Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN BLOODLETTING THREATENS KARABAKH CEASEFIRE

Yahoo News
March 4 2015

By Mariam Harutunyan with Emil Guliyev in Alibeyli

Movses (AFP) – Locals sigh with relief as their Armenian village of
Movses, close to the border with Azerbaijan, disappears in the lilac
mist rolling down from the Kardash mountain, where Azeri snipers have
fortified positions.

“The mist is our salvation. When visibility is zero, we know the
Azeris won’t be shooting,” said Khanum, an elderly Armenian woman who,
like other Movses residents, lives in constant fear of Azeri snipers.

But just across the frontline, on the Azeri side, the fear is no
less intense.

“The streets are deserted during the daytime,” said Ismail Nabiyev,
who lives in Alibeyli, an Azeri village. “We can’t hold wedding parties
or funerals. The Armenians shoot at us when they see people gathering.”

The bloody Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict over the Nagorny Karabakh
region formally became a frozen one over two decades ago. In reality
the war has never stopped for Azeri and Armenian villagers living
along their countries’ border.

The villages of Movses and Alibeyli lie around 200 kilometres from
Nagorny Karabakh itself.

View gallery An elderly woman is pictured on February 16, 2015 next
to a wall damaged by a shell in the Armenian …

But violence has spread far beyond the epicenter of the conflict,
with Azeri and Armenian sharpshooters along their border threatening
the shaky peace as tit-for-tat bloodletting annually claims dozens
of lives.

Sparking fears of a new all-out war between the countries, last year
saw an unprecedented spiral of violence with more than 70 people from
both sides killed.

At least for those living in these rural border areas, war has
already returned.

“Our houses are under constant fire from Armenia,” said Khatira
Aliyeva, a young mother of two who was wounded in the arm in February
when her house in Alibeyli came under sniper gunfire from across
the border.

“I’m afraid of letting my children go to school. In the mornings,
we run to the school fearing the Armenians might notice us and start
shooting,” she said.

View gallery Levon Andreasyan, 85, wounded by Azerbaijani sniper fire
in Movses, in Armenia, lies on his hospital …

“After classes, children are forced to stay at home. It’s too dangerous
for them to play in the courtyard.”

That nightmare is echoed from the other side by Sudarik Aperian, an
82-year-old resident of Movses, who says: “Azeri snipers shoot day
and night — at our houses, at peaceful civilians, at people working
in their orchards.”

“At night, I am afraid of switching the lights on. When Azeris see
lights in our windows, they immediately start shooting,” she said
standing by her bullet-riddled gates.

– ‘Unprecedented escalation’ –

The decades-long dispute over Nagorny Karabakh has its immediate roots
in a 1990s war that left some 30,000 people dead after ethnic-Armenian
separatists backed by Yerevan seized the territory from Azerbaijan.

View gallery Khatira Aliyeva pictured in her house in the Azeri
village of Alibeyli on February 17, 2015 (AFP Pho …

Despite years of internationally-mediated negotiations since the 1994
ceasefire, the two sides have not yet signed a final peace deal.

Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but
the ethnic-Azeri community — which before the war made up around
25 percent of the population — was entirely driven out. Almost all
of the current 145,000 population of the enclave is Armenian and the
region has declared itself the Nagorny Karabakh Republic.

The uneasy standoff is not only fraying along the frontlines, but
suffering from increasingly heated rhetoric from politicians on
both sides.

Energy-rich Azerbaijan has repeatedly vowed to retake the region.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, said in February that the peace will be
under threat as long as Armenia continues its occupation of Karabakh
and seven adjacent Azeri districts, territory that adds up to some
20 percent of Azerbaijan.

But in January, Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian threatened
Azerbaijan with an “asymmetrical” response to any military assault
by the cash-rich Azeri army.

View gallery A picture taken on February 17, 2015 shows a panoramic
view of the Azeri village of Alibeyli (AFP Ph …

“In the event of a major and menacing (military) concentration on
our border or along the (Karabakh) frontline, we reserve the right
of a preventive strike,” he said.

The sabre-rattling rhetoric in Baku and Yerevan highlighted the
unprecedented level of escalation on the ground. In the most serious
single incident on the Karabakh frontline since the ceasefire, Azeri
forces shot down an Armenian military helicopter in November.

Then January turned out to be especially bloody.

At least 12 people from both sides were reported killed and 18 wounded
in border clashes — “the highest confirmed number of victims in the
first month of a year since the 1994 ceasefire,” according to the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Analysts warn that the current skirmishing could now tip over into
something far more serious.

