ErdoFascism turks In Their Natural Behavior

[Yervant1]

 

TheAtlantic.com

 

Where the Hatred Comes From

What I learned in the space between death threats and bodyguards

 

By Orhan Pamuk

Tyler Comrie / Atlantic; Getty

September 9, 2022, 8:22 AM ET

About the author: Orhan Pamuk, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature whose books have been translated into 64 languages, is the author of the forthcoming novel Nights of Plague.

Updated at 10:36 a.m. ET on September 9, 2022.

When I told a few friends that I wanted to write a short piece about the assault on Salman Rushdie, they warned me to be careful—even though, for about 15 years, I have been protected by bodyguards assigned to me by the Turkish government. They are right to be concerned.

It has been depressing to see the way the attack has been received with some approval in Iran and other Muslim countries. Several people told the Associated Press they were pleased to hear that the Indian-born writer—whose 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, they felt insulted the Islamic faith—had been hurt. Some worried about how it would affect Iran’s relationships with other countries. I would not want to make broad conclusions based on social-media comments, but a quick glance at various platforms in Turkey, where I live, shows that many people believe that freedom of _expression_ must not be confused with the freedom to offend or insult. They seem to think that the author had it coming, and they would be glad to see him dead.

Those who have denounced the attack in printed newspapers—most of which are directly or indirectly controlled by the state—rarely do so in the name of free speech, claiming instead that it must have been a false-flag operation staged by the West, maybe by America itself, to put Muslim countries and Islam in a bad light. Even among the Turkish writers and intellectuals who I know value free speech, few have been eager to protest or even draw attention to the matter.

I’ve had many long conversations with writers who have received death threats, especially from “Islamists” or “Islamic extremists,” and with writers and journalists who—for various reasons—live under threat in Muslim countries such as Egypt and Turkey. The threats I face in Turkey are primarily not from Islamic extremists, but rather from nationalists who take issue with my comments on the Armenian genocide and think I am insulting Turkish history—though, in truth, these two groups are not too distant from each other, and Turkey is currently governed by an Islamic-nationalist coalition.

Life under protective surveillance almost always feels like a suffocating ordeal. It means that one is never able to fully experience the pleasure of being forgotten. The number of my guards fluctuates over time, depending on where I am and what the political mood is. No matter how kind they are, or how hard they try to stay out of sight, this is not a pleasant experience. If bodyguards are to do their job properly, they cannot be invisible; on the contrary, they must make their presence felt and be seen to be protecting the author, to discourage would-be assailants. In these conditions, any writer may quickly become disconnected from the “normal” day-to-day life that is our most natural source of inspiration. There were times, at least before I was charged with insulting the government in the mid-2000s and faced a barrage of death threats, when I refused bodyguards so as not to inhibit the natural flow of my daily life. There were also moments when I could sense that my home and my office were being guarded by plainclothes policemen sent by the state, and although no one had asked for my permission, I did not object. Soon I had so many bodyguards assigned to me that it became difficult to sit in a café and write, or to take an aimless stroll around Istanbul.

It is, of course, reassuring to know that I am being protected, and there is comfort in being shielded from physical and verbal assaults. I am fully aware that I owe to my bodyguards my ability, while researching my novel A Strangeness in My Mind, to walk around at night taking photographs in distant, gloomy neighborhoods where I might have been in danger even if I were not known as a particularly outspoken writer.

The difficulties of living under state-ordained protective surveillance are compounded by such a multitude of bureaucratic rules and requirements that the act of protection becomes a duty and an inconvenience not just for the bodyguards but for the author they are guarding, too. Say I have a meeting to attend, or wish to visit a relative. If I feel that the route and modes of transport I plan to take to get there are safe enough, and would rather be alone, I have to sign an official form declaring that I do not want to be accompanied by bodyguards. Arranging bodyguards for when I want to leave Istanbul and go to a different Turkish city requires a different set of forms.

All of these bureaucratic hurdles and the constant presence of bodyguards become so irksome that the individual living under surveillance can no longer have a “private life,” and is always aware of being watched and monitored. At times I have wondered whether the main thing making certain writers a target is the very fact that they are being protected. Once you have been identified as a target, even people who have no connection to the matter will start to see you as such, and to look at you as if you were some strange, unfathomable creature.

Protection is an incessant reminder to the writer that they have become an object of loathing among certain nationalistic, political, and religious factions, and soon they begin to crave escape from that real or imagined hatred. I know from my own experience that after the most dangerous first few years, the writer under protection wants to believe that “the worst is over”: Perhaps we don’t need bodyguards anymore, and we can return to the old, beautiful, “normal” life. Unfortunately, most of the time this is not a realistic decision. So the universities, foundations, and cities that invite a writer who is under threat to speak should automatically protect the safety of this writer—no matter what the writer may think or say about their own condition.

Living under protection has frequently prompted me to think of the people who make these threats. Did they really mean the death threats they uttered? Do they still stand behind their words, or have they forgotten about me by now? Is forgetting them in turn, or leaving their threats unanswered, really the best method of dealing with them? These are questions I have often asked myself and my loved ones.

Whenever a writer comes under physical attack, everyone starts talking about responding to words with words, to books with more books. But does this old adage make sense? Those who are pulling the trigger or wielding the knife tend to have read very few books in their life. Had they read more books, or been in the position to write one themselves, would they have turned to this kind of violence? Would they have been capable of it?

What we need to do is use our privilege of free speech to acknowledge the role of class and cultural differences in society—the sense of being second- or third-class citizens, of feeling invisible, unrepresented, unimportant, like one counts for nothing—which can drive people toward extremism. (Rushdie’s 24-year-old assailant worked as a clerk in a discount store.) I say this with a novelist’s awareness that trying to understand a person does not equate to forgiving them or excusing their heinous crimes.

Remembering the class-based cultural differences and nationalistic resentments that lie beneath these kinds of threats and attacks can only serve to strengthen our commitment to free speech. In many cases, these differences in class and social status have become taboo subjects that nobody wishes to hear or dares speak about. The news media, reluctant to appear to be somehow condoning violence, don’t dwell on the fact that the people who turn to it tend to be poor, uneducated, and desperate, and they are instead portrayed as if they were attacking literature itself and all the values it stands for. If we hope to see the principle of freedom of _expression_ thrive in society, the courage of writers like Salman Rushdie will not suffice; we must also be brave enough to think about the sources of the furious hatred they are subjected to.

 

This essay was translated by Ekin Oklap from Turkish.

 

This article originally misstated the year in which The Satanic Verses was published.

 

Orhan Pamuk, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature whose books have been translated into 64 languages, is the author of the forthcoming novel Nights of Plague.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/writers-targets-of-violence-state-protective-surveillance-rushdie-attack/671378/

 

[Yervant1]

PROVIDENCE Mag.

Sept 19 2022

Why are Turkey and Azerbaijan targeting Armenia and Greece?

By Uzay Bulut on September 19, 2022

Denial of the Genocidal Past Perpetuates Future Threats

On September 13, starting at 00:05, the Armenian people once again woke up to the bombs of Azerbaijan.

Less than two years after Azerbaijan’s violent war against the Armenians of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, the military of Azerbaijan is now undertaking an illegal war of aggression against the Republic of Armenia.

According to the government of Armenia, at least 135 Armenian soldiers were killed in nighttime attacks by Azerbaijan. Turkey will continue to stand by Azerbaijan and will always do so, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on the same day.

Azerbaijan’s aggression against Armenians has caused massive destruction to civilian buildings and communities as well as horrific torture and murder of Armenians. Anush Apetyan, a 36-year-old Armenian soldier, for instance, was captured alive in the town of Jermuk in Armenia, and then raped, tortured, and dismembered by Azerbaijani soldiers. They put her severed fingers in her mouth and gouged out her eyes. The Azeri soldiers filmed those barbaric acts and uploaded the video on social media. Apetyan had three kids, ages 16, 15 and 4.

Armenians in Artsakh were also subject to a genocidal assault by Azerbaijan and Turkey during the 2020 war against Artsakh that lasted for 44 days, from September 27 to November 10. The entire world watched while the aggressors committed many crimes and indiscriminately shelled the native lands of the Armenians. Around 90,000 Armenians were forcibly displaced.

Turkish and Azerbaijani soldiers then participated in a military “victory parade” in Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku on December 10, 2020 The parade, organized to celebrate the countries’ joint “military victory” over Artsakh, was attended by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.

