Author: Ekmekjian Janet

Lavrov to meet with Pashinyan during visit to Armenia

Ekmekjian Janet
TASS, Russia
May 5 2021

MOSCOW, May 5. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will meet with Acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan during a visit to Armenia on May 5-6, the Russian Foreign Ministry informed on Wednesday.

“On May 5-6, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov will come to the Republic of Armenia on a working visit, during which he plans to meet with Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and to hold talks with Acting Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan,” the ministry informed.

The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that Lavrov’s current visit to Armenia is a continuation of intensive Russian-Armenian political dialogue aimed to strengthen multifaceted bilateral cooperation and to maintain peace and stability in the region.

The ministry also pointed out the development of interparliamentary ties and announced the upcoming visit of President of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan to Moscow. “The delegation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation attended the commemorative events in Yerevan dedicated to the genocide of the Armenian population during the First World War. President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan plans to come to Moscow on an official visit on May 16-18,” the message says.

Turkish press: Turkey-US ties: Nothing will be the same

Ekmekjian Janet
  • April 27 2021
By YUSUF KANLI 

It has been assessed that there is a natural “lowest level” and a “highest level” in Turkish-American relations. But neither the lowest level includes the end of the allied relationship nor the highest level includes a “strategic partnership” between the two countries that we see in the U.S.-U.K. or the U.S.-Israeli relations.

From the infamous Johnson letter to the closure of U.S. bases in 1975, the poppy planting crisis, the Cyprus intervention, the U.S. arms embargo, the food-ammunition supply to PKK terrorists by the U.S. helicopters and extends to the present-day U.S. alliance with the PYD – the Syrian extension of the PKK – and the F-35 and S-400 crises, Turkey-U.S. relations have undergone many important tests.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s characterization of the events of 1915 as “genocide” will, of course, be a new and crucial test for the ties. In addition to romantic statements where the American leader’s hostile “genocide” referral was “rejected” or considered “nonexistent,” countermeasures will, of course, be taken by Turkey in due time in a manner that might hurt the U.S. administration as well. Although many analysts think that Biden’s “genocide” statement, which seriously hurts Turkish honor, will not cause further tensions in already tense Turkish-US relations, it is worth looking at the situation a little more generally.

Just as some have downplayed the development to “Biden’s dementia,” it is impossible to reconcile a pessimistic approach realistically to that with the U.S. branding 1915 events as genocide; Turkey is seriously hurt. The international political conjuncture has changed. Failure to fully match Turkey’s foreign policy objectives and the objectives of its allies, especially in the conflicts over the eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus, Libya, Syria and Iraq, was a requirement of Turkey’s own national interests. Yet, these developments have isolated Turkey. Important Turkish friends, especially the Jewish lobby, who have been in support and solidarity with Turkey for almost half a century, have taken a seriously different position in this process.

“Perennial interests” should be important in international relations. The phrase “there are no eternal friends, no enemies; there are eternal interests” is not a joke but is the most important cornerstone of international politics.

“Precious loneliness” and tensions that originated from Turkey preferring “moral priorities” have led to a change in the perception of Turkey.

Of course, as all the people of this land, Turks and Armenians suffered greatly because of problems reflecting the occasional sensitive period. Allegations of “cooperation with the enemy” and deportation from border areas because of that reason and some other not so welcome reasons, the failure of the disintegrating empire to provide adequate security, Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian gang attacks caused a lot of pain to our people from all ethnic groups during that chaotic period. The loss and suffering of the majority were big, but such pains were much more traumatic for minorities. In the end, Anatolia lost many of its colors. With every color that left Anatolia, we all lost. Today, it is essential to commemorate this pain, to have mutual empathy, to heal wounds, to work to build a common future and even to ask each other for forgiveness.

