Author: Ophelia Vardapetian

Economy in focus: Armenia

Ophelia Vardapetian
Oct 11 2023

Despite fears of a new war with neighbouring Azerbaijan, Armenia’s economy has performed remarkably well over the past year, with an influx of Russian migrants helping to drive exceptional growth.  

Home to 2.9 million people and nestled in the South Caucasus, Armenia has long benefitted from remittances from its large diaspora while suffering from geopolitical precarity.  

Devastated by a 1988 earthquake which destroyed 90 per cent of Spitak and half of Armenia’s second-largest city, Gyumri (at the time still known as Leninakan), Armenia then suffered further damage during the First Karabakh War with its neighbour Azerbaijan.   

  • Armenia, Georgia, and Tajikistan remain the top growth performers in CEE and Central Asia
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Today, Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union and Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO)—although its ties with Moscow have been increasingly strained after the CSTO failed to come to its defence amid clashes with Azerbaijan in 2022 and Russian peacekeepers failed to act against an Azerbaijani blockade on Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.  

Armenia struggles to balance favourable economic and political relations with its southern neighbour, Iran, and Western nations home to large Armenian diasporas such as France and the United States. The risk of further conflict with Azerbaijan over territory in southern Armenia, coveted by Baku as a land-bridge to its exclave of Nakhchivan, remains high. 

In addition, Armenia has is currently grappling with the arrival of over 100,000 displaced Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, posing a significant challenge for the nation.

Other geopolitical developments—namely the war in Ukraine—have proven more beneficial. Western sanctions on Russia and the mobilisation of many Russians to fight in Ukraine created a mass influx of Russians into the South Caucasus, with many settling in Tbilisi and Yerevan.  

Newly-arrived Russians brought capital and drove increases in consumption and services that in turn pushed gross domestic product (GDP) growth to a whopping 12.6 per cent in 2022. Inflows of money transfers increased reserve levels and reduced credit dollarisation.  

This positive momentum continued into the first half of 2023, with a double-digit GDP growth rate of 10.5 per cent (year-on-year) in real terms. As in 2022, the services sector, particularly in IT, trade, and transportation, played a significant role in driving this growth.

Increased inflation—8.6 per cent in 2022, up from 7.2 per cent in 2021—was mediated by active inflation targeting, and the country has been praised by the World Bank for its adherence to prudent fiscal policy, and sound financial sector oversight. The World Bank and Asian Development Bank have also praised Armenia’s recent transparency and anti-corruption reforms.  

“Recent economic shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic interrupted Armenia’s growth momentum, but the country has demonstrated a remarkable commitment to reforms that has allowed it to keep sustainable debt levels and macroeconomic management credibility,” said the Asian Development Bank’s director-general for Central and West Asia, Yevgeniy Zhukov. 

Nonetheless, low investment rates, weak attraction of foreign direct investment, limited human capital, insufficient diversification, and a narrow export base are serious structural challenges that limit the economy’s productivity. 

One of Armenia’s strongest sectors is its construction industry, which played a major role rebuilding cities after the Spitak quake. 

In 2005, the annual growth of the sector was about 40 per cent—significantly contributing overall GDP growth of 13.9 per cent that year. Construction accounted for 30 per cent of Armenia’s economy in 2009, but construction volumes fell that year by 37.4 per cent as what former Armenian prime minister Tigran Sargsyan termed a “construction bubble” burst.   

The sector then declined for a decade but has begun to grow again.  

Today, the outskirts of Yerevan are filled with new apartment buildings, and construction accounted for 7.2 per cent of GDP in 2022—which, while much lower than its share in 2009, is still the eighth largest national construction sector in Europe and Central Asia. In line with increases in public and private investment, construction expanded in 2022 by about sixfold to 18.8 per cent. 

Armenia’s construction sector is projected to grow at 17.6 per cent in 2023 before decreasing to 12.9 per cent growth in 2024. Increased government expenditure—including planned large public investments in the country’s north-south road—will drive this growth. 

