Danny Tarkanian’s Supporters gather to promote the bid for U.S. Senate

January 30, 2018 By administrator

Danny Tarkanian’s bid for U.S. Senate

The California Club played host on Wednesday to 150 guests who had turned out to support Danny Tarkanian in his bid for the US Senate from Nevada in the 2018 mid-term elections. Approximately $200,000 was raised prior to the event, which was attended by community leaders and state and local officials.

“I am heartfelt for your support, generosity and taking part in my campaign. I look forward to representing the great state of Nevada, our wonderful country and being your “IAN” Senator in Washington,” said Tarkian during remarks at the reception.

prominent businessman and son of renowned college basketball coach, the late Jerry Tarkanian and Las Vegas City Council member Lois Tarkanian, Danny has proven to be a passionate advocate of Armenian American issues.

Tarkanian is the founder of the non-profit Tarkanian Basketball Academy, an organization that helps at-risk youth develop basketball and life skills. He earned his bachelor’s degree at UNLV, and his law degree at the University of San Diego. He’s worked as a lawyer, served as assistant coach with his father in Division I basketball, and started his own real estate development firm. Danny and his wife, Amy, together have four children.

Among the officials attending the event were: Mike Antonovich, former Los Angeles County Supervisor; Johnny Isbell, the former mayor of Pasadena, Texas; California State Assemblywoman Young Kim, who represents the 65th Assembly district and herself a candidate for the 39th Congressional district, currently represented by Ed Royce, who announced his retirement recently. Also present were Glendale Mayor Ara Najarian; City of Carson Mayor, Albert Robles and Victoria Seaman, a candidate for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional district.

Switzerland withdrawing bid to join EU

June 16, 2016 By administrator

The Swiss parliament on Wednesday voted to officially withdraw the country’s dormant application to join the European Union, Politico.eu reports.
Following a vote in the lower house, the government will now tell the EU to “consider [the application] as withdrawn,” Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter was quoted as saying by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
Burkhalter had earlier said the application, which was sent to the European Economic Community in 1992, was already invalid.
In 1992, the Swiss rejected joining the European Economic Area, of which Iceland, Norway and Lichtenstein are members and have access to the EU single market.
At the time, the Swiss government backed EU membership, but Swiss voters rejected the EU bid months later. The application has remained dormant ever since.

Greek Cyprus vows to block Turkey’s EU bid

October 19, 2015 By administrator

Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides gestures during an interview with Reuters on June 15, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

Greek Cyprus said on Monday that it would not end its veto of Turkey‘s accession negotiations with the European Union, potentially scuppering EU leaders’ plans to “re-energize” the talks in return for Ankara’s help in tackling Europe’s migrant crisis.

The conflict-divided eastern Mediterranean island has a long list of grievances against Turkey, its giant northern neighbor. It has blocked the accession talks for several years, citing the presence of Turkish troops in the Turkish-speaking north of the island.

“The reasons [the negotiations] were frozen have not ceased to exist,” Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides told the Greek state broadcaster NET. “As things presently stand, we cannot give our consent [to their resumption].”

EU leaders last week pledged renewed consideration of the long-stalled accession talks with Ankara, cash and easier visa terms in return for its help in tackling a migration crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflicts and poverty in the Middle East and Africa pour into Europe.

Almost half a million people, including many Syrians fleeing war in their homeland, have entered the EU this year, mainly crossing from Turkey to EU member Greece. Turkey itself has provided shelter for some 2.2 million Syrian refugees.

Kasoulides referred specifically to two chapters, or policy areas in accession negotiations, one concerning the judiciary and fundamental rights and the other dealing with justice, freedom and security.

Greek Cyprus, an EU member state since 2004, has been split along ethnic lines since a Turkish intervention in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup.

Greek Cyprus is blocking the accession talks because Turkey still keeps troops in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), whose government is recognized only by Ankara. The EU considers the Greek Cypriot government in Nicosia to represent the whole island.

On-off peace talks

Greek Cyprus is currently blocking six of the 35 chapters Turkey must conclude as part of its accession negotiations. These include energy, where Turkey has attempted to challenge Greek Cyprus’s right to explore for oil and gas in a region that has recently yielded some of the world’s biggest natural gas finds in a decade.

In addition to Greek Cyprus, some other EU member states have been at best lukewarm about the possible future admission of Turkey, a large, mainly Muslim nation that borders unstable, conflict-riven countries such as Syria and Iraq.

On-off peace talks over the years to reunite the island as a federation have so far failed, but diplomats say a present round of talks are showing encouraging signs of progress.

Kasoulides, who was in Athens to address an interfaith conference, said talks had not yet reached the stage where the sides had “mirror image” positions but said he was hopeful of progress as talks went on.

A former British colony, Cyprus has a complex governance system where Britain, Greece and Turkey are “guarantors” of the island in the event of a disruption to constitutional order. Greek Cyprus wants to abolish those guarantees, used as a pretext for military intervention in the past.

“These guarantees cannot be accepted as a means to make either Greek or Turkish Cypriots feel safe,” Kasoulides said.

Why the UN Rejected Turkey’s Bid for a Security Council Seat

October 21, 2014 By administrator

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

The Turkish government got a big slap in the face last week when the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to turn down its application for a Security Council seat. In effect, the international community was rejecting Turkey’s hostile policies both at home and abroad.

Turkey’s new Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had arrogantly predicted securing the prestigious seat for their country. The night before the vote, Cavusoglu had hosted a posh party for UN Ambassadors at the world famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.

