Turkish Shelling Destroys 3,000-Year-Old Temple in Afrin; Armenian Possibly Killed as Offensive Continues

AIN DARA, Syria (A.W.)—Both the Syrian government and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor confirmed on Sunday that Turkish shelling of Syria’s Afrin region has seriously damaged the Ain Dara Iron Age temple.

Press TV published this photo taken on Jan. 27 from an unidentified social media account showing the ruins of the Ain Dara Temple following Turkish shelling in Afrin (Photo: Press TV)

In a statement published by Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, the Syrian government called for international pressure to be placed on Turkey to “prevent the targeting of archaeological and cultural sites in Afrin area, which is one of the richest areas in antiquities and cultural heritage in Syria.”

The statement goes on to say that the attack “reflects the extent of hatred, malevolence and the barbarism of the Turkish regime against the Syrian identity and against the past of the Syrian people and their present and future.”

Code-named by Turkey as Operation Olive Branch, the Turkish Armed Forces’ large-scale offensive on the Kurdish-majority Afrin Region of Syria was launched on Jan. 20. Officially, the offensive is against the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD), its armed wing People’s Protection Units (YPG), and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions surrounding the Syrian city of Afrin. Although Turkey also says it is fighting ISIL, it is widely accepted that the terrorist organization does not have a presence in Afrin.

Turkey’s offensive has been widely criticized by many in the international community as an outright attack on the mostly Kurdish civilian population. During the first days of the operation, United States Department of State spokesperson Heather Nauert urged Turkey not to engage in the invasion of Afrin, reiterating a statement made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who also assured that the U.S. had no intention of building a Syria-Turkey border force. The following day, Tillerson said the U.S. was very concerned, adding that the operation’s scope should remain limited and Turkey should “show restraint.”

On Jan. 24, U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a telephone conversation to “de-escalate, limit its military actions, and avoid civilian casualties and increases to displaced persons and refugees.” The Pentagon also asserted Thursday that the “Afrin operations are impeding the task to eliminate ISIS.”

The remains of the Ain Dara temple before the destruction (Photo: Odilia)

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the Turkish aggression against Afrin, calling the town “an inseparable part of Syria.” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called the Turkish invasion “terrorism,” noting that “Turkey’s aggression in the Syrian city of Afrin cannot be separated from the policy pursued by the Turkish regime since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis and built on support for terrorism and various terrorist groups.”

The Dara Iron Age Proto-Hittite Ain Dara temple, is located northwest of Aleppo, near the village of Ain Dara. The temple is noted for its similarities to the biblical Solomon’s Temple, also known as the First Temple. According to the excavator Ali Abu Assaf, the temple was in existence from 1300 BC to 740 BC.

Report: Armenian Killed in Afrin

According to several sources, the home of an Armenian family that had settled in Afrin following the Armenian Genocide was shelled on Jan. 24, killing Armenian Rosher Konis. The reports also indicate that Konis’s mother, Shamsa, and sister, Hanifa Konis, were  gravely injured in the bombing.

The Hawar News Agency reported that Hartyon Kivork, a relative of the family, confirmed the killing. “[Our] ancestors fled the oppression of the Turkish authorities nearly 100 years ago in the result of the massacres committed by the Turks against the Armenians so that they headed towards Afrin to live in peace among their Kurdish brothers and all other peoples and sects living in the area.”

Kivork added that Turkish occupation army had “resumed its massacres,” which do not differentiate between people and launched “new massacres against all peoples in Afrin to leave our Armenian family as a victim of the Turkish crimes again.”

Hawar released a series of photographs of the injuries sustained by the Konis family, though most of the photographs were blurred and cannot be confirmed to be authentic.

According to several sources, three Armenian families currently live in Afrin. A sizable Armenian community lived there and in the nearby village of Azaz before the Syrian Civil War. Armenian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Tigran Balayan told Armenian reporters on Monday that his ministry is trying to confirm Konis’s death.

New Biography Portrays Kirk Kerkorian as ‘The Greatest Deal Maker’

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

William Rempel, a veteran investigative reporter, just wrote a comprehensive biography of industrialist and philanthropist Kirk Kerkorian published by Harper Collins. The book is titled, “The Gambler: How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became The Greatest Deal Maker In Capitalist History.”

Rempel has meticulously pieced together the details of Kerkorian’s phenomenal and extremely private life through war records, business archives, court documents, recollections and recorded memories of longtime friends and associates.

Although both are Billionaires and casino owners, Kerkorian and Donald Trump had very little in common. Rempel wrote: “Fellow casino owner Donald Trump called Kirk ‘the king’ and told friends: ‘I love that guy.’ However, Kirk was Trump’s polar opposite in style and temperament. Kirk was soft-spoken and understated with a paralyzing fear of public speaking. He wished, he said, that he ‘could talk like Trump.’ Kirk also wanted his name on nothing — not on buildings, not on street signs, not even on his personal parking spot at MGM Studios. And Kirk never defaulted on a loan and always regarded his handshake as a binding contract.”

When Kerkorian’s new multi-billion dollar ‘CityCenter’ hotel-casino complex at the heart of Las Vegas ran into financial trouble in 2009, Rempel wrote that Trump initially expressed some sympathy: “I love Kirk and hope it works out for them.” Trump then turned around and called the ‘CityCenter’ project “an absolute catastrophe” during an interview on CNN’s Larry King Show. Trump later stated: “It will be the biggest bust in the history of real estate…too bad.” Of course, Trump was wrong in his prediction. Kerkorian, once again, bounced back on his feet and ‘CityCenter’ became a great financial success!

