Author: Garnik Tadevosian

Azerbaijan seemingly not interested in Crossroads of Peace project – Pashinyan

Garnik Tadevosian

 15:02,

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 24, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan is seemingly not interested in the Crossroads of Peace project proposed by Armenia because Baku is implementing the project on opening connections with Iran, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said in response to a question from the public.

He was asked whether there are guarantees that Armenia itself will carry out customs and border control on its territory in the event of the Crossroads of Peace project being realized.

Pashinyan stressed that one of the principles of the Crossroads of Peace project is that each country will carry out customs and border control on its territory through its institutions. 

“This is the proposal we are making to our international partners, including Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran, Georgia. And Azerbaijan’s first reaction is the following, that they, it seems, are no longer interested in this project, because they are carrying out that connectivity project with Iran. We are absolutely not against that. But that’s our proposal. In case of accepting our proposal the project will be realized,” the PM said.

The citizen asking the question pointed out that there are Russian border guards in Armenia’s Zvartnots airport. Pashinyan said this is another matter, which has a history. “But our policy is that the level of Armenia’s sovereignty must steadily increase also institutionally. And the Crossroads of Peace is one of those cases,” he said.

The Crossroads of Peace project is about creating new infrastructures or improving the scope and quality of the existing ones. Armenia is ready to establish five checkpoints on the Armenia-Azerbaijan borders for road infrastructures including in Kayan, Sotk, near Karahunj, near Angeghakot , and Yeraskh.

Also, to establish two checkpoints on the Armenia-Turkiye border in Akhurik and Margara for road infrastructures.

Armenia is prepared to ensure communications between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkiye, by restoring four railway sections in the territory of the Republic of Armenia. Armenia is ready to restore the Nrnadzor-Agarak railway section and to establish checkpoints near the borders, to restore the railway section from Yeraskh to the border of Nakhchivan and to establish a checkpoint in Yeraskh, to restore the depleted parts of the railway from Gyumri to the border of Turkiye and to establish a checkpoint in Akhurik. Also, Armenia is prepared to restore the depleted parts of railway from Hrazdan to Kayan and to establish a checkpoint in Kayan. This will create new links between all the countries of the region. The principles of the Crossroads of Peace are: all infrastructures including roads, railways, airways, pipelines, cables and power lines operate under the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the countries through which they pass; each country, through its state institutions, in its territory ensures border control, customs control and security of the infrastructures, including the passage through its territory of vehicles, cargo and people; All infrastructures can be used for both international and domestic transportation; countries use all the infrastructures on the basis of reciprocity and equality, and in accordance with these principles border and customs controls can be facilitated through mutual consent and agreement. As missing sections of railways and roads are restored and infrastructures unlocked, it will become possible to establish a seamless connection between the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean Sea via a consolidated, regional railway network and via the North-South and East-West roads. The Government of the Republic of Armenia reaffirms its commitment to contribute its share to the region’s peace and stability, and to make practical measures to build the Crossroads of Peace




Representatives of Human Rights Defender of Armenia visit serviceman wounded in Azeri cross-border shooting

Garnik Tadevosian

 20:01,

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 20, ARMENPRESS. The representatives of the Armenian Human Rights Defender Monday visited the Central Clinical Military Hospital of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia and met the serviceman  wounded in a cross-border shooting by Azerbaijan on Nov. 18  near the border village of Paruyr Sevak, Ararat Province, the Human Rights Defender’s Office said.

According to the source, the medical staff provided the representatives with information on the serviceman's health status and the ongoing recovery process.

Private discussions were held with the wounded serviceman and his family members.

Azerbaijani Press: Supporting Armenia, France is complicit in its crimes against humanity

Garnik Tadevosian
AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Nov 19 2023

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs hastily made a statement about the decision of the International Court of Justice dated November 17, 2023, trying to create the impression that the decision was in line with France's position.

Azernews reports that the information has been released in the statement of the Western Azerbaijan Community.

"French diplomacy is well aware that the decision of the International Court of Justice only lists the steps that Azerbaijan is already taking. Azerbaijan ensures the rights of all people living in its territory, regardless of their ethnic and religious affiliation. Azerbaijan should clearly state its policy regarding the right of return of Armenians who moved from the Garabagh region.

