The United States prevented the supply of 30 Turkish-made ATAK helicopters to Pakistan, the Turkish President’s spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin noted, commenting on the consequences of US sanctions on the country over the purchase of Russian S-400s.

According to him, this will likely lead to the fact that the tender in question will go to China, and the United States will be the losers here, Bloomberg reported.

Kalin said that Turkey bought the S-400 because of the US position, which refused to supply Patriot air defense systems to Ankara on favorable terms.

When Armenians fled the Ottoman Empire’s genocidal campaign during World War I, a Kurdish tribal leader in Zakho embraced them. Locals still remember the man, who was awarded a medal in 1925 by the worldwide Catholic Church’s leader at the time for his lifesaving work,  Rudaw writes.

Mohammed Shammadin Agha Selvan played a pivotal role in sheltering Armenians fleeing between 1916 and 1918. He was recognized by Pope Pius XI for his work protecting Christians from brutality. In 1925, the Catholic leader awarded Selvan a medal.

Along with the Turks and other peoples, a number of Kurdish tribes, mainly as part of the Ottoman Army, participated in the killing of Armenians during the genocide. Other Kurds like Selvan opposed the mass killings, hiding and sometimes adopting members of the ethnic group.

Nearly a century on, Selvan’s descendants have proudly kept this award left by their ancestor.

“This is the award presented to my grandfather, late Mohammed Shammadin Agha Selvan by Pope Pius XI,” Saad Mohammed Haji Agha told Rudaw on Thursday. “Despite all the hardships, displacement and difficulties our nation saw across different periods of time from 1958 to 1991 and to 2003, and from 2003 up to now, we have kept this award safe and passed it from one generation to the other.”

According to Selvan’s grandson, the leader was the mayor of Zakho in the 1920s.

The awarding of Selvan came after the Virgin Mary Assyrian Church sent official correspondence to the Vatican, praising the Kurdish leader’s role giving Armenian’s shelter on his land and property.

“Our church was the first to be built in Zakho. In 24 hours, [Ottoman] soldiers arrived in Zakho from Mosul. Mohammed Agha came to our church to protect us from the attack,” Polis Henna, a retired priest from Zakho.

Over 2,000 Armenians currently live in the Kurdistan Region, according to Yerwant Nisan, an Armenian community leader and former MP in the Kurdistan Region’s parliament.

The vast majority, around 2,000, are in Duhok province, and 200 live in Erbil. Another 800 Armenians live in Kirkuk, a province disputed between Erbil and Baghdad.

Residents of Afza Rok Miri, an Armenian village in Zakho, still praise Selvan’s role protecting their ancestors who made it to the present-day Kurdistan Region during the genocide.

“My late uncle told me ‘never forget what was done for us [by Selvan],” said Sarkis Yousif, an Armenian resident of the village.

The Constitution of the Kurdistan Region recognizes Armenians as a distinct ethnic group, providing them the right to education in their mother tongue, and reserves them one seat in parliament.

There are six Armenian churches in the Kurdistan Region – four in Duhok province, and one in Erbil.

Vazgen Manukyan, a leader of the Homeland Salvation Movement calling for the resignation of Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, said that free and fair parliamentary elections can not be held as long as Pashinyan remains in power.

Manukyan, at an opposition rally today in Yerevan, accused Pashinyan of using the police to govern the country and quash the opposition.

“He has neither a moral right nor the possibility to govern. How can there be elections in a police state?” Manukyan said, adding that those opposed to Pashinyan are patiently moving their struggle forward.

Referring to the low turnout at today’s rally, Manukyan said the number is deceiving and that many more want Pashinyan to leave than attended the rally.

“We have lost a significant part of our homeland. Our army has been broken. We have lost thousands of young people, Aliyev speaks with contempt for Armenians,” Manukyan told rallygoers.

Manukyan, nominated by the HSM to lead a transitional government, called on those opposed to Pashinyan to join the opposition movement or to create their own organizations.

Saying that “the state is dying before our eyes”, Manukyan said the opposition can no longer remain patient given the urgency of the situation.

Following his speech, rallygoers marched through downtown Yerevan to the presidential residence, calling on people to join their movement.

