Category: Authors

Armenia’s current leaders blame previous leaders whenever something goes wrong in the country. After they lost the war, they blamed it on the previous presidents. They do not take any responsibility for their own shortcomings, even though they have been in power now for three years. While the previous rulers can be blamed for many wrongdoings, the current leaders have their own share of shortcomings.

Here is the perfect example of how the current leaders completely mishandled a critical national security project that they are fully to blame. There are many more such examples.

An Armenian businessman by the name of Artak Tovmasyan had the proper connections and the brilliant idea of building state-of-the-art armored military vehicles in Armenia and donating a portion of them to the Armenian government. One would think that Armenian officials would have welcomed such a valuable proposal and would have done everything possible to facilitate this important investment opportunity which has critical national security implications. This is the incredible story of incompetent and uncaring high-ranking Armenian government officials failing to capitalize on this unique offer.

Shortly after Nikole Pashinyan came to power as Prime Minister of Armenia in 2018, Mr. Tovmasyan met with him and proposed to invest in Armenia millions of dollars along with the Canadian Streit Group, a well-known manufacturer of armored military vehicles with 30 years of experience and factories in five countries, including Canada, the United Aram Emirates, Jordan, India and Pakistan. The sixth such facility would have been in Armenia. The total amount of the investment may have reached $20 million which would have included other military-related investors. The project would have also created hundreds of jobs.

Prime Minister Pashinyan expressed interest in the project in 2018 and told his aides to follow up. Regrettably, due to the incompetence and carelessness of Pashinyan’s cadre of officials, three years later, no progress has been made on this vital project, despite Mr. Tovmasyan’s several follow up meetings with the Prime Minister. These armored military vehicles would have been very useful during last year’s war with Azerbaijan, saving the lives of countless Armenian soldiers. Unfortunately, Armenian officials have remained unresponsive to this project, both before, during, and after the war.

Mr. Tovmasyan’s proposal consisted of offering to build gradually around 1,300 armored military vehicles over the next 10 years and donating 130 of them to the Armenian armed forces at no charge. With each vehicle worth $450,000 or more, the total value of the donated vehicles would have been over $60 million.

In return, Mr. Tovmasyan asked that the government of Armenia contribute the necessary land to set up this manufacturing venture on a free industrial zone. Coincidentally, he was made aware of a vacant piece of unused land on the outskirts of Yerevan belonging to the Ministry of Defense. If the project did not materialize, the investor would have been obligated to return the donated land back to the Armenian government.

I am in possession of over a dozen letters sent by Mr. Tovmasyan’s company, First Industrial Zone, to Armenian officials during the past three years, seeking approval for his proposed project. However, despite repeated requests for an answer, the Armenian government did not respond to Mr. Tovmasyan.

The Armenian government referred Mr. Tovmasyan’s proposal to the Interagency Committee which was tasked to review the project. The Interagency Committee included representatives from the Ministries of Economy, Finance, High Tech Industry, Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, Justice, State Revenue Committee, Urban Development Committee, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Union of Manufacturers and Entrepreneurs of Armenia. Surprisingly, the Interagency Committee did not include anyone from the Ministry of Defense to properly evaluate a military project. The Interagency Committee’s guidelines require that it review and refer to the government within 20 working days any submitted proposal. However, this deadline passed long ago, despite several reminders.

The most astounding part of this story is the unexpected Facebook post on March 6, 2021, by the recently-appointed Minister of Economy, Vahan Kerobyan, who had studied mathematics, but is clueless about economics.

Minister Kerobyan arrogantly wrote: “In reality, I am the one who stopped this industrial zone project because it ridiculously despises the interests of the citizens of the Republic of Armenia.” Minister Kerobyan was in no position to stop this project for two reasons: 1) As a recently-appointed Minister, he was not even around when this project was presented to the Prime Minister and subsequently referred to the Interagency Committee. 2) The decision to approve or reject this project rested with the Interagency Committee and the Prime Minister.

Minister Kerobyan went on to make more outlandish claims. He wrote: Let Mr. Tovmasyan “submit his proposal to the government’s approval in the next two weeks, but if he wants to pick up the nine hectares of land in Yerevan by promising a negligible amount of investment, then I remain of the opinion that this is not an investment project but a robbery. We have also proposed to implement this business with their conditions and tax permits in a city other than Yerevan, but incomprehensibly, exactly the precious piece of land in Yerevan is necessary to them for this production zone.”

