Armenia

Armenians have been going from one crisis to the next, from genocide, deportation, armed resistance, revolutions, responding to earthquakes, blockade, and of course to the urgency of the problems that need to be addressed today. The short-sighted approach for profits now, has derailed the people and the leadership in Armenia from setting priorities that should have used domestic resources, and foreign aid with strategies for success to invest with purpose into the future of the nation....

Summary While the American mainstream media was busy discussing the fly on Mike Pence’s head during Vice Presidential Debate, the Armenian-Turkish conflict entered the second week of violence across the entire line of contact (LoC) between the Republic of Artsakh and Azerbaijan, and many regional and extra-regional powers took a neutral to stand and watch attentively from the sidelines. An attempt by Azerbaijani-Turkish and ISIS-linked formations to encircle Artsakh by taking over its strategic communication highways with the Republic of Armenia while carrying out devastating blows against Artsakh’s Defense Army in a new and enhanced blitzkrieg strategy has failed dramatically....

Three weeks ago, the western region of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) announced that it will be closing its AGBU Vatche and Tamar Manoukian High School in Pasadena, California. A flurry of protests and protestations flooded the public Armenian-American square, unanimously condemning the decision and imploring AGBU to reconsider. Unfortunately, many issues central to the Diaspora’s existence in the West that were inherent to the decision to close the school and were unexpectedly thrust into the limelight went largely ignored....

Background On the night of April 1 and morning of April 2, Azerbaijani forces attempted to break through Armenian defenses and occupy new positions on the border with Artsakh. The blitzkrieg involved heavy use of infantry, special forces, air forces, armored units, artillery and multiple launch rocket systems which were indiscriminately used against Armenian towns and villages in the border areas. Despite small gains made by invading forces in the Mardakert region, the counter-offensive launched by the Armenian forces drove Azerbaijani troops back to their original positions which allowed the Armenian side to regain its previously lost positions in the Mardakert region....

We are now less than a year away from the 2012 elections and the campaign trail is already heating up. The race for the white house has catapulted various GOP candidates to the top of the mountain, only to see them tumble from its peak. So far we have seen some historic debate gaffes, incredibly bold policy proposals and unorthodox candidates try to distinguish themselves from each other, all in an effort to be the anti-Romney; the presumptive GOP nominee....

YEREVAN, ARMENIA We are at the brink of a pair of wars, civil and regional, and it is better to speak now. Armenia, that ancient civilization deprived by the tragedies of yore of its capacity for contemporary statecraft, needs immediately to put its house in democratic order. Finally responsible for its own record, it also has legitimate expectations of the international partnership. In this global and so contracted century of ours, where resources and rights often compete for precedence, domestic demeanor and foreign affairs form part of one and the same policy agenda....

YEREVAN, ARMENIA That an Armenian repatriate, American-born into a legacy of remembrance inherited from a line of survivors of genocide nearly a century ago, feels compelled to entitle his thoughts with a focus on Turkey– and not Armenia– reveals a larger problem, a gaping wound, and an imperative for closure long overdue on both sides of history’s tragic divide. The new Armenia, independent of its longstanding statelessness since 1991, is my everyday life, as are the yearnings of my fellow citizens for their daily dignity, true democracy, the rule of law, and an empowering end to sham elections and the corruption, arrogance and unaccountability of power....

Abstract The current post-Soviet bureaucracy in South Caucasian republics, and notably in ethnically diverse Azerbaijan and Georgia, has yet been unable to link ethnicity, territory, and political administration in the process of state-building and democratic development. Bureaucratic evolution from communism to liberalism has simply contributed to the establishment of a handy “electoral democracy” and lucrative economic liberalism for the elites. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, particularistic identities, reinforced differences, and fragmentation of societies have been the dominant characteristics of the South Caucasian republics of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan (or Trans-Caucasus)....

Yerevan, Armenia On October 27th, 1999 five gunmen broke into the chamber of the National Assembly of Armenia during the weekly session of parliamentary inquiries addressed to the Government and opened fire. Within seconds they had killed the Prime Minister of Armenia as well as the Chairman of the Parliament, his two deputies and 4 other members of the Parliament and the Government, whose nearly total membership was present at the session....

President Kocharian dismisses senior ambassador in continuing power consolidation. On Wednesday, April 20, 2000, President Robert Kocharian dismissed Armen Sarkissian, Armenia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom and the country’s most senior diplomat in Europe. President Kocharian did not provide any explanation for Ambassador Sarkissian’s dismissal. Foreign Ministry sources only said that his sacking was in line with recent efforts to reduce ambassadorial tenures to a “maximum of four years”, but Sarkissian’s sacking reveals a deeper political malaise in Armenia....