MJ

The only paradox that I see here is you...

This is what I call random thought...

Yes, that's what I assume. Otherwise, there is nothing even to discuss here. If we should understand that being liar implies that one can lie sometimes and tell the truth some other times, then the statement is perfectly fine as it is and leads to no contradictions whatsoever. Someone says (Italian or not) all Italians may sometimes lie, and that's the end of the statement. No further analysis needed.

Armat, the reason I said that you did not exactly refered to the paradox, is because in your sentence you forgot to mention that the first statment is an absolute truth, and Hofstadter demonstration is that the "word" is the "word" this kind of logic, where the ellement is the ellement, or the thing is the thing or whatever... (in the work it is clear the first statment is absolutly true). MJ, I am not trying to claim credibility on someones else expense, obviously you do not understand, or better don't want to understand what the paradox is about. OK true, Armat first reference could be misunderstood, because we could question if he is an Italian, but after Armat clarified that his point was about the Epimenides paradox, I posted a quotation to refer to the problem of the paradox in question. A quotation that it is possible that you did not read, because in this quotation it refer clearly that the first proposition as an absolute truth. Like a word is a word(is it really, because from this paradox I can deny it being a word, and THIS IS what it implies, from it you can reject pratically everything.). If my posts could not be understood, I quoted from someone else just after I knew what was exactly Armat allusion... Cut the BS, Domino.

“Those who speak, know nothing.” Let’s assume that it is true. Then the above speaker knows nothing, therefore he would not know what those who speak may know or not. Therefore, him/her being a speaker, that statement cannot be true. Thus we arrived to this contradiction because we assumed that the statement was true. Therefore, our assumption was false. Therefore, those who speak may know something. This is the only valid implication of the quoted statement with absolutely no built-in paradoxical structure.

I cannot read what you write - alomost ever - it is just impossible to read. Therefore I cannot reply to your "arguments." As far as the other people being dumb or smart is concerned, it is always a bad tone to claim credibility at someone else's expense.

I guess this is another example of your earlier confession that your thinking is random in its charatcter - perhaps you called it statistical.

And the previous system was not oppressive? Dan is someone in this forum who has a "debate" proposal for every problem on the earth.

Err...

... surely not about you... I am just puzzled where people like you come from at this age and time. Just out fo curiousity would like to understand what gives rise to such pathology. Otherwise, no interest in "debating..." I will offer Dan for such purposes...

Huh?

I am not concerned with your grammar. But what is it with you and "debating?" Don't you find your fixation with it somewhat pathological?

Are you ever critical of yourself?

No one lead the anti-soviet movement to a degree that it mattered in the big picture of things… Soviet Union collapsed because it was a non-sustainable system. Pretty much every other such system, except Cuba and North Korea (for the time being) has collapsed, and these two are also headed in that direction. One of the most amazing arguments in this tread is the separation of Lenin from Stalin. There has been only one difference between them - Lenin was a well-read murderer and imperialist, Stalin was more of a "street-smart" version of Lenin, and btw, the best student of Lenin. I also have a general question. What has happened lately for the Hye Forum to "enjoy" this "communist" (and btw pathological) "invasion?" Has some other Forum been shut down redirecting the traffic here?

There is no paradox here. It is just a statement expressed with a lack of discipline characteristic to Domino’ random train of thought… Here is the statement, again, for the sake of accuracy: “I am an Italian. All Italians are liars” (though traditionally this “paradox” is conveyed as “One Corsican said all Corsicans always lie.”) There are two possibilities for the above referenced narration – at least in a logical framework where a statement is either false or true: 1. it is false 2. it is true. If we assume that it is false (case #1), this implies that either the person is not Italian or there are Italians who are not liars. If we assume that the statement is true (case #2), then the person is indeed an Italian and all Italians are liars, but then he must be liar too, so he must be either non Italian or at least one Italian must be a non-liar. Since this assumption (#2) leads to contradiction, that means the assumption is false. Therefore we are left with a conclusion that the statement is false and therefore, again, either the person is not Italian or there is at least one Italian who is not a liar. P.S. I just noticed that there may have already been a similar explanation given to the "paradox."

Marx was not a communist.

