Armenian News...A Topalian

Panorama, Armenia

Nov 2 2019

Bashar al-Assad refers to the Armenian community as an example of Syrian diversity

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad insists national and religious minorities in Syria enjoy full rights which is part of Syrian diversity and that the country has no adverse view on that. Bashar al-Assad’s remarks came during an interview given to Damascus-based Al-Sourea and al-Ikhbariya TV on Thursday. At a question about the Kurds living in Syria, the President exemplified the Armenian minority as an example of Syrian diversity.

“The Armenians have been a patriotic group par excellence.  This was proven without a shadow of doubt during the war.  At the same time, this group has its own societies, its own

 churches and more sensitively, it has its own schools.  And if you attend any Armenian celebration, a wedding, or any other event --- they sing their traditional songs but afterwards they sing national, politically-inclined songs,” said Assad.

In the president’s words,  the Syrian Armenians are the least, among other Armenians of the world, dissolved in society.  “They have integrated, but not dissolved into Syrian society.  They have maintained all their characteristics.  

Why should we be open here and unopen with others?” Assad questioned.

In his words, the reason is that there are separatist propositions and it is their right to defend the territorial integrity and to be wary of separatist propositions. 

News.am, Armenia

Nov 2 2019

NYT Armenian President interview: Recognition is a strength. It’s not a weakness 

If you take Turkey recognizing the Armenian genocide, that will also be recognition of the fact Turkey is on its way to become a tolerant state, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian said during an interview with The New York Times’ Roger Cohen.

“Recognition of something that you have done wrong in ordinary life, in your family, with your friends, recognition is a strength. It’s not a weakness. If you take Turkey recognizing the Armenian genocide, that will also be recognition of the fact Turkey is on its way to become a tolerant state,” he said.

According to Armenpress, journalist Roger Cohen published a detailed article in The New York Times and touched upon the adoption by the US House of Representatives of the Armenian Genocide resolution.

“In every office there are images of Mount Ararat, which rises in Turkey, a symbol for Armenians of longing, pride, the hope of return and the suffering of the Armenian genocide that began in 1915 and involved the

 Ottoman Empire’s killing of more than one million Armenians,” Kohen wrote.

The author also turned to the history of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, saying that today Armenia has closed borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey, and only borders with Georgia and Iran are open.

“Yet I found Armenians in upbeat mood! What do physical borders matter these days? The nearly three million citizens of Armenia are in constant touch with the many more millions of Armenians in the diaspora, who are sending money home. With a strong tech sector, Armenia sees itself as a start-up country. It’s looking forward more than back,” he noted. “The country’s bloodless revolution in 2018 has not delivered paradise, but it has eliminated fatalism. People feel they have the freedom to try what they want. Weeks of mass protests against corruption and cronyism brought down the old Armenian political class, much as massive demonstrations in Beirut, Baghdad and Santiago in recent weeks have brought down or shaken the governments of Lebanon, Iraq and Chile.

The author of an article entitled “The Spirit That Brought Down the Berlin Wall Lives On” in an interview with the Armenian President touched upon a wave of changes that swept people around the world. Armen Sarkissian

 noted that the old systems will no longer work today.

“We are living in a quantum world because more than half of life is virtual,” he said. The notion of democracies functioning through elections every few years is outdated. He called Armenia “one of the first labs” to find new “rules or behavior” for a world where every individual has a voice that “is exercised and expressed daily.”

AHVAL News

Nov 2 2019

Turkey may face reparation demands after U.S. recognises Armenian genocide - Turkish politician 

Armenians in the United States may seek a reparations ruling after the U.S. House of Representatives’ on Tuesday voted in favour of recognising the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire a century ago as genocide, a veteran Turkish politician said. 

The Armenian plaintiffs could seek to appeal against a previous ruling by a California court before the deadline on Nov. 9 after last Tuesday’s House ruling, said Cemil Çiçek, former speaker of the Turkish parliament and current member of Turkish presidency’s Higher Advisory Board.

The House vote on Tuesday came amid bipartisan anger in Congress over the Turkish offensive in northeast Syria against Syrian Kurdish forces that fought the Islamic State alongide U.S. forces.

Çiçek told Ahmet Taşgetiren, a columnist for Karar newspaper, that the U.S. Congress’ move might have wider repercussions. 

“Armenians of Turkish origin have been filing reparation cases against Turkey for a while,” Taşgetiren quoted Çiçek as saying on Friday. 

