President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave an exhaustive description of the prospects for the “Armenian-Turkish reconciliation process”. With the assistance of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, on January 14, Special Representatives Ruben Rubinyan and Serdar Kylych met in Moscow “without preconditions.” Meanwhile, the Turkish conditions of “reconciliation” have been accepted and it is not the time to spare the Armenian society and keep it in the dark. Preconditions are formulated in the form of simple theses and definitions According to Erdogan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, his special envoy Ruben Rubinyan, and Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, all from the Civil Contract party, represent little more than “smugglers” and homeless nomadic “refugees”.

As for the country called Armenia, then, according to the President of Turkey, it became known to the world “quite recently, in 1921.” These definitions were used by the Turkish leader in relation to all Armenians, whose groups, literally, “at the beginning of the last century, wandered around European countries, reached [Ottoman] Turkey, where they had problems during the next transition.” According to Erdogan, the genocide of 2.5 million Armenians is out of the question.

“There was a problem with the irregular movement of masses of people without a homeland. The Ottoman government has always taken care of the safety of nomadic Armenians. The authorities of modern Turkey demonstrate the same approach. We still have 100,000 Armenians, of which only 60,000 are Turkish citizens and 40,000 smugglers, but the government does not deport them to Armenia. “Why? As before, Armenians are treated very humanely in Turkey, is it not clear,” says Erdogan. Recall that Erdogan has already called these 60,000 fellow citizens “pieces of the Turkish sword”, that is, the descendants of Armenians who were not killed during the massacres of 1894-1923 only because of the negligence of the regular army and gangs of rioters. Such characteristics and assessments are constantly circulating in the Turkish elite, but they were voiced in the most concentrated form on November 14, 2019 [Erdogan, 16:30, 1] at the Turkish Religious Center in Lanham, Maryland, USA. Erdogan’s speech was devoted to the Turkish intervention in Syria and condemnation of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by both houses of Congress. Pashinyan and the company are aware of these definitions and agree to bear the stigma of “nomad”, “smuggler”, “country unknown to the world” and “chunks”. It should also be recalled that while receiving Erdogan in the occupied Shushi, a Baku leader named Aliyev said that “Armenia will forever live with the stigma of a defeated people, and no one will ever allow it to make revenge.

” [Aliev, 2]. Thus, Erdogan formulated theses-preconditions in Maryland, putting an end to the existence of the Armenian nation and Armenia. Starting the process of establishing interstate relations without declaring the Armenian initial positions describing the “exploits” of the Turks and outlining the future of Kemalist Turkey located on Armenian lands in the light of international legal acts, Pashinyan agreed with Erdogan’s vision of the Armenian future. Pashinyan and company also agree with Aliyev’s conditions fixing Erdogan’s Armenian formula on the eastern flank, saying that “they [the ruling party]

will move forward towards opening the peaceful development agenda” [Pashinyan, 3]. The issue with Pashinyan’s pro-Turkish party and his pro-Russian “opposition” backing dancers is clear. Further attempts to convince them of anything are meaningless, because in the absence of an educational and practical background, they are incapable of strategic planning dictated by the situation, even if they wanted to. Having climbed to the top of the Russian colonial ladder with the simplest certification “nuker for the sake of power”, they will remain with it, since the situation, which is becoming more complicated every day, does not allow forming a vision of the future “on the go”. As for the part of the Armenian people who voted for Turkish slavery under the auspices of Moscow, as well as their descendants, the process being launched does not imply the possibility of making a different choice. The people who have accepted the status of a “nomad without a homeland”, a “poucher-smuggler”, a “country unknown to the world” will not long enjoy the benefits reserved for the “reduced”. It will be eliminated completely, along with the country. The process outlined by Erdogan must be reversed. In the photo:

Special Representative of the Armenian Government at the talks Ruben Rubinyan

Pavel Dallakyan, translation from Armenian January 15, 2022

Source: https://www.lragir.am/ru/2022/01/16/221803/?fbclid=IwAR0-CJhOGBZ-mgP7S24Hek3-1GjtWy748asnkrwmVArCmGY-YGIJCcNdrQo

This chapter is from Tatul Hakobyan’s book – Black and Green; Karabakh Diary

Russian language and literature teacher, Nelly Ghukasyan had moved from Baku to Armenia in November of 1988, when the massacres of Armenians and the ethnic cleansing of Gyanja and other locations in Azerbaijan were under way. She settles in a hotel in Etchmiadzin and sometime later, at the ‘great appeal’ of Vezirov, together with tens of other families, returns to Azerbaijan.

