A synagogue in Yerevan, Armenia was set on fire on Wednesday evening in an antisemitic arson attack, the second incident targeting the city’s Jewish community since last month, according to several reports and video circulating on social media.

The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) claimed responsibility for attacking the Mordechai Navi Synagogue, the only Jewish place of worship operating in the country, Azerbaijani media and other sources reported.

Azerbaijani Ambassador to Germany Nasimi Aghayev was among those who shared footage of the synagogue attack on social media.

On Oct. 3, the synagogue was vandalized and targeted with a Molotov cocktail in an antisemitic act for which ASALA — a Marxist-Leninist group designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department in 1989 — also claimed responsibility.

The attackers issued a statement saying, “The Jews are the enemies of the Armenian nation, complicit in Turkish crimes and the regime of [Azerbaijan President Ilhan] Aliyev. The Jewish state provides weapons to Aliyev’s criminal regime, and Jews from America and Europe actively support him. Turkey, Aliyev’s regime, and the Jews are the sworn enemies of the Armenian state and people.”

The group added: “If Jewish rabbis in the United States and Europe continue to support Aliyev’s regime, we will continue to burn their synagogues in other countries. Every rabbi will be a target for us. No Israeli Jew will feel safe in these countries.”

Armenia and Azerbaijan share a border and have a long history of conflict. Israel and Azerbaijan have engaged in close cooperation, including weapons sales, in recent years.

Armenia is home to about 500-1,000 Jews, mostly of Ashkenazi origin, localized in in the capital of Yerevan, according to World Jewish Congress estimates.

After Wednesday’s incident, ASALA reportedly threatened to continue attacks against the Jewish community outside of Armenia. Israeli media outlets reported that the group issued a statement linking the latest arson to the war in Gaza, expressing “solidarity with the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements against Zionism.”

ASALA, arguably the best known of the Armenian militant groups formed during the last century, was active in the 1970s through the 1990s, but has been less visible since. The organization, which was responsible for several terrorist attacks and assassinations, was armed and trained by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). During the 1980s, ASALA terrorists trained with Palestinian factions in Lebanon, developing ties with the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a group within the PLO.

This week’s targeting of an Armenian synagogue came as countries around the world, especially in the US and Europe, have experienced a historic spike in antisemitic incidents following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

“Armenia’s only synagogue last night was burned down in an antisemitic attack,” tweeted the National Jewish Assembly in the UK. “Jews around the world are feeling less and less safe every day because of actions like this. We are seeing people be bystanders to antisemitic attacks.”

Wednesday night’s arson attack was reminiscent of a similar incident in Tunisia last month, when hundreds of Tunisians reportedly burnt the el-Hamma Synagogue in the Gabès Governorate.

As tensions spill over in the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday it would not be attending a meeting with Armenia that was set for next Monday in Washington, D.C., condemning the U.S. for taking a “one-sided approach” to the conflict between the European countries. 

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been looking to ramp up peace talks between his country and Azerbaijan as the nations contend for the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The 1,700-square-mile mountainous slice of land has been inhabited by Armenians for thousands of years, but it is surrounded by Azerbaijan, a majority Muslim nation that says the region is its territory. 

Azerbaijan was angered by testimony from U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien, who spoke to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The country said O’Brien’s remarks were “one-sided and biased” after the assistant secretary of state discussed Azerbaijan’s take over of Nagorno-Karabakh in September, which forced more than 100,000 Armenians to flee their homes in what has escalated to ethnic cleansing of the Christian population from the oldest Christian nation in the world. 

During the hearing, O’Brien told the committee that the U.S. government has “urged Azerbaijan to ensure all ethnic Armenians who have departed Nagorno-Karabakh are guaranteed a safe, dignified, and sustainable return, should they so choose, with their rights and security guaranteed.” 

“We have also called for Azerbaijan to respect and protect the cultural heritage of the many groups who have lived in the region throughout the millennia,” O’Brien said, adding, “Our message to Armenia and the displaced has been unambiguous: The United States will support Armenia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democratic institutions.”

