Category: News

Syrian Army liberates Over 18 towns, villages North of Lattakia

Edgar Tavakalian
The Syrian Army’s General Command said in a statement that the army forces in cooperation with popular defense groups managed to liberate over 18 towns and villages in the Northern countryside of Lattakia province, reports.

Syria’s Army General Command in its statement mentioned the most notable of the emancipated  towns and villages are Al-Ghanimeh, al-Qalai’e, Beit Sukkar, al-Ouainat, Khan al-Joz, Beit Riha, Bradon, al-Souda, al-Khadra, Reef Mekhtaro, al-Jamousiye, al-Saraya, al-Rayyana, al-Shakria, and a number of vantage points and hills covering an area of over 120 square kilometers, adding that the liberation was achieved after eliminating large numbers of terrorists while others fled towards the Turkish borders as their ranks suffered a complete breakdown.

The statement was published after the army units and pro-government forces established control over Rabi’a area on Sunday morning, an achievement by which the pro-government forces restricted terrorists’ movement and cut off their supply lines.

The statement pointed out that the significance of this achievement lies in the fact that if follows up on the achievements made by the Armed Forces in Lattakia’s Northern countryside during the past few days, particularly since Rabi’a area was one of the biggest gathering points and a nexus for transportation for terrorists in the area, therefore establishing control over it cut off terrorists’ supply lines and restricted their movement

Syrian Army General Command said that establishing control over Rabi’a area serves as a springboard for eliminating the remaining terrorist groups in Lattakia’s countryside, concluding by asserting commitment to continue fighting terrorism and calling on all those who were involved in bearing arms against the state to abandon their weapons and resolve their legal status before it’s too late.

Before liberation of the region, the Syrian army had besieged the Rabi’a, the second stronghold of the militants in the Lattakia countryside from the West, South and North. The militant groups, while withdrawing from the region, left behind dozens of dead or wounded members and pulled back the rest of their forces from more territories in the Northern parts of Lattakia province under the heavy attacks of the Syrian Army and its popular allies.

The militant groups suffered a heavy death toll in the attacks and fled the battlefield to evade more casualties.

How the Armenian Genocide shaped the Holocaust

Emil Lazarian

By Stefan Ihrig

One day in the winter of 1941, as he “walked through the streets of the Warsaw Ghetto,” Hermann Wygoda, “Ghetto smuggler,” tried to make sense of what was happening to him and the people around him: “I wondered whether God knew what was going on beneath Him on this troubled earth. The only analogy I could find in history was perhaps the pogrom of the Jews in Alexandria at the time of the Roman governor Flaccus … or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks during World War I.”

Wygoda was not the only one seeing this parallel. The German Social Democrats in exile reported continuously on the situation in Germany in their “Germany reports”. In February 1939 they warned, “At this moment in Germany the unstoppable extermination of a minority is taking place by way of the brutal means of murder, of torment to the degree of absurdity, of plunder, of assault, and of starvation. What happened to the Armenians during the [world war] in Turkey is now being committed against the Jews, [but] slower and more systemically.”

We could also mention the famous German-Jewish writer Franz Werfel who in 1932/1933 wrote his most well-known novel about the Armenian Genocide, his , mainly to warn Germany about Hitler. The book was later extremely popular in the Nazi-imposed ghettos of Eastern Europe.

There seems to be something obvious connecting both great genocides of the 20th century. Yet, in its hundredth year, the Armenian Genocide is still a peripheral object in the violent history of the 20th century. Most of the new grand histories of World War I marginalize the topic, if they mention it at all. It seems as if the topic is an exclusively partisan affair of the Armenian diaspora and a few confused others (like me). But the Armenian Genocide is an integral part of the history of humanity’s darkest century. There can be no doubt that it is an important part of the prehistory of the Holocaust, even if history books suggest that the two genocides were separated by a great distance in time and space.

Mainstream history writing has not only been reluctant to discuss the Armenian Genocide at all, but even more so to even think about the possible connections. The alleged and imagined controversy over the factuality of the Armenian Genocide—or more correctly the denialist campaign sponsored by Turkey—have contributed to this impression of a great distance separating this genocide from the Holocaust.

Many problems surround the topic and Turkish denialism is but one of them. Claims to the uniqueness of the Holocaust and a lack of Nazi sources referring directly to the Armenians are others.

