CYPRUS PEACE PROSPECTS GET BOOST FROM UN's TOP MAN
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| CYPRUS PEACE PROSPECTS GET | ||
 Famagusta Gazette - Government Spokesman Stefanos Stefanou has made a positive assessment of Ban Ki-Moon’s visit, saying it has given a fresh impetus to talks aimed at a solution to the Cyprus problem.Stefanou described as "a positive element" the interest shown by the UN and the world body's chief himself towards a solution, adding that their involvement is not merely legitimate but sought after as well. Αsked if Ban Ki-Moon's position that "now is the time for a solution" constitutes pressure, Stefanos Stefanou said that the Secretary-General meant simply that the current conditions and confluences are right, and that these should be made use of. He stressed that the United Nations and the Secretary General do not act either as mediators or arbitrators. He said Ban's visit confirmed that the negotiations are Cypriot owned, adding that the pace and shape of future talks will be decided by the two leaders and none other. The Government Spokesman pointed out that reports and concerns about an interim agreement and an arbitration attempt by Ban Ki-Moon during the Secretary-General's visit were flatly and categorically belied. | ||
| HURRIYET SEES BREAK-THROUGH IN CYPRUS TALKS | ||
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| CONTROVERSY OVER ARMENIAN | ||
 Bolis (Hurriyet)–Upcoming elections to select a new Patriarch for Turkey’s Armenians have become increasingly enveloped in confusion, as two separate community applications to hold the polls were recently filed with the Istanbul Governor’s Office.While the Patriarchate’s clerical board intends to elect a ‘co-Patriarch,’ an ‘Entrepreneur Committee’ of community foundation directors is insisting on electing a completely new Patriarch. The Patriarchate’s clerical board recently decided to elect a co-Patriarch for the Armenian community due to the deteriorating heath condition of current Patriarch Mesrop II. The elected co-Patriarch would then become the Patriarch following Mesrop II’s death. At the same time, the Entrepreneur Committee, a body consisting of the directors of the community’s foundations, has initiated proceedings to elect a completely new Patriarch. This means that two separate applications to elect the community’s religious leader have now been filed with the Istanbul Governor. After learning of the committee’s application, the clerical board released a statement condemning the filing of election papers, as the double application has cast a shadow over the co-Patriarch elections tentatively scheduled to be held May 12. Mesrop II was elected in October 1998 as the 84th Patriarch of Turkey’s Armenians by the community of 50,000. Mesrop II fell ill following the Jan. 19, 2007, assassination of Hrant Dink; the Patriarchate has since declaring his illness to be dementia. His duties have been assumed by the clerical board under Archbishop Aram Atesyan. Intra-communal debate on the matter has led to calls for the election of a co-Patriarch. According to the canon law of the Armenian Apostolic Church, an elected Patriarch holds his title until death, meaning that it is impossible to elect a new Patriarch until the passing of the incumbent one. Speaking to the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review about the situation, Arsen Asik, one of the former directors of the committee, said the community was going through a very sensitive time, adding that he approved of the committee’s actions. “Mesrop II is in a condition in which he cannot fulfil his duties. Let us assume that a co-Patriarch is elected and then a legal problem occurs. At that point, the co-Patriarch might say, ‘I do not have authority’ and isolate himself [from the situation],” Asik said. Sarkis Elbe, one of the current members of the foundation, also approved of the committee’s actions but expressed some wariness about the general situation. “Nobody knows what is going on behind closed doors,” he said, referring to the clerical board’s decision to elect a co-Patriarch. Sevan Ataoglu, a young member of the community, disagreed with Elbe and Asik, saying he is against the idea of electing a completely new Patriarch and added that the community wants to see Mesrop II as full Patriarch until his death. “I believe the government is interfering with the Entrepreneur Committee. That is why they are so determined,” Ataoglu said, claiming both the state and the committee had a secret candidate in mind for the position. “There may be government advice [but] not interference,” Elbe said in response to such claims. “Such rumours were seen during the previous elections too; they do not seem that believable.” | ||
| A KARABAKH WAR MAY HAVE GLOBAL IMPACT | ||
