Category: News

Asbarez  – Armenoid Productions– a documentary film production company of dedicated, storytellers of concealed history – today announced that the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) has selected its awardwinning Orphans of the Genocide documentary by Bared Maronian for national distribution to over 300 public television stations. The documentary is scheduled for national broadcast across PBS stations by April 24.

“I urge Armenian-Americans nationwide to contact their local public television station’s programing department to urge them to air Orphans of the Genocide’s special 60-minute version sponsored by NETA,” said Maronian. “This is a great honor that NETA has selected a documentary on the Armenian Genocide as part of their select number of programming recommendations to national PBS stations.”

The National Educational Telecommunications Association is a professional association that serves public television licensees and educational entities in all 50 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. The four-time Regional Emmy Award winner filmmaker, Bared Maronian’s Orphans of The Genocide documentary has been previously screened on select PBS stations nationwide. The documentary weaves historical archives with interviews and memoirs of Armenian orphans establishing irrevocable proof of the Armenian Genocide. An emotional, visual journey through never-before-seen archival footage and discovered memoirs of orphans who lived through the last century’s first genocide. Maronian is currently completing his new documentary project – Women of 1915 – of stories of Armenian and non-Armenian women heroines who lived through the atrocities of W.W.I and survived to retell stories of strength, perseverance, and empowerment.

On February 26^th 2016, the President of the Republic of Serbia H.E. Tomislav Nikolić met a delegation led by Mr. Kaspar Karampetian, President of the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy (EAFJD), at the Presidential Palace in Belgrade. The delegation comprised of the Prelate of the Armenians of Romania Msgr. Datev Hagopian-Mouradian, the President of the Armenian Community in Serbia Mr. Samvel Ayvazyan and Dr. Yiannos Charalampidis – journalist and author of books on Nagorno-Karabakh.

The adviser to the President of Serbia and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Ivan Mrkić also participated in the meeting.

During the one-hour meeting, Karampetian expressed his gratitude to President Nikolić for his two visits to Armenia, especially during the commemoration of the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, on behalf of all the members of the Federation.

EAFJD President stressed his satisfaction regarding the improvement of the bilateral relations between the Republics of Serbia and Armenia, during President Nikolić’s term in office. He expressed the willingness of the EAFJD to use its whole potential to help further deepen the relations between the two countries. Mr. Karampetian introduced the head of the Armenian Community in Serbia Samvel Ayvazyan to President Nikolić and focused on the Armenian Community in Serbia.

Accepting Mr. Karampetians’ request to provide to the Armenian Community of Serbia with land so that it can build a church, school, as well as a meeting hall, President Nikolić instructed his team to examine the possibility to satisfy the needs of the community, to help the latter be better organized, take care of their faith, language and traditions.

On behalf of the His Holiness the Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, Bishop Datev presented an icon which was sent as a gift to the President of the Republic of Serbia. Bishop Datev, emphasized the excellent relations between the Serbian and Armenian Churches, mentioning that a visit of the Serbian Patriarch to the Holy See of Etchmiadzin is being planned.

President Nikolić expressed his gratitude to the Catholicos of all Armenians for the valuable gift and thanked especially Bishop Datev, for his visit to Belgrade, to personally present to him the icon and its history. The President of Serbia also expressed his satisfaction about this meeting and thanked the Armenian delegation for the visit to Belgrade. He also emphasized that his visits to Armenia aimed at deepening the relations between the two countries. President Nikolić spoke particularly warmly of his participation in the commemoration of the Centenary of the Armenian Genocide, when he personally represented the Republic of Serbia. President Nikolić informed that the relations will be deepened much more in the future and that he is looking forward to welcoming the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan to Serbia in 2016.

“Today we had the honor of being received by the President of Serbia H.E. Tomislav Nikolić, with whom we had a very fruitful meeting and discussion. We are certain that the common history and values that we share with the Serbian people and the willingness of both Serbia and Armenia to deepen their cooperation will lead to significant results in the future,” said Karampetian.

“The President was favorable to our request regarding the Armenian community in Serbia, which will play also an important role in strengthening the ties between the two societies. I am confident that in the future we will have the opportunity to discuss other political matters with Serbian officials and reach a common understanding for the benefit of our two peoples,” concluded Karampetian

The central Fresno house where famed Armenian-American author William Saroyan spent the last 17 years of his life may soon be turned into a museum to host literary and cultural events, reports.

The simple stucco tract house at 2729 W. Griffith Way, just west of Cooper Middle School, was purchased last summer by theIntellectual Renaissance Foundation based in Studio City, according to Fresno County public records.