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry claimed that O’Brien’s testimony left out important context in the conflict. Azerbaijan accused Armenia of refusing to respond to peace negotiations “for more than two months” and claimed Armenia was “illegally stationing” more than 10,000 troops in Nagorno-Karabakh before Azerbaijan’s takeover. The country also said U.S. officials are unwelcome in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital. 

The Muslim country’s bombardment of Nagorno-Karabakh in September was preceded by a military blockade that began last December, which cut off access to food, electricity, and water from the outside. Yana Avanesyan, a doctoral researcher who is originally from Nagorno-Karabakh, told The Daily Wire last month that the religious difference between the two countries plays a major role in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

“When we say Armenians, we are speaking about us being Christians,” Avanesyan told The Daily Wire. “We know they hate us so much that they will just destroy everything.” 

The U.S. has taken a clear stance in the conflict, condemning Azerbaijan for its recent actions in Nagorno-Karabakh. 

“Azerbaijan’s use of force in Nagorno-Karabakh has eroded trust and raised doubts regarding Baku’s commitment to a comprehensive peace with Armenia,” O’Brien said. “Given this new reality, the Department has made it clear to Azerbaijan that there cannot be ‘business as usual’ in our bilateral relationship. The United States has condemned Azerbaijani actions in Nagorno-Karabakh, canceled high-level bilateral meetings and engagements with Azerbaijan, and suspended plans for future events.”  

Azerbaijan on Thursday refused to participate in normalisation talks with arch-foe Armenia that were planned in the United States this month over what it said was Washington’s “biased” position.

Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a decades-long territorial conflict over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Baku reclaimed in September after a lightning offensive against Armenian separatists.

Internationally mediated peace talks between the ex-Soviet republics have seen little progress but both countries’ leaders have said a comprehensive peace agreement could be signed by the end of the year.

“We do not consider it possible to hold the proposed meeting on the level of the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Washington on November 20, 2023,” Baku’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The move followed a hearing in the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, where, the ministry said, Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien made “one-sided and biased remarks” about Azerbaijan.

O’Brien told the House Committee that “nothing will be normal with Azerbaijan after the events of September 19 until we see progress on the peace track.”

“We’ve cancelled a number of high-level visits, condemned (Baku’s) actions,” he added.

The Azerbaijani foreign ministry said: “Such a unilateral approach by the United States could lead to the loss of the United States’ mediation role.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Thursday that Yerevan’s “political will to sign, in the coming months, a peace agreement with Azerbaijan remains unwavering.”

Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev have held several rounds of talks under EU mediation.

But last month, Aliyev refused to attend a round of negotiations with Pashinyan in Spain, citing France’s “biased position.”

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had been scheduled to join EU chief Charles Michel as mediators at those talks.

So far, there has been no visible progress in EU efforts to organise a fresh round of negotiations.

(AFP)

Tehran, IRNA- Managing director of the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) Ali Naderi has held a meeting with Armenian Ambassador to Tehran Arsen Avagyan to explore ways to expand media cooperation between Iran and Armenia.

Ogün Samast, the convicted murderer of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, was released on parole on Wednesday.

The 52-year-old Dink, editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian bilingual Agos weekly, was shot dead with two bullets to the head outside the newspaper’s headquarters in central İstanbul on Jan. 19, 2007 by Samast, then a-17-year-old jobless high school dropout.

Samast was arrested the following day.

After serving 16 years, 10 months, Samast was released from Turkey’s western Bolu province’s F Type Prison.

In June Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals upheld certain acquittals while overturning other verdicts in the trial of 76 defendants, primarily public officials, in connection with Dink’s assassination.

The verdict handed down on March 26, 2021 by the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court included 33 acquittals and 27 convictions.

Engin Dinç, former director of the Trabzon police intelligence unit; Reşat Altay, former Trabzon police chief; and Ahmet İlhan Güler, former director of the İstanbul intelligence unit, were acquitted of “negligent homicide.”

Ramazan Akyürek and Ali Fuat Yılmazer, two of the jailed defendants and former police chiefs, were given aggravated life sentences by the Turkish court for “premeditated murder,” while four defendants, including former gendarmerie members Muharrem Demirkale and Yavuz Karakaya, received life sentences.

