Author: Badalian Vardan

FRANCE WAITS FOR ECHR ON ‘GENOCIDE’ BILL

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
May 14 2014

Arzu Cakır Morin YEREVAN

France will wait for a final decision from the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR) before reintroducing a bill criminalizing the denial of
the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as genocide, President Francois
Hollande said May 12.

In 2012, France’s Constitutional Council struck down a
government-backed law criminalizing denials of the 1915 events as
genocide on the grounds that it contradicted the French Constitution.

And late last year, the ECHR ruled that denial of the 1915 mass
killings of Armenians as genocide falls within the limits of freedom
of expression, following an appeal from a Turkish politician against
his conviction in Switzerland. The decision was referred to the ECHR’s
Grand Chamber by the Swiss Justice Ministry for the final ruling.

Speaking to a group of reporters during a visit to Yerevan, Hollande
said they would wait for the final decision of the ECHR and that the
law should be compatible with the Constitutional Council.

Workers’ Party (Ä°P) Chairman Dogu Perincek, who had described the
Armenian genocide as an “international lie,” had complained that Swiss
courts had breached his freedom of expression, based on Article 10
covering freedom of expression.

The ECHR ruling stated that “the free exercise of the right to openly
discuss questions of a sensitive and controversial nature is one of
the fundamental aspects of freedom of expression and distinguishes
a tolerant and pluralistic democratic society from a totalitarian or
dictatorial regime.”

Elaborating on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent statement
in which he offered condolences to the families of more than 1 million
Armenians who were massacred during World War I, Hollande said the
gesture was an advance but not enough, calling on Turkey to recognize
the killings as genocide and suggested that the recognition would
“unite, not divide.”

May/13/2014

‘NORMALIZATION WITH ARMENIA HOSTAGE TO TURKISH DOMESTIC POLITICS’

Cihan News Agency, Turkey
May 14 2014

ISTANBUL – 14.05.2014 19:44:45

The normalization of relations between estranged neighbors Turkey
and Armenia is hostage to Turkish domestic politics, said Richard
Giragosian, founding director of the Yerevan-based independent think
tank Regional Studies Center (RSC), on Tuesday.

According to Giragosian, a recent statement from Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan regarding the 1915 killings of Armenians in eastern
Anatolia, in which he extended condolences from Turkey to Armenians
for the first time in the history of the Turkish Republic, has raised
expectations internationally. He said the Armenian side is waiting
for more tangible and concrete steps from Erdogan rather than words
and gestures of good will.

“At the heart of the matter, the flowery language in the April 23
statement of Erdogan was designed to make him look more presidential,
with a softer political image. In other words, it was designed to
emphasize Erdogan’s [presence] more than Turkish President Abdullah
Gul in the eyes of the public. It also aimed to change the view of
the international community [concerning] Erdogan,” Giragosian said
in an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman in Yerevan on Tuesday.

Welcoming Erdogan’s 1915 statement, Giragosian noted that it was very
significant in terms of its diverse audience. “Beside the international
community, the Armenian diaspora and the Armenian government, the
most important target of Erdogan’s statement was Turkish domestic
politics,” he added.

Giragosian also said that normalizing ties with Armenia is something
Turkey wants to do once Erdogan has becomes the president of Turkey.

“The strategy of the Turkish side toward Armenia is related to domestic
politics in the country. Whether this strategy will work or not is
another issue,” he said.

Touching upon the 100th anniversary of the 1915 tragedy, which
Armenians say amounts to genocide, he said the Turkish side was
exaggerating the importance of the year 2015 to be greater than it
actually need be. “This is a psychological burden created by Turkey
in terms of making the year 2015 a big issue. Turkey overreacting to
the anniversary will only make the issue a bigger one,” he said.

–Turkey’s ‘three-plan strategy’ towards Armenia for 2017

He also noted that Turkey is working on a “three-plan strategy”
with regards to Armenia for the year 2017.

“The first plan is to accredit a key representative to Armenia,
like Turkish Ambassador to Georgia Levent Gumrukcu. The second
[would be to] make the unofficial diplomatic relations official; if
an ambassadorial accreditation [cannot be made], then consulate-level
relations could be established. If that does not work, perhaps [the]
third plan is a Swiss mediation between Turkey and Armenia, which is
actually a more realistic plan,” Giragosian said.

