14:37, 1 April, 2021
YEREVAN, APRIL 1, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian government approved the signing of a cooperation agreement with China whereby the latter will donate 100,000,000 yuan. The money will be used for building a new studio of the Armenian Public Television and the implementation of other jointly agreed projects.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
© Alexander Rumin/TASS
YEREVAN, March 28. /TASS/. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has announced plans to resign in April in order to hold early elections.
On Sunday, Pashinyan met with the citizens of southwestern Armenia’s Armavir Region. "In April I will tender resignation so that we could hold early elections. I will remain acting prime minister until the elections," Pashinyan said.
On March 18, Pashinyan said after holding political consultations with the president and leaders of three parliamentary factions that snap parliamentary polls would take place on June 20. However, after this announcement the opposition made a statement that the protests, which have engulfed the country since late February, would not stop.
Moscow, March 23. /TASS/. Issues of Russia-Armenia military cooperation and the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh were in focus of a telephone conversation between the two countries’ defense ministers, Sergei Shoigu of Russia and Vagharshak Harutyunyan of Armenia, the Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday.
"The sides discussed issues of bilateral military and military technical cooperation, the situation in the region and in the areas of the deployment of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as other matters of mutual interest," it said.
Their previous telephone calls took place on February 25 and 27, and on March 10.
After 14 years of drawn-out legal proceedings, a Turkish court has sentenced several people to prison for their role in the murder of journalist Hrant Dink.
An advocate for Armenians in Turkey, Hrant Dink was frequently targeted until his 2007 murder
A court in Istanbul sentenced several former top security officials to prison over the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.
The long-awaited decision comes after 14 years of drawn-out legal proceedings, and amid accusations senior security officials failed to act to prevent his death.
The court in Istanbul sentenced handed down several sentences for the 76 defendants in the case — only a handful of whom are in custody.
Judges handed life sentences to two former police chiefs and two top ex-security officers.
The sentenced the city's former police intelligence chief Ramazan Akyurek and his former deputy Ali Fuat Yilmazer to life in prison for "premeditated murder", state news agency Anadolu reported. They were also handed an additional 7.5 years for forgery and destroying official documents.
Former top Interior Ministry officers Yavuz Karakaya and Muharrem Demirkale were also handed life sentences.
A former Interior Ministry commander, Ali Oz, was sentenced to 28 years in prison. He commanded the region of Trabzon where the gunman who shot Dink came from.
The court dropped charges against several other people involved, as the statute of limitation had expired.
Hrant Dink was editor-in-chief of Aremnian newspaper Agos, and a passionate advocate for better ties between Turkey and Armenia
Among those accused is US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, with prosecutors probing alleged links between the exiled preacher and the suspects in the case.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames Gulen for orchestrating an attempted coup in 2016.
On Friday, the court did not rule on Gulen and 12 others considered fugitives in the case — but instead said several suspects were linked to Gulen's movement.
Outside the courthouse on Friday, Dink's supporters slammed the decision as "insufficient," saying that the masterminds behind his killing remained free.
Dink's family said they plan to appeal the court's decision, Anadolu reported.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also said that at least 20 officials should have been added to the long list of defendants in the case.
The series of trials over Dink's murder have been held "without a clear and satisfactory conclusion," RSF said. Links between the shooter and authorities "have proved to be very complex and subject to political manipulation."
Hrant Dink was a prominent voice for Turkey's Armenian community.
He worked as the editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian bilingual newspaper Agos, and was a passionate advocate for better ties between Turkey and Armenia.
In January 2007, while on the street in front of the newspaper's editorial office in Istanbul, was fatally shot twice in the head. He was 53.
Dink's murder plunged Turkey's small Armenian community into morning and sparked a drawn out trial which has lasted over a decade.
In 2011, Ogün Samast was found guilty of killing Dink and was sentenced to nearly 23 years in prison. He was 17-years-old at the time of the murder.
