Friday, July 28, 2023
Armenia Fears Azeri Territorial Claims
July 28, 2023
• Karlen Aslanian
Armenia - Defense Minister Arshak Karapetian visits a disputed section of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border, November 17, 2021.
Azerbaijan remains reluctant to recognize Armenia’s borders despite progress
made in talks on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty, according to a senior
official in Yerevan.
Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanian said this is one of the main obstacles
to the signing of the treaty strongly backed by the United States and the
European Union.
“Azerbaijan still does not want to accept a clear border line between Armenia
and Azerbaijan, which leads us to suspect that Azerbaijan has far-reaching goals
and may make territorial claims against the Republic of Armenia in the future,”
Kostanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday.
This is why, he said, Yerevan insists that 1975 Soviet military maps be used as
a basis for delimiting the long Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Baku has rejected the proposed mechanism in delimitation talks with Yerevan held
so far. It stressed earlier this year that Azerbaijan’s borders with other
neighboring states have been delimited and demarcated “on the basis of analyses
and examination of legally binding documents, rather than any specially chosen
map.”
The most recent round of delimitation talks took place on July 12 three days
before the EU chief, Charles Michel, hosted yet another meeting of Armenian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in
Brussels.
Michel said after the meeting that the two leaders reaffirmed their earlier
“understanding that Armenia’s territory covers 29,800 square kilometers and
Azerbaijan’s 86,600 square kilometers.” Aliyev has still not publicly
acknowledged, however, Armenia’s total internationally recognized area cited by
Michel.
Opposition leaders and other critics of the Armenian government note that Baku
is unwilling to do that even after Pashinian pledged in May to recognize
Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh through the peace deal. This
means, they say, that even such a far-reaching concession offered by him would
not safeguard Armenian territory from future Azerbaijani attacks.
Following Pashinian’s pledge, Azerbaijan also tightened its crippling blockade
of Karabakh’s only land link with Armenia. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan
warned last week that the region is now “on the verge of starvation.”
Kostanian said that lingering differences between Yerevan and Baku on the
question of the “rights and security” of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population
are also hampering the deal. The official was careful not to speculate about
possible timelines for its signing.
Armenian Officer Dies Years After ‘Unsolved Attack'
July 28, 2023
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - The entrance to a military hospital, July 8, 2021.
An Armenian military officer has died in hospital almost four years after being
badly injured in a violent incident that led to the resignation of a political
ally of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Lieutenant-Colonel Ara Mkhitarian fell into a coma in September 2019 after
arguing with an assistant to Trdat Sargsian, the then governor of Armenia’s
Vayots Dzor province, in the provincial capital Yeghegnadzor in disputed
circumstances. Mkhitarian never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead
on Thursday.
According to Armenia’s Investigative Committee, Mkhitarian was punched by
Sargsian’s aide, Harutiun Grigorian, and fell to the ground. Grigorian was
arrested and subsequently sentenced to five years in prison.
Mkhitarian’s family and friends dismissed the official version of events. They
said that the officer and three of his colleagues were assaulted by a larger
group of men that may have included Sargsian.
“How can you knock down a 120-kilogram guy and smash his skull with one punch?”
the victim’s father, Samvel Mkhitarian, argued shortly after the incident.
The three other officers testified during the ensuing investigation that
Sargsian, who is a senior member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, was among
the attackers. The Investigative Committee dismissed their claims and charged
them with “false denunciation,” however. It said that Sargsian “was not at the
site of the incident” when it happened.
Armenia - Trdat Sargsian.
Sargsian also strongly denied any involvement despite resigning as Vayots Dzor
governor a week after the violence. He is now a member of the Armenian
parliament.
His jailed aide’s lawyer, Levon Sahakian, on Friday blamed Mkhitarian and the
other officers for the “fight.” He claimed that they were drunk and attacked his
client.
It is not clear whether the officer’s death could lead the investigators to
again examine the ex-governor’s possible role in the 2019 incident. Zhanna
Aleksanian, a veteran human rights campaigner, said they must launch a fresh
inquiry.
“I’m not sure that the [2019] investigation was objective and comprehensive,”
Aleksanian said, adding that there may well have been a cover-up.
