Author: Kajoyan Gevork

Movsesian, Morgenthau Offer Moving Remarks at ANCA-ER Salute to Civic Activism

By Contributor on January 8, 2015

Morgenthau: ‘The world has paid a heavy price for not paying attention
to the Armenian Genocide.’

NEW YORK–Lifelong humanitarian Alice Movsesian and famed human rights
defender Robert Morgenthau and the Morgenthau family were honored by
Armenian-American community leaders and activists from throughout the
New York metropolitan area, southern states, and the Midwest at the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Eastern Region 8th
Annual Banquet held on Dec. 7 at the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park in New
York.

Alice Movsesian receiving the Cardashian Award

The evening was a tribute to the growing voice of Armenian Americans
in the civic arena, with elected officials and community stalwarts
emphasizing the key role the ANCA and its grassroots network play in
representing Armenians’ views on core concerns, ranging from justice
for the Armenian Genocide, an independent Artsakh, a strong,
prosperous, and democratic Armenia, to support for Armenians in the
Middle East.

(L-R) Robert Morgenthau receiving the Freedom Award on behalf of the
Morgenthau family from Dr. Garo Nazarian

“One of our greatest strengths lies in the diversity of our ANCA
supporters. We are here in this room with quite the mix: varying ages,
different political and economic backgrounds, and hail from different
countries,” said the evening’s master of ceremonies, Dr. Garo
Nazarian, a prominent member of New York community with a long track
record of humanitarian efforts in Armenia. “Collectively we make the
ANCA an incredible organization. We can foster an environment in which
each individual matters, every story is read, and every voice is
heard. This all contributes to the long-term success of the Armenian
National Committee of America.”

Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Frank Pallone cited the need
for continued activism by the Armenian community, especially in
educating the new Members of Congress about the Armenian Cause. “I
want to urge you to continue to be involved, not only in the way you
are tonight but also financially, in terms of petitions, writing
letters, coming down to Washington and meeting with your
Representatives. The fact that Armenia is in a hostile neighborhood is
still very true. The biggest concern now is the continued aggression
from Azerbaijan, not only aggressive statements, but aggressive
actions.”

ANCA Freedom Award honoree Robert Morgenthau: Third generation of a
legendary family

Shant Mardirossian, the chairman of the Board of the Near East
Foundation, offered a moving introduction of ANCA Eastern Region
Freedom Award recipient Robert Morgenthau and the Morgenthau family
for their decades-long efforts to raise the public’s awareness of the
atrocities of the Armenian Genocide.

“The name ‘Morgenthau’ is synonymous with ‘public service,'”
Mardirossian stated in his remarks. “In searching the ledgers of New
York City history or, indeed, American history, one is hard pressed to
find a family that better embodies a commitment to social justice. The
Morgenthau family has garnered accolades, inspired debates, and fueled
discussions for generations. They have been at the center of global
and local social change for over a century. In that time they have
impacted and saved countless lives.”

Morgenthau came up to the podium to a standing ovation and warmly
greeted those in attendance. His speech was marked by enthusiasm and
eloquence. “This award is particularly meaningful because of the
upcoming anniversary of the Armenian Genocide,” began Morgenthau. “I
know my grandfather would also have been proud that you have asked me
to be with you tonight. It demonstrates once again that Armenians do
not forget their friends, even until the third generation.”

“It is important to understand that the world has paid a heavy price
for not paying attention to the Armenian Genocide,” Morgenthau added.
“If there had been a greater outcry and condemnation of the Armenian
Genocide, perhaps Hitler would not have proceeded with his plan to
kill the Poles and the Jews in the land that he intended to occupy.”

Robert Morgenthau was born in New York City in 1919 into a highly
regarded political family. His grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., was
the United States ambassador serving in the Ottoman Empire during
World War I and is regarded as the most prominent contemporary
American politician to speak against the Armenian Genocide. A lawyer
by training, Robert Morgenthau continued his family’s tradition of
public service, serving as district attorney of New York’s Manhattan
Borough from 1975 to 2009, making him the second longest-serving
district attorney in United States history.

