cease-fire violations by azeris

[Yervant1]

Pashinyan says right to self-determination of people of Nagoro Karabakh unbreakable red line

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21:33, 15 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan emphasizes that Armenia is ready for compromise for Nagono Karabakh conflict settlement, but the right of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to self determination is the red line that cannot be crossed, ARMENPRESS reports Prime Minister of Armenia said in an interview with Dmitry Kiselyov, Director General of Russia Today media group.

Referring to the question what compromise is Armenia ready for and is there a red line from which Armenia will never step back, Nikol Pashinyan answered, ‘’Yes, of course, there is a red line and that line is the right of the people of Ngorno Karabakh to self-determination. Armenia has always been ready for a compromise. The most important one is the Kazan initiative, when Armenia was ready for a clear compromise. But Azerbaijan denied to sign that agreement, because it did not want and now does not want to accept the right of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh to self-determination. And the right of self-determination of Nagorno Karabakh is the red line, a red line from which we can never step back’’.

Referring to the basic principles of the settlement mentioned in the October 10 Moscow agreement, the Armenian Prime Minister said that those principles are known: the right of nations to self-determination, non-use of force or threat of force, territorial integrity.

‘’The issue is how the sides interpret those principles. Because during the negotiation process it turned out that different sides differently interpret those principles. And now we have a situation when one of the key principles is distorted. I already spoke about that. It’s the non-use of force or threat of force’’, Pashinyan said.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan

 

[Yervant1]

What are you going to do about it, right now "we hope" is not enough from a superpower!

BREAKING. We hope Armenians will be able to defend against what Azerbaijanis are doing – Pompeo

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21:18, 15 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hoped that Armenians will be able to defend against what Azerbaijanis are doing, ARMENPRESS reports Pompeo said in an interview, assessing Turkey’s intervention in the developments in Nagorno Karabakh as dangerous.

‘’ It is dangerous. We now have the Turks, who have stepped in and provided resources to Azerbaijan, increasing the risk, increasing the firepower that’s taking place in this historic fight over this place called Nagorno-Karabakh, a small territory with about 150,000 people’’, Mike Pompeo said.

The Secretary of State added that it’s a longstanding conflict which has to be solved through negotiations and discussions.

‘’ it’s a longstanding conflict. The resolution of that conflict ought to be done through negotiation and peaceful discussions, not through armed conflict, and certainly not with third party countries coming in to lend their firepower to what is already a powder keg of a situation. We – we’re hopeful that the Armenians will be able to defend against what the Azerbaijanis are doing, and that they will all, before that takes place, get the ceasefire right, and then sit down at the table and try and sort through this – that is – what is a truly historic and complicated problem set’’, the U.S. Secretary of State said.

Azerbaijan unleashed aggression against Artsakh on September 27. It is directly supported by Turkey, which has provided its F-16 fighter jets and Syrian terrorists to Azerbaijan to fight against Armenians.

On October 10 the Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs reached an agreement on humanitarian ceasefire in Moscow under the mediation of Russian FM Sergey Lavrov. However, Azerbaijan started to grossly violate the agreement, including bombing of civilian settlements, just before the agreement would come into effect.

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan has announced that Azerbaijan will never stop military operations as long as Turkey does not change its expansionist policy in South Caucasus.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan

 

[Yervant1]

Turkey only country that does not call for respecting the ceasefire – French FM

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18:32, 15 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced that Turkey is the only country that makes no calls to respect the ceasefire agreement in Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone, ARMENPRESS reports, Reuters informs.

It’s mentioned that the French Foreign Minister condemned the role of Turkey in Nagorno Karabakh conflict where Turkey supports Azerbaijan against ethnic Armenians.

‘’No military victory can take place here and the ceasefire must be implemented. What we can see today is that the only country that does not call for respecting the ceasefire, is Turkey’’, he said.

Azerbaijan unleashed aggression against Artsakh on September 27. It is directly supported by Turkey, which has provided its F-16 fighter jets and Syrian terrorists to Azerbaijan to fight against Armenians.

On October 10 the Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs reached an agreement on humanitarian ceasefire in Moscow under the mediation of Russian FM Sergey Lavrov. However, Azerbaijan started to grossly violate the agreement, including bombing of civilian settlements, just before the agreement would come into effect.

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan has announced that Azerbaijan will never stop military operations as long as Turkey does not change its expansionist policy in South Caucasus.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan

[Yervant1]

Opinion

How Turkey’s Military Adventures Decrease Freedom at Home

Involvement in regional conflicts such as the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia has whipped up nationalist fervor and obliterated space for advocates of peace and democracy.

By Garo Paylan

Mr. Paylan is a member of the Turkish Parliament.

• Oct. 15, 2020

ISTANBUL — A procession of cars filled with men waving the flag of Azerbaijan, honking and whistling drove through the Kumkapi area in Istanbul, which is home to the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul and many Armenian families. The car rally, on Sept. 28, was a provocation, a threat that filled my community, the tiny Armenian community — 60,000 out of 83 million — in Turkey with fear.

After a decades-long fitful truce, the conflict over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh — a breakaway Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan — between Azerbaijan and Armenia resumed last month, leading to a large military deployment, destruction of civilian centers and thousands of casualties.

In this war, Turkey strongly supports Azerbaijan, with which it shares ethnic bonds, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed global calls for a cease-fire. He has supported Azerbaijan with defense technology, drones and propaganda machinery.

This strategy is in line with Mr. Erdogan’s government’s decision to increase our country’s military footprint abroad — Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean — to enhance Turkey’s position as a regional power.

But there is also a direct correlation between the Turkish government’s desire to delve into conflicts abroad and the closing down of the democratic space at home.

I have witnessed and experienced this myself, as an Armenian from Turkey and as a member of the Turkish Parliament, representing the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir from the People’s Democratic Party, or the H.D.P., which brought together the country’s Kurds, leftists, environmentalists, feminists and minorities in opposition to Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or the A.K.P., and its rule.

Because of my country’s authoritarian turn, my background and political leanings are enough to turn me into a target. On Oct. 5, the Eurasia Institute of Strategic Affairs, a nationalist outlet, published a full-page advertisement in support of Azerbaijan in Sabah, a newspaper with links to the Erdogan family. It was signed by former and current members of the Turkish Parliament from the A.K.P.

The advertisement in Sabah accused me of being pro-Armenian and of committing treason, calling on the Turkish judiciary and the Parliament to “fulfill its duty.” In the current Turkish political climate, it sounded like a call to remove my immunity — parliamentarians in Turkey have immunity from prosecution — so that I can be put on trial for my peacenik stance. Yet I have filed a legal complaint about the advertisers and continued to call for peace in the Caucasus.

As an Armenian from Turkey and a descendant of genocide survivors, I know very well the meaning of this message. In 2007, Hrant Dink, a celebrated and outspoken Armenian journalist from Istanbul, who edited the Agos newspaper, was assassinated by a Turkish nationalist in a similar period of heightened nationalism. Mr. Dink once described Turkey’s Armenian minority as “living with the trepidations of a dove.”

The darkness that engulfed Turkey seems to widen every day. In the past few weeks, dozens of my friends from the H.D.P., including Ayhan Bilgen, the elected mayor of Kars, on the border with Armenia, have been arrested on trumped-up terrorism charges, ostensibly for organizing street protests in 2014 across the country. The protests were a response to the government’s nonchalance in the face of the siege of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani by the Islamic State.

Seven H.D.P. parliamentarians, including me, are being accused of “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order” in an indictment, and a prosecutor is preparing to ask the Parliament to remove our immunity, which will then allow the police to arrest us. This was already done to Selahattin Demirtas, a former co-chairman of the H.D.P., and thousands of other H.D.P. members and officials who are in jail. It’s not hard to see that the political intention here is to paralyze our party — the third largest in Turkey — and weaken the opposition.

Despite the recent threats, I was encouraged by thousands of people calling, writing and gathering signatures expressing their support for me. The other day, someone cleaning the streets shouted at me, “My deputy, if they take you away one day and you cannot see us, know that we are here.” And I do.

