Glendale Police Chief Robert William

The City of Glendale announced the appointment of Robert William as Chief of Police for the Glendale Police Department, following his successful service as Interim Chief since December 2025. He becomes the first Armenian-American to helm the Glendale Police Department.

“I am proud to have become the first ethnic Armenian police chief of Glendale. However, my goal was never to become the first Armenian police chief. My goal has been to become a police chief who can keep the city safe,” William said in an interview with USArmenia Television.

According to him, his Armenian identity has always played an important role in his life. “I do not have an Armenian surname. My father is Assyrian and Armenian, my mother is Armenian. In our home, we only spoke Armenian,” the newly appointed police chief noted.

A lifelong Glendalian and dedicated public servant, Chief William brings more than 24 years of experience, leadership, and commitment to the Glendale community. His appointment follows a distinguished career within the Glendale Police Department that began as a Police Cadet before he was sworn in as a Police Officer in 2003. Over the course of his career, he has served in operational, investigative, administrative, and executive leadership assignments, earning a reputation as a thoughtful, forward-looking leader committed to both public safety and community trust.

Chief William’s executive leadership journey has been shaped by years of direct service alongside the department’s top leadership, including roles as Chief’s Adjutant, Public Information Officer, Police Captain, Deputy Chief, and Interim Chief. Through these assignments, he developed extensive expertise in strategic planning, labor relations, organizational leadership, community engagement, and municipal government operations.

Since joining the department’s Command Staff in 2020, Chief William has overseen each of the department’s sworn divisions and played a key role in advancing technology modernization, accountability initiatives, leadership development, operational improvements, and community partnerships. He was instrumental in developing and implementing the Glendale Police Department’s Strategic Plan, which continues to guide the organization through priorities centered on employee development, transparency, innovation, organizational excellence, and exceptional service to the community.

“Chief William represents the very best of the Glendale Police Department,” said City Manager Roubik Golanian. “Throughout his career, he has demonstrated exceptional leadership, integrity, and the ability to navigate complex challenges while advancing the department’s long-term vision. I am confident that under Chief William’s leadership, the Glendale Police Department will continue to set the standard for professionalism in public service.”

“Chief William’s appointment reflects the strength, professionalism, and exceptional talent within the Glendale Police Department,” said Mayor Ardy Kassakhian. “As someone who has dedicated his entire career to serving Glendale, he understands our community, our values, and our expectations. His leadership has already helped shape the department’s future, and I am confident Glendale will continue to thrive under his direction. His appointment is also a historic milestone for our city, as he becomes Glendale’s first Armenian American Police Chief—a reflection of both his individual merit and the rich diversity that has long been one of our community’s greatest strengths.”

“30 years ago, you could count the number of Armenian American officers in the Glendale police force on one hand. A lot of people have worked very hard to worry about change since then. And we see the success of their efforts as today we not only have over 30 sworn officers of Armenian, American descent but we continue to attract new recruits who are eager to serve this community.”

As Chief of Police, William’s priorities include strengthening leadership at every level of the organization, investing in employee development and wellness, embracing innovation and emerging technologies, enhancing accountability and transparency, and continuing to build strong partnerships throughout the community. He has also cultivated strong relationships with regional public safety partners, helping ensure Glendale remains engaged in important countywide public safety initiatives and discussions.

A graduate of the FBI National Academy and the Senior Management Institute for Police, Chief William holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice Management and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration.

Outside of his professional responsibilities, Chief William is a devoted husband and father of two sons. He is an avid hockey player who values teamwork, discipline, and perseverance, qualities that have defined both his personal life and career.

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Armenian families flee Artsakh after an attack in 2023 that forced the displacement the population there

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan blamed Armenian Diaspora organizations for Baku’s ongoing claims that most of modern-day Armenia is “Western Azerbaijan,” and demands to settle Azerbaijanis there.

Pashinyan claimed that Azerbaijani leaders continue to raise the so-called “Western Azerbaijan” issue in direct response to efforts by Diaspora organizations that are advocating for the rights of Artsakh Armenians forcibly displaced during Azerbaijan’s violent attack on Artsakh in September 2023.

A group calling itself the Baku Initiative Group hosted a conference in Washington on Wednesday, called “The right of return and self-determination: double standards and selective approaches.”

“The conference participants will discuss the issue of maintaining the recognition of fundamental rights – the right to safe, voluntary, and dignified return to their historical lands – in the focus of attention of international organizations, following the example of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis who were forcibly expelled from their historical lands in Armenia as a result of the policy of ethnic cleansing,” the Baku Initiative Group said in a report.

Last week, the Azerbaijani government organized a “festival-conference” on Azerbaijanis’ “return to Western Azerbaijan” in Nakhichevan. During the event, Azerbaijan’s Education Minister Emin Amrulayev said the so-called “Western Azerbaijan” issue is of “strategic importance” to Baku.

An Azerbaijani lawmaker heading a government-linked group called the Community of Western Azerbaijan said afterwards that it must be on the agenda of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations.

Pashinyan and other government officials have not reacted to the latest efforts by Baku to advance this historical revisionist stance.

