HRAPARAK: ARMENIA SHOULD RELY ON ITSELF ONLY, EXPERT SAYS
12:16 05/08/2014 ” DAILY PRESS
Political scientist Levon Shirinyan has said that Armenia should
rely on its own forces only in the defense of its borders. Russia
is fulfilling its commitments, while the rest is up to Armenia,
Shirinyan told Hraparak newspaper.
Source: Panorama.am
The Jewish Daily Forward
Aug 3 2014
Did Germany Help Save Palestine’s Jews during World War One?
More Jews Died in Great War Than All Wars of State of Israel Combined
By Nir Mann
Published August 03, 2014.
(Haaretz) – “The war had already had an impact on Palestine. Not a
single gunshot had yet been heard, but hundreds of lives had already
been claimed by the contagious diseases introduced by the Turkish
forces. The crisis had only just begun, and the ‘sick man’ (Turkey)
had already demonstrated its state of rottenness, its lack of culture,
its lack of organizational skill.”
These words were written by Boris Schatz, founder of the Bezalel
School of Art in Jerusalem, at the time of the outbreak of World War
I. Later, at the height of the war, he added, “All of the disease, the
cholera, typhus fever, dysentery, malaria and the other angels of
destruction have been forgotten due to the starvation … The synagogues
have removed the silver crowns and ornaments from the Torah scrolls to
sell them by weight – from their silver they have made whip handles …
The Arabs wore our prayer shawls on their heads; the shopkeepers used
our sacred books to package their goods … Mothers sold themselves to
save their children from death … Thousand upon thousands have died of
starvation.”
During those war years, a mortal blow struck the Yishuv, the Jewish
community in Palestine. More Jews died during the Great War than in
all the wars of the State of Israel combined. In four years beginning
at the start of the World War I, this community shrank from 85,000 to
approximately 45,000 or 50,000, at its end. Half the Jews who died
were residents of Jerusalem – a third of the city’s Jewish population.
The historiography, and writings by contemporary writers Avshalom
Feinberg, Moshe Smilansky and Shlomo Zalman Sonnenfeld, underscore the
terrible suffering experienced by Palestine’s Jews during the war
years, but the dimensions of the loss have never been properly
investigated or documented.
Revisionist Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote in March 1918, from
Cairo: “They are saying that the mood in the Land of Israel is
positive. The colonies and the pioneers have made an outstanding
impression. But Jerusalem is in a bad state. Even though half of the
people who receive the charity handouts perished – fortunately –
before the English arrived, it is enough that we have the remaining
half … They squabble with one another, they write slanderous things,
and their honorable ladies and young women often engage in ‘the easy
livelihood.’ All of this is painful and depressing.”
A few weeks later, Chaim Weizmann, who chaired the Zionist Commission,
wrote: “It is so dismal in Jerusalem! … Jerusalem is not a Hebrew
city! One barely discerns the young Hebrew presence, and the old
people … are merely broken vessels, weakened and shrouded in
generations of mold. The Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem are nothing
but filth and contagious disease. It is impossible to describe in
words the poverty, the absolute ignorance and the fanatic zealotry;
the heart weeps at the sight of it all!”
Historical research mainly focused on the Zionist narrative – the
establishment of the Zion Mule Corps by Jabotinsky and fellow Zionist
activist Joseph Trumpeldor, the battles fought by the Jewish Legion,
and the anti-Turkish Nili underground, which was spying on behalf of
the British – and tended to disregard the catastrophe experienced by
the country’s long-time Jewish residents. In the generation that
followed, research focused on attempts to evaluate the dimensions of
the calamity, based on statistical approaches and demographic
methodology.
Studies by the late Prof. Isaiah Friedman, who analyzed the war from
the German perspective rather than through an Anglophile prism,
examined the political repercussions of Ottoman policy on the Yishuv,
a subject not adequately studied. The large quantity of documents he
gleaned from archives of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Vienna and the
German Empire in Berlin raise a question: Did Ahmed Jamal Pasha, one
of the Ottoman rulers, intend to obliterate the Jewish community in
Palestine – or the Zionist entity within it?
