During a meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani recalled that one of the Princes of Afghanistan had Armenian roots, Arman Yeghoyan, Pashinyan’s press secretary, wrote this on his Facebook page.
Afghani boys did not qualify for Erdogan terrorist Standard, therefore he is deporting as refugees
This undated photo released in the Turkish media purportedly shows Afghan as refugees in the city of Erzurum in eastern Turkey.
Turkish authorities have kicked off deportations of hundreds of Afghan refugees who had come to the country in their thousands recently with the hope to cross into Europe.
The Dogan news agency said Sunday that a first group of Afghan refugees, some 227 people, had boarded a charter flight provided by an Afghan airline from Erzurum in northeastern Turkey back to Kabul, adding that 661 more refugees would be deported this week on board two more flights on the same route.
The deportations are part of efforts by Turkey to send back thousands of Afghan refugees who have illegally entered Turkey via Iran over the past weeks. Estimates suggest more than 18,000 refugees have arrived over the past weeks. Officials in Erzurum said some 3,000 refugees would be deported from the city alone.
The Turkish media said the deportations were based on an agreement with the Afghan government. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, who was in Kabul Sunday for talks with officials, thanked Afghan authorities for their cooperation over the issue of refugees.
However, Afghan officials rejected the notion the Afghans being deported, saying they were returning to Afghanistan at their own will.
Islamuddin Jurat, spokesman for Afghanistan’s ministry of refugees and repatriations, said the refugees had sought to cross from Turkey to European countries and when they failed, they decided to return to Afghanistan.
“A number of Afghan refugees are coming back to the country of their own will,” said Jurat, adding, “They are the ones who wanted to use Turkey as a transit route to other countries, but when they failed they decided to come back.”
Afghans about to be deported from Erzurum said they would come back soon.
“Of course (I will try to come back) … Back home, there is unemployment and a lack of security,” said a woman interviewed by Turkish television.
Turkey clinched an agreement with the European Union in 2015 to curb the flow of refugees who were hitting the European shores at the time. The agreement came after more than a million refugees, including Afghans, came to Europe in search of better work and living.
Afghanistan: Karzai strongly condemns US dropping of huge bomb
Afghanistan’s former President Hamid Karzai has blasted the US for dropping its largest non-nuclear bomb in the Asian country, saying Washington is using his country as a “testing ground” for its new weapons.
“I vehemently and in strongest words condemn the dropping of the latest weapon, the largest non-nuclear #bomb, on Afghanistan by US military,” Karzai wrote on Twitter on Thursday, referring to the strike that was carried out earlier in the day.
Karzai, who became Afghanistan’s first president under an agreement largely negotiated by Western countries after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, further called on his country to “stop” the US.
“This is not the war on terror but the inhuman and most brutal misuse of our country as testing ground for new and dangerous weapons. It is upon us, Afghans, to stop the #USA.”
Earlier on Thursday, the US military said it had conducted a strike on a Daesh tunnel complex in Achin district in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.
A military statement said a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb had been dropped from a US aircraft in the strike. It claimed that US forces had taken every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike, without elaborating.
Afghan officials said on Friday that the US strike had killed at least 36 suspected Daesh terrorists, smashing a deep tunnel complex in the area. They said no civilian casualties had been caused.
“As a result of the bombing, key Daesh hideouts and a deep tunnel complex were destroyed and 36 fighters were killed,” Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, described the bombing as “very, very successful.”
Achin district governor Esmail Shinwari said the bomb landed in the Momand Dara area of Achin district. “The explosion was the biggest I have ever seen. Towering flames engulfed the area.”
The huge bomb — delivered via an MC-130 transport plane — has a blast yield equivalent to 11 tonnes of TNT, and been designed to intimidate the enemy as well as to clear broad areas, according to the US military.
AFGHANISTAN The German Minister of Defence visits Armenian troops
The German defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen, inspected and praised Armenian troops serving in Afghanistan under German command during a visit to the war-torn country. His visit ended yesterday.
