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The Iranian government “bears responsibility” for the physical violence that led to the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman who died in police custody in 2022, and for the brutal crackdown on largely peaceful street protests that followed, a report by a United Nations fact-finding mission says.
The report, issued on March 8 by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran, said the mission “has established the existence of evidence of trauma to Ms. Amini’s body, inflicted while in the custody of the morality police.”
It said the mission found the “physical violence in custody led to Ms. Amini’s unlawful death…. On that basis, the state bears responsibility for her unlawful death.”
Amini was arrested in Tehran on September 13, 2022, while visiting the Iranian capital with her family. She was detained by Iran’s so-called “morality police” for allegedly improperly wearing her hijab, or hair-covering head scarf. Within hours of her detention, she was hospitalized in a coma and died on September 16.
Her family has denied that Amini suffered from a preexisting health condition that may have contributed to her death, as claimed by the Iranian authorities, and her father has cited eyewitnesses as saying she was beaten while en route to a detention facility.
The fact-finding report said the action “emphasizes the arbitrary character of Ms. Amini’s arrest and detention, which were based on laws and policies governing the mandatory hijab, which fundamentally discriminate against women and girls and are not permissible under international human rights law.”
“Those laws and policies violate the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, and the autonomy of women and girls. Ms. Amini’s arrest and detention, preceding her death in custody, constituted a violation of her right to liberty of person,” it said.
The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran hailed the findings and said they represented clear signs of “crimes against humanity.”
“The Islamic republic’s violent repression of peaceful dissent and severe discrimination against women and girls in Iran has been confirmed as constituting nothing short of crimes against humanity,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the center.
“The government’s brutal crackdown on the Women, Life, Freedom protests has seen a litany of atrocities that include extrajudicial killings, torture, and rape. These violations disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in society, women, children, and minority groups,” he added.
The report also said the Iranian government failed to “comply with its duty” to investigate the woman’s death promptly.
“Most notably, judicial harassment and intimidation were aimed at her family in order to silence them and preempt them from seeking legal redress. Some family members faced arbitrary arrest, while the family’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbaht, and three journalists, Niloofar Hamedi, Elahe Mohammadi, and Nazila Maroufian, who reported on Ms. Amini’s death were arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to imprisonment,” it added.
Amini’s death sparked mass protests, beginning in her home town of Saghez, then spreading around the country, and ultimately posed one of the biggest threats to Iran’s clerical establishment since the foundation of the Islamic republic in 1979. At least 500 people were reported killed in the government’s crackdown on demonstrators.
The UN report said “violations and crimes” under international law committed in the context of the Women, Life, Freedom protests include “extrajudicial and unlawful killings and murder, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and gender persecution.
“The violent repression of peaceful protests and pervasive institutional discrimination against women and girls has led to serious human rights violations by the government of Iran, many amounting to crimes against humanity,” the report said.
The UN mission acknowledged that some state security forces were killed and injured during the demonstrations, but said it found that the majority of protests were peaceful.
The mission stems from the UN Human Rights Council’s mandate to the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran on November 24, 2022, to investigate alleged human rights violations in Iran related to the protests that followed Amini’s death.
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.
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Stockholm, March 15, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Friday condemned a series of court decisions in Azerbaijan extending the pre-trial detention of six journalists with the anti-corruption investigative news outlet Abzas Media.
“As Azerbaijan sweeps up and detains critical journalists across the country, this latest decision to extend the incarceration of Abzas Media staff illustrates authorities’ steadfast determination to censor its best and brightest reporters by locking them up,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities in Azerbaijan should immediately drop all charges against Abzas Media staff, release all unjustly jailed journalists, and end their crackdown on the independent press.”
If found guilty, the six journalists, who have all been charged with conspiracy to smuggle currency, could face up to eight years in prison under Article 206.3.2 of Azerbaijan’s criminal code.
In separate hearings on March 14 and 15, the Khatai District Court in the capital, Baku, extended by three months the detention of Abzas Media director Ulvi Hasanli, chief editor Sevinj Vagifgizi, and project manager Mahammad Kekalov, according to news reports and a Facebook post by Abzas Media.
In recent weeks, the courts also issued three-month extensions for the detention of three of Abzas Media’s journalists. Rulings were made in early March for Hafiz Babali, and Elnara Gasimova, who were arrested in December and January, and in February for Nargiz Absalamova, who was arrested in December.
The crackdown on Abzas Media—an outlet known for investigating allegations of corruption among senior state officials—began in November when police raided its offices and accused staff of illegally bringing Western donor money into Azerbaijan.
