YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. A Yerevan court on Monday sentenced the former Chairman of the Urban Development Committee Vahagn Vermishyan to 8 years imprisonment on corruption charges denied by him.
Vermishyan’s lawyer Alexander Kochubayev told reporters that his client will appeal the verdict to a higher court, while a complaint has already been filed to the European court concerning his remand.
Vermishyan has been remanded in pre-trial detention since early 2020.
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For Diana Simonian, signing up for an Armenian dating app was an obvious decision.
“Being a minority living in Los Angeles, you don’t see or hear of too many Iraqis. Armenian for me was a next step,” she told the Weekly. “I always gravitated toward Armenians, because I felt like that’s a second family for me.”
The daughter of Iraqi immigrants, Diana isn’t Armenian, but she grew up surrounded by Armenians in Los Angeles. Her father’s best friend of about 50 years is Armenian. Diana and her sister also spent their summers at Hye Camp, an Armenian summer camp in northern California. Diana used to joke with her friends that her last name was Suleymanian, adding the distinguishing Armenian “ian” to her surname Suleyman.
When it came time to find a husband, Diana knew she wanted to build her life with someone from a similar cultural background. So she made a profile on the dating app Kyank, an Armenian term of endearment that means “life.” She matched with Berj Simonian in January 2021. Berj was born to an Armenian family in Baghdad. They had an immediate connection, but he lived across the country in New York. Their relationship blossomed over daily FaceTime calls and text messages.
Three weeks into their online courtship, Diana went dress shopping with her mom.
“We walked into the store, and I saw this beautiful gown, and I told my mom, this is going to be my engagement dress,” Diana recalled.
Her mom was stunned. “Your engagement dress to who?” she asked.
“That was my moment. I had just known that we were going to be together forever,” Diana told the Weekly.
In March, three months after they matched on Kyank, Berj flew out to Los Angeles to meet Diana for the first time. Diana picked him up from the airport, and after an obligatory trip to In-N-Out Burger, Diana drove Berj straight to her parents’ house.
Berj said meeting Diana’s family felt like coming home. There was Iraqi kubba and tabbouleh on the table, and Diana’s parents spoke Arabic just like his. He described how easy and natural it was to join Diana’s family.
Three months later, Berj and Diana were engaged. Just three months after that—nine months after meeting on Kyank—they were married.
Mr. and Mrs. Simonian
Armenians formed communities in Iraq and across the Middle East after the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Their culture expanded to include different traditions, languages and cuisines. Diana and Berj come from different ethnic backgrounds, but they’re connected through Armenian culture.
Miro Markarian, the founder of Kyank, grew up in Iran, where Armenians have lived for centuries. Markarian says he launched Kyank in 2020 as a way to bring young Armenians together.
Many of Markarian’s closest friends are other Armenians he grew up with in Iran. Markarian lost touch with his childhood friends when they moved to California. When Markarian left Iran and started attending high school in Los Angeles, they reconnected, and they’ve maintained a strong bond ever since.
“We had that strong connection, because of how much we could relate to the way we were brought up and the experiences we went through,” Markarian said. “I’m much more comfortable next to them. I trust them more, because I trust their upbringing.”
Many Armenians have always dated within their culture. But the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan made this choice an existential one. Dr. Rosie Vartyter Aroush researches LGBT Armenian identity. She says that war, displacement and genocide have always been a part of Armenian identity in the diaspora. But the war in 2020 reminded Armenians in the United States that the potential for a new crisis is always present.
“You found comfort in being surrounded by people who understood your struggle, and unfortunately at that time period, for the most part, those who could understand your struggle were only Armenians,” explained Dr. Aroush.
Many Armenians have faced pressure from their parents to marry other Armenians and start a family. This was characteristic of the generation that survived the Armenian Genocide and was struggling to rebuild and repopulate the global Armenian community. The push to raise Armenian families is also one of the driving forces of discrimination against LGBTQ people by Armenians, Dr. Aroush says. Parents may assume that their LGBTQ children could never get married or have children.
