The United States is in a very challenging relationship with ally Turkey that will require much work as the country backslides on democracy, said Victoria Nuland, nominee to be Under Secretary of State for political affairs.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do in our bilateral relationship to make clear our concerns about not only what Turkey is doing outside its country but also inside its country, including the democracy, human rights and freedom of press,” Nuland said at a hearing of the U.S. State Committee on Foreign Relations on Thursday.

Bilateral relations have strained after NATO ally Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defence system in 2019, its deteriorating human rights record, which resulted in the detention of a U.S. pastor on terrorism charges three years ago and differences over Syria and Libya. 

“It’s very important that we re-commit at the table to the things that make us the strongest, particularly in the context of the rise of autocracy across the world,” Nuland said. “A NATO ally needs to stand after democracy. I look forward to rolling up the sleeves, getting back to Ankara and having these conversations.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is yet to receive a phone call from U.S. President Joe Biden since he took the office in January. As vice president in the Obama administration, Biden accused Erdoğan of being an autocrat. Last week, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi referred to Erdoğan as a dictator, prompting a stinging response.

The United States needs to continue to press Turkey on the S-400 weapons systems and to get on the same page with regard to Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, Nuland said.

“And more broadly, we need to start a conversation in NATO about backsliding on our values among our allies,” she said.

The United States has expelled Turkish manufacturers from the F-35 fighter jet programme and imposed sanctions through the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) in December over the purchase of the Russian missile systems.

In Vayots Dzor’s Getap village, the brother of a martyred soldier did not allow Pashinyan to approach his brother’s grave. “I have the right to that. I do not allow you. Nobody from this government helped me to find my brother,” said the man.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted the Israeli government on Friday, saying that he knew well how Israel is “an enemy of Islam,” over the country’s most recent air strike on targets in Gaza, Ahval reported.

Early on Friday, Israeli aircraft hit three facilities in Gaza, in response to a previous rocket attack, according to an Associated Press report.

The Israeli military said Palestinian militants fired two rockets from Gaza into the country’s south on Friday, within 24 hours.

We know Israel is an enemy of Islam. Unfortunately, Israel does not change these habits,” Erdogan said, speaking to reporters following Friday prayers. “We want all of humanity to follow closely Israel’s hostility against Islam evaluate (the situation). Surely, as long as Israel maintains this attitude, it is impossible for bilateral relations to reach a level we would like.”

The Turkish Foreign Ministry also issued a statement on “Israel’s attacks on Gaza,” and expressed concern about “Israel’s policies of oppression and violence against the Palestinian people” increasingly continuing during Ramadan.

Answering the questions why that system did not work the way the people wanted during the Artsakh war, the Prime Minister answered that there was a simple reason for that. He stressed that, in fact, this security system extends to the borders of Armenia, which Armenia itself has defined by the 2010 Law on Administrative Territorial Division.

The Permanent Representative of Armenia Mher Margaryan has addressed a letter to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres regarding the inauguration of the so-called “military trophy park” in Baku displaying a most dehumanizing “collection” of grotesque wax figures portraying ethnic Armenians, as well as a macabre exhibition of helmets, equipment and personal belongings of the Armenian soldiers murdered during the 44-day war, ARMENPRESS reports the Permanent Representation of Armenia to the UN informs.

“The celebration of human death and suffering at the highest political level in Baku through the propagation of denigrating, dehumanizing imagery of ethnic Armenians is yet another manifestation of the state-led policies of inciting anti-Armenian hatred and is an overt demonstration of a genocidal intent,” Ambassador Margaryan states in the letter.

MP Anna Kostanyan from the opposition Bright Armenia Party said Armenia should not act “spinelessly” and “bend its neck” before the whole world following the defeat in the recent war with Azerbaijan.

“Why should we necessarily act spinelessly and bend our neck before the whole world during the war and after it, especially in the 21st century,” the lawmaker said during the parliamentary debates on the execution of the government’s 2020 action plan.

Kostanyan urged the current authorities not to try shifting responsibility for the outcome of the war to the former authorities, stating they are the “number one responsible” for the war and its tragic outcome.