Source: https://hetq.am/en/article/128290

Holding snap elections during Nikol Pashinyan’s rule is the same as legitimizing him by making him Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia for 5 years. Narek Samsonyan, head of the Civic Consciousness NGO, told Tert.am about this during a rally demanding the resignation of Nikol Pashinyan.

He reminded of the March 1 rally of the government, emphasizing the use of administrative resources.
“There will be more serious violations during the elections, more administrative resources will be used. Extraordinary elections are very important, but they can take place only after the removal of Nikol Pashinyan. In that case, there will be competitive conditions. “Going to the polls in these conditions is a suicide by the opposition, because the latter will support the extension of Nikol Pashinyan’s rule,” he said.

According to Samsonyan, there will be citizens who will vote for Pashinyan and his team after what happened, but those citizens are pro-Azerbaijani. “Nikol Pashinyan should not be in power in order not to falsify the elections,” he said.
According to the latter, there has been unpredictability in the country for three years, there is zero faith in the future, which must be fought against now.
“Public solidarity in the country will be restored when all the questions are answered, all the people who committed crimes will be punished. The atmosphere of public solidarity was disrupted three years ago by the seizure of power. “Until this government leaves, we cannot talk about public solidarity,” said Narek Samsonyan.

Probe’s scope includes events reported in Salon’s investigation into the group that gave cash to Black voters

By Roger Sollenberger

The FBI has opened an investigation into the activities of a pro-Trump group that appears to have engaged in an off-the-books foreign influence campaign and violated IRS rules regulating the political activity of nonprofit organizations, Salon has learned.

The probe’s scope includes two officials affiliated with the Urban Revitalization Coalition, a now-defunct organization which made headlines last year with suspicious cash giveaways to Black voters and subsequently lost its tax-exempt charity status, a person familiar with the investigation told Salon. The two men — Kareem Lanier and Darrell Scott, a Cleveland-area pastor and former Trump campaign official — also used the URC as a vehicle to “solicit donations” from foreign nationals, including influential Turkish businessmen, while they worked with Trump administration officials to attract new investment in “Opportunity Zones,” economically disadvantaged areas targeted for new incentives under the former president’s 2017 tax bill.

Salon reported the Turkish connections in a two-part series last September.

Some of the solicitations were floated by former MAGA-world star Rabia Kazan, a Turkish author whom Scott and Lanier brought into the URC to facilitate such connections, according to Kazan and people with knowledge of the arrangement. Multiple people told Salon that the group had also approached Americans for donations in exchange for access to the Trump White House. Former Trump officials told Salon that such deals included tickets to a White House Easter Egg Roll, and that Scott was suspected of using his Cleveland church to funnel untraceable large-dollar contributions to Trump’s inauguration.

The URC made headlines last February when it held campaign-adjacent events with cash giveaways for Black voters in underprivileged communities, including a $25,000 raffle — which the organization had promised the IRS it would not do. Politico described the raffles as part of a national strategy to hold events “in Black communities where they lavish praise on the president while handing out thousands of dollars in giveaways.”

Government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington raised concerns that the URC was in breach of IRS rules governing the group’s capacity to participate in political activities. But because the URC never filed a tax return, neither the public nor the IRS have learned much about the group’s fundraising and spending.

Scott, who advised Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, presents himself as a Christian minister reformed from a life of drugs. During the 2020 election he co-chaired Black Voices for Trump, an official campaign arm formerly led by the late Herman Cain, and frequently identifies himself as “Dr. Scott,” thanks to an honorary degree he received from the unaccredited St. Thomas Christian College in 2004. He founded the nondenominational New Spirit Revival Center, headquartered in a former Cleveland Heights synagogue. It has its own radio station.

Scott was often seen at the Trump White House, but told Salon he prided his independence from unenumerated encumbrances that would have accompanied an official administration title. He traveled on Air Force One with Trump a number of times, and watched the 2018 midterm returns with the former commander in chief at the White House. The surrogate is also close with former White House adviser Jared Kushner: Scott calls him “J-Rock,” and the two worked closely to promote Opportunity Zones, a program that created capital gains tax incentives to spur investment in poor and minority communities, which eventually fizzled out.

