Author: Babajanian Karo

ALEXANDER ARZUMANYAN: TURKEY IS LOSING ITS IMPORTANCE IN THE REGION

13:47 | April 17,2015 | Politics

The resolution adopted by the European Parliament on the centennial
of the Armenian Genocide is an important move, but not unprecedented,
says Armenian lawmaker Alexander Arzumanyan.

He reminds that the structure adopted a resolution on the Armenian
Genocide long ago. However, he says ‘this is the first time that
Armenia acts as a party.’

Mr Arzumanyan stresses that Turkey is demonstrating an inadequate
and unclear position on the issue. “Turkey’s stance angers the
international community. Turkey relies on its old memories and does
not understand that it is losing its importance in the region.”

While the lawmaker stressed the importance of the resolution and
recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the countries, he says the
most important for us is that Turkey recognizes the historical fact.”

On April 15, the European parliament adopted a resolution to recognize
the 1915 mass killings of Armenians during World War I under Ottoman
rule as genocide. The resolution reportedly supported by all political
groups in the European Parliament calls on Turkey to recognize and
acknowledge its past, while urging the European states to acknowledge
the fact of the Armenian Genocide.

WHITE HOUSE SHOWS NO SIGNS OF SAYING ‘GENOCIDE’ -THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

11:54 * 17.04.15

The White House signaled Thursday that President Barack Obama won’t
use the word “genocide” to describe the killing of 1.5 million
Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Empire — continuing to break a
longstanding pledge.

As a candidate for office, Mr. Obama said he would use the word
“genocide” to describe the killings. In a strongly worded statement
in 2008, Mr. Obama said: “The Armenian Genocide is not an allegation,
a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented
fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.

He added: “As president I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.”

But since taking office, geopolitical concerns about the strategic
relationship with Turkey have kept the Obama administration from
fulfilling that 2008 promise. Turkey, a key U.S. ally in the Middle
East, has long opposed legislative efforts around the world to address
whether the killings were in fact genocide.

The White House has been under pressure to use the term this year —
the 100th anniversary of the killings — but a spokesman said Thursday
that there was no shift in its longstanding policy to eschew the
term genocide.

“The president and other senior administration officials have
repeatedly acknowledged as historical fact that 1.5 million Armenians
were massacred or marched to their deaths in the finals days of the
Ottoman Empire,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

“We’ve further stated that we mourn those deaths and that a full,
frank, and just acknowledgement of the facts is in the interest of
everybody, including Turkey, Armenia and the United States,” he added.

But Mr. Earnest said the longstanding position of the U.S. of avoiding
the term would likely remain in place when the White House puts out
a statement later this month.

“I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and
my view has not changed,” Mr. Obama said last year, without using term
“genocide.”

Turkey says the issue of whether the killings were genocide isn’t
for modern-day governments to decide, contests the number of deaths,
and argues those killed were casualties of a larger armed conflict.

On Sunday, Pope Francis referred to the mass killings as the “first
genocide of the 20th century,” angering Turkey.

TURKEY’S INCREASINGLY ISOLATED ON SINKING BOAT OF DENIALISM, SAYS NALBANDIAN

NEWS | 17.04.15 | 10:40

RELATED NEWS

European Parliament adopts resolution on Armenian Genocide

Turkey finds itself more and more isolated on the sinking boat of
denialism, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said commenting
at the RFE/RL Armenian Service’s request on Turkey’s reaction to
the European Parliament’s resolution on the 100th anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide.

“It has been clear for a long time that the policy of denial has no
perspectives. By recalling ambassadors, by harshly criticizing those
states, organizations, which pay tribute to the memory of 1.5 million
innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide, and which are raising their
voices against denial for prevention of new crimes against humanity,
Turkish authorities find themselves more and more isolated on the
sinking boat of denialism,” Nalbandian said.

“Turkey attempts to put pressures, I would say to blackmail
international structures, numerous countries. But hardly they can
succeed in this regard, maybe with the exception of those countries,
where human rights and fundamental freedoms are not respected, where
democracy is on a shaky ground,” he continued.