Minister Kerobyan is misleading the public. Even though the Armenian government has not responded to the proposal in several years, he is claiming that he will respond in two weeks. Why hasn’t he then reacted to the existing proposal since his appointment last November? The fact is that he has never made a counter-proposal and has never sat down with the investor to discuss the proposal. Incidentally, the Defense Ministry was the one that suggested the land located on the outskirts of Yerevan to Mr. Tovmasyan, not for free, but for purchase. 

Finally, it is very unprofessional of Mr. Kerobyan to respond through a Facebook post to a serious proposal involving a multi-million dollar military production. Regrettably, that reflects the Minister’s lack of qualification for the job he holds.

In conclusion, Armenia lost the war for many reasons, but this type of behavior by an unqualified Minister and an incompetent government does not inspire any confidence that it will be able to attract investors and improve the country’s dismal economic situation anytime soon.

Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is completely ignorant about economics, met with the Chief Executive Officers of 26 major American companies and told them many falsehoods about the Turkish economy. The reality is that the Turkish economy is bankrupt and millions of Turkish citizens are on the verge of starvation, while the coronavirus is raging like wildfire, making Turkey the fifth largest country in the world in terms of infections.

Here are some of the lies Erdogan told the American CEO’s:  “None of the problems experienced in many countries and the disruptions in the supply chain have been experienced in Turkey. At a time when many economies in the world came to a standstill, we continued our investments in both the public and private sectors.“Thanks to the efforts of our private sector, the support of our state and dynamic epidemic measures, our economy closed 2020 with growth. With a rate of 1.8%, we became the country with the highest growth in the G-20 after China.“Despite the serious economic contraction in our traditional export markets and the contraction in foreign demand, we reached an export figure of $170 billion. The trade volume between Turkey and the United States increased by 4 percent and exceeded $21 billion.“In the January-April period of 2021, our exports increased by 33.1 percent compared to last year.“Our industrial production increased by 12.3% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same quarter of the previous year. We also observe a significant increase in investment demand in Turkey.“The total direct investments of the United States in Turkey reached $13 billion, while the investments of Turkish companies in the United States reached $7.2 billion. I would like to thank all American companies who trust Turkey and the Turkish economy.”

Surprisingly, Erdogan then decided to tell the American CEO’s of Pres. Joe Biden’s acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide on April 24, thus informing them of the horrible mass crimes committed by Ottoman Turkey against the Armenians.

“Even though President Biden’s statement about the 1915 events puts an additional burden on our relations, I believe that the meeting we will hold with Mr. Biden at the NATO Summit [in June] will herald a new era,” Erdogan stated hopingly.

Erdogan then contradicted his many cruel, inhuman, anti-Semitic and racist public statements and policies by claiming: “We have never, and never will, allow distorted mentalities such as xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and racism to find ground in our society. We resolutely continue our efforts to reform the economy, freedoms, laws and justice according to changing conditions and needs. We presented our Human Rights Action Plan and our Economy Reform package to the public.”

Here is the list of the CEO’s that Erdogan met with:

Cargill, David Webster, Senior Vice President – Food Ingredients and Bio Industrial Ventures; DowAksa, Douglas Parks, CEO; Hilton, Chris Nassetta, President and CEO; MetLife, Nuria Garcia, President — Europe, Middle East and Africa; Netflix, Spencer Neumann, CFO; Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Stan Deal, CEO; Kellogg Company, Steven Cahillane, President and CEO; Google, Karan Bhatia, Vice President – Public Policy, Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia-Pacific; GE Aviation, John Slattery, President and CEO; Varian Medical Systems, Chris Toth, CEO; PepsiCo, Silviu Popovici, CEO Europe; Amazon, Susan Pointer, Vice President — Public Policy; Cheniere Energy, Anatol Feygin, CCO; Citi, David Livingstone, President and CEO — Europe, Middle East and Africa; Procter & Gamble, Loic Tassel, President — Europe; Progress Rail, Marty Haycraft, President and CEO; Tellurian Inc., Octavio Simoes, President and CEO; Medtronic, Rob ten Hoedt, Senior Vice President and Head of Europe; Archer Daniels Midland, Ismail Roig, President — Europe, Middle East and Africa; Microsoft, Samer Abu Ltaif, Corporate Vice President — Head of Europe and Middle East; Cisco, Michael Timmeny, Senior Vice President and Head of Corporate Strategy; Honeywell Aerospace, Mike Madsen, President and CEO; Nova Power Solutions, Steve Ziff, President and CEO; The Coca-Cola Company, Jenny Stoichkova, President — Europe and the Middle East; Johnson & Johnson, Giorgio Milesi, President — Emerging Markets; and Baker Hughes, Zaher Ibrahim, Vice President — Middle East, Turkey, North Africa.

