Your Namak for Friday, April 21
Pashinyan hints at recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijan, flag burning scandal rocks weightlifting championship in Yerevan, and Azerbaijani soldiers detained after crossing into Armenia.
Hi there, here’s your weekly briefing of Armenian news in English, curated, reported and fact-checked by journalists Astrig Agopian and Maral Tavitian.
Pashinyan Hints at Recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as Part of Azerbaijan
In a speech before parliament, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan emphasized the importance of preventing a full-scale war in the Caucasus and hinted at a possible recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. “The signing of a peace treaty with Azerbaijan will become realistic if the two countries without ambiguity recognize each other’s territorial integrity and undertake not to advance territorial claims to each other either today or ever in the future,” Pashinyan said.
The Armenian Prime Minister expects Azerbaijan to recognize Armenia’s territory within its Soviet-era borders. Those boundaries would not include the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, from which Armenia withdrew its troops in 2022, and which has been at the heart of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan since the fall of the USSR. The Pashinyan administration’s position is that Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians have the right to self-determination and to maintain their own military. Pashinyan also stressed the importance of establishing a mechanism for direct negotiations between the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities and Baku.
Some members of the Armenian opposition, as well as the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities, have repeatedly stated that they would not accept a takeover of the region by Azerbaijan, which they warn would result in ethnic cleansing. Pashinyan hinted that recognizing Azerbaijan’s jurisdiction over Nagorno-Karabakh would be unpopular with the Armenian public, but the country’s leadership must be willing to make compromises in order to secure long-term peace.
“Especially after the 44-Day War, if compromises are reached at the political-diplomatic level, how acceptable will these compromises be for the citizens of the Republic of Armenia? And to what extent will the citizens allow the practical implementation of these compromises, sometimes painful solutions?” Pashinyan said. “But this is also our responsibility, dear colleagues, and we must make the course of our thoughts and actions understandable to the citizens of Armenia, and when they understand it, they will also accept it.”
Azerbaijani Team Leaves European Weightlifting Championship in Yerevan After Flag Burning Scandal
Azerbaijan withdrew from the European Weightlifting Championship in Yerevan after a man ran onto the stage, seized an Azerbaijani flag and burned it during the competition’s opening ceremony. The European Weightlifting Federation condemned the incident. The Armenian authorities have opened a criminal investigation against the man, who they said was an employee of Armenia’s public broadcaster. In a statement, Armenia’s Ministry of Sports said the incident did not reflect the government’s position, and “deserves to be condemned in terms of sports values and universal principles of fair play.”
Two Azerbaijani Soldiers Detained After Crossing Armenian Border
On April 17, Armenia’s Prosecutor General announced public criminal charges against two Azerbaijani citizens who illegally crossed into Armenian territory. Azerbaijani soldier Husein Akhundov is accused of killing a guard at the Zangezur copper-molybdenum plant in Armenia’s Syunik region. In a video he recorded on the victim’s cell phone and posted on social media, Akhundov stated: “Thanks to God, we successfully reached Armenia and beheaded 400 to 500 Armenians; we are not traitors and hope to return to Azerbaijan successfully.”
Liana Aghajanian: Meet an Armenian-American writer uncovering the world’s untold stories
“We have the whole world contained in who we are as a global Armenian community. I don’t think that many cultures can get away with saying that.”
Liana Aghajanian’s words and photos are like a warm hug. Whether it is a snapshot of ripe stone fruits from her Fresno neighborhood, or a lush tablescape brimming with traditional Armenian dishes, her Instagram feed invites readers into a special world the 38-year-old writer has created.
Born in Tehran to Armenian parents, Liana’s family immigrated to Los Angeles as refugees in 1988, at the tail end of the Iran-Iraq War. Like many Armenians of the global diaspora, her identity was defined by multiple worlds and cultural influences.
“There was a very clear divide between what was happening inside my home and outside of it,” Liana says. “It was like having two lives in a sense.”
From a young age, writing provided an outlet for Liana to understand herself and those around her. In high school, she served as an editor of the student newspaper and editor-in-chief of the yearbook. She knew right away that she had found her life’s work.
“It was everything I wanted to do,” Liana says of writing. “I didn’t feel suited for anything else.”
