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Category: Armenia

  • Greenwashing Genocide in Armenia & Targeting the Truth in Palestine

    In the first half of the show, international human rights lawyer Karnig Kerkonian joins the show to discuss Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of the Artsakh Armenians from the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Karnig outlines the genocidal intent of President Ilham Aliyev, what the US knew and didn’t do to stop it, and how the international community should respond, not least of all as this year’s climate summit, COP29 is being held so ironically in what Karnig calls the petrol-dictatorship of Azerbaijan. Next up, journalist, researcher and policy director at Defending Rights and Dissent Chip Gibbons joins the show to discuss Israel’s targeted and mass killing of journalists on the ground in Gaza. Chip highlights the vehement hypocrisy with which the US pretends to uphold freedom of the press while not only ignoring the murder of journalists but while pushing for a media blackout and censorship of reports from Gaza.

    The post Greenwashing Genocide in Armenia & Targeting the Truth in Palestine appeared first on Project Censored.


    This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Zionist Hunters

    The Nazi Hunters was a US television docu-drama miniseries in 2009, that described the exploits of Zionist (mostly Mossad) pursuers of Nazi criminals post-WWII. It was made into a film in 2022.

    We have all seen films and read books about Nazis and the holocaust. Sometimes they went too far, such as the fanciful stories of human skin lampshades and victims made into soap, but the long (semi-permanent) and extensive public awareness campaign was immensely successful in creating not only a widely shared awareness, but also a strong revulsion against genocide. To that end, the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide committed nearly all of the world’s nations to the pledge “Never Again”, on the assumption that the Nazi holocaust was and should be an exceptional aberration in human history.

    Of course, genocide is unfortunately not exceptional. It has happened again and again, both before and after the Nazi holocaust and the creation of the Genocide Convention and throughout human history (and probably prehistory). In fact, the coiner of the term, Raphael Lemkin, originally created it in 1943 to describe what happened to the Armenians in the early 20th century, not to the Nazi holocaust. Since WWII, we have had genocides in Guatemala, Bangladesh, East Timor, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, and Myanmar, as well as the current Palestinian genocide. Some are disputed and others are possibly eligible, but the point is that genocide is hardly exceptional.

    But neither is revulsion to genocide nor the attempt to make the crime accountable. Long before the Genocide Convention, the Hamurabi code and many religious traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and the Abrahamic religions, incorporated many of the same laws, principles and prohibitions. Nevertheless, it is proper to credit the mainly Zionist holocaust remembrance efforts with a profoundly successful mobilization to instill horror of genocide in the minds of the public through a wide array of media and public commemorations, including museums and monuments of the holocaust.

    It was, however, neither the United Nations nor other international bodies that hunted down the Nazis who fled or escaped in order to avoid the fate of those brought before the Nuremberg trials. By and large, this task was left to Zionist individuals and organizations, including the state of Israel and Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal, as well as the center which bears his name. Wiesenthal’s most celebrated success was to find Adolf Eichmann, a major Nazi administrator of the extermination project, whom the Mossad then captured and brought to Israel for trial and execution.

    Oddly enough, the successful effort to publicize the Nazi genocide has not necessarily carried over to other genocides, presumably for lack of organization and influence among the survivors. Furthermore, the Nazi holocaust is largely remembered as being directed only against Jews, even though a total of roughly 17 million noncombatants were  systematically exterminated, mainly Slavs but also Roma (“gypsies”), and other populations. Jews were a major target, of course, but the fact that they are often remembered as the only one is a tribute to the success of the Zionist narrative. It is a lesson and an example to other populations targeted for genocide.

    Palestinians are clearly learning this lesson, although they are handicapped by having to overcome the biases created by the Zionists, the experts par excellence in creating a narrative, one which is unfortunately and for obvious reasons in stark contrast to that of the Palestinians. Sadly, the same Zionists that taught us to be horrified of genocide are now using their capabilities and organization to justify and enable Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.

    But those Zionists also taught us that it is possible to make the criminals who commit the “crime of crimes” pay the price. The Nazis paid the price at Nuremberg, and they continued paying long afterward, thanks to the Nazi hunters. So too did the criminals of the Bosnian genocide, the Rwandan genocide and many others. Do the Zionist criminals murdering and starving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, as well as their complicit enablers in Washington, London and yes, Berlin, not realize that they will be in the crosshairs of their victims for the rest of their lives?

    If they delude themselves otherwise, I advise them to read the following, which is only a small taste of what is to come.

    https://en.mdn.tv/7yef

    The post The Zionist Hunters first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Zionist Hunters

    The Nazi Hunters was a US television docu-drama miniseries in 2009, that described the exploits of Zionist (mostly Mossad) pursuers of Nazi criminals post-WWII. It was made into a film in 2022.

    We have all seen films and read books about Nazis and the holocaust. Sometimes they went too far, such as the fanciful stories of human skin lampshades and victims made into soap, but the long (semi-permanent) and extensive public awareness campaign was immensely successful in creating not only a widely shared awareness, but also a strong revulsion against genocide. To that end, the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide committed nearly all of the world’s nations to the pledge “Never Again”, on the assumption that the Nazi holocaust was and should be an exceptional aberration in human history.

    Of course, genocide is unfortunately not exceptional. It has happened again and again, both before and after the Nazi holocaust and the creation of the Genocide Convention and throughout human history (and probably prehistory). In fact, the coiner of the term, Raphael Lemkin, originally created it in 1943 to describe what happened to the Armenians in the early 20th century, not to the Nazi holocaust. Since WWII, we have had genocides in Guatemala, Bangladesh, East Timor, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, and Myanmar, as well as the current Palestinian genocide. Some are disputed and others are possibly eligible, but the point is that genocide is hardly exceptional.

    But neither is revulsion to genocide nor the attempt to make the crime accountable. Long before the Genocide Convention, the Hamurabi code and many religious traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and the Abrahamic religions, incorporated many of the same laws, principles and prohibitions. Nevertheless, it is proper to credit the mainly Zionist holocaust remembrance efforts with a profoundly successful mobilization to instill horror of genocide in the minds of the public through a wide array of media and public commemorations, including museums and monuments of the holocaust.

    It was, however, neither the United Nations nor other international bodies that hunted down the Nazis who fled or escaped in order to avoid the fate of those brought before the Nuremberg trials. By and large, this task was left to Zionist individuals and organizations, including the state of Israel and Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal, as well as the center which bears his name. Wiesenthal’s most celebrated success was to find Adolf Eichmann, a major Nazi administrator of the extermination project, whom the Mossad then captured and brought to Israel for trial and execution.

    Oddly enough, the successful effort to publicize the Nazi genocide has not necessarily carried over to other genocides, presumably for lack of organization and influence among the survivors. Furthermore, the Nazi holocaust is largely remembered as being directed only against Jews, even though a total of roughly 17 million noncombatants were  systematically exterminated, mainly Slavs but also Roma (“gypsies”), and other populations. Jews were a major target, of course, but the fact that they are often remembered as the only one is a tribute to the success of the Zionist narrative. It is a lesson and an example to other populations targeted for genocide.

    Palestinians are clearly learning this lesson, although they are handicapped by having to overcome the biases created by the Zionists, the experts par excellence in creating a narrative, one which is unfortunately and for obvious reasons in stark contrast to that of the Palestinians. Sadly, the same Zionists that taught us to be horrified of genocide are now using their capabilities and organization to justify and enable Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.

    But those Zionists also taught us that it is possible to make the criminals who commit the “crime of crimes” pay the price. The Nazis paid the price at Nuremberg, and they continued paying long afterward, thanks to the Nazi hunters. So too did the criminals of the Bosnian genocide, the Rwandan genocide and many others. Do the Zionist criminals murdering and starving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, as well as their complicit enablers in Washington, London and yes, Berlin, not realize that they will be in the crosshairs of their victims for the rest of their lives?

    If they delude themselves otherwise, I advise them to read the following, which is only a small taste of what is to come.

    https://en.mdn.tv/7yef

    The post The Zionist Hunters first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Fresh Protests In Armenia Against PM Pashinian Amid Reports Of Police Brutality


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Police In Armenia Use Stun Grenades On Anti-Government Protesters


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Protests In Armenia Over Azerbaijan Border Deal, Police Push Cars Off The Road


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Is Armenia Like Mars? A Space Simulation Mission Says It’s Close Enough


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Armenia Says It’s Willing To Sign Peace Deal With Baku, Normalize Relations With Turkey Under Right Conditions

    Russia is increasing its cooperation with China in 5G and satellite technology and this could facilitate Moscow’s military aggression against Ukraine, a report by the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) security think tank warns.

    The report, published on March 1, says that although battlefield integration of 5G networks may face domestic hurdles in Russia, infrastructure for Chinese aid to Russian satellite systems already exists and can “facilitate Russian military action in Ukraine.”

    China, which maintains close ties with Moscow, has refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and offered economic support to Russia that has helped the Kremlin survive waves of sweeping Western sanctions.

    Beijing has said that it does not sell lethal weapons to Russia for its war against Ukraine, but Western governments have repeatedly accused China of aiding in the flow of technology to Russia’s war effort despite Western sanctions.

    The RUSI report details how the cooperation between Russia and China in 5G and satellite technology can also help Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine.

    “Extensive deployment of drones and advanced telecommunications equipment have been crucial on all fronts in Ukraine, from intelligence collection to air-strike campaigns,” the report says.

    “These technologies, though critical, require steady connectivity and geospatial support, making cooperation with China a potential solution to Moscow’s desire for a military breakthrough.”

    According to the report, 5G network development has gained particular significance in Russo-Chinese strategic relations in recent years, resulting in a sequence of agreements between Chinese technology giant Huawei and Russian companies MTS and Beeline, both under sanctions by Canada for being linked to Russia’s military-industrial complex.

    5G is a technology standard for cellular networks, which allows a higher speed of data transfer than its predecessor, 4G. According to the RUSI’s report, 5G “has the potential to reshape the battlefield” through enhanced tracking of military objects, faster transferring and real-time processing of large sensor datasets and enhanced communications.

    These are “precisely the features that could render Russo-Chinese 5G cooperation extremely useful in a wartime context — and therefore create a heightened risk for Ukraine,” the report adds.

    Although the report says that there are currently “operational and institutional constraints” to Russia’s battlefield integration of 5G technology, it has advantages which make it an “appealing priority” for Moscow, Jack Crawford, a research analyst at RUSI and one of the authors of the report, said.

    “As Russia continues to seek battlefield advantages over Ukraine, recent improvements in 5G against jamming technologies make 5G communications — both on the ground and with aerial weapons and vehicles — an even more appealing priority,” Crawford told RFE/RL in an e-mailed response.

    Satellite technology, however, is already the focus of the collaboration between China and Russia, the report says, pointing to recent major developments in the collaboration between the Russian satellite navigation system GLONASS and its Chinese equivalent, Beidou.

    In 2018, Russia and China agreed on the joint application of GLONASS/Beidou and in 2022 decided to build three Russian monitoring stations in China and three Chinese stations in Russia — in the city of Obninsk, about 100 kilometers southwest of Moscow, the Siberian city of Irkutsk, and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia’s Far East.

    Satellite technology can collect imagery, weather and terrain data, improve logistics management, track troop movements, and enhance precision in the identification and elimination of ground targets.

    According to the report, GLONASS has already enabled Russian missile and drone strikes in Ukraine through satellite correction and supported communications between Russian troops.

    The anticipated construction of Beidou’s Obninsk monitoring station, the closest of the three Chinese stations to Ukraine, would allow Russia to increasingly leverage satellite cooperation with China against Ukraine, the report warns.

    In 2022, the Russian company Racurs, which provides software solutions for photogrammetry, GIS, and remote sensing, signed satellite data-sharing agreements with two Chinese companies. The deals were aimed at replacing contracts with Western satellite companies that suspended data supply in Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

    The two companies — HEAD Aerospace and Spacety — are both under sanctions by the United States for supplying satellite imagery of locations in Ukraine to entities affiliated with the Wagner mercenary group.

    “For the time being, we cannot trace how exactly these shared data have informed specific decisions on the front line,” Roman Kolodii, a security expert at Charles University in Prague and one of the authors of the report, told RFE/RL.

    “However, since Racurs is a partner of the Russian Ministry of Defense, it is highly likely that such data might end up strengthening Russia’s geospatial capabilities in the military domain, too.”

    “Ultimately, such dynamic interactions with Chinese companies may improve Russian military logistics, reconnaissance capabilities, geospatial intelligence, and drone deployment in Ukraine,” the report says.

    The report comes as Western governments are stepping up efforts to counter Russia’s attempt to evade sanctions imposed as a response to its military aggression against Ukraine.

    On February 23, on the eve of the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the United States imposed sanctions on nearly 100 entities that are helping Russia evade trade sanctions and “providing backdoor support for Russia’s war machine.”

    The list includes Chinese companies, accused of supporting “Russia’s military-industrial base.”

    With reporting by Merhat Sharpizhanov


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Pashinian Says Armenia Freezes Membership In Russian-Led Security Alliance

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says NATO allies are committed to doing more to ensure that Ukraine “prevails” in its battle to repel invading Russian forces, with the alliance having “significantly changed” its stance on providing more advanced weapons to Kyiv.

    Speaking in an interview with RFE/RL to mark the second anniversary of Russia launching its full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the NATO chief said solidarity with Ukraine was not only correct, it’s also “in our own security interests.”

