Author: nina hovnanian

POUR ANKARA, LE MASSACRE EST-IL UNE OPTION POLITIQUE ? PAR THIERRY MEYSSAN

LU DANS VOLTAIRE.NET

La nouvelle alliance entre la Turquie et la France porte-t-elle
uniquement sur des questions économiques, voire sur l’entrée dans
l’Union européenne, ou est-elle proprement politique ? Dans ce cas,
Paris doit-il couvrir la politique d’Ankara quelle qu’elle soit ? Ce
soutien va-t-il jusqu’a celui de génocides ?

Pour la seconde fois, l’administration Obama a mis en cause la
Turquie pour son soutien a l’Ã~Imirat islamique (Daesh). D’abord, le
2 octobre, le vice-président des Ã~Itats-Unis, Joe Biden, dans une
intervention a l’Ã~Icole Kennedy de Harvard [1]. Puis le 23 octobre,
le sous-secrétaire au Trésor, David S. Cohen, devant la Fondation
Carnegie [2]. Tous deux ont accusé Ankara de soutenir les jihadistes
et d’écouler le pétrole qu’ils volent en Irak et en Syrie.

Devant les dénégations du président Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Joe
Biden avait présenté des excuses. Le gouvernement turc avait alors
autorisé le PKK a venir au secours des Kurdes syriens de Kobané,
assiégés par Daesh. Las ! le comportement d’Ankara n’a pas convaincu
et Washington a renouvelé ses accusations.

La Turquie et la question des nettoyages ethniques

Je ne pense pas que ce qui soit en cause soit le soutien aux
jihadistes. La Turquie n’agit a leur propos qu’en conformité avec le
plan US, et, au moins jusqu’a la mi-octobre, Daesh reste contrôlé par
la CIA. Mais Washington ne peut pas admettre qu’un membre de l’Otan
soit visiblement impliqué dans le massacre qui menace les habitants
de Kobané. La politique de l’administration Obama est simple :
Daesh a été créé pour accomplir ce que l’Otan ne peut pas faire,
le nettoyage ethnique, tandis que les membres de l’Alliance doivent
prétendre n’y être pour rien. Le massacre des Kurdes syriens n’est
pas nécessaire a la politique de Washington et l’implication de la
Turquie constituerait un crime contre l’humanité.

L’attitude de la Turquie apparaît ici comme involontaire. Et c’est
bien le problème. La Turquie est un Ã~Itat négationniste. Jamais il
n’a admis le massacre qu’il a commis, de 1,4 million d’Arméniens, de
200 000 Assyriens et chrétiens de rite grec et de 50 000 Assyriens en
Perse (1914-1918) et a nouveau de 800 000 Arméniens et Grecs (1919-25)
[3]. Loin de clore ce chapitre douloureux de son histoire, le message
de condoléances adressé par M. Erdogan, le 23 avril dernier, a au
contraire manifesté l’incapacité de la Turquie de reconnaître les
crimes des Jeunes Turcs [4].

La suite sur le lien plus bas

lundi 10 novembre 2014, Ara ©armenews.com

D´autres informations disponibles : Voltaire.net

UN ARMENIEN, NAZARETH MALTCHIAN (48 ANS) TUE A ALEP DANS L’EXPLOSION D’UN OBUS ALORS QU’IL ETAIT DE GARDE DEVANT L’IMMEUBLE DE L’EGLISE ARMENIENNE

ARMENIENS-SYRIE

Un Armenien fut tue dans l’explosion d’un obus tire par les opposants
armes au regime syrien sur un quartier armenien d’Alep nous revèle le
journal armenien > paraissant a Alep. Nazareth Maltchian
(48 ans), le garde de l’immeuble relevant de l’Eglise armenienne a
Alep fut tue par la bombe qui fit par ailleurs deux blesses parmi
les passants de la rue. Les funerailles de N. Maltchian se sont
deroulees dimanche 9 novembre. La communaute armenienne de Syrie,
estimee a près de 70 000 membres avant le conflit est aujourd’hui
estime a moins de 40 000 membres.

