Author: Kalantarian Kevo

ISLAMIC STATE OVERRUNS HISTORIC CHRISTIAN AREA IN SYRIA, ABDUCTS 90

Dalje.com , Croatia
Feb 24 2015

Islamic State extremists have abducted at least 90 Christians after
storming villages in the historic heartland of the country’s Assyrian
minority, a monitoring group said Tuesday.

Villagers fled the jihadist advance, launched early on Monday, to
the cities of al-Hassakeh and Qamishli where they were sheltered by
local churches.

“There are dozens of families whose fate is still not known,” one of
the refugees, Shmouna Yunan, told dpa by phone from al-Hassakeh.

“Terror is everywhere in our areas, the sound of bullets has been
keeping our children awake.”

A local Assyrian militia which fights alongside Kurdish forces said
they were trying to recapture villages along the Khabur river west
of al-Hassakeh seized by the jihadists.

A spokesman for the Syriac Military Council said it did not yet have
an estimate for the number of people abducted. The Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights put the number at at least 90.

The Britain-based group earlier said its sources had heard Islamic
State fighters in conversation on walkie-talkies discussing the
capture of “56 crusader prisoners.”

An official of the Assyrian Church in Beirut, who asked not to be
named, said that four churches – one of them among the oldest in
Syria – had been burned down by the jihadists.

The curate of one al-Hassakeh church appealed for aid for the refugees,
saying the local churches were not able to cope with the influx.

“The weather is cold and there is nowhere warm for them to stay. Food
and medicine prices are high,” the curate, who asked not to be named,
said. “Syrians, Muslims and Christians alike are faced with a human
tragedy and nobody pays any heed.”

Other refugees said local Christians were being exposed to ethnic
cleansing.

“We are falling victim to genocide, they torture us and expel us
and nobody comes to our aid,” said Ninos Khoshaba, an agricultural
engineer in his 30s, adding that hundreds of families were still
fleeing to Qamishli and al-Hassakeh.

The jihadist assault on the Khabur villages came as the Kurdish
People’s Protection Units claimed advances against Islamic State
north-east of al-Hassakeh.

The Observatory said the Syrian Kurdish forces, backed up by US-led air
raids and cross-border artillery fire from the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga,
had captured 30 settlements from the jihadists in recent days.

The United Nations Monday released a report saying that Islamic State
had committed possible acts of genocide when it targeted Yezidi,
Christian and Shiite communities in Iraq last year.

Earlier this month the group published a video showing its fighters
in Libya beheading 21 mostly Egyptian Christian migrant workers,
whom it also termed “crusaders.”

Assyrian Christians have for centuries lived in several dozen villages
in the fertile land along the banks of the Khabur river west of
al-Hassakeh.

Local sources say that the river forms the effective boundary between
areas controlled by the YPG and those held by Islamic State, and that
many civilians had already left the villages on the south bank.

The Assyrians follow an ancient Eastern Christian rite and speak a
form of Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Their largest communities
are in north-eastern Syria and nearby areas of northern Iraq.

They have suffered several waves of persecution, most notably during
the massacres often referred to as the Armenian Genocide in Turkey
in 1915.

NIKOL PASHINYAN DEMANDS THAT NKR AUTHORITIES SHOULD PUNISH THE POLICEMEN WHO BEAT FOUNDING PARLIAMENT’S MEMBERS

by Ashot Safaryan

Tuesday, February 24, 21:05

Armenian MP Nikol Pashinyan demands that the NKR authorities should
punish the policemen who beat Founding Parliament’s members in Berdzor
on Jan 31.

In his today’s speech at the Armenian Parliament, Pashinyan said
that the Berdzor events questioned the legitimacy of the numerous
statements of Armenian delegations to international structures,
who said that the NKR has statehood, law and democracy.

“On Feb 6, the Armenian parliamentary delegation visited Stepanakert
to discuss the issue of liquidation of the Berdzor incident
consequences. During the debates with the NKR authorities, my
stand was unambiguous – those who organized and applied violence
against the motor rally participants should be brought to criminal
responsibility in line with the NKR legislation and the high-ranking
officials of the police should be dismissed. This stand was clear to
Artsakh. However, it is more than strange that no criminal case has
even been instituted”, said Pashinyan.

Pashinyan believes that the only way to liquidate the incident
consequences is to punish the culprits; otherwise, the events in
Berdzor undermine the statehood and the image of the NKR.

To remind, on Jan 31 the representatives of the Founding Parliament,
including the Artsakh War veteran Zhirayr Sefilyan, were severely
beaten by the NKR police on their way to Artsakh near Berdzor. The NKR
police were trying to hinder the motor rally within the frames of the
“Centennial Without Regime” movement, which seeks to shift the power
in Armenia on the threshold of the centenary of the Armenian Genocide.

