state Archives

Azerbaijani citizens heavily involved 300 killed with Islamic State, Iraq holds 21 foreign children

September 25, 2017 by administrator

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Azerbaijan intelligence services are investigating reports that hundreds of the country’s nationals had been killed fighting for Islamic State in Iraq.

Madat Guliyev, head of the State Security service (intelligence) told reporters they had received information that 300 Azerbaijani nationals had been killed fighting for Islamic State in Iraq. He said agency workers were sent to Iraq to verify the reports.

He said those had been “taken in by the propaganda and joined Daesh (IS)”, adding that their families and children accompanied them. “There are information of deaths, even among those children,” the official was quoted saying by Russian agency Interfax.

According to Guliyev, intelligence services in Azerbaijan had detained 85 people over charges of joining the extremist group. He put the total of Azerbaijani citizens who had joined the group since the start of the war at 900.

Citizenship has been stripped from 195 suspects, according to Guliyev.

Also on Sunday, the Iraqi government said it holds 21 foreign children linked to Islamic State members.

The Iraqi Labor and Social Affairs Ministry said it had handed over five Chechen children to their families. Ministry official Abeer al-Chalabi said they still do not possess exact statistics of foreign Islamic State fighters’ families, but were in continued efforts and contacts to deliver the rest.

Last Monday, authorities in Nineveh Province said they were preparing to deport over 500 wives of foreign Islamic State militants to their home countries after they had illegally entered the country three years earlier.

Iraqi forces had said they were holding nearly 1,400 family members of Islamic State fighters who had turned themselves in with Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

California Senate declares April month of Armenian Genocide Recognition VIDEO

April 19, 2017 by administrator

The California State Senate on April 17 passed Senate Resolution 29 declaring April as a month of Armenian Genocide Recognition, commemorating the Armenian Genocide, calling for Turkey to return historic church properties to rightful congregations and requesting that the United States Government formally recognize the Armenian Genocide, Asbarez reported.

In his floor speech presenting SR 29, State Senator Anthony Portantino outlined the importance of the State Senate’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide for California residents and for the United States. He also shared details of the resilience of the Armenian people by reciting passages from William Saroyan in the Armenian language.

“It is an honor to represent the largest Armenian American community in the country and to be entrusted to appropriately commemorate the Genocide in the State Senate. It is our hope that California’s loud and clear voice once and for all gives Washington and the President the confidence to do the right thing and help people finally have the chance to heal from the horror perpetrated 102 years ago,” commented Portantino.

SR 29 was authored by Portantino and co-authored by the other members of the State Senate California, Armenian & Artsakh Select Committee: Pro Tem Kevin De Leon, Scott Wilk, Tony Mendoza and Josh Newman. Portantino is the Chair of the Select Committee.

In addition to recognizing actress Angela Sarafyan from The Promise on the Senate floor, Portantino and the Senate Select Committee helped facilitate the California Capitol screening of The Promise during Advocacy Day. Academy Award winning Director Terry George from The Promise was hosted at a reception in the State Capitol prior to the passage of SR 29. The State Senate ceremony began with a prayer from Very Reverend Father Dajad Ashekian and Very Reverend Father Pakrad Berjekian. Homenetmen Scouts from Santa Clara Ani Chapter conducted the Pledge of Allegiance and a broad coalition of Armenian American community leaders were introduced by Portantino as part of Advocacy Day during the commemoration.

NEWSPAPER, Armenian genocide, and moral reasons of State

June 1, 2016 by administrator

This is a new episode in the eternal conflict, so well described in the sixteenth century by Machiavelli, who opposes moral and political. It is even a textbook case. Germany she will take the chance to revive the refugee crisis in Europe, the name of the requirement ethics and historical truth? Thursday, 101 years after the fact, the Bundestag is to vote on a resolution recognizing the killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire were indeed genocide. The text, if adopted, is likely to irritate the highest point on the Turkish authorities. But with the approach of summer, Berlin has more than ever on the goodwill of Ankara to continue to curb the flow of refugees from the Middle East wars.

Only state in the world to admit himself guilty of genocide, that of the Jews during World War II, and take the consequences, since Germany is the moral values at the heart of its political action. It is even the purpose of the Federal Republic, which placed its Basic Law (constitution) of 1949 under the banner of human dignity. This imperative willingly displayed ethic clashes often with the requirements of realpolitik. German leaders, as they yield to them or not, are liable in one case the charges of hypocrisy, in the other those of naivety. In the refugee crisis, Angela Merkel has even had the part of its European partners, the two complaints simultaneously, in addition to that to the bed of the far right.

