Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide
Some Western powers still do not realize that with the Karabakh war, a new era has begun in our region, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“The Armenian people and their leaders should seek security not thousands of kilometers away, but in peace and cooperation with their neighbors. Those who received payment by inciting Armenia have actually caused the greatest harm to Armenians,” added the head of Turkey in his address to the people after the government’s Cabinet session.
By Harut Sassounian,
Three weeks ago, when I first wrote about the FBI’s investigation of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign links to Turkey, I did not realize that this would be the opening of Pandora’s box.
Last week, Adams created a defense fund to raise money to pay the legal expenses for the expanding federal probe into his 2021 election campaign. The law permits Adams to receive donations up to $5,000. However, he must disclose the names and addresses of all donors.
According to the New York Post, “Federal authorities are investigating whether the Turkish government or Turkish citizens illegally funneled donations to Adams’ campaign by using ‘straw donors’ — a scheme where contributors listed in official records aren’t the actual source of funding — and whether Adams did quid-pro-quo favors.”
Multiple sources told the New York Post: “the Adams administration staffer who was found to have allegedly ‘acted improperly’ amid the federal corruption probe into his campaign fundraising worked in the city’s Office for International Affairs before abruptly being placed on leave.” The Mayor’s office confirmed the information.
That person is Rana Abbasova who was the Mayor’s Director of Protocol. Originally from Azerbaijan, she performed advanced planning and logistics for mayoral events and traveled with him. Her annual salary is $80,651. The Post was told that she lied to federal investigators.
Abbasova previously served as community coordinator and advisor to Adams when he was Brooklyn borough President. Her biography states that: “She was responsible for international relations and maintaining relationships between the Borough President and stakeholders, including the Middle East and Central Asian countries, Muslim and Russian-speaking communities, and Non-profit organizations. She also worked with Embassies and Consulates to build relationships between countries and the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President to help overcome language barriers and cultural differences. She also organized Turkic Heritage events and assisted with Sister Cities agreements. Abbasova was also an administrative assistant for Adams’ One Brooklyn Fund, Inc. when he was still borough President.”
The City news website reported that in April 2017, Abbasova arranged a meeting between borough President Adams and the Turken Foundation, founded by Pres. Erdogan’s son, Bilal. Three of Turken’s board members contributed a total of $6,000 to the Mayor’s campaign. His schedule shows that he attended four Turken events. Turken is registered as a foreign agent with the Department of Justice.
Abbasova arranged for Adams at least three “meetings and events related to Turkey when he was borough president, a review of his schedule shows. Among them was a 2015 grand opening celebration for a Turkish restaurant in Brooklyn, which she marked as ‘important.’”
POLITICO reported that as Brooklyn borough President, Adams “attended nearly 80 events over eight years celebrating Turkey — including a flag-raising in 2015, a charity ball in 2018 and a Zoom meeting with the Turkish consul in 2020.”
After reviewing thousands of Adams’ public schedules and many social media posts, POLITICO revealed his “unusually strong relationship with Turkey, which has drawn scrutiny from federal investigators.” In 2019, as Adams “was embarking on a run for New York City mayor, he joined Martha Stewart at a gala celebrating Turkish Airlines — a company now caught up in an ongoing FBI probe into Adams’ campaign finances. At the event, Adams was photographed holding hands with two company officials over a sheet cake; after winning the mayor’s race, he appointed one of those officials — Cenk Ocal — to his transition team.” The CNN reported that on Nov. 2, the home of a Turkish Airlines executive was among the locations raided by the FBI.
POLITICO’s analysis of Adams’ Brooklyn Borough schedules turned up three mentions of the Turkish airlines: Two planned banquets celebrating the carrier in 2019 and 2020, and a cryptic entry on Oct. 2, 2015 that simply read: “Reschedule 4 p.m. Turkish airline. Rana [Abbasova] my gifts.”
Daniel Nigro, then New York City Fire Commissioner, was pressured by Adams to permit, despite safety concerns, the opening of a high-rise building that housed the Turkish consulate, just in time for the arrival of Pres. Erdogan. Nigro received a grand jury subpoena and spoke to FBI agents.
After becoming Mayor last year, Adams made virtual remarks at a real estate conference in Istanbul, which was attended by two top city officials. However, the Mayor’s participation was left out of his daily public schedule and not reported.