The URC’s efforts to make inroads with foreign investors dovetailed with the Trump administration’s foreign policy goals of establishing a new overarching trade deal with Turkey. They also overlapped with Turkey’s release of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor and political prisoner held by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Texts from an Erdogan aide, obtained by Salon, describe the release as part of a “mutual” exchange connected to the 2018 midterm elections.

Legal experts told Salon that some of the above activities appear to violate rules governing U.S. tax and lobbying laws.

Kazan previously told Salon that Scott had a particular fascination with Turkey, and that she had connected him with multiple Turkish figures, including billionaire industrialist Mehmet Nazif Günal and Kazan’s own sister, who had married into the Godiva chocolate business empire. Kazan said Scott and Günal had discussed millions of dollars in assets that Günal could no longer access in Saudi Arabia, and that Günal hoped that Scott could help convince Trump to lean on the Saudi king.

A group led by Scott tweeted in 2017 about Saudi Arabia’s King Salman presenting Trump with the kingdom’s highest honor.

Kazan also connected the URC officials with Turkish business representative Ali Akat, who made at least two visits to the U.S. in 2018, in April and November. Akat met with multiple congressmen and GOP operatives, and in April was escorted by Scott to the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, home to offices of White House aides and staff, where they held a meeting, according to photos posted to social media.

In a phone interview, Scott did not deny or express surprise at the existence of a federal investigation into his group. (“FBI, CIA, KGB. They can all look into it, I don’t care. Nothing there.”) He also said that aside from Akat, he never met with any foreign investors. A passage from his book, “Nothing to Lose,” published last summer, claims that the two men conceived of the URC specifically as a way to attract investors from overseas.

“As Kareem and I talked and strategized we concluded that since the money would come from foreign investors, we had to ensure before securing funding that the business would be done right,” Scott wrote.

Though Scott denied meeting other foreign investors, and told Salon that he met “like 500 people a day” in Washington and could not be expected to remember everyone, when reminded of Günal, he immediately recalled a meeting over dinner in May 2018, during which he said the billionaire “was drunk.” A few minutes prior to the phone conversation, Scott had sent Salon an email that read, in full: “I never had any dealings with Turks. It was a lie.” Of his time with Akat, Scott said: “Nothing came of it. It turned out that he was just a con man.”

Expatriate Turkish journalist and newspaper editor Abdulhamit Bilici previously told Salon in a call that “it’s not possible Erdogan could not know” about Akat’s interactions with the URC.

“Even the smallest details of these things wouldn’t happen without his knowledge,” Bilici said. “All businesses in the country, if allowed to operate, pay their dues to him, so to speak.”

In addition to the meetings with Akat and Günal, Scott was apparently close with Turkish journalist Yavuz Atalay, chief White House correspondent for Aksam Gazette, a newspaper that supports Erdogan’s government. Indeed, Atalay’s most recent tweet, as of this writing, is a thank-you note to Scott for a signed copy of his book and “all other gifts.”

Scott boasted multiple times on Twitter about meeting Akat. On April 25, 2018, he tweeted, “With some of my Business Homies, Ali and the guys, in DC at the Trump discussing bringing businesses to America! Great things are on the horizon! #urbanRevitalizationCoalition.” Later that evening he tweeted, “With my guy Ali to discuss bring HUNDREDS of BUSINESSES to Urban America. Great things are on the horizon __#UtbanRevitalizationCoalition” [sic], and included a picture of himself with Akat at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

The next day, Scott tweeted: “Finalizing plans to bring 30 billion dollars in investment along with 25,000 well paying manufacturing jobs to Urban America. Great things are on the horizon!!!!! #UrbanRevitalizationCoalition”. He tagged all the tweets with the name of his nonprofit, whose mission, according to its website, was to “Revitalize America’s Urban Communities!”

Two weeks later, and one day after a since-deleted article in the Turkish press quoted Akat about the visit — Scott tweeted, “Myself and @realkareemdream have been negotiating with foreign investors about potentially pouring billions of dollars into Opportunity Zones in Urban Communities all across the country. Great things are on the horizon! ##UrbanRevitalizationCoalition.”

