The raised flags of Turkmenistan and the United Nations marked the official opening of the Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDC3). Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
AWAZA, Turkmenistan, Aug 5 2025 (IPS)

Heads of State, ministers, investors and grassroots leaders are gathered in Awaza on Turkmenistan’s Caspian coast for a once-in-a-decade UN conference aimed at rewiring the global system in support of 32 landlocked developing countries whose economies are often ‘locked out’ of opportunity due to their lack of access to the sea.

Geography has long dictated the destiny of landlocked nations. Trade costs are up to 74 percent higher than the global average. It can take twice as long to move goods across borders compared to coastal countries. As a result, landlocked nations are left with just 1.2 percent of world trade and are at great risk of being left furthest behind amid global economic shifts.

Speaking during the opening plenary and in the context of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedow stated that his country believes “in the need to accelerate the process of ensuring transport connectivity, as well as to bring fresh ideas and momentum to this process.”

“In connection with this, last year at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Turkmenistan proposed creating a new partnership format, namely a global atlas of sustainable transport connectivity. I invite all foreign participants to carefully consider this initiative.”

The Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries, or LLDC3, is pushing for freer transit, smarter trade corridors, stronger economic resilience, and fresh financing to boost development prospects for the estimated 600 million people living in those countries.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres stressed that the conference is centered on reaffirming a fundamental truth: that “geography should never define destiny.”

“Yet,” Guterres continued, “For the 32 landlocked developing countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America, geography too often limits development opportunities and entrenches inequality.”

Rabab Fatima, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, and Secretary-General of the Third United Nations Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries, said, “For too long, LLDCs have been defined by the barriers of geography, remoteness, inaccessibility, and the fact that they do not have a sea. But that is only part of the story.”

She stressed that LLDCs may be landlocked, but they are not opportunity locked, as they are rich in resources, resilience, and ambition. These countries seek to lean into these resources and strong partnerships to counter challenges such as an infrastructure financing shortfall of over USD 500 billion.

For these countries, goods take 42 days to enter and 37 days to exit their borders. Paved road density stands at just 12 percent of the global average. Internet access is only 39 percent. To address these constraints, the Awaza Programme of Action proposes a new facility for financing infrastructure investments. This new initiative aims to mobilize capital in large quantities to bridge the gaps and construct roads.

Meanwhile, as these daunting challenges prevail, Guterres said debt burdens are rising to dangerous and unsustainable levels. And one-third of LLDCs are grappling with vulnerability, insecurity, or conflict. Despite representing 7 percent of the world’s population, LLDCs account for just over one percent of the global economy and trade—a stark example of deep inequalities that perpetuate marginalization.

Guterres emphasized that these inequalities are not inevitable. They are the result of an unfair global economic and financial architecture unfit for the realities of today’s interconnected world, compounded by systemic neglect, structural barriers, and—in many cases—the legacy of a colonial past.”

“Recent shocks—from the COVID-19 pandemic to climate disasters, supply chain disruptions, conflicts and geopolitical tensions—have deepened the divide, pushing many LLDCs further away from achieving the SDGs.”

Further stressing that the conference is not about obstacles but solutions that include launching a new decade of ambition—through the Awaza Programme of Action and its deliverables—and fully unlocking the development potential of landlocked developing countries.

Fatima said the Awaza Programme of Action is a bold and ambitious blueprint to transform the development landscape for the 32 landlocked developing countries for the next decade. The theme of the conference, ’Driving Progress Through Partnerships,’ captures a collective resolve to unlock that potential. It underscores the new era of collaboration where LLDCs are not seen as isolated or constrained but as fully integrated.

Emphasizing that the Awaza Programme of Action provides “the tools to unlock the full potential of LLDCs and turn their structural challenges into transformative opportunities. The implementation of the Programme of Action has begun. We arrive in Awaza with momentum on our side. We have put together a UN system-wide development and monitoring framework with clear milestones and outcomes, comprising over 320 complete projects, programs, and activities.”

“Over the course of the week, we will see here the launch of many new partnerships and initiatives that will bring fresh momentum to its implementation. As we take this process forward, allow me to highlight three strategic priorities that will guide our work in Awaza. First, bridging the infrastructure and connectivity gap remains our top priority,” she said.

Heads of state and governments, including the presidents of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Republic of Armenia, Tajikistan, the Republic of Kazakhstan, and His Majesty King Mswati III from the Kingdom of Eswatini, stressed the significance of the conference for the group of landlocked developing countries in terms of identifying priority areas for further efforts with a focus on addressing modern challenges the international community is facing.

Mswati III said the conference reaffirms a shared commitment to having the structural barriers that hinder LLDCs from participating in the global economy, offering a platform to chart a path of resilience, innovation and inclusive growth. The leaders also shared many of the successes they have achieved amidst daunting challenges.

“To build resilience and ensure sustainable growth, Eswatini is diversifying beyond traditional sectors. We are promoting investment in agroprocessing, tourism, renewable energy, ICT, creativity, industries and private enterprise. This strategy broadens our economic base, creates jobs and supports inclusive development, aligning with our national priorities for 2030 and 2063,” he said.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, said that his country was “demonstrating strong momentum towards greater openness and transparency in logistics. Complex measures are being implemented to facilitate the digitalization of trade and transport processes. Structural transport and logistics spaces are the basis for dynamic transport implementation.”

Mirziyoyev stated that today, a single transport and logistics space is being established in the region. Comprehensive programs and projects are being implemented to transform Central Asia into a fully-fledged transit hub between East and West and North and South. Recently, mutual trade volumes have grown 4.5-fold, investments have doubled, and the number of joint ventures has increased 5-fold.

“This year, jointly with our partners, we have started construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway. Freight traffic on the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Turkey transport corridor has increased significantly. In today’s world, it is crucial to have concrete, feasible, and institutionally supported solutions to overcome common threats and challenges,” he stated.

Fatima, the Secretary-General of the Conference, said the challenges are many, varied and complex, requiring investing in robust implementation tools and partnerships at all levels.

“Our mapping confirms that every target adopted here in Awaza advances inclusive, resilient and sustainable development. But policy alignment alone is not enough. We need a whole-of-society approach,” she expounded.

“This Conference marks a turning point in that regard. For the first time, LLDC3 features dedicated platforms for civil society, the private sector, youth, women leaders, parliamentarians, and South-South partners – each playing a critical role in making the APOA people-centered and responsive.”

Overall, she urged the global community to seize the present moment—with ambition, unity, and purpose—to chart a new path for the LLDCs: one of prosperity, resilience, and full global integration. She stressed that the true legacy of the ongoing conference will not be measured by declarations, but by the real and lasting change that is delivered on the ground.

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Armenia has finalised its accession to the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, an intended regional counterweight to the European Union. But while Armenian and Russian officials focus on future prosperity, some Armenian observers believe membership in the bloc could exacerbate Armenia’s security challenges.

