Turkish Forum

Category: Asia and Pacific

  • The Azerbaijani people unfortunately did not have any defender

    The Azerbaijani people unfortunately did not have any defender

    SSSRPaul Goble

    Publications Advisor

    Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy

    As part of his plan to attract ethnic Armenians back to the Soviet Union after World War II and under pressure from both the leadership of the Armenian SSR and from Armenians in the top leadership of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin in December 1947 ordered the forcible deportation of 100,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis from Armenia to Azerbaijan, beginning a process which resulted in the departure of all Azerbaijanis from what had been part of their historical space and the creation of a mono-ethnic state in Armenia, according to Govhar Bakhshaliyeva, a Milli Majlis deputy. [1]

    Recently, the Day.az news agency reported, one of its constant readers sent in a photograph of a document signed by Stalin on December 3, 1947 calling for “the resettlement of collective farms and other Azerbaijani populations” from the Armenian SSR to the Kura-Araz region of the Azerbaijan SSR.  (The news portal reproduced that photograph.)  According to Stalin’s decree, this deportation was to be entirely “voluntary,” but both the provisions of the act and the way it was carried out show that it was anything but.

    Day.az asked Govhar Bakhshaliyeva, the director of the Baku Institute of Oriental Studies and a member of the Azerbaijani parliament for comment.  She suggested that, “this document most probably was signed under the pressure of the Armenian lobby, which at that time was well-represented in the leadership of the USSR.”

    The policy outlined in it, she continued, was “a crime against Azerbaijanis.  The Armenian lobby of that tie just as was the case with Gorbachev in 1988 step by step provided materials, which showed what they wanted them to in order to incline Stalin to their position.  They were in an even better position to do that in the earlier case, because Mikoyan was close to Stalin as were many other Armenian Bolsheviks, his former comrades in arms who conducted their dirty work at the all-Union level.  At that time, the Azerbaijani people unfortunately did not have any defender” there.

    According to Bakhshaliyeva, Mir-Jafar Bagirov, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party, could not defend his people and the Azerbaijani population was deported from Armenia to Azerbaijan.  Those who were moved found themselves in extraordinarily difficult conditions.  Accustomed to the mountains, they found it hard to adjust to the heat of the lowlands.  As a result, many died.

    Bakhshaliyeva pointed out that there was nothing voluntary about this, noting that, “until today there remain people who recall these events who experienced this deportation during their childhoods, and who say that it was a barbarous act toward Azerbaijanis who were indigenous to Armenia.  They remember,” she continued, “that this was something unbelievable and a great injustice,” all the more so because their lands were quickly filled up by new ethnic Armenian arrivals.

    “Unfortunately,” the Azerbaijani parliamentarian says, “this unjust policy continued for decades and was completed in our times, at the end of the 1980s, after which there were virtually no ethnic Azerbaijanis remaining on the territory of Armenia.”

     

    Notes

    [1] See https://news.day.az/politics/407630.html (accessed 14 June 2013).

    AZERBAIJAN IN THE WORLD

    ADA Biweekly Newsletter

    Vol. 6, No. 12

    June 15, 2013

  • Create a situation which Tehran might find difficult to control

    Create a situation which Tehran might find difficult to control

    Rouhani 1Gulnara Inandzh

    Director, Ethnoglobus (ethnoglobus.az)

    An International Online Information and Analysis Center , mete62@inbox.ru

    (Baku- Tehran-Baku)

     

    The election of Hasan Rowhani as the new president of Iran is part of a much larger process: an effort by the political elite to recapture authority in the population by launching a top-down political transformation lest outside forces provoke one and create a situation which Tehran might find difficult to control.

    That transformation, one not often remarked upon by outsiders, reflects the fact that Iranian nationalism is today a more important force than is Islam and the country’s imperial ambitions are more important than Muslim brotherhood, however defined.  Those close to the Iranian political elite understand that, and they recognize as well that slogans against Zionism and the United States are no longer enough to satisfy the increasingly poor population of what should be one of the wealthiest countries on earth.

    The policies of incumbent Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which have simultaneously led to international sanctions and massive corruption, have left Iranians angry, because they are bearing the burdens of his policies without gaining any of the supposedly positive achievements he liked to point to.  Consequently, they voted for Rowhani, but despite what many observers have said, they did so with the full approval of many around the top leaders who recognize that Iran cannot and must not continue as it has.

