Turkish Forum

Category: Regions

  • 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

  • Israeli Firms in Middle of NSA Spy Scandal

    Israeli Firms in Middle of NSA Spy Scandal

    pacTwo Israeli companies, including one exposed by EIR in 2001-02 as under investigation in the U.S. for being part of a massive Israeli espionage network (see EIR, Feb. 1, 2002), have been identified as playing a central role in handling the NSA’s acquisition of call information from major telecommunications companies.

    * VERINT Systems, formerly known as Comverse Systems, a U.S.-based subsidiary of the Israeli Comverse Technologies, was reported by author and NSA expert James Bamford to have been designated by the NSA to process all the call information (metadata) obtained from Verizon. By the time it got the NSA contract, Comverse was already well-known as a leading firm in wiretapping, or what it called the “lawful interception market” for law-enforcement agencies. In 2002, about the time NSA launched its Stellar Wind operation, tapping into the major telecoms, former NSA Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minihan joined the Board of Directors of Comverse-Verint.

    * NARUS, another Israeli company, similarly processes all the information obtained from AT&T for the NSA. Narus was founded in Israel in 1997, and in 2010 was acquired by Boeing. Narus’s NarusInsight supercomputer system, which was installed in AT&T’s San Francisco Internet facility and identified by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein, gave rise to a famous 2006 class action lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T, Hepting v. AT&T.

    Additionally, AMDOCS, another Israeli telecommunications firm profiled by EIR in 2001-02, specializes in analyzing (i.e. data-mining) customer billing records for major U.S. telecoms; this data is similar to the “metadata” collected by the NSA on all phone calls in the U.S. Some investigators believe Amdocs is also involved in the NSA Stellar Wind program; indeed, it would be surprising if they were not.

    Ha’aretz reported on June 8 that both Verint and Narus have ties to both the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, and the Israel Defense Forces intelligence-gathering unit 8200. Ha’aretz also raises the question of whether Mossad is a party to the intelligence-sharing arrangement between the U.S.’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ, Britain’s Cheltenham-based signals-intelligence agency.

    larouchepac.com, June 12, 2013

  • TURKEY’S DEAD MAN TALKING

    TURKEY’S DEAD MAN TALKING

    erdogan_angry

    It is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.

     MACBETH, William Shakespeare

     

    A month ago I wrote that Turkey’s relentless prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was either heading for a psychotic break or an incident or statement so damaging to the nation that he would be forced to resign. If incessant lying in the face of overwhelming, documented truth, if using incredibly inflammatory, divisive  language in public discourse, if impugning the motives of all who disagree with his bestial domestic policy towards peaceful protesters including nations, international organizations, NATO, the European Union, and non-governmental organizations to name but a few, if repeated gassing and beating of unarmed, peaceful protesters, if sanctioning and encouraging police (and personal private thug) violence on the level of Pinochet’s Chile and Hitler’s Third Reich, if state-supported murder is glorified as self-defense, if he, the nominal leader of Turkey, stands shamed and defamed before the eyes of the world (except for America) then he (or even a relatively normal egomaniac) would have left long ago. But he’s still here. And for the right reasons, I was wrong. My excuse? This prime minister is not a normal egomaniac, nor is he a normal or even abnormal megalomaniac. He’s a dead man talking. And talking. And talking. And talking. Gibbering nonsense allegations and conspiracy rubbish. Sex and beer in the mosques. Foreign meddlers. Interest rate lobby. Drunks. Looters. Coup-plotters. Vandals. Plunderers. The Jews did it. His language, his thoughts, like a cancer consume him. His reality? Zero.