He also said that rather than opening the closed border between
Turkey and Armenia, the Turkish side could establish two border
crossing points in which goods can pass from one and the other can
be used for tourism. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993
in solidarity with Azerbaijan after Yerevan and Baku clashed over
the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Giragosian said that when compared to previous years, there was
sincerity and good will on both sides regarding the normalization. He
added that the Armenian side has learned lots of lessons from a
historic reconciliation process launched in 2009 and that Turkey
should also take action according to it. The two sides signed twin
protocols to normalize diplomatic relations, but the move was not
well received by Azerbaijan. The protocols, signed in Zurich, shook
Turkish-Azerbaijani relations, and the Nagorno-Karabakh territorial
conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has yet to be resolved.

— For Turkey, having good ties with Armenia ‘low-hanging fruit’

Giragosian noted that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s
visit to Yerevan last December was not the first time a Turkish
foreign minister had visited the capital, but he said it was a very
significant one.

“It was a clear indication of Turkish willingness toward Armenia.

Today, the door between the two countries is closed, but it is
not locked, and much effort is not needed to reopen that door,”
Giragosian said.

According to the analyst, Armenia is low-hanging fruit for Turkey, and
if the latter were to want normalization, it could be an easy victory.

He also added that a letter from Gul to his Armenian counterpart,
Serzh Sarksyan, was followed by Davutoglu’s visit. “It is not public
knowledge, but there is a standing invitation from Gul to meet with
his Armenian counterpart,” Giragosian said.

— Russia manipulated Kessab issue, fooled Armenians

There were several reports claiming that a recent attack by Syrian
opposition forces on the ethnically Armenian town of Kessab in northern
Syria was facilitated by the Turkish government.

Giragosian said it was Russia that actively promoted and provoked
the Kessab issue and led Armenians to believe that there was some
kind of Turkish hand in the problem.

“What is interesting about the Kessab issue is that it demonstrates the
inherited mistrust between Armenia and Turkey. When we look closely
at the issue, we see that the Armenian side was fooled into reacting
immediately and emotionally, putting the blame on Turkey. …

I believe this was manipulated by Russia,” Giragosian said.

(Cihan/Today’s Zamamn)

KASSAB’S ARMENIANS FIND SAFE HAVEN IN TURKEY

Al-Monitor
May 14 2014

Author: Dominique Soguel
Posted May 14, 2014

VAKIFLI, Turkey — Evicted by Islamist rebels from the last Armenian
village in Syria, a group of elderly apple farmers have found an
idyllic refuge across the border in the land of their historic enemy,
Turkey.

Seated on plastic chairs, three brothers recounted how after years
of life in the shadow of conflict, war came knocking at their door
in Kassab, a Christian Armenian town just across the border from the
village of Vakifli.

“The bearded men gunned down our doors and destroyed our homes,”
said 68-year-old Asbed Djurian. “Everybody had fled but we had no
car to escape, so they caught us.”

Djurian said 10 armed men burst into his home at 6 a.m., yelling for
him to put his hands over his head. His brothers Babken and Jacob,
along with their 92-year-old mother, were rounded up in the same
dawn raid. The brothers said they were detained in a small room for
14 days before being handed over to Turkey.

“They took away our papers and cell phones,” said the eldest brother,
Jacob, who identified the assailants as “Muslims, mostly foreigners,
but also Syrians. All of them al-Qaeda.”

When militants overran Kassab in late March, most residents fled to
the Latakia coastal areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad’s
regime, which portrays itself as a protector of minorities caught
in a war against terrorists and Islamist extremists. Ankara, once
a close ally of Damascus, now backs the opposition and is home to
nearly 1 million Syrian refugees.

In general, refugees say Turkey’s policy toward its “guests”
show greater hospitality and solidarity than that of Syria’s Arab
neighbors. But for Syrian Armenians, descendants of the survivors
of the 1915 massacre and mass displacement of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey, it was not an obvious choice of safe haven.

The Djurian brothers are among 22 Syrian Armenian refugees settled
by the Turkish authorities in the village of 130 people, whose mayor
says the population can jump to 500 in the summer months. Most of
the refugees are men in their 70s who were either unable or unwilling
to leave Kassab when the fighting erupted. They wound up in Vakifli
by chance, not choice, turned over to Turkey by rebels or evacuated
among the wounded. The Armenians from Kassab were placed in Vakifli
because of the historic and cultural ties between the two villages.

“This is the first time we’ve received Syrian Armenian refugees. We
didn’t expect this to happen, but it happened,” said Berc Cartun,
who has served as mayor for the past two decades and was recently
re-elected.

