Author: Harut Sassounian

Last month, only after losing his party’s parliamentary majority, President Erdogan realized that there are dangerous terrorists in neighboring Syria who are a threat to Turkey’s security.

Ironically, these are the same terrorists that Ankara has been arming, assisting their infiltration into Syria, and having them treated in Turkish hospitals. It is estimated that as many as 25,000 foreign and 1,000 Turkish Jihadists have crossed Turkey’s border in recent years trying to topple Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

Using the excuse that a Turkish soldier was killed by a shot fired from Syria last week, Erdogan ordered a series of bombing raids by land and air in Northern Syria and Iraq, as well as rounding up over 1,000 individuals in Turkey suspected of being Kurdish fighters, leftist militants, and ISIS followers.

After several years of reluctance, the Turkish government finally announced on July 24 that it would allow the United States to use one or more of its air bases to launch attacks on Jihadist groups in Syria.

Rather than fighting ISIS terrorists or cooperating with United States military operations in Syria and Iraq, Erdogan’s true intent is to consolidate his own hold on power and accomplish the following self-serving objectives:

1) Turkey’s President realizes that should his ruling party fail to form a coalition government, he would be obliged to call a new round of parliamentary elections. Therefore, by taking bold actions against ISIS and Kurdish fighters, Erdogan hopes that Turkish voters would give his party the few extra seats needed to regain a majority in Parliament.

2) Another important purpose for bombing Northern Syria and PKK bases in Iraq and arresting hundreds of Kurdish militants in Turkey is not fighting ISIS, but preventing Syrian, Iraqi and Turkish Kurds from joining hands to create an independent Kurdistan.

3) By carrying out military raids in Syria, Erdogan hopes to accomplish his long sought dream of toppling the Syrian government and installing a puppet regime, thus expanding his personal power as a neo-Ottoman Sultan.

4) Finally, by making brash declarations against ISIS and allowing Americans to use the Incirlik airbase, Turkey intends to convince the United States and Western Europe that it is a reliable NATO ally and loyal partner in the fight against terrorism. Creating such a positive image is particularly important at a time when the major powers are finalizing a nuclear agreement with Iran, which would increase the latter’s strategic role in the region and diminish that of Turkey.

By pursuing the foregoing four objectives, Erdogan is running the risk of destabilizing Turkey and neighboring states:

1) By attacking ISIS targets in Northern Syria, ostensibly in retaliation for the killed Turkish soldier, Ankara is breaking its secret understanding with ISIS to refrain from mutual attacks. ISIS is now compelled to hit back. Last week’s suicide attack in the Turkish town of Suruc, killing 32 persons and wounding over 100, is probably the precursor of such ISIS terror acts throughout Turkey.

2) Turkey broke last week the ceasefire agreement it had signed with the PKK in 2013, by bombing the latter’s bases in Northern Iraq and arresting hundreds of Kurdish militants in Turkey. The PKK has already retaliated by killing several Turkish policemen, and promising more bloodshed. Furthermore, by attacking Kurds in Syria and Iraq, Turkey would be weakening the only force that has successfully fought against ISIS. Since the United States views Kurdish fighters as its substitute troops on the ground, Turkish attacks against Kurds would undermine U.S. military objectives in the region.

3) Should Erdogan invade Northern Syria ostensibly to establish “a safety zone,” Turkish troops are likely to suffer many casualties, battling not only the Syrian army, but also heavily armed Kurdish fighters, and scores of rag-tag Jihadist groups. Turkey could also be confronted by Iranian troops coming to the aid of their Syrian ally and Hizbullah fighters from Lebanon who have been backing the Assad regime.

The Turkish President’s self-serving fake war against terrorism could have the tragic consequence of escalating the violence throughout Turkey and neighboring countries. If Ankara is truly interested in countering the Jihadists, it should have done that long ago, instead of arming and abetting ISIS and other terror groups. Turkish leaders are now going to reap what they sowed. They can only blame themselves!

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has completely destroyed his credibility by making numerous bizarre claims in recent years.

For example, Erdogan told a group of Latin American Muslims visiting Istanbul last year that Muslim Pilgrims discovered America over 300 years before Christopher Columbus:

“It is alleged that the American continent was discovered by Columbus in 1492. In fact, Muslim sailors reached the American continent 314 years before Columbus in 1178. …In his memoirs, Christopher Columbus mentions the existence of a mosque atop a hill on the coast of Cuba. A mosque would look perfect on that hill today.”

