Artsakh is holding a referendum on a new draft Constitution. The Central Electoral Commission reports that 19 475 citizens or 18.95% of eligible voters, participated in the poll as of 11 a.m.
All 280 polling stations opened at 8 a.m. this morning. The number of eligible voters is 102 757.
Photo: Sputnik/Sergey Pyatakov
The chief of the Georgian Orthodox Church Patriarchate’s Property Management Service, priest Georgy Mamaladze has been detained on charges of plotting the murder of a church hierarch, Georgian Chief Prosecutor Irakly Shotadze said Monday, reports.
The Rustavi 2 TV company reported Sunday about a possible attempt to poison Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II. According to the report, Mamaladze was detained at Tbilisi airport on Friday night, later he was arrested.
“Georgy Mamaladze had a systematic relationship with the Catholicos-Patriarch and his entourage. The investigation established that Mamaladze had been preparing the murder of a person and that was why he had bought from an unknown person the poisonous substance cyanide,” Shotadze told reporters.
The chief prosecutor added that the detained official of the Georgian patriarchate had planned to take the poisonous substance to Germany, where Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II is undergoing treatment.
The Research Center for Western Armenian Studies has published two documents, proving the Ottoman policy of Islamization of Armenian orphans.
During the Armenian Genocide the Ottoman Government pursued the policy of Turkification of Armenian women and children.
presents two Ottoman documents and their Western Armenian translations. The texts are related to Armenian orphans hosted at a building in Ankara.
In the first document Interior Minister Talaat says it’s inexpedient to leave the Armenian children assembled in the building and orders to relocate them to different Islamic organizations.
The second document is the response by Ankara’s Deputy Governor Atif, who reports details about the number of Armenian women and children in the region and informs that the Armenian orphans will be sent to Islamic organizations.
The documents have been provided to the Research Center for Western Armenian Studies by US-based researcher Gevorg Hakobyan.
Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan received today Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to the Republic of Armenia Tian Erlong.
The interlocutors discussed issues related to intensification of economic cooperation between the two countries. The sides expressed satisfaction with the joint projects implemented in different sectors and discussed cooperation in promising areas.
Thankful for the assistance provided to our country by the Chinese government, Karen Karapetyan stressed the need to overhaul bilateral relations. “I want Chinese businessmen to feel comfortable in Armenia. We also want to establish air communication with China,” the Head of Government noted.
The Premier said his government interested in attracting foreign direct investment in the economy and ready to assist Chinese entrepreneurs with their possible involvement in Armenia. He suggested developing specific programs, noting that they would be discussed in all detail by the Government of Armenia.
The Chinese Ambassador said the Chinese side attaches great importance to the deepening of economic cooperation with Armenia and is going to organize a series of events that might contribute to the implementation of investment projects.
Arsenal legend Thierry Henry insists he has always been a fan of Manchester United midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan, according to .
The Armenia international moved to the Red Devils in a £30m transfer from Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund in the summer transfer window following Jose Mourinho’s appointment as the club’s new manager.
However, Mkhitaryan made a slow start to the 2016-17 season and made one Premier League start in August, September and October due to fitness problems and a lack of form at his new employers.
The attacking midfielder has come into his own in recent months, though, thanks to a return of three goals and three assists in his last 10 appearances in all competitions.
Speaking on Monday Night Football, former Arsenal striker Henry gave a glowing verdict on the Manchester United playmaker.
“I’ve always been a fan. He has come alive with Man United and hopefully he’s going to be a good player for them,” Henry said.
The Armenian Human Rights Defender’s Office has carried out a fact-finding mission to reveal the circumstances of the infringement attempt by Azeri troops at the Armenian state border, near the village of Chinarion December 29, 2016.
Presenting the findings to reporters today, Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan said the attack, which left three Armenian servicemen killed, was carried out under the conditions of no threat to the Azeri side on the part of Armenian forces.
The Ombudsman said there are no military units or any other military objects on the territory of the settlement, which comes to prove that the peaceful population was targeted in the attack.
He said the attacks continued in January, and added that the kindergarten and the school of Chinari were targeted on January 3.
The Ombudsman’s report also refers to the firing in the January 13 firing in the direction of the Voskepar-Baghanis highway.
Arman Tatoyan will visit Strasburg and Brussels next week and will present the report to high-ranking officials from the Council of Europe and other international structures.
An Ankara court on Dec. 26 issued a temporary broadcast ban on media coverage on news related to the assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov who was gunned down on Dec. 19 in Ankara, according to a judicial source, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.
Ankara’s 7th Court of Peace declared the media ban upon a request from the constitutional crimes investigation bureau of the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media.
The court declared the broadcast ban would continue until the completion of the police investigation.
