YEREVAN. – Armenia National Assembly Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan donated his one-month salary to the Armenians of Syria’s predominantly Armenian-populated town of Kessab.

“I have transferred my one-month salary to the [bank] account, which is opened in the ‘Hayastan’ All-Armenian Fund, to assist our compatriots in Kessab.

“I call upon my fellow MPs to likewise assist, within their limits, our Kessab-Armenian compatriots,” Abrahamyan wrote in his Facebook account.

In the early morning on March 21, armed militants from the Jabhat al-Nusra Islamic terrorist group infiltrated into northern Syria’s Latakia Governorate, which is predominantly inhabited by Armenians and Alawites, from four directions. Two large groups of terrorists had launched the attack from Turkey. About 600 Kessab-Armenian families are currently sheltered in Latakia city. On March 23, Turkish fighter planes downed a Syrian military aircraft that was conducting a mission against the Islamic terrorists in Kessab. A group of Armenia parliament members recently visited Syria to assess the situation in the region.