Month: April 2021

Lavrov to visit Armenia next week

Emil Lazarian
MediaMax, Armenia

Yerevan /Mediamax/. Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov will pay a working visit to Yerevan on May 5-6, Russian MFA Spokesperson Maria Zakharova announced today.

Lavrov will also visit Baku on May 10-11.

“The visits will include talks with the leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The parties are to discuss a wide range of the matters concerning bilateral and regional cooperation as well as cooperation in the international scene. The parties will focus on practical aspects of implementation of the statements made by Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders on 9 November 2020 and 11 January 2021,” said Zakharova.

Maine House and Senate pass resolution commemorating the Armenian Genocide

Markos Nalchajian 
Public Radio of Armenia








Maine State House and Senate passed a joint resolution reaffirming
their commitment to recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Maine first
adopted an Armenian Genocide resolution in 1965.

Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte secured this recognition working
alongside Maine House of Representatives Sponsor Benjamin Collings
(D), Rachel Talbot Ross (D), Suzanne Salisbury (D), Patrick Corey (R),
Justin Fecteau (R) and Maine State Senators Heather Sanborn (D) and
Trey Stewart (R).

Rights group files criminal complaint against far-right lawmaker who threatened Armenian MP Garo Paylan

Babken Chilingarian
Public Radio of Armenia

The Istanbul-based Human Rights Association (İHD) filed a criminal complaint against far-right independent member of the Turkish Parliament Ümit Özdağ, who threatened Garo Paylan with facing the same fate as his ancestors, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported on Wednesday.

The İHD accused Özdağ, a professor of political science and currently an independent lawmaker from Turkey’s southeastern province of Gaziantep who served with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and İYİ Party in the past, of “inciting the public to hatred or hostility” in accordance with Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Komisyon olarak HDP'li Ermeni milletvekili Garo Paylan'ı ırkçı saiklerle tehdit eden Ümit Özdağ hakkında suç duyurusunda bulunduk. pic.twitter.com/fq7ZHOHwNk

— İHD-Irkçılık ve Ayrımcılığa Karşı Komisyon (@irkciliga_karsi) April 27, 2021

Paylan, an Armenian lawmaker representing the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), released a statement on Twitter on April 24 criticizing the naming of streets in Turkey after Talaat Pasha, the de facto political leader of the Ottoman Empire during World War I who is held responsible for the deportations and atrocities committed against Armenians at the time.

“We are walking on streets 106 years later named after Talaat Pasha, the architect of the genocide. We send our kids to schools named Talaat Pasha. We are living in a Turkey like what Germany would have been if there had been streets and schools named after Hitler in Germany today,” tweeted Paylan.

The message drew an angry and threatening response from Özdağ, who repeatedly targeted Paylan and the country’s Armenian population.

“Shameless, provocative man. If you are not very pleased [about living here], go to hell. Talaat Pasha did not deport patriotic Armenians but those like you who hit [Turks] from behind. When the time comes, you will and should also go through a Talaat Pasha experience,” Özdağ tweeted on Monday.

Terbiyesiz tahrikçi adam. Çok memnun değilsen çek git cehennemin dibine. Talat Paşa vatansever Ermenileri değil senin gibi arkadan vuranları sürdü. Sen de zamanı gelince bir Talat Paşa deneyimi yaşayacaksın ve yaşamalısın. https://t.co/DicwpbvuAM

— Prof. Dr. Ümit Özdağ (@umitozdag) April 26, 2021

In October Paylan was also targeted in newspaper ads published by the nationalist Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies (ASAM) think tank, founded by Özdağ, for comments he made about the clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The ads claimed that Paylan “shamelessly blamed Azerbaijan and Turkey and openly backed Armenia.” Describing the lawmaker’s words as evidence of treason, ASAM called on the “independent judiciary” and the Turkish parliament to take “the necessary steps” about Paylan.
Özdağ is also known for an anti-Syrian campaign that aims to send Syrian refugees who had to flee their country and seek refuge in Turkey back home.

In an interview with the Ayıntab daily, published in Gaziantep, Özdağ claimed that “Syrians were forced to migrate to Turkey in line with a project. The powerful instruments of imperialism will change the demographic structure of the region in order to increase the dominance of different ethnic groups according to their own strategy and drag the country [Turkey] towards a catastrophic civil war. They [the imperialists] are using migration as a tool of strategic [political] engineering,” adding that “Syrian refugees, unfortunately, are a huge problem for Turkey and Gaziantep.”

