Author: Antonian Lara

German lawmakers’ planned vote on a resolution that recognises the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide, will test the “friendship” between Berlin and Ankara, Turkey said Thursday, reports.

The resolution “will amount to a real test of the friendship” between the two nations, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.

“Some nations that we consider friends, when they are experiencing trouble in domestic policy attempt to divert attention from it,” he said at a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP). “This resolution is an example of that.”

He stopped short of threatening Germany with political and economic retaliation, but added “3.5 million Turks live in Germany and actively contribute to the economy.”

German lawmakers are preparing to pass a resolution Thursday that recognises the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide, despite stark warnings from Turkey that the vote could hurt ties.

Put forward by the ruling left-right coalition and the opposition Greens, the resolution entitled “Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916” also carries the contentious word throughout the text.

 

Photo: AP

 

Two people are dead and the campus is on lockdown following a shooting at the University of California at Los Angeles, police say, the BBC reports.

The search continues for an “active shooter” and students and staff have been told to shelter in place.

The incident is said to have happened in one of the campus engineering buildings.

Police are at the scene and a city-wide alert has been issued so that emergency resources can be brought in.

 

 

 

“Some facts have been distorted in the “Stone Dreams” by Azerbaijani writer Akram Aylisli,” says historian Argam Ayvazyan, author of a number of works on Armenian monuments of Nakhijevan. According to him, five Armenian translations of the book have been published since 2013, but none has an analytical preface or necessary footnotes.

The book was released in Spanish on May 6 with Argam Ayvazyan’s preface included. The author points to the distortions he found in the book.

The book “Stone Dreams,” in which Aylisli speaks about Armenians with great warmth, refers to the events of 1990 in Baku and the 1919 barbarities against the Armenian population of Verin (Upper) Agulis, found a wide resonance in Armenia.

Aylisli pictures Azerbaijanis that left Armenia as the main perpetrators of the massacre, presenting their actions as a demonstration of revenge, while the atrocities of 1919 are ascribed to Ottoman Turks. Argam Ayvazyan says “Aylisli distorts the facts in both cases. There are proofs that the Armenians pogroms in Baku and Sumgait were organized by the local authorities and representatives of the Azerbaijani population. This was also the case with the 1905, 1918-1919 atrocities in Baku, Shushi and the cities of Nakhijevan, as well as the Armenian-Tatar confrontations and massacres.”

According to the historian, there are a number of mistakes related to historic facts, names of settlements and monuments. “Aylisli says Mesrop Mashtots created the Armenian alphabet in Agulis, which is an obvious distortion of facts. “The author’s wish to restore friendship between the Armenian and Azerbaijani nations is a frank step, but it’s also necessary to present the history and historic facts exactly,” Ayvazyan said.

PHOTO: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

 

The price of oil has gone above $50 a barrel for the first time in 2016 as supply disruptions and increased global demand continue to fuel a recovery, the BBC reports.

The benchmark Brent crude price hit $50.07 a barrel in Asian trade.

The rise followed US data on Thursday showing that oil inventories had fallen, largely due to supply disruptions following fires in Canada.

Brent crude has now risen 80% since it hit 13-year lows of below $28 a barrel at the start of the year.

Statement of the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Azerbaijan’s fabricated accusations on the use of white phosphorus has been distributed in the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council, the Armenian Foreign Ministry informs on Twitter.

 

 

At 90, Turkish Armenian Yetvart Kovan prepared a comrehensive Turkish-to-Armenian dictionary which includes words, idioms and renowned book titles known to everyone in Turkey, Daily Sabah reports. 

The most comprehensive Turkish to Armenian dictionary has been published: “Deyimlerle Türkçe’den Ermenice’ye Güncel Sözlük” (Contemporary Turkish to Armenian Dictionary with Idioms).

The dictionary’s writer, Yetvart Kovan, 90, spoke to Anadolu Agency (AA) and said that he published a dictionary for commerce and economic terms in 1996. “I always thought about publishing a dictionary that would be available for Armenians in Turkey as well as people who are interested in the Armenian language. This time, I studied more extensively and worked on idioms because idioms are rigid phrases, and they are easy to remember. Hence, I searched for the overlapping Armenian idioms for Turkish idioms by using articles in newspapers. It is not an ordinary dictionary as I enriched the text with idioms and useful information. My aim was to attract the attention of the reader and make it easy for people to read.”

To facilitate reading, Kovan provided the pronunciation of Armenian words in Latin lettering, which is a first in Turkish-Armenian dictionaries. “Contemporary Turkish to Armenian Dictionary with Idioms” is roughly 900 pages and features 30,600 lines, including words, sentences and phrases. Kovan explained the reason for the dictionary’s size is that the pronunciations of the Armenian words added extra pages to the dictionary. He also included English equivalents of some words and phrases, believing that they also will help.

Apart from words and idioms, he also included translations of renowned book titles, such as “Sinekli Bakkal” (The Clown and His Daughter), “Çalıkuşu” (The Wren), “The Count of Monte Cristo” and “Three Musketeers,” to encourage people to read more books. “Furthermore, I added the mottos of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, such as ‘Our true mentor in life is science’ and ‘Justice is the foundation of the state’,” Kovan said.