Liana studied journalism at California State University, Northridge, graduating at the height of the Great Recession in 2007. With few full-time jobs available for young journalists, she committed to a career as a freelancer. That choice has given Liana the creative autonomy to report on a wide range of subjects –– from the effects of coal burning on maternal health in Mongolia to the endearing tale of how Ferrero Rocher chocolates became a status symbol for immigrant families in the United States.
Her work has been published in major outlets including the New York Times, The Guardian and Food & Wine, to name just a few. Rather than be constrained by a particular beat, she lets her curiosity –– and keen eye for undiscovered stories –– guide her.
“I have done every single thing you could imagine. I’ve reported from city hall. I’ve done some breaking news. I’ve done columns. I’ve done long-form feature reporting,” Liana says. “I guess what tied it all together was that I was always interested in the stories that felt like they weren’t being told.”
In an effort to explore her heritage and share the Armenian experience with a global audience, she also began turning the lens inward on her own community.
“Every story I did was a learning experience for me about who I am and where I come from,” Liana says. “I am still learning every day about my own identity, and the stories that I did were an excuse to learn more, to know more, to diversify my understanding, and also play some very small part in trying to bring some attention other than our own community onto us.”
While Liana’s writing has taken her to far-flung corners of the world, in 2017, she made a move that few coastal residents embark on. She relocated to Detroit, Michigan through the “Write a House” residency, a unique program that awards recipients a house and unencumbered time to write from inside it.
Detroit is home to a significant Armenian diaspora population, albeit with very different dynamics than the one Liana grew up in. Unlike the diverse Armenian center that is Los Angeles, many of Detroit’s Armenian families had been in the city for generations, their ancestors having arrived after fleeing the Armenian Genocide.
The time she spent inside the community and its institutions expanded Liana’s ideas about what Armenian identity could be.
“We all come from a variety of places. We all have different experiences. We can do things different ways and eat different things and it doesn’t mean that we’re less than. It just enriches who we are as a community,” Liana says. “We have the whole world contained in who we are as a global Armenian community. I don’t think that many cultures can get away with saying that.”
Yet despite the cultural differences she observed, some rituals remained universal. One of Liana’s treasured memories from her time in Michigan was joining the women’s guild of St. John Armenian Church as they cooked for their annual bazaar. While documenting the recipes for beloved staples like kufteh and choreg, Liana understood how food served as a tool for many Armenians to keep their culture alive.
“It felt like museum pieces that they were in charge of because it had not changed from them, their parents, their grandparents, great great great grandparents,” Liana says of some of the dishes. “My favorite thing I did with them was make su boreg.”
The importance of hospitality in Armenian culture perhaps made food a natural topic for Liana to focus on. In 2017, she launched “Dining in Diaspora,” a project dedicated to chronicling the Armenian diaspora experience through food.
“Food as everybody will tell you is always a significant part of culture and growing up and just a very obvious thing that I gravitated towards,” Liana says.
Liana has also spent significant time reporting in the Republic of Armenia, a place she is still unpacking her relationship to. The writer says she never feels more American than when she spends time in Armenia, emphasizing how her ancestral homeland is at once deeply familiar to her and disorienting.
“People have different relations to Armenia and what that means for them, how its existence factors into who they are, what their identity is, what their history is,” she says. “Armenia is not just a country, it’s a concept for many people.”
In 2021, Liana relocated again to another historic hub of the Armenian diaspora –– the city of Fresno in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The first large waves of Armenians began arriving in the arid agricultural town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where they played an integral role in developing the region’s farming industry.
Liana views each new destination as a “treasure hunt” for hidden histories about her own community and others that have not traditionally received the spotlight. She hopes to continue telling these untold stories the best way she knows how –– through words and photos.
To read: Our pick of the best newsletters on Ukraine, Russia and the region, a roundup by openDemocracy of the most useful newsletters that combine news on the region with a focus on real people, featuring Namak. Welcome to all our new readers!
To attend: Tonratun, a documentary by photojournalist Inna Mkhitaryan about five women baking bread and discussing their lives through different generational perspectives. For our audience in France, the film will screen on May 3 at Opéra de Lyon.
To read: The Armenian Laundromat, a cross-border investigation by a quartet of American and Armenian journalists, published in Hetq in Armenian and Forensic News in English, about how Armenian citizens served as proxies for Eastern European oligarchs to secretly move millions of dollars.
That’s it for today, see you next week!
Questions? Story ideas? An urge to say barev/parev? You can send us a secure email at namaknews@protonmail.com.