Philly Leader

Christine Arakelian, a member of St. Mark's Armenian Catholic Church, said the support shown by former President Donald Trump, his running mate U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), and conservative politician Vivek Ramaswamy is "a watershed moment for Armenian Americans."

“The strong support that Trump, Vance and Ramaswamy have expressed for Armenia is a watershed moment for Armenian Americans,” Arakelian told Philly Leader. “Some may think this support was a cynical ploy, but it was the culmination of many months of hard work. Armenian Americans, including myself, spent hundreds of hours educating and engaging Republican leadership on Armenian issues so that it could become embedded into the party platform.”

“Let’s savor the moment, thank the Republican leadership for their support, and work together to support Armenia’s pivot to the West,” Arakelian added. “Armenia and the U.S. can have a permanent, strategic relationship based on common values and shared objectives, with the Armenian American diaspora as the linchpin of this relationship.”

The ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Christian community within a largely Muslim Azerbaijan, faced an ethnic cleansing in October of 2023. The estimated 120,000 ethnic Armenians in the region were forced to flee to Armenia after clashes with the Azerbaijani army resulted in the deaths of over 400 individuals, including civilians.

"Kamala Harris did NOTHING as 120,000 Armenian Christians were horrifically persecuted and forcibly displaced in Artsakh," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Oct. 23. "Christians around the World will not be safe if Kamala Harris is President of the United States. When I am President, I will protect persecuted Christians, I will work to stop the violence and ethnic cleansing, and we will restore PEACE between Armenia and Azerbaijan."

After the first attempted assassination attempt against Trump earlier this year, several leaders of the Armenian church wrote a public letter to the former president. "In these turbulent times, when violence seems to erupt unexpectedly and even in our own beloved country, we the religious leaders of the Armenian American community come together to pray with and for you and your family," the church heads wrote in the letter.

"We also joyfully respond to you, President Trump, and to your call to come together in unity so that we may live in peace," they said. 

"For decades, we Armenian-Americans have been rightly disenchanted by the serial failures of U.S. foreign policy toward Armenia," Armen Morian, a member of the Board of Trustees of St. Illuminator’s Armenian Cathedral in New York City, wrote in a recent op-ed. "A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for the status quo and the same policies that will inexorably drive Armenia into catastrophic deals with Azerbaijan and Turkey, purchased at the cost of sacrificing our land, culture and historical claims for justice."

"A vote for Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a vote for a disruption of the status quo, a disruption that may give us a fighting chance — and perhaps the only chance — for our advocacy to receive a serious hearing with the hope of influencing a new way forward," Morian wrote.