Author: Hovsep Chakrian

A trilateral meeting between the Presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan has started in St. Petersburg, Armenian President’s Spokesman Vladimir Hakobyan informs in a Twitter post.

Prominent Greeks of Armenian and Pontic descent were honored during a special ceremony held at the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens on Saturday, which culminated a series of events organized by the ministry of defense to mark the anniversary of the Pontic Greek and Armenian genocide in the early 20th century, according to Greek Reporter. 

“The genocide of Pontic Greeks and Armenians remains in collective memory as one of the most horrific crimes of the last century, but also as a crime for which, after so many years, justice has not been served,” Defense Minister Panos Kammenos in his speech.

He also urged all parties involved to continue fight for international recognition of the event.

Addressing the event, the Vice-President of the Armenian National Assembly, Edward Sharmazanov said:

“The Genocide of Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire and Kemalist Turkey is considered to be one of the greatest disasters of the previous century, that has taken lives of innocent Greeks. It is a great honour for me to be here and address you as a descendent of both nations who survived the Greek and Armenian Genocide.

A century ago hundreds of thousands of Pontic Greeks were massacred by the Turkish Government, thousands of Christian monuments were destroyed. This was not a mere crime against the Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians: this was a crime against humanity.

Since then only a few have raised the importance of condemning the actions of the Ottoman Empire against its Christian population. Amongst them is the Republic of Armenia and I am deeply grateful for your appreciation of my humble contribution to our mutual mission. I would like to inform you that 2 days ago the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic became the fifth country in the world which recognized and condemned the Genocide of Pontic Greeks in the Ottoman Empire and Kemalist Turkey.

Unfortunately, Turkey continues its policy of denial. Moreover, not only it denies its former crimes but also commits new ones by keeping occupied 38 percent of the Cyprus territory and supporting both the Islamic State in the Middle East and Azerbaijani aggression against the peaceful people of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

We should realise that the atrocities committed in the Ottoman Empire a century ago, the beheadings in the Middle East as well as the inhumane actions of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic today are of the same nature.

Let us not forget that impunity leads to new crimes and the application of double standards is unacceptable. Therefore, I urge you to unite against the threat of terrorism, fascism and panturkism. I believe that only in unity we can withstand and overcome the threat of nowadays Taleats, Kemals and Hitlers. I call on people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds to recognize and condemn the Genocide of the Christian population in the Ottoman Empire, and particularly the Genocide of Greeks, as well as to condemn the Turkish denial policy.”

Photo: AP

At least 65 people have been killed in multiple blasts in Syrian government coastal strongholds, reports say, the BBC reports.

Explosions hit the cities of Tartous and Jableh. Several of the blasts were suicide bombings, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

State media said packed bus stations and a hospital were among the targets.

Attacks of this scale are rare in these areas. A news agency linked to so-called Islamic State (IS) says the jihadist group was behind the attacks.

Senior House Foreign Affairs Committee member Brad Sherman (D-CA) on Wednesday called on the State Department to conduct a “Leahy Law” investigation of Azerbaijani war crimes committed during the April 2-7 attacks against Nagorno-Karabakh, and urged an immediate suspension of military aid to Baku, citing the Aliyev regime’s ongoing attacks on Armenia and Artsakh, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

“We echo Congressman Sherman’s call for a thorough Leahy Law investigation of Azerbaijani atrocities,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.  “The leaders of our State Department would clearly be derelict in their duties if they did not adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Leahy Law, a statute enacted not only to prevent international atrocities, but also to protect us, as Americans, from having our tax dollars used by foreign forces to commit human rights atrocities.”

In a May 18th letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Rep. Sherman urged that “pursuant to your obligations under 22 U.S. Code § 2378d (d) to seek out and evaluate credible information about human rights abuses by foreign security forces, you quickly and thoroughly investigate allegations that the Azerbaijani armed forces committed human rights abuses during the conflict with Nagorno-Karabakh from April 2 – 7.”  He went on to urge that U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan be immediately suspended, arguing that “the Aliyev government continues to launch cross-border attacks against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, regularly threatens to renew hill-scale hostilities, and refuses U.S. and international calls to pull back snipers. Azerbaijan neither needs nor deserves American military aid.”

The European Broadcasting Union has issued a statement in response to the petition on  calling for the results of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest to be revised:

The 2016 Eurovision Song Contest was a spectacular show and a testament to a year of hard work by so many people from so many countries. The live shows were world-class television productions with a thriller climax on Saturday night.

We understand the passions and emotions that are engendered through the Eurovision Song Contest. In light of this, we have taken notice of your petition and appreciate this opportunity to respond.

