Category: News

On the evening of May 7, President Serzh Sargsyan, who has paid a working visit to the United States of America, took part in an interreligious prayer in memory of the Armenian Genocide victims which was performed at Washington National Cathedral. The president was accompanied by His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, and Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia. The Armenian president delivered a speech. The interreligious prayer service was also joined by U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, Katharine Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, Olav Fykse Tveit, Secretary-General of the World Council of Churches, numerous clergymen, thousand members of the Armenian-American community, American diplomats, as well as by public and political figures.

Address by RA President Serzh Sargsyan at Washington National Cathedral

Distinguished Vice President Biden,

The Most Reverend Doctor Katharine Jeffers Schori,

Reverend Doctor Olav Fykse Tveit,

Your Holiness Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II,

Your Holiness Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram I,

Eminences,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honor to speak at the Washington National Cathedral: a cathedral, the foundation of which contains a stone brought from Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, inscribed “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

The eminent advocate of equal rights, Martin Luther King, who had a dream of achieving justice and peace, delivered his last Sunday sermon exactly from this Cathedral.

This Cathedral also houses the tomb of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, who made an exceptional contribution with introducing and upholding liberal, moreover, idealist ideology in international affairs. He was considered an idealist, and it was exactly that ideology that paved the way to establish the system of international organizations, set the first examples of international protection of the human and citizen rights, and to introduce the people’s right to self-determination and legal equality. In the memory of the Armenian people, he will always remain as an international leader who reached out with a helping hand, one whose vision was fair regarding the need to overcome the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide.

Hence, it is symbolic that for the first time today, an ecumenical prayer service is held at this Cathedral to commemorate the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide, and the Psalm will be heard: “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

It was the failure of mercy and humanity a century ago that made 1.5 million Armenians fall victim to the slogan “murder because they are different,” was it not? It was the failure of justice and peace, that led to the murder of 6 million Jews, was it not? It was the failure of humanity and solidarity that made possible the Genocidal pages of Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur to be written into the history books, was it not? It is the failure to consolidate and to act in a timely manner that makes the minorities in the Middle East today walk the same infernal path as Armenians, Jews, Tutsis, and the Sudanese walked it, is it not?

Unfortunately, the response to all these questions is affirmative. Unfortunately, we all have to confess that, as an international community, we lack reliable mechanisms to prevent these phenomena. Moreover, we witness an escalation of violent practices and cynical comments.

Distinguished partakers,

In the United States of America, this cradle of diversity and pluralism, democracy and liberty, I address you with gratitude as numerous countries and nations of the word came together anew this year, the year of commemorating the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide. They came together in an international effort against the crimes of genocide, and declared that their unity to restore justice and help the truth win. This ecumenical prayer of solidarity is a brilliant act of such unity.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In our century-long struggle for justice and truth, we have constantly felt the support of the USA, among other nations. Many more would have died and the fate of many survivors would have been more cruel, had friendly countries, including the USA, not stood by the side of our people in that difficult period. William Saroyan, the great Armenian American, said: “here Armenians, who have survived the genocide met, laughed, prayed again in their mother tongue, and created a new Armenia.”

Back in the late 19th century, progressive American public and political figures strongly condemned the anti-Armenian policy of the Sultan’s government and reached out a helping hand to the outcast Armenians. One cannot forget the heroic and exceptional mission of Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, to help Armenian suffering on the other side of the Ocean. American society voiced their protest during 1915-1923 as well, against the mass killing and deportation of the Armenians, which was subsequently designated as genocide. Every day, the American press printed the eyewitness accounts of diplomats and missionaries that saw these tragic events, and of Armenians saved by miracle. The name of Henry Morgenthau, the United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, is inscribed eternally in golden letters in the list of friends of Armenians. Back in the day, he became the first American to tell the world about the mass atrocities of the Young Turks against the Armenian people, calling the Armenian Genocide “a campaign to exterminate a race.” The Armenian people will forever remember the hundreds of Americans that established orphanages in Armenia, the Middle East, and Europe, to save and to look after dozens of thousands of Armenian orphans that had survived the Genocide.

Recently, in the United States numerous initiatives have been launched to unambiguously asses the Armenian Genocide. The striking illustration of what I just said is the sole fact that 44 of the States have already recognized and condemned that crime against humanity. I hope that the complete US recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not a matter of “if” but of “when.”

