appo11By APPO JABARIAN
Executive Publisher / Managing Editor
USA Armenian Life Magazine (English-language edition)
Hye Kiank Armenian Weekly (Armenian-language edition)
In recent weeks, the situation for Aleppo Syrians in general and for Aleppo Armenian Syrians in particular may get worse before getting better.
What transpired in the last-standing Mediterranean medieval Armenian town of Kessab through Turkish proxy-invasion may pale in comparison with what is going on in Aleppo now and what may happen in the near future. Certain neighborhoods under government control continue to be vulnerable to rocket attacks by the rebels. The Armenian neighborhoods of Nor Kyugh (Meedan) and Suleymanieh are such districts.
Even though the Syrian Arab Army has been steadily gaining grounds against the jihadists and foreign mercenaries; and even though jihadists so far haven’t been able to penetrate the Armenian neighborhoods, they are specifically shelling them with rockets and other advanced lethal weapons amply provided by United States, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others.
And as a direct result of U.S. weapons ‘falling in the wrong hands’ the danger of large-scale massacres of entire civilian populations of certain neighborhoods by Jihadists has become omnipresent.
While it’s generally good tactic to maintain optimism about the forces of good prevailing over the forces of evil, it’s always wise to ‘Expect the best, but prepare for the worst!’
In the absence of comprehensive clearance of Aleppo of all terrorist elements, it would be prudent for all Syrian civilians including Armenian Syrians to be relocated away from currently vulnerable neighborhoods into relatively safe areas under government control until such time that rebels and their rocket propellers as well as truck and tunnel-bombing capabilities have not been neutralized.
In the case of Armenian Syrians, and Kurds, it is no longer a secret that Turkey is a major stakeholder in the extermination or forced deportation of these two groups.
The Turkish factor in the numerous atrocities committed by jihadists in Syria has now come under light. Numerous news accounts indicate that Turkey has been giving tacit approval to the jihadists in Syria to specifically target individual Armenians and now, entire Armenian neighborhoods of Aleppo.
In the days leading up to the June 3 Syrian presidential elections, the Syrian opposition intensified its rocket attacks against the regime-held neighborhoods. Reportedly nearly a hundred mortar bombs have hit the predominantly Armenian neighborhoods.
Ankara has been using Jabhat al-Nusra and other extremists against both Armenians and Kurds in Syria for the following objectives:
-  Against Kurdish groups in Syria aligned with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), to prevent them from controlling regions adjoining the Turkish border abandoned by Assad’s forces;
-  Against Armenians from maintaining a viable community in the close proximity of Turkish-occupied Western Armenia.
Of course the arming of rebels in Syria is targeted against all Syrians. However, reliable sources have pointed out that Turkey has been ‘benefiting’ from the opportunity to ‘finish-off’ the genocidal plans that it had executed against Armenians in 1915. The reality on the ground in Aleppo is corroborating the claims by reliable sources on Turkish plans to ‘eradicate’ Northern Syria of any Armenian presence.
Al-monitor.com revealed on June 10, that is was only recently and “reluctantly” that Turkey on June 3 “finally designated al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist organization.”
In August 2013, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Davutoglu referred to Jabhat al-Nusra as a group thatsupported extremism and which is on the United States and the UN’s list of terrorist organizations. “Despite such indirect acknowledgements of Jabhat al-Nusra’s status as a terrorist group, it took nine months for Ankara to finally designate it as a terrorist organization by a government decree published in the Official Gazette. The question arises as to why the Erdogan government decided to blacklist Jabhat al-Nusra now, after having resisted doing so for so long. The simple answer seems to be that its Syria policy is in tatters, after all the horses it bet on lost one by one.” One more reason, Ankara delayed its ‘declaration’ until after the group executed Turkey’s heinous plan of proxy-invasion of Kessab.
World Armenians shouldn’t accept as credible Erdogan government’s ‘official’ declarations on Jabhat al-Nusra. The reality is that during a Press TV interview, Scott Rickard, former US intelligence linguist from Florida, asserted that the US and its ally Turkey continue to allegedly sneak arms to militants, bypassing moderate opposition militant group Free Syrian Army authorities in Syria.
Turkey’s support of mainly foreign extremists and mercenaries in Syria purportedly entailed providing lethal weapons and ammunition in most part provided by the Obama administration and its allies in U.S. Congress like Congressman Adam Schiff (Democrat from CA-28th District).
Armenian Americans must remind their elected representatives that one of the most effective ways to commemorate Armenian Genocide is the prevention of loss of Armenian life everywhere and most urgently, in Syria; and more specifically, in Aleppo!
What good is it to re-recognize or to ‘reconfirm’ US record on ‘official recognition’ of 1915-1923 Turkish-executed Armenian Genocide when in broad daylight innocent Armenians are being killed at the hands Turkish proxies in Syria?
Armenians all over the globe must wake up and identify their real enemies.
It has long been suspected that in 1900’s, the neo-con forces in the West were secretly supporting Young Turk extremists carry out ethnic cleansing campaigns against Armenian, Greek and Assyrian populations of the former Ottoman empire. Now almost a century later, world Armenians and their friends can clearly see the descendents of the same criminal circles in the West doing the same thing to them as well as other people in an adjacent region –Syria.
God help Armenians when they don’t know who their real enemies are! And God help those enemies when Armenians finally identify them!
Until such time that help comes from heaven, Armenians must help themselves and others with them. Humanitarian aid is helpful but not sufficient to avert loss of human lives. Major resources must be allocated for the specific purpose of taking civilians away from the harm’s way.
As for Turkey’s heinous plans for Aleppo Armenians and all Syrians in general, they must be stopped in their tracks.

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