A United States drone strike killed a senior al-Qaeda leader in Suluk, near the Turkish-controlled Tal Abyad area in northern Syria on Friday.

“We have no indications of civilian casualties as a result of the strike, which was conducted using an MQ-9 aircraft,” the United States Central Command confirmed in a statement on Friday.

The same statement identified the targeted al-Qaeda leader as Abdul Hamid al-Matar and pointed out that the group “uses Syria as a safe haven to rebuild, coordinate with external affiliates, and plan external operations.”

An article on the Kurdistan 24 news agency in Iraqi Kurdistan pointed out that “Suluk is allegedly under the control of Ahrar al-Sharqiya, a group backed by Turkey.”

Turkey has occupied swathes of northeastern Syria since it launched a cross-border military operation, codenamed Peace Spring, against the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in October 2019. This includes the Tal Abyad area.

The U.S. has sanctioned Ahrar al-Sharqiya for human rights violations against Kurds and for recruiting former members of the Islamic State (ISIS) group, Kurdistan 24 reported.

The report also noted that unidentified drone strikes have previously targeted ISIS leaders in Turkish-occupied parts of Syria. One example, from May 2020, saw a former ISIS leader killed in a drone strike in the northwestern Turkish-occupied Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin, which Turkey invaded in 2018 with the help of its Syrian militia proxies.

Marshall H. Chin, M.D., M.P.H.

“Jump off the cliff and figure it out on the way down. People think that improvisation is moving forward,” comedian Keegan-Michael Key has said about improvisational comedy. “What improvisation really is, it’s walking backward.…It’s backing up that gives you discovery.…You back up, you can create a larger worldview.”

The Covid-19 pandemic forced the medical field to jump off the cliff and figure it out. It caused rare disruptive innovation by removing previously impenetrable organizational and political roadblocks. Covid-19 also made us walk backward and see the larger worldview, in the process revealing uncomfortable truths about the U.S. health care system — including our approach to managing chronic diseases. Policy discussions surrounding telehealth coverage and scope of practice for nonphysician health professionals have narrowly focused on fee-for-service reimbursement and haven’t addressed the fundamental problem with chronic-disease care: the system doesn’t support optimal patient health and experience, especially for marginalized populations.

Over the past 2 years, the health care system changed — at least transiently — when it shifted to caring for patients with Covid-19 and preventing virus transmission.¹ Routine in-person visits for chronic diseases plummeted, and telehealth visits skyrocketed. Payers permitted, and increased reimbursement for, telehealth visits. States expanded scopes of practice for nonphysician practitioners, although pushback is now occurring. Lucrative elective procedures, such as joint replacement, were postponed.

At the same time, hospitalizations for chronic conditions unrelated to Covid-19 and for emergencies such as appendicitis decreased. Mortality from dementia, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes increased; it’s unclear whether these trends reflected true increases or undercoding of Covid-related deaths. Rates of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol screening and glycated hemoglobin testing fell, as did new prescriptions for statins and metformin. Marginalized populations had disproportionately high morbidity from Covid-19, and survival rates were lower in underresourced hospitals in low-income neighborhoods than in well-resourced facilities. Addressing social determinants of health proved to be

particularly important for good outcomes.

Bill Parcells, a coach famous for turning around bad football teams, once said, “You are what your record says you are.” When it comes to managing chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, the U.S. health care system’s performance is inadequate. Our outcomes reflect what the system rewards.

In football, quarterbacks and wide receivers get the glory for scoring touchdowns, but the battle is won in the trenches by the meat-and-potatoes linemen. Smart football teams invest in their lines. In health care, the glory and financial rewards go to surgeries and other procedures, devices, and medications and to the providers, health care delivery organizations, and companies responsible for these interventions. But the poorly reimbursed trench battles of chronic-disease management, which involve monitoring, coaching on self-management and behavior change, and mitigation of social needs, are critical for the vast majority of time that patients spend outside the clinic in their homes, communities, and workplaces.² The U.S. health care system undervalues human relationships, connections, and longitudinal primary care, so it’s unsurprising that it falls short in this area. Technology and human capital will need to be integrated if we are going to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care.³

