Investigation by Greg Palast: Heydar Aliyev came to power by efforts of UK intelligence services and BP corporation

April 21, 2014 By administrator

The former BP executive Leslie Abrahams told investigative reporter Greg Palast how the CIA, MI6 and British Petroleum engineered a coup d’état, overthrowing a nation’s elected president who was “not favorable to BP.” This journalistic investigation has been placed on British site TruthDig.

“In 1992, then-BP Chairman Lord Browne flew into Baku as soon as the young state elected its first president, Abulfaz Elchibey.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joined him At a state dinner, Browne handed Abrahams, a BP vice president at the time, a briefcase with a check for $30 million. Browne then gave the check to the president of Azerbaijan,” the article stated.

Still, the new president remained “not favorable” to BP’s demand for control of the Caspian oil, so MI6, the CIA and the corporation went into action, the author notes. The spy agencies armed and empowered former Soviet KGB chief Heydar Aliyev, who in 1993 overthrew Azerbaijan’s elected government. Once he became dictator, Aliyev named himself president for life and within four months signed a no-bid deal to give the reserves to BP, the author notes.

“BP executives did not deny the payoffs, and MI6 officers proudly confirmed the coup’s purpose of locking in the offshore deal for BP.”

The journalist tells that he revealed this story while investigating a material on the Gulf of Mexico for the Channel 4. He found out that a disaster had occurred in the Gulf of Mexico because of the BP. But, it turned out that this was not BP’s first cement failure and explosion. Earlier, BP’s Caspian Sea Transocean rig had suffered exactly the same fate. Palast left for Baku with his crew to find out what happened in reality.

“But we had been ratted out. My crew was placed under arrest by Azerbaijan’s secret police. Although officers demanded our film, I was allowed to keep my pen, which was actually a hidden camera,” he noted.

According to the journalist one of the arresting cops told them with odd pride, “BP drives this country.”

Robert Ebel, former chief of oil analysis for the CIA, estimates that at least $140 million in payments by BP for Azeri oil has gone unaccounted for. To the author, this money was appropriateed by the ruling elite of Azerbaijan who despite the small sallary likes to live kingly.

Azerbaijani oil worker advocate Mirvari Gahramanli said she was beaten by police for raising questions and showed the photographs.

What’s worse, while I was tossed out of the country, my witnesses disappeared, sums up Greg Palast.

According to TruthDig this reportage prepared by the journalist was presented by British Free Speech TV on Sunday.

Source: Panorama.am

Haqqin.az: 41 members of Nur sect detained during police raid in Baku

April 15, 2014 By administrator

Yesterday, at night, in Yasamal district of Baku the police implemented a raid during which 41 Nur members were detained, Azerbaijani news portal “Haqqin.az” reports.

“In fact, the ephemeral threat towards nursizm has acquired realistic shapes, and now not only journalists, but also the security forces are involved in it,” notes the site.

As Police Department of Yasamal district told “Haqqin.az”, this raid was planned to be implemented a week ago. According to the information that the police had, a few hundred members of the Nur sect were periodically attending a two-story house located in one of the most popular door curtain shops in Baku “Capsella.” They were listened there to sermons and addresses of their leader, Fethullah Gulen. It is noteworthy that the owner of the house, which actually was turned into a den of Nurs in Baku, is still not known.

“Being informed that there were about three hundred Nurs gathered in the house, the Police Department began to develop a plan for capturing them. However, their plan foiled for some unknown reasons,” reads the article.

Despite the failure of the plan, which could become the biggest one in Azerbaijani history by the number of the detained people, the police developed another plan, the portal writes. However, only 41 Nurs were caught by the security forces this time. Most of them were released after the first interrogation.

It is noted also that the police has got an extensive literature of Nur, audio tracks of Nur leader of the Fethullah Gülen and other materials for ideological propaganda.

Only nine members of sect were kept at the police station. According to the security officials they will be re-released after one more interrogation, “Haqqin.az” writes.