The foundtion plans to renovate the 1,228-square-foot house built in 1964. The organization belongs to Artur Janibekyan, a Moscow-based media mogul born in Armenia who is a big supporter of Armenian arts and culture.

The house, which has had three different owners since Saroyan’s death in 1981, was a rental home for years and attracted squatters. Last summer, the boarded, vacant house fell into foreclosure and was scheduled to be sold at auction, but it was purchased before the public sale, said Berj Apkarian, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Armenia in Fresno.

Public records show Brian J. and Fatima B. Mosby of Fresno bought the property in May and sold it to the foundation in August.

The Fresno consulate has been collaborating with the foundation since last year to create a new museum and cultural center for “people to truly enjoy what William Saroyan represented as an author, as a writer and as an artist,” Apkarian said.

“The Republic of Armenia and its Ministry of Diaspora and the consulate are very much interested to preserve this historical property,” he said.

While details about the project were not available Monday, Apkarian mentioned possibly relocating the house outside of the residential neighborhood where it currently is located.

The three-bedroom, one-bathroom house is on the local register of historic resources. A plaque honoring the Oscar- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author was installed outside the house in 1989. It lists 10 pieces of Saroyan’s work written while living in the home.

“This is fantastic news for the Armenian community, but most of all for the Fresno community,” Apkarian said. “Restoring an icon’s house is a great project and it should bring, hopefully, visitors and create excitement in the community.”

Larry Balakian, who was involved with the William Saroyan Festival in 2002 and the centennial in 2008, was pleased to hear about the preservation plans and encouraged people to embrace it.

“I think anything to preserve the William Saroyan legacy in this community, worldwide, is definitely the right step forward,” Balakian said. “I think the entire community needs to embrace the project.”

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian received today High Representative of the ‪‎European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Federica‪ Mogherini.

Minister Nalbandian said her first visit to Armenia would positively impact the development and deepening of Armenia-EU relations. Federica‪ Mogherini said, in turn, that the establishment of closer cooperation between Armenia and the European Union will benefit not only the two parties, but also the region, as a whole.

The parties discussed a wide range of issues related to the development of Armenia-EU cooperation, the negotiations on creating a new legal framework for bilateral relations.

Minister Nalbandian reiterated Armenia’s willingness to reinforce and expand the comprehensive cooperation in all fields of mutual interest. The parties referred to the joint steps needed for the further development of bilateral ties – political dialogue, mobility, human rights, economic reforms, Armenia’s participation in different EU programs.

The Armenian Foreign expressed gratitude to the EU for the long-term support and assistance, which has played a considerable role in the implementation of reforms and capacity development in Armenia.

The interlocutors exchanged views on the situation in the Middle East and stressed the importance of mobilizing the efforts of the international community to fight terrorism. Edward Nalbandian noted that Armenia has provided refuge to more than 20 thousand refugees, thus becoming the third country with the number of Syrian migrants per capita. The Minister said the Armenian side values the possible EU support.

The implementation of the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program was also on the agenda.

Edward Nalbandian briefed the EU High Representative on the negotiations on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict under way within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group. Federica‪ Mogherini reiterated the EU support to the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group towards the resolution of the conflict. The parties agreed that the non-constructive steps and belligerent rhetoric serve to drag out the status quo.

Minister Nalbandian assured of Armenia’s willingness to maintain the consistent efforts towards an exceptionally peaceful resolution of the Karabakh conflict.

Massis Post – Four outstanding scholars and researchers will speak at “From Musa Dagh to the Warsaw Ghetto: Armenian and Jewish Armed Resistance to Genocide,” on Thursday, March 31, 2016, at 8:00 p.m. at Harvard University, Science Center Auditorium D, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA.

The featured speakers are Eric Bogosian, actor, playwright, and author of Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot That Avenged the Armenian Genocide; Dr. Deborah Dwork, Rose Professor of Holocaust History and Director, Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University; Dr. Dikran Kaligian, Managing Editor, Armenian Review, and author of Armenian Organization and Ideology Under Ottoman Rule, 1908-1914; and Dr. James R. Russell, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University. Marc A. Mamigonian, Director of Academic Affairs at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), will serve as moderator.

This special symposium is co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University, the Mashtots Chair in Armenian Studies at Harvard University, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research. The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served during an intermission.

Professor Salo Baron famously bemoaned what he called the “lachrymose” approach to Jewish history—a focus on powerlessness, homelessness, victimhood, and catastrophe. As the study of the Holocaust has developed we know that the image of the Jews of Europe as sheep to the slaughter is at best inaccurate. There were many instances of organized resistance (ghetto fighters and forest partisans), and of retaliation (the killing of SS prisoners) at the end of World War II. The same situation obtains for the study of the Armenian Genocide of 1915: as well as exploring the events and commemorating the martyrs, we now know much more than before about self-defense (at Van, for instance) and retribution (Operation Nemesis).

