North Korea’s top nuclear weapons negotiator was headed for New York on Tuesday and expected to meet with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as officials race to settle on an agenda for a June 12 summit meeting between the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and President Trump in Singapore.
Mr. Trump said on Twitter that Kim Yong-chol, one of the most trusted aides to the North’s leader and a former intelligence chief, was “heading now to New York.” In a reference to the moves made since he canceled the on-again-off-again summit meeting, the president added, “Solid response to my letter, thank you!”
The former intelligence chief, who is 72, has been at the side of the North Korean leader, 34, during a recent whirl of diplomacy, meeting with South Koreans in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula and with the Chinese.
Mr. Kim’s trip to the United States starts the most important negotiating track leading up to the summit meeting. Over the weekend, a team of American diplomats met with North Korean officials in the Demilitarized Zone, and White House logistics experts have been talking with North Koreans in Singapore about arrangements for the leaders’ meeting there.
But a trip to the United States by Kim Yong-chol — who has served the three leaders of the Kim dynasty that has ruled the North since 1945 — signaled that negotiations were reaching a critical point.
Mr. Kim would be the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit the United States since 2000, when Vice Marshal Jo Myong-rok invited President Bill Clinton to Pyongyang, with the prospect of sealing an agreement on curbing the North’s missiles. It never came to fruition.
A diplomat in Beijing, where Mr. Kim stopped overnight Tuesday, said it was not immediately clear whether the negotiator would meet with the Chinese again before going on to New York, where he is expected to arrive on Wednesday.
China’s Foreign Ministry would not confirm the former spymaster’s presence in Beijing, even though video footage showed him at the airport after his arrival from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
In recent weeks, China and the United States have been vying for the attention of Kim Jong-un, with Mr. Trump accusing China of contributing to a toughened North Korean stance on denuclearization after the North Korean and Chinese leaders met this month.
If the former spy chief met with senior Chinese officials in Beijing, he might risk angering Mr. Trump again, diplomats said. His stop in Beijing could also be related to his presence on a sanctions list that bars him from entering the United States.
An American diplomat said a waiver would have to be granted for such an individual to enter the United States, although it was likely one would automatically be given under extraordinary circumstances like these.
Mr. Kim was probably headed to New York, where North Korea has a mission to the United Nations, rather than to Washington because it was easier for him to get a visa there, another American diplomat said. North Korean diplomats and officials are not allowed to travel more than a few miles outside New York City.
Kim Yong-chol has already met Mr. Pompeo twice in Pyongyang. On the second visit, Mr. Pompeo expected to come away with a set of details for the Singapore summit meeting relating to the denuclearization of the North, but failed to do so. After the second meeting this month, Mr. Pompeo returned to Washington with three Americans who had been detained in North Korea.
In his most recent meeting with Mr. Pompeo, Mr. Kim struck a defiant tone, saying at a luncheon that North Korea’s willingness to enter into talks was “not a result of sanctions that have been imposed from the outside.” But he reminded the visiting Americans that North Korea intended to focus “all efforts into economic progress in our country.”
Mr. Kim has served as a senior manager of the North’s intelligence operations for nearly 30 years, according to the website North Korea Leadership Watch.
Mr. Kim’s rare combination of senior positions in the North’s highly stratified political and military apparatus makes him “one of the most powerful figures in North Korea,” it said.
He is also one of the longest serving senior officials of the Kim dynasty. Mr. Kim was involved in the 1990s in one of the earliest efforts to limit the North’s nuclear weapons. According to an account in “The Two Koreas,” by Don Oberdorfer and Robert Carlin, Mr. Kim was the toughest of negotiators on an accord that eventually failed in 1992.
At the time, Mr. Kim accused a South Korean diplomat of composing 90 percent of the language in the accord, it says, quoting him as saying, “This is your agreement, not our agreement.”
