This article was submitted by Armenag Topalian – England The Safarov Affair Could be the Key for Unlocking the Karabakh Dead Lock The Safarov affair has sailed up as a bizarre breach of international agreements, where the rule of law can evidently collapse once it crosses borders. Hungary insists that the extradition was carried out […]
European Friends of Armenia (www.EuFoA.org) strongly welcomes the unprecedented condemnations of Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian xenophobia by all European institutions and the international community (see list below). We are appalled that the open provocation and physical threat by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev against Armenia and Armenians around the world has put the Karabakh conflict to the next […]
Amnesty International issued the following statement on Sept. 6. Amnesty International is concerned that the actions of the Azerbaijani government following the extradition of Armed Forces Lieutenant Ramil Safarov will be perceived as an endorsement of ethnically-motivated violence. The organization is concerned that these actions will ignite existing tensions between Azerbaijanis and Armenians and encourage […]
ISTANBUL, Turkey (A.W.)—With two rounds to go, Armenia shares the lead with China, Russia, and the U.S. at the Chess Olympiad currently underway in Istanbul. Armenia defeated Germany 2.5-1.5 in the ninth round to climb to the top of the standings with 15 points. The U.S. in turn defeated number one seeds Russia 2.5-1.5, while […]
According to Turkish press reports, some 500 people gathered in Istanbul’s Taksim Square yesterday to protest the release of a Turkish soldier who is on trial in the suspicious killing of Sevag Balikci, a Turkish-Armenian soldier, on April 24, 2011. The protestors say that the killing of Balikci was premeditated as it came on the […]
WASHINGTON—On Sept. 5, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) condemned President Ilham Aliyev’s release of Ramil Safarov, the Azerbaijani army lieutenant who was convicted of brutally axing to death Armenian soldier Gurgen Margaryan in his sleep, during a 2004 NATO English-language training course. “I am shocked and appalled that Azerbaijan not only welcomed […]
Special Issue: Celebrating 500 Years of Armenian Printing The Armenian Weekly, Sept. 1, 2012 (Download article in PDF) No one is ever going to confuse the Madenataran with the local neighborhood bookstore. It sits on a hill in downtown Yerevan, a massive, 122-thousand-square-foot block of marble and basalt, its entrance shielded by statues of Armenian […]
Armenia’s economy has become slightly more competitive over the past year thanks to greater government transparency and macroeconomic stability, according to an annual global survey released on Wednesday. Armenia ranks 82nd in the latest Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) of 144 economies of the world compiled by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF), up from 92nd […]
The extradition of Ramil Safarov, who brutally killed a sleeping Gurgen Magaryan, and, in particular, his pardon by President Aliyev, has created an unprecedented situation, rife with unknown expectations, in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and the Artsakh conflict settlement process. We can’t say for certain who will emerge victorious from Hungarian-Azerbaijani transaction. Both Hungary and Azerbaijan had […]
(CNN) — An ax murder. Then, jail time. Sounds like a morbid crime story. Yet this tale has taken a sudden and unexpected twist: The killer got a pardon and a hero’s welcome. That has stirred fears of a war. The parole has exacerbated long-standing tensions over disputed land between Armenia and Azerbaijan, former Soviet […]