It is time for Armenian-American organizations to check with all the U.S. presidential candidates about their views on Armenian issues.  Some things can be negotiated but one thing cannot.

No, not the genocide resolution but Section 907 – the ban of U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan that G.W. Bush has been waiving since 2001.

According to Wikipedia:

Section 907 of the United States Freedom Support Act bans any kind of direct United States aid to the Azerbaijani government. This ban makes Azerbaijan the only exception to the countries of the former Soviet Union, to receive direct aid from United States government under the Freedom Support Act to facilitate economic and political stability.^[1].

The Act was strongly lobbied for by the Armenian American community in the US^[2], and was passed in response to Azerbaijan’s blockade of Armenia. which was at full scale war with Azerbaijan over the predominantly Armenian populated Nagorno Karabakhregion of Azerbaijan. Since 1994 cease-fire agreement Nagorno Karabakh has established a de-facto independent republic, which is not recognized by any country.

On October 24, 2001, the Senate adopted a waiver of section 907 that would provide the President with ability to waiver the Section 07^[3]. He has done so since then.

In a sense, American taxpayers have paid for the destruction of the largest medieval Armenian cemetery in the world.  The destruction of old Djulfa in December of 2005 was carried out by soldiers of the Azerbaijani army, as seen in film, using heavy technology.  This is the same army that the current American administration has been giving money since October of 2001.

Thus, the question posed to all U.S. presidential candidates should be:

Dear candidate, in December of 2005 Azerbaijan’s army reduced to dust world’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery.  Since 2001, the current administration has been waiving Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, legislation that bans military aid to the Republic of Azerbaijan.  If elected a president, will you or will you not waive Section 907?

According to Today’s Zaman, a moderate newspaper from Turkey:

Renowned pianist and composer Fazıl Say will compose a ballet piece for the romantic and tragic love story referenced in legends of Akhtamar Island in the eastern Anatolian province of Van. Say, with this piece, intends to create an international project in which 100 Turkish and 100 Armenian dancers will take to the stage together in the performance of the work.

With an intent to bring Armenians and Turks closer to reconciliation, the project at its face needs to be applauded. 

 Moreover, the fact that Today’s Zaman now consistently uses the historically correct name for the Armenian island – Akhtamar – as opposed to the distorted Turkish “Akdamar” is a sign of progress.  

But what makes me uncomfortable is the following:

The Akhtamar legend, which is considered the origin of the name of the island, is about Tamara, the beautiful daughter of the clergyman residing on the island. According to the legend, Tamara fell in love with a Muslim shepherd from a nearby village. Every night, the shepherd would swim to the island in order to meet Tamara. To show her location to him, Tamara would light a candle at night. Having learned of his daughter’s love affair, the clergyman lit a candle on a stormy night and went down to the coast, but he frequently changed his location to exhaust the shepherd. Finally, the young boy drowned, but he shouted in his last breath, “Oh Tamara.” The girl heard his last shout, and she, too, committed suicide, throwing herself in the lake. The island’s name is said to come from the boy’s last words, “Oh Tamara.”

I am not uncomfortable about a Muslim and Christian getting married, but the tradition about the name “Akhtamar” doesn’t scientifically explain the epitology of the term which many scholars rightly argue should be written as Aghtamar. 

Whatever the case, the island of Akhtamar was mentioned in Armenian history in the 4th century A.D., centuries before Islam was established.  So this romantic legend about Armenian-Turkish marriage and its name for the island, although poetic, is historically unjust.  I am not sure whether historic distortion is the price for peace.  

The ballet project overall sounds a good one – IF the place of Akhtamar in Armenian history is presented without deliberate distortions for a romantic reconcilliation.

The murderer of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink wasn’t a minor at the time of the assassination in January of 2007:

According to Turkey’s NTV:

The man standing trial for the January 19, 2007, slaying of Dink has been named as Ogun Samast. Till now, the media have been forbidden to publish Samast’s name as he was believed to be under the age of 18 when he allegedly shot Dink outside the office of the newspaper Argos, of which he was the editor.

However, the results of medical tests conducted on Samast revealed he is currently 19 years of age, meaning he was not a minor when the allegedly gunned Dink down in Istanbul.

Samast is standing trial for the murder of Dink along with a number of other men accused of involvement in the crime or inciting Samast to commit the shooting.

Detained a few days after the shooting, Samast, who has links to far right wing Turkish groups, admitted to killing Dink.

A swastika has been painted on Yerevan’s new Holocaust memorial a year after the old and repeatedly vandalized memorial was replaced with this new monument that commemorates the Jewish and Armenian Genocides of the 20th century. 

According to the Jerusalem Post:

Unknown vandals defaced a memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in central Yerevan last week, scrawling a swastika on the simple stone structure and splattering it with black paint.

The defaced memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in central Yerevan, Armenia. Photo: Michael Freund

Rabbi Gershon Burshtein, a Chabad emissary who serves as Chief Rabbi of the country’s tiny Jewish community, expressed shock upon discovering the vandalism while escorting visitors to the site on Wednesday.

