Author: Adrine Hakobian

Christian group aims to get US to help Armenia through Ukraine model

Adrine Hakobian
ARMENIA
by Brady Knox, Breaking News Reporter

A group that works to help persecuted Christians is hoping to get United States assistance to Armenia in the form of supplying them with arms in a manner similar to what was done for Ukraine.

Philos Project President Robert Nicholson was joined by Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback in a press conference ahead of their fact-finding mission to Armenia. The group has largely focused on Christian persecution throughout the Middle East but has shifted its focus this year to focus on Armenia. Nicholson is hoping to drum up support in the United States to push the U.S. government to support Armenia in more direct ways, including providing the country with weapons to even the odds against its hostile neighbor, Azerbaijan.

“The situation is very urgent,” Nicholson said. “It’s extremely urgent and existential. I say that comparatively.”

He contrasted the situation with Israel, which though facing no shortage of threats, is powerful and well-protected. Armenia, by contrast, is small and isolated, lacking U.S. support, he said.

“Armenia is a much smaller country, a much more precarious country, a country that is crushed between some pretty big and, in many cases, malicious players and specifically with respect to its neighbor Azerbaijan,” he continued. “Every day that we were on the ground, there were territorial violations of Azerbaijani troops on Armenian soil.”

Nicholson said there are promising signs of the U.S. taking more direct, diplomatic steps to assist Armenia, but more should be done.

“There is, however, a U.S.-led peace process that I think presents a unique opportunity and one that I hope this trip helps push forward,” he said.

“The Armenians inside this territory, first of all, need security guarantees, right? This is the oldest Christian nation facing, for the second time in only about a century, the possibility of genocide. And I think that without those security guarantees, without the United States as a mediator, ensuring that those guarantees are not only there but even more robustly than we might think to place them in otherwise, then that possibility becomes very real.”

Nicholson then transitioned to make the case for arms shipments to Armenia, arguing that the U.S. should remove barriers to weapon shipments to the country.

Preempting fatigue over extensive weapon shipments to Ukraine, he argued that Armenia can make do with much less.

“This is not Ukraine,” Nicholson said. “There is a little that can do a lot in this conflict. The Armenians are not asking for handouts. For example, one of the big roadblocks they face is their inability to buy certain weapons systems from the United States to buy them, not to just get them for free, so that they can protect themselves.

“Are there reasons why those regulations are in place?” he continued. “[Yes], but I think one of the easiest things that we can do as the United States is help Armenians protect themselves. That’s what they want. We have the ability to help them, and I think that we should do that.”

Part of the fact-finding mission will be to outline what actions can be taken by the U.S. government to clear the way for weapon shipments to the country. Nicholson said that a member of his delegation asked a member of the Ministry of Defense what top three weapons the country wanted.

“The official came back saying, ‘Well, three is a nice number, but we’ve actually submitted a list of 13 items,'” he said. The items range from “things like anti-aircraft systems, missile defense systems, to, you know, things that are much smaller, like small arms and comms equipment and things like that. And the requests have until now been denied.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The reason for the holdup, Nicholson explained, was nervousness over Armenia’s traditional protector, Russia.

“The United States is concerned that whatever weapons it sends to Armenia will fall into Russian hands or the IP will be stolen by Russian engineers,” he said. “Obviously with the Ukraine war raging, that’s … more acute of a problem than even … before.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/foreign/christian-group-aims-to-get-us-to-help-armenia-through-ukraine-model

Armenian PM says Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs will meet in Washington next week

Adrine Hakobian
Al-Arabiya, UAE
REUTERS

The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet in Washington next week, Russian news agencies cited Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as saying on Thursday.

Washington, Moscow and the European Union are all trying separately to help ensure permanent peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which have fought two wars in the last 30 years and regularly clash over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

In 2020, Azerbaijan seized control of areas controlled by ethnic Armenians in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. The enclave is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but populated mainly by ethnic Armenians.

Both sides routinely accuse the other of breaking a ceasefire agreed in 2020.

Armenia-EU ties undergo stable development, including in security – Grigoryan

Adrine Hakobian

 16:01,

YEREVAN, JUNE 20, ARMENPRESS. Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan on June 20 met with a delegation led by Member of the European Parliament Nathalie Loiseau, the Chair of the European Parliament Security and Defence Subcommittee.