(L-R) ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian, Sue Aramian, ANCA
Chairman Kenneth Hachikian, and Gloria Hachikian

OSCE to continue work on peaceful settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict: James Warlick

18:32, 08 Jan 2015

The OSCE Minsk Group will continue work to reach progress in the
settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the US Co-Chair of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk
Group, Ambassador James Warlick told Trend.

“Co-Chairs will continue to engage the sides at the highest levels to
make progress towards a settlement,” he said.

“Engaging in negotiations that could lead to a peace agreement and
adopting measures that reduce the likelihood of incidents along the
Line of Contact and the Armenia-Azerbaijan border would help to
decrease tensions,” said Warlick. “We encourage the sides to consider
such proposals seriously.”

He went on to add that it is important that the sides commit
themselves to a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
in 2015.

ARMENIE
L’AGMI a donné le départ de son projet >

L’Institut-Musée du Génocide arménien (AGMI) a lancé le projet >. Le projet est dédié à la mission et
l’héritage du monde de la plus grande campagne de secours des
États-Unis d’Amérique pendant et après la Première Guerre mondiale,
qui est malheureusement ignoré et oublié de nos jours dans la mémoire
américaine et la politique actuelles. Il est à noter que l’héritage du
Near East Relief est devenu un modèle pour les opérations mondiales
ultérieures de secours.

Le directeur de l’AGMI le Dr Hayk Demoyan a déclaré à ce sujet : >.

L’AGMI a prévu plusieurs événements commémoratifs pour le centenaire
du génocide arménien et du Near East relief en 2015. Tout d’abord le
noyau du projet sera une exposition itinérante de 36 unités pour une
présentation dans le monde entier accompagnés de pièces originales et
de catalogues multilingues. Outre une exposition de photos illustrant
les sites des anciens orphelinats du Near East Relief, la diffusion de
cartes postales et de timbres commémoratifs sont aussi prévus. Des
événements commémoratifs dédiés à Henry Morgenthau, l’ambassadeur
américain dans l’Empire ottoman, qui a inspiré l’implication
humanitaire américaine au Proche-Orient sont prévus aussi.

Le directeur adjoint de l’AGMI Lusine Abrahamyan qui est actuellement
l’un des commissaires du projet mentionne que

FRANCE
Justice et v̩rit̩ pour LEYLA РROJBIN РSAKINE

Le 09 janvier 2013, Leyla SAYLEMEZ, Fidan (Rojbîn) DOGAN et Sakine
CANSIZ étaient assassinées en plein Paris. Cet acte odieux a soulevé
indignation et émotion dans notre pays.

Militantes et dirigeantes du combat pour la reconnaissance des droits
politiques et culturels du peuple kurde, elles ont payé au prix fort
leur engagement militant.

La France, pays des droits de l’Homme, n’a pas su les protéger de ceux
qui depuis des décennies tentent par tous les moyens d’étouffer
l’expression d’une volonté populaire qui réclame le droit, la paix et
la démocratie. Des éléments concordants, laissant apparaitre
l’implication des services secrets turcs (MIT), renforcent l’idée de
la responsabilité de la Turquie dans ces assassinats.

Le peuple kurde en exil, ou sur ses terres historiques et ancestrales,
ne se résigne pas face aux politiques négationnistes et répressives
dont il est victime en Turquie, en Iran ou Syrie.

Il est debout en Syrie pour combattre la barbarie de Daesh, il est
debout en Turquie pour faire vivre le principe de l’autonomie
démocratique, il est debout en Iran pour faire vivre son identité. Il
est debout en Irak où il a acquis en tant que peuple une
reconnaissance internationale.

Il est debout avec, à ses côtés, toutes les forces progressistes qui,
dans notre pays, demandent la Justice et la Vérité pour les trois
militantes assassinées.

Toute la vérité doit être faite sur ces assassinats, les
commanditaires identifiés et poursuivis, les assassins condamnés.

