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Armenia can be proud of its civil society – EU ambassador

July 14, 2017 by administrator

Armenia can be proud of its civil society – EU ambassador

Armenia’s civil society is its brand identity and pride on the post-Soviet territory, EU Ambassador Piotr Switalski said today, considering civic activism as a serious potential for the country.

In his speech at the opening of the Committment to Constructive Dialogue project, the diplomat also highly praised the recently adopted legislative amendments allowing NGOs to more broadly benefit from financial assistance and resources.

Meantime, he stressed the importance of developing the dialogue between government institutions and civil society organizations.

Ambassador Switalski further reiterated the European Union’s commitment to assist the civil society in Armenia, focusing on specific priorities such as capacity-building of smaller and regional NGOs. He also highlighted the social entrepreneurship initiatives and the increasing attention to the youth, women and minorities.

Turkish mothers take up civil disobedience

May 27, 2017 by administrator

Protesters, including Veli Sacilik (2nd L) and Nuriye Gulmen (4th L), take part in the Yuksel Resistance, Ankara, Turkey, picture uploaded May 3, 2017. (photo by Facebook/Nuriye Gülmen)

By Pinar Tremblay, Columnist

On May 22, Turkish social media was rocked by a picture of a woman being kicked and dragged on the street by police officers. The woman was the mother of scholar Veli Sacilik, who was standing in solidarity with Nuriye Gulmen and Semih Ozakca, teachers who are on hunger strike.

Sacilik, just like Gulmen and Ozakca, was dismissed from his government position without any explanation or due process after the July 15 coup attempt. Indeed, currently there are more than 100,000 government employees who were dismissed. Amnesty International succinctly described the process as “professional annihilation.”

Gulmen started a sit-in in front of a statue in the heart of Ankara. The sit-in has now turned into the Yuksel Resistance (for its location on Yuksel Street, which is closed to car traffic) with a heavy police presence and blocked-off streets. The statue, which was erected in the 1990s, is of a woman sitting and reading a human rights declaration. Ankara-based journalist Unsal Unlu said that over the years this statue has been exposed to the highest amount of gas due to protests.

Gulmen started sitting in front of this monument all alone on Nov. 9, 2016, with a sign that read “I want my job back.” She was taken into custody almost every day for months along with Ozakca, Sacilik and a few others.

Out of desperation, Ozakca and Gulmen announced on March 11 they would be starting a hunger strike — with liquids and Vitamin B1 medication allowed — until they got their jobs back.

On May 21 around 1 a.m., they were taken into custody from their homes by special operations police.

Sacilik told Al-Monitor, “I was standing to protest Ozakca and Gulmen’s arrests, and I always ask my mom not to come or to stay far when the police charge. But once they started spraying gas at us in the police bus, she got upset and screamed my name.” That is when they charged at Kezban Sacilik, who is almost 70 years old. The videos show her being pushed down, dragged and kicked by officers who are younger than her son. Sacilik told Al-Monitor, “This wasn’t the first time. My mom protested about my arm being severed by a bulldozer 17 years ago and she was beaten by the police then. Since then she says, ‘I will not wear a skirt when I go out of the house.’”

Indeed, a quick look at the peaceful protesters, including lawmakers, presents a picture without any skirts. On May 19, Sacilik, Gulmen and Ozakca’s mothers were brutally attacked and taken into custody at a sit-in at Yuksel Street. They all had pants and tennis shoes on, anticipating this could happen.

One seasoned female activist told Al-Monitor, “The police are attacking women by dragging them by their hair, kicking them in their crotch, pushing on their breasts. These are women who are simply here to say ‘hi,’ to say ‘we support you’ or to give a flower. The government is systematically against women, voices of women and women who are out in the public domain. Perhaps it is beauty that bothers them. I mean look at their supposed legislation destroying all greenery, turning children’s parks into parking lots for cars, cutting down centuries’ old olive trees, and erasing the beautiful decorations and colors on historic mosques with acid. Women, flowers, laughter, beauty and peace are their nemesis. That must be why they are ordering these young police officers upon us.”

Sacilik concurred. He added that Gulmen, as a female, was the recipient of the worst sort of cruelty. In all of the arrest videos, we see the police targeting Gulmen first and worst.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s battle with mothers dates back to 2006 when he told a farmer who was complaining about insufficient government assistance, “Get lost, take your mother and get lost.” This hatred peaked during the 2013 Gezi Park protests. In the early stages, the government asked the mothers to call their sons and daughters back home. When the mothers came out to stand in solidarity with their kids, they were attacked.

