Turkish Forum

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  • GUENTER LEWY SUES SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER

    GUENTER LEWY SUES SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER

    Not a day passes when someone from the AFATH community (Armenian Falsifiers and Turks-Haters) doesn’t demonize Turks, Turkey, Turkish-Americans and/or friends of Turkey. 

    Forgetting that there are no substantiations by historical evidence for their political claims other than hearsay, forgeries, and partisan interpretations of wartime human suffering and ignoring that there are no court verdicts by competent tribunals to support  their accusations, these genocide lynch mobs arrogantly resort to insults, slanders, and threats.  They think they are protected under freedom of expression, but the question begs to be asked:

    Are obvious insults, malicious slanders, direct threats, and/or other similar hate speech protected under the U.S. constitution? 

    Gregory Lisby, a communications professor at Georgia State University, who has tracked criminal libel prosecutions and found 17 states that had not updated laws from English common law.  His research revealed that that criminal libel cases have dropped but he says the Internet could reverse that.  His words:  “More and more people view the online world as a free-rant place…They think it’s par for the course, but they’re setting themselves up for lawsuits or prosecution”

     (Source: “Colorado man faces criminal charge in libel case”, by Times Staff writer Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angels Times, December 4, 2008)

    I know several of these cyber-thugs, myself,  who insult me personally, attack me without even knowing me based on my ethnic heritage and the views I hold of my own family’s history.  And these insults, slanders, and threats come to me not in just one or two postings, but in majority if not all of postings.    I reserve my right to defend myself against these cyber-thugs. 

    Last October and November, I was attacked in many blogs for organizing a fund-raiser for a political candidate out of my district.  I figured, if one businessman (Daryl Issa) can spend his own money and succeed in replacing a sitting California Governor (Gray Davis), then why cannot another one (i.e. yours truly) replace a sitting congressman (Adam Schiff?) 

    Do I need to explain myself to anyone what politician, when, and why I should support? 

    Or do I need to get permission from my political adversaries to do so? 

    Isn’t fundraising one of the most cherished ways of participating in the political process?  Isn’t such participation encouraged, revered, and protected in the U.S. constitution?

    Why the strange efforts to show this American practice as something clandestine, dangerous, vile, or otherwise undesirable?

    Isn’t anti-Turkish bias, bigotry and hatred as well as ethnic and religious discrimination at work here?

    Hold those thoughts as I would like to bring to your attention the following press release I received today.

    Let’s read:

    ***

    PRESS RELEASE

    Washington, DC, December 3, 2008: On November 17, 2008 Professor Guenter Lewy filed a defamation suit against the Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc., and writer-editor David Holthouse in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, supported by the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund. TALDF seeks to preserve and promote open discourse about issues significant for Turkish Americans, including the characterization of the events bearing on the World War I deaths of Ottoman Muslims and Armenians.

    Among other works, Professor Lewy is author of The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide (University of Utah Press, 2005), which concludes that the evidence to support the popular allegation of genocide in the Armenian case is inconclusive.

    The defamation claims pivot on twin false assertions made by Defendant Holthouse in an article published in the Summer 2008 issue of Intelligence Report entitled, “State of Denial: Turkey Entices U.S. Scholars, Law Makers to Cover Up Armenian Genocide.” The first was the false statement that Professor Lewy was on the payroll of the Government of Turkey in exchange for compromising his scholastic integrity in disputing the Armenian allegation of genocide. The second was that Professor Lewy deceived his readers or audiences by failing to disclose the money he had received from the Government of Turkey to shape his view of the Armenian claim. The false statements also insinuated that Professor Lewy had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act by failing to register with the Department of Justice as a mouthpiece for the Government of Turkey. Professor Lewy is seeking damages to clear his good name and to send a message that sham accusations of being on the take is not an acceptable substitute for reasoned and civil debate over genuine historical controversies. The climate of intimidation, coercion and worse that confronts anyone who quarrels with the Armenian view of the events of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire must end.

    Professor Lewy is being represented by attorneys Bruce Fein and David Saltzman on behalf of the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund.

    ***

     

  • Can Turkey’s AKP Survive the Upcoming Local Elections?

    Can Turkey’s AKP Survive the Upcoming Local Elections?

    Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 5 Issue: 230
    December 3, 2008 10:15 AM Age: 1 days
    Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Turkey, Domestic/Social
    By: Saban Kardas
    Turkish politics is entering a new era of contestation and heightened debate with the approach of the March 2009 municipal elections. The influence of partisan politics in local elections is usually moderate, but Turkish experts generally believe that municipal elections have been shaped by trends in national politics. When they are held right before parliamentary elections, they have served as “opinion polls” and signaled the winners. When held after parliamentary elections, local elections have functioned as vote of confidence for the incumbents (Radikal, November 23). In that sense, their meaning goes well beyond electing the next mayor or city councilman; they have come to pose serious tests to governing parties. The AKP passed such a test with great success: after its landslide electoral victory in the November 2002 general elections, there were questions on the part of the secular elites about how the AKP would govern Turkey, given its origins in previously-banned Islamic parties. The results of the March 2004 municipal elections, in which the AKP increased its strength, served as a reaffirmation of popular support for the AKP’s policies, removing many of the remaining objections to the new government. Since its electoral victory in the July 2007 general elections, many new issues have arisen; and the AKP has been consumed by domestic political developments, as well as the impending economic crisis. The local elections might be another opportunity for it to gain fresh legitimacy.

    The first challenge to the AKP is on the issue of reforms. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP have been criticized by pro-reform circles as well as EU officials for slowing down domestic transformation. After coming to power in 2003, the AKP implemented drastic changes in the country’s economic and political structures, preparing the ground for the start of EU accession negotiations in 2005. Since then, domestic transformation has been relegated to a secondary status on Erdogan’s agenda. Particularly after the Constitutional Court’s controversial decision on the closure case against the AKP, which fell short of shutting down the party yet imposed fines for being a center of anti-secular activities, Erdogan appears to have completely abandoned the political reform project, including making a new, more liberal constitution.

    Reformers have been troubled by Erdogan’s close relationship with the new military leadership (Taraf, October 17). The EU officials have also criticized the Erdogan government for seeking to substitute its foreign policy activism for domestic reforms (www.fox.com.tr, November 27). Even his own supporters have started to raise objections to Erdogan’s new style in government, reflecting the dissatisfaction among the AKP’s core constituencies as well (www.ntvmsnbc.com, November 6). Despite mounting criticism, Erdogan has insisted on the rectitude of its policies. Against this background of AKP soul-searching on the political spectrum, the local elections will put to test Erdogan’s nationalist and pro-status quo political platform and his confrontational leadership style (Today’s Zaman, November 29).

    Another major challenge is the electoral battle in southeastern Turkey, which is predominantly populated by Kurdish-speaking voters. Since the July 2007 elections, the AKP has sought to project itself as the representative of the entire political spectrum in Turkey, including conservative Turks, liberal reformists, and Kurds. As a matter of fact, the AKP came out as the first party in ballots in the Kurdish provinces. Since then, the AKP’s motto has been “We will win Diyarbakir too” (Aksam, December 4, 2007), which implied that the AKP was intent on winning the major provincial municipalities controlled by the pro-Kurdish nationalist Democratic Society Party (DTP). The AKP’s aspirations to be an all-encompassing party, coupled with Erdogan’s increasingly pro-nationalist discourse, pitted it against the DTP.

    Erdogan had continuously claimed that the AKP abhorred identity politics and any form of ethnic, regional, or religious nationalism (Anadolu Ajansi, June 4, 2006). Ironically, through its antagonism toward the DTP, the AKP might have triggered just such identity politics. The growing tension between the two parties over their competition for Kurdish votes accounts for much of the street violence in the eastern and western parts of Turkey, as well as the radicalization of Kurdish and Turkish nationalist sentiments. Some Turkish political observers believe that the AKP might have fallen into the DTP’s trap by going along with the latter’s confrontational approach (www.haber7.com, November 29). Local elections in the region will partly demonstrate whether the people will support the DTP or the AKP— in other words, solving the Kurdish problem through meeting their demands for more political and ethnic rights versus solving the problem by providing more social and economic development projects in Kurdish areas.

