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

Turkish press: Horse-drawn sleighs arouse interest in Turkey’s east

Emil Lazarian
  • January 07 2022 07:00:00

Lake Çıldır, the second largest lake in Turkey’s east, has been drawing attention with several winter activities, as the lake turns into a natural ice rink in this cold season, ideal for ice sports and nomadic activities such as horse-drawn sleigh, javelin and archery races.

Since the Touristic Eastern Express that runs from Ankara to the eastern province of Kars resumed its service after one-and-a-half years of hiatus, the region regained the interest of visitors, offering them fun-filled activities and impressive natural and historical sightseeing spots.

Located at 1,959 meters above sea level and covering an area of 123 square kilometers, the lake in the province of Kars becomes completely frozen when the temperature starts falling below zero degrees, leading ice thickness to reach 25 to 30 centimeters, and thus, making it a picturesque winter landscape with its famous local ice fishermen and horse-drawn carriages.

Visitors to the lake, where fishermen break the ice on the surface and catch fish like Eskimos, also get a chance to take a ride with horse sleighs or walk around the ice-covered part of the lake, which looks like glass since it has not snowed yet.

Locals, as well as tourists, also enjoy what can be called barbeque parties on the lake. People grill the fish they catch and have a nice picnic out in the cold. People also indulge in activities such as performing traditional halay dance, called aşık.

Lake Çıldır was one of the most significant attraction spots in the region two years ago, but due to the pandemic-related measures imposed across the country, it became an untended and idle stop for a while.

But when officials decided to resume the Touristic Eastern Express services, the region started to attract attention again. Now, university students, photographers, tourists and influencers are among the majority of the people traveling on the line as it used to be before the pandemic.

As the trains depart from the Turkish capital every Wednesday and Friday and arrive in Kars after 20 hours of journey, visitors are able to spend the weekend in Kars and enjoy a day in a Scandinavian-like adventure.

Apart from Lake Çıldır, the archaeological site of Ani is also one of the frequent destinations of visitors in the region.

Nearly 25 significant structures, consisting of walls, mosques, cathedrals, palaces, churches, monasteries, firehouses, baths, bridges and a partially destroyed closed passage, have survived to the present day in the ancient city of Ani, the capital of the Bagratid Armenian kingdom between 961 and 1045.

Belarusian President holds phone talk with Kazakh counterpart

Emil Lazarian

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 12:02, 8 January, 2022

YEREVAN, JANUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev held a phone talk today in the morning, discussing the current situation in Kazakhstan, the Belarusian president’s press service said.

“The leaders of the countries discussed the current situation in Kazakhstan and the future actions”, the statement says.

No other details from the telephone conversation are being reported.

Kazakhstan declares January 10 day of national mourning

Emil Lazarian

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 12:47, 8 January, 2022

YEREVAN, JANUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared January 10 a day of national mourning for the victims of the latest events across the country, the president’s spokesperson Berik Uali said.

On January 2, protests sparked in several cities of Kazakhstan. In several days, they escalated into mass riots and assaults at the bodies of authority in many cities. Thousands of people were injured, and there were casualties. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev asked the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for assistance. CSTO peacekeepers have already commenced their mission in Kazakhstan. According to the authorities, the constitutional order in Kazakhstan was generally restored on January 7. The situation in Almaty remains the most complicated, reported by TASS.

Putin, Lukashenko discuss situation in Kazakhstan

Emil Lazarian

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 14:29, 8 January, 2022

YEREVAN, JANUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko held a telephone conversation today with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Belarusian Presidential Office reports.

Putin and Lukashenko discussed the situation in the CSTO states, particularly in Kazakhstan.

The presidents also discussed the format of further discussions of the CSTO leaders.

‘Azerbaijan still violates conditions of 2020 ceasefire’: Baroness Cox says at House of Lords

Emil Lazarian

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 17:30, 8 January, 2022

YEREVAN, JANUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. Baroness Caroline Cox has touched upon the Nagorno Karabakh conflict in her remarks during the debate of the UK House of Lords relating to refugees and mass displacement.