“Genocide” is a very serious allegation. Of course, there have been mutual massacres. The deportation was, of course, a very serious atrocity. However, genocide cannot be proven by hearsay, such as “my grandfather told my father, or my grandmother told my mother;” Grandpa told me, or that’s what grandma said. Well, the grandparents of the Turks spoke a lot as well about the atrocities, massacres committed in east Anatolia by the Armenian gangs and in west Anatolia by Greek invading troops and local Greek gangs. This issue should be addressed by historians. Unfortunately, the protocols to research the events of 1915, signed in 2009 with the great efforts of the United States, the idea of the creation of an “Impartial Joint Historical Commission,” was vetoed by the Constitutional Court of Armenia.

Furthermore, the Joint Historical Commission probably should not investigate how many people died. It is not a question of how many Turks, Armenians, or Kurds died but whether the Ottomans have taken an official “genocide decision” and implemented it.

This new and powerful trauma in Turkey-U.S. relations will surely pass. However, those who have researched Biden’s political career for nearly 50 years will see that let alone standing by Turkey, he has never even been impartial but always charged against Turkey on all issues. And this issue is not the last leverage that can be used against Turkey, as claimed by some scholars.

Turkish lawmaker threatens Armenian counterpart over genocide remarks

Ekmekjian Janet
AHVAL News
April 27 2021

  • Ahval
  • Apr 27 2021 04:43 Gmt+3
  • Last Updated On: Apr 27 2021 04:47 Gmt+3

Independent opposition deputy Ümit Özdağ on Monday targeted Garo Paylan, an Armenian deputy from the pro-Kurdish left-wing Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), over Paylan’s comments supporting the recognition of the Armenian genocide.

“Talat Pasha didn’t exile patriotic Armenians but those who were backstabbers like you,” Özdağ tweeted in response to Paylan. “You will also go through a Talat Pasha experience when it is time, and you should.”

On April 24, observed as Armenian Genocide Memorial Day in Armenia and the diaspora, Paylan had tweeted:

“We walk on streets named after Talat Pasha, the architect of the Genocide, 106 years later. We send our children to schools named after Talat Pasha. We live in a Turkey that Germany would have been like, if there were Hitler Avenues and schools named after Hitler there today.”

Talat Pasha was an Ottoman politician and one of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), known for having ordered the exile of Ottoman Armenians in 1915, which resulted in mass deaths of Armenians and other Christian minorities in Anatolia. Armenians say around 1.5 million people were killed or died under exile conditions, in a planned operation that constitutes genocide.

Turkey acknowledges that deaths occurred, but rejects any systemic or organised effort, and the use of the term “genocide”.

Paylan had submitted a draft proposal for the Turkish Parliament to recognise the events as genocide, and to remove references to Ottoman officers involved in them from public amenities including roads and buildings. Paylan also proposed Turkish citizenship rights for the descendants of exiled non-Muslims, including Anatolian Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Syriacs, Chaldeans and Yazidis, according to Armenian weekly Agos.

The April 24 memorials are held to “recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring”, U.S. President Joe Biden said in his Saturday message where he became the first U.S. president to use the disputed term since 1981.

“The remnant of a mentality that annihilated my people says they would do it again,” Paylan said responding to Özdağ on Tuesday. In his response, Paylan called Özdağ a fascist and said:

“You strike us, didn’t we die? We did. But those left behind never abandoned the fight for justice. And they wouldn’t after me either. The conscientious majority in this country has never let fascists like you take over, and they won’t this time around.”

Paylan’s party, the HDP, is the only party in parliament to recognise the genocide and include genocide recognition in its party programme.

“Turkey hasn’t confronted the Armenian Genocide for 106 years. The crime that wasn’t confronted was repeated instead, and the crime that wasn’t confronted was carried over to the present day,” HDP said in a statement released on the memorial day.

“It is unacceptable for this historic, societal and humanitarian matter to be brought up as a result of political relations between foreign states and Turkey or political circumstances,” the statement continued. “The Armenian Genocide happened on these lands, and justice for it needs to be ensured on these lands.”

Top officials from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) accused HDP of terrorism and serving foreign interests over the statement.

