Armenian peacekeepers earn NATO combat readiness certification

September 25, 2015 By administrator

After a nearly decade-long process working closely with the Kansas National Guard, the Armenian Peacekeeping Brigade earned certification as a NATO partner following a large-scale exercise in Armenia Sept. 15-18, Dvidshub.net reports.

The brigade earned the accreditation by passing NATO Evaluation Level 2 of the Operational Capabilities Concept of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. The endorsement certifies Armenia’s capabilities to support NATO peacekeeping operations worldwide and adds them to the NATO Pool of Forces.

The brigade was evaluated according to NATO standards to ensure operational readiness.

Lt. Col. Ingo Schoeppler, Armed Forces of Germany, serves as a NATO monitor and noted the improvements he has seen. “We witnessed that the Peacekeeping Brigade is in great shape with motivated, well-trained, young and experienced soldiers and are a very strong partner to the NATO alliance,” Schoeppler said.

Schoeppler also credited the Kansas National Guard’s efforts in helping Armenia in this certification process. Kansas and Armenia are partners in the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program.

The exercise scenario played out over the course of 76 hours as Armenian soldiers were evaluated in three phases beginning with an in-barracks inspection focused on reviewing the units’ documentation and plans followed by a field inspection and live exercise.

Gunmen in Afghan uniforms kill two US troops in Helmand report:

August 26, 2015 By administrator

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.

NATO fully supports Turkey terrorism in the Region & in its offensive against the Kurds

July 28, 2015 By administrator

The Atlantic Alliance, meeting in emergency Tuesday in Brussels at the request of Turkey, has provided strong support for Ankara in its dual offensive against Kurdish rebels and the Islamic State group.

“NATO following developments very closely and we assure our Turkish ally our strong solidarity,” said the secretary general of NATO, Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg, at the opening of the meeting of ambassadors of the 28 member countries the Alliance.

“Terrorism in all its forms can not under any circumstances be justified or tolerated,” Mr. Stoltenberg argued, citing “instability to the gates of Turkey and the borders of NATO.”

Long accused of complacency vis-à-vis the radical organizations in struggle against the regime in Damascus, the Turkish Islamic-conservative government comes to change tack after the deadly suicide bombing Suruç (southern Turkey), attributed to IE, and the death of one of its soldiers killed in a jihadist attack on the Syrian border.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated on Tuesday that his country would not bow to the threat “terrorist” and continue with “determination” its fight against the jihadists of the Islamic State (EI) and the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK ).

“There’s no way to retreat. This is a long process and this process will continue with the same determination, “Erdogan promised when opened the Nato meeting on the security situation in Turkey.

NATO Parliamentary Assembly members visit Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex

June 22, 2015 By administrator

YEREVAN. – Members of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (PA) visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex on Friday along with Koryun Nahapetyan, head of Armenian Parliamentary delegation to the NATO PA, and delegation members Elinar Vardanyan and Tevan Poghosyan.

The delegation members laid flowers at the Memorial commemorating the Armenian Genocide victims and honored the memory of the one-and-a-half million innocent Armenian victims by observing a minute of silence and bowing. They also visited the Genocide Museum.

Turkologist: While Armenians were being massacred, the West was holding seminars (video)

June 21, 2015 By administrator

The 89th Rose Roth seminar underway in Yerevan has brought together a number of NATO representatives, politicians and political scientists. The three-day event, entitled “Security and Stability in the South Caucasus: Fostering Enduring Regional Peace,” focuses on current and future challenges and cooperation issue.

Can the discussions and speeches guarantee lasting peace in the region?

Similar seminars and meetings remind Turkologist Ruben Melkonyan of the 1915 events.

“All this reminds me of the 1915 Armenian Genocide when the West was holding seminars and discussions amid the massacres of Armenian people by Ottoman Turks,” he said.

NATO has never supported a military solution to the conflict, says Vice-President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Paolo Alli.

In the meantime, experts in Armenia say NATO has never worked effectively.

Details are available in the video.

$100bn NATO claim: Serbian NGOs seek compensation for Yugoslavia bombing

March 24, 2015 By administrator

Two non-governmental organizations have said NATO should be required to pay compensation for the massive damage inflicted during the 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

A meeting of the Belgrade Forum for the World of Equals and the Club of Generals and Admirals in Belgrade presented an initiative to hold 28-member NATO financially accountable for the damage that Yugoslavia sustained in the attacks.

Serbian experts put the price tag of the devastation between $60 and $100 billion.