Covid-19 has taught us important lessons that apply to chronic-disease care. First, our health care system excels at perpetuating its basic structure and supporting the powerful stakeholders who profit from this structure. We should, therefore, design chronic-disease systems to better support the health and experience of patients and the well-being of health professionals trying to meet patient needs (see box). Payment for telehealth should support and provide incentives for integrated, holistic in-person and virtual care, and it should be administered using value-based models, rather than fee-for-service structures.⁴ We could create teams that assess, treat, and monitor patients, relying on the principles of effective, longitudinal primary care.² We should also coach patients in self-management and behavior change and partner with communities to address social and structural factors impeding good health. Determining the ideal ratio of in-person visits to virtual visits, use of remote-device monitoring, and mix of health professionals will be important.³

Key Components of Chronic-Disease Care and Strategies That Have Been Reinforced by Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic.^*

Support for health of diverse patients and communities

• Ensure that patients are central and are the system’s compass.
  • Set goals centered on best achievable health and patient experience.
  • Empower patients and families to collaborate with the care team.
  • Partner with patients and communities in creating and implementing new care systems.
  • Ensure that systems synergistically support patient and employee well-being.

Prevention of chronic disease, promotion of health, and care for patients with chronic disease using primary care teams, with access to specialty services as needed

• Provide team-based care spanning home, community, outpatient, and inpatient settings.
  • Individualize type and intensity of services and culturally tailor them to patients’ needs.
  • Shift more care from outpatient and inpatient settings to home and community settings.
  • Provide convenient access to diagnostic and therapeutic services.
  • Provide convenient access to 24-hour care.
  • Allow team members to practice at the top of their licenses.
  • Employ a diverse workforce that reflects the community.

• Employ community health workers.

Fulfillment of system-level health and social needs

• Address systemic issues that drive inequities.
  • Work to dismantle structural racism within and outside the health care system.
  • Collaborate with community partners to address social and structural factors affecting patients’ health, including by generating and sharing real-time data.
  • Develop trustworthiness.
• Be guided by a road map for advancing health equity.
  • Stratify clinical performance measures and patient-experience metrics by factors such as patient race and ethnic group and socioeconomic status.
  • Perform root-cause analysis of health disparities.
  • Design care interventions to address root causes.
  • Create a culture of equity that enables implementation of reforms.

By Jonathan Stempel and Tom Hals,

Oct 22 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that state-owned Turkish lender Halkbank (HALKB.IS) can be prosecuted over accusations it helped Iran evade American sanctions.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said even if the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act shielded the bank, the charge against Halkbank falls under the commercial activity exception.

Robert Cary, an attorney at Williams & Connolly which represents Halkbank, declined to comment. There was no immediate comment from the Turkish foreign ministry.

“We will be asserting all our legal rights for appealing the Second Circuit’s denial order,” Halkbank said in a statement.

Prosecutors accused Halkbank of converting oil revenue into gold and then cash to benefit Iranian interests and documenting fake food shipments to justify transfers of oil proceeds.

They also said Halkbank helped Iran secretly transfer $20 billion of restricted funds, with at least $1 billion laundered through the U.S. financial system.

Halkbank has pleaded not guilty to bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges over its alleged use of money servicers and front companies in Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to evade sanctions.

The bank had argued it is immune from prosecution under the federal Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act because it was “synonymous” with Turkey, which has immunity under that law.

The court said Halkbank was conflating its purpose – to act as a repository for the Turkish government’s Iranian oil and gas proceeds – with its action, which was a scheme to participate in money laundering.

The appeals court said that even if the law “confers sovereign immunity in criminal cases, the offense conduct with which Halkbank is charged falls within FSIA’s commercial activities exception to sovereign immunity.”

Halkbank had been appealing an Oct. 1 ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman allowing it to be prosecuted. 

Berman has overseen several related cases, including the conviction of former Halkbank executive Mehmet Hakan Atilla and a guilty plea by Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab.

Halkbank’s case has complicated U.S.-Turkish relations, with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan backing Halkbank’s innocence in a 2018 memo to then-U.S. President Donald Trump.

The case was decided by Judges Amalya Kearse, Joseph Bianco and Jose Cabranes, who wrote the opinion. The lower court had scheduled a trial to start for May 3, but the proceeding was stayed during the appeal and a new trial has yet to be scheduled.

Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ezgi Erkoyun Editing by Howard Goller and Mark Potter

Source: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-appeals-court-says-turkeys-halkbank-can-be-prosecuted-over-iran-sanction-2021-10-22/

Eldar Mamedov,

Meanwhile hawks in Washington are encouraging President Ilham Aliyev to stoke tensions with Tehran.