These ideas are associated with an older generation. But Dr. Aroush says that, right after the war, she heard people who had never expressed a desire to have children talk about having children to bring more Armenians into the world.
“It was feelings people felt at the time that I don’t know a year or two later are actually still standing. I think it was emotional responses. I don’t know if they solidified into action,” Dr. Aroush said. “And I think we need more time to see how big of a role that plays.”
The Simonians are expecting their first child. They’re already looking for an Armenian school. They also want to teach their daughter Arabic. Home never means one thing for people who live in a diaspora. But through dating apps, people are finding a home in Armenian culture.
Diana and Berj Simonian are expecting their first baby
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Lillian Avedian is a staff writer for the Armenian Weekly. Her writing has also been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Hetq and the Daily Californian. She is pursuing master’s degrees in journalism and Near Eastern Studies at New York University. A human rights journalist and feminist poet, Lillian’s first poetry collection Journey to Tatev was released with Girls on Key Press in spring of 2021.
Los Angeles Unified Schools had the day off on Monday, April 24 in recognition of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
This unassigned day stemmed from a LAUSD Board of Education decision in October 2020, when board members voted unanimously to add the new holiday.
Board member Kelly Gonez, who authored the resolution, thought it was important to support the Armenian community of Los Angeles.
“Each year, Armenian families across Los Angeles remember those lost in the first genocide in modern history, and many of them have a direct connection to the tragedy,” she said.
In fact, Los Angeles has the highest population of Armenians in the United States, many settling in the Glendale area to escape the genocide of the early 1900s.
Assistant principal, Mariana Kayichian, was surprised to hear about the new unassigned day.
“As somebody with an Armenian background, I was really surprised to see that, because I don’t think we’ve ever gotten that sort of recognition before,” Kayichian said.
Kayichian, who went to a school with about 40% Armenians– Crescenta Valley High School in La Crescenta, CA– was very involved in the Armenian community growing up.
“On April 24, what we did every single year is we all went to the Turkish consulate to protest, to demand recognition, because to this day the genocide hasn’t been recognized by that government. And so on that day, nobody was at school,” Kayichian said.
April 24 is a day dedicated to remember the start of the genocide, which killed 1.5 million Armenians.
The genocide mostly took place in eastern Anatolia, which held a large community of Christian Armenians. These Armenians were treated as second-class citizens of the Ottoman Empire, paying higher taxes and having few legal and political rights.
In 1908, a group called the Young Turks gained control of the empire, and focused heavily on Turkish nationalism.
As the Turks entered World War 1, suspicions arose from military leaders about the loyalty of Christian Armenians. Many Turkish officials felt that Armenians would support nearby Christian governments, such as the Russian army. The Turkish government began to push for the removal of Armenians in the east.
On April 24, 1915 the genocide began, and several hundred Armenians were arrested and executed. As the genocide continued, Armenian peasants were forced to march through the Mesopatamian desert until they dropped dead. The Young Turks created killing squads, which used many different methods for mass murder, including drowning, burning, and crucifixion. The Turkish government also deported thousands of Armenians and forced children to convert to Islam.
“There’s so many other examples of this throughout history, not just with Armenians, so it’s just about having that global awareness and empathy towards other people and the historical trauma that they could be dealing with, as an individual or a family,” Kayichian said.
Today, Turkey continues to deny the state-sanctioned murder and mass deportation of Armenians. Historically, Turkey has been a strong ally of the United States and other Western nations, so these governments have been slow to condemn the killings.
However, on April 24, 2021, President Joe Biden recognized the tragedy as a genocide, a change from past presidents who have been hesitant to use the word.
“While it’s a day for us to remember, it’s also a day for us to be active and voice our collective desire for global recognition,” Kayichian said.
President Biden’s choice to recognize the genocide signifies an important step for the nation. Historical topics that deal with issues in human rights, such as the history of slavery in the United States or the forced displacement of Native Americans, although challenging to confront, have to be recognized if we want to grow as a country.
