When Pres. Ilham Aliyev arrives in Paris on September 18, thousands of French-Armenians should greet Azerbaijan\u2019s leader with posters depicting him as \u2018Hatchet Man-in-Chief\u2019 — \u2018Bash Baltaji\u2019 — holding a bloody axe. Interestingly, in all three languages — Azeri, Hungarian, and Turkish — \u2018balta\u2019 means hatchet or axe.<\/p>\n
During the protest, French-Armenians should not waste their energies yelling out meaningless slogans, such as \u2018Shame on Baku\u2019 or \u2018Shame on Hungary.\u2019 Instead, they should deliver the crucial message that Artsakh (Karabagh) be recognized as an independent state, because its Armenian population cannot survive under a despotic regime that glorifies axe-wielding murderers.<\/p>\n
Inadvertently, Hungary and Azerbaijan have done a huge favor for Armenians in extraditing and pardoning Lieutenant Ramil Safarov who bludgeoned to death his sleeping Armenian classmate, at a 2004 NATO course in Budapest. Numerous countries and international organizations have condemned Hungary and Azerbaijan for their unsavory actions. Armenians should capitalize on this sordid affair by holding demonstrations in every major city around the world, raising it in every international meeting, and filing lawsuits in European courts against Hungary, Azerbaijan, and NATO. Now that the axe-man\u2019s release has generated worldwide sympathy for Armenians and clear antipathy for Azerbaijanis, Armenia should take advantage of this narrow and fleeting window of opportunity to recognize Artsakh\u2019s independence and urge others to follow suit. A search on google reveals that over one million articles were written on this subject in the last 10 days, the overwhelming majority favoring Armenia and criticizing Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n
Armenians should explain to the world the futility of holding peace negotiations with Azeri leaders who treat international agreements as toilet paper! The most recent example is the August 15 letter of Azerbaijan\u2019s Deputy Justice Minister to his Hungarian counterpart, assuring him that Safarov would not be released, if extradited to Baku. Two weeks later, the axe-man was not only freed, but promoted and rewarded by the \u2018Chief Baltaji,\u2019 who is taking his cues from Turkish leaders on glorifying criminals and treating protocols as meaningless pieces of paper!<\/p>\n
Turkish officials, however, are not too anxious to link their names to the odious behavior of Aliyev Junior. A spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement claiming that Turkey had nothing to do with Safarov\u2019s extradition from Hungary, despite the murderer\u2019s expression of gratitude for Turkey\u2019s support, after his arrival in Baku. Independently of its accuracy, the Turkish statement does confirm that Azerbaijan is isolated from the rest of the world and abandoned by the major powers — the United States, Russia and France — all of which have condemned Safarov\u2019s release!<\/p>\n
In desperation, Azerbaijan\u2019s intelligence services concocted a fake ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) letter that threatens Azeri officials, so that Aliyev can regain the sympathy of world public opinion. The forged letter included statements that no Armenian would make, such as claiming that only 600,000 Armenians were killed during the Genocide, a false figure circulated by denialist Turks and Azeris. No Armenian would ever minimize the enormous death toll from 1.5 million to 600,000! In response to this forgery, ASALA issued a statement rejecting the authenticity of the letter. Such fraudulent Azeri actions give credibility to rumors that Azerbaijan may consider \u2018eliminating Safarov,\u2019 its \u2018national hero,\u2019 in order to blame Armenians for his murder!<\/p>\n
Ironically, Armenia defeated Hungary last Sunday to win the World Chess Championship held in Istanbul. Azerbaijan was in 10th place, while Turkey came in 48th. Armenians should be genuinely proud of this incredible accomplishment (for the third time!), but they should refrain from making disparaging remarks about people in other countries. There are good and bad individuals in every nationality. Rather than harboring ill feelings toward the people of Hungary, Azerbaijan or Turkey, Armenians should confront those who deny the Armenian Genocide, extradite a convicted criminal or glorify an axe-murderer!<\/p>\n
Tomris Azeri, President of Azerbaijan Society of America and co-founder of Pax Turcica Institute, suggested in an interview posted on News.az that rather than criticizing Turkey, I should help resolve the Artsakh conflict! Ms. Azeri stated: \u201cI sincerely wish that before authoring another Turcophobic ode, Mr. Harut Sassounian analyzes what can be done to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.\u201d My advice to Ms![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Sassunian-son-resim2.jpg\" "\\"Sassunian")
. Azeri is not to deny past crimes, not to commit new ones — with or without an axe — and then pursue peaceful solutions, rather than whipping up racist anti-Armenian mass hysteria by the \u2018Bash Baltaji\u2019 and his cohorts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Pres. Ilham Aliyev arrives in Paris on September 18, thousands of French-Armenians should greet Azerbaijan\u2019s leader with posters depicting him as \u2018Hatchet Man-in-Chief\u2019 — \u2018Bash Baltaji\u2019 — holding a bloody axe. Interestingly, in all three languages — Azeri, Hungarian, and Turkish — \u2018balta\u2019 means hatchet or axe. During the protest, French-Armenians should not waste […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4101,"featured_media":774085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3488],"tags":[6744],"class_list":["post-56725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harut-sassounian","tag-ilham-aliyev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}