Author: Kalantarian Kevo

The New York Times
August 19, 2012 Sunday
Late Edition – Final

Native of Nowhere

BYLINE: By ATOSSA ARAXIA ABRAHAMIAN.
A journalist at Reuters and an editor at The New Inquiry.

I ENTERED the green card lottery in the fall of 2010. It was a
surprisingly simple form, composed mostly of questions on contact
information, but a box that read ”Country Claimed” gave me pause.
Most applicants write in wherever they were born, but for me it was a
bit more complicated; I could not, in good faith, claim any country as
my own.I was born in Canada on July 19, 1986. My Iranian-born parents
(of Armenian and Russian extraction) were living in Geneva at the
time, but Switzerland grants citizenship only to the children of
naturalized citizens. My parents, who both worked for the United
Nations, didn’t know if they would live there long enough to meet the
residency requirements. I was destined to inherit an Iranian passport,
and they knew all too well the lifetime of travel and work
restrictions that would entail.

So they came up with a third-country solution. My mother would fly to
Vancouver, British Columbia, wearing an oversize raincoat just weeks
before her due date. She would give birth at a local hospital, stay
with her brother, who lived there, until my paperwork was processed,
and return to Geneva with a Canadian baby in tow. It worked so well
that she repeated the process four years later with my brother.

My mother was finally naturalized when I was 8, so I was able to
become a Swiss citizen after all. But my papers were, once again,
misleading. Growing up, I spoke four languages at home — Armenian
with my father, Russian with my mother and English and French with
baby sitters — and attended international schools in which no one
cared where you were from unless it was during the World Cup. I lived
in Switzerland, but for all intents and purposes, I grew up on
international soil.

When I went to college in New York, I was invited to Armenian events
on the basis of my last name and Iranian ones on account of my first
name, and I didn’t think too much about where I came from. I was busy
making friends and falling in love with the city. I spent summers
working here, and it was the first place I’d ever lived that felt like
home to me. Having spent my entire (albeit short) adult life here, I
couldn’t imagine leaving. So when I graduated, I found myself in need
of a work visa.

There are several types of visas under which foreigners can work here,
from seasonal farm work programs to O visas for ”extraordinary
aliens” — Nobel Prize winners, celebrities and occasionally writers.
For someone like me, just starting out in a career, this one was a
long shot. The most common visa among college graduates is the H1-B.
But the application process takes months, and the employer is required
to shell out thousands of dollars in legal fees to pay for
sponsorship. The foreigner’s legal status in the country also depends
on maintaining his or her employment.

When I graduated, right before the Great Recession, no one was
sponsoring. I asked a lawyer if there was anything I could do to stay.
He took my $100 consultation fee and asked if I had a boyfriend I
could marry.

I left. But I had no idea where to go. I felt like a foreigner in
Geneva, and most of my friends had left. I’d spent no time in Canada.
I had nothing in Iran. I tried out Russia for size, but lasted barely
six weeks (life advice: don’t go to Russia if you’re depressed).
Eventually, I found a job at an international organization in Paris
and spent the year Skyping with my New York friends, listening to WNYC
reruns on my laptop and applying to graduate schools back in the
United States.

Had I not had the good fortune and the funds to go back to school, I
don’t know where in the world I’d be. In 2010, I was able to return to
New York for a master’s program in journalism, and I spent that year
working harder than I ever had before. I would have to make up for my
nationality with labor and talent, a school counselor told me. When I
interviewed for jobs, I felt like a leper. My international classmates
joked that coming clean about a limited work permit at a job interview
was like telling someone you had herpes on a first date.

In the meantime, I entered the green card — also known as the
”diversity” — lottery. They call it a lottery for good reason; the
odds of winning are minute. But I’d marked the deadline in my calendar
the year before, and it seemed like a waste to let it pass. I didn’t
have the right-size photograph to attach to my application, so my
boyfriend snapped a picture of me standing against a dusty white wall
in our kitchen. It was 7 a.m., and head-on, I looked like a sleepy
convict. I wrote down my phone number and address, and under ”Country
Claimed,” settled on Switzerland.

Last summer, when I found out I’d won, I couldn’t believe it could be
that simple. I called three lawyers to make sure it was real. They
said it was.

It wasn’t.