“Welcoming the delegation’s visit to Armenia, I emphasized that the Armenia-EU bilateral relations are undergoing stable development, which includes the security sector. I appreciated the activities of the EU civilian mission in Armenia and emphasized that it contributes to having a more stable and safer region,” Grigoryan said on social media.

MEP Loiseau thanked for the reception and said that it is necessary to take practical steps to strengthen the bilateral friendly relations and cooperation especially in such difficult political conditions for Armenia.

Is Washington threatening a counter-terrorist operation in Karabakh? Comments from Yerevan and Baku

Adrine Hakobian



  • JAMnews
  • Baku-Yerevan

RIA Novosti: Washington forcing NK to negotiate

“Washington is forcing the representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh to agree in the near future to a meeting with the Azerbaijani side in a “third country” with the participation of an American curator.” This information was disseminated by Russian media with reference to a “diplomatic source”. The report also says that in case of refusal, “the Karabakh leadership is threatened with an Azerbaijani counter-terrorist operation in the region.”

“The West does not serve or support any ‘military intervention’ against Nagorno-Karabakh,” says a political commentator from Yerevan. “The message from an allegedly diplomatic source in Washington is nothing more than a hoax from the Kremlin,” adds an expert from Baku.

  • “Regional players are not interested in a large-scale escalation.” Opinion from Yerevan
  • Georgia ranks 36th in the Steve Hanke Suffering Index
  • Is the life of the residents of Gobu Park on the outskirts of Baku at risk?

The information was published by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. It emphasized that Washington’s goal is to infiltrate the region.

A little later, the same agency published the reaction of the Russian Foreign Ministry to this message:

“Russia is concerned about the data that the US is trying to impose mediation services in the dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert (including through threats), this raises questions about the adequacy of American mediators.”

A regular meeting between the President of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia took place in Chisinau. In the end, only the date of the next negotiation was reported

JAMnews has reached out to political observers in Yerevan and Baku for comment on these reports.

Political scientist Gurgen Simonyan believes that the RIA Novosti material contains elements of an information war. The quoted “diplomatic source”, according to him, is not credible, an attempt to “rock the situation”.

“The US can put forward an ultimatum demand, but I don’t think it was done. The toolkit of the States includes the use of force or the threat of force. But I don’t know if they did. I’m talking in the opposite direction – that it is necessary to direct Azerbaijan onto a constructive path,” he told JAMnews.

Simonyan is convinced that the West does not serve or support any “military intervention” against Nagorno-Karabakh and says that during the talks in Washington, the parties were given “homework” – how they imagine the solution to the security problem of NK Armenians.

According to the political scientist, Moscow “made its investment – not in favor of Armenia.”

“Contrary to the interests of its official, according to the documents of the military-political ally, Russia is promoting the Azerbaijani agenda in the most dangerous and destructive way for Armenia. Up to the point that it creates a threat to the very existence of Armenia,” he said.

The analyst believes that the Russian Federation is guided by the interests of Azerbaijan and on the issue of dialogue between Baku and the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh:

“This dialogue gives Stepanakert subjectivity. And the Russian Federation put Nagorno-Karabakh on the altar as a price for continuing its aggression against Armenia. If successful, Russia will strengthen its presence, including the subjectivity of the Republic of Armenia in the subject of bargaining. Under no circumstances should we allow this to happen.”

The Ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh published an extraordinary report on the consequences of the blockade and included personal stories of people in it. Details of the report, as well as assessment of the situation by the Armenian Foreign Ministry

He emphasizes that Russia has nothing more to do in the region because it has failed in all its obligations, and now “reaps the fruits of its bad policy.”

“Let Moscow not care about what mechanisms Armenia will try to protect its national security, restore balance in the region and prevent the violation of its national interests,” he concluded.

Political commentator Hagi Namazov believes that “the message from an allegedly diplomatic source in Washington is nothing but a stuffing from the Kremlin.”

“Several factors point to this.

First, the message was transmitted by an agency belonging to the Russian authorities. There, without the knowledge of the Kremlin curators, such messages are not published.

Second, there is no exact source. This “diplomatic source” may well be in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation,” he said.

Namazov draws attention to the fact that the very structure of the message also suggests some thoughts:

“The fact that if the illegal regime in Khankendi refuses to make contacts with Baku and surrender to the authorities, Azerbaijan will launch a counter-terrorist operation in Karabakh has not been a secret for a long time. This was openly stated by President Ilham Aliyev himself.