The MP said that the government diplomacy under the slogan “We negotiate what we want or what we need” was followed by a war, steps to numb the public consciousness and information blockade, and finally a defeat.

“If you cannot respond adequately with diplomatic language, I think that you should step aside and allow those capable of speaking to speak,” Anna Kostanyan said, referring to the fact that the authorities failed to respond to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s statements.

Referring to the education sector of the action plan, the deputy said that the government named it as a priority, but all the programs that were set to be implemented under the government’s 2020 program were not realized.

According to the Bright Armenia MP, the link between education and science with the labor market has not been strengthened.

She stated the law “On Higher Education and Science” also dealt a blow to the university autonomy and did not create conditions for young scientists to work and earn their living.

The Legislative Assembly of Alberta recently passed a Law, unanimously recognizing the Armenian Genocide and other genocides, while the government declared the month of April as Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month.

Bill 205, sponsored by MLA Peter Singh of the United Conservative Party of Alberta, was passed after its third reading on March 22, 2021 and received Royal Assent on March 26, 2021.

The bill, titled “Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month Act” encourages the government to develop strategies to prevent and combat the causes of genocide, recognize the impact of genocides on individuals from various ethnic and religious communities in Alberta, remember the victims and raise awareness on genocides that have occurred across the world.

The bill specifically highlights the Armenian Genocide; the Ukrainian Holodomor; the Jewish Holocaust; the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda; the Srebrenica Massacre; the Yazidi Genocide and the Rohingya Genocide.

Furthermore, the bill prescribes that “Within one year of the coming into force of this Act, the Minister must complete a report setting out the strategies and proposed actions that the Government commits to undertake to effect the purposes of this Act.”

With the passage of Bill 205, Alberta becomes the second province in Canada – after Quebec – to pass a bill into law, recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

The Canadian Senate recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2002, followed by the House of Commons in 2004 and the Government of Canada in 2006. On April 24, 2015, on the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, the House of Commons unanimously passed Motion-587, declaring the month of April as Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month in Canada.

The Armenian National Committee of Canada is extremely pleased with the passage of Bill 205 and expresses its utmost gratitude to the Premier of Alberta, the Hon. Jason Kenney, MLA Peter Singh and all members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for their principled stance and their unwavering commitment to truth and justice.

After previously denying it, Azerbaijan now says that Armenia fired Russian-made rockets during last year’s war. And now they’re trying to make things difficult for Moscow.

Azerbaijan has launched a public campaign against Russia, with the government and other public figures lining up to air choreographed grievances.

The pretext is clear: the alleged use of state-of-the-art Russian missiles against Azerbaijani targets in the waning days of last year’s war. But what’s less clear is what exactly Baku is trying to get out of Moscow as a result.

The campaign launched on April 2, when Azerbaijan’s state mine-removal agency ANAMA announced that it had found remains of two exploded Iskander missiles as it was clearing ordnance in Shusha, in Nagorno-Karabakh. This revived a long-running controversy over whether or not Armenia had used the missiles during the war, an issue that had previously led to serious political crisis in Armenia but which Azerbaijan had been content to stay out of.

When Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan notoriously claimed in February that Armenia had used the Iskander missiles, but that “90 percent of them didn’t explode,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that his side had no evidence that the missiles had been fired at them, and mocked Pashinyan for making “another public blooper.”

Now, though, the tone from Baku has changed. And ANAMA’s announcement included an extra-spicy accusation: that the missiles used against Shusha were not the Iskander E variant, designed for export and which Armenia was known to have had, but the M variant, which is known to be operated only by Russia. And the report has been followed by a seemingly coordinated PR campaign against Russia of the type that is often seen when Baku wants to make things difficult for Moscow.

As usually happens in these kinds of cases, senior Azerbaijani officials, including Aliyev, have been relatively muted, taking a “just asking questions” tone. On April 12, at the official inauguration of a new “Military Trophies Park” where the Iskanders were on display (among far more notorious exhibits), he said: “Armenians fired at Shusha with these Iskander-M missiles. Where did the Armenian military get these missiles from? They shouldn’t have had them.”

