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The Azerbaijani military has opened gunfire at the town of Tchambarak in Armenia’s Gegharkunik Province in the night of July 13, defense ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan told ARMENPRESS.
“The situation is currently calm. There are no serious consequences. They [Azerbaijan] opened fire from small arms,” he said.
Through the Ministry of Economic Development and Investments we will have a kind of a business ombudsman, Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan told during the extended interview to TV Channels. To Karapetyan’s words, the ministry will support the economic entities to overcome existing hindrances.
Asked what assurances the state may provide the investors from the Diaspora, the Prime Minister said: “We want to open up the investment field not only for Diaspora Armenians, but also for the Chinese and anybody else. In order for them to feel protected we will ensure a mutual link through the Ministry of Economic Development and Investments that, speaking roughly, will act as an ombudsman for the businessman, a protector, a mediator to support them facing hindrance”.
Apart from the ministry, Karapetyan also informed about the names and data of other responsible bodies that closely work with him soon to be published.
“We have also registered the business decriminalization, laying out the actions to be taken toward both law-abiding or unlawful businesses. Even the most law-abiding businessmen have been warned from not exceeding their authority. We will undoubtedly turn to law enforcement for any abuse of authority. This is a working mechanism and yes, we will be consistent to move forward and to see the results,” Karapetyan stressed.
The world’s longest and deepest rail tunnel is to be officially opened in Switzerland, after almost two decades of construction work.
The 57km (35-mile) twin-bore Gotthard tunnel will provide a high-speed rail link under the Swiss Alps between northern and southern Europe.
Switzerland says it will revolutionise European freight transport.
Goods currently carried on the route by a million lorries a year will go by train instead.
The tunnel will overtake Japan’s 53.9 km Seikan rail tunnel as the longest in the world and push the 50.5 km Channel Tunnel linking the UK and France into third place.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi are due to attend the grand opening.
The project, which cost more than $12bn to build, was endorsed by Swiss voters in a referendum in 1992. Voters then backed a proposal from environmental groups to move all freight travelling through Switzerland from road to rail two years later.
The completed tunnel travels up to 2.3 km below the surface of the mountains above and through rock that reaches temperatures of 46C.
Engineers had to dig and blast through 73 different kinds of rock, some as hard as granite and others as soft as sugar. More than 28m tonnes of rock was excavated. Nine workers died during the work.
Now the completed tunnel – delivered on time and within budget – will create a mainline rail connection between Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Genoa in Italy.
When full services begin in December, the journey time for travellers between Zurich and Milan will be reduced by an hour to two hours and 40 minutes.
Its trajectory will be flat and straight instead of winding up through the mountains like the old rail tunnel and a road tunnel opened in 1980.
About 260 freight trains and 65 passenger trains will pass through the tunnel in as little as 17 minutes.
The tunnel is being financed by value-added and fuel taxes, road charges on heavy vehicles and state loans that are due to be repaid within a decade.
Swiss bank Credit Suisse has said is economic benefits will include the easier movement of goods and increased tourism.
by Walid Shoebat on March 25, 2016,
America’s largest mosque complex, officially known as Turkish-American Culture and Civilization Center, was built with Turkish funding under the supervision of the Turkish religious foundation (Diyanet). The $100 million mega mosque in Lanham, Maryland, will soon be open for Muslim worshipers in the Washington, DC area, as their link shows: “Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Barack Obama are expected to open the mosque.”
I guess you can learn about president’s next step towards building Islam in the U.S., not from your media, but from Erdogan’s official media Yeni Safak instead,
Do you see “US Double Minaret Mosque” above in the article Erdogan published? Why “Two Minarets”?
An Ottoman sultan is addressed as such in prayer: “O God, assist the Sultan, son of the Sultan, Sovereign of the Two Continents, of the Two Seas, Destroyer of Two Armies, Sultan of the Two Iraqs, Servant of the Two Sanctuaries [Mecca and Medina]” (Ibn Iyas, 195-1960). Muhammad II was “Sovereign of the Two Seas, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.”
