Author: Kanayan Tamar

14 Years Later, Turkish-Armenian Journalist’s Assassination Leads to Life Sentences

Kanayan Tamar
Voice of America
By VOA News
04:47 PM

A Turkish court sentenced two former police chiefs on Friday to life in prison for their role in the killing of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink more than 14 years ago, the Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency said.

Editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos and a leading promoter of reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian communities, Dink was shot twice in the head outside his office in central Istanbul.

After the slaying, tens of thousands of people gathered in central Istanbul to mourn. His death plunged Turkey’s Armenian community into mourning and sparked a sprawling trial that lasted more than a decade and involved senior security officers who were accused of being aware of the plot to kill Dink but failing to act.

Demonstrators hold a banner reading “For Hrant, For Justice” during a gathering in front of the Caglayan Courthouse in Istanbul, .

Istanbul’s main court sentenced the city’s former police intelligence chief Ramazan Akyurek and his former deputy Ali Fuat Yilmazer to life in prison for “premeditated murder,” according to Agos.

Former top Istanbul interior ministry officers Yavuz Karakaya and Muharrem Demirkale were also jailed for life, while charges against another top city police chief were dropped because of the statute of limitation.

In 2011, Dink’s assassin, Ogun Samast, was sentenced to nearly 23 years in prison by a juvenile court. He was 17 when the killing took place. The following January, a man named Yasin Hayal was sentenced to life in jail for instigating the killing.

Ali Oz, a former interior ministry commander of the Black Sea region of Trabzon where the gunman came from, was sentenced Friday to 28 years in jail.

Dink’s supporters and rights activists still maintain that the most senior police officials have gone unpunished and want the investigation and trials to run on. 

“Some of those responsible for this assassination, including the sponsors, have still not been prosecuted,” said Erol Onderoglu, Turkey representative for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), who has closely followed the trial. 

“This partial justice rendered after 14 years leaves a bitter taste and should not mark the end of the search for the truth.” 

State media said the court ruled that the murder was carried out in line with the goals of a clandestine network linked to U.S.-based Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim preacher whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating an attempted coup in July 2016. 

FILE – Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen is pictured at his residence in Saylorsburg, Pa., Sept. 26, 2013.

Gulen, who has lived in the United States since 1999 and denies any involvement in the failed putsch, was one of 13 fugitives from justice among 76 defendants on trial in the Dink case. The court did not rule on the case of Gulen and the other 12 fugitives and instead separated their cases.

Various other defendants in the Dink case were given jail sentences on charges including accessory to murder and membership of a terrorist group — because of links to Gulen’s network — as well as faking and destroying documents, state media said.

The Istanbul court ruled Friday that Dink’s murder was committed “in line with the objectives of Feto,” an acronym Ankara uses for Gulen’s banned movement, NTV reported.

Dink’s wife, Rakel, had said in January that blaming Gulen’s movement for her husband’s death nearly a decade before the failed coup was like, “I didn’t kill him, but my hand did.”

Armenia raises the issue of destruction of Artsakh’s heritage by Azerbaijan with UNESCO

Kanayan Tamar
Public Radio of Armenia

Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Artak Apitonyan had a video conversation with the head of the Office of the UNESCO Director-General Nikola Kasianides.

The interlocutors touched upon the issue of protection of the Armenian historical and religious heritage in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict zone, and the possibility of sending a UNESCO fact-finding mission to Artsakh.

The Deputy Foreign Minister stressed the urgency of taking steps to protect the Armenian historical, cultural and religious heritage in the territories under the control of Azerbaijan, taking into account the steps taken by Azerbaijan to deliberately destroy, desecrate and distort the Armenian monuments.

Artak Apitonyan touched upon the recent manifestations of the Azerbaijani aggression against the Armenian cultural and religious heritage. In particular, it was mentioned that a video was circulated on the Internet by the BBC news service today, where it is clear that the Armenian Church of Surb Astvatsatsin near Mekhakavan (Jebrail) settlement was completely destroyed.

Referring to the preparations for the fact-finding mission, the Deputy Foreign Minister expressed strong concern over Azerbaijan’s policy of hindering the effective involvement of UNESCO.

It was stressed that Azerbaijan’s attempts to manipulate the mission and unnecessarily politicize it are completely unacceptable.

