Month: September 2015

On September 14, President Serzh Sargsyan is due to pay a working visit to the Republic of Tajikistan to take part in the session of the Collective Security Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to be held in Dushanbe.

The session will discuss, inter alia, the status of decisions adopted at the previous session in Moscow in December 2014 and will outline the programs for the upcoming year. The participants will also touch upon the works carried out in the main directions of CSTO collaboration. During the Dushanbe session, the Republic of Armenia will assume CSTO chairmanship.

Assembly of Armenians of Europe has issued an appeal to the European Institutions connected with the situation in Turkey:

The news about the bloodshed that is taking place in Turkey are disturbing. There is no doubt that the riots organized in dozens of cities by the Turkish mob, the murders and the violent acts are organized and led by one and single center.

Dozens of people were murdered, many of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) offices were burned and looted.  Many commercial houses and shops belonging to members of the ethnic or religious minorities in Turkey had the same fate. There is a serious danger that these acts of  hooliganism directed against simple citizens who belong to these minorities will  become massive as it was the case back in 1955 with the pogroms of 6-7 September of that year.

Having in mind all these,

We appeal to the European Institutions to take immediately all the possible measures in order to protect the lives of the innocent citizens that are in danger.

We remind that in Turkey the notorious  301 article of the Constitution is still in force. Based on racial discrimination, this article is justifying any act committed against the life and the property of members of various minorities.

Any procrastination might be fatal.

On September 17-19, “French Days in Artsakh” festival will be held in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. In the framework of the festival a range of events presenting France and its culture will take place in Artsakh. The festival’s aim is to strengthen and broaden friendly ties, dialogue and cooperation between Artsakh and France.

Around 200 guests from France, representing France-Karabakh Friendship Circle, municipalities of French towns twinned with Artsakh communities, Support to Karabakh association and Armenian community of France, as well as artists and journalists will visit Artsakh in the framework of the festival.

The ceremonies of gala opening of the “Eternity” sculpture (by Toros) in the Stepanakert square of France and laying the foundation of The House of Paul Eluard francophone center, festive event in Stepanakert school N1, the demonstration of Artsakh and French cuisines, ceremony of the opening of Yeznik Mozyan vocational school in Shushi, the presentation of animation films of Folimage French studio at the State Museum of Fine Arts of Shushi, contest on making postcards symbolizing the Karabakh-France friendship in Stepanakert’s Shahumian Square are included in the program of “French Days in Artsakh” festival. A concert at Stepanakert Revival square on September 19 by French-Armenian singer Patrick Fiori will conclude the festival.

President Serzh Sargsyan sent today a congratulatory message to the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, on his birthday.

“Dear Dmitry Anatolyevich,

Accept my most sincere congratulations on the occasion of your 50th birthday.

Your statesmanship has earned you the respect of your compatriots, has made a weighty contribution to the development of Russian statehood and to the reinforcement of country’s positions in the international arena.

Armenians hold you in high regard and greatly appreciate your consistency aimed at the development of allied collaboration between Armenia and Russia.

I honestly value our mutual understanding and trust, and I am ready to continue our constructive dialogue to further enrich the Armenian-Russian strategic partnership with new initiatives and mutually beneficial programs in the interests of prosperity of our countries and brotherly peoples.

I cordially wish you good health, happiness, well-being and further success in all of your undertakings,” reads the RA president’s congratulatory message.

Armenian-American Mark Moogalian, one of the heroes, who helped tackle gunman Ayoub El-Khazzani on August 21 aboard the Amsterdam-Paris train, was handed a Legion of Honour at the Élysée.

French President Francois Hollande hosted Moogalian and his wife at the Élysée yesterday.

During the high-speed train ride, Moogalian tackled El-Khazzani, who was armed with an AK-47 assault rifle. It is reported that he instinctively acted to protect his wife Isabella Risacher, and managed to take the assault rifle away from El-Khazzani. The assailant drew another gun and shot Moogalian in the neck, revealed the professor’s sister, who was also on the train.

Moogalian’s heroism, along with the actions of Americans Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone, and Anthony Sadler, and Briton Chris Norman, helped save many lives. Skarlatos, Stone, Sadler, and Norman were awarded the Legion d’Honneur, soon after the attack. Hollande had announced that he would award Moogalian the Legion d’Honneur once he had recuperated.

