The United States, Europe, and their partners must officially recognize the Mountainous Karabagh Republic within its constitutional frontiers.
Stepanakert, Mountainous Karabagh — I no longer know what to do on April 24—or where to go. This is the day Armenians across the globe commemorate the genocide in 1915 that destroyed the Armenian people and its homeland of thousands of years.
Those killing fields, the homes of my grandparents, are located in historic western Armenia—now eastern Turkey. But a century later, this very region has erupted in all-out war. Turkish forces are on the offensive again, this time, Armenians having been eliminated, against an empowered Kurdish majority. For an Armenian, it is a difficult place to travel to on April 24—to assert our memory amid the bombshells and havoc of another people’s national struggle.
In Washington earlier this April, I was taking several meetings with the Department of State and at other offices. As it is known, official Turkey still denies that genocide was ever committed. And it expects its “strategic partners,” such as the United States, not to call it by that name.
In the past week, respected national newspapers shamefully published Turkish ads denying the Armenian Genocide. Denialist billboards went up, too. And in his address this April, President Obama called the events of 1915 everything but “genocide.” You can see why Washington, too, is also a difficult place to be on April 24.
So I decided to return to Yerevan, Armenia, for April 24. To be clear this is modern-day Armenia—just a sliver of the great homeland which survived 1915, was absorbed into the Soviet Union, and eventually declared independence in 1991. This is the Armenia, whose foreign minister I was and whose flag I raised at the United Nations. Here millions of Armenians and their guests—this year George Clooney, Charles Aznavour, and others—march up to the Eternal Flame of 1915 and lay flowers every April 24.
But even Yerevan, this year, was a difficult place to be on April 24. Because the minds of Armenians were elsewhere. They were drifting a couple hundred miles southeast—where, even as we commemorated the victims of the Armenian Genocide, the groundworks of a new genocide against us were being laid.
A lot has been written about Nagorno (Mountainous) Karabagh, or Artsakh; people have different opinions of it. But the simplest and most irrefutable narrative is this: For as long as we know, since the ancient Armenian kingdoms, Mountainous Karabagh has been an Armenian cultural cradle. Even when Josef Stalin and his Bolshevik entourage, in order to placate nationalist Turkey, unilaterally transferred these lands from Soviet Armenia and subjected them as an autonomous region to Soviet Azerbaijani rule in 1923, Mountainous Karabagh—unlike Nakhichevan to its west—managed to keep its majority Armenian population.
As the USSR collapsed and the people of Artsakh voted by lawful referendum to declare their own independence from Azerbaijan, Baku in turn unleashed all-out war—and lost. As sovereign Armenia’s foreign minister, I helped launch the peace process in Helsinki in March 1992.
Twenty years later, this April, Turkey-allied Azerbaijan launched its largest campaign of racist aggression since the Russian-brokered ceasefire that had been signed in 1994 among Azerbaijan, Mountainous Karabagh, and Armenia. For four days, Azerbaijan’s drones and helicopters bombed peaceful Christian Armenian civilians. Soldier and villager alike were taken captive and, ISIS-style, beheaded alive in such inhumanity that even transcends the definition of a war crime.
From Stepanakert, the capital of Mountainous Karabagh, I can now report the following. Azerbaijan’s belligerent conduct, a hell-bent design developed over the years to wipe out not only Karabagh but Armenia in toto, renders a negotiated settlement no longer possible, and it is imperatively time for the international community to take a stance in equivalent application of international law and, yes, in pursuit of guaranteeing strategic security interests.
The United States, Europe, and their partners to the east and south must officially recognize the Mountainous Karabagh Republic within its constitutional frontiers. It is no less deserving of recognition, under the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, than Kosovo, East Timor, Eritrea, or South Sudan.
It gives no consolation that Azerbaijan is a blatant clan-based dictatorship or that official Ankara is in the throes of realizing xenophobic rhetoric domestically and in foreign affairs, but it would help along the way if the Republic of Armenia itself, naturally among the first to recognize, put its own democratic house in order, rooting out the corruption of its own authorities, systemic fraud and falsification, stolen elections and political prisoners.
This is a complicated issue indeed; let us not pretend otherwise. But on the verge of a new genocide this April, let us also not mince words and find pretext for inaction.