“Supporters of terrorism with blood on their hands have piggy-backed on baseless Armenian claims and once again targeted Turkey and our nation,” Vice President Fuat Oktay said in a tweet.

“Whenever enemies of Turkey make statements against Turkey, unfortunately, we see the HDP act together with them,” Parliamentary Speaker Mustafa Şentop told reporters following a visit to the graves of Turkish diplomats killed by armed Armenian groups.

“Instead of skewing historic facts, face up to the shameful terrorism of PKK and Asala that have your backs,” Presidential Spokesman İbrahim Kalın said in a tweet.

“All allegations of genocide regarding the events of 1915 are separated from historical facts and blown away from a legal basis,” İsmail Tatlıoğlu, parliamentary group deputy chairman for the centre-right Good Party (İYİP), told reporters on Monday.

In March, Özdağ resigned from the İYİP, which had been established by politicians leaving the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), where Özdağ had been deputy chairman before he joined the breakaway party.

One of the reasons for his resignation was that the İYİP had been too tolerant of the HDP when the two parties participated in efforts to write a new constitution for Turkey last year.

“The bloody network under the guise of a political party must urgently be shut down,” MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli said on Tuesday in a speech at parliament. “Gates of Yerevan are open for those who call our nation genocidal.”

 

Mr. President, recognize the Armenian genocide

Ekmekjian Janet
Boston Globe
April 22 2021
By Sarah Leah Whitson



The contrast of the images are striking to me still. One bulletin board in my sixth-grade Armenian school classroom in Los Angeles was festooned with colorful construction-paper Easter bunnies and eggs, and glitter-and-foil-covered cardboard crosses and well wishes to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. The other bulletin board had only grainy black-and-white photocopied pictures of emaciated orphans, pyramids of skulls guarded by Turkish gendarmes, long winding caravans of women and children marching in rags with their tiny bundles through the desert.

RELATED: Chris Bohjalian: Naming the Armenian genocide for what it is

April, the month of Easter, was also when we commemorated the Armenian Genocide, the mass extermination of 1.5 million people in the region — 75 percent of our population — at the hands of the Turkish government. I would stare deeply into the photographs to see if one of those children could have been my grandfather, orphaned in Diyarbakir when he was 5, before missionaries whisked him off to Lebanon.

We’re now at the 106th anniversary of this crime, for which the word “genocide” was first invented, and it’s been nearly as long that Armenian survivors and their descendants, strewn around the world in dozens of diaspora communities, have fought to have it formally recognized as a genocide in world capitals. There you will have found us, as soon our grandparents could take a first breath of newfound security — from France to Brazil, from Australia to the Vatican, from Egypt to Canada — pleading our case to legislatures to stand with humanity and condemn this brutal crime, and cheering when they did. There you find us still, pleading with President Biden to make good on the promise he made, and that so many prior presidents have broken, to formally say the words, “the Armenian genocide.”

Apraham Haroutunian, the author’s grandfather, on right, with a friend, at Armenian orphanage in Lebanon.SARAH LEAH WHITSON

Why, you might ask, have global Armenian communities invested so much time and effort, and so many resources, to persuade others to recognize the wrong done to our people? What difference does it make to our forebears, whose scattered bones have long settled in the banks of the Euphrates, or calcified in the mass graves of Syria’s Deir Zor desert, where the deportation caravans terminated? We still raise our children with the memory not just of the wrong done to our people, but also the wrong that continues with each year that the Turkish government denies it ever happened. Scholars learn more each year about the science behind generational trauma; we and our children continue to live it, with a deep, ingrained sense of injustice and an almost unexplainable, collective drive to resist the erasure the genocide intended. The need for recognition by the international community is a quest for at least a fraction of accountability: affirming the truth of what happened. One hundred six years later, that quest has only gotten stronger, no doubt fueled by Turkey’s own stubborn refusal to come to terms with its past.