    “We can expect that the NATO allies will do more to ensure that Ukraine prevails, because this has been so clearly stated by NATO allies,” Stoltenberg said.

    Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine

    RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

    “I always stress that this is not charity. This is an investment in our own security and and that our support makes a difference on the battlefield every day,” he added.

    Ukraine is in desperate need of financial and military assistance amid signs of political fatigue in the West as the war kicked off by Russia’s unprovoked invasion nears the two-year mark on February 24.

    In excerpts from the interview released earlier in the week, Stoltenberg said the death of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and the first Russian gains on the battlefield in months should help focus the attention of NATO and its allies on the urgent need to support Ukraine.

    The death of Navalny in an Arctic prison on February 16 under suspicious circumstances — authorities say it will be another two weeks before the body may be released to the family — adds to the need to ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule does not go unchecked.

    “I strongly believe that the best way to honor the memory of Aleksei Navalny is to ensure that President Putin doesn’t win on the battlefield, but that Ukraine prevails,” Stoltenberg said.

    Stoltenberg said the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the city of Avdiyivka last week after months of intense fighting demonstrated the need for more military aid, “to ensure that Russia doesn’t make further gains.”

    “We don’t believe that the fact that the Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from Avdiyivka in in itself will significantly change the strategic situation,” he said.

    “But it reminds us of that Russia is willing to sacrifice a lot of soldiers. It also just makes minor territorial gains and also that Russia has received significant military support supplies from Iran, from North Korea and have been able to ramp up their own production.”

    Ukraine’s allies have been focused on a $61 billion U.S. military aid package, but while that remains stalled in the House of Representatives, other countries, including Sweden, Canada, and Japan, have stepped up their aid.

    “Of course, we are focused on the United States, but we also see how other allies are really stepping up and delivering significant support to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said in the interview.

    On the question of when Ukraine will be able to deploy F-16 fighter jets, Stoltenberg said it was not possible to say. He reiterated that Ukraine’s allies all want them to be there as early as possible but said the effect of the F-16s will be stronger if pilots are well trained and maintenance crews and other support personnel are well-prepared.

    “So, I think we have to listen to the military experts exactly when we will be ready to or when allies will be ready to start sending and to delivering the F-16s,” he said. “The sooner the better.”

    Ukraine has actively sought U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to help it counter Russian air superiority. The United States in August approved sending F-16s to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands as soon as pilot training is completed.

    It will be up to each ally to decide whether to deliver F-16s to Ukraine, and allies have different policies, Stoltenberg said. But at the same time the war in Ukraine is a war of aggression, and Ukraine has the right to self-defense, including striking legitimate Russian military targets outside Ukraine.

    Asked about the prospect of former President Donald Trump returning to the White House, Stoltenberg said that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections this year, the United States will remain a committed NATO ally because it is in the security interest of the United States.

    Trump, the current front-runner in the race to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, drew sharp rebukes from President Joe Biden, European leaders, and NATO after suggesting at a campaign rally on February 10 that the United States might not defend alliance members from a potential Russian invasion if they don’t pay enough toward their own defense.

    Stoltenberg said the United States was safer and stronger together with more than 30 allies — something that neither China nor Russia has.

    The criticism of NATO has been aimed at allies underspending on defense, he said.

    But Stoltenberg said new data shows that more and more NATO allies are meeting the target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, and this demonstrates that the alliance has come a long way since it pledged in 2014 to meet the target.

    At that time three members of NATO spent 2 percent of GDP on defense. Now it’s 18, he said.

    “If you add together what all European allies do and compare that to the GDP in total in Europe, it’s actually 2 percent today,” he said. “That’s good, but it’s not enough because we want [each NATO member] to spend 2 percent. And we also make sure that 2 percent is a minimum.”


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Blinken, Scholz Meet Leaders Of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Vow To Support Peace Efforts

    Aleksei Navalny’s family and close associates have confirmed the Russian opposition politician’s death in an Arctic prison and have demanded his body be handed over, but officials have refused to release it, telling his lawyers and mother that an “investigation” of the causes would only be completed next week.

    “Aleksei’s lawyer and his mother have arrived at the morgue in Salekhard,” Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X, referring to the capital of the region of Yamalo-Nenets, where Navalny’s prison is located.

    “It’s closed. However, the [prison] has assured them it’s working and Navalny’s body is there. The lawyer called the phone number which was on the door. He was told he was the seventh caller today. Aleksei’s body is not in the morgue,” she added.

    Yarmysh then said in a new message: “An hour ago, the lawyers were told that the check was completed and no crime had been found. They literally lie every time, drive in circles and cover their tracks.”

    But in a third message, she said, “Now the Investigative Committee directly says that until the check is completed, Aleksei’s body will not be given to relatives.”

    Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov, who currently resides abroad, said that Navalny’s mother was told her son had died of a cardiac-arrest illness.

    “When the lawyer and Aleksei’s mother arrived at the colony this morning, they were told that the cause of Navalny’s death was sudden death syndrome,” Zhdanov said.

    Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, who traveled to the Yamalo-Nenets region some 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow, was earlier informed that the Kremlin critic died at the “Arctic Wolf” prison on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to Yarmish.

    Vadim Prokhorov, a lawyer who has represented Russian human rights activists, told Current Time that “what is happening is not accidental.”

    “The Russian authorities will do everything not to turn over the body in time or certainly not to conduct a forensic medical examination,” Prokhorov told Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

    The penitentiary service said in a statement on February 16 that Navalny felt unwell after a walk and subsequently lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to revive him but he died, the statement added.

    Navalny, a longtime anti-corruption fighter and Russia’s most-prominent opposition politician for over a decade, was 47.

    His death sparked an immediate outpouring of grief among many Russians, while leaders around the world condenmed the death of Vladimir Putin’s staunchest critic, blaming the Russian president directly for the death.

    Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers meeting in Munich on the sidelines of a security conference held a minute’s silence for Navalny on February 17. The G7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

    In a joint statement released by Italy, the ministers expressed their “outrage at the death in detention of Aleksei Navalny, unjustly sentenced for legitimate political activities and his fight against corruption.”

    Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that “for his ideas and his fight for freedom and against corruption in Russia, Navalny was in fact led to his death.”

    “Russia must shed light on his death and stop the unacceptable repression of political dissent,” he added.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the death of Navalny showed that it is impossible to see Putin as a legitimate leader.

    “Putin kills whoever he wants, be it an opposition leader or anyone who seems like a target to him,” Zelenskiy told the Munich Security Conference on February 17.

    Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe, told RFE/RL in Munich that Navalny will be remembered as someone who sacrificed his life for his country.

    “Putin wants to be remembered as a ruler of Russia. But Navalny will be remembered in a different way because Navalny died for his country rather than for killing other people.”

    “He tried to show that other things are possible [in Russia] and we’ll never know what kind of leader he would have been,” he added.

    Navalny’s vision for change in Russia will be kept alive by his team, his spokeswoman Yarmysh said. “We lost our leader, but we didn’t lose our ideas and our beliefs,” Yarmysh told Reuters via Zoom, speaking from an undisclosed location.

    Navalny’s death was a “very sad day” for Russia, and must lead to international action, the wife of a former Russian agent killed by radiation poisoning said on February 17.

    Marina Litvinenko, whose husband Aleksandr died of radiation poisoning in 2006, three weeks after drinking tea laced with polonium at a meeting with Russian agents at a London hotel, told AFP she had sympathy for Navalny’s wife, Yulia.

    The Kremlin, which Navalny said was behind a poison attack that almost killed him in 2020, has angrily denied it played any role in Navalny’s death and rejected the “absolutely rabid” reaction of Western leaders.

    Inside Russia, people continued to mourn the death of the anti-corruption crusader despite official media paying little attention to his death and efforts to remove any tributes to him.

    At least 340 people have been detained in 30 cities and towns in Russia on February 16 and 17 after they came to pay tribute, include laying flowers, to the memory of Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia.

    On February 17, police blocked access to a memorial in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and detained several people there as well as in another Siberian city, Surgut, OVD-Info said.

    In Moscow, people came to lay flowers at the “Wall of Sorrow” memorial on the avenue named after Soviet physicist and dissent Andrei Sakharov on February 17. Riot police immediately moved in and more than 15 people were arrested, the Sota news outlet reported.

    In St. Petersburg, an Orthodox priest was detained on February 17 after he announced he would hold a memorial service for Navalny.

    Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko was detained near his home as he was going to the Solovetsky Stone memorial dedicated to Soviet victims of political repression.

    He was remanded in custody and was to be presented to a judge on February 19, the site 24liveblog.com reported.

    However, a memorial service was performed by a different Orthodox priest at the site, in the presence of several people, some of whom were detained after the service was completed.


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Pashinian Declines To Say Whether Armenia Would Arrest Putin Under ICC Warrant

    The party of jailed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, which according to still incomplete results has won most mandates in the February 8 elections, said it was ready to form a government amid warnings by the nuclear-armed country’s powerful military that politicians should put the people’s interests above their own.

    The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has so far announced the winners of 253 of the 265 contested parliamentary seats amid a slow counting process hampered by the interruption of mobile service.

    According to those results, independents backed by Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf (PTI) won 92 seats, while former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) garnered 71, and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) obtained 54 mandates. The remainder are spread among other small parties and candidates.

    Both Khan and Sharif declared victory.

    As results appeared to point to a hung parliament, PTI’s acting Chairman Gohar Ali Khan on February 10 told a news conference in Islamabad that the party aimed at forming a government as candidates backed by it had won the most seats.

    Khan also announced that if complete results were not released by February 10 in the evening, the PTI intended to stage a peaceful protest on February 11.

    Third-placed PPP, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a former foreign minister who is the son of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, could play kingmaker in case of talks to form a coalition government.

    Sharif said on February 9 that he was sending his younger brother and former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as an envoy to approach the PPP and other political parties for coalition talks.

    The elections were held in a highly polarized environment as Khan, a former cricket superstar, and his party were kept out of the election. Khan is currently in prison after he was convicted of graft and leaking state secrets. He also saw his marriage annulled by a court.

    Earlier on February 10, the chief of Pakistan’s powerful military urged the country’s political class to set aside rivalries and work for the good of the people.

    “The nation needs stable hands and a healing touch to move on from the politics of anarchy and polarization, which does not suit a progressive country of 250 million people,” General Syed Asim Munir said in a statement.

    “Political leadership and their workers should rise above self-interests and synergize efforts in governing and serving the people, which is perhaps the only way to make democracy functional and purposeful,” Munir said.

    The military has run Pakistan for nearly half its history since partition from India in 1947 and it still wields huge power and influence.

    The February 8 vote took place amid rising political tensions and an upsurge of violence that prompted authorities to deploy more than 650,000 army, paramilitary, and police personnel across the country.

    Despite the beefed-up security presence, violence continued even after the election. On February 10, the leader of Pakistan’s National Democratic Movement, Mohsin Dawar, was shot and wounded in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal district.

    Daward was shot and injured as he addressed supporters in front of a military camp in Miramsha in the country’s northwest.

    Mohsin Dawar's injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.
    Mohsin Dawar’s injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.

    Dawar, a well-known Pashtun politician, was shot in the thigh and rushed to a nearby hospital in stable condition. He was later transported to the capital, Islamabad, for further treatment. His injuries are not life threatening. Videos of a bloodied Dawar circulated on social media

    Three supporters were killed and 15 more injured in the incident, Rahim Dawar, a party member and eyewitness who is of no relation to the Pashtun politician, told RFE/RL.

    Dawar, who was running for the lower house of parliament, arrived at the headquarters of the regional election committee, located inside the military camp, to demand officials announce the result of the vote.

    Soldiers barred Dawar from entering and he was later shot as he addressed supporters outside the office. Dawar’s supporters accuse the police and security forces of firing at them.

    The security forces have yet to respond to the allegation. Local media, citing unidentified security sources, reported that some policemen were also killed in the incident, but RFE/RL could not confirm that.

    Dawar won a five-year term in 2018 and served in parliament until it was dissolved. Election officials later in the day said Dawar had lost the election.

    Crisis-hit Pakistan has been struggling with runaway inflation while Islamabad scrambles to repay more than $130 billion in foreign debt.

    Reported irregularities during the February 8 poll prompted the United States, Britain, and the European Union to voice concerns about the way the vote was conducted and to urge an investigation.

    Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry on February 10 rejected the criticism.

    PTI was banned from participating in the vote because the ECP said it had failed to properly register as a party. Its candidates then decided to run as independents after the Supreme Court and the ECP said they couldn’t use the party symbol — a cricket bat. Parties in the country use symbols to help illiterate voters find them on the ballots.

    Yet the PTI-backed independents have emerged as the largest block in the new parliament. Under Pakistani law, they must join a political party within 72 hours after their election victory is officially confirmed. They can join the PTI if it takes the required administrative steps to be cleared and approved as a party by the ECP.

    Khan, 71, was prime minister from 2018 to 2022. He still enjoys huge popularity, but his political future and return to the political limelight is unclear.

    With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Beyond the Genocide

    Each genocide has its characteristics; the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people has unique characteristics that make it more dangerous than atrocities that damaged previous populations. Starting from the day that a Zionist stepped on Palestinian land, the machinery for the eventual genocide was being prepared. Failure of international organizations to take necessary precautions, even after Zionist intentions became clarified, led to the present daily toll of loss of life and loss of will to live. No mechanism is apparent to prevent the eventual denouement. A careless world has been unable to react to a major destruction of innocent people and does not recognize that this genocide is a prelude to the massacres of much larger populations of the world’s peoples. The destruction has just begun.

