Author: Andres-Papazian

TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF HISTORY

Wednesday, April 24th, 2013

BY MARIA TITIZIAN

It is that time of year again when Armenians around the globe
commemorate the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

I am not going to recount stories about my grandparents, survivors
from Musa Ler, Urfa and Marash. As Armenians, we all have similar
stories although the overwhelming majority of us, with a few notable
exceptions, have not recorded them or presented them to the world.

I suspect one day when I have the time or the nerve or the audacity,
I will want and perhaps need to write about my grandparents and
parents, how their lives were torn apart, how their victimization
continues generations on because of a horrific crime that took place
almost a century ago. I will want to write about the unseen ghosts
that lingered stubbornly in their lives, of how their homes and
villages were obliterated and how they became wandering migrants,
moving from country to country in search of a home they never found,
only to die and be buried in lands that contained no memories except
pain and exile.

I don�t want to talk about Yerkir, the Korustyal Hayrenik (The Lost
Homeland) although I made the impossible pilgrimage there eight years
ago by traveling with great trepidation and zero expectation to Kars,
Van, Mush, Erzerum… I am still trying to process what I saw and
experienced and felt, and as such I am not ready yet to write about
it or give justice to the monumental imprint that it has left on my
existence and identity. In time, I hope I will be able to.

I don�t want to discuss the ongoing denialist policy by the
government of Turkey regarding its role in the annihilation of
1.5 million Armenians living on their historic homelands. It is a
phenomenon that is detrimental to both the Turkish people and an
insult to our historical memory and present-day historical rights
as Armenians.

I don’t want to file a report about Genocide commemoration events
that are going to be taking place in Armenia, including the annual
torch march on the eve of April 24th through the streets of Yerevan
leading to the Genocide Memorial, perched on a lonely hill in the
city that can make your heart explode with pride as a new generation
literally and symbolically continues to carry the torch of remembrance
a hundred years on.

Anything I can write or express about the Genocide will simply be a
repetition of all that we know. What I want this year and henceforth
is for us to change the way we see ourselves in the world and in the
convoluted currents of history. I want us to celebrate our survival,
I want us to stop living in the past, I want us to remember that our
generation liberated Artsakh and the blood of all those who perished
are forever submerged in that soil, I want us to envision many more
victories ahead. I don’t want my identity as an Armenian to be solely
wrapped around Genocide. I want people to know about our culture, our
rich language, our vitality, our indelible imprint on civilization,
I want to scream from the mountain tops that I am not a victim but
a survivor, a victor and the descendent of a proud nation.

As an Armenian, therefore I am more than the Genocide. Today, our
actions are being recorded and will be the stuff of future history
books. I want to make a history today that future generations a hundred
years from now will look back on with pride and honor. I want a strong,
vibrant, present Diaspora, one that is engaged and connected with what
it means to be an Armenian and one whose heart and soul is anchored
in the homeland. I want a strong, stable country where each and every
Armenian is safe, secure, and protected, where there is justice and
equality. When my grandchildren and great-grandchildren learn about
Armenian history, I want them to be proud of the victories we achieved
instead of victimized because of all that we lost.

I don’t want to perpetuate the objective of the perpetrators of the
Genocide, I will not allow my history to break me. Yes, we must forge
ahead with diligence and with resolve to ensure the recognition of
the Genocide by Turkey, but let us at the same time live and breathe a
new narrative to ensure that we never again fall prey to oppression,
hatred and attempted annihilation. We must be the directors of our
destiny and we can only do that if we define a new narrative, if we
place these critical factors on our national discourse and agenda. As
we commemorate the 98th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, I want
to pay hommage to Kevork, Mariam, Hagop and Makruhi, my grandparents,
survivors of the Genocide, who vanquished the evil thrust upon them
by surviving, living, raising families and creating the conditions
and sentiments which guided my journey back to the homeland. It is
because of them that I am here.

I don�t want to forget that period in my people’s history; I couldn’t
even if I wanted to. It is a wound that will not heal, a scar that will
not fade, a memory that is so engrained that we can’t let go of it.

I do applaud all those who do these things, who recount, write,
publish, visit, lobby, demonstrate and demand and keep the fire burning
for recognition and reparation for the victims of the Genocide. I am
humbled by your dedication and perseverance, truly.

