administrator, Author at Gagrule.net

The two NKs: North Korea and Nagorno-Karabakh

July 25, 2013 By administrator

By Thomas de Waal

Carnegie Endowment Foundation e Two NKs

When you mention the acronym “NK,” it is interesting to hear what the other person thinks you are referring to. For there are two NKs at either end of the Asian land mass—North Korea and Nagorny Karabakh.

Of course, North Korea grabs the headlines for good reasons. A population of 75 million in both Koreas, fears over a nuclear escalation, the bellicose threats by the North Korean leadership—all of that focuses minds on the East Asian NK as a potential flashpoint.
But there are some instructive parallels with the Caucasian NK. Along with Kashmir’s Line of Control, North Korea and Nagorno Karabakh surely comprise the three most militarized borders in the world. All of them are disputed lines on the map that mark a truce rather than a political settlement.
Of these, Karabakh’s Line of Contact (almost the same terminology as in Kashmir) is the most ignored. Yet it is a fearsome scar on the map, more than 200 km long, with World-War-I-style trenches on either side, bristling with heavy weaponry.

Military experts suggest that the Armenian (including Karabakh Armenian) and Azerbaijani militaries each have between 65,000 and 70,000 active troops, of whom about a third are probably stationed on the Line of Contact at any one time.

The risk of new fighting over Karabakh is still relatively low. Azerbaijan, the losing side in the conflict of the 1990s and therefore the party most likely to go back to war, has too much to lose by choosing the military option.
But the lesson of conflicts from August 1914 to August 2008 is that too many of them begin by miscalculation. The main issue in both places is lack of communication. There is no telephone contact between commanders across the Line of Contact—just as there is none across the 38th Parallel. That way, a small military incident could escalate into a larger one.

What could that incident be? There is one obvious reason to worry. This is what could happen if the newly rebuilt airport in Karabakh opens. The Armenian side says it is ready to fly planes between Yerevan and Karabakh. The Azerbaijanis say this would break the Chicago Convention and have threatened (unspecified) retaliation if that happens. So far, the Armenians have acceded to international pressure and done nothing. But sooner or later they are likely to make a flight. Then, given the complete lack of contact and trust between the two sides, things could get dangerous.

Another lesson here is that maybe the most dangerous conflict is the one you were not anticipating.

U.S. House committee approves Karabakh assistance

July 25, 2013 By administrator

July 25, 2013 – 14:34 AMT

The House Appropriation Committee on Wednesday, July 24, approved assistance to Nagorno Karabakh within the Fiscal Year 2014 Foreign Aid Bill, which, however, does not cite a specific level of aid to Armenia, reported the Armenian National Committee of America.

“Within the funds provided under this heading, the Secretary of State should provide assistance for victims of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict at levels consistent with prior years, and for ongoing needs related to the conflict,” reads the committee report attached to the bill that will move through the House.

ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian welcomed the decision, stating: “We are gratified that Chairwoman Granger and Ranking Member Lowey have, at the urging of Congressman Schiff, agreed to a manager’s amendment to the full House Appropriations Committee’s version of the FY14 foreign aid bill restoring language that, amid sharp cuts to overall spending, prioritizes keeping aid levels for Nagorno Karabakh consistent with prior years.”

“The priority the Committee attaches to America’s vital aid program for Nagorno Karabakh, the only Caucasus aid program specifically mentioned in the House report, is particularly meaningful given that this year’s foreign aid bill is marked by deep, across-the-board cuts, the removal of many country-specific aid level citations, and even the complete elimination of a number of assistance programs,” said Hamparian.

“At the same time, we remain troubled that the version of the foreign aid bill moving through the House, for the first time since Armenia’s independence, does not cite a specific aid level for Armenia.”

Armenian Assembly of America delivers new fact sheet on Azerbaijan

July 25, 2013 By administrator

July 25, 2013 – 11:46 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Throughout this year, the Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly) has taken steps to address a serious concern of the Armenian-American community: the ongoing threats against Armenians by Azerbaijan.

As Congress looks to approve U.S. foreign aid priorities this week, the Assembly visited over 125 Members of Congress and hand-delivered the new 2013 Assembly Press Kit outlining funding priorities for Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, including the Assembly’s new FACT SHEET on Azerbaijan.

Earlier this month, reports surfaced that Azerbaijan had once again violated the ceasefire agreement along the line of contact some 200 times. These relentless attacks on Armenian civilians, some targeting a kindergarten school, illustrates the growing hostility of the Aliyev regime, and coupled with its bellicose rhetoric, raises the specter of a new war in the South Caucasus.