    Recognized Contemporary Genocides

    In Rwanda, the larger Hutu population (85%) felt dominated by the smaller (15%) and wealthier Tutsi ethnicity. Independence led to Hutu control, followed by massacres of Tutsis, and forced displacement of 400,000 by the ruling government that portrayed Tutsis as threats to Rwanda.

    The April 6, 1994 downing of a plane carrying Rwanda’s President Habyarimana and Burundi’s President Cyprien Ntaryamira prompted extremist Hutus to blame Tutsi rebels from the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) for the attack and deaths of the two Hutu presidents. Rwanda’s Hutu militia organized attacks against all Tutsis. Assisted by forces in neighboring Uganda and Tanzania, the RPF successfully engaged the Hutu militia, captured the country, and gained control of the government. The victory did not stop a three-month Hutu rampage that randomly murdered an estimated 500,000 – 900,000 Tutsis.

    In Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation, Rohingya people are an ethnic and religious minority of Muslim and Indo-Aryan origin. Despite tracing their presence in Myanmar to before the 18th century, the government considers them “Bengali, with no cultural, religious, or social ties to Myanmar,” and denies them citizenship and services. A conflict between the Rakhine people and the Myanmar authorities spilled over into the ongoing conflicts between Rohingya and their Rakhine neighbors and the Myanmar military. In 2017, the violence caused an excess of 10,000 Rohingya killed and more than 300 villages destroyed. About 700,000 of an estimated 1.4 million Rohingya people fled to nearby countries, mostly to Bangladesh.

    Cambodia found itself drawn into the Vietnam War when U.S. forces expanded their military operations into Cambodia to combat Vietnamese communist forces seeking sanctuary. Prince Sihanouk severed relations and the U.S. initiated a U.S.-backed coup that dethroned Sihanouk and brought General Lon Nol to power as President of the Khmer Republic. An exiled Sihanouk joined forces with the North Vietnamese and the Cambodian Khmer Rouge communists, defeated the Lon Nol army, and captured Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975. Guided by leadership from Pol Pot, the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) instituted a series of purges that evacuated cities, killed previous Lon Nol officials, brutally persecuted Buddhist monks and ethnic minorities, and attempted to eliminate dissidents to the regime. In 1979, Pol Pot’s previous ally, victorious North Vietnam, now a unified Vietnam, invaded Cambodia, overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime, and created the People’s Republic of Kampuchea.

    The Cambodian genocide was not conventional; more of a super killing field, reminiscent of Robespierre’s terror campaign during the French Revolution.

    The World War II genocide started with severe persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany during the pre-war years and emerged in Poland during the early war years. A complete genocide, known as the Holocaust, reached maximum intensity with the slaughter of Jews after their forced transfer from all of Europe to labor camps. The most severe statistic has only 3.5 million of the 9.5 million Jews who lived in Europe before the war listed as survivors. An agreement between the Zionists in Palestine and the Nazi regime enabled some 53,000 Jews to emigrate from Germany to Palestine. About 170,000 displaced persons migrated to Israel after the war. Jews are now accused of genocide of the Palestinian people.

    Armenians have suffered genocidal violence throughout their history. According to Britannica:

    Anti-Armenian feelings erupted into mass violence several times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When, in 1894, the Armenians in the Sasun region refused to pay an oppressive tax, Ottoman troops and Kurdish tribesmen killed thousands of Armenians in the region. Another series of mass killings began in the fall of 1895, when Ottoman authorities’ suppression of an Armenian demonstration in Istanbul became a massacre. In all, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed in massacres between 1894 and 1896, which later came to be known as the Hamidian massacres. Some 20,000 more Armenians were killed in urban riots and pogroms in Adana and Hadjin in 1909.

    These atrocities were a prelude to the 1915 genocide that some estimate caused 1-1.5 million Armenian deaths by Turkish Ottoman authorities who claimed that questionable loyalty of the Armenian population necessitated their transfer away from the neighboring Russian enemy. Turkish officials asserted that the massacres occurred from enraged populations and not from a design by the Turkish Ottoman government.

    Uniqueness of the Palestinian Genocide

    Most of the previously recognized genocides occurred spontaneously, involved local people, were relatively short, and ended abruptly. In their essential feature, the government accused a minority of not having social and cultural ties with the majority and being intruders in the land. No foreign governments or foreign people assisted in the genocide and assisted the oppressed people. The genocide of the Palestinian people does not share these characteristics.

    Zionists were not part of the local population; they intruded into the area and were a small minority at the time they started the Palestinian genocide. An established Israeli government slowly increased the genocide process, has continued it for a lengthy time, and is now providing a planned path to conclusion. Whereas, other genocides occurred quickly — Rwanda Tutsi, Armenian, Rohingya — or were not readily apparent — World War II Holocaust — the Palestinian genocide is occurring for a long period and in full view of the world. Several foreign governments, mainly the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, and Jewish and Evangelical people and institutions actively aid the genocide. On the other hand, several Middle Eastern governments and people throughout the world recognize the desperate plight of the Palestinians and valiantly fight to protect them from destruction. The unique characteristics, no visible end to the catastrophe, involvement of external actors in perpetrating the genocide, and increasingly violent reactions indicate that this genocide will provoke unavoidable clashes. More destruction will be visited upon other innocents.

    Beyond the Genocide

    The South African delegation gave a convincing presentation to the International Court of Justice at The Hague’s case of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.

    More than 23,000 people in Gaza have been killed during Israel’s military campaign, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. That toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Nearly 85% of Gaza’s people have been driven their homes, a quarter of the enclave’s residents face starvation, and much of northern Gaza has been reduced to rubble.

    The response from U.S. and Israeli authorities certified the genocide.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the accusation of genocide “meritless.” National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby said, “That’s not a word that ought to be thrown around lightly, and we certainly don’t believe that it applies here.”

    John Kirby is correct. “Genocide is not a word that ought to be thrown around lightly.” Normal, serious, and compassionate people don’t lightly reject the accusation, don’t immediately call it meritless, and listen carefully to the pleadings. Simple adjectives and adverbs are not a reply and point-by-point refutation to exacting statements is the only acceptable answer. By judging before listening, American officials indicated they could not reply and the charge of genocide is accurate. Surprisingly, the Israeli government’s reply was more damaging to its defense. Its defense lawyer uttered, “Genocide is one of the most heinous acts any entity or individual can commit, and such allegations should only be made with the greatest of care. Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas’s terrorist acts — acts that Hamas has vowed to repeat again and again until Israel is completely destroyed.” Israel insisted that its war in Gaza was a legitimate defense of its people and Hamas militants were guilty of genocide who want to wipe out all Jews.

    This war is an offensive war and not a defensive war. Israel is not defending itself, it is offending all of Gaza and its population. Can any knowledgeable and competent individual believe that Hamas, with its peashooters and 15,000 fighters, can repeat and repeat its October 7 action, destroy nuclear-armed Israel, commit genocide on the Israeli people, and wipe out all Jews? Only a twisted mind can offer those reasons as an excuse for the daily murder of the Gazans and the destruction of their housing, institutions, hospitals, and will to live.

    Realizing the oppression cannot force the Palestinians to submit or leave and has no foreseeable end, the Israeli government took advantage of the October 7 single event (it will become a remembrance date throughout the Western world) to convince the world that the Palestinians are mass murderers and therefore mass murder of millions of them is acceptable. How will this eventually play out? Noting the enormity of the last 75 years of destruction throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Western nations battle against international terrorism, and Israel’s intensification of its assaults in Gaza and the West Bank, anticipated future destruction throughout the world, which includes strikes against Israel’s principal opponents, will be vast.

    Start with Gaza

    Israeli leaders have twittered and tittered with vague propositions that Gazans have a choice of either leaving the area or remaining surrounded and confined. President Biden recommends the Palestinian Authority (PA) govern Gaza; the PA that cannot support itself, is not popular with the Palestinian people, cannot stop the daily aggression against its citizens in the West Bank, and subsidized 1/3 of the budget of Hamas ruled Gaza, is the PA that is going to tend to two million Palestinians in a barren Gaza.

    Another suggestion is for the United Nations (UN), which has supplied succulence to the Gazans for 75 years, to govern (by a Trusteeship Council???) and increase succulence by several magnitudes. This is the UN that passed a myriad of resolutions for administrating the chaos and has not been able to implement any of them. The UN Trusteeship Council consists of the five permanent members of the Security Council — China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States — few of whom trust one another. UN peacekeepers have rarely been able to keep the peace in any areas of their presence.

    In a previous article, The Fate of the Palestinians, the writer described a depressing scenario for Gaza’s future.

    In this gigantic plantation, where a huge population cramps into an area that cannot contain it, labor will be plentiful and jobs will be scarce. Gazans will work for low wages and receive a marginal life. With every aspect of their lives controlled by an outside force, they will be unable to control their destiny; population increase will be regulated and population decrease will be ruthlessly managed…until extinction.

    I have not seen another serious scenario that capably contradicts this drastic scenario. One feature of those contending the Palestinian genocide is that they are mostly retroactive and not proactive; few actions prevent events and many actions only recite events. What are the possible scenarios? What is expected to happen? Preparing for certainty is preferred to waiting for Godot.

    West Bank

    Israel has addressed the Palestinians in the West Bank territory in a different manner than addressed in Gaza. Arranging the West Bank Palestinians for their demise requires another approach. The Gazans live in one contiguous area; West Bank Palestinians live in separate enclaves. No settlements or settlers in Gaza; many of both are in the West Bank. No soldiers, checkpoints, or roadblocks in Gaza; daily occurrence in the West Bank. No recognized authority that Israel will deal with in Gaza; PA in the West Bank.

    Expanding settlements, periodic stealing of Palestinian lands, and daily encroachment on Palestinian lives indicate that Israel is not amenable to having Palestinians between the river and the sea. Recent events show Israel is attempting to quell all resistance, no matter how minor. From October 7, 2023, to January 11, 2024, more than 2,650 Palestinians in the West Bank have been arrested. According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, “some 300 West Bank Palestinians have been killed. Based on military estimates, the vast majority of those killed since October 7 were shot during clashes amid arrest raids.” Two problems exist that prevent Israel from completing its plans.

    (1)    Palestinians have not budged and their population has not reduced.

    (2)    Military opposition grows stronger each day. Iran advances in all warfare technology — drones, long-range missiles, and nuclear weapons.

    Israel has a dilemma — should Palestinians be removed before addressing the military problem or is it wise to silence enemies before they develop capability to defend themselves? Israel’s strategists realize their foes may be able to challenge the expulsion and once the foes are eliminated the expulsion becomes easier. Look at history and find Iran and Hezbollah as the last-standing antagonists who can prevent the Zionists from accomplishing their objectives. Other antagonists have been sidetracked.

    The Sudan, a perceived Israel antagonist, which had potential of becoming a major nation, has been carved into two hapless nations, much due to U.S. actions. The U.S. invasion, urged by Israel’s fifth column, the Neocons, overthrew Saddam Hussein and prevented Iraq from becoming a major power in the Middle East and a threat to Israel. Libya, another Israel antagonist, has been destroyed and driven to anarchy by NATO’s incomprehensible and falsely driven military actions. Egypt and Jordan have been pacified.

    Israel expected Syria’s Assad would be defeated and a new government would eschew relations with Iran and Hezbollah. Overthrow of the Assad regime and replacement by a new government would have deprived Hezbollah of a compatible border and access to its Iran ally. In Iraq or Syria, a Kurdish success in establishing an independent state would have given Israel a friend on the borders with Iraq and Iran. Because none of these expectations have been realized, a new approach to debilitating Iran and Hezbollah and assuring they do not have weapons to cause great danger to Israel is being processed.

    Iran is the last man standing. Hezbollah and the Houthis are irritants that will become ineffective once Iran has been destroyed. Provoking Iran into serious military action has not occurred and the Islamic Republic is not falling for the bait, which means the provocations will become stronger and stronger until Iran has no choice. The Islamic Republic also has internal enemies and restless ethnicities who seek independence. Arranging the dominos and churning the pot are everyday tasks for Israel’s Mossad; assuredly, they have been hard at work on the problem. Once the massive strikes from sea and air hit Tehran and other cities, other internal land strikes will scorch the countryside. Iran will become an inferno of external war, religious war, civil war, and tribal rebellions.

    With Iran subdued, Israel will turn its intention to the recalcitrant Palestinians, whom the government will accuse of siding with Iran and cannot be trusted. Expulsion of three million indigenous people, who had tilled the soil for generations, and replacing them with foreign newcomers, who had walked city streets for generations, is difficult. Israel cannot evict the Palestinians. The separation of the Palestinian population in several and widely separated cities in the West Bank does not allow forcible eviction. Israel will find another means and the most logical is covertly administrating population decline.

    The CIA publishes interesting statistics (they do some helpful things) and the population and economic statistics reveal the precarious life of the Palestinians on their home grounds.

    WEST BANK POPULATION STATISTICS

    The present statistics don’t favor Israel’s approach to getting rid of those pesky Palestinians. High birth rates and low death rates offset ultra-high maternal and infant mortality rates and a high migration rate. The Palestinian population continues to increase at 2.3%/yr. So, how can Israel engineer a severe population decline? This was previously discussed in an article, “Ever Again.” Changing the statistics to be more favorable to decreasing Palestinian presence in the West Bank is another way.

