Turkish Forum

Category: Regions

  • Armenian Soccer Body Changes Logo After Uproar

    Armenian Soccer Body Changes Logo After Uproar

     

     

     

     

     

    By Ruben Meloyan

    The Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) said on Wednesday that it has decided to change its new emblem widely criticized for not depicting a biblical mountain in what is now eastern Turkey.

    The FFA’s previous logo, which carried a picture of Mount Ararat, was dropped ahead of last month’s match in Yerevan between Armenia’s and Turkey’s national soccer teams that was watched by the presidents of the two neighboring states.

    The move prompted strong criticism from domestic political groups, notably the pro-government Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), that suggested that it was designed to please the Turks. Dashnaktsutyun leaders cast doubt on the credibility of FFA assurances that there were no political motives behind the change of the logo emblazoned on the jerseys of national and youth team players.

    Located in northeastern Turkey and visible from Yerevan and much of southern Armenia, Ararat is considered by many Armenians a national symbol. The snow-capped peak, the supposed resting place of Noah’s Ark, is depicted in the center Armenia’s national coat-in-arms.

    Ruben Hayrapetian, the FFA chairman who has previously dismissed the Dashnaktsutyun criticism, said on Wednesday that the decision to leave Ararat out of the current logo was a mistake. “I apologize to the entire public for this real mistake,” he told reporters.

    “We did not think that there will be such an uproar,” Hayrapetian said, adding that the FFA has already commissioned graphic designers to develop another Armenian football emblem. He said it will definitely carry an outline of Ararat.

    “In the meantime, our national football teams will wear jerseys with the emblem of the Republic of Armenia,” the FFA’s executive director, Armen Minasian, told RFE/RL.

    Both he and Hayrapetian insisted that the logo change had nothing to do with the Armenia-Turkey World Cup qualifier played in Yerevan on September 6. “We began the process of logo change last year before we knew that are going to play Turkey,” said Minasian. “There was never any deliberate effort to remove Ararat.”

    (Photolur photos: The current, left, and former emblems of the FFA.)

  • Turkey Threatens Iraqi Kurdistan with Incursion

    Turkey Threatens Iraqi Kurdistan with Incursion

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened Iraqi Kurdistan on Tuesday with an incursion. The threat came days after militants for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) attacked Turkish troops within Turkey’s borders, kiling 17.Most PKK militants stage attacks in Turkey after which they quickly cross the border with Iraq where they hide. Northern Iraq is home to many Kurds, and the PKK has established several major training camps for future militants.

    The PKK is deemed a terrorist organization by, among others, Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

    Iraq’s central government had promised several times in the last couple of years to do something about the PKK presence in the northern part of the country, but has yet to take significant action.

    “The sole target of a possible cross-border operation will be the terrorist organisation,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling party the AK Parti (or Justice and Development Party).

    “Turkey is in a position of self-defence when it comes to terrorism. Everyone should understand this,” he said. “The best choice for the regional administration of northern Iraq is to cooperate with us against terrorist elements because the terrorist organisation is a cause of regional unrest and tension.”

    Iraq and Turkey have been at odds with each other for years over this issue. Turkey believes that Baghdad is not doing enough against the PKK, forcing Turkey to do take matter into its own hands, while Baghdad says there is not much it can do because the PKK hides in regions difficult to enter for government forces, and argues that cross border operations by Turkey are unacceptable, because Turkey would not be allowed to act in breach with Iraq’s territorial integrity.

    The United States, meanwhile, is caught in the middle because it has fought a war against terrorism for quite some years itself, and has invaded two countries in order to destroy terrorist organizations (both Afghanistan and arguably Iraq). This means that it is difficult if not impossible for the U.S. to criticize Turkey when it goes into Iraq, occupies a significant part of its ‘Kurdistan’ part, and withdraws weeks, perhaps months, later.

    On the other hand, Iraq’s government is not willing to let Turkey deal with problems too big for itself to handle, and calls on Turkey to withdraw immediately whenever it takes military action against PKK target in Iraq. The U.S. has to, of course, stand with Iraq, also because more than 100,000 of its troops are stationed in this country. Furthermore, the U.S. fears that a Turkish incursion will destabilize one of the historically most stable parts of Iraq.

  • Bildung und Integration in Deutschland: Status Quo und Perspektiven

    Bildung und Integration in Deutschland: Status Quo und Perspektiven

    Bildung und Integration in Deutschland: Status Quo und Perspektiven«

    9:15 Uhr REGISTRIERUNG

    10:00 Uhr BEGRÜSSUNG
    Juergen Boos Geschäftsführer, Frankfurter Buchmesse, Frankfurt a.M.
    Dr. Mark Schiffhauer Mitglied der Geschäftsführung, Maleki Group, Frankfurt a.M.

