Turkey’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan Wednesday said his country’s parliament would not ratify US-backed fence-mending agreements signed with Armenia in October until Azeri “lands are liberated from Armenian occupation,” reported the Azeri Today.az website.

The United States is committed to ensuring a quick resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs said on Tuesday.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Thursday marked the 61st anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a condemnation of racism and other forms of discrimination, which he said are not only a violation of human rights but also an obstacle to social and economic development.

Within days of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan clearly linking the normalization of relations between Ankara and Yerevan to a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a senior US State Department official urged Turkey to make progress on normalization efforts without setting preconditions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday told the members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel is interested in direct talks with Syria over Turkish mediated negotiations, adding that his government would prefer Paris over Ankara in a situation in which a mediator is required, reported the Israeli Web site ynetnews.com.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in Washington DC on Monday meeting with US President Barack Obama. The two leaders discussed Turkish-Armenian relations, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and Turkey’s role in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Iraq. Erdogan and Obama held a press conference after their talks, read the text of the transcript.

Officials on Monday downplayed the government’s failure to rebuild regions devastated by the 1988 earthquake, insisting that reconstruction is going according to plan as Armenia marked the 21st anniversary of the calamity that killed 25,000 people and left hundreds of thousands of others homeless.

The foreign ministers of over 50 countries making up Europe’s largest security structure praised Armenia and Azerbaijan late Wednesday for their latest pledge to “work intensively” to overcome disagreements hampering the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The eight-hour day, sick leave, paid vacation, maternity leave, elimination of child labor, overtime pay, minimum wage laws, and even the weekend—these are just a few of the many benefits that society enjoys today thanks to the struggle of workers and the untold sacrifices of the American labor movement.

The history of organized labor in the United States and the Armenian experience within that movement will be the topic of the first in a series of community lectures hosted by the Armenian Youth Federation’s Crescenta Valley Zartonk chapter. The series, dubbed “Blueprint for Progress,” will kick off with a discussion by Dr. Ara Khanjian this Sunday, May 17, at 6 pm, at the Crescenta Valley Armenian Center (2633 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA, 91020).

"You cannot create experience, you must undergo it."
Taking Albert Camus’ truism to heart, the Armenian Youth Federation has spent the last 75 years preparing generations of leaders, giving young Armenian-Americans the opportunity to gain real world experience through service to their communities.
Keeping with tradition, the organization’s Central Executive kicked off this fiscal year by hosting [...]