Category: News

On a working visit to Switzerland, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian had a meeting with Didier Burkhalter, Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

Minister Nalbandian hailed the developing relations between the two countries, which, he said,  further the continuous high-level dialogue.

Didier Burkhalter noted, in turn, that Switzerland attaches importance to the deepening of relations with friendly Armenia.

The interlocutors discussed a wide range of issues related to bilateral cooperation. Reference was made to commercial-economic, cultural, inter-parliamentary ties and deepening of cooperation within te framework of international organizations.

The Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Switzerland discussed urgent regional and international issues. They voiced hope that the Russian-American agreement on Syria truce would pave the way for th establishment of peace and stability in Syria.

Minister Nalbandian briefed his Swiss counterpart on the negotiations on the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

At the end of the meeting Edward Nalbandian and Didier Burkhalter signed an agreement on visa facilitation between the Republic of Armenia and the Swiss Confederation.

Photo: Reuters

The UN says it plans to deliver aid to about 150,000 Syrians in besieged areas over the next five days amid a partial truce in the country’s civil war, the BBC reports.

It said it was ready to help an estimated 1.7 million people in hard-to-reach areas by the end of March.

A cessation of hostilities began on Saturday and there have been complaints of breaches from both sides.

But it otherwise appears to be intact with a key Syrian opposition group saying the situation is much better.

The UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator in Syria, Yacoub el-Hillo, called the truce “the best opportunity that the Syrian people have had over the last five years for lasting peace and stability”.

The organisation plans to use the lull to deliver food, water and medicine to towns like Madaya, where residents have reportedly been starving to death.

It says it needs the approval of Syria’s warring parties before it can further expand its deliveries.

Efforts to deliver aid to Islamic State-besieged Deir al-Zour by air last week failed when several pallets were damaged, disappeared or landed in no-man’s land.

Almost 500,000 people are living under siege in Syria, the UN estimates.

The cessation of hostilities was agreed as part of a plan by the US and Russia.

 

Just like the Olympics, it happens every four years, and Google has marked this quadrennial occasion with its search engine doodle recognising February 29.

Showing one bunny jumping over another two, this cute doodle celebrates the Leap Year, which brought the Gregorian calendar into line with the solar year back in 45 BC.

Back then, there were 355 days in the calendar with an extra 22 day month every two years which spurred Julius Caesar into tasking his astronomer Sosignenes with making things a bit easier.

He came up with the idea of adding the extra hours onto one day. The last day of February was chosen because it was the last month of the Roman calendar.

Pope Gregory XIII coined the term “Leap Year” and declared that such a year could be divisible by 100 but not by 400. This means 2000 was a leap year, but 1800 and 1900 were not.

 

 

 

 

According to preliminary results, moderates and reformists have cemented victory in the Iranian parliamentary elections, while the conservatives have lost majority in Majlis. What are the implications for the Armenian community? Zorzhik Abrahamyan, one of the two Armenians elected to the Parliament says the community will form its approaches and attitudes on the basis of the platforms offered by the political forces.

The vote was the first in Iran after the sanctions were lifted. Zorzhik Abrahamyan says, however, “this does not mean end to sanctions.” He considers that negotiations will still continue, e.g. on issues of human rights.

Meanwhile, Abrahamyan noted that Iranians are excited about the lifting of the main financial sanctions, which opens up perspectives for the development and implementation of commercial and economic programs.

Karen Khanlaryan is another Armenian to be represented in the Iranian Parliament. Speaking to , the MP said he’s going to deepen and expand the current political course.  He will try to take the Armenian Genocide issue to higher podiums.

Khanlaryan said that the Iran-Armenia relations will be in the spotlight and added that the lifting of sanctions outlines new fields of cooperation.

The Azerbaijani side used artillery weapons of different caliber as it fired more than 1,100 shots from weapons of different caliber in the direction of the Armenian positions over the weekend.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army confidently perform their military duty and resort to retaliatory measures in cases of extreme necessity, the NKR Defense Ministry said.

On 26 February Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan visited Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin and met his Holiness Garegin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians.

The President acknowledged the role of the Armenian Apostolic Church from the viewpoint of strengthening the independent Armenian statehood, cementing the Armenia-Artsakh-Diaspora trinity, as well as maintaining the Armenian national identity.