Abzas Media said that the raid was part of President Ilham Aliyev’s pressure on the outlet for “a series of investigations into the corruption crimes of the president and officials appointed by him.” The outlet has continued publishing with a new team in Europe and with the support of Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based group that pursues the work of imprisoned journalists.
The Abzas Media staff are among 10 journalists from three independent media outlets currently jailed in Azerbaijan, amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijan and the West.
Earlier in March, police raided Toplum TV’s office and a court ordered that founder Alasgar Mammadli and editor Mushfig Jabbar be detained for four months pending investigation on currency smuggling charges.
Broadcaster Kanal 13’s director Aziz Orujov, and reporter Shamo Eminov have been in jail since November and December, respectively, on the same charges.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Ukraine and its regional allies on March 10 assailed reported comments by Pope Francis in which the pontiff suggested opening negotiations with Moscow and used the term “white flag,” while the Vatican later appeared to back off some of the remarks, saying Francis was not speaking about “capitulation.”
Francis was quoted on March 9 in a partially released interview suggesting Ukraine, facing possible defeat, should have the “courage” to sit down with Russia for peace negotiations, saying there is no shame in waving the “white flag.”
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit out in a Telegram post and in his nightly video address, saying — without mentioning the pope — that “the church should be among the people. And not 2,500 kilometers away, somewhere, to mediate virtually between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”
Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reacted more directly on social media, saying, “When it comes to the ‘white flag,’ we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century.”
Many historians have been critical of the Vatican during World War II, saying Pope Pius XII remained silent as the Holocaust raged. The Vatican has long argued that, at the time, it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities and therefore could not denounce them.
Kuleba, in his social media post, wrote: “I urge the avoidance of repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.
“The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations,’” Kuleba said.
“Our flag is a yellow-and-blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” added Kuleba, who also thanked Francis for his “constant prayers for peace” and said he hoped the pontiff will visit Ukraine, home of some 1 million Catholics.
Zelenskiy has remained firm in not speaking directly to Russia unless terms of his “peace formula” are reached.
Ukraine’s terms call for the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, restoring the country’s 1991 post-Soviet borders, and holding Russia accountable for its actions. The Kremlin has rejected such conditions.
Following criticism of the pope’s reported comments, the head of the Vatican press service, Matteo Bruni, explained that with his words regarding Ukraine, Francis intended to “call for a cease-fire and restore the courage of negotiations,” but did not mean capitulation.
“The pope uses the image of the white flag proposed by the interviewer to imply an end to hostilities, a truce that is achieved through the courage to begin negotiations,” Bruni said.
“Elsewhere in the interview…referring to any situation of war, the pope clearly stated: ‘Negotiations are never capitulations,’” Bruni added.
The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, said Ukraine was “wounded but unconquered.”
“Believe me, no one would think of giving up. Even where hostilities are taking place today; listen to our people in Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy! Because we know that if Ukraine, God forbid, was at least partially conquered, the line of death would spread,” Shevchuk said at St. George’s Church in New York.
Andriy Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, told RAI News that “you don’t negotiate with terrorists, with those who are recognized as criminals,” referring to the Russian leadership and President Vladimir Putin. “No one tried to put Hitler at ease.”
Ukraine’s regional allies also expressed anger about the pope’s remarks.
“How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on social media.
Lithuanian President Edgars Rinkevichs wrote on social media: “My Sunday morning conclusion: You can’t capitulate to evil, you have to fight it and defeat it, so that evil raises the white flag and surrenders.”
Alexandra Valkenburg, ambassador and head of the EU Delegation to the Holy See, wrote “Russia…can end this war immediately by respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. EU supports Ukraine and its peace plan.”
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service
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.
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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.
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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.
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Sevinc Vaqifgizi is one of 13 independent journalists detained since snap presidential vote announced
In late November last year, the investigative journalist Sevinc Vaqifgizi was arrested upon arrival at Heydar Aliyev international airport in Azerbaijan and accused of smuggling foreign currency.
Shortly before takeoff the 34-year-old editor had learned that her close colleague, Ulvi Hasanli, had been detained hours earlier. The two journalists ran Abzas Media, a small, independent Azerbaijani news outlet known for its investigations. They deny the charges.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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Azerbaijan, the country slated to host the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, has plans to increase its gas production by a third during the next 10 years. The findings, released by Global Witness Monday, build on concerns about how effectively an Azerbaijan-hosted COP29 will tackle the climate crisis, given the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and its decision to appoint a former…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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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…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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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…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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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.
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.
Kanaky New Caledonia’s parliamentary President (speaker) Roch Wamytan says it is time for France to end colonisation in the Pacific territory.
Speaking to journalists while in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ministerial meeting last week, he said: “It is time for France to grant independence to New Caledonia.”
