ARMENIA

Known for his researches on Caucasus and his book on Karabakh conflict titled “Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War”, author and journalist Thomas de Waal's recent book “Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide” has been published in Turkish by Iletişim Publishing. By way of his book, we talked to de Waal about the current developments in Caucasus.

According to Armenian Ministry of Diaspora, 18.000 Syrian Armenians have been given Armenian citizenship in 2016.

Issue of migration preoccupies many people in Turkey as the political atmosphere gets increasingly tenser. In a time like this, we wanted to get together with Armenians of Turkey who migrated to Armenia, the closest and most distant neighbor, during the hard periods of recent history and report their first-hand accounts. These people, who told about their lives with a great sincerity, revealed human's power and hope of starting over.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan spoke about Armenian-Turkish relations. Sargsyan stated that the preconditions propounded by Turkey halted the relations.

3000 kilometers along the Caucasus mountains, three countries and a long way passing through them... Transcaucasian Trail Association (TCTA), a Washington-based initiative, embarked to build one of the longest hiking routes in the world. The association is working with local partners for this hiking route, which is planned to pass through Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. They want to improve ecotourism, create an exciting route for the hikers and provide a different perspective to Caucasus countries which seem like they will never come to terms because of the border conflicts. We talked to Vahagn Vardumyan, a member of Armenia team, about the project.

A campaign is launched for clearing the minefield in Myurishen Village on Karabakh border. The purpose is making the region safe for 500 civilians living there.

Taner Akçam’s book “Forced Islamization of Armenians: Silence, Denial and Assimilation”, which was published in Turkish in 2014, is translated to Eastern Armenian. We talked to Turcologist Meline Anumyan, the translator of the book, about Turcology studies in Armenia and the translation of Turkish books to Armenian.

The attacks against the Armenian neighborhoods in Aleppo have recently increased and Armenia decided to send humanitarian aid to Syria. The first plane carrying the aid arrived at Latakia.

Many Armenian artists and intellectuals living in diaspora came together under a platform called “Justice Within Armenia” and launched a campaign for criticizing the anti-democratic practices in Armenia. So far, more than 2,600 people have supported the campaign.

6 Azerbaijani and 4 Armenian people came together in Eskişehir and talked about peace and common life without a third party. Varduhi Balyan witnessed this important and touching meeting, spoke to participants and told about her own story. In the hope of more meetings like this...