Category: News

Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan resigns. He announced the decision at the government sitting today.

Hovik Abrahamyan said the country is facing a number of new challenges, which require new approaches.

On a visit to Argentina, Vice-President of the Armenian National Assembly Edward Sharmazanov had a meeting with members of the Argentina-Armenia Friendship Groups of both chambers of the country’s Parliament.

Edward Sharmazanov emphasized the importance of establishing close ties between the friendship groups, noting that the cooperation could contribute to the development of interstate relations between Armenia and Argentina. He attached importance to reciprocal support on the international arena.

Edward Sharmazanov briefed the Argentine lawmakers on the situation at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan.

“We live in a region facing a number of challenges, where Turkey is upholding the 20-year-long illegal blockade of Armenia on one hand, and Azerbaijan is threatening the security and stability in the region with its criminal policy on the other hand,” he said.

“Everyone should realize that there is no alternative to the realization of the Artsakh people’s right to self-determination. Armenians of Artsakh share equal rights with the people of any other country. The international recognition of Artsakh is the imperative of the time,” Sharmazanov added.

An Armenian delegation headed by Deputy Defense Minister, Chief of Logistics Department Movses Hakobyan has departed for Moscow to participate in bilateral Armenian-Russian negotiations on military-technical cooperation, Press Service of the Armenian Defense Ministry reports.

Turkey’s foreign minister suggested Wednesday Ankara was ready to calm a row over a German parliamentary resolution labelling the Ottoman massacre of Armenians a genocide but warned against treating Turkey as a “second-class country,” AFP reports.

The bitter dispute has seen Turkey barring German lawmakers from visiting their nation’s troops at the Turkish airbase of Incirlik, from where NATO forces are fighting jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

Germany last week stressed that the June parliamentary vote was a political statement and not legally binding, and voiced hope its parliamentarians would be able to visit Incirlik in October.

Asked about the request, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Die Welt daily that “if Germany continues to conduct itself as it does now, then we will consider it”.

“But if Germany tries to treat Turkey badly, then this won’t be the case,” he added, according to the newspaper’s German translation, stressing that “Turkey is not a second-class country”.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a G20 summit in China at the weekend and afterwards said she hoped for progress “in the coming days” on the requested airbase visit.

Germany hopes to invest 58 million euros ($65 million) in mobile barracks and other facilities for its more than 200 troops in Incirlik, from where it runs surveillance and refuelling flights as part of multinational efforts to fight the Islamic State group, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday.

Other sources of discord remain, including German criticism of the Erdogan government’s treatment of critical journalists, its Kurdish minority and of many of the alleged plotters detained in sweeping arrests after a failed coup in July.

On September 7, in accordance with the arrangement reached with the authorities of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, the OSCE Mission conducted a planned monitoring of the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan, in the Omar pass.

From the positions of the NKR Defense Army, the monitoring was conducted by Field Assistant of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Gennadie Petrica /Moldova/ and staff member of the Office Peter Svedberg /Sweden/.

From the opposite side of the Line of Contact, the monitoring was conducted by Field Assistant of the Personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Jiri Aberle (Czech Republic) and Personal Assistant of the OSCE CiO Simon Tiller (Great Britain).

The Monitoring passed in accordance with the agreed schedule. No violation of the cease-fire regime was registered.

From the Karabakh side, the monitoring mission was accompanied by representatives of the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense.

During the first sitting week of the 45^th Parliament, Tim Wilson, the new Member for Goldstein and former Human Rights Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) acknowledged his Armenian heritage when he delivered his maiden speech in the House of Representatives, the Armenian National Committee of Australia reports.

Wilson rose to political fame in Australia as an outspoken believer of true liberalism and has advocated for maximum “freedoms” as a think tank director and as Human Rights Commissioner in the past, and he pledged to do the same in Federal Parliament.

Wilson’s wide-ranging maiden speech touched on his upbringing and family tree, as these speeches often tend to do. He referred to the bloodied past of his mother’s father, who had to endure and survive the Armenian Genocide, which was a source of inspiration for Wilson.

He said: “My maternal Grandpa left behind the genocide of his people. I never met him. He died before I was born. But I still see him everyday when I look into the mirror and into his dark and recessed Armenian eyes.”

Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC Australia) Executive Administrator, Arin Markarian said: “We congratulate Mr. Wilson on his fantastic maiden speech as he enters public office. It is also encouraging to see Mr. Wilson seek inspiration from his family’s history, mentioning his grandfather who survived the Armenian Genocide.”

Mr. Wilson was elected to his seat, taking over from former Minister for Trade and Investment, the Hon. Andrew Robb.

MOSCOW, September 6. /TASS/. The name of the new secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will be announced at a meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council in Yerevan on October 14, that will be a representative of Armenia, the organization’s Secretary General, Nikolai Bordyuzha, told on Tuesday.

“Armenia’s representative will be my successor as the CSTO secretary general, who exactly, I cannot say now… His name will be announced at the upcoming meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council at the presidential level in Yerevan on October 14,” he said.

