Author: Babajanian Karo

ARTUR BROTHERS ARE A THREAT TO THE MALDIVES: MPS

Haveeru Online, Maldives
April 2 2013

Ahmed Abdullah Saeed, Haveeru Online
Apr 02, 2013 – 03:09

The infamous Armenian brothers suspected of being conmen and drug
traffickers is a threat to the Maldives, some lawmakers said in
Parliament on Tuesday.

The Artur brothers Margaryan and Sargayan have linking up with various
political figures to invest in the Maldives is a threat to national
security, some MPs stressed during the Parliament session on Tuesday.

Hence their arrival in the Maldives and the people who assisted them
must be probed and action must be taken against them, MPs said.

The emergency motion over the presence of the Artur brothers was
submitted to the Parliament by Maafannu-north constituency MP
Imthiyaz Fahmy.

While opposition MPs pointed fingers at top level officials of
the present government for facilitating the Arturs to invest in
the Maldives, pro-government legislators claimed that the brother
had entered the Maldives during former President Mohamed Nasheed’s
government and a person affiliated with opposition Maldivian Democratic
Party (MDP) is one of the shareholders of the company registered by
the Arturs in Maldives.

Haveeru has found that the Artur brothers Margaryan and Sargayan
have registered a company “Artur Brothers World Connections’ with
the Economic Ministry last October.

The shareholders of the company include two French nationals and
a local.

The brothers were pictured with Tourism Minister Ahmed Adeeb and
Defence Minister Nazim during a motor racing event held in Hulhumale
in January.

However both Adeeb and Nazim have denied knowing the Artur brothers.

“I don’t have any connection with them. I came to know about them
after the rumours started spreading on social media networks. But no
country had informed of us anything officially,” Nazim told Haveeru.

The Armenians had been linked to a huge scandal in Kenya which
eventually led to their highly controversial deportation.

A local media outlet KTN’s investigations team produced a daring
expose of the cover-up that followed the seizure of Kenya’s largest
ever cocaine haul in December 2004.

The channel further disclosed how several tonnes of the cocaine went
missing; how the brothers’ were allowed to escape and how two State
prosecutions were deliberately mishandled.

A top leader in the then Kenyan opposition had also accused the Artur
brothers of being mercenaries sent into the country to kill him.

TURKEY SCRAPS FLIGHTS TO ARMENIA AFTER AZERI RESISTANCE

Updated News, Canada
April 1 2013

Turkey has canceled the first ever scheduled Turkish flights to its
long-time rival Armenia, days before the first plane was due to take
off, officials have said, following fierce opposition from Turkey’s
ally and energy partner Azerbaijan.

The twice-weekly flights between Turkey’s eastern city of Van and
the Armenian capital Yerevan were due to begin on April 3 and,
encouraged by a U.S. push for rapprochement, were meant to boost
bilateral tourism and trade.

But with just over a week until the first flight, and with tickets
already on sale, Turkey’s civil aviation authority stepped in and
ordered the flights to be suspended.

Officials at Turkey’s transport ministry confirmed the flights had
been stopped but declined to give a reason. BoraJet, the private
Turkish carrier set to fly the 45-minute route, has also declined to
comment on the stoppage.

One BoraJet official twice denied the Van-Yerevan flights had ever
been planned, even though the route was still available as a booking
option on the firm’s website on Monday.

Narekavank Tour, a Yerevan-based travel agency which has spent the
last three years organizing the flights together with a Turkish travel
agency in Van, said the reason was political.

“The organizers were keen on staying away from politics. It is very sad
and discouraging that Turkish authorities were not able to do the same
and finally let politics interfere with this promising initiative,”
it said in a statement.

Asked if he thought this was due to specific pressure from Azerbaijan,
Armen Hovhannisyan, co-founder of Narekavank Tour, said: “Of course,
it’s part of the whole formula, and maybe they have been working
behind the scenes.”

STRAINED TIES

Officially at war, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a
bitter dispute over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh – a mountainous
enclave within Azerbaijan with a majority Armenian population –
which Armenian-backed forces seized along with seven surrounding
Azeri districts in 1991.