Let us now turn to one of the top economists in the world, Daron Acemoglu, an Armenian born in Turkey, who is now Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. His name is often mentioned as a future Nobel Prize nominee.

During a video interview, Acemoglu directly contradicted Erdogan’s propagandistic picture of the Turkish economy, by stating: “I have great fear the economic crisis may deepen in Turkey.”

Here are excerpts from Acemoglu’s description of the deplorable condition of the economy in Turkey: “When Turkey went to the presidential election and all the power gathered in the palace, it had a great impact on the economic policy.“These nationalist and authoritarian populist regimes or these movements generally weaken state capacity when they come to power. This is both a strategy and something they do unintentionally because they can’t rule legally. We see this in India, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, and Hungary.”“The countries where the most people died from the coronavirus in the world were Brazil, Turkey, India, Russia and populist authoritarian regimes such as America during the Trump administration.“Turkey has been experiencing the most critical economic crises in the last five years. There were major crises that started not only after the pandemic, but also before the pandemic. The increase in debts, the worsening of balance sheets, could a correct result be brought against them? No. Why? There are few people in the bureaucracy who can deal with the economy properly and improve it. Especially the cadres established under Berat Albayrak [Minister of Economy and Treasury and Erdogan’s son-in-law] could not bring the right approach to what needs to be done. Democracy has many advantages over dictatorships and authoritarian systems. But one of the biggest advantages is their tendency to keep the biggest mistakes, talents and incompetence in the lead, is much weaker. Especially when the presidential election in Turkey and all power gathered in the Palace, this had a great impact on the economic policy.“Especially in the last five years, unemployment and inequality have reached very high levels [in Turkey].“Shopping malls and construction companies, which have had a huge problem in their balance sheet for five years, are still standing. How long will they be able to stand? What will be the effects on banks? How long will we be able to keep the interest rate policy this way, while our reserves have decreased so much? These dimensions are likely to go much more negative. These problems are not only in Turkey, there are problems in other parts as well, but wherever you see these problems, you see the role of decisions not to manage the economy correctly.”

 I hope the American CEO’s will pay more attention to Acemoglu’s accurate assessment than to Erdogan’s propaganda which has led Turkey to economic disaster.

Publisher,

It is commonly stated that politics is similar to prostitution. There is no morality, just interests. However, there is also something called hypocrisy. While it is true that individuals or nations can get away with any kind of unscrupulous behavior for a while, but eventually it catches up with them and they become exposed.

There are plenty of examples of such dishonest behavior in the world, but let’s focus on the current case of Azerbaijan and its hypocritical behavior.

Azerbaijan is an Islamic state and active member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, composed of 57 member states. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan’s infatuation with Israel initially started by copying the behavior of its “elder brother” Turkey which had gone out of its way to curry favor with Israel and American Jewish organizations to be on the good side of the United States government and to counter the Armenian-American community’s efforts in Congress to have the Armenian Genocide acknowledged.

Regrettably, the behavior of the Israeli government and that of Jewish American organizations were just as cynical and immoral intending to cuddle the Republic of Turkey which was pretending to be friendly and supportive at a time when Israel was surrounded by a sea of hostile Arab states.

Eventually, the leaders of Israel and Jewish-American organizations realized Turkey’s fake friendship after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly insulted Israel and Jews by making hateful anti-Semitic remarks. Finally, Turkish hypocrisy was exposed and the relations were cut off!

