 

slaughter whose cruelty your forebears had to endure. It is 

necessary, and indeed a duty, to honour their memory, for whenever 

memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester. Concealing 

or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without 

bandaging it!

I greet you with affection and I thank you for your witness. With 

gratitude for his presence, I greet Mr Serzh Sargsyan, the President 

of the Republic of Armenia. My cordial greeting goes also to my 

brother Patriarchs and Bishops: His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme 

Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians; His Holiness Aram I, 

Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, His Beatitude Nerses 

Bedros XIX, Patriarch of Cilicia of Armenian Catholics; and 

Catholicosates of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the 

Patriarchate of the Armenian Catholic Church.

In the certainty that evil never comes from God, Who is infinitely 

good, and standing firm in faith, let us profess that cruelty may never 

be considered God’s work and, what is more, can find absolutely no 

justification in his Holy Name. Let us continue this celebration by 

fixing our gaze on Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, victor over 

death and evil”. 

The New York Times

Stung by Pope’s Remarks on Armenian Genocide, Turkish 

Minister Insults Argentina
APRIL 13, 2015
By ROBERT MACKEY 

Turkish officials continued to vent their fury at Pope Francis on 

Monday, one day after he called the mass killing of Armenians a 

century ago “the first genocide of the 20th century,” at a 

commemorative mass at the Vatican .

The latest outraged response came from Volkan Bozkir , Turkey’s 

minister for European affairs, who significantly upped the ante on 

his colleagues by suggesting that Argentines as whole, and not 

just the pope, had been brainwashed by rich and powerful 

Armenians in their midst.

In remarks broadcast on national television, Mr. Bozkir began 

by reminding reporters that Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario 

Bergoglio in Buenos Aires in 1936, is “an Argentine.” Mr. Bozkir 

then hinted that the country has a dark past of its own. “Argentina 

was a country that welcomed the leading executors of the Jewish 

Holocaust, Nazi torturers, with open arms,” he said.

Mr. Bozkir then sought to provide an explanation for where 

Argentines might have gotten the idea that the 1.5 million 

Armenians killed between 1915 and 1923 in the last days of the 

Ottoman Empire had been slaughtered intentionally.

“In Argentina,” Mr. Bozkir asserted, “the Armenian diaspora 

controls the media and business.” The minister provided no 

evidence for his assertion and was not asked for any. (One 

prominent member of the Armenian diaspora in Argentina, 

Eduardo Eurnekian, is a billionaire who did once have significant 

media holdings, but he sold them two decades ago, according 

to Forbes .)

Argentina, which is home of the largest community of Armenians 

in South America, more than 100,000 , angered the Turks in 

2006 by adopting legislation that formally recognized April 24 

as a day “ in commemoration of the Armenian Genocide .”

Turkey’s government has acknowledged that atrocities were 

committed during the period but fiercely opposes the characterization 

that the killing of Armenians was systematic and intentional.

”The 1915 events took place during World War I when a portion 

of the Armenian population living in the Ottoman Empire sided 

with the invading Russians and revolted against the empire,” the 

Turkish news agency Anadolu reported on Monday. “The Ottoman 

Empire relocated Armenians in eastern Anatolia following the 

revolts and there were Armenian casualties during the relocation 

process,” the report continued.

In 2003, the Argentine journalist Uki Goñi revealed in his book, 

“ The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Perón’s Argentina ,

” that Juan Perón’s postwar government had clandestinely helped 

Nazi war criminals flee there at the end of World War II. Using 

documents from European archives, Mr. Goñi showed that the 

Vatican, Swiss authorities and the Red Cross had played key 

roles in the escape to Argentina of Nazis including Adolf Eichmann, 

Dr. Josef Mengele and Klaus Barbie, as well as dozens of French, 

Belgian, Italian, Croatian and Slovak fascists, many of them Nazi 

collaborators. 

DUTCH PARLIAMENT RECOGNIZES ARMENIAN, ASSYRIAN

 AND GREEK GENOCIDES
10 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan 

The Dutch Parliament passed a binding resolution yesterday recognizing
the genocide of Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians by Ottoman Turks during
World War One. The resolution, tabled by MP Joel Voordewind from the
Christian Union party, enjoyed wide support from the various parties,
including Christian Union, People's Party for Freedom and Democracy,
Christian Democratic Appeal, Reformed Political Party and Labor
Party. The resolution was strongly opposed by two Turkish members
of the Parliament but passed by a strong majority vote, the Assyrian
International News Agency (AINA) reports.