State lawmakers’ support for Azerbaijan encouraged last month’s anti-Armenian war crimes – US senators

May 22, 2016 by administrator

By Senator Bill Barton and Senator Lois Tochtrop
In early April, while Nevada State Assembly Speaker John Hambrick was in Azerbaijan hobnobbing with its dictator Ilham Aliyev, his host was committing ISIS-like war crimes.

On April 1, Aliyev’s forces attacked the Armenian-populated Artsakh, also known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, in part because legislators like Speaker Hambrick have encouraged belligerent behavior by passing absurd resolutions in praise of Aliyev’s oil-rich dictatorship.

One heartbreaking account of Azerbaijan’s barbaric actions during the four-day war in April was the mutilated elders that journalists found in Talish after its recapture from Azeri forces. The bodies of husband and wife Valera and Razmela Khalapyan with chopped-off ears were found inside their home. Photographs released by Azeri soldiers on social media showed beheaded Armenian soldiers, including 20-year-old Yezidi Kurd Kyaram Sloyan. Among the Azerbaijani officers Aliyev honored at a ceremony following the four-day war was the man who had posed with Sloyan’s severed head.

One irony of Aliyev’s war crimes is the official praise of “tolerance” he has acquired from some American lawmakers. New Mexico Senate leader Mary Kay Papen, a frequent flier to the dictatorship, sponsored a nonbinding memorial in 2015 that praised Azerbaijan as a utopia for religious harmony. Incidentally, that year marked the 10th anniversary of Aliyev’s ISIS-like wipeout of the legendary cemetery of Djulfa—the world’s largest collection of medieval cross-stones (khachkars).

Sen Papen is hardly alone. Earlier this year, Utah State Senator Gene Davis similarly praised Azerbaijan as “tolerant,” and the Idaho legislature even introduced—but did not pass—a resolution.

It was no coincidence, these seemingly innocuous statements followed on return of the legislative sponsor’s all-expense paid junkets to Azerbaijan, sponsored by the foreign dictatorship.

Some support for Azerbaijan is outright outrageous. Rep. Joe Towns of Tennessee was accused of taking bribes. Another Aliyev loyalist in Tennessee, Congressman Steven Cohen, has evolved from being a mere mouthpiece for Azerbaijan to copycatting its censorship. In April, Congressman Cohen banned his critics on Twitter after his baseless blame on Armenians as the aggressors of the four-day war caused widespread criticism. Aliyev also has international loyalists, such as UNESCO’s corrupt chief and UN Secretary General candidate Irina Bokova, who has accepted generous donations from Azerbaijan’s bloody dictator then allowed him to use UNESCO platforms to spread propaganda.

Azerbaijan’s lobbying isn’t limited to junkets, gifts, and donations. Azeri officials travel from state to state, asking uninformed politicians for innocuously-sounding statements in support of democracy, cooperation, and respect. Often out of sheer courtesy, state officials grant such privilege to Azerbaijan. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, Oregon State Representative Val Hoyle, Idaho Governor Butch Otter, Alaska Senate President Kevin Meyer, Alaska House Speaker Mike Chenault, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, among others, recently signed onto innocent-sounding statements requested by Azerbaijan.

In politics, statements are not simply symbolic. Resolutions, even personal statements made by state lawmakers, are overblown in Azerbaijan’s state-controlled media for two reasons. One is to show to the Azerbaijani people that their government has great influence over the United States, thus making it easier to crackdown on dissent in Azerbaijan. The second is to manufacture impression of American support for Azerbaijan, making it easier to rally around the anti-Armenian flag.

For decades, the Aliyev clan has made Armenians as the scapegoat for all that is wrong with Azerbaijan— playing on resentment from the Armenian-Azerbaijan war of the 1990s. The latter broke out after autonomous Artsakh’s democratic decision to become independent, prompting a military attack by Azerbaijani forces aided by Chechen and Taliban mercenaries. In 1994, as Azerbaijan realized that Artsakh had won, a ceasefire was signed. Aided by Armenian volunteers from around the world, Artsakh had actually expanded its Stalin-drawn borders, who had expropriated the historic Armenian region to Soviet Azerbaijan.

The 1990s Armenian-Azerbaijani war victimized both sides but the conflict has since transformed to a clear-cut choice of right versus wrong.

In light of Aliyev’s April war crimes, consistent with Azerbaijan’s persistent belligerent behavior since the 1994 ceasefire, American public servants should stop emboldening Azerbaijan’s bloody regime through resolutions or even letters.

