Author: Andres-Papazian

ALEXANDER ARZUMANYAN SPEAKS ABOUT KILLED ARMENIAN SOLDIERS AND RUSSIA’S OBLIGATION

12:30 | March 20,2015 | Politics

Speaking at the 15th session of the Armenia-EU Parliamentary
Cooperation Committee, Armenian lawmaker Alexander Arzumanyan referred
to the Karabakh conflict saying ‘the situation in the conflict zone
gives little hope.’

Azerbaijan rejects the proposals of the Minsk Group mediators, thereby
jeopardizing the Co-Chairs’ efforts of the last six years,” he said.

Alexander Arzumanyan then reminded that three Armenian soldiers were
killed and another four wounded in Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of new
ceasefire violations committed by Azerbaijan on March 20. He also cited
the Co-Chairs’ statement about attempted reconnaissance incursions.

“Azerbaijani provocations are expressed by bellicose rhetoric and
anti-Armenian appeals. They threaten to resolve the conflict through
military means,” said Mr Arzumanyan.

He stressed that Azerbaijan has comparatively increased its armament
in 2010-14 by 249 percent, acquiring 88 percent of the weapons from
Russia. “As a member of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia is obliged not
to supply weapons to any side,” Arzumanyan said.

The lawmaker once again underlined that the Minsk Group is the only
format for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. “Armenia supports
and is committed to the Minsk Group format.”

From: A. Papazian

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER: RECOGNIZING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

15:51, 20 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

A conference in New York next month will attempt to raise greater
awareness of the crimes committed against the Armenians a century ago,
the New York Observer writes.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of one of the 20th century’s grim
milestones, the murder of 1.5 million civilians in Armenia, carried out
by the Ottoman Turks over several years. The predominately Christian
community of Armenia had suffered discrimination and worse during
centuries of Ottoman rule, but with the outbreak of war in 1914,
the Turkish government came to regard the Armenians as a potential
fifth column for its enemies, Britain, France and Russia.

Beginning in April 1915, Armenians were rounded up, deported, marched
into the Syrian Desert and resettled in concentration camps. Their
property was confiscated and they were murdered by the hundreds of
thousands. Children were poisoned and their deaths ruled the result
of natural causes.

A conference in New York next month will attempt to raise greater
awareness of the crimes committed against the Armenians a century ago.

The speakers and panelists have their work cut out for them, because
Turkish authorities have sought to suppress greater awareness of
these unfathomable events.

But as the organizers of the conference, entitled “Responsibility
2015,” know well, it is important–it is imperative–to call evil by
its proper name. Lemkin certainly understood that. The question is
whether we have his courage and his conviction.

The perpetrators of genocide, then and now, hope that Lemkin’s sense
of outrage has gone out of fashion, replaced by fear and an almost
pathological unwillingness to recognize reality. Certainly nobody can
study the fate of the Armenians during World War I and not conclude
that a great crime–genocide–was committed by the Ottoman Empire.

The speakers who will come to New York beginning April 24 hope to call
the perpetrators to account for the deaths of 1.5 million a century
ago. But, sadly, even as they speak, bloodthirsty terrorists in Syria,
Iraq, Nigeria and Libya proudly carry out genocide as a matter of
policy. The world looks on. The crimes go unpunished. The criminals
boast of the blood they have shed.

From: A. Papazian

TIME HAS COME TO START THINKING ABOUT FORMING CURRENCY UNION, PUTIN SAYS

YEREVAN, March 20. / ARKA /. Russian president Vladimir Putin
proposed on Friday creating a regional currency union with Belarus
and Kazakhstan, Russia’s political and economic partners.

Putin made his proposal at a meeting with the Belarusian and Kazakh
presidents in Kazakhstan.

“The time has come to start thinking about forming a currency union,”
Putin said after the talks in the Kazakh capital Astana with Belarusian
President Alexander Lukashenko and Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbayev. He gave no details of the proposal but suggested it would
be easier to meet economic challenges by working closely together.

Belarus and oil producers Kazakhstan and Russia are joined by Armenia
in the Eurasian Economic Union. A fifth former Soviet republic,
Kyrgyzstan, is due to accede to the bloc this year.-0-

From: A. Papazian

MORE FREEDOM FIGHTERS RETURN THEIR MEDALS (VIDEO)

16:57 | March 20,2015 | Politics

Two more Karabak war veterans today returned their medals and awards as
a sign of protest against the January 31 violence in Berdzor, Karabakh.

