Syria Archives

Samantha Power to visits Turkey for Syria talks

June 10, 2014 By administrator

ANKARA The U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and President Barack Obama’s key foreign policy aide, Samantha Power, will visit Turkey this week to discuss the Syrian crisis and other regional issues, Turkish Foreign Ministry officials have told the Hürriyet Daily News. As part of her regional trip, Ambassador Power will hold talks in Istanbul, meeting Deputy Undersecretary Ömer Önhon on June 12, before visiting a refugee camp for Syrians in the southern province of Gaziantep. The situation in Syria will be high up the agenda during talks in the Foreign Ministry, along with a number of other regional issues, a Turkish official said. Power served as Special Assistant to Obama and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights on the National Security Staff at the White House, prior to serving as U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N.

June/10/2014

Samantha Power to visits Turkey for Syria talks

June 10, 2014 By administrator

ANKARA

The U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and President Barack Obama’s key foreign policy aide, Samantha Power, will visit Turkey this week to discuss the Syrian crisis and other regional issues, Turkish Foreign Ministry officials have told the Hürriyet Daily News.

As part of her regional trip, Ambassador Power will hold talks in Istanbul, meeting Deputy Undersecretary Ömer Önhon on June 12, before visiting a refugee camp for Syrians in the southern province of Gaziantep. The situation in Syria will be high up the agenda during talks in the Foreign Ministry, along with a number of other regional issues, a Turkish official said.

Power served as Special Assistant to Obama and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights on the National Security Staff at the White House, prior to serving as U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N.

June/10/2014

Syrian Armenians call to save Aleppo from destruction

June 9, 2014 By administrator

June 9, 2014 – 17:08 AMT

Armenian population of Aleppo issued a plea to save the cradle of Diaspora from demolition. In a Perio News Facebook page, the Syrian Armenians urge Foreign Ministry to collect funds for reconstruction of the Armenian district of Nor Gyugh, destroyed in sniper attacks and voice a strong protest for pro-Turkish militants’ actions against Armenian-populated regions of Syria.

The Syrian Armenians call on their compatriots to unite in saving the Armenian community and raise worldwide awareness of their situation.

The continued rocket fire by rebel forces in the direction of the mostly-Armenian-populated Nor Gyugh neighborhood of Aleppo has forced officials to declare the area a disaster zone, and threatens the survival of the city’s Armenian community, Asbarez said.

The Aleppo News Agency reported that incessant rocket fire from rebel forces, a significant number of which are reportedly Turks or radical Islamists, continued in Nor Gyugh, endangering civilians and causing massive destruction.

Residential buildings in Nor Gyugh have been destroyed or partially demolished, while Armenian community centers and local businesses have been damaged as a result of continued shelling.

Nor Gyugh residents are fleeing the neighborhood, some heading toward the seaside city of Latakia, which is already overflowing with Armenian refugees from the insurgence of Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups in Kessab earlier this spring. Others are seeking refuge in other parts of Aleppo that are not currently under heavy rocket fire, while some are relocating to the basement of the St. Gregory the Illuminator Church, which was damaged earlier this week as a result of the rebel attacks.

Armenian community institutions in Nor Gyugh have also sustained heavy damages, among them the Karen Jeppe Jemaran, the Zavarian and Sahakian schools, as well as the Zavarian and Sahakian kindergartens, the Armenian Catholic Holy Trinity and Zvartnots School, the Arevelk print shop, the Armenian Relief Society’s clinic and social service center and residential building that are owned by the Prelacy.

Armenian-owned businesses and stores, as well as residences are either in complete or partial destruction, making life unbearable for the citizens of the town.

Source: PanARMENIAN.Net

Photo:Maria Gabrielyan

Syrian president declares amnesty for prisoners

June 9, 2014 By administrator

By ALBERT AJI and BARBARA SURK 1 hour ago

June 9, 2014 – 17:42 AMT

Syrian President Bashar Assad declared a general amnesty Monday for prisoners in the country, state media reported.

It was not clear how many — if any — prisoners would be freed after the presidential decree, issued just five days after Assad had won a third, seven-year term in office amid the 3-year-old civil war in his country.

The official SANA news agency did not say if the amnesty would apply to the tens of thousands of anti-government activists, protesters, opposition supporters and their relatives that international rights groups say are held in the country. However, SANA’s report suggested the decree would reduce prisoners’ sentences without freeing them.

