Maybe Sargsyan just doesn’t care what people think of him. It could also be that he and his cronies live in a world so far removed from the trials and tribulations of the common-folk, that they really can’t see beyond their villas and the walls of the presidential palace.
The four-day war presented a host of challenges for local reporters – accessibility to the frontlines being at the top.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the death of 20 Armenian soldiers on the Artsakh frontline will finally engender some substantive public debate regarding the entire “Karabakh conflict”.
And, in this jumble of fact and fiction, we are trying to conduct a rational national discourse.
Sitting in an AUA classroom this evening, listening to a lecture on the proposed changes to the RoA Constitution and their possible impact on human rights in Armenia and international treaty obligations, my poor head was about to explode from all the legal mumbo-jumbo being tossed hither and yon.
For many in Turkey, the issue of the Armenian Genocide is seen as a vital part of the overall struggle for democracy in the country.
“We have a duty to maintain our culture here in Turkey. Not just for the children, but the parents as well,” Zavakyan says.
During a trip to Baghdad in February of this year, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian announced that Armenia was planning to open a consulate general in Erbil.
Commander Murad Vardanian - "We went to confront the treacherous enemy on the riverbank, before they reached our villages.”
Thousand packed Liberty Square in Yerevan this evening to hear representatives of three parliamentary opposition parties (ANC, Heritage and Prosperous Armenia) call for regime change in Armenia.
It’s sort of a catch-all of news snippets, irreverent commentary, and personal observations on what’s happened during the week here in Yerevan, and throughout Armenia..
Over the centuries, untold numbers of Christian Armenians have converted to Islam. The vast majority have done so under various degrees of pressure and given the exigencies of the time.
Reading the official Armenian Police press release regarding yesterday’s meeting between Chief of Police Vladimir Gasbaryan and Nils Muižnieks, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, one would get the impression that all is on track in Armenia when it comes to police respecting the rights of citizens and police transparency.
The Mayor of Marseille, Jean-Claude Gaudin, arrives in Yerevan today heading a business delegation that will meet with Armenia’s Minister of the Economy.
A group of around 100 protesters, all sporting yellow baseball caps, wound their way through downtown Yerevan today, urging passersby to join their march in opposition to the construction taking place at the city’s iconic landmark, the Pak Shouka (Covered Market).
Lambasting President Serzh Sargsyan’s recent last minute announcement that Armenia is planning to join the Russian led Customs Union as “closing the door to Europe, Yerevan-based political analyst Richard Giragosian said there was still time for Yerevan to make sure the door isn’t “locked”.
Calls for a number of state agencies and ministries to be handed over
He talked about the idea of forming a pan-Armenian philharmonic orchestra that could tour the world as a more attractive and effective way to commemorate the anniversary.
“Such a claim is an outright lie. I have always said that I am open to discussions with Mr. Sargsyan to resolve this situation. However, as I have stated, Mr. Sargsyan must meet me half way. So far, I have only received outright rejections of all possible options,” Hovannisian told reporters.
Today, Raffi Hovannisian announced that he would begin a hunger strike in Freedom Square.
Freedom Square in Yerevan was overflowing with people at today’s rally in support of Raffi Hovannisian and his ongoing struggle to reject the official vote results of the February 18 presidential election.
Thousands turned out under a cloudy Yerevan sky to hear what Raffi Hovannisian had to say about the future of the movement to remove Serzh Sargsyan from the Presidential Palace.
I got a call this morning to head down to Yerevan State University to cover the third day of student protests in the Armenian capital.
To get a better insight into the recent attacks against elderly Armenian women in Istanbul, Hetq contacted Fethiye Çetin, a prominent lawyer and human rights advocate working in Turkey. Çetin has served as an attorney for the family of Hrant Dink and is the author of My Grandmother, a book describing how and when she found out about her Armenian roots.
Under a cloudy and cold Yerevan sky, Heritage Party leader Raffi Hovannisian kicked off his presidential campaign today, calling on fellow Armenian citizens to go to the polls on February 19 and finally send the current president and his team packing.
The following is a true story...unfortunately. I had just finished a day’s work translating for Hetq. Around 4:30, I decided to take a walk outside. It looked like another great day in Yerevan; warm and sunny.
I came across an article in Hurriyet Daily News and I would like to get reader feedback on it.
A news report in today’s Azerbaijani Trend news agency, referring to the Turkish newspaper Sabah article, alleges that the Interior Minister of Turkey, Idris Naim Sahin recently stated that of the 170 “terrorists” of the Kurdistan Workers' Party recently killed in a Turkish military operation in the Hakkiri district, some were Armenian citizens.
