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Armenian Prime Minister and U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Discuss Anti-Corruption Campaign

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Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan and U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills discussed possible ways to fight corruption in Armenia during a meeting in Yerevan on February 10.

Karapetyan gave details of several draft laws aimed at improving the effectiveness of anticorruption actions and mechanisms, introducing new procedures, which may help reduce corruption risks in all areas.

“In terms of achieving consistency in the fight against corruption, I believe it crucial to ensure the public’s proactive civil position, provide a stronger Government-society feedback and build on constructive cooperation with partner organizations. I would like to emphasize once again that my government is open to discussion and proposals,” Karen Karapetyan said.

The discussion follows a February 6 vote by Armenia’s parliament to deny debate on a bill that would require top government officials to specify the sources of income in their annual financial disclosures.

According to a government press release, the U.S. Ambassador welcomed the Prime Minister’s public statements and actions in this regard. Noting that there is still much to be done in this field, Richard Mills said his country’s authorities ready to support the Government’s anticorruption effort through their own resources.

“You may rest assured of the United States’ commitment to supporting Armenia’s anti-corruption program. We are prepared to work with all those state structures firmly determined to combat corruption,” the ambassador said.

At Richard Mills’ request, Karen Karapetyan briefed the ambassador on the goals and targets set before the independent preventive anticorruption body to be established under the Senior Officials’ Ethics Committee.

Armenian ambassador to US visits Fresno State

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FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) —

The ambassador of Armenia stopped by Fresno State during his visit to the Valley Saturday.

He visited the university’s Armenian Genocide Monument and paid tribute to the martyrs of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. The ambassador said the monument is a tremendous expression of solidarity.

“This monument is a powerful symbol we feel creates solidarity and commitment to fighting injustices in the future,” ambassador Grigor Hovhannissian said. “It’s very good that students see this.”

The ambassador formally invited Fresno State president Joseph Castro to visit Armenia.

Who instigated the Killing of Russian Ambassador Erdogan or Gulen if not then who?

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The Russian ambassador was killed because the Turks have been willingly Islamized over the past several years. He was killed because the dominant state ideology produces a “minister” who said that,

“We are all candidates to be martyrs.

I hope I become a martyr.

I hope you all become martyrs, too.”

It was not a coincidence that the police officer who shot the Russian ambassador dead also wanted to become a martyr.

Who alienated and insulted the Sunni police officer who killed the Russian ambassador? Wrong diagnosis, again. A survey earlier this year found that 13.6 percent of Turks (nearly 11 million) do NOT view ISIL as a terrorist group; and 22 percent (nearly 18 million) do NOT view it as a threat to Turkey (unsurprisingly, the percentages are higher among those who vote for the ruling Justice and Development Party).

The Russian ambassador was killed because of a 14-century-old schism not even sparked by a theological dispute although that, too, came into the picture later, along with various political deliberations of different times. This is a feud started by rival clans in the Prophet Muhammad’s tribe, the Quraysh, and has survived so violently beyond their imagination.

Source: words from BURAK BEKDİL Article http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/uh-oh-we-are-so-awfully-shocked–again.aspx?pageID=449&nID=107545&NewsCatID=398

Turkey blocks access to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp following ambassador’s assassination

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By Cara McGoogan

Turkey appears to have blocked access to major social media sites following the assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov.

People in Turkey found themselves unable to access popular services such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp the day after the attack  in what appeared to be a crack down on internet communications. It follows the imposition of a national broadcast ban in the wake of the attack. 

Turkey Blocks, a site that monitors internet access within the country, said some users were experiencing “sever slowdowns” on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It also reported problems with WhatsApp, but said the country’s most popular internet service provider TTNet had not yet been affected.  

Armenians pay tribute to killed Russian ambassador to Turkey & Berlin Christmas market attack

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Young activists of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) on Tuesday conducted a commemoration march to the Russian Embassy to pay respect to Andrei Karlov, the assassinated Russian ambassador to Turkey.

Simultaneously, another public gathering was organized outside the German Embassy in Yerevan to commemorate the 12 victims of the recent attack at the Berlin Christmas market.