The next day, Aliyev reported that in a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin two weeks earlier, “we discussed this question. On my orders, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry sent an official letter with photographs, evidence. But so far we haven’t received any answer.”

The dirtier work, meanwhile, is being done by semi-official sources.

“The Iskandar M, the remnants of one of which were discovered in Shusha, is in the sole possession of the Russian Federation,” wrote Esmira Jafarova, an analyst at the state-run think tank Center of Analysis of International Relations. “The story behind this discovery definitely has a dark side that needs to be clarified, as the absence of plausible answers may generate dangerous speculation.”

Another analyst, Elchin Mirzabayli, suggested the M variant had been supplied illegally to Armenia. “These missile systems were illegally delivered to Armenia by criminal groups engaged in the arms trade,” Mirzabayli told the local news site Azernews. “Either Russia is holding back the truth about the sale of Iskander-M missiles to Armenia, or its leadership has not been informed about it. Anyway, the fact must be seriously investigated.”

Russian officials have repeatedly denied it. Putin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov said immediately after ANAMA’s announcement that Moscow confirmed that Iskanders (of any variety) hadn’t been used in the war and that they had no information about where Azerbaijan’s evidence was coming from. But he continues to be asked about it, and on April 11 he said that: “Military officials are engaged in a close dialogue. All corresponding questions are being discussed.”

Armenian military officials have refused to comment.

There have been reports in the past that Armenia did in fact get the M variant from Russia. A 2018 story in the Russian newspaper Kommersant cited an unnamed source in Russia’s defense industry saying that Armenia got a division’s worth of the Iskander M systems in 2016. Somewhat vaguely, it explained that this violated export protocols (the domestic version has a longer range than the export version), but that “Moscow was forced to take the step” because Armenia had no other option to defend itself in case of an Azerbaijani attack on Nagorno-Karabakh. 

The publicly available evidence, though, doesn’t prove whether the E or the M version was used. The images published by Azerbaijan could be from the rocket used in either system, Dmitriy Kornev, an analyst of Russian military hardware, told Eurasianet.

At this point, though, whether the Iskander was used and if so, what kind, has become a secondary issue. Its role as a political instrument by Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and possibly Russians, is far more significant. The question, as yet unanswered, is what Baku is now trying to get out of Moscow.

This kind of information campaign by Azerbaijan isn’t new, especially against Russia. But it is especially sensitive given Russia’s newly empowered role in the region.

It doesn’t appear that there is any one specific issue, but rather an overall dissatisfaction with Russia’s new role as virtually the sole mediator between the two sides, including the crucial peacekeeping mission.

The Russia-Azerbaijan dyad is probably the single most important relationship for determining the future contours of the conflict. It was Russia’s intervention following Azerbaijan’s victory in Shusha that prevented Azerbaijan from quickly completing its conquest of all of Nagorno-Karabakh, and it is the Russian peacekeeping mission that remains the only thing protecting the Armenian civilians remaining in Karabakh today. It’s not clear how Russia convinced Azerbaijan to stop its offensive, and it’s not clear how Moscow intends to convince Baku to extend the mandate of the peacekeeping mission when it expires in late 2025.

Analyst Shahin Jafarli told BBC Azeri that the government’s grievances against Russia were general, that its peacekeeping mission has been excessively favoring the Armenian side. He added that it appeared the Russians were building barracks and other infrastructure that suggested they were preparing for a larger mission. And he argued that the Iskander claims were “a sign of growing tensions between the two sides.”

Azerbaijan may also be leaning on Russia so that Russia in turn leans on Armenia to take some of the steps that Azerbaijan has been demanding, like withdraw Armenian military forces from the region and provide maps of the land mines the Armenian side laid during the war.

All of these negotiations are opaque, however, and Russia isn’t tipping its hand. A couple of other developments this week only added to the number of moving parts.

