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.
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.
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.
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.
By
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
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.
(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 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.
30 years ago, on January 7, 1992 Armenia and the United States formally established diplomatic relations, following President George Bush’s recognition of the Republic of Armenia two weeks earlier, in a historic address to the nation on December 25, 1991.
In his speech, President Bush talked about the collapse of the Soviet Union, the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and recognized the independence of a number of former Soviet Republics, including Armenia.
The United States recognized Armenia’s independence on December 25, 1991, when President George H.W. Bush announced the decision in an address to the nation regarding the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the US Embassy in Armenia reminds. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established.
US-Armenian relations go back much further. During the brief period of Armenia’s independence in 1918-1920, the United States recognized the independence of the Armenian Republic on April 23, 1920, when Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby delivered a note to the Representative of the Armenian Republic (Pasdermadjian) in Washington, informing him of President Woodrow Wilson’s decision.
The note specified that this recognition “in no way predetermines the territorial frontiers, which…are matters for later delimitation.”
The territory expected to compose the independent Armenian Republic previously had been under the sovereignty of the Ottoman and Russian Empires. At the request of the Paris Peace Conference’s Supreme Council of the Allied Powers, President Wilson arbitrated the boundary to be set between Armenia and Turkey, and submitted his determinations to the Supreme Council on November 22, 1920.
Prior to Wilson’s decisions, however, the territory expected to compose the Armenian Republic had been attacked by Turkish and Bolshevik troops. By the end of 1920 the Armenian Republic had ceased to exist as an independent state, with its territory either seized by Turkey or established as the Armenian Soviet Republic, which subsequently joined the Soviet Union.
Tensions flared outside the local government building in Parakar, a rural community in Armenia’s Armavir Province, on Friday morning.
Scores of police forces deployed at the entrance to the building did not allow the supporters of the Aprelu Yerkir (Country to Live) party candidate to enter it as the new Council of Elders was to hold a session to elect a new community head.
“There is no solidarity,” said Valodya Grigoryan, appointed as community head by the Aprelu Yerkir faction, and entered the village hall building without answering other questions.
Tensions arose in Parakar after the December 5 local elections, when two candidates announced that they had been elected head of the community.
The Aprelu Yerkir party won ten seats in the Council of Elders as a result of the elections and named its candidate, Valodya Grigoryan, as new head of the community.
Afterwards, the Davit Minasyan bloc and the ruling Civil Contract party jointed forces and elected Davit Minasyan as Parakar community head.
Grigoryan had to take an oath of office in the courtyard of the building on December 23, since police officers did not allow him to enter it.
Later the Administrative Court ruled to annul the appointment of the new community head.
Former Armenian prisoner of war (POW) Robert Nalbandyan, who was arrested in Armenia after returning from Azerbaijani captivity, was released on Friday, human rights activist Ruben Melikyan said.
“Our first client in the “POW case”, Robert Nalbandyan, regained freedom today. He had been under arrest for 52 days; first in Azerbaijani prison and then in Armenian prison. Robert will now rejoin with his three minor children and try to recover from the injuries he sustained in Azerbaijan,” Melikyan wrote on Facebook, sharing a photo with him.
According to the lawyer, given their sufferings in Azerbaijan, arrests of former captives in their home country should be ruled out.
Nalbandyan was taken captive during the November 16 clashes on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and later returned to Armenia, where he was accused of violating the rules of combat duty.