Category: 2023

ANKARA 

As condolences poured in and countries mobilized support, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has been engaged in intense diplomatic contacts since the deadly Feb. 6 earthquakes in southern Türkiye.

Cavusoglu has held 23 meetings and more than 70 phone calls with ministers, foreign diplomats, and senior representatives of international organizations.

The magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 quakes were centered in Kahramanmaras and struck 10 other provinces – Adana, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Elazig, Hatay, Gaziantep, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, and Sanliurfa.

More than 13 million people have been affected by the devastating quakes, while the death toll is now over 44,200.

Cavusoglu met with Tahsin Ertugruloglu, foreign minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), on Feb. 9, followed by meetings with Martin Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, on Feb. 10 and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov on Feb. 11.

On Feb. 12, Cavusoglu met his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias in the quake-hit Hatay province, where he thanked Greece for its support during “such difficult times.”

On Feb. 13, Cavusoglu held separate talks Equatorial Guinea Foreign Minister Angue Simeon and Libya’s Najla Elmangoush in the capital Ankara.

In a joint press conference with his Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen in Ankara on Feb. 14, Cavusoglu praised Israel’s “serious” support in search and rescue efforts in Kahramanmaras.

“Israel is one of the first countries that sent support to Türkiye,” said Cavusoglu.

On the same day, Cavusoglu held a meeting with Nechirvan Barzani, head of northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).

On Feb. 15, he met Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Foreign Minister Elmedin Konakovic, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, Jordan’s Ayman Safadi, and Florent Ntsiba, state minister and director of the Presidential Cabinet of Congo, in Ankara.

On Feb. 16, Cavusoglu met Costa Rica’s Foreign Minister Arnoldo Andre Tinoco and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who traveled to Türkiye to extend solidarity and support.

“Our NATO allies immediately sent support to Türkiye after the earthquake,” Cavusoglu said.

On Feb. 18, Uzbekistan’s Acting Foreign Minister Bahtiyor Saidov paid a visit to Ankara, where Cavusoglu hailed Uzbekistan for standing by Türkiye at a challenging time.

US secretary of state visits Türkiye

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid a visit to Türkiye on Feb. 19-20 to express solidarity and convey Washington’s support.

Cavusoglu and Blinken conducted an aerial inspection of the quake-hit region.

On Feb. 20, they held a joint news conference in Ankara, where Blinken said he was “profoundly saddened” by the devastation.

Later that day, Cavusoglu held a joint news conference with his North Macedonian counterpart Bujar Osmani, as well as Helga Schmid, secretary general of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Cavusoglu hosted Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Abdulcemil Kirimoglu on Feb. 21, as well as Jang Sung-min, special representative of the president of South Korea.

On Feb. 22, EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi and Johan Forssell, the international development minister of Sweden, paid a visit to Ankara.

On Feb. 23, Cavusoglu held separate meetings with Hissein Brahim Taha, secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and Muhammad Musa Bello, Nigeria’s federal capital territory minister and special presidential envoy.

The same day, Cavusoglu held a joint news conference with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bouhabib and Ali Hamie, Lebanon’s transport minister, who visited Ankara to voice solidarity with Türkiye.

Besides meetings and phone calls, Cavusoglu has also received more than 100 messages of solidarity and support.

ISTANBUL 

Baku has filed an arbitration case against Yerevan under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), an international agreement focusing on cross-border cooperation primarily in the fossil energy industry, for exploiting energy resources in the Karabakh region, which was under 30 years of Armenian occupation.

“In a Notice of Arbitration served on Armenia, Azerbaijan seeks redress and financial compensation for Armenia’s violation of Azerbaijan’s sovereign rights over its energy resources during Armenia’s nearly 30-year illegal occupation of Azerbaijan’s territory from 1991 to 2020,” a statement by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

The statement said Armenia breached multiple provisions of the ECT, as well as fundamental principles of international law, by denying Azerbaijan from accessing its energy resources in the region, exploiting Azerbaijan’s energy resources for its own benefit and depriving Azerbaijan of further developing its energy resources.

Armenia’s initiatives in this regard include the exploitation of the Karabakh region’s hydropower resources and facilities, and the construction of at least 37 additional unauthorized hydropower facilities, the statement added.

“To facilitate its illegal exploitation of Azerbaijan’s hydropower, Armenia established a ‘whole unified system’ of electricity distribution from the formerly occupied territories to Armenia, ‘regulated from Armenia’ the ‘daily volume of electricity production,’ and granted putative ‘licenses’ to energy companies to operate the region’s existing facilities,” the ministry said.

According to the statement, Armenia also exploited Azerbaijan’s coal resources by “constructing additional energy infrastructure on Azerbaijan’s territory” and damaged existing facilities.