“The latest decision of the U.S. House of Representatives’ on genocide in one way has fulfilled the demands of the Armenians in the political dimension. Moreover, the number of votes in favour (405 to 11) could encourage

 Armenians. The courts from now on might not justify their decisions by saying the matter should be left to politics,” he said.

Çiçek was referring to a decision of the United States Court of Appeals on Aug. 9 to deny the

 appeal of two lawsuits brought by several Armenian-Americans demanding compensation from the Republic of Turkey and two of its banks for confiscating their properties shortly after the period when the Armenian genocide took place. The decision of the court can be appealed until Nov. 9, the politician said.

The first lawsuit was filed in 2010 by Alex Bakalian, Anais Haroutunian, and Rita Mahdessian seeking $65 million from Turkey’s central bank and state-owned Ziraat Bank. The second lawsuit was filed by David Davoyan

 and Hrayr Turabian against the Republic of Turkey, the Central Bank of Turkey, and Ziraat Bank.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in 2013 dismissed the two lawsuits declaring that “under the political question doctrine which says certain questions—in this case, determining whether Turkey’s actions were genocide—should be handled by the executive branch, not the courts.” 

The court in August rejected the appeal against its previous decision, saying that the two Armenian lawsuits were time-barred.

“The Armenians right now may seek to ensure a ruling from the higher court in favour of reparations by thinking that the current climate in the United States right now can have results to their advantage,” Çiçek said. “Such a reparations decision can create problems for Turkey which it might struggle to overcome for 100 years,” he said. 

Jerusalem Post

Nov 4 2019

Recognize the Armenian genocide 

In a prelude to the Holocaust and the crimes of ISIS, the slaughter of Armenians was an opening to a hundred years of similar mass murder events. 

By JPost Editorial

About 105 years ago, the Armenian genocide began. Members of the Armenian community living in the Ottoman Empire were systematically exterminated at the orders of the governing authorities. As many as 1.5 million Armenians, an ethnic minority, were rounded up and murdered or deported to the deserts of Syria to die.

The Armenian genocide was well known in its time. The German military attaché to the Ottoman Empire described it as “total extermination” and other accounts provided graphic details of the horrors the survivors went through. Women were sold into slavery and raped, children were left to starve. In a prelude to the Holocaust and the crimes of ISIS, the slaughter of Armenians was an opening to a hundred years of similar mass murder events.

As a state founded in the wake of genocide, Israel knows too well what it means to be a small minority subjected to massacre and the systematic murder by a government. Like Armenians, Jews had to live as minorities under regimes such as the Germans or the Poles, enjoying “protection” so long as they did not get in the way of the state’s interests.

In late October, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution to recognize the Armenian genocide. It overwhelmingly passed with 405 votes and affirms that the US will record the genocide and provide “solemn remembrance of one of the great atrocities of the 20th century.” The US was moved to act because of recent tensions with Turkey.

Unfortunately, Israel has not acted in the same way, mostly because of a political directive according to which Turkey needed to be appeased. Recognizing the Armenian genocide, the argument went for years, would undermine Israel’s ties with Turkey. 

This has created the unwelcome situation where our country, founded by survivors of persecution, did not reach out to another minority group that experienced a similar situation. Decades ago, that may have made sense in the realpolitik of the generations that led Israel. They needed to make difficult compromises, such as the Reparations Agreement between Israel and Germany in 1952. 

Now we have a worthwhile opportunity to correct those wrongs. Israeli-Turkish ties are at an all-time low. Turkey’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, continues to incite against Israel in the most vicious form of antisemitism, all part of a wider authoritarian far-right agenda he is promoting in Turkey and the region. At the UN in September, he compared Israel to Nazi Germany: “When we look at the genocide the Nazis committed against Jews, we should look at the massacre happening in the Gaza Strip from the same point of view.”

Erdogan made his speech attacking Israel at the same time as he showed a map arguing Turkey should invade Syria and ethnically cleanse Kurds. Turkey’s month-long operation in northern Syria has already cost more lives than all those killed in Gaza in two years. Turkey’s bombing of Syria has caused young children to lose their limbs, and has driven 300,000 people from their homes. 

Turkey thinks that it can threaten other countries and that these countries will then be deterred from recognizing the Armenian genocide, a matter of Turkish pride. Israel no longer has any reason to fear Turkey’s reaction. Absent a military conflict, can it really get worse?

“The US House of Representatives’ vote to recognize the Armenian Genocide is a vote for historical truth and justice,” MK Yair Lapid, co-leader of Blue and White, wrote on Twitter after the US vote. “Turkey cannot be allowed to intimidate the world into denying genocide. I will continue to fight for Israeli recognition of the Armenian Genocide.”

