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Return of land possible only when determining Karabakh status: Lavrov VIDEO

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday, January 17 that the requirement to liberate “the occupied territories” of Nagorno Karabakh still remains on the agenda, but in no case by the use of force and exclusively upon determining the final status of Karabakh.

Commenting on the settlement of the conflict, the Russian foreign policy chief stressed that it is not an abstract notion and “is not merely a matter of Azerbaijan’s internal affairs.”

According to him, agreements on the implementation of a mechanism for investigating incidents and the increase in the number of observers in the conflict zone has not yet been implemented due to lack of consensus within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azeri leader Ilham Aliyev met on June 20 in Saint Petersburg to address the conflict, with Russian President Vladimir Putin mediating the talks. The Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents confirmed their commitment to the implementation of agreements reached at a Vienna-hosted meeting on May 16. To that end, they agreed to increase the number of international observers in the Karabakh conflict zone. Also, they expressed satisfaction that the ceasefire was now holding. Prior to that, a meeting between both leaders was organized on May 16 in Vienna, with top diplomats from the MG co-chairing countries hosting the summit.

Recalling the bloody events in early April, the Russian diplomat noted that the escalation caused deepest concern. Lavrov at the same time said that “Russia played a decisive role in stopping the bloodshed at that moment.”

Azerbaijan on April 2 launched an overt military offensive against Karabakh, which resulted in hundreds of military and civilian deaths on both sides. Yerevan and Baku reached an agreement on the cessation of hostilities on April 5 in Moscow.

Tass.ru. Лавров сожалеет, что механизм расследования инцидентов в Карабахе пока не реализован

Istanbul: Camp Armen deed returned on 175th day of occupation

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232076On the 175th day of the occupation of the former Armenian orphanage known as “Camp Armen,” located in the Tuzla suburb of İstanbul, the deed was returned to the Gedikpaşa Armenian Protestant Church Foundation, 28 years after the property was usurped by the Turkish government.

On Tuesday, Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputy Markar Esayan posted pictures on Twitter of the foundation’s lawyer Sebu Aslangil receiving the deed to the premises, writing, “We managed [to perform] the impossible.”

The orphanage was opened by the Gedikpaşa Armenian Protestant Church Foundation in 1963 and was built in part by the orphans who were at the camp. At the time of its construction, the suburb of Tuzla was an open space with few buildings around, located three hours from the heart of İstanbul. It has now become an affluent neighborhood with gated homes and houses with gardens.

In 1974, a high court ruling stated that “minority foundations cannot own property.” In 1983 the camp was closed and the deed to the land was returned to its former owner despite legal action that was taken to prevent its closure by the Gedikpaşa Armenian Protestant Church, which owned and operated the camp. After a string of sales, the parcel’s ninth owner, Fatih Ulusoy, ordered demolition teams to knock down the former orphanage in order to build villas in its place.

Bulldozers first arrived on May 6 and successfully demolished one part of the desolate building that had been left untouched since it was emptied by force in the 1980s. Then-parliamentary candidate (now serving as a deputy) Garo Paylan and former resident of the orphanage Garabet Orunöz acted immediately when informed by local Tuzla residents of the presence of demolition teams.

The effort to return the property was a difficult one, with activists taking turns to stay at the site day and night to protect the property in case another demolition team arrived without notice. Many of the activists on duty live and work in İstanbul, therefore having to commute for three hours in the morning to continue their lives after camping out at the site.

The occupation of the property began just one month before the June 7 election and was one matter that three of the four major political parties seemed to agree on. In addition to the efforts of Esayan and Paylan, Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Selina Doğan, of Armenian descent, also participated in the occupation by visiting the site and taking part in the marches on İstiklal Avenue for the cause.

One of the reasons the orphanage holds such symbolic importance is due to the fact that the assassinated journalist Hrant Dink spent his summers there as a youth and was later a counselor at the camp. Dink was the founding editor-in-chief of Agos, a Turkish-Armenian weekly newspaper. He was one of the leading figures in the trials attempting to the retrieve the ownership of the parcel of land the orphanage sits on and was generally a dynamic and influential leader for the Turkish Armenian population. Dink was murdered outside the Agos newspaper’s headquarters on Jan. 19, 2007. The great efforts made by activists were dedicated to the memory of the murdered journalist.

Armenians are a minority in Turkey and lost a significant portion of their population on the soil of the former Ottoman Empire because of the massacres against the demographic that took place during World War I. While they made up a little over 5 percent of the total population of the Ottoman Empire, Armenians living in Turkey today make up a small minority group ranging from an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 citizens in the country’s population of 75 million. Although Turkey faces calls from international communities to recognize the events of 1915 as genocide, the Turkish state has a strict policy of opposing such a notion.

