Author: Kanayan Tamar

Sen. Kirk Presses for More Scrutiny of Obama’s Pick of Turkey Envoy

Saturday, September 6th, 2014

by Ara Khachatourian

Republican senator from Illinois, Mark Kirk

Seeks Clarity on U.S. Policy on Armenian Genocide and Efforts to
Secure Turkey’s Return of Stolen Christian Church Properties

WASHINGTON-With the Senate scheduled to resume session on September 8,
Illinois Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) has submitted five pointed questions
to U.S. Ambassador to Turkey nominee John Bass in order to bring
much-needed clarity to U.S. policy on both the Armenian Genocide and
the growing movement to secure Turkey’s return of stolen Christian
churches and religious properties, reported the Armenian National
Committee of America.

The complete text of Senator Kirk’s five questions is provided below.

“We want to thank Senator Kirk for shining much-needed sunlight on
Ambassador-designate Bass’s nomination and, more broadly, for
requiring that the Administration provide clear responses to simple,
straightforward questions about the Armenian Genocide and the return
of stolen Christian church properties by Turkey,” said ANCA Executive
Director Aram Hamparian. “We look forward to sharing the responses to
Senator Kirk’s questions as soon as they are made publicly available.”

In July, the ANCA welcomed the U.S. Senate’s decision to recess for
August without confirming Ambassador-designate Bass as a meaningful
opportunity for both Senators and American civil society to review
both his positions as well as the broader issues rapidly reshaping the
U.S.-Turkey relationship.

In his formal testimony, Ambassador Designate Bass used inaccurate and
offensive euphemisms, such as “shared history,” to avoid properly
characterizing the Armenian Genocide, and praised Turkish Prime
Minister Erdogan’s cynical repacking of genocide denial in his April
23rd “condolence” open letter to Armenians.

In addition to Senator Kirk, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and
Ed Markey (D-MA) had questioned Ambassador Bass on U.S. policy on the
Armenian Genocide, Turkey’s ongoing blockade of Armenia and efforts to
secure the return of confiscated Christian holy sites from Turkey.

Sen. Mark Kirk: Questions for the Record to
The Honorable John Bass, U.S. Ambassador-Designate to the Republic of Turkey

During your testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on
July 15, 2014, you stated: “The U.S. government acknowledges as
historical fact and mourns that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred
or marched to their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire.”

a) Can you clarify and expand on your statement to clearly indicate
the party or parties responsible for perpetrating the murder of 1.5
million Armenians?

b) Would you agree with the European Union and 11 of our NATO allies,
all of which have officially designated these atrocities as the
Armenian Genocide?

c) As Ambassador, would you support the rights of the heirs of those
killed during the Armenian Genocide to seek compensation from the
Republic of Turkey?

During your testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on
July 15, 2014, you stated: “If confirmed, I will encourage the Turkish
government to follow through on the return of religious minority
properties and to take additional steps to promote religious freedom,
such as allowing more religious communities to own property, register
their places of worship, and train clergy.”

a) Could you expand and clarify on what specific actions you plan to
undertake? Will you raise this issue at the highest levels of the
Turkish government?

b) Are you satisfied with the actions the State Department and our
Embassy in Ankara has taken to date to convince Turkey to restore
Christian religious property to its rightful owners?

Aziz Tamoyan: Armenia is safest country for Yazidis

Saturday,September 06

The plight of Iraqi Yazidis has worsened in the past week, and they
are in a difficult situation now, Aziz Tamoyan, the head of National
Union of Yazidis NGO, told reporters today.

Tamoyan stressed the inadmissibility of genocide in the 21st century.
In his words, some of the Yazidi people are being exterminated in
Turkey, others – in Syria, and although the Syrian government helps
Yezidis, its help is insignificant.

“Syria has its own problems. We ask the United States to continue
actively providing relief to Yazidis as the Islamists’ goal is not
limited to Yazidis’ extermination. Their real goal is to create an
Islamic state. We speak about human rights, but today we don’t see
this institute functioning. Why is everyone silent when an entire
nation is dying of hunger? This Islamic wave will sweep the whole
world,” A. Tamoyan said.

According to him, about 2,300 Yazidi women are being held captive and
they need to be rescued. “300 Yazidi women and girls were sold in a
market in Syria. It is unacceptable that women are sold as sex slaves
in the 21st century,” Aziz Tamoyan said resentfully.

Many of Iraqi Yazidis want to move to Armenia as it is the safest
country for them, the union chairman noted.

