Author: Frangulian Shushan

Photo: AFP 2015/ YOUSSEF KARWASHAN

– Mahmut Ghazi Tatar, a captured member of the Islamic State terrorist organization, spoke to Sputnik Turkey, revealing details about being in the ranks of IS and Turkey’s ties with the terror group.

Mahmut Ghazi joined IS after being influenced by a friend who had joined the group earlier. He, together with 27 other Turks, was helped to cross the border into Syria where he joined the ranks of the militants.

“After crossing border we were moved to a training camp 5 km from the border. We received military training and attended religious classes. Before the start of training, each of us was asked whether we want to be martyrs. I refused. This question is asked of all new recruits. Those who agree, within 6 months receive special religious training. Since I refused, my education and training lasted 70 days. We learned by the Turkish books. During the training, a few people from Turkey came to check on us. They did not have beards and they were not members of IS,” Mahmut Tatar told Sputnik Turkiye during an interview.

After receiving their training the 27 members who were all Turkish were sent to the city of Tel Abaid where they lived in houses and where their training continued. Their names were kept secret and they were not allowed to contact their families for a period of six months.

Talking about how he was caught by Kurdish soldiers, Ghazi said that upon receiving warning of the presence of Kurdish soldiers from other IS members he and 12 other group members ran away from Tal Abaid. They were hiding in a nearby village. But the next morning when Ghazi tried to make a run for it he was caught.

“Kurds treat prisoners well, they feed them, give water and even cigarettes. I was kept in this room along with several other people. I did not think that they will treat me so well, I was afraid of torture. I thought we would be killed, but it turned out that the Kurdish troops do not kill captives. I heard that ISIS when being captured by Kurds are either killed at once or are kept alive to make prisoner exchange with the Kurds.”

Talking about what he heard from his commander the captured member revealed that during his training camp in May 2015, one IS commander Abu Talha told them that the group sells oil to Turkey. According to Abu Talha, the money that was raised from sale of oil in Turkey helped IS resolve all financial difficulties.

“The oil tankers that were sent every day to Turkey had crude oil, fuel oil and gasoline. The main source of income for IS is oil trade and oil inventories will last them a long time.”

“Abu Talha also said that the group earns a lot of money in trade with Turkey. He also said that the oil is sold through the mediation of a number of businessmen and merchants, but did not give names. IS also receives many products from Turkey and other Arab countries,” Mahmut Ghazi revealed.

He mentioned that his commanders did not attach particular importance to the US bombings. They believed that it was done as a pretense.

One of the militants asked the commander why IS was not fighting against Israel. Abu Talha said: “First we need to break down a small wall and then destroy the large one.”

According to the captured member most new recruits joined the group from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Yemen, Qatar, Lebanon and Egypt. They crossed the Turkish border, which is very simple to do. The fighters from Europe and America follow the same route.

“The commanders told us that they were going to commit a terrorist act that would exceed the scale of the September 11 attacks on the US,” Mahmut Ghazi concluded.

Air France said Tuesday it is to resume flights from its Paris hub to Tehran, a route suspended in 2008 after Iran was hit with international sanctions over its nuclear ambitions, AFP reports.

“Air France is showing its ambition to develop its business in a country with dynamic growth, the European Union being Iran’s fourth-biggest economic partner,” the company said in a statement in revealing it would start three flights a week starting in April.

The move comes as the two countries look to strengthen commercial ties in the wake of last July’s landmark deal on Iran’s nuclear program following almost two years of talks.

Photo: EPA

 

Scott Weiland, former frontman of the US rock band Stone Temple Pilots, has died at the age of 48, the BBC reports.

The singer’s manager, Tom Vitorino, confirmed his death on Thursday night.

A statement, on Instagram, said Weiland had “passed away in his sleep while on a tour stop in Bloomington, Minnesota, with his band The Wildabouts.”

Weiland had a history of drug problems. He formed the Grammy-winning band Stone Temple Pilots, and was a member of supergroup Velvet Revolver.

TMZ is reporting Weiland’s body was discovered on his tour bus outside a motel, near the venue where the band were due to play.

Born in California, Weiland formed the band Stone Temple Pilots with brothers Robert and Dean DeLeo in the late 1990s and went on to enjoy early critical and commercial success.

But the success of tracks such as Big Empty, Vasoline and Interstate Love Song, which propelled the 1994 album Purple to the top of the US charts, was marred by in-fighting among band members.

The band took a number of breaks, with Weiland eventually leaving and forming the supergroup Velvet Revolver – with former Guns N’ Roses members Slash (guitars), Duff McKagan (bass) and Matt Sorum (drums) – in 2002.

However, the singer’s drug addiction issues were becoming increasingly problematic.

In 1995, the singer was convicted of buying crack cocaine and sentenced to probation.

He was jailed in 1999 for violating his probation after being convicted of heroin possession in 1998, and four years later, in 2003, sentenced to three years’ probation for drug possession.