Armenians living peacefully in Mountainous Karabagh were murdered this April. They will be murdered again. Do you recognize a genocide when you see it?
The photo is fouled with several contradictions.
1-There is no evidence of the theme and plac of the city, nor the reason of walking such a lafrge group which may not fit the prison. if it were Harput, there should be at least a Church or Mosque in sight. It is a most commonly and frequently used unspecified strange photo without evidence..
2. The shades of people are at different angles,
3. Relocation Decree was isuued on May 27th and the first columns were put on move after mid June. In April 1915, there was no nothing accept the “Armenians” taking Van in Mid April and gifting the City keys to the incoming Russian Army. Out of the 120.000 Muslims in the city, Armenian sources boasted that only 1.500 remained.
4. Four years ago this photo was used on the web sites of “The Pontic Genocide” and “Distortions, Misconceptions and Falshoods” on internet, but those web sites have disappeared now.
Denialist and revisionists will always come up ways to refute widely accepted historical opinions. You may want to read the position of International Association of Genocide Scholars http://www.genocidescholars.org/
There are many Holocaust denier with very similar views.
You are too funny – I love your “arguments”…”there should be at least a church…: and “shades…at different angles” – you should at least have a cup of coffee (might I recommend some strong Armenian coffee) before you start putting your thoughts onto paper. Now hurry back to your parade – those elephants aren’t going to clean up after themselves.
The next war that a US president has to deal with will be in the Caucusus (Azerbaijan v. Armenia). Do we really want a president that has financial and real estate interests in Azerbaijan? I think not. Do we want a president that betrayed Armenian American Veterans? I think not.
Can’t trust Trump as Commander in Chief: Why? He has financial interests and hotels in Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Dubai and else where in the Islamic world. He can’t be trusted to bomb them in case there is another 9/11.
Can’t trust HRC either as Commander in Chief: Why? She betrayed the trust of Christian Armenian American Veterans of the Civil War, WWI, WWII, the Korean conflict, Vietnam and others by not honoring her pledges and promises to recognize the Armenian Genocide. She flip flopped to appease a muslim country like Turkey.
Therefore, it is Bernie or Bust.
How can you justify the ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis in Karabakh with so-called “genocide” of 1905? unbelievable cynic approach to the issues related to human life.
I agree Ramil, that killing of civilians should we condemned on all side, but what the author is stating is that if Azerbaijan invades Karabagh there will be widespread killing of its 150,000 population.
Everyone is free to believe in what he/she wants or prefer. I believe in “irrefutable documents and existing laws-stipulations-written conditions”. There is “no evidence about the whefreabouts of this photo used by everyone”. Also the “angles of the shades” differ and yes in the city of Harut there were several Churches or Mosquest on the main street. What does “denialist mean”? If an event is materially or documentarily proven, but some do not accept it, it can be named denial. Genocide allegation is not physically, logically or internationally proven event, it is a “diversion or exaggeration” ıof war time dramas. The Armenian losses are so minimal (compared to others) during WW-1, that they are not even indicated in statistics. Sorry, innocents always pay for the wrong doings of their leaders. For more “valid documentation” see Note Verbal of Leage of Nations dated March 1, 1920 naming incidents “banditries totally out of the control of Central Government” and their Official Gazette 21.9.1929 evidencing that Armenians sided with enemies and 200.000 of them “sacrificed their lives for the Entente who made large promises to them” but were forgotten after the peace. League of Nations is the “United Nations” of past the highest neutral international organization. Grand-ma stories or single events cannot be generalized. End of the discussion…Unless you can refute League of Nations “concrete evidences”.
All you the deniers will find the funny arguments like where is the shade, where is the church? I suppose each and every street shouldn’t have a church standing. I have my grand grand parents stories about bloodthirsty ottoman empire and later the young turks, as well as thousands of orphans speared throughout the world, parliament members if Armenian origin in Turkish mejlis killed (including the Armenian elite more than 300)…I will not continue to bring facts as you know them better than me. It’s still shocking for Turks to recognize the crime by their government after which the Turkish identity will suffer somehow…you keep protecting yourself by refusing the truth, coz you don’t have yet the courage to be honest and blessed. By the way, whoever doubts there was the genocide of 1.5 milion Armenians, there is no scope of dialogue with them.