The hope for de-escalation of tensions between Iran and Azerbaijan following last week’s phone call between their foreign affairs ministers, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Jeyhun Bayramov respectively, has so far proved to be short-lived.

At a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States a few days after the call, Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev accused Iran of using the Nagorno-Karabakh region for drug trafficking to Russia and Europe, without producing any proof. Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs pushed back against what it called “Aliyev’s astonishing claims.”

Adding fuel to its anti-Tehran campaign, the regime in Baku detained a number of Azerbaijani Shiite clerics considered “pro-Iranian,” including a former imam of the Baku Djoumah (Friday) mosque Ilgar Ibrahimoglu and Sardar Babaev, the main redactor of the religious website maide.az. Both Ibrahimoglu and Babaev studied in Iran, but while the former was released after a long and detailed interrogation, the latter has been formally charged with treason — a charge that, if the past treatment of religious activists is any guide, is likely to result in a long imprisonment and torture. Baku will also use the case to bolster its credentials in the United States and Europe as a bulwark against Iranian-backed “Islamic extremism.”

These latest incidents strongly suggest that, at least for now, Aliyev is unwilling to dial down tensions with Tehran. Baku’s military success against Armenia has clearly emboldened him to openly challenge its southern neighbor as well. When Iran conducted large scale military drills near the borders of Azerbaijan, its conventional arsenal was widely dismissed on Azerbaijani pro-government websites as no match for Azerbaijan’s Israel- and Turkey-powered high-tech equipment. Aliyev counts on Ankara’s and Tel Aviv’s continued military and diplomatic support as a sufficient deterrent against Tehran.

Israel’s support, in Aliyev’s calculation, should also translate into Washington’s — all the more so when the prospects of reviving the Iran nuclear deal remain uncertain and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is warning of “other options” should diplomacy fail.

In this context, as Iran’s relations with its traditional rivals in the Persian Gulf — Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates — are slowly thawing, Azerbaijan is emerging as an alternative staging ground for anti-Iran activities. In fact, since the renewal of the hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020, an array of Washington think-tankers sought to expand the conflict to Iran, in hopes that Iranian Azerbaijanis would play act as a stalking horse in fulfilling these hawks’ old dreams — optimally the dismemberment of the country along ethnic lines, or, at least the fostering of armed secessionist movements that would force Tehran to turn inward. Either outcome would be seen as a major win for Israel, Iran’s arch-foe — a key motivation for this group of pundits. With tensions between Tehran and Baku rising, these hawks see that goal within their reach. And Aliyev seems to think that the possible benefits of cozying up to Israel and United States outweighs the risks and costs of angering Iran.

Yet Aliyev’s confidence seems misplaced and counterproductive. Iran’s military exercises near Azerbaijan’s borders were not designed as a preparation for invasion, but rather to get Baku’s attention to Tehran’s displeasure with what it sees as the former’s unfriendly policies. While Iran spent much of the past decade wrestling with the challenges in the Persian Gulf, it paid relatively little attention to the Caucasus. However, Iran has proved to be a highly adaptable, low-cost practitioner of asymmetrical warfare. One sure consequence of Aliyev’s bravado is that Tehran will now focus on strengthening its deterrence against Azerbaijan.

One relatively cost-effective tactic traditionally employed by Tehran to that end is to build up proxies. During the recent tensions with Baku, reports emerged about the creation in Azerbaijan of Hüseynçilər, or Husseynites, after a martyred Shiite imam. It attracted attention with a signature logo of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s elite security force, on its banner. Hüseynçilər, however, for now seem to be more about media hype than a real force.

This is because Azerbaijan presents a different landscape from the countries where Tehran has successfully cultivated proxies, such as Lebanon or Iraq. While nominally majority Shia, the decades of Soviet atheism, followed by a heavy emphasis on secular Turkic nationalism during the independence years eroded Azerbaijan’s connection with Shiism. In fact, the Aliyev administrations — both Ilham and his father and predecessor Heydar — welcomed the spread of Sunnism in the country as a way to distance Azerbaijan from Iran and bring it closer to Turkey. Pro-Turkish sentiment has been greatly reinforced after Azerbaijan’s victory in the war against Armenia.

