Category: Harut Sassounian

Ever since Archbishop Sahak Mashalian became the Armenian Patriarch of Turkey in 2019, he has made a series of questionable statements on the Armenian Genocide and bestowed lavish praise upon Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his denialist remarks.

It is understandable, to a degree, why Armenians in Turkey, especially those in leadership positions, are forced to go along with the Turkish government’s denials of the Armenian Genocide, since they are hostages in Turkey. However, there are red lines that no Armenian, let alone a clergyman, should cross regardless of circumstances or locality.

However, we should not ascribe all of the Patriarch’s declarations to threats or pressures from the Turkish government. He has made many subservient statements of his own free will in order to get elected as Patriarch or endear himself to the authorities.

The Patriarch’s most recent controversial statement came in a lengthy sermon he delivered in Armenian and Turkish on April 24, the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide at Istanbul’s Kumkapu Sourp Haroutioun Church. While I welcome his desire to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, I question the accuracy of some of his statements. In my humble opinion, the Patriarch would have been better off giving a short sermon, simply expressing his sympathies to those who lost their lives in 1915. Given his mixed messages, he risked alienating both Armenians and Turks.

Let us now turn to the Patriarch’s sermon. He started by saying that April 24 commemorates Armenians who were killed during World War I. The Patriarch is thus copying the denialist words of Pres. Erdogan who misrepresents the Armenian dead as victims of war, not genocide. The Patriarch also capitalized on the fact that in 2015, Catholicos Karekin II declared all victims of the Armenian Genocide to be “saints,” which led the Patriarch to qualify April 24 as “no longer a day of mourning,” but “a day of remembrance for the consecrated saints.”

The Patriarch then came up with the following strange explanation: “The immortality of the victims of the Meds Yeghern began on the day of their death. We simply awoke to this truth after a hundred years of mourning!” He accused all those who continue to commemorate the Armenian Genocide of wanting “to sink in and remain forever in the inescapable nightmare of labyrinths of the Yeghern.”

While the Patriarch falsely represented the genocide as resulting from war, he also made some accurate assessments regarding the consequences of “Meds Yeghern” on the Armenian people, particularly the loss of their homes and lands:

“Today is April 24. It is the infamous day of remembrance of the terrible tragedy of our nation a century ago; a miserable date that symbolizes the start of one of the darkest chapters of our history…. which is familiar to us as ‘Meds Yeghern.’ …A nation was torn from its centuries-old settlements as a result of a policy cultivated and developed for reasons incomprehensible to us. The word deportation is embossed on our Armenian identity in its most painful shades. This unfortunate practice has led to the emptying of monasteries, the desolation of places of worship, the deprivation of schools of teachers and students, and in general, the settlements from their inhabitants. Families were left to mourn the loss of their parents and children. Men and women, old men and boys, young men and virgins were forced to follow a deadly path. In other words, a negative situation as a result of which hundreds of thousands of people were forced to bear in their wounded hearts the pain of irreversible and irreparable losses.”

The Patriarch continued his mixed messages by condemning the denial of the genocide, while criticizing its recognition by foreign parliaments, describing their actions as “provocations by distant countries.” On the positive side, he dared to use the term genocide once in Armenian and Turkish in his sermon: “It should be noted that the denial of the pain experienced by the Armenians on these lands wounds the conscience. We should also mention that we find contrary to moral principles the efforts that tend to use the pains of our fathers on the international stage as politicized theses against Turkey. Neither the denial nor the genocide resolutions adopted by the parliaments of various countries will bring honor to the pains suffered or to the people who lived through them on these lands. On the contrary, angry and defensive sides, by augmenting the shadows of the past, cause the peoples’ hopes to reconcile and develop natural relations to be dimmed and to block the present and future of the neighboring peoples.”

The Patriarch then suffered from a massive spell of amnesia by falsely describing “the events of the past 107 years… as a painful exception to the millennial common history” of Armenians and Turks. The Patriarch conveniently forgot the centuries of oppression suffered by Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the Hamidian massacres of the 1890’s that caused the deaths of 300,000 Armenians, and the Adana massacre of 1909 that resulted in the killing of 30,000 Armenians.

