15:21,
STEPANAKERT, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. During the period from September 6 to 12 the Azerbaijani forces violated the ceasefire in the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line of contact nearly 310 times, by firing more than 3200 shots from various caliber weapons at the Armenian positions, the defense ministry of Artsakh told Armenpress.
The Artsakh Defense Army forces keep the situation under control and continue confidently conducting their combat duties.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
15:17, 9 September, 2020
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 9, ARMENPRESS. The Hayastan All Armenian Fund donated around 70,000 dollars to help mitigate the COVID-19-related healthcare and socio-economic situation of the Syrian-Armenians.
The fund’s director Haykak Arshamyan transferred the donation to the Armenian Embassy in Damascus on September 9.
“The donation is proportionally distributed – 30,000 dollars to the 502 teachers and 42 maintenance staff of Armenian educational institutions in Syria. At the same time a total of 40,000 dollars in assistance was provided to our compatriots who are being treated in hospitals in Syria,” the fund said.
The donation was made from the COVID-19 Armenia: Let’s Overcome the Pandemic Together fundraiser.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
VAN, Turkey
A millennium-old Armenian church this Sunday celebrated a special mass in eastern Turkey.
The Armenian Akdamar Church of the Holy Cross – an invaluable piece of Turkish cultural heritage located in the Van province – hosted the mass amid precautionary measures due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The 1,100-year-old church is opened for worship once a year with special permission of the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry.
The mass, which normally draws thousands of local and international tourists, this year gathered a limited number of visitors due to virus safety measures.
The roughly two-hour mass ceremony aired live. A team of 25 people came from Istanbul to perform the ritual.
Speaking to the press afterwards, Van Governor Mehmet Emin Bilmez said that due to virus measures: “Today, a small group of the Armenian community performed a symbolic ritual here.”
Sahak Mashalian, head of the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul, thanked officials who made it possible to hold the mass.
Akdamar Church, a medieval Armenian place of worship in Turkey’s eastern Van province, was built around 915-921 A.D. by architect Bishop Manuel under the direction of King Gagik I Artsruni.
The church, which has a special place in East-West Christian art, carries the most important adornments and the most comprehensive wall reliefs of its time and was added to UNESCO’s Tentative List of World Heritage in 2015.
Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry has done extensive renovation and restoration work to bring the medieval church back to its former glory.
On Sept. 19, 2010, Akdamar Church hosted its first service after a 95-year break. The church opened for service every year for one day, with the last service in 2019 attracting thousands of local and international tourists to Van
*Writing by Handan Kazanci
Turkey’s attempts to disrupt NATO and UN-led peacekeeping activities is deplorable, Spokesperson for the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anna Naghdalyan told a press conference today.
The comments come after Der Spiegel’s report saying Turkey denied airspace to a German military plane en-route to Armenia.
According to the source, the plane was to pick up Armenian peacekeepers, who were due to be trained in Germany ahead of peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.
“As far as I’m informed the Ministry of Defense has not refuted this information,” Naghdalyan told reporters.
“It’s deplorable that Turkey is already obstructing the peacekeeping activities within the framework of NATO and UN because of its anti-Armenian stance,” she added.
The Spokesperson noted that Armenia has raised the issue with international partners through diplomatic channels.
According to Der Spiegel’s information, Turkish air traffic controllers, without explanation, refused to allow the Bundeswehr aircraft to fly via the country’s airspace, forcing the Airbus 310 to return to its base in Cologne.
As a result, the German Air Force had to choose a much longer flight route over Russia in mid-August to transport the soldiers.
According to Spiegel, the German military sees the incident as a deliberate provocation of Ankara.
YEREVAN. – We are on the way to losing Sevan. Environmentalist Karine Danielyan, who is also President of the “For Sustainable Human Development” NGO of Armenia, said this Tuesday during a meeting with journalists, talking about the “flourishing” of Lake Sevan.
“The lake is turning into a swamp,” said the ecologist, adding that by losing the lake, we are also losing Armenia.
She noted that in 2017 and 2018, there was a negative balance in connection with Lake Sevan; that is, instead of rising, the water level of the lake fell, which is a blow to it. “The ‘flourishing’ shows that the swamping process has intensified.
[But] in this regard, there is a positive thing that a huge project has been developed with the support of the European Union, which all the data on Sevan, the catchment area collected. Everything is given in detail as to what to do, how to do it.”
The environmentalist noted that this project will be launched in 2021. But according to her, it is necessary to create a fund to save Lake Sevan. “However, we should not waste time and wait for 2021. It is necessary to engage in cleaning Sevan as soon as possible because if we add—to the many problems that have arisen—the problem of Amulsar [gold mine project], the blow that the lake shall suffer, there will be enormous damage. No matter how much they say they will use new technologies, the problem is that the mine is so special that it’s all the same; the risk exists, whatever technology they use,” she said.
Karine Danielyan added that it is incomprehensible to her that despite such low gold reserves at Amulsar, they want to operate a mine in that area. “The peculiarity is that when the water touches the mine, that sulfide drainage will immediately begin to form; the acidic substances that will reach Lake Sevan one way or another. This is a blow that simply cannot be allowed to reach Sevan,” the environmentalist added.