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HIGH POLITICS?: ALIYEV AGAIN LAYS CLAIMS ON YEREVAN, SARGSYAN ANSWERS BACK
Aris Ghazinyan
ArmeniaNow
22.10.10
Aliyev's (right) claims meet with Sargsyan's decisive repulse
Azeri president Ilham Aliyev in his speech in the Azeri town of Yevlakh
last week stated that "...today's Armenia, the territories called the
Republic of Armenia are authentic Azeri lands. That's the truth... Of
course, Zangezur, Irevan, Irevan khanate - they all are our lands."
Aliyev's speech pointing out Yerevan as an Azeri city hasn't been
the first this year.
During his official visit to Tallinn in April he delivered a lecture
at the foreign ministry of Estonia stating that: "Armenians have an
Armenian state despite the fact that their state was established on
historical Azeri lands. In 1918 the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan
decided to give the city of Irevan to Armenia as its capital. Irevan
was part of Irevan khanate where Azerbaijanis used to live".
This comes to illustrate that the "Yerevan vector" has been worked
at quite thoroughly during the past few years. It is noteworthy that
such statements are voiced on the background of complete inactivity
of international structures and, as a rule, follow this or that
statements by OSCE Minsk Group and other organizations.
Aliyev's most recent speech of October 16 was delivered a day after
Minsk Group co-chairs' statement.
On October 15, the co-chairs released a statement on the results of
their recent field mission to the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh.
In that document the mediators ventured to use phrases practically
absent from the OSCE vocabulary before: first of all they said
that the assessment mission was held at "the occupied lands of
Nagorno Karabakh", secondly, the capital of NKR was mentioned as
Stepanakert-Khankendi (Khankendi is the Azeri name of Stepanakert),
and thirdly, the NKR authorities are defined as "factual".
The thing is that always - even a couple of weeks before the mission
started - the territories were called "territories around Nagorno
Karabakh", and the wording used in official documents to describe
the NKR leadership was "the elected authorities of Nagorno Karabakh".
Those phrases were at least neutral and diplomatic.
However, this time the mediators included words and phrases in the
vocabulary that are absolutely unacceptable for the Armenian side.
Aliyev took advantage of that and spoke out with explicit territorial
claims to Armenia.
In fact the co-chairs having broken the fragile neutrality they had
managed to keep one way or another encouraged Azerbaijan in its verbal
aggression against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.
Yerevan does not exclude the possibility that the format of the
Karabakh issue settlement might change if OSCE Minsk Group exhausts
itself. As Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan stated "if
the current format of negotiations on the Karabakh issue exhausts
all means, other options will be considered".
During his meeting with reporters from Diaspora Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan devoted almost half of his speech to commenting on
the claims voiced by his Azeri counterpart.
"It is obvious that anti-Armenian fascism is advocated in Azerbaijan
and it is done systematically and at the highest level. It is not
merely about heated words or sick people suffering from nationalism,
which could easily be ignored, but rather we are dealing with a
state ideology according to which "modern Armenia was established on
historical Azeri lands". This means that not only Artsakh [Nagorno
Karabakh], but also Yerevan, Sevan, Holy Echmiadzin are "historical
Azeri lands". It was not long ago, actually yesterday, that the Azeri
president enlightened us on this issue."
As for the Karabakh issue, Sargsyan said that it was Azerbaijan that
started the war, was defeated and asked for truce.
"The Azeri, in order to save face, are busy with an apology for
rhetoric claiming that Armenians won the war with the help of a third
country. Well, of course they would say that, how else can they accept
the fact that they were heavily defeated by a few Armenians. But they
lack courage to name which third party they are talking about. Well,
then tell us. Tell us, so that we can prove with facts that you are
liars. Why aren't you naming it?"
From: A. Papazian
Aris Ghazinyan
ArmeniaNow
22.10.10
Aliyev's (right) claims meet with Sargsyan's decisive repulse
Azeri president Ilham Aliyev in his speech in the Azeri town of Yevlakh
last week stated that "...today's Armenia, the territories called the
Republic of Armenia are authentic Azeri lands. That's the truth... Of
course, Zangezur, Irevan, Irevan khanate - they all are our lands."
Aliyev's speech pointing out Yerevan as an Azeri city hasn't been
the first this year.
During his official visit to Tallinn in April he delivered a lecture
at the foreign ministry of Estonia stating that: "Armenians have an
Armenian state despite the fact that their state was established on
historical Azeri lands. In 1918 the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan
decided to give the city of Irevan to Armenia as its capital. Irevan
was part of Irevan khanate where Azerbaijanis used to live".
This comes to illustrate that the "Yerevan vector" has been worked
at quite thoroughly during the past few years. It is noteworthy that
such statements are voiced on the background of complete inactivity
of international structures and, as a rule, follow this or that
statements by OSCE Minsk Group and other organizations.
Aliyev's most recent speech of October 16 was delivered a day after
Minsk Group co-chairs' statement.
On October 15, the co-chairs released a statement on the results of
their recent field mission to the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh.
In that document the mediators ventured to use phrases practically
absent from the OSCE vocabulary before: first of all they said
that the assessment mission was held at "the occupied lands of
Nagorno Karabakh", secondly, the capital of NKR was mentioned as
Stepanakert-Khankendi (Khankendi is the Azeri name of Stepanakert),
and thirdly, the NKR authorities are defined as "factual".
The thing is that always - even a couple of weeks before the mission
started - the territories were called "territories around Nagorno
Karabakh", and the wording used in official documents to describe
the NKR leadership was "the elected authorities of Nagorno Karabakh".
Those phrases were at least neutral and diplomatic.
However, this time the mediators included words and phrases in the
vocabulary that are absolutely unacceptable for the Armenian side.
Aliyev took advantage of that and spoke out with explicit territorial
claims to Armenia.
In fact the co-chairs having broken the fragile neutrality they had
managed to keep one way or another encouraged Azerbaijan in its verbal
aggression against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.
Yerevan does not exclude the possibility that the format of the
Karabakh issue settlement might change if OSCE Minsk Group exhausts
itself. As Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan stated "if
the current format of negotiations on the Karabakh issue exhausts
all means, other options will be considered".
During his meeting with reporters from Diaspora Armenian President
Serzh Sargsyan devoted almost half of his speech to commenting on
the claims voiced by his Azeri counterpart.
"It is obvious that anti-Armenian fascism is advocated in Azerbaijan
and it is done systematically and at the highest level. It is not
merely about heated words or sick people suffering from nationalism,
which could easily be ignored, but rather we are dealing with a
state ideology according to which "modern Armenia was established on
historical Azeri lands". This means that not only Artsakh [Nagorno
Karabakh], but also Yerevan, Sevan, Holy Echmiadzin are "historical
Azeri lands". It was not long ago, actually yesterday, that the Azeri
president enlightened us on this issue."
As for the Karabakh issue, Sargsyan said that it was Azerbaijan that
started the war, was defeated and asked for truce.
"The Azeri, in order to save face, are busy with an apology for
rhetoric claiming that Armenians won the war with the help of a third
country. Well, of course they would say that, how else can they accept
the fact that they were heavily defeated by a few Armenians. But they
lack courage to name which third party they are talking about. Well,
then tell us. Tell us, so that we can prove with facts that you are
liars. Why aren't you naming it?"
From: A. Papazian