The Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi's story about eating honey in a Circassian village is the most insane thing you'll read today

A group of Pontic Greeks. Abkhazian ASSR, 1940s. On June 14-15, 1949, the Soviet government began the deportation of Greeks from the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and Crimea to Kazakhstan. According to 1953 estimates, the number of deported Greeks exceeded 37 thousand people.

Israeli sources have described the Mossad commando raid inside Iran as a "counter-terrorism" operation - a very interesting choice of words. What is unmistakably the beginning of a war between two sovereign nations is being framed as a quasi-police action. India used similar

Bahruz Samadov is facing up to 16 years in prison on false "treason" charges. He’s on hunger strike. The Azerbaijani regime is destroying the lives of its intellectual youth and silencing everyone. EU and others may keep flirting with Baku, but silence has a cost. #freeBahruz

None of it will help anymore, but the democracies in the EU and the EU itself could at least bother to say they are deeply concerned.

Bahruz Samadov, Unistudent an der tschechischen Karls-Universität und Regierungskritiker, wurde heute in #Aserbaidschan zu 15 Jahren Haft verurteilt:

Bahruz was the leading anti-war / anti-nationalist voice in the whole of the South Caucasus. He's just been sentenced to fifteen years in prison. He is 30 years old.

Armeniens Lyndon B. Johnson. (Auf jeden Fall Headline des Tages...)

And… next step is up to parliament or Erdogan himself. Let’s see.

Not common for a U.S. official to acknowledge publicly that their ally in Syria includes the PKK.

Syrian forces massacred 1,500 Alawites in March. The chain of command led to Damascus. A Reuters investigation found 40 distinct sites of killings, looting and arson during three days of sectarian massacres following an Assad loyalist insurgency. reuters.com/investigations…

Fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party will soon destroy their weapons as a "goodwill gesture" to signal their commitment to disarming after decades of conflict with Turkey, two commanders said. english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-ea…

Ethnic tension goes on In Russia, Azerbaijani businessman Yusif Khalilov, diaspora leader Shahin Shikhlinsky, and Lukoil's Ural production manager Ahmed Hajiyev were detained by the police

#Russland und #Aserbaidschan verhaften aktuell wahllos Staatsbürger des jeweils anderen Landes. Wenn sich zwei Autokratien streiten zahlt die Bevölkerung den Preis. (Auslöser war der Tod von zwei ethnischen Aserbaidschanern bei einer Razzia in Jekaterinburg, Russland.)

Das ist auch insofern beeindruckend: Vor ein paar Monaten hat #Aserbaidschan noch ein cozy-up mit #Russland probiert, jetzt flip-floppt man ins gegenteilige Extrem. Nicht gerade ein Zeichen einer durchkalkulierten Politik...

Kovcheg (The Ark) which describes itself as the largest project that helps anti-war Russians in emigration and in Russia reported that Russian citizens living in Azerbaijan are being interrogated and their places are being subjected to night raids.

A group of PKK guerrillas (possibly 30) are set to lay down their arms in a ceremony in the coming days in Slemani to show "the goodwill of the PKK" & readiness to participate in "democratic politics" in Turkey. It's said there might be one or a few PKK commanders in the group.

Ich sag das ja nur ungern aber das neue syrische Wappen schaut aus wie das Logo von dem bösen Regime™️ aus einem schlechten YA-Buch.

2 points— will erdogan define the start of laying down arms with the symbolic move PKK will take next week, or will he dismiss this as not enough? Also note that as translated, he refers to the Kurdish region as eastern Anatolia… not quite recognition kurds looking for.

Historischer Moment: Abdullah Öcalan spricht erstmals seit 1999 in einem 7-min-Video zur Öffentlichkeit. Er kündigt die beginnende PKK-Entwaffnung an, fordert eine parlamentarische Kommission und mahnt: "Es braucht Besonnenheit statt ‚Du zuerst, ich zuerst‘-Logik." #Kurdistan