Author: Eduard Nalbandian

On 13 July Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan received Anahit Abad, director of the first Armenian-Iranian joint documentary-feature film being made in Artsakh and production manager Roubina Ghazaryan.

The President highlighted this initiative from the viewpoint of preparing various valuable materials on Artsakh and introducing them to the general public, noting that it would have a positive contribution to the development of culture in our republic.
NKR minister of culture and youth affairs Narine Aghabalyan partook at the meeting.

Rare, moving images of survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide will be shown in Bologna on Thursday as part of the 29th edition of the city’s “Cinema Ritrovato” (Rediscovered Cinema) festival, Agence France-Presse reports. 

A significant historical source that was discovered completely by chance, buried away and forgotten in the US Library of Congress, the silent film dates from 1923 and includes images of children packed onto boats in Turkey and lines of refugees trudging along roads.

The film is being shown as part of a selection intended to honour Armenian cinema a century after the beginning of the slaughter of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turkish forces.

Also on show during the festival are “Namus” (Honour), a 1925 work by Hamo Beknazarian that is considered the first Armenian film, “Sayat Nova” (The Color of Pomegranates) a 1969 film by Sergei Paradjanov and “Naapet”, Henrik Malyan’s 1980 film about a genocide survivor.

Other rare documentary images include a five-minute film shot by the French army of Armenian refugees in camps at Port Said in Egypt.

But the jewel in the festival’s crown is the four minutes of “Armenia, Cradle of Humanity” shot in Turkey soon after the end of the killing – a time thought previously to have only been recorded in still images such as those of German photographer Armin Wegner.

Mariann Lewinsky, one of the festival’s curators, came upon the film by “a miracle” as she clicked through the internet data base of the International Federation of Film Archives (Fiaf).

Who shot the film and how it got to the Oregon Historical Society before being deposited in the Congress library is a mystery, says the Swiss researcher as she runs the recently-restored reel.

“I sent a little email to my colleagues in the library and they told me, ‘Yes we have something, but we don’t know what.’

“I insisted a bit and asked if I could come and see the condition of the film.”

Normally such a demand would take a bit of time to get a response but Lewinsky was quickly sent some photos and a telephone contact number. “The images were extraordinary, boats full of children, trains.”

Having obtained the reel, she quickly dated it to 1923, but her first thought was the people shown could be displaced Greeks – a theory that was dropped when she recognised a well-known Istanbul palace in the background of one shot.

Colleagues confirmed that, after the end of World War One, British forces assembled Armenian orphans in the building for evacuation.

“It is a miracle,” Lewinsky said.

A century on, Lewinsky believes a new Turkey is emerging in which Kurds, Greeks, Armenians and ethnic Turks are moving towards “moments of reconciliation”.

Films like “Armenia, Cradle of Humanity” can only help this process, she says, invoking her hope that it could be shown at a small silent film festival in Istanbul in the near future.

On June 12 Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian received the delegation of Iranian lawmakers led by Ali Kaidi.

Minister Nalbandian hailed the good-neighborly relations between Armenia and Iran and emphasized the importance of regular political dialogue between both executive and legislative authorities.

The head of the Iranian delegation conveyed the greetings of Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani to the Armenian Foreign Minister. He noted that the centuries-old friendly relations between Armenia and Iran provide a good basis for the development of cooperation in different spheres.

The parties attached importance to the role of Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Groups for the reinforcement and expansion of relations between the two countries.

Minister Nalbandian expressed gratitude for the kind attitude of the authorities towards the Iranian Armenian community and the Armenian cultural heritage in Iran. He also stressed the importance of the presence of Armenian MPs in the Iranian Parliament.

Ali Kaidi briefed the Armenian Foreign Minister on Iran’s nuclear program and the negotiations on the issue.

The interlocutors exchanged views on a number of urgent regional issues.

A Moroccan education group is reportedly suing Jennifer Lopez over her recent concert in the conservative north African nation, reports.

According to TMZ, the lawsuit claims that the 45-year-old singer’s racy dance moves and costumes “disturbed public order and tarnished women’s honor and respect.”

Lopez performed for 160,000 people at the Mawazine Festival in Rabat on May 29, though the gossip site said that concert differed little from Lopez’s stage shows in the United States and elsewhere.

Lopez’s appearance generated widespread criticism after it was broadcast on public television, with Morocco’s Justice and Development Party calling the show a “breach of public decency.”

The Moroccan minister of communication has refused calls for him to resign over the incident but promised to discuss it with the television station’s ethics committee.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the Syrian and Armenian people face the same challenges and dangers, SANA reports.

