Month: February 2015

ARMENIAN CHURCH COULD CANONISE 1.5 MILLION VICTIMS OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Christian Today
Feb 5 2015

Ruth Gledhill

In what could stand as the biggest saint-making service in history,
the Armenian Church is preparing to canonise up to 1.5 million victims
of the Armenian genocide in one go.

The Armenian Apostolic Church is to mark the 100th anniversary of
the atrocity, which saw Turkey stripped of its Armenian population
in 1915, with a liturgy on April 23 at the Patriarchal See of the
Catholicosate in Echmiadzin Cathedral, the extraordinarily beautiful
mother church of the denomination at Vagharshapat in Armenia.

The announcement was made during a press conference held on 3 February
at the Patriarchal See.

Patriarch Karekin said in a statement: “The Armenian Church does not
sanctify. It recognizes the sanctity of saints or of those people that
is already common among people or has been shown with evidence. The
Church recognizes only what happened, that is, the genocide”.

The decision to recognise the victims of the genocide as saints was
made in September 2013, during a meeting at Echmiadzin.

In the liturgy on the April 23 the Psalm “martyrs of April”, composed
by the late Bishop Zareh Aznavourian, will be used as the psalm for
the canonization. The canonization will be attended by heads of sister
Oriental Churches and delegations of other Churches.

Soon after he became Pope in 2013, Pope Francis canonised 800 martyrs
killed in the 15th century by Ottoman Turks for refusing to convert
to Islam known as the “martyrs of Otranto”.

Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith wrote in The Catholic Herald this week of
how on April 24 1915 the Ottoman government began to arrest and deport
Armenians who had been living in Anatolia “from time immemorial”.

The organised campaign of arrest, deportation, massacre and
extermination led to the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians. “It
is for this reason that visitors to Turkey today will find plenty of
Armenian history but no actual Armenian people, or at least very few.”

He added: “The Armenian genocide is commemorated all over the world,
but not in Turkey and not much in Britain, which studiously avoids
mentioning the genocide in order not to jeopardise relations with
Turkey.”

He cited Hitler’s view of the Armenian genocide: “Our strength is
our quickness and our brutality… Who still talks nowadays of the
extermination of the Armenians?”

THE KHARTOUM REGIME, AND THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST

Sudan Tribune
Feb 5 2015

By Eric Reeves

The “National Prayer Breakfast”–a sixty-two year tradition in
Washington, held annually on the first Friday in February–will this
year commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

Bringing together a wide range of guests from all fifty states and
more than 100 countries, the event is hosted by the U.S. Congress
and is designed to facilitate engagement between various social and
religious groups. This year President Obama and the Dalai Lama are
headline guests.

But we must wonder about the appropriateness of one of those invited,
Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti of the National Islamic Front/National
Congress Party regime in Khartoum, Sudan. Any perusal of Karti’s
“record of service” to this cabal of genocidaires should make all
in attendance uneasy, particularly given the terrible genocide of a
century ago that is being commemorated on this occasion.

For Karti has long been a key member of the regime and done some of
its dirtiest work, particularly as head of the Popular Defense Forces
(PDF)–a militia organization notorious for its savage attacks on
civilians (Karti was appointed in 1997). The PDF were particularly
active in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, where the Nuba
people were targeted for most of the 1990s in a brutal campaign of
extermination. No student of the period characterizes the actions by
Khartoum and its military and militia forces in the Nuba Mountains
as anything other than genocide.

And Karti is presently the international face of a regime that remains
committed to genocidal counter-insurgency in Darfur. Indeed, efforts
to destroy the lives and livelihoods of the non-Arab or African tribal
populations of Darfur have accelerated dramatically over the past
three years, particularly in 2014, when some 500,000 people were newly
displaced. The UN Panel of Experts on Darfur has recently reported
that in the first five months of 2014, more than 3,300 villages were
destroyed–overwhelmingly those of the region’s African tribal groups.

