The town, that just started reviving after the tragic events in spring, came under shelling two days ago, after a rocket strike on the nearby Leghi Jur checkpoint.

The majority of the Kessab population was reevaluated to Latakia. Groups of armed militants could be seen at the border with Turkey, according to military sources.

Arab businesswoman Yasmina Azhari, who has been twice named by Forbes as one of the most powerful women in the Arab World, will represent the Armenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the United Arab Emirates. “The Armenian Chamber of Commerce already has 30 representatives all around the world. I’m among the few females to represent them. And I’m honored,” she said in an interview with Public Radio of Armenia.

Yasmina Azhari first visited Armenia five years ago with an economic delegation accompanying Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Back in 2009 she established cooperation with Businesswoman Committee at the Chamber of Commerce. She organized two exhibitions for them in Latakia, which featured participants from all over Syria. When she moved to Dubai two years ago, she organized a business meeting and forum.

“We had a big delegation from Armenia, and I organized it in cooperation with the Arab Business Women Committee, which is under the umbrella of the Arab League and together with the Emirati Businesswomen Committee. We had a very big event, and I think they had a very good exchange between businesswomen, at least,” Yasmna Azhari said.

The business lady says she intends to boost economic exchange and tourism parallel to economic cooperation. “I will try to promote the cultural exchange, because in order to be convinced to work in Armenia, you have to know a little bit about the culture, about people, about the nature, about tourism. And then we will be able to enhance and encourage economy,” she said.

Mrs. Azhari said she’s waiting for a report from the Chamber of Commerce. “I have to go through it deeply. And then we have to see what are the fields of interest to bring investors to Armenia, or to bring Armenians to make investments abroad. I’m going to promote businesses on both sides – to Armenia and from Armenia.”

“Some people ask me what I see in Yerevan. You have a very beautiful country, it’s very clean. You have very friendly people, it’s a very nice place for touristic visits,” she said, adding, however, that she’s not sure we properly promote it abroad. “You have a lot of green, a lot of water, you have beautiful nature. And people are shining and beautiful from outside and from inside. You should use it.”

Yasmna Azhari travels a lot, but says she noticed three positive things at the Armenian airport she had never seen anywhere before. “First of all, when you stand in raw to get into passport control, you don’t have to wait for two hours. It’s going so quickly. It took three minutes, I never saw it before. When we were going out, they checked the numbers of our suitcases; it’s first time somebody is checking about it. When I went out, a young man came to me and asked if I needed any help. He showed me his ID. He told me they are employed to help foreigners. Once again, I felt so safe.  You should know that you are distinguished,” Mrs. Azhari said, promising to tell everybody very nice stories about our country.

Before the war started in Syria, Yasmna Azhari had established a committee, an NGO for protecting forests in Slinfah and Kessab. Her first project was in Kessab. “I wanted to have an agro-touristic project in Kessab. I had already got the land from the municipality. And I got a fund from the United Nations. It was a really natural agro-touristic project. But then the war started, and we had to stop it,” she said.

Mrs. Azhari said she wanted to make Kessab different in Syria, to make it a tourism destination. “Hopefully, once the war stops, we’ll do it again. I had a great number of Armenians joining the committee, because it’s their city. So I wanted to make this project for them. I still have a dream and hope to fulfill it one day.”

After a visit he paid to Kessab city accompanied by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Resident Representative in Damascus Elizabeth Hoff, the minister told journalists that new medical equipment for re-operating the center have arrived from Damascus.

Lattakia governor Ahmad Sheikh Abdul-Kader, for his part, said the services in Kassab are now in good condition and “life is gradually returning to the city.”

The Armenian-populated town of Kessab was attacked by Turkey-backed rebels in March of the current year. The Syrian forces took control of the city earlier this month.

With the help of the Armenian Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia the money will be allocated to the reconstruction of Armenian schools in Kessab.

A source in Lattakia told the agency that the basic services would be back into the town during three days to mend what has been destroyed.

Governor of Lattakia Province, Ahmad Sheikh Abdul-Qader, called on all establishments concerned to speed up the process of rehabilitating the infrastructure in the city.

In a tour accompanied by an official delegation, the governor inspected the situation of the mostly Armenian-populated Kassab city and the damage caused to the infrastructure due to the acts of the armed terrorist groups.

In a statement to reporters, the governor stressed that all basic services will be back to the city within 3 days after repairing what has been damaged by the armed terrorist groups.

For his part, Mayor of Kassab, Waskin Jabrian, said that 250 displaced families have returned to the city while the others are still waiting for repairing the infrastructure.

The Army also said that engineering teams were removing mines and explosives planted by “terrorist gangs,” and that entry into the city was restricted until that operation was completed.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes in the area continued from around midnight on Saturday night, but did not give casualty figures

The withdrawal of most rebel forces from the village – including some linked to al-Qaida – is another blow to an opposition that has been undermined by recent gains by Assad’s forces and by infighting, reported Reuters.

