Armenian News... A Topalian... 6 editorials
WHO REMEMBERS THE ARMENIANS? - A FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE
Facebook event:
- Registration: bit.ly/ArmenianGenocideTalk
Description
Often described as 'the first modern genocide', the Armenian Genocide led to the deaths of 1.5 million people during the First World War. Historian and Armenian Ambassador to the UK - Dr. Arman Kirakosianwill deliver a lecture detailing the events that took place. The talk will also cover Armenia today and it's relationship with Turkey and the UK. There will be a chance for a Q&A at the end.
The talk will be held in theatre 0.22 (bottom floor), Law/Politics Building on Park Place in Cardiff.
see attachment
The Armenian community in Ireland have also organised a public commemorative event in Dublin.
News.am, Armenia
April 1 2019
Armenian MP on defense minister's statement
Armenia has always believed that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict must be resolved exclusively through peaceful means. This is what Deputy of the ruling My Step Alliance, Chairman of the Standing Committee on International Relations of the National Assembly of Armenia Ruben Rubinyan declared during a briefing held at the National Assembly, commenting on Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan’s statement that the“territories for peace” format can be reformulated as “new war for new territories” in case of new Azerbaijani aggression.
“Armenia has never wanted and still doesn’t want a new war. All of Armenia’s statements have been targeted at an exclusively peaceful settlement of this conflict,” the MP stated.
April 1 2019
After peace negotiations, threats of war break out between Armenia and Azerbaijan
Armenia’s defense minister threatened to take more of Azerbaijan’s territory, and Azerbaijan reacted in kind.
Joshua Kucera
In the wake of the first meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to discuss a peace deal for their long-running conflict, a war of words has erupted between the two sides.
On March 29, Defense Minister David Tonoyan addressed a group of local Armenians in New York. “As minister of defense, I declare that the formula ‘territories for peace’ will no longer exist, and we will reformulate it as ‘new war – new territories,’” he told the crowd, wearing a military uniform. He added that Armenia was aiming to boost its offensive capabilities.
None of this was exactly new, but it came at an inopportune time: just as Tonoyan’s boss, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, was meeting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Vienna. That meeting was described as taking place in a “positive and constructive atmosphere,” but the atmosphere quickly darkened as Azerbaijan responded angrily to Tonoyan’s bellicose rhetoric.
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry protested that the statement was “another admission by the high-ranking Armenian official of aggressive policy of this country,” reported the news agency Trend. It added: “We bring to the attention of the Armenian side that the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan are among the most powerful armies in the world and are able to liberate the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in a short time.”
The press secretary of Azerbaijan’s ministry of defense said it was an attempt by Tonoyan to distract from the “lamentable” situation in the Armenian armed forces, in particular still-murky reports of a mutiny by conscripts in a military base on the Iranian border.
“We will bring down a blow on the heads of the Armenian occupants,” said the spokesman, Vagif Dargyahly.
That sort of aggressive rhetoric is more commonly heard from the Azerbaijani side, as Armenians enjoy a status quo that favors them. Currently about 14 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory is controlled by Armenian forces, resulting in over 600,000 Azerbaijanis displaced from their homes, and Azerbaijan claims the right to take back that territory by force if peaceful means fail.
Still, Tonoyan’s statements aren’t entirely new from the Armenian side. The threat to take additional Azerbaijani territory in case a war breaks out predates Tonoyan’s tenure at the defense ministry.
The rejection of the idea of “territory for peace,” meanwhile, echoes similar statements made by Pashinyan himself and could be interpreted variously. Rhetorically, it sounds like a rejection of the very idea of handing back territories to Azerbaijan, a position which would effectively scuttle the peace talks. But parsing the statement more carefully, it could be seen as simply a vow to demand something in return for territories more than simply “peace,” i.e. not being attacked.
