Author: Babken Chilingarian

Chess: Grandmaster Levon Aronian says he’s leaving Armenia and will represent US

Babken Chilingarian
The Guardian, UK
Feb 26 2021

  • World No 6 says cites Armenian officials’ indifference to chess
  • Aronian would become fifth American player in Fide’s top 20

Chess grandmaster Levon Aronian, who is ranked sixth in the world, announced he was leaving Armenia and would represent the United States on Friday. Photograph: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

Chess grandmaster Levon Aronian, who is ranked sixth in the world, announced he was leaving Armenia and would represent the United States on Friday. Photograph: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

Chess grandmaster Levon Aronian said on Friday he was leaving Armenia and would represent the United States, citing what he said was Armenian officials’ indifference to chess as one of the reasons.

The 38-year-old, who is ranked sixth in the world, announced his decision on his Facebook page.

“The past year has been very difficult for all of us with a pandemic, a war and in my case there was personal adversity and the state’s absolute indifference towards Armenian chess,” he wrote, referring to six weeks of fighting between ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces over the Nagorno-Karabkah enclave.

“I was faced with a choice: quit my job or move to where I am valued,” he wrote.

Smbat Lputian, deputy head of the Armenian Chess Federation, said he regretted Aronian’s decision.

“This is a big loss for Armenian chess,” he told Reuters.

The Saint Louis Chess Club said Aronian was relocating to the US city to continue his career and would represent the United States at future competitions.

US Chess Federation president Mike Hoffpauir said the organization would welcome Aronian pending the approval of the International Chess Federation (Fide).

“The US Chess Federation welcomes the news of Super GM Levon Aronian’s intent to relocate to the United States,” Hoffpauir said in a statement. “Until such time that he is living in the United States, the US Chess Federation has no jurisdiction with regard to his status with Fide. As with all transfer matters, the US Chess Federation does not allow for inviting or paying for the transfer of any player. Our role is to process the player’s administrative paperwork as required by Fide.”

Fide told Reuters it could not comment on Aronian’s intentions and plans.

“A player can represent the country/federations where he resides,” Fide said. “That doesn’t necessarily imply that he changes his nationality.”

Aronian’s move follows political unrest in Armenia, where prime minister Nikol Pashinyan condemned what he said was an attempted coup on Thursday after the army demanded he quit.

Should Fide approve the transfer, Aronian would become the fifth American in the top 20 of the current Fide world rankings, joining No 2 Fabiano Caruana, No 9 Wesley So, No 14 Leinier Domínguez and No 19 Hikaru Nakamura.

Aram Harutyunyan: Nikol Pashinyan’s rule has a ‘Bayraktar effect’ on Armenia

Babken Chilingarian
Panorama, Armenia
Feb 24 2021

Nikol Pashinyan and his wife Anna Hakobyan appear to have ‘Bayraktar effect’ on Armenia, the Chairman of National Unity party Aram Harutyunyan told a press conference on Wednesday. Harutyunyan recalled the PM’s favorite phrase about ‘laying down on asphalt`, adding people can now perceive what the PM meant. 

“In reality, he laid our soldiers down on asphalt. He led some 5-6 thousand sons to death and buried,” said Harutyunyan, recalling also the PM’s speech in parliament on September 17, where Pashinyan stated  that whatever the outcome of the war would be we should not recognize ourselves as defeated.

Harutyunyan also pointed to the title of the book authored by Pashinyan “The Other Side of the Earth”  which, per him, is no coincidence. “He turned the country upside down and eliminated all our achievements, yet we have the chance today to  pull ourselves together and recover,” stressed the speaker.

CoE: Networking and Knowledge Depository Platform for lawyers from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine now available

Babken Chilingarian
Council of Europe
Feb 18 2021
Strasbourg 17/02/2021


Networking and Knowledge Depository Platform for lawyers from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine now available – Actualités 2020 – 2021

A new platform for networking, exchanging information and best practices, accessing key documents, including pieces of legislation and research is now accessible to lawyers, bar associations and legal professional in the Eastern Partnership Countries.

The platform was presented at the second meeting of the Technical Project Committee meeting gathering representatives of Bar and lawyers’ associations, Ministries of Justice, European Union delegations and Council of Europe offices in the participating countries.