In the mid-2000s, he was assigned as head of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the North’s spy agency, and paid particular attention to operations against South Korea. When he was chief of the North’s intelligence service in 2010, South Korea accused him of being responsible for blowing up a South Korean Navy vessel, killing 46 sailors. Five months later, the United States Treasury put Mr. Kim on the sanctions list.
In February, Mr. Kim was sent to the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in South Korea. He appeared in photographs seated behind Ivanka Trump, a stern expression on his face.
Over the past few months, the United States and North Korea have come closer than ever to holding the first summit meeting of the countries’ leaders. In March, Mr. Trump surprised many people when he accepted Kim Jong-un’s invitation to meet, which was relayed through South Korean envoys. But last Thursday in a letter to the North Korean leader, Mr. Trump abruptly canceled the meeting.
He then changed course again on Friday, saying that the meeting might take place as scheduled. Officials from the United States and North Korea have since started a whirlwind of working-level diplomacy to try to narrow a gap over how to denuclearize the North and salvage the planned meeting.
The Supreme Court refused on Monday to hear a challenge to an Arkansas law that could force two of the state’s three abortion clinics to close.
The law concerns medication abortions, which use pills to induce abortions in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. The law, enacted in 2015, requires providers of the procedure to have contracts with doctors who have admitting privileges at a hospital in the state.
The law is quite similar to one in Texas that was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2016.
Writing for the majority in the 5-3 decision, Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the Texas law, which required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, placed “a substantial obstacle” in the path of women seeking abortions and amounted to an “undue burden on abortion access” in violation of the Constitution.
Judges considering laws restricting access to abortion, Justice Breyer added, must make a cost-benefit calculation, weighing the burdens a law imposes on abortion access against the benefits it confers.
Judge Kristine G. Baker, of the Federal District Court in Little Rock, blocked the Arkansas law, saying its medical benefits were few at best and outweighed by the burdens it imposed. The law, she wrote, quoting an earlier decision, was “a solution in search of a problem.”
But a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, vacated that decision, saying that Judge Baker had not specified how many women would be affected.
Arkansas has three abortion clinics. One, in Little Rock, offers both medication and surgical abortions. The others, in Little Rock and Fayetteville, offer only medication abortions.
In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the local Planned Parenthood affiliate said it contacted every qualified doctor it could identify. No one of them, the group said, was willing to enter into the contract required by the law. This was unsurprising, Judge Baker found, as doctors in Arkansas who perform abortions “risk being ostracized from their communities and face harassment and violence toward themselves, their family, and their private practices.”
Arkansas officials told the Supreme Court that Planned Parenthood had not tried hard enough or told the doctors how much it was willing to pay.
If the law were to go into effect, Planned Parenthood said, only surgical abortions would be available in Arkansas. “This will particularly affect women who strongly prefer medication abortion,” the group told the Supreme Court, “including those who find it traumatic to have instruments placed in their vaginas because they are victims of rape, incest, or domestic violence, as well as women for whom medication abortion is medically indicated and safer than surgical abortion.”
In their Supreme Court brief in the case, Planned Parenthood of Arkansas & Eastern Oklahoma v. Jegley, No. 17-935, Arkansas officials responded that “there is no right to choose medication abortion.”
They added that their state’s law was not as onerous as the one from Texas, which required abortion providers to have admitting privileges. “Arkansas law only requires medication abortion providers to have a contractual relationship (to ensure follow-up treatment if needed) with a physician that has admitting privileges,” the officials’ brief said.
The law would effectively require women to travel long distances to obtain even the abortion procedure that remained available, Planned Parenthood told the justices. Women in Fayetteville, for instance, would have to make a 380-mile round-trip journey, twice, as Arkansas law also requires an in-person counseling session 48 hours before an abortion.
“Inability to travel to the sole remaining clinic in the state will lead some women to take desperate measures, such as attempting to self-abort or seeking care from unsafe providers,” Judge Baker wrote.