Raffi K. Hovannisian: “The United States, Europe, and their partners to the east and south must officially recognize the Mountainous Karabagh Republic within its constitutional frontiers. It is no less deserving of recognition, under the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, than Kosovo, East Timor, Eritrea, or South Sudan.”
Genocide claims ignore Armenian revolts, terrorism, treason, territorial demands, and the Turkish suffering resulting from all of these causes. Genocide allegation, therefore, is based on racist interpretation and dishonest truncation of history. Scholars who take Armenian claims at face value do so for political reasons, not historical evidence.
You are by far the most professional troll I have ever encountered on the internet. Does someone pay you to post shameless Turkish propaganda all over the internet or is it in your blood– hence, pro bono?
You people exterminated completely the Turkish population of my father’s village of KIRLIKOVA (hence my name) and 50% of my mother’s family and you got away with all that. You, sahmelessly, talk blame the victims now. I do this pro bono for my father’s and mother’s memory. I am their voice in the face of defamation and demonization by “backsatbbing ingrates”…
Half of Istanbul was built by Armenians, countless Turkish generals were saved by Armenians during WW1, most professors in the Ottoman Empire’s universities were Armenian AND YOU THANKED THEM BY COMMITTING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND TAKING AWAY EVERYTHING FROM THEM… and you, a spineless turk, have the audacity to talk about “backstabbing ingrates”? Can you even explain how an Asian people (turks) ended up having a country in Europe / the Caucasus? Your filthy language is closest to Korean and yet you live in Europe / the Caucasus. How did that happen if you did not massacre the natives of that land to force yourself on the civilization the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks had already built?
You know, I was reading a study conducted in Turkey– called “Consanguineous marriage in Turkey and its impact on fertility and mortality”… According to the study, 21.1% of Turks marry family members.
I am beginning to think that it is this inbreeding that has caused so many of you to be this retarded. May you join civilization soon– for the sake of humanity.
Mr. Kirlikovali,
You have given many contradictory accounts of what happened to your father’s village. None establishes that Armenians did anything to your father’s village, as you well know.
The latest version of your supposed family story is that your father’s village was wiped out by Armenians from what you call a nearby military academy in Bulgaria.
According to a Turkish site, the ARF Military Academy in Bulgaria was located at Rila Monastery, about 125 km south of Sofia. The Monastery was 235 kms distant from Salonica, which you have said was nearby Kirlikova, your father’s alleged village. So, we actually know that the Academy was nowhere near your ancestral village. 235 kms was a very great distance in 1911, and the path was hilly and at times mountainous.
You also have claimed 18 years ago that the Moslems killed in Kirlikova were not killed by Armenians at all, but were killed by “Greek butchery” alone:
” Take it from me. Look at my last name: Kirlikovali. It means “a person from Kirlikova” in Turkish. Kirlikova is the name of a little village near Selanik, which was under Turkish rule prior to the bloody balkan wars and which is now under Greek rule. This village was populated by ethnik Turks, like thousands of other villages around at the time. Turks clearly constituted the majority of population there. And yet, all I know about my grandparents, whom I never met or even known to have existed, thanks to Greek butchery and wholescale massacres, is this: In the year 1912, trains full of “Turkish babies” with few babysitters were making what turned out to be their last scheduled runs to Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire at the time. Among these tiny passengers was my father… A little hand-written note was pinned on his tiny shirt: Akif’s son Ratip. Born 1911. Kirlikova. ” This is all I know about my father’s side… All the moms and dads, of course, stayed behind to defend their country against blood thirsty Greek invaders who betrayed against their motherland.”
But more fundamentally, you have also written ad nauseum that everyone in your father’s village was killed, and that the only information you have about him is based on a note someone pinned on him as a baby, see above. Nothing in the note you quote says that anyone in your father’s village died, let alone that they were killed by other Christians. It may interest you to know that throughout the Balkans, some Islamized Bulgarians like your family of Pomaks were actually killed by Albanian Moslems.