Berkin Elvan, a 15-year-old victim of police brutality during the Gezi protests who became a symbol of resistance upon his death, was declared a terrorist by Erdogan in March 2014. Erdogan in the same speech had the crowds boo Elvan’s grieving mother. She and other Gezi families joined in Gulmen’s and Ozakca’s quest for justice as well. It was not only Gezi families. Families of victims of the 2014 Soma mine explosion, who still have not received any sort of compensation for their dead husbands or sons, showed their solidarity along with several others around the country.

When Gulmen and Ozakca were arrested this week, only four newspapers in Turkey had the courage to publish the news. The prosecutors are seeking 20-year prison terms.

As Ozakca’s wife and mother joined the pair in their hunger strike, they were taken into custody and later released.

Gulmen’s mother said, “Before they arrested my daughter, we learned that the police officers visited her uncles and told them to convince my daughter to stop her resistance or she will be put in prison. When the police broke our door, I pleaded with them about her condition. I told them they [Ozakca and Gulmen] are already struggling, please leave them in our care, they will die in prison. The police replied, ‘We are taking them to keep them alive.’” On May 24, Sacilik told Al-Monitor, “We fear the authorities will wait until they are unconscious then start force-feeding them. We also anticipate that they will soon arrest us as well.”

Briefly before the arrest was finalized, Gulmen told her friends, “We are most likely to be arrested because it looks like the order is from the top.” The questions posed to the pair by the authorities demonstrate assumption of guilt. For example, “Are you trying to spread your operations to generate Gezi-like protests?” “What is the real purpose of these presumably innocent rights-seeking protests?” “What kind of [financial] benefits were offered to you to carry out this hunger strike?”

On May 25, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu made a rather angry public announcement blaming the media for sharing “cute photos” of Gulmen and Ozakca. He said they were terrorists, therefore they could not be trusted in the education profession. How they were able to secure a government job as terrorists was not explained. Soylu presented a mind-boggling argument that the pair was not on a real hunger strike. “They go to their protest place at 9 a.m., and they eat and drink at night.” Gulmen and Ozakca, taken into custody on the 76th day of their hunger strike, have lost dozens of pounds and were too weak to walk without assistance.

Erdogan and his men fear opposition of all sorts and act in unimaginable ways to stay in power. On the one hand, the government took more than 10 months to revoke Fethullah Gulen’s special passport and is releasing prominent members of the Gulen movement from jail one by one for reasons such as varicose veins or sleep apnea. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of families are forced into destitution while the public is told to believe all people anti-Erdogan, including mothers, are terrorists.

Pinar Tremblay is a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse and a visiting scholar of political science at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She is a columnist for Turkish news outlet T24. Her articles have appeared in Time, New

Armenia civil aviation negotiating with a number of air carriers

February 3, 2017 by administrator

The General Department of Civil Aviation (GDCA) is actively negotiating with a number of air companies to have them fly from both Shirak and Zvartnots airports in Armenia, GDCA spokeswoman Satenik Hovhannisyan told PanARMENIAN.Net

“We are yet unable to disclose the names of companies we are conducting negotiations with,” Hovhannisyan said.

According to her, the GDCA, the government and the airport concessionaire are equally consistent in boosting attractiveness of Shirak airport in the northern Armenian city of Gyumri.

Also, she reminded that Shirak airport cut the prices for air navigation services by 50% to attract more airlines and bolster the development of the facility.

The Department said in early December that the decision follows a number of other measures implemented as part of a development program, which seeks to promote various carriers’ interest towards Shirak airport through a comprehensive discount system.

Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan has repeatedly called for attracting more air companies and budget carriers to the airports in Gyumri and Yerevan.