The President’s remarks came during a meeting on Thursday with the visiting delegation of the Armenian-Syrian Friendship Association at the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, headed by the Association’s President Tachat Vardapetyan.

Drawing parallels between the dangers facing the people of Syria and Armenia, the President said the Ottomans who committed massacres against the Armenian people a hundred years ago are today represented by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government, using the same tools, mainly terrorism, against the Syrian people.

He warned against the expansive threat of terrorism on the entire Middle East region and the world, saying terrorism “knows no border and doesn’t stop at the frontier of this or that country.”

That’s why parliaments, in their position as representatives of peoples, are called upon to take effective action to pressure the international community into adopting an efficacious policy against terrorism and the obscurantist thinking for the sake of not just the Syrian people but also the peoples of the region and the world, the President added.

Vardapetyan, for his part, stressed that the Armenian people stand by the side of the people of Syria in the face of the regionally-backed terrorist war waged on them, voicing confidence that Syria will get over this war and rout terrorism and its backers.

Talks during the meeting highlighted that further developing the relations between the National Assembly of Armenia and the Syrian People’s Assembly would help in consolidating the relationship between the two countries.

Chairman of the Syrian-Armenian Friendship Association at the People’s Assembly Butrus Marjaneh and Armenia’s Ambassador in Damascus Arshak Poladian attended the meeting.

A Belgian municipal agent in charge of ”street peacekeeping” in Molenbeek, a commune of Brussels, will be fired after he said on Facebook that he would kill “each and every Jew,” the reports. 

“The word Jew itself is dirty. If I were in Israel, frankly, I would do to the Jews what they do with the Palestinians — slaughter each and every one of them,” Mohamed N., who used the pseudonym Bebeto Gladiateur, wrote on Friday during a debate on the social network.

The comment came during a discussion about a Brussels MP of Turkish origin who was excluded from her party for not acknowledging the Armenian genocide.

Mohamed N. tried to divert the conversation over to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but was reprimanded by the thread’s initiator.

His comments caused an uproar.” This is very serious and unacceptable ”, said Francoise Schepmans, mayor of Molenbeek, a commune with a large Muslim population,” adding that the anti-Semitic remarks are all the more unacceptable that they are made by a person who plays the role of mediator in the streets of the town. ‘’They are the image of communal authority.’’

“It is obvious that we cannot tolerate that and I have launched a dismissal procedure,’’ she said.

I decided to launch a dismissal procedure,” she added

By Harut Sassounian
The California Courier

In a lengthy article titled, “10 members of Congress took trip secretly funded by foreign government,” The Washington Post disclosed last week the scandalous details of an all-expenses paid trip to a conference in Azerbaijan by 10 lawmakers and 32 staff members in 2013. Former top aides to Pres. Obama — Robert Gibbs, Jim Messina and David Plough – also attended the conference as guest speakers.

The organizer of the international oil gathering in Baku, SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, funneled $750,000 through two U.S. nonprofit organizations “to conceal the source of the funding” for the trip, according to a confidential Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) report obtained by The Washington Post. Another $750,000 was contributed by British Petroleum, ConocoPhillips and KBR for airfare, hotel and gifts.

The newspaper also reported that “shortly before the May 28-29, 2013 conference, SOCAR and several large energy companies [including the National Iranian Oil Company] sought exemptions for a $28 billion natural gas pipeline in the Caspian Sea from U.S. economic sanctions being imposed on Iran.” In fact, a month before the conference, SOCAR established the nonprofit Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ) in Houston by transferring $750,000. The second nonprofit involved in the scheme, also based in Houston, was the Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians (TCAE). Both nonprofits, headed by Kemal Oksuz, shared the same Houston address. Congress approved several bills sanctioning Iran, while exempting the SOCAR project. Pres. Obama then signed these bills into law.

The ten members of Congress who went on the Baku junket were: Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Danny Davis (D-IL), Michelle Grisham (D- NM), Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Ted Poe (R-TX), and Steve Stockman (R-TX).

Ethics investigators disclosed that these lawmakers, accompanied by spouses and fiancés, received several gifts, including “crystal tea sets, briefcases, silk scarves, turquoise earrings, gold-painted plates and Azerbaijani rugs…. All lawmakers received at least one rug and some got two, one prayer-size and one area rug. Many staff members also received rugs.”

To justify their illegal or improper actions, some of these lawmakers made ridiculous statements to congressional investigators:

— Cong. Davis stated that during the Baku conference he “received one rug which was delivered to his hotel room.” He said he was thinking about donating the rug to a museum or charity!

— Cong. Hinojosa claimed: “I received souvenirs of what I believed to be of minimal value and in compliance with the House Gift rule.”

