Author: Edgar Tavakalian

Russia exploring prospects of shipping 1 mln Sputnik V doses to Armenia, says Lavrov

Edgar Tavakalian
TASS, Russia
May 6 2021
On April 14, Armenia’s Acting Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan said in parliament that Armenia and Russia had reached a high-level agreement on the purchase of 1 million Sputnik V doses by Yerevan

YEREVAN, May 6. /TASS/. Russia is planning new deliveries of its Sputnik V jab to Armenia and is exploring the possibility of shipping 1 million doses to the CIS country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday.

"We have been cooperating closely since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia has been providing assistance to Armenia to prevent the spread of the infection. A batch of the Sputnik V vaccine doses has been provided on a non-repayable basis. Another batch of 15,000 doses was delivered last month. More supplies are on the horizon. We are working on our Armenian friends’ request for the provision of 1 million doses," he said at a meeting with Armenia’s Acting Foreign Minister Ara Aivazian.

Armenia earlier began its vaccination drive after receiving the first batch. Medical professionals, people with chronic illnesses, and staff from social institutions are receiving the shot. On April 14, Armenia’s Acting Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan said in parliament that Armenia and Russia had reached a high-level agreement on the purchase of 1 million Sputnik V doses by Yerevan.

Artsakh has new justice minister

Edgar Tavakalian

Save

Share

 15:25, 5 May, 2021

STEPANAKERT, MAY 5, ARMENPRESS. President of the Republic of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan signed a decree on May 5 according to which Karen Danielyan has been relieved from the position of justice minister based on his application, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

According to another presidential decree, Zhirayr Mirzoyan has been appointed as new justice minister of Artsakh.

 

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Biden is the only president to acknowledge the Armenian genocide: Promise kept in first 100 days in office

Edgar Tavakalian
Chicago Sun Times
April 25 2021

U.S. presidents have been reluctant to use the word genocide — a powerful term invented in 1944 after the Holocaust.

By Lynn Sweet Apr 25, 2021, 8:10pm CDT 
– Chicago Sun-Times

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Saturday made good on a campaign pledge when he acknowledged that the mass slaughter of Armenians during the Ottoman era that started 106 years ago was genocide.

U.S. presidents have been reluctant to use the word genocide — a powerful, particular term invented in 1944 after the Holocaust by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer who moved to the U.S. two years before.

Former President Barack Obama promised, but never delivered on calling the killings genocide, unwilling to antagonize Turkey — a nation born out of the Ottoman Empire — which has denied that what took place was genocide.

Ex-President Donald Trump was close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and continued the U.S. government policy of not recognizing the murders as genocide in order to not alienate Turkey, a NATO ally.

Biden was the first president to say the systematic atrocities suffered by Armenians was genocide, and he did so on Armenian Remembrance Day.

“Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination,” Biden said in his statement.

Lemkin’s quest to find a new word to describe the Nazi atrocities is detailed in “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” which earned a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for its author, Samantha Power.

Power, who went on to be Obama’s United Nations Ambassador — and before that director of Obama’s Atrocity Prevention Board — is Biden’s nominee to be the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.

Lemkin was determined to coin a new word after listening to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s Aug. 24, 1941, radio address. Talking about Hitler’s savagery, Churchill said, “There has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale, or approaching such a scale. ….We are in the presence of a crime without a name.”

Lemkin realized that Hitler’s destruction of a people — in contrast to deaths caused by conventional warfare between nations — needed its own name.

Lemkin, wrote Power, “hunted for a term that would describe assaults on all aspects of nationhood — physical, biological, political, social, cultural, economic and religious. He wanted to connote not only full-scale extermination but also Hitler’s other means of destruction: mass deportation, the lowering of the birthrate by separating men from women, economic exploitation, progressive starvation, and the suppression of intelligentsia who served as national leaders.”

As he search for the right word, Lemkin looked to “coinages he admired,” Power recounted. “Of particular interest to Lemkin were the reflections of George Eastman, who said he settled upon “Kodak” as the name for his new camera because: First. It is short. Second. It is not capable of mispronunciation. Third. It does not resemble anything in the art and cannot be associated with anything in the art except Kodak.”