Krikor Amirzayan

lundi 10 novembre 2014, Krikor Amirzayan (c)armenews.com

Daily Sabah, Turkey
Nov 8 2014

FORMER POLICE CHIEF `SUSPECT’ IN JOURNALIST’S MURDER

Daily Sabah

ISTANBUL ‘ Prosecutors summoned Istanbul’s former police chief,
Celalettin Cerrah, yesterday to interrogate him about the 2007 murder
of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

Cerrah and former head of Istanbul police’s intelligence department,
Ahmet Ä°lhan Güler, will be treated as “suspects” in the case although
no charges granting their arrest have yet been pressed. Cerrah and
Güler may be detained if they refuse to visit the prosecutor’s office
for interrogation.

Prosecutors will also hear from seven other officials from the police
department and governorate with regard to possible negligence in the
murder. Last month, the Justice Ministry annulled the verdict of
nonsuit for Cerrah and other officials, paving the way for their trial
for failing to prevent the murder.

Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of the Turkish daily Agos, was murdered
outside his office by 17-year-old Ogün Samast on January 19 2007. An
earlier investigation showed that the prosecutors who worked on the
case ignored serious allegations into the involvement of top police
officers in the murder.

The prosecutors are accused of having ties with the Gülen Movement, a
group whose widespread infiltration of the judiciary and police
enabled them to influence cases or fabricate them for their own
interests. Prosecutors allegedly dismissed allegations against Ramazan
Akyürek and Ali Fuat Yılmazer, two senior police officers linked to
the Gülen Movement. Akyürek and Yılmazer are accused of helping the
murder suspects.

Eurasia Review
November 7, 2014 Friday

Finding Peace For Nagorno-Karabakh – OpEd

The conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, is
one of the bloodiest and most intractable to emerge from the breakup
of the Soviet Union, making peacebuilding even more imperative.

By Tugce Ercetin

The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh – a region claimed by both Armenia
and Azerbaijan – has existed since the end of the WWI, but it was
after the collapse of the USSR that the conflict turned violent, with
war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1992. This has gained
Nagorno-Karabakh international attention as countries in the region
have an active stake in the solution of the conflict. The dispute
between Armenia and Azerbaijan became the one of the bloodiest and
most intractable clashes to emerge from the breakup of the Soviet
Union.

The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is the greatest obstacle to
security and stability in the South Caucasus and the involved parties
did not resolve it. Bilateral conflict relations have not stabilised
the region, as there are many third party interests at play, often
overshadowing national interests. For instance, Nagorno-Karabakh is
influential in relations between Armenia and Turkey, while Turkey
shares a closer relationship with Azerbaijan.

Nagorno-Karabakh is within the international borders of Azerbaijan
over a total area of 4,800 square kilometres. For countless ethnic
groups, the territory has been a transit and settlement zone for
thousands of years, resulting in innumerable territorial conflicts,
campaigns of conquest and ethnic dislocations. Both the Azeris and
Armenians claim ownership of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Various
immigrations and mutual attacks have often resulted in negotiations
reaching a deadlock. Consequently, both sides claim legitimacy due to
fear that they would be an ethnic minority within the region.

Between 1992 and 1994 Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war over
Nagorno-Karabakh. The dispute has been characterized by violence and
is based on frozen interethnic issues in the Caucasus region.
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict still potentially dangerous and negotiations
continue, but a solution has not been found yet. Mutual dehumanisation
of the enemy makes confidence-building and improving relations
difficult. Enhancing cooperative agreements and encouraging attempts
of second track diplomacy can ameliorate the lack of economic,
cultural and social contact between the two communities.

The Caucasus Research Resource Centre identified the current views on
a resolution between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
They found that 23% of the Armenian people and 10% of the Azeri think
that the issue will never be resolved. The study indicates that the
prospects of conflict are becoming an integral part of their country
and have increased since the ceasefire agreement in May 1994.

The main problem arises from political and historical assertions that
have emphasised ethnicity and the shifting sovereignty of Karabakh.
According to Armenian perception of history, the Albanians were
converted to Christianity and “Armenianised” at a very early stage.
Azerbaijan argues that the region is Islamised and originates from a
Turkish population from Azerbaijan. Within the Nagorno-Karabakh
region, the population is predominately Armenian, and is governed by
the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, an independent but not internationally
recognised state.