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| Asbarez.com - An analyst for Strafor Global Intelligence has said that the continuing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can have global ramifications, regardless of the role the regional powers play in the conflict resolution process or in their positioning for regional dominance. “Things could get out of hand, not because Russia, Turkey or Iran want it to get out of hand, but because simply the internal dynamics of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan take over and we have situation like in 1914 when a local conflict in Bosnia created a global war,” said Strafor analyst Marko Papic in a video interview obtained from the organisation's Web site. Warning that Russia, Turkey and Iran could find themselves in a conflict that is out of their hands, Papic said that Nagorno-Karabakh is a very important topic right now because “the interplay of these major regional powers is going to depend on what happens in Armenia and Azerbaijan.” “Russian interests from start for this particular conflict have been to really involve Turkey in an intractable conflict that really cannot be solved. And this really wastes Turkey’s time and energy in a region where Russia feels very secure—it feels that it's not going to lose any leverage over either Armenia or Azerbaijan because of inroads Turkey may make. Furthermore, Azerbaijan seems to slowly be drifting toward Russia, as it feels spurned by Turkish negotiations with Armenia,” added Papic. Strafor Global Intelligence is an international think-tank specialising in reports and analysis of global issues and events. | ||
| CYPRUS EURO-PARLIAMENTARIAN IOANNIS CASSOULIDES INTERVENES FOR ARMENIA IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE | ||
 Brussels, 28 January 2010 - The Armenian National Committee of Cyprus reports that DISY Euro-Parliamentarian Ioannis Cassoulides made an intervention about Armenia during the Foreign Affairs Committee meeting of the European Parliament in Brussels. During the discussion on the draft report of the Bulgarian Socialist Euro-Parliamentarian Mr. Kirilof, regarding the EU strategy for the Southern Caucasus, Mr. Cassoulides expressed his disagreement on the unfair criticism against Armenia, while he noted that specific references regarding Nagorno-Karabagh do not correspond to reality. There is also mention about “displaced persons” (that refer to Azeri citizens), while there is no corresponding reference to “refugees” (that refers to Armenian citizens of Azerbaijan, outside Nagorno Karabagh). Reference is also made to unfortunate violent incidents after the Presidential Elections, while steps to normalise the situation are missing. Also there is no mention about the Parliamentary Convention Report of the Council of Europe about the validity of the elections. Mr. Cassoulides announced that he will present relevant amendments to the draft report, which is expected to be discussed again and adopted by the relevant Foreign Affairs Committee at the end of March. (pictured above MP Ioannis Cassoulides with Vera Yakoubian, Ragip Zarakoglu and EAFJD Chair Hilda Choboian) | ||
| ISRAEL CAN NO LONGER IGNORE THE EXISTENCE OF THE FIRST HOLOCAUST | ||
| Saturday, 30 January 2010 - Robert Fisk - While Israelis commemorated the second Holocaust of the 20th century this week, I was in the Gulbenkian library in Jerusalem, holding the printed and handwritten records of the victims of the century's first Holocaust. It was a strange sensation. The Armenians were not participating in Israel's official ceremonies to remember the six million Jewish dead, murdered by the Germans between 1939 and 1945, perhaps because Israel officially refuses to acknowledge that Armenia's million and a half dead of 1915-1923 were victims of a Turkish Holocaust. Israeli-Turkish diplomatic and military relations are more important than genocide. Or were. George Hintlian, historian and prominent member of Jerusalem's 2,000-strong Armenian community in Jerusalem, pointed out the posters a few metres from the 1,500-year old Armenian monastery. They advertised Armenia's 24 April commemorations. All but one had been defaced, torn from the ancient  walls or, in at least one case, spray-painted with graffiti in Hebrew. "Maybe they don't like it that there was another genocide," George told me. "These are things we can't explain." More than 70 members of George's family were murdered in the butchery and death marches of 1915 – when German officers witnessed the system of executions, rail-car deportations to cholera camps and asphyxiation by smoke in caves – the world's first "gas" chambers. One witness, the German vice-consul in Erzerum, Max von Scheubner-Richter, ended up as one of Hitler's closest friends and advisers. It's not as if there's no connection between the first and second Holocausts.But the times, they are changing. For ever since Turkey began shouting about Israel's slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza a year ago, prominent Israeli figures have suddenly rediscovered the Armenian Genocide. Who are the Turks to talk about mass murder? Has anyone forgotten 1915? For George and his compatriots – there are in all 10,000 Armenians in Israel and the occupied West Bank, 4,000 of them holding Israeli passports – they had indeed been forgotten until the Gaza war. "In 1982, the Armenians were left out of a Holocaust conference in Jerusalem," he said. "For three decades, no documentary on the Armenian Genocide could be shown on Israeli television because it would offend the Turks. Then suddenly last year, important Israelis demanded that a documentary be shown. Thirty Knesset members supported us. We always had Yossi Sarid of Peace Now but now we've got right-wing Israelis." Maariv and Yediot Ahronot began to mention the Armenian Genocide and George