    The AKP government has also come under criticism for its delayed response to the financial crisis, which is another major source of challenge. Initially, the government maintained that Turkey might escape the effects of the global crisis and resisted the calls for seeking international assistance. Recently, the government came to terms with the reality of the economic crisis and initiated negotiations with the IMF. Experts argue that short of an agreement with the IMF, the Turkish economy might undergo a serious recession (Referans, December 3). In the meantime, the crisis has affected the production sector, with some industries starting to shut down their plants and lay off workers or put them on unpaid vacation (Referans, October 27, November 11). After all, the AKP came to power as a result of its rivals’ failed economic policies, and it has been able to hold on to power thanks to its successful handling of the economy. If massive unemployment were to break out, it might have devastating consequences for the AKP’s performance in the elections. Nonetheless, experts note that it may be too early to tell how far the economic crisis will go and whether it may affect voting behavior. They note in particular that the Turkish people are aware that the current crisis has been caused by the global financial system; hence, people might not necessarily rush to blame the AKP government for the sagging economy (Milliyet, December 3).

    Despite its shortcomings, the AKP, like Erdogan for that matter, is far from being a lame duck. It still has several weapons in its arsenal. First, given Turkey’s unitary state structure, the central government controls enormous resources. As the incumbent party, it could channel resources to alleviate the conditions of crisis-stricken segments of society, preventing erosion in popular support. Second, the AKP and its predecessors made their reputations through their successful track record in local government, and the Turkish electorate still recognizes them as the “party of services.” Finally, the opposition parties are in complete disarray, and there is still no plausible alternative on the horizon that has the capability to knock the AKP down.

  • Poor Richard’s Report

    Poor Richard’s Report

    Poor  Richard’s Report            over 300,000 readers 

    Federal Reserve will take Charge of the US Treasury Department

    These are exciting times we are now experiencing.

    We will have a new president who was one of the most liberal US Senators.

    We have a global economy that is heading into a more pronounced recession.

    We have a stock market that is the most volatile in US history.

    The president-elect is really pulling some magic tricks out of his hat in naming some of his advisors. The conservative media is having a field day comparing some of these cabinet picks to advisors of the past presidencies of Lincoln, Wilson, and Harry Truman. Not a bad group to be identified with, in my opinion.

    The way I see things, Obama really wants differing views so that he can be fully informed. He now represents all the people of this country, and as president he will only know what his advisors tell him. He is going to be one busy fellow. The last thing he needs is a bunch of back slappers wanting to please him with empty praise.

    Our foreign adversaries will be in a quandary- there will be no record- so no one will know how big a stick this Magician carries. The Iranians thought they would be better off with Reagan instead of Carter and Saddam Hussein totally misjudged GW Bush. Does the Magician have a wizard’s wand or just a big stick?

    What really intrigues me is the appointment of Paul Volker as head of his economic team. He has been on the White house staff since President Eisenhower. He was President of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY in the 1970’s.  That is the most powerful of the reserve banks. The President is automatically Vice Chairman of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee). All members rotate and the chairman is appointed by the President and approved by the Senate for a six-year term. The Vice Chairman position belongs to the President of the NY Federal Reserve Bank. All fed trades are done through this bank. Currencies, bonds, money supply – you name it. All central banks know and respect the President of the NY Fed.

    So when William G. Miller, the Federal Reserve Chairman under Jimmy Carter, was flooding the world with US dollars to compete with OPEC, they eventually realized they were getting worthless inflated dollars. So they demanded that they be paid with a basket of dollars. One problem, there was not enough currencies to match the US dollars. An economic apocalypse was right around the corner.         

                 En masse they went to Jimmy Carter and demanded Paul Volker. Miller resigned on a Wednesday and Carter named Volker.  The US Senate approved Volker by voice vote on Thursday and the new Fed Chairman flew to Brussels that night to assure the central bankers. Saturday he returned and announced that the Federal Reserve would now tighten the money supply until inflation was beaten. He then raised the Discount Rate, which is the rate at which banks can borrow from the Fed.

                    While in Washington fighting inflation, the Federal Reserve Chairman rented a dorm room at Georgetown University. On weekends he would go to NYC to spend time with is ill wife.

                    He is a no nonsense man and everyone knew exactly where he stood and respected him for it.

                    When his term was up under Ronald Reagan, the then Secretary of Treasury, Donald Regan, wanted a republican as a fed chairman. Volker was a democrat.  Miffed, Volker named Alan Greenspan. That was mistake #1. The fed is supposed to be non-political.       

                    When Greenspan would testify before the Congress he had a special way of dealing with them. When he didn’t know the answer to a question, or if he did not want to answer it, he would talk all around it and confuse everyone. It became known as “Greenspeak”.

                    The individual who replaced Volker had to be above reproach, for he was the one banker everyone should have been able to trust.