You may wonder why we continue to struggle for democracy in this country. Things were not always so dark in Turkey. A decade ago, Turkey was a relatively promising democracy, on path for European Union membership and calling for regional peace. It coined the “zero problems with neighbors” policy, and at one point, we were even close to normalization of relations with Armenia.

We founded the H.D.P. in that hopeful period in 2012. Our mission was to support the peace process with the Kurds and to introduce a pluralist voice in our country’s stifling political scene. I entered the Parliament in 2015, exactly a century after my great-grandfather was killed in the Armenian genocide. My goal was to help build a democracy strong enough, and vast enough, so that Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Alevis, minorities and women would live without any fear, as equal citizens.

I yearned and worked for Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. When I met Armenians during my travels abroad, I argued that this struggle for the heart and soul of Turkey was important because only a democratic Turkey could face its past — and only then would our collective healing start.

But Turkey took a path toward authoritarianism after 2015, and our basic civil rights are on hold today. President Erdogan, once an advocate of European Union-led reforms and a peace process with the Kurds, over the past decade has established a one-man regime, moved away from democracy and entered a coalition with hard-right Turkish nationalists. Greater militarism has followed.

Militant nationalism and authoritarianism can neither solve our domestic problems nor help the region. A better choice for my country will always be to seek regional peace and cultivate better ties with our neighbors. Turkey must encourage Armenia and Azerbaijan to return to peace talks and facilitate a lasting settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

On Saturday, Russia, which has a defense agreement with Armenia and good relations with Azerbaijan, brokered a cease-fire between the two countries. This highlighted Russia’s role in the region and has left Turkey out of the diplomatic game. If President Erdogan wants to be relevant, he should stop inflaming tensions in the Caucasus and support the cease-fire between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

But I am not naïve, and I know that only a democratic Turkey can help stabilize its region and act as a responsible member of the international community. That is why I will not remain silent in the face of threats and will keep on fighting for democracy here and peace abroad.

Garo Paylan is a member of the Turkish Parliament from the People’s Democratic Party.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

Correction: Oct. 15, 2020

An earlier version of this article misstated the region that includes Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is the Caucasus, not Caucuses.

 

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by Yervant1

[Yervant1]

As long as I live, I will not forgive Israel!

Asia Times

Israel to maintain Azeri edge in Karabakh war

Jerusalem may be sympathetic to Armenia but it will continue to
provide weaponry to rival Azerbaijan

By Shaiel Ben-Ephraim
October 14, 2020

Israel, despite sympathy for the Armenian people at a civic level, is
committed to maintaining pivotal support for its ally Azerbaijan in
the war for Nagorno Karabakh.

“Azerbaijan would not be able to continue its operation at this
intensity without our support,” a senior source in the Israeli
Ministry of Defense told Asia Times on condition of anonymity. The
ministry is responsible for all official Israeli arms sales.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute,
Israel provided nearly two-thirds (61%) of all arms imports to Baku
over the past year, which have had a significant influence on how the
current hostilities are being fought.

One of the most significant systems Israel has provided the Azeris is
the IAI Harop. This is a loitering munition, referred to in popular
parlance as a “suicide drone”, as it self-destructs upon hitting the
target. It is a sophisticated weapon, easily able to overcome any
systems possessed by the Armenians and allowed the Azerbaijani
military to hit targets at will.

Israel has also provided its M095 DPICM cluster munitions to Baku.
Amnesty International on October 5 accused the Azerbaijani government
of dropping the weapons on civilians areas in Nagorno Karabakh.
Cluster munitions were declared illegal by the Convention on Cluster
Munitions, which came into effect in 2008.

None of the relevant parties – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Israel – are
signatories to the convention. Officials in Israel do not deny their
strategic relationship with Baku.

“The State of Israel has longstanding relations with Azerbaijan,”
President Reuven Rivlin said. However, he insisted that “the
cooperation between the two countries is not aimed against any side.”

The latter statement is certainly not true. while Israel may not
specifically want this war to continue, the military technology it
provides has been pivotal.

Moreover, the intensification of hostilities has not slowed Israeli
arms sales to Baku. On the contrary, reports have flagged a
significant airlift of arms and supplies from Israel to Azerbaijan
over the two-and-a-half week conflict.

The senior Defense Ministry source confirmed the continuous airlifts,
probably the most extensive aerial resupply Israel has executed.

The Azerbaijani government meanwhile has made its support for Israel
very public.

Azerbaijani Ambassador to the United States Elin Suleymanov sought to
depict Armenia as a common threat during a recent webinar with the
Jewish Institute for National Security Studies of America.

“Armenians don’t have precision weapons. If you see the way they
shoot, it’s either 1940s Soviet military, or 1960s Middle Eastern
terrorists,” Suleymanov said. “They just shoot in the direction of
civilians hoping that there will be a response, pretty much the same
tactic that is used against Israel.”

The publicity is designed to foster greater US support for the cause.
The Trump administration, a dogged enemy of Tehran itself, has been in
lockstep with Israel in its anti-Iran policies. Baku has jumped on the
bandwagon.

Israeli support for Azerbaijan has meanwhile had a detrimental effect
on its relations with Yerevan.

[Photo: The Armenian and Nagorno Karabakh flags sway in the wind in
the old city of Jerusalem’s Armenian quarter on October 7, 2020, as a
display of support with the conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Photo: Menahem Kahana/AFP]

Armenia recalls ambassador

The Armenian government had only just overcome the Israeli refusal to
recognize the Armenian Genocide and its long-standing military support
for Azerbaijan when it opened an embassy in Israel in September.

Weeks later, angered over the extensive use of Israeli arms against
Armenian targets in Karabakh, Armenia recalled its ambassador.

Why is Israel so invested in Azerbaijan, that it is willing to damage
relations with Armenia?

Israel has never taken an official position on the dispute over
Nagorno-Karabakh. The mountainous territory is located within
Azerbaijan’s UN-recognized borders, but Armenians, the historic
majority, seized autonomy during the breakup of the Soviet Union and
it has functioned as an Armenia-backed republic for nearly three
decades.

Israel has long had an emotional connection with the Armenian people,
forged through common suffering. The Armenian quarter in Jerusalem is
home to one of the oldest Armenian communities on earth.

The two nations also have well-developed trade relations, which are of
particular importance for Yerevan. Armenia receives 4.8% of its
imports from Israel, while Israel receives 7.1% of its exports.

The strongest ties that bind Armenia with the Jewish state relate to
the Armenian Genocide. These atrocities took place in the 1915-1923
period when roughly 1.5 million ethnic Armenians were systematically
slaughtered by the Ottoman Empire.

During World War II, Nazi Germany would commit genocide against the
Jewish people, killing approximately 6 million Jews. For both nations,
these traumatic events are considered a defining part of the national
identity.

Most Jews identify with the harrowing events of the Armenian genocide.
But the Israeli government has avoided doing so for geopolitical
reasons. In the past, it rejected this step to safeguard the
geopolitical partnership it once shared with Turkey, which continues
to deny the atrocities it committed.

Israel has a much firmer strategic relationship with Azerbaijan.
Despite being a Muslim majority nation, the Azeris were quick to
recognize Israel after independence. They have since looked to the
Jewish state for military and logistical support.

The main goal of Israeli policy in recent years has been the need to
isolate and contain Iranian regional influence. Azerbaijan borders
Iran and, according to leaks, has permitted Israel to use its
airfields to strike nuclear targets in the Islamic Republic.

In addition, Israeli intelligence has reportedly utilized Azerbaijani
infrastructure to create listening posts and gather critical Iranian
security information. These actions place Baku at great risk of
Iranian retaliation. On Tuesday, Iran said its forces had shot down an
Israeli-made drone that veered from the fighting in Karabakh on its
territory.

Israel sells the Azerbaijanis arms both to reward it for the risks it
takes on its behalf and to help defend the country against Iran.

Not all Israelis are happy with this policy, however.

