Category: Asia and Pacific

Istanbul mayor arrives to warm welcome

Inaugurates new waste management system, hails Lahore as second home.

LAHORE:

The Mayor of Istanbul Dr Kadir Tobpas was given a warm welcome here on Sunday as he arrived for a two-day visit to inaugurate waste management and bus transport projects that are being conducted in collaboration with Turkish companies.

Addressing the inauguration ceremony for the new solid waste management system at the Town Hall, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said that he hoped that the new system would revive Lahore’s beauty and that it could later be introduced in other cities

He said that the same model would be replicated in Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, Peshawar and Karachi and scores of clean cities like Istanbul would emerge in Pakistan.

Dr Tobpas said that the project would give Lahore a clean environment and a healthy atmosphere. He said that the projects with the Punjab government were not commercial ventures but aimed at serving the Pakistani people. That was why the Turkish companies had reduced the cost of the project, he said.

He said that Istanbul produces 15,000 tonnes of garbage a day which it recycles or uses to produce electricity. He said that Istanbul was cleaner than New York.

Dr Tophas drove a cleaning truck, with the chief minister in the passenger seat, after cutting a ribbon to inaugurate the project. He earlier also inaugurated a monument at Istanbul Chowk in front of Town Hall, and is to inaugurate the Bus Rapid Transit system as well as a replica of the Blue Mosque dome in Valencia Town.

The chief minister said that this was the first comprehensive solid waste management project in Pakistan. He said Lahore produced more than 5,000 tonnes of garbage every day.

Sharif said that during his first term as chief minister in 1998, he had made plans with a French company for a solid waste management system, but his government was toppled and the project was shelved.

He said that he was pleased to see this project inaugurated 13 years later with the cooperation of the brotherly Islamic country of Turkey. He said that Pakistan and Turkey had forged strong bonds and that was why the Turkish companies involved in the project had reduced their costs. He said that when they had conducted a survey in Lahore 18 months ago of the facilities needed, they had charged the government a tenth of what they would normally charge on international tenders.

Earlier, the Istanbul mayor was welcomed upon his arrival at the airport by the chief minister. Sharif said that the visit would promote trade as well as brotherly relations between the two countries. Dr Topbas said Pakistan was his second home and he was very pleased to be in Lahore.

A Punjab Police contingent presented a guard of honour to Dr Topbas at the airport. The national anthems of Turkey and Pakistan were played while people shouted slogans for Pak-Turk friendship. The government brought in 225 folk dancers from Jhang to perform at 14 different points along the route.

Portraits of the president and prime minister of Turkey, the mayor of Istanbul, Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif were displayed on main roads all over the city.

The mayor also visited a special exhibition on Turkey arranged by the Information and Culture Departments at the Lahore Museum. Members of the Turkish media in his entourage went on a shopping trip to Neela Gumbad and Anarkali.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12th, 2012.

via Diplomatic relations: Istanbul mayor arrives to warm welcome – The Express Tribune.

March 12, 2012
Uyghur Folk Song: Qara Qara Qaghlar

Uyghur folk song by Mihrigul Hesen.

March 11, 2012
ANCA Condemns Anti-Armenian Protests in Turkey

Calls on U.S. Ambassador Ricciardone to Denounce Government-Sanctioned Rallies Aimed at Inciting Violence

WASHINGTON—The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), sharply criticizing the government-sanctioned anti-Armenian demonstrations held throughout Turkey on Feb. 26, called on U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone to forcefully condemn this latest attempt by Ankara to foment hatred and violence against Armenians.

022612 taksim bastards 300×139 ANCA Condemns Anti Armenian Protests in Turkey

‘You are all Armenians, You are all bastards’

“Today’s anti-Armenian demonstrations in the streets of Istanbul—with the interior minister and prominent political parties at the helm—were clearly aimed at inciting increased racism and renewed violence against Turkey’s own Armenian citizens and neighboring Armenia,” stated ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “These are not simply the violent echoes of a post-genocidal state, but the determined actions of a pre-genocidal Turkish society that is angrily lashing out at its imagined enemies and seeking out its next target. We urge U.S. Ambassador Ricciardone to immediately, forcefully, and publicly condemn this government-sanctioned incitement to violence.”