Two painful months later, I received a letter from the United States
Embassy in Bern. It informed me that I was disqualified from the
lottery because I’d claimed the wrong country of origin. Although I
had Swiss citizenship, I was not a Swiss native, because I was born in
Canada. Canadians typically aren’t eligible for the lottery, but if
I’d claimed Iran, where my parents were born, I wouldn’t have had any
trouble. I appealed and complained, but nothing could be done. My
mother’s trip in the summer of 1986 came back to bite me. The punch
line, of course, was that I was too diverse for the diversity lottery.
Even I can’t tell you where I’m from.

I used to think of immigration as a problem for the migrant poor, not
something that affected college-educated global citizens. I now know
that getting a work permit is a complicated and often heartbreaking
process, no matter who you are. Thanks to months of pitching articles
to whoever would let me write them — not to mention a good lawyer —
I finally obtained an O visa this year. I don’t have to get married,
to a man or a job, to have a career in the United States. But I was
able to stay only because I had the time, resources and support to
make it work. For most people, the odds are stacked against them from
beginning to end.

URL:

Ottawa Citizen, Canada
Aug 17 2012

Mystery monument details emerge from overseas

Armenian tensions may be why Baird refuses to talk Turkey

By Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen

Is John Baird running the NCC? One day he’s announcing the renaming of
the Ottawa River Parkway in honour of Sir John A. Macdonald – for no
good reason, by the way – while his department, Foreign Affairs, is
cagily guarding details of a secret monument, also on NCC land, meant
to honour Turkish diplomats.

One wonders whether he is also hand-picking the new CEO of the
National Cap-ital Commission, but let’s not give in to rampant
cynicism.

There is news about the mystery monument, on the southeast corner of
Island Park Drive and the Macdonald Parkway, or the “A.”

It is indeed, as reported in the Citizen, a monument meant to honour
fallen Turkish diplomats, in particular Col. Atilla Altikat, who was
slain in a brazen attack on this corner in 1982.

The military attaché was the second Turkish embassy official ambushed
in Ottawa that year.

It was part of a worldwide campaign by Armenian terrorists.

According to a Turkish news-paper, the Hürriyet Daily News, there is a
reason for all this secrecy about the look and purpose of the
monument, which is being completed under a white tarp: the Armenians.

“The project was kept secret to prevent possible interventions by the
Armenian lobby, Tolga Tanis of daily Hürriyet reported to-day,” reads
a story from the paper’s Washington bureau.

Bizarre. One has to ask the obvious.

If there is concern about letting the Armenians know beforehand, does
this not suggest there will be ongoing concern once the monument is
unveiled?

What are we to do, post guards 24/7? Little cut-outs of Sir John A.?

The newspaper story has other details.

It says Turkish ambassador Rafet Akgünay sought out artists and an
architectural firm to come up with three possible designs for the
monument, expected to be unveiled before the end of the month to mark
the 30th anniversary of the slaying.

“The monument is a six-metre-wide and three-metre-deep semi-spherical
structure comprised of steel and wooden elements that took six months
to design and an-other six months to manufacture.

“ÎÎAll parts were flown in from Turkey under the sponsorship of
Turkish Airlines in July.”

Don’t know about the rest of you, but it is less than reassuring to
find out about news developments two blocks from my house from a
Turkish newspaper.

But such is the lay of the land. Even Baird, asked about the monument
by a Citizen reporter this week, declined to provide specifics.

“When completed, a final wood-en stake will pierce the monument at its
centre, marking the exact spot where Altikat was killed by (Armenian
terrorist group) ASALA, sculptor (Necmettin) Yagci said.”

Since Altikat was shot in his car, waiting at a light many metres
away, this is probably a bit of poetic licence, but who knows?

“It no longer needs to remain a secret,” the sculptor said of his
de-sign. Well, except here.

The tension between the two countries can be traced to the massacre of
as many as 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman government, Turkey’s
precursor, during and after the First World War.

Turks have consistently disputed the Armenian characterization of the
slaughter as genocide.

The Armenian embassy in Ottawa declined to comment on the monument.

Paul Douzjian is a leading member of the local Armenian community,
which numbers about 800.

He said Thursday he doubted there would be an “undesirable” response
from local Armenians, though admitted he could not speak for “crazy
people” out there.

He is, however, quite keen on knowing what the Turks will pro-vide on
a plaque or sign by way of explanatory information.

“I’m very much interested in knowing what they are going to write on
this monument.”

It is still, he said, “a very touchy” subject.

The renaming of the Ottawa River Parkway, meanwhile, just seems to
strike a false note.

There are already a major bridge, a prominent federal building and the
Ottawa airport named for Canada’s first prime minister.

And now a parkway that has nothing in particular to do with the other
three, or with Sir John him-self?

