Saturday, December 12, 2015

Turkish President Recep Erdogan is directly involved in supporting ISIS

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey 
Lavrov presented direct evidence 
that not only has NATO ally Turkey 
been buying black market oil from 
ISIS, which, in turn, it has been 
stealing from their rightful owners 
in Iraq and Syria - but that the very 
family of Turkish President Recep 
Erdogan is directly involved in this 
completely illegal activity, which has 
been supporting ISIS, to the tune of 
up to $94M per month, more than 
enough to keep the brutal terrorist 
entity armed to the teeth.

Luke Rudkowski from 
WeAreChange.org goes over these 
important revelations made by the 
Russians and its potential 
consequences.
Video: (9 and a half mins) 


http://fktv.is/breaking-russia-s-huge-announcement-that-will-change-the-war-27475

Monday, December 7, 2015

Fethiye Çetin: An Inevitable Journey-TURKEY MUST RECOGNIZE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE--ITS BEEN 100 YEARS

Lawyer and human rights activist Fethiye Çetin delivered the following speech (translated by A. Bolcakan) at the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Eastern Region (ER) Banquet on Nov. 14, where she received the ANCA Freedom Award. Çetin is the author of My Grandmother, and co-author of The Grandchildren, which she wrote together with Ayse Gul Altinay. The Freedom Award is given to individuals who have made tremendous contributions toward recognition of the genocide and who have pursued other issues of importance to the Armenian-American community. Below are her remarks in their entirety.
Cetin speaking at the ANCA-ER banquet in Detroit
Dear esteemed administrators and members of the ANCA and honorable guests,
I’d like to state that it’s a great privilege for me to be among you today and to be considered worthy of this very meaningful and very important award, the Freedom Award.
I also feel very honored to be deemed worthy of this award on this year which marks the 100th commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. I’m grateful to all of you for bestowing on me this honor and privilege and I thank you all very much. At the same time, I experience the shame and paradox of coming from a country that is not free to accept the Freedom Award.
I come from a country in which individuals don’t feel free, where every demand for freedom is repressed with blood and violence. A country where violence has become commonplace and is legitimized. A country where peoples’ bodies are blown to bits by state bombs, the bodies of children are riddled with state bullets, and the lives of journalists are made unbearable.
I come from a country where, sadly, the majority of the politicians perceive the blood-thirsty and vicious violence that has been experienced in all spheres of life for years as an issue for today, that it’s a contemporary problem that will change when the government changes. Governments come and go but we’ve been, for the past century, experiencing violence in every sphere and in a most intense form.
However, we haven’t problematized violence and its structural roots and thought enough about them; we haven’t discussed nearly enough the effects of the greatest and the most vicious violence that occurred a century ago.
As it’s known, genocide not only destroys an existing society in a most painful and cruel way, it also molds the fabric of the newly formed society with fear and hate, with violence and shame. Genocide does not only devastate bodies, it also shatters perceptions.
To describe the foundational destruction caused by horrendous physical violence, Hannah Arendt refers to the known expression of the end of the world and tells us that the life people lived up until that point is altered radically and transforms into a fictional world. In this new world, everything is upside-down: Lies and truth have switched places, what was absurd and blood-thirsty has ceased to be an exception and has become the newly established premise. What once was cruel and absurd is now systemic.
‘[G]enocide not only destroys an existing society in a most painful and cruel way, it also molds the fabric of the newly formed society with fear and hate, with violence and shame. Genocide does not only devastate bodies, it also shatters perceptions. … In this new world, everything is upside-down: Lies and truth have switched places, what was absurd and blood-thirsty has ceased to be an exception and has become the newly established premise.’
The Republic of Turkey, which bases its foundation on the atrocity and violence of the genocide, sustains itself by producing fear and threats and by creating expendable and disposable lives.
Yesterday the expendable lives were those of the Armenians. Today, Kurds, women, LGBT people, and members of the opposition meet the same fate.
Because this atmosphere reproduces destruction and traumas, and encourages the state’s policy of violence, cruelty, and hate, we’ve been living in this spiral of violence for years. Because violence is the chronic policy of the state, committing crimes and using violence in the name of the state are not punishable behavior but are rather rewarded.
We have to get out of this spiral of violence. It’s clear that for the Turkish society this is the leading problem—for “Turks,” for “Kurds,” and for others. Let us not forget, the past is an integral part of today. As Arendt reminds us, if evil has been experienced once, there’s absolutely no reason for it not to reoccur. Experiences are recorded in the consciousness and they are as much about the past as they are about the future. Therefore, getting out of this spiral is only possible by reevaluating the workings of the wheel of politics that reproduces violence in different ways every day, by questioning the roots of the state, the nation, and our identities which are all founded on the genocide, by asking ourselves questions about what our grandfathers did.
We are only at the beginning of this difficult journey of asking ourselves difficult questions and of self-scrutiny. But we set out to do this and we can’t go back.
It’s a difficult but an inevitable journey…
My journey began upon learning my grandmother’s story. Her story was about a 9-year-old girl who witnessed cruelty, atrocities, massacres, looting, and horrible pain.
The price of survival meant being taken away from her mother, from the world she knew and trusted, by being thrown among the people who killed her loved ones or who were the onlookers as this atrocity was committed. It meant losing her language, her religion, her name, and her voice. Until she told me her story I knew nothing about the shameful pages of our recent history. What I learned shocked me and elicited feelings of anger and revolt. But since the issue was neither discussed in the public sphere nor talked about in private, I lacked both the political context and the awareness to make sense of what I’ve learned.
What moved me first, was my grandmother’s decades-long silence. She was silent for years, but she forgot nothing; she didn’t forget the names of her mother, father, grandfather, village, and even the name of the head of her village and their experiences. It was as if she repeated everything to herself all these years as not to forget and to be able to tell her story one day. That touched me the most.
I started to share what I had learned with people close to me, and especially with my socialist friends. What caught my attention was the fact that almost everyone had similar stories and that peoples’ voices became whispers when they shared them. The silence was not only that of grandmothers, it was also the silence of a whole society.
But we were young people who set out to change the world thinking that another world was possible. We were watching closely what was happening in Chile, Argentina, and Angola and shouting our slogans at the top of our lungs.
But as soon as we talked about what was happening right before our eyes, in our own land, we were whispering in each other’s ears even when we were in closed, private spaces. That’s why my first question was, “Why this silence?”, and I began to occupy myself with new and difficult questions in the space opened up by this very question.
‘[My grandmother] was silent for years, but she forgot nothing; she didn’t forget the names of her mother, father, grandfather, village, and even the name of the head of her village and their experiences. It was as if she repeated everything to herself all these years as not to forget and to be able to tell her story one day. That touched me the most.’
What happened in 1915, what happened to the Armenians? What does genocide mean, what does survival mean? How did my grandmother and other children and women, who shared the same fate with my grandmother, survive, and why is there no mention of these children and women in official historical narratives and family histories? How does destruction and traumas resulting from genocide affect us? Are policies of forced Islamization, assimilation, erasure of memory, and denial part of the genocide? Is the genocide something that happened and ended in 1915? What are its effects today? How does it shape us?
I know where my grandmother was during the genocide, but do I know where my non-Armenian grandfathers were? Is there no Armenian part to all aspects of my life? What’s the price of the identity and the privileges that I’m given? What we know is limited to what we were told; is it possible to convey the genocide? How did the survivors cope with their traumas and fears; is it possible to heal the wounds, to become whole after the genocide?
What kind of courage, resilience, and strength are needed to stay alive having suffered these wounds and this horrible trauma? Can we improve the future? What do we need to do for that?
I can say this to you: The conscientious elements of Turkish society, especially the young people, started to ask these questions and more; and the numbers of these people are increasing. Despite the delay, 1915 is being discussed in the public sphere, books are being published, feature films and documentaries are being produced, the scholarly interest in the topic is increasing with each passing day. Is it enough? Of course not, there’s still a lot to do, a lot of ground to cover, but although we’re just starting we have cracked a giant door open, we have passed an important threshold.
In the space opened by these questions, asking new questions is now obligatory and inevitable. For we have come to the end of a road burdened with the heavy baggage of history. The everyday practices of violence confirm that this road is a dead end.
Recognizing the genocide is also an obligation for both the Turkish state and society.
It’s imperative to recognize the genocide in order to return the dignity back to the victims of the genocide, to compensate for their damages, to secure justice, to heal the wounds of genocide, to peacefully co-exist in a country free of violence. I Feel the shame of being a citizen of a country that still denies the genocide and not only builds a mausoleum in the middle of Istanbul for the bloodthirsty murderers, but goes as far as naming  the place “Freedom Monument” (Abide-i Hürriyet).
I dedicate this award to all victims of the genocide, with respect to our grandfathers and grandmothers who lost their lives during the genocide; and with admiration for the courage, resilience, and strength of the survivors. May they rest in peace.
In conclusion, I hope you will accept my promise that I now make in your presence. You have my word, my friends, you have my word: With the moral support you’ve given me today, I will continue to demand justice, truth, and freedom at all costs, for as long as I can fight and for as long as I live.

