Author: Harut Sassounian

FBI Investigates Links Between NYC Mayor’s Campaign and Turkey

Mayor of New York City Eric Adams seems to have a special affinity for Azerbaijan and Turkey. We will soon find out if that special relationship has overstepped the bounds of legality.

A year ago, I wrote an article about Mayor Adams who notoriously had declared: “After I retire from government, I’m going to live in Baku.”

The New York Daily News published an article in 2021 under the title: “NYC mayoral candidate Eric Adams accepted foreign travel to countries with a history of corruption.” The article disclosed that “Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has accepted thousands of dollars in travel and other perks from China, Turkey and Azerbaijan, three countries with a well-documented history of suppressing their citizens.”

Adams recently acknowledged that he had traveled to Turkey eight times. In August 2023, he boasted during a Turkish flag-raising ceremony in Manhattan that there were probably no other mayors in New York City history who had visited Turkey as frequently as he has. In August 2015, the Turkish government paid thousands of dollars for then-Brooklyn Borough president Adams to visit Turkey for six days where he signed a sister city agreement with Istanbul’s Uskudar district. The Turkish consulate paid up to $4,999 for his airfare, hotel stay and ground transportation, according to Adams’ disclosure with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB). The New York Daily News reported that in 2016, “Azerbaijan’s tourism ministry paid up to $4,999 for Adams to visit its capital Baku for four days, according to the borough president’s COIB disclosure.” Adams has held fundraising events for his campaign in the Azeri and Turkish restaurants Baku Palace and Ali Baba in New York City. On Sept. 19, 2023, Mayor Adams attended an event hosted by President Erdogan’s wife Emine at the Turkish House in New York City.

Last Thursday, 10 FBI agents raided the home of the Mayor’s chief fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, to investigate “whether Mayor Eric Adams’s 2021 election campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations, according to a search warrant obtained by The New York Times.” The 2025 reelection campaign of Adams paid Suggs’ company nearly $100,000 for fund-raising and campaign consulting services.

“Investigators sought to learn more about the potential involvement of a Brooklyn construction company with ties to Turkey, as well as a small university in Washington, D.C., that also has ties to the country and to Mr. Adams,” the NYT reported. “According to the search warrant, investigators were also focused on whether the mayor’s campaign kicked back benefits to the [KSK] construction company’s officials and employees, and to Turkish officials.” The City news website reported that 84 donors, most of them employees of KSK Construction Group, whose founders are from Turkey, had contributed over $69,000 to the Mayor’s campaign. However, “multiple people listed in Adams 2021 campaign donation records as KSK employees either said they did not donate to Eric Adams or refused to state whether they had ever donated,” The City reported.

During last Thursday’s raid, the FBI searched for records of travel to Turkey and documents linking the government of that country and its intermediaries to the Adams campaign, seizing three iPhones, two computers and various files from Suggs’ home. Investigators also sought documents regarding Bay Atlantic University, a Turkish-owned university in Washington, D.C. that opened in 2014. In 2015, Adams “visited one of the school’s sister universities in Istanbul, where he was given various certificates and was told that a scholarship would be created in his name,” according to the NYT.

Last Thursday, the New York City Mayor, who had traveled to Washington, D.C. for meetings with Senior White House, Members of Congress and other mayors, abruptly cancelled his meetings and returned back to New York City the same day as the FBI raid.

The NYT reported: “The [search] warrant suggested that some of the foreign campaign contributions were made as part of a straw donor scheme, where donations are made in the names of people who did not actually give money. Investigators sought evidence to support potential charges that included the theft of federal funds and conspiracy to steal federal funds, wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, as well as campaign contributions by foreign nationals and conspiracy to make such contributions.”

In July, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted seven individuals who fundraised for the Mayor’s 2021 campaign on multiple counts, including conspiracy and bribe-taking and conspiracy to funnel illegal donations, according to the NYT.

The FBI investigation has not targeted Adams personally. He said that he “had no clear knowledge, direct or indirect, of any improper fundraising activity — and certainly not of any foreign money.”

