Armenian News... A Topalian 11 editorials
Etchmiadzin Mother Church Restoration Appeal
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OC Media
Oct 15 2019
Armenia offers assistance to refugees as thousands flee Turkish offensive
A sizeable community of ethnic Armenians has found itself under fire in northeastern Syria in the wake of Turkey’s offensive. Armenian authorities have stated that they are willing to help them relocate.
Thousands of civilians have fled in the wake of the Turkish bombardment and incursion into northeastern Syria that began on 9 October.
The Turkish government claims it is seeking to establish a buffer zone along the border in order to secure the country against Kurdish ‘terror groups’ and to resettle Syrian refugees.
However, a rash of civilian deaths and recent videos showing apparent war crimes committed by Turkey-backed forces, including the summary execution of Kurdish political leader Hevrin Khalaf, have raised worries about the impact the Turkish offensive will have on civilians, especially the region’s ethnic and religious minorities.
It is estimated that around 400–420 Armenian families, roughly 4,000 people, reside in Qamishli, while roughly 16 families live in the town of Tel Abyad. Both cities have been hit by shelling and airstrikes.In an interview with Azatutyun TV,
Armen Melkonyan, the head of the Middle East and Africa Department at the Foreign Ministry of Armenia stated that 13 families from Tell Abyad have already left the town and have temporarily resettled in other parts of Syria. All of the families reportedly
left of their own accord and without any official assistance.
On 10 October, the Armenian Embassy in Syria also announced on Facebook that ‘Armenian diplomatic representatives are constantly in touch with Armenian community organisations in Qamishli and other Armenian communities in the northern part of Syria.’
‘Possible steps are being coordinated for relocating our compatriots who wish to do so and providing them with temporary shelters and first aid’, the statement read.
The Embassy also noted that, for the moment, there was no need for immediate relocations.
The Foreign Ministry of Armenia condemned Turkey’s
military operations.
‘Armenia condemns the military invasion by Turkey in north-east Syria, which would lead to deterioration of regional security, losses among civilians, mass displacement and eventually to a new humanitarian crisis. The plight of ethnic and religious minorities is of particular concern’, the statement read.
The Syrian Civil War has left millions of people as refugees, among them thousands of ethnic Armenians. Syrian-Armenians are primarily descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors who were deported from what is now Turkey to Ottoman-run concentration camps in the Syrian desert from 1915–1918.
According to the Migration Service of Armenia, 22,000 Syrian-Armenian refugees have resettled to Armenia since the outbreak of the war in 2011.
On 11 October, Secretary of the National Security Council Armen Grigoryan told reporters that the Armenian authorities had been in touch with the Armenian embassy and consular officials in Syria and were open to the possibility of sending humanitarian aid.
‘If there is a need for aid we will naturally make a decision. However, we have to understand that sending aid to the region will be difficult because it is under Turkish supervision’, he said.
In an interview with OC Media, Zareh Sinanyan, High Commissioner of Diaspora Affairs of Armenia, said that officially Armenia is not, as of yet, initiating a resettlement process.
‘There hasn’t been a request on the community level’, he said. ‘There have been individual requests to be removed from the region to other parts of Syria, for example, Aleppo. However, they have been retracted’, explained Sinanyan.
On 12 October, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a follow-up to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Summit which took place in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan on 10 October. During the call, they also discussed the situation in northeastern Syria.
However, no other details were given.
In February 2019, with Russian backing, the Armenian Government deployed an 83 person contingent of military deminers and medical personnel to Syria. The Ministry of Defense stated that the mission was purely humanitarian and carried out activities connected with demining, anti-mine education, and providing medical assistance in Aleppo.
Arminfo, Armenia
Oct 15 2019
Another group of Armenian specialists left for Syria
According to the press service of the Center for Humanitarian Demining and Expertise, on October 14, the second group of the third shift of the humanitarian mission, consisting of sappers, doctors and specialists ensuring their immediate safety, with the support of Russian partners, left for by airplanes of the Russian armed forces to the Syrian Arab Republic to provide humanitarian aid to the Syrian people.
