Author: Manouk Vasilian

Standoff at Armenian police station entrs fourth day. No incidents were reported overnight.

 

Members of the Armenian community came together at St. Philip Church in Nice, where the Primate of the Armenian Church of France and of Europe, Bishop Vahan Hovhannisyan celebrated a Holy Mass in memory of victims of the attack in Nice, Nouvelles d’Armenie reports.

He was accompanied by Father Krikor Khachatryan the parish priest and the deacons and cantors.

The faithful then went to the Promenade des Anglais to pray. “We came to honor the victims and show our solidarity, our compassion and share the pain of Nice. To pray is an act of faith but also of resistance, because there must be hope in life,” Bishop Vahan Hovhannisyan said.

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group will hold a meeting on July 18 in Ankara to discuss the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, TASS reports.

“The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk group will meet in Ankara to discuss issues of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. As a member of the Minsk Group Turkey is ready to contribute to the negotiation process,” the minister told a news conference in Baku.

Four Dallas police officers have been killed and seven wounded by sniper fire during protests against the shooting of black men by police, authorities say, the BBC reports.

Police are in a standoff with one armed man in a garage. Three other people have been detained.

Gunfire broke out at around 20:45 local time on Thursday (01:45 GMT Friday) as demonstrators marched through the city.

The protests were sparked by the deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana.

Astana does not think that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution requires the search for a new intermediary, Kazakh Foreign Minister Erlan Idrisov said, Interfax reports.

“This is a complicated problem […], and relevant decisions have been made at the level of the UN and the OSCE. The Minsk Group co-chaired by Russia, the United States and France was formed. I believe there is no need to search for new mediators, new intermediaries in the resolution of this conflict,” Idrisov said at a press briefing in Astana on Tuesday.

Nagorno-Karabakh settlement principles were explicitly formulated at the time the OSCE Minsk Group was formed, so “the task is to ensure the strict fulfillment of these agreements,” the minister said.

France reaffirms plans to host a summit on Nagorno Karabakh.

The issue was discussed at the meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Russia and France Sergey Lavrov and Jean-Marc Ayrault.

“France reaffirms the willingness to organize a summit featuring the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to help resolve the crisis,” Jean-Marc Ayrault told a joint press conference following the meeting.

Lavrov supported the initiative of arranging a new meeting.

“We are Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group together with the United States. We have regular contacts with the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Lavrov said.

“Last year the French President hosted a meeting with the Presidents of the two countries and some time ago the Russian President invited his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts to discuss the ways of settlement of the Karabakh conflict,” Lavrov said.

The issue of Nagorno Karabakh requires silence, Spokesperdson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova told a press conference today.

“Diplomats and experts should work on the issue,” Zakharaova said, commenting on the results of the trilateral meeting between the Presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan in St. Petersburg.

“What’s important is not to diffuse the positive achievements reached at the meeting in public rhetoric, they need to be preserved in order to be realized in the course of concrete steps,” she added.

“There are topics, which require silence, because it’s diplomats and experts that must work here,” Zakharova noted.

“It’s important to ensute that the settlement of the Karabakh conflict moves to a concrete real platform,” the Spokeswoman said.

 

 

 

The German Bundestag today adopted a resolution on the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities with a overwealming majority of the votes. The voting was preceded by an .

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and junior coalition partner Social Democrats, along with the opposition Greens, prepared the resolution entitled “Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916”, which also carries the word throughout the text.

With the motion, the German Bundestag bows to the victims of forced displacement and massacre of the Armenians and other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire, which began over a century ago. It deplores the deeds of the former Young Turk government, the almost complete emanation of the Armenians and other Christian groups (especially Aramaic / Assyrian and Chaldean Christians) in the Ottoman Empire

According to the resolution, the planned expulsion and extermination of more than a million Armenians by the Young Turk regime that starting from April 24, 1915, is an example of mass killing, ethnic cleansing and, yes, genocide.”

The Bundestag also deplores the inglorious role of the German Empire, as military ally of the Ottoman Empire, and notes that despite the clear information also on the part of German diplomats and missionaries on organized expulsion and annihilation of Armenians, Germany did not try to stop this crime against humanity.

The commemoration of the German Bundestag is also an expression of special respect for the most ancient Christian Nation on earth.

The Bundestag is committed to special historical responsibility of Germany to supporting the Turks and Armenians to seek ways of reconciliation. According to the bill, “an honest appraisal of history is the most important basis for reconciliation.’

The German Bundestag calls on the Federal Government, in the spirit of the debate of the German Bundestag of 24 April 2015 100^th anniversary, to continue the broad public discussion of the expulsion and almost complete annihilation of the Armenians in 1915-1916, to encourage the Turkish side to confront the past to create the necessary foundation for a reconciliation with the Armenian people.

On May 23-24, the delegation of Armenia headed by the Deputy Foreign Minister Ashot Hovakimian participated in the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in Istanbul. The UN organized summit, aimed to set a forward-looking agenda for humanitarian action to address current humanitarian challenges, was the first of its kind.

The Deputy Foreign Minister delivered a speech at the plenary session of the summit in which he particularly said:

“The abhorrent barbarity committed recently by the armed forces of Azerbaijan, including intentional and indiscriminate targeting of the peaceful population, especially children, women, and the elderly, as well as civilian objects, including schools and kindergartens, killings, beheadings, torture and mutilation of bodies is incompatible with the elementary norms of a civilized world. It is a product of a long standing policy of racism, intolerance and incitement to hatred against Armenians, condoned and directly executed by the authorities of Azerbaijan. The grave and systematic violations of international humanitarian law committed by Azerbaijan and the glorification at the highest political level of persons directly involved in the atrocities constitute a crime against humanity and a war crime.”

Touching upon the remarks of the president of Azerbaijan, made during the summit the day before, Ashot Hovakimyan emphasized that “Azerbaijani president, who bears personal responsibility in initiating the aggression and glorifying the terrorists and ISIL-style brutalities’ perpetrators, yesterday used this august body to disseminate fabricated allegations against Armenians. None of those lies have any connection with reality. Armenia certainly has no plans of creating a nuclear bomb, and Armenian forces have never used chemical weapons. Since the President of Azerbaijan enjoys quoting former Armenian officials, he could have surely referred to one of his predecessors, who claimed the responsibility of the then Azerbaijani political leadership for killing of their own people in Khojalu.”

Deputy Foreign Minister also touched upon the issue of Syrian refugees, who arrived to Armenia and the government’s efforts in providing them shelter. He also attached importance to the assistance, provided to refugees and displaced people by the international community, emphasizing that the values of dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms, must be guaranteed and must not be dependent on the status of the territory where peoples live.

The Armenian delegation participated in the parallel round-table discussions, dedicated to the issues of conflict prevention, assistance to refugees and displaced persons. Deputy Foreign Minister also took part in the event organized by the MFA of Lichtenstein and dedicated to the genocides prevention.

Armenia’s Iveta Mukuchyan has won the Wiwibloggs’ Eurovision Next Top Model 2016 contest.

Established in 2009, the competition has become the premier online modeling contest for women competing at Eurovision.

Iveta Mukuchyan received 31.45% (16,266 votes), followed by Samra of Azerbaijan with 22.71% (11,746 votes) and Poli Genova of Bulgaria with 6.95%  (3,596 votes).

Tamar Kaprelian — one-sixth of Armenia’s Genealogy at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 —won the Wiwibloggs’ search for Eurovision’s Next Top Model last year.