“This arbitration case is an effort to secure justice and reparations for nearly 30 years of illegal exploitation and expropriation of Azerbaijan’s energy resources by Armenia, on Azerbaijan’s internationally recognised sovereign territory,” the statement said.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

In the fall of 2020, during 44 days of heavy fighting, Azerbaijan liberated a significant part of Karabakh, and a Russian-brokered peace agreement was subsequently signed. A normalization process is ongoing since then, but several bilateral issues still remain unresolved.

Last month, Azerbaijan filed a similar lawsuit for inter-state arbitration under the Bern Convention, aimed at holding Armenia accountable for the "extensive destruction" of the environment and biodiversity in Karabakh.

ISTANBUL

Normalization of ties between Azerbaijan and Armenia was in focus as President Ilham Aliyev held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the capital Baku.

“Russia, as our friend, ally and neighbor, has a special role in helping regulate interstate relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” Aliyev said during the meeting on Monday, according to a statement by the Azerbaijani presidency.

“Last year, a substantial effort was made in this direction, and documents defining the conceptual nature of the future peace agreement … have laid the foundation that can be used for reaching a peace agreement.”

Aliyev said he remains hopeful that “2023 will be a year of progress in the normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” thanking Russia for its “active involvement.”

“We are determined to do positive and constructive work together with the Armenian side and … Russia to quickly turn the page of this hostility and return peace to the South Caucasus,” he added.

Referring to the normalization efforts, Lavrov emphasized the importance of regional security and stability.

He said many global actors “including those located far from this region, are showing great interest in creating conditions for progress in the normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”

“As (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin has repeatedly said, we welcome all efforts aimed at stabilizing the situation and creating conditions for all countries located in this region to have the opportunity to cooperate in the interests of their countries and peoples based on mutual respect and mutual benefit,” Lavrov said.

Bilateral ties ‘fully developing’

Aliyev hailed the “dynamic” progress on bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Russia.

“Our relations are fully developing, critical issues are being addressed, and we have gotten off to a good start this year,” he said.

He noted that there are still certain areas where cooperation “is not so active yet.”

“This is why we hope for serious mutual steps in the fields of traditional interaction – political dialogue, energy, transport, trade, humanitarian cooperation and alliance, which we need to bring to the level of interaction,” said Aliyev.

For his part, Lavrov said practical cooperation between Baku and Moscow is developing “efficiently and extensively in all directions.”

“The turnover of goods, an indicator of our economic cooperation, is also reaching record levels, and this is not the limit,” said the minister.

He pointed out that Aliyev and Putin have held discussions on “several mega-projects that will be not only bilateral but also regional and even global in substance.”

“You and many of our partners are interested in these projects. This shows how promising the interaction with the participation of Russia and Azerbaijan as leaders of this region is,” said Lavrov.

Trapessac, (Darb-ı Sak in Turkish) a medieval fortress that played a crucial role in the Crusader Princedom of Antakya, one of Türkiye's earthquake-stricken cities, was severely damaged in addition to many historical landmarks such as the Bayazid Bastami Shrine.

Earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.7 and 7.6, the epicenter of which was Kahramanmaraş, lead to the historical castle that was built on the mountain foot to collapse.

The Knights Templar built Trapessac in the 12th century, along with the nearby fortress at Bagras, to guard the Syrian Gates, a key passageway between the coastal region of Cilicia and inland Syria.

After a fierce two-week siege, the castle fell to Saladin in 1188. The castle's strategic location between the Principality of Antioch and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia made it a desirable target for both groups, and several attempts were made to retake it, including by Leo I of Armenia in 1205 and the Templars in 1237, but both efforts were unsuccessful.

Hetoum I regained control of the fortress in 1261 after the Mongols captured it, but it was surrendered to the Mamluks in 1266 to ransom his son Leo. Baybars took possession of the fortress in 1268, and in 1280, Abaqa Khan briefly regained control of it during his campaign to sack Aleppo, but ultimately abandoned it when he withdrew from Syria.

The rubble and huge rocks moving from the castle blocked the entrance of the shrine of Bayazid Bastami.

Bastami was a prominent Sufi who renounced all worldly pleasures to be closer to Allah, and this devotion ultimately led him to a state of "self-union," which many Sufi orders believe is necessary to attain unity with God.

Bayazid's grandfather was a Zoroastrian who converted to Islam, and the name "Bastami" refers to his family's origin in the town of Bastam. Sorushan had three ascetic sons named Adam, Isa and Ali. Bayazid, the son of Isa, was also an ascetic and spent most of his childhood isolated in his house and the mosque, but he still welcomed people to discuss Islam with him.

Those who heard that the tomb was damaged came to visit the tomb from all over Türkiye.