Wamytan, president of the Territorial Assembly in Noumea, noted that France had made New Caledonia its colony for more than 160 years, reports APA.
He said the page of colonisation should be closed and that Kanaky New Caledonia should be granted independence.
Wamytan thanked Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev for his statement on colonialism at the NAM meeting and emphasised that the president’s words were an important support for the Kanak people to gain independence.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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.
On December 23, an appeals court in Baku, Azerbaijan ruled to keep political activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev behind bars. Hajiyev was arrested on December 9 on what local and international human rights organizations consider bogus charges and sentenced to 50 days in detention.
Hajiyev requested release under house arrest at the most recent hearing. The political activist has been on a hunger strike since his arrest. His health condition has now been described by his lawyer as deteriorating. The same day, a group of supporters attempted to stage a protest in support of Hajiyev. Police detained a few dozen activists prior to and during the protest.
Reporting from the scene showed police taking protesters towards two police buses waiting near the area activists gathered.
\u201c\ud83d\udce2At least 35 people from various oppositional groups are reportedly detained before the protest where dozen more are detained during the protest. Protesters called for freedom for Hajiyev where police immediately dispersed participants & also briefly detained a journalist. +\u201d— AzeriWatchdog (@AzeriWatchdog) 1671791488On December 20, the State Department Spokesperson, Ned Price, reiterated in a press briefing the concern over Hajiyev’s arrest, calling for the activist’s expeditious release.
Similarly, in an interview with Azadliq Radio on December 22, Azerbaijan Service for Radio Liberty, Giorgi Gogia, the Associate Director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch, said the decision to arrest Hajiyev must be lifted and the activist must be immediately released.
“Pre-trial detention of a well-known activist Bakhtiyar Hahiyev raises major concerns. Azerbaijani human rights defenders consider criminal case against Mr. Hajiyev to be based on misuse of criminal law and to serve as an illegal reprisal for Hajiyev’s latest international advocacy work and for exercising his right to freedom of expression,” tweeted Kety Abashedize, Senior Human Rights Officer at the Human Rights House Foundation.
\u201cThis is how the police detain two “Democratica 1918” members. All they did was attend the court hearing of detainee Bakhtiyar Hajiyev.\nYes the action in the Lachin corridor is “completely free” yes..\u201d— Giy\u24b6Sol (@Giy\u24b6Sol) 1671788075Hajiyev’s arrest is not an isolated case. Scores of activists and journalists continue to face a wave of persecution in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s track record on press freedom has been steadily worsening for many years now. This is reflected in the country’s place on press freedom rankings and journalists’ personal accounts of persecution and intimidation. This year, on World Press Freedom Day, Reporters Without Borders ranked Azerbaijan 154th out of 180 countries. Although the country’s score improved from last year, moving up by 6 points, the draconian media law that came into effect at the start of this year will have further graver consequences on media freedom and plurality. Azerbaijan was also ranked “not free” by annual Freedom in the World index by Freedom House. Meanwhile, authorities refute claims that the present crackdown — including Hajiyev’s — is political.
Hajiyev is facing multiple charges — hooliganism and contempt of court. If found guilty, Hajiyev may be sentenced to three years behind bars.
Meanwhile, the head of the committee set up to defend Hajiyev, Rufat Safarov, said on December 19 that the political activist faced ill-treatment in prison because of his hunger strike. On the fifth day since Hajiyev announced his decision to go on a hunger strike, prison management has transferred him to a cell with no heating.
This article was originally published by Global Voices.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
February 19, 2022
Ilham Aliyev
President of Azerbaijan
Sent via email: office@pa.gov.azDear President Aliyev,
We at the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent non-governmental organization advocating for press freedom worldwide, write to share our concerns about growing threats to press freedom and the safety of journalists in Azerbaijan, and urge you to take immediate steps to reverse this trend.
On February 8, you ratified the law “On Media,” which dramatically increases the grounds on which news outlets can be shuttered and blocked and establishes a restrictive state-maintained registry of recognized media, among other measures. The law is riddled with ambiguities and onerous requirements, and appears deliberately calculated to target the last remaining bastions of free media covering the country. We call on you to recognize the widespread opposition to the law among the independent media community in Azerbaijan and take measures to repeal it and ensure that it is never used against members of the press.
We are also concerned about the plight of journalists Polad Aslanov and Afgan Sadygov, who are currently imprisoned in direct retaliation for their journalism.