His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, visited one of the military units of the NKR Defense Army to meet with the commanders and soldiers.

The Catholicos was welcomed by NKR Defense Minister, Lieutenant-General Levon Mnatsakanyan.

“We have come to express our appreciation and love to you, and bring our tribute for your feats we witnessed during the April war. We saw how you rebuffed the attack of the Azeri troops and drove them sway from our borders. We bring our tribute to the brave soldiers –the hero sons of our nation, who defended our Motherland at the cost of their lives,” His Holiness Karekin II said at the meeting.

Noting that the protection of the Motherland is a sacred mission for every son of the nation, His Holiness stressed the importance to the power of faith.

About 30 cases of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side were reported at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces last night.

The rival used firearms of different calibers as it fired more than 370 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions.

Private of the NKR Defense Army Arman Alik Ghandilyan, born in 1997, was fatally wounded as a result of breach of rules of military duty.

Investigation into the details of the case is under way.

The NKR Defense Army shares the sorrow of the heavy loss and expresses support to his family and friends.

Harut Sassounian
The California Courier

Syria has been the hub of shifting international military and political intrigues since the start of the ‘civil war’ in 2011. The diverse conflicting sides include: Hezbollah, Iran, Islamic State (ISIS), Israel, Jordan, Kurdish fighters, Lebanon, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, assorted terrorists from around the world, Syria, Syrian opposition groups, Turkey, the United States, and other NATO states.

The latest ominous development is the Turkish invasion of the Syrian border town Jarablus, which had been occupied by ISIS. However, contrary to Turkish propaganda, Turkey’s military did not invade Syria to chase out ISIS, and the U.S. Air Force did not drop any bombs on Jarablus to pave the way for the advancing Turkish troops, according to David Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-Building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. Phillips had served as a Senior Adviser and Foreign Affairs Expert to the U.S. Department of State under Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama.

Turkey’s actual plans were to prevent further inroads into North-West Syria by Kurdish YPG fighters (People’s Protection Forces) who have been the most reliable military allies of the United States in countering ISIS, while Erdogan calls the YPG ‘terrorists.’

Phillips revealed in his Huffington Post article that “Turkish-backed Islamists never engaged ISIS in the so-called battle for Jarablus. Before invading, Ankara made a deal with the Islamic State. Rather than resist, ISIS forces simply changed into FSA [Free Syrian Army] uniforms. Jarablus was ‘liberated’ from ISIS with barely a shot.” ISIS had evacuated all civilians from Jarablus prior to the Turkish invasion because it did not “want civilians to identify newly clad FSA members as hard core ISIS fighters,” Phillips wrote.

“It is not surprising that Erdogan and ISIS made a deal. ISIS and Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) are ideologically aligned,” Phillips asserted, since “they are both branches of the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite official denials, there is a mountain of evidence that Turkey provided weapons, money, and logistical support to Islamists in Syria beginning in 2014. Turkey also underwrote the Islamic State by transporting its oil and selling it on the international market. About 500 Islamist fighters are still transiting from Turkey to Syria each month.”

Turkish leaders have made no secret of their true aim. Erdogan announced that his objective is to go after YPG and “terror groups that threaten our country.” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu pledged that Ankara would “do what is necessary” to keep the Kurdish fighters away from the Turkish border.

Washington is not pleased with Turkey’s misdirected military actions in Northern Syria. Senior Pentagon official Brett McGurk told CNN that “the Turks never cared about Jarablus until the Kurds wanted to get there.” McGurk called the Turkish attacks on Kurdish fighters “unacceptable and a source of deep concern” for the United States.

The Editor of Veterans Today was also highly critical of the Turkish invasion of Syria as reflected in his cynical explanation: “Turkish troops who had been in Syria for years dressed up as ‘ISIS’ have simply gone home to Turkey, had a good wash and shave, put back on their Turkish uniforms then returned to Syria.”

Saadeddine Somaa, a Syrian Arab militant who joined the Turkish incursion into Syria, expressed to The New York Times his disappointment for being misled into fighting the Kurds instead of ISIS and the Syrian government. “Everyone is pursuing their own interests, not Syria’s,” Somaa complained.

The New York Times article stressed that due to in-fighting, the rebel groups “risk reinforcing criticism that they are Turkish and American proxies at best, de facto allies of ISIS at worst.” Furthermore, “Turkish airstrikes had killed 35 civilians in Kurdish-held villages. And there was a video online showing rebels kicking prisoners from the Kurdish-led militias.” Some of the fighters accompanying the Turkish troops’ incursion into Syria, such as members of Nooredine al-Zinki, “were accused of having ties to Qaeda-linked groups” and were “widely condemned when a group of its fighters videotaped themselves beheading a young prisoner…. Its participation in the Jarablus operation was an indication that it has not been completely shunned, at least by Turkey.”

David Phillips ended his revealing Huffington Post article with an ominous prediction: “Syria will be Erdogan’s Waterloo. The U.S. Government must not be tethered to Turkey’s sinking ship.”