Therefore, France's intervention in this matter is inappropriate, baseless, and provocative.

It would be good if France directed its remarks to itself and to the Armenian government, which does not even theoretically agree to the return of the expelled Azerbaijanis. By unconditionally supporting Armenia, France is complicit in its crimes against humanity, including the violation of the right of return of Azerbaijanis.

The Western Azerbaijan Community will continue to expose France's attempts to advance its nefarious neo-colonial goals in the region by abusing the sublime value of human rights," it was said in the statement.

Central Bank of Armenia: exchange rates and prices of precious metals – 15-11-23

Garnik Tadevosian

 17:16,

YEREVAN, 15 NOVEMBER, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 15 November, USD exchange rate down by 0.27 drams to 402.92 drams. EUR exchange rate up by 5.19 drams to 437.49 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.09 drams to 4.52 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 6.68 drams to 502.16 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price up by 474.20 drams to 25507.42 drams. Silver price up by 3.37 drams to 289.53 drams.

Guardians of the Land: Understanding the Genocide Against Armenians in Artsakh

Garnik Tadevosian
ATMOS.EARTH
Nov 7 2023

WORDS BY PATRICIA ONONIWU KAISHIAN

After months of blockade that deprived the predominantly Armenian population of Artsakh of food, medicine, and fuel for eight months, Azerbaijan launched its most recent military incursion 49 days ago. In the last month, 120,000 Armenians have been forced to flee their homes and homelands to escape a second genocide.

The West Asian country of Armenia is the mountainous homeland to one of the longest continuous civilizations on Earth. Following the Miocene epoch around five million years ago, volcanic and tectonic activity birthed high massifs and expansive valleys. Today, the variable topography holds both deserts and myceliated broadleaf forests of oak, beech, and hornbeam. Persian leopards stalk the mountain steppes and arid shrublands of oleander, juniper and yew. Fruit trees—especially pomegranate, apricot, and grape—sugar the landscape. 

 

The landscape is also characterized by a rich Armenian tradition of stonework and architecture, particularly expressed through the construction of elaborate sites of worship, some persisting since the 13th century. Volcanic tuff and basalt, materials derived from the region’s active geological history, are formed into domed basilica and radially segmented cupolas. Pointed domes have been rendered as an ode to the sacred mountain, Ararat, and many mesopotamic botanicals are chiseled into the frescoes that adorn the inner sancta. Sacred carved effigies, called khachkars, are found dating as early as the 9th century. Though Armenia was the first country to formally adopt Christianity, in 301 A.D., the Zoroastrian and otherwise pagan devotion to the Earth is an enduring element of Armenian culture.  

 

There is another component to these ancient constructions, one that is easily overlooked: lichens. Though they cover between 7% and 8% of terrestrial surface area, lichens often go unregistered to the human eye—their quiet ubiquity and often gentle color palettes are the habitat as much as they are themselves in the habitat. Lichens are slow growing and long living and can reveal complex stories about the landscapes around us—about the air, the rain, the lime content of stone, and the longevity of enduring architecture. They are a symbiosis of fungus and algae, of sun and stone; a symbiosis of domed basalt, mountain exaltation, and biological companionship. They adorn these sacred sites dutifully, sometimes the few surviving witnesses to the destructive acts that have shaped the history of Armenia.

 

The Armenian Genocide, orchestrated by the Ottoman Turks (which later morphed into the present day nation state of Turkey), reached a horrific crescendo between 1915 and 1923. About 1.5 million Armenian people were murdered, and many thousands more exiled into Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Russia, and the U.S. Less than 400,000 Armenians survived and remained within Armenia, and the present population in Armenia hovers under three million, with a GDP about the size of Vermont’s. As an American descendent of refugees of this genocide, my relationship to Armenia is one of exile, fragmentation, and longing. But with more than half of the world’s Armenian population living in diaspora, this is a common Armenian experience.

[Lichens] adorn these sacred sites dutifully, sometimes the few surviving witnesses to the destructive acts that have shaped the history of Armenia.

