Chief of the General Staff of the Armenia’s Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Artak Davtyan received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Armenia Abbas Badakhshan Zohouri and Military Attaché of the Embassy, Colonel Bahman Sadeghin.

During the meeting, issues related to the Armenian-Iranian cooperation in the defense sphere were discussed. reference was made to maintenance and development of friendly relations between the two countries.

The interlocutors also referred to regional issues.

People who picture the reality and look with a clear-head should have realized that there is nothing surprising because about five months have passed since the signing of this disgraceful capitulation, and to this day, the leaders of our two Armenian states are traitorous authorities who handed over the country, and naturally, they would not change the path they have chosen and continue. Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) MP Metakse Hakobyan told this to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“Now their working style has changed to the extent that the internal tension is getting stronger. First, the plane, which returned [to Yerevan] empty; that is, without any [Armenian] captives [from Azerbaijan], and everyone was saying that the a group would return. (…). And the Armenian government showed the whole world that we have leaders who flee from their own people by helicopter, by all possible means; that is, our army, military leadership is weak; that is, with this they showed something else to their masters,” Hakobyan added in particular.

According to the lawmaker, the respective reaction of Rustam Muradov—commander of the Russian peacekeeping contingent that is stationed in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone to monitor the ceasefire there—was very normal, and there were even notes of anger in his voice. “This was the first case that he made a political analysis, although he never interferes in the political life of Artsakh, too. With that one sentence of his, he made it clear that the [Armenian] authorities were very well informed [that there were no POWs on board the aforesaid plane] and once again misled the nation,” she said.
According to Hakobyan, all this means that the Armenian authorities are engaged in dealings with the Azerbaijani side. “In order for the captives to return without any conditions, these very conditions were posited  by our authorities before our nation, as this time they definitely showed more clearly that they are collaborating with the enemy, showing the nation that the enemy wants something: the road to Karmir Shuka [village of Artsakh], Meghri [town of Armenia]. “
The Artsakh lawmaker added that the Armenian authorities keep silent about these reports, but the President of Artsakh [Arayik Harutyunyan] has become his spokesman and the slanders of the adversary are voiced through his lips. “Naturally, these calls are not addressed to the people of Artsakh because the people of Artsakh live here and, naturally, see the reality. He tells these lies for those living outside Artsakh and he does it as an order, too. Everything now depends on how the issue of the traitorous authorities will be resolved,” Metakse Hakobyan stressed.

By FAISAL J. ABBAS,

There has been widespread uproar at what was seen as misogynistic and insulting treatment meted out by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

At a meeting in Ankara last week, hosted by Erdogan for von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, the European Commission chief was left without a chair. She was visibly taken aback when the two men sat on the only two chairs available, relegating her to an adjacent sofa. Video footage of the incident has elicited thousands of anti-Erdogan comments on social media, where it has been dubbed “SofaGate.”

No woman, let alone the European Commission’s first female president, should be on the receiving end of such thoughtless, shameful and disgraceful behavior.

Turkey’s defense? Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu argued that the seating arrangements had been discussed and agreed with the EU ambassador in Ankara — who, like von der Leyen, is German. Nevertheless, the incident is a symptom of a deeply rooted disrespect for women within the Turkish establishment, regardless of whether the foreign minister’s claims are true.

Frankly, what has shocked me is that anyone was shocked in the first place. With all due respect to feminists and human rights activist in Brussels and across Europe, what did you expect from the Erdogan regime?

The discourtesy toward von der Lyen came less than a month after Erdogan pulled Turkey out of a key European convention aimed at combating violence against women — a convention signed, of all ironies, in Istanbul, and which Turkey was the first to ratify in 2012. If that withdrawal wasn’t a hint of what to expect, what would be?

