Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

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Re: Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

CREATION OF A PAN-TURKISH IDENTITY THROUGH THE RECENT CREATION OF A LANGUAGE:

Attaturk rewrote the Ottoman-Turkish language, including Turkifying loan words and pretending they were Turkish in origin; Attaturk also changed the alphabet -- one of his masterful frauds in creating "a people" and solidifying his own power over "his people." Ottoman Turks are ethnically a hybrid blend of: Turkmen, Kurds, Armenians, Persians, Arabs, Greeks, Assyrians, etc. -- Pan-Turkism is their Ideology (see Post #2 for general definition).

"Within the Ottoman Empire, the Turks had constituted merely one of many linguistic and ethnic groups. In fact, for the ruling elite, the word Türk connoted crudeness and boorishness. Members of the civil, military, and religious elites conversed and conducted their business in Ottoman Turkish, which was a mixture of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Arabic remained the primary language of religion and religious law (see Religious Life, this ch.). Persian was the language of art, refined literature, and diplomacy. At an official level, Ottoman Turkish usually was used only for matters pertaining to the administration of the empire. Ottoman Turkish not only borrowed vocabulary from Arabic and Persian but also lifted entire expressions and syntactic structures out of these languages and incorporated them into the Ottoman idiom."
http://countrystudies.us/turkey/25.htm

The Turkish Language Association (TDK, or Türk Dil Kurumu), was established in 1932 under Atatürk's guidance. Its goal was to make the language of Turkey "more Turkish." The Turkish language around 1930 was largely what we now call Osmanlı Türkçe or Ottoman Turkish, and it was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic vocabulary. This vocabulary shift followed and built upon the 1928 introduction of a modified Latin alphabet to replace the Persian form of Arabic script used to write Ottoman Turkish.

NOTES:

See Oxford professor Geoffrey Lewis' The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success for a detailed description of the Turkish language reform from 1932 through 2002. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019...SIN=0199256691

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Re: Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

Intelligence Agencies Fund & Sponsor so-called "Human Rights" Activists Pushing Pan-Turkic Agendas

http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.ph..._(and_armenia)
By David B. Boyajian

"interestingly, the pentagon, state department, and congress have been meeting with dr. Mahmud ali chehregani, the well-known iranian dissident who heads the south azerbaijan national awakening movement (cehreganli.com). Chehregani resides in the us. His group has offices in turkey and azerbaijan and is one of several militant pan-azeri organizations, such as the south azerbaijan national liberation movement (camah.com) and the world azerbaijanis congress (azerbaijanis- congress.com). Clandestine radio watch, a widely respected research group, reports that in the late 1990s, the voice of southern azerbaijan--a dissident azeri station that was beamed into iran--originated from israel's "yavne transmitter site" and was likely "supervised and arranged by israel's intelligence agency: The mossad." then there is dr. Brenda shaffer, research director of harvard's caspian studies program, partly funded by the us-azeri chamber of commerce and major oil companies. In what one might imagine to be a purely academic position, shaffer has been a high-profile political advocate for azeris, writing and appearing frequently in the american and international media. Two years ago she asked congress to lift long-standing us sanctions on azerbaijan. Dr. Shaffer also spoke before the nationalist, pan-azeri vatan society in britain earlier this year. Her recent book, borders and brethren: Iran and the challenge of azerbaijani identity, which touts azeri identity and aspirations in "south azerbaijan," has, says us-based, iranian analyst afshin molavi "captivated the attention of [iranian] regime change advocates in washington." the american-born, israeli-educated shaffer has been a "policy analyst" for israel and served in the israeli defense forces."

Note: "South Azerbaijan" is a Pan-Turkic Phrase:

"South Azerbaijan National [Pan-Turkic] Awakening Movement" on Armenia's Southern Border (Video Below):

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Re: Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

Pan-Turkic *Human Rights* Propaganda Film Made in Turkey By Vahid Azarnavid.