    He and his stooges still target people in the government-controlled media; public defaming is a specialty of this government. Erdoğan’s strong-arm street goons, in the worst tradition of Adolph Hitler, now assist his uniformed cop-goons in attacking peaceful protesters. And he is still talking. But that is all. He has lost control of the nation. Even the Kurds have joined the resistance. The very thought of Tayyip is lustily booed everywhere, from graduation ceremonies to race tracks. Athletic teams celebrate victories with Atatürk flags. Actors act out. Singers sing out. There is a frenzy of resistance music, art and caricatures. Agitprop Turkish-style fills the air and it is wonderful to behold. The brilliance of these kids is blinding. Normally rabidly partisan football fans have united in one team. Call it RESISTANCE fired by their joint rabid disgust with Erdoğan. Slogans are everywhere: “Everywhere Taksim, everywhere resistance,” “We are Mustafa Kemal’s soldiers.” They carry Turkish flags emblazoned with his image. “Tayyip resign!” they shout. But Tayyip resists, too. But nothing works for Erdoğan anymore. He cannot move about in public. His appearance at a public arena requires the government to purchase all tickets to redistribute to staunch party members. No booing of Tayyip is allowed! Verboten! Yasak!

    Dead Man Talking must deeply believe that he and the shameless American ambassador, one Francis Ricciardone, indeed share “democratic values.” That, and last week’s express air delivery from the ever-generous America of 43 tons of pepper gas put a little pep in his step. FORTY-THREE TONS! The more to gas and blind you with my dear Turkish children. And the American ambassador calls this “having a conversation within your Turkish family.” Yes, a conversation, like this perhaps…Would you like to catch a gas canister in your eye socket today, my dear? No? Well how about a little brain damage instead courtesy of that model of democratic values, the USA? No?  Well then, how about some lunch? A few rubber bullets to chew on, perhaps? Or a friendly whack on the ear by a cop’s made-in-the-West club? Or a police boot in your mouth to aid digestion? Still no? Goodness, gracious, you protesters are sure hard to please.

    Such is the twisted mind of the American ambassador, a man who lives by spewing honeyed words and putrid thoughts. He is America’s talking marionette. He is the source, the taproot of Dead Man Talking. He feeds him. An earlier not-so-nice American ambassador, Eric Edelman, blew the whistle on the prime minister and his eight Swiss bank accounts. Dead Man Walking brushed it off as nonsense saying he got his wealth from gifts at his son’s wedding. Nice son. Nice father. Isn’t love grand?

    Dead Man Talking. His delusions consume him. They will not leave him. Nor can he leave us. Nor can he tell the truth, to himself, to anyone. His delusions and the darkness, the sneaky darkness are his best friends. For him, everything is at stake. He thought he had it made, this prime minister. His friends, toadies all, never told him bad news. But it is in them, these flatterers, that he will begin to see his end. He will see it in their eyes. One evening he will see the streets again crowded with Turkish youth. He knows them well. They’re the “drunks and plunders” who laughingly embrace his  slanderous words. They are the future. And the prime minister’s toadies know it. And the prime minister should ask them this simple question: Am I still the future? And then watch their eyelids flutter and their eyeballs search for the door.

    The prime minister’s private police force has too many targets in too many cities. Too many peacefully assembled targets that he can now attack only at great peril to his already vanishing prestige. Anyway, America and Brazil and Israel cannot manufacture enough gas to stay the flood of people willing to die for a new future. They, the people of Turkey, are disgusted by the hijacked, exploited Islam that suppresses human freedom and replaces true spirituality with money, money, and more money. The young people that the prime minister so recklessly defames, these kids that appear on the television screens, are saying that they want a real democracy. Not this Turkish one that ruthlessly plunders the environment and enriches an equally ruthless business-political oligarchy. They want a new system, one yet unknown. One that Dead Man Walking and his ilk all over the world have not one iota of awareness.

    The kids want one that cedes REAL power to the REAL people, all of them. One that controls the overwhelming greed inherent in this dying capitalistic system. One that remedies the materialistic and intellectual corruption that  propels nations to kill and plunder. One that destroys forever imperialism in all its formulations that has always ravaged the planet. One that truly emancipates the people from the yoke of the religious mongering tyrants and their effete, cunning western backers. One that enables all people to clearly distinguish (and separate) their spiritual beliefs from their politics. No more conniving CIA Factbooks disclosing country-by-country religious breakdowns. No more religious markers on identification cards or any official or governmental form. Spirituality is from the heart, not from a piece of paper.

