Category: News

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Nov. 24 he would not visit Turkey as planned on Nov. 25 following Turkey’s downing of a Russian fighter jet.

“The president clearly stated that this could not but affect Russian-Turkish relations. In this context, it was decided to cancel the meeting between Russia’s and Turkey’s ministers of foreign affairs, which was planned for tomorrow [November 25] in Istanbul,” Sergei Lavrov said.

Lavrov also advised Russians not to visit Turkey and said the threat of terrorism there was the no less than in Egypt, where a bomb attack brought down a Russian passenger plane last month.

“We need to underline the fact that terrorist threats are growing in Turkey,” he added.

Qatar Airways will start operating Yerevan-Doha regular flights in 2016. “Armenia” International Airports” CJSC has successfully completed negotiations with Qatar Airways. Recently the negotiations were most active after Etihad Airlines announced its intention to suspend flights to Armenia.

Qatar Airlines has been awarded the Best Airline of the Year for three consecutive years.

Qatar Airways is one of the largest air companies in the Middle East, with very extensive network operating flights to more than 140 destinations.

Qatar Airways fleet is equipped with more than 340 modern aircraft, including: Airbus A350, Airbus A380-800, Boeing 777-200, Boeing 777-300, Boeing 787-8 (Dreamliner) etc.

Doha International Airport can be a convenient transit point for those who travel to the USA, the Middle and Far East from Armenia.

Turkey suspended bilateral relations with Paraguay and threatened to boycott trade with the country after the Senate unanimously approved on October 29 an official recognition of the Armenian Genocide, reports.

Turkey’s ambassador in Argentina,Taner Karakas, concurring in Paraguay and Uruguay, met with Senator Victor Bogado, of the ruling Colorado Party, who is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Affairs. According to local reports, Karakas expressed “disagreement and concern on the declaration.”

After that meeting, Victor Bogado said on Thursday November 19 that he wouldpresent “an alternative project as a way of rectifying the position of the Senate.””Turkey was deeply concerned about the term ‘genocide’, given that this happened before the creation of the same Turkish state,” said Bogado.

Bogado also said that “the Senate declaration is nonbinding with the government’s position.”

Alfonso Tabakian, director of the Armenian National Committee of South America, emphatically said to Agencia Prensa Armenia that “the Turkish state, through its concurrent Ambassador to Paraguay, exerted unprecedented pressure bordering on blackmail on Paraguay, brutally exposing the authoritarianism of the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”

On November 24, the politician Rafael Filizzola Serra published on ABC newspaperan article titled “The Armenian Genocide and our dignity as a sovereign country,” in which he stressed that the decision of the Senate of Paraguay was “a sovereign decision consistent with the history of our country.”

“The unfortunate thing is that our diplomacy, rather than defending the sovereign authority of the Senate to speak, has taken steps to reverse the parliamentary statement,” he added. “Our diplomacy shows a supine ignorance of the current international position on the Armenian Genocide and historical facts found by the intellectual community.”

“The dignity of a country that suffered the extermination and that has a moral obligation to speak out against acts like this and many others, to ever happen again. And for justice, because crimes against humanity must not only be reported but also repared. Armenia deserves a fair compensation for everything it suffered, as well as our country.”

“I sincerely hope that Paraguay will not kneel once again to pressure and blackmail, and that our diplomacy is worthy of a sovereign country,” concluded Rafael Filizzola Serra.

Photo: Sputnik/ Dmitriy Vinogradov

 

The pilots from the Russian Su-24 jet downed in Syrian managed to eject, the Russian Ministry of Defense said, Sputnik News reports.

 

 

 

The presidency of the Assembly of Armenian Refugees from Azerbaijan held a round-table discussion on “Artsakh issue: The problems and perspectives of Armenian diplomacy.” Discussions mostly focused on the issue of Armenian refugees, which, the participants said, is often ignored in the negotiation process.

About 660 Armenian refugees fled Azerbaijan between 1988 and1992 as a result of massacres organized by the Azeri leadership. The topic is completely ignored in the negotiation process, while Azerbaijan has made the issue of refugees a serious lever in the talks.

Another issue on the agenda was Turkey’s blockade of Armenia. “The question of return of so-called “occupied territories” is often raised on different international platforms. Why doesn’t anyone ask Turkey why it keeps blockade of Armenia, which poses no threat to its security,” ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan said. According to her, the two issues are serious failures of the Armenian diplomacy.

According to David Shahnazaryan, Armenia has the potential to work not only in PACE but also other international organizations, and it’s the task of the authorities to make an effective use of this potential.

“It’s time to refuse from the defensive policy and take the initiative,” Shahnazaryan said.

Head of the Regional Studies Center Richard Giragosian described the current situation at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border as “undeclared war.” He has no expectations from the upcoming meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Director of the Caucasus Institute Alexander Iskandaryan sees no threat of resumption of large-scale war, but does not expect anything crucial from diplomatic meetings, either.

According to him, the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs are not tasked with solving the Karabakh conflict at this point. “Anyone involved in the settlement of this issue understands that the resolution of the issue is impossible in the foreseeable future.

The delegation headed by Serbian Defense Minister Bratislav Gasic will arrive in Armenia today for a two-day official visit.

