Author: Paul Hambardsumian

Photo:  Sputnik/ Sergey Guneev

 

Armenian Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan has said Russia’s base in Gyumri is “a very important component” of Yerevan’s security strategy.

Manchester United midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan has thanked Jurgen Klopp for the advice that helped him through a tough start to his Old Trafford career

Liverpool boss Klopp counselled the player through a difficult time when they were at Borussia Dortmund in 2013.

Earlier this season, Mkhitaryan, 28, did not play in the league for 10 weeks and remembered Klopp’s previous advice.

“I am thankful to Klopp. He worked on my personality and the psychological part,” he told .

The Armenian spent two seasons working under Klopp in Germany before the coach quit, later taking over at Liverpool in October 2015.

Within eight months, the playmaker was following his old boss to the Premier League, joining United for a reported £26.3m.

However, after being substituted at half-time during United’s 2-1 home defeat by Manchester City on 10 September, he did not play in the Premier League again until 27 November.

“At Dortmund, I was very stressed after a few games when we were playing really bad,” added Mkhitaryan, who has scored five times this season.

“Klopp showed me the way. He supported me and told me I had to keep my head up because good things were coming. He helped me to become a player.”

However, he says Klopp is a different person to United manager Jose Mourinho.

“They are both very friendly and very good at their jobs but the way they work is different.

“It is the first year under Jose’s management and we are working very hard. He tells us what he wants to see. Of course, it is not very easy when you have a new manager.

“You have to adapt to him and the team, the training sessions and the games. At the beginning we had a little bit of difficulties but then we started winning in November.”

The move to the Premier League was another step on a remarkable journey for Mkhitaryan, who speaks six languages – including English – and is the son of one of Armenia’s most famous footballers.

Father Hamlet was also an Armenian international and one of the first players from the country to play outside of the old Soviet Union. He died of a brain tumour when Mkhitaryan was seven.

“He was my drive, my goal, my dream,” he said. “I did not feel the true impact when he died but I knew that he was watching me from the sky. He has to be very proud.”

 

Photo: Getty Images

 

Donald Trump is set to be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.

Hundreds of thousands of supporters and protesters are travelling to Washington DC for the event.

Thousands of police have been deployed and many kilometres of crowd barriers set up as part of a vast security operation, according to the

Addressing supporters on Thursday night at a pre-inaugural concert, Mr Trump pledged to unify America, bring change and make the country great “for all of our people”.

Meanwhile in New York, thousands of people attended a rally where dozens of celebrities and politicians voiced their concerns about the president-elect.

Mr Trump will be sworn in before midday local time (17:00 GMT) by Chief Justice John Roberts, and make his inaugural speech.

The ceremony will be attended by former presidents and first ladies, including Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, Mr Trump’s opponent in the recent election.

The only absences will be 92-year-old George Bush Senior, who is in hospital being treated for respiratory problems, and his wife Barbara.

DEPO PHOTOS/AP

 

A Turkish Airlines cargo plane from Hong Kong has crashed in Kyrgyzstan, killing at least 32 people, most of them on the ground, say officials, the BBC reports.

The Boeing 747 crashed into homes near Manas airport, about 25km (15 miles) north of the capital, Bishkek, the Kyrgyz government said.

Several buildings were destroyed, and a number of children are reported to have been among those killed.

The flight was making a stopover at Manas en route to Istanbul in Turkey.

It came down at 07:31 local time (01:31 GMT) in the populated area.

Armenian athletes have won 170 medals in European and World Championships in 2016, including four Olympic ones.

Greco-Roman wrestler Artur Alekasnyan won the first Olympic gold for Armenia after a break of 20 years. Greco-Roman wrestler Mihran Harutyunyan, weightlifters Simon Martirosyan and Gor Minasyan won silver medals.

The Armenian athletes have won 10 gold, 11 silver and 20 bronze medals in world championships.

37 gold, 46 silver and 42 bronze medals have been won at European championships. There are 7 athletes with disabilities among the medalists.

PHOTO: XINHUA

 

At least 40 people have been killed when a platform collapsed at a construction site in China’s Jiangxi province.

The accident took place at a power plant in Fengcheng where a cooling tower was under construction.

There were a number of people still trapped at the scene, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.

Jiangxi province’s fire services said 32 fire trucks and 212 soldiers had been deployed.

A total of 68 people were at the construction site at the time of the accident.

Asbarez – Professor Taner Akçam of Clark University will give a lecture entitled “The Memoir of Naim Bey and Talat Pasha Telegrams: Are They ‘Armenian Forgeries’?” on Sunday, November 20, 2016, at 4pm, at the Ararat-Eskijian Museum, Sheen Chapel, 15105 Mission Hills Road, Mission Hills, California. The program is sponsored by the Ararat-Eskijian Museum, the Armenian Bar Association, the Organization of Istanbul Armenians, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).