    Make life more brutal, which Israel will do, and the migration rate, already high for young males, will greatly increase. This will lower the number of marriages and births. Families will also leave. The Palestinian economy is not well developed, with no major industries, mainly services (77.6%, 2017 est.), agriculture, and small industry. Unemployment is at 25 percent. Imports absorb one-half of the GDP. In 2022, Palestinian imports of goods and services were $8.20 billion and exports were $1.58 billion and much of the trade was with Israel. Imports from Israel were $4.64 billion and exports were $1.40 billion.

    Israel has a stranglehold on Palestinian lives and economy — appropriating land reduces agriculture and animal husbandry output and increases demand for food imports; lowering Palestinian labor in the Israel economy augments Palestinian unemployment; crime and violence follow unemployment and urge people to leave, harassment and physical attacks create anxiety, leading to escalating illness, deaths, and miscarriages.

    Continually encroached on and reduced to diminishing living space, agriculture, water, and resources, life for Palestinians will become unbearable. Will the Palestinians continue to live at lower and lower subsistence levels? Migration will escalate.

    If the population decreases by 5 percent annually, in 14 years, the population is halved, and, in 50 years, the population decreases to 10 percent of its initial amount. By these methods, the West Bank Palestinian population can be reduced from 3 million to 300,000. The remaining Palestinians will be faceless and wandering people among the many millions of Israelis.

    Physical destruction is noticeable. Psychological, cultural, political, social, cultural, and economic havoc (oil embargos) go unnoticed.

    Hesitatingly murmured is that descendants of those who suffered the World War II genocide are committing the present genocide. The Israeli Jewish population has a strong voice in a democratic nation and has not expressed indignation; they, and a great number of Jews throughout the world are supporting the genocide. Are those who suffered and died during the Holocaust being used to shadow another genocide? Have the decades of abundant references to the Holocaust been an emotional preparation to have others accept the ongoing genocide? Have the lessons of World War II, which should have been used to prevent further community destruction, been subverted to enhance destruction? Have contemporary Jews betrayed their ancestors who lie buried in the extermination camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Mauthausen, Ravensbruck, Sobibor, and others?

    Reactions to the gathering genocide have already occurred. The extent to which they grow and affect the Jewish people remains undetermined. Will they be short-lived and mildly punishing or will they grow in intensity, be gravely punishing, and last from here to eternity?

    Warping of the cultural, social, and political activities in Western nations has enabled the genocide. Portraying Zionism as a mass movement of repressed people who rose from the ashes of the Holocaust and fought valiantly against overwhelming odds to create a democratic state where Jews could gather and live peacefully required partial destruction of the democratic process — social, cultural, and economic control of a major part of the media. The manipulative gathered the manipulated — Evangelicals, liberal antagonists, ultra-nationalists — to challenge the political system and gain their support in electing governments that pursued policies friendly to Israel. The nation is polarized and its democratic institutions. Already threatened by one election of Donald Trump to the presidency, the nation is again threatened by the same possibility in the near future.

    A relatively small clique determines America’s future, who succeeds and who fails, who receives and who is denied, who gets pardoned, and who gets punished. American democracy in action.

    In the Middle East, it has become “who lives and who dies.”

    From Plymouth Rock to Western Wall granite, the American dream shapes the fate of people and skews world history.

    The post Beyond the Genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Armenians Suffering in Nagorno-Karabakh Are Going Largely Ignored in US Media

    In this exclusive interview for Truthout, sociologist Artyom Tonoyan discusses the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. In this under-reported case of cultural genocide involving political persecution, strains on due process rights, torture, lack of healthcare and food supplies, tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians have fled from Nagorno-Karabakh region…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • 90,000 Armenians Flee Nagorno-Karabakh After Azerbaijan Seizes Region by Force

    The government of Nagorno-Karabakh is dissolving itself after decades of struggle for autonomy from Azerbaijan, just days after Azerbaijani forces carried out a military blitz to seize the breakaway region, which has a majority of ethnic Armenians. More than half the territory’s 120,000 people have reportedly fled to Armenia, while thousands more remain without food, shelter and clean drinking…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Many Nagorno-Karabakh residents no longer feel safe in their homes and are fleeing to Armenia.


    This content originally appeared on Amnesty International and was authored by Amnesty International.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • War of Economic Corridors: the India-Mideast-Europe Ploy

    The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a massive public diplomacy op launched at the recent G20 summit in New Delhi, complete with a memorandum of understanding signed on 9 September.

    Players include the US, India, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the EU, with a special role for the latter’s top three powers Germany, France, and Italy. It’s a multimodal railway project, coupled with trans-shipments and with ancillary digital and electricity roads extending to Jordan and Israel.

    If this walks and talks like the collective west’s very late response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched 10 years ago and celebrating a Belt and Road Forum in Beijing next month, that’s because it is. And yes, it is, above all, yet another American project to bypass China, to be claimed for crude electoral purposes as a meager foreign policy “success.”

    No one among the Global Majority remembers that the Americans came up with their own Silk Road plan way back in 2010. The concept came from the State Department’s Kurt Campbell and was sold by then-Secretary Hillary Clinton as her idea. History is implacable, it came down to nought.

    And no one among the Global Majority remembers the New Silk Road plan peddled by Poland, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Georgia in the early 2010s, complete with four troublesome trans-shipments in the Black Sea and the Caspian. History is implacable, this too came down to nought.

    In fact, very few among the Global Majority remember the $40 trillion US-sponsored Build Back Better World (BBBW, or B3W) global plan rolled out with great fanfare just two summers ago, focusing on “climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality.”

    A year later, at a G7 meeting, B3W had already shrunk to a $600 billion infrastructure-and-investment project. Of course, nothing was built. History really is implacable, it came down to nought.

    The same fate awaits IMEC, for a number of very specific reasons.

    Map of The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC)

    Pivoting to a black void 

    The whole IMEC rationale rests on what writer and former Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar deliciously described as “conjuring up the Abraham Accords by the incantation of a Saudi-Israeli tango.”

    This tango is Dead On Arrival; even the ghost of Piazzolla can’t revive it. For starters, one of the principals – Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman – has made it clear that Riyadh’s priorities are a new, energized Chinese-brokered relationship with Iran, with Turkiye, and with Syria after its return to the Arab League.

    Moreover, both Riyadh and its Emirati IMEC partner share immense trade, commerce, and energy interests with China, so they’re not going to do anything to upset Beijing.

    At face value, IMEC proposes a joint drive by G7 and BRICS 11 nations. That’s the western method of seducing eternally-hedging India under Modi and US-allied Saudi Arabia and the UAE to its agenda.

    Its real intention, however, is not only to undermine BRI, but also the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INTSC), in which India is a major player alongside Russia and Iran.

    The game is quite crude and really quite obvious: a transportation corridor conceived to bypass the top three vectors of real Eurasia integration – and BRICS members China, Russia, and Iran – by dangling an enticing Divide and Rule carrot that promises Things That Cannot Be Delivered.

    The American neoliberal obsession at this stage of the New Great Game is, as always, all about Israel. Their goal is to make Haifa port viable and turn it into a key transportation hub between West Asia and Europe. Everything else is subordinated to this Israeli imperative.

    IMEC, in principle, will transit across West Asia to link India to Eastern and Western Europe – selling the fiction that India is a Global Pivot state and a Convergence of Civilizations.

    Nonsense. While India’s great dream is to become a pivot state, its best shot would be via the already up-and-running INTSC, which could open markets to New Delhi from Central Asia to the Caucasus. Otherwise, as a Global Pivot state, Russia is way ahead of India diplomatically, and China is way ahead in trade and connectivity.

    Comparisons between IMEC and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are futile. IMEC is a joke compared to this BRI flagship project: the $57.7 billion plan to build a railway over 3,000 km long linking Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar in the Arabian Sea, which will connect to other overland BRI corridors heading toward Iran and Turkiye.

    This is a matter of national security for China. So bets can be made that the leadership in Beijing will have some discreet and serious conversations with the current fifth-columnists in power in Islamabad, before or during the Belt and Road Forum, to remind them of the relevant geostrategic, geoeconomic, and investment Facts.

    So, what’s left for Indian trade in all of this? Not much. They already use the Suez Canal, a direct, tested route. There’s no incentive to even start contemplating being stuck in black voids across the vast desert expanses surrounding the Persian Gulf.

    One glaring problem, for example, is that almost 1,100 km of tracks are “missing” from the railway from Fujairah in the UAE to Haifa, 745 km “missing” from Jebel Ali in Dubai to Haifa, and 630 km “missing” from the railway from Abu Dhabi to Haifa.

    When all the missing links are added up, there’s over 3,000 km of railway still to be built. The Chinese, of course, can do this for breakfast and on a dime, but they are not part of this game. And there’s no evidence the IMEC gang plans to invite them.

    All eyes on Syunik 

    In the War of Transportation Corridors charted in detail for The Cradle in June 2022, it becomes clear that intentions rarely meet reality. These grand projects are all about logistics, logistics, logistics – of course, intertwined with the three other key pillars: energy and energy resources, labor and manufacturing, and market/trade rules.

    Let’s examine a Central Asian example. Russia and three Central Asian “stans” – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – are launching a multimodal Southern Transportation Corridor which will bypass Kazakhstan.

    Why? After all, Kazakhstan, alongside Russia, is a key member of both the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

    The reason is because this new corridor solves two key problems for Russia that arose with the west’s sanctions hysteria. It bypasses the Kazakh border, where everything going to Russia is scrutinized in excruciating detail. And a significant part of the cargo may now be transferred to the Russian port of Astrakhan in the Caspian.

    So Astana, which under western pressure has played a risky hedging game on Russia, may end up losing the status of a full-fledged transport hub in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region. Kazakhstan is also part of BRI; the Chinese are already very much interested in the potential of this new corridor.

    In the Caucasus, the story is even more complex, and once again, it’s all about Divide and Rule.

    Two months ago, Russia, Iran, and Azerbaijan committed to building a single railway from Iran and its ports in the Persian Gulf through Azerbaijan, to be linked to the Russian-Eastern Europe railway system.

    This is a railway project on the scale of the Trans-Siberian – to connect Eastern Europe with Eastern Africa and South Asia, bypassing the Suez Canal and European ports. The INSTC on steroids, in fact.

    Guess what happened next? A provocation in Nagorno-Karabakh, with the deadly potential of involving not only Armenia and Azerbaijan but also Iran and Turkiye.

    Tehran has been crystal clear on its red lines: it will never allow a defeat of Armenia, with direct participation from Turkiye, which fully supports Azerbaijan.

    Add to the incendiary mix are joint military exercises with the US in Armenia – which happens to be a member of the Russian-led CSTO – cast, for public consumption, as one of those seemingly innocent “partnership” NATO programs.

    This all spells out an IMEC subplot bound to undermine INTSC. Both Russia and Iran are fully aware of the former’s endemic weaknesses: political trouble between several participants, those “missing links” of track, and all important infrastructure still to be built.

    Turkish Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, will never give up the Zangezur corridor across Syunik, the south Armenian province, which was envisaged by the 2020 armistice, linking Azerbaijan to Turkiye via the Azeri enclave of Nakhitchevan – that will run through Armenian territory.

    Baku did threaten to attack southern Armenia if the Zangezur corridor was not facilitated by Yerevan. So Syunik is the next big unresolved deal in this riddle. Tehran, it must be noted, will go no holds barred to prevent a Turkish-Israeli-NATO corridor cutting Iran off from Armenia, Georgia, the Black Sea, and Russia. That would be the reality if this NATO-tinted coalition grabs Syunik.

    Today, Erdogan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev meet in the Nakhchivan enclave between Turkiye, Armenia, and Iran to start a gas pipeline and open a military production complex.

    The Sultan knows that Zangezur may finally allow Turkiye to be linked to China via a corridor that will transit the Turkic world, in Azerbaijan and the Caspian. This would also allow the collective west to go even bolder on Divide and Rule against Russia and Iran.

    Is the IMEC another far-fetched western fantasy? The place to watch is Syunik.

  • Originally published at The Cradle.

    • This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Genocide is About to Unfold in Artsakh, and the West Has Secured a Front-Row Seat


    For seventeen days, Azerbaijani special forces and military personnel—masquerading as “environmentalists”—have blocked the only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia. They have effectively severed the only lifeline the Artsakh Armenians have to the outside world—a lifeline guaranteed by the Trilateral Statement of November 10, 2020. With 120,000 Artsakh Armenians now completely encircled and isolated, Azerbaijan is poised to rid itself of the entire Armenian population this holiday season, and it will try to do so while Europe sips hot chocolate and watches.

    Frankly, it is rare to have the opportunity to witness mass atrocity as it unfolds, but social media and Azerbaijan’s impunity have given the West an opportunity to watch the ongoing travesty on their iPhones. Azerbaijani sources excitedly publish their atrocities against Armenians online. In fact, Azerbaijan has proudly telegraphed its intentions to ethnically cleanse Artsakh of Armenians—and the lead-up has been quite entertaining, at least for the sadists.

    The movie trailers promise a rather captivating show. An Armenian woman in Azerbaijani captivity, her eyes gouged out, her finger severed and shoved into her mouth, her empty eye sockets plugged with stones, hate speech carved into her bare, exposed chest. A video showing an elderly Armenian man in Artsakh, squirming on his back in the grass and weeds as an Azerbaijani soldier mercilessly continues to saw off his head with a dagger. Armenian POWs brought to their knees, tied and bound like animals. Azeri soldiers, in sickening euphoria, unloading bullet after bullet after bullet into the heads and backs of young Armenian boys. Yet, Azerbaijan assures the West that it is looking for peace and “coexistence”.