As has long been the case, displacement and violence in Darfur
correlate extremely highly. North Darfur is presently the region
that is enduring the worst atrocities committed against civilians,
including mass rape, indiscriminate bombardment of civilian targets,
village destruction, land appropriation, and murder on a large scale.

Again, the targets are inevitably the African tribal groups of the
region perceived as supporting the long-standing rebellion; and
Khartoum is using not only its regular Sudan Armed Forces (SAF),
but the new Arab militia force known as the Rapid Response Forces
(RSF), a part of the legacy of the PDF that Ali Karti once headed.

Currently some 3 million Darfuris are internally displaced or refugees
in eastern Chad; many more are in critical need of relief efforts,
efforts by distinguished international humanitarian organizations
that Khartoum has, for more than a decade, systematically obstructed,
harassed, expelled, and intimidated.

And yet Karti has attempted during his tenure as Foreign Minister–he
was appointed in January 2010–to minimize the genocidal destruction
in Darfur. In August 2011, speaking to a pending UN resolution–Karti’s
office declared at his behest:

“The resolution is full of negative and obsolete references to be
resolved within the framework of the tripartite mechanism, such as
visa problems and allegations of aerial bombardment and the violation
of human rights,” the foreign ministry said. (Agence France-Presse
[Khartoum], 2 August 2011.

In fact, what Karti referred to as “allegations” had for years been
substantiated by every human rights group working on Darfur (until
they were all expelled, along with all independent journalists). These
include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Physicians
for Human Rights. The civilian bombings were and have continued to be
verified by the UN Panel of Experts on Darfur. To refer to confirmed
atrocity crimes as mere “allegations” tells us that above all, Karti
represents the NIF/NCP regime, not the people of Sudan. And there
is nothing “obsolete” about the daily reports of atrocity crimes
committed in Darfur.

In short, Khartoum continues to wage genocidal counter-insurgency war
in Darfur, and efforts by Karti to minimize these realities make him
deeply complicit.

The regime Karti represents to the world also continues its campaign
of more than three years against the people of the Nuba Mountains and
Blue Nile State. Relentless aerial and ground assaults in the two
areas have left more than one million people displaced and without
humanitarian resources; many are close to starvation because Khartoum
has imposed an embargo on all relief efforts in areas controlled by
the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLM/A-N). It is
nothing less than a repeat of the genocidal campaign of the 1990s
in the Nuba. And for this, too, Karti makes no apology–even when
SAF combat aircraft deliberately strike at hospitals, as has been
the case at the Mother of Mercy Hospital in Gidel and the Doctors
Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Frandala,
South Kordofan. The latter, winner of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize,
has been attacked twice in the past year, despite apprising Khartoum
of their location.

Because Karti is well-spoken, and has made some of the right noises
for Western audiences, he is the point-person in Khartoum’s present
charm offensive, particularly as it is addressed to the U.S. and the
Obama administration. Karti has met with former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and twice with current Secretary of State John Kerry.

The effort, evidently encouraged by the Obama administration, is to
achieve a detente between Washington and Khartoum. So lustful for
counter-terrorism intelligence is the Obama administration that it
is willing to overlook all the crimes this regime must answer for.

Notably, for example, at a meeting on October 1, 2013,

Secretary of State John Kerry met his Sudanese counterpart [Karti] for
talks on Monday on the South Sudan peace process and conflict-hit areas
like Darfur, but did not raise U.S. concerns over the government’s
crackdown on protesters, the State Department said.

(Reuters [UN/New York], 1 October 2013)

This meeting followed immediately upon an extraordinarily bloody
effort by the regime to put down a popular uprising over rapidly
declining economic conditions. Amnesty International reported at the
time that security personnel had been given “shoot to kill” orders in
dealing with demonstrators, and many hundreds were killed or wounded in
Khartoum, Omdurman, and other major towns in Sudan. Kerry knew this,
but chose not to raise the issue with Karti. Karti for his part would
have subsequently reported to the genocidaires in Khartoum that the
U.S. was not inclined to press the regime on human rights abuses
of the worst sort, this in exchange for putative counter-terrorism
intelligence provided by Khartoum (which hosted Osama bin Laden from
1992 – 1996, the years during which al-Qaeda came to fruition).

