Nagorno-Karabakh issue causes trouble once again

Emil Lazarian
Arab News
Nov 20 2023

YASAR YAKIS


Relations between Azerbaijan and the EU recently reached their lowest point because the latter could not resist the temptation of meddling in Azerbaijani and Armenian affairs. This happened at the same time as Yerevan began reducing its dependence on the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the eastern bloc’s version of NATO.

Last week, it was Azerbaijan’s turn to snub the West, with the country’s Foreign Ministry saying it would not take part in a meeting with Armenia’s foreign minister planned for Monday in Washington because of the “one-sided approach of the US.” It added that senior American officials were unwelcome in Baku.

President Ilham Aliyev last month had a telephone conversation with European Council President Charles Michel that turned slightly sour because Azerbaijan was included, without its consent, in a quadrilateral statement following a summit that was hosted by the EU in Granada, Spain. Aliyev had declined an invitation to attend. A meeting on Azerbaijan without the presence of the Azerbaijani authorities cannot not be expected to produce a tangible result.

A new situation has now arisen because the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities have announced that, as of the end of this year, what the Armenians used to call the Republic of Artsakh will cease to exist. This will raise a number of problems that need to be solved.

The first problem is the transfer of the sovereignty of the provinces. We do not know whether the Karabakh Armenians will raise a question about the delineation of the provincial borders. As the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities have promised to dissolve the Armenians’ so-called state, we may hope that such a question will not arise.

There is another set of problems stemming from the citizenship status of the Karabakh Armenians

Yasar Yakis

The second question is the ownership of the houses and lands that once belonged to the Azerbaijanis. Karabakh Armenians or mainland Armenians moved into these houses after expelling the original Azerbaijani owners. The land ownership certificates of these houses may have been lost if the owner was killed or passed away and they were not handed over to a surviving relative. We have to see whether the land ownership registry is kept properly in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku.

The third issue is the physical damage to these houses. Whether they belonged to an Armenian or an Azerbaijani, the Armenians caused deliberate damage to the houses before they had to leave.

Fourth is a colossal problem. The Armenians placed land mines almost everywhere with the intention of causing damage. Their number is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. Aliyev has estimated that nearly 30 years of work and about $25 billion would be required to safely clear these mines.

There is another set of problems stemming from the citizenship status of the Karabakh Armenians.

The number of Azerbaijanis who were expelled from their homes between 1988 and 1994 is estimated to be about 600,000. Many Karabakh Armenians and mainland Armenians moved into the houses that belonged to the Azerbaijanis who had to leave their houses and lands. After they decided to return to Armenia, they destroyed the houses that they had illegally occupied for years.

The Armenian government promised to give the Karabakh Armenians refugee status. Another alternative was to give them citizenship of Armenia. If they do not have another alternative, they have to settle in Armenia and live and work there. Two weeks ago, the Armenian government offered the Karabakh Armenians two choices: they could either receive temporary protection, effectively as refugees, or seek to adopt Armenian citizenship.

An Armenian draft law promises that citizens of Armenia can acquire political rights and the right to a state pension, but they would not then be able to benefit from the social assistance available to refugees. According to the UN Refugee Convention, anyone that is recognized as a refugee in Armenia will be recognized as such in all signatory countries.

This means that it is more advantageous to remain as a refugee in Armenia rather than become a citizen

Yasar Yakis

An adviser to the Armenian justice minister said that those who have refugee status benefit more in other countries due to specific advantages and stronger guarantees, and that they cannot be expelled from the countries where they have sought refuge. This means that it is more advantageous to remain as a refugee in Armenia rather than become a citizen.

Karabakh Armenians, including children, will be entitled to receive the following allowances from the Armenian government: A one-off payment of 100,000 Armenian dram ($250), 50,000 dram for rent and 40,000 dram for the months of November and December.

The European Commission last month announced that it was increasing its humanitarian funding in Armenia by €1.7 million ($1.85 million), bringing its total for 2023 to more than €12 million.

The Armenian authorities will probably streamline, in due course, the remnants of the present temporary situation.

The Karabakh Armenians are holders of Armenian passports but are not Armenian citizens, meaning they do not benefit from social assistance. There is a special code, “070,” in the passports of the Karabakh Armenians and they do not benefit from political rights. Armenia is promoting refugee status for the Karabakh Armenians and trying to persuade them to acquire it.

It looks like all remaining issues on the Nagorno-Karabakh question will occupy both Azerbaijan and Armenia for several years to come.

