Green Left By Peter Boyle February 10, 2022 The Federation of Democratic Kurdish Society-Australia launched an online petition calling on the Australian government to de-list the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as a “terrorist organisation”. Solidarity groups such as Australians for Kurdistan, Rojava Solidarity Sydney, North and East Syria Solidarity as well as progressive political parties, including the Greens and the Socialist Alliance, are showing support for the campaign. The PKK has been fighting for the freedom of the Kurdish people, who are an oppressed minority nationality in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. While the PKK has carried out an armed struggle since 1984, it has also implemented at least four unilateral ceasefires, the first in 1993 and the latest in 2013 when it began withdrawing its armed units to camps in northern Iraq. The PKK has dropped its demand for an independent Kurdish state and instead calls for autonomy within a democratised Turkey. The preamble to the petition states: “The PKK seeks to enter into direct negotiations with the Turkish government. Its acknowledged leader, Abdullah Öcalan, jailed in Turkey since 1999, will play a key role in any such negotiations and the PKK wants his harsh conditions of imprisonment significantly eased to facilitate this.” The federal government first added the PKK to the list of prohibited organisations in 2006 after Turkey’s dictator President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Australia. It was re-listed in August 2021. Listing as a “terrorist organisation” means it is illegal for Australian citizens to belong to the PKK, raise funds or actively support it. This imposes a serious restriction on the freedom of political expression of Kurdish Australians and their supporters. The Australian Federal Police and ASIO have previously raided the homes and community centres of the Kurdish community in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Kurdish-Australian journalist Renas Lelikan was arrested and charged with being a member of the PKK in 2016 after being in the Middle East reporting on the Kurdish freedom struggle. While he was eventually convicted of being a member of the PKK, in sentencing Lelikan in 2019, NSW Supreme Court Justice Lucy McCallum recognised that “the ideology of the PKK as expressed in the writings of Abdullah Öcalan has more in common with the values of our democracy than it does with extremist violent jihad. It is based on the notion of 'democratic confederalism', which Öcalan describes as being 'open towards other political groups and factions … flexible, multi-cultural, anti-monopolistic, and consensus-oriented' and an ideology of which 'ecology and feminism are central pillars'." While the government’s listing of the PKK left the court no choice but to convict Lelikan, McCallum said “there was no available evidence that the PKK seeks to harm Australians or Australia’s democratic institutions. Nor is there evidence to suggest that Australia faces any threat from the PKK.” “Whilst I accept that support for terrorism is inherently serious, the ideal of self-determination espoused by the PKK is not the most dangerous ideal of our times. That assessment confirms my overall characterisation of the present offence as being towards the lowest order of seriousness.” The supreme court of Belgium ruled in 2020 that the PKK was not a terrorist organisation. After the Australian government first listed the PKK as a terrorist organisation, two Labor MPs on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security issued a minority report dissenting from the proposed re-listing. That was the first and only time the Committee has been divided over whether an organisation should be listed. Greens MPs and independent MP Andrew Wilkie have supported the calls for de-listing. NSW Greens MP Jamie Parker told Green Left: “The PKK poses no risk to the people of Australia. The listing denies the important role they can play in a peace process and their key role in the defeat of ISIS. “The Australian Greens opposed the original listing of the PKK under the John Howard government in 2005. “The PKK played a key role in the defeat of ISIS forces on the ground in Syria with the support of the United States. “Delisting the PKK would give extra impetus to a peace process between the Kurds and Turkey. The leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, can play an important role in a peace process and should be released from his inhumane imprisonment.” Melbourne-based activist and Co-Chair of North and East Syria Solidarity Fionn Skiotis told Green Left that the new petition was part of an international campaign. The Belgian supreme court decision was “one of the first cracks in the crumbling of this ridiculous labeling of the PKK as a terrorist organisation, which it is not”, he said. The labelling of the PKK as a terrorist organisation helps the Turkish state continue its oppression of the Kurdish people. “In Turkey, people can be sent to jail for something as simple as saying a Kurdish expression or singing a Kurdish song because this can be presented as some form of support for ‘terrorism’. “Many Kurdish politicians who have been democratically elected have been removed from office and jailed because they are claimed to be supporting PKK ‘terrorism’. “It is used in an international context by Turkey to justify its now very open warfare against the Kurdish people right across Kurdistan. “The recent attacks in North and East Syria and in Shengal in Iraq and in Kurdish areas in Turkey are justified by Turkey as acts in pursuit of ‘terrorists’. “As long as the listing of the PKK remains in countries like Australia and its allies in the West, Turkey will be able to use that excuse to continue its war on the Kurds.”
