Author: Greg Madatian

Armenia among top three countries where Russia is most loved, poll shows

Greg Madatian
Panorama, Armenia

Dec 25 2020


Rossotrudnichestvo, Russia’s state agency responsible for overseeing promotion of cultural ties and exchanges, has published the results of a poll entitled ‘Which countries love Russia the most?’, Armenia was placed third, the Russian cultural center in Yerevan told TASS on Thursday.

“We thank everyone who took part in the competition. Tajikistan won the first place in the competition, followed by Serbia and Armenia was placed third in the list of countries that love Russia the most,” the agency was told.

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Syria, Ukraine, Bulgaria and China are among the other top countries.





Bodies of nine Armenian servicemen found in Hin Tagher-Khtsaberd section

Greg Madatian
Public Radio of Armenia
Dec 17 2020

On December 16, the bodies of nine Armenian servicemen found near the Armenian military positions in the direction of Hin Tagher-Khtsaberd were handed over to the Defense Army of the Republic of Artsakh by the Russian peacekeeping contingent stationed in the area, Artsakh’s Ministry of Defense said.

Necessary actions are being taken at the moment to find out the circumstances of the soldiers’ death and their identity, the Ministry added.

The Defense Army said on the eve that the fate of 73 people in that section was unknown.

COVID-19: Armenia reports 861 new cases, 1223 recoveries in one day

Greg Madatian

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 10:55,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 18, ARMENPRESS. 861 new cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have been confirmed in Armenia in the past one day, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 152,253, the ministry of healthcare said today.

1223 more patients have recovered in one day. The total number of recoveries has reached 131,213.

2567 tests were conducted in the past one day.

15 more patients have died, raising the death toll to 2596.

The number of active cases is 17,796.

The number of patients who had coronavirus but died from other disease has reached 648 (6 new such cases).

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Artak Tovmasyan calls for immediate elections in Armenia to avoid ‘more disgraceful failures’

Greg Madatian
Panorama, Armenia

Dec 12 2020

Artak Tovmasyan, the head of the Tovmasyan Charity Foundation who came up with an initiative to form a new team, on Saturday again called for immediate elections to form a new parliament and government in Armenia.

“During the parade in Baku, the arrogance of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey, who tried to stage a victory over Armenia and the Armenian army, is not substantiated in any way. Since the Armenian military was not defeated, it fought and heroically resisted, but Nikol Pashinyan, as a result of the overnight conspiratorial capitulation, handed over to the enemy territories defended at the cost of the blood of our soldiers,” he said in a statement on Facebook.

“Therefore, this military parade does not show the defeat for the Armenian army and the Armenian people, but the fact of the diplomatic weakness, incompetent ruling and treacherous behavior of Nikol Pashinyan and the Armenian authorities.

“Every hour of their ruling in Armenia will bring us more disgraceful failures on the external front and within the country, thus it is necessary to urgently hold snap elections to form a new National Assembly and a government, consisting of exclusively professional people with impeccable biographies, which will unite the potential of Armenians and build a country of new level, with whom no one can speak the language of threats and blackmail,” the statement said.



Two Women Entrepreneurs Design Tech Workshops For War Displaced Armenian Refugee Children

Greg Madatian
FORBES
Dec 10 2020
Jackie Abramian Contributor

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

ForbesWomen

Three school age children from Shushi, Artsakh, now displaced

The offensive by Turkish-backed Azerbaijan on the Armenian-populated regions of Nagorno Karabagh (Artsakh) during the recent 44-day war has left 71 schools and 14 kindergartens destroyed, disrupting education for nearly 30,000 Armenian students in the region. These exclude the schools and kindergartens in the communities currently under Azerbaijani control. To mend the  disruption, two Armenian technology executives have joined forces to provide technology workshops for the Armenian refugee children, now living in temporary accommodations throughout the neighboring Republic of Armenia.

Seda Papoyan, founder of Girls In Tech is now launching Tech workshops for displaced Armenian … [+] children.

