Month: April 2021

WATERTOWN, Mass.—The Armenian Museum of America recently announced that Dr. Helen C. Evans, Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator of Byzantine Art Emerita at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has joined its leadership team as an Academic Advisor, while Berj Najarian, New England Patriots Director of Football and Head Coach Administration, has joined as a Trustee.

“We are excited about the expansion of our Trustees and our group of esteemed Academic Advisors,” said Michele Kolligian, President of the Armenian Museum’s Board of Trustees. “While museums have been temporarily closed during the pandemic, we hope the community has taken notice of the expansion of our online programs, and we are excited about our eventual re-opening later this year.”

Berj Najarian is in his 27th season in the National Football League and 22nd season with the New England Patriots, serving as the point person for the day-to-day operations of the team. Berj acts as a liaison across football departments such as team travel, equipment, training, and player engagement as well as non-football departments such as marketing, media relations, and Gillette Stadium operations. Berj manages several elements of head coach Bill Belichick’s off-field agenda including football operations, player and staff communication, and scheduling. Berj has been part of all six Patriots Super Bowl championship teams.

Entering the NFL in 1995, Berj was a public relations assistant with the New York Jets for five seasons following an internship with the New York Knicks. Berj attended Boston University, and he is a Board member and officer of the Bill Belichick Foundation. Berj was born in Brooklyn, NY and grew up in Manhasset, NY.

While Berj tends to work behind-the-scenes with the Patriots, he has taken several opportunities to publicize issues related to his ancestral homeland including providing an Armenian flag pin to Coach Belichick to wear at the White House after winning the Superbowl. Most recently he joined the NFL’s “My Cause, My Cleats” campaign by wearing a custom designed pair of cleats to raise awareness about the war in Artsakh. The cleats were highlighted by the top players on Instagram, and they set an NFL auction record in support of Armenia Fund’s humanitarian programs. The winning bid went to the Museum’s President, Michele Kolligian, and Bob Khederian, Vice President, who announced they were donating the Artsakh cleats to the Museum. The cleats will be presented to the Museum for display in the upcoming months.

Dr. Helen C. Evans curated The MET’s renowned “Armenia!” exhibition in 2018. She co-curated “Treasures in Heaven: Armenian Illuminated Manuscripts” at the Morgan Library and Museum in 1994 and included Armenian works in her award-winning exhibitions at The MET on “The Glory of Byzantium” in 1997 and “Byzantium: Faith and Power” in 2004. Her installation of The MET’s Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Byzantine Art displays Armenian works as exemplars of an important East Christian culture on the Empire’s border. The AGBU recently announced a Helen C. Evans Scholarship in her honor, which will fund students studying Armenian art, art history, and the early church.

Dr. Evans has lectured and published widely and taught Armenian art and culture as the Nikit and Elenora Ordjanian Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies at Columbia University. Armenia’s President recognized her efforts with the Republic of Armenia’s Order of Friendship. His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, presented her with the Order of Saint Sahak and Saint Mesrop, and the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America recognized her with its Friend of the Armenians Award, while the Prelacy of the Great House of Cilicia presented her with the Mesrop Mastots, Queen Zabel, and Spirit of Armenia awards.

Dr. Evans was elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America in 2020. She is chairwoman of the board of the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and former President of the International Center for Medieval Art and the Association of Art Museum Curators. Dr. Evans received her BA with Honors from Newcomb College of Tulane University and her MA and PhD from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. Her dissertation was on Manuscript Illuminations at the Armenian Patriarchate in Hromkla and the West.

“The addition of Dr. Evans and Berj to our leadership group could not have come at a more important time for the Armenian Museum,” noted Kolligian. “We are witnessing ethnic cleaning in Artsakh today, so this is a time to reinvest and expand efforts to preserve and promote our heritage. We are confident that the growth of the Museum’s leadership will introduce new ideas for revitalizing programs and exhibitions for our members and the community at-large.”

Footage of Azerbaijani servicemen vandalizing the St. Yeghishe Church in Artsakh’s Mataghis has surfaced and was published by Armenia’s Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan on his Facebook page.

