Author: Chakrian Hovsep

Azerbaijani shelling targets AFP journalists crew in Artsakh

Chakrian Hovsep

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 15:39, 1 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 1, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani armed forces have targeted a vehicle transporting the crew of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) international news agency in Artsakh, the Artsakh authorities said, posting images of the damaged vehicle.

The Azerbaijani military targeted a group of journalists in Martuni on October 1.

Two French reporters of Le Monde, a cameraman for the ARMENIA TV Channel and a reporter of 24News were wounded as Azeri forces shelled the town of Martuni in Artsakh.

 

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

CivilNet: Most of Azerbaijan’s military casualties are from national minorities, Karabakh Says

Chakrian Hovsep
CIVILNET.AM

October 1, 2020 11:55 am

Most of Azerbaijan’s casualties among military personnel are members of national minorities, Vahram Poghosyan, spokesperson of the Nagorno Karabakh President said during a morning press conference in Stepanakert on October 1. 

“The intelligence unit of the Karabakh Defense Army reported that the majority of Azerbaijan’s casualties among military personnel in various areas of the frontline are members of Azerbaijan’s national minorities,” he said.

“148 Lezgins were killed on one front alone,” Poghosyan said, predicting that “In the near future we will witness protests by national minorities”

According to Poghosyan, “There were syringes in the pockets of all the Azerbaijani servicemen left on our territory.” “This is a war crime,” he said.

Defense Army spokesperson Suren Sarumyan, speaking about the events of last night, said that artillery battles continued on some sections of the Artsakh-Azerbaijan border. The maneuvers of the enemy were spotted and prevented.

Speaking about the civilian casualties in Martakert, Sarumyan said that Azerbaijan could not advance even an inch in that direction, so they targeted the civilian population.

At the moment the situation remains stable, but tense, he said.

***

On September 30, in an interview with Civilnet, Talysh publicist Zabil Mageramov noted that in Azerbaijan, members of national minorities are the ones mainly sent to the frontline. According to him, 50 percent of the casualties among military personnel are Talysh. “This is a genocide of the Talysh people,” Mageramov said.

Watch Zabil Mageramov’s interview (in Russian).  

Fire at Armenia’s Proshyan Brandy Factory kills 2, injures 4

Chakrian Hovsep
Panorama, Armenia
Sep 1 2020

Two people have been killed, while four others have been injured in a fire that broke out at the Proshyan Brandy Factory in the Armenian village of Armavir on Tuesday.

Emergency workers reached the scene after receiving a fire report in the afternoon.

The fire was contained at 12:44pm, the Ministry of Emergency Situations said.

The wounded people have been taken to Armenia Republican Medical Center in moderate condition, it added.

No other details were immediately available.



Soccer: Armenian national team starts training camp

Chakrian Hovsep
Panorama, Armenia
Sep 1 2020
Sport 19:33 01/09/2020Armenia

The Armenian national football team started a training camp ahead of UEFA Nations League C league group 2 matches against North Macedonia and Estonia, the Football Federation reports.

According to the source, the team started the trainings on September 1 at the FFA Technical Center. The players underwent tests before the training.

As reported earlier, Head coach Joaquin Caparros called up 23 players as part of the preparation. Gevorg Ghazaryan and Sargis Adamyan are not available to join the team due to injuries, while Henrikh Mkhitaryan is absent being on vacation.


Asbarez: What Makes You Armenian?

Chakrian Hovsep
August 18,  2020


Nicholas Krikorian (center) with ANCA Leo Sarkisian Intern Angelika Avagian and ANCA Maral Melkonian Avetisyan Intern Tatevik Khachatryan during a visit to Capitol Hill.

BY NICHOLAS KRIKORIAN

About two months ago, I entered my first online call for the 2020 Armenian National Committee of America Leo Sarkisian. I was already having destructive thoughts that I didn’t deserve this opportunity because I wasn’t Armenian enough. I was unknowledgeable about the Armenian Cause, greater Armenian history, Armenian culture, and had essentially distanced myself from most things Armenian. Being repeatedly taught about the Genocide and religion during my childhood never seemed to help me understand what being Armenian truly meant to me — they just seemed like regular school lessons. However, through befriending Armenians throughout the diaspora, fighting for the Armenian Cause alongside them, and learning more about myself, I discovered how to interpret and appreciate the Armenian part of my identity.