I think this is a very inadequate argument. Armenians had lived under the Ottomans for hundreds of years. Even a total idiot would have understood the environment one was in. Your other argument is more descriptive of the situation. Armenian’s had just one goal – survival. That was the limit of it, especially if meanwhile they could make money. The rest didn’t matter. This survival paradigm became a close-system philosophy for subsequent decades. Even a special term was coined – “goyabahbanutiun.” This term was maximally descriptive of the repugnant set of mind of the politically active segment of Armenian Diaspora, leading to a psychology of a parasite. It still has a large place in the Diasporan Armenian psyche. Some relatively small segments have started to reorient their psyche towards more noble goals in the last 10 years or so. One would only want to be optimistic about its pace.

How Europe Gets Bush Wrong History may be their influence, but European Bush-bashers should look past their assumptions By Michael Elliott Posted Sunday, November 23, 2003 "Why do they hate you, Mr. President?" asked Nick Robinson, the political editor of Britain's ITV News, at a press conference in London last week. "I don't know that they do," the President replied. But I fear he's too optimistic. There is something about Bush that just gets under the skin of Europeans. But why? Start with the obvious: the dislike of Bush is the repayment, with interest, of an old slight. Bush and his closest advisers were dismissive of Europe from the start. After spats over global warming and the International Criminal Court, the Administration rebuffed NATO members who pledged their support to the U.S. following Sept. 11, 2001. Other slurs followed, like Bush's sneer at the American reporter who dared ask the French President a question in French. None of that made Bush loved. Now many Europeans simply doubt that his commitment to democracy in the Middle East is genuine and cannot fathom why the U.S. does not lean harder on Israel to secure a lasting peace. I suspect, however, that there are more fundamental factors at work. Bush reminds Europeans of the dark angels of their past. He is a conviction politician, a man who knows what he thinks and couldn't care two hoots for what he doesn't know. But after its blood-drenched flirtation with fascism and communism, Europe distrusts such certainty. Remember: Margaret Thatcher, another conviction politician, was hated—really, truly hated—by half of Britain. Bush is religiously devout, and that too calls up troubling spirits from Europe's vasty deep. Not all Europeans are godless heathens nor all Americans washed in the blood of the Lamb. But in European memory, religious fervor has often been a source of bitter communal strife—think of Ireland and the Balkans. Bush is prepared to use force to advance his political goals. But after the carnage of what might be called the long European war from 1914 to 1989, some Europeans—particularly older ones, in my experience—just cannot accept the idea that any war can be a good one. Europe these days is a curiously inward-looking place. Its political class is preoccupied with the time-consuming process of building the European Union. Young Europeans, meanwhile, are enjoying the borderless, happy and comfortable world that is their own continent. I couldn't prove it, but I suspect that Europeans are both less interested in and less knowledgeable about the U.S. than they were 20 years ago. They increasingly form their views of the U.S. from the sort of European journalism that stresses American weirdness, as if every American were a Botoxed, snake-handling cowboy Holy Roller, and that has produced what Nick Robinson calls a "grotesque caricature" of Bush in Europe. Fair-minded Europeans who read Bush's speech in London last week will surely adjust their image of him. I was particularly struck by this passage: "Because European countries now resolve differences through negotiation and consensus, there's sometimes an assumption that the entire world functions in the same way. But let us never forget ... beyond Europe's borders, in a world where oppression and violence are very real, liberation is still a moral goal, and freedom and security still need defenders." Every word of that is true. If Europeans continue to hate the man who said them, they diminish not him, but themselves. http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101031201...01/nagenda.html