The crowd, led by Karen Avagyan, observed a moment of silence, condemning the tragic shooting that claimed a human life.
Ambassador Karlov was gunned down at an art exhibition in Ankara as he was making a speech in a photography gallery event.
“Turkey is plunging into terrorism, and the recent act is sure to have its impact on the Russia-Turkey relations,” a young Republican said,

Updated Russia’s ambassador to Turkey dead in shooting. Gunman shouted ‘Allahu akbar’

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A gunman gestures near the body of an apparently wounded man at a photo gallery in Ankara on Monday. An Associated Press photographer said a gunman has fired shots at the Russian ambassador to Turkey. (Burhan Ozbilici/Associated Press)

Gunman shouted ‘Allahu akbar’ and smashed photos at exhibit where Karlov was speaking, witnesses say.

The Turkish police officer who killed Russian Ambassador Andrew Karlov has been identified as Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş of the Ankara Riot police.

Altıntaş, 22, was a graduate of Izmir Police School. He was not on duty when he made the attack at an art gallery on Monday, according to two Turkish Security sources who spoke to Reuters. He had previously been investigated for an attempted coup by the terrorist organization Haberturk. Russia’s foreign ministry confirmed that the ambassador, Andrew Karlov, had died in the attack. Altıntaş was shot and killed after assassinating Karlov.

Source: sputniknews.com

Andrey Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey was seriously wounded in a gun attack in the Turkish capital on Monday and was taken to hospital.

 

An Associated Press photographer said a gunman fired shots Karlov at a photo exhibition in the capital city, where the ambassador was making an address.

The ambassador was several minutes into a speech at the embassy-sponsored exhibition in the capital, Ankara, when a man wearing a suit and tie shouted “Allahu Akbar” and fired at least eight shots, according the photographer.

The attacker also said some words in Russian and smashed several of the photos hung for the exhibition.

Hurriyet newspaper said Turkish special forces had surrounded the building. NTV said three other people were wounded.

Russia and Turkey have been involved in conflict in Syria across the border from where over two million Syrian refugees have settled.

Turkey has been a staunch opponent of President Bashar al-Assad while Russia has deployed troops and its air force in support of the Syrian leader.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack. ISIS militants have been active in Turkey and carried out several bomb attacks on Turkish targets.

Breaking News: Russia’s ambassador shot, seriously wounded, in Turkey

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Andrey Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey was seriously wounded in a gun attack in the Turkish capital on Monday and was taken to hospital, Turkey’s NTV and other broadcasters reported.

An Associated Press photographer says a gunman fired shots Karlov at a photo exhibition in the capital city, where the ambassador was making an address.

Photographs from the scene showed a man lying on the ground with an armed man dressed in a suit standing near him.

More to come

VIDEO: U.S. Amb. Evans Sacrificing diplomatic Career by telling the truth, Armenian Genocide

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Ambassador John Evans’s Truth Held Hostage

Ambassador John Evans’s Truth Held Hostage

Truth Held Hostage: America and the Armenian Genocide – What Then? What Now? To order please contact books@gomidas.org