Retired General Jovo Milanovic said that NATO’s military offensive, which was unsanctioned by the United Nations, represented “a violation of all norms of international law that caused enormous material damage to Yugoslavia and huge human casualties,” Tass quoted him as saying.

The participants supported Milanovic’s proposal to pursue the legal options involving financial compensation, as well as the possibility of opening criminal proceedings against western leaders who expressed their support for the aerial attacks.

Sixteen years ago, between March 24, 1999, and June 10, 1999, NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions in Yugoslavia, mostly concentrated on the capital Belgrade and in Kosovo, the flashpoint of the conflict.

Using fighter jets as well as long-range cruise missiles from warships in the Adriatic Sea, NATO destroyed vital strategic infrastructure, including bridges, government buildings and factories. The NATO campaign also targeted critical civil infrastructure, including power plants and water-processing facilities, causing substantial environmental and economic damage to the country.

On May 7, NATO forces bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists. Washington and NATO apologized for the bombing, blaming it on an “outdated map” provided by the CIA.

The NATO campaign resulted not just in the destruction of infrastructure but the death of hundreds of civilians as well.

Human Rights Watch reported that “as few as 489 and as many as 528 Yugoslav civilians were killed in the 90 separate incidents” in the US-led NATO campaign.

Serbian sources report a much higher fatality rate, saying more than 2,000 civilians and 1,000 servicemen were killed in the NATO bombardments, while more than 5,000 people were wounded and over a thousand went missing.

The World on the brink of WWIII

March 14, 2015 By administrator

By Edward Lozansky, Sputnik

As Washington continues to sound its war drums despite the second Minsk ceasefire, it’s worth asking why NATO continued to remain such a bellicose organization after the end of the Cold War, and what its objectives are if peace isn’t enough.

It so happens that the fate of the world is now being decided in Ukraine, not so much by the Ukrainians themselves as by the US, EU and Russia, whose geopolitical interests have clashed in this region. The talk about WWIII figures increasingly often in the media and conversations among the scholars and general public. Politicians try to allay their compatriots’ fears, but their vociferous statements merely boost this scenario.

The Minsk 2 Agreement offers at least a slim chance of moving away from a military confrontation that would destroy a good deal of the northern hemisphere, if not indeed the entire world. Yet those who view this agreement as Putin’s triumph are not at all willing to pressure Kiev into abiding by it.

There is no mystery here. The bloody chaos in Ukraine was devised not to help its people, but to weaken Russia geopolitically and topple the current leadership while mouthing noble slogans of promoting freedom, democracy and other fine Western values. So in view of those who started this mess as long as these goals are not achieved the war in Ukraine must go on even if it may escalate into an open conflict between Russia and the West. The hawks, or the War Party, do not realize that their policies contravene America’s long-term strategic interests, and are turning an important potential ally into a dangerous foe.

It did not have to be that way. After the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union’s disintegration, the Russian elite and a vast majority of the public were only too eager to join the Western world. In 1990 President George Herbert Walker Bush spoke of “a Europe whole and free” and of “the new security arch from Vancouver to Vladivostok”.

According to many political observers the roots of the current crisis lie in the NATO expansion which took place after collapse of USSR. It is true that there is no signed document to confirm Bush’s promise to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward. However, there are lots of reliable and trustworthy witnesses who offer convincing evidence to the effect that Washington broke at least its oral pledge to Moscow.

According to then-US Ambassador to Moscow Jack Matlock, who took part in both the Bush-Gorbachev early-December 1989 summit in Malta and the Shevardnadze-Baker discussions in early February 1990: “The language used was absolute, and the entire negotiation was in the framework of a general agreement that there would be no use of force by the Soviets and no ‘taking advantage’ by the US … I don’t see how anybody could view the subsequent expansion of NATO as anything but ‘taking advantage,’ particularly since, by then, Russia was hardly a credible threat.”

There are other reliable witnesses of those historic events, for example, James Baker, Secretary of State in that period, whose records on this matter have recently been declassified in the Berlin Archives.

In any case there is little doubt that it was Bill Clinton and his administration that moved sharply away from a rapprochement with Russia toward a deep divide and dangerous confrontation.

George Kennan, one of the most distinguished of American diplomats, later told the New York Times that he believed the expansion of NATO was “the beginning of a new cold war…I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves.”