  • Yasar Yakis is a former foreign minister of Turkey and founding member of the ruling AK Party. X: @yakis_yasar

Turkey: Convicted killer of Armenian journalist faces new terror-related charges

Aram Torosian
MEDYA News
Nov 20 2023

A fresh indictment has been levelled against Ogün Samast, just released from prison after serving a 16-year sentence for the 2007 murder of Hrant Dink, the Armenian editor-in-chief of the Agos Newspaper. The indictment, lodged in Istanbul, accuses Samast of involvement with the Fethullah Gülen Organisation (FETÖ), the group accused of plotting the 15 July 2016 coup attempt, linking the murder to their objectives and seeking a sentence of between 7 years and 6 months to 12 years.

Samast, who was a minor at the time of Dink’s assassination, is classified in the indictment as a “child led into crime”. Despite the absence of direct evidence linking Samast to FETÖ, the prosecution argues his actions were in line with the organisation’s objectives. The document cites Samast’s 2014 testimony in the Dink murder trial, which details his interactions with his former co-defendants, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, both convicted, and an overheard conversation about support from key figures within the organisation.

The indictment also outlines FETÖ’s alleged strategy subsequent to Dink’s murder, including a takeover of the Istanbul Intelligence Directorate, part of a broader scheme to infiltrate state institutions, culminating in the controversial 2016 coup attempt.

The case, referred to the Istanbul 2nd High Criminal Court for Children, reflects Samast’s age at the time of Dink’s murder. Originally sentenced to a life term, his sentence was reduced due to his juvenile status at the time of the crime.

Meanwhile, Reşat Altay, Police Chief of the city of Trabzon at the time of the assassination, recently reflected on the murder, suggesting it could have been prevented. Altay stated that he had received no intelligence about the plot, which had been laid in Trabzon, Samast’s home town. He highlighted the lack of communication and follow-up on critical intelligence, pointing to systemic failures within the police department.

Altay’s revelations align with the ongoing scrutiny of the role of law enforcement in the case. The indictment’s focus on Samast’s alleged links to FETÖ adds a new dimension to the long-standing controversy surrounding Dink’s murder, a case that has become emblematic of issues within Turkey’s justice and law enforcement systems.

Hrant Dink’s widow Rakel Dink, speaking at a recent conference, emphasised the broader implications of the case for Turkey’s democratic development. Her comments underscore the ongoing public demand for accountability and transparency in the investigation of Dink’s assassination and the broader struggle for justice in Turkey.

New book explores life of missionary who saved orphans during Armenian Genocide

Janet Ekmekjian
ERR, Estonia
Nov 20 2023


ERR

A new novel explores the life of Anna Hedwig Büll, a Baltic-German missionary from Estonia, who helped and saved thousands of Armenians coping with the consequences of the genocide at the beginning of the 20th century.

Büll was a missionary from Estonia who was born into a well-to-do family in Haapsalu in 1887. Her father, Theodor Büll, was the owner of Haapsalu's famous mud cure resort and also the city's mayor.

"At the age of 24, she moved to Turkey, to an orphanage in the town of Marash (now Kahramanmaras), where she was caught up in the Armenian genocide. It is said that she saved thousands of people there," said Piret Jaaks, who has written a new novel "Taeva tütred" ("Daughters of Heaven") about Büll.

The Armenian Genocide took place during World War I between 1915-1917 when the Ottoman Empire systematically killed more than 1.5 million people.

It is thought Büll managed to save and assist around 2,000 people during this time.

Jaaks novel is based on Bülli's biography and, while she tried to stick to the facts, she also added created fictitious characters. She also did not dwell on tragic events. "It seems to me that we have had enough of these wars in society," she said.

Asked why she wrote the book, Jaaks said: "It's an unbelievable story of how one woman from here in little Estonia goes and does it all."

In 1921, Büll went to Syria to help Armenians in a refugee camp in Aleppo to restart their lives.

Büll died in 1981 in Germany having spent the last 30 years of her life in Europe. She was denied entry to the Soviet Union in 1951

Jaaks said Büll is well-known and loved in Armenia and there are several monuments commemorating her memory in both her homeland and Armenia.