This is a very pertinent observation practically not known by Armenians. I would like to make only a couple of additional comments: The promise of Voronsov-Dashkov was based on the 1914 Address of the Russian Czar to the Armenian nation. The text of the Address was unambiguously making clear that it was written primarily for the Armenians on the other side of the border. Clearly, it made the Turks very wary. The interesting thing was that the Czar was promising Armenians freedom from Ottoman Empire, while the issue of the freedom of Armenians from the Russian Empire was conveniently circumvented. It would have been natural from Armenians, assuming political wisdom, to respond to such a call only after the freedom was granted to [Eastern] Armenia. But with Armenians then (and to a large degree now) this would have been an exaggeration. Now, the thing is that the attempts of mobilizing what would later be called “Western” Armenians (at the time they were called Turkish Armenians) against the Ottoman Empire resulted in total fiasco. However, such possibility itself was enough for the effective Turkish leadership to want to finalize her old plan of annihilation of Armenians. However, for the sake of the record, one has to stress that the possibility of Armenians’ siding with the Russians does not relieve the Turks from the responsibility of what they have done to Armenians. With the same token, the potential siding of Armenians would have not implied violations of the “rules of loyalty” to the Ottoman Turkey – Armenians would have been well within their rights and would have put themselves on the high pedestal of liberation straggle. However, with rare exceptions (such as the resistance of Van, Mush, Sasun, etc), the conduct of [“Western”] Armenians was by in large one of cowardice (perhaps it is hard to put the blame for such cowardice on them because the resoluteness to step up to the plate could not have come overnight since the Armenian identity and self-consciousness were totally denigrated outside some isolated islands.) One has to note also that Armenians of Van, Mush, Sasun, etc, were the ones who saved themselves in large numbers. In general, while the reality of the Armenian Genocide is a testimony of the brutality of the Turkish leadership and self-consciousness of the time (and perhaps not too much has changed since), it is also a testimony of lack of national consciousness and morality by the Armenian side. And speaking of morality, I think the style, manner and the scope of the pursuit for the “Recognition” of the Genocide is another testimony of lack of national morality – only this time in our days.

You may want to ask it to his grandson: Hayg Oshagan 541 Manoogian Hall Department of Communication Wayne State University Detroit, MI 48201 You can easily find his email address and phone number.

www.t r a n s a c t i o n p u b .c o m Send all orders to: Transaction Publishers Department OF04LI 390 Campus Drive Somerset, NJ 08873 USA Toll-free (U.S. only): 1-888-999-6778 Tel: (732) 445-1245 Fax: (732) 748-9801 Visit our website www.transactionpub.com Offer expires June 1, 2004 RECEIVE A 10% DISCOUNT Modern Armenia People, Nation, State Gerard Libaridian Modern Armenia reviews Armenian politics and political thinking from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, and the evolution of Armenians from peoplehood to statehood. Written by a key governmental advisor in the early years of Armenian independence, this book analyzes the internal dynamics of the revolutionary movement, the genocide, the Armenian diaspora, its recent independence, and the relationship of these developments to processes in the Ottoman/Turkish, Rus-sian, and Western states. Starting with an overview of Armenian history from mid-nineteenth century to the 1970s, Modern Armenia proceeds to explore the dynamics that led up to and shaped the modern republic. The book is divided into four parts: Understanding the ideologies adopted by the Armenian revolutionary movement in the late nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire; Ideology of the Young Turks; Complexities of dealing with the history of relations between Armenians and Kurds and Armenians and Turks; and Overview of Armenia and Armenians during the past two decades, including the rebirth of independent Armenia, its foreign and security policy options, and its relations with the Diaspora. Modern Armenia will be of interest to students of Armenian history, independence movements, the dissolution of the Soviet empire, and foreign relations. Gerard J. Libaridian is currently Alex Manoogian Visiting Professor of Modern Armenian History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and was co-founder and director of the Zoryan Institute in Cambridge from 1982 to 1990. He was advisor, then senior advisor, of foreign and security policy to former president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian from 1991 to 1997 and was First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (1993-1994). ISBN: 0-7658-0205-8 (cloth) January 2004 296 pp. $39.95 $35.95 10% SAVINGS!