It is certainly preferable to re-naming Wellington Street for
Macdonald, an appalling idea that made no sense and was historically
jar-ring.

It is a mystery why Ottawa, on the whole, is so bad at naming things.

Prominent sports promoter Howard Darwin’s name is being plunked on a
suburban hockey arena that speaks not one word about his contributions
to professional baseball or the Ottawa 67’s.

And the name of a former Ontario lieutenant-governor, James Bartleman,
was judged more suitable for the city archives than our most colourful
mayor, Charlotte Whitton.

Must we be so hollow, secretive – even weird?

Glendale News Press, CA
Aug 17 2012

Glendale police: Arrest stops records leak

Federal court employee is accused of tipping off organized crime members.

August 16, 2012|By Veronica Rocha, [email protected]

The arrest this week of a Hollywood couple accused of leaking
confidential court records to organized crime groups, including
Armenian Power, exposed a major `betrayal within the system’ that
forced authorities to move up timelines and change tactics to cope
with the breach, Glendale police officials said.

Nune Gevorkyan, 35, a federal court employee in Los Angeles, and her
husband, Oganes Koshkaryan, 40, were arrested Tuesday on charges that
they conspired to obstruct justice by tipping off organized crime
about police investigations and upcoming arrests.

`Organized crime is actually infiltrating in areas we wouldn’t have
expected,’ said Glendale Police Lt. Tim Feeley, who oversees the
Special Investigation Bureau and the Eurasian Organized Task Force,
which includes investigators from the FBI, U.S. Secret Service, U.S.
Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Glendale,
Burbank and Los Angeles police departments.

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Aug 17 2012

New U.S. Ambassador to arrive in Azerbaijan

New U.S. Ambassador Richard Morningstar will arrive in Azerbaijan
after August 25, it was announced at a private event held in honour of
the new U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan in the office of the United
States-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce (USACC) in Georgetown.

Morningstar raised the issues of energy security and cooperation in
the Caspian region, adding that the South Energy Corridor is important
for Azerbaijan in terms of energy diversification, according to a
press release of the United States-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce
(USACC).

The Ambassador also stressed the importance of the settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for both countries. The event was also
attended by members of USACC, representatives of the U.S. and the
Government of Azerbaijan, Trend News reports.

On June 30, the U.S. Senate approved the nomination of Richard
Morningstar as U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan.

The nomination of Morningstar, who was nominated for the post in
April by U.S. President Barack Obama, was unanimously approved by the
Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate.

The United States has had no ambassador in Azerbaijan since the
former Ambassador Matthew Bryza completed his mission in late December
last year.

On December 29, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama appointed by his
personal order Matthew Bryza, a career diplomat and former Assistant
Secretary of State, to the post of U. S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan,
bypassing the Senate, which blocked his appointment for a few months
under pressure from pro-Armenian senators Barbara Boxer and Robert
Menendez.

Deutsche Welle World, Germany
August 16, 2012 Thursday 4:45 PM EST

Kurds see increasing influence in Middle East

As the Assad regime loses ground in the Syrian civil war, ethnic Kurds
are gaining more and more leverage. Kurdish leaders have not been able
to unify, but neighboring countries are already alarmed. For a long
time it was relatively quiet in Syria’s Kurdish regions. As people in
the south and west of the country took to the streets to protest
against President Bashar Assad, there were few such demonstrations in
northeastern Syria, which is home mostly to ethnic Kurds. Young Kurds
soon joined the rebellion against the regime, but most of the rest of
the population took a wait-and-see approach.

As an ethnic minority, the Kurds did not want to end up between the
front lines. For many years, the Assad regime discriminated against
the Kurds and even denied their existence in Syria. But as the
pressure on the regime grew, Assad offered them Syrian citizenship,
hoping to buy their neutrality. It now appears as though a large
portion of the Syrian Kurds have not openly come out against Assad
because his government tolerates that they have a considerable degree
of autonomy in their region of the country.
Largest ethnic group without a country

The autonomy alarms neighboring Turkey where the banned Kurdish
Workers Party (PKK) has been fighting a three-decade-old insurrection
using ambushes and bomb attacks to gain their own state or at least
autonomy.

The Kurds are considered to be the world’s largest ethnic minority
without their own country. Population estimates range widely from 30
million to 38 million Kurds with most of them living in Turkey (13
million to 16 million), Iran (6 million to 8 million), Iraq (roughly 6
million) and Syria (1.5 million to 2.0 million). The fifth largest
population of Kurds lives outside the region in Germany (650,000).
Other, traditional, population centers can be found in Azerbaijan and
Armenia.