On the heels of the cross border attacks, it was announced that Azerbaijan had begun receiving over $1 billion in new weapons and armaments from Russia.

Therefore, it was timely that a few days later, the Commission on Security & Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission) held a briefing entitled “Troubled Partner: Growing Authoritarianism in Azerbaijan.” There, the Assembly provided key testimony highlighting the litany of examples of Azerbaijan’s authoritarian regime, including but not limited to its suppression of basic freedoms, attacks on journalists, destruction of the centuries-old Armenian cemetery in Julfa, Nakhichevan, intransigence in the Nagorno Karabakh peace process, interference in the Armenian-Turkish reconciliation process, and massive military expenditures totaling over $6 billion dollars for FY2011-FY2012.

“The Assembly remains deeply troubled by Azerbaijan’s intransigence and ongoing threats against America’s ally Armenia,” stated Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny.

Turkish media struggle with lawsuits, government oppression

July 25, 2013 By administrator

‘There is great pressure on the media which results in censorship, manifested in political pressure on the bosses,’ columnist says

Published: 07.24.13, 19:31 / Israel News

ISTANBUL – Turkish journalists today marked the 105th anniversary of the cancellation of censorship. Until 1908, all papers were inspected by Ottoman officials before being printed. Yet, the Turkish media still has a long way to go before it can be called a free press.

Turkey imprisons the largest number of journalists in the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which says at least 49 journalists were imprisoned in 2012. The claim against those imprisoned is never tied directly to their articles, but rather based on accusations of ties to illegal organizations

These pressures have their impact on the Turkish media, a colorful collection of 36 radio stations, 23 TV stations and 37 newspapers that publish nationwide. Those numbers rise to 252 TV stations and 1090 radio stations when local media are included. There are also dozens of local newspapers printed around the country. Nonetheless, despite the numbers, the mainstream media are becoming increasingly pro-government and the alternative media struggle to exist, according to journalists and experts on the issue.

Turkish media tycoons’ ownership of many of the media outlets is one of the major obstacles to a free press. Ceren Sozeri, a researcher at Istanbul‘s Galatasaray University, explained that many media owners have other investments in many sectors and are in the news business not to make a profit, but to support their other holdings.

“Since most media companies are losing money, the media owners neither protect the qualified journalists nor care about a quality journalist who meets Turkish society’s expectations,” she told The Media Line.

However it’s business considerations and not fear of the government that influences the press. Deniz Ergurel, General Secretary for the Media Association, an institution where members of media organs more sympathetic to the government gather, believes there is no need to look for conspiracy theories, insisting that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) does not tell the media what to do and not do.

Each media group has its own interests and expectations of its audience” which dictate their editorial preferences, he said. Nevertheless, he argues that the owners’ other business dealings may influence the reporting.

“We know some media bosses have business relationships with the government; it’s not a secret. These bosses make editorial decisions to protect their interests, which unfortunately may result in ignoring some news and exaggerating others,” he told The Media Line.

Sozeri said the Turkish public turned away from the mainstream media recently, especially after the nationwide social unrest which began in Istanbul’s Gezi Park in May.

News channels were broadcasting unrelated shows while the protesters were clashing with the police right outside their window. The CNNTurk’s broadcast of a penguin documentary on one of the more violent days made the penguin a symbol of censorship in Turkey. Turks including some of the journalists turned to the social media instead for what they saw as more objective newscasts.

In previous decades, before the ruling AKP ended the army’s systematic control of politics known as the “military tutorship” a few years ago, the media maintained a balance between the General Staff and the coalition parties, but today they acquiesce to the government unconditionally, she told The Media Line.

As an example, she noted the Uludere incident in December 2011, when Turkish jets bombed a party of Kurdish smugglers and killed 24. The Turkish media failed to report this for about 17 hours, fearing government retaliation.

Audience expectations from a particular media outlet also play an important role in press objectivity, or the lack of it. “When you buy a newspaper like the daily “Sozcu” (an anti-government newspaper) you cannot read any pro-government news because that is what their readership expects. Conversely, do newspapers like the (radical Islamist) daily “Yeni Akit” publish speculative stories that their readers would like? They do,” she added.

“‘Sozcu,’ arguably the AKP’s fiercest adversary in the print media and one of the dailies with the highest circulation here, shows there is no censorship in the traditional sense in Turkey, Ergurel adds. “At least 10 dailies published in Turkey are totally against the government. You can add TV stations Halk TV and Ulusal Kanal to those. I believe their existence points to the level of democratic maturity Turkey has reached,” he told The Media Line.