William Rempel the author of “The Gambler: How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became the Greatest Deal Maker in Capitalist History.”

While Kerkorian was on the Forbes magazine’s billionaires list in 1989, Trump was also initially on that list. However, soon after, Forbes dumped Trump from its list of billionaires explaining that “they had been misled by incomplete information provided by Trump…. The future U.S. president’s net worth was then, said the editors, ‘within hailing distance of zero.’”

A press release issued by Harper Collins described Rempel’s biography of Kerkorian as the “rags-to-riches story of one of America’s wealthiest and least-known financial giants, self-made billionaire Kirk Kerkorian — the daring aviator, movie mogul, risk taker, and business tycoon who transformed Las Vegas and Hollywood to become one of the leading financiers in American business.”

One of the key advantages of this biography is the extensive coverage of Kerkorian’s philanthropy for the Armenian-American community and the Republic of Armenia. In the past two years, I spent several hours with author William Rempel to brief him about Kerkorian’s contributions to American-Armenian charitable organizations and major projects in Armenia. Rempel described me in the book as: “Publisher of the California Courier, an English-language Armenian weekly based in Glendale, California, was also president of the United Armenian Fund [now Armenia Artsakh Fund] and the driving force behind Kirk’s Armenian charity efforts.” In reality, Kerkorian himself was the driving force behind his charitable giving! He really cared about the Armenian community’s well-being and Armenia’s prosperity.”

Although Kerkorian remains a very well-known and highly respected name among Armenians worldwide, many non-Armenians are unaware that he was an Armenian-American. Fortunately, Rempel’s biography devotes three chapters to Kerkorian’s Armenian heritage and philanthropy.

Chapter 12 of the book is titled: “The Armenian Connection.” It describes Kerkorian’s chance meeting in Las Vegas with Manny Agassi in 1963, a waiter at Tropicana hotel and a fellow Armenian originally from Tehran, Iran. Manny became a close friend of Kerkorian and named his future son, Andre Kirk Agassi, who became a famous tennis player. Rempel also described Kerkorian’s business dealings with George Mason (Elmassian), his longtime stockbroker, and the founder of the California Courier newspaper in 1958.
In chapter 31, Rempel described the tragic earthquake of December 7, 1988, in Northern Armenia and how Kerkorian agreed to join the United Armenian Fund in sending over 150 airlifts for the next 25 years to transport $700 million of humanitarian aid initially to the survivors of the earthquake, and subsequently to the entire population of Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno Karabagh). The biographer Rempel also described how the United Armenian Fund was founded, a coalition of the seven largest Armenian-American charitable and religious organizations, including Kerkorian’s Lincy Foundation. Alex Yemenidjian was Chairman of the United Armenian Fund and Harut Sassounian was its President.

Chapter 36 is titled: “Genocide and Generosity.” It described Kerkorian’s first-ever visit to Armenia in 1998 on his private jet accompanied by Harut Sassounian. The chapter relates conversations about Turkey and the occupied Armenian lands during the flight to Armenia and discussions to fund new projects by Kerkorian’s Lincy Foundation. I was subsequently appointed Vice Chairman of the Lincy Foundation to oversee $242 million of infrastructure projects in Armenia and some in Artsakh. This revealing book also includes amusing anecdotes about Kerkorian’s uncomfortable stay in an old Soviet-style mansion which forced him to switch to the Marriott Hotel, and his traumatic visit to the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan!

Kirk Kerkorian’s biography is the fascinating story of a unique human being. He was a brilliant businessman, an extremely modest philanthropist, a true American as well as a true Armenian. As a last indication of his kindness and generosity, he departed this world in 2015 at the age of 98, leaving his entire fortune of $2 billion to charity, in addition to the $1 billion he had already donated to American and Armenian charitable causes through the Lincy Foundation.

I recommend that every Armenian buy a copy of Kirk’s biography and suggest it to their non-Armenian neighbors, friends and colleagues. Kerkorian’s incredible accomplishments bestow a great honor upon Armenians worldwide!

Top Obama aides ‘sorry’ they did not recognize Armenian genocide Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/19/armenian-genocide-ben-rhodes-samantha-power-obama-349973


https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=armenian+genocide+documentary+bbc+