Vakifli, with its stone houses and terraced orange orchards that
overlook the Mediterranean coastline of Syria, is reputed to be the
last Christian Armenian village left in Turkey. Its residents, who eke
a living from organic farming and sell sweet jams to tourists, share
language, history and kinship with the refugees from Kassab, a border
town and crossing just 43 kilometers (27 miles) south of Vakifli.

The Syrian Armenians, who arrived in early April with no documents
or belongings, have been housed in three simple lodging houses run by
the church. They have new clothes now, and spend the days chatting in
the cool shade of pine trees. The government and families are helping
provide for them, according to the mayor.

Cem Capar, the president of a local Armenian foundation, said the
refugees, among them nine women but no children, arrived “completely
terrified and traumatized.” Most had been detained for two weeks
after their village was seized.

The refugees say privately they want to return to Syria or Lebanon
to rejoin their relatives, rather than stay in Turkey.

On the 99th anniversary of what the Armenians (backed by many
historians) insist was a state-ordered genocide launched on April
24, 1915, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered condolences
to descendants of the victims. It was the first such gesture by a
Turkish leader. But he fell short of using the word “genocide.”

George Kortmosian, another apple farmer from Kassab, said he was
grateful to Ankara for the treatment he had received, although he
too was keen to return Syria to rejoin his wife. He told Agence
France-Presse, “I’ve been treated very well both here in the village
and at the hospital.” The septuagenarian rolled up his blue shirt to
reveal a jagged pink scar across his stomach left by shrapnel when
the rebels launched their assault on Kassab.

Kortmosian regained consciousness days later in a Turkish hospital.

The assault on Kassab — a town of nearly 2,000 people in peacetime
— inflamed passions in the Armenian diaspora, which accused Turkey
of having facilitated the operation. Activists turned to Twitter to
spread the message #SaveKassab. US celebrities Kim Kardashian and
Cher, both of Armenian parentage, joined the campaign. “Please let’s
not let history repeat itself!!!” tweeted Kardashian.

The Armenian Committee of America urged US lawmakers to probe “Turkey’s
role in this al-Qaeda-linked aggression.” The Syrian opposition, in the
face of concerns raised by Moscow and the United Nations, stressed that
Armenians were not targeted and their places of worship not damaged.

Back in Vakifli, Asbed Djurian, another Kassabji, as its residents
are known, said he “wishes for peace” and “dreams of his apples.” But
peace, he stressed, would remain a distant dream so long as the United
States continues to support jihadist groups fighting Assad.

GENOCIDE ARMENIEN : HOLLANDE SALUE LES MESSAGES D’APAISEMENT “D’O QU’ILS VIENNENT”

RTL.fr, France
12 mai 2014

En visite officielle en Armenie, Francois Hollande a appele a “saluer”
les messages d’apaisement, “d’où qu’ils viennent”, dans une allusion
a la Turquie.

Francois Hollande a appele ce lundi 12 mai a “saluer” les messages
“d’apaisement” d’où qu’ils viennent pour la reconnaissance du genocide
armenien, dans une allusion a la Turquie, lors de sa visite a Erevan.

“Tous les messages de comprehension, d’apaisement, de tolerance
doivent etre salues, d’où qu’ils viennent”, a declare le president
de la Republique lors des toasts du dîner d’Etat offert en son
honneur par son homologue armenien, Serge Sarkissian. Il a ajoute :
“Car la reconnaissance du genocide n’est pas destinee a diviser mais a
rassembler afin d’eviter que ne se repètent de semblables abominations,
ailleurs dans le monde”.

“Condoleances” du Premier ministre turc

Le Premier ministre turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan a fait un geste
inattendu a l’occasion du 99e anniversaire du genocide perpetre
sous l’Empire ottoman, presentant les condoleances de la Turquie “aux
petits-enfants des Armeniens tues en 1915”. Mais l’Armenie avait rejete
ces condoleances, reclamant reconnaissance du genocide et “repentir”.

Francois Hollande avait alors estime que les condoleances de Recep
Tayyip Erdogan constituaient “une evolution” mais n’etaient pas
suffisantes. Ce lundi, il a souligne : “Aucune porte ne peut etre
entrouverte au negationnisme”. Il a juge que “le negationnisme n’est
pas une opinion” mais “un outrage a la verite, une insulte aux victimes
et a leurs descendants”.

Hollande en Armenie pour le 100e anniversaire du genocide

Francois Hollande a egalement confirme qu’il se rendrait en Armenie le
24 avril 2015 pour les commemoration du 100e anniversaire du genocide.

