BY ROUBEN GALICHIAN
On September 13 troops of the Republic of Azerbaijan invaded the territory of Armenia, announcing that they were simply carrying out a military operation in order to retclaim the territories which were disputed but belonged to Azerbaijan. With this same logic, our allies of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, CSTO, did not take any defensive action to confront and stop the Azerbaijani armed forces in their pre-planned attacks against Armenia. This behaviour was expected, since almost all CSTO member countries, except Armenia, have close ties, and even military alliances with Azerbaijan.
In this short article, we would like to state that the absence of official borders is simply a fallacy and only an invalid excuse. Under the USSR, all 15 republics had their own administrative divisions, which were drawn by the Central Military Staff of the USSR. These maps were published until the 1980s, but since all were marked “Secret”, they were not available to the public, but during the past decade someone posted all of them on the internet.
If the borders drawn by the USSR central authorities are unacceptable, then today all the countries of the former Soviet Union do not have official borders, but we see that all of them, including the CSTO member countries, accept and use the result of the USSR demarcations as their official borders. What is the logic whereby all the old borders drawn by the USSR are acceptable today, except for the borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan?
As an example let us take the Black Lake area near Sisian.
On map No. 1, we can see the map prepared by the General Staff, which marks the surroundings of Black Lake. Here, the border of Azerbaijan and Armenia is clearly visible, highlighted in green. The name of the Staff and the “Secret” status of the maps are also visible.
Map No. 2 shows the map of the same area, which in 1969-1970 was approved and signed by the official representatives of Azerbaijani and Armenian SSR. In May 2021, when Azerbaijani soldiers invaded and occupied the Black Lake and its surroundings, they brought with them their forged map of the same area, on which they falsified and expanded their borders. On map No. 3 this falsified border is shown with a red line. Map No.4 is the actual forged map in the hands of the Azerbaijani officer, being presented to the Armenian border guards.
On map No.3 this falsified border is shown with a red line.
Map No.4 is the actual forged map in the hands of the Azerbaijani officer, being presented to the Armenian border guards.
However, who presents Azerbaijanis with the copy of the maps signed by Azeri authorities, originals of which are kept in the Ministry of Defense vaults? Has this simple act been ever undertaken?
However, Azerbaijan may announce that, according to eh Article 2 of their Constitution, they are the heirs of the first independent Republic of Azerbaijan of May 1918- April 1920. In such case they must be reminded that until 1936 there were no Azeri enclaves anywhere in Armenia and Artsvashen enclave in Azerbaijan belonged to Armenia. Furthermore, Nakhichevan and Karabakh, which were given to Azerbaijan by Stalin in Juy 1921 (during the communist rule), at the time were not Azerbaijani lands.
The communists gave Azerbaijan further 1500 square km. of Armenian lands during 1926 to 1940s. They also should be returned to Armenia, since most were to be used by Kurds living in Red Kurdistan province, which was never established, but Armenian lands intended for them were not returned to Armenia.
