From: SS Aya <[email protected]>
Re: OBAMA – BİDERN LOVERS – Here is the ANCA declaration.
Question: “Is the Right Choice (for about 1 million) Armenian Americans” also “The Right Choice (for about 300 millions) non-Armenian Americans”?
Short Turkish explanation: iki ucu boklu degnek! ( Stick with shit on both ends).
S.S.Aya
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“ANCA” <[email protected]> 25/10/2008 05:56
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The former press secretary of President George W. Bush says he backs Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama for the November election.
25 Ekim 2008 Cumartesi 04:28
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| will be voting for Barack Obama,” Scott McClellan said, according to the transcript of an interview to be broadcast on CNN’s Larry King Live on Friday.
McClellan also said he has always planned to support a candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done. McClellan, who was Bush’s chief spokesman from July 2003 to April 2006, is the second former administration official to back Obama in a week after Bush’s first secretary of state Colin Powell. On Sunday, Powell in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press endorsed Obama, saying ‘I think that Senator Obama brings a fresh set of eyes, fresh set of ideas to the table’. Earlier this year McClellan sharply criticized President Bush for the Iraq war in his book, ‘What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception’.
He wrote in his book, “History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. The perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.” After the book released, the White House said Bush was surprised and saddened about it. Meanwhile, The New York Times in a Thursday editorial endorsed the Democratic presidential hopeful, saying Obama had ‘met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change’. The Times posted its endorsement on its website on Thursday evening and was to publish it in Friday editions of the newspaper. |
President Serzh Sarkisian pledged to initiate an “active” public debate on how to resolve the conflict with Azerbaijan and accused his opponents of exploiting the issue after inspecting frontline positions of Nagorno-Karabakh’s army over the weekend.
Sarkisian traveled to Karabakh to attend military exercises conducted by Karabakh Armenian forces. He then visited sections of the heavily militarized Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact east of the disputed territory.
Speaking to Armenian Public Television afterwards, a uniform-clad Sarkisian acknowledged that internationally sponsored efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict have entered an “active phase.” “I strongly believe that we will enter a period of much more active public discussions,” he said. “Discussions are always useful but they must center only on the interests of the Armenian people. We have invested too much effort into the settlement of the Karabakh problem to turn a blind eye on or to ignore instances of exploitation [of the issue.]”
“We are achieving an important historical objective, and if someone is trying to pursue other interests, then that is not moral,” he added.
It was an apparent reference to opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian’s October 17 speech in which he accused Sarkisian of being willing to “put up Karabakh for sale” in return for earning the West’s support for his continued rule. Ter-Petrosian claimed that Sarkisian is even ready to agree to Russia’s replacement by Turkey at the OSCE Minsk Group helm. Newspapers supporting Ter-Petrosian have also seized on Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s reported claims that Sarkisian himself asked Ankara to mediate in Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations.
Sarkisian denied the claims attributed to Gul, insisting that he believes Turkey can only “assist” in the Karabakh peace process. “Yes, I am convinced that Turkey can assist and, I think, is now assisting in the process of the Karabakh conflict resolution,” he said. “President Gul’s [September 6] visit to Yerevan, the continuation of Turkish-Armenian negotiations is a very good example of solving very difficult problems.” Turkish contribution to Karabakh peace will be even greater if Ankara opens the Turkish-Armenian border and establishes diplomatic relations with Yerevan, he added.
Sarkisian further described as “very legitimate” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s efforts to host the next, potentially decisive, meeting of his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts. But he would not say when that meeting could take place and what its chances of success are.
“A resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is possible if Azerbaijan recognizes the Nagorno-Karabakh people’s right to self-determination, if Nagorno-Karabakh has a land border with Armenia, and if international organizations and leading nations guarantee the security of the Nagorno-Karabakh people,” stated the Armenian president.
Sarkisian’s newly reelected Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliev, repeated on Friday that Baku will never recognize Karabakh’s secession from Azerbaijan.
The U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group were due to visit the conflict zone this week in line with their pledges to step up the search for Karabakh peace after the October 15 presidential election in Azerbaijan. But the group’s French co-chair, Bernard Fassier, said late last week that the trip has been postponed.