The ban includes footages from the time of the attack and afterwards, and news related to suspects believed to have links to the incident.
Karlov died after being shot multiple times at an art exhibition in Ankara. He was delivering a speech when 22-year-old Turkish policeman, Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, opened fire. Altıntaş was later gunned down after an exchange of fire with security personnel.
Photo: AP
In a speech hailing the work of Holocaust survivor and Nobel peace laureate Elie Wiesel, Barack Obama’s U.N. Envoy Samantha Power lamented the injustices that continue to this day. Among these, she listed: “Genocide denial against the Armenians.” Power didn’t elaborate, the Associated Press reports.
The term has long been taboo for U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama, who have instead talked of mass atrocity and historical tragedy. But Obama’s U.N. ambassador last week went further than her boss by describing the event as genocide.
According to AP, those five words risk infuriating Turkey, which has fiercely opposed any genocide reference and whose strategic role as a key American partner and NATO ally in an unstable part of the world has led U.S. officials to exercise extreme caution when referencing the century-old massacre. They’re also surprising given Power’s status as the nation’s second highest-ranked diplomat and what sounded like her implicit criticism of Obama.
When he first ran for president, Obama promised he would recognize the killings as genocide if elected. But he has repeatedly stopped short of doing so. Marking Armenian Remembrance Day in April, Obama called the killings the first mass atrocity of the 20th century and a tragedy that must not be repeated.
Before entering government, Power was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote extensively about America’s responses to genocide. Officials say she has lobbied hard behind the scenes for Obama to formally recognize the Armenian killings as genocide.
Kurtis Cooper, Power’s spokesman, said the genocide reference came in the context of honoring Wiesel’s life and were meant to “convince others to stand up, rather than stand by, in the face of systemic injustice, mass atrocities and genocide like the one he was forced to endure.” He said they don’t reflect a change in administration policy.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said there has been no change in U.S. policy.
“The president and other senior administration officials have repeatedly mourned and acknowledged as historical fact that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman Empire, and stated that a full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts is in all our interests,” Toner said.
President Ronald Reagan in 1981 did refer to the “genocide of the Armenians.” But presidents since have avoided such language.
President Jimmy Carter came close to saying genocide in 1978 by describing a “concerted effort made to eliminate all the Armenian people” and calling it “probably one of the greatest tragedies that ever befell any group.” He noted that unlike after the Holocaust, no justice occurred akin to the Nuremberg trials of top Nazi officials.
As a campaign surrogate eight years ago, Power released a video imploring Armenian-Americans to vote for Obama, saying he would follow through on his promise to talk frankly about what happened.
On November 28, 2016, in accordance with the arrangement reached with the authorities of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, the OSCE Mission conducted a planned monitoring of the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan in the eastern direction of Talish settlement of the NKR Martakert region.
From the positions of the NKR Defense Army, the monitoring was conducted by Field Assistant to the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ghenadie Petrica (Moldova) and staff member of the Office Peter Svedberg (Sweden).
From the opposite side of the Line of Contact, the monitoring was conducted by Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and his Field Assistant Jiri Aberle (Czech Republic).
The monitoring passed in accordance with the agreed schedule. No violation of the cease-fire regime was registered.
From the Karabakh side, the monitoring mission was accompanied by representatives of the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense.
An open discussion on “Water resources, peace and security” was held at the UN Security Council on November 22.
Noting that three quarters of UN Member States share rivers or lake basins with their neighbours, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today highlighted the value of water resources as a reason for cooperation, not conflict.
“The need for coordination in water management is especially compelling for the more than 260 international rivers and at least that many transboundary aquifers,” Mr. Ban told a Security Council debate, which was open to non-Council members.
Addressing the meeting, Armenia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Zohrab Mnatsakanyan noted that “trans-border water resources create social and economic interrelation between societies and can serve a cause of conflict and argument inside a country and between states.”
Mr. Mnatsakanyan referred to Sarsang Water reservoir and voiced regret over the fact that Azerbaijan uses the issue to throw mud at and present charges against Armenia.
“The Sarsang water reservoir, which is of key importance to the economy of Nagorno Karabakh, especially from the agricultural and energy perspectives, is under permanent control of the Nagorno Karabakh authorities,” he noted.
Ambassador Mnatsakanyan reminded that the Nagorno Krabakh authorities have on many occasions offered a mechanism of joint use of water resources, which can serve an additional confidence-building measure between the countries.
“Instead, Azerbaijan prefers to spread groundless accusations and suspicious “proofs”, which actually amount to misinformation, to say the least of it. Azerbaijan would have done itself and the region a great favor, had it sincerely engaged in a peace process instead of boosting it caviar diplomacy,” Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said.