Moreover, the Russian authorities are well aware that Washington supported Aliyev’s statement about a possible amnesty for the so-called. leaders of the separatist regime in Karabakh.

The Americans do not need to frighten the Armenian population of Karabakh with an anti-terrorist operation. It comes from the logic of things.”

“There is another interesting point in this relatively small message. It turns out that Washington’s goal is to infiltrate the region. That’s funny.

Dialogue between Baku and Khankendi – on the Armenians in Karabakh, a stumbling block on the way to resolution

The US already has a lot of influence in the region. And the introduction of American troops into Karabakh is impossible for two reasons. Russian peacekeepers are stationed there now. And even if they leave in 2025, Azerbaijan will never agree to the deployment of troops from other countries. Because the presence of foreign military bases on the territory of the country is contrary to Azerbaijani legislation,” the political observer emphasized.

“So who needed this message? Of course, Moscow itself. Thus, the Kremlin is clearly hinting that it is against negotiations between Khankendi and Baku, and will also try to prevent a counter-terrorist operation in Karabakh. Because after the establishment of Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over the entire territory of Karabakh, Russian peacekeepers have nothing more to do there. And Russia has no plans to leave the region in 2025. Although official Baku is already talking about this at all levels.

I do not think that Russia is able to change something in Azerbaijan’s plans. By the end of this summer, the separatist regime in Khankendi will be finished. Almost no one in Baku doubts this,” Namazov concluded.

Jerusalem: Politics and Real Estate Endanger Shrinking Armenian Community in Jerusalem’s Old City

Adrine Hakobian
Ha’aretz, Israel
June 7 2023

Politics and Real Estate Endanger Shrinking Armenian Community in Jerusalem’s Old City

A mysterious Israeli investor is planning to transform the community’s apartments and shops into an ultra-luxury hotel, as Palestinian officials accuse the Armenian patriarch of helping Israel in the battle over the city


Associated Press

A real estate deal in Jerusalem’s Old City, the latest epicenter over the battle over the Judaization of the city, has sent the historic Armenian community there into a panic as residents search for answers about the feared loss of their homes to a mysterious investor.

The 99-year lease of some 25 percent of the Old City’s Armenian Quarter has touched sensitive nerves in the Holy Land and sparked a controversy extending far beyond the Old City walls. The fallout has forced the highest authority of the Armenian Orthodox Church to cloister himself in a convent and prompted a disgraced priest who is allegedly behind the deal to flee to a Los Angeles suburb.

“If they sell this place, they sell my heart,” Garo Nalbandian, an 80-year-old photojournalist, said of the Ottoman-era barracks where he has lived for five decades among a dwindling community of Armenians. Their ancestors came to Jerusalem over 1,500 years ago and then after 1915, when Ottoman Turks killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in what’s widely regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Alarm over the lease spread in April, following a surprise visit by Israeli land surveyors. Word got around that an Australian-Israeli investor, whose company sign appeared on the site, planned to transform the parking lot and limestone fortress of Armenian apartments and shops into an ultra-luxury hotel.

As anger, confusion and fears of possible evictions mounted, the Armenian patriarchate — the body managing the community’s civil and religious affairs — acknowledged that the church had signed away the patch of land. The Armenian patriarch, Nourhan Manougian, alleged that a now-defrocked priest bore full responsibility for the “fraudulent and deceitful” deal that the patriarch said took place without his full knowledge.

The admission inflamed passions in the Armenian Quarter, where activists decried the deal as a threat to the community’s longtime presence in Jerusalem. Jordan, with its historic ties to Jerusalem’s Christian sites, said it feared for the “future of the holy city.”

Palestinian officials accused Manougian of helping Israel in a decades-long battle between Israel and the Palestinians over a city that both sides claim as their capital. For Palestinians, such struggles over real estate are the centerpiece of the decades-old conflict, emblematic of what they see as a wider Israeli effort to remove them from strategic areas in east Jerusalem.

“From a Palestinian point of view, this is treason. From a peace activist point of view, this undermines possible solutions to the conflict,” said Dimitri Diliani, president of the National Christian Coalition of the Holy Land.

In a dramatic move, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah II suspended recognition of Manougian, the patriarch who has served for the past decade in what is normally a lifelong position. That renders him unable to sign contracts, make transactions and make decisions in the Palestinian territories and Jordan.

