Category: 2021

Two leading challengers to President Emmanuel Macron in France's presidential elections have made high-profile visits to Armenia in recent days, as the destiny of the Christian Caucasus nation becomes a campaign issue.

Just over a year after Armenia was defeated by Azerbaijan in the 2020 war over control of the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, candidates on the right are keen to burnish their support for the country.

Far-right pundit Eric Zemmour, known for his diatribes against Islam and immigration, headed to Armenia earlier this month shortly after declaring his candidacy in the April 2022 elections, declaring Armenia to be a country of "martyrs" that was in danger.

He was followed this week by the candidate of the right-wing Republicans (LR), Valerie Pecresse, seen by some analysts as the biggest threat to Macron in the elections and who has surged in polls since she was nominated by her party.

In an election campaign so far dominated by the right, support of Armenia, the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion in the fourth century, has become a symbol of commitment to conservative values.

Analysts say that candidates are not just angling for votes from the hundreds of thousands of Armenians in France but also from Catholic conservatives deeply concerned by the fate of the Christians of the east.

In 2020, Azerbaijan liberated a large part of the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which ethnic Armenian separatists had seized as the USSR broke up. During last year's 44-day Karabakh war more than 300 settlements were freed from Armenian occupation.

Armenian forces could not match the greater might of the Azerbaijani military, which was also boosted by the use of highly sophisticated drones developed by its ally Turkey. The entry of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces into Shusha caused the Armenian Army to disperse. Armenia signed a declaration on Nov. 10, 2020, acknowledging its defeat and promising to withdraw its army from the provinces of Aghdam, Kalbajar and Lachin.

Analysts emphasize that the conflict with Azerbaijan was territorial rather than religious in nature. But Zemmour declared that Armenia is a "Christian nation in an Islamic Ocean." Pecresse's visit was meanwhile aimed at "giving to support to Christians just before Christmas," an aide told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We must mobilize all of Europe around this conflict, it is not a conflict in the Caucasus, it is a conflict that affects Europe because when Christians of the east are attacked, it is the foundations of European civilization that are under attack," far-right Pecresse told reporters in Yerevan.

Armenia is becoming a "new issue in a competition to capture the conservative Catholic electorate," said a report by the Jean Jaures Foundation. It said the French right had an "old tradition of protecting eastern Christians," such as supporting the Lebanese Christians during the civil war of the 1980s, or Christians in the Middle East during the ascendancy of the Daesh terrorist group from 2014-2015.

On the left, Socialist candidate Annie Hidalgo has not ruled out a visit to Armenia and in December opened an "Esplanade of Armenia," a walkway in the French capital, speaking of "Paris' unbreakable support of the Armenian people," although without evoking religion.

Macron has himself been vocal in his support of Armenia, tweeting this month after meeting both Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Brussels: "We will never abandon the Armenians. We will always seek solutions for lasting peace."

Members of the 500,000-strong Armenian diaspora in France have mixed feelings about the surge of interest in the country, grateful for the support, but also fearing political exploitation.

"We do not want the Armenian cause to be closed up inside a conflict of civilizations that just serves domestic policy," said Jules Boyadjian, head of the French association Committee for the Defense of the Armenian Cause.

Pecresse and Zemmour are known in France and across the world as controversial personalities, who push for anti-migrant policies as well as racist rhetorics against the Muslim population in the country.

Earlier in December Pecresse voiced concern over the rise of what she called “Islamism” in France.

“I am determined to stop the rise of Islamism,” she said, according to The Associated Press (AP). “In France, women are free and the laws of the Republic are respected,” she said, apparently forgetting about France's bid to restrict Muslim women from wearing face veil as part of a controversial so-called anti-separatism law, which is seen by rights organizations as an infringement on the rights and freedoms of the country's minority.

On the other hand, Zemmour has been making highly divisive remarks with ultraconservative views on national identity including against Muslims, Islam, migrants, black people and other minorities.

In September 2019, he was fined 3,000 euros ($3,500) for a hateful rant against Muslims during a television appearance. His Islamaphobic comments and hardline criticism of immigration pandering to the right-wing have made him a polarizing figure, drawing support both from Le Pen's voter base and but also from the mainstream conservative right, while alienating others in France, including millions of French Muslims.

Turkish companies have undertaken the lion's share of projects for rebuilding the Karabakh region in Azerbaijan, according to the CEO of Baku-based Pasha Bank.

Citing Azerbaijan's Economy Ministry, Cenk Eynehan said 283 foreign companies bid for projects in the recently liberated border region.

Most of them are Turkish companies, he added.

"Following Azerbaijan's glorious victory, new geopolitical realities emerged in the region. Liberation of Karabakh and surrounding regions brought stability into the region, ensuring an appropriate environment to utilize the economic potential and attract foreign investments," he said.

