Month: May 2021

MOSCOW 

The Kremlin spokesman on Monday refused to either support or condemn the landing of Ryanair’s flight in Belarus.

Speaking at a phone conference in Moscow, Dmitry Peskov said the situation has to be examined in accordance with the existing international rules of aviation.

"There are international aviation regulations. And the international aviation authorities should give an assessment in terms of compliance or non-compliance with these international standards.

"For now, there is a need for a sober assessment of the incident with this plane. In this case, there are a lot of contradictory statements, and we would not like to participate in this race, to condemn or support something. I repeat once again, I refrain from making any comments," he said.

In a separate statement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Ryanair landing incident should be assessed based on all available information.

Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, following a meeting with his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias, Lavrov confirmed that a Russian citizen has accompanied the detained journalist, and requested consular access to her.

Lavrov recalled that there were lots of similar incidents in the past that did not provoke such a harsh reaction.

"The most famous episode of 2013 [occurred] when, at the insistence of the US, Austria forced the plane of the President of Bolivia to land without any subsequent apology. And the case that is not often talked about, 2016, the plane of the Belarusian Airlines was forcibly landed in Kiev, because the Security Service of Ukraine was interested in an Armenian citizen who was on board. This citizen was taken out from the flight, and the plane continued its flight without any changes," the minister said.

Meanwhile, Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatoly Glaz said the plane was grounded on the bomb alert to ensure passengers' security in accordance with international rules, and that the situation was politicized by some countries.

On Sunday, a Ryanair Boeing 737-8AS flight from Greece's capital Athens to Vilnius landed in the Belarusian capital Minsk due to a bomb threat, and Roman Protasevich, a journalist wanted for his involvement in "terrorism incidents," was reportedly detained.

After that, the plane continued its way and successfully arrived in the Lithuanian capital.

Protasevich is the founder of a social media news channel, which reportedly played a major role in protests last summer in Belarus’ capital Minsk demanding the resignation of President Alexander Lukashenko after he was awarded a sixth term in a presidential election.

YEREVAN, Armenia 

Iran’s foreign minister urged Azerbaijan and Armenia on Wednesday to peacefully resolve a recent border dispute.

“Killing of people at every tension is concerning. This issue should be resolved as soon as possible with peace,” Javad Zarif said at a news conference in Yerevan following a meeting with his Armenian counterpart, Ara Ayvazyan.

“I saw that [Azerbaijan’s President Ilham] Aliyev is ready to decrease the level of tension and for dialogue,” he said, noting his meeting Tuesday with Aliyev.

Zarif also expressed Iran’s readiness to take the initiative to resolve the dispute.

Ayvazyan, for his part, said that Armenia is in favor of resolving the dispute through political and diplomatic means.

The settlement of the Azerbaijani army in certain sites in Lachin and Kalbajar provinces, which were liberated from Armenian occupation last year, has prompted tension between Baku and Yerevan.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan applied to the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on claims that some areas settled by the Azerbaijani army belonged to his country.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Upper Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Last year, the conflict escalated again and lasted six weeks, ending up with a Russian-brokered truce on Nov. 10.

During that time, Azerbaijan liberated several strategic cities and nearly 300 of its settlements and villages from Armenian occupation.

A joint Turkish-Russian center was established to monitor the cease-fire. Russian peacekeeping troops have also been deployed in the region.

*Contributions and writing by Sena Guler in Ankara

PARIS

The Council of Europe on Wednesday criticized Armenia for continuing to lack basic safeguards in the context of involuntary civil hospitalization and urged the country to ensure appropriate living conditions and access to health care for all prisoners.

In a statement, the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) reviewed its report following its fifth periodic visit to the country in December 2019.

The CPT called on “Armenian authorities to step up their efforts to combat informal prisoner hierarchy and to ensure decent living conditions and access to health care for all prisoners. The committee is also critical of a continuing lack of basic safeguards in the context of involuntary civil hospitalization.”

According to the committee, the majority of the persons interviewed by the delegation who were or had recently been in police custody stated that they had been treated by the police in a correct manner. “Furthermore, the CPT’s delegation did not receive any credible allegations of recent physical ill-treatment by staff in the six penitentiary establishments visited.”

“The committee concludes that inter-prisoner violence, intimidation, and extortion remains a problem in most of the prisons visited and it is clearly related to the persistent influence of the informal prisoner hierarchy,” the statement added.

According to the statement, the committee welcomes Armenian authorities' plans to close down several old prisons by the end of 2022 “where material conditions vary from very poor to just about acceptable and to replace them with new prisons [or units] built from scratch according to contemporary international standards.”

VAN, Turkey

If a genocide is to be discussed in relation to the events of 1915, this discussion should be based in the massacres Muslims suffered at the hands of Armenian gangs, a Turkish historian said on Wednesday.

"Those who were subjected to genocide, who were the victims, who suffered violence during the years of World War I, were Muslims," Bekir Koclar, who heads the History Department at Van Yuzuncu Yil University in eastern Turkey, told Anadolu Agency.

Describing the events of 1915 as a so-called "genocide" is far from the historical reality, said Koclar. "This is a false reading of history. Instead of describing the relocation of Armenians as genocide, it would be more correct to discuss the event in its own reality."

The events of 1915 are the beginning of the historical events that resulted in the occupation of the then-Ottoman city Van, which is today a province in eastern Turkey, and the great suffering of Muslims in the region, argues Koclar.

He said that "great disasters" occurred in Van during this period, adding: "Due to its geographical location, Van was the main center of the Armenian revolt in 1915. If a genocide is to be discussed, this discussion should be about the Muslims."

Underlining that it was Muslims who suffered genocide and violence during that period, he went on to say: "However, with a reverse reading of history, the resistance of the Muslims, the position taken by the state here and the relocation process of the Armenians are seen as a 'genocide'."

Koclar, along with his colleague Haluk Selvi of the northwestern Sakarya University, is scheduled on Thursday to hold a social media session in which they will discuss massacres committed by Armenian gangs during the events of 1915.

As discussions on the 1915 incidents diverged from the historical reality, they have turned into an incomprehensible chaos, said the historian, adding that he and Selvi would share the truth of these events with a wide audience through their live broadcast on social media and that they would keep telling these events on all platforms in order to reveal the truth.

Mass graves found in many parts of Van province and the Zeve Martyrs' Cemetery and memorial built in honor of 2,500 massacred Muslims in the Tusba district, are the greatest evidence of the massacres committed by the Armenian gangs, he added.

Turkish stance on 1915 events

Turkey's position on the events of 1915 is that the deaths of Armenians in eastern Anatolia took place when some sided with invading Russians and revolted against Ottoman forces.

A subsequent relocation of Armenians resulted in numerous casualties.

Turkey objects to the presentation of these incidents as “genocide,” describing them as a tragedy in which both sides suffered casualties.

Ankara has repeatedly proposed the creation of a joint commission of historians from Turkey and Armenia, as well as international experts, to tackle the issue.

In 2014, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was the country’s prime minister at the time, expressed condolences to the descendants of Armenians who lost their lives in the events of 1915.

*Writing by Seda Sevencan from Istanbul