’d like to think the Armenian people’s dedication to accountability, against the political odds that favor acquiescing to the power, wealth, and influence of the Turkish government, is an important contribution to the noble mission of global justice and what comes with it: the preservation of our humanity. After the Shoah, the world joined together to bring some of the key perpetrators to justice, to honor the dead, to compensate the living victims, and to vow “never again.” It was a critical moment for the world in establishing that we still share some modicum of a universal language of rights and wrongs, of truth and justice.

There has been no similar reckoning in the case of the Armenian genodice, a reckoning that would help strengthen the rule of law worldwide and provide some consolation and perhaps closure to the Armenian people. Coming to terms with the past is no less a favor for the people of Turkey, stuck as they are with a government whose denials give them no quarter to learn about or resolve all that transpired at the hands of their own forebears, and entangles them in perplexing global scorn.

This past year has been a particularly devastating and painful one for Armenian communities around the world, faced with the loss of territory to Azerbaijan from the republic of Karabakh in a war that took the lives of over 5,000 Azeri and Armenian young soldiers amid the coronavirus pandemic. A military defeat would have been sufficiently wounding, but what was most terrifying was the decisive participation of Turkey in the war, replete not only with advanced, lethal drones and Syrian mercenaries, but also propaganda in Turkish media that they would “finish off” what they started in 1915. Many Armenians were truly convinced that Turkish forces would attempt to slaughter the population of Armenia as well, making a politically negotiated solution all the harder for the now beleaguered Armenian prime minister, Robert Kocharyan.

Biden faces complicated conflicts and multiple competing priorities in the Middle East, for which the United States needs the cooperation of the Turkish government, or at least to prevent it from acting as a spoiler in the region. He must, however, remove the issue of the Armenian genocide from the negotiating table, because the recognition of our collective human history should never be used as a bargaining chip. With both houses of Congress having reaffirmed their recognition of the genocide last year, Biden has ample backing to make the American government’s position clear for the record. He will bolster his legacy and credibility as a president who meant it when he said human rights would be a priority for his administration. He can help lead the international community to place a wreath on this stain of history, and have hope that a better future may come.

Sarah Leah Whitson is the executive director of DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World Now).


Armenian Genocide discussed at Bulgarian Parliament

Ekmekjian Janet

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YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. Members of the National Assembly (Parliament) of Bulgaria have discussed the topic of the Armenian Genocide during the plenary session on April 23.

MP Arman Babikyan has announced that back in 1975 the lower house of the US legislative body has recognized the Armenian Genocide. “The citizens of Bulgaria have known the truth and have send us for protecting it. Parliamentary group “Rise Up! Thugs Out! calls the murders of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. Thousands of Armenians wait for that grateful step. We should be grateful to the Bulgarian people who hosted the forebears of Armenians who have survived”, he said.

Tsetska Bachkova from the Democratic Bulgaria group has made a statement on behalf of the coalition about the tragic incidents that happened in the Ottoman Empire. “Bulgarians have demonstrated generosity and compassion by opening their doors before refugees. Thousands of Armenian refugees have received the hospitality of the Bulgarians and decided to stay here. They became a part of the Bulgarian people within the course of the time”, she said, adding that their faction supports replacing the term “mass killings of Armenians” with the term “genocide” in the Bulgarian documents.

“Bulgaria, which speaks about murders, must recognize the Genocide with a decision or a statement of the National Assembly, as it has been done by dozens of states”, the “Rise Up! Thugs Out! parliamentary group said.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

‘First Step Towards Justice’: Biden Set To Fully Recognize Armenian Genocide

Ekmekjian Janet
CBS Local, Los Angeles

By CBSLA Staff at 9:50 pm

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — For the first time ever, an American president is set to fully recognize the Armenian genocide in a move drawing praise from the American Armenian community despite Turkey’s continued rejection of the claim.

“For the Armenian people, the genocide is not something that began and ended in 1915 and 1923,” Alex Galitsky, spokesperson for the Armenian National Committee of America — Western Region, said.