The violent struggle between the PKK and Turkey has cost the lives of
more than 40,000 people. Following the arrest and imprisonment of its
leader Abdullah Öcalan in 1999, the PKK has lost influence, but the
situation of Kurds in Turkey has improved over the years, not least
because the government in Ankara has applied to join the European
Union. Kurdish hopes for more autonomy, however, have not been
fulfilled.

Northern Iraq as a model

That’s why for many Turkish Kurds developments in northern Iraq are
serving as a model for the future. The majority of people living there
are Kurds. Under the protection of the United States, a self-ruling
Kurdish administration has evolved since 1991. After the fall of
Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Kurds were able to secure broad autonomy
in the region. Political stability and income from oil production have
ensured that the region has largely prospered. There is also a
functioning parliament and government under President Masud Barzani.

For several weeks now, some cities in Syria along the Turkish border
have been under Kurdish control. The Syrian army has partially
withdrawn to its barracks in the area. The Democratic Union Party
(PYD), considered an offshoot of the PKK, is essentially running the
show.

Unclear position

What aims the PYD is ultimately pursuing is unclear, said Sonor
Cagaptay, a Turkey expert with the Washington Institute. The PYD
recently pledged not to fight against Turkey any longer.

“We will see whether the PYD has cut its ties to the PKK when the
Assad regime falls,” Cagaptay said. “Then, we will see if the PYD
continues to spare Turkey or if it goes back to its origins.”

The relationship between the PYD and the Assad regime is also not
clear, according to the Kurdish Islam expert Kamiran Hudsch. “At the
beginning of the revolution, the members of this party were called the
‘shabiha’ of the Kurds,” he said in a reference to the Assad-loyal
shabiha militias in Syria. “Whether or not they are loyal to the
regime is unclear,” he added.

Many observers suspect that the PYD is working with the Assad regime,
said Hudsch. At least, both sides appear to be benefitting from the
current situation. The PYD can expand its influence in Syria’s Kurdish
areas and beyond the borders and northern Syria is again a safe haven
for Turkish PKK fighters.

Fear of spreading war

Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, is pressuring Syria’s Kurds
to work together with the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC).
The rebels fighting in the Free Syrian Army are formally answerable to
the SNC. At the same time, Barzani has maintained contacts with the
Assad regime in Damascus. So far, Kurdish organizations have not
actively participated in the fight against Assad’s forces because many
fear otherwise the fighting could spill over into the Kurdish areas.

Turkey is annoyed that Assad is leaving the Kurds alone. “The
rebellion of the Syrian people has allowed the Kurds to demand what
the Iraqi Kurds already have,” said Cagaptay from the Washington
Institute. “That will lead to Turkish and Iranian Kurds saying they
want to be next.”

The dream of national sovereignty

Many people in Turkey have voiced concern that the Turkish Kurds want
to set up an independent Kurdistan with their ethnic brethren in
Syria, Iraq and Iran. And, at the moment, it seems the Kurds are in
the strongest position in their history to make the dream of national
sovereignty come true.

However, the Kurds also have a long tradition of inner conflict; one
example being the long confrontation between the two Iraqi Kurdish
leaders Jalal Talabani and Masud Barzani. The differences were only
put aside in favor of an alliance when it became clear that the end of
Saddam Hussein’s regime was near.

Many observers, therefore, are skeptical that a Kurdish state could
become a reality. But one thing, at least, is clear: Efforts to found
their own nation would turn Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran against them.

`Hye Votes’ Voter Registration Drive Gains Momentum

asbarez
Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

GLENDALE- Since its recent launch of Hye Votes, a extensive voter
registration and Get Out the Vote campaign, the Armenian National
Committee of America-Western Region has established its headquarters
in Glendale on the third floor of the Krikor & Mariam Karamanoukian
Youth Center, with another regional call center in Hollywood.

These centers will serve as base camps for organized canvassing and
phone banking by volunteers from the community whose goal it is to
register large numbers of Armenian-Americans to vote in the upcoming
November elections and in future elections, and then to encourage them
to actually vote.

Many electoral races are expected to be decided by slim margins, and
the collective voice of the large Armenian-American community will
surely play a pivotal role in determining which candidates will
ultimately best represent the community’s interests in every level of
government: local, state, and federal.