Nor has the Obama administration pushed for a humanitarian corridor
to be opened to the people of the Nuba or Blue Nile; indeed,
the administration never speaks about these scenes of terrible
human suffering and destruction. Thousands have already died from
malnutrition and disease, and some 200,000 have fled to Ethiopia or
South Sudan. People have fled their homes and villages to live in caves
or ravines–desperate to escape the shrapnel-loaded barrel bombs that
are a daily reality, particularly in the Nuba. For this Karti makes
no apology; indeed, he and other civilians in the regime have long
ceded decisions about war and peace to senior military officials.

One of these men, Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein,
has been indicted by the international Criminal Court for massive
crimes against humanity in Darfur; President and Field Marshal Omar
al-Bashir has been indicted by the Court on multiple counts of crimes
against humanity and genocide.

The failure of the Obama administration to push hard and publicly
for a humanitarian corridor to provide food, medicine, and shelter to
many hundreds of thousands of human beings gives us all too clear a
picture of the cost of doing business with the regime Karti represents.

Karti has arrived in the U.S. for the National Prayer Breakfast with
a visa issued by the Obama administration’s State Department. He
is accompanied by a less conspicuous but no less savage regime
survivalist, political secretary of the NIF/NCP Ibrahim Ghandour, who
was also issued a visa by the State Department. Ghandour’s views are
revealed in the leaked minutes of a secret August 31, 2014 meeting of
the most senior military and security officials, where he reveals his
support for (among other policies) a scorched-earth campaign in the
Nuba Mountains, designed to “starve”–the word accurately translates
the Arabic–the Nuba people by burning their fall sorghum crop, the
staple grain of the region. His comments from the minutes are excerpted
and annotated at . His main task is clearly to
rig the “re-election” of President al-Bashir; and the lengths to which
the regime is prepared to go to orchestrate a “legitimizing” electoral
process are both extraordinary and extraordinarily comprehensive–and
completely corrupt.

The Obama administration has already declared its willingness to stand
by the regime despite its record of serial genocides, which includes
the massive human destruction and displacement of the Nuer people
during the “oil war” (1997 – 2002) in what was then Western Upper
Nile, now Unity State. Karti’s PDF militias were active participants
in the conflict at this point. Former special presidential envoy for
Sudan, Princeton Lyman, declared in late 2011–after the campaigns
of annihilation were well underway in South Kordofan and Blue Nile,
and continuing in Darfur:

“We do not want to see the ouster of the [Khartoum] regime, nor
regime change. We want to see the regime carrying out reform via
constitutional democratic measures.” (Asharq Al-Awsat, 3 December
2011 |

By “we” Lyman meant the Obama administration, which has expediently
indulged this preposterous political scenario. This is the same
administration that decided to “de-couple” Darfur from the issue of
real strategic interest: counter-terrorism cooperation with Khartoum.

The word “de-couple” was used by an unnamed senior State Department
official, but was reported in the official transcript.

The Armenian genocide should be commemorated at a National Prayer
Breakfast; the refusal to recognize this genocide–and the belated
recognition by much of the world–is a failure to acknowledge the
terrible suffering and destruction of the Armenian people a century
ago–it remains a “stain on our soul.” But this is the same phrase
that candidate Obama used to describe Darfur in 2007:

“When you see a genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia or in Darfur, that is a
stain on all of us, a stain on our souls … . We can’t say ‘never
again’ and then allow it to happen again, and as a president of the
United States I don’t intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye
to slaughter.” ( )

Obama’s attendance at this year’s National Prayer Breakfast,
in the company of Khartoum’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti, signals
precisely that he is “turning a blind eye” to realities in Darfur,
South Kordofan, and Blue Nile–that he has “abandoned” them to on
the going slaughter in which Ali Karti is deeply complicit.

It is a day of national disgrace.

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WHY IS CHRISTIANITY GROWING SO FAST IN IRAN?

