Gagrule.net

Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide

Armenian foreign ministry condemns Aliyev’s statement on readiness to use force

By

Aliyev said in a televised interview on Tuesday that Azerbaijan would spare no effort to establish the so-called Zangezur corridor, regardless of whether Armenian wanted it or not

YEREVAN, April 20. /TASS/. Armenia condemns Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s statement on possible use of force to establish a transport corridor to the Azerbaijani city of Nakhchivan via Armenia’s territory and is ready to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anna Naghdalyan said in a statement on Tuesday.

“We strongly condemn the Armenian president’s zeal to use force. <…> Such statements do serious harm to regional peace and stability. They reveal the false nature of Azerbaijan’s recent peace statements,” she said.

“Armenia will take all necessary measures to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she vowed. “We are in permanent contacts with our strategic ally and with all of our partners who are interested in peace in the South Caucasus,” she stressed.

Armenia’s authorities have repeatedly said that Armenia considers Russia as its strategic ally.

“Notably, such threats were voiced ahead of the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide,” Naghdalyan said.

Aliyev said in a televised interview on Tuesday that Azerbaijan would spare no effort to establish the so-called Zangezur corridor, regardless of whether Armenian wanted it or not. He said that if Armenian accepted the idea it would be easier to settle the matter, otherwise the Azerbaijani side would be ready to do it by force.

The Armenian foreign ministry said in early March that the November 9, 2020 agreement on cessation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh signed by the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian leaders did not envisage the establishment of a corridor from Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan via Zangezur (Armenia’s Syunik Province). Some of the districts around Nagorno-Karabakh were passed over under Baku’s control under the trilateral statement of September 27, 2020 that put an end to combat operations in the conflict zone. The Azerbaijani and Armenian sides stopped at the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the contact line in the Lachinsky corridor.

Reuters: Greece signs deal to provide Saudi Arabia with Patriot air defence system

By

Greece and Saudi Arabia have signed a deal to lend a Patriot air defence system to the Arab country to protect critical energy facilities, GreekForeign MinisterNikos Dendias said on Tuesday.

Dendias and Greek Defence Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos met earlier on Tuesday with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhain in Riyadh.

“We signed an agreement to move a Patriot battery here in Saudi Arabia,” Dendias said in a press release, adding that he also signed a cooperation agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council.

“This is a big step forward for our country regarding the cooperation with the Gulf countries and also a contribution to the wider security of the energy sources for the West,” he added.

The U.S.-made Patriot system will be used to protect critical energy facilities in the kingdom, a Greek diplomat said.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which is battling a Saudi-led coalition that intervened in the country’s war in 2015, has stepped up drone and missile attacks on Saudi targets in recent weeks.

The Patriot system is designed mainly to counter high-altitude ballistic missile attacks, which the kingdom has often had to deal with since intervening in Yemen.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/greece-signs-deal-provide-saudi-arabia-with-patriot-air-defence-system-2021-04-20/?taid=607f5277c18bb900010d36ba&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

Turkish intelligence set up fake news service to spy on foreign journalists, recruited AFP photographer to gain access to key events

By

by Abdullah Bozkurt

A case file concerning Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization’s (MIT) infiltration of Agence France-Presse (AFP) with a Turkish journalist has provided important details on how the Turkish spy agency uses journalists as operatives, establishes news outlets to collect intelligence and monitors foreign journalists and their contacts.

The statements of Mustafa Özer, a 47–year-old-photojournalist who worked for Reuters before joining AFP in 2003, gave clues on the modus operandi of the Turkish intelligence service in using journalists and media professionals as agents, assets and informants.

The practice, still ongoing today, has certainly undermined the credibility of Turkish journalists and dealt a serious blow to the integrity of news outlets, which are supposed to promote the public interest against the abuse of government power in the surveillance and illegal profiling of unsuspecting people.

Özer was caught in a counterterrorism sweep launched by the Istanbul prosecutor’s office in December 2011 that targeted the network of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist group by the US, EU and Turkey. The police found out he had been in contact with known suspects in the criminal case, communicating with people who were under surveillance, and wanted to bring him in for questioning about his activities.