Aslanov, chief editor of the independent news websites Xeberman and Press-az, has been imprisoned since June 2019 on retaliatory charges of treason. In November 2020, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison on these charges. Aslanov suffers from a pre-existing chronic heart condition and his health has further deteriorated during his incarceration. Despite prolonged serious dental problems, rheumatism, and other ailments, prison authorities have repeatedly either denied him medical care or provided him with care that is inadequate. Aslanov has undertaken four separate hunger strikes to protest his unjust sentence and mistreatment by prison authorities, despite already suffering from low weight. During his most recent hunger strike this January, his weight dropped to just 40 kilograms (88 pounds) and doctors warned him that he risked incurring permanent physical damage.The Supreme Court hearing for Aslanov’s appeal is set for February 24. This date marks a good opportunity for Azerbaijani authorities to correct the injustice and finally drop the charges against Aslanov immediately and unconditionally.
Sadygov, chief editor of independent news website Azel.tv, has been imprisoned since May 2020 on charges of extortion. Following his sentencing to seven years in prison later that year, Sadygov began a 241-day hunger strike, which he ended only when the Supreme Court reduced his sentence to four years last July. During the hunger strike, Sadygov developed serious problems with his kidneys and lungs and lost 47 kilograms (104 pounds), at one point briefly falling into a coma. For the past seven months, Sadygov has undergone treatment in a penitentiary service hospital for lung problems contracted during the strike.
As president, you have immense power to direct the course of press freedom and human rights in Azerbaijan. We call on you to repeal the “On Media” law and ensure that Azerbaijani authorities release Aslanov and Sadygov, and allow them and all other journalists in Azerbaijan to work freely and safely.
We appreciate your consideration of this matter to ensure press freedom and journalists’ safety in the country and look forward to your response.
Sincerely,Robert Mahoney
Executive Director
Committee to Protect Journalists
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jennifer Dunham.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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.
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Council of Europe member states should reinforce efforts to combat violence against women by quickly ratifying and implementing a regional treaty on women’s rights that the group said has faced “unprecedented backlash” in a number of countries.
HRW made the call in a statement on May 10, the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention.
The convention has been ratified by 33 countries in the 47-member grouping since taking force in 2014.
Twelve others have signed but not yet ratified the convention, including Ukraine, which signed it in 2011.
Azerbaijan and Russia are the only two Council of Europe member states that have not signed the treaty.
HRW warned that some governments have withdrawn or threatened to withdraw from the treaty while others have refused to ratify it despite “soaring reports of domestic violence” during lockdowns aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed violence against women as one of the most far-reaching and persistent rights abuses, and a daily threat to the lives and health of women and girls around the world,” said Hillary Margolis, senior women’s rights researcher at the New York-based human rights watchdog.
“At this decisive moment, Council of Europe members should demonstrate they are serious about prioritizing the safety and well-being of all women and girls by committing to and carrying out the Istanbul Convention.”
The Istanbul Convention “establishes robust, legally binding standards for governments to prevent violence against all women and girls, support survivors, and hold abusers to account,” according to HRW.
It noted that the treaty mandates protections from forms of violence that are often not incorporated into national legislation, such as sexual harassment or forced marriage, and requires protections for all victims of violence — regardless of age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, and immigration status.
But Turkey earlier this year decided to withdraw from the convention. HRW said the move “poses dangerous risks for the region” and called it “a setback for women’s rights in the country.”
In 2020, Poland’s justice minister announced he would pursue withdrawal from the convention, while parliaments in Hungary and Slovakia blocked its ratification.
Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court ruled in 2018 that the convention’s use of “gender” makes it unconstitutional.
“Conservative politicians and groups have erroneously claimed the convention threatens ‘traditional’ families, promotes homosexuality and so-called ‘gender ideology,’ and corrodes ‘national values,’” HRW said.
Some governments “claim that national legislation provides adequate protection from and accountability for violence against women,” while “many survivors continue to face stigma, dismissive attitudes from authorities, and social pressure to remain silent,” according to the group.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
ISTANBUL — Azerbaijani opposition activist Bayram Mammadov has been found dead in Istanbul amid unclear circumstances, prompting Turkish police to launch an investigation.
Mammadov’s friends wrote on social media on May 4 that the body of the Azerbaijani opposition NIDA youth movement member was found “in the sea” two days earlier.
One of Mammadov’s friends in Istanbul, Elgih Qahraman, told the Turan news agency that police are investigating the case and are considering all possible causes.
Mammadov, along with another pro-democracy activist, Giyas Ibrahimov, made headlines in May 2016 after painting “Happy Slaves’ Day” on a monument in Baku to late President Heydar Aliyev, the father of the current president.
Both were subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison on drug charges, which both have denied. Mammadov had said he was tortured into making a confession.
Amnesty International has recognized the two activists as prisoners of conscience, saying that the drug charges against them were fabricated with the purpose of punishing them for their political activities.