You Will Notice That Some of the People in the Video Are Real Turks, Others Have Been Brainwashed Into Believing they are Turks. Very little of these pawns have a true understanding of their real linguistic or ethnic history.

Vahid is now famous:

His Profile: "Vahid Azarnavid was born in 1984 in Azerbaijan region in Iran. He’s origin is Turk. He finished his primary, secondary & high school in Ardebil, he follow his education Industries Mechanics course in vocational college in Iran, he has started his art activities as an actor in children program in Ardebil’s local TV(1996). He persuade his activity by going to Iranian Young Cinema Society in Ardebil in 2000 and follow his art activity in this Society and pass one year course in this society. Vahid can take a first place in school festival, in student film festival exhibitions his another film Sevgi. In soldiering can take a second place of police film festival, Sevgi in special exhibition in Tehran film festival exhibited, Sevgi selected in festi-kult festival in Turkey also. Örtün üstüme his video clip exhibition in audiovisual festival in Azerbaijan."

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Re: Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

Azerbaijan Pushing to Turkify Georgia - Admits to Turkifying Azerbaijan


"Stalin moved Meskheti Turks from Georgia to Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan in 1944. In 1992, some of those living in Uzbekistan moved to Azerbaijan because of ethnic clashes."


Azerbaijanis are not the only refugees living in Azerbaijan. In 1989, an estimated 46,000 Meskheti Turks (pronounced mas-kha-TI) fled from Uzbekistan after the ethnic clashes made it impossible for them to live in safety. Many have since found refuge in Azerbaijan. But their real homeland is Georgia, and they still want to go home 50 years after Stalin deported them to Central Asia.

The box car of the train was so cramped. Nuraddin's younger sister lay on top of his older brother. His 8-month-old brother slept on his mother's chest. Spilled soup dried on the splintered wooden floors. The tracks would lead from Nuraddin's home in Georgia eastward to the distant Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan 3,000 kilometers away in Central Asia. But at the time, he didn't know that. No one did. Stalin had told them he was protecting them from the advancing Nazi army. They thought they would remain hidden for only a little while. That was 50 years ago.

Nuraddin Tsatsiyev, now 65, is one of the tens of thousands of Meskheti Turks in Azerbaijan-living in someone else's home, so to speak-waiting and hoping that someday the Georgian government will allow his family and his people to move back home. "Your homeland . . . your homeland, you never forget," the retired architect said at the Baku office of Vatan, the organization representing the Meskheti Turks who are still struggling to be repatriated to Georgia.

The Meskheti Turks have been on the move since World War II. In 1944, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of almost 100,000 Meskheti Turks, Kurds and other Muslim minorities who had lived for centuries in the southwestern Georgian towns of Meskhetiya-Javakhetiya along the Turkish and Armenian borders. Stalin, claiming security reasons, wanted them removed to the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In the early morning hours of November 14, 1944, the decree was carried out.

At first glance, these mass deportations appear to be a communist dictator's paranoia gone awry. Many experts suggest, however, that the relocation of Muslims had long been a tendency of Russian policy which sought to expand and fortify the empire's borders with pro-Christian communities. In the previous century, Russia had viewed the Ottoman Empire as one of the greatest threats to its southern borders, and the two nations went to battle on several occasions. During World War I, Russia had coveted and advanced on Constantinople (Istanbul) seeking passage to the Mediterranean Sea. In World War II, Stalin believed Turkey's neutrality was shifting to favor Germany. He viewed Muslims inside Russia's borders as potential spies and collaborators - enemies. This perceived weakness had to be removed and replaced with pro-Russian support. The Meskheti Turks were not the only Muslims to suffer such fate. Stalin deported several other small nations in the North Caucasus. For example, the entire Chechen-Ingush population of more than 1 million were also packed into box cars and sent to Central Asia. That happened nine months prior to the Meskheti removal.