Some critics of the Armenian government have openly alleged that Pashinian saved
his loyalist from prosecution. The premier has denied that.
U.S. Again Urges Reopening Of Lachin Corridor
July 28, 2023
• Anush Mkrtchian
• Tigran Hovsepian
Armenia - U.S. diplomat John Allelo (left) inspects an Armenian aid convoy stuck
near the Lachin corridor July 28, 2023.
The United States renewed its calls for the immediate lifting of Azerbaijan’s
blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh on Friday as Armenian trucks carrying food for
Karabakh’s residents remained stuck at the entrance to the Lachin corridor for
the third consecutive day.
The Armenian government sent the aid convoy on Wednesday in an attempt to
alleviate severe food shortages in Karabakh. Azerbaijan, which tightened the
blockade on June 15, condemned the move as a “provocation,” refusing to let 19
trucks loaded with about 400 tons of basic foodstuffs to pass through an
Azerbaijani checkpoint.
John Allelo, the acting deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Armenia,
joined Yerevan-based foreign diplomats in visiting an adjacent Armenian border
area to inspect the long line of trucks awaiting permission to proceed to
Stepanakert. The diplomats accompanied by Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister
Vahan Kostanian also met with Karabakh Armenian refugees.
In a Twitter post, the U.S. Embassy said Allelo “heard from displaced persons
and regional officials about the suffering caused by continued blockage of the
Lachin corridor.”
“We reiterate [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken’s call for an immediate
reopening of the corridor to commercial and private traffic,” it wrote.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, likewise said on
Wednesday that the Azerbaijani authorities should “guarantee safety and freedom
of movement along the Lachin corridor.” He pointed to “dire consequences” of the
blockade for Karabakh’s population. France and several other EU member states
echoed Borrell’s appeal rejected by Baku.
Armenia - Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanian speaks to journalists, July
28, 2023.
“Unfortunately, there have been no positive developments so far,” Kostanian
said, adding that the aid convoy will remain there “as long as it’s necessary.”
“We will try to ensure the reopening of the Lachin corridor by all political
means at our disposal,” he told reporters. “The trucks will stay here for now.”
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Thursday that Baku’s continued refusal to
let the convoy through would testify to its “intention to commit genocide in
Nagorno-Karabakh.” The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry responded by saying that the
Armenian side should agree to an alternative, Azerbaijani-controlled supply
route for Karabakh.
Borrell stressed that the proposed route rejected by Karabakh’s leadership
“should not be seen as an alternative to the reopening of the Lachin corridor.”
Meanwhile, Armenia’s Vienna-based ambassador to the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe, Armen Papikian, called on the international community
to impose sanctions on Baku to ensure its compliance with a UN court’s February
order to “ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles, and cargo along the
Lachin Corridor in both directions.”
Armenian Farmers Hit By Cheaper Russian Grain
July 28, 2023
• Satenik Kaghzvantsian
Armenia - Wheat harvest in Shirak province.
Wholesale prices of wheat mostly imported to Armenia from Russia have shrunk by
half over the past year, taking their toll on Armenian grain farmers.
A significant weakening of the Russian ruble appears to have been the main cause
of the price collapse. The ruble has lost more than 40 percent of its nominal
value against the Armenian dram since June 2022 amid a barrage of Western
sanctions imposed over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
According to Hunan Petrosian, a wholesale trader from Armenia’s leading
grain-producing region, Shirak, the sanctions have also cut the cost of
transporting Russian wheat to non-Western countries still buying it. This has
made it even cheaper in the local markets, he said.
“Quite cheap wheat is imported from the Russian Federation. This is the main
reason,” Petrosian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The downward trend does not seem to have reversed yet by this month’s 15 percent
rise in global wheat prices, which followed Moscow’s decision to quit a deal
allowing Ukraine to export grain via the Black Sea.
Russia meets about 70 percent of Armenia’s domestic wheat demand estimated at
500,000 metric tons per annum.
In Petrosian’s words, a kilogram of wheat now costs an equivalent of 40-45 drams
(10-11 U.S. cents) in Russia. The wholesale prices of the essential crop in
Armenia range from 70 to 90 drams per kilogram.
Armenia - Workers at a wheat storage facility in Shirak province.