Hintlian turned up on Israeli television with Danny Ayalon – the Foreign Office Minister who humiliated the Turkish ambassador by forcing him to sit on a sofa below him – and Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin who said that Israel should commemorate the Armenian Genocide "every year". The Israeli press now calls the Armenian Genocide a "Shoah" – the same word all Israelis use for the Jewish Holocaust. As George put it with withering accuracy: "We have been upgraded!!!" This piece of brash hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed by Yossi Sarid who has described how, a few months after Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the Gaza war, "an important Israeli personality telephoned me and said the following: 'Now you have to hit back at the Turks, to denounce them for the crimes they committed against the Armenians You, Yossi, have the right to do so...'" Sarid was appalled. "I was filled with revulsion and my soul wanted to puke," he wrote in Haaretz. "The person who telephoned me was an example of the ugly Israeli who had disgracefully been at the forefront of those who denied the Armenian Holocaust." So now "new tunes" – Sarid's phrase – are being heard in Jerusalem: "The Turks are the last ones who have the right to teach us ethics." The bright side to this anguished debate is that one of Israel's top Holocaust experts bravely insisted – to the fury of then-Foreign Minister (now President) Shimon Peres – that the Armenian massacres were undoubtedly a genocide. Tens of thousands of Israelis have always believed the same; several hundred are expected to turn up at the Armenian commemoration on 24 April, and most Israelis  refer to the Armenian Genocide as a "Shoah" rather than the tame "massacres" hitherto favoured by the political elite.Yet the most extraordinary irony of all occurred when the Armenian and Turkish governments last year agreed to reopen diplomatic relations and consign the Armenian Holocaust to a joint academic enquiry which would decide "if" there had been a genocide. As Israeli Professor Yair Oron of the Open University of Israel said, "I am afraid that countries will now hesitate to recognise the (Armenian) genocide. They will say: 'Why should we grant recognition if the Armenians yielded?' Recognition of the Armenian Genocide is a paramount moral and educational act. We in Israel are obliged to recognise it." And American-Armenian UCLA Professor Richard Hovannisian asked: "Would the Jewish people be willing to forgo the memory of the Holocaust for the sake of good relations with Germany, if Germany were to make that demand?" George Hintlian described the Armenian-Turkish agreement – which in fact may not now be ratified by either side – as "like an earthquake". | ||
| We walked together in the cold afternoon through the darkened interior of the great Armenian monastery of Jerusalem with its icons and candles. George opened a cabinet to reveal a hidden staircase up which priests would creep for a secret week when invaders passed through Jerusalem. In this dank, pious place, Ronald Henry Amhurst Storrs, governor of British Mandate Jerusalem, would often sit to ponder what he called "the glory and the misery of a people". Miserable it has been for thousands of Armenians here. Up to 15,000 lived in Palestine until 1948, many of them survivors of the first Holocaust. But 10,000 of these Armenians shared the same fate as the Palestinian Arabs, fleeing or driven from their homes by the army of the new Israeli state. Most lost their businesses in Haifa and Jaffa, many of them seeking refuge – for the second time – in Jerusalem. A few set out for Cyprus where they were dispossessed for the third time by the 1974 Turkish invasion. As George put it bleakly, "Today, 6,000 Armenians are residents of Jerusalem and the West Bank. They cannot travel and they are counted as Armenian Palestinians. For Israeli bureaucracy, they are Palestinians." | ||
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| ARMENIA-DIASPORA UNITY MUST BE PRESERVED AT ALL COST | ||
| Harout Sassounian - In recent months, as heated debates raged on the Armenia-Turkey Protocols, Diaspora Armenians reacted with frustration and anger at the damage these agreements would have caused to Armenian national interests. |
Gibrahayer - Tuesday 2 February - Turkish mainland newspaper Hurriyet reports that the Greek Cypriot side have accepted a "package" prepared by Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots regarding settlers from Turkey that live in the occupied north, who will be granted right of visa-free entry, free travel, free settlement and right to obtain property. The paper says that Cyprus President Demetris Christofias was quoted as saying that the nod of Greece and the EU was needed for the package and that the acceptance of the Turkish package was "big progress" in the Cyprus talks.
George himself is the son of Garbis Hintlian who, as a 17-year-old, survived the death march from his home at Talas in Cappadocia. "We lost my uncle – my grandfather was axed to death in front of him." After the 1918 armistice, he worked for the British, carrying files of evidence to the initial (but quickly abandoned) Constantinople trials of Turkish war criminals. To no avail.
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