The Armenian Genocide was a precursor to the Holocaust: the Nazis admired both the Ottoman “final solution” of the Armenian Question and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s subsequent corporate nationalist régime, which completed that process and retroactively cleansed the historical record. In the interwar years and during the Holocaust, Jews knew of the Armenians’ fate and compared it to their own, even drawing inspiration during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Franz Werfel’s novel about a desperate act of Armenian self-defense a generation before.

Although there are many affinities between Armenians and Jews there are also historical and present geo-political factors that divide them. The conference is intended not only to shed light on the modern historical affinities, but to bring students, faculty, and community members into a positive dialogue about the future. The resistance of under-armed and outnumbered civilians to the overwhelming force of totalitarian states with genocidal ideologies also raises important questions about the relation of the individual to the system; the nature of the rule of law, and of international relations; strategies for overcoming conformity, passivity, and fear; and the parameters of human moral responsibility. All of these are as immediate now as they were in the two fateful conflicts of the past century.

President Serzh Sargsyan sent today a congratulatory message to the renowned author, expert in Armenian studies, translator and intellectual Kim Bakshi and wished him excellent health and new creative achievements.

“Dear Mr. Bakshi,”

On behalf of the grateful Armenian people, I congratulate you on the occasion of your 85th birth anniversary.

Your creative journey is closely connected to the history and culture of the Armenia people. Through the decades your diligent and vigorous work translated into travel notes, books, and scripts for documentary movies. Ancient marvels of the Armenian culture, which by a twist of history appeared in different corners of the world, in all their splendor and charm present themselves in your works.

Your activities encouraged numerous sons and daughters of our nation to look thoroughly into our rich historical heritage and made the Armenian culture recognizable all over the world,” reads the congratulatory letter of the President of Armenia.

“Rivaling even ISIS, the Azerbaijan regime has destroyed countless ancient Christian churches and monuments to erase the ancient history of Christian Armenians, whom despot Aliyev has declared the “enemy,” Bill Barton writes in an article published by the .

The comments come after for “interfaith, harmony and tolerance” last week.

“Instead of absurdly praising Azerbaijan for respecting Christians, legislators should watch the video on  verified with satellite by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, showing how 100 soldiers of Azerbaijan razed the world’s largest collection of medieval Christian cross-stones at the sacred Djulfa cemetery in 2005,” the author writes.

“Even if Davis were not aware of Djulfa’s wipeout, which the mainstream media ignored since the perpetrator is a “secular Muslim” country, he should have looked up reports by International Christian Concern, which calls Azerbaijan “notorious for religious persecution,” or that of the Pew Research Center, which ranks Azerbaijan among the most restrictive countries on religious practice,” Bill Barton writes

According to him, “Azerbaijan’s self-promotion of tolerance would strengthen Azerbaijan’s claim that the Christian country of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) would not suffer if Azerbaijan took over, which they would like to do.”

Artsakh is an unrecognized country twice the size of Luxembourg that has been an Armenian region for millennia. In 1921, Joseph Stalin expropriated it to Azerbaijan as part of the divide-and-conquer strategy to Sovietize the Caucasus. Instead of showing tolerance, Soviet Azerbaijan closed down Armenian schools, ethnically cleansed another historic Armenian region and enabled pogroms against the large and industrial Armenian minority in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku. This left Artsakh no choice but to seek independence in 1991, which Azerbaijan answered with a war it ultimately lost, causing thousands of deaths and creating even more refugees on both sides.

“Twisting reality, Azerbaijan has accused Artsakh of demolishing mosques, and claims that Aliyev respects Christian heritage, pointing to capital Baku’s 19th-century Armenian church, now used as the Azerbaijan president’s library, while concealing the fact that all Armenians have been ethnically cleansed from Azerbaijan, followed by the total wipeout of the ancient Christian heritage they left behind,” the article reads.

Utah is home to thousands with Armenian heritage many of whom survived the 1915 Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Turkish government in furtherance of the same pan-Turkic policies now shared with its Turkic brethren in Azerbaijan. Other Armenians are more recent refugees from Azerbaijan. “Any Utah lawmakers who took the free trip to Azerbaijan and fell for their caviar diplomacy should apologize to their constituents and set the record straight,” Bill Barton notes.

“Praising a religious persecutor that has destroyed more Christian monuments than ISIS and is more censored than Iran is an insult to the people of Utah who have long upheld and promoted true interfaith tolerance and religious harmony. Those familiar with Aliyev’s cruel and crafty methods of eliminating opposition then spending millions to rewrite reality would not be surprised. Observers appropriately refer to Azerbaijan as “Absurdistan” — after the novel it helped inspire. Unfortunately, Davis has contributed to this propaganda,” the author concludes.