Distinguished partakers,

Henry Morgenthau wrote in his memoir that as Armenians left their homes under the threat of the Turkish yataghan, the very homes in which their ancestors had lived for 2,500 years, they would say: “Pray for us.” A few days ago, the Armenian Apostolic Church canonized the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide: henceforth, the one and a half million martyrs are already saints. As we pray for them, let us pray, and demand truth and justice. Let this demand always remain awake and to ring, to ring as the hundred bells of churches rang around the world on the eve of the Centennial. Let us try together to bandage the wounds of humanity in order to achieve justice and peace for us and around the world.

Thank you.

On 8 May Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan attended the festive ceremony of lighting the torch of the 6th Pan-Armenian Games in Shushi and delivered a speech.

In his remarks President Sahakyan said that it was the second time the festive ceremony of lighting the torch of the Pan-Armenian Games took place in Artsakh, considering it a sign bearing profound meaning.

According to the President, the unique character of the Pan-Armenian Games lies in the fact that there are no losers and the gained victories are victories of the whole Armenian people.

Bako Sahakyan called the games an important means to appear before the world as a civilized, consolidated, self-reliant nation, which, despite being scattered across the globe, is inseparably connected with its historic homeland and does its best for the long-term development and strengthening of the independent Armenian statehood.

“A farce of a trial against NKR citizen Arsen Baghdasaryan completely fits into the logic of the policy of systematic violation of the international humanitarian law by Azerbaijan,” Spokesperson of the NKR Foreign Ministry Ani Sargsyan said, commenting on sentencing NKR citizen Arsen Baghdasryan to 15 years in jail in Azerbaijan.

“It has also become the norm for the Azerbaijani side to use the media to disseminate materials on prisoners of war and hostages, which put them in the most humiliating and degrading situation,” she said in comments to News.am.

“Gross violations of international humanitarian law on the part of Azerbaijan are a challenge for the entire international community. According to the first article of the Geneva Conventions, the Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the conventions in all circumstances,” the Spokesperson said.

“In this regard, we are confident that the international community should use all the forms and means of pressure on Azerbaijan to urge the Azerbaijani authorities to fully comply with international humanitarian law, particularly, with regard to prisoners of war and hostages,” she added.

She further explained that “At the time of detention Arsen Baghdasaryan was suspended from military service for a regular unauthorized abandonment of a military unit and was in civilian clothes. The Azerbaijani side itself confirmed that he had no firearm with him. The accusations of the Azerbaijani side against Arsen Baghdasaryan are not only groundless, but also contradict the common logic,” Ani Sargsyan said.

“Even if take into consideration the version of the Azerbaijani side that Arsen Baghdasaryan was in military service, the actions of the Azerbaijani authorities run counter to international humanitarian law, which prohibits the trial of combatants for their participation in hostilities, if they did not commit war crimes. A lawful combatant must be given a POW status upon capture and immunity from criminal prosecution for acts that do not violate the laws and customs of war,” she concluded.

Turkey has recalled its ambassador to Luxembourg to Ankara for consultations after the Luxembourg parliament deemed the 1915 killings of Ottoman Armenians during the final days of the Ottoman Empire “genocide,” joining the other countries that use the word,  reports.

In a written statement over the Luxembourg parliament’s vote on the 1915 killings on Thursday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Turkey condemns and strongly rejects the decision by the Luxembourg parliament, which it says was taken by distorting historical facts and law. The ministry said it summoned Luxembourg’s ambassador in Ankara to its offices and conveyed Ankara’s opinion to the ambassador over the vote. Turkey’s Ambassador to Luxembourg Levent Şahinkaya has been recalled back to Ankara for consultations, the statement said.

In the latest in a number of acts by parliaments of different countries, the members of the Luxembourg parliament said in a joint declaration that the 1915 killings of Armenians amount to genocide.

The declaration, parliament members say, is intended to encourage Turkish authorities to face the past.

Luxembourg is the 22nd country to officially recognize the 1915 killings of Armenians as genocide.

May 8 marks one of the most significant victories in the history of the Armenian nation. Shushi was liberated on this day 23 years ago.

During the Karabakh liberation war of early 1990s, Shushi became one of Azerbaijan’s main military strongholds in Nagorno-Karabakh.  From this strategic location, the Azeri army would bombard Karabakh’s capital Stepanakert and adjacent Armenian village.

The liberation of Shushi in May, 1992, however, served as a turning point.

About 3,800 volunteers participated in the operation of liberation of Shushi the night of May 8. The operation was led by Arkady Ter-Tadevosyan, the Commander of the self-defense forces of Artsakh.