The Armenian foreign minister also commented sardonically on Ankara’s
decision not to recall its ambassadors from EU member states. “What
is the meaning of recalling the Ambassadors? We remember very well
that after each recall they were obliged to send them back. It is the
Parliament representing 28 European countries that adopted a resolution
yesterday. It is good that Ankara at least realized, not to recall
their ambassadors from 28 countries. Otherwise that would create a
serious unemployment problem for Turkish Ambassadors,” he said.

“The reaction of Turkish authorities is reminiscent of a zugzwang in
chess game, where each of the following steps further deteriorates
player’s positions.

“As the European Parliament resolution states without truth there
can be no reconciliation, and I would add, with the international
community.”

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE THEN AND NOW

US Official News
April 14, 2015 Tuesday

Religious Freedom Coalition has issued the following news release:

Armenian-Canadian writer Raffi Bedrosyan sees Middle Eastern “history
repeating itself” in modern Christian suffering in the centennial of
the Ottoman Empire’s 1915 genocide of Armenians and other Christian
populations. Bedrosyan and other participants of an all-day, March 28
Institute of World Politics (IWP) conference concerning the Ottoman
1915 genocides showed a disturbing continuity of Islamic human rights
violations by various actors across a century.

Before over 50 audience members filling IWP’s conference room,
Institute of World Politics Professor Marek J. Chodakiewicz indicated
the confessional nature of 1915’s slaughter in his presentation
on forms of “democide” or governmental mass murder. Descended from
“Christendom’s eldest kingdom,” most Armenians in 1915 had a pre-modern
understanding of nationality, he said. Despite recent secular legal
reforms in the Islamic Ottoman Empire, Armenians still suffered the
“scourge of sharia and the whims of the caliphate.”

ArmenianGenocideProtestThe East Coast premiere of Turkey, the Legacy
of Silence, a French documentary about Turkish citizens uncovering
their hidden Armenian heritage, also featured a Christian-Islamic
confessional divide. A Turkish man, for example, recounted how
authorities in 1915 told one man concerning Armenians that “kill seven
and you will go to heaven,” but instead he hid a boy who was later
raised a Muslim under the name Abdullah. After another woman’s death,
relatives found a Bible in a ceremonial case that usually contains a
Quran in Turkish homes. Such individuals, the film noted, were hidden
survivors of a brutal attempt to create the fiction of Turkey as a
land that has been purely Turkish for millennia.

Concerns for physical survival and social acceptance caused many of
these individuals to keep secret their Armenian ancestry even if they
knew about it. A woman in the film narrated how Turkish nationalists
in the army killed her son on April 24, the day commemorating since
1915 the genocide, 17 days before he completed his military service.

Another man whose Armenian heritage became known faced the animosity
of his school classmates who read in Turkish textbooks that Armenians
betrayed the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Some individuals
nonetheless embraced their heritage like the man who accepted baptism
and rejected being an “Islamicized Armenian” after learning of his
true origins.

Bedrosyan elaborated upon “The Hidden Armenians of Turkey” following
the screening and during a subsequent interview. Islamization
of Armenians began in 1915 when the Ottoman government initially
allowed Armenians to convert to Islam and avoid ultimately deadly
deportations. Turkish army orphanages transformed orphan boys of
Armenian genocide victims into rabid Muslim Turks while orphan girls
became sex slaves or entered forced marriages. One Kurdish chieftain
took as his child bride a girl from among the 13 survivors of over
10,500 massacred Armenians from a suburb of southeastern Turkish
town Diyarbakir. Bedrosyan expressed amazement at how jihadists in
the Islamic State (IS) or Nigeria’s Boko Haram displayed today the
same patterns of behavior.

Ottoman efforts to obliterate Armenian culture encompassed property
as well as persons. Bedrosyan cited 4,000 churches in Turkey that
after 1915 were destroyed or converted to other uses, including one
that became a brothel. He noted a destroyed Diyarbakir church used as
a government warehouse until its 2011 restoration by private groups
as a genocide memorial. Its official opening saw many individuals
disclose their Armenian ancestry.

An earlier presentation by stolen property expert Dr. Tania C.

