Author: Babajanian Karo

TRT (Turkish TV & Radio)
Jan 21 2013

RUSSIA DELIVERS AMMO TO ARMENIA

Istanbul

The Official Turkish Radio and Television Corporation has issued the
following news release:

Russia, one of the co-chairs of Minsk Group of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, set up to solve the Upper Karabakh
problem, delivered large amounts of ammunition to Armenia.

The Upper Karabakh problem is a political conflict between Azerbaijan
and Armenia that plagued the Caucasia region for more than 20 years.

The two countries are in a de facto state of war. Violations of the
ceasefire agreement take place every day along the border.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, created
a mechanism called the Minsk Group to address the problem. Russia,
France and the USA chair the Group.

Yet, the latest report saying Russia, a country expected to make
peaceful efforts to help solve the issue, delivered large amounts of
ammo to Armenia unsettled Azerbaijan.

According to Azerbaijani News Agency, APA, the delivery of ammunition
to Armenia took place in the last two months. Reportedly, heavy
machine guns and military vehicles are also included in the cargo.

APA report said further that Russia also delivered to Armenia, five
fully-equipped military vehicles, missile batteries of various
calibres, anti-aircraft guns and a great number of rifles.

Cihan News Agency (CNA) – Turkey
January 19, 2013 Saturday

Whistleblower reveals foreign policy blunders in Turkey

ISTANBUL (CIHAN)- A highly classified letter sent by an anonymous
officer to the boss of Turkey’s spy agency in 2007 was leaked to the
press from the Turkish Parliament this week. The letter, apparently
written by a whistleblower in the Special Forces Command (ÖKK), which
is a special operations unit answerable directly to the General Staff,
reveals shocking plans cooked up by a junta in the military. The ÖKK
often rendered services for the Tactical Mobilization Group (STK),
formerly known as the Special Warfare Department (ÖHD), an equivalent
to the Gladio style stay-behind operation in the Turkish military.

Therefore it is safe to assume that s/he had intimate knowledge of
shady deals planned in this secretive branch of the Turkish military.
The officer wrote six letters in total detailing how he was involved
in dirty schemes devised by a clandestine gang in special ops. They
were sent to the parliamentary Coup and Memorandum Investigation
Commission for examination by the National Intelligence Organization
(MIT). The officer was complaining that the special forces were being
manipulated by a select group of coup-loving junta members who were
determined to oust the democratically elected and popular government
in Turkey despite the fact that the STK was designed to mobilize
national assets in time of war against the external threat. The letter
was addressed to then-Undersecretary of MIT Emre Taner.

It was certainly a hair-raising experience to read the letter leaked
to reporters. According to the whistleblower’s account, the ÖKK was
ordered to draw plans to blow up two bridges across the Bosporus in
Istanbul, the Bogaziçi and Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridges, the Yalova
ferry and the Bolu Tunnel on the highway connecting Ankara and
Istanbul as well as key crossing points on the Black Sea Ring Highway.
The command’s plans also included the bombing of Atatürk’s mausoleum,
called Anitkabir, in the country’s capital.

The plan also included a series of bombings during massive protests
that were held against the government in 2007, dubbed “republican
rallies” by their organizers, in several provinces of the country. The
attack was supposed to be blamed on religious fundamentalist groups
affiliated with the governing Justice and Development Party (AK
Party). We now learned from the ongoing court cases in Turkey that
these protests were organized with the manipulation of the Ergenekon
terrorist organization, a shadowy network nested within the state with
the aim of overthrowing the government.

Since there is not enough space to detail all plans mentioned in the
letter here, I will dwell on points that involve foreign policy and
Turkey’s neighbors. The letter claims that the junta wanted to risk
dragging the country into hot international conflicts just to expand
the maneuvering room of the military in Turkey and to put embarrassing
blemishes on the government’s record. Looking back to events in 2007
before and after the June snap elections held because of the
presidential election crisis in Parliament, it is obvious that some of
these plans were actually carried out.

