Category: 2022

Press Contact:
Glendale School Board President Shant Sahakian
(818) 482-9858
[email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Glendale, CA (February 8, 2022) – Glendale School Board President Shant Sahakian has announced his re-election bid to continue serving the students, parents, and families of the Glendale Unified School District as a member of the Board of Education representing District D.

During his first term on the Board of Education, Sahakian advanced 21st century academic programs that prepare students for college, career, and life success, supported initiatives that promote healthy, safe, and inclusive schools for all, and provided strong leadership in governance, transparency, and accountability. During his tenure as School Board President, the school district implemented a full and safe reopening of campuses, made historic investments in school programs, people, and infrastructure, and adopted essential reforms including his term limits proposal for School Board members. He has been a tireless public servant who has worked together with students, parents, families, teachers, and staff to address the school community’s greatest needs.

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve our Glendale Unified community – but we have many more issues to tackle and much more work to do on the road ahead,” stated Glendale School Board President Shant Sahakian. “Together, we will build on our progress and ensure that each and every one of our students has the opportunities, resources, and support they need to reach their ultimate potential.”

Sahakian was elected to his first term in April 2017, becoming the youngest School Board Member and first Millennial elected in Glendale history.

He was elected in the City of Glendale’s first by trustee area election to represent District D on the Board of Education. District D is encompassed by East Glendale neighborhoods including Adams Hill, Camino San Rafael, Chevy Chase Canyon, Citrus Grove, Emerald Isle, Glenoaks Canyon, Mariposa, Somerset, and Woodbury.

Sahakian is a lifelong resident of Glendale, product of Glendale public schools, and proud GUSD parent with deep roots in the community. He is a longtime community leader who has championed Glendale’s youth, advocated for the underserved, and served the community through a distinguished record of public service. In the past, he has served as the Chair of the City of Glendale Arts & Culture Commission, Chair of Glendale Youth Alliance, President of the Glendale Parks & Open Space Foundation, and Vice President of Glendale Kiwanis.

His professional career began as a young entrepreneur at the age of 14 when he founded his own digital agency serving businesses and non-profit organizations with design and technology services. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Armenian American Museum and Cultural Center of California in addition to his elected role.

He became the first Armenian American to be honored with the prestigious Man of the Year Award from the Glendale Chamber of Commerce in 2016. He is the recipient of the Hope Diamond Award from the Glendale Educational Foundation, Community Award from the Character & Ethics Project, and the inaugural Hero Award from Glendale Youth Alliance.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design with a Marketing Minor from California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and a Certificate in Marketing from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA Extension).

He and his wife, Suzanna, reside in Glendale, California with their son, Raffi Sebastian, and daughter, Lori Sidney.

Learn more about Glendale School Board President Shant Sahakian at https://www.ShantSahakian.com.

YEREVAN, Armenia

Despite the absence of diplomatic relations and their closed border, Armenia and Turkiye have been engaged in trade for years via a roundabout route through Georgia, a state bordering both countries.

Now, as Ankara and Yerevan seek to normalize relations, Turkish-Armenian trade could flourish once more.

According to Richard Giragosian, a US-born Armenian who heads the Regional Studies Center (RSC) think tank in the capital Yerevan, economics and trade are now recognized as real incentives for normalization.

This was not the case years ago, he underlined, saying that the economic potential between Armenia and Turkiye and prospects of reopening the border are part of a broader regional restoration of trade and transport.

Armenia is a landlocked country with limited economic interactions with its region due to border closures with Azerbaijan and Turkiye. This contrasts with other South Caucasian nations who have long enjoyed vital trade and transport connections with their neighbors.

Today, Armenia has two border openings to the world — with Georgia to the north and Iran to the south. Georgia has provided Armenia with a gateway for foreign trade.

“This isn’t only a positive foundation, but it’s also an important first step at lowering transport costs,” Giragosian said.

No longer must trade bypass border restrictions and pass through Georgia, he added, noting that direct trade relations would automatically lower export and import costs.

Win-win atmosphere

Giragosian pointed out that the RSC has been conducting joint research with the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkiye (TEPAV).
“Our studies’ findings indicate that it’s the east of Turkey that will benefit most from cross-border trade, stability and jobs,” he said, using Turkiye’s former name.

Turkiye’s eastern region stands to gain the most from the border’s reopening, rather than the national economy, he said, both in terms of tourism and trade. “It’s a win-win,” he added.