Is Iraqi Kurdistan heading toward civil war? urging Massoud Barzani to step down

January 4, 2017 by administrator

Thousands of people took to the streets of several towns in Iraq’s Kurdistan region on for the past weeks, urging its long-time president and KDP leader Massoud Barzani to step down and demanding payment of their salaries, Oct. 2015. Photo: AFP

Dr. Denise Natali | Al-Monitor

The campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Mosul has diverted attention from simmering problems inside the Kurdistan Region of Iraq that will affect post-conflict stabilization. Within the last several months alone, there has been another assassination of a Kurdish journalist, an “honor” killing of a university student, death threats against a female Kurdish parliamentarian, bombing of an Iranian Kurdish party office that killed seven people and a string of foiled terrorist attacks in Sulaimaniyah province. These incidents have occurred alongside ongoing demonstrations by civil servants for unpaid salaries, a nonfunctioning Kurdish parliament, swelling numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons, an expanded Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Turkish airstrikes on PKK bases in northern Iraq. They have not only reversed most gains the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has realized since 2011, but also leave the Kurdistan Region increasingly vulnerable to financial collapse and internal conflict.

Instead of “inevitable Kurdish statehood” after the defeat of IS, a more realistic scenario is weakened autonomy, political entropy and armed conflicts. The KRG launched “independent” exports in 2014, but the Kurdish economy is now in tatters. KRG debt exceeds $22 billion. The availability of electricity has decreased to 2005 levels, or about four hours a day in many areas without private generators. Tens of thousands of youths continue to migrate from the region. The once-touted Kurdish energy sector is being undermined legally and politically. Although the KRG exports about 600,000 barrels of oil per day to Ceyhan, these exports remain contentious, are dependent on Turkey and are largely sourced from Kirkuk — still a disputed territory — and not the Kurdistan Region. International oil companies have thus far abandoned 19 oil fields in the Kurdistan Region, including ExxonMobil’s withdrawal from three of its six fields.

Emails between the KRG Ministry of Natural Resources and Turkish officials released by WikiLeaks reveal the depth of the KRG’s financial crisis and the political fallout. In the eyes of some Kurds, the ministry’s attempt to secure an additional $5 billion in loans from Ankara and offer Turkey a larger stake in Kurdish-controlled oil fields may help protect the economic interests of the Kurdistan Region. Others, however, including parliamentarians in Erbil, see things differently and oppose the ministry’s proposal as the “selling of the Kurdish land to Turkey.” Iraqi officials in Baghdad have also reacted critically, arguing that the KRG does not have the legal right to sell oil fields to Turkey.

Expanded PKK influence in northern Iraq is feeding off these crises and reinforcing intra-Kurdish power struggles. In addition to its base in the Qandil Mountains, PKK groups are now embedded in the Sinjar Mountains to protect the Yazidis against future incursions by IS and to control this strategic territory. While the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Gorran support or tolerate the PKK, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) officials have threatened to potentially use force to eject the PKK from Sinjar. Ankara has also warned that it will intervene in Sinjar in the spring if the peshmerga fail to drive out the PKK. Although acting PKK leader Murat Karayilan has recently said that PKK forces are prepared to withdraw from the Yazidi district of Sinjar, it is unlikely that PKK-affiliated groups will depart entirely. Divisions between those that support the KDP and those against it in northern Iraq are also palpable. Concerns have emerged about the possibility of another birakuji, Kurdish civil war.

Indeed, the idea of armed conflict between the Kurds or internal instability may be difficult to imagine. Much has improved since their four-year Kurdish civil war (1994-98). The Kurdistan Region has developed economically, matured politically, gained international recognition as part of a federal Iraqi state and has become a key local partner in the battle against IS. Although the Kurdish parties are bickering, the risks of sustained violence are too high for leading KRG officials, who are deeply vested financially in the region. Iraqi Kurdish parties are also too fractured and reliant on President Massoud Barzani to effectively challenge the KDP, even if they oppose it politically.

Still, part of the current crises is beyond the KRG’s control and is not so different from what led to the Kurdish civil war. At that time, Iraqi Kurdistan was politically and economically unstable, despite its international safe haven status. Baghdad’s withdrawal from the Kurdish north after the 1990 Gulf War and international sanctions against Iraq had left the newly created KRG unable to pay civil servant salaries, provide services, resettle hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees and reconstruct the villages destroyed by President Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign, which involved chemical attacks. Although individual traders tied to Kurdish political parties found creative ways to break sanctions and profit, the majority of Kurds were poor and reliant on international aid.

Power struggles were also salient between the KDP and PUK over leadership and access to revenues and resources. These tensions drew in Turkey, Iran and rival Kurdish parties, including the PKK, much like what has happened today. Back then, for instance, to check the PKK insurgency raging in southeastern Turkey and to secure smuggling revenue at the Habur border, the KDP negotiated commercial and security arrangements with Turkey. Ankara, in turn, launched a series of cross-border military campaigns from 1992 to 1997 — Operation Steel-1 and Operation Hammer — to pursue the PKK across the border. At one point, Turkish interventions involved 35,000 troops penetrating 37 miles inside the Kurdistan Region. The PUK gained support from Iran and backed the PKK. Islamic groups also took advantage of the instability to form and radicalize, including the precursors to Ansar al-Islam.

