Washington Visit By Leader Of Unrecognized ‘Republic’ Has Russia’s Fingerprints All Over It
Maayan Hoffman
Freelance writer
One Bako Sahakyan — “president” of “Nagorno Karabakh Republic” and a typical post-Soviet warlord with links to Russian military intelligence and Middle East terrorists from Bekaa Valley of Lebanon — has recently spent a weeklong visit in Washington, D.C. for meetings with pro-Armenian members of Congress and other pro-Russian supporters of his unrecognized “republic.” What’s wrong with this picture? Much more than initially meets the eye, and it should touch a nerve with anyone concerned about Russian influence over American politics.
The essential fact in the decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is that it is internationally recognized Azerbaijani territory, illegally occupied by Armenia — much like Crimea and Abkhazia are occupied by Russia. This is affirmed by numerous U.N. resolutions. The U.S. State Department states America “does not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent country, and its leadership is not recognized internationally or by the United States,” meaning Sahakyan is no president.
Yet leaders of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues — among them Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), David Valadao (R-Calif.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Jim Costa (D-Calif.) — routinely undermine other branches of American government by lending legitimacy to an illegitimate “republic,” by meeting with Sahakyan and by unlawfully visiting Nagorno-Karabakh — a step that Pallone, Valadao, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) took last year. These lawmakers wine and dine a faux president like Sahakyan to curry favor with Armenian-American constituencies at the expense of U.S. strategic interests, including consistency in relations with allies, while the rest of the U.S. government plays by the rules.
But the danger of Sahakyan’s tour goes far beyond immorality and illegality. It undermines the burgeoning strategic relationship between the United States and Azerbaijan.
It also marks the latest example of Russia’s insidious manipulation of Capitol Hill.
The United States and its allies recently completed a round of talks on increasing the use of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway and Azerbaijan’s flyover rights for operations in Afghanistan and beyond. Additionally, America has placed its full diplomatic and political support behind the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), which will span nearly 2,200 miles across Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Albania, and Italy. SGC will transform Azerbaijan into the key player while decreasing or even eliminating that continent’s dependence on Russia’s energy supplies. Further aligning the interests of America and Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan is the only viable transit route to Afghanistan and the gateway to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Washington’s new partners in Russia’s backyard. The chief rival? Russia.
With so much at stake — obvious to anyone familiar with geography — the Kremlin’s only conceivable response is to undermine the strengthened relationship between Baku and Washington, thus utilizing Russia’s modus operandi by deploying its vassal, Armenia. It is widely accepted in foreign policy circles that Armenia is the least sovereign of the post-Soviet nations and a mere extension of the Kremlin. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision Putin himself arranging the separatist leader’s trip to poke America in the eye and to diminish the U.S. in Eurasia.
If you aren’t convinced, look no further than Sahakyan’s private lunch at the Center for the National Interest, hosted by the center’s director Dmitri Simes, including a discussion moderated by former ambassador Richard Burt, a known Gazprom lobbyist. At their core, Simes and Burt can best be described as pro-Kremlin operatives.
The center, under Simes, partnered with Russia’s notorious state-funded Institute for Democracy and Cooperation led by no other than the fiery West-hater, Andranik Migranian, recently expelled from U.S. In 2014, those two think tanks organized a press conference to defend Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. In 2013, Putin called Simes his “American friend and colleague,” the latter being especially telling. The National Interest—the Center for the National Interest’s magazine—published an array of pro-Putin content, including a piece lionizing him as “Russia’s Reagan.”
Meanwhile, Politico reported in 2016 that in the first two quarters of that year, Burt and a colleague were paid $365,000 to lobby for a proposed natural gas pipeline owned by a firm controlled by the Kremlin. Also, in 2016, Reuters reported that Burt promoted a “more realist foreign policy” (Translation: don’t stand up to Russia.)
Simes and Burt were at it again, rolling out the red carpet for Sahakyan, the rogue leader of an unrecognized republic. This is no coincidence. Simes’s and Burt’s long histories of pro-Russian lobbying should be enough for any fair-minded observer of international affairs to draw a direct line from Moscow to Sahakyan’s Washington visit.
