“For how long more will the Armenian authorities deceive us?” asks Jorge Rubén Kazandjian, Editor of Diario ARMENIA, an Argentina-based Digital Publication of the Armenian Cultural Association. He does not find the answer. He says that the fateful news about the Armenian-Turkish Protocols initialed through Swiss mediation, which are to be to the two Parliaments for ratification and supposed to lead to the reopening of the Armenian-Turkish border and normalization of bilateral relations, produced an effect of an unexpected “hammer blow” on the head. Armenia, as well as its representatives abroad, has repeatedly stated that no preconditions for negotiations must be set. However, it is clear now that preconditions were actually set and proved fatal to the triumph of truth and justice. Elaborating on the topic, Kazandjian say that, through its illegal actions, the Armenia Government is depriving the Armenian people of the opportunity to lay claims to their historical lands washed with blood…

Diario ARMENIA also reported that a solemn party was held on the occasion of the 80^th anniversary of the Coro Gomidás (the Komitas choir). The party was held at one of the hall in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Director of the choir Makruhí Eolmesekian made a speech of welcome. The singer Miguel Markarianperformed the variation of the tango “He nacido en Puente Alsina” (I was born in Puente Alsina). The Komitas choir performed Armenian songs, namely Hampartzum vaila, Shunch kashir Sevan, Kez hamar Hayastan.

The U.S.-based Asbarez.com reported that the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem recently lodged a strong protest against a decision by the Israeli Ministry of Interior to deport two seminarians involved in a fight with a young Jewish man who had spat on a religious procession in which they were involved. The provocation occurred on Sunday evening, Sept. 6, as Armenian seminarians returned to the Convent of St. James after holding their weekly procession in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The spokesman for the Patriarchate, Father Pakrad Bourjekian, noted that this was not the first time Armenian or Christian clergymen in Jerusalem had faced unprovoked aggression. The clergy are not the only ones singled out, he said. Lay members of the Armenian community who wear or display crosses are also victims of such attacks. Spitting on Christians, he added, has been occurring for the past several years, and the Ministry and police have failed to take any measures to stop it.

In addition to this “harassment by civilians,” Bourjekian said, the Ministry intentionally delays renewing the visas of Armenian monks and priests who were born in Lebanon, Syria, or Jordan, “causing them undue distress.”

Asbarez also reported that the Switzerland-Armenia Association issued a position paper Wednesday criticizing the protocols on the establishment and development of relations between Turkey and Armenia.

In the announcement, the organization fleshes out the contentious points of the protocols and dangers it poses to Armenia and its national security.

In this context, the Association concludes that the ratification of the documents will not allow Armenia to negotiate for Karabakh or raise the problem of the Armenian Genocide. The principle of territorial integrity will make it impossible for Armenia to support Nagorno-Karabakh. “Karabakh runs the enormous risk of no longer being supported by its mother country (the Republic of Armenia), thus being left alone in its claim for self-determination, part of the Principles of Madrid,” says the document. “As long as Turkey will not sign a document recognizing the Genocide, or an international criminal court does not condemn Turkey (as successor of the Ottoman Empire) for the Armenian Genocide, the General Assembly of the United Nations will have no reason to condemn it; as a consequence, there will be no instrument under international law to pursue Turkey — as legal successor of the Ottoman Empire, for this crime (even only to require that moral reparations be met),” says the position paper.

The source also reports that Bulgarian Ambassador to Armenia Todor Staykov handed copies of a large number of documents related to the life and work of Armenian national herores Gen. Antranig and Karekin Njdeh, thus far housed in Bulgaria’s Veliko-Turnovo military and historical archives, to the Armenian history museum and national archive.

“Such documents are part of the history of a nation and we handed over their copies in compliance with the law. I would also like to thank the Armenian Ministry of Culture for its assistance,” Ambassador Staykov said.

Armenia’s Ambassador to Bulgaria Sergei Manaseryan thanked the Bulgarian government or the research that it has carried out.