    Independent observers, however, tell quite a different story. The International Association of Genocide Scholars has proclaimed that “[s]ignificant genocide risk factors exist in the Nagorno-Karabakh situation concerning the Armenian population.” Genocide Watch has raised the genocide threat level facing Artsakh Armenians beyond the “dehumanization” stage and even the “preparation” stage into the “persecution” and “denial” stages. Indeed, the former Armenian Human Rights Defender, Arman Tatoyan, along with the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention have warned that Azerbaijan’s “actions are part of a larger genocidal pattern, demonstrating Azerbaijan’s Armenophobia and genocidal intent [aimed at] the eradication of Armenia, Artsakh, and the Armenians.”

    Azerbaijan demands that Artsakh Armenians be subjected to Azerbaijani authority—against their will. This is quite the cocktail: dictatorship, subjugation and genocide. But the West need remember that, after the Holocaust, it rewrote the book on watching dictators round up and deliver humans to their slaughter. Let’s be clear: “coexistence” under Azerbaijani authority is not only an utterly ridiculous proposition; it is patently inhumane, intellectually vapid—and, frankly, impermissible. We would never imagine subjecting a population of 120,000 Jews today to the authority of a rabid Nazi regime—or any Nazi regime, for that matter.

    But, for the Armenians, let’s go with “coexistence”. After all, Azerbaijan is doing a rather bang-up job laundering sanctioned Russian gas through Baku to help Europe evade sanctions and stay warm for the winter. Only the French President has stated that he is not willing to trade winter warmth for the lives of the Armenian people. The rest of Europe seems to be just fine trading some dead Armenians for thick wool socks, a gas fireplace and some hygge.

    And make no mistake: the Azerbaijani peace agenda has no credible basis—Azerbaijan has violated every single ceasefire since 2020, and its hereditary dictator (who, incidentally, sports a mustache curiously similar to Hitler’s) has openly admitted that he launched the 2020 war to bring an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through force. Peace agendas usually involve negotiations—not summary executions, medieval beheadings, and open promises by a dictator to drive Armenians out “like dogs”. But then again, as long as the Europeans are toasty and warm, Azerbaijan appears free to starve and then ethnically cleanse the Artsakh Armenians.

    There is a history of this too—and I am not even speaking of the Armenian Genocide (in which the Azerbaijanis, again with the help of their Turkish brothers, gladly participated). Azerbaijan’s march toward ethnic cleansing and genocide is blindingly clear in our own lifetimes. In response to peaceful demonstrations in Artsakh for unification with Armenia, Azerbaijan launched pogroms and massacres of Armenians in Sumgait, Kirovabad, and other cities in the late 1980s. Since then, Azerbaijan has only further institutionalized its Armenophobia, breeding and curating hatred toward Armenians at every turn. 

    More recently, Azerbaijan has offered its viewers a slew of genocide party favors: a stamp issued by Azerbaijan displays an exterminator in a Hazmat suit “exterminating” Artsakh; a military trophy park showcasing the helmets of fallen soldiers, gruesome mannequins of Armenians for children to mock and degrade; President Erdogan of Turkey praising Nuri Pasha, of Armenian Genocide era fame, at a military parade in Baku. Frankly, it is unclear what else Baku has to do to telegraph to the world its intention to eliminate the Artsakh Armenians.

    The smell of genocide wafts unmistakably in the air. Just a year ago, the International Court of Justice itself indicated provisional measures ordering Azerbaijan to “[t]ake all necessary measures to prevent the incitement and promotion of racial hatred and discrimination, including by its officials and public institutions, targeted at persons of Armenian national or ethnic origin.” The case against Azerbaijan was brought under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination—a treaty in place as a stop-gap measure to prevent (you guessed it) genocide. Of course, it has not stopped Azerbaijan from targeting the Artsakh Armenians or, for that matter, even claiming the capital of Armenia as its own. You really can’t make this up.

    But back to the blockade. No consignments of food or medicine can now reach Artsakh, and patients cannot be transferred to Armenia for life-saving treatment. Azerbaijan, at one point, even deliberately cut off the gas supply to Artsakh, subjecting the isolated population to subzero winter temperatures. As a result of this cruelty, schools, kindergartens, and hospitals were unable to be heated. Two weeks on, the food shelves are empty, the medicine cabinets are bare, and families are separated. 

    More than 270 children were left stranded on a road, meters from where civilian-clad Azerbaijani special forces kill peace pigeons and flash hand signs pledging allegiance to the “Grey Wolves”—an ultra-fascist hate organization banned in several countries.

    There is no question a genocide is looming in Artsakh. The West, cozy with Russian gas laundered through Azerbaijan, can’t find that voice to condemn Azerbaijan or even call for humanitarian intervention. Europe has secured itself a front-row seat for this human catastrophe; now, let’s see if it has the stomach to watch it unfold.

  • This article was originally contributed to ZARTONK Media by Karnig Kerkonian and is republished with permission.
  • Image credit: Hrayr Badalyan
    • The post Genocide is About to Unfold in Artsakh, and the West Has Secured a Front-Row Seat first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Ottoman’s Forever Empire and its Multiple Triggers for War

    Trading Genocides

    On April 24, 2021, US President Joseph Biden declared that the massacre of 1.5 million Turkish Armenians in 1915 constituted genocide. As to whether genocide is the word Americans can consent to use about Native Americans who suffered death, torture, displacement, apartheid and disease at the hands, mainly, of European settlers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is a lot less clear, although some state governors have gone for it. As for slavery, not until July 2008 did the US House of Representatives apologize for American slavery of blacks and the subsequent discriminatory laws and practices that have continued to marginalize and oppress a population that today constitutes over 47 million or 14% of the US population. 9 States have officially apologized for their involvement in the enslavement of Africans.

    European and American histories are replete with massacres, genocides, and unjust applications of overwhelmingly disproportionate force against indigenous peoples and others who have stood in the way of the material interests of their invaders and conquerors. The US slow determination to condemn Turkey for crimes not dissimilar to those that it has itself committed, abundantly, and in recent history, serves the cause of an official hypocrisy that has long characterized US foreign policy – bedazzling, confusing or distracting its own domestic citizenry from the ugliness of forever imperialism.

    Turkey, none too happy about being charged with genocide was hardly taken by surprise. While Turkey has always defended itself against such charges, several Ottoman officials were indeed tried and hanged for their role in the Armenian atrocities. (Which Americans were hanged for atrocities against the Indigenous peoples?). It was not only Turks who were implicated. Many Kurds, who today represent Turkey’s major internal nemesis (matching its external, Greece), participated. Others condemned the atrocities. Some Kurds who participated later atoned. Both Armenian and Kurdish exiles of the collapse of the Ottoman empire ultimately established themselves in Syria under French administration and where the Allawi Shia minority was later to extend protection to Christians against Sunni extremism and concede a fragile autonomy to the Kurds. Today, the Assad regime and Syrian Kurds face off against Turkish invaders who have afforded protection to as many as five million jihadist and former-ISIS supporters around Afrin and Idlib, while the US uses Kurdish forces (principally the SDF) to exploit Syrian oil and gas on its behalf and has them maintain prisons and camps for ISIS remnants.

    Biden’s charge was a politically nuanced expression of growing US dissatisfaction with its NATO partner even if, by the same token, it extended a measure of sympathy to the former Soviet and still pro-Russian nation of Armenia, which had suffered at the hands of Azerbaijan and its ally, Turkey, in the 2020 battle for and successful acquisition of disputed territories of Nagorno-Karabakh. Might Armenia, possibly overcome by US moral magnanimity, wrench itself further away from the sphere of Russian influence and look with greater favor upon the USA? Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous oblast in Azerbaijan but sharing religious, cultural, and linguistic features of neighboring Armenia. In 1988 the parliament of Nagorno-Karabakh had voted to unify with Armenia. A UN Security Council resolution in 1993 called on Armenia to withdraw its forces from the Azerbaijani district of Kelbajar. Turkey imposed an economic embargo on Armenia and the border was closed. The eruption of hostilities in 2020 was possibly triggered by Armenia’s decision to restore an old border checkpoint, located 15km from Azerbaijan’s export pipelines or by an Azerbaijani incursion into Armenian territory.

    Turkish relations with Turkic Azerbaijan, whose population is around 10 million, and with whom it shares 11 miles of border have always been strong. Turkey has helped Azerbaijan realize its economic potential from the Caspian Sea by purchasing Azerbaijani gas and cooperating with Azerbaijan and Georgia in infrastructural projects such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the Trans-Anatolian pipeline that connects to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) at the Turkish border with Greece at Kipoi.

    A Renascent Empire

    It is doubtful that Biden’s endorsement of the “G” word will do much to further complicate relations between the USA and Turkey, but it represents a good moment to pause and reassess what those complications are and the directions in which they point for the future of global peace and conflict. For the major questions today are not to do with the question of genocide as such but with whether, having breathed new life into the Ottoman corpse, Turkey rejoins the ranks of forever empires and, if so, the regional and global impacts this will have. The questions invoke more than empirical calculations of national interest since they have as much or more to with religion (especially Sunni Islam), transnational ethnic (Turkic) identity, national regeneration, energy policy under conditions of climate change and, not least, social class and gender inequities.

    That Turkey is a renascent empire is clear enough. By 2021, Turkey had engaged in barely contested or recent uncontested military actions in Iraq, Syria and Libya, had played proxies in South Caucasus and Yemen while engaging in disputes with Greece, strongly supporting the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and aspiring eastward along the pan-Turkic horizon towards western China. On February 19, 2021, the nationalistic State-owned Turkish television station TRT1 showed a map of the territories it claimed Turkey would control within the next thirty years. They included many Russian and FSU territories including Rostov, Volgograd, Astrakhan, Samara Oblasts, Chuvashia, Chechnya, Dagestan, Adygea, North Ossetia, and Crimea, including Sevastopol. Turkey was predicted to extend its sphere of influence to include Greece, southern Cyprus, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Gulf countries, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. Curiously, the map originated in a book published in 2009 by the founder of Stratfor Center for Research in International Politics.

    It might be appropriate to laugh this off as fanciful delusion, as did many Russian commentators, but by 2021 it was at least clear that Turkey had considerably and aggressively expanded its regional and global influence. Turkey had joined the Council of Europe in 1950 and the European Customs Union in 1995 and embarked on negotiations for membership of the EU in 1999. Yet mirroring the pro-Islamist orientations of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Justice and Development Party (AKP) that has held power continuously since 2003 — and in a corrective to the overly coercive imposition of western legal, cultural, and technological practices by the country’s founder Kemal Ataturk from 1923 (sustained by the military up until its participation in an attempted coup against Erdogan in 2016) – the AKP has exerted a strong eastward pull in recent years. This was partly cause and partly result of the stalling in 2015 of negotiations for entry to the EU, reflecting EU concerns about human rights and the rule of law, particularly in the light of the merger in 2015 of the AKP with the anti-European Nationalist Movement Party. In addition, the escalation of Turkish tensions with fellow NATO member Greece, as Turkey pressed claims to the right to prospective oil and gas deposits in what may be Greek maritime territories, has further impaired its image in Brussels.

    A Militaristic Empire of Bases, Interventions, and Soft Power

    Turkish forces were mainly instrumental in bringing about the formation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in 1974. This gained independence in 1983 but is only recognized by Turkey. Since 2018, Turkey has occupied a significant stretch of Syrian land along Turkey’s border with Syria, enveloping as many as five million people.

    Earlier, it had invaded northern Iraq in its perpetual quest to subjugate Kurdish populations. Turkish armed attacks in Iraq started in 2007 with an air attack involving 50 fighter jets. Turkey’s 2008 “Operation Sun” involved 10,000 troops. Turkey would likely be an influential party to the takeover by NATO, involving 5,000 NATO troops, of US training and military operations in Iraq from 2021.

    It was engaged in the conflict in southern Yemen through its support for the country’s local branch (the Reform Party) of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is represented in the government of Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed based in the south-eastern port city of Aden, thus helping fill the vacuum created by the downfall of the Ali Abdullah Saleh regime in February 2012 and an Iranian-staged coup by Houthi militia against President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi in March 2015. This raised concern in Egypt that Turkey’s efforts to increase its presence near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, through which Gulf oil is transported before reaching the Suez Canal, will threaten the security of Egypt and the Arabian Gulf. Turkey maintains a military base in Djibouti, has tried to gain a foothold both in Somalia and the Sudanese Red Sea island of Suakin.

    Altogether, Turkey maintained bases in Qatar, Libya, Somalia, Northern Cyprus, Syria, and Iraq. Turkey had established a strong alliance with the UN-approved Government of National Accord (the GNA) in Tripoli, Libya, by agreeing to establish an Exclusive Economic Zone in the Mediterranean as a step towards claiming rights to ocean bed resources, and by stationing Turkish forces in January 2020 in defense of Tripoli against the forces of a rival government based in Tobruk, eastern Libya, under former CIA asset Khalifa Belasis Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army. While the UN Secretary General registered the deal on October 1, 2020, the Tobruk government (supported by the EU, Greece, Russia, Egypt, Cyprus, Malta, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Serbia, Syria, Israel, Bahrain. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Arab League) denounced Turkey’s agreement with the GNA as illegal. Notably, Greece protested that it ignored the presence of Greek islands Crete, Kasos, Karpathos, Kastellorizo and Rhodes, and their respective maritime borders. Turkey’s seismic survey ships and navy vessels regularly clash with Greek vessels near the Greek island of Kastellorizo. In August 2020, Greece and Egypt signed their own maritime deal in response, an exclusive economic zone for oil and gas drilling rights. Yet Turkey wields considerable influence over the coalition government that was established in March 2021.