However, I am done with being a victim, I am done with the
psychological impact it has had on us as Armenians. I am done with
lobbying foreign governments, from the President of the United States
to the newly elected Pope Francis I because my personal history,
my very existence is living proof that it did happen.

I am not advocating that we stop demanding justice, recognition,
restitution, reparations-but as we near the 100th anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide, I want us to shift the collective victimization
of an entire people to a collective narrative of survival and victory.

Frankly, I am tired of the burden of Genocide and all its connotations.

In my work and travels I have met countless foreigners who have always
posed the same question, “Why can’t the Armenians forget something
that happened a century ago? Where will all this energy spent on
recognition get you?” As I have grown and matured, my answers have
varied but the main thrust has always been the same-because the
perpetrator hasn’t recognized it, because my birthright was stolen,
because I was born on lands that are not of my blood and sweat,
because I have moved three countries to get back to where I should
have started in the first place.

From: A. Papazian

MARCHERS MARK ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ANNIVERSARY

abc7.com
April 24 2013

by Jovana Lara

LOS ANGELES (KABC) — Two large demonstrations were held in Los Angeles
Wednesday to mark the Armenian Genocide of 1915, and to call on Turkey
to accept responsibility for it.

Protesting an event that happened 98 years ago, thousands of
Armenian-Americans took to the streets of Hollywood and Mid-Wilshire.

It was on April 24, 1915 in the final days of the Ottoman Empire that
the killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians began.

“Absolutely innocent people were driven from their historic lands
towards south, and they went through hell,” said Varsham Patvakanian,
who marched Wednesday.

Genocide survivors, as they call themselves, marched in unison
Wednesday to keep the memory of the tragedy alive. Many families
brought young children who chanted alongside their parents and
grandparents.

Among them was Azatouhie Varvarian, who says she’s marched in this
parade for the last 33 years, and will continue to do so until Turkey
stops denying the Armenian Genocide took place.

“It’s time that you recognize what you’ve done,” said Varvarian. “It’s
horrible, horrible: hatred towards another human because of their race,
religion or ethnicity.”

Los Angeles City Council Member Paul Krekorian addressed the gathering,
calling for not only Turkey but every nation to acknowledge the
genocide.

“This continues to have resonance and importance to people because
of the continuing denial,” said Krekorian.

Wednesday afternoon President Barack Obama released a statement:
“I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915,
and my view has not changed. A full, frank, and just acknowledgement
of the facts is in all of our interests. Nations grow stronger
by acknowledging and reckoning with painful elements of the past,
thereby building a foundation for a more just and tolerant future.”

But protestors point out the president stopped short of the calling
the 1915 killings “genocide,” instead referring to it as an “atrocity.”

“We know that if they recognize it, they will lose a lot of grounds
for Turkey base and all that, of usage of their bases, of the usage
of their oils, and all that. I recognize that, but regardless, we
need to put wealth and greed aside for humanity, for the world,”
said Varvarian.

California Governor Jerry Brown issued a proclamation Wednesday
declaring April 24 a day of remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.

Attempts to contact the Turkish Consulate for comment were not
successful.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIAN COMMUNITY MARCHES IN HOLLYWOOD GENOCIDE PROTEST

CBS Los Angeles
April 24 2013

HOLLYWOOD (CBSLA.com) — Hundreds of members of the Southland Armenian
community and others marched through Hollywood Wednesday to urge the
U.S. to officially recognize the murders of millions of Armenians as
the first genocide of the 20th century.

CBS2â~@²s Randy Paige reports the annual protest organized by the
group Unified Young Armenians (UYA) is aimed at preserving the legacy
of as many as 1.8 million men, women and children were killed under
the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923.

Local clergy and military members were among those who were seen
marching at the intersections of Hobart and Sunset Boulevards to
remember the events that took place nearly 98 years ago today.

City Councilman Paul Krekorian, an Armenian-American, was also among
those who participated in the march, and said the event’s turnout
speaks for itself.

“The reason that people continue to come out in such large numbers,
even after 98 years, is because this is not a matter of history,
this is a matter of what’s happening today,” Krekorian said. “This
is an atrocity that continues to be denied by the Turkish government.”

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors issued a proclamation Tuesday
in remembrance of the Armenian genocide.