Economic and cultural perspectives deepen the conflict by entrenching
hostile beliefs about the other side. Armenia is one of the most
isolated countries in the region, making it considerably weaker and
poorer than its neighbours. The area’s strategic importance is
dependent on the extraction and export of Caspian oil, often
exacerbating regional polarisation.

For relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Analytical Centre on
Globalization Regional Cooperation (ACGRC) plays a key role, and
therefore Programme Manager Hasmik Grigoryan responded to my questions
explaining the region, issues, and recommendations. She helped to
identify the situation and discussed their activities as
peacebuilders.

What is the main primary focus of your institution?

Established in 2002, ACGRC works as both a think-tank and an advocacy
group, promoting democratic values, strengthening civil society and
the rule of law in Armenia, development of free market economy,
regional integration and peaceful resolution of regional conflicts.
ACGRC supports public sector reforms and development of good practices
in local governance, disseminates knowledge on legal issues, produces
expert assessments and analysis of conflict transformation and
regional cooperation issues. It also supports initiatives that aim
towards forming an atmosphere of trust and stable peace in the South
Caucasus.

Could you please give some details regarding your projects? What areas
do you focus on generally?

ACGRC focuses on different areas. One of them is European integration,
political situation in post-Soviet territory, Eastern Partnership,
raising awareness of European values, Armenia-NATO relations, conflict
resolution and trust building. Further areas are: Armenian-Turkish
relations; Armenian-Azerbaijani relations; and trilateral cooperation
between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. ACGRC works in these fields
through organising conferences, workshops for students, through
publications.

This interview aims to illustrate efforts on reconciliation and peace
between Azerbaijan and Armenia in relation to the Nagorno-Karabakh
question. Therefore, can you explain what kind of projects and
organisations are included?

ACGRC has organised a number of workshops between the youth of Armenia
and Azerbaijan and also organised conferences between historians of
Armenia and Azerbaijan. ACGRC has published books analysing history
textbooks of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The main aim of these
projects is trust-building, hearing each other and constructing
cooperation.

Did you notice any kind of change in terms of peace and reconciliation
between both communities after they have been involved in the outlined
projects?

By engaging in the projects a large number of people, from both sides,
developed better connections with each other and networks of peace
were enlarged. Participants made joint statements and spoke on TV or
wrote in media calling to solve conflict through peace and compromise.
Also the participants of the projects try to show their opinion and
common results of the meetings to the Armenian and Azerbaijani
governments and international actors.

The crucial part relies on ACGRC highlighting the definition and
reason for the conflict to both local and international peacebuilding
parties. It is important that tolerance and interactions foster peace,
helping to create possible awareness and changing perceptions.
Conflict between both countries is defined as lack of trust and
tolerance, lack of connections and interaction, tensions on the
border. No people-to-people contacts. No will to understand each other
and go for compromises. Though it is a frozen conflict but with civil
and military victims and injured people.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is still significant as it
influences neighbouring countries and security in the region. It seems
that dialogue between conflicting communities can overcome
misperceptions and if people can interact with each other, it can be
the beginning of peaceful approach. Civil society is much more
beneficial when national interests are looking for humanity and
safety.

Tugce Ercetin is working towards a PhD in political science, and has
both a Bachelor’s and Masters degree in international relations.

This article was originally published by Insight on Conflict and is
available by clicking here.

The post Finding Peace For Nagorno-Karabakh – OpEd appeared first on
Eurasia Review.

300 ceasefire violations by Azeris reported Nov 1-8

November 8, 2014 – 14:48 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – About 300 ceasefire violations by Azeri side were
reported at the line of contact between Nagorno Karabakh and
Azerbaijani armed forces from Nov 1-8.

Azerbaijan fired over 3000 shots from various caliber weapons towards
the positions of Karabakh defense army, which retains full control of
the situation and takes retaliatory measures only in case of
necessity.

The same number of violations was reported during the previous week.

El Parlamento aprueba una declaración institucional por la que
solicita una solución pacífica y democrática al conflicto del Alto
Karabaj

Publicada el lunes, 03 de noviembre de 2014

La Junta de Portavoces del Parlamento de Navarra ha aprobado una
declaración institucional por la que el Parlamento de Navarra solicita
que se dé una solución pacífica y democrática al conflicto del Alto
Karabaj, presentada por los Grupos Parlamentarios G.P. Bildu-Nafarroa;
G.P.Aralar-Nafarroa Bai; G.P. Izquierda-Ezkerra.