The government also adopted a somewhat more sophisticated approach to the pockets of committed Shiite believers who still live in the country. While in the past it leaned heavily on repression, it now coopts prestigious religious leaders in an effort to create a sort of national-Shiism, i.e. a variant of faith that is politically pro-state and independent of Iran. One such example is the sheikh Shahin Hasanli, who started in the 1990s as a member of a radical Khomeinist society, and now is part of the official religious establishment. In the midst of the crisis with Iran, Hasanli explicitly distanced himself and fellow Azeri Shiites from Tehran. Rumors in Baku have it that he might replace the current chair of the Board of Caucasus Muslims, a state body in charge of “official Islam,” which is seen as too close to Iran.

Yet there remain a not insignificant number of people in the country disaffected by the corruption and socio-economic inequalities that have grown all too obvious under the Aliyevs’ dynasty. While victory in the war can overshadow these concerns for a while, that won’t last forever. With the secular opposition decimated by Aliyev, it is quite conceivable that, at least to some extent, the discontent will acquire a religious-political form, providing some opening to Tehran in the long run.

Over-emphasizing the Pan-Turkist aspect in its struggle with Tehran is also backfiring on Baku. Stressing the Turkic origins of some of the historical Iranian dynasties, like the Safavids and the Qajars, is not an argument for secession from Iran, as some ideologues in Baku would have it, but rather reinforces the Iranian Azeris’ connection with Iran.

In fact, the recent Baku-Tehran flare-up rekindled the long-dormant view in Iran of the Caucasus as a renegade province cleaved away from it in the 19th century by the Russian empire. The rise of Iranian nationalism, in both its religious and secular forms, is another long-term consequence that Aliyev and his supporters failed to foresee. One of its implications is that Tehran has already started pivoting to Yerevan, thus ironically making Baku’s claims of its pro-Armenian tilt a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, Iran decided to use Armenia, rather than Azerbaijan, as its conduit for North-South trade, a project into which Azerbaijan has invested a big deal as a ticket to its post-oil prosperity. 

While such projects are more of a long-term nature, Iran already possesses its ultimate conventional deterrent: its missiles whose range covers Azerbaijan’s entire territory. Iran has demonstrated its ability to strike with precision on Saudi oilfields, despite Riyadh’s close security relationship with the United States. Admittedly, such a strike would signify a massive escalation and invite retaliation, possibly with the participation of Turkey, so the threshold for undertaking it would be extremely high. However, Iranian leaders have amply demonstrated in the past that, if pushed into a corner, they would not hesitate to lash out at their perceived enemies. Thus, Aliyev’s newfound pugnacity and provocation towards Iran risks undermining Azerbaijan’s long-term security.

This article reflects the personal views of the author and not necessarily the opinions of the S&D Group and the European Parliament.

Global engineer Michelle MusseyanBorn 1959 in the French capital of Paris to an Armenian family. He gathered his family and decided to move to the United States.′′ I was born in France, studied in America, and lived in England, but I throw me in heart and soul Michelle Mosesian said.

After his move to the United States, 18-year-old Michelle continued his studies at Harvard CollegeMichelle is the designer of NATO headquarters in Brussels and Exson Mobile in Shanghai and Palm Jumeirah in Dubai through the heart of Doha in Qatar and works in France, England, Morocco and the GulfUpon completion, Michelle Muscian’s name as an architect and global designer has begun to appear in magazines and newspapers around the world.In the near future, his company’s work is the new building of the Islamic Heritage Museum in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Note that Mossessian Architecture won this project contest last week.Armenian creativity continues and conquers the world with architecture on planet Earth

Armenian National Committee of Iraq

The main opposition Hayastan alliance said on Friday that it will rally supporters in Yerevan soon in an effort to thwart what it described as more Armenian concessions to Azerbaijan planned by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

Senior representatives of the bloc led by former President Robert Kocharian claimed that Pashinian is ready to cede more territory to Baku, including by agreeing to a land corridor between the Nakhichevan exclave and western Azerbaijan passing through Armenia’s Syunik province.

“We believe that what is happening will lead to a new capitulation agreement,” said Ishkhan Saghatelian, a deputy parliament speaker. “Armenia will be making new concessions. In order to prevent that, pan-Armenian forces must form a national resistance front to show the entire world, including this government of evil, that our people disagree with this course and are fighting against it.”

“We need to explain all this to people because [Pashinian] is continuing to fool people [with talk of peace.] After sending people to their death [in Nagorno-Karabakh last fall] he is now intimidating them with [warnings about] another war,” he told reporters.

Saghatelian said that Hayastan is now holding consultations with other opposition groups and will announce the date of its rally next week. He would not say whether it will be a one-off protest or the first in a series of anti-government rallies.