That’s why the Sahakyan affair represents more than an affront to international law and U.S. foreign policy — which is enough reason for outrage. Sahakyan’s trip is a real-life manifestation of Americans’ worst nightmares of Russian intervention, and federal lawmakers should understand this, most notably the self-dubbed Russian hunter-in-chief, Adam Schiff, whose anti-Russia sentiments mysteriously stop at anything Armenian. But don’t try telling that to the pro-Russian members of the Armenian Caucus.
Maayan Hoffman is vice president of marketing and brand strategy for Israel365. She is a veteran international journalist, and has been writing about Israel, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union for more than two decades.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.
PanARMENIAN.Net – When making territorial claims against Armenia for the second time in the past month, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev was standing on the spot where once an Armenianchurch used to rise.
Addressing the Azerbaijanis on the beginning of Novruz, Aliyev said a big part of the territory of present-day Armenia “is the historical Azerbaijani land.”
It is noteworthy that Aliyev was standing in front of the Maiden Tower where the Armenian church of the Holy Virgin was standing up until 1990, blogger, journalist Sedrak Mkrtchyan said in a tweet.
The church was built in 1797 or 1799 at the foot of the Maiden Tower, a fortress in Baku. According to a diplomat working in the Azerbaijani capital in 1992, the church was demolished in the wake of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Now, there is an empty space at its former site near the Maiden Tower.
“I used to be okay,” said Hilda Simonian, who regularly suffers from paranoia and flashbacks 20 years after reaching safety in Canada.
By Akbar Shahid Ahmed and Rowaida Abdelaziz
There are days Hilda Simonian wakes up in her Toronto home unable to recognize her own husband. Suddenly she’s petrified and worried about her sons. She doesn’t know what exactly it is she fears. She knows she’s safe and that her sons are fine. But she can’t shake the paranoia.
It hadn’t always been like this. “I used to be OK,” Simonian told HuffPost earlier this month from her Canadian home. She said she used to be cheerful and optimistic. It’s how she became the backbone of the family. It’s how they made it through.
“Jesus and God,” she repeated over and over again. She seemed to say it as a reminder, in part grateful she’s alive but also in fear, remembering the horrors she’d seen back home. Her family is safe now, but Hilda can’t shake her woes.
Hilda’s symptoms began when she first arrived in Toronto in 1995. Her family fled Iraq during the Gulf War four years before. They initially sought safety in Iran, then in Syria and eventually ended up in Canada.
Chloë Ellingson for HuffPost
After fleeing their home in Kirkuk, Iraq, Hilda and Sarkis Simonian landed in Canada in 1995 with their two sons, Harout and Sarmen. The couple has lived in the Scarborough district of Toronto since 2000 and will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary next month.
It’s Hilda’s devout Christian faith that has helped her find solace throughout the years of relocation and instability. It’s also what made her family and the Armenian community they belong to a target in Iraq.
Tuesday marked fifteen years since U.S. troops invaded Iraq and overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. It was the biggest American military intervention in the country since the start of the Gulf War in 1991, the year Hilda’s life was turned upside down.
The U.S. intervention in the Iraq War brought an end to decades of rule by Saddam Hussein that deprived Iraqis of basic rights and subjected many of them to unimaginable suffering. But U.S. policy also emboldened scores of unaccountable militias, worsened the ethnic, sectarian and social fissures the Saddam regime had cultivated and set the stage for the vicious fights over Iraq’s future that continue to this day. Each wave of dramatic change has forced many Iraqis to leave homes, property and ancestral land. Hundreds of thousands have left. And like Hilda’s family, they are now safe but scattered, often across the relative safety of the West, seeing each other once every couple of years to reminisce about the home that once was.
Chloë Ellingson for HuffPost
Reminders of family and faith in the Simonian home.
