Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić met Tuesday in Yerevan his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian. They discussed the further steps concerning the advancement in bilateral cooperation, as well as the issues of Kosovo and Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s breakaway region populated mostly by Armenians.
Posts Tagged ‘Yerevan’
Nagorno-Karabakh flag raised at UN, briefly
October 7th, 2010 |
No Comments
Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the UN has complained that on September 27 Armenia raised the flag of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh republic, RFE/RL reports. This happened on the premises of Yerevan’s UN mission in New York.
Five killed in latest Nagorno-Karabakh
September 1st, 2010 |
No Comments
Azerbaijan and Armenia are blaming each other for the latest clash over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which reportedly killed five soldiers Tuesday. Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry says the Armenians tried to attack Azeri forces. The government in Yerevan denies that Armenia was at fault.
Armenia warns Azerbaijan over UN resolution
August 27th, 2010 |
No Comments
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry has warned Azerbaijan against trying to push through the United Nations General Assembly a fresh resolution, RFE/RL reports. It accuses Yerevan of occupying Azerbaijani lands and thereby hampering a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Partizan in CL 3rd round of qualifications
July 22nd, 2010 |
No Comments
Serbian champions Partizan FC on Wednesday moved to the third round of qualifications for Europe’s top club football competition, the UEFA Champions League. The team played the second game of the round away in Yerevan, Armenia, and defeated home side Pyunik 1-0 (1-0).
Partizan FC starts Euro season with win
July 15th, 2010 |
No Comments
Belgrade’s Partizan FC beat visiting Pyunik FC of Yerevan, Armenia, 3-1 (2-1) in the first game of the second round of UEFA Champions League qualifications. The goals were scored by Nemanja Tomić, Almani Moreira, and Cleo for Partizan, and Yedigaryan for the Armenian squad.
Armenian opposition journalist sentenced
January 19th, 2010 |
No Comments
A court in Yerevan, Armenia, has sentenced a leading opposition journalist to seven years in jail. Newspaper editor Nikol Pashinian was sentenced on charges of organizing the mass unrest that followed the 2008 presidential election, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reports.
Plane fault ’caused Iran crash’
July 16th, 2009 |
No Comments
<img src=”http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46070000/jpg/_46070433_-15.jpg” align=”left” width=”226″ height=”170″ alt=”Iranian Armenians attend a religious service at the site of Wednesday Caspian Airlines crash, 16 July 2009″ border=”0″ vspace=”4″ hspace=”4″>
The crash of a Caspian Airlines flight that left 168 people dead was probably caused by technical problems, an Iranian official has said.
Deputy Transport Minister Ahmad Majidi was quoted as saying that the plane’s pilot was probably not to blame.
The Russian-built Tupolev plane crashed on Wednesday in farmland in Qazvin province, 120km (75 miles) north-west of Tehran, killing everyone on board.
Flight data recorders have been recovered but are badly damaged.
The plane, which was flying from the Iranian capital to Yerevan in Armenia, crashed 16 minutes after take-off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport.
Witnesses said the 22-year-old Tu-154, which had 153 passengers and 15 crew, nose-dived from the sky with its tail on fire.
In pictures: Iran plane crash
Wreckage was scattered over a large area.
On Thursday, state television said the cause of the crash was still unknown.
But Mr Majidi was quoted by the semi-official Mehr news agency as saying that the pilot was experienced and the crash was "likely due to technical problems".
He added that the flight data recorders, or "black boxes", might be sent to Russia for analysis.
"Because of the severity of the crash, the two black box recorders found are badly damaged, even though they are made of steel," Mr Majidi said.
"The tapes were out on the ground. We might send the black box to the country where it was manufactured [Russia] to chase the issue with their help."
Most of those on board the flight were Iranian, though there were also some Armenian and Georgian citizens.