"The aim of this motion is to recognize the Armenian as well as the
Assyrian genocide," said Joel Voordewind, "and to bring the Turkish
government closer to Armenia. This is an important signal from the
Dutch Parliament to the Turkish government to acknowledge its past
actions. I hope in the end this will bring both countries to a better
understanding and reconciliation with each other."


arminfo.am
TURKEY LOOKS TO PREVENT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT'S 

RESOLUTION TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
by Marianna Mkrtchyan
April 10, 12:00 

Turkey will do everything possible to hold European Parliament from
passing a resolution to recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915,
says Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tanju Bilgic.

To that end, he said, Turkey's officials will visit the European
Parliament to meet with Martin Schultz, Trend reports referring to
Hurriyet Daily News.

According to Bilgic, Turkey has already taken all possible measures
to prevent a similar resolution of the Danish Parliament.

Turkey is against "one-sided assessment of the events of 1915 and
their use as a measure of political pressure on Ankara," he said.

Vice-President of the European Parliament Ulrike Lunacek highlighted
the necessity of the adoption of the resolution on the Armenian
Genocide to be discussed on April 14-15 at the European Parliament,
which will suggest and commission EU member-states' national
Parliaments and Governments to adopt appropriate resolutions and
decisions on recognition and condemnation of the fact.

news.am
AUSTRIA'S CHURCHES CALL ON THEIR PRESIDENT TO 

RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

10.04.2015 

Ecumenical Council of Churches in Austria (ORKO) addressed a letter
to the country's leadership urging them to recognize the Armenian
Genocide and serve as an example for other countries.

The letter is sent on behalf of the representatives of Evangelical
Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran and Catholic churches and is addressed
to the country's President Heinz Fischer, Austrian National Council
President Doris Bures, Chancellor Werner Faymann and the Minister of
Foreign Affairs Sebastian Kurz, the organization's official website
reports.

According to the letter, the recognition must be announced by April
24, which marks the beginning of the Genocide of Armenians and other
Christian nations in the Ottoman Empire.

The Genocide's official recognition, which has already been
commenced by many states and organizations, can mean the beginning
of reimbursement and reconciliation. Moreover, modern Turkey's civil
society is apparently ready to recognize the sad events of 1915 and
repent, the representatives of Austrian churches said.


INTELLECTUALS, ACTIVISTS REVEAL HISTORY OF 

DELIBERATE IGNORANCE OF 1915 EVENTS
Cihan News Agency (CNA), Turkey
April 9, 2015 Thursday 

Ä°STANBUL - Intellectuals and activists gathered in Ä°stanbul
on Wednesday evening for an event called "Confront 1915," where 

they peeled away the layers of history that have been presented 

by the Turkish government when discussing the shrouded massacre 

of Armenians in 1915.

Dr. Ohannes Kılıcdagı, a professor of sociology at İstanbul Bilgi
University and a columnist for the Armenian Agos weekly newspaper,
discussed how Armenians who were deported and survived persecution
were unable to return to their former homeland.

"[The period between] 1918-1920 was actually the time during which
the genocide was most openly discussed in the history of this land,
at a time when the Turkish Republic did not yet exist. After the
Kemalist regime and as the Ankara government began to stabilize
and become rooted, and wars were won ... there was then a period of
'clearing the air.' What I mean by this is that arrangements were
made to prevent Armenians who were sent away from returning to their
property and possessions," shared Kılıcdagı.

The Republic of Turkey was established in 1923 after its founder,
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and Turkish nationalists had emerged victorious
over Greeks, Armenians and Western forces in the Turkish War of
Independence. Today, despite international pressure, the Turkish
Republic does not recognize the events that took place during the
fall of the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

Kılıcdagı continued his discourse on the perception of history,
explaining: "And then began a period that I call the 'period of
silence,' which slowly began to create the perception that 

nothing had happened here. Even more so, the perception that 

there were never Armenians here [in the first place] was formed," 

adding, "A deliberate ignorance was spread and this was actually 

successful to a large extent." 

Kılıcdagı went on to share the results of a survey performed by 

Dr. Ferhat Kentel of Ä°stanbul Å~^ehir University. When participants 

of the survey were asked, "When do you believe Armenians came to 

Turkey?"

One-third of the respondents said they believed that Armenians had 

come to Turkey after the fall of the Soviet Union, while another 

one-third acknowledged that they simply had no idea when the 

Armenians had come to Turkey.

"Therefore, we see that two-thirds of Turkish society believe 

that a people [Armenians] who were the first people of this 

land to be written down in history, who existed here before 

the Common Era, are commonly believed to have only arrived 

at the beginning of the 1990s," he concluded. 

Another speaker at Wednesday's meeting was prominent human 

rights lawyer Eren Keskin, who addressed the audience, saying, 

"We are very late to be speaking about this issue." 