The al Qaeda-affiliated militants began abandoning Kessab on Saturday, and by the evening,
the Aleppo-based Gandzasar newspaper reported that Syrian army forces had advanced onto the city square and seized control of the strategic town.

In March, rebels including fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front captured the majority-Armenian village of Kesab in the coastal province of Latakia, a stronghold of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Thousands of people fled to the city of Latakia and accused hardline Sunni fighters of targeting Christians and desecrating holy sites. Rebels denied the accusations.

Christians interviewed by Reuters said they hoped Pope Francis, who visited Bethlehem on Sunday, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, would pray for peace in Syria.

“The Pope’s visit is a holy one, we wish for him to work for peace and pray for peace in Syria,” Father Miron Owadesyan said.

The Argentinean pope made an urgent appeal for an end to Syria’s war on Saturday at the start of his first trip to the Holy Land as pontiff.

In the first days of the attack on Kesab, more than 1,500 people sought refuge in the Armenian Greek Orthodox church of the Virgin Mary in Latakia city 30 miles (49 km) away.

Most of them have since moved and now only about 100 people are living in the 1,200-year-old-church, mainly surviving on donations and support from the government.

Narik Louisian, a priest from Kesab, said he hoped the Pope would use his influence to help Christians in the Middle East who have felt threatened by violence and political turmoil.

“(It is) our right as Christians to live in the East, the East is our land too,” he said. “We are an inseparable part of the Holy Land.”

Tamar Minoknian, a 40-year-old housewife, said she wanted Pope Francis to help Syria’s displaced Christians return to their villages. “We want him to help us return to our houses. We do not want aid, we just want to go back to our homes.”

“I cannot live outside Syria, we were born here and we will die here,” Nerneen Boinashikian, in her fifties, told Reuters while she was preparing lunch. “All that we want is to return to our homes. Enough destruction.”

The resolution specifically condemns the attack against the Armenian town of Kessab, and takes note that “the fights between regime forces and rebel fighters, including elements linked to Al-Qaeda, at the end of March 2014 led to the evacuation of the vast majority of the population of Kassab, an Armenian town on the Syrian-Turkish border”.

The resolution also takes note of the rich diversity of ethnic and religious communities, stressing that these communities have always been part of Syrian society, and have an important role to play in the democratization of Syria and need to be represented in any consultation on the country’s future and in any reconciliation process; and that these communities had tried to avoid taking sides in the conflict, and as many may recognize the need for a change of regime in Syria, but also fear that, if the government is overthrown, they will be targeted by Sunni jihadist rebels calling for the establishment of an Islamic state. The European Parliament is also worried with the Al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front capturing a number of Christian and Kurdish villages on the Turkish border.

Bastiaan Belder (Europe of Freedom and Democracy, the Netherlands) stressed that the resolution will not be full, unless it mentions the whole truth about Kessab, about Turkish involvement once again, after the Armenian Genocide, in depopulating the Armenians of the region; MEP Belder also noted, that there must be an investigation on Turkey’s role in the attack against Kessab, which is a continuation of Ankara’s disastrous Middle East policy. Veronique De Keyser (Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, vice-chair, Belgium) condemned the depopulation of Armenians from Kessab by terrorist groups.

Joaquin Almunia, Vice-president of the EU Commission, is troubled with the jihadist attack on Kessab and the extremely violent civil war in Syria, stressing that the EU will be helping the vulnerable groups and those displaced in the three years of the Syrian conflict.

Kaspar Karampetian, President of the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy (EAFJD) stressed that the resolution has been soft on Turkey, which opened its borders with Kessab assisting the jihadists to attack the region, but nevertheless, puts the blame on Turkey for the border attacks on Christian and Kurdish cities and hindering humanitarian aid. “Turkey is guilty of assisting the extremists in driving out the peaceful population at the border with Syria”, said Kaspar Karampetian.

“Armenians are thankful to the Syrian people for sheltering us after the Genocide committed by Turkey 99 years ago, and we sympathize them for the terrible violence in the country these days. We hope for an end soon, and that all communities are part of Syria and must be included in re-building the country with no outside interference”, said Karampetian, and concluded that the EAFJD is committed in assisting the Armenian community of Syria with humanitarian aid from Europe.

The French diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church appeals the Armenian Diaspora to help this sister community in distress. The French branch of the Armenian Fund, a unitary humanitarian organization renowned for its transparency and efficiency, has accepted to channel the collected donations to the beneficiaries as it has already doneIt urges the donors to send their donations to the Fonds Arménien de France, at the following address:

Fonds Arménien de France
BP 12, 75660 Paris Cedex 14
With the mention : “donation for Kessab”
You can also donate through the website : www.fondsarmenien.net

The factions and groups of the National Assembly of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic adopted a statement on Kessab events.

Noting that they follow with concern the developments in Syria, appreciate the position of the Syrian Armenians and the attitude of the Syrian people, the lawmakers expressed confidence that Syria’s future should be determined by the citizens of that country.

Expressing support for the Syrian Armenians, the political forces represented in the  NKR National Assembly called the attention of the international community to the issues of Armenians displaced from Kessab.