Iranian.com
Feb 5 2015

SofiaM
Human Rights

A recent article reported Christianity is growing by leaps and bounds
in Iran, at around 20% each year, and that Christianity is growing
faster in Iran than anywhere else.

Considering the context, that Iran is currently under a
radical-Islamist dictatorship, that is astounding. Why would
people predominantly of Muslim background (not necessarily
practicing/identifying Muslims) leave the comfort and security of
being Muslim, and convert to Christianity–a faith persecuted by the
ruling regime? More pointedly, why would these individuals convert,
when apostasy–or “leaving the Islamic Faith” is illegal and punishable
by death?

A country of an estimated 80 million people, Iran’s Evangelical
Christian Community numbers only in the hundreds of thousands–still a
small minority against a largely Shia-Muslim backdrop. But at a growth
of 20% a year, Iranian-Christians might change the population-playing
field in less than a decade. That is, if the Regime hasn’t been ousted
by secularists or democratic activists, by then.

Christians in Iran, including Armenians, live as second class
citizens like other minorities– for example Sunni Muslims, Jews
and Zoroastrians. Still, however, these “tolerated” minorities fare
better than Baha’is, who are considered Muslim-heretics under the
Regime’s legal code. Iranian-Christians are under constant threat
of harassment and attack. Home-worship sessions are often attacked,
Persian-language bibles are practically illegal, and Pastors are often
imprisoned under charges of “conspiracy” or being an “enemy of Allah.”

Furthermore, they are barred from holding many jobs in both the private
and public sectors, are occasionally denied acceptance to university
or different educational programs and are sometimes denied the right
to live in certain neighborhoods.

So why are so many people risking comfort, and their lives? While that
may seem like a trick question, it certainly isn’t. Surely there are
arrays of different reasons for why one might convert, but perhaps
this trend shows something deeper about Iranian society as a whole.

Perhaps even Iranians of Muslim background are so uncomfortable
under the iron fist of the Islamic Regime, that by converting to
Christianity they aren’t take a huge risk–they have nothing, or
very little to lose. But what they gain is priceless; a world-wide
community and support system and a role in quietly protesting and
challenging the Regime that likely lead them to renounce their Islam
in the first place.

Although this article is not meant to place a value on one faith over
the other, it does seek to start the conversation on the potential
reasons for a growth-spurt of Christianity in a predominantly Muslim
country, and under a viciously Islamist Regime.

From: Baghdasarian

SAMANTHA POWER, GENOCIDE ENABLER

American Thinker
Feb 5 2015

By James Lewis

Genocides happen when the civilized world shuts its eyes and does
nothing while some gang of barbarians slaughters human beings by
the thousands. Civilized silence promises safety to the killers and
demoralizes their victims.

Samantha Power, Obama’s U.N. ambassador, has made a career criticizing
U.S. government passivity in the face of genocide. She has written
Pulitzer Prize-winning books like A Problem From Hell: America and
the Age of Genocide.

Now she has been U.N. ambassador – a major power position in the
Obama administration, the most powerful political job she is ever
likely to have to do what she wants.

What has Dr. Power done about genocide? What has she actually done to
stop, or even to complain in public about, groups and regimes that
thirst after genocide, like Iran, ISIS, the Taliban, the Wahhabi
priesthood of Saudi Arabia, the mass killing rulers of the Sudan?

What about Boko Haram killing, enslaving, and selling children in
Nigeria? What about the Kenya massacres? What has she done?

Samuel Totten studies genocide as a disease of dysfunctional politics
and has now written a report on Samantha Power’s actions against
genocide.

They are zero, just like her boss’s achievements.

But let’s be more modest. It may be hard to get things done in the
real world. So let’s just ask: what has Samantha Power even said in
her highly public position as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations?

Has Power even spoken out, in private or public, against the horrors
we can all see today?

Like Obama himself, Dr. Power refuses even to call the real thing
by its proper name. Somehow, after a career of assaulting previous
administrations for their moral failures to even name genocide,
she is now struck deaf and dumb.