During an Oct. 10 meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, held in Minsk, Belarus, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan confirmed that Armenia would be formally admitted to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) when it launches on Jan. 1, 2015.“Currently, we have no expectations with regard to security. We see only threats.” -- Aghasi Yenokian, director of a Yerevan-based think-tank

The Armenian government approved the draft text of the accession agreement in early October, Armenian media reported. The EEU will be an outgrowth of the existing customs union among Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Armenian political analysts greeted the accession announcement with mixed feelings, in part because the final text of the pact has not been subjected to public scrutiny. There is particular concern about the pact’s ramifications for Armenia’s relationship with the Nagorno Karabakh territory, an enclave inhabited by ethnic Armenians who aspire to gain international recognition of their de-facto independence from Azerbaijan.

A draft released earlier this year implied that a customs post would be established between Armenia and Karabakh. Local economists say that such an economic barrier would paralyse Karabakh’s economy since the territory depends on Armenia as its primary market for its limited selection of exports.

Beyond the potential economic ramifications, many Armenians would see the establishment of a customs regime as tantamount to the cutting of cultural ties with Karabakh, an act that could leave the territory – and, consequently, Armenia itself – vulnerable to possible Azerbaijani aggression.

“Currently, we have no expectations with regard to security. We see only threats,” commented Aghasi Yenokian, director of the Armenian Center for Political and International Studies, a Yerevan-based think-tank.

Over the past year, Armenian officials have said repeatedly that Armenia’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union takes into account security guarantees for both Armenia and Karabakh, but no proof of this has been offered.

As a result, uncertainty continues to swirl around the future of the Armenia-Karabakh trade relationship. Two of the EEU’s three members, Belarus and Kazakhstan, are on record as categorically opposed to allowing Armenia to share the bloc’s trade advantages with Karabakh, which none of the members recognise as a country independent from Azerbaijan.

In Minsk, however, Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev stated that a “compromise” had been reached “on a delicate question within the borders by which Armenia will be joined to our union,” the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

Details were not immediately available.

Members of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia contacted by EurasiaNet.org declined to comment on the challenges that EEU membership could pose for Armenia’s ties with Karabakh.

“There is a very complicated period awaiting us, taking into account the somewhat unfriendly attitude of the EEU to Armenia, particularly on the part of Nazarbayev and [Belarusian President Alexander ] Lukashenko,” commented Styopa Safarian, director of the Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs.

President Sargsyan, a native of Karabakh, does not, however, appear to share such worries. Congratulating Russian President Vladimir Putin on his Oct. 7 birthday, Sargsyan stated that Putin’s “consistent efforts” for a peaceful resolution of the 26-year Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan, and his support for Armenia’s EEU membership “deserve the deepest appreciation.”

Opposition parties have also adopted conciliatory stances toward Russia, observers note. This fact leaves some analysts glum; to them, it means the political class is unlikely to push hard to promote Armenia’s interests within the EEU.

“The opposition and the authorities do their best not to make the Kremlin angry,” said Styopa Safarian, the analyst and former member of the opposition Heritage Party. “This situation is not encouraging at all.”

Editor’s note:  Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter based in Yerevan and editor of MediaLab.am. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Heightened tensions with longtime foe Armenia over breakaway Nagorno Karabakh and mediator Russia’s Ukrainian adventure appear to be pushing Caspian-Sea energy power Azerbaijan ever more strongly toward a military strategy of self-reliance.

The strategy comes via two approaches: first, a build-up in Azerbaijani-made military equipment, including drones co-produced with Israel; and, second, a new defense troika with longtime strategic partners Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and neighbouring Georgia, a NATO-member-hopeful.

Nor is this a strategy just left to paper. On Sep. 11, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Yaver Jamalov announced to reporters that Azerbaijan plans to export 100 drones, co-produced at a local Azerbaijani-Israeli plant, to “one of the NATO countries.” The remarks headlined the country’s first international defense-industry show, ADEX-2014, held on Sep. 11-13 in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.

Jamalov did not specify the country or the terms of the sale, but the prospect of the deal reinforces the fact, long clear in foreign policy, that Baku sees itself as a regional military force that need no longer pay heed to the likes or dislikes of Russia.

While Azerbaijan has spent “several billion dollars” over the last decade importing a range of Russian-made military equipment, politics now have become an issue, commented military expert Azad Isazade, a former Azerbaijani defense-ministry official.

As it looks on the plans for a trade union with Azerbaijani enemy Armenia, Baku increasingly feels that Moscow’s interests in resolving the 26-year-long Karabakh conflict are more closely aligned with those of Armenia, where Russia already has troops stationed.

By focusing its attention on its own military-production capabilities or on military partnerships with other countries, “the Azerbaijani government wanted to balance the pro-Armenian position of Moscow,” Isazade said.

Elhan Shahinoglu, head of the non-profit Atlas Research Center in Baku, agreed. “I think that after the last meeting of the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian presidents in Sochi [in August], [Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev has lost any hope that Moscow is going to play a positive role in the Karabakh conflict’s resolution,” he commented.

The Kremlin’s support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and intervention in the conflict there does little to reassure Baku on this point.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has not specifically addressed such misgivings, but, in his opening remarks at ADEX-2014, commented that “in the current world, countries have to keep facing new security challenges, which make cooperation and the exchange of modern military technologies more important.”

Azerbaijan is due to receive 100 Russian-made T-90C tanks in early 2015, but the shipment is based on a 2010 contract, Trend news agency reported, citing an adviser to Russia’s state-owned weapons-export company, Rosobornexport. Azerbaijan has not announced any more such contracts.

Defense Minister Jamalov claims that Azerbaijan expects by the end of 2015 to be able to meet almost all of its own needs for ammunition and tank and artillery shells, formerly mostly supplied by Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

Israel, which imports most of its natural gas from Azerbaijan, appears to play a leading role in Azerbaijan’s makeover into a materiel-manufacturer. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon visited Azerbaijan for the first time this month to meet President Aliyev and attend ADEX-2014.

At the exhibition, Azerbaijan presented models of two drones produced in conjunction with an unnamed Israeli company – one for reconnaissance ( “Aerostar”) and one for combat-missions ( “Orbiter 2M”).

Overall, 200 companies from 34 countries, including the United States and Russia, took part in the event, which featured products ranging from armored troop carriers to sniper guns.

Only one contract with an Azerbaijani company was signed during the show, however, an Azerbaijani defense-industry representative commented to EurasiaNet.org.

South Africa’s Paramount Group, a privately owned defense company which claims to be the largest in Africa, plans to create a joint venture with Azerbaijan’s private AirTechService to work on upgrades to military helicopters and some jets.

The defense industry representative, who asked not to be named, noted, however, that other countries expected to take an interest in Azerbaijani materiel include Arab Persian-Gulf states, and, in Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

NATO member states Estonia, Bulgaria, Lativa, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, all of which have indicated they will increase defense spending in response to the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, also feature among the sales-targets, the representative said.

But weapons manufacturing alone does not provide Azerbaijan with a sense of security.

Like other former Soviet republics, Azerbaijan, with one eye on the Karabakh flare-up and another on the Ukrainian civil war, is trying to find new ways to protect itself from Russian pressure, noted Shahinoglu.