In line with Kılıcdagı's argument that such ignorance was 

enforced deliberately by the government, Keskin noted, "I think the 

Turkish government has been very successful in its mission 

to cover up these events." 

She told a personal story of her first encounter with the tragic past
of the Armenians in Turkey in which she explained how her grandfather
had demanded that her aunt Josephine, an Armenian, convert to Islam
before marrying his son, which she did.

Keskin believes that the example she shared highlights the ongoing
injustice and how the experience in her family, which was discussed but
went undisputed, gave her the opportunity to learn about discrimination
against Armenians from a young age. She then went on to describe her
career as a human rights lawyer with the Ä°stanbul branch of the Human
Rights Association (Ä°HD). She noted that although she believed it to
be quite late, the Ä°HD released a press statement in 2005 recognizing
the events of 1915 as genocide. After the Ä°HD took this stance,
Keskin said they were condemned and their office building attacked.


TURKEY MULLS FURTHER MEASURES AGAINST VATICAN 

AS ENVOY RETURNS TO ANKARA
Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
April 13 2015

Turkey's ambassador to the Vatican, Mehmet Pacacı returned to Ankara
late April 12, after Ankara's strong reaction against Pope Francis'
description of the mass killings of Armenians at the hands of the
Ottoman Empire as genocide.

"The steps that will be taken [against the Vatican] will be made public
following our consultations," Foreign Minister Mevlut CavuÅ~_oglu
told reporters on April 13 at a press conference in Mongolia.

"In the past century our human family has lived through three massive
and unprecedented tragedies," the Pope said April 12 during at a 100th
anniversary Mass with the participation of Armenian President Serzh
Sargsyan. "The first, which is widely considered 'the first genocide
of the 20th century,' struck your own Armenian people."

CavuÅ~_oglu criticized Pope Francis for making discrimination between
the pains of all people in 1915 and for ignoring the sufferings of
Muslims and Turks in Anatolia.

"Unfortunately, history was made an instrument of politics. Before
anything else, a religious man should have given a message of
brotherhood, peace and tolerance in the face of recently growing
racism, discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance," he said.

"These remarks are null and void for the Turkish people and Turkey,"
CavuÅ~_oglu added, underlining that genocide is a "legal concept"
and therefore the use of this word by Pope is "nothing but slander."

The withdrawal of Pacacı was announced by the Turkish Foreign
Ministry's strong-worded statement late on the afternoon of April
12 that accused Pope Francis of being "one-sided" and "distorting
historical facts."

System of a Down review - noir-rock epics and the history of 

genocide
Wembley arena, London
The American-Armenian skull-pummelers deliver some worthy 

political messages amid a messy sprawl of intricate, disjointed 

hardcore
Mark Beaumont
Sunday 12 April 2015 13.47 BST

The entry queues are chaotic, the toilets are overflowing, and the PA
pours out a relentless two-hour bombardment of math metal, violent
thrash rock and Armenian folk anthems. Yet, if it feels as if
Californian skull-pummelers System of a Down are trying to make
Wembley feel like its own downtrodden mini-state, we're soon put in
our place. The Wake Up the Souls tour marks the 100th anniversary of
the 1915 Armenian genocide - a subject close to the hearts of these
four politically voracious Armenian-Americans - and animated histories
of that and subsequent genocides in the second world war, Rwanda and
Cambodia are played out on the screens during interludes in the set,
narrated by Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello. So, suitably
humbled, we endure.

Singer Serj Tjankian is an arresting presence, part hardcore Zappa,
part minaret muezzin, part Russell Brand gone feral. As he entreats us
to "change this planet so we're deserving of it" and yowls, "a whole
race, genocide, taken away - revolution, the only solution," on
solidarity anthem PLUCK, you salute his, well, pluck. Otherwise, his
worthy messages on drink-driving and police brutality (Mr Jack),
pulling the heroin "tapeworm out of your ass" (Needles) and war (War?)
are buried beneath a messy sprawl of intricate, disjointed hardcore
that, like the average First Dates participant, never seems to know
how fast it should be going.

With the prospect of SOAD's first album since the companion releases
of Mezmerize and Hypnotize 10 years ago looming, the faithful and
studious - this is rock that rewards only total immersion - circle-pit
with a semi-religious fervour. But the band only sparingly cohere on
the odd noir-rock epic such as Spiders or Hypnotize, moshpit
electrifiers Bounce and Toxicity, or when guitarist Daron Malakian
takes the spotlight for his crafty homage to House of the Rising Sun,
Lonely Day. Spots of relief in a barrage of ballast.