Farmers in Shirak complain that this is below their current production costs.
One of them, Garnik Marzetsian, has 50 tons of grain left over from last year’s
harvest and expects to harvest another 90 tons this fall.
“I’ll rather let it rot or burn it down than sell [at the current prices,]
Marzetsian warned on Thursday.
The 69-year-old farmer and other residents of the Shirak village of Meghrashen
demanded government intervention. The Armenian government, they said, should set
a higher minimum price.
Last year, the government provided Shirak farmers with more subsidies to
encourage them to grow more grain. As a result, they planted the crop on an
additional 5,000 hectares of land. Many farmers are now thinking about shrinking
their next wheat plantings.
This is an alarming prospect for Petrosian. The grain dealer too called for
urgent government support to the farmers, saying that Armenia must not become
even more dependent on wheat imports.
“This [domestic grain] production is of strategic importance and it should be at
the center of the state’s attention,” he said.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Author: Alex Nanijanian
‘Totally untrue’, government denies spending $23 million for Snoop Dogg concert
12:32,
YEREVAN, JULY 29, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian government has denied media reports which claimed that the authorities have allocated 23 million dollars for organizing American rapper Snoop Dogg’s concert in Yerevan.
In a statement released Saturday, the Prime Minister’s Office said the media reports are “totally untrue.”
It added that soon the Cabinet will adopt a decision in relation with the upcoming concert and all the details, including its possible economic impact, will be made public.
American rapper Snoop Dogg will perform live in Yerevan on 23 September.
“I’ll be rolling for your beautiful city of Yerevan on September 23rd for a special show,” Snoop Dogg said on July 28 in a video on Instagram. “It’s not a regular gig……….this is going to be straight up legendary.”
RFE/RL Armenian Service – 07/29/2023
Saturday,
Karabakh Man Arrested By Azerbaijan During Medical Evacuation
• Artak Khulian
Vagif Khachatrian and other patients from Nagorno-Karabakh pass through an
Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin corridor, .
Azerbaijani security forces arrested a seriously ill resident of
Nagorno-Karabakh as he was being evacuated by the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC) to Armenia on Saturday.
Vagif Khachatrian, a 68-year-old resident of the Karabakh village of Patara, was
among patients escorted by the ICRC to Armenian hospitals for urgent treatment.
He was detained at an Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin corridor in what
Karabakh’s leadership and the Armenian government condemned as a gross violation
of international law.
Azerbaijani authorities said later in the day that Khachatrian was taken to Baku
to stand trial on charges of killing and deporting Karabakh’s ethnic Azerbaijani
residents in December 1991, at the start of the first Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
They claimed that he was indicted on these charges in 2013.
A senior Karabakh official, Artak Beglarian, rejected the “false” accusations.
He insisted that like many other Karabakh Armenian men, Khachatrian “defended
his homeland” during the 1991-1994 and did not commit war crimes.
“He was neither a commander nor a deputy commander. He was a driver,”
Khachatrian’s daughter Tsovinar, who accompanied him during his aborted trip to
Armenia, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. She said her father was due to undergo
a heart surgery in Yerevan.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned Khachatrian’s arrest as a “blatant
violation of international humanitarian law” and “war crime.” “It is aimed at
completely disrupting the ICRC’s activities in Nagorno-Karabakh at a time when
Azerbaijan is keeping the Lachin corridor closed and impeding the entry of other
international organizations to Nagorno-Karabakh,” it said in a statement.
Nagorno Karabakh - A Red Cross vehicle leaves a hospital in Stepanakert in
December 2022.
Khachatrian is the first Karabakh patient arrested by the Azerbaijani
authorities during the medical evacuations organized by the ICRC after Baku
halted last December commercial traffic through the only road connecting
Karabakh to Armenia. The Red Cross did not immediately react to his detention.
There was also no immediate reaction from Russian peacekeeping forces stationed
in Karabakh. It is not clear whether they tried to prevent the man’s arrest.
Azerbaijan has repeatedly suspended the medical evacuations. On June 15, it also
banned the ICRC and the Russian peacekeepers from sending limited amounts of
humanitarian aid to Karabakh, aggravating the shortages of food, medicine, fuel
and other essential items in the Armenian-populated region.
