Author: Boshkezenian Garik

 

 

 

The German Bundestag will approve the Resolution on recognition of the Armenian Genocide on June 2, Member of Bundestag, Head of the Germany-Armenia Forum Albert Weiler declared in Yerevan today.

“I assure that the Armenian Genocide recognition bill will be put on a vote at the plenary session of the Bundestag. I think the resolution will pass with a vast majority of the votes, he said.

According to Weiler, the parliamentary forces are still holding discussions on the content of the bill, but one thing is clear – the term ‘genocide’ will be included in the title, and the events of 1915 will finally have the right formulation.

Referring to Turkish Ambassador’s warning to Germany, Weiler noted that “not only the Turkish, but also the Azerbaijani side is trying to interfere with the issue.” Despite that he hopes that the bill will pass almost unanimously.

The German lawmaker said “part of the resolution will refer to the restructuring of the Armenian-German relations.” “Germany should take up the responsibility of contributing to the normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations,” he said.

“Recognition of the Armenian Genocide will be a message to Armenia and Turkey to normalize the bilateral relations irrespective of the forces in power in Turkey. I hope the day we’ll be able to cross the Turkish border with my Armenian friends is not far away,” the Member of Bundestag said.

The government opinion on the bill on recognition of Artsakh was a message to the world, a warning that Armenia will recognize the Nagorno Karabakh Republic if Azerbaijan unleashes new aggression, journalist and expert Tatul Hakobyan told .

He said it’s hard to find any Armenian in the world that would not rejoice for the recognition of Artsakh, but pointed to several challenges the decision could bring about.

Tatul Hakobyan said it will serve a justification for Azerbaijan to start new war. “Azerbaijan has long been trying to foil the Minsk process and transfer the issue to other platforms. In case of recognition, Azerbaijan will accuse Armenia of taking a unilateral step and frustrating the Minsk process,” he added.

He said recognition will “intoxicate” the Armenian-Russian relations, Russia will be one of the first countries to condemn the move. “Anti-Armenian Russia is more dangerous than Azerbaijan and Turkey together,” he noted.

“In case Armenia recognizes the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, the UN Security Council will convene a sitting and adopt a resolution that will not be favorable to Armenia,” he said.

“We live in a world where we are not alone, and different interests have to be taken into consideration.”

“It’s not the best time to recognize Artsakh,” Tatul Hakobyan concluded.

The famously bullish art dealer built an empire spanning 16 locations around the globe by never saying no to his artists’ ambitions, according to the .

Larry Gagosian grew up in Los Angeles, the only son of an Armenian family. His mother, Ann Louise, made a living acting and singing, while his father, Ara, was an accountant. His actor uncle, who played a pirate in the 1960 version of Peter Pan, for a time lived in the family’s small downtown apartment along with Gagosian’s sister and grandmother. After his father became a stockbroker, the family upgraded to Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley. In high school, Gagosian swam competitively; he continued to swim and play water polo at UCLA until he quit the team his sophomore year.

After earning a B.A. in English literature at 24 (he never studied art history), he kicked around doing odd jobs in L.A. before getting hired at William Morris Agency, from which he was fired after a year. (“It was like a knife fight in a phone booth,” says Gagosian now. “I just didn’t have that DNA, to be in an office. Whatever I was going to do, I was going to do it on my own.”) Without savings, he needed a job and began working as a parking lot manager.

“I’ve always been somebody who just kind of does what’s in front of me,” says Gagosian. So when he observed a man selling posters near the parking lot, he decided to give it a shot and soon discovered he had a knack for selling. “So I started buying more expensive posters,” he says. “Rather than selling something for $15, with the frame it becomes $50 and $100.” Eventually he also started a frame shop (where Sonic Youth rocker Kim Gordon worked, writing in her 2015 memoir that he was a “mean” and “erratic” boss), and then rented out a former Hungarian restaurant in Westwood Village in 1976. In this narrow space he opened Prints on Broxton, selling more upscale pieces to fledgling collectors like Geffen, whom he met through his former William Morris boss Stan Kamen.