In March 2019, President Ilham Aliyev pardoned Mammadov and Ibrahimov in an amnesty along with more than 400 people who had been convicted of crimes in the South Caucasus nation.
With reporting by Turan
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
U.S. President Joe Biden is likely to recognize the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide, media reports say, amid calls for the move by more than 100 U.S. lawmakers.
The recognition, promised by Biden during the presidential campaign for the November election he won, would be largely symbolic but is likely to anger Turkey and step up already high tensions between the two NATO allies.
Biden is expected to use the word “genocide” as part of a statement on April 24 when annual Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day commemorations are held around the world, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters and The New York Times.
“My understanding is that he took the decision and will use the word genocide in his statement on Saturday,” a source told Reuters.
However, sources warned that given the importance of bilateral ties with Turkey, Biden may still choose to drop the “genocide” term at the last minute. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has warned the White House that recognition would “harm” U.S.-Turkish ties.
The reports came as a bipartisan group of more than 100 members of the House of Representatives on April 21 signed a letter to Biden calling on him to become the first U.S. president to formally recognize the systematic killings and deportation of Armenians as an act of genocide.
The letter was led by Representative Adam Schiff (Democrat-California).
“The shameful silence of the United States Government on the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide has gone on for too long, and it must end,” the lawmakers wrote. “We urge you to follow through on your commitments, and speak the truth.”
Biden as a candidate pledged in April last year that if elected he would recognize the Armenian genocide, saying that “silence is complicity,” but did not give a timeline for delivering on the promise.
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 countries 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.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on April 21 told reporters the White House would likely have “more to say” about the issue on April 24, but declined to elaborate.
The State Department referred queries on the issue to the White House and the National Security Council had no comment beyond what Psaki said.
Moves to recognize the Armenian genocide have stalled in the U.S. Congress for decades, and U.S. presidents have refrained from formally using the term amid concerns about relations with Turkey and intense lobbying by Ankara.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had established a close bond with former U.S. President Donald Trump, but he has yet to speak to Biden since he was inaugurated as president on January 20.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Reuters, AP, and The New York Times
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
An independent, bipartisan advisory body has reiterated its call for the U.S. State Department to add Russia to its register of the world’s “worst violators” of religious freedom, a blacklist that already includes Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and six other countries.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), created by Congress to make recommendations about global religious freedom, proposes in its annual report released on April 21 that Russia, India, Syria, and Vietnam be put on the “countries of particular concern” list, a category reserved for those that carry out “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” violations of religious freedoms.
The blacklisting paves the way for sanctions if the countries included do not improve their records.
Countries recommended for the State Department’s special watch list, meaning there are still “severe” violations of religious freedom there, include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
The USCIRF report says that “religious freedom conditions in Russia deteriorated” last year, with the government targeting religious minorities deemed to be “nontraditional” with fines, detentions, and criminal charges.
A total of 188 criminal cases alone were brought against the banned Jehovah’s Witnesses, while there were 477 searches of members’ homes, with raids and interrogations including “instances of torture that continue to go uninvestigated and unpunished.”
For decades, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been viewed with suspicion in Russia, where the dominant Orthodox Church is championed by President Vladimir Putin.
In 2017, Russia outlawed the religious group and labeled it “extremist,” a designation the State Department has called “wrongful.”
‘Made-Up Charges’
Russia’s anti-extremism law was also used to “persecute religious minorities, particularly Muslims,” the report added.
In Russia’s region of the North Caucasus, “security forces acted with impunity, arresting or kidnapping persons suspected of even tangential links to Islamist militancy as well as for secular political opposition,” it said.
In occupied Crimea, the enforcement of Russia’s “repressive” laws and policies on religion resulted in the prosecution of peaceful religious activity and bans on groups that were legal in the peninsula under Ukrainian law. At least 16 Crimean Muslims were sentenced to prison terms on “made-up charges of extremism and terrorism,” the report said.
In Iran, the government escalated its “severe repression”” of religious minorities and continued to “export religious extremism and intolerance abroad,” according to the report, which cites “scores” of Christians being “arrested, assaulted, and unjustly sentenced to years in prison.”
The government also continued to arrest Baha’is and impose lengthy prison sentences on them, with between 50 and 100 followers of the Baha’i sect reported to be in prisons in Iran during the past year.
The USCIRF says religious freedom conditions also worsened in Pakistan, with the government “systematically” enforcing blasphemy laws and failing to protect religious minorities from “abuses by nonstate actors.”
It cites a “sharp rise in targeted killings, blasphemy cases, forced conversions, and hate speech targeting religious minorities” including Ahmadis, Shi’a, Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs.
