Armenian News... A Topalian... 9 editorials

[a one-sided report]

Interfax, Russia

April 6 2019

Aliyev-Pashinyan meeting in Vienna showed parties can have common ground for dialogue - Azerbaijani foreign minister

A recent meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Vienna showed that the parties have found some common ground for settling the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said.

"The meeting in Vienna showed that, however difficult it might be, but the parties are finding some common ground. Naturally, nobody expected this to happen quickly," Mammadyarov said in an interview with the Internet publication Moscow-Baku.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict lasting for more than 30 years has thrown Yerevan far back in its development, he said.

"I keep asking our Armenian friends: The conflict has been lasting for 30 years, tell me please how the Armenian citizens have benefited from this, except for the fact that more than 40% of the people in the country are poor, except for the fact that they have no prospects - the demographic situation is disastrous and the most intelligent people are leaving the country. And this whole situation somehow prompts us to think that it needs to be ended. The philosophy here is simple, and Azerbaijan has repeatedly spoken about that: you can't take some territory and flee to the Moon, you have to seek normal neighborliness anyway," he said. 

On the other hand, even though it has lost control over part of its territory, Azerbaijan has achieved significant economic growth, Mammadyarov said. "We've built railroads and motor roads, we are selling oil, we have built an oil pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor," he said.

"And I can cite numerous other examples proving that Azerbaijan has become a leading economy in the region," he said.

The Armenian leadership should persuade its own people that they need peace with their neighbors, Mammadyarov said. "The ball is in the Armenian court now - they should persuade their own population that they need peace. They say sometimes: you know, the people in Karabakh are so hard to deal with... Well, guys, this is not our problem, this is your problem. You should explain to the people that Armenia has no future without normalizing relations with Azerbaijan," he said.

The two parties should look for forms of interaction between their peoples, Mammadyarov said. "The more they communicate, the better. There is just no other option. Another option is war. Do we need it? A war would simply throw the whole region backwards," Mammadyarov said.

Azerbaijan lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts following a conflict with the region's ethnic Armenian population and Armenia in the early 1990s.

Armenia and the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic on one side and Azerbaijan on the other concluded a ceasefire in May 1994.

The negotiation process is now being held via the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created in 1992 to look for ways to peacefully settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It comprises Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Turkey and is co-chaired by Russia, France and the United States.

Azerbaijan does not view the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic as a party to the conflict and refuses to hold negotiations with it.

The situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area dramatically deteriorated in the early hours of April 2, 2016. The parties started large-scale armed actions with the use of aircraft and artillery systems, accusing each other of violating the ceasefire on the line of contact.

Both parties claimed that their opponent suffered heavy losses, and described their own casualties as moderate.

Baku and Stepanakert announced on April 5, 2016 that they had reached a ceasefire agreement in the conflict zone.

ARKA, Armenia

April 8 2019

Unemployment rate in 2018 was 20.4 percent 

The unemployment rate in Armenia in 2018 dropped to 20.4% from 20.8% in 2017, according to the National Statistical Committee (NSC). According to data, calculated by new methodology, adopted by the NSC, in 2018 there were 234,000 jobless people in Armenia, down from 236,500 people in 2017. 

At the same time, the number of employed people employed in 2018 increased by 1.4% to 915,500 people. Armenia’s labor resources in 2018 stood at 2,015,300 people against 2,021,300 people in 2017. 

According to the NSC, when calculated by the old methodology, the unemployment rate was 16.3%, which was 1.5 percentage points less than 2017. --0---

JAM News

April 6 2019

Electric train route between Yerevan and Gyumri bets on increased tourism

Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan took a trip on the new electric train from the capital to the country’s second largest city to find out what problems tourists might face

 

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan boarded the country’s new electric train yesterday on its maiden voyage from Yerevan to Gyumri.

Pashinyan hopes that this type of transport can contribute to the development of tourism in the country, while ensuring safer and more environmentally friendly travel.