However, a short time later, Ghukasyan is forced to once again abandon her city. In January 1990, the Armenian neighborhoods of Baku become a new theatre for massacres of Armenians. Unlike the other highly Armenian-populated regions in Azerbaijan, thousands of Armenians still remained in Baku. Over the previous two years, they could have exchanged their apartments or simply saved their lives, but up until the end they believed in Baku’s internationalism.

“I was secretly peeping out of my window and watching what was happening in the streets. They were lighting bonfires and looting vehicles carrying the property of Armenians. Alla Khachanyan lived on the second floor of our building. When they started to break down her door with an axe, she [Alla] threw herself out of the window on to the street; they were throwing people and furniture out of the windows of high-rises. It was a horrific picture. When we requested assistance from the soldiers, we were told that they did not have any such orders. Azerbaijani refugees from Yerevan hid us in their apartment when the Popular Front assailants were breaking down the apartment doors of Armenians. With the assistance of our Russian daughter-in-law, my husband and I reached the port in Baku, and from there, Krasnovodsk (present-day Turkmenbashi)”, recalls Ghukasyan with horror.

The media of the time recorded: “The Soviet Georgia ferryboat approaches the port of Krasnovodsk and tired and exhausted people step down the ship’s gangplank. ‘In the first few days it was horrible to see barefoot, beaten, beleaguered people. Two individuals, a man of 85 and a woman of 90 who had been beaten, had died on board from their wounds. We sent some of them to the local hospital,’ said one of the heads of the Krasnovodsk police, Karmazin. The secretary of the city committee, Muravyova said, ‘We received more than ten thousand refugees. We sent almost all of them to Yerevan by helicopter. It was a terrible sight.’

Just as in Sumgait, the actions of the attackers were particularly striking in their viciousness. They were throwing people off their balconies in high-rise buildings; the mob was attacking with iron rods and knives, killing Armenians and appropriating their apartments and property. It is impossible to say exactly how many Armenians were killed during the massacres in Baku; the Armenians talk about 150 – including those who were injured and died several days later in Turkmenistan and other places. Azerbaijani researcher Arif Yumusov mentions 86.

In December of 1989 they were already dismissing those Armenians remaining in Baku from their places of work. The names of those more disobedient or slow directors who wittingly or unwittingly were not fulfilling that demand, were posted on special notice boards on Lieutenant Schmidt Street, in front of the residence of the Popular Front. The names of hundreds of other Armenians who were still working in Azerbaijan’s Communist Party and within the KGB structure of Azerbaijan where also posted on those boards. In addition, similar announcements were posted on the old columns of a former synagogue, which had been pronounced Rashid Beybutov’s Theater of Song, several years earlier.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda Moscow newspaper wrote: “On the eve of June 13^th, about 50 thousand people, on leaving the rally in Lenin Square, separated into groups, massacred, caused destruction, lit fires, tortured and killed. There were no citizen of Baku in those arrested; they were all from Armenia, NK and Nakhijevan: ‘Yerevani Azeris’.”

In June 1990, one of the leaders of the Popular Front, Etibar Mamedov said, “I myself witnessed them killing two Armenians near to the railway station. The mob assembled and poured petrol on them and set them alight. The Nasim area police station was two hundred meters away; there were 400 to 500 soldiers there, who passed by just 20 meters from the charred bodies and did nothing to disperse the mob.” After describing this horrific scene, Mamedov vindicates the Popular Front. “It was our activists who surrounded the area and demanded that the police disperse the mob.”

The massacres of Armenians in Baku were taking place at a time when the Popular Front was striving for power in Azerbaijan. On the one hand, the leadership of the Azerbaijan communist party, in order to maintain its authority, was expecting Moscow’s assistance against the Popular Front and on the other hand was cooperating with it.