Turkey has never been held to account for the genocide, and genocide denialism is the norm in Turkish society. To speak publicly against the violences committed against not only the Armenians but also the Assyrians, Yezidis, Pontiac Greeks, and, more recently, the Kurds, is to risk assassination or imprisonment in Turkey. The relatively few people in the west who are familiar with the Armenian genocide often regard it as a fixed historical date, some geographically and temporally distant tragedy, an event as visceral and urgent as a grainy photograph. Not only does this fail to account for the world-shifting properties that ripple out generationally, chattering continuously interstitially in our bodies—psychological traumas in family units, poverty, land and language loss, cultural assimilation—but the genocidal agenda of Turkey and its vassal state Azerbaijan is an ongoing project. 

 

[“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” -Adolf Hitler, 1939]

 

In the century since the height of violence, the cartographies of West Asia and the Caucasus have shifted considerably. Most notably with the emergence of the Soviet Union which enveloped large swaths of West and Central Asia, and then again with its dissolution. What Armenian homelands were already reduced by Turkish colonization became further asphyxiated when, in 1923, Joseph Stalin administered the Armenian region of Artsakh (named Nagorno-Karabakh by Stalin) to the fledgling nation state of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan immediately sought to diminish the indigenous Armenian majority through settlements, creating conflict. Armenians declared independence from Azerbaijan in 1988, forming instead the democratic Republic of Artsakh, a sister republic to Armenia proper. Since the late 1980s, the indigenous Armenian majority population has endeavored to protect their right to self-determination, often through armed struggle in the face of Azerbaijan’s repeated attempts at invasion.

 

Embittered by his failed colonial aspirations to create a pan-Turkic state, Azerbaijan’s kleptocratic president Ilham Aliyev has stoked genocidal, anti-Armenian sentiment in his discontented and heavily repressed populace for decades. This has led to numerous bloody pogroms of the minority Armenian populations within Azerbaijani borders, and ethnic Armenians, no matter their national citizenship, are barred from entering Azerbaijan. Any of the legitimate grievances the Azerbaijani population experiences is scapegoated onto Armenians, as Aliyev fattens his assets and oligarchical power with oil and mining industries. As is true with most genocidal projects, material resources, land, and power are behind the ambition, but the foot soldiers are mobilized psychologically through the construction of a maligned other.

 

[“Our goal is the complete elimination of Armenians. You, Nazis, already eliminated the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, right? You should be able to understand us.” -Mayor of Baku, Azerbaijan, to German delegation, 2005]

 

In the fall of 2020, this long-stewing animosity boiled over, and Azerbaijan launched a devastating offensive on the Armenians of Artsakh. With 70% of their weapons supplied from Israel, and with the full backing of Turkey, Azerbaijan laid siege to Artsakh with high-tech drones, internationally banned cluster munitions, and white phosphorus, all against Armenia’s largely Soviet-era weaponry. They bombed civilian centers indiscriminately, including a hospital maternity ward. They took both civilian and military hostages and mutilated their bodies, sometimes forcing them to say “Artsakh is Azerbaijan!” and other brutal and degrading acts. They burned 1,815 hectares of forest—to which Armenians are deeply connected—and desecrated burial grounds and holy sites. 

 

For 44 days Armenians resisted vigorously, but ultimately about 4,000 Armenians and 3,000 Azerbaijanis were killed before Azerbaijan forced a ceasefire and the military surrender of the Republic of Artsakh. Collectively, Azerbaijan and their military allies of Turkey and Israel outnumber Armenians almost 100:1. And without vast natural resources or capital, western nations were unwilling to contort themselves into supporting a miniscule ethnic minority group in perennially destabilized West Asia. Most people did not notice, and those who noticed mostly did not act.

I think of colonized and violently displaced people the world over, how not only do we miss the land (even when we have been born into exile), but the land misses us in return.

Following Azerbaijan’s “successful” colonization of Artsakh, Aliyev built a victory park in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, replete with the helmets of dead Armenian resistance fighters, and life-sized caricatures of Armenian soldiers for Azerbaijani children to play with. Turkish President Recep Erdoğan attended a military parade where he proclaimed, “May the soul of Enver Pasha be blessed.”  Enver Pasha is a primary architect of the Armenian Genocide. 