You have also claimed that your father was placed, as an infant, with the note on a train carrying thousands of children and babies south and east. It is impossible for thousands f children to be cared for on a train – scores yes, maybe 100. Thousands – no.
When I have asked for the actual distance between the Academy and Kirlikova [which does not exist today], you are mute;
When asked for evidence that these Armenian cadets did not hale from Bulgaria, Persia or Russian controlled areas in the Caucasus, you are again silent;
When asked why supposed and unlikely persecution by military cadets in Kirlikova in 1909-1911 justifies the murder of OE Armenian citizens in 1915 and onwards, you are once more silent;
When asked why you believe Armenian cadets from the Academy 235 kms distant did the persecution, you are silent.
You then backtrack and claim “your people” [meaning Islamized Bulgarians or Greeks, it seems] were generally attacked throughout the Balkans by every possible permutation of ethnicities and Christian groups this side of Jimmy Swaggart.
You have made a career of sorts out of claiming that there is no evidence to support the Armenian Genocide. Putting that nonsense to one side [see, for example Ottomanist Donald Quataert’s conclusions near the end of his career], it seems you can cite no facts from which a reasonable person would conclude that Armenians persecuted or killed people in your father’s ancestral village 235 kms from the ARF Academy.
As for your mother’s family, the case is even more tenuous. You stated elsewhere that Armenians killed her or her family, but you provide no facts or arguments showing that this is likely.
You have also given contradictory explanations as to whether her family was persecuted at all, or whether the persecution of which you complain was in Bursa, or Skopje, or someplace else.
Here too, you have said that the persecution was by Armenians, and at other times, you have attributed it to other ethnicities.
You fancy yourself, with reason, as a scientist. Yet, you really have difficulty following how historians reason, and how they use evidence. You also persistently ignore Occam’s razor in coming up with bizarre accusations that Armenian cadets killed Islamized Greek or Bulgarian Pomak civilians of your family in the Balkans.
No person denies that going back to the Greek War of Independence, Moslem villagers were killed, and some along with Ottoman soldiers killed Christian villagers as well. These were terrible sins on both sides, and sympathy is warranted for all such Balkan victims.
But it is very dubious that Armenian cadets – students – went on a distant killing rampage against civilians when they were being trained to fight the OE Army, which they did with distinction. I know your reservist Turkish naval career was limited, but even a Turkish Sea Scout jg should know that Commanders do not risk expensively trained troops in needless persecutions of uninvolved civilians. Doing so exposes the troops to risks which purchase no strategic goal, it is risky, and it stiffens the opposition. Moreover, a 500 km round trip takes a lot of logistical support and time.
You have told so many stories that you cannot keep them straight any more.
It’s obvious he is a troll perhaps high ranked as the bulshit he tells has no boundaries.
This is what happens when one lacks “criticial thinking skills”… Curses at the messenger while rejecting all facts…It is called “cognitive dissonance”.
He is a professional denialist and heads up the Turkish American association based out of orange county
http://www.ocweekly.com/news/supporters-of-ergun-kirlikovali-idiot-armenian-genocide-denier-threaten-to-protest-outside-weekly-offices-6483935
He is a joke and cannot be taken seriously
Sometimes I wonder– will Turks/Azerbaijani’s ever be capable of peace… of ever just letting the Armenians remain Armenians?
Diplomacy is still out of there capabilities, they still can fight to give solutions. So we Armenians have to speak their language now – fight back.
Of course. I just wish Azerbaijani’s/Turks would at least fight fairly. I think genocide, shelling Armenian elementary schools, beheading Armenians, cutting off the ears of elderly Armenian civilians, etc. are all forms of cheating– I am not even talking about the moral depravity.
I think Armenians (and basically every other ethnic group) will never be able to compete fairly with Turks/Azerbaijani’s as long as the Turks/Azerbaijani’s engage in the above mentioned barbaric traditions.
But the Armenians make up for the difference with their will to save their homes. May God be with them!
Armenian genocide is a long-discredited political claim based on a racist and dishonest history. International law says there is no genocide. The highest court jn Europe, ECHR, in its verdict of 25 Oct 2015 stated that armenian genocide is an opinion, not a fact, znd rejecting this opinion is an exercise in freedom if speech. R.K. Hovannisian has overtly defrauded the unsuspecting public by declaring a baseless claim as settled history.