However, the main reason for the trip was to establish how ready Armenia’s transport infrastructure is as a whole to properly serve tourists.

Inspector PM

The prime minister was accompanied by the Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies Hakob Arshakyan and the Minister of Territorial Administration Suren Papikyan.

During the trip, he studied the conditions of the new train – from the driver’s cab to the cars including the sanitary facilities. He also took an interest in the technical capabilities of the train.

He shared his impressions with residents of the whole country via a live broadcast on his his Facebook page.

Pashinyan noted the route may be attractive to tourists, were it not spoiled by garbage everywhere.

“For the first time I am traveling around Armenia by rail. The road to Gyumri is quite interesting and fascinating, and gave me the opportunity to see Armenia from a completely new angle,” Pashinyan said.

New electric train

The train was purchased from Transmashholding, a Russian company, to ferry passengers along the Yerevan-Gyumri line.

It takes 130 minutes from Yerevan to Gyumri – much faster than a regular train, which takes about three hours. Tickets cost 2,500 drams (about $5) per ticket. Officials hope that the train will attract more tourists to Gyumri and other cities, as well as to villages in the northern part of the country.

What else did the PM inspect in Gyumri?

Pashinyan was awaited at the Gyumri station by a number of people who wanted to either ask him questions, ask for help solving local issues or to take pictures.

In Gyumri, the governmental delegation visited the city’s bus station. The activity of the bus station, the upcoming overhaul and the opportunity to transform it into a modern transport hub, were discussed with the local authorities.

The next point of interest was the local airport, Shirak, where they were presented with current investment programmes. In particular, the airport has already implemented a programme to improve its infrastructure, and have also improved the technical equipment of the airport.

Due to this, Shirak Airport was able to receive more than 200,000 passengers over the past year. This year, thanks to the new investment programmes, a new arrival hall will be built.

Pashinyan spoke of the importance of making Gyumri an attractive destination for visitors.

He also visited the 102nd Russian military base during his Gyumri visit.

However, this part of the trip was closed to journalists.

Armenpress.am

5 April, 2019

PM gets angry by seeing poor condition of Tigran Mets Street in Gyumri

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan got angry upon his arrival in Gyumri when he saw the poor condition of Tigran Mets Street while walking there.

The PM asked Mayor of Gyumri Samvel Balasanyan why the street, that is under construction, is in so poor condition which creates difficulty for movement.

“At one time, people complained that Gyumri is not being constructed, but now they complain that construction is being carried out, this means that something is wrong here. Most of the construction sites in Armenia have been turned into dump”, Pashinyan said.

He urged to solve the issue by convening a working consultation with the participation of architects and responsible officials of the street renovation project.

“Invite architects and all those who work and tell them that when construction is being carried out it doesn’t mean that the life in the city should stop. Passability should be ensured”, the PM said.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan

[another piece of Azeri propganda]

Eurasianet.org

April 8 2019

Azerbaijan celebrates 10 millionth citizen

Independent analysts say the population is probably closer to 7 million, but that didn’t stop the authorities from celebrating.

Joshua Kucera 

           

 Celebrity Haci Nuran holds Mehriban, a baby born April 6 whom authorities say marks the country reaching a population of ten million. (Photo: Haci Nuran, instagram)

Azerbaijan’s population officially hit 10 million over the weekend with the birth of a baby girl in Baku, government media reported. But independent scholars suggest that the real population may be substantially smaller. 

The baby deemed to have been the 10 millionth Azerbaijani was born on April 6 in Baku to a couple of internally displaced people from Nagorno-Karabakh, the territory currently controlled by Armenian forces which Azerbaijan vows to take back. As if that wasn’t symbolic enough, the baby was given the name Mehriban, the same name as the country’s first lady and first vice president, Mehriban Aliyeva. As it happens – the coincidences keep coming – the country’s nine millionth resident was a baby boy born in 2010 named Ilham, named after the president. The eight millionth Azerbaijani? A boy born in 1999 named Heydar, Ilham’s father who at the time was president. 

