“My name has been touched upon in Armenian and International press regarding the Panama offshore papers. I regret that my name is listed along with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s family, who embezzled billions of dollars. It is unacceptable for my name to cause any parallel between my country and the authoritarian Azerbaijan. For this very reason I have submitted a resignation letter. I will publicly speak on the offshore papers.”
“Ancestors of my mother are from Nagorno-Karabakh, from where my great-grandparents were forced to leave for Central Asia. My grandfather was 5 then, their family was evicted. He did silkworm breeding in Kyrgyzstan. One of my uncles tried to make our family-tree to understand who’s on its roots. It turned out, that mother’s side of my great-grandmother is the relative of my favorite composer—Aram Khachatryan. A crucial meeting in my teenage years was acquaintance with Genady Astsaturyan, Armenian composer and arranger living in Crimea. He taught me to jazz, listening to hard music, and did arrangement for me. I was a member of the Astsaturyans, and was visiting Armenian parties..”
“I saw deep patriotism, I saw endurance and combat readiness among the people, but if our actions don’t speak louder than words, sensitive, patriotic outbursts will turn into a bubble and vanish. The enemy is always awake, we should realize whether we’re sleepless too. The Azerbaijani is the same Turk, able to barbaric, genocide-like actions—to behead and cut the ear. This isn’t linked to war, this is barbarism, new expression of Turk’s genocide spirit. After all this we should seriously ponder: why? How did it happen? And what we should do in future? Every person has lots of words to say, nice ones, however, it should be put aside and we should think of our follow-ups,” Aram A, His Holiness Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, told “Armenpress” today. Below is introduced an excerpt from the interview.
“And it refers bodies of our killed soldiers, who were in the defensive positions, plus lots of evidence as well. Documents are available from the downed helicopter crew, which prove that they pursued big purpose, they intended to penetrate into the defense army, and proof for it is available. All this will be submitted to the international community. Of course, from legal and humanitarian standpoint as well, together will all mutilations of the bodies of killed soldiers, implemented by the Azerbaijani armed forces or maybe by mercenaries.”
“The adversary performed attacking operations in that direction, by subversive groups, which have been blockaded until the dawn. Type of the helicopter was MI-8, which, probably, was to implement either evacuation of the personnel in blockade or to provide possible support, i.e. descending certain forces there. The helicopter has been destroyed in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, passing the positions by about 500 meters. After the downing, the helicopter performed a possible flight, for about 5 km and performed emergency landing in their territory.”
But they didn’t run. Just the contrary. Armenian millionaire takes his son from the comfortable Oxford and sends him to war, but not to some special military unit, but to the frontline, under Russian “solntsepyok.” As it’s crucial for him to have a brave son, than an advanced economist.
Congresswoman Speier stressed, that otherwise Azerbaijan will continue its policy of violence increase against Armenians. “I strictly condemn violence against the people, who simply want to live the life created as a result of self-determination,” Jackie Speier said.
Notes have been taken in the notebook of one of the pilots, made on March 31, “Black box is yellow. It’s written: the pilot should fly the helicopter from Kala airport of Baku to military airbase of Kurdistan. It’s written that he performed 2 flights: 6 and 11 minutes each, totally 148 liters of kerosene have been consumed.
The Armenian community in Jerusalem today protested Israel’s sale of weapons to Azerbaijan, which are reportedly being used against Armenians in the disputed Nagorno Karabakh region, albawaba.com reports.
The alliance between the two countries has a firm basis in geopolitical realpolitik. Azerbaijan takes special care to maintain its status as a secular state, while its two large neighbors, Turkey and Iran, are best characterized as Islamist regimes with imperial ambitions. Iran especially has a hard time coming to terms with the fact that a country on its border, particularly one with a majority Shiite population, maintains a modern Western, secular lifestyle. Azerbaijan also takes care to uphold a cautious policy of neutrality toward the two regional powerbrokers, Turkey and Russia, even while Ankara and Moscow are engaged in a heated diplomatic, near military, conflict.
