Author: Emil Karabekian

The Belgian Chamber of Deputies voted to adopt a Resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide. An overwhelming majority of deputies, (124 out of 132) voted in favor of the measure, the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy (EAFJD) reports.

The Resolution was filed by MP Peter De Roover (N-VA) and passed the Foreign Relations Commission earlier this month.

In June Belgian  on behalf of his government that the tragic events committed between 1915-1917 in the Ottoman Empire should be “considered a genocide.”

The Belgian Senate recognized the Armenian Genocide in 1998.

An exhibition titled “Genocide after Genocide” opened today at the Union of Architects of Armenia. Thirty-two posters in Armenian and English present the monuments of Western Armenia destroyed by Turkish authorities.

The exhibition was previously displayed in Stepanakert, Ijevan and Vanadzor. This fall it will be taken to  Brussels and will be on display at the European Parliament. It will later move to other European cities, including Lyon and Amsterdam.

Samvel Karapetyan, President of the Research on Armenian Architecture Fund, said at the opening ceremony that the initiative aims to show what has been happening in our historic homeland ever since 1915. According to him, the current generations must be informed about our cultural legacy. “If the monuments are endangered, we have a duty to keep the public informed about the cultural genocide,” he said.

 

Garik Israelian on the Soviet era good times — and why the Canary Islands make him feel close to nature

By Teresa Levonian Cole, – “I don’t know why people have this idea that we were oppressed under the Soviet Union,” says Garik Israelian. “I remember a time of parties, a lot of fun. There was no unemployment, everyone had free apartments, people were very happy. It was different under Stalin, of course, but things changed with Khrushchev. Armenia was an exception in the Soviet Union — our language, culture and church were preserved and respected.”

Dr Garik Israelian, one of the world’s leading astrophysicists, was born in Yerevan in 1963 and is a grateful beneficiary of the Soviet education system. “I was a disaster at school,” he recalls. “I never studied — I just liked music.” To his family’s despair, he left school at 16, went to work in a theatre and indulged his passion for rock guitar, forming a band and playing in bars. “But then I saw [the film] Solaris and it changed me 180 degrees. I was so inspired. I started reading science fiction and decided to go to university. It meant I had to study maths and physics from the beginning, at home. But the great thing about the system then was that it didn’t matter how badly you did at school, so long as you passed the exams for university. Otherwise I would have had no chance.”

Studying astrophysics at Yerevan University, his supervisor was the renowned Viktor Ambartsumian, who established the USSR’s first department of theoretical astrophysics. “He came from Leningrad University to Armenia, where he founded the Byurakan observatory and directed the Armenian Academy of Sciences for 50 years,” says Israelian. “He was very famous, a genius.”

So it was with great reluctance that, on gaining his PhD in 1992, Israelian approached Ambartsumian for a letter of recommendation, to work abroad. “1988 [the year of the earthquake] to 1996 was the worst time in Armenia,” he says. “The Soviet Union collapsed. There was no money, no products in the shops, no electricity for six to eight months. I was writing my thesis by candlelight at night and working on a farm [by day]. It was very clear that if I stayed in Armenia, I would have to abandon science.”

He had already had a taste of the west, spending three months in 1990 at Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. “My first goal was to buy records,” he laughs. “It seemed incredible to me you could buy records in a store. I [had] heard The Beatles when I was five or six, and collected vinyl. So thanks to rock music, I had some English.”

Israelian left Armenia in 1993 with his wife Emma and baby son to take up postdoctoral fellowships, first in Utrecht then Brussels. “It was awful,” he says of those three years. “The climate was depressing, the people were depressing — a different mentality. All relationships were converted into business relationships. We’re not used to that.”

His next fellowship, in Sydney, proved happier. “Suddenly, there was sun,” he laughs. “So when the offer came of a fellowship in the Canary Islands [at the Institute of Astrophysics], it was a difficult choice.” Geography tipped the balance — “Australia was so far, travel was a nightmare” — so in 1997 the family moved to Tenerife. In 2006, Israelian became a permanent research scientist and today heads a project probing stellar chemical abundances. He lives in the north. “It’s very green, very beautiful, very quiet. You hear the birds. We have a garden on a hill, overlooking the sea.”

When not working — from home, at the University of La Laguna or at the observatories on La Palma — or conferences abroad, Israelian enjoys the wild habitat. “There are amazing mountains, volcanoes, forests, clean sea . . . It is the most beautiful island. I like to swim and snorkel, and I like to hike, usually alone, with my music so I can think. I used to hike in Armenia too. I believe in nature. Nature is my definition of God.”

Israelian also feels an affinity with the southern temperament. Although the Israelians keep the language and culture of Armenia alive at home, and return to visit family every summer, they feel part of the community. “I miss Tenerife when I’m away for a long time,” he says. “The people are very nice, very open, like Armenians. We have lots of friends, have barbecues and go to local restaurants and fish restaurants in La Punta. The food is good — and so cheap.”