But if it is proven that he had conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal campaign funds, the Mayor may have to retire in Baku or Istanbul much earlier than he expected.

November 11, 2023
Azerbaijani Gaza Hostage Wrongly Added In Letter to Biden Signed by Celebrities

We are all following the heartbreaking events that are taking place in Israel and Gaza where thousands of innocent people are killed, and hundreds have been taken hostage by Hamas. I condemn all loss of life and hostage-taking regardless of nationality, race or religion.

Throughout history, as victims of mass murders and Genocide, Armenians understand well the tragic effects of large-scale killings. Before, during and after the 2020 Artsakh war, the most gruesome crimes were committed against thousands of Armenian soldiers and civilians by Azeris.

At the end of the war, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia signed an agreement that called for the exchange of all Prisoners of War. Armenia kept its end of the bargain by freeing all Azeri prisoners immediately, while Azerbaijan is still holding dozens of Armenians in captivity three years later. No one knows their exact number. These detainees have been wrongly tried and sentenced to long prison terms not only in violation of the 2020 agreement, but also the Geneva Convention. Armenian prisoners have been tortured while in Azeri custody and an unknown number have been killed.

To make matters worse, after occupying Artsakh last month, Azerbaijan captured eight high-ranking Artsakh government officials, including three former presidents, the former State, Defense, and Foreign ministers, deputy army commander, and Chairman of the Artsakh Parliament. They are all held as hostages with no hope that they will be released anytime soon.

Turning to the tragic predicament of the over 200 hostages captured by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, I support all efforts to have these hostages released as soon as possible. Several hundred Hollywood celebrities, including Madonna, Chris Rock, Justin Timberlake, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jerry Seinfeld, and Tyler Perry, signed a joint letter to Pres. Joe Biden urging him to “not rest until all hostages are released.”

Last week, an article appeared in various entertainment magazines and websites that publicized the letter signed by the celebrities to Biden. The press release about the letter was distributed to the media by Melissa Zukerman, the Managing Partner at Principal Communications Group, a PR agency in in Los Angeles. Despite the good intentions of the initiators of the campaign, a regrettable mistake detracted from the commendable effort.

The letter included a paragraph that said: “We urge everyone to not rest until all hostages are released. No hostage can be left behind. Whether American, Argentinian, Australian, Azerbaijani, Brazilian, British, Canadian, Chilean, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Eritrean, Filipino, French, German, Indian, Israeli, Italian, Kazakh, Mexican, Panamanian, Paraguayan, Peruvian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, South African, Spanish, Sri Lankan, Thai, Ukrainian, Uzbekistani or otherwise, we need to bring them home.”

I commend the celebrities, Ms. Zukerman and everyone else who had a hand in preparing the letter to Pres. Biden. However, I was surprised to see in the list of captured nationalities a reference to ‘Azerbaijani’ hostages. As I had not heard that any Azerbaijani was kidnapped by Hamas from Israel, I wondered if that information was accurate. So, I sent Ms. Zukerman an email asking about the veracity of the reference to an Azerbaijani hostage. She did not reply to my email. She also ignored my follow-up email as well as a phone message I left for her.

Having done further research, I discovered that there were no reports about an Azerbaijani hostage, except for eight Azerbaijanis, of which two were dual Azerbaijani-Israeli citizens, who were regrettably killed by Hamas during the attack.

I then contacted the agent of one of the celebrities who had signed the letter and asked her if she knew anything about an Azerbaijani who was taken hostage by Hamas. The celebrity’s agent told me that in the version of the letter that her client had signed there was no mention of Azerbaijan or any other nationality. When I sent her the copy of the letter publicized in the media, she was shocked to learn that Ms. Zukerman’s office had asked the celebrities to sign a version of the letter that did not include the names of the 33 nationalities, Ms. Zukerman’s office must have then sent the altered version of the letter to Pres. Biden without informing the celebrities that what they had signed is not what was sent to the White House. Appallingly, these celebrities were not informed of the change in the letter either before or after signing it. This is highly unprofessional and unethical.