After spending several days in New York to lobby personally the UN delegates, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu optimistically told the media: “We think all our nice efforts will, with the grace of God, be reflected onto the ballot tomorrow. Of course, this is a vote and all kinds of results may come out. But, we believe, God permitting, that we will get the result of the work we put in.”

Prime Minister Davutoglu was equally optimistic that Turkey would score a “historic victory.” Just two days before the UN vote, he proudly announced: “If we are elected, and we believe it’s a great possibility, we will be the first country in the world to be elected for a second time, after a five-year break. This shows Turkey’s importance.”

Unfortunately for the Turkish leaders, their expectations did not come true. Despite Cavusoglu’s intensive lobbying efforts and earnest wish for divine intervention, only 60 out of 193 UN General Assembly member states voted for Turkey, while its rival, Spain, received 132 votes, winning a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the Security Council.

Why did Turkey lose in 2014 more than half the 151 votes it received in its successful bid for a Security Council seat in 2008? Here are the key reasons for Turkey’s failure to get elected this time around:

– The vigorous campaign by a large number of countries against Turkey’s membership: Armenia, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, among others.

– President Erdogan’s ongoing acrimonious feud with powerful Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, resulting in loss of General Assembly votes for Turkey from several African countries, where Gulen’s followers have an extensive presence. This is a major shift from 2008, when Gulen supporters had secured a large number of votes for Turkey.

– Turkish leaders’ poor judgment of deciding to reapply so soon after getting elected to the Security Council in 2009-2010. Turkey’s reelection would have deprived other countries from serving in that august UN body.

– Davutoglu’s self-aggrandizing neo-Ottoman yearnings had antagonized most Middle Eastern countries, turning his policy of “zero problems with neighbors” into zero neighbors without problems! Pew Research Center’s survey confirms that Turkey’s dismal standing throughout the Middle East has sunk to an all-time low.

– Erdogan’s autocratic rule at home, including the bloody quelling of protests at the Gezi Park, jailing journalists, and blocking Twitter and facebook. His dismissive words, “I don’t care what the international community will say,” had alienated countless people around the world. The vote against Turkey was UN members’ rebuke of Erdogan. Most delegates walked out of the hall during Pres. Erdogan’s pompous speech at the UN General Assembly in September.

– Tense relations with the United States and Western Europe over Turkey’s refusal to support the war against ISIS, and not defending Kurdish civilians who are being massacred by foreign Jihadists at a stone’s throw from the Turkish border. As a result, influential commentators called for Turkey’s expulsion from NATO and rejection of its application for membership in the European Union.

– Displeased with Turkey’s antagonistic stand, Pres. Obama sent a lowly charge d’affaires of the US Embassy in Ankara to attend Erdogan’s presidential inauguration on August 28.

By ignoring all these legitimate reasons for Turkey’s failure to win the Security Council seat, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu falsely attributed his country’s defeat to its reluctance to abandon “its values for the sake of getting more votes.” This ridiculous statement is made by the Foreign Minister of a country that has been pouring millions of dollars into the coffers of tiny island states around the world and poor African countries to buy their UN General Assembly votes.

Finally, the failure to gain a Security Council seat limits Turkey’s ability to exploit the powerful UN body to undermine the worldwide commemorative events next year on the Armenian Genocide Centennial.

France’s Le Pen says Turkey’s EU bid should be vetoed

May 27, 2014 By administrator

France’s Marine Le Pen, whose party triumphed in recent European Parliament (EP) elections, has said that the far-right Front National will stand against Turkey’s European Union accession process and that the country’s membership should be vetoed.

Le Pen’s party, garnering 25 percent, was among the Euroskeptic and far-right parties to make big gains in the EP elections, which will have far-reaching effects on European policy in the coming years.

“As a first step, we want the cancellation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership [TTIP] between the US and EU as soon as possible. Secondly, we want the veto of Turkey’s membership [bid] immediately. Our third task is related to French issues,” Le Pen told broadcaster BFM TV on Monday.

The Front National triumphed in elections for the first time in its history, taking as many as 24 seats in the EP, the EU’s only elected institution, which works with the European Commission and 28 governments to debate and pass laws. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls called the breakthrough by the National Front a political earthquake.

According to observers in Europe, the rise of the Euroskeptic party in France will create an unfavorable atmosphere for Turkey’s EU accession negotiations and adversely affect not only Turkey’s EU bid but also the situation of Muslim immigrants in European capitals.

Le Pen is considered an Islamophobe who promotes anti-Islamic policies. However, Islamophobia is not the only item on her party’s agenda; she is also opposed to the euro.

Before the elections, Le Pen said in an interview that she did not have a problem with Turkey, but that the main problem in France was the “visibility” of Islam. She also said she was against Turkey’s EU membership and could not understand why Turkey was seeking to join a union that everyone wanted to get out of, though she allowed that the EU was not acting fairly toward Ankara.

On Monday, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Turkey’s European Union affairs minister, said he does not believe that the victory of Le Pen’s party in France will have a negative impact on Turkey’s EU accession process, adding that France’s stance on Turkey’s membership had changed during the tenure of President François Hollande.

Hollande was elected president in May 2012, defeating his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, who remained a steadfast opponent of Turkish membership in the EU during his term in office. Hollande, on the other hand, has softened the French stance, lifting Paris’ objection to the opening of talks on one of the five blocked chapters and thus paving the way for the resumption of the accession talks.