Something is terribly wrong when Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is making continuous concessions to Azerbaijan, while the French Ambassador to Armenia, Olivier Decottignies, is defending Armenia\u2019s interests. Ironically, a foreign ambassador is more pro-Armenian than the Prime Minister of Armenia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Azerbaijan\u2019s President Ilham Aliyev repeated his lie about the non-existent \u201cWestern Azerbaijan\u201d as a replacement for the Republic of Armenia, Pashinyan shamefully equated the fake \u201cWestern Azerbaijan\u201d with Armenians\u2019 historical demands for \u201cWestern Armenia.\u201d It was the French Ambassador who responded to Aliyev on Nov. 24, 2024, on X: \u201cThe one and only: Western Azerbaijan is one of the 31 provinces of Iran whose capital and largest city is Urmia,\u201d quoting from Wikipedia. He attached a map of Iran that indicated the location of the Western Azerbaijan province in Iran. The post was viewed over 93,000 times with 114 comments and 1,100 Likes. An Armenian with the pseudonym \u201cNemesis Melkonian\u201d praised the French Ambassador on X: \u201cCan you become our next prime minister? The current one is ethnically Turkish.\u201d An Iranian replied: \u201cAs an Iranian\u201d adding the OK hand sign. This was a slap in the face of Aliyev, but also a rebuke to Pashinyan, according to some Armenian commentators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the same day, the French Ambassador also posted a photo of the well-known Blue Mosque in Yerevan and wrote: \u201cIn the gardens of the Blue Mosque of Yerevan, emblematic of the Persian heritage of Armenia.\u201d This post was viewed 43,000 times with 46 comments and 660 Likes. While Azeri commentators falsely claimed that the Blue Mosque was of Azerbaijani origin, many others thanked the French Ambassador for featuring this historic Persian place of worship. The Iranian Embassy in Armenia expressed its appreciation to the French Ambassador by posting on X: \u201cThe Blue Mosque, a symbol of Iranian art, has been active again in the last three decades as the praying and congregation place of Muslims residing in Armenia and a touristic attraction. A great pleasure that its centuries-old Persian epigraphy has been preserved! Who can read them?\u201d The embassy then added several images of Persian calligraphy found on the walls of the Mosque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mordechai Kedar, An Israeli sycophant of Azerbaijan, jumping into the discussion, wrote an article in the Jerusalem Post on December 5, 2024, titled: \u201cFrance\u2019s ambassador sparks outrage with support for Persian hegemony in Armenia.\u201d This is nothing but pure pro-Azeri propaganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kedar wrote that \u201cThe Azerbaijanis are outraged by these social media posts, as the Blue Mosque in Yerevan was built by Azerbaijanis, and trying to portray the mosque as \u2018Persian\u2019 demonstrates France\u2019s support for Persian colonialism in the region. Furthermore, the Azerbaijanis are angered at the French diplomat\u2019s attempt to portray West Azerbaijan as part of Iran.\u201d If the Azeris were outraged by what the French Ambassador wrote, why is it any of Kedar\u2019s business, unless he expects to gain something by volunteering to act as a propagandist for Azerbaijan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kedar claimed that Armenians have described the Blue Mosque as Persian in order \u201cto erase all traces of Azeri heritage from their country [Armenia].\u201d Kedar is ignoring the fact that Azeris have destroyed thousands of Armenian historic monuments and churches in Artsakh and Azerbaijan. Making an even more outrageous claim, Kedar wrote that Persians \u201cused these Armenian acts of delegitimization in order to expand their colonial influence into the South Caucasus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To pile up the attacks on Armenia and France, Elnur Enveroglu wrote on the Azernews website that the French Ambassador\u2019s tweets \u201crevealed Decottirnies’ ignorance of history.\u201d Elnur could not even spell the Ambassador\u2019s last name correctly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naturally, the French Ambassador could not leave unchallenged such nonsense from Kedar whose childish arguments disgraced the Jerusalem Post. The Ambassador replied: \u201cSeriously, Mr. Kedar? The Blue Mosque in Yerevan was built under Persian rule in typically Persian style. Does calling a Roman aqueduct Roman \u2018demonstrates support\u2019 for colonialism?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though there was no reason for Nasimi Aghayev, Azerbaijan\u2019s Ambassador to Germany, to stick his nose in this issue, but being a life-long falsifier of the truth, starting from his days as the Consul General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles, he wrote: \u201cBeautiful Azerbaijani Blue Mosque in Yerevan. Built in 1766 by Huseyn Ali Khan, Ruler of Azerbaijan Iravan [Yerevan] Khanate. The only surviving mosque in Armenia. All others (at least 269) were destroyed. Regrettably, Armenia continues to deny Blue Mosque\u2019s Azerbaijani identity.\u201d Mary Hogins rightly responded in a tweet to Nasimi: \u201cYou mean Persian Mosque, lying khiyar [cucumber]?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nasimi must have forgotten that until 1918 there was no such country as Azerbaijan. Even then, the Secretary General of the League of Nations rejected Azerbaijan\u2019s application to be recognized as a state by writing in an official memorandum in 1920: \u201cThis territory, occupying a superficial area of 40,000 square miles, appears to have never formerly constituted a State, but has always been included in larger groups such as the Mongol or Persian and since 1813 the Russian Empire. The name Azerbaijan which has been chosen for the new Republic is also that of the neighboring Persian province.\u201d Case closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his fanatical zeal, Aliyev doesn\u2019t seem to understand that his constant attacks on France, based on lies, are not going to end well for Azerbaijan. France is a superpower, while Azerbaijan is a banana republic, which does not even have bananas, ruled by a two-bit dictator!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Something is terribly wrong when Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is making continuous concessions to Azerbaijan, while the French Ambassador to Armenia, Olivier Decottignies, is defending Armenia\u2019s interests. Ironically, a foreign ambassador is more pro-Armenian than the Prime Minister of Armenia. When Azerbaijan\u2019s President Ilham Aliyev repeated his lie about the non-existent \u201cWestern Azerbaijan\u201d as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4101,"featured_media":824419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3488],"tags":[10988,10794],"class_list":["post-824417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harut-sassounian","tag-blue-mosque-in-yerevan","tag-pashinyan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824417","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=824417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}