On Aug. 19, Defense Minister Hasanov met with Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Alasania and Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz in the exclave of Nakhchivan, President Aliyev’s ancestral home, to address the “military-political situation in the region,” as the government-friendly AzerNews put it.

After the meeting, Georgian Defense Minister Alasania, the most publicly talkative of the three, said the trio plans to defend collectively regional pipelines and railroads – strategic projects in which all three already cooperate – in case of military aggression in any of the three countries.

Joint military exercises also will be held, although the 30,000-troop exercises currently underway in Azerbaijan only include Azerbaijani forces.

While one Russian security analyst has questioned the pact’s significance since Turkey and Azerbaijan already are military allies, defense expert Isazade countered that Turkey’s presence will constrain Moscow in its treatment of Georgia and Azerbaijan, and reassure the international community that energy resources will be protected.

“If there would be just an alliance of Baku and Tbilisi, Moscow would not care,” he elaborated. “But Turkey, which is a NATO member and also has wide links and cooperation with Russia, is an important factor of stability for the region.”

So far, no official response has come from Moscow.

Originally published by EurasiaNet.org

Shahin Abbasov is a freelance correspondent based in Baku.    

Victory Day on May 9 was an occasion for Russians to indulge in patriotic flag waving in Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin used the previous day to muster a show of diplomatic support for his efforts to bring formerly Soviet states closer together.

On May 8, Putin met with the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in the Kremlin. Following the success of the Euromaidan movement in Kyiv, Putin has made it a priority to shore up support among other formerly Soviet states for Russia’s geopolitical agenda, in particular the establishment of a regional economic union as a precursor to a wider political union of Eurasian states.“It’s hard to predict anything these days, but it seems to me that the treaty will be signed -- but in a reduced form, with most difficult issues to be resolved after signing,. -- Nargis Kassenova

A treaty on the formation of a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is due to be signed in Astana in late May, paving the way for its launch in January 2015. The body would be an outgrowth of the existing Customs Union, a free trade zone comprising Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are slated to join the Customs Union before the end of the year.

As Putin warmly welcomed existing and potential union members in Moscow on May 8, ostensibly for security talks unrelated to the economic integration project, the question on the lips of Kremlin watchers was: will they or won’t they put pen to paper on the EEU founding document in less than three weeks’ time?

The Moscow meeting came on the heels of a disastrous Customs Union summit in Minsk on Apr. 29, where expectations of finalising the treaty fizzled as Putin and his counterparts, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, admitted that, at this late stage, they have differences over the pact’s wording.

Nazarbayev’s conspicuous absence from the May 8 talks in Moscow, convened under the auspices of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, set tongues wagging about differences of opinion. Contacted by telephone by EurasiaNet.org, Nazarbayev’s office said it had no comment — but some observers interpreted his no-show as a snub to Putin from one of his closest allies.

As other regional leaders were cozying up to the Kremlin, Nazarbayev was having a tete-a-tete in Astana with a senior official from the United States, Moscow’s arch-rival in the geopolitical struggle over Ukraine. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns used the meeting to assure Nazarbayev of America’s “enduring” commitment to Kazakhstan and Central Asia, the State Department said, as the Ukraine crisis helps “underscore what’s at stake.”

Regional analysts tend to believe that the recent signs are not indicators of insurmountable problems surrounding the EEU’s formation.

“It’s hard to predict anything these days, but it seems to me that the treaty will be signed — but in a reduced form, with most difficult issues to be resolved after signing,” Nargis Kassenova, director of the Central Asian Studies Center at Almaty’s KIMEP University, told EurasiaNet.org.

“If it’s not signed it will be a blow to the reputation of Vladimir Putin, but also to some extent that of Nursultan Nazarbayev,” she added. “Both invested a lot of personal image capital into it.”

Alex Nice, a regional analyst at the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit, also feels that integration plans are more or less on track.

“It’s possible there might be a further delay to the final signing of the document, but I’m confident that the treaty will come into force as planned next January,” he told EurasiaNet.org, pointing out that “negotiations on the EEU treaty are very far advanced.”

“Of course, some of the more controversial provisions will be subject to lengthy transition periods,” Nice added.

The chances of the agreement being signed on time are “quite high,” concurred regional security expert Aida Abzhaparova of the University of the West of England. Nazarbayev is a cheerleader for integration, she pointed out, and signing the treaty in Astana would have huge “symbolism” for him: Nazarbayev first proposed the notion of a Eurasian union long before Putin took it up, and sees himself as “the father of the idea.”

Speculation that the union might be heading off the rails was fueled by reports on May 7 that Kyrgyzstan’s prime minister, Joomart Otorbayev, wished to postpone membership for a year — but his spokeswoman denied the claim. Otorbayev had, on the contrary, said Kyrgyzstan would complete the legislative groundwork to join by the end of the year, Gulnura Toraliyeva told EurasiaNet.org by telephone.

Armenia is expected to join sooner – but is currently bogged down trying to negotiate some 900 exemptions to the union’s single customs tariff.

Analysts believe that incorporating the weaker economies of Armenia and Kyrgyzstan into the union is a sticking point in the treaty negotiations; Kazakhstan and Belarus are believed to be wary of the economic implications amid Russian efforts to expand its geopolitical clout.

Perhaps the biggest threat to the EEU’s success is Russia’s actions in Ukraine, suggests Kassenova.

“The Ukraine crisis undermined Russian policy in the post-Soviet space,” Kassenova said. “Now it’s seen as a bully without any respect for the sovereignty of its neighbors. Plus, the crisis undermined the economy of Russia and made it less capable of serving as the locomotive of integration.”

“On the one hand, the crisis should give more bargaining power to Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan,” she continued. “On the other, the overall destiny of the project is in doubt: will Russia have the will and resources to support and sponsor it further?”

Editor’s note:  Joanna Lillis is a freelance writer who specialises in Central Asia. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Turkish-Armenian activists hold photos of ancestors killed during the 1915 mass killing of 600,000 to 1.5 million ethnic Armenian during a vigil held on Apr. 24, 2014. Almost 100 years after the event, Turkey is slowly coming to terms with a part of its history that many have labeled a genocide. Credit: Joshua Kucera/EurasiaNet

By Joshua Kucera
ISTANBUL, Apr 29 2014 (EurasiaNet)

Turkish-Armenians are welcoming Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s offer of “condolences” for the mass killings of Armenian that began 99 years ago during the Ottoman era. But opinions are mixed as to whether Erdoğan’s words will lead the renewed action toward reconciliation.

Erdoğan’s comments on Apr. 23 stopped well short of acknowledging that the deaths of between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 constituted genocide, an admission that the Armenian government has sought since the country gained independence in 1991.“Turkish society is changing. They are putting pressure on the government about the Armenian genocide." -- Yildiz Onen

Erdoğan framed the tragedy, as Turkish officials have traditionally done, as occurring amid the chaos of World War I – a period when Ottoman citizens of every nationality were dying in large numbers.

