On 26th of June 2017, at the Presidential sessions’ hall of NAS RA a republican conference titled “Issues of the Syrian-Armenians: History and Modernity” was held.

The conference was opened with the opening speech of the Head of the Department of Armenian Diaspora and History of Diaspora of NAS RA, Doctor in Historical Sciences, Professor Gevorg Stepanyan. The Representative of the RA Minister of Diaspora, Head of the Department of Armenian Communities in Near and Middle East, Levon Antonyan and the Director of the Institute of History of NAS RA, Academician Ashot Melkonyan presented their welcoming speech.  

The conference consisted of two sessions, the first of which was dedicated to the historical issues and the second to the current issues.

Several famous doctors, candidates of sciences and researchers such as Verjine Svazlian, Hagop Cholakian, Kevork Yazjian, Ani Fishengjian, Abraham Gasparyan and others presented speeches at the conference.

Among the topics of the speeches was “The Benefit of the Syrian-Armenians who survived the Armenian Genocide in Restoration of the Historical Memory” (Verjine Svazlian), “The Armenian School after the independence of Syria” (H. Cholakian), “Aleppian-Armenian coppersmiths: The Kalemkearians” (H. Tokmajian), “The Syrian Armenians and the Syrian War” (N. Sarkisian), “The war in Syria: Humanitarian, Benevolent and aids of other organizations to the Syrian-Armenians” (A. Fishengjian) and etc.   

At the end of the conference an active discussion and summarizing of the results took place, during which A. Melkonyan mentioned that the issues concerning the Armenian Diaspora should be studied more intensively; he also emphasized the importance of taking practical steps in strengthening the homeland.