Turning to Azerbaijan, it copied the Turkish example of hypocrisy vis-à-vis Israel and Jewish-American organizations. In this case, however, Azerbaijan pursued an interest much larger than their mere lobbying support. The relationship soon turned to mutual exploitation based on lies and deceit. Azerbaijan, flush with tons of petrodollars, bought billions of dollars of deadly drones and other advanced weapons from Israel in return for supplying the latter with oil. Never mind Israel’s immoral and criminal action with descendants of Holocaust survivors supplying deadly weapons to kill survivors of the Armenian Genocide.

However, Israeli leaders ignored all obvious signs of hypocrisy, deceit and mutual exploitation, blinded by the Almighty dollar. As I reported in a previous column, an early sign of Azerbaijan’s insincerity toward Israel was exposed on March 18, 2021, when Shahriar Hajiyev, third secretary at the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to the United Nations in Geneva, gave a speech at the Human Rights Council, harshly condemning Israel’s “massive, flagrant and systematic violations of human rights” of Palestinians. Except for a critical reaction by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in the United States, Israeli leaders ignored the Azeri attack, even after my column was reprinted by the Jerusalem Post on April 4, 2021.

A much more ominous development took place in May when Israel and Palestinians in Gaza engaged in mutual missile attacks, killing over 200 Palestinians and a dozen Israelis. The entire Arab and Islamic world condemned the Israeli attack on Gaza, except for Azerbaijan. Even when the Israeli police attacked Arab worshippers inside Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, one of the holiest Islamic mosques, Azerbaijan remained silent.

What will be the repercussions of Azerbaijan’s abandonment of its fellow Muslims? Turkey and particularly Pres. Erdogan certainly feel betrayed by its “junior brother” whom Turkey helped win the war against Armenia and captured large parts of Artsakh. While Erdogan was harshly critical of Israel and threatened military intervention, Azerbaijan remained quiet. This will not remain unnoticed either in Ankara or other Islamic capitals.

The next time Pres. Aliyev of Azerbaijan submits another resolution to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to condemn Christian Armenia, OIC member states will remind Azerbaijan of its silence during the Israeli attack on Gaza. Ironically, just before the start of the recent Israeli-Palestinian attacks, Azerbaijan had proposed to mediate reconciliation between Israel and Turkey. Azerbaijan’s silence during the Gaza attack also put an end to that prospect.

Azerbaijan’s pro-Israeli stance will certainly create a friction with Turkey. The last time such ill will was expressed by Azerbaijan’s leader against Turkey was when Armenia and Turkey signed a protocol in 2009 to open their mutual border which Pres. Aliyev strongly opposed and stated that it would damage Azerbaijan-Turkey relations. During a meeting with Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns in Baku on February 25, 2010, “Aliyev made clear his distaste for the Erdogan government in Turkey, underscoring the ‘naïveté’ of their foreign policy and the failure of their initiatives, including the loss of support for Turkey among traditional international friends because of Ankara’s hostility to Israel. He noted that in his view, there had never been any merit to the notion of a ‘moderate Islamist’ government in Turkey, and that Erdogan’s insistence on promoting Hamas and Gaza (when other Arab countries were notably silent on these issues) had brought Turkey no benefits,” WikiLeaks revealed.

In the long run, Pres. Aliyev’s lack of Islamic solidarity on Israel’s bombing of Gaza could undermine his government’s rule over 10 million Shia and Sunni Muslims in Azerbaijan, encouraged by Turkey which enjoys a tight grip over Aliyev after the Artsakh War. Aliyev’s cuddling of Israel would also have a negative effect on Azerbaijan’s relations with neighboring Iran and its large Azeri population.

While it was widely publicized that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, very little was reported about similar meddling by Turkey.

The US National Intelligence Council (NIC) released on March 15, 2021 a declassified report which confirmed Turkish hackers’ cyber-attack in the 2020 election on Joe Biden’s campaign website, to support Pres. Donald Trump.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone, given the warm personal relationship between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pres. Trump. Erdogan made weekly phone calls to the White House securing Pres. Trump’s agreement on many pro-Turkish issues. Erdogan was certain that Biden would not be as accommodating as Trump.