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN On December 30, 2017, Cengiz Aktar, a prominent Turkish political scientist, journalist and writer, published a candid and compassionate article about the Armenian Genocide. Aktar’s article titled, “Confronting past violence with more violence,” is posted on Ahvalnews.com, an independent overseas website, beyond the reach of the Turkish government’s oppressive regime. Prof. Aktar begins his article with a stern warning to Turkish denialists: “Unless we, as a society confront a massive crime in our past like the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and unless we commit due reparations to the descendants of innocent victims, impunity will haunt us, and even more evil will follow. This is a century-old ethical predicament with remarkably deep roots.” Aktar not only demands recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but more significantly, “reparations.” Prof. Aktar believes that the denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government is at the root of all vile events that have occurred in Turkey since 1915: “Considering that Genocide is a substantially massive crime than any of the public, individual or collective infractions, or the incessant evils of today, if the public consciousness can stomach Genocide, it can easily stomach any lawlessness. And thus, evil begets evil. We as a society have constantly refused to bring up the events of 1915 due to the intensity of the transgressions that followed suit — directly correlated to the impunity of Genocide — as well as voluntary or forced dementia.” Indeed, violence and injustice have become routine in Turkey due to the reluctance of dealing with the mass crimes of the Armenian Genocide: “…Collective dementia, collective violence, and collective depravity that were imposed after the transgressions of 1915 became our lifestyle. Now we have unlimited violence and depravity everywhere, inside our homes, barracks, workplaces, hospitals — in every arena, from politics to the media — against everything from humans, to animals, nature, cities, and culture. But lawlessness, impunity, injustice, and indifference are everywhere as well.” Aktar describes the denial of the Armenian Genocide as an on-going ‘curse’ upon Turkey that has led to many of today’s evils in Turkish society: “Some kind of schizophrenia that immediately forces one to forget and try to make others forget the violence it just inflicted. This is a collective sickness that transgresses the delusions of banal everyday politics. However, the suppressed memories of the past violence keep themselves alive in the public sub-consciousness by creating more violence, testing the confines of our dementia. So much so that while trying to forget an evil, we beget a new one! Maybe this is the curse of a society that refuses to face voluntarily its past violence through involuntary confrontation with daily violence with all its sinister consequences.” At the end of his graciously humanistic article, Aktar reposts another powerful article he had written just before 2015, on the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, in Taraf newspaper which was deleted from the website by the Turkish authorities. In his earlier article, Prof. Aktar also blamed all the evils occurring in Turkey today due to the curse inflicted upon Turkish society by the victims of the Armenian Genocide: “Who knows, all the evil haunting us, endless mass killings, and our inability to recover from afflictions may be due to a century-old curse and a century-old lie. What do you think? This is perhaps the malediction uttered by Armenians, children, civilian women and men alike who died moaning, and buried without a coffin. It may be the storms created in our souls by the still agonizing specters of all our ill-fated citizens including Greeks and Syriacs and later Alevis and Kurds. Perhaps, the massacres which have not been accounted for since 1915 and the charge which have remained unpaid are now being paid back in different venues by the grandchildren. The curses uttered in return for the lives taken, the lives stolen, the homes plundered, the churches destroyed, the schools confiscated, and the property extorted…. ‘May God make you pay for it for all your offspring to come’… Are we paying back the price of all the injustice done so far? Does repayment manifest itself in the form of an audacity of not being able to confront with our past sins or in the form of indecency that has become our habit due to our chronic indulgence in unfairness? It seems as if our society has been decaying for a century, with festering all around.” When Turkish leaders accept the mass crimes committed by their ancestors and make amends for them, as Prof. Aktar suggests, that is when Armenia and Turkey can establish normal diplomatic relations and only then can they put the past behind them. May Allah bestow His blessings on this righteous Turk and his pursuit of Godly justice!

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

On December 30, 2017, Cengiz Aktar, a prominent Turkish political scientist, journalist and writer, published a candid and compassionate article about the Armenian Genocide. Aktar’s article titled, “Confronting past violence with more violence,” is posted on Ahvalnews.com, an independent overseas website, beyond the reach of the Turkish government’s oppressive regime.

Prof. Aktar begins his article with a stern warning to Turkish denialists: “Unless we, as a society confront a massive crime in our past like the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and unless we commit due reparations to the descendants of innocent victims, impunity will haunt us, and even more evil will follow. This is a century-old ethical predicament with remarkably deep roots.” Aktar not only demands recognition of the Armenian Genocide, but more significantly, “reparations.”

Prof. Aktar believes that the denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government is at the root of all vile events that have occurred in Turkey since 1915: “Considering that Genocide is a substantially massive crime than any of the public, individual or collective infractions, or the incessant evils of today, if the public consciousness can stomach Genocide, it can easily stomach any lawlessness. And thus, evil begets evil. We as a society have constantly refused to bring up the events of 1915 due to the intensity of the transgressions that followed suit — directly correlated to the impunity of Genocide — as well as voluntary or forced dementia.”

Indeed, violence and injustice have become routine in Turkey due to the reluctance of dealing with the mass crimes of the Armenian Genocide: “…Collective dementia, collective violence, and collective depravity that were imposed after the transgressions of 1915 became our lifestyle. Now we have unlimited violence and depravity everywhere, inside our homes, barracks, workplaces, hospitals — in every arena, from politics to the media — against everything from humans, to animals, nature, cities, and culture. But lawlessness, impunity, injustice, and indifference are everywhere as well.”

Aktar describes the denial of the Armenian Genocide as an on-going ‘curse’ upon Turkey that has led to many of today’s evils in Turkish society: “Some kind of schizophrenia that immediately forces one to forget and try to make others forget the violence it just inflicted. This is a collective sickness that transgresses the delusions of banal everyday politics. However, the suppressed memories of the past violence keep themselves alive in the public sub-consciousness by creating more violence, testing the confines of our dementia. So much so that while trying to forget an evil, we beget a new one! Maybe this is the curse of a society that refuses to face voluntarily its past violence through involuntary confrontation with daily violence with all its sinister consequences.”

At the end of his graciously humanistic article, Aktar reposts another powerful article he had written just before 2015, on the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, in Taraf newspaper which was deleted from the website by the Turkish authorities.