Lemkin had a more difficult challenge than Eastman. The word Lemkin coined had to “chill listeners and invite immediate condemnation.”

He created the word genocide. He fused the Greek word “genos,” which means a race or a tribe, with the Latin word for killing, “cide.”

The United State Holocaust Memorial Museum defines genocide as “an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.”

The House and Senate approved resolutions in 2019 referencing the Armenian genocide. State lawmakers in the Illinois General Assembly members affirmed the genocide in resolutions passed six years ago. Last month, Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a proclamation underscoring that teaching about the Armenian genocide is part of the mission of state-mandated Holocaust education.

Reuters reported on Sunday that Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, said calling the deaths of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire a genocide is “simply outrageous” and the U.S. should expect “there will be a reaction of different forms and kinds and degrees.”

By the end of this week, Biden will have marked his 100th day in office. Biden will deliver an address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday to highlight his 100-day record. His declaration of the genocide in Armenia is an important promise kept.

Armenian, Lithuanian FMs hold meeting in Yerevan

Edgar Tavakalian

Save

Share

 11:35, 26 April, 2021

YEREVAN, APRIL 26, ARMENPRESS. Acting Foreign Minister of Armenia Ara Aivazian held a private meeting with Foreign Minister of Lithuania Gabrielius Landsbergis, Armenian foreign ministry spokesperson Anna Naghdalyan said on Facebook.

The Armenian and Lithuanian FMs will also hold a joint press conference as part of Gabrielius Landsbergis’ visit to Yerevan.

 

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Turkish Press: Turkish far-right deputy threatens Armenian MP Paylan with another genocide

Edgar Tavakalian
Duvar, Turkey
April 26 2021
Tuesday April 27 2021 10:08 am

Neşe İdil / Duvar English

A Turkish far-right independent lawmaker has threatened an Armenian deputy from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) with another genocide. 

Ümit Özdağ, who was sacked from the Good (İYİ) Party last year, said that HDP deputy Garo Paylan "should go through a Talaat Pasha experience when the time comes," referring to the Ottoman politician who ordered the Armenian genocide in 1915. 

"You shameless, provocative man. You can go to hell if you're not happy [here]. Talaat Pasha exiled traitors like you, not the patriotic Armenians. You'll go through a Talat Paasha experience when the time comes and you should," Özdağ said on April 26 in response to Paylan's criticism of Talaat Pasha's name still being used in street and school names. 

"We make our children walk on the streets named after Talaat Pasha, the architect of the genocide, 106 years later. We make them receive education in schools named after him. We live in a country similar to what Germany would be if streets and schools had been named after Hitler," Paylan said on April 24, the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. 

Paylan also called on Turkey to recognize the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide, noting that the issue is on the agenda of other countries because Turkey denies it. 

"I'm seeking justice in the Turkish Parliament. The Armenian genocide happened on this soil and justice can only be served here. We need to face the pains of the Armenians here, where the pain belongs. We need to soothe this pain with justice," Paylan said in a separate tweet. 

Paylan's HDP is the only major party in Turkey that recognizes the genocide. It was targeted by authorities on April 24 for doing so. A founding member of the opposition Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) went as far as to wish for the HDP to "become extinct too." 

Özdağ, a political figure known for his racist remarks against Syrian refugees, was slammed by Twitter users on April 26 for suggesting another genocide, as many reported him to Twitter for hateful conduct.

The Human Rights Association (İHD), meanwhile, said that they will file a complaint against Özdağ. 

A day later, Paylan responded to Özdağ's threat.

"A remnant of the mentality that slaughtered my people says 'We'll do it again.' You hit us and did we not die? We did. However, those left behind never abandoned the struggle for justice. They won't do so after me," Paylan said on April 27, as he called Özdağ a fascist. 

Speaking to Duvar English, Paylan said that hate speeches lead to hate crimes. 

"Our country is in an atmosphere of hate and the political scene ignores these hate speeches. Hate crimes become ordinary as a result," he said, stressing that crimes that go unpunished are bound to be recommitted.