Nevertheless, both the timing and the substance of Erdoğan’s comments took many in Turkey by surprise. Armenians mark Apr. 24 as Genocide Remembrance Day.

“It’s a turning point in history,” said Yildiz Onen, an Armenian activist in Istanbul who was one of the speakers at a small ceremony on Apr. 24 at the Heydarpasa train station in the city.

It was from that station that Ottoman authorities expelled more than 200 Armenian intellectuals from the city on Apr. 24, 1915, a step that Armenians now mark as the beginning of the genocide.

“It’s a big change,” said Garo Palian, a member of the central committee of the Peoples’ Democratic Party of Turkey. “They say that they are sorry about what happened, that was the most important thing in the statement.”

Not all the speakers at the Istanbul ceremony were impressed by Erdoğan’s words. Turkey needs to “move beyond empty condolences and to take steps toward the acknowledgment, recognition, and restitution of the Armenian genocide,” said Raffi Hovannisian, an Armenian politician and former presidential candidate.

The fact that Hovannisian could complain in public, at an event commemorating the 1915 tragedy, is in itself a sign of significant change in Turkey.

In 2005, novelist Orhan Pamuk was charged under the notorious Article 301 of the Turkish penal code with supposedly “insulting Turkishness” when he said in an interview with a Swiss magazine that “a million Armenians were murdered.”

A year later, another novelist, Elif Shafak, was charged under the same provision for addressing the genocide in her book, “The Bastard of Istanbul.” (Neither was convicted).

Turks have begun taking responsibility for what happened in 1915, and the government is following, Onen said. “Turkish society is changing. They are putting pressure on the government about the Armenian genocide,” Onen added.

Erdoğan’s government in recent years has cracked down on media and free speech, especially on individuals and news outlets critical of his government. Yet it has at the same time created more space for debate on what had been sensitive nationalist questions like the status of Armenians and Kurds.

For decades, Turkey’s government espoused a “national narrative that shaped an entire worldview around WWI … of threat and betrayal by outsiders and by inside traitors like the Armenians,” Jenny White, a visiting professor at Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies, said in an email interview with EurasiaNet.org.

“The AKP [Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party] abandoned this narrative in favour of a more expansive and global story of Turkey as heir to a world empire with vast, movable borders that embraced former enemies Greece and Armenia and, by extension, minorities in Turkey,” White continued.

Erdoğan’s new narrative, however, has been challenged in recent months by the prime minister’s crackdown on critical media and the revival of the “rhetoric of fear and betrayal by outsiders and disloyal insiders.”

Erdoğan’s statement about the events of 1915 marks a possible attempt to reset the narrative concerning a more globalized Turkey. “[It’s] a big and positive step,” White said.

The prime minister’s comments even gave backhanded praise to his government’s critics. “In Turkey, expressing different opinions and thoughts freely on the events of 1915 is the requirement of a pluralistic perspective, as well as of a culture of democracy and modernity,” the statement said.

“Some may perceive this climate of freedom in Turkey as an opportunity to express accusatory, offensive and even provocative assertions and allegations. Even so, if this will enable us to better understand historical issues with their legal aspects and to transform resentment to friendship again, it is natural to approach different discourses with empathy and tolerance and expect a similar attitude from all sides.”

The milestone in opening up discussion of Armenian issues, Onen said, was the 2007 murder of the Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink by a teenage Turkish nationalist. At Dink’s funeral, an estimated 200,000 people marched, chanting “We are all Armenians.”

“Things were opening but the big step, unfortunately, was the funeral,” Onen said.

But the trial of Dink’s killers was seen as a farce by both Armenians and by international monitors. Armenian activists in Turkey say that Erdoğan should back up his conciliatory words with action to call to account members of the security forces who are believed to be complicit in Dink’s murder.

“If he does that, we’ll see that the speech is sincere,” Palian said.

With a year to go before the centennial of 1915 killings, pressure is already building on Turkey to take positive PR steps. Yet, how much farther the Turkish government can go on the genocide issue remains unclear. Ankara’s situation is complicated by internal and external politics.

Turkey’s next general elections are scheduled for June 2015, meaning the 100th anniversary events will come in the middle of what could well be a contentious political campaign. Acknowledging the Armenian genocide could infuriate Turkish nationalists, a key voting bloc.

Internationally, too, the circumstances are not propitious for dramatic steps to reconcile with Armenians. Turkey abandoned a previous attempt at rapprochement with Armenia in 2010 by saying that it couldn’t restore relations until the conflict between Armenia and Turkish ally Azerbaijan was resolved.

Turkey has become dependent on Azerbaijani investment, and the crisis in Ukraine has increased the importance of natural gas transit from Azerbaijan to Europe, furthering strengthening Baku’s leverage in Ankara.

Ultimately, Erdoğan’s comments didn’t seem to win his government many points in Armenia. “The successor of Ottoman Turkey continues its policy of utter denial,” said Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

Hayk Demoian, the chairman of the Armenian Genocide Museum and Institute in Yerevan, said in a statement on the museum’s website that “I have to confess that this is an important step, but regretfully not in a direction of revealing the truth, facing the history and enabling reconciliation between Armenian and Turkish peoples.”

Editor’s note:  Joshua Kucera is a journalist based in Istanbul. He is the editor of EuraisaNet.org’s Bug Pit blog. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

A ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in relation to a Turkish national has kicked up a new row on anti-racism legislation.

The court ruled in December that Switzerland violated the right to freedom of speech of the Turkish national Doğu Perinçek by convicting him for calling the idea of an Armenian genocide an “international lie”.

In 2007, a court in the Swiss Canton of Vaud had found Perinçek guilty of racial discrimination as defined by Section 261 of the Swiss Criminal Code, ruling that the Armenian genocide was a proven historical fact. Already in 2003, the Swiss National Council had acknowledged the Armenian genocide.Until today, diverging interpretations of what happened in Armenia during and after the First World War strain bilateral relations.

Perinçek subsequently appealed in Switzerland’s Federal Court, which dismissed his claims. After that, Perinçek took his case to the ECHR in Strasbourg.

In its ruling, the ECHR found that Perinçek’s conviction by the Swiss court was wrong, as it violated Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights on freedom of expression. The court argued that Perinçek had never questioned the massacres and deportations perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, but had denied their characterisation as “genocide”. He didn’t mean to incite hatred against the Armenian people, the ECHR pointed out.

In fact, Perinçek’s view corresponds with Turkey’s official stance that is widely shared by the Turkish public, all main political parties as well as the state-run Historical Society. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry called the ECHR decision “a victory for the rule of law.”

Schools and universities in Turkey teach that the killings of Armenians were neither deliberate, nor orchestrated by the Ottoman leadership in Istanbul. Further, Turkish historians doubt that up to 1.5 million Armenians had died, as many Western scholars claim.

However, Turkish estimates vary, starting around 10,000 Armenian casualties. Turkish historians argue that most of the death occurred due to illness and malnutrition.

