Category: Azerbaijan

  • Barack Obama on the Importance of US-Armenia Relations AND TURKEY

    Barack Obama on the Importance of US-Armenia Relations AND TURKEY

    Barack Obama on the Importance of US-Armenia Relations

    “Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term “genocide” to describe Turkey’s slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915″ ….  Barack Obama

    | January 19, 2008

    I am proud of my strong record on issues of concern to the one and a half million Americans of Armenian heritage in the United States. I warmly welcome the support of this vibrant and politically active community as we change how our government works here at home, and restore American leadership abroad.

    I am a strong supporter of a U.S.-Armenian relationship that advances our common security and strengthens Armenian democracy. As President, I will maintain our assistance to Armenia, which has been a reliable partner in the fight against terrorism and extremism. I will promote Armenian security by seeking an end to the Turkish and Azerbaijani blockades, and by working for a lasting and durable settlement of the Nagorno Karabagh conflict that is agreeable to all parties, and based upon America’s founding commitment to the principles of democracy and self determination. And my Administration will help foster Armenia’s growth and development through expanded trade and targeted aid, and by strengthening the commercial, political, military, developmental, and cultural relationships between the U.S. and Armenian governments.

    I also share with Armenian Americans – so many of whom are descended from genocide survivors – a principled commitment to commemorating and ending genocide. That starts with acknowledging the tragic instances of genocide in world history. As a U.S. Senator, I have stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide. Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term “genocide” to describe Turkey’s slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915. I shared with Secretary Rice my firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy. As a senator, I strongly support passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106 and S.Res.106), and as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.

    Genocide, sadly, persists to this day, and threatens our common security and common humanity. Tragically, we are witnessing in Sudan many of the same brutal tactics – displacement, starvation, and mass slaughter – that were used by the Ottoman authorities against defenseless Armenians back in 1915. I have visited Darfurian refugee camps, pushed for the deployment of a robust multinational force for Darfur, and urged divestment from companies doing business in Sudan. America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that President.

    I look forward, as President, to continuing my active engagement with Armenian American leaders on the full range of issues of concern to the Armenian American community. Together, we will build, in new and exciting ways, upon the enduring ties and shared values that have bound together the American and Armenian peoples for more than a century

    ===========Obama’nın en büyük yalanı=================

    Obama’nın en büyük yalanı – ABD sahillerinde ve Alaskadaki kaynaklardan petrol  karşı çıkarken, ABDnin dışdan gelen petrolden asıllı yapmayaçağını söylemesi.Barack Obama is a classical liar. People get hooked onto the opportunity to reduce oil imports, withdraw from Iraq, reduce U.S. military presence worldwide. But no one really asks a question, how a man opposing the drilling off the U.S. coast or within the U.S. proper is  planning to accomplish these. Obama’s argument – Renewable energy? Good ideal, but it won’t appear out of  magic in January 2009, when the new President takes office. Obama is not a scientist and not a God to invent it within even 4 or 8 years.

    But most importantly, will any of you, American voters, be willing to turn off their lights and not drive their cars, for President Obama to accomplish his utopic yet false promise – the answer is clearly no. Just the opposite, the one who opposes drilling in U.S. will have to increase the dependence on foreign oil = U.S. military presence worldwide.

    And this is only one of his sheer lies apart from those vis-a-vis foreign policy. Obama talks about opposing special interest groups, while his words here about Turkey:

     

     

     

    “As a President, I will maintain our assistance to Armenia; I will promote Armenian security by seeking an end to the Turkish and Azerbaijani blockades… America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and  responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that President.”

    are paid by ANCA and ArmeniansForObama campaign, which IS a special interest group. I don’t understand how any Turk can even think to vote Obama, while it’s John McCain who at every single campaign meeting cites Turkey as an ally, a democratic nation and an example for the Muslim world, and most importantly opposes U.S. interference into historical issues between Turkey and Armenia.So, if Turkish pride somehow affects your choices as American voter, voting Obama is the last thing to do. Unless you want to walk in this country ashamed in front of Armenians, or even worse, be charged (like in France) for denying that your ancestors were murderers, just for being Turks.

    Javid Huseynov [javid@azeris.com]

  • Turkey to definitely finalize Nabucco: energy minister

    Turkey to definitely finalize Nabucco: energy minister

    Turkey will definitely finalize the Nabucco project and there are no problems regarding the safety of the Baku-Tbilis-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, the Turkish energy minister said on Wednesday. 

    Talks regarding the Nabucco project have progressed rapidly, and studies on the project were submitted to the European Union (EU) and other related institutions, Hilmi Guler said at a news conference at Turkey’s Embassy in Baku, in Azerbaijan, the Anatolian Agency reported.  

    Commenting on the BTC oil pipeline, Guler said safety of the pipelines was very important and there was no problem with the security systems. 

    The Nabucco pipeline is aimed at diversifying the EU’s energy supplies and decreasing its energy dependence on Russia. The EU-backed pipeline, a 3,300-kilometre (2,050-mile) pipeline is planned to run via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to Austria. 