"The genocide took place 106 years ago in a similar atmosphere of hate. Özdağ was able to say these to me because of this atmosphere of hate. I'm not afraid. We'll die if they kill us, but we'll never leave this country to fascists," Paylan noted. 

The HDP deputy said that Özdağ didn't need to remind him of Talaat Pasha, since Armenians are constantly aware of the hate crimes. 

"I'm doing politics knowing this," he said, adding that his family was also constantly subjected to hate crimes and speeches. 

"My father was subjected to them and I, as a member of the third generation, am also targeted," Paylan said. 

"There is no need to be reminded. We are going through the Talaat Pasha experience for the past 106 years." 

Nagorno Karabakh: school, victim of war

Edgar Tavakalian
Italy, April 27 2021
27/04/2021 -  Armine Avetysian

“It was Sunday, we were not at school but at home, otherwise we would not have survived, we heard unceasing explosions and gunshots”. Lilit, 14, recalls the morning of September 27, 2020.

On that day, intense bombings hit the entire line of contact between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh, the unrecognised state mostly inhabited by Armenians. A few days after the start of hostilities, Lilit moved to the Armenian capital Yerevan with her mother. Staying was no longer safe.

“After moving, I could not think of going back to school. I had completely different thoughts in my head. Then I got better and realised that I was behind in my studies. I was conflicted, I wanted to study and at the same time I had no desire to open a textbook”, says Lilit. In those days, after registering in Yerevan, she received an offer from the Ministry of Education to attend a school near the new place of residence.

All displaced minors in Armenia were given the opportunity to attend the school closest to their place of residence, regardless of vacancies. They also received textbooks and stationery.

Many friends of Lilit's accepted the offer, but she refused.

“I could not go to another school. I kept thinking of mine. It was very hard. I preferred to attend volunteer classes”, she says.

“There was an announcement about volunteers on the Internet. I registered. A few days later, they called and offered me to teach the children who had moved from Nagorno-Karabakh to Yerevan. I gladly agreed”, says Ani, a foreign language specialist who spent several weeks teaching children that war robbed of their right to education.

Ani volunteered for about 20 children hosted in a temporary shelter in Yerevan with their mothers. The beginning was difficult for both her and the children, but soon everything got better.

“I was given a small room in the apartment where children stayed. I divided them into 2 groups according to their age. I taught them foreign languages, Armenian, and history. There were also other volunteers. We tried to include each and every child. Saying it was difficult is an understatement. The children were under stress. They often talked about their native village, school…”, recalls Ani, adding that through play they were able to integrate children into the new environment and ease the stress, at least in part.

On 27 September 2020, a new, violent chapter opened of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh, with hundreds dead and wounded. A conflict that has never been resolved in thirty years. Our dossier 

 

The conflict ended on November 9 with a ceasefire agreement that redesigned the borders in the South Caucasus. In this dossier the situation in the Region

“We also organised trips in the city. Step by step, the children found some normalcy. When they started returning to their hometowns, it was hard to say goodbye”, says Ani, noting that many friends of hers also volunteered in dozens of other centres where children were sheltered.

According to the Armenian Human Rights Defender, over 100,000 civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh were displaced during the hostilities. Over 40,000 people were left homeless. About 30,000 schoolchildren and students were deprived of their right to education. 12 kindergartens and 71 schools were damaged or destroyed.

“Children enjoy special respect; they are protected from any form of harassment. The parties to the conflict shall ensure their protection and assistance”, reads the Protocol to the Geneva Conventions on the “Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflict”. This principle is also enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. And yet, children all over the world have suffered and are suffering because of hostilities.

“Fortunately, our school was not damaged and I was able to go back. I have many friends who could not. Some say: “What difference does it make which school you attend or if you miss some classes?”, but not many. It seems to me that my friends and I will never be able to forget those days”, Lilit says.

Classes in the secondary schools of Nagorno Karabakh resumed on November 30 last year. Many students have already returned to their schools. However, there are still children who attend schools in Armenia – some have lost their home, others are not yet ready to return.