“In 2020, more than 91,000 people fled to Armenia from Nagorno Karabakh; 88% of them were women and children. More than 40,000 people were deprived of their homes in areas such as the Shushi and Hadrut regions, which are still under the occupation of the Azerbaijani armed forces”, Caroline Cox said in her remarks. “I have had the painful privilege of visiting the region more than 85 times, during the wars in the 1990s and in 2020. Last September, I visited Syunik region in Armenia to witness the suffering caused by Azeri military incursions into Armenian territory, causing displacement of local villagers within Armenia itself. Countless refugees describe the anguish of the loss of loved ones, and Azerbaijan still violates the conditions of the 2020 ceasefire by detaining Armenian prisoners of war and civilians, and perpetrating atrocities, sometimes taking a prisoner’s phone to film horrendous activities, then sending the pictures back to their families.

Refugees also describe the loss of livelihoods, agricultural lands, water resources, and other vital infrastructure. Yet the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh have received almost no support from the British Government. The UN Secretary-General’s official spokesperson in May last year unequivocally indicated that it is Azerbaijan that, despite the calls of the international community, and the UN in particular, has not provided permission for unhindered humanitarian access in Nagorno Karabakh, and that situation remains the same”, she noted.

In conclusion, she raised a question whether the Minister can confirm that the UK will no longer turn a deaf ear to this cry for help, and will ensure the provision of urgent humanitarian assistance to the thousands of Armenians displaced by war.

The Baroness urged to give greater priority to the problems she has identified and to many others suffering in similar situations.

Asbarez: New Date for Tufenkian Gallery’s to Showcase of Ara Oshagan’s Artwork

Emil Lazarian
 by Contributor

 

 January 5, 2022

 

in Arts & Culture, Latest, News, Top Stories
 0
“How The World Might Be” Exhibition poster

LOS ANGELES—Tufenkian Fine Arts will present “How the World Might Be,” a solo show featuring artworks by Los Angeles-based photographer and installation artist Ara Oshagan. Oshagan will exhibit four series/projects, a film, and an installation that weave together the artist’s interests in diasporic possibility, legacies of dispossession, and (un)imagined futures. The exhibition will run from Friday, January 7, and will be on view through Saturday, February 5. The opening reception will take place on Saturday, January 15 from 4 to 8 p.m. and will include the launch of Oshagan’s book, “displaced.” This will be Oshagan’s second solo show with Tufenkian Gallery.

Oshagan is interested in the exploration of the ambiguities of his own identity and the crossing of physical, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. The artist lives and works directly amongst disrupted and marginalized communities which he seeks to document and explore through his work. In “How the World Might Be,” Oshagan employs photography, film, collage and installation to present a layered and multi-disciplinary vision that weaves a narrative intertwining documentary with the imaginary, text with image, fact with speculation, personal with collective history. “How the World Might Be”entangles past- present-future and imagines the possibility of what was and what might or might not be.

Ara Oshagan’s first project in the exhibition is a collaborative photography/literature project with preeminent diaspora author Krikor Beledian. “displaced” is a riff on diasporic memory, displacement, and the ambiguities of narrative and reflects on the diasporic spaces of Beirut and its attendant multi-generational legacies of violence and unending dispossession, focusing on the Bourj Hammoud enclave. “displaced” is published by Kehrer Verlag in Germany and will be launched at the exhibition opening. Beledian’s text is translated by Taline Voskeritchian and Chris Millis and is the author’s first major work to appear in English. The project is supported by the Gulbenkian Foundation.

Oshagan’s “Beirut Memory Project” series reflects upon on the artist’s relationship to the Lebanese civil war, an intervention of history that created a deeply personal and communal rupture. The digital collage series that the artist made in response to this conflict is an image-based speculation on healing this dislocation. It disrupts the fabric of the present- day (photographs in black and white) with images of pre-war family and community (in color). Structurally, the work is seen from today while embedding in that matrix what came before: a construction that looks back across a divide, across decades of rupture, absence, war, memory, and loss.

  • Ara Oshagan, The Beirut Memory Project 8, 2018-2021, Digital collage, Archival Pigment Print on Washi mulberry paper, 16 x 24
  • Ara Oshagan, The Beirut Memory Project 10, 2018-2021, Digital collage, Archival Pigment Print on Washi mulberry paper, 16 x 24

The artist’s next series, titled, “Shushi,” is a response to the re-colonization of Artsakh. Following the invasion of indigenous Armenian region of Artsakh by Azerbaijan in November 2020, Shushi, a historically Armenian town and the cultural center of the region found itself devoid of any indigenous inhabitants and occupied by a foreign state. The figures in these portraits stand in front of ancient Armenian texts from the region and the Armenian highlands that span centuries. The work imagines an arc of invisible history connecting the two: the ancient codex and embedded narrative re-contextualizing the deracinated present, keeping aloft a community, re-generating the indigenous moment.