    One area where change is now likely is the relationship between the religious authorities and the state that was set up by Ayatollah Khomeini more than 30 years ago and has remained largely unchanged.  Iranians can be dissatisfied with the religious authorities, but all those with whom I have spoken willingly reassert their love for their government.  The national policy of the Iranian state thus rests on an imperial ideology as a necessary response to the ethno-psychology of the population.  And that state is prepared to make a correction on religion-state relations by taking that factor into account.

    Iranians will not support any actions that they believe harm the interests of the state and thus oppose any moves from the outside to oppose it.  That is something the West does not understand, but there is something else the West has failed to notice: the authorities in Tehran have developed political strategies to make mid-course corrections and even fundamental reforms.  And right now, as the election shows, they are in the middle of something that we are justified in calling a top-down transformation, a change in the key arrangements of the state without violence.

    The first step in this direction was paradoxically made by Ahmadinejad who deprived the Muslim leaders of their immunity.  The second was the victory of the United Front of Conservatives in the March 2012 elections, which led Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to reappoint a number of reformers from the administration of former president Ali Rafsanjani.  And the third step in this process was the explicit call by Hasan Rowhani for political and economic reform and direct contacts with the United States, two issues that had earlier been taboo.

    Rowhani’s election and in the first round at that shows that Iranians are ready for reform, and the support he has received from Ayatollah Khamenei shows that the reformists are winning ever more positions in Tehran and Qum and that the governing structure of Iran that Khomeini put in place after the 1979 revolution is going to change, albeit slowly and carefully lest they trigger instability.  As these changes are put in place, the Muslim leadership and the secular politicians will work in parallel, dividing the social-political and economic spheres.  Polls of Iranians carried out in Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran show that a majority of them want to live in a secular society, but not to break altogether with their Muslim roots. 

    Anyone visiting Tehran can see evidence of that: The majority of women there wear not the chadra, but scarves and long dresses, but not those reaching the ground.  In some places, it is even possible to observe women who are not covering their heads, something that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.  Such examples could be multiplied, and they suggest that Iran, all the rhetoric notwithstanding, is opening up to secular culture and lifestyle.

    Over the course of the last 30 years, a new generation of religious scholars in contemporary European dress has appeared in Iran.  Its members speak foreign languages, are not trapped by Muslim dogma, are open to Western scholarship, and are quite tolerant.  They and the new generation of Iranians, religious and non-religious alike, are going to lead Iran into a new stage of its history.  In sum, Iranians are effecting domestic transformation lest someone from the outside attempt to start that process.

    AZERBAIJAN IN THE WORLD

    ADA Biweekly Newsletter

    Vol. 6, No. 12

    June 15, 2013

  • The Azerbaijan-Turkey-Israel triangle both in Tel Aviv and in the Muslim Middle East

    The Azerbaijan-Turkey-Israel triangle both in Tel Aviv and in the Muslim Middle East