Author: Maral Takmazian
Turkey and Armenia agree to second round of talks as flights resume
Eurasia Times
Feb 6 2022
Turkey and Armenia this week resumed commercial flights after two years as they move towards reestablishing bilateral relations.
Special envoys from the two countries will meet again on February 24 in Vienna, the Turkish foreign ministry said.
Armenia and Turkey share a closed border, have no diplomatic relations and face an impasse over the recognition of the slaughter of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, in what is widely recognised as a genocide.
In December both countries appointed special envoys to normalise ties with Russia’s backing.
Armenia has been pushed into talks by the disastrous 44-day war that started in September 2020 when Azerbaijan using Turkish combat drones were used to crush Armenian forces in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
A Russian-brokered ceasefire ended the one-sided war and forced the Armenian authorities to end support for the Nagorno-Karabakh administration’s claims of independence from Azerbaijan, which was Turkey’s main objection to talking to Armenia.
Half of Armenia’s citizens live in poverty, according to the World Bank, and improving trade on the western border could stimulate economic growth.
Talks were held in Moscow last month, although Turkey’s refusal to recognise the 1915-16 deaths of more than a million Armenians as genocide was not discussed.
Overlooking the capital, Yerevan, is a memorial to the victims of 1915-16.
The talks in January were the first attempt to restore links since a 2009 peace agreement that was never ratified.
The January talks did agree to restart direct flights to Istanbul.
Almost all of the estimated 60,000 ethnically Armenian in Turkey live in Istanbul.
Flights ended when the budget Turkish carrier Atlasglobal went bust in February 2020, forcing passengers to pass through Georgia.
The land border closed in 1993 after the first war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing trade through Georgia or Iran.
Many Armenians are angry that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is holding talks without Turkey recognising the 1915-16 genocide.
A Yerevan resident, who gave only the name Haïg, said: “Opening the borders is mostly for encouraging economic development. But building a more fraternal relationship, no, that’s out of the question. An Armenian proverb says, ‘If your enemy becomes your friend, you should still keep a stick in your hand.'”
Turkish press: Art gallery in Armenian border city offers unique lens into past, future of region
Rabia Iclal Turan |09.02.2022
GYUMRI, Armenia
With its narrow streets and historic buildings from the Soviet era, Gyumri, Armenia’s second-largest city, located near the Turkish border, has been an artistic hub for many years.
Among the many art galleries and museums in the landlocked nation’s cultural capital, Artush Mkrtchyan’s gallery stands out with its unique graphics, posters, paintings, and Soviet household glasses.
The story of Mkrtchyan, 63, owner of the Style Art Gallery, though, is as interesting as the artworks exhibited in the two-story building.
Telling how he decided to launch an art gallery, Mkrtchyan says he used to own a textile cooperative business, operating both in Armenia and abroad, decades ago, before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
“We made a lot of money and we had to spend it,” he said, explaining that the currency was quickly depreciating due to the Soviet collapse.
Mkrtchyan studied at the Fine Arts Faculty in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, and was interested in painting, which is why he decided to invest the money in the arts, he said.
“We had the opportunity to put together this collection,” he continued.
“And with the artworks in our collection, we launched the first Armenian exhibition in the Russian Art Museum on March 8, 1991,” he recalled.
