Remembering a political legacy
GLENDALE — The legacy of former United States President Woodrow Wilson falls on the pages of World War I textbooks and his name rolls off the tongues of foreign-relations academics, but it was his support of the Democratic Republic of Armenia that was celebrated in Glendale on Thursday.
Members and supporters of the Provisional Plenipotentiary Authority of Western Armenia — including keynote speaker Assemblyman Anthony Portantino — gathered to honor Wilson’s 150th birthday in the Glendale Central Library auditorium.
As the arbitrator of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, Wilson designated a 40,000-square-mile chunk of land in eastern Anatolia to Western Armenia, but that land was almost immediately recaptured by Turkey, said Michael Sosikian, president of the authority.
“We want to see that border redrawn,” Sosikian said.
“We are asking our country, our president, our state department, to implement what President Wilson gave to Armenia.”
Sosikian’s father was born in Von, which was part of the land designated as Western Armenia by Wilson, he said. When he was pushed out of the land by Turkish forces, he relocated to Iraq, where Sosikian was born 1946.
Sosikian — now a resident of La Crescenta — moved to the United States in 1985, where he now heads up a political push to restore his father’s birthplace to Armenian control. Now officially part of eastern Turkey, the land is mostly populated by Kurds, with few Armenians, Sosikian said.
The issue is not only of historical importance, but the implementation of the Treaty of Sèvres could serve an important purpose in contemporary American foreign policy, Sosikian said.
“We could be one of the best allies to the United States in the Muslim world because we’ve learned how to live with Muslims as Christians,” he said.
Touting Wilson’s legacy of justice and peace in international relations, Portantino questioned the current leadership in America.
“We have to ask the question, ‘Do our current leaders have the same moral authority that Woodrow Wilson did so long ago?’” Portantino said.
Also on hand for the event was Father Khoren Babouchian of Saint Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church in Pasadena.
“One day we will see our homeland in Western Armenia and Turkey has to recognize the Armenian genocide and our homeland in Western Armenia,” Babouchian said.
Though the United States Department of State does not recognize the Armenian genocide, Portantino pointed out that the California State Assembly does not align with the federal government’s position.
The Assembly voted 74-0 to approve Assembly Joint Resolution 15 on Monday to designate April 24 as California Day of Remembrance for the Armenian Genocide of 1915--1923, Portantino said.
The bill, which was authored by Assemblyman Paul Krekorian and co-authored by Portantino, also puts pressure on the United States Congress and President to recognize the genocide.