The Patriarch, however, did not forget to praise Pres. Erdogan as the “unique figure” who issued sympathetic statements on April 24. The fact is that Erdogan’s statements should be condemned, not praised, for distorting the truth about the Armenian Genocide.

The Patriarch ended his sermon by supporting the ongoing diplomatic efforts for “rapprochement” between Armenia and Turkey. He must realize that without acknowledging the truth and establishing justice, there can be no reconciliation.

Pres. Joe Biden issued a written statement on April 24, officially recognizing the Armenian Genocide for the second year in a row.

Here is an excerpt from Pres. Biden’s acknowledgment: “On April 24, 1915, Ottoman authorities arrested Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thus began the Armenian genocide — one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century. Today, we remember the one and a half million Armenians who were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination, and mourn the tragic loss of so many lives…. Today, 107 years later, the American people continue to honor all Armenians who perished in the genocide.”

In his statement, Pres. Biden used the word ‘Genocide’ four times and once ‘Meds Yeghern,’ an Armenian term used to describe the mass killings, before Raphael Lemkin coined the term Genocide in the 1940’s. Pres. Biden also identified ‘Ottoman authorities’ as perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.

While Armenians appreciate the sympathetic words of Pres. Biden, he must be reminded that a similar danger of extinction is looming today over Artsakh. He should not have approved military aid to Azerbaijan, a country that is intent on wiping out both Artsakh and Armenia.

Pres. Biden should turn his moral acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide to actionable foreign policy by pressuring Turkey to recognize its crime, compensate for the mass murders committed by its predecessor regime, and return the occupied Western Armenian lands. Recognition without restitution is meaningless!

Just as Western countries rose to the defense of Ukraine with massive military and humanitarian assistance, so should they protect Artsakh. During the 2020 war, Artsakh was subjected to a brutal attack by Azerbaijan, Turkey, and imported Jihadist terrorists, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. But the world remained silent. There should be no favoritism for the suffering of one people over another. All human beings deserve the same protection.

In addition to Pres. Biden’s declaration on the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, statements were issued by the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, Vice President of Argentina Cristina Fernandez, President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades, President of Greece Katerina Sakellaropoulou, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and several other leaders. However, the United Kingdom, Australia and Israel are some of the countries that are still afraid of Turkey to acknowledge the truth about the mass murders of 1.5 million Armenians.

Turkey, the perpetrator of the genocide, and its vassal state, Azerbaijan, continue to deny the Armenian Genocide. Armenians around the world and all people of goodwill continue to hold protests, exposing their lies and remind the world of the mass murders.

This year, on April 23, when Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was in Montevideo, Uruguay, a group of Armenians protested his visit. Cavusoglu mocked the gathered Armenians by flashing the threatening hand gesture of the Turkish terrorist group, Gray Wolves. Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II in 1981, was a member of the Gray Wolves. Imagine if a German Foreign Minister showed the Nazi insignia to Jewish Holocaust survivors. The President of Uruguay condemned the Turkish Foreign Minister’s undiplomatic gesture and the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish Ambassador to explain the Turkish Foreign Minister’s inappropriate behavior.

Nevertheless, Turkish President Rejep Tayyip Erdogan is beginning to realize the futility of his denials of the Armenian Genocide. After years of threatening the United States if it recognized the Armenian Genocide, Erdogan turned into a mouse after Pres. Biden recognized it last year. Erdogan had arrogantly announced that he will complain to the U.S. President about his recognition of the Armenian Genocide. However, when the two met last June, he did not dare to say a word to Biden about it. Afterwards when the Turkish press asked Erdogan if he complained to Biden about the Genocide, he absurdly said, “No, Biden did not bring it up.” Erdogan was thoroughly humiliated.