The worsening humanitarian crisis there led the United States, the European
Union and Russia to renew their calls for the lifting of the Azerbaijani
blockade. Baku continued to reject such appeals this week.
Gurgen Nersisian, the Karabakh premier, on Saturday also blamed Armenia for the
crisis and Khachatrian’s “kidnapping” in particular, saying that this was made
possible by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s May 2023 pledge to recognize
Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh.
Armenian opposition leaders have likewise claimed that the far-reaching
concession made by Pashinian only emboldened Baku to tighten the screws on the
Karabakh Armenians.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2023 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Teach for Armenia secures generous gift for teacher preparation
The ninth cohort at Teacher Leadership Academy. Dilijan, Tavush Region, July 2023.
YEREVAN, Armenia—Teach For Armenia, a non-profit dedicated to enabling educational equity for all students in Armenia and Artsakh, is excited to share that a generous donation of $300,000 was made on behalf of Elie and Ela Akilian. Over the next three years, this contribution will specifically support Teach For Armenia’s annual Teacher Leadership Academy, a summer training program for newly-recruited Teacher-Leaders who will embark on a two-year journey teaching in public schools across our nation’s rural communities.
Teach For Armenia is also excited to share that we have secured an additional anonymous gift of $900,000 for the next three years to support our educational programs for youth across Armenia and Artsakh. We are grateful to our supporters for their trust and contribution to our collective work.
Founded by Larisa Hovannisian in 2013, Teach For Armenia is a Teacher Leadership Program based in Yerevan, Armenia. We recruit and train recent university graduates and professionals to teach in rural communities for a period of two years. Participants in our program are called Teacher-Leaders and work to cultivate leadership at every level of their school communities. After their time in the classroom, Teacher-Leaders become Alumni-Ambassadors who continue to advocate for education across sectors and at every level of leadership. Currently, Teach For Armenia places 175 Teacher-Leaders in every region of Armenia, as well as Artsakh. We reach over 30,000 students and have a network of 240 Alumni-Ambassadors.
The “forgotten peace” of World War I One hundred years after the Treaty of Lausanne, …
One hundred years after the Treaty of Lausanne, a look back shows its shortcomings for Armenians — and others.
Publication Date:
As negotiations for the Treaty of Lausanne began in late 1922, the aim was to hammer out one last international settlement about territories and rights following the first world war, this time between the victorious Allied powers and the Ankara government that had just abolished the Ottoman sultanate and started governing what would soon become the Republic of Turkey. Those watching the conference closely included Armenian representatives who had survived the genocide led by Ottoman rulers in 1915-16, when hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed.
At the conference, the Armenian delegation had one major aim: that Armenians be granted an autonomous region within Turkey, either in what is now eastern Turkey or northern Syria. They called this an Armenian National Home (ANH), an autonomous, demilitarized area within Turkish territory where Armenians could practice self-rule and express their culture and religion safely.
The negotiations did not produce what the Armenians wanted, however. Turkish leaders rebuffed Armenian demands, while the Allies were not heavily invested in the matter. The Treaty of Lausanne became known as the “birth certificate” of modern Turkey, while Turkey’s Armenian population became a minority group with mostly equal rights, but often facing discrimination in practice.
“The Treaty of Lausanne doesn’t mention Armenians even once,” says MIT historian Lerna Ekmekcioglu.
Now, in a newly published research article, Ekmekcioglu contends that the Treaty of Lausanne is an often-overlooked event of great historical significance for Armenians. As she writes, “the Treaty of Lausanne rendered the Armenian Genocide politically inconsequential.” There was no redress for Armenians, in the form of autonomy or any kind of restorative justice, and no accountability for the perpetrators.
That article, “Debates over an Armenian National Home at the Lausanne Conference and the Limits of Post-Genocide Co-Existence,” uses new archival research to reconstruct the dynamics of the treaty negotiations. As such, the research illuminates both Armenians’ struggles as well as the international community’s struggles to deliver consistent support for multiethnic, multireligious states.
