AZERBAIJAN DEMANDS FROM ITS NEIGHBOR THE LAND THAT HAD NEVER BELONGED TO HIM
"PanARMENIAN.Net" analytical department
PanARMENIAN.Net
02.06.2007 GMT+04:00
The UNO Charter states that the principle of the territorial integrity
isn’t applicable for the countries which do not secure equal rights
for the nations and do not allow freedom of self-determination
The history of the modern Azerbaijan goes almost according to Orwell,
in spite of the historical facts and numerous confirmations about
this or that land’s belonging to various neighboring countries. To
the territorial claims against Armenia the story with the Georgian
monastery complex "Davit Garedji" is added now. Who Azerbaijan will
sort out its relationship with next is hard to predict. It could be
Dagestan, Iran, or Turkey. But before making any demands it is better
to try and learn the history of the own nation and not to search
any family tree where it doesn’t exist; among Albanians, Persians,
Turks etc.
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ In 1918 the Musafat party (Equality) first used
the term "Azerbaijan" for the area situated on the territory of two
Transcaucasian historical areas; Shirvana and Arrana. Before that the
place-name "Azerbaijan" only referred to the territories situated
to the south of the River Arax, in the area of Tebriz, Ardebil and
Lake Urmia. Later the land of Azerbaijan and Eastern Transcaucasia
(modern Azerbaijan) were populated with people of almost identical
ethnic origins. In 1936 Azerbaijan was integrated into USSR on the
bases of the Soviet Republic rights. The Azeri Turks were officially
called Azerbaijani; Azerbaijani was also the name of their official
language. It was then, when with the decision of the Soviet Government
the Azeri written language was translated from Latin to Cyrillic.
This is how the things had been before Heydar Aliyev came to power
in Azerbaijan. Taking the control of the country, he immediately
decided to "revise" the history of the country. It was then, when
Farida Mamedov’s notorious work "The Caucasian Albania" appeared,
Guliyev’s book about medieval architecture of Albania where all
the Armenian churches and khachkars were announced to be Albanian,
i.e. Azerbaijani. All this enabled Baku to "revise" the belonging
of the territories included in Az.USSR. The most interesting part
is that the Deputy Minister of the Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan
Khalaf Khalafov himself blurted out about the boarders. "In its time
the USSR authorities didn’t regard the issue of delimitation of the
administrative rights among the former Soviet countries, which led to
a number of problems in boarder delimitation. According to his words,
often different documents referring to the issue of territories of
this or that country contradict each other," says Day.az. Historian
Jamil Hasanly is sure that, "Many native Azeri territories have gone
to the neighboring countries. Today we don’t have to squander our
territories. We must try to save what has been left to us after giving
out Azeri lands, and today we cannot lose a single square meter".
The parties’ incapacity of finding a peaceful solution of the
controversies concerning the territorial integrity as well as the right
of nations’ self-determination leads to national conflicts growing
into military confrontation. The principle of territorial integrity
exclusively works for the protection of the country against external
aggression, and this is closely interconnected with its formula in UNO
Charter; "All the UN Members in their international relations refrain
from force or its implementation against the territorial inviolability
or political independence of any country, as well as any other method
incompatible with the objectives of the UNO". However the UNO Charter
states that the principle of the territorial integrity isn’t applicable
for the countries which do not secure equal rights for the nations and
do not allow freedom of self-determination, and this, perhaps, is the
most essential point in the resolution of the Karabakh Conflict. It
should be reminded that the nation’s right on self-determination
is considered to be one of the universally recognized principles
of international law. It gained recognition in the process of the
colonial system breakdown and was toughened in the Declaration of
Independence of the colonial countries and nations (by the Resolution
N 1514 XV of the UN General Assembly adopted on December 14, 1960)
and the consequent international pacts and declarations of UNO.
Creation of the multinational empires sooner or later brought to their
breakdown; the Roman Empire, the Golden Horde, the Ottoman Empire,
Austria-Hungary, USSR. Being one of the most significant features of
independence, territorial integrity became one of the weakest points
after the USSR breakdown. The main difficulty concerns the change of
the administrative bounds in the former Soviet Union into public ones.
But if Kosovo falls apart from Serbia why Nagorno-Karabakh can’t
be proclaimed an independent Republic? Maybe because Serbia is of
much less importance to the USA than Azerbaijan, yet for Russia
everything is just vise versa. Unfortunately once again Armenia
has found itself between two rocks, in spite of all international
principles and treaties.