“Coverage of a meeting between a factory worker and the First Secretary was broadcast on December 11^th 1989. The worker asked Vezirov what was to become of the Karabakh issue. Vizirov replied excitedly, ‘Everything is going to be fine. You will see soon. The Communist party and the Popular Front are uniting for the sake of Karabakh.’ What did Vezirov mean by saying, uniting efforts? At one time, he refused our proposal of cooperation with the restructuring-supporting Popular Front and now he is prepared to unite with the slaughtering, trouble-making Popular Front. Was he aware that there was a massacre being prepared? That he was to be removed and a coup d’états was being planned? Or was he so removed from reality that he could not see the obvious? Or was he aware of everything and was pushing forward with Moscow’s gambit to destroy the Popular Front?” asks Zardusht Alizadeh.

Prior to the massacres in Baku, negotiations were being conducted between, on the one hand Vezirov and his deputy Polyanchiko, the leader of the NK’s Organizational Committee, and on the other side, the Popular Front triad, Etibar Mamedov, Neymet Panahov and Rahim Ghaziev.  An agreement is reached to create a National defense council [NDC] with the aim of organizing the mass deportation of NK Armenians. The announcement of the creation of the NDC presided over by Abulfaz Aliyev (Elchibey) was made on June 13 in Azadliq (previously Lenin) Square. The other members of the council were: Mamedov, Panahov, Ghaziev and Khalig Bahadr (an unknown journalist and radical nationalist). The rally passed with a spirit of patriotism, with anti-Armenian slogans. During the rally the speakers announced that some Armenian had axed an Azerbaijani to death. The rally ended with the call ‘Death to Armenians’ and the crowd dispersed. Sensible people hurried home but the thugs scattered throughout the city, as they already had names and addresses.

“At night, the day before the massacres, the other hero of the nation appeared with his entourage on the television screen: Panahov, who had only six or eight years of education. Hatred and evil; these were familiar and common. What was new and unexpected was his reasoning concerning Vezirov: that he should be respected as a leader, that those calling him Veziryan(Armenian second names end with yan) were traitors to the nation. This belated alliance did not help Vezirov against those whom he had considered whelps seeking power. A few days later he [Vezirov] became a refugee, just like the hated Armenians had been for him,” writes Irina Mosesova in her eye-witness memoirs.

The role that Polyanichko played during the days of the Baku bloodshed is conflicting. Logic, and the position he held, led to the assumption that Polyanichko would not cooperate with the anti-Russian Popular Front, moreover, with the extreme wing of this party: which he was in fact doing. Further, not only was he keeping close contact with the leaders of the Popular Front, but he was offering them important advice. He insisted that the Popular Front should be developed as a national and Islamic movement, otherwise the nation would not believe in it. On his advice, the colors green and blue were added to the flag.

“The Koran was Polyanichko’s favorite book. Whenever he was welcoming anyone, the Koran, its pages well dog-eared, would be on the table,” Leyla Yunusova, one of the former leaders of the Popular Front has said. Polyanichko’s habit of keeping the Koran close by him has also been noted by the USSR ambassador in Afghanistan, Nikolai Yegorichev. He called it “Building socialism with Lenin in one hand and the Koran in the other.”

Gorbachev declares on Soviet central television that the events in Baku have become tragic, “slaughter, killings, they were evicting innocent people from their homes and deporting them”. The first and last president of the Soviet Union, as in the case of Sumgait, avoided calling a spade, a spade. As in Sumgait, so also in Baku, the army are called in only after the slaughter of the Armenians has ended. It seems the army might not have been called in at all if Soviet authority had not been at risk.

“In Azerbaijan, the activities of the extreme groups were increasingly taking on an anti-state, anti-constitution and anti-democratic nature. In some areas the legal bodies of authority were dismissed, government structures were destroyed. The technical-engineering structures along hundreds of kilometers of state border were destroyed. In practice, the issue of seizing authority by brute force was not concealed. Things could not go on like that,” said Gorbachev.

