Washington, Tianjin and the Armenian opposition

The Armenian opposition is a special stratum of society with a completely fixed logic and a frozen view of the world.

MP Tagui Tovmasyan shared in Parliament her concern about the fact that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan does not raise the issue of "Armenian prisoners" anywhere. Even in Washington, sitting next to Donald Trump, he did not take advantage of the situation to loudly demand the return of the separatists and other criminals detained by the Azerbaijani side.

MP Tovmasyan is unable to understand that a politician who wants to be treated seriously, and not like the previous rulers of Armenia, cannot put on a show, and even being in such a respectable company. By juggling fakes, Pashinyan would have put himself in a stupid position and demonstrated that all signatures and handshakes on his part have no weight. Such statements would certainly have been followed by a reaction from the Azerbaijani side, and not only from Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan did not raise the issue of pseudo-prisoners in Washington because, firstly, he knows that there are no Armenian prisoners of war in Azerbaijan. Secondly, because I came to the States to negotiate peace, and not to spread revanchist narratives. And thirdly, because the people sitting in the dock in Baku pose a threat to the stability and integrity of Armenia. Why should Pashinyan destroy relations with Baku that have just begun to be built because, for example, Ruben Vardanyan was sent to the region to overthrow the current government in Armenia?

Against the background of the negative surge due to Pashinyan's "non-Armenian" behavior in Washington and China, Naira Zohrabyan, a former member of parliament, who constantly shone in European structures in the old days, seeking negative decisions against Azerbaijan, also made herself felt. I haven't heard from her in a long time. The lady retired, which was severely disrupted by the news of the closure of the Red Cross representative office in Azerbaijan. 

The ex-MP, along with other "alarmed" figures, rushed into battle, believing that there was a convenient moment to attack Baku. The Armenians have lost a lot from the fact that Donald Trump, having assumed the post of president of the United States, pointed out to a crowd of so-called international human rights defenders in their place, making it clear to all these international organizations specializing in well-paid blackmail of certain countries that they are windbags and freeloaders. After that, these organizations went into the shadows, lay there, waiting for them to be accepted back into the game. The attacks on Azerbaijan have stopped, and the Armenians and other Azerbaijanophobes have lost an indispensable tool.

It seems to the latter that now the moment has come when they can reassert themselves, as well as return to the arena various funds and structures that previously worked well, fueled, among other things, by the diaspora.

The current hysteria is connected, as we have already noted, with the closure of the ICRC Baku office. It was closed due to the lack of need for his presence in the country. The Armenian revanchists raised a howl not because of the reduction of the ICRC staff, but in order to draw attention to the "prisoners of war."

To be honest, I'm tired of constantly telling these talkers the same truth: people of Armenian nationality who are imprisoned or on trial in Azerbaijan are not prisoners of war, and no European officials, to whom Naira Zohrabyan appeals, will be able to attribute this status to them. There is a clear gradation that even the most ardent Azerbaijanophobes cannot avoid.

So, who are the prisoners of war? For Naira Zohrabyan personally, we give the definition:

"Prisoners of war are military personnel or other members of the armed forces of a belligerent party who have fallen into the power of the enemy during hostilities and are subject to protection under international humanitarian law, primarily the Geneva Conventions. Their status determines that they have the right to humane treatment, protection from violence, and should be released and repatriated after the end of hostilities if they are not serving a criminal sentence or have no other grounds for further detention."

All persons who fall under this definition were released after the 44-day war. Those who are in prison or on trial have not been detained during the fighting. They were detained much later, already in peacetime, while attempting to carry out sabotage and terrorist attacks, while illegally entering the territory of Azerbaijan by armed gangs. It is not even worth talking about the leaders of the separatist regime involved in the occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide. 

A certain part of the saboteurs, who did not manage to do anything serious, were later handed over to the Armenian side as a gesture of goodwill in exchange for maps of minefields, in gratitude for Armenia's refusal to apply for SOR29 in favor of Azerbaijan. Detainees were also released in a number of other cases. However, those who have committed serious crimes, who are responsible for the deaths of civilians and military personnel in peacetime, will not be released under any circumstances.

An interesting fuss has been made again around the Lebanese Armenian Vigen Euljekjian. This guy was detained by the State Security Service after the Patriotic War in 2020. A Lebanese Armenian illegally crossed the border of Azerbaijan as part of a sabotage group and got caught. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison under a number of articles of the Criminal Code. The Armenian was not captured in battle, he was caught in sabotage. During the war, youngsters like him were allowed to die ahead, and their work began after the onset of peace.

Armenian propaganda uses the name of this Lebanese wholeheartedly, periodically reporting on his "prolonged hunger strikes." The last time the tantrum was staged was in March. Armenian organizations claimed that Euljekjian was starving. The information, of course, was not confirmed. And the most annoying thing for the screamers is that they couldn't raise a fuss about this fake in the new conditions. The manipulation of the Lebanese mercenary's "hunger strike" continues. And today, the same Naira Zohrabyan is counting on cutting coupons from this case, manipulating the name of the Red Cross Committee. A fake was planted in the Armenian media working for revanchist circles about an alleged hunger strike that a "peaceful repatriate" has been carrying out for 20 days.

The Red Cross office closed only on September 3, and before that, for some reason, no one had tried to puzzle the humanitarian organization about the fate of the Lebanese. What were you waiting for? Office closure? Apparently, attempts to clarify the issue could have exposed the fake, so the noise about the pseudo-hunger strike was raised only now.

And anyway, Zohrabyan contradicts herself. If, as she claims, there is no loophole to find out about the condition of the "prisoners", how did some media outlets manage to find out about the pseudo-hunger strike of the Lebanese mercenary? So you can't find out if Bako Sahakyan has a stomach ache, but information about the alleged hunger strike is spreading all over the world and reaching as far as Argentina? It is a pity that Naira Zohrabyan does not find this strange.

Is she so worried about the health of the separatists, saboteurs and terrorists? Let him turn to those "informed sources" who spread fakes about hunger strikes and other nonsense. With their "awareness", they will definitely tell you what Ruben Vardanyan ate for breakfast and how many times Arayik Harutyunyan was shot in the ear.

Finally, we consider it necessary to stand up for the European officials whom Zohrabyan has wrongly offended. She accused them of being too soft on Baku. They say they did not react to the closure of the ICRC office in the presence of "Armenian prisoners", but if Yerevan had done this in the presence of Azerbaijani prisoners, it would have been punished... To be honest, it was a great shame for the European officials. Well, it's really a shame. So many years of conscientious work for the Armenians, so many years of blindly ignoring the issue of Azerbaijani prisoners and missing persons. - and on you, thanks. Not a single word of condemnation towards Yerevan, not even a single threatening look was noted in European structures during the years of the Armenian occupation and after it. And who better than Zohrabyan, who has been in PACE for more than one year, not to know about this.