Turkey’s telecommunications authorities will pixelate Twitter posts to eliminate “malicious content,” Communications Minister Lütfi Elvan said in a written statement Thursday, following talks between the microblogging website’s executives and Turkish officials in Ankara.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now on Monday that the US intelligence community did not share its fears of Turkey’s role in the alleged chemical attack when making the case for launching a strike on Syria.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged the warring parties in Syria and their supporters to “do everything” to protect civilians in the Middle East country, where armed conflict entered its fourth year in March.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a written declaration on Tuesday, introduced by members of the Armenian delegation, condemning the violence against the Armenian town of Kessab, Syria, which resulted in the displacement of thousands of people and the destruction of property.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed victory for his Islamic-based party in key regional elections and warned his foes they would “pay the price” for plotting his downfall.

Twitter filed two petitions for lawsuits in Turkish courts on March 26 to challenge an access ban on its service, while starting to block access to certain Turkish content for the first time, as requested by Ankara.

President Serzh Sarkisian on Monday said he has directed Armenia’s United Nations missions in New York and Geneva to address the importance of “ensuring the security of the Armenians in Kessab and their safe return to their permanent places of residence at the structures dealing with human rights and ethnic minorities,” reported the presidential office.

KESSAB, Syria–The Armenian populated villages of Kessab, Syria were the target of three days of brutal cross-border attacks from Turkey by al-Qaeda affiliated armed bands, which have cost 80 lives and forced the civilian population of the area to flee to neighboring hills, with many seeking safe-haven in the nearby cities of Latakia and Basit.
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On Friday morning the Armenian-populated city of Kessab in Syrian was attacked by gunmen who crossed the border from Turkey, reported the Beirut-based Aztag newspaper.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and Azerbaijan’s special envoy to Tehran Kamaladdin Heydarov stressed the need to utilize each and every capacity of the two countries to pave the ground for the enhancement of bilateral ties in various political, economic, cultural, and scientific sectors.

The government of Switzerland announced Tuesday that it will appeal a December 17, 2013 decision by the European Court of Human Rights overturning the conviction of Dogu Perinçek for denying the Armenian Genocide.

In a piece published on the eurasianet.org blog, author Giorgi Lomsadze reports that leaders of the Crimean Tatars have sent an appeal for help to Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev to support the community as the crisis in Ukraine escalates and a referendum to secede from Ukraine is scheduled for this Sunday.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili pledged to develop all the regions of the Republic equally, including Javakhk (Samtskhe-Javakheti), during an address at the Atlantic Council held as part of his first official visit to the United States this week, reported the Armenian National Committee of America.

A voice recording said to be of a telephone conversation between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his son Bilal is at the center of the latest political storm in Turkey.