 

[“We will continue to fulfill the mission our grandfathers have carried out for centuries in the Caucasus” – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 2022]

 

For two years Artsakh existed in limbo. While tens of thousands fled the war, another 120,000 or so Armenians remained, unwilling to leave their homes, their ancestral lands. Azerbaijan made the hollow offer of assimilation into their society, but Armenians rightfully recognize that assimilation is a death sentence. In December of 2022, Azerbaijan grew impatient with the stubbornness of Artsakhis, perhaps having underestimated the depth of their indigenous relationship to place, something colonizers the world over fail to grasp. They initiated a blockade on Artsakh, cutting the enclave off from the rest of the world, depriving the population of food, medicine, and fuel for eight months. Once the population was sufficiently weakened and desperate, Azerbaijan launched its most recent military incursion on September 19, 2023. 

 

The majority of the population of Artsakh—some 100,000 people—fled in a matter of days into Armenia proper and are now living in makeshift refugee shelters. Officially, the Republic of Artsakh will cease to exist on January 1st, 2024. As I write this, Azerbaijani settlers are ransacking Armenian homes, drinking their wine, and burning their family photographs, digging up graves, and sandblasting ancient Armenian inscriptions in the stonework. Aliyev posed with a pomegranate tree in the de-populated city of Martakert, a particularly painful symbol given that an Armenian resident and civilian, Aram Tepnants, had been shot by an Azeribaijani sniper while tending to his pomegranate trees. On October 31st, 2023 The Lemkin Institute for Genocide prevention just released a “Red Flag Alert,” stating a high risk for genocide in Armenia. Emboldened by the world’s limp reaction, Azerbaijan continues to threaten more violence. He calls the entirety of Armenia “Western Azerbaijan.”

 

I think of the now landscape of Artsakh, totally devoid of Armenian inhabitants for the first time in perhaps 5,000 years. What do the companion species feel? What do lichens make of this great emptying? Will they keep witnessing just the same? I like to think of each lichen on these holy sites—trees and stone alike—as nazar, the blue eye-like amulets that protect you from չար աչք (char akht or “evil eyes”). I think of them quietly witnessing, warding, documenting these changes in their tissues. I think of colonized and violently displaced people the world over, how not only do we miss the land (even when we have been born into exile), but the land misses us in return. We are our mountains.



Time to Check on Your Armenian Neighbor

Garnik Tadevosian

Oct 24 2023


By Marina Khubesrian

It’s time to check in with your Armenian friends. Listen to our history of Genocide in 1915 by Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The City of Glendale is considered to be the center of Armenian American life in the US.  It comprises 40 percent or 80,000 of the 200,000 Glendale residents. Most are very distressed by events in the Armenian Highlands.  The indigenous population, known as Artsakh and Nagorno Karabakh, are being forcibly displaced from their ancestral lands of 3000 years.

Read about it in an article published in this very news magazine in 2020 here.

Armenians in the diaspora are descendants of survivors of the Genocide of 1915. They carry the ancestral trauma, still an open wound, because justice has not been served. Turkey has never been held accountable for this crime against humanity. Turkey denies the historical fact that it carried out a planned massacre, forced deportation, and deaths of one and a half million Armenians.  Thousands of other Christian minorities from established societies in Anatolia for millennia also died.

For 107 years, Armenians recognize the anniversary of the genocide. On April 24 in 1915 the Attaturk regime rounded up and executed 500 Armenian civic and cultural leaders. Turkish authorities forced the men into death camps. They drove the elderly, women, and children out of their homes into forced exodus and death marches to concentration camps in the heart of the Syrian desert of Deir ez-Zor.

How is it that these same states continue the genocide of Armenians now in Artsakh? When a genocidal state is not held accountable it will continue this destruction, and history will repeat itself. Today, the Aze regime named a street in the occupied capital of Stepankert after one of the masterminds of the 1915 Genocide. He was convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court yet is celebrated as a hero by Turkish states. Today, the Aze regime is rounding up diplomats, security, and civic leaders of Artsakh and charging them with false crimes.