Analysts in Yerevan were on Monday divided over possible reasons for the delay. Manvel Sargsian, a Karabakh expert at the Armenian Center for National International Studies, attributed it to Medvedev’s initiative. “It looks as though a new situation has arisen after that statement and the parties are chewing over their next steps,” he said.
But Gagik Harutiunian, director of the Noravank Foundation, believes that the United States and France have no problem with Russia’s unilateral push for a Karabakh settlement. “The situation is such that they may have chosen not to meddle in the ongoing process to avoid disrupting it,” he said.
Richard Giragosian, a Yerevan-based U.S. analyst, likewise saw no U.S.-Armenian disagreements on Karabakh. “Moscow and Washington have actually moved even closer to each other in the Minsk Group,” he told RFE/RL.
By Emil Danielyan
When he paid an official visit to Yerevan on October 21, Medvedev publicly urged Presidents Serzh Sarkisian of Armenia and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to meet in his presence in Russia. The Karabakh dispute was high on the agenda. “I hope that the three presidents will meet in the very near future to continue discussions on this theme,” he told a joint news conference with Sarkisian. “I hope that the meeting will take place in Russia” (Regnum, October 21). He noted that the Karabakh peace process now seemed to be “in an advanced stage.”
Medvedev discussed what the Kremlin described as preparations for the Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in a phone call with Aliyev the next day (Interfax, October 22). Konstantin Zatulin, a Kremlin-linked Russian pundit, told Armenian journalists afterward that the crucial summit would likely take place in early November; but neither conflicting party has yet confirmed the meeting, let alone announced any dates for it. Aliyev’s chief foreign policy aide, Novruz Mammadov, has said only that it was “possible” (Trend news agency, October 22). Armenian officials have not commented on the matter at all.
Medvedev announced his initiative following unusually optimistic statements on Karabakh peace prospects that were made by his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. In an October 7 interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Lavrov spoke of a “very real chance” to end the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in the coming weeks. “There remain two or three unresolved issues that need to be agreed upon at the next meetings of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he said. He added that the future of the so-called Lachin corridor, which is the shortest overland link between Armenia and Karabakh, is now the main stumbling block in the peace talks. Three days later, Lavrov held a trilateral meeting with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts on the sidelines of a CIS summit in Bishkek.
Many analysts in the South Caucasus and the West have long contended that Russia was uninterested in a Karabakh settlement, lest it lose leverage against Azerbaijan and, even more, Armenia, its main ally in the region. Peace with Azerbaijan, they have argued, would reduce the significance for Armenia of maintaining close military ties with Russia and make the Armenian economy less dependent on Russian energy supplies. Medvedev’s desire to host the crucial Aliyev-Sarkisian encounter is, however, a clear indication that Karabakh peace is not necessarily incompatible with Russian goals and interests in the region, especially if Moscow plays a key role in a multinational peace-keeping force that would have to be deployed in the conflict zone.
Armenia is rife with speculation that Moscow is trying to cajole Azerbaijan into agreeing to a Russian troop presence and pursuing a more pro-Russian policy on other issues, notably the transportation of Caspian oil and gas to the West. “To that end [the Russians] need to force Armenia into making essentially unilateral and absolutely unacceptable concessions on the Karabakh issue,” Yerkir, a Yerevan weekly controlled by the governing Armenian Revolutionary Federation party, wrote on October 24, reflecting the growing opinion among local observers.
Sarkisian appeared to rule out such concessions when he said after his talks with Medvedev that the peace process had to proceed on the basis of the framework peace agreement that was formally put forward by the Minsk Group’s U.S., Russian, and French co-chairs in November 2007. The document calls for a phased settlement of the conflict that would start with the liberation of at least six of the seven Azerbaijani districts around Karabakh that were fully or partly occupied by Armenian forces during the 1991-1994 war. In return, Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population would be allowed to determine the disputed territory’s status in a future referendum.