National partners from all countries welcomed the platform as a useful and practical tool to facilitate contacts and knowledge sharing within the legal communities. It will also provide wide dissemination to the comparative reviews on key areas of interest, to the legal profession to assess the current challenges faced by the profession, facilitate exchange of experiences and identify solutions to enhance compliance with European standards on lawyers’ independence and professionalism. Topics covered include: internal structure of bar associations, procedural safeguards for lawyers and protection against undue interferences, systems of legal representation, access to the profession and training, ethical codes, relations with judges and gender mainstreaming.

The website “Regional Cooperation Network of Lawyers in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine” was developed within the framework of the PGG II Regional Project “Strengthening the profession of lawyer in line with European standards” to support regional dialogue and co-operation between the bars and lawyers’ professional associations.

 

Spokesperson of Turkey’s ruling party: We will turn the dreams of Greece and Cyprus into a nightmare

Babken Chilingarian
Greek City Times
Feb 20 2021

by PAUL ANTONOPOULOS

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was denounced by the spokesperson of Turkey’s ruling AKP party Ömer Çelik for not inviting the pseudo-state of occupied northern Cyprus to the Philia Forum, while he also threatened Greece and Cyprus.

Speaking after a meeting of his party’s central committee, Çelik said:

“Mitsotakis presenting the Turkish army as occupying and then organizing a conference called the ‘Philia Forum,’ attended by the Foreign Ministers of Greece, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and the [Republic of] Cyprus, the question is: Why was the Turkish Republic, a Mediterranean country and a country at the center of these issues, not invited to this forum?”

Ömer Çelik.

“In a meeting that was attended by the Greek Cypriot side, why was not the [unrecognized so-called] Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus [TRNC] invited? No meeting can be a friendship forum excluding the TRNC,” he said.

Çelik said that “if the Greece and Cyprus dreams of taking with them those countries that have problems for other reasons with Turkey to achieve their maximalist goals, we would like to guarantee that we will turn this into a nightmare.”

“We are not going to let this dream come true. They will not imagine such a thing, they will not take a step with such dreams, they will not even go crazy. They will not escape the nightmare if they take a step,” he added.

Turkey is immensely frustrated as the Philia Forum, the brainchild of Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias, completely isolated Turkey in the East Mediterranean region, while boosting Greece’s relations with Arab states in the Persian Gulf.

Effectively, as Turkey continues to act outside of international law and continues its threats and provocations against neighbouring countries, Greece has successfully sidelined Ankara as the key country of the East Mediterranean.

 

Prosecutors in Turkey seek to strip several MPs, including Armenian Garo Paylan, of immunity

Babken Chilingarian
Public Radio of Armenia
Feb 20 2021

The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has prepared summaries of proceedings for nine lawmakers from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), seeking the lift of their legislative immunities, Bianet reports.

The HDP lawmakers, along with 99 other defendants, are facing aggravated life sentences for having allegedly organized the deadly “Kobane protests” in Kurdish-majority cities in October 2014.

The summaries of proceedings have been sent to the Ministry of Justice to be submitted to the parliament for a vote after being reviewed in relevant committees.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have the parliamentary majority to approve the summaries of proceedings.

HDP Co-Chair Pervin Buldan, its parliamentary group deputy chairs Meral Danış-Beştaş and Saruhan Oluç, and Garo Paylan, Hüda Kaya, Sezai Temelli, Pero Dundar, Fatma Kurtulan and Serpil Kemalbay-Pekgözegü are the MPs that the investigation concerns.

Dozens of HDP politicians were detained on September 25 after the investigation was launched and 17 of them were later remanded in custody.

The indictment charging the suspects with 25 different offenses, including “managing a terrorist organization” and “attempted overthrow,” was accepted on January 7.

The protests in question began in late September 2014 when ISIS launched an offensive to take over Kobane, a Kurdish town in northern Syria. Incidents between different protesting groups and the police response to protesters turned violent from October 6, resulting in the deaths of  42 people.

While the government has accused the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of orchestrating the protests and held it responsible for the losses, the party says most of the killed were its supporters and the incidents have not been effectively investigated.

Several senior HDP politicians had been previously investigated over the incidents but none of them received a sentence.