On September 27, 2020, Armenians woke up to the horrible news that Azerbaijan’s ruling regime unleashed an all-out military assault on the Republic of Artsakh and its civilian population. This war lasted 44 days and took the lives of 4000 defenders of the Republic, mostly young men ages 18-22. Thousands fled their homes and villages at the border areas. Many returned after a ceasefire agreement that promised their security with the presence of Russian peacekeepers. The ceasefire held, with frequent violations by Aze, until September 19, 2023 when Aze forces unleashed attacks on the villages and the capital city of Stepanakert. A 10 month siege and blockade followed that slowly starved the Artsakh population.

In December of 2022, the Aze petro-dictator, Ilham Aliye, erected a blockade of the only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia via a land bridge called the Lachin Corridor. This blockade lasted 10 months. It resulted in food scarcity, hunger, malnutrition, and near starvation of over 100,000 ethnic Armenians of Artsakh of whom 30,000 are children. The blockade resulted in shortages of medicine and basic goods. Even worse, Aze President Aliyev cut off electricity and gas supply forcing the population to endure freezing cold winter temperatures. The Russian peacekeepers did nothing to open the blockaded road.

As the population faced imminent starvation, the international community did little other than “strong condemnation” of Aliyev. They did not impose sanctions, essentially giving Aliyev a green light to starve the population of Artsakh, and force them into subjugation to Azeri rule.

Aliyev and his family have ruled Azerbaijan in a dynastic fashion for 30 years. The core of his policy is to indoctrinate the population, starting in kindergarten, to hate and dehumanize Armenians, called Armenophobia. His military command commits war crimes, atrocities, and acts of terror including executions and beheadings of captured POWs and civilians. Videos of these acts of terror, vandalizing Armenian homes that his forces have captured, are circulated on social media to induce terror on the Armenians of Artsakh and Armenia. Aliyev has a documented history of ordering the destruction of centuries old Armenian churches, monasteries, and cemeteries in lands he has invaded. It is his attempt to rewrite history that denies the Armenian existence for millennia on these lands. This is what awaits the fate of the hundreds of ancient monuments scattered in Artsakh unless they are protected by UNESCO.

The Armenians of Artsakh were on the verge of starvation. Increasing condemnation of Aliyev and focused diplomacy did not result in lifting the blockade. The International Court of Justice ruled that the blockade, starvation, and intimidation are illegal. The Court warned Aliyev that his actions are considered genocide since starvation leads to death.

Aliyev, strongly backed and encouraged by Turkey’s President Erdogan, ignored the order to end the blockade. Instead he amassed his vast petro-dollar funded military machinery along the entire border with Artsakh. He conducted a massive military strike including raids, expulsions of Armenians from their homes and villages, and bomb strikes on population centers and the capitol Stepanakert. The attacks were more horrific than during the war in 2020, forcing many to flee for their lives with just the clothes on their backs and very few belongings. Atrocities were committed against civilians including children. The Russian peacekeepers did nothing to deter the attacks, but had orders to evacuate those who had no means of escape. Thus began the exodus of ethnic Armenians from their ancestral home of 3000 years. When the Aze military arrived in Stepanakert, no one felt safe after the bombardment and blockade. The democratically elected government was forced to surrender, to order a decree to disband the democratically elected government, and submit to Aze rule. Aliyev said that he would guarantee the security of Armenians if they chose to stay and become Azeri citizens and “reintegrate” into Azerbeijan, which has never had rule over Artsakh.

A map of massacres and deportations from the 1915 Armenian Genocide

Over the next 5 days was the full ethnic cleansing, a legal genocide of the ethnic Armenian population of Artsakh. Over 100,000 people took to the road that now was unblocked for their exodus to the Armenian city of Goris. The Armenian government received the refugees, provided food and humanitarian aid, and began the process of providing short and long term shelter and assistance. The heroic people of Artsakh held out as long as possible hoping for peace, but were forced to exit the hellscape created by the regimes in Aze and Turkey.