In fact the sentence attributed to Hitler, and the most famous Nazi quote on the matter, apparently epitomizes just that: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” But this is something of a dead end, if not a distraction from the deeper connections between the two genocides. For one, it is not entirely clear whether he said it or not. Some sources of the meeting have it, others don’t (which, however, does not have to signify that he did not say it). Also, it means something different than some understand it. It is more about the fact that nations at war can commit horrible atrocities and get away with it.

The relationship between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust is apparent in two periods of history. The first is the debate that raged in Germany regarding the slaughter of Armenians by its ally the Ottoman Empire in the early 1920s. The debate came down in favor of genocide, and by the time the Nazis came to power, violence against the Armenians had been understood and even outright justified, already for decades. The second period is when the Nazis were in power and looked to the post-ethnic cleansing Turkey as a role model.

Strangely enough, not only does Germany connect the two genocides in its own history very closely, it is also Germany that offers some historical clarity on the debate of whether it was a genocide or not.

It has been claimed that interwar Germany did not “come to terms” with the Armenian Genocide and that this somehow made the Holocaust possible. However, the opposite is true: Germany not only came to terms with it, but probably had the greatest genocide debate up to that point in human history. It was rather that the outcome of this genocide debate was particularly problematic: it had ended in justifications of genocide and even with calls for the expulsion of Jews from Germany. And despite a drawn-out debate there had been a marked failure to produce a deeper religious, humanist, or philosophical analysis, appreciation, and condemnation of what genocide meant. While most of the political spectrum had found solace in the fact that this had been an “Asian thing,” only the political extremes on both ends of the spectrum, radical Socialists, and Nazis realized that this was potentially also a “European thing.”

To understand all this one has to take a look at Germany’s very own Armenian history. Germany was not only an ally of the Ottoman Empire during World War I—at the time the genocide was committed—but had been a quasi-ally as early as the 1890s. And already since Bismarck’s times it had often acted as the Ottomans’ European shield when it came to the Armenians. In the 1890s when tens of thousands of Armenians were killed in the Hamidian massacres (1894-1896), this was also a “problem” for Germany, but also an opportunity to further ingratiate itself with the Ottomans (economic concessions were the immediate results). But it was problematic mainly vis-à-vis its own public at home. Pro-Armenian activists and papers were raising awareness of what had happened in the Ottoman Empire and the pro-Ottoman elites were disquieted; the result was a propaganda war between both sides waged in the German newspapers. The pro-Ottoman (and anti-Armenian) side seemed to be winning, but the massacres simply did not come to an end. During the last massacres (in 1896) a series of essays reporting on the atrocities of the last years was published in Germany and for a moment pro-Armenian sentiment seemed to have carried the day.

But then, merely two years later, the German Emperor Wilhelm II travelled to Istanbul. This obvious show of friendship with the “bloody” sultan necessitated a revisiting of the Armenian massacres in Germany and produced discourses that not only justified the violence against the Armenians but also the German government’s silence and continued support for the Ottomans. The preeminent German liberal thinker, imperialist, and Protestant pastor Friedrich Naumann even went one step further and argued for an ethic-free German foreign policy, devoted solely to national self-interest. This was a dynamic that would play out two more times in German history, during the genocide as well as after World War I in a great German genocide debate (1919-1923).

During World War I Germany, now officially an ally of the Ottom
ans, again acted as a shield for violent Ottoman policies vis-à-vis the Armenians. However, now this violence reached unprecedented, genocidal heights. While official Germany continued to back their Ottoman ally and even continued to spew violent anti-Armenian propaganda and justifications for whatever was actually happening to the Armenians, behind closed doors Germany started to become anxious. Official Germany now feared that what was happening in Anatolia and Mesopotamia would be used against Germany after the war. And so already in the summer of 1919 the German Foreign Office published a collection of documents from its internal correspondence on the Armenian Genocide. It was meant to show the world that Germany was innocent of the charge of co-conspiracy in the murder of the Armenians, but it inadvertently kick-started a genocide debate in Germany that would continue for almost four years.

The publication of this documental record of the Armenian Genocide, with all its gory details, provoked an outcry and condemnations in the liberal and left press in Germany, including attacks on Germany’s wartime leaders. At this point large sections of the press already acknowledged what we, today, would term “genocide” and what they called “annihilation of a nation” or “murder of the Armenian people.” But then followed a long year of backlash in which nationalist and formerly pro-Ottoman papers minimized what had happened, focused on the alleged Armenian wartime stab in the back, and justified what the Young Turk leadership had done as “military necessities.”