You have my word…

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Genocide Centennial Ecumenical Service, December 9, 2015 6:30pm

 

Genocide Centennial Ecumenical Service, December 9, 2015   6:30pm
An Ecumenical Service commemorating the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide and Sanctification of Saints will be hosted by St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church (440 White Hall Road, Albany) on Wednesday, December 9 at 6:30 p.m. Join the community of the Capital District in commemorating the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide and honoring the newly consecrated Saints of the Armenian Church. A light reception will follow the service with both Armenian and Greek pastries being served.   

The Most Reverend Bishop Howard Hubbard, Bishop Emeritus of the Albany Catholic Diocese will be the Homilist and also  Rev. Fr. Dennis Nagi, of St. Sophia's Greek Orthodox Church will be the Keynote speaker during the reception. 

Turkey’s Twaff* and Transparent Territorial Tomfoolery

Much is being said about the Russia-Turkey tiff over the latter’s shooting down of the former’s warplane which had supposedly crossed from Syrian airspace into a spit of “Turkish” territory (really part of Armenian Cilicia) that juts into Syria. I’ll start my observations by pointing out Turkey’s typical hypocrisy when it comes to the underlying reason, the “sanctity” of its borders, for which Ankara is in such a huff. This matter hasn’t gotten quite as much attention.
No doubt you recall the violation of Armenia’s airspace by Turkish military helicopters on October 6 and 7, allegedly because of bad weather. No one shot them down.
I’ve been hearing about Turkey’s violations of Greek airspace of the latter’s Aegean islands since the 1980s. One source put these transgressions at 2244 instances during 2014 and another just mentioned 114 with no time frame. No planes shot down in any of these violations.
Syria shot down a Turkish reconnaissance plane in 2012 when it crossed into Syrian territory, sending Ankara into a tizzy. Finally, a downed bird… but it was flying over the wrong nest.
Turkey conducted a raid into Syria to move the relics of Suleiman Shah (grandfather of the Ottoman Empire’s founder), to a “safer” location. The tomb is located in Syria. What happened to the border?
A Syrian jet that Turkey said crossed into its airspace was shot down in March of 2014. Oops, it seems the border that had “vanished” for Suleiman suddenly reappeared!
Of course we have the much more substantial situations, too, than the mere crossing of borders. Turkey wants Artzakh returned to Azeri control despite the legal, legitimate, steps our compatriots there have taken to establish their independence. Turkey occupies 40% of Cyprus. The Sanjak of Alexadretta was obtained by Turkey from the French under questionable conditions and is still claimed by Syria. The biggie is Wilsonian Armenia, of course, which Turkey has illegally occupied for 95 years.
In Ankara’s eyes, the sanctity of borders matters ONLY when it accrues to Turkish interests. All other cases are null and irrelevant.
What really seems to underlie this crisis isn’t really a question of borders. It’s clear what the Russians are doing there, and it is not a threat to Turkey in any meaningful, substantive, way. It seems to me there are four factors, listed below, in no particular order:
1- Only one segment in the band of land just south of the Turkey-Syria border is currently NOT under Kurdish or Syrian government control. This is the only direct route Turkey has remaining to continue its support of its IS/Daesh allies. It is also evidently heavily populated by Turkmens which fits neatly into Ankara’s Pan-Turkist calculus. This is a sector where it appears Russian supported Syrian troops are currently attempting to re-assert Damascus’ control, hence the downing of the Russian plane in that area.
2- Similarly, this corridor is the clearest path for transshipment of IS/Daesh controlled oil to and through Turkey. If Russian assertions are correct, then there is also a personal-gain factor for Turkey’s Erdoğan, in that his family is benefiting directly from this illicit oil trade.
3- Another IS/Daesh related angle underlying Turkey’s brazen downing of the Russian plane is to complicate matters among the various air-forces operating in the area in addition to Russia’s which might give IS/Daesh some wriggle room or time to regroup. It also is a way to increase the costs to Russia of its operations by forcing it to have more planes in the air during any given operation to protect one another against future Turkish attacks.
4- Questions of control over the skies that are not exclusively related to the conflict in Syria also play into this action as Russia installs ever more sophisticated equipment and weaponry in the area.
Once again, it’s time for all of us to harangue, cajole, argue, lobby, etc. the White House and Congress to bring Turkey to heel and focus all efforts on the real threat posed by IS/Da’esh.
*”Twaff” is a term I learned from my paternal family meaning some combination of “odd,” “weird,” “strange,” “unusual,” “off.” Evidently it’s the Armenianized version of “tuhaf,” a Turkish word of the same meaning.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Columbia University Researchers Confirm Turkey’s Links to ISIS--WE REMEMBER 1915--WOLF IN SHEEPS CLOTHING

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN
A team of Columbia University researchers from the United States, Europe, and Turkey confirmed last week that the Turkish government has provided to ISIS: military cooperation, weapons, logistical support, financial assistance, and medical services. This detailed investigation was headed by David L. Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. He had served as Senior Advisor and Foreign Affairs Expert for the U.S. Department of State.
Here are brief excerpts from the extensive research documenting the direct links between Turkey and ISIS:
  1. Turkey Supplied Military Equipment to ISIS
  • An ISIS commander told The Washington Post on August 12, 2014: “Most of the fighters who joined us in the beginning of the war came via Turkey, and so did our equipment and supplies.”
  • Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), disclosed on Oct. 14, 2014, documents from the Adana Office of the Prosecutor, revealing that Turkey supplied weapons to terrorist groups. He also produced transcripts of interviews with truck drivers who delivered the weapons to the terrorists.
  • According to CHP Vice President Bulent Tezcan, Turkish agents drove three trucks loaded with rockets, arms, and ammunition to ISIS in Syria, on January 19, 2014.
  • Cumhuriyet newspaper quoted Fuat Avni as stating that Germany and the United States had audio tapes confirming that Turkey provided financial and military aid to terrorist groups associated with Al Qaeda on Oct. 12, 2014.
  • Documents made public on Sept. 27, 2014, revealed that Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan financed the transportation of arms to ISIS through Turkey.
    Turkey and ISIS connection
    Turkey and ISIS connection
  1. Turkey Provided Logistical Assistance to ISIS Fighters
  • According to a June 13, 2014 article in Radikal newspaper, Turkish Interior Minister Muammar Guler issued the following directive: “Hatay is a strategic location for the Mujahidin crossing from within our borders to Syria. Logistical support for Islamist groups will be increased, and their training, hospital care, and safe passage will mostly take place in Hatay.”
  • The Daily Mail reported on August 25, 2014 that many foreign militants joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq after traveling through Turkey.
  • Britain’s Sky News obtained documents showing that the Turkish government stamped passports of foreign militants seeking to cross the Turkish border into Syria to join ISIS.
  • A senior Egyptian official indicated on Oct. 9, 2014 that Turkish intelligence is passing to ISIS satellite imagery and other data.
  1. Turkey Trained ISIS Fighters
  • CNN Turk reported on July 29, 2014 that in the heart of Istanbul, places like Duzce and Adapazari have become gathering spots for terrorists.
  • Turks who joined an ISIS affiliate were shown on July 28, 2014, at a public gathering in Istanbul.
  • A video showed an ISIS affiliate holding a prayer-gathering in Omerli, a district of Istanbul.
  • According to Jordanian Intelligence, Turkey trained ISIS militants for special operations.
  1. Turkey Extended Medical Care to ISIS Fighters
  • An ISIS commander told The Washington Post on August 12, 2014, “We used to have some fighters — even high-level members of the Islamic State — getting treated in Turkish hospitals.”
  • On Oct. 12, 2014, Taraf newspaper reported that Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, a founder of Pres. Erdogan’s ruling party (AKP), divulged that Turkey supported terrorist groups and still supports them and treats them in its hospitals.
  1. Turkey Supported ISIS Financially Through Purchase of Oil
  • On Sept. 13, 2014, The New York Times reported on the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure Turkey to crack down on the extensive network of oil sold by ISIS.
  • Fehim Taştekin wrote in Radikal on Sept. 13, 2014 about illegal pipelines transporting oil from Syria to Turkey.
  1. Turkey Assisted ISIS Recruitment
  • Kiliçdaroğlu announced on Oct. 14, 2014 that ISIS offices in Istanbul and Gaziantep are recruiting fighters. On Oct. 10, 2014, the Mufti of Konya stated that 100 men from his city had joined ISIS four days ago.
  • OdaTV reported that Takva Haber served as a propaganda outlet for ISIS to recruit Turkish-speaking men in Turkey and Germany.
  • Minister of Sports, Suat Kilic, an AKP member, visited Salafi Jihadists who are ISIS supporters in Germany. These Jihadists recruit supporters by distributing free copies of the Quran and raising funds to sponsor suicide attacks in Syria and Iraq.
  • OdaTV released a video showing ISIS militants riding a bus in Istanbul.
  1. Turkish Forces are Fighting Alongside ISIS
  • American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh asserted in the London Review of Books that “Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a Jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups.”
  • On Sept. 20, 2014, Demir Celik, a Member of Parliament representing the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), stated that Turkish Special Forces had joined ISIS in the battlefield.
  1. Turkey Helped ISIS in Battle for Kobani
  • Anwar Muslim, Mayor of Kobani, revealed on Sept. 19, 2014 that trains full of Turkish forces and ammunition were delivered to ISIS. On September 30, 2014, a CHP delegation visited Kobani, where locals declared that everything from the clothes of ISIS militants to their guns comes from Turkey.
  • A Nuhaber video showed on Sept. 25, 2014 Turkish military convoys, carrying tanks and ammunition, moving freely under ISIS flags in the Jarablus region of Syria and the Karkamis border crossing.
  • Salih Muslim, PYD leader of Kurdish fighters, reported that 120 militants had crossed into Syria from Turkey on Oct. 20-24, 2014.
  • According to an op-ed written by a YPG Kurdish commander in The New York Times on Oct. 29, 2014, Turkey regularly allows ISIS militants and their equipment to pass freely over its border.
  • Diken reported on Oct. 1, 2014: “ISIS fighters crossed the border from Turkey into Syria in full view of Turkish soldiers.”
  1. Turkey and ISIS Share a Worldview
  • RT reported on Oct. 3, 2014 on Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks detailing Turkish support to ISIS.
  • Hurriyet newspaper quoted a Turkish civil servant on Sept. 26, 2014: “I was shocked to hear words of admiration for ISIL from some high-level civil servants.”
  • An AKP council member posted on his Facebook page: “Thankfully ISIS exists…. May you never run out of ammunition….”
  • Erdogan’s son Bilal and Turkish officials met with ISIS fighters, according to Sariyer Gozlem.
It is absolutely unacceptable that while ISIS is committing mass murder in Paris and other European cities, its NATO ‘ally,’ Turkey, is continuing to aid and arm these terrorists. It is high time that Turkey is expelled from NATO and its leaders are indicted and brought to justice for their role in these heinous crimes.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Only 35 Percent of Americans Are Aware There Was an Armenian Genocide