Making an appeal to other countries, Tamoyan said that if they want to
help Yazidis, they should send money to the Yazidi people, rather than
to the Iraqi government.

“The money should be sent to Lalish, Yazidis’ cultural center and
their place of pilgrimage in Northern Iraq. Relief donations for the
Yazidi people can be transferred to an account opened in Armenia,”
Aziz Tamoyan said.

Why I Haven’t Talked So Far

Lragir.am
Law – 06 September 2014, 09:38

“Why haven’t I talked so far,” Vardan Petrosyan said making his first
testimony in court.

The reasons are several. “First, Detective Hakobyan tried to force
testimonies out of me in the absence of my advocate,” Vardan Petrosyan
said. Besides, the actor reminded that during the pre-trial
investigation the investigative body refused to provide the existing
documents relating to the case. “It was my action of protest,” he
said.

The third reason, according to Vardan Petrosyan, was his fear that his
testimony could contradict the testimonies of the victim whereas the
aggrieved party was already rather aggressive.

Commenting on the day of the accident, Vardan Petrosyan said that on
that day he had an appointment with the TV show They Were Not
Expecting Us and in the morning he was waiting for their team in his
house in Saralanj village.

The director of the show Suren Shahverdyan asked him to shoot another
show by the same group called “They Were Not Expecting Us Hungry”.

Vardan Petrosyan said he was reluctant to be hosted by this show
because he hates “eating and drinking faces on the screen” but the
authors of the show persuaded him. And since there was not enough food
at home, he asked his sister arriving from Yerevan to bring some food.

Vardan Petrosyan commented on the opinion that there was a party in
his house on that day. “There was no party, there was a shooting and
if there are people who go round restaurants, eat and drink and cannot
imagine how one can lay the table and put no vodka.”

As to vodka on the table, Vardan Petrosyan reiterated the container
with liquid on the table was vodka. And in the video he says “pour
some water”.

Coming back to the crash in the evening on his way back to Yerevan,
Vardan Petrosyan said he reached Yeghvard, he was driving slow, a
while later the crash happened.

“I learned to drive in France, I was wearing a seatbelt all the time,
I noticed the Niva car which a little left from me, the Niva suddenly
turned to the road, I tried to maneuver, there was a crash and I lost
conscious. I came round when I was taken out of the car,” Vardan
Petrosyan said.

He also said that he was in severe pain and felt very bad and from the
caring actions of the rescue service he concluded that his state was
bad, close to death.

“I thought I was dying,” Vardan Petrosyan said, adding that he started
joking to encourage himself and especially the guys who were helping
him.

“I didn’t know how the crash happened, that children had died. I was
even happy that on the verge of death I pulled myself together to
encourage the rescuers. I didn’t know that a tragedy happened,” he
said, adding, “When I learned about it later, the shock was
unbelievable.”

In conclusion, Vardan Petrosyan said: “When people who shoot and kill
each other are let free on a single member of parliament’s signature,
and for me not one but tens of members of parliament, social
activists, artists both in Armenia and France sign but I am still in
prison, I conclude that my case was tried as a premeditated murder and
was used to discredit me, put psychological pressure on me, kill me.”

Haykakan Zhamanak: Statistics reveals drop in residential buildings’ number

09:45 * 06.09.14

The latest findings by Armenia’s National Statistical Service reveal a
decline in the number of registered residential buildings as of 2013,
according to the paper.

The report suggests that multi-apartment blocks decreased by 45 in
number compared to the previous year. The statistics further reveals a
drop in the number of apartments (435,427 instead of the 436,631 in
2012).

In the meantime, more private houses are said to have been registered
last year. Their number increased from 423,624 in 2012 to 426,592 in
2013, says the paper.

Armenian News – Tert.am

ARF: Armenian soldiers forced Aliyev to sit down to negotiating table

17:10, 05.09.2014

YEREVAN. – The meetings of Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents are
better than hostilities, and we always give positive assessments of
such meetings, ARF Dashnaktsutyun parliamentary group head Armen
Rustamyan said.

However, one should not expect much, yet Azerbaijan has positioned
itself as “not negotiating party” on the principled issues.

“How can one negotiate with a party that does not realize what
concessions it should make? Azerbaijani side presents only unilateral
concessions for the Armenian side. As long as Azerbaijan does not
realize that they must respect the right of Karabakh people to
self-determination, the process will be delayed,” Rustamyan told
reporters.