A second Armenia
On July 28, 1914, one month after the assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, crown prince to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the
Austro-Hungarian empire declared war on the kingdom of Serbia. Three
months later, Turkey joined the axis of central European powers, and
Jamal Pasha, one of the triumvirate of governors who controlled the
Ottoman Empire (and its navy minister), was appointed commander of the
Fourth Army and ruler of the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan
and the Hijaz).
The devastation of the civilian governance system in Palestine began
with an announcement by the Turkish regime, upon the outbreak of the
war, that it was declaring a moratorium on repayment of its loans.
This caused an immediate suspension of financial activity. A draconian
taxation regime was imposed to finance the war, and all critical
assets were confiscated.
With maritime traffic brought to a standstill, the transfer of
charitable funds for distribution among members of the Yishuv was cut
off. Cancellation of the protective status that had been granted to
foreign subjects compromised the legal situation of some 40,000 Jews
with Russian citizenship who were living in Palestine, as well as
thousands of British- and French-born residents. Approximately half
the Jews in Palestine were now considered to be citizens of enemy
regimes.
The Ottoman regime suspected members of the Yishuv, and particularly
the newly arrived Zionists, of disloyalty to the Sublime Porte in
Constantinople. On December 17, 1914, Baha al-Din, the governor of
Jaffa, issued a general decree of deportation of all foreign subjects
who had not yet become Ottomanized. Panic spread throughout Jaffa over
fears of an all-out massacre – until the intervention of the
government of Germany.
>From the start of the war, high-ranking members of the German
diplomatic corps had supported settlement in Palestine as a way of
enlisting the backing of world Jewry, and American Jewry in
particular, on behalf of the German cause. They included the German
foreign minister, Arthur Zimmermann, and Germany’s ambassador in
Turkey. Through pressure exerted by American Jewry and through
Germany’s intervention, Al-Din was dismissed in late December.
However, the sense of anxiety did not abate when Hassan Bey al-Basri
(Hassan Bek) was appointed in his place. The latter was known for his
brutal cruelty toward both Arabs and Jews. Upon his arrival in Jaffa,
he declared his intent to eliminate the Jewish presence there, since
he perceived it to be a foreign element that served the interests of
foreign powers.
In advance of the Turkish military campaign to conquer the Suez Canal,
Jamal Pasha arrived in February 1915 at his headquarters in Jerusalem,
situated in the Augusta Victoria compound on the Mount of Olives. He
was welcomed to the city at an impressive reception hosted by Rabbi
Moshe Franco, known as the Hakham Bashi, who was chief rabbi of the
Sephardic community.
Jewish communal leaders heard the newcomer crudely proclaiming that
Zionism was an anti-Turkish revolutionary movement that had to be
wiped out. Thirty prominent Zionists, including Manya and Israel
Shochat, Yehoshua Hankin, David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, were
placed under arrest. Most of them were released through the
intervention of Albert Antebi, the representative in Jerusalem of the
Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Jewish Colonization
Association, but widespread fear of the Ottoman regime among the Jews
increased.
The participation of regiments of the Zion Mule Corps within the ranks
of the British army in the battles of Gallipoli in 1915 and 1916
raised the indignation of Jamal Pasha. In September 1916, he exiled
Arthur Ruppin, head of the Zionist movement’s Eretz Yisrael Office, to
Constantinople (notwithstanding Ruppin’s German citizenship); in
December he declared that all means must be used to suppress Zionism,
and that Zionists were “diligent and practical people, but due to
their ideology, Palestine was liable to become a second Armenia.”
The big shift in the military arena began in January 1917, when the
British army conquered Rafah, and intensified 10 months later when it
occupied Be’er Sheva and Gaza. In advance of the battles of Gaza,
40,000 residents of that city were expelled from their homes. At the
same time, Jamal Pasha expelled all the residents of Jaffa on the
pretext that his forces had to make preparations to thwart an
amphibious landing in the city by General Allenby’s forces. Howerver,
while the Arabs of Jaffa were sent to the nearby orchards “until it
blows over” and were permitted to return to their homes a short while
later, the city’s 9,000 Jews (including Jews residing in Tel Aviv),
were expelled to the Sharon region, the Galilee and elsewhere.