Last week Jonah Fisher, a BBC reporter, revealed that Azerbaijanis destroyed the Zoravor Surp Astvatsatsin Church in Mekhakavan (Jebrail), while two weeks ago evidence surfaced of Azerbaijani’s demolishing the St. John the Baptist Church—commonly known as Kanach Zham—in Shushi.

All the acts of vandalism and destruction have taken place after the areas were surrendered to Azerbaijan as a result of the November 9 agreement.

“The Azerbaijani servicemen (Turkish flag on the uniform can also be seen) cynically vandalize the Armenian church, overtly showing their intention to insult the church,” Tatoyan wrote on Facebook. “Before entering the church, they say, ‘Let’s now enter their church, where I will perform namaz.’”

“This is an overt manifestation of hate based on ethnicity and religion,” added Tatoyan, explaining that Azerbaijan’s state policy of advancing hatred toward Armenians continues.

On Monday, Tatoyan issued a statement in which he cited concrete examples of state-sanctioned hatred and enmity by not only the leadership of Azerbaijan, but also Turkey.

“The President of Azerbaijan, and the country’s authorities have been implementing a policy of hatred, enmity, ethnic cleansing and genocide against Armenia, citizens of Armenia and the Armenian people for years,” said Tatoyan. “The Turkish authorities have done the same or have openly encouraged the same policy.”

One of the examples cited by Tatoyan was remarks at the congress of his “New Azerbaijan” Party (March 5 to 7), where Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev proudly stated, “the younger generation has grown up with hatred toward the enemy,” meaning Armenians.

During a military parade in Baku on December 10, the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared the Artsakh war with the Armenian Genocide and the massacre of Armenians in Baku in September of 1918. At that event, Tatoyan cited, Erdogan said that it was a day for glorifying the souls of Ahmed Jevat Bey, Nuri Pasha, Enver Pasha, and members of the Caucasus Islamic Army.

“The European Court of Human Rights judgments have confirmed that killing of Armenians in Azerbaijan has ethnic motivations and is encouraged by authorities,” explained Tatoyan. “Therefore, no matter what process, program or words are used, these fundamental facts cannot be overlooked.”

“This means that a one-sided process must not develop at the expense of the life, physical security, or any other right of the citizen of the Republic of Armenia, or the normal life and peace of the Armenian population,” said Tatotyan. “The state-supported hatred and enmity toward Armenia and the Armenian people not only has not diminished in Azerbaijan or Turkey, but due to lack of any responsibility, it is taking on new manifestations.”

A van transporting remains of soldiers killed in the Artsakh War was attacked, when Azerbaijani threw rocks at the vehicles late Sunday night, early Monday morning.

Deputy Mayor of Goris Irina Yolyan chronicled the incident in a Facebook post on Monday, saying the rocks shattered the windshield of the van.

‘’The driver said that he left Stepanakert at night, driving to Goris. There was heavy fog. He felt that the car was being attacked with stones. The incident took place at 1:30 a.m. local time. The driver did not stop, continued driving and reached Goris,” Yolyan said in her post, asking: “Who will ensure the safe movement of peaceful civilians?’’

She also called to keeping records of Azerbaijani aggression and harsh measures to be taken against the perpetrators.

A similar incident involving rock throwing on Armenians took place on Thursday, when Azerbaijani troops, traveling with Russian peacekeepers, threw rocks at Armenian motorists in a village in Artsakh.

“One of the motorists was able to avoid being hit, but the motorist driving behind him did not,” Artsakh Interior Ministry spokesperson Hunan Tadevosyan told Armenpress last week.

“After the incident, the residents of the town immediately blocked the convoy from traveling further, and the Russian peacekeepers and the commanders of the Azerbaijani troops exited their vehicles and apologized,” Tadevosyan said.

The Russian commander said the Armenian motorist whose car was damaged will receive compensation.

YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Armenia and Azerbaijan are not engaged in the formal delimitation of their borders, while border guards are being temporarily deployed according to 1975-1976 military maps, Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan said.

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday, Avinyan said that a process of border delimitation and demarcation would require at least the establishment of bilateral relations between the two neighboring nations that waged a war over Nagorno-Karabakh last fall.

