Armenian News... A Topalian The Armenian Genocide
On Nov 21st 2018, Derby City council became the first city council in England to recognise The Armenian Genocide as a Genocide.
Please see Mr Russell Pollard's personal journey in achieving this outcome in his website, link here below, to read more about this event.
Dr Ara and Mrs S. Nahabedian attended the council meeting and witnessed this historic motion adopted unanimously by the full city council of Derby.
Financial Times, UK
Nov 23 2018
Turkey and Armenia: the truth is more complicated
From Ümit Yalçin, Ambassador of Turkey to the UK
Your article “ Finding Armenia” (FT Magazine, November 17) wrongly describes the events that unfolded in eastern Anatolia during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. Labelling these events as a “genocide” perpetrated by one side against the other and vilifying the Turkish nation has long been the main feature of the one-sided Armenian approach. It is unacceptable and obviously disputable from a variety of standpoints, including legal and historical.
A closer look at the history of the first world war and the final period of the Ottoman Empire would reveal that reality is much more complex than what some Armenian circles would have you believe.
That being said, Turkey does not deny the hardship and suffering of many Ottoman Armenians, along with all the other constituent nations of the Ottoman Empire, during the first world war. What we oppose is creating a “hierarchy of sufferings” and baselessly accusing a nation of the biggest of all crimes.
Turkey firmly believes that drawing enmity from the past only fuels ill feelings and prevents the Turkish and the Armenian people from becoming any closer.
Ümit Yalçin
Ambassador of Turkey to the UK
Panorama, Armenia
Nov 21 2018
Paylan: Why don't Turks say that Dolmabahçe Palace was built by Armenian architect?
Garo Paylan, an Armenian member of the Turkish parliament representing the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) reflected on the Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey during the budgetary debates of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Addressing the parliament session, the lawmaker stressed that the appropriated heritage is misrepresented in the country, noting that those in Turkey fail to admit the fact that the architect of Dolmabahçe Palace in the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul was an Armenian, Ermenihaber reports.
“Why don’t you say that Dolmabahçe Palace belongs to us, Akhtamar belongs to us ... During the college years, when we visited Dolmabahçe, the guide said that the palace was built by Italian architect Baliani. I believed, but when I returned to college I found out that Dolmabahçe was built by Armenian architect Garabed Balyan,” Paylan was quoted as saying.
“Can you imagine? There is a perception that an Italian architect is preferable to an Armenian one. Many sites in Istanbul bear the marks of the famous Balyan family. Why do you deny this? Why don’t you say that Sultanahmet, Dolmabahçe Palace and Akhtamar are ours?” he asked.
The Balyan family was a prominent Ottoman Armenian family of court architects in the service of Ottoman sultans and other members of the Ottoman dynasty during the 18th and 19th centuries. For five generations, they designed and constructed numerous major buildings in the Ottoman Empire, including palaces, mansions, konaks, kiosks, yalis, mosques, churches, and various public buildings, mostly in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul).
The nine well-known members of the family served six sultans in the course of almost a century and played an important role in the westernization of Ottoman architecture during the Tanzimat period.
RFE/RL Report
Pashinian Rules Out Change In Armenia’s Policy On Iran
November 20, 2018
Armenia will maintain its close relationship with neighboring Iran despite renewed U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Tuesday.
“We need to develop relations with Iran very intensively and they must be mutually beneficial,” Pashinian told reporters, commenting on the impact of the sanctions on Armenian-Iranian ties.
He said he sees “no need to make any changes” in Armenia’s policy towards Iran. “We should not only maintain the good level of our relations but also try to
raise them to a new level,” he stressed.
Pashinian said that the U.S. administration “understands our situation and policy.” Having good relations with the United States is also “very important” to Armenia, he added.
A team of officials from the U.S. state and treasury departments visited Yerevan last week to explain the sanctions re-imposed by President Donald Trump earlier this year to Armenia’s government and private sector. No details of their meetings were made public.
Iran was also high on the agenda of U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton’s October trip to Armenia. Bolton said he hold Pashinian that the Trump administration will enforce the sanctions “very vigorously.” Commercial and
other traffic through the Armenian-Iranian border is therefore “going to be a significant issue” for Washington, he said.