Likud MK Gideon Sa’ar tweeted a similar statement: “I welcome the moral and principled stance of the US House of Representatives in recognizing the mass killing of Armenians 100 years ago as genocide. Israel should make similarly clear its recognition of this terrible atrocity.”

Lapid and Sa’ar are right. It is time for Israel to do the right thing – not to get back at Turkey, but to set the record straight.

Armenpress.am

2 November, 2019

Real estate deals grow in Armenia

In the third quarter of 2019 the real estate deals increased in Armenia compared to the same period of 2018, as well as to the 2nd quarter

 of 2019, according to the analysis released by the Cadastre Committee.

In the third quarter of 2019 the 47.152 real estate registration transactions increased by 17.9% compared to the 40.000 deals of the same period of 2018. The deals also increased

 against the 2nd quarter of 2019 by 0.8%.

In the third quarter of 2019 the most deals were carried out in the capital city of Yerevan, comprising 35.3% of the total deals, then in Kotayk province -14.1%, Aragatsotn province-9.6%.

RFE/RL Report

Pashinian Denies Rifts Between Armenia, Karabakh

November 04, 2019

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has denied differences between his government and authorities in Stepanakert over what the settlement of the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be, stressing that their visions in this matter are identical.

Pashinian went live on Facebook Sunday night to debunk what he described as false claims by critics that he dismissed as ridiculous.

“Conspiracies in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement are excluded,” Pashinian said, claiming that former government officials “have been spending millions [of dollars]” on disinformation aimed at discrediting his government.

“And now they are putting forward a theory that since the current government or I personally as prime minister do not agree to territorial concessions, the negotiations are in deadlock, and the government has started frightening people with the prospect of war. Concrete budgets have been allocated for [spreading disinformation] on this subject,” the premier contended.

Pashinian said that while in a situation of the unresolved Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute there may always be a risk of war, it is no higher now than it was before his government came to power in 2018. “On the contrary, if we now monitor the border situation and the level of tensions at the borders, we will see that 

there has been a sharp and significant fall in overall tensions over the past year and a half,” he said, referring to his September 2018 arrangements with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to reduce tensions in the conflict zone.

“Unfortunately, we still have tensions [in the conflict zone], but these tensions are much lower than they were three, four or five years ago… Unfortunately, we still have loss of life today. I am saying this to show that no one is saying that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue has been resolved and we have reached a lasting settlement. But on the other hand, however strange it may sound, I think there is some very interesting dynamics in the negotiation process, and I am optimistic that this dynamics will continue.”

Pashinian again stressed that negotiations are being conducted according to the logic that any solution to the conflict must be acceptable to the peoples of Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.

“Decisions must be made in a pan-national manner. We could even hold a referendum. But these discussions are still premature, since we are talking about the strategy. In other words, our task in the negotiation process is to reach a solution that is acceptable to our people,” Pashinian underscored.

Zohrab Mnatsakanian, who serves as foreign minister in the Pashinian cabinet, also insisted last week that long-running efforts to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are not in deadlock. He cited more high-level talks 

planned by Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“At least with regard to things relating to us, we do not see a deadlock,” said Mnatsakanian. “We are continuing to work very calmly because this work needs to be done as it concerns our security, regional security and peace.”

“There is a dynamic in the negotiations and I hope that we can move forward quickly if there is mutual constructiveness,” he told reporters on October 31.

Earlier, a senior official from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) confirmed that Mnatsakanian and Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov will meet again on the sidelines of an OSCE ministerial 

gathering to be held in Slovakia’s capital Bratislava on December 5-6.

Asbarez.com

5 November 2019

Armenia to Acquire New Weapons

The Armenian military will buy new, modern weapons from different countries both during the current year and in 2020, Defense Minister David Tonoyan told reporters on Monday, saying Armenia’s military spending budget was “sufficient” to allow the purchases.

“Today the Armenian Armed Forces are acquiring mostly new modernized weaponry. In both 2019 and 2020 we will acquire solely new and modern capacities from various countries both contractually and through credit programs,” Tonoyan told reporters.

In discussing the finances, Tonoyan said that he would like to have seen a double or triple increase in defense spending. However, he said, the current military budget is sufficient to allow for the weapons upgrades.

Russian SU-30SM aircraft

The Armenian Air Force will be re-equipped with Russian SU-30SM fighter jets in a few months, Tonoyan announced, adding that the aircraft will be delivered to Armenia either by the end of the year or in the first two months of 2020.