His host country has embraced him with equal enthusiasm, not least for founding the Starmus Festival, an international gathering of leading scientists and musicians for concerts and talks, which will be held for the third time in 2016. “Everyone said it couldn’t be done,” says Israelian, who first brought Apollo and Soyuz cosmonauts, Nobel laureates and rock musicians together in 2011 and was awarded the Gold Medal by the government of the Canary Islands in recognition. Fluent in Spanish, Israelian was also fast-tracked for dual Spanish and Armenian citizenship.

For Starmus, Israelian enlisted the support of musician and astronomer Brian May, whom he had helped finish a long-abandoned thesis. “Brian was an inspiration. For me, it was like meeting my heroes,” he laughs, also citing musicians Rick Wakeman, Peter Gabriel and Tangerine Dream whom he has brought to the island, and scientists and astronauts such as Stephen Hawking, Martin Rees and Neil Armstrong. “The festival is all about encouraging people to come to Tenerife, inspiring them about science, and capturing their imagination.” Much, in fact, asSolaris did for him as a guitar-playing teenager in Armenia.

 

 

 

The Golden Apricot International Film Festival has been traditionally cooperating with foreign Embassies accredited to Armenia. The tradition will not be abandoned this year.

Within the framework of this cooperation the 12th edition of the Golden Apricot will hold days of French, German and Polish films. Russian films are included in almost all competitive programs.

French Ambassador extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Armenia Jean-Francois Charpentier told a press conference today “this is a brilliant opportunity to introduce the Armenian audience to the creative expressions of international cinema. The Ambassador said the “New French Cinema” program will include the best French film if the regent period.

The film Caprice is the opening film of the New French cinema program. The film’s producer Frédéric Niedermayer will be present at the Yerevan premiere.

French-Armenian film director Robert Guédiguian will arrive in Yerevan to be the Main Jury president of Golden Apricot IFF. His film Don’t Tell Me the Boy Was Mad, which was presented in the Special Screenings section at the 2015 Cannes, is the Opening film of the festival.

Patrick Chesnais, the prominent French actor, will be an honorable guest of the festival. He is the lead actor in Not Here to be Loved by Stefan Brize and will attend the Yerevan premier of the film.

In different programs of 12th Golden Apricot there are more than 14 French co-productions and French films including Stéphane Brizé’s The Measure of a Man (Cannes Film Festival’s official selection).

The Festival will also host a New German Cinema program in cooperation with the Embassy of Germany and Goethe Institute-Tbilisi. The program will feature the selection of the best of recent German films. There is also a large selection of German films in the four main competition programs.

The Embassy of Poland in Armenia supports the Polish Film Day event.Małgorzata Szumowska’s Berlinale Silver Bear winning film for Best Director Body will be screened.

A number of Polish films are presented in the competition sections, mainly in the “Apricot Stone” Short Film Competition.

The renowned Polish film director Krzysztof Zanussi will also arrive in Yerevan.

The Russian Federation Embassy in Armenia and the Russian Center of Science and Culture are supporting the representation of Russian films within the frames of the festival. Russian films are included in almost every program.

The Prime Ministers of Armenia and Russia Hovik Abrahamyan and Dmitry Medvedev had a phone conversation at the initiative of the Armenian side, according to the Russian Government’s website.

The Prime Ministers discussed urgent issues of Armenian-Russian relations, including the results of the sitting of the Inter-Governemntal Commission on Economic Cooperation held in Yerevan June 25-26.

The parties stressed the importance of intensification of bilateral cooperation in different spheres.

Turkish diplomats claim that the Armenian Nor Seround Association attacked the Turkish stand in Lyon Consul’s Feast in France and call on the French

“We call on French authorities to investigate the event and give the necessary penalty to those responsible,” Consul General of Turkey in Lyon Hilmi Ege Turemen told Anadolu Agency

The consul general said that the group came to the Turkish stand, threw flyers attacking Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and harassed Turkish citizens and consular employees for about 30 minutes.

reported earlier that on June 13, 2015 young Armenian activists of Nor Seround mobilized for a peaceful sit-in in front of the Turkish Consulate General in Lyon to remember and demand from the Turkish State to recognize and take responsibility for the Armenian Genocide.

The employees of the Turkish consulate attacked the activists, hit one who was recording and stole his phone. Later the Consul General himself showed up and attacked and cursed the young Armenian Activists.

On the evening of June 6, President Serzh Sargsyan took part in the Midem Gala Supper in Cannes, where he delivered a speech.

Prior to it, the video clip titled “We are Armenians” had been displayed. The five-minute video clip “We are Armenians” presents about 50 well-known diaspora Armenians who have become world-famous for their achievements.

