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FAMILIES ESCAPING SYRIAN BATTLE RAISE TENSION IN OIL REGION (1)
Businessweek / Bloomberg
Oct 16 2013
By Sara Khojoyan
Gorge Mardyan and his family of four have lost most of their
possessions. Gorge left his job as a printer and they have fled their
large home in Aleppo, Syria, for a cramped one-room apartment in the
disputed South Caucasus region. Yet they feel lucky. They hope they
are out of danger.
The Mardyans are among 10,000 war refugees in the area. A century
after finding refuge in Syria from massacres and persecution by the
Ottoman Empire, Armenians are on the move again. More than 2 million
people have left Syria since the conflict there flared in 2011. So far,
the fighting has claimed more than 100,000 lives.
"This is the best for us," mother of three Nelli says. "I took them
away from the war to let them just be children."
While the number of Syrian refugees in Armenia is a fraction of the two
million who poured mainly into Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, their arrival
threatens to intensify tension in the energy-rich South Caucasus
region. As the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago, Armenia and
Azerbaijan fought a war in the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region
and border skirmishes continue since a 1994 cease-fire.
The South Caucasus is the only non-Russian route toward Europe for
oil and gas produced in the Caspian region, where BP Plc (BP/) and
partners have invested more than $40 billion in the past 20 years.
Azerbaijan, the third largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union,
has threatened military action over the Nagorno-Karabakh assisted
settlements, which it says are illegal.
Bullet Escape "Me and my daughter Anna were on the balcony of our
Aleppo home," says Nelli, 49. "We came inside to answer the phone. On
our return, we found bullets right at the place we had been sitting."
Their escape in June almost ended in disaster when their Mercedes
taxi driver had to swerve to avoid another car and they plunged into
the flooded Arpa river outside Armenia's capital.
"We escaped the war to fall into the river," Gorge, 51, says. The
family was unhurt, though losing more possessions in the crash.
They are now settled in the Lachin district of Nagorno-Karabakh. Gorge
has temporary work as a plumber while his wife works as a janitor
for only $100 a month each.
"I can't open a printing house because I can't find materials we were
using in Aleppo," says Georg. "At least we don't pay for utilities,
because the Nagorno-Karabakh government covers this."
School Welcome Nelli says she doesn't mind the 30-minute walk to school
or nearest town and they have been made welcome. The school has allowed
her children to attend without uniform because they can't afford them.
They share a kitchen and bathroom with five other Syrian Armenian
families. Their Aleppo fifth-floor home is shuttered and closed,
with no return in sight. Tensions have escalated to over a Aug. 21
poison-gas attack near Damascus that the U.S. says killed 1,400 people.
"I am happy that we are at least far from shootings and missiles,"
says Nelli.
Still, Azerbaijan has warned that it may even start military operations
over some of the settlements.
"It's a big concern to us as it aims to change the demographic balance
in the region," Elman Abdullayev, a spokesman for the Azeri Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, says by telephone from Baku, the Azeri capital.
"With this illegal settlement, the Republic of Armenia is also damaging
the peace process."
Tax Breaks Hundreds of ethnic Armenian families are being granted
aid and tax breaks as the government in Yerevan is resettling them
in some of the districts flanking the disputed enclave, which were
taken into the Armenian control during a war with Azerbaijan after
the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
About 700,000 Azeris were forced to leave the areas in what Azerbaijan
describes as ethnic cleansing. Brushing off four United Nations
Security Council resolutions demanding a withdrawal from the districts,
Armenia has defended their conquest by the need to create a security
buffer zone.
Azerbaijan has forged closer ties with Israel and NATO-member Turkey
and increased defense spending 27-fold to $3.7 billion a year in the
past decade, outlays that exceed Armenia's annual budget. Armenia
hosts a Russian military base in its second-biggest town of Gyumri,
near the Turkish border, and Russian troops guard Armenia's borders
with Iran and Turkey.
Resettlement Aid "We can't leave them without attention,"
Nagorno-Karabakh president Bako Sahakyan says in an interview in the
capital Stepanakert. While he doesn't have a specific resettlement
program for Syrian-Armenians, he is applying the resettlement policy
of adjacent districts to them as well.
"Despite the fact that we also are facing difficulties economically,
we try to soften their problems and give them some opportunities,"
he says.
Hovhannes Asmaryan, 43, who moved to Stepanakert from Aleppo a year
ago, was granted those opportunities in form of tax privileges for
$600,000 investments into kiwi and olive gardening in the disputed
region.
"We don't worry about conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh," the businessman
says. "We had some income in Syria, but because of the military
situation, businesses simply stopped operating."
About 50,000 Armenians are still in Syria, while more than 70 have been
killed and 150 wounded, according to the Diaspora Ministry of Armenia.
Legal Help The Aleppo law firm of Meghri has helped 4,000 Syrian
Armenians gain Armenian citizenship in the past two years, according
to its director Boghos Aghababian, 57.
Armenia is seeking assistance from European, U.S. and Russian
businesses for a district estimated to cost $10 million, designed
for 150 Syrian families called "New Aleppo."
