The Church of the Holy Cross opened its doors on April 6 in a special ceremony attended by Armenian Orthodox clergy, including the Primate of the Armenian Diocese of Iraq Avak Asadourian, diplomats, and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officials.
The KRG paid for the church’s construction at a cost of 2.2 billion IQD ($1,845,000).
Four of the Kurdistan Region’s five Armenian Orthodox Churches are in Duhok province. An estimated 600 Armenian families live in the Kurdistan Region – 490 of them in Duhok and 110 in Erbil.
Reporting by Payam Sarbast
TEHRAN — Kuwait, Russia, and Armenia have dispatched humanitarian aid to flood-hit people in Iran.
The humanitarian package by Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) includes high capacity flood control pumps for dewatering large amounts of water, pharmaceuticals, foodstuff and other items. Kuwaiti government’s aid to Iran are to continue in the upcoming weeks, IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.
Meanwhile, according to a news published by Xinhua on April 3, Hilal Al-Sayer, KRCS board chairman, said that the society will launch an immediate aid campaign for affected Iranians next week, adding that it has set up a committee to set out an action plan to provide humanitarian aid.
The Kuwaiti charity would work with its Iranian counterpart, along with other humanitarian organizations, to offer immediate relief aid to affected people in this country, he added.
Moreover, the Russian Emergencies Ministry, together with the Armenian Emergencies Ministry, has begun delivering humanitarian aid to Iran affected by floods, the press service of the Russian Emergencies Ministry informed TASS on Saturday.
“The humanitarian cargo is handed over by the Russian-Armenian Humanitarian Response Center to the Iranian Red Crescent Society,” the ministry said.
The aid is delivered by trucks. The humanitarian cargo includes over 4,000 tents, blankets and folding beds purchased at the expense of Russia.
Following torrential rain in many regions across the country since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year on March 21, catastrophic floods have hit 1,900 cities and villages in western, southwestern, northern and northeastern Iran, leaving 67 dead and hundreds displaced.
The catastrophic floods have caused major damage to buildings and other structures, including bridges, sewerage systems, roadways, and canals as well as crops and livestock in many provinces, especially in Mazandaran, Golestan, and Lorestan.
MQ/MG
YEREVAN, April 6. /TASS/. Armenia’s President Armen Sarkissian held talks with United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Amman on Saturday, the Armenian president’s press service said.
The talks focused on the summit meeting held by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on March 29 in Vienna.
“Armenia’s president underscored the importance of UN support to the OSCE Minsk Group as the only mission internationally authorized to find a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” the presidential press service said. “Sarkissian and the UN Secretary General hailed the summit meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and pointed out that there was no other option but a peaceful solution to the conflict.”
Sarkissian and Guterres exchanged views on future cooperation within the United Nations and its agencies.
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev held the first official meeting in Vienna on March 29, seeking peace for Nagorno-Karabakh.
History of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
The highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh (Mountainous Karabakh) is a mostly Armenian-populated enclave inside the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan. It was the first zone of inter-ethnic tensions and violence to appear on the map of the former USSR in February 1988. Then, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region declared independence from Azerbaijan, a republic within the Soviet Union at the time. In 1992-1994, hostilities broke out in the region between pro-Baku forces and Armenian residents, which resulted in the Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto independence. In 1994, a ceasefire was reached but the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been strained since then.
Since 1992, the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) co-chaired by Russia, France and the US have been holding talks to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
The Armed Forces of Azerbaijan should be ready for a launch of active hostilities, the country’s Defense Minister Col. Gen. Zakir Hassanov said at a meeting with the Armed Forces Central Command on Saturday.
“All exercises carried out under the plan are aimed at conducting large-scale offensive operations,” Hassanov was quoted by the Azeri Defense Ministry as saying.
With their irresponsible claims the Armenian military-political leaders are facilitating tension escalation on the Karabakh conflict line, he said.
“The minister issued specific instructions to commanders and chiefs of every level to organize permanent surveillance and keep enemy’s activities under control, give a resolute response to its potential provocations and be ready for a start of active combat operations any time,” the defense ministry said
Hassanov told commanders to increase the intensity of exercises and practices, “especially at nighttime, in an environment as close to real-life combat as possible,” the statement said.
On April 5, 2016, a ceasefire was agreed in Baku and Stepanakert, the capital of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh republic.
Azerbaijan lost control over Karabakh and seven other areas in the early 1990s as a result of a conflict with the region’s ethnic Armenian population and with Armenia.
In May 1994, a ceasefire was introduced between Armenia and Karabakh on the one part, and Azerbaijan on the other.
The current Karabakh talks are being mediated by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Minsk Group set up in 1992 to search for peaceful settlement. The MG comprises Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Turkey, and is co-chaired by Russia, France and the United States.
Azerbaijan does not consider Karabakh to be a party to the conflict and has refused to negotiate with it.
A recent meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Vienna showed that the parties have found some common ground for settling the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said.
“The meeting in Vienna showed that, however difficult it might be, but the parties are finding some common ground. Naturally, nobody expected this to happen quickly,” Mammadyarov said in an interview with the Internet publication Moscow-Baku.
“I keep asking our Armenian friends: The conflict has been lasting for 30 years, tell me please how the Armenian citizens have benefited from this, except for the fact that more than 40% of the people in the country are poor, except for the fact that they have no prospects – the demographic situation is disastrous and the most intelligent people are leaving the country. And this whole situation somehow prompts us to think that it needs to be ended. The philosophy here is simple, and Azerbaijan has repeatedly spoken about that: you can’t take some territory and flee to the Moon, you have to seek normal neighborliness anyway,” he said.
On the other hand, even though it has lost control over part of its territory, Azerbaijan has achieved significant economic growth, Mammadyarov said. “We’ve built railroads and motor roads, we are selling oil, we have built an oil pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor,” he said.
“And I can cite numerous other examples proving that Azerbaijan has become a leading economy in the region,” he said.
The Armenian leadership should persuade its own people that they need peace with their neighbors, Mammadyarov said. “The ball is in the Armenian court now – they should persuade their own population that they need peace. They say sometimes: you know, the people in Karabakh are so hard to deal with… Well, guys, this is not our problem, this is your problem. You should explain to the people that Armenia has no future without normalizing relations with Azerbaijan,” he said.
The two parties should look for forms of interaction between their peoples, Mammadyarov said. “The more they communicate, the better. There is just no other option. Another option is war. Do we need it? A war would simply throw the whole region backwards,” Mammadyarov said.
Azerbaijan lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts following a conflict with the region’s ethnic Armenian population and Armenia in the early 1990s.
Armenia and the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic on one side and Azerbaijan on the other concluded a ceasefire in May 1994.
The negotiation process is now being held via the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created in 1992 to look for ways to peacefully settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It comprises Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Turkey and is co-chaired by Russia, France and the United States.
Azerbaijan does not view the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic as a party to the conflict and refuses to hold negotiations with it.
The situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area dramatically deteriorated in the early hours of April 2, 2016. The parties started large-scale armed actions with the use of aircraft and artillery systems, accusing each other of violating the ceasefire on the line of contact.
Both parties claimed that their opponent suffered heavy losses, and described their own casualties as moderate.
Baku and Stepanakert announced on April 5, 2016 that they had reached a ceasefire agreement in the conflict zone.