Author: Suren Karakhanian

Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan talked by phone with his Armenian and Azeri counterparts on Sunday, calling on the two sides to show restraint and settle disputes on  Nagorno-Karabakh via peaceful negotiations, Tasnim news agency reports.

An explosion occurred on March 31 in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır near the city’s bus terminal during the passage of a police vehicle, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

Ten people were wounded when an explosion hit a passing police vehicle in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir on Thursday, a security source said, according to Reuters.

Broadcaster Haberturk TV said the blast hit near a bus station in the city, the largest in the mainly Kurdish southeast. Ambulances rushed to the scene, Haberturk said.

The southeast has been scorched by waves of violence since a ceasefire between the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the government collapsed last July.

Photo: Valery Matytsin/TASS

 

Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko has been sentenced to 22 years in jail after being convicted of charges relating to the deaths of two Russian journalists, the BBC reports.

She was accused of directing the artillery fire in eastern Ukraine in which the two journalists died in June 2014.

Prosecutors said she was driven by “political hatred”.

She denied all the charges and her case has become internationally notorious.

UEFA has fined Russian midfielder Dmitry Tarasov 5,000 euros ($5,600) for wearing a shirt bearing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s face at a Europa League game, the Associated Press reports.

The Lokomotiv Moscow player took off his team shirt to reveal the Putin T-shirt while on the field following a 2-0 loss to Turkish club Fenerbahce last month.

Beneath the image of Putin wearing a Russian navy cap were the words in Russian: “The most polite president.”

UEFA said the shirt broke rules on displaying political slogans or advertising on undergarments.

The match took place with tensions running high between the Russian and Turkish governments after Turkish forces shot down a Russian warplane in November, saying it violated Turkish airspace on the border with Syria.

 

 

 

Republican MP Lernik Aleksanyan is confident the cooperation between the Republican Party of Armenia and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation will be an additional resource.

Speaking to reporters today, the MP said “the essence of this cooperation is much deeper and is conditioned by both domestic and foreign challenges.” He assured assured the authorities are going to implement radical changes deriving from the new Constitution, and this requires additional resources.

Aleksanyan said the two political forces have identical views on the system of state governance.

Tevan Poghosyan of the Heritage faction said any cooperation between political forces is welcome. He does not believe, however, that the agreement pursues the aim of building a strong country. He considers that there would be more trust had completely new, young people been brought into politics. According to him, it’s a simple political process leading up to the parliamentary elections of 2017.

Photos: REUTERS/MAX ROSSI    

Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill embraced and kissed on Friday in a historic meeting nearly 1,000 years after the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity split apart, Reuters reports.

“Finally,” Francis said as he and Kirill entered through doors on opposite sides of a room at Havana airport to begin private talks. “We are brothers.”

The two religious leaders, guests of a Communist government, are addressing ways of healing the rift between their Churches as well as their concerns over the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

They were expected to speak about territorial disputes between the two Churches after the fall of the Soviet Union, and issue a joint declaration following the meeting.

Francis, dressed in white with a skullcap, and Kirill, wearing a tall, domed hat that dangled a white stole over black robes, joined arms and kissed on both cheeks.

“It is very clear that this is the will of God,” Francis said.

“Yes, things are much easier now,” Kirill said. Both men spoke through interpreters and were accompanied by their top aides in the quest for Christian unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch and Russian Metropolitan Hilarion.

Their meeting, announced just a week ago, also carried political overtones, coming at a time of Russian disagreements with the West over Syria and Ukraine.

Cuban President Raul Castro and Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the Catholic Church’s highest representative in Cuba, greeted the pope as he got off the plane.

 

The post-Soviet security organization, CSTO, will react to any actions causing escalation of tension at the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as in Nagorno-Karabakh, the organization's head Nikolai Borduzha said on Friday,  reports.

“The Organization has been reacting to any actions of the kind [use of military force] that affect security in the region,” he said.

At the same time, he continued, the organization is not involved in settlement of that conflict.

“We only monitor the situation, as it involves our ally – Armenia,” the official said. “CSTO’s position is quite strait – all participating countries want to have the conflict settled by only political means.”

“All countries are against escalation of the tension at the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, against use of heavy weapons,” he added.

Residents of the Syrian town Kessab told about vandalism of Turks in local churches, reports.

“Kessab’s centers of Armenian culture – our churches- especially suffered from actions of Islamists and Turks. When I came here after the town had been liberated, I saw bare walls remained from the once flourishing church,” the priest of the local Armenian protestant church Zhirajr Gazaryan was quoted as saying on Wednesday by the Rossijskaya Gazeta daily.

Akop, head of a Kessab Armenian family, told that militants from Tunisia lived in his house during the occupation.

“Turkey played a great role in our troubles. When Jabhad an-Nusra invaded Kessab, entire divisions of the Turkish special operations’ forces rushed into the town together with Salafi. Local guards saved residents of the town from a new genocide of Armenians. They started a battle against bandits, which gave local people time for leaving the town. However, when Turks seized the town, they brought here residents of their neighboring villages who loaded all valuable things we had in trucks, trailers, tractors, carts and just drove it to Turkey,” he said.

About 200 residents of the Syrian town of Salma were driven to Saudi Arabia and no one has heard anything about them ever since.

“Salafis rushed into the houses and shot men. They just ordered women and children to turn away and then there were fire shots. Only old men and those who understood what was going on managed to survive and ran from the village to the valley. There were few of them. They killed almost all of us,” 78-year-old Harun Dijib said.

Fifty-seven casualties were reported in the Armand Forces of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh last year, Spokesman for the Armenian Minister of Defense Artsrun Hovhannisyan said in a Facebook post.

He added that 38 soldiers were killed at the line of contact by Azerbaijani snipers or as a result of infringement attempts and other actions of the rival. Two were killed in traffic accidents, another two because of diseases.

One case of murder was registered. Six servicemen committed or were forced to commit suicide. Four died because of accidents.

In three cases the servicemen violated the rules of military duty and one death resulted from mine blast.

Photo: Reuters/Express News

 

At least seven people have been killed in a bomb blast close to a police checkpoint in north-western Pakistan, police and local officials say, the BBC reports.

About 20 people were also wounded in the blast, which took place in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) on the outskirts of Peshawar.

There has been fierce fighting in the region between security forces and the Pakistani Taliban.

No-one has yet said they carried out the attack.

TV footage of the latest attack showed vehicles parked near the blast site on fire after the explosion.

The bomb went off near Peshawar’s Karkhano Market, The Express Tribune reported.

It quoted eyewitnesses as saying the bomb was planted on a motorbike – but there are conflicting reports as to whether it was a suicide blast or a remotely controlled explosion.