According to U.S. officials privy to the talks, Baku and Yerevan essentially agreed to this peace formula as of late last year and only needed to work out some of its details. Political turmoil in Armenia that followed the February 2008 presidential election and the ensuing toughening of Azerbaijani leaders’ Karabakh rhetoric, however, have dealt a serious blow to the mediators’ efforts to negotiate a peace deal. Those efforts gained new momentum after the Russian-Georgian war, with all three mediating powers stressing the danger posed by unresolved ethnic disputes in the region.
However, the sharp deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations resulting from the Georgia crisis called into question Moscow’s and Washington’s ability to continue to work together on Karabakh. Medvedev’s seemingly unilateral initiative raised more such questions. Washington has yet to react officially to the move. Incidentally, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried flew to Yerevan ahead of the Russian’ president’s visit. Fried said after talks with Sarkisian on October 17 that the signing of a Karabakh peace accord before the end of the year was “possible” but “not inevitable” (RFE/RL Armenia Report, October 20).
Meanwhile, Bernard Fassier, the Minsk Group’s French co-chair, told the Azerbaijani APA news agency on October 21 that he and his American and Russian opposite numbers planned to visit Baku and Yerevan jointly next week; but two days later he said that the trip had been postponed, ostensibly because of the co-chairs’ conflicting work schedules.
Event Information
When
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
After each panel, participants will take audience questions. A buffet lunch will be served from 12:30 to 1:00 p.m.
Nonresident Fellow, Foreign Policy
SETA
Chief Advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Republic of Turkey
Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy
Radikal (Turkey)
German Marshall Fund
Member of Turkish Parliament
George Mason University
Council on Foreign Relations
Bogazici University and Carleton University
SETA
SETA
Turkish Daily News
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Nonresident Fellow, Foreign Policy
American University of Armenia Extension Program
Presents
Armenia in Old Maps and Old Armenian Maps
Illustrated Talk in English by
Rouben Galichian
October 29, 18:30-20:00
AUA, 5th floor, Small Auditorium
Free Admission
The presentation is prepared to give the layman an idea how
non-Armenian mapmakers have shown Armenia in their maps, accompanied
by the images of the important maps. Some common misconceptions
generally used by many specialists regarding Armenia are also discussed.
Armenia has existed for millennia and this fact is well displayed on
the maps prepared by various mapmakers all over the world. The
earliest map showing Armenia is in fact the oldest World Map, a
Babylonian clay tablet displaying the known world and dating form the
6th century BC.
>From then on all major cartographers and mapmakers have shown Armenia
in their maps, notwithstanding the fact that at certain times Armenia
as an independent kingdom has not existed, but all that time the
territory where the Armenian people lived has been entitled Armenia.
Various maps of the Greek, Roman, early Christian, Latin, Assyrian and
Islamic maps come to prove this fact.
Samples of all these maps collected from major libraries and museums
of the world are displayed, followed by maps made by Armenian authors,
some of which are not well known.
Speaker: Rouben Galichian has been seriously studying geography and
cartography since 1970s. He is the author of three monographs:
“Historic Maps of Armenia: The Cartographic Heritage” (I. B. Tauris,
London, 2004), “Armenia in World Cartography” (2005) and “Countries
South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps: Armenia, Georgia and
Azerbaijan ” (2007). He represents the huge cartographical heritage
related to Armenia not only by books and articles but also by public
lectures and speeches at different scientific conferences and by media
in the USA and in Europe.
About AUA Extension:
American University of Armenia Extension Department (AUA Extension)
serves as University’s principal interface with the community. At AUA
Extension we plan, design, develop and deliver a number of quality
courses to target certain sectors of government, academia, private
organizations and individuals to help them fulfill professional and/or
career goals through flexible and innovative adult and continuing
education and training programs. We offer a comprehensive English
Language Training Program, a multitude of Computer Literacy and
Information Technology training and a number of Leadership, Business
and Entrepreneurial courses. Our mission is to foster individual,
organizational, and community growth and transformation, through
accessible, high-quality programs. Our Vision is to become the
Education and Training Organization of choice to meet the changing
needs of those seeking the best in lifelong learning.