Author: Ani Kharatian

“The U.S. supports a negotiated settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” Elizabeth Trudeau,Director of the State Department PressOffie, told a daily briefing.

“We continue to engage actively with the sides. We’re co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group. Our longstanding policy shared by the Minsk Group co-chairs is that a just settlement must be based on international law, which includes the Helsinki Final Act, the principle of non-use of force or the threat of force, territorial integrity, and self-determination,” she added.

“The responsibility for peace rests on the leaders of both countries, and we would reiterate their importance in finding a negotiated peace,” Elizabeth Trudeau said.

 

 

 

The “Generation of independence” – a pan-Armenian orchestra and choir – will perform at the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concert Complex on September 21. The concert, featuring more than 1,000 musicians aged 10-25 will be dedicated to the 25^th anniversary of Armenia’s independence. Works by Armenian composers created during the years of independence and before will be performed.

Author of the project, conductor Sergey Smbatyan says “the concert is a huge responsibility for all participants.”

“It’s very important that Armenia has chosen to celebrate the 25th anniversary of independence with a classical concert. It’s a great honor, a source of inspiration and a great responsibility for my colleagues and me,” Sergey Smbatyan told reporters today.

He added that “many countries lack what Armenia has.” “We have musicians able to perform with best orchestras in the world,” he told reporters today.

The project brings together musicians, singers and choirs from Yerevan, the provinces of Armenia and Artsakh, as well as best young performers from different parts of the world that have been representing Armenia with honor during the 25 years of independence.

 – The unsung efforts of the Australians who helped Armenians after the First World War have been celebrated in a special ceremony in Sydney almost a century later.

Brothers John and David Knudsen never met their grandfather John Henry Knudson.

But family mementos tell a story of bravery, sacrifice and compassion.

Sprawled on a dining-room table at David Knudsen’s house in northern Sydney are a series of black-and-white photographs and medals.

And, there is a small, silver identification tag his grandfather wore when he fought in the First World War.

But it is what John Henry Knudsen did after the fighting was over that he is most remembered for.

The New Zealand-born soldier and his Australian wife Lydia, a nurse, travelled to the Middle East.

They wanted to help the Armenian refugees who fled or were marched out of Turkey following the killings Armenia calls a genocide, a term the Turkish government disputes.

The couple joined Near East Relief, an organisation overseeing aid to the multitudes of Armenian refugees.

When the Australasian Orphanage opened in late 1922 in Antelias, Lebanon, they were appointed its directors.

Their grandson John Knudsen says they became parents to about 1,700 Armenian orphans.

“It’s good to see that they made a difference out of a terrible, terrible situation. Those kids, they would have been dead. They would have been in the desert, forgotten … gone … a whole generation of human beings, as far as I’m concerned.”

The orphanage closed in 1929, and John and Lydia Knudsen settled in Australia.

Now, their humanitarian efforts have been recognised in a special ceremony in Sydney, bringing together the descendants of those who lived and worked at the orphanage.

Nora Grigorian says her grandfather, Mihran Terzian, was eight years old when he sought refuge with the Knudsens.

“I have so many emotions. It’s incredibly full-circle for me personally, very personally, the way my grandparents were rescued and saved, their lives were secured by Australians. And they had no idea, they could not have dreamed, that some of their grandchildren and seven of their great-grandchildren would be contributing Australians one day. They’re pictured under the Australian flag in an orphanage far away from their birth home, as well as from Australia. And Australians reached out. And for me personally, it makes me very proud to be Australian, as well as Armenian.”

Author and historian Vicken Babkenian has documented the Australian response to the Armenians after the war in his book Armenia, Australia and the Great War.

He says that response has been largely ignored.

“Unfortunately, generally, particularly in Australia, much of the focus of popular and official narrative is on the heroic military side of our country’s participation during the First World War. But an area that’s been quite neglected and excluded from the narrative is the humanitarian aspect.”

John Knudsen says his grandparents would be humbled by the recognition of their work.

And he says Australia should be doing more to welcome refugees today.

“Look at all those little children. Look at all those refugees that are clinging and all their houses have been destroyed. What’s going to happen to them? The rest of the world’s trying to take them, but we’ve got to do something more. There’s got to be something more that we can do like they tried to do. They tried to make a difference. They did make a difference. And that’s what we need to do.”

His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenian, visited the frontline accompanied by Deputy Commander of the NKR Defense Army, Major General Vardan Balayan and members of the Supreme Spiritual Council to bring his blessing to the commanders and soldiers.

“Accept our blessing, appreciation and gratitude for the devoted service you are carrying out to keep our borders secure and ensure peace in Armenia and Artsakh,” His Holiness said.

The Catholicos wished the soldiers safe service and triumphant return home

His Holiness presented crosses to the soldiers and another one to the chapel built by the servicemen.

Starting this school year, it will be mandatory for Michigan schools to add lessons about genocide to the social studies curriculum for grades 8-12, particularly teachings about the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide,  reports.