And just as President Biden’s recognition is a significant step for the nation, LAUSD’s recognition of the day is a significant step for the district.
“I just hope that the district continues to have professional development for all staff to be aware of these historical moments, to make sure that they’re then passing that awareness and knowledge off to the students. I’m really proud of the district for their focus on culturally responsive lessons and units, and I hope that a lot of different cultures continue to be represented,” Kayichian said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev have held talks in Yerevan on the possible construction of a new NPP in Armenia. Pashinyan emphasised the importance of cooperation between the Armenian government and Rosatom, which are successfully implementing a number of joint projects.
The currently operating Armenian NPP at Metsamor was built in the 1970s with two Soviet-supplied VVER-440-V230 units, but was closed following a devastating earthquake in 1988. However, unit 2 was recommissioned with Russian help in 1995 following severe energy shortages. In March 2014, the Armenian government decided to extend the plant’s service life to 2026. Most of the overhaul (until 2019) was funded by an interstate loan from Russia. Construction of a new nuclear plant has long been part of Armenia’s overall plan, although finance has proved to be an obstacle.
Likhachev confirmed Rosatom’s continued support for co-operation. Further extension of the operating life of ANPP was viewed as a priority. Rosatom said Pashinyan and Likhachev “agreed on specific steps for the near future, which will allow the re-extension work to be launched by the end of this year”.
Construction of new nuclear power units in Armenia was also discussed and Likhachev said Rosatom is ready to offer Russian-designed NPPs with VVER reactors. At the end of the meeting, the parties “agreed to continue work on joint projects in the field of the peaceful use of atomic energy and in related high-tech areas”.
AFP: A peace deal to end Armenia and Azerbaijan’s three-decade-old dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave is “within reach” after four days of talks in Washington, US top diplomat Antony Blinken said Thursday.
The discussions between Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov did not result in a deal to end the territorial conflict between the two ex-Soviet republics, but Blinken said progress had been made.
“The two sides have discussed some very tough issues over the last few days, and they’ve made tangible progress on a durable peace agreement,” the secretary of state said.
“I hope that they see and I believe that they do, as I do, that there is an agreement within sight, within reach,” he said.
Blinken added later that the two sides “demonstrated a sincere commitment” to normalizing relations and ending their longstanding conflict.
“Both Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed in principle to certain terms and have a better understanding of one another’s positions on outstanding issues,” he said.
The two countries put out identical statements following the talks, saying they had laid out their positions on normalization.
“The Ministers and their teams advanced mutual understanding on some articles of the draft bilateral Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations,” the statements said.
Both sides acknowledged, however, “that the positions on some key issues remain divergent.”
Armenia and Azerbaijan were both republics of the Soviet Union and gained their independence when it broke up in 1991.
The two sides have gone to war twice over disputed territories, mainly Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority-Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan.
Tens of thousands were killed in the wars, one lasting six years and ending in 1994, and the second in 2020, which ended in a Russia-negotiated peace deal.
But clashes have broken out regularly since then.
Azerbaijan injected new tensions last week when it placed a checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor, the only land link between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia views the move as a violation of a ceasefire negotiated between the two sides.
– ‘The last mile’ –
The four days of talks between Mirzoyan and Bayramov took place out of the view of media in a secure State Department facility in Arlington, a suburb of the US capital.
Ahead of the talks, a US official said they wanted the sides to sit down together and the primary aim was to move toward normalizing relations.
Blinken praised the foreign ministers for their leadership.
“None of this is easy, but the commitment, the determination to move forward to deal with the remaining challenging issues is real,” he said.
“The last mile of any marathon is always the hardest. We know that,” he added.
“But the United States is here to continue to help both of our friends cross the finish line.”
He said he had proposed the two ministers return to their capitals “to share with their governments the perspective that, with additional goodwill, flexibility and compromise, an agreement is within reach.”
Earlier this week, however, Russia said there was “no alternative” to a deal it signed with the two warring countries in 2020.