Columnist Kadri Gursel, who also is the chairwoman of the International Press Institute’s Turkish National Committee and a contributing writer to the “Al Monitor” website and the daily “Milliyet” disagreed with the notion that the very existence of media organs like “Sozcu” proves there is no censorship or government interference.

“It is not possible to answer such a question so easily,” he said. “However there is great pressure on the media which results in censorship, manifested in political pressure on the bosses, rather than by law,” Gursel said. He sees the Turkish media as falling into two main groups: “the government’s media and the media that the government oppresses.”

The messages sent to the media bosses from the government are very clear when you look at the results, he said, adding, “Proving this, however, will only be possible in the future when memoirs will be written and some records exposed. Today we can prove only the self-censorship angle of this.”

Unlike the alleged government censorship, self-censorship in the Turkish media today is undeniable, said Gursel. “The basic instinct in the newsrooms of the mainstream media is not journalistic, because it has been replaced by the instinct of self-censorship,” he said.

The mainstream media consider whether every story would hurt the AKP’s interests and if it would, what the government’s reaction would be, Gursel argued. Journalists as individuals are aware that if they are fired from one media organ for doing something against the government and news of this is publicized, they cannot work any place else. The independent media are the only ones who would hire them, he said.

Job security is another problem for Turkish journalists and freedom of the press in Turkey, as head of the Journalists’ Union of Turkey Ercan Ipekci pointed out. There are 100,000 registered employees in the Turkish media, he said, adding that there are at least half as many working illegally.

“The laws make unionization harder,” he said. “Besides, membership in unions is a dangerous thing in Turkey since it is punishable by dismissal.”

Then there is the imprisonment of journalists. Asked about this by The Media Line, the Justice Ministry responded by repeating a declaration made on the matter in May: “The Justice Ministry is not an institution to evaluate the Turkish people by their identities or the professions they practice. The ministry makes evaluations based on the verdicts of the related courts or the indictments prepared by the prosecutors’ office.”

The ministry declaration recalled the situation of Hasan Biber, who allegedly threw hand grenades at the ministry building in March, according to security camera recordings, and who is currently on the run. Biber is a published writer and a ship port union member, according to the ministry, whose spokesman asked, “Now if this person gets caught and arrested, will it be said that a ‘writer’ and ‘union member’ was arrested?”

Almost all of journalists arrested are either tried for or convicted of ties to illegal organizations. The government’s not considering them journalists but terrorists is only “normal,” Gursel said. “No regime with authoritarian tendencies arrests journalists simply for their being journalists; the prosecutors always find another excuse. The excuse in Turkey is being a member of a terrorist organization.”

When applied to journalism, the government’s definition of terrorism is “practicing journalism with an advocatory and selective agenda, or “portraying an anti-government or anti-regime profile,” according to Gursel.

IErgurel said this can only be stopped if Turkey’s constitution is amended, along with related laws to provide more freedom of expression and the press.

Article written by Ozgur Ogret

Penn, Sarandon and intellectuals condemn Gezi crackdown in letter addressed to Turkish PM

July 25, 2013 By administrator

Artists and scholars, including celebrities known for their activism, such as Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Ben Kingsley and movie director David Lynch, have condemned the Turkish authorities’ heavy-handed crackdown on the Gezi Park protests in Turkey in a full-page letter published July 24 in the British broadsheet The Times and addressed to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The signatories, who described the Turkish government as “a dictatorial rule,” slammed Erdoğan’s uncompromising stance regarding the protesters’ demands. Erdoğan’s orders “led to the deaths of five innocent youths,” the letter said, adding that he might be called to render account to the European Court of Human Rights for the police’s violence.

They also likened the counter-rallies organized by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a response to the protests with the annual Nuremberg rallies organized by the German Nazis.

“Only days after clearing Taksim Square and Gezi Park relying on untold brutal force, you held a meeting in Istanbul, reminiscent of the Nuremberg Rally, with total disregard for the five dead whose only crime was to oppose your dictatorial rule,” the letter said, emphasizing that more journalists were imprisoned in Turkey than in Iran and China combined.

“Moreover, you described these protesters as tramps, looters and hooligans, even alleging they were foreign-led terrorists. Whereas, in reality, they were nothing but youngsters wanting Turkey to remain a Secular Republic as designed by its founder Kemal Atatürk,” the letter added.

