Category: News

The Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) launched a new assault at Deir Ezzor City on Monday that targeted the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) controlled west district near the 137th Artillery Brigade Headquarters,  reports.

ISIS began the offensive on Monday by seizing Majbal area of Deir Ezzor City after a violent battle with the Syrian Arab Army’s 137th Artillery Brigade of the 17th Reserve Division. On Tuesday, ISIS continued their offensive by imposing full control over the Armenian Cemetery that is situated along the International Highway.

With the Armenian Cemetery under their control, ISIS once again cruised their way to the Panorama Checkpoint, capturing this site from the Syrian Armed Forces after a long battle on Tuesday.

The terrorist group is now targeting the Panorama Roundabout in western Deir Ezzor City for the second time in seven days; if captured, the Syrian Armed Forces will be in serious trouble at Al-Firat University.

Rescuers in Sri Lanka are searching for scores of people missing after massive landslides following days of rain, the BBC reports.

The Red Cross says more than 200 families are feared buried in the mudslides in three villages in central Kegalle district.

At least 13 bodies have been recovered so far. Another three bodies were found elsewhere in the district.

Disaster officials say about 150 people have been rescued but more than 60 houses have been buried by mud.

At least 32 people have been killed in flooding during three days of torrential rain in Sri Lanka, according to official figures.

Nearly 350,000 people have been displaced by the flooding.

 

 

 

A draft law condemning the genocide of Sinjar Yazidis has been submitted to the Armenian National Assembly. The Sinjar Yazidi National Union participated in the elaboration of the bill.

Boris Murazi, who heads the public organization, said today “the Yazidi people will benefit both if the bill passes and if it fails to pass.”

“The document is not vulnerable in any respect, because it refers to international resolutions and laws adopted by the UN, which Armenia has also joined,” he told reporters in Yerevan.

He said the genocide continues today, as people are denied entry to their homes.

“If Armenia recognizes this genocide, it will provide Yazidis with an opportunity to present themselves on the international arena with concrete documents, to say that the US and Armenia have recognized the genocide,” he said.

On Saturday 21 May, with the blessings of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin will participate in the national event: “Museum Night.”

The Mother Cathedral Museum, and the Ruben Sevak Museum, will be open and free to the public from 14:00 to 24:00.

An open-air concert dedicated to Charles Aznavour’s 92^nd birthday will take place at Charles Aznavour Square in Yerevan on Sunday, May 22.

The performers at the concert will include Levon Malkhasyan, Aramo, Tigran Hamasyan, the Art Cinema Ensemble, Sona Shiroyan and Hayk Petrosyan.

Aznavour’s best works will be performed at the concert.

has presented the Armenian and Azerbaijani views on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.  The European Friends of Armenia has presented the Armenian perspective. 

It is more than 20 years since the cease-fire agreement between Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Yet, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is still simmering in the South Caucasus, disrupting the lives of thousands of people.

This landlocked mountainous region is still subject to an unresolved dispute between its ethnic Armenian population and its former Soviet colonial master – Azerbaijan.

Historical cultural monuments thousands of years old trace the Armenian heritage of this region.

At the early years of the Soviet regime the region of Nagorno Karabakh was annexed to Azerbaijan as an autonomous region (oblast) upon Stalin’s arbitrary decision, disregarding the will of the people of Karabakh and its history.

Nagorno Karabakh initiated its secession from Azerbaijan through the adoption of Declaration of Independence on September 2, 1991.

This act took place in full conformity with all the norms and principles of international law and the Soviet constitutional framework of that time, that granted oblasts the right to follow that path in a legally binding manner.

On December 10, 1991 the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh held its own referendum: 82.2% of all voters participated and 99% voted for independence. Thus, Nagorno-Karabakh got its independence in the same vein as Azerbaijan and all other former Soviet Republics.

The people of Nagorno Karabakh want to live in peace and exercise their right to self-determination.

By virtue of that right they want to freely determine their political status and pursue their development. Azerbaijan opposes that independence and wants to turn back the clock of history. Nevertheless, the only viable option for the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is to let its people live independently, in safety and dignity.

Nagorno Karabakh itself is one of the most secure and stable regions in Europe. Despite the ongoing conflict and dire living conditions imposed by Azerbaijan, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh have succeeded in state-building and development: they established all the necessary elements of the State as required under the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, such as territory, population, government, and capacity to enter into legal relations.

The people of Nagorno Karabakh organise their political life through elections, democratic institutions, a well-established rule of law system and a vivid civil society.

Six parliamentary and five presidential elections have been conducted that were described by international observers as transparent, competitive, fair and in line with international standards.