As all that suggests, Azerbaijan’s population growth is deeply politicized, as demography is a sensitive issue around the Caucasus. The population of Azerbaijan’s rival, Armenia, has been steadily declining due to large scale migration, a fact that Azerbaijan’s media regularly plays up as evidence of its superiority. 

Armenia recognizes the problem and successive governments have sought to reverse the decline; Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in late March chaired a government session devoted to improving the country’s demographic profile. 

In both cases, the official figures probably significantly overcount the real population. Determining the real population is difficult, in particular due to both countries’ high rates of outmigration. Analyst Torgul Veliyev looked at indirect indicators of population, from voter rolls to electricity consumption to bread production and determined that Azerbaijan’s population is probably closer to seven million and Armenia’s, instead of the officially declared three million, is probably 2.5 million. Hrant Mikaelian (to whom credit is due for noticing the names of the landmark babies) came to roughly similar conclusions. 

Using similar techniques, Veliyev (and other analysts) have determined that Baku’s population, meanwhile, is probably higher than the official figures indicate – about 3.2 million instead of the 2.3 million that official statistics count. (Many Azerbaijanis move to the capital for its greater economic opportunities, while remaining officially registered in their former homes, which likely accounts for most of the discrepancy.) 

But the authorities in Azerbaijan weren’t letting stats nerds rain on their parade. Little Mehriban got her photo taken with Haci Nuran, a government-friendly celebrity, who wrote on Instagram: “Our population is now 10 million. CONGRATULATIONS.”

The local government in Sumgait held a festive concert titled “We Have Become 10 Million!” In Zagatala, meanwhile, some youth spelled out “10 Million” on the city’s soccer field before an official celebration. “Those speaking at the event noted that the dynamic population growth in Azerbaijan is a logical result of the successful social-economic policies carried out under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev,” the state news agency AzerTaj wrote. 

News.am, Armenia

April 8 2019

Demonstration held at Armenia parliament courtyard 

A protest was staged Monday at the courtyard of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia.

The participants were demonstrating against a transgender person’s recent address in parliament.

Those assembled were proposing that a religious incense-burning ceremony be performed at the NA Sessions’ Hall, and with the blessing of a clergyman, so that the “hall be cleansed” of the presence of a transgender person.

During past week’s parliamentary hearings on human rights, a transgender person delivered a speech from the NA podium.

Subsequently, the moderator of these hearings, Prosperous Armenia Party MP Naira Zohrabyan, got mad and asked this transgender person to leave the NA Sessions’ Hall.

[the reason for inclusion of this unusual article in Armenian News is that after the

exhilarating performance there followed an interview with a translator from the Armenian Sunday School. One of the compere's seemed to take a shine to the tranlsator who was forced to declare that she was married to a "hot-blooded" Armenian husband, had three on call (happily married) brothers but apsos (alas) no sisters. She valiantly tried to bring in the Vardanyan brothers into the interview now relegated into the background]

The Standard, UK

April 5 2019

Britain's Got Talent 2019: Simon Cowell looks away in terror as dangerous sword act comes close to disaster

The Vardanyan Brothers certainly got hearts racing with their act

Simon Cowell had his heart in his mouth during the first episode of Britain’s Got Talent as two brothers performed a sword stunt. 

The acrobatic duo, who live in Russia, wowed the audience with the first part of their routine as they showed off their impressive balancing act and athleticism. 

But Cowell and fellow judges Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams were left cowering behind their hands and shifting uncomfortably as they attempted a terrifying balancing act with swords. 

Yes, swords. In their mouths. SWORDS.

As the pair attempted to get the weapons aligned in their mouths, things started to look a little hairy. The pair started shaking and looking close to collapse so they aborted the mission. 