The priest who coordinated the deal, Baret Yeretsian, was deposed, assaulted by a mob of angry young Armenians and whisked away by Israeli police before seeking refuge in southern California. Manougian has barricaded himself in the Armenian convent, unwilling or unable to be seen publicly, according to residents.

“From a Palestinian point of view, this is treason. From a peace activist point of view, this undermines possible solutions to the conflict,” said Dimitri Diliani, president of the National Christian Coalition of the Holy Land.

In a dramatic move, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah II suspended recognition of Manougian, the patriarch who has served for the past decade in what is normally a lifelong position. That renders him unable to sign contracts, make transactions and make decisions in the Palestinian territories and Jordan.

The priest who coordinated the deal, Baret Yeretsian, was deposed, assaulted by a mob of angry young Armenians and whisked away by Israeli police before seeking refuge in southern California. Manougian has barricaded himself in the Armenian convent, unwilling or unable to be seen publicly, according to residents.

There is very little information available about Rothman, who also has used the last name Rubinstein, according to a 2016 Cyprus regulatory decision fining him for falsifying his academic background.

His LinkedIn page describes him as chairman of a hotel company called Xana Capital. Records show the firm — formed in the United Arab Emirates — was registered in Israel in July 2021. Weeks later, a dozen Armenian priests raised the first alarm about a property deal being struck without their consent. A sign recently popped up marking the Armenian parking lot as the property of Xana Capital.

Rothman, who is based in London, declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press. “I never get interviewed by the press. I’m a private person,” he said before hanging up.

The self-exiled priest, Yeretsian, said that Rothman plans to develop a high-end resort in the Armenian Quarter. The project, he added, would be managed by the One&Only hotel company based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, which established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020. The deal appears to be one of the most high-profile — and controversial — to come out of the business ties that were forged under the U.S-brokered agreements known as the Abraham Accords.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment, citing the political sensitivity.

Kerzner International, owner of One&Only Resorts, also declined to comment. The Dubai-based company said only that it is “always exploring opportunities to grow its portfolio of ultra-luxury resorts.”

Renowned Israeli architect Moshe Safdie told the AP that Rothman would fund the project and that he would design it. Construction, he said, would start following excavations at the parking lot. It is unclear whether residents will be evicted, but the patriarchate has promised to assist any residents who are displaced.

Jewish investors in Israel and abroad have for long sought to buy east Jerusalem properties. The Armenian Quarter is desirable because it abuts the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray.

Their goal is to expand the Jewish presence in east Jerusalem, cementing Israeli control of the part of the city claimed by Palestinians as their capital.

Scandals involving land sales to Jewish settlers have previously embroiled the Greek Orthodox Church, the custodian of many Christian sites in the region.

Two decades ago, the Greek Church sold two Palestinian-run hotels in the Old City to foreign companies acting as fronts for a Jewish settler group. The secretive deals led to the downfall of the Greek patriarch and prompted international uproar.

Yeretsian, in California, dismissed fears of an Israeli settler take-over of the Armenian Quarter as “propaganda” based solely on Rothman’s Jewish identity.

“The intention was never to Judaize the place,” he said, claiming that Rothman has no political agenda. He insisted that the Armenian patriarch was fully engaged in the long-running negotiations and personally signed off on the contract.

“I did my job faithfully in the best interest of the patriarchate,” he said, declining to offer further details about the lease that he said expires after a century. The patriarchate declined to say what it would do with the money from the deal.

Meanwhile, Jerusalem’s Armenians — long ruled by foreign powers, displaced by wars and squeezed between Israelis and Palestinians — are filled with nagging dread.

“Our lands were acquired inch by inch with blood and sweat,” said 26-year-old resident Satrig Balian. “With one signature, they were given away.”

2023 ETF Green Skills Award: Armenia, Georgia, and Ukraine hit the list of finalists

Adrine Hakobian
June 8 2023

The European Training Foundation today unveiled the ten 2023 ETF Green Skills Award finalists. They were selected from nearly 600 applications from over 60 countries. 

The award recognises initiatives that have demonstrated exceptional commitment and innovation in promoting and developing green skills worldwide.

Three finalists represent Eastern Partner countries.

TUMO Labs, an initiative of TUMO Centre for Creative Technologies (Armenia), offers a range of cutting-edge courses for students and young professionals that put young people in charge of their own learning. In this competition, the programme takes part with a network of Internet of Things (IoT) weather stations to enable young professionals and teenagers to play their part in monitoring climate change.