All together 19 US Senators, including John Ashcroft (R-MO), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), Harry Reid (D-NV), Arlen Specter (R-PA) and John Warner (R-VA) voted against the bill permitting the expansion of NATO. Some of them said the expansion would “dilute NATO’s self-defense mission, antagonize Russia, jeopardize several Russian-American arms-control negotiations and draw a new dividing line — a new Iron Curtain — across Europe.” Republican Senator Jon Kyl was the only one absent during the vote.

“We’ll be back on a hair-trigger,” said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, warning that enlargement would threaten much worse than a new cold war. “We’re talking about nuclear war.”

Nevertheless NATO expansion proceeded apace, even though Russia was devastated by the 1990s economic crisis. Its unexpected recovery in the 2000s caught its opponents unawares, and George W. Bush continued carrying on with NATO enlargement and staging “color revolutions” in former Soviet republics.

Barack Obama started his term with some hopeful “reset” initiatives but the positive trend did not last too long.

The current, most sweeping global crisis erupted because the European Union with US blessing chose to rupture centuries-old historical, economic and family ties between Russia and Ukraine, using the same old slogans of promoting Western values.

Today it is abundantly clear that the Ukrainian people have not benefited from this policy which the February 2014 violent coup in Kiev. At the same time majority of the people in South-East Ukraine had different ideas about their future. When Maidan activists used violence to declare their desire to join Europe, whatever that means, people in Donetsk and Lugansk, given their history, demography, family ties and geographical location wanted to use something similar to Canadian and Austrian experience while maintaining close relations with Russia. They did not use specific slogans to that effect but it was pretty obvious due to the federative system and the two official languages in Canada as well as Austria’s nonaligned status.

For that they were shelled with heavy artillery, bombed from airplanes with tens of thousands of killed and wounded.

The infrastructure of this area is destroyed; there are hundreds of thousands of refugees and on top of that the world now indeed is teetering on the brink of a new disaster, possibly even nuclear. Not a single word of condemnation of Kiev by Washington or Brussels for doing that, so much for Western values.

It may be worth recalling that in the most dangerous periods of the Cold War the risks of military confrontation were defused by the Administrations of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan. Yet there is no sign of this kind of awareness and responsibility among the Democrats or Republicans who are all trying to outdo one another as the biggest saber-rattlers against Russia.

There are the voices of Party of Peace among Americans and Europeans but so far they are obviously overwhelmed by the Party of War. Does it mean that the Russia – West military conflict is inevitable?

NATO, not Russia, threatens Baltics: Moscow

February 19, 2015 By administrator

File photo shows NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, during a meeting of NATO ambassadors.

Moscow has rejected the British defense secretary’s allegation that Russia poses a threat to the Baltic countries, saying the real risk comes from NATO’s increased activity.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich, said Thursday that British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon’s remarks are beyond “diplomatic ethics.”

“The comments of Mr. Fallon of course are already beyond diplomatic ethics and the characterization of Russia is completely intolerable,” Lukashevich added.

The Russian diplomat, who was speaking to journalists in a weekly briefing, said Moscow would certainly find a way “to respond to the comments”.

In an interview with Times and Daily Telegraph newspapers, Fallon (pictured above) had claimed that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin posed what he called a real danger to Baltic states, namely Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

This comes as British jets were scrambled Wednesday after two Russian military aircraft were seen flying close to the UK airspace.

A similar incident occurred in January, when the UK Foreign Office said two Russian bombers flying near the UK airspace had caused disruption to civil aviation.

British Prime Minister David Cameron later said he didn’t deem it necessary to “dignify” the Russians with a response for their provocation.

Meanwhile, Estonia’s Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas (pictured above) announced Thursday that his country is to host additional NATO forces on its soil. He said the country is ready to make an special investment program worth €40 million for hosting the additional forces.

NATO and Russia are already at loggerheads over the crisis in east Ukraine which has claimed the lives of more than 5,700 people. Hopes were revived after leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France agreed on a truce deal last Thursday in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. However, clashes have continued with the two sides claiming that they are committed to implementing the ceasefire.

Western governments accuse Russia of having a major hand in the armed confrontation in east Ukraine. Moscow denies that, saying that the Western-backed government in Kiev should stop suppressing the rights of the ethnic Russian population in that part of the country.

(Video) James Corbett Lecture Gladio B operation and Turkey the Epicenter

December 2, 2014 By administrator

Netherlands,
The Secret War: Gladio and the Battle for Eurasia
Operation Gladio B’–the continuation of the old NATO Gladio program–covers a tangled web of covert operatives, billionaire Imams, drug running, prison breaks and terror strikes. Its goal: the destabilization of Central Asia and the Caucasus. In this presentation to Studium Generale in Groningen on November 19, 2014, James Corbett lifts the lid on this operation, its covert operatives, and the secret battle for the Eurasian heartland.

CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS

Central Asia is a vast expanse of the map whose defining characteristic is its ability to defy characterization. Stretching from the shores of the Caspian Sea in the west to the border of China in the east, and from Iran and Pakistan’s doorstep in the south to Russia’s in the north, it encompasses everything from the snow-capped slopes of Victory Peak in Kyrgyzstan to the remarkable “door to hell” in Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert to the sprawling grasslands of the Kazakh Steppe. Settled by migrants from the Persian, Turkic, Chinese and Slavic civilizations, its inhabitants speak Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Russian, Tajik, Uzbek and Turkmen and include Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists.

The much smaller Caucasus region, a narrow land bridge sandwiched between the Black and Caspian seas, is equally diverse. The region contains over 50 ethnic groups and is home to three local language families and several dozen languages, from the obscure Bohtan Neo-Aramaic tongue with less than 500 native speakers to the more widely spoken Azerbaijani and Armenian languages.

Serbia, Accused war criminal Seselj draws thousands at Serbia rally

November 16, 2014 By administrator

By Jovan Matic

Belgrade (AFP) – Some 10,000 supporters of the Serb ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj, released by a UN war crimes court for cancer therapy, joined him Saturday at a rally in protest at his country’s shift towards Europe.

The gathering was seen as a test of Seselj’s influence at home, where he returned this week after almost 12 years in detention at the court in The Hague, yet to issue a verdict in his trial for crimes during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

“Serbia has to decide should it go towards the East (Russia) or towards the West, where all its enemies are,” the 60-year-old firebrand told a euphoric crowd in downtown Belgrade.

“We will not wait for the end of this government’s mandate. Already next year we will have elections that the Serb Radical Party (SRS) will win,” Seselj vowed from the stage.

Waving the flags of Serbia and Russia, the Balkan country’s traditional ally, his supporters carried portraits of President Vladimir Putin and the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and banners reading “No to EU and NATO”.

Serbia opened membership talks with the European Union this year.

Seselj has vowed to unseat from power his former closest collaborators — President Tomislav Nikolic and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic — who both left his party in 2008 and founded their own pro-European SNS movement.

Immediately upon his arrival in Belgrade, Seselj labelled the two “traitors” who “sold our honour and gave up Serb nationalism to become servants of the West”.

“He will liberate us from those pro-European bootlickers,” Petar Radojkovic, a 47-year-old construction worker who joined the rally told AFP, in a reference to the government.

Milanka Stupljanin, a 29-year-old saleswoman, said the ultranationalist was the “only one who can revive Serbia.”

To achieve his aims, Seselj said he planned to “revitalise and reorganise” his Serb Radical Party (SRS) and attract new members among “all those who are dissatisfied”.

– Nine counts including murder –

“We should turn towards Russia. Joining the European Union would be a real disaster for Serbian people,” he said.

“However, we do not want a conflict with the EU; if the Union accepts to cooperate with us on equal grounds, why not?”

But Seselj has returned to a country that has greatly changed since he voluntarily surrendered to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 2003, going on trial four years later.

The groups which once helped whip up murderous fervour as the former Yugoslavia disintegrated in the 1990s are on a steady slide into oblivion.

Today none are even represented in the Serbian parliament, including Seselj’s party.

Political analyst Dusan Janjic was expecting more people at Saturday’s rally “since the radical (Seselj’s) party is a well organised grouping.”

But the “public clearly did not show much interest for Seselj’s comeback. Serbia changed a lot during his absence,” he told AFP.

His return will not threaten the government, agreed the analyst Djordje Vukadinovic.

“To topple the government is too ambitious a goal, especially if he does not change the rhetoric he has been using in the 1990s,” he said.

Seselj is accused of leading ethnic Serb volunteers in persecuting Croats, Muslims and other non-Serbs during the brutal 1990s wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

His trial wrapped up in March 2012, with a verdict still to be handed down.

During the trial, Seselj pleaded not guilty to nine counts including murder, torture, cruel treatment and wanton destruction of villages.

Seselj’s return has sparked outrage among victims’ groups in neighbouring Croatia and Bosnia.

On Saturday, Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic said she could only “voice condolences to Serbia for having a mad war criminal on its streets, instead of him being where he was and where he should have remained”, referring to the UN tribunal.