After calling the police and local government officials to inform them of the incident, he said, “I just visited the memorial the other day and everything was fine. This is terrible, as there are excellent relations between Jews and Armenians.”

A senior adviser to Armenian President Robert Kocharian denounced the defacement as “a provocation”, and promised Rabbi Burshtein that it would be taken care of forthwith.

The monument has been defaced and toppled several times in the past few years. It is located in the city’s Aragast Park, a few blocks north of the centrally-located Republic Square, which is home to a number of government buildings.

The text inscribed in Hebrew on the stone reads, “To be or to forget: in memory of the victims of the Holocaust”.

Armenia’s Jewish population is estimated at between 300 and 500 people, most of whom live in the capital of Yerevan.

Photo from Yehudim.am:  The new Holocaust Memorial during its opening on October 27, 2006

It is interesting that the Jerusalem Post fails to mention that the Holocaust memorial doesn’t only commemorate the Jewish but also the Armenian Genocide.  The dual-commemoration was obviously done with the hope that anti-Semites in Armenia would not dare to vandalize a monument that also honors the Armenian Genocide. 

The new vandalism seen in the Jerusalem Post photo is quite minor compared to what was done to the old Holocaust memorial in Yerevan in early 2006.

While the vandalism on the former memorial was most likely organized by a group known as Armenian-Aryans (I remember reading in one of their 2002 or 2003 publications talking about the Holocaust Memorial as something immoral to exist in Armenia), the new vandalism seems to be a work of an individual anti-Semite given the “minor injuries” of the new memorial.

As I have written before, the head of the “Armenian-Aryans” was one of the speakers at the Holocaust denial conference a year ago in Iran.

A columnist in Lebanon calls for establishing Commemoration Day for the Destruction and Desecration of Nakhichevan’s Armenian Heritage in an article on  the eve of the second anniversary of the world’s largest ancient Armenian cemetery’s demolition by the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Writing for Lebanon’s largest Armenian-language daily newspaper, Azdag Daily, columnist Avo Katrjian recalls in his December 12, 2007 (received in e-mail as .pdf) piece that two years ago this month Azerbaijani servicemen were videotaped as destroying cemetery memorials in an ancient Armenian site that testified to the long presence of the Armenian people in Nakhichevan.

The article draws parallels of Turkey’s treatment to Armenian monuments to that of Azerbaijan’s and concludes that there are the same.  It would be fair, nonetheless, to note that there are many Armenian monuments that still stand in Turkey while in the Republic of Azerbaijan every single one of them have been reduced to dust.

As Azerbaijan has been denying the destruction by claiming that there have never been Armenian monuments in Nakhichevan because Armenians didn’t live there, Katrjian reminds that Nakhichevan’s flag adopted in 1937 – when Nakhichevan was already part of Soviet Azerbaijan – had the word “Nakhichevan” written in Armenian and Azerbaijani.

Wikipedia has the 1937 Nakhichevan flag (said to be Soviet Nakhichevan’s very first) posted in its short entry on Nakhichevan ASSR (or the Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic).

The full post is available at Djulfa Blog.

“The Executive Board of the International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, has named Hrant Dink, former editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, as one of its World Press Freedom Heroes,” reads the Dec 10, 2007, IPI press release.

IPI, that has also produced the shortest film (25-seconds long) honoring Hrant Dink, states:

[…]
“Hrant Dink’s nomination as our 52nd World Press Freedom Hero is a tribute to his bravery, but also an acknowledgement of his significant contribution to freedom of expression and press freedom in Turkey,” IPI Director Johann P. Fritz said.

Dink, a well-known Turkish-Armenian editor and columnist, was murdered in Istanbul on 19 January 2007. He had received numerous death threats from Turkish nationalists who viewed his journalism as treacherous.

Dink was shot twice in the head and once in the neck by a Turkish nationalist outside the offices of the newspaper he founded in 1996. He had faced legal problems for denigrating “Turkishness” under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code in his articles about the massacre of Armenians during the First World War. In July 2006, he lost an appeal over a suspended six-month prison sentence handed down for violating Article 301. His prosecution stemmed from an article in 2004 about the 1915-17 massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire. Aside from this criminal case, Dink was also facing prosecution for a second article condemning his conviction.

Born on 15 September 1954, Dink was best-known for reporting on human and minority rights in Turkey and for advocating Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. In a February 2006 interview, he said he hoped his reporting would pave the way for peace between the two peoples. “I want to write and ask how we can change this historical conflict into peace,” he said.

At his funeral on 23 January, 100,000 people marched in protest at his assassination, chanting, “We are all Armenians” and “We are all Hrant Dink.” Since his death, calls for the repeal of Article 301 have become increasingly vocal.

The Dink murder trial opened in Istanbul on 2 July. 18 people were charged in connection with his assassination.

