Armenian-American Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigian heads the U.S. Air Forces Central Command.

As the air component commander for U.S. Central Command, the general is responsible for developing contingency plans and conducting air operations in a 20-nation area of responsibility, covering Central and Southwest Asia. Continue reading

The only solution for the election crisis at the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul is the organization of fair elections, ethnic Armenian MP of Turkey Garo Paylan told ARMENPRESS in an exclusive interview.

Paylan called on the Armenian community of Istanbul not to lose hope and not to accept what is being imposed. Continue reading

While the Congress for a Syrian National Dialogue has not solved the conflict, it has swept away the minor groups who were pretending to represent the Syrian People for the benefit of the Western powers. It has also cleared the way for a consensus, adopted by the representatives of almost all Syrians, and decided the creation of a Constituent Commission. The basis for peace has been established, but without the Western powers. Continue reading

It seems that the forecasts of IA REGNUM regarding the development prospects of the Turkish military operation “Olive branch” in the north of Syria towards Afrin-Manbij are realized again. The Americans rested. They refuse to support Ankara in its fight against Syrian Kurds. They say they will continue the fight against IGIL (an organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation), which, in their opinion, is not over. In direction of Afrina, the advance of the troops of the Syrian government army continues. At the same time, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the Turkish Armed Forces “will release Manbidge from Kurdish militants, with whom the US military is deployed”.

According to the New York Times, “there is a growing likelihood of a military conflict between Turkish and US troops if Ankara moves eastward” – and this “circumstance may become unprecedented for NATO”. Washington said Turkey continues to discuss “Operation Olive Branch” issues at all levels, insisting on “time and scope limitation” and focuses on the fight against LIH (organization, whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation). As many Turkish experts note in this connection, Turkey found itself in Syria “in a war in which there are other wars”. However, the Syrian Kurds, unexpectedly for Ankara, can become one of the challenges of Turkey’s foreign policy.

Thus, the Air Force, commenting on developments in northern Syria, recalled the time when this territory was under French mandate. The British corporation points to the military map of Syria drawn up in 1935 by the French, which marks the religious and ethnic communities that existed before “how France transferred part of the Mediterranean coast – Alexandret Sanjak” to Turkey. The Turks renamed this territory “Hatay”, its population then included about 50% Arabs, 40% Turks and 10% Armenians. “Now it’s an area in southern Turkey, but Syrian maps still designate the border with Khatai as temporary,” says the Air Force. – Afrin, next to the hut to the east and Idlib province in the north – one of the victims’ claims on territorial control: Turkey is again trying to get out of the area of the local Kurds, which considers like terrorists.

Today, we can say the following about the Armenians of Khatai. Many of the five thousand people who lived there left their villages and settled in Lebanon, establishing Anjar there. Related raises Kuwaiti edition Al Rai Kuwait: “In Syria, in the context of bizarre international discord, hushing the problem of minority rights and insufficient to ensure their security in the Armenian history of the Ottoman Empire is repeated in Afrin with the Kurds. And under the previous historical pretext: the fight against terrorism! Even if all the regional forces oppose the division of Syria, which suffers from internal wars, this “counter” should in no way be a pretext to exterminate the people “. Thus, as we can see, forces have emerged in the West and in the Middle East that consider it necessary for world politics to return to the relatively recent tragic pages of regional history. In addition, Erdogan himself started getting skeletons from the first historical firms.

He said that “if we stop at this decisive moment, as we try to rebuild the world and our region, then we will have to face the Treaty of Sèvres”. Recall that the Treaty of Sèvres was signed in August 1920 between the government of the Sultan of Turkey and the victors of the First World War, the Allied States. Turkey has recognized Armenia as a “free and independent state”, however, within the other borders in which Armenia is now located in Transcaucasia. The treaty did not exclude the emergence of the Kurdish state in the Middle East. And recently Erdogan, during his visit to Greece, questioned the 1923 Lausanne Peace Treaty, which established new borders for Turkey, formally formalizing the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. And in this historical context, in a totally different light, the factor of the noticeable intensification of French politics in the Syrian direction begins to appear.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned Ankara that his operation “Olive Branch” against Syrian Kurds “should not become an opportunity for an invasion of the country”. Perhaps Macron wants to make Paris in the Middle East first among those involved not only in resolving the Syrian problem. According to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, this may prepare Ankara for many unexpected geopolitical surprises, especially if the French president enters the game, with Kurdish, and the Armenian map. The Turkish community of experts has long recognized that “the Kurdish question in the Middle East is historically linked in one way or another to the problems that the Armenian community and Syrian Orthodox have encountered in the past”. And what’s next?

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said “unexpectedly” that “the intensification of military actions in the de-escalation zone of the Syrian region of Idlib will lead to a new influx of refugees from this region”. In turn, the International Crisis Group (ICG) issued a report stating that “violence in Turkish cities between host communities and Syrian refugees has increased dramatically”. Qatar’s foreign minister, Muhammad bin Abdurrahman al-Thani, warns that IGIL (an organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation) is able to “raise its head”. And the New York Times is confident that “the war in Syria will last until 2022”. There is so much to come.

Stanislav Tarasov

ORIGINE SOURSES – IA REGNUM

ENGLISH TRANSLATION “Lousavor Avedis“

Representatives of the Armenian community of Syria will be among the participants of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi. Deputies of the Syrian parliament Nora Arisyan and Zhirayr Reisyan have already arrived in Sochi.

According to the national composition, the majority of delegates will be Arabs (94.5%). Over 1600 delegates representing all layers of the Syrian society are invited to the Congress. Kurds, Yezidis, Assyrians, Armenians, Circassians, Continue reading