In addition to the home of the fundraiser for the Mayor’s campaign, the FBI raided or conducted interviews at a dozen locations as part of its investigations of campaign contributions from Turkish sources, CNN reported.
In 2022, “Adams took two trips to Turkey — one in August funded by multiple entities including the Turkish consulate, according to a financial disclosure obtained by POLITICO. Local news outlet THE CITY recently reported Turkish Airlines also chipped in for that trip, but that was omitted from the required annual disclosure. Four months later, the financial disclosure shows, an organization called the Association of Young Tourism Leaders funded another trip to Turkey for Adams. The junkets were among a half-dozen trips the mayor has said he made to the country, including a 2017 sojourn with his son, Jordan,” according to POLITICO.
While visiting Turkey as Brooklyn Borough President, Adams said that he was interested in buying a house in Istanbul, according to the Turkish Sabah newspaper. Adams also said that he is so satisfied with Turkish Airlines that he not only uses that carrier to fly to Turkey, but also to other parts of the world, like India.
Arda Aghazarian,
With speed and determination, the Armenian community of Jerusalem has organized itself to stand up to Israeli attempts to seize historic and vital Armenian communal property.
Jerusalem Story has published several stories about the standoff between Israel and Jerusalem’s Armenian community regarding control of Armenian church property. Since that reporting earlier in November, aggressive moves by Israeli entities have forced the Armenian community to respond quickly and collectively to defend their rights. At stake is not only the rights of the Armenian community but also the very presence of the Christian community in Jerusalem.
The Armenian property at the center of this drama is estimated to extend over 11,500 square meters, which makes up 25 percent of the Armenian Quarter of the Old City.1 Since 2021, the hotel development company Xana Gardens Ltd. has claimed that through an agreement with the Armenian Patriarchate, it now has the right to develop it.
However, over the summer, a delegation of Armenian local and international lawyers2 was finally able to obtain the contract, and they discovered a number of serious irregularities.
On November 1, 2023, the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem announced that on October 26, 2023, it informed Xana Gardens Ltd. of its decision to cancel the 2021 agreement it had signed with the company regarding the property.
The Patriarchate said that an extensive legal review post-signing found that the contract had been unlawful, falsely represented, and with undue influence, and that it disregards the Patriarchate’s legal position.3 Moreover, its legal team filed a case in Israel courts to cancel the agreement on October 31, 2023.
Feature StoryArmenians Launch Legal Battle to Cancel Controversial Cows’ Garden Land Deal
The land lease deal between the Armenian Patriarchate and the Jerusalem municipality, concluded in secrecy, is now in the courts.
Spiralling Out of Control
On November 5, Xana Gardens majority shareholder Danny Rothman/Rubinstein, an Australian-Jewish investor, and his deputy, Israeli Palestinian citizen George Warwar, brought in about 15 settlers armed with assault rifles and trained attack dogs to provoke, harass, and intimidate the Armenian community—as well as to create facts on the ground.
At least one person present among the settlers, an investigation by The New Arab found, is a known extremist member of the Israeli settlement movement who identifies himself as a “hilltop settlement activist,” is associated with right-wing Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Gen-Gvir, and had previously been placed in administrative detention by Israel in 2005.4
About a week later, Armenians were shocked to see bulldozers in the area. Because the case has not yet been decided in the courts, the company has no legal standing to do anything in the area. Yet the Xana bulldozers proceeded to demolish parts of the Armenian Quarter’s parking lot area and threatened to cause more harm.
Feature StoryClash Over Armenian Quarter Land Lease Deal Turns Physical
The team from Xana Capital Ltd. tried to stake its claim to a large area of the Armenian Quarter by force in the wake of the Patriarchate’s filing of intention to cancel a controversial land lease deal.
Demolitions Underway
On Sunday, November 12, 2023, a Xana Gardens bulldozer attempted to demolish a stone wall by the Armenian parking lot. The Armenian community immediately organized themselves and set up a barricade to block access to the site.
At 7:00 a.m. the next day, two bulldozers showed up and attempted to tear down the barricade. They were confronted by community members who created a human fence, preventing the bulldozers from moving.
The community members were joined by the Patriarch, and again they erected a tent to maintain a physical presence on the site.
Substantial Escalation
Despite the valiant efforts of Armenian community members, some of the area has been bulldozed, and more settlers with heavy arms showed up.