During those years, Turkish troops killed 1.5 million Armenians. Armenians say it was mass murder, orchestrated by the government, and deny the claim that the victims were simply casualties of World War I.

“While genocide recognition is an important, a commendable, momentous first step towards justice, it is just the first step,” Galitsky said.

But it’s a step Armenian Americans have been marching for decades in hopes of accomplishing, and one that is seemingly closer than ever with both the House and the Senate last year passing resolutions to formally recognize the genocide and Biden poised to do the same — making the U.S. the latest country to do so.

And while it has been widely reported that the president is expected to make his announcement on the 106th anniversary, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki would not reveal any details.

“Certainly understand the question, and there’s a great deal of interest in this particular topic, but I’m not going to get ahead of the president, and I also don’t have anything else to provide from the podium today,” she said Thursday.

The Los Angeles Turkish Consulate declined the opportunity for an interview about the potential recognition of the genocide, instead releasing a statement that said, in part:

“Turkey rejects the categorization of the events of 1915 as genocide. Furthermore, there is no judgment of a competent international court, which classifies the events of 1915 as genocide.”

The consul general also said that “biased portrayal of this historical period undermines reconciliation and dialogue by creating a confrontational atmosphere.”

But that continued denial is what USC Professor Stephen Smith, who specializes in genocide studies, called the “third act of genocide.”

“First of all, there is the pre-genocide when there is ideology that attacks a person, a group of people,” Smith, who is also the executive director of the Shoa Foundation of Visual History and Education, said. “Then there’s the actual genocide, the physical killing of that group of people, and then there is the denial of it, and we have been party to the denial of the Armenian genocide for a hundred years right now.”

As for the Armenian National Committee, the group said it did not entertain any denial of this well-known historic fact.

And tonight in Southern California, home to more people of Armenian descent than anywhere outside of Armenia, the reaction to the news was positive.

“I’m so glad that someone finally in America is acknowledging the fact that it happened,” a girl in Glendale said. “Because stuff like the Holocaust happened, and they acknowledge that.”Smith said the recognition is about the court of history and the dignity that comes when history is finally being acknowledged.

View video at link below

Letters to the Editor: Ireland must recognise Armenian genocide

Ekmekjian Janet
         
The Armenian genocide began in 1915 during the First World War causing the deaths of more than 1.5m Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian people

People hold portraits of Armenian intellectuals — who were detained and deported in 1915 — during a rally in Istanbul in 2018, held to commemorate the 103nd anniversary of the 1915 mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Picture: Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images

Fri, 23 Apr, 2021 – 09:30

Genocide is the most serious crime against humanity. The Holocaust caused the deaths of 6m people.

The UN was founded to prevent such crimes against humanity and the Genocide Convention was passed in 1948 to ensure the words ‘never again’ actually meant what they said.

Genocides occurred prior to the Holocaust, committed against indigenous people in the Americas; by Germany in south-west Africa, and by the Ottoman Turkish government during the First World War.

Genocides have continued to occur in breach of the Genocide Convention, especially in Cambodia, East Timor, Bosnia, and Rwanda.

Genocides will continue to occur unless positive actions are taken to prevent or stop genocide, and its perpetrators must be exposed and held to account.

The Armenian genocide began in 1915 during the First World War causing the deaths of more than 1.5m Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian people.

Subsequent governments of Turkey have denied that what occurred was genocide, thereby avoiding accountability or reparations. Recent conflicts across the Middle East from Libya to Myanmar have the potential to lead to acts of genocide.

Now is the time to act to prevent further acts of genocide.

The Armenian genocide has been recognised by the parliaments of 30 countries including 16 EU countries, the US Congress, and the EU Parliament.

Ireland has so far failed to do so.

We the undersigned call on members of the Oireachtas, including the Dáil and Seanad to pass a motion formally recognising the Armenian genocide as an initial step towards helping to prevent further acts of genocide.