For example, the reports on dogfights between Turkish and Greek jets
over the disputed Aegean airspace sharply increased following the May
2006 incident in which Turkish and Greek F-16 jet fighters collided in
mid-air as they were shadowing each other. The Turkish and Greek
foreign ministries exchanged mutual accusations claiming a violation
of national airspace in March 2007, almost a year after the aviation
incident. According to General Staff, in the first half of 2007
(interestingly in the period leading up to the July elections) Turkish
jets engaged Greek fighters 207 times to prevent incursion into
Turkish airspace. In the same year, cockpit conversations among
Turkish pilots and how they operate during these dogfights were posted
on the YouTube website. These events cannot be coincidental.

This reminds me of Operation Thunderstorm (Oraj) which was a sub-plot
of the Sledgehammer military coup operation that was discovered in
2010 court documents. The plan sees an escalation of the crisis with
Greece by provoking conflict in the air, at sea and on land borders.
However, the ultimate target of the plan was not Greece but the
Turkish government itself. Bringing Turkey to the brink of war with
Greece was a “means to an end” scenario to prepare the groundwork for
an armed military intervention in Turkey. It perfectly fit the
scenarios mentioned by the whistleblower’s letter in 2007.

The Oraj plan, dated February 2003, specifically asks for increased
flights over the Aegean and orders commanding officers to instruct
pilots to engage in harassment maneuvers with Greek fighter jets. It
wants Turkish pilots to be more aggressive and even issues new rules
of engagement allowing pilots to take shots at Greek fighters, albeit
unofficially. The plan suggests reorganizing the Special Fleet within
the Turkish Air Forces (THK) with the specific objective of tasking a
Turkish pilot to shoot down a Turkish jet in his own squadron in case
all efforts to provoke a Greek fighter jet to destroy a Turkish one
fail. Fabricated stories would then be planted in the media, saying
that Greece intentionally shot down a Turkish jet. The plotters hoped
that this would create a huge embarrassment for the ruling AK Party
government.

Going back to the letter again, another foreign policy issue the junta
tried to exploit by mobilizing some assets among civil society groups
in order to hammer the government was Cyprus. There was an intensive
campaign in 2007 against the government based on false allegations
that Turkish Cypriots on the divided Mediterranean island were sold
out by the AK Party. Even advocacy groups that have nothing to do with
foreign policy started issuing declarations against the government
that the Turks in Cyprus were left alone in their fight against the
Greek Cypriots. The fact that there are too many examples from 2007 of
this campaign shows how the junta was effective in its planning
through special ops.

2007 was also a year when Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was
shot dead outside his newspaper’s office in Sisli in January. Since
the issue of non-Muslims in general and the Armenian genocide in
particular are sensitive topics in Turkey, it would not come as a
surprise that the junta tried to exploit these sensitivities in
Turkish society. Hopefully other documents MIT has referred to in the
parliamentary commission can shed some light on finally resolving the
Dink murder. The same goes for the Malatya massacre case involving the
slaughter of three Christians in 2007, and the case of Father Andrea
Santoro, who was murdered in 2006 in Trabzon. In that same year,
Armenian genocide bill discussions in the US Congress further fueled
nationalist fervor in Turkey, much to the benefit of the junta’s aims,
putting more strain on the government.

The Kurdish issue to the extent it linked with the semiautonomous
Kurdistan in northern Iraq was another area in which the junta saw an
opportunity to score against the government. Starting in January 2007,
the government was subjected to an intense campaign of being too
passive when it comes to dealing with northern Iraq. The then-chief of
Turkey’s General Staff Gen. Yasar Büyükanit was publicly accusing
Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq of actively backing Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists, threatening a cross-border incursion.
The military was overstepping into the policy decision-making process,
creating a deep rift between the army and the government. The goal was
to create the impression that the government was simply too weak to
handle a critically important issue on the national agenda when it
resisted the idea of a special military operation into northern Iraq.
The government was able to fend off the pressure until June but was
eventually forced to cave in and allowed the military to go into
northern Iraq.