Beyond Turkey’s eastern border, lobbying for worldwide genocide recognition is a fundamental part of Armenia’s foreign policy. Until today, diverging interpretations of what happened in Armenia during and after the First World War strain bilateral relations.

The ECHR highlighted that it wasn’t called upon to address either the veracity of the massacres and deportations perpetrated against the Armenian people or the appropriateness of legally characterising those acts as “genocide”. It doubted that there could be a consensus on the issue.

The Switzerland-Armenia Association (SAA) said it was “deeply disappointed and appalled by the ECHR verdict.”

Dominique de Buman, Swiss national councillor and co-president of the SAA told IPS: “The ECHR ruling isn’t just a setback for human dignity, but also contradicts a European Council Framework Decision that ordered member states to ensure that publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes were penalised.”

Such framework decisions do not pose a legal basis for the ECHR, however. De Buman also referred to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. “Don’t forget that the convention was adopted in reaction to the Holocaust as well as the Armenian genocide,” he told IPS.

The ECHR ruling has sparked a debate in Switzerland on whether or not the government should appeal the decision and if and how Swiss anti-racism legislation may be amended.

Councillor De Buman told IPS he was optimistic that an appeal could lead to a further examination of the case, as the ECHR ruling wasn’t unanimous: “Two of the seven judges had expressed a joint concurring opinion. They stated that there existed an international consensus regarding the characterisation of the massacres against the Armenian people.”

Judges András Sajó and Guido Raimondi would welcome a Swiss appeal to the Grand Chamber, as so far the court has never taken a view on the massacres and deportations of the Armenians. “It’s our symbolic and moral obligation to define and qualify these events,” they wrote. Switzerland’s Federal Office of Justice hasn’t yet taken a decision in that regard.

The ECHR ruling plays into the hands of right-wing groups such as the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) who have repeatedly tried to knock down the country’s anti-racism legislation. Consequently, the party’s long-time leader Christoph Blocher demanded a change of the criminal code. Legally, the ECHR ruling doesn’t force Switzerland to amendments.

Silvia Bär, the SVP’s secretary general, told IPS that the party is preparing a parliamentary request to specify or even abolish Swiss anti-racism legislation. “We reject racism. However, the current application of the legislation is getting increasingly absurd and incorrectly limits the right to freedom of expression.”

According to Bär, the anti-racism legislation is being misused to discipline and sanction unwelcome opinions. In addition, the SVP demands that Switzerland resigns from the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and that it dissolves the Federal Commission against Racism (EKR).

Martine Brunschwig Graf, National Councillor for the Liberals and President of the EKR has doubts about these intentions. “The ECHR ruling is complex and doesn’t put the Swiss anti-racism paragraph in question,” she told IPS. From 1995 to 2012, Swiss courts have sentenced accused persons in 310 cases under that paragraph.

Brunschwig Graf calls the legislation an indispensable instrument: “The fight against racism requires prevention at all levels, but also repression if certain limits are surpassed.”

Among the other parties, the Swiss anti-racism legislation enjoys broad support. Hansjörg Fehr of the Social Democrats told the Swiss national radio that if the criminal code was to be changed, then “we need a passage that explicitly punishes the denial of the Armenian genocide.”

The debate is expected to ignite at the next parliamentary session in March.

Europe is getting a surprise bashing in Armenia over a law on gender equality that many Armenians claim is designed to “promote” homosexuality as a “European value.”

The strength of the backlash has prompted some political observers to believe it is being artificially stoked in order to build popular support for Yerevan’s decision last month to seek membership in the Russia-led Customs Union at the expense of closer ties with the European Union.

The law, titled On Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities for Men and Women, was first mulled in 2009 and went into effect in June with the broad aim of enforcing gender equality in all aspects of daily life and outlawing gender discrimination. That may sound like business-as-usual among EU members, but for Armenian society, where men generally receive pride of place, it quickly sparked pushback.

Opponents have relied on scare tactics. Social media campaigns against the gender equality law used images of young men wearing garish make-up and transgender couples kissing each other to call for a fight against “warped Western values,” and to “maintain family values.”

The campaigns also featured videos and articles that claim, incorrectly, legislation in Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden allows for incest and pedophilia, and strongly encourages same-sex marriages. Such legislation, the advocates added, could be in store for Armenia.

The fear-mongering efforts hinge on the law’s definition of “gender” in Article 3 as “acquired, socially fixed behavior of different sexes.” To many Armenians, the word “acquired” is seen as code for homosexuality.

Although the backlash against the law began almost as soon as it was adopted, it seemed to intensify after President Serzh Sargsyan announced in early September that Armenia was ready to join the Kremlin-led Customs Union.

At a Sep. 9 press conference, Archimandrite Komitas Hovnanian, a prominent figure within the Armenian Apostolic Church, warned that “[a] new religious movement is being formed which campaigns for homosexuality, pedophilia, incest and other immoral things.”

“Everybody should be concerned with this,” Hovnanian instructed journalists. “If we are Armenians, we have to take steps to prevent this decadent phenomenon.”

Some MPs have proposed amendments to remove from the law references to the word “gender,” but the suggestion has done nothing to lessen the intensity in the debate. On Oct. 11, one Facebook group planned to march in Yerevan against the gender law and so-called “European values.”

The term has become a catch-all that embraces not only equal rights for women – itself highly controversial for this conservative, patriarchal society – but tolerance toward same-sex marriages and any sexual minorities; anathema for most people living in the South Caucasus.

By contrast, Russia, which recently passed a law banning so-called “homosexual propaganda,” is seen as a more virtuous model for emulation.

“Armenian traditions and European values are very hard to combine. If Europe accepts homosexualism and same-sex marriages, this does not mean that they are acceptable for traditional Armenian families,” commented sociologist Aharon Adibekian. “So, this is the main reason for the approach displayed by society.”

He cautioned that the backlash against Europe has been brewing ever since Armenia, in the 1990s, pledged to sign international agreements to defend the rights of minorities.

While the anti-gender-equality campaign may seem extreme to outsiders, it has had an impact. Leda Hovhannisian, a 38-year-old Yerevan resident with a secondary-school level of education, says that, despite the potential advantages for finding a well-paying job, she now is horrified at the thought of her 16-year-old son ever going to study in Europe or the United States.

“No, by no means! I would never want my child to travel to those places where drug addiction, homosexuality and other forms of abuse are widespread,” she stressed. “We hear about it every day. God forbid! I would never allow him to go there.”

Others assail the campaign as nonsensical. “Unfortunately, many people don’t even realise that this is a result of misinformation,” commented 26-year-old computer programmer Emma Babaian.

Some administration critics believe that Facebook-spread warnings that “the wind of perversion blows from the West” reveal an ulterior motive on the part of authorities. Sargsyan’s administration, they contend, wants to bolster public support for its decision to opt for Russia’s economic embrace, rather than the EU’s.

Officials in Brussels have said an association agreement between the EU and Armenia is incompatible with Yerevan’s looming membership in the Customs Union.