The debate could have ended here, but then, in March 1921, Talât Pasha, former Ottoman Grand Vizier and Minister of the Interior as well as the widely perceived author of the genocide, was assassinated in a crowded Berlin shopping street. Three months later the assassin stood trial in Berlin and was acquitted by a jury – the trial had been completely turned around and focused rather on the Armenian Genocide and Talât Pasha’s role in it than on the actual assassination.

Not only shocked by the outcome of the trial but also by all the evidence and testimony produced in the Berlin court, the German press again focused on the Armenian Genocide in depth. Discussing the trial, the German papers reproduced a horrifying liturgy of genocidal suffering. Now the whole German press landscape, including the formerly denialist papers, came to accept the charge of “genocide” against the Young Turk leadership. Again, the debate did not come to an end here, another backlash followed. Nationalist papers again offered justifications, but now for what even they understood as genocide. And this after the German genocide debate had already gone on since 1919 and after it had included all the ingredients needed for a true genocide debate: detailed elaborations on the scope, intent for, and ramifications of this “murder of a people.” And it was on this note that the debate simmered for another two years until the Treaty of Lausanne was signed (establishing modern Turkey).

All this would perhaps not be that important, had Germany not been merely ten years before Hitler’s rise to power: A genocide debate had not only taken place, but had ended in justifications for genocide. Even then, the true saliency of the topic lay in the racial and national view of the Armenians held by many of the German commentators: they were seen as the (true) “Jews of the Orient,” either as equivalent to the Jews of Europe or even “worse.” This German anti-Armenianism was as old as Germany’s tradition of excusing violence against the Armenians (especially since the 1890s) and was a carbon copy of modern, racial Anti-Semitism. In this logic, it had been no surprise that in 1922, when another two Young Turks were assassinated in Berlin, the nationalist press connected the Armenian assassins to the German Jewish question. Consciously confusing the two categories, the (hyper-)nationalist press called for an “ethnic surgeon” to cut out what was eating away at Germany’s flesh.

So, who was still talking about the Armenians in the Third Reich? Surprisingly, almost nobody. The Nazis were remarkably silent on the topic, but were very vocal on what had followed the Armenian Genocide. The rise of the New Turkey and all the accomplishments of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk were important ingredients in the Nazi political imagination. In the German interwar and Nazi discourses on the New Turkey, one finds a chilling propagation of what a post-genocidal country, one cleansed of its minorities, could achieve: To the Nazis, the New Turkey was something of a post-genocidal wonderland, something that Germany would have to emulate. The Nazis were discussing the Turkish model already in the early 1920s. A German-Jewish newspaper reader and critic of Anti-Semitism, Siegfried Lichtenstaedter, understood the “Turkish lessons” formulated in Nazi articles (in 1923 and 1924) to mean that the Jews of Germany and Austria should be, and had to be, killed and their property given to “Aryans.” He wrote this in his 1926 book Anti-Semitica.

In the end it does not matter how important we find the possible influences exerted from the Armenian Genocide on the Nazis—they surely did not need to learn their murderous business from others. What they did learn was that there were many people, even in an open pluralistic society who would ignore, rationalize, or even outright justify genocidal violence. Even the Churches did not significantly intervene for fellow Christians. To paraphrase the impression of a Jewish reader of Werfel’s book in the ghettos during World War II: If nobody would save Christians, who would intervene for the Jews? And if German nationalists could find it in themselves to justify the genocide of Christians and were not met with much opposition in the German public, who would speak out for the Jews?

There are no easy and automatic casual connections from one genocide to the next, but the Armenian Genocide and its close proximity to the Holocaust illustrate the importance and the pitfalls of how we come to terms with the past. They also illustrate that we are far from done with struggling to understand the tragic 20th century. This is why the Armenian Genocide finally needs to take its place, and be allowed to take its place, in the bloody history of the 20th century, not only generally in world history, but specifically in European and German history.

Stefan Ihrig is the author of Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler published by Harvard University Press.

Zvartnots Terminal first in the Caucasus to earn ISO 50001 Certification

Bedik Zaminian

British Standards Institution (BSI) has given Zvartnots Terminal, located in Yerevan, Armenia Energy Management System ISO 50001 certification emphasizing the company’s firm commitment to continuous improvements in energy efficiency.

The program was launched in 2015 and is intended to provide the energy team with a recognized framework for integrating energy performance into their management practices. It specifies requirements applicable to energy use, measurement, documentation and reporting, design and procurement practices for equipment, systems, that contribute to energy performance. Full commitment from all levels and functions of the organization assured the successful implementation and timely results.