 

The Liberal Project and Its Relevance for Armenia

Kanayan Tamar
Modern Diplomacy

By Dr. Andrey KORTUNOV

The relatively recent (2017) Hollywood blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok has a memorable scene of the heavenly kingdom of Asgard collapsing. A happenstance witness to and participant in Ragnarok, the last battle between the good and the evil, King of Asgard and God Thor, finds himself unable to avert this disaster. Suddenly, when everything seems hopelessly lost, he has a revelation: “Asgard’s not a place, it’s a people.” And he sets about evacuating his people from the collapsing city.

At this point, Thor recasts himself from an aloof autocratic deity into a dynamic liberal leader. Certainly, he is no neoliberal postmodernist of the early 21st century, but rather a classical liberal of the late 18th century. He realizes that the main value of his kingdom is not the land, the state, property or mystical artifacts, but its people. Men and women. Old and young. All of them together and each of them individually. If the people remain, a new Asgard could be built, even at the other rim of the universe.

The latest events in Armenia are certainly not a Ragnarok yet, nor a trump of doom or the harbinger of a collapsing Armenian state. But amid the recent military defeat aggravated by a calcifying divide in the Armenian society coupled with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and an economic recession, the situation in the country is extremely precarious. It is no longer merely a question of whether Nikol Pashinyan will stay in power, or what the relations between the civil authorities and the military leadership will look like, or in what terms the status of Nagorno-Karabakh will be ultimately defined. The question now concerns the future of the Armenian statehood, it being more serious than ever before in the 30 years of Armenia’s post-Soviet history.

The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that the prospects of Armenia embarking on a path of liberal democracy have lost much of their lustre over the last couple of years. Many hopes had been pinned on Nikol Pashinyan’s tenure, but it brought Armenia neither the promised prosperity nor stability. Pessimism, social apathy and cynicism, as well as disillusionment with democratic institutions and the path of democratic development, are therefore on the rise. It is no accident that calls for transferring power to a technical “government of national accord” are increasingly heard in Yerevan. Some even go on to suggest it would be a good idea to bring the military into power for a while.

Yet, is there a viable alternative to the liberal project in Armenia? From the traditional Realpolitik perspective, Armenia is doomed. The country, with a population of about three million and a territory smaller than the Moscow Region, has no significant oil and gas reserves like the neighbouring Azerbaijan, nor does it have fertile lands like Georgia, Armenia’s another neighbours. The geopolitical situation is dispiriting for Armenia: the country does not even share a common border with Russia, its ally, and is surrounded by an openly hostile alliance of Turkey and Azerbaijan as well as two rather ‘backhanded’ partners, Iran and Georgia. Going back to the “pre-Pashinyan” era would mean Armenia having to get used to the role of a humble petitioner camping on the doorsteps of the faraway Kremlin offices year in and year out.

The liberal democratic paradigm is Armenia’s best chance for a future. The first, most urgent and most important task is not to merely reform the political system but to design a new national idea that would lead society away from the pernicious temptations of endless irredentism. Obsessive ideas of continuing the confrontation with Azerbaijan and taking back the lands lost last year must become a thing of the past.

Like Asgard, Armenia is not a place, it is a people. Apart from the three million Armenians living within their nation-state, the notion also includes some seven or eight million that live beyond its borders, yet do, in some manner, feel that they belong to the “Armenian world.”

Armenia’s main comparative advantage has always been its diaspora, something unique its neighbours do not have. Until now, the diaspora has treated Armenia much in the same way that successful young urbanites tend to treat their aging parents who live out the rest of their days in a ramshackle village somewhere far away: Money transfers (sometimes quite generous), trips home to soak up the nostalgia, traditional “kebab and cognac” get-togethers, declarative support for the “Armenian cause”—little else ties the diaspora with its historical homeland of global “Armenian-ness.”

If Armenia reverts to the “pre-Pashinyan” era, even this level of support will be very hard to sustain. And transforming the country into an attractive investment hub for the diaspora’s substantial funds will be nigh on impossible. Radically new development priorities are required to transform Armenia from the eternal “relation in need” into a country of opportunity. A country that lives not only by its past, but also by its future. Public discussions should focus on the continued search for such development priorities, rather than on some chimeric scenarios of “taking Artsakh back.”

Today, Armenia’s technocrats speak of the prospects of developing the country as a transportation and logistics corridor for the South Caucasus. However, here the country will face tough competition in the form of alternative transit projects, including those that involve the trans-Caspian route. There are plans to transform Armenia into a giant Caucasus mining farm, but Georgia has already beaten it to the punch. Armenia could still become a regional leader in developing the “green energy” sector, especially since there are many areas that abound in sun and wind and are short on rain and snow, areas with high mountains and unpopulated plateaus.

