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Armenian and Iranian aviation officials negotiate flights from Tehran to Armenian Gyumri

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YEREVAN, May 3. /ARKA/. An Armenian airline will be awarded the right to operate flights from Armenia’s second largest town of Gyumri in the northwestern province of Shirak to Tehran, the capital of Iran if talks with Iranian air officials accomplish successfully, the head of the General Department of Civil Aviation of Armenia Sergey Avetisyan told journalists on Wednesday.

“At the moment, the General Department of Civil Aviation of Armenia and some Iranian airlines are negotiating the possibility of launching flights from Tehran to Gyumri, which we believe will have a positive effect on the development of aviation and tourism,” Avetisyan said.

According to him, the Shirak airport in Gyumri has great potential, and the city of Gyumri has an opportunity for tourism development.

Source: http://arka.am/en/news/tourism/taron_avia_negotiates_flights_from_tehran_to_armenian_gyumri_/

Santa Claus is coming to Tehran, Iran

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An Iranian boy dressed as Santa Claus outside a shop in the capital Tehran on December 24, 2016, on Christmas eve.

TEHREAN, Iran (AFP) – Tehran might not seem like the most obvious pitstop for Santa Claus, but Iranians love the chintzy side of Christmas and it is also one of the safest places in the Middle East for Christians.

The past month has seen shoppers flocking to the Armenian district of Somayeh — the biggest Christian area in the city — to pick up fake trees, and stock up on baubles, reindeer toys and plastic snowmen.

“It’s really interesting and attractive for us,” said Niloufar, a Muslim women in her thirties who was out shopping with her husband on Christmas Eve.

“I love the decorations, the tree. We see it as showing a kind of respect for other beliefs. And of course I like all the chocolates!”

Shoppers line up for selfies with one of several Santas stationed outside stores on the main drag.

One Father Christmas, full of the festive spirit, breaks into an impromptu dance to a popular Iranian pop song playing outside a food stall.

Hamed Davoodian owns a grocery store on the street, and says the community never faces any trouble from the authorities.

“Why should we? (Armenians) have been here for 400 years. They are great to us,” he said, adding proudly that Christians fought alongside their fellow Iranians during the brutal war with Iraq in the 1980s. 

“There were 30 to 35 martyrs from our neighbourhood,” he said.

Thousands of Christians have emigrated to the United States and elsewhere since the Islamic revolution in 1979, leaving only 120,000 Christians according to the last official count.

Most are Armenian — who are Orthodox Christian — along with a few thousand Assyrian Catholics.

Despite the exodus, Christians are officially recognised and protected — along with Jews and Zoroastrians — under laws introduced by the revolution’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

There are limitations. Converting Muslims is illegal, which leads authorities to crack down on Persian-language Bibles. Services must be carried out in the original language of the ethnic group.

Human Rights Watch says Persian-speaking converts face persecution.

But there are none of those concerns at St Joseph’s Catholic Church in downtown Tehran on Christmas Eve, where it is standing-room only for the midnight mass, delivered in the Assyrian language.

Archbishop Ramzi Garmou tells AFP that Christianity in the region dates back to the second century when St Thomas passed through on his way to India.

Having once numbered in the tens of millions, the Christian community is now tiny, and Garmou says he normally sees only a few dozen for Sunday mass — not least because it’s a working day in Iran and traffic is horrendous.

“But I’ve always said that the strength of the church is not in the number of its followers but the faith they show in their daily lives,” he said.

And he is grateful that Iran is such an oasis of peace in a region beset by war, and in which Christians face mounting persecution.

“Thanks to God, we really live in peace and security, but our neighbours live in anguish and violence. We pray for them tonight,” he said.

Source: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/latestnews/iran2016-12-24T17-20-34

Iranian Studies specialist: Tehran made it clear to Baku that it will not tolerate military solution to Karabakh conflic

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tehran-bakuYEREVAN. – Iran has made it clear to Azerbaijan that it will not tolerate a military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Iranian Studies specialist Karen Mkrtchyan noted at a press conference on Saturday.

When asked how the normalization of Iranian-Azerbaijani relations can impact the resolution of this conflict, the Armenian specialist responded: “If the Iranian side is against any military action, it means it is in favor of maintaining the status quo.

“With such viewpoint, this is certainly beneficial to the Armenian side [in the conflict]. Furthermore, the Iranian side has always said that it is for resolving the problem solely through peace talks.”

Mkrtchyan recalled that during the Russian, Iranian and Azerbaijani presidents’ meeting in Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku, President Hassan Rouhani had stated that resolving the Karabakh conflict through negotiations is very important to Iran.

“In doing so, Tehran made it very clear to Baku that it will not tolerate a military solution to the Karabakh conflict,” concluded the Iranian Studies specialist.