“The issue broadly is how states govern people whose identities don’t fit with the historically dominant group’s identity,” says Ekmekcioglu, who is the McMillan-Stewart Associate Professor of History at MIT and director of MIT’s Program in Women’s and Gender Studies. “It’s an ongoing question. This is a very good case study for contemplating these questions. It’s also very relevant to this day because the Lausanne Treaty did not collapse.”
The paper appears as a chapter in the edited volume, “They All Made Peace — What Is Peace?: The 1923 Lausanne Treaty and the New Imperial Order,” published this month by the University of Chicago Press. It is edited by Jonathan Conlin, a historian at the University of Southampton, and Ozan Ozavci, an assistant professor at Utrecht University. The volume marks the 100th anniversary of the treaty being signed, which occurred on July 24, 1923. The book is part of a collective scholarly effort about the treaty, the “Lausanne Project,” whose website suggests the pact may be the “forgotten peace” of World War I.
Ekmekcioglu’s past work largely focuses on the lives of Armenians in the modern Turkish state. In her 2016 book, “Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey,” published by Stanford University Press, she notes that immediately after World War I, Armenians were optimistic about their political prospects; Ekmekcioglu calls the time from 1918 to 1922 an “exceptional period,” as Armenians hoped to gain full rights they did not have under the Ottoman Empire.
However, the Treaty of Lausanne negotiations — held in Lausanne, Switzerland — brought an end to Armenian optimism. Perhaps that should have been predicted: In the few years after World War I ended, Turkish military forces defeated Allied-backed troops in skirmishing for control over some Turkish territory. That made the Treaty of Lausanne discussions highly unusual: The putative victors, the Allies, had just lost military battles to the side they were negotiating against.
“They have so much negotiating power that they get most of what they want,” Ekmekcioglu says, speaking of the incipient Turkish government of the time.
In that sense, 1922 was probably already too late for negotiations to deliver success for the Armenians. But as Ekmekcioglu details in the article, the Allies lacked not just military leverage, but perhaps moral standing. The Turkish press ran many stories about colonial misdeeds by the British and French, and even stories about the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S., all aimed at showing that the Allied powers had mistreated minority groups. To whatever extent there may have been Ottoman backing for a new Armenian settlement, that kind of coverage helped squelch it.
“One of the reasons they [the Allied side] didn’t have much standing in the eyes of the Turkish public is that they confused humanitarianism with colonialism,” Ekmekcioglu says. “They claimed specifically to have never treated any minorities badly in the empire. But Turkish newspapers were writing about that double standard of imperialism.”
The Treaty of Lausanne has perhaps been best known for having ratified a massive and compulsory population exchange in the 1920s between orthodox Greeks in Asia Minor and surrounding areas, and Muslims in Greece. Perhaps 2 million people were relocated, about three-quarters of them Greek. That exchange, which homogenized area populations, has often been regarded as an antedecdent to the partitioning of India and Pakistan in the late 1940s.
“This has important international legal law consequences because population transfer then becomes a potentially recognized solution to the existence of heterogeneity and population mixing,” Ekmekcioglu observes. “Other groups, in the future will take this as an example. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
So, while the Treaty of Lausanne did guarantee certain rights for all populations, its inability to deliver a more thorough pluralism in political bodies may be a lasting part of its legacy. To be sure, the Armenian representatives at the Lausanne conference also wanted their own largely homogenized territory, too — although, as Ekmekcioglu notes in the paper, their extraordinary circumstances makes that fairly understandable.
And so, after suffering at the hands of the Ottomans, the Armenians then felt let down by the international community, another blow in short succession. Perhaps there were no easy answers at the time, but, Ekmekcioglu observes, we can still think through what the best alternatives might have been. Especially, she notes, in a world often still struggling to achieve stability and pluralism at once.
“To understand minorities in Turkey to this day, you have to understand the Treaty of Lausanne, and how it came to be,” Ekmekcioglu says. “It’s a great laboratory for comparing, and ideally coming up with an answer to, the issue of difference.”
https://news.mit.edu/2023/forgotten-peace-world-war-i-lausanne-treaty-0724
Armenian Foreign Minister to visit Austria
10:36,
YEREVAN, JULY 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan will visit Vienna on July 18 where he will meet his Austrian counterpart Alexander Schallenberg, the foreign ministry spokesperson Ani Badalyan said in a statement.
