Category: News

In December 2014, the European Union confirmed financial support with total value of €25 million to the Government of Armenia, within the programme ENPARD (European Neighbourhood Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development) Armenia. This programme is being implemented over three years, providing €20 million of budget support for the Government of Armenia to sustain agricultural and rural development. A further €5 million is being provided to support the Ministry of Agriculture and to promote the development of farmers groups and value adding chains throughout Armenia.

The budget support payments are being made over three years, and the 2016 payment of €7 million has just been transferred to the Government of Armenia. In confirming the payment, Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Piotr Świtalski, commented: “I very much welcome the progress achieved in the implementation of this programme as a whole, including the valuable role played by the complementary assistance. I would therefore like to congratulate the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture in particular for the achievements in the context of this support.”

This support, in line with EU assistance priorities, contributes directly to achieving the Eastern Partnership key objective of reducing economic and social disparities. Given the high unemployment and lack of livelihoods and income, poverty levels in Armenia remain high, particularly in rural areas. Agriculture and subsistence farming represent a broad-based opportunity for food security and informal employment. Thus, there is a great need for agricultural and rural development through improving agricultural institutions, strengthening the capacity and performance of farmers associations and cooperatives, increasing access to affordable food, and supporting the roll-out of a general agricultural census. All of these areas are being supported through ENPARD Armenia.

Within the framework of the programme, over €5 million has been committed to UNIDO, UNDP and FAO to provide technical support to the Government of Armenia in close cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, local authorities and other stakeholders. UNIDO and UNDP are working jointly to strengthen and establish producer groups and engage them effectively in value chain development. FAO provides technical assistance to the Ministry of Agriculture for institutional development and policy harmonization, as well as the roll-out of the national agricultural census. Beneficiaries of the programme are rural communities, farmers, producer group members, employees in agricultural value chains, and their families.

ENPARD is improving the lives of nearly 800 farmers directly, and indirectly 3,200 people, through the creation of agricultural cooperatives.  The cooperatives have been provided with the latest equipment and technology, and their staff trained in the production of high quality products. 55 cooperatives have been formed and registration initiated under the Law on Agricultural Cooperatives. The farmer groups are producing buckwheat, European type high value cheeses, non-traditional vegetables such as broccoli, and dried fruits and herbs. In every case value is added to the products before sale. Members of the groups have invested nearly €240,000 of their own funds in their cooperatives, while partner development organizations have given or lent at favourable terms a further €150,000. All ENPARD products (to be available in stores from November 2016) will meet food safety standards, and will be certified. In addition, fourteen unique brands are being developed and will be registered.

Volunteers from the United States Embassy in Armenia joined the Fuller Center for Housing Armenia (FCHA) to build a home for the Aloyan family from SisavanVillage in the Ararat Region

The partnership between the U.S. Embassy and the Fuller Center for Housing Armenia started in 2008.Every year, the U.S. Embassy’s “Helping Hands” volunteer organization joins forces with FCHA to create an event where Embassy staff and family member can help build a home for an Armenian family living in inadequate housing conditions. This year, U.S. Embassy personnel joined the Aloyans to help with painting and concreting projects for their new home.

The Aloyans are a family of eleven. Sargis and his wife, Anie – together with their 2 children – live with Sargis’ parents and his brother’s family, making for eleven people in a three-room house. The extended family started building a house for Sargis and his family four years ago.

“Perhaps it is the cherished dream of everyone to have a home. As a father of two I was always downhearted that I could not provide my little ones with a decent home. It is impossible to explain the happiness we feel each day when we see the progress on the construction of our house and feel that soon, very soon, we will move to our new home,” shared Sargis.

“Back in the spring of 2016, this house had only walls and a ceiling. Today, construction is nearly complete and we are already painting the walls. The U.S. Embassy has joined us in our mission since 2008. And it is thanks to the strong conviction and dedication of our partners, volunteers, and supporters that the Aloyans and many other Armenian families enjoy the happiness of homeownership,” stated FCHA President Ashot Yeghiazaryan.

In 2009, the United States Congress designated September 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York City.  In 2016, as the American people mark the 15th anniversary of those senseless acts of destruction, the U.S. Embassy was honored to partner with FCHA to give the Aloyans renewed hope as they prepare to move into their new home and begin to construct a new, brighter future.

By Harut Sassounian
The California Courier

A recently published book “Remembering for the Future: Armenia, Auschwitz, and Beyond,” edited by Michael Berenbaum, Richard Libowitz, and Marcia Sachs Littell, is a collection of scholarly papers delivered at a conference held at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, March 8-11, 2014.