Freedom fighters Aghavni Sahakyan and Varujan Avetisyan are today
handed over 12 medals [they received for the bravery demonstrated
during the Karabakh war] to Zhirayr Sefilyan, a Karabakh war veteran
and a former commander of the Shushi special detachment.

“I do not think that the acting authorities deserve to act in the
name of Armenia and its people. I think the awards had better remain
with legendary commander Zhirayr Sefilyan,” said Varujan Avetisyan,
Spokesman for the Founding Parliament Movement.

Freedom fighter Aghavni Sahakyan is offended that they [authorities]
could raise a hand on the man who liberated the Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic.

“By returning our medals we are expressing our protest and anger at
the incident. I cannot take a stick and damage their cars as they
did on January 31,” she said.

On January 31, scores of activists representing the Founding Parliament
opposition movement, a successor of the Pre-parliament pressure group,
organized an automobile march to Nagorno-Karabakh as part of their
campaign seeking a regime change in Armenia. Near Berdzor, they were
stopped by local police and a group of plainclothes men who forcefully
blocked their access to the territory of Karabakh.

A number of activists, including Jirayr Sefilyan, a Karabakh war
veteran and a former commander of the Shushi special detachment, were
beaten up during the incident. Also, some vehicles of the automobile
march were damaged.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIAN SOLDIERS KILLED IN CLASHES WITH AZERI TROOPS NEAR KARABAKH

Reuters
March 19 2015

YEREVAN/BAKU, March 19

(Reuters) – At least three Armenian soldiers were killed and four
wounded in clashes with troops from Azerbaijan on Thursday near the
breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, but the two sides gave conflicting
death tolls and disputed who was to blame.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by its
majority ethnic Armenians and is a regular point of friction between
the two neighbours, who fought a war over it in the early 1990s.

Renewed violence this year along the border area has underlined the
risk of a wider conflict breaking out in the South Caucasus, which
is crossed by oil and gas pipelines.

The separatist region’s defence ministry said in a statement that
three Armenian soldiers had died after Azeri commandos attacked their
position. “The Armenian side forced the enemy to escape after a two
hour clash,” the statement said.

Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry accused separatists of triggering the
confrontation and said 20 Armenian soldiers had been killed or wounded.

Fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh erupted in 1991 as the Soviet Union
broke up, with some 30,000 people dying in the war before a ceasefire
was called in 1994. Attempts at securing a lasting peace settlement
have failed, despite mediation led by France, Russia and the United
States.

Nagorno-Karabakh has run its own affairs with heavy military and
financial backing from Armenia since 1994. Armenian-backed forces
also hold seven Azeri districts surrounding the region.

Oil-producing Azerbaijan, host to global majors including BP , Chevron
and ExxonMobil, frequently threatens to take the mountain region back
by force, and is spending heavily on its armed forces.

Armenia, an ally of Russia, says it would not stand by if
Nagorno-Karabakh were attacked. (Reporting by Hasmik Lazarian in
Yerevan and Nailia Bagirova in Baku; Writing by Margarita Antidze;
Editing by Crispian Balmer)

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIA WRONG ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH ISSUE, UKRAINIAN POLITICIAN SAYS

Cihan News Agency, Turkey
March 19 2015

CIHAN | BAKU- 19.03.2015 11:05:12

Armenia is wrong on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, Borys Tarasyuk, the
co-president of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly and the member
of the Ukrainian party ‘Batkivshchyna’ (Fatherland), told reporters
in Yerevan March 18.

“We have a clear stance,” Tarasyuk added. “And we believe that in
the conflict on the Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia is wrong.”

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in
1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a
result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied
20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and
seven surrounding districts.

The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently
holding peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN
Security Council resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh
and the surrounding regions.

Elsewhere, he also said that Armenia should recognize the Holodomor
(Hunger-extermination). The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed
2.5-7.5 million Ukrainians.

Answering to a question that if Ukraine isn’t happy with Stalin’s
policy, why it recognizes the boundaries of the union republics,
delineated by Stalin, Tarasyuk said those boundaries are “untouchable.”

“It is not just for me, but for the whole world,” he said. “The borders
inherited by the countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
were declared inviolable.”