Abduction, forced conversion to Islam, rape, and forced marriage “remained an imminent threat for religious minority women and children,” particularly among the Hindu and Christian faiths.
In Turkmenistan, religious freedom conditions “remained among the worst in the world and showed no signs of improvement,” according to the report.
The government continued to “treat all independent religious activity with suspicion, maintaining a large surveillance apparatus that monitors believers at home and abroad.”
“Restrictive state policies have ‘virtually extinguished’ the free practice of religion in the country, where the government appoints Muslim clerics, surveils and dictates religious practice, and punishes nonconformity through imprisonment, torture, and administrative harassment,” the report said.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Photo: G-rant Gulesserian (Courtesy Image)
Satellite imagery has some fearing that an ancient monument faces “erasure” after its recapture by Azerbaijan
The Twitter account for Caucasus Heritage Watch on April 19 shared satellite images apparently showing several vehicles parked next to the Vankasar Church in Azerbaijan’s Agdam district. The region was recaptured from Armenian forces during last year’s conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The images are hard to discern but were widely shared on Twitter amid fears they may show a first step in the “erasure” of the ancient Christian monument.
Lori Khatchadourian, an associate professor at Cornell University who is one of the researchers of Caucasus Heritage Watch, told RFE/RL by e-mail that there appears to be one truck “approximately 8.6 meters long” — far larger than a regular car, truck, or van — in the photo, alongside other undefined vehicles and “a temporary rectangular structure” nearby measuring 18-by-8 meters that she believes may be a tent or some other type of shelter.
Made of stone, Vankasar Church was built in the 7th century atop a hilltop near the archaeological site of Tigranakert.
There is no evidence Vankasar Church has been targeted for destruction since coming under Azerbaijan’s control, but some fear it could be demolished after a recent news report highlighted the erasure of another historic church on recaptured Azerbaijani territory.
In March, a BBC camera crew went looking for a church in the retaken Azerbaijani town of Jebrayil. The small church, which was built in 2017, became known during the 2020 conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenian forces after video emerged of a fighter standing atop its damaged cross and shouting Islamic slogans.
Satellite images released by Caucasus Heritage Watch show the erasure of the Zoravor Holy Mother of God Church in Jebrayil.
Instead of a church, the BBC journalists found smoothed-out rubble at the site.
In response to the church’s destruction, senior Azerbaijani official Hikmet Hajiyev pointed to the heavily damaged Azerbaijani towns that he said had become wastelands under Armenian occupation since the first conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s.
Vankasar Church in 2012
Simon Maghakyan, an American-Armenian researcher, told RFE/RL he hopes the objects seen in the satellite imagery alongside Vankasar Church are simply military vehicles manning an outpost. But a recent statement about the nearby archaeological site of Tigranakert by Azerbaijani officials has him worried for the wider site around Vankasar Church.
The ruins of Tigranakert, a city named after the Armenian King Tigranes the Great (95-55 B.C.)
On March 13, Hajiyev, who is an adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, tweeted cryptically that the “falsified mythic story” about Tigranakert “is over.” The Tigranakert ruins are less than 2 kilometers from Vankasar Church and were damaged during the 2020 conflict.
Armenians also remember the total destruction in 2005 of the special Armenian “khachkar” tombstones at the cemetery in Julfa, Azerbaijan.
Khatchadourian says of the images her organization released on April 19: “Our hope is that there is no risk at all and the vehicles are merely passing by. But deterrence only works if we make potential threats visible to the wider public and to responsible authorities in order to seek clarification. Unlike most research teams, we are most pleased when we are wrong.”
RFE/RL contacted UNESCO for comment about the images but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Canada has halted some military exports to NATO ally Turkey after a probe confirmed Canadian drone technology was used by Azerbaijan in last year’s fighting with Armenia over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Canada suspended military export permits to Turkey last October pending an investigation into allegations Canadian technology was misused when the Turkish military provided armed drones to support Azerbaijan.
“Following this review, which found credible evidence that Canadian technology exported to Turkey was used in Nagorno-Karabakh, today I am announcing the cancellation of permits that were suspended in the fall of 2020,” Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau said in an April 12 statement.
“This use was not consistent with Canadian foreign policy, nor end-use assurances given by Turkey,” he added.
Garneau said he had spoken with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu about the decision and offered to start a dialogue mechanism to ensure any future defense export permits are in line with end-user agreements.
The export ban affects 29 permits for military goods and technologies, including camera components used in Turkish drones.
The Canadian review found Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2 armed drones were equipped with imaging and targeting systems made by Canadian company L3Harris Wescam. The Canadian camera system is exclusively used in the Turkish drones, but no export permits for Canadian sensors were issued for Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan and Armenian forces fought a six-week war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the fall, during which Turkish support helped Azerbaijan prevail over ethnic Armenian forces.