Par la voix des plus hautes autorités de l’Etat, la France doit
affirmer une volonté politique forte pour que soient mis en lumière
les responsabilités des différents acteurs de ces crimes. Il ne peut y
avoir de raisons d’Etat qui l’emportent sur le respect de la vie
humaine et des droits des peuples.

Le 10 janvier 2015, par milliers, portons ces exigences.

SAMEDI 10 JANVIER 2015 – 11 H

GARE DU NORD – RÉPUBLIQUE

avec le soutien du CCAF

Coordination Nationale Solidarité Kurdistan (CNSK)

Conseil Démocratique Kurde en France (CDKF)

16, rue d’Enghien – 75010 Paris

Tel : 09.52.51.09.34

jeudi 8 janvier 2015,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

Marianne
Que cesse la complaisance vis-à-vis de l’islamisme radical

Pour l’auteur du récent essai “Géopolitique du printemps arabe”,
Frédéric Encel, les choses sont claires : s’il ne faut “pas confondre
islam d’une part, islamisme radical d’autre part”, “l’écoeurante
complaisance de certains doit cesser vis-à-vis de de l’islamisme
radical”. Car “c’est toujours en affirmant unis et déterminés leurs
valeurs que les démocrates l’emportent”.

En tant que citoyen amoureux des libertés, mais aussi comme patriote,
cet acte barbare m’inspire à la fois de la consternation et du dégoût.
Le terrorisme en tant qu’il tue des civils est abject en soi, et il
serait bon qu’on abandonne de prudentes circonlocutions ; en l’espèce,
les assassins n’ont pas seulement cherché à frapper un symbole – terme
̫ combien galvaud̩ ! Рmais ̩galement voulu arracher le plus de vies
possibles.

Lire la suite, voir lien plus bas

jeudi 8 janvier 2015,
Jean Eckian (c)armenews.com

The National. UAE
Jan 8 2015

The Killing Compartments: The Mentality of Mass Murder is a study of a
century of state killings

Steve Donoghue

January 8, 2015

“Homo homini lupus est” goes the old Latin truism: man is a wolf to
man. The ancient Romans blandly accepted this fact of human existence
– Cicero, their foremost public thinker, not only executed political
enemies but was himself executed by political enemies – but the
essayist and public thinker Abram de Swaan, professor emeritus at the
University of Amsterdam, has devoted years to studying humans killing
humans, and his latest book, The Killing Compartments: The Mentality
of Mass Murder, is a penetrating and thrillingly thought-provoking
analysis of the subject.

De Swaan’s concentration is asymmetrical killing; he’s less interested
in the clash of armies by night than he is by the wide-scale murder of
non–combatants – not just strictly genocide, he carefully
distinguishes, but any wide-scale killings by a state apparatus
conducted against non-soldiers. And despite his deliberately
provocative opening line, “We live in peaceful times”, his primary
focus – the 20th century – provides him with plenty of examples to
study. The Armenian massacre, the killing fields of Cambodia, the
-government-sponsored famines of Mao’s China, the pogroms of Stalin,
of course the Nazis and their Final Solution – states murdered
non-combatants in the 20th century on a sheer scale undreamt of by the
Romans, or the Persians, or the Huns.

De Swaan seeks to understand not only why this is so, but also how
it’s so, what the actual -interpersonal mechanisms are by which states
can do these things. After all, he isn’t for the most part studying
soldiers under arms – he’s studying ordinary people pressed into the
task of killing other ordinary people, and the numbers are staggering.
“Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people are led to destroy
hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people,” he writes. “But
before that, most of them may not have harmed a living soul. Once it
is over, most of them by far will never again physically hurt another
person. Where does this extreme violence come from, and how can it
disappear again, seemingly without a trace?”

