The interlocutor of “Aravot” is Mariam Avagyan, coordinator of the Congress of Refugees from the Azerbaijani SSR
– Mrs. Avagyan, after the discussion in Brussels, there was information in the Azerbaijani press that the issue of the return of the so-called “Azerbaijani refugees” to Armenia was also discussed. Answering this question, Nikol Pashinyan said at his press conference that during the negotiations, when the rights and security of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh were discussed, Azerbaijan, in turn, raised the issue of the safety of Azerbaijanis who left Soviet Armenia. “We responded that the topic of the so-called Western Azerbaijanis who left Armenia in time is not equivalent to the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, but is equivalent to the rights and security of the Armenians of Ganja, Nakhichevan and Sumgait,” said Pashinyan. In other words, Baku is also putting this issue on the negotiation table. How do you assess this?
– One of the required practical steps should be to evaluate what happened against the Armenians in the Armenian settlements under the control of Azerbaijan, reaffirming the February 13, 1990 decision of the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR that genocide was committed against the Armenians in 1988-1990. Of course, there was a need for this assessment a long time ago, and it would be essential if it appeared on the negotiation table. Its failure to appear is simply deliberate and criminal inaction by the Armenian political authorities, a criminally prosecuted anti-state act.
This assessment was to prevent genocide against Artsakh today through people’s exhaustion. It would put the fact of ontological threat to the Armenians of Artsakh on the negotiation table. However, today the conclusion is already clear that the disruption of that assessment and the circumvention of the decision of the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR on February 13, 1990, by the entire state system, its political and scientific spheres, was carried out by the forces of pleasing the Turks outside, by the hands of the Armenian rulers, the goal – the destruction of Armenian statehood. I hoped in 2018 that the “zero point” could be just this assessment. However, today it is obvious that we still lack a state- and national-minded political elite and foreign governance has become like a devastating flood. The following circumstance is the requirement that it should be clarified and raised in international circles; as a result of the Soviet “ethnic exchange” process following the genocide of the Armenians of Sumgait, Gandzak, and Baku, the houses and apartments seized and looted from the Armenians of Gandzak, Sumgait, and Baku were moved from the Armenian SSR “Azeris,” who moved with their property, pets, monetary compensation received from the government of the Armenian SSR, are they refugees according to the UN definition? Here is the UN Convention’s definition of a refugee: “…a person who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, association with a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, because of such fear, unwilling to use that country protection, or who, having no citizenship and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, because of such fear, unwilling to return there.”
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It is evident that neither the “Azeris” relocated from the Armenian SSR, the Nagorno-Karabakh region, nor the seven regions are refugees according to the UN definition. But when did they talk about this in Armenian reality? We are the only ones raising this issue. And this is a key issue today; Aliyev brazenly continues to develop his “refugees” thesis against the background of the Armenian authorities’ permanent victimization attitude when they have already managed to register 600,000 “Azerbaijani refugees” in the UN, and the Armenian side has not: And not an Armenian refugee, not from Sumgait, not from Gandzak, not from Mingechaur, not from Shaki, not from Shamakhi, not from Shahumyan, not from Nakhichevan, not from Baku, oh Not from Getashen, not from Karhat, not from Shirvan, not from any Armenian settlement under the control of Baku. And neither the issue of the genocide of Sumgait, Gandzak, Baku, Maragha, Shahumyan, and Getashen will receive the attention of the RA or Artsakh Republic authorities, nor the critical issue I presented, that Baku, according to the UN definition, has no refugees. And isn’t such criminal inactivity a criminally prosecuted anti-state act? Who will tell the RA prosecutor about it, or was he not given a mandate, and who should do it?
– Yes, Azerbaijan is dealing with the so-called return of Azerbaijani refugees at the state level, calling the territory of Armenia “Western Azerbaijan.” In response to this, the government of Armenia does not conduct an adequate state policy, and Nikol Pashinyan said in answer to this question that non-governmental organizations raise these issues in international structures. What does this policy suggest to you?
- In his answer to the media on July 25, the Prime Minister clearly stated that in contrast to the neighboring genocidal state, which has been conducting an elaborate state policy on the issue of refugees since 1990, for RA, “the issue of refugees is not a state policy in the sense that we continue to respect our international obligations.” I want to understand to whom and to which international structures the RA authorities – the former and the current RA Prime Minister – have made a global commitment:
– Not to talk about the realities that existed before 1992 (admitted by the Third President of RA)
– Not to politicize the issue of refugees (the RA President’s statement in May 2012);
– They fixed the issue of the return of “Azerbaijani refugees” on paper and the subject of Armenian refugees orally (the interview of the Second President of the Republic of Armenia after the 2020 war),
– Not to remember the Armenian refugees in any way (the First President of the Republic of Armenia is committed to that principle);
-Integrate and eliminate the term “refugee” (in 2003, the word “refugee” was deleted from the name of the state body dealing with refugee issues),
-And the RA Prime Minister, continuing the conspiratorial case of the former, completely abolished the state body dealing with the refugee problem in 2022.
Can the RA Prime Minister answer whether he inherited the “international obligations” to keep the issue of refugees away from the RA state policy from the Ter-Petrosyan-Kocharyan-Sargsyan tandem, and is that the reason for his dedication to that issue, or did external forces force him to do it anew, served and forced, and for what? In short, in his answer to the media, the issue of refugees was finally buried, and perhaps this is the “zero point.” There is no state unit dealing with refugee issues; it means there is no need for it and no refugees. There are no refugees; there is no need for the Armenian side to apply point 7 of the tripartite statement of November 9 because there are no Armenian beneficiaries. There is no state unit dealing with refugee issues, which means, according to the requirements of the UN regulations that RA does not need to cooperate with the UN on refugee issues. Here is the whole cruel and conspiratorial truth.
Thus, it is evident that Baku has developed one last step to destroy Armenian statehood under the name of “refugees.” And the Armenian authorities, in solidarity with the circumstances created by Baku and indifferent to the Armenian statehood facing the disaster, refuse to use the key importance of the fate of the Armenian refugees in the Karabakh conflict for the sake of the survival of the Armenian nation on the remnants of its living space, for the sake of the protection of the Armenian statehood. During the interview, I perceived directness and sincerity as a signal, a message, and an open and transparent reassurance of the Russian-Turkey, that the issue of the Armenian Genocide in Eastern Armenia is never a topic of discussion because they do not have the “mandate” for it. Is there a need to ask the RA Prime Minister again what kind of mandate we are talking about, who should have given that mandate to him, and through whom?
Roza HOVHANNISYAN
“Aravot” daily newspaper, 29.07.2023