    It’s Hitler-time in the Berlin bunker. And the dimensions of the full horror visited upon long-suffering Turkey over the past ten years will soon be revealed. What will Dead Man Talking shout about then?  Will anyone listen? His toadies? His media? His police? His army? His rich wedding guests? What kind of a tale will he tell? What is the sound of no hands clapping? What is the fury?

    Cem Ryan, Ph.D.
    Istanbul
    1 July 2013

     

     

  • NSA spied on EU diplomats in Washington, NY and Brussels – report

    NSA spied on EU diplomats in Washington, NY and Brussels – report

    un

    Not only European citizens, but also employees of the EU diplomatic missions in Washington and the UN were under electronic surveillance from the NSA, Der Spiegel magazine reports citing a document obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

    The German magazine claims to have taken a glance at parts of a “top secret” document, which reveals that US National Security Agency has placed bugs in EU offices in Washington and at the New York‘s United Nations headquarters in order to listen to conversations and phone calls.

    The internal computer networks in the buildings were also under surveillance, which granted NSA access to documents and emails of the European officials.

    The document, which categorically labels the European Union as a “target”, was dated September 2010, Der Spiegel says.

    The magazine reports that the NSA also targeted communications at the European Council headquarters at the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, Belgium by calling a remote maintenance unit.

    According to Der Spiegel, more than five years ago EU security officers had noticed and traced several missed calls to an area of the NATO facility in Brussels, which was used by NSA experts.

    The US previously acknowledged that they were collecting data on European citizens under the PRISM program, but not on large scale, only in cases of strong suspicion of individual or group being involved in terrorism, cybercrime or nuclear proliferation.

    Former NSA contractor and CIA employee, Snowden, is believed to be currently staying in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport where he arrived from Hong Kong on June 23.

    The 30-year-old, who leaked details of top-secret American government mass surveillance programs to the media, is waiting for Ecuador to decide on giving him political asylum as he’s being charged with espionage in the US.

    RT.com

  • Israelis Gather Together With Turks to Protest in Solidarity

    Israelis Gather Together With Turks to Protest in Solidarity

    Protestors unite outside Tel Aviv’s Turkish Embassy to protest against PM Erdogan

    By: Daniel Koren

    logoTransIsraeli civilians gathered together at the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv earlier this week to protest in solidarity with the Turkish people, and against current Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    “We protest in solidarity with all of those who face injustice,” said one such protestor, Ronen Levi.

    The group have the support of Turkish Israeli leaders, who believe the movement brings Turks and Israelis closer together, and establishes strong ties between the two nations. The protest was held peacefully, and with a mandate of promoting coexistence between the Jewish and Muslim peoples.

    Several Turkish Muslims involved with the protest reaffirmed their hopes for better Israeli-Turkish relations, including one Okzan Canpolot, who declared his love for Israel, and the fact that he has the freedom to protest there, whereas in Istanbul he does not. He has described the ultimate goal for Turkey as to establish true democracy in what has been seen as a corrupt and severely inequitable territory.

    “We are against what is happening in Turkey. We want justice. What is happening is very bad. Erdogan is oppressing the people,” added Turkish Muslim protestor Hussein Kargi.

    The daughter of a Turkish Jewish community leader, Viket Sadi Raz, was also in attendance at the protests in Tel Aviv. Growing up, she had great memories of a free and democratic Turkey. But since Erdogan’s rise to power, freedom has become more of a facade than an actuality. “It made me feel that it was not my country,” she said.

    However, with the power of protest, Raz is able to remain optimistic.

    Many Israeli protestors have been making trips to Istanbul to join the protests and ‘fight for freedom,’ according to Avi Blecherman, an Israeli with absolutely no Turkish blood who feels very strongly about the political and economic strife facing Turkey. “One doesn’t need to be a Turkish Jew to want to be part of it,” he said.

    Blecherman also added that, contrary to popular belief, many Turkish were appreciative and proud to have Israelis protest along with them in solidarity.

    Protests in Turkey currently continue to sway the country’s landscape.

    The Turkish Interior Ministry has estimated around 2.5 million have taken part in demonstrations since tensions began to rise there early last month.

    SHALOMLIFE, June 24th, 2013