However, overall GDP growth is expected to decrease from 2022’s exceptional rate to a still robust but less anomalous 6.5 per cent in 2023 and 5.5 per cent in 2024—still driven largely by growth in services. Lower growth, monetary tightening, and a smaller budget deficit will contribute to a decline in average inflation to seven per cent for 2023.  

“Uranium is found in granite rocks, and it is extracted in granite mines by block leaching, which significantly increases the cost of the extracted products. In other countries, uranium is found in soft soils, and it is mined using the less expensive method of underground leaching.”

Civil Contract nominates Tigran Avinyan for Yerevan Mayor at first City Council session

Ophelia Vardapetian

 10:20,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 10, ARMENPRESS. The Civil Contract party’s faction in the new Yerevan City Council has nominated Tigran Avinyan for the position of Mayor of Yerevan.

Only 37 city councilors (24 from Civil Contract, 5 from Public Voice party and 8 from Hanrapetutyun (Republic) party) are in attendance. The Public Voice and Hanrapetutyun did not formally nominate any candidate.

The Mother Armenia bloc and National Progress party are boycotting the session.  

A confirmation vote will take place for Avinyan’s candidacy.

AW: “Wanton abandon was the cause of this”

Ophelia Vardapetian
October 4, 2023 Aramazt Kalayjian Opinion 0

In the late 2000s, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vartan Oskanian held a symposium at Columbia University. The talk, organized by some local Armenian organizations, centered around Armenia, Artsakh and the struggle to carve a path for international recognition of Artsakh. At the time, Armenia (under then-President Robert Kocharian) had recently received a $5 billion IMF loan and was in the process of post-war and post-earthquake development, making some infrastructural strides with paved roads and the import of Italian construction companies.

While listening to Mr. Oskanian speak, I couldn’t help but think, “Isn’t Azerbaijan capitalizing on their Caspian oil fields while Armenia is entering into debt?”

Billions of dollars were spent by the Azerbaijani government to achieve its military objectives in Artsakh – billions of dollars usurped from their people, left impoverished in villages while their dictator and wife as vice-dictator siphoned money for their Perez International real estate empire. Caspian crude oil funneled by British Petroleum, Chevron and other international partners found its way worldwide and amassed wealth in the oligarchic hands of the Aliyev clan.

Some of that money went to Azerbaijan’s military budget to purchase Israeli and Turkish drones, to buy desperate fighters from Syria and to pay for propaganda. War isn’t simply the will to go and fight in a coordinated, well-trained and organized fashion. It’s orchestrated on multiple fronts. War is waged psychologically to bring morale down, financially to break any sense of prosperity, and through propaganda and “active measures” to manipulate the conventional thought of both the Azeri and Armenian people. It’s not simply a hard-won fight militarily in the air and on land anymore.

The billions of Azeri petrodollars collected over three decades since the military victories of the Armenian Armed Forces were exponential compared to what Armenia’s multiple regimes had spent – three to four times more. Armenia could fight valiantly all it wants. The numbers don’t add up, despite our scrappy will to survive. It’s a great sentiment, unfounded in possibility, lest we innovated for thirty years in our approach.

We needed to invest in developing inexpensive, useful and materially viable products like lenses, lasers, computer chip printing and engineering. We needed a plan for progress and prosperity in order to manifest our desired result of an Armenia and Artsakh union. What did we do?

First, it was casinos for our locals and for the Iranian tourists. When that got out of hand, investments went into exorbitant real estate projects and luxury cars. Then, when the casinos became so unsightly, lining the streets from the airport to the city center, we had a brief awakening. Having laws mattered. But, it was already too late.

Through the decades, political power shifted and abated Armenia’s economic possibilities. A plethora of dumbfounding political events took place in Armenia: the will of the people ignored in blatantly misrepresented elections; promises of EU reform reversed for EEU reform; the change of the constitution to extend the leadership terms (presidential to parliamentary rule); and most recently, unrealistic goals and jingoistic populist rhetoric used to gain public favor by an already disenfranchised society. Constant turmoil produced consistently high risk.