Construct2 (Georgia) is a construction college in Zestaponi that has launched Georgia’s first bricklaying course using aerated concrete blocks. So far, the college, which offers vocational programmes that cater to the specific needs of Georgia’s private sector, has trained 200 students.

Taras Shevchenko National University (Ukraine) has developed a range of courses and educational materials focused on ecological economics, green business, and environmental management. The University also ensures practical experiences for all students in companies providing them with the employment opportunities to contribute to the green transition in Ukraine, which has not stopped despite the Russian aggression.

The winners of the Green Skills Award will be selected by public vote open until 29 September (23:59 CEST) and will be announced at an award ceremony in late 2023.

Find out more

Press release

https://euneighbourseast.eu/news/latest-news/2023-etf-green-skills-award-armenia-georgia-and-ukraine-hit-the-list-of-finalists/

Suspect in attempted kidnapping of Pashinyan’s son fires lawyers amid trial

Adrine Hakobian

 14:05, 9 June 2023

YEREVAN, JUNE 9, ARMENPRESS. The woman suspected of attempting to kidnap Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s son Ashot Pashinyan has fired her defense lawyers.

Georgy Melikyan, a criminal defense lawyer who represented Gayane Hakobyan – the woman accused of attempted kidnapping of Ashot Pashinyan – told reporters that her client no longer wants to be represented by him due to a dispute on how to build the defense case. “This was our client’s desire, we respect her decision,” Melikyan said.

Hovsep Sargsyan, another criminal defense lawyer who represented Hakobyan, said that their most recent motion filed to court pertains to granting bail for their jailed client. “The court is taking measures to assign a new lawyer, we are no longer authorized to represent her in this case,” Sargsyan added.

The attorneys said that they wanted to build Hakobyan’s defense case around vindication, while Hakobyan herself had a differing opinion. The lawyers did not elaborate.

Asked whether or not the move could mean that Hakobyan will plead guilty, Melikyan said: “Perhaps your assumption is correct, but we haven’t’ said such thing.”

The attorneys also said that Ashot Pashinyan had a change of stance in his testimony at the closed court hearing, but again did not elaborate.

Hakobyan, a mother of an Armenian soldier killed during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, was on suspicion of attempting to kidnap Ashot Pashinyan on May 17.

Researchers find Israeli-made spyware deployed across Armenia

Adrine Hakobian
May 25 2023
Raphael Satter and James Pearson

LONDON (Reuters) – Researchers have discovered Israeli-made Pegasus phone hacking software deployed against targets across Armenia, including reporters at a U.S. government-funded news organization, a report released on Thursday found.

A team of researchers from digital rights group Access Now, human rights organization Amnesty International, Canadian internet watchdog Citizen Lab, Armenian digital defense group CyberHUB-AM and independent researcher Ruben Muradyan, said they had confirmed at least 12 cases in which espionage software made by Israel’s NSO Group had been used against Armenian officials, journalists and organizers.

What researchers were able to confirm “is the tip of the iceberg,” said Natalia Krapiva, the tech-legal counsel for Access Now. “The targeting was quite extensive.”

Pegasus is one of many advanced espionage tools that affords hackers sweeping access to their targets’ smartphones, allowing them to record calls, intercept messages and even transform the phones into portable listening devices.

Researchers, lawmakers, and journalists have repeatedly accused the technology’s maker, Israel-based NSO Group, of helping governments spy on political opponents. In 2021, the company was blacklisted by the U.S. government over human rights concerns.

In an email, NSO Group said it was unable to address the specific allegations made by the coalition of researchers but that it would “investigate all credible allegations of misuse”.

The company has previously disputed accusations of wrongdoing, saying its software is used to fight terrorism and serious crime.

One of the alleged Armenian victims of NSO’s spyware said those explanations do not reflect reality.

“That’s a kind of ridiculous umbrella for the companies that create these products and the governments that use them,” Armenian opposition broadcaster Samvel Farmanyan told Reuters.

He added that his targeting was “totally unacceptable (and had) nothing to do with the prevention of any type of crime or terrorism.”

AZERBAIJAN DENIES RESPONSIBILITY

The researchers said they believed neighboring Azerbaijan, which has fought several wars with Armenia over the disputed chunk of territory known as Nagorno-Karabakh or Artsakh, was likely responsible for the hacking activity.