During the “victory parade,” Erdogan delivered a speech in which he praised Enver *****, one of the planners of Ottoman Turkey’s 1913-1923 Christian genocide, which targeted Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks. The Ottoman military march was also played during the event.

Erdogan referred to the 1918 Islamic Army of the Caucasus created by Enver ***** and led by the Ottoman commander, Nuri *****. The Islamic Army of the Caucasus was responsible for the massacres eliminating the non-Muslim population of Baku, mainly Armenians. Erdogan said:

Today is the day when the souls of Nuri *****, Enver ***** and the brave soldiers of the Islamic Army of the Caucasus are blessed.

Just as Turkey falsely claims that the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea and Cyprus are Turkish territory, Azerbaijan falsely claims that Artsakh and even Armenia, including its capital Yerevan are Azeri territory.

During his speech Aliyev said that the Armenian capital of Yerevan, Armenia’s Lake Sevan and the Syunik (Zangezur) region in southern Armenia are “historic lands of Azerbaijan.”

This was not the first time Aliyev referred not only to Artsakh but also to the Republic of Armenia as “Azerbaijani lands.” In 2018, for instance, Aliyev referred to the same Armenian regions as “historic lands of Azerbaijan.” “The Azerbaijanis’ return to those territories,” he added, “is our political and strategic goal, and we need to work step-by-step to achieve it.”

To this end, Azerbaijan is targeting Artsakh and Armenia with the full support of Turkey. “We support Azerbaijan until victory,” Erdogan said on October 6, 2020. “I tell my Azerbaijani brothers: May your ghazwa be blessed.”

“Ghazwa” in Islam means a battle or raid against non-Muslims for the expansion of Muslim territory and/or conversion of non-Muslims to Islam. Erdoğan openly claimed that attacks against the Armenian territory constitute jihad. Moreover, it was not only Turkey and Azerbaijan attacking Armenians. Turkey also deployed Syrian jihadists to Azerbaijan to fight against Artsakh, according to a UN report.

Similarly, Turkey recently celebrated the 1922 Smyrna genocide against Greeks and Armenians, which, according to Turkish historiography, was just a “victory against Greek invaders”. On September 4, Erdogan addressed Greece in a public speech:

“Greeks, look at history. If you go any further, the price will be heavy. We have only one phrase for Greece: Do not forget Izmir [the city of Smyrna]. Your occupying the islands [in the Aegean] will not stop us; we will do what is necessary when the time comes. You know what we say: ‘Unexpectedly one night we shall come to [conquer] you’.”

On August 30, which is celebrated as “the Victory Day” in Turkey, Erdogan said:

We see our enemies’ [the Greeks] destroying our cities during their withdrawal [from Anatolia in 1922] as proof of their vile character. Just like they are today.

What Erdogan was referring to was Turkey’s genocidal attack against Greeks and Armenians of the city, also known as Smyrna, in 1922.

The Turkish aggression against Greeks and Armenians has a long history. Greece and Armenia are trying to preserve whatever is left of historical importance from Turkish aggressions – including their native lands, their cultural identity and patrimony. This history of Turkish violence against indigenous Christians – inspired by Islamic jihad and Turkist expansionism – started in the eleventh century with the invasion by Turkic armies from central Asia of eastern Anatolia (or Armenian highlands), which was then within the borders of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire.

Throughout history Turkish governments have had a policy of aggression and persecution against native Christians. The culmination of that persecution was the 1913-23 Greek, Armenian and Assyrian genocides by Ottoman Turkey, which the International Association of Genocide Scholars also recognizes as genocide.

Subsequent Turkish governments have honored the memory of genocide perpetrators as well as the organizers of the 1955 Istanbul pogrom that targeted Greeks, Armenians, and Jews of the city. Many schools, universities, airports, avenues, streets, neighborhoods, and other venues across Turkey are named after genocide perpetrators and other state officials that committed crimes against their own minority citizens.

As the international community’s response to Turkey’s genocide denial has been slow and ineffective, genocide denied means genocide continued. On August 17, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issued a “Red Flag Alert” warning of a possible genocide by the governments of Azerbaijan and Turkey against the Armenian population.

Turkey’s proud denial of these genocides and its continued aggressions against Greece, Armenia and Assyrians in Iraq and Syria are inter-connected. The same ideology that motivated the 1913-23 Christian genocide is today motivating Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s aggressions against Armenians, Greeks and other Christians.

In 2016, Turkey’s Human Rights Association (IHD) announced:

Genocide denial perpetuates genocide. Denial becomes institutionalised, and in fact socialised and internalised by generations of perpetrators. Denial continually reproduces hatred against the identity of the victims.

The international community must move immediately to hold Azerbaijan and Turkey to account. The safety of Greece, Armenia, Cyprus, Iraq, Syria and indeed of Turkish people from their own Turkish government depends on ending the impunity of the illegal actions of the governments of Turkey and Azerbaijan.

https://providencemag.com/2022/09/why-are-turkey-and-azerbaijan-targeting-armenia-and-greece/

[Yervant1]

Sept 29 2022

Pan-Turkism's aggressive dreams of empire – yesterday and today

September 29, 2022WND Guest Columnist

By Lucine Kasbarian

Turkey’s imperial ambition of creating a Pan-Turkic empire, ruled from Ankara, is on display in today’s Caucasus and elsewhere.

This racist ideology envisions an empire that would include any country or region speaking a Turkic-type language regardless of how distant that language is from the language spoken in Turkey and regardless of whether the people in those regions approve of such an empire. This doctrine was and continues to be a key element of Turkish foreign policy.

A country standing in the way, Christian Armenia, is considered the Cradle of Civilization. In biblical tradition, Noah’s Ark rested upon the peaks of Mt. Ararat – the historic symbol of Armenia. The Armenian language is considered to be one of the mothers (if not the mother) of all Indo-European languages. Armenia is decidedly non-Turkic.

Yesterday’s Pan-Turkism

Pan-Turkism was a prime motivator for Ottoman Turkey to enter World War I against the Allies in 1914.

Not only did Ottoman Turkey aspire to expand its existing Middle East empire but sought to spread east and include all the regions (most were not even countries back then) depicted in the editorial cartoon accompanying this article. Features of pan-Turkism would include actively involving different countries, primarily Turkic-speaking ones, in the sphere of Turkey’s ideological, cultural, military, diplomatic and economic influence.

In a bid for the pan-Turkic goal, Ottoman Turkey aimed to eradicate the indigenous Christian people who lived in what is today called Turkey – that is, Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks.

The latter peoples inhabited these lands and had established states thousands of years before Turkic tribes arrived from Central Asia and Mongolia and conquered Constantinople in 1453.

Pan-Turkism was a primary reason for Turkey to commit genocide against Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks from 1915 to 1923. Turkey sought to homogenize and Turkify its empire. To achieve this goal, millions of indigenous Christians were tortured, slaughtered or abducted and turned into concubines and forcibly converted to Islam.

The genocides continued under Turkish dictator Kemal Ataturk even after WWI. He ordered his generals to “destroy Armenia politically and physically.”

Turkey’s genocidal goals and those of its partner, Azerbaijan, are no secret. Those sentiments are echoed today by Turkish tyrant Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azeri dictator Ilham Aliyev, who express a desire to eliminate Armenia as a dam wall between their Turkic states.

Today, Christian Armenia (population just under 3 million) is the object of Turkey’s (population 86 million) and Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan’s (population 10 million) aggression, just as it was during World War I.

Present manifestations of Pan-Turkism

Libyan journalist Alaeddin Saleh speaks to the threat of pan-Turkism when he writes, “Ankara seeks to exploit the alliance with Baku to strengthen its foothold in the region in a bid to restore the Ottoman Empire and merge the Turkic States of Central Asia into a seamless logistics space with common armed forces.”

Pan-Turkism does not simply affect central Asia or Armenia, however. As academic Dimitrios Aristopoulos writes, the intervention of Turkey in Libya, as well as in Syria and its claims over the economic zones of Greece and Cyprus in the East Mediterranean, is also part of the Pan-Turkist political agenda.

Land seizure as a feature of Pan-Turkism

Turkey does not have direct access to Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. Armenia prevents this. In the hopes of economically strangling the latter, Turkey and Azerbaijan closed their borders with Armenia soon after the USSR dissolved. This blockade was a mixed blessing. While it prevented the transport of goods in and out of Armenia via those states, it also prevented either country from engaging in destructive activities toward Armenia.

