Turkish Forum

Author: Harut Sassounian

  • Pres. Aliyev’s Son-in-Law Evacuates An entire village for His Business

    Pres. Aliyev’s Son-in-Law Evacuates An entire village for His Business

    There are endless scandals involving the Aliyev clan in Azerbaijan. President Ilham Aliyev, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 2003, took over from his father Heydar Aliyev who was the head of state from 1993 to 2003. To make sure that the Aliyevs rule Azerbaijan for several generations, Ilham Aliyev has appointed his wife as his Vice President. I am certain that she will name one of her children to succeed her, thus prolonging the Aliyev dynasty in Azerbaijan.

    The latest scandal in Azerbaijan was exposed by Ardi Pulaj, first published on the Abzas Media and an edited version republished by Globalvoices.org. The article is titled, “In Azerbaijan, an entire village was vacated for the President’s son-in- law.

    The village of Garachayli was initially owned by the Grand Mufti of Azerbaijan, Allahshukur Pashazade — the top Muslim cleric of Azerbaijan, who had leased the land to the villagers. Then, in 2007, the village was leased to Shabran Agrocomplex LLC for 49 years after which the company ordered the villagers to vacate the land. One of the villagers, Tahir Rasulov, sued the company for remuneration. But after two years, he lost his lawsuit. “They tortured and tormented me a lot. They threatened me with the police. They took me out of my ancestral home.” The company surrounded the village with a wire fence. “We now look at our ancestral lands from outside the wires,” said Rasulov.

    The founder of Shabran Agrocomplex is Baku Agropark which belongs to businessman Samad Gurbanov who is married to Arzu Aliyeva, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev’s youngest daughter.

    Gurbanov’s personal investment of $6.9 million in the company was matched with an additional $6 million loan for 10 years at 5% interest by the State Entrepreneurship Development Fund.

    The article reported that “Gurbanov’s company was exempted from paying for the electrical wiring installation during the construction of the greenhouse, which was done by a company named Retro Holding, owned by Arif Pashayev, Ilham Aliyev’s father-in-law. Other investment favors included favorable loans for the irrigation infrastructure of the agrocomplex — all on the state’s dime.”

    Shohrat Gardashaliyev, a former resident of Garachayli village said: “The gas line goes through here to Agropark and does not provide gas to the people. They give manure to the fields. It’s true, they spend millions on manure, but the people don’t have as much value as manure. We can’t plant crops here. We don’t have land, we don’t own property. It’s all the people’s land, but look, they’ve invaded and taken it away…. I am simply told just fall down and die, let me kick you in the throat and die.”

    Tahir Rasulov said: “Names are mentioned here; the name of the president, the name of Mrs. Mehriban Aliyeva (vice-president and wife) is mentioned. As soon as one of our cattle crosses to that field, we are told by the management that this is Mrs. Mehriban’s place. So has Mrs. Mehriban appointed a representative here to kill, beat, torture or threaten a citizen?”

    Since there are no employment opportunities for the villagers, the only possibility is to work for agrocomplex which has either refused to hire them or has offered a monthly salary of only $200. One villager described the deplorable situation as “modern day slavery.”

    Court documents showed that Baku Agropark paid “incredibly cheap rent for the land it leased in the village of Garachayli — an annual rent of $1,500 for 4,300 acres of land.” Rasulov said that he used to pay “a rent of $45 per acre of that land. And yet, Baku Agropark pays less than $2.2 per acre.”

    Samad Gurbanov also owns “the Baku Agropark Trading House, engaged in the wholesale trade of fruits and vegetables; Maxitrading LLC, engaged in the import and distribution of food products; as well as several other companies belonging to Mirlex Group (Mirlex Development and Mirlex Construction LLC), engaged in the sale of fire extinguishers, installation of automatic fire alarms, parking, and video surveillance systems. The offices of many of Samad Gurbanov’s companies are located in Port Baku Towers, an elite business center owned by Pasha Holding [belongs to Mrs. Aliyev’s father].”

    When Abzas Media journalists tried “to speak with the managers of the agrocomplex in Shabran it was proved futile. The film crew was stopped by a security guard and told none of the managers were at the complex.”

    Sadly, “after the residents of the village were forced to flee, they left behind the village graveyard. Ever since the complex was built and their land was taken, they must seek permission from the agrocomplex management even to visit the graves of their late relatives.”