Sassounian: Only 35 Percent of Americans Are Aware There Was an Armenian Genocide

For the first time, a prestigious nationwide survey, conducted on Nov. 9 by Zogby Analytics, reveals the extent of the American public’s knowledge and opinion on the Armenian Genocide and Artsakh (Karabagh). The survey results, made available exclusively to this writer, have a +/- 3.1 percent margin of error.
‘To the question, are you aware that there was an Armenian Genocide, surprisingly only 34.8 percent of those surveyed answered yes.’
To the question, are you aware that there was an Armenian Genocide, surprisingly only 34.8 percent of those surveyed answered “yes”; 49.6 percent “no”; and 15.6 percent “not sure.” One would have expected that a much higher percentage of U.S. citizens would be aware of the Armenian Genocide, particularly after the large-scale Centennial commemorative events this year. The fact that half of all Americans have never heard of the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians indicates that a major effort is needed to educate the public.
Zogby Analytics provides extensive information about the background of the participants in the survey. Here are some interesting details:
– While male respondents are evenly divided on the above question, there is a serious imbalance among women—twice as many females are unaware of the Armenian Genocide compared to those who are.
– Around half of all respondents are equally ignorant about the Armenian Genocide, regardless of political party affiliation. Liberals are slightly more knowledgeable than moderates and conservatives. Surprisingly, the majority of “Tea Party” and “Occupy Wall Street” sympathizers are cognizant of the Armenian Genocide.
– College graduates are more likely to know about the Armenian Genocide than those who are not.
– The age group 25-34 is the most knowledgeable about the Armenian Genocide, while the least knowledgeable is the age group 35-53.
– Hispanics are far more knowledgeable than “Whites” about the Armenian Genocide; African Americans and Asian Americans are the least knowledgeable.
– Catholics are more aware of the Armenian Genocide than Protestants.
– West Coast Americans are more aware of the Armenian Genocide than their counterparts in the east; while those living in central and southern U.S. are the least knowledgeable.
– Americans with the highest income category ($100,000+) know the most about the Armenian Genocide; those making $35,000-$50,000 a year know the least.
In summary, the American most informed about the Armenian Genocide is: male, right or left-wing political activist, college graduate, 25-34 years old, Hispanic, Catholic, lives on the West Coast, and makes over $100,000 a year; whereas the American least informed about the Armenian Genocide is: female, mainstream political party member, not a college graduate, 35-53 years old, African American or Asian American, Protestant, lives in the central or southern states, and makes $35,000 to $50,000 a year.
Here are eight other genocide and Artsakh-related questions that survey participants were asked to answer:
– 46.5 percent of Americans agree that the United States government should call on Turkey to publicly admit the Armenian Genocide; 16.1 percent disagree; and 37.4 percent don’t know.
– 39 percent agree that “the U.S. Congress should pass a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide…even if it risks destroying diplomatic relations with a key, strategic ally in the Middle East”; 22.5 percent disagree; and 38.5 percent don’t know.
– 63.2 percent agree that “if an ally of the United States initiates a program to eradicate, persecute, or displace populations within their own country, the U.S. should end economic and/or military aid to that ally”; 10.5 percent disagree; and 26.3 percent don’t know.
– 20.1 percent believe that when a country commits genocide, it should pay reparations “in cash”; 11.8 percent say that it should compensate by returning the occupied “land”; 10.7 percent, “by other symbolic act”; 9.4 percent, “no reparations should be paid”; and 48 percent don’t know.
– 31.3 percent believe that the United Nations should determine what the reparations should be when genocide is committed; 23.8 percent say it should be decided by the International Criminal Court; 12.1 percent, the United States Congress; 3 percent, Amnesty International; 2.5 percent, the European Court of Human Rights; 0.8 percent, the Pope; and 26.5 percent don’t know.
– 37.9 percent believe that the United States should use “economic sanctions” against a country that “refuses to recognize and take responsibility for its crimes against humanity”; 16.4 percent say the U.S. should use “political/diplomatic pressure”; 8.6 percent, “embargo”; 2.6 percent, the U.S. should declare war; 4.5 percent, “do nothing”; and 30 percent don’t know.
– 38.3 percent agree that “the United States should intervene if Azerbaijan acts to expel the ethnic Christian Armenians [of Artsakh] who have resided there for centuries”; 21.8 percent disagree; and 39.9 percent don’t know.
– 40.4 percent agree that if Azerbaijan attacks Artsakh, the United States should call on Israel, which is selling sophisticated weapons to Baku, to cut off its diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan; 16.9 percent disagree; and 42.7 percent don’t know.
This first of its kind survey could serve as a valuable guide to the Armenian-American community to know where to concentrate its educational efforts and lobbying resources.

