Your Namak for Friday, March 11
Azerbaijani military escalates attacks on border regions, gas shutdown grips Nagorno-Karabakh and European Parliament passes resolution on Armenian cultural heritage.
Hi there, here’s your weekly briefing of Armenian news in English, curated, reported and fact-checked by journalists Astrig Agopian and Maral Tavitian.
Azerbaijani Military Increases Attacks on Nagorno-Karabakh
The Azerbaijani Armed Forces escalated their attacks on two border regions in Nagorno-Karabakh, employing large-caliber firearms that injured at least one civilian. Starting on March 6, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces began repeatedly firing on military positions near Khramort village, and on March 10 deployed grenade launchers in the direct vicinity of civilian dwellings. A civilian conducting agricultural work in his yard was injured, and journalists reporting in the village caught the incident on camera. For several days leading up to the attack, Azerbaijani soldiers speaking in Armenian on loudspeakers repeatedly demanded that Khramort residents evacuate their homes.
The Azerbaijani military also targeted the civilian populations of Khnushinak and Karmir Shuka villages, causing some residents to evacuate from their homes. In a statement, the Foreign Ministry of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) said that it “strongly condemns the provocative actions of Azerbaijan, which are a threat to regional peace and stability, a blow to the Russian peacekeeping mission, a challenge to the civilized world, and should not be left unresponded.”
Armenian Soldier Killed in Border Incursion
On March 7, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces opened fire on military positions along the western region of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border in the town of Yeraskh, fatally wounding one Armenian serviceman and injuring another. This incident is part of an escalating series of attacks on both Armenia’s sovereign borders and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Gas Shutdown Grips Nagorno-Karabakh in Humanitarian Crisis
The entire Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh has been deprived of gas since March 8, gripping the region in a humanitarian crisis given the cold weather conditions. The shutdown occurred following damage to a gas pipeline in the Azerbaijani-controlled Shushi region, and the Azerbaijani side has refused to grant workers access to repair the pipe. In a statement, the Human Rights Ombudsman of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Gegham Stepanyan said, “Obstructing the resumption of gas supply is proof of the intention of the Azerbaijani side to cause problems in the humanitarian sphere in Artsakh.”
European Parliament Passes Resolution on Protection of Armenian Cultural Heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh
On March 10, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning Azerbaijani destruction of Armenian cultural heritage sites in Nagorno-Karabakh, and encouraging the deployment of a UNESCO mission to the region. The resolution acknowledged that “the erasure of the Armenian cultural heritage is part of a wider pattern of a systematic, state-level policy of Armenophobia, historical revisionism and hatred towards Armenians promoted by the Azerbaijani authorities, including dehumanization, the glorification of violence and territorial claims against the Republic of Armenia which threaten peace and security in the South Caucasus.”
National Security Service Cracks Down on Spies
The National Security Service of Armenia (NSS) announced that it has arrested 16 people in connection with a spy network in the country. According to a statement by the NSS, the network was operating within the Armenian Armed Forces, and included former servicemen and members of the Nagorno-Karabakh government. The individuals are accused of providing sensitive intelligence to foreign countries, such as locations of combat positions, quantities of military equipment and other state secrets.
Joyce Boghosian: Meet the Armenian-American White House photographer who has documented world history
“A lot of times I’m seeing what’s happening in front of me but I’m not really experiencing it. I’m observing and I’m trying not to get involved because I’m thinking about my exposure or the right angle.”
Joyce Boghosian has spent the majority of her career in one of the most famous buildings in the world: the White House. As a photographer over the span of five U.S. presidents, Joyce has documented some of the most iconic people and moments in history.
She followed in the footsteps of her late father Harry Naltchayan, who spent more than three decades as a photographer at The Washington Post. Joyce’s parents were newly married when they immigrated to Virginia from Beirut in 1957, where Harry had served as Lebanese President Camille Chamoun’s official photographer.
From a young age, her father’s work made a significant impression on the budding photographer.
“He’d come home from work and bring his extra prints so that we could take them to school the next day,” Joyce, 54, says. “So, it was really exciting for us to see: ‘Hey dad, who did you photograph today?’ He always said, ‘No day is the same.’”
On weekends, Joyce and her siblings would accompany their father on assignments, and in the fifth grade she picked up a camera of her own. But it was not until her final year of high school that she decided to pursue photography professionally.
A few months before Joyce’s high school graduation, President Ronald Reagan visited her school to speak with students about the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion. As the yearbook photographer, she had the opportunity to photograph the president alongside members of the press. Following the event, Joyce’s father stopped by the school to pick up her film.
“I remember him pulling up in his Mercury Monarch and I’m handing him my film and I said, ‘Dad, that was so exciting. This is what I want to do,” Joyce recalls.
After interning at local newspapers, Joyce landed a position in the White House at just 20 years old. In her first week as a photography intern, President Ronald Reagan invited her into the Oval Office to share letters he had received from children around the country. One year later, she was hired as a photography assistant to President George H.W. Bush’s personal photographer.
Perhaps it is because she started so young that documenting the most powerful people in the world comes naturally to Joyce. Her relaxed demeanor and discreet presence put others at ease, crucial traits for any photographer that are impossible to teach. Joyce’s ability to make her subjects comfortable shines through in her photographs.
“A lot of times I’m seeing what’s happening in front of me but I’m not really experiencing it,” Joyce says. “I’m observing and I’m trying not to get involved because I’m thinking about my exposure or the right angle.”
Throughout the decades Joyce has spent in the White House’s storied halls, she has chronicled such diverse subjects as Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana, Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II. But along with photographing presidents and their famous guests, Joyce enjoyed turning her lens on people and scenes who seldom received the spotlight.
“The chefs, the florists, those are the people that make the White House keep going. I did a whole series of portraits of the residence staff,” Joyce says. “My favorite thing was the people I worked with there.”
Although Joyce has viewed her role as primarily that of an observer and documentarian, the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War compelled her to change her position. Joyce wrote a memo to the president’s staff bringing attention to the conflict in the hopes that the United States would broker a ceasefire.
“My email circulated in the West Wing, and I had the opportunity to speak with high-level advisors and cabinet members urging them to help the Armenians,” Joyce says. “My attachment to the history of Armenians motivated me to step out of my role as a photographer and become more than just an observer –– something I hadn’t done before.”
To read: I always dreamed of visiting my ancestral home of Odessa. But not like this, a personal essay by Washington Post foreign correspondent Isabelle Khurshudyan, who describes the mixed emotions of reuniting with her Ukrainian great aunt amid the Russian invasion.
To attend: How Do Homelands Cross Borders?, a panel in Los Angeles exploring the complex meaning of home for populations who have been forced to leave their birthplace. Interested participants may also join the discussion virtually.
To read: ‘This is Artsakh. Our foreheads are made of stone,’ a moving story by writer Nyree Abrahamian about the unwavering resolve of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to keep beauty alive.
That’s it for today, see you next week!
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