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/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “Non-Traditional Security Threats and Regional Cooperation In Southern Caucasus” international conference will be held in Istanbul, Turkey, from October 22 to 24 in the framework of the NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) program. Experts from Armenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia will be participating. Richard Giragosian, Director of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies ACNIS) will give a talk on “Issues of Transnational Crime and Regional Security in South Caucasus” on October 23. Tigran Mkrtchyan, representative of European Stability Initiative is expected to dwell on the role of NGOs in resolution of regional conflicts and reconciliation...

REACHING LAST weekend’s diplomatic breakthrough between Turkey and Armenia was not easy. It took six weeks of secret talks in Switzerland, seven last-minute phone calls from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the two countries’ foreign ministers, and a wild ride in a Zurich police car, lights flashing and siren shrieking, for a Turkish diplomat carrying a revised draft of the accord. This breakthrough could also be said to have taken 16 years, the length of time the Turkey-Armenia border has been shut, or 94 years, the time that has passed since Ottoman Turkish forces slaughtered hundreds of thousands...

In a black BMW outside a chalet-style hotel in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used high-drama cellphone diplomacy to clinch a historic Armenian-Turkish deal. "There were several times when I said to all of the parties involved that 'this is too important, this has to be seen through, you have come too far,'" the chief US diplomat recalled afterward on the plane from Zurich to London.

Turkey and Armenia signed a landmark peace accord on Saturday to restore ties and open their shared border after a century of hostility stemming from the First World War mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman forces. But in an indication of the many pitfalls that lie ahead of its implementation, the ceremony was marred by a three-hour delay due to last-minute disagreements on statements, forcing U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to engage in intense discussions to salvage a deal. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian signed the Swiss-mediated deal in Zurich at a ceremony...

ANKARA, Turkey – Armenia and Turkey agreed Monday to establish diplomat relations, overcoming a seemingly intractable rift that dates to the early 20th Century and was marked by massacres of Armenians under Ottoman rule. The neighboring countries would be setting up and developing relations for the first time, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin said. It is unclear, however, if the talks would touch on the dispute over the World War I-era killings. CONTINUED AT ARTICLE LINK

Italian newspaper says plane crash north of Tehran which left 168 people dead was caused by explosion of fuses slated to be delivered to Lebanese organization. According to report, members of Revolutionary Guards among casualties 08.02.09 / Israel News An Iranian plane crash two weeks ago – which left 168 people dead – was caused by the explosion of sophisticated fuses slated to be delivered to Hezbollah, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported Saturday, quoting sources in the Middle East. According to the report, the pilot of the Tupolev plane, which was making its way from Tehran to Armenia, sent...

Deportable Criminals Released In U.S. Last Updated: Wed, 07/29/2009 - 3:51pmDozens of illegal aliens convicted of serious felonies have been released in the U.S. because federal immigration authorities fell for a scheme in which a foreign diplomat blocked their deportations for cash.The Armenian Consul in Los Angeles sold letters for up to $35,000 a piece to dozens of deportable criminals from his country that wanted to remain in the U.S. after serving their jail sentence. The letters were sent to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and said that the Armenian government could not verify that the criminal aliens...

Iran TV: 150 people on board crashed plane 36 mins ago TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iranian state television said 150 people were on board a passenger plane that crashed in northwestern Iran on Wednesday.

State TV says 168 people were killed when a passenger plane crashed Wednesday in northwest Iran. Iranian Civil Aviation Organization spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh had told state television that 153 passengers and 15 crewmembers were on the Russian-made Caspian Airlines jet that had been headed from Tehran to the Armenian capital yerevan. Footage from the scene on state-run Press TV shows a deep trench smashed into an agricultural field by the impact, littered with smoking wreckage. It showed a large chunk of a wing, but much of the wreckage appeared to be in small pieces. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE....

The staff of Congressman Steve Cohen called police to his home today after an argument with an Armenian-American activist in town from California ended with Cohen physically pushing him out the side door. Peter Musurlian, a documentary producer for Globalist Films in Glendale, Calif., followed a reporter from The Commercial Appeal into Cohen’s Overton Park home, where the Congressman had invited local media to respond to a commercial from Nikki Tinker, his 9th Congressional District opponent in Thursday’s Democratic Primary, that Cohen called “more mudslinging.” When members of Cohen’s staff realized who the cameraman was – Cohen said Musurlian followed...