Samantha Power is symbolic of all the simple moral failures of the
Obama years. She has sold her soul for a mess of pottage. Like her
boss, Dr. Power talks a good game.

The Rwanda genocide happened because Kofi Annan, who was a U.N.

“observer,” knew all about it but never made a public fuss. The
Armenian genocide of 1.5 million Christians happened because ethnic and
religious genocide is what the Turks did during the four centuries of
the Ottoman Caliphate, and nobody in the more civilized world wanted
to even publicize it. The same is true of the Holocaust and Stalin’s
Ukrainian starvation campaign.

The American left still celebrates American abandonment of South
Vietnam as a great moral victory. But it was not. It was a profound
moral defeat, which began a long, enormous genocide in the South, as
we saw from years and years of Vietnamese boat people who in despair
took to boats and rafts, hoping to be saved by the U.S. Navy. U.S.

withdrawal led to Pol Pot in Cambodia, who killed three to four
million Khmer people in the usual merciless fashion.

In Vietnam, in Korea, in Greece, in Germany, the United States tried
valiantly to stop the tide of totalitarian Communism. No doubt we
saved millions of lives from Stalin and his murder battalions.

The civilized world is not obligated to sacrifice precious lives,
even for a profoundly moral cause. We are not infinitely powerful. But
we have an elementary right and duty to tell the truth, and to act
on it when we can. Obama’s abandonment of millions and millions of
people is a cruel defeat for elementary morality. Those who don’t get
that are sociopaths, and those who twist it are liars. Abandoning
Afghanistan is not, as the delusional left will say, some sort of
victory. The rise of barbarian sadistic regimes, those who routinely
oppress all women and girls because they can, is not – repeat: not –
a wonderful moral victory.

But Obama and his media lackeys will try to paint it that way.

Today we don’t even allow ourselves to think that the Cold War was a
noble and civilizing effort by the United States and its allies against
the kind of barbarism that we see today being practiced by ISIS – and
we know about ISIS only because social media make it impossible for the
left to censor it. The left cares only about power, and the resulting
millions of dead and wounded are simply the price to pay for Progress.

(Today they are doing it with third-trimester abortions here at home.

The domestic left is exactly the international left. They have
no mercy.)

Now Obama is willingly – maybe joyously – retreating from lands
where we made a difference. We gave and sacrificed precious lives
and treasure in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and elsewhere. It was the right
thing to do after 9/11/01 for our national security, and it was the
moral thing to do. Today Obama is turning Afghanistan over to the
barbaric Taliban, just as we seem to be turning Iraq over to ISIS
and an Iranian proxy regime in Baghdad.

Obama is knowingly running away from the worst war ideology in the
world: war-making Islam. Since he is constitutionally unable to
tell the truth, he has to lie about it. Suddenly the Wahhabi torture
theology of ISIS – identical to that of the Taliban – no longer makes
for a “terrorist” gang. No, they are an “indigenous insurgency,”
following the most shameful lie of the left today, the corrupt
idea that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter. We
should have realized that when Obama allowed the young people’s Green
Revolution in Tehran to be killed and tortured into silence at the
very beginning of this administration.

We have lost our moral bearings, and the left likes it that way.

Obama is a typical leftist horror story, just as merciless as Lenin,
Chavez, and Pol Pot. Since we’ve exhausted the English vocabulary
for describing him and his gang, I suggest we borrow his own lies to
describe him.

He is Obama the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Servant of the most
ruthless war theology in history.

He is not my president, and in a moral sense, he is not an American
president at all.

AMNESTY FOR ARMENIAN PRISONERS IS STILL A BIG QUESTION

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 5 2015

5 February 2015 – 2:24pm

The issue of an amnesty for Armenian prisoners in connection with the
100th anniversary of the so-called “Armenian genocide” has not been
solved completely. Moreover, experts oppose this step, as it may cause
an increase in crime, resulting in those amnestied returning to prison.

“Sources close to the authorities have informed that the expectations,
with respect to declaring an amnesty in Armenia and on the occasion of
the centenary of the Genocide, may not be met; many in the country’s
law-enforcement system are against such a decision,” Tert.am cited
the Haykakan Zhamanak daily’s article.