Arkady Ter-Tadevosyan declared early on May 9 that all groupings of the rival had left Shushi.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reportedly criticized his predecessor for attending a football match between Turkish and Armenian national teams in 2008, which was then dubbed “football diplomacy” between Turkey and Armenia, reports. 

Speaking to a group of nationally respected historians at the presidential palace in Ankara on Thursday during a meeting to discuss the 1915 killings of Armenians, President Erdogan this time targeted former president Abdullah Gül for visiting Yerevan to attend a soccer match several years ago, becoming the first Turkish president to set foot in Armenia since the ex-Soviet nation gained independence in 1991

According to Erdogan, Gül’s visit played into the hands of Armenians and failed to yield any substantial result on the diplomatic front, a historian who attended the meeting told the media.

Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan invited Gül to watch a World Cup qualifying match between the Turkish and Armenian national teams in Yerevan in September 2008. Gül’s landmark visit to Yerevan paved the way for a diplomatic breakthrough for both countries, which have no diplomatic relations even though Turkey was among the first countries to recognize Armenia’s independence.

Following Gül’s visit, both countries embarked upon a number of diplomatic meetings mediated by Switzerland, resulting in the Zurich protocols to normalize ties between Turkey and Armenia. The protocols were signed in Zurich on Oct. 10, 2009 with the aim of establishing diplomatic relations and opening the two countries’ land border.

The process for reconciliation between the two countries has been deadlocked since then.

Bourj Hammoud, also known as “Little Armenia,” is a suburb in the Metn district of northern Beirut. The city was created by survivors of the Armenian genocide of 1915, most of whom settled there after the death marches in Deir ez-Zor, Syria. Today, the second generation of Armenians after the genocide are trying to find ways to save their heritage, mainly through the promotion of traditional crafts, Florence Massena writes in an article published by .

In the streets of Bourj Hammoud, you can find plenty of different goods: spices, soaps, candied and dried fruits, wooden ​molds and many others. And nestled together, jewelry, leather goods and tailors’ shops keep open for those interested in handicrafts, with storefronts in Armenian, Arabic and sometimes English.

These shops do not look fancy, yet are a very important trace of Armenian cultural heritage, after 100 years of exile in Lebanon. One of the patrons helping to sustain this culture on a daily basis is Arpi Mangassarian, an architect working in the Bourj Hammoud municipality planning office. In 2009, she helped the French-speaking cultural magazine Agenda Culturel contact local craftsmen for a book.

“I always had a passion for crafts. My father was an artist and a handyman,” she told Al-Monitor. “This book made me realize that these people need promotion. So I restored a traditional pink villa and in 2011 opened the Badguer Cultural Center to organize visits, tours and exhibitions about traditional Armenian crafts. Our role is to put the spotlight on the artisans by bringing visitors to their stores to discover their work, like actors that we bring on stage. We have mainly goldsmiths, especially for Italy, leather shoes and bags, clothes, fabrics for fashion designers, turners and smelters’ shops.”

Badguer’s aim is to help the craftsmen keep their traditions alive and help them face the harsh realities of economics and modernity. “After the Lebanese civil war, there was like an embargo over goods produced in Lebanon for exportation, and cheap-standard goods arrived on the market from China and Syria, for example,” Mangassarian said.

“Many children of the local artisans started to think about taking jobs in big companies so they could provide for their family, so we lost around 40% of the traditional shops in Bourj Hammoud. And it is still going on. … The leather sector is declining because of international competition and deterioration of purchasing power.”

Badguer was founded as a way to enhance and promote the artisans’ activities, putting them in touch with designers, stylists and architects that might be interested in quality traditional goods, but also to show the young generations that they can make money in their parents’ jobs.

“Usually, the fathers teach their children how to work, and they take over their business later on,” Mangassarian said. “I want to make them realize that good work brings good money. All they need now is promotion.”

Ago Karakolmikilian and his brother took over their father’s shoe shop. “It’s a family business, and my father was tired after all these years,” he told Al-Monitor. “I have learned everything from him. For us, it’s a cultural resistance. It’s a hard business, but we need to keep going. Plus, we produce popular and high-quality styles to fit any budget.” For him, Armenian culture has to be perpetuated through “Armenian schools, language and manufacturing, forever.”

Other artisans’ sons decide to add more specialties to their fathers’ activities, and are learning other crafts in schools. That is the case of Roger Astourian, a diamond setter for over 20 years. “I work with my father now, but not like him,” he said. “My father has been a goldsmith for over 50 years, so I work in his store to diversify his business.”