Andrew Mango, the biographer of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Fazıl Say, the Turkish pianist who was recently sentenced for blasphemy after tweeting several lines attributed to a poet, were also among the signatories.

Other signatories included: Irish novelist Edna O’Brien, British Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, British actress Vanessa Redgrave, British film director of Turkish origin Fuad Kavur, Hungarian Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and American freelance journalist and writer Claire Berlinski.

House Narrowly Rejects Effort to Limit N.S.A. Surveillance (217-205 vote)

July 24, 2013 By administrator

A divided House defeated legislation Wednesday that would have blocked the National Security Agency from collecting vast amounts of phone records, handing the Obama administration a hard-fought victory in the first Congressional showdown on intelligence policy since Edward Snowden’s security breaches last month.
But the bipartisan coalition, pressing to rein in the N.S.A., vowed that the increasing outrage unleashed by Mr. Snowden’s leaks would overwhelm opposition in the coming months.
The 217-205 vote was far closer than expected and displayed the shifting allegiances and fierce lobbying on both sides. Conservative Republicans — leery of what they see as Obama administration abuses of power — teamed with liberal Democrats long opposed to intrusive intelligence programs in a left-right coalition. The Obama administration made common cause with the House Republican leadership to try to block it.

Qardawi reappears on Al Jazeera to incite Egyptians against their army

July 24, 2013 By administrator

Influential cleric reappears on Al Jazeera to call for assassination of those ‘who organized coup’ and ‘betrayed constitutional oath.’

DOHA – Influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi reappeared on Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based, Qatar-founded and Qatar-controlled news channel, on Sunday to provoke and incite the Egyptian people against their army.

Qaradawi avoided mentioning names, but his words sounded like an explicit fatwa calling for the assassination of those who decided and carried out “the military coup” on ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

In his comments, Qaradawi referred to Quranic verses and sayings of the prophet (PBUH) that take on the question of obedience to the legitimate ruler.

He said “if he, who has disobeyed the ruler, does not repent, then he must be killed. There is a legitimate ruler (in reference to Morsi) and people must obey and listen to him.”

Qaradawi criticised the military intervention in Egypt, calling it “illegal” as the army did not have the constitutional right to take action against Morsi.

Addressing Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the head of Egyptian armed forces, from the platform of his popular TV show ‘Sharia and Life’, he thundered, asking: “Who made you the general commander of the military? Who made you the minister of defence? It’s the same president you have removed who elevated you. You swore to obey him and you went against your word, which is haram in Islam.”

Analysts say that Qardawi’s call for assassination targets Sisi, and senior military leaders “who organized the coup” and “betrayed the constitutional oath.”

Qaradawi also denied that he had been expelled from Qatar, and said some media reports suggesting this were false and malicious.

A viewer asked him why he had left Egypt on the eve of the “military intervention”, on June 30.

He answered, “As some sections of the media began spreading propaganda against me that I had been expelled from Qatar, I came back here to show that those reports were false”.

The cleric said that he was not trying to escape from Egypt (after Morsi’s ouster).

On July 6, Qaradawi had issued a fatwa urging all Egyptian Muslims to support Morsi and uphold the Egyptian constitution.

He had also called on Sisi to withdraw from Egyptian politics and preserve law and order and democracy in the country.

Al Jazeera runs up against Egypt’s mistrust of Qatar (Not welcome in Egypt)

July 24, 2013 By administrator

By Shaheen Pasha July 23, 2013

Shaheen Pasha teaches international journalism at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She has been a financial reporter for Reuters, CNN and the Wall Street Journal, and previously reported from Dubai and Cairo.

Al Jazeera’s recent fall from grace in Egypt can be seen as a case study in irony. The Qatari-owned television network was once considered a media darling as it played a cat-and-mouse game with Egypt’s military dictatorship. Subjected to arrests and government raids, Al Jazeera managed to dodge censors and satellite blockades put in place by the military regime of then-president Hosni Mubarak to broadcast the fervor of the revolutionaries. For this feat, the network was seen by many as an integral player in helping Egypt get on the road to democracy.

How times have changed. The recent ouster of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, by the military in another popular uprising has shifted Al Jazeera’s standing in Egypt from golden child to pariah. While charges of pro-Morsi bias in coverage have been blamed for the network’s plunge in public opinion, the vehemence with which Al Jazeera has been reviled suggests a far deeper issue: the deep-seated animosity the Egyptian public has towards the Qatari government, which owns Al Jazeera.