He added that Turkey, Italy, the U.K., Israel, Russia and other strategic partners of Azerbaijan have shown a keen interest to get involved in the ongoing projects.

In 1991, the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh (Upper Karabakh), internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, and seven adjacent regions.

In a 44-day war last year, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and villages from Armenian military occupation.

Eynehan said before reconstruction starts the area has to go through a demining process, which is underway.

He noted that the Azerbaijani government earmarked $1.3 billion for the reconstruction of the region in 2021, and the same amount is expected to be allocated in 2022.

Some of the major infrastructure projects have been completed, such as Fuzuli International Airport, he said.

Moreover, he added, 650 kilometers (404 miles) of roads have been constructed in the region – connecting liberated territories to nearby cities.

The Aghdam industrial park, smart villages in the Zangilan and Fuzuli districts, precious metals and construction materials production projects in Zangilan, Kalbajar and Aghdam districts are in the planning and development phase and are expected to be vital in the reintegration of the region into the overall economy, he added.

Touching upon visa-free travel with Turkey, he said the decision's impact was seen immediately.

"During the third quarter of 2021, Turkey was the top destination for Azerbaijani tourists, constituting more than 60% of total travelers."

He noted that remittances from Azerbaijan to Turkey increased 26% year-on-year in the January-September period. The figure increased 43% from Turkey to Azerbaijan.

"In the first three quarters of 2021, $530 million worth of Turkish capital was invested in the Azerbaijani economy," he said.

Mentioning the preferential trade agreement, signed this February, Eynehan underlined that the deal supported the growth of trade volume between the countries.

Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Turkey (excluding oil-gas sector product exports from Azerbaijan) rose by 26% year-on-year in the first nine-month period, he said.

The trade volume increased to $3.7 billion over the same period, he added,

"The agreement had the strongest impact on non-oil exports from Azerbaijan to Turkey, which rose by 81% year-over-year," he added.

"Shusha declaration, preferential trade agreement, travel without visa regime, agreements between state agencies and companies of Azerbaijan and Turkey ensure accelerating growth of trade and investment relations," he underlined.

He asserted that these deals will contribute to the goal of reaching an annual trade volume of $15 billion.

Turkish contractors were involved in 455 projects in Azerbaijan amounting to $15.4 billion, he said.

Azerbaijan invested nearly $19 billion in Turkey, while Turkish investments in Azerbaijan amounted to $12 billion, he recalled.

The agreements reached in 2021 and existing fraternal ties ensure further strengthening of trade and investment relations in 2022, he added.

Touching upon his bank's position in Turkey, he said 2021 was a year in which the bank adapted to the new normal and new ways of doing business, and continued on its way with new experiences.

The bank raised its total assets by 26% to TL 2.74 billion ($309 million) as of the third quarter of this year versus the end of 2020, he noted. The U.S. dollar-Turkish lira exchange rate was 8.86 as of Sept. 30.

The bank's total loan size also enlarged by 32% over the same period, he added.

While the bank supported real and automotive sectors in 2021, it will continue its support to these sectors by increasing fund diversity, he underlined.

TBILISI, Georgia 

Georgia has taken effective steps with Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia to ensure lasting peace in the region, the country’s prime minister said Wednesday. 

“It is extremely important for us to establish lasting peace in the region,” Irakli Garibashvili said during the online Conference of Ambassadors.

Noting that he has met with the leaders of the countries in the region, Garibashvili said the Georgian side made a "peaceful, neighborly" initiative in the talks.

Underlining that he held very effective meetings with Turkish, Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders, he said: "I also had a very successful meeting in Turkey. We were welcomed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the highest level and we took very effective steps in this direction."

Referring to security issues, he said they prioritized ensuring the territorial integrity of the country and ending the occupation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

"We do not forget for a moment and do not lose our focus because the real dream and goal for us is to re-establish the territorial integrity of our country and liberate it from occupation," he added.

Tbilisi fought a five-day war with Russia in 2008 over Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Georgia lost control of both areas and Russia later recognized both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar

Discussions at the United Nations on autonomous weapons ended without reaching an agreement to launch negotiations on an international treaty to regulate their use on Friday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had been pushing for negotiators to begin work on an international treaty that would establish legally-binding new rules on the machine-operated weapons.

Unlike existing semi-autonomous weapons such as drones, fully-autonomous weapons have no human-operated "kill switch" and instead leave decisions over life and death to sensors, software and machine processes.

Opponents say they raise the risks for civilians, pose problems for accountability and increase the chances of conflict escalation.

The Geneva talks, ongoing for eight years, have taken on new urgency since a U.N. panel report in March that said the first autonomous drone attack may have already occurred in Libya.

"It's a real missed opportunity and not in our view what is needed to respond to the risks posed by autonomous weapons," Neil Davison, a policy adviser in the Legal Division at the ICRC, said of the outcome of the weeklong talks.