    It is very tragic that a government that earns billions of dollars a year from its vast oil and gas reserves is unwilling to share a small part of that wealth with the poor villagers in Azerbaijan.

  • Court Convicts Pashinyan Critic After His Death…..

    Court Convicts Pashinyan Critic After His Death…..

    This week’s commentary is a lesson for all those who naively believe what they hear or read and then pass on unsubstantiated stories to others. By doing so, they are actually helping to spread fake news. When someone gives you a piece of ‘news’, you should always ask, ‘what is your source’? When the answer is: ‘I heard it from someone else,’ immediately dismiss what was said to you. It is critical to verify what you are told in order not to disseminate baseless rumors to others.

    Those of us who are in the news business have a bigger responsibility to be vigilant because if we do not double-check what is being reported to us, then we become guilty of spreading fake news to thousands of readers or viewers.

    Here is an example of a news item we just heard about. A 57-year-old entertainment producer, Armen Grigoryan, who had died in Armenia, was found guilty by a judge in Armenia last week, a year and five months after his death. Not having heard that a dead man can be tried and convicted, I wondered if such a thing really happened.

    Since I have had long years of experience hearing all sorts of baseless reports, I immediately contacted the late defendant’s lawyer in Armenia, Ruben Melikian, who was kind enough to explain the circumstances of this strange story.

    Armen Grigoryan, during a street protest against the authorities in Armenia in May 2022, shortly before the parliamentary elections, told a reporter that he stood by his earlier statement of April 2021 that half of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s supporters in certain parts of the country have Turkish blood. Naturally, this was a disparaging remark, but if a country is truly democratic, citizens have the right to use unpleasant, even offensive words. Nevertheless, Grigoryan had not said anything threatening, which would have been against the law.

    In May 2022, Grigoryan, a vocal critic of the regime, was arrested and jailed for the statement he had made a year before his arrest. He was charged with “inciting ethnic hostility.” Those accused of such a charge in the past, had made offensive or degrading comments about other ethnic groups living in Armenia. However, no Armenian had been charged before with incitement after making such remarks about fellow Armenians. For example, Pashinyan supporters, who had made insulting comments against Artsakh Armenian refugees, have not been charged with incitement.

    On July 15, 2022, two months after his arrest, Grigoryan was brought to court from jail to stand trial. Regrettably, in the midst of the trial, he collapsed and died in the courtroom from a brain aneurism or stroke.

    In Armenia, when a defendant dies, his trial is discontinued. However, in this case, according to Armenian law, the defendant’s family has the right to ask that the trial be continued until a verdict is reached. Grigoryan’s lawyer explained that his family wanted to see that he is exonerated, even though, due to the presumption of innocence (innocent until proven guilty), he was merely charged, but not convicted prior to his death. The family insisted that Grigoryan’s name be cleared since they believe that he should have never been arrested, charged and jailed.

    The attorney told me that during the trial, after Gregorian’s death, a government witness testified in court that he had not written the testimony that was submitted in his name to the court. This witness said that a government investigator had written the testimony and had told him to sign it.

    Also, a government expert, who testified in court, admitted that Grigoryan’s words could not be considered an incitement to inter-ethnic hostility, which means targeting members of another ethnic group. Grigoryan had only used offensive words about his fellow Armenians, members of his own ethnic group.

    Nevertheless, last week, a year and five months after Grigoryan’s death, the judge declared him guilty of the charge filed against him. His lawyer told me that after the verdict is received in writing, the family has one month to file an appeal, which they intend to do. If they lose in the court of appeal, they will then appeal to the Court of Cassation which is a Court that hears appeals against decisions of courts of appeal. If they fail there too, they will then go to the European Court of Human Rights.

    Having investigated the circumstances of a court in Armenia holding a trial and finding a dead man guilty, I wanted to know if such trials had also taken place in other countries. Surprisingly, I found several cases in ancient and recent history when other countries held posthumous trials of defendants and found them guilty after their death.

  • Armenia Could have Gotten a Better Deal In the Prisoner Exchange with Azerbaijan

    Armenia Could have Gotten a Better Deal In the Prisoner Exchange with Azerbaijan

    Thirty two Armenian prisoners of war, languishing in a Baku jail for a long time, were finally freed and returned back to their overjoyed families. I will analyze the background and circumstances of their release, pointing out why Armenia should have gotten a much better deal.

