Author: Christine Harutyunian

France is to hold a national memorial service for the 130 people who died in the Paris attacks two weeks ago, the BBC reports.

Friday’s service in central Paris will bring together 1,000 people, including President Francois Hollande as well as survivors and victims’ families.

A minute’s silence will be held and the names of all the victims read out.

Attackers with assault rifles and suicide belts targeted a number of sites in the capital. Islamic State later said it was behind the assault.

In a series of co-ordinated attacks on 13 November, the gunmen opened fire on restaurants and bars in the city and stormed a concert hall, where 89 people were shot dead.

Three more attackers blew themselves up outside the Stade de France stadium in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, after staff denied them entry to a football match between France and Germany.

More than 350 people were injured in the attacks – the worst in recent French history.

Alastair Grant/Canadian Press

 

– The Armenian genocide has lessons for Canadians as they come to terms with trauma inflicted on indigenous people, Atom Egoyan says.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is marking the centennial of the Armenian genocide with a visit from the acclaimed Canadian filmmaker on Wednesday.

Egoyan, whose parents are Armenian, explored the genocide in his 2002 film Ararat, which starred Arsinée Khanjian, his wife. Egoyan and Khanjian will both speak at the museum Wednesday evening.

Egoyan spoke with Information Radio‘s Marcy Markusa about the Armenian genocide and the treatment of indigenous people in Canada on Wednesday morning. Read highlights of their conversation below.

Marcy Markusa: You, I know, are personally connected to [the Armenian genocide].

Atom Egoyan: On my father’s side, my grandparents were survivors. My grandmother really was found in a village at the age of about six, so we don’t really know where she’s from, and that’s where the family tree sort of ends on that side. So, it was something I was always aware of …

When we came to Canada, I was raised in Victoria, B.C., where there wasn’t really an Armenian community to speak of, so it was something that wasn’t really talked about a lot until I went to Toronto, and I realized that there was this whole history.

It’s a pretty grim history but the amazing part is that Canada had a huge role in actually welcoming Armenian refugees at the time to Canada and has actually acknowledged this officially as genocide, which has been a real bone of contention because the perpetrator, Turkey, has never really come to terms with this. It’s always denied the Armenian genocide.

MM: Have you ever come [face] to face with someone who’s denied it?

AE: Oh, yeah. It’s an odd situation because we take it for granted when something has happened historically that there will be some sort of reckoning at some point, but this is still very much an open wound and … one of the things that I’ll be talking about tonight is how that’s happened and how it’s been possible … unlike let’s say the Holocaust, where after the Second World War there were the Nuremburg trials and Germany was really made to acknowledge this and it was irrefutable, of course, because of all the documentation.

The Armenian genocide happened at this moment where it was possible because of various political pressures for Turkey to actually walk away from any acknowledgement.

It’s not usually someone who says, “It didn’t happen.” It’s someone who basically says, “Well, there have been exaggerations,” or “I’m sure there are two sides to the story.” There’s usually some way of equivocating. Of course when you meet someone who’s actually adamant about the denial, it becomes even starker than that. It’s a little surreal to be honest, it’s quite surreal.

You have to also understand when you meet someone who’s a young person who was raised in Turkey that they weren’t schooled with this.… A lot of them aren’t even aware of the history.

MM: Here in Canada a lot of people [are] not aware of the history either. So, 1.5 million Armenians died. What happened?

AE: Armenians were living in towns and villages all over the eastern part of Turkey.

There was a large community in what is present-day Istanbul. In 1915, the Turkish government, a “Young Turk” government at the time, decided to move large parts of the population into the deserts of what is present-day Syria.

Armenians were trying to assert their rights in terms of they were being overtaxed and they were being, there were all sorts of pressures. The basic political issue was that the Ottoman Empire at the time was crumbling.

The Young Turk government blamed the Armenians for a lot of what their problems were.… They were considered to be the root cause of why the empire was crumbling. The Turks thought that there was a possible coalition with certain Armenians with Russia, so they basically evacuated all these villages and what seemed to be at first … a forced relocation became an organized genocide. People were marched into deserts, where they were basically left to die. There were of course massacres and killings along the way, but our killing fields were in a place called Deir ez-Zor in Syria, where there are large crevasses in the mountains where Armenians were basically thrown into at the end of their journey.

When you’re bringing up history being forgotten and you’re talking about how when you go to Turkey you realize the education was never there … people didn’t have a chance to learn, [I can’t help] thinking about Canada as we come to terms with our own history with residential schools and treatment of aboriginal people. What have you learned about confronting denial that might shed some light on that?

The natural human tendency, unfortunately, is that if you can deny and get away with it, you will. This idea that there is a moral core that somehow prevents us from denying atrocity or crimes or wrongdoings that we do against fellow human beings, we tend to actually become quite lax.

MM: But at what point is there no excuse for ignorance?

