Category: News

“We believe that any document discussed and developed without the participation of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, is simply not viable, NKR Foreign Minister Karen Mirzoyan said at the Q&A session at the National Assembly.

He added that “this is not only а conviction, but also a logical conclusion.” “That is why we insist, and you know our official view, that the Karabakh party should return to the negotiation table as full-fledged party to the negotiation process. And by saying the negotiation process we mean all its stages; from putting forward certain ideas to the development of a common philosophy of negotiations, also, if possible, the joint discussion of the arrangements reached, agreeing upon them, and, why not, also their implementation, i.e., putting them into effect,” Mirzoyan said.

George Clooney, Co-Chair of the ‪‎Aurora Prize‬ Selection Committee,  visited the Ararat Legendary Armenian Brandy factory today together with 100 LIVES Co-Founder Ruben Vardanyan.

In the evening of April 24, Armenian Genocide Memorial Day, Aurora Prize Selection Committee Co-Chair, George Clooney, will present the $100,000 grant to the inaugural Aurora Prize Laureate.

The Laureate will then invite his or her nominated organization(s) to the stage to receive the $1 million award.

On behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide, and in gratitude to their saviors, the Aurora Prize celebrates the strength of the human spirit that compels action is the face of adversity.

The Aurora Prize will be awarded annually on April 24 of each year in Yerevan, Armenia.

Romania has been expelled from the Eurovision Song Contest after its national broadcaster failed to pay outstanding debts dating back to 2007, the BBC reports.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) claimed the Romanian public service broadcaster Televiziunea Romana (TVR) owes 16 million Swiss francs.

The EBU described the action to exclude Romania from next month’s contest in Sweden as “regrettable”.

Romania has never won the contest, but came third in 2005 and 2010.

The EBU had called on the Romanian government to make satisfactory arrangements to repay the debt by Wednesday (20 April). The organisation regards the Romanian State as legally obliged to underwrite TVR’s debt.

“I’m gravely disappointed that President Obama will now leave office without fulfilling his commitment to recognize the ‎Armenian Genocide‬,” Rep. Adam Schiff said in a statement.

“For a President who knows the history so well, who spoke so passionately about the genocide as a Senator and Presidential candidate, and who has always championed human rights, the choice of silence and complicity is all the more painfully inexplicable. Remaining silent in an effort to curry favor with Turkey is as morally indefensible as it will be ineffectual,” Rep. Schiff said.

By Chris Bohjalian

Friday morning, Rep. Jim Costa will lay a wreath in Fresno’s Masis Ararat Cemetery at the grave of an Armenian who died peacefully in San Francisco 56 years ago.

Most Americans are more familiar with the Peloponnesian War than they are with the fellow Costa will remember. Even in the San Joaquin Valley, home to roughly 50,000 Armenian-Americans, most Californians would be hard-pressed to pronounce the man’s name correctly.

And yet for Armenians around the world, Soghomon Tehlirian’s name inspires pride and awein equal measure. On a March morning in 1921, in broad daylight and on a main street in Berlin, he shot and killed Mehmed Talat Pasha, one of the three rulers of the Ottoman Empire during World War I and the architect of the Armenian genocide. That year he would be tried for murder and the German jury would find him innocent. The New York Times would announce the verdict with the headline, “They had to let him go!”

This Sunday marks the 101st anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide. It was on that night in 1915 that the Armenian intellectuals, professionals, editors and religious leaders in Constantinople were rounded up by the Ottoman authorities, and almost all of them were executed. In the years that followed, three out of four Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were systematically annihilated by their own government: 1.5 million people. The majority of Armenians alive today are descendants of those few who survived.

I knew bits and pieces of the Tehlirian story growing up, but it wasn’t until last year whenEric Bogosian published “Operation Nemesis” that I understood what a remarkable and complex tale it really is.

Bogosian, an award-winning actor, playwright and novelist, did monumental research to piece together how a reserved, young Armenian from a village in what is today northeastern Turkey would become a central figure in the plot to exact revenge on the masterminds of the slaughter.

Bogosian’s story is as riveting as any spy thriller, and all the more remarkable because it’s true. (In two photos of Tehlirian taken in the 1920s, the nattily dressed assassin looks more like a silent film star than a man who had grown politicized in 1915 while rounding up the orphans of butchered Armenians and trying desperately to get them help.)

As the individual chosen to execute Talat Pasha – a man the first postwar Turkish government had sentenced to death in absentia for his monumental crimes, and was hiding in Berlin under an assumed name – Tehlirian no doubt hoped he would be acquitted of the crime, but knew also that he was risking his own life and freedom.

Obviously Talat Pasha’s death could not bring back the dead or return the Armenian homeland. If you want to see the definition of ethnic cleansing, visit the eastern half of Turkey where the Armenians once lived. Today there are remnants of Armenian churches and monasteries and unmarked mass graves, but you will find no living Armenian communities.

But Tehlirian took the risk and he succeeded. With a single bullet, he had done what the victorious allied nations had failed to do: punished a war criminal. David had slain Goliath.

