While Armenians are dealing with the dispossession of Artsakh and trying to cope with its tragic consequences, Azerbaijan is escalating its demands by launching a campaign claiming that the entire territory of the Republic of Armenia is supposedly ‘Western Azerbaijan.’ No sensible person in the world would take such an outrageous lie seriously, simply because Azerbaijan was founded a little over a century ago, while Armenia has been in existence for thousands of years. Even Coca Cola is older than Azerbaijan!
After establishing the ‘Western Azerbaijan Committee’ with the blessing of Pres. Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan has embarked on a campaign to disseminate its ridiculous scheme around the world and at the United Nations. Armenians concerned about Azerbaijan’s expansionist plans toward the Syunik province of Armenia or the so-called “Zangezur Corridor” should be more alarmed about Azerbaijan’s enormous appetite to take over all of the Republic of Armenia, after occupying Artsakh.
Here are four actions Azerbaijan has taken at the U.N. in recent months:
1) Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the U.N. Yashar Aliyev circulated to all members of the General Assembly and Security Council a letter by the ‘Western Azerbaijan Committee’ on January 17, 2023, stating, “All Azerbaijanis expelled from the territory of nowadays Armenia and their descendants have the right to return to their homeland.”
2) A second letter was submitted by Azerbaijan to the U.N. on February 22, 2023, accusing Armenians of carrying out acts of “violence, genocide, massacres and other crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights. This process was particularly violent and cruel in 1905-1906, 1918-1921, 1948-1953 and 1987-1991.” The letter added, “In nowadays Armenia, Azerbaijani historical and cultural heritage, including mosques and graveyards, were massively destroyed, toponyms were changed and systematic racial discrimination was carried out against Azerbaijanis.”
Moreover, Azerbaijan demanded that the U.N. take the following steps for the settlement of Azerbaijanis in Armenia:
“ − Obtaining a legally binding international agreement with appropriate verification and guarantee mechanisms ensuring the voluntary return of Azerbaijanis expelled from the territory of nowadays Armenia to their homeland in safety and dignity;
− Securing the return process with appropriate security, humanitarian and socio-economic assistance programs;
− Establishing international monitoring, accountability, security, intervention and other necessary activities to prevent the recurrence of expulsion, discrimination and harm to the returned population;
− Ensuring sustainable rehabilitation and reintegration of returnees through the implementation of reconstruction and reconciliation measures under international supervision.”
Azerbaijan’s U.N. Ambassador demanded that Azeris who return to Armenia “have unimpeded communication with the Republic of Azerbaijan.” This is a very alarming suggestion, which means that the Republic of Azerbaijan wants to have a road under its control within the territory of Armenia. The letter added that Azeris returning to Armenia should not be dispersed throughout the country, but kept together as a group and their safety and rights ensured. Even more alarming is the demand that Azeris be able to “use the Azerbaijani language in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the [Armenian] Government.” Azerbaijan added the following ridiculous demand: “Azerbaijanis shall be entitled to form local security forces and take an appropriate role in courts” of Armenia. This actually means that Armenia will be an appendix to Azerbaijan rather than a sovereign republic.
Furthermore, to ensure the safety of Azeris returning to Armenia, Azerbaijan “considers it necessary to deploy an international security mission with an appropriate mandate and comprised of the forces of countries trusted by Western Azerbaijanis in the areas to which they will be returning.” In other words, Azerbaijan wants to station foreign troops on Armenia’s territory, which is completely unacceptable. Azerbaijan also stated, “The Government of Armenia shall ensure the return of property and community lands belonging to Azerbaijanis and pay compensation for property damage and losses caused by preventing the use of property.” Those who make such insane demands are living in a make-believe world.
3) The ‘Western Azerbaijan Committee’ delivered a letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in April 2023, requesting him “to send a special U.N. mission to Armenia for launching the process of safe and dignified return of Azerbaijanis expelled from this country.”
4) The ‘Western Azerbaijan Committee’ submitted a report in October 2023 to the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. According to the Azeri media, the U.N. Committee “demanded that Armenia address the issues raised by the Western Azerbaijan Committee.” If there is any truth in this claim, I hope that Armenia’s U.N. Representative responded to Azerbaijan’s allegations and exposed the Azeri lies.
This is the vindictive enemy that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan naively believes he can sign a ‘peace treaty’ with. This unnecessary ‘peace treaty’ would actually undermine Armenia’s interests. Azerbaijan is already demanding that the rights of ‘Azeris expelled from Armenia’ be included in such a treaty, thus providing the ground for future aggression and occupation by Azerbaijan. The Azeri letter to the U.N. in fact includes such an alarming provision: “the [Azeri] Community will aspire to include the creation of conditions for the return of Western Azerbaijanis to their homeland as an obligation of Armenia in the peace treaty to be concluded between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
The only way to end this nonsense is for Armenia to stop the slippery slope of making endless concessions to Azerbaijan and reject all of its unacceptable demands.