Mastrapa elaborated that the Turkish government had closed certain
archives as a “national security threat.” Their publication could
facilitate property claims by Armenians and others stemming from
1915 calculated in the trillions of dollars. Her co-panelist Kate
Nahapetian from the Armenian National Committee of America stated that
police today will investigate in certain Turkish villages visitors
suspected of searching for lost Armenian property.

Bedrosyan explained that Turkish government actions demonstrated how
the Turkish republic throughout its history has assiduously upheld
the myth of a homogenous Turkish and Sunni Muslim population. An
interviewed Genocide Watch President Gregory H. Stanton, whose
morning presentation concerned genocide denial, analogized between the
Khmer Rouge and Turkish Republic founding father Kemal Ataturk. Like
Cambodia’s genocidal Communists who “wanted to start at year zero,”
Ataturk’s “utopian vision for a new Turkey” sought cultural erasure
of even Christian populations like the Assyrians who predated Turkish
presence in Anatolia.

In this environment, Bedrosyan stated, Armenian/Christian affiliations
entail discrimination, meaning that many of Turkey’s estimated 2.5
million people with Armenian descent do not recognize or reveal
their heritage and remain “Islamicized.” Christians de facto “cannot
even become a garbage man” in the public sector, he stated while
discussing one public school teacher who broke a taboo by accepting
baptism after discovering Armenian roots. Individuals serving in the
military sometimes learn of the ineligibility for sensitive positions
such as fighter pilots when the government suddenly reveals records
of Armenian descent.

Individuals who know of their Armenian heritage therefore often
resort to subterfuge in a society where Armenian is a swear word
and graffiti like “1915 was a blessed year” vandalizes Istanbul
churches. Bedrosyan recounted how one hidden Armenian prayed to Jesus
at home while serving as a Muslim imam, while others secretly accepted
baptism in Europe before returning to Turkey. Amongst themselves,
hidden Armenians often know, and marry their children to, each other.

Steven Oshana, executive director of the Middle East minority advocacy
group A Demand for Action, reflected during an interview on the
historic continuity of Muslim repression suffered by his Armenian and
Assyrian ancestral communities. Assyrians, for example, fled Ottoman
genocide to areas of modern Iraq, only to endure the August 1933 Simele
massacre by Iraqi troops and another flight to Syria, where Assyrians
today are targets of IS. “The genocide just keeps following,” the
“methods are the same, the brutality is the same,” stated Oshana.

Oshana and other conference speakers noted how Islam played a role
among pious and non-pious alike in conflicts with Christian and
other minorities. While IS differed from the Ottomans in publicly
claiming credit for atrocities against non-Muslims, he stated that
“faith is always a pretext” for political calculations seeking to
stimulate violence against non-Christians. Bedrosyan concurred that
Ottoman leaders who saw during World War I threats in Armenians and
other Christians “were using Islam as an instrument” of mobilization
among Muslims like Kurds. This role of Islam was “very, very direct”
in the actions of Ottoman leaders, Stanton noted. They cynically urged
Muslim authorities such as muftis to call for the killing of Christians
considered allied with the Ottoman Empire’s “infidel” enemies.

Institute of World Politics’ Armenian genocide conference instructively
brought to light a past that has not passed, but rather remains
depressingly relevant today. Time and again Islamic doctrines have
repeatedly incited the same patterns of death, destruction, and
cultural cleansing against Christians and other non-Muslims. George
Santyana’s dictum that “[t]hose who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it” is hardly more relevant than here. Forewarning
of these past lessons is necessary for policymakers who want to be
forearmed against future dangers.

LA VILLE DE RYDE VOTE UNE MOTION DE RECONNAISSANCE DU GENOCIDE DES ARMENIENS

Australie

10 ans après, en date du 12 avril 2005, la ville de Ryde, renouvelle,
a l’unanimite, sa reconnaissance du genocide des Armeniens sous
l’impulsion deSarkis Yedelian*, premier elu d’origine armenienne
d’Australie.

Cette motion fait suite a un niveau sans precedent de la couverture
mediatique sur le genocide des Armeniens en Australie.