“Starting from the summer of 2014, we have witnessed an unprecedented
escalation,” Mubariz Ahmedoglu, the director of Azeri Centre of
Political Innovations, told AFP.

“Armenia and Azerbaijan have deployed large-calibre artillery and
rocket weapons along the Karabakh frontline,” he said.

In Yerevan, Armenian analyst Sergey Minasyan, with the Caucasus
Institute think tank, was similarly pessimistic.

“For the last 20 years, the situation on the ground has never been
as tense and dangerous as it is today,” he said.

One resident of Movses, near the frontline, put the situation this way:

“Our future is just as hazy as this mist over the Kardash mountain.”

From: Baghdasarian

HEAD OF THE COMMUNITY CAUSED ESSENTIAL DAMAGE TO THE LEGAL INTERESTS OF THE COMMUNITY

12:38 | March 5,2015 | Official

The head of the community holding an official post on August 26,
2013 entered into a contract for purchase of contract works with a
limited liability company which stipulated that the company was to
carry out repair works in the community till October 16, 2013 against
3 million 290 thousand Armenian drams.

Failing to accomplish the works within the stipulated time, the head
of the community out of personal motives instead of the agreed sum
based on “commodity-work exchange” plan granted to the Company metal
pipes with a diameter of 1000mm at the cost of about 4 million 810
thousand Armenian drams which were the property of the community.

Hence, he caused essential damage to the legal interests of the
community.

The head of the community was involved as defendant to the criminal
case launched in the Regional Investigation Department of the
Police of the Republic of Armenia with regard to the abuse of the
employment-related powers in accordance with Part 1 of Article 308
of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia.

On basis of the decision of the General Prosecutor of the Republic
of Armenia and in view of the need to ensure comprehensive, complete
and objective examination conditioned by factual circumstances, the
criminal case launched in accordance with Part 1 of Article 308 of
the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia was sent to the Special
Investigation Service of the Republic of Armenia which instituted
proceeding against it.

A preliminary investigation is underway.

Note: The suspect or the accused of the alleged offence is deemed
innocent unless his or her innocence is proved by virtue of the
effective court verdict in the manner prescribed by the Criminal
Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia.

Press Service of Special Investigation Service of the RA

From: Baghdasarian

THERE IS A SINGLE DEMAND – TO GIVE AN UNBIASED ASSESSMENT TO THE CRIME

Wednesday, 04 March 2015 09:09

What happened 27 years ago in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait doesn’t
fit into the human mind. From the first days of the Karabakh Movement,
an irrepressible anti-Armenian propaganda war started in Azerbaijan,
as a result of which obvious violations and pogroms against Armenians
began in that country.

The pogroms of February 26-29 committed at the state level against
the Armenian population of the inshore city of Sumgait, hundreds of
kilometers far from Nagorno Karabakh, were nothing else than Genocide.

On the eve of the Genocide, Azerbaijani Party figure E. Asadov
threatened to organize a multi-thousand march of Azerbaijanis to
Nagorno Karabakh to punish the Armenians.

The three-day massacre was terrible on its brutality – officially, the
actions of the pogrom-makers claimed the lives of dozens of Armenians,
while the unofficial number amounts to hundreds of Armenians; 18,000
people became refugees, several hundreds of apartments were destroyed
and robbed, etc. Meanwhile, the Kremlin presented the Genocide as a
result of the actions of hooligan elements. Dure to the pro-Azerbaijani
policy of Moscow, the perpetrators of the Sumgait crime were left
unpunished. The crime against the Armenian nation was aimed at halting
the Artsakh Movement and spreading of the Artsakh national-liberation
struggle. Sumgait became an impetus to the wide-scale persecution
and deportation of the Armenians of Azerbaijan.

Wild revelry covered entire Azerbaijan, which was accompanied by
killing of Armenians, destruction of settlements, and looting…

Much has been spoken and written about the crime in this ill-fated
city, and we’ll still continue speaking about it, as it hasn’t yet
been condemned officially. The marches, demonstrations, rallies,
and different events organized every year by All Armenians in these
February days are also aimed at this.

Like in previous years, this year too, from the early morning of
February 28, morning flows of people headed towards the Stepanakert
Memorial Complex, where a mourning melody sounded the whole day.

Representatives of the Stepanakert enterprises, higher and secondary
educational establishments, non-governmental organizations and various
political parties, holding posters condemning the atrocious crime,
came here not only to pay tribute to the memory of the victims,
but also to raise once again their concerns about the international
structures’ failing to give the proper assessment to the crime so far.