Well-established and recognized international organizations such as Freedom House acknowledged that democratic governance in Nagorno-Karabakh has been much better established than in Azerbaijan, which suffers and exports high levels of corruption due to its ruling elite.

20 years of negotiations held by the leaderships of Armenia and Azerbaijan with mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by the U.S., France and Russia, demonstrated that the irreconcilable positions of the parties and that no amount of additional talks would overcome the impasse.

Thus, independence of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic should be recognized in order to provide strong guarantees for the security of its people.

They fully deserved such recognition. Azerbaijan itself should participate in that process, but constructively and not just to block it. The democratic Nagorno Karabakh Republic deserved it much more than a fully-fledged UN,OSCE and Council of Europe member Azerbaijan that routinely violates all norms and principles of those organizations.

Indeed, to make such a decision on Karabakh would be difficult and hard first and foremost for the Azerbaijani elite.

However, it will not be harder for Azerbaijan than it was, to name just a one instance of secession, for such a staunch French patriot as President de Gaulle, who recognized the independence of Algeria.

The City Council of the Italian city of Canosa unanimously recognized the Armenian Genocide on May 16.

Another Spanish city – Civita Castellana- had also recognized the Armenian Genocide on April 30.

The Genocide has been recognized by 107 councils on regional and municipal level in Italy.

On 18 May Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan received representative of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsoutyun) Party Bureau Hrant Margaryan.

The meeting attended by member of the Artsakh Central Committee of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun Party David Ishkhanyan, addressed a range of issues related to the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement, regional processes and inter-Armenian developments.

On April 26, 2016, at a regular meeting of leaders of the factions represented in the City Hall of the Basque Country (Spain) Gipuskoa Province’s capital city of Donostia (San Sebastian), the following institutional statement was issued, which was later approved by the Mayor on May 5.

Donostia (San Sebastian) City Hall:

1. At this difficult time, conveys its support to Stepanakert, reiterating the right of its citizens to peaceful and normal life.

2. Calls upon all the parties to return to the situation prior to the ceasefire violations and to refrain from hindering the creation of a mechanism, which will allow monitoring the ceasefire maintenance.

3. Calls upon all the parties to settle all the disagreements between them in the frameworks of the Minsk Group, through dialogue and negotiation, always respecting the will of the people.

4. In this regard, requests on Nagorno Karabakh having its own voice at the negotiations conducted by the Minsk Group on Nagorno Karabakh.

In the aftermath of the summit between Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents Serzh Sargsyan Azeri and Ilham Aliyev in Vienna, ’s Francesca Sabatinelli interviewed Simone Zoppellaro, Armenia Correspondent and Contributor for Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso (Balcan and Caucasus Observatory).

According to him, the meeting of the two Presidents after the April clashes, the worst ceasefire violation since 1994, was an important sign. The Presidents agreed to meet again next month and it is hoped this will lead to a peace agreement.

But what has so far prevented, and what still prevents the peace agreement? Zoppellaro said “Interests of many actors in the field, internal and external respect to this conflict collide. Azerbaijan is a particularly rich state oil and gas country and has one family, that of Aliyev, in power since 1969. The Karabakh conflict is used by this family in power to justify the various limitations of freedom.”

“Then there is Russia which is officially allied with Armenia, but sells weapons to Azerbaijan. So Russia is playing a double game, because it maintains an important presence in the South Caucasus. Europe and America have had, instead, a great indifference to this conflict and have never really tried to fix it. So, unfortunately, this situation has dragged on for a quarter of a century,” the journalist said.

He said that putting an end to this tension, these deaths seems to be on no one’s agenda. “It’s not really on the agenda of anyone! Recall that, among other things, for this conflict we had over 30 thousand deaths, over one million of refugees and displaced persons; the damages that we can imagine for the economy, for freedom, for equality of these two small countries, but they are also part of the Council of Europe, so Europe should also have a much more cooperative attitude, a much larger engagement in the conflict.

“I visited the village of Talish, which has become a ghost town after the April raids; the entire population is displaced; schools destroyed; homes destroyed; many dead, wounded, injured. And then I visited the trenches, which are another scene very impressive, also because it brings us back a hundred years ago, to what happened in Europe during the First World War. We still have today, a hundred years after the First World War, the trenches in which young people, day after day, burn their lives and face death. And all this is a really forgotten war,” Simone Zoppellaro said.

He said the Pope’s expected visit to Armenia is seen as a sign of great hope for this conflict. He believes that religion can also be a positive element for its resolution.