The German consul in Jerusalem, Dr. Johan Brode, suspected that the
evacuation of Jaffa was intended to be the start of the deportation of
Jerusalem’s Jews; his suspicions were shared by the Austrian consul.
It is not surprising, then, that an Austrian attaché at the main
headquarters, who had close knowledge of the operational plans, was
the first to call attention to Jamal Pasha’s intent to deliver a death
blow to the Yishuv.
The agronomist, Nili member and Zionist activist Aaron Aaronsohn wrote
from Cairo: “On April 1, the Jews were ordered to leave within 48
hours. About 300 Jews had been deported a week earlier from Jerusalem
by the cruelest measures, at which time Jamal Pasha declared that the
Jews’ rejoicing at the approaching British forces would be
short-lived. He would make them partners in the fate of the Armenians
… Jamal Pasha would not issue a call for murders in cold blood.
Rather, he would drive the population to starvation and death by
disease.”
‘Tragic tactical mistake’
About 10 days after the evacuation of Jaffa, Jamal Pasha convened the
consuls and announced that he was compelled to evacuate the entire
civilian population of Jerusalem within 24 hours, and transfer it to
Jordan and Syria. Due to the firm opposition of consul Friedrich Kress
von Kressenstein, the chief of staff of the Fourth Army, German
authorities intervened and temporarily foiled the plan.
On April 16, 1917, von Kressenstein alerted the German embassy in
Istanbul that Jamal Pasha was planning to evacuate Jerusalem in an
effort to utterly destroy the city’s Jewish and Christian populations
and their institutions. “The evacuation of Jerusalem could have been a
tragic tactical mistake,” von Kressenstein wrote in his memoirs. “The
uprooting of such a large population would have been liable to cause
inestimable results. The catastrophic events that occurred to the
Armenians who were expelled, were liable to be repeated here.
Thousands would have died through starvation and disease.”
Following the entry of Greece into the war against Turkey in July, the
Ottoman authorities expelled Jewish subjects of Greece living in
Palestine to Istanbul; hundreds were trapped in the city of Hama in
Syria. Two months later, some 550 Jews possessing American citizenship
were deported to Damascus, in a state of terrible distress.
In October 1917, the Turks exposed the Nili underground; the capture
of its members threatened to wreak devastation on the Jewish community
of Palestine. A full siege was imposed on Atlit, Hadera and Zichron
Yaakov, where some members of the spy group were active, with elderly
people, women and children arrested, but the colonies themselves were
not destroyed and Aaronsohn’s home in Zichron remained standing.
The governor of the Haifa district and the military governor of
Nazareth, both of whom had taken part in massacres of Armenians, were
given responsibility for arrests and interrogations after the exposure
of the espionage ring. Detainees at the Nazareth and Haifa prisons
were severely tortured. The Jerusalem governor, Izzet Bey, accused the
Jews of treason and pressed for their annihilation. Forty Jews were
deported on foot to Jordan, while communal figures were jailed at the
Kishle, the Turkish prison near Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.
In November, with the advance of the British army, military command of
the Palestinian front was transferred to the German general Erich von
Falkenhayn, and von Kressenstein was placed in charge of the forces in
Jerusalem, having been promoted to general. Von Kressenstein moved the
Turkish, German and Austrian regiments out of the city and positioned
them on the ridges of the surrounding hills. Simultaneously, Jamal
Pasha again attempted to exploit the moment to get rid of the Jews.
Following exposure of the Nili spies and the charge of subversion
against the Jewish community, and on the pretext that the evacuation
of Jerusalem was necessary due to “military requirements” – Jamal
Pasha planned to expel all the city’s Jews. Documents uncovered by
Isaiah Friedman revealed that it was thanks to the firm intervention
of General von Kressenstein on November 5 that the planned deportation
of that community was thwarted.
