Category: News

Most Islamic State illegal oil exports are probably conducted through Turkey and Kurdish areas, and are facilitated by corrupt regional officials, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) counterterrorism officer and US Senate Foreign Relations Committee senior investigator John Kiriakou told

A US Treasury Department spokesperson told Sputnik this week that the Islamic State has made about $40 million in one month of oil sales, making close to $500 million a year.

“I’ve always assumed someone on the Turkish side of the border is making enough money out of it. There are too many vested interests involved for it to stop,” Kiriakou said on Thursday. “They greased the right people. Someone’s making a lot of money out of this.”

Kiriakou noted that the current Islamic State illegal oil trade followed the same basic pattern that longtime Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used to defy international economic sanctions.

“[Selling and transporting oil] thorough Turkey was the way Saddam Hussein for years beat the sanctions regime imposed on him,” the expert said.

Turkey is an ally of the United States and has been a member of NATO for 60 years, but Kiriakou said the national government in Ankara could not prevent the corruption of local officials in outlying regions that enabled the secret oil trade.

“It’s not the official Turkish government. [It’s] probably corrupt elements of the Turkish military and officials in local and regional governments in southwest Turkey who are involved in this,” he explained.

The US government has the resources to seriously reduce and interdict this lucrative oil traffic, but so far has failed to focus on doing so, Kiriakou argued.

“It’s a question of priorities. They have never allocated enough resources to do so. Other goals and missions have been rated as having more urgent calls on intelligence and tactical resources,” he said.

However, Kiriakou told Sputnik that the Islamic State oil revenue lifeline could certainly be cut if Washington was determined to do so.

“I do believe that,” he insisted.

The richest oil fields that the Islamic State can access are south of Irbil in Iraq and the most obvious direction for the Islamic State to move the oil is westwards through Kurdish territory, Kiriakou explained.

In Saddam Hussein’s time, most of the oil secretly exported from Iraq to defeat the international sanctions regime was moved west through Kurdish territory, and that pattern is probably continuing now, he suggested.

Washington, he added, should be cooperating closely with Russia in cutting the Islamic State’s oil revenue flow.

“We should be working with the Russians to achieve a settlement of the conflict in Syria. We have basically the same aims that they do. Both of us agree that the Islamic State is a bad idea and we both want to get rid of it. But we’re not working with them on this,” Kiriakou said.

Iraq’s Oil Ministry told Sputnik that the Islamic State continues to sell hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day on the black market.

President Serzh Sargsyan and Mrs. Rita Sargsyan are to pay a working visit to Georgia on October 30, President’s Press Office reports.

As part of the visit, the RA president will have meetings with Georgia’s top officials – President Giorgi Margvelashvili, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and Speaker of the Parliament David Usupashvili.

During the meetings, the parties will discuss the agenda of Armenian-Georgian relations and multifaceted cooperation, as well as will outline the prospects to push it forward.

In Tbilisi Serzh Sargsyan will also attend the re-consecration ceremony of the Cathedral of St George of the Georgian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

 

 

 

The German Bundestag will not discuss the Armenian Genocide resolution this year, Professor Zhirayr Кocharian of the Berlin Open University told reporters in Yerevan.

“The Armenian community was pleasantly surprised by the unprecedented number of publications and discussions in Germany about the Armenian Genocide this spring.  We were nearly confident that the Bandstand would soon adopt a resolution recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide,” he said.

Zhirayr Кocharian has his own explanation for the active discussions in Germany. “The first reason was the powerful statement by the Pope, whose opinion is extremely important for the Catholic World. The second reason was the conflict between the Greens and Lefts with the government. Besides, there was a desire to punish Erdogan.”

Zhirayr Кocharian considers that Germany is unlikely to strike a blow to Turkey, at least in the near future. “However, the civil society in Germany is matured, and the country may recognize the Armenian Genocide under public pressure.” He believes that if Turkey once recognizes the Armenian Genocide, it will also happen under public pressure, as it was the case with the Holocaust.

Zhirayr Кocharian says it’s unserious to think that Germany accepted its guilt because it was too civilized. “Germany did it under the pressure of the international community, otherwise it would demonstrate the same civilized and moral approach towards the Armenian Genocide.”