Pashinian visited the Armenian parliament on Thursday to meet with deputies representing his Civil Contract party. According to one of those lawmakers, Gagik Melkonian, Pashinian assured them that he is not planning any territorial concessions to Baku.

Melkonian shrugged off the opposition allegations about such concessions, saying that Kocharian’s bloc simply wants to seize power. He said the authorities are not worried about Hayastan protests.

“Their place is the street,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Let them fight on the street. Nobody will be standing by their side.”

Saghatelian confirmed that Pashinian’s removal from power remains on Hayastan’s agenda.

Kocharian, who had ruled Armenia from 1998-2008, likewise said on October 4 that regime change remains his and his political allies’ key goal. But he cautioned that they must “generate” greater popular anger at the government before trying to topple it with street protests.

“The biggest problem is that a considerable part of our people has come to terms with this situation and voted for these ones,” Kocharian said, referring to the ruling political team. He insisted at the same time that a politically active minority of citizens can also pose a serious threat to Pashinian’s hold on power.

Pashinian’s Civil Contract party won Armenia’s June 20 parliamentary elections with almost 54 percent of the vote, according to their official results. Hayastan came in a distant second with 21 percent. Its final election campaign rally in Yerevan drew a massive crowd.

The exercise was held at a time of intensifying hostile rhetoric between Tehran and Baku, as Russia continues its cautious position in between.

The air force of the Iranian army launched a major drill on Oct. 21 involving several bases nationwide, the latest in a series of muscle-flexing gestures by the Islamic Republic in recent weeks.

According to the Iranian army’s air force commander, Brig. Gen. Hamid Vahedi, the exercise was testing combat preparedness for bombardments and using domestically developed weapons, laser missiles and smart bombs.

Iranian media said the maneuver was carried out with a centralized command that coordinated operational units of electronic warfare, surveillance and information technology within one integrated system that also showcased reconnaissance equipment, including an advanced homegrown camera dubbed “Samat.”

The drill organizers did not specify a threat or name any country. But in recent weeks, the Islamic Republic has been engaged in a bitter war of words with its northern neighbor, Azerbaijan. Iran has long expressed unease with Azerbaijan’s close ties to Israel. And recent reports that Baku was planning to purchase an Israeli missile defense system only stirred up the old concerns in Tehran. Iran’s leadership and commanders of the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have issued strongly worded statements against Baku, saying the neighbor is allowing Israeli influence and plots to be implemented in the region. Azerbaijan has dismissed such assertions.

While last week Iranian and Azeri foreign ministers agreed on de-escalation, there are still few signs that the two sides are effectively taking practical steps toward that goal.

During its war last summer with Armenia, Azerbaijan was believed to have deployed a wide range of Israeli-made drones, which helped it gain an upper hand in the six-week battle. Notably, during the aerial exercise on Thursday, Iran said significant focus was placed on testing and showing off multiple, domestically produced manned and unmanned drones.

Amid the ongoing tensions, both Iran and Azerbaijan have gone the extra mile to boost ties with Russia, especially militarily. In the latest, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, was in St. Petersburg where he reached “good agreements” with the Russian navy’s Deputy Commander-in-chief, Vice Adm. Vladimir Lvovich Kasatonov. Iran’s participation in future Russian drills was said to be part of those “agreements.”

Yet as the Russian Federation stays on good terms with both Tehran and Baku, it appeared to be maintaining a policy of caution for now, weighing its options before eventually tilting the situation in the Azeri-Iranian tensions toward the best of its own strategic interests.

Aliyev may be a dictator, but Western denial of Azerbaijan’s new reality and neglect of his increasing belligerence promise a far bloodier future for justice and democracy in the region than he does.

by Michael Rubin,

Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan for nearly eighteen years, sits atop a mirage. Azerbaijan’s capital Baku exudes wealth. Luxury boutiques like Bulgari, Christian Dior, Gucci, and Trussardi line Neftchiler Avenue across Primorsky Park from the Bay of Baku. Luxury hotels like the Four Seasons, Marriott Absheron, and the Hilton Baku overlook the cornice. Car dealerships showcase the latest Rolls Royces, Lamborghinis, and Ferraris. Azerbaijan is hardly the only country to sport such an ostentatious display—Persian Gulf emirates do as well—but the wealth extremes among Azeri citizens are greater, as anyone who has bypassed the official tours to see the mudbrick houses and shantytowns outside the capital can attest. While those associated with the Aliyev family and his inner circle might afford Baku’s luxury goods, most city residents, including the educated and professional class, barely scrape by. Travel an hour or two outside the capital, and the situation is even worse.