In any case, Armenia is now facing the task of reviving its scientific and technological potential, dramatically improving the quality of its “human capital” and warding off the emerging provincialism. All this requires the public spirit to be radically “demilitarized,” while preserving democratic institutions and procedures as a sine qua non.

The liberal project for Armenia by no means demands that Yerevan turn away from Moscow and pin all its hopes on the West. However, Russia–Armenia relations should be built as relations between two equal partners rather than on the basis of patron-client ties. Being a member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Armenia may just become the principal venue for Russia to promote its multilateral developmental projects in the Caucasus, involving Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Given its unique geopolitical situation, Armenia could also claim the role of a bridge between Russia and Europe, between the Eurasian Economic Union and the European Union.

Armenia’s potential role in long-term “Greater Caucasus” integration projects is no less important. Given the region’s ethnic and religious diversity, lasting peace and development in the Caucasus are only possible if it is gradually and steadily transformed from a set of states into a community of regions (which, historically, the Caucasus has nearly always been). This single ecosystem could also include Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and other historically shaped areas with their unique identities.

Such models do exist in today’s world. For example, the Swiss Confederation, where individual cantons are not united into a Swiss Germany, a Swiss France and a Swiss Italy, while enjoying considerable autonomy within a single ecosystem. Clearly, conservative groups among the national elites will be against such a “Caucasus of the regions,” being mostly interested in exerting as much control as possible over their states, both recognized and unrecognized. They are in no way interested in delegating even some of their powers to the regional level. Therefore, a stable and harmonious ecosystem in the Caucasus will hardly emerge in the near future. The Swiss Confederation did take a few centuries to emerge, though.

From our partner RIAC

Artur Vanetsyan: Nikol will be forced to resign under increased public pressure

Kanayan Tamar
Panorama, Armenia
March 6 2021

“The ongoing political crisis in Armenia will be settled within the Constitution and the laws,” the Head of Homeland party Artur Vanetsyan said at the briefing with reporters before the Saturday rally of the opposition Homeland Salvation Movement. 

Vanetsyan said that much expected changes are taking place as result of the rallies as people change their mood and perception. 

“At first, the authorities tried to present this struggle as a simple fight for power between the old and new authorities, yet the public realized that the matter is about a more serious thing and refers to the existence of our country and its well-being,” Vanetsyan stressed, adding even those citizens who do not support the Movement still visit Baghramyan avenue to voice their discontent. 

“Our agenda remains the same – to remove Pashinyan, form an interim government and then go to snap elections. The people of Armenia  will decide who will come to power in Armenia through a free will,” said the opposition politician, adding Pashinyan has proved his inability to ensure fair elections. 

“Our actions will continue. Baghramyan avenue is shut down. and our supporters are here. More rallies and marches are expected. As to concrete actions, those may result in Pashinyan’s forced resignation under increased public pressure,” added Vanetsyan.

 

The mystery of Azerbaijan’s missing army chief

Kanayan Tamar
EurasiaNet.org
March 3 2021
Ulkar Natiqqizi Mar 3, 2021
Sadikov with President Ilham Aliyev last June. (president.az)

Najmaddin Sadikov had been Azerbaijan’s top military officer since 1993, the chief of general staff of the armed forces and a deputy defense minister. But in the middle of last year’s war with Armenia, on the cusp of the victory for which the armed forces had prepared nearly all those 27 years, Sadikov mysteriously disappeared.

Rumors had long swirled around Sadikov, a career Soviet army officer who joined the Azerbaijani armed forces in 1992 during the first war with Armenia. Many Azerbaijanis considered him a “traitor,” a word they often used in social media posts about him. Insinuations were made about his ties with Russia and claims that his brother was a senior officer in the Armenian armed forces. 

The rumors reached a peak during fighting in July, when a well-known and respected senior officer, Major General Polad Hashimov, along with Colonel Ilgar Mirzayev, were killed. On social media, many Azerbaijanis accused Sadikov of giving their coordinates to Armenia. 

Sadikov attended the funeral, acting as a pallbearer along with Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov. 

But at a massive demonstration in Baku that followed the funeral of another fallen officer, protesters blamed Sadikov for the deaths and called on him to resign. Rumors spread that he had been fired.