For his part, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi was livid at the “mistreatment” of von der Leyen, and went so far as to call Erdogan a dictator. “With these dictators, let’s call them what they are…” he said. “I absolutely do not agree with Erdogan’s behavior toward President von der Leyen … I think it was not appropriate behavior and I was very sorry for the humiliation von der Leyen had to suffer.”

My issue with the Italian prime minister’s statement is, has he only just discovered that the Erdogan regime has transformed Turkey into a dictatorship? Was the arrest or suspension of nearly 45,000 military officials, judges, civil servants and school teachers in 2016 not enough of an indicator?

The discourtesy toward von der Lyen came less than a month after Erdogan pulled out of a European convention aimed at combating violence against women. If that wasn’t a hint of what to expect, what would be?

According to the Turkish justice ministry, a total of 128,872 investigations were launched in the past six years over “insulting the president,” of which 27,717 led to criminal prosecutions, and 9,556 to sentences of imprisonment. In this period, 903 young people between the ages of 12 and 17 were put on trial on the same “charge.”

As for suggestions that what happened with von der Lyen was “insulting to Europe” — I wonder if critics have noticed Turkey’s continued intimidation of Cyprus and Greece in the eastern Mediterranean.

Only on Saturday, Ankara accused Athens of supporting terrorist cells — another irony of ironies. This comes from a country that is often accused of harbouring, patronising and using extremists of all stripes, ready to use in theaters of war from Libya to Somalia and Syria to Iraq.

Then there is Erdogan’s tactic of resorting to blackmail, which he has honed almost to perfection. Every time Europe vows to bring him to heel for another indiscretion, whether it is illegally campaigning for votes among Turkish expatriates in Germany or encroaching on Greek territorial waters in the hunt for oil and gas deposits, the Turkish president threatens to open the floodgates of refugees into Europe. This is even greater cause for action to be taken against Turkey. Waves of refugees are a threat not just to European security and stability, and not just to European economies, but to the European Union’s core values.

What happened to Ursula von der Leyen will not be the end of such disrespectful behavior, and what is happening to the Turkish opposition and to all those who dare to differ from Erdogan is only the thin end of the wedge. It will continue to happen until Europe and the world resolve to call him out for what he is.

When you invite a monster to the table, the least of your problems is a missing chair.

Source: https://www.arabnews.com/node/1840926

According to him, Arman Navasardyan was hospitalized in St. Gregory the Illuminator Hospital. Arman Navasardyan was born on April 6, 1939. 1956-1960 studied after Valery Brusov at the State Linguistic University, 1974-1976 և 1988-1989 at the Diplomatic Academy of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and 2015-2018 He was a candidate for the Chair of International Relations, Institute of Law, and Policy at the Armenian-Russian University. 1991-1993 He held the post of Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Armenia, held various diplomatic positions in Algeria, Senegal, Austria, Hungary and Lebanon. Arman Navasardyan had the diplomatic rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.

Hirair Hovnanian, the renowned American Armenian entrepreneur, philanthropist, and member of the Board of Trustees of the Hayastan All Armenian Fund, has died at the age of 91.

Do not believe the results of sociological polls in Armenia; they are all manipulative. Political scientist Armen Badalyan told this to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“That is, there is no institute of independent sociological polls in Armenia; we cannot know whose [popularity] rating is rising and whose is falling,” he added.

According to the political scientist, in order for the snap parliamentary elections to take place on June 20, PM Nikol Pashinyan must resign in late April or early May, and after that—under the Constitution—, he should not hold office. “Constitutionalists explain that if he resigns, he should not continue in office. But as we understand it, at the moment, the incumbent prime minister will resign and will not leave [office], holding the June 20 elections as acting [PM]—as in the case of the previous snap elections,” he said.

As per Badalyan, Pashinyan may use administrative resources in the June 20 elections, but not in full. “You can get 2-3% of votes with administrative resources, but you need to get 50+%. It is almost impossible to commit such degree of [electoral] fraud without distributing money; that is, in this case the ruling force does not have the network to distribute money, which its rivals have. But, also, it will prevent—through the police force—them from getting votes by distributing money,” he said in particular.