From NY Times Into Thin Air: Kyoto Accord May Not Die (or Matter) By ANDREW C. REVKIN Published: December 4, 2003 Since it was negotiated in Japan in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol, the first treaty that would require countries to curb emissions linked to global warming, has lingered in an indeterminate state, between enactment and outright rejection. On Tuesday its prospects were dealt what may have been a fatal blow when a top Russian official said his country would not ratify it. But some experts on climate and diplomacy say that the fate of the Kyoto treaty itself is rapidly becoming less important than the longer-term processes it set in motion. Even without approval by the United States and Russia — first and fourth on lists of the world's largest emitters of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases — the treaty has already changed the world in small but significant ways that will be hard to reverse, these experts say. From Europe to Japan and the United States, just the prospect of the treaty has resulted in legislation and new government and industry policies curbing emissions. The treaty's future impact is limited by deep flaws, many experts say, including its lack of any emissions limits on China and other big developing countries and its short time frame, with terms extending only to 2012. As a result, they add, new approaches must be developed now if atmospheric levels of the gases are to be stabilized. The protocol has been approved by 120 countries but was rejected by President Bush in 2001. Without the United States, the only way to reach the threshold for enactment under the treaty's terms was with Russian participation. If enacted, it would give industrialized countries until 2012 to reduce their combined emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases more than 5 percent below 1990 levels. The possibility remains that the statement on Tuesday by the Russian official, Andrei N. Illarionov, the top economic adviser to President Vladimir V. Putin, was just a negotiating ploy, aimed at extracting as many concessions as possible from the European Union and Japan, the treaty's main supporters. On Wednesday a lower-level official, Mukhamed M. Tsikanov, a deputy economics minister, sounded a note of hope for the treaty, declaring, "There are no decisions about ratification apart from the fact that we are moving toward ratification." Mr. Putin, meanwhile, remained silent. Regardless of which way Russia steps, the process of moving the world toward limiting releases of the gases after more than a century of relentless increases has clearly begun, said David B. Sandalow, a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution and an assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration who worked on the treaty. "The standard of success isn't whether the first treaty out of the box sails through," he said. "The standard is whether this puts the world on a path to solving a long-term problem. Other multilateral regimes dealing with huge complex problems, like the World Trade Organization, have taken 45 or 50 years to get established." Mr. Sandalow and other experts noted that the European Union had already passed a law requiring a cap and credit-trading system for the gases starting in 2005. It will follow the pattern laid out in Kyoto no matter what happens to the treaty. Even in the United States, where Mr. Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress strongly oppose the treaty, legislation that would require milder restrictions on emissions than those in the Kyoto treaty has gained some momentum. Opponents of the treaty acknowledge that it has already made a difference, though they say it is a harmful one. "Kyoto is dead and has been dead, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't done some real damage and won't continue to do some real damage," said Myron Ebell, a climate policy analyst for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-backed group that opposes regulatory solutions to environmental problems. "If global warming turns out to be a problem, which I doubt, it won't be solved by making ourselves poorer through energy rationing," he said. "It will be solved through building resiliency and capability into society and through long-term technological innovation and transformation." Critics of that view say the one feature of the Kyoto treaty that cannot be jettisoned is a ceiling on emissions. Without limits, they say, there will be no incentive for industry to innovate and find the cheapest, most effective ways to limit the human impact on the atmosphere, said David D. Doniger, the climate policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private environmental group. "If the United States had invented the catalytic converter but not passed clean air laws," he said, "it would still be sitting on a shelf and we'd still be choking in smog." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/internat.../04CLIM.html?th