On Wednesday, November 15, things got especially tense when around 20 Israeli police forces showed up. Although the community argued that no legal decision had been made about the property and no permits had been secured for the demolition work, the police demanded the premises be vacated and threatened that they would detain and arrest the community members. They then did in fact detain three people—one of them a minor—for answering back to them, presumably to intimidate the group; the three were soon released. The two adults were ordered to stay away from the site for 15 days.5
Hagop Djernazian, an active member of the Armenian community and a spokesperson on this issue, has noted that the Israeli police has been cooperating with the company to remove the community members and take possession of the land. In a public statement dated November 17, he described the armed people who barged into the area as “mafia” that were hired to harm and provoke the community members and priests.
Urgent Pleas
On November 16, the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem released an urgent communique, saying “The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem is under possibly the greatest existential threat of its 16-century history,” which “fully extends to all the Christian communities of Jerusalem.” The statement concluded, “We plead with the entirety of the Christian communities of Jerusalem to stand with the Armenian Patriarchate in these unprecedented times as this is another clear step taken toward the endangerment of the Christian presence in Jerusalem and the holy land.”6
On November 17, the Armenian National Committee issued a statement on the matter:
Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem
Source: https://www.jerusalemstory.com/en/article/armenian-community-steps-resistance-land-deal-xana-gardens-intensifies-violent-takeover
Anyone who says: “What do we care about Syria, Iraq, [Artsakh] Karabakh, Libya, Bosnia and Jerusalem” is consciously or unconsciously hindering the great march of Turkey, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, speaking at the 62nd General Assembly of the National Turkish Students’ Union, Anadolu reports.
“As Turkey became stronger and defended its interests in all directions, the level of hostility towards it began to increase,” he said.
“If every terrorist group supported by powers such as the United States and Europe kills people at will, then the world order will be completely disrupted,” the Turkish President added.
After Surrendering Artsakh the Armenian Surrender Map next
Open borders, unlocked infrastructures, and active economic, political, and cultural ties – these are the conditions necessary to establish long-term peace in our region.
The “Crossroads of Peace” project is about creating new infrastructures or improving the scope and quality of the existing ones. Armenia is ready to establish five checkpoints on the Armenia-Azerbaijan borders for road infrastructures, including Kayan, Sotk, near Karahunj, near Angeghakot and Yaraskh, also to establish two checkpoints on the Armenia-Turkey border in Akhurik and Margara for road infrastructures.
Armenia is prepared to ensure communications between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey by restoring four railway sections in the territory of the Republic of Armenia.
Armenia is ready to restore the Nrnadzor-Agarak railway section and establish checkpoints near the borders, to restore the railway section from Yeraskh to the border of Nakhichevan and establish a checkpoint in Yeraskh, to restore the depleted parts of the railway from Gyumri to the border of Turkey and establish a checkpoint in Akhurik. Also, Armenia is prepared to restore the depleted parts of the railway from Hrazdan to Kayan and establish a checkpoint in Kayan. This will create new links between all the countries of the region.
The principles of the “Crossroads of Peace” are [that] all infrastructures, including roads, railways, airways, pipelines, cables, and power lines, operate under the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the countries through which they pass. Each country, through its state institutions in its territory, ensures border, customs control and security of all the infrastructures, including the passage through its territory of vehicles, cargo and people.
All infrastructures can be used for both international and domestic transportation. Countries use all the infrastructures on the basis of reciprocity and equality. In accordance with these principles, border and customs controls can be facilitated through mutual consent and agreement.
As missing sections of railways and roads are restored and infrastructure is unlocked, it will become possible to establish a seamless connection between the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea via a consolidated regional railway network and via north, south, and east, west roads.
The government of the Republic of Armenia reaffirms its commitment to contribute its share to the region’s peace and stability and to make practical measures to build the crossroads of peace.
Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy
It’s shameful that the US taxpayer has been used to fund the persecution of Armenian Christians by Azerbaijan. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has nominated his candidacy in the next US presidential elections, noted this on X—former Twitter.
“I’m astounded that not a single presidential candidate has even acknowledged the atrocity. Blocking military aid to Azerbaijan is the right step,” Ramaswamy added.
BREAKING: The International Court of Justice of the United Nations orders provisional measures against Azerbaijan. Armenia submitted the claim on September 28, during the forced displacement of Armenians from Artsakh.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry already commented on the verdict, stating “We commit ourselves to fulfill these commitments and focus on building a peaceful and prosperous region.” According to the verdict, Azerbaijan is obligated to ensure the safe, unimpeded, and expeditious return of the persons who have left Artsakh after 19 September 2023 and who wish to return to Artsakh.