The more common shorthand for the current negotiating framework is “territory for status” – that is, some exchange of the Azerbaijani territories currently occupied by Armenians for Armenians exercising some kind of formal authority of the core territory under dispute, Nagorno-Karabakh. Neither Pashinyan nor Tonoyan have ruled out that formulation, the bright side on which foreign diplomats involved in the negotiations have focused.
Armenian officials explain the rhetorical turn as trying to show Azerbaijan that it can give as good as it gets when it comes to bellicose rhetoric. “Azerbaijan often says that the fact that it does not use force against Artsakh and Armenia is already a concession to the Armenian sides,” Mikayel Zolyan, a member of parliament from Pashinyan’s “My Step” alliance, told Eurasianet. (Artsakh is the Armenian word for Karabakh.) “Tonoyan is saying that we could use the same logic, if we wanted.”
Joshua Kucera is the Turkey/Caucasus editor at Eurasianet, and author of The Bug Pit.
Armenpress.am
29 March, 2019
Armenian deputy PM holds meeting with UK Ambassador
Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan received UK Ambassador to Armenia Judith Farnworth, the deputy PM’s Office told Armenpress.
Welcoming the guest the deputy PM said the Armenian-British relations are dynamically developing both at political and economic sectors.
He stated that a great potential exists and expressed confidence that it would be possible to raise the bilateral ties to a higher level thanks to joint works.
In her turn the UK Ambassador thanked for the reception and stated that the United Kingdom supports the ongoing reforms in Armenia.
The meeting participants also discussed the ongoing programs in good governance, improvement of business climate and investment policy.
Avinyan introduced the UK Ambassador on the Work Armenia program, as well as the government’s plans to modernize the public administration system. Taking into account the UK’s leading experience in employment policy and public administration, the sides agreed to more thoroughly study the cooperation opportunities at these directions.
Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
Armenpress.am
29 March, 2019
Armenia’s Zvartnots Airport to invest 12 mln USD for renovation of runway
Zvartnots Airport plans to make a major investment and renovate the runway of the airport for bringing it to the best international standards level, Armenia International Airport CJSC told Armenpress.
The airport runway is 3850m long and 56m wide. It was constructed back in 1963 and as of this date has been renovated and reinforced for several times. The latest renovation works were performed during 2003-2004.
Taking into consideration the actual state of the runway there is a necessity to perform large scale works for the repavement. The repavement of the runway includes milling of the asphalt concrete, patching, cleaning of cracks and filling them with hermetic material, installation of geogrid in the area of cracks, implementation of the asphalt concrete etc.
The lighting technical system in the central part of the runway that will be dismantled during the works will be replaced with a new one. The new ''LED'' system corresponds to the best modern international standards.
The renovation works will start on April 1 and will last for 45 days. During the works performance the airport flights will be performed from 09.00 pm up to 09.00 am.
RFE/RL Report
March 29, 2019
World Bank Approves More Funding For Armenia
The World Bank Group has pledged to provide Armenia with around $500 million in fresh loans and other funding over the next five years in support of its new government’s reform agenda.
The group’s executive board approved the 2019-2023 Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Armenia at a meeting held in Washington late on Thursday.
In a statement, it said the CPF is “fully aligned” with the Armenian government’s five-year policy program adopted earlier this year.
“The proposed World Bank Group strategy will capitalize on the momentum and political will for deeper reforms and renewed commitment to good governance sparked by recent changes in Armenia to support a rebalancing of the economy toward a new growth model,” said Sylvie Bossoutrot, the head of the World Bank office in Yerevan.
The bank’s previous, four-year assistance strategy for Armenia was approved in 2013. It called for $873 million in total funding.
The latest CPF calls for more low-interest loans to Yerevan as well as investments by the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and risk insurance division, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
The Armenian energy sector is understood to be a major beneficiary of the planned aid package. The bank said IFC, which specializes in equity purchases, will help to modernize the sector in order to reduce its reliance on imported fuel.
“IFC will also support the government’s efforts to increase competition and open the economy to foreign investment by providing direct financing to companies and supporting the development of export-oriented industries,” added
its statement.