YEREVAN, May 5 (RIA Novosti) - Armenia will not take part in upcoming NATO-led military exercises in Georgia, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. "The Defense Ministry of the Republic of Armenia announces that due to the current situation, Armenian troops will not take part in NATO's Cooperative Longbow /Cooperative Lancer 2009 in Georgia," the ministry said in a statement. The Armenian Aravot newspaper earlier said the decision was made after a meeting last Wednesday in Brussels between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at which the NATO chief supported the territorial integrity of...

The air force chief of Azerbaijan, an oil producing state in the fragile southern Caucasus region, was shot dead outside his home on Wednesday, officials said. General-Lieutenant Rail Rzayev was the most senior official to have been killed in ex-Soviet Azerbaijan, a country where Russia and the United States vie for influence, since the 1990s. It was not immediately clear whether the motives for the killing were political. "At approximately 8 a.m. (0400 GMT) at the entrance to his home the head of the air force and missile defense system was shot in the head and later died of his...

Barack Obama's words on the day marking the killing of Armenians by Turks in World War I were "unacceptable", Turkey's foreign ministry has said. Though Mr Obama did not use "genocide", as he did during his election campaign, Ankara said he failed to honour those Turks killed by Armenians at the time. "Everyone's pain must be shared," President Abdullah Gul of Turkey said. President Obama described the deaths of the Armenians as "one of the great atrocities of the 20th Century". He appealed for Turks and Armenians to "address the facts of the past as a part of their efforts...

Barack Obama broke a campaign pledge when he issued a statement yesterday that did not use the word -"genocide" in commemorating the massacre of up to 1.5m Armenians more than 90 years ago. The US president's move, which will be seen as a sign of realpolitik, highlights the administration's emphasis on good relations with -Turkey and its encouragement of a diplomatic initiative in the Caucusus. For many years Mr Obama has favoured describing the Ottoman Empire-era killings as genocide and during the campaign he promised to do so if elected president. But in the statement issued by the White House...

During the campaign, Candidate Obama promised anything to anybody just to get votes, and in many of those cases those promises have already been broken. Today broken promise was made to the Armenian Community. During the campaign he made a firm vow that he would be the first president to label the 1915 massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks "genocide," a move that would infuriate our allies in Turkey, but something of great importance to the Armenian Community. He was so firm on the promise that he had adviser Samantha Power make a video promising that as president, Obama would...

Turkey, Present and Past by Yücel GüçlüMiddle East QuarterlySpring 2009, pp. 35-42 The debate over what happened to Armenians in World War I-era Ottoman Anatolia continues to polarize historians and politicians. Armenian historians argue that Ottoman forces killed more than one million Armenians in a deliberate act of genocide.[1] Other historians-most famously Bernard Lewis and Guenter Lewy-acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died but question whether this was a deliberate act of genocide or rather an outgrowth of fighting and famine.[2] In recent decades, the debate has shifted from academic to legislative grounds. In 2001, the French parliament voted...

YEREVAN, April 25 (RIA Novosti) - A prominent Armenian organization in the United States accused U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday of failing to follow up on his election promise to recognize the genocide of Armenians. Obama made a statement on Friday dedicated to the commemoration of the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians at the end of the Ottoman period in 1915. However, the president called the deaths "one of the great atrocities of the 20th century" but stopped short of using the term "genocide" in his speech. "President Obama had the opportunity to chart a new course...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama was unequivocal during the campaign: As president, he would recognize the nearly century-old massacre of Armenians in Turkey as genocide. In breaking that promise Friday, the president did the same diplomatic tiptoeing he criticized the Bush administration for doing.

Russia is concerned over Armenia’s participation in NATO military trainings in Georgia, especially, considering the anti-Russian nature of trainings planned, RF MP Semen Baghdasarov said at TV space bridge entitled “Armenia-Turkey: Progress in bilateral relations or geopolitical games of world powers?”. “As CSTO member, and military and strategic partner of Russia, Armenia has to refuse from participating in these trainings, like a number of other post soviet countries did,” RF MP noted. According to him, Armenia has to remember that the West has never supported Armenian people’s interests. “A search for new allies is in process in Armenia, and Russia...

Turkish leader criticizes Obama on Armenia ... Obama steered clear of the term "genocide" when he addressed Turkish lawmakers Monday about the bloodshed. Turkey rejects the widely held view that there was a systematic campaign to wipe out the Armenian population.

President Obama said his views on the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians have not changed, but avoided using the word "genocide" while stressing the potential of Turkish-Armenian negotiations. Obama, at a joint press conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul in Ankara on Monday, was asked by a Chicago Tribune reporter about his campaign vow to recognize the 1915 killings by the Ottoman Empire as genocide, and was pressed on whether he had asked his Turkish counterpart to do the same and use the word. "Well, my views are on the record and I have not changed views," Obama...

