By Harut Sassounian,

It is amazing the lengths to which the Turkish government went to include Istanbul Armenian clergy and laymen in its propaganda campaign.

On November 5, 2019, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Communications Office organized an exhibit in New York City featuring photos of the Armenian Holy Cross Cathedral located in Western Armenia, today’s eastern Turkey, near Van, on Aghtamar Island.

The opening of the exhibit was not only attended by Alper Aktas, Turkey’s Consul General in New York, but surprisingly, by several Armenian leaders as well as other Christian clergymen from Istanbul. Among the attendees were Istanbul Armenian Patriarchate’s Locum Tenens Bishop Sahak Mashalian; Shirvan Murzoyan, an Armenian priest from Istanbul; Yessayi Demir, Chairman of St. Kevork Church in Samatia, Istanbul; Mesut Ozdemir, Chairman of Dsnount Sourp Asdvadsadsni Church; Yetvart Ayvazian, Chairman of Sourp Krikor Lousavorich Church in Kouzgounjouk, Istanbul; Tamar Karasou, Director of the Turkish Branch of Sourp Krots Association; Aram Kouran from “Louys” biweekly; Chairman of the Board of Sourp Prgich Armenian Hospital in Istanbul, Bedros Shirinoglu and his wife; Turkish Minority Community Foundation Representative Moris Levi; Syriac Ancient Church Foundation President Sait Susin; American Greek Orthodox Church Archbishop Elpidophoros Lambriniadis; and members of the Turkish and Armenian communities. I am pleased that none of the clergy from the Armenian Church in the United States (Prelacy and Diocese) attended the opening of the exhibit in New York.

While it is understandable that given the tense relations between the United States and Turkey, the Turkish government would want to carry out a propaganda campaign in the US to improve its stained image, much less acceptable is the participation of the Armenian laymen and clergy as well as Syriac and Greek leaders. One can excuse the attendance of the Istanbul leaders given the fact that they are hostages in the hands of the oppressive Turkish regime. In the case of Bishop Mashalian, however, he may have come willingly, as he is one of the two candidates for the December election for the position of the Armenian Patriarch of Turkey. The Bishop knows well that any disobedience to the wishes of the Turkish government will cost him the seat of the Patriarchate.

Despite the strong desire of Erdogan’s government to carry out propaganda in the US, it failed to capitalize on this opportunity. Turkey spent a fortune to fly the 88 photographs of the Holy Cross Church to New York, pay for the rental of an exhibit hall in Manhattan, fly and accommodate over a dozen guests from Istanbul to New York City, and pay the expenses of making a film on the Holy Cross Cathedral, “The Hidden Monuments of Anatolia Coming to Light: Akdamar,” shown at the exhibit. Yet, the highly-paid US lobbying firms hired by Turkey either were not asked or failed to disseminate the exhibit propaganda to the American media. Secondly, the Turkish government did not think of delaying the opening of the exhibit by one week so Pres. Erdogan, who will be in the US this week, could attend the official ribbon cutting ceremony. In September, Pres. Erdogan was present in New York at a similar opening of the exhibit of the photos of Ara Guler, a Turkish Armenian, which was also sponsored by the Turkish President’s Office.

Here are the reasons why I consider the Holy Cross Church photo exhibit a manifestation of Turkish propaganda:

1)  The Turkish government has designated Holy Cross as a museum, not a church, allowing Armenian liturgy to be performed only once a year by special permission. Much more important than organizing an exhibition in New York would have been the designation of the Holy Cross edifice as a church, not a museum. What are the Armenian and other clergymen doing celebrating the exhibit of a museum? If they had any guts, they would have refused to attend the exhibit until the museum is designated as a church which was completed in 921 AD, under the sponsorship of Armenian King Gagik Ardsruni. Visitors have even to pay a fee to enter “the museum.”

2)  After the Holy Cross Cathedral was repaired in 2007, the Turkish government did not allow a cross to be placed on the dome of the church, giving the excuse that the cross was too heavy for the dome. Finally, after much criticism, in 2010 the Turkish government allowed a cross to be placed atop the Holy Cross Cathedral.

3)  The Turkish government turkified the name of the island by changing it from Aghtamar to Akdamar (which means “White vein” in Turkish).

4)  In his remarks, Bishop Mashalian praised Pres. Erdogan for organizing the exhibit in New York: “Under the leadership of the president’s vision, special attention and interest was shown in the Akdamar Church…. This is a cultural initiative to overcome the difficulties of communication between the Turkish and Armenian peoples, as well as a bridge to a better future and understanding based on goodwill.”