Turkey is an empire that will arise TWICE, once after it is wounded and another for its glory.
Even Daniel the prophet recognizes this feature, Antichrist loves to have his established castles between the “two seas”:
“And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the [two] seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.” (Daniel 11:45)
Will the West ever awake its slumber and learn just how packed each verse is in the scriptures?
https://youtu.be/4QP4cl2Nv8M
The $100 million mega-mosque in Maryland, US will soon be open in the Washington, DC area, as Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to open the mosque during his official visit to the US between March 29 and April 2.
America’s largest mosque complex, officially known as the Turkish-American Culture and Civilization Center, was built with Turkish funding under the supervision of the Turkish religious foundation (Diyanet).
Almost all $100 million for the mosque was funded by the Religious Affairs and the Religious Foundation of Turkey.
The mosque is part of the Turkish-Islamic Center also known as the “American Religious Center,” built on a large area in Lanham, Maryland that will have the capacity to host 3,000 Muslim worshippers indoors and outdoors.
Turkey builds $100 million mega mosque in Maryland, US will include a community building, a guest house, traditional Turkish houses, library, conference and exhibition halls, meeting rooms, reception, museum of Islamic art, coffee house, gift shops, cultural center, amphitheater, computer lab, library and even Turkish baths in the old Ottoman style … the works. It “aims at bringing all Muslims together, to enlighten people about the facts of Islam and guide believers to a correct way” says Yeni Safak.
And these projects are not only in Maryland (keep in mind, it was called Maryland, as in the Land of Mary for Catholics), in Dayton you have some really excited stupid Americans there as well who enjoyed another mosque there too, courtesy of Antichrist Erdogan.
Believe it or not, the Turkish religious authority had had 200,267 meetings, conferences, panels and symposiums, all organized solely in the northern parts of the globe as an objective to influence non-Arab Muslim countries, especially in the Balkans. To Turkey Central Asia’s C.I.S nations (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan) is the goal of this anti-Christ agenda and Turkey today takes the lead in what the Bible prophecies Antichrist will do in the region of Meshech, Tubal, Gomer and Beth Togarmah.
You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north (Isaiah 14:13)
A state-sponsored program to build mosques in countries from Kazakhstan to Cuba has emerged as a foreign policy instrument for Turkey, boosting the country’s claim to a place on the international stage as a leader of the Islamic world that looks after Muslims everywhere.
STEPANAKERT (ARMENPRESS)—Head of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’s government civil aviation agency said he is optimistic that flights from Stepanakert’s airport will take off in the future, but refrained from commenting on specific dates.
In discussing the airport with journalists on Tuesday, Dmitry Atbashyan emphasized that delays in opening the airport were purely political.
“Azerbaijan constantly voiced threats that they would strike plane[s],” Atbashyan said, saying that the airport was ready to transport civilians despite the threats.
According to Atbashyan, Stepanakert’s airport has certain equipment that even Baku and Yerevan do not have, noting that the equipment, which was not specified, even surprised French senators who were in Karabakh earlier this year.
Atbashyan emphasized that people have the right to free movement, and that their freedom should not have any connection with the status of the territory they lived in. If the people of Azerbaijan have that right, why does it not apply to the people of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, he asked.
Armenia has won a top prize at the Open Government Partnership’s annual award event being held in Mexico City.
Participating in the ceremony for the first time ever, the country was named a leader in the Asia-Pacific region, reports the Government’s press service.
The Armenian delegation attending the event was led by Gurgen Dumanyan, deputy chief of staff of the Government.
This year’s event, which opened on Thursday, addresses the mechanisms of improving public services through open governance principles. It attracted participation bids from 35 of the 66 members of the initiative. President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto attended the award ceremony to hand over the prizes to the winning countries’ representatives.