Film Review Aurora’s Sunrise review – remarkable story of genocide horror and survival

Diana Dabaghian
The Guardian, UK
Nov 20 2023
Review
Leslie Felperin

In archive interviews and painterly animated reconstrucions, Aurora Mardiganian recalls her experiences during the Armenian genocide – and how she escaped to the US and became a silent film star

Given the word “genocide” is being flung every which way these days, it’s worth revisiting the atrocities that helped prompt the coinage of the term – although of course the practice itself has happened throughout history. This harrowing but utterly fascinating and formally inventive film – a hybrid of animation and archive footage – recounts the biography of a young Armenian woman, Arshaluys Mardiganian, later renamed Aurora, who experienced firsthand the Armenian genocide which unfolded during the first world war. She not only miraculously survived but went on to play herself in a 1919 silent film called Auction of Souls about her own terrifying experience. This may make her the first subject of a biopic to play themself in a movie, but that’s only one small factoid in a story which is full of wonder, tragedy, copious horrors and – finally – hope and wisdom.

There are effectively three Aurora/Arshaluys in this film. The first is the real Aurora Mardiganian, whom we first meet as an elderly lady who loves to wear coquettish hair bows. In archive footage shot not long before she died in 1994, Aurora tells interlocutors the story of her life, sometimes in Armenian and sometimes in English. This footage is edited together with animation made using paper cutouts and semi-rotoscoped characters who act out Aurora’s story. Via painterly watercolour imagery that stylises and mercifully dampens the worst of the atrocities, we see how Aurora went from a happy young teenage girl in a large wealthy family who put on plays in their backyard to an orphaned refugee on a death march, raped and sold into slavery but capable of escaping several times. Eventually she emigrates to America where her story becomes the basis at first of sensationalist newspaper reports and later a memoir which is then turned into Auction of Souls in Hollywood, and the few surviving fragments of this film provide a third avatar of Aurora.

Armenian director Inna Sahakyan glides between registers to create one seamless narrative full of texture and strange details, such as the time Aurora met Charlie Chaplin at a party. The film is frank about how Aurora was exploited by journalists and a film industry keen to titillate audiences with the story of her ravishment. But humanitarians also used revenue from the film and the memoir to help Armenian orphans and refugees around the world. Perhaps the most remarkable moment comes at the end when the elderly Aurora reflects that she doesn’t want revenge, she just wants those connected to the genocide to be made accountable for it: “sat in the chair” of justice.

 Aurora’s Sunrise is released on 24 November at Bertha Dochouse, London

Christians worry land deal could shrink Armenians’ ancient presence in Jerusalem

Garik Boshkezenian
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
Nov 20 2023
November 20, 2023

Jerusalem: The heads of the Christian Churches in Jerusalem issued a rare joint appeal at the weekend, warning that a contested land deal could erase the centuries-old presence of the Armenian community within the Old City.

The ethnic Armenian community has its own district within the ancient city of Jerusalem under borders drawn by Ottoman rulers – the smallest of the four quarters, which also include highly distinct Muslim, Jewish and Christian neighbourhoods.

However, Armenians say they risk being uprooted by a deal to lease about 25 per cent of their area to developers who want to build a luxury hotel on the site.

The deal was signed by the head of the Armenian Church in Jerusalem in July 2021, but members of his community said the first they heard of it was when surveyors started work in the area this year.

He told his congregation he was misled and has started legal action to get the contract annulled. The priest who brokered the accord on his behalf was defrocked by the Church Synod in May and has left Jerusalem.

Despite the legal challenge, bulldozers arrived last week and started tearing up a car park, which covers some of the contested land. When protesters blocked the work, armed Israeli Jewish settlers turned up in a failed effort to disperse the demonstration.

“The provocations that are being used by the alleged developers to deploy incendiary tactics threaten to erase the Armenian presence in the area, weakening and endangering the Christian presence in the Holy Land,” the Christian leaders wrote, including the heads of the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

The Armenian community says the investor behind the land lease deal is an Australian-Israeli businessman Danny Rubinstein, who owns a company registered in the United Arab Emirates – Xana Capital Group. A company sign was posted in the parking lot shortly after the surveyors turned up.

Rubinstein did not respond to a request for a comment about the project sent via his LinkedIn account.

By tradition, Armenia was the first kingdom to convert to Christianity as a state religion in AD 301. Although its church is much smaller than the Greek Orthodox and Catholic Churches, it has parity of rights at Jerusalem’s Holy Christian sites.

At the heart of their quarter lies the ornately decorated St James’s Cathedral, which dates to 420 AD, strung with precious lamps and often infused with the haunting singing of its black-cowled monks.

The Armenian Quarter covers a sixth of walled Jerusalem and houses just 1000 people, a fraction of the Old City’s 35,000-strong population.

Armenian locals say the land lease project would consume not just their car park – the largest open space in the Old City – but also their community hall, the patriarch’s garden, the seminary and five family houses.