AE: Well, in the case of being able to understand someone else’s suffering. That’s what it comes down to; it’s this question of compassion. It’s this understanding that we’re dealing with other human beings.

I think that one of the reasons that we’re dealing with the residential school issue is that we’re seeing the effect of this on present-day populations. We’re seeing the trauma. We understand that this is not just something that happened that we can sweep under the rug. This is a responsibility that we have as a society and we have to hold ourselves up to the very high standards of being able to address the wrongs that we have done.

A train has derailed near the French city of Strasbourg, killing five and injuring seven, the Daily Mail repots.

Photographs of the wreckage show its carriages half submerged in the water outside Eckwersheim, Strasbourg.

Rescue workers were seen approaching the mangled train on rubber dinghies and tending to the wounded by the side of the canal.

It is not known what caused the test TGV to come off the tracks or whether the death toll is expected to rise.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan received today Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

President Sargsyan hailed the dynamically developing bilateral relations, which, he said, are enhanced by frequent high-level meetings and reciprocal visits.

According to Serzh Sargsyan, the intensive contacts are an evidence of the interest of the to countries to develop the allied relations and the willingness to discuss joint issues within the framework of the existing formats.

The interlocutors agreed that the Armenian-Russian relations are steadily developing in the economic, military-technical and humanitarian fields.

President Sargsyan praised Russia’s role in the process of settlement of the Karabakh conflict and establishment of security and stability in the region.

Sergey Lavrov also hailed the progress registered in all directions as a result of Armenian-Russian cooperation and praised the dynamically developing relations within the framework of integration processes.

According to him, Armenia’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union will certainly have a positive impact from the viewpoint of further deepening and development of economic relations.

Referring to the negotiations on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Minister Lavrov reiterated that there is no alternative to the peaceful settlement.

During the meeting the interlocutors exchanged views on urgent international issues and challenges.

Azerbaijan’s ruling party has won parliamentary elections that were boycotted by the main opposition parties, the country’s electoral commission said, the BBC reports.

The ruling New Azerbaijan party won at least 70 seats in the 125-seat parliament, the commission said.

A host of small parties and candidates loyal to President Ilham Aliyev took almost all the rest.

The opposition has accused the government of jailing its opponents.

International monitors from the OSCE did not observe the vote, citing government restrictions.

More than a dozen political parties were vying for 125 seats in Azerbaijan’s National Assembly.

But analysts say those that could be considered genuine in their opposition to the government refused to participate.

“The pre-election period was marred by massive violations. That’s why we decided not to participate,” opposition Musavat Party leader Arif Gajily told Reuters news agency.

According to the BBC, Sunday’s vote serves as a reminder of the oppressive political environment inside the oil-rich nation.

In the past two years the Azeri authorities have jailed almost all critical voices, among them journalists, civil society activists, and human rights lawyers.

The government has also become increasingly intolerant of international criticism.

It denied the existence of any political prisoners, and it frequently describes negative publicity as a Western agenda to discredit Azerbaijan.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the leading international monitoring group, has not considered any of Azerbaijan’s elections since independence to be free and fair.

This year – for the first time in more than two decades – it chose not to send a mission, condemning the Azerbaijani government’s “crackdown on independent and critical voices”.

Florida Representatives Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Ted Deutch (D-FL) have signed a letter that will be sent to U.S. Ambassador James Warlick later this week calling for increased security measures and confidence building mechanisms along the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan border, reported FLArmenians.com. Congressman Bilirakis serves as Co-Chair of the Hellenic Caucus, Co-Chair of the Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus, and Vice-Chair of the Armenian Caucus.

“When violence and aggression become a pattern in a historically turbulent region, we, as American policy leaders, should speak out strongly to dispel further hostilities,” Congressman Bilirakis told FLArmenians.com.  “That is why I joined my colleagues in a letter to James Warlick, U.S. Co-Chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group urging a just and peaceful resolution to the conflict. Azerbaijani aggression must stop so that peace and security can return to the region as swiftly as possible,” he said.

Congressman Deutch, whose Palm Beach County district is home to the largest Armenian community in Florida, serves with Bilirakis as the Co-Chair of the Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus.

“I want to thank our Florida Representatives, Gus Bilirakis and Ted Deutch, for their support in calling for an end to the escalating violence against Armenia and Karabakh,” stated District 21 resident and Florida Armenians Boca Raton Chair George Sarkisian.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Ranking Member Eliot Engel (D-NY) are circulating a bipartisan letter asking their Congressional colleagues to support renewed U.S. leadership in the South Caucasus.

The two senior legislators are currently collecting signatures on a letter addressed to Ambassador James Warlick, U.S. representative to the OSCE Minsk Group which is responsible for mediating a resolution of the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh. The Royce-Engel letter specifically calls for the U.S. and OSCE to abandon the failed policy of false parity in responding to acts of aggression, noting that: “The longstanding U.S. and OSCE practice of responding to each new attack with generic calls upon all parties to refrain from violence has failed to de-escalate the situation. Instead, this policy of artificial evenhandedness has dangerously increased tensions. There will be no peace absent responsibility.”