    1) The agreement to end the 2020 war, signed by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, included a clause that mandated that “an exchange of prisoners of war, hostages and other detained persons and bodies of the dead is to be carried out.” Pashinyan’s blunder was that no deadline was set for the implementation of this clause, thus allowing Azerbaijan to keep the Armenian prisoners as long as it wished.

    2) Pashinyan’s second mistake was that, shortly after the end of the 2020 war, Armenia released all the Azeri prisoners, while Azerbaijan released only some of the Armenian prisoners. There was no all for all exchange.

    3) Even though the 2020 agreement did not impose any preconditions for the release of the Armenian and Azeri prisoners, Pashinyan made his third mistake by turning over to Azerbaijan the maps of Armenian landmines in Azeri-occupied Artsakh in return for the release by Azerbaijan of a few more Armenian prisoners. Pres. Aliyev learned the valuable lesson that he can extract more concessions from Armenia by the slow and gradual release of the Armenian prisoners. In other words, Aliyev discovered that the Armenian prisoners were more valuable for him if he kept them in a Baku jail, and released a few at a time in return for further concessions from Armenia.

    4) Pashinyan’s obsession over an unnecessary ‘Peace Treaty’ with Azerbaijan provides yet another opportunity for Aliyev to extract further concessions from Armenia, including the demand for additional Armenian territories during border adjustment negotiations, the return of Azeris to their previously inhabited villages inside Armenia, and acceptance of the so-called ‘Zangezur Corridor’ linking Eastern Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhichevan instead of a road under Armenia’s control, as mentioned in the 2020 agreement.

    5) Pashinyan should have refused all meetings and negotiations with Azerbaijan until the removal of its forces from the territory it occupies inside Armenia and the return of all Armenian prisoners of war.

    6) Azerbaijan agreed to exchange two Azeri soldiers with 32 Armenian prisoners of war because Armenia withdrew its own candidacy and lifted its veto of Azerbaijan hosting next year’s prestigious international climate change conference (COP29) in Baku. This is the only reason why Aliyev agreed to have such a lop-sided exchange of prisoners. None of the other publicly mentioned reasons are true. Contrary to baseless speculations, the U.S., EU, NATO, Russia, Turkey, and Iran played no role in arranging this prisoner exchange. It was Aliyev’s strong desire to use the conference as a means to show off Baku as an internationally significant capital in order to deflect attention away from Azerbaijan’s serious human rights violations and war crimes. Aliyev had gone to great lengths to host other major events in Baku, such as the Formula One Car Race, the Non-Aligned Conference Summit, Eurovision, European Games, etc.

    7) Given Aliyev’s fixation on hosting the Climate Summit in Baku at any cost, Armenia should have sought the release of all Armenian prisoners of war, not just 32 of them. In addition, Pashinyan should have demanded the release of the high-ranking Artsakh officials who were captured and jailed by Azerbaijan at the end of September 2023.

    8) In the meantime, over 100,000 exiled Artsakh Armenians are suffering in Armenia, deprived of the most basic necessities, such as housing, food, and medicines. Artsakh Armenians have left behind all of their possessions. The Armenian government should file a lawsuit in the World Court demanding that Azerbaijan pay compensation for the confiscated properties of Artsakh Armenians.

    9) The above cited issues raise serious questions about the high praise lavished on Pashinyan by his supporters who are proud that he scored a major success with the release of 32 Armenian prisoners. Little do they know that a more competent Armenian leader could have gotten much more concessions from Azerbaijan than the return of some of the Armenian prisoners.

    10) Pashinyan’s supporters are also ecstatic that various international leaders expressed their satisfaction with the exchange of the prisoners, hoping that this would lead the two countries to signing a ‘Peace Treaty.’ What Pashinyan’s supporters do not understand is that a ‘Peace Treaty’ would not actually bring peace to the two countries, since Aliyev has already violated most of the terms of the 2020 agreement. What assurance can anyone have that he will respect future agreements? These foreign powers care about only one thing: their self-interest rather than the national interests of Armenia. They are pleased that Pashinyan is making repeated concessions to Azerbaijan, so that the international community can benefit from Azerbaijan’s oil and gas, while ignoring Armenian interests and turning a blind eye to Aliyev’s violations of the human rights of his own people.

  • Armenian Government Adds Unnecessary Burdens on Already Suffering Artsakhtsis

    Armenian Government Adds Unnecessary Burdens on Already Suffering Artsakhtsis

    As if the problems of displaced Artsakh Armenians were not bad enough, given their forced departure from their native land and the subsequent hardships faced by lack of housing, food, medicines and other essential items after their arrival in Armenia, the government is now creating more unnecessary difficulties for them.