Kovan retired seven years ago after closing his public accountant office and had been working on the dictionary ever since. He said he wanted to make use of his free time and began studying dictionaries, but mostly focused on the Turkish Language Association’s (TDK) online dictionary. “There are Turkish-Armenian dictionaries that were written 100 years ago, and they are very hard to read now. I wanted to include contemporary phrases, words and idioms in my dictionary,” he said.

Kovan graduated from the Private Pangalti ArKovan worked as a certified public accountant for years.

Kovan’s dictionary is in Western Armenian, but he used Eastern Armenian equivalents of some words for a more thorough understanding.

“Unfortunately, the tradition of reading, writing and speaking in Western Armenian has weakened in Turkey as well as in other European countries,” Kovan said. “Turkish-Armenians speak Turkish in their homes and schools. Apart from being the official language of the Republic of Turkey, one of the main reasons for Armenians to speak Turkish is that Turkish became much easier following the alphabet reform. There are certain difficulties in grammar and writing in Armenian, so people find it easy to speak and write in Turkish.”

Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan received IMF Executive Director for Armenia Menno Snel.

Hailing the ongoing effective cooperation with the IMF, the Prime Minister said his government will make consistent efforts to implement the commitments assumed under the Extended Financing Facility, including the ones relevant to the structural reforms. Hovik Abrahamyan noted that the current pace of the program will allow the Government to complete all the planned reforms.

Dwelling on Armenia’s economic position, the Premier pointed out that despite the impact of adverse developments in the region, the Government managed to maintain macroeconomic stability and a relatively low level of inflationary pressure, which provided the opportunity to address many welfare problems.

As the Prime Minister noted, even in the face of the aforementioned unfavorable trends, GDP grew by three percentage points last year. The annual growth of economic activity was 5.6% in the first quarter of this year. Vigorous efforts are underway to promote exports.

Appreciating the effective cooperation between the Government of Armenia and the IMF, Menno Snel for his part expressed satisfaction with the pace of joint programs. He stressed the need for consistency and follow-up in pension reform. Highlighting the adoption of the new tax code, he noted that the Government has done a large amount of work in this direction. Armenia’s monetary policy was described as efficacious and conducive to macroeconomic stability and economic development.

The parties went on to exchange views on regional developments. Reference was made to other issues of mutual interest.

Armenia Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian met with his French counterpart French Jean-Marc Ayraul in Paris.

The Foreign Ministers of Armenia and France discussed issues related to the political and economic, humanitarian cooperation on the state, parliamentary and decentralized level.

Ministers Nalbandian and Ayraul hailed the high level of bilateral relations. They referred to the perspectives of further development and expansion of cooperation. Minister Nalabndian stressed that there are about 160 companies with French capital are operating in Armenia, and noted that our country welcomes the growth of French investments and new initiatives in that direction.

The process of settlement of the Karabakh conflict was high on the agenda of the meeting.

Minister Nalbandian briefed his French counterpart on the situation created as a result of Azerbaijan’s aggressive actions against Nagorno Karabakh, and stressed the importance of the consistent efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs towards excluding the reoccurrence of events that happened in early April and solving the conflict exceptionally in a peaceful way.

The interlocutors agreed that the use of force is unacceptable, and there is no alternative to peaceful settlement. They emphasized the importance of the 1994 and 1995 agreements on ceasefire and stressed the need for their full implementation.

In this context they attached importance to the creation of the mechanism of investigation of ceasefire violations and border incidents and the extension of liabilities of the team of eth Personal representative of the OPSCE Chairman-in-Office.

Minister Nalbandian reiterated that if favorable conditions are created, Armenia will continue to work jointly with the Minsk Group Co-Chairs towards solving the issue through negotiations.

Edward Nalbandian invited Jean-Marc Ayraul to Armenia.

In a statement released today the Armenian Ministry of Defense reconfirmed that Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan exchanged bodies of the soldiers killed between April 2 and 5 as a result of the aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan. Eighteen bodies of the soldiers of the NKR Defense Army were handed over to the Armenian side.

Taking into consideration that there were signs of torture and mutilation on the bodies, a fact registered by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Ministry declares that the actions of teh Azerbaijani armed forces amount to a gross violation of the international humanitarian law.

The authorities in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, in cooperation with international organizations, are collecting proofs of the crimes and launching criminal cases.

The Armenian Ministry of Defense pledges to be consistent in raising the facts of violation of the international humanitarian law (of armed conflict) and various conventions in different international structures with a view of holding Azerbaijan accountable for the crimes.

The State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic issued the following statement today:

On April 10, in accordance with the arrangement reached earlier, the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, through the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman in Office, carried out the exchange of bodies of the deceased between the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan near the Bash Karvend settlement. The bodies of 18 servicemen of the NKR Defense Army, fallen as a result of the large scale military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan in April 2-5, were transferred to the NKR side during the exchange.

At the presence of the representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the NKR State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons registered that all bodies of the deceased transferred by the Azerbaijani side had signs of torture and mutilation.

Those acts, being a flagrant manifestation of inhumanity, run counter to the laws and customs of war and are in grave violation of the international humanitarian law, in particular, the Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (1949), Geneva Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1949) and the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I).

The Karabakh side will seek to ensure that such behavior of the Azerbaijani side is condemned in strongest terms by the international community and the specialized agencies, and those responsible are brought into account.