Han votado a favor todos los grupos, excepto el Popular que se ha abstenido.

La declaración dice lo siguiente:

“1.- Solicitar que se dé una solución pacífica y democrática al
conflicto de Alto Karabaj y que para ello la comunidad internacional,
especialmente el grupo de Minsk y la Unión Europea, den todos los
pasos efectivos que sean necesarios.

2.- Que las autoridades del Alto Karabaj deben ser parte necesaria en
cualquier foro en el que se decida el futuro del país.

3.- Aplaudir la firme apuesta de la ciudadanía del Alto Karabaj a
favor de la democracia en una situación tan difícil y dura.

4.- Notificar este acuerdo a la Organización para la Seguridad y la
Cooperación en Europa (OSCE), a la Unión Europea, a los gobiernos de
Armenia y Azerbaiyán y al presidente y Parlamento del Alto Karabaj”.

Con el voto en contra de UPN, SN y PP, y el voto a favor de
Bildu-Nafarroa, Aralar-NaBai e Izquierda-Ezkerra ha sido rechazado un
punto de la propuesta inicial que decía lo siguiente:

“3.- Que el pueblo del Alto Karabaj tiene derecho a la
autodeterminación y que, como consecuencia, el ejercicio del derecho
de autodeterminación es una de las bases para una solución democrática
y pacífica del conflicto”.

ARMENIE
La municipalité d’Erevan va renforcer ses contrôles sur
l’approvisionnement alimentaire des jardins d’enfants

La municipalité d’Erevan va resserrer ses contrôles sur les aliments
fournis aux jardins d’enfants vient d’annoncer Gayane Soghomonyan,
chef de la division de la municipalité en charge de l’enseignement
général.

Ces derniers jours, la police arménienne a indiqué qu’Edward
Mkhitaryan, un entrepreneur individuel, a ouvert une entreprise à
Erevan pour transformation de la viande et d’emballage de poulet, où
la viande avariée a été traitée avec du vinaigre et des produits
chimiques.

Edward Mkhitaryan a fourni cette viande à certains jardins d’enfants
du quartier de Nor Nork d’Erevan.

“Au cours des trois dernières années, les autorités de la ville ont
accordé une attention particulière aux aliments fournis aux jardins
d’enfants et à leurs conditions de stockage et tout est sous leur
contrôle >>, dit-elle. “Par conséquent cette affaire a choqué la
municipalité.”

samedi 8 novembre 2014,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

The New York Times

Recreating Adam, From Hundreds of Fragments, After the Fall
Slide Show | Adam Reborn at the Met A 500-year-old statue of Adam,
damaged in 2002 and since painstakingly restored, will go back on view
on Tuesday.

By CAROL VOGEL
November 8, 2014

It happened at 6 on a Sunday night. Adam – a strapping, 6-foot-3-inch
marble sculpture by the Venetian Renaissance master Tullio Lombardo –
fell to the ground on a patio at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
smashing into hundreds of pieces. “Nobody knew what had happened – it
could have been foul play,” said Jack Soultanian, a conservator who
was called to the museum that night in 2002.

An investigation revealed that Adam’s plywood pedestal had
buckled. “The head had come off,” Mr. Soultanian said. “There were 28
recognizable pieces and hundreds of smaller fragments,” he added, and
skid marks on the torso where it slid across the patio floor. Philippe
de Montebello, then the Met’s director, called it “about the worst
thing that could happen” to a museum.

What followed was more than a decade of painstaking restoration that
was unprecedented in the Met’s history. The project took so long there
were rumors that the statue was beyond repair. But it was not, as the
Met will make clear on Tuesday when the museum not only puts Adam on
display again but also releases videos of how Mr. Soultanian and his
colleague Carolyn Riccardelli – with dozens of scientists and
engineers – put the 500-year-old sculpture back together, relying on a
radical approach to the conservation. Along the way, it made a visit
to the hospital for CT scans. (Adam needed a nose job, as well as
head, hand, knee and foot operations.)