On January 10^th, Alakram Gummatov contacts Etibar Mamedov from the town of Lenkoran which is in the south-east of Azerbaijan and populated predominantly by Farsi-speaking Talish, to inform him that the Popular Front is preparing to seize power. Towards the end of 1989 the Popular Front had seized power in an attack on Jalilabad (also in the south-east, close to the Iranian border). That could be considered the first time in the 70-year history of the USSR that a Soviet authority was overthrown. Panahov who was in the front line of those who seized power at Jalilabad, rushes to Nakhijevan so that he can participate on December 31^st in the destruction of barbed wire and watch towers on that section of the Soviet-Iranian border.

One of the leaders of the Nakhijevan division of the Popular Front, Arif Rahimoghlu later recounted how people, full of exuberance and anger, were destroying the barbed wire. Previously the Popular Front had decided to clear the border of barbed wire in the first ten days of December, but Elchibey instructed the destruction of the borders on December 31^st. The KGB of the USSR avoids putting up any resistance. In its one-year of power, the Popular Front proclaimed December 31, World Azerbaijani Solidarity day.

On January 15, while the slaughter of the Armenians was continuing in Baku, the USSR’s Supreme Council passed the ‘State of Emergency in NK and several other regions’ decree. A State of Emergency was imposed in NK, and neighboring districts of Aghdam, Lachin, Mirbashir, Kelbajar, Jebrayil, Fizuli and Ghubatlu, and later, Shahumyan. A stage of emergency was announced in Baku only on January 19^th when, in reality, the slaughter of the Armenians had ceased and there were no Armenians left in Baku.

Moscow, using the Armenian massacres as a pretext, sent troops into Baku to destroy the authority-seeking Popular Front. The Soviet troops, led by the colonel Alexander Lebed, commander of the Parachute division of the Airborne Troops of the USSR reached the capital of Azerbaijan on January 19^th. The operations were coordinated by defense Minister Dmitri Yazov. Several days later he admitted that troops had been sent into Baku “with the aim of preventing the Popular Front from seizing power from the Communists.”

Over a hundred demonstrators and assailants were killed, some of whom had taken part in the slaughter of Armenians in Baku. Several dozens of civilians were crushed under the tracks of soviet tanks and also hundreds were injured. Over twenty soviet soldiers were also killed during the clashes, which mean that battles took place in the city.

“If we are talking about the truth, then the activities of the extremists were of a widespread violent nature. The violence expressed itself in that both Armenians and Azerbaijanis had been arming themselves for a long time. Not just small divisions, but military defenses, regional military commissariats and Ministry of Internal Affairs bodies were being looted. The state border had been destroyed by violence,” Yazov said.

After a long period of silence, Heydar Aliyev once again enters the arena. After his expulsion from the Politburo, he had continued to live in Moscow. When forces entered Baku, Aliyev criticized that step in the Azerbaijan representation in Moscow and sometime later, returned to his place of birth, Nakhijevan.

During an interview with Russian journalist Andrei Karaulov in September 1990, Aliyev touched upon the January events, saying that there had been no need to declare a state of emergency and send troops in to Baku. “All conflict between the Armenians and Azerbaijanis had ceased a few days before that tragic evening and no Armenians were left in the city. The question arises: Who were the forces protecting and against what?”

Aliyev says only this about the Armenian massacres, which in their size, duration, violence and number of people killed, were unprecedented even in totalitarian Soviet Union, “a conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.” Instead he focuses only on January 20^th, which he considers “an act of violence against the people of Azerbaijan.”

During the meeting with the American journalist Thomas Goltz Aliyev spoke about the perpetrators of the events Black January. “It was the KGB. It was the Moscow KGB and the Azerbaijan KGB. And the entire leadership of Azerbaijan. They were all involved in the attacks on the Armenians in Baku on January 12, 13, and 14 and then again on January 20^th, when Azerbaijan was attacked by the Soviet army. It was all in accordance with the plan prepared by Moscow with the complicity of the Azeri leadership – Vezirov and Mutalibov.”