But, down and not out, the Armenian duo decided to give it one last shot as the audience screamed around them and the judges were left awestruck. 

Cowell tapped his chest as he calmed down after the act, not that he’d watched most of it because he turned away through practically all of it.

“I almost was going to say you can't do this,” he told the Vardanyan Brothers. “Because in all my years this is the most dangerous act I have ever seen on any talent show.”

Holden added: “It was exciting, terrible. I can't wait to see what you can do next.”

The duo then told the crowd that they have “more difficult” tricks up their sleeve, if they are to get the chance to perform again.

But will they get through to the next round? You’ll have to watch to find out. 

publicorthodoxy.org

March 27, 2019

The Armenian Patriarchate and the Sanasaryan Han Religious Minority Property in Turkey

by Christopher Sheklian

Last month, the Court of Cassation in Turkey ruled that the historic and contested Sanasaryan Han will be the property of the Turkish state. Built in 1895, the Han (“Inn”) was bought by the foundation established by the philanthropist Mkrtich Sanasaryan to support the Sanasaryan College in the city of Erzurum in eastern Anatolia. It was put under the administration of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1920. In 1928, the Turkish State confiscated the building and maintained its revenue and rights until the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey filed a lawsuit for its return with the Istanbul 13th Civil Court of First Instance in 2014. After a circuitous legal route, the Court of Cassation—the court of last instance for civil and criminal cases—ruled last February (2018) for the admissibility of the lawsuit and filed for the return of the title deed to the Armenian Patriarchate. Widely seen to be a major victory for the Armenian Patriarchate and the question of religious minority properties in the Republic of Turkey, it seemed the Armenian Patriarchate would assume the deed within a couple years. Last month, however, the same Court of Cassation ruled that the title deed will remain with the Turkish state. The lawyer in the case, Ali Elbeyoğlu, plans to appeal the case to the Constitutional Court.

The case of the Sanasaryan Han is just one case—albeit a very high-profile case—regarding the properties of religious minority groups in the Republic of Turkey. According to the Treaty of Lausanne, which established the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923, Turkey must provide certain provisions to its religious minority communities. Included in these rights is the right to own collective property, of which the most numerous and consequential is vakıf property, a form of endowment or foundation established for charitable purposes and grounded in the Islamic injunction to charity. Vakıf, the Turkish version of the Arabic waqf, is a complex legal entity developed over the years in Islamic jurisprudence which allowed the owner of a revenue-generating property—an apartment complex, say, or an inn—to donate that property in perpetuity for the charitable object of the donor’s choice. In the Ottoman Empire, the recognized non-Muslim populations that together constituted the so-called millet system were also allowed to endow this form of charitable foundation.

By the end of the Ottoman era, the major mode of funding community projects for non-Muslim populations was through the vakıfs. As a result of legal continuities into the Republic of Turkey, many older vakıfs were grandfathered into the Ministry of Foundations, today the Directorate General of the Foundations (VGM, Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü). All the non-Muslim foundations were grouped together as Cemaat Vakıfları, translated on the VGM website as “Community Foundations.” I have elsewhere detailed the vicissitudes of the Community Foundations since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, but the case of the Sanasaryan Han demonstrates two crucial issues facing the Community Foundations in Turkey that bear on the overall health of the non-Muslim communities there: the confiscation of properties by declaring them defunct and the question of legal personhood.

Originally, the Sanasaryan Han was connected to a Sanasaryan Foundation, namely the vakıf founded by Mkrtich Sanasaryan to support the financial health of the Sanasaryan College in Erzurum. That is, a bundle of revenue-generating properties, mostly donated by Mkrtich and including the Han in Istanbul, together funded the Sanasaryan College. With the general depopulation of Armenian, Greek, and other Christians as well as Jews from the Anatolian heartland that began during World War I and continued into the Republican era, many non-Muslim vakıfs were declared defunct when the chariable obejct of the foundation no longer existed. This was one of the legal mechanisms by which property was seized. So, in the case of the Sanasaryan Han, the depopulation of Christians from Erzurum and the closing of the College in the eastern city paved the route to the seizure of the Han in Istanbul, since the object of the charitable property—the Sanasaryan College—was no longer in operation. Designating vakıfs as defunct has been one of the major vehicles of expropriation of religious minority communal property throughout the Republican era.