The mandate is part of bipartisan legislation that received near-unanimous support when the Legislature approved it in May. Gov. Rick Snyder signed it into law in June. Eleven other states already require instruction in genocide, according to the Genocide Education Project.

The new requirements “are not a lot of work for most districts” because genocide is already part of their curriculum, said Bill DiSessa, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Education. But “some districts may need to take a look at what’s in it.”

The Holocaust and Armenian genocide were specifically cited because the Michigan Legislature has already passed laws commemorating both, said Rep. Klint Kesto, R-Commerce Township, the primary sponsor of the legislation.

“This is something that should be a priority — teaching our children how to recognize genocide through past genocides,” Kesto said.

He said he has been discouraged by international studies that show large numbers of people have never heard of the Holocaust or have little knowledge of it. He said the motivation is that when people say “never again,” it actually means something.

 

The new law goes beyond mandating the teaching of genocide. It requires the state’s assessment system test students on genocide. It also requires the creation of a temporary commission, called the Governor’s Council on Genocide and Holocaust Education, that will have a number of functions, including looking for ways to enhance genocide education, advising school leaders on those efforts, promoting genocide education in schools and the general population.

Snyder, when announcing he had signed the legislation, said the next generation of leaders “needs to have the wherewithal to recognize and help prevent widespread harm to their fellow men and women. Teaching the students of Michigan about genocide is important because we should remember and learn about these terrible events in our past while continuing to work toward creating a more tolerant society.”

Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland concerned over hostage crisis in Yerevan.

“I follow with concern the events taking place in our member state of Armenia, where for several days already, an armed group has taken hostages in a police station in Yerevan,” the Secretary General said in a statement.

“I would like to recall that in states governed by the rule of law, all conflicts should be resolved through political dialogue with a respect for democratic norms and standards,” the statement reads.

“I therefore call on all those concerned to put an end to this dangerous situation without delay, and to return to the use of democratic means. Democracy, human rights and the rule of law must prevail. The freedom of assembly must be fully respected,”  Thorbjørn Jagland said.

Photo: Getty Images

A shooting at a Munich shopping centre which left nine people dead was carried out by one gunman who then killed himself, German police have said, the BBC reports.

The suspect was an 18-year-old German-Iranian dual national who lived in Munich, police told a news conference, but his motive is unclear.

Sixteen people were injured, three critically, police added.

A huge manhunt was launched following reports that up to three gunmen had been involved in the attack.

The body of the suspect was found about 1km (0.6 miles) from the Olympia shopping centre in the north-western suburb of Moosach.

Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae told the news conference early on Saturday that the suspect had not been known to police and there were no known links to terror groups, although investigations were continuing.

The reports of three suspected attackers came when witnesses saw two people leaving the scene in a car “at considerable speed”, but they were later confirmed not to be involved, he added.

“The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear,” he said.

Mr Andrae also said that children were among the casualties, but gave no further details.

Photo: Getty Images

 

A new book exposes the slaughter of more than a million Armenian Christians a century ago. It’s quite a volume for the Turkish president to dip into, once he’s finished purging his broken country 

By Robert Fisk

If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wasn’t so busy right now trying to emasculate his 600,000-strong Turkish army, he’d be raging about the contents of a new book that – with judicious research and painfully ironic timing – has just appeared in Australia with irrefutable proof of the 1915 Armenian genocide at the hands of Turkey’s (then) 500,000-strong army.

The Turkish army, in the 1914-18 war, was intimately involved in the Nazi-like persecution and slaughter of one and a half million Armenian Christians. And it neither knew nor apparently cared that Australian prisoners of war were witnesses to the greatest war crime of the conflict. But now along comes a small Australian publisher with a highly researched volume, by Vicken Babkenian and Peter Stanley, in which the reader can find the testimony of Australian and other Allied prisoners who witnessed the dispossession and mass murder of the Armenians.

Some were survivors of the 1915 siege and surrender of Kut al-Amara in present-day Iraq, whose death march to prisons in Anatolia matched in brutality if not in numbers the killing of the Armenian population of Ottoman Turkey. Other Australian troops were captured at Gallipoli. Several were submariners whose vessel was seized by the Turkish navy.

They were Allied servicemen, not propagandists, and their attempts to help the doomed Armenians were as brave as they were innocent. Turks who still deny the knifing, beheading, mass executions and rape of the Armenians in a deliberate campaign of genocide – and Sultan Erdogan is one of them – will find it hard to challenge these witness statements.

Though he has other worries on his mind right now, Erdogan is so strong a defender of the old Ottoman army that he rearranged the date of last year’s 1915 Gallipoli commemorations to obscure the anniversary of the start of the far bloodier destruction of the Armenian people on the same day. But when he’s eventually finished destroying the army, judiciary, civil service and academic freedoms of present-day Turkey – perhaps on a subsequent, more relaxing holiday at Marmaris – Erdogan should take a look at the 324-page Armenia, Australia and the Great War.