Otherwise, those officials would be responsible for encouraging further mutilation of civilians, beheading of fallen soldiers, and an ISIS-like wipeout of medieval Christian monuments.

Azeri media panicked state that Armenia has nuclear weapons or radioactive similar weapon

May 1, 2016 by administrator

A new hysteria has seized Azeri media suspecting Armenia to hold “atomic weapons” or a radioactive weapon. Azeri media that ask Baku to bring the matter before the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in charge of controlling the atomic proliferation. The statement of General Arkady Ter Tatevosian and former Prime Minister Hrant Bagratain evoking available by Armenia ‘secret weapons’ caused a real panic among the population of Azerbaijan and especially its media. Azeri would be terrified that Armenia would have scientific and technical expertise to develop atomic weapons. Azeri media also calling for the closure of the Armenian thermonuclear Medzamor the only South Caucasus. The media claim that Armenian citizens arrested in Georgia recently tried to import in Armenia radioactive materials that could be used to make a bomb … these media call the Azeri Minister of Foreign Affairs Elmar Mammadyarov alert organizations international because according to them, Armenia would have the atomic bomb or the lowest “dirty bomb.”

Krikor Amirzayan

Video: Must see Saudi Arabia & Turkey are greatest dangers to world peace – VA state Senator

January 12, 2016 by administrator

Republican Virginia state Senator Dick Black

RT Republican Virginia state Senator Dick Black said Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the greatest threats to world peace in an interview with RT, adding that Saudi Arabia’s “absolute barbarity” is overlooked because of its long-standing relationship with the US.

“I believe that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the two greatest dangers to world peace,” Senator Black told RT. “It is Saudi Arabia, through the Wahhabist doctrine, that is spreading terrorism across the globe. It’s not Iran, it’s not Syria or any other country.”

Saudi Arabia’s state-sponsored teachings of Wahhabism promote an ultra-conservative, austere version of Sunni Islam. Meanwhile, Black told RT that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intends to impose an absolute dictatorship.

“Erdogan has a dream of becoming a new Ottoman Empire,” Black said. “He’s a very calculating, very vicious individual and, I think, a great danger. Erdogan won an absolute majority of the Turkish parliament, which will enable him to rewrite the constitution. Once he had that total power to impose an absolute dictatorship – which he intends to do – and he publicly said that his model is that of Adolph Hitler.”

At its height in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Empire encompassed southeast Europe, western Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. During World War I, the Ottoman Empire declared a military jihad on France, Russia, and Great Britain, but ultimately lost.

The Adolph Hitler comment Black referred to comes from an interview back in January when Erdogan told journalists that he wanted to transform his office into a US-style executive “super-presidency,” through constitutional reforms.

“In a unitary system (such as Turkey’s) a presidential system can work perfectly,” said Erdogan, according to Agence France-Presse. “There’s already examples in the world and in history. You can see it when you look at Hitler’s Germany.”

After that analogy caught news headlines, the president’s office said in a statement that it was “unacceptable” to interpret Erdogan’s remarks as endorsement of Nazism.

“Our president…has declared that the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, along with Islamophobia, are crimes against humanity,” a press statement read, adding that Hitler’s Germany “had disastrous consequences” for the political system and could not be held up as a model.

Erdogan’s party, while controlling a majority of seats in the parliament, does not command the required two-thirds necessary to change the constitution without the support of other parties.

Senator Black thinks the civil war in Syria would never have happened without the efforts of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. He said the war in Syria was not a domestic uprising or part of the Arab Spring, with civilians seeking democracy. Instead, he called it an uprising of hardcore jihadists, aided by the CIA and MI6, with the help of Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Saudi Arabia was able to control governments across the world with its financial strength, and the Turks had their own agenda with regard to Europe, Black argued.

“Virtually all arms, ammunition, equipment, supplies, jihadists, medical support – all of it comes from Turkey. Right now, ISIS sends 44,000 barrels of oil per day – stolen barrels, most of it from Syria – across the border into Turkey,” said Black. “The State Department has publicly said that there’s only a trickle of oil that gets into Turkey, but I have personally spoken to Kurdish activists … [who] observed hundreds of ISIS oil tankers carrying stolen Syrian oil into Turkey on a daily basis.”

Black said Turkey is “actively assisting the ISIS rebels,” and also “helping the Al-Nusra rebels which are linked with Al-Qaeda.”