In his earlier article, Prof. Aktar also blamed all the evils occurring in Turkey today due to the curse inflicted upon Turkish society by the victims of the Armenian Genocide: “Who knows, all the evil haunting us, endless mass killings, and our inability to recover from afflictions may be due to a century-old curse and a century-old lie. What do you think? This is perhaps the malediction uttered by Armenians, children, civilian women and men alike who died moaning, and buried without a coffin. It may be the storms created in our souls by the still agonizing specters of all our ill-fated citizens including Greeks and Syriacs and later Alevis and Kurds. Perhaps, the massacres which have not been accounted for since 1915 and the charge which have remained unpaid are now being paid back in different venues by the grandchildren. The curses uttered in return for the lives taken, the lives stolen, the homes plundered, the churches destroyed, the schools confiscated, and the property extorted…. ‘May God make you pay for it for all your offspring to come’… Are we paying back the price of all the injustice done so far? Does repayment manifest itself in the form of an audacity of not being able to confront with our past sins or in the form of indecency that has become our habit due to our chronic indulgence in unfairness? It seems as if our society has been decaying for a century, with festering all around.”

When Turkish leaders accept the mass crimes committed by their ancestors and make amends for them, as Prof. Aktar suggests, that is when Armenia and Turkey can establish normal diplomatic relations and only then can they put the past behind them. May Allah bestow His blessings on this righteous Turk and his pursuit of Godly justice!

The Rose Float—A Tribute to Armenian Woman

BY CATHERINE YESAYAN

I have been envious of some of my friends who, for the last four years, have decorated the Armenian float for Pasadena’s Rose Parade. This year, I was determined to volunteer to work on the float. However the holiday crunch prevented me from doing so until two days before the parade.

On Saturday, December 30, I headed to the warehouse in Irwindale, about 20 minutes east of Pasadena, where the float was being made. I arrived in Irwindale around noon, parked at a designated structure, then, from there, took the free shuttle to the Phoenix Decorating Warehouse, about a mile away. The weather was most glorious – sunny, blue sky, and temperature hovered in the low 70s.

I was the last person to get on that shuttle. I found the only empty seat next to a young woman. As is my habit, I started a conversation with her. She was from Michigan, visiting Los Angeles for work. She said that she had heard from a colleague that she could visit the workshop to see the floats. Very proudly, I said, “I’m going to work on the Armenian float.” And continued with a little spiel about being an Armenian.

She was very happy to be in LA, instead of shivering in Michigan. Kindly, and with a big smile, she listened to my talk, but I could tell that she didn’t care at all about my ancestry and my heritage. And why should she?

The “Armenian Root” float in a warehouse in Irwindale, Calif. before the parade

In a short time, we arrived at the Phoenix Decorating Company. As I made my way out of the shuttle bus, I met a woman in a white suit, white shirt, and white shoes, wearing a red scarf as a bow. She was member of the Tournament of Roses Committee, and she gave me a quick history of the Rose Parade. She said that the white suit was chosen to give the committee members a distinguished look amid the bursts of color. The members of the committee are nicknamed “White Suiters.”

It was noon. Hundreds of people, volunteers and spectators, stood in line to buy food from many lunch trucks that were available outside. I hurried inside the warehouse to find the Armenian float among the dozen or so in the final stages of preparation. The warehouse smelled like fresh flowers because of the many piles of cut roses, in boxes, on the ground, waiting to be used.

At the door, I asked a security guard where to find the Armenian float. She pointed towards the back. I passed a few floats, and in a corner found the beautiful, tall bust of a woman dressed in traditional Armenian headgear. That was the Armenian float. I rushed towards it.

Young volunteers with the author

Despite many volunteers scrambling around the warehouse to put finishing touches on floats, there was no one by the Armenian float. I searched close by, then asked someone at the neighboring float. They told me that the Armenian workers had most likely gone to lunch. I was very disappointed. I felt like a little girl who has lost her mother in a crowd. So I waited.

Since I was idle and had nothing to do, I checked out the next-door float, a model of the world’s largest free kitchen, located at a temple in India, where 100,000 people are fed each day. The 2018 theme “Making a Difference,” or acts of human kindness, went very well with this Indian float.

Finally, after 45 minutes, the volunteers started to return. The majority of them were teenage school kids wearing black sweatshirts with the logo of AARFA (Armenian American Rose Float Association.) In no time, they positioned themselves to start their assigned jobs. I had to sign up before I could join them.

At the registration table, I met Gayané Voskanyan, who was a member of the AARFA volunteer board and who had been volunteering since the first Armenian float was built for the 2015 parade.

Gayané gave me some history. The first float had cost $250K, the same as this recent one. This was the fourth consecutive year of having a float at the parade. This year, the committee had chosen the design of the bust of a woman to symbolize the selfless acts of Armenian women and mothers who “make a difference” in the lives of their families and the community.

Pieces of the float being assembled

Gayané told me that the make-up of the woman’s bust was done by a professional artist using ingredients such as crushed rice and other natural colors taken from seeds, fruits and vegetables. The makeup was truly outstanding.

All volunteers had to wear a sweatshirt with the logo. I paid $20 for a sweatshirt and started to work at a table. They showed me how to pluck green chrysanthemums from their stems and place them upside down in a cardboard box so that they could be glued to the float.