So, this is how Azerbaijan was included wrongly in a letter to Pres. Biden, making one its citizens a victim of hostage-taking, while in reality, Azerbaijan is the one that is guilty of taking Armenian hostages. Regrettably, Ms. Zukerman ignored all of my attempts to find out from her how such a mistake could have happened, and why no effort was made to correct it or at least provide a proper explanation? As far as I know, there are no Azerbaijani hostages in Gaze or anywhere else in the world. If I am wrong, Ms. Zukerman had plenty of chances to correct my information but refused to do so.

Lastly, the letter stated, “No hostage can be left behind” (www.NoHostageLeftBehind.com), which implies that all hostages in the world, no matter who had captured them and wherever they are, should be released. Such an all-inclusive plea should have also referred to the dozens of Armenian hostages held in Azerbaijan.

Only when we care about all hostages without any distinction, we can claim that we are true humanitarians.

October 31, 2023
Why is the US government So Vigilant About Israel, but not Armenia?

The most common question among Armenians these days is: Why did the United States government support Israel so strongly and promptly, but not Armenia and Artsakh?

This question became more pertinent after Politico disclosed last week that Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned: “Azerbaijan may invade Armenia in the coming weeks.”

During an October 3 phone call with Cong. Nancy Pelosi, Anna Eshoo and Frank Pallone and others, Blinken reportedly told them: “the State Department was looking at avenues to hold Azerbaijan accountable and isn’t planning to renew a long-standing waiver that allows the U.S. to provide military assistance to Baku.” Blinken added: “the State [Dept.] saw a possibility that Azerbaijan would invade southern Armenia in the coming weeks.” Politico wrote that two other unidentified sources confirmed the phone conversation. Cong. Pallone tweeted on Oct. 11 that “Aliyev is moving forward with his objective to take Southern Armenia.” On Oct. 15, in a written statement to Armenpress, State Dept. spokesman Matthew Miller said that the Politico article “is inaccurate and in no way reflects what Secretary Blinken said to lawmakers.” However, Politico said it firmly stands by its report.

Surprisingly, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated on Oct. 11 that the “risk was “extremely low,” and that there was no military buildup on either side of the border. Thus, the Prime Minister contradicted what Tigran Balayan, Armenia’s ambassador to the European Union, said on Oct. 6: Azerbaijan is actively preparing an invasion of Armenia within weeks.

More importantly, Blinken and other US officials have repeatedly said that they are committed to “Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” They have stated that “they are deeply concerned by Azerbaijan’s military action, declaring that the use of force to resolve disputes is unacceptable.” However, the U.S. government not only ignored its own warnings to Azerbaijan, but also the occupation of Artsakh and parts of Armenia proper. The United States, France and Russia have apparently decided that Turkey and Azerbaijan are much important for them than Armenia, regardless of the agreements Russia signed with Armenia and the sympathies of Western countries for Armenians. They have offered Armenians merely sympathetic words with zero action. Such shameful behavior has emboldened the dictator in Baku to move forward with impunity with his expansionist plans. These major powers did not even have the courage to pass a UN Security Council resolution to condemn Azerbaijan or impose sanctions.

Understandably, most Armenians are furious at the Israeli government for permitting its arms manufacturers to provide 60% of Azerbaijan’s advanced weapons which have killed and wounded thousands of Armenian soldiers during and after the 2020 War.

The more important issue is: why the United States is so protective of Israel, but not Armenia? The short answer is: due mostly to the activism of the Jewish-American community. There was a time when Jewish Americans were discriminated against in many ways. From the 1920’s until after World War II, American universities limited the number of Jewish students they admitted. After World War II, the United States even refused to accept thousands of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

However, Jewish Americans overcame many obstacles by playing prominent roles in all aspects of American life, such as business, science, arts, literature, music, films, theater, comedy, media, civil rights and politics. As of January 2023, there were 37 Jewish Americans in Congress: 10 Senators and 27 House members. Sen. Chuck Schumer is the Senate Majority Leader. The US government contributed $53.6 million to build the US Holocaust Memorial Museum on donated federal land. Over the years, scores of Jewish Americans have served on the US Supreme Court. Shelley Greenspan is the White House Jewish Liaison. In the State Dept., Ellen Germain is the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues and Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt is the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband Douglas Emhoff is a Jewish American. There are several Jews serving in high-level governmental positions, such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Deputy Director of the CIA David Cohen, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Eric Lander, Deputy Health Secretary Rachel Levine, and National Security Agency cybersecurity director Anne Neuberger.

