Category: News

Iran Khodro Automaker company (IKCO) has opened a branch in Armenia aiming to introduce the Iranian brand to the neighboring country, reports. 

If Azerbaijan rejects the packaged settlement of the issue, then there is only one option for step-by-step settlement, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan has said.

“After Azerbaijan’s attempt at the beginning of this April to repeat aggression against the self-determined Nagorno-Karabakh Republic it became clear to everyone that if Azerbaijan rejects the packaged settlement of the issue, then there is only one option for step-by-step settlement,” Shavarsh Kocharyan said in comments to Armenpress.

According to the Deputy FM, “Azerbaijan should first recognize the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, return the territories of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which are still under its occupation, and apply to the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic with the initiative to launch negotiations on the delimitation of the state border between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Germany’s highest court has rejected a string of complaints against a decision by the country’s parliament to label the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago as genocide, the Associated Press reports.

The Federal Constitutional Court threw out eight complaints against the resolution approved by lawmakers in June.

It published one of the decisions Monday, in which judges said the plaintiff had failed to provide sufficient evidence that his fundamental rights had been violated and that no such violation was obvious.

The parliamentary vote infuriated the Turkish government and prompted it to withdraw its ambassador from Berlin for a few months.

Ankara also refused to let German lawmakers visit German military personnel stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik air base, but relented after the German government stressed the resolution isn’t legally binding.

As part of Dink case, the 9th hearing of the trial of public officials kicked off in Istanbul today. Before the start of the hearing Friends of Hrant were once again in front of the court house, reports. 

The trial of public officials continued today with the defence of Ramazan Akyürek, who was the chief of Security General Directorate Intelligence Branch at the time of murder. The hearing will continue on December 20, 22 and 23.

Friends of Hrant gathered in front of the court house today. As the 10^th anniversary of the murder of Hrant Dink gets closer, they provided information about the course of the case.

Reading the statement on behalf of Friends of Hrant, Bülent Aydın said: “For years, we have been saying that the public officials who have a hand in organizing and concealing this murder should be tried with perpetrators.” He said that those public officials were started to be tried in 2015 and it turned out that nobody did anything to prevent this murder.

Aydın also said that they are waiting for the indictment against gendarme personnel to be issued: “If the case against gendarme personnel is joined with this one, our demand will be partly fulfilled.”

In the statement, it is also noted: “The recent developments in the case was staring in the face even right after the murder. However, the government did nothing to reveal the crime organization, until it had the chance to pin the crime on Gulenist circles. They concealed this murder together.”

– A court in Armenia has upheld the life sentence for the Russian soldier Valery Permyakov, who had killed seven members of a family in the city of Gyumri, RIA Novosti reported Monday.

The ruling may be appealed in a month.

On August 23, a court in Armenia sentenced Permyakov to life in prison. He was found guilty on all accounts including murder, assault related to robbery and attempt to cross the border illegally.

The family, including a six-month-old baby, was killed as a result of an armed assault on January 12, 2015. Valery Permyakov, a soldier at a Russian base in the Armenian town of Gyumri, was arrested and later charged with the murder of two or more persons under the Armenian Criminal Code.

On August 12, 2015, Permyakov was found guilty of desertion, theft of weapons and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The murder case was singled out for considering it in a separate procedure and passed to the Armenian authorities.

On October 13, 2015, Permyakov was found sane despite certain deviations. According to experts, he was not in the heat of passion while committing the crime and could recognize the consequences of his actions.

On October 16, he was additionally charged with armed assault, home-invasion robbery and attempted border crossing.

“The launching of a criminal case against famous blogger Alexander Lapshin and his detention cause serious concern,” Press Service of the NKR Foreign Ministry said in comments to News.am.

Lapshin, who holds Russian and Israeli citizenship,  last Wednesday at the request of the Azerbaijani government over his visits to Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Azerbaijan, where harassment and political persecution against civil activists and journalists on fabricated pretexts have long become a tradition, tries to spread its “standards” of human rights beyond the borders of the country,” the Artsakh Foreign Ministry said.

“Such actions are not only an obvious violation of fundamental human rights, namely, the freedom of movement and freedom of speech, but also a policy of intimidation, which should be adequately assessed by the international community,” the Ministry said.

An Israeli blogger was arrested in Belarus last Wednesday at the request of the Azerbaijani government over his visits to Nagorno-Karabakh, reports.