    A consortium made up of Austria’s OMV, Germany’s RWE, Hungary’s MOL, Turkey’s Botas, Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz and Romania’s Transgaz will build and operate the pipeline. 

    Guler also said the security of the BTC oil pipeline was not risky and there were no problem about security systems. 

    The gendarmerie forces did not find any evidence of sabotage regarding the blast on the Turkey section of BTC, however added that an investigation was underway. 

    Turkey to definitely finalize Nabucco: energy minister.

  • Turkey seeks fence-mending meeting with Armenia, Azerbaijan

    Turkey seeks fence-mending meeting with Armenia, Azerbaijan

     

     

     

     

     

    ANKARA, (AFP) – Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan Wednesday said he was trying to organize a meeting with counterparts from Armenia and Azerbaijan to discuss decades-old disputes plaguing ties between them.

    The idea, Babacan said, emerged during a historic visit to Yereven by President Abdullah Gul on Saturday, which raised hopes that Turkey and Armenia could overcome traditional enmity and establish diplomatic relations.

    “We have many reasons to be hopeful, the most important of which is the presence of a strong political will to improve ties,” the minister said in an interview with NTV television.

    Babacan and Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian are already scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York later this month.

    Babacan said he suggested that their Azeri counterpart also join the meeting and Nalbandian agreed.

    “We will now seek Azerbaijan’s consent… The problems between Turkey and Armenia and not independent from the problems between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” he said.

    The issue would be discussed when Gul visits Baku later Wednesday, he said.

    Turkey has refused to establish diplomatic ties with eastern neighbor Armenia because of Yerevan’s campaign for the recognition of the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide.

    In 1993, Turkey dealt a heavy economic blow to its impoverished neighbor by shutting the border in a show of solidarity with its close ally Azerbaijan, then at war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh — an Armenian-majority region in Azerbaijan which declared independence.

    Babacan said Gul’s visit to Armenia, the first by a Turkish head of state, had raised hopes that the two sides could mend fences.

    “In our talks in Yereven we decided to speed up the process (of reconciliation)… We are entering a period in which we will have frequent contacts,” he told NTV.

    Gul traveled to Yereven for several hours to watch a World Cup qualifying football match between Turkey and Armenia following an invitation by his counterpart Serzh Sarkisian.

  • TURKEY SHOULD APOLOGIZE TO ARMENIANS – BIR BUYUKELCIDEN ORHAN PAMUK MISALI BIR DIPLOMASI

    TURKEY SHOULD APOLOGIZE TO ARMENIANS – BIR BUYUKELCIDEN ORHAN PAMUK MISALI BIR DIPLOMASI

    TURKEY SHOULD APOLOGIZE TO ARMENIANS
    Volkan Vural, who was the Turkish Ambassador to the USSR during the years of collapse of the latter announced during an interview by Turkish “Taraf” newspaper’s correspondent that Turkey should apologize to Armenians for the incidents of the past.

    He mentioned that Turkish President’s visit to Yerevan at the invitation of the Armenian President contains big political risk to both the leaders of the two countries.

    Vural said that ex-President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosian fell a victim to the initiatives in improving relations with Turkey.

    According to Volkan Vural, none of the historical commissions can solve the Armenian Question. It can only throw light on some incidents facilitating the process.

    “Though Turkey is hardly to recognize the Armenian Genocide, anyway, it should apologize to Armenians and other ethnic minorities – Greeks, Assyrians and Kurds for eviction and massacres. It should let their descendants return to the residences of their ancestors and grant them citizenship of Turkey”, he said.

    To the question about the issue of return of the Armenian properties and riches, the Turkish diplomat answered, “Those are questions under discussion. Return of properties and material compensation is a difficult task. Anyway, there may be a symbolic compensation. At the same time, Turkey should apologize to Armenians and other ethnic minorities for causing them pain. It is a necessity for a country like Turkey”.

  • ERMENI GOZU ILE : Georgia’s Adventurous President Saakashvili

    ERMENI GOZU ILE : Georgia’s Adventurous President Saakashvili

     

    By Appo Jabarian
    Executive Publisher/Managing Editor
    USA ARMENIAN LIFE Magazine
     
    appojabarian@gmail.com

     

    Much controversy was created with former Soviet Republic of Georgia’s surprise military attacks on Russian peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

     

    The ill-devised attack, authorized by Georgia‘s adventurous President Saakashvili, has effectively triggered an irreversible process that may cost him his career and Georgia‘s territorial integrity.

     

    The 8.8.08 attack broke centuries-old tradition of friendship and alliance with the Russian Uncle to the north, instigating a strong popular backlash in Russian public and governmental circles. Except for Pres. Saakashvili, no Georgian official has ever actively worked to weaken his country’s ties with Russia and actively sought to “integrate” it with the oil interests of the West.

     

    In turn, he earned the status of being a strong U.S. ally in the Caucasus. But the inexperienced Georgian grossly miscalculated the extent of the Russian response, on the one hand, and the lame-duck posture adopted by his neo-con masters in the West, on the other.