Scott engaged with a reply to that tweet reading: “Talk with the Saudis. They like us now!”

“They’re on our radar screen!” Scott wrote.

That same day, Lanier quoted Scott’s “foreign investors” tweet, commenting: “Huge Announcement(s) Coming Soon Urban America! @realDonaldTrump & @PastorDScott and many others are fighting everyday for all in our great country!!! @CNN and @MSNBC will be forced to eat their words and report “Real News” for a change. Hahaha!!!#BillionsontopofBillions“

Scott has also deleted his end of a Twitter conversation in which he debated the value of foreign investments.

Thank you great friend @PastorDScott for the signed book and all other gifts. Cont wait to read it. pic.twitter.com/LnUvY7bShm

— Yavuz Atalay (@_yavuzatalay) February 6, 2021

The “huge announcement,” however, appears not to have come to pass. The Trump administration never struck a large-scale trade deal with Turkey, and intergovernmental communications quickly fell apart that summer in the spat over Brunson’s release.

In a taped phone conversation in Turkish, which Salon obtained and had independently translated three times, Akat acknowledges that Scott and Lanier had asked him for financial “donations.” Akat says that when he declined, the men “pressured” him to remove the photos of their meetings published on his social media accounts and in Turkish media. Kazan told Salon that Scott and Lanier also asked that she delete her own social media photos documenting the visit.

“If I introduce you to a Black dude, and you take a picture with him, and then you find out he’s a drug dealer, wouldn’t you want to tell him to take that picture down?” he asked. Scott himself used to sell drugs. Akat is the president of the Turkish American Business Association and the Turkish-American Chamber of Commerce.

Following the meetings with Akat, Scott and Lanier brought Kazan on board to the URC. Kazan says that the men were using her entirely for her connections to Turkey.

Experts tell Salon that, by all appearances, the URC was engaged in lobbying efforts on behalf of foreign interests — which would legally require it to register with the U.S. government as a foreign agent.

It is unclear whether the URC maintained communications with Akat and Günal. Scott denied having spoken again with the men, but said he could not remember if they had exchanged emails or text messages.

In an interview with the Daily Sabah — a pro-government Turkish newspaper — given a month before his first U.S. visit, Akat said that he planned to meet with U.S. government officials in hopes of establishing a “Turkish organized industrial zone” in a number of American states. In a later interview with the outlet, following Akat’s November trip to Washington, during which he stayed at the Trump Hotel and received gifts from the White House, he boasted of a major trade deal ahead. The businessman pointed to Godiva Chocolatier, a largely Turkish-owned company, as particularly promising, since Americans were unlikely to perceive Godiva as a foreign brand.

The goal, according to Akat, was to round up Turkish companies who would promise a $1 million up-front investment. These companies would then get first crack at manufacturing opportunities in certain American markets. It is unclear whether Akat met with Scott and Lanier on that second trip, and unclear why trade talks later fell through.

In a since-deleted Facebook post during Akat’s April 2018 trip, Republican strategist and XStrategies CEO Alexander Bruesewitz said he and Akat discussed Godiva at the then-president’s hotel, mentioning Turkey’s “desire to invest $12B in the US” and create 25,000 jobs.

Despite Scott’s tweets, however, he says he lost interest in Akat within days.

“A lot of people like to talk a lot of shit, but when it comes time to put up or shut up, more often than not they shut up,” he said.

Kareem Lanier could not be reached for comment.

Source: https://www.salon.com/2021/02/24/pro-trump-black-group-that-solicited-foreign-investors-is-now-under-fbi-investigation/

Ani Hovhannisyan,

When war broke out in Artsakh last year, Armenians around the world scrambled to aid their compatriots in the besieged “Second Armenian Republic”.

Various assistance initiatives were organized, but there was nothing on an organized pan-Armenian scale. 

The Hayastan All-Armenian Fund (Fund), the global Armenian fund-raising organization, then launched the “We Are Our Borders. All for Artsakh” fund drive. Armenian celebrities and official urged Armenians to pool their resources and contribute to the Fund, claiming the monies would be directed to where it was needed the most. 