    Gulnara Inanc
    Director, Ethnoglobus
    An International Online Information and Analysis Center
    (mete62@inbox.ru)
    The first ever visit by an Azerbaijani foreign minister to Israel and Palestine, a visit all sides called historic, underscored the growing strategic partnership between Baku and its two partners in the Middle East.  The first person Elmar Mammadyarov met in Israel was the chairman of the Knesset Commission on Foreign Affairs and Defense, Avigdor Lieberman, who had long lobbied for close cooperation and a strategic partnership with Azerbaijan.  In large measure as a result of his efforts, earlier attempts by the Armenian lobby to raise the so-called “Armenian genocide” in the Knesset were blocked.  Last year, in response to the latest such attempt, Israeli President Shimon Peres and A. Lieberman, who was then Israeli foreign minister, openly declared that because of the country’s strategic partnership with Azerbaijan, the issue of the “Armenian genocide” would not be discussed in the Knesset.
    Mammadyarov arrived in Tel Aviv on March 24th, the very day Armenians have declared a memorial day for the “genocide.”  Armenian media on that occasion put out information about a Knesset discussion of the “genocide,” but that did not happen.  Undoubtedly, it was very important for Azerbaijan to receive reassurance that the recognition of the so-called “Armenian genocide” would not be considered in the Knesset.
    Among the notable outcomes of the Azerbaijani foreign minister’s visit to Israel was Baku’s declaration on his return that Azerbaijan is ready to sign a broad agreement concerning the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. [1] Israel beyond any doubt is not in a position to promise something regarding that conflict or to resolve it in some way.  But Tel Aviv is in a position to seek the broader support of Jewish groups around the world regarding the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict.  And consequently, the growing ties between Azerbaijan and Israel open the way for progress in the talks just as was the case some five years ago.
    Earlier this year, the Jewish community of the United States held a conference on “Israeli Relations with the States of the South Caucasus.”  Avigdor Lieberman, with whom Foreign Minister Mammadyarov met in Israel, and President Shimon Peres have been devoting particular attention to the development of relations with the South Caucasus countries in general and Azerbaijan in particular. [2] Following his meeting with Lieberman, Mammadyarov went to Ramallah where the Palestinian authority declared its support for Baku’s position on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and on the issue of the so-called “Armenian genocide.”
    Azerbaijan supports the independence of Palestine and the division of Jerusalem, and in response to this support, it is seeking Palestinian backing on the two issues of greatest importance to itself.  A conference in Baku scheduled to be held later this summer can be considered part of the result of the Ramallah talks.
    Palestine enjoys authority and is at the center of attention of the Islamic world.  Azerbaijan, in turn, has grown into an economically and politically powerful country not only in the South Caucasus, but more broadly as well.  Rid al Maliki, the foreign minister of the Palestinian Autonomy, stressed this in his meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart, noting that Azerbaijan enjoys authority in the leading international organizations. [3] Therefore, the support of Ramallah is significant, because it brings with it the attention of the Islamic and international community.  Thus, Azerbaijan was able to achieve its goal of gaining Palestine’s support for its positions.  In view of this, it is worth recalling the declaration made by Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Haled ben Saud ben Haled, that the international community must mount pressure on Armenia to secure a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict [4] and a second declaration by Iranian leader Ali Khamenei that “Karabakh is a Muslim land … something that is supported at the highest levels.”
    Both of these declarations can be seen as the result of Baku’s careful and balanced foreign policy.  Of course, one should focus attention on the fact that this historic visit to Israel took place after the Turkish-Israel rapprochement.  Interestingly, one of the clearest opponents of that rapprochement, A. Lieberman, nonetheless agreed with it.  The Israeli media suggested that he had not been informed about the plans for this new coming together.  Lieberman thus had to “close his eyes” and put out the red carpet for Mammadyarov.  Having lost its Arab partners after the Arab spring, Israel had no choice but to return to strategic relations with Turkey.  That, in turn, has increased the importance of the Azerbaijan-Turkey-Israel triangle both in Tel Aviv and in the Muslim Middle East.
    Azerbaijan’s geographic location next to Iran also increases its strategic significance, something that Israeli President Peres went out of his way to stress.  This does not mean that Baku offered or is planning to offer its territory as a place des armesfor a military operation against Iran.  Baku has repeatedly indicated that cooperation with Israel does not include that and is generally not aimed against Iran, even though many observers tend to see Baku’s cooperation with Israel as the former’s way of restraining Iran.
    Notes
    [1] See https://www.amerikaninsesi.org/a/elmar_memmedyarov/1649480.html (accessed 28 April 2013).
    [2] See http://izrus.co.il/dvuhstoronka/article/2012-02-28/17144.html#ixzz2QngVkiJZ (accessed 28 April 2013).
    [3] See  (accessed 28 April 2013).
    [4] See  (accessed 28 April 2013).
    AZERBAIJAN IN THE WORLD
    ADA Biweekly Newsletter
  • Azerbaijan and Turkey to cooperate in defense industry

    Azerbaijan and Turkey to cooperate in defense industry

    Azerbaijan and Turkey are going to cooperate in the sphere of defense industry. The corresponding document has been signed by the 2 countries during the IDEF-2013 exhibition.

    The exhibition held in the Turkish city of Istanbul has just ended. Azerbaijan has presented 130 products during the event.

    The exhibition is held once in 2 years. Azerbaijan takes part in the event for the third time.

    Source – vestnikkavkaza

  • Armless artist Karipbek Kuyukov ‘denied entry’ to UK

    Armless artist Karipbek Kuyukov ‘denied entry’ to UK

     

     

    İstanbul’daki İngiliz Konsolosluğu kolları olmayan Kazak sanatçı’ya parmak izi bırakmadığı için vize vermedi!

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    Karipbek Kuyukov says he is disappointed he could not enter the UK

    A Kazakh artist who was born without arms says he could not get permission to enter the UK last month because he could not give fingerprints.

    Karipbek Kuyukov planned to attend an anti-nuclear conference in Edinburgh.

    But he got a letter from the British Consulate in Istanbul saying his “biometrics were of poor quality” and asking him to resubmit his application.