Armenians tend to hold a sort of unspoken hierarchy; whether we speak the language, if we go to church, who we surround ourselves with- these all seem to be determining factors as to how “Armenian” we are. This problematic nature got in the way of me fully identifying with my Armenian heritage, as many things about me don’t align with what a perfect Armenian looked like in my mind. I’ve never liked Armenian music, nor do I have an affinity for the food. The biggest hit was when I discovered that I identify as Agnostic, while the rest of my family and Armenian community is Christian. With this rejection of the religion that Armenians so proudly boast about being the first to become, I jokingly deemed myself the “Armenian disappointment.” My biggest mistake was amounting my alignment with my heritage and ancestors based on if I believed in God or not, as it made me keep this self-discovery a secret from my family for years.

Why should it matter if you can speak Armenian or not? Or if you go to church and pray like all the other Armenians around you? If you’re an Armenian, you’re an Armenian, and no outside factors can ever change that.

So, this is the conclusion that I had come up with midway through my internship. While it did bring me a solid amount of solace, it still wasn’t enough for me to be happy. Saying I was Armenian accomplished nothing, it was just a word. What happened later was what opened my eyes to a brand new ideology.

In what seemed like an instant, Azerbaijan attacked Armenia, and that turned the calm internship into a fast-paced news cycle where tasks had to be finished quickly to keep up with the endless stream of events and information. For my whole life, I never learned more about Artsakh past its name and location. With this latest aggression, I had the opportunity to research and learn more Armenian history that strayed away from the Genocide, and I found joy in learning so much about my ancestors.

Days into the Azerbaijani bombing, some of my intern friends began saying things like “I’m so mad I haven’t been able to think about anything else” or “I cried about everything last night.” They all had a unity with all of Armenia that I had to grasp, as I didn’t find myself having any emotional reaction to everything happening.

Fortunately, more and more protests started happening around the world, demanding and to President Aliyev’s attacks and U.S. aid to Armenia and Artsakh. Seeing clips of fellow Armenians shouting and chanting and dancing all for one Cause got me riled up as well, and I began to send barrages of information to my non-Armenian friends in an attempt to educate and spread awareness. For the first time in my life, I actively sought out Armenian news and information for myself and was genuinely angry when I couldn’t attend a DC protest due to coronavirus concerns.

Since I wasn’t able to help the cause in that manner, I suggested to the ANCA intern team that we try to start a movement on social media to educate non-Armenians, similar to the way the Blacks Lives Matter movement spread. This was when we banded together to create a Carrd website to have all the necessary sources, petition links, and donation links to spread awareness and gather support from both Armenians and non-Armenians. This experience of influencing the Cause seemed to trigger some sort of change in me that I hadn’t yet recognized.

Finally, one of my intern friends sent me a live-stream of one of the larger protests on one random day, and I was enthralled. I couldn’t take my eyes off all the Armenian people, with all different lifestyles and identities, coming together to fight for our country- and this is when I cried. I realized what being Armenian meant to me – fighting for our Cause. Having a community without judgment that collaborated to achieve the aid we needed for our home country. None of that had anything to do with music or religion, if I went to bazaars or ate ethnic foods. It was what made me feel Armenian. It was what helped me go from rejecting this part of myself to exploring it and being happy to call myself an Armenian.

This is why I hope all Armenian people who feel similar to the way I felt before this internship are able to find what part of their Armenian heritage makes them comfortable in their own identities. It could come in the form of Armenian song and dance, foods, religion, friends and community, pursuing the Armenian Cause (Hai Tahd), or anything else to be individually discovered. That’s why I want to ask you: what makes you Armenian?

Nicholas Krikorian is a senior at the A. Edison High School in Alexandria, Va. and a 2020 ANCA Summer High School Intern.




NRA Execs’ Hollywood Sugar Daddy Is Entangled With a Russian Oligarch

Chakrian Hovsep
The Daily Beast
Aug 23 2020

Wayne LaPierre’s patron and producer is tied to a web that spans from Los Angeles to the Caucasus.

Researcher

Updated Aug. 23, 2020 9:31AM ET / Published Aug. 23, 2020 5:04AM ET 

The Hollywood producer at the center of the corruption case against the National Rifle Association has had a years-long financial, creative, and apparently political relationship with a tycoon from the former Soviet Union, The Daily Beast has discovered.

Multiple reports have identified Associated Television International (ATI) president David Stanton, also known as David McKenzie, as the anonymous figure who lavished gifts and trips on top NRA officials, as described in a lawsuit New York Attorney General Letitia James brought earlier this month. But unreported until now are Stanton’s dealings in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, which date to the late 1990s and have intensified in recent years with a series of joint ventures with a Russian oligarch named Sergey Sarkisov.