Engaging in protectionism, building walls, closing borders does not encourage economic growth or development, just the opposite, he stressed.

“I would think the Armenian economy would welcome the competition, which will develop between Armenia and Turkey,” he stressed, saying the lack of diplomatic relations has led to a reality where the lack of information promotes misinformation.

Giragosian also said there is a shared challenge to recover from COVID-19. “And I do think new supply chains, new trade routes are beneficial, and there is little negative cost.”

Armenian IT sector promising for Turkish partners

In particular, Armenia’s growing IT sector would be in a good position to meet the needs of eastern Turkiye, the seasoned economist said. “The connection in terms of road and rail tourism, whether medical tourism or normal tourism, will only encourage benefits for Armenia, as well.”

He added that Armenia’s IT industry “is also distinctly positioned” to “add something new for Turkish partners.”

According to Giragosian, the most obvious industry to benefit from a reopening of the border is, in fact, Armenia’s Russian-owned energy sector, with plans to export surplus electricity to eastern Turkey.

He also underlined that Russian ownership of Armenia’s railway network and plans to restore the rail link between the northwestern Armenian city of Gyumri and Turkiye’s eastern Kars province ensures Moscow’s support for the process.

Giragosian also noted the attractiveness of the textile sector, in which Turkish subsidiaries of firms setting up factories in Armenia could take advantage of low wages and highly skilled Armenian labor. This would also facilitate expansion into new markets for Turkish and Armenian textile products.

“In general, I think the starting point is so low that progress is guaranteed,” he concluded.

Normalization as boon for regional development

Despite the Armenian economy’s much smaller size compared to Turkiye’s, it carries the potential for Ankara to enhance its position as a regional actor with an economic and political presence in the South Caucasus and as a market and recipient of investment, according to Guven Sak, the managing director of TEPAV.

According to Sak, normalization will be beneficial for both sides, noting fears on the Armenian side that opening the border would allow an influx of Turkish goods that could destroy the domestic industry.

He said similar arguments had been made and proven wrong in the runup to Turkiye’s Customs Union with the EU.

“On the contrary … Turkish industry became stronger,” he added.

Sak said he had sought to ease such concerns in Yerevan in a presentation he made there a decade ago.

“During that presentation, I told them: ‘Yours (industry) will be the same,'” he added.

He underlined that though Armenia “is not a place that can be a source of growth for the Turkish economy on a national scale,” it could be “extremely beneficial” as a regional development project for border cities.

Artur Ghazaryan, the program director of the Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen of Armenia, also commented on the issue, saying that conflicts must be resolved through a process starting with dialogue and progressing with cooperation and confidence-building.

“I believe the economy and business is the most sustainable area of cooperation since, once parties generate profit together, they will find it hard to stop,” he added.

He also stressed that efforts to develop ties anew would not be starting from scratch, noting that businesses on either side were cooperating despite the closed borders.

“In the absence of any official relations between Armenia and Turkey, there was one thing that was regulating relations between two countries: Business ethics,” he said.

Ghazaryan said that despite this groundwork, Armenian companies would face some problems navigating Turkiye’s customs system. Resolving these issues will be the first step towards the point in which the two sides could pursue joint investments, he said, adding that ensuring Turkish and Armenian firms are on equal footing could be the first step in the normalization process.

In spite of the closed borders, Armenia has imported goods from Turkiye via third countries such as Iran and Georgia. But, this remains a one-sided relationship with no significant trade flows from Armenia to Turkiye.

Baki

The Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi is being dismantled by Azerbaijanis

U.S. Religious Freedom Group Joins Calls for Accountability by Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan’s decision to establish a government commission to erase all Armenian traces from centuries-old churches and monuments has prompted a growing chorus of condemnations from the Holy See of Etchmiadzin, official Yerevan and Stepanakert, as well as international bodies, among them the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

One of the first steps taken by official Baku since the end of the 2020 war has been the overt destruction of Armenian churches and monuments in territories that are currently being occupied by Azerbaijan, in an effort to erase all traces of Armenian heritage—a policy started in the 1990s when Azerbaijan destroyed tens of thousands of Armenian churches, monuments and tombstones in Nakhichevan.

The plan to establish a commission was announced late last week by Azerbaijan’s culture minister, Anar Karimov, who said that Armenian churches and other monuments will be appropriated as Albanian through a group of “experts” who will be assembled to oversee this matter.