Only one month later does the Armenian communist leadership refer to the Armenian slaughter in Baku. On February 13^th the supreme council condemned “the massacres of Armenians in Baku and other regions”, deeming them “the continuation of the genocide of the Armenian nation”.

16 years after the tragic events in Baku, Gorbachev has admitted that the troops entered Azerbaijan on his orders. “The situation in Baku had become ungovernable. The Supreme Council and the Communist party were paralyzed, two hundred kilometers of state boundaries had been destroyed, and attacks against local bodies were taking place. I urgently sent Yevgeni Primakov and Andrei Girenko to Baku, and they proposed declaring a state of emergency and sending in troops. Today, I still consider that by doing so, even more bloodshed was averted.”

Elchibey and the Popular Front succeeded in overthrowing Vezirov with great bloodshed, after which the issue of evading the blame came to the fore. Etibar Mamedov urgently left for Georgia, then Moscow and met Aliyev for the first time in the Azerbaijan permanent representation. The Moscow OMON prevented an attempted press conference by arresting Mamedov. Instead, “KGB general Aliyev held the press conference and condemned the killing of innocent people in Baku by the soviet leadership.”

The other hero of the bloody instigation, Neymet Panahov, after a few days of skulking in Baku, went to Iran where he spent a few months and, if we are to believe his words, the Iranian intelligence service arrested him. He allegedly managed to escape the Iranian prison and cross over to Turkey. Later, returning to Baku, Panahov was no longer in the front ranks of events and merely executed trivial tasks set by Heydar Aliyev.

Rahim Ghaziev was arrested and detained in Lefortovo [Moscow prison], near Mamedov. While still on trial, they are elected deputies to the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan. Gummatov, who had ‘overthrown’ the soviet authorities in the south, hides at first in the Talish mountains and then leaves for Georgia, returns to Azerbaijan and is arrested in the Popular Front offices. He is tried, receives a symbolic sentence and returns to Lenkoran.

Those killed by the soviet troops in the events of January 20-22 are buried in the martyrs’ cemetery Martyrs’ Avenue.

Later, those killed during the Karabakh war were also buried here. January 20^th became the day of mourning for already-independent Azerbaijan. Every year different events take place on that day and Martyrs’ Avenue has entered the protocol of the country. Presidents on official visits go there and place wreaths.

By Harut Sassounian,

I will attempt to provide a comprehensive analysis of the upcoming “Armenia-Turkey normalization talks” on January 14, 2022 in Moscow. Armenia may be bungling these negotiations once again!

— To begin with, Armenia does not need to negotiate with Turkey to have the border opened. Such negotiations took place shortly after Armenia’s independence in 1991, when Armenia and Turkey opened their mutual border until Turkey shut down its side of the border in 1993. Since Turkey is the one that closed its border with Armenia unilaterally, it can now open it also unilaterally. I fear that Turkey’s intent to hold such unnecessary negotiations is aimed at extorting concessions from Armenia.

— After its overwhelming loss during the 2020 war, Armenia’s defeated leader will be negotiating from a position of weakness. A devastated leader cannot have the mental and moral fortitude to negotiate properly with such a problematic and cunning enemy. New leaders must first come to power in Armenia so they can start the discussions, if necessary, from a non-defeatist attitude.

— There is a fundamental problem with Armenia normalizing its relations with Turkey, a nation that committed genocide, killing 1.5 million Armenians in 1915. A century later, Turkey still lies about its mass crimes and denies their occurrence. An unrepentant genocidaire cannot be a trusted party with which one can negotiate in good faith.

— In addition to its past crimes, Turkey outrageously participated in a new massacre of Armenians, killing and wounding thousands of young Armenian soldiers in the 2020 Artsakh war. To make matters worse, Turkey recruited Jihadist terrorists from Syria and arranged for their transportation to Azerbaijan during the war. How can Armenia’s Prime Minister engage in discussions with an enemy with such recurring hostility? Just imagine if Germany, a country that committed genocide against six million Jews, would attack today’s Israel and kill thousands of Israelis. Do you think Israeli leaders would then sit down with today’s German leaders and negotiate with them as if nothing happened? Every Jew in the world would be up in arms over such a prospect. Armenia’s leaders seem to be oblivious to Turkey’s past and present crimes. They are more than happy to negotiate with the criminals in Ankara with a callous attitude. If the Armenian leaders won’t defend their nation’s rights, how can they expect outsiders to care about Armenia more than them?