Armenia’s initiative submitted for the awards proposed mechanisms for creating a municipal administration database and boosting investment in community administrations in an effort to improve the quality of services for the population in regions.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi announced the heavily-fortified area in central Baghdad known as the Green Zone open to all citizens on Sunday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The so-called Green Zone in the center of the capital is housing government buildings and foreign missions.
“The opening of the Green Zone is part of a reform drive promised to our citizens. The process of reform is moving forward, and we will not back down,” Abadi wrote on Twitter.
The territory was closed to the Iraqi people for security reasons after the invasion of coalition forces led by the United States and the United Kingdom in 2003.
Despite the fortification measures, this area has often been the target of terrorist attacks.
Another milestone achievement this evening in line with commitment to reform as the Green Zone in Baghdad is opened to the public
— Haider Al-Abadi (@HaiderAlAbadi) October 4, 2015
A Turkish police officer arrests an old Kurdish protester during a demonstration near Turkish-Syrian Kurdistan border Sanliurfa, Turkish Kurdistan. Photo credit: EPA
Aziz Baran | Special to Ekurd.net
Mr Jens Stoltenberg
Secretary General, NATO HQ
Bd Leopold III, B-1110 Brussels
Belgium
Fax: +32 2 707 4232
Email: Stoltenberg.Jens @hq.nato.int
Dear Mr Stoltenberg,
Your recent expression of solidarity with Turkey against “terrorism” is tantamount to unleashing attack dogs against Kurdish citizens with a decidedly racist subtext.
I feel obliged to make you cognizant of the fact, however remote and improbable it may seem at present, that you may someday be summonsed or hauled, against your will, to appear before a de jure or a de facto Kurdistan Revolutionary Tribunal and/or Truth Commission.
As a Norwegian, you cannot be unaware of the 1905 referendum by which the Union of Norway and Sweden under King Oscar II was dissolved and both countries became sovereign states in a peaceful and democratic way.
Allow me to refresh your memory about the process of separation as it is highly unlikely that you would have revisited the subject since your High School days. You will recall that the Norwegian Parliament voted to secede from the union on 7 June 1905 followed by a referendum on 13 August 1905 in which 99.95% of cast votes favoured secession. Though Norwegian women had no right to vote, they started a signature collection campaign and within two weeks, quite remarkably, collected 244,765 votes, that is, over 65% of formal and informal votes cast in the referendum.
The King did not send any assassins to Norway nor did he send the cavalry with heavy artillery to attack Norwegian separatists. Respectful of the freely expressed will of the Norwegian people, he accepted the dissolution in a civilized way.
The racist subtext in your expression of solidarity with Turkey emanates from your apparent belief that Turks and Kurds are not civilized enough to resolve their differences the way the Norwegians and Swedes did through the ballot box! With Turks and Kurds, it must be “dog eat dog” and you have thrown your weight behind the top dog. Let’s recall that British diplomat Lord Curzon has allegedly said, “Turks cannot be civilized.”
What is the real meaning of your expression of solidarity with Turkey?
Firstly, NATO is a military alliance whose charter is to defend member states against military threats from non-NATO member states. The armed conflict between the Turkish government and Kurdish people led by PKK is a civil war as defined in the authoritative Oxford Dictionary of the English language: A civil war is a war between citizens of the same country. A most legitimate question is why you would express solidarity with one party in a civil war when you are so terribly silent about gross human rights violations, brazen attacks on media, journalists and offices of political parties, and intolerable restrictions on freedom of expression in Turkey. You cannot be unaware of the published annual press freedom indexes showing that the Palestinians under Israeli occupation enjoy greater press freedom than citizens of Turkey.
Secondly, Turkey is a name for a geographic area. Solidarity with mountains, plains and lakes is meaningless. If your solidarity is with the Turkish government you should keep in mind that around 60% of Turkey’s citizens did not vote for the governing party and repeated polls show that over 70% of the citizens of Turkey want peace and a peaceful settlement of the armed conflict between the Turkish state and the PKK. Turkey has squandered $300-$400 Billion dollars, according to various estimates, in order to deny the Kurdish citizens the very same rights, freedoms and political status enjoyed by a few hundred thousand Cypriot Turks in the shadow of the Turkish Armed Forces that continue to occupy northern Cyprus since 1974. Around ten times as many Turkish citizens have died on Turkey’s roads in traffic accidents than in the on-going civil war over the past three decades according to many Turkish dailies, notably, Today’s Zaman and Hurriyet Daily News online English editions .