Friday, September 18, 2015

Sassounian: United Nations to Commemorate Victims of All Genocides on Dec. 9

On Sept. 11, after years of persistent diplomatic efforts, the Republic of Armenia succeeded in having the United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly adopt by consensus a generic resolution on all genocides.
Introduced by Armenia and co-sponsored by 83 other nations, the resolution establishes Dec. 9 as the “International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime.” Dec. 9 was chosen since the U.N. Genocide Convention was adopted on that day in 1948.
Henceforth, on every Dec. 9, the U.N. will commemorate and honor the victims of all genocides. Even though the resolution does not mention any particular genocide, it is up to Armenians to ensure that their genocide is included in official U.N. commemorations on that date. No one will be surprised should the Turkish government attempt to block such Armenian efforts!
Ironically, Turkey was one of the co-sponsors of the genocide resolution, probably out of a concern that opposing it would have revealed its deep-seated anxiety on the subject of genocide. Consequently, Turkish officials acted as if this resolution was unrelated to their country’s past and present genocidal crimes against Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Kurds!
Among the 84 countries co-sponsoring the resolution were the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Japan, and Iran. Interestingly, Azerbaijan and Rwanda did not co-sponsor it. Azerbaijan was reluctant to support any resolution proposed by Armenia. Rwanda, on the other hand, felt the resolution was unnecessary, since the U.N. had designated April 7 as the “International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda.” In contrast, Israel co-sponsored the resolution, even though the U.N. had already set Jan. 27 as the “International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.”
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect issued a statement last Friday commending the adoption of the U.N. resolution, and listing the “significant anniversaries of the most atrocious crimes of the last century,” including “the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, 40th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities in Cambodia, and the 20th anniversaries of the genocide in Rwanda and at Srebrenica, Bosnia, and Herzegovina.”
Ambassador Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, Armenia’s representative to the U.N., spoke of his “sense of duty” while presenting the proposed resolution to the General Assembly on Sept. 11. Paying tribute to Raphael Lemkin, who had coined the term “genocide,” the ambassador stated: “For the victims of our past inaction, the International Day will render dignity. The denial to millions of the sanctity of life is ultimate injustice. Justice denied haunts generations of survivors. We speak from experience.”
Another genocide milestone forgotten by the international community and Armenians is the 30th anniversary of the adoption of a report by the U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. The historic document titled, “Revised and updated report on the question of the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide,” was drafted by British Rapporteur Benjamin Whitaker. It is noteworthy that Mnatsakanyan referred to this report twice in his speech, while introducing the genocide resolution to the U.N.
In paragraph 24 of his report, Whitaker cited several cases of genocide in the 20th century, specifically mentioning the Armenian Genocide. Moreover, in footnote 13, Whitaker added: “At least 1 million, and possibly well over half of the Armenian population, are reliably estimated to have been killed or death marched by independent authorities and eye-witnesses. This is corroborated by reports in United States, German, and British archives and of contemporary diplomats in the Ottoman Empire, including those of its ally Germany. The German Ambassador, Wangenheim, for example, on 7 July 1915 wrote, ‘the [Turkish] government is indeed pursuing its goal of exterminating the Armenian race in the Ottoman Empire’ (Wilhelmstrasse archives).”
Regrettably, Whitaker passed away last year. But, there are three other former members of the U.N. Sub-Commission—Erica Daes (Greek), Leandro Despouys (Argentinian), and Louis Joinet (French)—who staunchly supported the reference to the Armenian Genocide in the Whitaker report, which the Sub-Commission adopted on Aug. 29, 1985, by a 14-1 vote.
All three human rights experts should be invited to the United Nations on Dec. 9, 2015, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Whitaker Report, and recognize his unique contributions to the cause of prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide!
Amb. Mnatsakanyan, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry, and the Armenian government should be commended for their effective leadership at the U.N. on genocide prevention!