    The UK Home Office said his visa was not refused and it may have been the result of a “miscommunication”.

    Mr Kuyukov, 44, who was forced to cancel his attendance at the conference, spoke of his disappointment.

    ‘Did not understand’

    “Maybe they did not understand that I am disabled or check the information provided,” said the artist.

    “But in my online visa application it was written that I am an artist and that I don’t have hands. I paint by holding a brush in my mouth and between my toes.”

    Mr Kuyukov was born in the region of Semipalatinsk, the former Soviet Union’s main nuclear testing ground.

    Many thousands of children were born with disabilities during the nuclear test programme.

    Mr Kuyukov has used his painting to campaign for nuclear disarmament for the past 20 years.

  • Turkey’s ‘Hidden’ Armenians keen to regain lost identity

    Turkey’s ‘Hidden’ Armenians keen to regain lost identity

    Posted on 1 week ago

    TUNCELI Turkey (AFP) – They dropped their language and religion to survive after the 1915 genocide, but close to 100 years on Turkey s “hidden Armenians” want to take pride in their identity.

    Some genocide survivors adopted Islam and blended in with the Kurds in eastern Turkey s Dersim mountains to avoid further persecution.

    Several generations down the road, the town of Tunceli hosted a landmark ceremony Wednesday for Genocide Remembrance Day, something which has only ever happened in Istanbul and the large city of Diyarbakir.

    The massacre and deportation of Ottoman Armenians during World War I, which Armenians claim left around 1.5 million dead, is described by many countries as genocide although Ankara continues to reject the term.

    Speaking in front of the ruins of the Ergen church — one of the few remnants of Christian Armenian heritage in the region — Miran Pirginc Gultekin, president of the Dersim Armenian Association, explained it was still rare to declare oneself openly as Armenian in Turkey.

    “We decided that we had to get back to our true nature, that this way of living was not satisfactory, that it was not fair to live with another s identity and another s faith,” he said.

    Despite converting to Alevism, a heterodox sect of Islam, and taking Turkish names, the ethnic Armenians who stayed on their ancestral land suffered from continued discrimination and the elders often struggle to summon their memories.

    “My mother told me how her family was deported. She was a baby at the time and her mother considered drowning her in despair,” said Tahire Aslanpencesi, a sprightly octogenarian from the village Danaburan.

    “My mother used to say all the misery that came after would have been avoided had her mother drowned her,” she recalled.

    After converting to Islam, many of the so-called “crypto-Armenians” said they still faced unfair treatment: their land was often confiscated, the men were humiliated with “circumcision checks” in the army and some were tortured.

    Hidir Boztas grandfather converted to Islam, gave his son a Turkish name and the clan intermarried with a Kurdish community in the village of Alanyazi.

    “We feel Armenian nonetheless and in any case the others always remind us of where we come from. No matter how many of their daughters we marry, and how many of ours we give them, they will continue to call us Armenians,” he said.

    The Armenian community shared the Kurds suffering when the regime cracked down on Kurdish rebellions, from the 1938 revolt to the insurrection started by the PKK group in 1984.

    For a long time, only those who had left the ancestral homestead dared to make their Armenian roots known.

    “Armenians in Istanbul are in a big city, they have their neighbourhoods, their churches, nobody can do anything to them. But in these villages, there s rejection and insults,” said Hidir Boztas, 86.

    Human rights campaigners gathered Wednesday in downtown Istanbul carrying portraits of genocide victims.

    They were only a handful but they argued that the simple fact that such an event was authorised and groups such as theirs invited proved that attitudes were changing.

    “Ten years ago, such an event was impossible in Turkey,” said Benjamin Abtan,” a European activist.

    One of Hidir s nephews, 42-year-old Mustafa, a businessman, is one of a growing number of Muslim Armenians who want to be proud of their identity.

    Mustafa has decided to name his construction firm Bedros after Hidir s grandfather, who was deported during the genocide.

    “It symbolised my past. My great-grandfather was called Bedros, and I wanted his name to live on. I am against radicalism, and I don t do this through racism or religious extremism, but I don t deny my origins — everyone knows them.”

    He said he hoped the unprecedented ceremony in Tunceli Wednesday would encourage more members of the community to come out in the open.

    “The aim is to allow people to assert their identity more freely and also to generate more interest for the little Christian heritage left in the region,” said Miran Pirginc Gultekin.

    His society was created three years ago and has around 80 members.