Author: Emil Lazarian

System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian was interviewed on BBC News, shedding light on the blockade of the Lachin corridor and the subsequent humanitarian crisis that Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh are facing.

Over the weekend, System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian was interviewed about the current humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh (known as Artsakh by Armenians) by BBC News.

The Armenian-American vocalist and activist joined Artak Beglaryan – the former state minister and human rights ombudsman of the Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh Republic – on September 2 to tell the BBC about the Azerbaijani blockade of the only road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world, the Lachin corridor. This closure was implemented last December and has resulted in huge shortages of food, medication and other essentials for thousands and thousands of Armenians.

As Serj sadly highlights, “There are 120,000 people – 30,000 of which are children – that are literally on the brink of starvation. For nine months this blockade has been going on, and the whole world has been basically telling Azerbaijan they have to open this corridor… and they’re not budging.

“So the question is: are we going to act, or are we going to allow another genocide of Armenians – this time, in this century, the 21st century – to occur?”

Watch the full interview below: 

Sharing Serj’s interview far and wide, SOAD took to social media to say: “PLEASE REPOST! @serjtankian and @artak_beglaryan were on @bbcnews to talk about the devastating Azeri humanitarian blockade on Artsakh, the need for the [International] community to ACT by #sanctionAzerbaijan and help bring in UN peacekeepers to avoid #ArmenianGenocide2023. Serj also spoke about the need for the UK gov’t to pivot from complicity in Genocide to responsibility to avoid it.”

Sunday,

GoLocalProv News Editor Kate Nagle

Rhode Island native Victoria Atamian Waterman said she knew the exact moment she had to write a book. 

For Waterman, who grew up in Warwick and now lives in North Smithfield, it was a visit to her aunt’s grave in the North Burial Ground in Providence in 2015.

“I have the exact photo of finding flowers, old white silk flowers on her grave,” Waterman.

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What made the discovery somewhat mysterious is the fact her aunt Vicky never had children, so how they got there was puzzling to Waterman. 

“In my heart, I knew that maybe they simply blew over, and someone picked them up and thought they belonged there,” said Waterman.

But the seeds were sewn for Waterman to write a book, with the catalyst being her aunt.

“She was a maid during the Armenian Genocide,” said Waterman, who was raised in a close-knit Armenian family — and Armenian was her first language. 

“I grew up in a multi-generation house,” said Waterman.  “And I’m really the last generation to tell this story with not just my voice, but their voice.” 

“Who She Left Behind” is the first book from Waterman, who had a career in banking and non-profits before “semi-retirement.’ 

“I’m too young to truly retire,” laughed Waterman, who soon embarked on the start of her second career. 

Intertwining Fact and Fiction 

Waterman said that while the graveside visit — and her aunt’s story — prompted her to write a book, she said she realized she could make the main character “anyone I wanted to.” 

“When the war was over, all those girls like my aunt were maids in Turkish homes,” said Waterman. “My mother would say by the grace of God, none of your aunts were raped. But from what we know of what happened there, it was pretty typical.”

So in Waterman’s book, the protagonist, a maid, is raped by the “man of the house” before the wife of the house kidnaps the child and leaves. 

“I wanted to make the character based on my aunt a bad-ass,” said Waterman. “This could have been her story. She comes to the United States but she never forgets her daughter, or the other maids.” 

For Waterman, who serves as a trustee of the Soorp Asdvadzadzin Armenian Apostolic Church in Whitinsville, Massachusetts and was a presenter at the 2023 AGBU Women Shaping the World Conference, keeping the stories alive — particularly of what women endured during the Armenian Genocide — was particularly important to her. 

“My kids don’t know these stories. To them, this is reading about medieval times,” said Waterman. 

Waterman says the book will be available for pre-order on October 1, and she will be kicking off with an event in Worcester, which is home to the first Armenian church in the Western Hemisphere.

“There’s a lot of Worcester in the book, and there’s a lot of Providence,” said Waterman. 

And for Waterman, she is now working on her second novel.

“There is a lot of Providence in this one,” said Waterman. 

The policy conducted by Azerbaijan is the same as the policy of the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide at the beginning of the twentieth century. Yaron Weiss, an Israeli expert on the South Caucasus affairs and a columnist for “Davar”, stated this in an interview with the “Orbeli” analytical center.

– Respectable Yaron Weiss, thank You for accepting interview invitation. So, despite the 2 resolutions of the UN Court of Justice, the many calls of the international community, including the member states of the UN Security Council, Azerbaijan has been blocking the Lachin Corridor for about 8 months, keeping Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) under siege. Baku has stopped the flow of natural gas and electricity to Artsakh, and in recent days it has banned even humanitarian cargo transportation. All this has caused a deep humanitarian crisis in Artsakh, and the President of Artsakh has declared the country a disaster zone. According to You, what is the ultimate goal of such a policy conducting by Azerbaijan?

– There is all the evidence that Azerbaijan wants to erase the Armenian presence in Artsakh. I’ve been saying this for years. Unfortunately, everything that many people warned and feared of is happening right now.

The ethnic cleansing, the rewriting of history, the Armenophobia, this is an Azeri policy that has been going on for years. The policy is the same as the policy of the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide at the beginning of the twentieth century.

That is why it is important to stop the ethnic cleansing while it is happening. The civilized world excels at holding commemorative ceremonies, but excels less at preventing events that are followed by commemorative ceremonies. This is precisely the reason why it is now necessary to increase the explanatory effort and open the eyes of world leaders.

