FATIH GÖKHAN DILER

Working in various international human rights associations, Harout Ekmanian made a presentation in "Critical Approaches to Armenian Identity in 21st Century". Being an Armenian from Aleppo, Ekmanian follows the war in Syria as an observer in order to record the violations of rights and war crimes. We talked to Ekmanian about Syria, focusing on the Armenian community in Aleppo, which he knows very well.

Turkey, with a unilateral decision, left the “Creative Europe” program, which supports the culture and media sectors in Europe. The negotiation is started with the officials from European Commission in order to organize Turkey's withdrawal from the program starting from June 1, 2017. This decision is initiated by Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For about 2 weeks, a story titled as "Armenian spies in Turkey are revealed" has been circulating, but the information included in the story is not confidential. The information is just a part of visa applications to Armenia.

A holiday camp project in Lebanon caused debates due to the sentimental value of the region. The planned location of the luxury holiday site is the coastal Biblos town in Beirut and the region also includes a cemetery, school and orphanage which belong to genocide survivor Armenians and known as “Bird's Nest”.

Shoah Foundation indexed the testimonies about the Armenian Genocide and added them to the visual history archive of the foundation. Project manager Manuk Avedikyan tells about the project.

Koç University Deputy Chief of Medicine Özgür Tezcan answered Agos' questions.

We talked to Syrian immigrants with different professions about the debate on Turkish citizenship. They all want to acquire Turkish citizenship because it would make their lives easier. However, they don't know whether they comply with the criteria of "being a useful and qualified person", declared by President Erdoğan. They are also disturbed by the hate speech against them.

We addressed two questions to two people, historian and former editor of Der Speigel Wolfgang Gust and historian Eric Weitz from City University of New York, who have been researching German complicity to the Armenian Genocide for many years.

We talked to Hilmar Kaiser, one of the prominent researchers who work on the Armenian Genocide, about Bundestag's resolution and Germany's responsibility. Kaiser said: “It was not 'the Ottoman Empire' or 'Turkey' or 'the Turks' or 'the Kurds' who killed the Armenians. Let us identify the culprits and praise the rescuers.

Works of German theologian Lepsius, who sent reports to German politicians for warning them during the Armenian Genocide, revealed the fact that German officials had known the massacres but they hadn't done anything for preventing them. Director of Lepsius House Rolf Hosfeld talked about the influence of Lepsius' works on German society's current recognition and Germany's responsibility in the Armenian Genocide.