Furthermore, Azerbaijan is mandated to ensure a safe and swift departure for those who opted to remain in Artsakh after the forced displacement and now wish to leave. Azerbaijan is tasked with safeguarding individuals who choose to stay in Artsakh post-September 19, 2023, or return, ensuring their freedom from coercion or threats. The decision necessitates Azerbaijan to comply with its obligations outlined in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
This involves safeguarding registration, identity, and property documents, acknowledging them as foundational in administrative and legislative practices. Azerbaijan must submit a report to the Court within 8 weeks of the decision being published. This report should outline the planned measures for carrying out these temporary directives. This legal action falls under the ‘Armenia vs. Azerbaijan’ case based on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
by James Carden
YEREVAN – Over the past month, legacy and social media have been saturated with reports of the Netanyahu regime’s war on Gaza, which is being met with growing calls from the international community to invoke the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Less known, however, is the role the Israeli government has played in another genocide that took place in West Asia only a month and a half ago. This genocide, little noted in the Western press, involved the ancient Christian community of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, known within Armenia as the Republic of Artsakh, that was ethnically cleansed by the Ilham Aliyev, the Shia dictator of Azerbaijan, in late September and early October. The muted response to Azerbaijan’s crime might plausibly be chalked up to the strength of its well-funded and influential lobby in Washington which profits off of the oil and gas revenue generated by SOCAR, the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic. SOCAR has links to the Podesta Group (co-founder John Podesta currently serves as a senior adviser to President Biden), lobbying powerhouse BGR Government Affairs, LLC, as well as numerous think tanks and academics associated with, among others, The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the American Foreign Policy Council.
Yet another reason for the subdued response by Washington is the well documented ‘special relationship’ between the 51st US state, Israel, and Azerbaijan. A discussion I had last week with the Armenian academic Dr. Benyamin Poghosyan, who serves as Chairman of the Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies and Senior Research Fellow on Foreign Policy at the Applied Policy Research Institute (APRI) of Armenia, shed some light on the role the Israeli government and its defense industry has played in enabling Azerbaijan – and why.
The relationship between the two countries began to deepen around 15 years ago when Azerbaijan, flush with revenue from its oil and gas deposits in the Caspian basin, began looking to purchase advanced weapons systems.
According to Poghosyan, “as late as September 2023, just before the most recent Azerbaijani attackseveral cargo planes went to Israel and came back to Azerbaijan full of weapons. And there is even information that Israel continued to supply weapons to Azerbaijan even after October 7th.”
The AP reports that it is estimated that Israel has supplied Azerbaijan with “nearly 70% of its arsenal between 2016 and 2020.”And just this week it was reported that Azerbaijan inked a $1.2 billion dollar deal with Israel Aerospace Industries to purchase the Barak MX air defense system, described as “a modular air defense system… designed to address missile and aircraft threats.”
The question then arises: Why is Israel, which claims to be under a near constant threat of missile attacks from the south in Gaza and potentially from the north by Hezbollah, doing this?
Poghosyan notes that he doesn’t think money is the reason, after all, fully 20 percent of the Israeli defense budget is covered by the American taxpayer.
The real reason has to do with Iran.
According to Poghosyan, Azerbaijan has agreed “to allow Israel to use their territory for anti-Iranian activities. And we are speaking about covert activities, foreign intelligence… Azerbaijan gave the green light to Israeli special services, especially its foreign intelligence service, to do whatever they want in Azerbaijan. Of course now they have access to that security zone around Nagorno-Karabakh, which borders Iran.”
Poghosyan notes that in recent years (in the aftermath of its earlier attempt to subjugate Nagorno Karabakh in 2020) Azerbaijan constructed two airports in the territory it gained around Nagorno Karabakh. “They are,” says Poghosyan “supposedly civilian airports, yet they are located very close to Azerbaijani-Iranian border – a distance of 30, 40 kilometers from the border. There are a lot of reports that Israeli military intelligence or foreign intelligence operatives are using these airports for operations against Iran.”
Israel’s role in assisting Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh is well known inside Israel, which it must be said, conducts a far more robust debate over Israel’s foreign policy than is allowed here in the United States.
The estimable Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently editorialized that Israel has, in their words, “its fingerprints” all over Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh. Haaretz also contends that “Israel hasn’t just supplied Azerbaijan with arms. It has also helped it distort history” by its refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide, which the Israeli regime merely defines as a “tragedy.”