New York Times Europe's Vision of Unity Meets Headwinds By RICHARD BERNSTEIN Published: December 4, 2003 RUSSELS, Dec. 2 — The grand, even historic vision shared by all of the 25 current and imminent members of the European Union is that the organization, begun as a simple customs union several decades ago, will move to ever higher levels of integration, able to forge common European positions on defense and foreign policy as well. But the recent reality of the union has been a series of crises and disagreements that have led some analysts to wonder if it can work at all with so many members of such different sizes and interests. It is now making final preparations for its largest expansion ever, with 10 new member countries representing about 80 million people scheduled to join next spring. Lately, it seems, the European Union can hardly take a step without finding itself entangled in some maddeningly divisive issue. Controversy erupted last week over a decision to allow France and Germany to run budget deficits that exceed statutory limits governing the euro, leading to suspicions of one set of rules for big countries, another for small ones. Right after that, Britain, France and Germany agreed on a common European defense policy but had to omit any reference to a headquarters, to avoid a suggestion of competing with NATO. Next week, foreign ministers from member countries will meet in Brussels to decide whether to adopt a new constitution. Its text, already the subject of a year and a half of intense negotiations, is still producing arguments, mostly over how power is to be distributed among the members, but not only over that. There are also fierce disagreements over the demands of some countries that the constitution's preamble mention God. There are even debates over whether to give the holder of a post to be created soon the title of foreign minister or foreign affairs representative or something else. "It is a serious thing," Reijo Kemppinen, the spokesman for Romano Prodi, the European Commission president, said of the current splits within the organization. "At the moment it looks a bit worrisome. "But," Mr. Kemppinen continued, "the E.U. has faced these types of crises before. Political integration is not something that can be reached overnight. It took 50 years to reach a common currency. It might take a couple of years more to reach political integration." This is not to neglect the historic meaning of the looming enlargement, by which the European Union, which started with just six countries, will become a 25-member club bringing most of the former East Bloc states, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Hungary, into its democratic, free-trade embrace. Still, as the enlargement approaches, the group has been enmeshed in a host of arguments, small and large, stemming from one common root, experts say. "The basic, central conflict has to do with the distribution of power between the big and the small states," said William Drozdiak, director of the Trans-Atlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund, a research organization. "The danger is that what you'll end up with after enlargement is a glorified customs union," he added. "All the pretense of a common European defense and security policy would fall apart, and you'll see more and more the big countries just getting together to create coalitions of the willing to do things on their own. That's where we're heading." His assessment is far from universally shared. Yet the accumulated disagreements of the last few weeks and months have led other people to worry that the organization's goal of moving from economic integration to common policies in defense and foreign affairs will at the very least be difficult to accomplish. The immediate battleground has to do with the new constitution, whose purpose is to create the rules by which the expanded European system will operate. The draft of the constitution has been criticized by Poland and Spain. They are demanding more weight in the European Union's councils of power than the current document gives them. One reason for their dissatisfaction is that an earlier plan, agreed to in Nice two years ago, gave Poland and Spain almost as many votes each in the European Council as Germany, which has about twice as many people as either country. Now, to their displeasure, the earlier system has been jettisoned in favor of an arrangement known as the double majority, which would give greater weight to the bigger countries: Italy, France, Germany and Great Britain. At the same time, the French and the Germans worry about the danger to them of giving a preponderance of voting power to the smaller states. If, for example, there were to be another debate like the one over war in Iraq, a combination of smaller states could win official support for a policy that France and Germany bitterly opposed. French and German power certainly seemed to be on display in the recent action on the rules regarding the euro, which specify that no country using the currency can have a budget deficit exceeding 3 percent of its gross domestic product or an inflation rate higher than 3 percent. Paradoxically, it was Germany itself, by far the European Union's most important economy, that insisted on strict anti-inflation curbs as a condition for creating the euro in the first place. But that was a decade ago, before anybody imagined that the economies of Germany and France would go into prolonged recessions, making it politically impossible to keep deficits below the required levels. Facing that situation, both countries will by the end of this year have surpassed the deficit ceiling three years in a row. Despite bitter opposition from many bureaucrats, they persuaded the organization's finance ministers not to impose the costly penalties that are required in the official currency stabilization rules. The reaction shows not only concern over the two countries' power, but also the way toward possible compromises. In the end, according to senior European Union officials, there was no great appetite for imposing penalties on the Germans in particular, because the other countries need Germany to resume its economic growth. In other words, what seemed to prevail was a recognition that not all of the member states need to always be precisely equal. "Germany and France have always been the engines of the union," Pavel Telicka, the Czech ambassador said, "and we don't have a problem with that. It's the reality." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/04/internat...pagewanted=1&th

