BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN
Just days before the first anniversary of the 44-day war, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev clashed once again, this time in a bloodless confrontation via video at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
In my opinion, both Aliyev and Pashinyan made the mistake of not appearing in person at the UN meeting. The issue is not just the speech which they delivered by video, but their absence from an important international gathering of close to 200 leaders from around the world. This was an important opportunity, particularly for Armenia’s Prime Minister, to rub shoulders with many of these leaders in private and public settings to transmit to them Armenia’s grievances and publicize Azerbaijan’s brutal violations during last year’s war.
Fortunately, Pashinyan dispatched to the UN Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan who held several important meetings with his counterparts from many countries, including Azerbaijan, the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group, and the Secretary General of the UN.
While Armenia and Azerbaijan were not represented at the UN by their heads of state, Turkey was wisely represented by Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu who took advantage of the opportunity to meet with dozens of heads of state and inaugurate the new Turkish Center’s high-rise building across the UN headquarters which was attended by many dignitaries and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Erdogan’s only setback was the refusal of Pres. Biden to meet with him at the UN.
Turning to the speeches, Pres. Aliyev addressed the UN General Assembly on Sept. 23 delivering a 38-minute speech in English by video. Pashinyan’s video speech was much shorter — it lasted less than 12 minutes. Aliyev’s lengthy speech was not necessarily a good thing. He probably bored to death the dignitaries at the General Assembly who were listening to non-stop speeches day after day. Whereas it was smart of Aliyev to speak in English, Pashinyan, despite his knowledge of English, chose to speak in Armenian which means that the attendees had to listen to the translation of his speech via earphones, not the best way to communicate. Nevertheless, Pashinyan wisely used a teleprompter to read his speech which made it much more interesting to watch, versus Aliyev who was looking down the whole time, while reading the speech from a paper in front of him. This prompted a non-Armenian to comment sarcastically on YouTube, under the video of Aliyev’s speech: “What happened to Aliyev’s petrodollars? Couldn’t he afford to buy a teleprompter?”
In his lengthy speech, Aliyev told dozens of lies:
1. That Armenia, not Azerbaijan, started last September’s war. Aliyev must have forgotten that he had previously admitted proudly that he started the war. He also accused Armenia of initiating an attack on Azerbaijan in July 2020. Armenia had no reason to start a war neither in July nor September 2020.
2. Aliyev referred to the 12th century poet Nizami Ganjavi as “the great Azerbaijani poet.” Ganjavi is in fact Persian, not Azeri (see Wikipedia’s numerous sources). In the 12th century, Azerbaijan did not even exist. Ganjavi was born in Ganja (Kantzag in Armenian) which at the time was “densely populated with Iranians and a small number of Christians,” according to Armenian historian Guiragos Kantzagetsi (1200 – 1271).
3. Aliyev falsely described Azerbaijan “as an example of tolerance and peaceful coexistence of representatives of various religious and ethnic groups living in our country.” On the contrary, Azerbaijan is a very intolerant and violent country. Its history is full of repeated massacres of Armenians. Yet, shamelessly, Aliyev accused Armenia of committing “genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity!”
4. Aliyev also accused Armenia of “gross violation of international law, including the Geneva Convention.” This is the exact description of Azerbaijan’s own violations and crimes. He falsely claimed Armenia used “white phosphorus and cluster munitions” and attacked civilians. Once again, Aliyev was describing Azerbaijan’s own war crimes against Armenian civilians, hospitals and churches.
5. Aliyev also claimed that Armenia recruited “mercenaries and foreign fighters from abroad.” As is widely known, this is exactly what Azerbaijan did.
6. Aliyev lied about Armenians engaging in “the full destruction of cities and villages, including the cultural and religious heritage sites of Azerbaijani people.” The truth is the exact opposite.
7. Aliyev claimed that Azerbaijan “started taking legal actions against [foreign companies] for illegally exploiting our natural resources in the formerly occupied lands.” Hopefully, these companies will countersue Azerbaijan for confiscating their properties.
8. Indirectly admitting that Azerbaijan has encroached on the territory of Armenia, Aliyev boasted that “the country has been weakened to the extent that it cannot even guard its own borders by itself.”
9. Instead of respecting the agreement signed on Nov. 9, 2020 by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, to release all prisoners of war, Aliyev demanded that Armenia “provide us with accurate mine maps of all liberated territories.” There is no mention of such a requirement in the Nov. 9 agreement.
10. After telling all these lies and many others too numerous to mention, Aliyev has the audacity to urge Armenia to sign a “peace agreement … based on mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity of each other.” He is thus pursuing a total abandonment of Artsakh by Armenia.
Prime Minister Pashinyan delivered his speech at the UN on Sept. 24. He started by setting the record straight, stating that “in the fall of 2020, Nagorno-Karabakh was subjected to aggression… [which] was accompanied by numerous gross violations of international law by the Azerbaijani armed forces, including deliberate targeting of civilians and vital infrastructure, extrajudicial killings of prisoners of war and civilian hostages, torture and many other documented crimes. As a result of these actions, in the parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, which came under the control of Azerbaijan, the Armenian people were subjected to complete ethnic cleansing.”
Pashinyan went on to highlight Armenia’s democratic credentials, vainly hoping that the international community will be impressed and take positive steps to protect the country against Azerbaijan’s aggression. Armenia’s Prime Minister also spoke of his country’s readiness for peace with its neighbors, again hoping for support from UN member states. He does not seem to realize that the world does not care about such niceties. The only thing the world respects is strength.
