Author: Babken Chilingarian

President Serzh Sargsyan sent a congratulatory message to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Theresa May on assuming the position of the leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the country.

”I am confident that your long-term political experience will allow you to lead the United Kingdom towards further advancement and prosperity, meeting existing challenges and registering new achievements.

Armenia greatly values development of the cooperation with the United Kingdom in all areas of mutual interest, as well as the further deepening of friendly relations between our two nations. I believe that our common efforts will allow to raise our amicable relations to a qualitatively new level and will give a new impetus to our bilateral agenda to the benefit of our two countries.

I wish you every success in your responsible endeavour.

Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration’’ reads the congratulatory message of the President of Armenia.

Photo: Alexandr Semyonov/TASS

 

The meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) kicked off in Sochi on Friday to discuss the issues of trade and economic, energy and transport cooperation, reports.

The ministerial meeting is the final event of Russia’s presidency in the organization.

The Russian side said over 24 years of the organization’s activity, this format has achieved a great potential needed to boost cooperation of the BSEC countries and bringing this cooperation to a new level.

One of the key tasks is to overcome the alarming tendencies in the Black Sea region’s economy: the trade between the countries of the region continues decreasing from 18% in 2010 to 14% in 2014. Another goal is to reinforce a financial basis and Moscow hopes to reach an agreement on the BSEC budget by December. Russia will also present a plan of cooperation in the energy sphere by the end of June 2017.

The BSEC is an international economic organization of 12 countries from the wider Black Sea area (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine). Established in 1992, the BSEC is an inter-governmental organization created with the aim to foster interaction and harmony among its member states, as well as to ensure peace, stability and prosperity encouraging friendly and good-neighborly relations in the Black Sea region.

The Turkish minister for European Union affairs has told the he is losing hope of getting a deal on visa-free travel for Turks within Europe.

Volkan Bozkir said changing anti-terror laws in Turkey would be impossible.

The EU insists that Turkey needs to narrow its definition of terrorism – as well as meet four other key criteria – to qualify for visa-free travel.

It is part of a larger agreement between the two sides aimed at easing Europe’s migration crisis.

On Wednesday, Mr Bozkir told the BBC that his hopes of getting visa-free travel for Turkish nationals were “getting less and less”.

He admitted that the negotiations had reached a crucial phase, stressing that Turkey had already done enough.

His comments came after a day of meetings with senior members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

Asbarez – On Friday, May 13, 2016 the Armenian American Museum will host an exclusive screening of the documentary film “Journey to the Homeland” at the Brand Library & Art Center. The film will be followed by a discussion panel led by the director, Nora Hovsepian, Esq.

“Journey to the Homeland” is a poignant documentary about Hovsepian’s personal pilgrimage to the Anatolian landscape to which her grandparents were forcibly exiled during the 1915 Armenian Genocide. The film shows the remnants of an ancient and resilient Armenian culture after Ottoman Turkey attempted to systematically wipe out its Armenian population residing on ancestral lands. The film is a companion to the book, “Historic Armenia, After 100 Years: Ani, Kars, and the Six Provinces of Western Armenia,” by Matthew Karanian, Esq., who will accompany Hovsepian along with Rebecca Berberian and Nora Yacoubian.

Nora Hovsepian, Esq., has been a lifelong advocate for the Armenian Cause and proudly serves as the Chair of the Armenian National Committee of America- Western Region. In 2014, she was honored by the California State Assembly as one of its 80 statewide Women of the Year for her leadership and advocacy. “Journey to the Homeland” won the 2015 Audience Choice Award in the Pomegranate Film Festival in Toronto, Canada and was an Official Selection in the Los Angeles CineFest, the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, and the IndieFEST.

This program is one in a series taking place in conjunction with “Armenia: An Open Wound” an exhibition presented by The City of Glendale and the Library, Arts & Culture Department in partnership with the Armenian American Museum and curated by the Museo Memoria y Tolerancia [Museum of Memory & Tolerance] in Mexico City. The exhibit will be on view at the Brand Library Art Galleries through June 11, 2016 during the library’s regular hours: Tuesday and Thursday 12-8 pm, Wednesday 12-6pm, and Friday and Saturday, 10am-5pm. All events are free and open to the public.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and citizens of Georgia and Ukraine with the 71st anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Kremlin press service said on Sunday.

Putin stressed that the Victory Day is a sacred celebration that will forever remain the symbol of heroism and unity of peoples that defended their lands in bloody battles and liberated the world from Nazism.

The Russian president that history should not be allowed to be rewritten and tragic mistakes of the past should not be repeated. “Our common duty is to carefully preserve the memory about those who died in the Great Patriotic War and to care about veterans in every possible way,” he noted.

The Russian leader expressed hope that friendship and brotherhood tested in the common struggle will continue to serve as a basis for further strengthening of inter-state relations, facilitate development of integrational processes on the Eurasian continent.

Putin conveyed sincerest gratitude to veterans and home front workers, wished them good health and longevity.

A coalition of 14 national anti-genocide and human rights groups, led by the Armenian National Committee of America Eastern Region (ANCA-ER), have called on The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, and The Philadelphia Inquirer to issue a formal apology for the placement of advertisements denying the Armenian Genocide in their publications and urged an advertisement policy review to prevent similar incidents in the future.

In letters sent to the publications this week, the coalition explains that “the website linked to in the advertisement clearly denies the Armenian Genocide in several ways, including by disputing the number of people killed, referring to the genocide as a ‘destructive conflict,’ or the ‘1915 tragedy.’  While the coded language used on the website may be unfamiliar to outsiders, we are all too familiar with the use of this language as a tool for denial.”  The letters went on to note that “the advertisement was run by an organization called the ‘Turkic Platform,’ a propaganda group that aims to distract conversation from Turkey’s role in the Armenian Genocide through the use of billboard and newspaper advertisements and other activities.”