Austrian Journalist 800,000 Refugees Returning to Syria Thanks to Russia

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1028627987Journalist Christan Saarländer from the Austrian Contra Magazin called Russia’s military operation in Syria a “blessing” and blamed German media for its propaganda war against Russia.
German media publishes one-sided reports about Russia, spreading propaganda lies about the country and its activities in Syria, the journalist wrote.

Recently, some media sources accused Russia of bombing a hospital in Syria without any proof, the author wrote, adding that Western journalists actually rarely make live reports from the spot and come to conclusions sitting in the office.
At the same time, Saarländer argued, more and more videos are being uploaded, documenting successful Russian airstrikes in Syria. Even US generals are praising Russia’s armed forces, as the news agency PressTV reported from neighboring Iran.
The US portal “Veterans Today” wrote, citing the Iranian Fars News Agency (FNA), that more than 800,000 refugees from Syria are expected to return to their homeland thanks to the Russian military operation.
According to the latest data, Russian fighter jets have destroyed 285 ISIL and al-Nusra Front targets in Syria over the past three days. The military operation itself started on September 30 after the Syrian president Bashar Assad had sent Russian authorities an official request.

Source: sputniknews.com

Ownership of Istanbul’s Camp Armen orphanage is returned to Armenians

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camp-armenThe ownership certificate of Camp Armen Armenian orphanage in Istanbul, Turkey, has been handed over to the Armenian Protestant Church of the city.

The attorney of the church foundation, Sebuh Aslangil, announced that all activities regarding the return of the ownership certificate of the orphanage building have completed, and the building is now owned by the Armenian Protestant Church, reported Agos Armenian bilingual weekly of Istanbul.

Camp Armen Armenian orphanage was confiscated by the Turkish authorities back in 1987. Subsequently, it was sold to a Turkish businessman who, in turn, decided to demolish the orphanage and build luxury homes in the premises. As a result of public pressure, however, the demolition of the orphanage has been temporarily halted.

The camp was once home to around 1,500 Armenian children, including the late Hrant Dink—the founder and chief editor of Agos, and who was shot dead on January 19, 2007 outside the office of his weekly—, and his wife Rakel.

The orphanage sought to help underprivileged Armenian children and orphans, who had moved to Istanbul from other parts of Turkey, get an education.

Armenian activists keep watch in the area for several months now, and against the demolition of Camp Armen.

16 000 Syrian Armenians return to their ancestral land

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arton116272-480x270More than 2,000 Syrian Armenians have found refuge in Armenia since May, announced yesterday the Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobyan.

Their arrival is around 16,000 official total number of Armenians from Syria currently living in their ancestral homeland.

Syria was home to up to 80,000 Armenians, mostly descendants of survivors of the 1915 genocide, before they can trigger the bloody civil war four years ago. Most of them have fled the country since.

Hakobian estimated that only about 15 thousand Armenians are still in Syria today. She commented on their fate during the question and answer session of the Armenian government in Parliament. “Unfortunately, the situation in Syria is deteriorating day by day,” she was sorry. “A total of 2500 Armenians from Syria came to Armenia since the events of May”, she added.

Nazaret Aroyan, who owned several carpet stores in Aleppo, is one of these refugees. He arrived in Yerevan with his family a month ago. He expressed concern for the safety of his sister and her husband, imprisoned in a battered city of Syria. He explained that she works in a local public hospital and therefore needs government permission to leave the country.

“She asked permission. Four months ago, they sent his papers to Damascus, “he told Aroyan, adding that she is still waiting for a response.

“The situation there is really bad,” summed Kuyumjian Nazaret, a young refugee. “Yesterday they bombed a school and there were children there.”

Mikael Garabed, another former resident of Aleppo, said he still has not convinced his brothers to move to Armenia. “There is no electricity and running water out there,” he explains. “The living conditions continue to deteriorate.”

According to Syrian Armenians now living in Yerevan, many relatives would flee Aleppo to take refuge in Armenia, but they can not afford the expensive trips. Some are probably also aware of the lack of economic opportunities in Armenia. Many refugees are struggling to make ends meet in the country devastated by unemployment.

“Refugees are beginning to realize that there is no way back and integrate rapidly into the socio-economic life of Armenia”, welcomed Hakobyan in the National Assembly yesterday. “Each of us must help them find jobs and accommodation.”

Firdus Zakarian, head of a working group that aims to care for Syrian Armenians, warned the government in this regard, which would be run out of money to provide substantial material assistance to refugees. He hopes to obtain funding from foreign states and international organizations.

Thursday, September 17, 2015,
Claire © armenews.com

Armenian gospel manuscript stolen by Turk returned to Cyprus

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manuscript-stlenManuscript of an Armenian gospel looted from the church after Turkey’s invasion to Cyprus, has been returned to its homeland.

Altogether 173 relics were returned to Cyprus, as reported by http://famagusta-gazette.com.

The relics were returned after a German Court of Appeals issued its final decision on the treasures stolen by a Turkish art smuggler from the areas of Cyprus occupied by Turkey.

