Iran nuclear talks to resume on December 27 – Henry Club

LONDON: When Armenian President Armen Sarkeesian stepped off his plane in Riyadh in October this year, he became the first president of the small, former Soviet republic to visit Saudi Arabia.
For nearly 30 years, since Armenia declared its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, there have been virtually no diplomatic relations between it and some Islamic countries.
One reason for the absence of ties is the long-running Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, which on the face of it pits Christian Armenia against Muslim Azerbaijan. This, along with the Armenian Genocide of 1915 by the Ottoman Turks, dominated Yerevan’s relations with several Middle Eastern countries.
Geopolitically, the continued presence of several thousand Russian troops in Armenia ensured that the country remained firmly within Moscow’s sphere of influence, leaving little room for maneuvers for successive governments.

However, relations between Armenians and Arabs have remained quite close beyond politics, especially on a personal level. In fact, Armenians have been seeking their fortune and sanctuary in Arab countries for centuries, for the most part harmoniously, albeit often as members of a low-profile community.
Armenia, a country of 3 million, is a small land-locked state that has been devastated by an earthquake and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, and Azerbaijan to the east. Yerevan, the capital, is a Tsarist gem with Soviet kitsch and striking modernism overlays.
The ruins of the medieval capital at Ani attest to the fact that, before World War I, Armenians lived west of Mount Ararat in much of eastern Turkey. But the events of 1915 (and earlier) pushed hundreds of Armenians into the diaspora in the south.
There he was warmly welcomed among the existing communities of his compatriots in the metropolitan cities of the Levant.

Armenians were famous producers. Indeed, Sinan Pasha, the great architect of the Ottoman Empire, was reportedly of Armenian heritage. Many of the diaspora found their place as middlemen, translators, bankers and traders. One such character, Mr. Youkoumian, is an anti-hero in Evelyn Waugh’s comic novel “Black Mischief”, set in a fictional Ethiopia in the 1930s.
Armenians were able to maintain their identity through the millet system of the Ottoman Empire and later colonial mandates. Under these systems, payment of taxes and settlement of personal status disputes involving birth, death, marriage and inheritance were delegated to religious leaders.
As such, Armenian bishops and archbishops were responsible for the behavior of their communities. From Aleppo to Cairo, from Basra to Beirut, the church was, and is, the center of Armenian life, providing welfare to the needy and education to the youth.
This has resulted in a strong sense of community and identity, which was nurtured and supported by philanthropy. For example, Calouste Gulbenkian, an early Armenian pioneer of the oil industry, funded and funded dozens of Armenian schools, orphanages, and churches in the Middle East through his foundation.

For the most part, these communities were apolitical. An exception to this was the career of the famous Egyptian prime minister Nubar Pasha in the late 19th century. He served three terms of varying lengths, helped negotiate the terms of the construction of the Suez Canal, reformed the system of consular courts under which the colonial powers maintained a parallel justice system, and was energetic but expendable. Ismail Pasha. Managed fickle rulers.
Nubar Pasha’s patron, Boghos Bey, was an Armenian who became secretary to Muhammad Ali Pasha, the founder of modern Egypt. When Ala al-Aswani chose the title for his brilliant novel “The Jacobin Building”, he was paying tribute to Armenian contributions to Cairo.
In the eastern Mediterranean, Beirut’s Burj Hammoud is often seen as the Armenian territory of the Lebanese capital. It was first created after World War I as an area of ​​refugee settlement and thousands who fled genocide in eastern Turkey and northern Syria.

Inland, Anjar on the Beirut-Damascus highway is also an Armenian city known for its beautiful archaeological remains and as the former headquarters of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon.
Under Lebanon’s confessional system, Armenians are guaranteed six seats in the 128-seat parliament, but have maintained a low political profile.
To the south, the Cathedral of St. James is in the center of the Armenian region of the Old City of Jerusalem, the smallest of the four quarters.
Armenians are one of the three primary patrons of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, reputedly built on the site of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in the old town. In Armenia itself, during the long decades of Soviet atheism, monks kept the traditions of the Armenian Church alive in their distinctive black cows.
In Syria, Aleppo was the center of the Armenian population. The city’s famous Baron Hotel was owned and managed by the Mazlumian family. There, as a relatively prosperous minority, Armenians are believed to have largely supported the Assad regime.
As a result, Jadideh (New), a historic area outside the old walls of Aleppo and the Armenian people’s quarters, has been heavily damaged during the civil war. Disturbing pictures of old palaces and museums being blown up are doing the rounds on the internet.
And in Iran, from where modern Armenia derives most of its energy supply, Isfahan has the famous Holy Savior Cathedral in the New Julfa district, also known as Vank.
In the early 17th century, as part of a scorched earth policy to try to counter the Turkish army, Shah Abbas of Persia forcibly resettled thousands of Armenians to the south of the Zayande River running through Isfahan. . , Armenians remain a large minority in Iran.
Today the Kardashians, Cher, Andre Agassi and Charles Aznavour, to name just a few, are internationally renowned descendants of Armenians. But, closer to their homeland, Armenians have a long history as one of the most ancient and successful communities in the Middle East.