His fundamental contention is that “mass annihilation” – the more or
less systematic killing of large numbers of civilians by a state
apparatus – occurs in societies that have become “compartmentalised”
in one to four ways: mentally, socially, institutionally or
physically. He asserts early on in his book that it simply “won’t do”
to fall back on that old Roman truism; man, he claims, is not a wolf
to man – not generally. Such depredation only happens when
compartmentalisation has subjected certain elements of a population to
stresses well -outside their normal environment. Compartmentalisation
likewise extends to the victims: they’re cut off, isolated from
extended communities, characterised as inhuman.

One of the many brilliant conceptual strokes of The Killing
Compartments is de Swaan’s breakdown of these stresses into four
general categories, four “modes” by which mass killings are
facilitated. The first and perhaps most straight-forward of these is
something he calls “conqueror’s frenzy”, which “occurs far from home,
largely un-beknown to the domestic public”, and is “perpetrated
exclusively by the military”. The horror inflicted on the Belgian
population by advancing German soldiers in 1914 would be an example of
this, or even more wide-scale events such as the “Rape of Nanking”
carried out by Japanese soldiers in 1937. The stresses here are at
least familiar: front-line soldiers, under arms and anxious about
being killed, unleash their pent-up anxieties in the form of rage.

De Swaan’s second mode is “rule by terror”, which “employs
professional violence specialists and a dedicated system of insulated
detention and extermination sites”. Here the reader might think of
operations such as the gulag system of Soviet Russia, where terror
motivated ordinary citizens to spy and inform on each other
(including, infamously, family members turning on each other to save
themselves) and the arrested were sent to “insulated” extermination
sites, such as the distant work camps of Siberia.

Opposing the more formalised state-run system of rule by terror is
another of de Swaan’s modes of annihilation, the “megapogrom”, in
which “a wave of apparently spontaneous deadly local riots” erupt
along the fracture points of a society, creating “a free-for-all for
whoever joins the slaughter of a vaguely defined target group”.
Pressure events, de Swaan claims, such as military defeat or social
upheaval, “provoke, synchronise, and concatenate these local events
into one huge campaign of annihilation, condoned if not covertly or
even openly encouraged, by the regime in power”. A standout example of
this would be the Red Guard groups that appeared and flourished during
Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, roving bands of young people
exacting ad hoc punishments on alleged offenders without the direct
cooperation of the state police.

And the most seemingly irrational of all four of de Swaan’s killing
modes would be the “losers’ triumph”, in which “genocidal regimes
facing imminent destruction by an enemy army surprisingly continue and
perhaps intensify their campaign to annihilate the target group” – as
seen in recent history during the genocide in Rwanda, when the
Hutu-led government intensified its slaughter of Tutsi non-combatants
even as the RPF forces were advancing from the north.

De Swaan hardly needs to point out that the darkest and most ready
20th-century exemplar of all four of these modes of annihilation is
Nazi Germany, and it’s natural to read his book as a response, in
part, to the concept of “the banality of evil” first popularised in
Hannah Arendt’s 1963 account of Adolf Eichmann’s war-crimes trial in
Jerusalem. De Swaan takes issue with Arendt’s characterisation of
Eichmann as just one ordinary, faceless bureaucrat in a state
mechanism of terror (he points out, for instance, that “even at the
time, it was well known that Eichmann had been a fanatical Jew hunter
who knew full well what fate lay in store for his prey”); it’s his
fundamental contention that evil is not banal, and that it’s only
perpetrated on a large scale by ordinary people under extraordinary
pressures.

“I very much doubt that I, or most of my readers for that matter,” he
protests, “on being brought into the killing site would have started,
like auto-matons, clubbing, knifing, shooting, gassing people to death
by the thousands, for weeks and months at a stretch.”

In short, The Killing Compartments is an elaborate exculpation of
humanity from the charge of being genetic “genocidaires”; de Swaan
argues that turning ordinary people into mass killers requires either
-extreme duress – the threat of war or economic destruction – or
extensive preparation, in which certain target groups are
compartmentalised to such a point that their slaughter no longer seems
abhorrent. As he puts it, “There is nothing ‘banal’ about such an
experience.”

