Tag: Azerbaycan – Ermenistan

The U.S. Department of State announced on Oct.25, 2020 with great fanfare the third attempted ceasefire in the Artsakh war in as many weeks. The first two ceasefires were violated by Azerbaijan and Turkey within minutes of going into effect. The new ceasefire announcement was made after the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan flew to Washington, D.C. and separately met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Oct. 23, 2020.

This latest “humanitarian ceasefire” went into effect on Monday, Oct. 26, at 8 a.m., local time. Unfortunately, the third ceasefire was also violated within minutes by Azerbaijan and Turkey. This indicates that Azerbaijan, Turkey and the Jihadist mercenaries from Syria have no intention to stop the war until they cleanse Artsakh of its Armenian population which is exactly what President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly announced. Armenia and Artsakh, with a population of a little over three million, are fighting against the combined forces of Azerbaijan and Turkey with a total population of over 90 million. This is a battle of David versus Goliath. It also means that the powerful Azerbaijani military, armed to its teeth with billions of dollars of modern weaponry from Israel and Russia, is unable to fight its battles without relying on the Turkish military and Islamist mercenaries. Even with their combined forces, Azerbaijan and Turkey have been unable to overrun Artsakh after a month-long battle!

In recent weeks, Pres. Trump has mentioned Armenians three times in his speeches during campaign rallies in Nevada, Ohio and New Hampshire. He made complimentary statements about Armenians, but words are meaningless unless they are followed up with action. All Trump has to do is pick up the phone and call his buddy Erdogan and tell him to stop supporting Azerbaijan and withdraw the terrorists it recruited and transferred to Azerbaijan. Instead, Trump has done what is in his personal interest which primarily includes getting reelected on Nov. 3 by appealing to Armenian-American voters.

Besides military action, there are other fronts in which Armenians and Azeris are battling each other. In the United States, several resolutions have been submitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate to recognize the independence of Artsakh and ban the sale of weapons to Azerbaijan and Turkey. Similar steps have been taken by Armenian communities in Canada, France and Australia, among others. There have also been mass protests by Armenian communities in cities throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia, the Middle East and Europe.

Armenian-Americans and elected officials pressured various lobbying firms hired by Azerbaijan and Turkey to stop their propaganda efforts. Last week, Mercury Public Affairs announced that it terminated its lobbying contract with Turkey. Mercury has represented Turkey since 2013. In February of this year, Mercury signed a contract for $1 million to represent the Turkish Embassy. The Los Angeles City Council had urged Mercury to end its contract with Turkey or it will no longer do any business with the firm. A similar announcement was made by the Los Angeles Community College District.

DLA Piper, another major lobbying firm, informed the U.S. Justice Department that it no longer represents Azerbaijan Railways. The Livingston Group also ended its lobbying for Azerbaijan on Oct. 13. The BGR lobbying firm withdrew from representing Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, according to AHVAL News.

Armenia on the other hand has never hired lobbying or public relations firms. The rare example was the Armenian government signing a lobbying contract with the law firm of Alston & Bird (associated with former Senator Bob Dole) for $10,000 from Sept. 15 to Oct. 14, 2020. It is not known if that contract was extended. While hiring lobbying or public relations firms is always helpful, the Armenian community is not as dependent on them since they are politically active and rely on their own organizations in Washington, such as the Armenian Assembly of America and the Armenian National Committee of America. On the other hand, Azerbaijan and Turkey are obligated to spend millions of dollars for lobbying to try and misrepresent their dirty laundry as clean.

Another aspect of the misinformation war is the one waged in the pages of newspapers and social media in various countries. The Azeri government pays a fortune each year to hired pens to besmirch Armenia and glorify the dictatorship of Azerbaijan. The other front is the social media. Whenever, a prominent American or European announces its public stand in favor of Armenia, a horde of Azeris and their paid agents hound those individuals and pressure them to retract their statements.

There have been several reports in recent days that Azeri troops are wearing the uniforms of Armenian soldiers apparently to create confusion in the battlefield. In one such battle, it was discovered that 40 Azeri soldiers’ bodies were found in Armenian uniform. In my opinion, this practice, rather than confusing Armenians, will result in Azeris shooting their own soldiers by mistaking them for Armenians.

The Armenian government should file a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) about the barbaric behavior of Azeri soldiers. In one video, two Armenian prisoners of war are shot dead by Azeri soldiers. In another, the head of a dead Armenian soldier is cut off by Azeri soldiers. In a third gruesome video, Azeri soldiers are seen skinning an Armenian soldier while he is still alive. These are clear cases of war crimes. Azerbaijan should be condemned by the ICC and bear responsibility for these inhuman actions. In addition, Azerbaijan uses cluster bombs which are prohibited by international humanitarian law. Moreover, Azerbaijan has fired on a daily basis thousands of missiles on civilians throughout Artsakh cities and villages. Azerbaijan has also destroyed hundreds of Armenian houses, schools and churches. These are blatant war crimes. Azerbaijan should pay a heavy price for its barbaric behavior.

On the positive side, 10 million Armenians worldwide have been united as never before. Every Armenian realizes that this is an existential struggle. Turkey and Azerbaijan intend to commit a second genocide against Armenians. So far, Armenians have raised the unprecedented sum of $150 million and millions more in humanitarian aid. The only thing missing is for an Armenian billionaire to make a billion dollar donation to support the survival of Armenia and Artsakh. After all, it costs Armenia $30 million a day to meet its security needs.