In his paper, “The Armenian Genocide as Jihad,” Prof. Richard Rubenstein attributes the Armenian mass killings to Islamic fanaticism against Christians. This is an often misunderstood topic even by Armenians who proudly proclaim that they were the first nation to adopt Christianity as state religion in 301 A.D. There is a whole folklore based on the misconception that Armenians were martyred because of their faith and refusal to convert to Islam. Given the current anti-Islamic fervor in the United States and elsewhere, some people are misled by these false claims.

Prof. Rubenstein starts his paper on the wrong footing when he describes a gruesome scene from “Ravished Armenia,” a 1919 Hollywood silent film which showed several naked Armenian women nailed to wooden crosses. Believing that “the Turks” intended to send a particular anti-Armenian and anti-Christian message with such horrifying images, Prof. Rubenstein mistakenly claims that the movie “could not have been filmed without the involvement and consent of Turkish authorities.”

Prof. Rubenstein bases his assumptions of the religious motive behind the Armenian Genocide on the fact that “the Ottoman Empire was governed as a theocratic state at the apex of which stood the Sultan, both the supreme head of state and, for Sunni Muslims, the Caliph and, as such, the successor to the Prophet and supreme protector of Islam.”

The Professor insists on stipulating a religious causal factor for the Armenian Genocide, even after quoting from the eminent scholar Dr. Vahakn Dadrian, who contradicts him. According to Dadrian, the members of the Committee of Union and Progress or Ittihad who gained power in 1908 and masterminded the Armenian Genocide, were not “followers of the tenets of Islam…. While the Ittihad continued to run the State largely as a theocracy, its leaders were personally atheists and agnostics.” It is difficult to believe that a devout Muslim would murder a single human being, let alone millions!

Dr. Rubenstein emphasizes the central role of Islam in the Turkish mass killings of Armenians, even though he acknowledges that “[Ronald] Suny and other scholars have argued that the predominant motive for the murderous homogenization project was nationalism and there is no doubt that radical nationalism played a part.” Rubenstein dismisses the issue of Pan-Turkish nationalism, arguing that “the most important motivation for the monumental ‘ethnic cleansing’ projects was religious and specifically a consequence of the unchanging nature of certain aspects of Islam.”

To demonstrate that religion was a major determinant in the Turkish leaders’ designs, Prof. Rubenstein states: “on November 2, 1914, the Ottoman Empire declared war on the Entente powers, Britain, France, Russia, and their allies. OnNovember 13, the Ottoman Sultan, in his capacity as Caliph, issued an appeal for jihad. The next day, Mustafa Hayri Bey, the Sheikh-ul-Islam, and as such the chief Sunni religious authority in the Ottoman world, issued a formal (and inflammatory) declaration of jihad ‘against infidels and enemies of Islam.’ Jihad pamphlets in Arabic were also distributed in mosques throughout the Muslim world that offered a detailed plan of operations for the assassination and extermination of all ‘unbelievers’ except those of German nationality, the Empire’s wartime ally. Killing squads and their leaders were ‘motivated by both the ideology of jihad and Pan-Turkism influenced by European nationalism.’ While the practical influence of the jihad on the masses was limited, ‘it later facilitated the government’s program of genocide against the Armenians.’”

Prof. Rubenstein misses the point that religious fervor, rather than being the cause of the Armenian Genocide, was exploited to inflame the passions of the fanatical Turkish mobs in order to provoke them against the Armenians.

Instead of religion, the primary motivation for the destruction of Armenians was their removal as an impediment to Turkification and an obstacle to the Turkish leaders’ grand scheme of establishing a Pan-Turanist empire reaching Central Asia. Even though they were Muslims, a large number of Kurds were also killed, simply because they were not Turks!

Christian Armenians had no conflict with devout Muslims and their faith. In fact, large numbers of survivors of the Armenian Genocide were sheltered by Muslims in, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria. Armenians remember well The Sharif of Mecca, Al-Husayn ibn Ali, who issued an edict in 1917 ordering Muslims to defend Armenian survivors of the Genocide, as they would defend their own families.

The Young Turks’ plan to eliminate Armenians from Ottoman Turkey was motivated by Pan-Turkish fanatical nationalism rather than Pan-Islamic fervor!

Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan will most likely be appointed Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), reports, quoting sources at the Armenian Government.

“Seyran Ohanyan will be dismissed from Defense Minister’s post in the near future. He will be appointed as CSTO chief,” the souse said.

SCTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha had declared earlier that his successor would be announced on October 14 during the CSTO Collectives Security Council sitting in Yerevan.

There are conditions for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, but what we lack is the political will of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick said in a an interview with

He said the Karabakh settlement is the “sphere where the United States, Russia and France have complete understanding.”

The diplomat said “the ceasefire has been more or less maintained after the four-day war in April and this creates an atmosphere conducive to achieving progress in the negotiations.”