Medication abortions are considered quite safe. One study found that six of every 10,000 women who used the procedure experienced complications requiring hospitalization.
Since women typically take the second drug in the two-pill regimen at home, which may not be near the clinic, it is not clear that having a doctor on contract would make them safer than simply visiting an emergency room, Judge Baker wrote.
“Emergency room physicians are well qualified to evaluate and treat most complications that can arise after a medication abortion,” she wrote, adding that the relevant medical issues are “identical to those suffered by women experiencing miscarriage, who receive treatments in hospitals every day through emergency physicians.”
BAGHDAD — Iraqis are still haunted by memories of black-clad death squads roaming Baghdad neighborhoods a decade ago, cleansing them of Sunnis as the country was convulsed by sectarian violence.
Many of the mass killings in the capital were done in the name of Moktada al-Sadr, a cleric best remembered by Americans for fiery sermons declaring it a holy duty among his Shiite faithful to attack United States forces.
The militia he led was armed with Iranian-supplied weapons, and Mr. Sadr cultivated a strong alliance with leaders in Tehran, who were eager to supplant the American presence in Iraq and play the dominant role in shaping the country’s future.
Now, the man once demonized by the United States as one of the greatest threats to peace and stability in Iraq has come out as the surprise winner of this month’s tight elections, after a startling reinvention into a populist, anticorruption campaigner whose “Iraq First” message appealed to voters across sectarian divides.
The results have Washington — and Tehran — on edge, as officials in both countries seek to influence what is expected to be a complex and drawn-out battle behind the scenes to build a coalition government. Mr. Sadr’s bloc won 54 seats — the most of any group, but still far short of a majority in Iraq’s 329-seat Parliament.
Even before final results were announced early Saturday, Mr. Sadr — who did not run as a candidate and has ruled himself out as prime minister — had made clear whom he considers natural political allies. At the top of his list is Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the moderate Shiite leader who has been America’s partner in the fight against the Islamic State and whose political bloc finished third in the vote.
Pointedly absent from Mr. Sadr’s list of potential partners: pro-Iranian blocs, as he has insistently distanced himself from his former patrons in Iran, whose meddling he has come to see as a destabilizing force in Iraq’s politics.
Early Sunday morning, the prime minister met with Mr. Sadr in Baghdad. They discussed forming a government, and aides from both sides said the men saw eye to eye on prioritizing the fight against corruption.
While Mr. Sadr has all the momentum going into negotiations over the governing coalition, there is no guarantee his bloc will be in power. And it is too early to tell what the election may mean for Iraqi stability or American national security goals.
But the upset has clearly weakened the sectarian foundation of Iraq’s political system — and helped transform Mr. Sadr’s image from the paragon of a militant Shiite into an unexpected symbol of reform and Iraqi nationalism.
As the head of the Sairoon Alliance for Reform, Mr. Sadr presides over an unlikely alliance that pairs his pious, largely working-class Shiite base with Sunni business leaders, liberals and Iraqis looking for relief from the country’s long-simmering economic crisis.
For those joining the alliance, it was important to be convinced that Mr. Sadr’s shift from Shiite firebrand to Iraqi patriot was sincere, and likely to last.
Late last year, the cleric began reaching out to groups outside his base with an offer to form a new political movement, and the country’s embattled leftists and secularists — once his staunch enemies — faced a moment of reckoning.
They remembered how a rogue Shariah court he had established passed sentences on fellow Shiites deemed too submissive toward the American occupation of Iraq. And they recalled the countless Iraqis killed in battles between the country’s security forces and Mr. Sadr’s militia.
But a ragtag group of communists, social democrats and anarchists have come to embrace Mr. Sadr as a symbol of the reform they have championed for years — an image that the cleric has burnished, seeing it as the best path to political power.