Hilda’s eldest son, Sarmen, turned 2 on March 5, 1991. Less than a week later, the Gulf War reached their home in a community of petroleum workers in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Inspired by news of the U.S. military triumph against Saddam Hussein’s army in Kuwait and explicit encouragement from President George H.W. Bush, Kurdish militias in northern Iraq had begun to battle Saddam’s forces in early March, and by the 20th, they took over Kirkuk. They blocked the roads going to the capital and Hilda’s hometown, Baghdad.
“We’re going to die,” her husband told her after the city fell. “They’re killing everyone.”
The Simonians worried their neighborhood would be a top target and spent the first night of Kurdish control at a friend’s home, unable to sleep. The next morning, they returned and followed the advice of a fellow Armenian who had stopped by to check in: They would head to neighboring Iran. They packed blankets, milk, gold bracelets and dates, and joined a few other young families, basically newlyweds, in the back of a dump truck headed for the border.
They arrived without passports. Border guards pointed them toward a refugee camp. In a matter of days, Hilda and her family had gone from a comfortable middle-class life of parties and modern conveniences to living in a tent on food from the Red Cross (mostly canned eggplant) and the money they had made from selling their gold.
Chloë Ellingson for HuffPost
The family in Iran in 1991, a few months after the end of the Gulf War.
The camp offered few real chances at a new life, so the Simonians reached out to Armenian churches in the Iranian capital, Tehran. One offered the families a group home. It was a start. Sarkis began working at a supermarket; Hilda watched their toddler, constantly reminding him he couldn’t just wander around in the house because only one room was theirs.
But they didn’t know Farsi, and the Islamic Republic’s rules were harsh. When Hilda got pregnant again, she was denied the abortion she sought to avoid bringing another child into their uncertain situation. Western embassies weren’t accepting applications from refugees.
The church helped them plan a move to a temporary home where they could at least speak the language, in Syria. It would be their third destination, and the day before they left, Hilda was apprehensive. What if she never found a home for her young family?
In Syria, they found work thanks to a cousin based in the U.S. who had managed to track them down in Tehran. Hilda gave birth to her second son, Harout. They lived in church-provided housing. But they still lacked a final refuge. Syria was another tinderbox ruled by a dictator. And Iraq was enduring unprecedented global sanctions ― largely pushed by the U.S. ― that caused mass malnutrition, particularly among children, and huge shortages of medicine.
The Simonians applied to go live in Australia. They were denied. Their last hope was Canada. They brought $100 they had barely managed to collect for the application fee and patiently listed their job skills and potential contributions. They awaited the decision in a nearby park. Sarkis was sure the effort would fail; Hilda had nothing but hope and positivity.
Half an hour later, they learned they were accepted as immigrants. Sarkis burst into tears.
When they took their approval documents to a friend, he reminded them of a truth refugees realize again and again: Safety rarely comes cheap. The Canadian government required that they bring $11,000 with them. Hilda sought another miracle ― once again from her cousin.
On July 18, 1995, the Simonians landed in Toronto.
As Hilda started over in the West, her brother Albert Garabedian was trying to make a life for his family in Baghdad.
When U.S. forces entered the capital in early April 2003, the invasion had already killed hundreds, bombed suburbs and empowered mobs keen to vent after decades of repression. By 2004, the Armenian community to which Albert and his wife Satik (the sister of Hilda’s husband Sarkis) belonged had cut down on public gatherings for fear of being targeted by increasingly powerful extremists. And as Iraq became even more violent, the Armenian community became caught up in the general misery of the time ― private security contractors working for an Australian-run company hired by the U.S. Agency for International Development killed two Armenian women in a taxi in 2007, less than a month after an infamous massacre by employees of the American contractor Blackwater.
For more than a decade, Albert heard rockets and explosions in the air almost every day.
But his biggest concern was his three children, his son Raffie and daughters Rita and Reema. Raffie, the eldest, was only 16 when the invasion transformed Iraq. He managed to keep his studies going, completing high school in 2005 and a bachelor’s program in dental surgery in 2010. But true progress seemed unattainable. When he applied for a scholarship for post-graduate work, a coordinator told him not to waste his time. He wouldn’t get the funds unless he converted to Islam.