Asked ether there is a fault of the OSCE Minsk Group, Rustamyan noted
that it is impossible to equally blame the Armenian and Azerbaijani
side in relation to the violence at the contact line, when you know
exactly who is the initiator. He thinks it is time for international
community to say who is who.

Commenting on the trilateral meetings with the presidents, the MP
noted that the dynamics of meetings was forced by the Armenian side.

“In fact, it was a three-day war, the outcome of which forced
Azerbaijan to sit down at the negotiating table, just as it happened
in 1994. First of all our soldiers forced Aliyev to sit at negotiating
table,” he added.

Armenia News – NEWS.am

Armenian Genocide through art: Impact of performance on recognition

14:55 * 06.09.14

Any piece of art or performance by a Diaspora-Armenian artist can
raise awareness of the Armenian Genocide and the Armenian Cause, but
given the targets and audiences, they are not absolutely likely to
replace state functions, says Violet Grigoryan, an Armenian writer and
publicist.

“A piece by an independent artist – be it a painting, performance or
whatever – is of more help to the audience and people who might be
politically less aware of the Armenian Genocide, interstate relations
and the Armenian history. It works better, raising more people’s
awareness. But its effect is for the given moment only, with no
guarantees or responsibilities for future,” she told Tert.am,
commenting on US-Armenian rock musician Serj Tankian’s initiative to
co-author the symphonic composition 100 Years ahead of the Armenian
Genocide centennial.

The musician had earlier unveiled a plan for presenting the project on
September 20 in Pasadena. Lark Musical Society has been chosen to
premier the new composition.

Actress Lala Mnatsaknyan is of the opinion that it is very important
to focus more coordinated efforts on the art or performance aspect
while seeking an international recognition and condemnation of
Genocide. Speaking to Tert.am, the actress said she expects more
concrete results from Diaspora-Armenian artists but expressed regret
that the events were not arranged much earlier.

“It is impossible to organize a concert in May and invite a couple of
people here to sing, recite poetry and then leave. This should have
been already done, but I do not see anything as yet. Perhaps they are
planning to arrange it later. But why do it late? Didn’t we know about
2015 five years ago? This should have been done long ago so that we
would be in that process now,” she said.

The actress proposed producing films and staging performances, noting
in the meantime that they do not absolutely have to feature crying
scenes or other sad episodes.

“It is important to organize globally interesting events, and not only
on artists’ level. The more we have people speaking about Genocide,
the better the international community will be aware of it. We, the
individuals, do what were are supposed to, but we need a higher level
of state assistance and a higher level of reaction. It is necessary to
speak about this, because we are losing the moment,” Mnatsakanyan
added.

NATO Upholds Territorial Integrity of Armenia, Azerbaijan

Friday, September 5th, 2014

Meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the NATO summit in Wales

NEWPORT, Wales–In an all-encompassing declaration adopted Friday at a
NATO summit in Wales, the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s principle
decision-making body, made references to conflicts in the South
Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The declaration, keeping in line with
NATO verbiage since 2006, referred to territorial integrity while
neglecting to mention the right to self-determination.

“Russia’s illegitimate occupation of Crimea and military intervention
in eastern Ukraine have raised legitimate concerns among several of
NATO’s other partners in Eastern Europe,” the Wales Summit Declaration
reads.

“Allies will continue to support the right of partners to make
independent and sovereign choices on foreign and security policy, free
from external pressure and coercion. Allies also remain committed in
their support to the territorial integrity, independence, and
sovereignty of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the Republic of
Moldova.”

“In this context, we will continue to support efforts towards a
peaceful settlement of the conflicts in the south Caucasus, as well as
in the Republic of Moldova, based upon these principles and the norms
of international law, the UN Charter, and the Helsinki Final Act. The
persistence of these protracted conflicts continues to be a matter of
particular concern, undermining the opportunities for citizens in the
region to reach their full potential as members of the Euro-Atlantic
community. We urge all parties to engage constructively and with
reinforced political will in peaceful conflict resolution, within the
established negotiation frameworks,” the declaration says.

