“A1” talked to Siranuysh Sahakyan, the representative of the interests of Armenian prisoners in the ECHR, about the issue of Armenian prisoners of war being held in Azerbaijan.

• Mrs. Sahakyan, in recent days the issue of Armenian prisoners of war held in Azerbaijan was raised in PACE and Euronest. What do you think these discussions can do for the return of prisoners?
• I think such structures can become actors, they have been quite effectively involved in other conflicts, they have provided real results. It just depends on what tools they will use within the framework of their mandate, how seriously and consistently they will deal with the problem. At least in connection with yesterday’s discussions, I can say that there are no great expectations, because only the discussion procedure was used, which provides discussions on the issue, publicity of the results, but leaves no room for a serious process in the future. As a result of some other processes, questions can be raised, including sanctions, suspension of membership.
• Has the international community received the signal that Azerbaijan is keeping Armenian prisoners of war illegally?
• I think the information issue is resolved, of course, they may not know some nuances, not be aware of all the manifestations of the humanitarian catastrophe, but at least the fact that there is a prisoner of war problem in the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, , this is clear. The information can not be acted upon yet, additional diplomatic and political work is needed, where the actions taken may be related to the interests of one or several states. In order for politicians to “harm” the interests of Azerbaijan or the countries supporting it for the protection of the rights of Armenians, they must make sense of their actions, which can take place exclusively as a result of active political and diplomatic work.
• What new information can you provide about the case of prisoners of war being examined at the ECHR?
• We have managed to get the Committee of Ministers to deal with the issue at the same time as the ECHR, as Azerbaijan does not cooperate properly with the court, does not meet the deadlines set by the court in terms of providing information about the detainees. Of course, the court has already notified the Committee of Ministers, but it continues its normal litigation, there are communications, exchange of new information, etc., that is, the legal process continues, it is in an intensive stage, in parallel, we are waiting for new results. In the Committee of Ministers, where the Republic of Armenia is officially represented at the level of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We have to see what results our diplomatic corps will be able to provide based on the court actions.
• Are the statements of the Azerbaijani side that there are no other prisoners of war in Azerbaijan, they are saboteurs, touched upon in the legal processes?
• These statements can be discussed in legal proceedings insofar as they become official positions in the ECHR. There is a discrepancy from this point of view ․ Some of the positions that Azerbaijan presents publicly are not reflected in the legal positions of the state; it is clear that if they have not become official legal positions, we ignore them because we understand that they are statements to foreign and internal audiences in politics It is presented that they have no legal consequences.
• According to your calculations, how many prisoners of war and civilians are currently being held in Azerbaijan?
• According to our calculations, we have about 120 cases of captivity of clearly proven people, about 80 cases with indirect evidence.
• How many have been approved by Azerbaijan?

A little over -70.

There is a stir at the moment in the National Security Service (NSS) of Armenia.

As per Armenian News-NEWS.am’s information, PM Nikol Pashinyan has demanded that NSS director Armen Abazyan “gather” the organizers and activists of the protests against him in Syunik Province.

According to our information, the NSS is currently compiling the list of these individuals.

Also, the NSS has been instructed to detain the Syunik community leaders who have demanded Pashinyan’s resignation and joined the Reviving Armenia party of Vahe Hakobyan, the former governor of Syunik.

To note, Nikol Pashinyan, who on Wednesday visited Syunik Province, was greeted by the residents of Meghri, Agarak, and Kapan towns with insults, and calling him a traitor, a Turk, and a capitulator. Also, Pashinyan could not enter Kajaran because the locals had blocked the motorway leading to this town.

Residents of Kajaran, a town in Armenia’s Syunik Province, on Wednesday held a protest against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s visit to the town. 

They blocked the major roads leading to Kajaran, as well as the inter-town roads in an effort to block the premier’s entry into the town.

“[Azerbaijani Presdent] Aliyev threatens to use force against Syunik, and we do not want Nikol to set foot on our land after breaking the backbone of Syunik,” one of the protesting residents said.

Ahead of Pashinyan’s visit, the protesters were chanting “Nikol the traitor!”.

Later it became clear that Nikol Pashinyan cut short his visit to Kajaran amid the protests and left Meghri taking a different route.

“Nikol once again proved that he is a coward, a man licking shoes of the Turks. He has no right to desecrate the land of Syunik,” one of the citizens 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

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.

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

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: 

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/

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. 

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, 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.

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.

• Armenia police chief makes personnel changes, appoints new head of Syunik Regional Department