“For the moment, there is no other legal basis that would help a resolution. There is no alternative to these trilateral documents,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan is ‘within reach’, following the conclusion of four days of negotiations in Washington.
Blinken, who mediated talks, stated on Friday that ‘progress’ had been made despite ‘differences on key issues’, a sentiment echoed by official statements from both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On Thursday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that they had yet to agree on an international mechanism to guarantee the security of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians or the format of dialogue between Stepanakert and Baku.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov kickstarted this round of negotiations with a meeting with Blinken on Monday.
The negotiations were the biggest talks aimed at normalising relations between the two countries since the blockade of the Lachin Corridor began in mid-December. They included meetings with Blinken and Jake Sullivan, US President Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser.
The two countries discussed the delimitation and demarcation of their shared borders and the rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population.
Late last year, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed on clarifying their borders based on the 1991 Almaty Declaration. No progress had been made since then.
The United States has repeatedly called on Azerbaijan to restore regular traffic through the Lachin Corridor, as Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh appear to remain almost entirely cut off from the outside world.
In late April, Azerbaijan installed a checkpoint at the entrance of the corridor in violation of the November 2020 ceasefire agreement, which stipulates that the Lachin Corridor should fall under the control of the Russian peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Yerevan appeared somewhat dissatisfied with the outcome of the negotiations, with Yerevan-based political analyst Tigran Grigoryan describing the talks as a ‘setback’ with no joint statement signed, ‘as there probably was an expectation that at least something would be signed’.
In an interview with RFE/RL, Grigoryan said that a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan would only be possible if Armenia ‘abandons’ its position on key issues, such as the establishment of direct communication channels between Baku and Stepanakert.
Natig Jafarli, an economist and one of the leaders of Azerbaijan’s ReAl Party, appeared more optimistic, saying that peace could be achieved.
‘The final stage of such negotiations is always very difficult’, wrote Jafarli on Facebook.
He speculated that President Aliyev and Prime Minister Pashinyan would likely come up with a framework agreement on the sidelines of the upcoming European Political Community Summit in Moldova.
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova announced that Moscow planned to host its own tripartite meeting with Yerevan and Baku.
Zakharova stated that it was important for Moscow to ‘inquire about the process of [the Washington] negotiations from the direct participants’.
She said that Yerevan and Baku had already agreed to the meeting and that the dates would be announced later.
On Thursday, Pashinyan confirmed that he would visit Moscow next week to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia, which has long spearheaded mediation efforts between Azerbaijan and Armenia, has been dismissive of Western mediation in the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict.
Earlier this year, Moscow also denounced the establishment of a European civilian monitoring mission in Armenia, instead offering a CSTO alternative to the mission, which Yerevan appeared to brush aside.
For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.
YEREVAN, MAY 2, ARMENPRESS The Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) announced that a ceasefire violation took place on May 1 in the Askeran region.
In a daily bulletin, the contingent said that no one was injured in the ceasefire violation.
The Russian peacekeeping command is investigating the incident together with the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides, it added.
The Lachin Corridor is the only route connecting Armenia to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Baku said it was responding to a similar move by Armenia.
Azerbaijan has set up a checkpoint on the only road connecting Armenia to the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region for the first time since the 2020 war.
In a statement on Sunday, the state border service said that a border checkpoint was set up at the entrance of the road. It said the decision was in response to a similar move by Armenia.
The border service added that the checkpoint was to “prevent the illegal transportation of manpower, weapons, mines.”
This is the first time Azerbaijan has taken such a step since the end of a 2020 war with Armenia over the contested region. As per the cease-fire which ended the war, Baku is required to guarantee safe passage on the Lachin Corridor.
The road has been patrolled by Russian peacekeepers since. But skirmishes between the two enemy states have persisted. Armenia has often said Russia is preoccupied by its invasion of Ukraine, distracting Moscow from its peacekeeping role in the region.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry accused Armenia of using the corridor for army staff rotation, as well as “the transfer of weapons and ammunition, entrance of terrorists, as well as illicit trafficking of natural resources and cultural property.”