After the trial, Tehlirian would move to Serbia and, later, San Francisco, where he would die in 1960. (He is buried in Fresno because at the time Masis Ararat Cemetery was the only Armenian cemetery in America.) He understood he was viewed as a hero by his people, but he and his wife lived without ostentation. Nevertheless, his grave in Fresno is magnificent, a monument befitting a war hero: a 22-foot-high obelisk with an eagle on top and a pair of cypress trees behind it.

Invariably, the 101st anniversary of any event is a shadow of the centennial. That’s especially true when it is the anniversary of an occasion as solemn as the commencement of a genocide.

But there are links between the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian killing fields, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, and the violence that ISIS has unleashed on the Armenians and Yazidis in Syria.

The last stage in a genocide is often the first stage of the next one. Moreover, Turkey still refuses to acknowledge the crimes of the Ottoman Empire, leveraging its geographic and geopolitical clout to bully its allies – including the United States – into euphemism or silence. The fact is, the Armenian nation is statistically a diaspora nation, with seven of every 10 Armenians in this world living outside the nation state.

Consequently, the genocide is, as Pope Francis eloquently described it last year, an open wound for Armenians. We all know what happened to our ancestors – our own parents, grandparents or great-grandparents.

And so while we are now at the centennial plus one, remembering the Armenian genocide is as important as ever. Friday’s wreath-laying and remarks at the Tehlirian grave are especially meaningful. It may not mark the first time that a U.S. congressional representative has visited the monument, but it seems to be the first time in memory. Speaking and standing beside Costa will be Raffi Hamparian, chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America.

Whenever we speak of genocide, we begin first with the numbers. The 6 million. The 1.5 million. But it is not merely the souls that are lost; it is the stories. It is the sense of self. It is the dignity that comes with being human.

My sense is there will be a good crowd Friday – as there should be. Tehlirian, after all, is the closest thing the Armenians have to an avenging angel. Tehlirian gave something to the Armenian people that was taken from even the survivors: a small taste of the pride that walks hand in hand with justice.

French Secretary of State for European Affairs Harlem Desir will visit Armenia on April 25, Press Service of the Embassy of France in Armenia reports.

Within the framework of the visit the Secretary of State will meet with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian.

Harlem Desir will visit the Armenian Memorial.

AFP – As the world prepares to mark the Armenian genocide, filmmakers and musicians are attempting to raise awareness among an American public largely ignorant of one of modern history’s darkest episodes.

It is 101 years on Sunday since Turkey’s Ottoman government began arresting minority community leaders and setting in motion a campaign of systematic slaughter that had left 1.5 million Christian Armenians dead by the early 1920s.

Turned out of their homes and sent on death marches through the Mesopotamian desert, they were stripped naked and forced to walk until they died of thirst or collapsed and were shot dead.

At the same time, the ruling “Young Turks” created death squads to drown countless thousands in rivers, throw them off cliffs, crucify them and burn them alive, raping women and forcing them to join harems or serve as slaves.

The collective trauma has been transferred from the original victims to every subsequent generation of Armenians who have carried the unresolved suffering of their ancestors to their new homes across Europe and the United States.

On Sunday thousands of Armenians are expected to rally in Los Angeles — home to the largest diaspora community in the world — to demand that the Turkish government finally recognize the massacres as a genocide.

Yet there is frustration among the campaigners that ordinary Californians may not have even heard of the events they refer to as “Medz Yeghern” — or “The Great Crime.”

French-Armenian filmmaker Robert Guediguian’s “Don’t Don’t Tell Me The Boy Was Mad,” which gets its US premiere on Friday at COLCOA, the world’s largest festival of French film, staged annually in LA, aims to change that.

“I don’t think the rest of America is conscious of what happened. But it’s not only America, it’s also Europe and a lot of Western countries. They are ignorant of the story. They are not aware,” he told AFP.

“It’s only in places where there is a big Armenian community where people have their voices heard about this subject… Cinema can absolutely educate people and make them aware of what is happening in the world.”

“Don’t Tell Me The Boy Was Mad” is set around the Armenian diaspora in 1970s and 80s Marseille, France and follows a wave of bombings and assassinations perpetrated by Armenian radicals against Turkish targets across Europe in response to the genocide.

Guediguian based his story on “The Bomb,” an autobiographical novel by Jose Antonio Gurriaran, who was semi-paralyzed by an Armenian terrorist attack in Madrid but became a leading advocate for international recognition of what he called “the forgotten genocide.”

Despite a history of support for laws formally recognizing the Armenian genocide, US President Barack Obama — accused of kowtowing to Turkish sensitivities — hasn’t used the term to refer to the killings while in office.

“Barack Obama took the stand that most people in politics do. They come to the community and say ‘we will absolutely recognize that your community or people have been in a genocide.’ But then once they are elected and become president they don’t,” said Guediguian.

Many of the stories of abuse related by characters in the film are derived from the 62-year-old’s own family history, passed down from his grandparents’ generation.

“In the movie Anoush tells the story of her mother who had been raped several times before she made it to France. This story really happened, to my great aunt,” Guediguian told AFP.

The director, who describes reaction to his movie as “very warm,” is looking for a US distributor while in Los Angeles for the nine-day COLCOA.