Gov. Jerry Brown followed suit with proclamation Wednesday naming
April 24, 2013, as “A Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide”
in the state of California.

Los Angeles County is home to the nearly 194,000 Armenians, the
largest such population in the United States, according to 2010 U.S.

census estimates. About one-third of Glendale residents are of
Armenian descent.

From: A. Papazian

PROTESTERS MARK ARMENIAN GENOCIDE, DEMAND COMPENSATION

The Daily Star, Lebanon
April 24 2013

April 25, 2013 01:41 AM By Stephen Dockery
The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Thousands marched through Beirut Wednesday to call on Turkey
to recognize the genocide that involved the systematic slaughter of
1.5 million Armenians nearly a century ago.

Draped in the colors of the Armenian flag – red, blue and orange –
over 10,000 people marched across east Beirut to Martyrs’ Square
in Downtown. Families sang the Armenian national anthem and carried
banners condemning the Turkish government, occasionally pausing to
stomp on Turkish flags spread along the route.

“Turkey should recognize the genocide and take action for restitution,”
goldsmith Paul Halebian said at the rally. “It’s our right, our land,
our dignity.”

Armenian groups claim they are owed large swaths of land in Turkey
after their ancestors were forcibly displaced during the partition
of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and 1916 at the end of World War I.

Many Armenian families took refuge in what is now Lebanon as a
result of Ottoman attacks on their community. There are currently
some 100,000 Lebanese of Armenian origins who are represented in
Parliament by five MPs.

“Erdogan Don’t Forget: Eastern Turkey is Western Armenia,” read one
banner directed at Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The day was both solemn and festive as both young and old rallied to
commemorate their ancestors who died while reaffirming their identity
and nationhood.

Armenian political parties Henchag Tashnag and Ramgavar are divided
between Lebanon’s two major coalitions – March 14 and March 8 – but
they come together for the yearly genocide commemoration. Party scout
troops marched and played music together while banners paid for by
the parties were draped along the walking route.

“All the associations are here; there is no dispute over the Armenian
Genocide,” said Sossy Manoukian, a teacher and school coordinator.

“There isn’t a person here who is not directly connected to the
genocide.”

A number of non-Armenian Lebanese also joined parts of the rally.

After several hours of marching, people rallied in Downtown Beirut,
where political and religious speakers delivered speeches about
the importance of recognizing the genocide and what is owed to the
Armenians.

Leaders decried what they saw as a “conspiracy” aimed against the
Armenians to displace them from their lands, and called for the
Turkish government to fully compensate them.

“We will not forget our martyrs and our civilization and the cultural
heritage in Armenia and … our possessions that were looted by
killers,” said the Tashnag Party’s Secretary-General Hovig Mekhitarian.

At a Mass earlier in the day at the Catholicosate in Antelias,
Catholicos Aram I Keshishian of Cilicia called for Armenian churches,
endowments and heritage in Turkey to be restored as the “first stage
of our national struggle.”

Representatives from the families of the nine abducted pilgrims in
Syria also marched with the rally alongside several other political
figures. But despite the occasional promotion of signs of the conflict
in Syria and other political agendas, the rally remained largely
focused on Armenia and its history.

Generations have passed since the genocide, but the event and its
official recognition by foreign governments still colors politics
around the world.

Some 21 countries and most states in the U.S. have officially
recognized the genocide, while many other countries have not, partially
due to their relationship with Turkey. Ankara maintains the death of
some 500,000 people at the time did not constitute genocide.

The rally that began in Armenian areas of greater Beirut attracted
many young people who see the yearly commemoration as an important
part of their identity, marking an event largely ignored by the rest
of the world.

“After two years it will be a century and the world will forget,”
said 15-year-old Bedig Alexanian. “We do this to keep the world from
being silent.”