It’s a masterful, clutter–clearing summation, and it’s only slightly
hampered by the fact that de Swaan has engineered his categories to be
all-inclusive. If his overview has a flaw, it’s not found in
“conquerors’ frenzy” or “rule by terror” or “losers’ triumph” but in
his concept of the “megapogrom”, in which the ruling state steps back
and allows natural upwellings of homicidal, genocidal aggression to
make accomplices out of the general population.

De Swaan is forced to admit that in such cases compartmentalism is
either “much less elaborate” or non-existent; “mobs seem to assemble
spontaneously to murder their targeted victims out in the open, in a
brief period of blood frenzy”. He tries to mitigate this by pointing
out that those crowds are suffering from long-term pressures, but what
general populace doesn’t feel long-term pressures?

Likewise his contention that most 20th-century examples of mass
annihilation “never proceeded in dispassionate, calculated
destruction”. Without exception, he writes, these episodes were
“grisly, bloody, and wild”. But the 20 or so mass annihilations de
Swaan examines almost universally belie this characterisation, as does
his own concept of the spontaneously flaring “megapogrom”: in
virtually all the cases he cites, from Stalin’s institutionalised
famines to the busy train schedules of the Final Solution to the
extensive slaughter plannings in the Rwandan genocide, there’s a
depressing abundance of -dispassion and calculation. Enough, perhaps,
to justify a harder look at whether or not humans are hardwired for
killing.

Steve Donoghue is managing -editor of Open Letters Monthly.

Russian hedge fund CEO Kim Karapaetyan and $20M in accounts disappear

January 6, 2015

Fox News – The disappearance of a Russian hedge fund founder — and
the missing $20 million in fund accounts — has those he left behind
seeking answers.

Employees of Blackfield Capital CJSC — once one of Moscow’s hottest
hedge funds — want to know the whereabouts of founder and CEO, Kim
Karapetyan, 29, who vanished sometime in October.

It was mid-October when three men charged into Blackfield’s offices in
a luxury complex in Moscow, former employees told The Wall Street
Journal. The unidentified men said they were looking for Karapetyan,
who was not in the office that day, and has not showed up there since.

Senior executives of the fund had to explain to the 50-person staff
that all the money in company accounts — some $20 million, including
investor cash — was gone, so there was no way to pay their salaries.

It’s not clear whether investors in the fund were all Russian or from
other countries.

“Our CEO just …disappeared,” Sergey Grebenkin, one of the firm’s
software developers, told the Journal.

Karapetyan had received attention in the investment community for his
expensive taste and spending habits. He hosted glitzy parties,
reportedly rented a $15,000 per month Manhattan apartment in 2013, and
had recently asked his U.S.-based staff to purchase a $300,000 Aston
Martin sports car.

The ambitious CEO had plans to expand his business to London and the
U.S., renting office space in New York’s financial district. As
recently as October, the firm planned to start trading on the London
Stock Exchange and Chicago Mercantile Exchange, according to former
employees.

The Journal’s efforts to reach Karapetyan by phone, email and through
associates and friends were unsuccessful. His Facebook, LinkedIn and
Google mail counts have been closed, and his cellphone has been
disconnected.

To add to the mystery, a person claiming to be Karapetyan contacted
top staff members and investors several days after his disappearance,
with a cryptic message from a temporary email address. He wrote that
he was on the run because he was being threatened, according to
several people who received the message. He also promised to return
all funds to investors but gave no further contact information.

Karapetyan told former employees he had worked at Morgan Stanley as a
portfolio manager and graduated with a master’s degree from the London
School of Economics. But The Journal determined neither institution
has any record of him.

Blackfield was launched in 2009 aimed at conquering the modern
markets. Several former staffers said Karapetyan told them the firm
once managed as much as $300 million.

According to the paper, the first signs of trouble came in the spring
of 2014 following the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, which led
to international sanctions against Russian businesses and individuals.
Shortly after, Blackfield’s U.S. entity ended its lease and let its
staff go. The firm blamed the shutdown on a lack of financing related
to “the economic slowdown in Russia,” according to a former employee,
who heard from Moscow employees that several big investors had
withdrawn funds.