These patterns are repeating themselves in the Kurdistan Region. Even if the KRG and Kurdish party officials have much to lose from internal conflict, other groups may not and could benefit from the weak Iraqi state, angry populations and managed instability. In addition, as the KRG becomes increasingly dependent on Ankara, the Kurdish problem in Turkey remains unresolved, the Kurds in Syria demand autonomy and the PKK expands its influence, the KRG will inherit the transborder PKK problem. The PKK in turn will attempt to benefit from the political void growing in the Iraqi Kurdish street, where many see it as an authentic Kurdish nationalist party. The PKK and other radicalized groups are also useful to regional states, including Iran, that seek to counter Barzani-KDP power and Turkey.

Left unchecked, these tensions will continue to undermine the economic growth and internal stability of the Kurdistan Region — even after Mosul’s liberation — and the KRG’s ability to act as an effective local partner to defeat IS. More serious attention should be paid to strengthening Iraqi state institutions, including the KRG and provincial administrations, economic diversification, revenue-sharing between Baghdad and Erbil, border security and relations between Ankara, Baghdad and the KRG. The PKK issue inside northern Iraq also needs to be addressed by including ways to reinstate a cease-fire with Ankara and resolve the Kurdish issues in Turkey and Syria.

Dr. Denise Natali is a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University, where she specializes in regional energy politics, Middle East politics, and the Kurdish issue.

1st published at al-monitor.com

Armenia’s civil aviation agency ‘negotiating with 40 foreign airlines’

December 29, 2016 by administrator

As part of its efforts to expand the air travel routes connecting Armenia with world countries, the General Department of Civil Aviation is seeking to attract more partners.
At the cabinet meeting on Thursday, the agency’s chief, Sergey Avetisyan, said they are currently negotiating with over 40 foreign airlines to attract them to the Armenian market.
“We have applied to more than 40 airlines. Most of them are based in Europe; [there are also companies] from Asia and the Middle East. We have already received a response from 3-4 companies which are now planning to conduct technical discussions with us. And we too, have expressed our willingness [for future cooperation],” he added.

Video-Interview & Touring Armenian Aviation Center, A system Comparable to the world Best,

Turkey: Brink of Civil War: Civilian Casualties Soar in Turkish Assault on Kurds

December 30, 2015 by administrator

The death toll among civilians has surged as Turkish security forces continue a large-scale operation against Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey, shattering the last hopes to conclude a truce between the opposing sides

Government forces have killed over 150 civilians and at least 200 Kurdish insurgents within the last week, according to human rights groups and local officials, cited by the New York Times. Amid escalating fighting across southeastern Turkey, hundreds of thousands of residents have abandoned their homes for safer regions.

“What people here in the west [of Turkey] do not realize is that we are one step away from a civil war,” Engin Gur, a resident of the Turkish South East who moved to Istanbul, told the New York Times.

The frozen conflict between state authorities and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) reignited last July following the failure of a two-year ceasefire agreement.

Many experts observed that Turkish President Erdogan initially aimed to use the Kurdish conflict as a tool to strengthen the position of his Justice and Development Party (AKP), and consolidate the nation around its leader in the run up to parliamentary elections in November.

As soon as AKP won the elections by a large margin, the violence erupted.

Erdogan promised to eradicate the PKK, claiming that the group is the primary enemy of Turkey in spite of significant military achievements by the Kurds in Syria, including territorial gains that are aligned with the stated policies of Ankara.

“You will be annihilated in those houses, those buildings, those ditches which you have dug,” Erdogan pronounced, referring to trenches made by rebels in many southeastern cities. “Our security forces will continue this fight until it has been completely cleansed and a peaceful atmosphere established.”

At the same time Ankara officially claims it seeks a political settlement to the conflict. Once the military operation is finished, authorities state, talks with Kurds will be resumed.

It’s unknown who would take part in those negotiations on behalf of Kurds. Ankara has ruled out talking with the leader of pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas following his calls for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast of the country.

