Author: Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS

Asbarez: Pashinyan, Aliyev Meet in Munich

Emil Lazarian
by Asbarez Staff

 

 

 

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Main, Latest, News, Top Stories

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (center) with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan in Munich on Feb. 17


Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan met Saturday in Munich to advance the ongoing discussions on a peace treaty. The meeting was initiated and mediated by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

After discussing the process of normalizing relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and steps to ensure peace and stability in the region, the two agreed to continue to work on the peace treaty, Pashinyan’s office said in a statement.

During the meeting, which took place on the margins of the Munch Security Conference, Scholz called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to complete the peace negotiations as soon as possible.
 
“During the tripartite conversation, Scholz advocated for the swift resolution of the peace negotiations between the two countries. Germany and Europe are ready to support it within their capabilities, including the efforts of European Council President Charles Michel,” Pashinyan’s office said in its statement.
 
Scholz reportedly welcomed the commitment made by Pashinyan and Aliyev on Saturday to resolve issues “exclusively peacefully and with our the use of force.”

Prior to the meeting with Aliyev, Pashinyan met with Scholz separately and discussed issues related to the peace agenda, as well as advancing Armenia-Germany relations.

Central Bank of Armenia: exchange rates and prices of precious metals – 16-02-24

Emil Lazarian

 17:02,

YEREVAN, 16 FEBUARY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 16 February, USD exchange rate up by 0.17 drams to 404.42 drams. EUR exchange rate up by 1.48 drams to 435.48 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate down by 0.03 drams to 4.36 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 1.42 drams to 509.08 drams.

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

Gold price up by 257.25 drams to 26057.47 drams. Silver price up by 7.14 drams to 294.18 drams.

Prime Minister participates in the opening ceremony of the Munich Security Conference

Emil Lazarian

 18:53,

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 16, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan participated in the opening ceremony of the Munich Security Conference, the PM's Office said.

The Munich Security Conference is attended by dozens of presidents, heads of government and foreign ministers, as well as UN Secretary General António Guterres, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid and others.

Within the framework of the conference, a number of bilateral meetings of Prime Minister Pashinyan are scheduled.

Armenian and Iraqi Prime Ministers exchange ideas on regional issues and mutual interests

Emil Lazarian

 21:28,

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 16, ARMENPRESS.  The meeting of the Prime Ministers of Armenia and Iraq Nikol Pashinyan and Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani took place in Munich.

 During the discussion, the leaders emphasized the multi-sectoral cooperation between Armenia and Iraq and underscored the importance of consistently implementing the agreements that had been reached, the PM's Office said.

In this context, they highlighted the significance of the Iraqi president's visit to Armenia last year and the upcoming visit of the Armenian President to Iraq.

Ideas were exchanged on regional issues of importance, as well as other topics of mutual interest.

Asbarez: Armenia’s Cosmic Ray Division Joins Virtual Alpine Observatory

Emil Lazarian
by Contributor

 

 

 

in Armenia, Latest, News, Top Stories

Dr. Johannes Knapp (left), ASEC board chairperson, accepting the accession certificate from VAO chairperson, Dr. Michael Krautblatter


The polar and high mountain regions of the earth are warming at nearly twice the rate of Europe, and two-and-a-half times the global average. This can have profound consequences on earth’s weather including, for example, the supply of fresh water from melting snowcaps at places such as Armenia. In April 2012 the “Virtual Alpine Observatory,” a networked collaboration of international research organizations operating high-altitude observatories and research stations, was established and has been studying this situation.

Cross-border cooperation has made it possible to study problems related to the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and cryosphere to determine the environmental impact on human health and well-being. All these spheres are interlinked. Changes in one can affect the others. Participating are research institutes and observatories in Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Georgia, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, and Switzerland.

The Cosmic Ray Division’s accession certificate from the Chair of the VAO, Dr. Michael Krautblatter, welcoming CRD as a member of the VAO

Dr. Johannes Knapp, a scientist at the DESY research center in Germany, and member of the international board of directors of the Aragats Space Environment Center of the Yerevan Physics Institute’s Cosmic Ray Division, on October 26, 2023 accepted CRD’s accession certificate from the Chair of the VAO, Prof. Dr. Michael Krautblatter. The CRD is now a VAO associate member. The VAO is a subproject of the European Neighborhood Policy. As a statement by the VAO indicated, “That environmental and climate challenges are transboundary interdependent by nature, and therefore require a holistic approach to address them.”

CRD will participate in VAO’s interdisciplinary study of Alpine warming. Measurements of various parameters at different locations will be collected, put into formats according to international standards, and shared. Moreover, analysis and visualization tools will be developed to access this data at VAO’s high performance computing centers. CRD operates two high altitude research stations on Mt. Aragats: Aragats station at 3200 m (10,500 ft), and Nor Ambert at 2,000 m (6,560 ft). Here a large number of meteorological, geophysical, and atmospheric processes are monitored, including electrical events in the atmosphere. Data from these measurements are put on the internet in near real time together with analytical tools.

