PanARMENIAN.Net – CSTO Secretary General ruled out a military solution to the Nagorno Karabakh issue, stressing negotiations as the only way to settle the conflict.

“Past and recent events in South Caucasus suggest it’s very easy to start a war in this region, with the establishment of peace proving to be a hard task,” Nikolai Bordyuzha told a news conference in Yerevan, reminding about armed clashes in a number of post-Soviet countries in the 1990s.

“Some politicians are forgetting about those sad experiences,” CSTO chief said, referring to Azeri President’s bellicose speech at a Baku military parade.

In conclusion, Bordyuzha pointed out the OSCE Minsk Group as the only acceptable mediator in the conflict settlement talks.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become “the new dictator of Turkey,” Hurriyet Daily News reported.

“There are 7 billion people in the world. Making mistakes is natural for people and they correct their mistakes, and when it’s needed they apologize. This is a human virtue. If we make a mistake, we know how to apologize. But he [Erdogan] says, ‘I do not make mistakes.’ He says, ‘if you don’t do what I say, you can’t be right.’ His name is Turkey’s new dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” Kilicdaroglu said, addressing his party’s group meeting today at Parliament.

Kilicdaroglu added that the “young protesters of Gezi Park had made a dictator kneel down.” “Now in a panic he is organizing meetings across the country, all he does is yell, but the only one who listens him is himself. Do not pay attention to all the broadcasters’ live streams from his meetings. Nobody listens to what he says. There is one word when it comes to defining Erdoğan: liar,” Kilicdaroglu said.

Friendly and historical relations between Armenia and Iran create good opportunities for development of Iranian-Armenian relations, Chairman of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Alaeddin Boroujerdi announced at a meeting with Armenian ambassador to Iran Grigor Arakelyan on Wednesday, Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA reported.

Referring to economic relations between Armenia and Iran, the Iranian MP said, in part, “It is necessary to use all existing capabilities in order to contribute to the deepening of bilateral cooperation in trade, industry and other economic fields. Friendly relations with Armenia will boost bilateral cooperation in many fields.”

Grigor Arakelyan, for his part, stressed that Iran’s 11th presidential election was successful, and expressed hope for further expansion of relations between Armenia and Iran.

Academic and columnist Murat Belge has announced his resignation from the Wise Persons’ Committee, which had been formed by the Turkish government to assist the country’s bid to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue, The Hurriyet Daily News reports.

Belge, who was a member of the southeastern region committee, said the atmosphere created by the government with the Gezi Park unrest in Turkey was not appropriate to finding peace and he would not attend Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s meeting with the 60-member committee on June 26.

Belge announced his resignation in his column today in daily Taraf, saying the choice of words and language of the prime minister during the unrest in the country since May 31 was a “personal insult” to him as well.

“Like all those Gezi things did not happen, like all those insults were not said [by the prime minister] I found it meaningless and also impossible to speak about peace,” he said.

ISTANBUL – Anatolia News Agency

Thousands gathered in Istanbul’s Anatolian district of Kadıköy to mark the upcoming 20th anniversary of the Sivas massacre, upon a call from Alevi associations.

A number of unions as well as the Taksim Solidarity Platform, a local organization that launched the Gezi Park protests, also attended the demonstration. A representative of the platform made a speech emphasizing that their demands had yet to be met by the government.

The crowd was commemorating the killing of 35 people on the night of July 1-2, 1993, in an arson attack led by a mob on a hotel where many Alevi intellectuals and artists who had come to Sivas for a conference were staying. The controversies surrounding the pogrom have never completely been uncovered and an Ankara court dropped the case on the killings in March 2012, ruling that the charges against the suspects exceeded the statute of limitations. The Madımak hotel has since become a symbol of the discrimination faced by the Alevi community, who have long asked the state to turn it into a memorial museum.

Demonstrators also commemorated Ethem Sarısülük, a young Alevi protester who died after allegedly being shot by police during the Gezi Park events in Ankara.

Outcry over third Bosphorus bridge’s name

At the Kadıköy demonstration, Kemal Bülbül, the Chairman of the Pir Sultan Abdal Culture Association, slammed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s attitude toward the Alevi community. “After saying ‘one confession,’ ‘one religion,’ ‘one language,’ ‘one race,’ he now says ‘one man.’ We don’t accept any of it,” Bülbül said.

He also criticized the choice of the name “Yavuz Sultan Selim” for the future third bridge over the Bosphorus. Known in English as “Selim the Grim,” Selim is the Ottoman Sultan who is well known for slaughtering Alevis, and the Alevi community has repeatedly expressed its outrage over the government’s selection.

Following the bridge furor, President Abdullah Gül proposed to name a future project after Hacı Bektaş, a mystic who influenced the Alevi faith, or the Alevi poet Pir Sultan Abdal.

“Change the name of the university in Sivas to Pir Sultan Abdal. Establish the Hacı Bektaş Theology University. Change the name of Tunceli, which is in fact the name of a military operation, back to Dersim. Then we’ll talk,” Bülbül said.

“Establish an inquiry commission into all the people who have been the victim of massacres: Alevis, Armenians, Syriacs, Turks, and Kurds,” he added.

The Kadıköy demonstration came on the same day that Erdoğan warned of attempts to “foment ethnic tensions” in Turkey during a rally in Erzurum. He also hinted that a future rally could be held in Sivas, as preparations for the 20th commemoration of the attack on the Madımak hotel are ongoing.

Turks have gathered in German Dusseldorf demanding withdrawal of ‘In 1915 Turks committed genocide against Armenians’ formulation from history text-books.

According to Time Turk about 8 thousand signatures have been gathered in favor of it.

They have organized a rally in Dusseldorf trying to draw the attention on the gathered signatures.

One of the participants of the rally Ali Soilenmezoglu stated they demand the both parties to study the topic and give their response, otherwise they will continue the rallies.

June 24, 2013 – 15:40 AMT

 No Armenian victims have been reported in the recent Syria-related clashes in Lebanon, editor in chief of Beirut-based daily Aztag told PanARMENIAN.Net

According to Shahan Kandaharian, the situation is currently quiet in Beirut; however, violence is ongoing in the streets of Tripoli. The city’s Armenian population is unharmed, according to reports.

At least 12 people were killed in fierce clashes in the Lebanese city of Sidon on Sunday, June 23, between the army and followers of a Sunni Muslim cleric who have been caught up in sectarian fighting fuelled by the war in neighboring Syria.

Guns and rocket fire rattled the port city 40 km (28 miles) south of Beirut that has been on edge since violence erupted there last week between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim fighters, at odds over the Syrian conflict.

Protesters in Turkey are raging against Prime Minister Erdogan. What is the source of their dissatisfaction? Is Turkey experiencing its own version of the Arab Spring? And is Erdogan trying to accomplish too much, too fast? CrossTalking with Alon Ben-Meir, Zayd Alisa and Michael Dickinson.