The winner of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest was decided by music industry professionals and you, viewers at home, each with a 50 percent stake in the result. Ukraine’s Jamala won, thanks to broad support from both the juries as well as televoters. She did so with an outstanding performance of an emotional song, telling a personal story.

Australia’s Dami Im won the jury vote and Russia’s Sergey Lazarev won the televoting. They both deserve credit for their world-class performances, their great songs and for taking their loss as true professionals. They may not have won the contest, but responded to the outcome as winners. We respect and appreciate them for that.

The Eurovision Song Contest is a competition. There can only be one winner. We understand that not everyone agrees with the outcome of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest however in a competition where the results are decided based on a subjective and often very personal opinions, there will always be people who do not agree. Regardless of this, the result remains valid by all means, in accordance with the rules as they were known to each participating broadcaster, each artist and each dedicated fan.

Ukraine is, and will remain, the winner of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest. Whether you agree or disagree, we call upon those who signed this petition to embrace the result, valid in accordance with the rules, and to continue a constructive dialogue about how to further strengthen and improve the Eurovision Song Contest.

The Human Rights Defender of Nagorno Karabakh, Ruben Melikyan, has addressed an open letter to organizers of Eurovision Song Contest 2016:

Dear ladies and gentlemen of the EBU and the Reference Group,

My name is Ruben Melikyan. I am the elected Human Rights Defender of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), a democracy located between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan. I should proudly and humbly protect the freedom and human rights of the Nagorno-Karabakh people, approximately 150 000 peaceful civilians — men, women, children and elderly — all living between two European countries. I am a European, whose country is denied access to the European community and whose flag has found itself amidst anger, fear, embarrassment, shame, and most importantly, apathy. This resulted in your official statement of May 11 of 2016.

First of all, on behalf of the people of Karabakh, I would like to express my strong disagreement with your statement’s language that described the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a mere territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We, the people of the NKR, have been exercising our fundamental and undeniable right to self-determination since 1991 by declaring and defending our independence from Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan. It was done in full conformity with International Law and then-applicable Soviet Constitutional Law. Thus, your description of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is inaccurate and offensive to my people, and adds injury to an insult.

Secondly, I would like to kindly draw your attention to the events of April 2-5, 2016, which probably determined the song contestant’s very understandable personal motivation to exhibit the NKR National flag.

I’d also like to kindly draw your attention to the facts, well-documented in the Interim Public Report of the NKR Human Rights Defender, recording all the atrocities and violations committed by Azerbaijani military forces from April 2 to April 5 of 2016.
We documented beheadings that happened in Europe, murders and dismemberments of elderlies that happened in Europe, intensive shelling of schools and dwellings that happened in Europe just 40 days ago. And as a responsible European, who cares about European values and seeks democracy and peace, the song contestant merely called for peace and unity amidst these barbaric atrocities by exhibiting the flag of the NKR, for the people who have lost their lives, just 40 days ago, on a land that is our home. Nevertheless, you threatened to sanction the participant, silencing an adequate and humble expression of her freedom of speech.
Europe is united over the values of fundamental human rights, and at the core of these values is freedom of speech. As the subject of the speech is of extraordinary importance, there should not be any restriction whatsoever for freedom of expression. ISIS-style beheadings and other terrible war crimes of Azerbaijani armed forces were committed just 40 days ago, and Azerbaijan is threatening openly to repeat them if my people do not obey the rule of Azerbaijani Republic, a country with state-fueled policy of Armenophobia.

Ladies and gentlemen,
These circumstances can be named no other way but extraordinary. Accordingly your statement on enforcement of your Rule 1.2.2h can be named no other way but an overreaction to a mere reminder of the situation by a mere exhibition of a National Flag.

I kindly call for your conscious as Europeans to remember the fundamental values of Europe, incorporated in the teachings of John Locke, Voltaire, Kant, and not of the likes of Hitler and Mussolini. I kindly call upon you to take the side of peace and unity. And finally I kindly ask you to remain in the framework of the Song Contest format and to not enter the field of international politics.

The interior of the Armenian Taverna needs to be spot listed as The Manchester Museum of The 1970s, Jonathan Schofield  writes in an article published by .

The Armenian Taverna carries all the tropes of the ’70s and much more with a big fat extra dollop of wonderfulness.

An absurd muralt stretches around much of the Albert Square basement dining room. You also get signed pictures across other walls of ‘celebs’ who visited the Armenian.