No doubt that all of these plans require the manipulation of public
opinion through the media, and the ÖKK had plenty signed up for this
job, some voluntarily and others without even knowing they were on the
hook. The whistleblower’s letter also exposes this by saying that as a
part of these plans, journalists would be urged to write false news
stories. Therefore some of the journalists accused in the coup cases
are actually co-conspirators in these hideous plans against the nation
and are now responding to charges in a court of law. They have not
performed their public duty by exposing dirty deals to the public but
instead have behaved as pens-for-hire to serve the interests of coup
mongers in Turkey. Those who are keen to advance the press freedom
issue in Turkey need to separate these bad apples from legitimate
infringement on freedom of the press cases in order to help contribute
to the further democratization of Turkey.

ABDULLAH BOZKURT

MENA Today
January 25, 2013 Friday

Dubai’s Raisa to build USD 3bn transport projects in Armenia.

Dubai investment firm Raisa will lead a consortium that will build USD
3bn worth of high-speed rail and road projects in Armenia, Gagik
Beglaryan, Armenia’s Transport Minister was cited as saying by
ArabianBusiness. The consortium will work on the Southern Armenia
Railway and Southern Armenia High Speed Road projects in cooperation
with South Caucasus Railway, he added. The 316-km Southern Armenia
Railway will link Gavar, near Lake Sevan, with the southern border of
Armenia by Meghri and will be integrated within the existing Armenia’s
central railway system. The 100-km Southern Armenia High Speed Road
will reportedly be built in Armenia’s southern province of Syunik
connecting the town of Sisian to the southern border of Armenia by
Meghri. Besides construction work, Raisa will operate the projects for
a 30-year period that could be renewed by Rasia for another 20 years.

ITAR-TASS, Russia
January 19, 2013 Saturday 10:22 PM GMT+4

PACE welcomes Armenia’s efforts to hold elections by int’l standards

STRASBOURG January 19

– A PACE delegation that visited Armenia to assess the pre-electoral
climate ahead of the presidential election slated for February 18
welcomed the intention of the Armenian authorities to organise the
election fully in line with international standards.

However, the delegation expressed concern about the continuing
substantial inaccuracies in the voter list, since an accurate list is
a prerequisite for any proper election. There is still confusion about
the right to vote for Armenians living abroad. The delegation was also
disappointed to note that previous recommendations on urgently dealing
with these issues have not been implemented.

The delegation also noted that, one month before the vote, the general
public is lacking both interest and confidence in the electoral
process. This is a matter of great concern, in particular given that
major political parties, which were strongly expected to present
presidential candidates, chose not to do so because of their lack of
trust in the conduct of the election.

The delegation welcomed increased media freedom and expressed hope
that registered candidates will engage in electoral campaigns based on
concrete political programs and that the public discussion will focus
more on substance, so that the electorate can make an informed choice.

The delegation noted the legal improvements brought by the new
Electoral Code adopted in 2011.At the same time, it stated that a fair
and proper implementation of the Code is as important as the Code
itself.

The PACE pre-electoral delegation was in Yerevan at the invitation of
the president of the National Assembly of Armenia. It met with
presidential candidates, including the incumbent President, leaders of
factions in the Parliament, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the
President of the National Assembly, the Chairman of the Central
Electoral Commission, the Head of the National Police, the General
Prosecutor, NGO and media representatives, the Head of the OSCE/ODIHR
election observation mission and diplomats in Yerevan.

A full 22-member delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly will
arrive in Yerevan in mid-February to observe the vote. The PACE
delegation will present its findings and recommendations to the
Assembly during its April session in Strasbourg.

Mehr News Agency, Iran
January 19, 2013 Saturday

Iran, Armenia Vow to Strengthen Economic Ties

TEHRAN, Jan. 19 (MNA) – Tehran and Yerevan inked four Memoranda of
Understanding (MoUs) on the enhancement of mutual economic cooperation
during the visit of an Armenian trade delegation to Iran’s
Northwestern province of East Azarbaijan. The MoUs were signed during
a meeting between East Azarbaijan’s provincial officials and
Governor-General of Armenia’s Syunik province Suren Khachatrian and
his accompanying delegation in Tabriz.