Turkey should reconcile with its own past – Edward Nalbandian

11:37 ¢ 06.09.14

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian’s article was published in
the French Le Figaro with slight abridgements

Below is the full version

In international relations there are, unfortunately, cases of missed
opportunities. The statement of Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, followed by the
comments of other Turkish senior officials on the eve and after the
commemoration of the 99th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide are
such cases. The fabricated notions of “common pain”, `just memory’ and
the appeal to the Turks and Armenians to `follow Erdogan’s lead’ are
misleading. Ahmet Davutoglu declares `that the main goal of Erdogan’s
statement is prevention of worldwide efforts of the Genocide
recognition’. Instead of concrete steps towards reconciliation one can
find calls to complicity. I mean complicity against the international
recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

It is hard to find a nation nostalgic towards its centuries-old
suppression in its ancestral homeland. Any oppressed nation cannot
share the nostalgia towards the Ottoman Empire. Like other empires,
the Ottoman Empire was built upon and forcefully sustained through
suppression of the basic rights and freedoms of many of its citizens.

Mr Davutoglu’s differentiation of the Western and Turkish perception
of sufferings by Christians and Muslims is astonishing. The Armenian
Genocide is not only part of Armenian or western memory and history,
but also of the memory of the Muslim world. One of the earliest
references to the Armenian Genocide belongs to Muslim witness Fayez El
Ghossein, who in 1916 published his work entitled `The Massacres in
Armenia.’ Sharif and Emir of Mecca Husayn ibn Ali was one of the
prominent Islamic leaders, who acted against the program of physical
annihilation of the Armenians and called on his subjects to defend
Armenians as they would defend themselves and their children. In
1919-1921 the large-scale extermination of Armenians were referred
such Turkish public figures as Refi Cevat, Ahmet Refik Altinay. Many
Muslim historians refer to the massacres of Armenians as genocide,
while Arab historian Moussa Prince used the term `Armenocide’,
considering it as `the most genocidal genocide.’

For the sake of `just memory’ artificial political actions and calls
are not needed, while those, who dare express their opinion freely are
killed like Hrant Dink, or exiled like Orhan Pamuk, or taken to
custody, like Ragıp Zarakolu.

Davutoglu is playing the same old tune of founding a commission of
historians `in order to find the truth’. One of the most competent
international institutions on genocide studies, the International
Association of Genocide Scholars, in answer to the same proposal, made
an appeal to the Turkish government to accept what had been proven
long ago. Instead of repeating decade-old re-worded or rephrased
appeals we need genuine and concrete steps. Ratification of the Zurich
Protocols, normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, opening of the
borders could pave the way to the difficult path of reconciliation
between our peoples. The sub-commission on historical dimension, as
envisaged by those Protocols, could implement a dialogue with the aim
to restore mutual confidence between the two nations. It would be
impossible to do by putting under question the reality of the Armenian
Genocide.

Led by an apparent desire to deny the fact of the genocide, as defined
by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide, Erdogan’s message yet again underlined that what happened
in 1915 `was regardless of religion or ethnic origin.’ It seems that
the 1919 Turkish Military Tribunal’s Indictment, which proved by
undeniable facts that the deportations and large-scale massacres of
the Armenians were a state policy, and sentenced its main masterminds
to death, has been forgotten in Ankara. It seems that Rafael Lemkin’s
development of the concept of `genocide’ has gone unnoticed in Ankara.
I have to remind that 99 years ago on May 24, 1915 Russia, France and
the Great Britain issued a special declaration by which they warned
the perpetrators of the atrocities against the Armenian people of
their personal responsibility for `these new crimes of Turkey against
humanity and civilization.’ It is beyond any doubt that the Armenian
Genocide was organized with genocidal intent. Meanwhile an attempt is
made by the Turkish officials to equate the losses of the war and the
systematic annihilation of Armenians, as a result of which millions of
my predecessors lost their lives, homes, lands, properties. There was
an attempt to strip millions of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire of
their right to life, as well as their past ` more than 2000 cultural
and religious monuments were destroyed and the survivors were driven
off the lands they had inhabited for many centuries, before Turks came
to this region. In 1915 one of the chief masterminds of the Armenian
Genocide, then Interior Minister Mehmed Talaat Pasha confessed to
Germany’s Consul General that `there is no Armenian question, because
there are no more Armenians.’ He was wrong, but the nature, magnitude
and the consequences of that horrible crime are far beyond the
definition of `suffering.’

In one of the interviews Erdogan rhetorically asked `if such a
Genocide occurred would there have been any Armenians living in this
country?’ Today a large number of Jews live in Germany, but no one
would dare put under question the reality of the Holocaust. Or, how
can one speak of `relocation’, when 1.5 million of people died or were
killed? Planned marching people to the dessert, starving them to
death, killing most of them en route is not a relocation, it is a
`death march,’ it is a genocide.