— Ladan Ahmadi, spokeswoman for Rep. Meeks, stated that the Congressman “understood the rug to be a permissible courtesy gift.”

— A senior staff member of Rep. Lance told The Washington Post that the Congressman “returned the one rug he received after he got back to Washington. The staff member also said Lance received a pair of earrings and reimbursed the nonprofit group that helped organize the conference $100 immediately upon returning to New Jersey.”

— Cong. Grisham told ethics investigators that she did not disclose the rugs because she did not think they were particularly valuable. She also thought they were unattractive: “It’s not a carpet I would have purchased.”

— Cong. Bridenstine was the only lawmaker who disclosed the rugs on his financial report. “He had them appraised: the smaller rug at $2,500 and the larger at $3,500.”

Quoting from the ethics report, The Washington Post revealed that Reps. Clarke, Grisham, Hinojosa, Lance, and their staff members also “took side trips to Turkey, traveling to Istanbul, Ankara or both…. The Bosphorus Atlantic Cultural Association of Friendship and Cooperation, a Turkish nonprofit organization, covered the expenses, the report said. The lawmakers did not disclose the role of that nonprofit.”

The Office of Congressional Ethics concluded that “SOCAR and AFAZ provided gifts in the form of impermissible travel expenses to congressional travelers in violation of House rules, regulations and federal law,” while “members of Congress who traveled to Turkey accepted payment of travel expenses from impermissible sources, resulting in an impermissible gift, in violation of House rules and regulations.” Furthermore, the investigators reported that five nonprofits affiliated with the Azerbaijani government asserted that they sponsored the conference, filing sworn statements with the Ethics Committee in April and May 2013. “The five sponsoring organizations contributed no funding for the congressional travel in spite of false affirmations on the forms they submitted to the Committee on Ethics.” The Washington Post reported that these findings have been referred to the House Ethics Committee for investigation of possible violation of congressional rules and federal laws that bar foreign governments from trying to influence U.S. policy.

It is deeply troubling that members of Congress are willing to sell their souls to corrupt Azerbaijani and Turkish entities for a free rug!

Luxembourg Ambassador to Ankara Arlette Conzemius has defended the Luxembourg parliament’s move to recognize the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as genocide by underlining the existence of the democratic system in her country, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

“There is a democratic system in our parliament and our lawmakers are free to express their opinions as their democratic right,” Conzemius told reporters in the eastern province of Erzurum May 8. Turkey condemned Luxembourg and withdrew its ambassador in reaction to the Luxembourg parliament’s resolution on May 6 to describe the 1915 incidents as genocide.

“There is a strong relationship between the government of Luxembourg and Turkey. We are planning to continue this strong relationship. As I said earlier, parliament is free to make decisions. I cannot say anything about it because of democracy but Luxembourg does continue to support Turkey’s EU harmonization process.

We will continue this support as well. We are also planning to be a facilitator in the Turkish-Armenian relationship,” she said.

In response to a Social Media Campaign run by this organisation, Armenia Media Inc., over 100 Sydney businesses that are Armenian-owned CLOSED FOR APRIL 24 to honour the memory of the 1.5 million Armenians who perished during the Armenian Genocide 100 years ago, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia.

The Armenian Genocide Centenary Commemoration Committee – Australia had prepared signs for these businesses, which would advise passers-by and customers why the business was closed on April 24th, which is not a recognised Public Holiday in Australia.
“The response was unbelievable,” said Armenia Media Managing Editor, Nerses Baliozian. “Dozens of businesses sent us pictures of the signs outside their premises, while many simply advised us they were closed.”
“We have calculated that well over 1,000 Armenian employers and employees took the day off in memory of their fallen ancestors, and this sends a very strong message to the current denialist forces running Turkey,” Baliozian added. “The message is that 100 years is nowhere near the end of our battle for justice.”

Many of those taking the day off were part of the reason there were record attendances at the Protest Against Denial at the Turkish Consulate and the National Armenian Genocide Centenary Commemoration Evening at the Sydney Town Hall.

“The Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan are willing to meet more frequently,” US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick said in an interview with the Voice of America.

“We have no date yet, but both Presidents have declared they would like to intensify the dialogue. We are looking for an opportunity now to organize such a discussion,” he said.

“The role of the Co-Chairs is to frame that discussion,” he said, adding that the mediators hope to visit the region soon to prepare the meeting of the Presidents.

Positively assessing the results of the recent meeting with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, Warlick said “I believe both President Sargsyan and President Aliyev are willing to solve the issue through negotiations.”

“The conflict has claimed too many human lives. We want to put an end to this,” the Co-Chair said.

Warlick did not rule out that the Co-Chairs could hold meetings in Nagorno Karabakh during the forthcoming visit.