The movement members say that most of the policemen were wearing
civilian clothes. The police were taking the motor rally participants
out of the cars and beating them with batons. Many activists were
taken to Stepanakert hospital.

JUDGMENT ON AZERBAIJANI SABOTEURS MADE AND NOT SUBJECT TO CHANGES: KARABAKH PRESIDENT’S SPOKESPERSON

14:52, 24 February, 2015

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 24, ARMENPRESS: The authorities of the Nagorno
Karabakh Republic have not received any oral or written proposal to
return the Azerbaijani saboteurs. The Spokesperson of the President of
the Nagorno Karabakh Republic David Babayan told Armenpress about it.

Jen Psaki, the spokeswoman for the Department of State, announced
during the State Department briefing that the return of the Azerbaijani
saboteurs Dilham Askerov and Shahbaz Guliyev, arrested in Stepanakert,
to the Azerbaijani government will reduce the tension between the
Nagorno Karabakh conflict sides.

“I think that the following took place: during some meetings with
the US co-chair or other representatives in Azerbaijan, they asked
that Americans raise this issue. Because I do not think that it is in
the interests of the United States to show concern about the life or
destiny of the saboteurs and terrorists, especially when they face
no danger. These people are in prison and their guilt was proved in
the process of transparent and democratic procedure”, – said Babayan.

SDHP CONDEMNS UNITED STATES’ CALLS TO HAND AZERBAIJANI DIVERSIONISTS OVER TO BAKU

20:15, 24 February, 2015

YEREVAN, 24 FEBRUARY, ARMENPRESS. The Armenia chapter of the Social
Democrat Hunchakian Party condemns the U.S. State Department’s
calls to the authorities of Artsakh to hand the criminal Azerbaijani
diversionists over to Baku.

The following is also mentioned in the statement that the Social
Democrat Hunchakian Party’s Armenia chapter transmitted to
“Armenpress”:

“The SDHP believes that we are dealing with double standards once
again. The arrested diversionists killed two innocent civilians
and heavily injured another. Alongside that, the Artsakh Republic
held an open and transparent trial, and the diversionists received
the punishment that they deserved. The SDHP also believes Armenia’s
Ministry of Foreign Affairs is committing another crime by keeping
silent and not giving a crude response to the statements made by
the two officials of the U.S. Department of State. In general,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of a country in war has to be more
daring and enterprising. On several occasions, different members of
the SDHP have declared that the silence of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in cases of challenges is simply incomprehensible and may
become cowardice.”

BHK CONFERENCE IN THE BEGINNING OF MARCH: AZATUTYUN

16:23 | February 24,2015 | Politics

In the beginning of March the 8thconference of Prosperous Armenia
Party (BHK) will be held, BHK press secretary Tigran Urikhanyan told
“Azatutyun”.

Asked whether the issue of BHK leader Gagik Tsarukyan’s resignation
as the Party Head will be included in the conference’s agenda,
Urikhanyan answered, “The issues of conference’s agenda and the future
developments will be commented and discussed when decisions are made.”

More here

IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR KHOJALY EVENTS, LOOK FOR THEM IN AZERBAIJAN: ARTAK ZAKARYAN

19:21, 24 Feb 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Speaking at the Parliament today, Chairman of the National Assembly’s
Standing Committee on Foreign Relations Artak Zakaryan referred to
the Azerbaijani propagana campaign on the so-called “Khojaly” events:

“Azerbaijan’s costly propaganda in different corners of the world is
continuing its fraud march, which in these days is devoted to so-called
“Khojaly,” actually to the Aghdam events. What happened?

On February 26, 1992, Aghdam events took place, which are
interpreted as “Khojaly massacre” by Azerbaijan. During these events,
the Azerbaijani armed groupings ruthlessly shot down a number of
residents of Khojaly settlement in a territory under their control. In
order to overthrow President Muthalibov, the opposition Azerbaijani
National Front used the forced operation of Karabakh armed forces
aimed to suppress the Azeri shooting, as this was where capital
Stepanakert and surrounding areas were being shelled from. This is
also evidenced by President Ayaz Mutalibov in his interview on 2th
of April, 1992 to ” Nezavisimaya Gazeta.” Before the operation, the
Karabakh side, according to the norms of humanitarian law, informed
Khojaly authorities about planned operation and leaving a corridor
for the safe evacuation of Azerbaijani population.

After the tragic events in the territories controlled by Azerbaijanis
Azeri journalist Cnigiz Mustafaev photographed and filmed the dead
bodies which were not disfigured. The existing files confirm that
the Karabakh side physically was not able to access the territories
where the people were killed and the bodies were disfigured.