Chloë Ellingson for HuffPost
The Garabedian family in an undated photo: Albert and his wife, Satik, with their children Raffie, left, Reema and Rita.
Frustrated by the conditions Raffie and his sisters found themselves in, Albert and his wife were fixated on getting them out of Iraq. From her haven, Hilda was helping. She saved enough to send money back to Iraq each month by avoiding spending on herself and buying her family’s clothes at Goodwill.
Still, the Simonians had their own struggles.
Hilda’s son Sarmen, who spoke only Arabic when they first moved to Canada, felt embarrassed about his Iraqi heritage at school or when he was set apart at the U.S. border for extra inspections during school sports trips.
Hilda had a big home but rarely felt secure. Paralyzed by fear, she was sometimes too scared to go down to the basement. She filled the house with plants, including a pot of bright red Mexican poinsettias. Meant to cheer up the home, the poinsettia never seemed to want to thrive. Hilda had a hard time keeping it alive.
Her emotions often overwhelmed her, like “bad spirits” that haunted her wherever she went. Even as the years passed, she couldn’t fully heal.
In March 2011, when Raffie was working as a teaching assistant on the University of Baghdad’s dentistry faculty, three men walked into the clinic and told him they were “protectors of the people.”
That meant he needed to pay protection money ― which they couched in the Islamic term jizya, a tax historically imposed on non-Muslims in some Muslim-majority states ― if he wanted to keep his family alive.
When he refused, they attacked his equipment and flipped tables. One man pointed a gun to his head. He said Raffie did not have the right to live in Iraq because he was not Muslim. When Raffie responded that he was born and raised there, he just got more abuse.
The group left with a warning: Pay within 48 hours or be beheaded.
Raffie went to a family friend’s home, scared to go to his own in case he was being followed. He called his parents, and they decided he should head to Turkey ― mirroring Hilda’s journey to a different neighbor of Iraq 20 years earlier. Like his aunt, he ended up in a refugee camp. He filed an application with the United Nations seeking asylum and endured what he describes as daily humiliations as he tried to get food, medical care or work.
He spent a year there before flying to Los Angeles on March 8, 2012.
First working as a parking attendant, then as manufacturing technician, by 2017, Raffie had graduated from the dental school at the University of Pennsylvania and found a fellow Iraqi-American he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He invited his parents to their wedding in California.
Both of his sisters married Iraqis in New Zealand and moved there, one in 2016 and the other in early 2017; they became inseparable as they built new lives more than half a world away from home. Their parents called them almost every day ― though they were the ones still living amid Iraq’s many crises, the latest being that of the Islamic State’s rampage and its complicated after.
Chloë Ellingson for HuffPost
Albert Garabedian, second from left, his younger brother Avo, center, and Haykaz, right, Harout’s maternal grandfather. The woman at left and the man second from right are unidentified in the undated photo.
Aug. 6, 2017, Raffie’s wedding day, was a date the Garabedian and Simonian families had long been planning for. Albert and Satik flew in from Iraq. Hilda, her husband Sarkis and their two sons arrived from Toronto.
It was a big moment for the groom, but it was perhaps even bigger for a family displaced by wave after wave of war. Hilda hadn’t seen her brother for sixteen years. Hilda’s sons had never met their uncle, aunt and cousins.
It was a reunion the families never thought they would be able to have.
“I couldn’t believe it myself. There were people I haven’t seen in over 40 years, friends I had not seen from college years,” Albert told HuffPost. “As Iraqi-Armenians, we all know one another, from the churches and sporting clubs. We’re a small community, so this was momentous.”
It was a happiness, Satik said, she had not felt in a long time. “It was the happiness of my son getting married and the happiness of reuniting with my friends and family. We were all crying of happiness.”
Chloë Ellingson for HuffPost
One of Hilda’s thriving plants in Toronto.