East Azarbaijan and Syunik provinces will expand their mutual
cooperation and bilateral ties through implementation of the MoUs.
Based on the agreements, the two provinces will increase their
interactions in the fields of cattle-breeding, veterinary, and
establishment of joint agro companies. Also according to the
agreements, Iran will supply Armenia with combine-harvesters,
tractors, and fertilizers to Armenia. Armenia is a member of the World
Trade Organization and its Gross Domestic Product hits $9.4bln.
Armenia’s per capita income is $5,700 and the volume of foreign
investment in the country is $570 million. , Iran and Armenia
announced that “they are planning to set up a new zone for joint
economic interactions”. The issue was raised in a meeting between
Governor-General of Iran’s Northwestern province of East Azarbaijan
Alireza Beigi and Governor-General of Armenia’s Syunik province Suren
Khachatrian in Tabriz on Tuesday. “Establishment of a joint economic
zone to share the two sides’ different capacities was underlined in
our recent visit to Armenia,” Beigi said. He noted that Syunik
province can utilize the capabilities of Iran’s private industrial
units in a bid to facilitate meeting its needs and also pave the way
for the presence of East Azarbaijan’s industrial products in the
Russian markets. Last month, it was announced that Iran is studying a
plan to set up a new zone for joint economic interaction with its
Northern neighboring states of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The issue was
raised during a meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar
Salehi and the East Azerbaijan’s Governor-General.

Armenian Church in Georgia ‘Condemns’ Saakashvili’s Statement on Chakhalyan

Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 27 Jan.’13 / 18:57

President Saakashvili’s `incorrect’ statements on the release of
Vahagn Chakhalyan, an activist from Georgia’s pre-dominantly ethnic
Armenian populated region, who was serving a prison term for charges
related to weapons, armed hooliganism and acts against public order,
are contributing to `dissemination of anti-Armenian sentiments,’
Armenian Church in Georgia said in a statement on January 26.

Chakhalyan was released on January 24 as a result of a broad amnesty
passed by the Georgian Parliament late last year after serving four
and half years of his ten-year prison term.

President Saakashvili condemned release of Chakhalyan and described
him as `the enemy of the Georgian state’. He said that Chakhalyan was
released upon the request of head of the Armenian Apostolic Church
Karekin II to Georgian PM Bidzina Ivanishvili; he also said that PM
Ivanishvili `committed a grave misconduct’ by allowing Chakhalyan’s
release and added that the PM did so in order `to please’ Russia.

UNM secretary general Vano Merabishvili, who was the interior minister
when Chakhalyan was arrested, also condemned Chakhalyan’s release and
described him as `a symbol of struggle against the Georgian
statehood’, `inspirer of separatism in Javakheti’, `emissary of
Russian military intelligence’ and `major enemy of the Georgian
statehood in Javakheti’.

The Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Georgia released a
statement on January 26 saying that it `condemns’ remarks of this kind
by the President and other UNM leaders.

With such statements, it said, the President and former interior
minister acknowledged that `there actually was no justice when UNM was
in power’.

`If Chakhalyan was really a separatist and an agent, why was not he
convicted under relevant articles of the criminal code? There is one
explanation to this paradox: the previous authorities used justice
system against their political opponents,’ the statement reads.

`Moreover, President Saakashvili allowed himself to mention the name
of His Holiness, Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, saying that
Vahagn Chakhalyan was released upon His Holiness’ request. We would
like to highlight that this request was based on humanistic beliefs
and had originated from Chakhalyan’s parents’ appeal which could not
have remained without the attention of the Spiritual Pastor of All
Armenians,’ the statement reads, adding that Chakhalyan was released
because law on amnesty applied to him.