According to an anonymous member of a sect, the detainees are really Nur members, but they are not related to F. Gulen “jemaat”.
“The house where they were detained is a private property. They were doing there namaz and were reading books,” said the source.
Note that recently Azerbaijani media, particularly the newspaper “Yeni Musavat” has disseminated information that the official circles of Turkey have provided the Azerbaijani government with a list of high-ranking officials of Azerbaijan in the administration of President Ilham Aliyev and the Azerbaijani government, which include or are related with such religious direction, as Nursizm.

The list of officials recruited by the sect of Fethullah Gülen include, the head of Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan Elnur Aslanov, SOCAR vice president Khalig Mammadov, chairman of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations Elshad Isgandarov, his deputy Gunduz Ismailov, Youth and Sports Deputy Minister Intigam Babayev, MP Jeyhun Osmanli, CSR Director under the Presidential Administration Farhad Mammadov, Chairman of the Youth Foundation Farhad Hajiyev.

Nur sect leader is Turkish billionaire Fethullah Gülen. He also owns large industrial and financial companies and holdings worldwide.
Gülen owns a large network of schools and educational institutions. In 1998, Gülen was accused of attempting to overthrow the existing regime in secular Turkey. At the same time avoiding the punishment, he immigrated to the United States. When the AKP came to power all charges against him were dropped. Turkish Prime Minister R. T. Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party are accused of having ties to Gülen. According to various estimates, about five million people in Turkey and abroad (particularly in Azerbaijan and Central Asia) are involved in the Gülen movement.

Daily Sabah: Nur Gülen Movement bribe Azerbaijani officials for promotion of sect in this country

April 12, 2014 By administrator

Individuals linked to the leader of Nur Movement Fethullah Gülen bribed government officials in Azerbaijan in an operation approved by its leader, writes Turkish Daily Sabah in a letter addressed to Gülen. The mentioned letter leaked to the Internet.

According to the source the letter, penned by a Gülenist, reveals the movement’s financial power and machinations in Azerbaijan. The follower presented “financial report” of the movement’s activities in Azerbaijan for 2013.

“The report shows that the movement controls assets of over $2 million in the country and “presented gifts to influential people in Azerbaijan” worth $732,000, implying bribery, as well as expenses of over $3 million for “friends in state agencies,” Daily Sabah writes.
Note that recently Azerbaijani media, particularly the newspaper “Yeni Musavat” has disseminated information that the official circles of Turkey have provided the Azerbaijani government with a list of high-ranking officials of Azerbaijan in the administration of President Ilham Aliyev and the Azerbaijani government, which include or are related with such religious direction, as Nursizm.

Nur sect leader is Turkish billionaire Fethullah Gülen. He also owns large industrial and financial companies and holdings worldwide. Gülen owns a large network of schools and educational institutions. In 1998, Gülen was accused of attempting to overthrow the existing regime in secular Turkey. At the same time avoiding the punishment, he immigrated to the United States. When the AKP came to power all charges against him were dropped. Turkish Prime Minister R. T. Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party are accused of having ties to Gülen. According to various estimates, about five million people in Turkey and abroad (particularly in Azerbaijan and Central Asia) are involved in the Gülen movement.

Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan in 5 days has acknowledged death of eight soldiers: another soldier kills his colleague

April 12, 2014 By administrator

Azerbaijan An emergency situation with fatal result again took place in the armed forces of Azerbaijan: a soldier killed his colleague with a knife. The killed soldier became already the 8th Azerbaijani servicemen whose death has been acknowledged by the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan in last 5 days.

As the Azerbaijani news agency APA reports, in the military unit of Azerbaijani Defense Ministry stationed in Nakhijevan a soldier Nural Bunyadli stabbed his colleague Tariel Mamedov. The latter died.

The fact is confirmed by the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan. It is also reported that the soldier killed his colleague with a knife “due to carelessness, coincidelntly”.