Yaakov Thon, Ruppin’s replacement, wrote to the Zionist General
Council: “If not for the strong hand of the German government, which
protected us in our hour of danger, we would have suffered a mortal
blow … To our great fortune, during these recent critical days,
supreme command was placed in the hands of General von Falkenhayn. Had
Jamal been responsible for events, he would have acted upon his threat
and would have expelled the entire population… and turned the country
into a pile of ruins.”
On December 9, 1917, the British army entered Jerusalem. Some 730
years of Muslim rule in Jerusalem came to an end.
Ottoman abuse
In December 1914, it was easy to discern the anti-Zionist elements of
Turkish policy, which employed deportation and starvation to repress
population groups suspected of disloyalty. The deportation of the Jews
of Jaffa and Tel Aviv signaled the implementation of a policy of
harassment that would be applied to the entire Jewish community of
Palestine. The veteran members of the Yishuv, the weakest link,
absorbed the harshest blow of all.
Deportations, draconian taxation and abuse of Jews in the country were
carried out under the same doctrine of punishment and repression that
the Turkish regime imposed throughout its disintegrating empire.
Coercive enlistment, expropriation of food and property, mass
deportations and starvation were used to threaten the existence of
Palestine’s Jews. These heavy-handed methods were imposed by the
empire on national minorities suspected of disloyalty. These also
included massacres of Christians, Assyrians and Greek communities; the
Armenian genocide was, indeed, carried out in the same way.
Historian Yair Auron has written about the genocide of the Armenians
(in his book, “The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian
Genocide”).
“An important component of the annihilation process (in the summer of
1915) was the evacuation and deportation of the Armenian population,”
he writes. “Usually, the population was given a period of a few days
to prepare to be evacuated, ostensibly dictated by needs of the war.
Evacuees were permitted to take a limited amount of baggage, and they
were assured that their homes and assets would be preserved. The
deportees were concentrated in convoys that began to move toward the
Syrian desert. Once they left the villages and cities, the men were
separated from the women and were murdered nearby.
“The women, children and aged,” he notes, “were then subjected to a
slow and prolonged death as they were forced to walk on foot for
hundreds of kilometers. Along the way, the convoys were attacked in
sporadic ambushes. The hunger, thirst, cold, heat and epidemics raised
the number of victims. Very few of those who began the journey
succeeded in making it alive to the end.”
Jamal Pasha was known to have systematically executed those who rose
up against him in Hijaz, Beirut and Damascus, and to have taken part
in the massacre of the Armenian people. His modus operandi in
Palestine was identical to that adopted in the repression of the
Armenians and the Assyrians – except that in Palestine he was
prevented from realizing his final solution as a result of the German
government’s influence on the Turkish leadership.
Reliable evidence of the policies and character of Jamal Pasha may be
found in the autobiography of Richard Lichtheim, the World Zionist
Organization’s representative in Istanbul, who was a primary figure in
forging contacts between the Yishuv and the Ottoman leadership.
Lichtheim writes that he vehemently opposed Jabotinsky’s plan for
enlistment in the British army, which sparked “great opposition among
the Turkish authorities, and which was capable of becoming a source of
trouble for the Jews of the Land of Israel.” Lichtheim added that in
early February 1915, it clearly seemed as if “Jamal Pasha and his
friends were plotting to destroy and annihilate the Zionist settlement
enterprise in the Land of Israel.”
Referring to Jamal Pasha’s character, Lichtheim wrote, “He was full of
contrasts, and these usually depended more on mood than on judgment.
Could it be that he was more anti-Semitic than the rest of his vizier
colleagues in Constantinople? Or did he hold a special hatred for
Jews? No and no … The attempt he made to arouse the Muslim to jihad
and to thereby win the hearts of the Arabs who would stand together
with Turkey proved unsuccessful, at which point he set out to commit
even crueler acts against the Syrian nationalists, in which he
sentenced their leaders to death by hanging. Nevertheless he did not
alter his hostile position toward the Jews.