Georgia and Iran currently serve as Turkish routes to Azerbaijan and beyond – but these are indirect avenues. Currently, the Turkey-Azerbaijan connection route is the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) crude oil pipeline. It extends from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli oil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. It connects Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and Ceyhan, a port on the southeastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey, via Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

In 2020, Azerbaijan, under the direction of Turkey, attacked not just the self-governing region of Artsakh, but also Armenia proper. Turkey provided the management, weapons, troops, ISIS jihadists and other terrorists for this aggression. Azerbaijan also received American F-16s and Israeli drones. The visible purpose for the attacks was to win by invasion that which could not be won morally or diplomatically or by sheer historic facts – a historically Armenian territory called Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh). But the intention went deeper: It includes capturing Armenia proper in order to geographically connect Turkey with Azerbaijan via the Syunik province of Armenia, also known as the Zangezur region. Syunik links Armenia with Iran, Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan – a historically Armenian enclave now in Azeri hands.

Turkey and Azerbaijan consider themselves “One Nation, Two States.” In 2019, however, Erdogan revealed himself when he stated, “The main instrument to achieve this goal [of Pan-Turkism] is the Turkic Council, created in 2009, which united all (with the exception of Turkmenistan) modern representatives of the Turkic world. Until today, we said, ‘One nation – two states.’ Yesterday I stated that now we have become one nation [within] five states. With God’s help, Turkmenistan will also join us, and thus we will become one nation [within] six states. We will strengthen joint cooperation in the region.”

Azerbaijani President Aliyev even claims that Yerevan (the capital of Armenia), Lake Sevan and southern Armenia belong to “ancient Azerbaijan.” This absurd assertion can be refuted if one consults maps, including ancient ones. In the entire history of the world, there was no such country as Azerbaijan until 1918.

Breaking through via destruction

Following the Azeri invasion of 2020, Azerbaijani troops continued to invade and occupy parts of southern Armenia and cull hostages even after a peace agreement was reached by both parties.

According to analysts evaluating the peace agreement, a proposed opening of existing transport routes between Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan were for just that: the exchange of goods. While Turkey and Azerbaijan show no intention of allowing Armenia unfettered transport access to Europe via Turkey, in 2021 Azerbaijan’s Aliyev emphasized the pan-Turkic aspect of their campaigning when he said,”Both Turkey and Azerbaijan will take necessary steps for the realization of the Zangezur Corridor … to unite the entire Turkic world.”

Transport links serve one purpose. “Corridors,” on the other hand, can mean anything. There are many other reasons to look upon the penetration designs of Turkey and Azerbaijan with misgivings. During and even after the 2020 war waged on Armenia and the Armenian Republic of Artsakh, Azerbaijan occupied sovereign Armenia and either closed roads or attempted to illegally extract “tolls” from truckers who had to turn back with their goods.

Just days ago, on Sept. 13, Azerbaijan again invaded and attacked Armenia. Although a Russian-brokered cease-fire supposedly went into effect two days later, Azeri incursions continue and Armenia still stands alone without military aid from anyone.

Genocide as a feature of Pan-Turkism

Pan-Turkism is not some benign, theoretical goal. It threatens regional stability. It is serious, aggressive and omnipresent. The threat of a renewed Armenian genocide is a daily reality.

The Caucasus is a dangerous neighborhood. If Western hawks seek to contain Russia and Iran via Pan-Turkism, do they think this premise can later be switched off at will? How would the genie be put back in the bottle? All that aside, all hell would break loose if reckless actors tried to tamper with Iran’s borders. In recent days, Iran and Azerbaijan announced the construction of a major motorway bridge over the border on the Arax River amid plans to set up a new transit corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan through the Iranian territory. If so, then why the need to seize and cut through Armenia?

Hypothetically, if Armenia were to exit the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) or refuse to engage with regional powers Russia or Iran, it could lead to national suicide for landlocked, blockaded Armenia. She is sandwiched between two states with genocidal track records and has no confidence that the U.S. or NATO would become a guarantor for Armenia. Much as U.S.-Armenia relations have been warm for centuries, history has shown that the West abandoned its “Little Ally,” Armenia, when a mandate was imperative. It is more likely NATO would urge Turkey and Azerbaijan to fully capture and absorb Armenia as a way to bring the region into the Western orbit.

While the West aspires to limit consumer use of natural gas and petrol, it simultaneously seeks those resources from alternate sources – such as Azerbaijan – to boycott Russian suppliers and Iranian conduits. Geopolitically, this attempt to thwart Russia and Iran is flawed and short-sighted. Should Azerbaijan and Turkey succeed in substituting their own energy sources for Russian gas to supply Europe and beyond (and exclude Iran as an economic conveyor belt) what is to prevent Turkey and Azerbaijan from withholding those resources at will for political gain? Turkey did just that when Erdogan threatened to release Syrian refugees into Europe if his demands were not met, or if we recall his many dam-building sprees intended to starve his adversaries.

If Armenia were to consider economic transport convoys through its territory, it would have to have military support to prevent Trojan horses that could engender hostile takeovers and genocides. (Armenia would also have to reserve the right to impose tolls.) But who would the military protectors be? Russians? Iranians? Turks? Azeris? Americans? NATO? The United Nations Peacekeepers? This scenario could unleash World War III.

Indeed, neither Turkey nor Azerbaijan can be honest brokers in any negotiation with Armenia, not only in light of historical outcomes, but also the present day. Both continue to openly destroy all vestiges of Armenian pedigree, life and culture, including torturing POWs and civilians alike, employing banned chemical weapons and destroying churches, monasteries, monuments and cemeteries now under their control.

For these reasons, Turkish and Azeri transport routes should continue to circumvent Armenia. Armenia should no longer be the site of a tug-of-war between Russia on the one hand and the United States and NATO on the other. The practical and moral imperative is to expose (and oppose) Pan-Turkism.

Rejecting Pan-Turkism for democracy, humanity and peace

“Despite the fact that Turkey during Erdogan’s rule has theoretically abandoned Pan-Turkist rhetoric in favor of Neo-Ottomanism,” says academic Dimitrios Aristopoulos, “in practice it is still pan-Turkist ideology that determines Turkish geopolitics.”

And it doesn’t stop there. “From its support of the Muslim Brotherhood and its invasion of Northern Syria,” continues Aristopoulos, “to its involvement in the Libyan civil war, as well as the illegal immigration threats again [sic], Greece and Europe, and the war in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), combined with the persecution of Kurds, all are nothing more than parts of the agenda of the Pan-Turkish doctrine on Turkey’s expansionist policy.”

During the anniversary of Kemal Ataturk’s death on Nov. 10, 2016, Erdogan openly declared that ”Turkey is greater than Turkey,” while at the same time spoke of his doctrine about the ”borders of the heart.” He stated that ”We cannot be imprisoned in 780 thousand square kilometers. Our physical borders are different to the borders of the heart. Our brothers who live in areas of Mosul, Kirkuk, Humus, Skopje, may be beyond the natural borders of Turkey, but they will always be on the borders of our hearts.”

In the words of public intellectual Vahan Babakhanyan, “The ideology of Turkism is not just dangerous, it is actually a form of genocide. Pan-Turkism is masking as a culture and a religion,” says Babakhanyan, “while remaining an essentially aggressive racist doctrine for the seizure of foreign lands and for the creation of a ‘Great Turan.'”

Lucine Kasbarian is a writer and editorial cartoonist based in the U.S. She dedicates this article to statesman Karekin Njdeh who lived and died for Syunik and Armenia. Visit her at www.lucinekasbarian.com

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

https://www.wndnewscenter.org/pan-turkisms-aggressive-dreams-of-empire-yesterday-and-today/

[Yervant1]

The real Turkey!

Oct 4 2022

Turkey: Hate Crimes Targeting Religious Minorities On the Rise

By Uzay Bulut on October 4, 2022

Today, only 0.1 percent of Turkey’s population of nearly 85 million are Christian or Jewish. Both communities (including other non-Muslims and ex-Muslims) are exposed to hate crimes at the hands of the country’s Muslim population.

The 2021 Report of “Hate Crimes in Turkey Based on Religion, Belief or Unbelief” by the Freedom of Belief Initiative of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee was released in September.

The report documented 29 hate crimes or incidents related to religion, belief or non-belief between January and December 2021. The victims are Alevis, Christians, Jews, and atheists.

The report notes that the actual number of hate crimes that target religious minorities are higher than the number of incidents reported to authorities.

