"New forms of intimidation towards Armenians in Turkey" – State Dept.December 4, 2021 - 14:01 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - The U.S. Department of State has unveiled a fresh report on "poor" religious freedom conditions in Turkey, noting that "new forms of intimidation towards Turkey’s Armenian community" have emerged. Prepared by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, the report said that Armenian religious heritage sites in Turkey remain under threat. In early 2021 the Surp Toros Armenian church in Kütahya was demolished after coming into the possession of an unknown individual—despite holding protected status. In August bulldozers destroyed an Armenian cemetery in Van Province. According to the report, the Turkish government frequently fails to halt construction projects that threaten cemeteries; for example, in March 2021 the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Member of Parliament (MP) Garo Paylan, who has Armenian roots, submitted a parliamentary inquiry to ask why the government had not halted the construction of a state-owned bank over an Armenian and Catholic cemetery in historic downtown Ankara. In April 2021, in response to Paylan’s statements on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, nationalist MP Ümit Özdağ threatened: “you’ll also have a Talat Pasha experience and you should have it.” Talat Pasha was the principal architect of the Armenian Genocide. "Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic and the November 2020 conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh has fueled anti-Armenian conspiracies and intimidating, anti-Armenian protests," the report said. Top stories The EU does not intend to conduct military exercises with Armenia, Lead Spokesperson for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Peter Stano says. Hikmet Hajiyev has said that there is no place for USAID operation in Azerbaijan any longer. A telephone conversation between Putin and Pashinyan before the CSTO summit is not planned, Peskov says. London’s Armenian community has been left feeling “under attack” after the city’s Genocide monument was vandalised. Partner news | Armenia to participate in key EU meeting for the first time ever National Assembly speaker Alen Simonyan has said that Armenia will for the first time participate in the Conference. Russia clarifying reports on Baku’s alleged arms supply to Ukraine Russia says is carefully working to verify reports about alleged arms supplies from Azerbaijan to Ukraine CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. |