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

1.5 Million Minus 2: DNA Testing Brings Ancestors Back from the Dead

Special for the Armenian Weekly
Every Armenian family has the same story: persecution, fear, robbery, rape, murder … genocide … and the unknown. They say there can never be closure without the ability to mourn over the grave of a loved one. The denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government surely hinders closure, but for the survivors, never knowing what had happened to those left behind or lost during the death marches into the Syrian desert remained an equally harmful open wound.
My maternal grandmother had four sisters. One rescued my grandmother from the six years she had been living as a slave and the two of them ultimately found their way to the United States. Another sister starved to death in an orphanage. The two remaining sisters, one 17 and one an infant, were sent to the Syrian desert with their mother, and none were ever heard from again.
Nayiri Arzoumanian, Sarah Aghjayan, and the author in Burunkishla, May 2013 (Photo: Khatchig Mouradian)
Each time I travel to Western Armenia, I meet hidden Armenians—“remnants of the sword”—and many are searching for relatives thought to have escaped to the United States or elsewhere. Unfortunately, most often all that is known is a name: Garabed, Mariam, etc. Much too vague to allow for any connection to be made, even in the rare case where a village of origin is known. Most don’t even know the village, as their mother or grandmother was plucked from the caravans and only knew they were from Kharpert or Palu or some other region.
A year and a half ago, I joined the Armenian DNA Project through Family Tree DNA. While I was interested in my ancient DNA and the migration of man out of Africa, what really motivated me was the hope of connecting with descendants thought murdered during the genocide. Possibly descendants of the sisters my grandmother never heard from after they were sent to the desert. I wanted to bring them back from the dead.
In DNA testing, relationships are measured in shared centiMorgans (cMs), a way to quantify the probabilities. Both the total shared cMs and the longest segment are considered when determining the most likely relationship between two people. Segments longer than 10 shared cMs are generally thought to be indicative of a common ancestor.
For example, through testing, it has been shown that grandchildren have shared cMs with their grandparent that range from 875-2,365, with an average of 1,760. At the same time, a person could have shared cMs of 236-1,301 with a great aunt or uncle. So, based solely on that, if you were to have shared cMs of 900 with someone, their relationship to you could be anywhere from a grandchild/grandparent to a first cousin, once removed.
When I first received my DNA results, there were a handful of people who were identified as distant relatives by Family Tree DNA—as 4th or 5th cousins. Our shared cM was generally in the range of 30-40, with the longest segment of between 10 and 15. I contacted a few of these people and our knowledge was too scant to determine with any certainty how we might be related. Regardless, the common ancestor was very distant.
Last summer, while traveling in Western Armenia with the Arzoumanian family who also happened to hail from my grandfather’s village of Burunkishla in the Boghazliyan district of Yozgat, we discussed our possible relationship. They decided to have their father, Hrair, tested. The results showed we were 2nd or 3rd cousins; our shared cM was 132 with numerous segments over 15 cM and the longest 30 cM. Clearly, we were very closely related, which was not a complete surprise, although it was exciting to finally confirm a previously unknown relationship.
Based on our combined knowledge of family history, we believe Hrair’s maternal grandmother was a sibling to one of my great-grandparents. Again, so much family history was lost during the genocide that it is impossible to determine exactly at this time.
Then, about a month ago, the moment I had been hoping for: I received a hit on my DNA that was either a 1st or 2nd cousin, and it was someone living in Turkey! For perspective, our total shared cMs were 400 with a longest common segment of 90. This was a much closer relative and someone I knew nothing about. Could it be a descendant of my grandmother’s sisters?
I sent an e-mail to the man and waited impatiently for four days. Then, the response: The mother of the man tested was known to be Armenian. I was conversing with his son and this is the story he told.
In 1915, two sisters from Maden begin the march to certain death. The older of the sisters is a beautiful and clever young girl. Along the way, a cavalry officer desires to marry her. She agrees to do this in order to save her little sister. In fact, she demands that the younger sister be protected and live with them. Thus begins their new lives in Chermoug as Muslims.
While living with her older sister, a Muslim man sees the younger sister and falls in love. They marry and live in Chungush. Soon, three children are born. However, the husband dies young. The dead man’s brother marries his Armenian widow sister-in-law to care for his orphaned niece and nephews, and they have three additional sons together. The man whose DNA was tested was a son from this second marriage.
The older sister would have a son who died young. She died soon thereafter, leaving no surviving offspring.
Nevart (3rd from the left) with Angel (2nd from the right)
While the story would seem to match what might have become of my grandmother’s sisters, the places and names did not match that side of my family. Instead, the names of the parents of those two orphan Armenian girls matched the names of my father’s great-grandparents. In addition, my great-grandmother was born in Maden.
I wrote the story of my great-grandmother, Nevart Antreassian, in an article on the Georgetown Girls. Nevart’s sister, Angel, also survived and came to the United States. 25 years ago, when I first started researching my family history, I spoke to Angel’s husband, Khoren Krikorian, and an aunt about what was known of the family. I do not know how Angel survived 1915, but it was most likely through an orphanage in Kharpert, since in 1920 she graduated from Yeprad Varjaran. Around 1922, she left for Lebanon in the final wave of missionaries, orphans, and other desperate remnants.
As for my great-grandmother, Nevart, by the time of these events she was already married and living in Diyarbakir with children of her own. Her husband conscripted into the Ottoman army and presumed dead, Nevart endured the march to Aleppo with her two young children.
In looking through my folder from 25 years ago, I found a page of handwritten notes from a phone conversation with my aunt about Nevart’s family. It was sparse, fragments here and there: father was a horseshoer, etc.
Then, two words written at the bottom: “another sister.” In talking with my parents, they knew nothing of this, but of course so much time has gone by. But what is now known is that the woman in question was my great-grandmother’s sister.
Lost sister of Nevart and Angel
So many questions remain and most likely will never be answered.
Why the mention of only one sister? Could the older sister really have been the mother trying to protect her daughter? How could Angel have been in Kharpert until 1922 and not known her sister was alive in Chungush? Was this a situation, like so many others, where after forced marriage, conversion to Islam, and children, these “remnants of the sword” considered themselves dead to their Armenian families and were treated as such by the Armenian community?
Nevart and Khachig Garabedian
Not surprisingly, my newfound relatives in Turkey have another Armenian grandmother in the family. She was born in the village of Havav in Palu and as late as the 1930’s she was still in correspondence with her brother in New York. Based on a letter written in Ottoman Turkish in 1934, I have identified this family as well.
It is said that the two Armenian girls, now sisters-in-law, were very close and their families’ love for them is evident.
Angel and Khoren Krikorian
Our mutual excitement at having found lost relatives after 100 years knows no bounds. Over the past month, we have been sharing pictures and stories and anxiously await the day when we can meet in person. Interestingly, based on where and when I have traveled through Western Armenia, it seems we know some of the same people and may have actually been together without ever knowing our family connection.
The people in this story remain victims of genocide, but they no longer are tallied in the dead. The 1.5 million has been reduced by 2.
For those wishing to learn more about the Armenian DNA Project, visit https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/armeniadnaproject/about/background.