80 years ago, when 400 Rabbis asked to meet with Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, they were turned down. But last week, a group of Jewish Americans met with Pres. Joe Biden in the White House which was lit up in the colors of the Israeli flag. They have come a long way.

In the category of “Israel lobby in the United States,” Wikipedia mentions Christians United for Israel with over seven million members, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which has three million members and $100 million annual budget, and J Street with an annual budget of $2 million. On the other hand, Armenian-Americans have two advocacy groups: the Armenian Assembly of America and Armenian National Committee of America with limited budgets. Armenians need to hire powerful US lobbying firms to counter those of Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Armenians should increase their involvement in political campaigns and run for elective office. College students should specialize in political science or international relations. Armenians should increase their contacts with the US media; write letters to the editor and commentaries in local and national newspapers. The community should support financially the Armenian advocacy groups and contribute to the fundraising campaigns of political candidates. By playing prominent roles in American life, Armenians can influence domestic and foreign policy of the United States and help support Armenia and the Armenian Cause.

October 16, 2023
After the Loss of Artsakh, Pashinyan Should Declare 2020 Agreement Null & Void

On Nov. 10, 2020, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of Russia Vladimir Putin signed a ceasefire agreement in the Artsakh War.

Ceasefires usually signify that the warring sides stop the fighting wherever they had reached until then. Oddly, in the case of the 2020 ceasefire agreement, Armenia surrendered to Azerbaijan large swaths of land where no Azeri soldier had set foot on, such as the Agdam, Kalbajar and Lachin districts, but not the Corridor.

Therefore, the 2020 agreement was more of a capitulation than a ceasefire for Armenia. Here are the resulting problems:

1) Prime Minister Pashinyan had no reason to sign a ceasefire agreement with Azerbaijan since the war was between Azerbaijan and Artsakh, not Armenia. Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan had declared war against each other.

2) Pashinyan had no authorization to turn over to Azerbaijan territories that belonged to Artsakh, not Armenia.

3) The 2020 agreement set deadlines for Armenia, but not for Azerbaijan, to carry out various obligations, such as the evacuation of territories and exchange of prisoners of war. Unwisely, the Armenian government handed over all the Azeri prisoners right away, while Azerbaijan released only a small number of Armenian prisoners. Three years later, dozens of Armenian prisoners are still languishing in Baku jails. Pashinyan is not only making no efforts to return these prisoners but does not even talk about them.

4) Under the 2020 agreement, the Lachin Corridor — the only road that connected Artsakh to Armenia — was forcefully and illegally taken over by Azerbaijan on Dec. 12, 2022, even though Russian Peacekeepers were supposed to control it.

5) The 2020 agreement mandated that “all economic and transport connections in the region shall be unblocked.” This means that both Armenia and Azerbaijan would be able to cross each other’s territories. Pashinyan expressed his readiness to allow Azeris to travel through Armenia from the eastern part of Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhichevan, but never mentioned that such access was to be reciprocal. Contrary to the 2020 agreement, Azerbaijan demanded not just a passage, but a ‘corridor’ which means that the road through Armenia would belong to Azerbaijan. Pres. Aliyev never once mentioned that he will in turn allow Armenians to cross Azerbaijan’s border. To make matters worse, Turkey has been falsely demanding that Armenia accept the ‘Zangezur Corridor’ before it would agree to open the Armenia-Turkey border.

6) Pashinyan has repeatedly talked about his plan to sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan. There is no need to sign such a peace treaty since Armenia was not at war with Azerbaijan. Peace treaties are signed between warring parties. Azerbaijan was at war with Artsakh, not Armenia.