For his various overseas projects, Stanton has enlisted the assistance of former KGB officials, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and influential politicians tied to President Vladimir Putin. With Sarkisov, Stanton inserted himself into one of the most contentious disputes in the Russian “near abroad”. 

This makes Stanton the most recently revealed in a string of figures tied to elites in both the NRA and in the former Soviet Union. A 2015 trip brought a delegation from the group into contact with a sanctioned deputy to Russian President Vladimir Putin, while The Daily Beast uncovered emails showing the organization’s then-head hoped to meet with the autocrat himself. A 2019 U.S. intelligence report determined that the pair that organized the trip—Russian central bank official Alexander Torshin and confessed Russian agent Maria Butina—did so with the Kremlin’s blessing.

The NRA did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this article, and both Stanton and Sarkisov insisted that ATI’s work with the gun lobby never cross-pollinated with its endeavors in Eurasia. But it is beyond dispute that Stanton—whose best-known productions in the United States include the annual Hollywood Christmas Parade, the CW magic show Masters of Illusion, and a pair of travel programs starring his wife and daughter—is an enormously wealthy man who enjoyed unparalleled access to and influence over NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and former Chief Financial Officer Wilson “Woody” Phillips.

The complaint James filed earlier this month details the depth and extent of the relationship between Stanton and LaPierre, as well as the extravagant treatment the latter received at his Hollywood benefactor’s expense. While the NRA was paying a handful of Stanton-owned firms millions to run its public relations and member engagement programs, LaPierre was spending Decembers in the Bahamas for “celebrity retreats” at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island, hosted and financed by Stanton. 

LaPierre often visited the opulent Caribbean island in the summertime too, staying with his extended family on Stanton’s 108-foot long pleasure vessel, Illusions. The complaint quotes LaPierre describing Illusions under oath as “a big, big yacht.” The legal document proceeds in greater detail.

“Illusions is equipped with four staterooms, a 16-foot jet boat, and two jet skis,” it reads, adding that the crew includes a chef.

James’ brief adds that LaPierre also used Stanton’s Illusions on “two European trips for the purpose of recruiting celebrities for the NRA.” Her office uncovered reimbursement requests LaPierre submitted for 20 private flights to California he took to visit Stanton between 2013 and 2017, as well as for $6,700 in gifts LaPierre gave Stanton and his family.

LaPierre was not alone in luxuriating in the producer’s largesse. Phillips borrowed Stanton’s other yacht, Grand Illusion, for two trips in 2018. Online profiles of Grand Illusion show that it is 145 feet long, weighs 420 tons, and has five cabins. Stanton appears to have at least at one point owned a third yacht, the 38-foot-long racer Illusions III, through a limited liability company—although the craft does not surface in the New York attorney general’s lawsuit.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Stanton insisted a “confidentiality agreement” with an undisclosed party prevented him from discussing his interactions with LaPierre or Wilson. He was, however, willing to speak in limited detail about his history with the NRA, which he said began in the 1990s with a project involving the group’s late ex-president, actor Charlton Heston.

The NRA contracted ATI to produce a radio program starring LaPierre, as well as the syndicated show Crime-Strike, which the executive vice president also hosted. Stanton asserted that the latter program ran for in excess of 250 episodes, though there is very little record of them online, and no more than 27 are available to view on Amazon.

At the time Crime-Strike went into production in 1998, Stanton and ATI were directing and producing multiple supernatural and conspiracy-themed documentaries. These included titles such as Roswell Top Secret and Ghost Stories, as well as a string of films based on allegedly concealed files from the Soviet intelligence service.

The Secret KGB JFK Assassination Files was shot in Moscow in 1998 and featured interviews with multiple former Soviet intelligence officials, including former KGB Chairman Vladimir Semichastny. Directed by Stanton himself, it aired again on NewsmaxTV in 2015. 

In 2005, ATI filmed The Secret KGB UFO Files, which McKenzie/Stanton told The Hollywood Reporter was produced in Russia “with the cooperation of Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and former officials within the Soviet intelligence community.” Now deceased, Luzhkov was a founding member of Putin’s United Russia party. 

Stanton told The Daily Beast he gained access to these and other high-ranking personages in Russia because they were eager to meet the show’s host, former James Bond actor Roger Moore.

According to Stanton, his partnership with Sarkisov began in 2014 or 2015, after the two met at what he described as “several social events” while the Russian magnate was serving as consul-general of the Republic of Armenia, in Los Angeles.

