"We will live in our Motherland": reaction to Aliyev's speech
Reaction to Aliyev’s speech
“Aliyev is trying to cancel the negotiation process mediated by America,” Azerbaijani expert Tatevik Hayrapetyan said of a recent interview given by the President of Azerbaijan.
Hayrapetyan emphasizes on the fact that Aliyev’s “tough anti-Armenian” speech took place immediately after a meeting with the American co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Louis Bono, who talked about the unacceptability of “forced integration”.
In an interview on state television, Ilham Aliyev reiterated that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is Azerbaijan’s “internal affair” and stressed: “Armenians living in Karabakh should either take Azerbaijani citizenship or look for another place of residence.”
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Pashinyan: “Baku continues its provocations”
Armenian journalists in parliament asked for Nikol Pashinyan’s opinion on Aliyev’s statements, calling them “anti-Armenian and fascist.” The Prime Minister of Armenia stated that he agreed with this assessment, but did not comment on Aliyev’s remarks. He said that the country’s Foreign Ministry had already responded to his statements.
“Azerbaijan continues its provocations. I state that the purpose of the provocation is precisely to bring the processes to an escalation of the situation. We will calmly move forward with our politically balanced assessments,” Pashinyan said.
Armenian Foreign Ministry statement
According to the official assessment of the Armenian authorities, the President of Azerbaijan, with his statements
- once again demonstrates the intention to torpedo the efforts of the Armenian side and the international community to establish peace in the South Caucasus,
- openly ignores international partners, in the presence and mediation of which Azerbaijan recognized the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia and assumed a number of specific obligations,
- openly admits the fact of planned aggression and occupation of the sovereign territories of the Republic of Armenia,
- openly reveals his intentions to subject the population of Nagorno-Karabakh to ethnic cleansing.
“The President of Azerbaijan, under whose leadership gross and flagrant institutional violations of human rights and various groups are taking place in this country, openly expresses existential threats to the peaceful population of Nagorno-Karabakh living in his homeland.
The hateful statements of the top leadership of Azerbaijan against the Armenian people are clearly aimed at deepening intolerance and hatred towards the Armenian people, which have been promoted for decades at the state level among the Azerbaijani public. This also results in war crimes committed by representatives of the Azerbaijani armed forces, extrajudicial executions of prisoners of war and detained civilians on ethnic grounds, video recording and distribution by those who committed them, which is presented as a reason for pride.”
According to Armenian diplomats, after Aliyev’s statements “the international community cannot have any doubts that the aforementioned crimes were organized at the state level.”
“We will not have the citizenship of any other country”
Artak Beglaryan, adviser to the state minister of the unrecognized republic and former ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh, also responded to Aliyev’s statements. He said that Aliyev continues the policy of ethnic cleansing and threatens to use force. According to Beglaryan, with such a “fascist approach” there can be no peace and stability in the region:
“The only solution can be the application of practical internal and external containment measures against the dictator Aliyev in order to prevent new crimes against the Armenian people and humanity.”
Commenting on the call to “accept Azerbaijani citizenship or look for another place of residence”, Beglaryan stated:
“Against their will, Artsakh was annexed to Soviet Azerbaijan, and the autochthonous Armenian population of Artsakh long ago chose self-determination and freedom in 1988 and 1991 respectively.
We will not live anywhere except in the motherland, and we will not have the citizenship of any other country, except for the citizenship of the Republic of Artsakh. And this is our choice, enshrined in the fundamental norms of international law, and the threat of expulsion of people from their own homeland is already a policy of ethnic cleansing, the perpetrators of which will one day be brought before an international court.”
A comment
Azerbaijanianologist Tatevik Hayrapetyan says that at the moment there is practically no Russian format for Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations – Russia is very busy. There is also no EU format, since Pashinyan insisted that Macron be involved in it, but Aliyev rejected that.
According to Hayrapetyan, only the Washington format remains, within the framework of which a possible meeting of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan was being prepared:
“Before the upcoming meeting, Aliyev makes such a speech with ultimatums announcing – this is the solution, there are no other options, there will be no international mechanism, as well as a direct dialogue between Baku and NK.”
She believes that this leads to the failure of the negotiation process mediated by America.
According to the Azerbaijani, Armenian expert circles noticed that one of the main goals of Aliyev’s speech was to separate the power of NK from the people.
“Aliyev stated that the Armenian population living in Karabakh has been held hostage for 30 years. Thus, the President of Azerbaijan wants to show that the authorities of Artsakh are “war criminals”. The blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh by the Azerbaijanis and all these pressures do not seem to him a crime, but this is how he characterizes the elected authorities and the leadership of Artsakh,” she said.
According to her, the Armenian Foreign Ministry and other departments should constantly emphasize and warn about the risks:
“Of course, Azerbaijan cannot carry out genocide, ethnic cleansing without consequences for itself, or at least it seems that it should be so. But steps must also be taken to prevent this. The leadership of Azerbaijan must know that it may face an international tribunal.”
The President of Azerbaijan stated in his interview that by recognizing the Alma-Ata Declaration as the basis for negotiations, “Armenia has recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as an integral part of Azerbaijan.” According to him, the Armenian authorities should declare that “Karabakh is Azerbaijan.” In this regard, the Armenian expert asks the following questions:
“Azerbaijan also recognized the territorial integrity of Armenia. So what are the Azerbaijani troops doing now on our sovereign territory, in particular, in the area of the village of Tekh? How to qualify the audacity of Aliyev, who speaks of “Western Azerbaijan”, calling our country that?“
According to Hayrapetyan, “Baku’s aggressive rhetoric intensifies every time the Armenian leadership talks about possible new concessions.” She believes that the President of Azerbaijan perceives this not as a compromise or a step towards peace, but as a sign of weakness. At the same time, she emphasizes that Aliyev’s rhetoric is escalating due to the fact that he “sees he may act with impunity”:
“Both international mechanisms, and from the Russian point of view, on all platforms, everyone attaches importance to Aliyev. In fact, in the South Caucasus they create the image of a monster that will become unpredictable and will be a danger to everyone. They think that this danger will hang only on the heads of Armenia and Artsakh, but this is not so.”
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Reaction to Aliyev’s speech