At the end of Mr. Oskanian’s talk, there was a brief Q & A. I asked him about Artsakh’s future under the reality of Azeri oil profits. He agreed that the money is a reality and said that “everything will be alright.”

Shushi’s many foundations, left bare after the First Artsakh War, now in the hands of the Azeri government after the Second Artsakh War (Photo: Aramazt Kalayjian)

Everything will be alright…and yet here we are—120,000 Artsakh citizens with a desire to live in a free and independent land that has birthed centuries-old monasteries as proof of our existence and faith, families who want to work, for their children to attend school and have endless possibilities, have been forced into unthinkable submission—starved, humiliated, bombed, raped and told “everything will be alright.”

As for Armenians in the old and new diaspora worldwide, this has to be the defining apex that transforms the internal dialogue we have about our homeland. Our homeland needs all of us, with or without successful careers, with or without huge amounts of foreign debt, with or without a sense of accomplishment in our hometown communities. We must have the conversation, introduce the idea of moving, investing or visiting more often and bringing creative and intelligent investments to Armenia. Wanton abandon was the cause of this. Diligent vigilance will be our only path forward.

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Aramazt Kalayjian is a creative professional with a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary story-telling and visual communication. His current project is TEZETA, a film about the Armenians of Ethiopia.


Gunfire Around Karabakh Persists Between Armenian, Azerbaijani Forces

Ophelia Vardapetian
BARRON’S

Oct 2 2023

FROM AFP NEWS

RECASTS with cross-border fire, ADDS toll, colour from Lachin and Stepanakert

Moscow said Russian and Azerbaijani forces on Monday came under sniper fire in Nagorno-Karabakh, days after Baku secured the surrender of Armenian separatists in an offensive to regain control of the mountainous territory.

The report came as Armenia said one serviceman was killed along its shared border with Azerbaijan, underscoring the volatility of the region even after Karabakh’s capitulation last week.

“In the city of Stepanakert (Khankendi) a joint Russian-Azerbaijani patrol was shot at by an unknown person using a sniper weapon. There were no casualties,” the Russian defence ministry said.

Russia deployed its peacekeepers to the mountainous region in 2020 as part of a ceasefire deal it had brokered between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

But mired in its war in Ukraine, Moscow refused to intervene when Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive at the end of September.

Separatists capitulated and said 220 were killed in the fighting, while Azerbaijan reported 199 dead.

Another Armenian serviceman was killed when Azerbaijani forces opened fire near the eastern village of Kut on Monday, Armenia’s defence ministry said.

It also announced two were wounded. Azerbaijan had rejected the claim.

Days after the lightning offensive, fighting has nevertheless subsided.

Almost all ethnic Armenians — over 100,000 people — have fled the breakaway territory over fears of ethnic cleansing.

After nine days of fear and panic, the exodus of Armenians is over with the Lachin corridor that links Karabakh to Armenia mostly deserted.

AFP journalists on a tour organised by Azerbaijani forces in the rebel stronghold of Stepanakert saw an eerily empty city.

Buildings, restaurants, hotels and supermarkets laid deserted in a city that once had 55,000 inhabitants.
Many were smashed up with empty shelves — signs of looting or hasty departures.
After three decades of Armenian control, the separatist authorities have agreed to disarm, dissolve their government and reintegrate with Azerbaijan.

The separatist government however said some officials would stay to oversee rescue operations.

President Samvel Shahramanyan “will stay in (Karabakh’s main city of) Stepanakert with a group of officials until the search and rescue operations for the remainder of those killed and those missing… are completed,” the separatist government said.

In addition to the toll from the fighting itself, another 170 people died when a fuel depot exploded during the massive exodus.

Separatist official Artak Beglaryan said “a few hundred” Armenian representatives remained in Karabakh.

He said they included “officials, emergency service, volunteers, some persons with special needs.”