Sassounian: To Get Rid of ISIS, Turks Must First Get Rid of Erdogan

Turkey has not only refused to join its NATO allies in fighting against ISIS, but has trained, armed, and facilitated the infiltration of thousands of terrorists into Syria and Iraq.
The British Guardian reported that in May, when U.S. Special Forces raided the compound of ISIS leader Abu Sayyaf in Eastern Syria and killed him, documents seized during the raid revealed Ankara’s close collaboration with ISIS. Hundreds of articles have been published around the world describing various aspects of Turkish assistance to ISIS. Daniel Pipes in his Washington Times article, “Turkish Support for ISIS,” reported that “Turks offered far more than an easy border crossing: they provided the bulk of ISIS’ funds, logistics, training, and arms.” Pipes also revealed that wounded ISIS fighters are treated in Turkish hospitals, and Turkey has paid $800 million to ISIS for illicit oil shipments.
Vice President Joe Biden confirmed Turkey’s sinister role in helping Islamist terrorists at a Harvard University speech last October: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates “poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad—except that the people who were being supplied were all Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.” The Vice President also revealed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had told him privately: “You were right. We let too many people through.” Biden later apologized for his public remarks to soothe Erdogan’s wrath.
In an astounding revelation, Mitchell Prothero of McClatchyDC.com reported on Aug. 24 that Turkish intelligence had alerted Islamist terrorists that a group of U.S.-trained fighters was about to cross from Turkey into Syria. Upon arrival, many of the 54 graduates of the $500 million U.S. training program were promptly intercepted and kidnapped by al-Qaida’s Nusra Front!
Last month, when Turkey finally agreed to join the war against terror and “allowed” the United States to launch airstrikes on ISIS targets from Incirlik Air Base, U.S. officials’ initial delight turned into dismay when they realized that the Turkish military’s priority was attacking the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, not ISIS. By going after Kurdish militants, Turkey was in fact helping ISIS because the Kurds were the only reliable U.S. military partners on the ground.
Beyond wishing to undermine long-held Kurdish aspirations for an independent Kurdistan, by unleashing large scale bloody attacks against Kurds in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, Erdogan is hoping that on Nov. 1, Turkish voters would help his party regain the parliamentary majority it lost in the June elections. Unfortunately for Erdogan, the attacks on Kurds have created a widespread backlash among many Turkish citizens who lost their loved ones serving in the military, simply to boost the President’s political rating!
In desperation, Erdogan may well resort to one more trick in the coming weeks. Seeing that bombing Kurds is not generating the expected public support in the upcoming elections, he could order massive attacks on Kurds throughout Eastern Turkey. He would then use the excuse of an all-out civil war to declare a state of emergency, suspend Parliament, and rule with the iron fist of a theocratic Ottoman Sultan!
The United States and its NATO allies have an obligation to do everything possible to stop the monster they have created before he destroys everything on his path. Erdogan is a serious menace to his own citizens—Turks, Kurds, and others—as well as a destabilizing force to the entire region! The vicious attacks on the Kurdish population in Eastern Turkey makes the best case why Kurds deserve independent statehood and can no longer tolerate the brutal Turkish regime!
The Obama administration should follow the wise counsel of Eric S. Edelman, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and undersecretary of defense from 2005-2009. In a commentary published in The New York Times on Aug. 27, Edelman suggests that the United States “restrict Turkey’s access to senior-level meetings; reduce intelligence cooperation; and withhold American support for Turkey in international financial institutions.” These steps and many others must be taken in the next few weeks before November’s parliamentary elections.
In an Aug. 31 editorial, The New York Times Editorial Board described Erdogan’s political shenanigans as an attempt to “salvage his ambitions for continued authoritarian rule and greatly expanded powers.”
To bring the problem of terrorism in Syria and Iraq under control, restore stability in these countries, and stop the escalating bloodshed inside Turkey, the Turkish people must ensure that Erdogan’s party does not regain its lost parliamentary majority!

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

As Turkey Targets Militants, War Grips Kurdish Lands Once Again

As Turkey Targets Militants, War Grips Kurdish Lands Once Again

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Officers conducted searches of young people during a security operation this month in the southeastern town of Diyarbakir. Credit Usame Ari/Associated Press
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Across the Kurdish lands of southeast Turkey, a bitter war that had long been stilled by a truce has suddenly come roaring back, threatening to undo a hard-won economic turnaround here and adding a new battlefield to a region already consumed by chaos.
Cafes in this city that usually stay open until midnight now close at dusk. Jails are filling, once again, with Kurdish activists and officials accused of supporting terrorism. Residents say they are stocking up on weapons, just in case.
In the mountains, Kurdish guerrillas hastily set up vehicle checkpoints and then dissolve into the rugged terrain in a game of cat and mouse with Turkish soldiers. In the countryside, burned and mangled vehicles blight a landscape blackened by forest fires set by the Turkish Army — a tactic that destroys militant hide-outs but also apple and cherry orchards and stocks of feed for villagers’ cows and goats.
“It shouldn’t be like this,” said Kudbettin Ersoy, 66, who sells watermelons here from a wooden cart. “I was hopeful that peace would come and the blood would stop flowing. We are all citizens of this country.”
It has been one month since Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, resumed armed conflict against the militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K. Many — Kurds and political analysts alike — see the war as a coldly calculated political strategy by Mr. Erdogan, whose Islamist Justice and Development Party lost its parliamentary majority in national elections in June, to stoke nationalist sentiments and regain lost votes in a new election.
June’s vote gave no party a majority, and a deadline for coalition talks ended fruitlessly on Sunday, paving the way for a snap election in November.
The war against the P.K.K. has also underscored the continued divide between the West and Turkey over how to handle the Middle East’s raging wars.
Conflict with the P.K.K. resumed just as Turkey said it would join the American-led coalition against the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, who control a large part of Iraq and Syria. Turkey opened its air bases to the United States and began carrying out its own airstrikes against the group.
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Caspian
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Tunceli
Lice
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150 Miles
But since then, Turkey has carried out roughly 400 airstrikes against P.K.K. targets in the mountains of northern Iraq, where the group has bases, and inside Turkey, compared with three against the Islamic State. The imbalance has deepened a sense in the West that Turkey’s priority is restraining Kurdish ambitions of autonomy that had gained momentum amid the region’s turmoil, rather than fighting the Islamic State.
Even so, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, told Reuters on Monday that Turkey would soon start a “comprehensive” air operation against the Islamic State in northern Syria.
The resumed war’s toll so far can be measured in lives lost: more than 65 Turkish soldiers and police officers, and more than 800 people the government has identified as militants, according to the semiofficial Anadolu News Agency. The war is also being measured in the return of fear and old anxieties over a conflict that, through decades, claimed close to 40,000 lives.
“When the president couldn’t make the government himself, he targeted the Kurds, and restarted this war,” said Osman, who was sitting at a teahouse here one recent morning and gave only his first name because he was fearful of speaking openly against Mr. Erdogan.
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Turkey Announces Anti-ISIS Operation

Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaks on a new agreement with the United States to flush Islamic State fighters out of northern Syria.
By REUTERS on Publish Date August 24, 2015. Photo by Umit Bektas/Reuters. Watch in Times Video »
Omer Tastan, a spokesman here for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or H.D.P., which for the first time exceeded a 10 percent legal threshold to earn representation in Parliament in Turkey’s election in June, said that the government, in going after the militants, has also cracked down on the political side of the Kurdish movement.
“People working for the party are detained every day,” he said. “Young people are trying to protect their neighborhoods.”
The forest fires near Lice, a P.K.K. stronghold outside of Diyarbakir, are a menacing reminder of the tactics the Turkish Army used in the 1990s, the conflict’s cruelest decade.
“It is to intimidate the local people, to say that we can go back to the 1990s,” Mr. Tastan said.
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Smoke from armed clashes between Turkish soldiers and Kurdistan Workers’ Party fighters in the district of Lice last week. Credit European Pressphoto Agency
Mr. Erdogan once saw peace with the Kurds as crucial to his legacy — two years ago, he said he would drink “hemlock poison” if it meant an end to the war. But many have come to believe that he now views war as the only way to preserve his power. And amid the tumult, Mr. Erdogan on Monday formally called for new parliamentary elections.
“We feel Erdogan personally restarted the war because of the elections,” said Yesim Alici, an H.D.P. official in Lice.
On the other side of the conflict, there are also signs of rising anger toward Mr. Erdogan and the government officials who have been attending, with great publicity, the funerals of Turkish soldiers killed by the P.K.K.
A Turkish military officer whose brother was killed in a Kurdish attack lashed out Sunday during the funeral, in a video that was widely circulated on social media in Turkey.
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Why Turkey Is Fighting the Kurds Who Are Fighting ISIS

While the United States has long sought Turkey’s help in fighting ISIS, getting its help has revealed a tangle of diverging interests in the region.
OPEN Graphic
“Who killed him? Who is the reason for this?” Lt. Col. Mehmet Alkan shouted as he pushed through the crowd toward his brother’s coffin.
“It’s those who said there would be a solution, who now only talk of war,” he said, in a statement many took to be a reference to Mr. Erdogan and his previous efforts, now abandoned, for peace.
Government officials blame the P.K.K. for the renewed hostilities and say the group used the relative peace of recent years to rearm itself. While the P.K.K. has also stepped up its attacks against the Turkish state, and is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, it has also become more legitimized internationally over the past year. The group has fiercely fought the Islamic State in northern Iraq, and its affiliate in northern Syria has become a reliable ally of the United States against the jihadist group there.
This is highlighted by the daily arrival of dead bodies of Kurdish fighters at the main cemetery here. They come from three battlefields: Iraq, Syria and Turkey. There are three teams of gravediggers working day and night, and cemetery workers have stocked up on wood for coffins and cloth for wrapping corpses.
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Members of a youth movement linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party stood guard near Diyarbakir, Turkey, on Aug. 17. Credit European Pressphoto Agency
“What the Kurds are doing in northern Iraq and in Syria against ISIS is not just for the Kurds, it’s for all of humanity,” said Mehmet Celik Kilic, who runs the cemetery.
On a recent afternoon, a woman who gave only her first name of Pakize was visiting the grave of her son, a P.K.K. fighter who died in northern Iraq three years ago, during the last outburst of conflict.
“God, this is enough,” she said. “The soldiers, the guerrillas, they are all our sons.”
Across the region, even as war has resumed, hopes for peace remain.
In the mountains outside the city of Tunceli — called Dersim by the locals, and the site of a massacre against the Kurds carried out by the Turkish state in the 1930s — villagers who had been expelled from their homes in the 1990s had only in recent years begun rebuilding their lives. Many took out cheap loans to build houses or invest in beehives to harvest honey, taking part in the expansion of consumer credit and the booming economy that Turkey enjoyed over the last decade.
On a recent morning, two women, sitting in the shade of an almond tree, said they already lost everything once, in the 1990s.
“Our house,” said one of the women, Zarife Tasbas, who said she was about 60. “Our animals. Our orchards and trees.”
Their surroundings are the very picture of bucolic mountain living: a verdant valley of grapevines and pear trees, set to the gentle background noise of a rolling stream. All this is in jeopardy, they say, because recently they were told by local elders — who were told by the army — that they must leave their homes because of planned military operations.
“We have told them we will lose everything if we leave,” said the other woman, Yomos Deniz, 55, who makes a living selling the honey produced by her 40 beehives. “We’d rather die than leave here.”

Ceylan Yeginsu contributed reporting from Istanbul.