Turkish press: NATO summit is the last exit for Turkish-American relations

Edgar Tavakalian
 ANKARA NEWS ANALYSIS 
APR 29, 2021 11:31 AM GMT+3
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with U.S. President Joe Biden, then the Vice President of U.S. in 2016, New York, (Photo courtesy of Turkish Presidency)

The cold winds blowing on Ankara-Washington relations for the last decade have now been replaced by a severe storm. In the era of former U.S. President Donald Trump, the deep wounds that began to open in bilateral relations under Barack Obama were somehow repaired. However, with the arrival of President Joe Biden and his administration, new wounds were added to the hostility against Turkey almost every day. Washington's negative actions against Ankara have now reached their peak with the latest taking place on April 23.

On the evening of the day marking the 101st anniversary of the opening of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, celebrated as a national holiday as the National Sovereignty and Children's Day, U.S. President Joe Biden informed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in his first call in months that he would describe the events of 1915 as a "genocide." Turkey as a whole saw Biden’s statement as political, although Washington insisted that it was just a moment of condolence and not an accusation. For this reason, all of Turkey saw this statement as null and void and strongly rejected the claims. Biden made this statement not only against the president of Turkey but also against the people of Turkey, who have lived peacefully in this land for centuries with the Armenian and Kurdish populations.

Meanwhile, Biden made this decision by ignoring all the archives, historical facts, words of world-famous historians such as Bernard Lewis and Norman Stone, the U.N. resolutions (1948) and the decisions of international law. In fact, he did not even pay attention to American constitutional law professors, such as Bruce Fein, the top Justice Department lawyer in the Ronald Reagan era, who argued what happened during the Ottoman Empire in 1915 could certainly not qualify as a “genocide,” but it was a relocation issue that took place during World War I.

Biden also turned a blind eye to Fein's findings that Armenians had committed crimes against humanity and war crimes had taken place against the Ottoman Turkish and Kurdish populations of eastern and southern Anatolia during World War I. As Fein stated in a Washington Times piece back in 2007, these realities have been forgotten amid congressional preoccupation with placating the vocal and richly financed Armenian lobby in Washington.

Biden did this despite the fact that the Armenian Orthodox Patriarch Sahak Maşalyan, on April 23, declared, “No one should use the events of 1915 that both nations experienced as political material.”

On the other hand, Turkey has so far been on the lookout for ways to mend relations, despite the U.S.' support for the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) and the YPG, the Syrian branch of the PKK terrorist group, along with all kinds of military, diplomatic and economic pressure against Turkey over the advanced Russian S-400 missile system. Biden made the April 24 statement despite the constructive and restorative attitude of Ankara and knowing the attitude of the majority of Turkish people who view Washington as a threat.

Biden also ignored the lack of a judicial decision on the events of 1915. By making the statement, he assumed the place of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), the only authorities that can decide whether an incident can be considered a “genocide.”

Therefore, given the U.N. Genocide Convention, to which Turkey is a signatory party, and the case law of the ICJ, interpreting this convention, a U.S. president's statements recognizing events as genocide hold no legal value. According to the ICJ, states, as well as individuals, may be subjected to defamation in this sense. Given these facts, Biden's attempt has officially violated legal, historical and humanitarian facts.

Now, as a response, Turkey began to speak even more about the massacres committed by Armenian gangs against Kurds and Turks in border provinces such as Erzurum, Kars and Iğdır in 1915.

Everyone is aware of the internal and external factors that propelled Biden to make this statement. The Armenian lobby in the U.S. holds sway on Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In particular, this was very visible during the campaigns of Harris and Pelosi, and the positive scores given to them by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), which is the Armenian lobby's chartered organization in the U.S. It is also known that this issue gained greater traction due to the lobbying of Armenians, especially after the Nagorno-Karabakh defeat.

Overall, it is already known that this issue has been used as a tool of political blackmail against Turkey since the Reagan era of 1981. The Turkish public knows that every April 24 anniversary will bring something about this issue that the administrations in Washington have turned into a bargaining tool.

When we list all these in a row, it is clear that Washington only wants to create another piece of blackmail in an all-out attack on Turkey.