In 2010, the ECHR ordered the Turkish government to pay Dink's widow, Rakel Dink, and the rest of his family damages
The reason for Dink's murder has never been settled as trials continue for others charged in the willful killing.
At one point it came to light that Turkish security had knowledge of the plotbut failed to take action and has led to a protracted legal process.
In September 2010 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in that the Turkish state had failed to protect Dink's life and his freedom of _expression_. The Turkish government was ordered to pay compensation to his family.
"Some of those responsible for this assassination, including the sponsors, have still not been prosecuted," said Erol Onderoglu, Turkey representative for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), who has closely followed the trial.
The trial carries the weight of history as well. Ankara does not recognize the contentious term genocide when it comes to the expulsion and killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians.
jm/rs (AFP, dp)
This Is What It's Like to Live in a Country ‘That Doesn't Exist’
6.5 million people across Europe are trying to live normal lives in countries mostly unrecognised by the rest of the world.
By Robert O'Connor
24 March 2021, 3:23pm
Today in Europe there are 6.5 million people living in countries that, according to the rest of the world anyway, do not exist.
These would-be republics’ borders, born out of the chaos of the fall of the Soviet Union, are unrecognised by the international family of nations, as is their legal right to dictate the shape of their futures.
In a historical context where sovereignty and national borders are immutable and fixed, to a Western eye the unrecognised country is a surreal concept.
Following the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia, 21 new independent states were created. But there were more than a dozen national and ethnic groups whose claims to sovereignty went unfulfilled.
Some found ways to live in peace within Eastern Europe’s new borders. Others fought bloody ethnic wars to drive “occupying” armies out of their homeland. Some appealed to Russia directly to help carry them into the fog of a post-Soviet future.
Each of Eastern Europe’s six disputed regions has a unique story, and within each there are diverse voices, attempting to live normal lives in spite of the chaos they were born into.
Nagorno-Karabakh / Artsakh
High in the Caucasus mountain chain at Eurasia’s crossroads, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been trapped in a long war over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh for more than 30 years. Though sitting inside the borders of Turkic Azerbaijan, Karabakh is populated and controlled by Armenians, the world’s oldest Christian nation whose modern history is defined by a genocide perpetrated by the Turkish Ottoman government during the First World War.
After a long and uneasy ceasefire, hostilities over the status of Karabakh – or Artsakh as it is known locally – resumed in late 2020, as Azerbaijan’s Turkish-backed military advanced deep into the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and retook land it lost in 1993. It took a devastating humanitarian toll.
“Psychologically, it’s like being permanently operated on by a surgeon and you become used to the pain. You are no longer afraid. It’s masochistic.”
“My family became refugees last year after we were forced to leave our house and property in Shushi. We’ve been refugees before, from Baku when there was anti-Armenian violence in 1988,” said Saro Saryan, speaking from Yerevan. Saro formerly ran a geological museum in Shushi before being forced to flee. “Psychologically, it’s like being permanently operated on by a surgeon and you become used to the pain. You are no longer afraid. It’s masochistic.
“My son lost a leg in the fighting. He’s been recovering at a clinic in Switzerland. But we’re lucky. Thousands of people will never see their families again.
“Before the war, we felt the Sword of Damocles over us. But we raised our children not in hatred of our Azerbaijani neighbour. We built cities that reflected our Armenian culture; museums, churches, the army. In our hearts, we believed in a higher power. Now it’s hard to have faith.
“International recognition would have been a stronger guarantee of our safety. Why has it not happened?”
12:11,
YEREVAN, MARCH 24, ARMENPRESS. The Secretary General of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (I.A.O.), Member of the Hellenic Parliament dr. Maximos Charakopoulos, authorized by the I.A.O. International Secretariat, which held its virtual meeting on Wednesday, 17 March 2021, made the following statement on the protection of Christian Monuments in Nagorno Karabakh:
“The Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy has repeatedly declared the need to safeguard the monuments of world civilization, in the face of decisions and actions that threaten them with destruction or alteration of their character. Mankind has shown significant progress in highlighting the world cultural heritage, which includes religious monuments and sacred places of worship, which either continue to have this function or not.