From: A. Papazian

RUSSIAN-ARMENIAN RELATIONS

The Messenger, Georgia
April 24 2013

Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering the issue that
visa-free access to the Russian Federation will be granted only
to citizens belonging to countries that are members of the Customs
Union, whereas the rest of the people would be entering Russia under
ordinary regulations. Armenian analysts think that this is an attempt
to blackmail Armenia, as Russia is desperately trying to force Armenia
to join the union. So this kind of situation is a step targeted at
Armenia’s unification in the Customs Union. It is known that a lot
of Armenian citizens travel and work in Russia to earn some money
and maintain their families in Armenia. However, Armenia has been
reluctant about joining the union so far, as it wants to benefit by
certain advantages offered by the European Union (EU). Presumably
Armenia cannot become a member of the Customs Union and enjoy the
privileges of the EU if it becomes a member of the Customs Union.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OF 1915: AN OVERVIEW

New York Times
April 24 2013

By JOHN KIFNER

On the eve of World War I, there were two million Armenians in the
declining Ottoman Empire. By 1922, there were fewer than 400,000. The
others – some 1.5 million – were killed in what historians consider
a genocide.

As David Fromkin put it in his widely praised history of World War I
and its aftermath, “A Peace to End All Peace”: “Rape and beating were
commonplace. Those who were not killed at once were driven through
mountains and deserts without food, drink or shelter. Hundreds of
thousands of Armenians eventually succumbed or were killed .”

The man who invented the word “genocide”- Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer
of Polish-Jewish origin – was moved to investigate the attempt to
eliminate an entire people by accounts of the massacres of Armenians.

He did not, however, coin the word until 1943, applying it to Nazi
Germany and the Jews in a book published a year later, “Axis Rule in
Occupied Europe.”

But to Turks, what happened in 1915 was, at most, just one more messy
piece of a very messy war that spelled the end of a once-powerful
empire. They reject the conclusions of historians and the term
genocide, saying there was no premeditation in the deaths, no
systematic attempt to destroy a people. Indeed, in Turkey today it
remains a crime – “insulting Turkishness” – to even raise the issue
of what happened to the Armenians.

In the United States, a powerful Armenian community centered in
Los Angeles has been pressing for years for Congress to condemn
the Armenian genocide. Turkey, which cut military ties to France
over a similar action, has reacted with angry threats. A bill to
that effect nearly passed in the fall of 2007, gaining a majority of
co-sponsors and passing a committee vote. But the Bush administration,
noting that Turkey is a critical ally – more than 70 per cent of the
military air supplies for Iraq go through the Incirlik airbase there –
pressed for the bill to be withdrawn, and it was.

The roots of the genocide lie in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The empire’s ruler was also the caliph, or leader of the Islamic
community. Minority religious communities, like the Christian
Armenians, were allowed to maintain their religious, social and legal
structures, but were often subject to extra taxes or other measures.

Concentrated largely in eastern Anatolia, many of them merchants and
industrialists, Armenians, historians say, appeared markedly better
off in many ways than their Turkish neighbors, largely small peasants
or ill-paid government functionaries and soldiers.

At the turn of the 20th Century, the once far-flung Ottoman empire
was crumbling at the edges, beset by revolts among Christian subjects
to the north – vast swaths of territory were lost in the Balkan Wars
of 1912-13 – and the subject of coffee house grumbling among Arab
nationalist intellectuals in Damascus and elsewhere.

The Young Turk movement of ambitious, discontented junior army officers
seized power in 1908, determined to modernize, strengthen and “Turkify”
the empire. They were led by what became an all-powerful triumvirate
sometimes referred to as the Three Pashas.

In March of 1914, the Young Turks entered World War I on the side
of Germany. They attacked to the east, hoping to capture the city of
Baku in what would be a disastrous campaign against Russian forces in
the Caucuses. They were soundly defeated at the battle of Sarikemish.

Armenians in the area were blamed for siding with the Russians and
the Young Turks began a campaign to portray the Armenians as a kind
of fifth column, a threat to the state. Indeed, there were Armenian
nationalists who acted as guerrillas and cooperated with the Russians.

They briefly seized the city of Van in the spring of 1915.

Armenians mark the date April 24, 1915, when several hundred Armenian
intellectuals were rounded up, arrested and later executed as the start
of the Armenian genocide and it is generally said to have extended
to 1917. However, there were also massacres of Armenians in 1894,
1895, 1896, 1909, and a reprise between 1920 and 1923.

The University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
has compiled figures by province and district that show there were
2,133,190 Armenians in the empire in 1914 and only about 387,800
by 1922.

Writing at the time of the early series of massacres, The New York
Times suggested there was already a “policy of extermination directed
against the Christians of Asia Minor.”

