Politics

​Who prevents Azerbaijan from liberating its occupied lands? – COMMENT

All are well aware that Azerbaijani lands are under occupation, and it can liberate them. Then, why doesn’t Azerbaijan free its territories? It is a natural and pertinent question.

Azerbaijan has every reason to liberate its regions. The occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas are the historical territories of Azerbaijan. Moreover, international law supports Azerbaijan. The international community, including the United States and other world powers, recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. The people are able and ready to liberate the country’s occupied lands. The April battles and the mood of those days confirm this once again. Besides, refugees from Karabakh want to return to their homeland. The Armenian citizens in Nagorno-Karabakh are held hostage by Armenia and those who hinder the conflict’s settlement.

Such a state makes it possible to liberate the territories by any means.

Who is impeding it? As is known from the history of the occupation, Armenia was not alone in this international crime, which means that Azerbaijani lands are being kept under occupation following the influence of external forces. This situation has become the subject of a struggle between the interests of international powers. Their assistance to the separatists also verifies this fact.

During an online meeting of the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee for the fiscal year 2021, Congressman Brad Sherman called for $1.5 million to be allocated to Karabakh.

“I urge you to include $1.5 million for Karabakh demining and robust funding for regional rehabilitation services and help Nagorno-Karabakh deal with mines, health, and education projects,” he said.

A few days ago, several members of the US House of Representatives provided testimony in support of continued demining aid to the separatist regime in the occupied Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Representatives Judy Chu (D-CA), David Cicilline (D-RI), Jim Costa (D-CA), TJ Cox (D-CA), John Garamendi (D-CA), Jim Himes (D-CT), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) emphasized the importance of continued assistance to the separatist regime. Specifically, Rep. Costa called for $100 million in aid to Armenia.

Former Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan stated that the US had provided $2 billion aid to his country since its independence. There were reports that Yerevan will provide a loan worth $26 million to Karabakh’s separatist regime. It confirms that the government transfers part of the financial assistance provided to Armenia by the US, and other countries, including international monetary organizations, to the separatists. The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are very mindful of this connection between the Armenian government and the separatists.

However, they cover it up under various guises, pretending to be fair. The funds mentioned above, worth $1.5 million, are said to be spent on demining the area.

To date, most of the US financial support provided to Nagorno-Karabakh has been transferred annually to the HALO Trust, which claimed it assigned those funds for demining Karabakh. However, due to the occupation of Azerbaijani lands, the control over the activities of such international “non-governmental organizations” is limited. The transparency of the activities of such NGOs is controversial. Consequently, Azerbaijan has the right to demand the cessation of the United States’ and other countries’ activities in the occupied territories.

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that several foreign humanitarian organizations provide support to Karabakh under the name of humanitarian aid. The British mine clearance organization HALO Trust, France’s SPFA, KASA Swiss Humanitarian Foundation are among them.

Last year, the US House of Representatives earmarked $1.5 million for demining and rehabilitation services in Azerbaijan’s occupied territories.

Furthermore, the US restored $4 billion in frozen foreign aid in the previous year. In 2020, $40 million will be allocated to the regimes in Armenia and Karabakh.

One of the accepted norms in the world is to impose sanctions on the occupiers and separatists. However, Armenia and the separatists in occupied Karabakh are not subjected to such pressure. On the contrary, they are almost pampered and given all kinds of help.

Not only the United States and France but also Armenian entrepreneurs in Russia, including the Tashir company, provide financial aid to the Armenian separatists in Karabakh.

Another issue is that recent developments show that the Armenian government does not hide its weakness in the coronavirus fight. Yerevan sought assistance from the international community to combat the pandemic.

The US, Russia, France, China, Britain, and others have already started sending aid to Armenia. The United States has provided $25 million in assistance to Yerevan for this purpose.

The Armenian government assigns some of those funds to the Karabakh separatists to meet the interests of its own and foreign donors.

The fight against COVID-19 has become an excuse to ask for assistance to Armenia. Further support to the country in monetary funds, medical equipment, and specialists is not ruled out. It is also expected that instructors from other fields will be sent to Armenia under this pretext.

For some reason, this idea reminded me of the reports about the overthrow of the government of Mohammad Mossadegh, who served as Iranian Prime Minister from April 28, 1951, to August 19, 1953. At that time, the United States has reportedly sent 100 humanitarian “NGO staff” to Iran. Those “instructors” overthrew the Mossadegh government. The White House later acknowledged that it was wrong to remove him from power.

There was such a famous saying: “Where there were green (dollars) and Coca-Cola, there’s the United States.” This thesis seems to be still valid. Some forces in the US, disclosing direct assistance to the separatists in Karabakh, seriously inflict damage on Azerbaijan, its ally in the region, as well as its national interests, thanks to the Armenian lobby.

It turns out that some powers in the United States, while satisfying the interests of the Armenian lobby regarding the separatists in Karabakh, forget that Azerbaijan is more important for the US. Both ruling circles in the United States and the Western bloc ignore Azerbaijan’s factors related to Iran. Otherwise, they would not have pampered Armenia and the separatists so much.

The co-chairs reassure Karabakh separatists by their support, which impedes the peaceful settlement of the conflict. For this reason, they illegally change the names of historical places in Karabakh.

Nazim Mustafa, Department Head of the Presidential Library, Doctor of Philosophy in History, touched upon this issue in his “Vandalism: Genocide against Historical Names,” published in 2006 in Azerbaijani and English.

“In the book, we have given the names of 668 settlements, even 254 ruined villages where Armenians do not live. In the 2014 edition, the number of such toponyms reached 702,” says the writer.

According to him, the Armenians are currently continuing this process in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas: “After the relocation of Armenians to the Azerbaijani settlements in those areas, they renamed 120 places.”

Here, we tried to provide a brief overview of one of the factors preventing Azerbaijan from restoring its sovereign rights over its historical, internationally recognized lands.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijani Defense Minister Colonel General Zakir Hasanov has recently revealed some details of his phone talk with his Russian counterpart, Army General Sergei Shoigu.

“In the first three days of the April war, the Azerbaijani Army defeated the Armenian forces with a small number of military members,” he stressed.

“…After partially destroying the Armenian army during the military operations in 2016, we recaptured Lalatapa heights and started advancing towards Talish hills. At that time, they (the Armenian government) called Russia and Sergei Shoigu, begging to ask us to stop the army. During our phone talk, I explained to the Russian Defense Minister that this was only a counter-attack to their provocation. We aim to force them to retreat from the frontline settlements with the limited number of forces,” said the Colonel-General.

In our opinion, the factors obstructing the liberation of the lands are apparent.

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