7) Contrary to the 2020 agreement, which mandated that Russian Peacekeepers would remain in Artsakh until 2025, Azerbaijan violated that provision by invading and occupying the remainder of Artsakh last month, forcing its 120,000 inhabitants to flee to Armenia.

8) Azerbaijan’s occupation of Artsakh in September 2023 made the role of the Russian Peacekeepers unnecessary, which means that the Russian soldiers would have to leave what is now Azeri territory.

9) While there are good reasons to blame Russia for its inaction in protecting Artsakh Armenians, there is an equally good reason to blame Pashinyan for conceding that Artsakh is part of Azerbaijan. It is clear that despite Russia’s alliance with Armenia, given its involvement in the Ukraine War, Pres. Putin has decided that Turkey (the only NATO member that has not sanctioned Russia) and its junior brother Azerbaijan are much more important to Russia’s national interests than Armenia or Artsakh. Meanwhile, the West has not been of much help to Armenia either, except for issuing supportive statements, but no action.

10) After the 2020 War, when Azerbaijan’s army entered and occupied the eastern territory of Armenia, Pashinyan not only makes no effort to dislodge the enemy from Armenia’s sovereign territory but does not even talk about Azerbaijan’s illegal presence there.

11) Pashinyan’s long list of mistakes includes acknowledging that the Soviet-era Azeri inhabited enclaves inside Armenia are part of Azerbaijan. There was no reason for Pashinyan to offer to Azerbaijan these enclaves, especially since Aliyev had made no such demands.

12) Pashinyan unilaterally recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity without any reciprocal recognition by Aliyev.

Given Pashinyan’s mishandling of the above 12 critical issues, refusal to resign and turn over his seat to a competent leader, the only option left for him is to declare that the 2020 agreement is null and void since Azerbaijan has violated most of its provisions.

Pashinyan should refuse to sit at the negotiating table with Aliyev until he releases all Armenian prisoners of war and withdraws his troops from Armenia’s territory. Aliyev should first honor his previous commitments before Armenians can trust him to abide by future agreements.

Fortunately, the 2020 agreement can easily be discarded because it was not ratified by the Parliaments of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia as an international treaty. It was simply signed by Pashinyan without consulting anyone. The next leader of Armenia, on his first day in office, should nullify the 2020 agreement.

October 9, 2023
Biden’s Inaction on Artsakh Disappoints Armenian-Americans

There are many justified complaints about Russia’s shameful role in the loss of Artsakh and inaction in coming to the defense of Armenia’s borders. However, there is also a lot to complain about the indifference by the international community, including the United States, about Azerbaijan’s aggression against Artsakh and Armenia.

For 30 years, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, composed of the United States, France and Russia, the mediators in the Artsakh conflict, issued repeated statements about the unacceptability of the use of force, urging the settlement of the dispute through peaceful negotiations.

However, contrary to such well-intentioned words, when Azerbaijan repeatedly attacked Artsakh and Armenia with frequent shootings at the border for three decades, the OSCE Minsk Group simply issued meaningless statements, urging both sides not to engage in violence. The OSCE, however, never bothered to point a finger at the guilty party — Azerbaijan — thus equating the victimizer with the victim.

Such unjust statements encouraged Azerbaijan to brazenly continue its attacks, culminating in the unleashing of a massive war against Artsakh in 2020, followed by incursions into the territory of Armenia. Last month, Azerbaijan violated the agreement it signed in 2020 to allow Russian peacekeepers to protect the remnants of Artsakh’s population until 2025. Pres. Ilham Aliyev, knowing full well that no foreign country would intervene to stop his attacks, ethnically cleansed the 120,000 inhabitants of Artsakh and drove them out of their historical homeland.

On Sept. 14, 2023, the Acting Assistant Secretary of State Yuri Kim testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “We will not tolerate any military action. We will not tolerate any attack on the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.” Days later, Azerbaijan attacked and occupied Artsakh confident that the U.S. government was bluffing.

Naturally, no one expected the United States or another major power to send troops to defend Artsakh and Armenia, but merely urging Azerbaijan not to block the Lachin Corridor or refrain from the use of force is an exercise in futility. The international community did not even impose sanctions on Azerbaijan because its gas and oil was more valuable than Armenian blood.