To recall, the first group of the Armenian humanitarian mission consisting of more than 80 people left for Syria on February 8 this year. The first rotation occurred in June of this year.
JAM News
Oct 18 2019
Almost a quarter of Armenian economy remains untaxed
Most of the hidden income comes from small and medium-sized businesses; large businesses generally pay taxes regularly.
The share of the Armenian economy remaining outside taxation is 22 percent, head of the State Revenue Committee of Armenia David Ananyan said earlier today, noting that businesses engaged in trade most often avoid paying taxes.
What other areas do not pay taxes
In Armenia, a significant part of the shadow economy consists of small and medium-sized businesses. Big business after the “velvet revolution” that took place in the spring of 2018 have begun paying taxes more regularly because it is difficult to hide large financial flows.
“It is difficult to engage in the withdrawal of money into the shadows at large enterprises and to work that way for years. If only because our tax department works with such enterprises on a daily basis,” said David Ananyan, head of the State Revenue Committee.
According to him, the biggest contributor to the ‘shadow economy’ is trade, in addition to agriculture. The revenue service is trying to deal with violators by making more rigorous checks.
Expert opinion
The 22 percent announced by the State Revenue Committee is pretty close to reality, economist Hrant Mikayelyan believes.
He conducts his own research on the share of the shadow economy and claims that in August, 24 percent of the Armenian economy was ‘in the shadows.’
The expert agrees that large business generally pays taxes. This is evidenced by the large number of new, officially registered workers and the amount of taxes paid.
And in the case of small business, according to the economist, it is difficult, and in some cases useless, to fight the shadow economy:
“Take, for example, people who rent out apartments. To date, a tax of 10 percent has been established. Only one percent of this is recorded. Now we could bring the tax down to two percent for all transactions to be recorded. Theoretically, we can do this. However, it will be difficult to ensure that everyone records their transactions, it is simply unprofitable.”
In an interview with JAMnews, the expert confirmed the statement of the state structure on which areas have more “shadows”:
“The ratio of spheres shows that a large share of the shadow is in trade and services. For example, there is not much an issue in the production industry.”
Hrant Mikaelyan also said that before the revolution, the share of the shadow economy reached 26 percent of the total. And the current figure of 22 percent may actually be reduced to 12 percent.
Armenpress.am
14 October, 2019
Armenia tourism grows
The number of tourists who visited Armenia in the first half of 2019 grew nearly 12,3%, Minister of Economy Tigran Khachatryan told a news conference.
He said that they’ve initiated marketing campaigns for the country’s promotion and as a result a number of foreign journalists and bloggers arrived to Armenia.
“The number of tourists who visited Armenia is recapped only for the semester yet. It amounted 770,000 people, which is 12,3% more compared to last year,” the minister said.
He said that 17 reporters from the Association of Journalists of Switzerland arrived to Armenia on introductory visits, and as a result more than 30 articles about Armenia were published.
Khachatryan also mentioned the Armenian-Chinese joint conference on commercial-economic matters. He pointed out an important circumstance. “That’s the creation of sufficient conditions for the use of the UnionPay
payment system in Armenia. When we do this we will significantly increase Chinese tourists’ convenience on being in Armenia. It is the most popular one in China, and practically the only one which Chinese tourists can use while being abroad,” he said.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
[interesting that the only Azeri press articles banging on about the destruction of their monuments within Artsakh with no mention of how they have treated Armenian ones in their territory, some of which has been filmed from across the border]
Armenpress.am
14 October, 2019
Gohar Agha Upper Mosque restored, inaugurated as Armenian-Iranian Cultural Center in Artsakh
A solemn event dedicated to the completion of Gohar Agha Upper Mosque’s restoration in Shushi took place on October 14th at the initiative of the Revival of Oriental Historical Heritage Foundation within the framework of the Aurora Forum.
