Azerbaijan has confirmed that displays depicting Armenian soldiers and helmets of Artsakh soldiers seized during the 44-Day War have been removed from the notoriously macabre “Trophy Park,” which was inaugurated in Baku last spring as a testament to Azerbaijan’s so-called success in the war.
Armenia’s representative to the International Court of Justice Yegishe Kirakosyan broke the news during an interview with Armenia’s public television.
The ICJ on Thursday began hearings on a case brought by Armenia, which is seeking provisional measures against Azerbaijan. Armenia seeks to prove that Azerbaijan is guided by a policy of ethnic cleansing and torture.
Kirakosyan said that the removal of exhibit items from the “Trophy Park” took place after Armenia filed the ICJ lawsuit, in which it seeking an order to force Azerbaijan to completely shutter the facility.
At the ICJ hearing on Thursday, Armenia’s team of lawyers and experts argued that Azerbaijan, according to the international humanitarian law and the November 9 trilateral statement, has been obliged to return all Armenian prisoners of war and civilians held, however, it still keeps holding the POWs and civilian captives. The rapporteurs mentioned both the unconfirmed captives and the 45 confirmed captives.
“The fact that Azerbaijan has detained these 45 persons is indisputable,” the rapporteur representing Armenia’s interests said, adding that their names and other information are presented in the documents, they are persons with clear names, faces and have families.
The rapporteur reminded that the special forces of Azerbaijan captured Armenian servicemen near Hin Tagher and Khtsaberd villages even in December 2020. It was emphasized that these two villages were not included in the areas which the Armenian troops needed to leave in accordance with the trilateral statement.
Numerous videos proving the killings and ill treatment of Armenian servicemen by the Azerbaijani servicemen have been presented to the court.
“Today you can hear that all these POWs are criminals and holding them in detention has no link with ethnic cleansing, meanwhile all evidence prove the ethnic cleansing,” the rapporteur said.
During the presentation, Armenia’s representatives also demonstrated the anti-Armenian rhetoric voiced by Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev, as evidence that xenophobic approaches of Azerbaijanis come straight from the top.
The International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, is holding public hearings over Armenia’s request to indicate provisional measures against Azerbaijan.
On September 16, 2021, Armenia instituted proceedings against the Republic of Azerbaijan before the International Court of Justice with regard to alleged violations of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
The hearings will last until Friday.
The whole world knows this was Turkey’s war imposed on the Armenians and not Azerbaijan’s. For thirty years artificial Azerbaijan could not even put a dent on the Armenians with all its petrodollar weapons purchases and at an unprecedented rate of several billion dollars annually, more than the entire Armenia’s annual state budget, for the last decade or more. The artificial Azerbaijan republic in its best day can never defeat Armenia in its worst day. Even five years ago in the four-day April 2016 war they could not do anything with all their “might” and wealth. They bought and paid for the 2020 war just like they did but failed thirty years ago. They don’t have the military competency and that’s why it is always military experts from other terrorist countries planning and conducting their wars and among them terrorist Turkey in particular. For 44 days, a small Armenian defense force in the conflict zone, along with some conscripts and volunteers from Armenia, fought against the combined forces of terrorist Turkey, artificial criminal Azerbaijan and Syrian ISIS with advanced weapons purchased from terrorist Pakistan, despotic Belarus and morally-bankrupt and hypocritical Zionist state of Israel. The chicken-hawk of Baku, Ilham Aliyev, knows firsthand that he did not win this or any other war but he is a double-taker and a LIAR and knows how to manipulate his politically ignorant gullible population. This is his way of staying in power.
There is a simple explanation for their so-called “trophy park” and it is all psychological. For thirty years they had to live with humiliation and devastating defeat handed to them by the Armenians and that with much smaller numbers and at least two dozen times less in armaments. They had a false superiority complex over the “poor” Armenians and they were defeated by them. They had to overcome that humiliation somehow. It was eating them up from inside. It was a matter of restoring “honor” but what does honor have to do with a Turk who has no honor? Realizing they have no chance of doing anything on their own, as proven over thirty year period, they finally decided that they have no choice but to buy and pay for the 2020 war and as a result becoming in essence a province or a “vilayet” of terrorist Turkey today. Their foreign policy in the region is dictated and run by the terrorist Turkish leadership. The Turkish foreign minister was once quoted as saying that he is not just Turkey’s foreign minister but also Azerbaijan’s.