Many countries also expressed disappointment in the outcome.

"At the present rate of progress, the pace of technological development risks overtaking our deliberations," Switzerland's Disarmament Ambassador Felix Baumann said.

The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons which has 125 parties has been discussing possible limits on the use of lethal autonomous weapons, or LAWS, which are fully machine-operated and use new technology such as artificial intelligence and facial recognition.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had called for countries to come up with an "ambitious plan" on new rules.

Sources following the talks said that Russia, India and the United States were among the countries who expressed doubts about the need for a new LAWS treaty. Washington has previously pointed to their possible benefits, such as precision.

Clare Conboy of campaign group Stop Killer Robots said the outcome was one that "keeps the minority of militarized states investing in developing these weapons very happy."

She said she expected the many countries in favor of a new law, such as New Zealand or Austria, to begin negotiations outside of the U.N.

Newly obtained Pentagon documents show that the U.S. air wars in the Middle East have been marked by "deeply flawed intelligence" that resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, including many children, the New York Times reported Saturday.

It said a trove of confidential documents covering more than 1,300 reports of civilian casualties undercuts the government's portrayal of a war fought with precision bombs. Pledges of transparency and accountability, it said, had regularly fallen short.

"Not a single record provided includes a finding of wrongdoing or disciplinary action," the paper reported in what it said was the first of a two-part series.

While several of the cases mentioned by the Times have been previously reported, it said its investigation showed that the number of civilian deaths had been "drastically undercounted," by at least several hundred.

Among three cases cited was a July 19, 2016 bombing by U.S. special forces of what were believed to be three Daesh group staging areas in northern Syria. Initial reports were of 85 fighters killed. Instead, the dead were 120 farmers and other villagers.

Another example was a November 2015 attack in Ramadi, Iraq after a man was seen dragging "an unknown heavy object" into a Daesh position. The "object," a review found, was a child, who died in the strike.

Poor or inadequate surveillance footage often contributed to deadly targeting failures, the report said.

More recently, the United States had to retract its claim that a vehicle destroyed by a drone on a Kabul street in August had contained bombs. Victims of the strike, it turned out, were 10 members of a family, including children.

Many civilian survivors of U.S. attacks, the report says, were left with disabilities requiring expensive treatment, but condolence payments numbered fewer than a dozen.

Asked for comment, Capt. Bill Urban, spokesperson for the U.S. Central Command, told the Times that "even with the best technology in the world, mistakes do happen, whether based on incomplete information or misinterpretation of the information available. And we try to learn from those mistakes.

"We work diligently to avoid such harm. We investigate each credible instance. And we regret each loss of innocent life."

The U.S. air campaign in the Middle East grew rapidly in the final years of former President Barack Obama's administration, as public support waned for the seemingly endless ground wars.

Obama said the new approach, often using unmanned aircraft controlled from far away, represented "the most precise air campaign in history," able to keep civilian deaths to a minimum.

The new technology made it possible to destroy a part of a house filled with enemy fighters while leaving the rest of the structure standing, the Pentagon said. But over a five-year period, U.S. forces executed more than 50,000 airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the report said, with much less than the advertised precision.

In compiling its report, the Times said its reporters had "visited more than 100 casualty sites and interviewed scores of surviving residents and current and former American officials."

The paper obtained the Pentagon documents through Freedom of Information requests beginning in March 2017 and lawsuits filed against the Defense Department and the Central Command. A new suit seeks records from Afghanistan.

Before launching airstrikes, the military must navigate elaborate protocols to estimate and minimize civilian deaths. But there are several ways available intelligence can mislead, fall short, or at times lead to disastrous errors.

For example, the Times said, video shot from the air does not show people in buildings, under foliage or under tarpaulins or aluminum covers.

And available data can be misinterpreted, as when people running to a fresh bombing site are assumed to be militants, not would-be rescuers.

Sometimes, the Times said, "Men on motorcycles moving 'in formation,' displaying the 'signature' of an imminent attack, were just men on motorcycles."

Urban said air-war planners do their best under exceedingly difficult conditions.

But he added that "in many combat situations, where targeteers face credible threat streams and do not have the luxury of time, the fog of war can lead to decisions that tragically result in civilian harm."

From left: Executive Director of Tufenkian Foundation Antranig Kasbarian, AIWA L.A.'s Ani Aivazian, AIWA L.A.'s Joan Quinn, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Maro Matosian Executive Director WSC

LOS ANGELES—It was a star-studded program, as well as a festive gathering, when approximately 100 guests celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the Women’s Support Center.

The event, which was held on Saturday, December 4, was hosted by prominent and generous benefactors Zarig and Jack Youredjian at their home in Toluca Lake. Nearly 100 guests, consisting mainly of activists, Armenian International Women’s Association members, community leaders, as well as Women’s Support Center devotees were in attendance.

