Canadian newspaper publishes Azerbaijani-American Council General Director`s letter

The Canadian “Guardian” newspaper published General Director of the Azerbaijani-American Council (AAC) Javid Huseynov`s letter in response to the publication of article “Locked in ethnic and territorial disputes” by Henry Srebrnik. Huseynov said the author listed some historical facts and linked them to the present-day Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and some of these associations, however, need clarification.

He pointed out that the panturkism ideology, which originated in the 1880s, did not seek to create a unified Turkic empire, was never directed against any other group, including the Armenians. It was a social movement for liberation and modernization of the Turkic-speaking Muslim communities within the Russian Empire. The letter says that unrelated 1919-1920 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia was not indecisive. Azerbaijani forces defeated Armenian militants and remained in control of the Mountainous (Nagorno) Karabakh in 1919.

AAC`s General Director underlined that the conflict did not reemerge in 1991, but in 1987-88, when ethnic Armenians in Karabakh and in Armenia advanced demands to transfer the territory from Azerbaijan to Armenia. The first victims of the conflict were two Azeris killed near the town of Askeran, and the first refugees of the conflict were Azeris expelled from Armenia in late 1987.

Huseynov also highlighted that neither modern Turkey nor Azerbaijan ever viewed Armenia as an ideological or geographical barrier for co-operation. So the ball is in Armenia`s court to cease the occupation of Azerbaijani territories, to disassociate its foreign policy from fairy tales, and to live in synergy with its ages-old neighbours.


/AzerTAc/