“Je serai donc a Erevan a vos côtes au nom du devoir de memoire mais
aussi en coherence avec la reconnaissance du genocide par la Republique
francaise”, a-t-il declare sous les applaudissements. Cette loi de
2001, a-t-il egalement rappele, a ete votee “par toutes les familles
politiques francaises”.

Selon les Armeniens, 1,5 million des leurs furent tues lors des
persecutions et deportations. La Turquie reconnaît des massacres qui
ont coûte la vie a 300.000 personnes, tout en refutant leur caractère
genocidaire.

FUTURE WITH A FLAVOR

Orange County Register (California)
May 12, 2014 Monday

by LAUREN WILLIAMS staff writer, The Orange County Register

Vicky Demirci says she can see what lies ahead by reading coffee
grounds.

Editor’s note: This story is part of a weekly series focusing on the
stories of unique people in our community.

ew things quiet Vicky Demirci’s mind like poring over a cup of
coffee grounds.

An effusive woman who wears bright, flowing clothes and gold cat-eye
glasses, Demirci flits between her past in New York and her love
of her maternal grandmother in the same breath, one moment teary,
another breathless from laughter.

She likes to give hugs, and on this Sunday afternoon Demirci gave them
freely to anyone who asked her about the thick, chocolate-colored
grounds oozing from beneath the lip of each cup, spilling secrets
only she could read.

For the better part of 60 years, Demirci has carried on the tradition
of reading coffee grounds, a gift bestowed upon her when she was 18
by her Armenian grandmother, who had reappeared in Demirci’s life
after leaving suddenly years earlier.

“I believe a lot of times our deepest talents are revealed in moments
of loss,” Demirci said. “Maybe it has to do with loss, suffering and
recovery. I’ve had all of that.”

Now 73, Demirci reads at the Belmont Heights coffeehouse Viento y
Agua on Sunday afternoons, a practice she has kept up for six years.

The gift of looking into the bottom of a mug and seeing someone’s
fortune is a way of channeling her intuition, a sort of stream
of consciousness and return to childhood for the retired clinical
social worker.

“When you’re a kid, you don’t know what you should say and not say.

You just say it. That’s intuition,” Demirci said. “So to me this is
like being a kid, just doing what comes, the moment it comes and it
feels good that way. It’s freeing.”

On this warm Sunday afternoon, Demirci met with three women who waited
for her to arrive with the burning questions that young people face.

When will they find love? What should they do with their lives?

Each had sipped a cup of coffee down to the grounds, ready by the
time Demirci arrived. Sisters Emily, 28, and Melissa Simonian, 30,
brought their friend Julia Lerno, 30, for a reading.

The Simonian sisters grew up in an Armenian family and felt compelled
to return after Demirci correctly predicted their youngest sister
would be getting married and moving out of state.

Demirci was the first to know the news by seeing it in the bottom of
their mother’s mug.

For Lerno, the reading would be a first. She hoped Demirci would be
able to look into the cup and point her life in the right direction.

“I’m a little bit lost right now,” Lerno said. “I want to believe.”

Demirci quietly turned Lerno’s saucer methodically, peering past the
upturned cup with Lerno’s pink lip gloss on the rim.

Demirci saw hesitation, “like your feet are holding you back.”

“Do not be weary,” Demirci said. “It won’t be as complicated as you
might think.”

Down the inside the cup, streaks of brown with dots formed the long
neck of a giraffe. Later, Lerno revealed a planned trip to Africa.

Among the three women, several similar themes emerged. A love of
animals, travel and the letter J all appeared in their reading.

Demirci doles out advice in a tone that is between supportive mom
and friendly stranger, telling each young woman that she is ready for
the challenges of life or that she will find what she is looking for.

After each session, Demirci gushed over the findings, eager to discover
what resonated with the women.

“Now you can tell me what I’m dying to hear,” she said, cupping her
head in her hands after each reading.

As the women walked out of the shop, Melissa Simonian turned to
Demirci, saying, “We’ll let you know what else comes true!”

Although the women were skeptical about the eerie similarities,
they felt the experience was a decent way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

“I think she definitely reads energy really well,” Emily Simonian
said. “It’s fun either way.”

For Demirci, every time she looks into a cup, what she sees is
different.

“It’s an adventure,” she said. “I just look forward to it.”

It’s more than a hobby. It saved her life once.

On a Sunday two years ago, Demirci walked from her small home on
Ximeno Avenue to Viento y Agua on Fourth Street and felt out of breath.

