Author: Hovik Karapetian

The Tbilisi University after Ivane Javakhishvili will host a discussion on “The Karabakh Conflict and Journalism” today.

The event will feature lecturers of the University, representatives of popular TV Companies Rustavi 2 and Imedi-1.

Anti-Armenian demonstrators in Paris were attacked by a group of Kurds, Ermenihaber.am reports.

Paris-based Turks had joined an anti-Armenian rally organized in the French capital by Azerbaijani organizations, the Turkish Habervitrini website reported.

The participants of the rally were attacked by a group of young people waving the flags of the Kurdish Workers’ Party and holding the photos of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

The Police had to interfere, the source reports.

The State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic issued the following statement today:

On April 10, in accordance with the arrangement reached earlier, the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, through the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman in Office, carried out the exchange of bodies of the deceased between the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan near the Bash Karvend settlement. The bodies of 18 servicemen of the NKR Defense Army, fallen as a result of the large scale military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan in April 2-5, were transferred to the NKR side during the exchange.

At the presence of the representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the NKR State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons registered that all bodies of the deceased transferred by the Azerbaijani side had signs of torture and mutilation.

Those acts, being a flagrant manifestation of inhumanity, run counter to the laws and customs of war and are in grave violation of the international humanitarian law, in particular, the Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (1949), Geneva Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1949) and the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I).

The Karabakh side will seek to ensure that such behavior of the Azerbaijani side is condemned in strongest terms by the international community and the specialized agencies, and those responsible are brought into account.

A massive fire swept through a temple in India’s southern Kerala state on Sunday, killing nearly 100 people and injuring more than 200 who had gathered for a fireworks display to mark the start of the local Hindu new year, Reuters reports.

Thousands of devotees had packed into the Puttingal Devi temple in the coastal district of Kollam. The fireworks display began at midnight and went on for hours.

The fire started when one of the crackers fell onto a shed where the fireworks were stored, said residents near the temple site, about 70 km from the state capital Thiruvananthapuram.

On April 3, Igor Nazaruk, Ambassador of Belarus in Yerevan, was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia.

During the meeting Deputy Foreign Minister Sharavsh Kocharyan expressed to the Ambassador the deep bewilderment of the Armenian side regarding some provisions reflected in the statement of the MFA of the Republic of Belarus on the developments around Nagorno-Karabakh, released on April 2, 2016.

It has been stated to Igor Nazaruk that such statement is incompatible to the spirit of the Armenia-Belarus relations and contradicts the commitments of the sides taken within the framework of the CSTO and other international structures, undermines the negotiation process while encouraging the use of force in the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process.

Artsakh welcome the adoption of the resolution on the recognition of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic by the House of Representatives of the State of Hawaii, Spokesperson for the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ani Sargsyan said in comment to Artsakh Public TV.

“Hawaii has become the 7th U.S. State to recognize the independence of the NKR. We also express our gratitude to all those who have contributed to this cause,” she said.

“The international recognition of Artsakh is one of the highest priorities of our foreign policy, and we will continue our efforts towards new achievements in this process,” the Spokesperson said.

“We are convinced that the international recognition of Artsakh’s independence will give additional impetus to the further development and strengthening of the statehood of Artsakh in general and its democratic institutions in particular. It will also have a positive impact on the process of the peaceful settlement of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict, ensuring its irreversibility and allowing to focus on developing the necessary mechanisms and conditions of peaceful coexistence of two independent States – Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, which have resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union and Azerbaijan’s aggression,” she concluded.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry reacted angrily to the statements made by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, President Prokopis Pavlopoulos and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan during the latter’s official visit to Athens on Tuesday, saying they are “obsessive and one-sided.”

during the Armenian official’s visit, Tsipras spoke of the Armenian and Pontic-Greek genocide, which form part of the two countries’ common past.

“The statements in question are the products of a pathetic mentality proving that the relations and solidarity between Greece and Armenia is built upon a joint hostility and slander language directed against the Turkish identity,” the spokesperson of the Turkish ministry, Tanju Bilgiç said in a statement.

“Turkey and the Turkish people will never give credit to those bringing to the fore at every opportunity a dictum of history which is unlawful, disconnected with realities, one-sided and obsessive,” it added.

The ministry also said the three officials referred to “historical events during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire” which contained “grave allegations against Turkey and the Turkish identity.”

Photo: Mikhail Metzel/TASS

 

The solution to the Karabakh conflict can be found only by its participants, not international mediators, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters today, TASS reports.

He noted, however, that Russia is working consistently in international formats to contribute to the resolution.

“Being a responsible member of those formats, Russia continues the consistent work towards the settlement of the Karabakh conflict,” he said, reminding that “those are not on-time efforts, it’s a consistent line.”

Peskov added that “some final solutions and initiatives should come from the participants of the conflict.”

“Neither the international mediators, nor Russia can solve the conflict instead of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he said.

The settlement of Karabakh conflict was on the agenda of the Armenian-Russian summit in Moscow on the eve.

Photo: AFP

 

A woman flew from Istanbul to Paris with a four-year-old girl hidden inside her hand luggage, Air France has said.

The airline said the child, travelling without a ticket, was discovered on board the flight on Monday night.

An airport source told AFP news agency that the woman was a resident of France who was in the process of adopting the child, from Haiti.

The airline notified the French authorities but prosecutors decided not to press charges.

The woman was in the transit zone in Istanbul but was preventing from boarding her flight with the child, the source told AFP.

She then bought a new flight ticket and hid the child in a bag.

Once on board, she placed the child at her feet under a blanket, but the girl needed to go to the toilet and was noticed by other passengers, the source said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has discusses the issues of Syrian settlement in a phone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday, TASS reports.

According to Peskov, Assad assessed the Russian-US joint statement as an important step towards settlement in Syria and confirmed his readiness to cooperate.