“Let me be honest: We had a lot of apprehensions, a lot of suspicions,” said Raad Fahmi, a leader of Iraq’s Communist Party, which is part of Mr. Sadr’s alliance. “But actions speak louder than words. He’s not the same Moktada al-Sadr.”/NyTimes
Washington soykırım müzesi Hitler’e ait olduğu iddia edilen söz
By: Cengiz Özakinci – History Writer, Researcher and Editor
(Translated from Turkish “Bütün Dünya” March 2018 , Monthly Magazine of Baskent University)
FORGED HITLER QUOTE ACCUSING TURKEY IN US HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
The Second World War began on September 1, 1939, with the invasion of Poland by the German Military. Hitler, in fact, gave his invasion orders ten days before this date in a secret meeting he held on August 22, 1939 where he addressed his top generals with a lengthy speech. The world war that started with Hitler Germany’s invasion of Poland would last six years, claiming millions of lives and causing significant tangible and intangible destruction. In 1945, US, England and Russia had already beaten Germany and had started the process of gathering any and all available evidence to try German officers in Nuremberg International Tribunals. Among the evidential documents seized by the US Military in Saalfelden, Austria, in 1945, there were notes taken on the day of August 22, 1939 at the meeting where Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland. Later in 1942, Louis P. Lochner, the Berlin Correspondent of Associated Press, published a book titled “What About Germany”. In that book, Lochner included a text of this speech of Hitler’s, attributing it to “a source”. However, there were significant differences between the speech version Lochner quoted and those seized in Saafelden, in 1945. For instance, Lochner claimed in his book that Hitler said: “Our strength lies in our quickness and in our brutality; Genghis Khan has sent millions of women and children into death knowingly and with a light heart. History sees in him only the great founder of States. It’s a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me. I have issued the command – and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad – that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations on readiness – for the present time only in the East – with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus, shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
Hitler, with Generals of the German Army However, the other versions of Hitler’s speech that were found among the Nazi archival documents or in other documents presented by the defense, there was not a single line of speech that spoke of the Armenians.
The words attributed to Hitler in Lochner’s book, published in 1942. The Military Prosecution found that the text offered in Lochner’s book was based on a dubious source and therefore did not use this text as evidence in the trial process. Interpreter Carlos Porter later reviewed the three pages of speech text that Lochner claimed to have “received from a source and immediately forwarded a copy to the US Embassy in 1939”. Porter determined that not only this text was typed with a typewriter that did not have a German keyboard but also that the text was written with a bad German. Some 30 years following the Nuremberg Trials, there has been an effort to establish a Holocaust Memorial Museum in The United States to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. In those years where Turkish diplomats were being assassinated by ASALA terror organization, an Armenian-American man named Set Momjian who made his way to the Museum administration promised a donation of $1,000,000 in exchange for the Museum to provide a display to remember the events of 1915. When the news reached to Turkey that Holocaust Memorial Museum would provide a space for Armenian genocide propaganda, it was met with disappointment; The Ministry of Foreign Affairs have made attempts to prevent this move while our press began to mold a public opinion against the Armenian propaganda. In the beginning of 1980s, prominent Armenian scholars in The United States proposed the Museum to display the quote “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”According to these folks, the first genocide of the century was perpetrated against the Armenians in 1915. Not only that, they claimed that in planning his genocide against Jews, Hitler was inspired by the fact that what has been done to Armenians had been forgotten and had gone unpunished. For that matter, it was important to them that Hitler’s Armenian quote to be displayed at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Propaganda Posters claiming that the Holocaust was based on 1915 Armenian relocation. As all this propaganda continued in The United States, in a booklet he prepared in two languages (English and French) titled: “Hitler and the Armenian Question / Hitler et la Question Armenienne”, Prof. Turkkaya Ataov showed us that this forged Hitler quote was used by many US Senators and Congressmen in their addresses to the House and Senate and proved based on the Nuremberg trial documents, that this quote did not belong to Hitler. A year after Ataov’s revelation, in 1985, Prof. Heath W. Lowry wrote an article titled: “The U.S. Congress and Adolf Hitler on the Armenians” in which he proved that this so-called Hitler quote that was being intended to be displayed at the Museum was forged or “spurious”. Armenian propagandists did not take even one step backwards on their intent to display this Hitler quote at the Holocaust Museum despite all the evidence to suggest that the quote was a forgery. Jews who lived in The United States got divided into two camps: A majority with a Pro-Israel stance saying “The Jewish Holocaust is an unprecedented event and it may not be marginalized by getting mixed up with other genocide claims” and a minority thinking that it is unwise to oppose the opinions of US Presidents (such as Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton) who favored providing a space in the Holocaust Museum for Armenians as a continuation of the formal US policy. The Memorial Museum Council declared in December of 1987 that the “Armenian genocide will be included in all of the Museum’s current studies for being the first genocide of the 20th century” and Museum Council’s President Harvey Meyerhoff declared later at the Museum’s Foundation Laying Ceremony – which was attended by Ronald Reagan himself- that the decision to include Armenian genocide claims in the Museum was final.