The IPI award was formally handed over to his widow, Rakel Dink, on 10 December in Vienna. “The murder of Hrant Dink deprived Turkey of one of its most courageous and independent voices and it was a terrible event for Turkish press freedom in general,” Fritz said. “Hrant Dink is one of at least 91 journalists murdered so far in 2007. In most cases, these murders occurred with impunity. We call on governments around the world to ensure that those responsible for these heinous crimes are brought to justice.”

FYI UPDATE: Just noticed that ArmeniaLiberty.org has also posted an article on the same topic. I wanted to make sure to give them a credit, although my source wasn’t ArmeniaLiberty.org and their post appeared in Google News after I published this entry.

A newly discovered Armenian cemetery in Iran dating to the 13th century predates a famous UNESCO site it was found around.

BBC Image: Situated in the province of Zanjan, Soltaniyeh is often cited as one of the crowning achievements of Persian architecture.

According to the Cultural Heritage News Agency:

Discovery of an Armenian written gravestone within the sphere of Soltanieh dome lead to the discovery of a graveyard of Armenians from the Mongolian era by experts of CHTO and Armenian archeologists.

The result of researches revealed the fact that this gravestone is related to Mongolian time, and there is a strong existence possibility of a graveyard near the mentioned sphere.

According to Ghorban Zadeh, discovery of this Armenian graveyard near Abbas Abaad can help to discover the true history of Soltanieh dome.

Built between 1304 and 1313, Soltanieh (or Sultanieh) is Iran’s largest archaeological site. “It is also the world’s third-largest historical site proceeded by Italy’s Santa Maria Delfiore of Florence and Turkey’s Saint Sufia Mosque, of Istanbul.” 

According to Press TV, the tombstone that led to the discovery of the Armenian connection read:

“Jesus, the only born to Father, when the time arrives and you return the sleeping soul of the decedent …”

The rest of the inscription which dates back to the Mongolian age (1206-1405) was not legible.

Historical evidence suggests that Sorghaghtani Beki, wife of Tolui Khan and mother of Hulagu Khan, the Mogul ruler, was a Christian woman.

The inscription on the tombstone strengthened the case for the existence of such hallowed site for Armenian residents of the time.

Soltaniyeh was the capital of the Ilkhanid rulers of Persia in the 14th century.

While native Armenian cemeteries are reduced to dust by the state authorities in Iran’s neighboring Azerbaijan, the Islamic Republic instead uses every opportunity – and archaeologists wouldn’t complain – to advertise its tolerance toward Christianity by promoting restoration and discovery of Armenian sites and churches.

A list of Christian churches in Iran can be found here.

According to Azerbaijani media, three Azeri workers died as the stone fence of an Armenian cemetery – underway for destruction – collapsed on them as they were “removing” it to clear the historic site for a commercial road.

During removal of a stone fence surrounding an old Armenian cemetery located behind the Odlar Yurdu University, three employees of the Bakielektrikshabaka OJSC ( Baku electricity network) were trapped in the ruins.

One victim aged 25 and 30 years old, was taken to the hospital and died, the other two are still in the hospital, according to a Trend correspondent reporting from the scene of the accident.

A road is being constructed through the Armenian cemetery. The area was fenced due to construction work.

The Narimanov District Prosecutor’s Office confirmed the reports and said an investigation has been launched into the case.

The above quoted info was originally posted at Azerbaijan’s Trend News Agency’s website. After Hyelog reposted it, the Agency “updated” the story confirming all the three Azeris had died and removing previous references to the Armenian cemetery.  A Google news search of “Armenian cemetery” excerpts the original post of Trend’s report.

It would be evil to be pleased with the death of these employees who have families and are quite young. But one can’t help and wonder whether this is a mere coincidence. As the same Azerbaijani website reported, last year the head of Djulfa’s police was burnt along his family in less than a month after a hundred Azeri servicemen in his district reduced to dust the world’s largest Armenian cemetery.

After I shared the news of a famous Armenian church being restored in Turkey to be converted to a museum with an online group of Armenian-Turkish scholars and students, I received some upsetting account by a Turkish member of the listserv who was in Kars last week and is unhappy with the restoration work. Below is the entire e-mail:

Image: St. Apostles of Kars as seen in August of 2007 by a group of www.Hayastan.com members; for more photos click here

Dear all,

I was in kars last week and I had the chance to see the restoration works. Unfortunately, as the church is being used as a mosque since 80’s, now the restoration work which is leading by general directory of vaqf (foundation) is going through a restoration of a mosque more than a church.

The municipality is not totally involved in to the restoration.

I m not an art historian, but the picture that I saw last week was terrible. Some of you may know that there were still some frescoes on the dome, but now unfortunately there are some Islamic paintings or figures instead of the frescoes.

I just wanted to inform you about the situation.
Bests

—
CIGDEM MATER UTKU
ANADOLU KULTUR
PROGRAM KOORDINATORU

A newly lunched website, http://www.akrabamiariyorum.com/en/, gives opportunity for Armenians across the world to search for lost relatives, especially any possible survivors or their descendants who might be residing in the Republic of Turkey today.

For now, there are only announcments and no searchable database, but I hope the creators of the website will figure out a way to make it more friendly one day.