Second, the case of Sanasaryan Han raises the question of legal personality and the status of the Armenian Patriarchate. The lawsuit was filed by the Armenian Patriarchate because control of the Han was transferred to the Patriarchate after Erzurum College was shut down. However, the legal standing of the Armenian Patriarchate is incredibly precarious: it never achieved the legal status of a vakıf. This means that while individual churches have “legal personality” through the status of vakıf, the Armenian Patriarchate itself does not. In fact, the Sanasaryan Han case was pivotal because the courts allowed the Patriarchate to file the case at all, essentially admitting that it did have legal personality. As the lawyer Elbeyoğlu noted, by not throwing out the case on procedural grounds, the Court of Cassation implicitly granted legal personality to the Armenian Patriarchate—though crucially, it still lacks the secure status of something like a vakıf.

What makes these questions of property and legal personality so consequential? First, it is important to note that while I have focused here on one court case that pertains to the Armenian Apostolic Church, the lack of legal personality plagues other religious minority institutions. More fundamentally, nearly every possible communal activity of the religious minorities is funded and supported through the finances of the revenue-generating property of vakıfs: hospitals, cemeteries, schools, orphanages, and of course, the churches and houses of worship themselves. Rare is the communal Christian endeavor in the Republic of Turkey that is not somehow supported by a vakıf. In recent years, there have been movements to make vakıf administration more transparent and more democratic, suggesting that the members of the community are deeply aware of the importance of the financial, institutional, and physical support of the foundations and the attendant power that comes with that support. The legal personality of the most important non-Muslim institutions and the health of the vakıfs is of paramount importance to the well-being of the Christian and other non-Muslim communities in the Republic of Turkey today.

Christopher Sheklian is the Director of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center, a research 

library and presentation space at the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America. He has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Chicago, where he completed his dissertation, “Theology and the Community: The Armenian Minority, Tradition, and Secularism.” His work addresses religious minority rights, secularism, and the sensory and affective aspects of Christian liturgy.

Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in this essay are solely the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.

Kurdistan24, Iraq

April 6 2019

Kurdistan opens first Armenian Orthodox church in Erbil

Sangar Ali |

   

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Saturday opened the first Armenian Orthodox church in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan Region.

It has has been built and supervised by the KRG’s Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs and is located in the district of Ankawa, an area known for having a predominantly Christian population.

In a special ceremony attended by KRG officials and foreign envoys, the house of prayer was initiated.

“The opening of this church itself is laying another foundation stone for a peaceful coexistence of different ethnic and religious groups in the Kurdistan Region,” Safeen Dizayee, the spokesperson of the KRG present to represent Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani at the observance, told Kurdistan 24.

He stated that the culture of tolerance and coexistence is not a political decision, but it rather has deep cultural roots in Kurdistan. Dizayee also said he hoped that displaced Christians could return to their homes in the Kurdistan Region and areas with diverse populations outside Mosul known as the Nineveh Plains.

  

The Kurdistan Region is home for over 120,000 Christians, distributed throughout the different provinces but with the majority living in Erbil and Duhok. Following the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq in 2014, most were displaced to areas administered by the KRG, while others fled abroad. 

The autonomous region has a unicameral parliamentary legislature with 111 seats, with five quota seats each reserved for Turkmen and Christian parties and one seat specifically set aside for a member of an Armenian party. 