Note that the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan in 5 days has acknowledged death of eight soldiers. On April 7 in Baku officer of air forces of Azerbaijan lieutenant-colonel Natig Maliev committed a suicide. On the same day a soldier of Azerbaijani armed forces Gyaryakmiazli Seymour Rustamoglu shot his colleague Intigam Ismailov and deputy commander of the military unit Ramin Aliyev. As a result Ismailov died and officer Aliyev was taken to hospital, his condition was estimated as serious. Already on April 8 the Ministry of Azerbaijan acknowledged that 3 soldiers died and 6 were wounded. It was reported that on April 7 they were blown up by a mine in contact line in the direction of Fizuli. The soldiers of the Azerbaijani army Novruz Abdullayev Seyfaddin Kerimov and captain Dzheyhun Orudzhaliev died.

On April 10 in Nakhijevan the ensign of Azerbaijani army Alekberov Samir Sarhanoglu committed a suicide, while in another military unit a soldier Elvin Ryuskhatoglu Bazirli shot himself.

From the beginning of 2014 the Azerbaijani government agencies have acknowledged death of already 25 soldiers, 15 out of whom died out of combat zone, 8 of whom committed a suicide, 2 died from disease , 3 died in accidents and at least 2 were killed by their colleagues.

32 soldiers were wounded, 8 out of whom as a result of accidents, 2 as a result of suicide attempts, 7 as a result of carless handling of weapons etc.

Source: Panorama.am

22 years passed since massacre day organized by Azerbaijani military units against Armenian civilians in Maragha

April 10, 2014 By administrator

Exactly 22 years ago, the Azerbaijani troops attacked the Armenian village of Maragha located in Nagorno Karabakh. Here, the Azerbaijani soldier massacred over 100 civilians, more than fifty people were taken hostage, half of them were killed in captivity, the fate of some of them is still unknown. If the Self-Defense Forces did not provide the retreat of most of the villagers, the scale of the tragedy would have been much more serious. “Maragha is a modern Golgotha, only many times worse.” That’s how Baroness Caroline Cox characterized the monstrous massacre of Armenians in Maragha.

On April 10, in 1992, the regular army units of Azerbaijan invaded Maragha, a peaceful village in Karabakh, from the Azerbaijani Mir-Bashir (now Tartar) village side. Initially, despite the artillery shelling the Armenian militiaman were holding back the pressure of the Azerbaijani military units, but later, when the armored vehicles attacked, they were forced to withdraw, as far as they did not have anything except for light small arms. Militia provided the retreat of the majority of the villagers. Those people who did not manage or did not want to leave their homes were brutally killed by Azerbaijani military.

Names of only 45 villagers killed by Azerbaijani soldiers in Maragha are known, however the overall number of the death toll reaches one hundred, including 30 women. More than 40 people were injured. 30 hostages captured by the Azerbaijani military were killed. Village of Maragha is still under the control of Azerbaijan.

Documentary “Maragha, April 10, 1992. Ordinary Genocide” highlights a number of facts that prove that Azerbaijan had several reasons for its desire of getting that village at all costs, the most important of which was its oil interests and aggressive Armenophobia of the Azerbaijani authorities.

Baroness Caroline Cox, who visited Maragha two days after the tragedy, later told the newspaper “Golos Armenii”: “It is impossible to describe what we saw there. The footage taken in those days in Maragha, carries evidence about massacres that occurred here: decapitated and dismembered bodies, remains of children, bloody land and parts of bodies in those places where the Azerbaijanis sawed the living. We saw sharp sickles covered with caked blood which were used to dismember the people… Thus, killing the residents of Maragha the Azerbaijanis then looted and burnt the village.”

The second most important factor that played a fateful role in the destiny of the inhabitants of Maragha, became the aggressive Armenophobia, which has served a basis for the state ideology of Azerbaijani government, since its creation in 1918, up to this day. Azerbaijani OMON detachments, which entered the village only due to the bribed officer-tankmen of former Soviet army, had another purpose besides occupying Maragha, which were – to massacre the Armenians in the cruelest, inhuman and barbaric methods. It’s not by chance that the eyewitnesses say that in the ranks of the Azerbaijani military units there were special people, armed with scimitar – the main weapon of Turkish hangmen which they used during the Armenian Genocide in the early 20th century. Their task was not simply to kill, but to slaughter, decapitate, dismember and to leave cross-shaped wounds on both the dead bodies and on those that were still alive.