Taking five years to build, the Museum was opened to public on April 26, 1993 following an opening ceremony held on April 22, 1993. However, due to strong diplomatic reaction from Turkey, Museum administration decided not to display the Armenian genocide propaganda and the forged Hitler quote. However, from a picture taken during Armenian President Serge Sarkisian’s visit on May 6, 2015, we found out that the forgery Hitler quote that has long been used as an Armenian propaganda tool was being displayed at the Museum despite the decision made in the 1993 opening.
Armenian President Serge Sarkisian, Armenian Patriarch and CatholicosKarekin II, Foreign Minister of Armenia and Minister of Diaspora, Archbishop KhajagBarsamian, The Metropolite of Diocese of Armenian Church of America (Eastern) and others, under guidance of Arthur Berger, Senior Advisor, standing in front of the forged Hitler quote at The US Holocaust Memorial Museum (May 6, 2015 – Photo: US Holocaust Memorial Museum) Researcher Sukru Server Aya, who literally took every Armenian claim one by one and repudiated them in his books with solid evidences, has also proven that this quote attributed to Hitler was indeed a forgery. (For reference, see “Genocide of Truth”, Istanbul University of Commerce, 2008, p.366, “Genocide Traders”, Derin Publishing, Jan. 2009, pgs. 205-206, “Genocide of Truth Continues”, Derin Publishing, Dec 2010, pgs 249-270)
A few books of Sukru Server Aya (pic. above), proving the falsehood of the Armenian propaganda lies. In response to this forged Hitler quote appearing on The Wall Street Journal, in an article penned by Robert M. Morgenthau on January 25, 2018, S.S. Aya wrote the following to the Editors of The Wall Street Journal, The Administrators of The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Office of the Presidency (the Museum Administrators report to): “Esteemed Gentlemen, As private researchers and writers on the WW-1 and WW-2 History and events related to the “mythomania of genocide” (Erich Feigl) we are profoundly disturbed by the domineering tone of the author and feel compelled to refute the contents of this article from A to Z, since almost everything written by former New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau is untrue, not evidenced, and flawed with colossal deficiency of knowledge on past and present history. The “alleged Hitler Quote” still standing on the wall of the Museum is a complete forgery, which undoubtedly has been known to the Museum from the very early days for more than twenty years. Regrettably, despite written applications and provided documentary as evidence, the Museum preferred, or was probably told to, “remain quiet, hide and falsify history” to the public. The Museum has become instrumental in propagating the “genocide palaver”, despite all judicial requirements and verdicts of various authorized courts in Europe. (…) The US archives are full of official documents bearing references of the US Congress and Senate contradicting his article and yet, Mr. Morgenthau, a celebrity in law and justice, has either ignored or defied by “acting as a persecutor, without hearing any defense, no evidence, and no obedience to nor respect for the laws of this land and as a judge or deity for eternity”. We submit that this cannot be accepted, and we respectfully request a statement from Wall Street Journal whether or not it subscribes to Mr. Robert M. Morgenthau’s claims of Armenian Genocide.” *** “A lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes”, says Mark Twain. However, the propaganda lies of powerful lobbies seem to be capable of traveling one thousand times around the globe. In my previous article, I have exposed and repudiated the popular propaganda idea claiming: “Hitler and the Nazi Party were inspired by Kemalism, Ataturk and the Turkish War of Independence”. In