“A genuine desire for peace and a new beginning in relations with Azerbaijan will be demonstrated, among other things, by Armenia’s willingness to acknowledge its responsibility and extradite those accused of war crimes, particularly those currently hiding in Armenian territory,” said Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, just recently. “Among other things,” I would remind you, includes the demand to amend the Armenian Constitution, open the extraterritorial “Zangezur Corridor,” implant 300,000 Azerbaijanis in Armenia, which Ilham Aliyev refers to as “Western Azerbaijan,” and so on. According to golosarmenii.am, this statement is part of the terror dynamics being stoked by Azerbaijan against Armenians and Armenia. It also reminds us that Hajiyev’s phrase “Among other things” contains elements of information regarding the situation of Armenians.
Was this new demand to be expected? Undoubtedly: After Nikol Pashinyan’s recognition of Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan’s territory, after his introduction into the public discourse of constitutional amendments, state symbols, and his fanatical desire to sign as quickly as possible a meaningless piece of paper called a “peace treaty,” after the Armenian authorities’ announcement that the issue of Azerbaijan’s occupation of parts of Armenia’s sovereign territory will be addressed through “demarcation-delimitation,” and their silence regarding the monstrous show trial in Baku against the former Artsakh leaders, it was clear that the next in Azerbaijan’s series of demands on the Armenian leadership would be the aforementioned message from Hajiyev.
It is no coincidence that, parallel to this demand, it was revealed that Azerbaijan is closing the UN, International Red Cross, and Transparency International representations on its territory. “Azerbaijan is reassessing its priorities for cooperation with the UN in light of the new realities,” said Foreign Minister Jeýhun Bayramov.
It is clear what these “new realities” are. Nothing and no one must hinder Azerbaijan from launching full-scale terror against the Armenians. Especially in a situation where the Armenian leadership, in essence, demonstrates acquiescence to any demands from Baku (at best, limiting itself to rhetorical statements), which become harsher and more bloodthirsty with each passing day.
“Every authoritarian regime has its own dynamics; it doesn’t stand still, it becomes more rigid, and it needs to evolve. And if you’ve already cleaned everything out, you need to find someone else to persecute,” says Azerbaijani sociologist Sergey Rumiantsev, who lives in Europe. “The truth is, it’s unclear what problem the International Red Cross could pose, although perhaps the Azerbaijani authorities were concerned about the fact that they were meeting with Armenian prisoners of war and civilians whom Azerbaijan holds in custody after the 2020 Karabakh war. The president won the war, and he has carte blanche for any actions.”
What exactly do these “actions” entail? This was recently discussed in an interview by military-political analyst Hayk Nahapetyan, and the message delivered by Hikmet Hajiyev is a complete confirmation of the realistic nature of such a scenario, which will soon be fully implemented.
Nahapetyan’s quote: “In Baku, Aliyev is judging the leaders of the so-called ‘fascist state,’ and those leaders whom the collaborator Nikol cannot yet extradite to Baku, he is judging here. Let me clarify again – for now, he cannot extradite them. But the fact that small and large lists of dozens and hundreds of people who, according to Aliyev, once ‘occupied his country’ (referring to the ranks of the Artsakh Defence Army) are being prepared, should leave no doubt. When Pashinyan reaches the peak of his concessions to Aliyev, and the resistance within Armenian society is wiped out as a result of Pashinyan’s actions, then, I assure you, planes will fly from Baku to Zvartnots Airport in Yerevan, and thousands of people will be pulled from their beds in the middle of the night by Armenian police, then taken somewhere, and put on those very planes and sent to Baku. When, I repeat, the resistance in Armenia is destroyed…
Pashinyan recognised Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan. Aliyev has his justification: the ‘criminals’ from the ‘fascist state’ are hiding in one country. What comes next? They are being hunted down, lists, which, obviously, have not yet been made public, are being sent to Armenia. And the Armenian authorities will quietly hand these people over to Baku. So, all those who held high military-political positions in Artsakh and Armenia, including the three former presidents of the Republic of Armenia, should know that Baku will come for them. And neither their Armenian citizenship nor their connections outside Armenia will save them. If the British curators, in conjunction with the Turkish operatives, have decided that the Republic of Armenia should not exist, and that the first line of resistance to the destruction of Armenian statehood today consists of the three former presidents of the republic, as well as former military-political leaders of Artsakh and Armenia and their associated structures, then it is clear that all of them are subject to annihilation. And in this regard, concrete steps are already being taken.
The trials in Baku of prisoners and former leaders of Artsakh, the trial in Armenia of Jalal Arutyunyan, Mikael Arutyunyan (who has been in prison for several years) – these are not rhetorical matters, but concrete actions… All those who participated in the national-liberation war for the freedom and independence of Artsakh, from the 90s until the last Azerbaijani aggression (the 44-day war) – all of them, “thanks” to Pashinyan, are considered by Azerbaijan to be occupiers. All of them will be tried, and the lists sent from Baku will number thousands of names… Moreover, the “criminals” will not only be those who directly participated in the Artsakh Self-Defence Army but also those who engaged in economic activities in Artsakh as economic entities. In Baku, they are considered people who engaged in “illegal activities, looting on occupied lands,” for which Aliyev is demanding 160 billion dollars in reparations…”
Let’s return to the Azerbaijani official’s statement, to which the Armenian leadership has yet to respond: “A genuine desire for peace and a new beginning in relations with Azerbaijan will be demonstrated, among other things, by Armenia’s willingness to acknowledge its responsibility and extradite those accused of war crimes, particularly those currently hiding in Armenian territory.”
If we consider that Azerbaijan deems as “accused of war crimes” all Armenians who defended the freedom and independence of Artsakh, served in Artsakh, had economic ties with it, etc., one can only guess at the scale of the retribution against Armenians that Baku is envisioning. And if, at the same time, Azerbaijan is abolishing the work of UN, International Red Cross, and Transparency International representations on its territory, then the reaction to the announced Azerbaijani terror against Armenians by these organisations will not even be a rhetorical “concern.”
On 28th February of this year, the Armenian Foreign Ministry issued a statement, which read:
“Armenian prisoners of war, hostages, and other detained persons are being illegally held in Azerbaijan, in violation of its obligations and international commitments. The detention and prosecution of Armenian prisoners of war, hostages, and other detained persons constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and fundamental human rights: a simple list of relevant international multilateral documents includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is evident that the Azerbaijani authorities are using this judicial farce as a tool for political pressure on the Republic of Armenia and manipulation within society, considering the sensitivity of the issue for every family and the entire society. Special attention should be given to the fact that these trials are taking place amidst ongoing propaganda of ethnic hatred against Armenians in Azerbaijani media…”
And so on and so forth… Four days later, Nikol Pashinyan, in addressing the issue of communications, stated that “all roads of Armenia are open to Azerbaijan,” while also noting that “there are still two articles in the peace treaty project on which we have not yet been able to agree, and we continue to work in this direction.”
In other words, with one “hand,” the Armenian leadership acknowledges the state-level propaganda of hatred against Armenians in Azerbaijan, the violation of international law, and the political pressure on Armenia, while with the other, it reassures that “all roads are open to Azerbaijan,” and only two articles in the “peace treaty” need to be agreed upon, and Armenia continues to work in this direction. Do you even hear yourselves?!
Main source: golosarmenii.am