    Artsakh Armenians, who have been citizens of Armenia for a long time, are suddenly told by the Armenian government that they are not citizens of Armenia, even though they possess passports issued by the Republic of Armenia. Many Artsakh Armenians have used their Armenian passports for years to travel to foreign countries without any problems, which means that the authorities in Armenia and other countries accepted their passports as genuine Armenian passports. How is it possible that Artsakhtsis were citizens of Armenia while living in Artsakh, but not after they arrived in Armenia?

    To make matters more confusing, the government of Armenia is now telling Artsakh Armenians that since they are not citizens of Armenia, they may apply for Armenian citizenship in the future. This is complete nonsense. How can a citizen of Armenia apply a second time for citizenship? If I, as a US citizen, apply for US citizenship for the second time, American government officials will treat me as a fool and show me the door.

    I believe that the Armenian government, led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, has a hidden agenda in treating Artsakh Armenians as non-citizens. He wants to make sure that during future elections in Armenia, Artsakh Armenians will be unable to vote, knowing that many of them will not vote for his political party’s candidates, since Pashinyan is the one who handed Artsakh to Azerbaijan. We now have the additional evidence that the country’s leader is not only incompetent, but also violates the country’s laws for political gain. This is confirmed by the Interior Ministry’s declaration: “A person with refugee status does not have the right to vote and be elected in national elections.”

    Last week, the Republic of Armenia’s Ministry of Interior issued a statement in the format of “answers to frequently asked questions by forcibly displaced citizens of the Republic of Artsakh.” In this first sentence, there is already an error. Artsakh Armenians are citizens of Armenia, not citizens of Artsakh or Azerbaijan.

    The Ministry tried to entice Artsakh Armenians to accept their refugee status, telling them that those who have the status of a refugee have no obligation to serve in the armed forces of Armenia. In other words, Artsakh Armenians, who must serve in Armenia’s armed forces as citizens of Armenia, are wrongly exempted from military service, in violation of Armenian law.

    The Ministry also stated that as refugees, Artsakh Armenians have no right to own agricultural land. This provision deprives them of the ability to grow food on their own plot of land, since they do not have the necessary funds to purchase food.

    The Ministry then stated that refugees cannot travel to a foreign country. This is also false, as Artsakh Armenians with their Armenian passports can travel to any country after obtaining a visa, if one is required. Some countries like Russia do not require a visa from Armenian citizens. Thousands of Artsakh Armenians have already left Armenia simply by showing their Armenian passports which means that both Armenia and other countries have recognized their passports as legitimate documents.

    The Ministry then contradicted itself by stating that “should a refugee’s passport expire, it can be renewed by presenting two photos and the expired passport.” How can Artsakh Armenians renew their passports in Armenia, if they are not Armenian citizens and do not hold Armenian passports?

    In a further contradiction, the Ministry stated that those Artsakh Armenians who become Armenian citizens do not lose their ability to benefit from social assistance programs for refugees. The only requirement is that they be classified as ‘displaced.’ If they do not jeopardize their right to receive assistance after becoming citizens of Armenia, why are they classified as refugees and not recognized as citizens?

    Incredibly, after giving away Artsakh and repressing the rights of Artsakh Armenians to pursue any political activity in Armenia on behalf of Artsakh, the Ministry of Interior stated that their losses of property in Artsakh “does not disappear or cease to exist as a result of a change in a person’s legal status,” meaning acquiring citizenship of Armenia. It remains to be seen if the Armenian government, beyond mere words, will be willing to file lawsuits in international courts to defend the property rights of Artsakh Armenians.

    Artsakh Armenians, who are citizens of Armenia, have suffered more than enough. They should not be burdened with such unnecessary bureaucratic nonsense.

  • Azerbaijan Plans Takeover of Armenia To Create ‘Western Azerbaijan’

    Azerbaijan Plans Takeover of Armenia To Create ‘Western Azerbaijan’

    While Armenians are dealing with the dispossession of Artsakh and trying to cope with its tragic consequences, Azerbaijan is escalating its demands by launching a campaign claiming that the entire territory of the Republic of Armenia is supposedly ‘Western Azerbaijan.’ No sensible person in the world would take such an outrageous lie seriously, simply because Azerbaijan was founded a little over a century ago, while Armenia has been in existence for thousands of years. Even Coca Cola is older than Azerbaijan!