Supporting the initiative of the Government of Artsakh, Revival of Oriental Historical Heritage Foundation started the program of the Upper Mosque restoration in 2014. The project was carried out as part of Initiatives for Development of Armenia (IDeA) Foundation’s Artsakh development program.
Artsakh’s Minister of Culture, Youth Affairs and Tourism Lernik Hovhannisyan delivered opening remarks at the event. He said that yet another monument has been restored in Artsakh, the purpose of which is to provide cultural diversity.
“Our monasteries and churches are being restored in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The monuments of Iranian culture which are located in Artsakh’s territory, particularly in Shushi, have also gotten our care because the Armenian-Iranian friendship has deep roots. The mosque will function as an Armenian-Iranian Scientific Cultural Center. This complex will contribute to the strengthening of the Armenian-Iranian ties,” Hovhannisyan said.
Armenia’s Minister of Education, Science, Cuture and Sports Arayik Harutyunyan said in remarks that the significance of the opening of the center is that it can become one of the important centers of studying Islamic culture.
He said the Armenian ministry is carrying out an initiative in this direction aimed at inventorizing existing samples of Shia culture in Armenia, which can be regularly displayed at the territory of the Shishi mosque.
IDeA Artsakh Development Program head Suren Amirbekyan thanked the Government of Artsakh and the philanthropists whose joint forces made the project a success.
“The restoration of the mosque is meaningful: it is a way of paying homage to another culture. I hope this will become a tourism site. Let me inform that we have a great number of tourists impatiently waiting to
see the Iranian mosque in Artsakh,” he said.
IDeA co-founder, businessman Ruben Vardanyan, who was also in attendance, told ARTSAKHPRESS that he is very happy and grateful to all those who were involved in this project.
“The idea of carrying out this project emerged when we visited Shushi with friends. Shushi is Artsakh’s important cultural center which must be preserved and developed. We must preserve what we have and respect our history. If we want other countries to preserve our culture we must preserve theirs too. Our foundation is working to preserve Armenian values and culture all over the world,” he said, adding that they have other upcoming projects.
Archbishop Pargev Martirosyan, the Primate of the Diocese of Artsakh of the Armenian Apostolic Church, said he highly appreciated the restoration of the Iranian mosque in Shushi. “On May 9, 1992, I said that no one must touch any of the mosques in Shushi and Akna. This is an integral part of our history and we are facing our history with love, unlike the neighboring two other nations who are erasing the traces of other religion or culture. This mosque is a religious cultural monument which our friendly Iranian people have built. They are preserving and restoring our monasteries, and we must do the same. We are not a nation who is breaking down monuments,” he said.
Artsakh’s President Bako Sahakyan, Speaker of Parliament Ashot Ghulyan and other government officials were in attendance.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
Mining Journal
Oct 18 2019
Some Armenia reprieve for Lydian
Armenia's Administrative Court has upheld an appeal by Canadian mine builder Lydian International against a directive of the country’s Environmental and Inspection Body last year that prevents mining at its flagship Amsular project.
The court found the former head of the government inspection body had been actively involved in anti-Amulsar activities prior to his federal appointment which raised reasonable doubts about his objectivity. The court ruled Artur Grigoryan failed to recuse himself from considering the matter when required to do so and declared his directive invalid.
"This ruling is yet another confirmation that unlawful attempts have been made to interfere with Lydian's legal right to develop and operate the Amulsar project," said CEO Edward Sellers.
"It is regrettable that illegality of action against Lydian has now been found to extend to an official of the government of Armenia."Prime minister Nikol Pashinyan publicly acknowledged in August there was no legal basis on which the government could prevent Lydian from advancing the Amulsar project, stating it was in the national interest that Amulsar proceeded.
However, the company cannot resume construction activities while an illegal blockade of the Amulsar access road is in place.