“Jamal Pasha was the individual who initiated a politics of
persecution of all of the non-Turkish nations in the Ottoman Empire,
which led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Greeks from
their homes and to the horrific slaughter of the Armenians in
Anatolia, in which over one million people fell victim.”
During World War I, there was sharp disagreement within the World
Zionist Organization on the matter of that movement’s diplomatic
orientation. Following Allenby’s victory and the Balfour Declaration,
the pro-British line gained ascendancy, as the position that had
supported (the by-then defeated) Germany shriveled.
Following the Holocaust (and before the archives were opened), no
historiographic effort was invested in elucidation of hypothetical
scenarios from the past, and the role played by Germany was once again
shrouded in mystery. Now, with a full century having passed, it can be
stated that it was thanks to the strident intervention of Germany that
the danger of annihilation faced by the shattered and desperate Yishuv
was avoided.
Excerpted from the essay “A Century Without Monument and Memory: A
Public Appeal for Commemoration of the Jewish Community of Eretz
Israel’s Fallen in World War I,” published in the Hebrew journal Aley
Zait Vacherev (Olive Leaves and Sword), The Galili Center for Defense
Studies.
Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Aug 3 2014
OSCE Minsk Group calls for peace in Karabakh
3 August 2014 – 11:38am
The OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairs Igor Popov, James Warlick, Pierre
Andrieu and OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Swiss President Didier Burkhalter
have issued a joint statement calling peace in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The officials have also expressed thier deep concern about the
increasing tensions in the region, which caused numerous victims.
Azerbaijan and Armenia should observe the ceasefire agreement, the
statement says.
Reuters
Aug 3 2014
Armenia, Azerbaijan trade accusations over clashes around Karabakh
Sun Aug 3, 2014 7:25pm IST
By Hasmik Lazarian and Nailia Bagirova
YEREVAN/BAKU, Aug 3 (Reuters) – Armenia and Azerbaijan accused each
other on Sunday of escalating tensions near the disputed territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh, leading to violent clashes and at least 15 soldiers
killed.
The clashes in recent days highlighted the risk of broader conflict
around Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave of Azerbaijan with a
majority ethnic Armenian population, and the wider South Caucasus area
where vital oil and natural gas flow from the Caspian region to
Europe.
The Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) issued a
statement on Saturday warning against further escalation.
An Azeri foreign ministry statement accused Armenia of provoking “a
substantial escalation along the frontline” and causing casualties.
“The whole responsibility is on official Yerevan, which gives orders
to such a provocative steps,” it said.
For its part, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of raising tensions and then
blaming it. Both are former Soviet republics.
“Rejecting the proposals of the international community on the
establishment of a mechanism of investigation of incidents, Azerbaijan
is assuming the whole responsibility for the ceasefire violations,”
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said in a statement.
Energy-producing Azerbaijan, host to oil majors including BP , Chevron
and ExxonMobil, frequently threatens to take Nagorno-Karabakh back by
force and is spending heavily on its armed forces.
Fighting between ethnic Azeris and Armenians first erupted in 1991 and
a ceasefire was called in 1994. But Azerbaijan and Armenia have
regularly traded accusations of further violence around
Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Azeri-Armenian border.
Nagorno-Karabakh runs its own affairs with heavy military and
financial backing from Armenia since the war that killed about 30,000
people two decades ago. Armenian-backed forces also seized seven Azeri
districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.
Efforts to reach a permanent settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict have failed despite mediation led by France, Russia and the
United States.
The OSCE has expressed concern about the intense upsurge in violence
along the frontline that has resulted in casualties among Azeri
soldiers and ethnic Armenian separatists.
OSCE officials have also said they were deeply concerned about
shooting at a clearly marked International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) vehicle while it was assisting the local population on the
Armenian-Azeri border.
They strongly condemned the deliberate targeting of civilians and
shooting at representatives of international organisations.
“Retaliation and further violence will only make it more difficult to
continue efforts to bring about a lasting peace,” the OSCE head and
the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk group said in a statement on Saturday.
Peninsula On-line, Qatar
Aug 3 2014
Armenians asked to write Wikipedia entries to promote culture
August 04, 2014 – 12:00:00 am
LONDON: There’s more to Armenia than carpets and its most famous
daughter, Kim Kardashian.