The leadership of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, headed by President
Bako Sahakyan, joined the people and came to the Memorial Complex to
pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the Sumgait Genocide.

Wreaths were put on the monument to the Sumgait victims by the NKR
authorities, different ministries and departments, the Artsakh Diocese
of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Stepanakert Mayor’s Office,
and various organizations operating in the Republic.

The memory of the innocent victims was honored with a minute of
silence. Head of the Artsakh Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church,
Archbishop Margev Martirossian served a memorial prayer.

“Another Genocide was committed in Sumgait. We are still experiencing
pain and grief, as no proper assessment has been given either to
the 1915 Genocide or the one committed in the late 20th century in
Sumgait. Until the entire world recognizes and condemns the Genocide,
similar wounds will still be open on the people’s bodies, and the
grief will spread. It’s a shame and a pity that such phenomena have
not been condemned so far>>, said Margev Martirossian.

And Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian policy hasn’t changed. The Sumgait
crime hasn’t been properly assessed so far; moreover, in this context,
the international community continues addressing us with humanitarian
appeals, surprising and disappointing us, Armenians. Sharing his
views on this with journalists, Chairman of the NKR National Assdembly
Ashot GHULIAN said:

– Maybe it is time to stop getting surprised with such an attitude.

All these years, even after the Genocide of 1915, we have witnessed
that the international community cannot adequately respond to
similar events and, as a rule, the silence and indifference lead to
new crimes. Every year, the memorial ceremonies, be they dedicated to
the victims of the Sumgait tragedy or those of the Armenian Genocide,
are the measures, with which we remind about the moral step to be
made and about the conscience of humanity. The world, though slowly,
comes to the conclusion that the reason for the events taking place
in different places, which are really crimes against humanity, is the
failure to condemn similar crimes. Touching upon the joint statement
by the political forces of Artsakh, the NA Speaker noted that it had
always been so – regardless of the political stance, we all have a
single demand.
From: Baghdasarian

CARSON CITY COUNCIL UNANIMOULY REJECTS ATATURK MONUMENT MEASURE

Wednesday, March 4th, 2015 | Posted by Contributor

Carosn City Council debates erecting Ataturk Monument

CARSON, Calif.–The City Council of City of Carson voted unanimously on
Wednesday to reject a measure to erect a monument to Kemal Ataturk in
the city, after lengthy debate during the regular city council session.

More than 400 people opposing the measure, led by the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation Western US Central Committee, Armenian
National Committee of America-Western Region, the Armenian Youth
Federation and the American Hellenic Council flocked to the Carson
City Hall, where a capacity crowd in the council chamber spilled
outside to protest the measure.

Speaking against the monument were Glendale Mayor Zareh Sinanian,
Montebello Mayor Jack Hadjinian, Glendale City Clerk Ardashes “Ardy”
Kassakhian, Professor Levon Marashlian and the Vice Chairman of the
American Hellenic Council Aris Anagnos. Although there were only six
speakers permitted per side, there were 298 speaker cards submitted
in opposition to the monument and 101 in favor.

California State Assemblymembers submitted a letter in opposition to
the monument, which was presented at the meeting by a representative
of Assemblymember and former Carson City Councilman Mike Gipson,
and co-signed by Assemblymembers Adrin Nazarian, Katcho Achadjian,
Scott Wilk and Mike Gatto.

The Turkish Consul General of Los Angeles Raife Gulru Gezer was one
of the six speaking in favor of the monument. Carson Mayor Jim Dear,
who initiated the monument proposal, in the end changed his vote.

Asbarez will have detailed coverage of the meeting in later editions.

From: Baghdasarian

SD SENATE STEERS SOUTH DAKOTA CLEAR OF GENOCIDE ARGUMENT

Rapid City Journal
March 4 2015

Led by comments from Sen. Corey Brown, R-Gettysburg, state senators
voted 30-4 Tuesday to table — that is, kill without further debate —
a resolution recognizing the killings 100 years ago in Anatolia.

Brown said it’s the wrong time to bring up the matter as the United
States and other nations look for Turkey’s help in battling ISIS in
Iraq and neighboring lands.

The resolution, HCR 1009, came out of the House where it was approved
57-17. The resolution’s prime sponsor is Rep. Steve Hickey, R-Sioux
Falls. The resolution states that 1.5 million people of Armenian
heritage and hundreds of thousands of Greek and Assyrian heritage
were killed by the Ottoman Turks a century ago.

