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Karabakh war hero Leonid Azgaldyan would have turned 70 Nov 22

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November 22, 2012 – 17:54 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Karabakh war hero Leonid Azgaldyan would have turned 70 this year.

“Over the 4 years of Karabakh war, the detachment of Leonid Azgaldyan, a commander of Artsakh liberation army, lost only 6 dead,” his friends reminisce.

“Exemplary discipline was established in Azgaldyan’s detachment, which incorporated the greatest number of volunteer soldiers. The commander always strived for boosting the morale of his soldiers. He had a rare quality of training ordinary people to be heroes.”

Unfortunately, the commander was not paid the tribute he deserved. No school or street was named after him, not a single book written.

From the very first days of Karabakh movement, Azgaldyan was involved in national-liberation war. Since February 1990, he took command of Independence Army, organizing self-defense operations in several settlements, particularly, Vardenis, and fighting in the first line during Nuvadi battles. Fully devoting himself to Karabakh liberation war, Azgaldyan fought in Getashen, Shahumyan and Martakert. In June 1991, he created Liberation Army military organization, and was its Commander-in-Chief till the end of his life.

Leonid Azgaldyan died on June 21, 1992 in Martakert region, on the outskirts of Tonashen village. He was posthumously awarded with Armenian and NKR Military Cross First Degree Order.

Bulgarian Nationalists Boycott Turkish Defense Minister Visit

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November 16, 2012, Friday By: novinite.com

Bulgaria‘s far-right, nationalist Ataka party staged a protest rally Friday against the visit of Turkish Defense Minister, Ismet Yilmaz, to Sofia.

The Turkish Minister, however, was met with honors by his Bulgarian counterpart, Anyu Angelov and three companies – from the land force, the air force and the navy. “The relations between Bulgaria and Turkey are an example of good partnership between neighbors and allies in NATO,” said Angelov during his meeting with Yilmaz. The two discussed matters of cooperation in the defense sector.

They also laid wreaths at the Unknown Soldier monument.

Meanwhile, Ataka leaders and followers were seen in the vicinity of the monument, holding signs such as “We cannot be brothers in arms with those who massacred Bulgarians for five centuries,” “Turkey Owes Us USD 10 B for Properties in Thrace,” and “Boyko, Don’t Lead Us to War with Erdogan.”

The rally was attended by Ataka leader, Volen Siderov, and Ataka Members of the Parliament, Pavel Shopov, Desisilav Choukolov, and Ventsislav Lakov.

Siderov complained of the strong police presence, saying it was a disgrace and a violation of the rights of the MPs. He reminded that every time a Turkish official is visiting Bulgaria his party was the only one to voice the truth that Turkey is indebted to Bulgaria.

“We represent the position of hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians who voted for us. There is no difference between the ruling Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, and the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS. Both work not for Bulgarian, but for Turkish interests,” the nationalist leader concluded.

Syria, Turkey, Israel and a Greater Middle East Energy War

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Friday, 12. October 2012

Reported By: F. William Engdahl    on Boiling Frogs Blogs.

“The battle for the future control of Syria is at the heart of this enormous geopolitical war and tug of war”
On October 3, 2012 the Turkish military launched repeated mortar shellings inside Syrian territory. The military action, which was used by the Turkish military, conveniently, to establish a ten-kilometer wide no-man’s land “buffer zone” inside Syria, was in response to the alleged killing by Syrian armed forces of several Turkish civilians along the border. There is widespreadspeculation that the one Syrian mortar that killed five Turkish civilians well might have been fired by Turkish-backed opposition forces intent on givingTurkey a pretextto move militarily, in military intelligence jargon, a ‘false flag’ operation.[1]

Turkey’s Muslim Brotherhood-friendly Foreign Minister, the inscrutable Ahmet Davutoglu, is the government’s main architect of Turkey’s self-defeating strategy of toppling its former ally Bashar Al-Assad in Syria.[2]

According to one report since 2006 under the government of Islamist Sunni Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his pro-Brotherhood AKP party, Turkey has become a new center for the Global Muslim Brotherhood.[3] A well-informed Istanbul source relates the report that before the last Turkish elections, Erdogan’s AKP received a “donation” of $10 billion from the Saudi monarchy, the heart of world jihadist Salafism under the strict fundamentalist cloak of Wahabism. [4] Since the 1950’s when the CIA brought leading members in exile of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to Saudi Arabia there has been a fusion between the Saudi brand of Wahabism and the aggressive jihadist fundamentalism of the Brotherhood.[5]

Read the rest of the Article

Boiling Frogs Blogs

Sibel Edmonds on RT- For War with Syria: Need Ignition? Let’s Just Make it Up, Cook it Up, Set it Up!

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My Brief Interview on RT- For War with Syria: Need Ignition? Let’s Just Make it Up, Cook it Up, Set it Up!

Saturday, 13. October 2012 by Sibel Edmonds
‘NATO, Turkey seek pretense for attack on Syria’

Yesterday I was on RT for a brief interview on the recent developments in the long-ago-planned US war on Syria. As I mentioned during the interview, Boiling Frogs Post was one of the first news sites reporting on those long-ago-conceived and planned operations targeting Syria:

11 months ago, in November 2011 I reported on the Secret US-NATO Training and Support Camp in Turkey to Oust Syria’s Assad.