Gayané told me that about 50 volunteers had signed up for the first part of the day, and they were expecting about 100 in the evening, who would stay to work until all the details were finished, probably sometime in the early morning. She planned to stay there until the next morning when the judges would arrive and judging of the floats would be done. Then she would go home and have a much needed sleep.

I was happy to be able to help with the float just a little bit. I worked for a few hours and then left, because I had chores to finish and events to attend.

When on January 1, the floats rolled down Colorado Blvd, and I heard the comments about the Indian float from the TV hosts who covered the parade, I realized the importance of participation in the Tournament of Roses. If it were not for that float, I would have never known about that fabulous soup kitchen in India.

I was ecstatic to hear that our float which was named “Armenian Roots,” gained the JUDGES AWARD—the most outstanding float design and dramatic impact!!!!!

Here are the words of Leeza Gibbons and Mark Steines, the hosts of KTLA TV, channel 5, about the Armenian float as it rolled past their podium.

“Look at this beauty, isn’t this lovely, won the Judges Trophy winner for the most outstanding float design and dramatic impact. This strong and beautiful Armenian Matriarch represents hope joy and optimism Armenian Roots honoring those women who have made a difference through acts of kindness and unconditional love.”

“The Armenian Rose Float Association doing wonderful work… there work has paid off with this trophy… brown cinnamon, pomegranate and paper bark bring mother Armenian face to life, her ornate head dresses crafted by use of kermit tree mums, kidney beans and blueberries, traditional motifs like her veil feature tree truck coffee, coats of arms and badges are made from wine mums, artichokes, curly willow and grapes.”

“This beautiful tapestry of color symbolizes life, spring, beauty, courage, wealth and faith… Congratulations to AARFA for the Judges Trophy Winner… they deserve it.”

“It really is… Love the detail of this one, I love the story of how many generations come together of Armenian families to create legacies and memories by decorating these floats together… it’s really really lovely.”

I don’t think it would be inaccurate if I say that having a float in the Tournament of Roses has given us Armenians a chance to reach millions of people across the world and to tell our story. This year, it was the only float representing a nation.

Genocide Denied, Armenians Denied--The facts are the facts--YOU JUDGE

Mimar (Architect() Sinan was a 16th century architect credited for several Ottoman projects

BY RAFFI BEDROSYAN

Last month, while criticizing Israel and the United States on the Jerusalem issue, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated with great conviction, without batting an eye: “There has never been any genocide, Holocaust, massacre, ethnic cleansing or torture in our history.”

This wholesale denial of historic facts regarding the treatment of minorities by the state is nothing new, but with each denial, history just keeps on repeating itself with sickening regularity, massacres of Armenians followed by massacres of Greeks, Assyrians, Alevis and Kurds.

This article will focus not on the denial of genocide, but more on the denial of the very existence of the Armenians and their contributions to Turkey in so many ways.

Mimar (architect) Sinan’s rendering of a mosque

In a previous article (Armenian Island on the Bosphorus), I had touched upon how a single family of Armenian architects, the Balyans, had shaped the skyline of Istanbul, particularly along the Bosphorus, with their creations of palaces, mansions, military barracks and mosques. Although revered and respected as Royal Architects during the Ottoman reign, their Armenian identity was denied by the Republic of Turkey, and they were mentioned as the Italian Balianis by official tourist guides until the the early 2000’s.

Even more famous than the Balyan family, an architect living in the sixteenth century, Mimar (Architect) Sinan (1489-1588) has left his mark all over the Ottoman Empire single-handedly creating 92 mosques, 55 schools, 36 palaces, 48 hamams (bath house),3 hospitals, 20 inns, 10 bridges, 6 water channels and hundreds of other government buildings, almost all of them still standing after five centuries. His masterpieces are the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul and Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, which is in the UNESCO World Heritage list of buildings. The average Turk knows him as the Great Turkish Architect Sinan, and his name is given to Fine Arts and Architecture universities. But he is an Armenian from the Agirnas village of Kayseri province, seized away from his parents as a boy, Islamized, circumcised and raised as soldier and subsequently as architect by the state. When he died at the ripe age of 99, he was buried near Suleymaniye Mosque. During the 1930’s, the Turkish state was dominated by racist intellectuals who claimed that the Turkish race was superior to all other races and that there was a definable set of Turkish race characteristics in shape of skull and other features. To prove their point and to demonstrate that historically intelligent Turks match their defined racial characteristics, these so-called anthropology experts decided to exhume the remains of Architect Sinan, a most prominent Turk from the past. Unfortunately, Sinan’s skull did not match these experts’ theoretical Turkish skull dimensions, and as a result, the skull was kept hidden. To this day the whereabouts of the skull is still unknown, and Sinan’s body lies in the grave without the head.

Prof. Agop Martayan, who was named Agop Dilacar by Ataturk

Again in the 1930’s, when President Mustafa Kemal decided to introduce the Latin alphabet and modernize the Turkish language, he turned to Prof. Agop Martayan, a prominent linguist, to head the Turkish Language Council. As a reward for his services to the Turkish language, Kemal gave him a new surname, Dilacar, meaning ‘language opener’. In return, Martayan proposed the surname ‘Ataturk’ to Kemal, which was eventually adopted by the Parliament. When Martayan passed away in 1979, Turkish media announced his name as A. Dilacar, without ever mentioning his Armenian identity. In fact, some newspapers further distorted his name, by referring to Adil Acar.