The decree appears to cover at least some of those who have taken up arms against the government, including foreign fighters, according to SANA. They will not be prosecuted if they “surrender to the authorities within a month of the issuing of the decree,” the report said. Those behind taking hostages will also be pardoned, SANA said, if they “release their captives safely and without any ransom or hand (hostages) over to the authorities” within a month.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Syrian lawmaker Issam Khalil called the decree “a gift from the president after he was elected for another term.”

The amnesty includes those who participated in the armed opposition supporters, Khalil said. The government routinely refers to rebels as terrorists.

“All those who committed errors against their homeland will benefit,” Khalil said. “It will allow them to return to their normal lives.”

Syria’s pro-government Al Ikhbariya television station quoted the justice minister as saying that the presidential decree was issued in the “context of social tolerance and national unity.”

“(It comes) against the backdrop of the victories by the Syrian army,” Minister Najem al-Ahmad said.

Assad’s forces have been on the offensive in several parts of Syria over the past year, capturing villages and towns the government previously lost to rebels.

A peaceful uprising that began against Assad’s rule turned into an armed conflict and later morphed into a full-fledged civil war. More than 160,000 people have been killed.

Also Monday, activists said fighting between rival jihadi groups in an oil-rich eastern Syrian province bordering Iraq had killing at least 45 fighters in two days.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the infighting flared up in eastern Deir el-Zour province Sunday and continued into Monday, pitting al-Qaida affiliate the Nusra Front against an al-Qaida breakaway group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The two jihadi groups were allies but had a falling out earlier this year and have since intermittently clashed in some of the fiercest rebel infighting in the 3-year-old conflict. The Observatory said a month of infighting in Dier el-Zour alone has killed nearly 300 fighters and displaced 100,000 civilians.

Surk reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Diaa Hadid in Beirut contributed to this report.

Aleppo Plight: Recent attacks on Armenians in Syrian city viewed as continuation of genocide

June 6, 2014 By administrator

By Gohar Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

According to scholars in Yerevan, the recent events in Aleppo are continuation of the Armenian genocide and the Armenian community in Aleppo faces extermination.
Images showing vast destruction in Aleppo’s Armenian neighborhoods appeared on the internet in recent days, causing great concern in Armenia where thousands of Syrian nationals of Armenian origin have taken refuge since hostilities began in their country in 2011.

On Friday at a meeting with reporters scientist, ethnologist from Kessab Hakob Cholakian spoke about the situation in Syria saying that during the three years of war the Armenian community in Aleppo suffered most, especially in the suburban districts, where wealthy Armenians, owners of factories lived.

“Nowadays Armenians are concentrated in three districts outside of which there are no other Armenians because of three years of migration. During the last few days another such district, Nor Gyugh, was ruined. The state of Armenians in Aleppo is critical in terms of both safety and livelihood, and at this most dangerous moment we are silent, it’s time to act,” Cholakian said.

Noravank foundation director Gagik Harutyunyan said that in all the countries where the Arab spring took place Christian sections suffered particularly much, a cultural genocide took place.

“The Syrian war endangers our national safety because Azerbaijani mercenaries and Turks are very active on the level of regular army special services, we must be very careful about them,” Harutyunyan said adding that actions realized in the Middle East and in Syria particularly are a direct threat to Armenian security.

“Descendants of Armenian genocide survivors live in the Middle East and they are the bearers of Western Armenian culture and civilization and in case of dissipation not only the physical safety of Armenians but their civilization will be endangered.”

Armenia has strongly condemned the bombardment of Aleppo and, in particular, the city’s Armenian-populated district of Nor Gyugh over the past days, which has caused the loss of lives and destruction.

“We are convinced that the main precondition for progress in the resolution of the Syrian crisis lies in immediate cessation of violence,” Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan said on Thursday, according to the Ministry’s official website.

Earlier, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), a traditional Armenian party operating both in Armenia and its far-flung Diaspora, also issued a statement condemning the rocket attacks on the civilian population in the Syrian city that is home to a sizable Armenian community.

ANCA launches #Save Aleppo campaign

June 6, 2014 By administrator

June 6, 2014 – 10:55 AMT

Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) launched a #Save Aleppo campaign calling President Obama to stop anti-Armenian attacks in Syria.

Attacks on the Armenian-populated quarters of Aleppo, Syria, have escalated in recent days, leading local authorities to designate the area a disaster zone.