Speaking in the Armenian parliament a few days after his talks with Bolton, Pashinian made clear that his government will maintain Armenia’s “special” relationship with Iran.
The premier on Tuesday did not deny reports that some Armenian commercial banks have started closing the accounts of Iranian citizens, most of them Armenian
descent, living in Armenia. He insisted that those private banks are not acting on his government’s orders. He suggested that they have commercial operations with the U.S. and do not want to be sanctioned by Washington.
Pashinian met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani when he visited New York in September to address a session of the UN General Assembly. The two leaders discussed ways of expanding Armenian-Iranian trade and reaffirmed their support for joint energy projects planned or already implemented by the two states.
With Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey closed due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Iran as well as Georgia serve as the sole conduits for the landlocked country’s trade with the outside world. Armenia also imports Iranian natural gas and other fuel.
RFE/RL Report
Armenian Minister Sees Slower Growth In 2018
November 23, 2018
Sargis Harutyunyan
The Armenian economy is on course to grow by 5 to 6 percent this year, Economy Minister Tigran Khachatrian said on Friday.
Economic growth in Armenia accelerated to 7.5 percent in 2017, according to official statistics. It hit 9.7 percent in the first quarter of this year, before the start of weeks of mass protests that led to the resignation of the country’s longtime leader, Serzh Sarkisian, and his government.
Data from the Armenian Statistical Committee shows that growth has slowed down since then. The government agency has also reported a sharp drop in foreign investment.
Political opponents of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, the protest leader who came to power in May, have seized upon these figures to criticize his economic record. They claim that his government’s policies are scaring away local and foreign investors.
Khachatrian insisted that the dramatic regime change, commonly referred to as a “velvet revolution,” will benefit the domestic economy in the longer term. He argued that the new government has already broken up economic monopolies linked to the former regime and is taking other measures to improve Armenia’s business environment.
“The revolution has led to a greater degree of economic freedom, easier access to the markets and more equal competition,” said Khachatrian. “These are factors that could and should create a more favorable environment for
investment-related decisions. But they can’t produce solutions and results at once.”
The minister predicted that the upcoming parliamentary elections, which Pashinian’s bloc is widely expected to win, will also contribute to faster growth. The resulting “stabilization of the situation” in the country will only
encourage businesspeople to launch new projects, he said.
Pashinian cited economic considerations when he started pushing for the holding of the snap elections in early October. He said political uncertainty resulting from his team’s modest presence in the current Armenian parliament is hampering economic activity.
RFE/RL Report
Armenian Police Chief Downplays Higher Crime Rate
November 22, 2018
Sargis Harutyunyan
The chief of the Armenian police, Valeri Osipian, downplayed on Thursday an 11 percent increase in the number of crimes registered in the country this year,
saying that they were previously underreported.
According to Armenia’s Statistical Committee, law-enforcement bodies recorded 16,227 crimes in January-September, up from 14,554 in the same period of 2017.
Some critics blame the current Armenian government, which took office after this spring’s “velvet revolution,” for the higher crime rate. They claim that it is less tough on crime than the previous authorities in Yerevan.
Osipian insisted, however, that other factors are at play. “True, there has been an increase in crimes but it’s not risky enough to make us feel concerned … It has to do with a number of factors,” he told reporters.
“First of all, the vicious practice within the police system of concealing crimes has been completely eliminated,” explained Osipian.
He said police officers used to tell victims of theft, robbery and other offenses not to file formal crime reports “so that that does not affect police indicators.” As a result, many crimes were “registered orally” and thus not added to official statistics, he said.
Osipian, who was appointed as police chief by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in May, declined to name any police officers responsible for that. He insisted only that his predecessor Vladimir Gasparian “always demanded that they don’t underreport” crimes.
Zhanna Aleksanian, an outspoken human rights activist, strongly disagreed, saying that many crimes were “concealed, covered up and ignored” by the police
under Gasparian. “I don’t think that this police [leadership] has fully stopped underreporting crimes or using violence,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
According to Osipian, another reason for the larger number of registered crimes is that their victims are now less wary of reporting them because of what he described as greater public trust in the police. “While people did not trust, respect and love us, police servicemen, in the past, I can say that the opposite is the case now,” he claimed.
