Author: Kalantarian Kevo

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 21 2015

Gallipoli commemorations cancelled due to lack of international interest

February 21, 2015, Saturday/ 17:00:00/ LAMÄ°YA ADÄ°LGIZI / ISTANBUL

Centennial commemorations of the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I
initiated by the Turkish government and to be celebrated on April 24
of this year — the same date as the centennial commemorations of what
is called the `Armenian genocide’ — have been cancelled due to the
unwillingness of international leaders to visit Ankara and overshadow
the genocide ceremonies in Yerevan.

`The Gallipoli celebrations have been cancelled. All preparations have
been suspended as the number of RSVPs to the invitation is not
positive. Only five countries have accepted the invitation and they
will not be represented by high-level officials,’ an official from the
government, who asked to remain anonymous, said in a talk with
Sunday’s Zaman.

The suspension of the Gallipoli commemorations, which were being
organized by the Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sport, is part of
longstanding war of words between the Turkish and Armenian leaders
following an exchange of invitations by both sides urging each other
to accept the request and honor their victims of the World War I in
their respective countries. However, neither side appears to be
compromising.

The tense ties between Armenians and Turks became particularly
strained after Ankara decided to commemorate the Gallipoli Campaign on
the same date as the 100th anniversary of the 1915 events that led to
the killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during WWI. The Turkish
government sent invitations to more than 100 leaders around the world,
including Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, to attend the event. The
campaign was one of the most famous battles of WWI when Ottoman troops
resisted the invading Allied forces who sought to control the
Gallipoli peninsula on the Dardanelles strait.

“We fought together as one of a kind. That’s why we invited Sarksyan,”
a government official was quoted by local media as saying, referring
to the participation of Armenian minorities alongside Turks in the
Ottoman army.

Yerevan rejected the invitation and in an open letter to President
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, Sarksyan said the invitation itself showed
Turkey’s continuing policy of denying the Armenian genocide and
emphasized that Turkey needs to recognize the 1915 killings as a
genocide.

A couple of months earlier Sarksyan had first invited ErdoÄ?an — after
he was elected president in August of last year — to join Armenians
in commemorating the victims of the Armenian `genocide’ in Yerevan on
April 24. The invitation was presented by Armenian Foreign Minister
Eduard Nalbandyan during the first official visit of an Armenian
minister to Ankara.

Armenians claim that 1.5 million Armenians were systematically killed
in the final years of the Ottoman Empire in a way that constitutes
genocide, a claim categorically denied by Turkey. Ankara says the
death toll is inflated and denies that the events of 1915 amounted to
genocide, arguing instead that both Turks and Armenians were killed
when Armenians revolted against the Ottoman Empire during WWI in
collaboration with the Russian army, which was then invading Eastern
Anatolia. Every year on April 24, Armenians around the world
commemorate the Armenian victims who died at the end of WWI.

The latest debacle in the already heated relations between Turkey and
Armenia was Sarksyan’s withdrawal of the Zurich protocols from the
Armenian Parliament. “The Turkish government has no political will,
distorts the spirit of the protocols and continues its policy of
setting preconditions,” Sarksyan said in a statement issued on Monday,
adding that Turkey’s “policy of denial and rewriting of history” on
the eve of the 100th anniversary of the 1915 killings is being revived
in Ankara.

The Zurich protocols, intended to normalize ties between Turkey and
Armenia, were signed in Zurich on Oct. 10, 2009 with the aim of
establishing diplomatic relations and opening the two countries’ land
border, which was closed in solidarity with Azerbaijan after
Armenia-backed armed forces seized Azerbaijani territories as part of
the Nagorno-Karabakh war. The normalization process had been
deadlocked ever since as neither Parliament approved the deal. Both
Ankara and Yerevan have accused each other of setting new conditions
on the deal agreed to in Zurich years ago. Turkey has many times
stated that any development, such as reconciliation or opening the
border between the two estranged nations, could not be expected until
Armenia settles the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan,
Turkey’s ally in the region.

Instead, Ankara extended its commitment to the peace protocols.
Calling Armenia’s decision `inconsistent and insincere,’ Turkish
Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgiç said on Tuesday that Armenia
wanted further reasons to criticize Turkey ahead of the 100th
anniversary of the 1915 events.

`The real test will be in April,’ said Richard Giragosian, the
director of the Yerevan-based Regional Studies Center (RSC), adding
that although the current developments seem to taint relations, they
do not necessarily signal the death of the normalization process
although the process itself has reached its lowest point.

Relating the tense political atmosphere on the Armenian-Turkish
normalization to the domestic issues in both countries — the upcoming
June general election for which ErdoÄ?an is trying to secure votes and
Sarksyan using the protocols to deal with his own domestic political
troubles — Giragosian says the test will depend more on what Turkish
leaders say and do on April 24.