Gagosian himself is estimated to clear $1 billion in sales annually and is among a small group of gallery owners whose appetites are omnivorous: He works across the contemporary and modern eras, representing living artists like John Currin and Mark Grotjahn while also dealing on behalf of the estates of Alberto Giacometti, Richard Avedon and Helen Frankenthaler. He exhibits a wide range of work, from Instagram images appropriated by Richard Prince to boulders-as-sculpture by cerebral artist Michael Heizer. At the same time, he conducts sales on the so-called secondary market—a term he hates—by privately buying and selling artworks to clients. He was also an early proponent of the museum-quality show within a private gallery, securing sought-after loans of historic works that are often not for sale. Such wide-ranging exhibitions have included a show on Baroque master Peter Paul Rubens in 1995 and 2009’s Picasso: Mosqueteros, co-curated by Picasso biographer John Richardson, which drew 100,000 visitors to the gallery to see the artist’s less-examined late work.

Gagosian does all of this on an unprecedented scale, with 16 locations from Hong Kong to New York’s Chelsea, around 200 employees, a publishing arm that produces 40 books a year, a quarterly magazine and an in-house newspaper—even a retail storefront that sells Warhol Campbell’s Soup candles and butterfly-print deck chairs by Gagosian artist Damien Hirst.

Turkey should stop shooting at Syrian civilians fleeing fighting and immediately allow them to cross the Turkish border to seek protection, said today.

Renewed fighting between the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and armed opposition groups in Northern Aleppo has displaced at least 30,000 people in the past 48 hours, with Turkish border guards shooting at some of them as they approach Turkey’s new border wall.

Turkey’s border remains firmly shut, a year after the authorities started rejecting all but the most seriously injured Syrians. Turkeyhas previously indicated it wants to create a “safe zone” in Syria to which Syrians could ostensibly flee and Turkey could return Syrian refugees. In its March 8, 2016 deal with Turkey, the European Union said it would work with Turkey to “allow for the local population and refugees to live in areas which will be more safe.”

“As civilians flee ISIS fighters, Turkey is responding with live ammunition instead of compassion,” said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The whole world is talking about fighting ISIS, and yet those most at risk of becoming victims of its horrific abuses are trapped on the wrong side of a concrete wall.”

According to international aid workers in Turkey and heads of six of the 10 displaced persons camps east of Azaz near the Turkish border, ISIS advances on April 13 and 14 have forced out at least half the camps’ 60,000 residents. They have fled to other camps, to the Bab al-Salameh camp on the Turkish border and to the nearby town of Azaz. Three of the camps – Ikdah, Harameen and al-Sham – are now completely empty of the 24,000 people previously sheltering there.

On April 14, Human Rights Watch spoke with the representatives of six of the 10 camps and seven displaced Syrians who had been living in camps that had been taken over by ISIS or that were close to the fast-changing ISIS front line. All of the residents said they wanted to flee to Turkey but that the closed border meant they had nowhere to escape to. Some said they had stayed in the camps under ISIS-threat because they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to find shelter elsewhere, knowing other camps along the Turkish border were completely full. Others said they had returned to their nearby home villages even though they were still unsafe.

The head of Ikdah camp, on the Turkish border, said that ISIS had taken over the camp, which sheltered just under 10,000 people, early on April 14, fired shots in the air, and told residents to leave.

– Turkey has been making drastic decisions in different towns of the majority Kurdish southeast in the past few weeks. On March 21, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government hastily passed legislation referred to as “urgent expropriation of the Sur district” of Diyarbakir province. On March 26, the government’s Official Gazette announced all the addresses of the properties to be expropriated.

These decisions have been met with local opposition, which has been silenced swiftly. But the Sur situation generated global reactions because of the town’s history — so much so that Galip Ensarioglu, a prominent AKP parliamentarian, told the press that the US Embassy had called him asking about the reports. Ensarioglu said the reports amounted to a smear campaign spreading false information about the confiscation process. Others beg to differ.

Indeed, the story of Sur evolves around historic churches and citadels of the town, which are on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Months of fighting with the Kurdistan Workers Party have left the region in ruins, and ambiguous government statements furthered the frustration of civilians who were obliged to leave their homes. One of the concerned groups is Armenian. About 110 years ago, the region’s population distribution shows Sur was an Armenian majority town.

As aerial images of Sur expropriations started circulating on social media, Armenians all around the world became concerned, particularly about one church that was reopened only in 2011. Soon it became clear that several inalienable religious endowment properties, or waqf, along with the largest Armenian Church, St. Giragos Armenian Apostolic Church, were included on the list. About 82% of the district is estimated to have been expropriated by the government.