News.am, Armenia
Nov 23 2018
Will Armenia eliminate Diaspora Ministry?
There is no final decision regarding the future of Armenia's Diaspora Ministry, acting Minister Mkhitar Hayrapetyan said.
The official believes that during the past years the Ministry of Diaspora was playing a symbolic role.
“If the Diaspora Ministry has to be a symbolic agency that is not to solve precise tasks, let it be a department,” Hayrapetyan emphasized.
Asked whether he will retain his post, Hayrapetyan urged to wait until the results of the early parliamentary elections. The acting minister added that he is ready for working either in the parliament, or in the government.
The incumbent authorities have already declared their intention to cut the number of ministries.
Agriculture Monitor Worldwide
November 22, 2018 Thursday
Armenia to start producing tractors
Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday, November 21 met Armen Harutyunyan, the head of Beltekhnika, a Lithuanian company engaged in the production of agricultural equipment.
At the meeting in Yerevan, the sides discussed issues related to Beltekhnikas initiative to implement an investment project for the production of agricultural machinery such as tractors in Armenia.
Reaffirming the Armenian governments interest in implementing the proposed investment project, Pashinyan said it will generate new jobs in line with his governments drive for providing favorable conditions for investors.
Harutyunyan said they are going to produce modern farm equipment, affordable for local farmers, part of which will be exported to the European market.
The new plant will be created on the basis of the former Hayelectromash factory. $5-7 million will be invested in the first stage, followed by an additional investment of $10-15 million. Harutyunyan said his team will start working on its implementation as early as December 1, 2018.
The first plants annual output capacity is 3,000 tractors. The second plant will increase the output by additional 5,000 tractors. Nikol Pashinyan welcomed the initiative and expressed confidence that it was going to be a success story.
Nov 21 2018
Armenian church dragged into Russia-Ukraine feud
Ani Mejlumyan
Armenia’s top cleric made an ambiguous statement involving the schism in the Orthodox world, but it’s been interpreted as backing Russia.
Armenia's top church official, Karekin II, at a ceremony to consecrate a new church in Novosibirsk, Russia. While in Russia he weighed in on the dispute between the Russian and Ukrainian churches. (photo: Facebook page of Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin)
Armenia’s top religious official has been dragged into a feud between the Russian and Ukrainian churches and appears to have sided with Russia.
Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II was consecrating a new Armenian church in Novosibirsk, Russia, made from Armenia’s trademark pink tuff stone, when he was asked about the schism that has rocked the Orthodox Christian world. In October, the Russian Orthodox Church announced that it was cutting ties with the Constantinople Patriarchate, following the latter's declaration of support for an independent Ukrainian church.
The Armenian church is not part of the Constantinople Patriarchate and does not have a direct stake in the conflict, unlike many of the other national Orthodox churches that are being forced to take sides in the dispute. Karekin nevertheless weighed in.
“The Armenian Apostolic Church is a supporter of canonicity. And in this regard, one can never welcome steps that are aimed towards division, dismemberment of the church,” Karekin said at the November 19 ceremony.
Both Russians and Ukrainians interpreted that as a vote of support for Moscow. And some Ukrainians said it was a manifestation of Yerevan’s pro-Russia foreign policy. "It’s not the Catholicos of All Armenians who speaks here, but the Kremlin,” analyst Andriy Datsiuk told the Ukrainian TV network Priamyi. “Because today Armenia is politically, economically and militarily dependent on the Russian Federation. Therefore, whatever they say, the statement is dictated by political motives.”
But one senior Ukrainian church official denied that Karekin had taken a side in the dispute. “Some understood the statement as condemnation of the provision of the Tomos to Ukraine. Where did you see any note regarding Tomos in the statement of Karekin II?,” said Archbishop Yevstratiy, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, referring to the official granting of autonomy, or autocephaly, to the Ukrainian church.
He added that the Armenian church – the first official church in the world, after Armenia adopted Christianity in 301 – had no direct relation to the Ukrainian or Russian churches. And he blamed Ukrainian journalists for mistakenly reporting the story by following Russians’ lead.
Karekin and other church officials, meanwhile, failed to clarify the church’s official position, and Armenian media have left the story alone.
Ani Mejlumyan is a Yerevan-based journalist.
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