Author: Talar Tumanian

According to preliminary results, moderates and reformists have cemented victory in the Iranian parliamentary elections, while the conservatives have lost majority in Majlis. What are the implications for the Armenian community? Zorzhik Abrahamyan, one of the two Armenians elected to the Parliament says the community will form its approaches and attitudes on the basis of the platforms offered by the political forces.

The vote was the first in Iran after the sanctions were lifted. Zorzhik Abrahamyan says, however, “this does not mean end to sanctions.” He considers that negotiations will still continue, e.g. on issues of human rights.

Meanwhile, Abrahamyan noted that Iranians are excited about the lifting of the main financial sanctions, which opens up perspectives for the development and implementation of commercial and economic programs.

Karen Khanlaryan is another Armenian to be represented in the Iranian Parliament. Speaking to , the MP said he’s going to deepen and expand the current political course.  He will try to take the Armenian Genocide issue to higher podiums.

Khanlaryan said that the Iran-Armenia relations will be in the spotlight and added that the lifting of sanctions outlines new fields of cooperation.

WVS (the Worldwide Veterinary Service) along with its partners has successfully rescued the Gyumri Zoo lions. The Worldwide Veterinary Service (WVS) is a UK registered charity that provides a sustainable veterinary resource to assist animal charities throughout the world. From disaster emergency response to training and education, our aim is to provide a fast action veterinary response to charities and animals in need.

Last week, the (FPWC) in collaboration with the (WVS) organised the rescue of the Gyumri Zoo lioness Mery and her cubs Zita and Gita to the Caucasus Wildlife Refuge, a privately protected area managed by the FPWC.

Named “The World’s Saddest Zoo” by the Daily Mail, these beautiful animals were living in unbearable conditions, cramped in small dirty cages, displaying all the signs of creatures slowly being driven mad by their unnatural existence. These animals were starving, barely surviving only on scraps fed to them through bars by kind volunteers.

WVS quickly identified that swift action was required and despite the difficult weather conditions and snow, the transfer of the last inhabitants of Gyumri Zoo was managed seamlessly.

The lions are in a good physical and mental state after the adventurous experience. They are staying in heated cages until the quarantine station has been built. They will then remain there until they are ready to be moved to an appropriate facility outside of Armenia to live out the rest of their lives.

Gyumri Zoo lions are now part of a larger conservation picture. According to the memorandum signed between WVS and FPWC on February 2, 2016, the parties will work together towards in-situ conservation, animal rehabilitation and rescue initiatives in Armenia.

The construction of this quarantine station for animals in the Caucasus Wildlife Refuge, where the lions will be kept for vet examination and medicinal treatment, will mark yet another point of successful collaboration between FPWC and WVS. The quarantine station will also be the foundation stone of the Wildlife Rescue Centre, an even larger sustainable project the partners are currently designating.

It’s only because of the huge tide of support that WVS have received that this has been possible. It may only be the first step on a much bigger journey for Mery, Gita and Zita but getting them out of the ‘World’s Saddest Zoo’ asap was imperative and a brilliant achievement by all the teams concerned.

Bottles were thrown at Lokomotiv Moscow’s team bus and a Russian player sparked controversy on the pitch with a picture of Vladimir Putin on his vest in a game against Turkish side Fenerbahce on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports.

Turkish police detained three people after bottles were thrown as the bus headed for the Europa League match in Istanbul’s Sukru Saracoglu Stadium.

Police said the three people were drunk and that one of the bus’ windows was slightly cracked.

Turkish media reported that those responsible were Fenerbahce fans.

Lokomotiv is almost certain to face disciplinary action from European soccer’s ruling body after its midfielder Dmitri Tarasov pulled off his shirt to reveal a portrait of Putin and a slogan supporting the Russian president on his vest.

Beneath the portrait of Putin, who is wearing a Russian navy cap in the picture, the vest read in Russian: “The most polite president.”

Political statements are not allowed by UEFA at its competitions.

Tarasov later defended his behavior, telling Russian agency R-Sport: “It’s my president. I respect him and decided to show that I’m always with him and prepared to give my support.

“What was written on that shirt was everything that I wanted to say.”

Late last year, UEFA rejected calls to separate Russia and Turkey in the draw for this summer’s European Championship – and also the two countries’ clubs in the Europa League draws.

Tuesday’s first leg match was in the Europa League’s Round of 32.

Lokomotiv lost the game 2-0.

Congressman Adam Schiff on Thursday slammed Baku’s “authoritarian regime” after Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, citing Schiff’s interview with , told a press conference on Wednesday that he has instructed Baku’s Embassy in Washington to investigate State Department official Victoria Nuland’s role in the defeat, last month, of an anti-Karabakh measure at the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe.