By the end of the war, the Fund had raised some US$170 million, of which $65 million was raised in Armenia.

Fund Director Haykak Arshamyan, in one of his interviews at the time, said that “practically the entire adult population of Armenia was involved in this fundraiser.”

Those who donated are still asking for an accounting of where the money has gone.

In October 2020, the Fund’s Board of Trustees decided to transfer some 60 % of the money raised (about $105 million) to the Government of Armenia. Donors in Armenia were informed about this on November 18, when the subject came up at a Q&A session in parliament.

A day later, fielding questions by reporters in Yerevan, Fund Director Haykak Arshamyan preferred not to talk about the amount of money donated to the Government.

“Let’s not talk about the amount of money at this moment, until the fund is audited,” Arshamyan told reporters.

On December 18, 2012, Hetq sent a request to the Fund asking for the release of all financial inflows and outflows for the period from January 1 to December 15, 2020. We asked for information on what the money was spent on and what programs were implemented.

Not receiving an answer for more than a month, we called the Fund’s media department. Ashot Barseghyan, a marketing and public relations consultant for the Fund, finally called and said there had been a mix-up at the office since several inquiries had been received from Hetq.

On January 29, we received a letter in which the Foundation gave the following answer to our question about providing the financial inflows and outflows.

“Given on the public’s need to know and the concerns raised about the Fund’s good name, the Fund, according to the Rule on Foundations, has invited an internationally recognized independent auditing firm to carry out an audit of the monies raised by the Fund in 2020, how efficiently they were used, and in terms of credibility. The results, once approved and certified by the Board of Trustees, will be made public.

To the question of what specific programs were implemented the Fund replied:

 “All the proceeds of the ‘We Are Our Borders’ fundraiser are intended only for infrastructure damaged by the war, to pay for financial and healthcare expenses, and the provision of necessary assistance to the people of Artsakh.”

We were forced to have another telephone conversation with Fund representative Ashot Barseghyan since the above reply failed to answer our questions. We asked for clear answers and a confirmation that they wouldn’t provide financial data if that were the case.

We received a second reply:

“Expenditures incurred by the Fund are subject to publication only after final approval by the Board of Trustees.” 

There was no answer as to when the audit will be carried out and the report   published.

The Fund’s last, 2018, report was published in 2019 on azdarar.am, an official website for public announcements in Armenia. According to Article 39 of the RA Law on Foundations, foundations are required to publish a report on donations and expenditures no later than March 25 of each reporting year. This means that by the end of this month, the Fund must publish a detailed report on donations and expenditures. In case of non-publication or incomplete publication of the report within the established period, the Ministry of Justice shall apply the measures of accountability as provided by the RA Code on Administrative Offenses, up to filing a lawsuit with the court.

The Government of Armenia is not a Fund beneficiary 

The Republic of Armenia is recognized as the founder of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, and according to its charter, the property of the Fund cannot be used for the benefit of its founder, i.e., the Republic of Armenia.

Hetq asked the Fund why they violated the charter by directing most of the money raised to the Armenian government. The foundation, referring to point 27 of the charter, noted that there was no violation. According to that point, the founder (Republic of Armenia) can use the property of the Fund, if it is a beneficiary envisaged by the charter.

According to the charter (point 7), the beneficiaries of the Fund are the population of Armenia, Artsakh and other large diaspora countries. The Government of the Republic of Armenia is not the population of Armenia; therefore, it is not a beneficiary of the Fund. By that logic, the funds raised by the Fund could have been directed to the governments of one of the countries with a large Armenian diaspora, for example, the USA or Russia.

It is not clear on what legal basis the Armenian government has become a beneficiary. After transferring the money to the state treasury, the Fund has no other leverage to control when and for what it is spent.

In an interview with Hetq on November 19, 2012, Fund Director Haykak Arshamyan said that none of the money transferred to the government has been used to pay salary or bonuses, and that it went towards the refugee problem and healthcare.