                    However, a scandal was breaking about the bankruptcy of Long Term Management that was made up of several Nobel Laureates who would bet millions of dollars on a 1/32 change in a government bond. When the press released the names of some of the shareholders it read like a who’s who of Wall Street. The first press release had the name of the NY Fed President. All other press releases omitted his name, but the damage was done and his career at the fed would soon be over.

                    In about a year he was replaced by a boy wonder who quietly took over the job and avoided public appearances until he matured.

                    His name was Timothy Geithner. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1983 with a B.A. in government and Asian Studies.  He studied at John Hopkins School for Advance International Studies with a M.A. in International Economics and East Asian Studies in 1985. He has studied Japanese and Chinese and has lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China and Japan. 

                    Geithner joined the Treasury in 1988 and remained there until November 17, 2003 when he became President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He is 43 years old and The President elect has named him to be U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. This will be the fifth administration he has worked for. It is ethics, not politics. He has been vice Chairman of the FOMC under Greenspan and Bernanke. I believe the Magician has pulled a genie out of his hat with this choice.

                    Now we have Federal Reserve Ben S. Bernanke, whose doctorate at M.I.T. was on the Great Depression: what went wrong and how to avoid it. It has become a bible for economists.     

                    I have written many times in the past that the Federal Reserve can do anything it wants to improve the economy. It has a bottomless checkbook to create or destroy money.  It can buy or sell anything financial it wants. No corporation is bigger than the Fed. They can freeze the assets of whatever and who ever it wants. The Fed Chairman can only be recalled by Congress by a ¾ vote. That means 75% of the Congress has to vote against him. Now you can understand that when Paul Volker went before Congress and stated with a grin, “I am here only as you wish, you are my boss.” It was a needle because they all knew they could not raise 75% against him. He was going to send the economy into a severe recession until prices started coming down. All the Congressmen could do was grin and bear it.

                    Now we have the most powerful financial triumvirate ever assembled to fight a global crisis.

                    The bottom line is that the Federal Reserve has taken over the Treasury Department of the United States of America.

                    The Fed is trying to liquefy our banking system so that they will issue letters of credit, which will be accepted by foreign banks and visa versa.

                    Now, one the first rulings that must be changed is to reestablish the UPTICK Rule for stock traders. July 2007 it was rescinded. Since then we have had, according to Dorsey Wright Associates, 11 days where the Dow Jones Industrials rose or declined by 5%. Prior to 2008 it has only happened 14 times since 1961.

                    If you want to measure the volatility by a 90% rule it is even worse. 90% rule is when 90% of stocks move in the same direction plus the volume has to move by 90% in the same direction. Since July ’07 we have had 33 90% down days and 14 90% up days. Talk about uneven playing fields!  EGADS Charlie Brown! Come Jan 20th when our new Magician, Barack Obama, becomes President the Fed should do something to stop this foolish and unethical trading. Traders die by the sword. Meanwhile the Fed has guaranteed deposits up to $250,000 for savings banks. US Government Money Market funds are also safe in my opinion.

                    When the three “angels” come down to fix the crisis they will come down hard and people will scream and whine as they go to financial hell.

                    When everyone is running around willy-nilly it might be wise to look to the north of us. Don’t completely throw in the towel of despair. Look to our friends – Canada. Oh Canada. They have fields of ever-lasting grain, oil and natural gas, Gold, Silver and diamonds, steel and forests of fine timber. They have everything to survive a deflationary and inflationary environment. Their markets are down along with everyone else’s, but they don’t have the foolish ghouls meandering around like ugly vampires sucking up the last drop of blood money.

    There is value up North

                    There is one company that you can investigate all by your lonesome. Newalta Income Fund, which will change from an income fund to Newalta Corp (www.newalta.com) January 1, 2009. They will be paying their last monthly distribution January 15 of 18 ½ Canadian. Then they will pay 20 cents quarterly after that. That means 5 dividend payments in 2009 for a total 981/2 cents. A six dollar price brings the yield to 16.4%. It is in the Waste Management field with a diversified business mix, they are not dependent upon one industry. The Current Ratio is a healthy 2.13 – 1. They do no have any of the funny money on their balance sheet.  Clean! Clean! Clean! They are selling at just above three times earnings.

                    Buying a stock that is already down is less risky because you have less to lose. It is better buying a sound company at 6 than buying one at 160. There is not much risk left in the stock. It is not dirt cheap – it is stupid cheap.