"The government of Armenia has allowed continuous illegal blockades of the Amulsar project since June 2018 and failed since then to enforce court orders upholding Lydian's legal rights of access. When will the PM identify who the supporters of illegality against Lydian are, and when will the PM take steps to enforce the rule of law?" Seller asked.
The company has previously stated it would not be able to restart material construction on site until next April or May. It said there would be some rehabilitation and earthmoving associated with site recovery and remediation in the interim, and did not expect to start production until late 2020 or early 2021, "depending on how construction advances".
Amulsar is expected to be a large-scale, low-cost operation with production targeted to average about 204,000ozpa over a 12-year mine life. The deposit hosts 3.65Moz in the measured and indicated categories.
Lydian's Toronto-quoted shares (TSX:LYD) are tracking 50% lower year-on-year at C11c, which gives it a market value of $83.6 million.
RFE/RL Report
October 16, 2019
Ryanair To Launch Flights To Armenia
Artak Khulian
After months of negotiations with the Armenian government, the Irish budget airline Ryanair announced on Wednesday that it will launch flights between Europe and Armenia in January.
The company said it will initially fly from Yerevan to Milan and Rome four times a week. It pledged to open two more routes next summer: from Yerevan to
Berlin and from Gyumri to the southern German city of Memmingen.
“These four new routes will further promote Armenian tourism, and will deliver over 130,000 customers annually to/from two European countries to one of Europe’s fastest-growing tourism destinations,” said David O’Brien, Ryanair’s
chief commercial officer.
“We can service from 86 different cities and airports, whereas our competitors offer far less opportunity for Armenia,” O’Brien told a joint news conference with Tatevik Revazian, the head of the Armenian government’s Civil Aviation Committee, held at Yerevan’s Zvartnots international airport.
Revazian negotiated with Ryanair representatives in Dublin early this year before announcing in March that Ryanair is considering becoming the world’s
first budget airline to fly to Armenia. She said in July that the Irish carrier is seeking financial concessions from the Armenian side for that purpose.
Revazian said on Wednesday that the Civil Aviation Committee has drafted a bill that would exempt Ryanair from a fixed $21 tax levied from every air ticket sold in the country. She was confident that the government will approve the bill and send it to the Armenian parliament next month.
The government hopes that Ryanair’s entry into the Armenian civil aviation market will cut the cost of air travel and attract more tourists to Armenia.
Armenia’s international air traffic has already grown rapidly since the liberalization of its civil aviation sector in 2013. The former Armenian government decided to switch to the so-called “open skies” policy following the bankruptcy of the Armavia national airline. The liberalization has led to lower ticket prices, giving a strong boost to the country’s growing tourism industry.
Ryanair’s ticket prices are expected to be significantly lower than those of airlines already flying to Armenia.
“Ryanair’s average fare for all routes across the year is something like 35 euros ($38.5),” noted O’Brien. But he gave no concrete figures for its upcoming flights to Armenia.
“To celebrate the launch of its first Armenian airports, Ryanair has launched a seat sale with fares from just €29.99, for travel until May 2020, which must be
booked by midnight Friday,” read a statement released by the company. It did not specify how much Ryanair customers will be charged after October 18.
Panorama, Armenia
Oct 17 2019
Armenian lavash on CNN’s list of world’s best breads
CNN has listed traditional Armenian bread lavash among the 50 best breads around the world.
The Armenian flatbread comes second on the CNN list.
"When your Armenian mother-in-law comes towards you wielding a hula hoop-sized flatbread, don't duck: Lavash is draped over the country's newlyweds to ensure a life of abundance and prosperity," CNN said in an article.
"Maybe that's because making lavash takes friends."
"To shape the traditional breads, groups of women gather to roll and stretch dough across a cushion padded with hay or wool. It takes a practiced hand to slap the enormous sheets onto the inside of conical clay ovens, where they bake quickly in the intense heat," it noted.
The article also reminds that the bread is so central to Armenia's culture it's been designated UNESCO Intangible Heritage.