She took a seat and drank some cold ice water and felt well enough
to read the coffee grounds of four young women.

When she got up to wait for the bathroom, she collapsed from a
heart attack.

If such an incident had happened in her apartment, where she lives
alone, or inside the bathroom, she could have died.

But in the coffeehouse, people called the paramedics and she survived.

“That makes me even more bonded here,” Demirci said. “That’s the way
people are here.”

She doesn’t plan to stop reading coffee grounds any time soon.

“As long as I can breathe,” Demirci said, “because I see the glow in
people’s eye.”

FEARS FOR AZERI-ARMENIAN CITIZEN DIPLOMACY

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #735
May 13 2014

“Everyone knows what we’ve been doing all these years,” says Armenian
activist involved in joint projects, who is now cited in Azerbaijani
“spy” case.

By Gayane Lazarian – Caucasus

As the Azerbaijani authorities accuse a journalist involved in
cross-border projects of spying for Armenia, NGOs in Yerevan are
worried that painstaking efforts to work towards reconciliation through
“citizen diplomacy” will be derailed.

Rauf Mirqadirov, an Azerbaijani journalist, was deported from
Turkey and arrested on arrival in Baku on April 21. The Azerbaijani
prosecution service claimed that Mirqadirov had been spying for
Armenia since 2008. His lawyer says he regards the charge as absurd.

(See Azerbaijani Journalist Accused of Spying for Armenia.)

Prosecutors say Mirqadirov passed secret information to Laura
Baghdasaryan, who heads the Region Research Centre in Yerevan.

Baghdasaryan’s organisation has, like a number of NGOs in both
countries, been involved in cross-border projects intended to build
connections between the two societies.

The idea between this work, often called “track two diplomacy”,
is to foster greater understanding and a more conciliatory approach
despite the tensions between the Azerbaijani and Armenian governments,
which are technically still at war over Nagorny Karabakh.

Baghdasaryan told IWPR of her shock at the allegations.

“I think everyone in Armenia and Azerbaijan knows what we’ve been doing
all these years, since our activities have been open to everyone,”
she said. “We have always tried to find ways to connect people in
Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. It came as a complete surprise to me
to hear my name cited in connection with grave allegations of treason.”

On April 26, Baghdasaryan and Leyla Yunus, a well-known human rights
activist in Azerbaijan, issued a joint statement expressing concern
at Mirqadirov’s arrest and calling for his release.

“We are two women – a rights activist and a journalist, both of us
mothers – from Azerbaijan and Armenia,” they said. “We have worked
together for ten years and stood shoulder to shoulder in the difficult
task of creating and strengthening public dialogue between our nations,
which have been in a state of war for 20 years.”

Two days later, Yunus and her husband Arif were stopped at Baku airport
and taken back to the city to be questioned about the Mirqadirov
case. (See Leading Rights Activist Questioned in Azerbaijan.)

This apparent widening of the net in the “espionage case” caused even
greater alarm in Yerevan.

“These are people who defend the national and state interests of
their country in every possible venue and on all possible platforms,”
Larisa Alaverdyan, who heads an Armenian NGO called Against Legal
Arbitrariness, told IWPR. “Their only crime is doing this in places
where there are Armenians, as well. It is a blow to public diplomacy
in our region.”

Sergei Minasyan, deputy director of the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan,
described what he thought lay behind the potent allegation of treason
in Azerbaijan.

“It’s easier to accuse these people of being Armenian spies than
to admit that they’re critics of the government who expose cases of
corruption and human rights abuses,” he told IWPR.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have never signed a peace agreement since the
Nagorny Karabakh war ended with a ceasefire in 1994. Fatal shootings
occur frequently on the “line of contact” around Armenian-controlled
Karabakh and across the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border.

Little progress has been made towards a formal settlement, in a
long-running talks process mediated by the OSCE’s Minsk Group, which
is chaired by France, Russia and the United States.

The Minsk Group has encouraged “track two diplomacy” as a means of
easing tensions and exploring ways of moving beyond deadlock.

As Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan, the editor of Armenian news site Times.am,
explained, “The West and Russia have expended serious efforts over
many years to create spaces where Azerbaijani and Armenian experts
and NGOs could hold conversations.”

“Azerbaijan is basically blocking this as a possibility,” he told
IWPR. “After driving the talks process into a dead end, now they are
trying to stop any chance of discussion…. The only alternatives are
a continuation of the current frozen conflict, or worse still, war.”