The separatist government said some officials would stay until rescue operations are completed

Emmanuel Dunand

Yerevan has accused Azerbaijan of conducting a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” to clear Karabakh of its Armenian population.

Baku has denied the claim and called on Armenian residents of the territory to stay and “re-integrate” into Azerbaijan, saying their rights would be guaranteed.

AFP journalists on Monday saw a convoy carrying water and communications workers that was allowed to enter Stepanakert.

The convoy was escorted by the Azerbaijani army.

They also saw a bus carrying officials who planned to open a “re-integration” office in the city for any ethnic Armenians wishing to register with Azerbaijani authorities.

Azerbaijan is holding “re-integration” talks with separatist leaders.

Several senior representatives of its former government and military command have been detained, including Ruben Vardanyan — a reported billionaire who headed the Nagorno-Karabakh government between November 2022 and February.

His four children released a statement on social media demanding his release “from the illegal imprisonment on the territory of Azerbaijan”, saying they “feared for his life and health”.

Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev said criminal investigations had been initiated into war crimes committed by 300 separatist officials.

“I urge those persons to surrender voluntarily,” he told journalists on Sunday.

Israel among Armenia’s geopolitical concerns after Nagorno-Karabakh collapse

Ophelia Vardapetian
The Times of Israel
Oct 2 2023
By JORIS FIORITI

PARIS, France (AFP) – Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh have, after three decades of struggle, agreed to disarm, dissolve their government and reintegrate with Azerbaijan after Baku seized back control in late September.

The collapse of the breakaway statelet could shift the balance of power in the region while leaving Yerevan facing a raft of geopolitical concerns.

Nearly all of Karabakh’s estimated 120,000 residents have now fled, with Yerevan accusing Azerbaijan of conducting a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” to clear the territory.

But Baku has denied the claim and publicly called on Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population to stay and “reintegrate” into Azerbaijan.

Russia, a long-standing ally of Armenia, insisted those fleeing the territory had nothing to fear, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying: “It’s difficult to say who is to blame [for the exodus]. There is no direct reason for such actions.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has criticized the Russian peacekeeping force in Nagorno-Karabakh for failing to intervene during Baku’s lightning offensive, which Moscow has denied.

Nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the mountainous region in 2020 as part of a ceasefire deal it brokered between Azerbaijan and Armenia that ended six weeks of fighting.

But Russia gave a lukewarm response to the announcement last week that the ethnic Armenian statelet of Karabakh would cease to exist at the end of the year.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has criticized the Russian peacekeeping force in Nagorno-Karabakh for failing to intervene during Baku’s lightning offensive, which Moscow has denied.

Nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the mountainous region in 2020 as part of a ceasefire deal it brokered between Azerbaijan and Armenia that ended six weeks of fighting.

But Russia gave a lukewarm response to the announcement last week that the ethnic Armenian statelet of Karabakh would cease to exist at the end of the year.

A complex hangover from the Soviet era, the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan, a landlocked autonomous republic, does not share a border with Azerbaijan but has been tied to Baku since the 1920s. It is located between Armenia, Turkey and Iran.

Some experts believe that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev could now seek to launch operations in southern Armenia to create a territorial link with Nakhchivan.

Allies Turkey and Azerbaijan had said in June they wanted to step up efforts to open a land corridor linking Turkey to Azerbaijan’s main territory via Nakhchivan and Armenia, a longstanding and complex project.

A few days after Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19 and 20, Aliyev met his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the exclave.

Aliyev recently referred to southern Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan” and in December said Azerbaijanis “must be able to return to their native lands.”

He went further in February 2018, when he told a press conference: “Yerevan is our historic land… We Azerbaijanis must return to our historic lands.”

The alliance between Turkey and Azerbaijan, both mainly Muslim, is fueled by a mutual mistrust of largely Christian Armenia.

The latter harbors hostility towards Ankara over the massacres of some 1.5 million Armenians by Turkey during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.

More than 30 countries have recognized the killings as genocide, although Ankara fiercely disputes the term.