“Considering the fact that, as a general trend, hate crimes are reported [to police] and documented far less than they happen, it can be concluded that these numbers [of the hate crimes in the report] only reveal a general picture.”

The report lists the main obstacles to reporting or notification of hate crimes:

“Victims are used to hateful acts and have a high threshold for reporting or notifying [the authorities of these crimes],

“Victims prefer not to report [hate crimes] considering their risk of exclusion [from society],

“Victims are concerned that their allegations will not be taken seriously or that they will face greater victimization, including at the hands of police officers, if they report [the hate crimes they are subject to].”

None of the hate crimes in 2021 were handled through an effective legal process, said the report. Those hate crimes include damage to property, threats, violent attacks against individuals, damage to places of worship and cemeteries, harassment, and insults. Some places related to religious, or belief communities were repeatedly targeted.

While the report was under preparation, several hate crimes that targeted religious minorities took place in July 2022. For example, on July 15, in the Haskoy neighborhood of Istanbul, 81 tombstones in the Jewish cemetery were destroyed. On July 30, two Alevi places of worship (cem houses) and an Alevi foundation were attacked in Ankara.

“These incidents demonstrate that belief-based hate crimes can happen at any time in Turkey and how important it is to take multidimensional measures,” the report said.

The victims are targeted due to their non-Muslim belief or lack of belief regardless of their ethnicity. Assyrians, Armenians, Jews, atheists, and even Turkish converts to Protestantism were exposed to threats and abuse.

Today, most of the remaining Christians and Jews in Turkey live in Istanbul. The historic Jewish and Christian presence across Asia Minor almost completely ended because of decades-long persecution against the communities by subsequent Turkish government and Muslim locals. However, even the remnants of their cultural and religious heritage are exposed to violations and destruction. Some examples of hate crimes from last year include:

The Protestant community in the Arhavi town of Artvin became a target in print and digital media for being “missionaries”… Some people then put pressure on the landlord of the Protestant community leader to evict him… The community leader was also targeted with threats such as “dead priest walking” while walking in the streets.

The Protestant Kurtuluş Church leader and church community in the city of Aydın were also threatened on their Facebook posts with messages calling for the killing and beheading of Christians.

The Assyrian-Syriac Marta Şimoni Church in Şırnak’s Beytüşşebap district was subject to a violent attack. The rosaries were found thrown out and the statues in the church were thrown to the ground. The fabrics hung for the sick to be healed were taken out of the church and thrown from a slope. The church’s cross was also found on the ground.

An Armenian cemetery in Van was destroyed with construction machinery. Soil was poured on the gravestones that were removed from their places; the bones in the cemetery appeared on the ground.

A Turkish nationalist member of parliament, Ümit Özdağ, targeted the Armenian Member of Parliament Garo Paylan, by saying: “When the

time comes, you too will and must experience a Talat ***** experience.” Talat ***** was one of the organizers of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey.

The signboard of the Jewish cemetery in the city of Manisa was damaged for the second time in two years. The Environment and Urban Law Commission of the Diyarbakir Bar Association filed a criminal complaint with the Chief Prosecutor’s Office regarding the devastation of the synagogue in Çermik district of Diyarbakir. The gate of the historical Kasturya Synagogue in Istanbul and some of its remnants were set on fire by “unidentified persons.”

A person living in the city of Diyarbakir sought help from the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, saying he was threatened and stalked on his way home for being an atheist. The prosecutor’s office decided that there was no need to prosecute. The victim’s appeal was also rejected. In the city of Batman, a member and volunteer of the Atheism Association was reportedly battered with a gun.

Alevis, a historically persecuted community in Turkey, have a population which is estimated in the tens of millions, thereby being the country’s largest religious minority. But as the Turkish government does not officially recognize the Alevis, they are counted by the government as “Muslim,” not as a belief community with their own authentic faith and culture.

Alevis top the list of victims of hate crimes in the report. An Alevi family living in Istanbul, for instance, said that their neighbors attacked and beat them, shouting hateful slogans such as “May Allah burn those who are disturbed by the sound of the adhan [islamic call to prayer]”. A Muslim teacher in Ankara insulted Alevis, including his own Alevi students and their parents, because of their Alevi identity. An Alevi sought help from the police after experiencing insults by an imam in the city of Amasya. An Alevi family living in Izmir said that they were exposed to insults, verbal abuse, and threats from their neighbors. A middle school teacher in the city of Hatay was subjected to systematic pressure, harassment, and coercion at the hands of the school principal for being an Alevi.

Five Alevi houses in the city of Yalova were crossed and “Alevi” was written on their walls. Marking Alevi houses with some letters or crosses has become a widespread phenomenon in Turkey. This poses a security threat to the Alevi community as Alevis were repeatedly massacred throughout Turkey’s history. And marking their locations could be a signal that they are singled out for a future massacre or pogrom. During the 1978 massacre against Alevis in the city of Malatya, for instance, some masked people attacked and burned down the houses, offices and businesses belonging to Alevis and left-wingers which had been marked beforehand.

What is it that makes people of a certain ideology, such as Islam, target, attack, and abuse even their own colleagues, neighbors, or students simply for their non-Muslim identity? What makes them see past their humanity? What makes them damage or destroy even the cemeteries and places of worship of non-Muslims, whom Islamic scriptures call “kafirs”?

Dr. Bill Warner, the president of the Center for the Study of Political Islam (CSPI), describes what the term “kafir” means according to Islamic scriptures:

“The language of Islam is dualistic. As an example, there is never any reference to humanity as a unified whole. Instead, there is a division into believer and kafir (unbeliever). Humanity is not seen as one body but is divided into whether the person believes Mohammed is the prophet of Allah or not.

“Kafir is what the Koran and Islam call the unbelievers. Kafir is the worst word in the human language. The Koran defines the kafir and says that the kafir is:

“Hated (40:35), mocked (83:34), punished (25:77), beheaded (47:4), confused (6:25), plotted against (86:15), terrorized (8:12), annihilated (6:45), killed (4:91), crucified (5:33), made war on (9:29), ignorant (6:111), evil (23:97), disgraced (37:18), unclean (9:28), cursed (33:60), stolen from (Bukhari 5,59,537), raped (Ishaq 759). A Muslim is not the friend of a kafir (Koran-3:28).

“Christians and Jews are infidels, but infidels are kafirs, too. Polytheists are Hindus, but they are also kafirs. The terms infidel and polytheist are religious words. Only the word “kafir” shows the common political treatment of Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, animist, atheist and humanist.

“The word kafir should be used instead of ‘unbeliever’, the standard word. Unbeliever is a neutral term. The Koran defines the kafir and kafir is not a neutral word. A kafir is not merely someone who does not agree with Islam, but a kafir is evil, disgusting, the lowest form of life. Kafirs can be tortured, killed, lied to and cheated. So the usual word “unbeliever” does not reflect the political reality of Islam.”

This mentality has brought, and continues to bring, so much suffering, abuse and injustice to non-Muslims in Turkey and other majority-Muslim countries.

Historic Asia Minor, which is today inside modern Turkey’s borders, was a majority-Christian country at the time of the Eastern Roman Empire. This was before the Turkish conquest of the region in the eleventh century. Despite centuries-long Turkish oppression that targeted indigenous Christians and Jews (which includes a genocide, pogroms, and official discrimination), those communities preserved their sizable presence – at least in Istanbul – under Turkish rule until the 1955 pogrom. While the government of Turkey has finally achieved the establishment of a completely Muslim-dominated state and political system, the persecution and hate speech against non-Muslims, confiscation of their properties, and threats of further violence never ends. And bringing those realities to light remains a taboo in Turkey – even an “offense” whose “perpetrators” face threats, prosecution, jail time or even worse outcomes.

https://providencemag.com/2022/10/turkey-hate-crimes-targeting-religious-minorities-on-the-rise/

 

[Yervant1]

Oct 12 2022

France: Cavusoglu’s incredible audacity – he called on the Turks in France to “move” against the Armenians

The reaction of the Armenian organizations was due to the urging of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Mevult Cavusogluto the citizens who live in it FranceTo act against the Armenian diaspora in a more coordinated manner.

Advice given by him during his last visit Cavusoglu In Strasbourg, where he met at the Turkish consulate with representatives of the Turkish community in France.

“If the Turkish commandos attack the Armenians, Erdogan will be responsible”

Frank Babajian, co-chair of the Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations in France, said that through this report, the Turkish minister encourages violence against French Armenians.