“The Armenians have been here since the fourth century, but we now risk being uprooted,” said Hagop Djernazian, 23, a student, who is part of a group guarding the carpark night and day, with barbed wire strung out to try to keep out developers and settlers. “We are having to fight for our existence.”

Daniel Seidemann, an activist Israeli lawyer who closely monitors the spread of Jewish settlers around Jerusalem, said the project was aimed at expanding the footprint of the Jewish Quarter across half the Old City.

Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City, from Jordanian forces in a 1967 war. Israel regards the entire city as its eternal and undivided capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

“We are aware of a plan to encircle the outside the Old City with settlement projects. We suspect this Armenia Quarter deal is meant to be a continuation of this plan inside the city walls,” Seidemann told Reuters.

“However, there is so much irregularity surrounding it that there is a good chance the courts will reject it.”

https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/christians-worry-land-deal-could-shrink-armenians-ancient-presence-in-jerusalem-20231120-p5el61.html 

Armenian Community Steps Up Resistance to Land Deal as Xana Gardens Intensifies Violent Takeover Efforts November 17, 2023

Talar Tumanian
     Nov 17 2023
November 17, 2023
Arda Aghazarian


With speed and determination, the Armenian community of Jerusalem has organized itself to stand up to Israeli attempts to seize historic and vital Armenian communal property.

Jerusalem Story has published several stories about the standoff between Israel and Jerusalem’s Armenian community regarding control of Armenian church property. Since that reporting earlier in November, aggressive moves by Israeli entities have forced the Armenian community to respond quickly and collectively to defend their rights. At stake is not only the rights of the Armenian community but also the very presence of the Christian community in Jerusalem. 

The Armenian property at the center of this drama is estimated to extend over 11,500 square meters, which makes up 25 percent of the Armenian Quarter of the Old City.1 Since 2021, the hotel development company Xana Gardens Ltd. has claimed that through an agreement with the Armenian Patriarchate, it now has the right to develop it.

However, over the summer, a delegation of Armenian local and international lawyers2 was finally able to obtain the contract, and they discovered a number of serious irregularities.

On November 1, 2023, the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem announced that on October 26, 2023, it informed Xana Gardens Ltd. of its decision to cancel the 2021 agreement it had signed with the company regarding the property.

The Patriarchate said that an extensive legal review post-signing found that the contract had been unlawful, falsely represented, and with undue influence, and that it disregards the Patriarchate’s legal position.3 Moreover, its legal team filed a case in Israel courts to cancel the agreement on October 31, 2023.

Spiralling Out of Control

On November 5, Xana Gardens majority shareholder Danny Rothman/Rubinstein, an Australian-Jewish investor, and his deputy, Israeli Palestinian citizen George Warwar, brought in about 15 settlers armed with assault rifles and trained attack dogs to provoke, harass, and intimidate the Armenian community—as well as to create facts on the ground.

At least one person present among the settlers, an investigation by The New Arab found, is a known extremist member of the Israeli settlement movement who identifies himself as a “hilltop settlement activist,” is associated with right-wing Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Gen-Gvir, and had previously been placed in administrative detention by Israel in 2005.4

About a week later, Armenians were shocked to see bulldozers in the area. Because the case has not yet been decided in the courts, the company has no legal standing to do anything in the area. Yet the Xana bulldozers proceeded to demolish parts of the Armenian Quarter’s parking lot area and threatened to cause more harm.

Demolitions Underway

On Sunday, November 12, 2023, a Xana Gardens bulldozer attempted to demolish a stone wall by the Armenian parking lot. The Armenian community immediately organized themselves and set up a barricade to block access to the site.

At 7:00 a.m. the next day, two bulldozers showed up and attempted to tear down the barricade. They were confronted by community members who created a human fence, preventing the bulldozers from moving.

The community members were joined by the Patriarch, and again they erected a tent to maintain a physical presence on the site.

Substantial Escalation

Despite the valiant efforts of Armenian community members, some of the area has been bulldozed, and more settlers with heavy arms showed up.

On Wednesday, November 15, things got especially tense when around 20 Israeli police forces showed up. Although the community argued that no legal decision had been made about the property and no permits had been secured for the demolition work, the police demanded the premises be vacated and threatened that they would detain and arrest the community members. They then did in fact detain three people—one of them a minor—for answering back to them, presumably to intimidate the group; the three were soon released. The two adults were ordered to stay away from the site for 15 days.5

Hagop Djernazian, an active member of the Armenian community and a spokesperson on this issue, has noted that the Israeli police has been cooperating with the company to remove the community members and take possession of the land. In a public statement dated November 17, he described the armed people who barged into the area as “mafia” that were hired to harm and provoke the community members and priests.