“We would like to hold another meeting between the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan. We would like to continue to work on the proposals to find points of rapprochement and reach a final solution to the conflict that has been continuing for 20 years now,” Warlick said.

He said there is no clarity with respect to the time and place of the possible meeting of the Presidents. “As Co-Chairs we’ll meet with the Foreign Ministers to lay the basis for the next summit. We hope to see both Presidents in New York in a fortnight on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session to discuss the next steps. We hope the Presidents will meet there,” James Warlick said.

It can be difficult to balance a love story with one of the deadliest wars ever as a backdrop, and some films have done it better than others. The latest to try is The Promise starring Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale. Set during the heart of World War I, the film will tackle the Armenian Genocide, with Isaac and Bale’s characters thrown into the middle of the conflict, according to .

Set in 1914 right before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the film follows Michael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac), a hopeful medical student who arrives in Constantinople to bring modern medicine to his ancestral village of Siroun in Southern Turkey. In the bustling capital, he soon meets Chris Myers (Christian Bale), an American photo-journalist, and Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), an Armenian artist. Both Michael and Chris soon fall in love with Ana and a love triangle ensues just as the Turks join the war on the German side, turning against the Armenians. Everyone must find a way to settle their differences in order to survive the coming chaos.

Massis Post – Prof. Taner Akcam of Clark University will give a lecture entitled “The Memoir of Naim Bey and Talat Pasha Telegrams: Are They ‘Armenian Forgeries’?” on Thursday, October 4, 2016, at 7:30 p.m., at First Armenian Church, 380 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA. The program is sponsored by the friends of the Kaloosdian-Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR). A reception will take place following the program at the NAASR Center across the street from the church.

In 1920-21, author and editor Aram Andonian published a book known in English as The Memoirs of Naim Bey and in Armenian as Medz Vojirì (The Great Crime). It contained the writings of an Ottoman official and telegrams from Talat Pasha containing orders for the killing of Armenians.

In 1983, Turkish authors Sinasi Orel and Sureyya Yuca published a book to establish that the memoir was fake and the telegrams were forgeries.
The argument had three main pillars:
1) there was no such person as Naim Bey;
2) there is no actual memoir, since a non-existing person cannot write a memoir; and
3) the so-called Talat Pasha telegrams, like the alleged memoir, were invented by Andonian.

Although noted researcher Fr. Krikor Guerguerian (Kriger) in 1965 published a detailed examination of Andonian’s published and unpublished materials and Vahakn N. Dadrian in 1986 published a lengthy response to Orel and Yuca, in general the scholarly world ceased using the memoir and telegrams as trustworthy sources. Until now, the claims against Andonian have remained unanswered and became the cornerstone of denialism.

Taner Akcam risked venturing into this highly disputed territory and pursued the matter to its necessary conclusion, seeking out the archival sources and documents needed for a proper scholarly assessment. The first results of his research will be presented in this lecture and in a book to be published in Turkish later this fall. The question must be asked: Is it time to remove one of the last bricks in the denialist wall and watch the façade crumble?

Taner Akcam is the author of From Empire To Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide and A Shameful Act: the Armenian Genocide and Turkish Responsibility, and The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire as well as other works in the English and Turkish Languages. Since 2008 he has been the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Professor of Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University in Worcester, MA.

The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire about 70 times at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces last night.

The rival used firearms of different calibers as it fired over 1,400 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army keep protecting the military positions and resort to response actions in case of extreme necessity.

On 11 September Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan visited the Alashan site of the Martakert region and met there with Talish residents who had left their houses and settled there in the aftermath of the war launched by Azerbaijan from 2 to 5 April of the current year, NKR President’s Press Office reports.

Issues related to the course of programs directed to the improving social and living conditions of the Talish residents were discussed during the meeting.

The President gave corresponding instructions to the heads of the concerned bodies for proper realization of the activities.

Primate of the Artsakh Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church Archbishop Pargev Martirosyan, NKR National Assembly Ashot Ghoulyan and other officials accompanied the President.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan will be fit for the Manchester derby on Saturday, Jose Mourinho has confirmed, reports.

The £30million summer signing was injured on international duty in Armenia’s 3-0 loss to Czech Republic and returned to England early in a bid to regain fitness.

He had earlier this week told Manchester United fans that he was still “not sure” if he would be fit for the derby despite his best efforts, but Mourinho has told MUTV that Mkhitaryan and fellow doubt Luke Shaw will both be available.

Mourinho confirmed United have “no injuries” ahead of the derby. And on Mkhitaryan he said:

“He is available.

“I’m not saying he’s ready to play 90 minutes but he’s ready to try to help us.”