According to the New York Times, the most probable candidate for the role of Kurdish diplomat is jailed rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

“They do not want to deal with the legitimate political actors, that is, the HDP or the PKK leadership directly,” Asli Aydintasbas, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said, commenting on the stance of Turkish officials in the Kurdish conflict.

Aydintasbas added that Ocalan will likely demand a “form of self-rule or autonomy” for the Kurdish population.

As a result of the recent conflict, many settlements in southeastern Turkey have no electricity and many citizens are trapped in their houses with no food, according to the New York Times. Scarce reports from those regions say that once densely populated areas now resemble war zones similar to those of Syria and Iraq.

“The tanks fire all day and we have nowhere left to hide,” Nurettin Kurtay, a resident of Turkey’s southeastern province of Sirnak told the New York Times by phone.

#Turkey call PKK Terrorist, well these are not terrorist it is 20 Million Kurd Uprising Against Turkish occupation pic.twitter.com/s7s3sym3fH

— Wally Sarkeesian (@gagrulenet) December 30, 2015

France: Apology for crimes against humanity: The Armenian associations may bring civil

October 18, 2015 by administrator

The Government will extend the list of associations that can be a civil party in the case of apology for crime against humanity, the Constitutional Council said Friday that the possibility could not be confined to organizations defending the victims of World War II World.

The current situation. Article 48-2 of the law of 29 July 1881 on freedom of the press provides that only associations that propose in their status, “to defend the moral interests and honor of the Resistance or deportees” may “exercise the rights granted to the civil party in respect of the defense of war crimes, crimes against humanity or crimes or offenses of collaboration with the enemy.”

A QPC on the issue. The Sages were seized since July of a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) by the Rwandan Community in France Association which challenged this provision, arguing that organizations representing the interests of victims of war crimes other than those committed during the Second World War were not treated with the same respect under the law.

The Constitutional Council ruled in their favor on Friday and decided to censor part of the article to urge the legislature to re-specify the cases in which an association may bring civil actions in case of war crimes or glorification of crime against humanity.

In a statement the Minister of Justice has indicated take note of the decision of the Constitutional Council 2015-492 QPC The custody of Sceaux precise and it will soon present to Parliament a text that expand the definition of associations authorized to civil parties when such crimes were committed.

Decision No. 2015-492 QPC of 16 October 2015 – Rwandan Community Association France [Associations may exercise the rights granted to the civil party in respect of the defense of war crimes and crimes against humanity]

The Constitutional Council was seized July 17, 2015 by the Court of Cassation a priority issue of constitutionality raised by the Rwandan Community Association France concerning compliance with the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the provisions of the fifth paragraph of Article 48-2 of the Law of 29 July 1881.

These provisions reserve for only associations that propose, in their statutes, to defend the moral interests and honor of the Resistance or of deportees, the possibility of public action made apology for crimes against humanity.

The applicant association argued that by doing so, the impugned provisions infringe the principle of equality.

The Constitutional Council upheld this argument.

He first noted that the offenses under the Penal Code does not penalize the only defense of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Second World War.

The Constitutional Council then held, first, that the legislature did not provide a different penal repression for defending war crimes and crimes against humanity under these crimes were committed or not during second World War. On the other hand, it appears neither challenged provisions or other statutory provision nor the preparatory works of the law which established the challenged provisions of the existence of grounds to reserve only to associations defending the moral interests and honor Resistance or deportees the right to exercise the rights granted to the civil party in respect of the defense of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Constitutional Council inferred that the contested provisions, in excluding from the exercise of rights granted to the plaintiff associations who intend to defend the moral interests and honor of the victims of war crimes and crimes against other than humanity committed during the Second World War, infringe the principle of equality before the law.

The Constitutional Council, therefore, declared unconstitutional the words “war crimes, crimes against humanity” in Article 48-2 of the Law of 29 July 1881 on freedom of press.

Immediate censure would however have had the effect of eliminating, to any association whose purpose is to defend the moral interests and honor of the Resistance or of deportees, the right to exercise the rights granted to the civil party in respect advocating war crimes and crimes against humanity. As the Constitutional Council he decided to postpone until 1 October 2016 the date of the repeal he delivered to enable the legislator to assess the appropriate follow-up to this declaration of unconstitutionality. It also suspended the limitation period applicable to the setting in motion of public action by the civil party in the field of defense of war crimes and crimes against humanity until the entry into force of a new legislation and no later than until 1 October 2016.