To remind the world of this, Armenians across the globe are being
asked to write at least one Wikipedia article each to try and promote
the country’s language and culture.
A national campaign entitled One Armenian, One Article, is being
fronted by government ministers, musicians and journalists, and
encourages Armenians to each write at least one entry for the online
encyclopaedia to ”enrich it” with more information on the country,
and the things that matter most to its people.
In a video being broadcast on Armenian television, Defence Minister
Seyran Ohanyan says he has contributed an article about the country’s
military, and encourages all citizens to take part, whether they have
specialist knowledge or not.
”One Armenian, one article – I will definitely do that and believe
you will too,” Armen Ashotyan, the country’s education minister, says
in an online clip.
The campaign began with a YouTube video, but is now being promoted to
worldwide audiences on Armenian satellite TV channels, according to
the BBC. Armenia’s population numbers around three million, but more
than eight million Armenians live outside the country, across the
world.
”I think it’s a good idea,” Misak Ohanian of the London-based Centre
for Armenian Information and Advice (CAIA) said. ”If it can help
increase the profile of Armenian language and culture then I say why
not.”
The Armenian language Wikipedia launched in 2003, but didn’t start
developing in earnest until a few years later. As of 2013, it had
around 90,000 articles, according to its entry on the English-language
version of the online encyclopaedia.
However, it may be difficult for Armenians living abroad to take part
in the scheme to boost this number, because many are no longer able to
read or write in either the eastern dialect (most commonly used in
Armenia) or the western dialect, which is recognised by Unesco as an
endangered language.
Ohanian estimates that of the 20,000 Armenians living in London,
around 40 percent can speak either language, and only 10 percent can
read and write in them.
”Armenians are a diaspora nation,” said Lucine Shahbazian, 30, who
is involved in health outreach and advice programmes for Armenians in
the capital. ”We are great at assimilating with our host nations —
which is a good thing — but it also means that stuff like language
tends to get a bit lost.”
Shahbazian, who was born in the UK, says she would write an article if
she could, but that her Armenian isn’t good enough.
”The reasons why Armenians are so spread out around the world are
often traumatic; my grandparents came here to escape the [Armenian]
genocide,” she told the Guardian. ”So I think it’s important to help
people connect, and something like [the Wikipedia entries] are useful
to boost identity and culture.”
No incidents recorded in OSCE monitoring of Karabakh-Azerbaijan contact line
STEPANAKERT, August 1. /ARKA/. No incidents was recording during OSCE
Mission’s regular monitoring of the contact line between
Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, north of Kuropatkino village in
Martuni region, on Friday, the press office of Nagorno-Karabakh
foreign ministry reported.
The monitoring was carried out as per the agreement with NKR’s
authorities, by field assistants to personal representative of
OSCE-Chairman-in-Office Yevgeniy Sharov (Ukraine), Hristo Hristov
(Bulgaria) and a member of OSCE-Chairman-in-Office personal
representative staff Peter Svedberg from Nagorno-Karabakh side, and by
personal representative to OSCE-Chairman-in-Office ambassador Andjey
Kasprshik and his field assistant Irzhi Aberle (Czech Republic) from
the opposite side.
The monitoring was carried out as scheduled, no truce violations were
recorded, says the report.
The observers’ mission from Karabakh side was accompanied by
representatives of foreign and defense ministries of Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic, according to the report. -0–
– See more at:
APA, Azerbaijan
Aug 1 2014
8 Azerbaijani servicemen martyred, 2 names made public – UPDATED
[ 01 August 2014 12:07 ]
Terter. Teymur Zahidoglu – APA. Two of the servicemen martyred last
night in the direction of the Gapanli village on the line of contact
have been identified.
They are servicemen Vugar Poladov and Elnur Ibrahimov, APA’s Karabakh
bureau reports.
Baku. Hafiz Heydarov – APA. The situation on the line of contact of
the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops has escalated again.