A massive attack was launched against Artsakh by Azerbaijan with the direct participation of Turkey and Islamic Jihadist mercenaries in the early hours of Sept. 27, 2020.

The Azeri/Turkish side not only attacked Armenian military forces, but also peaceful civilians in various villages and Stepanakert, the capital of the Republic of Artsakh. Ominously, Turkish F-16 Air Force jets operated in the war zone after several threatening remarks against Armenia by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As we write this article on Monday (Sept. 28), the battles continue. We hope that France, Russia, and the United States will intervene and stop the bloodshed. So far 370 Azeri soldiers, including Lieutenant-Colonel Mehman Miraziz, have been killed. Mais Barkhudarov, an Azeri Major General was wounded and captured by the Armenian forces. In addition, 81 foreign Islamist Jihadist mercenaries have been killed. Eighty four Armenian soldiers were killed and more than 100, mostly civilians, wounded. Turkey, which transported a large number of these Islamist terrorists to Azerbaijan, has promised to pay them thousands of dollars a month. It is embarrassing that Azerbaijan and Turkey with their own huge militaries are too cowardly to use their own soldiers and are importing mercenaries from Northern Syria. Hopefully, these hired terrorists will suffer the same fate as the Afghan Mujahideen and Chechen mercenaries who were brought to Azerbaijan in the 1990’s to fight against the Armenian forces. Many of them were killed in battle and the rest left Azerbaijan seeing the cowardly behavior of Azeri soldiers. In addition, Armenian forces have destroyed Azerbaijan’s four helicopters, 36 tanks and armored vehicles and 27 drones, including those purchased from Israel and Turkey.

Russia and the United States issued statements calling for a ceasefire and return to the negotiating table. Significantly, the U.S. State Department announced that “participation in the escalating violence by external parties would be deeply unhelpful and only exacerbate regional tensions.” This was an indirect call to Turkey not to meddle in the Artsakh conflict. However, the United States government should go beyond mere words and sanction both Turkey and Azerbaijan by not providing any weapons or foreign aid to either of them. In addition, we are seeing the same meaningless statement urging both sides to cease fire without condemning the party that started the attacks, which is always Azerbaijan. I am certain that the United States and Russia know full well who started the attacks.

I am sure most Armenians realize that at this critical time when the lives of the populations of Armenia and Artsakh are at risk, they should refrain from continuing their personal or partisan disputes. This is no time to engage in internal disagreements. The priority is to deter the common enemy. We should all rally around the government of Armenia. Similarly, Diaspora Armenians should set aside their petty disputes and join ranks. I know many Armenian-Americans have been engaged in supporting the different candidates in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections and Facebook is full of their heated comments. I urge everyone to take a break from these political disputes and rally around Armenia and Artsakh. We are facing much larger and more powerful enemies, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Only our united effort and smart tactics can protect us to avoid the reoccurrence of the Genocide.

Even though I am not a military expert, I have some common sense suggestions to Armenia’s leaders. This is not a partisan issue. I had made the same suggestion to Armenia’s previous and current governments, regrettably to no avail. I would like to remind our political leaders in Armenia that they should immediately declare that they will postpone all negotiations until such time that Azerbaijan and Turkey stop firing on Armenia and Artsakh. How can one carry out peaceful negotiations when the other side is holding a gun to your head? Armenia should declare to the world that we are for peaceful negotiations; however, it is not acceptable that Azerbaijan keeps firing while supposedly negotiating. What kind of negotiation is that? One can either fight or talk, but not do both at the same time. If the negotiations are interrupted, Azerbaijan is the one that will be the loser because that is the only way that it hopes to arrive at mutual concessions. It is in Azerbaijan’s interest to stop firing and start negotiating. The international community will only blame Azerbaijan for the interruption of the peaceful negotiations. By not placing such a reasonable condition on negotiations, Armenia is in fact is encouraging Azerbaijan to continue firing on Armenia and Artsakh, costing the lives of many young Armenian. No more negotiations unless Azerbaijan stops these continuous attacks.

The other suggestion I have is that we should never tell the enemy where we would or would not attack. After the spokesman of the Azeri Defense Forces threatened in July that Azerbaijan could attack the Armenian Nuclear power plant, I was dismayed to hear an Armenian official state publicly that Armenia would never attack civilian targets in Azerbaijan. There was no need to make such an announcement. Let the enemy guess what you would or would not do in case of war. If Armenia thought that by making such an announcement it will gain praise from the international community, it is sadly mistaken. War is not the time to play Mr. Nice Guy. The world respects only strength. Rights and good behavior do not count. Let Azeris worry that Armenia could attack their dams, pipelines, oil fields and civilian populations. We do not need to announce whether we could attack such targets or not. Azerbaijan had no hesitation attacking Stepanakert this week, why should we announce that we have no interest in retaliating on similar Azeri targets?

Finally, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan just announced that the possibility of Armenia recognizing Artsakh’s independence is “on the table and needs to be reviewed.” This is a welcome announcement. Pashinyan already had announced in Stepanakert last year that “Artsakh is Armenia, period.” The previous Armenian government had also declared that if Azerbaijan attacks Artsakh, Armenia would then recognize Artsakh’s independence. It is high time that Armenia take such a decision which would be an appropriate response to the Azeri/Turkish attack on Artsakh.

I urge all Armenians around the world to united and defend the homeland in whatever way they can against its enemies, Azerbaijan and Turkey.