“2010 will be announced as the ‘Year of Armenia and Bulgaria.’ We are planning to exhibit Matenadaran documents referring to Bulgarians,” said Manaseryan.

Since Armenia regained its independence, Armenian-Turkish problems have become topical, writes the Turkey-based Agos newspaper.

The historical wish for revenge and hostility make it impossible for the countries to establish a dialogue. However, although history poses numerous questions, it is also evidence of thousands years of unity. Turks’ appeared in Asia Minor in 1071. Historians even claim that some Armenian princes under the Roman yoke contributed to the triumphant conquest by the tribes. Full of ups and downs that unity was destroyed in 1915. Armenians paid too high a price for that – besides sustaining numerous human losses, the Armenian people was bereaved of its Homeland. That was followed by deportation and emigration. At present, Armenians’ principal task is to preserve their national identity in the Diaspora.

An event that took place on September 1 evoked a wide response. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davudoglu stated that Armenia and Turkey had reached an agreement on normalizing bilateral relations. That state provoked an angry response on the part of the Opposition. What is surprising is that that, while many countries welcome the Armenian-Turkish initiatives, official Baku after an initial demarche, assumed a passive position by stating it is a domestic affair of Turkey and Armenia…

The “paper process” of normalizing the Armenian-Turkish relations is rapidly developing. The Lebnon-based Aztag daily reported that keeping track of all the information reported by Armenian and international mass media would require involving the whole staff. It is obvious that, despite the clearly set dates of ratification of the Protocols on normalizing the Armenian-Turkish relations, the entire process will be “frozen and unfrozen” several times. However, the entire process is in conformity with Turkey-fixed rules. Disregarding specific terms, Turkey may postpone, delay, object “freeze and unfreeze” the agenda in the “preliminary signing-signatures-parliamentary ratification” process. It obviously meets Turkey’s political interests. The aim is to show the international community Turkey’s goodwill.

The newspaper also underlines that the Protocols lack points on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenian Genocide and Kars treaty. By the highest standards, it does not mean anything, as the Protocols imply the formation of a commission of historians (the Armenian Genocide). One more point provides for the respect of territorial integrity and, in this context, various circumstances, with a silent signing of the Kars treaty to follow. Also, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is involved, which is awaiting settlement.

Representatives of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), Social-Democratic Party (SDP) Hnchakyan and Ramkavar-Azatakan Party of Armenia (RAPA) voiced their protest against the Armenian-Turkish Protocols, reported the Canada-based Horizon newspaper.

Following a meeting at the Armenian Community Center of Toronto, the representatives of the aforementioned parties issued the following statement: “The points of the Protocols are evidence of preconditions set by Turkey and running counter to the interests of Armenia and the Armenians. The obvious aim of the draft is to prevent the restoration of historical rights and cause a split in the Armenian society. The ratification of the Protocols by the two Parliaments will be a handicap to Armenians territorial claims, recognition of the Armenian Genocide (with all the achievements at the international level to be endangered) as well as to Armenia’s potential as negotiator in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process…”

On August 31, the Armenian Assembly of America issued a statement on the Armenian-Turkish Protocols. The statement particularly says that the Armenian authorities have also made it clear that no preconditions means just that — no linkage to progress on the Nagorno Karabakh peace talks and no conditions on affirmation of the Armenian Genocide."The incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide is internationally recognized, and Turks and Armenians have previously commissioned in 2003 an independent analysis through the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), which concluded that the events of 1915 constituted genocide," says the statement. The Armenian Assembly views as encouraging the commitments made by the government of Turkey to normalize relations with Armenia without preconditions. However, it recalls Turkey's ample track record of unfulfilled promises.

A roundtable on the cultural problems of Amshen (Black Sea) Armenians was held in Tuapse, reported the Yerkramas newpaper, published by the Armenian community in Russia. The roundtable was organized by the Armenian Information and Cultural Center “Amshen”, Center of Pontian and Caucasian Studies, Kuban State University and the Armenian charity, culture and education society Amshen in the Tuapse region. A part of the film Caucasian Atlantis was demonstrated at the roundtable. The film shot by the Sochi-based TV journalist Natella Sahakova tells about the Amshen Armenians.