That’s in part because of “extensive evidence” that Azerbaijan’s government has previously used Pegasus against its domestic opponents, said Amnesty’s Donncha O Cearbhaill, referring to a 2021 investigation by Amnesty and other partners that found hundreds of Azeri phone numbers had been selected for targeting with Pegasus spyware.

The Azeri Embassy in London said in a statement that Azerbaijan “does not engage in such practices” and “does not spy on foreign citizens”.

The Armenian government has in the past been implicated in the deployment of phone hacking software, including in a report published last year by Alphabet’s Google.

While that report pointed to a different spyware, known as Predator, several Pegasus victims in Armenia said they feared their own government was behind the recent surveillance.

The Armenian Embassy in London said its government rejected the alleged use of spyware at the “highest level”.

“Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made a strong public statement categorically rejecting the circulating information that the authorities used spyware against opponents and/or journalists,” it said in a statement.

Pashinyan and family members had also received messages warning that their devices may have been compromised, it added.

Reuters spoke to several alleged victims identified by the researchers. All said Apple Inc had sent them warnings in 2021 that their iPhones were at risk from spyware. They later discovered traces of Pegasus on their devices through forensic analyses.

Two of them were journalists with the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), something RFE/RL executive Patrick Boehler said was “truly terrifying and appalling”.

“If we cannot protect our sources, it has consequences for the depth and breadth of our journalism,” he said.

Other alleged victims included Varuzhan Geghamyan, an academic and expert on Armenian-Azeri relations, and Ruben Melikyan, a lawyer and human rights activist.

They all condemned the spying.

“Psychologically it’s devastating,” said Farmanyan, the broadcaster.

(Reporting by Raphael Satter and James Pearson in London; editing by Bill Berkrot and Mark Heinrich)

We are trying to return Nagorno Karabakh to negotiation table, dialogue with Baku – MP

Adrine Hakobian

Save

Share

 15:03,

YEREVAN, MAY 26, ARMENPRESS. The interests of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh must be represented by the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh themselves, through a Baku-Stepanakert dialogue under the auspices of an international mechanism, ruling Civil Contract party lawmaker Artur Hovhannisyan said at a press briefing when asked who should represent the interests of the Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh.

“The interests of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh must be represented by Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh themselves, through a Baku-Stepanakert format, under the auspices of international mechanisms. Armenia is now guided by the preservation of sovereignty over its 29,800 square kilometers territory and exercising the rights and security of the Armenians living in Nagorno Karabakh,” Hovhannisyan said.

The process must take place through dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert under international guarantees, the MP said.

“The Nagorno Karabakh conflict deepened after Robert Kocharyan left Nagorno Karabakh out of the negotiations process. We are now trying to return the representatives of Artsakh [Nagorno Karabakh] to the negotiation table and dialogue with Baku, where they will be able to exercise their rights the way they picture it,” Hovhannisyan said.

Hovhannisyan added that authorities of Armenia maintain permanent contact with their counterparts in Nagorno Karabakh and that the latter are aware of the details on the negotiation process.

Genealogy: “Useful in the toolkit of genocide education”

Adrine Hakobian
 George Aghjayan Research, Commentary, Special Reports 0

George Aghjayan (right) visiting the grave of his great-grandmother’s sister Vazkanoush with his cousin Cengiz Başıbüyük, June 2019

Special Issue: Genocide Education for the 21st Century
The Armenian Weekly, April 2023

The impact of genocide lingers long after the initiation of the crime. Genocide scholarship today delves into the more nuanced ways in which victims are subjected to genocidal acts in addition to murder. Sexual violence against women and de-ethnicization of children are just two examples. Entire societies are destroyed through genocide and the surviving remnants separated and scattered, resulting in the magnitude of the crime being difficult to quantify.

While research into a person’s ancestry was traditionally reserved for nobility, and in the United States there were societies devoted to descendants of specific groups, for example Daughters of the American Revolution or Mayflower Descendants, since the 1970s there has been an explosion of genealogical research into all ethnic groups regardless of societal class. The publication of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the television mini-series based on the book brought forth tremendous interest in genealogy, the family history of African Americans, specifically, and all ethnic groups universally. 

In addition, there was controversary over the accuracy of the oral history included in Roots and the ability to document through source records the family history of victims of slavery that is equally relevant for all victims of genocide. 

Initially, my involvement in genocide education focused on demographics and the ways in which a numbers game is utilized in genocide denial. A primary recurring theme in the denial of genocide and ethnic cleansing is to minimize the victim population. Presumably, if less Armenians were alive and living in the Ottoman Empire in 1914, that would mean that less were subjected to murder, rape, slavery, etc.

