Category: Asia and Pacific

“It was a step to open the church”

What media members think about Turkish-Armenian relations? Aram Abrahamyan, Chief of Aravot Daily in Armenia, shares his ideas about this issue. He points out the important points about this sensitive subject.

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January 29, 2011
Chinese president concludes state visit to US

Chinese President Hu Jintao left Chicago for home on Friday after concluding a four-day state visit to the United States, during which Hu and his US counterpart Barack Obama agreed to build a China-US cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit.

“It is also conducive to world peace and development,” Hu said.

In his speech, Hu elaborated on the domestic and foreign policies of the Chinese government and on how to advance China-US relations in the new era.

“Working together hand in hand, we will build and develop a China-US cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit and deliver greater benefits to the people of our two countries and the world over,” he said.

The Chinese president flew to Chicago on Thursday afternoon to continue his visit to the United States.

On Friday, Hu, accompanied by local officials, visited Walter Payton College Preparatory High School in downtown Chicago.

The high school houses the Confucius Institute in Chicago (CIC), which primarily focuses on the Chinese language and cultural education programs and is the only such institute targeting primary and middle school students in the United States.

Later in the day, Hu visited an exhibition of companies operating in the US Midwest. Most companies at the exhibition in Chicago’s suburban city of Woodridge are Chinese-funded ones.

During his tour of the exhibition, Hu encouraged Chinese companies operating in the US to play a bigger role in promoting economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.

The success of Chinese companies in the United States is a specific example of the China-US mutually beneficial cooperation, he said.

The operation of these companies not only yields profits for themselves, but adds momentum to economic development in the US Midwest, he added.

At least 40 Chinese businesses now have operations in the Chicago area, and the number is growing. For example, Wanxiang America Corp., which makes solar panels, has opened plants and a headquarters around Chicago in the last two years.

Before leaving the US for home, Hu sent a message of thanks to US President Obama, expressing his belief that through the efforts of the two sides, China-US relations would be further developed to better benefit the peoples of the two countries and make a greater contribution to world peace, stability and prosperity.

The Chinese president began his state visit on Tuesday in Washington. The visit, Hu’s second as head of state, is aimed at enhancing the positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship between the two countries.

Hu last visited the United States in April 2006.

President Hu, who began his visit on Tuesday, had extensive and in-depth discussions with Obama at the White House on Wednesday on major bilateral, regional and world issues.

The Global Times

January 22, 2011
Debate in Turkey over Armenia friendship monument

FILE – Undated but recent file photo shows the monument that features a divided human figure, with one half extending a hand to the other half, symbolizing the pain of division and the hope of reconciliation, sculpted from stone by Mehmet Aksoy, a prominent Turkish artist, in the eastern city of Kars, Turkey. Modern art or a blight on the landscape? A giant monument to friendship between historic enemies Turkey and Armenia has become a symbol of controversy rather than healing. Turkey’s prime minister said the monument near the Armenian border is a “freak” that overshadows a nearby Islamic shrine, underscoring complex tensions in predominantly Muslim Turkey over religious piety and free expression in a society torn between the modern and the traditional.(AP Photo/Mehmet Aksoy, File) (Mehmet Aksoy – AP)

FILE – Undated but recent file photo of Mehmet Aksoy, a prominent Turkish artist, sculptor of the monument that features a divided human figure, with one half extending a hand to the other half, symbolizing the pain of division and the hope of reconciliation. Modern art or a blight on the landscape? Aksoy’s giant monument to friendship between historic enemies Turkey and Armenia has become a symbol of controversy rather than healing. Turkey’s prime minister said the monument near the Armenian border is a “freak” that overshadows a nearby Islamic shrine, underscoring complex tensions in predominantly Muslim Turkey over religious piety and free expression in a society torn between the modern and the traditional.(AP Photo/Mehmet Aksoy, File) (Mehmet Aksoy – AP)