Azerbaijan is among the world’s most corrupt countries; Transparency International ranks Azerbaijan with Russia, Mali, and Malawi. In contrast, neighboring Armenia sits alongside Greece and Slovakia in the rankings, while Georgia scores even better. The recent Pandora Papers exposé showed that family members of senior Azeri officials had bought or sold tens of millions of dollars of luxury real estate.

Politically, Azerbaijan remains an authoritarian dictatorship. Freedom House assesses that Azeris living under Aliyev’s dictatorship enjoy less freedom than Palestinians struggling under Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip and Houthi repression in Yemen; Azeris enjoy fewer civil liberties than the Chinese under President Xi Jinping’s repressive rule.

Why the West Ignores Azerbaijan’s Reality

Western states have ignored Aliyev’s corruption and repression for a variety of reasons:

The United Kingdom shields Azerbaijan at international forums because of British Petroleum’s interest in the country’s energy market. While China’s trade with Azerbaijan has historically been only a fraction of Great Britain’s, Beijing’s ambitions in Azerbaijan are quickly growing, which ironically makes China and the United Kingdom allies in the United Nations Security Council offering blind support to Azerbaijan, when the United Nations considers issues involving the South Caucasus.

Israel, meanwhile, has long-standing ties with Azerbaijan that are rooted in the arms-for-energy trade. During last year’s Nagorno-Karabakh war, Azerbaijan used Israeli drones against both civilian and military targets to turn the tide of the war after ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh rebuffed the initial Azerbaijani invasion.

Traditionally, both Israel and the United States also value Azerbaijan for its strategic location and willingness to allow espionage, if not full-fledged operations, against the Islamic Republic of Iran. While the mostly Shi’ite Azerbaijan once sought to distinguish itself from theocratic Iran to its south, in recent years, Aliyev has played the issue both ways: coasting on Azerbaijan’s past reputation while increasing his ties with Iran (and Russia), recent disputes with Tehran notwithstanding.

Azerbaijan’s reputation for religious tolerance and secularism also attracts many Western supporters. Certainly, Azerbaijan deserves praise in this regard, though the myth does not live up to reality. While Azerbaijan has generally protected its Jewish community, Aliyev’s government has long targeted Azerbaijan’s Christians, in some cases by erasing centuries-old cultural property like the graveyard in Julfa that Azerbaijani troops systematically destroyed. More recently, Aliyev’s cooperation with and tolerance for Syrian jihadi mercenaries, whom he used in his fight against Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians, raise questions about his outlook. In many ways, Aliyev appears to be taking a page from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s playbook: Distract the West with paeans to the secular past while quietly co-opting, if not promoting, religious extremists to act as policy proxies. When countries have embraced such tactics, the result has been blowback that harmed the standing of religious minorities. Azerbaijan’s subordination of its foreign policy to Erdoğan’s—even allowing Turkish diplomats veto power over Azerbaijani engagements—should raise questions about Baku’s tolerance and the ability of Israel and the United States to leverage Azerbaijani territory for other strategic pursuits in the near future.

Beyond the strategic reasons for ignoring Azerbaijan’s reality, there is also the reality of caviar diplomacy and golden parachutes. Azerbaijan pays well. The regime spends lavishly on gifts, luxury hotel suites, and dinners and provides access to those who parrot official positions and, more importantly, refuse to research or consider counterarguments. Some Israeli officials openly talk about how they hope to enter the Azerbaijani business scene after retirement. Former American officials might be more discreet in what they say, but their actions do not substantively differ.

Aliyev’s Dangerous Revanchism

Aliyev’s orientation should raise questions for any honest analyst, but, what really makes Azerbaijan a strategic liability, is Aliyev’s increasing unwillingness to live within Azerbaijan’s borders. This problem goes beyond disputes with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, the contested territory recognized by most countries as Azerbaijani territory, and extends to Aliyev’s territorial claims over Armenia proper, which the Azerbaijani dictator has increasingly voiced over the past decade.