     

    On Aug 29, F. William Engdahl, the author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press), and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (www.globalresearch.ca), and a contributing writer of Online Journal wrote: “An examination shows 41-year-old Mikheil Saakashvili to be a ruthless and corrupt totalitarian who is tied to not only the US NATO establishment, but also to the Israeli military and intelligence establishment. The famous ‘Rose Revolution of November 2003 that forced the aging Edouard Shevardnadze from power and swept the then 36-year-old US university graduate into power was run and financed by the US State Department, the Soros Foundations, and agencies tied to the Pentagon and US intelligence community.”

     

    On September 1, in an article titled “The ‘Stupidest Guy on the Planet’ Has Lots of Company,” John Taylor of www.antiwar.com, wrote: “Saakashvili acted with such remarkable stupidity and miscalculation that a 38-inch yardstick is needed to measure his foolishness against other famously bad decisions … Did Saakashvili really think the Russians would stand idly by and let him pound their forces in South Ossetia? That the U.S., Israel, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would come to his aid? Or that Georgia‘s army could hold off the Russians?”

     

    Unmasking the real face of certain NGO’s, Engdahl added: “But there is more. The NGOs were coordinated by the US Ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, who had just arrived in Tbilisi fresh from success in orchestrating the CIA-backed toppling of Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, using the same NGOs. Miles, who is believed to be an undercover intelligence specialist, supervised the Saakashvili coup. It involved US billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Georgia Foundation, the Washington-based Freedom House whose chairman was former CIA chief James Woolsey, and generous financing from the US Congress-financed National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to °do privately what the CIA used to do,° namely coups against regimes the US government finds unfriendly.”

     

    Further bringing Saakashvili’s real persona to light, Engdahl reported: “Since coming to power in 2004 with US aid, Saakashvili has led a policy of large-scale arrests, imprisonment, torture and deepened corruption. Saakashvili has presided over the creation of a de facto one-party state, with a dummy opposition occupying a tiny portion of seats in the parliament, and this public servant is building a Ceaucescu-style palace for himself on the outskirts of Tbilisi. According to the magazine, Civil Georgia (Mar. 22, 2004), until 2005, the salaries of Saakashvili and many of his ministers were reportedly paid by the NGO network of New York-based currency speculator Soros — along with the United Nations Development Program.”

     

    Taylor added: “On an official visit to Israel, Saakashvili proclaimed that the Georgians were ‘the Jews of our time’ and compared Russian President Putin’s anti-Georgian policies to the anti-Semitic decrees of the 18th-century Russian Empress Catherine the Great. He also asserted that his model when refounding the Georgian state was Israel‘s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. And Saakashvili did not hesitate to take his case directly to Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in New York: ‘We need to establish relations with the U.S. Jewish community because you understand better than many in this country the international repercussions with the rest of the world.… I want your help in having better relations with the United States….’”

     

    One wonders if the world Jewry can fathom Saakashvili’s adventurous politics as a “Jew of our time.” By masquerading as a “Jew” of the Caucasus, Saakashvili has certainly brought liabilities to the Jewish quest for healthy relations with Russia and other countries. That’s why the Israeli military specialists and advisers in Georgia “were reluctant to upset the Russians. They need President Putin’s support at the UN to get stronger anti-nuclear sanctions on Iran.”

     

    Engdahl ominously noted that “With Russia openly backing and training the indigenous military in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to maintain Russian presence in the region, especially since the US-backed pro-NATO Saakashvili regime took power in 2004, the Caucasus is rapidly coming to resemble Spain in the Civil War from 1936-1939, where the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and others poured money and weapons and volunteers into Spain in a devastating war that was a precursor to the Second World War.”

     

    By his misguided military move against Russia, Saakashvili has de facto triggered a counter-“Rose Revolution” process. The process which already yielded Russia‘s trashing of Georgia‘s army may soon bring reversal of fortunes both for him and his masters in Washington and elsewhere.

     

    As for Saakashvili’s Azeri counter-part Pres. Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan, it is yet to be seen if the junior Aliev has learned from his colleague’s experience to tone down his belligerent rhetoric against Armenia.

     

    One hopes that Aliev’s advisors in Baku are hard at work to convince their boss not to join the club of the “Stupidest Guys” of the Caucasus. After all, like Georgia, Azerbaijan has much to worry about its shaky and unstable ethnic makeup. Nearly 60% of its inhabitants come from restive non-Azeri ethnic groups such Daghestanis, Alans, Lezgis and many others.
     
  • Azerbaijani population negatively assessing Turkish President’s visit to Yerevan

    Azerbaijani population negatively assessing Turkish President’s visit to Yerevan

    Most citizens of Azerbaijan negatively assess the visit of Turkish President A.Gul to Yerevan on September 6 and consider that it will have a negative impact on the Karabakh conflict resolution.

    According to the report of the Ray monitoring center, which held a public poll regarding Gul’s visit to Yerevan, the reaction of the respondents turned out to be extremely negative. (more…)