The first was Pashinyan’s announcement that Armenia was “conducting effective discussions with our Russian colleagues” about setting up a second Russian military base in the country, in the southern Syunik region. There hasn’t been any mention of this from the Russian side. But if it came to pass, it obviously would only deepen Russia’s role as Armenia’s security guarantor.

The second was a report in the Russian newspaper RBK about discussions around Azerbaijan participating in an upcoming meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the Russia-led trade bloc. It has been a long-standing Russian goal to get Azerbaijan to join the EAEU (along with every other post-Soviet state that isn’t already a member), and Azerbaijan has never been particularly interested. Further, the Armenian sources for the story say that Armenia (a current EAEU member) is blocking Azerbaijan’s participation until the latter releases the Armenian captives it has been holding since the end of the war.

Why would Baku take this step that it’s been unwilling to take thus far in order to participate in a meeting of a group it doesn’t want to join? RBK acknowledges that is unlikely to happen ahead of the meeting (scheduled for the end of April in Kazan). But if there are real discussions about Azerbaijan at least participating in the EAEU, it could potentially be a way to score points with Moscow while allowing Azerbaijan access to another platform it can use to pressure Armenia. It doesn’t hurt that most EAEU member states probably have better relations with Baku than with Yerevan, a fact underscored by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s visit this week to Azerbaijan, where he got a warm welcome including an invitation to participate in the reconstruction of Azerbaijan’s newly retaken territories.

“I said again that we will invite only companies from friendly countries to participate in the reconstruction of the territories. And Belarus is a friendly country for Azerbaijan,” Aliyev told Lukashenko at a joint press appearance on April 14.

Lukashenko, for his part, offered a very Lukashenkian call for reconciliation.

“Thank god this is all over. It’s great that you ended it, and I’m sure that you will turn this page like this, that Azerbaijan is not planning to humiliate the Armenians who live in Azerbaijan, after all they don’t live in Karabakh but in other places also,” he said, using a Belarusian criminal slang phrase that refers to prison rape. “And I haven’t seen any evidence that any Azerbaijanis are humiliating Armenians. We will offer any kind of help wherever you ask. We will offer our own variants.”

Azerbaijan’s post-war behavior, though, suggests that humiliation is precisely what it is trying to achieve, a revenge for 26 years of its own humiliation. It’s been pushing its advantage against on-its-heels Armenia, but it’s a risker gambit to try against Russia.

Joshua Kucera is the Turkey/Caucasus editor at Eurasianet, and author of The Bug Pit.

Prominent public figure, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, co-founder of the Aurora Prize and Initiative Vardan Gregoryan has passed away.

Vardan Gregoryan was born in 1934 in Tabriz and emigrated to the USA at a young age, overcoming many difficulties and building a brilliant career. 1981-1989 ․ He was president of the New York Public Library and in 1997 headed Brown University.

In 2015, Vardan Gregorian, together with Ruben Vardanyan and Nubar Afeyan, founded the “Aurora” humanitarian initiative.

I am ready to meet Alen Simonyan in court, I have expressed my inner conviction that Alen Simonyan is the one who ordered the ongoing social network campaign against me at the moment. Tert.am journalist Ani Gorgyan told Aravot.am about this, referring to NA Vice Speaker Alen Simonyan’s Facebook post that he had talked to his lawyers about the defamatory statement, who advised him to defend his rights in court and hold him accountable for defamation.

Persons disseminating false information. “I have such a conviction and confidence formed from the fact that the attack, the disgusting attack, started after the briefing with Alen Simonyan in the parliament two days ago. I should mention that the conviction was formed during the briefing from Alen Simonyan’s behavior’s targeted attitude towards me, I should mention that his aggressive behavior was even frightening. Besides, let me remind you that there are many publications in the press that such fake attacks are led by Alen Simonyan. “How many deputies spoke about it from the tribune of the parliament,” said Ani Gorgyan. According to the journalist, while presenting a report to the police yesterday, he informed about his reasonable suspicions about Alen Simonyan. “It concerns my young child, in any case I will exercise my rights, any reasonable suspicion must be examined. “Mr. Simonyan, we will meet in court,” he said.