Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
April 27 2004
BAKU CIRCULATES LIES AND EMPTY TALKS
Despite the useless efforts Baku does not give up the attempts at
discrediting the Republic of Nagorni Karabakh in front of the
international community, trying to accuse the latter of international
terrorism and illegal trade in narcotics. Recently “525-aya Gazata” of
Baku, making a reference to the Azerbaijani Ministry of National
Security, published information about the arrest of the Irani citizen
Khudam Penah (born in 1969), as well as four other offenders who tried
to smuggle drugs into Azerbaijan at the Irani border of Azerbaijan,
near Fizouli on March 27. The newspaper states that during the
interrogation it was confirmed that the drugs confiscated from the
group were produced in the occupied territories of
Azerbaijan. Probably, it would be strange if the Azerbaijani Ministry
of National Security did not connect the fact of arrest of the drug
dealers (if it happened, in fact) with Nagorni Karabakh because in
this country they even tried to find “Armenian traces” in the
explosion of the World Trade Center in New York. This is a habit which
Baku cannot and does not want to give up. Of course, it is their
problem that they look ridiculous by circulating one more lie but in
this case Azerbaijan did not take into consideration the authority of
its southern neighbour Iran, actually accusing it of inability to
control their borders. By the way, the embassy of Iran in Baku has not
confirmed this information yet. As to the evidence confirmed during
the interrogation, it is clear to anyone in what way the anti-Karabakh
evidence was extorted from the accused. This country has been accused
by the European organizations of using torture and violence against
the prisoners and even participants of protest meetings. However, the
Ministry of National Security of this republic, for concealing such a
“hearty talk” has chosen a corresponding expression “filtering”. The
participants of the “talk” with this agency, which acts as coordinator
of the anti-Armenian and anti-Karabakh campaign, after going through
the mentioned “procedure” start uttering trite expressions of the
powerful propagandist machine of Azerbaijan. Recently the same
ministry has undertaken a rather disgraceful experiment, using
Armenian refugees from Baku A. Apressian and R. Terian (who
mysteriously appeared in their native city from Yerevan) for the same
intention. Undergoing “filtering” in the same ministry where they had
appeared, according to the information of the Ministry of National
Security Council, by their will, during the press conference under the
roof of the same ministry started to utter absolute absurdities about
production of narcotics in Nagorni Karabakh (where they had never been
to), hundreds of Azerbaijani hostages and POW’s in Armenia and Nagorni
Karabakh, as well as training of terrorists of the imprisoned
Azerbaijani children in Armenia to be used against Azerbaijan, etc. I
wonder whom the authors of these absurd tales meant if the
international organizations, in particular the Red Cross, the
International Working Group on Hostages and POW’s, as well as the
Azerbaijani representative of the group and representatives of public
organizations of Azerbaijan confirmed that there were no POW’s in
Armenia and Azerbaijan. By the way, it is not difficult to guess that
this raving about drugs and prisoners is the consequence of failure of
the Azerbaijani foreign policy, more exactly one of its priorities,
the discrediting of NKR. It is known that during international
conferences, official and non-official meetings the representatives of
Azerbaijan have a number of times stated about production of narcotics
in Nagorni Karabakh. The same Ilham Aliev the head of the Azerbaijani
delegation in the PACE and vice president of Azerbaijan then during
the meeting of that authoritative organization accused Karabakh of
growth of narcotics and demanded application of sanctions against
Nagorni Karabakh. We should confess that in the sphere of mythology
Azerbaijan has achieved considerable success and confused
corresponding organizations. Not very long ago through various lies
and falsification official Baku tried to introduce false data about
production and circulation of narcotics in Nagorni Karabakh and
adjacent territories in the annual report of the USA State Department
on strategic control of world circulation of drugs. The comic side of
the situation is that Azerbaijan which supplies Washington with false
information, has no access to these territories for ten years already,
therefore it has no information on these areas. Everything is like in
Dostoevsky’s works; crime begets another crime, in the case of
Azerbaijan falsification begets other falsification, which, however,
in this case is equal to committing an offence. Realizing the
absurdity of their statements, hoping to create illusion of truth,
Azerbaijan circulates new slander; the Russian satellites have
allegedly detected plants containing narcotics and the routes of
circulation of drugsâ=80¦ Is it possible to fool the authoritative
international organizations for such a long time? And this in the case
when the Karabakh party has done so much consistent work to dispel the
accusations of Azerbaijan and achieve taking out the negative
formulations in the reports of the USA State Department, at the same
time appealing to the international organizations to form an
independent monitoring group and send to NKR to study the
situation. It is enough to recall that in 2001 the NKR president
addressed the OSCE chairman-in-office, as well as the co-chairmen of
the Minsk Group with the same suggestion, the speaker of the NKR
National Assembly addressed the chairman of the PACE, the minister of
foreign affairs made corresponding announcements. If follow the
dynamics of the evaluations to Karabakh in the reports of the USA
State Department, it is easily seen that accusations were substituted
by careful remarks that the information on using the territory of
Nagorni Karabakh for production and circulation of narcotics are
presented by the government of Azerbaijan. In further reports it is
mentioned that the United States does not possess the independent
confirmation of those statements. Thus, for the first time since 1996
there were no accusations in Karabakh’s address in the report of
2003. Moreover, the UN Department on Drugs and Crime confirmed they
did not posses evidence on the use of the NK territory for transit of
narcotic drugs. In addition to this, for a number of times now the
report of the State Department states that one of the main transit
routes of drugs passes via the territory of Azerbaijan. Let us agree
that Azerbaijan has enough reasons for losing hope, which causes
another wave of misinformation and slander. In other words, appearing
in a comic situation, the Azerbaijani authorities still point the
arrow at Nagorni Karabakh accusing of production and trade of
narcotics. Apparently doubting the announcements of Azerbaijan the USA
State Department and UN corresponding organizations have dealt a
serious blow to the authority of Baku. Hence the barefaced lies,
slander and hysteria, nervous efforts of saving “their
image”. “Nagorni Karabakh was pleased with the latest report of the
State Department of the United States and we hope the foreign
political agency of the USA, as well as the international
organizations will refuse to use unverified data in their reports,”
said the NKR vice minister of foreign affairs Masis Mayilian. “Let us
hope that in answer to the numerous appeals of Nagorni Karabakh the
interested organizations will form a group of independent experts to
monitor the situation directly and reveal objective facts. We are
convinced that the findings of the survey will allow putting an end to
the manipulations of the topic and will prevent Azerbaijan’s attempts
at providing misinformation to the international community.” By the
way, setting forth unacceptable conditions in recent years official
Baku counteracted to the attempts of sending the international mission
to Nagorni Karabakh, which allowed Baku to confuse the international
community freely. We want to believe that the international commission
will finally manage to cut the long thread of falsification and false
accusations.
LEONID MARTIROSSIAN.