                    Everyone is trying to pick a market bottom, and they are relying on stock market charts that have worked in the past, but today is a new beginning and common sense will provide better rewards over the long term.

                    We have three highly educated, street-smart men that are on salary, who are on a marvelous mission to bring financial stability to our country and the world. They are risking their reputations and a positive place in history. They are holding all the cards and when they are dealt – watch out.

     

    This report has been prepared from original sources and data which we believe reliable but we make no representation to its accuracy or completeness. Coburn & Meredith Inc. its subsidiaries and or officers may from time to time acquire, hold, sell a position discussed in this publications, and we may act as principal for our own account or as agent for both the buyer and seller.

  • WHAT THE OBAMA GOVERNMENT MUST STRAIGHTEN UP – 2

    WHAT THE OBAMA GOVERNMENT MUST STRAIGHTEN UP – 2

    Turkey is a “laic” republic. Laic is not the same thing as “secular”. Turkey has no national religion. Its constitution does NOT say that “Turkey’s religion is Islam”, although 98 % of its people are Muslim. Religion and state affairs are sharply separated and religion has no place in the public realm. The Shariah part of the Koran discussing relations of people with other people, like polygamy, for example, is outlawed in Turkey and replaced by laws borrowed from European states. This is a situation that exists in no Islamic country. Therefore women are emancipated and have about equal rights with men, just like in the United States..

    I have never heard in history that any state may want to change the constitution of its ally., because if it does that, it is no longer its ally. President Bush cooked a “Greater Middle East Project” (GMEP) to be applied to Turkey and to all Islamic countries. Turkey would be a model for them, but not the laic Turkey, but a mildly Islamic Turkey. The Islamic countries do not like Turkey and do not want to be like it. They do not want to get rid of the Shariah. So they did nothing.

    In Turkey, after the voters fired in 2002 a coalition of incompetent and corrupt people, a religious party promised to abide by the laic constitution and was elected as the ruling party. They had some economic success. They eventually increased their votes to 46 %. Once they were entrenched, they began to Islamize the country. The Ataturk followers were alarmed.

    Their prime minister Recep Tayiyp Erdogan likes the GMEP because he too would like to Islamize Turkey.. When he comes to Washington, he is all smiles, at home he does not do anything without asking Washington, so the U.S. considers him a “Puppet regime”. But at Home, he propagandize sharply against the U.S. and he is one of the reasons why pro-American vote in Turkey is still 12 %, the lowest in the World.

    The Obama government must disown and abolish GMEP and reinstitute respect for the Turkish constitution. This would also pull the rug from under the feet of Mr. Erdogan.

    I think right now the most important problem between U.S. and Turkey is the PKK problem. Obama would understand that it is unacceptable that an ally protects terrorists in areas it is domineering and allows them

    to attack Turkish targets. This is clearly a casus-belli. These are one of President Bush’s deeds that disregards all laws of common decency, like breaking the Geneva Convention and the Westphalia Treaty and permitting torture.

    The next U.S. Secretary of State, before starting her own program, will have to correct first President Bush’s misdeeds.

    If the PKK problem is resolved, Turkey can be again a reliable, real ally.

    R e n a i s s a n c e  o f  R e p u b I i c a n  P a r t y

    George W. Bush let his party be hijacked by Evangelical Christians, in spite of the separation of Church and State in our Constitution. He made a lot of decisions on religious grounds. Evangelicals propagated some of their ideas as Republican ideas. He broke the Geneva Convention, the Westphalia Treaty and allowed torture. When he wanted to do anything, like listening to phones, he always stepped out of the legal area.

    For the political process to work properly in the United States, we have now a large and strong Democratic Party. We must also have a strong Opposition party. If the Republican party got too small and too weak, it cannot be a good opposition. Therefore, the Republicans must shake themselves up, get rid of Bush’s illegal ballast, and then make their new program.

    In the past the Republican party was known to be pro business. That is al right, if it does not also mean “against the people”. Exporting a computer trouble-shooter job to India may lower the computer cost a little bit, but messes up the life of a highly specialized and knowledgeable technical man. He may not be able to find another good job for a long time, or may accept a much lower salary. The party must adopt a new nick name such as “The People’s Party” and must try to live up to it.

    ……………………………………………………………………………………………..