— Prime Minister Pashinyan came to power rejecting the rule of former President Serzh Sargsyan with the slogan “Merjir Serzhin” (Reject Serzh). Why is Pashinyan then copying Sargsyan’s flawed policies with Turkey? Armenians in and out of Armenia were up in arms over the previous president’s ill-fated 2009 Armenian-Turkish Protocols. It does not look like Pashinyan has learned anything from that failed experiment.

— “Negotiations without preconditions” is another mantra repeated by Armenian’s previous and current leaders. But the fact is that, rather than Armenia placing preconditions on Turkey, it is Turkey that is advancing preconditions. During the 2009 Protocols negotiations, Turkey said it did not have any preconditions, nevertheless, several Turkish preconditions ended up in the agreement. Pres. Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, confirmed such Armenian concerns when he said at the end of December while visiting Chicago: “we want the border to be opened and diplomatic relations to begin. For this, certain conditions must be met and certain issues must be negotiated.”

— The Protocols failed in 2009 because Azerbaijan objected to Turkey opening its border with Armenia. That helped save Armenia’s interests that were supposed to be protected not by Azerbaijan, but by the President of Armenia! The current negotiations may fail also, unless Pashinyan is ready to concede whatever Erdogan asks for. Turkey is now demanding that Armenia accept the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan by signing a peace treaty, thus giving up Artsakh and Nakhichevan for good, and allowing the so-called “Zangezur Corridor,” not just a road, linking Azerbaijan East with Nakhichevan. Finally, if Turkey comes to the table with preconditions, Armenia should be prepared to walk away or counter with its own preconditions: Recognition of the Armenian Genocide, restitution for consequent Armenian losses, and return of occupied Western Armenia.

— Before signing the 2009 Armenia-Turkey Protocols, Pres. Sargsyan made a half-hearted attempt to visit several Diaspora communities ostensibly to hear their views. Pashinyan has made no such attempt. He has not consulted with anyone from the Diaspora. Pashinyan should realize that relations with Turkey are a pan-Armenian issue, not solely a domestic matter of the Republic of Armenia. He should take into consideration Diaspora’s views, even if he is the one who makes the final decision. Moreover, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu recently stated that “extremist groups” in the Armenian Diaspora “should not put pressure on Yerevan,” to disrupt the Armenia-Turkey relations. In addition, Erdogan’s spokesman Kalin said in Chicago recently: “the current Armenia-Turkey normalization process will destroy the Armenian community of the United States.” Such a statement is an unwelcome interference in intra-Armenian affairs. Turkish officials’ unwarranted statements should galvanize all Armenians to reject their unacceptable intervention.

— The qualifications of the person conducting the negotiations on behalf of Armenia are extremely important. Erdogan appointed as Turkey’s negotiator the seasoned diplomat, former Turkish Ambassador to the United States, and notorious genocide denialist Serdar Kilic. Pashinyan, on the other hand, in line with his many other unqualified appointments, named Ruben Rubinyan, a young neophyte with zero diplomatic experience. His only claim to fame is that he is a member of Pashinyan’s political party and Deputy Chairman of the Armenian Parliament. Amazingly, when questioned about Rubinyan’s qualifications, Pashinyan and his political colleagues claimed that Rubinyan’s party affiliation is much more important than his inexperience, thereby putting their party’s interests ahead of that of the nation. Thus, the outcome of the upcoming negotiations is crystal clear since the wolf will be facing the lamb! There must be more competent and experienced Armenian diplomats who can conduct such sensitive negotiations.

— Pashinyan keeps repeating proudly that the leaders of Russia, the United States, and France support his plans to negotiate with Turkey. Let’s not forget that Azerbaijan and Turkey also support this initiative. All of these countries are simply advancing their own interests, not that of Armenia.

