ALIN OZINIAN

Dr. Rouben P. Adalian, a specialist on the Caucasus and the Middle East and Director of the Armenian National Institute (ANI) in Washington DC, is a prominent figure in Armenian Genocide studies. We talked with him about the mission of ANI, its new site about Armenian Genocide in Turkish, as well as Turkey`s counting denial policy.

We talked to David L. Phillips, the Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, about the developments around the triangle of Turkey-US-Middle East by way of his recent book “An Uncertain Ally: Turkey under Erdogan's Dictatorship”.

Armenia, like Turkey, is waiting for the ballot boxes. The parliamentary election will be held on April 2. This is the first election after the constitutional amendment that would transfer the authority of the president to the parliament and the prime minister was passed and the most important question is whether the current government will maintain its power.

The meetings on patriarchal election in Etchmiadzin have ended. It is expected that a değabah (trustee) will be chosen on March 15 and Ateşyan will resign.

Zoryan Institute issued a response to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu who suggested “a joint comission” after the decisions that have been made in France and Denmark concerning 1915.

Businessman and philanthropist Ruben Vardanian declared that he will provide scholarship to 100 children who are Syria, Lebanon or Iraq citizens.

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.

Yerevan University History Department graduate Armenian citizen Siranuş has managed to leave her dust cloth aside in Istanbul and found at least a desk-job in Yerevan. She is not mad at Istanbul or dust cloth or fate. We talked to Siranuş, who has “learned loving life with all its rationality and irrationality”, in Yerevan.

Diasporas in Europe and their problems were discussed in a detailed way at a meeting held in Brussels last week. Attending the discussions, Alin Ozinian wrote about the important developments.

Tevan Poghosian, who is a member of Armenian parliament since 2012 and served as the Washington representative of Karabakh between 1997-1999, assessed the developments about Karabakh.