    Turkey played a significant role in support of Azerbaijan in the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2021. Turkey’s President Erdogan was the guest of honor at the Azerbaijani victory ceremony in Baku in December 2020, and hailed the “one nation, two states” relationship between Turkey and Azerbaijan.

    In the gathering conflict over water rights between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in spring 2021, it was expected that Turkey (leader of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States which comprises Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan) would side with Kyrgyzstan, which considers itself a Turkic nation. Tajikistan speaks a language that is related to predominantly Iranian languages Farsi and Dari.

    Turkish influence is further enhanced by its considerable diaspora, giving Turkey some leverage over the internal politics of advanced nations with large Turkish immigrant populations, including France and Germany. This extends beyond Turkish ethnic communities as such to all Muslim communities, especially Sunni, open to persuasion that the Turkish state speaks on behalf of the Islamic world. Turkish charities have been active among the 5.7 million Muslims in France, for example, where 50% of imams are trained in turkey and serve Turkish interests while benefitting from Qatari funding.

    In addition to its international interventions Turkey’s natural assets grant it considerable leverage over global and regional trade, and military uses of the Turkish straits, Black Sea and Sea of Azov.

    A Troubling US and European Ally

    Turkey has been a principal ally of the USA throughout much of the Syrian conflict, following the uprisings against the Baathist regime of Bashar Assad in 2011. Experts are divided as to the extent to which these were genuine outpourings of Arab-Spring demands for more democracy, on the one hand, or incited, exploited and expropriated by jihadist movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood — that thirty years previously had staged a violent campaign against Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father — and for which there was considerable support from Sunni Turkey as well as funding from Qatar. Turkey turned a blind eye to CIA and jihadist trafficking of fighters and materiel across the border with Syria and allowed itself to be used as a base for oppositional groups. (See also here). Despite a souring of US-Turkish relations following the attempted “Gülen” coup in 2016 against Turkish President Erdogan (who claimed that the USA had harbored its alleged progenitor, Muhammed Fethullah Gülen), the USA did little or nothing to contain a Turkish invasion of northern Syria that year, even though its most prominent victims were US allies, the Kurds, thousands of whose families around Afrin were displaced to make room for hundreds of thousands of oppositional Syrians and foreigners. Some of the new arrivals were bussed up from Ghouta under the terms of a deal agreed between Turkey and Russia. Turkey set up its own administration in the area, and incorporated it within Turkish electricity grid, cellphone networks and currency. It trained and incorporated oppositional militia who were integrated into a military police force, while establishing compliant local Syrian councils to run things. 500 Syrian companies were registered for cross-border trade. In 2019 the USA appeared to greenlight a further Turkish invasion by removing (some) US troops from the area, and in 2020 Turkey stood against a Russian and Syrian offensive on Idlib, although sources differ as to whether it was a win or a lose for Turkey. A continued Turkish occupation of northern Syria assists the USA and NATO in a medium-term policy, following a decade of inconclusive war, to impoverish and destabilize what remains of Assad’s Syria, even as some Arab nations, like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, seek a road back to Damascus despite steep US sanctions that stand in their way. Turkish intervention in Syria has come at a high price: 3.7 million Syrian refugees on top of a domestic population of 84 million, and this in time will likely prove a major source of domestic aggravation. Whether Turkey’s Syrian intervention has achieved greater national security against Kurdish PKK insurrectionists or, to the contrary, consolidated Kurdish opposition to Turkey and provoked an assured succession of Kurdish terrorist attacks into the foreseeable future, is moot.

    Turkey has proven helpful to the USA as a member of NATO since 1952, its hosting of US military and air bases (notably Incirlik) and nuclear weapons and, more recently, in its military assistance to Azerbaijan against the much weaker Armenian (and Russian) interests in Nagorno-Karabakh (which Russia did little or nothing to defend despite Armenia’s membership of the Russian-led Collective Treaty Security Organization [CTSO], and despite Azerbaijan’s shooting down of a Russian helicopter over Armenian territory).

    Turkey provided robust support for the US-backed coup regime of President Zelensky in Ukraine against Russia, including the sale to Ukraine of up to 17 unmanned aerial vehicles in 2019, persistent refusal to recognize Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 (to which Turkey itself may lay historical claim), [There was a referendum where Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia — DV Ed] its assistance to the anti-Russian Tatars of Crimea, its cooperative partnerships with anti-Russian Georgia, and its control over access from the Aegean to the Black Sea (through the Turkish straits which include the Bosporus, sea of Marmara and Dardanelles), which it helps to patrol, and the Sea of Azov. In all these and other ways Turkey has contributed to US and NATO efforts to harass and contain Russia.

    Troubled US Patron

    The USA is not happy with (and has implemented sanctions in retaliation for) Turkey’s purchase in 2017 of Russia’s S-400 military defense system. The purchase had helped Turkey atone for its shooting down, for little apparent reason, of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M attack aircraft in 2015 that had allegedly strayed into air space above the formerly Syrian province of Hatay – Syrian rebels shot the pilot as he descended by parachute and downed a rescue helicopter – constituting the first NATO downing of a Russian or Soviet warplane since an attack on the Sui-ho Dam during the Korean War in 1953. The USA is also irritated by Turkey’s conciliatory stance towards Nord Stream 2 and its involvement in TurkStream 1 and TurkStream 2, all of which facilitate the delivery of Gazprom oil and gas to Europe and impede US designs on the European market for its liquefied natural gas (LNG).

    Turkey’s Bi-Polar Economy

    Turkey’s economy has grown considerably in the 21st century, with average GDP growth averaging 5.4% 2003-2013 and, apart from China, Turkey outperformed all its peers in the fourth quarter of 2020. Turkey’s GDP growth of 5.9% was faster than for the G-20 nations in 2020 excepting China’s 6.5% rate. Its relations with China and China’s Belt and Road initiative are robust, even to the point of Turkish disinclination to intervene in the controversies over allegations of China’s treatment of the Turkic Uyghurs, another source of immigration to Turkey.

    Yet Turkey’s currency is fragile. The lira collapsed 50% against the US dollar 2017-2020, and inflation hit 15% in 2019 in response to government’s resort to printing money via its ownership of the Central Bank. While net national debt is a healthy 35.2% of GDP, foreign currency reserves are relatively low and inflation is high. The currency crisis reflects domestic political instability, international diplomatic errors, a balance of trade deficit, over-reliance on construction for growth, and over-dependence on foreign currency loans in the private sector. The Covid 19 epidemic badly bruised Turkey’s income from tourism. The crisis intensified in the final quarter of 2020 with the resignation of Turkey’s finance minister (son-in-law to President Erdogan) and ouster of the head of the Central Bank, following a precipitate further collapse of the lira. Erdogan took the opportunity to reassure the investment community of his faith in financial profiteering and in Turkey as a globally attractive source of cheap labor. Foreign investors likely to be of considerable importance in efforts to stabilize the Turkish economy include China, which is expected to participate in the Istanbul Canal project, and Qatar, which promised billions of new investments at the end of 2020.

    The Energy Factor

    Energy lies close not just to the country’s economy but to the existential center of neo-Ottomanism and its many apparent contradictions between domination, self-sufficiency, and dependency. It has both nurtured and stifled Turkey’s vacillating economy. This dynamic plays out in at least four principal ways:

    1. Control over oil, gas, and other energy flows by tanker through the Turkish (Bosporus) straits and a planned additional waterway, Erdogan’s pet project, the Istanbul Canal. As a hub for the supply of gas from Central Asia, Russia and the Middle East to Europe and other Atlantic markets, Turkey exercises enormous potential leverage over other nations that is immediately susceptible to political manipulation. State-owned corporations are powerful players in Turkish energy politics. They include TPAO for petroleum, domestically producing 7% of Turkish petrol consumption; BOTAS, the state-owned Petroleum Pipeline Corporation; and state-owned Tupras which controls 85% of Turkey’s refinery capacity. Countries that border the Black and Azov Seas are significantly dependent on the Bosporus Straits for passage of imports and exports. Many ports on the Azov ship grain to Turkey, for example. Russia exerts significant control over passage from the Black to the Azov seas via the Kerch strait, half of which it owns. Future monetization of Turkey’s advantage as gatekeeper of the potential Bosporus chokehold will likely be enhanced by construction of the Istanbul Canal which may not be constrained, it is thought, by the Montreux Convention of 1936 that currently regulates conditions of passage through the Straits, and that will permit Turkey to charge additional fees in return for speedier, more expansive permissions and passage. Critics fear the costs (an estimated $15 billion) of such an enormous enterprise and its environmental consequences. Russia fears that that the new canal will facilitate Black Sea access for NATO ships.
    1. Permission for and participation in the construction of regional pipelines (as in the Trans-Anatolian pipeline that delivers Azeri gas from the Caspian to the Trans-Aegean pipeline and on to Europe). Pipeline fees of passage are an important source of revenue. In 2021, Turkey had four long-term pipeline contracts with Russia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. Two major pipelines include the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan), linking Turkey, George and Azerbaijan, and the Iraqi Pipeline from northern Iraq to Ceyhan (in the southeast corner of Turkey). The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) pipeline runs from Erbil in Iraq to Ceyhan. Ceyhan is an important port for Caspian and Iraqi oil imports. Under the US Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, the US has sanctioned both TurkStream 1 & 2. But these are of declining significance to Turkey, in any case, given the competition from the Sakarya gas field in the Black Sea, and transit fees for passage through the new Istanbul canal that will likely prove more lucrative than pipeline fees. Another imminent threat to TurkStream 2 is the north-south corridor formed by Greece, Turkey and Ukraine that can be fed by LNG from the Mediterranean with reverse flows back to Ukraine.
    1. The purchase of Liquefied Natural Gas from the USA and other suppliers (Turkey is a primary destination for US LNG) and its rerouting by pipeline, tanker, or truck – a development that reduces the significance of regional pipelines, affords Turkey more flexibility in routing and also the blocking of competitors, and puts the USA in a potentially strong competitive position against Russia’s Nord Stream 1&2 and TurkStream 1&2 for delivery of gas to Europe. LNG gas imports from the USA, Qatar, Algeria, Nigeria were cheaper in 2021 than constructed pipeline gas from Gazprom. Turkey was now Europe’s third largest importer of US LNG behind Spain and France.
    1. The development of new oil and gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black Seas. These acquire considerable relevance in the context of Turkey’s near total oil and gas dependency, which has been a major economic stumbling block. Almost all (99%) of Turkey’s natural gas was imported in 2015, of which 56% came from Russia’s Gazprom (other suppliers were Iran and Azerbaijan), although Russia’s share had fallen to 34% by 2019. Turkey spent $41 billion on natural gas imports alone in 2019. 60% of Turkey’s crude oil imports are from Iraq and Iran, and 11% from Russia (2015). This very dependence has served as inspiration to Turkey to establish its own supplies of fossil fuel both in the Eastern Mediterranean, in partnership with Libya (where both the US and Russia have tacitly supported a policy of opposition to new developments lest these compete with their own exports) and in the Black Sea.

    In August 2020, President Erdogan announced a major find (320 billion cubic meters but may well prove much more) of natural gas reserves in the Black Sea within the western part of Turkey’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) – the Sakarya field, on the perimeter of Bulgaria’s and Romania’s maritime borders. Critics worry about the costs of deep-water drilling and extraction from Sakarya, an ultra-harsh environment. Erdogan has expressed his desire that Turkey should develop Sakarya independently but, if the capability of TPAO falls short, involvement of non-Turkish majors could eat into profits considerably. For the longer term and as the impacts of climate change intensify, Turkey’s energy plans are uncomfortably wedded to planetary-menacing fossil fuel while at home, coal constitutes 40% of Turkey’s domestic energy production in conditions of escalating demand.

    Favoring Greece

    US unhappiness with Turkey as a partner stands at a crossroads. Turkey remains a strategically useful regional proxy force for the USA, alongside Israel, for the advancement of US interests in Syria. This can last indefinitely, even as Israeli preoccupation with Turkey’s expansion intensifies and as Turkey’s bid for leadership of Sunni Islam proves more compelling. This is particularly true of the Palestinian cause in Israeli-occupied Gaza. Turkish humanitarian organizations were behind the Gaza Freedom Flotilla of six ships in 2010 that sought to bring relief to the Gaza Strip. The ships were forcibly detained by Israeli forces in international waters and 10 Turkish activists were slaughtered. Israel has since paid compensation.

    The recent surprising alliance between the USA and Israel may be seen in this light, i.e. as Israel’s targeting of Turkey, not Iran, while Turkish interventions are perceived by the UAE, Egypt, and the Arab League as a threat to Arab security, a perspective that is shared by France and probably other European powers. UAE’s Foreign Affairs minister has even said that the UAE wants Turkey to stop supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, bête noire of Sisi’s post-Morsi Egypt and Syria’s Assad regime, among others. Turkey’s bid for Sunni leadership, therefore, cannot advance far in competition with powerful regional rivals, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt but, in as much as both Saudis and Egypt have recklessly betrayed the Palestinian cause in their attempt to maintain US favor, Turkey has uncovered a strong and unpredictable weapon of soft power. Turkey’s capability as US proxy in the Turkic world will prove increasingly useful as the USA persists in its attempt to destabilize, fragment, contain and threaten the Russian Federation and in its gathering assault on Chinese power. But on the other hand, Turkey’s quest for independent power may lead it towards seemingly unlikely alliances with Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China, possibly in league with Russia and Iran, against the USA and India in Asia. There have been two trilateral summits between Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan (2017, 2021). It is envisaged that there may be nuclear cooperation between Pakistan and Turkey (Pakistan has nuclear warheads), and Russia is building 4 nuclear energy plants in Turkey. China has supplied missile technology. The further the USA moves away from Turkey, the closer, inevitably, Turkey will draw towards Russia with implications for the way Turkey chooses to nurture its ties to Turkic powers within and close to the borders of the Russian Federation.