Thirdly, perhaps you –and your backers- do not want Turks and Kurds to resolve their differences and disagreements through peaceful means. Turkish top dog repeatedly says he will not negotiate with “terrorists” and by calling PKK terrorist, you are, in effect, telling him not to negotiate, not to implement democratic reforms that would make PKK’s raison d’etre virtually redundant and armed conflict as meaningless to the Kurds as it is to the people of Scotland who want to separate from the rest of the UK. Perhaps, you want the armed conflict to continue and even intensify to the delight of purveyors of weapons to both sides. Hatching major conflicts can take a long time and in another 10-15 years’ time Turkey can turn into what Syria and Iraq are today –to the absolute delight of the merchants of death and destruction.
PKK: Terrorist, Separatist or Federalist?
Terrorism is almost universally understood as the use of violence and intimidation against civilians not directly involved in the conflict for political gains. As far as I am aware, PKK has never attacked or threatened the civilian population. Surely, PKK attacks on Turkish assassins in civilian clothes cannot be deemed as attacks on innocent civilians.
Turkish government representatives around the world produce long lists of acts of terrorism by PKK, but the Turkish government never agrees to proper independent investigations of these acts, lest it comes to light that they were, in fact, the acts of its own agents and hirelings. There is a civil war in Turkey. Uniformed and armed PKK volunteer fighters stand against uniformed and armed conscripts. Therefore, calling one side terrorist can only be due to ulterior motives.
Clearly, PKK is not a terrorist organization and will not be one unless and until its leadership chooses to resort to violence and intimidation against civilians not involved in the conflict. No amount of pronouncements, declarations and listing it as a terrorist organization will make it so. As an example, let’s note that for many centuries, under the penalty of burning at the stake, the Church imposed the view that the earth was flat, stationary and at the centre of the solar system. None of its crimes against learned men and women made the world flat, stationary and at the centre.
If PKK leadership ever wants to harm civilians to achieve its aims, it would not be too difficult, with its apparent international support in the Kurdish diaspora, to acquire what has been called “poor people’s atomic weapons” such as the nasty chemical dioxin. A kilogram of dioxin could make a city the size of Ankara uninhabitable perhaps for a hundred years or more!
PKK’s armed struggle is inspired as much by the Vietnamese people’s heroic anti-colonial wars as by the words of the US President John F Kennedy in his 13 March 1962 speech, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Successive Turkish leaders have made necessary changes through peaceful means like the ballot box impossible.
Like all organizations that avoid the fate of the dinosaurs, PKK has evolved and adapted to prevailing realities. It is no longer advocating separation from Turkey and creation of an independent unified Kurdistan through armed struggle.
Its leadership’s recent public pronouncements and peace proposals to Turkish leaders clearly show that PKK stands for a form of political system that is best described as federalism. For example, an important step in the transformation of the decentralization of power is for the Turkish government to legislate the election of provincial governors by the people they are supposed to govern. The population of many provinces exceed the population of many states of the United States of America such as Montana, Wyoming, Delaware, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont that have their own legislatures and governors all duly elected by secret ballot after informed discussions and debates.
Fully aware of their brutal treatment of Kurdish citizens, Turkish leaders’ nightmare for decades has been that given half the chance the Kurds will want to secede from Turkey the way Norwegians dissolved the union with the Swedes. Yet there is simply no reliable evidence for this belief today.