    After establishing the ‘Western Azerbaijan Committee’ with the blessing of Pres. Aliyev, Azerbaijan has embarked on a worldwide campaign to disseminate its ridiculous scheme around the world and at the United Nations. Those Armenians who are concerned about Azerbaijan’s expansionist plans over the Syunik province of Armenia or the so-called Zangezur Corridor should be more alarmed about Azerbaijan’s enormous appetite to take over all of the Republic of Armenia, after occupying Artsakh.

    Here are four actions Azerbaijan has taken at the UN in recent months:

    1) Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the UN Yashar Aliyev circulated to all members of the General Assembly and Security Council a letter by the ‘Western Azerbaijan Committee’ on January 17, 2023, stating that “All Azerbaijanis expelled from the territory of nowadays Armenia and their descendants have the right to return to their homeland.”

    2) A second letter was submitted by Azerbaijan to the UN on February 22, 2023, accusing Armenians of carrying out acts of “violence, genocide, massacres and other crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights. This process was particularly violent and cruel in 1905–1906, 1918–1921, 1948–1953 and 1987–1991.” The letter added that “in nowadays Armenia, Azerbaijani historical and cultural heritage, including mosques and graveyards, were massively destroyed, toponyms were changed and systematic racial discrimination was carried out against Azerbaijanis.”

    Moreover, Azerbaijan demanded that the UN take the following steps for the settlement of Azerbaijanis in Armenia:

    “− Obtaining a legally binding international agreement with appropriate verification and guarantee mechanisms ensuring the voluntary return of Azerbaijanis expelled from the territory of nowadays Armenia to their homeland in safety and dignity;

    − Securing the return process with appropriate security, humanitarian and socio-economic assistance programs;

    − Establishing international monitoring, accountability, security, intervention and other necessary activities to prevent the recurrence of expulsion, discrimination and harm to the returned population;

    − Ensuring sustainable rehabilitation and reintegration of returnees through the implementation of reconstruction and reconciliation measures under international supervision.”

    Azerbaijan’s UN Ambassador demanded that Azeris who return to Armenia “have unimpeded communication with the Republic of Azerbaijan.” This is a very alarming suggestion which means that the Republic of Azerbaijan wants to have a road under its control within the territory of Armenia. The letter added that Azeris returning to Armenia should not be dispersed throughout the country, but kept together as a group and their safety and rights ensured. Even more alarming is the demand that Azeris be able to “use the Azerbaijani language in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the [Armenian] Government.” Azerbaijan added the following ridiculous demand: “Azerbaijanis shall be entitled to form local security forces and take an appropriate role in courts” of Armenia. This actually means that Armenia will be an appendix to Azerbaijan rather than a sovereign republic.

    Furthermore, to ensure the safety of Azeris returning to Armenia, Azerbaijan “considers it necessary to deploy an international security mission with an appropriate mandate and comprising the forces of countries trusted by Western Azerbaijanis in the areas to which they will be returning.” In other words, Azerbaijan wants to station foreign troops on Armenia’s territory, which is completely unacceptable. Azerbaijan also stated that “The Government of Armenia shall ensure the return of property and community lands belonging to Azerbaijanis and pay compensation for property damage and losses caused by preventing the use of property.” Those who make such insane demands are living in a make-believe world.

    3) The ‘Western Azerbaijan Committee’ delivered a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in April 2023, requesting him “to send a special UN mission to Armenia for launching the process of safe and dignified return of Azerbaijanis expelled from this country.”

    4) The ‘Western Azerbaijan Committee’ submitted a report in October 2023 to the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. According to the Azeri media, the UN Committee “demanded that Armenia address the issues raised by the Western Azerbaijan Committee.” If there is any truth in this claim, I hope that Armenia’s UN Representative responded to Azerbaijan’s allegations and exposed the Azeri lies.

    This is the vindictive enemy that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan naively believes he can sign a ‘Peace Treaty’ with. This unnecessary ‘Peace Treaty’ will actually undermine Armenia’s interests. Azerbaijan is already demanding that the rights of “Azeris expelled from Armenia” be included in such a treaty, thus providing the ground for future aggression and occupation by Azerbaijan. The Azeri letter to the UN in fact includes such an alarming provision: “the [Azeri] Community will aspire to include the creation of conditions for the return of Western Azerbaijanis to their homeland as an obligation of Armenia in the peace treaty to be concluded between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”

    The only way to end this nonsense is for Armenia to stop the slippery slope of making endless concessions to Azerbaijan and reject all of its unacceptable demands.