There took place an award ceremony during the event. On the occasion of Republic Day, the Armenian president awarded Rosy Khurshudi Hovannisian (Rosy Armen) the Order of Honor for making a significant contribution to the preservation of national identity and to the strengthening of cultural ties between the homeland and the diaspora. Film director and actor Robert Guédiguian was also awarded the Order of Honor for contributing to the development of cultural ties between Armenia and France and to the preservation of national identity.

On June 7, Serzh Sargsyan attended the concert of the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia in Cannes.

Remarks by President Serzh Sargsyan at the Midem international music festival

Dear friends,

Distinguished attendees,

It is a great honor to greet and welcome you at the world-famed MIDEM music festival. It has been for half a century that Côte d’Azur annually unites people of global fame and youth that just entered their careers in culture, for whom it is an honor to perform in this amazing city and its prestigious stages that could be of vital importance for establishing them professionally.

Armenia is the country honored this year by the MIDEM international music festival. It is a great opportunity for our country to deliver its own culture to the world and to get acquainted with the others’ achievements. Armenia’s history and culture is among the most ancient, and our nation has been creating, building and establishing values for centuries.

Unfortunately, the early preceding century imprinted its darkest pages in the history of our ancient nation: the Ottoman Empire planned and perpetrated the Armenian Genocide. 1915 is a black wedge driven into our memory, thinking and lives. That was the calamity to which French writer Anatole France reacted at the beginning of the previous century: “We have finally realized that it was our sister dying in the East, who perished for being our sister and for the crime of sharing our feelings, for having liked what we liked, for having thought what we thought, for having believed in what we believed in, for appreciating wisdom, justice, poetry and arts as we did.”

Indeed, it was a ruthless extermination of the people that appreciated, cultivated and promoted arts and culture. There had been numerous vivid examples in the very area of music. In Constantinople Armenians had established the first orchestras, musical magazine, opera and operetta theatres. The Turkish press of the time had written: “Tigran Tchoukhadjian is the first composer that attempts to connect the Turkish music to the European one.” Unfortunately, the Armenian ideas and talents had not gone unnoticed, and those were the first targets for annihilation.

It took place at the beginning of the previous century. Today, however, as one hundred years passed since the carnage in the Ottoman Empire was perpetrated, in this utmost symbolic year, when the Armenian Genocide Centennial is being commemorated, we unambiguously register that no brutality could have been able to murder virtues of civilization and morale in the Armenian spirit, its longing to live and create, as well as its spiritual and cultural progress. Both ups and downs have given a potent impetus to our progress. This very outstanding power impelled Armenians to cut churches in the rock, to save books and manuscripts instead of precious gems and golden jewelry while barely surviving the Turkish yataghan, to throw themselves into the fight against fascism while the nation was still recovering from the Genocide, and to go on living and creating.

That outstanding power is first and foremost about passion of spirit that awakes when we got a shared dream, which we would like to make true. That is the same outstanding power that enables us to present ourselves to the world as a nation that embodies values, a nation that lives at the cross-section of cultures and connects freely and confidently, without any hesitation, to the two worlds of East and West.

These are all qualities undoubtedly build around our culture, which has become the ends and means to assert Armenian existence and identity. Wherever there is an Armenian, he/she does not shy away from keeping up with modernity, does not stagger in this greater world, but assert his/her continued presence and valuable contribution.

It was yet a century ago that the distinguished Armenian composer Komitas presented himself and our national vocal arts and tradition to France. And he was enthusiastically received in France; moreover, the great French composer Claude Debussy kneeled in front of him, and another great Frenchman, Romain Rolland, wrote after attending the performance by Komitas: “The Armenian is profound, tragic and virile even in his dreams… What a wonderful music! Sooner or later the European art will be exposed to the impact of that art.” Therefore, it is highly symbolic that tomorrow in this very exquisite city, under the auspices of this globally most important music event, in the music hall named after Debussy music works by Komitas will be performed.

There have been numerous instances of the Armenian cultural and spiritual perseverance. Many people that prove our perseverance are now present in this hall. The boats that reached and anchored in Marseille brought many Armenians, whose descendants today adorn the French culture – Charles Aznavour, Rosy Armen, Alain Terzian, Alexander Siranosian, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Guédiguian. These individuals are full-fledged and distinguished French citizens, but they, meanwhile, cultivate their Armenian heritage, history, faith and culture. The memories of their past and reminiscences of their origin imbue with peculiar allure the works they created, make those works Armenian and, simultaneously, global and universal.

Dear friends,

Today the French soil consolidated us around music, which is the most lucid, most human, most perspicuous and most affecting perhaps of all arts. Today we present ourselves here through a comprehensive language that is speechless. This is exactly the case that renders words unnecessary. This is exactly the case that makes art to emanate from heart and reach other hearts.