Marcelo Wende, General Manager of AIA said: “We are committed to minimize our energy consumption by maximizing energy efficiency in a continual improvement cycle and to provide a safe and comfortable environment to our passengers and employees”.

“We cannot control energy prices, but we can control how we manage energy. Since the launch of the program we reduced waste, increased efficiency and more importantly were able to develop the culture of continuous improvement within the organization at all levels. I hope that similar efforts are initiated by other organization not only in Armenia but in the region.”

India, Armenia to sign farm pact in February

Arsine Chaltikian

India and Armenia will sign an agreement on agriculture on February 19 when the Armenian Minister for Agriculture, Sergo Karapetyan, visits India, reports.

Last July, India had given the go-ahead for signing and ratification of an inter-governmental agreement between the two counties.

“We are very interested in familiarising ourselves with the research and development potential of agriculture in India. We are also interested in the potential of your manufacturing and agriculture techniques. Traditionally we have been importing from Russia and Belarus. Now, our farmers are showing interest in Indian manufacturing,” Armen Martirosyan, Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia, told The Hindu on Friday.

Inviting Indian companies to invest in Armenia, he said bilateral trade between the two countries was only $70 million to $75 million while trade with China was almost $380 million. “The newly-built transport network, however, is more conducive for India,” he said.

“The recent lifting of sanctions might facilitate trilateral cooperation between India, Iran and Armenia,” he said at a meeting organised by FICCI.

Mr. Martirosyan said Indian companies could invest in manufacturing sector, pharmaceuticals, gems and jewellery, in the Armenian free economic zones.

A FICCI delegation focussing on the media, entertainment and tourism sector is set to visit Armenia between 15 and 19 July.

Prospects of Syrian-Armenian cultural cooperation discussed

Talar Tumanian

Syria’s Higher Education Minister Mohammad Amer al-Mardini discussed on Sunday with Armenian Ambassador in Damascus Arshak Poladian means to enhance scientific and research cooperation between Syria and Armenia, reports.

Both sides touched on the prospects of renewing the executive program on cultural cooperation between the two countries.

The minister said it is important, given the deep historical ties binding the two countries, that cooperation be activated and mutual visits of scientific delegations to universities in Syria and Armenia be further encouraged.

He also called for increasing the number of scholarships and boosting student exchange program to enhance the scientific capabilities in the fields of applied sciences and Armenian language and literature.

The need to renew the executive program on cultural cooperation was echoed by the Armenian Ambassador, who also stressed the necessity to promote cooperation with Syria, appreciating the cultural and humanitarian role of the Syrian people in supporting the Armenian people throughout history.

Qatar Airways to fly to Armenia

Emma Nadirian

Qatar Airways commences four-times weekly non-stop flights between Doha and Yerevan, the capital of Armenia from May 15, reports.

Akbar Al Baker, chief executive, Qatar Airways Group, commented that passengers on the new direct service to and from Yerevan will benefit from easier access to the rest of the world via Qatar Airways global network.

The airline’s expanding global reach, including its newest USA destinations in 2016 of Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta, and significant growth of its modern fleet has enabled the airline to offer this new service to Armenia.

Akbar Al Baker, chief executive, Qatar Airways Group, “Qatar Airways has seen unprecedented growth in recent years, launching new destinations around the globe, while also establishing our new home and hub, Hamad International Airport. With the new service to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, Qatar Airways is again enhancing its worldwide footprint and expanding travel opportunities for business and leisure passengers alike.”

Passengers flying from Yerevan and onwards to any of Qatar Airways more than 150 destinations will enjoy a quick and convenient transfer at Hamad International Airport, the newest airport hub in the world.

The airline will fly the A320 aircraft direct to and from Yerevan on the four-weekly schedule, featuring a two-class cabin configuration comprising of 12 seats in Business Class and 132 Economy Class seats.

Services will depart the Qatari capital every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 2025 and arrives in Yerevan at 0040. The return flights will then leave the Armenian capital every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 0325 and arrive back in Doha at 0530.

 

Australian paper shines light on Azerbaijan’s wooing of federal politicians

Ani Kharatian

The Australian newspaper’s Weekend edition has reported on Azerbaijan’s efforts to gain a “diplomatic edge” over Armenia and the Armenian National Committee of Australia by treating “Federal politicians and their wives … to expenses-paid, business-class trips to Azerbaijan.”

Furthermore, in the article titled ‘War of words over shuttle diplomacy in Azerbaijan’, Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Australia, Rovshan Jamshidov has admitted that gaining Australia’s firm backing in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute was “one of the main reasons” for opening a Canberra Embassy in 2013.