Turkey, which has never opened an embassy in Armenia, closed its
land border in 1993 in a show of solidarity with Azerbaijan, a Muslim
and Turkic-speaking ally which also supplies Ankara with billions of
cubic meters of Caspian natural gas each year.

Azerbaijan has voiced fierce opposition to the flights and last week
Ali Hasanov, a senior official at the president’s office in Baku,
said they amounted to support for “the occupant country” and only
prolonged the “occupation”.

“When such things are done by countries, which share the same strategic
interests with Azerbaijan, we take it twice as fervently.

It’s not just our attitude, but an attitude of the whole Turkish
society,” Hasanov told Reuters.

A Turkish foreign ministry official said he was aware the flights
had been canceled but did not know the reason.

Turkey has sought to ease Azerbaijan’s concerns over previous
reconciliation moves by Turkey and Armenia, who are locked in their
own decades-old dispute over whether ethnic Armenians killed by Ottoman
forces during World War One were victims of systematic genocide.

Rapprochement efforts have alarmed Azerbaijan which first wants to
resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

While Armenia’s national carrier, Armavia, already operates flights to
Istanbul and the coastal city of Antalya, the BoraJet flights would
have been the first by a Turkish carrier to Armenia, and would have
given Armenians easier access to an area of Turkey they refer to as
their “historical homeland”.

Once home to hundreds of thousands of Armenians, eastern Turkey
is scattered with ancient Armenian historic sites, including a
newly-restored medieval church on the small island of Akdamar in Lake
Van. The city of Van had large Armenian population prior to World
War One.

Hovhannisyan, who has been organizing tours in eastern Turkey for
years, said tourists currently had to travel by bus for up to 12
hours via Georgia before starting their excursion.

“A lot of tourists can’t go, either for health problems or comfort
reasons. This was the original idea: If we had a direct flight we
would be able to circumvent those problems,” he said.

Hovhannisyan said they had written to the Turkish government asking
them to reconsider their decision over the flights, which he said
could also attract Turkish tourists to Armenia.

“This is aimed at cooperation and peace. This is pure tourism. We
don’t want to have anything to do with politics.”

30 AZERI MERCENARIES KILLED IN SYRIA SO FAR

April 2, 2013 – 16:08 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Azerbaijani media revealed the number of mercenaries
killed in Syria, as well as their photographs.

30 mercenaries were reported to have been killed in Syria, with
Damascus earlier naming certain Azeri terrorists among those killed
by government forces.

In recent years, Azeri mercenaries have been involved in acts of
terrorism in Russia, Afghanistan and Syria. Baku, however, gives
those proven guilty of involvement in “illegal armed formations”
in Afghanistan short jail terms.

CUSTOMS OFFICER DETAINED IN ARMENIA ON SUSPICION OF DIAMOND SMUGGLING

21:22 ~U 02.04.13

Officers of the Special Investigation Service detained on Tuesday
Arsen Papazyan, Head of the passenger customs control unit, Zvarnots
airport, reports.

The law-enforcers also detained Ashot Gasparyan, a Yerevan resident.

The two are suspected of diamond smuggling.

According to the preliminary investigation, in concert with Arsen
Papazyan, on March1, 2013, the suspect Ashot Gasparyan brought 2,702.5
carats of diamonds to Armenia from the United Arab Emirates, without
customs clearance.

The Special Investigation Service is conducting investigation.

Armenian News – Tert.am

“WHO GIVES FALSE OATH WILL USURP PEOPLE’S VOICE”

A1Plus.am
06:56 PM | TODAY | POLITICS

“Heritage” party leader Raffi Hovhanisyan who had the 2nd place in
February 18 presidential elections a few hours ago has been in Armavir
with his team-members.

“I came to say thank you, because no matter how much pressure there
was Aramavir, Echmiadzin, Metsamor said, you said that our children are
more important than all that positions together”,- Raffi Hovhannisyan
said adding that the unity of the people will be proven on April 9.

“April 9 is the day of the unity of the Armenian people!

Whoever dares to prevent, to make violence against the people who
would wish to be in Freedom square will be punished and take the
responsibility of his actions.