After the upheaval followed by Khojaly provocation, the Azerbaijani
new leadership headed by Abulfaz Elchibey, initiated a deliberate
falsification of the events to conceal his monstrous crime interpreting
it as “a massacre” of civilians by Karabakh forces.

This policy is being continued by official Azerbaijan till today. By
distorted propaganda of presenting Aghdam events as massacre of Khojaly
Azerbaijani authorities are trying to hit the international reputation
of two Armenian states, to impose the distorted interpretation of
the events on the international community to boost anti-Armenian moods.

I call on our partner parliamentarians from different states,
municipal and provincial councils to avoid the pitfalls of Azerbaijani
propaganda. Don’t buy into false information and fictitious events.

Keep clean the parliamentary agendas and don’t let the Azerbaijani
propaganda penetrate there. If you are looking for those responsible
for Khojaly events, so look for them in Azerbaijan.”

WHY IS SULEYMAN SHAH’S TOMB SO IMPORTANT?

22 February 2015 Last updated at 14:36 GMT

The tomb of Suleyman Shah has now been evacuated and destroyed by
the Turkish military

Scores of Turkish troops and vehicles have entered Syria to evacuate
and destroy a mausoleum where a forefather of the Ottoman empire
was buried. The BBC’s Matthew Davis considers why the site was so
important.

The now ruined tomb of Suleyman Shah stands on a football pitch-sized
spit of Turkish land inside Syria, but its historical and political
significance belie this humble geography.

Shah was a Turkic tribal leader who lived from about 1178 until 1236,
when according to an epigraph in his mausoleum he “drowned in the
Euphrates along with two of his men, in search for a home for himself
and his people”.

Official accounts are questioned by some, but the story goes that
Shah’s followers headed north into modern-day Turkey.

It was there that his grandson, Osman I, founded the Ottoman Empire,
which at the height of its powers centuries later controlled swathes
of territory across south-west Europe, the Middle East and North
Africa from its capital in Constantinople (now Istanbul).

The Ottoman empire had disintegrated by the early 20th Century, and
the new state of Turkey emerged – but such was the national importance
of Shah’s burial complex that the site was protected under a 1921
agreement with France, which then occupied the area now located in
Syria’s Aleppo province.

The now-destroyed complex was on a spit of land by the Euphrates river

Since then, Turkey has invoked its right to station troops there and
fly its flag over the site, which was relocated some 80km (50 miles)
to the north when the original area was flooded by the creation of
the reservoir Lake Assad in 1974.

Turkey’s only foreign enclave has retained immense emotional value
for its people, but the chaos engulfing Syria in recent years has
seen it assume a growing political significance.

In August 2012 President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – then prime minister –
warned all parties in the Syrian conflict that an action against the
tomb would be considered an attack on Turkish territory “as well an
attack on Nato land”.

And amid reports that the soldiers stationed there had been besieged
for months by Islamic State militants, last year the Turkish parliament
authorised the use of force against the jihadists.

However despite recently joining the US in training some rebels
fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, Turkey has resisted playing
a full role in the US-led campaign against Islamic State.

Correspondents say that if the historic Suleyman Shah tomb had come
under attack, the effect on public opinion would have made it harder
for Turkey to avoid a full-scale military campaign against the group.

So the fact that the tomb is now moved and the Turkish soldiers
evacuated is a great relief for the nation and its leaders, local
commentators say.

“We had given the Turkish armed forces a directive to protect our
spiritual values and the safety of our armed forces personnel,”
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said after Saturday’s operation.

Turkish media later showed images of three soldiers raising the flag at
a new site closer to the Turkish border, which is likely to host a new
tomb that authorities hope will provide a final home for Suleyman Shah.

This is the new resting place for the remains of Suleyman Shah

ANALYST: SLUMP IN EXPORTS IN JANUARY CONDITIONED BY RUSSIAN CRISIS, UNCERTAINTY IN TRADE REGULATIONS

ECONOMY | 24.02.15 | 11:16

By SARA KHOJOYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter

While the Armenian government says it is taking all measures to
activate the country’s economy and to disprove negative predictions
of international institutions, economic indexes registered in last
month are already considered alarming by experts.

According to the data published by the National Statistical Service
(NSS), in January this year, compared to January 2014, economic
activity increased by 1.3 percent, and the largest positive progress
was registered in the field of services – 3.8 percent, construction
volume grew by 2.2 percent, agricultural gross production – by 1.8
percent.

