The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) -- a club of Muslim countries that features Azerbaijan among its 57 members -- has declared Armenia the aggressor in the 22-year Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh.
The resolution, adopted at a May 19 OIC meeting in Dushanbe, will be the foundation of Karabakh discussions planned at the Organization’s 2011 summit in Cairo, Egypt. “We must keep raising the issue of Nagorno Karabakh at the OIC meetings, or else we will make a step back,” declared Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Tofik Abdulayev.
The Organization also adopted two other Karabakh resolutions that deplore the alleged destruction of Azerbaijani monuments on Armenian-controlled territory and call for aiding the conflict's Azerbaijani victims.
Armenian officials have not commented to international media about the resolutions, but delivered a jab the day the OIC resolutions came out.
The Karabakh peace process has failed because Azerbaijan has shot down each proposal that comes from American, Russian and French mediators, argued Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharian.
"[A]n impression is being created that Baku is holding talks with itself, arrives at some acceptable decisions for itself and tries to present its own wish as the result of the negotiations," the peeved Kocharian charged.
Has Georgia really become Washington’s poor relative, who spends hours waiting in the White House lobby while the party is swinging inside? One TIME Magazine reporter makes that argument in The Huffington Post, implying that, when approached by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili these days, Obama and other Western leaders apologetically point at their watches and run to a meeting with Russia's Dmitri Medvedyev.
Busy trying to cooperate with Russia on nuclear matters, Washington seems increasingly to avoid saying the G-word, and, when it does, the mention is not always quite what Tbilisi had in mind. On May 10, for instance, Obama declared that Georgia is no “obstacle” to proceeding with a US nuclear cooperation pact with Russia.
Granted, old friends like Senator John McCain and ex-Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Kramer have come out recently to boost the Georgia cause. But it's the White House itself that's seen as the best defense against the big, bad wolf -- or bear -- roaming outside Georgia's house.
The White House does issue statements in support of Georgia's territorial integrity. Yet, to many Georgians, this is akin to commenting on a friend’s Facebook photo instead of meeting him for drinks.
If you think that Baku has only fossil fuel to offer for export, Azerbaijan’s defense ministry has got some news for you. The country plans a foray into the international gun market. There are foreign companies that “want” Azerbaijani pistols and they will get them, Defense Industry Minister Yaver Jomalov pledged on May 19. In particular, the Azerbaijani-made Inam, Zefer and Zefer-K pistols are attracting shoppers' fancy, he claimed. Defense officials hope that military output will soon account for a large part of the country’s non-oil export revenues.
Regional media speculated that Erdogan arrived in Azerbaijan on a mission to coax Aliyev into concessions on natural gas and Karabakh. Neither has occurred. The gas deal got postponed, while Turkey and Azerbaijan played the same broken Karabakh record: Armenia must give up some of the land it occupies before the Turkish-Armenia border can open.
The Turkey-Azerbaijan-Armenia discussions are increasingly reminiscent of the haggling over chairs between adventurist Ostap Bender and theater hand Mechnikov from the iconic Soviet satire "The 12 Chairs:"
Mechnikov: “The money in the morning, the chairs in the evening or the money in the evening, and the chairs next morning.”
Bender: “How about chairs today, money tomorrow?”
Mechnikov: “. . .My soul refuses to accept such terms.”
Throughout the brouhaha over the book Saidumlo Siroba or Holy Crap, the Georgian Orthodox Church has kept silent. But now the Church has spoken. In a written statement on May 15, the Patriarchy called for adopting a law that would help shut fiction writers' blasphemous mouths. The Patriarchy charged that Holy Crap, which has set off everything from heated debates to televised fistfights, is part of an ongoing war against the Church and traditional Georgian values. The Church distanced itself from the violence, but said that the new law should censor any written exercise in “indecency, licentiousness and Satanism.”
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev is not easily swayed, but looks like the threat of an Islamic fatwa can do wonders these days. A demolition ball ready to smash Baku’s Fatimeyi-Zahra mosque froze in the air afterIran’s Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi threatened to unleash the wrath of radical believers against Azerbaijani officials if the building was destroyed.
Aliyev is no Salman Rushdie, and you cannot really run a country from a secret location in London.
The missive proved more effective than numerous pleadings from local religious communities to spare the mosque, which an Azerbaijan court ruled was built illegally.
The mosque has been handed over to the Azerbaijan-based Muslim Spiritual Board of the Caucasus, but Aliyev’s secular government now has even more reasons to watch out for the turbaned theocracy to the south.
Could the fastest way to Washington's heart lead through its stomach? After a recent cool-down in US-Azerbaijani ties, US Chargé d’Affaires in Azerbaijan Donald Lu announced on May 14 that the US plans to buy food supplies -- along with building materials and other non-military equipment -- for its Afghanistan campaign from Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani news services reported.
"We believe that Azerbaijan has quality products for sale . . . " an upbeat Lu told participants at a US-Azerbaijan security seminar in Baku. "Quality" searches for other products are apparently planned for Georgia and Armenia as well.
The scale of the American purchases in Azerbaijan will depend on the quality of the products, commented one US foreign policy advisor.
With the start of the summer travel season, an Armenian-American writing for The Armenian Reporter under the pen name Dro Tsarian has provided ten unusual tips for Armenian Diaspora members who want to explore their roots, yet promote a few rules of conduct within Armenia at the same time.
Among the recommended no-nos: don't let anyone cut in front of you in line, don't pay bribes, don't give money to beggars, don't "be fooled by sob stories," don't purchase real estate at "anywhere near" its listed price, and . . . don't wear black.
“If each visitor from Diaspora does his or her small part to set the right example and to also demand the same from locals, Armenia will improve a lot quicker,” advises Tsarian.
As many as 300,000 Armenians could leave for the greener pastures of Russia, Europe and the United States, if quality of life within Armenia does not improve quickly, the UNDP report concluded. Armenian men who work abroad and send home their earnings -- a significant part of the Armenian economy – might well choose to import their families, if the government does not manage to create more jobs, stability and democracy, the report said.
Armenians first started leaving their homeland en masse during the topsy-turvy years of the Soviet Union's breakup.
Moscow and Tbilisi may not be on speaking terms, but showbiz knows no borders. When Russia celebrated Victory Day on May 9, once more there was a Georgian singing a song written by a Georgian about a war victory presided over by a Georgian.
Moscow applauded; Tbilisi was appalled.
Keta Topuria, the lead singer of the popular Russian pop-band A-Studio, donned a Russian marine’s outfit, a beret with a hammer and sickle pin, walked to Red Square and sang an iconic Soviet war song, written by Georgian-born bard Bulat Okudzhava.
Topuria’s performance sparked a firestorm in Tbilisi. An upcoming concert in her native Georgia was immediately cancelled. “You do not dance and caper before the enemy,” bristled Georgian Culture Minister Nikoloz Rurua.
Georgian singers stood up for Topuria, saying that the concert was about defeating Nazi Germany and had nothing to do with the 2008 Georgia-Russia war. Post-war performances in Russia by other Georgian singers, such as international opera star Paata Burchuladze and veteran romantic ballad-singer Nani Bregvadze, have also raised patriotic eyebrows in Tbilisi.