The Holy See of Etchmiadzin on Tuesday condemned Baku’s anti-Armenian advances, saying this policy goes against all norms of humanity and civilization and is a “manifestation of hostility and hate against Armenia, Artsakh and Armenian people.”

“The Holy See of Holy Etchmiadzin calls on all countries engaged in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process—first and foremost the co-chairing states of the OSCE Minsk Group—sister churches and religious institutions, international professional organizations to strictly respond to the fact of undisguised cultural genocide implemented by Azerbaijan and to stop and prevent such expressions of vandalism,” a statement from Etchmiadzin said.

Artsakh’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday stated that the establishment of such a commission is in direct violation of a ruling by the International Court of Justice, which, in December, demanded that Azerbaijan take the necessary measures to prevent all acts of vandalism committed against the Armenian cultural heritage and punish those responsible.

“We strongly condemn the decision of the Azerbaijani authorities to establish a special commission tasked with, according to subsequent statements by officials, destroying the traces of the Armenian identity of cultural and religious monuments located in the territories of Artsakh occupied by Azerbaijan,” said a statement by Artsakh’s foreign ministry.

“This serves as another convincing proof of the fact that Armenian cultural monuments that have come under the control of the Azerbaijani authorities is in real danger of being completely destroyed or torn off from their historical roots,” added the foreign ministry, saying that falsifying history and perpetrating cultural genocide by Azerbaijan are an integral part of the broader anti-Armenian policy systematically pursued by Baku for several decades.

“If at the initial stage of the Azerbaijani-Karabagh conflict, manipulations with history and culture served as a justification for the deportation of the Armenian population from the former Azerbaijan SSR, now they are aimed at legitimizing the results of the illegal use of military force by Azerbaijan against Artsakh,” the Artsakh foreign ministry emphasized.

“There is a strong belief among the international community and in expert circles that the destruction of cultural monuments is an attack on the dignity of peoples, their values and ideals in order to undermine the nation’s ability to withstand historical trials and develop. By declaring war on Armenian history and culture, Azerbaijan is trying to achieve exactly this goal,” said the Artsakh foreign ministry.
 
“The destruction of the Armenian cultural heritage is not only an attempt to deprive the people of Artsakh of their rights, including the right to culture, but also a challenge to the international community and a threat to peace and security. Over the past decades, the international community represented by the UN, in response to the increasing number of cases of deliberate destruction of cultural monuments during conflicts across the world, has developed a position according to which the destruction of cultural sites is a war crime and amounts to acts of terrorism,” explained the Artsakh foreign ministry.

Official Stepanakert also called on the international community to take decisive steps to ensure that Azerbaijan adheres to the decisions of the International Court of Justice and other international legal and human rights conventions.

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vahan Hunanyan on Tuesday condemned Azerbaijan’s official efforts at cultural destuction.

“The establishment of such a working group at the state level aimed at deliberate and illegal looting of the historical and cultural heritage of the neighboring people and depriving them of their historical memory, is unprecedented even in the history of conflicts. It once again demonstrates the fact that the cases of vandalism and destruction of the Armenian historical, cultural and religious heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh during the 44-day war and its aftermath, are deliberate and pre-planned, and are part of the policy of annihilating Nagorno-Karabakh’s indigenous Armenian population,” Hunanyan said.

“In view of the current situation, the immediate intervention and unimpeded involvement on the ground of the international community, in particular UNESCO, is becoming more urgent for the preservation and prevention of the cases of vandalism against the Armenian monuments of Artsakh, which are part of the universal cultural heritage,” added Hunanyan.

“This policy of destruction and distortion of the identity of the Armenian historical and cultural heritage and religious sanctuaries contradicts Azerbaijan’s statements on achieving reconciliation in the region, and creates serious obstacles to the establishment of lasting peace in the region,” Hunanyan said.

Joining the chorus of criticism of Baku’s most recent policy was Chair of U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Nadine Maenza who expressed concern over Azerbaijan’s plans to remove Armenian Apostolic inscriptions from churches.

“We urge the government to preserve and protect places of worship and other religious and cultural sites,” Maenza said in a social media post on Tuesday.

The Armenia-Greece Friendship Association, in a statement, also condemned Baku’s plans to erase Armenian traces from monuments, Greece’s Embassy in Yerevan said in a Facebook post.