Here, for example, is Lieutenant Leslie Luscombe of the Australian 14th Battalion at Gallipoli, captured by the Turks and sent to Angora province where he saw “a sad and depressing sight” on a railway station platform: “a considerable number of Armenian women and children were huddled together” while “Turkish soldiers armed with whips” drove them onto sheep trucks “to transport them to some distant concentration camp”. Just before Luscombe’s arrival, the monks of the Armenian monastery in which he was to be held “had doubtless been liquidated”. All the Australian prisoners were housed in abandoned Armenian houses.

One of Luscombe’s colleagues, Corporal George Kerr, was sent to work on the uncompleted German Taurus mountain railway and lodged on the upper floor of a house whose occupants included “60 miserable creatures” (as he recorded in his secret diary), both Armenians and Greeks.

Captain Thomas White of the Australian Flying Corps, arriving under Turkish guard in the Ottoman city of Mosul (now, of course, the Isis “capital”), saw “Armenian women, reduced to beggary”, pleading for food.  He was marched to the abandoned Armenian town of Tel Armen where – although a few Armenian women and children were still present – the men were absent. After climbing a low hill, he found “36 newly made graves which spoke eloquently of what had become of the Armenian men”. White described himself as “horrified at the Turks’ handiwork”, noting later that these massacres had been “simultaneous and to order throughout the entire country”.

At this time, the Armenians of Ras al-Ein (a village now in the hands of the American-armed YPG anti-Isis militia) were being prepared for their death march to Deir ez-Zour and White wrote of seeing “a large camp of Armenians herded together after the general round-up from their homes, and waiting to be sent on marches that had always the same ending”. After a train ride to Afion, White and others were housed in a church from which Armenian survivors had been driven to make way for them. “Their menfolk had been killed and furniture confiscated” and now “they were being turned into the street from their last possible sanctuary”. He found a burial ground of Armenians, some of whose bodies were “so close to the surface that their bones protruded”.

On the British-Australian-Indian prisoners’ 2,000km death march northwards to Anatolia from Kut, two POWs discovered a well at the back of a village house filled with “the mutilated remains of the murdered Armenian women and children”.  In total, 70 per cent of the British POWs who surrendered at Kut and 30 per cent of the Indians died in captivity. By September 1916, the dead Allied POWs were themselves being buried in the Armenian cemetery at Afion. At Yozgat, Allied prisoners were placed in empty Armenian houses whose owners had been “massacred” and their shops pillaged, according to engineer Captain Kenneth Yearsley.

The Armenian massacres continued long into 1918 in the east of Turkey – where, to the credit of the books’ authors, they record the slaughter of Muslim villagers by Armenians – but in the north of Mesopotamia, Colonel Stanley Savige, an Australian Gallipoli veteran, and his men found themselves fighting 10-to-one against Turkish and Kurdish cavalry killing the stragglers from an Armenian refugee column. They had found them – “old men, weak and wounded women, deserted infants and crippled children” – and, under fire, pulled women and children onto their horses, leaving, “with aching hearts”, cripples and infants to their fate. Captain Robert Nichol, a New Zealander, was killed as he fought for the Armenians’ lives.

Bulgaria’s energy minister Temenuzhka Petkova discussed opportunities for deepening bilateral cooperation in the energy sector, particularly in the field of natural gas with her Iranian counterpart Bijan Namdar Zangeneh in Tehran, the ministry said in a statement, according to .

The meeting between energy ministers was part of an official visit by Bulgaria’s Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, to Iran. Separately, Borisov announced that Bulgaria and Iran would explore a transport corridor project that would link Bulgaria and Iran through Armenia and Georgia that could carry gas.

A new transport corridor between the Gulf and the Black Sea, linking Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Bulgaria will be discussed during forthcoming expert meeting in Sofia, according to a prime minister office statement.

French members of parliament voted unanimously Friday to criminalise the denial of all crimes against humanity, including failure to admit that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces was a “genocide,” AFP reports.

The amendment, passed on the first reading, sets out penalties of up to a year in prison and a 45,000-euro ($50,000) fine for those who fall foul of the new law, which is expected to raise hackles in Turkey.

The French amendment, which must now go to the upper house Senate for approval, was a promise by President Francois Hollande during his 2012 electoral campaign.

An earlier law against Armenian Genocide denial was struck down by the country’s constitutional court for obstructing freedom of speech.

The new legal project covers all events which French law deems to be genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or slavery.

Currently, French law only bans Holocaust denial.

“This text will punish the challenge or the trivialisation of all crimes against humanity and war crimes,” said Ericka Bareigts, the junior minister in charge of equality.

She said that included the 1915-1917 killings that wiped out some 1.5 million Armenians.

“This is one of the greatest days of my political career,” enthused Henri Jibrayel, a member of parliament whose ancestors survived the mass killings a hundred years ago.

The new law’s backers hope to see it enter into force before the end of the year.