Seda Papoyan

Seda Papoyan, founder of Girls In Tech, Armenia–a chapter of the global non-profit designed to end gender inequality in high-tech industries and startups (who also founded CoderDojo Armenia) has joined forces with Sisian Ghahramanians, Senior Manager, Developer Monetization & Growth at California based Fyber, to provide technology workshops for the displaced children in Armenia. In my recent virtual interview with Papoyan, she explained how the initial idea and the partnership was forged.

Jackie Abramian: What initiated the idea to provide technology workshops for the displaced children of Artsakh now living in Armenia–and the partnership with Sisian Ghahramanians?

Seda Papoyan: I’ve been engaged in setting up free coding clubs for children in Armenia since 2018 which was actually how I got to know Sisian. We got connected on LinkedIn and when she traveled to Armenia, we met and discussed possible future collaborations.  Sisian was among the first to donate and spread the word about our “STEMpower Girls Armenia” –a project we were fundraising for before the start of the September 27th Artsakh war. Sisian offered to support the project as her birthday fundraiser which was coming up in November. Well, the Artsakh war came faster than her birthday–so together with Sisian we decided to also direct our efforts towards the displaced Armenian children of the Artsakh war.

Abramian: How many Artsakh children are displaced and now living in Armenia?

Papoyan: Some 24,000 schoolchildren and over 4,000 preschool children have been deprived of their right to education for the last two months. We don’t have a final number of those who returned to Artsakh since the peace agreement was signed, but there are thousands who lost their homes and have to stay in Armenia.

Abramian: How much have you fundraised so far?

Papoyan: We’ve set a goal of $10,000 as an initial stage to be able to get equipped enough and cover the logistics to mainly travel to the temporary accommodation sites where the displaced Artsakh population are housed across Armenia. We’re targeting big communities of displaced people to engage as many children as possible.  Thus far we have raised about 90 percent of the initial goals but with the growing interest of both potential participants and donors, we’ve raised the goal particularly for the additional Christmas event component we’ve added.

Abramian: What’s the Christmas event that you’re planning?

Papoyan: Because it’s almost the end of the year, we’re planning a special coding Christmas event for the displaced children where they’ll be able to code a virtual Christmas card via block-based programming tools. This will be a fun holiday activity with a goal to empower them into the learning path ahead. It will be a nice opening for the workshop series.

Abramian: Have the tech workshops started yet? If so, how many children are involved?

Papoyan: Not yet. We are now engaged in organizational logistics and plan to start the regular workshops by mid-January of 2021.

Abramian: What type of technology lessons will you be offering?

Papoyan: The teaching plan targets the interests of the children and teenagers–to open up the world of technology and STEM fields for them. The open philosophy is based on our experience of project-based learning within CoderDojo clubs. But in this case, we have a certain goal to spark their interest and also contribute to their career orientation. All workshops are planned to engage the young learners in practical and useful journey of exploring technology with the help of experienced mentors. The workshops will equip the children with vital technical skills they’ll need in life wherever they go and whatever profession they choose. Ideally some of the participants, and particularly the teenage boys and girls, will show specific talent and willingness to get deeper into technology which we’ll definitely spot and put more efforts for their realization.

Abramian: Where will the workshops be held?

Papoyan: In most of the cases the workshop will travel to the communities and get hosted either in a local school classroom or a public building or a hall. But it will be an after-school and often a week-end program so the children can be free from school obligations.

Abramian: Will you be offering any tech workshops in schools in Stepanakert, the war-ravaged capital city of Artsakh where some of the displaced have returned?

Papoyan: We’ll start the workshops in Armenia’s capital city, Yerevan, and the surrounding regions where there are big communities of displaced Artsakh children. Later next year, based on the developments and available funding, we plan to travel to Artsakh as well. On the other hand, we’re now considering the possibility of building an online learning platform with simple and accessible video tutorials for children to start learning remotely as well. That was initiated because of the huge interest and requests we received from a number of Diaspora Armenians who are willing to teach and share their knowledge and experience with the younger generation of Armenians in Armenia. This is the most exciting layer of this project which promises new developments. We keep accepting expressions of interests in teaching.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackieabramian/2020/12/10/two-women-entrepreneurs-design-tech-workshops-for-war-displaced-armenian-refugee-children/

NYT: When an Enemy’s Cultural Heritage Becomes One’s Own

Greg Madatian
New York Times
Nov 30 2020

Could the cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh offer new hope for the preservation of threatened monuments everywhere?

