The co-founders of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, Noubar Afeyan, Vartan Gregorian, Ruben Vardanyan, and the Chairman of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee, Lord Ara Darzi, have announced that Aurora will donate $200,000 to support the residents of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, and will also launch an additional fundraising campaign through the #AraratChallenge movement directed at the Armenian community of Beirut.
“We deeply mourn the tragic explosion in Beirut and join the global efforts to urgently help Lebanon. Just as Lebanon stood by our side after the Armenian Genocide, today we stand by the entire people of Lebanon. As representatives of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, we call on all humanitarian organizations to do everything possible to support Lebanon. We call on all Armenians around the world to support the entire population of Lebanon, as well as the Armenian community,” declared the co-founders of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and the Chairman of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee.
The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative will provide $100,000 in humanitarian aid through the Lebanese Red Cross and the Near East Foundation (NEF) to mitigate the immediate consequences of the explosion. At the same time, Aurora’s #AraratChallenge movement will donate $50,000 to the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia for the needs of the Armenian community. Starting August 10, 2020, for at least two months, the #AraratChallenge movement will also help unite all Armenians around the world through a fundraising campaign. The collected funds will be directed to supporting the Armenian community of Beirut. It is expected that these efforts will make it possible to raise an additional $50,000 to support reconstruction projects that will be selected at a later date.
The statement noted that the aim of the Treaty of Sevres was to partition Turkey and put an end to its independence and sovereignty, but that the Turkish nation “tore it up and threw it into the dustbin of history.”
With this statement, Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs indirectly accused Armenia of sowing hostility and “harbouring base intentions,” and of resorting to the Treaty of Sevres for that purpose.
The statement also repeated the recent opinion voiced by high-ranking officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that Armenia cannot meet the daily needs of its own people.
Turkey’s foreign ministry also touched upon the Artsakh issue, accusing Armenia of “occupying Azerbaijani territories and being the sole obstacle to the establishment of peace and stability in the region.”