"What did we think at the time?" said Nuraddin, who had been 12-years-old when they were sent into exile. "There was a war going on. Anything can happen during war. We really didn't think much about it. We just knew that soldiers charged into our home with bayonets and rifles yelling 'faster, faster, get your things!'"

Nuraddin's mother and six brothers and sisters had three hours to clear out and climb into one of the hundreds of freight train wagons. She managed it all alone since Nuraddin's father was fighting at the front, bracing against Hitler's army. Little did his father know that back in his own home, fellow Red Army soldiers were barking orders at his family. And so the family gathered minimal objects and supplies that they could carry on their journey. Axes, knives and kitchen utensils were strictly forbidden. Clothes and scraps of food were about all they managed to grab. This same scene unfolded in all the surrounding villages, in more than 200 settlements.

Ironically, local Meskheti Turks had just laid much of the railroad track that would carry them away. There had been indications of preparation-sinister signs that something was amiss. Empty wooden wagons had appeared on the tracks with no activity for the entire month prior to their deportation-just waiting. And for the previous two weeks before they left, villagers heard gunshots at night. Soviet soldiers were firing into the air to give the impression that the German army was advancing and beginning to surround them.

Nuraddin recalls that after being herded into the cold wagons, the train sat motionless on the tracks. Each wagon held about 50 people, crowded around a small, inadequate stove. The wait gave Nuraddin hope that maybe the whole affair was a mistake or that the threat had passed and that soon they could all return home. However, in the early morning hours of the third day, the train lurched forward. It would be 36 hours before the doors opened again. Finally, they arrived in Baku where they were given food for the first time-two buckets of borsch soup per wagon and some bread. An hour later, they were back on the rails. Much of the beet and cabbage soup had slopped across the floor when the train unexpectedly jerked forward. They were fed once a day, and those who lagged behind when the train pulled away were shot. Many died, their bodies left at the stations. It was clear that in this case the Meskheti Turks and the other Muslim groups were viewed as Stalin's security problem-not the Germans.

"Many speculated that we were being sent to Siberia [where Stalin had sent hundreds of thousands who had opposed him in the late 1930s and 40s]. Others were convinced we would be dumped into the ocean as food for the fish," Nuraddin said. "But that didn't make sense. Why would they be feeding us if they intended to dispose of us?"

The next stop was Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan north of Azerbaijan. From there, they arrived in Astrakhan at the Volga River delta and made their way through Kazakhstan. The journey took three weeks before Nuraddin's family and the others arrived at the Uzbek capital of Tashkent. "But arrived to what?" everyone wondered, as they shivered in the deep snows that winter of 1944.

Of the Meskheti Turks deported, the majority were women, children and the elderly. Along the way, thousands had perished from disease and hunger. Many died after they arrived as they were weakened, sick and unable to adapt to the frigid climate. Estimations of those who died between 1944 and 1948 range from 14,000 to 17,000. Almost every man between the ages of 18 and 50 had been sent off to defend the Soviet Union. And those who lived to return to the Meskhetiya-Javakhetiya region after the war discovered that their families and relatives had disappeared and that strangers were living in their houses-mostly Georgians and Armenians settled there by Moscow.

Though the deported families were told their stay in Central Asia would be temporary, they had actually been placed under the military-style "komendatura." With an Orwellian euphemism, Stalin's order described this Soviet mechanism of labor recruitment as the "permanent staff exchange between nations." A collective farm in the cotton fields outside Tashkent would be home to Nuraddin's family for the next 12 years. Local authorities required them to register on a monthly basis. Denial of passports and severe travel restrictions became a way of life. There was no education to speak of, and marriages were discouraged.

"We knew it was forever," Nuraddin said. "If relatives in a nearby village died or became sick, we didn't have the right to visit them. We had to go to the commandant and explain, and if he granted permission, then we could go. But often, he'd accompany us to see if we were telling the truth. If he discovered any deceit, we were never allowed to go anywhere again. Even if he did let us go, it was only for a single day, and we had to be back by evening. We lived like slaves."