The article also quotes recent visitors to Azerbaijan as part of its government’s ‘shuttle diplomacy’, Federal MPs Luke Simpkins and Alan Griffin – the Chair and Vice-Chair of the recently-formed Australia Azerbaijan Parliamentary Friendship Group.

Simpkins came under fire by the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC Australia) recently, when he rose in Australia’s Parliament to condemn the self-determined Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh as “illegally seized” territory belonging to the Aliyev dictatorship of Azerbaijan. This statement was delivered as a Constituency Statement, when The Australian confirms there are only four Azeri-born constituents in Simpkins’s electorate of Cowan.

The Australian quotes ANC Australia Executive Administrator, Arin Markarian on this point: “Simpkins … is wined and dined in Baku, and all of a sudden develops an intimate knowledge of Caucasus geopolitics — intimate enough to take a hardline anti-Armenian view … without once visiting Nagorno-Karabakh or Armenia to talk to the other side.”

Markarian added: “You can forgive Armenian-Australians for thinking something smells fishy about Simpkins.”

In MP fiduciary reports obtained by ANC Australia, it is confirmed all entertainment and accommodation expenses on these trips are covered by “the government of Azerbaijan”.

Markarian commended The Australian on shining a light on this “questionable” form of diplomacy exercised by Azerbaijan.

“We have tried to ask these questions to Mr. Simpkins, but he has avoided us. He couldn’t avoid The Australian, but yet, he still wasn’t able to answer the questions raised by its reporters and the Australian public,” said Markarian.

Markarian added: “A Parliamentarian from Western Australia, which hardly has any Azeri population, is invited to Azerbaijan. His fiduciary report of the trip reveals his on-ground expenses, including accommodation and meals, were all paid for by the ‘Parliament of Azerbaijan’, which in itself is a funny concept in a dictatorship ruled by the same family since Soviet time.”

“Then Simpkins returns to Australia and speaks in Parliament about the ‘illegal occupation’ by ‘aggressor Armenians’ of Nagorno-Karabakh.”

“The Armenian National Committee of Australia and the Armenian community of Australia finds it preposterous that the native people of a land, who have exercised their rights to self-determination after years of abuse faced by a foreign dictatorship, are now called ‘illegal occupants’ of their native land… by an Australian politician who is only interested in meeting representatives of the Azerbaijani side of this conflict after a sojourn to Baku.”

Iran says ready to mediate Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution

Garnik Tadevosian

Iran is ready to mediate the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari said Monday.

“If you look into the past, you see that Iran in the most difficult times tried to resolve the crisis between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Now, if Azerbaijan and Armenia want, Iran will be ready to mediate in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” the diplomat said at a briefing in Tehran, according to the Azerbaijan Press Agency.

Presidents of Armenia, Iran discuss prospects of bilateral relations

Karagyozian Lena

President Serzh Sargsyan had a telephone conversation with the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani on Sunday.

Serzh Sargsyan and Hassan Rouhani discussed issues pertinent to the Armenian-Iranian friendly relations and cooperation, as well as a number of pressing issues of the international and regional agenda. The Presidents exchanged views on the possibilities of further developing the bilateral relations in the light of the implementation of the recent agreements reached on Iran’s nuclear program. They also mentioned the positive effect of all these developments which will strengthen regional security and stability. In this context, the parties concurred that any issue can be resolved through the negotiations as long as there is political will to do so.

The President of Iran underscored his country’s readiness to work actively towards the strengthening the good-neighborly, close partnership, expand and deep cooperation with Armenia. Presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Hassan Rouhani stressed the importance of going on with the efficient and incessant cooperation aimed at the implementation of the agreements reached at the high level and realization of new, perspective initiatives which will allow to fully use the existing potential.

During the phone conversation, agreed was also the timetable of the forthcoming visits.

Armenia to be guest of honor at Minsk Book Fair

Babken Chilingarian

Armenia will be the Guest of Honor of the Minsk International Book Fair to be held in the Belarusian capital on 10 to 14 February, learned from the Belarusian Information Ministry.

In different years, the honorary title was given to Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Kazakhstan, France, Germany, Venezuela, and China.

This year’s edition of the forum is expected to bring together book publishers from Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries.

The Information Ministry said that the book fair will showcase best products of the national and foreign book publishing industries. The program of the forum features many cultural and business events.

The Year of Culture in Belarus will be one of the key themes of the upcoming event along with the preparations for the 500th anniversary of Belarusian book printing. Other themes include the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, and other anniversaries.