“We feel threatened by the Turkish minister’s words. We consider his words a call to violence, and we expect the French government to take all necessary precautions,” he added.

At the same time, he criticized the French government because, as he pointed out, “it does not respond because it does not want to anger Turkey.”

Papadzian stressed that “the history of relations between the French and Turkish governments in recent years shows that Paris never provides adequate answers to Ankara’s insults and threats,” and demanded that the French government expel the Turkish ambassador, to demand a public apology and hold Erdogan responsible. In the event of attacks on the population by Turkish commandos.

Source: RES-MPE

Aygen

“Hipster-friendly coffee fanatic. Subtly charming bacon advocate. Friend of animals everywhere.”

https://www.thevalleypost.com/france-cavusoglus-incredible-audacity-he-called-on-the-turks-in-france-to-move-against-the-armenians/

[Yervant1]

Oct 18 2022

COLUMNS

VIDEO: The Turkic Jihad on Christian Armenia

BY RAYMOND IBRAHIM

An in-depth discussion with OANN’s Kara McKinney on Why Armenia Will Never Know Peace from Surrounding Islam:

Watch the video at the link below:

https://pjmedia.com/columns/raymond-ibrahim/2022/10/18/video-the-turkic-jihad-on-christian-armenia-n1637944

[Yervant1]

Asbarez.com

UN Body on Use of Mercenaries Urged to Sanction Azerbaijan and Turkey for Employing Terrorists During 44-Day War

by Contributor

October 18, 2022

in Artsakh, Latest, News, Top Stories

Turkey deployed Syrian mercenaries to fight alongside Azerbaijani forces during 2020 Artsakh war

 

The Center for Truth and Justice submitted a report on October 11 to the United Nations about Azerbaijan’s use of terrorist mercenaries in the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. The report urged the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries to investigate Azerbaijan’s use of mercenaries during the Working Group’s upcoming visit to Armenia in early 2023. CFTJ’s report indicates that Azerbaijan has violated its obligations as a state party to the UN Convention on Mercenaries by recruiting, using, financing and training mercenaries during the 2020 war.

The report contains summaries of four detailed accounts from firsthand witnesses who personally encountered mercenaries from Syria, hired by Azerbaijan and Turkey to travel to Azerbaijan and participate in the attack on Nagorno-Karabakh. One witness served as an official translator to two Syrian mercenaries during their interrogation by Armenian authorities following their capture. The witnesses detailed the mercenaries’ accountings of recruitment, travel to Azerbaijan, pay, training, and the explicit order to kill and behead Armenian soldiers and civilians for additional pay. Beheadings were required to be proven through photographs in order to receive the additional compensation of $100 for civilians or $200 for soldiers.

Another witness described being attacked by someone screaming “Allahu Akbar,” being left for dead, and later captured, detained in Azerbaijan, and tortured by Azerbaijani authorities. Another witness from Nagorno-Karabakh who fought in the 2020 war described encountering mercenaries while fighting. As the witness was fluent in Azerbaijani, he was able to observe that the opposition fighters were not speaking Azerbaijani but rather Arabic (which is not spoken in Azerbaijan). The witness described his surprise of seeing those particular soldiers react with apathy when another soldier was killed, supporting his theory that the soldiers did not know each other and were not part of Azerbaijan’s national forces. A final witness described directly meeting a Syrian mercenary in Jabrayil, who told him that they [the mercenaries from Syria] were lied to about the war and disclosed the pay they received for being proxy fighters.

Based on the firsthand accounts detailed in CFTJ’s report, the mercenaries hired by Azerbaijan and Turkey committed crimes that constitute violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, and Azerbaijan defied its obligations as a state party to the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries. During the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, Azerbaijan committed grave violations of international law, including extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, and destruction of civilian properties using indiscriminate and internationally banned weapons. Turkey co-perpetrated these crimes by recruiting an estimated 2,580 mercenaries from Syria to fight for Azerbaijan against Armenian nationals. As noted in CFTJ’s report, the UN Working Group has previously expressed concern about Turkey’s recruitment and transfer of Syrian mercenaries to Azerbaijan. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has also condemned Azerbaijan’s use, with Turkey’s assistance, of Syrian mercenaries.

CFTJ’s report urges the UN Working Group to meet with witnesses and mercenaries during their upcoming visit to Armenia, and to then send Azerbaijan and Turkey an allegation letter as well as an urgent appeal. Given that the war of Azerbaijan on Armenia is ongoing, there is cause for serious concern that additional recruitment of mercenaries will recur, says CFTJ.

CFTJ is a US-based nonprofit nongovernmental human rights organization documenting violations of international law via firsthand testimonial evidence. Established in November 2020 as a response to the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, CFTJ has since recorded over 350 testimonies from conflict victims and witnesses, including firsthand accounts detailing the recruitment, financing, and use of mercenaries by Azerbaijan and Turkey.

https://asbarez.com/un-working-group-on-use-of-mercenaries-urged-to-sanction-azerbaijan-and-turkey-for-employing-terrorist-mercenaries/?fbclid=IwAR2Tu9SqmeCf_t5omVDYBBbRMjMI9Cr_cpiEec0FTTnciPbi4d4CNZhv_oY

[Yervant1]

When Will the World Put a Stop

To Turkey’s Criminal Behavior?

By Harut Sassounian

Publisher, The California Courier

www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

For many years, dozens of reports have been written about the Turkish government’s large-scale kidnapping of Turkish citizens from around the world for criticizing Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime.

Exiled investigative Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt has exposed these illegal Turkish activities, providing copies of confidential documents he has received from sources inside the Turkish government. Not surprisingly, Turkey has issued a warrant for his arrest. He publishes the Nordic Monitor in Sweden.

Bozkurt wrote an article on Nov. 3, 2022, in Nordic Monitor, titled: “Spying by Turkish diplomats continued in 2022 with new targets in Norway, Netherlands, Greece.”

Bozkurt published a secret Turkish document issued by the Security General Directorate on June 7, 2022. He revealed that Turkish diplomats stationed at embassies and consulates overseas continue “the unlawful practice of intelligence gathering on critics and opponents in Europe.”

Bozkurt reported that “Two Turkish diplomats, then-Press Attaché Hacı Mehmet Gani and Hakan Kamil Yerge, then-second secretary at the Turkish Embassy in Bern, plotted to drug and kidnap a Swiss-Turkish businessman in 2016. In June 2018, the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland issued arrest warrants for the two Turkish diplomats.”

In addition to attempting to seize and return home its opponents, the Turkish government jails their relatives at home and confiscates their assets.

In a second article published in Nordic Monitor on Nov. 4, 2022, titled: “Turkish intelligence continues to spy on journalists in Sweden,” Bozkurt reported that Levent Kenez, editor of Nordic Monitor in Sweden, “was spied on by Turkey’s intelligence agency, which leaked his private information to the Turkish media. [sabah], a newspaper run by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s family, published photos of Kenez last Tuesday in front of his apartment in Stockholm, where he lives with his family, and disclosed his address and details of his daily routine,” endangering their lives. It is clear that after silencing his domestic critics, Erdogan is now trying to silence his critics abroad.

A third article titled, “Turkish diplomats exploited US Homeland Security website to track a dissident in the US,” was published by Bozkurt in Nordic Monitor on Nov. 2, 2022.

Bozkurt revealed a secret Turkish document which showed that the Turkish intelligence agency used the website of US Customs and Border Protection to track a Turkish doctor in the United States who is critical of the Turkish government. It is a crime to access the personal information of individuals on the U.S. government’s website.

Bozkurt reported that in the years 2016-17 alone, Turkish embassies and consulates profiled 4,386 critics of Turkey who were residing abroad. In 2021, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated that Turkish diplomats assigned to embassies and consulates have officially been instructed by the government to conduct clandestine spying operations on foreign soil. In addition, pro-Erdogan Turkish networks and organizations overseas have acted as the long arm of the Turkish regime.

In 2019, the U.S. government convicted Kamil Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish government operative, for running surveillance on opponents of Erdogan in the United States. Alptekin remains a fugitive and is currently hiding in Turkey, while his associate Bijan Rafiekian was tried and convicted of acting covertly in 2019 as an agent of the Turkish government in the United States, without disclosing that relationship to the U.S. government, according to Bozkurt.