[Photo: Relatives with the coffin of soldier Abraham Sargyan, who was
killed in the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the
breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh. Photo: Karen Minasayan/AFP]

Fuel to the flame

A recent petition considered by the Supreme Court in Jerusalem
reflects this. Zionist activist Elie Joseph charged that Azerbaijan
was committing war crimes in Armenia using Israeli arms, and said he
wished his country would cease all arms sales to Baku. Some of the
more disturbing images to emerge from the Karabakh battlefield have
been aerial videos showing the drone killings of groups of Armenian
soldiers from the air.

The court did not debate the petition, however, determining there was
not enough corroborating evidence to support the charges that
Azerbaijani actions amounted to war crimes.

Joseph is an eccentric Zionist activist, who has gone on several
hunger strikes to support causes as varied as the release of Israeli
spy Jonathan Pollard to the cessation of violence in the evacuation of
settlements in the occupied territories, and Russian assistance to
Iran. Therefore, no one was surprised when he announced a hunger
strike on this issue as well.

Although an extreme case, his support for Armenia most likely reflects
the vague opinion of most Israelis. According to a poll conducted in
2015, a larger portion of Israelis is aware of the Armenian genocide
(88%), which is one of the highest in the world. In a poll conducted
in 2007, an absolute majority of 82.5% agreed with the idea that
Jewish people, who carry the historical memory of the Holocaust, have
no right to deny the tragedies of other nations.

For these reasons, many notable Israelis have supported recognition of
the genocide, despite the geopolitical repercussions. President Rivlin
was a notable supporter of recognition in the past when he held a seat
in Knesset. So are many other notable politicians in the ruling Likud
party and elsewhere.

On August 1, 2016, the Knesset Committee on Education, Culture, and
Sports recognized the Armenian Genocide. However, the Netanyahu
government stopped a bill from going through to a vote.

The left-wing liberal Meretz party is now a notable supporter of
Armenian causes. It has always supported recognition of the Genocide
and now opposes arms sales to Azerbaijan. The head of the party,
Nitzan Horowitz, wrote to Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Saturday,
that “providing weapons at this time adds fuel to the flame… we must
prevent the eventuality that this bleeding war will be exacerbated
through Israeli arms.”

Yet between the ongoing demonstrations against Netanyahu and the
massive closure of the entire economy for the second time since the
start of the Covid-19 pandemic, most Israeli citizens do not have a
strong opinion on a region they likely could not identify on the map.
Moreover, Azerbaijan has a good reputation as an Israeli ally in
policy-informed circles.

All this means that despite sympathy for Armenia in Israel, it will
continue to conduct its policy in the Caucasus firmly along
realpolitik lines. The Israeli attitude has always been, that as a
nation encircled by enemies, it will take its friends where it can get
them. As long as Azerbaijan is useful to Israel in its struggle
against Iran, it will continue to support Baku materially.


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[Yervant1]

Asia Times

Karabakh war portends new Turkish-Armenian exodus

Growing hostility toward ethnic minority community in Turkey has
sparked security fears

By Laura-Maï Gaveriaux
October 15, 2020

ISTANBUL — Elen has felt uneasy moving around her father’s native
Istanbul since war broke out over the ethnic Armenian enclave of
Nagorno Karabakh on September 27.

Born to a French mother and Turkish-Armenian father, she grew up
between the two countries, was educated in Turkey and deeply
influenced by her father’s Armenian culture. As a consultant architect
in a multinational office in Istanbul, she had not been fully
confronted with a feeling of a conflict of loyalties – until now.

At first, when fighting began, Elen hoped it was a minor border
skirmish, intermittent since Nagorno Karabakh Armenians seized
autonomy following the breakup of the Soviet Union three decades ago.

“The first few days we knew almost nothing, we were waiting, thinking
that it was maybe one more episode where each one provokes the other,
like in 2016, or even last summer. It would get rough, then would soon
go down again,” the young woman told Asia Times.

But it quickly became clear this was a major Azerbaijani offensive,
aimed at seizing back a territory once home to an Azerbaijani minority
and which the United Nations recognizes as part of Azerbaijan’s
Soviet-delineated borders.

When neighborhoods in Stepanakert, the largest city in Nagorno
Karabakh, were bombed from the very first week of the battle, the mood
in Turkey — the unabashed ally of Baku — became increasingly
polarized.

Turkish and Azerbaijani nationalists began to parade in the streets,
with honking horns and bellicose slogans.

“All the Armenians in Turkey felt the weight of the conflict and I
must say it scared me,” said Elen.

The two-and-a-half week war has already seen more than 500 Armenian
troops killed, offering a clue to Azerbaijani military losses, which
are under strict censure. Dozens of civilians have been reported
killed on either side.

[Photo: Aybeniz Khasanova (L), the mother of 29-years-old soldier
killed during clashes with Armenia, reacts next to his grave, near
Agdam city during the military conflict over the breakaway region of
Nagorno Karabakh on October 15, 2020. Photo: Bulent Kilic / AFP]

Grey Wolves unleashed

In the week of October 5, which preceded the first ceasefire
negotiations in Moscow under Russian patronage, ethnic tensions in
Istanbul reached a climax.

Marches of the Grey Wolves – the Turkish extreme right-wing group
which regularly attracts attention for its involvement in aggression
against progressives – got steadily closer to Istanbul’s historic
Armenian quarters.

Elen recalls panicking when she heard them pass nearby her home on
Halaskârgazi Avenue one night in Osmanbey, a traditionally Armenian
neighborhood.

“I took my cat, my laptop, and I was ready to flee with just a jumper
over my pyjamas. I really saw myself trapped, like a rat. It was a
false alarm. But this was the first time that I’ve experienced such
thing.”

The situation of Armenians in Turkey has never been completely
alleviated, nor has that of all other minorities in this former
empire, multicultural by definition.

While Muslim minority communities, such as Kurds and Alevis, are de
facto integrated into the majority group, those of other faiths are
categorized as minorities. Those include the Armenians, the Greek
Orthodox, and the Jewish community. This situation often relegates
them to the position of a kind of domestic enemy, in a country where
nationalism is always by definition overlaid with belonging to Islam.

“It was not so long ago that Hrant Dink, the editor of the Armenian
newspaper Agos, was killed in broad daylight,” said a former editor of
an independent TV channel that was banned in the crackdown after the
failed coup of 2016, who wished to remain anonymous.

“It was precisely on Halaskârgazi Avenue in 2007, at a time when
nationalist groups were behind a series of assassinations. The Grey
Wolves seemed to be beyond the control of the authorities then,
although it knows how to use them when it comes to pressuring
demonstrations of opposition.”

[Photo: Turkish nationalist protesters flash the “Grey Wolf” sign
during a protest on June 2, 2016 in front of the Germany consulate in
Istanbul after the German parliament labelled the World War I massacre
of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide. Photo: Ozan Kose / AFP]

Property left behind

That things are degenerating in Turkey is what frightens Gasbar, a
40-year-old Turkish-Armenian who recently returned from London to get
his mother out of Turkey.

“I don’t think the government would orchestrate or allow pogroms,” he
told Asia Times. “But the street is something else, the fascists are
warmed up by years of aggressive speeches at the highest levels of the
political class.”

His family was due this year to move to Yerevan, the capital of
Armenia, where any ethnic Armenian resident can obtain citizenship.

“We were waiting until we could sell the house, but due to the
economic situation and the price of the lira, at the moment it’s
worthless. So, we go and hope there will be no seizures for those who
have left, if overnight we are declared enemies to the security of the
state. This has already happened in history.”

The Istanbul pogroms of September 1955 saw a two-day rampage by
nationalist mobs targeting Greek-owned properties, which claimed more
than a dozen lives and sparked a new exodus of Greeks. The event also
affected the Armenian community.

The Armenians of Turkey, concentrated in Istanbul and numbering only
around 60,000 today, once constituted a third of the population of
Anatolia. Turkey to this day denies that 1.5 million Armenian citizens
of the former Ottoman Empire were subject to genocide, and maintains
that the massacres and deportations must be viewed in the context of
World War I.

