When Aziz Tamoyan sits behind his desk in the cramped and dilapidated room that serves as his office in the Armenian capital, he says that he does so as president of the country’s largest ethnic minority, the Yezidis.
Pointing at the handmade posters stuck on the wall to one side of his cluttered desk, Tamoyan reads aloud the slogan that also serves as the motto for his newspaper. “My nationality is Yezidi, my language is Yezideren, and my religion is Sharfadin,” he proclaims, opening a copy of Yezdikhana to reveal the results of the last census conducted in Armenia three years ago.

Aziz Tamoyan is the President of the National Union of Yezidi in the Republic of Armenia. This interview was held at the Union’s office in Yerevan on 13 September 2004 and is part of a follow-up series of interviews to work on the division within the Yezidi minority in Armenia conducted during June 1998.

Hranush Kharatyan is the Head of the Department of National Minorities and Religious Affairs in the Armenian Government. This interview was held in Yerevan on 6 September 2004 and is part of a follow-up series of interviews to work on the division within the Yezidi minority in Armenia conducted during June 1998.

Amarik Sardar is the Yezidi editor of Riya Taza, the oldest surviving Kurdish newspaper in the world. This interview was held in the Riya Taza office in Yerevan on 25 August 2004 and is part of a follow-up series of interviews to work on the division within the Yezidi minority in Armenia conducted during June 1998.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a voluntary organization involved in international refugee work. For more than 50 years the organization has worked to provide humanitarian assistance to people fleeing from their homes and to defend their fundamental human rights.

This interview was held at the NRC’s office in Yerevan, Republic of Armenia, on 20 February 2004.

  Thomas de Waal is the Caucasus Editor and Project Coordinator for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in London. Having covered the Caucasus for the BBC World Service, his book on the conflict in Nagorno Karabagh, "Black Garden: Armenia...

Text and photographs by Onnik James Krikorian LACHIN — Anyone taking the road from Goris to Stepanakert has passed through Lachin, the strategic main artery in the lifeline between Armenia and the self-declared Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. Few actually visit the town...

Seta Melkonian is the President of the Monte Melkonian Benevolent Union. Born in Ainjar, Lebanon in 1963 to a family of six sisters, Seta Melkonian met her future husband, former ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) member and Karabagh commander, Monte Melkonian, at the age of fifteen.

Sabri Kash is the Representative of the PKK and ERNK in Armenia and the Caucasus. He was interviewed during festivities celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK] organised by the Yezidi [Kurdish] community in Armenia, and staged at the Russian Theatre in Yerevan.