When people around the world scoffed at the President’s unfounded assertion, Turkish reporter Oray Egin found out that Erdogan had completely misconstrued what Columbus had written in his memoirs comparing a mountaintop in Cuba to “a pretty mosque.” Turkey’s leader wrongly concluded that Columbus had seen a mosque built by Muslim sailors!

In one of many spoofs poking fun at Erdogan, someone sarcastically alleged that Astronaut Neil Armstrong wrote in his autobiography: “When we landed on the moon, we saw the ruins of a magnificent building. Buzz Aldrin and I were amazed as we approached the ruins. This was a small, elaborately-built Ottoman mosque. When we came back to earth, NASA and the American government ordered us not to talk about it.”

Such outlandish pronouncements attributed to the Turkish leader continue to pop up on the internet. Given Erdogan’s penchant for telling wacky stories, many people tend to believe anything they read about him.

Here is a recent example: “Ottomans were the first to reach the moon, says Turkish President,” wrote Barbara Johnson in the World News Daily Report. She quoted Erdogan saying: “It is alleged that the first man to walk on the moon was Neil Armstrong in 1969. In fact, Muslim space explorers reached our satellite 334 years before that, in 1635. Everyone knows the story of the famous aviator, Lagari Hasan Celebi, the ‘Ottoman Rocket Man,’ who made the first successful manned rocket flight in 1633. What you might not know, is that he attempted to reach the moon two years later and could very well have succeeded.”

According to Turkish mythology, legendary Ottoman aviator Lagari Hasan Celebi launched in 1633 a 7-winged rocket using 140 lbs. of gunpowder. Before his flight, he reportedly proclaimed: “O my Sultan! Be blessed, I am going to talk to Jesus!” After his rocket landed in the sea, Celebi allegedly swam ashore and announced: “O my Sultan! Jesus sends his regards to you!”

Reporter Johnson continued her whimsical story: “Pres. Erdogan’s surprising claim generated some whispers and laughter from the audience, a reaction that clearly angered the Turkish politician. He slammed the skeptics for mocking his claims, adding that he would soon have the proofs to back his claims. ‘Why do you not believe it? Because you’ve never believed that a Muslim can do such a thing…. NASA may have destroyed most of the physical evidence of the Ottoman’s success during the Apollo 11 mission, but we’ll try to find any evidence that might have escaped the cover up.”

Of course, what Johnson wrote was not true. Erdogan never uttered those words. However, it is interesting that many Turks believed the fake story, and posted the following comments in reaction to Johnson’s article:
— Ali Emre Demir: “Unfortunately, he is our President.”
— Berkay: “The scary thing is, if you are living in that nation and witness all the things that man does, and see how many supporters he has. This is an embarrassment.”
— Deniz: “Poor, secular Turkish people! This Tayyip is the embarrassment of Turkey.”
— Huseyin: “You cannot imagine what we have been suffering. He is a solid tyrant…. He is a complete dishonor to us.”

Indeed, Erdogan is a big embarrassment to millions of Turks who are ashamed of him as their President. Unfortunately, the Turkish President’s actions are more ruthless than his words: He jails reporters, orders the shooting of civil rights activists, sues those who disagree with him, stashes away millions of dollars obtained by corrupt means, dismisses judges and law enforcement officials who refuse to carry out his illegal orders, and supports the infiltration of ISIS terrorists into Syria and Iraq.

The international community should worry more about Erdogan’s terrifying actions than his delirious ramblings!

Ruling simultaneously on the Sargsyan vs. Azerbaijan and Chiragov vs. Armenia cases, the European Court of Human Rights decided on June 16, 2015 that Armenia and Azerbaijan had violated the rights of refugees who had fled during the Karabagh (Artsakh) conflict.

Azeri government officials, however, misled their citizens, declaring that Azerbaijan had won and Armenia had lost.

Here are the details of both court cases: On April 6, 2005, six Azerbaijani Kurds filed a joint complaint against Armenia with the European Court. They claimed to have been forced to flee their homes during the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in 1992, after Armenian troops took over the Lachin region which separated Armenia from Artsakh. The Azerbaijani refugees alleged that Armenia had violated their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights: 1) protection of property, 2) right to respect for private and family life, and 3) right to an effective remedy.