ANCA-ER’s Armen Sahakyan thanked coalition partners for taking a “principled and unequivocal stance against the denial of the Armenian Genocide. We will continue our active work in further promoting the anti-genocide alliance to speak with one, united voice against all cases of genocide and/or their denial.”

Leaders of A Demand for Action; Armenian National Committee of America Eastern Region; Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center; Carl Wilkens Fellowship; Darfur Interfaith Network; Genocide Watch; Hellenic American Leadership Council; In Defense of Christians; International Association of Genocide Scholars; Jewish World Watch; Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND); Stop Genocide Now; Together We Remember; and United to End Genocide co-signed the letters which outline three concrete requests:

• A formal apology to readers for running the ad, including to those who are victims or descendants of victims of the Armenian Genocide;
•  A policy review to ensure the newspaper will no longer accept advertisements which promote hate speech and genocide denial; and
•  A meeting with senior staff of the newspaper’s advertising department to better understand the policy under which the newspaper accepted the ad.

On April 20^th, the Istanbul-based Turkic Platform began a U.S.–wide advertisement blitz denying the Armenian Genocide,  spending millions on full page print newspaper ads, online news site ads and billboards. Backlash from the ad campaign has been significant with grassroots action leading to ClearChannel Outdoor first pulling its billboards in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco and then stopping the campaign nationwide.  Some newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News, issued apologies and pledged a full review of their ad placement policy.

 

 

 

The negotiation process cannot continue as long as there is shooting or threat of shooting in the direction of Nagorno Karabakh, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan told reporters today, as he commented on the results of the Russian Foreign minister’s visit to Armenia.

According to Kocharyan, the first and most important outcome was the reiteration of the fact that the 1994 ceasefire agreement remains in force, and the utmost goal today is to ensure peace and stability.

The Deputy Foreign Minister attached special importance to the statement that concrete measures reinforcing the ceasefire regime should be initiated not only by the Co-Chairs, but also the German Presidency of the OSCE.

Referring to Sergey Lavrov’s remarks on Kazan document, Kocharyan said: “There are two platforms. The first one is the Madrid document, which led to Kazan, which Azerbaijan turned down. The second platform are the proposals targeted at reinforcement of the ceasefire regime, implementation of confidence-building mechanisms,” Shavarsh Kocharyan said.

The Deputy Foreign Minister confirmed that the Madrid Principles envisage concessions, but it’s up to Nagorno Karabakh to make a decision. “No Armenian official will ever be able to solve the issue of territories and status for Artsakh,” he concluded.

EU-Turkey cooperation on migration should be uncoupled from the EU accession negotiating process, say MEPs in a resolution voted on Thursday. MEP praise Turkey for hosting the largest refugee population in the world, and note that it remains a “key strategic partner for the EU” but nonetheless call for progress on rule of law and fundamental values and “a structured and more frequent political dialogue on key thematic issues”.

“The overall pace of reforms in Turkey has not only slowed down but in some key areas, such as freedom of expression and the independence of the judiciary, there has been a regression, which is particularly worrying”, said rapporteur Kati Piri (S&D, NL). In this report “we also express our concern about the escalation of violence in the southeast of Turkey, which caused almost 400,000 people to leave their houses,” she added.

“Outsourcing the refugee crisis to Turkey is not a credible long-term solution to the problem”, say MEPs who add that “it is crucial to put in place safe and legal routes for refugees”. They believe that the EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan on refugees and migration management should be implemented immediately, but only as “part of a comprehensive cooperation agenda based on shared responsibility, mutual commitments and delivery”. Furthermore, “EU-Turkey cooperation on migration should not be linked to the calendar, content and conditionality of the negotiation process”. “Only a political solution to the Syrian crisis can provide a lasting response to this humanitarian crisis”, says the text.

The resolution was passed by 375 votes to 133, with 87 abstentions.

Serious backsliding on fundamental freedoms

MEPs urge Turkey to act against intimidation of journalists in all its forms, condemn its violent and illegal take-over of several newspapers including Zaman most recently and highlight its serious backsliding, over the past two years, on freedom of speech, expression and opinion, both on-line and off-line.

To match the EU’s commitment to the rule of law and fundamental values, which are core European values, reforms of the judiciary and fundamental rights and of justice, freedom and security are urgently needed in Turkey, says the text.

Kurdish peace process

MEPs call for an immediate ceasefire in southeast Turkey and the resumption of the peace process. They urge the Turkish government to shoulder its responsibility to resume negotiations for a negotiated, comprehensive and sustainable solution to the Kurdish issue. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), on the EU’s list of terrorist organisations, should lay down its arms, abandon terrorist tactics and use peaceful and legal means to voice its expectations, they add.

Cyprus reunification talks

Welcoming the considerable progress made in the Cyprus reunification talks, MEPs pledge support for the evolution of the Republic of Cyprus into “a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation with political equality between the two communities and equal opportunities for all its citizens”. They urge both parties to implement all agreed measures without further delay, emphasing that non-settlement of the Cyprus issue affects the development of EU-Turkey relations.

Serbian ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj has been found not guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the Balkan wars in the 1990s, the BBC reports.

The UN war crimes court at The Hague (ICTY) said he bore no individual responsibility for the crimes.

Mr Seselj had denied all the charges.

He was allowed to go to Belgrade in 2014 after being diagnosed with cancer. He was not present in the courtroom – he even refused the tribunal’s offer to follow the verdict by videolink.

He has been taking part in anti-government rallies ahead of Serbian parliamentary elections later this month.