The denial of the genocide, the atmosphere of impunity paved the way
for the repetition of new crimes against humanity. Genocide denial is
considered by scholars as the last phase of the crime of genocide.
Even though there are still few who continue to deny, but this does
not mean that there is a `dispute’ about it. On the one hand, there is
the fact of genocide that nobody doubts in the world, the pain of
which every single Armenian family anywhere in the world bears until
now, and on the other hand, there is an official and imposed denial of
the genocide by the Turkish government. Turkey is in dispute with
itself.

Is it possible to make the descendents of genocide survivors, spread
all over the world, a part of the complicity of genocide denial? Is it
possible to equate perpetrators and victims of genocide by such
clichés as `common pain’? It is appalling to imagine that the
perpetrators of Holocaust, of genocides in Cambodia, in Rwanda, and
other crimes against humanity, can be equated with the victims. Is it
even possible to consider genocide survivors’ descendants as `Turkish
diaspora’, which some Turkish politicians are trying to do today?

As Rwanda Genocide survivor Esther Mujawayo recently mentioned at the
UN Human Rights Council High Level Panel Discussion in Geneva
dedicated to the Genocide Prevention Convention, `Today is the fourth
generation of Armenians who are still waiting”. Not only Armenians,
the whole international community for almost 100 years has been
waiting for Turkey to recognize the Armenian Genocide. The genuineness
of the desire for reconciliation must be proven through recognition
and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide. The Turkish government must
not refrain from genuine reconciliation. Thousands of Turkish citizens
have opted for that path already.

Davutoglu mentions Armenian composer Komitas as an example of
Armenians’ creative activities in the Ottoman Empire. ”Just memory”
should have shed some light on the life of Komitas, who was a witness
of the Genocide. He had seen all the sufferings, the horror that
befell the Armenians and said that “nobody knows all the wounds of our
tragedy… this distress will drive us mad!” And from 1916 onwards,
for 20 years he spent his life in a psychiatric hospital.

On April 24, 2003 when we were unveiling the Komitas statue in Paris,
I expressed hope that this memorial to the Armenian Genocide victims
could symbolize the sufferings and memory of the victims of all
genocides perpetrated in the 20th century, that it would become a
mourning site for all those who consider tolerance and respect to
human life and dignity as a continuous process, that there would bow
not only the descendents of those who suffered physically and
spiritually, but also the descendents of those who caused those
sufferings. I believe that the route to reconciliation is not a path
of denial, but that of conscious memory, because true reconciliation
does not mean forgetting the past or feeding younger generations with
the tales of denial. Turkey should reconcile with its own past to be
able to build its future.

The President of Armenia has invited the Turkish President to visit
Armenia on April 24, 2015, on the occasion of the commemoration of the
100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. We hope it will not be a
missed opportunity and Turkey’s President will be in Yerevan on that
day.

Edward Nalbandian
Foreign Minister of Armenia

Hraparak: Yet another elite wedding to take place in Armenia

12:13 06/09/2014 >> DAILY PRESS

Armenia’s ruling elite will attend yet another elite wedding tomorrow:
the sister of Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan and the son of former head
of Nubarashen prison Arsen Afrikyan are getting married, with the
wedding ceremony to be held at Florence restaurant belonging to former
Mayor of Yerevan Karen Karapetyan, Hraparak reports.

All representatives of the ruling elite are invited to the wedding
ceremony, including Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan, with much talk
recently about disagreements between the Premier and Taron Margaryan,
the newspaper notes.

Source: Panorama.am

Yerevan Brandy Company to buy 37,000 tons of grapes this year

YEREVAN, September 5. / ARKA /. The French-owned Yerevan Brandy
Company (YBC) said today it will purchase 37,000 metric tons of grapes
this year, by 2,000 tons more it bought last year.

The company will pay 150 drams for 1 kg of grapes to be bought by its
branches in Armavir and Aygavan and 140 drams by the branch in Tavush
region, up from 145 and 135 drams respectively, it paid last year.

The winegrowers will get the money within 3-4 days after delivering
their grapes to the company.

This year, the Yerevan Brandy Company will continue buying grapes from
farmers who signed seven year-long contracts with the company. The YBC
said it buys around 40% of grapes from these farmers.

“In view of increasing purchases, the Yerevan Brandy Company is
expanding its production capacity. In particular, a new distillation
workshop will open soon at Armavir branch, which will be equipped with
three additional Charente distillation apparatus,” the company said.

The Yerevan Brandy Company was founded in 1887. In 1998 it was sold
to French Pernod Ricard for $30 million. -0