In a message to Armenians who had gathered at the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul to commemorate the Armenian Genocide on April 24, Erdogan wrote to Armenian Patriarch Sahak Mashalyan: “I believe that we should build the future together, inspired by our deep-rooted unity of up to a thousand years, instead of magnifying the suffering.” Rather than acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, Erdogan claimed that Ottoman citizens (both Armenians and Turks) died as a result of World War I, without distinguishing between the victims of genocide and war.

Furthermore, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that it rejected the statements made on April 24 by various countries: “This includes today’s unfortunate statement by U.S. President Biden, repeating the mistake he made in 2021. We reject such statements and decisions that distort historical facts with political motives, and condemn those who insist on this mistake.” This is coming from the Turkish Foreign Minister who made a terroristic hand gesture in Uruguay.

Meanwhile, the Governor of Istanbul banned the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, which had been held annually since 2010, except for the last two years due to covid.

Finally, Garo Paylan, the Armenian member of the Turkish Parliament, submitted a bold resolution to the Parliament last week demanding that it recognize the Armenian Genocide, identify those responsible, remove their names from public places, and grant Turkish citizenship to the victims and their families. Paylan came under vicious attacks from Turkish officials. The Speaker of Parliament rejected his motion. The spokesman of AKP, the ruling party, demanded an apology from Paylan and threatened to sue him. Furthermore, Pres. Erdogan condemned Paylan and urged the Parliament “to deal with him.”

If Turkish leaders don’t mind to be humiliated and exposed to the world for denying that their country committed genocide, Armenians will continue to expose them as supporters of barbaric actions. The sooner they come to their senses, acknowledge the Genocide and make amends, the sooner they will stop being disgraced.

Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan delivered a very lengthy, rambling speech on April 13, 2022 to the Armenian Parliament on his government’s failures and achievements in 2021.

Ever since the catastrophic 2020 Artsakh war, I have been repeatedly saying that the Prime Minister is too incompetent to govern Armenia. He caused the loss of most of Artsakh and thousands of young Armenian soldiers. As a defeated and psychologically crushed leader, he is incapable of repairing the damage he caused to the country. With each passing day, the situation is getting worse. Artsakh is mostly gone; Armenia is next.

However, Pashinyan refuses to resign, clinging to his seat and establishing a one-man rule. Ironically, when he took over the government four years ago, he proclaimed that the power belonged to the people!

In his April 13, 2022 speech, Pashinyan stated: “we have had the most serious failures as well as the most serious achievements. I must first talk about the achievements, then focus on the failures, but not so much or not only to record them, but also to use the opportunity of being on the high rostrum of the National Assembly, to confess to the public about the cause and effect of the war and defeat, and talk about possible solutions.”

Various high-ranking government officials have recently announced that Artsakh is no longer a territorial issue, but one of human rights, meaning that Armenia is giving up on its long-standing demand for the independence or self-determination of Artsakh, opting instead on seeking to preserve the cultural and religious rights of ethnic Armenians in Artsakh under Azeri rule!

Since Pashinyan’s plan is to turn over the remainder of Artsakh to Azerbaijan, why is he then boasting that “from November 2020 to the end of 2021, the [Armenian] government has implemented in Artsakh 136 billion drams [about $272 million] of programs?” Armenia is actually subsidizing Azerbaijan’s infrastructure in Artsakh, since the government of Azerbaijan, in three and a half years or less, will take over that territory.

Pashinyan admitted that the negatives in 2021 outweighed the positives. He stated that “from the beginning I have accepted my guilt and responsibility for both the war and defeat.” But then, he contradicted himself by saying: “I have not accepted and I do not accept the accusations addressed to me by the opposition after November 9, 2020, accusing me of handing over lands and thus also of treason.” He acknowledged that what he just said is “absurd — admitting your guilt, but not accepting the accusation.”