In the days that followed Raffie’s wedding, Hilda and her family embarked on a road trip, visiting family and friends they’d long been separated from in San Diego and Sacramento ― folks like Rijin Sahakian, the daughter of the cousin who had given Hilda the money to leave Syria for Canada all those years ago. Sahakian, who grew up in the U.S. but spent years workingin post-invasion Iraq, sees her cousins’ story as an important reflection of Iraq’s tragic trajectory.
“While the U.S. invasion and previous wars had a more final impact on the disintegration of the country and way of life for its people, Saddam’s era was part and parcel of this… Their story, many Iraqi families’ stories, may have its most dramatic departure after 2003 but are rooted in a more long-standing terrain of complex conditions that have either never been widely acknowledged or have been buried under the layers of crisis still being leveled on the country and people today,” Sahakian wrote in an email to HuffPost.
To her, appreciating the humanity of people like the Simonians and Garabedians ― that this could indeed be you ― is the only way to truly assess the catastrophe of Iraq, to fill the gaps in more than 15 years of commentary, analysis and takes that often ignored Iraqi voices.
“What should be a very traumatic sight… was able to be excused almost as an ill-thought-out war, not because of faulty planning or oversight, but because Iraqis were simply too backwards, violent or pedestrian to understand democracy and nation-building,” Sahakian continued. “This hasn’t just had repercussions for Iraqis, though they have paid the ultimate price, but for Americans, there was, and is, much to learn. If one million people die as the result of a war you and/or your tax dollars are involved in, and this is not taught in schools or realized in any sincere way, how does it numb you to violence? Watching this massive, multi-decade spectacle of war has solemn consequences.”
The trip allowed the family to process their past together and to try to weave themselves into each other’s futures. It allowed Hilda’s son Harout to see that his uncle really did wear suits all the time, and it introduced Raffie to a generation of his family that had already been through the challenge of trying to establish themselves in the West.
From their son’s wedding, Albert and Satik filed for asylum in the United States. Raffie now supports them by working over the weekends while he studies for more advanced degrees at the University of Southern California during the week. Just this month, they heard that some family friends still in Baghdad whose asylum application had been rejected were killed, apparently because of their Christian faith.
The Yelk (Way Out) faction left the session of the Yerevan Council of Elders when the discussions on two projects, suggested by the Yerkir Tsirani party, started. The first project reffered to renaming street named after Vazgen Sargsyan and putting a monument to the memory of March 1 victims.
The Yelk faction explained that they did not approve the project on renaiming the street named after Vazgen Sargsyan.
As to the monument, the Yelk faction did not mind; but they considered the justifications to be distorted. According to the members of the faction, an attempt was made to reduce the participation of Serzh Sargsyan and Robert Kocharyan in those events.
The resident of Nerkin Karmiraghbyur, Haykaz Vardanyan, was surprised when he was asked to pay the land tax.
“They want taxes to be paid for the land which one cannot cultivate,” he said.
And there are a lot of such land: 4000 hectares of vineyards, which remain uncultivated because of Azerbaijan’s target. The man who has participated in the defense of the Homeland is ready to pay any tax if there is an opportunity to cultivate the land. If he could use the land he would have a permanent means of living. Now he lives on the account of his son who sends money to him. “My son works in Russia, he sends money, so we live.”
The majority of the residents of Nerkin Karmiraghbyur get income from land because few are engaged in cattle breeding.
The villagers have not complained about the rise in prices yet. “It did not affect winter season, we still have everything from summer.”
But the effect will be felt when spring works begin. “We need to buy diesel oil to to start the spring sowing, cultivate the land; and its price has risen.”
The resident of Nerkin Karmiraghbyur follows the political developments but does not want to talk about it. When is their voice heard? In response to a question on rising the concerns with the help of MPs he said joikng “Do we have such…”
Haykaz Vardanyan has hosted one of the village teachers who worked for the “Teach Armenia” program. His daughter, Narine, also teaches in Artsakh with the same program.
Advocate Hayk Alumyan said that an illegal decision had been made on the case of the incident taken place in front of Surik Khachatryan’s house who was the former governer of Syunik region. “According to the decision of the investigator Avetik Budaghyan was the attacker, but the assessment should be given by the court, not the investigator”. The lawyer requested the Prosecutor General.