“These are legal processes. As such we do not have legally fixed borders with Azerbaijan. For such processes, I think, we first need to have bilateral relations, because these processes presuppose the establishment of at least bilateral relations,” he said, adding that border delimitation and demarcation are a long process requiring much effort.

The need for specifying borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan arose after the two countries signed a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement last November putting an end to a six-week war in which more than 6,000 people were killed.

Under the terms of the document called a trilateral statement, a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by ethnic Armenian forces.

The agreement also led to the deployment of around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers along frontline areas and a land corridor connecting the disputed territory with Armenia.

As Armenians withdrew from several districts it created an additional border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The matter, in particular, concerns Armenia’s southern Syunik province and eastern Gegharkunik province.

In the interview Avinyan again insisted that Armenia and Azerbaijan have signed no other document besides the November 9 ceasefire agreement and the trilateral statement signed in Moscow on January 11 this year.

“In any case, I am not aware of any such document. As for the agreements on the Goris-Davit Bek section [of the road in Syunik], these agreements are with the Russian side, and Russian border guards are stationed there on the basis of these agreements,” the deputy prime minister explained.

Addressing the issue of Armenian captives in Azerbaijan, the official expressed confidence that Armenia will achieve results in getting them released by Baku.

“The Russian Federation unequivocally shares our approach that all prisoners of war and detained persons must be returned… And I am definitely convinced that we will achieve results. I also want to emphasize that international pressure on Azerbaijan in this regard is growing and will continue to grow,” Avinyan said.

Just last month, on February 11, the Armenian National Committee International issued a statement outlining the current authorities’ dangerous approaches vis-a-vis Turkey, after Foreign Minister Ara Aivazyan discussed Armenia-Turkey relations in Armenia’s National Assembly.

As such, an opinion was expressed that the Government of the Republic of Armenia was going to accept the status quo created by the Turkish-Azerbaijani axis in its aggression against the Republic of Artsakh, including the the occupation of a large parts of Artsakh, deportation and ethnic cleansing.

Second, the Armenian government is effectively acknowledging that there are no more pressing issues in Armenia-Turkey relations than the Karabakh issue and the authorities seem to be preparing to forget the policy of garnering international recognition of and reparations for the Armenian Genocide, as well as issues related to the Armenia-Turkey border.

As recently as March 16, the ARF Bureau, taking into consideration the statements of various officials, international-regional developments and its own information, strongly warned the leadership, which has lost its legitimacy and has handed over a large part of the homeland to the enemy, not to enter into such negotiations with Turkey that could allow it to achieve it 100-year-old goals.

Recent events, especially statements made by the prime minister, the secretary of the security council and the vice-speaker of the National Assembly, once again prove that the authorities of Armenia, who capitulated, are pursuing a succinct policy—guised as normalizing relations with Turkey and ending blockades—which aims to forget the historical past of our people, to renounce the international demand for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, to legally recognize the de facto Armenia-Turkey interstate border, to renounce the Karabakh issue, and with it the restoration of Artsakh’s territorial integrity and status, and to make the territory of the Republic of Armenia a geographical corridor connecting the two Turkish states.
We would like to emphasize that the Armenian authorities, speaking of a comprehensive unblocking of regional infrastructure, are directly accepting Turkey as a party to the Karabakh conflict, and view the opening of the Armenia-Turkey border only in the context of a pro-Turkish settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which has been Ankara’s talking point for decades.

The person clinging the post of Armenia’s Prime Minister continues to make pedestrian assessments about the realities of Turkey’s anti-Armenian hostility. Whereas, it is evident that Armenians’ position is not a consequence of the equal historical footing between the Armenian and Turkish peoples, but rather Turkey’s planned annihilation of Armenians and their homeland. In its turn, Turkey’s hostile policy is conditioned by an imaginary plot for physical retribution by the Armenians against the Turkish people, but as a continuation of the centuries-old anti-Armenian policy of its predecessors, with the same pan-Turkish and neo-Ottoman goals. In other word, Turkey views us as an enemy, since Armenia is an obstacle to Turkey’s implementation of its expansionist policies and because we do not renounce our historical memory, identity, as we have shown in the past through our dignified approach.

