Armenian authorities’ indifference cause neutral posture of international organizations

January 22, 2017 By administrator

“April showed that we should not wait and hope that an international organization will criticize Azerbaijan’s aggressive operations instead of us. Today, we are witnessing the collapse of the international law and international security system, the Helsinki Act. Each state has made the security of the nation its own issue. Therefore, it is necessary to seriously transform the political power and mind of Armenia,” such an opinion was expressed by a human rights activist, a laureate of Peace and Human Rights International Prizes, a coordinator of NKR Committee of “Helsinki Initiative-92”, leader of Artsakh Republican Party, Karen Ohanjanyan, in an interview with “Aravot”.

“Armenia must militarily, politically and morally be ready to punish anyone who poses a threat to the physical security of its citizens. In response to Azerbaijani aggressive operations, Armenia was to give a crushing counterblow to Azerbaijan not only in the direction where the aggression occurred but in any direction where danger emerges. The point that all this has not happened is talking about the fact that the corrupt and addicted to power in their thoughts to continue governing authorities are guilty of the impunity of Azerbaijan. The indifference of Armenia’s political power causes neutral posture of international intergovernmental organizations,” opines the NKR human rights activist.

World media against granting credits from Western taxpayers’ pockets to Azerbaijan’s corrupt authorities

February 2, 2016 By administrator

bnbn.thumb An International Monetary Fund team is currently on a “fact-finding” mission at the Azerbaijan government’s request, The Financial Times reports.

According to the report, investigative journalists from the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and elsewhere have for years observed the ruling clan and its acolytes dominate through opaque business practices and autocratic abuses.

Reportedly, a WikiLeaks cable sent from global intelligence company Stratfor via SIPRNet, the classified US Department of Defence computer network, commented that Azerbaijan is run like a medieval feudal system shared by several clans.

According to the article, a low oil price threatens this cosy arrangement and has sparked popular protests. This is no small development given the government’s own hostility towards an oppressed society. OCCRP journalist Khadija Ismayilova has just begun a seven-year jail sentence after regularly exposing the corruption at the heart of the Aliyev regime — joining nearly 100 other journalists and activists behind bars.

“Western taxpayers should be appalled that they are being asked to fix the problems of the feudal elite. OCCRP has revealed the regime’s corruption in exhaustive detail,” the authors of the article point out.

Meanwhile, according to the article, corporate ownership information has been confidential in Azerbaijan since 2012. This means there is no simple way to check who benefits from any transactions with the government. These moves are designed to prevent any public scrutiny or government accountability. A bailout without stringent reform will be caught in the same web of systematic corruption. IMF and the World Bank must avoid siphoning yet more money, this time from western taxpayers, into the coffers of a wealthy autocracy.

The website of the American TV channel CNBC writes that more countries are expected to join oil-rich but cash-poor Azerbaijan and Nigeria in asking for international financial help if the price per barrel continues to show no sign of recovering. “After Azerbaijan and Nigeria requested international financial aid in January as oil prices wallowed around, and even dipped below, the $30 a barrel mark, all eyes are on other struggling oil-producing nations to see who might be next to go cap in hand to such organisations as The World Bank or International Monetary Fund,” CNBC reports.

According to the Economy Watch , Azerbaijan faces greater hardship than other commodity-driven nations because of the social and political unrest unravelling as the economy falters. Police throughout the Caspian country have been dispersing unruly protesters who are angry over skyrocketing unemployment and price hikes.

S&P expects inflation to rise to 15% in 2016, which is well above the traditional two percent seen in previous years. Officials first responded to the crisis by announcing an austerity program that would last for three years, but only time will tell if such policies will work. President Ilham Aliyev announced a 30% increase in public salaries and pensions, a dangerous promise to make at a time of low funds and public outrage. Policymakers risk stoking further unrest if they fail to deliver on their promises, which seem more likely given the current state of the economy, Economy Watch points out.

The website of The Jamestown Foundation, a US non-governmental think tank, writes that the Azerbaijani public felt the negative impact of the devaluation of the country’ national currency. Panic and frustration led to protests by local populations across several regions countrywide against the increase of prices of essential goods and unemployment. Although the protests are not politically motivated in the narrower sense, and they developed sporadically, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office and as well as the Ministry of Interior issued a joint statement accusing the opposition parties and radical and religious extremist groups of organising the protests.

“The population’s concerns have only increased due to the multiple and often contradictory statements by government officials, as well as the obvious breaches of promises. Essentially, the absence of a clear anti-crisis plan and agenda for economic liberalisation has fuelled public concern that the government is not acknowledging the reality of the crisis,” the foundation writes.

Kurdish Authorities Claim IS Used Chlorine Gas In Attack

March 14, 2015 By administrator

By RFE/RL

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The January 23 suicide bombing happened between Mosul and the Syrian border

Authorities in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) claim that Islamic State (IS) militants used chlorine gas in an attack against Peshmerga forces.

The KRG’s Security Council released a statement on March 14 that said Peshmerga forces had taken soil and clothing samples after an IS suicide bomber attack in northern Iraq in January.

The statement said the “samples contained levels of chlorine that suggested the substance was used in weaponized form.”

It was not possible to independently verify the claim.

The statement said the analysis was conducted in a European Union certified laboratory after KRG officials handed over the samples collected at the attack site to a “partner nation” in the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS militants in Iraq and Syria.

Peter Sawczak, spokesman for the Dutch-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said his organization had not received a request from Iraq to investigate the incident so “the OPCW cannot immediately verify the claims.”

The OPCW oversaw the removal of chemical weapons from Syria after reported chemical weapons attacks by Syrian government forces on rebel-held areas.

The January 23 suicide bombing happened between Mosul and the Syrian border where Peshmerga forces were preparing defensive positions after a two-day attack on IS forces, according to the statement.

The statement said Peshmerga forces fired a rocket at an approaching vehicle so there were no casualties except for the bomber but about a dozen Kurdish fighters at the scene experienced nausea, vomiting, dizziness, or weakness.

The U.S. Central Command said on January 30 that an Islamic State chemical weapons expert had been killed in a coalition air strike near Mosul six days earlier.

The expert was identified as Abu Malik, who had been a chemical engineer during Saddam Hussein’s rule and joined Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq in 2005.

Meanwhile, in northeastern Syria, Kurdish and Christian fighters were reportedly pushing IS militants out of villages in Syria’s Kurdish region.

Nasser Haj Mansour, a defense official in Syria’s Kurdish region, said on March 14 that fighters had captured the Christian village of Tal Maghas in Hassakeh Province that had been under the control of IS militants.

Haj Mansour and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights both said the village was taken overnight.

Both also said warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition had been pounding IS positions in the area for several days and had continued attacks on March 14 near Tal Tamr village, some 10 kilometers from Tal Maghas.

With reporting by Reuters