Boasting around 11,000 graphics, posters, glassworks, and paintings, Mkrtchyan decided to launch a gallery to preserve them.
The gallery currently attracts many visitors from both Armenia and abroad, including from neighboring Turkiye, especially during the summer.
Graphic works, mostly coming from Armenian artists as well as Russian and European ones, are on display.
“This is the most unique graphic museum from Moscow to the Near East,” Mkrtchyan stressed.
“Our collection has around 1,200 paintings. Artworks from 14 countries, including Armenia, are currently on display,” he added.
Turkiye-Armenia normalization push
When asked where he is from, Mkrtchyan says he was born and raised in Gyumri, but his grandfathers, who were millers, came from Mus, in eastern Turkiye.
“I have been to Mus and Sason (now in the Batman province) many times,” he said, remembering the times past when the Turkish-Armenian border was open.
Adding that he used to live very close to the train station, he said he remembers trains bringing people coming and going from Istanbul two or three times a week.
“Some Turks were coming here on Fridays and going back to work on Mondays,” he recalled.
Although he himself never had the opportunity to travel to Turkiye by train, he said he took flights from the capital Yerevan to Istanbul around 20-30 times before they were halted for two years, and now just recently restarted this month.
“But my relatives would travel to Turkey by getting a visa from Moscow for three weeks,” he said. “It was pretty easy.”
“Of course, there were some bureaucratic problems as well. But the border, in general, was free,” he said.
Amid the recently started talks between Turkiye and Armenia towards normalization, with the prospect of reopening the borders on the table, he said: “The closed border has never benefited any country.”
“There may be conflicts, tensions. May God not let us go through the same things again,” he said.
“Diplomatic relations, open borders, these are necessary for all countries.”
He said that many times he saw how Armenians brought goods from Istanbul by train and sold them in Gyumri.
“During the Soviet era, all Armenian products, except food, were very popular in Turkey. Boxes of socks, et cetera, were taken to Turkey from here,” he added.
“When Armenians and Turks share bread, it can give a different energy to their relationship. Things like cursing or hitting each other won't happen anymore,” he said.
“When the borders are opened, there is a woman who is 40-50 years old, the owner of a restaurant in Kars. Its goose meat is very famous in Turkey and Europe. I will take the train and go there to eat that goose,” he added.
4032 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia, 6 die – 02/05/2022
4032 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia, 6 die
11:18, 5 February, 2022
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 5, ARMENPRESS. 4032 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total number of confirmed cases to 387,490, the National Center of Disease Control and Prevention of Armenia said.
8857 tests were administered (total 2,679,525).
2132 people recovered (total 334,394).
6 patients have died, bringing the total death toll to 8081.
As of January 24, the number of active cases stood at 29,501.
Austrian FM supports OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship format
13:25, 2 February, 2022
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 2, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Federal Minister for European and International Affairs of the Republic of Austria Alexander Schallenberg discussed the bilateral relations and the regional, international developments during their private meeting in Yerevan.
The Armenian FM shared his information about the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the Armenian-Turkish dialogue with his Austrian counterpart.
“I must praise the fact that Mr Schallenberg , definitely, welcomes and supports the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship format and the efforts of the Co-Chairs aimed at the settlement of the still unresolved Nagorno Karabakh conflict, as well as expresses his support to the solution of all existing humanitarian problems, such as the issue of the Armenian prisoners of war and the preservation of and access to the cultural monuments”, the Armenian FM told reporters today.
The Austrian FM arrived in Armenia on a working visit on February 2. He is scheduled to meet also with Armenia’s Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament.
Armenia records 3,956 new Covid cases in 24 hours
panorama.am
Armenia – Feb 2 2022
Armenia has confirmed 3,956 new cases of coronavirus in 24 hours, bringing the national tally to 374,878 as of 11 a.m. Wednesday, February 2, the Ministry of Health reports.
Overall, 9,658 Covid-19 tests were conducted on February 1.
5,276 more patients have recovered from the disease with the total number of recoveries now standing at 341,355.