Schiff, a Democrat representing California’s 28th Congressional district, told Asbarez editor Ara Khachatourian in an interview on Horizon Live last week, that ahead of the PACE vote in January he had spoken with “a top state department official, one of our ambassador’s in the region, to raise my concern over this pro Azeri narrative resolution that was being presented before PACE and to express my strong opposition.”

“Both the ambassador and [Assistant Secretary of the State for European and Eurasian Affairs] Victoria Nuland were working against it and I think they thought it was going to be a tough struggle, and frankly I’m thrilled that it was defeated,” Schiff told Khachatourian.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and other officials have taken offense at the reference about Nuland and her role in the defeat of the PACE resolution, authored by British member of parliament Robert Walter, who has gone on to receive Turkish citizenship.

News.az reported that Mammadyarov, during a press conference on Wednesday, expressed his anger and said that Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Washington is actively working with “Congress and the White House” to identify the Nuland’s role in the defeat of the PACE measure.

On Thursday, Schiff hit back at Mammadyarov’s statement saying in an email to Asbarez that “If Azerbaijan had any interest in a peaceful resolution to the conflict, they would agree to the installation of monitoring technologies on the Line of Contact, but instead they seem intent on ratcheting up tensions, pursuing symbolic resolutions and attacking those who speak out for peace.”

“Their actions, or the lack thereof, tell the story of an increasingly isolated and authoritarian regime seeking to use the Nagorno Karbakh conflict for its own domestic political purposes. I will continue to urge the Administration and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to speak frankly about Azerbaijan’s dangerous and provocative posture towards Artsakh,” added Schiff.

As was reported in Asbarez, Schiff appealed to Secretary of State John Kerryahead of the PACE vote to voice his opposition to the measure and ask Kerry to intervene.

“I don’t think it is the last of these kinds of motions we are going to see at PACE and we just have to continue to mobilize against it. Part of it not only had an Azeri narrative, but also one to change the composition of the group that would work on resolving the issues in the region that would stack the deck in favor of Azerbaijan,” Schiff told Khachatourian.

The Russian Foreign Ministry will study the inquiry of Russian parliamentarians on denouncing the Moscow Treaty of Friendship and Brotherhood with Turkey signed on March 16, 1921. Is this simple propaganda or an initiative that could lead to practical steps?

“Whatever the objective, the initiative should be welcomed,” head of the Modus Vivendi Center Ara Papyan says.  According to him, the treaty was an absurd from the very beginning.

If the treaty is annulled, Azerbaijan’s jurisdiction over Nakhijevan will come under question. According to Papyan, it will contribute to the development of Armenia’s relations with Iran. Armenia can raise the issue of Kars in the future, express a position on Woodrow Wilson’s Arbitral Award, under which the area to be returned to Armenia makes 100 sq. km.

According to Ruben Safrastyan, Director of the Oriental Studies Institute of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, even if Russia withdraws its signature from the treaty, it will in no way benefit Armenia. “The question is not about the Treaty of Kars, while it was under this treaty that Armenia was divided between Soviet Russia and Kemalist Turkey.  It was simply a deal,” he said.

Ruben Safrastyan does not share the opinion that Armenia will only suffer as a result of aggravating relations between Russia and Turkey. “What’s important for Armenia is to be ready for the development of events in order to be able to present its interests if necessary,” he said.

“No one will tell us ‘come and take your lands’,” Safrastyan said.

Senator Joe Bullock of Western Australia has delivered a speech in Australia’s Senate, blasting the anti-Armenian stance on Nagorno-Karabakh recently expressed by his fellow Federal Australian politician, MP for Cowan, Luke Simpkins, the Armenian National Committee of Australia reports.

Simpkins, the Chair of the Azerbaijan Australia Parliamentary Friendship Group, recently travelled to Azerbaijan as a guest of the petro-Dictatorship, and has since refused to meet with the Armenian side of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Despite this unbalanced approach, and despite the Australian media questioning his relations with Azerbaijan and his other activities abroad, Simpkins has remained steadfast in what the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC Australia) has called his “assumed role as the chief communicator of the Azeri propaganda in Australia’s Parliament”.

On the first 2016 sitting day of Parliament, Bullock spoke in Australia’s Senate, recalling his late-2015 meeting with an ANC Australia delegation headed by Republic of Nagorno Karabakh MP, Davit Ishkhanyan.

He proceeded to call out Simpkins’s “uncritical support for Azerbaijan”, sighting the history of the region of Nagorno-Karabakh and why this democracy does not deserve the treatment the West Australian MP is serving. In his speech, Bullock also acknowledged the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, as well as the rights to self-determination for the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh.