FILE – Undated but recent file photo shows the monument that features a divided human figure, with one half extending a hand to the other half, symbolizing the pain of division and the hope of reconciliation, sculpted from stone by Mehmet Aksoy, a prominent Turkish artist, in the eastern city of Kars, Turkey. Modern art or a blight on the landscape? A giant monument to friendship between historic enemies Turkey and Armenia has become a symbol of controversy rather than healing. Turkey’s prime minister said the monument near the Armenian border is a “freak” that overshadows a nearby Islamic shrine, underscoring complex tensions in predominantly Muslim Turkey over religious piety and free expression in a society torn between the modern and the traditional.(AP Photo/Mehmet Aksoy, File) (Mehmet Aksoy – AP)

FILE- Undated but recent file photo shows the monument that features a divided human figure, with one half extending a hand to the other half, symbolizing the pain of division and the hope of reconciliation, sculpted from stone by Mehmet Aksoy, a prominent Turkish artist, in the eastern city of Kars, Turkey. The giant monument to friendship between historic enemies Turkey and Armenia has become a symbol of controversy rather than healing. Turkey’s prime minister said the monument near the Armenian border is a “freak” that overshadows a nearby Islamic shrine, underscoring complex tensions in predominantly Muslim Turkey over religious piety and free expression in a society torn between the modern and the traditional.(AP Photo/Hurriyet, File) (AP)

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

The Associated Press
Monday, January 10, 2011; 10:37 AM

ISTANBUL — Modern art or a blight on the landscape? A giant monument to friendship between historic enemies Turkey and Armenia has become a symbol of controversy rather than healing.

Turkey’s prime minister said the monument near the Armenian border is a “freak” that overshadows a nearby Islamic shrine, underscoring complex tensions in predominantly Muslim Turkey over religious piety and free expression in a society torn between the modern and the traditional.

The monument features a divided human figure, with one half extending a hand to the other half. It is meant to symbolize the pain of division and the hope of reconciliation, and was sculpted from stone by Mehmet Aksoy, a prominent Turkish artist.

“We would not show any sign of disrespect against any artist or tear down and discard his work of art,” Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay said Monday. “The theme of the monument is correct, it gives the message of friendship. But there has been a controversy over the location of it for several years.”

The monument has yet to be completed, and local authorities halted its construction on grounds that it was built on a historic military site, Timur Pasha emplacement, used to defend the city in the 16th century. Newspapers published pictures of the monument with a gigantic hand, which has to be installed, sitting on the foreground.

On a weekend visit to Kars, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the monument as an affront to the shrine of Hasan Harakani, one of the pioneers of Islam in the area in the 11th century.

“They have put a freak near the shrine,” Hurriyet newspaper quoted Erdogan as saying. “They have erected something weird. The municipality will turn that place into a nice park.”

Hurriyet cited Aksoy as saying that he wanted to finish the monument.

“If it still does not make sense, then I will join them in tearing it down,” he said.

Some hardline nationalists criticized the monument on grounds that it suggested Turkey was apologetic toward Armenia.

The 35-meter (115-feet) high monument was seen as a symbol of efforts to end a century of enmity between Turkey and Armenia. The neighboring countries are locked in a bitter dispute over the mass killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, which is deemed a genocide by many international experts. Turkey says the toll has been inflated and those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

A 2009 agreement between Turkey and Armenia, meant to open the way to diplomatic ties and the reopening of their shared border, has been dealt a setback by the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkey wants Armenian troops withdrawn from the Armenian-occupied enclave in Azerbaijan. Turkey closed the border in 1993 to protest Armenia’s war with Azerbaijan, a close Muslim ally.

Aksoy’s work has attracted controversy in the past. A court in 2002 ordered the mayor of Ankara, Mehmet Gokcek, to pay a symbolic fine in compensation to the artist after he had the artist’s statue of a nude removed from a park in the Turkish capital for alleged obscenity in 1994. The removal sparked criticism by activists who said freedom of expression was being denied.

Most Turks are Muslim, but the constitution is secular. The current government is led by pious Muslims who have chipped away at the power of old secular elites.