A special welcome ceremony will take place at the Administrative Headquarters of the Ministry of Defense on November 25.

Syrian fighters fired at a Russian helicopter forcing it to make an emergency landing in a nearby government-held area in Syria’s Latakia province on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, Reuters reports.

A Syrian insurgent group, recipient of U.S. Tow missiles, said its fighters hit the helicopter with an anti-tank missile.

PACE report on Sarsang Reservoir is only a grist for the mill of Azerbaijan’s propaganda machine, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan has said.

“Quite recently we witnessed the response of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs on the report of the British parliamentarian R. Walter presented to the PACE Committee on Political Affairs. The statement of the Co-Chairs, in particular, outlined that considering the sensitivity of the negotiations, attempts to create parallel mechanisms can disrupt the negotiation process and impede progress towards a settlement. Indeed, after this clear warning, presenting a draft of another report, which distorts the issues related to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, this time, at the PACE Committee for Social Affairs is openly aimed at failing the efforts undertaken by the Co-Chairs in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue,” Kocharyan said in comments to News.am.

The draft report is only a grist for the mill of Azerbaijan’s propaganda machine and is in line with the logistics of Baku’s policy of undermining the negotiation process, unceasing efforts aimed at escalating the situation along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan and on the Line of Contact with Nagorno-Karabakh, shifting the discussions on the issue into other formats and constantly voicing criticism addressed at the Co-Chairs. Worrisome is the fact that some PACE parliamentarians intentionally or unintentionally are becoming tools of the Azerbaijani propaganda, and, by their vote distorting the reality, they first of all are discrediting themselves and trying to shadow the PACE authority.

It is noteworthy that the rapporteur, who has already visited Azerbaijan twice, even did not consider to visit Nagorno-Karabakh, where she would have an opportunity to get acquainted with the situation of the main subject of her report – the Sarsang Reservoir. It is obvious, that the rapporteur pursued other goals. Otherwise, she would not ignore the fact, that on November 18, the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities answered positively to the written suggestion to arrange her visit, received two days before. Otherwise, the letters of the Head of the Armenian delegation to PACE on the readiness to receive the rapporteur in Armenia will not be left without notice. As a result, the rapporteur presented a report on the reservoir that she has not even seen; instead, she filled the report with falsified arguments.

Moreover, the hustle that accompanies the presentation of the report a few days before the completion of her mandate reveals the fact that the envy for “glory and honor” that Walter received in Baku has been haunting her.

Fifa vice-president Michel Platini could be facing a life ban from football, according to his lawyer, the BBC reports.

The suspended Uefa chief is serving a 90-day suspension on corruption charges alongside outgoing Fifa president Sepp Blatter, while Fifa’s adjudicatory committee considers its verdict.

Platini’s lawyer Thibaud d’Ales said the ethics investigators’ “excessive” recommendations are a “scandal”.

The adjudicatory committee intends to announce its verdict next month.

The Frenchman is facing sanctions over a “disloyal payment” that saw Platini, 60, receive £1.35m from Blatter, 79, in 2011 for consultation work done nine years earlier.

The pair, who are serving 90-day provisional bans, have denied any wrongdoing, but admitted there was no written contract.

On Sunday November 22, the candidate of the conservative party Cambiemos Mauricio Macriwas elected president of Argentina by winning the runoff by three points against Daniel Scioli, the government candidate. Next, a review of the relationship between the newly Argentine president and the Armenian community of the country, reports.

During his tenure as Chief of Government of the City of Buenos Aires, Mauricio Macri the construction of a bust of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, after the intense complaints of the Armenian community and a misunderstanding of the locals officials. At that time, Turkish Prime MinisterRecep Tayyip Erdogan called off a visit to the country for this reason.

In April 2012, Macri visited Yerevan for the transfer of the World Book Capital, which in 2011 had been in Buenos Aires and in 2012 was in Yerevan. He visited the Armenian Genocide Museum and that “Buenos Aires has received thousands of Armenian citizens that with their tireless work contributed to the development of Argentina and forged our cultural identity as a country.”

Some time later, in June 2014, the City of Buenos Aires . This time, the Chief of Staff of the City, Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, said that this museum was “a way to ensure that mankind will not commit atrocities like those committed almost 100 years ago in Armenia.”

The next month, in July 2014, Mauricio Macri the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, with whom he had a private meeting and handed the keys to the City of Buenos Aires.

In April 2015, during the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, Mauricio Macri a post titled “100 years of the Armenian Genocide: I do not forget you“, which recalled that “the little purple flower with five petals called ‘Forget me not’ is the symbol chosen by the Armenian community to remember worldwide the more than one million Armenians who perished in the first genocide of the twentieth century” and noted that “100 years ago, on April 24 1915 began a bloody persecution of the Armenian people by the Ottoman authorities, which then culminated in the expulsion and death of millions of innocent people.”

“Today is the day in which we remember all the victims. It is they who tell us ‘Forget me not’,” he concluded.

The former President Nestor Kirchner enacted in January 2007 the Law 26,199, approved by Congress in December 2006, which declares every April 24 as the “Action day for tolerance and respect among peoples” in commemoration of the Genocide against the Armenian people. In September 1987 former President Raul Alfonsin made the first recognition of the Armenian Genocide during a ceremony with the Armenian community.