A veteran of Soviet insurer Ingosstrakh, Sarkisov founded the private firm RESO-Garantia in Moscow in 1991. The company is now one of the largest insurers in the country, and as of a 2017 auditor’s report maintained operations in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Lithuania, and Cyprus. With his brother Nikolai he owns more than 60 percent of the company, which—along with their extensive international real estate holdings—landed them the eighth-place spot on Forbes’s 2019 list of the richest families in Russia, with assets totaling $1.6 billion. Though not among the oligarchs sanctioned by the U.S. government, Ukrainian authorities accused the two of fraud in late 2018, but dropped the charges the following year.

Sarkisov also co-owns Blitz Films, a production company with offices in California and in Moscow, with his son, also named Nikolai. 

“Any billionaire from the region has some odious/sketchy ties.”
— Peter Stronski, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Paul Stronski, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, associated Sarkisov with the circle of Russian plutocrats orbiting the Kremlin. The mogul sits with a host of other oligarchs and top government officials on the board of trustees at the elite Moscow State Institute of International Relations, or MGIMO, run by Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Any billionaire from the region has some odious/sketchy ties,” Stronski warned. 

Stanton and Sarkisov shared an interest in entertainment and in Armenia, a former Soviet state and now a Russian ally and military client, as well as a member of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union. The two had grown close enough by February 2016 that Stanton was one of just four lay figures to accompany Sarkisov at an intimate ceremony in the holy city of Vagharshapat, Armenia, where the Supreme Patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church bestowed on the oligarch the Order of St. Gregory the Illuminator.

In 2017, Blitz Films and ATI—along with two of Stanton’s frequent collaborators, former daytime TV personality Montel Williams and Masters of Illusion host Dean Cain— in 2017 released the documentary The Architects of Denial. 

The film ostensibly focuses on the genocide the Ottoman Empire perpetrated against ethnic Armenians during World War I. But it repeats what Stronski characterized as a typical Armenian government line: that pogroms against ethnic Armenians in Azerbaijan during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the ongoing conflict between the two nations over the province of Nagorno-Karabakh, are part of a continuous campaign by ethnic Turks to exterminate them as a people.

Stronski and other experts have argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin has intentionally prolonged tensions over the disputed section of Azerbaijan, which Armenians call Artsakh, as a means of maintaining Moscow’s hegemony in the Caucasus.

“[Russia] doesn’t want a solution as it is useful to manipulate both Armenia and Azerbaijan and to retain influence in the region,” Stronski said. “I don’t think the Russians control the trajectory of events there and certainly don’t want it exploding, as it did in 2016 and in July of this year. But, unresolved conflict probably suits them fine.”

The Architects of Denial leans heavily on interviews with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, then sequestered in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for fear of arrest. American officials of both parties have identified Assange, a former host on Russia’s state-sponsored RT, and his website as Kremlin intelligence assets. Although the now-imprisoned Australian national has denied it, the Senate has concluded Wikileaks collaborated with hackers employed by Russian intelligence services in releasing emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee.

But The Architects of Denial makes no allusion to the controversy around Assange, and one of its many title cards hails him as the “world’s foremost corruption whistleblower.” Stanton told The Daily Beast he arranged and attended the interview with Assange personally, without assistance from Sarkisov—and maintained his complete ignorance of the famed leaker’s links to the Kremlin.

“Had I heard that, and I felt it would affect his credibility, yeah, I would have had second thoughts,” Stanton said. “He had knowledge and aspects that no one else did, and I thought it was important to hear from him.”

Nonetheless, Stanton admitted he was “highly criticized” for Assange’s inclusion in the film at the time. A version of the documentary aired as Denial on NewsmaxTV in 2018. Blitz Films and ATI have since collaborated on multiple other projects, including a film festival in Armenia that brought Stanton into contact with high-ranking government officials, and a tourism video that encouraged viewers to vacation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In 2019, Blitz Films announced on Facebook it had inked a $1.25 million deal with ATI to distribute its films To Paris and Krasny. According to the post, the former was directed by Sarkisov himself and “supported by ROSKINO”—the arm of the Russian government charged with promoting the nation’s cultural content abroad. Blitz Films’ now-defunct Russian webpage previously noted that the Russian Ministry of Culture had recommended the movie receive government subsidies.

In an interview, Stanton called The Daily Beast’s questions “McCarthyite,” and denied knowing that Sarkisov’s film had received Russian government support. He admitted that the film festival was an outgrowth of Blitz Films’ “Armenian connections,” but asserted that Sarkisov had had no role in arranging the meetings with top-level government officials, and maintained the oligarch had invested little other than “sweat equity” in their joint endeavors.