Thing is with the Armenian Taverna there are no recent pictures of celebs and there are a few obvious gaps where perhaps the pictures of Jimmy Saville, Stuart Hall and Rolf Harris have been removed.

“I want the Armenian Taverna to still be around in another 48 years – with the same murals. If not, I want a museum to buy the decor and exhibit it, to show off the utterly bizarre taste of the late sixties and early seventies. Remember this isn’t some kitsch recreation of the period from some jaded marketing team, this is the real crazy and crazed deal,” Jonathan Schofield writes.

By Frank J. Perez

Denying acts of genocide is morally irresponsible and dangerous, especially when it becomes entrenched in a country’s fabric. This is the case with Turkey. For over a century it has buried the truth about the Armenian Genocide, while attempting to persuade the world that a charnel house was never built nor occupied on its land.

An ad in last week’s Mercury News was an effort to perpetuate the falsehoods and dissuade inquiry into Turkey’s dark history. But indisputable facts underscore what scholars have declared was the 20th century’s first genocide.

The Armenian experience within the Ottoman Empire, as Turkey was formerly called, was one of marginalization, persecution and violence.

A Christian minority living in a Muslim country, Armenians historically lacked political clout and protection. Extortion by corrupt tax collectors, land theft and government-sanctioned kidnapping of young Armenian boys for military service and of young girls for satisfying war-weary soldiers was common.

Far removed from Istanbul — then the seat of power — Armenian enclaves formed in eastern Anatolia. Angry over their status as second-class citizens, dissident voices called for rebellion in the 1890s. The short-lived revolt was silenced by Kurdish mercenaries hired by the empire’s leader, Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The killings, known as the Hamidian Massacres, resulted in over 200,000 deaths.

In 1908, the sultan’s rule ended with the arrival of the Committee on Union and Progress, or Young Turks, a political party that proclaimed, “A Turkey for Turks.” Nationalism was to eclipse ethnic divisions and religious differences. For once it seemed, Armenians would stand as equals on Turkish soil.

But when World War I erupted along the Eastern Front, inclusion gave way to exclusion, and later genocide.

The Young Turks blamed the country’s loses in battle on the Armenian soldiers within the ranks. Consorting with the enemy – Russia – was the charge. Stripped of weapons, the dishonored troops were assigned to work battalions. The government then extended condemnation to all Armenians, paving the way for a bloodbath.

On April 24, 1915, more than 200 Armenian intellectuals were rounded up and hanged. Sunday marked the anniversary, and for the 101 years since, Turkey has tried to stop the bleeding that pours from historically accepted versions of the truth.

The hangings led to systematic executions of Armenian community leaders and able-bodied men. Towns and villages were then liquidated, as their inhabitants were led on death marches. Ripped away from parents, children were “adopted” by Turkish families that changed their identities and often forced them into servitude. Indiscriminate rape was wielded as a weapon.

Nearly 60 percent of the Armenian population — 1.5 million — perished at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. While the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the accepted definition of genocide, didn’t exist in 1915, the historical record is clear that the Turkish government was complicit in genocidal acts.

Unlike Germany, Turkey has never acknowledged its blood-stained past. Denial is championed, while voicing culpability is criminalized.

Sadly, President Obama bolstered Turkey’s impunity once again, omitting the word genocide from a recent statement commemorating the events of 1915. Voters could change that by urging their representatives to pass House Resolution 154, a proposal calling upon the president to make Turkey finally own up.

The final destination for Armenians who survived the death marches was the Syrian desert, where their perpetrators forced them into a circular pattern. Walking aimlessly, thousands died.

Their sun-bleached bones dot the arid terrain still today — a reminder of lives lost and an exclamation point on the truth.

Frank J. Perez of Hollister is a world history teacher at San Benito High School who teaches about the Armenian Genocide and has developed an entire unit on genocide.

The Defense Ministry presents an intercepted recording of a phone conversation between two Azerbaijanis speaking about a number of casualties on the Azerbaijani side.

Defense Ministry Spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan shared the video on his Facebook page.

Members of parliament unanimously approved the motion – which is not binding on the government – by 278 votes to zero.

The vote in the 650-seat lower House of Commons calls on ministers to accept formally that IS actions against Christian, Yazidi and other religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq constitute genocide.

But Foreign Office junior minister Tobias Ellwood, who has specific responsibility for the Middle East, said it was up to the courts rather than the government to make such a judgement.

“I believe genocide has taken place, but as the prime minister (David Cameron) has said, genocide is a matter of legal rather than political opinion,” Ellwood said.

MPs from all parties urged Britain to use its position as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to get the situation referred to the International Criminal Court.