In conclusion, PKK is best described as federalist and its armed struggle as civil war. Your public expression of solidarity with Turkey can serve no purpose other than to convince Turkish leaders and nationalists, also known as, Turkish “NAZIS” of their right to continue to oppress and disinherit the Kurdish citizens of their cultural, linguistic and historical heritage and true national identity. You -and via possible development of new legal concepts- the members of your close support system may someday be held accountable for the terrible crimes that are being perpetrated against the Kurdish nation. Whoever had heard of “war crimes” before the Nuremberg trials?
Yours faithfully,
Aziz Baran
azizb@hotmail.com
by Rimma Varzhapetyan-Feller
Dear Mr. Harris,
I am making this appeal to you in an open letter to draw your attention to the fact that during the recent months articles inciting and propagating hatred towards Armenia and the Armenian people, and to me, as the leader of the Jewish community of Armenia, are published regularly in Israeli newspapers by a number of so called analysts – Arye Gut, Alexander Murinson, Maxime Gauin (e.g. Baku to the future: Azerbaijan, not Armenia, is Israel’s true ally , Anti-Semitism in Armenia.) report .jewishjournal.com
Biographies of the aforementioned authors and the content of the articles prove that they try hard to set public opinion and, particularly, the Jews, against the Armenian people, casting shadow on the centuries-old friendship of the two peoples.
Especially worth mentioning is Arye Gut’s latest brainchild – an article built on overtly false facts and attempts of manipulation.
A former citizen of Azerbaijan (he is Jew, not an Azeri), Gut, whose Facebook account provides ample evidence of his attempts to ensure the approval of the Azerbaijani authorities, speculates and manipulates data, positioning himself as allegedly “impartial” analyst.
In this article Gut yet again endeavors to convince the readers of the existence of anti-Semitism in Armenia and Diaspora. It is worth mentioning that Gut, Murinson and Gauin have already written nearly a dozen of articles, trying to provide proof of supposedly numerous cases of anti-Semitism in Armenia. Nevertheless, the examples they cite are either false or distorted. No representative of any political force, political party or NGO in Armenia has ever uttered any anti-Semitic remarks.
Rights of the Jewish community have never been questioned here. The Armenian people always have respected the Jews and admired the rich history of our people. Since time immemorial the Jewish community of Armenia has found favourable environment for free existence and enrichment of their culture on this land of rich culture.
The evidence of the Jewish presence in Armenia is a medieval Jewish settlement and cemetery, both preserved due to Armenian government’s and people’s care for it.
Not only does Arye Gut ignore it all, but also dares to voice poignantly indecent expressions addressed to me and the Jewish community of Armenia which is nothing but an example of anti-Semitism in itself.
As Michael Chlenow, Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress, stressed during the recent Global Forum “Against the Crime of Genocide” held in Yerevan a couple of weeks ago, “Even if the Jewish community of Armenia is small, it is well-organized and proud, and through its activity contributes to both enrichment of the Jewish culture and strengthening of centuries-old friendship of the two peoples.”
Armenia has never denied the Holocaust. This year on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day President Serzh Sargsyan addressed the Jewish community in a statement. During his visit to the USA in May, the President of Armenia also visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Armenia is the only country in the region where school curriculum includes direct reference to the Holocaust; moreover, according to various assessments, from the point of view of the awareness of the Holocaust, the Armenians are amongst the best-informed people in the world.
In his article Gut once again tries to use to his advantage the fact of cooperation between some representatives of the Armenian Diaspora and the Nazis during WWII. It is a historical fact that the Armenian legion did not take part in the combat operations and was stationed in the rear – mainly in France, Holland and Poland. The Nazi leadership never trusted the Armenian legion. On December 12, 1942 Hitler said that “…In spite of all declarations from Rosenberg and the military, I don’t trust the Armenians”. The members of the Armenian Legion never missed a chance to revolt against the Nazis and join the resistance groups. The Armenian POWs played important role in the liberation of South France, while another group of Armenian POWs revolted in Holland.
