Tag Archives: Armenia

Russian soldiers fly to Syria to help Russian reconstruction effort

YEREVAN/FEB. 8 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian soldiers flew into Syria to help Russia’s reconstruction effort, the only military from the former Soviet Union to support Russian forces in the region.

Acknowledging the sensitivity of their mission, the Armenian ministry of defence described the 83 soldiers as “specialists” deployed as deminers and medical personnel.

“Armenian specialists will carry out humanitarian activities related to humanitarian demining, mine awareness of the population, provision of medical assistance in Aleppo, exclusively outside the zone of combat operations,” it said in a statement.

Around 100,000 ethnic Armenians lived in Aleppo before the start of the civil war in 2011. Most have now fled, many to Armenia.

Politics, though, appears to be the driving force behind Armenia’s decision to support the Russian reconstruction effort. FSU states ducked out of a Russian request for help, fearing a backlash from the US or Turkey, but Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan was keen to win support from Russian President Vladimir Putin for the revolution that propelled him to power in May 2018.

The Armenian ministry of defence confirmed that Russian transport planes had ferried the soldiers into Syria but it declined to say for how long they would remain in Syria. Russia is allied to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and helped him defeat US-supported rebels.

A Russian statement thanked Armenia for its military support.

“This, of course, will be a significant contribution to the establishment of a normal life in Syria,” said Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister.

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>This story was first published in issue 399 of the weekly Conway Bulletin, an independent newspaper for Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

France declares say of mourning for “Armenian Genocide”

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FEB. 5 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a victory for Armenia’s campaign to promote awareness of the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in east Turkey towards the end of WWI, French President Emmanuel Macron declared April 24 to be a day of commemoration for the “Armenian Genocide”. To the irritation of Turkey, which contests the killings and says they were the result of the chaotic end of the Ottoman Empire, France in 2001 became one of the first governments to recognise the Armenian genocide.
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

US imposes sanctions on Yerevan travel company for working with Iran

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YEREVAN/Jan. 24 (The Conway Bulletin) — The United States imposed sanctions on an Armenian company for the first time over its dealings with an Iranian airline that Washington said flies units of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards in and out of a civil war in Syria.

In a statement, the US Treasury Department said Yerevan-based Flight Travel was the third company to be sanctioned for working with Iran’s Mahan Air and that any assets linked to it or its executives in the US will be frozen. Last year it also sanctioned a company in Malaysia and another in Thailand.

“The designation of Flight Travel LLC demonstrates the US Government’s commitment to denying foreign support for Mahan Air and other designated Iranian airlines, and reinforces multiple warnings to the aviation community of the sanctions risk for individuals and entities maintaining commercial relationships with these airlines,” it said.

The US Treasury Department said Flight Travel provides ticketing, financial and administrative services to Mahan Air, which flies to Yerevan as well as to other cities in the region, Europe and China.
In Yerevan, Bella Gevorgyan, named as Flight Travel’s director, said that she was frustrated.

“I think it is not right to impose sanctions against Armenian citizens working with its neighbour country,” she told the Aysor.am news website.

For Armenia’s instinctively Western-orientated government, the US sanctions on Iran, imposed last year, are a headache. Surrounded on two sides by its arch-enemies Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia is drawn into dealing with Iran, its far larger southern neighbour.
And over the past few years, Armenia and Iran have deepened ties. Iranians, tourists and businessmen, have also become far more conspicuous in Yerevan.

In October, when John Bolton, US President Donald Trump’s security adviser, travelled to Yerevan, Baku and Tbilisi to explain the impact of sanctions, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan told him that his country would continue to deal with Iran and with Iranian companies.

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