As the other side of the medallion, Washington, which turned the S-400s issue into a blackmail strategy against Turkey, now intends to turn the 1915 events into another tool to build political pressure on Ankara. Biden, who has been among the most experienced politicians in the field of foreign policy in the U.S. for nearly 40 years as a senator and eight years as a vice president, is far from analyzing his performance in Turkey. His administration, which placed the Asia-Pacific at number one on the threat and focal point, is struggling to bring back the U.S., which has long lost its dominance in the Middle East, the Near East, the Caucasus and North Africa.

Also, the cost and sustainability of the proxy wars waged by Washington with terrorist organizations such as the YPG in the Middle East, whose power is limited in the Ukraine and Karabakh crises, is also very well known.

Washington's foreign policy, which has experienced a crisis of confidence not only with Turkey but also with all its allies within the NATO framework, has also been tested in the latest Ukraine crisis.

Biden will now go down in history as the first U.S. president to recognize the events of 1915 as "genocide" and slander Turkey. Turkey now knows that it won't be easy to repair ties with the U.S. anymore.

Along with Biden's inability to handle foreign policy affairs effectively, it is also apparent that he is unable to manage relations with Turkey. Once he has played all his trump cards, he may have no choice but to break off relations completely.

Now all eyes will be on Erdoğan and Biden's face-to-face meeting at the NATO leaders summit in June. At this summit, it can be assumed that Erdoğan will continue with his stance cautiously and will act on the basis of reciprocity, national interests and sovereign rights of Turkey.

If the U.S. continues its aggressive stance against Turkey's sovereign rights and if its negative campaigns do not stop, Turkey will not respond in kind but will adopt a more decisive and uncompromising tone. Turkey's patience seems to be increasingly exhausted.

The Brussels summit may be the last exit before the bridge to Turkey for the U.S., which has long forgotten the merits of the alliance.

Russia records another 8,840 coronavirus cases

Edgar Tavakalian

Save

Share

 16:18,

YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. Russia’s coronavirus cases rose by 8,840 to 4,744,961 in the past 24 hours, TASS reports citing the anti-coronavirus crisis center.

According to data from the crisis center, the coronavirus growth rate stood at 0.19%.

In particular, 2,502 cases were confirmed in Moscow in the past day, 694 in St. Petersburg, 609 in the Moscow region (the highest daily number since March 28), 238 in the Rostov region, 194 in the Nizhny Novgorod region and 191 in the Samara region.

There are currently 266,246 active coronavirus cases in Russia, which is the lowest number since October 12, 2020.

Turkish press: Canada accused of double standard in arms ban to Turkey

Edgar Tavakalian
Barry Ellsworth   |16.04.2021

TRENTON, Canada 

When Canada controversially announced the cancelation of military technology and arms exports to Turkey this week, it was a direct hit at an unlikely target.

Turkey is a NATO ally and the 30-country membership also includes Canada, so the ban pits one ally against another.

Turkey said it voiced its “discomfort” with the Canadian decision and it may respond by refusing to sell Canada armed unmanned aerial vehicles, causing Canada serious problems as Turkey is one of four countries that make battle-tested drones.

It also accuses Canada of employing a double standard, noting the UN has said Canada is fueling a war in Yemen by selling military hardware to Saudi Arabia.

Turkey has a lot of support for that charge, including from Canadian opposition political parties, human rights watch groups and others.

But Canada said its policy aim on exporting arms is to strive “to ensure that, among other policy goals, Canadian exports are not prejudicial to human rights, peace, security and stability in any region of the world or within any country,” according to a Government of Canada Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada – 2018.

In announcing the cancelation, Canada claimed that a drone shot down by Armenian defense forces last fall was a combat drone equipped with a camera and target system made by Burlington firm, L3 Harris Canada, near Toronto.

Canada suspended military exports to Turkey while the incident was investigated.

Following a request from Anadolu Agency, Global Affairs Canada outlined how the investigation was handled.

“From October to December 2020, Global Affairs Canada, in consultation with the Department of National Defence, conducted a review of all suspended and valid export permits and pending export permit applications for all military goods and technology destined to Turkey,” it said in an emailed statement. “Partners from across government participated in this review, including bilateral relations, intelligence, human rights, terrorism and organized crime, and legal specialists within Global Affairs Canada.”