That had been the instance from the medieval poet and composer Nerses the Gracious to Komitas, Alexander Spendiarian and Armen Tigranian, and then to Aram Khachaturian and Avet Terterian. And that will go on eternally. There are gifted people in the current Armenian music culture too. Some of them are here with us, present in this same hall – Hovhannes Chekidjian, Robert Amirkhanian, Aram Satian, Arthur Grigorian. Their talents are with us, and talents will proliferate since their art is infinite, it cherishes and nourishes us.

On coming days, when you will listen to the Armenian music presented in various genres, I believe, you will conceive that our art is inherently national and, simultaneously, boundless and universal. I strongly believe that the national tunes that generated and emanated from the Armenian soil will muffle the sadness, appeal to the ears and hearts, and fill the spirits of the listeners with harmony.

Thank you.

A non-binding resolution, H.RES. 279, backed by 30 members of the US House of Representatives is urging Turkey to immediately “lift restrictions on freedom of expression” and respect universal human rights, adding fuel to already tense relations between the US Congress and Turkey’s embattled President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan< reports. 

The proposed resolution, sponsored by Rep. Alan Grayson, was introduced in the House last week. Congressional sources said it would be debated in the Committee on Foreign Affairs on June 2. It is highly unlikely that the resolution will be approved by the House before a key parliamentary election in Turkey slated for June 7, but it will join a chorus of international rights groups and Western governments expressing deep concern over Turkey’s increasingly intolerant stance toward critics.

“The House of Representatives calls on the Government of Turkey to immediately lift restrictions on freedom of expression, including expression online or in social media,” the first recommendation of the resolution said, recalling that prominent human rights monitors and the US government have expressed concern about the erosion of freedom of expression under Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) he founded.

 

The resolution notes that “respect for universal human rights, especially freedom of expression, is essential to maintain a democratic, open society” and urges the Turkish government to fully respect universal human rights consistent with Ankara’s Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) commitments.

The resolution highlights that the Turkish government “has increasingly conducted widespread intimidation and manipulation of media, private companies and other civil society actors through a number of means, including active interference in their operations and regulatory action to compel government-friendly outcomes.”

It added that “criminal prosecution or intimidation based on overly broad terrorism laws and other measures taken by authorities in Turkey in recent years have been widely criticized as ideologically driven and unusually severe.” In February 90 members of the US House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry urging him to raise his voice more loudly to defend Turkey’s media freedom.

The Heads of State or Government and the representatives of the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, the representatives of the European Union and the Heads of State or Government and representatives of its Member States met in Riga on 21-22 May 2015. The participants of the summit adopted a joint declarations, in which they reconfirmed the high importance they attach to the Eastern Partnership as a specific dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy.

In the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership, the Summit participants reaffirm the sovereign right of each partner freely to choose the level of ambition and the goals to which it aspires in its relations with the European Union.

The EU remains committed in its support to the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of all its partners. Full adherence to all the principles and commitments enshrined in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and 1990 Charter of Paris by all OSCE Participating States, as well as full respect for the principles and provisions of the UN Charter, is critical to our vision of a free, democratic, peaceful and undivided Europe.

The Summit participants strongly support all efforts aimed at de-escalation and a political solution based on respect for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. They call on all parties to swiftly and fully implement the Minsk Agreements of September 2014 and the package of measures for their implementation of February 2015, supported by the quadrilateral Declaration of Heads of State and Government, and endorsed by UNSC Resolution 2202 of 17 February 2015.

The EU reaffirms its positions taken in the Joint Statement made at the EU-Ukraine Summit on 27 April, including on the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol. The Summit participants reaffirm their positions in relation to ‘UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine’.

The Summit participants emphasise the need for the earliest peaceful settlement of the conflicts in the region on the basis of the principles and norms of international law. The resolution of conflicts, building trust and good neighbourly relations are essential to economic and social development and cooperation.

They reiterate their full support to the mediation efforts by the co-chairs of the Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, including at the level of Presidents and their statements since 2009.

Participants welcome the common understanding reached on the scope for a future agreement between the EU and Armenia aimed at further developing and strengthening their comprehensive cooperation in all areas of mutual interest.

They welcome the progress to date in the implementation of the Visa Facilitation and Readmission Agreements (VFA/RA) with Armenia and Azerbaijan respectively.

They look forward to consideration in due course of the opening of a visa dialogue with Armenia, provided that Armenia continues to ensure sustained progress in the full implementation of the VFA/RA.

The Summit participants welcome the association of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine to the framework programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020 and look forward to finalising the agreements for association of Armenia and Georgia.

They look forward to the launching of negotiations on an EU-Armenia Aviation Agreement at the earliest opportunity.