To make matters worse, after ignoring Azerbaijan’s repeated attacks on Artsakh and Armenia since the 2020 war, Samantha Power, the Administrator of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), finally arrived in Armenia last week, bringing along a letter from Pres. Joe Biden which contained a lot of sweet words for Armenians, but once again, no action.

Even more shocking, Power offered the pitiful amount of $11.5 million in humanitarian aid to the 120,000 destitute Artsakh refugees. That’s almost $96 for each refugee, deprived of housing, food, medicines and other basic necessities. This is a shameful amount of money compared to the USAID’s annual budget of $50 billion. Her visit was too late and accomplished too little.

Several other countries and international agencies also pledged assistance to the Artsakh Armenians: France ($7.4 million), Germany ($5.3 million), the European Union ($5.3 million), Sweden ($1.3 million), Canada ($1.85 million), Denmark ($140,000), United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR (amount unspecified), Japan (amount unspecified), Spain (amount unspecified). Armenia committed $25 million, plus $125 for rent and utilities per month for six months for each refugee. The government of Cyprus invited the Artsakh refugees to resettle in Cyprus. However, it is not a good idea to take these displaced Armenians out of Armenia.

In addition, dozens of Armenian organizations throughout the Diaspora are raising funds to help the Artsakh refugees. There are also many charitable organizations and businesses in Armenia that are helping the Artsakh Armenians with funds, supplies or services. Armenia’s Ministry of Finance opened a bank account to receive donations from the public. There is also an office set up by the Armenian government to coordinate the distribution of the offered assistance.

Just in case someone thinks that the pledged assistance is a lot of money, it is in fact a negligible amount compared to the vast needs of the refugees for the months and years to come. Ukraine, on the other hand, has received so far $80 billion from the United States for its military, financial and humanitarian needs. In addition, 41 other countries have contributed tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine.

The lack of concrete action by the Biden Administration, aside from pledging $11.5 million to the Artsakh refugees, has highly disappointed many Armenian-Americans. It is surprising that Pres. Biden, an experienced politician and candidate for reelection next year, who has one of the lowest ratings in the history of the United States for an incumbent president, has not made more of an effort to win over Armenian-American voters. Even if Pres. Biden does not care about Armenia and Artsakh, he should have at least cared about his own self-interest, which is getting votes for his own re-election.

October 3, 2023
Artsakh is Lost After Being Abandoned By Armenia, Russia and the West

Last week, Armenians worldwide experienced one of the biggest tragedies of their lives after Azerbaijan occupied Artsakh.

120,000 Artsakh Armenians — men, women and children — were attacked in their historic homeland by advanced weapons imported by oil-rich Azerbaijan from Israel, Russia, Pakistan and Eastern Europe.

The main evil-doers are Azerbaijan and its partner Turkey which are guilty of committing mass crimes against the people of Artsakh.

However, there is plenty of blame to go around. I want to start with the shameful role that Armenia’s Prime Minister has played in this disaster. Starting from 2001, while Pashinyan was an unknown journalist, he wrote in his Haykakan Jamanak newspaper that “through diplomacy, it is not possible not to return these [Artsakh] territories to Azerbaijan…. Having abandoned our own lands, we are trying to be the owners of someone else’s land.” After becoming Prime Minister, Pashinyan made numerous contradictory statements regarding Artsakh, first stating emphatically that “Artsakh is Armenia, that’s it,” and then, “Artsakh is part of Azerbaijan.” While the words of a journalist may not matter, his statements as Prime Minister cannot be dismissed. Game over! Artsakh is lost and nothing is expected to change that reality for a long time. As always, Pashinyan blames everyone else for his misdeeds, including the former leaders, the domestic opposition, and Russia.