Samast had confessed to the murder and was sentenced to almost 23 years in prison in 2011.

Ali Öz, a former gendarmerie commander of the Black Sea region of Trabzon, where the gunman came from, was sentenced to 28 years in prison on charges of “premeditated murder” and “forgery of official documents.”

The İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court in 2021 separated the files of 13 fugitive suspects, including Fethullah Gülen, on the grounds that their defense statements were not delivered, also ruling that Dink’s murder was committed “in line with the objectives of FETÖ” – a derogatory term used by the Turkish government to refer to the faith-based movement inspired by Gülen as a terrorist organization.

For years, prosecutors have looked into alleged links between the suspects and Gülen, who is accused of masterminding a failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2016, although he strongly denies the charges.

The Turkish government’s ongoing crackdown on the Gülen movement was launched following corruption investigations in late 2013 that implicated Erdoğan’s close circle and intensified in the aftermath of the failed coup on July 15, 2016.

Armenia has received its first batch of armored vehicles from France via Georgia. 

Azerbaijan is ratcheting up its rhetoric against France over Paris' growing military support to its archrival but so far has refrained from criticizing Georgia for facilitating the first delivery of French hardware.

On November 12, Azerbaijani Defense Ministry-aligned Caliber.az shared images purporting to show at least 20 Bastion armored personnel carriers arriving at the Poti Port, on Georgia's Black Sea coast. 

APM Terminals, which operates the Poti Port, meanwhile, confirmed on November 14 that a "specific cargo" was received from France and sent on to Armenia. "In the absence of clear instructions [to the contrary] from the Georgian government and any restrictions from international regulators, APM Terminals Poti, as a multipurpose port in Georgia and the region, had no right to reject without basis a cargo that is not under sanctions," the company told RFE/RL.

Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili gave his own confirmation of the arms transit in an interview with Georgian Public TV on November 14. 

He referred to Armenia and Azerbaijan as both "brotherly and friendly" nations and said that both have the right to use Georgian territory for transit "on equal terms." 

"All countries have the right to have defense forces and all countries have the right to acquire conventional hardware and weapons permitted under international agreements. Georgia's position is that both countries should be allowed to use our country for transit."

Armenia's Defense Ministry, for its part, neither confirmed nor denied the transfer of the vehicles. 

Georgia's role in the arms transfer was noted in both Armenia and Azerbaijan, but not at the official level. 

"What is most important is that Georgia is not hindering the logistics, despite [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev's attempts to put pressure on Tbilisi," Leonid Nersisyan, Armenian military analyst, wrote on X. 

An editorial on Minval.az, a pro-Azerbaijani government analysis website, called the transfer a "stab in the back" by Georgia against its strategic partner Azerbaijan. The commentary said that Azerbaijani energy supplies, as well as pipelines carrying Azerbaijani oil and gas through Georgia, were crucial to Georgia's security and economic well-being, and lamented that now, the leadership in Tbilisi has "chosen to curry favor with France at the expense of Azerbaijan's interests."

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, condemned France over the hardware transfer but made no mention of Georgia. 

"Against the backdrop of smearing campaigns and destructive actions by France against Azerbaijan in the region, these steps, which adds to the militarization policy of Armenia, attests to the fact of France's erroneous interests in the region," the English version of the statement read. "Armenia and France should end armament and militarization policy in the region, and finally understand that there is no alternative to peace and stability in the region."

The Armenian and French defense ministers signed deals on October 23 under which Armenia will purchase radar systems and other equipment, including anti-aircraft systems, from French manufacturers, and France will help train and reform the Armenian armed forces. 

"France and the French people are by our side, a fact that deserves our highest appreciation," Armenian Defense Minister Suren Papikyan said at the signing of the deal.

The delivery of French APCs was not mentioned in initial official statements about that deal.

Azerbaijan has long been critical of France over its pro-Armenian stance in the Karabakh conflict, especially during the peace process that followed the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Now that Azerbaijan largely resolved the Karabakh conflict in its own favor, it still opposes France's involvement in the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace negotiations as a mediator. 

In early October, President Aliyev refused to attend a meeting in Spain where he was scheduled to meet the Armenian Prime Minister, citing the exclusion of Turkey, Azerbaijan's closest ally, from the would-be multilateral talks, and the inclusion of France. 