Urgent Pleas

On November 16, the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem released an urgent communique, saying “The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem is under possibly the greatest existential threat of its 16-century history,” which “fully extends to all the Christian communities of Jerusalem.” The statement concluded, “We plead with the entirety of the Christian communities of Jerusalem to stand with the Armenian Patriarchate in these unprecedented times as this is another clear step taken toward the endangerment of the Christian presence in Jerusalem and the holy land.”6

On November 17, the Armenian National Committee issued a statement on the matter:

Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem

On November 18, 2023, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem added their voice with another communique, which stated, in part:

As of this time, the community intends to guard the land with their own physical presence around the clock. Several community members made it a point to sleep on the site. Worried and exhausted, they nevertheless have found great strength in working collectively to protect the area. They have been providing tea, coffee, soups, and food—and have even been organizing leisurely activities (such as playing UNO and having informal lectures) to keep each other company during this difficult time. They have also set up an online fundraiser to gather resources for legal and organizing expenses to raise awareness about this urgent issue.

The creative and ingenious ways in which the Armenians have been organizing themselves offers a lesson in the power of collective work. Meanwhile, there is still much anxiety and deep concern about the dire consequences of losing this property: It would deny the community members access to and use of their land, eliminate their only remaining parking space inside the Old City, and even displace some residents from their homes. It would also insert a much-coveted link between West Jerusalem and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.

Most importantly, it would eradicate the unique character of this important part of the city and erase the significant history and presence of its people.


https://www.jerusalemstory.com/en/article/armenian-community-steps-resistance-land-deal-xana-gardens-intensifies-violent-takeover

Clash Over Armenian Quarter Land Lease Deal Turns Physical

Emil Lazarian
Nov 6 2023
November 6, 2023

Xana Capital Ltd. arrived at the Cows’ Garden parking lot, the main lot used by Armenians in the Armenian Quarter, to seize possession by digging it up. The community stood in their way.

The showdown over the land lease for the Cows’ Garden parking lot area moved from the courts into the lot itself on November 5, 2023.

Around 3:00 p.m., developer and majority shareholder Danny Rothman of Xana Capital Ltd. arrived at the site with about 15 armed settlers and two large leashed attack dogs, pepper spray, a bulldozer, and his business partner and Israeli citizen George Warwar (also known as George Haddad).

They set to work tearing up the parking lot pavement into large chunks.

The armed Xana men ominously formed a line to block community members from accessing the work site and were also filming them as they began protesting.

According to a press release issued by the local organization Save the ArQ, Warwar demanded the Armenians leave what he called their land. “Warwar threatened the community, claiming he’ll ‘get them one by one.’” The settlers were also active, announcing that the Armenians are all “‘Goys (non Jews) and we will kill you when the Messiah comes.’”1

A number of the settlers were dressed in civilian clothes and armed with assault rifles and stated that they were part of the Kitat Konenut First Response Team. This is the force that Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has been building up lately—handing out assault rifles to hundreds of ragtag Jewish volunteers. When questioned by a reporter why this team needed to carry assault rifles into a peaceful situation, a police officer at the site answered on the live feed, “Half the country is armed.”2

One bystander with a gun was asked by journalist Nicole Schiavi Jansezian, a local journalist reporting live from the scene on Facebook,3 why he had it. “We just came to help out,” he said. “In my opinion when someone responds with a gun, it keeps everyone polite.” Moreover, he added, “The police told me I should not come into the Old City without a gun.”4


The community did not disperse; instead, the group summoned more neighbors and lawyers to stand down the threat. About 200 Armenians remained on-site into the night, after erecting a protest tent, large Armenian flags, and a flag of Artsakh, and singing the Armenian national anthem at the scene.

The Armenian Patriarch, His Beatitude Archbishop Nourhan Manougian, also joined the protestors and sat in the protest tent along with other bishops.

Less than a week ago, Manougian released a letter stating his intention to cancel the ill-fated and despised land lease deal and filed a legal suit in Israeli courts to accomplish this, setting off a process that should proceed in the courts, not on the ground.

Apparently, this did not sit well with Rothman and his team. Two hours later, however, they departed—outnumbered for the moment.

“Right here what you see is a land war that goes on. It’s the kind of thing that goes on even when there are not rockets flying, there is always a battle for land here,” commented Jansezian.5

1

“Armenian Patriarch Joins Protestors of Land Deal,” Milhilard, accessed November 5, 2023.

2

Nicole Schiavi Jansezian, “The developer who leased the Armenian Quarter parking lot,” Facebook, November 5, 2023.