‘Unfortunately, Robert Kocharyan’s predictions came true’, ex-president’s office says

Babken Chilingarian
Panorama, Armenia
Feb 20 2021

Armenia’s second President, first President of Artsakh Robert Kocharyan extended congratulations on the Artsakh Revival Day and the anniversary of the Karabakh Liberation Movement marked on February 20.

On the occasion, the ex-president’s office presented a part of Kocharyan’s message of 20 February 2019, adding, “Unfortunately, Robert Kocharyan’s predictions came true.”

“Unfortunately, I appeal to you not only to congratulate you and once again stress the importance of this day. People who came to power as a result of complicated internal and geopolitical upheavals continue to deliver major blows to the foundations of the statehood of Armenia and Artsakh. They are taking deliberate steps to undermine the national unity, drive a wedge between different strata of the Armenian society, discredit our history and heroes and weaken the spirit of our victorious army. It doesn’t matter whether all this is done at the instigation of an outsider, based on ideological views of spiritual fathers, or simply to overcome their own complexes. All the same, in any case it leads us to the devaluation of the Karabakh victories, particularly inevitable losses, which will be destructive for our statehood.

“Today we just have to wake up. The challenges facing our two countries are growing day by day. We need a vision of the country’s development and strong unity to confront them. The hatred propaganda, the de facto revision of national values, the destruction of the state instructions, as well as the unilateral “peace-loving” foreign policy are destructive for us. Maybe, we will not have the opportunity to overcome the worst consequences of turning the country into a testing ground by a few dilettantes,” the message read.  

CivilNet: Life in Stepanakert After the War

Babken Chilingarian
CIVILNET.AM

21:24

Roughly 110,000 people have returned and currently live in Artsakh (Karabakh), Chief of Staff to the President Artak Beglaryan said on Monday, noting that another 40,000 remain in Armenia.

According to Beglaryan, majority of those in Armenia are refugees whose homes are now in Azerbaijani-occupied areas of Artsakh, including Hadrut and Shushi regions.

During the 44-days of the war, Azerbaijani missiles shelled almost all of the residential towns and villages in Karabakh, including churches and hospitals. Most of the roughly 150,000 residents of the region escaped to Armenia, leaving behind homes and everything they owned.

CivilNet: Turkey No Longer Has a Reason to Blockade Armenia, Says Armenian FM

Babken Chilingarian
CIVILNET.AM

10 February, 2021 18:02

By Emilio Luciano Cricchio

Turkey has no reason to blockade Armenia anymore, Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazian said during a government question and answer session in Parliament on February 10.  

Ayvazian added that there are mixed signals coming out of Ankara. On the one hand, Turkey and Azerbaijan conducted joint military exercises near the Armenian border in Kars. On the other hand, there has been talk of normalization coming from certain Turkish political figures. 

The Armenian FM went on to say that the status quo of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been changed by military force, which was Turkey’s reason for blockading Armenia. 

Ayvazyan concluded by saying that though processes regarding normalization have not started, Armenia is taking active efforts to make its immediate surroundings safe, and to deescalate the tense atmosphere around Artsakh. 

In 1993, in the midst of the First Karabakh War, Turkey closed its borders with Armenia in support of Azerbaijan, after Armenian forces captured the district of Kelbajar. 

The border remained closed ever since. 

Relations between Armenia and Turkey ‘far from being friendly’, MP says

Babken Chilingarian
Panorama, Armenia
Feb 11 2021

“Turkey has always cited the so-called occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) as an excuse to keep the border closed. I believe it’s what the foreign minister meant,” pro-government lawmaker Hovhannes Igityan told reporters at the National Assembly on Thursday, commenting on Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Aivazian’s statement said Turkey has no reason to keep its border with Armenia closed any longer since the status quo in Karabakh has changed as a result of the use of force.

According to the My Step MP, however, the closure of the Armenian-Turkish border is not linked exclusively with the Artsakh war and relations between Armenia and Turkey are “far from being friendly.”

“It will take a long time; there must be changes in Turkey so that we can treat it simply as a country. There is no appropriate atmosphere in Turkey today, as the statements made there are quite disturbing, I would say racist. As for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, it is a fact that has been acknowledged by many countries. We do not ask Turkey to recognize the Genocide, when the country comes to the realization and faces great pressure, Turkey will recognize it,” Igityan noted.