The visit of the Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov has been postponed because of the urgent meeting of the Foreign Ministers of EU member states, Press Service of the Armenian Foreign Ministry reports.
It was reported earlier that the Foreign Minister would visit Armenia June 27-28.
President of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman has suggested the country’s Chamber of Deputies to discuss a resolution on condemnation of the Armenian genocide, reports.
The issue was discussed during the President’s meeting with Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies Jan Hamáček, president’s spokesman George Ovčáček said on Twitter.
During a recent trip to Armenia President Zeman had promised to urge the Parliament to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will host talks in St Petersburg on June 20 between the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which flared up earlier this year, the Kremlin said.
By organising the meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, Russia is “continuing its mission as a mediator” in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
He emphasized that Russia “will take active steps to assist the sides in the settlement of the conflict.” Ushakov reminded that Moscow already played an important role in introducing a ceasefire in the conflict zone at the start of April 2016.
Putin has already held several telephone conversations with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, visits of defense ministers and foreign ministers have took place, and Chiefs of General Staffs of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been invited to Moscow, the presidential aide reminded. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has also visited Yerevan and Baku at the start of April, he added.
“We will now continue our mediatory mission, of course, in full cooperation with other co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, on the basis of principles proposed in accordance with the statements of the presidents of Russia, United States and France from 2009 to 2013. We will see what results this three-party contact will lead to. Our side will hold the most interested and active dialogue,” Ushakov concluded.
Sargsyan and Aliyev last met in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on May 16.
German lawmakers of Turkish descent have been placed under police protection after receiving death threats over parliament’s decision to recognise the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces as a “genocide,” an MP told AFP Sunday.
The lawmaker, who is among MPs given police protection and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said security officers have been assigned to accompany them since Saturday.
The measure came following a round of “security discussions” with federal police, the source said.
Police declined to comment.
The Bundestag vote last week over the World War One-era massacre has driven ties between Turkey and Germany to a low, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacting furiously to the parliamentary decision.
Bundestag President Norbert Lammert had during the vote itself revealed that MPs had received death threats.
Cem Ozdemir, the co-chairman of the Alliance90/Greens party and who was among those who initiated the resolution, had already been given police protection.
A trilateral summit on the settlement of the situation in Nagorno Karabakh will be held in Saint Petersburg, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports.
The issue was discussed during Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin’s meeting with French Ambassador Jean-Marc Ayrault and French Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Pierre Andrieu.
“Issues related to international efforts towards the settlement of the crisis in Ukraine and preparations for a trilateral summit on Nagorno Karabakh in Saint Petersburg were discussed,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry did no clarify the concrete date of the summit.
At the invitation of President Serzh Sargsyan, in the evening of June 7 the President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman arrived to the Republic of Armenia on a state visit.
Today, at the Presidential Palace there took place high-level Armenian-Czech negotiations. After a tête-à -tête meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and the Czech Republic, the meeting continued in the extended format with the participation of the official delegations of the two countries. At the conclusion of the negotiations, Presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Miloš Zeman signed a Memorandum on the Bilateral Relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Czech Republic.
The Presidents of Armenia and the Czech Republic recapped the results of the meeting in the Declaration which they made at the joint press conference for the representatives of the mass media.
Statement by President Serzh Sargsyan for press following the meeting with the President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman
Your Excellency Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today we are honored to welcome the President of friendly Czech Republic and my good counterpart Mr. Miloš Zeman for a state visit. This is the first visit of the president of the Czech Republic. Indeed, it will leave its footprint on the history of bilateral relations.
Today we had a fruitful discussion on a large range of bilateral, regional and international issues, like we had in Prague, during my state visit to the Czech Republic. We noted with satisfaction that we had matching viewpoints over those issues, creating an environment of mutual understanding and trust on the ways of deepening of our relations.