The allegations of treason appear ungrounded, but the government seems to have been worried by the harsh public reaction to Hashimov’s death and the heightened accusations against Sadikov, said Fuad Shahbaz, a Baku-based political and military analyst.

Najmaddin Sadikov (state media)

“The harsh criticism of Sadikov during the mass demonstrations in July and the demands for his resignation gave the government serious doubts about Sadikov’s image,” Shahbaz told Eurasianet. “This is likely the reason for his dismissal.” 

Sadikov still retained official support, however. In response to the many public insinuations about him, several articles in pro-government media appeared, chronicling his successful career and blaming rumormongers for slandering him. 

The Ministry of Defense issued a statement on July 21 denying the rumors that he had been fired and that his brother was in the Armenian armed forces; the ministry said the brother had been dead for more than 30 years. 

“These reports are fabrications and disinformation spread by enemy forces for provocative purposes,” the ministry said. “Unfortunately, the recent spread and discussion of news on social networks clearly shows that this is done in order to create bias, hostility and confusion in society.” 

Sadikov’s family also was mixing with the Azerbaijani elite: Azerbaijani-Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, the former son-in-law of President Ilham Aliyev and friend of former U.S. President Donald Trump, released a song in September on Instagram called “Fatima,” which many fans took as an announcement that he was marrying Sadikov’s daughter, Fatima Sadikova. Agalarov has been coy and not confirmed directly that he is marrying Sadikova, but continued to drop hints that he was.

About two weeks after “Fatima” was released, war broke out again with Armenia.

When Azerbaijan appeared to suffer significant early losses in the fighting, especially around Murovdag in the Kelbajar region, many Azerbaijanis again blamed Sadikov. Rumors again spread that he had been fired for treason.

On October 4, the Ministry of Defense published a photo showing a video teleconference among senior military leaders, including Sadikov. 

A few days later, though, Sadikov’s biography and other information was quietly deleted from the MoD’s web page. There was no official comment, though the erasure was noticed and widely commented on in social networks.

At the same time, Aliyev quietly signed two decrees to dismiss Sadikov’s nephew, Ramil Asgarov, another senior military official. In June, Aliyev had promoted Asgarov to major general. But then in two late October decrees, Aliyev first dismissed Asgarov from his position as chief of the Main Department of Special Security of the Ministry of Defense and then four days later dismissed him from active duty. Neither decision was publicly announced and the decrees passed unnoticed.

Azerbaijan went on to win the war, and on December 10 held a military parade in Baku to celebrate. Sadikov, who hadn’t been seen since that October 4 photo, didn’t appear at the parade. 

Social media speculation again spiked. One Facebook user, under a post captioned “What do you think of Najmaddin Sadikov?” commented: “Why has he not been punished before the people? Why has whatever he has done not been investigated? Why is there no news?” Others returned to Agalarov’s Instagram post and accused the pop star of marrying the daughter of a traitor.

Finally, on January 28, there was official news, of a sort. The Defense Ministry, in response to a query from state news agency APA, confirmed that Sadikov was no longer in military service. APA reported, without citing a source, that he was suffering serious health problems and was undergoing open heart surgery in Moscow. 

But other government officials began to say a bit more. 

One member of parliament, writer Agil Abbas, wrote a short humor piece about Sadikov headlined “Najmaddin Sadigov Has Become a State Secret,” which concluded with a pointed retelling of an old Soviet joke. “So, a journalist wrote about a very high-ranking government official who was a fool. The journalist was sued. The judge sentenced him to a very high sentence – 15 years. Not because he insulted that high-ranking government official, but because he revealed an important state secret.”

Abbas gave a more serious interview to a local news website, Yenicag, where he said he believed that Sadikov was under house arrest. “He made mistakes, or lost credibility, in my opinion, that’s why he was removed,” Abbas said. “If he was arrested, it would be published in the press. Because the arrest of a general could not be hidden. He is probably under house arrest in his house, or one of his villas.” 

A former state prosecutor, Ferman Rzayev, said in an online video show that Sadikov was responsible for early losses in the war. 

“Who created the tactics? Of course, Chief of General Staff Najmaddin Sadikov,” Rzayev said. “Najmaddin trapped our army, directed the attack to the right, towards Agdam. For 30 years, Armenians have built tunnels, fortifications and traps there. Najmaddin had a plan to attack the direction in which the Armenians were strongest.”