5)  Chairman of the Board of Sourp Prgich Armenian Hospital in Istanbul Bedros Shirinoglu stated that “President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made great efforts for minority communities…. We would like to express our gratitude to him for all his help and to the {President’s] Communications Office for this exhibition.

6)  American Greek Orthodox Church Archbishop Elpidophoros Lambriniadis reinforced the Turkish propaganda by underlining the significance of the photos at the exhibition in terms of showing the importance attached to the Christian minority in Turkey, saying: “Turkey is going in the right direction and it is good to tell the whole world about this.”

7)  Pres. Erdogan proudly told the Turkish media last week that 17 representatives of Turkish minority groups are in New York at this time for the photo exhibit of the “Akdamar Church.”

If the Turkish government was truly sincere in promoting the Armenian Church in Aghtamar, why did it allow a group of Azeris recently to visit the church and claim it to be a Caucasian Albanian Christian church? This is the usual lie that the Azeri government uses to describe all historic Armenian churches in Azerbaijan. The Azeri visitors displayed inside the Holy Cross Church the Azeri and Turkish flags with an “Azeri priest” claiming to say prayers. In a statement made outside the front door of the church, an Azeri representative accused Armenians of invading Azerbaijan and committing vandalism. The Turkish government should apologize to Armenians for allowing the perpetration of such a gross lie!

Garo Paylan, who was elected to the Turkish Parliament from Tigranakert, made a statement on international recognition of the Armenian Genocide during discussions on the country’s state budget in parliament today.

He particularly stated the following: “Before 1915, Armenians were living on these lands, in Sparta, Mersin, Adana, Trabizon, Tigranakert and Bursa, and one of every five was Armenian in this country. Now, you can’t even fill a stadium, if you gather all Armenians in Turkey. A great catastrophe took place, and unfortunately, we have been denying it with the policy of denial for over 104 years. We refuse to talk about it. Look how other parliaments are talking about it, while we tell them that they shouldn’t.

We tell them that the topic concerning this region should be talked about in this reason. If there is only one parliament in the world that has to talk about this topic, it is the Grand National Assembly of Turkey because we are the sons of these lands.”

HDP’li Paylan Meclis üyelerine babaannesini anlattı: Onun hikâyesi arkeologlara nasıl bırakılabilir?

Garo Paylan, TBMM Bütçe ve Plan Komisyonu’nda ‘Ermeni soykırımına’ ilişkin konuştu

HDP İstanbul Milletvekili Garo Paylan, TBMM Plan ve Bütçe Komisyonu’nda ‘Ermeni soykırımına‘ ilişkin konuştu.

Babaannesinin ailesi tarafından Müslüman komşuları, Hüseyin amcaya emanet edildiğini ve bu sayede sağ kalabildiğini söyleyen Paylan, “Biz Hüseyin amca ile babaannemin hikâyesini dinleyeceğimize ABD, Fransa ne demiş onu konuşuyoruz. Yapmamız gereken bu meseleyi bu topraklara taşımak” dedi.

AKP’nin daha önceki iktidarında bu meseleye yönelik olumlu söylemler ifade ettiğini hatırlatan Paylan şöyle konuştu:

“Bakın, 1915′ten önce bu topraklarda Isparta’da, Mersin’de, Adana’da, Trabzon’da, Diyarbakır’da, Bursa’da Ermeniler yaşıyordu ve her 5 kişiden birisi Ermeni’ydi bu coğrafyada Sayın Başkan Vekili. Şimdi hepimizi toplasanız bir stadyumu dolduramıyoruz. Bakın, bütün Ermenileri toplasak bir stadyumu dolduramıyoruz. Herhâlde biz buharlaşmadık, başımıza bir felaket geldi, büyük bir felaket geldi.

Benim babaannem -değerli arkadaşlar, 15 yaşına kadar da kendisiyle yaşadım- yetim kalmış, tek başına kalmış, ailesi sürülürken komşusuna emanet edildi, Müslüman komşusuna emanet edildi, o sayede hayatta kaldı. Hüseyin Amca’ya emanet edildi, o sayede hayatta kaldı. Arkadaşlar, bakın, “Ermeni saklayan evinin önünde asılacak” diye bir karar olmasına rağmen Hüseyin Amca babaannemi korudu ve o sayede dedem ile 2 yetim buluştular ve biz şu anda hayattayız. Biz Hüseyin Amca’nın hikâyesini anlatacağımıza, babaannemin hikâyesini dinleyeceğimize, dünyadaki yüz binlerce, milyonlarca Diyarbakırlı, Bursalı, Malatyalı, Mersinli Ermeni’yi dinleyeceğimize “ABD Parlamentosu şöyle demiş.” “Fransız böyle demiş…” Yapmamız gereken, bu meseleyi bu topraklara taşımak.