Turkey’s Islamist leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has in the past sought
to tie the cleansing of the republic’s minorities to his secular
predecessors. But as his political star has sunk amid the economic
crisis, he has reverted to a staunchly nationalist stance at odds with
Turkey’s minority communities.

Gasbar’s mother had been alone since other young men of his family
left for Armenia with the intention of fighting for Karabakh, known by
Armenians as Artsakh.

For those Armenians who stay behind, the mistrust between communities
is becoming unbearable.

“At the office, I used to have lunch with an Azerbaijani colleague.
Since the bombings have also hit civilian areas on his side, I don’t
even dare to greet him anymore,” says Elen, who was preparing to leave
Turkey for good hours after being interviewed by Asia Times.

Following the rapid collapse of the Moscow-brokered ceasefire on
October 10, she fears the Karabakh conflict will become bogged down
for years as it was in Ukraine.

“After the past few weeks, when I have never felt so bad because of
what I am, I don’t want to live in a multicultural environment again,”
Elen told Asia Times.

She now plans to make a life for herself in Armenia.


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[Yervant1]

Asia Times

Russia rubs Turkey the wrong way

The two countries are at loggerheads over a number of issues and
tensions are rising

By MK Bhadrakumar
October 15, 2020

The Russia-brokered ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has
unraveled. Azerbaijan and Armenia have stepped up their military
operations.

The Izvestia newspaper reported, quoting Russian experts, that the
conflict will continue without the intervention of a third party.

That seems to be the thinking in Moscow also, as apparent from the
remarks on Wednesday by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the
Kremlin does not exclude the possibility that Russian military
observers may be included in the ceasefire control mechanism in
Nagorno-Karabakh.

Lavrov said in a media interview: “Today it’s not even the
peacekeepers [who should participate in the verification mechanism]
but the military observers, this should be enough. We think that it
will be absolutely correct if these were our military observers, but
the final word should belong to the sides.

“Without a doubt, we go on a premise that both Yerevan and Baku will
take into account our alliance, our relations of strategic
partnership.”

Plainly put, Russia is inserting itself on behalf of the Minsk Group
and taking it for granted that Baku accepts it as a follow-up move in
line with the joint statement adopted at the three-way
foreign-minister-level talks between Lavrov and his Armenian and
Azerbaijani counterparts in Moscow on October 9.

Lavrov explained that the ceasefire control mechanism should function
along the line of contact of Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in
Nagorno-Karabakh. He disclosed that President Vladimir Putin has a
hands-on approach and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is in talks with
the Armenian and Azerbaijani defense ministers.

[Photo: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian President
Vladimir Putin. Photo: AFP/Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik]

Moscow is pushing this idea to avoid any catastrophic developments on
the ground. To quote Lavrov: “It is necessary to immediately hold a
meeting of the militaries to agree the ceasefire control mechanism. I
reconfirmed the corresponding signals literally half an hour ago when
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bairamov called me on the phone.

“We are sending the same signal to our Armenian colleagues. I believe
this is now the key to a sustainable cessation of the fire that
affects civil facilities and civilians.”

But the political salience lies somewhere else: Moscow is ignoring
Turkey’s pretensions of being a player in the Caucasus. Azerbaijan
keeps saying that Turkey should be involved in the talks on the
breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh and that the conflict cannot be
solved without Ankara’s involvement.

But Moscow is ignoring it.

In an interview with Turkish broadcaster Haberturk, Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev said on Wednesday that Turkish F-16 jets were
in Azerbaijan.

Turkey cannot be liking this slight. It comes as no surprise that
Ankara has scheduled a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
this week during which a Turkish-Ukrainian military cooperation
agreement will be signed.

Some major arms deals also seem to be in the works, which had come up
for discussion during a July visit by Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi
Akar to Kiev.

[Photo: Turkish National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar is welcomed by
Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Taran with an official ceremony at
the Defense Ministry of Ukraine in Kiev on July 10, 2020. Photo:
AFP/Arif Akdogan/Anadolu Agency]

Interestingly, Defense News also reported recently that Turkey hopes
to source aircraft-engine technology from Ukraine. According to the
report, Turkey wants to develop an indigenous engine technology for
various aerial platforms it has developed.

The report quoted a Turkish source to the effect that Ukrainian
engine-maker SE Ivchenko-Progress is producing the AI-35 engine to
power Turkey’s new indigenous Gezgin missile.

This could be a major defense project. Defense News said: “SE
Ivchenko-Progress, a subsidiary of Ukraine’s Ukroboronprom defense
giant, designs and manufactures engines that power 66 types of
aircraft in more than 100 countries.

“The AI-35 engine family was built to power high-speed unmanned
aircraft systems and advanced cruise missiles. Analysts have described
the Gezgin as similar to the American-made Tomahawk. The Gezgin
program was designed to develop conventional, long-range strike
capabilities for naval platforms. This new missile is thought to have
a range of approximately 1,000 kilometers.”

Moscow must be aware of these developments and, conceivably, it is
expelling Turkey from the Caucasus in view of its capacity to create
further mischief in Russia’s back yard. Lavrov in his public remarks
on Wednesday openly disagreed with Turkey’s stance that a military
solution to the Karabakh conflict is possible.

Zelensky will be only too happy to invite Turkish military advisors to
be deployed to Ukraine. A statement in Kiev on his visit to Ankara
said the proposed military agreement with Turkey would “reflect a
guarantee for security and peace in the Black Sea region.”

No doubt the strategic partnership between Turkey and Ukraine will
profoundly annoy Russia, as it could affect the tenuous military
balance in the Black Sea region at a time when the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization is increasingly asserting its presence in the
region.

[Photo: Turkish-backed Syrian fighters in the village of Qaminas,
about 6 kilometers southeast of Idlib city in northwestern Syria on
February 10, 2020. Photo: AFP/Omar Haj Kadour]

There are any number of things Turkey can do that can pose headaches
for Russia at a juncture when Moscow’s ties with the European Union
are in deep chill. Most important, the curtain is coming down on the
traditional cooperation between Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea
region.

Will the Turkish-Russian rupture cast its shadows on the Syrian
situation? Surely, if Moscow wants to turn the heat on Turkey, there
is no better time than this to let go the Syrian forces on an
offensive to regain control of Idlib.

But it could lead to a conflagration with unpredictable consequences.
About 12,000 Turkish troops are deployed in Idlib in some 140 bases.

The US is unlikely to come to Turkey’s aid in Idlib. Washington and
Ankara are at loggerheads over the developments in the Eastern
Mediterranean. In a statement on Tuesday, the US State Department
deplored the renewed Turkish survey activity in that sea.

It explicitly warned Turkey: “Coercion, threats, intimidation and
military activity will not resolve tensions in the Eastern
Mediterranean. We urge Turkey to end this calculated provocation and
immediately begin exploratory talks with Greece. Unilateral actions
cannot build trust and will not produce enduring solutions.”

But the Turkish Foreign Ministry simply shrugged off the US warning.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://asiatimes.com/2020/10/russia-rubs-turkey-the-wrong-way/__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!5fR8Dz5uv2F6ux9Y0bDjYdU3SSgzugFzSR-tzqcv5qRkWT6CpqXoaHlUV_5VqQ$

[Yervant1]

Greek City Times

Oct 15 2020

“Artsakh is Armenia”: Solidarity signs begin appearing in Australia’s most Greek suburb

With Turkey sponsoring Azerbaijan’s invasion attempt of the Armenian-majority region of Artsakh, Greeks all across the world, whether it be in Greece, Cyprus or in the diaspora, have expressed endless solidarity to the Armenian people.

Since the Turkish-sponsored aggression against Artsakh began, Greek and Cypriot Members of the European Parliament have been pushing for sanctions against Azerbaijan, Greek hackers have brought down Azerbaijani government websites and a fake ‘Armenian charity,’ Pontian Greek diaspora communities have donated large amounts of money, and in the Australian city of Melbourne, signs of solidarity for Armenia have started to appear.

