Author: Ara Felekian

                                        Wednesday, 
U.S. House Recognizes Armenian Genocide
        • Emil Danielyan
U.S. – Capitol Building dome detail with US flag waving.
After decades of lobbying by the Armenian community in the United States, the 
U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed on Tuesday evening a 
landmark resolution recognizing the 1915 genocide of Armenians in Ottoman 
Turkey.
The resolution adopted by 405 votes to 11 calls on the U.S. government to 
“commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and 
remembrance” and to “reject” Turkish efforts to deny it. It says the government 
should also “encourage education and public understanding of the facts of the 
Armenian Genocide” and their “relevance to modern-day crimes against humanity.”
The resolution was introduced by several pro-Armenian U.S. lawmakers, including 
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, in April. It reached the 
House floor after being backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader 
Steny Hoyer. They both reaffirmed their support during an hour-long debate on 
the bill that preceded the vote.
“It’s a great day for the Congress,” Pelosi said, urging a “strong vote” for 
acknowledging “one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century.”
“This was genocide and it is important that we call this crime what it was,” 
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel said as he presented the 
resolution to fellow legislators. He called on them to finally “set the record 
straight.”
U.S. -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam 
Schiff, D-CA, speak during a press conference in the House Studio of the US 
Capitol in Washington, October 2, 2019
More than a dozen other lawmakers, most of them Democrats representing 
constituencies with large numbers of Armenian Americans, spoke during the 
ensuing debate. They all made a case for recognizing the World War One-era 
slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire as 
genocide.
“This is a vote which I have waited for 19 years to cast,” declared a visibly 
emotional Schiff.
"We cannot pick and choose which crimes against humanity are convenient to 
speak out against,” said the prominent Democrat from California. “What we must 
do is to state the fact that the Ottoman Empire committed this grotesque crime 
against the Armenians."
“Genocides, whenever and wherever they occur, cannot be ignored,” said Gus 
Bilirakis, a Florida Republican and a co-sponsor of the resolution.
Another Republican congressman, Christopher Smith of New Jersey, blasted Turkey 
for its “well-funded aggressive campaign of genocide denial”
The two leading Armenian-American lobby groups swiftly hailed the passage of 
the resolution. Bryan Ardouny, the executive director of the Armenian Assembly 
of America, said it “reflects the best of America.”
“Today’s watershed vote for human rights represents the culmination of decades 
of tireless work by members of Congress, the Armenian Assembly of America and 
the Armenian American community from across the country,” Ardouny told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian service.
The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) likewise praised the U.S. 
House for ending “Ankara’s gag-rule against American remembrance of the 
Armenian Genocide.”
The Assembly and the ANCA have spent decades campaigning for such a measure. 
Genocide resolutions drafted by pro-Armenian lawmakers have been repeatedly 
approved by congressional committees in the past. But they never reached the 
House or Senate floor because of opposition from former U.S. administrations 
worried about their impact on U.S.-Turkish relations.
U.S. -- Demonstrators commemorating the 103rd anniversary of the Armenian 
genocide rally outside the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles. April 24, 2018.
Like his predecessors, U.S. President Donald Trump avoided using the word 
genocide in his annual statements on the mass killings and deportations of 
Armenians. But Trump, whose relationship with the Democratic leadership of the 
House is very strained, appears to have made no attempts to thwart the passage 
of the latest genocide bill.
Successive Turkish governments have vehemently denied a deliberate Ottoman 
government effort to exterminate the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population.
The Turkish ambassador in Washington, Serdar Kilic, sent last week letters to 
House members warning that the resolution will “considerably poison the 
political environment between the United States and Turkey.” Ankara was quick 
to condemn its adoption as a “meaningless political step” and “grave mistake.”
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also said that it will damage U.S. interests in 
the region. “On the other hand, it is also noted that the attitude of the U.S. 
Administration on 1915 events remains the same,” it added in a statement.