International news agencies have reported that 20,000 to 50,000 people participated in the anti-Armenian protests, with professionally printed signs that read, “You are all Armenians, You are all bastards,” and “Today Taksim, Tomorrow Yerevan: We will descend upon you suddenly in the night.” Among the speakers at the demonstration in Turkey’s famous Taksim Square was Turkish Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin, among other leaders of Erdogan’s AK Party.

According to statements issued by the protest organizers, similar demonstrations have been planned in over 50 cities in Turkey.

via ANCA Condemns Anti-Armenian Protests in Turkey | Armenian Weekly.

February 27, 2012
Azerbaijan honors victims of 1992 massacre

Thousands of Turks gathered to commemorate and protest the killings of 613 Azeri civilians massacred by Armenian forces in Khodzhaly village in 1992 in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, in Ankara, Turkey, Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012. Tens of thousands of Turks, wavng Azeri and Turkish flags, rallied Sunday to mark the anniversary of a notorious attack that Azerbaijanis say killed hundreds of people during the 6-year war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan. Photo: Burhan Ozbilici / AP

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Tens of thousands of people marched through Azerbaijan’s capital on Sunday to commemorate the killing 20 years ago of hundreds of people during a war with Armenia over disputed territory.

President Ilham Aliyev led the march in Baku, which ended at a monument to the victims of the Khojaly massacre. Officials said 60,000 people took part. Tens of thousands also turned out for rallies in Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan.

By Azerbaijan’s count, 613 residents of Khojaly were killed on Feb. 26, 1992, after fleeing the town as it fell to Armenian troops.

Armenians have not denied the attack, but insist the death toll is exaggerated. Turkey and Azerbaijan have called for world recognition of the killings as a crime against humanity.

International rights groups have been uncertain about the exact death toll, but condemn the killings and consider them the worst massacre of the war that broke out between the two neighbors as the Soviet Union began to fall apart.

Ethnic Armenian forces now control Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave inside Azerbaijan, where about 30,000 people were killed and 1 million were displaced during the six-year conflict.

A ceasefire was declared in 1994, but violations have been frequent and diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have failed.

via Azerbaijan honors victims of 1992 massacre – seattlepi.com.

February 27, 2012
Former US envoy to Azerbaijan Bryza attends “Khojali Massacre” event in Istanbul

Former U.S. ambassador in Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza joined the protest action in Taksim square in Istanbul on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the “Khojali Massacre” on February 26, yesterday.

“I know about the action in Taksim, and I’m joining it,” Matthew Bryza declared.

The protest action in Taksim square on February 26 brought together about 300 000 people, mostly representatives of Azerbaijani and Turkish youth. Activists carried posters declaring “We are all Azeri”.

February 27, 2012
California State Legislature: Reject the racist resolution against Azerbaijanis

Why This Is Important

On Jan. 30, 2012, some members of the California State Assembly introduced a draft resolution (ACR 96) that will proclaim February 27, 2012, as a “California Day of Remembrance for the massacres of Armenians in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku.”

This draft resolution largely distorts historical facts, presents a one-sided view of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and seeks to force the lawmakers into assuming an unjust and biased position in the conflict. The resolution also deliberately disregards a true tragic massacre that occurred in the course of the conflict, namely the Khojaly Massacre of innocent Azerbaijanis, the 20th anniversary of which will be marked on February 26, 2012. “Human Rights Watch” called this 1992 massacre carried out by Armenian military forces against 613 Azerbaijani civilians, including 106 women and 63 children, as “the largest massacre to date in the conflict.” Major U.S. media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times and the others reported about the massacre with horror. The executors of 1992 Khojaly Massacre were never brought to justice.

Therefore, sign the petition to urge the California State Assembly members to unanimously reject this flawed, biased, and unjust resolution ACR 96, which encourages racial animosity and hatred.

February 26, 2012