Most probably, Arye Gut is also aware that the Azerbaijani legion in the German Armed Forces was four times larger than the Armenian one. The Azerbaijani legion participated in a range of massacres of the Polish and the Jews (particularly, 40.000 people were annihilated during Volyn massacre). The former President of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan (1918-1920) Mamed Rasulzade, who nowadays is glorified in Azerbaijan, spared no effort to recruit the Azerbaijani prisoners of war to the ranks of the Nazi army.
As for the Armenians, they fought against the Nazis in the frontlines of the Red Army, as well as in Diaspora. More than half a million Armenians fought in WWII, and only half of them returned home. Armenian soldiers fought in all the bloody battles, liberating from the Nazi yoke numerous peoples, including Jews.
As if following a the long-standing tradition, Gut’s article ‘circulates’ the theses of Azerbaijani-Turkish anti-Armenian propaganda, i.e. the blatant denial of the Armenian Genocide and the repetition of the official Baku’s assessment of events in Khojaly in 1992. What is more, all this is by no means done in a professional manner. In reality, Mr. Gut would rather quote the then President of Azerbaijan Mutalibov on the events in Khojaly, who inadvertently exposed the masterminds and those who even today use these clichés for propaganda purposes.
I was raised in a Jewish family. From the very first days of war my father joined up and reached Berlin. He was given numerous military awards and decorations. Together with her parents and my elder brother, my mother was evacuated three times. My husband’s ancestors, Armenians, suffered the Genocide in the Ottoman Empire and a considerable part of the family was annihilated.
My family spares no effort to strengthen the friendly ties between Armenia and Israel. We wish peace and prosperity to the two countries, and, of course, all the people on Earth. Unfortunately, shameless liars and provocateurs like Mr. Gut accuse me of “complicity in Nazism, Fascism and anti-Semitism”.
They must have forgotten that people should think twice before they utter such remarks – one could be detained for that.
It is inconceivable that leading newspapers and journals publish rubbish, without thinking of their own reputation.
Dear Mr. Harris, your organization has always emphasized the importance of strengthening of tolerance between peoples and fight against hate speech.
Authors of articles, pointed out by me, try to manipulate the Jewish media and the Jewish community in their dirty and unacceptable propaganda stunts.
I am grateful to you and proud that for years I have been invited to participate in the American Jewish Committee Annual Forums, which always pay a great deal of attention to strengthening of tolerance and fight against inter-ethnic hatred.
I am full of hope that you will share my concern and together we will be able to exert joint efforts to resist such provocative behavior.
Sincerely,
Rimma Varzhapetyan-Feller,
President of the Jewish Community of Armenia
Delegates of the 4th Congress of Western Armenians released a list of demands from the Turkish Republic in Paris on Sunday, including the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border and providing unlimited access to historical archives.
The descendants of Armenians who were living and persecuted during the Ottoman Empire have made the following demands of the Turkish government: “Open the Turkish border with the Republic of Armenia immediately and without preconditions and initiate a number of steps for the establishment of interstate confidence and friendly relations with the authorities and population of the Armenian state, among whom live hundreds of thousands of descendants of Western Armenians.”
The delegation also called for unlimited access to historical archives from the Ottoman Empire, stating this is “necessary for the re-establishment of the rights of Western Armenians. This should include all cadastre and civil state archives, in addition to all information related to our moral and material losses (damages incurred whether pecuniary or non-pecuniary) and relevant rights.”
On March 19, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan slammed the Armenian diaspora, saying: “Oh, Armenian diaspora, oh, Armenian administration, our archives are here. We have hundreds of thousands of documents, over a million documents. How many documents do you have? Bring your documents, and we will task the historians, our historians, political scientists, even archeologists and lawyers [with studying them]… let’s seek the truth here,” he said, adding that “anti-Turkey campaigns carried out by paying money and forming lobbies will not earn you anything.”
The memorandum published by the Armenian congress also called for the recognition of the National Congress of Western Armenians as a legal entity in Turkey, and that it is the indisputable right for the Armenian ethnic entity to return to their homeland and rehabilitate all community properties such as schools and churches.