Rzayev also had implicated the current minister of defense, Zakir Hasanov. A few days later, the defense ministry responded to Rzayev’s report directly defending Hasanov, but also Sadikov, albeit indirectly. It noted that Hasanov was commanding troops in the operation led by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, i.e. Aliyev. 

“We once again call on the media, as well as electronic media, to refrain from circulating unfounded, untrue and unofficial information.” the MoD said. 

Detailed official information, however, is not likely to be forthcoming.

“The state wants a quiet solution to this and for people to forget about it,” Shahbaz said.

 

Ulkar Natiqqizi is a reporter based in Baku.

 

AP: Armenian PM slams ‘coup attempt’ as political tensions rise

Kanayan Tamar
Associated Press
Feb 25 2021



By AVET DEMOURIANtoday
1 of 15
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan waves to supporters during a rally in his support in the center of Yerevan, Armenia, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021. Armenia’s prime minister has spoken of an attempted military coup after facing the military’s General Staff demand for him to step down. The developments come after months of protests sparked by the nation’s defeat in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan. (Tigran Mehrabyan/PAN Photo via AP)

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia’s prime minister accused top military officers on Thursday of attempting a coup after they demanded he step down, adding fuel to months of protests calling for his resignation following the country’s defeat in a conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has faced opposition calls to step down ever since he signed a Nov. 10 peace deal that saw Azerbaijan reclaim control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas that had been held by Armenian forces for more than a quarter-century.

The opposition protests gathered pace this week, and the feud with his top military commanders has weakened Pashinyan’s position, raising concerns about stability in the strategic South Caucasus region, where shipments of Azerbaijan’s Caspian crude oil pass through on their way to Western markets.

The immediate trigger for the latest tensions was Pashinyan’s decision earlier this week to oust the first deputy chief of the military’s General Staff that includes the armed forces’ top officers.

In response, the General Staff called for Pashinyan’s resignation, but he doubled down and ordered that the chief of the General Staff be dismissed.

After denouncing the military’s statement as a “coup attempt,” Pashinyan led his supporters at a rally in the capital, and he addressed them in a dramatic speech in which he said he had considered — but rejected — calls to resign.

“I became the prime minister not on my own will, but because people decided so,” he shouted to the crowd of more than 20,000 people in Republic Square. “Let people demand my resignation or shoot me in the square.”

He warned that the latest developments have led to an “explosive situation, which is fraught with unpredictable consequences.”

In nearby Freedom Square, over 20,000 opposition supporters held a parallel rally, and some vowed to stay there until Pashinyan stepped down. Demonstrators paralyzed traffic all around Yerevan, chanting “Nikol, you traitor!” and “Nikol, resign!”

There were sporadic scuffles in the streets between the sides, but the rival demonstrations led by Pashinyan and his foes later in the day went on in different parts of the capital. As the evening fell, some opposition supporters built barricades on the central avenue to step up pressure on Pashinyan.

The crisis has its roots in Armenia’s humiliating defeat in heavy fighting with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh that erupted in late September and lasted 44 days. A Russia-brokered agreement ended the conflict in which the Azerbaijani army routed Armenian forces — but only after more than 6,000 people died on both sides.

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Pashinyan has defended the peace deal as a painful but necessary move to prevent Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region, which lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

Despite the simmering public anger over the military defeat, Pashinyan has maneuvered to shore up his rule and the protests died down during winter. But the opposition demonstrations resumed with new vigor this week — and then came the spat with the military brass.

Pashinyan fired the deputy chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Tiran Khachatryan, earlier this week after he derided the prime minister’s claim that only 10% of Russia-supplied Iskander missiles that Armenia used in the conflict exploded on impact.

The General Staff responded Thursday with a statement demanding Pashinyan’s resignation and warned the government against trying to use force against the opposition demonstrators. Immediately after the statement, Pashinyan dismissed the General Staff chief, Col. Gen. Onik Gasparyan.

The order is subject to approval by the nation’s largely ceremonial president, Armen Sarkissian, who hasn’t endorsed it yet, prompting an angry outburst from Pashinyan.

“If he doesn’t sign my proposal to dismiss Gasparyan, does it mean that he joins the coup?” Pashinyan asked at the rally of his supporters. He urged the chief of the General Staff to resign voluntarily, adding that “I won’t let him lead the army against the people.”