Pashinyan next condemned Azerbaijan for holding Armenian prisoners of war as hostages in Baku and spoke about Azeri videos that show “decapitated bodies or shot bodies of these soldiers.”
Pashinyan also mentioned “reopening transport links” between Armenia and Azerbaijan. He naively added that “if the railway connecting Armenia to Turkey is opened too, then the topic of opening regional communications will cover broader scope.”
The Prime Minister made one more pitch “to resume the peace process for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.”
Regrettably, this process has reached a dead end, as Aliyev claims to have solved the Artsakh issue by force and sees no need to engage in any further negotiations on this subject.
Pashinyan mentioned “with regret” that Azerbaijan’s forces crossed Armenia’s borders on May 12, 2021 and have refused to leave. He suggested that both countries withdraw from “the Soviet times border” and invite the deployment of “international observers” along the border. It is not clear why Armenia should withdraw from its own border!
Unfortunately, nice words do not mean much in realpolitik. The world believes only in power. While Azerbaijan and Turkey speak from a position of strength, Armenia is obliged to submit to the imposition of its more powerful and brutal enemies.
The terrorist chicken-hawk of artificial Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev instead of repeating his boring and scripted repetitive stale anti-Armenian nonsense should instead have thanked the Armenians for putting on the map his gas station, disguised as a country, as a result of a devastating and humiliating defeat handed to his late father and former KGB agent Heydar Aliyev by the victorious Armenian army and volunteer fighters in the 1990-1994 Armenian Liberation War.
Until then no one knew or was even aware of such thing as an Azerbaijani and artificial Azerbaijan republic. He should have promoted his artificial state’s tolerant and democratic values by mentioning how for several decades, since the 1960s, the Aliyev MAFIA clan has been ruling that Azerbaijani cesspool without any opposition.
And how his corrupt and racist regime has been conducting caviar diplomacy inventing history and bribing and buying politicians and various corrupt leaders across the world with petrodollars. One of those well-known leaders being Hungary’s Victor Orban who released into his custody an Azerbaijani ax murderer for several billion petrodollars so he can later pardon his crime, of murdering an unarmed Armenian officer in his sleep, and parade him as a patriot and a hero of his anti-Armenian racist terrorist tribe!
I am sure Armenia will avenge last year’s defeat in a final manner down the road but not by pashinyan whose name does not even merit a capital P
TO ARARAT!!!!!!!
YOU ATTACK AZERGAYJAN BUT THEY ARE WINNING!!!!! I WANT ARMEENIA TO WIN BUT ARMEENIA IS LOSING!!!!!! PEEOPLE ARE NOT UNITY!!!! NO INVEST!!!! NO JOBS!!! NO MODERN ROADS!!! NO MODERN HOMES!!!! CORRUPTION!!! STEELING!!!! NO PAYING TAXES TO USE TAX MONEY TO MAKE STRONG ARMEENIA!!!! AS MUCH AS ALIYEV IS SHIT AND STEEL MONEY, AZERGAYJAN STILL HAS EXTRA MONEY FROM OIL!!!!!! ARMEENIA HAS ROCKS AND CHURCHES!!!!!!
HAGOP
If by “winning” you mean artificial Azerbaijan is getting everything through bribery and for a handsome price all paid for by petrodollars then I can’t argue with that. Otherwise, that terrorist cesspool does not have the competency to accomplish anything on its own. Their artificial state is just about entirely run by revenues from the oil in the ground without which they will have no economy. They have no other industry. Stop their oil & gas flow to Europe and their economy will come to a screeching halt and they will have a civil war on their hands. This is why I keep saying that the enemy pipelines carrying oil & gas to EU markets should have been the first targets to hit by our Armed forces but they did not. They gave the Europeans assurances that they will leave the pipelines alone and that was one of their biggest mistakes of the war. That was the way to stop the war if not turn the war in our favor. Europeans did nothing to stop the war once they got those assurances from the Armenians. Their multi-billion dollar investments in the Caspian oil & gas were safe and secure! But the way to get these people involved was to hit their pockets. They did not care how much land and how many people Armenians lost as long their investments were secured.
Once again, terrorist artificial Azerbaijan did not win in the TRUE sense of the word. They paid for everything. The 1990s Liberation War was a proof of what I am saying. Artificial Azerbaijan in its best day, and with all its resources, can’t defeat the Armenians in their worst day. Even after thirty years and with all their petrodollars, spending more than Armenia’s annual state budget on their military, they could hardly put a dent on the Armenians. It took the collaboration of a half dozen countries to do what they did. But even then most of what they got were handed to them without firing a shot by Armenia’s incompetent former journalist disguised as the leader of Armenia.
You need to put things in context. Could artificial Azerbaijan on its own do against the Armenians what terrorist Turkey (NATO) did for them using the full resources of artificial Azerbaijani, Syrian paid-mercenaries, advanced and deadly weapons acquired from terrorist Pakistan, Belarus and morally-bankrupt Israel? The answer is NO! Given all these facts, what does “winning” mean? Unlike them, we won against them on our own and very decisively and we can do it again if had the right leadership. One that would consider every inch of our homeland sacred and not for sale. They, on the other hand, paid for theirs. Even they know they did not “win” and could not “win” against us on their own.
Pasinoglu is a pedophile. He admitted so in his memoirs… Let’s be objective, and give the devil aliyev, his due. he compromised pasinoglu, and pasinoglu’s hrya wife (who has cucked pashinoglu many times)