Making his confession more confusing, Pashinyan added: “In a recent interview, I hinted that if I were to be accused objectively, I should be accused not of handing over land, but of not handing over land. And now, yes, I’m going to admit that I’m probably guilty of it. It is my fault that in 2018, 2019, I did not stand in front of our public and did not speak out that all, I repeat, all distant and close [foreign] friends expect us that we hand over the seven well-known regions to Azerbaijan, one way or another and lower our bar for the status of Artsakh. It is my fault that I did not tell our people that the international community unequivocally recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, expects us that we too recognize it, also expects that the Azerbaijanis who left Karabakh be fully integrated in the decision-making and governance of Nagorno-Karabakh.”

In the above paragraph, Pashinyan admitted his guilt in losing Artsakh, but strangely, avoided accepting the consequences for his actions. He also repeatedly laid the blame on pressure from the international community. It is not true that the international community demanded that Armenians give up Artsakh, but even if they did, Pashinyan should have been more concerned about Armenia’s national interests than the outsiders’ suggestion. Only a weak leader would buckle under the pressure of third parties and not defend his people’s rights.

Pashinyan confessed: “And not doing this is my real fault, and such a formulation is not an attempt to alleviate the situation at all. On the contrary, I aggravate it, because by handing over [Artsakh’s lands], I might have saved thousands of lives, but by not handing over I actually became the author of decisions that resulted in thousands of victims.” As the Prime Minister of Armenia, he had no right to hand over Artsakh territories that he had no jurisdiction over.

Pashinyan is getting ready to surrender Artsakh completely by announcing that he wants to sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan and recognize its territorial integrity. He used the excuse that “the international community clearly tells us that Armenia is the only country in the world that does not recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.” This “is a great danger not only for Artsakh but also for Armenia. Today the international community tells us again, ‘lower your bar on the status of Nagorno Karabakh a little and you will secure greater international consolidation around Armenia and Artsakh.’ Otherwise, says the international community, ‘please do not rely on us, not because we do not want to help you, but because we cannot help you.’”

After saying that Armenia has not recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, Pashinyan contradicted himself by falsely claiming that in 1992, Armenia had recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. His contention, that the international community warned him that they cannot help Armenia, unless it made concessions on Artsakh, is also a baseless statement. When has the international community lifted a finger to help Armenia? Pashinyan is simply using this excuse to make further concessions to Azerbaijan. He is incapable of protecting Armenia’s borders as we have seen with Azerbaijan’s May 12, 2021 encroachment on Armenia’s border. Furthermore, Pashinyan falsely blamed his political opponents for that Azeri incursion! He also faulted the Russia-led CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) for not coming to Armenia’s defense, even though he is the current CSTO Chairman!

Pashinyan’s defeatist remarks at the Parliament were soundly condemned not only by the political opposition, but also by the usually compliant leaders of Artsakh.

Everything must be done to get rid of Pashinyan as soon as possible since he refuses to resign, favoring his own seat over Armenia’s interests. Otherwise, after Artsakh, Armenia is next to go.

The dispute continues between those who want to reward Turkey and those who want to condemn it, because of its contradictory positions on the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published on April 7 a detailed article by Jared Malsin and Elvan Kivilcim, titled: “Superyachts, Seaside Apartments and Suitcases Full of Cash: Russians Pour Money Into Turkey.”

As a result of the sanctions imposed by the West on Russian banks and businesses, tens of thousands of Russians have fled to Turkey with suitcases full of money, superyachts, private jets and other assets. “Many left carrying hundreds or thousands of dollars in cash because of capital controls that the Russian government imposed,” reported the WSJ. The Russians are buying houses and other properties in Turkey taking advantage of the law that allows foreigners to become Turkish citizens if they invest at least $250,000. Many Russians are able to circumvent Western sanctions by transferring their money from Russian to Turkish banks and converting their Rubles to Turkish Liras or other currencies. All NATO member countries, with the exception Turkey, have imposed strict sanctions on Russia, preventing its citizens from wiring their money out of the country, blocking Russian Airlines from flying to Western countries, and confiscating the oligarchs’ superyachts and private jets. Refusing to impose sanctions on Russia, Turkey is trying to revive its bankrupt economy by generating desperately-needed funds.