“The aircraft will arrive either in December or January-February,” he said, adding that this was the initial timeline. Earlier this summer, various reports indicated that Armenia would acquire for such jets, however, Tonoyan did not reveal a specific number.

The Sukhoi Su-30 is a Russian-made twin-engine, two-seat super-maneuverable fighter aircraft. It is a multirole fighter for all-weather, air-to-air and air-to-surface deep interdiction missions.

The Su-30SM has been upgraded for radar, radio communications systems, friend-or-foe identification system, ejection seats, weapons, and other aircraft systems. It has frontal horizontal fins and steerable thrusters for super-maneuverability.

The aircraft can be used to gain air supremacy, while targeting the enemy on the ground using a wide range of weapons including air-to-air, air-to-surface and guided and unguided bombs with total cargo capacity of up to 8,000 kilograms, approximately 17,600 pounds.

JAM News

Nov 4 2019

Why is Armenia facing a demographic crisis?

Gayaneh Mkrtchyan

“If nothing is done, then after 5 years, according to UN forecasts, the mortality rate will exceed the birth rate throughout the country” 

Armenia has five years to go before it has to register a declining population – the stage when the mortality rate exceeds the birth rate.

“This year, for the first time in history, depopulation was recorded in the Lori region – the mortality rate exceeded the birth rate by 90.

“At the republican level, we have not yet entered the stage of depopulation, but if nothing is done, then in four to five years, according to UN forecasts, the mortality rate will exceed the birth rate throughout the country,” said Tsovinar Harutyunyan, Executive Representative of the United Nations Population Fund in Armenia. 

This, according to experts, is largely due to the fact that now the generation born in the 1990s is entering the age of marriage.

These were the most difficult years in the modern history of Armenia.  There was a war, the country was in a blockade, the economy was in a crisis.  In this situation, very few allowed themselves to have children.

Accordingly, the generation of the 90s is 40 percent less than those born in the 1980s.  And this cannot but affect the number of marriages and birth rates now.

Moreover, 20-25 percent of the 1990s generation emigrated from Armenia.

Another reason behind the country’s worrisome depopulation is that young men do not want to marry and take responsibility for their families.

Moreover, among the 20-40-year-olds, the demographic balance is skewed – there are 60,000 men are missing from the country.  The main reason is emigration.

Gurgen Magakyan is 33 years old.  He and his family left Armenia while still a schoolboy.  He lives in Moscow and is not yet married.

“Armenia has a difficult socio-economic situation.  I do not think that I will return to live in my homeland.  Here I make money easier, but I hope that I will marry at least an Armenian.  My brother has already married a Russian girl,” he says.

Artak Markosyan, head of the demography department of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, believes that emigration left a heavy mark on Armenia, as people of reproductive age have left the country:

“In 1992-2002, the decline in fertility in our country amounted to 60 percent.  By the way, this was the highest rate in post-Soviet countries.  Over 10 years, the number of births decreased from 70,000 to 32,000.  Emigration and the lack of a demographic strategy for 27 years distorted the situation.”

Anahit Margaryan is 58 years old, she is a seamstress.  She says her son is 31 years old, her daughter 36, but they are not going to start a family:

“My son says that it is impossible to support a family, raise children on his salary.  Young people are concerned about the economic situation in the country.  My daughter was educated, works, but cannot find a husband. And I still dream of grandchildren…”

According to the statistics committee, the resident population of Armenia as of January 1, 2019 is 2.965 million.  Compared to last year, this figure is 7,600 people less.

• In 2018, 36,502 children were born in Armenia;

• in 2017 – 37,700;

• in 2016 – 40,592.

Total fertility rate:

• in 2019 amounted to 1.6,

• in 1994 – 2.2,

 • in 1969 – 3.3.

Financial incentives only temporarily increase fertility

For many years, the Armenian government did not invest in improving the demographic situation. After giving birth, mothers were given three thousand drams [about $6].

The government began to think about the need to stimulate the birth rate only after 2010.

Since 2013, the government has begun to pay from the state budget:

• 50 thousand drams [about $100] at the birth of the first and second child;

• 1 million drams [about $2,060] for the third and fourth children;

• 1.5 million drams [about $ 3,090] for the fifth and each subsequent child.

In addition, for two years, working mothers were given a monthly childcare allowance, which finally increased from three to 18 thousand drams [about $37].  And since 2016, benefits were provided to non-working mothers – in the form of a single payment of 126,600 drams [about $485].

However, an analysis of the birth rate in recent years suggests that these measures were not enough to change the situation.