Azerbaijan has recently begun using its chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to position itself as a global leader in the fight against what it calls French "neocolonialism."

Baku recently hosted a neocolonialism conference that featured invitees from independence movements in New Caledonia, Corsica, French Polynesia and French Guiana. 

Hikmat Hajiyev, Aliyev's senior foreign policy advisor, told the conference that Azerbaijan will help French overseas territories to continue with their "struggle, and political freedom ambitions."

"We will raise the opinions expressed here at the level of the UN and other international organizations. Our country was deprived of independence for many years. As a state, we know what occupation is," he said. 

The region had been occupied by Armenian forces since 1991, during which it styled itself as a de facto independent state, the Republic of Artsakh,

Mr Hajiyev said, “Armenia’s illegal regime has now been disarmed and taken out from the territory of Azerbaijan. 

“This means that there are now no obstacles for a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

“We think that this is a historical opportunity to turn the chapter of animosity and hostility between two countries and to build sustainable peace based on the five fundamental principles that Azerbaijan suggested to Armenian side. 

“Then I think that Azerbaijan has also established model of resolution of one of the most prolonged conflicts on the wider map of Eurasia.” 

He continued “The OSCE has failed to resolve the conflict, although the Karabakh conflict has been one of the issues facing the OSCE since the very establishment of this institution.

“The Minsk Group has failed: the Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship Institute has failed because the mission of that institution was to maintain and continue the occupation of Armenia against Azerbaijan. 

“This chapter of the military occupation and injustice is now over.  Therefore, Azerbaijan’s agenda is now about peace and to normalise bilateral relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

“But any peace engagement requires two sides to play their role, and Armenia should also perform her role and demonstrate positivity and good will. We have already submitted to the Armenian side fifth revised version of the peace treaty, but it takes more than two months since they have not responded yet. 

“Now new realities have emerged in our region. These new realities are based on legality and legitimacy.”

He went on to discuss Azerbaijan’s intentions in its future relationship with Armenia. “We would like to build new regional security architecture in the region, based on the principles of justice, recognising one another’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, and ceasing all territorial claims on one another. 

“Also, we support bilateral engagement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I think that we should come to the conclusion of peace. And then I think that other partners can also support that agreement.” 

He emphasised, “First of all, peace lies and regional security lies not in Brussels, not in Paris, not in Washington, or Moscow or somewhere else. Peace lies in the region itself.”

Concerning the attitudes of the EU institutions towards Azerbaijan during the years of the so-called frozen conflict he referred to feelings of Azerbaijanophobia or Islamophobia, particularly in certain quarters of the European Parliament.

“That’s also not that helpful for the EU’s ambitions or interests in the regional resources,” Mr  Hajiyev said. “And also we have taken note of a recent unnecessary statement of the European Council putting unnecessary criticism against Azerbaijan… European institutions as such never were just with regard to Azerbaijan when Azerbaijan’s territories were under occupation.

“My question is, why? And for so many years, there was one attitude for separatist entities in Georgia, in Moldova, and in Ukraine, but there was some other attitude towards Azerbaijan.”

He then pointed out that “some EU member countries, like France, have started a militarisation program in Armenia. 

“First, we don’t think that any militarisation program is helpful. 

“Armenia doesn’t need a militarisation program. Armenia needs a peaceful program to prepare Armenian peace for its neighbouring countries. So I think that such militarisation programs are detrimental.” 

He referred to the fact that missile-capable military armed personnel carriers are being supplied by France to Armenia. 

It has also been reported that Armenia is to purchase “Mistral” short-range surface-to-air missiles and three radar systems from France.

“We have always advised the member states, such as France, first, don’t support separatism in Azerbaijan’s territories. Second, don’t send unnecessary messages of supporting revanchism in Armenia, and also stop presenting geopolitical unnecessary games in our region. Unfortunately, these are the facts.”

He then stated however, “We think that this is a historical opportunity and a historical momentum, and that appropriate European institutions should also be part of the solution, not the problem, to advance a peaceful agenda in the region of the social crisis.”