The resolution also stated “that the Legislature deplores the
persistent, ongoing efforts by any person, in this country or
abroad, to deny the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide” and
“the Legislature urges the Republic of Turkey to acknowledge the
facts of the Armenian Genocide and to work toward a just resolution”.

In other international news from the Legislature, the House of
Representatives voted 67-0 Tuesday for a resolution denouncing and
condemning anti-Semitism in various European and Middle Eastern
nations and invited French Jews and Jewish people generally to move
to South Dakota. SCR 8, whose prime sponsor is Sen. Dan Lederman,
R-Dakota Dunes, won Senate approval 34-0 last week.

From: Baghdasarian

RUSSIAN SOLDIER ACCUSED OF KILLING 7 IN ARMENIA TO UNDERGO SANITY EXAM

RAPSI News, Russia
March 5 2015

© RAPSI
14:12 05/03/2015

MOSCOW, March 5 (RAPSI) -Russian soldier Valery Permyakov who stands
charged with fatally shooting seven members of a family in Armenia
must submit to a pretrial sanity examination.

The examination will be conducted at the Russian base located in
Gyumri. It is expected to be complete within two weeks.

An investigation into the murder is being conducted by Russian and
Armenian officials, and all the procedures have been completed,
according to the source.

As a result of an armed assault on January 12 a family of seven was
killed, including a six-month-old baby that died of injuries a week
later. Permyakov was charged with the murder of two or more persons
under the Armenian Criminal Code. He pled guilty later in January.

Investigators interviewed over 30 witnesses and conducted over a
dozen expert reviews.

Chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin
travelled to Yerevan to coordinate the investigation. Bastrykin
said the trial would take place in Armenia and would be public,
which is intended to illustrate the intention of both countries to
provide justice.

From: Baghdasarian

THE EMEKSIZ SISTERS OF ISTANBUL: “THE ARMENIANS CALL US TURKS, AND THE TURKS CALL US ARMENIANS”

Anna Muradyan

19:13, March 4, 2015

The Emeksiz sisters of Istanbul are on a mission to tell people in
Armenia about the fate of their Armenian grandfather Khachik and
others who shared the same fate due to the 1915 Genocide.

The two sisters, both Emeksiz, are named after their Armenian
grandfather Khachik Emeksizian.

Born in the Uzunmahmud village in the Ottoman Kaza of Ordu on the
Black Sea, Khachik Emeksizian was seven years old in 1915. The boy
survived the Genocide because he was taken to a nearby village and
given to a Turkish family who raised him as a Muslim. The law at the
time was that children seven and younger would not be sent on the
road to exile but would be distributed to local Turkish families.

The sisters, who call their grandfather Hachik (there is no letter
“kh” in the Turkish alphabet), claim they feel neither Armenian or
Turkish; just human beings.

“We are a part of history, and I want that within Armenian society
my grandfather be known as an Armenian,” says the elder sister Emeksiz.

“What happened to my grandfather wasn’t of his choosing and neither
of mine.”

There were some 13,565 Armenians living in the Ordu Kaza (on the eve
of 1915 according to Raymond Kevorkian’s The Armenian Genocide.

Uzunmahmud is said to have had a population of 388. Kevorkian states
that most of the Armenians of Ordu had roots in Hamshen and had settled
relatively late in Ordu. Three thousand of the kaza’s Armenians resided
in the principal town (Ordu) and the others lived scattered in about
29 villages.

Seven year-old Hacik never forgot that he was Armenian. He never forgot
his parents, the house he lived in and where it was located. He even
kept the root of his surname in the hope that one day he’d find lost
relatives through the name.

The sisters told me that two years after the Genocide their
grandfather found out that some people had come to the church in
his old village. It turns out they were looking for Armenian orphans
to send to the United States, France and elsewhere. Hacik told the
sisters that he didn’t want to go and returned to his adoptive family.

At the time, the boy was afraid that surviving family members might
look for him and not find him.

One of Hachik’s cousins was sent to France in this fashion. Decades
later, the sisters did a last name search and found the cousin.

At the age of twenty, Hachik married one of the daughters of the
household and started a family.

“I am very angry because my grandfather was left alone without a
family or possessions,” says the younger sister Emeksiz. “We know
the family had land that was used by others.”

Hachik Emeksiz had six sons and many grandchildren. They all know
his story but not all want to accept it. Emeksiz says her grandfather
always told them the story, saying it was their history as well and
that they must know it.

“My being angry will not change my grandfather’s life or past. But
he is not alone. There were thousands of children like him,” says the
younger Emeksiz. “We just want to talk about this matter to Armenians
and Turks because Armenians call us Turks and Turks call us Armenians.”