The prime minister warned that authorities now will move more forcefully to disperse the opposition protests and arrest its participants. He bluntly rejected their demand for early parliamentary elections.

The political crisis is being watched closely, particularly in Russia and Turkey, which compete for influence in the South Caucasus region.

Russia, worried about its ally plunging deeper into turmoil, voiced concern about the tensions and emphasized that Armenia must sort out its problems itself. “We are calling for calm and believe that the situation should remain in the constitutional field,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with Pashinyan and called for the “preservation of calm and order in Armenia,” Peskov said.

While the Kremlin emphasized stability, the Russian military didn’t miss a chance to slap the Armenian leader on the wrist for debasing the Iskander missile, a state-of-the-art weapon touted by the military for its accuracy.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it was “bewildered” to hear Pashinyan’s claim because the Armenian military hadn’t fired an Iskander missile during the conflict. It added that the Armenian prime minister had apparently been misled.

Armenia has relied on Moscow’s financial and military support and hosts a Russian military base — ties that will keep the two nations closely allied regardless of the outcome of the political infighting.

And even though the peace deal is widely reviled in Armenia with many calling it a betrayal, it’s unlikely to be revised — no matter who is in charge — following the fighting that demonstrated Azerbaijan’s overwhelming military edge.

Turkey, which backed its ally Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, would relish instability that would further weaken Armenia. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his country strongly condemns the coup attempt in Armenia and stands against all coup attempts anywhere in the world.

The U.S. Embassy in Yerevan urged all parties in Armenia to “exercise calm and restraint and to de-escalate tensions peacefully, without violence.” In Brussels, European Commission spokesman Peter Stano also called on rival sides to “avoid any rhetoric or actions that could lead to further escalation.”

____

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov and Daria Litvinova in Moscow and Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul, Turkey, contributed.

Artsakh MFA Memorandum sent to int’l organizations over Aliyev’s visit to occupied territories

Kanayan Tamar

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YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 26, ARMENPRESS. On February 25, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh sent a Memorandum to international organizations on the occasion of the visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to the occupied territories of Artsakh, the ministry told Armenpress.

The document, in particular, notes that after the end of the 44-day war imposed on Artsakh by Azerbaijan with the support of Turkey and mercenaries from various terrorist groups, the Azerbaijani authorities have set a course to impose a fait accompli created through the use of military force in blatant violation of norms of international law. According to the document, among the instruments for implementing this policy are the visits of the President of Azerbaijan to the seized territories, the most striking of which is Aliyev’s visit to the city of Shushi, where he made a number of statements replete with outrageous threats and militant rhetoric containing outright hatred towards the Armenian people.

The Memorandum also states that the provocative and inflammatory nature of the visits and the accompanying statements evidence Azerbaijan’s intent to disrupt the resumption of the negotiation process on a comprehensive settlement of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict and to keep the conflict unsettled. Such destructive and defiant behavior of Azerbaijan should be strictly condemned by the international community, the Memorandum reads.

The document underlines that the people of Artsakh exercised their right to self-determination and established statehood in those territories. As noted in the document, the failure to respect this fundamental right is not only a violation of human rights, but is also one of the core sources of serious threats to security in the region.

The Memorandum notes that any legislative and administrative actions of Azerbaijan to change the status of the territories of the Republic of Artsakh, including the expropriation of land and properties, the transfer of populations to the occupied territories and the incorporation of the occupied territories, are invalid under international law and cannot change their status. No territorial gains resulting from the threat or use of force should be recognized as legal.

The document notes that the current military occupation by Azerbaijan of the territories of the Republic of Artsakh, including the city of Shushi, also cannot change their status. The city of Shushi is an integral part of the Artsakh Republic in a number of aspects, including territorially, culturally, economically and historically. Any attempt to seize it is a gross violation of the territorial integrity of Artsakh.

The Memorandum underlines that only a just settlement of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict—one that will eliminate its root cause associated with Azerbaijan’s unwillingness to recognize the rights of the people of Artsakh—will reverse the consequences of the illegal use of military force by Azerbaijan and re-institute the primacy of the principle of peaceful resolution of disputes.

Turkey slams Dutch government’s recognition of Armenian Genocide

Kanayan Tamar
Panorama, Armenia
Feb 26 2021

Turkey on Friday slammed a decision by the Dutch House of Representatives to recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hami Aksoy said the decision and calling on the government to recognize the events of 1915 as genocide is ‘a null attempt to rewrite history with political motives.’ 