Blackfield employee Danil Krivopustov came to work expecting a regular
day on October 8, but soon learned Blackfield was out of cash and the
firm’s founder was missing.

“I left at 5 p.m. without money or a job,” Krivopustov said. “We
haven’t heard anything since.”

Javakhk Armenians Eagerly Await Their Piece of the Georgian Dream

By Varant Meguerditchian on January 7, 2015

The Georgian Dream Party (GDP) dramatically came to power in 2012 on
the back of a popular message. The GDP claimed that Mikhail
Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) had become authoritarian
and lost touch with the people. The message was strong: The government
will deliver for the people of Georgia. This was the “Georgian Dream.”

The Armenian Youth Center of Akhalkalak

The dramatic takeover of the government started with the election of
Georgia Dream’s Bidzina Ivanishvili as prime minister in October 2012.
A year later, Ivanishvili’s former education minister, Giorgi
Margvelashvili, replaced Saakashvili in the largely ceremonial role of
president. Soon after, Ivanishvili fulfilled his election promise to
voluntarily step aside, naming his long-time Georgia Dream associate
Irakli Garibashvili as the new prime minister of Georgia.

The GDP’s hold on all major Georgian government posts was complete by
December 2013. Twelve months on, the Armenians of Javakhk are still
eagerly awaiting their piece of the Georgian Dream.

Challenging economic conditions encountered by Javakhk Armenians over
the course of a number of years led many to attain Armenian
citizenship and travel to Russia to seek employment. As Georgia’s
legislation restricts dual citizenship, these Javakhk Armenians were
not permitted to retain their Georgian citizenship.

Now, due to new Georgian government visa laws, these natives of
Javakhk must attain a visa to return home for stays over 90 days. The
visa process is cumbersome and the need to “verify possessing of
sufficient funds,” as outlined in the visa requirements, has proven to
be difficult for many. For fathers and brothers who have been forced
to leave for work, the visa requirements are posing a serious
impediment to reuniting with their families in Javakhk.

In October 2014, an Armenian parliamentary delegation led by National
Assembly Speaker Galust Sahakyan made representations to the Georgian
government on behalf of the Armenians of Javakhk concerning these
travel impediments. Upon its return, the delegation noted that
promises had been made by the Georgian government to address the
issue. Despite these promises, a timely resolution has not been
forthcoming, and Javakhk Armenians are still being kept away from
their families.

Promises made by President Margvelashvili while serving as education
minister to improve education conditions for Javakhk Armenians are
also still pending. Despite numerous requests from teachers and
students to educate in and learn their native language, the government
remains determined to make Georgian the principal language of
instruction in schools.

Acceptance of Armenian as an official regional language would
ultimately resolve the issue of learning rights and allow for more
effective interaction between Javakhk Armenians and regional
government institutions. But there seems to be little hope that
Armenian will be elevated to an official language of Javakhk in the
near future.

Ivanishvili’s pledge to fund a historical commission to resolve
disputes of church ownership between the Armenian Apostolic Church and
Georgian Orthodox Church has also not materialized. During his first
visit to the Republic of Armenia, the former prime minister and leader
of the GDP had committed to funding the research, but the
investigation has not yet commenced. As a result, a number of these
churches still remain in the possession of Georgian Orthodox Church
authorities.

In the absence of good governance for the Armenians of Javakhk, a
number of NGOs have been filling the void. These NGOs have been doing
their best to serve the cultural, educational, and at times economic
needs of Javakhk Armenians.

Earlier this year, the Support to Javakhk Fund was founded by seven
prominent Javakhk Armenians with the aim of implementing projects
devoted to the socioeconomic development of the Armenian-populated
regions of Javakhk and Tsalka.

The fund supports families with multiple children, providing one-off
grants of 1,000 GEL (approximately 550 USD) for the birth of a third
child, 1,500 GEL (approximately 830 USD) for a fourth, and 2,000 GEL
(approximately 1,100 USD) for a fifth. According to the program
coordinators, more than 40,000 USD has already been disbursed to
Javakhk families under this program.