Diyoruz ki: “Babaannemin hikâyesini tarihçilere bırakalım.” Ya, ben 47 yaşındayım, ben babaannemle beraber yaşadım, benim babaannemin hikâyesi nasıl tarihçilerin konusu olabilir? Bakın, dönemin iktidarının siyasi bir kararını diyoruz ki: “Tarihçilere bırakalım.” Bakın, siyasi bir kararla sürgün olmuş ama “Tarihçilere bırakalım” diyoruz, hatta Sayın Cumhurbaşkanı “Bunu arkeologlara bırakalım” diyor arkadaşlar. Babaannemin meselesi nasıl arkeologlara bırakılabilir? Ermeni halkının meselesi elbette ABD Kongresinin konusu olamaz ama mutlaka Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisinin konusu olmalı. Babaannemin yaşadığı felaket ile babaannemin hayatta kalmasını sağlayan Hüseyin Amca hikâyesini buluşturmalıyız. Talat Paşa’nın hikâyesini değil de Kütahya Valisinin, Ankara Valisinin, Lice Kaymakamının bu tehcire, bu sürgüne karşı çıkmasıyla buluşturmalıyız. Onlar konuştular bu meseleyi, onlar karşı çıktılar. Pek çok kamu görevlisi Ermenilerin sürülmesine karşı çıktı. Bu anlamda bunları buluşturmalıyız. Bu hikâyeyi Türkiye’de konuşmalıyız, bu Mecliste konuşmalıyız ve bu Mecliste çözmeliyiz arkadaşlar. “

Source: https://t24.com.tr/video/hdp-li-paylan-meclis-uyelerine-babaannesini-anlatti-onun-hikayesi-arkeologlara-nasil-birakilabilir,24165?fbclid=IwAR0cQ4xW9-8UNduzJ6j5eMpis1ZvIAcie8f5f6xoUttEdjhdhnPn-VUOi34

By Catherine Womack,

For centuries the sacred khachkars of Djulfa stood tall along the banks of the River Aras — hulking and ornately carved 16th-century headstones, an army 10,000 strong, steadfastly guarding the world’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery. Earthquakes, war and vandalism diminished their ranks, but by the middle of the 20th century, thousands of khachkars still remained.

Today, however, not a single statuesque sandstone sculpture stands at Djulfa, in the remote Nakhichevan region of Azerbaijan. Despite a 2000 UNESCO order demanding their protection, evidence published in the art journal Hyperallergic this year indicated that the monuments were covertly and systematically demolished as part of an alleged Azerbaijani campaign to erase traces of indigenous Armenian culture in Nakhichevan.

The scope of the destruction is stunning: 89 medieval churches, 5,840 khachkars and 22,000 tombstones, the report said. The annihilation of cultural heritage dwarfs the more widely reported and condemned razing of sites by Islamic State in Syria and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Simon Maghakyan, 33, a co-author of the Hyperallergic article, described Azerbaijan’s alleged demolition of these sacred churches and monuments from 1997 to 2006 as “the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century.”

Late last month, inside a ballroom at the Pasadena Convention Center, Maghakyan presented the research behind the Hyperallergic article to attendees at the Armenian National Committee of America Western Region’s Grassroots Conference.

Aghayev said Azerbaijan is a country of “interfaith harmony and tolerance, and peaceful co-existence of Muslims, Christians and Jews.” Aghayev accused Armenia of destroying Azerbaijani cultural and religious monuments and desecrating Azerbaijani graveyards in Armenia. And he noted Maghakyan is a part-time paid community development coordinator for the Western Region of the Armenian National Committee of America, which he called a “radical Armenian lobby organization.”

On large screens Maghakyan showed slides of before and after photos, satellite images, Azerbaijani archival documents and video footage — proof, he said, of the Azerbaijani army’s destruction of Armenian sacred sites and artifacts.

Maghakyan, who identifies himself as a political science lecturer, activist and real estate agent based in Denver, said the exhaustive work he has done on the khachkars is a personal passion project.

Unlike Islamic State and the Taliban, who self-promoted their destruction of historical ruins and monuments, Azerbaijani officials deny that the Armenian cemeteries and churches in question ever existed. The Times asked the Azerbaijan Consulate in Los Angeles to respond to Maghakyan’s research, and the office provided a statement from Nasimi Aghayev, consul general of Azerbaijan to the Western United States, who called the destruction of the Djulfa khachkars “a figment of Armenia’s imagination.”

“It’s not a job, but it is my lifelong cause,” he said in a post-presentation interview. “I can never vacation from this. I tried, but it drove me nuts. If you believe in a cause, you have to pursue it or you’re not going to have an easy time falling asleep at night. I’m stuck with this until something happens.”