On August 11, 2006, Minas Sargsyan filed a similar complaint against Baku in the European Court of Human Rights. He charged that Azerbaijan had violated his rights, the same ones claimed by the six Azerbaijani refugees, since he too was forced to flee in 1992 from his native village of Gulistan in the Shahumian region, controlled by Azerbaijan.

Both parties asked that their property rights be restored and demanded fair compensation.

In March 2010, after years of inactivity, the Court forwarded both cases to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, consisting of 17 judges from Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Cyprus, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, and Ukraine. The Grand Chamber’s decisions are final and not subject to appeal.

A decade after the these cases were first filed, the Grand Chamber issued two identical judgments on June 16, 2015, finding that both Armenia and Azerbaijan had violated the rights of each other’s refugees. In a lengthy document of 221 pages, including the two verdicts and the dissenting and concurring opinions, the Court ruled that the 20-year long peace negotiations did not free the two governments from their responsibility to protect the rights of hundreds of thousands of refugees. The Grand Chamber noted that there are over 1,000 individual applications pending before the Court, filed by Armenians and Azerbaijanis displaced during the Artsakh conflict.

The six Azerbaijani applicants claimed they had suffered $9 million in monetary damages and $330,000 in non-monetary damages. They further estimated their legal expenses to be around $65,000 as of October 2013. The Azerbaijani applicants’ representatives requested that an expert be appointed to evaluate the total damages their clients had incurred.

On the other hand, the Armenian applicant Minas Sargsyan had requested the restitution of his property, including the right of return to his home. He claimed $415,000 in monetary damages and $210,000 in non-monetary damages, in addition to non-specified legal fees.

Acknowledging “the exceptional nature” of the two cases, the Court did not make a final determination on awarding compensation or “just satisfaction.” The Grand Chamber asked the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments and the respective applicants to submit their “written observations on the matter” within 12 months, and “to notify the Court of any agreement that they may reach.”

In my opinion, the European Court’s parallel decisions were aimed at pressuring the two governments to expedite a negotiated settlement that would resolve all outstanding issues, including rights of refugees.

One of the most significant, yet unexpected outcomes of these court cases were the two written opinions — 25 pages each — by Judge Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque of Portugal and appended to the court’s verdicts, in which he presented a strong legal case for Artsakh’s independence: “Whenever a part of the population of a State is not represented by its government and the human rights of that population are systematically infringed by its own government, …the victimized population may have recourse ‘as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression,’ to use the powerful formulation of the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” The Judge also wrote that when a State systematically abuses the human rights of a seceding population, it is lawful for another State to take military action in favor of the seceding population, after the latter has established control of its territory and declared its secession.

When a group of young Armenians spontaneously gathered in Yerevan’s Liberty Square 10 days ago to challenge the planned increase of electricity rates, no one expected their protest to reverberate around the world.
To everyone’s surprise, the small gathering mushroomed into several thousand mostly young people who marched to the Capital City’s major thoroughfare, the Baghramyan Avenue, where the Presidential Palace, the Parliament, and the Constitutional Court are located, and staged an overnight sit-in. The protests quickly spread to major towns and cities throughout Armenia.
Since the demonstrators refused to vacate the Avenue, the police dispersed them with water cannons, injuring a dozen protesters and arresting 237 others. The police also detained several journalists, damaging or confiscating their cameras and tape recorders.
As images of these confrontations were disseminated through social media and various websites, several thousand more protesters showed up the next day, making crowd control practically impossible. At the time of writing this column — the evening of June 29 — demonstrators were still occupying portions of Baghramyan Avenue.
Who are these young men and women and what do they want? They are not affiliated with any political parties or foreign powers, contrary to baseless accusations, and have no agenda other than demanding that the Armenian government rescind the 17% increase in the cost of electricity, effective August 1. These activists believe that they are legally and morally justified to block city streets because their protest is peaceful and spontaneous! They have named their movement “No to Plunder.”
The authorities made several attempts to persuade these young people to abandon their protest. When President Serzh Sargsyan proposed to meet with them, the protesters declined the request demanding that the meeting be televised live to the public. The government’s offer to subsidize the higher cost of electricity by providing a corresponding increase in aid to over 100,000 destitute families was also rejected. Finally, the President’s decision to freeze the rate increase until an international auditing company reviews the financial records of the Energy Networks of Armenia, a subsidiary of a Russian company, to see if the new rate is warranted, was also turned down.
The first break in the tense standoff came last Sunday night when the protest organizers accepted the police offer and moved back to Liberty Square to avoid another bloody confrontation. They announced on Monday night that they are ending their protest and will decide their next move shortly. Most demonstrators, however, refused to follow the lead of the organizers, spending another night in the middle of Baghramyan Avenue, chanting: “We are the masters of our country.”
This new generation of men and women are disenchanted with both the authorities and the political opposition. However, rather than giving up and leaving the country like so many others, the protest organizers took to the streets to defend the people’s rights. These activists showed that although they have no power, no wealth, and no official position, they are capable of rising to the occasion when necessary and rally the masses around them, commanding the grudging respect of the authorities! One may disagree with the protesters’ tactics, but cannot help but admire their sincerity and commitment to the welfare of their fellow Armenians!
There are three important lessons to be learned from these recent developments:
1) The future of Armenia will be in good hands as long as there are young people in the upcoming generation like those who appeared spontaneously last week in the streets of Yerevan;
2) Opposition political parties in Armenia have little chance of assuming power anytime soon, unless they completely overhaul their policies, attract bright, committed and resourceful young men and women to their ranks, and allow them to rise to positions of leadership;
3) The people of Armenia have had a deep-seated distrust of all successive governments before and since independence. The leaders in power are facing far greater problems than the price of electricity. It is an existential imperative for Armenia to establish a just and democratic society in which the citizenry can live in dignity, prosperity and peace. Armenians would not need to protest in the streets of Yerevan if there are effective mechanisms that people can trust to defend their basic civil rights and secure their economic well-being.