For Alaverdyan, a veteran rights activist, the new mood is especially
worrying given that NGOs and journalists from Armenia and Azerbaijan
were able to maintain contact even at the height of the Karabakh
conflict in the early 1990s.

“I’ve been to Baku five times,” she said. “I went there with groups of
people from Armenia…. I can’t imagine who would run such projects
now.

“In Azerbaijan, they blame Armenians for all bad and annoying things.

Of course that’s much simpler than trying to investigate what their
own government is doing. I am truly sad about it…. At the end of
the day, who doesn’t want to have good neighbours?”

Every year on May 15, close to the anniversary of the Karabakh
ceasefire signing, the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan holds an annual
conference attended by experts from across the region, including
Azerbaijan.

This year, no one from Azerbaijan will attend.

“They have confirmed this,” Minasyan said. “We have worked with
Mirqadirov, with the Yunuses and with many other Azerbaijanis.”

Gayane Lazarian is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com.

JOINT EFFORTS REQUIRED TO RESOLVE NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT

Trend, Azerbaijan
May 12 2014

Baku, Azerbaijan, May 12
By Seymur Aliyev – Trend:

France intends to strengthen its relations, as well as Europe’s ties
with independent partners, French President Francois Hollande said
in Baku on May 12.

He was answering the questions as part of the Azerbaijani-French
business forum.

“This is the purpose of my visit to Azerbaijan,” he said.

He also stressed that the visit is not directed against anyone.

“We do not intend to convince anyone to refuse from cooperating with
anyone,” he said. “Our goal is to help the country to express itself
and its positions. This concerns Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and
Ukraine, as well as other countries.”

“Nagorno-Karabakh is one of the regional problems,” he said. “This
issue was discussed during a meeting with the Azerbaijani president.”

The French president said that he intends to discuss this issue with
the Armenian counterpart.

“Our goal is to find a solution to this conflict,” he said. “The
territorial issues will be discussed during my visit to Georgia,
where this problem is also relevant.”

“France is the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing country,” he said. “It has
been searching for different ways on sustainable and final settlement
of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for a long time. There are issues
hampering the conflict settlement.”

“Nevertheless, the fact that I have visited Azerbaijan and then will
leave for Armenia shows that the work continues. France is bound by
friendly relations both with Azerbaijan and Armenia,” Hollande said.

The French president emphasized the need for joint efforts to resolve
the conflict.

Today’s purpose is to hold meetings between the heads of two states
in order to achieve new progress in resolving the conflict, Hollande
added.

He went on to add that this conflict impedes the region’s development
and the free movement of people.

“France has always been active and is seeking new ways of resolving
the conflict. This concerns the situation in Ukraine as well. Very
tough decisions will be adopted with respect to the situation in this
country is the coming days. We should strictly abide by the principles
and give priority to dialogue in this issue.”

“The issues regarding the respect for national minorities are
characteristic for Ukraine, France, as well as for African and Eastern
European countries. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council,
France wants to be helpful from this point of view as well,” French
president said.

He pointed out that the visa facilitation issues have been discussed
during the negotiations in Baku, adding that the bilateral relations
shouldn’t be confined to economic issues.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in
1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a
result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied
20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and
seven surrounding districts.

The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the U.S. are currently
holding peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

Edited by S.I.

Trend, Azerbaijan
May 11 2014

French president promises to step up efforts to solve Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Baku, Azerbaijan, May 11
By Claude Salhani – Trend:

France will do everything in its power to find a peaceful solution to
the current conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, French president
Francois Hollande said in Baku on May 11.

“I come to Azerbaijan as part of a visit to the Caucasus. I am also
going to visit Armenia and Georgia”, Hollande told a gathering of
French citizens Sunday night shortly after his arrival for a two-day
official visit.

The French president explained that the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh
remains quite tense at the moment.

“I say the moment, but this conflict has been going on for many years
now,” he said.

“The situation remains tense, and there have been tens of thousands of
deaths, and recently there have been some incidents as well. So France
will do everything it possibly can in its capacity as co chair of the
Minsk group, to find a peaceful solution to allow Azerbaijan and
Armenia to settle the issue in peace,” the French president said.

“I think it is in the interest of two countries,” he concluded.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result
of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent
of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven
surrounding districts.

The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the U.S. are currently
holding peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

Lowell Sun, MA
May 11 2014

Etched in stone: Never forget

Armenians share pride as genocide memorial unveiled

By Lyle Moran

LOWELL — When he was a child, Joseph Dagdigian’s grandmother would
have flashbacks at night to the days of the genocide the Ottoman Turks
carried out against Armenians and others in the early 20th century.