The restoration project serves as a watershed of sorts for the Met,
reflecting a new attitude adopted by museums around the world to share
such innovative work not just professionally but with the public. It
is a dramatic reversal from decades past when museum conservators
treated such efforts like state secrets, or subscribed to the belief
that revealing a work’s history of damage would make it less beautiful
to viewers. (Michele Marincola, a professor of conservation at New
York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, recalled that the legendary
conservator George L. Stout once compared discussing such restoration
work to inquiring “about the digestive system of an opera singer.” )

But today, “restoration is the cutting edge of art history,” said
Emilie Gordenker, director of the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in
The Hague, whose museum is also planning a major exhibition centering
on an in-depth restoration of a single painting, “Saul and David,”
which she described as riveting as a “crime scene investigation.”
Using the latest technology, the museum will chronicle the discoveries
of its creation and history – every unexpected detail that lurks
beneath the canvas, initially considered to be one of Rembrandt’s
finest but later de-attributed. “We live in a time when the public
wants to look behind the scenes and museums are finally becoming more
open about it,” Ms. Gordenker said.

Italy’s Uffizi Gallery in Florence, for example, had conservators
working in a glassed-in lab so visitors could watch the action. Right
now, in Belgium, Jan and Hubert van Eyck’s “Adoration of the Mystic
Lamb,” better known as the Ghent Altarpiece of 1432 – one of the
world’s most famous panel paintings – is undergoing a seven-year
restoration. Financing from the Getty Foundation in Los Angeles has
helped pay for it, including an interactive website showing the work
in minute detail. (The public can also visit the three sites in Ghent
where it is being restored.)

“This is a shift and I think a very important one,” Luke Syson, the
Met’s curator in charge of European sculpture and decorative arts,
said of this new tell-all era. With Adam, he added, “there’s no
pretending that the breaks aren’t there or that this didn’t
happen. Yes, this awful accident occurred on our watch and now we are
also responsible for its resurrection. Our processes need to be
transparent.”

In decades past, museums would have also restored a damaged work of
art in a way that got it back on view as quickly as possible. In the
case of a massive marble sculpture like Adam, conservators would have
resorted to using iron or steel pins that required drilling many of
the sculpture’s joints. But such invasive work can be risky, curators
said, potentially harming the marble.

Then there was the option, popular in the case of ancient sculptures,
of leaving masterworks unrestored if they cracked with age, excavation
or accidents – a process conservators often call “the romance of the
fragment.” That was the case with the Louvre’s headless “Winged
Victory of Samothrace” or its armless Aphrodite of Milos, better known
as the Venus de Milo. “There was a trend in conservation to take away
all restorations from ancient sculpture and get down to the original
fragment,” said Ms. Riccardelli, the Met conservator who led the work
on Adam. “But now we see the value of a Renaissance restoration.”

Nobody at the Met thought that the process would take 12 years. But
Mr. de Montebello said then, and reiterated in a recent interview,
that he wanted Adam “brought back to a state where only the
cognoscenti could tell anything had happened.”

“The aesthetic of Tullio is largely dependent on the high finish of
the piece,” he said. “To leave it in a broken state would have been to
choose its accident as its defining historical moment.”

The museum assembled a team of three conservators – Ms. Riccardelli,
Mr. Soultanian and Michael Morris, who works independently – along
with consulting scientists, engineers and curators. After Adam’s fall,
conservators studied in depth how Tullio had created it – with a head
of curly locks, a dreamy stare, leaning on a decorative tree trunk
intertwined with a serpent and a grapevine. The sculpture, which dates
from 1490-1495, was originally commissioned for the tomb of a Venetian
doge, Andrea Vendramin, and entered the museum’s collection in 1936.

Using a laser-mapping technology to create a three-dimensional
“virtual Adam,” the conservators and engineers were able to see the
places within the sculpture that would bear the most stress when it
was upright again. Fiberglass pins, an innovation in the field, tested
best for weight-bearing and safety, and in the end only three – one in
each ankle and one in his left knee – proved necessary to put Adam
back together. Everything else could be reassembled using a newly
developed, more pliable adhesive.

The last and final piece was the sculpture’s head, which was
reattached on April 1, 2013. Since then the entire sculpture has been
cleaned, with the holes where the marble had pulverized filled in and
colored to match the original stone.