Whoever gives a false oath will usurp people’s voice, people’s right
of free choice. A week is left to unite our heads, fists and hearts.

This is a struggle of a citizen, a struggle for our children and future
“, – Raffi Hovannisian said.

RAFFI HOVANNISIAN WILL PROCLAIM NEW ARMENIA ON APRIL 9

April 02, 2013 | 18:48

YEREVAN.- Former presidential candidate Raffi Hovannisian said they
will proclaim New Armenia at 11am on April 9.

“It is not my initiative. It is the future of the Motherland for which
we spoke out on February 18 [the day of presidential elections-ed.],”
he said, addressing supporters in Etchmiadzin.

Change of power will be done “without a drop of blood”, he assured.

“We are against any kind of violence was. We have lost too many people
to lose even a drop of blood. So – never again! We will come with
a smile and a hello. We are everywhere: at squares, universities,
streets, in towns and villages,” he said.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

ARMAVIA PASSENGERS FILE COMPLAINT TO ARMENIA’S OMBUDSMAN

April 02, 2013 | 20:46

YEREVAN.- Passengers, who have purchased tickets of Armavia company
filed a complaint to the office of Armenia’s Ombudsman, representatives
of the office toldArmenian News-NEWS.am. The complaint is being
studied, they said.

Earlier the air company promised to provide refund for the plane
tickets starting from April 11,

Over thirty people have gathered in front of the Armavia Airline
Company office. They demanded either changing or refunding for the
plane tickets they had bought from the company.

Armavia Airline Company, which is Armenia’s national carrier, issued
a statement recently and informed that its flights will end on Monday
and a bankruptcy process will commence.

Armavia has huge debts to its employees, Yerevan’s
ZvartnotsInternationalAirport, Russian companies, and Russian airports.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

SARDARAPAT MOVEMENT INDIGNANT AT VILLAGE COMMUNITY HEAD MURDER

20:37 ~U 02.04.13

The Sardarapat movement issued a statement on the murder of Hrach
Muradyan, head of the Proshyan village community.

The Sardarapat movement is indignant at the murder and offers its
condolences to the victim’s family and friends.

Like numerous murders and other acts of violence, this murder of a
father of a family, freedom fighter and executive is the result of
impunity and permissiveness in the ruling circles.

The Sadarapat movement demands that Armenia’s law-enforcement agencies
attach special importance to the disclosure of Hrach Muradyan’s murder.

Otherwise, the ruling regime, which is building up “secure” Armenia
will share the responsibility for one more murder. One more murder.

Armenian News – Tert.am

ARMENIAN EX-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE HOLDS PUBLIC MEETING IN ARMAVIR

TERT.AM
19:01 ~U 02.04.13

Armenian ex-presidential candidate Raffi Hovannisian, who held a public
meeting in Armavir, expressed his gratitude to the local residents
for their support during his 3-week-long hunger strike in Yerevan’s
Freedom Square.

“They tried to steal your votes but failed. Old Armenia is in agony,
and the people are extending their hand to it,” Mr Hovannisian said.

April 9 is a day of unity for Armenia. Anyone that tries to prevent
people from arriving at Freedom Square will be held responsible.

“Anyone making a false oath is seizing Armenian people’s votes, power
and our country. It is a week more and Serzh Sargsyan will come to
realize the truth gained victory on February 18,” Mr Hovannisian said.

He invited the people to Yerevan’s Freedom Square on April 9.

Armavir

ARMENIAN EX-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE VISITS ECHMIADZIN

tert.am
20:09 ~U 02.04.13

Armenian ex-presidential candidate Raffi Hovannisian held a public
meeting in Echmiadzin.

He recalled his trip to the city earlier, on March 31, to attend a
religious service and Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II’s words:
“Let no one impose his own truth on anyone or on the people.”

“I am sure he was saying that about Serzh Sargsyan because the people
expressed their will. It is time for our Church to become independent
of the State,” he said.

Throughout his 3-week hunger strike in Yerevan’s Freedom Square
residents of Echmiadzin were visiting him and expressing their
support. Speaking of a rally scheduled for this Friday, Mr Hovannisian
said: “That day will be a day of New Armenia. We are moving forward
to victory.”