Today they are paying Turkey back for their “services” with cheap oil and gas. Everything the artificial Aazerbaijan republic, a gas station disguised as a country and invented 103 years ago in 1918 for the first time in history on occupied Armenian lands, has it has been bought with oil money. All paid for by the massive revenues acquired from the “black gold” in the ground. There is no real industry and intellect in that artificial terrorist cesspool. Interrupt their oil and gas flow to Europe and their economy will come to a screeching halt. That’s why when oil prices went up they would start barking louder. When the oil prices went down they would shut up. That’s their lifeline. Want to defeat and destroy artificial terrorist Azerbaijan? Destroy their oil and gas pipelines!
Ararat. A well deserved name!
Your political savvy is next to none! A person of your calibre should and MUST relocate to Armenia and enter into politics. Your contribution to our homeland will be unfathomable! The big question is: Will they accept and appreciate your input? I very much doubt it.
Hagop Varoujian
Thanks for the compliments. I actually think politics is a very dirty game and I am quite skeptical of most politicians. Most of them are in it for their own personal gains first and foremost. They flip flop all the time. They change course depending on which direction the wind blows. There are very few who are true to their words.
I am just an ordinary Armenian who, like the most of us, is concerned about the future of our homeland, including all past and present Armenian territories under enemy occupation, and someone who likes to bring a different perspective to our conversations. By nature, we Armenians are all quite emotional people but I think in many situations it is very important to set our emotions aside and think with our intellect in order to objectively analyze and solve our problems. We can use our emotions to back up our intellectual reasoning. We need to think about things in broader terms, instead of localizing it, and always have long term plans. We tend to think short term which at times can have grave consequences.
For example, despite an earthquake on December 7th 1988 which killed 25,000 people in Armenia and destroyed cities and with no economy and with no professional army in 1991 we managed to defeat an enemy with three times the population and with over two dozen times more military capability. We had an immediate and short term plan and that was to liberate our territories from 70 years of enemy occupation so that what happened to the Armenians in Nakhijevan (depopulated of indigenous Armenians) does not happen in Artsakh. We did exactly that but we did not have a long term plan and because of that and even though we won the war we failed to bring the war to its natural conclusion by forcing the enemy into capitulation, dictating our terms to the enemy with a binding treaty to reunite with Armenia the liberated territories, and this at a time when the enemy was completely destroyed and was at its weakest. Due to a lack of long term planning, we accepted a ceasefire instead which from the enemy perspective meant that the conflict was not over yet and that it was frozen temporarily while they prepare for a future war. This not only gave the enemy the opportunity it very badly needed to get back up on its feet but also with discoveries and with multi-billion dollar foreign investments in the Caspian oil & gas they managed to get stronger, both in terms of military purchases and political power over the countries invested in their industries, and become a new threat to Armenia which was basically sleep at the wheel so to speak. I strongly believe the preplanned imposed war of 2020, bought and paid for with petrodollars, was a consequence of our short term thinking and not learning in over a century that the enemies we are dealing with are not the kinds to accept reality and their defeat honorably and move on but the kind who want the total destruction of our nation and statehood and to spare them like we did was going to have major consequences for us as we are witnessing them today.
I don’t believe Diaspora Armenians, no matter how sophisticated and experts in their crafts, will be allowed to hold high and strategic positions in the Armenian government and that’s probably because they are not the products of Soviet system and have not been subjected to Soviet brainwashing like most of our leaders have. Diaspora Armenians tend to be independent thinkers and in many instances much more patriotic in true sense of the word, as are majority Armenian population in Armenia, and that mentality is in direct conflict with the interests of those whom our leaders in Armenia call their strategic and military partner or ally. They tend to treat the Diaspora as a cash cow who should help the homeland financially but not interfere in their politics.