Barack Obama found his diplomatic skills tested to the limit today when he was forced to address the Turkish slaughter of Armenians during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire without using the word "genocide". Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic campaign of extermination during the First World War, and during his campaign for the presidency Mr Obama declared that "America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide". Today, during a joint press conference in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul, President Obama said that his views had not...

The Turkish military warned yesterday that relations between Jerusalem and Ankara are in a state that "could compromise the national interests of both Israel and Turkey." The rare statement on foreign policy follows the diplomatic row due to Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza. Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi - the recently appointed head of Israel's ground forces - has questioned Turkish policies toward Kurds and Cyprus. Turkey yesterday called on Israel's ambassador to Ankara, Gabi Levy, to explain Mizrahi's remarks. Mizrahi, who previously served as a military attache to the United States, also accused Turkey of oppressing its Kurdish minority and...

An official with a leading American Jewish organization told the The Jerusalem Post on Monday that a deterioration in Israel-Turkey relations might prompt his group and others to reconsider Armenian efforts to win recognition of the century-old Turkish massacres as genocide. A bill that would ensure such recognition by the US, which was backed by Rep. Adam Schiff - a Jewish Democrat who represents a heavily Armenian area of Los Angeles - failed to make it to a Congressional vote in 2007. However, it sparked a row in the American Jewish community between those who sided with Turkey in an...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Ankara on March 7, the last day of her diplomatic tour of the Middle East. Ankara has prepared a number of issues to discuss during the visit—most importantly, Afghanistan, the American withdrawal from Iraq and the role that Turkey will play in the pullout, Iraqi security and terrorism, the Armenian issue, Iran's nuclear program, and Turkey's possible contribution to the Middle East peace process.

WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) - Several U.S. lawmakers have written to President Barack Obama urging him to follow up on campaign statements and label the 1915 massacre of Armenians as genocide. The pressure on Obama comes ahead of an expected presidential trip to Turkey, which has warned that such declarations by the United States would damage relations. Turkey denies that up to 1.5 million Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War One. Turkey accepts many Armenians were killed, but denies they were victims of a systematic genocide. Ronald Reagan was the only U.S. president to...

Despite a serious strain in relations with Turkey as a result of harsh Turkish criticism of Operation Cast Lead, Israel has not changed its policy on the question of whether the killing in the early 20th century of some 1.5 million Armenians should be characterized as genocide. This issue is once again on the agenda as US lawmakers introduced last week, as they do every spring, a resolution that would call the killings a "genocide." "Our position on this has not changed," one senior Israeli diplomatic official told The Jerusalem Post. Israel's position on this matter was last formally articulated...

Shock in Armenia, occurred due to reversal of currency policy by Armenian Central Bank, which provoked sharp growth of dollar exchange rate, lead to jump in prices on petroleum and essential commodities. The population throw themselves to buy up provisions. As reports a REGNUM correspondent, there is no sugar in many shops, flour is nearly exhausted. According to the sellers, the price of sugar increased more than by 50%. The price of vegetable oil also increased approximately by 45%. The same is with petroleum. There was also information, that Armenian customs terminals ceased their activities. However, this information had been...

A House committee voted to label the death of Armenians during WWI as genocide. Because these deaths were at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, the nation of Turkey is all but pleased with the vote. In fact, now the nation has ordered its ambassador in Washington to return to Turkey for "consultations." While they claim to not be withdrawing the ambassador permanently, it definitely has not helped relations with Turkey. Now you may wonder why in the world the U.S. House of Representatives, which can't even pass the budget bills that are needed to fund our federal operations, would...

For years, President Obama has not minced words about labeling as "genocide" the deaths of Armenians more than 90 years ago during the demise of the Ottoman Empire. Nor have Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Biden. All three regularly signed letters to President George W. Bush demanding that he recognize "the mass slaughter of Armenians as genocide" and saying that such an act "would constitute a proud, irrefutable and groundbreaking chapter in U.S. diplomatic history." During last year's presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly insisted that, as president, he would "recognize the Armenian genocide." "An official policy that...

Talks this week in Geneva between Russia, Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia reached a minor milestone with an agreement on "incident prevention" mechanisms intended to give international monitors access to the entire zone of conflict following last year's Russia-Georgia war. But EU sources say it remains unclear whether Moscow and the Russian-backed authorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia have a genuine desire to see the deal work. The scheme commits both sides to cooperate on preventing security incidents in and around the breakaway regions of South Ossetia -- where Moscow and Tbilisi fought a war in August -- and Abkhazia....