Raffi Bedrosyan, a Canadian-Armenian civil engineer and writer who was involved in the reconstruction of St. Giragos, spoke to Al-Monitor about its significance. According to Bedrosyan, St. Giragos is the largest Armenian church in the Middle East. “It dates back to the 14th century, and with several expansions, it served the large Armenian community of 100,000 in Diyarbakir until 1915,” he said.

After the Armenians were forced to leave the city, the church was made to serve different purposes, from an army barracks to a warehouse. Constant attempts to keep it functioning as a church were futile until a waqf foundation was able to reclaim the property.

“In 2009, a newly formed church charitable foundation showed the courage and determination to start reconstruction of [St.] Giragos. With organized fundraising from the Armenian community in Istanbul and worldwide Armenian diasporas, as well as some contribution from the local Kurdish municipal leaders, the church was renovated and opened in 2011, and more than 4,000 people attended,” Bedrosyan said.

He added, “It soon became a spiritual and cultural center for Armenian pilgrims from the diaspora and a meeting place for thousands and thousands of hidden Armenians living in the region, who are the descendants of 1915 orphaned Armenian girls and boys [who were] forcibly Islamized, Kurdified and Turkified. The [St.] Giragos Church Foundation also succeeded in having several properties … restored to church ownership.”

In 2012, Bedrosyan gave a memorable piano concert at the church. The church became a catalyst, bringing Christians and descendants of Armenians from all around the world to Sur, and it also served as a spiritual refuge for hundreds of Islamized Armenian survivors.

Aline Ozinian is a regional analyst for the Armenian Assembly of America and a correspondent for Agos, an Armenian daily published in Turkey. She described for Al-Monitor how the news of expropriation resonated among Armenians.

“First and foremost, it caused a loss of trust of the government. In the early years of the AKP, there was hope for a fresh start because the AKP appeared to be embracing the rhetoric of religious freedom. During the reconstruction process of [St.] Giragos, there was hope that, as citizens of Turkey, Armenians would have an achievement,” Ozinian said. “Yet with this expropriation decision, it is confirmed that this was a cheap illusion. The police mentality that yells at the Kurds ‘You are all Armenians’ has now been institutionalized. The expropriation of [St.] Giragos symbolizes a punishment for both Kurds and Armenians. It is highly probable that the AKP is punishing Armenians, as some Armenians have voted for the pro-Kurdish HDP [Peoples’ Democratic Party].”

The AKP has repeatedly denied expropriating churches. Ensarioglu vehemently rejected expropriation of any of the churches, saying, “We are only here to repair the churches and give them back to the waqfs.” Yet none of the locals seemed convinced by his statements. As the pressure built, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited Sur on April 1.

Ozinian said, “Davutoglu’s first task at Sur was to pray at a mosque. This was a message. The church had rejuvenated the Islamized Armenians in the region, encouraging them to investigate their histories. It seems the Turkish government, intolerant toward differences, will resolve all problems by expropriating the church.”

She also emphasized the sudden turn in Turkish press coverage. “During the reconstruction process of the church from 2009 to 2011, the press coverage was extensive. The church was portrayed as a monument of ‘the AKP’s tolerance,’ yet the expropriation news barely made it into the mainstream media, and not to the headlines at all. In 1915, hatred removed and cleansed the Armenians from Sur, and now I fear a similar destiny awaits the Kurds.”

Indeed, Ozinian’s concerns have been repeated by several columnists from the region who say they fear the government plans to empty the region of Kurds and settle Syrian refugees as a buffer zone between Kurdish areas. Another concern is the greed factor. The AKP has prepared a video showing what the future of the historic Sur district would look like. Davutoglu likened it to the reconstructed city of Toledo, Spain. “I told my wife, we should own a house in Sur as well,” he added.

Locals were not satisfied with his words, as prominent columnist Nurcan Baysal penned a searing column titled “Take Toledo for yourself and leave Sur alone.” Garo Paylan, an Armenian member of the HDP, had already submitted an inquiry about the ancient church and has been seeking to halt its expropriation.

Many believe this move by the AKP is another lucrative gentrification project for construction companies belonging to AKP cronies. In the midst of all this, the country’s biggest Armenian church appears to have met the same destiny as dozens of others in the region — it has become collateral damage.