Stanton, who described himself as an avid supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and LGBTQ causes, claimed that his interest in Armenia was driven purely by humanitarian impulses.

“The people of Armenia are going to all be subject to another genocide if someone doesn’t wake up and call attention to all the conflict that’s going on over there,” he warned. “There’s suffering over there. There’s a lot of suffering over there.”

Stanton further denied that Sarkisov or any of his associates had ever boarded any of his yachts, or attended his retreats in the Bahamas, or visited him at his residences, or come to any other location or event where he hosted NRA officials.

To comment on where exactly and when we worked with our co-producers and how we did this would pose a serious security risk to me and my family as there have been multiple threats to me and my family both while in the U.S. and abroad.”

— Sergey Sarkisov

Answering questions via a Blitz employee, Sarkisov declined to back up Stanton’s assertions regarding the locales where they had met in the past, citing concerns about his personal safety. He also refused to answer a question about how much he had invested in projects with Stanton.

“At no time were any other people invited to the shoot or meetings except for those people directly related to the project and whose credits are included in each project at the end of the film,” a statement Sarkisov sent to The Daily Beast read. “To comment on where exactly and when we worked with our co-producers and how we did this would pose a serious security risk to me and my family as there have been multiple threats to me and my family both while in the U.S. and abroad.”

However, Sarkisov did echo his partner’s assertion that he had never met with anybody affiliated with the NRA besides Stanton. He insisted his creative output was “non-political”—but also highlighted his relationship as consul-general with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). Schiff represents a large Armenian-American community and has been an aggressive advocate of U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide, and is the only Democratic Party politician The Architects of Denial depicts favorably. Schiff is also a fierce critic of the NRA and, since assuming the chairmanship of the House Select Committee on Intelligence in 2019, has become one of a number of Democrats to aggressively probe Russian meddling in American affairs.

Those varied investigations have included inquiries into the NRA. Schiff has questioned whether Russia attempted to use the NRA as a “backchannel” to access or assist President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. And Senate Democrats released a report last fall in which they alleged the gun lobby had become a “foreign asset.” 

The NRA has dismissed these as politically motivated attacks. But the evidence of Russian efforts to engage and influence the organization is overwhelming. The Federal Bureau of Investigation opened a probe in 2018 into whether Torshin, the Russian bank official, had funneled money into the group to finance its 2016 efforts in support of Trump’s election. In 2018, the Justice Department arrested his protege Butina on spy charges. It subsequently emerged that the wife of then-NRA President David Keene dangled $1 million to Butina in exchange for her assistance in obtaining Russian jet fuel. The dalliances with a hostile foreign regime reportedly alarmed even the NRA’s own attorney, Cleta Mitchell, who feared the group might have become a conduit for Russian money.

The Senate Democrats’ report additionally found that, even before the group’s 2015 mission to Moscow, the NRA hosted Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak—famed for his 2016 overtures to ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, White House adviser Jared Kushner, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn—at its headquarters and on a hunting trip. A year later, Torshin attended the organization’s annual convention in Kentucky.

But the lawsuit in which Stanton features does not reference any group or individual’s Russia ties. Rather, it focuses on what it characterizes as improperly reported gifts LaPierre and Phillips received from Stanton and another NRA vendor, “inappropriate spending” by the nonprofit on creature comforts and personal expenses, and a failure to follow protocols for approving payments and reimbursements. But the suit poses a unique threat—in citing these alleged violations, it seeks to dissolve the NRA as an organization altogether.

The NRA has called the suit a “power grab by a political opportunist,” a “political vendetta,” and “transparent attempt to score political points and attack the leading voice in opposition to the leftist agenda.”

Meanwhile, the most recent Sarkisov-Stanton project, a documentary on global anti-Semitism starring Williams and Cain titled Hate Among Us, won an award at the 2020 Daytime Emmys. ATI served as the event’s producer. 

A spokesman for Williams insisted his client never had any interaction with Sarkisov on any ATI project. Like Stanton, he asserted the former talk show host’s only interest in participating in the film festival and other Blitz-backed productions was the advancement of human rights. Attorneys and agents previously associated with Cain did not respond to requests for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nra-linked-producer-david-stanton-is-entangled-with-russian-oligarch-sergey-sarkisov

Central Bank of Armenia: exchange rates and prices of precious metals – 12-08-20

Chakrian Hovsep

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 17:18,

YEREVAN, 12 AUGUST, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 12 August, USD exchange rate down by 0.32 drams to 485.00 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 1.54 drams to 570.60 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate down by 0.02 drams to 6.64 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 2.89 drams to 632.83 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price down by 1,655.97 drams to 30245.18 drams. Silver price down by 0.14 drams to 440.97 drams. Platinum price down by 665.05 drams to 14719.9 drams.