4 new Covid-19 deaths have been reported in the country, taking the death toll to 8,060. The figure does not include the deaths of 1,540 other people carrying the virus. According to the health authorities, they were caused by other diseases.
Armenia now has 23,923 active cases. As many as 2,744,536 tests have been performed in the country since the disease outbreak.
Intelligence report: Turkey hub of anti-India operations
Tribune News Service of India New Delhi, Jan. 30, 2022 Turkey is the new Dubai as far as influence operations against Kashmir are concerned, concur security officials here who are now detecting attempts to expand its ambit to cover the Indian mainland Muslims as well as raise doubts about India’s foreign policy. Two intelligence reports late last year had flagged the emergence of Turkey as the hub of anti-India activities pushed by Pakistan’s ISI after its earlier stomping grounds of the UAE and Saudi Arabia became out of bounds as these countries intensified ties with Delhi to the extent of storing their strategic reserves in India. The expansion of Turkey’s foreign policy footprint tallies with Ankara’s attempt to influence Muslims beyond the Arab heartland. Despite a failed attempt to form a grouping with Pakistan and Malaysia, ties with ISI turned warmer and have gone beyond Kashmir to backing Islamist organisations in India. The report to NSC Secretariat speaks of three-pronged efforts by the Turkish government and related institutions — by media (employment to Kashmiri journalists); educational institutes (well-paying scholarships) and NGOs (influence Indian Muslims on foreign policy inimical to Indian interests).
Armenia ex-President Kocharyan: I am full of hope that the army will ultimately straighten its back again
News.am
Armenia – Jan 28 2022
12:35, 28.01.2022
Second President Robert Kocharyan on Friday issued a congratulatory message on the 30th anniversary of the Armenian Armed Forces. The message states as follows:
"Dear compatriots,
Congratulations on the occasion of Armenian Army Day. We mark this day in the direst conditions for the army. It is not difficult to understand the feelings of the people who have had a contribution to the fate of our army created during the first Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)] war [in the early 1990s] and developed step by step.
The [Armenian] army—the once guarantor of peace in the region, the guarantor of Artsakh's security—itself needs protection today. I am full of hope that the army will ultimately straighten its back again and become the complete guarantor of our people's security."
Only 5-6% of COVID-19 infected people in Armenia needs hospitalization, says minister
13:04,
YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS. Omicron cases are sharply growing both in Armenia, in the region and all over the world, Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan said during the Cabinet meeting today, adding that this week Armenia is in the period of a progressive growth in terms of confirmed COVID-19 cases.
“As for the hospitalization percentages among the infected people, it is within 5-6%. It means that 5-6% of the infected people needs hospitalization. This is the only good news in this period, and both the already large number of vaccinated people and the certain characteristics of this strain contribute to this”, the minister said.
The minister informed that there is already the plan of expanding the hospital capacities, the beds.
“We have not fully launched it yet and will do it as required. Currently, six hospitals deal with the treatment of COVID-19. We will expand the hospital beds as needed”, she said.
Avanesyan also informed that vaccinations against coronavirus continue actively in the country. 37% are fully vaccinated. The minister assured that vaccinated citizens show mainly no symptoms or mild symptoms if infected with COVID-19.
The minister said all types of vaccines are available in Armenia, and the Pfizer vaccine will be delivered soon.
‘With Honor’ Faction of Armenia legislature: Decision to nominate presidential candidate from opposition must be joint
News.am
Armenia – Jan 26 2022
15:03, 26.01.2022
If a decision is made to nominate a presidential candidate from the opposition, it must be done jointly by the "With Honor" and "Armenia" Blocs. Hayk Mamijanyan, the secretary of the opposition "With Honor" Faction of the National Assembly of Armenia, told this to reporters Wednesday.
He noted that the respective consultations and discussions are underway.
"Our faction cannot nominate a presidential candidate with his votes alone. I do not claim that there will be a [presidential] candidate [from the parliamentary]. I am not mentioning names," Mamijanyan added.