The story of Stonehenge and the mystery that surrounds it is familiar to most Salisbury residents, but one man has come to the city to tell people about an ancient circle of standing stones which pre-dates even Wiltshire's World Heritage site. Vardan Levoni Tadevosyan is an Armenian/Spanish historian of the occult who visited Salisbury last week to raise the profile of Carahunge, dubbed the Armenian Stonehenge. Carahunge, meaning 'speaking stones', is located 200km from the Armenian capital Yerevan, near a town called Sisian. There are over 200 stones on the seven-hectare site and many of the stones have smooth angled...

A wise American once wrote, "You can't go home again." If you're from Los Angeles, you know that truer words were never spoken. Call this city home, and eventually L.A. will repay your devotion with a swift kick, a cold slap, and a mocking wave goodbye. I learned this lesson the hard way after many years away. I decided to revisit the corner of L.A. where I was born and raised. When I was a kid, I called this place Hollywood. The glitzier meanings of the name barely registered in my young brain. The Hollywood I knew was a sooty...

Reports of free Russian arms supplies to Armenia, denied by Moscow and Yerevan, have led many in Azerbaijan to think twice about the country’s long-held policy of balance between the Kremlin and the West. President Ilham Aliyev has remained faithful to his late father’s policy of walking a tightrope between Russia and the West. He has not sought NATO membership and has stopped short of giving full support to the Nabucco pipeline, designed to carry Caspian and Central Asian gas to Europe via a route bypassing Russia. Good personal relations with Russian leaders, especially Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have usually...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 2008 – The number of daily attacks in Iraq has dropped nearly 95 percent since last year, a U.S. military official said yesterday. Iraq suffered an average of 180 attacks per day this time last year. But over the past week, the average number was 10, Army Brig. Gen. David G. Perkins, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said. “This is a dramatic improvement of safety throughout the country,” Perkins told reporters during a wide-ranging news conference in Baghdad yesterday. He added that the country’s murder rates have dropped below levels that existed before the start of American...

Three years ago this week, Azerbaijani soldiers entered a medieval Christian Armenian cemetary and smashed the intricately carved six-foot tall headstones - no two alike - into bits and threw them into a nearby river. Not only Christian graves were desecrated, but a priceless archeological treasure was lost to humankind. So what did George ("We are not at war with Islam") Bush do? Nothing - as usual. The Europeans passed a "resolution" that "condemned" cultural genocide. Bottom line: The Muslims - who are at war with Infidels, make no mistake - got away with it. Please read more at: Azerbaijan...

A group of about 200 Turkish intellectuals on Monday issued an apology on the Internet for the World War I-era massacres of Armenians in Turkey. The group of prominent academics, journalists, writers and artists avoided using the contentious term ``genocide'' in the apology, using the less explosive ``Great Catastrophe'' instead. But the apology is a sign that many in Turkey are ready to break a long-held taboo against acknowledging Turkish culpability for the deaths. Historians estimate that, in the last days of the Ottoman Empire, up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks in what is widely regarded...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Peace in the Middle East and religious freedom for all the region's inhabitants will not be achieved without respect for other religions and self-determination for the nations involved, Pope Benedict XVI said. Meeting the Lebanon-based Armenian Catholicos Aram of Cilicia Nov. 24, the pope said, "I cannot fail to assure you of my daily prayers and deep concern for the people of Lebanon and the Middle East. "How can we not be grieved by the tensions and conflicts which continue to frustrate all efforts to foster reconciliation and peace at every level of civil and political...

Vatican City, Nov 21, 2008 / 11:16 am (CNA).- Ecumenical relations between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church are continuing to progress as the Vatican announced today that a high-level leader from the Armenian Church will visit the Pope.His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia of the Armenians, whose See is located in the Lebanese town of Antelias, is scheduled to make an official visit to the Pope and the Church of Rome from November 23-27. As Catholicos of Cilicia, Aram I presides over a large sector of the Armenian Apostolic Church which includes Syria, Cyprus, Iran, Greece...

Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama. has reiterated his commitment to recognize the World War I-era killings of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire as genocide, if elected president. "The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence," he said in a statement late Friday sent to the U.S. Armenian community, according to the Armenian National Committee of America, or ANCA, the largest U.S. Armenian group. "Barack Obama strongly supports the passage of the Armenian genocide resolution pending in the House...