Australia will get its fifth prime minister in eight years after the ruling Liberal Party on Monday voted out Tony Abbott in favor of longtime rival Malcolm Turnbull, following months of infighting and crumbling voter support, Reuters reports.

Turnbull, a multi-millionaire former tech entrepreneur, won a secret party vote by 54 to 44, Liberal Party chief whip Scott Buchholz told reporters after the meeting in Canberra.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was elected deputy leader of the party which, with junior coalition partner the National Party, won a landslide election in 2013.

“Ultimately, the prime minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs,” Turnbull told reporters at parliament house ahead of the vote.

“We need a different style of leadership.”

Abbott pledged to fight the challenge but was ultimately unsuccessful in overcoming the “destabilisation” that he said had been taking place within the party over months.

Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu will pay an official visit to Azerbaijan on Sept. 15-16, the Foreign Ministry has announced.

During his visit, Sinirlioğlu will discuss Turkish-Azerbaijani relations and regional and international developments, including the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, with his counterpart Elman Memmedyarov, the ministry said in a statement.

Sinirlioğlu is also expected to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Artur Rasizade.

 – As Europe’s refugee crisis unfolds, Armenia says it has hosted thousands of Syrians, particularly those from the Christian-Armenian community.

Since the start of the conflict, at least 15,000 Syrians have found refuge in Armenia, according to UNHCR figures.

The majority of these are descendents of Armenians who escaped the mass killings and deportations by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, and were given refuge in Syria.

At the time, Syria’s Deir Ezzor region became a major destination for Armenians subjected to death marches through the desert. But a century later, increasing numbers of Syrian Armenians are now driving to Beirut, where they board flights to Yerevan.

Before the conflict, the estimated number of ethnic Armenians in Syria was about 100,000. More than 60,000 of them settled in Aleppo, with smaller communities in Kessab, Qamishli, Yacubiyah, Kobane and Damascus.

Many in the Armenian diaspora consider Syrian-Armenians as their “mother community”.

The influx of Syrian refugees into Armenia started in 2012, when over 6,500 people fled. In 2013, the number of Syrian Armenians fleeing reached 11,000 and by August 2015, over 15,000 Armenians had been reported to be seeking asylum in Armenia.

For Syria’s ethnic Armenians, Armenia represents a safe choice – not only as an ancient homeland and predominantly Christian country – but also one with migration policies and repatriation programme that make it easy for them to settle.

The Armenian government has adopted “special measures” to help Syrian Armenians. It authorised consular offices in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon to issue citizenship and passports to Syrian Armenians free of charge.

But Armenia’s own economic woes mean that it struggles to provide accommodation and jobs for the newly-arrived Syrians. State assistance for Syrian Armenians covers mainly education, medical care and the provision of documents.

“We are concerned about the rental of accommodation; this is already a challenge to us. We have to turn to international and benevolent organisations for help because we will face a problem. The flow is too big, we cannot cope,” Firdus Zakaryan, an official from Armenia’s Ministry of Diaspora, said recently.

Armenian state officials insist that the plight of even the most impoverished refugees in Armenia pales in comparison with the four million displaced Syrians, many of whom struggle for life in camps and rundown urban areas of Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

There is a growing belief within the US government that the Islamic State militant group is making and using crude chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria, a US official has told the BBC.

The US has identified at least four occasions on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border where IS has used mustard agents, the official said.

The official said the chemical was being used in powder form.

The US believes the group has a cell dedicated to building these weapons.

“They’re using mustard,” the individual said of IS. “We know they are.”

The mustard agent was probably being used in powder form and packed into traditional explosives like mortar rounds, the official said.

“We’ve seen them use it on at least four separate occasions on both sides of the border – both Iraq and Syria.”

On 11 September Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan held a working consultation with the supreme command staff of the NKR Defense Army at the head of defense minister Levon Mnacakanyan.

Issues related to army building, situation along the line of contact between Nagorno Karabagh and Azerbaijan armed forces and amelioration of social conditions of the servicemen were discussed at the consultation.

The Head of the State gave concrete instructions for the proper solution of the raised discussed issues.