Local date in Tamora (Islamic calendar): 29th Ramadan, 1441h Friday
Special interview with lady Alya Safavid on the recent developments in Mundus
Lady Alya Safavid gave an interview to TINS on the recent developments in Mundus This Sunday we had the pleasure of talking with Lady Safavid, the Head of Foreign Affairs, about the recent developments in Mundus affairs and the future of Tamora’s foreign relations. We will now show you the main highlights of the interview:
-First, thank you for agreeing to the interview. Let me start by asking you how is the joint bid to host the Mundus Games going? You’ve travelled extensively to promote the bid visiting nations such as Centralia or Kinkhnnland for the first time, what is the feedback you are getting?
-It has been a great pleasure to travel aboard to promote the bid to host the Mundus Games together with our friends and family the Seleucids. It was also an opportunity to talk to representatives of the highest levels of countries we had not the opportunity to do so before. I would say the feedback was positive and that our joint bid raised interest and people wanted to know more about it.
-Recently the kingdom of Tytor has announced its bid to host the Mundus Games. What is your opinion about that?
-I welcome the bid by the kingdom of Tytor. The more countries bid the better it is for the Mundus Games in general since people will have more opinions to choose from.
-Since we are talking about the kingdom of Tytor, they and the First Empire of Rokkenjima have been very critical about Tamora’s decision to support the government of Merina by sending troops to stop the terrorists there. How do you comment on their statements and will they stop Tamora from supporting the government of Merina?
-Our first reaction was of dismay, to see the First Empire of Rokkenjima and the Kingdom of Tytor so adamantly opposed to having Tamora provide much needed military support to our Merinan friends in their struggle to bring stability to the country made little sense to us if they were most concerned about the fate of the Merinan people. We had hoped they would support our efforts in Merina so that our job to bring peace there could be achieved faster. Unfortunately, these two nations seem have chosen to put their interests above the welfare of the Merinan people who want peace and a return to stability for their country.
While we were disappointed with the reaction of the First Empire and its kingdom we remain determined in our effort to help the Merinan government to secure peace. The Tamoran Empire has made a commitment to the government of Merina and its people and the Tamoran Empire takes its commitments seriously.
- There has been ample speculation that Rokkenjima’s recent statements threatening the Tamoran people with more sanctions are driven by their domestic problems. The latest referendum has showed their monarchy enjoying a support of less than 55% of eligible voters. That and the massive spending Rokkenjima is putting towards its war machine has given rise to speculations that their recent anti Tamoran rhetoric is fueled by the need to create a bogyman for the average Rokkenjiman in order to divert their attention from the problems of their monarchy and to justify their massive military spending. Do you think there is truth to this?
-I will not comment on the First Empire’s domestic problems. What I will say is that the Tamoran Empire is not an enemy or an adversary as they portray us in their media and their public discourse. In fact in many ways we are not even competing, Tamora has its own path which hardly intersects with the two nations I have previously mentioned.
-I will linger on the topic more and ask you about the recent motion against the Tamoran people proposed by Rokkenjima before the CTO. This motion proposed the harshest of sanctions seeking to bankrupt all Tamoran businesses, forbid CTO nations from sending ambassadors to Tamora and even athletes. The Heyran representative has called the proposed sanctions brutal. What is the Tamoran position on this?
- The recent motion proposed before the CTO is quite frankly a diplomatic fiasco. CTO which has few members and dwindling is trying to punish us because we are do not abide by the MCUR. This is something that should worry all non-signatory nations since CTO has taken on them to punish nations that do not conform to MCUR. This is something which for example Pharaoh Akasha of the kingdom of Clysperis has warned about before. It has also exposed the organization for what it really is, a Rokkejiman dominated organization that has no legitimacy outside its sphere of influence. But more importantly is has exposed Empress Evanthe as a warmonger. The sanctions proposed fall short of all but a declaration of war, ruin relations between the Tamoran Empire of the First Empire of Rokkenjima and increase instability in Mundus. And this is only but the latest from a long list of provocations coming from the First Empire of Rokkenjima. There are not the actions of an organization that seeks peace or of a monarch that strives for peace and diplomacy.