The campaign aims to urge President Obama to stop the rebel bombing of innocent Christians and all civilians in Aleppo, press Turkey to allow the free flow of Euphrates waters to Syria, answer the ANCA’s concerns regarding Turkey’s role in the forced depopulation of the historically Armenian populated city of Kessab.

Residential buildings in Nor Gyugh have been destroyed or partially demolished, while Armenian community centers and local businesses have been damaged as a result of continued shelling.

Armenian-owned businesses and stores, as well as residences are either in complete or partial destruction, making life unbearable for the citizens of the town.

Syria, Aleppo’s Nor Kyugh Declared a Disaster Zone

June 5, 2014 By administrator

Aleppo Armenian Community on the Brink of Demise

ALEPPO—The continued rocket fire by rebel forces in the direction of the mostly-Armenian-populated Nor Kyugh neighborhood of Aleppo has forced officials to declare the area a disaster zone, and threatens the survival of the city’s Armenian community.

The Aleppo News Agency reported that incessant rocket fire from rebel forces, a significant number of which are reportedly Turks or radical Islamists, continued in Nor Kyugh, endangering civilians and causing massive destruction.

Residential buildings in Nor Kyugh have been destroyed or partially demolished, while Armenian community centers and local businesses have been damaged as a result of continued shelling.

Nor Kyugh residents are fleeing the neighborhood, some heading toward the seaside city of Latakia, which is already overflowing with Armenian refugees from the insurgence of Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups in Kessab earlier this spring. Others are seeking refuge in other parts of Aleppo that are not currently under heavy rocket fire, while some are relocating to the basement of the St. Gregory the Illuminator Church, which was damaged earlier this week as a result of the rebel attacks.

Armenian community institutions in Nor Kyugh have also sustained heavy damages, among them the Karen Jeppe Jemaran, the Zavarian and Sahakian schools, as well as the Zavarian and Sahakian kindergartens, the Armenian Catholic Holy Trinity and Zvartnots School, the Arevelk print shop, the Armenian Relief Society’s clinic and social service center and residential building that are owned by the Prelacy.

Armenian-owned businesses and stores, as well as residences are either in complete or partial destruction, making life unbearable for the citizens of the town.

Turkey Shuts Off Water Supply to Syria

June 5, 2014 By administrator

BY DANIEL PIPES
From National Review Online

Two reports from Beirut’s Al-Akhbar point to potentially catastrophic water problems about to affect Syria.

The lesser concerns Aleppo, where mortar shells and barrel bombs have slackened off but Islamist rebels have shut down the city’s potable water supply, forcing Aleppan residents in government-controlled areas to depend on wells and trucks for limited, contaminated, and expensive water. Lines of women and children “have become ubiquitous in front of mosque fountains and government wells in order to fill small containers such as cooking pots, teapots and plastic bottles as well as small barrels,” the paper reports. According to an official at the Syrian Red Crescent, “The situation signals a humanitarian and health disaster.”

The greater problem concerns the Euphrates River, the second longest waterway of the Middle East. Nearly all its volume originates in the Republic of Turkey, from which it flows into Syria and Iraq, ending in the Persian Gulf. It provides about one-third of Syria’s water supply. In the last few weeks, according to Al-Akhbar, the Turkish government completely stopped Euphrates waters from leaving Turkey and flowing into Syria, something made possible by the enormous reservoir behind its Atatürk Dam.

This action threatens water crises in Syria and Iraq . As one indication, the water level in Lake Assad, Syria’s largest body of water, has gone down by about 20 feet, according to the paper. Within days, some 7 million Syrians could be left without water as well as electricity. Al-Akhbar says that “a halt to the water supply is now inevitable and can’t be resolved unless the Turkish government takes the decision to resume pumping Euphrates water.” To make matters yet more worrisome, the fanatic Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group controls the Tishrin Dam, one of Syria’s three dams on the Euphrates.

The Syrian civil war keeps getting more ferocious, vicious, and barbaric — not a surprise given that Islamists, both domestic and foreign, dominate the fighting on both sides.

Meanwhile, the Euphrates River contains some of the world’s most volatile and fearsome waterworks; the Mosul Dam in Iraq, for example, could collapse, killing millions. Again, given the three states involved (Turkey, Syria, and Iraq), this also ranks as less than a surprise.

Should terminal dehydration kill massive numbers of Syrians, this will likely prompt Western opinion to call for intervention.