After Mustafa Kemal got the surname Ataturk, he needed to create a new signature, and he called upon another Armenian, prominent calligraphy master, Vahram Jerjian. Jerjian’s Ataturk signature was adopted in 1934 and it appears on everything from Turkish banknotes to parliamentary records, but today nobody remembers him.

In 1932, the Turkish government commissioned a prominent Armenian musicologist and conductor, Edgar Manas, to create the harmony and orchestration for the Turkish national anthem based on a melody by a Turkish musician. Today, nobody remembers Edgar Manas in Turkey, even though his creation of the national anthem is sung every week in schools, stadiums and the parliament.

Actress Adile Nasit

In Turkish cinema, movie stars Adile Nasit, Toto Karaca, Vahi Oz, Sami Hazinses, Kenan Pars are known all over Turkey, making millions laugh or cry in their films. But very few Turks know or acknowledge that these stars are all Armenian. They all had unique reasons for hiding their Armenian identities, revealed after they passed away. Adile Nasit was Adile Keskiner (1930-1987), Toto Karaca was Irma Felegyan (1912-1992), Vahi Oz was Vahe Ozinyan (1911-1969), Sami Hazinses was Samuel Agop Ulucyan (1925-2002), Kenan Pars was Krikor Jezvejian (1920-2008).

The first opera in Turkey was staged in 1874 in Istanbul by an Armenian, composed, conducted and produced by Dikran Cuhaciyan (1837-1898).Turkish sources deny this and cite Turkish singers for much later dates.

The first theater was staged in 1868 in Istanbul by an Armenian actor Gullu Agop Vartovyan (1840-1902). Turkish sources deny this and cite Turkish actors for much later dates.

The first sportsmen representing Ottoman Turkey were two Armenians and a Greek in 1912 in Stockholm. The Armenians were Vahram Papazyan and Mgrditch Migiryan, both in track and field. Turkish sources deny this and cite Turkish sportsmen in later dates.

These examples of Armenian contributions, innovations or accomplishments, denied or forgotten in Turkey, can be repeated in every imaginable field of arts, science, business, finance, banking, engineering or publishing in Ottoman or Republican Turkey. One of the best sources to comprehend the role of Armenians in Turkey is an incredibly detailed series of four books called ‘Western Armenians Throughout History ‘ (Tarih Boyunca Bati Ermenileri), in Turkish, authored by Prof. Pars Tuglaci. Prof. Tuglaci, whose real name is Parsegh Tuglaciyan (1933-2016) is the author of the first Turkish Encyclopedia called The Ocean Encyclopedia Dictionary, and many other books but his lifetime achievement is this four volume history of Armenians, based on hundreds of thousands of meticulously researched documents. Each volume totals about 900 pages, covering the periods of 289 to 1850 (vol.1), 1850 to 1890 (vol.2), 1890 to 1923 (vol. 3) and 1923 to 1966 (vol. 4). The last volume was published in 2009 in Istanbul. As Alzheimers Disease started to melt away his brilliant mind, unfortunately he could not publish the fifth volume which would cover the period 1966 to 2010. The most dramatic and indisputable evidence of the genocide is in Volume 3 (1890 to 1923), which displays thousands of documents showing Armenian achievements in all imaginable fieldsas mentioned above, including within the Ottoman government. It seems that until the mid 1910s, the Armenians were prominent in all levels of Ottoman foreign ministry and embassies, indispensable in state enterprises and the central bank, influential in all business, art, science, academic institutions, in Istanbul as well as all the Ottoman provinces. The dramatic disappearance of all these Armenian names in 1915 is evidence enough of the genocide, without the need to mention the word ‘genocide’. When I asked Prof. Tuglaciyan how he was allowed to publish such a critical book in Turkey, he had simply stated: ‘I am just presenting state documents showing promotions or rewards of Armenians in state bureaucracy, achievements of Armenians in arts, sciences and business, promotional ads of Armenian enterprises or cultural events. They all existed before 1915, but no more after 1915, who can dispute that?’

In concluding this article, I urge all Armenian scholars in Armenia and Diaspora to consider translating Prof. Tuglaciyan’s hidden treasure to English and Armenian for future generations to better understand what we had, what we lost and most importantly, why.

World Union of Jewish Students Recognizes the Armenian Genocide

TEL AVIV, Israel—The World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) recently formally recognized the Armenian Genocide at its 44th World Congress in Israel. Jewish-Australian advocate Ariel Zohar was among the key speakers in favor of the motion, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).

Zohar, who played a key role in the recent Victorian Young Labor motion recognizing the Armenian Genocide, was joined in his advocacy of this historic motion by Aaron Meyer and Yos Tarshish.

ANC-AU Executive Director Haig Kayserian thanked the WUJS on this important statement for human rights.

“We thank Ariel Zohar and his colleagues at the World Union of Jewish Students Congress for passing a motion that does not only recognize the genocide committed against the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians of the Ottoman Empire, it also ‘condemns’ and ‘rejects’ any ‘attempt to deny, distort, or ignore the historical reality of this genocide,'” Kayserian said.

“This sends a strong message to the governments of Israel, and others, like Australia, that human rights are not there to be bargained for diplomatic gain, no matter the circumstance,” he added.