Melbourne is the third largest Greek city in the world, after Athens and Thessaloniki. In fact, Melbourne has more Greeks then the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, large Greek cities like Patras, and other diaspora communities like those in New York and Chicago.

Although Greeks in Melbourne are found throughout the city, the main hub without a doubt is Oakleigh, especially as it looks like any other Greek plateia (market square) teleported directly into Australia.

Just as the Turkish-sponsored war against Armenians has distressed Greeks in Greece and Cyprus, the same distress is felt in the diaspora communities, prompting unknown people in Oakleigh to display signs of solidarity for the Armenian people.

This was first uploaded to social media by John Barbagiannis:

“Seen hanging on an overpass in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh today. The Armenian flag with Greek writing: “Θα νικήσουνε” – we will win. “Η Αρσαχ είναι Αρμενία” – Arstakh is Armenia. No idea who did this!” he said on Twitter yesterday.

Today he uploaded another image of a sign he found in Oakleigh.

“Another sign in Oakleigh today too…. “Peace for Armenia,” he said on Twitter.

Oakleigh is home to the Oakleigh Cannons Football club established by Greek immigrants in 1972, the Agioi Anargyroi Greek Orthodox Church is also located in Oakleigh, and several Greek-owned and styled tavernas, restaurants, bakeries and cafes exist in the suburb.

With such a heavy Greek presence it is unsurprising that signs of solidarity for Armenians are beginning to appear.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/10/15/artsakh-is-armenia-solidarity-signs-begin-appearing-in-australias-most-greek-suburb/?amp&fbclid=IwAR1q8V0aQRKHB-EblvVyxma-p-WLKKjB0JKEaZU6oykjijqXrYuqgvTUwUs

[Yervant1]

eKathimerini, Greece

Oct 15 2020

Time for the West to punish Turkey

If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan achieves his maximalist goals, it will be a huge defeat – not just for Greece, Cyprus and other countries in the region, but for the Western system of stability and peace.

To those high-ranking US diplomats and officials from both parties who cite the “risk” of losing Turkey and see it evolve into a new Pakistan or Iran, the answer is that the country is not behaving as if it is part of the Euro-Atlantic project and should not be treated with subtlety and criticism limited to mere rhetoric. Not after Ankara purchased the Russian S-400, invaded Syria with the aim of attacking the Kurds, got involved in Libya with forces and military equipment and plays a negative role in the hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh. Not to mention past allegations of dealings with Islamic State.

All this is before we mention the numerous provocations that affect Hellenism, such as consecutive navtexes near Kastellorizo’s territorial water, surveying inside the Cypriot exclusive economic zone, opening Varosha despite the international outcry and UN resolutions, but also converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque.

Turkey’s complete impunity undermines the West’s credibility. Erdogan has crossed every line. He denounced the joint military exercises of Greek and American forces in Thrace. Lately he is even turning against Turkish-Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci because he dares to refuse to align with Ankara’s appetites, and openly undermined him in order to make him lose the elections in the occupied north of the island.

The Erdogan regime insults everyone, from French President Emmanuel Macron to US presidential nominee Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republicans in Congress who are critical of him. He invests exclusively in his personal relationship with President Donald Trump – whatever the motives behind it. But even Trump has limits and priorities. When Erdogan jailed pastor Andrew Brunson, angering the Evangelicals, a key part of the US president’s electoral pool, Trump threatened to “destroy” the Turkish economy if the pastor was not released. The Turkish president complied.

To return to the issues that concern us, it is obvious that other countries, no matter how friendly and supportive they are to Greece, are not going to get involved in a military confrontation on our account. Our allies and partners can, however, do enough damage to Turkey to force it to stop its aggression. It is in this light that, at last, the imposition of severe and substantial sanctions that will really hurt the Turkish economy must be seriously considered, both by the EU and the US.

It is a fact that we have witnessed direct criticism from the US State Department against Turkey rarely seen in the past. It was preceded by France, while Germany is also starting to raise – slowly and belatedly – its voice. Strong statements by the powerful players that Erdogan counts on are a first step. They send clear messages that are difficult for the Turkish ruler to ignore.

Athens is always reaching out to Ankara for friendship and dialogue, proposing that we delimit our maritime zones, stop the tension and reap the benefits that will result. If Erdogan continues the “calculated provocations” – which is how the Americans described them and not the Greeks or Cypriots – the next step should be targeted sanctions that will seriously affect Turkey.

At the same time, the readiness of the Greek armed forces completes the puzzle of the potential cost that Erdogan is called upon to bear. As Turkish forces are spread too thin and on so many fronts, he must realize that in the event of a conflict, Turkey will pay a heavy price too.

The West must punish the Turkish leader. He has turned his country into a pariah and he must be made to understand that he is not invincible – before it’s too late.

https://www.ekathimerini.com/258084/opinion/ekathimerini/comment/time-for-the-west-to-punish-turkey?fbclid=IwAR1spSt7RDc2BZTLe830zeei76R14lr4fOmFDhbJutYaz_NSnYU9ttkeFq8

[Yervant1]

How can Armenians of Artsakh live under the rule of monsters like this?

Public Radio of Armenia

Oct 15 2020

Armenian Ombudsman obtains undeniable evidence of Azerbaijani war crime

Today the Human Rights Defender of Armenia has obtained two videos, as well as photo evidence illustrating Azerbaijani military’s inhumane, cruel treatment of Armenian prisoners of war.

In these videos members of Azerbaijani army humiliate prisoners of war at maximum and then brutally kill them with extreme cynicism. The behavior and speech of Azerbaijani army members are full of hatred.

The videos have been released from Azerbaijani sources today and have been widely spread, also by targeting children and elderly.

Afterwards, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry released a statement denying any relation to their military. Following this statement, Azerbaijani internet sources started to remove the videos.

The videos have been duly documented by the Office of the Human Rights Defender, being undeniable war crime evidence.

Experts of the Human Rights Defender’s Office have accurately identified location and time of Azerbaijani criminal activities. Videos have been translated and already incorporated as subtitles.

The above mentioned video and photo evidence will be sent to international bodies with necessary descriptions.

 

https://en.armradio.am/2020/10/15/armenian-ombudsman-obtains-undeniable-evidence-of-azerbaijani-war-crime/

 

 

[Yervant1]

Greek City Times

Oct 15 2020

Armenian President: We appreciate the Greek people and call on them to raise their voices louderby Paul Antonopoulos

Armenian President Armen Sarkissian met with a small group of foreign journalists, including CNN Greece, at the Presidential Palace in Yerevan for a briefing on developments in Artsakh, or more commonly known as Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to Sarkissian, Turkey’s presence in the Caucasus region is a threat to energy security, as it will gain control not only Azerbaijan’s domestic policy but also the pipelines that reach the oil and gas in the Caspian Sea.

“Turkey wants to control the flow of energy to Europe,” Sarkissian said.

“Armenia during all these years of crisis has never hit the pipelines because it respects international law and trade rules. That is why Nagorno-Karabakh is currently fighting for Europe’s energy security,” the president said.

He also said that “if this time the ceasefire manages to create a climate of trust, it is perhaps time to think about the arrival of international peacekeepers and to start negotiations between the Armenian and Azerbaijani side but without Turkey on the table because it can not be mediator,” Sarkissian stressed.

CNN Greece asked the president of Armenia what he thinks about the way Europe has faced the crisis in Artsakh and what he thinks about the attitude of Greece in this crisis.

“In the current crisis, there is a direct Turkish involvement, which is a member of NATO and is involved in a conflict that has nothing to do with NATO. It uses its weapons and NATO-trained personnel to an adversary who has no differences with NATO. That is a question for Europe and also for NATO itself. So we ask them: Have you given the green light for Turkey to do what it does in the region? If so please tell us. If not, because whatever happens is allowed to happen,” he stressed.

Regarding Greece, the Armenian President stated that “we appreciate the attitude of the government, the Parliament and the Greek people to what is happening today and we call on them to raise their voices louder.”