Other indexes, however, are negative – a 4.3-percent inflation,
electricity production fell by almost 20 percent, a 7.4-percent
decrease was registered in sales, a 6.3-percent decline of volume of
industrial production.

“Compared to last January, this January’s indices are upsetting,
and this is a process that started still last October-December,
it is conditioned by the Russian crisis and the vulnerability
of our economy,” Hayk Gevorgyan, an economic analyst writing for
the pro-opposition Haykakan Zhamanak (Armenian Time) daily, told
ArmeniaNow.

Another negative index is more than 30 percent decline of foreign
trade turnover, as well as almost 22 percent decline of export,
which Gevorgyan again explains by the problems in the Russian economy.

“Since the NSS indices are preliminary, and in their report it does
not specify export to which countries declined and for which goods,
it is impossible to say more now. But the main reasons I think
is the Armenian dram’s devaluation to a lesser degree than the
Russian ruble’s, besides exporters are still waiting for new export
regulations.”

According to Gevorgyan, although in any country the national currency’s
devaluation gives an extra trigger to exporters, however, the Russian
market, which our government saw as a potential market for increasing
the export, does not look appealing for businessmen.

“As the dram lost its value by 18 percent, and in Russia the ruble
devaluation was by 100 percent, in Russia the selling price for our
products will be higher than of the products produced locally and,
hence, we cannot export our products to Russia.”

“The Russian market is becoming less and less appealing for us;
that is first of all conditioned by the exchange rate, as I wrote,
the other factor is the decline of the purchasing power [of the
population] in Russia,” the economic analyst added.

At the same time he said that it is not clear how the NSS presents
foreign trade, whether the export to the Eurasian Economic Union
(EEU) states is registered as internal sales or not.

“Maybe such a decline is explained by the fact that after becoming a
member of the EEU, foreign trade with the other EEU-member states is
not registered as foreign trade. That will become clear in one week
when the NSS publishes a more complete report,” Gevorgyan said.

Armenia joined the EEU that also includes Russia, Belarus and
Kazakhstan on January 2.

SEVERAL ALEPPO ARMENIANS KILLED AND INJURED

Lragir.am
Country – 23 February 2015, 11:02

Mortar fire by armed militants at different districts of Aleppo killed
and injured several, the Facebook page of the Gandzasar informed. Sago
Karakyulean and Haroot Aksanean were killed, Jacques Aksanean, Hovsep
Chaloghlean, Avo Zarminean, Levon Barseghean and Nazo Aksanean were
injured.

>, >, >

ARMENIE

Tels sont les principaux titres de la presse, qui rend compte de
la reponse de Gaguik Tsaroukian, president d’Armenie prospère, a
un discours > de Serge Sarkissian a son encontre . Prenant
la parole lors d’une reunion de son parti, M. Tsaroukian a denonce
comme > le discours de Serge Sarkissian, celui-ci
ayant outrepasse les ,
M. Tsaroukian a neanmoins note qu’il a toujours ete sincère dans son
souhait d’aider son peuple. Il a denonce l’etat social dans lequel se
trouve l’Armenie, deplorant que >, n’ait rien dit sur la decroissance economique,
sur le taux de la pauvrete, sur la diminution des investissements,
sur l’enrichissement de son plus proche entourage et sur la terreur
qui règnerait dans le monde des affaires etc. M. Tsaroukian a en
outre dit qu’il n’etait point panique de la perspective d’etre prive
de son mandat parlementaire et des inspections fiscales au sein
de ses societes. Selon lui, au cours des sept annees de presidence
de Serge Sarkissian, les societes appartenant a sa famille ont ete
scrupuleusement inspectees par les organes competents. Par ailleurs,
le President d’Armenie prospère a voulu ouvrir les >,
en indiquant notamment que plusieurs propositions >
lui avaient ete faites de la part des autorites contre son soutien a la
reforme constitutionnelle. Selon lui, on lui a meme propose le poste
de President de la Republique, a condition que le parti Republicain
maintienne, une fois la constitution changee, tous les postes cles
du Gouvernement. M. Tsaroukian a dit avoir rejete categoriquement
cette proposition antietatique, >. Il a rappele que durant la presidence
de Serge Sarkissian, la dette exterieure de l’Etat a augmente de
3 milliards de dollars. >,
a-t-il lance. qu’aurait commis Gaguik Tsaroukian et de n’avoir rien entrepris en
tant que President de la Republique, en s’en faisant complice : >.

Selon le CNA, les accusations de Serge Sarkissian contre G. Tsaroukian
sont valables pour 90% des membres de son parti Republicain.

Extrait de la revue de presse de l’Ambassade de France en Armenie en
date du 16 fevrier 2015

lundi 23 fevrier 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com