Another major geopolitical player in the region is Iran, which has commercial interests in Armenia’s future.

Iran sees Armenia as its commercial gateway to the Caucasus and therefore “does not want to see the border move” to favor Azerbaijan, said Taline Ter Minassian, a professor at France’s National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations.

The reasons are also geostrategic, as Azerbaijan has for years been drawing nearer to Israel, Tehran’s arch-enemy.

Israel accounted for almost 70 percent of arms sales to Azerbaijan between 2016 and 2020, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The French Centre for Intelligence Research has said that Israel has built “several electronic intelligence stations” in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s key ally Turkey is also a member of NATO, the US-led military alliance with which Iran is also at loggerheads.

In the absence of a convincing Western commitment to Armenia, its “only protection so far has been Iran,” said Jean-Louis Bourlanges, chair of the French Foreign Affairs Committee.

“It’s a very fragile and worrying guarantee,” he added.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-among-armenias-geopolitical-concerns-after-nagorno-karabakh-collapse/

Advanced Israeli weaponry playing major role in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh offensive

Ophelia Vardapetian
Oct 2 2023
Yuval Azulay

12:16, 02.10.23

While tens of thousands of Armenian separatists continue to escape from Nagorno-Karabakh to the territories of Armenia due to concerns about potential ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan and the recent rapid military operation by the Azeri army, which gained control over the disputed territory, Israel and Azerbaijan are strengthening their relations. This strengthening is inspired by their successful security cooperation over many years.
The Azeri forces received significant assistance from Israel, which has become a major supplier of its military equipment. Over the past two decades, Israel has reportedly sold the Azeri army advanced weaponry worth billions of dollars. This includes unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) like the Israel Aerospace Industries’ Heron, Orbiter by Aeronautics, and Elbit’s Hermes 900. Additionally, Israel has provided Azerbaijan with Rafael’s anti-tank Spike missiles, the IAI’s precision surface-to-surface missile Lora, and is also set to manufacture two spy satellites for Azerbaijan in the coming years.
Azeri forces in Nagorno-Karabakh.
(Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP)
According to foreign reports, In exchange for this extensive military support, Israel enjoys rare and nearly unlimited access to the long border that Azerbaijan shares with Iran. Foreign reports even suggest that Israel maintains intelligence bases on Azerbaijani territory. Notably, the Iranian nuclear archive, which was obtained by Mossad in 2018, was reportedly smuggled from Azerbaijan to Israel.
An indication of the close security ties between the two countries came just a day before the Nagorno-Karabakh invasion when the Azeri Ministry of Defense tweeted about hosting an Israeli security delegation led by Major General (ret.) Eyal Zamir, the Director General of the Ministry of Defense, in Baku.
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Despite the significant defense deals between Israel and Azerbaijan, defense companies have largely remained discreet about their activities in the region. Even companies like Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, which publish periodic financial reports, do not explicitly mention their dealings with Azerbaijan, despite it being a significant export destination.
For instance, in the financial reports of Elbit and the IAI, sales to Azerbaijan are grouped with sales to other Asian countries. Between June 2022 and June 2023, IAI’s sales to Asia, excluding those to Israel, exceeded $1.9 billion out of total sales of $5.15 billion. Elbit also reported substantial sales to the Asia-Pacific region in 2022, accounting for more than 25% of their global sales, amounting to approximately $1.4 billion.
The close ties between Israel and Azerbaijan have also been solidified through diplomatic visits. Notable Israeli figures, including President Isaac Herzog, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, have visited Azerbaijan to strengthen strategic relations.
In March, Azerbaijan opened an embassy in Israel to further expand their relations beyond the security domain. The two countries are actively exploring opportunities in areas such as infrastructure, desalination, water transport, agriculture, and more.
Azerbaijan has already become a primary supplier of oil to Israel, with over 2 million tons exported in 2022, representing approximately 40% of Israel’s total oil consumption that year. Ashra, the Israel Foreign Trade Risks Insurance Corporation, organized a meetup last week with the Azeri ambassador to Israel, Mukhtar Mammadov, regarding potential opportunities for Israeli businesses in Azerbaijan. Israeli companies specializing in smart agriculture and crop improvement have also attracted special attention.
To support Israeli exporters in establishing operations in Azerbaijan, Ashra is providing a framework of $200 million for credit insurance. This initiative aims to encourage Israeli companies to explore investment opportunities in Azerbaijan, a country experiencing strong economic growth and offering substantial potential for Israeli businesses, according to Ashra CEO David Klein.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rjhofzoet