“I know that Greece has similar problems with Turkey, which is harassing everyone. Greece, Cyprus, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Syria. Someone has to stop it and at this level we are allies. Not because we have traditional ties but because the key to stopping the war and starting negotiations is to stop Turkey’s involvement. Otherwise we will have uncontrollable situations,” he concluded to CNN Greece.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/10/16/armenian-president-we-appreciate-the-greek-people-and-we-call-on-them-to-raise-their-voices-louder/

[Yervant1]

I hope I'm wrong but erDOGan's adventures will lead to world War III.

 

Armenpress.am

President of European Parliament says Turkey’s rhetoric grows more and more belligerent

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20:11, 15 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The President of the European Parliament David Sassoli announced that the rhetoric of the Turkish leadership grows more and more belligerent, ARMENPRESS reports, citing TASS, Sassoli said in a press conference Thursday.

‘’Turkey’s rhetoric grows more and more belligerent and the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh does not weaken it’’, he said.

Azerbaijan unleashed aggression against Artsakh on September 27. It is directly supported by Turkey, which has provided its F-16 fighter jets and Syrian terrorists to Azerbaijan to fight against Armenians.

On October 10 the Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs reached an agreement on humanitarian ceasefire in Moscow under the mediation of Russian FM Sergey Lavrov. However, Azerbaijan started to grossly violate the agreement, including bombing of civilian settlements, just before the agreement would come into effect.

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan has announced that Azerbaijan will never stop military operations as long as Turkey does not change its expansionist policy in South Caucasus.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1031709.html?fbclid=IwAR1j4cRPfXMKO5a-CvxJWxokJ2SHtOEGOp8JFguZ-9vGmrBqGmffHai0IXE

 

 

[Yervant1]

What is the point of making laws, if you do not enforce it! These weapons are illegal to use on civilians!

 

Armenpress.am

Azerbaijan bombs Artsakh with ‘’Smerch’’ cluster warhead, killing a civilian

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20:18, 15 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan bombed Artsakh’s Karmir Shuka settlement with ‘’Smerch’’ cluster warhead, killing a civilian, ARMENPRESS was informed from the State Service of Emergency Situations of Artsakh.

‘’Another violation of the humanitarian ceasefire was recorded at 19:00. The target was Karmir Shuka settlement of Martuni region was. Azerbaijan bombed Karmir Shuka settlement with ‘’Smerch’’ cluster warhead. According to preliminary data, 1 civilian has been killed’’, reads the press release.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1031711.html?fbclid=IwAR028svshPKoAdUZYsjzpyLhuL0uPNcRA2QBWd5Fc0OwEZvIN3_Au6wecGo

 

 

[Yervant1]

Giving up the regions without guarantees for Artsakh will lead to another Armenian Genocide!

CIVILNET.AM

16 October, 2020 04:59

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has laid his vision for a negotiated solution to the Karabakh conflict. He discussed his plan in an interview with radio stations “Sputnik,” “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” and “Moscow is Speaking.”

According to Lavrov, the following proposals, which the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Russia, France, the US) have developed and continue to work on, remain on the negotiating table.

- A step-by-step withdrawal of Armenian troops from five regions surrounding Nagorno Karabakh. This must be done while maintaining the security guarantees of Karabakh as well as ensuring a reliable connection between Armenia and Karabakh until the final status of Karabakh is determined.

- At a later time, Armenian troops will withdraw from two more regions and the status of Karabakh will be determined.

- The peace in Nagorno Karabakh will be maintained throughout this period with the help of peacekeepers.

“The current unfortunate events must reactivate these processes in parallel with solving the security issues on the ground,” said Lavrov.

https://www.civilnet.am/news/2020/10/16/Peacekeepers-Withdrawal-of-Troops-Karabakh-Status-Lavrov-Lays-Out-His-Plan/402056

 

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Artsakh is our Motherland, which cannot be surrendered at any price – Parliament Speaker of Armenia

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20:46, 15 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. President of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan emphasizes that the war unleashed against Artsakh is not aimed at capturing some territories, it’s aimed at removing us from the political map, emphasizing that there is no other alternative than stand to the last, ARMENPRESS reports Mirzoyan wrote on his Facebook page.

‘’This is not a new war, this war has been waged against us at least some hundred years. The aim is not capturing some territories, the aim is our elimination from the political map, in case of possibility – our total extermination’’, Mirzoyan said, noting that Armenians have prevented such attempts in Sardarapat, in the 1st Artsakh war. Mirzoyan emphasized that we will never return Deir ez-Zur.

‘’If we surrender Artsakh, we will surrender Meghri and than Yerevan. We have to stand up, there is no alternative. We have to stand to the last’’, he wrote.

‘’Artsakh is our Motherland, our home. Motherland and home are not surrendered at any price’’, Mirzoyan wrote.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1031713.html?fbclid=IwAR1Ivv-8ZG_DJoL36aKFtzmZauvxN0lPJkYkBokeqwPnDyiJv2DsxSU16Ag

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Losing grip of terrorists forces Azerbaijan to attribute consequences to Armenia beforehand – NSS

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22:18, 15 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The National Security Service of Armenia assesses the announcement of the State Security Service of Azerbaijan that the Armenian special services are planning operations in major Azerbaijani cities as absurd.

‘’ We categorically deny the product of the sick imagination of the special services of Azerbaijan. Such absurd announcements are not a subject for comments, but we dare to assume that the loss of grip of jihadist-terrorists, extremist terrorist groups at imported to Azerbaijan at ''industril scales'' by the military-political leadership of Baku leave no alternative for Baku than to attribute the extremely negative consequences on Armenia beforehand.

The National Security Service of Armenia once again announces with great responsibility that the Republic of Armenia never targets the civilian population of Azerbaijan, unlike the adversary who hours ago executed unarmed Armenian war prisoners as a revenge for the military failures. The regular terrorist acts, including targeting civilian population, children, hospitals, civilian objects and even strikes against the church will deserve a strict reaction of the international community. Armenia is a responsible participant of international relations and the special service of Armenia are no forced to struggle for the sake of a region without international terrorism, for the sake of peace and security of our citizens’’, an NSS Armenia press official told ARMENPRESS.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1031727.html?fbclid=IwAR1igohOCd2FGzi2RF5swbrm99ktu-NaTM6OgIBVlSsBl9HR7f0GEUEmMJU

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

General of Libyan National Army confirms Turkey sends terrorists to Azerbaijan

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23:18, 15 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Major General of the Libyan National Army Ahmed al-Mismari confirms that Turkey sends terrorists to Azerbaijan, ARMENPRESS reports, the General told Sky news Arabia.

‘’Thousands of terrorists, Syrian and of other nationality, have been sent to Libya by Turkey using Mitiga and Misrata airports. Now Turkey uses those airports to send Libyan, Syrian and other terrorists to Azerbaijan’’, Ahmed al-Mismari said.

Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1031734.html?fbclid=IwAR1vgo-Vxj-IPXuUbUO2T22SS4duKKPuiBGdFPcPVU9Vk2qLZ8D-WZyn6Hs

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Organization of American States highlights principle of self-determination of Artsakh

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22:41, 15 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States will continue to follow Nagorno Karabakh conflict until the principle of self-determination of the people in Artsakh is guaranteed, ARMENPRESS reports Secretary General of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro addressed a letter to President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan and published the letter on Twitter.

‘’I have followed the conflict in Artsakh for many years, and will continue to do so until the principle of self-determination of the people in Artsakh is guaranteed and peaceful negotiation is achieved. The principle of self-determination is crucial in this case because it means the best assurance for civil and political rights for your people as well as the only way to preserve their identity and their way of life’’, Luis Almagro said in his letter.

He notes that it’s a matter of utmost concern that Azerbaijan’s military buildup aided by Turkey has turned a veritable unilateral arms race into an aggression.