By Hugh Eakin

Mr. Eakin is a Brown Foundation Fellow.

  • Nov. 30, 2020


Dadivank Monastery, in Nagorno-Karabakh, is one of the hundreds of Armenian churches, monuments and carved memorial stones that will come under the control of predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan according to a cease-fire agreement reached this month.Credit…Sergei Grits/Associated Press

Since its origins in the ninth century, Dadivank Monastery has withstood Seljuk and Mongol invasions, Persian domination, Soviet rule and, this fall, a second brutal war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Now the majestic stone complex — which includes two frescoed churches, a bell tower and numerous medieval inscriptions — faces something that could be even worse: a dangerous peace.

Perched on a rugged slope in the western part of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region, Dadivank is one of the hundreds of Armenian churches, monuments and carved memorial stones that will come under the control of predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan according to a cease-fire agreement reached earlier this month. Some of those structures — like the Amaras monastery and the basilica of Tsitsernavank — date to the earliest centuries of Christianity. For many Armenians, turning over so much of their heritage to a sworn enemy poses a grave new threat, even as the bloodshed has for the moment come to an end.

Their concern is understandable. Under the cease-fire, hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis uprooted by a previous war in the early 1990s will be able to return. In a victory speech on Nov. 25, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan suggested that Armenians have no historical claims to the region, asserting that the churches belonged to ancient Azerbaijani forebears and had been “Armenianized” in the 19th century.

Between 1997 and 2006, the Azerbaijani government undertook a devastating campaign against Armenian heritage in Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani enclave separated from the main part of the country by Armenian territory: Some 89 churches and the thousands of khachkars, or carved memorial stones, of the Djulfa cemetery, the largest medieval Armenian cemetery in the world, were destroyed. And since the recent cease-fire, images circulating on social media suggest that some Armenian monuments and churches in territory newly claimed by Azerbaijan have already been vandalized or defiled.


On the other hand, Armenian forces laid to waste the Azerbaijani town of Agdam in the wake of the previous Nagorno-Karabakh war in the 1990s. The Azerbaijani government has also claimed that mosques and Muslim sites that had been under Armenian control were neglected or desecrated.

Now, as Azerbaijan takes possession of newly won territories, a longstanding problem acquires special urgency: How can a government be persuaded to care for the heritage of a people that doesn’t fit into its view of the nation?


In any instance of intercommunal strife, preserving monuments must take a distant second place to saving lives and protecting human welfare. But the fate of cultural sites matters, too, for the prospects of long-term peace.

Until now, international efforts to protect monuments have overwhelmingly focused on acts of war and terrorist violence. Following the widespread destruction of museums, libraries and artworks during World War II, diplomats drafted the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which was eventually ratified by more than 130 countries. But the treaty had a significant loophole for “military necessity.”

Since the Cold War, deliberate attacks on an adversary’s major monuments — the Croatians’ shelling of the Old Bridge of Mostar, Bosnia, in 1993; the Taliban’s dynamiting of the giant sandstone Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, in 2001; the Islamic State’s razing of Yazidi shrines in Iraq in 2014-15 — have pushed world leaders and international organizations to give more teeth to the existing legal framework.

In 2002, the International Criminal Court was established to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes — including, in the case of war crimes, for the intentional destruction of cultural heritage. In 2008, following widespread outrage over the looting and damage to sites in Iraq during the American invasion and occupation, the United States Senate ratified the 1954 Hague Convention.

More recently, UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency, launched a high-profile campaign to counter what Irina Bokova, a former UNESCO director general, called “cultural cleansing” by “violent extremists.” In 2016 the I.C.C. convicted a Malian jihadist of war crimes for leading attacks on the 14th-century Djinguereber Mosque and other sites in Timbuktu, Mali.

That year, several governments called for the creation of “an international network of safe havens” to protect cultural property at risk of imminent attack. In 2017, the U.N. Security Council also condemned the destruction of cultural sites by terrorist groups. President Trump’s threat, in January, to target “important” cultural sites in Iran caused an uproar, as well as pushback from the Pentagon.