To note, the respective motion was passed by the Netherland’s House of Representatives on Thursday, alongside a call for the release of Armenia prisoners captured during the recent conflict with Azerbaijan.

“Councils are not venues to write history and trial it. Those who agree with this decision, instead of looking for what actually happened in 1915, are after votes as a populist,” Aksoy said, as quoted by local sources. 

The Turkish official also invited the signatories of the decision to examine the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 and the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.

“We invite you to support the efforts for a better understanding of a historical issue,” he said, adding that Turkey’s proposal for a joint History Commission was one of these efforts. He said the Dutch House of Representatives is detached from reality as it has been frequently in recent years.

Opposition leader calls for criminal proceedings against Pashinyan, his team members

Kanayan Tamar
Panorama, Armenia
Feb 19 2021

The opposition One Armenia party does not consider Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation as the only necessary move to handle the current situation in the country, its leader Artur Ghazinyan told a discussion on Friday.

He called for criminal proceedings against the premier and his team members to hold them to account for “committing the biggest betrayal in history.”

“Despite the fact that the prosecutor’s office has moved away from the law and has become a member of today’s political team, it must be forced to uphold the rule of law,” Ghazinyan said, adding that Pashinyan and his team members will face criminal proceedings and be arrested immediately after the rule of law is restored in the country.

Speaking about the opposition rally at Yerevan’s Liberty Square on February 20, the opposition leader said for the past 1.5-2 months the Homeland Salvation Movement did not hold mass events, since the public was in shock after the war.

“The past one and a half months were enough for the society to overcome the shock, realize the scale of the disaster, take efforts to rectify the situation and form a government based on the interests of the Armenian people. Today we can state that all decisions in Armenia are made in favor of Azerbaijan and Turkey, and we strongly believe that it all must result in the launch of a criminal case,” Ghazinyan said.

The opposition leader is confident that many more people will be joining the winning process launched by the alliance of 17 opposition parties. 

MPs call on Dutch government to recognise 1915 Armenia massacre as genocide

Kanayan Tamar
EuroNews
Feb 9 2021
By Matthew Holroyd  •  09/02/2021


While the exact amount of people killed in the massacre is disputed, Armenia says that as many as 1.5 million died.   –   Copyright  AP Photo, File

Dutch MPs have urged the country’s government to officially recognise the 1915 massacre of Armenians as genocide.

Between 1915 and 1917, an estimated 1.5 million Armenian citizens were driven from their homes and murdered by the Ottoman Empire, alongside other Christian minorities.

n 2018, Dutch lawmakers in the lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly to acknowledge this act as genocide. But the decision did not become the country’s official policy and terminology. Thursday’s vote, in the upper house of parliament, seeks to change this.

Turkish authorities have denied that the events of over a hundred years ago constitute a genocide. Indeed Dutch caretaker prime minister, Mark Rutte, has said that recognising it as such will not contribute to reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey.

But lawmaker Joël Voordewind from the ChristenUnie (Christian Union) – the smallest party in the departing coalition – said the Dutch government’s vague position was “absurd”.

“The government still uses the phrase ‘the issue of the Armenian Genocide’ or speaks of ‘the terrible events’,” Voordewind added in a statement.

“In doing so it evades the truth; that it was a planned and deliberate genocide.”

Turkey continues to dispute the description, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of a civil war.

But the Christian Union has been trying to get the Dutch government to acknowledge the deaths as a genocide since 2004.

Its proposal has received support from other members in the Dutch Parliament including the Greens, the Socialist Party, and the Christian Democratic Appeal.

“This recognition is very important, the genocide is an open wound for the Armenian community,” said Voordewind.

“The fact that many countries, including the Netherlands, did not even want to recognise that it was a genocide makes it all the more painful.”

“For that reason alone, it is important that our government speaks out clearly about what happened in the past.”

“Recognising the past is a crucial first step for reconciliation and to prevent repetition,” he added.

In 2018, a member of the Dutch cabinet attended the annual commemoration of the killings in the Armenian capital Yerevan for the first time.

Five years ago, German MPs overwhelmingly voted to declare the 1915 massacre as a genocide in a historic vote in the Bundestag, angering Turkey.

Ankara also recalled its French ambassador in 2011 after Paris passed a law making it illegal to deny that the early 20th-century slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire constituted a genocide.

The Dutch government has not responded to Euronews’ request for a statement on the matter.