Turkey’s AKP government has already shown itself callous about loss of life (recall the Soma coal-mine disaster). But is Prime Minister Erdogan really about to commit what appears to be genocide?

Syria: Armenian churches, schools hit in Aleppo bombings

June 2, 2014 By administrator

Armenian churches, schools, residential houses and stores have come under bomb attacks in Aleppo, Syria amid the growing violence and tension in the city.

The Armenian-populated district of Nor-Kyugh has suffered the heaviest damages, the local weekly Gandzasar says in a Facebook post.

Two ethnic Armenians, Stepan Arushyan and Zareh Ghazaryan, have been wounded in the attacks, but their condition is reported to be satisfactory after medical assistance.

Aleppo-Armenian sources earlier told Tert.am that most of the Armenians had found shelter in their buildings’ cellars to avoid the continuing attacks of makeshift missiles against the district.

Photos by Maria Gabrielyan

ISIL kills 15, abducts 300 Kurds in attacks on Kurdish towns in Syria

May 30, 2014 By administrator

TODAY’S ZAMAN / ANKARA

The al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) killed 15 Kurds, including seven children, in an attack on a village in northern Syria and abducted 300 Kurds in a village close to Aleppo, according to news outlets.

The attack, in which 15 people were killed, is the latest in the ISIL offensive against Syrian Kurds during a six-month period in Rojava, the Kurdish name given to northern Syria, where the Kurds have gained the upper hand in control of the area in recent months.

There have been ongoing clashes for months between ISIL and Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD) — an offshoot of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — over control of several key towns in northern Syria along the Turkish border. During the clashes, the son of PYD leader Saleh Muslim was killed. However, the clashes have escalated in the past days between the PYD and ISIL for control of areas.

Kurds have gained considerable swathes of territory in Syria’s north as a result of fierce fighting with al-Qaeda-linked radical groups, tightening their grip on an area where they have set up autonomous rule.

The reports based the information on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a freelance photographer, who stated that the attack took place on Thursday at Tilleye, a village 100 meters away from the Turkish border, after militants stormed the village.

According to news reports, around 30 people were killed in the attack. The reports added that the People’s Defense Units (YPG), the armed militia of the PYD, came to the village in the early hours of Friday and clashed with the ISIL forces in order to gain control of the village.

“This village is known to be Yezidi. However, the village was evacuated due to the clashes and the YPG gained control of the village. Later on, the Arabs who fled from Aleppo settled in the village. They [ISIL] probably thought these Arabs were Yezidis,” said Muslim in an interview with the Turkish Hürriyet daily.

Muslim noted that Serekaniye was an area in which clashes between the YPG and ISIL frequently took place and that clashes between the two groups were still going on.

Last year, the PYD had seized control of Ras al-Ain following days of clashes with fighters affiliated with the al-Nusra Front. Ras al-Ain is part of Syria’s northeastern oil-producing province of Hasaka, home to many of the million-strong Syrian Kurdish minority. One Reuters photograph showed six bodies, including three young boys.

The attack is said to be retaliation for a recent PYD bomb attack near the ISIL-controlled Lazor Hotel located in the northern city of Raqqa, where ISIL has control. Sixty-seven people were killed in that attack.

Three hundred Kurds were abducted by ISIL during the al-Qaeda-affiliated group’s recent raid on Al-Bab village in Syria’s Aleppo province. Recently, Kurdish residents of the town of Al-Bab and surrounding villages stated that they were deeply concerned about deadly fighting among rival opposition groups and about a takeover by al-Qaeda groups. Al-Bab, which is close to Ceylanpınar, a town in Turkey’s southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, is a multiethnic town home to Kurds, Arabs, Christians and Turkmens.

According to reports, on Thursday night members of ISIL raided the town and carried out an identity check of residents there. After the identity check, the group abducted 300 people and left the town.

According to Al Jazeera, those abducted were all Kurds and that the place where they were taken was unconfirmed.

The PYD leader had previously accused Turkey of having a hand in the atrocities committed by extremist groups fighting against the regime in Syria. Ankara has denied the claims several times, saying it will not take part in the ongoing fighting in Syria.

Muslim later said Ankara’s policy towards radical groups changed after Syria’s extremist groups started to pose a threat to the security of Turkey and it cut support to al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Syria. “Moreover, international pressure has also contributed [to the change of policy on radical groups],” Muslim added.

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