    To Readers’ Attention: Any one who wishes to receive THE ORHAN TARHAN LETTER should sent an e-mail to orhant@verizon.net with his/her full name, e-mail address , and PLEASE phone number, in case there is an interruption caused by the server, or in case of e-mail address change. It is free. Comments are welcome. These LETTERs are also published in AmericanChronicle.com

  • Armenian Foreign Minister Visits Turkey

    Armenian Foreign Minister Visits Turkey

    Armenian Foreign Minister Visits Turkey, Reaffirms Determination for Dialogue

    Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 5 Issue: 228
    December 2, 2008 01:47 AM Age: 25 min
    Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Armenia, Turkey
    By: Saban Kardas

    Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia continue to take steps toward resolving their problems through diplomatic channels. High-level meetings coinciding with international gatherings have become an ordinary development, showing the confidence and progress gained so far.

    Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian visited Turkey on November 24 to discuss the details of Armenia’s assumption of the rotating presidency of the Organization of Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). During his trip to the BSEC’s permanent secretariat in Istanbul, Nalbandian also had dinner with his Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan. The two ministers discussed the progress in Turkish-Armenian talks, which had been taking place at lower levels since the historic meeting between the presidents of the two nations in Yerevan and the trilateral meeting between the foreign ministers of Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in New York in September (Anadolu Ajansi, November 24).

    Nalbandian emphasized that there were no major obstacles to the normalization of bilateral relations and called for “opening a new page.” He repeated the Armenian position that diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia should be resumed without any preconditions and that Turkey should open the border. Babacan emphasized that Turkey sought a permanent solution with Armenia. He noted the importance of settling the Karabakh dispute and called for accelerating the Armenian-Azeri dialogue (Milliyet, November 25; Today’s Zaman, November 30).

    Nalbandian was asked by Turkish journalists, “What makes you so optimistic, despite the fact that the parties are maintaining their positions?” He responded by saying that negotiations were continuing on a “constructive, sincere, and open” basis. He noted that the momentum for solution was there and the parties should take advantage of it (Zaman, November 25). Reflecting the same spirit, Babacan said that all three parties should make the best use of the window of opportunity made possible by the trilateral dialogue. “If the window is closed, it may be difficult to reopen it,” said Babacan (Hurriyet, November 26).

    The intention to normalize relations is definitely there, but why did Babacan emphasize the need for urgency? On the Armenian side, there is definitely a desire to end the severe economic problems caused by negative relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan. It hopes to settle bilateral disputes and open the country to the outside. Nonetheless, Sarkisian’s approach in favor of a diplomatic solution has increasingly come under criticism by nationalist forces at home and from the Armenian diaspora (EDM, November 25). Failure to deliver acceptable solutions might alienate those elements supporting dialogue.

    On the Turkish side, uncertainty about the incoming American administration’s policy on the Armenian issue create an urgency to address the problem. If Turkey can resolve the bilateral problems through diplomatic dialogue with Armenia, it could successfully undermine the Armenian diaspora’s efforts to influence the Obama administration against the Turkish interpretation of the Armenian genocide (Radikal, November 25).

    Nalbandian and Babacan decided to maintain high-level meetings between the foreign ministers with the participation of Azerbaijan whenever possible. Commending Turkish President Abdullah Gul for his “wise” decision to visit Armenia in September, Nalbandian announced that Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian would travel to Turkey in October 2009 to attend the next soccer game between the national teams of the two countries (Hurriyet, November 25). Diplomatic sources also disclosed that Nalbandian had invited Babacan to attend the next BSEC ministerial meeting scheduled to be held in Yerevan in April 2009. Although the Turkish side has not officially accepted the invitation, observers expect Babacan to attend this meeting (Zaman, November 27).

    A new occasion for holding talks between Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia might be provided by another international gathering later this week. The foreign ministers of Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan will be attending the forthcoming Ministerial Council meeting of the OSCE in Helsinki on December 4 and 5.

    The involvement of Azerbaijan is becoming increasingly crucial for Turkey’s own rapprochement with Armenia (Anadolu Ajansi, November 25). For Ankara, having Azerbaijan on board is crucial because it seeks to obtain approval from Baku for Turkey’s normalization with Armenia, such as opening the border or establishing diplomatic relations. For Armenia, maintaining this dialogue is necessary to resolve its bilateral disputes with Azerbaijan, which remain a major obstacle to comprehensive peace in the region. Thus, Turkey is working to normalize its relations with Armenia on the one hand and mediate between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the other.