3

Jansezian, “The developer.” 

Armenians Launch Legal Battle to Cancel Controversial Cows’ Garden Land Deal

Emma Jilavian
Nov 2 2023

Daoud Kuttab & Khalil Assali


Determined community advocacy combined with legal help from Armenians in the diaspora opens the possibility of canceling a secretive land deal that would give an Australian Jewish developer control of one-quarter of the area of the Armenian Quarter.

After nearly two years of diplomatic efforts, pressure from local and international Armenians, and a weekly protest vigil, the Armenian Patriarchate, which had signed a 98-year lease to an Australian Jewish developer that would have meant the loss of nearly one-fourth of the historic Armenian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, has finally decided to take steps to cancel the controversial deal it signed to lease church property to the Jerusalem municipality and an Australian Jewish developer.

The problems began when the Jerusalem municipality claimed it wanted to help the Armenian residents of the Old City of Jerusalem with the lack of available parking (a few years ago, the city had taken the parking lot used by the Armenians who live in the quarter and turned it over to Jewish use for visitors to the Western Wall). Converting a land plot (Goveroun Bardez, or Cows’ Garden) into a parking lot required a lot of money. The city offered to lease the land and do the work; in return, the Armenian Patriarchate, which owned the land, would get a number of free parking spaces and a cut from the revenue from residents parking their cars at the location.

Palestinian ambassador to Denmark and Jerusalemite Manuel Hassassian was concerned that something was afloat. He told Jerusalem Story, “I smelled a rat.” He was right.

The parking lot project was part of a larger deal through which the municipality and an Australian Jewish developer, Danny Rothman of Xana Capital Ltd., would secure a 98-year lease (the developer initially went by the name Danny Rubenstein). The area to be leased, according to the website Keghart, includes “Goveroun Bardez, five homes, the Patriarch’s Garden, the Patriarch’s private parking as well as the hall of the seminary. It covers 25 percent of the Armenian Quarter. In effect, all of the western part of the Armenian Quarter.”1 The plot lies between the Armenian Quarter and the Jewish Quarter.

The plan was to turn the parking plot, the nearby seminary, and a restaurant into a luxury hotel. The Patriarchate was scheduled to make a lot of money from the sale and $300,000 annually thereafter. The contract also granted the right to use unspecified “adjacent lands.”2

Community Uproar and Pushback

Armenian Patriarch Nourhan Manougian took the unusual clerical step of defrocking his former deputy and former head of real estate, Baret Yeretsian.3 The Armenian priest left the convent hurriedly and had to seek the help of the Israeli police as local Armenian protestors wanted to search him for relevant documents before allowing him to leave. Like the Patriarch, Yeretsian has a US passport and has since traveled to California. He has always insisted that everything he did was at the orders of the Patriarch, who signed the final land deal; Yeretsian insists that his signature of the controversial deal was merely as a witness. Photographs provided by Yeretsian depict the signing ceremony, featuring Rothman, Yeretsian, Patriarch Manougian, and the Patriarch’s deputy, Archbishop Sevan Gharibian.

When the news of the lease deal was made public in September 2021, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority suspended their recognition of the Armenian Patriarch, saying that the land lease was a change of the status quo of the Old City of Jerusalem, which is a UNESCO-protected heritage.

For the residents of the Armenian Quarter, the lease of one-fourth of the historic land in the Old City was unacceptable. A weekly vigil and protests have taken place every Friday at the Armenian Quarter. An international legal team headed by the well-respected American lawyer Karnig Kerkonian came to Jerusalem and visited Amman, Jordan, to prepare for a lawsuit in an attempt to cancel the deal. The lawyers were able to secure a copy of most of the 21-page contract (one page is missing as well as annexes) and subsequently issued a 184-page legal analysis of it.

The leadership of the Church was totally silent, except for the defrocking of Yeretsian and the synod belatedly saying that they knew and approved of the sale.

The main Armenian clubs in Jerusalem and Amman all issued statements of support for the protestors. Armenian Church leaders also called the Jerusalem Patriarch to inquire and offer support as needed. Armenians around the world were involved in Armenian media as well as on social media. Local Jerusalem heads of churches also put out statements opposing the controversial land deal.

Armenians in Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter number between 2,000 and 3,000.4  They are routinely and increasingly harassed by far-right Israeli extremists.5 This is despite their centuries of history in the city.

A Jordanian Palestinian delegation traveled to Yerevan, Armenia, to seek support from that country.