Editing by John J. Catherine 

(Additional reporting by Hero Mawludi)

armedia.am

Capt. Sarkis Torossian, Armenian Hero of Gallipoli Campaign

 

On March 18, 1915, one of the most bloody battles of the WW1, the Battle of Gallipoli broke out (also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Çanakkale). Not many people know that it was directly related to Armenians with hundreds of them taking part in it within the Ottoman Empire army.   

Even though the Turkish government is planning to sink the role of the Armenians in the century-long victory against the allies into oblivion, the name of Sarkis Torossian is not easy to wipe out of history.

«There was an Armenian officer called Sarkis Torossian. He was from Caesarea, artillery commander. He had sunk a few of the enemy vessels. Had been gravely injured in one of the battles.  Had the rank of Lieutenant, reached Major,” Turkish daily “Sabah” columnist Engin Ardıç writes, and meanwhile emphasizes that when Sarkis was fighting for Turkey in Çanakkale in the summer of 1915 the Turks were slaying his parents in Caesarea.  

Sarkis Torossian was born in the Armenian populated village of Everek (present-day Develi) in 1893. He attended the local Armenian Parochial School, later continued his education in Edirne. From an early age Sarkis wanted to become a soldier, however Ottoman Turkish law forbade any non-Muslims to become soldiers until the 1908. At college he befriended an Arab named Muharrem whose father was a Brigadier General in Constantinople in the Ottoman army. The latter helps the two boys to continue education at the military college.  In 1914 with the rank of Second Lieutenant of the Artillery Sarkis was sent to Germany for three months.

Before Turkey’s engagement in the war Torossian was appointed to commander of Cape Helles that was defending the steps of Dardanelles. He was the first to sink a British battleship in 1915. This act was highly appreciated by high ranking Turkish officials. General Cevat Pasha introduced him to Minister of War Enver Pasha emphasizing that the forts under his command were the most effective in sinking British ships.

At an reception Enver Pasha introduced Torossian to high ranking German officers as  Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz and Liman von Sanders as “the Armenia hero of Dardanelles,” Genocide-museumwrites.

“I was ushered to Enver Pasha’s room. His majesty was staring at me for a minute, then he stood up and introduced me to his German advisers, calling me the hero of Dardanelle,” Torossian writes in his memoires.

During the meeting Enver and the German officers consult Torossian about the military situation and possibilities of British victory in Çanakkale. For his brevity Enver awarded Torossian with Ottoman State War Medal.

“The leader of Unity and Progress party was sending Torossian a certificate of honor meanwhile slaying his family,” Engin Ardıç writes.  

Since June 1915, when displacement and massacre of the Armenian population began Torossian’s parents and sister were also displaced and sent to Ter Zor. Prior to displacement governor of the Kayseri province Salih Zeki Bey offered the Torossians to accept Islam and give their younger daughter in marriage to his nephew. But he was rejected.  

Torossian was trying to get assurance from Enver pasha for his family’s survival. “I received a telegram saying that my family was mistakenly deported. I sent a petition to the minister of defense and reported about the acts of the governor and asked to fix the situation. According to the Supreme law families of Christian military shall not be persecuted, however Talaat pasha, the domestic affairs minister of the Ottoman empire, violated that law,” Torossian writes in his memoires.

Talaat pasha not only violated the law but also commissioned a life attempt against Torossian. The second attempt came shortly after in Palestine. ”It would be good if the allies broke through the Ottoman defense, that could save my family,” Torossian wrote.

Hatred against the Young Turks made him defect to the Arabs acting under the auspices of the allies and fought against the Ottoman Empire.

In one of the Arabic deserts Torossian found his sister Bayzar, but shortly after she died from a disease.

Following the return of Cilician Armenians Torossian took part in the Armenian national liberation movements which were not a success. Shortly after Torossian moved to the US.

Sarkis Torossian settled in Philadelphia. In 1927 he published his memoirs in Boston called From Dardanelles to Palestine: a true story of five battle fronts of Turkey which describes his life and achievements in detail as well as Gallipoli Battle and the Armenian Genocide.