Addressing similar issues of colonization, the artist’s next series, “Artsakh,” collects the scattered fragments of this now-deracinated community into a panorama of life and possibility. The work is a digital collage comprised of cutouts extracted from Oshagan’s photographic series, “FatherLand,” from Artsakh before colonization. The work creates a historic arc from the 1915 Catastrophe to the one still unfolding today. Contextualized by this history of genocide and violence against the Armenian highlands, the work also speaks to a cyclical panorama of history that ebbs and flows where resistance and de-colonization are still possibilities.

Collaborating further with Krikor Beledian, Oshagan’s last project is a temporary monument to the Western Armenian language. The immersive installation is comprised of multiple scrolls containing Beledian’s handwriting from the text for “displaced.” For the past several decades Beledian has been writing almost exclusively in Western Armenian, a language currently on the UN endangered list. The installation is an ode to his work and a monument to the future unvanishing of the language.

*Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article indicated a different opening date and time.




Turkey to Meet Armenia to Resolve Conflict in Russian Backyard

Emil Lazarian
Bloomberg
Jan 6 2022
Politics

By 

Selcan Hacaoglu

 

January 5, 2022, 7:35 PM GMT+2 Updated on January 6, 2022, 3:00 PM GMT+2
  •  
    U.S.-sought talks could curtail Russia’s clout in own backyard
  •  
    Ottoman-era atrocities remain source of bitter enmity

4:15

Longtime foes Turkey and Armenia will start new talks next week in Moscow to normalize relations and open the last Cold War-era closed border, a U.S. and European Union-backed goal that could curtail Russia’s clout in its backyard.

The Jan. 14 meeting comes more than two months after President Joe Biden urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a meeting in Rome to work toward establishing diplomatic ties with landlocked Armenia and opening the countries’ shared border, according to previous comments by a senior Turkish official. Turkey shut the frontier in 1993 in solidarity with its ally Azerbaijan, which was fighting a war with Armenia over the contested territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Washington and European capitals are backing the talks to try to reach a lasting resolution to the conflict and counter Moscow’s influence in its Soviet hinterland. Russia’s determination to dominate the region is once again on display after it sent troops to quell protests in Kazakhstan. Turkey’s goals are to signal to U.S.-led NATO allies displeased by its purchase of Russian air defenses that it’s working to stop Russian expansionism, and to become a secure trade route between China and the West. 

“The normalization with Armenia plays neatly into this picture. It would help Turkey weaken a little bit Moscow’s grip on the region and expand Turkish influence,” said Emre Peker, Europe director for Eurasia Group.

For landlocked Armenia, the normalization of ties “is a critical means to overcome isolation,” said Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

Turkey and Armenia’s bitter enmity is rooted in the mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and tensions linger over how to characterize the events of 1915, during which 1.5 million Armenians were deported, killed and marched to their deaths. The Armenians, backed by the Biden administration, label it a genocide. Turkey, enraged by the characterization, says Armenians and Turks were killed in ethnic clashes during the collapse of the empire after Armenian groups sided with Russia in World War I. 

Biden Marks Armenian ‘Genocide’ in Challenge to Ally Turkey

In 2020, the Turkish military supported Azerbaijan as armed conflict with Armenia reignited over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave inside Azerbaijan with an Armenian ethnic majority. With firepower from Turkish-supplied armed drones, Azerbaijan reclaimed control of parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding territory. An uneasy truce was engineered by Russian President Vladimir Putin but a peace agreement hasn’t been signed. 

Turkey has said the dispute over the genocide allegations won’t be on the table, and Giragosian interpreted the Armenian policy of no preconditions to mean “the genocide issue has been deferred and delegated to the post-normalization process of reconciliation.”

But the road could be rocky. “There’s a big risk” that the Armenian diaspora — which in the past had insisted Turkey recognize the genocide — is going to play a role in decision-making,” alongside the Armenian government, Peker said.

