Yale University epidemiologist Levon Melikian has tested two hundred female prostitutes in Yerevan for HIV infection and has found fifteen of them to be HIV-positive. This alarming number of women represents a proportion of HIV-positive prostitutes several times higher than the proportion in other cities, rich and poor, worldwide. Melikian’s detailed findings are published here. At our request, Melikian has recommended specific proven interventions to control the spread of the deadly epidemic.

David S. Calonne’s article on William Saroyan and Armenian women, which appeared in our Autumn 1998 issue, has generated a great deal of interest and positive comment. Now Calonne focuses his attention on the interplay of myth and ritual in filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov’s classic, The Color of Pomegranates.

After shielding Ottoman archives from the scrutiny of critical scholars for decades, the Turkish government took a new tack in 1985: it claimed that it was finally opening Ottoman archival materials on Armenians, that nothing can be known about Armenians in Asia Minor in 1915 without reference to those archives, and that, consequently, everyone must withhold judgment about the veracity of the Armenian Genocide until such archives are fully mined. Armenian Forum coeditor Ara Sarafian, who has spent many a month in Ottoman archives, argues here that these claims were a ruse to distract attention from other readily available records and that contrary to the claim of openness, the Turkish state withholds compromising records from critical scrutiny. Sarafian makes the important revelation that in spite of these limitations, the available Ottoman records actually corroborate Western accounts of the Armenian Genocide.

The examination of Armenia’s geopolitical position continues in this issue. In a conversation with us, political scientist R. H. Dekmejian argues that Arab-Israeli rapprochement has the potential to weaken Turkey’s hand in world politics.

Constitutional law scholar Elizabeth F. Defeis examines Armenia’s four-year-old Constitution, assesses its proven strengths and weaknesses, and recommends amendments. For reference we include a translation of the Constitution.

It may be worth noting that, as a forum, the journal is open to comments and responses to the studies that have appeared in its pages. We generally ask authors to respond to such correspondence.