Dr. Knapp is professor at Deutches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) in Germany, where he specializes in astroparticle physics. He is chairman of the Aragats Space Environment Center Board of Directors, and is a frequent visitor to Armenia.

New South Wales Parliament Adopts Motion Calling For Armenian Genocide Education and Museum

Emil Lazarian
Feb 15 2024
SYDNEY: The New South Wales Legislative Council has debated and unanimously passed a motion calling on Australia's largest state's government to expand Holocaust education to include the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides and establish a Museum to create further awareness, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).

The motion, presented to the Legislative Council in the last sitting week of 2023 by the Hon. Chris Rath MLC, was debated on Wednesday 7th February 2024.

Members from across the political aisle spoke on the historic motion, including Hon Daniel Mookhey MLC (ALP), Dr. Amanda Cohn MLC (GRNS), Hon Susan Carter MLC  (LIB), Hon Mark Buttigieg MLC (ALP), Hon. Jacqui Munro MLC (LIB), Hon. Anthony D’Adam MLC (ALP), and Hon. Stephen Lawrence MLC (ALP).

In particular, powerful statements were made in support of expanding genocide education to incorporate the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocide in the curriculum and establish a museum to create awareness about the genocide, by Rath, Munro, Cater and Buttigieg.

Rath, the youngest ever member of the NSW Legislative Council – appointed in March 2022 – said, “All of us as Australians—students and children—know a lot about the Holocaust, and rightly so. Many, many years later I learnt about the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides. They are still not well known and not well taught, which is a very sad thing and exactly what the motion is about.”

ANC-AU Executive Director, Michael Kolokossian welcomed the historic undertaking by the NSW Upper House.

"The Armenian-Australian community thanks Mr. Rath and his colleagues in the Legislative Council for ensuring New South Wales continues to lead the way after being the first state legislature to recognise the Armenian Genocide and the Republic of Artsakh," Kolokossian said. "The teaching of the darkest chapter of Armenian history is the next step to ensuring we have a more vocal citizenry when future attempts to exterminate our race – as we witnessed with the recent ethnic cleansing of Artsakh – are attempted by criminal autocratic regimes."

Pan-Turkism and Islamism Drive Azerbaijani and Turkish Aggression against Armenians

Emil Lazarian
Feb 14 2024

by Uzay Bulut
Middle East Forum Observer

On February 13, 2024, less than a month after both Turkey and Azerbaijan threatened Armenia with renewed war, Azerbaijan killed four Armenian soldiers in Armenia's Syunik province. It was not an isolated incident. With Turkish backing, Azerbaijan attacked southern Armenia in September 2022 and has since occupied several dozen square miles of Armenian territory. Between 2020 and 2023, Azerbaijan also conducted an ethnic cleansing campaign in Nagorno-Karabakh to drive out the indigenous Armenian Christian population. While both Turkey and Azerbaijan have long cited the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute to explain their hostility to and rejection of Armenia, Azerbaijan's capture of the entire territory has not brought peace. Rather, in the months since, Azerbaijan's probing attacks on Armenia's frontier have continued.

What then motivates Azerbaijan and Turkey's hostility toward and rejection of Armenia?

Their efforts are doomed to fail, however, because they ignore the two ideologies driving the conflict: Pan-Turkism and Islamism.

While National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken negotiate with their Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts to win peace between the two former Soviet republics, they focus on supposed grievances: Resolving Armenia's requests for the return of prisoners of war, addressing increasingly fanciful Azerbaijani territorial claims, or encouraging economic and trade integration. Their efforts are doomed to fail, however, because they ignore the two ideologies driving the conflict: Pan-Turkism and Islamism.

Pan-Turkism (or pan-Turanism) promotes the superiority of a supposed Turkish race and seeks to unite Turks from the Balkans across Turkey and Central Asia to portions of China and Siberia. In 2021, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan enthusiastically received a map of "Grand Turan" from coalition partner Devlet Bahçeli, leader of Turkey's National Movement Party (MHP). The Azerbaijani leadership, meanwhile, embraces the same ideology. Heydar Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan from 1993 to 2003, often described the relationship between Turkey and Azerbaijan "as one nation, two states," a mantra his son and successor Ilham also embraces.

For both Erdoğan and Aliyev, Armenia's independence is the main impediment to realization of Greater Turan for a simple reason: Armenia blocks Turkic territorial continuity. This is the main reason why Azerbaijan rejects any recognition of Armenia despite the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute in Azerbaijan's favor. Increasingly, both Aliyev and Azerbaijan's media refer to Armenia as "western Azerbaijan," indicating a rejection of its very legitimacy.