“On July 18, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan will pay a working visit to Vienna. A meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Austria will take place, followed by a press conference. Meetings with representatives of international organisations are also planned,” Badalyan said on social media.
‘Situation in Artsakh is Critical.’ Anti-Blockade Protest Held in Stepanakert
A rally in Stepanakert to end the blockade of Artsakh
As hundreds of Artsakh citizens gathered in Stepanakert’s Renaissance Square on Wednesday, the Human Rights Defender of Artsakh, Gegham Stepanyan, sounded the alarm saying the situation in Artsakh is at critical breaking point.
In a social media post Stepanyan urged the International Committee of the Red Cross to “sound the alarm of danger and genocide.”
”For a month, Artsakh has been completely cut off from humanitarian access, being literally besieged by Azerbaijan. Since June 15, the intentional and total ban on transportation of food and essential goods by Azerbaijan threatens the lives of 120,000 people of Artsakh. Since yesterday, Azerbaijan has also blocked the two-way transportation of patients and medicines by the ICRC,” said Stepanyan.
“The Russian peacekeepers transport cargo for their needs by helicopters, while the entire population of Artsakh is under the threat of starvation, and the international actors do not take any steps other than statements. Evidently, the international community is waiting for thousands of people to perish to then hypocritically express its regret,” Stepanyan emphasized.
“My people are being betrayed by everyone’s criminal indifference,” exclaimed Stepanyan.
Meanwhile, an organization called the “Popular Movement to Unblock the Corridor” held a rally in Stepanakert on Wednesday demanding action to end the now seven-month-old blockade of Artsakh.
“Our plan is to gather a large number of people here, after which we will start a march to the Hakari Bridge. For that, we need to be provided with fuel and security, and we need to turn to the Russian peacekeepers for both of those issues. If they don’t do anything, we will close the airport and cut off their supply, just as ours is cut off. For now, we will inform the population about our actions so that a large number of people gather,” Arthur Osipyan, an activist and organizer of the rally, told Armenpress.
Then the participants of the rally headed to the group’s headquarters where they announced that they will also appeal to the Artsakh authorities to support the implementation of the goals of the rally.
Call from Blinken to Aliyev! Support for peace talks with Armenia
India –
In a written statement, US Department of State Spokesperson Matthew Miller said that Blinken reiterated the US “support for the negotiations” between the two countries and emphasized the “need for creativity, flexibility and reconciliation” in the talks.
In the statement, “Minister Blinken underlined the need for free passage of commercial, humanitarian and private vehicles through the Lachin corridor. He emphasized that both sides should maintain the positive momentum in the negotiations for a lasting and dignified peace.” statements were included.
Foreign Minister Blinken stated on Twitter that he had also met with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Blinken shared, “Yesterday I spoke with Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashian to reiterate my strong support for the ongoing efforts to achieve peace with Azerbaijan. The only way to a lasting peace in the South Caucasus is through direct dialogue and diplomacy, and I am determined to help facilitate it.” had used the words.
https://morningexpress.in/call-from-blinken-to-aliyev-support-for-peace-talks-with-armenia/
Levon Kafafian Weaves a Queer Armenian Future
June 21 2023
The Detroit-based nonbinary artist breathes new life into customs and traditions, giving them a space to grow with the diaspora.
Levon Kafafian (photo by Tess Mayer)
This article is part of Hyperallergic’s Pride Month series, featuring an interview with a different transgender or nonbinary emerging or mid-career artist every weekday throughout the month of June.
Based in Detroit, Michigan, nonbinary Armenian-American artist Levon Kafafian is a weaver of words, threads, and worlds. Kafafian investigates pre-Christian and Ottoman Armenian cultures and livelihoods, examining archaeological objects and material archives to inform a world that exists in the “Armenian diasporic imaginary.” Kafafian specified that they are not transcribing this built realm, but rather channeling it through their multidisciplinary practice of thread and garments, language and text, and spiritually imbued objects. Amid Azerbaijan’s ongoing destruction of ancient and culturally significant sites, Kafafian breathes a new, queer life into lost customs and traditions, giving them a space to grow with the diaspora.
