Author: Boris Nahapetian

Photo: AFP

Turkey’s president has compared German officials to Nazis, in the latest escalation in a war of words, the BBC reports.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit out after German authorities cancelled rallies designed to woo ethnic Turkish voters in Germany ahead of a key referendum.

“Your practices are not different from the Nazi practices of the past,” Mr Erdogan said.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the comments were “absurd, disgraceful and outlandish”.

About 1.4m Turks in Germany can vote in the April referendum, which could give Mr Erdogan sweeping new powers.

Voters will be asked whether they back a new constitution, which would transform the country from a parliamentary republic into a presidential one.

That would give Mr Erdogan, as president, new powers over the budget and the appointment of ministers and judges, as well as the power to dismiss parliament.

“Belarusian authorities put political benefits above democratic norms and principles of legitimacy and justice,” the Foreign Ministry of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic said, commenting on the extradition of Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan.

“The verdict of the Supreme Court of Belarus, which upheld the decision to hand over well-known blogger Alexander Lapshin to Azerbaijan for criminal prosecution is not only an expression of outright support for the policy of intimidating foreign citizens pursued by the Azerbaijani authorities, but also a flagrant violation of the fundamental rights to the freedom of movement and freedom of speech,” the Ministry said in comments to Artsakhpress news agency.

“By handing Alexander Lapshin over to Azerbaijan at the request of Baku, based on the trumped-up and politically biased case, the Belarusian authorities demonstrate that they put political benefits above democratic norms and principles of legitimacy and justice,” the Foreign Ministry stated.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian had a meeting with OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs James Warlick, Igor Popov and Stéphane Visconti, and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk.

During the meeting that took place on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting in Hamburg reference was made to a number of issues related to the settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

Edward Nalbandian underlined that “Azerbaijan has been refusing to implement the agreements reached at Vienna and St. Petersburg summits for month, thus preventing the creation of conditions conducive to furthering the negotiation process.”

Photo: EPA/MAURIZIO BRAMBATTI

Italy plans to focus on frozen conflicts during its chairmanship in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2017, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Monday after talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov, TASS reports.

“In the period of its chairmanship in the OSCE and non-permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council, we will focus on frozen conflicts,” he told a news conference. In his words, Italy can make a contribution to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Mammadyarov, in turn, said that the meeting between Azerbaijani and Armenian top diplomats is scheduled for early December in Germany’s Hamburg within the framework of an OSCE Ministerial Council meeting. “The Azerbaijani side gave its consent for this meeting,” he said.

Photo: Getty Images

British singer Sting is to reopen the Bataclan music venue in Paris the day before the first anniversary of the attack that killed 90 concertgoers, the BBC reports.

The former Police frontman will perform there on Saturday 12 November.

He said he wanted to “remember and honour those who lost their lives” and “to celebrate the life and the music that this historic theatre represents”.

The venue has been shut since Islamist gunmen stormed a gig by US rock band Eagles of Death Metal last November.

Three heavily armed gunmen wearing suicide vests were part of co-ordinated attacks around Paris on 13 November that killed 130 people.

Sting said all revenue from his show would be donated to Life For Paris and 13 Novembre: Fraternite Verite.

President of the Belgian Senate Christine Defraigne visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial today, accompanied by Vice-Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly Hermine Naghdalyan and Head of the Armenia-Belgium Deputy Friendship Group Shirak Torosyan.

Christine Defraigne and members of her delegation laid flowers at the memorial to the Armenian Genocide victims and paid tribute to the memory of the victims with a minute of silence.

Noting that Belgium was one of the first countries to recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide, Mrs. Defraigne said: “We continue the work at the Senate and we attach importance to the adoption of a bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide, which is important for the heirs of both genocide victims and its perpetrators. We would like the Armenian and Turkish communities to come together one day.”

Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan received METRO AG wholesale trading company vice president in charge of external corporate policy, head of the Moscow representative office Alexei Grigoryev.

Welcoming the Guest, the Prime Minister stressed the need to further develop cooperation between METRO AG and Armenian export-oriented enterprises.

Karen Karapetyan expressed the hope that METRO AG will be able to find reliable partners for long-term cooperation in Armenia, including manufacturers. The Prime Minister stressed that there are opportunities for exporting Armenian agricultural and processed products not only to the Eurasian market, but also to other markets.

Stating his company’s willingness to develop relations with Armenia, Alexei Grigoryev said they saw good opportunities for cooperation. The METRO AG vice president expressed confidence that common ground for interaction could be found through extensive discussions.

During the meeting, the parties reviewed various issues of mutual interest, including the establishment of METRO AG field office in Armenia.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has issued a message on UN Day:

This year’s observance of United Nations Day occurs at a time of transition for the world and for the United Nations.

Humanity has entered the era of sustainability – with a global commitment to fulfil the great promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  In this, the Organization’s 71st year, we have 17 goals to propel us towards a better future for all on a healthy planet.

The world is also moving at long last beyond the mindset which viewed the burning of fossil fuels as the path to prosperity.  At a time of record heat, Member States have embraced the Paris Agreement on climate change in record time.  This landmark measure will enter into force on
4 November.  Across that historic threshold lies our best chance for greener, cleaner, low-carbon growth.

The United Nations is also in transition, from its eighth Secretary-General to the ninth.  I have been honoured to serve “we the peoples” for the past ten years.  Together, we have put in place some solid foundations for shared progress – which we must build on by working even harder to empower women, engage youth and uphold human rights for all.  But we have also suffered enormous heartbreak — including unresolved conflicts causing immense suffering throughout the troubled Middle East, South Sudan, the Sahel and beyond.  On these and other frontlines of violence and disaster, courageous UN staff continue to rise to the occasion and respond to the plight of the vulnerable.

I thank people across the world for their support — and urge all to give their full backing to Secretary-General-designate Antonio Guterres in continuing our global mission of peace, sustainable development and human rights.

Photo: AP

Dozens of world leaders are gathering in Israel to pay tributes to Shimon Peres, one of the country’s founding fathers, who died on Wednesday aged 93.

A funeral procession is en route to the national cemetery in Jerusalem, where Mr Peres will be laid to rest.

Guests include the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who will visit Israel for the first time since 2010.

The visit comes at the request of Mr Abbas.

As a negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), he was one of the people who signed the Oslo peace accords in 1993, for which Mr Peres won a Nobel Peace Prize the year after, along with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.