Southern California is home to the largest Armenian diaspora outside the former Soviet Union. According to U.S. census data, Los Angeles County is home to more than 200,000 people of Armenian descent. It is a community that pushed hard for the recent House resolution recognizing the genocide of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, which is now modern-day Turkey, between 1915 and 1923.

Maghakyan’s talk drew a couple of hundred audience members listening intently, many taking notes.

“This is worse than what ISIS did,” Maghakyan told the audience. “How could the world ignore it? How did Azerbaijan get away with this? And if I do not tell this story, who will? I’d never forgive myself if the world never learned of the great sculptural genocide of our time.”

Azerbaijan’s denial is particularly painful to Armenians.

“I used to think that when Turkey denies the Armenian genocide, maybe it was mainly because the information is old, or some people really don’t believe it happened. But here we have photos, satellite images, video footage. Denial is not because they are unaware. They know what happened. So denial to me has become so much more sinister,” Maghakyan said.

Nakhichevan is an isolated, oblong region controlled by Azerbaijan but set apart from the rest of that country, surrounded by Armenia, Iran and Turkey. Historically Armenian territory, Nakhichevan today is populated primarily by Azerbaijani Turks. Maghakyan described it as the “North Korea of the former Soviet Union,” closely watched and tightly controlled. Djulfa in particular is difficult to access, situated along the militarized southern border between Nakhichevan and Iran.

As a boy growing up in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, Maghakyan often went with his father to visit sacred cultural sites like Armenian churches, medieval Jewish cemeteries and Azerbaijani mausoleums. Maghakyan remembers his father telling him about visiting the sacred Djulfa khachkars, stone monuments that his father said were sacred because they were built not simply to mark a grave, but to intercede with heaven on behalf of the souls resting beneath them.

The Maghakyan family immigrated to the United States when Simon was 16. Three years later, in 2005, Maghakyan was a college student living in Denver when he came across a Russian news agency report featuring video footage of Azerbaijani soldiers in Djulfa wielding sledgehammers, breaking up the khachkars and dumping the shattered monument in the Aras. (The video was taken by Nshan Topouzian, an Armenian bishop who lived across the border from Djulfa in Iran.)

Sarah Pickman, who co-authored the Hyperallergic article, came across Topouzian’s video footage around the same time. Now a PhD candidate in history at Yale, she was an archaeology student at the University of Chicago at the time and decided to publish a story on the destroyed Djulfa khachkars in Archaeology magazine.

Maghakyan connected with Pickman after reading her Archaeology article, and since then the two have worked together to gather and present eyewitness accounts, historical photographs and other evidence. In 2006 they raised money to buy before-and-after satellite images and produced a short documentary, “The New Tears of Araxes.” (Araxes is another spelling of Aras.)

Around 20 khachkars removed from Djulfa during the Soviet era are held in the collections of museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. (The Met included a khachkar in the well-regarded “Armenia!” exhibition last year.) It’s a bittersweet reality, Maghakyan said, and an example of the conflict that often pops up between Western museums and indigenous peoples when art and religion collide.

Maghakyan is relentless, not only to spread the word about this cultural loss but also to do something about it. In 2015 he successfully got a replica khachkar installed on the grounds of the Colorado State Capitol, a monument honoring victims of all crimes against humanity. Currently he is lobbying the U.N. Security Council to investigate Azerbaijan’s actions in Nakhichevan.

His main goal, though, is simply to get the world to bear witness to an act of cultural erasure, he said.

In the last email Maghakyan received from Topouzian before he died at age 44 in 2010, the bishop wrote, “If we don’t keep speaking about this destruction, in 10 years it will be forgotten history.”

“I don’t know what drove him,” Maghakyan said. “I think there are certain people, when something bothers them and no one is doing anything about it, it’s like you have to. If you’re a witness to something, you may not say anything about it for a while, but that will eventually haunt you. For me, it’s like that. This gives me energy. This is my drug.”

Source: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2019-11-07/armenian-monuments-azerbaijan

The famous writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, Orhan Pamuk, arrived at Sharjah International Book Fair and expressed his dissatisfaction with Erdogan’s policy, speaking also for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, MK reported.

Pamuk’s political views and the persecution he suffered from local nationalists when he said in an interview that thirty thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in Turkey were not ignored. The writer does not consider himself a brave man, but simply expresses what he thinks.

“You know, I live in that part of the world where many writers are imprisoned for their beliefs. So I’m a happy writer and telling the truth is all I can,” he said.

With these words the audience burst into applause. The Armenian Genocide of 1915 is the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey rejects allegations of the mass extermination of more than one and a half million Armenians during the First World War and is extremely sensitive to criticism from the West on the issue of Armenian genocide.