“The Armenia-Greece Friendship Association condemns the initiative of the Azerbaijani government to set up a working group to destroy the Armenian presence from the Armenian temples in the territories occupied by Azerbaijan under the pretext that those temples belonged to the Caucasian Albanian Church,” said the statement.

The Armenia-Greece Friendship Association called on UNESCO and other international organizations to take a stand and do everything possible to prevent it.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Sochi in 2018

YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Armenia on Tuesday shrugged off Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s claims that it will have no choice but to join a Russian-led “union state” of former Soviet republics.

In a televised interview with a pro-Kremlin Russian journalist broadcast on Monday, Lukashenko predicted that Moscow will cobble together a “union of sovereign states” with common defense, national security and economic systems over the next 10 to 15 years. He said it will compromise not only Russia and Belarus but also Central Asian states, Armenia and even Ukraine.

“Armenia has nowhere [else] to go,” claimed the long-serving Belarusian strongman. “Do you think anyone needs them?”

“They have already seen that. Nikol Vovaevich [Pashinyan] has seen that,” he added in reference to the Armenian prime minister.

Pashinyan’s government hit back at Lukashenko through the Armenian Foreign Ministry and pro-government parliamentarians.

“We believe that the Belarusian president’s peculiar geopolitical analyses aim to first and foremost serve his domestic political agenda and have nothing to do with Armenia and its foreign policy,” the ministry spokesman, Vahan Hunanyan, said in written comments to the press.

Lawmakers representing Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party went further, launching scathing attacks on Lukashenko on the Armenian parliament floor.

“The leader of a partner state has no right to express such thoughts about another partner state,” one of them, Vagharshak Hakobyan, said.

Another Civil Contract deputy, Hovik Aghazaryan, accused Lukashenko of “doing the Russian authorities and Russian statehood a disservice.”

Aghazarian also said: “Before making statements, Lukashenko had better inspect the airport of [the Belarusian capital] Minsk, which looks more like a pigsty.”

Russia and Belarus signed a Union State treaty in 1999 and have been negotiating on and off since then.

Lukashenko for years resisted much closer integration between the two nations envisaged by the treaty. But the authoritarian president has grown more supportive of the project since Moscow helped him stay in power following a disputed 2020 presidential election and his ensuing crackdown on dissent which led to more Western sanctions against Belarus.

Artur Khachatryan, a lawmaker from the main opposition Hayastan alliance, said the Armenian authorities have only themselves to blame for Lukashenko’s “unacceptable” remarks. He said they have become too reliant on Russia in dealing with serious security challenges facing Armenia after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The government deliberately lowered the degree of this country’s sovereignty, and of course Lukashenko and others will not hesitate to take advantage of that,” charged Khachatryan.

Lukashenko, who has a warm rapport with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, has repeatedly raised eyebrows in Yerevan in the past with pro-Azerbaijani statements on the Karabakh conflict and arms supplies to Baku. In 2018, he also questioned Armenia’s role in the Collective Security Treaty Organization after Armenian law-enforcement authorities indicted Yuri Khachaturov, the then secretary general of the Russian-led military alliance.

Armenia’s Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan (right) meets with Britain’s Ambassador to Armenia, John Gallagher on Feb. 8

Armenia’s Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan on Tuesday told Britain’s Ambassador to Armenia that Azerbaijan continues to detain Armenian prisoners of war in an effort to advance Baku’s military and political interests.

John Gallagher, the UK ambassador, was briefed by Tatoyan about the violations of rights of Armenia’s border residents by the Azerbaijani armed forces, with concrete facts and examples. Tatoyan also emphasized the need for Azerbaijani armed forces to immediately withdraw from the roads in the vicinity of Armenian villages and stressed the need creating a demilitarized security zone.

The human rights defender also spoke about the urgency for the return of Armenian captives illegally being held in Azerbaijan, as well as the fact that those people are held there for political and military interests, for trade purposes.

Tatoyan praised Britain for its commitment to human rights and highlighted his office’s cooperation with various British human rights institutions.

Other issues discussed during the meeting included inconsistencies within Armenia’s judiciary, as well as the protection of rights of women and children were also discussed.

Tatoyan told Gallagher that during the COVID-19-related restrictions in Armenia a working group was formed at his office dealing with the protection of women’s, children’s rights, the prevention of domestic violence. He also presented the current challenges in the field of the protection of rights of children.