Motion

Le Conseil municipal se joint a la communaute armenienne d’Australie
pour marquer le centenaire du genocide des Armeniens en decidant de :

(A) d’honorer la memoire des innocents, hommes, femmes et enfants
qui ont ete victimes du premier genocide moderne ;

(B) condamner le genocide des Armeniens ; et tous les autres actes
de genocide comme acte ultime de l’intolerance raciale, religieuse
et culturelle ;

(C) reconnaître l’importance de se souvenir et apprendre de ces
chapitres de l’histoire humaine afin de s’assurer que de tels crimes
contre l’humanite ne puissent se repeter ;

(D) condamner et empecher toutes les tentatives d’utiliser la marche
du temps a nier ou a falsifier la verite historique du genocide des
Armeniens et autres actes de genocide commis au cours de ce siècle ;

(E) rappeler les temoignages de prisonniers de guerre australiens de
la Première guerre mondiale, temoins du genocide des Armeniens ;

(F) souligner l’importante contribution humanitaire apportee par
les habitants de l’Australie aux victimes et survivants du genocide
armenien ; et

(G) appelle le Commonwealth d’Australie a reconnaître et condamner
tous les genocides dont le genocide des Armeniens.

Sarkis Yedelian le jour de son election comme Conseiller municipal
et le Maire de Ryde Ivan Petch

* 55 ans, marie, père d’un garcon et d’une fille, Sarkis Yedelian,
ne au Liban, est le premier australien elu d’origine armenienne.

Contrairement a la grande majorite des armeniens, la famille de Sarkis
Yedelian a pu echapper au Genocide. Originaire d’Aintab, ancien vilayet
d’Alep, son père naît en 1918 sur l’itineraire de la deportation a
Ourfa, comme il le dit lui-meme “actuellement situee dans la region
occupee de l’Armenie en Turquie”. Sa mère est originaire de Kessab,
en Syrie, proche de la frontière turque.

Après avoir suivi toutes ses etudes a Beyrouth (1) jusqu’a l’Universite
americaine, section Technologie Electronique, Sarkis Yedelian et sa
famille sont contraints de quitter le Liban pour cause de guerre
civile. Ils rejoignent alors oncles et tantes, deja installes en
Australie.

1979, fraichement debarque en terre australienne, Sarkis Yedelian
trouve un job dans la photo et s’investit d’emblee au service de la
communaute armenienne de la ville de Ryde (2) situee a environ 12 kms
au Nord-Ouest de Sydney. C’est ainsi que l’une de ses principales
preoccupations sera de fonder l’ecole Hamazkain Arshag & Sophie
Galstaun “pour perpetuer l’identite armenienne” , regrettant de
constater que “les parents paressent a envoyer leurs enfants dans
les ecoles armeniennes”.

Un destin forge a la force du poignet

Avec un bagage lui permettant de communiquer en cinq langues parmi
lesquelles l’armenien, le francais, l’arabe, le turc “parce que
c’etait la seule facon de pouvoir communiquer avec mes grand-parents”
, et l’anglais, dont il dit, non sans humour, qu’ayant ete la dernière
langue qu’il ait apprise, il a garde l’accent armenien. “Ils savent
que je suis etranger, mais cela ne m’a pas decourage” dit-il, evoquant
les australo-australiens de Ryde. “J’ai toujours affronte les defis
et particulièrement lorsqu’ils sont difficiles”. C’est ainsi que
deux ans après que le Parlement (3) de la Nouvelle Galles du Sud
ait reconnu la realite du Genocide des Armeniens, en 1999, Sarkis
Yedelian se presente pour la première fois en tant que candidat
independant aux elections du Conseil municipal de Ryde. Recale par
“manque d’experience”, il est elu Conseiller le 6 avril 2004 (4) .

Dans le meme temps, toujours dans l’objectif de reunir et d’informer
la communaute armenienne, il fonde Armenian Sydney TV. Fonctionnant
uniquement sur la base du volontariat, des dons et du sponsoring,
Armenian TV Sydney emet depuis Gladesville, gratuitement, 3 heures
par jour .