“In both places we’ve got terrorists, and in both places their major support comes out of Turkey. And it comes out of Turkey with approval from the highest levels of government.”

As for Saudi Arabia, Black believes the latest spike in tensions between the Saudis and Iran is proof of how Washington has been turning a blind eye to Riyadh’s actions.

“The US has been so in bed with the Saudi Arabians for so long. The Bush family – Herbert Walker Bush, George Bush, Jeb Bush – all of them have been closely tied with the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia,” he said. “The same thing with the Clintons – Bill, Hillary – very closely tied to the money from Saudi Arabia. And because of this Saudi Arabia has been able to do the most outrageous things,” said Black.

“We tend to condemn various secular nations in the Middle East because they do don’t do this quite right, or that quite right. And yet we overlook the absolute barbarity of the Saudi Kingdom, their absolute dictatorship.”

Black said that there is not a single Christian church in Saudi Arabia, but the US is quick to condemn other countries lacking in religious freedoms.

“What’s happening is that they [the Saudi family] are trying to restore some of the hostility between Shiites and the Sunnis. The Saudis massacred 47 people,” Black told RT. “I’m sure some of them were genuine criminals, but many of them were simply political opponents. And then there was an inevitable reaction which they knew there would be. And the Saudis, in typical fashion, have now shown a sense of outrage that people would be angered by the level of their debauchery – and this is typical of the Saudis.”

Black served in the US Marine Corps and retired as a Colonel in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) corps before being elected to the Virginia legislature. He maintains that the Assad government is effectively fighting against Islamic State and protecting the remaining Christians of Syria. Its fall, he says, would allow IS to quickly seize Jordan and Lebanon, and continue its drive westward.

Istanbul: Indictment against state officials in Dink murder case finally accepted

December 9, 2015 by administrator

An indictment against public officials charged with misconduct and negligence in the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007 has finally been accepted by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, after its second rejection last month.

The İstanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office returned the indictment two times to public prosecutor Gökalp Kökçü, who is overseeing the investigation, for allegedly including the names of pro-government police officers as suspects and demanding a prison sentence of up to 25 years for Police Chief Engin Dinç, one of the suspects.

Dinç, currently the head of the National Police Department’s intelligence unit, led the Trabzon Police Department’s intelligence unit at the time of Dink’s murder in 2007.

After its approval, the indictment was sent to the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court, which hears terror cases. The prosecutor, however, requested the trial be merged with the main Dink murder trial, held at the İstanbul 5th High Criminal Court.

The court has 15 days to either accept or reject the indictment.

The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office returned Kökçü’s first indictment on Oct. 19, on the grounds that the indictment was “deficient.” After changing the indictment, Kökçü sent a new version of the 150-page document to the prosecutor’s office on Oct. 21.

In the altered indictment, Kökçü requested that the investigation be merged with the trial of those accused of Dink’s assassination. In this trial Ogün Samast, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel stand accused.

On Nov. 2, the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office returned the altered indictment to Kökçü, again, on the grounds that the indictment was still “deficient.” It has been claimed that the prosecutor’s office returned the indictment because it included Dinç, who is known to be close to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), among other state officials who are suspected of being negligent and engaging in misconduct regarding the Dink murder.

According to the claims, the prosecutor’s office allegedly asked Kökçü to remove some names from the list of suspects. There were 25 state officials among the suspects in the investigation. Among those were Dinç, former İstanbul Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah, former İstanbul Police Department Intelligence Unit Chief Ahmet İlhan Güler, the former head of the National Police Department’s intelligence unit Ramazan Akyürek and former İstanbul Police Department Intelligence Bureau Chief Ali Fuat Yılmazer. Those suspects face charges of “forming an organization to commit crime” and “voluntary manslaughter.”

Media reports revealed that Dinç testified to the İstanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office secretly in September and that the Trabzon Police Department’s intelligence unit received intelligence on a probable assassination of Dink in Trabzon, which was sent to İstanbul police in a letter on Feb. 17, 2006. “I also phoned the chief of the intelligence unit of the İstanbul Police Department about the information,” Dinç said in his testimony.

However, during the trial in December 2014, Cerrah and Güler stated in their testimonies that they had not received any intelligence about Dink’s assassination before the murder took place in 2007.

Dink was shot and killed in 2007 by Samast, an ultranationalist teenager. Later, Samast and 18 others were brought to trial. Hayal was sentenced to life in prison for inciting Samast to commit murder.

