Author: Babken Chilingarian

Today, on the death anniversary of the former Prime Minister of Armenia, state and political figure Andranik Margarian, President Serzh Sargsyan, accompanied by the highest leadership of the country, visited the Komitas Pantheon and paid tribute to the memory of Andranik Margarian, President’s Press Office reported.

Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who worked with the poor in the Indian city of Kolkata (Calcutta) is to be declared a saint on 4 September, Pope Francis has announced, the BBC reports.

She founded a sisterhood that runs 19 homes, and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

She died in 1997 aged 87 and was beatified in 2003, the first step to sainthood.

The Pope cleared the way for sainthood last year when he recognised a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa.

This season’s Greek Cup has been cancelled by the government after the semi-final first leg between PAOK Salonika and Olympiakos was abandoned because of crowd violence, the BBC reports.

PAOK fans threw flares and clashed with riot police after their team was denied a penalty with Olympiakos leading 2-1.

Greece’s deputy minister for sport Stavros Kontonis recommended the suspension of all competitive football.

But the Super League and other professional leagues will continue.

 

 

 

The documentary “Pure State of the soul” by Turkish Armenian director Ugur Yusuf Ires will screen at the cultural center of the Yerevan State University tomorrow. The film presents the story of the director’s family, namely his grandfather Harutiun Ires, who regained his identity at the age of 71, regained his ‘pure state of the soul after he was baptized as Christian Armenian.

The constant arguments between the director’s grandparents lie in the basis of the documentary. “Although they were speaking Zazaki, we could understand from some Turkish words that all disputes were about religion,” Yusuf Ires told reporters in Yerevan.

“For ten years grandma was trying to persuade her children and grandchildren that they were Turkish and Muslim. She was confident it would be easier for them to live with that consciousness. But there is a reality called genetic memory. This is what motivated the creation of the film,” the director said.

Harutiun’s daughter Karin Gulteki returned to her Christian roots three years ago. She was baptized in Germany, as the tax for baptism in Armenian Churches of Turkey is too high. “I’m glad to have found my true identity and individuality,” the Dersim Armenian woman said.

“Turkey does not miss any opportunity to pressure Armenians,” said Mihran Gulteki, founder of the Union of Dersim Armenians. He said “Turkey is implementing a special policy of repatriating Turks from foreign countries and settling them in Western Armenia, where an estimated 3-4 million hidden Armenians live. According to him, the number will even grow if it becomes safer for Armenians to live there.

The Russian government and the Armenian authorities have signed an agreement providing a ten-year state export loan to Armenia with the payment deferral until early 2018, Russian media inform, quoting a report on the official legal data portal.

“The Russian side is providing the Armenian side with a state export loan of up to $200 million for financing the delivery of Russian military products in line with the list contained in Appendix No1 to this agreement,” the report said.

According to the Appendix, Armenia will buy Russian Smerch rocket launchers and ammunition, Igla-S air defense missile systems, Avtobaza-M ground-based radar jamming and deception systems, the TOS-1A heavy flame-throwing systems with transporter-loader vehicles, 9M113M guided missiles, RPG-26 grenade launchers, Dragunov sniper rifles, Tiger armored vehicles, engineering means and communication systems.

The list may be adjusted with the mutual written consent of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation and the Armenian Defense Ministry, the report said. Armenia will spend the loan on funding up to 90 percent of the cost of each contract for the delivery of military products, with the settlements to be done in Russian rubles. Upfront payments will amount to at least 10 percent of the cost of each contract and will provided done by the Armenian side to Russian authorized entities in Russian rubles.

The second round of Armenia-EU talks on the formation of a new legal basis for relations was held in Brussels on February 17. The Armenian delegation was headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Karen Nazaryan.

The first part of the negotiations was dedicated to political dialogue, reforms, issues of cooperation in the the fields of justice and freedoms.

The results of the first two stages of negotiations were summed up at a plenary sitting, during which the parties hailed the progress achieved so far and set the framework and timeframe of the future discussions.

The sides attached importance to the coordination of activities between different negotiating teams.

AP Photo/ Alexander Kots

 

What is happening on the Turkish-Syrian border gives grounds to think that Turkey is preparing a military invasion in Syria, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said, reports.

Georgian Energy Minister, Kakha Kaladze, said he will meet chief executives of Gazprom’s export arm, Elena Burmistrova, in Vienna on January 20.

“We will try to get a result, which will be acceptable for the country and the [energy] sector,” Kaladze said in an interview with Tbilisi-based Rustavi 2 TV.