In 2008, he was sentenced to eight days in jail after pleading no contest to a drink driving charge.

Velvet Revolver frequently had alter its schedules to accommodate Weiland’s court appearances and spells in rehab and the band’s 2007 release, Libertad, was the last to feature Weiland on vocals.

They parted ways with Weiland the following year, blaming the singer’s “erratic behaviour”.

He later returned to the reformed Stone Temple Pilots – but in 2013 they, too, ejected him from the band, claiming he had been “misappropriating” their name to further his solo career.

 

 

 

 

The US encourages Americans to consider all spheres of investment in Armenia, US Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills told reporters in Yerevan on the sidelines of the US–Armenia Joint Economic Task Force meeting.

The Ambassador said the IT filed is of particular interest for Americans. He said the US also supports agriculture, considering it the locomotive of economic growth.

“Armenia’s tourism sector is also in our spotlight. We’ll be launching a new tourism project tomorrow, aimed at boosting the development of tourism outside capital Yerevan,” Mr. Mills noted.

“The US has provided over $2 billion to Armenia since 1992. We believe this assistance has helped Armenia become a more prosperous country,” said Bridget A. Brink, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European & Eurasian Affairs.

“The United States is proud to help Armenia in its efforts,” she said.

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of State reminded about the visa facilitation for Armenian citizens and hailed the deal on Vorotan cascade. She said they would work jointly with the Armenian Government to have more investments in Armenia.

Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Integration and Reforms Vache Gabrielyan said “Armenia appreciates the friendly relations and cooperation with the United States and will do its best to expand mutual trade and investment opportunities.”

Photo by AFP/Maxim Grigoryev

 

Russia’s federal security service (FSB) on Tuesday said it would pay $50 million for information about “terrorists” who brought down the plane in Sinai last month with 224 people on board, AFP reports.

The FSB appealed for “help in identifying the terrorists” that exploded a bomb on the A321 plane travelling from Egypt to Russia. “There will be a reward of $50 million for information helping to arrest the criminals,” it said on its website.

The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire about 60 time last night, the NKR Ministry of Defense reports.

The rival fired more than 900 shots from weapons of different caliber, including 60 mm mortars in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army have given a worthy response to the rival’s actions and confidently continue with their military duty all along the line of contact.

The Jewish public policy umbrella called on the US government to recognize the World War I-era Turkish massacres of Armenians as a genocide, a reversal of years of the Jewish community treading delicately around the issue, the Times of Israel reports.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs at its annual meeting last week called on Jewish community organizations to lobby Congress and the White House to formally recognize the Armenian genocide. A JCPA spokesman on Wednesday confirmed that the resolution was the umbrella group’s first recognition of the Armenian genocide.

The Reform movement has called the massacres a genocide, but many other organizations have resisted such moves.

The JCPA decision, arrived at through consensus, reverses decades of Jewish groups opposing any such recognition, largely to placate Turkey, Israel’s closest ally in the region until the last decade. Key pro-Israel groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, had lobbied against such recognition.

The deterioration in Turkey-Armenia relations since Israel’s war against Hamas in the 2009 Gaza War — Turkey backed Hamas — has all but ended lobbying by pro-Israel groups on behalf of Turkey. But because calling the massacres a genocide has precipitated crises between Turkey and other nations, until now there has been little appetite for actively supporting such a recognition.

The resolution calls for the Jewish community to work with Armenian-American groups to advance recognition of the genocide.

“We must not let the politics of the moment, or the US government’s relationship with Turkey, sway our moral obligation to recognize the suffering of the Armenian people,” it says.

The JCPA conference also called on US and foreign governments to agree on a definition of anti-Semitism that would distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and unfair attacks.

Resolution on Armenian Genocide

Adopted October 2015

Historians and scholars tell us that the Armenian people were the victims of the first genocide of the twentieth century at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, the predecessors of modern-day Turkey. Approximately 1.5 million Armenians were killed or expelled from their homes and deported. The year 2015 is the 100th anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide. The government of Turkey has, to this day, refused to acknowledge such genocide took place.

The Armenian Genocide is a distant memory in the minds of the children of survivors. However, there is abundant documentation of the atrocities, particularly by former U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau. Nevertheless, Hitler stated in 1939, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

The Jewish communities, as the targets of one of the worst genocides of the twentieth century, have a bond with the Armenian people here in the United States and abroad. We have a moral obligation to work toward recognition of the genocide perpetrated against the Armenian people.

The word genocide was coined just prior to the end of World War II, and the word Holocaust did not come into common usage to describe what happened to the Jews until after WWII. However, the term “genocide” may be attributed to atrocities that meet the definition of genocide after they have taken place.

The U.S. government has yet to name what happened to the Armenian people for a variety of reasons. The most obvious is the fear that doing so will hurt our relationship with Turkey. Turkey spans the east and west. The United States needs Turkey’s permission to fly over its territory and for support services in the United States’ activities in Iraq, its attempts to keep Iran in check, and to fight ISIS.