To make matters worse, Pashinyan washed his hands from Artsakh and urged its leaders to sort out their differences with Azerbaijan. Pashinyan basically threw 120,000 poorly-armed Artsakh Armenians to the big bad Azeri wolf. How can tiny Artsakh negotiate with powerful Azerbaijan? Pashinyan ignored the fact that since Artsakh Armenians are citizens of Armenia, it was his constitutional duty to protect them. For months, he made the laughable promise that the rights and security of Artsakh Armenians will be protected after they become citizens of Azerbaijan. Ridiculously, Pashinyan announced last week, a couple of hours before the UN Security Council meeting, that the lives of Armenian civilians in Artsakh were secure after Azerbaijan’s attack. Shortly thereafter Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told the Security Council that Azerbaijan is engaged in ethnic cleansing of Artsakh Armenians. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister immediately pointed out to the UN the contradictory statements by the two Armenian leaders, thus undermining Armenia’s credibility in front of the whole world. In the meantime, hundreds of Artsakh Armenians were killed and wounded, and thousands are missing as a result of Azerbaijan’s attack.

Last week, when Azerbaijan’s strong military invaded what remained of Artsakh, Pashinyan announced that Armenia will not get involved in the conflict, thus giving the green light to Azerbaijan to commit all sorts of horrible crimes on the people of Artsakh. Pashinyan has held the mistaken notion that once Artsakh is returned to Azerbaijan, citizens of Armenia will live in peace. Regrettably, this is the farthest thing from the truth. Azerbaijan’s President, seeing in front of him a militarily weak Armenia and a leader who has no idea what he is doing, will not stop after his conquest of Artsakh. Aliyev will keep on demanding concessions from the weakling Pashinyan and occupy more and more territories of the Republic of Armenia. Aliyev has repeatedly and falsely claimed that all of Armenia is “Western Azerbaijan.” Since the 2020 war, Azerbaijan’s troops occupied portions of Armenia’s territory and have no intention of leaving. My fear is that Aliyev will continue making incursions into Armenia, until he takes over the whole country. Therefore, Pashinyan’s premise that Armenians in Armenia will leave in peace after abandoning Artsakh is absurd.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev quickly capitalized on Pashinyan’s capitulation and repeatedly told the world that since Armenia’s Prime Minister admitted that Artsakh is part of Azerbaijan, that region is his country’s internal issue and no one has the right to intervene. Shortly thereafter, Russia’s leaders, including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, repeatedly stated that Pashinyan is the one who relinquished Artsakh.

Nevertheless, Russia has its own share of guilt for what has been taking place in the last three years, and what happened in Artsakh last week. The Russian peacekeepers, who were mandated by the 2020 agreement to safeguard the population of Artsakh and keep the Lachin Corridor open until 2025, failed miserably to carry out their responsibilities. Russia did not even try to protect the borders of the Republic of Armenia, as required by the CSTO agreement signed between Armenia, Russia and several other former Soviet Republics. Russia’s inaction and Pashinyan’s relinquishment of Artsakh resulted in the massive human tragedy suffered by 120,000 Artsakh Armenians.

The international community is also guilty of ignoring the suffering of Artsakh Armenians who lost their historic homeland after being starved for nine months due to the blockade of the Lachin Corridor by Azerbaijan. Other than saying a lot of useless words, no one in the world lifted a finger to rescue these people and defend their rights. All international laws, human rights, and notions of justice were a lot of hot air. Equally useless were the UN Security Council, the International Court of Justice, European Court of Human Rights, European Union, European Council, and statements by officials of many countries, including the United States. As we all know, might makes right. Nothing else matters.

The top priority of Armenians worldwide now is seeking the immediate ouster of Pashinyan, since he is refusing to resign and digging a deeper hole for Armenia with every passing day. Unless Pashinyan is replaced soon by a competent and nationalistic Armenian who protects Armenia’s interests, Armenians may end up losing their homeland, this time for good!

After Pashinyan is replaced, Armenia’s new leader has to put all other issues aside and immediately acquire a massive amount of advanced weapons to defend the country’s borders from further incursions.

After vainly hoping and waiting for thousands of years for a foreign power to come and save Armenia, it is high time that Armenians finally realize that no one will ever come to rescue them. They need to save themselves!

October 2, 2023