Earlier efforts to reach a detente following a 2009 agreement collapsed after Turkey demanded the withdrawal of Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh as a precondition. 

How Azerbaijan-Armenia Dispute Drew In Russia, Turkey: QuickTake

The new talks precede Ankara’s upcoming talks in Washington on issues including Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defenses, which has poisoned relations between the NATO allies. In preparation for the meetings, Turkish and Armenian envoys are expected to work on a roadmap that will include confidence-building measures, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last week, while stressing that Turkey was in full coordination with Azerbaijan over steps to be taken.

If Turkey agrees to open its border, businesses on both sides of the sleepy frontier could thrive, as it would directly connect Armenia to one of the largest economies in the Middle East. Armenia lifted an embargo on Turkish goods on Jan. 1 in response to pressure from its own business community, which seeks an outlet for exports. The two countries have already agreed to restart direct charter flights soon.

“Armenia can unlock its economy. Ending the blockade will lessen both Iranian and Russian influence in Armenia,” said Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “At the same time, businesses in eastern Turkey would likely benefit as well. There really would be no losers.”

— With assistance by Sara Khojoyan

 

Turkish and Armenian envoys to meet in Moscow next week

Emil Lazarian
Jan 5 2022
The two representatives will meet to discuss normalizing relations between the neighboring countries for the first time in decades.

January 5, 2022

Special envoys from Turkey and Armenia will meet for the first time on January 14 in Moscow, their respective foreign ministries announced on Wednesday.

Ankara and Yerevan lack diplomatic relations. But in December, the neighboring countries agreed to name special envoys to lay the groundwork for normalization. 

The Turkish Foreign Ministry named career diplomat Serdar Kilic, a former Turkish ambassador to the US, as its special envoy. Armenia appointed deputy parliament speaker Ruben Rubinyan as Kilic’s counterpart. 

Turkey shut its borders to Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with its ally Azerbaijan, which was locked in a bitter war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In 2020, Ankara backed Baku in its latest conflict with Yerevan over the disputed enclave, which after six weeks ended in a Russian-brokered truce. 

Turkey and Armenia’s relationship is also strained over the mass killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman forces beginning in 1915. Ankara has long denied that a genocide took place. 

The planned meeting comes as Turkey seeks to mend ties with a number of other countries in the region, including Israel, Egypt and several Gulf states. This week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced plans to visit Saudi Arabia in February. 

In a sign that the relations between Armenia and Turkey are improving, Armenia’s economy ministry announced in late December that it was lifting an embargo on Turkish imports that was imposed during last year’s 44-day war. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last month that bothTurkish and Armenian airlines have applied to provide flights between Istanbul and Yerevan.


Russia-led military alliance will send ‘peacekeepers’ to protest-hit Kazakhstan, Armenian PM says

