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WHAT DO AZERBAIJAN, ESTONIA, AND RWANDA HAVE IN COMMON?
Foreign Policy
Nov 21 2012
Posted By Uri Friedman Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Not very much, you say? Au contraire! All three countries, it seems,
have presidents who are prone to picking fights on Twitter. First
Rwandan President Paul Kagame unloaded on journalist Ian Birrell
over human rights criticisms. Then Estonian President Toomas Hendrik
Ilves ripped into columnist Paul Krugman for calling his country the
"poster child for austerity defenders." Now Ilham Aliyev, the president
of Azerbaijan, has unleashed a tirade against neighboring Armenia
(the two countries are locked in a long-simmering dispute over the
Nagorno-Karabakh region).
Here are some of Aliyev's tweets from earlier today:
Ilham Aliyev â~\"@presidentaz Azerbaijan grows stronger and more
powerful by the year, while Armenia weakens and declines every year.
20 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Ilham Aliyev â~\"@presidentaz I have often talked about it, I want
to say it again without fearing anyone - our enemy is the Armenian
lobby 20 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Ilham Aliyev â~\"@presidentaz A young, dynamic, truly independent,
modern Muslim country, Azerbaijan has become a problem for them,
it does not fit into their stereotypes 20 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Ilham Aliyev â~\"@presidentaz Armenia as a country is of no value. It
is actually a colony, an outpost run from abroad, a territory (cont)
tl.gd/k2p4ba 20 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
The salvos have provoked a sharp response from at least one Armenian
official. "Aliyev shows by his cynical proclamations that there are
still supporters of fascism in the 21st century," Eduard Sharmazanov,
the Armenian parliament's deputy chairman, tells AFP, adding that
"his remarks recall the 1930s-1940s and [Nazi leader Adolf] Hitler."
Aliyev's tweets today appear to be lifted verbatim from a speech he
gave last week to mark the 20th anniversary of his New Azerbaijan
Party -- an address that received little attention outside Azerbaijan
at the time. Since the broadsides appeared on Twitter, however,
Aliyev's attacks have been picked up by news outlets like Reuters,
RIA Novosti, GlobalPost, and, yes, FP.
The lesson in all this for world leaders? If you're going to pick
a fight with somebody and want people to notice, you'd better do it
140 characters at a time.
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/20/what_do_azerbaijan_estonia_and_rwanda_have_in_comm on
From: Baghdasarian
Foreign Policy
Nov 21 2012
Posted By Uri Friedman Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Not very much, you say? Au contraire! All three countries, it seems,
have presidents who are prone to picking fights on Twitter. First
Rwandan President Paul Kagame unloaded on journalist Ian Birrell
over human rights criticisms. Then Estonian President Toomas Hendrik
Ilves ripped into columnist Paul Krugman for calling his country the
"poster child for austerity defenders." Now Ilham Aliyev, the president
of Azerbaijan, has unleashed a tirade against neighboring Armenia
(the two countries are locked in a long-simmering dispute over the
Nagorno-Karabakh region).
Here are some of Aliyev's tweets from earlier today:
Ilham Aliyev â~\"@presidentaz Azerbaijan grows stronger and more
powerful by the year, while Armenia weakens and declines every year.
20 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Ilham Aliyev â~\"@presidentaz I have often talked about it, I want
to say it again without fearing anyone - our enemy is the Armenian
lobby 20 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Ilham Aliyev â~\"@presidentaz A young, dynamic, truly independent,
modern Muslim country, Azerbaijan has become a problem for them,
it does not fit into their stereotypes 20 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Ilham Aliyev â~\"@presidentaz Armenia as a country is of no value. It
is actually a colony, an outpost run from abroad, a territory (cont)
tl.gd/k2p4ba 20 Nov 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
The salvos have provoked a sharp response from at least one Armenian
official. "Aliyev shows by his cynical proclamations that there are
still supporters of fascism in the 21st century," Eduard Sharmazanov,
the Armenian parliament's deputy chairman, tells AFP, adding that
"his remarks recall the 1930s-1940s and [Nazi leader Adolf] Hitler."
Aliyev's tweets today appear to be lifted verbatim from a speech he
gave last week to mark the 20th anniversary of his New Azerbaijan
Party -- an address that received little attention outside Azerbaijan
at the time. Since the broadsides appeared on Twitter, however,
Aliyev's attacks have been picked up by news outlets like Reuters,
RIA Novosti, GlobalPost, and, yes, FP.
The lesson in all this for world leaders? If you're going to pick
a fight with somebody and want people to notice, you'd better do it
140 characters at a time.
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/20/what_do_azerbaijan_estonia_and_rwanda_have_in_comm on
From: Baghdasarian