IRANIAN PLANE CRASHES- Feb 2006: Tupolev crashes in Tehran, kills 29 people
- Dec 2005: C-130 military plane crashes near Tehran, kills 110
- Feb 2003: Iranian military plane crashes, kills all 276 on board
- Feb 2002: Tupolev crashes in west Iran, kills all 199 on board
Mr Majidi said DNA testing would be needed to identify the remains.
Friends and relatives of the victims gathered at the crash site for a religious ceremony on Thursday, throwing flowers into the crater created when the plane hit the ground.
Archbishop Sebo Sarkissian of Iran’s Armenian community was among those to take part.
It was the third deadly crash of a Tupolev Tu-154 in Iran since 2002.
Correspondents say Iran’s civil and military air fleets are made up of elderly aircraft, in poor condition due to their age and lack of maintenance.
Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, trade embargoes by Western nations have forced Iran to buy mainly Russian-built planes to supplement an existing fleet of Boeings and other American and European models.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Iran plane black boxes ‘damaged’
July 15th, 2009 |
No Comments
Damaged black boxes have been recovered from a Caspian Airlines plane that crashed in north Iran with the loss of all 168 people on board, say officials.
Investigators who scoured scattered body parts and metal fragments for the data recorders hope they will salvage a clue as to the cause of the crash.
The wreckage was spread over a large area of farmland in Qazvin province, 120km (75 miles) north-west of Tehran.
The Tupolev plane was flying from the Iranian capital to Yerevan in Armenia.
In pictures: Iran plane crash
Witnesses said the 22-year-old Russian-made aircraft, which had 153 passengers and 15 crew, nose-dived from the sky with its tail on fire.
Flight 7908 crashed 16 minutes after take-off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran, officials said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered his condolences to the bereaved families and ordered a transport ministry investigation into the tragedy.
‘Heads, fingers, passports’
Farsi Majidi, head of the investigating committee, told Associated Press TV News: "Thank God, we succeeded in finding two of the three flight data recorders or black boxes.
ANALYSISJon Leyne, BBC NewsIran has a notoriously bad air safety record. Because of sanctions imposed by the United States, Iran relies on an increasingly ageing fleet of airliners, and has trouble buying spares.
There are tales of aircrew buying spare parts on flights to Europe, then sneaking them back to Iran in the cockpit. While those sanctions don’t apply to aircraft from Russia and Ukraine, many planes from those countries in the Iranian fleet also appear well past their best.
For some people, flying in Iran can be a nerve-wracking experience. Stepping on board, it often becomes quickly apparent you are in a plane that has done many years service.
There are also frequent delays because of the shortage of aircraft. Iranian engineers and aircrew do their best to keep their fleets in service.
"Although they are damaged we are hopeful that we can extract information from them."
Eight members of Iran’s national junior judo team and two coaches were on the flight, heading for training with the Armenian team.
Among the mainly Iranian passengers were about five Armenian citizens and two Georgians.
Search teams picked through an area 200m (660ft) wide in a field at Jannatabad village, where the plane gouged out a huge smoking crater.
A relief worker, standing next to a body bag of human flesh, told AFP news agency: "There is not a single piece which can be identified."
Mostafa Babashahverdi, a local farmer, told Reuters news agency: "We found severed heads, fingers and passports of the passengers."
Witnesses said the Tu-154 had circled briefly looking for an emergency landing site. One man described it exploding on impact.
"I saw the plane crashing nose-down. It hit the ground causing a big explosion. The impact shook the ground like an earthquake," Ali Akbar Hashemi told AP news agency.
IRANIAN PLANE CRASHES- Feb 2006: Tupolev crashes in Tehran, kills 29 people
- Dec 2005: C-130 military plane crashes near Tehran, kills 110
- Feb 2003: Iranian military plane crashes, kills all 276 on board
- Feb 2002: Tupolev crashes in west Iran, kills all 199 on board
At Yerevan’s airport, one woman wept as she said her sister and two nephews, aged six and 11, had been on the flight.
"What will I do without them" said Tina Karapetian, 45, before collapsing.
It was the third deadly crash of a Tupolev Tu-154 in Iran since 2002.