Mairead Maguire, cofounder of The Peace People; Roger Cole, Peace and Neutrality Alliance; Barry Sweeney, World Beyond War, Ireland Chapter; John Lannon, Shannonwatch; Davy McCauley, Derry Anti War Coalition; Edward Horgan, Veterans For Peace Ireland; Niall Farrell, Galway Alliance Against War; Joe Murray, AFRI, Action From Ireland, and Martin Leavy, Yearly Meeting Quaker Peace Committee

Southern Californians of Armenian descent ‘guardedly optimistic’ Biden might recognize genocide

Ekmekjian Janet
Daily Breeze
By OLGA GRIGORYANTS | [email protected] | Los Angeles Daily News
PUBLISHED:  at 8:16 a.m. | UPDATED:  at 11:15 a.m.

During his lifetime, Taniel Tufenkjian resided in several countries. As a young adult, he moved from his native Syria to Lebanon, then to France and finally to the United States about 20 years ago.

But no matter where he lived, one thing remained the same: on April 24, Tufenkjian gathered with his family to commemorate the mass killing of 1.5 million Armenians, including his grandfather, in Turkey about a century ago.

So far, only a handful of countries — and the U.S. is not one of them — have recognized the Armenian Genocide.

As the world is about to mark the 106th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide, Tufenkjian — just like many other Armenian-Americans — hope President Joe Biden’s term will bring change.

“He’s an honest man and I believe he calls everything by its proper name,” Tufenkjian, 77, said. “The genocide should be called the genocide.”

Several major media outlets, including The New York Times and The Associated Press, reported on Wednesday, April 21, that Biden is planning to acknowledge the genocide on or before the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, which falls on Saturday this year.

But the president could still change his mind, according to the AP.

Lawmakers and Armenian-American activists are firecely lobbying Biden. One possibility is that the president would include the acknowledgement of genocide in the annual remembrance day proclamation typically issued by presidents. Biden’s predecessors have avoided using “genocide” in the proclamation commemorating the dark moment in history.

President Joe Biden .(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

A bipartisan group of more than 100 House members on Wednesday signed a letter to Biden calling on him to become the first U.S. president to formally recognize the World War I-era atrocities as genocide. Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California spearheaded the letter.

“The shameful silence of the United States Government on the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide has gone on for too long, and it must end,” the lawmakers wrote. “We urge you to follow through on your commitments, and speak the truth.”

Turkey’s foreign minister has warned the Biden administration that recognition would “harm” U.S.-Turkey ties.

From 1894 and 1924, Turkey prosecuted, displaced, and assassinated millions of Armenians along with other Christians, including Greeks and Assyrians. As a result, many of their descendants were dispersed across the world. Some landed in Los Angeles, which became home to one of the largest populations of Armenians living outside their native country.

Turkey doesn’t deny that Armenians were killed in clashes with the Ottoman army during World War I but it disputes the death toll and the characterization of the mass killing.

For decades, U.S. predecessors have avoided calling the killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces genocide amid intense lobby by the Turkish government.

“In the past, the arm twisting from Turkey was, ’Well we’re such a good friend that you should remain solid with us on this,’” said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, whose members have started a campaign to encourage Biden to recognize the genocide. “But they’re proving to be not such a good friend.”

President Barack Obama said during his presidential campaign that he would define the 1915 mass slaughter but stopped short of declaring it genocide, drawing criticism from the Armenian-American diaspora.

Hamparian said he’s hopeful that Biden, unlike Obama, will take the historic public step. He noted that the sting of Obama’s failure to follow through still lingers for many.

In 2019, The U.S. Senate passed a non-binding resolution formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide, raising objections from the Trump administration which feared damaging Turkish-American ties.

Just like Obama, Biden made a pledge during his presidential campaign.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, recently wrote an open letter to Biden, reminding him of his campaign promise.

“Mr. President, we must not resort to euphemisms or half-truths. The murder of 1.5 million Armenians was an atrocity – that is surely true – but it was more than that. The act of seeking to destroy people and culture is a different kind of evil, and it was not until Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” that we had a word to describe it,” he added.