“The problem is that, after the previous amnesty, the criminogenic
situation has become substantially more strained in Armenia, and
numerous people released from prison were arrested again one week,
one month later,” the newspaper remains.

“According to some experts, at present, when the economic situation is
quite complicated, the chances of adaptation of those released have
reduced more, and the application of amnesty in these conditions may
seriously aggravate the criminogenic situation in Armenia, and bring
about unwanted consequences,” the author warns.

“The National Assembly corridors, however, are saying that Serzh
Sargsyan still has no final decision on this matter,” Haykakan
Zhamanak wrote.

ARE ARMENIAN PEOPLE ON THE VERGE OF A POWERFUL EXPLOSION?

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 5 2015

5 February 2015 – 4:28pm

The opposition plans to hold rallies in the regions of Armenia and
a powerful rally in Yerevan in the near future, Prosperous Armenia
party leader Gagik Tsarukyan said at a meeting, Armenian media report.

“Armenia needs a new government and educated people. In this regard,
I stress my willingness to support such candidates. I invite the
Armenians living in Armenia and abroad. I invite well-educated
professionals to unite to form an alternative to the current
government,” Trend cited Tsarukyan as saying.

Tsarukyan noted that in the current situation, all political forces in
Armenia, except for the ruling party, feel themselves out of play. The
authorities must change the approach, by providing an opportunity
for other political forces to also be in power.

“One careless action, one word can bring hundreds of thousands of
people onto the streets … It will be an uncontrollable wave. In
this situation, our position is clear – the demand of the people
should be the determining one,” ‘Novosti Armenia’ cited Tsarukyan.

Experts Alexander Makarov and Alexander Iskandaryan in an inteview
with ‘Vestnik Kavkaza’ agreed that the dissatisfaction of Armenia’s
population is gradually maturing with the current state of affairs
in the country, but expressed confidence that a social explosion does
not threatened to the country.

“As for the discontent, it is clear that in the post-Soviet republic,
a state that is under siege for more than 20 years, with a fairly
complex migration and regional situation, there is a certain stratum
of the population that lives below the poverty line. This layer and
some other people have some resentment about the policy of the Armenian
authorities. However, it seems to me unreasonable to say that Armenia
is on the verge of a social explosion,” the director of the Armenian
branch of the Institute of CIS countries, Alexander Markarov, said.

Director of Caucasus Institute Alexander Iskandaryan, in his turn,
reminded that the poor social status of the present day has its origins
in 2008. “Since then, the country has witnessed economic stagnation:
the growth is a very small, or it doesn’t exist aat all.

Social discontent is quite broad, and the popularity of the authorities
i not very wide. However, all these phenoms are not new, and some
drastic changes that have come in recent months and made social
discontent a very serious, I personally do not see,” he said.

TER-PETROSYAN GETS LIFETIME PRESIDENTIAL PENSION

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 5 2015

5 February 2015 – 4:46pm

First Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan (1991-1998) has been
granted a lifetime presidential pension, as stated by David Arutyunyan,
the head of the government’s office, presenting amendments to the law
on rewards, service for the president and security at a governmental
session today, ARKA reports.

Ter-Petrosyan will also be allowed to use his office for as long as
needed. His pension will total 80% of the incumbent president’s salary.

The first president of Armenia marked his 70th birthday on January 9.

It appeared that the law was not allowing the ex-president to keep
the office after becoming 70 years old.

Ter-Petrosyan was succeeded by Robert Kocharyan in 1998-2008. Serzh
Sargsyan has been the president since 2008.

From: A. Papazian

RUSSIAN AND ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER DISCUSS BILATERAL AGENDA

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 5 2015

5 February 2015 – 7:57pm

Russian and Armenian Prime Ministers Dmitry Medvedev and Ovik Abramyan
have discussed the bilateral agenda, making their first meeting since
Armenia’s joining the Eurasian Economic Union, TASS reports.

The intergovernmental commission of the EaEU will have its first
extended session on Friday.