In the interview below, the artist expresses their desire for a “queer Armenian future,” acknowledging the staunch colonialist and imperialist binary that enforces traditional gender roles. Kafafian’s current exhibition at the Stamps Gallery on the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus consists of elegantly constructed garments and accessories, powerful amulets, and physical renditions of the in-between portal that connects the artist to this futuristic scape derived from the past. “Cloth is vers,” Kafafian says. “Cloth communicates. Weaving uses a binary system to produce non-binary objects that are greater than the sum of their parts.”
Hyperallergic: What is the current focus of your artistic practice?
Levon Kafafian: Thread by thread, I am currently building a story world called Azadistan for an eventual graphic novel titled Portal Fire. This world emerges from the diasporic imaginary of Southwest Asia and is set in a distant future after a digital collapse. As of now, I’m focusing on its cosmology — the spirit beings who protect the people of the land and allow them to practice fire magic. To that end I dive into research on Armenian spiritual traditions, practices, and objects through time, blending this with my lived experiences and desires for the future. As I synthesize these into woven fabrics, costumes, and artifacts, I learn about the character of this world and the beings who inhabit it, generating the written lore and narrative that inform future works.
H: In what ways — if any — does your gender identity play a role in your experience as an artist?
LK: My journey with gender is a reflection of the many spaces of in-betweenness I’ve grown up in and come to terms with — leading me to engage my work with an attentiveness to hybridity, blurred boundaries, and ultimately new possibilities outside of “established canon.” I blend disciplines and interweave my practices: Handcrafting costumes and artifacts helps me intuitively synthesize archival research, familial histories, and personal experience, which in turn helps me generate poetry, short stories, and performance work often centered around play in the _expression_ of gender.
H: Which artists inspire your work today? What are your other sources of inspiration?
Levon Kafafian, “The Summoner” (2020), handwoven cotton, rayon, silk, wool, dye, found fabrics, beads, leather, metal, and wood (photo by Christian Najjar)
LK: I’m always a bit disarmed by the question of which artists inspire me as I’m influenced by an endless parade of creative practitioners. Notably, though, I am inspired by my ancestors, both blood-related and beyond; all my collaborators: Nick Szydlo, Ash Arder, Kamelya Omayma Youssef, Kamee Abrahamian, Augusta Morrison, Lara Sarkissian, among others; and by the copious amounts of sci-fi and fantasy media (graphic and animated, live-action, video games, board games, novels) I engage with; and lastly, the nature, science, language, or history documentaries and YouTube shorts I watch before bed.
H: What are your hopes for the LGBTQIA+ community at the current moment?
LK: At this moment, my hope is that in all the places we are suppressed and under attack, we continue to boldly claim space, showing those around us that different ways of being are possible, beautiful, and intrinsically valuable; that we cannot and will not be erased or silenced; and that we continue to experience abundant joy, rest, and love amidst this struggle.
https://hyperallergic.com/829189/levon-kafafian-weaves-a-queer-armenian-future/
Biden reiterates U.S. support for India’s permanent membership on reformed UNSC
11:04,
YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. United States President Joe Biden has reiterated U.S. support for India’s permanent membership on a reformed UN Security Council (UNSC).
“The United States and India reaffirmed their resolve to counter any attempts to unilaterally subvert the multilateral system,” the United States and India said in a joint statement after the meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The leaders underscored the need to strengthen and reform the multilateral system so it may better reflect contemporary realities. In this context both sides remain committed to a comprehensive UN reform agenda, including through expansion in permanent and non-permanent categories of membership of the UN Security Council. Sharing the view that global governance must be more inclusive and representative, President Biden reiterated U.S. support for India’s permanent membership on a reformed UN Security Council(UNSC). In this context, President Biden welcomed India’s candidature as a non-permanent member of the UNSC for the 2028-29 term, in view of India’s significant contributions to the UN system and commitment to multilateralism, as well as its active and constructive engagement in the Inter-Governmental Negotiations process on Security Council reforms, with an overall objective of making the UNSC more effective, representative, and credible,” the statement reads.
President Biden and Prime Minister Modi recommitted themselves to empowering the Quad as a partnership for global good, according to the document.
Armenia has also backed India’s bid for permanent UN Security Council seat.