Photo AlbumThe Armenians of Jerusalem

Armenians have centuries of history in Jerusalem and have made important contributions to the city’s societal and cultural fabric.

Regional Support

The effort to save the Armenian Quarter has been met with unprecedented Jordanian and Palestinian cooperation on all levels.

“We are increasing pressure, trying to corner the Patriarch to rescind the lease contract and salvage the land so as to return it to the Armenian community,” Ambassador Hassassian, who is also a member of the Armenian-Palestinian-Jordanian committee, told the London-based New Arab website. “We are willing to cover the costs of the contractual penalty.”6

Legal Proceedings Launched

The protests and the legal research came together in October 2023. Although they had to wait because of the events in Gaza, on October 31, the activists who created a Facebook page called Save the ArQ community revealed that legal proceedings have been filed in an Israeli court to annul the controversial sale.

Sonia Kelekian, one of the activists in the Save the ArQ movement, went on social media to acknowledge fellow Armenians Jack and Zarig Youredjian, who helped to fund the legal effort; lawyers Karnig Kerkonian and Garo Ghazarian, who are taking on the case; and the young community activists Setrag Balian and Hagop Djernazian.

The Armenian Patriarchate put out a statement on November 1 confirming that it had in fact submitted documents to the Israeli courts on October 26 requesting the cancellation of the deal.7

The decision of the Patriarchate to cancel the deal is the first step in what is likely to be a lengthy process to attempt to reverse this through the Israeli court system.

1

“Lawyers Acquired Illegal Land Lease Contract Despite Stonewalling Patriarch,” Keghart, July 29, 2023.

2

“Lawyers Acquired Illegal Land Lease Contract.”

3

Daoud Kuttab, “Armenian Patriarch Defrocks Barett Yeretsian[;] Jordan and Palestine Withdraw Recognition of the Patriarch,” Milhilard, accessed November 8, 2023.


https://www.jerusalemstory.com/en/article/armenians-launch-legal-battle-cancel-controversial-cows-garden-land-deal

Armenia: The Forgotten Conflict

Lena Karagyozian
Nov 20 2023

Azerbaijan is doing in the Artsakh region what Russia is doing to Ukraine—but the U.S. and Europe are looking the other way.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Territorial conquest is back around the globe, whether we like it or not. For decades, the internationalist fantasies of the bipartisan establishment have driven us to support expensive and unwinnable projects in every place from Kabul to Kiev. Internationalist overstretch weakened America from a unipolar position after the fall of the USSR to the current multipolar order.

In the vacuum left by an America weakened by government incompetence, military overstretch, and economic insolvency, the neocon cousins of the liberal internationalists see the fraying order and believe the solution is indiscriminate American intervention. Yet the right answer to American decline isn’t to waddle even more into peripheral conflicts around the world, but instead to defend our homeland against emerging threats from both near and far.

The internationalists in both parties are intent on convincing Americans to direct taxpayer dollars to Kharkiv that still looks better than parts of San Francisco—at least before Gavin Newsom gave the city an emergency face-lift in preparation for Xi Jinping’s recent visit.

Amid this narrative onslaught, one such invasion has gone conspicuously forgotten: Azerbaijan’s invasion in September of the previously autonomous Artsakh region adjacent to Armenia.

Some context: Artsakh has been populated mostly by Armenians since antiquity. Armenians are Christians who speak an Indo-European language. When the Soviets took control of the Caucasus in the early 1920s, they designated Nagorno-Karabakh as an autonomous oblast within Soviet Azerbaijan, recognizing its unique majority ethnic Armenian character in the otherwise Azeri republic. Azeris are Muslims who speak a Turkic language. This situation held until the late 1980s, when tensions boiled over into violence. It wasn’t long after the fall of the USSR in 1991 that war erupted in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War of 1992-1994.

Against all odds, the Armenians won the war and established control over Artsakh. Azerbaijan worked with its pan-Turkic big brothers in Turkey to slowly rearm, aided by two decades of military assistance from the U.S. American taxpayers were made for 20 years to arm the greatest enemies of the world’s oldest Christian country. Even worse, supporting Azerbaijan seems like the rare case where American foreign policy elites understood the sin they were committing but still did it—and did it for money.

In 2020, Azerbaijan invaded Artsakh and defeated the Armenians in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. All of the American military assistance helped. They regained much of their lost territory and reduced Artsakh to a single road link to Armenia, the Lachin Corridor. In late 2022, they blockaded the road and slowly choked Artsakh to death. When Azerbaijan formally invaded again in September 2023, Armenia was completely outmatched and sued for peace after a day. Now, in just a few weeks, over 100,000 Armenians have fled their ancestral homeland in Artsakh to live as refugees in the rest of Armenia.