‘’We reaffirm our call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, which stand in flagrant violation of the international norms that govern armed conflicts. That is in itself a deep violation of principles settled for a negotiated solution by the Minsk Group. Peace and stability in Artsakh and Caucasus is in our common interest, and therefore we will continue to support all efforts that lead towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict, as well as towards the absolute respect for the principle of self-determination of Armenians in Artsakh’’, Luis Almagro wrote.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1031730.html?fbclid=IwAR1j5jdPZR7aard1CgA0lRKggOQZfZFi1Lle9DN9Nye430MObz-Y3BKMAWY

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Time for the world to recognize Artsakh Republic – Turkish journalist

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23:30, 15 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Turkish journalist and political analyst Uzay Bulut thinks it’s time for the world to recognize the Republic of Artsakh. ARMENPRESS reports Uzay Bulut’s article has been published in Modern Diplomacy website.

ARMENPRESS presents the full article of the Turkish journalist.

On October 10 a temporary ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan, brokered by Russia, was announced, nearly two weeks after Azerbaijan started shelling Armenians in the Artsakh Republic, more commonly known as Nagorno-Karabakh, located in the South Caucasus.

However, since the ceasefire came into force, blasts still hit Stepanakert, the capital of Artsakh, say eyewitnesses and the international media.

During the military campaign, Azerbaijan has targeted not only whole towns, including Stepanakert, but also Armenian cultural and religious heritage. On October 8, Azerbaijan devastated the cultural house and the Holy Savior Cathedral, known locally as Ghazanchetsots, in the town of Shushi. Ghazanchetsots is one of the largest Armenian churches in the world.

The church was bombed twice, heavily injuring three journalists who were documenting the damage from the first bombing.

Raffi Bedrosyan, author of the book “Trauma and Resilience: Armenians in Turkey ‒ Hidden, Not Hidden and No Longer Hidden,” said:

“In the 1990’s war, when Azeris were still in control of Shushi, they used this church as an arms depot, storing the Grad missiles that they rained upon Stepanakert, which is directly below Shushi.”

After Armenians liberated Shushi from Azeri occupation in 1992, Bedrosyan visited the region, participating in water supply and road reconstruction projects.

“When I entered this church,” he added, “it was still full of human waste and damage left behind by the Azeris. It was reconstructed beautifully in a few years and witnessed hundreds of weddings of Armenian young girls and boys.”

Azerbaijan has been targeting Artsakh with the direct support received from Turkey. “We support Azerbaijan until victory,” Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on October 6. “I tell my Azerbaijani brothers: May your ghazwa be blessed.”

“Ghazwa” in Islam means a battle or raid against non-Muslims for the expansion of Muslim territory and/or conversion of non-Muslims to Islam. Erdoğan thus openly claimed that attacks against the Armenian territory constitute jihad. Moreover, it is not only Turkey and Azerbaijan attacking Armenians. Turkey has also deployed at least 1,000 Syrian jihadists to Azerbaijan to fight against Artsakh.

Azerbaijan’s ongoing attack against Artsakh appears part of Turkey’s neo-Ottoman expansionist aspirations. In recent years, the Turkish government has escalated its rhetoric of neo-Ottomanism and conquest. In an August 26 speech, for example, Erdoğan, said:

“In our civilization, conquest is not occupation or looting. It is establishing the dominance of the justice that Allah commanded in the [conquered] region…We invite our interlocutors to put themselves in order and stay away from mistakes that will open the way for them to be destroyed.”

Meanwhile, Armenian president Armen Sarkissian asked Russia, the US and NATO to restrain Ankara, describing Turkey as “the bully of the region.”

“If we don’t act now internationally, stopping Turkey . . . with the perspective of making this region a new Syria . . . then everyone will be hit,” he told the Financial Times in an interview.

Azeri-Turkish aggression against Armenians has cost many lives. According to Armenian sources, the total death toll in the Artsakh military has reached over 500 as of October 12. Azerbaijani authorities have not released details on their military casualties. The war has also taken its toll on civilians; the two sides have reported more than fifty civilians killed. On October 9, Armenian medical doctor VaheMeliksetyan, a lecturer at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, lost his life on the battlefield while providing professional assistance to a wounded soldier.

“According to our preliminary estimates, some 50% of Karabakh’s population and 90% of women and children — some 70,000 to 75,000 people — have been displaced,” the region’s rights ombudsman Artak Beglaryan told the AFP news agency.

The organization Save the Children International also reported on October 9 that “Hostels, schools and kindergartens in some Armenian cities and villages are overcrowded after opening their doors to shelter people fleeing the violence, mainly women and children… Many children arriving are separated from their parents, as they were sent to stay with extended family or friends on the Armenian side of the border,” Save the Children said.

Turkish and Azeri attacks against Armenians for the purpose of conquering the region are unjustified. Artsakh, whose population is 95 percent Armenian, is peaceful and has been an integral part of historic Armenia for millennia. It has never been part of an independent Azerbaijan. Artsakh fell under the rule of various conquerors throughout the centuries, but mostly preserved its semi-independent status as an Armenian entity.

Today the region is often referred to as “disputed” because Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin granted it to Soviet Azerbaijan as an autonomous region in the early 1920s. During Soviet rule, the majority of the population of Artsakh peacefully and repeatedly requested reunification with Armenia. The Azerbaijani government, however, responded by violence not only in Artsakh, but throughout the whole Azerbaijan. It committed pogroms and mass killings against Armenians in the Azerbaijani cities of Sumgait, Baku, Kirovabad, Shamkhor, and Mingechaur, among others.

On September 2, 1991, Artsakh finally announced its independence through the same legal basis as did Azerbaijan, Armenia and all other former Soviet republics. This announcement was based on the principles of international law and the Constitution of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan, however, once again resorted to violence. The Artsakh-Azerbaijan war (1991-1994) brought complete or partial destruction on Armenian villages and towns in Artsakh.

Another violent attack against the region occurred in April 2016 and is known as the Four-Day War. During this conflict, Azerbaijan launched a full-blown military attack on Artsakh and reportedly committed war crimes. In the village of Talysh, for instance, an elderly Armenian couple was found shot in their home on April 3, 2016 and their corpses were mutilated.

The European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy (EAFJD) noted:

“During April, 2016 the Azerbaijani armed forces committed a number of war crimes against the population of Artsakh including torture, execution and mutilation of bodies and beheadings. The ISIS style war crimes were committed by the regiments of the Azerbaijani armed forces that established control over the soldiers and civilians including children, elderly people. Their murders were executions merely for being Armenian which is the result of the Armenophobic policy implemented and promoted by president Aliyev’s administration over the decade in Azerbaijan.”

Four years later, the people and cultural heritage of Artsakh are again under fire.

Yet those attacks are nothing new. Turks and Azeris have systematically engaged in destructive violence against Armenian cultural heritage. A lengthy report entitled “A Regime Conceals Its Erasure of Indigenous Armenian Culture” was published in the art journal Hyperallergic in 2019 and documented “Azerbaijan’s recent destruction of 89 medieval churches, 5,840 intricate cross-stones, and 22,000 tombstones.”

“Oil-rich Azerbaijan’s annihilation of Nakhichevan’s Armenian past makes it worse than ISIS, yet UNESCO and most Westerners have looked away,” the scholar Argam Ayvazyan said. ISIS-demolished sites like Palmyra can be renovated, Ayvazyan argued, but “all that remain of Nakhichevan’s Armenian churches and cross-stones that survived earthquakes, caliphs, Tamerlane, and Stalin are my photographs.”

Destruction of Armenian cultural heritage is a long-held Turkish tradition that culminated during the 1913-23 Christian genocide targeting Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks. Professor Peter Balakian notes:

“The Armenian case discloses a range of cultural destruction. Statistics convey not only the mass killing and forced deportations, but also the government and its local collaborators’ destruction or silencing specifically of 1) cultural property; 2) cultural producers (e.g., intellectuals and artists); 3) belief and value systems; and 4) historical lands and corresponding identifications with them.

“Statistics compiled by the Armenian Patriarch Ormanian in Constantinople in 1912–1913 (at the request of the Ottoman government) indicated that there were 2,538 Armenian churches on Ottoman territory. During the genocide all but a handful were plundered, appropriated, burnt, demolished, or entirely razed. The same census also documented at least 1,996 Armenian schools and 451 monasteries, almost all of which were later destroyed. The CUP’s [the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress] destruction of churches and schools furthered the eradication of the living presence of Armenian history throughout Turkey.”