On December 11, 2011, Boiling Frogs Post broke the story on US Troops Deploying on Jordan-Syrian Border.

In mid-December 2011 we had a brief analysis of Turkey’s Sudden 180 Degree Turn on Syria

In December 2011, we had a follow-up on US Government-Mainstream Media collusion in obscuring all reporting on Syria here.

And this is one of my RT interviews on Syria from last year: Click Here

Anyway, These links provide some background for what I emphasized during my interview with RT yesterday, and here is the video clip:

Hurriyet: Come back, Diyarbakır mayor tells Armenians

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The mayor of Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality has invited all Armenians (and other non-Muslim peoples) whose ancestors were born in the southeastern province before being forced to flee during the 1915 events to return to the city, Hurriyet writes.

“An Armenian, an Assyrian and a Chaldean, whose grandfathers or great-grandfathers were born in Diyarbakır, have the same right to live in Diyarbakır as I have, as a Kurdish person who was born in Diyarbakır. Come back to your city,” Osman Baydemir told Turkish and Armenian journalists on Sept. 25 on the sidelines of a roundtable conference called “Expanding the Scope of Dialogue: Media and Armenia-Turkey Relations at the Current Stage” that was organized by the Yerevan Press Club in Diyarbakır.

According to “Talat Paşa’s Black Book,” written by the historian Murat Bardakçı, there were 56,166 Armenians living in Diyarbakır before the events of 1915. Baydemir also said “he curses the cruelty of 1915 within his conscience.” “We refuse the legacy of our grandfathers, who took part in this massacre [the events of 1915], we refuse to be a part of what they lived, and we commemorate those of our grandfathers who were opposed to this massacre and cruelty,” said Baydemir, who is from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which is focused on the Kurdish issue.

Many researchers have said the ruling Party of Union and Progress during the Ottoman Empire used Kurdish militias known as the “Hamidiye troops” against the Armenians in the events of 1915.

“Denying the crimes that were committed by some of our grandfathers would be the same as becoming a part of [those crimes]. We first have to accept the sufferings of the people in order to be able to heal the wounds,” the mayor said.

Baydemir said one of his biggest dreams was to construct a common monument in memory of all of those who were lost in the region, including Armenians, Turks, Kurds, Assyrians and Chaldeans up until the 1930s. “I would like to visit this monument with Turks, Armenians and Kurds all together and cry for our lost ones all together. Turks, Kurds, Persians, Arabs – we all have to succeed in negotiation and dialogue in order to be able to live with each other.”

Students forced to enroll in religious schools in Istanbul (Imam Gulen)

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ISTANBUL

By:daily Hürriyet reported

Students living in Istanbul’s European-side district of Sultangazi who failed to earn good enough marks to enter the advanced Anatolian High School system or a vocational school have been enrolled in the religious imam-hatip schools without their knowledge, daily Hürriyet reported.

Nearly 3,000 students were prevented from enrolling the Anatolian and vocational schools following the entrance tests, and most of those were subsequently enrolled in religious imam-hatip schools against their wishes.

One parent claimed that despite selecting vocational schools on the forms, his son was forced to attend an imam-hatip school instead.

“We were told that there were no more vacancies in other schools,” the father told Hürriyet. “My son does not want to attend an imam-hatip. We are Alevis. They disregard that and force everyone to attend imam-hatips.”

Another Alevi parent also claimed that her daughter was enrolled in an imam-hatip even though they had selected three different vocational schools.

Other parents also confirmed that they had selected vocational schools on their forms but that their children were all placed in imam-hatip schools.

“My child doesn’t want to go [to an imam-hatip],” another father said. “They are toying around with their futures.”

Iraq now armed to shoot Turkish jets, says Air Force officers

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Iraq is now capable of shooting down Turkish jets entering Iraqi airspace to target Kurdish militants, Iraqi Air Force Officer Iskander Witwit recently told the New York Times.

An analysis of the state of Iraq following the Syrian civil conflict appeared in New York Times, where an Iraqi general said Iraqi officials were aware of Turkish jets entering their airspace and that they “resented it.”

Witwit was then quoted as saying that Iraq was now capable of defending itself against these intrusions.

“God willing, we will be arming Iraq with weapons to be able to shoot down those planes,” Witwit said.

The article defined the increase in Turkish jets crossing over as one of Iraq’s major concerns as it was undermining “Iraq’s ability to control its own [air] space.”

Powerful blast rocks eastern Turkish city, seven reportedly killed

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A powerful explosion has rocked the eastern Turkish city of Tunceli, killing seven people, media report.

The blast targeted a military vehicle carrying security personnel.

The city is near the country’s Kurdish area and suspicion will automatically fall upon Kurdish rebel group the PKK, says the BBC’s Istanbul correspondent James Reynolds.

Fighting between Turkish troops and the PKK – the Kurdistan Workers’ Party – has escalated in recent months.

