Leaderboard

A PROUD ARMENIAN... Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey Aug 8 2014 by Yusuf Kanli It is just a joke. Has it ever happened? I have no idea. Most probably it was the product of a cheeky story teller. Once upon a time there was a sultan. He had a very mighty army and it was the era of conquest. Booty from war filled the treasury up to the top limit. With plenty of cash, no social problems at home and no external threat, the mighty sultan started to become bored. What should he do to entertain himself? Many people who failed to entertain the sultan perished; heads rolled down the imperial palace. One day, the frustrated sultan told his clown "Tell me such a joke that the apology of which will be worse than the joke!" The chief clown was a small guy with nice hair, as if he had an implant. He was so successful at his job that according to the talk of the town, he was hiding his immense treasure in shoeboxes. The task was a very serious one. His head was at risk. The clown thought about the issue extensively and eventually went back to the sultan's court with a bright idea. "My sultan," he said, "shall we walk a little bit in the rose garden?" Viziers were in charge of state affairs. The war was over and he could not yet concoct a reason to start a new war. The treasury was full anyhow. He was bored. "Let's go for a walk," he said and slowly climbed down the stairs to the palace's luxurious rose garden. After touring the garden for a while, the sultan and the clown were returning and all of a sudden, the clown pinched the sultan's back. "How dare you?" the sultan roared. "Is your head uneasy on your shoulders?" With a large smile on his face the clown replied back "Sorry my sultan, I mistook you for the mother queen!" The sultan was perplexed. He would yell at the clown, but he did exactly what he ordered him to do: A joke the apology of which would be worse than the joke... The clown received a loaded bahsish... One of the presidential candidates was talking on television. The interviewer acting the role of a journalist, was asking the questions he was given by the "Public Diplomacy Department," created as a prelude to moving a while later to a grotesque white palace, the "AK Saray" for the construction of which a forest was devastated. The candidate was complaining that his opponents were constantly accusing him of being arrogant. "They complain that I was arrogant because I called one an Alevi and the other a Yazidi ... So what? They have been saying many things about me ... They claimed I was Georgian ... Some said something even far worse ... Sorry to say, but some even came forth with an ugly claim that I was an Armenian ... From my grandfather down, we have been Turks ... That's what I was raised with..." Can it be "worse" for anyone to be a Greek, Armenian, Kurd or Turk? What relevance is there for nationality or ethnicity? For a civilized mentality aware of the fact that in this open air brothel, where thousands of ethnicities, cultures, belief groups came, settled and dissolved in the big melting pot, Anatolia, or left their residue and vanished for good or exterminated after being subjected to some unfortunate, shameful undertakings of the mentality that considered being called an Armenian as something horrible. Turkey's Armenian community, the few remaining from one of the several ancestral peoples of this land, was hurt with the sultan's statement in the making. I feel as if I am a proud Armenian today. p.s. Vote on Sunday! August/08/2014 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/a-proud-armenian.aspx?pageID=449&nID=70122&NewsCatID=425

MEDIATORS' FALSE PARITY ENCOURAGES BAKU, SAYS ARTSAKH LEADER Thursday, August 7th, 2014 http://asbarez.com/125726/mediators%E2%80%99-false-parity-encourages-baku-says-artsakh-leader/ Foreign Minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Karen Mirzoyan STEPANAKERT--"The recent military venture by Azerbaijan, which has resulted in a large number of human casualties and caused a drastic escalation of tensions in the conflict zone, is primarily aimed at undermining the mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries dealing with the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict," Foreign Minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Karen Mirzoyan said in comments to News.am. "The NKR authorities have repeatedly drawn the attention of the mediators and the international community as a whole to the ongoing attempts by Azerbaijan to destabilize the situation and the need to take practical and effective measures to put an end to them. "Unfortunately, the lack of an adequate assessment and a strong and targeted condemnation of violations of the ceasefire continue to generate a false sense of permissiveness and impunity in Azerbaijan, which, against the background of complete detachment from the realities of the conflict and the negotiation process, leads only to growing tensions and deterioration of the situation. "The current drastic escalation of tensions on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan marked the culmination of numerous provocations and violations of the ceasefire by Azerbaijan over the past few months," Karen Mirzoyan said. Stressing that the Karabakh side will continue to thwart any attempts by Azerbaijan to destabilize the situation on the front line and to increase the level of tensions in the conflict zone, the Foreign Minister mentioned that Artsakh consistently comes up with initiatives to reduce tensions and promote stability and predictability on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan. "We believe that immediate implementation of the mentioned urgent measures, as well as the development of effective mechanisms to investigate violations of the ceasefire will allow stabilizing the situation and quickly addressing potential incidents on the Line of Contact in the future. On its part, Artsakh is ready to provide the international community with detailed information on the recent incidents and contribute to strengthening of the ceasefire and creating conditions for the peaceful settlement of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh," Mirzoyan concluded.

OPPOSITION LAWMAKER SUES ERDOGAN OVER INCITING HATRED FOR ARMENIANS August 6, 2014 - 21:37 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - An opposition lawmaker has filed a legal complaint against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accusing him of inciting racial hatred for saying people had insulted him in the past by claiming he was of Georgian or Armenian descent, the Associated Press reports. Hursit Gunes filed the criminal complaint with court officials Wednesday. In an interview on NTV television late Tuesday, Aug 5, ahead of Sunday's presidential elections in which he is a candidate, the prime minister said: "They have said so many things about me. Some said I was Georgian. One said -- begging your pardon -- even uglier things, that I was Armenian." Erdogan has also faced accusations that he is propagating sectarian divisions and engaging in rhetoric bordering on anti-Semitism by comparing Israel to Hitler.