The newspaper also interviewed the well-known psychologist Albert Naplajyan.

“The Armenians’ inexorable fate decided their mentality and helped work out defense mechanisms. Among them are also some types of aggression. However, different ethnic groups show aggression at different levels. Some of them resort to aggression in case of the slightest provocations, while others prefer conformist defense mechanisms. There also exist two types of ethnic aggression – intraethnic and interethnic. My observations show that Armenians demonstrate more intraethnic aggression. However, since ethnic groups form adaptive mechanisms during the entire period of their existence, it is most difficult to eradicate the harmful ones,” Naplajyan said. Speaking of conformism, he said that “yieldingness is when a person sees he or she is unable to surmount difficulties… However, there exists mechanical conformism: a person adapts to others’ views and demands without thinking… Armenians residing among other nations needed conformism. When a person adapts to a complicated environment, he or she both makes deliberate concessions and shows mechanical conformism, but individual differences are essential. All the types of aggression can be found among Armenians, but most often is the type of cunning conformism,” Naplajyan said.

At a Beirut conference of the Armenian Genocide, Marios Karoyian, President of the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Cyprus, stated that Cyprus has always been supporting the Armenia people in its struggle for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, reported Famagusta Gazette.

At the conference on the Armenian Genocide and International Law, Karoyian said that genocide is a crime – no matter it is committed during a war or in time of peace.

Turkey-based Hurriyet Daily reports that Ankara is pushing through a project that will see the translation into Armenian of some twenty contemporary Turkish poets. The “Poetic Words Become Peace Doves” project will be implemented under the auspices of Turkish Culture Minister Ertuðrul Gunay, who “pushes the button for Armenian expert Arthur Antranikyan's translation project.” “It is very important to realize such a project,” Gunay said. A commission of specialists from the Turkology department at Yerevan State University will work on the project, which will also include translations of Armenian literature into Turkish.

“On television they look just like my people--cynical, gloomy and forever complaining,” Asli Aydintasbas, a columnist of the Aksam newspaper writes in an article in the Forbes magazine.

“I am talking about Armenians--street interviews with residents of Yerevan, Armenia's capital, who sound just as skeptical as Turks about this week's sudden announcement by the two neighbors to &‘normalize’ relations,” she writes.

“That normalcy, of course, is arriving about a century after the two peoples faced each other in a brutal civil war. Hundreds of thousands of Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire were deported and massacred in 1915 in what is now eastern Turkey, in a period of turmoil and violence that Armenians call &‘genocide’ and Turks insist was &‘killing by both sides.’

For Turks and Armenians, the issue has always been semantics--whether or not to use the g-word in describing 1915. The majority of Turks believe, and were taught in school, that the killings were not officially sanctioned and do not amount to genocide. To Armenians on the other hand, 1915 is what the Holocaust is to Jews--the single most defining moment in establishing a national identity and a nation-state,” writes the author.

In their interview with Turkey-based Zaman newspaper, Diba Nigar Göksel and Gerald Knaus from the European Stability Initiative (ESI), a nonprofit research and policy institute, have said both Turkey and Armenia have a chance to marginalize extremist voices and enable a more reasonable debate to go forward, as the border between them remains closed but signs of a rapprochement have appeared. In their recent report “Noah’s Dove Returns: Armenia, Turkey and the Debate on Genocide,” they explore the issue of “genocide,” which, they said, is the single topic that poisons relations between Turks and Armenians. "There are hardly any reputable scholars in the field of genocide studies who doubt that what happened to the Armenians in 1915 constitutes genocide. “Armenians today face a choice: either treat Turkey as an eternal enemy or re-engage with its western neighbor in the hope of one day sharing a border with the European Union. … For their part, Armenians must accept that the recognition of the genocide will never pave the way for challenging a territorial settlement that has stood for nearly a century,” say the report.