My research has focused on three aspects. First, I work on documenting the location and previous Armenian population of the villages of Western Armenia, given the destruction of many of these locations and the Turkish government’s changes in names and locations. Second, there is a common misconception that the various source documents are in conflict over the pre-genocide number of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Instead of viewing them in conflict, my research has attempted to show under what assumptions the sources can be brought into agreement. Lastly, I have used micro-studies to better evaluate the quality of the various sources. 

Advertisements searching for relatives missing in the Genocide, printed in the Hairenik newspaper, Wednesday, January 7, 1920

Over time, through this research, I additionally saw the continuing damage to our people by the ruptures in our families caused by the Genocide. I was tormented reading the advertisements searching for relatives placed in various Armenian newspapers following the end of World War I.

Since 1996, I have met hundreds of survivors of the Genocide and their descendants still living in Turkey and desiring to reconnect with their relatives. At the same time, the amount of documentary resources available to Armenians attempting to learn more about their family histories has exploded in the last 20 years. From Armenian church records in Armenia and the Diaspora and family history reports available to Turkish citizens to Ottoman population registers and DNA testing, thousands of Armenians are gaining new insight into their ancestors in ways they never thought would be possible.

The Armenian Genealogy Facebook group has provided an invaluable forum for those seeking answers. The Armenian Immigration Project has culled the documents pertaining to Armenians within United States and Canadian civil records, and there are similar efforts beginning in other countries as well. Since 2016, there have been a number of Armenian genealogy conferences held throughout the United States and in September 2022 at the American University in Armenia. 

The resulting stories of connections and reconnections of families have served as a powerful educational tool to understand the depth of the crime. For over a century now, Armenian women forced into marriages with Muslims, as well as children forced into slavery, and ultimately, assimilation into Muslim households, have been treated as dead. They considered themselves dead to their families and they urged their families to accept their “death.” There were hundreds of thousands who were included in the 1.5 million deaths of the Armenian Genocide. Yet, we know that many of them “survived,” and against all odds and threats of persecution, they retained their Armenian heritage.

Hrant Dink often wrote of the plight of so-called hidden Armenians in Turkey. In 2004, My Grandmother: A Memoir by Fethiye Çetin was published in Turkey and has gone through multiple printings. Through their efforts, a much greater awareness was created both inside and outside the Republic of Turkey about the Armenians still remaining on our ancestral homeland.

The tragic reality is that many genocide survivors pass away never knowing for certain what has happened to their lost relatives. In 2012, while traveling to the village of my grandmother, I had an epiphany about the way DNA testing could be used to assist in the reconnecting of families. In 2015, my hopes were realized—the family of my great-grandmother’s sister and I found each other through DNA testing. 

While it still remains very difficult and certain parts of the homeland are underrepresented, nonetheless today I find it much more common to be able to validate family trees and other oral histories through official documents. The village of Hazari in the Chmshgadzak region is an excellent example of what is possible. In the 1930s, Hovhannes Ajemian collected a tremendous amount of information on the Armenian-inhabited villages of Chmshgadzak. Included with this, thus far, unpublished material were genealogy wheels. I was given a copy of the genealogy wheels for the families of Hazari by the descendants of Vazken Antreasian, author of three books about the village. I was able to rebuild the family trees for most of the families from Hazari based on the genealogy wheels, Ottoman population records and United States records for those who had come from the village. The analysis has been published on houshamadyan.org. 

In this way, genealogy is useful in the toolkit of genocide education and also serves as a critical way of mitigating the continued detrimental impact of genocide on the victims.

  •  Bio
  •  Latest Posts
George Aghjayan is the Director of the ARF Archives and a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Central Committee of the Eastern United States. Aghjayan graduated with honors from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Actuarial Mathematics. He achieved Fellowship in the Society of Actuaries in 1996. After a career in both insurance and structured finance, Aghjayan retired in 2014 to concentrate on Armenian related research and projects. His primary area of focus is the demographics and geography of western Armenia as well as a keen interest in the hidden Armenians living there today. Other topics he has written and lectured on include Armenian genealogy and genocide denial. He is a frequent contributor to the Armenian Weekly and Houshamadyan.org, and the creator and curator westernarmenia.weebly.com, a website dedicated to the preservation of Armenian culture in Western Armenia.