The Young Turks, who called themselves the Committee of Unity and
Progress, launched a set of measures against the Armenians, including
a law authorizing the military and government to deport anyone they
“sensed” was a security threat.

A later law allowed the confiscation of abandoned Armenian property.

Armenians were ordered to turn in any weapons that they owned to the
authorities. Those in the army were disarmed and transferred into
labor battalions where they were either killed or worked to death.

There were executions into mass graves, and death marches of men,
women and children across the Syrian desert to concentration camps
with many dying along the way of exhaustion, exposure and starvation.

Much of this was quite well documented at the time by Western
diplomats, missionaries and others, creating widespread wartime outrage
against the Turks in the West. Although its ally, Germany, was silent
at the time, in later years documents have surfaced from ranking German
diplomats and military officers expressing horror at what was going on.

Some historians, however, while acknowledging the widespread deaths,
say what happened does not technically fit the definition of genocide
largely because they do not feel there is evidence that it was
well-planned in advance.

The New York Times covered the issue extensively – 145 articles in 1915
alone by one count – with headlines like “Appeal to Turkey to Stop
Massacres.” The Times described the actions against the Armenians as
“systematic,” “authorized, and “organized by the government.”

The American ambassador, Henry Morganthau Sr., was also outspoken. In
his memoirs, the ambassador would write: “When the Turkish authorities
gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving
the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and
in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to
conceal the fact.”

Following the surrender of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, the Three
Pashas fled to Germany, where they were given protection. But the
Armenian underground formed a group called Operation Nemesis to hunt
them down. On March 15, 1921, one of the pashas was shot dead on a
street in Berlin in broad daylight in front of witnesses. The gunman
pled temporary insanity brought on by the mass killings and a jury
took only a little over an hour to acquit him. It was the defense
evidence at this trial that drew the interest of Mr. Lemkin, the
coiner of “genocide.”

From: A. Papazian

GENOCIDE VICTIMS REMEMBERED AT BURBANK CITY HALL

Burbank Leader, CA
April 24 2013

By Alene Tchekmedyian, alene@[email protected]
April 24, 2013 | 6:58 a.m.

More than 100 people gathered at Burbank City Hall Tuesday to
commemorate the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, which together
claimed the lives of 7.5 million people.

Descendants of Holocaust victims and survivors lit seven candles at
the City Council meeting to commemorate their families and the six
million massacred.

Nina Guttman and David Drexler lit a candle for their mother,
Rena Drexler, who survived four years in the Auschwitz-Birkenau
extermination camp. Steve Harman lit a candle for Holocaust survivor
Irving Belfer, who escaped from a death march.

Moments later, dozens of Armenians flooded the steps outside City Hall
clutching candles to commemorate the 1.5 million Armenians massacred
in the genocide that started in 1915.

“With our efforts, we will let the world know that their absence is
felt,” said Mher Boghigian, member of the Armenian Youth Federation,
which hosted the event.

The genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire 98 years ago, is not
recognized by Turkey or the United States government. Event-goers
said denial becomes more painful with each passing year.

“We must stand side-by-side in remembrance of the victims and pledge
to take action in their memories,” said federation member Nazeli
Khodabakhsh, 21.

Genocide denial, she added, sends a message that “violence can be
left unpunished if enough politicians are convinced.”

Raffi Orphali, chairman of the AYF, also called on federal officials
to recognize the genocide.

“Turkey should be responsible for its actions,” Orphali said. “We
need the support of the people working at the federal level.”

The City Council presented proclamations to the Burbank Human
Relations Council and the Armenian Youth Federation in recognition
of the two massacres.

,0,4748252.story

From: A. Papazian

ROCHESTER COUPLE’S EFFORTS ADD ARMENIA TO EXHIBIT ABOUT GENOCIDE

Post-Bulletin, MN
April 24 2013

Christina Killion Valdez

While generations of U.S. children who didn’t want to eat their
vegetables were told to “think of the starving Armenians,” the warnings
Zara Bezhanyan, of Rochester, heard growing up in Armenia were worse.

Visits with her grandmother were filled with accounts of the suffering
of her fellow countrymen who faced death, starvation and permanent
exile during World War I, she said. Nonetheless, Bezhanyan said,
she didn’t believe things were as bad as her grandmother described
until she began researching what happened.