Alexander Lapshin wrote several critical posts against Azerbaijan and its president, Ilham Aliyev, in recent months. His family is afraid that if he’s extradited to Azerbaijan, his life will be in danger.
Lapshin, 40, writes a blog in which he records his travels throughout the world, and writes about the various countries he has visited.

On December 13, he and his wife arrived in the Belarus capital, Minsk. A day later, shortly before midnight, Lapshin wrote on his Facebook page: “At this moment I was arrested by the police in Minsk at the request of Azerbaijan. I’m at the Piersamajskaja station in Minsk.”

The Azeri government claims that in April 2011 and October 2012, Lapshin visited Nagorno-Karabakh and wrote about the visits in his blog. After the last visit, Lapshin’s name was placed on the Baku government’s blacklist, and he in effect became a wanted man.

Last June, Lapshin entered Azerbaijan itself, using a Ukrainian passport. Because his name in Ukrainian is slightly different from the name listed in his Russian or Israeli passport, he was not arrested upon entering the country. After a few days traveling around the country, he left without any problem.

In subsequent blog posts, Lapshin criticized the poverty in certain parts of the capital, Baku; the dictatorial rule of President Aliyev; and the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Israel on Sunday asked Belarus to not hand over to Azerbaijan a popular Israeli travel blogger it arrested last week, the Times of Israel reports.

The documentary ‘We Are Egyptian Armenians,’ directed by Waheed Sobhi, relays the history of the Armenian community in Egypt as recounted by many of its members and supported with archival materials including photos, videos and paintings.

The film, created in cooperation with scriptwriter Eva Dadrian and researcher and executive producer Hannan Ezzat, was screened at the Cairo International Film Festival 2016.

The documentary also participated in the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam and the Karama Human Rights Film Festival in Jordan.

The film is set to be screened in Egypt, the US and Canada.

Ahram Online sat down for an interview with the filmmakers Sobhi, Dadrian, and Ezzat.

“There are many ways to make a film about the Egyptian Armenians. We chose to focus on their history in Egypt, and their contribution to Egyptian history and society. The film has many archival images and videos as well as information relayed by a narrator,” director Waheed Sobhi said in an interview with .

“We wanted to show the many different aspects of the Armenian community, their contributions to Egyptian history, and so on. It is like a panorama of the Armenian community in Egypt. This film may even invite more research and more work on the Armenian community in Egypt,” the director said.

For the full interview click .

Photo: AFP

 

The evacuation of Syrian civilians and rebels from eastern Aleppo is continuing round the clock, as a truce was reported to be holding overnight, the BBC reports.

More than 3,000 people were bussed out on the first day of the evacuation on Thursday, but the UN says as many as 50,000 are still trapped there.

Syria’s army, backed by Russia, has taken nearly all rebel-held districts.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday hailed the liberation of Aleppo after more than four years of fighting, saying that history was being made.

“The world is facing a growing threat of proliferation and use of the weapons of mass destruction by non-state actors, which is a serious challenge to global security,” Armenia’s Permannet Representative to the UN, Ambassador Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said at the UN Security Council open debate on stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by non-State actors.

“The globalization has facilitated the opportunities of acquisition and use of chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear weapons by non-state actors – terrorists and criminal groups. Although the existing technical barriers still prevent the production of contemporary means of their delivery, even small-scale attacks can lead to disastrous results,” Ambassador Mnatsakanyan said.

“Today’s imperative is to work out a national control and non-proliferation mechanism accompanied by international cooperation, to prevent the proliferation and use of those weapons by non-state actors – terrorists and other criminal groups,” Zohrab Mnatsakanyan added.

According to the Ambassador, Armenia attaches great importance to issues of nuclear security on domestic and international levels by working out corresponding internal legislation, ratifying and applying international legal agreements.

Zohrab Mnatsakanyan reminded about the 2015 decision of the Armenian government on the reinforcement of security of the physical and nuclear facilities of Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant. He added that “Armenia’s 2015-2020 program of national actions envisages concrete steps targeted at the review of current measures and elaboration of future actions.”

“We are actively involved in a number of programs aimed at preventing the proliferation of weapons. The Armenian Government keeps working in bilateral and multilateral formats against the smuggling of nuclear materials,” Amb. Mnatsakanyan said.