Category: News

The Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe joins the calls for PACE President Pedro Argument to step down.

Addressing the Assembly, member of the Armenian delegation Samvel Farmanyan said it is the only “wise” way out of the current political crisis.

“It’s clear to us that you have lost your trust not only in the EPP Group, but also within all political forces represented in this Assembly,” Farmanyan said.

He described it a crisis, noting that there should be wise and politically correct way out.

“It’s quite evident for all of us that you should step down,” Samvel Farmanyan stated.

Pedro Agramunt’s recent visit to Syria has stirred outrage among legislators at PACE. The reaction has been ambiguous first of all because Agramunt’s visit to Syria had not been sanctioned by the Assembly or any of its structures.

“This visit was a mistake,” Pedro Agramunt said in his opening remarks. He expressed apology for the mistake and assured his visit does not indicate his support for “Assad’s regime.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, has joined thousands of Armenians to rally outside the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles to mark the 102nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

“One hundred and two years ago, the Ottoman Empire began a gruesome campaign against the Armenians, murdering 1.5 million men, women and children. The very first genocide of the 21st Century, the Armenian Genocide, is a wound which will never truly heal,” Rep. Schiff said in a Facebookpost.

“Today, we march today to commemorate, to remember, and to demand justice,” he added.

Schiff blasted Republican President Donald Trump for failing to recognize the events as a “genocide.”

“Today, we received a disappointing statement from yet another president, refusing to acknowledge the murder of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915-1923 for what it was – a genocide,” FOX 11 quotes Schiff as saying.

“President Trump now joins a long line of both Republican and Democratic presidents unwilling to confront Turkey, and by refusing to do so, he has made the United States once again a party to its campaign of denial,” he added.

“Today, we remember and honor the memory of those who suffered during the Meds Yeghern, one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th Century,”

“Beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. I join the Armenian community in America and around the world in mourning the loss of innocent lives and the suffering endured by so many,” he stated.

Şişli Provincial Organization of HDP has been holding “April 23,5 commemoration” for 5 years. This year, the police on winterfered with the commemoration on the occasion of 102nd anniversary of Armenian Genocide. The commemoratias held in the office of HDP, reports.

Speaking at the commemoration, Nor Zartonk spokesperson Norayr Olgar stated that genocide is continuing today in Kurdish cities: “Peace is impossible without confrontation. Victims of the genocide are everywhere.”

Melis Tantan from Şişli Provincial Organization stated that they want to relieve the suffering caused 102 years ago and the social trauma to some extent. Stating that the genocide hasn’t ended in 1915, Tantan said:

“The genocide continues with the changed names of old Armenian neighborhoods and with schools and streets named after Talat Pasha, who is one of the perpetrators of the genocide. The genocide continues with the murders of Hrant Dink, Sevag Balıkçı and Maritsa Küçük and the impunity in such cases.”

Khloe Kardashian has marked the 102nd anniversary of the Armenian genocide with a powerful post.

The 32-year-old posted a picture of her and her sisters at the centenary of the genocide in Armenia to social media.

She wrote: “Today marks the 102-year anniversary of the Armenian genocide. In 1915, the Ottoman Empire committed mass extermination of 1.5 million Western Armenians. I am proud to be an Armenian!!!

“It is our duty to not be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation no matter their race or creed. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. It saddens me that history books don’t acknowledge such torture but my voice will be used to bring awareness to my people for being survivors!!!”

Khloe then shared a quote from Armenian-American novelist William Saroyan, writing: “‘I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump has avoided uttering the term “genocide” to define mass killing of ethnic Armenians at the hands of Ottomans in 1915, emulating his predecessor in describing the killings as “Meds Yeghern” — the Great Tragedy.

“Today, we remember and honor the memory of those who suffered during the Meds Yeghern, one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.

“Beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. I join the Armenian community in America and around the world in mourning the loss of innocent lives and the suffering endured by so many,” the statement released on Monday said.

Calling the 1915 killings as the “dark chapter of human history,” Mr. Trump said “we also recognize the resilience of the Armenian people,” as many of them built new lives in the United States.

“We must remember atrocities to prevent them from occurring again. We welcome the efforts of Turks and Armenians to acknowledge and reckon with the painful history, which is a critical step toward building a foundation for a more just and tolerant future,” the president concluded.