Video footage, posted on Youtube, depicting a wild orgy in Maragha taken place on April 10, in 1992, unveils the true face of the Azerbaijani army, celebrating its “victory” over the unprotected civilians of the Armenian village.

According to the villagers, Maragha was especially massively attacked on February 26, in 1992; however the attack was repulsed by the self-defense detachments. There is no doubt that the massacre that took place on April 10 was planned precisely on February 26, when near Aghdam another offense of gross indecency was committed by Azerbaijan, but this time it was committed against their own countrymen, who had left Khojalu through Humanitarian corridor left open by the Armenians. After shooting the retreating inhabitants of Khojalu in favor of domestic political purposes and trying deal shortly with the civilians of Maragha under the guise of “Khojalu”, the political forces of Azerbaijan pursued one strategic objective, that is discrediting the centuries-old image and reputation of the Armenians as a carrier of world’s civilization and the spread of Armenophobia throughout the whole world.

Source: Panorama.am

USA Mississippi Senate Rejects Pro-Azerbaijan Measure

April 10, 2014 By administrator

JACKSON, Miss.—The Mississippi State Senate failed to vote on a pro-Azerbaijan resolution, when the legislative session ended late last week, effectively rejecting a motion, which called on the US President and Congress to recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

The resolution, authored by Senator John Horhn, insists that Azerbaijan is an effective economic partner of the U.S., and the state of Mississippi in particular. The author considers it necessary to support the strategic partnership between the states, as well as to take up steps for reaching “a speedy and fair settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”

This is the fifth in a series of defeats to Azerbaijan’s adopted strategy of attempting to spread their state policy of anti-Armenian revisionism and lies. The Azerbaijani diplomatic missions are actively pursuing such state-level bills, especially in states where there are not high number of Armenian constituents.

Azerbaijan’s efforts have thus far failed in the states Hawaii, Wyoming, South Dakota and Tennessee.

Three Azerbaijani soldiers killed Monday evening

April 9, 2014 By administrator

Azerbaijani news agencies quoted the Ministry of Defence that Azerbaijani soldiers under the command of their master, were hit by a mine in the “line of contact” Armenian-Azerbaijani southeast Karabakh. The officer Jeykhun Orujaliyev and two conscripts would have died instantly. One of them, Seyfaddin Kerimov is a former wrestling champion of Azerbaijan, reported SalamNews.az.

Two wounded soldiers, apparently in critical condition, were taken to the military hospital in Baku by helicopter. The Defence Minister Zakir Hasanov have visited section frontline yesterday to personally investigate the incident. The press service of Hasanov said that the “accident” had occurred while the soldiers strengthened their trenches.

Karabakh Armenian army insisted, however, to say that this incident was the result of “a new attempt at reconnaissance and sabotage” of Azerbaijan on the Armenian frontline positions. She said his troops repelled the commandos of Azerbaijan and that they have “stepped on a minefield during their retirement. ”

“Karabakh has not suffered losses,” said the Karabakh Defense Army said in a statement. “After the incident, the front line units of the army of defense continue to (…) control the situation along the line of contact. ”

The incident occurred less than three months after a deadly escalation of violations of the cease-fire on “line of contact” around Karabakh and Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Although the situation on the front appeared to have stabilized in February and March, ceasefire violations are a regular occurrence. Several soldiers from both warring parties died last month.