When Adam goes back on view, some experts say its accident will make
it even more compelling to the public. “There’s the D.I.Y. factor,”
Patricia Rubin, the director of the Institute of Fine Arts,
said. “It’s something everyone can relate to. What happened to this
sculpture is a quandary you face each time you drop a piece of china
in your kitchen and see it smash on the floor.” Correction: November
9, 2014

An earlier version of this article misstated which knee of the
sculpture required a fiberglass pin. It was the left, not the right.

AINA Assyrian International News Agency
Nov 9 2014

Christians Are Disappearing in the Middle East

By Michael Curtis
American Thinker

On August 22, 1939, Adolf Hitler, explaining his decision to invade
Poland, asked, “Who after all speaks today of the annihilation of the
Armenians?”

On the centennial of the massacre of the Armenians by the Ottoman
Empire, it is pertinent to ask, sixty-five years later, if the world
is sufficiently aware of the persecutions of Christians,
discrimination against them, the lack of respect shown for freedom of
religion, and indeed the possible end of Christianity in the Arab and
Muslim countries of the Middle East.

Certainly the World Council of Churches, Churches for Middle Peace,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and leaders of mainstream Protestant
churches, all preoccupied with alleged violations of human rights by
the State of Israel, seem to be unaware of, or pay little attention
to, the fate of the mosaic of Christian communities in those Arab and
Muslim countries. It is baffling that these organizations are so
unconcerned with the ethnic cleansing, being carried out by Islamists,
of Christians.

These organizations and the Western mainstream mass media ignore the
fact that the Christian communities in Middle East countries, except
in Israel, have been declining rapidly, partly because of low birth
rates and emigration, but largely because of discrimination and
persecution by Muslims. They disregard the current dilemma that 15
million Christians in the Middle East are facing 300 million Muslims
and the growing threat of Islamist extremists.

The problem is not new. Christians have long suffered discrimination,
violence, persecution, and deportation in all Middle Eastern
countries, and this continues today in all countries of the area
except Israel. There are countless examples of that persecution. On
October 31, 2010, after hostages were taken, a massacre occurred in
the Syriac Catholic Cathedral in Baghdad, with 58 killed and 75
wounded. The bombing of the Coptic (Christian) Church in Alexandria,
Egypt killed 21 and injured 79 worshipers.

The plight today of Christians in Syria and Iraq — in the Mosul area,
Orthodox or Catholic, Assyrians or Chaldeans — is a reminder and a
warning of what happened exactly a century ago.

The present persecution recalls the sad story of massacres and what
can rightfully be called genocide, even before the term was coined, of
Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontic and Anatolian Greeks, committed by
the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire. Starting in the 1890s and
continuing through World War I, Assyrians were killed or relocated in
upper Mesopotamia, now southeast Turkey and northwest Iran. In the
massacres of what is known, in the English language, as Sayfo or
Seyfo, a number of between 300,000 and 750,000 Assyrians were killed,
according to different estimates. Most of the victims belonged to the
Assyrian Church (Nestorian) of the East, the denomination once
powerful in the 9th century. From the 14th century they were
persecuted and forced into mountainous areas and the Hakkari province
in the Turkey Kurdish area in Iraq, and western Azerbaijan.

The story of the genocide of Armenians is well-known, albeit still
denied by Turkey. Starting in April 1915, they were massacred in
1915-1916 in the areas of Hakkari, Kurdistan, and Azerbaijan. There is
general agreement that between 1 million and 1.5 million lost their
lives. Able-bodied men were killed or conscripted to forced labor.
Women and children were deported on death marches to the Syrian
desert. Concentration camps were set up. Women were violated by
Turkish troops.

The fate of the Yazidis, an ethnically Kurdish group that practices an
unusual mixed form of religion, is a warning. They number 700,000,
mostly in northern Iraq but some in Turkey and the Caucasus. They
became victims of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in August 2014.
More than 40,000 were forced to flee to the mountains, said to be the
final resting place of Noah’s ark. At least 70,000 Yazidis have fled
the country.

