In the morning on November 8 Turkish authorities forced the Armenian transport plane, bound with humanitarian aid to Syria to land at the airport in Erzurum in the north-east. It is reported by Reuters citing local media.
Turkish troops withdrew humanitarian cargo for inspection. Official comments from Ankara have not followed. Yerevan also says nothing on the incident.
A similar incident occurred on 15 October 2012, when the Turkish Air Force ordered an Armenian transport plane to land in Erzurum. Then the stop of the aircraft had been previously arranged with Yerevan.
A week earlier, a similar incident occurred involving a Syrian passenger plane en route from Moscow to Damascus. F-16 fighters of the Turkish Air Force escorted the civilian vessel, forcing it to land in Ankara. During the inspection on board the plane a "military cargo" was found, said the official Turkish representatives. At the same time, the Russian Foreign Ministry categorically denied all of the allegations, saying that the plane did not carry prohibited goods. Turkish soldiers seized part of the shipment, and then the plane was allowed to continue flying.
Moscow and Ankara continue negotiations on the return of the goods confiscated by the Turks. According to some media reports, it is a product of the Tula defense design company, reports RBC. -0
Politics
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The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (OPHRD), a joint program of the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), has called for the urgent release of activist Rufat Safarov from prison in Azerbaijan. It has launched a campaign in support of the Azerbaijani human rights defender. https://www.omct.org/en/resources/urgent-interventions/arbitrary-detention-and-judicial-harassment-against-rufat-safarov
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This year, the laureate of the annual Nargiz Prize, awarded for efforts in the fight for democracy, was Akif Gurbanov, chairman of the board of the Resplatforma (Platform of the III Republic) movement, who is under arrest.
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The U.S. will prohibit the issuing of visas for nearly a dozen more individuals responsible for undermining democracy in Georgia, bringing the total number to over 100, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
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The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has expressed condolences to the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, following the tragic incident in the city of Magdeburg. "We are deeply shocked by the news of the deaths and injuries resulting from the tragic incident that took place at the Christmas market in Magdeburg," the message reads.
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