Predictably, Armenia welcomed the U.S. recognition of the genocide, with Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian describing it as “historic.” “Resolution 296 is a bold 
step towards serving truth and historical justice that also offers comfort to 
millions of descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors,” Pashinian wrote on 
Twitter early on Wednesday.
“Thank you, U.S. Congress,” Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian tweeted for 
his part. The U.S. lawmakers have sent a “massive message” against Turkish 
denial of the genocide, he said.
The resolution made rapid progress in the Congress following Turkey’s military 
incursion into northern Syria largely controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. 
The operation was strongly condemned by many Democratic and Republican 
lawmakers.
Immediately after passing the Armenian bill, the House voted overwhelmingly for 
a resolution calling on Trump to impose sanctions on Turkey.
U.S. House Recognizes Armenian Genocide
        • Emil Danielyan
U.S. – Capitol Building dome detail with US flag waving.
After decades of lobbying by the Armenian community in the United States, the 
U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed on Tuesday evening a 
landmark resolution recognizing the 1915 genocide of Armenians in Ottoman 
Turkey.
The resolution adopted by 405 votes to 11 calls on the U.S. government to 
“commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and 
remembrance” and to “reject” Turkish efforts to deny it. It says the government 
should also “encourage education and public understanding of the facts of the 
Armenian Genocide” and their “relevance to modern-day crimes against humanity.”
The resolution was introduced by several pro-Armenian U.S. lawmakers, including 
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, in April. It reached the 
House floor after being backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader 
Steny Hoyer. They both reaffirmed their support during an hour-long debate on 
the bill that preceded the vote.
“It’s a great day for the Congress,” Pelosi said, urging a “strong vote” for 
acknowledging “one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century.”
“This was genocide and it is important that we call this crime what it was,” 
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel said as he presented the 
resolution to fellow legislators. He called on them to finally “set the record 
straight.”
U.S. -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam 
Schiff, D-CA, speak during a press conference in the House Studio of the US 
Capitol in Washington, October 2, 2019
More than a dozen other lawmakers, most of them Democrats representing 
constituencies with large numbers of Armenian Americans, spoke during the 
ensuing debate. They all made a case for recognizing the World War One-era 
slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire as 
genocide.
“This is a vote which I have waited for 19 years to cast,” declared a visibly 
emotional Schiff.
"We cannot pick and choose which crimes against humanity are convenient to 
speak out against,” said the prominent Democrat from California. “What we must 
do is to state the fact that the Ottoman Empire committed this grotesque crime 
against the Armenians."
“Genocides, whenever and wherever they occur, cannot be ignored,” said Gus 
Bilirakis, a Florida Republican and a co-sponsor of the resolution.
Another Republican congressman, Christopher Smith of New Jersey, blasted Turkey 
for its “well-funded aggressive campaign of genocide denial”
The two leading Armenian-American lobby groups swiftly hailed the passage of 
the resolution. Bryan Ardouny, the executive director of the Armenian Assembly 
of America, said it “reflects the best of America.”
“Today’s watershed vote for human rights represents the culmination of decades 
of tireless work by members of Congress, the Armenian Assembly of America and 
the Armenian American community from across the country,” Ardouny told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian service.
The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) likewise praised the U.S. 
House for ending “Ankara’s gag-rule against American remembrance of the 
Armenian Genocide.”
The Assembly and the ANCA have spent decades campaigning for such a measure. 
Genocide resolutions drafted by pro-Armenian lawmakers have been repeatedly 
approved by congressional committees in the past. But they never reached the 
House or Senate floor because of opposition from former U.S. administrations 
worried about their impact on U.S.-Turkish relations.
U.S. -- Demonstrators commemorating the 103rd anniversary of the Armenian 
genocide rally outside the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles. April 24, 2018.
Like his predecessors, U.S. President Donald Trump avoided using the word 
genocide in his annual statements on the mass killings and deportations of 
Armenians. But Trump, whose relationship with the Democratic leadership of the 
House is very strained, appears to have made no attempts to thwart the passage 
of the latest genocide bill.
Successive Turkish governments have vehemently denied a deliberate Ottoman 
government effort to exterminate the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population.