“This was a carefully planned campaign, which was followed by the recent heavy criticism over European values, as well as adoption of the gender equality law which evoked fury among society, and all these factors were exploited to discredit Europe,” argued Stepan Safarian, secretary of the opposition, pro-Western Heritage Party.

Galust Sahakian, deputy chair of the governing Republican Party of Armenia and head of its parliamentary faction, dismissed the notion.

“This is absurd,” Sahakian responded. “The law on gender equality has nothing to do with diplomacy” and efforts to encourage public support for the Customs Union. “They should not connect it either to Europe, or to diplomacy, Russia or the whole world.”

Editor’s note: Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter based in Yerevan and editor of MediaLab.am. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

A government decree in Armenia that bars pregnant women who are not residents of Yerevan from receiving free childbirth services in the capital is causing discontent in outlying regions.

In a bid to boost population numbers, the state covers the costs for childbirth services in Armenia. Seeking better facilities and medical personnel, pregnant women from the regions often travel to Yerevan to give birth. In 2012, 64 percent of the 70,648 women registered for state-provided childbirth assistance gave birth in Yerevan, according to the National Statistical Service.

The May 1 decree issued by the Ministry of Health was designed to encourage improvements at hospitals in the country’s 10 regions. Under the measure, women will only be able to obtain state-paid birthing services at hospitals in regions where they have an official address.

Health Minister Derenik Dumanian, the author of the decree, maintains that budgetary funds to improve care at public hospitals in regions will be forthcoming. The government currently pays 135,000 drams (329 dollars) per delivery in Yerevan hospitals, and 97,000 drams (236 dollars) at facilities in rural locations.

“One-third of the pregnant women from the regions come to Yerevan to give birth; hence, the money designated for rural hospitals is transferred to hospitals in Yerevan, leading to reduced financial resources in the regions, as well as an outflow of professionals from rural communities to Yerevan,” Dumanian told EurasiaNet.org.

Despite government assurances, some pregnant women from rural areas remain wary about the decree. Thirty-three-year-old Gohar Minasian, an expectant mother living in Abovian, 16 kilometers outside of Yerevan, fears the consequences of giving birth in her local hospital.

In 2011, she noted, an Abovian anesthesiologist’s mistake led to the death of a pregnant woman from heart failure. “If this had been in the capital, under the supervision of skilled professionals, both the mother and the child would have survived,” Minasian claimed, without providing supporting details.

Under the decree, pregnant women from the regions will still be able to receive free medical care in Yerevan in emergency situations. The health ministry’s chief obstetrician-gynecologist, Razmik Abrahamian, insists that pregnant women in most of Armenia’s regions already have access to adequate care.

“If a few years ago we did not have rural maternity hospitals with modern facilities and it was understandable why they had to come to Yerevan, now six out of the 10 regions have fully equipped hospitals, but people keep coming to the capital out of habit,” Abrahamian said.

“The new decree will make them at least familiarise themselves with the facilities and conditions available at their new local hospitals, and only then make a decision.”

Independent MP Edmon Marukian, who strongly opposes the decree, argues that it could end up fueling corruption.

“If there are exceptions [made to the decree] for high-risk births and [women] will be sent to deliver in Yerevan, it is quite possible that women with a normal or no-risk pregnancy might bribe someone into getting permission to give birth in Yerevan,” reasoned Marukian, who represents the northern region of Lori.

“Or a pregnant woman from a rural community might be in Yerevan and need to give birth, but a hospital might check her in only in exchange for money.”

Abrahamian dismissed corruption concerns, promising close supervision of the decree’s implementation. All hospitals have a ministry hotline number by which they can report attempted bribery, he added. “Let them call and everyone will be punished.”

Based on infant mortality statistics alone, the regions might appear a better choice to give birth than a hospital in Yerevan. In 2011, the latest year for which data is available, the capital recorded 118 infant deaths, the highest level in the country. But Abrahamian maintained that 70 percent of those deaths were of children born to women from the regions, where, he claimed, public knowledge of prenatal care is spotty.

Nationwide over the past decade, the number of infant deaths has declined steadily. From 2006-2012, the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births dropped by half to 12. The maternal mortality rate also has fallen to a just a handful, compared with as many as 35 per year a decade ago.

Senior regional hospital staffers say public perceptions of medical care in the regions still lag behind the statistical evidence. For example, in Artashat, a town 29 kilometres southeast from Yerevan, the birthrate at the local hospital has fallen by 50 percent since 2008, when the state began paying for childbirth services.

“Our conditions are good, too, the medical personnel are highly professional, but we cannot compete with the hospitals in the capital equipped with the newest facilities,” said Dr. Zemfira Navasardian, head of the Artashat hospital’s obstetrics and gynecology department.

Obstetricians who earlier moved to Yerevan for work may now be tempted to return home, hospital executives said, but that process requires time. In the meantime, some Armenian women are not willing to wait. Barred from state-funded childbirth in Yerevan, Minasian, a kindergarten teacher, is saving to pay for the services herself.

*Editor’s note: Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Irina Grigoryan, director of a kindergarten in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR), does not want to lose another generation to war. Credit: Enzo Mangini/IPS

By Enzo Mangini
STEPANAKERT (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Caucasus), Apr 12 2013 (IPS)

Sixty-year-old Irina Grigoryan’s voice is drowned out by the merry noise of 230 children waiting for their lunch. Director of kindergarten N3, located in Stepanakert, capital of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR) deep in the Caucasus, Grigoryan smiles tolerantly at the din.

But the poster hanging on the wall behind her desk – picturing a single dove flying above the words “Give peace a chance” – suggests that all is not well in this misty, mountainous city of 50,000 people, 2,400 kilometres south of Moscow.

In fact, NKR, nestled between Azerbaijan and Armenia, is in the middle of a long-forgotten war.

Two communities, Armenians and Azeris, who lived side by side for many years, are now wrenched apart.
When the USSR was still alive, Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous region, but in 1936 the Russian dictator Joseph Stalin handed it over to Azerbaijan, sparking calls for autonomy by the primarily Armenian population.

At the end of the 1980s, amidst the rubble of the crumbling Soviet Union, opposition to Azeri rule grew more vocal, and Stepanakert saw mass demonstrations of citizens demanding that they be allowed to join the Soviet republic of Armenia.

At the end of 1991, the population of 191,000, 75 percent of which was Armenian, proclaimed an independent Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR) – a month later, in January 1992, Baku sent in its troops to quell the secessionist movement.

Today, the two countries remain officially at war, with 150,000 NKR citizens living in a political limbo.

For those who survived the conflict, the precarious situation is a source of daily stress and anxiety, and though nearly 20 years have passed since the declaration of a ceasefire, citizens continue to live under the shadow of war.

“During the war I was teaching at a local gymnasium, and I saw 80 percent of my male students die in the fighting,” Grigoryan tells IPS.

“I do not want this to happen again –that’s why here, in our kindergarten, we do not speak about the war and we do not teach hatred to our pupils,” she says.

But though she does not speak of her memories, they are still fresh in her mind.

