The past week has witnessed reports of increased Turkish military activity in Iraq and Syria as well as its intruding itself deeper into the war in Yemen. In all three cases Ankara has pitted itself against forces that are or can be seen to be pro-Iranian: Shiite parties in northern Iraq, the government of Syria and the Houthi-led government in Yemen.
Direct tensions between Turkey and Iran have been increasing since last year over the above three nations as well as the Turkish-directed attack on Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan (Turkey and Azerbaijan identify themselves as “one nation, two states’) and its aftermath.
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“You have not seen Mount Ararat how I saw it growing up. I promise, one day I will take you back home.”
Since childhood, my grandfather grew up listening to these words of his great-grandfather, Baghdasar, who fled to Armenia with his family during the 1915 genocide.
My grandfather recollects how Baghdasar would tell stories of their home in Bayazet, or Doğubeyazıt in modern Turkey, in the shadow of Mount Ararat, and promise his grandchildren that one day they would return to their home. In 1915, to save his family from the massacres, Baghdasar closed the doors of his house, crossed the Araks River, which flows along the borders of Armenia and Turkey, and ended up in the Armenian city of Gavar. According to my grandfather, when Baghdasar died, he still had the key to his old house in his pocket.
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May. 6, 2021 1:27 PM
The Armenian genocide in many ways shook the established world order to its very core. Here was an atrocity so inexplicably depraved that there was no word to describe it, and no system to resolve it. In this watershed moment in human history, the basis of our modern system of international governance, human rights, and international law were born.
It wasn’t, however, until the crime of genocide was repeated with the annihilation of Europe s Jewish population – inspired in part by the Ottoman Empire s extermination of the Armenians – that these nascent systems of international law and global governance would be fully institutionalized; namely with the establishment of the United Nations.
This report is written by an Armenian journalist based in Yerevan.
US President Joe Biden s claim that the massacre of Armenians in 1915 under the Ottoman Empire was genocide has been welcomed by Armenia and roundly rejected by Turkey.
Biden made the comment on April 24, which is Armenian Remembrance Day.
“The American people honour all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today,” said Biden in a statement.
Former US presidents have refrained from using the word “genocide .
The killings have been recognised as genocide by over 20 countries, but others stayed away but there is no international consensus on the issue.