Qatar has been a major contributor to Egypt’s struggling economy since the 2011 revolution, providing roughly $8 billion in aid. But rather than winning the hearts of the Egyptian public, its financial support has been viewed with skepticism, with many fearing that Qatar was using its vast wealth as a way of buying influence over the nation. Its closely-fostered ties with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood party was seen as a threat to the nation’s hard-won democracy, paving the way for a theocracy.

And there is no denying that there may have been some legitimacy to that concern. According to a report in the Financial Times, the Muslim Brotherhood’s often controversial spiritual leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, has lived on and off in Doha for decades. Qatar has also helped back Islamist rebels in Libya as well, indicating that Doha has been expecting political Islam to emerge as the dominant force in a post-revolutionary Arab world. That is of particular concern for secularists in Egypt who feared Qatar’s deep pockets would provide the Muslim Brotherhood significant freedom to reshape the country as a religious government, rather than a true democracy.

But Morsi has been deposed and with that Qatar’s influence, for the moment, has waned. Egypt is embarking on its next phase of power, with a new cabinet filled with liberals and not an Islamist to be found. To achieve true democracy, the new Egypt and its people must understand that the media has to be allowed to express itself without intimidation.

Familiar tactics once employed by Mubarak’s regime have once again been at play: security forces have raided Al Jazeera’s offices, an arrest warrant against Al Jazeera’s news channel director has been issued and Egyptian journalists demanded the removal of Al Jazeera’s bureau chief at a press conference on July 8. For a country that fought so hard to rid itself of media censorship as part of its revolution, this is a step backwards.

There may very well have been an agenda in some of the reporting, as stated by some of Egyptian Al Jazeera reporters who resigned in protest. But Al Jazeera is not the first major news organization in the world to have been accused by critics of having an agenda and it won’t be the last. Egyptians have a right to criticize if they disagree with an interview that is conducted or a phrase that is used. Or they can change the channel. That’s the joy of true democracy.

Yes, Al Jazeera is owned by Qatar and that is not going to change. But the network has broken down barriers that once seemed insurmountable in getting the voices of the Arab world out to the rest of the globe. Egypt is on a new path. It needs an established network that can tell its story from an insider perspective. Al Jazeera has the unique capability of doing that on a global stage. For Egypt to turn its back on Al Jazeera now, especially due to its mistrust of the network’s owners, seems counterproductive.

Confusion over Edward Snowden travel papers

July 24, 2013 By administrator

The BBC’s Daniel Sandford reports on the lawyer with a bag who intrigued journalists at Moscow Airport on Wednesday

US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has not been given Russian travel documents, his lawyer has said, contradicting earlier reports.

Anatoly Kucherena told reporters his client would remain in the transit zone at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, where he has been for the past month.

Earlier, airport officials said that Mr Kucherena had given Mr Snowden the travel documents.

The US wants him extradited for leaking details of surveillance programmes.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to hand him to the American authorities, but said he could stay in Russia only if he stopped leaking US secrets.

Mr Snowden has stayed in the airport’s transit area since arriving from Hong Kong on 23 June.

The Allure of the Armenian Apricot

July 24, 2013 By administrator

07.22.13
Yerevan Liana Aghajanian

Nostalgia for a fruit

I woke up in the middle of a sweltering summer one morning in Armenia two years ago, went to the market, reached into my shopping bag on the way back to my apartment, plucked out a ripe apricot and felt the world stop when I bit into it. I could taste the earth it was grown in, the water its roots had drank to flourish and the love that had cultivated it in the vast plains of the Araratian valley. Before I reached my door, I had more pits in my plastic bag than actual fruit. This routine continued for an entire summer until apricot season had ended. On one particularly hot, meandering day, the pits of that summer’s stock, all of which were meticulously saved, were fashioned into the shape of a very large apricot – a symbolic, stylish ceremony displaying all the apricots consumed and enjoyed by laying them out one by one on a table in a remodeled Soviet-era apartment in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital.

Ask anyone in Armenia – be it diasporan, repatriate, life long resident or tourist – where to find the best apricots in the world and sure enough the only answer you’ll receive is, “here”, within the borders of this mountainous, landlocked country nestled between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Iran.

It’s not bias, but more or less fact, as even the fruit’s scientific, Latin, name – “Prunus Armeniaca” – suggests its origins are tied to Armenia. An archaeological excavation found apricot seeds in a Copper Age site and scholars often suggest that Alexander the Great brought apricots from Armenia to Greece, introducing it to the Mediterranean country.