Objectif et Strategie

Sous son impulsion, le 12 avril 2005, la ville de Ryde reconnaît
unanimement le Genocide des Armeniens. L’intention avouee de cette
reconnaissance a en realite un autre dessein. En effet, Ryde abrite ni
plus ni moins que le Premier ministre du gouvernement federal en la
personne de l’honorable John Howard. “La etait la raison principale
de la decision du Conseil” avoue Sarkis Yedelian. Influer sur sa
personne au niveau federal par cette reconnaissance locale.

Jean Eckian

1- Dipôme de l’Ecole Hamazkaine Nishan Palanjian Djemaran de Beyrouth

2- Avec ses 110 000 habitants, Ryde fait partie de Sydney. Elle est la
cite d’Australie où est implantee la plus forte communaute armenienne
sur les 38 000 vivants en Nouvelle Galles du Sud.

3- Un Memorial commemorant le Genocide des Armeniens est installe
dans l’enceinte meme du Parlement de la Nouvelle Galles du Sud.

4- En Australie le vote est obligatoire. La ville de Ryde a 60 000
electeurs divises en trois secteurs de 20 000 votants : Est – Centre –
Ouest . Quatre Conseillers sont elus par secteur.

vendredi 17 avril 2015, Jean Eckian (c)armenews.com

GENOCIDE : DAVID NALBANDIAN EXHORTE LE MONDE A SE SOUVENIR

ARMENIE

David Nalbandian, un joueur de tennis argentin de renommee mondiale
d’origine armenienne, a appele le monde a reconnaître le genocide
des armeniens a l’occasion de son centenaire.

Avec plusieurs autres athlètes argentins le joueur de tennis de 33
ans a parle dans une video qui a ete postee sur YouTube le 15 Avril.

Dans la video de cinq personnalites sportives, y compris un autre
athlète d’origine armenienne Carlos Hairabedian, parlent du premier
genocide du 20e siècle, sur les deportations des Armeniens de Turquie
et la formation de la communaute armenienne en Argentine.

L’Argentine, selon diverses estimations, abrite entre 70 000 et 135
000 Armeniens aujourd’hui.

Plus tôt cette semaine, la presidente de l’Argentine Cristina Kirchner
a rencontre des representants de la communaute armenienne d’Argentine
afin d'”exprimer sa solidarite a l’occasion du 100e anniversaire du
genocide armenien.”

vendredi 17 avril 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com

DEPORTIVO ARMENIO FOOTBALLERS TO PLAY IN TURKEY IN BLACK SHIRTS WITH INSCRIPTION ‘I REMEMBER AND DEMAND’

17:45 17/04/2015 >> SPORT

Argentine football club Deportivo Armenio will play in Turkey in
a special uniform dedicated to the Armenian Genocide centenary,
sports.ru reports.

The footballers will play the upcoming matches in black shirts with
the inscription ‘I Remember and Demand.’

It is also noted that on the 95th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
in 2010, the club’s players were wearing the Armenian national team
uniforms.

Deportivo Armenio was founded in 1962 by the Armenian community of
Buenos Aires.

BRUSSELS “ASTONISHED” AT SCHULZ-DAVUTOGLU PHONE TALK LEAKAGE

April 17, 2015 13:43
EXCLUSIVE

Martin Schulz

Photo:

Yerevan/Mediamax/. The position of the President of European Parliament
Martin Schulz on the Armenian Genocide fully coincides with the
resolution adopted by the EP on April 15.

The EP President spokesman Armin Machmer told Mediamax correspondent
about it today.

Today, Turkish Today’s Zaman daily quoting its anonymous source in
the Turkish government, disseminated information according to which
during his phone talk with Turkish Prime Minister, EP President Martin
Schulz said that he “understands Ankara’s reaction to a vote calling
the 1915 mass killing of Armenians a genocide”.