Tom Hogen-Esch, a political science professor at Cal State Northridge, said Biden has already witnessed his predecessor making a promise but failing to follow through.

“I don’t think politically it would be very smart to do that again,” he said. “That strikes me as something that would really alienate Armenian-Americans.”


Turkey, meanwhile, has already singled the recognition would harm relations between the NATO allies.And since the U.S.-Turkey relationship is already strained, he added, recognizing genocide wouldn’t make a big difference.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier this week that any attempt by the Biden administration to acknowledge the 1915 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman forces would worsen the ties with the U.S, according to Reuters.

Vahram Shemmassian, head of CSUN’s Armenian Studies Program, said he “wouldn’t be surprised if Biden doesn’t keep his word although many Armenians are very helpful.”

He was “guardedly optimistic,” he added, “but it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t keep his word and I won’t be shocked or disappointed because it’s been going for decades now.”

The reason it’s important for the U.S. to recognize the genocide, he said, is because with its support “the loop around Turkey’s neck would get tighter.”

France, Germany, and the Vatican are among the countries that recognized the Armenian genocide.

Pasadena-based comedian Mary Basmadjian said she’s hopeful that Biden would acknowledge the killings of millions of Armenians but she was more preoccupied with what happened last fall between her native country and Azerbaijan over the ethnic-Armenian majority enclave Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Two of my cousins lost several childhood friends to the war,” she said. “That’s very unfortunate.”

She used her social media that lists more than 51,000 followers to share with her non-Armenian friends about what’s currently happening in her country.

“I came to the conclusion that we don’t need validation from the Western world because we know that it happened,” she said.

Taniel Tufenkjian and his wife Adriana stand in front of a painting of an Armenian church .(Photo by Andy Holzman, Contributing Photographer)

Tufenkjian keeps a faded image of his grandfather in his Simi Valley home taken just 18 months before he was assassinated in front of his family by soldiers in Konya, a city in south-central Turkey.

Tufenkjian said his family has a “typical destiny of an Armenian family” who were forced from their ancestor’s land.

“We have five members in my house and none of us is born in the same place,” he said. “We’re the nation of nomads because we suffered from the genocide. We’re descendants of the genocide generation.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

With his provocative statements Aliyev is trying to step back from agreements – Pashinyan

Ekmekjian Janet

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YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. According to Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev wants to step back from the agreements and continue the policy of blockading Armenia by his statements showing aspirations towards the territory of Armenia, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan said in a consultation in Syunik Province of Armenia.

”Following the 44-day war, we have some transformations over the security atmosphere in Syunik and this situation grows more concerning in the light of the provocative,  irregular and controversial statements made by the Azerbaijani leadership. I want to draw your attention on the fact that those statements contradict one another. On the one hand the Azerbaijani leadership announces that it has no territorial demands from Armenia, on the other hand they announce about creating a Zangezur corridor by force”, Pashinyan said.

The PM noted that those announcements are provocative and they need to be properly reacted, including through the diplomatic missions of Armenia in international arenas.

”There are no remarks over ”Zangezur”, ”Syunik” or ”corridor” in the November 9 declaration. There are remarks about unblocking regional infrastructures and in the January 11 statement in Moscow we clearly recorded that regional communications must be opened. If Azerbaijan is speaking about Zangezur corridor, Armenia can speak about Nakhichevan corridor, north-Azerbaijani corridor, because Azerbaijan can only get a ”corridor”  that will be an equivalent to the ”corridor” that Armenia will get from the Azerbaijani territory, including through the territory of Nakhichevan”, the PM said.

Pashinyan added that the Azerbaijani leadership simply wants to stand back from the agreements by making such statements, tensioning the situation in the region for continuing the policy of blockading Armenia.

On April 20 the Azerbaijani president gave an interview to an Azerbaijani TV channel, where he made threats of using force against Armenia.