CNN's top 50 list also includes the traditional breads of Afghanistan, Brazil, Egypt, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Chile, China, Ethiopia to name a few.
Panorama, Armenia
Oct 15 2019
UNICEF: 3% of children are underweight in Armenia
An alarmingly high number of children are suffering the consequences of poor diets and a food system that is failing them, UNICEF warned today in a new report on children, food and nutrition.
The State of the World’s Children 2019: Children, food and nutrition finds that at least 1 in 3 children under five – or over 200 million – is either undernourished or overweight. Almost 2 in 3 children between six months and two years of age are not fed food that supports their rapidly growing bodies and brains. This puts them at risk of poor brain development, weak learning, low immunity, increased infections and, in many cases, death.
“Despite all the technological, cultural and social advances of the last few decades, we have lost sight of this most basic fact: If children eat poorly, they live poorly,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director.
“Millions of children subsist on an unhealthy diet because they simply do not have a better choice. The way we understand and respond to malnutrition needs to change: It is not just about getting children enough to eat; it is above all about getting them the
right food to eat. That is our common challenge today.”
The report provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of 21st century child malnutrition in all its forms. It describes a triple burden of malnutrition: Undernutrition, hidden hunger caused by a lack of essential nutrients, and overweight among children under the age of five, noting that around the world:
• 149 million children are stunted, or too short for their age,
• 50 million children are wasted, or too thin for their height,
• 340 million children – or 1 in 2 – suffer from deficiencies in essential vitamins and nutrients such as vitamin A and iron,
• 40 million children are overweight or obese.
The report warns that poor eating and feeding practices start from the earliest days of a child’s life. Though breastfeeding can save lives, for example, only 42 per cent of children under six months of age are exclusively breastfed and an increasing number of children are fed infant formula. Sales of milk-based formula grew by 72 per cent between 2008 and 2013 in upper middle-income countries such as Brazil, China and Turkey, largely due to inappropriate marketing and weak policies and programmes to protect, promote and support breastfeeding.
As children begin transitioning to soft or solid foods around the six-month mark, too many are introduced to the wrong kind of diet, according to the report. Worldwide, close to 45 per cent of children between six months and two years of age are not fed any fruits or vegetables. Nearly 60 per cent do not eat any eggs, dairy, fish or meat.
As children grow older, their exposure to unhealthy food becomes alarming, driven largely by inappropriate marketing and advertising, the abundance of ultra-processed foods in cities but also in remote areas, and increasing access to fast food and highly sweetened beverages.
For example, the report shows that 42 per cent of school-going adolescents in low- and middle-income countries consume carbonated sugary soft drinks at least once a day and 46 per cent eat fast food at least once a week. Those rates go up to 62 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively, for adolescents in high-income countries.
As a result, overweight and obesity levels in childhood and adolescence are increasing worldwide. From 2000 to 2016, the proportion of overweight children between 5 and 19 years of age doubled from 1 in 10 to almost 1 in 5. Ten times more girls and 12 times more boys in this age group suffer from obesity today than in 1975.
The greatest burden of malnutrition in all its forms is shouldered by children and adolescents from the poorest and most marginalized communities, the report notes. Only 1 in 5 children aged six months to two years from the poorest households eats a sufficiently diverse diet for healthy growth. Even in high-income countries such as the UK, the prevalence of overweight is more than twice as high in the poorest areas as in the richest areas.
The report also notes that climate-related disasters cause severe food crises. Drought, for example, is responsible for 80 per cent of damage and losses in agriculture, dramatically altering what food is available to children and families, as well as the quality and price of that food.
To address this growing malnutrition crisis in all its forms, UNICEF is issuing an urgent appeal to governments, the private sector, donors, parents, families and businesses to help children grow healthy by:
1. Empowering families, children and young people to demand nutritious food, including by improving nutrition education and using proven legislation – such as sugar taxes – to reduce demand for unhealthy foods.