    10:15 Uhr FORUM A: BILDUNG UND INTEGRATION IN DEUTSCHLAND: STATUS QUO UND PERSPEKTIVEN

    Dr. Lale Akgün, MdB Mitglied des Deutschen Bundestages, Berlin

    Bekir Albogga Islamwissenschaftler und Referatsleiter für interreligiöse und interkulturelle Zusammenarbeit, »Türkisch-Islamische Union der Anstalt
    für Religion« (DITIB), Köln

    Seyran Ates¸ Autorin und Anwältin, Deutschland

    Prof. Dr. Ursula Boos-Nünning Professorin für Migrationspädagogik, Fachbereich Bildungswissenschaften,
    Universität Duisburg-Essen

    Dr. Necla Kelek Soziologin und Frauenrechtlerin, Deutschland

    Kenan Kolat Bundesvorsitzender, Türkische Gemeinde Deutschland, Berlin

    Moderator
    Martin Spiewak Journalist, DIE ZEIT, Hamburg

  • Carl Bildt on the terrorist attack in Turkey

    Carl Bildt on the terrorist attack in Turkey

    “Fifteen soldiers have been killed in an attack carried out by the terror organisation PKK in south-eastern Turkey. It is absolutely clear that we must strongly condemn attacks of this type.

    “The democratic reform process in Turkey is now gradually creating better conditions, also for those regions of the country that are dominated by Kurdish population groups, and it is these positive developments that the PKK wants to curb by means of terror.”

    Carl Bildt on the terrorist attack in Turkey.

  • Russia Says Karabakh Peace In Sight

    Russia Says Karabakh Peace In Sight

     

     

     

     

     

    By Emil Danielyan

    Russia expects the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to meet again shortly after next week’s Azerbaijani presidential election and reach a framework peace agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a newspaper interview published on Tuesday.

    He stressed the importance of a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement and the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations for Armenia’s security and economic development.

    “There remain two or three unresolved issues which need to be agreed upon at the next meetings of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Lavrov told the “Rossiiskaya Gazeta” daily. “Our understanding is that such meetings will take place shortly after the forthcoming [October 15] presidential elections in Azerbaijan.”

    “As one of three mediators, we have a sense that a denouement is quite real,” he said, adding that the two other mediating powers, the United States and France, also see a “very real chance” of a resolution of the Karabakh conflict.

    The mediators have been trying to get the conflicting parties to accept the basic principles of Karabakh peace that were formally put forward by them in November 2007. Senior French, Russian and U.S. diplomats co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group discussed the possibility of another Armenian-Azerbaijani summit during the most recent talks with the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers held in New York late last month.

    Lavrov said the future of the so-called Lachin corridor, which provides for the shortest overland link between Armenia and Karabakh, is now the main stumbling block in the peace talks. He did not elaborate.

    The Russian minister was interviewed by a “Rossiiskaya Gazeta” reporter late last week as he flew to Yerevan to meet with Armenia’s President Serzh Sarkisian and Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian. After the talks with Nalbandian he sounded cautiously optimistic about prospects for a breakthrough in the Karabakh peace process.

    However, a top aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev, struck a cautious note as he commented on Lavrov’s upbeat statements in Yerevan. “Major issues have not been agreed upon,” Novruz Mammadov told the Azerbaijani Trend news agency.

    According to Lavrov, Armenia should be keenly interested in a Karabakh settlement in the wake of the crisis in neighboring Georgia which he said exposed “the vulnerability of its position” and highlighted the importance of having an open border with Turkey. “Armenia has huge difficulties communicating with the outside world,” he said. “It is in the fundamental interests of the Armenian people to unblock this situation as soon as possible.

    “It really has few geographic and political options. As soon as the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement becomes a fact, Turkey will be ready to help Armenia forge normal links with the outside world, naturally through the establishment of diplomatic relations between Ankara and Yerevan.”

    The remarks ran counter to a widely held belief in the West that Moscow is disinterested in the normalization of Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey for fear of losing geopolitical leverage against Yerevan.

  • 18th Annual Houston Turkish Festival held in US

    18th Annual Houston Turkish Festival held in US

     

     
     

    [ 07 Oct 2008 17:57 ]

    Baku – APA. 18th Annual Houston Turkish Festival was held in the US. Press service of State Committee on Work with Azerbaijanis Living Abroad told APA that dance group of Houston Azerbaijanis’ Society also participated in the festival. 4000 people attended the festival. Our countrymen performed national dances “Chichekler”, “Uzum”, “Naz-naz” and “Arzu”.
    Houston-Azerbaijan Organization was established in 2004.