- Should the Tamoran people fear the CTO motion?
-Not at all, this is just a publicity stunt on the part of the Rokkenjimans. In fact there are debating a second motion to disband their organization. It is clear the Rokkejimans are using the motion against Tamora to create a purpose for the CTO and to attempt to deceive people that the organization is still functioning or that it even has a purpose.
-Will the Tamoran Empire respond in kind to these sanctions?
-No, not at all. What the First Empire of Rokkenjima and the kingdom of Tytor seem to crave aside from attention on the word stage is a crisis and an escalation of hostilities. The Tamoran Empire is above such games, we will continue to welcome any citizen from these countries in the Empire to trade, to visit and most importantly to come and pray at our holy sites. Should we and our Seleucid friends win the bid to host the Mundus games we will treat athletes from those two countries with great hospitality like we will do with those from the rest of the nations.
- Moving away to more positive things, the nation of Soleimani, an Islamic nation, has recently emerged from isolation. Will Tamora seek to develop relations with Soleimani?
-We always welcome more Muslim nations in Mundus and we are therefore pleased to see Soleimani emerging from isolation. We hope we will get the chance to develop relations.
-What do you make of the
statements made by the Pharaoh Enna Amenei of Abydos in relation with Soleimani and the Muslim community there? And how will that affect the potential development of relations between Tamora and Soleimani?
-I think Pharaoh Enna Amenei was right to express his concerns and those concerns are shared by many in the Muslim community in Tamora. I am pleased that the Soleimani Republic has taken measure to alleviate some of those concerns. That is an issue that we would have to talk about when our two nations meet but I believe where there is faith and respect for the teachings common in our two religions there can be found common ground.
- I would like to ask you about the recent statements made by Pharaoh Akasha that has
talked about a Mundus divided between the Occident and the Orient. The Foreign Affairs ministry on the other hand has talked about a multipolar world. Are these two visions about how Mundus work in contradiction and if so could that be part of the reason why at times Clysperis and Tamora see and react differently to international issues?
- I do not believe there is a contradiction between the two. In my opinion Pharaoh Akasha is talking about the values of the nations and to that she is right that there are two competing set of values which often come at odds. Our perspective is oriented towards the center of powers and we see several of them in Mundus: East Moreland, Uí Ceinnselaig, Rokkenjima, Achkaerin, Quintelia, Bakkermaya, Kaitaine and MidAranye. As you can see outside of MidAranye, all these centers of powers are part of the Occident and therefore despite not being a monolith block often seem from our perspective as acting in unison because they share many of the same values. Some of these centers of power have in their sphere of influence nations which are part of the Orient and so these countries while not perfectly aligned in terms of values with the Occident do follow their line.
-What are in your opinion the greatest threats to Mundus’ peace?
-There are two issues threating the peace of Mundus: the actions of the First Empire of Rokkenjima and terrorism. Referring to the former, Rokkenjima has a bellicose approach to foreign relations which threatens peace. In the last two years alone Rokkenjima has threatened Zimalia, has raised concerns in SICR and New Derusmia that they were forced to declare state of emergency in their countries and is now pushing for extreme sanctions against the Tamoran people. Furthermore, they have shown to be unpredictable, inconsistent and unconstrained by the obligations they themselves have assumed. Just look at how they approached relations with us sanctioning without talking to us first and then lifting sanctions after they understood the truth only to then sanction us again for displaying an independent foreign policy. Since then they have lessen the sanctions and are now talking about placing sanctions again. Worse still, this unpredictable nation continues to expand its military despite the threat of the USR been gone and is keen on building new foreign military bases aboard despite protests from their own friends like the kingdom of East Moreland.
The latter threat, terrorism, is plaguing Mundus whether it is Nya Aland, East Moreland, Tytor and others. The Tamoran Empire will seek to combat terrorism as it has done in Clysperis and is now doing in Merina. We do this because we are aware that a stable Mundus is in the interests of all.
-Thank you so much for your time.
- Thank you.
Until next time: God bless the Emperor! God bless Tamora!