Dagdigian, who grew up in Lowell, said it was not until years later
that he understood his grandmother’s anguish about the slaughter, and
why there is a strong push among Armenians for the events never to be
forgotten.

To not acknowledge the killing of 1.5 million people from 1915 to 1923
is to falsify his family’s history, says Dagdigian, now in his 70s.

On Saturday, Dagdigian proudly joined hundreds of others at City Hall
as the Armenian Genocide Memorial was unveiled and dedicated to the
right of the entrance to the building.

The monument, titled “A Mother’s Hands,” is believed to be the first
Armenian Genocide monument unveiled on the site of a government
building in the U.S.

“This is really amazing,” said Dagdigian. “Years ago, I never would
have expected to see something like this. This shows the government of
Lowell acknowledges the Armenian genocide.”

The last known genocide survivor in the Merrimack Valley also attended
the ceremony. Nellie Nazarian, 102, was a young child when her mother
helped her escape and eventually make it to the U.S.

Nazarian, of Methuen, was joined Saturday by her daughter, Marlene
Aznoian, as well as some of her dozens of grandchildren and great
grandchildren. She smiled for the camera when placed in her wheelchair
next to the monument.

“I’m just glad she is here for this,” said Aznoian, 76, of Andover.
“She went through a lot coming to this country. We are proud of her.”

The Lowell monument is made of bronze and granite. There are two
three-dimensional hands at the top of the piece of art showing a
mother’s hands crocheting. The hands sit above a large cross.

At the bottom of the structure is inscribed the words “In Memory” both
in English and Armenian.

“Knot by knot, her hands weave the history of her people,” reads the monument.

“The delicacy of the crochet integrated into this cross stone is
symbolic of the beauty and strength of the Armenian heritage.”

The writing below the cross also states “that in spite of the pain and
horror of the genocide, knot by knot, the Armenian People everywhere
weave their hopes and dreams, as they bloom and prosper.”

The effort to make the monument a reality began in 2011 when members
of the Armenian community approached then-Mayor James Milinazzo about
the idea. Milinazzo, now a city councilor, helped launch the project
and set aside a spot right outside City Hall.

Members of the Merrimack Valley Armenian Genocide Monument Committee
moved the project forward in the time since.

They had support from hundreds of Armenians in the region, New
England and beyond.

Armen Jeknavorian, chairman of the committee, said the monument honors
all those Armenians who came to Lowell before, during and after the
genocide, including his father, who escaped from the genocide.

During the years of the genocide, there were already enough Armenians
in Lowell to start their own church on Lawrence Street and in the
Merrimack Valley there are an estimated 2,500-3,000 families of
Armenian descent today, said Jeknavorian.

Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian said those who supported the
monument effort had helped the community secure a significant
achievement.

Koutoujian, whose grandparents survived the genocide, said the Lowell
monument matches Armenian Heritage Park in Boston in its significance.

“As we continue to seek recognition for our genocide, this is another
step in that recognition,” Koutoujian said. “The more people we
educate about the genocide, the more people we teach about the
genocide, the more people will know the truth of this matter.”

The monument, designed by Chelmsford artist Daniel Varoujan Hejinian,
garnered high praise for its artistic merit.

“Our instruction to him was we wanted this monument to be a work of
art where someone would walk by and have to turn around to take
another look,” said Aram Jeknavorian of Lowell, a member of the
monument committee and brother of Armen. “I think he has achieved
that.”

Varoujan Hejinian said the stone and bronze of the statue coming
together symbolize the body and soul coming together.

Several speakers noted the symbolism of the dedication of a monument
titled “A Mother’s Hands” on Mother’s Day weekend. Armen Jeknavorian
said the Armenians have a Mother’s Day saying that, “The earth’s
warmth is in the mother’s hands.”

City officials and members of the city’s Statehouse delegation were on
hand for the unveiling and made clear they believe the Turks’ killings
of Armenians and others should not be forgotten.

“Let us make no mistake, the atrocities committed against the Armenian
people are a genocide, an organized killing of people for the express
purpose of putting an end to their collective existence,” said Mayor
Rodney Elliott, who said he joined local Armenians in recalling the
darkness of those days, while applauding the community’s resilience.

City Manager Kevin Murphy credited Koutoujian, his former colleague at
the Statehouse, with helping him understand the significance of the
genocide and remembering the victims.

“You have my word as the city manager of Lowell this memorial will be
maintained in a proper and honorable fashion for as long as I’m city
manager,” Murphy told the crowd.