this article, we repudiated with proof, the idea that “Hitler’s genocide on Jews was inspired by 1915 relocation of the Armenians”. It would appear that The West tries hard to prove that the ideology behind Hitler’s fascism and genocidal behavior -which stained their history- emanated from Turks, and not from them. I submit that it is important that we see such lies and slanders being mounted against us as a ground work, preparatory to future invasions and attacks on Turkish soil. Thus, combating such lies and slanderous allegations is a prerequisite for “peace at home, peace in the world”. A world that is dominated by lies will only lead to more wars. * < By: Cengiz Özakinci – History Writer, Researcher and Editor> cengizozakincibd@gmail.com (Translated by Emre Serbest)
REMEMBRANCE & DEVELOPMENTS “The Wall Street Journal” dated 25.1.2018 had published a letter written by the retired New York District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, who was Jew and the grandson of Henry Morgenthau Sr. USA’s Istanbul Ambassador in the 1915s. https://www.wsj.com/articles/will-trump-tell-the-truth-about-the-armenian-genocide-1516925489. Robert Morgenthau was asking President Trump, to declare April 24, the day of “Armenian genocide”, the same way he had declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. As evidence he referred to the quote on the walls of the Washington Holocaust Museum, a sentence that Hitler (allegedly) said in 1939. The inscription on the wall was wrong and was a lie and the Museum was aware of this fact from the very early years but they kept it there likely to comply with the wishes f Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama as the high authority of the Museum Administration. The complaints of some Turks (Melih Berk, Turkkaya Ataov, Sevgin Oktay, Sukru S. Aya…) were all from “individuals and not from an official”. None of them were replied to, despite additional documentary evidences.
On 13.2.2018 a Research Paper and Cover letter co-signed by Sukru S. Aya, Ata Atun and Yurdagül Atun was e-mailed to the Washington Holocaust Museum, the White House and about a hundred senators and congress members. These document which were previously shared, can be sent again on request. These original documents in English were translated into Turkish for Turkish offices and sent by express cargo to the Office of Prime minister, President and Foreign Affairs office, by adding a Turkish informative page, having included as document my book “Buyuk Yalan”. Another package was sent to the US Embassy Press Attaché in Ankara. Furthermore, Mr. Arslan Bulut in his column on “Yenicag” Newspaper dated 15.2.2018 wrote a descriptive article explaining the importance of this subject under the heading: “USA opens the third front”. I did not expect any reply from the USA since (the lie is clear and cannot be denied). But more sorrowful is the fact that none of our administrators could see the “importance of this chance” and there was no response whatsoever.
Mr. Cengiz Özakinci, as writer of several books and being reputed for his meticulous researches, is also the editor of “Bütün Dünya” (The Whole World) monthly Cultural Publication of the Baskent University. In the March 2018 issue of the magazine, Ozakıncı goes into the details with evidential documents of this “Hitler Lie” and relation to the State Administered Holocaust Museum and he shows that this cannot be denied by official historical documents and presents all this to the knowledge of READERS and THOSE WHO SHOULD BE INTERESTED. The Turkish photocopy of the article is attached along with the English translation. I do pray with my exhausted patience, that a responsive reader will finally see and understand the documentary value of this Armenian-USA lie and the inexplicable bigotry, which otherwise lead to a new slander from President Trump,.