Under a Moscow-brokered cease-fire, a chunk 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.
Canada had previously suspended export licenses during a Turkish military incursion into Syria against Kurdish forces in 2019. Those restrictions were then eased, but reinstated during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
YEREVAN — More than five months after the guns fell silent on the battlefields of Nagorno-Karabakh, the dust is settling in the halls of power in Stepanakert, the disputed region’s de facto capital.
In Karabakh’s very opaque political environment, however, it’s not entirely clear who has come out on top after the 44-day Second Karabakh War won convincingly by Azerbaijan late last year.
There are two men who appear to be in close competition to control the Azerbaijani region predominantly inhabited by ethnic Armenians: de facto President Arayik Harutiunian and the region’s influential security chief, Vitaly Balasanian.
Harutiunian has led the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, as it’s known by Armenians, since his victory in the March 2020 presidential election.
That vote was by far the most competitive in Karabakh’s post-Soviet history and saw Harutiunian — who was prime minister from 2007 to 2017 — emerge victorious in a runoff after securing just under 50 percent of the vote in the first round.
One of his opponents in that first round was Vitaly Balasanian, a former general-turned-opposition leader who garnered nearly 15 percent of the vote, finishing third.
But after the dismal showing in the war with Azerbaijan led to unhappiness with Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership, Balasanian is now poised to be the president’s main challenger domestically.
Defeat Brings Change
The crushing defeat resulted in a major political shakeup in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In the months following the November 10 cease-fire deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan — which was brokered by Russia — nearly all of the region’s cabinet ministers were replaced.
Harutiunian himself said he would resign at some unannounced date and leave politics — something he has not yet done.
Arayik Harutiunian (file photo)
In the meantime, Balasanian was appointed by Harutiunian on December 2 as head of Karabakh’s powerful Security Council, the chief military body for the region. Harutiunian also announced two weeks later that Karabakh’s armed forces were subordinate to the council, effectively granting huge power to Balasanian.
That move led many to speculate that he would formally replace Harutiunian as Karabakh leader and had, in fact, already garnered sufficient power to exercise authority in the breakaway state.
Who Holds The Most Power?
But it is still unclear which of the two men has more influence in Karabakh.
Emil Sanamyan, a fellow at the University of Southern California’s Institute of Armenian Studies, thinks Balasanian is indeed in the ascendent.
Sanamyan said it seems “very likely” that Balasanian will replace Harutiunian as Karabakh’s president.
“The question is when that might happen,” he added, pointing out that Karabakh is not in a position to hold an election anytime soon.
Sanamyan suggested Harutiunian might thus remain as a figurehead, the formal leader in Karabakh but with Balasanian exercising “effective commander in chief powers.”
Vitaly Balasanian (file photo)
Balasanian gained prominence in the First Karabakh War as head of the Askeran regiment that spearheaded the operation to seize the Azerbaijani city of Agdam in 1993, resulting in tens of thousands of ethnic Azerbaijanis being expelled.
He left the army in 2005 to join Karabakh’s political opposition, making a name for himself as “the opposition general.”
He ran for president of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2012, finishing second. He first served as head of the Security Council from 2016 to 2019.
In the last two years he became known for his political stances, particularly his strident opposition to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, whom Balasanian slammed as a “Western stooge.”
Some people think his opposition to the previously popular Pashinian and his first tenure heading the Security Council has cost him politically.
“In 2016, [Balasanian] became the head of the security council [Nagrono-Karabakh], joining a small group of ‘siloviki’” in the region, said an Armenian official with knowledge of Karabakh politics, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This was the turning point for him. The modest, noncorrupt general became part of the most corrupt group in Karabakh.”
Sanamyan has a completely different view of Balasanian.
“He is a man of integrity and not known for any criminal or corrupt activity,” he said.
And Then There’s Russia
The narrative about the rise of Balasanian has grown beyond what the situation in Stepanakert reflects, said the anonymous official.
“There’s a real hype around [Balasanian], especially in Yerevan, but this doesn’t reflect reality,” the official said. “Balasanian doesn’t have the administrative resources [that Harutiunian] does and there are only three members of parliament [from his party],” he added.
Russian peacekeepers on the move in Nagorno-Karabakh late last year.
But observers warn that the political savvy of Harutiunian should not be discounted.
“Arayik [Harutiunian] has effectively consolidated power in the last few months,” the official continued. “He has tied everyone to him by bringing them into his cabinet. There is a joke right now in Karabakh: if you want to be a minister, just criticize [Harutiunian],” he explained. “I don’t think Balasanian has anywhere near the influence [that Harutiunian] has,” he said.