After Stalin died in 1953, his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, liberated the deportees from the "komendatura." Everyone soon had passports and could travel freely within the Soviet Union. The Chechens made their way back home to the north Caucasus. So did the Ingush and the Tartars. The Meskheti Turks, however, were never able to return to Georgia, and many settled in exile in Azerbaijan. Another 200,000 of them are scattered throughout the Soviet Union. "We were the only nationality who wasn't allowed to return to our homeland," Nuraddin said.

The Vatan Society, which serves as an information center helping to reunite missing relatives and family members, has been pushing for their return to Georgia since Stalin's death. They claim that ancestors of the Meskheti Turks had settled in that region more than 2,500 years ago and had been living there peacefully ever since.

"We have hope," says Khalid Tashtanov, Director of Vatan in Azerbaijan. "We believe in our return to our true homeland. Our deportation was illegal and inhumane. At least they should let our children, the next generation, live on the land that was originally ours."

Azerbaijan has been good to the Turks, Tashtanov admits. Adjustment was as smooth as could be expected. The languages are similar, as are the cultures. And the Meskheti Turks who fled to Azerbaijan in 1989 have been given the same rights as Azerbaijani citizens. Some, though, made the unfortunate choice of returning to the Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan and were soon on the run again, joining the exodus of native Azerbaijanis from the area fleeing the onslaught from the Armenians.

Now, half of the Meskheti Turks in Azerbaijan have been designated as refugees and have started receiving international humanitarian assistance, as support from the cash-strapped Azerbaijani government has dried up. So, they also suffer the same economic hardships that the indigenous population faces. The Azerbaijan office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) is now working with the Meskheti Turks who have strong agricultural skills but little land. Most are unemployed and have been forced to sell their possessions and struggle for occasional work. Presently, UNHCR is registering the Meskheti Turks and examining ways to help them earn wages. Desperate for work, some of them have migrated to Chechnya. With wide-scale damage suffered there during the war with Russia, they believe they can find employment rebuilding the country.

Both Tashtanov and Nuraddin fear that a strong anti-Muslim sentiment coupled with rising Georgian nationalism will prevent their return home. And Georgia, too, is struggling with 300,000 of its own refugees produced by separatist movements in the Abhazia region of the country. Vatan understands that today's Georgian economy cannot support the repatriation of all the Meskheti Turks. But the organization is pushing for legislation to be passed that recognizes their ancestral claim to the land and which incorporates a realistic plan for repatriation. This past December, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze issued a decree allowing 5,000 Meskheti Turks to return over a 5-year period. But where they will be allowed to settle is not exactly clear. Most of the land is occupied, and many of the villages have been destroyed. Nuraddin and his older brother went back three years ago to visit the house their father built in the 1930s. They found two Georgian brothers living there with their families.

"This house . . . it was our home," Nuraddin said. "My father sold everything to build it himself. Then we were forced to leave, and someone else lives there now. And my father went off to fight for the country, and he never came back from the front. We don't know where he died or what even happened to him."

And now there is a new wrinkle to the story. Around 200,000 Armenians now living in the Meskhetiya-Javakhetiya districts bordering Armenia are pushing for a referendum to declare the region autonomous and gain self-rule. Border and customs points have apparently been established, and residents there claim to control transportation links between Georgia and Armenia.

Tashtanov and Nuraddin worry that the absence of a homeland could eventually destroy their culture. "We need to preserve our language and our culture," Nuraddin said. "We need our land now more than ever. I was born there. My roots are there. Here, I'm not worth anything. People don't know me. There-that's where my roots are. That's where they know me. Not a single day has gone by these past 53 years . . . not a single hour, that I don't think about my homeland."

Caleb Daniloff is a freelance journalist living in Baku.

From Azerbaijan International (5.1) Spring 1997.