Only since 2014 over two dozens of high level visits have taken place. Following our last meeting the Embassy of the Czech Republic to the Republic of Armenia was established and the first resident ambassador was appointed. Inter-parliamentary relations, decentralized cooperation and collaboration in international fora have intensified. Within this context, undeniably, the continuous assistance of the Czech Republic to advance the Armenian-EU cooperation has a distinct place and we highly value it. As a result, the Czech Republic is one of our stable and reliable partners in Europe and our bilateral cooperation is at the highest level ever.
With President Zeman we thoroughly discussed bilateral economic cooperation which is one of our priorities. It is not in vein, that almost all high-level bilateral meetings are followed by business forums. Later today president Zeman and I will give a start to another business forum. Surely, we have positive developments in this field, yet there is a lot to achieve. In this respect, we discussed new opportunities derive both from Armenia’s membership to the EEU and reopening of the market in Iran, our traditional partner country. At the same time, attaching importance to the bilateral economic ties, we were unanimous with President Zeman that the pillar of our relations was not merely economic interest, rather it is the common values, having led our people through history up to the 21st century.
We highly value the position of the Czech Republic concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is in line with the general stance of the EU and is in full support of the efforts of the OSCE Minsk group co-chairs. I extended my special gratitude to Mr. President and the government of the Czech Republic for this attitude. We both attached importance to the implementation of the arrangements agreed upon in Vienna in May, including the agreements on the ceasefire from 1994 and 1995, establishing monitoring and incident investigation mechanisms and adding the capacities of the team of Personal Representative of the OSCE chairperson- in- office as an anchor for the long-lasting peace in the conflict zone. Unswerving implementation of these steps is the least to be done to pave way for the constructive and, which is more important, result-oriented negotiations.
Certainly, I also informed Mr. Zeman about the possibility of new meetings with the President of Azerbaijan mediated by the Minsk Group co-chairs. And I thanked him for his offer to use the capacities of Prague, Czech Republic for the meetings. In the meantime, I surely expressed my concerns over Ilham Aliyev’s recent unbalanced behavior, signs of which were apparently not visible in Vienna. Particularly with his speech at the “Fourth Conference of World Azerbaijanis”, where he was cynical about the Armenian state, made personal offenses against the President of the country, with whom by the way he is going to talk on certain issues, articulating thoughts that mock history, he shaped a clear perception about his inappropriateness.
I hope that this is a temporary problem; sort of machismo and it will disappear very soon as we have the commitment to get to serious work in the nearest future. Hopefully, this is not a conscious behavior intended to abort Vienna arrangements.
I expressed the satisfaction of the Armenian side about the unanimously adopted resolution on the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Czech Chamber of Deputies as well as unambiguous attitude of the Czech President on the matter. The historic resolution on recognizing the Armenian Genocide by the German Bundestag on these days comes to prove that the process of recognition is irreversible – falsifying history, denying facts and spouting intimidation cannot stop it.
We are thankful to the Czech Republic for favorable disposition to the Armenian community. The fact of transferring the Catholic Church of Holy Spirit in Prague to the parish of the Armenian Apostolic Church is a vivid example of that. It was a major event in the life of the Armenian community of the Czech Republic in terms of preserving national identity. I would also like to deeply thank cardinal Duka in this respect.
I believe that our interstate relations will continue to successfully develop, since it is based on the unselfish friendship between Czech and Armenian people, mutual understanding and the strive to build a common future.
Thank you.
It is my pleasure to give the floor to my friend President Milos Zeman.
Today, at the Battle of Sardarapat compound President Serzh Sargsyan accompanied by His Holiness Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II, the highest leadership of the Republic and guests participated in the festivities dedicated to the Republic Day. President Sargsyan laid a wreath at the memorial dedicated to the heroes of the Battle of Sardarapat and paid tribute to their memory. The President of Armenia, Commander-in-Chief Serzh Sargsyan greeted the participants of the military parade dedicated to the holiday and congratulated them on the occasion of the Republic Day. Later, the President of Armenia and attendees of the festivities watched the cultural program dedicated to the event.
In Sardarapat, the President of Armenia gave a congratulatory speech dedicated to the Republic Day.