APA reports that Armenian armed forces violated ceasefire in several
directions last night and attempted to invade the territories which
are under the control of Azerbaijani Army.
8 Azerbaijani servicemen have been killed in the fights.
Details of the incident are being specified.
According to press service of the Defense Ministry, Armenian
reconnaissance and sabotage groups’ attempt to cross contact line in
two directions has been prevented. The enemy units gave casualties in
the fights and retreated.
Unfortunately, Azerbaijani army also gave casualties.
Ministry’s press service says that Azerbaijani warrant officer Almazov
Isa Ziyad, 1977, drafted from Gazakh Region, was shot to death by
enemy in the fights in Gazakh.
Ministry of Defense presents condolences to family and relatives of
martyr and wishes them patient.
Trend, Azerbaijan
Aug 2 2014
Why is Armenia increasing violence on line of contact?
By Claude Salhani- Trend:
Armenia’s armed forces have been very active over the past several
days keeping contact lines separating them from Azerbaijani troops
active, and hot.
On the first night of August Armenians killed eight Azeri soldiers.
And on the second night they killed four more soldiers of the
Azerbaijan armed forces.
To be perfectly correct we should say the Armenians have been keeping
contact lines hotter than the norm. The “norm” in this instant is
around 60 to 80 violations of the ceasefire every day. Yes, you heard
correctly, 60 and 80 violations daily.
It is mystifying and totally unclear why.
The Armenians are playing this game and what they hope to achieve from
it other than further complicate relations with their neighbors
Azerbaijan and next door Turkey a major contender in the region and an
important regional power to contend with. And of course Turkey is a
staunch supporter of Azerbaijan.
Armenia’s only friend in the region is Russia – granted, Russia an
important political weight in the Caspian and South Caucasus region,
however Russia faces its own set of problems, not least of which are
the renewed sanctions applied by the United States and the European
Union as punishment for its dealing in Ukraine and in the Crimea.
Armenia would benefit much more if it were to accept a more civilized
approach to solving the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute amicably and through
negotiations. Armenia and the people of Armenia, who are currently
suffering due to a poor economy, high unemployment and little
prospects for a brighter future any time soon, would find it very
beneficial to try a peaceful approach to resolving this crisis, and
sitting down at the negotiation table with the Azerbaijanis, albeit
with the support of the Minsk Group’s U.S., Russian and French
co-chairmen.
The very last thing the world needs today is yet another major
confrontation. With wars raging in nearby Ukraine, Iraq, Syria and
further down in the Gaza Strip, a renewal of violence on a major scale
in the South Caucasus is a very bad idea and one from with no one will
profit.
Claude Salhani is a political analyst and senior editor with Trend Agency.
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Aug 2 2014
Remainders of Sultanhamam: Cozy drapers
by ARÄ°FE KABÄ°L / ISTANBUL
Ä°stanbul has inherited many things of beauty from ancient times. It
has places where people from different walks of life can find
something that interests them and where they would like to spend their
time. Some people dream of drinking tea along the coast; authors and
writers fantasize about being in CaÄ?aloÄ?lu, and merchants long for
Sultanhamam.
Located on the historical peninsula, Sultanhamam was an important area
for centuries during the Ottoman Empire, especially for the textile
trade. It was because of Sultanhamam merchants that their business
culture of keeping promises, honesty and generosity became more widely
known. Likewise, the unwritten code of trade there, known as the
Sultanhamam Rules, recommends strict business ethics rather than
finding the most profitable job that modernity values today.
Summing up what has changed over the decades, Sultanhamam’s veteran
traders epitomize what has been lost. Mustafa Erdebil, a merchant at
Sultanhamam, who entered business when he was young, compares trade
life in the earlier days to now. Erdebil greets us in his shop, which
is removed from the shopping culture of the past. Although he says
that `the old taste of the place is lost,’ the shop still impresses
us. Today it is difficult to see those habits in the new kind of
markets and shopping malls.
In earlier times, the imam of a mosque and shopkeepers from around
would come together and talk to each other in their shop. But today we
don’t see those habits because the new generation of shopping malls
has taken the place of old-style shops.