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Re: Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

USSR Assisted in Turkifying The Talysh - An Iranian People:



Talysh are an Iranian-speaking minority in the south of the Republic of Azerbaijan. According to so-called "official figures" of the Republic of Azerbaijan, 76,000 Talyshs live within the country. Talysh nationalists (and some Armenian scholars) state that the Talysh number is significantly reduced by the official census, and they reach 400,000 and some even speak about 800,000.

From, "One Europe Many Nations":

"Talysh during the Soviet era were forced to adopt Azeri as their first language." (Ibid. p. 674.) "Soviet policy encouraged the assimilation of the Talysh into the more numerous Azeri community." "To further this aim, the authorities in 1939 abolished the Talysh Latin alphabet and replaced it with teh Russian Cyrillic script, forceing those Talysh ... to turn to Azeri publications." (Ibid. pp. 675-6.) Government figures estimate the Talysh population of Azerbaijan at less than 2% of the population, but nationalists claim a much higher number, estimating that 11% of the total population of Azerbaijan is ethnic Talysh." (Ibid p. 676.)




"BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 23 (AP) -- Demonstrators ousted a pro-Iranian warlord today from the capital of a "republic" he had proclaimed in southern Azerbaijan, Acting President Heydar Aliyev said.Hospitals reportedly were inundated with casualties from the fighting between supporters and opponents of Alikram Gumbatov, a retired Army colonel who had declared the Talysh-Mugan Autonomous Republic. Mr. Aliyev said in a television speech that Mr. Gumbatov had fled Lenkoran, a city of 126,000 on the Caspian Sea about 130 miles south of Baku, the capital. His whereabouts were unknown." http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...&pagewanted=al

* * *
Ismail Shabanov, President of the Talysh Diaspora group whose institutional assembly convened in Moscow in June, 2008, said in an interview for the Rosbalt news agency that "a massive resettlement of people to the originally Talysh-populated southern regions of Azerbaijan is underway. Some 5,000 people have moved to Lenkoran alone, plus some 500-1,500 people per village. Intolerable conditions for the locals are being created: they cannot buy land or open businesses. While the Talysh population is strangulated by excessive regulation, the newcomers are given preferential treatment. All the young Talysh people have left the region. In broad daylight, we see Azerbaijan destroy the ancient civilization....”

* * *
Talysh activists believe that the sentencing of the 69-year-old linguist Novruzali Mammadov by the Azerbaijani Court for Grave Crimes is supposed to teach the Talysh struggling for their rights a lesson and to demonstrate Azerbaijan's loyalty to Washington on the eve of the US offensive against Iran.
It is unlikely, however, that the harsh treatment of the elderly scholar is going to help Azerbaijan accomplish its objectives as the Talysh community in the country truly faces real and serious problems. Farhadin Aboszoda said in an interview to the 'Ethnoglobus internet outlet' that currently using the very word Talysh is prohibited and this is a gross violation of the rights of the Talysh people. The Azerbaijani government is renaming the villages and towns bearing Talysh names. Nearly all the nations and languages of the world are studied in Azerbaijan's Academy of Science and universities, but there is no Talysh department anywhere.

* * *
Aliakram Gummatov, a Talysh leader living in Holland, wrote in an address to Iran's Supreme Jurist, an ethnic Azeri himself, that the political regime in Azerbaijan is fighting against the entire Iranian and Muslim world and that most of the troubles suffered by the Talysh in the country are due to their being Iranian people. He says that since gaining independence Azerbaijan has been pursuing the goal of partitioning Iran and annexing a part of its territory, and that it has been engaging in anti-Iranian propaganda campaigns to this end. Gummatov writes: “We, the Talysh, are proud of being Iranian and do not think of ourselves as being separate from our historical homeland, that is, Iran. Do not let Azerbaijan's hideous pan-Turkist regime wipe the Talysh people off the face of the Earth!”

See also http://www.iranmilitaryforum.net/ind...e;topic=3758.0

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Re: Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

The Laz people living in Turkey are Considered Turkified.