AFP photojournalist Mustafa Özer’s statement to the prosecutor revealed how he worked secretly for the intelligence service: 

When he was detained, he revealed his secret identity as a MIT agent in order to save himself from criminal charges and revealed many details of assignments from the spy agency since he was first recruited. The 46-page statement he gave to the police and five-page statement he made to the prosecutor also implicated MIT in some acts that may very well be classified as illegal under Turkish law.

Public prosecutor Bilal Bayraktar let him go after taking his statement but pressed further in his probe to find out if any law was broken by MIT while using him as an operative under the cover of a journalist. Bayraktar’s case was quashed before he managed to go further in his investigation, and he was later dismissed by the government.

In his statement Özer underlined that he had wanted to share with the police and other authorities what he had been doing with MIT on a couple of occasions but claimed the intelligence agency prevented him from doing so. MIT agents advised him against sharing information with the police, saying the operations were carried out abroad and not subject to review by the prosecutor’s office and the police.

Yet, his damning statements exposed how Turkish intelligence established front media outlets called Bağımsız Haber Ajansı (Independent News Agency, BHA) and Euroasia News Network Photo (ENNPhoto) to conduct spying activities. According to the details in his statements, MIT spied on foreign journalists, using Özer’s position at AFP to gain access to key people and places on the pretext of conducting interviews, covering events for the press and questioning high-profile foreign nationals who visited Turkey.

Neither of the outlets is currently active after their covers were blown and the intelligence agency scrambled to get rid of its footprint by shutting down the media outlets in March 2012. ENNphoto’s archived pages that were found  on Internet Wayback give the impression of a legitimate news website although it was run by Turkish intelligence.

Invoice for Internet services of Euroasia News Network Photo, a front business run by Turkish intelligence: 

MIT agents using fake names and email addresses associated with the website communicated with other journalists. The “photographer” section of the web page listed Turkish as well as American, Greek, Slovenian and Bulgarian photographers and photojournalists. Perhaps foreign journalists were thinking they were in fact cooperating with a legitimate media outlet and signed up as contributors.
ENNphoto published in English and focused on photography, while BHA was run as a news website in Turkish and published news articles. Monthly invoices for the ennphoto.com web server dated November and December 2011 show that the Radore Hosting company billed a man named Sezayi Erken for Internet services. Erken was a cameraman brought on board by Özer.
 
Top secret document issued by Turkish intelligence agency MIT on July 3, 2015 and signed by Umit Ulvi Canik, legal advisor to MIT chief Hakan Fidan, confirmed that Özer had worked for the spy agency between 2005 and 2015. The document was presented to the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office : 

Read more on: https://nordicmonitor.com/2021/04/turkish-intelligence-set-up-fake-news-service-to-spy-on-foreign-journalists-recruited-afp-worker-to-gain-access-to-key-events/

Talysh blogger sentenced to 7 years in Azerbaijan

By

A Talysh blogger arrested by the State Security Service in July 2020 has been sentenced to seven years in prison by a Baku court for ‘inciting national hatred’, among other charges.

Aslan Gurbanov was found guilty on 15 April of public incitement against the state and incitement of national, racial, social, religious hatred and enmity through the media.

The blogger was accused of carrying out anti-government propaganda on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, disseminating discriminatory materials, and violating the rights of the Talysh by publishing materials that ‘falsely claimed’ that Talysh people were discriminated against.

In September 2020, the blogger’s brother, Sakit Gurbanov, told RFE/RL that his brother had been receiving treatment in the hospital for about 15 days. Yet, the family never received any news on his diagnosis or the reason for his hospitalisation. 

Sakit Gurbanov told OC Media that after his brother’s arrest on 14 July 2020, they had only had the chance to see him once, on 8 February, in the State Security Service building. 

‘He told us that someone from the security service told him, “I will make sure you get 10 years in prison so that it teaches a lesson to all Talysh. Let those who want to live in this country stay; those who do not like it can leave.”’  

According to the family, Aslan Gurbanov has heart problems and suffers from epilepsy.