It is extremely sad that these obvious realities, which are based on our people’s national pain and open wound, have to be explained to the person holding the post of the Prime Minister of Armenia.

It find it important to note that today Turkey continues to pursue an openly hostile policy toward the Republic of Armenia and all Armenians, the most obvious manifestation of which was the involvement of the Turkey’s military and government, as well as the overt and wide-spread inclusion of the Turkish armed forces in the recent Karabakh war.

The Armenian authorities have begun to manipulate the intelligence of the people with baseless and vain words about regional peace and coexistence. Armenia is the only country in the region that has been the stable guarantor of regional peace. Peace in the region has been broken as a result of Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression against us, and Armenia is the last country where peace should be preached. Our people know best the price of peace, but by the imperative of their history they know that undignified peace only paves the way for future bloody wars.

The Armenian authorities are shamelessly continuing this so-called false pretense of peace even at a time when high-ranking Turkish and Azerbaijani officials have openly expressed their ambitions for the territory of the Republic of Armenia.

As for the fate of the Armenia-Turkey border, it must be taken into account that the border was closed illegally by the Turkish state as a hostile act. Armenia did not play a role in closing the Armenia-Turkey border, so the Turkish state should take the first step in opening the border. In this context, Turkey expects Armenia to renounce the policy of genocide claims and the Karabakh issue, which, apparently, was achieved through the capitulating Armenian authorities.

We, once again, are warning the latter, that a government which denies the Armenian Genocide and has effectively resigned from the Karabakh issue is doomed in Armenia, as is such a policy. If the leadership kowtows to Turkish demands and attempts to enter into dubious negotiations with Turkey, at the expense of the people’s inalienable rights, our people will never allow that. As a consequence, we will have dark pages in our history devoted to pro-Turkish and treasonous leaders.

In order to ensure the security of the republics of Armenia and Artsakh and to defend our national interests, it is imperative that the leadership of Armenia immediately leaves and political forces with national inclinations take over the heavy burden of taking our country out of this difficult and dangerous predicament.

ANC International
March 29, 2021

Armenia’s relations with Turkey once again were front and center as Armenia’s top officials contradicted one another in what amounted to be disturbing and dangerous views on this critical issue for the country’s national security.

On Monday, Foreign Minister Ara Aivazyan told members of parliament that Ankara must end its “hostile” policies toward Armenia if it wants peace and stability in the region.

“In order for real peace in our region, we expect that Turkey will make serious and radical changes in its aggressive policy against Armenia and will end its hostile actions,” Aviazian said, adding that he is “unaware of any format within which consultations or talks could take place with Ankara.”

This was in stark contrast to a more conciliatory tone taken by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the secretary of Armenia’s National Security Council, Armen Grigoryan, whose statements seemed to have stemmed from the notion of “unblocking regional communications” as stipulated by the November 9 agreement.

In an interview with Armenia’s Public Television channel, Grigoryan declined to clarify whether he believes that Turkey remains an enemy of Armenia after the Karabakh war last fall.
“If we are opting for the unblocking of the region there have to be some corrections in our approaches, and we are working in that direction,” he said.

On Sunday, Pashinyan expressed similar sentiments, saying that Armenia should review its position on Turkey and Azerbaijan.

“We, the regional countries, must reappraise our mutual attitudes and postures,” said Pashinyan, who since signing the November 9 agreement, which ended the war but saw the surrender of territories in Artsakh and Armenia to Azerbaijan, has been advancing the notion of opening borders with Azerbaijan and the potential benefits it would bring to Armenia’s economy.

In his remarks in parliament, Aivazyan reminded lawmakers that Armenia had taken several steps to normalize relations with Turkey, which were not reciprocated by Ankara, pointing to the 2009 Armenia-Turkey Protocols process, which he said were “annulled by Turkey.”

“Furthermore, the Armenophobia of the previous century which culminated into the Armenian Genocide, not only hasn’t stopped but has been exported into our region,” Aivazian said, referring to Turkey’s overt support of Azerbaijan as it aggressively attacked Artsakh last fall.