    In the Western world, on the other hand, the USA has increasingly less cause for sympathy with Turkish ambitions since these irritate both the European Union and NATO. US disillusionment may go so far as a US withdrawal of its military facilities in Turkey (including its air base in Incirlik and NATO’s Land Command in Şirinyer, Izmir) in favor of Greece as its new major Mediterranean center of operations, embracing new or expanded US facilities in Souda (Crete), Volos, Larissa, and Alexandroupolis. By 2025, Souda will become the largest and most important US naval base in the Eastern Mediterranean with 25,000 personnel. While Turkey has been suspended from the purchase of F-35 war planes since its purchase of Russian S-400 air defense in 2019, Greece is now planning expenditure of $3 billion on F-35s. A US-Greek Mutual Defense Cooperation Agreement signed in October 2010 provides a framework for this expanding partnership. In line with US favoring of Greece against Turkey, Greece is set to intensify cooperation with Israel, as in pipeline deals to bring Eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe. Andrew Lee has called this overall strategy a version of the “Intermarium” – a geopolitical concept originating in the post-World War 1 era that envisages an alliance of countries reaching from the Baltic Sea, over the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea that would serve as an alternative power bloc between Germany and Russia.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion we can infer the following:

    (1) Turkey, released at least in part by Erdogan’s AKP from the foundational Ataturk mission of westernization and secularization, has rediscovered in Islamism an Ottoman legacy that could enable it to re-establish a regional, even a global influence – political, cultural, economic and military – throughout the Muslim and Turkic worlds and the Muslim diasporas of the non-Muslim and non-Turkic worlds.

    (2) Combining and deploying the advantages of new sources of energy independence and its traditional chokehold power in the Bosporus (extended now to the Istanbul Canal), Turkey will ascquire a much stronger negotiating position in its relations with Russia, the USA and EU.

    (3) Its economic fragilities notwithstanding, Turkey will grow in its attraction to international investors, particularly China, on account of its net international and regional energy networks.

    (4) Turkey’s greater activity in the Middle East will be perceived as a growing threat to the established powers of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to Israel and the UAE, while its growing involvement in Yemen may give it a stronger toehold in the politics of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.

    (5) In Syria, Turkey will for some time exercise a significant constraint on the restitution of Syrian sovereignty and therefore will be regarded with suspicion both by Iran and by Lebanon whose interests are directly impacted by deterioration of the Syrian economy.

    (6) Domestically and regionally, Turkey must still worry about Kurdish irredentism which it has done little to soothe and much to anger. To this is added the pressure of a large, new, unsettled immigrant population of Syrian exiles.

    (7) Through its recently established links with Libya, and its long-standing influence over Northern Cyprus, Turkey will be a stronger contender for influence in the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa.

    (8) Most importantly, Turkey’s relatively recent and aggressive renascence in some of the world’s most strategically and militarily sensitive parts of the world exponentially increases the likelihood of reckless behavior – on the parts of many players – and unforeseen consequences any of which could easily ignite regional tensions, in conflagrations that almost certainly will suck in the world’s major nuclear powers.

    The post Ottoman’s Forever Empire and its Multiple Triggers for War first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Armenia’s Parliament Dissolves In Final Step Toward Early Elections

    Armenia’s parliament failed to elect a prime minister for the second time on May 10, triggering its own dissolution in a final move toward early elections next month.

    Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, who was swept to power in pro-democracy protests in 2018, resigned last month to run in an early election after facing criticism over his handling of last year’s conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

    This was the second time lawmakers rejected Pashinian’s candidacy, as part of a political deal made earlier between the parliament majority represented by Pashinian’s My Step Alliance and two opposition factions — Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia.

    Only one lawmaker voted for Pashinian’s candidacy, one voted against, with 76 abstaining.

    Under Armenia’s constitution, the parliament must fail to elect a prime minister twice in order to be dissolved.

    Both times Pashinian was nominated by My Step as a candidate to maintain the procedure for the parliament’s dissolution.

    In the meantime, Pashinian has continued as caretaker prime minister.

    Political Crisis

    Armenia has been embroiled in a political crisis since Pashinian signed a Russian-brokered cease-fire on November 9, 2020, to end a 44-day war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Pashinian agreed in March to hold the early vote next month. He has indicated that he favors June 20 as the date for the elections.

    Opinion polls show that public confidence in Pashinian’s government has fallen sharply since then, with its approval rating falling from 60 percent to around 30 percent last month.

    Pashinian has come under fire since agreeing to the Moscow-brokered deal with Azerbaijan, which took effect on November 10, ending six weeks of fierce fighting in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh that saw ethnic Armenian forces suffer battlefield defeat.


    Under the cease-fire, a part of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by Armenians.

    Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but the ethnic Armenians who make up most of the region’s population reject Azerbaijani rule.

    Observers expect Armenian ex-President Robert Kocharian — who signed a deal with two opposition parties to run as leader of their alliance on May 9 — to become Pashinian’s main challenger in the elections.

    Addressing thousands of his supporters at a rally in central Yerevan on May 9, Kocharian said that losing power was the price the Pashinian government should pay for the defeat in the war.

    With reporting by Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Latvia Recognizes Armenian Genocide

    Latvia has recognized the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide, drawing an angry response from Turkey.

    The Baltic nation’s parliament passed a resolution on May 6 condemning and recognizing the tragedy with 58 of 100 lawmakers voting for the measure.

    The Turkish Foreign Ministry slammed the decision as a “null and void attempt to rewrite history for political motives.”

    National governments and parliaments in some 30 countries have formally recognized the Armenian Genocide.

    U.S. President Joe Biden did so in a statement released on April 24 — Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

    During and immediately after World War I, Armenians and many historians say as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed, in what Armenians call “The Great Crime.” Armenians have documented mass murder, banditry, raping of women, pillaging of property, and other atrocities.

    As the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey objects to the use of the word genocide and says that hundreds of thousands of Muslims also died in Anatolia at the time due to combat, starvation, cold, and disease.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • 2021 Aurora Humanitarians Announced

    On 24 April 2021 the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative has revealed the names of five 2021 Aurora Humanitarians, chosen by the Aurora Prize Selection Committee for their courage, commitment and impact. The announcement was made today at the Matenadaran, the national repository of ancient manuscripts located in Yerevan, Armenia. During this special event, the attendees also paid tribute to the great scholar and philanthropist Vartan Gregorian, Co-Founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and member of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee, who passed away a few days ago. In accordance with the tradition, the names of the 2021 Aurora Humanitarians have been inscribed in the Chronicles of Aurora, a unique 21st century manuscript containing the depictions of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative activities. For 2020 see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/09/17/fartuun-adan-and-ilwad-elman-from-somalia-named-2020-aurora-prize-winners/

    One of the Humanitarians will become the 2021 Aurora Prize Laureate and will receive an opportunity to continue the cycle of giving by sharing a $1,000,000 award with the organizations that help people in need. The 2021 Aurora Humanitarians are:

    • Grégoire Ahongbonon (Côte d’Ivoire), founder of the St Camille Association, which helps people in West Africa suffering from mental illness and seeks to end the inhumane local practice of keeping them in chains. Mr. Ahongbonon has nominated three organizations that promote international solidarity and support people with intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses: CRÉDIL (Lanaudière’s Regional Committee on Education for International Development), L’Arche Canada Foundation, and St Camille Association.
    • Ruby Alba Castaño (Colombia), a human rights activist and founder of ASOCATDAME (Meta Association for Peasants, Rural Workers and Defenders of the Environment) who works to protect the rights of thousands of Colombian peasants that are subjected to persecution, forced disappearances and displacement. Ms. Castaño has nominated three organizations that advocate for the rights of the peasant and impoverished communities in Colombia: ASOCATDAME, Claretian Corporation Norman Pérez Bello (CCNPB), and National Federation of Agricultural Unions (FENSUAGRO).
    • Paul Farmer (USA), a medical anthropologist, professor at Harvard Medical School, co-founder and chief strategist of Partners In Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that brings the benefits of modern medical science to those who need it the most. Dr. Farmer has nominated two organizations that deliver healthcare to the world’s poorest communities and build a global movement of social medicine educators and practitioners: Partners In Health and Equal Health.
    • Julienne Lusenge (Democratic Republic of the Congo), a human rights defender, co-founder of Women’s Solidarity for Inclusive Peace and Development (SOFEPADI) and Fund for Congolese Women (FFC), who has been helping the victims of wartime sexual violence for years. Ms. Lusenge has nominated three organizations that support grassroots women’s organizations, empower survivors of gender-based violence and reintegrate internally displaced persons: Fund for Congolese Women, League for Congolese Solidarity and Association of Mothers for Development and Peace.
    • Ashwaq Moharram (Yemen), a physician who provides life-saving support to the starving population of Hodeida, facing a humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of conflict and blockade. Dr. Moharram has nominated two organizations that protect the future of children and provide free healthcare services to the people affected by the ongoing conflict in Yemen: Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders.

    “It is a great honor to have the opportunity to recognize these distinguished men and women from all over the world. The 2021 Aurora Humanitarians are individuals who truly believe in the basic human rights and have dedicated their lives to helping people in areas of adversity. They are also recognized for the huge impact that even one individual can have by helping thousands and, most importantly, inspiring millions at the same time,” said Lord Ara Darzi, Chair of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee.

    “The outstanding accomplishments of the 2021 Aurora Humanitarians show their unyielding willingness to act in response to the needs of people around them. Aurora believes deeply in the power of humanity to improve and save lives and has come up with the concept of “Gratitude in Action” that describes the human spirit that can motivate humanitarian activism. The heroes we are honoring today are the role models the world needs now more than ever before,” noted Marguerite Barankitse, founder of Maison Shalom and REMA Hospital and the inaugural Aurora Prize Laureate.

    At the event, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative also officially announced the opening of the nomination period for the 2022 Aurora Prize and encouraged everyone to put forward inspiring modern-day heroes. Earlier that day, Aurora representatives had commemorated the Armenian Genocide by attending a flower-laying ceremony at the Tsitsernakaberd memorial in Yerevan, Armenia, dedicated to the victims of the first genocide of the 20th century.  

    https://hetq.am/en/article/130109

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • In Step Toward Snap Polls, Armenian Lawmakers Reject Pashinian’s Candidacy As New PM

    Armenia’s parliament has rejected the candidacy of acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian as the new head of government, in an agreed first step toward holding snap parliamentary elections.

    Pashinian resigned on April 25, clearing the way for parliamentary elections to be held, in an effort to defuse a political crisis prompted by the outcome of the country’s war last year with Azerbaijan.

    “One lawmaker voted in favor, three against, and 75 lawmakers abstained. Pashinian is not elected as prime minister,” speaker Ararat Mirzoyan announced after the vote on May 3.

    A second special parliamentary session is expected to take place on May 10. If Pashinian fails to secure the support of lawmakers for a second time, parliament will be dissolved and President Armen Sarkisian will schedule early elections for next month.

    Pashinian has said he plans to continue to fulfill his duties as prime minister until the vote, and plans to take part in the elections.

    The move follows recent changes made to the Electoral Code that the opposition has said are aimed at helping Pashinian win.

    The changes, worked out by Pashinian’s My Step alliance, revamp parts of the Electoral Code introduced in 2016 by the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), two years before Pashinian was swept into office after leading mass protests against the pro-Russian HHK of former President Serzh Sarkisian.

    The amendments will change the country’s electoral system to a fully proportional one.

    Up until now, Armenians have voted for parties and alliances as well as individual candidates, whereas the next election will be held only on a party-list basis.

    Disastrous Defeat

    Armenia has been embroiled in a political crisis since Pashinian signed a Russian-brokered cease-fire in November to end the war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Pashinian agreed in March to hold the early vote next month. He has indicated that he favors the date of June 20 for the elections.

    Opinion polls show that public confidence in Pashinian’s government has fallen sharply since then, with its approval rating falling from 60 percent to around 30 percent last month.

    Pashinian has come under fire since agreeing to a Moscow-brokered deal with Azerbaijan that took effect on November 10, ending six weeks of fierce fighting in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh that saw ethnic Armenian forces suffer battlefield defeat.

    Under the cease-fire, part of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by Armenians.

    Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but the ethnic Armenians who make up most of the region’s population reject Azerbaijani rule.

    With reporting by TASS and Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Steepest Declines In Democracy

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Turkey’s Erdogan Slams Biden Over Armenian Genocide Statement

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on April 26 denounced U.S. President Joe Biden’s recognition of the Armenian genocide, saying the move would have a “destructive impact” on relations between the two countries.

    In a televised address following a cabinet meeting, Erdogan told Biden to first “look in the mirror” before blaming the Turkish nation for committing genocide, pointing to the deaths of millions of Native Americans.