This year, which marks the centenary of the Armenian genocide, the Badguer Center prepared a special cultural program by the name of “The Armenian Rebirth After the Genocide.” For Mangassarian, not focusing on 1915 was very important: “Everyone talks about the genocide, but what happened after? We are people; we have a living culture, artisans that survived and perpetuated through all this time.”

She organized a four-pronged program: an exhibition of 100 Armenian calendars provided by associations and institutions that publish them every year, with poems and images from Armenia and Lebanon; lessons about two Kilim, the flat, tapestry-woven carpets traditionally from the Balkans to Pakistan made on weaving machines that will lead to future carpets and rug exhibitions; an exhibition of Armenian embroidery; and storytelling by people who remember their family histories.

“Usually, the stories are told in private, at home, so it will be new and maybe helpful to keep the memory alive,” she said. “The Armenians transmitted such powerful stories about the past. It is not only about deportation and genocide; it is also about life in the villages before 1915, and also about life in the host countries.”

Arpi herself was raised on these stories, told by her grandparents. She reminisced, “My father used to ask them a lot of questions, so they wouldn’t stop talking. My brother and I unconsciously kept this memory alive through our school compositions, but also through singing and dancing. My mother was part of an Armenian choir interpreting pieces from the traditional composer Komitas, an Armenian priest who is known as the founder of the Armenian national school of music at the beginning of the 20th century, and my grandmother used to dance and sing songs from her village in Armenia.”

This is why she asked people she knew, of her age and younger, to come and tell her their own family stories, which she now wants to record and diffuse. “You know, on these calendars we are going to exhibit, there is a sentence on every page,” she added. “It says, ‘Be proud of your past, be proud and keep your cultural heritage.’ That is what I am trying to do in Bourj Hammoud.”

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has wrapped up the visit to the United States.

President Sargsyan will pay a working visit to the Russian Federation, where he will participate in the sitting of the Supreme Eurasian Council.

On May 9 President Sargsyan will participate in the events dedicated to the 70^th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), preached at the 7 May ecumenical service in Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral commemorating the centennial of the Armenian genocide.

The event, entitled “The Holy Martyrs of the Armenian Genocide: A Prayer for Justice and Peace,” gathered thousands of guests and multi-faith leaders to remember those lost in the genocide and to demonstrate gratitude for the regeneration of life for the survivors and those who aided them.

Presided over by H.H. Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, and H.H. Aram I, Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia, the event was also attended by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan.

2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide, in which an estimated 1.5 million Armenians perished at the hands of Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923. With a message of awareness, gratitude and unity, the ecumenical service served as the signature event for three days of services, exhibitions, concerts and an award ceremony led by the National Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide Centennial, a project of the Armenian Apostolic Churches of America.

In light of the centennial, Tveit urged a “shared commitment to address and name crimes against humanity” in today’s world.

Urging his listeners, and governments everywhere, to move beyond the debate about how the violence is named, Tveit said, “ We should with these acts of commemoration also have passed the point when governments – including my own Norwegian government – discuss whether what happened to the Armenians in 1915 should be named as we do by our common moral sense: a genocide.”

Instead, Tveit urged, we should see the victims of the genocide in their larger significance for all humanity.

“We are commemorating them not only as witnesses to cruel death, but also as witnesses to life. They gave witness to the dignity and meaning of life before their death. Today their testimonies call us to become witnesses to life in the midst of sin and death of our time,” he said.

Drawing attention to the widespread violence in Syria and the Middle East, in South Sudan, and elsewhere, Tveit noted that “We live in a world that is facing new levels of brutality, crimes against humanity, systems of injustice, of poverty, of lack of ability and willingness to overcome conflicts through political and diplomatic processes.”

Yet, alluding to recent violence in the U.S., Tveit said all nations, even one that has become “a home for many who needed shelter from the whole world,” are challenged to witness to life and hope. “The same hopes for justice and peace we hear from this country, from cities like Ferguson and Baltimore. All lives matter!”

Drawing lessons of accountability for today, Tveit said, “The time has come for all of us to be much more than bystanders observing the sin and cruelty in this world, but together with these martyrs and saints to be ambassadors of justice and peace. At the time when also many countries in the world [also] commemorate 70 years after the end of World War II, let us together with all people of good will, of all races, beliefs or identities, explore and celebrate the deep meaning and richness of peace.”