Month: February 2020

ArmInfo.The campaign intrigue in Artsakh revolves around Araik Harutyunyan, Masis Mayilyan and Samvel Babayan. A similar opinion was expressed by ArmInfo Director  of the Armenian Center for National Strategic Studies Manvel  Sargsyan.

“I came back from Artsakh the other day and, starting from my own  observations, I can say that these people are the most mentioned by  the people of Artsakh in their conversations. I practically did not  hear the names of other candidates. And of course, there is talk  everywhere about buying votes, at the end after all, the power in  Artsakh is still the same, “he noted.

Parliamentary and presidential elections in the Republic of Artsakh  will be held on March 31. As candidates in the Artsakh CEC, 12 people  registered. Including ex-Minister of Artsakh, leader of the Free  Homeland party Araik Harutyunyan and Foreign Minister of Artsakh  Masis Mayilyan. Ex-Minister of Defense of Artsakh Samvel Babayan and  his party “United Homeland” announced support for the candidacy of  Mayilyan.

According to him, the situation began to gradually clear up after the  court did not allow Babayan to take part in the elections on his own.  Nevertheless, the latter has many supporters and he decided to  support another, alternative, opposition candidate.

In general, the analyst assesses the pre-election situation in  Artsakh as quite interesting, primarily due to the large influence of  changes in Armenia on the mood in Artsakh. As a result, for the first  time in Artsakh, not counting the last elections to local  authorities, over the past decades a situation has arisen in which  voters will decide everything. There are simply no other factors  capable of ensuring victory for any of the candidates.

“The authorities in Artsakh still have the previous regime. The  regime is weakened, having already lost part of its personnel and,  consequently, its influence on the people. Decades of atmosphere of  fear, the impact of war, the use of blackmail and administrative  resources in the elections are behind. Artsakh people found  themselves face to face with a new themselves as a phenomenon – an  opportunity of free choice that they never had. And this opportunity  scares them a bit and prevents them from concentrating, “the ACNIS  director summed up.

The panel discussion involving President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia came off on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of global leaders and policymakers, on February 15. During a discussion President Aliyev referred to historical facts and international documents in his remarks.

“In 1921, the Caucasus bureau of the Bolshevik party made a decision to retain Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan, to retain and not to transfer as some Armenian historians want to present,” Aliyev said, referring to a historical document that recognized the region as being part of Azerbaijan, according to the president’s official website.

The Soviet decision mentioned by Aliyev was followed by another that was issued by the leadership of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialistic Republic and sanctioned by the Soviet government in 1923, giving the Nagorno-Karabakh region the status of an autonomous region within the borders of Azerbaijan.

But the region turned into a hotbed of conflict, as indigenous Azerbaijanis over time became displaced as a result of ethnic cleansing by Armenian forces. By the late 1980s, anti-Azerbaijan sentiments reached its climax in Armenia leading to the mass deportation of ethnic Azerbaijanis from the country. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region was invaded by Armenia. The two countries fought a bloody war that lasted until a ceasefire in 1994.

“In the end of 80s, Armenia launched an aggression against Azerbaijan. 300,000 Azerbaijanis were deported from the territory of Armenia. And then in the beginning of 90s, Armenia already launched an aggression against Azerbaijan Republic and as a result of that aggression almost 20 percent of our territories are under occupation and one million of Azerbaijanis became refugees and IDPs,” Aliyev said.

“Our people were subject to ethnic cleansing and in 1992, previous Armenian regime committed a war crime, genocide of Khojaly. As a result, 613 innocent civilians, among them 106 women and 63 children were brutally killed,” Aliyev noted.

Khojaly was the pinnacle of ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis by Armenia during the occupation of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region. The town of Khojaly, located in Nagorno-Karabakh, was invaded late in the night on February 26, 1992. Reports indicate that the hundreds of civilian Azerbaijanis were scalped, burnt alive, and decapitated.

Speaking on Saturday’s panel, Prime Minister Pashinyan responded to Aliyev’s remarks about Khojaly by noting an interview by Azerbaijan’s first and former president, Ayaz Mutallibov with the Russian newspaper Arguments and Facts. According to Pashinyan, Mutallibov allegedly told the newspaper that provocation in Khojaly was organized by the opposition of Azerbaijan in order to oust him from power.

Mutallibov did not waste any time after the news from the conference spread to hit back.

“A statement by the prime minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, in which he claims that I spoke about the involvement of Azerbaijanis in the Khojaly genocide, is absurd,” Mutallibov said according to 1news.az. “In an interview with a Russian newspaper regarding the events in Khojaly, I talked about the fact that there is an unconditional Armenian trace there.”

“I did not use the phrase that the Azerbaijanis committed the Khojaly genocide, this is ridiculous,” Mutallibov added.