Photo: AP

By Chris Bohjalian

Adolph Hotler kept a bust of Ataturk in his office. Heinrich Himmler considered moving to Turkey in the early 1920s. And Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, admitted in his memoirs (penned while awaiting his execution) that he first killed while serving in the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. Make no mistake: The Young Nazis were serious fanboys of the Yung Turks.

The term “Young Turk” today, of course, has come to mean a hard-charging young executive, a bullish entrepreneur who takes no prisoners. A century ago, however, the Young Turks — Talaat Pasha, Djemal Pasha, and Enver Pasha — were the leaders of the Ottoman Empire and the architects of the Armenian genocide: the systematic annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians during the First World War. Three out of every four Armenians living under Ottoman rule were killed by their own government; the nation, outside of Istanbul, was ethnically cleansed of its Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek minorities.

And the Germans, the Ottoman Empire’s ally, were there. They saw it all. The cables from the German diplomats from Aleppo to Erzurum that chronicled the slaughter are as clear as the photographs that German medic Armin Wegner took of starving children and dying women. And while some of those Germans were aghast at what they were witnessing, others clearly were inspired.

After the war, Mustafa Kemal — Ataturk — finished the work of the Young Turks, turning his armies on the Armenians and the Greeks, forcing them out and creating what he hoped would be a homogenous Turkic nation. No minorities to muddy the agenda. Then, with Stalin-like fanaticism, his government began to rewrite history, denying the carnage. Armenians went from victims to traitors; the true story was erased. It’s why Turkey today continues to deny the genocide with pathologic obsession. The last thing they want is for Mustafa Kemel and the Young Turks to be saddled with the moniker “war criminal,” or their nation to risk the sort of reparations that accompany the term “genocide.”

Today is April 24, the day when Armenians around the world commemorate the start of the Armenian genocide: It was that night in 1915 when the Ottoman authorities rounded up the Armenian political, intellectual, and religious leaders of Constantinople and executed almost all of them.

To commemorate this devastating anniversary, the president of the United States will likely find yet another euphemism for the word “genocide,” because heaven forbid America should risk antagonizing Turkey by describing accurately what happened and assigning the blame where it belongs. Trust me, some poor White House speechwriter’s thesaurus is looking pretty dogeared right about now.

Congress has not formally recognized the Armenian genocide either, and I’m not expecting this one to put moral spine before realpolitik.

But, fittingly, Germany has. Last year the German Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of calling the massacres a genocide.

Historians often note how the last stage in genocide is denial, and that denial becomes the first stage in the next one. As a character in one of my novels remarks, “There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?”

The Holocaust might have occurred even without the precedent of the Armenian genocide. But as historian Stefan Ihrig proves in his book “Justifying Genocide,” the Young Nazis were there when the Young Turks were at work. They saw how easy it was to blame the problems of the nation on one small ethnic minority, and then rationalize their murder. They grew bold. As Hitler said to his Wehrmacht commanders on Aug. 22, 1939, a week and a half before unleashing his Panzers on Poland, “I have placed my death-head formation in readiness with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

That is precisely why today America must stop mincing words when it comes to the Armenian genocide.

The centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen have won the first round of voting in French presidential elections, projected results say, the BBC reports.

Mr Macron won 23.7%, while Ms Le Pen won 21.7%, French TV says.

The two saw off a strong challenge from centre-right François Fillon and the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, according to the projections.

The pair now face a run-off vote on 7 May.

Whoever wins the next round, the voting marks a shift away from the left and centre-right parties that have long dominated French politics.

Turnout nationally appears to be similar to the last election in 2012.

Photo: Boxingscene.com

German Armenian boxer “King” Artur Abraham (76,2 kg / GER) won a twelve round unanimous decision over Robin Krasniqi (75,6 kg / GER) in a World Boxing Organization (WBO) Super Middleweight title eliminator.

Abraham will now challenge WBO Super Middleweight World Champion Gilberto Ramirez of Mexico for reigning the title.

Abraham, a former WBO middleweight and super middleweight world champion, lost his 168-pound championship last April to Ramirez in Las Vegas. He bounced back in July, when he knocked out Tim Robin Lihaung in eight rounds. He was set to face Martin Murray in a rematch in the fall, but withdrew with an injury.