“We will appeal to the ECHR on your recent illegalities, and do not hope that we will stop fighting as long as the perpetrators are not punished.” Hayk Alumyan noted that Avetik Budaghyan’s father, Emil Budaghyan, had no procedural status in the case and was deprived of the right to obtain facts and to file a complaint. Advocate Hayk Alumyan was also deprived of the opportunity to challenge procedural decisions.
“The situation has become even worse. We rely only on the European Court. As a result of these mistakes, our chances to succeed in the ECHR are growing.”
It should be reminded that as a result of the operative-invastigative actions taken by the RA NSS bodies on July 3, residents of Kapan Garen Romik Atajanyan, Henrikh Shahen Avagyan and Ara Emil Budaghyan, who were suspected of attempting assassination against Surik Khachatryan, governor of Syunik region, and his companions on May 20, at 6:15 pm. It should be noted that Ara Budaghyan is the brother of the injured Colonel Artak Budaghyan and Avetik Budaghyan, killed near the governor’s house.
As to the case of Vahan Shirkhanyan, Hayk Alumyan mentioned that the trial was being delayed. “It becomes more and more evident that it is difficult or impossible to expect a fair decision in this case.”
Hayk Alumyan noted that the European Court had made a decision in the case of Vahan Shirkhanyan to conduct a quick trial, but the case was still delayed in Armenia.
It should be noted that former Deputy Defense Minister is suspected of participating in criminal cooperation created by Arthur Vardanyan and acting in his favor.
At today’s session of Yerevan Council of Elders, head of Yerkir Tsirani faction Zaruhi Postanjyan made a suggestion to rename Vazgen Sargsyan St. after Woodrow Wilson. It was unacceptable, in response to which Zaruhi Postanjyan mentioned:
“I do not deny the fact that Vazgen Sargsyan is a national hero, but we should not have two streets named after the same person, we can rename one. Vazgen Sargsyan, of course, has done heroism, but we have other heroes like him.”
Zaruhi Postanjyan spoke about the split of her and the Yelk faction.
“The Yelk has been created as an artificial unit by those who cursed each other a week ago. The creator of your faction wants you to split, and he splits you. As for the fact that some people stand behind this initiative, yes, since 1996, your dads have been behind the events taken place in the Republic. ”
The New Year holidays of our neighbor country, Iran begin tomorrow. Iranians are on tour on Novruz, many come to Armenia, says Iranian expert Tigran Davudyan.
“Only this month, 20,000 Iranians are coming to Armenia.”
Novruz means a new day and is considered one of the oldest holidays in the world.
Traditionally, two weeks before the celebration, wheat is sown on the plate; and tables are decorated with its sprouts, which in Iranian is called khavtsin, as it is necessary to have seven products, which begin with the letter S. The Iranians celebrate Novruz at home, in a family environment, and then visit ther relatives. Novruz lasts for two weeks.
Iranian women entrepreneur Hale Edemandy has been living in Armenia for more than a year now, and her children study at one of Armenia’s universities.
“Nature in Armenia is good and cultures are similar. We feel very welcome here. ” Hale Edemandy is pleased with the Armenians, she says they are warm-hearted and hospitable.
When asked why the Iranians prefer to spend their holidays in Armenia, Hale Edemandy asnwered “In Armenia it is cheaper, unlike Azerbaijan or Turkey. Armenia is more interested in middle class, who do not have money for the plane but can come to Armenia by their own car “.
Zaruhi Postanjyan, head of Yerkir Tsirani faction, criticized members of the Yelk (Way Out) faction at today’s Yerevan City Council session.
“The woman, who used to be my partner, received a medal from her husband’s murder,” she said, referring to Yuri Bakhshyan’s widow, Anahit Bakhshyan.
“I did not receive any medal from Robert Kocharyan’s hand,” Mrs. Bakhshyan said, explaining that she was nominated by the Heritage faction. At that time she and Zaruhi Postanjyan were members of that party.