Syrian-Armenians have been given free entry visas, taxation
privileges and free education. By contrast, the state did little for
Iraqi-Armenian refugees who came to Armenia during the Iraq war in
2003, according to Hranush Hakobyan, the diaspora minister.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sara Khojoyan in Yerevan at
[email protected]
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-10-15/families-escaping-syrian-conflict-raise-tension-in-oil-region
Businessweek / Bloomberg
Oct 16 2013
By Sara Khojoyan
Gorge Mardyan and his family of four have lost most of their
possessions. Gorge left his job as a printer and they have fled their
large home in Aleppo, Syria, for a cramped one-room apartment in the
disputed South Caucasus region. Yet they feel lucky. They hope they
are out of danger.
The Mardyans are among 10,000 war refugees in the area. A century
after finding refuge in Syria from massacres and persecution by the
Ottoman Empire, Armenians are on the move again. More than 2 million
people have left Syria since the conflict there flared in 2011. So far,
the fighting has claimed more than 100,000 lives.
"This is the best for us," mother of three Nelli says. "I took them
away from the war to let them just be children."
While the number of Syrian refugees in Armenia is a fraction of the two
million who poured mainly into Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, their arrival
threatens to intensify tension in the energy-rich South Caucasus
region. As the Soviet Union collapsed two decades ago, Armenia and
Azerbaijan fought a war in the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region
and border skirmishes continue since a 1994 cease-fire.
The South Caucasus is the only non-Russian route toward Europe for
oil and gas produced in the Caspian region, where BP Plc (BP/) and
partners have invested more than $40 billion in the past 20 years.
Azerbaijan, the third largest oil producer in the former Soviet Union,
has threatened military action over the Nagorno-Karabakh assisted
settlements, which it says are illegal.
Bullet Escape "Me and my daughter Anna were on the balcony of our
Aleppo home," says Nelli, 49. "We came inside to answer the phone. On
our return, we found bullets right at the place we had been sitting."
Their escape in June almost ended in disaster when their Mercedes
taxi driver had to swerve to avoid another car and they plunged into
the flooded Arpa river outside Armenia's capital.
"We escaped the war to fall into the river," Gorge, 51, says. The
family was unhurt, though losing more possessions in the crash.
They are now settled in the Lachin district of Nagorno-Karabakh. Gorge
has temporary work as a plumber while his wife works as a janitor
for only $100 a month each.
"I can't open a printing house because I can't find materials we were
using in Aleppo," says Georg. "At least we don't pay for utilities,
because the Nagorno-Karabakh government covers this."
School Welcome Nelli says she doesn't mind the 30-minute walk to school
or nearest town and they have been made welcome. The school has allowed
her children to attend without uniform because they can't afford them.
They share a kitchen and bathroom with five other Syrian Armenian
families. Their Aleppo fifth-floor home is shuttered and closed,
with no return in sight. Tensions have escalated to over a Aug. 21
poison-gas attack near Damascus that the U.S. says killed 1,400 people.
"I am happy that we are at least far from shootings and missiles,"
says Nelli.
Still, Azerbaijan has warned that it may even start military operations
over some of the settlements.
"It's a big concern to us as it aims to change the demographic balance
in the region," Elman Abdullayev, a spokesman for the Azeri Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, says by telephone from Baku, the Azeri capital.
"With this illegal settlement, the Republic of Armenia is also damaging
the peace process."
Tax Breaks Hundreds of ethnic Armenian families are being granted
aid and tax breaks as the government in Yerevan is resettling them
in some of the districts flanking the disputed enclave, which were
taken into the Armenian control during a war with Azerbaijan after
the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
About 700,000 Azeris were forced to leave the areas in what Azerbaijan
describes as ethnic cleansing. Brushing off four United Nations
Security Council resolutions demanding a withdrawal from the districts,
Armenia has defended their conquest by the need to create a security
buffer zone.
Azerbaijan has forged closer ties with Israel and NATO-member Turkey
and increased defense spending 27-fold to $3.7 billion a year in the
past decade, outlays that exceed Armenia's annual budget. Armenia
hosts a Russian military base in its second-biggest town of Gyumri,
near the Turkish border, and Russian troops guard Armenia's borders
with Iran and Turkey.
Resettlement Aid "We can't leave them without attention,"
Nagorno-Karabakh president Bako Sahakyan says in an interview in the
capital Stepanakert. While he doesn't have a specific resettlement
program for Syrian-Armenians, he is applying the resettlement policy
of adjacent districts to them as well.
"Despite the fact that we also are facing difficulties economically,
we try to soften their problems and give them some opportunities,"
he says.
Hovhannes Asmaryan, 43, who moved to Stepanakert from Aleppo a year
ago, was granted those opportunities in form of tax privileges for
$600,000 investments into kiwi and olive gardening in the disputed
region.
"We don't worry about conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh," the businessman
says. "We had some income in Syria, but because of the military
situation, businesses simply stopped operating."
About 50,000 Armenians are still in Syria, while more than 70 have been
killed and 150 wounded, according to the Diaspora Ministry of Armenia.
Legal Help The Aleppo law firm of Meghri has helped 4,000 Syrian
Armenians gain Armenian citizenship in the past two years, according
to its director Boghos Aghababian, 57.
Armenia is seeking assistance from European, U.S. and Russian
businesses for a district estimated to cost $10 million, designed
for 150 Syrian families called "New Aleppo."
Syrian-Armenians have been given free entry visas, taxation
privileges and free education. By contrast, the state did little for
Iraqi-Armenian refugees who came to Armenia during the Iraq war in
2003, according to Hranush Hakobyan, the diaspora minister.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sara Khojoyan in Yerevan at
[email protected]
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-10-15/families-escaping-syrian-conflict-raise-tension-in-oil-region