  • Azeri Paper Attacks Sassounian for Saying that Azerbaijan Wastes billions on Lobbying

    Azeri Paper Attacks Sassounian for Saying that Azerbaijan Wastes billions on Lobbying

    Last week, I was asked by Alpha News TV to comment on the U.S. Senate’s decision, by a unanimous vote of 100 to 0, to suspend for two years Pres. Joe Biden’s authority to waive Section 907 of the United States Freedom Support Act which prohibits providing assistance to Azerbaijan. Should the House of Representatives also approve this bill, it would then go to the President for his signature which would make it a law. Since 1992, all U.S. presidents, including Pres. Biden in the last two years, have waived Section 907, thus providing tens of millions of dollars of aid to Azerbaijan.

    The Senate’s decision angered Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry which described it as a blow to Armenia-Azerbaijan relations and cancelled its participation in the planned Washington talks between the foreign ministers of the two countries on Nov. 20.

    During my interview with Alpha News, I stated that not a single U.S. Senator objected to the anti-Azerbaijan bill, despite Azerbaijan hiring multiple large lobbying firms to defend its interests in Washington. This means that Azerbaijan has wasted tens of millions of dollars in the last two decades paying for these useless lobbying firms. I would like to add that the person directly responsible for overseeing the work of these lobbying firms is Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Washington, Khazar Ibrahim. Therefore, any government that becomes aware of the waste of such large amounts of money would immediately fire its Ambassador. If Pres. Aliyev does not dismiss Amb. Ibrahim, then he himself would be just as responsible for the waste of millions of dollars on worthless lobbying firms which have not been able to convince a single Senator out of 100 to vote in favor of Azerbaijan’s interests.

    Within days of my interview with Alpha News, Azerbaijan’s first English language newspaper, AzerNews, published a lengthy article titled, “Bribing congressmen, Armenian lobby poses threat to future of Yerevan,” attacking me personally for saying that Azerbaijan has wasted millions of dollars on lobbying. This is what shameless people do when they accuse others of doing things they are guilty of.

    The whole world knows about Azerbaijan’s notorious Caviar Diplomacy and Azerbaijani Laundromat, bribing politicians throughout Europe with billions of dollars to cast votes in favor of Azerbaijan in order to whitewash Azerbaijan’s severe human rights violations and its fraudulent presidential elections.

    Shamelessly, AzerNews falsely states that “Armenia’s lobby organizations abroad, pour millions or perhaps billions into the pockets of congressmen, of course, baseless and biased opinions against Azerbaijan will be voiced from the West.”

    There are several grave errors in the above sentence. First of all, the Armenian government has not hired a single U.S. lobbying firm simply because it does not have the huge amount of petrodollars that Azerbaijan has which it wastes on lobbying firms in Washington, instead of taking care of its poor people at home. Secondly, Armenian-American organizations do not have millions, let alone billions of dollars to “pour into the pockets of congressmen.” Armenian-Americans do not need to bribe anyone. When your cause is just, you do not need to pay bribes to convince anyone of the truth. Only when you commit massive crimes, as Azerbaijan and Turkey repeatedly do, you need to spend millions and billions of dollars to cover up your crimes.

    AzerNews went on to incriminate Azerbaijan, saying that Baku “is not only interested in participating in this auction of finding partnerships that Armenia is lavishly doing now.” Even though the sentence is not grammatically correct, the Azeri writer seems to admit that Azerbaijan is eager to bribe foreign officials. This is a useless statement since Azerbaijan has been bribing foreign officials for years.

    Azerbaijan should be the last country in the world to cast aspersions on Armenia or any other country, since Baku is led by a dictator who jails journalists and human rights activists, and his soldiers commit the ugliest war crimes, such as rapes and beheadings. Azerbaijan invaded Artsakh and committed genocide against its Armenian population. Furthermore, Ramil Safarov, an Azeri soldier, during a NATO-sponsored training seminar in Hungary, chopped the head of a sleeping Armenian soldier with an axe. After Pres. Aliyev bribed the Hungarian government to release him from prison, he pardoned him and recognized him as a national hero.

    I commend AzerNews for tracking all the way from Baku my interview in Glendale, California, and writing a baseless and false response. The writer of the article, Elnur Enveroglu, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of AzerNews, went to great lengths to find not only my TV interview, but also to translate it from Armenian into English.