With vivid clarity she recalls the 1992 siege of Stepanakert, when Azeri Grad rocket launchers positioned in the hills in the nearby town of Shushi rained missiles down on NKR’s capital every day.

Civilians, quick to learn the rhythms of war, soon discovered that it took soldiers 18 minutes to reload a Grad battery and would use those intervals to move around the city, or steal brief moments of normalcy.

“I remember the mothers and fathers of the children you hear in the next room playing 18-minute-long football matches (during the siege),” Grigoryan says.

She is also active with the Public Diplomacy Institute, a local organisation that works to build bridges between Armenian NGOs and former Azeri inhabitants of NKR who were forced to flee to Azerbaijan in their tens of thousands during the war.

Lamenting that “two communities, Armenians and Azeris, who lived side by side for many years” are now wrenched apart, she hopes to build ties between them, through direct dialogue among people and peace activists on both sides.

Part of Grigoryan’s work entails “explaining” to her fellow countrymen that if they want peace, they must be prepared to make sacrifices, including territorial and political concessions to Azeris, like giving up the buffer zone beyond the NKR border and allowing Azeri refugees to return.

“We do not want to lose another generation to war,” she added, referring to the skirmishes that constantly erupt along the ceasefire line, and threats issued periodically from the government in Baku, which suggest that conflict is not far off.

Until 2009, Grigoryan’s cross-border diplomacy between NGOs and peace activists received some support form the international community, including a series of meetings in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and in Moscow, facilitated by the UK-based NGO International Alert.

But then everything slowed down, and the negotiations taking place under the auspices of the Minsk Group, a diplomatic initiative co-chaired by the U.S., Russia and France to mediate between the governments on either side of the Line of Contact, or ceasefire line, reached a stalemate.

Geopolitics hinder chances for peace

Though it boasts everything from a parliament to a ministry of foreign affairs, located just a few paces away from Grigoryan’s kindergarten, NKR has not been recognised at the international level.

Soldiers in the trenches of the 1994 ceasefire line after the Armenian-Azeri war over Nagorno-Kharabakh. Credit: Enzo Mangini/IPS

Azerbaijan does not have any direct contact with NKR, leaving all negotiations to Armenia, which it has labeled the “occupying force” in the region.

NKR Foreign Minister Karen Mirzoyan says he is “ready to sit at the table with my Azeri colleagues, but the problem is that they are not ready to sit with a member of the NKR government.”

Mirzoyan was appointed several months ago, when the July 2012 elections gave the incumbent president Bako Saghosyan a second term, with 64 percent of the vote.

“We received a clear mandate from our citizens,” Mirzoyan tells IPS: “They want to be free and independent and I am ready to make any concession that is consequent with this goal.”

But what this means on a practical level is far from clear.

NKR authorities blame the Azeri government, led by President Ilham Aliyev, of running an anti-Armenian campaign at the international level and of silencing dissenting voices in its own country.

Experts point to numerous incidents that support this claim, including the case of journalist Eynulla Fatullayev, sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in Azerbaijan for his investigations on the Khojaly massacre, which cast doubt on the official Azeri version of the events. Faullayev was eventually pardoned in May 2011.

Experts like Richard Giragosian, head of the Regional Studies Centre, an independent think-tank for the southern Caucasus, believe there is a “desperate need for bold and creative political confidence building measures”, such as a universal withdrawal of Armenian troops from some stretches of the buffer zone.

“Armenia and Azerbaijan are stuck in a political stalemate that is hurting both countries,” he told IPS. “This could fuel instability in a region that is essential for the energy security of other countries, like Turkey, but also of Western Europe.”

Two major pipelines, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyahn and the Baku-Tiblisi-Supsa, plus the Baku-Tiblisi-Erzurum gas line, pass a few miles away from the NKR border.

Experts fear there could be severe ripple effects if the international community allows the issue to rot.

“Over the years, NKR’s independence has become an issue of national pride and national identity for Armenians and Azeris, thus making it all the more difficult to make concessions to the other side,” Giragosian says.

He believes strong players like Russia – which has sturdy relations with, and military bases in, both countries – ought to play a more prominent mediator role.

Increasingly the issue of domestic violence in Armenia is a topic for public discussion. Yet greater attention to the issue isn’t yet translating into an expansion of programmes to alleviate suffering and address policy shortcomings.

In 2012, Armenia set a grim record for domestic violence when six women, ranging in age from 21 to 50 years old, died over the course of six months in incidents involving their husbands or fathers-in-law. Collectively, the six dead women left behind 12 children.

No official registry of domestic-violence attacks exists in Armenia. But a 2008 survey of 1,000 Armenian women by Amnesty International found that more than three out of 10 had suffered from physical abuse, and 66 percent from psychological abuse.

The outcry over the recent deaths prompted activists to believe that the government would start making state funds available for the protection and treatment of victims of domestic violence. But on Jan. 21, the government blocked passage of what would have been the country’s first domestic-violence law, saying that revisions should be made to existing legislation, or to the bill itself.

In the absence of government funding, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are struggling to meet needs.

“There are many cases, and only NGO efforts do not suffice,” commented Susanna Vardanian, director of the Women’s Rights Center, a Yerevan-based NGO, which is a backer of the stalled draft law.

At present, three private domestic-violence shelters (two in Yerevan and one in the nearby region of Armavir), along with several NGO-run hotlines are all that exist for female domestic violence victims. Over the past two years, the Women’s Rights Centre, which runs two hotlines, four regional crisis centres and one shelter, has received some 2,557 calls from women seeking help, according to Vardanian.

At a facility run by the charitable foundation Lighthouse in the village of Ptghunts, the 55 women residents are mostly unemployed, and either pregnant or raising children. The shelter provides basic job training, as well as psychological counselling.

For decades, domestic violence was a topic that not only battered women, but also officials and law-enforcement authorities shied away from acknowledging or discussing. But now, that has begun to change, with people starting to be held accountable for abusive actions.

For example, Haykanush Mikayelian received a 10-month sentence in 2012 for her role in the abuse of her 23-year-old daughter-in-law, Mariam Gevorgian, over a prolonged period starting in 2009. According to testimony at the trial, Mikayelian burned Gevorgian’s body with an iron and a cigarette lighter, beat her regularly and kept her locked indoors under key.

Although police officers are arguably now more aware of the domestic-violence problem than several years ago, they are often left flummoxed by the lack of state-run shelters and legal mechanisms to prevent ongoing abuse of a woman by a husband or relative.

“As soon as it comes to taking actual steps, we seem to be faced with the same resistance,” remarked Lara Aharomian, director of the Women’s Resource Centre, another Yerevan-based NGO active in addressing domestic violence.

The draft domestic-violence law that the government rejected earlier in January would have tried to strengthen official measures to protect victims by introducing restraining orders and expanding the number of shelters, among other measures.

Activists believe that the six fatal domestic-violence cases in 2012 might have been prevented if Armenia had had a law outlining responses to the abuse, and, correspondingly, providing state assistance for shelters.