—

Associated Press reporter Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara contributed to this report.

January 11, 2011
How to Stay Friends With China

By ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI

Washington

THE visit by President Hu Jintao of China to Washington this month will be the most important top-level United States-Chinese encounter since Deng Xiaoping’s historic trip more than 30 years ago. It should therefore yield more than the usual boilerplate professions of mutual esteem. It should aim for a definition of the relationship between the two countries that does justice to the global promise of constructive cooperation between them.

I remember Deng’s visit well, as I was national security adviser at the time. It took place in an era of Soviet expansionism, and crystallized United States-Chinese efforts to oppose it. It also marked the beginning of China’s three-decades-long economic transformation — one facilitated by its new diplomatic ties to the United States.

President Hu’s visit takes place in a different climate. There are growing uncertainties regarding the state of the bilateral relationship, as well as concerns in Asia over China’s longer-range geopolitical aspirations. These uncertainties are casting a shadow over the upcoming meeting.

In recent months there has been a steady increase in polemics in the United States and China, with each side accusing the other of pursuing economic policies that run contrary to accepted international rules. Each has described the other as selfish. Longstanding differences between the American and the Chinese notions of human rights were accentuated by the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese dissident.

Moreover, each side has unintentionally intensified the suspicions of the other. Washington’s decisions to help India with nuclear energy have stimulated China’s unease, prompting increased Chinese support for Pakistan’s desire to expand its own nuclear energy potential. China’s seeming lack of concern over North Korea’s violent skirmishes with South Korea has given rise to apprehension about China’s policy on the Korean peninsula. And just as America’s unilateralism has in recent years needlessly antagonized some of its friends, so China should note that some of its recent stands have worried its neighbors.

The worst outcome for Asia’s long-term stability as well as for the American-Chinese relationship would be a drift into escalating reciprocal demonization. What’s more, the temptations to follow such a course are likely to grow as both countries face difficulties at home.

The pressures are real. The United States’ need for comprehensive domestic renewal, for instance, is in many respects the price of having shouldered the burdens of waging the 40-year cold war, and it is in part the price of having neglected for the last 20 years mounting evidence of its own domestic obsolescence. Our weakening infrastructure is merely a symptom of the country’s slide backward into the 20th century.

China, meanwhile, is struggling to manage an overheated economy within an inflexible political system. Some pronouncements by Chinese commentators smack of premature triumphalism regarding both China’s domestic transformation and its global role. (Those Chinese leaders who still take Marxist classics seriously might do well to re-read Stalin’s message of 1930 to the party cadres titled “Dizzy With Success,” which warned against “a spirit of vanity and conceit.”)

Thirty years after their collaborative relationship started, the United States and China should not flinch from a forthright discussion of their differences — but they should undertake it with the knowledge that each needs the other. A failure to consolidate and widen their cooperation would damage not just both nations but the world as a whole. Neither side should delude itself that it can avoid the harm caused by an increased mutual antagonism; both should understand that a crisis in one country can hurt the other.

For the visit to be more than symbolic, Presidents Obama and Hu should make a serious effort to codify in a joint declaration the historic potential of productive American-Chinese cooperation. They should outline the principles that should guide it. They should declare their commitment to the concept that the American-Chinese partnership should have a wider mission than national self-interest. That partnership should be guided by the moral imperatives of the 21st century’s unprecedented global interdependence.

The declaration should set in motion a process for defining common political, economic and social goals. It should acknowledge frankly the reality of some disagreements as well as register a shared determination to seek ways of narrowing the ranges of such disagreements. It should also take note of potential threats to security in areas of mutual concern, and commit both sides to enhanced consultations and collaboration in coping with them.

Such a joint charter should, in effect, provide the framework not only for avoiding what under some circumstances could become a hostile rivalry but also for expanding a realistic collaboration between the United States and China. This would do justice to a vital relationship between two great nations of strikingly different histories, identities and cultures — yet both endowed with a historically important global role.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was the national security adviser in the Carter administration.