Since his passing on June 15, thousands of journalists have highlighted Kirk Kerkorian’s amazing business accomplishments and substantial charitable contributions. However , these journalists had never met this great man, as he rarely gave interviews to the media.
Having worked with Mr. Kerkorian for almost three decades as Senior Vice President of The Lincy Foundation and President of the United Armenian Fund, I would like to offer a personal tribute about this compassionate Armenian-American and wonderful human being.
I remember vividly the first time I met Mr. Kerkorian. It was at a Beverly Hills restaurant in the mid 1980’s during a small gathering of wealthy Armenians who supported Gov. George Deukmejian’s reelection. I was there as editor of The California Courier newspaper. When I walked over to introduce myself, Mr. Kerkorian recognized me right away and told me that he was a regular reader of my weekly columns. I was greatly surprised and flattered….
The next time I met Mr. Kerkorian was in his Beverly Hills office on November 1, 1989, eleven months after the devastating earthquake in Armenia. We discussed the possibility of forming a coalition of seven major Armenian-American organizations, including The Lincy Foundation, to airlift humanitarian aid to Armenia. Mr. Kerkorian offered to pay the full cost of transportation and went on to generously pledge to cover not only the cost of one airlift, but “all future airlifts as long as Armenia needed assistance.” Within a few days, the United Armenian Fund was born which successfully delivered over the next 25 years $700 million of relief supplies to Armenia and Artsakh, on board 158 airlifts and 2,250 sea containers.
In 1998, Mr. Kerkorian invited me to travel with him to Armenia, his first trip during which he pledged to Pres. Kocharian to allocate $100 million (raising it later to $242 million) to build or renovate tunnels, bridges and dozens of schools throughout Armenia and one in Artsakh; hundreds of miles of highways, roads and streets; 34 cultural institutions and museums; 3,700 apartments in the earthquake zone; and $20 million of loans to small businesses. These projects not only dramatically improved Armenia’s infrastructure, but also provided much needed employment to over 20,000 workers. Mr. Kerkorian asked me to supervise these projects, in my capacity as Senior Vice President of The Lincy Foundation.
Over the years, Mr. Kerkorian’s Lincy Foundation contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to Armenians worldwide, including $14 million to provide heating oil for Armenia’s freezing population during the harsh winter of 1993, $4.5 million in 2006 to all 28 Armenian schools in Lebanon, and millions of dollars to Hayastan All-Armenia Fund’s projects in Artsakh. It is estimated that from 1989 to 2011, The Lincy Foundation contributed over $1 billion, split equally between Armenian and non-Armenian charities.
In 2011, when The Lincy Foundation closed its doors, unfounded and false rumors began circulating about the supposed reasons for its closure. The fact is that Mr. Kerkorian had planned all along that at a certain advanced age he would no longer deal with the deluge of daily requests for funding from around the world and distribute the bulk of his wealth after his passing.
I would like to conclude by mentioning some of the likes and dislikes of this remarkable Armenian-American:
— Mr. Kerkorian detested the divisions among Armenians. It upset him to no end that Armenians could not get along with each other. He often said: “Why can’t they unite and march in the same direction?” He was pleased to see seven major Armenian-American organizations working together under the umbrella of the United Armenian Fund.
–He cared deeply about the destitute condition of the people in Armenia and was constantly worried about emigration. He sought to create jobs so Armenians won’t have to leave their homeland.
— He hated the limelight and never lent his name to any building or institution.
— He was extremely wealthy, yet lived very modestly and spoke gently and politely. He preferred that people address him as Kirk rather than Mr. Kerkorian.
Finally, no one had to prompt Kirk to donate money to worthy causes. He often volunteered to make large contributions without being asked.
The Armenian nation and the world owe him a great debt of gratitude.

