President Erdoğan visited Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan on Monday where he was warmly welcomed by Ilham Aliyev, who led his country to a victory against the Armenian separatists of Karabakh last week

News Desk

Baku: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a spontaneous visit on Monday to the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan. Announced one day before, the visit comes on the heels of Azerbaijan’s successful counterterrorism operation in Karabakh, a region regained from Armenia which, last week, was cleared of Armenian separatists.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev welcomed Erdoğan in an official ceremony before the two leaders headed for talks. The purpose of Erdoğan’s visit is the inauguration of a pipeline between Türkiye’s Iğdır and Nakchivan, and two leaders are also expected to attend the opening of a military complex in the exclave. Nakchivan, which shares Azerbaijan’s only land border with Türkiye, is surrounded by Armenian territories. So, Erdoğan’s visit was symbolic in the aftermath of the victory against Armenian separatists. Azerbaijan and Türkiye are the most intimate allies in the region, with their intertwined history as two Turkic nations. Erdoğan further advanced ties thanks to his close friendship with Aliyev. Two leaders call each other “brothers,” and Türkiye is the most outspoken advocate of Azerbaijan’s rights over Karabakh, forcibly taken by Armenia after the collapse of the USSR.

Karabakh has been quiet after last week’s operation, but Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry announced on Monday that two Azerbaijani soldiers were killed and another was injured when their military truck hit an antitank land mine planted by Armenian forces in the region. It was the deaths of several Azerbaijani soldiers by a land mine that prompted Azerbaijan to launch a counterterrorism offensive against separatists.

The Azerbaijan military truck struck the mine at 5.35 p.m. local time on Sunday, the ministry said in a statement.

Two soldiers, Ekrem Shadmanov and Tural Seyidov, were killed, and Elvin Aliyev was injured in the explosion of an antitank mine planted by Armenian forces on the route between Azerbaijani positions for terrorist purposes. Aliyev is not in critical condition, the statement added. Some social media posts show Shadmanov was promoted to staff colonel in the Azerbaijani army before the incident. An investigation has been launched into the incident, and the general public has been warned not to enter liberated areas until the region has been cleared of mines.

Mines planted by Armenian forces have killed several Azerbaijani civilians and soldiers in recent years.

Relations between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Karabakh, internationally recognized as an Azerbaijani territory and seven adjacent regions. When new clashes erupted on Sept. 27, the Armenian Army attacked civilians and Azerbaijani forces and violated several humanitarian cease-fire agreements. During the 44-day conflict, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and nearly 300 settlements and villages from the nearly three-decade occupation.

Despite the deal ending the conflict, the Armenian Army several times violated the agreement and martyred several Azerbaijani soldiers and a civilian, as well as wounded a few people, according to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

Azerbaijani officials and a delegation of Armenian separatists held their second meeting following the counterterrorism operation on Monday. Officials of the two sides, who first met in Azerbaijan’s Yevlakh, held their second meeting in the town of Khojaly. On Tuesday, Brussels will host senior envoys from Azerbaijan and Armenia, the European Union said.

Simon Mordue, chief diplomatic advisor to European Council president Charles Michel, will chair the talks, Michel’s spokesperson said. Azerbaijan and Armenia, along with EU heavyweights France and Germany, will be represented by their national security advisors. The EU special representative for the South Caucasus, Estonian diplomat Toivo Klaar, will also attend.

Tuesday’s meeting in Brussels will be the first such encounter since the offensive, but the leaders of both countries are scheduled to meet next month. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Aliyev will be at the European Political Community summit in the Spanish city of Granada on Oct. 5.

DNA

Tripoli: The devastation wreaked by floods in eastern Libya is nothing less than apocalyptic. In Derna, where two dams burst after torrential rains, a wall of water deluged the city and sliced out the land from beneath its inhabitants. Entire neighbourhoods were swept into the sea, which is now dumping bodies along the shore. More than 6,000 have died there, and 10,000 people are said to be missing, but because entire families were washed away, there may be no survivors to report some losses. With other towns and settlements inundated, too, tens of thousands are displaced.

The horror and despair of Libyans is matched by their fury at the rival governments that have split the country and pursued power and profit while ignoring the people’s needs. Storm Daniel is a natural disaster, wrote Elham Saudi, the director of Lawyers for Justice in Libya, but the ensuing catastrophe “is manmade: corruption; lack of infrastructure; impunity; shutting down frontliners in civil society … Be angry at a system that has enabled this tragedy.”