“Syrians have been looming over Gaziantep like a nightmare. I can’t call it migration, which not only makes the situation more complicated but also darkens the city’s future. In fact, we are witnessing a covert invasion today,” Özdağ told Ayıntab.

In addition, Özdağ had stated during a meeting of parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee in October that Turkey was in danger of becoming a “Middle Eastern country.”

Armenia to purchase 1 million dozes of Russian vaccine

Manouk Vasilian 
Public Radio of Armenia







Armenia will purchase 1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine from the
Russian Federation, acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the
government sitting today. He added that a relevant agreement is in
place.

“Negotiations are underway to import large quantities of vaccine to
Armenia from other partners,” Pashinyan said.

Acting Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan said, in turn, that
citizens can register at their preferred polyclinic to receive the
vaccine. Starting next week, there will be mobile teams stationed in
busy parts of Yerevan. She said the vaccine will be available for
every citizen over 18 years of age.

“Vaccination 100% protects against the severe, extremely severe course
of the disease. The risk of side effect from the vaccine is almost
zero if we compare it to Covid, which results in serious damage to
health and, unfortunately, death,” she said, urging everyone to take
an active part in the process.

Armenia set to extend ban on import of Turkish goods

Alex Jidarian 
Public Radio of Armenia







The issue of opening the border with Turkey is not on the government’s
agenda, acting Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan told journalists
after the government sitting.

He informed that the ban on the import of Turkish goods will be
extended. “Apparently, we will also ban the sale, no matter when the
goods were imported, because people find secret ways to import Turkish
goods,” the Minister said.

“Here the approach should be quite symmetrical, when a decision is
made at the political level to restore symmetrical relations, then we
will try to make sure that our economy is as well protected as
possible from the flood of Turkish goods,” Vahan Kerobyan stressed.

By its decision of October 20, 2020, the Government of the Republic of
Armenia imposed a ban on the import of consumer goods of Turkish
origin. The ban is valid from December 31, 2020 for a period of six
months.

In 1993 Turkey unilaterally closed the air and land borders with
Armenia. Under pressure from the international community, the air
border reopened in 1995. The land border remains closed.

Armenian Foreign Ministry condemns desecration of statue to Mahatma Gandhi

Alex Nanijanian 
Public Radio of Armenia







The Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has strongly condemned the
damaging and burning of the pedestal of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi,
a symbol of India’s independence and statehood, peace advocate and
humanist.

This is a provocation against the centuries-old Armenian-Indian
friendship, dynamically developing since the independence, the
Ministry said in a statement.

“The issue of preserving monuments is an obligation of all of us, and
any such act of vandalism and desecration is an encroachment on the
universal values, the perpetrators of which must be held accountable
within the law,” the statement reads.

A group of Azerbaijanis crosses the line of contact – Armenia MoD

Alex Jidarian 
Public Radio of Armenia








A group of 8-10 Azerbaijanis in civilian clothes crossed the line of
contact from the Azerbaijani settlement of Alibeyli and penetrated
into the buffer zone, carrying 30-40 meter-long pipes, most probably
to establish water supply to the nearby Azerbaijani military position.
The incident took place on April 28, at about 11:40.

Noticing the servicemen of the Armenian Armed Forces, the Azerbaijanis
hurried back to Alibeyli settlement, leaving the pipes in the buffer
zone. The servicemen of the Armenian Armed Forces showed restraint,
did not give in to provocations. The enemy’s activities were stopped.

According to the information received from the National Security
Service, no border incidents were registered on the Vorotan-Davit Bek
section of the Goris-Kapan interstate highway, which is under the
protection of the NSS border troops.

The units of the RA Armed Forces and NSS frontier troops control the
situation along the entire length of the border and fulfill the set
tasks.

Republican Party of Armenia to run in snap elections in alliance with Hayrenik

Lilit Nahapetian 
Public Radio of Armenia






The Republican Party of Armenia will run in the forthcoming snap
parliamentary elections in alliance with the Hayrenik (Homeland)
Party, Vice-President of the Party Armen Ashotyan told reporters after
the sitting of the Supreme Body.

The sitting was chaired by President of the Party Serzh Sargsyan.

“As a result of discussions on the possible format of participation,
it was decided to form an alliance with the Hayrenik Party,” Ashotyan
said.

Hayrenik party is led by former Director of the National Security
Service Artur Vanetsyan.

French lawmakers visit Yerablur military cemetery in Yerevan

Maral Takmazian
Public Radio of Armenia

French lawmakers François Pupponi, Erablur Xavier Breton, Guy Teissier, Valérie Boyer and Marguerite Deprez-Audebert visited the Yerablur military cemetery in Yerevan.

