Azerbaijan intensifies aggression against Armenia over borderlands Nagorno-Karabakh with Turkey-aligned Azerbaijan now possibly threatening to blow up Armenia’s nuclear power plant. Syrian refugees as mercenaries? Israel now involved? Revenge for genocide, Russia and other points are described by Brad Johnson, former CIA Operative and President of Americans for Intelligence Reform.
https://youtu.be/DMsYIEOQ3Yc
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brad johnson it is july 20th and uh
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the situation between azerbaijan which
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i think that you mentioned has an
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agreement
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with uh with russia
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sorry with turkey and armenia which has
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an
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agreement as it were with russia
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that conflict seems to be escalating can
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you give us an update on that please
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it does there’s a number of very
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interesting factors going on and this is
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something i talk about
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often this is this this confrontation
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um that’s taking place between russia
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and turkey and as i’ve said turkish
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intents
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are to expand their borders and and
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um there’s some argument whether this is
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uh a neo-ottoman empire or not and
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things like that but mostly
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uh uh president turkish president
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erdogan’s quite clear that he
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he does intend to re-establish uh
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himself as caleb over a neo-ottoman
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empire so
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i mean the people around him all talk
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about it and make references to it and
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when he has state visits something we’ve
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talked about shown photographs in these
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interviews before
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are when foreign visitors show up the
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guards in the background will be in
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various uniforms from the ottoman empire
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uh period of time and different
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crazy time from the ottoman empire and
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so on so it’s quite clear
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that that’s what’s going on from the
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turkish side and i think the russians
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recognize this as a potential danger of
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pushing back
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this plays itself out in a number of
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areas one of which is armenia
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and azerbaijan fighting over the
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nagorno-karabaw
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area and as i said beautiful area very
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nice natural resources but
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not many people there or anything so not
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a lot there now
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since the last time we spoke about it is
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kind of an update a couple of things
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have happened
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uh and all very interesting it is
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certainly heating up
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and this is one of the things that now
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armenia
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is interestingly enough there are
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reports where they’re blaming
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israel for the attack and
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not that they’re saying turkey’s out of
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it they’re just also blaming
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israel the reason for blaming israel is
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that the azerbaijanis have purchased a
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bunch of drones
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that are lethal type drones they shoot
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and
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uh that those are the drones that have
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been used to start all the initial
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attacks where i believe a number of
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armenian soldiers were killed
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and so uh
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the they’ve shot down about a dozen of
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them so they’ve tracked these all back
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and know that these are an israeli
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produced item
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which uh israel sells arms and things
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of that nature so i mean the fact that a
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country like azerbaijan has bought them
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and has them
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you know i i don’t know that you can
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legitimately blame
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israel for starting the war back up over
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nagorno-karabakh
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which we oh that nobody has looked at
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that situation over the last 20 years
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and said
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there’s not going to be fighting there
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again we’ve all known this is an area
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that was going to take off again at some
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point
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once azerbaijan gained position enough
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to do
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so that the fighting would start so
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another very interesting thing about out
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of it
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is that uh they are now making
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azerbaijan
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with turkish backing is making threats
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of blowing up the nuclear power plant in
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armenia
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now i i don’t recall for sure but i
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believe that that’s the main
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source of power for armenia and armenia
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certainly has had
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a many number of
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and it’s energy so that’s a a very sore
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point if you will it’s a real problem
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for armenia
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and electrical generations so that is a
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huge threat to armenia
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and and armenia started screaming bloody
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murder essentially when that threat was
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made to blow up that
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power plant and blowing up a power plant
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uh would
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probably not be a hugely difficult item
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i mean it’s a landmark you
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can’t miss and it’s on with a cooling
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tower and all of that
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so i i think it’s something that could
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actually be pulled off
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fairly easily with aircraft or other
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means too
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it’s it’s hard to guard really well a
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nuclear power plant like that
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so uh it would be a very effective
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you know attack on the part of
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azerbaijan so i think there’s some
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reality to this thing they’re really
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putting the pressure to armenia now to
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give up this area now what i find
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particularly
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interesting out of all of this is that
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according to the news reporting turkey
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has just announced uh the mobilization
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of
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militia and what they’re doing is
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they’re going to these areas where they
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have
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uh the syrian refugees and all of these
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different places where they’ve got these
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refugees
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and they’re willing to pay these guys
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two thousand five hundred dollars
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per month to go fight for azerbaijan
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in nagorno-karabakh now that is a very
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interesting thing to bring in
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essentially mercenaries to take place in
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the fighting if they build up
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troops that way azerbaijan and armenia
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are both relatively small countries
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azerbaijan
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has a larger population but not a hugely
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effective ground force
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so by bringing in these mercenaries
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who’ve got experience have been fighting
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and been around it a lot
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that would be a very uh a very big
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supplement
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to the armenian or excuse me the
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azerbaijani ground forces
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which in that area that’s essentially
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going to be a ground war
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they’ve got to have boots on the ground
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to take control of that area so
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that is also a very very real threat
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to armenian control of nagorno-karabakh
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so we’ll see now i should say too
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armenia and turkey have been long long
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long enemies the whole history of
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armenia has been wars back and forth
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with with turkey and they’ve swapped
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lands and controls of land uh for
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i don’t know a thousand years so uh
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the hostility is something that’s
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permanent not gonna go away there
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and from armenia’s perspective
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azerbaijan and turkey
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are essentially the same thing
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azerbaijanis our
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turkic people left from uh you know the
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periods where the ottomans controlled
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that
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area so a lot of hostility between those
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two countries so
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uh the chances of this not turning into
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a shooting war
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even though there are a lot of people
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trying to united states including trying
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to calm things down
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are very low so uh this is absolutely an
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area where i would be
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you know very high certainty for very
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high probability
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that uh that uh fighting will
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more fighting will take place and at an
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increasing
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pace especially as you see these
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mercenaries come in and i
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they’re gonna really start to take you
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to the armenians so i think it’s a
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problem
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that we’ve just beginning to see uh play
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out you know the
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i spoke briefly with uh one of the
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organizers
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of an armenian demonstration here in
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ottawa this weekend
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and he definitely felt that there’s a
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tie-in between this and the
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turkish genocide of the armenian peoples
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so i don’t think the armenians are
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looking at this as
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as anything other than another
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way another war by the turks on the
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armenian people
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yeah there’s a little question and
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that’s certainly going to be part of the
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armenian perspective and
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and there’s no love lost between uh
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armenians and
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and turks i mean that’s just it’s like i
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say that’s
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it’s permanent that’s not going to go
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away there’s no there’s no job
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one of them could get or or anything
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like that or a hospital being built or
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a strong economy or whatever it is
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doesn’t matter they’re going to hate
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each other and i would say from the
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turkish perspective
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you know after the kurds the tur the
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kurds
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uh you know as being the number one
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target for the turks
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after them comes probably the armenians
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they’re not to
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they’re not too happy with the armenians
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but and from their perspective either
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[Music]
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you
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