It is too soon to say whether, or how far, Storm Daniel’s terrifying impact is related to the climate crisis. But it is clear that global heating is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, including flooding. In the last fortnight alone, Hong Kong has seen its heaviest rainfall since records began in 1884, with metro stations inundated, and in Greece, torrential rain triggered landslides and infrastructure collapse. These scenes, like the summer’s extreme rainfalls in China, the US and Spain among others, are a warning of what awaits many more of us, and highlight the need for mitigation measures as well as slashing carbon emissions.

Libya shows the disastrous consequences when governments not only fail to protect their citizens but also put them into greater danger. Muammar Gaddafi’s corrupt regime has been followed by more than a decade of revolution, civil war and political deadlock. Essential infrastructure has not only been neglected – one of Derna’s dams had reportedly not been maintained since 2002 – but also plundered by the powerful and their cronies.

Even when disaster loomed, the authorities in eastern Libya, controlled by the warlord Khalifa Haftar, failed in their most basic duties. As Anas el Gomati of the country’s Sadeq Institute has pointed out, this is not like the earthquake that struck without warning in Morocco last week, killing at least 2,900 people. Officials saw Storm Daniel’s impact in Greece and had days to plan an evacuation. Some people were apparently told to leave, but others were reportedly ordered to stay at home even as water swelled behind the dams.

In the aftermath, with children crying for help in the wreckage, rescue and relief efforts continue to be hampered by politics as well as the destruction of essential infrastructure. There is widespread cynicism about the willingness of the internationally recognised government in Tripoli and Mr Haftar’s rival government to truly put the suffering first. Key figures in civil society, precisely the people who might mobilise relief efforts, languish in jail while their compatriots need them.

But there is also anger that most other governments appear slow to respond to this catastrophe. Vast fossil fuel reserves and regional security objectives have encouraged foreign powers to meddle in Libya. The EU has given the country hundreds of millions of euros to curb migration, ignoring appalling abuses by the Libyan coast guard. Is it now willing to help ordinary Libyans? France, which has done so much to bolster Mr Haftar, has a particular responsibility to ensure a strong European response. Libyans have good reason to feel that they have been failed by the international community as well as their own leaders. Now more than ever, they need real support.

DNA

ISLAMABAD: SEPT 25 – With the European Union holding Parliamentary elections next year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen seems intent on striking a combative stance toward China, announcing an anti-subsidy probe into Chinese electric vehicles on Wednesday.

Since “global markets are now flooded with cheaper electric cars, and their price is kept artificially low by huge state subsidies”, an investigation is needed to decide whether punitive tariffs should be imposed to protect European EV producers, she said.

Such a combative posture as a champion of European business might in some ways be intended to present a tough image as a champion of EU interests, thus securing her a second term. But it will also undermine the EU’s longstanding role as a leader of global free trade and hinder the development of the European EV industry and be a drag on the bloc’s green transition.

While she claimed that “Europe is open to competition”, the European Commission chief also said that “Europe will do whatever it takes to keep its competitive edge” giving the impression she would not mind becoming less than open when it comes to competition with Chinese EV makers.

It is true that Chinese EVs have witnessed a phenomenal surge in overseas markets recently. According to European Commission data, Chinese-made EVs account for 8 percent of the EU market now, and may reach 15 percent in 2025. The country has surpassed Japan to become the world’s largest auto exporter in the first quarter of 2023, with Chinese auto exports registering a stunning 31 percent rise last month, according to the China Passenger Car Association.

In addition to their industry-leading battery technologies, the EVs are generally 20 percent lower in prices than EU-made models. While the Chinese government does implement an industrial policy that encourages environmentally friendly industries including EVs, it is unfair to attribute the competitive edge of Chinese EV exports entirely to subsidies.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry contends rightly that the sector’s competitive advantage is not due to subsidies, and that the EU is seeking to protect its own industry in the name of “fair competition” with protectionist measures that will seriously disrupt and distort the global automotive industry and supply chains and will have a negative impact on China-EU economic and trade relations.

It is thought-provoking that even Germany, the foremost European automaking country and exporter of automobiles, is against the approach.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stated just last week that “Fair competition stimulates the economy…Competition should spur us on, not scare us.”

European critics of the investigation are correct in pointing out the dangers of Europe abandoning its “path of virtue” in defending free trade.

EU auto companies have invested and operated in China for many years, and the Chinese market has become the largest overseas market for many EU car companies. There is actually much space for the Chinese and European automotive industries to cooperate. This would be more mutually beneficial for the two sides than the measures proposed by Von der Leyen.