On his Facebook page, Zohar wrote: “Jewish students have a long proud history of perusing on the forefronts of social justice. Today is another important milestone in our activism history…. WUJS will now be formally calling on governments of Israel, Australia and others to join a growing list of 28 countries around the world to formally recognize the sufferings and injustice of the Armenians and other minorities at the hand of the then Ottoman Empire (modern day Turkey).”

The WUJS was founded in 1924 by Hersch Lauterpacht, with Albert Einstein as its first president.

The motion can be read below in its entirety.

***

This Congress notes:

That between 1915 and 1923 millions of Armenians, Pontian Greeks and Assyrians were murdered at the hands of the Ottoman Caliphate.

The tragic crime was undisputedly carried out with the genocidal intention of eliminating these Christian communities. This was a premeditated and systematic execution of an estimated 2-3 million civilians; not a legitimate act of war.

This Congress believes:

That it is incumbent upon us as a Jewish organization to fight all forms of racism.

This Congress resolves:

To condemn and reject any attempt to deny, distort, or ignore the historical reality of this genocide.

To recognize the importance of remembering and learning from this genocide, and to join the Armenian, Pontian Greek, and Assyrian communities in honoring the innocent people who fell victim to this crime.

4 Comments on World Union of Jewish Students Recognizes the Armenian Genocide

1. madeleine mezagopian // January 8, 2018 at 3:01 pm // Reply

   We anticipate this youth to exert pressure on the Israeli government to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
2. Edward Demiraiakian // January 8, 2018 at 4:17 pm // Reply

   About time. Some moral issues have no compromise. The Holocust was not fritterred away in favor of economic and political considerations. No, it was presented to the world, the world and Germany acknowledged, financial compensation paid, and Germany and the world is better off for it. Colluding with the Genocydal regime in Turkey, only perpetuates the crimes as now they are continuing in Turkish Kurdistan. The US, Israel and all the business partners of the Turkish Islamic dictatorship will one day be taken to account for their crimes.
3. Stephen T. Dulgarian // January 9, 2018 at 4:17 pm // Reply

   We thank the World Union of Jewish Students in Recognizing the Armenian Genocide. We hope the Organization will put pressure on the Israeli Government to finally have it passed in the Knesset.
4. Jack Schwartz // January 9, 2018 at 4:52 pm // Reply

   Madeleine, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, recognized the Armenian Genocide years ago, maybe ten years ago. However, the government through the foreign ministry has not recognized it.
   Edward, “Germany acknowledged, financial compensation paid”
   How can the Germans ever compensate us for all of our dead, more than 6 million? Certain moneys were paid but they did not even equal a fraction of the Jewish property stolen or destroyed. Since Germany and Austria enabled the Armenian genocide through their alliance in WW One with Turkey, maybe Armenians should demand reparations from the Germans.

   Israel has been wary of erdogan and his gang of goons for years. Recall how erdogan reviled Israeli president Peres at the 2009 Davos meeting. He has also directly and indirectly incited violence against the Jews living in Turkey. A number of Jews have died in various terrorist attacks against the Jewish community there. Israel is well aware of all that. On the other hand, Israel did make a few gestures of reconciliation towards Turkey since the 2010 Mavi Marmara affair in which nine or ten Turkish terrorists/jihadis were killed by Israeli naval commandos. However, all of these gestures were done under pressure from Obama.
   As for trade, I believe that Armenia too has some trade with Turkey.

Shadowy Turkish operatives are plotting the murders of high-profile Turkish dissidents and religious minority leaders

ARTICLE SUMMARY

A Turkish parliamentarian has told Al-Monitor that Western officials believe dissidents and religious minority leaders in exile are being targeted by Turkish government operatives for assassination.

 REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

A group of pro-Erdogan demonstrators shout slogans at a group of anti-Erdogan Kurds (foreground, back to camera) in Lafayette Park as Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with US President Donald Trump nearby at the White House in Washington, May 16, 2017.

Shadowy Turkish operatives are plotting the murders of high-profile Turkish dissidents and religious minority leaders living in exile in a bid to sow further chaos and instability, a prominent Turkish lawmaker warned today. 

Garo Paylan, a member of parliament for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), said he had received confirmation from Western officials about Turkish individuals with alleged connections to the Turkish state who are planning to carry out sensational assassinations of several prominent journalists and other government critics. “There is a list of targets,” he told Al-Monitor in a telephone interview.

Paylan emphasized that there is no evidence that the operatives are acting under direct orders from the government. “Rather, in gray and turbulent times such as those we are experiencing today, rogue networks inside the state take matters into their own hands, as we saw with the murder of Hrant Dink,” he said, referring to the Armenian Turkish newspaper editor gunned down outside his Istanbul office on Jan. 19, 2007, by a young man thought to have been put up to the job by ultranationalist security officials.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly lashed out at Western governmentsthat have offered refuge to a growing population of political exiles fleeing possible imprisonment in Turkey for alleged ties to Fethullah Gulen, the Sunni cleric and No. 1 suspect in last year’s failed coup. Others are accused of connections to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Having offered sanctuary to many of the exiles, Germany is the leading target of the Turkish government’s ire, resulting in a meltdown in relations between the NATO allies and tit-for-tat arrests of German nationals in Turkey on dubious terrorism charges.