DIPLOMATIE
Hollande attendu dimanche à Bakou, les yeux rivés sur l’Ukraine

Bakou, 11 mai 2014 (AFP) – François Hollande entame ce dimanche Ã
Bakou une tournée de trois jours dans une région, le Caucase du Sud,
qui, tout comme lui, a les yeux rivés sur les développements de la
crise en Ukraine. Après l’Azerbaïdjan où il est attendu vers 18H00
(13H00 GMT), le chef de l’Etat français se rendra lundi en Arménie
puis mardi en Géorgie. La France entend doper ses échanges économiques
balbutiants avec ces trois ex-Républiques soviétiques dont elle
souhaite aussi encourager le rapprochement avec l’Union européenne.

Mais la crise ukrainienne sera dans toutes les têtes. François
Hollande arrive à Bakou le jour même où les séparatistes pro-russes
d’Ukraine entendent tenir un référendum d’indépendance que le
président français juge `illégal`. Et les trois jeunes Etats qu’il
visitera d’ici à mardi entretiennent des relations complexes et
parfois conflictuelles avec la Russie de Vladimir Poutine qui s’agace
de voir l’Union européenne les courtiser tout comme elle s’est opposée
à son rapprochement avec Kiev.

Les relations russo-géorgiennes, en particulier, ont été sérieusement
mises à mal par la guerre éclair qui avait opposé les deux pays en
2008. Un cessez-le-feu, négocié par Nicolas Sarkozy alors que la
France assurait la présidence tournante de l’Union européenne, avait
mis fin au conflit. Mais dans la foulée, Moscou avait reconnu
l’indépendance de deux territoires séparatistes géorgiens pro-russes,
l’Ossétie du Sud et l’Abkhazie.

Dans ce contexte et celui des efforts des occidentaux pour convaincre
Moscou de contribuer à une `désescalade` de la tension en Ukraine,
François Hollande se gardera de jeter de l’huile sur le feu, notamment
en Géorgie, pays qui entend rejoindre l’UE mais aussi l’Otan, au grand
dam de Moscou.

– `Pas une visite de combat` –

`Nous ne concevons pas le travail de rapprochement avec l’Union
européenne comme un travail mené contre la Russie`, soulignait-on Ã
l’Elysée à la veille de cette tournée, estimant que `le pire` serait
de `polariser` ces pays en les forçant à choisir entre Moscou et l’UE.

`Ce n’est pas une visite de combat mais une visite visant à favoriser
leur rapprochement`, insistait-on dans l’entourage de François
Hollande. De la même manière, le président français devrait se
contenter de rappeler son attachement à la souveraineté et Ã
l’intégrité territoriale de la Géorgie. Comme dans la plupart de ses
déplacements à l’étranger, François Hollande, adepte d’une `diplomatie
économique`, sera accompagné d’une conséquente délégation de
dirigeants d’entreprises.

Les relations commerciales avec l’Azerbaïdjan, tout particulièrement,
apparaissent très déséquilibrées avec, en 2013, 266 millions d’euros
d’exportations françaises pour 1,7 milliard d’importations, des
hydrocarbures pour l’essentiel.

Et en dépit des liens politiques et historiques étroits entre la
France et l’Arménie ‘500.000 Français sont d’origine arménienne’, les
échanges commerciaux bilatéraux restent lilliputiens, de l’ordre d’une
cinquantaine de millions d’euros l’an dernier.

Avec ses homologues azerbaïdjanais et arménien, Ilham Aliev et Serge
Sarkissian, François Hollande évoquera aussi le conflit du Haut
Karabakh qui empoisonne depuis des décennies les relations entre les
deux pays. Le chef de l’Etat français sera d’ailleurs à Erevan 20 ans
jour pour jour après l’entrée en vigueur de l’accord de cessez-le feu
signé par l’Azerbaïdjan et l’Arménie à l’issue du conflit sanglant qui
les avait opposés de 1988 Ã 1994 pour le contrôle de cette région
séparatiste à majorité arménienne.

Alors que le rattachement de la Crimée à la Russie crée un dangereux
précédent, François Hollande fera valoir à ses interlocuteurs
l’intérêt bien compris pour les deux parties de relancer les
négociations sur le statut de cette enclave en territoire
azerbaïdjanais, les appelant à prendre des `mesures de confiance`
réciproques. Mais aucune avancée majeure n’est attendue dans ces
laborieux et très secrets pourparlers.

dimanche 11 mai 2014,
Ara ©armenews.com