The journey of 1-2 hours through the mountain roads to Armenia took 2-3 days. People packed into vehicles with few belongings, rushed to get out, endured hunger, thirst, rain, and cold in open bed trucks, tractors, and whatever transport they could find. The Armenian government sent buses to evacuate those stranded in Stepanakert. They were terrified, hungry, and cold for 5 days. The reports, images of the exodus, are harrowing. The anguish on the faces of the people is hauntingly palpable. They were forced to leave everything behind; 30,000 childhoods were stolen. Many elderly did not survive the extreme duress and suffering of forced exodus from their homeland.

As descendants of survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915, Armenians in the Diaspora are witnessing a repeat of the trauma of violently forced exodus, and reliving the horrors of genocide. It’s impossible to describe the shock, dread, and disbelief that this could happen in 2023.  The world is watching but not heeding the warnings.

The media is finally starting to cover this story. They ignored the gravity until it led to the disastrous result of ethnic cleansing. A step in the right direction happened on October 5, 2023: the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the European Union to impose sanctions on Azerbaijan in connection with its actions against Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh).

All Armenians want is peace to live on their indigenous and ancestral lands as a sovereign democracy. Aze has now amassed troops at the border of Armenia and threatened invasion of Southern Armenia if they are not given control over Armenian lands to turn into a trade corridor. I hope that what Aliyev did is taken seriously by the international community of states. I hope that effective deterrents are put in place, including military aid to Armenia, which Aliyev has started calling “Western Azerbaijan.” He continues to appropriate what Armenians have built and nurtured.

Efforts are underway to address the discrimination of Armenians and Armenophobia in Aze. I hope that these efforts succeed for the sake of the Aze children being indoctrinated in hate and falsehoods.

I hope the world realizes the threat Aze and Turkey pose to peace, ethnic minorities, and smaller neighboring countries being destabilized and invaded. All this is for the dream of Pan-Turkism and Turkish hegemony.

I am grateful for the Armenian nation in the homeland and the Diaspora that keeps on fighting for justice. I am grateful for our allies in peace, justice, and humanity. There are opportunities to support and donate to organizations that are active in political advocacy (ANCA.org), in preparing the legal case of war crimes by Aze officials by documenting evidence (CFTjustice.org), and in providing material aid to the forcibly displaced and traumatized heroic Indigenous people of Artsakh. Locals can also bring donations of clothing to the Artsakh Farmers Market in Glendale every Sunday in October.

Marina Khubesrian, M.D., South Pasadena Mayor (ret.), Family Physician, and Enviro-Health Policy Advisor

https://www.coloradoboulevard.net/time-to-check-on-your-armenian-neighbor/

The ‘Forgotten’ Wars: As Israel-Gaza War Continues, A Look At Other Conflicts Raging Across The World

Garnik Tadevosian
Oct 21 2023

By: ABP News Bureau

"This is not an era of war". The catchphrase by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Russian President Vlamidir Putin might have been in connection with the Russia-Ukraine war, but it also applies to the several other conflicts raging in several other parts of the world. The latest wars between Israel and Gaza, and Russia and Ukraine have captured the public glare in a way that other conflicts — like that in Yemen or Sudan — haven't.

While the surprise and unprecedented offensive by Palestinian militant group Hamas killed over 1,400 people in Israel, retaliatory fire by Tel Aviv has led to deaths of 2,329 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry. Meanwhile, the total number of soldiers killed or wounded since the Russia-Ukraine war that began 20 months ago is nearing 500,000, as per an NYT report.

While the death toll in both the wars has been staggering, here is a look at other conflicts across the world that have been equally deadly:

Intense fighting that erupted between the Sudanese armed forces and a paramilitary group — Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — on April 15 continues unabated as the war is in its sixth month. The conflict has left over 5,000 civilians dead, more than 12,000 injured, and over 5.7 million people displaced, according to Amnesty International.

Capital city Khartoum has been the worst affected in the power struggle between soldiers loyal to Sudanese army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, paramilitary RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

While the UN has called it the "world's worst, most complex and cruel" humanitarian crisis, the West and other global powers have paid scant attention to the crisis unfolding in Sudan. There have also been reports of sexual violence against women, targeted attacks on hospitals and churches, and extensive looting.

Even though there have been several ceasefires due to intervention by the US and Saudi Arabia, there have been no concrete agreements between the two warring sides. The war brings with it heavy security and economic ramifications for the region as Sudan, the third-largest country in Africa, is home to the mineral-rich Nile River basin and is located close to the Middle East.

