Month: April 2016

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden met on Thursday with President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan on the margins of the Nuclear Security Summit.

In addition to bilateral relations, the sides discussed the regional situation in the South Caucasus, international problems and challenges. In this context, the sides exchanged views on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement within the OSCE Minsk Group process and developments in the Middle East.

“The Vice President stressed that the United States is committed to a democratic, prosperous, and secure Armenia at peace with its neighbors. The Vice President thanked President Sarkisian for welcoming more than 20,000 Syrian refugees. Addressing the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Vice President expressed concern about continued violence, called for dialogue, and emphasized the importance of a comprehensive settlement for the long-term stability, security, and prosperity of the region.”

President Sargsyan assessed current Armenian-American partnership as being on the highest level in the history through joint efforts, which is evidenced by the visits of different levels of recent years. The President praised the United States’ contribution to the economic development and implementation of reforms in various fields of Armenia.

Sargsyan stressed the importance of the US role in regional security and stability, especially the active involvement of the US in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Armenian Preisdent Serzh Sargsyan has congratulated the Assyrian community on New Year, President’s Press Office reports. The message reads:

“I cordially congratulate the Assyrians of Armenia on the occasion of Assyrian New Year – Kha b’Nisan.

I wish that this holiday, which symbolizes the revival of nature, bring our brotherly Assyrian nation new success and become a beginning for the implementation of new programs.

Let this spring holiday of love and bounty stay with you the entire year, and let wars and hardships stay away.

I wish the Assyrian community of Armenia happiness and prosperity.”

On March 31 Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, who is in the US within the delegation headed by the President of Armenia, met James Warlick, the US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia drew the attention of the US Co-Chair to the continuous violations of the ceasefire by Azerbaijan. “Ignoring the joint statement of the Co-Chairs and the OSCE Chairmanship Special Representative to respect ceasefire during religious holidays, Baku has intensified the gross violations of ceasefire in the wake and during the Easter.”

Edward Nalbandian emphasized: “Such provocations of Azerbaijan have become routine. The same is happening during the negotiation process. If previously Baku was undermining the negotiations through various means, attempting to shift the issue to other fora, now, probably witnessing the inefficiency of its steps, it has not made up anything but rejecting meetings with the Minsk Group Co-Chairs.” Minister Nalbandian underlined that this is indeed a futile attempt to exert pressure on the negotiation process and the Co-Chairs.

The sides exchanged thoughts on the possibilities of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement through exclusively peaceful means.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to make his first official visit to Azerbaijan and Armenia and a second visit to Georgia at the end of April, a source from the UN Secretariat told on Thursday.

The source could not give the exact dates, but said the trip would be made shortly after the signing ceremony for the Paris Agreement convened by Ban Ki-moon on April 22.

Secretary-General’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric neither confirmed nor denied the information on Thursday.

On March 11, Georgia’s First Deputy Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani said Ban Ki-moon was planning an official visit to his country.

“The Georgian Foreign Ministry is paving the way for this visit, it is a working process, the concrete date will become known shortly,” he told reporters, marking the importance of the visit for Georgia.

Ban Ki-moon visited Georgia in June 2007, making a short stopover in Tbilisi on his way from Afghanistan to Europe and meeting with the then president, Mikhail Saakashvili.

According to information on the website of the UN Secretariat, Ban Ki-moon has never visited Azerbaijan and Armenia since he took office in 2007.

Photo: Getty Images

 

Turkey has illegally forced thousands of refugees to return to Syria, a report by Amnesty International says, the BBC reports.

The group says about 100 Syrians have been sent back to their war-torn country every day since mid-January in breach of international law.

Amnesty says its report exposes the flaws in a recent deal between the EU and Turkey aimed at stemming the flow of refugees arriving in Greece.

Turkey has denied sending back any refugees against their will.

The Amnesty report comes just days before Turkey is expected to receive the first migrants returned from Greece under the deal with the EU.