Matthew Amlot published in Al Arabiya an article on July 12, 2020, titled: “Turkey signed secret agreements with countries to abduct dissidents from abroad.” According to a joint letter written by four UN rapporteurs, “Turkey signed secret agreements with multiple countries [Azerbaijan, Albania, Cambodia, and Gabon] in order to conduct extraterritorial abductions of suspected state dissidents … Turkey also targeted [its] nationals in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Lebanon and Pakistan, according to the letter.”

The UN letter stated that “The Government of Turkey, in coordination with other States, is reported to have forcibly transferred over 100 Turkish nationals to Turkey, of which 40 individuals have been subjected to enforced disappearance, mostly abducted off the streets or from their homes all over the world, and in multiple instances along with their children.”

Alice Taylor wrote in “Exit News” that “in November 2018, the Turkish Foreign Minister informed Parliament that 452 extradition requests had been sent to a total of 83 countries.”

Yasir Gokce wrote an article published on Nov. 25, 2018 in Harvard University’s Kennedy School Review, titled: “Turkey’s Kidnappings Abroad Defy International Law.” These illegal abductions should be brought in front of the U.N. Security Council and the International Court of Justice, Gokce suggested.

In 2020, Johan Heymans in collaboration with International Observatory of Human Rights published a 128-page report, based partly on a report by the Ankara Bar Association, documenting the specific cases of deportation or abductions of Turkish citizens from 17 countries: Moldova, Azerbaijan, Gabon, Sudan, Kosovo, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Ukraine, Lebanon, Malaysia, Switzerland, and Mongolia.

Finally, OpenDemocracy.net published an article by Serdar San on June 16, 2021, titled: “Turkish spies are abducting Erdogan’s political opponents abroad.”

Serdar San correctly observed that “emboldened by a lack of repercussions from NATO and the EU, President Erdogan’s regime is kidnapping dissidents” to silence political dissent. This is the fault of Western governments for turning a blind eye to the illegal behavior of successive Turkish governments, encouraging them to continue violating domestic and international laws for decades.

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

[Yervant1]

TorontoSun.com

FATAH: Canada and NATO need to stand up against Turkey

Author of the article:

Tarek Fatah

An Armenian soldier fires artillery on the front line on October 25, 2020, during the ongoing fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Photo by ARIS MESSINIS /AFP via Getty Images

While the world is focused on the war between Russia and Ukraine, another conflict has been reignited on the southern borders of Russia, one that seems to have escaped our collective attention.

Like the Ukraine war, this conflict, too, originates in the breakup of the Soviet Union into its constituent republics — this time, the hostility is between Christian Armenia and Islamic Azerbaijan and centres around the Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorna-Karabakh that is cut off from the rest of Armenia.

Access for the Christian population of Nagorno-Karabakh (known as Artsakh by Armenia) with the rest of Armenia is through Azerbaijan, backed by NATO member Turkey which considers Azeris an extension of Turkish identity.

 

Before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Nagorna-Karabakh was part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Republic. Still, as the USSR broke up from the Baltic Sea republics to the southern Caspian Sea, administrative boundaries gave way to ethnic and linguistic frontiers; the Armenians wanted to be with the new Armenian Republic, not with their Azeri neighbours who were Muslim and Turkish ancestry. This sparked the movement in the region to join Armenia.

As a result, Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war over Nagorno-Karabakh, which ended inconclusively in 1994, placing Nagorno-Karabakh as a de-facto protectorate of Armenia.

 

Periodic clashes had persisted since then, when Azerbaijan invested its growing oil wealth into a modern military. In 2020, a second all-out war erupted for six weeks, leaving Azerbaijan in control of most of the enclave.

 

To demonstrate its pan-Islamic view of the world, Pakistan too sent its troops to fight alongside the Azeris and Turks, some of whom see the world through pan-Turanianism, an ideology that aims at creating a Turkic superstate stretching from the Balkans in Europe, eastwards across Turkey, Iran, the Caucasus, Central Asia up to and including northwest China. (Trust the Pakistanis to be where they are not even on the invitation list).

On the Armenian side, the biggest worry is what’ll happen to the 120,000 residents of Artsakh — as Armenia calls Nagorno-Karabakh — if the blockade continues. At the United Nations Security Council, France on Wednesday called on Azerbaijan to reopen the corridor.

 

“It’s like West Berlin,” Ruben Vardanyan, a Russian-Armenian billionaire and philanthropist recently appointed state minister by the self-proclaimed government of Artsakh, tells Ian Bremmer of GZero.

 

In an interview, Vardanyan says, Azerbaijan can’t have it both ways: “If you want us to be citizens, you must let us live a normal life. We need to find a way to live together like neighbours, not together from (the same) country, but (as) neighbours who need to accept each other, and not hate each other, and not kill each other,” he says. “We will not live together like one state, but we can live together in one region because we’ve been living close to each other (for) hundreds of years.”

They are easier said than done. The conflict on the Caspian Sea cannot be resolved unless Turkey comes to terms with its status as just an ordinary member of NATO; it should not be allowed to blackmail or bully its neighbours and Kurdish minority and lift its veto on Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

 

A NATO without Turkey would be a far better fit for the Western alliance than keeping the likes of an Islamist such as Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an association committed to liberal secular democracy that lives for the future of humanity rather than a Caliph who has wet dreams of his troops on the Gates of Vienna from where they were driven off on 9/11 in the year 1683.

 

As Kevin Williamson wrote in the National Review: “It’s time to boot Turkey from NATO.”

Making little effort to hide his frustrations with the wannabe Ottoman Caliph, Williamson wrote:”NATO is not only a military alliance. It is also a community of liberal-democratic values — which Turkey rejects with increasing vigour and openness. The West once hoped — naively, as it turns out — that Erdogan would carry the banners of secularism, democracy, and liberty for the Turkish people. Still, he has led Turkey in the opposite direction: toward Islamist politics, authoritarianism, and tyranny. It is time to expel Turkey from NATO.”

 

Elsewhere, the Foreign Editor of the U.K. Guardian, Simon Tisdall, opined two years ago that “Erdoğan is both a bully and a menace. Europe ignores him at its peril.” Comparing Europe’s harsh criticism of Belarus’ Lukashenko, the Guardian writer shamed the EU for “its reluctance to openly denounce the latest machinations in the eastern Mediterranean of what it referred to as the “elective dictatorship … of Turkey’s long-entrenched leader.”

 

Unless the rest of NATO, including Canada, puts its foot down, Erdogan is on his way to reintroducing the Ottoman Caliphate that colonized not just Eastern Europe but much of the Arab World for over 600 years.

 

Suppose we do not stand up for Armenia and warn Turkey to back off from using Azerbaijan as its Central Asian goon squad wrapped in Islamism. In that case, we risk a war in which Pakistan will be selling its nukes to offset its derelict financial status.

 

 

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/fatah-canada-and-nato-need-to-stand-up-against-turkey

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Garo Paylan urges Erdogan to take responsibility for ending the blockade of Nagorno- Karabakh

Save

Share

20:02, 29 December 2022

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. Garo Paylan, an Armenian member of the Mejlis of Turkey, urged the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan to take responsibility for ending the blockade of Nagorno Karabakh by the Azerbaijanis, stressing that the blockade should be ended as soon as possible.

ARMENPRESS reports, Garo Paylan wrote on his Facebook page. "The Lachin Corridor, which is the only communication route connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, has been closed for more than two weeks by a group of Azerbaijanis who consider themselves "environmentalists" and Azerbaijani defense officials. As a result of the closure of the Lachin Corridor, the problem to provide food, medicine and basic needs to Nagorno-Karabakh is gradually increasing. The 120 thousand Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh is under siege. This blockade, which is turning into a human crisis, must be ended as soon as possible."

He emphasized that Turkey should not remain indifferent to this growing human suffering in Nagorno Karabakh. Political forces should take immediate action. "I call on President Erdogan to take responsibility for ending the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh," Paylan said.

The Armenian member of the Mejlis of Turkey emphasized that the establishment of peace in the Caucasus is in the interests of Turkey. "If we all take responsibility for ending the human suffering in Nagorno-Karabakh, both in the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process and in the Armenia-Turkey settlement process, we will be able to return to a positive agenda," Paylan concluded.