Pashinyan, who has said that the issue of “Western Azerbaijan” was not on the agenda of peace talks with Azerbaijan, has always drawn a parallel with demands for Artsakh Armenians to be guaranteed safe return to their homeland.

Pashinyan lamented to reporters on Thursday that “there is silence about the fact that just ten or a little more days ago, Armenian organizations [in the United States] brought up an issue that essentially concerns … the continuation of the Karabakh movement.”

Ahead of Tuesday, which marked the 1,000th day of captivity for Armenian hostages being held in Baku, Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs Frank Pallone and Gus Bilirakis, Caucus Vice-Chair Brad Sherman and representatives Gabe Amo and Jim Costa introduced amendments to the national security legislation demanding the release of Armenian hostages and prisoners of war illegally held by Azerbaijan, the withdrawal of Azerbaijani forces from sovereign Armenian territory, the protection of Artsakh’s cultural and religious heritage, and the safe return of forcibly displaced Armenian refugees to their Artsakh homes.

The Armenian National Committee of America hailed the effort, with its Executive Director, Aram Hamparian, saying “these amendments send a clear message: Congress will not subsidize Azerbaijan’s abuses, aggression, desecration, and occupation with U.S. tax dollars.”

Pashinyan was presumably referring to this effort and the ANCA when he expressed frustration at such advocacy efforts outside Armenia, because as much he has abandoned the Artsakh issue, it angers him that others are advancing the right of Artsakh Armenians.

“I’m saying it very bluntly: as long as the Dashnaktsutyun lobbying and steps in that direction continue in the United States, they will receive [a pushback from Baku] … Now any attempt to continue the Karabakh movement at other levels will bring reciprocal reactions,” said Pashinyan. “Fruthermore, that process can cause us problems,” he added without elaborating.

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Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Sunday plans to propose a cabinet resolution to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, his office said, according to an article in The Times of Israel on Thursday.

This move will no doubt provoke diplomatic row with Turkey.

Israel has long avoided recognizing the killings as genocide due to the diplomatic sensitivity of the matter, but the sharp deterioration of relations with Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has repeatedly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, has led it to take certain steps toward recognition in recent years. Last August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said for the first time that he recognized the genocide.

“Despite extensive and unequivocal historical documentation, the Armenian Genocide remains the subject of an organized campaign of denial and minimization, including the manipulative rewriting of history books, primarily by Turkey,” the explanatory text for the proposal says, according to The Times of Israel.

“In light of this moral and historical obligation, it is proposed that the Government of Israel recognize the genocide committed against the Armenian people during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, given ongoing attempts to blur, minimize, or deny the atrocities of the Armenian Genocide, the proposal calls for condemning all efforts to distort the historical truth of these events,” the text added.

Last August, Netanyahu said that he personally recognizes the Armenian Genocide as a genocide in an appearance on a local podcast.

Speaking on the Patrick Bet-David’s podcast, Netanyahu said he recognized the Armenian Genocide after the host asked why Israel has been so reluctant to recognize the massacre committed by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1917 as a genocide, given the context of worldwide recognition of the Holocaust.

Netanyahu informed the host that the Knesset recently passed a bill recognizing the massacre as genocide, but the host pushed him for personal recognition.

Netanyahu responded: “I just did.”

At the time, the Armenian National Committee of America issued a statement in response to Netanyahu’s remarks Tuesday.

“Netanyahu’s tack toward long‑withheld Israeli recognition of the Armenian Genocide — in the wake of its arming of Azerbaijan’s blockade and genocide of Artsakh’s Armenian Christians and amid ongoing threats to Jerusalem’s Armenian Christian Quarter and serious and sustained violations of international law in Gaza, akin to Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Artsakh — must, if it is to represent more than an attempt at tactical cover for its transgressions, be followed by a sharp break with Israel’s military alliance with Azerbaijan and public pressure on Turkey to abandon its denial and obstruction of justice for the Armenian Genocide,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

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Krikor Der-Hagopian at the 9th Sulaimani Forum, in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, on Apr. 025 (AUI Sulaimani photo)

Iraq has nominated Krikor Der-Hagopian, an Armenian adviser to the country’s Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, as ambassador to Washington, the Al Monitor newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Regional diplomats confirmed the nomination to Al-Monitor, describing it as part of a broader effort by Baghdad to recalibrate relations with the United States.

Der-Hagopian, a US-educated Iraqi official who has served in numerous roles, including as an adviser to former President Barham Saleh and to the last prime minister, Mohamed Shia al-Sudani, is awaiting formal consent from the Trump administration before taking up his post. If confirmed, he would become Iraq’s first non-Shiite ambassador to Washington in decades.

The 49-year-old father of three, who earned a master’s in international relations at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies, is widely seen as a shoo-in, Al Monitor reported. Well-placed sources familiar with Der-Hagopian say he has an established track record of maintaining smooth relations with successive US administrations.

“I view his appointment as an extremely positive signal that the prime minister has decided to send probably the most qualified member of his own team, the person with the most insights on how Washington works,” Victoria Taylor, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran, who left the post in May 2025 to join the Atlantic Council, told Al-Monitor.