2. Driving food suppliers to do the right thing for children, by incentivizing the provision of healthy, convenient and affordable foods.
3. Building healthy food environments for children and adolescents by using proven approaches, such as accurate and easy-to-understand labelling and stronger controls on the marketing of unhealthy foods.
4. Mobilizing supportive systems – health, water and sanitation, education and social protection – to scale up nutrition results for all children.
5. Collecting, analyzing and using good-quality data and evidence to guide action and track progress.
Situation in Armenia
3% of Armenian children are underweight. 4 percent of children are undernourished and 2 percent are severely undernourished. According to the regions, malnutrition ranges from 0% in Tavush to 23% in Aragatsotn.
14% of children under the age of 5 are overweight. This means that being overweight is a much bigger issue among Armenian children than being underweight. Although the differences are not big, the overweight prevalence is higher among boys (15%) than among girls (13%). If we compare the regional indices, we will see that children living in Ararat are more likely to be overweight (36 percent) than children in other provinces (5-19 percent).
Another talking point is the nutrition of only 24% of 6-23-month-old babies in Armenia meet the minimum acceptable diet.
A Declassified Top Secret CIA Report On
the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
A 48-page Central Intelligence Agency Top Secret Report, prepared in August 1988 and made public in 2012 with some deletions, is titled “Unrest in the Caucasus and the Challenge of Nationalism.”
Despite the passage of time, the Report includes an interesting analysis of the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) conflict from the perspective of U.S. intelligence services.
The CIA analyst, in the introduction of his Report, traced the origins of the Artsakh conflict: “Enmity between Armenian and Azeri factions has existed for hundreds of years, and the 1920s settlement subordinating Nagorno-Karabakh -- Armenia’s cultural and religious center -- to the Azerbaijan Republic has been a continual, albeit long-muted, source of Armenian frustration and concern. Azeri animosity toward the Armenians has been intensified
by political, economic, and demographic trends that have adversely affected the political status of Azeris and increased the gap in living standards between Azerbaijan and Armenia. In particular, the rapid expansion of Azerbaijan’s young adult population has
put enormous strain on the Republic’s capacity to provide adequate jobs, housing, and education. Azeri frustration has found an outlet in attacks on Armenians.”
The unnamed CIA analyst reported that a split within the Politburo on how to handle the Artsakh crisis made the situation worse. Second Secretary Ligachev and KGB Chief Chebrikov were the hardliners who vehemently opposed the separation of Artsakh from Azerbaijan. They disagreed with Gorbachev’s reforms and blamed foreign powers for inciting unrest inside the Soviet Union.
When two prominent Armenian writers, Silva Kaputikyan and Zori Balayan, met with Gorbachev in Moscow in February 1988, they reported that he was well briefed and assured them that he wanted
a “just solution.” He acknowledged “the peaceful nature of the [Armenian] demonstrations and emphasized his personal sympathy with the desire to reunite Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia….”
Upon the return of the Armenian envoys to Yerevan, in a radio broadcast on February 27, 1988, Kaputikyan called for Armenians to trust Gorbachev. “He knows about and understands our problem and wants to resolve it personally…. We must do our utmost to ensure that no harm” is done to him, Kaputikyan announced.
Regarding Soviet concerns about foreign, particularly Armenian-American interference in domestic Soviet turmoil, the CIA analyst reported: “The recent unrest appears to have made Soviet officials more fearful about the role of foreign actors in the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. Of the approximately 5.5 million people in the world today who speak Armenian, about 60% live outside the Soviet Armenian republic, about 1.4 million elsewhere in the USSR, and 2 million abroad. So far, Armenian emigres -- most of whom see Turkey much more than Russia as the historic oppressor of their nation -- have not been actively involved in pushing for change in the Soviet system or in Soviet policies. Moscow worries that diaspora attitudes could turn sharply critical of the USSR and that Armenians in the United States, particularly, could grow into a powerful anti-Soviet pressure group. Soviet officials are wary of the large concentration of Armenians in California and
New York, states with large electoral votes that have been closely contested in previous presidential elections.”
