WASHINGTON—Within 24 hours of making a nationally broadcast hate speech, publicly laying claim to all of Armenia and Artsakh as Azerbaijani land, President Ilham Aliyev’s armed forces launched a cross-border attack from Nakhichevan on Armenia that took the life of Armenian soldier Arman Mayisi Yepremian.
“The facts here are crystal clear, as is the pattern of destructive behavior that the Obama Administration is enabling by refusing to confront President Aliyev’s aggression,” said Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “On June 25, Aliyev openly telegraphed his cross-border attack into Nakhichevan with a nationally broadcast speech claiming all of Armenia as Azerbaijani land. A day later, having heard only silence from the international community, he acted out his threat, killing Arman Yepremian. Today, he [Aliyev] stands emboldened—even encouraged—by the failure of the U.S. and our OSCE partners to forcefully push back against his escalating aggression.”
In a nationally televised June 25 speech marking the opening of a new naval command center, Aliyev laid claim on all of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabagh, stating, “Nagorno-Karabagh is native Azerbaijani land. The Azerbaijani people have lived on this land for centuries, and have created there. The historical monuments in the land once again show, it is our historical and ancestral land. Not only Nagorno-Karabagh is ours, even the present-day Armenia was established on historical Azerbaijani lands. We all know that very well. The world already knows it. Erivan Khanate, Sevan, Zangezur are our historical lands, and we go back to those lands and the return of Azerbaijanis.”
The full text of Aliyev’s speech is available on his website at http://www.president.az/articles/15689.
The U.S. government has yet to criticize Aliyev’s remarks or condemn the killing of Yepremian. Aliyev’s attack, consistent with his speech, targeted the territory of the Republic of Armenia. This brazen move came at the tail end of the Baku2015 games, a multi-billion dollar enterprise that sparked global criticism of Azerbaijan’s increasingly aggressive crackdown on dissenters, international NGOs, human rights groups, and the media.
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Again, why does the current Armenian Leadership negotiate at all? Someone please explain that?
As usual, the United States and Armenia’s “ally” (Russia), both continue to make it a point of not condemning Sultan Aliyev for his hate speech directed at the Armenian people, as well as not condemning him for his continuous campaign of terrorism directed at the Republics of Armenia and Artsakh. As a result, he feels encouraged and emboldened by all of this, and knows very well by now that he can commit these kinds of terrorist acts against the Armenian people and always be able to get away with it.
he autocratic fake leader of the artificial gas-station of Azerbaijan Aliyev is a gutless thug and must be dealt with as such. This is all his petrodollars talking because he himself is nothing but a scum and a heartless chicken-hawk. When he had the opportunity to show his patriotism during the liberation of Artsakh he turned into a homeless chicken and was hiding in Moscow. He has now turned into hawk because his pockets are full of oil money and he thinks he can get his manhood back by buying everything from votes to paying his local agents with broken English to act as foreign visitors and praise his impoverished artificial state and dictatorship during the Olympics. He is a fraud and we must take the fight to him. I have lost count on how many occasions he has given the same anti-Armenian racist speech over and over again but has never been able to put his petrodollars where his mouth is. This is how cowards act, by targeting innocent civilians with snipers and by taking hostages so as to instill fear among us but to no avail. They are dishonorable cowards and don’t have the guts to fight like real men would no matter how fat their pockets are because what they need more than anything is the will and the heart and they lack both.
I suppose it is important that world leaders condemn this scoundrel’s obsessive racist and aggressive tactics but why do we need to wait for them knowing full well they will never openly condemn his actions because they still have oil to be exploited. We need to take our destiny into our own hands and kick this gutless bully in the mouth and remind him who we are and who he really was and still is, a coward with no honor. We must make him feel when push comes to shove he would be lucky if he gets the chance to take his own life.