Even though the eight-year-long war in Yemen between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition that supports Yemen's government has subsided to a large extent in 2023, thanks to the recent peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, there still continues to be sporadic violence.

According to the United Nations, the conflict in Yemen has led to over 377,000 deaths, with most of them due to hunger and lack of healthcare. More than 11,000 children have been killed or wounded as a direct result of the fighting, BBC reported. Around 4.5 million people, one-seventh of the population, have been displaced.

The civil war in Yemen dates back to 2014 when the Yemen government led by Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi was facing its worst economic crisis. At this time, the Houthis, a group of Shiite rebels, took advantage of the situation and seized control of Yemen's capital Sana'a, demanding a new government. The next year, the Houthis took control of the presidential palace, forcing Hadi to flee.

Alarmed by the prospect of Iran-backed Houthis taking control of the whole of Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations began air strikes to oust the rebels, triggering one of the deadliest and longest conflicts. The Saudi coalition got logistical and intelligence support from the US, UK and France.

The air strikes by Saudi Arabia and UAE have led to 19,000 civilian deaths, according to a report in Council on Foreign Relations. The Houthis have retaliated with a spate of drone attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Hopes of an end to the long-drawn conflict got a boost after Iran and Saudi Arabia reached a deal mediated by China to restore diplomatic relations. Since then, Houthis have held talks with Saudi Arabia to end the conflict but a recent drone attack by the Shiite group against forces of the Saudi-led coalition has put the pot boiling again.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia is one of the world's longest-running conflicts. Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies in the South Caucasus region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, has been at the centre of a bloody war between Azerbaijan and Armenia for 35 years.

The first war over Nagorno-Karabakh took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region began following the breakdown of the Soviet Union. In 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh's legislature passed a resolution declaring its resolve to join Armenia despite its official location within Azerbaijan. The first war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region saw around 30,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Earlier this year, Azerbaijan launched a military incursion into the region that eventually saw it retaking Nagorno-Karabakh. The territory surrendered to Azerbaijan as forces in Karabakh agreed to be disarmed and disbanded. It prompted more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh to flee to Armenia.

A view of armored vehicles and other types of weapons that are captured during the Karabakh war in Baku, Azerbaijan (Getty)

While the war in Syria, which started as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, has waned in the last few years, the northwestern Idlib region continues to see shelling and civilian casualties. Fighting has also erupted in northeastern Syria between Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Arab-led Deir-ez-Zor Military Council (DMC).

The 12-year war in Syria between rebel groups and Assad's forces, with the backing of Iran and Russia, has left half a million people dead and devastated cities.

The height of the conflict saw radical Islamist groups, including the Islamic State, seize large swathes of the country. However, the Islamic State fizzled out and lost almost all the territory following sustained counter offensives by pro-Syrian forces and US-led coalition of Western allies.

https://news.abplive.com/news/world/israel-gaza-hamas-palestine-war-ongoing-armed-conflicts-russia-ukraine-yemen-syria-sudan-nagorno-karabakh-1637234

Georgian Parliament fails to impeach President Zurabishvili

Garnik Tadevosian

 17:11,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 18, ARMENPRESS. The Parliament of Georgia fails to impeach President Salome Zurabishvili, with 86 votes in favor and 1 against. 100 votes were needed for impeachment, but only 90 MPs registered, Civil Georgia informed.

On September 12, 80 deputies filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court regarding the impeachment of the President of Georgia.

On October 16, the Constitutional Court of Georgia ruled that President Salome Zurabishvili had violated the Constitution. The Court determines that the President breached the country’s Constitution by making working visits to Europe without the Government’s approval.




The Secret Christian Genocide: What Is Going On In Armenia?

Garnik Tadevosian
Oct 17 2023

On September 19th, 120,000 Armenian Christians were attacked by Azerbaijan after almost a year of starvation at the hands of a suffocating blockade. After fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh, their lives are in complete chaos. Tom sits down with Armenian Christian Simone Rizkallah to hear more about the Christian persecution happening right under our noses. 

  • Simone Rizkallah’s Website
Listen to the interview at