By Dr. Dickran Kouymjian,

Ambassador John Evans’s Truth Held Hostage is the most important work about the Armenian genocide by a US diplomat since Henry Morgenthau’s groundbreaking Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story in 1918. Evans writes with an elegant clarity that allows us to experience his journey into a major personal and political ethical dilemma concerning the truth of history and the untruth of US government protocol in the name of foreign policy politics.
…This is a must read with implications for all histories of mass violence and trauma.”
—PETER BALAKIAN, author of The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response”Evans is a remarkable man who was an unusual American diplomat. A principled man steeped in history, he wrestled with the moral issue of whether to defy his own government’s increasingly awkward position on the Armenian Genocide. Evans’ tale of how he came to be involved in Armenia, his term as ambassador in Yerevan and his decision to break the US government’s genocide taboo is a compelling, page-turning read. It is fascinating not just for anyone interested in Armenian issues but as an inside story of international diplomacy and politics of recent times.”
—THOMAS DE WAAL, Senior Associate at Carnegie Europe and author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War”This is a book from which one learns a great deal about the Armenian Genocide. It is also a poignant and uplifting book by and about an American ambassador, John Evans, who bravely placed ethical principles over the requirements of a diplomatic post.”
—ISRAEL W. CHARNY, Executive Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, a co-founder and past-president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars
“An informative, even-handed account of a matter of international importance.”
—PAUL IGNATIUS, former Secretary of the Navy
John Evans, formerly U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, gained notoriety in 2005 by publicly dissenting from the stated policy of the Bush and previous Administrations on the 90-year-old issue of the Armenian Genocide. A veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, Ambassador Evans had no Armenian ancestors or family connections, but over the course of his historical studies and diplomatic career, became convinced that a gross  injustice was being perpetrated against the Armenians through the denialist policies of the Turkish Government and the U.S. Government’s tacit acceptance of them. He decided to take a measured public stand, but then paid for his “heresy” by being dismissed from his post and forced into early retirement, although not without a fight over the issue in the U.S. Congress.
Over the course of his thirty-five-year career, Ambassador Evans  served with distinction in diplomatic posts in Tehran, Prague, Moscow, Brussels (NATO), St. Petersburg and Washington, reaching the rank of Minister-Counselor. A native of Williamsburg, Virginia, educated at Yale and Columbia, he is an avid student of Russian history who devoted a sabbatical year to investigating the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the setting in which the tragic events of 1915 occurred.
Now retired from the Foreign Service, Mr. Evans makes his home in  Washington with his wife, the former Donna Chamberlain.
Order Book:
London: Gomidas Institute, 2016,
xxx + 170 pages, maps, photos, index,
ISBN 978-1-909382-26-8, hardback,
Price: UK£22.00 / US$32.00
To order please contact books@gomidas.org

Turkey summons US envoy over remarks on Syria operation

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us-ambassador-turkeyTurkey has summoned the United States’ ambassador to Ankara, John Bass, to express the government’s disturbance over statements issued by Washington that suggested a loose agreement had been reached between Turkey and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) group, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

“It has been underlined that such statements are by no means acceptable and that they do not comply with the alliance relationship,” read a statement issued by Tanju Bilgiç, spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, late on Aug. 30.

Bilgiç’s statement came after Ash Carter, the U.S. secretary of defense; Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy to coordinate the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL); and spokespersons from the Department of Defense and the White House each urged Turkey to stop clashing with the PYD in northern Syria.

Turkey’s concerns over such remarks were dispatched to Bass by Undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry Ferdiun Sinirlioğlu on Aug. 30.

“The objectives of the Euphrates Shield Operations are known,” Bilgiç said, adding that Turkey would continue until all “terror groups” are pushed away from the Turkish border so that they will not be able to “pose a threat to Turkish citizens.”

Bilgiç also reiterated Turkey’s expectation that the U.S. would keep its word that PYD forces would be withdrawn to the east of the Euphrates.

Turkey recalls ambassador following Bundestag’s Genocide resolution

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213777The German Parliament overwhelmingly voted Thursday, June 2 to label the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago as genocide, prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador to Germany, the Associated Press reports.

The motion, which was put forward by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition of right and left and the opposition Greens, passed with support from all the parties in Parliament. In a show of hands, there was one abstention and one vote against.

The vote heightened tensions between Germany and Turkey at a time when Ankara is playing a key role in stemming the flow of migrants to Europe.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that “this decision will seriously impact Turkish-German relations,” AP says.

Speaking during a visit to Kenya, Erdogan said recalling the ambassador for consultations was a “first step” and that the Turkish government would consider further steps to be taken in response to the vote.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim called the German decision a “historic error.” Yildirim said that Turkish people take pride in in their past and that “there is no event in our past that would cause us to bow down our heads in embarrassment.”

Armenia’s foreign minister welcomed the vote.

1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I..

Merkel was not present for Thursday’s vote, with officials citing scheduling reasons. Her foreign minister, who like Merkel backed the motion, was on a trip to Latin America.

Opening Thursday’s debate, Parliament speaker Norbert Lammert acknowledged that addressing historical events can be painful.

Related links:

AP. Turkey recalls Germany ambassador after genocide vote