The Turkish ambassador in Washington, Serdar Kilic, sent last week letters to 
House members warning that the resolution will “considerably poison the 
political environment between the United States and Turkey.” Ankara was quick 
to condemn its adoption as a “meaningless political step” and “grave mistake.”
The Turkish Foreign Ministry also said that it will damage U.S. interests in 
the region. “On the other hand, it is also noted that the attitude of the U.S. 
Administration on 1915 events remains the same,” it added in a statement.
Predictably, Armenia welcomed the U.S. recognition of the genocide, with Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian describing it as “historic.” “Resolution 296 is a bold 
step towards serving truth and historical justice that also offers comfort to 
millions of descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors,” Pashinian wrote on 
Twitter early on Wednesday.
“Thank you, U.S. Congress,” Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian tweeted for 
his part. The U.S. lawmakers have sent a “massive message” against Turkish 
denial of the genocide, he said.
The resolution made rapid progress in the Congress following Turkey’s military 
incursion into northern Syria largely controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. 
The operation was strongly condemned by many Democratic and Republican 
lawmakers.
Immediately after passing the Armenian bill, the House voted overwhelmingly for 
a resolution calling on Trump to impose sanctions on Turkey.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” reports that the Armenian government is planning to increase 
budgetary funding for the national police by 500 million drams (over $1 
million) next year. The paper welcomes this intention, saying that the state 
must “financially motivate” the police. “This is certainly not the most 
decisive thing in the important task of reforming the [law-enforcement] 
system,” it says. “But it is one of the important things and starting points of 
the reform.”
“Hraparak” predicts that controversial decisions made by Armenian 
law-enforcement authorities in their high-profile investigations into current 
and former state officials will eventually be overturned by the European Court 
of Human Rights (ECHR) and cost Armenia millions of dollars in damages. “Every 
case that is investigated by the Special Investigative Service, the National 
Security Service and the Investigative Committee will come back in the form of 
a slap in our face after reaching Strasbourg,” claims the paper.
“Aravot” says that voicing baseless allegations against the incumbent 
authorities has been the norm for various Armenian opposition forces for the 
last 27 years. For instance, the paper says, political opponents of the current 
authorities deliberately mislead the public about a European convention on 
violence against women in an effort to discredit Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian. It says that Pashinian himself attacked Armenia’s former government 
with similarly unfounded claims when he was in opposition. “Politics is like 
this all over the world,” writes the newspaper editor.
“Haykakan Zhamanak” defends Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian against strong 
domestic criticism of his interview with the BBC which touched upon the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, among other issues. The pro-government paper 
dismisses claims by former government officials and their supporters that the 
current Armenian leaders’ harsh criticism of their predecessors is now 
exploited abroad to the detriment of the official Armenian position on the 
conflict.
(Tatevik Lazarian)
Top Investigator Coy About Indicting Constitutional Court Head
        • Ruzanna Stepanian
        • Narine Ghalechian
Armenia -- The head of the Special Investigation Service, Sasun Khachatrian, 
holds a press conference in Yerevan, September 11, 2018.
The head of Armenia’s Special Investigative Service (SIS) declined to say on 
Wednesday whether it will bring criminal charges against Constitutional Court 
Chairman Hrayr Tovmasian recommended by another law-enforcement body.
“This is a legal dispute, a legal issue, and I will not talk about it now,” 
Sasun Khachatrian told reporters.
The Investigative Committee on Tuesday claimed to have collected sufficient 
evidence that Tovmasian abused his powers when he served justice minister from 
2010-2013. The latter denied the allegations through his lawyers.
The committee stopped short of indicting him, saying that it has sent the case 
to the SIS for further investigation. Crimes allegedly committed by senior 
state officials are normally investigated by the SIS.
“We received the criminal case yesterday and are still examining it,” said 
Khachatrian. “I won’t make any comments on this case at the moment.”