In a footnote at the end of the previous paragraph, the CIA analyst specified that “the United States hosts at least 600,000 Armenians. About 90 percent of America’s Soviet Armenian immigrants came to California. Los Angeles -- with 100,000 -- has the largest community of Armenians outside Yerevan. The New York City region has about 70,000 Armenians, mostly from Lebanon and Iran.”
The CIA analyst added: “Moscow may be concerned that foreign Armenian terrorist groups like the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) could turn against Soviet targets -- although we have no evidence that this is the case. Hitherto, the USSR has figured very little in ASALA’s blending of armed struggle with Marxist ideology; the dominant faction of ASALA considers Soviet Armenia as liberated territory and the group concentrates
its attacks exclusively on Turkish officials. In fact, ASALA eventually would like to see ‘the Armenian provinces’ now located in Turkey and possibly Iraq [?] reattach themselves to the Soviet Armenian core. Furthermore, ASALA is now in a quiet phase, and
its leader was assassinated on 28 April [1988]. Nevertheless, ASALA in early April did send a moderately worded appeal to Gorbachev supporting the reunification of Karabakh with Armenia, while characteristically stressing that Armenia is an integral part of the USSR and seeks only to rectify the border, not to pursue claims against Moscow.”
Finally, the CIA analyst explained the position of Turkey on the Karabakh conflict: “Although the Turkish Government has not explicitly sided with Azerbaijan, Turkey’s fear of resurgent Armenian nationalism makes Ankara sympathetic to Baku.
When the crisis broke in February [1988], Turkish Government spokesmen indicated publicly that international agreements entitle Ankara to a voice in the crisis, an apparent reference to the 1921 treaty
between the USSR and Turkey that led to the shift of Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan to Azerbaijan. Turkey no doubt especially feared that transferring Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia would whet Armenian appetites and would lead to increased pressure to change the status of Nakhichevan and to acquire former Armenian regions in Turkey. Turkish officials probably also noted that some Armenian expansionist demands for a ‘Greater Armenia’ were based on historic claims rather than on the ethnic composition of the affected territories. Thus, some Armenians have demanded the return of Nakhichevan, even though Azeris now greatly outnumber Armenians in this region. Using such historical criteria, could give Armenians a claim even on some border parts of Turkey where only 50,000
Armenians now live.”
The CIA analyst concluded his Report by outlining five options the USSR had for the resolution of the Artsakh conflict:
1) “Sticking with the Status Quo”
2) “Making Further Economic Concessions” to Armenians
3) “Enhancing Autonomy of Nagorno-Karabakh Within Azerbaijan”
4) Expanding “Extraterritorial Native Cultural Institutions”
5) “Reconfiguration of Nagorno-Karabakh” by splitting it between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
EVN Report
Oct 15 2019
Turkey, the Kurds and the Generational Trauma of the Armenians
By Maria Titizian
Operation Peace Spring, a military offensive launched by Turkey in northeastern Syria on October 9, promises to create yet another humanitarian crisis. This Turkish military operation against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian militias, came on the heels of the United States announcing the withdrawal of American troops in the region. The SDF is led by the People’s Protection Units, a Kurdish militia abbreviated as YPG. The U.S. considered the SDF as its key ally in the fight against ISIS. Turkey, on the other hand, considers the group a terrorist organization with links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), with whom it has a troubled and bloody past.
The Trump administration’s October 6 decision to withdraw its troops was seen as a “green light” for Turkey’s operation to expel the SDF from the Syria-Turkey border region, creating a 30 km-deep safe zone inside northern Syria, where it plans to resettle the 3 million Syrian refugees it is currently hosting.
A day after announcing his decision to withdraw American troops, U.S. President Donald Trump on October 7 tweeted: “As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory...”