But other theories dismiss Armenia’s claim to the apricot, citing places like India and China as its native land. Despite the disagreements over origin, its cultivation for eons in Armenia has solidified its status in the country. The apricot tree’s wood is used to make the duduk, an ancient Armenian woodwind instrument central to folk music, and the orange in Armenia’s tri-colored flag is often referred to as “apricot”. In neighboring Nagorno-Karabakh – a defacto republic still reeling from the impact of a deadly war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, you’ll find homemade apricot vodka so potent, just one shot will be enough to blur the lines between dream and reality.

Indeed, there is not an apricot in the world that tastes like the ones found in Armenia. It is more than just a piece of fruit – the weight of a country and a diaspora’s national psyche, with equal parts tragedy and nostalgia, rests on its shoulders.

Scattered across the world by the horrors of a genocide at the turn of the 20^th century, the Armenian Diaspora’s feet have always been on the move, planted elsewhere by accident and circumstance, but constantly pulled back by the heavy gravitational force of Armenia. As immigrants in faraway lands struggling with a collective, passed down trauma and relishing in the nostalgic notions of homeland – a place kept neatly framed in scenic oil paintings hung on walls from Beirut to Boston, there is an intense longing for home, a place to feel grounded and whole in again, a place where an apricot can be so delicious, that no other apricot found in any other corner of the world will do.

The feeling can only be described in words that have no direct English translation. One of them is the Portuguese “Saudade”, a deeply melancholic state for the absence of something or someone. The other is a Welsh word, “Hiraeth”, defined by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David as “homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed.”

Forever homesick, Armenians are always searching for that fulfillment of home, for what was lost to be found.

After leaving Armenia, I, too, was searching. My quest for the perfect apricot however, turned out to be fruitless.

Back home on the West Coast, I drove up and down California looking for the apricot that would make all the difference. I looked from Los Angeles to Fresno, a place of early Armenian settlement sought out for its similarities back home where migrants became skilled in farming and agricultural production. I surveyed them in the grocery stores on a trip to Kenya and in farmers’ markets in England where I spent an extensive amount of time. I scoured the open-air markets of Italy in the summer, hoping to replicate the taste of the elusive apricot. My search from one corner of the world to the other always ended in disappointment and I was left feeling sour.

Then, after I had forgotten about my intermittent search for months, a bowl of apricots appeared on my kitchen table looking suspiciously familiar.

“They’re Armenian apricots,” my mom shouted from the living room. “No they’re not,” I stubbornly retorted back. She insisted I taste one and, mostly wanting to prove her wrong, I did. With one bite, the rush of those afternoons, walking between sprawling Soviet apartment blocks on broken concrete, stray dogs on one side and neighborhood children on the other, while I stood, frozen in time cracking open apricots and inhaling them like air, came back.

How had a supplier in California managed to recreate the flavor of the Armenian apricot, the ease with which the fruit could be pulled apart with bare hands, the particular way its juices soaked your clothes as you struggled to find a second to breathe between bites?

It didn’t take long to solve the mystery.

A very clever green-thumbed entrepreneur, knowing he would be providing a much needed supply to a massive demand, had at some point brought back apricot seeds from Armenia to Southern California, planted them here and managed to recreate their glory, 7,000 miles away from the plains and valleys that first birthed them.

After eating a handful, I immediately drove to the tiny corner market my mom had purchased them from and brought several bags back home. I enjoyed them as the days got hotter and the hum from nearby crickets grew louder at night. I packed them for a road trip, gave them away to friends and plotted jam recipes to savor their flavor for eternity, or at least until winter, anyway.

I had been searching for years for that taste of “home”, a home I wasn’t born in, didn’t grow up in, but one that nagged at my feet relentlessly, telling me that I belonged “there” as much as I belonged “here”.

That taste of home had suddenly and unexpectedly reappeared in my Los Angeles kitchen, but it didn’t stay for long.

Two weeks after the discovery, the market’s newest batch didn’t impress. Its looks and taste had faded and so had the euphoria it brought. The magic of feeling like I was in two places at the same time tragically ended, taking it back across the ocean, through the mountains and into the market stalls of Yerevan, poetically continuing the destiny of a diaspora still wandering, wondering when they’ll reach home.

I’m still chasing that feeling back to Armenia, having become a kind of ‘reverse’ migrant, enamored with an apricot that belongs firmly to a land and place in the world that I feel I often do too.