Several deputies of Armenian ruling party discuss Amulsar gold mine issue

Chakrian Hovsep
News.am, Armenia
Aug 12 2020

21:15, 12.08.2020
                  

Joint Declaration on Sèvres Treaty Centennial

Chakrian Hovsep
August 10,  2020


From left: Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party and the
Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (Ramkavar) Central Committee

Today marks the centenary of the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres for peace between the Allies and Turkey.

The Treaty of Sèvres is the only treaty signed by both Turkey and the Republic of Armenia, with the free will of the Armenian side. Not only does the Treaty of Sèvres recognize Turkey as responsible for its war crimes, it also demands that Turkey take steps to facilitate the process of punishing those directly involved in the crime. The Treaty also demands that Turkey repeal the 1915 Abandoned Property laws and the supplementary provisions thereof, compelling it to return all confiscated properties to individual or community owners. Finally, the Treaty of Sèvres provides a legal basis for the arbitration appeal to US President Woodrow Wilson to determine the Armenia-Turkey border.

For the past 100 years, Turkey has continued and continues to deny its crime against humanity, the Armenian Genocide. Not only has Turkey avoided and continue to avoid responsibility for the crime and its consequences, it also continues to treat Armenia as an enemy since the republic’s 1991 independence, and in recent days it has intensified its belligerent rhetoric against Armenia, Artsakh and Armenians in general through threats of possible military aggression.

The Treaty of Sèvres is a valid international treaty. Although it has not been ratified by all signatories, it has not been legally replaced by any other international instrument. At least from the point of view of the Armenian Cause, and the interests of the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian nation, it remains a legal obligation based on international law, compelling it to return all confiscated properties to individual or community owners.

Moreover, the arbitral award of the President of the United States of America Woodrow Wilson, published on November 22, 1920, continues to be the only international document delineating the legal border between Armenia and Turkey.

100 years after the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres, the Republic of Turkey continues to show hostility towards the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian people. Until Turkey fulfills its obligations under the provisions contained in the Treaty of Sèvres based on international law, Turkey is obliged to:

a. End the 27-year illegal land blockade of the Republic of Armenia
b. Stop its aggressive steps against Armenia, especially recently
c. Stop its anti-Armenian policies within Turkey – including on our historic and occupied lands – or outside, against the Armenian diaspora formed as a result of the Genocide

We are confident that the day will come when, as the author and perpetrator of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey will have to bear its responsibility and compensate all losses of the Armenian people.

We declare that as in the past also in the future we, in cooperation with other Armenian political forces, and especially with the Republic of Armenia, will continue our struggle until the restoration of historical justice.

Social Democrat Hunchakian Party Central Committee
Bureau of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun
Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (Ramkavar) Central Committee




Armenian Virtual Bridge all set for kickoff

Chakrian Hovsep

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 12:51, 3 August, 2020

YEREVAN, AUGUST 3, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Virtual Bridge project is launching today, on August 3.

Armenian Minister of High-Tech Industry Hakob Arshakyan and AGBU-Silicon Valley Chair Yervant Zorian will deliver the opening remarks.

Guest-speakers of the online event are:
– Narbeh Derhacobian, Co-Founder, President and CEO of Adesto Technologies Corporation
– Kevork Kechichian, Executive Vice President of NXP Company
– John Kibarian, CEO, President, and co-founder of PDF Solutions
– Lusine Yeghiazaryan, Vice President of GoPro Inc.
– Riccardo Mariani, Vice President of NVIDIA Corporation
– Sam Simonian, Simonian Foundation
– Vahe Kuzoyan, President/Co-Founder of ServiceTitan Inc.

The main purpose of the event is to present the importance of the Armenian Virtual Bridge program aiming at connecting Armenia with the world’s leading technological centers, using Armenian scientific mindset, talent and the potential of the Diaspora.
The program is carried out jointly with the AGBU Silicon Valley Representation.

“We are launching an exciting and the most comprehensive project – Armenian Virtual Bridge”, Arshakyan said on Facebook. He said the event will be broadcast live on his page at 19:00 local time.

Editing by Stepan Kocharyan