The retrial began in September 2014, when the İstanbul 5th High Criminal Court complied with a ruling from the Supreme Court of Appeals from May 2013, which overturned a lower court’s ruling that acquitted the suspects in the Dink murder case of charges of forming a terrorist organization. This decision paved the way for the trial of public officials on charges of voluntary manslaughter.

Source: Zaman

Montreal: State of Denial: New play links Armenian Genocide to that in Rwanda

October 5, 2015 by administrator

Montreal’s Teesri Duniya Theatre is presenting its offering directed by Liz Valdez and written by playwright Rahul Varma. The play is called State of Denial and explores a very painful and often forgotten part of the history in the 20th century, the Montreal Rampage reports.

The play links the Turkish-denied Armenian genocide of 1915 with the 1995 genocide in Rwanda, connecting them through the Canadian diaspora experience. When Odette, a Rwandan-born Canadian filmmaker, travels to Turkey to investigate stories of genocide and hidden identity, she interviews Sahana, an elderly and respected Muslim woman who has devoted her life to assisting Armenian survivors. On her deathbed, Sahana confesses a chilling secret that challenges a long-standing state of denial that Odette promises to make public at any personal cost.

In the words of the Director Liz Valdez, “This is incredibly important at a time when we all seem to be so aware and informed, and yet here are these moments in history that most people don’t know anything about. Moments that actually lead to other moments in history. The truth that I had no idea of the similarities between what happened in Turkey in 1915-18 and the holocaust. How? Why? How did we not see it happening again when Hitler came to power? And since then, happening over and over in different horrific ways and for different reasons.”

“History has been written by victors who have the power to exclude what they do not wish the public to know. So learning about history is important, but history constitutes the background – the research that goes on is about peoples’ lives. Learning what history did to people tells us more about history,” playwright Rahul Varma (founder of Teesri Duniya Theatre) said in an interview with Sinj Karan of the Montreal Rampage.

“If we had learned from the Armenian genocide, we may have prevented the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda and many other genocides,” he said.

“Today, the role of an artist is not to revisit history but to allow the public to learn important lessons from it, so horrible acts of history are not repeated. State of Denial is presented to draw attention to, and the elevation of, human misery and to create a world of diminished violence,” the playwright said.

The fictional State of Denial is derived from multiple true stories from the research project, Life Stories of Montrealers Displaced by War, Genocide and other Human Rights Violations housed at Concordia University. Varma affirms, “The stories of elsewhere are Canadian stories affecting all citizens. They go beyond biography and facts, revealing truth while instigating further inquiry. My aim is to address global issues locally.”

State Department representative under fire of Armenian Genocide questions

April 23, 2015 by administrator

State Department representative Marie Harf dodged the direct questions about the Armenian Genocide during the briefing in Washington on Wednesday.

Marie Harf admitted that “there are some who I think were hoping to hear some different language this year. We certainly understand their perspective.” However, she noted that the president consistently stated his views about what happened in 1915.

Responding to her remark, the reported added that there were certainly some people who wanted no change.

Asked whether President Obama believes what happened was a genocide, Marie Harf asked to address the question to the White House. State Department representative also dodged the questions about Obama’s campaign pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide that was not honored.

“The President – and look, we all understand there are some who wanted to hear different language this year, and I do think we can expect that the President will issue a statement this year that marks the historical significance of the centennial, and as in past years, mourns the senseless loss of 1.5 million Armenian lives. So he will speak about this in some way, but I don’t think you should compare any of these issues. I think if you want to talk about Iran and the commitments the President’s made, we can talk about that separately,” Ms. Harf said.

The State Department official admitted “there were discussions inside the interagency about what to say”.

Responding to a remark that the United States never “had this issue in calling the Holocaust what it was,” Marie Harf said she was not going to compare those two events.

Finally asked whether Administration is basically submitting itself to a gag order from the Turks, she made it clear that they “make decisions on our own about what we say and how we talk about things.”

-1

Netanyahu Says No Palestinian State if He Is Re-Elected

March 16, 2015 by administrator

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Monday that as long as he is the leader, a Palestinian state would not be established, reversing his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mr. Netanyahu made the assertion on the eve of an election in which he is trailing in the polls. He has been campaigning aggressively, appealing to conservatives for support.
“I think that anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state today and evacuate lands, is giving attack grounds to the radical Islam against the state of Israel,” he said in a video interview published on the NRG website. “Anyone who ignores this is sticking his head in the sand. The left does this time and time again. We are realistic and understand.”
The comments reversed a 2009 speech in which Mr. Netanyahu endorsed the concept of two states for two peoples between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
READ MORE »