The SIS already launched a separate inquiry into Tovmasian on October 17 two 
days after the Constitutional Court dismissed a parliamentary resolution 
demanding his ouster. Five days later, the law-enforcement body effectively 
declared illegal Tovmasian’s appointment as court chairman in March 2018, 
saying that it amounted to a “usurpation of power” by former state officials. 
One of them, former parliament speaker Ara Babloyan, was indicted on Monday.
Babloyan was not arrested, unlike Arsen Babayan, a former senior parliament 
staffer facing the same coup charges leveled last week. The SIS says that 
Babayan illegally backdated in March 2018 an official document to enable the 
former Armenian parliament to install Tovmasian as court chairman before the 
entry into force of sweeping constitutional amendments.
The amendments introduced a six-year term in office for the head of Armenia’s 
highest court. Tovmasian, 49, took up the post under previous constitutional 
provisions allowing him to run the court until the age of 70.
Both indicted men flatly deny the accusations of forgery and “usurpation of 
power.” Critics of the Armenian government say Babayan’s arrest is part of its 
efforts to force Tovmasian to resign.
Armenia -- Arsen Babayan, the deputy chief of the parliament staff, April 6, 
2018.
Khachatrian dismissed suggestions that Babayan would not have been arrested had 
the Constitutional Court chairman bowed to the government pressure. “Hrayr 
Tovmasian’s resigning or not resigning does not matter for the criminal case,” 
said the SIS chief. “Again, the Special Investigative Service does not engage 
in politics.”
Senior parliamentarians from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s My Step alliance 
have also denied any political motives behind the criminal proceedings.
It emerged on Wednesday that a prominent Armenian human rights campaigner, 
Avetik Ishkhanian, and Nagorno-Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, Artak 
Beglarian, have appealed for Babayan’s release from pre-trial custody. In a 
petition sent to relevant authorities, they said that they can guarantee the 
“proper conduct” of the former official if he is set free.
Ishkhanian has been very critical of the high-profile cases, saying that they 
are politically motivated.
One of Babayan’s lawyers, Yervand Varosian, insisted, meanwhile, that his 
client should not have been arrested and prosecuted in the first place. 
Varosian claimed that a judge in Yerevan failed to present any legal grounds 
when he sanctioned Babayan’s arrest on October 24.
Babayan was detained on October 21 and initially suspected of only forgery, a 
crime covered by a general amnesty declared by the Armenian parliament last 
year. His lawyers protested against what they see as an illegal detention 
before the SIS leveled the more serious coup charge against the former deputy 
chief of the parliament staff.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” comments on concerns voiced by Gianni Buquicchio, the president of 
the Venice Commission, about the Armenian government’s standoff with the 
Constitutional Court. The paper says that Buquicchio used diplomatic language 
to say that the Armenian parliament has a bigger role to play in reforming the 
country than the court’s chairman, Hrayr Tovmasian, and his supporters. “It is 
evident that Armenia’s new leadership does not need an ‘open conflict’ with the 
Council of Europe,” it says. “Having disagreements with the Venice Commission 
would effectively mean a conflict with the Council of Europe.” The question is, 
the paper goes on, whether Tovmasian’s resignation is so vital for the 
government that it is ready to risk being censured by the Council of Europe.
Alvina Gyulumian, a member of the Constitutional Court, tells “Haykakan 
Zhamanak” that government allegations that the court is hampering political 
reforms in Armenia are “attempts to manipulate the public.” Gyulumian says she 
and her colleagues will resign only if the authorities abolish the 
Constitutional Court through constitutional changes approved by Armenians in a 
referendum. “After all, we work for the public,” she says. “But nobody will 
resign from this court if that is demanded by ten or a hundred persons who feel 
offended for some reason and think this court has not protected their 
interests.”
“Hraparak” reports on unfolding parliamentary discussions of the Armenia’s 
state budget for next year drafted by the government. The paper quotes Finance 
Minister Atom Janjughazian as saying that the spending bill is significantly 
better than previous Armenian budgets. “But this does not mean that we will be 
starting to build a country from scratch,” Janjughazian says. Both the current 
and former governments have strived for macroeconomic stability in the country, 
he says.
(Anush Mkrtchian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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