Emil Lazarian
CNN
Jan 6 2022

By Rob Picheta, Anna Chernova, Radina Gigova and Ivan Watson, CNN

Updated 0502 GMT (1302 HKT) January 6, 2022

(CNN)“Peacekeepers” from a Russia-led military alliance of post-Soviet states will be sent to Kazakhstan to help stabilize the country following deadly protests against a hike in fuel prices, Armenia’s Prime Minister said Wednesday.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) — which includes Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan — decided to send collective “peacekeeping forces” for a “limited” period of time “in view of the threat to national security and the sovereignty of the Republic of Kazakhstan,” according to a statement from Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is also chairman of the alliance.
The move follows an appeal from Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for help from the alliance after unrest broke out across Kazakhstan on Wednesday, including in the largest city, Almaty.
    Eight police officers and national guard personnel were killed in riots in different regions of the country, according to Kazakhstan’s local outlet Tengrinews.kz. It also said 317 officers and personnel were injured, citing the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
      “In the cities of Almaty, Shymkent, and Taraz, attempts were made to attack akimats [local administration offices], where windows, doors were broken and other material damage was caused,” said a statement on the ministry’s website. “Stones, sticks, gas, pepper, and Molotov cocktails were used by the mob.”
      President Tokayev said “terrorists” had captured Almaty airport, including five aircraft, and were battling with the military outside the city.
      A number of infrastructure facilities in Almaty have been damaged, Tokayev said. He accused the protesters of undermining the “state system” and claimed “many of them have received military training abroad.”
      The protests were ignited when the government lifted price controls on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) at the start of the year, Reuters reported. Many Kazakhs have converted their cars to run on the fuel because of its low cost.
      A nationwide internet blackout was in effect in Kazakhstan early Thursday, according to internet freedom watchdog Netblocks. The country saw a nationwide internet shutdown Wednesday afternoon before it was partially restored, the watchdog said in a statement.
      A journalist in Almaty told CNN they were experiencing internet outage and lights appeared to be off in buildings near the President’s residence and mayor’s office.
      “More than 10,000 people at the city administration building, we call it the Akimat. They have encircled it,” Serikzhan Mauletbay, deputy editor in chief of Orda.kz, said. Mauletbay said stun grenades were used and there is “some kind of fire,” according to an Instagram live video he watched from the scene.
      Another journalist described the scene as chaotic and said they could hear and see what they believed were stun grenades going off and shots being fired, but it is unclear what the firing sounds were.
      A state of emergency has been introduced throughout the country, state-run media reported. It will be implemented until January 19, with restrictions on movement, including transport, in three major cities and 14 regions.
      Oil-rich Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth-largest nation by landmass, has attracted foreign investment and maintained a strong economy since its independence, but its autocratic method of governance has at times prompted international concern and has seen authorities harshly crack down on protests, according to global rights groups.
      Russia maintains close relations with Kazakhstan and Moscow depends on the Baikonur Cosmodrome as the launch base for all Russian manned space missions. The Central Asian nation also has a significant ethnic Russian minority; the CIA World Factbook says around 20% of Kazakhstan’s 19 million population is ethnically Russian.
      Amid the turmoil, Kazakh Prime Minister Askar Mamin announced his immediate resignation.
      Alikhan Smailov has been appointed acting Prime Minister, and members of the government will continue to serve until the formation of the new cabinet, according to a statement on the presidential website Wednesday.
      President Tokayev said a number of measures aimed “to stabilize the socio-economic situation” had been put into place, including government regulation of fuel prices for a period of 180 days, a moratorium on increasing utility tariffs for the population for the same period, and the consideration of rent subsidies for “vulnerable segments of the population.”
      On Tuesday, Tokayev said on his official Twitter feed the government has decided to reduce the price for LPG in the Mangistau region to 50 tenge ($0.11) per liter “in order to ensure stability in the country.”
      Tokayev said in a national television address Wednesday that he will take control of the Kazakhstan’s Security Council — a move that seemingly sidelines his predecessor, longtime President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who led the country since it was a Soviet Republic until his departure in 2019, and has remained an influential but controversial figure behind the scenes and on the council since.
        The US State Department’s 2018 human rights report noted Kazakhstan’s 2015 presidential election, in which Nazarbayev received 98% of votes cast, “was marked by irregularities and lacked genuine political competition.”
        On Wednesday, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said in a statement the US “is closely following the situation in Kazakhstan,” adding “We ask for all Kazakhstanis to respect and defend constitutional institutions, human rights, and media freedom, including through the restoration of internet service.”

        CNN’s Nathan Hodge contributed to this report.

        Critical level of terrorist threat introduced throughout Kazakhstan

        Emil Lazarian
        Public Radio of Armenia
        Jan 8 2022
        January 7, 2022, 11:06

         1 minute read

        The authorities of Kazakhstan have introduced a critical “red” level of terrorist threat throughout the republic, press service of the National Security Committee (KNB) said on Friday, TASS reports.

        The meeting of the republican task force for combating terrorism was held in Nur-Sultan led by Major General Yermek Sagimbaev, Chairman of the National Security Committee, on Jan 6. By order of the Chairman of the KNB, the head of task force in coordination with the President introduced a critical “red” level of terrorist danger throughout the territory of Kazakhstan. “An anti-terrorist operation regime is in effect in all regions,” the KNB said in a statement.

        The red level of terrorist danger means authorities can conduct personal searches and inspections of belongings, vehicles, temporarily restrict or prohibit their movement; have unimpeded access to residential and other premises; take measures such as the monitoring of conversations and other information transmitted through telecommunications systems.

        Mass protests started in Kazakhstan on Jan 2 in the western town of Zhanaozen after the government lifted price caps for liquefied petroleum gas. Protests then spread across the country, leading to the resignation of the government. Ex-president Nursultan Nazarbaev stepped down as Security Council Chairman.