Primate of the Artsakh Diocese Archbishop Pargev Martirosyan, and a number of supreme hierarchs of the Armenian Apostolic Church partook in the meeting.

Asbarez – Today, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) entered the following statement into the Congressional Record:

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the pogrom against the Armenian residents of the town of Sumgait, Azerbaijan. On this day in 1988, and for three days following, Azerbaijani mobs assaulted and killed Armenians. When the violence finally subsided, hundreds of Armenian civilians had been brutally murdered and injured, women and young girls were raped, and victims were tortured and burned alive. Those that survived the carnage fled their homes and businesses, leaving behind everything they had in their desperation.

“The pogroms were not an accident. They were the culmination of years of vicious anti-Armenian propaganda, spread by the Azerbaijani authorities. The Azerbaijani authorities made little effort to punish those responsible, instead attempting to cover up the atrocities in Sumgait to this day, as well as denying the role of senior government officials in instigating the violence. Unsurprisingly, it was not the end of the violence, and was followed by additional attacks, including the 1990 pogrom in Baku.

“The Sumgait massacre and the subsequent attacks on ethnic Armenians, resulted in the virtual disappearance of a once thriving population of 450,000 Armenians living in Azerbaijan, and culminating in the war launched against the people of Nagorno Karabakh. That war resulted in thousands dead on both sides and created over one million refugees in both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“Time has not healed the wounds of those murdered in the pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Baku. To the contrary, hatred of Armenians is celebrated in in Azerbaijan, a situation most vividly exemplified by the case of Ramil Safarov, an Azerbaijani army captain who savagely murdered an Armenian army lieutenant, Gurgen Margaryan with an axe while he slept. The two were participating in a NATO Partnership for Peace exercise at the time in Hungary. In 2012, Safarov was sent home to Azerbaijan, purportedly to serve out the remainder of his sentence. Instead, he was pardoned, promoted, and paraded through the streets of Baku as a returning hero.

“The assault on ethnic Armenian civilians in Sumgait helped touch off what would become a direct conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karbakh. And today, Azerbaijan’s dangerous behavior on the Line of Contact threatens peace and stability in the region. Artillery and sniper fire across the Line of Contact has become a fact of daily life for civilians in the Nagorno Karbakh Republic, causing numerous casualties. I have urged the OSCE Minsk Group to deescalate the situation by ending a policy that equates unprovoked attacks by the Azerbaijan with the defensive responses of Karbakh and Armenian troops, and by pressuring Azerbaijan to accept the installation of technological monitoring devices along the border. The anniversary of Sumgait is a reminder of the consequences when aggression and hatred is allowed to grow unchecked.

“Mr. Speaker, this April we will mark the 101st Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, an event the Turkish government, Azerbaijan’s closest ally, goes to great lengths to deny. We must not let such crimes against humanity go unrecognized, whether they occurred yesterday or 28 years ago or 100 years ago. Today, let us pause to remember the victims of the atrocities of the Sumgait pogroms. Mr. Speaker, it is our moral obligation to condemn crimes of hatred and to remember the victims, in hope that history will not be repeated.”

Tensions were high at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan last night, the NKR Defense ministry reports.

The rival used artillery weapons of different caliber as it fired more than 2,000 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions.

“The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army keep control of the situation at the state border and resort to retaliatory measures if necessary,” the Ministry said in a statement.

President Serzh Sargsyan held consultations today on Armenian-Austrian relations, the ongoing programs and the perspectives of development. Arman Kirakosyan, Armenia’s Ambassador to Austria and the country’s representative to a number of international organizations accredited to Vienna, presented a report.

“Austria is a friendly country, a developed country and we are building our relations, taking note of the joint historic path., i.e. we develop our relations on the basis of firm historic grounds,” he said. The President reminded that Austria was one of the first to respond after the devastating earthquake of 1988.

President Sargsyan said Austria is extremely important to us for its rich experience of development in the fields of information technologies, medicine, tourism and infrastructures.

“I think we have good chances of increasing the Austrian investments in Armenia, especially in the field of industry, as there are a number of powerful companies in Austria investing in different countries of the world, and Armenia could provide wide opportunities as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union,” the President said, adding that “we are ready to create favorable conditions for any serious investor.”