Meanwhile, the situation in Armenia grows more ominous by the day, as Azerbaijan escalates its rhetoric (last week accusing Armenia of, among other things, illegally “occupying” eight villages on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border) and stands ready, with the eager help of Tel Aviv, to once again make a mockery of both international law and common decency.
James W. Carden is a columnist and former adviser to the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission at the U.S. Department of State. His articles and essays have appeared in a wide variety of publications including The Nation, The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, The Spectator, UnHerd, The National Interest, Quartz, The Los Angeles Times, and American Affairs.
During the National Assembly-Government question-and-answer session, Lilit Galstyan, deputy of the Armenia faction, referred to the statement of Minister of Education and Culture Zhanna Andreasyan that the management councils of universities are not politicized.
“Today, in response to the question of the politicization of universities, Minister of Education and Culture, Zhanna Andreasyan first urged me, as before, not to talk about it or to bring at least one fact. Please, let me give you the facts: Suren Papikyan is the chairman of the YSU Management Board, Tigran Avinyan is the chairman of the Polytechnic Management Board, Vahagn Khachaturyan is the Chairman of the Economics Board, and you, Mrs. Andreasyan, are the Chairman of the Pedagogical Board. I would also like to add that there are screenings for political views in universities. Try to justify that these are not political purges or they are not talking about the politicization of universities,” said Lilit Galstyan. In response, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said:
“I have touched on that topic several times and said that when we say that there should be no party affiliation in universities, it does not mean that some parties and political groups should create secret cells there and make universities part of the political apparatus. I was listening to your speech, I want to pay attention to your wording. You said that they did not give me lessons at the university because of my political behavior. You did not say about my views or party affiliation. You answered your question. And who said that this opportunity should be abused, we gave that opportunity. We have given that opportunity to other sectors and groups, but, sorry, when that opportunity is misused and used against the goal, it does not mean that the government should just keep watching silently. Universities are all bodies founded by the government, and the government has the greatest authority in RA for these universities today and tomorrow.” Nikol Pashinyan also referred to the noise created around textbooks. “We are not saying that everything in the textbooks is perfect, we are saying that a new system has been created, which should enable us and RA to have more and more quality textbooks on the table of our students.”
Source: https://www.aravot.am/2023/11/15/1382720/?fbclid=IwAR2_agZ-0g9D9ve4rvYFj9gN58Q_z9_NF6lBSlLMumQ3CTnUkgm9aBGPJLs
Ara Krikorian,
What the #West did to #Armenia – and, by extension, #Artsakh – will definitely be (or already is) a Langley case study for how effective it was to leverage and weaponize Soft Power.
Just this week, it was clear that out of 368 judges elected before the 2018 Velvet Color Coup, only 14 remain in office. The judiciary has been completely culled and replaced with regime loyalists. This is the same culling and replacement as Armenia’s military, diplomatic corp, and education system saw. For over a decade before Velvet, foreign-funded media, NGOs, and their local jackals in Armenia constantly droned on about #corruption and framed everything as if the average Armenian would become an overnight millionaire and Armenia would become Switzerland if it weren’t for its government and #Russia. Before 2018, Armenia had a burgeoning #democracy and economy – especially compared to its post-Soviet peers and region, but these groups consistently demeaned it. Neither the exaggerated, excessive, and usually fabricated claims about corruption, outright defamation against leaders and institutions, nor the discrediting of its democracy were substantiated – they didn’t need to; if every English-language media company and unqualified talking head with a steady paycheck said so, it just had to be true. There is a beautiful Armenian word that I believe describes our people perfectly, “օտարամոլ”. This translates to xenomaniacal. From
@RFERL‘s own
@azatutyunradio, to
@evn_report, and
@Hetq_Trace, Armenians gobbled up what they assumed was credible information from foreign sources, while ignoring their actual educated and qualified experts, who were systematically dismissed, maligned, and undermined. These methods were not unique to Armenia, they have been used by the West and their local mercenaries to compromise and lay the groundwork for every Color Revolution before – but Armenia had many examples to learn from and avoid the same detrimental path. Today, we ignore and/or make excuses for the rampant
@civilcontractam corruption and their police state. Every day that
@NikolPashinyan clings to power, which has produced a new low and nightmare situation that doesn’t seem to end. We must end the foreign occupation of Armenia. Now, not later.