‘He was just a regular blogger’

A number of Talysh activists in Azerbaijan and abroad have spoken out in Gurbanov’s defence.

‘One of the main charges against him was that he took a picture with a Talysh flag in the Baku Boulevard and kept a flag at home,’ Ismail Shabanov, President of the Talysh Federal Cultural Autonomy of Russia told OC Media. ‘The Azerbaijani government has taken a radical line against the Talysh and does not intend to compromise.’

‘I do not believe that the situation will change unless the world’s leading countries pressure Azerbaijan. But we, the Talysh, are fighting and will continue to fight to the best of our ability’, Shabanov said.

Hilal Mammadov, an Azerbaijani journalist, human rights activist, and co-chair of the Public Council of Talysh in Azerbaijan (PCTA) told OC Media he was certain that the charges against Gurbanov were fabricated.

‘It is a measure to intimidate Talysh activists and violate their rights. Aslan was not a well-known Talysh activist. He was just a regular blogger and promoted the history and culture of the Talysh people within the law’, he told OC Media.

Rahim Shaliyev, a Talysh activist and journalist, told OC Media that the Azerbaijani government had demonstrated a systematic policy of Azeri ethnocentrism and discrimination against the Talysh. These prejudices, Shaliyev said, were also echoed by local, ethnically Azeri, human rights activists. ‘They [the local activists] created a monopoly, trying to hide or manipulate what is happening to Talysh activists from international organisations’, he said. 

PACE MP urges Azerbaijan not to trade over POWs issue

By

The issue of returning Armenian POWs kept in Azerbaijan is being discussed at the PACE. MP Stefan Schennach said in his speech that he gives a speech today not as the co-rapporteur for Azerbaijan, but as a PACE MP.

‘’We must use this forum for solving conflicts and reaching peace. There are people in Azerbaijan, who are considered missing, there are many servicemen who are still kept in Azerbaijan as POWs. This issue must be clearly and seriously addressed’’, ARMENPRESS reports Stefan Schennach as saying.

He added that numerous civilians have been killed during the war, and it’s important to respect the adversary and strive for peace. ‘’I ask, I call on Azerbaijan, let’s not trade over the issue if the servicemen were taken captive before or after the war. They must be returned home’’, the MP said.

Results of the PACE votes: 93 for, 21 against, the dictator countries vote V/S Democratic countries

By

Results of the PACE votes: 93 for, 21 against, 18 abstentions. From 21 deputies who voted against: 5 are Russian, 8 are Turks, 6 are from Azerbaijan, 1 is Serbian and 1 is Hungarian Of the abstentions, 7 were Russian.

At first glance it might seem that the Russian MPs at PACE voted against a resolution concerning the Armenian captives, however the voting was for a complete package, not separate points. Some of the points like 1.5.1. and 1.5.6. were anti-Russian, thus the voting.

Armenia PM heads for Syunik Province in top secret

By

According to Armenian News-NEWS.am’s information, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan left for Syunik Province Tuesday afternoon.

But the information about his visit was kept strictly secret, the security forces found out about it at the last moment, and even the traffic police were informed only half an hour before that they should accompany the PM.

Moreover, according to our information, the police officers trusted by Pashinyan were simply instructed to leave for Syunik, without informing the purpose.

In order to ensure his safety on location, a special unit of the sixth department of the police was sent to the province.

To note, the Syunik Police chief, his deputy, and the Goris and Kapan town police chiefs were changed unexpectedly on Monday. Also, except for one community, the leaders of all other Syunik communities have publicly demanded Pashinyan’s resignation.

After the recent Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war, Nikol Pashinyan’s visit—at the end of December last year—to Syunik region had failed. He could not go further than Sisian town, as the people of Syunik had closed off the motorway near Goris town.

Catholicosate of Cilicia Refiles Lawsuit Against Turkey

By

In 2015 the Catholicosate of Cilicia (headquartered in Antelias, Lebanon) filed a lawsuit against the government of Turkey seeking the return of its historic seat in Sis, Turkey (present-day Kozan district of the Adana Province), which was confiscated in 1921.