The Genocide of Christians: Islamic Terrorists vs. Muslim Statesmen

Ophelia Vardapetian
The Stream
Sept 26 2023

By RAYMOND IBRAHIM Published on 

As the Muslim nation of Azerbaijan resumed its genocide of Armenian Christians earlier this week, the question arises: When it comes to savage hate for “infidels,” what, exactly, is the difference between Islamic terrorists — whom we are regularly admonished have nothing to do with real Islam — and Muslim statesmen?

The Islamic State (“ISIS”), for example, was widely condemned (including by a long-reluctant Obama administration) for committing genocide against Christians, Yazidis, and other non-Muslims in the regions it held sway, especially Iraq and Syria.

At this very moment, however, even so-called “secular” Muslim nations are engaged in genocide — and for the very same jihadist reasons.

In late 2022, for example, Turkey opened fire on Syria’s northern border, where most of the religious minorities — Christians, Yazidis, etc. — that had experienced genocide a few years earlier by ISIS live. Enough death and destruction occurred that Genocide Watch issued a Genocide Emergency Alert on December 7, 2022:

These military attacks by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime are part of a wider Turkish policy of annihilation of the Kurdish and Assyrian [Christian] people in northern Syria and Iraq. Turkey has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including bombing, shelling, abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings. The attacks are part of Turkey’s genocidal policies towards Kurds, Christians, and Ezidis.

During a later webinar (summarized here), Gregory Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, concluded that “Turkey is a genocidal society… Turkey has conducted so many genocides in history… Going back many centuries, it [Turkey] has been anti-Christian, and has tried to slaughter as many Christians as possible.”

Then there is the ongoing genocide of another Christian people, the Armenians, at the hands of the so-called “secular” governments of Turkey and Azerbaijan.

In late 2020, Azerbaijan went to war against Armenia over Artsakh, ancient Armenian land (aka, Nagorno-Karabakh). Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists, though the dispute clearly did not concern it. Turkey even funded and sent “jihadist groups,” to quote French President Macron, that had been operating in Syria and Libya — including the one that kept naked women chained and imprisoned — to terrorize and slaughter the Armenians.

One of these captured mercenaries confessed that he was “promised a monthly $2,000 payment for fighting against ‘kafirs’ in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar[s] for each beheaded kafir.” (Kafir, often translated as “infidel,” is Arabic for any non-Muslim who fails to submit to Islam, which makes them enemies by default.)

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All these terrorist groups, as well as the Azeri military, committed numerous atrocities (see here, and here), including by raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging her eyes, and mockingly sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.

The 2020 war ended with Azerbaijan appropriating Artsakh. Since then, Azerbaijan has literally been starving its Armenians to death, in what several watchdog organizations—including the Association of Genocide Scholars, Genocide Watch, and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention—have labeled a genocide.

Speaking on August 7, 2023, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said:

There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh. The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction. There are no crematories, and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.’

A more subtle similarity exists between the genocides foisted by bearded terrorists in traditional Muslim garb, and Muslim statesmen in suits and ties: they both exhibit a jihadist hate for and strong desire to erase the religious history and heritage of their victims.

Attacks on churches and crosses are one of the most obvious examples of this “purge.” In 2015, for example, ISIS published a video of Muslims desecrating churches and breaking crosses all throughout the Syrian province of Nineveh, one of the oldest Christian regions in the world. (After it had gone viral on Arabic social media, and because I wanted Western people to know what Muslims know, I loaded it onto YouTube — only for YouTube to instantly remove and temporarily suspend my account. That video is now available, here.)