The Laz (Lazi (ლაზი) or Lazepe (ლაზეფე) in Laz; Lazlar in Turkish; Lazi (ლაზი) or Č’ani (ჭანი) in Georgian) are an ethnic group native to the Black Sea coast.

Lazs residing in Georgia frequently identify themselves as Georgians, but their counterparts in Turkey are considered as "Turkified Lazs."

(See Pelkmans,Mathijs. Defending the border: identity, religion, and modernity in the Republic of Georgia. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2006, p. 80.)

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Re: Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

One of The Greatest Acts of Turkification Was the Armenian Genocide Which Several Governments Knew About & Have Actively Concealed Since World War I.

"Deportation of and excesses against peaceful Armenians is increasing and from harrowing reports of eye witnesses it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion…Protests as well as threats are unavailing and probably incite the Ottoman government to more drastic measures as they are determined to disclaim responsibility for their absolute disregard of capitulations …Suggest you inform belligerent nations and mission boards of this.”

(Source: United States of America, National Archives and Records Administration Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State Decimal File 867, Internal Affairs of Turkey; Decimal File 860J, Internal Affairs of Armenia.)

Turkification of Armenians

(Please see other threads about the Armenian Genocide on this forum for more detailed information.)

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Re: Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

Grey Wolves - Pan-Turkist Militants
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves

The Grey Wolves were founded as the youth organization of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) created by Alparslan Türkeş in 1969. A significant pillar the MHP's ideology is the dream of creating the Turan, the "Great Turkish Empire", including all Turkic peoples mainly in the successor Central Asian countries of the former Soviet Union as well as the Caucasus and the Uygurs' homeland of East Turkestan in the Xinjiang province of Northwestern China.

The Grey Wolves also rally around Pan-Turkic Causes including: the economic isolation and territorial integrity of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus; the Armenian military occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas, and the subsequent displacement of Azeri civilians; the assimilation campaigns and suppression of the Iraqi Turkmens in Kirkuk and adjacent regions in Northern Iraq by the Kurdistan Regional Government; and the suppression of Uygur culture and Chinese colonization of Eastern Turkestan. The Grey Wolves are also known to be supporters of Azeri activists that campaign for "greater cultural rights" in Iran.

They have also been known to support non-Turkic people whom they consider to have kinship with Turkish people. It is for this reason that Grey Wolves have supported the Chechen Independence Struggle, the KLA-led Albanian movement in Kosovo, and the Bosniaks' resistance in the Bosnian War.

The Grey Wolves have provided support to Azeri forces fighting Armenians during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and still operate in Azerbaijan, although their name has been changed to the Azerbaijan National Democrat Party.

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[Eddo211]

Re: Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

[SIZE="4"]....their name has been changed to the Azerbaijan National Democrat Party.

Thanks for that info....didn't know that.

The Armenians of Tabriz, as little as its left, are taking some action against this virus.

[Persopolis]

Re: Pan-Turanism / Pan-Turkism Database

CANADA INVESTIGATED GREY WOLVES - GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT REPRODUCED BELOW:
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/countr...6ac4654,0.html
Title:

Azerbaijan: Information on the strength and activities of a group called the Grey Wolves, and on whether this group is related to the ultra right-wing group called the Grey Wolves in Turkey.

Publisher: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada

Country: Azerbaijan

Publication Date: 1 May 1995

Citation / Document Symbol: AZE20482.E

Cite as:

Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Azerbaijan: Information on the strength and activities of a group called the Grey Wolves, and on whether this group is related to the ultra right-wing group called the Grey Wolves in Turkey, 1 May 1995, AZE20482.E, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6ac4654.html [accessed 5 April 2011]

Azerbaijan: Information on the strength and activities of a group called the Grey Wolves, and on whether this group is related to the ultra right-wing group called the Grey Wolves in Turkey
_________________________________________________

In telephone interviews on 27 April and 2 May 1995, a history professor, who specializes in Azerbaijan, at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst provided the following information. The professor interviewed Iskandar Hamidov, the founder and leader of the Grey Wolves twice while it was still an organization and before it became a political party: in Baku in late November 1992, and in Washington in late January 1993. During those interviews, Mr. Hamidov told the professor that the Grey Wolves of Azerbaijan are not subordinate to the Turkish group, the Grey Wolves, and characterized the Azerbaijani group as a nationalistic and anti-communist organization.