“I am not surprised to hear that Krikor is being considered for such a prestigious position,” said Denver-based political scientist Simon Maghakyan, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford, who got to know Der-Hagopian during the latter’s graduate studies in Denver. “I remember him as a bright, sincere, and strategic thinker and bridge-builder,” Maghakyan told Al-Monitor.

Der-Hagopian will be replacing Iraq’s former deputy foreign minister, Nizar al-Khairallah, who is the current Iraqi ambassador in Washington. In a related development, a seasoned State Department Middle East hand, Peter Shea, is expected to replace another State Department professional, Joshua Harris, as interim head of mission in Baghdad until — and if — a permanent ambassador is named.

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LONDON/NEW YORK — Bloomsbury Press announced the publication of Stefan Ihrig’s “Germans and Turks: A Forgotten History of Europe.” German–Turkish relations form an essential backdrop to many of today’s most pressing political issues, from the integration of refugees from the Middle East into Europe and debates over the place of Islam in Western societies to the geopolitics of Europe and Western Asia. Yet the history of this remarkable relationship—spanning more than 800 years and shaping events far beyond the two countries themselves—has never been fully told.

In this book, Stefan Ihrig presents the first comprehensive history of the relationship between German -and Turkish-speaking peoples, tracing their interactions from the Middle Ages to the present day. Over the centuries, the two societies have moved from bitter adversaries during the Ottoman–Habsburg conflicts to close allies in the late nineteenth century and during the First World War.

Their relationship has repeatedly influenced the course of world history, often with devastating consequences. Ihrig argues that Germany’s response to the Armenian Genocide and the ethno-nationalist “Turkification” policies of Mustafa Kemal’s republic left a lasting imprint on Nazi ideology and practice. At the same time, he challenges simplistic narratives by revealing a long history of mutual curiosity and fascination, setting German–Turkish encounters apart from the more overtly colonial relationships that Britain, France, and the United States developed with the Middle East and North Africa.

The story culminates in the presence of nearly four million people of Turkish descent in Germany today. As Turkey assumes an increasingly prominent role in regional and global affairs, and Germany remains the European Union’s leading political and economic power, understanding the long and complex history of their relationship has never been more important.

According to Ihrig, the book surveys nearly a thousand years of shared German-Turkish history. It argues that, until the aftermath of World War II, this relationship largely defied Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism. Despite centuries of conflict, Germans and Turks repeatedly overcame periods of enmity, developing forms of interaction that differed markedly from those of France and Britain in their relationships with the Muslim world. These dynamics culminated in an unequal but close partnership during the decades leading up to and including World War I.

The book further argues that German support for the Ottoman Empire’s anti-Armenian policies in the 1890s served as a precursor to the Armenian Genocide. In the decades that followed, German-Turkish relations oscillated between aspirations for closeness and tendencies toward distance. A second major turning point came with the immigration of so-called guest workers, followed by subsequent waves of migrants from Turkey to Germany.

According to Ihrig, Germans largely forgot the long history of shared experiences and political cooperation—including their complicity in genocide. Instead, postwar Germany rapidly adopted an Orientalist framework, recasting Turks in Germany as the “Other.” This shift gave rise to decades of exclusion, discrimination, and racism, the effects of which continue to shape the experiences of Germans of Turkish descent today.

By tracing this history—from the Crusades and the centuries-long geopolitical standoff in southeastern Europe, through shared imperial violence and genocide, to the interwar and Nazi-era fascination with the New Turkey, and finally to labor migration and the challenges of the post-immigration era—the book seeks to provide a new foundation on which Germans and Turks can confront their complex and deeply intertwined past together.

“A delightfully sprawling book overflowing with empathy, irony and a wealth of detail,” said Nicholas Danforth, Deputy Editor of Foreign Policy Magazine.

“Bringing to life Bismarck’s adage that ‘the love of Turks and Germans to one another is so old that it will never break,’ Ihrig accomplishes what no other scholar has attempted to do: write an engaging history of a thousand years of interactions between Germans and Turks, of a shared past and a shared present in Germany,” said Marc David Baer, Professor, LSE, UK. “If not love, Ihrig charts astonishing episodes of conflict and cohabitation across Central and Southeastern Europe and the Middle East from medieval times to the present, leaving the reader with a whole new image of German and Turkish history.”

“Throughout the centuries, Germans and the Turks developed an ‘elective affinity,’ and Stefan Ihrig does a great job telling this story,” noted Ayhan Aktar, Retired Professor of Sociology at Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey.

“A timely and thought-provoking account of the deep, complex, and often surprising history connecting Germans and Turks. Thoroughly researched, elegantly written, and rich in insight, it is a valuable resource for historians, students, and general readers alike,” said Pascal Firges, Lecturer at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Stefan Ihrig is a historian specializing in German and Turkish history as well as transnational themes spanning the 20th century. He is the author of “Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination” (2014), which was translated into five languages, and “Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler” (2016), which received the 2017 Sonia Aronian Book Prize for Excellence in Armenian Studies and was translated into Italian. Another previous book dealt with post-Soviet history and politics in the Republic of Moldova.

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