The news made hardly a ripple in the Turkish media, but a so-called Turkish-Armenian scholarship conference held on September 15-18, 2017 in Berlin had all the markings of a scandal. The conference, having the theme, “Past in the Present: European Approaches to the Armenian Genocide,” was the 10th in the series of “Workshop on Armenian-Turkish Studies” (WATS) held at different locations since its inception in 2010.
Primarily organized by the U.S.-based Middle East Studies Association (MESA), this year’s conference (WATS 2017) was held at the European Academy Berlin under the auspices of Dr. Martina Münch, a Minister of the State of Brandenburg. The co-organizers were the University of Michigan, University of Southern California (USC), and Lepsiushaus Potsdam.
The Pretense
The WATS series is magnanimously advertised as forums “where Turkish, Armenian and other historians could conduct an informed debate relating to the controversy surrounding the relocation of Ottoman Armenians during World War One.”
All that sounds good. The key words here are “controversy” and “debate.” Controversy on a historical topic should normally lead to debate, and the two words complement each other. The outcome of a debate may result in a stand-off, a compromise, and possibly accord.
This is how things should work out, especially in the academic world.
The Reality
But it turns out that lofty description for the WATS series is merely a PR front. For one thing, the institutions or universities that have organized and promoted the WATS conferences are those that advocate “Armenian genocide.” This is certainly the case with the organizers of WATS 2017.
In fact, the co-organizer Lepsiushaus Potsdam, a historical house where German Protestant missionary Johannes Lepsius (also known as the “Guardian Angel of the Armenians”) once lived, is now a museum in Potsdam, Germany, serving as a “Research Center for Genocide Studies.”
Obviously a mission well-suited for advancing the “Armenian genocide” cause! (Question: Has Lepsiushaus organized a conference on the 1904-1907 Namibian atrocities committed by German settlers in Namibia? The racial extermination and collective punishment brought upon the native population are sometimes known as the “First Genocide in the 20th Century.”
As for the other co-organizers, they are U.S.-based, and the positions of these institution on the 1915 events in Ottoman Anatolia are beyond dispute. They are die-hard proponents of “genocide.” In the U.S. the Armenian foundations are known for their “generosity” in advancing the “genocide” thesis, and a number of academic institutions reap rewards from this bounty. At the University of Michigan, for example, the Manoogian Foundation funds genocide advocacy under the banner of “Armenian Studies Program.”
Another foundation has enabled Prof. Taner Akçam, the “Prince Charming” of the Armenian lobby, to be awarded the “Robert Aram, Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies” at Clark University in Massachusetts – never mind Akçam’s unsavory past related to subversive activities and prison term in Turkey. Earlier, Prof. Akçam received financial support from the Zoryan Institute, and was the beneficiary of the “Cafesjian Family Foundation” when he was at the University of Minnesota.
The largess from Armenian foundations to fund genocide “studies” goes on.
Second, and not surprisingly, the attendees to the WATS conferences have been those researchers that support one way or another the “Armenian genocide” narrative. Academicians with Turkish names are particularly welcome in these conferences. In fact, they are the prized attendees. Researchers, Turkish or foreign, that do not subscribe to the Armenian narrative are treated as “persona non grata.” The net effect is that the conferences act like exclusive clubs.
Hypocrisy
Given these facts, it is sophistry or chicanery to talk of WATS conferences as forums to provide “an informed debate relating to the controversy” on the 1915 events in Ottoman Anatolia. Such language is pure deception. There is no substantive debate in these conferences, and given the prevailing mindset, it is naive to expect any. The “Armenian genocide” narrative is treated as a historical truth, not as a controversy, and the overarching debate is nonexistent.
In fact, the title of this year’s conference, bearing the phrase “Armenian genocide,” drops all the pretense of being anything other than a doctrinaire posture on the 1915 events in Ottoman Anatolia.
What all this amounts to is hypocrisy – in fact contemptible hypocrisy, given that it takes place in an academic environment and violates what true academic scholarship stands for. The august corridors of the academia can sometimes be deafeningly numbing if prejudice and cushy incentives take over and the mind is grievously frozen.