It said on Sunday that it built the checkpoint in light of “threats and provocations.” The ministry added that it had recorded military convoys entering the country’s territory and setting up military infrastructure “at the point closest to the territory of Azerbaijan.”
“Providing border security, as well as ensuring safe traffic on the road, is the prerogative of the government of Azerbaijan, and an essential prerequisite for national security, state sovereignty and the rule of law,” the ministry said.
Armenia condemned the checkpoint as a “flagrant violation” of the 2020 cease-fire agreement.
“We call on the Russian Federation to ultimately implement the trilateral statement,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said.
The US expressed deep concern regarding the Azerbaijani checkpoint. The US State Department said the move “undermines efforts to establish confidence in the peace process.”
“We reiterate that there should be free and open movement of people and commerce on the Lachin corridor and call on the parties to resume peace talks and refrain from provocations and hostile actions along the border,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, Armenia’s Defense Ministry reported the death of one of its soldiers after Azerbaijani forces opened fire on an Armenian position in Sotk. The village lies some 60 kilometers (roughly 37 miles) west of the border with Azerbaijan.
Baku denied killing an Armenian soldier.
Azerbaijan later said Armenian troops fired on Azerbaijani units in the Lachin district, which Yerevan denied.
Long-contested since a separatist war ended in 1994, the Nagorno-Karabakh region has fueled fighting between neighboring Armenia and Azerbaijan. The region lies within Turkey-backed Azerbaijan but had largely been under the control of Yerevan-backed ethnic Armenian forces since 1994.
In 2020, a six-week war brought areas of the region under Azerbaijan’s control and ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal.
The parents of Armenian soldiers killed in a military barracks fire in January blocked the streets around Republic Square in central Yerevan on Thursday morning, accusing Armenia’s authorities of trying to cover up their deaths.
They demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Defense Minister Suren Papikyan.
Fifteen Armenian servicemen were killed and three others were severely injured following a major fire that broke out in the barracks of an engineer and sapper company in a military unit in Azat, a village in Armenia’s eastern Gegharkunik Province, on January 19.
Pashinyan and Papikyan announced shortly after the deadly incident that the fire was sparked by an officer who poured gasoline into a woodstove in violation of the fire safety rules.
The victims’ families distrust the criminal investigation into the incident, claiming their sons were deliberately killed.
“We aren’t going to keep quiet. What have they been up to for three months? Our children must have known something, that’s why they were killed,” one of the protesters said.
Pashinyan has said he will not meet with the soldiers’ parents until the ongoing probe is completed.
MP Taguhi Tovmasyan of the opposition Pativ Unem (With Honor) faction has denounced Thursday’s “disgraceful” incident in which security officers forcibly removed a group of lawmakers from the parliament.
The incident happened after Tovmasyan refused to leave the parliament rostrum after finishing her speech in protest against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s latest statements on Artsakh.
She accused the premier of “spreading lies and casting doubt on Artsakh’s Armenian identity.” Nearly a dozen other opposition MPs joined the protest. Speaker Alen Simonyan announced a break and ordered security guards to force the deputies out of the parliament podium, prompting a scuffle.
“Yesterday’s incident in the National Assembly was a total disgrace,” Tovmasyan told a news conference hosted by the RPA office on Friday.
She claimed the speaker’s order was unlawful and its executors “had no right to obstruct the MPs’ activities”.
“They are supposed to neutralize a threat, whereas we were just standing there and were not threatening anyone’s security. This is a blatant violation which must have consequences,” Tovmasyan stressed, adding she has asked law-enforcement authorities to hold the offenders to account.
The MP warned Pashinyan against “telling more lies” to the people from the parliament podium.
“If Nikol Pashinyan continues to spread lies, he will receive an adequate response. From now on, we will not allow him to tell lies from the National Assembly rostrum,” she said.