She tells me that her grandfather always brought up the name of his
sister, Nazlou. She had long hair, down to her waist, and he always
played with her tresses.

“I am mad that they left no one from my grandfather’s family and he
had to start his story anew,” says the younger sister. “For example,
we have relatives on our grandmother’s side but no one on his side
of the family. There were six or seven children in my grandfather’s
family. The family which adopted him wasn’t his real family.

The sisters say they do not talk about their grandfather being Armenian
everywhere. It could make them hate targets of Turkish nationalists
very easily.

I am neither religious nor a nationalist. This creates problems in
certain circles,” says the elder Emeksiz. “Many of my cousins don’t
want the word to get out. They want this story to be forgotten.”

Nevertheless, she says that she tells the story about her grandfather
being Armenian and that many Turks are amazed to hear that Armenians
lived in Anatolia. They even ask when Armenians came to those lands.

Grandfather Khachik died fourteen years ago and the sisters now regret
not spending more time with him. They didn’t live in the same house
but visited periodically.

“When he died, only then did we realize that we should have spent more
time with him and listened to him a bit more, says the elder Emeksiz.

“We should have recorded what he said. I feel that we should do
something for him.”

The elder Emeksiz studies film making at an Istanbul university. She’s
decided to makr a film about her grandfather and the family story.

“My grandfather was seven when he was orphaned. There were thousands
of kids like him. I want to tell this story to people through film.”

From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIA SUBMITS RESOLUTION ON PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE TO UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

11:48, 04 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

On a visit to Geneva, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian
met with Joachim Rucker, President of the Human Rights Council.

The interlocutors referred to the consideration of Armenian human
rights record at the UN Human Rights Council and its assessments.

Minister Nalbandian informed Joachim Rucker that as an important
role-player in the international community’s fight against crimes
against humanity, Armenia submits a Resolution on “Prevention of
Genocide” to the consideration of the 28th session of the UN Human
Rights Council.

Edward Nalbandian underlined that it’s important for UN member states
to express their unequivocal support to the combined international
efforts aimed at preventing new crimes against humanity.

From: Baghdasarian

RUSSIA TO HOLD ARTILLERY DRILLS AT TESTING RANGE IN ARMENIA

16:10, 04 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Artillery units of the Russian military base in Armenia will conduct
field exercises at the Alagyaz high-mountain training complex, the
press service of the Southern Military District told TASS on Wednesday.

The exercises at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters above sea level
will last until the end of March. They involve about 400 troops. Half
of the drills will be conducted at night.

“Within a month’s training course the artillerists will have tactical,
special and technical drills, as well as modern military vehicle
driving practice, firing operations and weapons fire control. The
drills involve the Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers, Grad multiple
launch rocket systems, Podnos mortars and the Konkurs anti-tank missile
systems, as well as drones of the Navodchik-2 modern reconnaissance
systems, the Southern Military District sources said.

The artillery drills will be ended with tactical live firing exercises
on imaginary enemy’s facilities and personnel targets in mountainous
terrain.

From: Baghdasarian

RUSSIAN RAILWAYS: EVENTS IN UKRAINE HAVE REDUCED FLOW OF PASSENGERS USING RUSSIAN RAILWAYS’ SERVICES

by Alexandr Avanesov

Wednesday, March 4, 13:21

The events in Ukraine reduced the flow of the passengers using
Russian Railway’s services, Oleg Nikitin, Deputy Director General of
the Federal Passenger Company (subsidiary of Russian Railways) told
ArmInfo during the 15th meeting of the CIS Council for Rail Transport
(CRT) Passenger Commission, which started on March 4 in Yerevan.

He said that the passenger flow with the CIS countries has dropped
by 45%, which is “an immense reduction”. The events in Ukraine have
also restricted the travel behavior. “I hope this is a temporary
phenomenon. The situation will shortly change for the better, I hope”,
he said.

The exchange rate fluctuations have also played a role in reduction
of international passenger flow. In response to the rise of the Swiss
franc (CHF) rate, the company and its partners from Belarus reduced
the tariff by 30%. The issue is also being discussed with Baltic and
other countries, including Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. “The company
is ready to consider all suggestions”, stressed Nikitin.

To note, Russian Railways pays for the foreign infrastructure in CHF.

Experts say that if the average rise in CHF exchange rate has been 30%
over the past three months, the prices will grow by 30%. This will
certainly affect the costs of cargo transportation and passenger
operations.

From: Baghdasarian