On Election Day, CivilNet’s Salpi Ghazarian speaks to Alex Sardar, an expat who has long been involved in legislative strengthening and civil society strengthening processes in Armenia, about the election and the paradoxes. They discuss the links between apathy and the absence of policy debate, as well as low citizen engagement and confidence in the electoral process and a less than competitive political environment.
Last week, the United Nations Committee against Torture reviewed Azerbaijan’s compliance with its commitments under international law. Prior to the hearings, the Center for Truth and Justice, a U.S.-based nonprofit, submitted a report based on interviews with nearly three dozen former Armenian prisoners of war in Azerbaijan, detailing widespread use of torture. CivilNet’s Mark Dovich traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, to hear firsthand from the CFTJ team about their findings and about what these proceedings can achieve.
On the Tsitsernakaberd hill in Yerevan, near the Memorial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, renowned Turkish political scientist and activist Cengiz Aktar sat down with CivilNet’s Eric Hacopian to discuss his recent book “The Turkish Malaise,” which has been translated into Armenian. Dr. Aktar also talks about broader regional geopolitics and developments.
By Paul Vartan Sookiasian Earlier this month, Armenia formally launched a long-delayed process to delimit, or legally define, a section of its border with Azerbaijan for the first time, sparking ongoing protests across the country. That process is expected to involve Yerevan handing over to Baku four abandoned villages along the border between Armenia’s northeastern Tavush region and Azerbaijan’s northwestern Gazakh district. The announcement has been met with fierce protests in the nearby communities of Kirants and Voskepar, where scores of residents have been blocking one of the country’s main highways. They are concerned they may be forced out of […]
Sergey Minasyan, Deputy Director of the Caucasus Institute Despite the growing frequency of optimistic statements by officials and experts in both countries, the prospects for progress in Armenian-Turkish normalization remain vague. Armenia has lately been making symbolic steps that it hopes can push Turkey to activate the process. These steps have included the dispatch of humanitarian aid and Armenian rescue workers to the regions of Turkey affected by the February 2023 earthquake, the subsequent visit of the Armenian foreign minister to Ankara and the earthquake-affected areas and his participation in the Anatolian Diplomatic Forum in March 2024, together with Armenia’s […]
“A rug is life. It’s alive, it breathes. It is organic. Pure wool, cotton and natural colors. It comes from nature itself. When it is woven by hand, the artisan puts his soul, his breath into it.” This is how Kyle Khandikian, the founder of The Rug Code, a traditional Armenian rug store, describes the rugs made by villagers in Armenia. Each drawing and each pattern is designed to tell a story. Each ornament is a symbol whose meaning many do not know about. Like a secret code.