Another program implemented by the fund includes gifting a cow to
Javakhk villagers with the expectation that the cow will bare a calf
that is later returned to the fund and accepted as payment for the
cow. The program has been effective in improving the conditions of
many villagers in Javakhk.

The website details the social, health-related, cultural,
and community programs currently run by the Support to Javakhk Fund.

The Armenian Relief Society (ARS) is also undertaking important work
in Javakhk. The organization recently celebrated the seventh
anniversary of the establishment of its youth center in Akhalkalak.
Some 400 young Armenian youth participated in programs run by the
Akhalkalak youth center.

The ARS has established a number of such youth centers throughout
Javakhk. The most recently established center was officially opened in
the border town of Ninotzminda in September 2014. The ARS centers
serve to strengthen and enrich the knowledge of the youth of Javakhk,
providing locals with the opportunity to learn Armenian history and
become immersed in Armenian culture.

Just as with every new government, the GDP government of Prime
Minister Irakli Garibashvili is entitled to a grace period–time to
settle into government, prioritize objectives, and implement policies
to deliver for the people. For the GDP government, that grace period
is nearing its end.

Where the needs of the people of Javakhk sit on the GDP’s list of
political priorities is uncertain. But many remain hopeful that the
GDP’s open and honest communication and promises will deliver better
conditions for the people of Javakhk.

While NGOs and their supporters work tirelessly to deliver their
programs, the people of Javakhk wait patiently with the expectation
that in the new year, the Georgian government will finally give them
their piece of the “Georgian Dream.”

Trend, Azerbaijan
Jan 7 2015

BBC airs footage about Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (VIDEO)

By Elena Kosolapova – Trend:

BBC International Media Corporation has shown a video release about
the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The footage features an Azerbaijani family, living in the conflict
zone. “We can’t live on the second floor, it is too dangerous,” said
the head of family. “So, all our family is cramped into one room
downstairs. Residents complain of the bullets hitting their homes.”

“Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over Nagorno-Karabakh in 1990s,”
BBC said. “30,000 people were killed, Azerbaijan lost the territory
and seven adjacent regions, hundreds of thousands of people were
displaced. Since the ceasefire agreement in 1994 there hasn’t been
much progress in resolving this conflict. In the outside world, it is
often referred to as “a frozen conflict”, but for the thousands of
people who live close to the frontline it never froze and coming under
fire is a daily reality.”

The video release said that military causalities have escalated last
year. “Tensions peaked when Azerbaijani forces shot down a helicopter
in November ,” BBC said.

“Attack helicopters belonging to the air forces of Armenia conducted
assault flights and made attack elements through the defense positions
of the Azerbaijan armed forces and therefore obvious incident
happened,” Hikmet Hajiyev, acting head of the press service of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan said. “For the Armenian
side, every time using provocative activities and provocative actions,
the major intention is to damage and hurt the negotiation process.”

In the absence of progress at the negotiation table, Azerbaijan has
been spending billions of dollars boosting its military capability,
according to BBC.

The youngest schoolchildren can recite the names of the territories
now occupied by Armenia, according to the footage. They believe that
through war or peace, their land will be returned, even if it takes
another generation to achieve it.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan.

As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied
20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and
seven surrounding districts.

The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently
holding peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions
on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.

BBC link:

Turkey to counter Armenian Genocide recognition campaign, Erdogan says

17:38 07/01/2015 » IN THE WORLD

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday Ankara would “actively”
challenge a campaign pressuring Turkey to recognize the Armenian
Genocide, on the 100th anniversary of the tragedy this year, AFP
reports.

“I believe that both the foreign ministry and the relevant
institutions will actively counter those allegations,” Erdogan told
Turkey’s ambassadors in a keynote speech, adding that discussions were
already under way to detail an action plan.

Also, Erdogan accused Armenia of expending its energy on genocide
claims and politicising the issue by imposing its own “biased” view
point.

Source: Panorama.am