In 1920-21, author and editor Aram Andonian published a book known in English as The Memoirs of Naim Bey and in Armenian as Medz Vojirě (The Great Crime). It contained the writings of an Ottoman official and telegrams from Talat Pasha containing orders for the killing of Armenians.

In 1983, Turkish authors Sinasi Orel and Sureyya Yuca published a book to establish that the memoir was fake and the telegrams were forgeries. The argument had three main pillars: 1) there was no such person as Naim Bey; 2) there is no actual memoir, since a non-existing person cannot write a memoir; and 3) the so-called Talat Pasha telegrams, like the alleged memoir, were invented by Andonian.

Although noted researcher Father Krikor Guerguerian (Kriger) in 1965 published a detailed examination of Andonian’s published and unpublished materials and Vahakn N. Dadrian in 1986 published a lengthy response to Orel and Yuca, in general the scholarly world ceased using the memoir and telegrams as trustworthy sources. Until now, the claims against Andonian have remained unanswered and became the cornerstone of denialism.

Akçam risked venturing into this highly disputed territory and pursued the matter to its necessary conclusion, seeking out the archival sources and documents needed for a proper scholarly assessment.  The first results of his research will be presented in this lecture and in a book to be published in Turkish later this fall.  The question must be asked: Is it time to remove one of the last bricks in the denialist wall and watch the façade crumble?

Akçam is the author of From Empire To Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide, A Shameful Act: the Armenian Genocide and Turkish Responsibility, and The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, as well as other works in the English and Turkish Languages. Since 2008, he has been the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marian Mugar Professor of Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University in Worcester, MA.

On October 18-19, the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan hosted a two-day workshop, bringing together Armenian and Georgian government officials and NGOs to exchange best practices in controlling the flow of weapons of mass destruction, delivery systems, and conventional weaponry.

During the workshop, organized by the Embassy’s Export Control and Related Border Security Program (EXBS), policymakers and technical experts from both countries shared the methods they currently employ to inform exporting industries about the latest regulations, procedures, and export requirements related to dual-use technology (which can be used for both weaponry and peaceful purposes). The Armenian and Georgian officials also learned new ways to safeguard dual-use technology from being transferred to proliferating states and terrorist groups.

Twenty representatives from relevant Armenian and Georgian agencies, U.S. Department of Energy officials, and NGOs from both countries discussed the mutual challenges they face and the approaches they have undertaken to achieve their goals.  They also discussed the important role that NGOs can play in educating businesses and governments on export controls. “Having agencies from both countries discuss how they reach out to export industries allows for mutual good practices among these neighboring countries to be shared. Also, the chance to network with each other’s counterparts in such a setting strengthens the bilateral relationship between Armenia and Georgia. This workshop provides a basis for future discussions on other relevant export control issues,” said Ashley Fullenwider, the principal Political Science Analyst from the Argonne National Laboratory.

The EXBS program takes a regional and multilateral approach to help harmonize national export control systems with international standards and facilitate information-sharing among nations.

Administered by the Department of State, EXBS operates in more than 65 countries, and is designed to strengthen a country’s export control system by providing legal and regulatory advice, training of licensing officials, enforcement and interdiction equipment, and industry-to-government outreach. Better export control systems help fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, conventional weapons, and related materials.

Armenia has welcomed the French bill making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide.

“We welcome the adoption by the French Senate of a bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide, which had been approved by the National Assembly in summer,” Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said in a statement.

“With this step France once again reiterates its valuable role in the condemnation of genocides committed in the past, the fight against denial and the prevention of new crimes against humanity,” Minister Nalbandian said.

The French Senate  voted 156 to 146 today to pass a bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

“First and foremost, the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh issue is aimed at the determination of the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh through the legally binding expression of will of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan said in response to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s statement on Nagorno Karabakh.

“Another attempt of the Foreign Minister of Turkey to distort the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiation process proves once again what we have been emphasized on numerous occasions that Turkey should be kept away from the settlement process as far as possible,” Shavarsh Kocharyan said in comments to “First News Service” of Public TV.

Regarding the Turkish Foreign Minister’s statement on the normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations, then if

Referring to Cavusoglu’s statement on the normalization of relations with Armenia, the Deputy FM said: “If Ankara really wanted to normalize relations with Armenia, it would have then ratified and implemented the Armenian-Turkish protocols signed back in 2009 in Zurich.”