From December 12 until now, Azerbaijan continues to keep closed the only highway connecting Artsakh to the world, the Lachin Corridor, citing false environmental reasons.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1100840.html?fbclid=IwAR11H6xGUTf8lcgiCYhTZe5sQ3ey8XXnuXuNhqPV2oH552HqsUQciTiv7xk

[Yervant1]

Dec 29 2022

Azerbaijan & Turkey’s Ominous Assault against Armenians

By Uzay Bulut on December 29, 2022

Azerbaijan continues its political, economic, and above all, military assaults against the indigenous Armenian people living in Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, in the South Caucuses.

On December 12, Azerbaijan blocked the crucial Lachin Corridor, which is the Republic of Artsakh’s only lifeline. It’s Artsakh’s route to the outside world. This blockade means Artsakh is currently deprived of food, medical supplies, and other vital supplies transported to the region via the Lachin Corridor. Azerbaijan also cut off the gas supply to Artsakh, creating another humanitarian crisis there. This was the third time this year the gas supply was cut. On December 16, gas supply was restored in Artsakh, but the Azerbaijani blockade continues to cut off 120,000 Armenians living in the region from the rest of the world.

This aggression had culminated during the 44-day Azeri-Turkish war against Artsakh in 2020, during which many war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed against Armenians. Summary executions, torture, inhuman treatment, extensive destruction of properties, unlawful deportation, and the taking of hostages were commonplace. During the war, the Azerbaijani armed forces intentionally targeted the civilian population, bombarding towns, and villages in Artsakh.

The president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, and Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who supports Azerbaijan’s war against Armenians, have repeatedly made it clear that their goal is ethnically to cleanse the Armenian population from the region.

On January 29, 2015, for instance, Aliyev tweeted: “Armenia is not even a colony, it is not even worthy of being a servant”.

Following the signing of the ceasefire agreement on November 9, 2020 between Azerbaijan and Armenia to suspend the Azeri war against Artsakh, Aliyev addressed the Azeri nation on November 10. He said:

We put him [Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan] in his place. We taught him a lesson. We chased them [Armenians] out of our lands like dogs. I said that we would chase them, that we would chase them like dogs, and we chased them, we chased them like dogs. He [Pashinyan] is now signing this document out of fear, knowing that we will come to Aghdam, Kalbajar and Lachin. No-one can stop us. Everyone sees our strength; everyone knows what our iron fist represents. That is why we have driven them out and are perfectly right in doing so.

And: “We said that we would drive the enemy out of our lands! We are not interested in any negotiations.”

In April of 2021, Aliyev opened a “Military Trophies Park” in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, with displays of helmets and caricatured mannequins of Armenian soldiers to dehumanize them, publicly humiliating Armenian casualties and prisoners of war. Aliyev proudly walked through a gallery of helmets belonging to fallen Armenian soldiers at the park.

The Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia issued an Ad Hoc Public Report entitled “An Amusement Park of Killed Armenian Soldiers and Chained Prisoners of War Opened in Baku: A Museum of Human Sufferings and a Promotion of Racism.” According to the report:

“The ‘park’ is a clear manifestation of racism and related violence representing a serious immediate danger for Armenian prisoners of war.

“The Azerbaijani authorities obviously know that this sensitive display would cause mental pain and suffering to the families of the missing persons and captives, as well as to the Armenian society in general.

“There are long queues to visit the ‘park’. Moreover, a ‘park-museum’ of human sufferings is also open for children, even under 6 years old.

“The opening of such a ‘park’ clearly underlines the official hatred towards Armenians in Azerbaijan, and openly reveals the existence of a State policy of animosity and continual propaganda. This policy, confirmed by concrete evidence, has, in fact, been consistently implemented for years.”

The report gives more examples for Aliyev’s grotesque hate speech against Armenians:

At the opening of the park, Aliyev stated: “An Armenian is a barbarian who digs graves and removes gold teeth from the dead.”

And in his nationwide address, Aliyev said: “Azerbaijani soldiers expel them (Armenians) like dogs”.

He added: “We will continue to expel these (Armenians) liars. They now see who is who. They see that we have taught them a lesson they will never forget. (…) They have neither conscience nor morality. They don’t even have brains.”

And:

“Yerevan [the capital of Armenia] is our historical land. We, the Azerbaijanis, will return to these historical lands. It is our political and strategic goal, and gradually we shall reach it.”

And:

“Armenia as a country is of no value. It is actually a colony, an outpost run from abroad, a territory artificially created on ancient Azerbaijani lands.”

Turkey’s president Erdogan also announced the ambitions of the war against Artsakh after the signing of the ceasefire agreement.

During a “victory parade”, organized in Baku to celebrate Turkey and Azerbaijan’s joint “military victory” over Artsakh, Erdogan delivered a speech in which he praised Enver *****, one of the planners of Ottoman Turkey’s 1915 Armenian genocide, which cost the lives of around 1.5 million Armenians. The Ottoman military march was also played during the event.

Erdogan referred to the 1918 Islamic Army of the Caucasus created by Enver ***** and led by the Ottoman commander, Nuri *****. The Islamic Army of the Caucasus was responsible for the massacres to eliminate the non-Muslim population of Baku, who were mainly Armenians. Erdogan said:

“Today is the day when the souls of Nuri *****, Enver ***** and the brave soldiers of the Islamic Army of the Caucasus are blessed.”

Through their actions and statements, both Aliyev and Erdogan declare that they aim to carry out yet another assault against the Armenian people in the region.

Another potential Armenian genocide is unfolding right before our eyes. What are we doing to prevent it?

https://providencemag.com/2022/12/azerbaijan-turkeys-ominous-assault-against-armenians/

[Yervant1]

Kurdish Media - Jan 3 2023

207-year-old Khorenyan Armenian Primary School in Istanbul faces disappearance

The 207-year-old Khorenyan Armenian Primary School in Ayvansaray in Istanbul's Balat district is disappearing.

Many of the old Armenian properties were destroyed or faced extinction, since no restoration was made despite them being historical buildings. One of these Armenian buildings is the Khorenyan Armenian Primary School in Balat.

The Khorenyan Armenian Primary School is located in Ayvansaray, next to the Ferruh Kethuda Mosque, one of the works of Mimar Sinan, and the Balat Ağa Bath, one of the first baths of Istanbul. The primary school belongs to the Surp Hıreşdagabed Armenian Church Foundation, which is right across the street. For this reason, the primary school building cannot be taken over officially.

Khorenyan Armenian Primary School was built in 1816 and started education in 1866 with 80 students. The building, which was used as a school until 1925, was emptied after it became unusable in a suspicious fire. Students continue their education at the Surp Hıreşdagabed Armenian Church. Together with the school, the seminary land and the Armenian cemetery were destroyed in this fire. The school was closed for education, while the Armenian cemetery and the seminary were emptied by the government of the time. After a while, the school building is rented by the Armenian Church as a tobacco warehouse. After the 1942 Wealth Tax in Istanbul and the 6-7 September attacks, many Armenian families had to migrate to other places, and the number of students decreased, especially in the Balat region. The school officially closed in 1977.

It was used as a tobacco warehouse until the 1990s, and then for a short time as a soap factory. The school also served as the Mehtap Summer Cinema for a while. After the closure of the summer cinema, the garden of the building was used as a parking lot, while the building itself was used by the homeless. The area around the building was used as a waste paper warehouse for a while after the closure of the parking lot in the mid-2000s and was a shelter for both the homeless and drug addicts. It closed in 2018. Buildings were built in the area where the Armenian cemetery is located next to the school, and that area was opened to settlement.

Application for restoration went unanswered

The application made by the Surp Hireşdagabed Armenian Church, Khorenyan School and Armenian Cemetery Foundation for the restoration of the building, registered as a first degree historical building by the General Directorate of Foundations, in 2014, went unanswered until 2021. In a statement to the Armenianhaber website in 2018, the director of the foundation, Aram Kuran, said: “We rented the building to a private enterprise for 18 years. They are considering making it a hotel. We waited for the next permit for the building, which has the status of a first-degree historical monument. The application has not been answered for 4 years."

Another director of the foundation, Zeki Öcal, announced that the High Council of Monuments had approved the restoration in 2021 and that Fatih Municipality will transform it into a cultural centre. In the same year, Fatih Municipality mayor confirmed the decision. Despite this, no restoration work was carried out on the building, which continues to vanish.

https://anfenglish.com/ecology/207-year-old-khorenyan-armenian-primary-school-in-istanbul-faces-disappearance-64700

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Turkey builds military base on border with Armenia, on Mount Ararat

Save

Share

14:24, 7 January 2023

YEREVAN, JANUARY 7, ARMENPRESS. Turkey is building a modular military base on the border with Armenia, on Mount Ararat, according to Turkish media reports.