There’s talk here in Armenia about what’s going on in Syria and what this means for Armenians living there. Open a newspaper or listen to the radio and you’ll see this and that analyst giving their take on the civil war now raging in Homs, Damascus, Aleppo and points in between.
It would appear that the Municipality is no different from most private establishments in Yerevan when it comes to hiring. Many retail shops and business publicly state that they are looking for pretty females of a certain age, etc. In fact, reply to most help wanted ads and the first question asked is how old one is.
I just got back from an interesting roundtable discussion organized by the Sardarapat Movement regarding the potential of the Armenian diaspora, why Armenia must craft state policy designed to tap into it, and the possibility of doing so.
Hot on the heels of the Armenian Diaspora Virtual Museum fiasco, I can’t help but bring to the attention of our readers, especially those living outside Armenia, another example of a top Armenian official who evidently enjoys making blithe statements to the TV cameras without regard to the consequences.
I received a reply from the editorial board of the Virtual Museum of the Armenian Diaspora regarding my critique entitled “Diaspora Ministry’s Much Heralded Virtual Museum is a Virtual Embarrassment” that appeared in the March 15 edition of Hetq.
I read somewhere that the 2012 budget for the RA Ministry of the Diaspora is 712 million AMD. That’s around $1.9 million, give or take. God knows what they do with the money...
This morning, under a sunny bit cold sky, hundreds visited the Yerablur Military Cemetery to pay respects to Monte “Avo” Melkonian on what would have been his 54th birthday. There were hundreds of cadets from the Monte Melkonian Military Academy who waited in single file to approach Monte’s grave site and leave a single white flower in respect. Most were born after the national hero was struck down.
Neery Melkonian, a New York-based curator, arts adviser and writer, has been in Armenia for the past four months laying the groundwork for two distinct projects. I caught up with her to discuss her ongoing work here in Yerevan.
I was introduced to Zakaria Mildanoglu, the Armenian architect who worked on the restoration of the Holy Cross Church at Akhtamar. He told me that St. Kirakos now legally belongs to the Foundation set up by Istanbul-Armenians who spearheaded the restoration.
Last week I and two friends hopped in a Japanese jeep and headed off from Yerevan for the reopening of the Armenian Apostolic Church of St. Kirakos in Diyarbekir, Turkey.
Against the backdrop of the growing “Occupy Wall Street” grassroots protest that started in New York and have now spread to other American cities and towns worldwide, the state of ‘people power’ in Armenia can be described as comatose.
What I want to pick up on is something he said during the “100 Questions” forum on September 29 at the Golden Tulip Hotel. It dealt with Armenian lobbying efforts to get President Obama to publicly describe the events of 1915 as genocide.
An interview with Turgut Kerem Tuncel, PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Trento (Italy). Mr. Tuncel, native of Turkey, is in Armenia to do research for his thesis entitled “Mayr Hayastan, Im Hayrenik; The memory and politics of the construction of the Armenian homeland”.
Yesterday, in Yerevan, President Serzh Sargsyan welcomed hundred of representatives from 151 unnamed Diaspora organizations attending the first Pan-Armenian conference.
It would appear that a new Armenian Apostolic Church Diocese has been created in Switzerland, this despite opposition by most of the tiny Armenian community.
Calls for review of opposition’s strategy regarding “regime change” To mark the 7th day of his “Fast for Freedom”, Heritage Party founder and MP Raffi Hovannisian held a press conference in Opera Square and called for Armenia’s opposition ...
Huge Armenian Presence on September 19 Could Have Nullified Turkish “Show” The parking lot on the shore of Lake Van for visitors planning to take a ferry boat to the island of Akhtamar was half empty when our minivan pulled in around 9 on the ...
Rumour has it that you can bump into more than a few interesting and unusual characters at an opposition rally here in Yerevan. That’s exactly what happened on March 1, when by pure serendipity, I bumped into Takayuki Yoshimura.
Japanese Scholar Researching Post WW II Armenian Repatriation Rumour has it that you can bump into more than a few interesting and unusual characters at an opposition rally here in Yerevan. That’s exactly what happened on March 1, when by pure serendipity, ...
"We must remember that Karabakh was the home of Azeris as well", he states at Civiltas talk. Thomas de Waal, a British journalist and writer best known to Armenians as the author of “Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War” was the ...
It’s the people of the RoA who suffer from “strained relations” There’s a conference taking place in Washington D.C. these days on the state of Diaspora-Armenia relations during the past twenty years since independence. Now that’s a pretty big ...