YEREVAN, Armenia – Sunday morning started with an Armenian coffee at a cafe on Abovian, allowing me to relax and pass the time before attending what I had been told was simply a Kurdish event at the Russian Theatre further on up the road. I knew I had the right day when a large group of both young and old people walked by - the women wearing the Kurdish colours of red, green and yellow....
June 1998 Paruir Hairikian is a former Soviet dissident, a Presidential candidate, and the current Presidential Advisor on Human Rights. OK: Could you please describe the function of your role as the Presidential Advisor on Human Rights, and the role and function of the Committee examining the basis for Constitutional Reform in Armenia. PH: The Committee is mainly on an advisory basis, and unlike other similar committees functioning all over the world it is not independent....
Amarik Sardarian is the Yezidi editor of the Kurdish newspaper, “Riya Taza”. “Riya Taza” is one of the oldest Kurdish newspapers in the world and is based in Yerevan, Armenia. This interview was conducted by Onnik Krikorian during research undertaken in June for the Kurdish Human Rights Project investigating the situation of the Yezidi minority within the Republic of Armenia. As such, it forms part of a series of interviews with Yezidi, Kurdish and Armenian representatives....
Mahir Welat is the official representative of the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (ERNK) and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to Moscow and the former Soviet Union. He is also a member of the ruling Central Committee of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The Turkish Government has to date made two assassination attempts on his life in Russia. Mahir Welat was visiting Armenia to attend a Kurdish academic event in Yerevan and to tour Yezidi villages....
Following yesterday’s Interview with Karlene Chachani by Onnik Krikorian, where reference was made to an article by Jackie Abrahamian, we felt it would be useful to bring this article to the reader’s attention. The Yezidi movement in Armenia First published in “Kurdistan Report”, September 1992 Since 1828 when the Kurds first immigrated to Armenia (fleeing the Russo-Turkish wars) Kurdish culture has flourished rapidly in the smallest of the former Soviet republics which in 1991 gained independence....
Dr. Karlene Chachani is a Yezidi living in Yerevan, Armenia. He is President of the Department of the Kurdish Writers of the Writers' Union of Armenia, and Chief Editor of “Friendship” - an Armenian-Kurdish political Journal. This interview was conducted by Onnik Krikorian during research undertaken in June for the Kurdish Human Rights Project investigating the situation of the Yezidi minority within the Republic of Armenia. As such, it forms part of a series of interviews with Yezidi, Kurdish and Armenian representatives....
Professor Garnik Asatrian is the Head of the Faculty of Iranian Studies at Yerevan State University. Born in Tehran in 1953, he moved to Yerevan in 1968. He has been prolific in his research into Kurdish tribal and linguistic tradition, and instrumental in the establishment of contemporary Kurdish academic study. He is Head of the newly founded Caucasian Centre for Iranian Studies, and is editor of the publication “Acta Kurdica”....
11 June 1998 Aziz Tamoyan is the President of the National Union of Yezidi in Armenia. This interview was conducted by Onnik Krikorian during research undertaken in June for the Kurdish Human Rights Project investigating the situation of the Yezidi minority within the Republic of Armenia. As such, it forms part of a series of interviews with Yezidi, Kurdish and Armenian representatives. A report on the situation of minorities within the Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, with a focus on the Kurds, will be published this year by the Kurdish Human Rights Project....