Epress.am News from Armenia
The Ministry of Diaspora’s selection process of journalists for the 7th pan-Armenian conference has been under question by a group of diasporan journalists; journalist for iranahayer.com, Rubik Minasyan, editor of Russian magazine “Zham,” Anna Givargizyan, and editor for Greek weekly “Hayastan,” Davit Ayvazyan. Today, they jointly held a press conference and stated that participating in the conference would be pointless. “Those journalists who were invited to the conference were invited only because of their close relationships to the ruling authorities and traditional political parties,” said Minasyan.
He expressed his disappointment that the Armenian government takes pride in diasporan success, for example, resolutions condemning the Armenian Genocide in any country, which it ascribes to its diplomacy, while it still doesn’t guide itself to the interests of the diaspora.
The diaspora has territorial demands from Turkey, while Armenia devalues the issue during Armenian-Turkish border talks,” said the journalist.
The Ministry of Diaspora’s Information and Telecommunications department head, Vaghinak Vardanyan, told Epress.am that there is nothing suspicious about the invitation process of the journalists.
“We have sent invitations to all 300 diasporan media outlets, of which a 105 showed an interest in participating. There was also journalists that have applied themselves and attended. We have a 165 journalists from both Armenia and the diaspora,” -said Vardanyan.
In regards to the Armenian government “forgetting Diasporan demands”, Vardanyan responded, that one can be satisfied by simply reading the title of journalists’ conference and suspicions would disappear, “The Armenian Genocide-100: From Recognition to Demands.”
According to Vardanyan, there are four issues on the agenda for journalists’ conference; the process and coverage of Armenian Genocide recognition and demands in the media, Armenian language proficiency and conservation problems, propaganda, issues related to anti-propaganda and information security issues.
Photograph by Scout Tufankjian