Armenia grants political asylum to Azerbaijani family

April 7, 2014 By administrator

April 7, 2014 – 15:34 AMT

Armenia will grant a political asylum to an Azeri family of 5 who claim persecution by security services at home, the chief of state migration service told PanARMENIAN.Net

A 37-year-old citizen of Azerbaijan Javid Orujev, his wife and three children applied to the Armenian side at the Bagratashen checkpoint at the Armenian-Georgian border on January 29. Orujev was under pressure from Azerbaijan’s special services ever after marrying a Baku resident of Armenian origin. In particular, he had been forced into trying to obtain data about Armenia and its Diaspora through the relatives of his ethnic Armenian wife, identified as 30-year-old Roya Mirzoyeva, and for that purpose he also unsuccessfully tried to become a resident of a European country. After deportation to Baku, Orujev asked for a political asylum in Armenia.

According to Gagik Yeghanyan, the family is given a refugee status and an asylum in Armenia, which, however does not stipulate for provision of accomodations, rather protection of safety on the territory of Armenia.

Meanwhile, as Acting Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan announced Monday, April 7, ” Armenia carries out serious work to return Hakob Injighulyan and Arsen Khojoyan held in Azerbaijani captivity.”

“The work is underway,” he added.

Ohanyan noted that Azerbaijan wants POW Hakob Injighulyan to be transferred to a third country, which, according to him, “is a violation of international norms.”

The official also noted that the absence of direct contacts with Azerbaijan complicates the process.

23-year-old Armenian citizen Arsen Khojoyan crossed into Azerbaijan on March 7, 2014. Hakob Injighulyan, an Armenian citizen and an army conscript, crossed the Azeri border and was subsequently captured by Azeri soldiers on the night of August 7-8, 2013, Panorama.am reported.

MP Huseynov: Armenians left Baku and Azerbaijani migrants ruined the city

April 1, 2014 By administrator

After the Armenians, the Russians and the Jews left Baku the Azerbaijani refugees from Nagorno Karabakh ruined the city. Azerbaijani MP Etibar Huseynov said about this in his speech on ANS TV.

As the portal Minval.az reports, the MP in his speech has highlighted that the deterioration of cultural atmosphere of Baku is directly connected with the arrival of Azerbaijani refugees from Karabakh.

The PM said that after the Armenians, the Russians, and the Jews left the city, Baku became a void city. Then, when culturally backward Azerbaijani refugees arrived from Karabakh urban environment in Baku became completely distorted.

Note that on January 13, 1990 in Baku, where there were left less than 35,000 Armenians, a massive pogrom of Armenian population started. Lists of apartments where Armenians lived were prepared beforehand; the rioters were walking with these lists in their hands, in some places they were being supported by the Azerbaijani Interior Ministry officers. Hundreds of people were killed. At the same time, as General Lebed wrote, the Azerbaijani nationalists killed not only Armenians but also Lezghins, Ossetians and Georgians. Moreover, a wave of violence against the Russian population of the country started. Soviet special squad soldier found even a well that was full of corpses of Russians and Armenians.

On January 20 night, 1990, after a week of riots, Soviet troops were introduced to Baku. The Azerbaijani militants fired at the troops, as a result of which 28 Soviet soldiers were killed, another 100 Soviet militants were wounded. The leadership of Azerbaijan declared the Azerbaijani thugs who were killed during the self-defense operation of Armenians as “martyrs.” According to official figures of Azerbaijan, 131 civilians were killed during the events held on the “20th of January.”

All the Armenians who lived in Azerbaijan became refugees-more than 400 thousand people. The number of Russian population of Azerbaijan decreased dramatically- from 392 thousand according the census of 1989 to 119 thousand according to the 2009 census.

Source: Panorama.am

Karabakh officer dies from land mine explosion

April 1, 2014 By administrator

April 01, 2014 | 11:55

STEPANAKERT. – Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Defense Army Senior Lieutenant Harutyun Safaryan was mortally wounded as a result of a land mine explosion on Monday.

Safaryan (born in 1987) was mortally wounded while conducting a combat mission at the military base of the protection area of a Defense Army unit stationed in the southern direction of the Line of Contact between the Karabakh-Azerbaijani opposing forces, the Defense Army news service informed.

An investigation is carried out find out the details of the incident.