Tereset is not genocide.
Since when defending obe’s hone us genocide.
Wartime suffering for all? Yes.
Genocide? No.
Tereset was a wartime military measure taken for homeland security; not genocide.
What happened in 1915 was not genocide;
but what Armenians did since then is Ethocide.
The most brutal and barbaric genocide (ethnocide) ever happened is a Serb genocide committed by Croats and Bosniaks in Independent State of Croatia during the WWII
Armenia must heed the numerous UN resolutuions to end the military occupation in Karabagh and allow the Azeri refugees to return to their homes. Armenian aggression and ethnic cleansing should be taken to International Court of Justice to get a genocide conviction and verdict.
There was no ethnic cleansing as Azerbaijanis and Turks like to claim. What happend in Khojaly which is a documented fact by Helsinki Watch and Human Rights Watch was that the Azerbaijani soldiers used their civialns as human shields when firing upon Armenian military as a result civlian deaths occured and the Turks and Azerbaijani’s like to blame the armenians for this instead of prosecuting their soldier for not protecting civilians and surrendering. A corridor was set to allow civilians to leave but was not possible due to the Azerbaijani army using their civilians as Human Shields. No other government that I know of has done this, this tells you something as to the core of these people’s thinking.
So the UN is lying? LOL
Don’t take things out of context from UN. UN doesn’t say there was ethnic cleansing but Helsinki Watch and Human Rights Watch documented facts that the Azerbaijani army used their civilians as HUMAN SHIELDS in Khojaly. That is a FACT! Own up to yoru mistakes nut it is not in your DNA and blame others of your mistakes. That is a Turk way of doing things and intense propaganda to rewrite history
Only children can believe to this fairytale article. Why Armenia rejected the offer of Turkey to open and research archives on “Genocide” issue. Because if it will be happen, Armenia should have to apologize. History prove that current Armenian state was built on the territory of Azerbaijan. If there would be a “Genocide”, this state would never been established.
There was already a commission established between Armenia and Turkey and their findings submitted for legal analysis in early 2002 to the “International Center for Transitional Justice! Guess what the conclusion was? That what happened to Armenians met all the requirements to be called a genocide
https://www.ictj.org/publicati…
Here is the link, th eprevious one was cutoff
https://www.ictj.org/publications?keys=Armenian&language%5B%5D=en
http://www.ethocide.com Do these people look like poor,starving, unarmed, peaceful, loyal Armenians to you? You have been duped!
Armenians should apologize to the world for committing genocide in Khodjaly on Feb 22, 1992, killing the entire popualtion of non-combatant civilians. Then the Armenians should heed the UN resolutions to end their military occupation of Karabagh and allow Azeri families to return to their homes.
You are a JOKE! I think you need to be replaced as president of the Turkish Association so that atleast some more credible can take your post.
http://www.ocweekly.com/news/supporters-of-ergun-kirlikovali-idiot-armenian-genocide-denier-threaten-to-protest-outside-weekly-offices-6483935
just to restate
There was no ethnic cleansing as Azerbaijanis and Turks like to claim. No Khajaly Genocide. What happend in Khojaly which is a documented fact by Helsinki Watch and Human Rights Watch was that the Azerbaijani soldiers used their civialns as human shields when firing upon Armenian military as a result civlian deaths occured and the Turks and Azerbaijani’s like to blame the armenians for this instead of prosecuting their soldier for not protecting civilians and surrendering. A corridor was set to allow civilians to leave but was not possible due to the Azerbaijani army using their civilians as Human Shields. No other government that I know of has done this, this tells you something as to the core of these people’s thinking.
A cogent piece. Yes, Turks (and let’s drop the pretense and include Azeris within this category) are utterly unapologetic and unrepentant about their bloodletting in the region. It has allowed violence to continue and exacerbate to this day. The world has turned as much of a blind eye as possible to Turkey and Azerbaijan’s antics but it must come to an end.
The only thing I would have added to the article was Azerbaijan’s deliberate destruction of the Armenian cross stone cemetery of Julfa in the Nakhchivan region. What they did to those stones they would certainly be willing to do to actual human beings.