On October 14, the U.S. did impose sanctions against Turkish officials and institutions over the country's incursion into Syria. Trump has also spoken to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling for an immediate ceasefire as Turkish troops move further into Syria.
Now in its sixth day, heavy fighting continues, with reports of dozens of military and civilian deaths and over 100,000 displaced. According to numerous reports, because of Turkish airstrikes, SDF fighters have had to abandon positions guarding prison camps, where ISIS fighters were being detained. Many have reportedly since been able to escape. SDF forces were also forced to leave posts at a refugee camp from which an estimated 800 ISIS brides and children have fled. Iraq has sent troops to fortify its border with Syria under fears it could be subjected to an ISIS resurgence.
The SDF, which had been administering the region without Damascus’ involvement, struck a deal with the Assad government to hand over the border towns of Manbij and Kobane. The deal was brokered by Russia, which has an interest in Assad reconsolidating his grip on the country, and will ultimately end several years of semi-autonomy for the Kurds of northeastern Syria.
It’s a complicated geopolitical battleground where many international and regional players, with varying interests and means, clash violently. Sadly, ordinary civilians pay the ultimate price. We see this same scenario being played out over and over again, from Yemen to Myanmar and beyond.
The overriding majority of Armenians, both in the Republic of Armenia and dispersed throughout the Diaspora are closely following the Turkish offensive in Syria, as they did when the Syrian conflict first began. Aside from the uprooting of strong, vibrant Armenian communities from Aleppo to Latakia to Damascus and many places in-between, there is something that cuts much deeper.
During the Armenian Genocide, 1.5 million Armenians were killed, many during a forced exile into the deserts of Syria by Ottoman Turkey. They perished, wiping away several millennia of existence on their ancestral homeland. Some of the survivors stayed in Syria, many in orphanages, and many more left to go on to other countries on other continents. They took a piece of their historic homeland with them and memories of Syria were embedded in their consciousness.
The human cost of the Syrian war has been great for both the Syrian people themselves and the ethnic and religious minorities who lived alongside them. Armenians, who remained in Syria after having found refuge there following the Genocide, were forced into exile again, for a second time within 100 years. Armenia and Armenian communities everywhere opened their hearts and homes to the Syrian Armenians, most of whom had lost everything.
This latest offensive by Turkey has rattled us once again. When the perpetrator of our calamitous loss is granted permission to secure “safe zones” - the depressingly-ironic Orwellian term itself is chilling - by removing the majority Kurdish population of northeastern Syria from their ancestral homeland, it strikes a deep nerve in a still-open wound that sets off alarms in our consciousness.
The deeply-rooted generational trauma that silently seeps through our veins is not something we acknowledge or confront on a daily basis. We carry on with our lives, we raise families, we build careers, we travel the world and we try and create a new Armenia wherever we go. For those of us in the Republic of Armenia, this very small piece of the homeland that has survived, we work hard to rebuild, to recreate, to innovate and, by doing so, honor the memory of everything and everyone that was taken from us.
Many people often ask us, “Why do you insist on holding on to the past? You have an independent country now, move on, get busy building.” We don’t hold on to the past because we want to. The past won’t let go of us.
Generations later, we experience trauma on top of trauma because the original crime was never acknowledged by the perpetrator. It is also not lost on us that the country that gave its tacit consent to this latest episode has been dragging its heels on recognizing the Genocide for decades. We were right not to let go because we knew that history would repeat itself.
And yet, that is no consolation. Although Armenians across the world participated in Kurdish solidarity protests this past weekend, feelings of helplessness and futility are crippling. When our forefathers were being slaughtered, we wanted the world to stand up and stop it. But weary from war, no Great Power was willing to put troops on the line to take the Armenian Mandate, to protect the survivors in a new country that the Paris Peace Conference had promised them. Turkey consolidated its gains in a land emptied of Armenians. Is that the legacy we want to leave to the grandchildren of today's Kurdish survivors?
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