It called on politicians `not to use for their short-term political
objectives issues, which directly concern peace and calmness in our
multiethnic homeland, as well as relationship between our brotherly
people of Georgia and Armenia.’

`We are convinced that despite all political or other circumstances,
our nations will continue strengthening and deepening good-neighborly
and fraternal relations. Ethnically Armenian citizens of Georgia were
and will continue to be devoted sons of Georgia,’ the Diocese of the
Armenian Apostolic Church in Georgia said.

Chakhalyan, who was with one of the Akhalkalaki-based groups which
staged several protest rallies in 2005 against withdrawal of the
Russian military base from Akhalkalaki and which was calling for an
autonomy for the Javakheti region, was arrested in July, 2008 and
initially charged with illegal keeping of weapons; later more charges
were added involving hooliganism, acts against public order and
resisting officials for incidents dating back for 2005 and 2006
including the one when protesters stormed court chamber and a building
of the Tbilisi State University’s local branch in Akhalkalaki. His
supporters condemned Chakhalyan’s arrest and consequent conviction as
politically motivated.

President Saakashvili said that Chakhalyan’s release was in Russia’s
interest, suggesting that Moscow would try to provoke unrests in
Samtskhe-Javakheti region.

`I am sure that they [locals in Javakheti] will not yield to
[provocations] against our statehood by Russian agents even if these
[agents] are acting together with the group which came into Georgian
government temporarily,’ Saakashvili said.

`Chakhalyan – I do not want to stress on his ethnic origins because it
does not matter, we have many Armenians who have been defending
Georgia’s independence with arms in their hands… – is a representative
of not Armenia, it was not in Armenia’s interest to see him freed six
years before [expiration of his prison term], this person is a direct
resident, representative of the Russian special services in Georgia.
He has been working for GRU [Russian military intelligence] for
years,’ Saakashvili said.

Investigation of unsolved murders should touch judges, prosecutors

Gültekin Avcı (Photo: Today’s Zaman, Ã-mer Oruç)

27 January 2013 /FATMA DÄ°Å?LÄ° ZIBAK, Ä°STANBUL

As major unsolved murders and assassinations in the country’s history
face the risk of being closed due to the statute of limitations,
jurists have said in addition to the perpetrators of those shadowy
incidents, the prosecutors and judges who are suspected of acting
negligently in their investigations or collaborating with gangs behind
the murders should also be investigated in order for justice to be
fully served.
Turkey’s history is filled with unsolved murders, but the figures on
the exact number of such murders are contradictory. The period between
1986 and 1999 saw a growing toll of unsolved murders and the period
prior to 1980 is considered to be a different category because of
ideological clashes between leftist and far-right groups.

According to a report from the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey
(TÄ°HV) released last year, a total of 1,901 unsolved murders were
committed between 1990 and 2011in Turkey, but Kurdish researchers
argue that the number of unsolved murders in the country exceeds
20,000.

Gültekin Avcı, a retired public prosecutor, is one of those who think
investigations should be initiated into the judges and prosecutors who
manipulated or obstructed the investigations into the murders or acted
on the orders of criminal organizations.

`A prosecutor or a judge who did not truly fulfill his/her duties in
the investigation of unsolved murders means that they became a part of
the assassination plot. If a prosecutor avoids seeing certain evidence
or hearing certain witnesses in the course of an investigation, this
means that they act on the orders of illegal gangs,’ Avcı told
Sunday’s Zaman.

He said during the Feb. 28, 1997 military coup process, Turkey clearly
saw how some judges and prosecutors served illegal power circles by
ignoring professional ethics and moral principles.

During the days of the Feb. 28 coup when the Turkish military forced a
coalition government led by a conservative party to resign on the
grounds that there was rising religious fundamentalism in Turkey,
Turkey’s Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) allegedly
acted in line with the demands of the pro-coup circles. Judges and
prosecutors at the time were allegedly under the influence of members
of the military who used to invite them to the military barracks and
brief them about rising `reactionaryism’ in the country.