Executive Director of Tufenkian Foundation Antranig Kasbarian served as Master of Ceremonies, representing the Tufenkian Foundation and, together with the Armenian International Women’s Association and USAID, were the founders and driving forces behind the creation of the Women’s Support Center. Kasbarian stressed the positive role played by then U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who displayed strong support and appreciation for Armenia, its people, and the domestic problems they were confronting.

Early on, along with Joan Agajanian Quinn, Yovanovitch encouraged USAID to develop a partnership with AIWA and the Tufenkian Foundation, focusing on women’s rights and particularly the problem of domestic violence. At the beginning of the program, Armenian society was still in a state of denial about domestic violence, relegating it as a family matter or ignoring it entirely. Ten years later, among its various accomplishments, the Women’s Support Center can proudly state that this issue has been brought irreversibly into public consciousness and today there exists a grudging but growing acceptance both by public officials and civil society.

Seated from left: President of AIWA L.A. Nicole Nishanian, V.P. of AIWA L.A. Margaret Mgrublian. Standing, from left: Former U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Marie Yovanovitch, Ani Aivazian AIWA L.A.

Nicole Nishanian, President of the Los Angles affiliate of AIWA, also welcomed the guests and emphasized AIWA’s pride in being associated with this program which has brought progressive change to Armenia regarding women.  

Kasbarian expressed the regrets he received from the Hon. Lillit Makunts, Armenia’s new Ambassador to the U.S., who was scheduled to appear, but was unable to attend after being called to Armenia following recent escalations of violence on its borders. 

WSC Founder and Executive Director Maro Matosian, in her presentation reflected on its ten-year journey. “WSC has come a long way in the 10 years since its inception,” Matosian stated. “We were a completely unknown organization and now we are considered the premier Domestic Violence support center running the only two professional shelters in Armenia. We started with 40 beneficiaries and now we serve annually over 300. We trained the helped create Domestic Violence support centers, one in each region of Armenia, and now work to standardize our approach for systematic response to the protection of victims of Domestic Violence. In addition, government agencies, including the Ministry for Social Affairs, rely on us as a source of expertise and information on the subject.”

Special Guest of Honor, Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, was the keynote speaker and in her presentation, not only focused on celebrating the ten years of the excellence and impact of the WSC, but emphasized that we are also celebrating thirty years of Armenian independence. Yovanovitch stated that “…in fact, next week is the anniversary of the signing of the Belovezhskoyoe Accords, which dissolved the Soviet Union, something many of us never thought we’d see. The past three decades have been a consequential time for Armenia.  Independence, war, political upheavals, economic struggle, social change, another war. And Armenia still stands.  Armenia still thrives. As Armenia has done throughout the ages – and will into the future.”  

From left: Nerses and Katheryn Aposhian Supporters, Roxanne Makasdjian Founder Genocide Education Project, Asbarez Editor Ara Khachatourian

Yovanovitch reported that while she was in Armenia she traveled constantly, all over the country, and met people who kept on going despite the challenges. They wanted a better life for themselves, and most importantly, a better future for their children. It was inspiring. These trips were the highlight of her three years in Armenia. In 2010, following the tragic murder of a young woman by her husband and mother-in-law, a nucleus of people were finally ready to admit that domestic violence existed in Armenia and that something had to be done. This issue was at the top of Yovanovitch’s mind and she saw an opening and a part of the solution to a very real problem.

The Women’s Support Center was established in 2010 and has made not just an important contribution, but has achieved real results. It is saving individuals—women and their children. It is working at the institutional level—to change laws, build budget support, partner with police, and train social workers. Yovanovitch emphasized that the WSC is at the forefront of the most important thing: changing the way Armenians think about domestic violence.

“Changing that mindset, that somehow it is the women’s fault,” she stated “and that raising this issue undermines the family, is absolutely crucial,” said Yovanovitch. “When domestic violence is not accepted in a culture: a woman feels more comfortable standing up for herself; friends, families, neighbors, report it; the police take the action seriously; social services are provided so that the woman and her children have a place to go; the perpetrator is held accountable. Once that cultural shift is made, domestic violence will still be with us, but it will be far less prevalent. Addressing domestic violence strengthens the family; it strengthens the next generation, and that strengthens Armenia.”

In conclusion, Yovanovitch expressed her thanks to the Tufenkian Foundation, AIWA and USAID for having the vision and coming together in a public-private partnership to put their collective shoulders to the wheel and make that vision a reality and a success. She also thanked Antranig Kasbarian and Maro Matosian for working day in and day out for the WSC, and a shout out to the hosts, Jack and Zarig Yaredjian for this wonderful evening.  

This celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the Women’s Support Center  resulted in fundraising totals well over $100,000.