And assessing the chances of Pashinyan’s political force in the forthcoming elections, Badalyan said that everything depends on the election campaign of the other forces. “If all the forces running in the elections be completely ignorant, of course the ruling political force can get even 100%. But if they conduct a successful election campaign, the ruling force has no chance not only to win, but also to become an influential force,” he added.

Alexander Molokhov, head of the Working Group on International Legal Issues at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Crimea to the President of the Russian Federation, called Turkey’s promise to return the peninsula under Ukrainian control a gift from the Danes, RIA Novosti reported.

In his talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had expressed support for the “Crimean platform.” According to him, Ankara supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, and its principled position is the recognition of the “annexation” of Crimea.

Erdogan has his own foreign policy goals, and the maintenance of Crimea within the framework of Kyiv’s influence is not in his plans, Molokhov added.

Also, he expressed confidence that with an “ally” like Turkey, Zelensky does not even need enemies.

Azerbaijani internet users have edited several addresses in Yerevan on Google Map, renaming them after their heroes.

Naira Zohrabyan of the opposition Prosperous Armenia party (PAP) raised alarm over the issue on Saturday morning, sharing the image of the map with changed addresses in central Yerevan.

“My residence address thus turns out a street named after a certain Polad Hasimov. Keep on preachig brotherhood with the Turk!” she said in a statement on Facebook.

A subsequent fact-checking by Tert.am also revealed addresses with Azerbaijani names in the Armenian capital.

A renamed location was also found in the village of Ptghunk in the north-western Armavir region. 

‘Standard quantum hooliganism’: IT security expert on renamed Yerevan streets with Azerbaijani names

The recently edited Yerevan map with Azerbaijani street names should come as asbsolutely no surprise given that we encounter the practice time and again in different software applications, an IT security expert said today, responding to the growing concerns over the recently published Google Map image.

“Things of the kind are a common practice, which will be repeated also in the future,” Samvel Martirosyan told Tert.am, describing the Azerbaijani internet users’ move as a “standard quantum hooliganism”.

“The Google operation is based on inputs by different subscribers, i.e. – anything we see on Google Map is added by individual users. There are certainly addresses posted from websites, but in most cases definitely, it is  people themselves that create the content. That’s how almost all the maps function in essence. And that’s the opportunity which they practically used now. After an individual user indicates a location name which is confirmed by several other users, [the adddress] appears automatically once it attracts the required number of conformations,” he explained.

Writer and opposition politician Selahattin Demirtaş turns 48 on Saturday 10 April. This will be the fifth birthday he spends behind bars, away from his loved ones.

Demirtaş has been held in pre-trial detention for over four years, on dubious terrorism charges. The European Court of Human Rights twice ruled for his release, to no avail.

It is time that Turkey abides by its obligations under international law and release Demirtaş once and for all.

TWITTER DAY OF ACTION – 10 APRIL

Join the call to free Selahattin Demirtaş on social media #FreeDemirtaş

---

For more information about Selahattin Demirtaş and PEN’s campaign please click here.

For further details contact Aurélia Dondo at PEN International, Koops Mill, 162-164 Abbey Street, London, SE1 2AN, UK Tel: +44 (0) 20 7405 0338 Fax +44 (0) 20 7405 0339 e-mail: Aurelia.dondo@pen-international.org

.@abdulhamitgul, Selahattin Demirtaş should spend his birthday with his family, not behind bars. Release him immediately and unconditionally #FreeDemirtaş

Selahattin Demirtaş turns 48 today. This is the fifth birthday he spends behind bars. .@abdulhamitgul abide by @ECHR_CEDH rulings and release him now #FreeDemirtaş

.@abdulhamitgul, the PEN Community stands with Selahattin Demirtaş. Today is his birthday. He must be freed. #FreeDemirtaş