Erdoğan's Islamism imbues pan-Turanism as religious mandate. During Azerbaijan's 2020 war on Armenians, Erdoğan declared, "We support Azerbaijan until victory … I tell my Azerbaijani brothers: May your ghazwa be blessed." His reference to ghazwa refers to battles in which Muslims engaged non-Muslims to expand Muslim territory. Azerbaijan's systematic destruction of Armenia's religious heritage further demonstrates this aspect, as do Islamic State-like beheadings and mutilations of Armenian prisoners by Azerbaijani soldiers. Often, Aliyev rewards such atrocities, as when he personally awarded the Azerbaijani officer who beheaded a captured Yezidi in 2016. Turkey also transported Syrian and Libyan Islamic State veterans from the Islamic State to supplement Azerbaijani forces during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. What the United States sees as a land and legal dispute, Ankara and Baku see as jihad.

Against this backdrop, it is imperative that neither the United States nor Europe view the death of four Armenian soldiers yesterday on Armenian soil as an accident to overlook as Washington seeks a broader peace deal.

For too long, wishful thinking hampered U.S. policy toward Turkey. Successive administrations and a generation of diplomats saw in Erdoğan what they wished he would be rather than what he was: a populist and Islamist who prioritized his Muslim Brotherhood exegesis and personal wealth above the constitution and the welfare of the Turkish people. Today, the same pattern repeats with Aliyev, who presents himself as a secularist but, behind-the-scenes, pursues an irredentist and Islamist agenda in concert with Erdoğan.

The two countries today act in concert against Armenia. Both blockade Armenia. Neither has diplomatic relations, and both deny its legitimacy and historical legacy as the first Christian country. The Turkish Army continues to train and often command its Azerbaijani counterpart.

Against this backdrop, it is imperative that neither the United States nor Europe view the death of four Armenian soldiers yesterday on Armenian soil as an accident to overlook as Washington seeks a broader peace deal. Rather, they are a sign Erdoğan and Aliyev will never sacrifice their core ideology nor honor any piece of paper in which naïve Western officials demand they affix their signatures.

Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist formerly based in Ankara.


Armenia Refugee Response: Education Cannot Wait Announces US$1 Million Grant to Support Early Childhood Education

Emil Lazarian
Street Insider
Feb 16 2024

ECW First Emergency Response grant delivered by UNICEF will support the Government of Armenia's Refugee Response Plan and improve access to early learning services for refugee and host community children.

NEW YORK, Feb. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ – In response to the recent mass influx of refugees into Armenia, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) announced today US$1 million in new grant funding to reach children who need support the most.

The 12-month grant will be delivered by UNICEF – in coordination with Armenia'sMinistry of Education, Science. Culture and Sports and the Education Sector Group – and will expand access to early learning for refugee and host community children.

"This is the first time Education Cannot Wait has provided a grant dedicated exclusively to early childhood education. By working together with the Government of Armenia, UNICEF and other local partners, this is our investment in a better future for the girls and boys of Armenia. With access to early childhood education, these children will gain the knowledge and skills they need to build a future of peace and prosperity," said Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, the Global Fund for Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises.

Since September 2023, more than 100,000 refugees – including 30,000 girls and boys – have fled to Armenia following military hostilities in their home communities. Around 3,000 are children with disabilities and 9,000 are children under the age of six.

Access to early-childhood education has been identified as a critical need under the Refugee Response Plan jointly coordinated by the Government and the UN, noting that the education system in Armenia has been overstretched and under resourced to cope with the number of young refugee children.

"Missing out on quality early childhood education is detrimental to children's development and future learning ability. This is especially true in times of displacement and uncertainty, as children are more likely to struggle with cognitive, behavioral and emotional difficulties, especially at a young age, which further delays their development," said Christine Weigand, UNICEF Representative in Armenia. "With the backing of ECW, UNICEF will support young refugee children and their parents with early learning and development services, which are critical to help them recover and thrive."

ECW's new US$1 million First Emergency Response allocation will focus on increasing access to inclusive early learning services by expanding spaces in public kindergartens. Refugee and host community girls and boys, including children with disabilities, will also have access to psychosocial support, parental education sessions will be provided to improve positive interactions between caregivers and children, and teachers will receive much-needed assistance to help integrate and support these children in their classrooms.

About Education Cannot Wait (ECW):
Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. We support quality education outcomes for refugee, internally displaced and other crisis-affected girls and boys, so no one is left behind. ECW works through the multilateral system to both increase the speed of responses in crises and connect immediate relief and longer-term interventions through multi-year programming. ECW works in close partnership with governments, public and private donors, UN agencies, civil society organizations, and other humanitarian and development aid actors to increase efficiencies and end siloed responses. ECW urgently appeals to public and private sector donors for expanded support to reach even more vulnerable children and youth.

On X (formerly Twitter), please follow: @EduCannotWait, @YasmineSherif1, @KentPage
Additional information available at: www.educationcannotwait.org

 View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/armenia-refugee-response-education-cannot-wait-announces-us1-million-grant-to-support-early-childhood-education-302063659.html

SOURCE Education Cannot Wait