Meanwhile a second film about the genocide, “Armenia, My Love,” had its premiere in Pasadena, California last week, also opening at several Los Angeles locations including Glendale, home to around 80,000 of the 200,000-plus Armenians in Los Angeles.

Written and directed by Romanian American Diana Angelson, who also stars, the film tells the story of a family living in the occupied territory of the Armenian homeland, now eastern Turkey, in 1915.

Angelson says that while she needed to depict the horror of the massacres, it was the film’s “strong messages of hope, love, faith, perseverance and strength” that she wanted to prevail.

“Hopefully it will travel the world and it will teach many people kindness,” she added.

Friday also sees the release of Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles-based Armenian American musician a thriller inspired by the events of the genocide which was released last year.

“Genocide has become the defining factor of the Armenian character worldwide,” Tankian, whose heavy metal band System of a Down has sold over 40 million records worldwide, told students at the American University of Armenia in Yerevan after the film’s release.

“That is a good thing and a bad thing. No culture, no people, want to be known as victims forever. We have a very old, amazing, gorgeous culture to share with the world.”

“The conduct of the Seventh Forum of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations in a country, where xenophobia, Armenophobia, intolerance are flourishing, raises a number of questions,” Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian told a joint press conference with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“The Alliance of Civilizations is called to support high civilizational universal values. Holding the forum in a country, where those values are violated, disrespected and ignored is unacceptable,” he said.

He said, Armenia has not only refused to attend the forum, but has also vetoed the Declaration of the Seventh Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations.

The Nagorno Karabakh Republic Human Rights Defender has published an on the atrocities Committed by Azerbaijani Military Forces Against the Civilian Population of the NKR and the Servicemen of the NKR Defence Army on 2-5April 2016

On April 02, 2016 Azerbaijani military forces breached the Ceasefire Agreement of 1994 by a well-planned large-scale massive attack. The most serious and bloody military operation along the entire NKR-Azerbaijani line of contact for the last 20 years was initiated, that resulted in gross mass violations of human rights.

Today, the Interim Public Report of the NKR Ombudsman on Atrocities Committed by Azerbaijani Military Forces against the Civilian Population of the NKR and the Servicemen of the NKR Defence Army on April 2-5, 2016 has been published.

The Report is in English and it analyses the Azerbaijani hatred policy towards people of Armenian origin and its horrific consequences that violate all international human rights standards with certain examples of torture and humiliation. The Report provides international human rights organizations’ objective assessments of Azerbaijan’s policy of inciting hatred and violence towards people of Armenian ethnicity. It also presents hate speech in the Azerbaijani mass media and social networks. The Report also reveals Azerbaijani high officials and other public persons activities aimed at spreading hate speech and incitement to violence.

The Report presents the violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law; cases of attacks on civlian population of NKR, cases of inhuman treatment, as well as cases of torture and mutilation of the NKR Defence Army Servicemen.

The Report will be sent to international human rights organizations, ombudsmen’s international institutions and to respective foreign institutions.

I would like to thank the human rights NGOs of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh for their assistance in drafting the Report, as well as all mass media representatives that have revealed in their publications the brutal cases of gross human rights violations.

US President Barack Obama on Friday marked the anniversary of the Ottoman Turks’ massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915, but once again stopped short of labeling it a genocide. The statement released by the White House reads:

“Today we solemnly reflect on the first mass atrocity of the 20th century—the Armenian Meds Yeghern—when one and a half million Armenian people were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman empire.

As we honor the memory of those who suffered during the dark days beginning in 1915—and commit to learn from this tragedy so it may never be repeated—we also pay tribute to those who sought to come to their aid.  One such individual was U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr., who voiced alarm both within the U.S. government and with Ottoman leaders in an attempt to halt the violence.  Voices like Morgenthau’s continue to be essential to the mission of atrocity prevention, and his legacy shaped the later work of human rights champions such as Raphael Lemkin, who helped bring about the first United Nations human rights treaty.

This is also a moment to acknowledge the remarkable resiliency of the Armenian people and their tremendous contributions both to the international community as well as to American society. We recall the thousands of Armenian refugees who decades ago began new lives in the United States, forming a community that has enormously advanced the vitality of this nation and risen to prominence and distinction across a wide range of endeavors.   At a moment of regional turmoil to Armenia’s south, we also thank the people of Armenia for opening their arms to Syrian refugees, welcoming nearly 17,000 into their country.

As we look from the past to the future, we continue to underscore the importance of historical remembrance as a tool of prevention, as we call for a full, frank, and just acknowledgment of the facts, which would serve the interests of all concerned.  I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed. I have also seen that peoples and nations grow stronger, and build a foundation for a more just and tolerant future, by acknowledging and reckoning with painful elements of the past.  We continue to welcome the expression of views by those who have sought to shed new light into the darkness of the past, from Turkish and Armenian historians to Pope Francis.‎

Today we stand with the Armenian people throughout the world in recalling the horror of the Meds Yeghern and reaffirm our ongoing commitment to a democratic, peaceful, and prosperous Armenia.”