Medvedev and Abramyan discussed economic, investment and other
problems. The Russian PM thanked his Armenian counterpart for joining
the EaEU. He noted that bilateral trade turnover had reached $1.5
billion in 2014, exceeding the volume in 2013 by 3.2%.

ARMENIAN LEADER DISCUSSES MIGRATION WITH CSTO SECRETARY GENERAL AND HEAD OF RUSSIAN FEDERAL AGENCY

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 5 2015

5 February 2015 – 8:49pm

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has discussed migration problems
with CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha and Head of the Russian
Federal Migration Service Constantine Romodanovsky at the CSTO
Coordinating Council of Heads of Competent Agencies of CSTO States
for Prevention of Illegal Migration in Armenia, RIA Novosti reports.

The guest presented the results of Yerevan talks, noting that they
were very intensive and included ideas to solve the problems.

Sargsyan and Bordyuzha discussed realization of decisions made at the
CSTO session in Moscow in December 2014. Bordyuzha informed Sargsyan
about the work of the CSTO and the Joint Staff, other institutions of
the organization and problems of collective security in the Caucasus.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA ABSTAINING IN PACE: A MISTAKE OR STATE POLICY?

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 5 2015

5 February 2015 – 2:29pm

Natalia Ustinova, exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza

Yesterday in Vestnik Kavkaza’s studio, Russian senator Igor Morozov
addressed the parliamentary delegations of Azerbaijan, Serbia, Cyprus
and other countries to thank them for their vote against the PACE
resolution which deprived Russia of voting rights in the structure
of the Council of Europe. “Delegates from the parliaments of Austria,
Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, France, Germany and Italy contributed
to it a lot. They also voted and spoke against restricted measures
against Russia with high political courage,” Morozov said, expressing
the view that MPs realize what is happening “on the big chessboard.”

160 MPs supported the resolution on depriving Russia of voting rights;
42 MPs voted against it; 11 abstained. Three Armenian MPs were suddenly
among the number of those who abstained – members of the Republican
Party Ermine Nagdalyan and Naira Karapetyam, and a member of Orinats
Erkir, Mger Shakhgeldyan. There should have been more Armenian MPs
in the PACE hall, but they were absent.

It is interesting that the position of “the strategic partner
of Russia” – Armenia – was so unexpected that some mass media
had included Armenian MPs on the list of Russia’s supporters in
PACE automatically. A Latvian portal published an article headlined
“Humiliation of Russia: How did Delegates vote?”: “Due to the situation
in Ukraine, Russia was deprived of voting rights in PACE. It turned
out that delegates of only four countries didn’t support the PACE
decision to the full extent – Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cyprus and Serbia.”

The Armenian MPs gave a very strategic and partnership explanation
of their behavior: “Our delegation is small, and 3-4 votes couldn’t
change anything or influence the results of the vote.”

Their hope to pretend that there was no problem and it would be solved
somehow automatically didn’t come true. Artak Zakaryan, the head of
the permanent parliamentary commission for foreign contacts, a MP
from the Republican Party, had to make a statement: “Our delegation
voted according to its interests. It cannot be considered as voting
against Russia. Armenia is an independent state and relies on its
own interests.”

It seems national interests were the reason for the epidemic among
Armenian MPs who were absent from the PACE session. Opposition MPs
and the secretary of Prosperous Armenia also failed to arrive in
Strasbourg due to health problems.

It is difficult to say what Moscow will do. Obviously, its reaction is
diplomatic and restrained. However, today Russia expects support from
its allies like never before. Some experts think that the Armenian
authorities are trying to draw Russia’s attention to their serious
claims by such behavior in PACE.

However, considering Morozov’s words, Moscow has already come to
conclusions and realized who are stable supporters of development
of relations with Russia at a strategic level, and who follows
tactical goals. Experts predict that Moscow’s treatment of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict will shift in favor of Baku, which
doesn’t want to become a priority vector of Russian foreign policy,
unlike Yerevan, but wants to get some support in certain regional
projects from Moscow.