Yet some of the most systematic destruction in modern times has involved sovereign governments rather than military combatants or extremist groups. China launched a sweeping campaign against Tibetan monasteries, not during the annexation of Tibet in 1950-51, but years later, when the region was firmly under Beijing’s rule. The Turkish government continued to seize or destroy Armenian sites in Eastern Anatolia many decades after the Armenian genocide, including even in recent years.

Since 2012, the Myanmar military has demolished hundreds of mosques and Islamic schools in Rakhine State — part of its brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims. Satellite evidence suggests that the Chinese authorities have destroyed 8,500 mosques in Xinjiang in the last three years alone.

Just a few months ago, India’s Hindu-nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, laid the cornerstone for a new Hindu temple on the site of the 16th-century Babri Mosque, which was destroyed by a Hindu mob in 1992. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has ordered that two of Istanbul’s most important Byzantine churches — Chora and Hagia Sophia — be converted from museums to mosques, raising fears that their extraordinary Christian mosaics might not be cared for.

But in all of these cases, the United Nations, the United States and its European allies have remained largely mute. UNESCO, which depends on many of the offending governments for funding and support, has shown little interest in intervening. And alliances and prevailing international norms tend to make foreign governments reluctant to interfere with the domestic affairs of other nations during peacetime.

By contrast, the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, where a hot war has just ended, could provide a rare opportunity.

As in other post-conflict situations, cultural sites are particularly vulnerable to score-settling attacks. In 1992, Georgian forces destroyed numerous Abkhaz cultural sites in the former Soviet republic of Abkhazia, including the archive containing much of the region’s history; in the five years after Kosovo’s 1998-99 war with Serbia, some 140 Serbian Orthodox churches and monuments in Kosovo were burned or destroyed.

Yet in the immediate aftermath of war, precisely because a peace effort is underway, foreign governments and international peacekeepers are unusually well-placed to intervene. Unlike during armed conflict, there is also a chance for international mediators and local communities to work together to prevent attacks before the damage is done.


The historical treasures of Nagorno-Karabakh need not become casualties of the recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan — nor drivers of a next one.

Since antiquity, numerous sites and monuments have successfully passed from the control of one group to another, often across confessional lines. The Pantheon in Rome, one of the greatest pagan temples of antiquity, owes its remarkable survival in part to its adoption by the Catholic Church in the seventh century. After the fall of Constantinople, Mehmed II the Conqueror preserved Hagia Sophia as a mosque. During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther opposed the destruction of Catholic art in Germany, even as he sought to stamp out Catholicism.

In these cases, major buildings or artworks were recognized by their new stewards as having transcendent value, aesthetic or otherwise. Prestige helped determine preservation: As later Catholic chroniclers argued, the Holy See, by converting one of the greatest Roman buildings into a church, had inherited the glory of the ancient world.

But legions of lesser-known buildings, artworks and sites have also been cared for and maintained across centuries and traditions. Typically, that has been because they spoke to the people living around them, regardless of the identity of their creators.

During the Syrian civil war, while Western leaders were wringing their hands about Islamic State attacks on Palmyra, the ancient trading city and UNESCO World Heritage site, residents of Idlib, a rebel-controlled city, courageously protected the ancient, pre-Islamic mosaics and structures in their communities. They viewed these artifacts and sites as crucial to their own contemporary Syrian identity.

In divided Cyprus, a joint cultural-heritage commission of Greek and Turkish Cypriots was created in 2012 to care for endangered monuments on both sides of the island. Funded by the European Union and the U.N. Development Program, the commission has been embraced by both communities for restoring churches as well as mosques and hamams, and ancient aqueducts and fortifications. Following recent arson attacks on mosques in Greek Cypriot territory, the Greek Orthodox community was quick to condemn the assailants.



Armenian inscriptions at Dadivank.Credit…Robert Harding/Alamy

In Nagorno-Karabakh, too, cultural reconciliation is still possible. Despite the dismal record of the past three decades, both sides have demonstrated awareness of — and admiration for — heritage that is not their own. In 2019, Armenians restored a prominent 19th-century mosque in Shusha (though they pointedly failed to note its previous use by Azerbaijani Muslims). And in his recent address, Mr. Aliyev acknowledged the importance of the region’s churches — even as he denied their Armenian origin.