The government then took action.

“Following this review, which found credible evidence that Canadian technology exported to Turkey was used in Nagorno-Karabakh, today (Wednesday) I am announcing the cancellation of permits that were suspended in the fall of 2020,” Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister said in a statement obtained by the Turkish news agency.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous area and its illegal occupation by Armenian forces had been at the center of a dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia until Azerbaijan finally liberated the region last year. Turkey is Azerbaijan’s closest ally and the two countries describe each other as ''two states, one nation.''

The move was an irritant to Turkey – officials said they rigorously enforce all arms export conditions, including that of Canada. It took issue with the actions of one NATO ally against another.

"We expect our NATO allies to avoid unconstructive steps that will negatively affect our bilateral relations and undermine alliance solidarity," said a statement on April 14 by the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa.

Turkey also wondered why its ally continues to supply arms to Saudi Arabia, which is clearly in violation of Canadian foreign policy as it uses those arms against Yemen and has a dismal human rights record.

Others wonder why, too, including the Lawyers’ Right Watch Canada, which has called for an end of arms sales to the Saudis.

Late last month a coalition of groups blocked a railway line near London, Ontario to protest the sale of military goods to Saudi Arabia.

While Project Ploughshares, a Canadian arms overseer group, backed Canada’s stance on the cancelation of military goods to Turkey, it sided with Turkey in noting that Canada is employing a double standard with Saudi Arabia.

“Instances of Turkey’s diversion were beyond dispute, and so Canada’s decision is consistent with its obligations under domestic and international law,” said the group’s executive director Cesar Jaramillo in an email to Anadolu Agency. “As to why Canada continues exporting weapons to other countries like Saudi Arabia where there are also grounds for cancelling relevant export permits is an open question that definitely merits further scrutiny.”

While the Canadian move is irksome, in reality, it will mean little to Turkey, the chief technology officer for aviation company, Baykar, told Anadolu Agency in a recent interview.

The camera components supplied by Canada are already being developed and domestically produced, said Selcuk Bayraktar.

Garneau told Canadian officials to talk with Turkey to regain trust.

“The Minister of Foreign Affairs has directed officials to initiate a dialogue with Turkey to build mutual confidence and greater co-operation on export permits to ensure consistency with end-use assurances before any further permits for military goods and technology are granted,” according to the statement from Global Affairs Canada. “Applications related to NATO co-operation programs will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.”

Is Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev the new Saddam Hussein?

Edgar Tavakalian
The National Interest

Dictators have their own strategies to distract and deceive the United States with charm, charisma, caviar and cocktails.

by Michael Rubin
Azerbaijani Ilham Aliyev is proud. On April 12, 2021, Azerbaijani public television station ITV broadcast an hour-long program inaugurating a new museum in Baku to celebrate Azerbaijan’s victory in the forty-four-day Nagorno-Karabakh War.  Aliyev, who never served in the military even as his peers fought in the first Nagorno-Karabakh War, strolls around in military fatigues showing off captured Armenian equipment and wax models of Armenian soldiers before addressing assembled troops. The centerpiece of the “Park of Trophies” is an arch made from the helmets of killed and captured Armenian soldiers. That Azerbaijan continues to hold illegally 260 prisoners of war (POWs) and kidnapped civilians, some of whom it might have killed in captivity, underscores the tastelessness of the display.

Aliyev is not the first to construct such a display. In his 1991 work The Monument, a study of the public art of a totalitarian society, Kanan Makiya, the son of a famous architect and a prominent Iraqi intellectual, profiled the “Victory Arch,” known to locals as the Swords of Qadisiyah. Commissioned in 1985 and opened four years later, the monument, which stands taller than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, consisted of forearms molded from Saddam Hussein’s own and fists holding crossed swords made from steel derived from the melted weaponry of fallen Iraqi soldiers. Five thousand Iranian helmets taken off the battlefield completed the monument. Hussein’s speech initiating its construction was little different from Aliyev’s: “Brave Iraqis have recorded the most legendary exploits in defense of their land and holy beliefs,” Hussein declared on April 22, 1985. “We have chosen that Iraqis will pass under their fluttering flag protected by their swords which have cut through the necks of the aggressors.” Aliyev, for his part, declared at the park’s inauguration on Monday, “Everyone who visits the park of military trophies will see the strength of our army, will see our willpower, and how hard it was to achieve victory.” As for POWs, I was the Pentagon Iraq desk officer on duty when the mass graves of Kuwaiti prisoners whom Hussein had seized were found.