Azerbaijan has done and continues to do the same exact thing to the churches and crosses in ancient Christian territories (namely, Artsakh and Nakhchivan) under its control.

In one instance — and as happened throughout Iraq and Syria under the “terrorists” — an Azeri fighter was videotaped standing atop an Armenian church, after its cross had been broken off, while triumphantly crying “Allahu Akbar!” In another, video footage showed Azeri troops entering into a conquered church, laughing, mocking, kicking, and defacing Christian items inside it, including a fresco of the Last Supper. In response to this video, Arman Tatoyan, an Armenian human rights activist, issued a statement:

The President of Azerbaijan and the country’s authorities have been implementing a policy of hatred, enmity, ethnic cleansing and genocide against Armenia, citizens of Armenia and the Armenian people for years. The Turkish authorities have done the same or have openly encouraged the same policy.

As for statistics, according to Caucasus Heritage Watch, 108 Medieval and early modern Armenian monasteries, churches and cemeteries between 1997 and 2011 have experienced “complete destruction.” Moreover, since the 2020 war, “new satellite imagery shows ongoing destruction of Armenian heritage sites. Images show disappearance of churches and cemeteries.” As one example, photos showed how a more than 700 years old monastery was first destroyed, and then re-erected as a mosque.

An even more recent report from June, 2023 documents the systematic destruction of ancient churches, crosses, Christian cemeteries, and other cultural landmarks in Artsakh. As one example, after bombing the Holy Savior Cathedral in Shushi during the 2020 war — an act Human Rights Watch labeled a “possible war crime” — Azerbaijan seized the region. Although officials claimed they would “restore” the church, all they did is remove its dome and cross, making the building look less like a church. As one report notes,

The ‘case’ of Shushi is indicative of the well-documented history of Armenian cultural and religious destruction by Azerbaijan. From 1997 to 2006, Azerbaijan systematically obliterated almost all traces of Armenian culture in the Nakhichevan area, which included the destruction of medieval churches, thousands of carved stone crosses (“khachkars”), and historical tombstones.

And now, after launching yet another military offensive earlier this week, one of the oldest Christian places of worship in the world, the fourth century Amaras Monastery, has fallen under Azeri control. The fate of this ancient heritage site will, no doubt, be lamentable.

When it comes to the jihadist genocide of Christian “infidels” and the erasure of their cultural heritage, there appears to be little difference between Muslim “terrorists” and Muslim “statesmen.” As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once observed, “Islam cannot be either ‘moderate’ or ‘not moderate.’ Islam can only be one thing.” And that one thing has been on display for fourteen (blood drenched) centuries.

 

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.


Jan. 6 defendant who wanted to arrest ‘the traitors’ to ‘protect the Capitol’ is sentenced to 4 years

Ophelia Vardapetian
NBC News
Sept 26 2023
A defiant Ed Badalian repeatedly interrupted his sentencing judge and told the U.S. marshals who took him into custody they had a duty to resist unconstitutional orders.
By Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — A conspiracy theorist convicted of felony Capitol riot charges told a federal judge at his sentencing Tuesday that he wanted to “protect the Capitol” by “arresting the traitors” on Jan. 6 before he was sentenced to more than four years in prison.

Ed Badalian, of California, said at his sentencing Tuesday that he was “frustrated” that officers protecting the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, “did not join us in arresting the traitors,” referring to members of Congress who did not overturn the 2020 presidential election in Donald Trump’s behalf.

Badalian was convicted in April of conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S., obstruction of an official proceeding and a misdemeanor count. Evidence showed that he organized paintball training sessions after Trump’s 2020 election loss and was preparing for war. He made it to the lower west terrace tunnel on Jan. 6 and into the suite of Senate hideaway offices that were ransacked by rioters.