Former Justice Minister Oltan Sungurlu, who was also the justice
minister of the 55th government, formed after the Feb. 28, 1997
postmodern coup, said in earlier remarks to Today’s Zaman that some
members of the judiciary had been removed from their posts by the HSYK
upon the request of the General Staff following his departure from the
ministry in August 1998.

Avcı explained that if they are convicted, members of the judiciary
could be punished in accordance with Article 257 of the Turkish Penal
Code (TCK) for failing to fulfill their duties, but if links with
illegal organizations or perpetrators of crimes are discovered, then
they will be punished in the same way as the perpetrators.

`If they are convicted, judges and prosecutors [of unsolved murders]
could receive punishments as heavy as disbarment from their
profession,’ Avcı noted.

In order to start legal action against the judges and prosecutors who
are suspected of neglecting their duty or taking orders from illegal
organizations in order to cover up shadowy murders, the retired
prosecutor said families of the victims of the unsolved murders need
to take action and submit petitions to the HSYK against those judges
and prosecutors.

Ergin Cinmen, a prominent lawyer, said he filed compensation cases
against Turkey’s justice and interior ministries at an administrative
court in Ankara due to the murder case of union leader Kemal Türkler
being dropped as a result of the statute of limitations expiring in
2010.

Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’ Unions (DÄ°SK) President
Türkler was killed outside his home in Ä°stanbul on July 22, 1980. Ã`nal
OsmanaÄ?aoÄ?lu, the suspect, was captured in 1999 in KuÅ?adası. He was
acquitted in local courts three times, but each of those rulings was
later overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeals.

In December 2010, after several retrials, Türkler’s murder case, one
of the most prominent political assassinations of the pre-1980 era in
Turkey, was dismissed due to the statute of limitations.

Cinmen said Türkler’s killer was captured after such a long time and
his trial could not be concluded despite so many years that passed due
to the `negligence of the relevant state institutions’ and `workload
of the judiciary.’

`Cases could be filed against ministries if not judges or
prosecutors,’ Cinmen told Sunday’s Zaman.

Legal action taken against some judges and prosecutors investigating
unsolved murders has proved fruitless over the past years. For
instance, a parliamentary commission, which was set up to investigate
the 1993 murder of journalist UÄ?ur Mumcu, determined that military
judge Ã`lkü CoÅ?kun, who was serving as a State Security Court (DGM)
prosecutor, had been negligent in the investigation. However, the
Defense Ministry disregarded criminal reports against him. CoÅ?kun was
even promoted to the Military Court of Appeals.

The parliamentary investigation commission even filed a criminal
report with the HSYK arguing that DGM prosecutors Nusret Demiral and
CoÅ?kun had obstructed the work of the commission and blocked the flow
of information from the police department. The criminal report was
disregarded. The Justice Ministry started an investigation based upon
a complaint from the Mumcu family and ruled for disciplinary action
against the prosecutors. The Defense Ministry never complied with the
ruling, however, with respect to military prosecutor CoÅ?kun.

In addition to many other major criminal cases, the murder case of
Mumcu also faces the risk of being dropped due to the statute of
limitations because 2013 marks the 20th anniversary of Mumcu’s
killing. In Turkey, the statute of limitations is 20 years for crimes
that require a minimum of a 20-year prison sentence.

According to Hasip Kaplan, a deputy from the pro-Kurdish Peace and
Democracy Party (BDP), investigations should be filed against members
of the judiciary in addition politicians and bureaucracy members who
were serving at the time of unsolved murders for their role in the
incidents.

He said his party filed many criminal complaints against state
officials for the deaths of civilians due to torture in the Southeast
and for those who went missing but those who are responsible could not
be punished because there is no `political determination’ to this
effect.

`The dossiers of unsolved murders committed in 1990s should be taken
off the shelves, and the government should show determination to cast
a light on them,’ he added.