Armenian and Georgian Presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Giorgi Margvelashvili held a meeting in Tbilisi.

During the meeting the sides discussed in detail the economic cooperation between Armenia and Georgia.

The Presidents of the two countries emphasized the importance of peace and stability in the region.

Giorgi Margvelashvili thanked the President of Armenia for visiting Georgia and expressed hope that the visit would contribute to further cooperation between the two countries.

The Armenian President said Armenia’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union and the signing of the Association Agreement between Georgia and the European Union have positively affected the economic relations between the two countries.

The meeting of the Presidents was followed by negotiations in an extended format with the participation of delegations from the two countries.

At least 22 migrants – many of them children – have drowned trying to reach Kalymnos and Rhodes from Turkey, in the second major boat tragedy off Greek islands this week, the BBC reports.

Greek officials said 19 people died and 138 were rescued near Kalymnos.

Three others died off Rhodes and three were missing. Six were rescued there.

Meanwhile, rescuers in southern Spain are searching for 35 migrants missing after their boat broke up en route from Morocco. Four bodies have been found.

The unseaworthy, overcrowded boat set off from Alhucemas. Fifteen migrants were rescued.

Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan had a meeting with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of the sitting of the CIS Council of Heads of State in Tajikistan.

The Armenian and Russian Prime Ministers discussed a number of issues on the agenda of bilateral allied partnership.

Hovik Abrahamyan and Dmitry Medvedev attached importance to the active cooperation with a view of development and expansion of commercial-economic ties and referred to joint programs and steps in different spheres.

18-year-old Canadian Armenia Tina Garabedian, who has been skating with the Laval Figure Skating Club since she was four, will be wearing the colors of Armenia in the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, reports.

Garabedian, holding dual citizenship, realized she had a small chance of representing Canada’s national team in 2018 given the strength of the Canadian team in the figure skating world. She put all the odds in her favor and will represent Armenia.

Her debut ice dance was with her long-standing partner Alexandre Laliberté in 2012. Garabedian changed partners six months ago and will ice dance with Simon Proulx-Senecal, former dance partner to Laval’s Mélissande Dumas.

The duo recently took home a bronze medal in the short program, senior dance at the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships in New York.

The team also impressed the judges with a short program at the George-Ethier Memorial Competition held in Beauport this September taking home second place. During this competition, they also qualified for the European Championships to be held from Jan. 25 to 31, 2016, in Bratislava, Slovakia.

They will also compete in Austria and Croatia before Christmas and hope to earn 29 points (short) and 49 points (long) for technique in both competitions, in order to qualify for the World Championships. They need to finish 24th to qualify for the Olympics in 2018.

The duo trains 20 hours a week at Pierrefonds’ Sportplexe 4 Glaces under the coaching skills of Elise Hamel, Shawn Winter and choreographer Shae Zukiwsky.

On October 30, on the margins of the meeting of the Council of CIS Heads of Government, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan met with Prime Minister of Tajikistan Kohir Rasulzoda in Dushanbe.

During the meeting, the two prime ministers discussed a number of issues of mutual interest. They stressed the need for closer cooperation in economic, humanitarian and other spheres, as well as in the framework of international organizations.

Coming to trade and economic relations, the parties pointed to the need for revitalizing the activities of the intergovernmental commission through practical steps that will bring about tangible growth in bilateral trade turnover.

The Heads of Government of Armenia and Tajikistan considered it important to expand and deepen cooperation in bilateral and multilateral formats.

About 50 cases of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side were registered at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan last night, NKR Ministry of Defense reported.

The rival fired more than 1,000 shots from weapons of different caliber, including 60mm mortars, in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army confidently continue with their military duty and resort to retaliatory measures if necessary.

Armenian has welcomed the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the Senate of Paraguay.

“The continuity of the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide proves that the crimes against humanity have no statute of limitation, and the humanity continues to recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide even 100 years after it was committed,” Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said in a statement.

“With this step the Senate of Paraguay made an important contribution to the international efforts of preventing genocides and crimes against humanity,” the Foreign Minister stated.