Remarks by President Serzh Sargsyan on the occasion of the Republic Day
My fellow compatriots,
I congratulate you on the occasion of the Republic Day.
For us, this is first and foremost a salvation holiday. We saved our last piece of land and the last remnants of our nation residing on that piece of land. No matter how difficult to accept, but that was the truth.
The bleeding Armenian nation on the verge of desperation was able through the supernatural exertion to stand up to the enemy, to prevail, and throw the enemy back. Many consider the heroic battles of May and their victorious outcome a miracle. We prevailed, we survived, and we liberated ourselves.
Our independence and our statehood were not a gift to us. We paid for them the price nobody has ever paid. We did it alone; moreover, we did it despite the blows of the destiny.
With May 28, the foreign subjects and refugees had become citizens of a State. They became people who had solid ground beneath their feet and had a State behind them. It was a State they had to build; it was a state, which they had to serve to; it was a State, which they could make demands to; it was a State to criticize – with the anticipation of making it better. It was a State, which had to turn its almost lifeless populace, half of which were also orphans, into a political nation; it was a State, which had to bring up a new generation, re-born generation, which would be capable to register new scientific, cultural, and military achievements. It was a State, which predestined the existence of the Soviet Armenia and today’s Republic of Armenia.
My fellow compatriots,
Military hostilities that unfolded at the early April revealed more vividly some realities – good or bad, within and around us. Among all that the most important one for me was our new generation – the generation born with the independence, generation that proved to us and to all that they are the masters and guardians of our State. Those, who created the “May 28” in 1918, would only dream of a regular army, such as ours, and of a new generation, such as this one. And they are with us, now.
There will be no new Sardarapat since by and large it was a war of desperation. Those who fought there did not know what country’s citizens they were of, and if they were citizens at all. There will be no new Sardarapat since there stands a State. There is a generation born with independence, which wants to move in step with the contemporary world – and it will; a generation, which wants to move its country forward – and it will; a generation born with independence, which grasped the bequest of May 28 better than anyone else. All this stems from the fact that in their families and in their schools the bequest of May 28 was also grasped properly. We as a State, as a nation and as a society grasped the bequest of May 28 well.
My fellow compatriots,
On May 28 our nation stepped back from the verge of the abyss. We stepped back and moved towards the rebirth, towards creation, and toiling. We got back.
Glory to the Republic Day!
Long live the Armenian nation!
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is on a trip to Istanbul to attend a 50-nation UN summit on refugees.
Speaking to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), before the visit Merkel described recent political developments in Turkey, especially regarding the Kurdish community, as worrisome.
Accoridng to a report by , Angela Merkel will hold a meeting with Turkuish President Erdogan. In addition to the migration deal and voting for lifting the parliamentary immunity, it is also expected that press foredoom, the bill for the Armenian Genocide to be voted on June 2 in Bundestag and German humorist Jan Böhmermann will be discussed at the meeting.
On 17 May Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan visited one of the Defense Army’s training grounds, met with the personnel of a battalion composed of members of the Artsakh Union of Freedom Fighters, got acquainted with their daily life and course of service.
The Head of the State welcomed this initiative, signifying the freedom fighters’ participation in defending the Motherland.
Defense minister Levon Mnatsakanyan, head of the Artsakh Union of Freedom Fighters Samvel Karapetyan, chairperson of the NKR NA standing commission on defense, security and legalism issues Zhanna Galstyan and other officials accompanied the President.
The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, James Warlick of the United States of America, and Pierre Andrieu of France, remain fully committed to mediating a lasting settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
In light of the recent violence and the urgency of reducing tensions along the Line of Contact, we believe the time has come for the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to meet.
Our Foreign Ministers are prepared to facilitate this meeting next week in Vienna. Their main objectives will be to reinforce the ceasefire regime, and to seek agreement on confidence-building measures that would create favorable conditions for resuming negotiations on a comprehensive settlement on the basis of elements and principles under discussion.
There can be no success in negotiations if violence continues, and there can be no peace without a negotiation process. We reiterate that there is no military solution to the conflict.