Following is the transcript of President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address, as transcribed by CQ
PRESIDENT BARACK Thank you. Thank you.
CROWD: Obama! Obama! Obama! Obama!
My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.
I thank President Bush for his service to our nation…
(APPLAUSE)
… as well as the generosit
| Turkey warns US over recognizing Armenian claims on 1915 incidents |
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Turkey’s foreign minister has warned Barack Obama’s incoming administration that any U.S. recognition of Armenian claims regarding the 1915 incidents could derail reconciliation efforts between the two neighbors. “It would not be very rational for a third country to take a position on this issue… A wrong step by the United States will harm the process,” the Anatolia news agency quoted Ali Babacan as saying late Friday.
Turkey has “never been closer” to normalizing ties with Armenia, its eastern neighbor, and a breakthrough could be secured in 2009, the minister said, according to the AFP.
Obama, who takes office Tuesday, pledged to his Armenian-American supporters during his election campaign to recognize the 1915 incidents as “genocide”.
The issue of 1915 incidents is highly sensitive for Armenia as well as Turkey. Around 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks, died in civil strife that emerged when Armenians took up arms, backed by Russia, for independence in eastern Anatolia.
However Armenia, with the backing of the diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in 1915. The issue remains unsolved as Armenia drags its feet in accepting Turkey’s proposal of forming a commission to investigate the claims.
ISSUE DISCUSSED BY TWO COUNTRIES Babacan said the dispute was among the issues that Ankara and Yereven had been discussing since reconciliation efforts gathered steam in September when Turkish President Abdullah Gul paid a landmark visit to Armenia, AFP reported citing Anatolian Agency’s report.
“Turkey and Armenia have never been closer to a plan on normalizing relations,” Anatolia quoted Babacan as saying.
Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations and their border has been closed for more than a decade, as Armenia presses the international community to admit the so-called “genocide” claims instead of accepting Turkey’s call to investigate the allegations, and Armenia’s invasion of 20 percent territory of Azerbaijan.
The fence-mending process, he said, was boosted by similar reconciliation efforts between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey.
“The prospect of normalizing relations both between Azerbaijan and Armenia and between Turkey and Armenia in 2009 is not a dream,” he added.
Gul became the first Turkish head of state to visit Armenia when he travelled to Yerevan in September to watch a World Cup qualifying football match between the two countries on the invitation of his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian. |
NEW U.S. ADMINISTRATION MAJORITY STANDS FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION
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| 15 January 2009, Resource : Panarmenian | |
Recent news reports indicate that Barack Obama has been receiving advice from Brent Scowcroft.[1]
Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft wrote a Washington Post piece, entitled “Middle East priorities for Jan. 21,”on November 21, 2008. “We believe that the Arab-Israeli peace process is one issue that requires priority attention,…The major elements of an agreement are well known. A key element in any new initiative would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be. These should contain four principal elements: 1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a non militarized Palestinian state.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was deputy national-security adviser under Mr. Scowcroft in the George H.W. Bush administration, was also retained by President elect Obama, a Scowcroft protégé and another close Scowcroft friend, Gen. James Jones was tapped for the National Security Council. Other prominent Republicans with close ties to Mr. Obama include former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who endorsed the Democrat in the final days of the campaign, and Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who shares Mr. Scowcroft’s philosophy and has the distinction of getting a very poor report card from the Armenian National Committee of America.
First thing on their plate will be the conflict at Gaza. However come April the Turkish position will be made very clearly for the new president.
[1] Brent Scowcroft (born March 19, 1925 in Ogden, Utah) was the United States National Security Advisor under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush and a Lieutenant General in the United States Air Force. He also served as Military Assistant to President Richard Nixon and as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He also served as Chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.
He received his undergraduate degree and commission into the Army Air Forces from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He has an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Brent Scowcroft, is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Turkish Council (ATC)
Labels: diplomacy, politics, USA
posted by M.A.M at 11:57 PM
The first ethnic Turkish head of a German political party has dismissed any comparisons between himself and US President-elect Barack Obama.
Cem Ozdemir, who was elected co-leader of the Green Party at the weekend, told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper such comparisons were “inappropriate”.
“It is enough for me to be Ozdemir of the Greens,” the 42-year-old said.
Mr Ozdemir’s rise has prompted comparisons with that of Mr Obama – who will be the first black US president.
At the Green Party’s weekend conference in Erfurt, eastern Germany, some of Mr Ozdemir’s supporters even wore badges that read “Yes We Cem”, in reference to an Obama campaign slogan.
Mr Ozdemir was born to Turkish Muslim parents in south-western Germany.
In 1994, he became the first ethnic Turk to be elected to the country’s parliament. In 2004, he won a seat in the European Parliament.
There are nearly three million ethnic Turks in Germany – making it the country’s largest ethnic minority.
Source: news.bbc.co.uk, 17 November 2008