The Artsakh-Azerbaijan dispute should thus be seen in the historical context of wider policies of Azerbaijan and Turkey regarding Armenians. Throughout history, these two nations have failed to recognize the Armenian right to self-determination and often resorted to murderous violence.

The ongoing problem in the South Caucasus is much larger than land. It is mostly caused by obsessive Turkish-Azeri hatred against Armenians, and a delusional belief that historically Armenian lands are not Armenian, and that these lands should instead belong to Muslim Azeris or Turks.

An effective way to stop the violence and destruction is for the world to officially recognize the Artsakh Republic, for whose protection the indigenous Armenians have made so much sacrifice throughout history.

 

 

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[Yervant1]

Warning the videos are graphic!!!!!!! The true nature of azeri soldier in action!!!! These are the videos that they put online and bragged about it. When they realized that they were showing their inhuman acts, they quickly removed it. But of course it was too late.

 

Asbarez.com

 

Videos Surface of Azeris Executing Armenian POWs

October 15, 2020

WARNING: Content might be disturbing to reader. Discretion advised.

Videos have surfaced showing Azerbaijani soldiers Azerbaijani troops capturing two Armenian soldiers, reportedly near Hadrut, and executing them point blank.

The videos were first reported by the public analytical website Southfront.

The videos show Azerbaijani soldiers capturing two Armenian soldiers, tying them up with the Armenian tri-color and killing them point blank. One of the Armenian soldiers seems to an older man.

The Azerbaijani government, including its defense ministry, have claimed that Armenians were sharing “fake videos” that were not related to the Karabakh conflict.

The videos have caught the attention of Artsakh’s Human Rights Defender Artak Beglaryan, who took to Twitter to call the incident “another proof of Azerbaijani war crimes, but this time it has been spread by Azerbaijani sources.”

‘’Footage has been released on Azerbaijani social media showing how Azerbaijani servicemen are humiliating and killing Artsakh/Karabakh war prisoners, one of them an elderly civilian. We already have many proofs of such war crimes, but the Azerbaijani defense ministry denies it. Here is a proof from an Azerbaijani source,’’ Beglaryan wrote.

[see videos]

http://asbarez.com/197617/videos-surface-of-azeris-executing-armenian-pows/?fbclid=IwAR34BW8ZT378Jo_SOMTZk7qgyT2QFWmp6OhTp1srgWOJeQ9hmDAGI2bKN48

 

[Yervant1]

Luxembourg parliament unanimously adopts resolution condemning Azerbaijan aggressive military actions (PHOTOS)

00:22, 16.10.2020

Region:World News, Armenia, Karabakh, Azerbaijan, Turkey
Theme: Politics

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A resolution condemning Azerbaijan's aggressive military actions was unanimously adopted Thursday in the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies (parliament).

In the adopted resolution it is noted that the Chamber of Deputies calls on the Luxembourg government to “clearly condemn all military actions that contradict the provisions of the 1994 ceasefire; condemn any external interference with one of the conflicting parties, in particular Turkish military assistance to Azerbaijan; [and] support the initiatives to establish ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh [(Artsakh)] and call for respect for the principles of the ceasefire signed in May 1994."

Armenia News - NEWS.am

[Yervant1]

Armenians block France-Belgium highway to demand Karabakh recognitionArmenians block France-Belgium highway to demand Karabakh recognitionOctober 16, 2020 - 11:52 AMTPanARMENIAN.Net - Hundreds of Diaspora Armenians blocked the European route E19 near the French-Belgian border to demand the international recognition of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) on Friday, October 16.According to a report from Factor TV, the demonstrators will be driving to the European Parliament later in the day. Once a French journalist joined the rally, the protesters agreed to unblock the road.Like hundreds of thousands of Armenians around the world, they too are demanding the European Union to take tougher measures against the aggression of Azerbaijan and Turkey.Azerbaijan, with help from Turkey and Syrian and Libyan mercenaries deployed by Ankara, started a war against Karabakh (Artsakh) in the morning of September 27. The Armenian side has reported deaths and injuries both among the civilian population and the military. Foreign and local journalists too have been injured in Azeri shelling of towns and villages.Donations can be made to Hayastan All-Armenian Fund, which has launched a fundraising campaign to support humanitarian efforts in Karabakh. Edited October 16, 2020 by Yervant1

[Yervant1]

This is how Artsakh treats POW's unlike azeri fighters!

The Clash of Terror and Freedom: Artsakh treats Azeri POWs, Azerbaijan EXECUTES Artsakh POWs

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15:30, 16 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 16, ARMENPRESS. All Azerbaijani soldiers who have been detained as prisoners of war by Artsakh’s military are being provided with necessary medical treatment, Artsakh’s Human Rights Defender Artak Beglaryan told ARMENPRESS.

He said that recently one of the Azeri POWs underwent surgery by Artsakh doctors for his wounds. “In accordance to humanitarian rules, international law and our national legislation he is provided with humanitarian treatment. Surgery was conducted based on his needs, and not only him but all other POWs are receiving and have received appropriate medical treatment,” Beglaryan said.

Beglaryan said he personally inquired on the condition of the POW.

Sources from Artsakh familiar with the matter told ARMENPRESS that the abovementioned Azeri POW is Yulsiyv Nuradin Bakhtilaroghlu (pictured above), and he is hospitalized in Artsakh for already 10 days.

Amid weeks of relentless and indiscriminate Azeri attacks on villages and towns in Artsakh, the Azeri forces, which include mercenaries from terrorist organizations from the Middle East, even shelled a civilian hospital on October 14, not even realizing that perhaps their own servicemen who have been captured are being treated there.

“Terrorists cannot even imagine that those hospitals treat even their military servicemen captured by Artsakh military forces,” the Armenian health minister Arsen Torosyan said over the deplorable attack.

Then, on October 15, a video was posted online showing how Azerbaijani troops are executing Artsakhi POWs and filming the shooting.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

 

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Azerbaijan again launches massive attack on Artsakh, gets repelled

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09:18, 16 October, 2020

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 16, ARMENPRESS. After carrying out intense artillery bombardments, the Azerbaijani forces launched a large-scale offensive from the northern direction of Artsakh in the early morning of October 16 with total disregard for the humanitarian truce.

The attack was repelled by the Artsakh Defense Army and the Azeri forces suffered losses, the Armenian Defense Ministry representative Artsrun Hovhannisyan said.

“After nearly an hour of intense artillery bombardment Azerbaijan launched a massive attack in the northern direction early this morning. They attempted to capture our positions with several attack waves, but were repelled and suffered significant losses due to the valor and skills of our Armenian troops,” he said.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

 

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[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Los Angeles City Hall lit up in colors of Armenian flag

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10:53, 16 October, 2020

LOS ANGELES, OCTOBER 16, ARMENPRESS. The Los Angeles City Hall has been illuminated with the colors of the Armenian flag, Fox 11 LA reports.

The City Hall has been lit up in the colors of Armenia’s flag in solidarity with and support of the American-Armenian community.

On October 11 the Armenian community in LA organized a large March For Victory and a protest outside the Turkish Consulate against the ongoing Turkey-backed Azerbaijani aggression, attack on Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh). Both American-Armenians and foreign public figures, politicians joined the march.

On September 27 Azerbaijan, with the support of Turkey, launched a massive attack against the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), by using all its ammunition, targeting also the civilian infrastructures both in Artsakh and Armenia. There are confirmed reports that there are mercenaries in the Azerbaijani army brought from Syria by Turkey for fighting against the Armenian side.

On October 10 an agreement has been reached in Moscow between the Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers on cessation of hostilities in the NK conflict zone for humanitarian purposes. However, minutes after the agreement entered into force Azerbaijan again launched attacks against Artsakh and till now continues violating the humanitarian truce.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

 

 

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