The similarities between Hussein and Aliyev are increasingly hard to dismiss. Years before he became an avowed enemy, Hussein intrigued the State Department who saw him as a pragmatic moderate. In an April 1975 meeting, for example, Assistant Secretary of State Alfred Atherton for Near Eastern Affairs told Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, “Hussein is a rather remarkable person . . . he’s a very ruthless and—very recently, obviously—pragmatic, intelligent power.” The United States holds much the same assessment toward Aliyev.  

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan dispatched Donald Rumsfeld, at the time a former secretary of defense, to meet with Hussein. Rumsfeld was impressed. “I began to think that through increased contacts we might be able to persuade the Iraqis to lean toward the United States and eventually modify their behavior,” he recalled. Undersecretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger told Hussein’s envoy not to take seriously American condemnation of chemical weapons. The recent history of the Minsk Group shows U.S. officials likewise seemingly downplaying concerns about Azeri violations of its international agreements. 

In both cases, the State Department was willing to ignore the treatment of minorities. When reports surfaced regarding Hussein’s use of chemical weapons against Iraq’s Kurdish population, one American diplomat explained, “The approach we want to take is that, ‘We want to have a good relationship with you, but that this sort of thing makes it very difficult.’” Meanwhile, the State Department remains silent as Aliyev calls the Armenian genocide false. 

There has also been a similar sense of dictator chic surrounding Hussein’s Iraq and Aliyev’s Azerbaijan. In December 1985, the Washington Post Magazine gave a swooning account of a dinner party hosted by Iraqi ambassador Nizar Hamdoon whose outreach was targeting influential Jewish American and pro-Israeli figures. Today, the Azerbaijani embassy in Washington regularly targets the same audience. Journalists and diplomats both recognize Aliyev’s “caviar diplomacy.” 

Both Hussein and Aliyev also sought glory through territorial conquest while blaming their victims. When Hussein bragged about decapitating Iranian aggressors, he omitted that Iraq started the war with a surprise attack. Likewise, Aliyev suggests that Armenians were the aggressors when it was Azeri forces, in conjunction with Turkish support, who launched a multipronged, surprise attack on Nagorno-Karabakh on the centennial anniversary of the Ottoman invasion of Armenia. Both Hussein and Aliyev were also irredentists. American diplomats dismissed Hussein’s repeated statements that Kuwait was a wayward Iraqi province as rhetoric excess right up to Iraq’s surprise invasion of Kuwait; today, the State Department ignores Aliyev’s statements laying claim to the entirety of Armenia.  

The parallels go further. While diplomats considered both Hussein and Aliyev secular moderates, both sought to channel Islamist extremism to their benefit. Years before the Islamic State beheaded women deemed un-Islamic, the Fedayeen Hussein would decapitate women, many professionals, whom the Baathist regime deemed “prostitutes” for refusing to veil. During the most recent conflict, Aliyev imported and dispatched Al Qaeda-linked mercenaries from Syria. 

Enumerating the similarities between Hussein and Aliyev is not just an intellectual exercise, but rather a warning. While the State Department debates its strategies toward other countries, seldom does it recognize that dictators have their own strategies to distract and deceive the United States with charm, charisma, caviar and cocktails. They believe Americans naïve for allowing themselves to be distracted by a paper-thin patina while they pursue other agendas. Should American officials continue to calibrate policy to the style of Azeri officials rather than the reality of their policies, however, the world will likely see another war of aggression by Azerbaijan, just as Hussein launched his own against Kuwait more than three decades ago. 

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). You can follow him on Twitter: @mrubin1971.

?fbclid=IwAR2HSE6Fc9Xv3oVfKGTCZch3tinQ2734p6qHiFk0d3LCPgJByMDKJrysl44