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 \u2018Western Azerbaijan.\u2019 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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After establishing the \u2018Western Azerbaijan Committee\u2019 with the blessing of Pres. Aliyev, Azerbaijan has embarked on a worldwide campaign to disseminate its ridiculous scheme around the world and at the United Nations. Those Armenians who are concerned about Azerbaijan\u2019s expansionist plans over the Syunik province of Armenia or the so-called Zangezur Corridor should be more alarmed about Azerbaijan\u2019s enormous appetite to take over all of the Republic of Armenia, after occupying Artsakh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are four actions Azerbaijan has taken at the UN in recent months:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1) Azerbaijan\u2019s Ambassador to the UN Yashar Aliyev circulated to all members of the General Assembly and Security Council a letter by the \u2018Western Azerbaijan Committee\u2019 on January 17, 2023, stating that \u201cAll Azerbaijanis expelled from the territory of nowadays Armenia and their descendants have the right to return to their homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2) A second letter was submitted by Azerbaijan to the UN on February 22, 2023, accusing Armenians of carrying out acts of \u201cviolence, genocide, massacres and other crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights. This process was particularly violent and cruel in 1905\u20131906, 1918\u20131921, 1948\u20131953 and 1987\u20131991.\u201d The letter added that \u201cin 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, Azerbaijan demanded that the UN take the following steps for the settlement of Azerbaijanis in Armenia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2212 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;<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2212 Securing the return process with appropriate security, humanitarian and socio-economic assistance programs;<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2212 Establishing international monitoring, accountability, security, intervention and other necessary activities to prevent the recurrence of expulsion, discrimination and harm to the returned population;<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2212 Ensuring sustainable rehabilitation and reintegration of returnees through the implementation of reconstruction and reconciliation measures under international supervision.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Azerbaijan\u2019s UN Ambassador demanded that Azeris who return to Armenia \u201chave unimpeded communication with the Republic of Azerbaijan.\u201d 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 \u201cuse the Azerbaijani language in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the [Armenian] Government.\u201d Azerbaijan added the following ridiculous demand: \u201cAzerbaijanis shall be entitled to form local security forces and take an appropriate role in courts\u201d of Armenia. This actually means that Armenia will be an appendix to Azerbaijan rather than a sovereign republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Furthermore, to ensure the safety of Azeris returning to Armenia, Azerbaijan \u201cconsiders it necessary to deploy an international security mission with an appropriate mandate and comprising the forces of countries trusted by Western Azerbaijanis in the areas to which they will be returning.\u201d In other words, Azerbaijan wants to station foreign troops on Armenia\u2019s territory, which is completely unacceptable. Azerbaijan also stated that \u201cThe 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.\u201d Those who make such insane demands are living in a make-believe world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3) The \u2018Western Azerbaijan Committee\u2019 delivered a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in April 2023, requesting him \u201cto send a special UN mission to Armenia for launching the process of safe and dignified return of Azerbaijanis expelled from this country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4) The \u2018Western Azerbaijan Committee\u2019 submitted a report in October 2023 to the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. According to the Azeri media, the UN Committee \u201cdemanded that Armenia address the issues raised by the Western Azerbaijan Committee.\u201d If there is any truth in this claim, I hope that Armenia\u2019s UN Representative responded to Azerbaijan\u2019s allegations and exposed the Azeri lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the vindictive enemy that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan naively believes he can sign a \u2018Peace Treaty\u2019 with. This unnecessary \u2018Peace Treaty\u2019 will actually undermine Armenia\u2019s interests. Azerbaijan is already demanding that the rights of \u201cAzeris expelled from Armenia\u201d be included in such a treaty, thus providing the ground for future aggression and occupation by Azerbaijan. The Azeri letter to the UN in fact includes such an alarming provision: \u201cthe [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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 \u2018Western Azerbaijan.\u2019 No sensible person in the world would take such an outrageous lie seriously, simply because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4101,"featured_media":674322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3488],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-823463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harut-sassounian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823463","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=823463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}