    On December 1 Babacan is on an official visit to Baku at the invitation of his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov to discuss bilateral relations as well as the details of his meeting with Nalbandian. Babacan is expected to explore the possibility of arranging a three-way meeting in Helsinki. Before departing for Baku, Babacan told reporters that the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan would meet with the co-chairs of the Minsk group in Helsinki, following which he would meet his counterparts individually. He did not, however, announce a tripartite meeting yet (Ihlas Haber Ajansi, November 30).

    The Babacan and Mammadyarov meeting focused on energy cooperation, regional developments, the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform (CSCP), the opening of Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, and Azerbaijan’s problems with Armenia. They discussed Karabakh issue in detail, and Mammadyarov clarified Baku’s policy on this dispute. During the joint press briefing following the meeting, Babacan reemphasized the urgency of solving the Karabakh problem now, and underlined the connections between solving Azerbaijan-Armenian problems and Turkish-Armenian problems. Although diplomatic observers had expected Babacan to discuss trilateral consultations in Helsinki, no such meeting was announced (www.ntvmsnbc.com; Cihan Haber Ajansi, December 1).

    As the noted Turkey analyst Cengiz Candar observed, the OSCE meeting would bring together not only the three countries but also other players that had attempted to mediate between Armenia and Azerbaijan. If the Helsinki talks could achieve progress in the Karabakh issue, it could pave the way for concrete steps toward normalization between Ankara and Yerevan in 2009 (Radikal, November 25).

    Turkey has also used this diplomatic traffic to begin setting in motion the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform (CSCP) that would bring together Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Since proposing the organization in the wake of the Russian-Georgian war, Turkey has conducted several meetings with the respective parties to ensure their participation. Babacan told reporters that representatives from the five countries would convene for the first time during the OSCE meeting in Helsinki. The members of the group will use the opportunity to specify the goals, principles, and mechanisms of the CSCP (Cihan Haber Ajansi, November 30).

    https://jamestown.org/program/armenian-foreign-minister-visits-turkey-reaffirms-determination-for-dialogue/

  • GUENTER LEWY PROVED THERE IS NO GENOCIDE

    GUENTER LEWY PROVED THERE IS NO GENOCIDE

    The AFATH community is busy plastering anti-Turkish messages on any blog they can get their hands on. This is why I coined a new term back in 2003: Ethocide. A brief meaning of ethocide is: “extermination of ethics via malicious mass deception for political and other gain.”

    I hear you say: “So the AFATH community writers resort to ethocidal coverage of the Turkish-Armenian conflict. What else is new?” I agree, nothing new for 93 years… Make that since 1877… Their hate messages, however, suffer from lack of credibility, as Dr. Gwynne Dyer put it so eloquently in 1976:

    “… The deafening drumbeat of the propaganda, and the sheer lack of sophistication in argument which comes from preaching decade after decade to a convinced and emotionally committed audience, are the major handicaps of Armenian historiography of the diaspora today…”

    There are those cyber-thugs with questionable morals, cyber-stalkers with convoluted messages, and a whole cyber community of insulters and slanderers to whom concepts like Armenian terrorism means nothing. I suggest to my readers not to address their postings to these cyber-lynch-mobs, but to the open-minded truth-seekers. The minds of these cyber-lynch-mobs cannot be changed, but the other side of the story can certainly be told to fair-minded truth-seekers.

    AFTER ALL, OUR MESSAGE IS VERY SIMPLE

    Wartime suffering ?

    Yes, but on all sides, Turks, Armenians, and others, alike…

    Genocide?

    No, not even by a long shot.

    The term genocide does not apply to warring factions; never did. Armenians were certainly “de facto belligerents” with an army of more than 150,000, as Nubar, head of Armenian delegation to Paris Peace Conference, himself wrote in 1919. That army was not created for picking flowers.

    A court verdict does not exist supporting Armenian genocide claims. Insisting on a guilty judgment without a court verdict, therefore, boils down to lynching.

    And that is the plain truth.

    MARK TWAIN

    Mark Twain once said “It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.” AFATH writers prove Mark Twain right everyday by attacking the freedoms of speech and conscience of all Turkish-Americans, with their posture tainted by anti-Turkish discrimination.

    HOW THE AFATH WRITERS COMMIT ETHOCIDE

    By only telling one side of the story and hiding the other. One will tell you, for example, about an article demonizing Turkey and Turks, but will fail to tell you the rebuttal to it in the same column.

    Or he will tell you about Guenter Lewy’s quotes out of context, but will not tell you about the fact that there may have been comments setting the record straight. That’s AFATH morality for you.