Inconvenient Truths
The no-debate, doctrinaire stance on the Armenian issue stands in direct contradiction with an inconvenient truth: the 2013 and 2015 positions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the 2016 position of France’s Constitutional Council. These high judicial authorities in Europe have underscored the fact that “Armenian genocide” is controversial among scholars.
The doctrinaire stance is also in conflict with the position of a large number of Turkish and foreign researchers that do not subscribe to the Armenian narrative.
Another “inconvenient truth” is that the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide explicitly requires that any determination as to the crime of genocide must be made by a competent tribunal – a requirement the proponents of “Armenian genocide” would rather – and in fact do not – talk about. The claim of “Armenian genocide” by parliaments, politicians, establishments such as MESA, etc., runs counter the edicts of this Convention. This is what the ECHR and France’s Constitutional Court have ruled.
But then, as far as the Armenian side, why bother with such “details” when a well-funded, well-organized propaganda does a wonderful job to peddle the Armenian version of history!
The Armenian propaganda in the West has been so effective that it has given rise to what this author has called the “Settled History Syndrome,” an affliction in the Western media that accepts Armenian allegations as a fact without questioning the veracity of these allegations – in utter contempt of anti-genocide scholars, and more recently, also the judicial positions of high courts in Europe.
An Audacious Complaint
All the above aside, what made this year’s WATS conference all the more egregious was a letter sent by MESA President Prof. Beth Baron and MESA Executive Director Dr. Amy W. Newhall to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım of Turkey. Dated September 15, 2017, and copied to few other high Turkish officials as well as a number of EU, Council of Europe and UN officials, the MESA directors had the audacity to complain and express “deep concern” about Turkey-based scholars being allegedly prevented from attending the Berlin conference – while also preaching the virtues of “academic freedom” and “freedom of expression.”
But on the other hand, the same MESA officers didn’t have any compunction about limiting the conference to their hand-picked scholars.
The MESA letter led to angry protests from some circles in Turkey, including Dr. Doğu Perinçek, given that the efforts of some Turkish researchers opposing the “genocide” thesis, and wanting to participate in the conference, were rebuffed by the conference administrators.
The United States continue expanding their presence in the Central Asia as part of the program «The Great Central Asia». As President Trump announced his new policy on Afghanistan earlier this week, the US Administration have started looking towards Tajikistan, the key region on the Central Asia which has a longer border with Afghanistan.
Boosted earlier in 2016 by the Secretary of State John Kerry, the cooperation between the United States and the Central Asia in trade, economic development, the anti-terrorism fight is likely to be particularly focused on making stronger ties with Tajikistan as the US Embassy in Dushanbe have lobbied the military and technical aid agreement between the United States and Tajikistan. The $100 billion agreement for a period of 5 years, from 2018 to 2023, has already been approved by Tajikistan authorities, according to the head of the Tajik Border Security Forces col. Avzalov.
As part of the agreement, the US Embassy in Tajikistan with support of «AT Communication US» will implement a new operation control system designed by «HARRIS» to the Tajik Border Security Forces. The system is designed according to the C4ICR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) standard which is used by NATO. The system will also let the United States track Tajik military actions online by integration with the communication channels of the Tajikistan’s Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The stronger ties the bigger funding. The United States have decreased their military and technical financing around the world from $1 billion to $800 million since the start of 2017, while Tajikistan continues to receive larger funding than any other country in the region.
However, by integrating the NATO control system to its Military Tajikistan will no longer be able to be a part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization which uses the Russian operation and control technologies while further strengthening of the US-Tajikistan relations may cause tension for Tajikistan authorities both with the Central Asian countries and Moscow. Finally, the initiative courageously taken by the Tajik Border Security Forces may have negative results considering the authoritative and self-dependent course of the President Emomali Rahmon.