“I realized how many soldiers fell in the recent conflict in Artsakh and how young they were. I want to show all the Armenian people, their families and loved ones all my support. I will never forget their sacrifice and suffering and I will always remain committed to the Armenian cause,” François Pupponi said in a Facebook post.

“The fight they waged at the risk of their lives was a fight for their freedom but it was also one to protect us Europeans against obscurantism and Turkish-Azeri hegemony.

Opinion | The U.S. has finally acknowledged the genocide of Armenians. What about Native Americans?

Garik Boshkezenian
Washington Post

Opinion by Glenn T. Morris and SimonMaghakyan
at 7:09 p.m. UTC

Glenn T. Morris is an associate professor and President’s Teaching Scholar at the University of Colorado Denver. He also serves on the Leadership Council of the American Indian Movement of Colorado. Simon Maghakyan is an Armenian Genocide descendant, visiting scholar at Tufts University and lecturer in International Relations at the University of Colorado Denver.

On April 24, 2015, the centennial of the start of the Armenian genocide, Armenians in Colorado stood shoulder to shoulder with indigenous peoples of the Americas on the grounds of the Colorado state Capitol for the unveiling of a memorial recognizing the Armenian genocide. A representative of the Ute Nations, some of the indigenous peoples of what is now Colorado, offered words in recognition of the common experience of Armenians and indigenous peoples.

Last weekend, Colorado’s Armenian community gathered again at the state Capitol memorial, a replica of a medieval monument recently destroyed in an ongoing act of Armenian erasure. This month’s commemoration differed from previous years. This year, Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to formally recognize the Armenian genocide.

While one official statement cannot eliminate fears of another genocide or the pain of losing millions of Armenian, Assyrian, Pontic Greek, Yazidi civilians and their indigenous homelands during the 1915-1923 genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire, Biden’s proclamation made hope for justice more imaginable and the intergenerational Armenian trauma slightly more manageable.

Now, it is time for Biden and the United States to take those sentiments and look inward.

Denial of the genocide against indigenous peoples by the United States is rampant. The massacre of Native peoples — from Mystic River, Gnadenhütten and Sacramento River to Bear River, Sand Creek, Camp Grant and Wounded Knee (and the fact that most readers have probably never heard of these) — is evidence of American amnesia about its homegrown genocide.

Multiple forced marches and removals — the most infamous being the Trail of Tears and the Long Walk — were precursors to the forced death marches of Armenians to the Deir ez-Zor desert that now stand condemned by Biden. The kidnapping, torture, rape and murder of indigenous children in the United States and missionary manual labor schools are equally condemnable to the ethnic cleansing, slaughter and turkification against Armenian children by the Ottomans — practices now recognized as genocide under the international Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Native nations now surrounded by the United States still await Biden’s proclamation and reparations for those crimes against humanity.

In some ways, America has made superficial efforts to do what Turkey, which denies the very existence of Armenian genocide, is so far from doing. At least the United States acknowledges Native nations as indigenous peoples, although it refuses to implement the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Turkey denies that Armenians are indigenous people in their homelands.

The United States has laws to protect indigenous peoples’ sacred sites, albeit often ignored in places such as the Black Hills and Bears Ears, while Turkey continues to erase Armenians’ heritage sites and denies their antiquity. Turkey’s obsession with erasure is so brazen that even the Armenian Tiara adorning 2,000-year-old statues at the Nemrut Dağ World Heritage Site is rebranded in official Turkish publications as “Five-spiked Tiara.”

U.S. policy toward indigenous peoples possesses the veneer and cachet of greater civility, including the recent appointment of Deb Haaland to serve as interior secretary. What is missing from U.S. practice is any formal recognition of the systematic crimes committed against Native nations and the ongoing damage that persists through extractive industries, land theft, missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and the denial of genuine self-determination for indigenous peoples under international law. What is missing from both countries is any acknowledgement that their societies and economies remain the beneficiaries of genocide.

Despite Turkey’s threats that diplomatic relations with the United States will be damaged by Biden’s proclamation, it is obviously easier for Washington to recognize the Armenian genocide than to hold itself to account for genocidal U.S. practices. Both Turkey and the United States try to control the production of the historical record to sanitize, rationalize or erase their genocidal records. Despite these futile attempts, the Chinese writer Lu Xun reminds us: “Lies written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood.”

The spirit and future of the Armenian people, as well as the indigenous peoples of the Americas, springs from and runs with the land, and thus, it will be forever. Perhaps Biden’s proclamation is a small step in acknowledging that truth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/29/us-biden-armenian-genocide-native-americans-recognition/