How Yerevan dreamed of breaking up Baku, Moscow and Beijing by spreading fake news about NATO
It has been long written about the nefarious methods of waging an information war, often used by external forces against Azerbaijan. Fake news, unverified information, the substitution of concepts – everything was used against Azerbaijan before, during, and after the Patriotic War.
Certain forces are using these methods even now. But first things first.
On October 11, 2021, , which is supposedly the personal blog of former UK Ambassador to NATO, Adam Thomson, publishes an with a headline: “NATO’s vision for the shores of the Caspian Sea.” The authors of the article are allegedly Adam Thomson himself and the current representative of the UK to the Alliance Sarah McIntosh, Report informs referring to Caliber.az.
The main topic of the article is the Zangazur Corridor, while there have been voiced provocative ideas that the alleged restoration of the land connection of Nakhchivan with the main part of Azerbaijan would open a fast path for Baku to NATO membership and strike a blow at the interests of Russia and China.
However, at the beginning, we started talking about multiple fake news not without reason. After all, this provocative article also turned out to be another fake news. It was very easy to find this out. It was exposed namely by Adam Thomson himself, stating on his Twitter account that he had nothing to do with this disinformation.
“I do not have a personal blog, and one that’s recently been created in my name is fake and will be reported to the police,” Thomson wrote.
Interestingly, the user under the nickname was the first to react to Thomson’s refutation.
In an attempt to create the impression of supporting the refutation, this user openly contributed to the further spread of this disinformation by circulating a screenshot of the fake article.
In addition, the overwhelming majority of those commenting on and sharing this article are Armenians or users who sympathize with them. As is known, according to Twitter algorithms, a large number of comments and reposts contribute to a greater spread of this tweet.
The profile of this user, who presents himself as a Lebanese Armenian, was created in October 2020 during the 44-day war. This profile openly supports the information resource MiranPress, which promotes Persian chauvinism and spreads disinformation and slander about Azerbaijan. Moreover, the special services stand behind this resource. Here is one of its most recent posts:
On October 22, the MiranPress Telegram channel repeated the information about the meeting of NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia Javier Colomina with the Armenian officials, reflecting the above false article. It said that “as you know, NATO supports the opening of the Zangazur Corridor.”
If we go back to the fake article allegedly written by Adam Thomson, three obvious conclusions can be made.
Firstly, this information appeared exactly when the talk about the imminent opening of transport corridors in the region, including the Zangazur one, became more frequent. This indicates that certain forces are plotting something to prevent the opening of transport communications.
Second, the mention of NATO in the context of the opening of transport corridors in the South Caucasus is intended to irritate such geopolitical superpowers as Russia and China.
Thirdly, against the background of a decline in tensions between Iran and Azerbaijan, this provocative step is intended to become a new trigger, contributing to the next confrontation between Baku and Tehran.
In conclusion, Baku has repeatedly stated that it supports the Non-Aligned Movement and doesn’t intend to join any military-political blocs.
Finally, do these nuances interest the Armenian fake news spreaders and those sympathizing with them? This question is rhetorical.