The Christian mosaic today is composed of a number of parts. The
Coptic Church has 5 million adherents in Egypt, and 250,000 Catholics.
The Christian Maronites account for 4 million, of whom half a million
are in Lebanon. The Greek Orthodox in a number of countries amount to
2 million. The Armenians, in Armenia and in former countries of the
Soviet Union, number 6 million. The Syrian Orthodox and Catholic
Churches have 350,000 followers. The Assyrian Church of the East has
300,000 faithful, and there are 500,000 Chaldeans
(Assyrian-Chaldeans). Both of these groups speak Aramaic.

The Chaldeans are members of the autonomous Eastern Catholic Church
and recognize the authority of the Pope. The best-known Chaldean was
Tariq Aziz, former deputy prime minister of Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

Christians in all the Middle East countries have suffered. After the
war in Iraq in 2003, the number of Assyrian Christians fell from 1.4
million to 300,000. They were caught in the struggle between Sunnis
and Shiites, and fled or were displaced. The 2011 revolution in Egypt
led to riots between Christian Copts (10 percent) of the population
and Muslims. In Lebanon, rule by the Christian Maronites, now reduced
to 20 percent of the population, has ended, and hostilities still
continue between the Hezb’allah Shia groups and the remains of the
Phalange party. Christians have been rapidly been emigrating from
Lebanon.

Most serious of all has been the brutality of the Islamic State. The
evidence from the city of Mosul, the major city in northern Iraq, is
appalling. After capturing the city, IS engaged in mass murders,
imposed strict sharia law, looted and burned churches, and forced
women to wear the veil. The shrine in Mosul of Jonah, said to be the
burial site of the prophet swallowed by a whale, was destroyed by IS
on July 24, 2014. Christians in Mosul once numbered 130,000; now fewer
than 2,000 are left. Those few may be forced to convert, accept
inferior status, or be killed.

It is sad that not only is Islamist extremism a physical threat to
Christians, but it is leading to the end of cultural pluralism and
religious tolerance. It is a reaction against the process of
modernization that Christians have endorsed to a greater degree than
have Muslims.

The mainstream Christian churches of the West seem unwilling to help
alleviate the plight of Christians in the Middle East. It was
heartening that resolutions in 2010 in both the U.S. Senate and House
of Representatives called on the Obama administration to help end the
persecution of Christians and ethnic minorities in Iraq. The time is
long overdue for this to be done for the Christians in all of the
Middle East.

Black Sea Trade and Development Bank provides a USD 10 million loan to
Ardshininvestbank

by Karina Melikyan

Tuesday, November 4, 17:54

The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) is providing a USD 10
million loan to Ardshininvestbank (ASHIB), a leading bank in Armenia,
to facilitate financing of Armenian small- and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs), reports the BSTDB’s External Relations and
Communications Department

“This is the second operation between Ardshininvestbank and BSTDB,
which speaks of the mutual trust established between our institutions.
The proceeds of the new loan will be channeled to the financing of
local SMEs as ASHIB’s target group of customers. ASHIB will continue
its strategy of contributing to the fostering of the SME sector in the
Republic of Armenia by providing long-term loans on competitive
terms”, said Mher Grigoryan, Chairman of the Management Board of
Ardshininvestbank.

“Supporting small- and medium-sized enterprises is BSTDB’s strategic
priority in Armenia agreed with the Government. The new facility will
enhance the competitiveness of Armenian SMEs in the current economic
setting when access to finance remains constrained”, said Ihsan Ugur
Delikanli, BSTDB President, at the loan signing ceremony in Yerevan.

The operation builds up on the successful cooperation between the two
banks that started in 2012, when BSTDB extended a loan for mortgage
financing. The total funding provided by BSTDB to ASHIB will amount to
USD 18 million.

Since the start of its operations in 1999, BSTDB has cumulatively
disbursed EUR 120 million in Armenia, largely focused on SME sector
development.

The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB) is an international
financial institution established by Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and
Ukraine. The BSTDB headquarters are in Thessaloniki, Greece. BSTDB
supports economic development and regional cooperation by providing
loans, credit lines, equity and guarantees for projects and trade
financing in the public and private sectors in its member countries.
The authorized capital of the Bank is EUR 3.45 billion. BSTDB is rated
long-term “A-” by Standard and Poor’s and “A2” by Moody’s. For
information on BSTDB, visit

Established in 2002, Ardshininvestbank is one of the leading banks in
Armenia and has a large distribution network with over 55 branches all
over the country and a strong SME customer base.