    “You cannot get up and put the genocide label on the Turkish nation,” Erdogan said in his first major remarks on the issue.

    Biden on April 24 became the first U.S. president to use the word genocide in a formal statement to describe the World War I-era massacre and deportation of Armenians in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. The date commemorates the anniversary of when on April 24, 1915, thousands of Armenian intellectuals suspected of hostility toward Ottoman rule were rounded up in Istanbul.

    Previous U.S. administrations have avoided using the term genocide for decades in order not to provoke Turkey, a NATO ally and important regional power.

    But Biden felt an opportunity to make an “historical acknowledgement of what took place in 1915” based on a “deep respect for the importance of universal human rights,” U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Lynne Tracy said in an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on April 26.

    Describing Biden’s position as “unfounded and contrary to facts,” Erdogan repeated the Turkish position that the issue should be left to historians and not politicians. For years, Turkey has said it will open its archives to a joint history commission to address the issue.

    “We believe that these comments were included in the declaration following pressure from radical Armenian groups and anti-Turkish circles. But this situation does not reduce the destructive impact of these comments,” Erdogan said.

    He added that he will meet with Biden during a NATO summit in June to discuss “opening a new door” on relations.

    “Now we need to look at how we will take steps toward the future. Otherwise, there will be no other choice but to put into effect the policies required by the new low to which our relations have sunk,” he said.

    Tense U.S.-Turkish Relations

    Biden’s statement came at a time of already tense relations between Turkey and the United States over Ankara’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile system, U.S. ties with Kurdish forces in Syria that Turkey considers linked to its own Kurdish militants, and a host of other matters.

    Erdogan also criticized the United States for having failed to find a solution in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh — where the United States, Russia, and France were mediators — and said Washington had stood by as massacres unfolded.

    “Unfortunately, more than 1 million Azeri brothers were forced from Karabakh. All of Karabakh was burned and destroyed,” he said, referring to displacement that occurred nearly three decades ago.

    Turkey backed Azerbaijan in the conflict last year, in which Azerbaijan took back swathes of lands in the Nagorno-Karabakh region it had lost to ethnic Armenian forces in the early 1990s.

    Weaving through Turkey’s view of history, Erdogan went on to describe numerous “Armenian lies” and criticize the West for “double standards.”

    During and immediately after World War I, Armenians and many historians say as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed, in what Armenians call “The Great Crime.” Armenians have documented mass murder, banditry, raping of women, pillaging of property, and other atrocities.

    As the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey objects to the use of the word genocide and says that hundreds of thousands of Muslims also died in Anatolia at the time due to combat, starvation, cold, and disease.

    The official Turkish position is that Armenian revolutionaries constituted a fifth column allied with Russia during World War I, and that the mass deportation and accompanying Armenian deaths were not premeditated or intentional. Turkey puts the number of Armenian dead at a couple of hundred thousand.

    “You can find mass graves of Turks who were murdered in our country, but nowhere you can find an Armenian mass grave,” Erdogan claimed.

    “A million Turks and Kurds are said to have been massacred by Armenian gangs. April 24 is the day when the leaders of Armenian gangs were arrested [in Istanbul]. In fact, nothing in the sense of human tragedy has happened on this day,” Erdogan said.

    Erdogan also said that as many as 10 million ethnic Turks and Muslims were killed or expelled from the Balkans and Caucasus in the final decades and years of the Ottoman Empire due to Western-backed ethnic nationalism and Russian expansion.

    “Half of our nation has its origins in being exiled,” he said. “As Turkey, we never seek to exploit our own pain.”

    With reporting by AP, TRT Haber, Anadolu Ajansi, and Yeni Safak

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Armenian PM Steps Down, Sets Stage For Early Parliamentary Vote

    Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has tendered his resignation, formally freeing the way for parliamentary elections to be held in an effort to defuse a political crisis prompted by the country’s war last year with Azerbaijan.

    “According to an agreement with the president and political forces, today I’m stepping down in order to hold early parliamentary polls on June 20,” Pashinian announced on Facebook on April 25.

    Pashinian said he plans to continue to fulfill his duties as prime minister until the vote, and plans to take part in the elections.

    “I will be a candidate for the prime minister,” said Pashinian, who will run as a candidate for his Civil Contract party. “If people decide that I should resign as the prime minister, I will do their will and if they want me to continue my job as the prime minister, I will also do the people’s will.”

    The move follows recent changes made to Armenia’s Electoral Code that the opposition has said are aimed at helping Pashinian win.

    The changes worked out by Pashinian’s My Step alliance revamp parts of the Electoral Code introduced in 2016 by the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), two years before Pashinian was swept into office after leading mass protests against the pro-Russia HHK of former President Serzh Sarkisian.

    The amendments will switch the Caucasus country’s electoral system to a fully proportional one.

    To this point Armenians had voted for parties and alliances as well as individual candidates, whereas the next elections will be held only on a party-list basis.

    Armenia has been embroiled in a political crisis since Pashinian signed a Russian-brokered cease-fire in November 2020 to end the war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

    Following talks with the opposition, Pashinian agreed in March to hold the early vote in June.

    Opinion polls show that public confidence in Pashinian’s government has fallen sharply since then, with its approval rating falling from 60 percent to around 30 percent today.

    With reporting by TASS and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Armenians Welcome Biden Declaration Recognizing Massacre As ‘Genocide’

    Armenian Americans celebrated President Joe Biden’s decision to formally recognize the massacre of Armenians during World War I as genocide, but the declaration infuriated Ankara, which accused the United States of trying to rewrite history.

    Biden on April 24 became the first U.S. president to use the word genocide in a formal statement, and it was issued on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the start of the massacre in 1915 as the Ottoman Empire unraveled.

    The American people honor “all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today,” Biden said.

    “Over the decades Armenian immigrants have enriched the United States in countless ways, but they have never forgotten the tragic history,” Biden said. “We honor their story. We see that pain. We affirm the history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.”

    The White House had avoided using the term genocide for decades for fear of alienating Turkey, a NATO ally and important power in the Middle East. But Biden had promised during his presidential campaign that if elected he would take the largely symbolic step.

    Hundreds of people streamed to a hilltop monument in Montebello, California, about 16 kilometers east of downtown Los Angeles, a U.S. hub of the Armenian diaspora, to mark Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

    They laid flowers at the monument and recalled relatives who died in the slaughter and deportation of as many as 1.5 million Armenians — a Christian minority in the predominately Muslim empire.

    Ankara insists the deaths were a result of civil strife rather than a planned Ottoman government effort to annihilate Armenians. Turkey also claims fewer Armenians died than has been reported.

    Turkey’s angry reaction put the government and most of the opposition in rare unity.

    “Words cannot change or rewrite history,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted moments after Biden announced his decision. “We will not take lessons from anyone on our history.”

    Cavusoglu said Turkey “entirely rejects” the U.S. decision which he said was based “solely on populism,” while the opposition denounced it as a “major mistake.”

    A Foreign Ministry statement issued separately said: “It is clear that the said statement does not have a scholarly and legal basis, nor is it supported by any evidence.”

    The ministry later summoned U.S. Ambassador David Satterfield to express its displeasure, noting that Biden’s decision caused “a wound in relations that is difficult to repair,” the Anadolu state news agency reported.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was less strident in his response, sending a message to the Armenian community and patriarch of the Armenian church calling on him not to allow “the culture of coexistence of Turks and Armenians…to be forgotten.”

    The issue has been “politicized by third parties and turned into a tool of intervention against our country,” Erdogan said.

    Erdogan and Biden agreed during a phone call on April 23 to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in June in Brussels. Biden placed the call – his first as president to Erdogan — in an apparent attempt to soften the blow of his decision.

    Biden’s message was met with “great enthusiasm” by the people of Armenia and Armenians worldwide, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian wrote in a letter to the U.S. president.

    Pashinian in a post on Facebook thanked Biden for “the powerful step towards justice and invaluable support for the descendants of the Armenian genocide victims.”

    With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Biden Recognizes Armenian Killings As ‘Genocide’

    U.S. President Joe Biden has officially recognized the massacre of Armenians during World War I as a genocide.

    Biden, who as a presidential candidate pledged that if elected he would take the largely symbolic step, made the declaration on April 24, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

    During and immediately after World War I, Ottoman Turks killed or deported as many as 1.5 million Armenians — a Christian minority in the predominately Muslim empire.

    Many historians and some other nations, including France and Germany, consider the killings genocide.

    This is a developing story.

    More to follow.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Armenians March To Mark Ottoman Massacre Anniversary

    Thousands of Armenians marched in Yerevan on April 23 to commemorate World War I-era mass killings of their kin by Ottoman forces, a bloodletting which U.S. President Joe Biden might reportedly recognize as genocide. The annual torch-lit march was held on the eve of the 106th anniversary of the massacres in which — Armenians say — up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians were killed as the Ottoman Empire collapsed. So far about 30 countries have recognized the events as “genocide,” a characterization which Turkey objects to.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Biden Statement Expected As Armenians Mark Genocide Remembrance Day

    U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to make an announcement on April 24 amid speculation that he will recognize the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide.

    Biden, who as a presidential candidate pledged that if elected he would take the largely symbolic step, is expected to release the statement on April 24, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

    White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on April 23 she had nothing to release about Biden’s campaign pledge, and State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter said only that reporters could expect an announcement on April 24.

    During and immediately after World War I, Ottoman Turks killed or deported as many as 1.5 million Armenians — a Christian minority in the predominately Muslim empire. Many historians and some other nations, including France and Germany, consider the killings genocide.

    Armenians for decades have pressed for the word to be used to describe the killings and deportations, but the label is adamantly rejected by Turkey.

    The White House said that Biden spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the eve of the expected announcement.

    Reuters quoted sources familiar with the conversation as saying that Biden told Erdogan that he intended to recognize the mass killing and forced deportations of Armenians as genocide in a statement to be issued on April 24.

    A White House statement about the call however said only that Biden conveyed his “interest in a constructive bilateral relationship with expanded areas of cooperation and effective management of disagreements.”

    The leaders also agreed to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in June in Brussels “to discuss the full range of bilateral and regional issues,” the statement added.

    Erdogan’s office said during the call “both leaders agreed on the strategic character of the bilateral relationship and the importance of working together to build greater cooperation on issues of mutual interest.”

    Ankara insists the deaths were a result of civil strife rather than a planned Ottoman government effort to annihilate Armenians. Turkey also claims fewer Armenians died than has been reported.

    Congress voted overwhelmingly in 2019 to recognize the Armenian genocide but the Trump administration made clear that it would maintain the status quo.

    Other U.S. presidents have refrained from formally using the term genocide amid worry about damaging relations with the NATO ally.

    Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has warned that if Biden recognizes the killings as genocide, it would sour bilateral relations.

    Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, said in a statement that Biden would be “effectively ending the longest lasting foreign gag-rule in American history.”

    Hamparian said the recognition would represent a “powerful setback to Turkey’s century-long obstruction of justice for this crime, and its ongoing hostility and aggression against the Armenian people.”

    He also voiced hope for greater U.S. alignment against Turkish-backed Azerbaijan, which last year fought a six-week war with Armenia, ending with a Russian-brokered cease-fire under which a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by ethnic Armenian forces.

    With reporting by AFP and Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Biden, Erdogan Speak Amid Speculation Over Possible U.S. Recognition Of Armenian Killings As Genocide

    Joe Biden has spoken by phone with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan amid speculation that the U.S president will recognize the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide — a largely symbolic move that would likely infuriate Ankara and step up already high tensions between the two NATO allies.

    The White House and the Turkish presidency accounts of the April 23 call, the first direct communication between the two leaders since Biden’s inauguration in January, made no mention of the issue.

    But Reuters quoted sources familiar with the conversation as saying that Biden told Erdogan that he intended to recognize the mass killing and forced deportations of Armenians as genocide in a statement on April 24.

    State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter told reporters: “When it comes to the Armenian genocide, you can expect an announcement tomorrow.” She declined to reveal details.

    Earlier this week, media reports said Biden would likely use the word “genocide” as part of a statement on April 24 when Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day annual commemorations are held around the world.

    However, sources warned that given the importance of bilateral ties with Turkey, a key NATO member, the U.S. president may still choose to drop the “genocide” term at the last minute.

    As a presidential candidate, Biden pledged that if elected he would recognize the Armenian genocide, saying “silence is complicity.” But he has not given a timeline for delivering on the promise.

    Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has warned that such a move would “harm” bilateral relations.

    Turkish Objections

    During and immediately after World War I, Ottoman Turks killed or deported as many as 1.5 million Armenians — a Christian minority in the predominately Muslim empire. Many historians and some other nations consider the killings genocide.

    Turkey objects to the use of the word genocide to describe the killings. Ankara claims the deaths were a result of civil strife rather than a planned Ottoman government effort to annihilate Armenians. Turkey also claims fewer Armenians died than has been reported.

    Moves to recognize the killings as genocide have stalled in the U.S. Congress for decades, and U.S. presidents have refrained from formally using the term amid intense lobbying by Ankara.

    During his April 23 call with Erdogan, Biden called for “a constructive bilateral relationship with expanded areas of cooperation and effective management of disagreements,” the White House said in a statement.

    It said the two leaders agreed to meet one-on-one on the sidelines of a NATO summit in June to discuss their two countries’ relations.

    Erdogan’s office said that “both leaders agreed on the strategic character of the bilateral relationship and the importance of working together to build greater cooperation on issues of mutual interest.”

    With reporting by Reuters and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.