The Catholicosate had initially filed its lawsuit directly with the Constitutional Court of Turkey because the claim raised issues of historical property rights that lower courts would not have jurisdiction over. At the urging of the Justice Ministry, the Constitutional Court referred the lawsuit to a lower court. The Catholicosate then appealed the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights in 2016. The European Court rejected the Catholicosate’s 900-page lawsuit in 2017, finding it inadmissible because it had not first exhausted all local legal remedies, such as the lower courts in Turkey.

Therefore, the Catholicosate refiled its lawsuit in 2019, this time with a lower Turkish court in Kozan (Sis). After two postponements due to the coronavirus pandemic, a pre-trial hearing finally took place on March 30, 2021 in the Kozan Civil Litigation Court to decide whether a viable cause of action existed to proceed to trial.

The Catholicosate’s lawsuit against the Municipality of Kozan and the Turkish government’s Treasury Department is being defended by a group of international law experts, as well as Turkish lawyer Jem Sofouoghlu and Turkish Armenian lawyer Setrag Davouthan, who is serving as a consultant.

The Istanbul-based Jamanak Armenian newspaper reported that according to attorney Sofouoghlu the March 30 hearing was intended to clarify the applicant’s qualifications and authorizations and the possibility of the expiration of the statute of limitations. The Municipality of Kozan and the Treasury Department presented their counter-evidence claiming that the applicant does not have standing — is not a legal entity — and is a foreign litigant. The defendants also stated that, before the hearing could proceed, the applicant as a foreign entity must provide a letter of guarantee corresponding to 15% of the demand’s value, as required by the Turkish legal system. Sofouoghlu was quoted by Jamanak telling the Judge that the Catholicosate had already submitted the required documents to the court. The Judge agreed to go ahead and consider the substance of the lawsuit, meaning that the court rejected the objections raised by the Municipality and Treasury Department, and ruled that the lawsuit could definitively proceed. The next hearing is scheduled for May 6, 2021. Sofouoghlu said that he considers this a very positive development.

Now the trial will go through several presumable phases. Sofouoghlu anticipates that the court will first assemble the evidence presented by the Catholicosate of Cilicia. For this purpose, the corresponding work will be carried out through the official archives and property registers at governmental bodies. The investigative-exploratory phase then follows the collection of evidence. According to Sofouoghlu, the court, most probably later on, will reach the conclusion that it will be necessary to appoint an expert to carry out this task. Such experts are usually academics from one of the universities in the Adana region. Even though the courts always have the authority to carry out this work on their own, they prefer to appoint an expert.

At the end, should the Catholicosate’s lawsuit be rejected, as expected, by the lower Turkish Court, it will then be appealed to the Constitutional Court of Turkey and after its probable rejection there, a new, and this time proper, appeal could be filed in the European Court of Human Rights which hopefully will not dismiss it because of a technicality.

Even though this lawsuit is filed by the Catholicosate of Cilicia to recover its historic seat, it is in fact much more significant than this particular case. The lawsuit is related to the Armenian nation’s larger efforts to pursue its legal demands for the return of all properties and assets confiscated by the Turkish government during the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923. As Catholicos Aram I has rightly pointed out: “This is the time that we move from the stage of [Genocide] recognition to reparation.” He told the New York Times in May 2015: “After 100 years, I thought it was time that we put the emphasis on reparation. … This is the first legal step. This will be followed by our claim to return all the churches, the monasteries, the church-related properties and, finally, the individual properties.”

VICE News: The Young Turks Led the Armenian Genocide. But the Progressive Show ‘The Young Turks’ Won’t Change Name

By

By Anya Zoledziowski

“If a group decided to call themselves ‘the Young Nazis’, and pitched themselves as a disruptor news outlet, people would be rightly outraged.”

Armenians in the U.S. are renewing their calls for the popular left-wing news show The Young Turks to change its name, saying it acts as a painful reminder of the Armenian Genocide.

The genocide, which officially took place in Turkey under the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923, resulted in the deportation, rape, and murder by starvation, torture, massacre, and death marches of about 1.5 million Armenians. Most of the Armenian diaspora today exists because of genocide, which was planned and executed by a nationalist offshoot of the Young Turks movement.