Bill Barton, whose maternal family survived the Armenian Genocide of the early 1900s, is a native West Valley resident and served 12 years in the Utah Senate.

 

 

 

The European Union unequivocally supports the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group toward the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict on the basis of the Madrid Principles proposed by the Co-Chairs, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said at a joint press conference with visiting High Representative of the ‪‎European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Federica‪ Mogherini. Summing up the results of the High Representative to Armenia, Minister Nalbandian said Yerevan and Brussels share the opinion that the maintenance of the status quo is in no one’s interest.

“The non-constructive steps targeted at aggravating the situation, the attempts to distort the negotiation process, the refusal to create a mechanism of investigation of border incidents and the belligerent rhetoric contribute to the maintenance of the status quo,” Edward Nalbandian stated.

Federica‪ Mogherini noted, in turn, that the peaceful resolution of the Karabakh conflict is a priority for the EU, and added that it should be solved exceptionally in a peaceful way in line with the norms of international law. The High Representative reiterated the European Union’s support for the Minsk Group efforts and commended the recent steps targeted at easing of tensions. “It’s necessary to refrain from bellicose rhetoric and growth of violence, which are not conducive to the peaceful settlement process,” she said.

Speaking about the relations with the European Union, Minister Nalbandian said the establishment of strong partnership benefits not only the two patties, but also the region as a whole. “Armenia is ready to reinforce and expand the comprehensive cooperation in all spheres of reciprocal interest,” Edward Nalbandian said.

Impressed by her first visit to Armenia, Federica‪ Mogherini said the EU wants to be a good partner. “This cooperation is a testament to the fact that the EU is a primary trade partner for Armenia even at times of hardship; it is the first investor in Armenia and the first grant provider. But it’s not only about money,” Mogherini said.

At a meeting in Yerevan the Armenian Foreign Minister and the EU High Representtaive discussed the situation in the Middle East, and namely Syria, the mobilization of the efforts of the international community in their joint fight against terrorism.

“Armenia has provided refuge to about 20 thousand Syrian refugees, thus being the third in Europe with the number of migrants hosted,” the Minister said and added that “Armenia appreciates the possible EU assistance in that direction.”

The implementation of the agreement on Iran’ nuclear program was also on the agenda of the talks, Edward Nalbandian said. To conclude with, the Armenian Foreign Minister stressed that “the Armenia-EU relations are on a high level and the perspectives are promising.”

Award-winning American actress, producer and television host Woopi Goldberg wore accessories made by Istanbul-based Armenian jeweler for the Oscars 2016.

Twenty-five years after her last appearance at the Academy Awards in 1991, Whoopi Goldberg appeared  in a glamorous Old Hollywood style gown and some insanely chic jewelry.

“Sevan Biçakçi is the gentleman’s name who created this,” Goldberg said, pointing to her exquisite octopus-inspired ring on her right hand, while an intricate bracelet rested on her left wrist.

Sevan Biçakçi had earlier posted the photo of the bracelet on his .

Of Armenian descent, Sevan Bıçakçı was born in 1965 in the Fatih district of Istanbul, Turkey. He is known as the King of Rings.

Some of Sevan Bıçakçı’s famous clientele include Catherine Zeta-Jones, Elizabeth Hurley, Celine Dion, Liv Tyler, Mariah Carey, Brooke Shields, Angie Harmon, Kim Raver, Halle Berry, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Michelle Monaghan, and Tory Burch.

President Serzh Sargsyan received today Federica‪ Mogherini, High Representative of the ‪‎European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission.

Issues related to Armenia-EU cooperation, urgent regional and international developments, challenges and perspectives were discussed.

The interlocutors agreed that the 4th Eurasian Neighborhood Summit in Riga in May 2015 was an important milestone in Armenia-EU relations, which served a basis for future cooperation.

President Sargsyan hailed the launching of negotiation on a new Armenia-EU legal framework and voiced hope that the parties would successfully complete the important process.

President Sargsyan referred to the large-scale reforms in Armenia, including the constitutional changes adopted last December. The President stressed that our country is resolute to continue the reforms in different spheres and values EU’s financial and expert assistance.

During the meeting reference was made to the negotiations on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict under way within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group. President Sargsyan briefed the guest on the position of th Armenian side. Frederika Mogherini reiterated the EU support for th efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group and the three core principles that lie in the basis of the talks – non-use of force or the threat of force, the right of peoples to self-determination and territorial integrity.