Security must come first. Russia has already deployed peacekeepers at Dadivank Monastery and has pressed Azerbaijan to protect other Armenian monuments now under its control. The European Union should make similar demands as part of its offer of humanitarian aid, as well as insist that Armenians’ access to important churches is assured. The Azerbaijani government, which already has obtained much of what it wanted in the cease-fire, would have a strong incentive to comply.

But a durable future for Armenian sites — especially the numerous less known medieval churches and ornate khachkars — will require direct engagement by Armenians and Azerbaijanis themselves.

In fact, the two communities have coexisted at many points in the past. Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, was once home to an Armenian population, and there were a number of mosques in Armenia. In the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the strategic town of Shusha, now under Azerbaijani control, has important 19th-century monuments from both nations — including the distinctive mosque with twin minarets that was controversially restored by the Armenians and a large cathedral, which was damaged by Azerbaijani forces during the recent fighting.

Despite centuries of regime change, many of the most important monuments in the region, including Dadivank and other early Armenian sites, have endured — a reminder that the supposedly ancient and intractable differences driving the current conflict are of recent manufacture. Like the beleaguered civilians around them, these buildings need the world’s immediate attention. But their very survival — like that of the Pantheon or Hagia Sophia — so far points to a hopeful truth: It is the natural inclination of human beings to preserve; destruction takes special effort and motivation.

Hugh Eakin, a Brown Foundation Fellow, has reported on endangered cultural heritage for The New York Review of Books and other publications.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].


ARF Leaders in Moscow on Working Visit

Greg Madatian

November 30,  2020



ARF Bureau president Armen Rustamyan leads a discussion during a visit to Moscow

Armenian Revolutionary Federation Bureau president Armen Rustamyan and chairman of the ARF Supreme Council of Armenia Ishkhan Saghatelyan are on a working visit to Moscow where they met with political figures.

The ARF leaders had official meeting with various factions represented in the Russian Duma, especially the vice-chair of the Duma Commission of CIS relations Konstantin Zatulin, who invited them to Moscow.

They also met with Armenian community organizational representatives among them Armenian student and youth organizations working in Russia.

In an interview with Yerkir Media’s Moscow correspondent, Rustamyan said that he and Saghatelian discussed the current situation in Armenia, including the political crisis and issues that may come as a result of the instability

Rustamyan emphasized the importance of Artsakh’s future status, saying that currently the threat of complete depopulation of Armenians from Artsakh if its status is determined to be within Azerbaijan and it becomes an enclave, losing is link to Armenia.

Rustamyan also said that there seems to be a false perspective among their Russian colleagues that the opposition efforts in Armenia are aimed at nullifying the November 9 agreement between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia.

“We understand that nullifying the agreement at this juncture means the resumption of war, which given the current circumstances in Armenia, is fraught with negative consequence,” said Rustamyan.

“We must continue assessing the agreement and work toward clarifying those issues that have been ignored by Armenia’s current leadership, which are having dangerous repercussions today, for example in the Lachin corridor, as well as along the entire eastern border of Armenia,” explained Rustamyan.

[see video]

Berdzor mayor presents details amid vague situation

Greg Madatian

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 10:36, 1 December, 2020

BERDZOR, DECEMBER 1, ARMENPRESS. Many of the residents of Berdzor are currently in the town, Mayor Narek Alexanyan told ARMENPRESS amid a vague situation over the town’s fate.  The Lachin corridor, linking Armenia with Artsakh, runs through Berdzor, which in turn is located in the Kashatagh province – which has come under Azeri control under the terms of the Karabakh armistice. But the fate of the town remains vague.

According to the mayor, the Russian peacekeepers told them yesterday that they have to lower the flag of Artsakh, and that the flag of neither side should be raised there.

“Nevertheless the Russian peacekeepers didn’t specify whether or not the Azeri armed forces would enter Berdzor. It’s possible that women and children have left the town due to safety concerns, but many have stayed. Regarding the rumors alleging that only 200 residents should remain in the town as service staff for the peacekeepers – I don’t have any information on this. Anyhow, right now the number of residents who stayed in Berdzor is a lot more than 200. I myself am in Berdzor,” the mayor said.