The legislators propose three concrete steps that would, “in the short-term, save lives and help to avert war. Over the longer term,” the letter says, “these steps could contribute to a comprehensive and enduring peace for all the citizens of the region:”

Specifically, the letter calls for:

1.     An agreement from all sides not to deploy snipers along the line of contact;

2.     The placement of OSCE-monitored, advanced gunfire-locator systems and sound-ranging equipment to determine the source of attacks along the line of contact; and

3.     The deployment of additional OSCE observers along the line of contact to better monitor cease-fire violations.

According to sources familiar with the negotiations, the governments of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh have both pledged their support for these confidence-building measures, while Azerbaijan has repeatedly opposed them.

Over fifty-five members of Congress have signed the Royce-Engel letter to Ambassador Warlick. In addition to the House Foreign Affairs Committee leadership, the letter has the support of House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Ranking Member Adam Schiff (D-CA), U.S. Helsinki Commission Chairman Chris Smith (R-NJ), Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-NY), and former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Steve Israel (D-NY).

Congressman Schiff wrote a separate letter to Ambassador Warlick earlier this month warning, “unwillingness to speak plainly about the aggressor in this conflict sends the message to Azerbaijan that it can act with impunity.” “I do not believe the cause of peace is served by ignoring Azerbaijan’s increasing belligerence and the suggestion that both parties are equally to blame for violence along the Line of Contact when that is not the case,” Schiff’s letter states.

The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire 120 times last night, the NKR Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

The rival fired more than 2,600 shots from weapons of different caliber, including 60 and 82 mm mortars, in the direction of the Armenian positions.

More intensive shelling was registered in the southern direction of the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan.

Divisions of the NKR Defense Army keep the situation under control and confidently continue with their military duty all along the line of contact.

On October 1-4, under the auspices of the Embassy of Armenia to Canada, the 6th Armenian Festival took place in the Canadian city of Moncton, New Brunswick. The sixth edition of the festival was dedicated to the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide.

The Festival commenced with the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, during which the Armenian Ambassador  to Canada, Armen Yeganian, and the Mayor of Moncton George LeBlanc unveiled a monument dedicated to the memory of the victims of Armenian Genocide and planted a commemorative tree.

The rich programme of the Festival included Armenian music and dance, performance by “Zulal” a cappella trio, “Garni” Dance Ensemble of Montreal, composer Grigor Arakelyan from Armenia, soprano Aline Kutan and many others, as well as an exhibit of paintings by Armenian artist Garen Petrossyan and film shows.

During the days of the Festival, an international conference entitled “The Armenian Genocide and crimes against humanity” took place at the University of Moncton.

 

 

 

There is no need in deploying peacekeepers in the Karabakh conflict zone, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia, Colonel General Yuri Khachaturov said at the opening of the “Enduring Brotherhood 2015” exercises in Armenia.

“We are able to deter Azeri provocations ourselves,” Khachaturov said. According to him, the Azerbaijani side has used thousands of missiles and mines over the past 15 days, which have exploded in Armenian civilian settlements 10 km away from the frontline.

“We have given a worthy response. They have serious losses,” Khachaturov said, adding that “unlike Azerbaijan, the Armenian side refrains from shelling the villages.”

He noted that representatives of the Ministry of Defense visit the frontline, meet the villagers and inform about the measures taken.

“However, it’s impossible to fully exclude the incidents, as the rival uses mortars and howitzers,” Yuri Khachaturov said.

The Chief of General Staff underlined that on many occasions the Armenian side has offered Azerbaijan to pull back the snipers, investigate every case of killing of civilians, but Baku turns down all suggestions.

As for the lack of appropriate response from the CSTO command, the Colonel General said it would be welcome. “We are part of the same security system. We do not ask for help, but human support would be welcome,” Khachaturov said.

OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs will hold a meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in September to discuss organizing a presidential meeting this year.

“The co-chairs will bring the foreign ministers together on the margins of the UN General Assembly in September. We will discuss with the ministers the possibility of holding the next presidential summit later this year,” James Warlick, the U.S. representative to the OSCE Minsk Group, told AzerNews.

Commenting on the recent escalation of tension along the contact line of Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, Warlick said the co-chairs continue to propose confidence-building measures for ensuring the ceasefire regime.

“For most of the year, the situation along the Line of Contact and Armenia-Azerbaijan border has been relatively stable. We have appealed to the sides to reduce tensions and strictly respect the ceasefire. We also continue to propose confidence-building measures that would reinforce the ceasefire, creating a more positive environment for negotiations that could lead to a settlement,” Warlick said.