The following may be of interest: RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC ___________________________________________________________ RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 7, No. 226, Part I, 3 December 2003 A daily report of developments in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Southwestern Asia, and the Middle East prepared by the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx OPPOSITION INHERITS A COLLAPSING GEORGIAN STATE By Richard Giragosian The impressively peaceful transition of leadership in Georgia has generated an atmosphere of optimism that contrasts starkly with the normally tumultuous politics of the South Caucasus. The leaders of two of the main opposition groupings, the Burdjanadze-Democrats and Saakashvili-National Movement blocs, succeeded in channeling popular anger over the allegedly rigged outcome of the 2 November parliamentary ballot into demands for regime change that forced the resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze. This success was greatly bolstered by the opposition's prudent reliance on peaceful confrontation. But the real tests for the new leaders, and for the country as a whole, lie in controlling the chaos and containing the collapse that currently define the Georgian state. The fairly rapid fall of the Shevardnadze government came as a surprise to many, including the opposition leaders themselves. Although Nino Burdjanadze and Mikhail Saakashvili emerged as the public faces of the movement against the Shevardnadze government, there was a much broader effort involved. The breadth and depth of the movement opposing the government also marked the graduation of the country's civil society from a potential to a powerful agent for change. But the explanation for such a smooth and peaceful transition lies much deeper than any public victory of civil society. The fundamental reason for such an easy transition was actually the vacuum that has existed in the country for some time. The steady collapse of the Georgian state, with a significant loss of authority and an obvious failure to provide the most basic services to its people, provided a relatively unopposed path to power. This loss of state power has been so profound and so extensive that it also resulted in a serious decrease in legitimacy. The failure of the army or the security forces to support the president at the height of the crisis further demonstrated the extent of this collapse. And it was this loss of legitimacy that accelerated the resignation of the president and paved the way for a new leadership. But the very same factors that aided in the swift transition pose the most serious obstacles for the new leaders. The sheer magnitude of the collapse of the state in recent years, as reflected in the recently revealed bankruptcy of the state budget, presents the next Georgian leadership with a set of limited options. The empty state coffers, both literally and figuratively, combined with the danger of raised public expectations, demonstrate the difficulty of assuming the economic and political legacy of Shevardnadze's governance. The current transitional leadership, led by acting President Burdjanadze and presidential aspirant Saakashvili, is already threatened by one concrete manifestation of this loss of state authority. Specifically, this pressure comes from Adjarian leader Aslan Abashidze. Personifying the erosion of state power, Abashidze has built a clan-based fiefdom in his southern Georgian region, withholding contributions to the central budget and exercising an increasingly potent ability to project power on the national level. His Revival Union was the second-largest faction in the parliament elected in 1999. Further bolstered by the presence of a Russian military base and control over a key Black Sea port, Abashidze is in a strong position to leverage his regional power into a decisive role in determining the outcome of the next stage of Georgia's transition. In recent days, Abashidze has closed his region's borders with the rest of Georgia, threatened publicly to boycott the coming presidential elections, and conducted a series of high-level meetings in Moscow with senior Russian officials. By assuming the role of "kingmaker," Abashidze seeks to highlight his ability to either stabilize or undermine the next government. The power and influence of the Adjarian leader is complemented by the roles of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This steady devolution of power from the central Georgian government to the regions has been compounded by the external role of Russia, which has granted citizenship to much of these breakaway regions' populations. Meanwhile, in regions of southern Georgia, the majority Armenian and Azerbaijani populations are demanding greater autonomy. It is therefore becoming increasingly likely that recent events have only exacerbated the weakening of Tbilisi to the benefit of the regions. This battle between the weakened central state and the emboldened regions could precipitate a return to the "warlordism" and violence of a decade ago. And although Georgia's geopolitical importance -- both as a "transit state" for the export of Caspian hydrocarbons and as a frontline state in the global "war on terrorism" -- remains constant, its current internal fragility could ultimately negate that strategic value. Thus the next stage in Georgia's difficult transition lies outside of the capital, but holds the key to the future of the country as a whole. .................................... Richard Giragosian is a Washington-based analyst specializing in international relations, with a focus on security, politics, and economics. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Copyright © 2003 RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved. _________________________________________________ RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

Email communication: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TURKISH- ARMENIAN BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL TABDC *********************************************** Discovering Common Grounds of Economic Cooperation *********************************************** VISIT US @ www.tabdc.org DESPITE OF NEGATIVE CONVICTIONS, TURKISH PUBLIC IS IN FAVOUR OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELATIONS WITH ARMENIA On 3rd December 2003, results of a survey held by a group of academician with 2,183 persons in 12 cities about the main foreign policy problems of Turkey has been published in Radikal. Research has been assessed as an important input to determine the social attitudes and choices in Turkey. According to results of the research, general attitudes of the Turkish public towards the neigbour countries are as follows: Turkish public has negative convictions about Armenia by 71 percent and about Israil and Greece by 63 percent. This ratio shows that general attitudes of Turkish public towards external world are negative. This also overlaps with the threat perceptions from the coutries of the region. 74 percent of the Turkish public thinks that neighbour countries have territorial pretentions on Turkey. This result shows that “enemy culture” has a wide social base and society has adopted the description of “Turkey surrounded with the enemies” with a confidential culture. Despite of anxiety towards neigbour countries, Turkish public thinks that Iran can not export her regime to Turkey (77%). Opinion of the public about the development of the relations with the Armenia which is the main country has the most negative convictions from the Turkish public in the region, is “yes” by 44.7 percent, “no” by 43.5 percent. By the research Turkish public has accepted the idea of Armenian genocide allegations must be freely discussible in Turkey by 61 percent. Inspite of historical and current oversensitivity of the subject, society has adopted a position in favour of freedom of expression.