On December 28, 2020, Armenia’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, which deals with the provision of housing for the people of Artsakh and other humanitarian assistance, told Hetq that it had not received any financial support from the Fund.https://www.facebook.com/v3.2/plugins/quote.php?app_id=468673766529308&channel=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fx%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter%2F%3Fversion%3D46%23cb%3Df1757d337114e6e%26domain%3Dhetq.am%26origin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fhetq.am%252Ff19978b54182f96%26relation%3Dparent.parent&container_width=930&href=https%3A%2F%2Fhetq.am%2Fen%2Farticle%2F128075%3Futm_content%3Dbuffer609cc%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dtwitter.com%26utm_campaign%3Dbuffer&locale=en_US&sdk=joey

Last December, Artsakh Health Minister Ararat Ohanjanyan told Hetq that many hospitals in Artsakh needed renovation. The buildings were seriously damaged, the windows of all the hospitals were broken, but they did not receive any support from the Fund.

We asked the Fund whether the donations would be allocated to restore the healthcare system of Artsakh. This question remained unanswered.

On January 29, 2021, Haykak Arshamyan told Hetq that they were actively cooperating with the Government of the Artsakh Republic to carry out reconstruction work.

“A large-scale construction project has been launched, including the purchase of construction materials, which aims to urgently eliminate the damage caused to residential houses and apartment building because of the Artsakh-Azerbaijani hostilities, as well as to a number of other facilities. We consider it necessary to inform that the above-mentioned program is financed by the Fund’s ‘We Are Our Borders’ fundraiser,” Arshamyan said.

On February 17, 2021, it became clear that the Fund had not yet allocated money for housing or other urban development programs in Artsakh. Artsakh Presidential Chief of Staff Artak Beglaryan had told Hetq “there are some problems” delaying Fund financing.

The Fund left unanswered our questions about the complete list of donors, procurement procedures and company names.

According to information available on the Fund’s website, 10 billion drams (more than $20 million) of the “We Are Our Borders’ fundraiser was https://www.facebook.com/v3.2/plugins/quote.php?app_id=468673766529308&channel=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fx%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter%2F%3Fversion%3D46%23cb%3Df1757d337114e6e%26domain%3Dhetq.am%26origin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fhetq.am%252Ff19978b54182f96%26relation%3Dparent.parent&container_width=930&href=https%3A%2F%2Fhetq.am%2Fen%2Farticle%2F128075%3Futm_content%3Dbuffer609cc%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dtwitter.com%26utm_campaign%3Dbuffer&locale=en_US&sdk=joeyallocated for a one-time payment of 68,000 drams each to 80-100,000 people from Artsakh. Another   10 billion drams was allocated to provide one-time payments of 300,000 drams to the residents displaced from more than 100 settlements in Kashatagh, Martakert, Shahumyan, Hadrut, Shushi, Askeran and Martuni regions of Artsakh. 

The Fund also allocated $1.1 million to the Soldiers’ Insurance Fund in Armenia. The Fund informed Hetq that it has purchased diesel generators, ambulances, medical equipment and first aid kits, basic household items, wood stoves, electric heaters, portable gas stoves, portable charging stations, beds, and other necessary items.

“Currently, the Fund is developing short-term and long-term programs to overcome the crisis,” the Fund’s response reads.

The Fund will need new funding to implement short-term projects, let alone long-term ones. The existence of transparent reporting mechanisms will go a long way to garner continued public trust and donations.

Source: https://hetq.am/en/article/128075?utm_content=buffer609cc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

CAIRO – 3 March 2021: Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry chaired Wednesday a ministerial meeting discussing Turkish interference in the internal affairs of the Arab countries, on the sidelines of the 155th session of the Arab League ministerial council.

Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Palestine agreed upon the importance of continuing to work during the coming period in order to create an environment conducive to serious and constructive negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli parties.

The discussions aimed to end the current stalemate, and seek to reach a comprehensive, just and lasting peace that guarantees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in accordance with the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

This came during the consultative meeting held today, Wednesday, by Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Affairs Ayman Safadi, and Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Riyad Al-Maliki, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tahrir Palace, in Cairo.

Ambassador Ahmed Hafez, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that the three ministers commended at the beginning of the meeting the concrete developments in the areas of cooperation, and the sincere desire to advance the relations between Egypt, Jordan and Palestine in various fields.