In other words, Azerbaijan is doing the same thing to the Artsakh region that Russia is doing to Ukraine—but the U.S. and Europe are looking the other way and pretending not to notice. It is because Azerbaijan has one of the most effective lobbying operations in the U.S. and other Western nations.

Bankrolling it all is oil and gas. Azerbaijan’s largest employer, taxpayer, and piggy bank for influence-peddling is the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR). SOCAR has a fancy office that opened in Washington, D.C. in 2012, right around the time Azerbaijan was campaigning for exemptions in the Iran sanctions that would allow construction to continue on their Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). If that was the goal of SOCAR’s office, it worked. President Obama’s 2012 Executive Order on sanctions exempted the pipeline, and so did the Iran Freedom and Counter Proliferation Act.

John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and now heading up “clean energy” projects for Biden, was the co-founder of the Podesta Group, the D.C. lobbying firm that represented the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the United States from 2009 to 2017. John left the firm early on, but kept close ties with his brother Tony, the other co-founder and principal. In 2016 FARA filings, the Podesta Group made 17 pages of contacts on behalf of Azerbaijan that year. By comparison, another client of theirs, India, had four pages. All of those contacts paid off; between February and June of 2016, the Podesta Group was paid $379,325.73 for its work on behalf of the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

All of that caviar has made Azerbaijan a lot of powerful friends. American interests abroad shouldn’t be guided by foreign lobbyists, but all too often, it seems that's exactly who is making the crucial decisions on how and where to divert our precious resources. Unfortunately, American foreign policy is heavily influenced by whoever can write the largest check—or, in the case of Ukraine, whoever can write the largest check to the President’s ne’er-do-well son.

The right solution isn’t for the U.S. to militarily intervene in Artsakh, any more than we should be militarily engaged to allow Ukraine to recapture the Russian-occupied regions of the Donbas. Rather it is for the U.S. to disengage by ceasing its layers of explicit and implicit support for Azerbaijan.

Chief among these layers of support is Section 907. In 1992, Congress passed the Freedom Support Act. Included in the legislation was Section 907, which explicitly banned the U.S. from sending direct aid to the government of Azerbaijan. This legislation worked as designed until 2001, when the Senate adopted an amendment that allowed the president to waive Section 907, which American presidents have done annually ever since. Put another way, since 2001, the U.S. has provided military assistance to Azerbaijan—our foreign policy elites helped build the war machine used to push Armenians out of Artsakh.

Much of that military assistance would have been beyond Azerbaijan’s means if not for the various gas pipelines they have built with Western assistance. Europe needs gas to fuel its economy, and America sits atop one of the world’s great gas bounties. We could have supplied Europe with a near-endless supply of liquified natural gas, but instead, we acceded to the climate change agenda. We restricted our gas industry at home, while encouraging our biggest oil and gas companies to lead all sorts of projects abroad. The climate cult made Azerbaijan and its petro-pals flush with cash.

All Armenia needs is a fair chance. Armenia needs America to stop enabling Azerbaijan.

The ways to do it are simple. Shut down the Azerbaijan lobby. Cease publishing its lies in the complicit U.S. press. Stop delivering military assistance to Baku’s dictator. Unleash the American energy sector and use our bountiful resources to undermine Azerbaijan’s gas markets in Europe.

This last part is key: Greater American prosperity, made possible by a robust revival of America First policies at home, can usher in a new era of peace around the world. Imagine America unburdened by heavy-handed influence peddling at the highest echelons. Imagine America unashamedly pursuing its own interests.

It’s time to stand up for what's right. It’s time to stand up for American interests.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Vivek Ramaswamy is an American businessman and author of Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.

Yerevan, Brussels sign agreement on status of EU monitoring mission

George Mamian
TASS, Russia
Nov 20 2023
The EU Monitoring Capacity started operating in Armenia in February 2023

YEREVAN, November 20. /TASS/. Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovhannisyan and Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia Vassilis Maragos have signed an agreement on the status of the EU monitoring mission deployed to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, the Armenpress news agency reported.

"This mission has already offered a lot to Armenia in terms of stability and security. The status agreement we signed today will help bring greater legal certainty when it comes to regulating the various rights and obligations of the mission's presence in the country," Maragos said.

He said the EU foreign ministers approved a proposal to expand the EU monitoring mission in Armenia a few days ago in Brussels.

The EU Monitoring Capacity started operating in Armenia in February 2023, with its members patrolling the Armenian side of the border with Azerbaijan.