Fleeing Russians are able to avoid Western sanctions and capital controls imposed by Russia on its citizens through “Russian cash transfer companies that operate in Turkey, cryptocurrencies and simply carrying thousands of dollars in cash through airports,” according to the WSJ. The Turkish government has come up with the lame excuse that it will allow the transfer of Russian funds to Turkey as long as “the money is legal.” Such scrutiny, if it ever existed, very quickly disappeared, ignoring the requirement that foreigners obtain a residency permit before being allowed to open a bank account. According to the WSJ, “at a single branch of one state-owned bank in Istanbul, Russians have opened more than 600 accounts in recent weeks.”

The WSJ reported that “Turkey’s central bank took in about $3 billion in just two days in mid-March…. That money was likely largely composed of deposits from Russians, said Omer Gencal, an economist and former executive at HSBC Turkey and other major Turkish banks.”

Gül Gül, the chief executive of Istanbul real-estate company Golden Sign, told the WSJ: “the newly arrived Russians are buying as many as four apartments at a time, usually with cash, in order to invest the $250,000 required for citizenship. ‘Currently, out of 10 flats [apartments] we sell, six or seven are bought by Russians, said Ms. Gül. They are mostly businesspeople, wealthy ones, some of them oligarchs.’”

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich moved two of his superyachts to Turkish ports in recent weeks. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev docked his 74-meter-long (249 ft.) vessel called Universe in Istanbul last week, according to the WSJ.

Furthermore, the WSJ reported that the “search-engine company Yandex, classified-ad site Avito, commercial bank Tinkoff and software firm DataArt collectively had more than 1,000 workers fly to Turkey. About 900 Yandex workers flew to Turkey shortly after the beginning of the war, though around 300 of them have since left.”

Visa and Mastercard’s decisions to shut down operations in Russia have prompted Russians to use “the Russian Mir payment system, which works at certain locations in Turkey. ‘We accept Mir’ signs have begun cropping up in grocery stores around Istanbul,” the WSJ wrote.

“Middle-class Russians have mostly brought a few thousand dollars at a time, either in cash or by using Russian wire-transfer companies that continue to operate in Turkey. One popular service is KoronaPay, which allows people to wire money out of Russia and withdraw money in Turkey and a range of other countries. The company allows transfers worth more than 15,000 euros, equivalent to $16,400, as long as customers verify their source of income, according to the company’s website,” reported the WSJ. “Volkan Celikyurek, a money changer in Istanbul’s Laleli neighborhood, which is frequented by Russian traders and one of the only areas where exchange offices buy and sell Rubles,” told the WSJ, “I bought at most 100,000 Rubles at a time. But there are those who bought millions.”

In the meantime, Turkey’s economy is benefiting from the flow of Russian money, while its hypocritical condemnation of Russia is winning dividends from Western countries. The UK government just lifted the restrictions it had imposed on exporting weapons to Turkey. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced on April 7 that Turkey is interested in “cooperating with the UK in important defense projects, including warplanes, warships and aircraft carriers.” Cavusoglu also announced that Turkey is discussing with Canada the resumption of the purchase of camera systems for the Turkish Bayraktar armed drones, suspended after the 2020 Artsakh war.

Amazingly, the Biden Administration, instead of punishing Turkey for its sanction-busting schemes, wants to reward it by indicating that selling Turkey F-16 fighters is in the best interest of the United States and NATO. Nevertheless, Congress is opposed to the sale. Over 50 Members of Congress signed a letter in February urging the Biden Administration to reject the Turkish request to buy 40 F-16 jets and upgrade 80 other jets already in Turkey’s possession. The Congressmen cited Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile systems and the wholesale violation of human rights as the reasons for opposing the sale. Selling F-16 jets to Turkey would “more likely lead to further death and destruction in the region at the hands of Erdogan’s military,” the lawmakers wrote.

It remains to be seen how long Turkey can play its deceptive game on both sides of the fence in the Russia-Ukraine war.