Badalian was charged alongside two co-defendants. One, a Trump supporter named Danny Rodriguez, drove a stun gun into Washington Police Officer Michael Fanone’s neck and was sentenced to 12.5 years in federal prison in June. Rodriguez shouted “Trump won!” as he was led out of the courthouse after his sentencing.

The other defendant, Paul Belosic, is a Hollywood background actor who has appeared in several music videos and was known to online sleuths as “Swedish Scarf.” He is wanted by the FBI.

“We need to violently remove traitors and if they are in key positions rapidly replace them with able bodied Patriots,” Badalian wrote in an encrypted chat on Dec. 21, 2020, two days after Trump’s “will be wild” tweet inviting supporters to Washington on Jan. 6. Badalian’s post put the “PATRIOTS45 MAGA GANG” into action, according to prosecutors. Among those Badalian wanted to arrest on Jan. 6: then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and incoming President Joe Biden.

After his conviction, Badalian told NBC News that he thought “any person has the right to arrest anyone if they see them committing a crime or if they have knowledge of them committing a crime” and that he would have arrested Pelosi, D-Calif., for “suspicion of knowing” about “election interference.”

Prosecutors sought more than 10 years in federal prison for Badalian, citing, among other evidence, his interview with NBC News and photos in which he displayed his ankle monitor as he posed in front of the Capitol.

A defiant Badalian repeatedly interrupted U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Tuesday, to the point that she remarked it was “tempting” to lock him up for the full decade prosecutors requested. Ultimately, she sentenced him to 51 months in federal prison, saying such a sentence would be more in line with what other defendants convicted of similar conduct received.

Badalian’s behavior was “all about getting and stopping the ‘traitors,'” Jackson said. He was not trying to protect the Capitol as he claimed, she added.

“Arresting the traitors would protect the Capitol,” Badalian bellowed, drawing a rebuke from the judge. “I guess arresting traitors is not good for the country?”

Badalian, Jackson said, “can’t let go of the false story of bringing down antifa,” referring to a video that shows Badalian grabbing a person breaking a Capitol window who he claims is a member of antifa. Online sleuths have since identified that person, who is a Trump supporter but has not been arrested by the FBI.

“What you attacked was the Constitution,” Jackson said, “you were attacking the very foundation of the nation itself.”

“You are a legend in your own mind,” she told Badalian. “A hero in your own head.”

There had to be consequences for his “misguided, violent vigilantism — you do not think the rules apply to you,” Jackson said before she informed him he would be committed to the custody of the U.S. marshals immediately.

As Badalian removed his suit jacket, his tie, his belt and his shoelaces under the close watch of two marshals, he proclaimed that “this is what you get for defending the Capitol building” and questioned the loyalty of one of the law enforcement officers taking him into custody.

“How do you feel about this?” he asked. “You feel like this is right?”

Just before he was handcuffed and led out of the courtroom, Badalian told the marshal that he had the duty to resist unconstitutional orders.

 

8 more bodies found in Nagorno-Karabakh after Azeri attack

Ophelia Vardapetian

 12:40,

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. 10 people were found on Monday in Nagorno-Karabakh during ongoing search and rescue operations after the September 19-20 Azeri attack.

8 bodies were also found during the September 25 search operations.

5 of the 10 people were handed over by Azerbaijan to Nagorno-Karabakh. 5 of the 8 bodies were also handed over by the Azeri side, the State Service of Emergency Situations of Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement.

Russian disinformation falsely claims Yerevan demonstrators breached into government building, came across US troops

Ophelia Vardapetian

 21:44,

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 23, ARMENPRESS. Several Russian media outlets have spread disinformation falsely claiming that demonstrators in Yerevan ‘breached into the Government headquarters’ on September 20 and ‘stumbled upon American paratroopers’ there.

Neither has any protester breached into the government building nor were there any U.S. paratroopers there, the Prime Minister’s Office told ARMENPRESS.

“No demonstrator breached into the Government building that day, and furthermore, there was no American paratrooper there,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. The Russian media report is an absolute disinformation, it added.