After 100 years, it is time for the U.S. to face facts and acknowledge that what happened in 1915 and in subsequent years was genocide.

Since at least 1951 there have been numerous references by U.S. government officials, Congress, and previous presidents to what happened to the Armenians as genocide. These have often been during events held in commemoration of the anniversary of the start of the genocide. But efforts to pass a House resolution officially recognizing it have failed, often as a result of lobbying on behalf of Turkey.

President Barack Obama, as a senator, pledged to support congressional resolutions to recognize the Armenian Genocide. As a presidential candidate, he once again promised to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Yet once he became president, political realities prevented such a move.

At this time, some 23 foreign countries, a number of world organizations, and 44 U.S. states have recognized the genocide that took place against the Armenian people. The Union for Reform Judaism, Anti-Defamation League, and American Jewish Committee have previously taken positions recognizing the genocide, as well as some U.S. church groups.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs believes:

• The Jewish people have asked the world to bear witness to the Holocaust. As we say Never Again, we must likewise bear witness to other people’s genocide and say Never Again.

• We suffer greatly from efforts to minimize our own suffering and experience of genocide and we have a moral responsibility, as Jews, to name it in others’ experience.

• We must not let the politics of the moment, or the U.S. government’s relationship with Turkey, sway our moral obligation to recognize the suffering of the Armenian people.

• We call upon our the Congress and the President to officially recognize what started in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, and resulted in the killing and deportation of approximately 1.5 million Armenians, as the Armenian Genocide.

The community relations field should:

• Consult and work with the national Armenian organizations to further the goal of U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

• Consult and work with the major Jewish organizations to raise awareness of the issue and gain their support in working to gain U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

• Consult and work with our interfaith coalition partners to further the aim of U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

• Urge our congressional representatives to support resolutions in Congress that call for the United States to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

• Call upon the President to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire about 120 times last night, the NKR Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The rival fired more than 2,000 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions from weapons of different caliber, including 60 and 82mm mortars.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army keep control of the situation all along the line of contact and confidently continue with their military duty.

Seyyed Kazem Sajjad, the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) to the Republic of Armenia, handed over his credentials to President Serzh Sargsyan, President’s Press Office reported.

Armenia’s president congratulated the ambassador on starting his diplomatic duties in our country and wished him success. Serzh Sargsyan spoke highly of the activities carried out by the IRI embassy in Armenia for the last 20 years and expressed the hope that Ambassador Sajjad will continue to pay close attention to Armenian-Iranian relations, following the example of his predecessors who completed their diplomatic tenure in Armenia and filled the ranks of the Armenian people’s friends, by making every effort to further strengthen relations and broaden cooperation between the two countries.

Noting that Ambassador Sajjad has taken office in an important period of time, when a senior-level visit from the friendly country of Iran is expected to be paid by IRI First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri, the president stressed that it is a great start and opportunity for the newly-appointed ambassador to engage in productive activities.

At the meeting, the RA president and the IRI ambassador touched upon the implementation of Armenian-Iranian large multi-sectoral projects adopted as a result of the high-level bilateral agreements, which, they were certain, will elevate bilateral relations to a qualitatively new level.

The interlocutors agreed that the new integration processes open up broader opportunities to promote collaboration between Armenia and Iran in both bilateral and multilateral formats.

The ambassador highly praised the Iranian-Armenian community, stressing the community’s major role in strengthening bilateral interstate relations. Considering it a great honor to assume the office of the ambassador to Armenia, Seyyed Kazem Sajjad assured the president that he will continue his predecessors’ work with the same devotion and vigor and building on that solid foundation, he will try his best to develop and further enhance Armenian-Iranian ties.

The Joint exercise of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) peacekeeping forces codenamed Nerushimoe Bratstvo (Enduring Brotherhood) is beginning in Armenia on Wednesday, TASS reports.

The drills are held in accordance with the decision of the CSTO Council of Defense Ministers and the Committee of CSTO Security Council Secretaries, adopted in December 2014. The maneuvers are aimed at “preparation and conduct of peacekeeping operations by the CSTO Collective Peacekeeping Forces in the Caucasus region of collective security.”

The exercise will involve representatives and units of the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, which are members of the CSTO Collective Peacekeeping Forces. In addition, representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as well as the Joint Staff and the Secretariat of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation will attend the drills.

The Armenian Defense Ministry reported previously that “the commanders and staffs during the exercise will drill preparation of a peacekeeping operation and command and control of units of the CSTO Collective Peacekeeping Forces.”

The Russian army is represented at the drills by 100 troops of the peacekeeping brigade of the Central Military District and 10 military hardware units, a Defense Ministry official told TASS.

The total number of troops contributed to the CSTO Collective Peacekeeping Forces is about 4,000, including about 500 officers of law enforcement bodies and the emergencies ministries. The Nerushimoe Bratstvo peacekeeping exercise is held annually since 2012.