The Russian peacekeepers are now stationed in Berdzor, while the local residents are waiting for further developments.

Reporting by Van Novikov; Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

Armenia Special Investigation Service chief is awarded state medal

Greg Madatian
Public Radio of Armenia
Nov 28 2020
Accordingly, based on the Prime Minister’s solicitation in accordance with the Constitution, as well as the Law on State Awards and Honorary Titles, the head of the Special Investigation Service, Sasun Khachatryan, has been awarded the Mkhitar Gosh Medal for his significant contribution to the strengthening of law and order in Armenia.

Nagorno-Karabakh: victory of London and Ankara, defeat of Soros and the Armenians

Greg Madatian
Voltaire Network
Nov 24 2020
by Thierry Meyssan

The Pentagon, which had planned the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, was overtaken by its British allies. But none of the great powers worried about the deaths it would cause. Moreover, while London and Ankara renewed their historic alliance, Washington and Moscow gained nothing, while George Soros and the Armenians lost much.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | PARIS (FRANCE) | 24 NOVEMBER 2020

After 44 days of war, Armenia was forced to sign a ceasefire with Azerbaijan, acknowledging the loss of part of its territories. However, as we reported in the form of an interrogation, the initial plan of the United States was to blame Turkey, let it massacre part of the Armenian population, then intervene, overthrow President Erdoğan and restore peace [1].

However, this plan did not work. It masked a British ploy. Underhandedly, London took advantage of the confusion of the US presidential election to double-cross Washington. It used the situation to try to deprive Russia of the map of Nagorno-Karabakh and resume the “Great Game” of the nineteenth century. [2] At the time, London was the ally of the Ottoman Empire against the Tsarist Empire. When Moscow realized this, it imposed a cease-fire to stop the massacre.

Throughout the 19th century, the British and Russian empires engaged in a fierce rivalry to control the Caucasus and all of Central Asia. This episode is known in England as the “Great Game” and in Russia as the “Tournament of Shadows”.

Russia began to win the game when it seized Nagorno-Karabakh. By a domino effect, it then extended its domination over the Caucasus.

In view of this historical precedent, London now believes that recovering Nagorno-Karabakh could allow it to undermine Moscow’s influence in the Caucasus and then throughout Central Asia.

The current British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, claims to be the continuator of the imperial policy of Winston Churchill, of whom he is a biographer. He has just made public a costly plan to modernize his armies [3].

To relaunch the “Great Game”, on July 29, 2020, he appointed Richard Moore, director general of the Foreign Office, as director of MI6 (foreign secret services). He had previously served as His Majesty’s ambassador to Ankara, speaks Turkish fluently, and has made friends with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He did not take up his new post until October 1, four days after the Azeri attack on Nagorno-Karabakh.

Richard Moore is a personal friend of Prince Charles, himself patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, where the intellectuals of the Muslim Brotherhood have been trained for twenty-five years. The former Turkish president, Abdullah Gül, is also administrator of this center.

As ambassador to Ankara (2014-17), Richard Moore accompanied President Erdoğan to become the patron of the Brotherhood.

He also played a role in the British withdrawal from the war against Syria in 2014. London did not intend to pursue a conflict in which it had engaged for colonial purposes, but which turned into a US imperial operation (Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy).

Richard Moore has just undertaken a tour of Egypt and Turkey. He was in Cairo on November 9th (the day of the Russian imposition of a cease-fire in Karabagh) to meet President al-Sissi and in Ankara on November 11th. Officially, he would not have had an audience with his old friend, President Erdoğan, but only met his spokesman at the White Palace.

In the Azeri-Turkish war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Washington believed it could count on President Armen Sarkissian and the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, one of George Soros’ men, [4] as bait.

George Soros is an American speculator who pursues his own political agenda, but works in concert with the CIA [5]. Unfortunately, the British do not have the same relationship with Soros: he owes his fortune to a vast operation against the pound sterling (on Black Wednesday, September 16, 1992), hence his nickname “the man who broke the Bank of England”.