ARMENIE
Sarkissian : La solution négociée au problème du Karabakh est le seul
moyen infaillible

Le problème du Karabakh devrait être résolu par des négociations a
indiqué le candidat à la présidence et actuel président de l’Arménie
Serge Sarkissian.

« Peu importe ce que seront les résultats de la guerre, les dommages
seront grands pour l’Arménie et le Karabakh, ainsi que pour
l’Azerbaïdjan. C’est pourquoi notre seul souhait est d’obtenir la
résolution du problème par la négociation. C’est le moyen le plus
infaillible » a déclaré Serge Sarkissian dans son discours dans le
district d’Avan à Erevan.

Le président a également indiqué que les négociations sont dans une
phase passive après que l’Azerbaïdjan ait refusé d’accepter les
conditions proposées par les coprésidents du Groupe de Minsk de l’OSCE
durant l’été 2011.

dimanche 27 janvier 2013,
Stéphane ©armenews.com

The Armenian Genocide: On not forgetting

Today (27 January 2013) is Holocaust Memorial Day, when we remember
the Nazi Holocaust and other genocides in human history, resolving
never to forget, but rather to seek to build a better future by
tackling the roots that lead to extermination and organised mass
violence.

In April there will be a global remembrance of the 98th anniversary of
the beginning of the Armenian Genocide. We need to re-affirm the
historical veracity of this event, not on the basis of presumed ethnic
biases, but on the basis of the solid literature coming from
international historians, organisations, scholars and lawyers, not
least the International Association of Genocide Scholars. We also need
to ask how, in the present and future, those who inherit the mantle of
the victims can move forward to discover new life and hope in the face
of the continuous of injustice and human tragedy.

Over the years I have written a good deal on the subject of the
Armenian Genocide, as part of a wide range of concerns in the MENA
region and beyond. Some of this material, along with related news
items going back to 2007, is available on Ekklesia, can be accessed
here: See also the 2010
Constantinople Lecture (‘The Armenian Genocide: A way forward?’)
for a fuller
background and interpretation.

—-

© Harry Hagopian is an international lawyer, ecumenist and EU
political consultant. He also acts as a Middle East and inter-faith
advisor to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England & Wales and as
Middle East consultant to ACEP (Christians in Politics) in Paris. He
is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor
(). Formerly an Executive
Secretary of the Jerusalem Inter-Church Committee and Executive
Director of the Middle East Council of Churches, he is now an
international fellow, Sorbonne III University, Paris, consultant to
the Campaign for Recognition of the Armenian Genocide (UK), Ecumenical
consultant to the Primate of Armenian Church in UK & Ireland, and
author of The Armenian Church in the Holy Land. Dr Hagopian’s own
website is Follow him on Twitter here:
@harryhagopian

April 24 killing of Armenian soldier in Turkey not accidental – Kurdish MP

news.am
January 27, 2013 | 00:04

In the second military court of Diyarbekir another hearing was held on
the case of the murder on April 24, 2011, of an Armenian soldier Sevag
Sahin Balikci, committed by a colleague.

As the Turkish website Diyarbakirsoz.com informs, the court during the
hearing on the case of the murder on April 24, 2011, of an Armenian
soldier Sevag Sahin Balikci, once again refused to allow the arrest of
the main suspect on the case, Kivanc Agaoglu. Moreover, Agaoglu asked
the court to provide him with bodyguards, saying that some Armenian
structures allegedly prepares a murder attempt at him.

MP from the Kurdish party `Peace and Democracy’ Nursel Aydogan said
Sevag’s death was not a coincidence.

`Such an act on April 24 – the day of the Armenian massacres – is not
accidental. It was specially prepared assassination,’ the Kurdish MP
said.

On April 24, 2011, in one of the units of the Turkish Armed Forces a
soldier was killed – ethnic Armenian Sevag Sahin Balikci. The family
of a dead soldier demanded a comprehensive and detailed investigation
of the case and turned to the lawyers who need to learn the results of
the autopsy.

The army officials of Turkey claimed that the killing was unintended:
the colleague killed him as a result of careless handling of weapons.