Over the past year especially, Pashinyan has been pushing a plan to have the self-declared illegal regime in the occupied regions of Azerbaijan be a party to any political settlement between Azerbaijan and Armenia – a position that is unacceptable to Baku. President Aliyev said any talks regarding the deep-seated conflict should be held between Armenia and Azerbaijan only, which is a format that is recognized by international arbiters that form the OSCE Minsk Group.

“Armenia stops funding this illegal entity, Armenia pulls back all their military troops from Nagorno-Karabakh and completely withdraws from our territory. And then, we will have arguments to talk to this people,” Aliyev said. “But until then there is no way.”

Noting Azerbaijan’s multiethnic makeup, Aliyev said, “Azerbaijan is a multi confessional and a multi-national country. There are many national minorities in Azerbaijan who live in peace and dignity. And when our territorial integrity is fully restored, Armenians as national minority will enjoy all the rights and privileges as any other representative of any other nation in our country.”

Prime Minister Pashinyan insisted that forces stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh are for “self-defense,” and that resolution to the conflict is not possible without defining the status of the people now living there.

But Aliyev was adamant that there are no “self-defense” forces and the majority of the military stationed in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region is comprised of soldiers from Armenia, and if Armenians living in the region want to be self-determined, they need to do it someplace else.

“Armenian people self-determinated themselves, they have Armenian state. My advice is to find other place on Earth to self-determinate them for the second time, not in Azerbaijan,” he said in his closing remarks.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts of Azerbaijan are still under Armenian occupation, despite four United Nations Security Council Resolutions for Armenian forces to fully withdraw from the region.

Today, February 19, marks the 151st birthday anniversary of renowned Armenian poet, writer, translator, literary and public activist Hovhannes Tumanyan.

The great poet’s birthday is annually celebrated in Armenia as the Book Giving Day aimed at increasing people’s access to and enthusiasm for books.

Hovhannes Tumanyan was born in 1869 in the village of Dsegh, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire (now Lori Province, Armenia). His father, Aslan, was the village priest known by the name Ter-Tadevos. His mother, Sona, was an avid storyteller with a particular interest in fables. Young Tumanyan was the oldest of eight children.

From 1877 to 1879, Tumanyan attended the parochial school of Dsegh. From 1879–1883 he went to a school in Jalaloghly. Tumanyan moved to Tiflis in 1883, where he attended the Nersisyan School from 1883–1887. He wrote his first poem at the age of 12, while studying in Jalaloghly school. He lived at the teacher’s house for a while and fell in love with the teacher’s daughter Vergine. Since 1893, Tumanyan worked for Aghbyur, Murtch, Hasker and Horizon periodicals and also was engaged in public activism.

In 1899, Tumanyan came up with an idea of organizing meetings of Armenian intellectuals of the time at his house on 44 Bebutov Street in Tiflis (present-day Amaghleba 18, in Sololaki). Soon it became an influential literary group, which often gathered in the garret of Tumanyan’s house. Vernatun means garret in Armenian, which was the name the group was referred to. Prominent members of the collective were Avetik Isahakyan, Derenik Demirchyan, Levon Shant, Ghazaros Aghayan, Perch Proshyan, Nikol Aghbalian, Alexander Shirvanzade, Nar-Dos, Vrtanes Papazyan, Vahan Terian, Leo, Stepan Lisitsyan, Mariam Tumanyan, Gevorg Bashinjagyan and many other significant Armenian figures of early 20th century. With some pauses, it existed until 1908.

In 1912 Tumanyan was elected the president of the Company of Caucasus Armenian Writers.

In the fall of 1921, Tumanyan went to Constantinople to find support of Armenian refugees. After months spent there, he returned ill. After surgery in 1922, he started to get better. But in September, Tumanyan’s disease started to persist again. He was transferred to a hospital in Moscow, where he died on March 23, 1923.

Tumanyan is usually regarded in Armenian circles as “All-Armenian poet”. He earned this title when the Catholicos of Armenia had ordered that Armenian refugees from the west not enter certain areas of his church and house, since he is considered to be “The Catholicos of all Armenians”. Tumanyan in response decried that decision claiming that the refugees could seek relief in the Catholicos’ quarters under order of “The Poet of all Armenians”.

Tumanyan wrote poems, quatrains, ballads, novels, fables, critical and journalistic articles. His work is simple, natural and poetically inspired at the same time. It is not by mere chance that dozens of phrases and expressions from Tumanyan’s works have become a natural part of people’s everyday language, their sayings, adages, and maxims.

Many films and animated films have been adapted from Tumanyan’s works. Two operas –  Anush (1912) by Armen Tigranian and Almast (1930) by Alexander Spendiaryan – were written based on his works.

Armenian grandmaster Karen Grigoryan won Santiago Masters 2020 chess tournament. The Armenian scored 7.5 points at the international tournament after nine rounds played.

Grigoryan also improved his personal rating by 2 points reaching 2662.