For example, on November 20, 2012, Aliyev said, “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.” The following year, Aliyev gave a speech in which he promised not only to retake Nagorno-Karabakh but also all of Armenia. “Azerbaijanis will live on their historical lands in the future. Our historical lands are Irevan [Yerevan] and Zangezur regions,” he said. He returned to this theme on January 22, 2014, during a visit to Ganja, Azerbaijan’s second-largest city, when he described Armenia as “historical Azerbaijani lands” that his countrymen will eventually regain. While Minsk Group diplomats pushed a land-for-peace and security deal, Aliyev promised Azeris that an Armenian withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent districts would only be the first phase of a final solution.

At Nowruz celebrations the following year, Aliyev tripled down on the theme. “The Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict must be settled only within the framework of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territorial integrity,” he said, then added, “after that, we will return to our ancient lands—to Yerevan, Geicha, and Zangezur.”

While successive secretaries of state took Aliyev at his word when he promised to settle his disputes with Armenia diplomatically, Aliyev did not try to deceive his home audience. Speaking in the central Azerbaijani district of Terter in December 2016, he explained, “Today, we are not claiming any in the modern Republic of Armenia. We do not intend to reclaim Yerevan, Meghri, Goris through military force but I’m sure that time will come, and we, Azerbaijanis, will return to all our historic lands,” He then promised, “The main factor [for success] is strength. This is true. We live in the real world. So we have to become even stronger, to create a more powerful army.”

In recent years, especially as his economy has stagnated or declined against the backdrop of falling oil prices, Aliyev has increasingly turned toward revanchist claims to distract the public from his own mismanagement. During a speech to his New Azerbaijan Party, for example, Aliyev claimed that Yerevan, the territories of Lake Sevan, and the province of Syunik, also known as Zangezur, are historical Azerbaijani lands and that their return was a “strategic and political goal.” During a Baku military parade after the Azeri victory in the most recent Nagorno-Karabakh war, Aliyev called Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, as well as Armenia’s Syunik and Sevan regions “historical lands” of Azerbaijan. Such rhetoric dashes hopes for peace. Just last month, Aliyev threw cold water on Armenia’s request for talks about the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, warning Armenians that they should refrain from raising the subject since Azerbaijan has more historical grounds for claiming parts of Armenia like Zangezur and Lake Geicha.

It is one thing for Azerbaijan not to have diplomatic relations with Armenia—that can be rectified—but it is quite another to reject Armenia’s right to exist.

A Perfect Storm

Family fiefdoms seldom succeed in countries without formal, institutionalized monarchies. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak fell when he tried to promote his son to power. Likewise, Muammar Gaddafi fell as he tried to have his son Saif succeed him. Hafez al-Assad’s son Bashar did come into power, but Syria ultimately paid a far higher price as it descended into civil war.

For dictators, the problem with multi-decade rule is that political scapegoats are in short supply. For example, Erdoğan cannot blame his predecessors for the corruption and economic mismanagement that drained Turkey’s foreign reserves and crashed its currency. For all of Azerbaijan’s hydrocarbon wealth, the per capita income of Azerbaijanis is actually less than that of Georgians and Armenians, the latter of whom subsist under a Turkish-Azerbaijani economic blockade. While the citizens of Gulf emirates arguably accept a contract in which they sacrifice freedoms for wealth, the comparison between the Gulf states and Azerbaijan falters because ordinary Azeris receive little in exchange for political pliancy.

Azerbaijan now faces a perfect storm. As Aliyev seeks to promote his wife and son to succeed him, ordinary Azerbaijanis grow increasingly frustrated with their plight. They also see the cost of Aliyev’s Nagorno-Karabakh victory: infringement on Azerbaijani sovereignty by Russian and Turkish troops. Aliyev sponsors trips for foreign officials and some Azeris to recaptured areas of Nagorno-Karabakh, but few Azeris who originate from the territory are prepared to return permanently, given the region’s lack of jobs and their new roots in and around Baku. In effect, Aliyev wants to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure and Potemkin ghost towns that few Azeris want to reside in permanently during a shaky time for  Azerbaijan’s economy, the rise in oil prices notwithstanding.

Source: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/azerbaijan%E2%80%99s-aliyev-strategic-liability-not-asset-195170

2146 new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Armenia in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 291,052, the ministry of healthcare reports.

18,598 COVID-19 tests were conducted on October 21.

1134 patients have recovered in one day. The total number of recoveries has reached 258,486.

The death toll has risen to 5944 (42 death cases have been registered in the past one day).

The number of active cases is 25,374.

The number of people who have been infected with COVID-19 but died from other disease has reached 1248 (5 new such cases).