    If one chooses to believe the AFATH writers with “selective morality”, that is that person’s problem. Trying to silence people like me who are only telling their side of the story, calling them names for doing so, and basing this lynch-mob-like behavior on the long discredited Armenian propaganda, however, is hardly fair, ethical, or American, whether in journalism, academia, or politics.

    The Armenians have defined the Turkish-Armenian conflict one way, their way, for 93 years. Even this could be understood within the context of ethnic and/or religious fanaticism. After all, it is a free country, you can believe whatever you want, even that the world is flat.

    Problem arises when the Armenians demand their claims be declared as settled history with zero tolerance for the other side of the story, coming from Turks and non-Turks alike. The problem turns into a criminal conduct when these demands turn to violence, as in Armenian terrorism that claimed 70+ innocent lives (three right here in Southern California) since 1973, aimed at imposing the Armenian will on others.

    Whether the Armenian claims of genocide are recognized by this country or that, does not change the fact that Armenians engineered, provoked, and waged a civil war within a world war; took up arms against their own government; killed their Muslim/Turkish neighbors; joined the invading enemy armies; demanded territories where they were a minority to create Greater Armenia; and did all that with the help of active allies (Russia, Britain, France), passive allies (U.S. diplomats, Protestant missionaries, the New York Times) and others.

    THE SIX T’S SUMMARIZE THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT WELL

    1- Tumult (Armenians taking up arms against their own government;)

    2- Terrorism (by Dashnaks, Hunchaks, and other such Armenian terror groups;)

    3- Treason (Armenians joining the invading enemy armies;)

    4- Territorial demands (where Armenians were a minority attempting apartheid;)

    5- Turkish suffering (at the hands of Armenian revolutionaries and terrorists; number exceeds half a million Muslims, mostly Turks)

    6-Tereset (temporary resettlement triggered by the above 5 T’s and misrepresented by Armenians as genocide.)

    MY OBJECTIONS TO LEWY

    I praised the world renown Historian Guenter Lewy for the damning conclusion in his article titled “Revisiting the Armenian Genocide” published in Fall 2005 edition of Middle East Quarterly ( https://www.meforum.org/895/correspondence ):

    ” …Most of those who maintain that Armenian deaths were premeditated and so constitute genocide base their argument on three pillars: the actions of Turkish military courts of 1919-20,…, the role of the so-called “Special Organization” accused of carrying out the massacres, and the Memoirs of Naim Bey, which contain alleged telegrams of Interior Minister Talât Pasha…. Yet when these events and the sources describing them are subjected to careful examination, they provide at most a shaky foundation from which to claim, let alone conclude, that the deaths of Armenians were premeditated….”

    …

    Can you see how masterfully Lewy refutes the Armenian allegations with just a few simple words?

    My hat is off to Lewy. I was so impressed that I bought and read Lewy’s book. I did have some objections about some of the arguments and sources in his book which were conveyed to Lewy himself in a letter signed by yours truly two years ago:

    1) Lewy seems to have spent spent little or no time describing the immense Turkish suffering and death toll at the hands of the Armenian nationalists. In my humble opinion, any treatment that fails to take into account the Turkish side of the story is inherently and inevitably incomplete and biased. No one can explain a controversy by completely ignoring half the story.

    2) Lewy also seems to have made very limited use of the Ottoman archives (perhaps due to his lack of skills in reading the original documents in the Ottoman language which is understandable but perhaps not easily excusable.

    3) He took at face value most of reporting from Anatolia by biased sources: the Armenian Patriarchate, ARF, Armenian insurgents, allied diplomats, military personnel, missionaries, and others who all clearly had vested interests in the conflict and/or were parties to the civil war and/or the world war, raging concurrently.

    4) others

    Having pointed out my objections to his book this way, I must emphasize that none of my objections above change the ultimate conclusion by Lewy that the Turkish-Armenian conflict, as tragic as it was, cannot be classified as genocide.

    That conclusion stands on its own feet and I congratulate and praise Lewy for that… eternally.

    Peace,

    Ergun KIRLIKOVALI
    Son Of Turkish Survivors From Both Maternal And Paternal Sides

    www.turkla.com

    …………..

    Legend:

    AFATH : Armenian Falsifiers And Turks-Haters

    ETHOCIDE: Systematic extermination of ethics via malicious mass deception for political, social, academic, religious, ratings, and/or other gain.”