Last April ErdoÄ?an extended his condolences to Armenians over what
happened in 1915, although the act did not meet the expectations of
Yerevan or the Armenian diaspora.

In Ankara, Güner Ã-zkan, an expert on the Caucasus at the International
Strategic Research Organization (USAK), is not positive about any new
developments in the Turkish-Armenian ties at least until the upcoming
general election in Turkey on June 7.

Calling Sarksyan’s latest step a “unilaterial decision,” Ã-zkan doesn’t
seem convinced as to the continuation of the precedent established by
ErdoÄ?an a year ago: “I don’t expect any sudden move [from Turkish
leaders including ErdoÄ?an] especially under the increasing pressure on
Ankara on the eve of the approaching 100th anniversary of the
so-called genocide and the upcoming election.”

Armenia Government gives no answer to chemical plant workers

16:55, 20.02.2015

YEREVAN. – Hundreds of employees of Nairit chemical rubber plant of
Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan, and who demand their unpaid
salaries, had assembled outside the Government building on Friday and
they were demanding the promised response.

Several days ago, the government had promised the Nairit workers that
a timetable would be prepared on the payment of these wages and this
timetable would be presented to them by no later than Friday.

The workers, however, did not receive the government’s promised
response on Friday, and therefore they marched toward the Office of
the President.

At the presidential office, the head of its Department of Letters and
Receptions, Aida Asatryan, received several Nairit employees.

“We passed on our demands which they promised to transmit to the
leadership,” Nairit CJSC Press Secretary Anush Harutyunyan, who also
attended the aforementioned meeting, told Armenian News-NEWS.am. “We
decided to again stage protests outside the presidential residence,
since any response–which we get even from the ministry–will not be
without the President’s decision.”

Subsequently, the Nairit workers ended their protest for the day, and
their next demonstration will be on February 23.

As reported earlier, a total of 1,700 Nairit employees were formally
discharged as of February 6. The eighteen months of unpaid wages of
the employees of Nairit chemical rubber plant, which no longer
operates, total Armenian drams equivalent to approximately $15
million. The workers had assembled outside the Government Building and
the Office of the President numerous times and demanded a solution to
their problems, but to no avail, so far.

Historian about recall of protocols. “The Turkish side can go for
provocations.”

February 21 2015

Aravot.am asked the Head of the Department of the Armenian Cause and
History of the Armenian Genocide, Institute of History at the Armenian
National Academy of Sciences Armen Marukyan about how he assesses, as
a historian, the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan’s decision to
recall the Armenia-Turkey protocols. “This move is logical and
completely fits in the spirit and letter of the Pan-Armenian
Declaration, because there was already some discrepancy between the
Declaration and the Protocols, because whenever we refer to Woodrow
Wilson’s arbiter decision and the Treaty of Sevres, and we knew what
territories and boundaries were included in this document, it is
obvious that the covert reference here towards the Treaty of Kars,
i.e. the existing border document, reaffirms this provision of the
countries, somewhat opposes to it, and it is no more logical to
continue the process of overcoming the consequences of the Armenian
genocide, given these protocols at the legislative body,” said the
historian.

In his words, this is the first move that needs to be reinforced by
the second move, also by recall of the signature. “Unless the
signature of the Republic of Armenia is underneath this document, it
is not ruled out that the Turkish side can go for provocations and
ratify the protocols after we remove it from the agenda to show to the
international community, look, how more law-abiding country I am than
the neighboring Armenia, while everyone knows that the Turkish side
was the one to violate it. Hence, after the recall, all possible
Turkish provocations will become null and void. These are the correct
and sequential moves by which the Republic of Armenia and all
Armenians should move ahead to the centennial of the Armenian
Genocide,” opines Head of the Department of the Armenian Cause and
History of the Armenian Genocide, Institute of History at the Armenian
National Academy of Sciences Armen Marukyan.

Gohar HAKOBYAN
Read more at:

Azerbaijani Side Reported 1 Soldier Killed

Lragir.am
Country – 21 February 2015, 11:42

The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense informed that the Azerbaijani
serviceman Zyalimkhan Eybali oghlu Javadov was killed at the line of
contact. According to the Azerbaijani side, he fell from a bullet shot
by the Armenian side. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense claims that
after the OSCE Minsk Group had left, the Armenian side carried out a
sabotage.

The Azerbaijan MoD does not specify the section of the line of contact
where its soldier was killed.

FOOTBALL
L’international arménien Youra Movsissian gagnera 3,5 millions d’euros
par an au Spartak Moscou

D’après le journal russe « Ð`звеÑ?Ñ?иÑ? », le salaire de l’international
arménien et attaquant du Spartak Moscou, Youra Movsissian (27 ans) est
revu à la hausse. Désormais, Youra Movsissian percevra un salaire
annuel de 3,5 millions d’euros jusqu’en 2019 date de son fin de
contrat avec Spartak Moscou. Si d’ici la fin de saison l’international
arménienne arrive à exceller dans les buts et « dernière-passe de but
» et remportant un minimum de 20 points au Spartak Moscou, son salaire
serait complété d’une somme de 1,5 million d’euros.