The professor stated that the Azerbaijani and Turkish Grey Wolves have a number of common themes and goals, but that there does not appear to be any direct organizational link. The Azerbaijani Grey Wolves possess a vague political ideology and are not as well organized politically as the Turkish group. The Azerbaijani group stresses Turkic national consciousness, and attempts to promote a Turkic cultural revival. The cultural affinities between the two groups are more pronounced than the political interests.

The professor added that the Grey Wolves of Azerbaijan have never participated in an election; consequently, it is difficult to gauge their strength and support. Their support tends to be concentrated in Baku and in Mr. Hamidov's birthplace, the town of Terter. The professor added that the role of the Grey Wolves in the 17 March 1995 attempted mutiny in Baku is unclear.

For additional information on the Grey Wolves in Azerbaijan, please consult the attachments.

This response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the DIRB within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

References

Professor, Department of History, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. 2 May 1995. Telephone interview.

_____. 27 April 1995. Telephone interview.

Attachments

Agence France Press (AFP). 25 March 1995. "Ultra-Nationalist Movement Dissolved, Leader Arrested." (NEXIS)

ANI News Agency. 10 June 1994. "Proceedings Begin Against Independent Editor." (Monitor [Washington, DC]. 8 July 1994. Vol. 5, No. 14, p. 13)

Associated Press (AP). 29 March 1995. "Media Protest Against Censorship." (NEXIS)

BBC Summary of World Broadcasts. 28 March 1995. "Chechnya; Situation in Chechnya Remains Tense: Support for Militants Dwindles." (NEXIS)

_____. 24 March 1995. "Former Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Detained After Coup." (NEXIS)

_____. 22 March 1995. "Former Interior Minister Faces Prosecution." (NEXIS)

_____. 6 February 1995. "Military Situation; Russia Says 3,000 Foreign Muslim Mercenaries Fighting for Dudayev." (NEXIS)

_____. 7 January 1995. "Other Reaction: Azerbaijan Denies More than 30 Volunteers Killed in Chechnya." (NEXIS)

Current Digest of the Post Soviet Press. 12 April 1995. Aidyn Mekhtiyev. "Diplomacy: Moscow and Baku are Displeased with Each Other." (NEXIS)

Za Vilnu Ukrayinu [Lvov, in Ukrainian]. 22 March 1995. "Anti-Bolshevik Bloc Protests 'Political Terror'." (FBIS-SOV-95-061 30 Mar. 1995, p. 67)

Segodnya [Moscow, in Russian]. 1 September 1994. "Nationalist Group Sends Volunteers to Chechnya." (FBIS-SOV-94-171 2 Sept. 1994, p. 56)

The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS). 31 March 1995. Sevinj Abdullayeva and Viktor Shulman. "Azerbaijan Outlaws 'Grey Wolves'." (NEXIS)

The Moscow Times. 21 October 1994. Arkady Popov. "The Threat of Chechnya." (NEXIS)

Turan [Baku, in English]. 9 April 1994. "New 'xxx Gurd' Political Party Registered." (FBIS-SOV-94-069 11 Apr. 1994, p. 58)

_____. 24 March 1995. "Justice Ministry Decides to Liquidate 'xxx Gurd'." (FBIS-SOV-95-058 27 Mar. 1995, pp. 82-83)

_____. 27 December 1993. "'xxx Gurd' Party Holds First Conference." (FBIS-SOV-93-247 28 Dec. 1993, p. 49)

_____. 22 March 1995. "xxx Gurd Party Protests Arrest of Leader." (FBIS-SOV-95-056 23 Mar. 1995, p. 66)

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