According to the Georgian Energy Ministry it holds talks with Gazprom on terms of transit of Russian gas to Armenia via Georgia – Gazprom wants to pay cash as a transit fee instead of giving Georgia 10% of gas transported to Armenia.

Negotiations also involve possible purchase of additional gas from Gazprom, which will be required to fill the gap amid increasing gas consumption, according to the Georgian Energy Ministry. It says that the country will face this gap during the peak consumption in winter period before Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR upgrades capacity of pipeline infrastructure through which it supplies gas to Georgia and before the completion of the second phase of Shah Deniz project, scheduled for late 2018.

According to Kaladze, who met for three times with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller since September, Russia’s share in Georgia’s annual gas supplies may increase from current 11% to about 20% if Georgia starts importing additional volumes of gas from Gazprom.

Georgia consumed over 2.47 billion cubic meters of gas last year 88.5% of which was supplied from Azerbaijan, according to data provided by the Energy Ministry.

AP – Backed by relentless Russian airstrikes, Syrian troops and allied militiamen on Wednesday pushed deeper into a major rebel stronghold in the northwestern province of Latakia, a day after seizing a key rebel-held town in the strategic region overlooking the coast, the government and opposition activists said.

The insurgents in the opposition-held area near the Turkish border were collapsing after the town of Salma fell to government loyalists late Tuesday. Salma’s fall marked one of the most significant military victories by the Syrian military since Russia began airstrikes in the country last September to shore up President Bashar Assad’s forces.

Later Wednesday, the Free Syrian Army and 33 other factions and rebel groups issued a statement saying they would reject scheduled peace talks in Geneva later this month unless humanitarian conditions mentioned in a U.N. resolution for Syria are fulfilled.

The groups — including the powerful Army of Islam — said that clauses specified in the resolution that call for allowing humanitarian aid to populations in need of it, must first be met.

“We reject going ahead with any negotiations before implementation of humanitarian clauses in U.N. Security Council resolution 2254 begins,” the statement said.

Syria’s main political group in exile, the Syrian National Coalition, said the statement was not final and did not mean negotiations were completely off.

“I think it’s good for them to use such a statement to put some pressure on the Russian or Iranians to push Assad to start implementing confidence building measures,” said SNC vice president Hisham Marwah.

The U.N. has been urging the belligerents in Syria’s five-year-conflict to the negotiating table on Jan. 25 in an effort to find a resolution to a civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced half the country’s population. High-level U.S., Russian, U.N. and other diplomats are meeting behind closed doors in Geneva to discuss efforts to those talks.

Later, the International Committee of the Red Cross urged all side to end sieges being carried out across the country because of “because of overwhelming humanitarian needs.”

“The appeal comes after access was granted earlier this week to three towns in the country which have been under siege for months. The populations in all three areas were found to be living in appalling conditions,” ICRC said.

Meanwhile, fighting inside Syria on Wednesday saw government troops seizing the villages of Mrouniyah and Marj Kawkah near Salma as they continued their advances in the region, aided by immense Russian firepower.

Salma, part of mountainous chains near the border with Turkey known as Jabal al-Akrad and Jabal al-Turkmen, has been under rebel control for the past three years.

The town, where members of Assad’s Alawite minority sect once co-existed with majority Sunni Muslims, overlooks the largely Alawite coast and is about 12 kilometers (seven miles) away from the Turkish border. Turkey is a key supporter of insurgents in the area, which is mostly inhabited by Syrian Turkmen, an ethnic minority with close ties to Turkey.

“Whoever controls Salma gains control all those surrounding areas which it overlooks,” said Zakariya Ahmad, an opposition activist in the nearby Idlib province.

He said the town fell after 93 days of fighting and daily barrel bombs and airstrikes. He said activists in the region had reported 92 airstrikes believed to be Russian on Salma in the last 24 hours before it was fully seized by government troops.

“It was hell on earth,” he said.

Salma’s recapture further improves Assad’s position ahead of the planned peace talks, the latest in a string of military achievements by the government recently, supported by Russian air power and Lebanon’s Shiite militant Hezbollah group.

A seven-member family was killed in Gyumri on this day a year ago. Soldier Valry Permyakov from the Russian military base #102 in Gyumri entered the Avetisyans’ house and killed six. The youngest member of the family, Seryozha Avetisyan succumbed to injuries days later.

Hours after the crime, Permyakov was caught close to eth Armenian-Turkish border.
Valery Permyakov stood before the Armenian court on December 18.

In August Permyakov was already tried by Russia’s military court and sentenced to 10 years in prison on desertion and arms and ammunition stealing charges.

The next hearing on the case will be held on January 18.