Now that over a dozen candidates have announced their intention to run for President in 2016, Armenian-Americans are wondering whom to support in next year’s elections.

Faced with that same question in 2012, I wrote a column explaining why I was not voting for either the Democratic incumbent, Barack Obama or his Republican rival, Mitt Romney.

During his first four years as President, Obama not only did not keep his repeated promises on the Armenian Genocide, but also failed to support many other Armenian-American issues.

Romney did not fare any better. During the presidential campaign, the Republican candidate made no promises to and held no meetings with the Armenian community. Some interpreted his detachment as a sign of honesty, thinking that he did not wish to make promises that he would not keep. Romney’s problem was that if a presidential candidate exhibits such callous disregard toward a block of voters right when he most needs their support, imagine how much less attention he would pay to Armenian-Americans and their issues after he becomes President!

For several decades, the Armenian-American community has sought a pledge from all presidential candidates that as President they would recognize the Armenian Genocide. All too often, the thrill of anticipated victory has turned into agony, as every President since Ronald Reagan has suffered from amnesia upon entering the White House. Consequently, the Armenian community has become disappointed and disengaged from the American political process, believing that all politicians are liars!

To break this vicious circle of promise and deception, I would like to suggest two alternative strategies:

The first is to evaluate all Presidential candidates on the totality of their positions on many issues of significance to the Armenian-American community:

— Increasing the amount of U.S. aid to Armenia and Artsakh (Karabagh);
— Pressuring Turkey to lift the blockade of Armenia;
— Demanding that Turkey return the confiscated Christian churches to their rightful owners — Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks;
— Condemning Azerbaijan for its repeated threats and frequent attacks on Artsakh;
— Supporting Artsakh’s self-determination;
— Promoting U.S. trade with Armenia;
— Holding annual meetings with representatives of the Armenian-American community.

I have intentionally left out from the above list the request from presidential candidates to “recognize” the Armenian Genocide, as it has been repeatedly recognized by the United States! Hence, there is no need to make genocide recognition a litmus test for Presidential endorsements, particularly after its global acknowledgment during the Centennial! Moreover, when presidential candidates make a campaign promise on the Armenian Genocide, they should not be automatically endorsed based on that single issue, ignoring their positions on all other issues!

Of course, there is no guarantee that the elected president would keep the promises on other Armenian issues. However, if Armenian-Americans make a large number of requests, they may be able to obtain satisfaction on a few of them.

It is important to note that those candidates who have already deceived the Armenian community during previously held elective or appointive positions should be eliminated from all consideration. One such candidate is Hillary Clinton who as Secretary of State called the Armenian Genocide “a matter of historical debate,” after staunchly defending it as Senator, and then as presidential candidate in 2008. Armenian-Americans should not trust any candidate who has already lied to them! As the popular saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!” The real issue transcends genocide recognition and reflects the character and integrity of the candidate!

An alternate election strategy would be not to endorse candidates during their first run for office to avoid being misled by false promises. Let elected officials earn Armenian-Americans’ trust by taking positive actions on issues important to them during previous terms in office.

Finally, not voting for presidential candidates in their first run for office does not mean staying away from elections or the political process. One third of the US Senate and all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives are up for reelection every two years. Armenian-Americans should support all incumbents in federal, state and local elections who have a proven record of accomplishments on Armenian issues, while helping defeat those who have opposed Armenian interests during their term in office!

It is more prudent to engage in intelligent and efficient political activism rather than wasteful and abortive electoral participation.