Armenian activists do not accept president’s offer #ElectricYerevan

June 27, 2015 By administrator

YEREVAN. – Activists protesting against electricity price hike have not accepted the offer by President Serzh Sargsyan.

Member of “No to Plunder” initiative Vaghinak Shushanyan said they do not consider this a victory and will continue the struggle. He added that Baghramyan Avenue will be closed, since the Armenian authorities did not meet any of their demands.

Serzh Sargsyan neither canceled the decision to rise electricity price, nor promised to hold accountable the law enforcers for their illegal actions on June 23.

In a statement made earlier on Saturday, the Armenian leader said the government will absorb the electricity price hike before the end of evaluation conducted by an international company.

President Sargsyan on Saturday held a meeting with those responsible for economic policy during which the ways to ensure Armenia’s energy safety were discussed.

If the evaluation reveals that the price is justified, people will pay more. If it is revealed that the price hike is not justified, the government will take measures to get money from the Electric Networks.

Thierry Meyssan: Today’s Turkey continues the Armenian Genocide with the massacres of Deir ez-Zor and Kessab

May 14, 2015 By administrator

By Siranush Ghazanchyan,

“The world has just commemorated the centenary of the genocide of Turkish non-Muslims. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, this crime began with the Hamidian massacres of 1894-95, which were ordered by Sultan Abdülhamid II, and continued on a huge scale with the massacres perpetrated between 1915 and 1923, planned by the young Turks. They continue today with the massacres of Deir ez-Zor and Kessab, organized by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. For 120 years, the Turkish power elite have been successively massacring non-Muslimns – to general indifference – in order to build a homogenous nation,” Thierry Meyssan writes in an article published by Voltaire Network.

According to the author, “the centenary of the genocide of Turkish non-Muslims prepared the stage for festival of hypocrisy.” “While certain states celebrated the memory of the victims in Yerevan, others showed themselves to be shameless.”

“President Erdoğan had the opportunity to confess to this very old story, of which he is in no way responsible. Had he done so, he could have made his country a normal state. But no! Instead he hung onto his lies, denying History and affirming that there had been “only”100,000 dead, and that they had been executed for their participation in terrorist activities,” the article reads.

“By draping itself in this absurdity, today’s Turkey is not only manifesting its support for the Hamidian massacres of Sultan Abdülhamid II (1894-95) – which caused between 80,000 and 300,000 victims – but especially for the crimes committed by the “Special Organization” of the Union and Progress Committee (UPC), starting from 1915 until the election of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as President of the Republic (1923), which caused between 1,200,000 and 1,500,000 deaths – and its ideological continuity with the ancient régime. And this is what we all noted with horror when, last year in 2014, we watched the Turkish army accompany the al-Nusra Front (in other words al-Qaïda in Syria) to Kessab for the purpose of chasing away the Armenian population. Or again, when the same Turkish army helped Daesh to dynamite the Deir ez-Zor Memorial, which commemorated the 1916 extermination of more than 200,000 Armeniens in the camp that the Turks had built for them,” the author writes.

“Pan-Islamism, the project of Sultan Abdülhamid II and the Young Turks early in the 20th century, like the AKP today, aims to become the leader of the sunnite world, and in order to achieve this aim, it intends to create a homogenous sunnite state. This project required the extermination of the Christians (Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyro-Chaldeans) and the Yezidis. They all died, exactly as Daesh is exterminating Christians and Yezidis today,” Thierry Meyssan continues.

According to him, the intervention of the Turkish army into Syrian territory, at Kessab and Deir ez-Zor, is coherent with this project, since Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hopes to annex Northern Syria once NATO has overthrown President Bachar el-Assad.

Thierry Meyssan is a French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference.

April 24 not final day to mark Genocide centennial – official

May 4, 2015 By administrator

April 24 does not mark an end to the commemoration events dedicated to the Armenian Genocide, says Vigen Sargsyan, the chief of the Presidential Staff and the coordinator of the commission arranging the centenary events.
The evidence, according to him, is the events that have been organized across the world since April 24.
“The events – with political, cultural and sporting agenda – will continue until the end of this year,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
The official added that the commission’s website, Armeniangenocide100.org, continues operating after the April 24 Remembrance Day to inform people of events taking place in different parts of the world.

Sargsyan said he finds that the events fully met the task of raising the world’s awareness of the issue and repeating the demand for recognition.
“The events held did, in our estimation, serve the main purposes we had set: raising international awareness of the Armenian Genocide and developing and mobilizing public opinion over the fight against, and condemnation of, genocides as a crime against humanity,” he added.
The official further addressed the comments made at the anti-genocide forum in Yerevan, highlighting particularly a former ICC (International Criminal Court) prosecutor’s call for making Armenia a leader in the world campaign against crimes of genocide.

Sargsyan said he highly appreciates the national unity he saw at the ceremonies in April.
“The peak, in that respect, was the canonization ceremony at the Mother See of St Echmiadzin. It was an important manifestation of national unity. The ringing of bells of not only the Armenian churches but also the sister churches worldwide really signaled the pan-Christian respect for the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims,” he noted.
As another remarkable event reaffirming the nation’s unity and attracting attention to the problem, Sargsyan cited the System of a Down’s open-air concert in central Yerevan.
“Despite the weather conditions, the spirit and unanimity and the youth’s unprecedented participation really demonstrated that the idea and the concert that day was the right decision, so I once again wish to extend my gratitude to the guys for their dedicated and consistent approach,” he added.
Sargsyan said he sees that April 24 really helped attract the world’s attention to Yerevan. “We managed to keep Yerevan on the world media spotlight, with leading international TV channels airing the April 24 event live,” he noted.

At the end, the chief of the Presidential Staff said he is thankful to everybody for dedication and attention to the pan-national issue. “I would like to extend my admiration and gratitude to all the segments of the society, every citizen, the non-governmental organizations, the media and the political parties for the unity and the approach they demonstrated to our events,” he said.

The official added that President Serzh Sargsyan will on Thursday join the Divine Liturgy in Washington Cathedral to pay respect to the victims. He added that commemoration events will continue across the US and many other cities and towns of the world throughout the year.