MY THOUGHTS AND SOLIDARITY ARE WITH THE VICTIMS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS: COE COMMISSIONER ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

17:22, 17 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

By Nils Muižnieks
Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

History continues to divide Armenian and Turkish officialdom,
but there are many civil society, cultural and academic initiatives
aiming to reconnect the two societies. April 24 marks the centennial
of the beginning of the mass killings, deportations and dispossession
of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, which resulted in the
near-total elimination of Armenians from Anatolia. These massive
human rights violations and their painful legacy left a major rift
between two societies, which has crystallised around the issue of
their political and legal designation as genocide. However, it is
heartening to see that today many people are seeking to overcome this
difficult legacy and to promote mutual understanding, reconciliation
and the reconstruction of a shared history, demonstrating a true
human rights ethos.

The Emergence of a Thaw

Discussion in Turkey of what was sometimes euphemistically called the
“1915 Events” was long taboo or even subject to criminal prosecution
under the offense of “insulting Turkishness”. In recent years,
prosecutions under this article have become more infrequent and a space
for discussion has emerged. This space has been created by a number of
concurrent developments, particularly increased contacts between Turks
and Armenians and domestic Turkish political and cultural evolution.

Though the land border remains closed, nationals of both countries
have enjoyed relatively free travel to the neighbouring country. As
a result, the number of Armenian nationals entering Turkey increased
from less than 5,500 in 2000 to more than 73,000 in 2013. In 2011
the Turkish authorities even granted special permission for migrant
children of Armenian nationality to attend the schools of the Turkish
Armenian minority. While many Armenians seek informal work in the
Turkish economy, others (from both Armenia and the diaspora) have
increasingly travelled to Turkey to reconnect with their roots by
visiting their ancestors’ places of origin and the descendants of
family members who stayed during and after World War I.

At the same time, the debate within Turkey about the past has
evolved considerably. While an academic conference in Istanbul was
a watershed in 2005, since then, a plethora of scholarly work about
the Armenian legacy in Turkey has been published. A turning point in
the Turkish debate appeared to come with the tragic assassination of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007, which led to further
calls for a reassessment of the past, more open public discussion and
a more compassionate tone of discourse. In a sign of this new tone,
intellectuals in Turkey organised a petition campaign in 2008, in which
thousands signed an apology to Armenians for the “Great Catastrophe”.

Recent Civil Society Initiatives

In recent years, a host of civil society initiatives have been
implemented, suggesting that people-to-people diplomacy has far
outstripped official relations, which remain deadlocked. Starting
in 2009, the Hrant Dink Foundation in Turkey began to organise
journalistic exchanges to foster better coverage of issues affecting
the neighbouring country. On the Armenian side, early initiatives
sought to document, acknowledge and publicise the role of “righteous
Turks” who saved the lives of Armenians.

In early 2014 a consortium of 8 NGOs from Turkey and Armenia launched
a programme entitled “Support to the Armenia-Turkey normalisation
process” with support from the European Union. The programme includes
exchanges and study visits of journalists, artists and environmental
activists, summer schools for teachers, oral history projects,
exhibitions, support for a joint Turkish-Armenian youth orchestra,
and academic talks. The private sector is also seeking to foster
business ties, which now take place primarily in a circuitous manner
via Georgia or Iran, and to promote bilateral economic partnerships.

These are encouraging steps which, if continued, could form the basis
for effectively dealing with a painful past and addressing the legacy
of 1915. They have already contributed to an evolution within Turkish
society, from opposing the suffering of the ancestors of the majority
population during the fall of the Ottoman Empire against that of the
Armenians, towards an acknowledgement of the suffering of the other
side and its integration into the collective consciousness. Dealing
with the past requires empathy and mutual understanding, and these
initiatives are precisely furthering that aim. This could then in turn
serve as a basis for an evolution of the position of the national
authorities. The latter should refrain from impeding or seeking to
gain political advantage from such initiatives and seek to support
those actors aiming at seeking the truth and fostering contacts and
understanding.

A Human Rights Framework?

The deportation and massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman authorities
was a massive violation of human rights. The first rule of
international human rights might be summarised as “no impunity for
perpetrators.” However, since the tragedy took place 100 years ago,
the perpetrators are no longer among the living and cannot be held
to account. One indicator of progress in dealing with the past in
Turkey will be the evolution of the official stance towards these past
human rights violations. By official stance, I mean not only political
statements by Turkey’s leaders, but also the institutional stance as
reflected notably in officially approved school history textbooks,
state-funded museum exhibitions and other cultural output. Are
perpetrators condemned and crimes acknowledged? Or are they ignored,
downplayed, justified, or even glorified?