The BBC’s Jon Leyne says Iran’s civil and military air fleets are made up of elderly aircraft, in poor condition due to their age and lack of maintenance.
Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, trade embargoes by Western nations have forced Iran to buy mainly Russian-built planes to supplement an existing fleet of Boeings and other American and European models.
Are you in the area Have you been affected Send us your comments using the form below.
If you have pictures or video of the incident, you can send them to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to +44 7725 100 100. If you have a large file you can upload here.
At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.
<p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
168 feared dead in Iran plane crash
July 15th, 2009 |
No Comments
Wreckage in flames after airliner bound for Armenia crashes near Qazvin in north-west Iran
All 168 people on board a flight from Tehran to Armenia are feared dead after the plane crashed today in a rural area of north-west Iran.
Shortly after take-off flight 7908, operated by Iran’s Caspian airlines, came down in farmland near the city of Qazvin.
“It is highly likely that all the passengers on the flight were killed,” Hossein Bahzadpour, the Qazvin emergency services director, told the IRNA news agency.
“It’s a major disaster with pieces of aircraft spread over an area of 200 sq m,” a fire brigade official told state television. “There was an explosion which left an indentation 10 metres deep in the ground. There was nothing we could do. We tried to put out the fire as best we could.”
The Fars news agency quoted a senior provincial official, Sirous Saberi, as saying the aeroplane had technical problems and tried to do an emergency landing.
“Unfortunately the plane caught fire in the air and it crashed … different small parts of this plane can be seen on the ground,” Reuters reported, quoting Fars.
Caspian airlines is a Russian-Iranian joint venture founded in 1993. The Russian-built Tupolev plane had been on its way to the Armenian capital, Yerevan. It came down this morning near the village of Jannatabad in Qazvin province, about 75 miles north-west of Tehran, 16 minutes after taking off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport.
The deputy chairman of Armenia’s civil aviation authority, Arsen Pogosian, told reporters in Yerevan there were 154 passengers and 15 crew members on board. Most are thought to be Iranians.
Television footage showed a smouldering crater strewn with mangled wreckage, with a large piece of wing lying in farmland. Most of the wreckage appeared to be in small pieces and included clothes, shoes and identity papers.
There were differing eyewitness accounts of what happened. One said: “I was about 300 metres away. The plane fell from the sky and exploded on impact.” But another told the ISNA news agency that the plane’s tail burst into flames and the plane circled in the air as if looking for a place to land before it crashed.
Serob Karapetian, the chief of Yerevan airport’s aviation security service, said the plane may have attempted an emergency landing, but reports that it caught fire in the air were “only one version”.
Bodies had been gathered from the crater, Press TV said. Those on board included eight members of Iran’s national youth judo team and three coaches. They were planning to train with the Armenian judo team before attending competitions in Hungary. Six Armenian citizens and two Georgian citizens were on the flight, and the rest were likely to be Iranians, Pogosian said.
At Yerevan airport, Tina Karapetian, 45, said she had been waiting for her sister and her sister’s two sons, who were due on the flight. “What will I do without them?” she said, weeping, before she collapsed to the floor.
Iran has frequent plane crashes, which it blames on US sanctions that prevent it from getting spare parts for aging aircraft. But Caspian airlines uses Russian-made planes whose maintenance would be less affected by American sanctions.
In February 2006, a Russian-made Tupolev TU-154 operated by Iran Airtour crashed during landing in Tehran, killing 29 of the 148 people on board. Another Airtour Tupolev crashed in 2002 in the mountains of western Iran, killing all 199 on board. Airtour is affiliated with Iran’s national carrier, Iran Air.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and called for an urgent inquiry.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Iran plane crash
July 15th, 2009 |
No Comments
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian passenger plane crashed Wednesday in northwest Iran, killing all 168 people on board, state media reported.
Footage from the scene on state-run Press TV showed a deep trench smashed into an agricultural field by the impact, littered with smoking wreckage. It showed a large chunk of a wing, but much [...]