“The stories were word-for-word what the researchers and scholars
have written,” she said.

Bezhanyan’s research has come to fruition with the creation of a tent
representing Armenia for Tents of Witness: Genocide and Conflict,
a traveling exhibit created by World Without Genocide, a human rights
organization at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul.

The Armenian tent will be exhibited for the first time when Tents of
Witness opens Tuesday in Rochester.

Based on the canvas tents used in refugee camps, each tent in the
exhibit tells a story through photos and information about a culture
and conflict. In addition to Armenia, the tents represent American
Indians, Bosnia, Cambodia, Congo, Darfur, the Holocaust, North Korea
and Rwanda.

“One of the most important outcomes,” said Carolyn Franzone, who
teaches English as a second language in Rochester and spearheaded
the effort to bring the exhibit here, “may be fostering a greater
understanding of the cultures and experiences of our Rochester
neighbors who have been impacted by genocide.”

For Bezhanyan, who is a Spanish teacher at Lanesboro Public School,
the topic is deeply personal and painful to discuss.

An estimated 1.5 million of the 2 million Armenians living in the
Ottoman Empire died between 1915 and 1923.

Bezhanyan’s family was fortunate to escape.

In 1915, a neighbor warned her great-grandfather, a traveling merchant
in Armenia, that he and his family would be deported, she said. Her
grandmother was only 5 years old when the family fled to Imperial
Russia, she said.

When her great grandfather went back to Armenia for their things, he
was pulled off his horse and beaten by Ottoman Turks, but survived,
she said.

The Turkish government is steadfast in its denial that what took
place was genocide, instead attributing the deaths to depredations
of the war, Bezhanyan said.

“When you are told what happened to you did not happen or did not
happen the way you remember, you do not heal,” she said.

Finding out that Armenia wasn’t initially represented in the Tents
of Witness exhibit, which began traveling around the state last year,
was also a blow, she said. Yet Bezhanyan and her husband, Paul Tronnes,
also an ESL teacher in Rochester, were encouraged to create one.

The couple, who met in 1992 when he traveled to Armenia to teach
English with the Peace Corps, worked with the Armenian Cultural
Association of Minnesota in St. Paul to sponsor and design the tent
that will be permanent addition to the traveling exhibit.

The idea isn’t that people view this and take on the guilt, Tronnes
said, but “to be aware so we can heal and move on.”

From: A. Papazian

LES ARMENIENS MANIFESTERONT AUJOURD’HUI DEVANT L’AMBASSADE DE TURQUIE A TEL-AVIV

Aujourd’hui une manifestation a la memoire des victimes du genocide
armenien se deroulera près de l’Ambassade de Turquie a Tel-Aviv
(Israël). La manifestation est organisee par l’association ” Ararat
” des Armeniens d’Israël qui dispose de l’autorisation des autorites
policières pour manifester devant l’Ambassade de Turquie. Selon les
responsables d'” Ararat ” les manifestants demanderont a Ankara de
cesser la diplomatie negationniste et de reconnaitre le genocide
armenien. Le site IzRus qui donne cette information constate qu’un
froid existe encore entre les relations entre Israël et la Turquie
mais que Jerusalem n’est pas encore prete a reconnaitre le genocide
armenien.

Krikor Amirzayan

mercredi 24 avril 2013, Krikor Amirzayan ©armenews.com

From: A. Papazian

LITHUANIA DEPUTY FORMIN, ARMENIAN DEFMIN DISCUSS EU SECURITY, DEFENCE INITIATIVES

LETA, Latvia
April 22, 2013 Monday

On 19 April, Lithuanian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Vytautas
Leskevicius met with Acting Minister of Defence of Armenia Seyran
Ohanyan and presented initiatives of Lithuania’s incoming presidency
of the Council of the European Union in support of the EU Common
Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), Ministry of National Defence said.

Leskevicius stressed that Lithuania would focus on strengthening
cooperation with the Eastern Partnership countries in support of
the CSDP.

The officials exchanged opinions on Armenia’s participation in
international operations and the possibility to participate in the
EU crisis management missions in the future.

The deputy minister and the Armenian defence minister discussed
Armenia’s cooperation with the Alliance and the country’s participation
in the NATO-led missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo experience.

From: A. Papazian