Turkish TV stations showed pictures of workers trying to put out fires in two burnt-out vehicles.

Reports said a vehicle carrying explosives was remotely detonated as an armoured vehicle carrying security forces passed by, sending a huge plume of dark smoke over the city.

Several ambulances and fire engines were reported speeding to the site in the Ataturk neighbourhood.

One report, in Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News, said security forces arriving on the scene clashed with suspected PKK militants, with one militant killed.

No-one has yet said they carried out the attack, but Kurdish rebels are active in the city, which is the capital of the province of Tunceli.

‘Hundreds dead’

This incident comes amid a surge in fighting in the three-decade conflict between the military and the PKK which in total has killed more than 40,000 people.

In mid-September, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 500 Kurdish rebels had been “rendered ineffective” by Turkish forces in the space of a month.

Many have died in Turkish aerial campaigns against suspected PKK hideouts in the south-east of the country.

PKK fighters killed 17 Turkish soldiers and injured scores over three days in Bingol province last week.

Earlier this month, one soldier and three Kurdish militants were killed when insurgents attacked army outposts in Tunceli.

This has become the most violent period in fighting with the Kurds since the capture of the PKK’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in 1999, our correspondent says.

kurdish freedom fighters, PKK hits unarmed soldiers returning from leave: 10 killed, 60 injured

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BİNGÖL Turkey,

Ten soldiers were killed and 60 were injured today after a Turkish military convoy transporting unarmed soldiers returning from leave was hit by a rocket before coming under fire in an ambush conducted by suspected militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in eastern Turkey.
Some 200 soldiers who had returned from sick or home leave were being transported to their respective military units with a convoy of 5 buses, with 10 armored vehicles escorting the transports. The traveling soldiers were unarmed and in civilian clothing, Bingöl Gov. Mustafa Hakan Güvençer said. The convoy was traveling on the road between Bingöl and Muş when a bus in the convoy was hit by a rocket at around 12:45 p.m. Militants hiding on the side of the road opened fire on the vehicles with assault rifles, prompting a firefight with soldiers guarding the convoy. The bus which was hit by the rocket caught on fire; soldiers trapped inside the vehicle escaped through the smashed windows as clashes erupted.
Güvençer said bus in the convoy burst into flames after the attack, adding that the explosion was caused by rocket hitting the vehicle. “Seven soldiers were killed and 63 were injured,” he said. Eight of the injured soldiers were in “critical condition,” Güvençer said initially and added that four of them were sent to a hospital in Elazığ with ambulance aircraft.
Broadcaster CNNTürk later reported three of the injured soldiers succumbed to their injuries, bringing the toll to 10 dead.
A village guard who was on the scene told Doğan news agency that he went up to the blast zone right after the attack. “There were no explosives planted in the ground. They launched two rockets from a hill, hitting one of the vehicles. It went up in a ball of fire,” he was quoted as saying.
The PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Eight Turkish police officers were killed in a mine attack by the PKK in Bingöl

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BİNGÖL – Hürriyet Daily News

Eight Turkish police officers were killed in a mine attack by the PKK in Bingöl, bringing the total number of killed security officers to 30 since the beginning of September

Eight policemen were killed and nine more were wounded yesterday in the eastern province of Bingöl’s Karlıova district in a mine blast that occurred as police vehicles were passing through the area, Doğan news agency reported.
The mine was detonated by remote control by suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The police officers killed in the attack were identified as Gökhan Kuzu, Fatih Celayir, Cuma Mercimek, Samet Kırcalı, Ümit Yıldırım, Murat Toprak, Osman Küçükdilan and Şeyhmus Karakut. One civilian, a teenage girl, was also wounded amid the chaos by a canister shot in the area.
Clashes continued in the area afterwards as security forces sought to locate the militants responsible for the attack.
Turkish President Abdullah Gül and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu condemned the strike and said such attacks would not shake Turkey’s will in its fight with terror. Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek also said they would not allow the attack to drag Turkey into chaos and terror.
Meanwhile, four Turkish soldiers were killed and five more were wounded Sept. 15 in a suspected PKK attack during the passing of a military convoy, Doğan news agency reported.
Explosives were detonated remotely by suspected PKK members as the military convoy was passing through a village 35 kilometers from the town center of the eastern province of Hakkari at around 2 p.m.
Operations followed the blast, as armored vehicles and helicopters were sent to the area immediately. Meanwhile, the Hakkari Governor’s Office announced in a written statement that 28 PKK militants were killed in the area yesterday. Some 123 militants have been caught in the area in the last 10 days, the statement also said.
High numbers
At least 30 Turkish security personnel have been killed by PKK militants in the eastern part of Turkey since the beginning of September, while more than 150 PKK militants have also been killed, according to reports. Ten Turkish soldiers were killed and seven were injured in attacks by PKK in the southeastern province of Şırnak on Sept. 2. Some 373 PKK militants have been killed in operations carried out over five months, while 88 Turkish soldiers have also lost their lives in the last nine months, the army was quoted as saying Sept. 9.