Paylan said the government’s incendiary rhetoric, singling out some of its critics by name, has created a climate of impunity. “[This] can be interpreted by overzealous vigilantes as a green light to go after them,” he asserted. The lawmaker added that he had alerted several senior Turkish government officials about the alleged scheme to carry out extrajudicial killings. Paylan declined to identify them by name, but offered, “They thanked me.”

Celal Baslangic, a veteran Turkish journalist, has written extensively on Kurdish matters. He is living in exile in the German city of Koln, where he runs the independent online news portal Arti Gercek and its television arm. Baslangic, charged with belonging to a terrorist organization along with several other journalists — for editing the now shuttered pro-Kurdish newspaper Ozgur Gundem in an act of solidarity — shares Paylan’s worries.

“The Turkish state targeting its opponents is nothing new. But we have been informed that three new assassins have been dispatched from Turkey to Germany and may be in our midst.”

“The Turkish state targeting its opponents is nothing new,” Baslangic told Al-Monitor. “But we have been informed that three new assassins have been dispatched from Turkey to Germany and may be in our midst.”

Baslangic declined to reveal his sources. “I have told my colleagues to be on guard,” he said.

Can Dundar, the exiled former editor-in-chief of the opposition daily Cumhuriyet, is a likely target. Dundar was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison in May 2016 on charges of revealing state secrets in Cumhuriyet’s coverage of alleged arms shipments from the Turkish government to Syrian jihadis. The day of Dundar's sentencing, a gunman shot at him outside the courthouse. Dundar fled to Germany two months later. Today, Turkish prosecutors demanded an additional 15 years for Dundar over his alleged ties to Gulen, again in connection to the illicit arms shipment claims.

In a telephone interview with Al-Monitor, Dundar denied all the charges against him and declined to comment on whether he was the target of any assassination attempt. He did say, however, “It's perfectly conceivable that somebody would want to kill a journalist, academic or intellectual labeled as ‘traitor’ by the Turkish president, so as to prove their patriotism and loyalty.” He added, “It's inconceivable that many of these so-called mystery murders were conducted without the state sanctioning them.”

The extrajudicial targeting of Turkish government opponents has a long history. Throughout the 1980s, the notorious Turkish hit man Abdullah Catli masterminded a string of assassinations and bomb attacks against Armenians in Europe. He purportedly acted under orders from the Turkish state to avenge the murders of Turkish diplomats by Armenians seeking in turn to avenge the 1915 genocide against Ottoman Armenians. In the 1990s, Catli pointed his gun at Kurdish journalists thought to be sympathetic to the PKK. 

In January 2013, three Kurdish female activists, including Sakine Cansiz, a PKK co-founder, were found dead with gunshot wounds in a Paris apartment. The prime suspect, Omer Guney — who was arrested but died in a French hospital just days before his trial was due to start in January 2017 — was widely alleged to have been connected to MIT, Turkey’s intelligence agency.

In September, the respected German weekly Der Spiegel published an interview with a Kurdish activist who said that he never spends more than three days in the same city for fear of being killed. Yuksel Koc, co-chair of the European Kurdish Democratic Societies Congress, claimed his name was on a hit list “assembled by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan” and that he was told so “by an agent of the Turkish secret service.” Der Spiegel reported that a certain Fatih S., facing trial in Hamburg over his alleged mission to “track down” Koc, “has testified in his interrogations about MIT plans to murder [Koc] and another Kurdish man.”

Meanwhile, in April, German authorities opened an investigation into allegations that 19 Turkish imams affiliated with the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs were spying on members of Gulen’s flock on behalf of Turkey’s state-run Religious Affairs Directorate, Diyanet. Investigators reportedly possessed documents confirming that Diyanet’s foreign relations boss, Halife Keskin, had personally instructed Turkish missions around the world to gather information about Gulenists.

The German Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe, however, announced earlier this month that it had closed the case. One of the reasons cited for the dismissal was that the “defendants believed they had to fear significant repression by government agencies in Turkey if they had refused to implement the mission of Diyanet.”

Last week, Germany’s state-run radio service reported on alleged ties between Metin Kulunk, a member of parliament for Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, and a controversial Turkish outfit known as the German Ottomans. It is believed to be run out of a boxing club, Osmanen Germania Boxclub, in the town of Dietzenbach. 

Last year, federal police carried out multiple raids on the group across Germany for alleged involvement in drugs and arms trafficking and money laundering as well as blackmail. Deutsche Welle referred to claims based on information gathered from official wiretaps that allegedly suggested that Kulunk had provided funding to leaders of the gang. Kulunk has denied all the accusations, calling them a “plot by the Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organization.”

German officials did not respond to Al-Monitor's request for comment.

Meanwhile, Switzerland and Austria, also home to significant Turkish communities, have launched probes into whether Turkey is conducting espionage on their soil.

Found in:RELIGIOUS MINORITIES, PRESS FREEDOM

Amberin Zaman is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Turkey Pulse who has covered Turkey, the Kurds and Armenia for The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, The Los Angeles Times and the Voice of America. She served as The Economist's Turkey correspondent between 1999 and 2016. She was a columnist for the liberal daily Taraf and the mainstream daily Haberturk before switching to the independent Turkish online news portal Diken in 2015. On Twitter: @amberinzaman

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/12/dissidents-minorities-assassinations-abroad.html#ixzz53EvFxSs6