London let Washington do it first. The Americans encouraged the “Two-State Nation” (Turkey and Azerbaijan) to forcibly end the Artsakh Republic.

MI6 helped its Turkish partner to transfer jihadists to Azerbaijan [6], not to kill Armenians, but Russians. But there are were Russians in Karabagh yet.

Soros reacted by sending Kurdish mercenaries to support the Armenian side [7].

Pretending to play the US game, London supported Baku and Ankara. During the first days, the three powers of the Minsk Group (in charge of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict since the dissolution of the USSR) – i.e. the United States, France and Russia – all three tried to obtain a halt to the fighting and a resumption of negotiations [8]. When they each successively noted Azeri bad faith, they presented a proposal for a resolution to the Security Council. For Washington, it was a question of operating in a coordinated manner a reversal, from neutrality to the condemnation of the “two-state nation”.

In the first days, the Armenians defended themselves as best they could. However, the head of state, Armen Sarkissian, modified the plans of the military staff and brought up inexperienced volunteers to the front. [9] Sarkissian has dual Armenian-British nationality. The result was a massacre among the Armenian army.

Suddenly, the United Kingdom announced that it would use its veto if the text was put to a vote. The United States, taken aback, publicly accused Azerbaijan of bad faith on 25 October.

But it would take another two weeks for Russia to understand that Washington, entangled in its presidential election campaign, was no longer handling the issue.

It is only around October 6 that Russia became certain of the existence of an English trap in the American trap. It quickly concluded that London had relaunched the “Great Game” and was preparing to steal its influence in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called his Turkish counterpart on October 7th. He negotiated with him a cease-fire very unfavorable to the Armenians. Erdoğan, who has understood that he will not be able to resist a stabilization of the political situation in the United States, agrees to gain only territory and renounces the relaunch of the Armenian genocide. President Putin then summoned his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, and the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pachinian, to the Kremlin. He saved what could still be saved by forcing his interlocutors to sign a ceasefire on October 10tj under the terms negotiated by Erdoğan [10]. His priorities were to draw up the Russian military presence via a peace force and then to stop the bloodbath. He then addressed the Russian people to announce that he had saved the interests of his country by saving Armenia from an even more terrible defeat.

The Armenians realized, far too late, that by taking them away from Russia for the USA, Nikol Pachinian had bet on the wrong horse. They understand in retrospect that however corrupt the former team that led them was, it was patriotic, while Soros’ men are opposed to the very concept of nationhood, and therefore to the independence of their country.

Demonstrations and resignations followed one another: the Chief of Staff, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defence, but not the Prime Minister. For his part, the Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliyev, is jubilant. He mocks copiously the Council of Europe and the Parliament of the European Union, proclaims his victory and announces the reconstruction of the conquered territories [11]. The British will have new privileges for British Petroleum and apply to exploit the Azeri gold mines.

Thierry Meyssan
Translation
Roger Lagassé
           

[1] “Will Artsakh (Karabagh) be the tomb of Erdoğan ?”, “Karabagh: NATO supports Turkey while seeking to eliminate President Erdoğan”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 6 and 15 October 2020.

[2] The Great Game. On Secret Service in High Asia, by Peter Hopkirk, John Murray (1990).

[3] “Boris Johnson Statement to the House on the Integrated Review”, by Boris Johnson, Voltaire Network, 19 November 2020.

[4] “Larisa Minasyan: OSF-Armenia has supported and supports the velvet revolution in the country”, Arm Info, March 5 2019.

[5] “George Soros, speculator and philanthropist”, Voltaire Network, 15 January 2004.

[6] “4 000 jihadists in Nagorno-Karabakh”, Voltaire Network, 29 September 2020.

[7] “Soros sent 2 000 Kurdish mercenaries to Armenia, says Erdoğan”, Voltaire Network, 29 October 2020.

[8] “Third Karabakh ceasefire breached”, Voltaire Network, 27 October 2020.

[9] Conférence de presse du chef d’état-major sortant, le général Movses Hakobyan, Erevan, 19 novembre 2020.

[10] “Statement by Presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia”, Voltaire Network, 10 November 2020.

[11] “Ilham Aliyev’s Victory Speech”, Voltaire Network, 20 November 2020.