From: A. Papazian

GEORGIAN PARLIAMENTARIAN SAYS GEORGIA IS NOT LIKELY TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN THE SHORT RUN

by Tatevik Shahunyan

Thursday, March 19, 15:11

Georgian Parliament is not likely to discuss recognition of the
Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey in the short run, Viktor Talidze,
a Georgian parliamentarian, told ArmInfo. He said the Parliament of
Georgia has never held any serious discussions on the issue and there
have been no motions for a relevant resolution.

As for the reasons why Georgia avoids recognition of the Armenian
Genocide, Talidze said: “Frankly speaking, it is a very sensitive
issue, not only for Georgia but also for many other countries. Much
rests upon the relations of Tbilisi and Ankara.”

The first country to recognize that crime against humanity was
Uruguay. Genocide of Armenians has been recognized by 43 United States
as well as by 23 countries, including Canada, Argentina, Switzerland,
Russia, Belgium, France, Poland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Greece,
Cyprus, Vatican, Sweden, Lithuania.. Swizterland, Slovakia and Greece
have even passed laws criminalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide.

France is preparing a similar bill. The Genocide of Armenians was
recognized also by the CoE, European Parliament, the UN Subcommittee
to prevent discrimination and protect minorities, the UN Committee for
Military Crimes, the World Church Council, as well as New South Wales,
San-Paolo, Seara and Parana (Brazil), Wales, Schotland and Northern
Ireland, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Balearic Islands (Spain),
Quebec, Kyev, Uzhgorod, Izyum. Goloseevskiy region (Ukraine), Crimea.

Turkey still denies the genocide of 1,5 million Armenians in 1915-
1923. Euronest PA and EPP have lately recognized and condemned the
Genocide of Armenians.

From: A. Papazian

LE PRESIDENT ARMENIEN >

GENOCIDE DES ARMENIENS-100ème ANNIVERSAIRE

Mercredi 18 mars lors de la 5e Conference dit Serge Sarkissian.

> ajouta le president
armenien. Il evoqua alors le deplacement par Erdogan des festivites
de la victoire de Gallipoli…le 24 avril afin de deplacer l’interet
de l’opinion internationale le jour de la commemoration du 100ème
anniversaire du genocide des Armeniens. Serge Sarkissian a regrette
que les autorites turques en cette annee du centenaire

From: A. Papazian

EU PARLIAMENT CO-CHAIR: SPLITTING BETWEEN EU AND EURASIAN UNION IS CHALLENGING

19:21, 18.03.2015

YEREVAN. – Trying to split trade relations between the European and
the Eurasian unions may be challenging, Ms Heidi Hautala, Co-Chair
of the Euronest parliamentary assembly, told the media in Yerevan
on Wednesday.

Members of the European parliament and their fellow MPs from the
Eastern partnership countries (excluding Azerbaijan) convened in
Yerevan to participate in the plenary session of the Euronest

She called attention to the study by the assembly, finalized for the
plenary seat of the assembly, which states that any country should
well understand that having foothold in both unions can be challenging
in terms of keeping proper balance.

This modest remark on Armenia (a newcomer to the Eurasian Union, who
maintains relations with the EU) was emboldened by another Co-Chair, Mr
Boris Tarasyuk (Ukraine), who said that “one cannot be half pregnant”,
stopping halfway.

– See more at:

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIA LEADER: RUSSIA’S SELLING WEAPONS TO AZERBAIJAN IS A PROBLEM

19:49, 18.03.2015

YEREVAN. – President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan thanked Russia for the
support that the country has provided to Armenia since independence.

Speaking during a media forum in Yerevan, he said military and
technical cooperation plays a great role in relations with Russia.

“In this term, we are concerned about the fact that Russia, due to
different reasons, is selling weapons to Azerbaijan, and the problem
is not the quality of weapons, but the fact that an Armenian soldier
standing on the border realizes that they are trying to kill him from
Russian weapons,” President said during “At the Foot of Mount Ararat”
media forum.

Serzh Sargsyan said that the problem must be solved. On the other
hand, he emphasized that in his opinion, and the opinion of experts,
Azerbaijan does not have possibility to solve the Karabakh problem
by military means.

“The Nagorno-Karabakh army is efficient and ready to face any threat,”
he concluded.

From: A. Papazian