The treasures, including fragments of church wall paintings, icons, a manuscript of an Armenian gospel and 40 prehistoric antiquities were found in 1997 in the flat of a Turkish dealer in Munich.

Turkey: Armenian Church Seeks Headquarters’ Return

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Lawyers for the Armenian Church said Tuesday that they had filed a lawsuit with Turkey’s highest court seeking a return of the church’s headquarters, a sacred site in the south-central city of Kozan confiscated by the Ottoman authorities in 1915 as part of their broad repression of the Armenian Christian minority. About 1.5 million Armenians were killed during that era in what is now widely regarded as a genocide. The lawsuit, brought in the Constitutional Court of Turkey, is an unprecedented effort by the Armenian Church to use the Turkish legal system to recover property seized 100 years ago, said Payam Akhavan, a former prosecutor at The Hague and the church’s lead international counsel in the case. The suit, filed Monday, came a few days after Armenia officially commemorated the centennial of the genocide.

Source: NYtime

Syrians slowly return to Kobani

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Kobani

Kobani

Around 4,000 refugees have trickled back to the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani but many are wary of returning to the site of a four-month battle between Kurdish and Islamic State forces, officials said Monday, according to Reuters.

Much of the town of over 200,000 was destroyed by the fighting, in which the Kurds held off militant Islamists trying to overrun the border area, and potential returnees are worried by the many unexploded bombs and mortars there, they said.

“Turkey keeps track of exits as well as entries. And the latest figure shows around 4,000 people have gone back to Kobani,” a spokesman for Turkey’s disaster management agency AFAD told Reuters.

Kobani official Idris Nasan said 15 people had died and many have been injured in accidents involving live explosives since the siege of the city was lifted last month.

“It’s not safe for them. But they were looking forward to coming back,” he said, calling on the international community to help clear Kobani of explosives.

Almost the entire population of the town fled across the border to Turkey last year to escape ISIS’ advance.

Kurdish forces assisted by Iraqi peshmerga forces and almost daily air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition drove out the ultra radical Sunni insurgents in late January and took back the town, which is now in ruins.

Source: Panorama.am

Palestinians Dream Of Return

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Photo Essay By Muhammed Muheisen

 Ali Abu JabalA lifetime has passed since hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out their homes in the Mideast war over Israel’s 1948 creation. Today, those who were uprooted and their descendants number more than 5 million people, scattered across the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

 The Palestinian refugee problem is one of the most entrenched in the world, with a solution linked to an elusive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. About one-third of the refugees still live in camps, or tent cities that have been transformed into crowded urban slums. Some families live in the camps for the fourth generation.

The plight of millions of refugees everywhere is marked Friday on World Refugee Day. The United Nations refugee agency says that at the end of last year, more than 50 million people have been forced from their homes worldwide, the highest figure of displaced since World War II.

More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out in the 1948 Mideast war, according to U.N. figures. The war began after Israel declared its independence and surrounding Arab nations invaded. Tens of thousands more Palestinians were displaced in the 1967 war in which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands the Palestinians seek for a state.

The fate of the Palestinian refugees is one of the most explosive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Israel saying it cannot accept a mass return because that would dilute the state’s Jewish majority. Palestinian negotiators say each refugee has the right to choose between return and resettling, whether in a future state of Palestine or a third country.

In the Jenin camp in the northern West Bank, murals express the hardships of life in exile and the yearning to return to what is now Israel. Some old-timers there cling to hopes of return of going back.

Fatimah Jalamneh, 85, spends her day sitting by the doorway of her house in an alley in the camp. She was in her late teens when her family fled from the village of Noures near what is now the Israeli town of Afula.

“Until death takes me away, my only dream is to go back to my village and sit under a tree in my home which was taken away from me and my children,” said Jalamneh, a great-grandmother.

She had tears in her eyes when she spoke and held what she said was a key to her old family home.

Abduljalil Al-Noursi, 70, sat in front of a large mural showing a ship and the words “We will return” written on the sail. In Palestinian refugee art, a ship is a common symbol of the hopes of return

Al-Nursi was 4 years old when he and 19 relatives fled with just the clothes on their backs. “I won’t let go of my right of return,” he said.

This series of images is by Associated Press photographer Muhammed Muheisen and are of some of the oldest Palestinian refugees in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on World Refugee Day.

Source: Ap

Mayor says 250 families returned to Kessab

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June 17, 2014 | 13:39

20140617-120217The mayor of Kessab, a town mainly populated by Armenians, said 250 families had already come back to the town after it was liberated by the Syrian army.

Vaskin Jabiryan said the rest are waiting for rehabilitation of infrastructure to return to their homes, SANA reported.

The governor of Latakia mobilized all city services to accelerate rehabilitation of infrastructure. During his visit to Kessab, the governor inspected all districts and assessed the damage caused by terrorist groups.