Abdullah Bozkurt, a dissident Turkish investigative journalist living in Stockholm, Sweden, confirmed the Turkish hacking scheme by publishing the details in the Nordic Monitor on March 25, 2021.

The NIC disclosed that the Turkish group RootAyyıldız hacked the Biden-Harris presidential campaign website in October and November 2020. “Hackers promoting Turkish nationalist themes breached and defaced a website previously established for a candidate in the US presidential campaign, according to US cybersecurity press,” the NIC reported.

“The Turkish hackers posted a nationalist and Islamist message that by and large repeated the narrative often promoted by ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials in Turkey, led by President Erdogan,” Bozkurt wrote.

The Hackers placed on the Biden-Harris website the photos of Pres. Erdogan and Sultan Abdulhamid II, named Red Sultan because of the massacres of 300,000 Armenians from 1894 to 1896.

“The hackers identified themselves as ‘Turkish Muslim Defacer’ and emphasized that they follow the Turkish president, described as ‘Reis’ (Chief) in the posted message, and are on the path of a Turkish Islamist jihadist campaign to dominate the world. The opposition political parties were alleged to have been supported by the US, and the hackers warned of further consequences if the US did not leave Turkey alone,” reported Bozkurt.

Here is the translation of the Turkish hackers’ message left on the Biden-Harris website:

“We made the ablution [used here as a means to clean oneself to get ready to be a martyr in jihad] before and set out on a journey, we said our own funeral prayer, we sharpened our blade for our brother. We made our pledge to the Great Sultan [late Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II, an authoritarian ruler revered by Islamist circles in Turkey]. We will kill for Reis [Chief — President Erdogan] anybody who sets their eyes on our [Turkish-Islamic] cause.

“Damn those who live for money and fame, greetings to those who live for the Islamic cause. From here, I warn the US-backed, so-called [opposition] political parties like the CHP [main opposition Republican People’s Party], HDP [pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party] and the Iyi [conservative/nationalist Good] Party.

“We’ll be your nightmare if you don’t take your hands off my [Turkish] state, my nation. We will make you afraid of walking in the street [in shame] by revealing your most private conversations.

“RootAyyıldız is not a group or organization but a patriot who fights alone. We hail anybody who fights for Turk and Islam. May Allah be our help. We do not use social media. Don’t be fooled by fake accounts.”

The hackers wrote under the photo of Erdogan and Abdulhamid II: “We are the ones who stopped the tanks with our bare hands on the night of July 15 [2016 failed coup]. We are those who killed death that night. We have been waiting for Archers’ Hill for 15 centuries [a reference to a scene in the Battle of Uhud fought by the Muslim Prophet Muhammad]! We are the keepers of that red [Turkish] flag that will never abandon its shadow on us.” Archers’ Hill is frequently mentioned by Erdogan in his campaign rallies.

Bozkurt added: “RootAyyıldız is believed to have connections to elements of the Turkish government, specifically with intelligence agency MIT and the police department. Its attacks on foreign governments, entities and individuals have coincided with the growing noise among Turkish officials who leveled harsh criticism and threats against such foreign governments, entities and individuals.”

Bozkurt ended his article revealing that the Turkish hackers group RootAyyıldız “also targeted the Greek government and institutions during the heightened tension between the two countries in August 2020. The official website of the Bihar Education Department in India was hacked in August 2019 by RootAyyıldız, which posted messages in praise of Pakistan and Islam. In October 2020, the group hacked the Armenian Football Federation’s website during the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and posted messages in support of Azerbaijan.”

In a separate article by the Reuters news agency, titled: “Hackers acting in Turkey’s interests believed to be behind recent cyberattacks,” Turkish hackers attacked at least 30 organizations, including Albanian, Cypriot and Greek government email services, the website of the national security advisor of Iraq, embassies and security services as well as companies and other groups.

“The attacks involve intercepting internet traffic to victim websites, potentially enabling hackers to obtain illicit access to the networks of government bodies and other organizations,” Reuters wrote.

“According to two British officials and one U.S. official, the activity bears the hallmarks of a state-backed cyber espionage operation conducted to advance Turkish interests,” Reuters wrote.

These hacking efforts by the Turkish government-linked group are yet another example of the violation of international laws and conventions by Turkey.