After highlighting the historical background of how Nagorno Karabakh was always Armenian, and explaining the oppressive Azeri regime forcing the Armenians of the region to vote for Independence in a referendum, Bullock said:

“To speak, as the Member for Cowan [Simpkins] has repeatedly done in the other place [House of Representatives], of the ‘illegal occupiers of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan’ is ludicrous. How can a people who have lived continuously in this region for centuries illegally occupy their own land?”

Bullock added: “Furthermore, such uncritical support for Azerbaijan’s absurd demand that this brave little nation commit suicide, dismantle its 25-year-old democracy and hand over its people to the tender mercies of the Azerbaijan government can only serve to strengthen the intransigence of the Azerbaijanis in refusing to recognise the reality of Nagorno-Karabakh’s nationhood.”

“As Nobel Peace prize winner Andrei Sakharov said in November 1989, shortly before his death: ‘For Azerbaijan the issue of Karabakh is a matter of ambition; for the Armenians of Karabakh, it is a matter of life or death’.”

Bullock concluded his powerful address by saying: “[Nazi Germany Propaganda Minister] Joseph Goebbels may have notoriously preferred guns to butter, but the Australian government needs to take care that its efforts to increase exports of butter to Azerbaijan do not result in the Azerbaijanis more confidently turning their guns onto the brave citizens of Nagorno-Karabakh.”

ANC Australia Executive Administrator, Arin Markarian welcomed the speech made by Senator Bullock in the Senate.

“It is refreshing that we have legislators in Australia like Senator Bullock, who received a visit from an Armenian delegation, then researched the issues we advocated, before reaching a conclusion on his own, which he has now communicated to Parliament,” said Markarian.

“He has shone a light on the plight of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, and advocated for their rights to self-determination on what is their native land.”

Markarian concluded: “We commend Senator Bullock for this, and for leading Australian political discourse on this issue back to the moral high ground, like Mr. John Alexander has done before him in the House of Representatives.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Ministry of Diaspora of the Republic of Armenia held a conference today on innovative approaches to diaspora engagement and use of remittances for child well-being in Armenia.

The conference was organized within the framework of the “Social Response to Labour Migration in Armenia” project, funded by the European Union and implemented by UNICEF in Armenia. The objective of the conference was to familiarize a wide range of stakeholders with innovative ways of diaspora engagement worldwide in various spheres of the country’s development, present the recently developed research on international experience and practices of the use of diaspora and migrants’ support for child-focused reforms and discuss their potential application in Armenia.

Diaspora and migrants’ support, complementary to official development strategies, policies and practice, has a great potential in contributing to local and social sector development and furtherance of new and alternative child-related reforms, including alleviating child poverty and benefitting the most vulnerable families and children.

Addressing the event, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Ashot Hovakimyan said the relations with the Diaspora are of great importance for Armenia.

“The conference is a good opportunity to discuss the innovative approaches towards Armenia-Diaspora cooperation strategy, and creation of a cooperation network for involving the Diaspora in the development of the Homeland,” he said.

An anti-Armenian graffiti appeared on the wall of the Armenian Kalfayan School in Istanbul on the 9^th anniversary of murder of Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, reports, quoting Turkish media.

The note reads “suffering to Armenians.”

The Kalafyan School was founded in 1866 by Srpuhi and Nshan Kalafyan

Armenian Ambassador in Damascus Arshak Poladian warned against the danger of the continuation of the unjust project which has been started from more than one hundred years ago by the Ottoman tyrants, who seek to obliterate the historical, civilizational, geographical and humanitarian roots of the Armenian people, SANA reports.

Ambassador Arshak, participating in a symposium held Sunday at Damascus-based Abu Rumana Cultural Center under the title “lights on the History of the Armenian Issue,” said that the genocide committed by the Ottomans against the Armenians is an obnoxious crime and terrorism against people inside their homeland.

He reiterated that despite of the Turkish attempts, the tragedy, in which about a million and half of the Armenian people were killed between the years 1915 and 1923, is still moving from one generation to another and it leaves a destructive cultural and moral effect on all the Armenians.

He clarified that Syria and its people have been the safe sanctuary for the Armenian people during that difficult stage as Syria embraced many of the survivors and it provided the safety and security and a decent living to them, and over the years, they mingled in the mosaic of the Syrian society.

The Ambassador concluded by thanking the Syrian people and expressing deep gratitude for them, wishing that security and stability will return to Syria and its people and that Syria will overcome the crisis.

A six-minute long film was screened during the symposium. The film talks about the Armenian deep-rooted culture and charming nature and beautiful streets which have been described by the historians as the God’s paradise on the earth.

The film was accompanied by a sad melody reflecting the difficult circumstances which the Armenian people went through at that time.