“(T)he law proposes the creation of a number of facilities, [and the] training of police, which are preventive measures,” said Anna Nikoghosian, a project manager for the non-governmental organisation A Society Without Violence. If shelters had existed near the homes of the six murdered women, all of whom lived outside of Yerevan, “some . . . might be alive today.”

“There are many badly in need of support, but it is impossible to house all of them in only three shelters,” agreed Lighthouse Director Naira Muradian.

Lala Ghazarian, head of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare’s Department for Family, Women and Childcare Issues, stressed that the domestic-violence bill isn’t gone for good. “It just needs some changes” to bring it into line with existing criminal law, she said. “We are all well aware that we need a law, shelter, trained policemen, functional tools, but it implies extensive work to change legislation, and it will be done.”

Some government members have said that parliament, now controlled by the Republican Party of Armenia, could pass a domestic-violence law by 2014 or 2015, once ongoing amendments to the criminal code are complete.

Meanwhile, as the topic’s stigma fades away, many ordinary Armenians affirm openly that they are eager to find solutions. In the village of Burastan, 30 kilometers outside of Yerevan, women in 2006 told EurasiaNet.org that questions about domestic violence “destroy traditional Armenian families”. Seven years later, they admitted that abuse is an issue that “has to be addressed”.

“Our children have been growing up in an atmosphere of beatings and fights,” commented 67-year-old Karine Galstian, a mother of four. “Only now we realise how wrong it is to keep silent, because we should at least teach our daughters that the husband has to respect his wife, should not beat her, should not humiliate her in front of the children.”

In the absence of further government measures against domestic violence, such realisations could make a critical difference.

Editor’s note: Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.

This story was originally published by EurasiaNet.org.

Lack of family planning has led to a surge in unsafe abortions in Eastern Europe. Credit: William Murphy/CC-BY-SA-2.0

By IPS Correspondents
PRAGUE/WARSAW, Nov 14 2012 (IPS)

Pressure from the Catholic Church, social stigma, a lack of information about sexuality and reproductive health and limited access to reproductive healthcare services are putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of women across Eastern Europe at risk.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), “Women are over four times as likely to die in childbirth in the newly independent states of the former USSR as in the European Union.

“In some countries unsafe abortions cause over 20 percent of all registered maternal deaths, and Eastern Europe has the highest abortion rate in the world.”

In the ‘State of World Population 2012’ report, released Wednesday, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) urges all developed and developing countries to “increase financial support and political commitment” to reproductive health and “promote family planning as a right” to ensure women’s health and safety.

But far from heeding the calls of the international community, Eastern Europe appears to be sliding further away from these goals.

“The reproductive health situation in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is quite dire. The contraceptive prevalence rate in some countries is as low as (the rate) in least developed countries,” Werner Haug, director of the UNFPA’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia regional office, told IPS.

While governments drag their feet on implementing national reproductive health policies, women are left at the mercy of a conservative society that offers very little space or support for family planning.

The last few years have seen a push, in many cases driven by the Church, to reinforce or tighten abortion legislation and deter access to or discussion of contraception.

This and other factors such as poverty, say women’s rights groups, have already led to a thriving underground abortion industry riddled with health risks and, in some countries, a growing practice of do-it-yourself terminations that are dangerous at best, but often fatal.

Poland: a laboratory of unsafe practices

Poland has some of Europe’s tightest restrictions on abortions, only allowing termination of pregnancy in the case of rape, incest or if the mother or baby’s health is at serious risk.

Yet even when those conditions are met, doctors in this staunchly Catholic society often refuse to carry out abortions for their own moral reasons, says Dr. Dorota Pudzinowska, a lawyer at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Poland.

“In principle, the law states that abortions should be allowed in certain circumstances,” she told IPS. “But the law also protects doctors’ rights to refuse certain procedures,” which means women are often forced to seek illegal abortions or go abroad to terminate their pregnancies.

“Approximately every third private gynaecologist provides abortion services illegally, which cost between 400 and 700 euros, but women have no control over the conditions in which these termination are provided” nor can they determine the skill level of the so-called doctors who carry out these operations, according to Aleksandra Szymczyk, an activist belonging to a prominent women’s rights group in Poland that organises an annual demonstration on Mar. 8 to demand reproductive justice.

Under the constant threat of being caught and potentially jailed for assisting women to terminate their pregnancies, doctors generally carry out these procedures hastily, in unsterile conditions, away from the gaze of the medical establishment or law enforcement officials.

Several women in Poland unable to receive any kind of operation at all have taken their cases to the European Court of Human Rights.

One was the case of a 14-year-old rape victim from the southeast Polish town of Lublin, known only as ‘P’, who was turned away from a number of clinics where she sought a termination. Church leaders would wait at the clinics to try to persuade her not to terminate the pregnancy.

The Court condemned the Polish state for the inhumane and degrading treatment of the girl, and ordered it to pay compensation.

That case, say campaigners, was just an extreme example of a climate around reproductive health in Poland that puts moral strictures laid down by the church ahead of women’s well-being.

“A major issue is that nobody knows how many abortions are conducted every year and in what conditions. Official data indicates just over 600 legal terminations annually, but it is common knowledge that many more abortions happen every year – women’s groups estimate that the number could be anything between 100,000 to 200,000 annually,” Elżbieta Korolczuk, another activist from the ‘March 8’ group, told IPS.

“Most abortions are carried out at home without any medical assistance, and judging from the content of Internet forums, many of the women do not use abortion pills but drugs that cause abortion as a side-effect,” she said.

“As a result, they expose themselves to a number of other side-effects and health problems, which they often don’t report afterwards out of fear and shame.”

Family planning is an issue that desperately needs to be discussed in Poland, said Karolina Wieckiewicz, a lawyer at the Polish Federation for Women and Family Planning.

“There is no counselling, no family planning advice available as part of primary health services,” she told IPS. “Even if a woman knows about the possibilities of avoiding pregnancy, she often does not have access to contraception.”

Contraceptives are available on prescription, but not every doctor will prescribe them. “And often pharmacists will refuse to hand over contraceptives because they say it is against their conscience,” Wieckiewicz said.

The problem is not limited to Poland, but is widespread throughout the region.

Reports in the former Soviet state of Armenia last month stated that there was evidence suggesting that the last few years have seen an upsurge in dangerous home abortions using freely available pharmaceuticals for the treatment of ulcers.

The pills have a contraindication of causing bleeding and miscarriages, and women have been using them to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

But doctors have reported that this method often results in severe bleeding and incomplete abortions, with many women being admitted to hospital needing emergency surgery.

Surgical abortions at a hospital cost up to 50 euros while these over-the-counter pills cost closer to 50 cents. The average monthly wage in Armenia is around 400 euros, effectively making professional surgical abortions cost-prohibitive.

No official record of mortality rates or serious health problems resulting from these illegal abortions can ever be obtained because of their clandestine nature.

However, the WHO has stated that even today up to 30 percent of maternal deaths are still caused by unsafe abortions in some countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

*Pavol Stracancsky contributed to this report from Prague and Claudia Ciobanu and Chloe Arnold from Warsaw.