Category: News

Ashot Ghulyan, President of the National Assembly of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, sent a message to David Ralston, Speaker of Georgia’s House of Representatives, for adoption of a resolution recognizing Artsakh. Letters were also sent to the co-authors of the resolution.

“The independence and sovereignty of Artsakh are irreversible realities based on democratic values. Democracy is the pillar of security of the people of Artsakh,” Mr. Ghulyan said.

“The appreciation of Nagorno Karabakh Republic’s aspirations to create a democratic state and the success achieved on that route by our colleagues in the Georgian Parliament is important to us,” the Speaker stressed in the letters.

On March 3 the State of Georgia , resolution honoring and recognizing the the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian has blamed Azerbaijan for lack of solution to the Karabakh conflict. “We have always appreciated the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. Azerbaijan is to blame for the lack of solution to the Karabakh conflict, not the Co-Chairs or Armenia,” Minister Nalbandian said in an interview with Russian Kommersant Daily.

“The Karabakh conflict is one of the rare cases where countries like Russia, the US and France have a common approach. They have made concrete proposals reflected in five statements by Presidents of the co-chairing countries that could lead to a settlement,” Edward Nalbandian said. He noted that while Armenia has accepted the proposals, Azerbaijan continues to pretend there have not been any [statements] at all,” he said.

Minister Nalbandian stressed that “there is no alternative to peace talks” and reiterated Armenia’s willingness to continue to works with the Co-Chairs towards a peaceful resolution of the issue.

Speaking about the military-technical cooperation between Yerevan and Moscow, as well as the supply of Russian weapons to Azerbaijan, the Armenian Foreign Minister said: “We have to make efforts to keep the balance in the region and exclude new escalation. It’s well known that Azerbaijan has considerably increased its military expenses, with the military budget reaching several billion dollars. Under these conditions Armenia has to make efforts to keep the balance of power in the region.”

“We have allied relations with Russia and close military-technical cooperation. It’s no secret that we are buying weapons primarily from Russia. The fact that Russia sells weapons to different countries is natural, because Russia is one of the largest producers of armament and is very competitive on the market. Of course we cannot be delighted by the fact that Azerbaijan buys weapons from Russia and threatens to launch new war every day. We cannot be content with the fact that Baku is buying weapons from our partner, which is trying hard in cooperation with Armenia and within the framework of the CSTO to maintain peace and stability in our region,” Minister Nalbandian said.

As for the perspectives of military-technical relations with Russia, the Armenian Foreign Minister said “the close cooperation will continue into future.”

Scientist Stephen Hawking has paid tribute to the teacher who inspired his early steps into scholarship, the reports. 

He says Dikran Tahta at St Albans School opened his eyes to maths, which he describes as the “blueprint of the universe”.

“My handwriting was bad, and I could be lazy. Many teachers were boring. Not Mr Tahta,” said the physicist.

Prof Hawking was speaking ahead of this weekend’s award of the Global Teacher Prize.

The award-winning scientist has recorded a video commending his teacher, who died in 2006.

“His classes were lively and exciting. Everything could be debated. Together we built my first computer, it was made with electro-mechanical switches,” said Prof Hawking.

“Thanks to Mr Tahta, I became a professor of mathematics at Cambridge, a position once held by Isaac Newton.”

Prof Hawking said that “behind every exceptional person, there is an exceptional teacher”.

Dikran Tahta’s family settled in Manchester after the Armenian Genocide. Much of his childhood, and the influence of his Armenian religious upbringing, is reflected upon in his penultimate book Ararat Associations, in which he notes how his parents were keen for their children to have an English education, yet made sure that they spoke Armenian at home. He was christened by Bishop Tourian in the Armenian Church in Manchester, and his name Dikran was shortened to Dick, but he never forgot his Armenian roots.

French authorities have seized documents from the French Football Federation (FFF) in connection with Switzerland’s criminal investigation into ex-FIFA president Sepp Blatter, the BBC reports.

According to Switzerland’s office of the attorney general, the documents are connected to “the suspected payment of 2m Swiss francs.”

It said the search in Paris was carried out at Switzerland’s request.

The criminal investigation into Blatter, 79, began in September.

The office of the Swiss attorney general said the FFF consented to the search of its Paris base, which was carried out on Tuesday.

Swiss prosecutors have accused Blatter of criminal mismanagement or misappropriation over a TV rights deal and of a “disloyal payment” to suspended Uefa president Michel Platini.

Blatter, who served as head of world football’s governing body from 1998 until 2015, and Frenchman Platini have denied any wrongdoing.