“Many of our community members who have been protesting The Young Turks through social media have made a fair equivalence between the Young Turks and Hitler Youth,” said Alex Galitsky, a communications director with the western region for the Armenian National Committee of America.

“If a group decided to call themselves ‘the Young Nazis’, and pitched themselves as a disruptor or anti-establishment news outlet, people would be rightly outraged,” he told VICE News.

Other Armenians have equated The Young Turks refusal to change its name to sports teams with racist mascots and names that evoke Indigenous stereotypes or trivialize Indigenous cultures.

The new demands to change the name come as Armenia is embroiled in warwith Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, which sits within Azerbaijan but is led and populated by ethnic Armenians. Azerbaijan is supported by Turkey, the perpetrator—and now denier—of the genocide. Many Armenians around the world see the conflict as an extension of it.

The Young Turks bills itself as the “largest online news show in the world.” While its primary audience is on YouTube, it’s available on iTunes, Hulu, and other platforms.

The Young Turks did not respond to VICE News requests for comment. But the site defines a Young Turk as a “progressive or insurgent member of an institution, movement, or political party” and a “young person who rebels against authority of societal expectations.”

“The selection of this name does not refer to any specific, historical incarnation of the Young Turks,” the site says.

In a Twitter exchange, one of the show’s hosts, Ana Kasparian, who is also Armenian, condemned the critiques.

“We’ve explained the name a billion times. You know what it means, and you know the type of coverage we do,” Kasparian tweeted. “To perpetuate the same lies over and over again, which of course directs harassment and disinformation toward me, is an odd move. Especially right now.”

Galitsky said the justification, which he’s heard hosts Cenk Uygur and Kasparian repeat over time, doesn’t acknowledge historical context. “You can’t truly be a progressive insurgent if you’re sanitizing a term that causes so much pain and trauma to the Armenian community,” Galitsky said.

Los Angeles-based Armenian-American organizer, Sophia Armen, responded to Kasparian by saying that while she admires TYT’s content, the show’s name inevitably keeps Armenians from engaging with it.

Armen told VICE News, “The Young Turks massacred and deported my entire family.” She said until the show changes its name, it will always remind Armenians of their painful shared history.

“The name is very personal,” she said.

Razmig Sarkissian’s grandfather was 5 years old when he had to hide under corpses to evade capture during the Armenian Genocide. He then escaped the region, but the rest of his family was killed, said Sarkissian, an L.A.-based activist and law student.

“It is exactly that traumatic history that is evoked in our minds every time we see (the show’s) name,” Sarkissian told VICE News. “For a show to signal so many progressive values yet fail to apply those very principles to themselves, to me, is unconscionable.”

U.S.-based Armenian activist and scholar Kohar Avakian told VICE News when you Google the Young Turks, search results are flooded with information about the show—not the historical party or genocide. That’s a problem because it prevents education about recent historical events, Avakian said.

Avakian acknowledged that the show’s hosts have stood with Armenians against genocide denialism in the past, but said the decision to keep the show’s name is telling.

“A name is a statement…we cannot stand by idly, especially not while our relatives are still being killed on their ancestral land as we speak,” Avakian said. “It is time to change the name.”

“Take my medals. I don’t want to live in #Azerbaijan ”: disappointed veterans complain of poverty VIDEO

By

In Azerbaijan, participants in the 44-day war against Artsakh complain of poverty and lack of assistance from the authorities.

One of the veterans, Naid Mammedov, says: “What I have are these medals, these diplomas, you didn’t give anything else, can I eat them?”

“You announced mobilization, I participated voluntarily, I did it for the country, what did you do for me, you didn’t give a dime after your return? How to pay for electricity and gas? ”- said the war veteran.

“Every day one veteran hangs himself, commits suicide, throws himself off a bridge,” he notes.

“These are my medals, I don’t want to, I give them to you, give me money for the trip, let me leave this country, I don’t want to live in Azerbaijan,” the veteran says.

“Why do I need all this, how do I pay for electricity and gas? In the land of oil and gas, I shouldn’t have any problems. We can’t swallow everything, ”the war veteran complained.