A second element of a human rights approach might be summarised as
“address the needs of victims and their families.” While few survivors
are still with us after 100 years, many of their descendants also
suffered from what happened. A human rights approach foresees various
ways to provide redress and reparation to victims of human rights
violations. One of these ways is the recognition of the tragedy through
commemorative dates, rituals and monuments. There have been instances
where property was returned to Armenians in Turkey and some parts of
the Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey have been rehabilitated,
such as the Surp Giragos church in Diyarbakir and the Surp Khach
church on Akdamar Island. The significance of these initiatives,
including for Turkish society, should not be underestimated. Recently,
the Van municipal council also restored Armenian (and Kurdish)
toponyms. However, much more could be done in this area.

Commemorations and Solidarity

In Armenia, the centennial will be marked on April 24 with solemn
ceremonies and a major international conference on genocide. Twice
during recent visits I paid homage to the victims at the Armenian
Genocide Memorial Monument in Yerevan. As the centennial approaches,
my thoughts and solidarity are again with the victims and their
descendants, but also with the civil society activists, scholars,
journalists and artists from both Armenia and Turkey who are seeking
to promote mutual understanding and foster an honest reckoning with
a heavy historical legacy.

MANAGEMENT OF ZANGEZOUR BIOSPHERIC COMPLEX ESTABLISHED FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF SPAS IN SYUNIK REMAINS UNSOLVED

14:25 April 16, 2015

EcoLur

The the problem with the management of “Zangezour” Biospheric Comples
established for the effectiveness of the management of specially
protected areas of nature in Syunik Region, Armenia, remain unsolved.

The only biospheric complex in Armenia was established in 2013,
which included specially protected areas of nature with different
conservation regimes – “Shikahogh” state reserve, “Arevik” National
Park, “Pine Park”, “Zangezour”, “Khoustoup”, “Boghaqar” and “Sev Litch”
state reserve.

One of the main reasons for establishing a biospheric complex is
funding. German KfW Bank expressed its willingness to provide 8.2
million Euros for the development of specially protected areas in
Syunik. Therefore, the Armenian Government reached a decision to
unite the specially protected areas in Syunik with the following
substantiation, “The need to adopt a decision is based on the fact
that different SNCOs run the specially protected areas available in
Syunik Region, which doesn’t enable to reduce maintenance costs and to
increase the conservation costs of specially protected areas. Thus,
it will be cost-efficient for all specially protected areas to be
run by a single SNCO.”

“When “Zangezour” biospheric complex was established, we had
many questions: whether or not it will be effective, how the new
organization will demonstrate itself both in management and technical
viewpoint? It’s the combination of various SPEs of different categories
and located in different parts of a rather complicated area,” said
Caucasus Nature Fund National Coordinator Arman Vermishyan in his
interview with EcoLur.

KfW bank hasn’t provided any funds after the establishment of
“Zangezour” biospheric complex till now. The complex gets financial
aid from the Caucasus Nature Fund. “Last year we concluded a contract
for one year with “Zangezour” biosphric complex to understand how we
will continue our work with them. Besides, taking into consideration
management issues, we funded a research and made proposals how to
amend the management system, as “Shikahogh”, “Arevik” National Park,
“Sev Litch” all have the same status, which caused questions from the
very beginning,” Arman Vermishyan said. One of CNF proposals was to
leave SPEs as individual SNCOs – legal entities with their relevant
conservation regimes. According to Arman Vermishyan, proposals were
officially filed to Nature Protection Ministry and discussions were
held, but there is no response so far.

“The Ministry is still in search. They also want to understand how to
continue, as the problems are very many. This year we have concluded
an agreement with “Zangezour” biospheric complex and will cover
the current expenses in the amount of around 135,000 Euros to see
what the results will be, as “Zangezour” biospheric complex is also
very important for us, but there are too many questions. We hope to
discuss these issues with the Ministry this year and to get solutions,”
concluded CNF National Coordinator.