Krikor Amirzayan

samedi 21 février 2015,
Krikor Amirzayan ©armenews.com

Kardashians involved in car accident in Montana

14:16, 22 Feb 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Khloe and Kim Kardashian are safe after the vehicle they were in slid
off a Montana road and into a ditch on Saturday.

Montana Highway Patrol Capt. Mark Wilfore says the accident occurred
before noon on a highway between Bozeman and Belgrade, where the
Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport is located, the Associated
Press reports.

Wilfore said a third person in the vehicle was not hurt and was not
identified. He said there was no damage to the vehicle, which was
pulled from a ditch and driven away.

Wilfore says the accident occurred when the GMC Yukon being driven by
Khloe Kardashian hit a patch of black ice and slid off the road on a
two-lane road.

Kim later tweeted: “Thank you God for watching over us and keeping us safe.”

“War of 1988 became a salvation”: Igor Muradyan (video)

11:04 | February 21,2015 | Interview

When did you realize that you must go to the Freedom Square and must
speak about Karabakh from there? The question is addressed to Igor
Muradyan.

The interview of Aram Abrahamyan- below

Peninsula Online, Qatar
Feb 22 2015

Boxing: Abraham has boxing former DJ in a spin

February 22, 2015 – 5:30:39 pm

Berlin–Arthur Abraham retained his WBO super-middleweight world title
on Saturday with a second successive victory over former British DJ
turned boxer Paul Smith in Berlin.

The 35-year-old champion, who was born in Armenia but moved to Germany
with his parents at 15, won convincingly on points on all three
judges’ cards, just as he had in the first contest in Kiel last
September.

For ‘King Arthur’ it was his 41st victory of his career, against four
defeats, and his third successful defence of the belt he regained from
German Robert Stieglitz in March last year.

Smith, emboldened by the vocal support of around 3,000 of his
compatriots in the crowd, was the more aggressive of the two fighters
from the opening bell, but by the fourth round Abraham had gained the
ascendancy, delivering heavy blows to the body and face.

For 32-year-old Smith it was his fifth career defeat against 35 victories.

Abraham, who after he retires intends to open a boxing school in
Armenia which will also provide language classes as he believes boxers
cannot progress unless they speak a foreign language, could well face
Stieglitz for the fourth time in his next defence.

US Official News
February 21, 2015 Saturday

“Nobody Talks about the Armenians Nowadays”

Washington

INSTITUTE OF WORLD POLITICS has issued the following news release:

Staunton, February 18 – On August 22, 1939, Adolf Hitler explained to
his entourage why he thought he could get away with mass murder by
saying that “nobody talks about the Armenians nowadays,” despite the
fact that they had been the victims of a mass murder only 24 years
earlier.

Hitler’s sweeping cynicism in this regard is increasingly relevant to
an evaluation of what is going on in the world today with its ever
shorter news cycles and even shorter attention spans. Now, to give but
one horrific example, although it has been less than a year, almost no
one speaks anymore about Crimea and Russia’s brutal occupation of that
Ukrainian peninsula.

And in this brave new world, some leaders have concluded that whatever
they say or do will be forgotten in the press of events, with some
insisting that it must be in order to move forward, others saying that
it is at least partially true, and still others using the tried-and-
true argument that “everybody does it” as if that is a justification.

No current leader has exploited this reality more often than Vladimir
Putin and nowhere has he made statements of such cynical fraudulence
as with regard to Ukraine. The latest of these came yesterday in
Budapest, and it deserves to be remembered, like the Armenians, like
Crimea, and like so much else, although it will be subsumed by the
onrush of events.

Interesting political situation in Armenia – Artur Sakunts

12:01 * 22.02.15

There is no politics in Armenia, which is a fact obvious to the pubic
now, human rights activist Artur Sakunts told Tert.am.

However, new forces will fill the opposition niche.

“There was no politics. The essence of politics has now become
obvious, and few people have said it is a criminal and oligarchic
system,” Mr Sakunts said.

Some sections of Armenia’s population trusted the alternative
Prosperous Armenia party, but they encountered misunderstanding
because of lack of awareness.

“But you cannot buy everything. You can buy once or twice, but you
cannot conceal the truth all the time,” Mr Sakunts said.

According to him, an interesting political situation has developed.

“In fact, the so-called political system has put itself in a marginal
situation, that is, above the law, and the present task is forming
political structures within the law.”

Asked about disappointment, Mr Sakunts said:

“Of course, the people who hoped to get access to sinecure due to
prosperous Armenia party were disappointed. But the reasonable
sections of society that did not hold any expectations about the
corrupt system. On the contrary, they have come to realize that it is
time to act.”