TALAT HEADS TO NEW YORK FOR TALKS WITH BAN

Today's Zaman, Turkey
Oct 15 2007

Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat departed on Sunday from İstanbul for New York, where he will have talks with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday and urge the secretary-general to be more active on the Cyprus issue.

Speaking to reporters upon his departure, Talat touched upon the controversy over the US House's adoption of a resolution labeling the mass killings of Anatolian Armenians during World War I as genocide.

"This resolution is both strange and a little funny; because it is unbelievable that an assembly of another country is making a decision concerning incidents -- after around 100 years passed -- over which history should make a decision," Talat told reporters, noting that he did not have any meetings scheduled with US officials when asked whether he would bring up the issue during his meetings in New York.( Read more... )

Jasper Gerard
Sunday October 14, 2007
The Observer

Remind me, what is the war on terror for?

The world is viewed through the prism of a war on terror. President
Bush dismisses the attempted slaughter of a people as a ticklish
detail. He rejects a historic Congressional decision to call Turkey's
murder of 1.5 million Armenians 'genocide'. And not because he denies
butchery took place; rather, Turkey is a key ally, so best let
sleeping Armenians lie. One sees his point, naturally. The friendship
of a Muslim nation provides cover. Plus nationalist Turks, successors
to the 'young Turks' who nearly snuffed out the Armenians, are
itching to invade northern Iraq. So best placate Turkey...

But what is the war on terror for? Isn't it a response to a war of
terror, whose first shot was fired in 1915, when Turkey's interior
minister ordered Armenians to be 'terminated'? Why does the death of
3,000 in New York weigh heavier than 1.5 million? And if the war on
terror possesses moral as well as military force, shouldn't it be
about principle as well as pragmatism?

Otherwise, aren't we just the other side's enemy combatant?
Guantanamo, rendition, detention: staring through the prism, we've
lost perspective.

Turkey aligned with Germany and Austria in World War I, allowing Germany to control the Dardanelles, Russia’s lone warm-water lifeline, and causing Russia to declare war on Turkey in 1914.

On Christmas Day 1914, Enver Pasha did what Napoleon had done in 1812 and what Hitler would do in 1941—he invaded Russia in winter. As it had been for Napoleon and would be for Hitler, so too it proved disastrous for Enver.

Turkey has already lost the "genocide" battle. There is simply no one — except people with a vested financial or political interest — who believe Turkey's side of the story. Whether "the events of 1915" amount to "genocide" or not is not even debated in the West. This is one of those situations where perception becomes reality. Turkey can blame the nefarious Armenians and all kinds of anti-Turkish lobbies for this situation, but the fact of the matter is that suppressing free debate on this issue and accusing academics organizing conferences does not help the slogan "leave history to historians."

Basque people and his institutions rejected ethnic, religious or
political discrimination, and this Parliament always denounced all the
acts of genocide, by considering that the walk of time does not imply
the lack of memory. The denunciations of the genocides by our
Parliament like those of Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraki Kurdistan and the
Ukrainian artificial famine of 1932-33, etc, are clear examples.

By this institutional declaration, this Parliament unifies his voice
with those of the other institutions and Parliaments like European
Parliament, Council of Europe and multitude of official and regional
Parliaments, as well as the international institutions and
humanitarians who denounced these facts.

In agreement with what precedes, Basque Parliament included 6 articles
in which it affirms the autentic character of the sudden genocide by
the Armenian people; denounce the systematic Turkey's negationnism and
rejects the frontier and economic blockade subjected to the Armenia
Republic. Moreover, the Parliament, under the signature of his
president, Izaskun Bilbao Barandica, declares his sympathy to the
Armenian people, and supports his efforts to consolidate its
democratic process and to affirm in the Caucasus area a stable space
of co-operation and freedom.

malekon

The ‘apology’ quoting America’s Ambassador to Armenia John Evans for saying he shouldn’t have referred to the Armenian genocide as such, turns out, was a fabrication by the State Department.

How [NOT] To: Armenian Genocide Protest

One day out of the entire year motivates Armenians to get off their butts and do something for their people: April 24th. On the 24th of every April, Armenians the world over - but especially in the Los Angeles area - take to the streets to protest the Turkish embassy for recognition of the Genocide. The younger generation especially goes out to protest.

If you're planning on doing the same, I have some tips for you:

1. April 24th is not a happy day. In fact, it marks the tortures and deaths of over 1,500,000 of our ancestors. Understand this thoroughly. ( Continue... )

kevork