The pair have been suspended from all football-related activities for six years after a FIFA ethics committee investigation found them guilty of breaches surrounding the payment to Platini in 2011.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and Armenian Defence Minister Seyran Ohanyan on Wednesday (9 March 2016) for talks on the partnership between the Alliance and Yerevan. The Secretary General thanked Armenia for its contributions to NATO’s missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo.

The two Ministers also met with the North Atlantic Council for an exchange of views on Armenia’s cooperation with the Alliance and regional security. The Secretary General welcomed Armenia’s commitment to the NATO Building Integrity Programme and the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

Mr. Stoltenberg also highlighted Armenia’s sustained cooperation with NATO in the areas of defence reform, enhanced interoperability, defence education reform and civil emergency planning. Armenia has been a NATO partner for over 20 years, developing political dialogue with Allies and cooperating on democratic, institutional, and defence reforms.

 

 

The Armenian national team will host Belarus in a friendly on March 25. The fixture to be held at Yerevan’s Vazgen Sargsyan Stadium will be the farewell match of Armenia’s long-time goalkeeper Riman Berezovsky.

The legendary keeper decided to quit international football after a Euro-2016 qualifier against Portugal.

Berezovsky had been playing for the Armenian national team since 1996. On club level he played for Russian “Zenit,” Torpedo” and “Dinamo” and holds the Russian and USSR record of denying penalties.

‘Historic Armenia After 100 Years,’ the historical guide to Western Armenia by author Matthew Karanian, is a finalist in the INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards for best travel book of 2015. Foreword Reviews, the sponsor of the awards, announced the finalists this week.

‘Historic Armenia’ was published in 2015 and is the first-ever historical guide to the cultural sites of Western Armenia. The book features 125 color photographs and maps, including antique images and maps from one century ago.

The INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards honors independent publishers and university presses. Stone Garden Press, the publisher of ‘Historic Armenia,’ is an independent publisher in Pasadena, Calif.

A panel of more than 100 volunteer librarians and booksellers determined the award finalists in numerous categories of fiction and non-fiction books.

Author Matthew Karanian said he is pleased with this recognition for Historic Armenia. “One of the objectives of publishing ‘Historic Armenia’ was to shine a bright light on the often-forgotten cultural heritage of the Armenians in their ancient homeland [of Western Armenia],” said Karanian. “This honor furthers that objective.”

Foreword Reviews will celebrate the winners during a program at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida in June.

‘Historic Armenia After 100 Years’ is sold at independent bookstores and at Barnes and Noble in the US, and is available for purchase online from the publisher, Stone Garden Press, at 

Photo: Newsru.com

 

A Russian pilot was killed as a cargo plane crashed into the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazaar district on Wednesday, TASS reports.

The plane crashed into the Bay of Bengal at around 9.30 a.m. local time (0400GMT) several minutes after taking off from the Cox’s Bazar airport. The aircraft, en route to Jessore, southwestern Bangladesh, “fell without any reasons,” a manager at the airport said.

Local fishermen found two men who were in a critical condition. One of them died of injuries in hospital. Doctors are fighting for the life of the second man. Rescuers and police are searching for the two other crew members.

Local media reports said the plane was used for carrying shrimps and other seafood. The aircraft was owned by Bismillah Airlines and operated by True Aviation.

In continuation of the landmark case for the return of the historical Seat of the Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia at the Monastery of St. Sophia in Kozan, Turkey, His Holiness Catholicos Aram I held a meeting with his legal team in Geneva on Saturday, March 5^th, to discuss progress of the case filed before the Constitutional Court of Turkey on April 27^th, 2015.

The claim of the Catholicosate is that it retains ownership rights over its historic Seat and that under international law, the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, the Government of Turkey is under an obligation to return this property so that it may be restored and used for religious worship.

In order to expedite the case, the lawyer of the Catholicosate in Turkey recently submitted a petition requesting a prompt hearing. If the Government of Turkey does not voluntarily return the Monastery, or if the Constitutional Court does not order its return, the Catholicos has previously indicated that the case will be taken to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, which has the jurisdiction to issue a legally binding decision against Turkey.

On March 10, President Serzh Sargsyan will conduct a working visit to the Russian Federation.

In the framework of the visit, the President of Armenia will meet with the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. At the meeting discussed will be issues related to the cooperation of the strategic partners in a number of areas such as trade and economy, investments, energy, humanitarian and others as well as issues pertinent to the prospects of development of integration processes in the Eurasian area.
Presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Vladimir Putin will also exchange views on the current stage of the Nagorno Karabakh peace process, existing problems and possibilities to move the process forward.

In Moscow, the President of Armenia, President of the Chess Federation of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan on March 10 will participate at the official opening ceremony of the 2016 FIDE World Chess Candidates Tournament.