— Finally, Pashinyan’s much-touted claim of economic benefits to Armenia as a result of opening the Armenian-Turkish border is a dubious expectation. Already, without the border being open, Turkish products have flooded the Armenian market. The opening of the border would mean that the cheaper Turkish products will destroy Armenia’s domestic production. A tiny country with a small population cannot compete with Turkish products which enjoy the advantage of “economies of scale” (higher volume at lower cost). To make matters worse, Pashinyan just threw away the only bargaining chip Armenia had by lifting the temporary ban on the import of Turkish goods, thus depriving Armenia of its trump card in these negotiations.

Turkey, a destitute country with a failing economy, collapsed Lira, 12% unemployment, 36% inflation, and raging coronavirus (7th highest number of infections in the world), is desperate to ameliorate its domestic dismal conditions and mend its damaged ties with the United States, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt. An astute Armenian negotiator, realizing the Turkish eagerness to impress the world, would attempt to extract more favorable terms for normalizing relations with Turkey.

No one opposes negotiations with Turkey as long as the negotiator representing Armenia is a competent person who is able to bring benefits to Armenia’s interests.

Turkish holding companies that own travel companies and hotels also own arms companies. The directors of these companies are friends with the Erdoğan family. The same holding companies fund the building of huge dams in Kurdistan, displacing tens of thousands and causing irreversible ecological destruction. 

Still, the number of foreigners visiting Turkey increased by almost 22% from 2017 to 2018. The Turkish economy is growing increasingly reliant on tourism.

According to figures released by the Turkish Statistical Institute, in 2018 alone, tourism accounted for an income of $29.5 billion USD, and the same year Turkey’s military budget was raised by 24% to $19 billion USD.

To put it bluntly: the more tourists enjoy Turkey’s beaches, the more Kurds will die.

In 2019, AKP mouthpiece Daily Sabah claimed that the number of British people booking package trips to Turkey had increased by 27% that year. We need to stop this increase by convincing people internationally that Turkey is not an ethical travel destination.

Turkey’s largest airline, Turkish Airlines (THY), is partly owned by the Turkish state. THY’s directors are all closely connected to Erdoğan. Pegasus, Turkey’s other major airline, is linked to the arms trade and the Turkish state’s socially and ecologically destructive dam-building program.

Resources

Call from KCDK-E for a boycott of Turkish goods and holidays in Turkey

Boycott Turkish Tourism Poster Design by the Autonomous Design Group

Profile of Pegasus Airlines, the Sabancı family, and their links to the arms trade and the funding of the Ilısu dam.

Profile of Turkish Airlines and it’s connections to the Erdoğan family and the arms trade

Profile of TUI and it’s connections to the Turkish state

Profile of Thomas Cook and it’s connections to the Turkish State

Profile of Divan Turizm and it’s connections to the arms trade

The vice-chairman of the ruling party of Turkey has touched upon the matter of normalization of relations with Armenia.

Regarding the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, Omer Celik stressed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has several principal views on this matter: Azerbaijan’s positive attitude to the process, opening of archives, removal of the Armenian Genocide issue from political tribunes and leaving it to historians, Anadolu Agency reported.

“The initiative to normalize relations with Armenia can take place on the condition that Armenia abandons its aggressive and invasive policy against Azerbaijan. Besides, the most sensitive point for President Erdogan is that our Azerbaijani brothers and [Azerbaijan president] Mr. [Ilham] Aliyev look positively on the normalization of Turkey’s relations with Armenia,” Celik said.

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ankara threatens to conduct an inquest into 26 deputies of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for calling on the Turkish government to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

The deputies are charged with “offending the Turkish state”, in accordance with Article 301 of the Criminal Code of Turkey, for a statement that was made on April 24^th (Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide), Ahval reports, citing T24 news website.

During the session of the Central Executive Body on April 24^th, the HDP called on Turkey to recognize the killings of 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, and this sparked Ankara’s heated reactions.

According to T24, political figures of the HDP will be under examination, if the Turkish Ministry of Justice approves of the inquest.

The politicians are charged with “offending the “Turkish nation and the Turkic Republic””, T24 reports, citing the record on the trial.