Lilit Petrosyan is a young and successful IT specialist.  She says:

“I cannot refuse my salary of 300,000 [about $620] and stay at home. For my husband it will be very hard. On his salary alone we will not be able to live.  The child is still very small, but in two months I will go to work, maybe my mother will look after the baby, I don’t know.  And so you just have to stop thinking of a second child.”

Executive Representative of the UN Population Fund Tsovinar Harutyunyan believes that the problem in Armenia is not that people think about the birth of a third or fourth child, but the reluctance to start a family.

Among youth, the unemployment rate is high, and few decide to marry. And according to Armenian traditions, you must first create a family and only then have children.  As for the number of children, Tsovinar Harutyunyan says:

“Our studies show that many want three children, but have one or two.  Among the expectations from the state, improvement of living conditions, growth in the number of jobs with sufficient wages are usually called, in third place is the combination of family and career.”

According to Armenian traditions, a woman has always been responsible for everything in the house, and a man was responsible for what was outside, says Mher Manukyan, UN Communications Fund communications officer.  But this model has long been unacceptable:

“People do not have apartments, they need to take a mortgage, pay these amounts, live, have a child, support him and think about the following.  This is a heavy burden, not everyone will boldly and fearlessly take on this social burden.  We should make it as easy as possible.”

Narek Martirosyan is an accountant, he is 30 years old.  He lives with his family in a rented apartment in Yerevan.  He says that his son is three years old and he goes to kindergarten so that his wife can also work:

“We left our father’s house, where my brother and his family remained with their parents.  For our one-room apartment we pay 70,000 drams [about $144]. Well, my son grew up – and my wife went to work.  How, in such conditions, can we even think of a second child?  We don’t have a house, salaries are low and we can’t buy an apartment on a mortgage, we can’t pay the debt.  And we dream of having two more children.”

International experience is an example for Armenia

The population fund of the UN Armenian office is studying international experience and periodically provides the Armenian government with information on how to solve demographic problems in other countries.

“The Netherlands, Austria, England realized that it’s very difficult to switch from a model of two breadwinners to a model of one.  They took the ‘breadwinner model’: a man working full time, and a woman takes half a day.  When women were given the opportunity to return to the labor market after childbirth, many returned, but part-time.  So they could already solve the issues of family and child care, without giving up their career.  Armenia also needs to revise the maternity leave model for women,” said Tsovinar Harutyunyan.

 The coordinator of the UN project Population and Development Anna Hovhannisyan says:

“The total fertility rate in a number of countries from 1.5 – as it is now in Armenia – managed to rise to almost a simple reproductive level, that is, to almost two.  In these countries, expenditures from GDP for demographic projects were doubled and tripled.”

The highest level was provided in Sweden and France.  In particular, this was possible in Sweden, because women no longer had a choice – family or career.  For this, an extremely attractive model of joint parental leave was created.

“They tried to return the fathers to the family, and now they share home and parental obligations.  The couple is given 480 days of maternity leave, of which 90 days are given to each, the parents can divide the remaining 300 days among themselves.  30 days they can rest together.

 For the first 300 days, the state pays the equivalent of 110 dollars.  Then financial support is reduced.  The optimal period of maternity leave is six months, and parents should receive at least 60-70 percent of their salary.  Such a model will be attractive for both fathers and mothers,” the expert said.

The number of women on maternity leave this year in Armenia was 12,500.

In 2018, 10.16 billion drams [about $21 million] were allocated from the state budget to provide 140-day paid leave for working mothers and a one-time allowance for those who do not work.

As of January 1, 2019, 6004 families with four or more children were registered in the system for assessing family vulnerability.

About 27,000 children live in these families.

Armenian legislation allows fathers to take parental leave, but in Armenia mothers prefer to take it.

“In the whole world where it has been possible to increase the birth rate, fathers were actively involved in the process of caring and raising children, which allowed mothers to return to work,” says Anna Hovhannisyan.

In Armenia, both spouses enter the labor market, share the labor burden.  But the wife continues to bear the “home” load – household chores, childcare.

“The experience of European countries shows that when this load is partially removed from women and assigned to men, this becomes an additional incentive for women to give birth to their next child.  I don’t know if any legislative initiative will help in Armenia, because we still have the opportunity for fathers to take maternity leave.  If something changes in the mentality, it will actually help,” says Mher Manukyan, UN Responsibility Fund Communications Officer. 

Now the government has created a council to improve the demographic situation.

“The processes are moving, we have offered the government new solutions and steps.  The demographic policy should include a complete package – we need to offer people economic and legislative incentives, as well as carry out serious awareness work,” says Artak Markosyan, head of the demography department of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.