‘Zionist Regime Manipulates Judaism,’ Says Tehran Jewish Leader

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Zionism ira

A picture of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among the torched detritus of a Quds Day rally in Tehran on Friday.Atta Kenare/AFP

Iranian news agency quotes Homayoun Sameyah Najafabadi as saying that Jews attended Quds Day rallies to ‘condemn the Zionist regime atrocities against Palestinians.’
By Haaretz,

The Iranian news agency IRNA quoted the head of the Tehran Jewish community as saying on Friday that there is no link between Zionism and the Jewish religion and that freedom-loving Jews support the Palestinian people.
Israel’s “Zionist regime is just a political party and there is no link between the Jewish religion and Zionism,” Homayoun Sameyah Najafabadi, Executive Director of the Tehran Jewish Committee, is reported to have told the news agency.
Large crowds participated in rallies throughout Iran on Friday to observe Quds (or Jerusalem) Day. Iranian Jews living in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Kermanshah attended the rallies to “condemn the Zionist regime atrocities committed against Palestinians,” Najafabadi said.
IRNA quoted him as saying that “the Zionist regime is manipulating Judaism for materialistic purposes,” and that all the world’s freedom-lovers, including the Jews, are supportive of the Palestinian people.
It said that Najafabadi “called on the world media to be committed to supporting the Palestinians and bringing to global attention the criminal actions by the Zionists against the Palestinians.”

Iranian officials thwart large terror plot targeting Tehran – ministry

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iran 6-20Officials in Iran have broken up “the biggest terrorist plot” to target Tehran and other Iranian cities. Intelligence officials reportedly seized “huge” amounts of explosives and some bombs.

Iranian intelligence officials disrupted a number of bombing plots targeting the capital Tehran and other cities, the Intelligence Ministry reported on Monday.

“In a criminal plot of the anti-Islamic terrorist takfiri groups, a series of bombings had been planned in several places of the country for the coming days … the terrorists were arrested and some bombs and a huge amount of explosives were seized,” the ministry said in a statement on state news agency IRNA.

Several suspects have been arrested and are being interrogated over the plot.

Although the report didn’t identify those who had been detained, the statement called them “takfiris” which is a derogatory term in Arabic and Farsi referring to hardline Sunni Muslims who accuse other Muslims of being “nonbelievers.”

Iran, a Shiite Islamic Republic, has been aiding both the Syrian and Iraqi governments in their fight against the militant “Islamic State” group.

Another IRNA report referred to the suspects as “Wahhabi takfiris.” Wahhabism is an ultraconservative school of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, which currently has strained ties with Iran.

Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shiite cleric in January, prompting protests and attacks on Saudi diplomatic posts in Iran.

In May, Iran’s intelligence minister, Mahmoud Alavi, announced that officials dismantled 20 “terrorist groups” which planned to detonate bombs across the country.

rs/kms (AP, Reuters)

Agreement on abolition of visas between Armenia, Iran signed in Tehran

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g-f57553f69870c6_57553f6987104.thumbIranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian signed an agreement on abolishing the visa between the two states, RA Foreign Ministry reports.

To remind, the agreement, previously endorsed by the Armenian government, aims to regulate the two countries citizens’’ mutual visits. According to the draft justification the agreement stems from the necessity of fostering bilateral relations, strengthening mutually beneficial trade as well as economic ties between Armenia and Iran.

Citizens with ordinary or diplomatic passports of Armenia and Iran can stay maximum of 90 days in a given 180-day period in the territory of the other country without requirement of obtaining a visa.

Breaking News: Iran releases four dual-national inmates in prisoner swap

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Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi

Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi

Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi says Iran has released four dual-national prisoners as part of a prisoner exchange agreement.

“In line with ratifications of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the Islamic establishment’s general expediencies, four Iranian prisoners, who hold dual nationality, have been released within the framework of a prisoner swap,” Dolatabadi said on Saturday, IRNA reported.

To be updated…

Exhibition on World Press Coverage of Armenian Genocide Hosted in Tehran

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tehran-exhibit-2TEHRAN (ArmRadio)—An exhibition titled “Armenian Genocide: Front Page Coverage in the World Press” and the presentation of a book of the same the title was held in Tehran. The event was organized by the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of the Armenian Diocese of Tehran.

The guest speaker of the event was historian Hayk Demoyan: the author of the book, director of the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute, and the Secretary of State Commission on coordination of the events dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

The exhibition, which opened on Nov. 14 at Tehran’s Ararat cultural center, included 60 images that tell the story of the Turkish crime against humanity and civilization, which has always been in the focus of world press.

Several examples from Persian press of the time were also included in the exhibition.

A welcoming speech was also made by Armenush Arakelian, chairman of the Armenian Genocide Centennial Committee of the Armenian Diocese of Tehran.

In his speech, Demoyan noted: “The capacity of the book and exhibition lies in the fact that we can simply show; without any additional commentary.” He added, “In our strategy we should take into account three auditoriums. First the international audience; along with the memory or history of any nation we should introduce the topic of genocide. The second audience is the Turkish one, and the third one is the Armenian; and we need to educate a competitive, mentally strong generation in the diaspora, Artsakh and Armenia”.

The event was attended by the Ambassador of Armenia to Iran and Embassy staff, Armenian representatives from the Iranian Parliament, representatives of national authorities, agencies, and associations, and representatives from Alik media.