The presidents of Armenia and Turkey pledged Saturday to overcome decades of enmity between their two nations during the first visit to Yerevan by a Turkish head of state. Abdullah Gul held talks with Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian after which the two agreed there was now the "political will" to improve relations frozen for decades by lingering bitterness over 1915-1917 massacres. Gul's visit was hailed by French and EU President Nicolas Sarkozy as "courageous and historic" at a time when the Caucasus region is in turmoil following the conflict in Armenia's northern neighbour Georgia. The two countries -- which have...

Landlocked and poor, Armenia is looking even more vulnerable. Most of its fuel and much of its grain comes through Georgia's Black Sea ports, which are virtually paralyzed. The capital city of Yerevan is already experiencing a serious fuel shortage, where many filling stations have halted sales of gasoline and supplies of key commodities such as jet fuel and wheat are dwindling. Armenia is reportedly trying to secure additional fuel supplies through Iran, its only remaining neighbor whose border remains open. This is the moment for Turkey to step forward. By re-opening the rail line linking the eastern province of...

Looking for the next South Ossetia. Late one Saturday night last month, I found myself in a Greenland bar conversing with an extremely drunken member of the Royal Danish Navy. When he found out I was American, he lurched over and shared his belief that the United States was preparing to invade and annex Greenland, which currently belongs to Denmark, though it is peacefully moving toward independence. Washington, he explained, was worried about its key missile-defense radar site in far northern Greenland and didn't trust politicians in Denmark or Greenland to guarantee continued American access. "Of course, we know that...

President of Armenia Serge Sakisian on his meeting with the Defense Ministers and the Secretary General of CSTO stated that issues of national self-determination must be solved on the basis of people's free will, "Today, we are strongly concerned over the crisis in South Ossetia. This is a humanitarian disaster, which needs to be overcome quickly. In these circumstances, we welcome the joint initiative of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy - the six-step plan of how overcoming the present situation and to attain long-term peaceful resolution," the Armenian President said. Mr. Sarkisian added that the tragic...

ANKARA (AFP) - President Abdullah Gul sent a reconciliatory message to neighbouring Armenia on Saturday, saying Turkey is "no enemy" to any country in its region, as he mulled a possible landmark trip to Yerevan. The conflict between Georgia and Russia shows the need for "early measures to resolve frozen problems in the region and... prevent instability in the future," said Gul in televised remarks in the central city of Nevsehir.

Russia, Georgia back Turkish-sponsored Caucasian alliance 15/08/2008 TBILISI, Georgia -- Both Russia and Georgia have backed Turkey's proposal for an alliance of Caucasian countries, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday (August 14th) after a meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Erdogan, accompanied by Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, visited the Georgian capital for talks with Saakashvili on the situation in South Ossetia and Turkey's proposal for a Caucasian stability forum. Erdogan later told a joint press conference, "We asked Georgia to participate in this platform. Our proposal was also welcomed by Russia." His visit to Tbilisi came a...

If you googled “Invasion of South Ossetia” on Monday of this week one of the sites near the top of the list was the vitriolic anti Georgian propaganda web site “war.georgia.su” which detailed Georgian atrocities and planned atrocities against the peace loving people of South Ossetia. When I first saw it, the first thing that caught my eye (other than the over the top blood dripping pro anti Georian propaganda) was that the domain name itself. It did not end in “ge” as in Georgia but “su”, the domain name of sites in the former Soviet Union. This made me...

MELBOURNE: It is possible that cricket, a game venerated all over the Commonwealth, is older than currently thought. In fact, Jesus may have played the game (or a similar bat-and-ball combination) as a child, according to an ancient Armenian manuscript. Long before the English launched cricket some 300 years ago, similar games were being played as early as the 8th century in the Punjab region, Derek Birley writes in his Social History of English Cricket. But an Armenian scholar says there is good reason to believe that similar games were played in the Middle East long before that time. Dr...

YEREVAN -- Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has called for closer ties with Turkey, 15 years after the two nations severed diplomatic relations over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They are also at odds over the question of whether ethnic Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks during World War I were victims of genocide. Armenia and Turkey broke off diplomatic links in 1993, when Ankara closed the border and backed Azerbaijan during its war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a mainly ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. "The improvement of ties between Armenia and Turkey is mutually beneficial," Sarkisian told a news conference on...

Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has decided to try a little "football diplomacy" to defuse longstanding tensions with neighboring Turkey. During a visit to Moscow in June, Sarkisian made waves by publicly announcing that he would like his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, to come to Yerevan to watch a World Cup qualifying match between the two countries in September. The Armenian leader repeated the invitation in a commentary titled "We Are Ready To Talk To Turkey," published in the U.S. daily "The Wall Street Journal" on July 9. "There is no real alternative to the establishment of normal diplomatic relations between...