The modern civilization understands and respects the enormous historical and spiritual value of monuments, through which a fruitful dialogue takes place with the historical past and the high conceptions of the human spirit, a necessary element for further thinking and deepening our common values. In addition, appropriate respect for every religious monument and sacred place of worship contributes to mutual understanding and mutual respect between religious communities, and ultimately contributes to peaceful coexistence.
Unfortunately, however, incidents that violate these principles continue to this day. There are cases where arbitrary conversions of places of worship take place, often with a long historical presence but also of aesthetic and artistic value, in places of performing irrelevant events towards the monuments of religious events or other services. Thus, recently —by decision of Turkey’s political leadership— the church of Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque and despite the fact that this church was built in the 6th century, it is included in the official UNESCO list of protected monuments of the world cultural heritage.
Sometimes, again, they are completely destroyed in order not to witness the centuries-old presence of other peoples, religions and cultures in these lands. Such incidents have been recorded in many cases in Kosovo and Metohija, in the occupied parts of the territories of Syria and Iraq and the Turkish-occupied territories of the Republic of Cyprus.
Based on the aforementioned, being representatives of the parliaments of many countries, we deem it necessary every time to express our categorical disagreement to such practices and to call on international organizations and governments to not allow them to take place.
We particularly want to draw everyone’s attention to the situation that has developed in the aftermath of the bloody war in Nagorno Karabakh. The Tripartite Declaration, signed on November 9, 2020, resulted in extensive territories with cultural treasures of great religious, historical and artistic value for the ecumenical culture, the Armenian people and the Apostolic Christian Church, now under the administration of Azerbaijan.
We believe that these monuments need immediate registration and protection from the international community and the competent international bodies.
We therefore, call on the UN and UNESCO to contribute to the protection of the cultural wealth and monuments of the Armenian people, now under the administration of Azerbaijan and not to allow changes in their use or destruction. Any dereliction of duty or lack of interest can cause irreparable damage to monuments belonging to all mankind”.
"The trilateral working group on Nagorno-Karabakh continues its work and has already held several meetings," Armenia's Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan stated on Wednesday during the Q/A session at parliament. Grigoryan informed that two subgroups have already been established, one of them implementing expert work related to technical issues of the infrastructure, and the other focusing on the aspects of control such as safety, border, customs, legal issues, etc.
The Deputy Prime Minister added certain progress has been registered, yet expert works are currently being held which are important to offer right solutions to the pending issues.
Grigoryan said that a report was envisaged to submit by March 1, yet it was delayed as need for additional expert work arose. In his words, the main discussions are led in all directions rconcerning the restoration of railways, roadways and Soviet infrastructure.
To remind, the working group was set up under provision 9 of the November 9, 2020 joint statement of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan with an aim of unblocking all economic and transport links in the region. The working group will be co-chaired by the three countries’ deputy prime ministers.
Children were taken to the meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Aragatsotn Province of Armenia. This was reported by the Telegram channel of Mediaport, which also posted a respective photo.
Pashinyan on Saturday is visiting Aragatsotn and having meetings with the residents of various communities of the province.
According to PM’s spokesperson Mane Gevorgyan, Pashinyan will meet also with the relatives of the soldiers who were killed in the recent Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war.
Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan's statement does not mean that he will hold elections – everything must be done to prevent such elections from being held, Vazgen Manukyan, the candidate for Prime Minister of Armenia from the opposition, told Armenian News - NEWS.am.
According to him, until Nikol Pashinyan leaves and someone who is not from his team comes, one cannot go to the polls.
He explained that a certain time must pass since elections cannot be held under these conditions.
Vazgen Manukyan repeated that the elections under Nikol Pashinyan are a disaster for Armenia.