Whatever the true balance of power behind the scenes, many think that both men are still playing second fiddle to the real authority in town: Russia.
“De facto, real authority [in Karabakh] is now in Russia’s hands,” said Benyamin Poghosian, chairman of the Yerevan-based Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies. “[Rustam] Muradov, the Russian peacekeeping head [in Karabakh], is the no. 1 guy. The Karabakh government does still function, but [the situation is] somewhere between strong Russian influence and de facto control.”
General Rustam Muradov (left) with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (file photo)
For the time being at least, Harutiunian and Balasanian appear to be prepared to try to ride out the tough situation in the sparsely populated, war-torn region, which Armenian forces controlled from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until last year.
“I don’t think [Harutiunian] is going anywhere,” said the official. “A few months ago, when people were demanding his resignation, he said he wouldn’t leave because the Russians want him there. He has very good relations [with Muradov].”
“There’s some speculation that [Harutiunian] will resign on May 21, the one-year anniversary [of his swearing-in as president], but I’m not sure,” said Poghosian. “Many people also think he will stay [in office beyond that date].”
Of course high politics are currently of little concern to the average Karabakh Armenian civilian, many of whom are still reeling from the bitter defeat in the war, which led to large swaths of territory being taken by Azerbaijani forces.
“It’s hard to speculate about [politics and] policies considering the situation [Karabakh] finds itself in,” concludes Sanamian. “The priority [is] people’s security.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
YEREVAN — Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of violating a key term of the Russian-brokered cease-fire deal that ended last fall’s fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, alleging that Baku is reneging on a pledge to free Armenian soldiers and civilians captured during the conflict.
“Unfortunately, the return of prisoners is again delayed,” the office of Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian said in a statement posted on Facebook on April 9.
Avinian said that “Russian-mediated negotiations are continuing and we hope that the Azerbaijani side will at last respect” the cease-fire agreement signed in November 2020, putting an end to six weeks of fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.
There was no immediate reaction from Azerbaijani officials.
Avinian’s accusations come a day after Armenian government representatives said that a group of prisoners of war (POWs) was about to be repatriated to Armenia.
But a plane from Azerbaijan that was expected to bring 25 POWs turned out to be empty when it landed in Yerevan.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s.
Under the Moscow-brokered cease-fire deal, 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.
The agreement also resulted in the deployment of around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers, and provided for an exchange of POWs and other detained people.
Several prisoner exchanges have taken place in recent months.
There are no official figures of how many Armenians are still being held by Azerbaijan, but the RBK news agency said there were about 140. It’s unclear how many Azerbaijani prisoners there are.
On April 9, hundreds of relatives of POWs and missing soldiers protested in Yerevan and other parts of Armenia.
In the capital, about 400 blocked the entrances of the Defense Ministry for a second day. Some protesters clashed with police.
More than 6,000 people died in last year’s fighting.
With reporting by dpa
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling on Russia to stop denying entry to foreign reporters in the South Caucasus disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, and is urging the United Nations and Council of Europe to ensure respect for the right to the freedom to inform.
Russian peacekeepers controlling access to Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia via the Lachin Corridor have denied entry to at least 10 foreign journalists since February, the Paris-based media freedom watchdog said in a statement on April 9.
“A growing number of foreign journalists are being systematically refused entry by Russian soldiers,” said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.
Cavelier warned that without international media, Nagorno-Karabakh “is liable to become a news and information ‘black hole.’”
Last fall, Azerbaijani and Armenian forces fought a brief war over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s.
The six-week fighting concluded in November 2020 with a Russian-brokered cease-fire, under which a chunk of the region and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by ethnic Armenian forces.
It also resulted in the deployment of around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers along frontline areas and the Lachin Corridor connecting the disputed territory with Armenia.
More than 6,000 people died in the fighting.
According to RSF, a French photographer, a reporter for the French TV channel M6, and a Canadian freelancer for The Guardian and CNN, were among the journalists who were denied entry in Nagorno-Karabakh since February.
The group said access to the region is also “restricted” via Azerbaijan. It cited the case of TV crews from France 24 and the European channel Arte which “made highly controlled visits from Azerbaijan and were not able to report freely.”
The Russian-brokered cease-fire agreement has no specific provision for the entry of journalists, RSF pointed out.
It said press accreditation is issued by the consulate of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist authorities or by the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
However, the Russia peacekeepers “grant or refuse entry to foreign citizens, who are notified of the decision on the eve of their planned visit,” while Armenians and Russians “just need to show their passports in order to enter” the region.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