, January 2, 2011

January 4, 2011
Kazakh PM: Turkey has great ‘production potential’

Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Karim Qajymqanuly Massimov lauded Turkey’s “production potential” at a meeting with the Central Asian nation’s leading businessmen on Friday.

“Turkey is a country with great production potential,” said as part of his observations in Turkey last week. “With its noteworthy economic growth, Turkey is a country of interest for all,” he also said during the meeting.

The Kazakh prime minister attended the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) summit on Dec. 22-24 in İstanbul. The summit hosted 10 member and guest countries, including the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), Iraq, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Some of the leaders participating in the summit were Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbaeva, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon. Turkey took over the ECO rotating presidency from Iran during the summit.

Also as part of his meeting with the businessmen, Massimov said Kazakhstan could achieve success similar to Turkey. He finally noted that he had ordered the relevant national authorities to open a branch of the National Economic Chamber of Kazakhstan (ATAMEKEN Union) in Turkey. In response to a question after the meeting, the union’s president, Azat Peruashev, told reporters that efforts to open the Turkey branch had already been initiated.

January 2, 2011
Turkish Red Crescent provides aid for needy Armenians

After aiding poor Armenian migrants, now the Turkish Red Crescent plans to organize a similar campaign with the Greek patriarchate. AA photo

VERCIHAN ZIFLIOĞLU

Needy people in the Kumkapı area of Istanbul, including poor unregistered Armenian immigrants, will receive donations of food and shoes to start the new year thanks to Türk Kızılay (Turkish Red Crescent).

The organization signed an agreement Wednesday with the Armenian patriarchate, which has been delivering aid to people in need for a decade, about making the deliveries.

“Some 1,000 food packages and 300 pairs of shoes, given to the patriarchate, have started to be distributed to the people in need,” Avedis Hilkat, a member of the Turkish Red Crescent’s board of directors for its Princes’ Islands branch, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Thursday. Hilkat is also deputy head of the Princes’ Islands organization for the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP.

“The patriarchate has long been distributing aid to the poor in the [Kumkapı] area, regardless of their ethnic or religious background, which is why I so much wanted to bring this joint project to life,” Hilkat said.

Distribution of the first aid boxes started Thursday, Hilkat said, adding that all the details on the project implementation, prepared in cooperation with the patriarchate, had already been handed to Turkish Red Crescent Chairman Tekin Küçükali.

“We first started distributing clean secondhand clothes to people in need,” Deputy Patriarch and Archbishop Aram Ateşyan said in the delivery ceremony, adding that they soon realized clothes were not enough and that poor people living in Kumkapı needed food donations as well, the Doğan news agency reported Thursday.

“We, however, faced problems with funding,” Ateşyan said, adding that the patriarchate had contacted the Turkish Red Crescent to ask for a charitable donation. “Kızılay donated 1,000 food packages within a very short period of time,” he said.

The Turkish Red Crescent will continue to distribute aid to people in need, not only by continuing its partnership with the Armenian patriarchate, but by extending the effort to work with the Greek patriarchate as well.

Unregistered Armenian immigrants

The patriarchate is very pleased to help people in need, regardless of their ethnic origin or religion, Hilkat told the Daily News. “Our possibilities [to provide aid] are much higher now,” he said.

Thousands of immigrants of Armenian origin live in Istanbul’s Kumkapı area. The total number of Armenians living in Turkey is 15,000, according to data provided by the Foreign Ministry. Other authorities in Turkey place this figure at more than 20,000.

Most Armenian immigrants have illegally entered Turkey due to their poor financial conditions; Hilkat said the majority live in very poor conditions in Turkey as well. He said some 3,000 immigrants have been receiving assistance funded by the patriarchate’s own sources.

“Now we will be able to provide more assistance, thanks to the Kızılay-patriarchate cooperation,” he said.

hurriyetdailynews.com, 30 Dec 2010

December 31, 2010