The group says its research in southern Turkey suggested that authorities had been rounding up and expelling groups of about 100 Syrian men, women and children almost daily since the middle of January.

Under the “non-refoulement” principle of international humanitarian law, a state is prohibited from deporting individuals to a war zone.

Amnesty said one case involved three young children forced back into Syria without their parents, while another saw the forced return of an eight-months’ pregnant woman.

It said many of those returned appeared to be unregistered refugees but it had also documented cases of registered Syrian refugees being sent back while not carrying their papers.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to Turkey’s security during a meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, while also discussing both countries’ efforts to fight Islamic State, the White House said, Reuters reports.

“The president extended condolences to President Erdogan on behalf of the American people for those killed and injured in today’s terrorist attack in Diyarbakir, and reaffirmed the support of the United States for Turkey’s security and our mutual struggle against terrorism,” the White House said.

“The leaders also discussed how to advance our shared effort to degrade and destroy ISIL,” it said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

In a statement on Friday, Turkey’s presidential office said the two NATO leaders discussed cooperation on resolving the refugee crisis and how partners in the fight against Islamic State can ramp up their efforts.

Armenian international offensive midfielder and winger Henrikh Mkhitaryan (27) has been offered a deal extension by Borussia Dortmund, according to Sky Sports Deutschland.

Currently on a deal with German club until June 2017, former Shakhtar Donetsk player, playing for Bundesliga giants since 2013/14, is however still tempted by the chance to leave; his ownership is esteemed around 23 million euros.

A number of clubs, including Juventus, Liverpool, Arsenal and Zenit Saint Petersbourgare interested in signinng Mkhitaryan.

Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan had a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev today.

The interlocutors discussed issues related to Medvedev;s upcoming official visit to Armenia and the sitting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council to be held in Armenia.

Hovik Abrahamyan and Dmitry Medvedev referred to the agenda of the Armenian-Russian allied relations and trade-economic cooperation.

The handful of Christian families remaining in ISIS’ Syrian stronghold of Raqqa have been forbidden from fleeing the city, according to a tweet from a secret group that reports from inside the caliphate, reports.

The activist group Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered said the black-clad terrorist army issued a decree that any Christians or Armenians still within city limits may not leave. It is believed that there are just more than 40 Christian families left in the city, and that they have been forced to register with the extremist group and to pay a “jizya,” or a minority tax in exchange for being unharmed.

Issued a new decision to Prevent any Christians or Armenians people who Remain in to leave the city under any condition

— الرقة تذبح بصمت (@Raqqa_SL)

“Any Christian living within Syria or Iraq is in a very dangerous and precarious position,” David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, a Christian advocacy organization, told FoxNews.com. ‘We want to see the Christian church survive in the Middle East, especially in the areas occupied by the Islamic State.”

Raqqa first fell into rebel control in March 2013 after a battle between Al Qaeda-linked jihadi group Al Nusra and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s regime, becoming the first provincial capital under rebel control. ISIS has since used the city as a launching point to increase their caliphate.

According to Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered, there are about 43 Christian families left in the city.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (JCRC), representing the organized Jewish community in Boston, agrees with the message of the editorial by Andrew Tarsy (“,” Journal, March 17) that “American Jews have a wrong of our own to right” when it comes to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

“The time has come, 101 years after the extermination of over one million Armenian citizens, for the United States to acknowledge the massacre by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 as genocide,” Jeremy Burton, JCRC Executive Director writes in the .

“Armenians and Jews share a tragic historical bond. It was only thirty years after the Armenian Genocide that six million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime.”

Last October, the JCRC of Greater Boston and the JCRC of Greater Rhode Island led the efforts of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs (JCPA) – the consensus body of the American Jewish community – to issue a resolution that urges our Congress and the President to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
As Tarsy stated so powerfully: “When we participate in the blurring of historical memory, we dishonor the dead and endanger the living.”