Von der Leyen visited them Monday to Camp Marshal, a German military base near the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, which also serves as the regional headquarters of the multinational force led by NATO in Afghanistan.
According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, she thanked the 56 Armenian soldiers currently deployed there for their service. “She noted that Armenia is considered a reliable partner and expects this partnership to be sustainable,” the ministry said in a statement.
A photograph published by showed him the commander of the Armenian contingent exhibiting von der Leyen an Armenian national flag and an English-language book about a medieval monastery in Armenia.
The Armenian soldiers serve under German command and use German equipment since they were deployed in Afghanistan in 2010. Many of them have undergone short courses in Germany before their deployments.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbandian reiterated last week in Yerevan intends to maintain its military presence in Afghanistan, “at least until the end of 2016”.
The NATO mission also seems to have boosted the broader military ties with Armenia Germany. The defense ministries of the two countries pledged to strengthen bilateral cooperation last year when they approved a plan of joint activities for 2015.
President Serzh Sargsyan spoke of “fruitful cooperation with Germany” Armenia when he spoke at the NATO summit in Wales in August 2014. It was for him to “excellent example of the interaction between the members and partners of NATO states. “
Wednesday, December 9, 2015,
Claire © armenews.com
Claire © armenews.com
Gunmen in Afghan uniforms kill two US troops in Helmand report:
AFP — PUBLISHED ABOUT 3 HOURS AGO
KABUL: Men wearing Afghan military uniforms shot dead two Nato soldiers in the country’s south on Wednesday, the coalition said, the first insider attack on foreign troops since the Taliban’s bitter power transition.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack in Helmand, which coincided with the fall of a strategic district in the volatile opium-rich province to Taliban insurgents.
“Two Resolute Support (Nato) service members died early this morning when two individuals wearing Afghan (military) uniforms opened fire on their vehicle at an (Afghan security forces) compound in Helmand province,” a Nato statement said.
“Resolute Support service members returned fire and killed the shooters,” it added, without revealing the nationalities of the foreign soldiers.
So-called “green-on-blue” attacks — when Afghan soldiers or police turn their guns on international troops — have been a major problem during Nato’s long years fighting alongside Afghan forces.
In another development, Taliban insurgents overran the key northern district of Musa Qala after fierce fighting, according to a provincial council member.
Officials fear that the fall of the district, once a key Nato position, could help the militants topple adjoining districts, tightening their grip on northern Helmand.
“Many people have been killed or injured in the fighting. We barely made it out of the district alive,” said Mullah Abdul Jalil, a resident of Musa Qala who fled with his family to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah.
Taliban insurgents are ramping up their summer offensive launched in late April amid their simmering leadership dispute. Mullah Akhtar Mansour was named as the insurgents’ new chief in late July but the power transition has been acrimonious.
The insider attack was the first such incident since Mansour’s ascension following the announcement of the death of Mullah Omar.
The Nato statement did not give the precise location of the attack, which highlights long-simmering tensions between Afghan and foreign forces.
Western officials say most such incidents stem from personal grudges and cultural misunderstandings rather than insurgent plots.
The killings have bred fierce mistrust between local and foreign forces even though their number has declined in recent years.
The last insider attack was in April, when an American soldier was killed in a firefight between US and Afghan troops in eastern Afghanistan.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter at the time said the soldier’s killing showed that work remains to shore up Afghan forces in the “dangerous” country.
Nato ended its combat mission in Afghanistan last December and pulled out the bulk of its troops although a 13,000-strong residual force remains for training and counter-terrorism operations.
One of the worst insider attacks took place last August when US Major General Harold Greene was killed — the most senior American military officer to die in action overseas since the Vietnam War.
Nato troops have adopted special security measures in recent years to try to counter the threat.
The Afghan military, which has been built from scratch since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, has also struggled with insider attacks, high casualty rates and mass desertions.
Stretched on multiple fronts as the insurgency expands, Afghan forces are facing their first fighting season without the full support of Nato forces.