Hafez said that the ministers stressed the importance of building on the momentum witnessed in the last period aimed at moving the peace process issue on several tracks, and” they praised the outcomes of the last meeting of the League of Arab States Council at the ministerial level in its extraordinary session, and the important decisions that emerged from it,” as they expressed their aspiration for the effective involvement of the concerned international parties in the peace process issue.

The spokesman added that the ministers stressed the need to stop all Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as they explained that the settlement operations undermine the chances of reaching a two-state solution.

For his part, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry expressed Egypt’s support for all the steps taken by the Palestinian leadership to make the Palestinian dialogue a success, and the aspiration for the upcoming elections to contribute to ending the Palestinian division file.

Former Deputy Minister of Defense of Armenia Artak Zakaryan today posted the following on his Facebook page:

“This is a fantastic government. Nikol barely manages to appoint officials. He appoints a few people every day. People are appointed, and more people resign. According to the capitulators, this is referred to as a state, and it seems to them that they are a government…

The same goes for lower circles. Nobody wants to be a part of their government. Nobody wants to get frustrated with this government or be a part of a government, the treason of which is becoming clear day after day.”

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has moved to gain full and direct control over a state agency that provides bodyguards to him and other current and former Armenian officials.

The State Protection Service (SPS), which also protects key state buildings, is currently part of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS).

A bill drafted by Pashinian’s office would separate the SPS from the NSS and make it directly subordinate to the prime minister. An explanatory note attached to it says that this would help the SPS “rapidly react to the situation on a daily basis” and “take appropriate actions.”

The Armenian government will decide later this month whether to formally approve the bill and send it to the National Assembly.

Nina Karapetiants, a civil rights activist, said the proposed change of the SPS’s status suggests that Pashinian does not trust the NSS, whose directors have been frequently replaced during his nearly three-year rule.

“It is obvious that the prime minister is trying to place under his direct control those structures which he can trust,” Karapetiants told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “This means that he distrusts the NSS so much that he has trouble entrusting it with his life.”

Areg Kochinian, a political analyst, linked the bill with heightened political tensions in the country and, in particular, opposition attempts to topple Pashinian over his handling of last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“International practice shows that as a rule such agencies are not part of other bodies,” he said. “There is the Secret Service in the United States and the FSO in Russia. They are directly subordinate to the country’s leader. So this is normal in terms of international experience.”

Still, Kochinian questioned the wisdom of turning the SPS into a separate agency, saying that this would run counter to Pashinian’s past promises to streamline the state apparatus through major staff cuts. He said that the SPS would require more government funding if it is separated from the NSS.

Pashinian already plays a decisive role in the choice of the head of the SPS. The latter is nominated by the prime minister and appointed by the president of the republic.

(JTA) — School textbooks in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been revised to refer to Jews and Christians as “infidels,” according to a new study.

Whereas previous textbooks referred to members of those religions as “People of the Book,” textbooks such as “Fundamental Religious Knowledge,” a publication released after 2017 that is part of the mandatory curriculum in Turkish elementary schools, have switched to calling them by the pejorative, according to the study published Thursday by the IMPACT-se watchdog group.

However, Holocaust studies have been introduced under Erdogan, making Turkey the second Muslim-majority country, after Azerbaijan, to include the genocide as part of the mandatory curriculum. Erdogan has invoked the Holocaust repeatedly in speaking about the treatment of Muslims in Europe today.

The changes coincide with radicalization in Turkish schools following the failed 2016 coup against Erdogan, leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party, according to Marcus Sheff, the CEO of IMPACT-se.

“School books have been weaponized in Erdogan’s attempts to Islamize Turkish society and to hark back to a nostalgic age of Turkish domination,” Sheff wrote, adding that his group has identified “increased demonization of Israel and antisemitic aspersions.”

One book, “A Contemporary Turkish and World History,” states that Israel is seeking to “reconstruct Solomon’s Temple” on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Another accuses the Alliance Jewish schooling network and the Maccabi sports association of working against Turkish national independence movement.

Israel’s conflict with Palestinians, who are referred to as “Muslims,” is described as a religious war where Israel is the aggressor.

BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