Harut Sassounian
If you want your analysis to be taken seriously, don’t start it off with a ridiculous meme (“…Coca-Cola…”). Seriously, it’s embarrassing.
Advice from a fellow Armenian: Please develop a more mature writing style when dealing with such serious topics. The Coca-Cola reference is amateur.
I don’t understand why the Coca Cola reference is irritating you. It is a fact. Why do facts irritate you? Are you an Azeri? Only Azeris would be irritated by that reference. If you are an Armenian, you should have paid much more attention to the serious issue raised and documented in my column.
Triggered people are most likely Azeris. They keep an eye on every single Armenian outlet and post! We have to be very careful. Their propaganda machine is only getting stronger. The agency of it is expanding, thanks to their oil and Turkey alliance. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Coca-Cola comparison. It is not meant to degrade Azerbaijan, but rather to awaken influential global historians and politicians. This is not a time to make jokes, and this comparison is definitely not one.
We play too much defense. Why aren’t we claiming Azerbaijan as ‘Eastern Armenia’ and disseminating the same campaign. Sometimes, speaking things into existence does exactly that. They are programming the national subconscious to believe this lie and we just sit there and say, ‘that would never happen’ or ‘they are clowns’ and other dismissive holier than thou comments resulting in us losing land.
Dear Levon, Turks and Azeris are good at using the reverse psychology on one of the ancient civilizations(The Armenian People), we have wasted too much time, but we should and we’re going to be asking not only Artsakh, Nackijevan, Western Armenia, Cilicia and retribution for 1.5 million Armenians who were the victims of Turks, Azerbaijani and Russian Genocides, it’s just we have been too busy asking for the rest of the world to recognize the Armenian Genocide, now that the most powerful country in the world (USA) finally did recognized it, our next mission is to go after complete Historical Armenian Highlands.
That same hideous Azeri guy should check the Wilsonian map, before claiming a country that did not exist till 1920 or 1922? Yeah Coca Cola is older than Azerbaijan.
Kudos. We should definitely be on the offense. At least in our “propaganda” to disseminate truth that the world will finally see.
For those of you either offended by or irritated by Mr. Sassounian’s reference of Coca-Cola being older than Azerbaijan, deeming it to be immature or amateur hour, let me offer a point to the contrary.
Many individuals believe that when speaking/writing, the longer and more elaborate their vocabulary is, the smarter they are/appear. However, the smartest orator/writer is the one who can convey a message using the least formal vocabulary in the shortest word count.
As a journalist, one’s duty is to discuss and convey topics, even as important as this, to the masses and in a manner that can be understood by a reader of any level of age, intellect, understanding of the topic at hand, or even reading comprehension.
By comparing the age of Azerbaijan as a nation to Coca-Cola, Mr. Sassounian does a great job of portraying to readership, regardless of their background, how “young” of a country it in fact is and bring up the question of how such a young country can claim ancient Armenian land as their own.
Among the few things that is pretty much universally known throughout the world, Coca-Cola ranks amongst the top, as regardless of which continent you reside in, chances are you have drank it, seen their logo, or at least heard of it. Using this as a reference to convey the age of Azerbaijan is not immature or amateur in any sense. On the contrary, it shows Mr. Sassounian knows his stuff and as a journalist, knows how to convey a message to all readers.
First the gas station governed by a pan Turk tyrant(Alyev) is not Azerbaijan. This name was chosen by a guy with a name Rasolzadeh which was influenced by Pan Turk movement in the beginning of 20th century in Anatolia which itself wrongly called Turkey. After the 1st world war the Imperial England dismantled Ottoman Empire by the policy of “divide and govern” and let Turks massacre Armenian as well and created a monster named Turkey in the depopulated western Armenia with some land of Greek and Kurd.
Second, the proper name of so called “Azerbaijan” is South east Caucasus, and it is not a republic, simply because how the power has been transferred in the highest level since its inception which is much shorter than the time Coca cola company was established. It is more like a Khanate in 21st century with rubber stamp shameful assembly, so called legislative assembly and shameful election.
Third, a short time after the annexation of South-east Caucasus by the Russian in 19th century they carried out a census, the census revealed that 60% of population of the area which is currently under control of Alyeve, were Tat, and just 30% were Tatar(by the way this derogatory term was chosen by Russians themselves at the time of census). The minority Tatar sided fully with Russian at that time and mascaraed or forced to flee or assimilate the majority Tat’population as they did to Armenian in Artsakh 2 month ago.
And these are the monsters you are dealing with one in the west and the other in the east of your country. The only language they understand is power and why you should gain offensive capability as soon as possible.