The military base is being built at an altitude of 2100 meters above sea level and will be equipped with modern night vision surveillance technologies and autonomous weapon systems.

Turkish media reports said the military base is being built “to fight terrorism”.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1101199.html?fbclid=IwAR3VmvUmkPv6yxABAe-zVgvyLcvYOQVgs3770qXWpKtRFWyXQJdDudzn-pM

[Yervant1]

Mehr News Agency, Iran

Jan 18 2023

Turkey holds military exercises near Armenian border

TEHRAN, Jan. 18 (MNA) – Units of the armed forces of Turkey and eight other countries, including Azerbaijan, are conducting joint exercises in the Kars region, not far from the border with Armenia, the Turkish media reports.

The training exercises named "Kış-2023" ("Winter-2023") are taking place at the base of the 14th motorized rifle brigade, a part of the 3rd field army of the Turkish Armed Forces, Hetq reported.

Turkey’s Ministry of National Defense reports the exercises are designed to increase the level of staff cohesion, harmonize fire capabilities, prepare units for basic tasks, as well as releasing and supplying troops.

The Turkish media doesn't specify who the other participating countries are.

The exercises will last until February 2.

MNA/PR

https://en.mehrnews.com/news/196300/Turkey-holds-military-exercises-near-Armenian-border

[Yervant1]

NEWS.am

Armenia - Feb 2 2023

Turkish Defense Minister also demands 'Zangezur corridor'

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar joined the chorus demanding the "Zangezur corridor."

The opening of the Zangezur corridor will contribute to peace and stability in the region, Akar said at the closing ceremony of the Winter 2023 exercise in Kars, Azerbaijani media reported.

Speaking at the briefing, Akar emphasized "the importance of joint steps to ensure peace and stability in the region and the world at large. Hulusi Akar, Zakir Hasanov and Juansher Burchuladze, heads of defense ministries of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, observed the exercise. Military servicemen of 17 countries, including Great Britain, Germany, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan take part in "Winter-2023" exercises.

The "Zangezur corridor" refers to the corridor through the Syunik province of Armenia. The official Yerevan has stated unequivocally that there will be no extraterritorial corridor.

https://news.am/eng/news/742686.html

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

 

Թուրքիայի օկուպացված հայկական Ալեքսանդրետ քաղաքում ջրհեղեղ է

 

 

[MosJan]

[Yervant1]

theinterpreter

Feb 12 2023

PUBLISHED DAILY BY THE LOWY INSTITUTE

The grim toll of Türkiye’s
earthquake will also
shift regional politics

WILLIAM GOURLAY

The international outpouring of support has gone
beyond friends but to unexpected quarters, too.

Aftershocks and collapsing buildings have created additional hazards for rescue teams scrambling to save survivors from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake near the Turkish city of Gaziantep in the early hours of Monday morning. The trail of death and destruction extends across 10 Turkish provinces and parts of north-western Syria, in Turkish cities from Antakya to Diyarbakir, to the Syrian governates of Latakia, Aleppo and opposition-held Idlib.

As of Friday morning, more than 16,500 deaths had been reported in Türkiye and a further 3,500 in Syria. The World Health Organisation expects the death toll to rise considerably and the impacts in northern Syria especially will be severe on a population that has endured a decade of war and has received little international aid. Affected Turkish populations face their own challenges, which come on top of a deteriorating economic outlook, rising inflation and a tense political environment ahead of a general election tentatively scheduled for May.

The fallout from the earthquake is also likely to shift the geopolitical dynamics of the eastern Mediterranean.

Less expected were messages of sympathy from Türkiye’s immediate neighbours Greece and Armenia, both of which have complicated relations with Ankara.

Indicative of the earthquake’s severity was Türkiye’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu’s urgent declaration of a stage four emergency that included requests for international assistance. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan promptly responded, undertaking to dispatch aid and rescue workers. Türkiye’s western allies in the United States, NATO and the European Union similarly rallied, with a global rescue effort rapidly taking shape.

Perhaps less expected were messages of sympathy from Türkiye’s immediate neighbours Greece and Armenia, both of which have complicated relations with Ankara. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke to Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan offering his condolences and pledging resources to help Türkiye’s affected communities. Greek rescue teams were soon on the ground and pulling victims from the rubble.

It was not only through official channels that Greeks expressed solidarity. Social media is abuzz with Turks thanking their Greek komşus (neighbours) for a flood of material and moral support. The Turkish embassy in Athens tweeted its appreciation for flowers left at its doorstep by Greek passers-by.

Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan conveyed his sympathies and said his country was ready to provide assistance. Most surprising of all was a message in Kurdish to the Turkish people from Mazloum Abdi, leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces, whom Türkiye categorises as a terrorist.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan tours the areas of devastation (Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

All of this comes after Erdoǧan and several of his ministers have increasingly adopted confrontational international postures. Tensions have been particularly high in the eastern Mediterranean as Türkiye seeks to extend an exclusive economic zone in line with its Mavi Vatan (Blue Homeland) naval doctrine.

Last year Erdoǧan accused Greece of illegally militarising islands in the Aegean. Threatening to redress such purported wrongs, Erdoǧan declared menacingly, “We can come all of a sudden at night,” repeating a warning he had earlier made against Kurdish militias in Syria. To underscore Erdoǧan’s point, Türkiye’s Defence Minister, former four-star general Hulusi Akar, donned aviator garb joining an F-16 flyover above the Aegean. And only three weeks ago, while talking to a local audience, Erdoǧan directed veiled threats at Greek PM Mitsotakis, also breezily quipping that Turkish-made Typhoon missiles can reach Athens.

Such episodes may be politicking on Erdoǧan’s part, increasing urgent as his political stocks slide, but they hardly foster a stable diplomatic environment. They are also indicative of a foreign policy cohort that is anxious about Türkiye’s place in the world and prone to lashing out at perceived enemies. Erdoǧan recently claimed that “imperialist colonialists” who have long targeted Türkiye have increased their efforts during his rule, while Interior Minister Soylu accused the West of playing “psychological games” with Türkiye and telling the United States to keep its “filthy hands” to itself.

It may be that Turkish policy makers will realise there is little political capital in adopting belligerent international postures and more to be gained through constructive engagement.

Relations between Türkiye and the West have recently deteriorated, notably in disputes over Finland and Sweden’s desire to join NATO. Ankara has refused to approve their admission accusing both of harbouring members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Türkiye denotes a terrorist organisation. A Swedish far-right politician’s stunt of burning a Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm incensed many Turks, with Erdoǧan all but saying that Sweden should forget about NATO membership. Despite its entry into NATO apparently being derailed, Stockholm has approved the dispatch of significant funds, equipment and personnel to earthquake affected areas in Türkiye and Syria.

It remains to be seen if Türkiye will recalibrate its foreign policy in light of the humanitarian contributions and shows of solidarity it is receiving, including from some it has recently been sparring with. The 1999 earthquake that rocked Türkiye’s western city of Izmit prompted similar spontaneous outpourings of support and sympathy, and is widely credited with spurring a new chapter of diplomatic engagement in the Aegean in the early 2000s.

An oft-repeated Turkish proverb states that a Turk has no friends but another Turk (Türk’ün Türk’ten başka dostu yoktur). Genuine international concern and deliveries of aid to Türkiye should put paid to such a misconception, and it may be that Turkish policy makers will realise there is little political capital in adopting belligerent international postures and more to be gained through constructive engagement with its neighbours.

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/grim-toll-turkiye-s-earthquake-will-also-shift-regional-politics

[MosJan]

[Yervant1]

News.am

Armenia - Feb 17 2023

Turkish journalist: Countries that Turkey threatened to attack ‘one night’ came to help ‘one morning’

13:37, 17.02.2023

In his latest article, Hakan Okcal, a journalist of Turkish Gazeteduvar, devoted a place to the countries that were treated with hostility by Turkey, but which quickly came to Turkey's assistance after the earthquake.

The Turkish journalist, emphasizing Armenia, Greece, and Israel on the list of these countries, wrote: "Those countries that Turkey threatened to suddenly attack one night, those countries suddenly came to help one morning."

Okcal noted that Turkey provoked hostility against Armenia, Israel, and Greece at every opportunity, and recalled Turkish president Erdogan's threats to those countries: "One night we might suddenly attack."

https://news.am/eng/news/745398.html