“IFC welcomes the opening of Armenia’s economy and the creation of new opportunities for investment,” said Jan van Bilsen, the IFC regional manager for the South Caucasus.
The World Bank has already been Armenia’s leading foreign creditor and donor, having provided it with over $2 billion in loans and grants since 1992.
The government program cited by the bank envisages that the Armenian economy will grow by at least 5 percent annually for the next five years. In its latest Global Economic Prospects report released in January, the World Bank forecast slightly lower growth rates for this year and 2020.
The Telegraph, UK
March 31 2019
'Holocaust fatigue' a risk at British schools because pupils are not taught anything else about anti-Semitism, says Sir Simon Schama
By Nic Brunetti
Schools must teach pupils more about Jewish history in order to avoid 'Holocaust fatigue', Cambridge historian and broadcaster, Simon Schama, has said.
Sir Simon, who is himself Jewish, said Jewish history currently taught in UK schools consisted mainly of the Holocaust, with little appreciation of their full 'epic, extraordinary' story. He said education was 'absolutely essential' to countering growing antisemitism on the left and the right in the country.
Speaking exclusively to The Telegraph at the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival, Sir Simon, 74, who presented BBC Two's Civilisations programme, also called for more money to be ploughed into teaching history as schools were too focused on addressing STEM-based subjects due to recent austerity cuts from the Government.
Sir Simon, now a professor of history at Columbia University in the USA, said teaching also had to be adapted for the modern age without 'dumbing down' so children could actively learn using digital tools.
He said: "The challenge is to do it in a way which the kids on the receiving end don't get Holocaust fatigue, somehow to make a real creative effort without dumbing it down at all, to actually do it in the kind of zone of their understanding and the liveliness of their wiring and age, and even for better or worse, with Instagram or Twitter.
"You think the horror of the Holocaust is so self-evident but it isn't really self-evident - and it is when one knows everything there is to know about Auschwitz that it's easy to forget a million Jews were shot before anyone had dreamed up the gas chambers - the so called 'Holocaust of the bullets'.
"But one also wants education about what happened to the Armenians and what happened in Rwanda."
Sir Simon said 'a really bitter kind of exterminating antisemitism' went back hundreds, if not thousands of years before the Second World War and it was time students knew about this, including the Dreyfus case in France at the turn of the twentieth century, which was mired in anti-Jewish sentiment.
He said: "This horrible prejudice which goes from words to actual killing goes back so long and is so deep rooted, like slavery and prejudice against blacks and people of different skin colour, that education is very important."
However, he ruled out supporting a so called 'Jewish history month', similar to Black history month, claiming it risked 'ghettoising' the learning of history.
He said: "I'm very torn about it. I want people to be engaged in women's history and black history but if you just stick it in a month it does ghettoise it, it says you can then forget it for the rest of the year ...so I'm sort of against monthly-fication - I want it to happen all of the time."
Sir Simon famously criticised Michael Gove MP back in 2013, when he was education secretary, over proposed changes to the history curriculum in schools. He initially acted as an adviser to Gove but when he saw the finished product he branded it 'offensive and insulting' and Gove was forced to backtrack amid claims the curriculum had become too narrow.
Sir Simon told The Telegraph Mr Gove had been willing to listen again following his criticism. But at the literary festival, he still said resources for teachers were lacking.
He said: "The teachers are heroic, they do what they can.
"There is just not enough time to teach history but history isn't just a stroll down memory lane, you cannot do it actually without seeing what has happened to lead you to this point.
"I also think you need more classroom time in state schools especially - private/independent schools manage to do this - but state schools are at a terrible pressure and some headteachers complain to me 'well we just don't have the resources and therefore we have to have the gym teacher do history' - they would never say that if the gym teacher was doing maths or something like that.
"So there has to be more money and more time and more resources set aside for specialist training of history teachers to be thought of something active - it is not an add on part of costume decoration, it is essential to functioning now and in the future."
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