– How do You assess the impact of the crisis in Artsakh and the aggressive actions of Baku on the region at all?

– When a large amount of modern weapons is in the hands of a dictatorship, especially when it comes to a dictatorship ruled by one family with a dubious reputation for violating human rights, the result of this is the destabilization of the region. That is why we are now witnessing the deliberate starvation of the people of Artsakh.

– According to You how what can the international community, as well as Israel, do towards the solution of this catastrophic crisis?

– A few weeks ago, a group of academics, journalists, religious leaders, activists and intellectuals urged the President of Israel (who recently visited Baku) to leverage his excellent connections with the dictator Aliyev to influence him to open the Lachin corridor. Israel is an influential factor in the region. It is most needed that all the friends of Armenia around the world, as well as all lovers of freedom and democracy should take a similar step in their countries.

– I would like to touch on the Armenian-Israeli relations as well, how would you characterize them? It is obvious that there are some gaps in bilateral relations. Will you list them and their reasons?

– The short-sighted Israeli policy sees the improvement of relations between Israel and Azerbaijan as an Israeli interest. It is well known that the government of Azerbaijan considers any Israeli approach to Armenia a step that hurts Azerbaijan. For this reason, Israel is very wary of getting close to Armenia.

We also see this in the Israeli public media, which is influenced by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the private media, which is influenced by those with interests in the industrial sector who refrain from attacking Azerbaijan and refrain from covering the crisis in Artsakh.
In recent weeks, we have been exerting a lot of effort convincing foreign news editors to ensure that there will be coverage of the situation in Artsakh, as is covered in other countries of the world.
Unfortunately, Israel has not yet opened an embassy in Yerevan. This is directly related to the desire not to anger the Aliyev family.

The Embassy of Armenia has been operating in Tel Aviv for three years. It seems that Ambassador Doctor Arman Akopian works tirelessly to develop the relations between Armenia and Israel.
I know that efforts are being made to increase tourism ties between the countries, direct flights between Yerevan and Tel Aviv, relations between academic institutions and of course attempts to connect potential investors.

Dr. Akopian has a big challenge to serve as ambassador to a country that is afraid to over-cultivate ties with Armenia.

– I’m sure You know, that Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited Azerbaijan. As it became clear from the meetings, in Baku, Galant discussed ways to strengthen strategic cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel. Gallant also referred to threats from Iran. How do You feel about the Azerbaijani-Israeli strategic cooperation? Does it have more benefits or are the challenges often overlooked?

– The censorship in Israel prevents citizens from information about the nature of relations with Azerbaijan. Officials point out that there is strategic importance in relations with Azerbaijan because it is a Shiite country bordering Iran. It is implied that the tightening of relations is necessary for Israel’s national security.

I believe that this official policy is intended to be a smokescreen and legitimize massive arms sales to a country that is considered by most of the Western countries as a dictatorship.
Israel is known for massive arms sales to dictatorships. When Israel sells weapons to dictatorships in Africa or East Asia, the government cannot justify this with national security considerations. because these countries are not in the immediate circle of the threat to Israel. But in the case of Azerbaijan, the government justifies the sale of weapons by national security considerations to avoid public criticism.

We have learned from history that when Israel strengthened its ties with dictatorships such as Iran during the Shah’s regime and South Africa during the apartheid, this caused great hostility towards Israel from the citizens of those countries immediately after the change of power. The same will happen in Azerbaijan after a change of government takes place in it or after the oil runs out. Hence, Israel’s policy is short-sighted.

https://orbeli.am/en/post/1177/2023-08-29/Azerbaijan%20wants%20to%20erase%20the%20Armenian%20presence%20in%20Artsakh.%20Israeli%20expert

ISTANBUL

Azerbaijan said on Tuesday that comments made by French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna about the situation in Karabakh a day earlier were “unacceptable.” 

“French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna’s statements such as this, which do not serve peace and stability in the region and show a one-sided pro-Armenian position, are unacceptable,” Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aykhan Hajizada said in a statement released by the ministry.

Hajizada accused Colonna of “turning a blind eye” to matters such as the occupation of the Karabakh region by Armenia for nearly 30 years, the displacement of nearly one million Azerbaijanis as refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs), and provocations by Yerevan since the end of the 2nd Karabakh War, calling it an “example of an illegal and unethical approach.”

He also denied the top French diplomat’s claims that a policy is being implemented to stymie efforts to reintegrate Armenian residents of Karabakh and expel them from the region.

Hajizada said “Once again, we call on the French side to put an end to such provocative and provocative ideas.”

Colonna claimed during a speech at a conference in Paris on Monday that efforts are being made to “give the people of Nagorno-Karabakh the opportunity to live there, as well as to respect their rights, culture and history.”

She also claimed that efforts have been made to “incite” a mass exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.

Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

In the fall of 2020, Azerbaijan liberated several cities, villages, and settlements from Armenian occupation during 44 days of clashes. The war ended with a Russia-brokered peace agreement.

Despite ongoing talks over a long-term peace agreement, tensions between the neighboring countries rose in recent months over the Lachin road, the only land route giving Armenia access to the Karabakh region, where Azerbaijan established a border checkpoint in April on the grounds of preventing the illegal transport of military arms and equipment to the region.