Massis Post – John M. Evans, former United States Ambassador to Armenia, will be the guest of the Armenian Studies Program for a special evening talk on his new book “Truth Held Hostage: America and the Armenian Genocide—What Then? What Now?” at 7:30PM on Monday, April 25, in the Leon and Pete Peters Educational Center Auditorium (in the Student Recreation Center, next to the SaveMart Center), on the Fresno State campus.

Ambassador Evans, who recognized the Armenian Genocide while U.S. Ambassador, was dismissed from his post by the State Department. In his talk, an unrepentant Evans will discuss his new memoir, which gives a blow-by-blow account of his understanding of the Armenian issue, why he criticized United States policy in 2006, and why he still thinks the State Department should change its position on the Armenian Genocide. Truth Held Hostage promises to reframe the Armenian Genocide debate in the United States and has already been praised as the most important work about the Armenian Genocide by a U.S. diplomat since Henry Morgenthau’s groundbreaking Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story in 1918, a compelling, page-turning read, and an even-handed account of a matter of international importance.

Evans first broke with the State Department on the Armenian Genocide issue in Fresno, and it is fitting that he will be back to update us on developments—and his thoughts about the future.

In an article published by , French MP Valérie Boyer insists that it’s time to recognize the de facto independent Republic of Nagorno Karabakh.

She reminds that the night of April 2 Azerbaijan launched a major military offensive against the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh in what became the worst escalation since the conclusion of cease-fire in 1994.

“Azerbaijan  mobilized assaults tanks, combat helicopters, drones and even Grad missiles that targeted the cities of Nagorno-Karabakh and caused casualties among civilians, including children. The attack was pushed back so that dictator Aliyev had to agree on a ceasefire. With more than 200 dead, about twenty tanks destroyed and no territorial gain, this inept offensive has indeed shown the military weakness of Azerbaijan,” Boyer writes.

“How come that Azerbaijan stuffed with petrodollars is unable to triumph over tiny Nagorno Karabakh? Because no one in Azerbaijan, except Aliyev is interested in waging war,” the lawmaker writes.

“The Republic of Nagorno Karabakh has been de facto independent for nearly twenty-five years. For 25 years it has been striving to make each day even more democratic, while Azerbaijan sinks into the most desperate dictatorship,” she continues.

“The international community believed that postponing the question of the political status of Nagorno-Karabakh would favor negotiations and the establishment of peace. Experience shows, however, that it is not so and it only encourages the bellicose ardor of Baku. We must put an end to this situation. We must now recognize Nagorno-Karabakh,” Valerie Boyer concludes.

Valerie Boyer is a Member of French National Assembly. She represents the Bouches-du-Rhône department and is a member of the Union for a Popular Movement.

US presidential front-runners, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, have continued their winning streaks, taking Arizona, the BBC reports.
The issue of immigration loomed large in the south-western state, the biggest prize in the latest round of contests.
Polls showed that Mr Trump’s anti-immigration message resonated with the state’s conservative voters.
With Arizona’s growing Latino population, Mrs Clinton continued her success by courting minority voters.

Keeping his campaign in the race, Democrat Bernie Sanders decisively won caucuses in two smaller states, Idaho and Utah.

Photo: Valeriy Matytsin/TASS    

Flights have resumed from Rostov-on-Don’s airport for the first time since Saturday’s crash of the FlyDubai’s Boeing 737-800.

Two Donavia flights have taken off from the airport, the company’s press secretary Inna Churliayeva told TASS on Monday adding that the two planes were bound for Russia’s St. Petersburg and Armenia’s Yerevan respectively.

A FlyDubai’s Boeing 737-800 crashed at Rostov-on-Don’s airport in the small hours on March 19 during a second attempt to land in complicated weather conditions of strong side wind and rain. The plane served regular Flight FZ 981 from Dubai. The passenger jet capable of carrying 189 passengers had 62 people aboard, including the crew. No one has survived.

 

 

 

 

“Armenia” Airline will launch the Yerevan-Moscow- Tel Aviv flights on April 21, shareholders of the company Tamaz Gaiashvili and Robert Hovhannisyan told reporters today.

The Airline will conduct regular flights to different Russian cities, as well as Tehran, Prague, Tel Aviv, Kiev, Minsk, Barcelona, Larnaca and London.

The shareholders pledge to expand the geography of flights and promise high-quality services.

The Airline will be operated on three Boeing planes in April with the fleet expected to expand in July. The pilots and crewmembers are citizens of the Republic of Armenia.

The ticket prices will start from €49 (without the airport fees and taxes).