During our visit, an imam from the mosque and neighboring shopkeepers
stopped by Erdebil’s shop. They talked for a while before discussions
turned to how Sultanhamam has changed and morality been corrupted more
and more every day.
Erdebil disagrees with the imam in a friendly manner, saying: `I did
not like your sermon at the Friday prayer. You should speak about the
ethics of human morality. They have left our minds and you should
preach about it. Otherwise, it is not helpful for people.’ He was met
with agreement from other shopkeepers. This type of conversation
cannot take place in the new shopping malls of today. People are not
able to voice their thoughts in those spaces, but in Sultanhamam you
can still see these strong communal relationships.
Trading is a special craft
We indulge in a chat on a number of different issues and eventually
come back to Sultanhamam, the place of trade business life. Erdebil
begins by saying: `Sultanhamam was almost the only modern part of
Ä°stanbul in the old days. People were supremely cultured, merchants
were highly qualified and people trusted each other.’
Almost all of Sultanhamam’s merchants working today are continuing
their fathers’ work. Erdebil is one of those merchants. His father was
a man who was trained in the strict environment of a medrese (school)
and is very prim when it comes to the rightful shares of others. `He
was so careful about behaving in the right way with his business ¦
being a merchant doesn’t mean finishing a university and becoming a
merchant. Being a merchant is totally different. Sultanhamam’s
environment taught us how to become real merchants because we learned
business culture, the importance of keeping promises, honesty and
generosity in Sultanhamam’s trade environment,’ he said.
Armenians crucial to business-learning environment
Armenians taught the values of the business of trade which they had
experienced under the Ottoman Empire. `Ottoman Armenians made
Sultanhamam a university for merchants. Ottoman Armenians dominated
the textile industry. They imported and exported all the time, a
constant presence on the world market, and today they continue to
conduct their trade honestly,’ he points out.
Today there are few remaining Armenian traders in Sultanhamam.
According to Erdebil, they are the real veteran traders of
Sultanhamam. He points out that Armenian traders who migrated here
from Anatolia were happy to teach and share their experiences with
other merchants.
Erdebil also explains how they had strong relationships with Anatolian
shopkeepers. “In the past, our clients from Adana, Samsun [among many
others] came directly to us once they reached HaydarpaÃ…?a [a train
station on the Anatolian side of Ä°stanbul]. They would pack their
sacks and leave them in front of our shops [for they were sure that
these bags would be safe there]. They even entrusted us with their
excess money. They wouldn’t ask for their money back for months and we
would never touch this trust even if we were in terrible need of cash.
But today, if you leave money with someone, you may not find it again.
There was a trust between us and shopkeepers in those days,’ he says.
`Another beauty of Sultanhamam was the relationship between the
employee and employer. The employer’s priority was not profit but
decency and morality, too,’ Erdebil added.
Skills to be carried into the future
The Turkish Home Textiles Industrialists and Businessmen Association
(TETSÄ°AD) has embarked on a project to protect these cultural
expressions. The project aims to carry Sultanhamam’s trade values into
the future. Thus, these unwritten golden rules will be brought back to
life. A book and a documentary film have been prepared as part of this
project.
The documentary, titled `The Written Place of Golden Rules:
Sultanhamam,’ traces the changes that have taken place in Sultanhamam.
The documentary focuses on the memories of 28 merchants who spent a
big part of their lives in Sultanhamam as shopkeepers and compares
them to the present state of Turkey’s trade life. The merchants who
share their memories have interesting stories. They wistfully
reminisce on the virtues of the past and the unique and pleasant
environment which characterized Sultanhamam and promises to live on
for many years to come.
Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Aug 2 2014
Azerbaijan ready to respond to aggression
2 August 2014 – 3:09pm
Azerbaijani is ready to use any military means to respond to the
adversary’s attacks, the head of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense’s
press service, Vagif Dargakhly, is quoted as saying.
The statement has been made in response to reports saying that the
Azerbaijani military forces used artillery to fire at Armenian troops,
which caused heavy losses to the Armenian military.