Through the active participation and involvement of a large number of
Armenian community organizations and entities, coupled with public
service announcements as part of a massive ad campaign, Hye Votes is
certain to reach large segments of the community which have either
refrained from registering or which have not actively voted in recent
elections.

`It is vitally important for our community to know that it must act,
individually and collectively, to protect its rights and its
interests. Our vote is our voice, and every single vote counts.
Members of our community should feel empowered to make their voices
heard by registering to vote and then by actually voting,’ said to Hye
Votes Campaign Director Elen Asatryan.

Community members are encouraged to contact Hye Votes at (818)
533-VOTE(8683) or (323) 989-4ANC (4262) and to actively outreach
within their own families and circles of friends to ensure that every
citizen is registered to vote. Inquiries can also be made through the
website at

The Hye Votes campaign will be ongoing past the November general
elections and will remain in effect for every upcoming election season
at every level of government in order to ensure that our community’s
collective voice is heard.

The Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region is the
largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots advocacy
organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination
with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the
Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country,
the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community
on a broad range of issues.

Ararat Association of Rhode Island to Host 25th Annual Golf Tournament

Community | August 17, 2012 1:14 pm

PROVIDENCE – During the winter of 1983, six Rhode Island
professionals, all from Armenian descent, came together to form what
is now known as The Ararat Association of Rhode Island. It was decided
that this organization was to be non-sectarian and was to oper- ate on
a not-for-profit basis. Its main purpose and focus was to cultivate
professional, social and cultural interaction amongst its members and
the Rhode Island Armenian community.

In early spring of 1988, in keeping with the original objectives of
the organization, it was decided that the group would create, run and
sponsor an annual golf tournament in order to promote sportsmanship,
fellowship and social interaction within the Armenian community. An
equally important aspect of the new tournament was to raise funds to
be donated to vari- ous local and regional Armenian organizations.

This tournament quickly sells out and accom- modates approximately 128
golfers each year. It has become the highlight of the summer for many
participants as they look forward to a round of golf and camaraderie.

The 2012 Ararat Open will be held at the Quidnessett Country Club in
North Kinstown, on Monday, August 27. A luncheon buffet, cocktail hour
and traditional Armenian dinner is served throughout the day’s
festivities. Prizes are donated by both individuals and companies and
are awarded at the end of the evening to golfers who have shot the
best scores for the tournament.

Over the past 25 years, this event has raised more than $300,000 in
net proceeds, all of which have been donated to the Rhode Island
Armenian community.

104-year-old receives Armenian passport

tert.am
20:28 – 17.08.12

On Friday, Head of the passport office of the Vagharshapat police
department Andranik Adamyan issued a passport of the Republic of
Armenia to the oldest resident of the Marshal Baghramyan village,
104-year-old Movses Dermishyan.

Born in 1908 in western Armenia, he emigrated to eastern Armenia with
his family. Moses Dermishyan saw both world wars and the Armenian
Genocide in Turkey in 1915. He is one of the founders of Marshal
Baghramyan village. He remembers how difficult it was under Joseph
Stalin to name the village after Marshal Baghramyan, a great military
figure, who was alive then.

The first jazz concert with the participation of the Armenian jazzmen
to be held in Los- Angeles

19:31, 18 August, 2012

Yerevan, August 18, ARMENPRESS: The first concert of a new formed jazz
group will be held in one of the most famous clubs Blue Whale in Los
Angeles. As `Armenpress’ reports citing armenianjazz.am world jazz
legend, percussion musician Peter Erskin, pianist Vardan Hovsepyan,
contrabassist Rayan Mak Gilikudi and cellist Artyom Manukyan are in
the group.In the first program of the quartet the works of Erskini and
Manukyan are included.

The upcoming concert has already raised great interest among the jazz
fans. The musicians hope that the program will be approved by music
lovers, and the concert will be a starting point for a long chain of
the further performances.

Lviv regional official receives award from Ukrainian Armenians

news.am
August 18, 2012 | 16:34

During conference of the Union of Armenians in Ukraine, Chairman
Mikhail Kostyuk of the Lviv Regional State Administration was awarded
a certificate of honor for his contribution to the development of
Armenian-Ukrainian ties.

The official document was presented to Kostyuk by Chairman Vilen
Shatvoryan of the Union of Armenians in Ukraine, Analitika.at.ua
informs.

In his welcoming remarks, Mikhail Kostyuk noted that the Armenians in
Lviv still continue the traditions of their ancestors with dignity,
and they are the Region’s active public, cultural, and trade and
industry participants.