US Daily Review
January 28, 2013 Monday 7:25 AM EST
Azerbaijan Allows for Shooting of Civilian Aircrafts
The following article is being released by the Public Relations
Department, Consulate General of the Republic of Armenia in Los
Angeles:
The Government of Azerbaijan has recently voted to allow its air force
to shoot down civilian aircraft overflying the Republic of Artsakh.
This decision came in the wake of the announced resumption of flights
from and to Stepanakert, the capital of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh in
Russian).
The threat to destroy civilian aircraft with passengers aboard is a
complete aberration by standards of any civilized and respected member
of international community. However, given Azerbaijan’s track record
of respect for international law and human rights, it is quite
conceivable that the decision of the government of Azerbaijan is not
entirely declarative in its nature.
During the last days of the Soviet empire, Azerbaijani authorities
orchestrated kristallnacht-styled pogroms on its citizens of Armenian
origin – a crime that forever stained the face of Baku, Azerbaijan’s
capital and a crime yet to be repented by its perpetrators. The Azeri
government then sent warplanes to drop cluster bombs on apartment
buildings, hospitals and schools of unarmed people in Stepanakert, who
in exercise of their constitutional right, voted for
self-determination and freedom. Repelled in a humiliating defeat,
Azerbaijan imposed a tight blockade on 150,000-strong population of
Artsakh, with the hope to starve them and force to capitulate all in
vain as we know.
And then comes the act of utmost barbary: intoxicated by hate speech
towards anything Armenian, an Azeri officer beheads his sleeping
fellow Armenian classmate – both attending a NATO seminar in Budapest.
Abominable in its design and execution, this crime was subsequently
glorified by the government of Azerbaijan and the axe murderer was
honored and promoted in rank, thus leaving Artsakh and its people with
no illusions as to the ability of the modern day Azerbaijan to
maintain civilized neighborly relations or relations with anyone of
Armenian descent.
21 years into a successful nation-building existence, the Republic of
Artsakh is taking measures to re-launch air communication with Armenia
only to face more hostility and outright blackmail from Azerbaijan.
Air traffic is not an end in itself for Artsakh, although it is very
natural for all people, no matter if their country is recognized or
not, to fulfill their fundamental right for free movement. With the
resumption of civilian air traffic with Armenia, Artsakh intends to
improve the country’s accessibility to the outside world with all the
economic and humanitarian ramifications this move entails. Neither
Armenia nor Artsakh consider the re-opening of the Stepanakert airport
as an escalatory move intended to damage the negotiation process that
Azerbaijan has been consistently trying to derail. Similar to this is
the reaction of international mediators who warn Azerbaijan against
the use of force and call for a refrain in politicizing the matter.
Azerbaijan’s aggressive reactions repeat a familiar pattern, a deja
vu, by futilely attempting to prevent the people of Artsakh from
strengthening their statehood and democratic traditions. Speaking of
democratic traditions, on the other side of the world, before the
California State Senate, the Consul General of Azerbaijan just
recently referred to his country as a democracy. This came in the wake
of the latest report by Freedom House that rated Azerbaijan as ‘Not
Free,’ while classifying the Republic of Artsakh as ‘Partly Free,’
i.e. among the nations with nascent democratic traditions such as
genuinely competitive elections and participation. This ‘glitch’ is
not the only one. In yet another astonishing revelation, the Azeri
diplomats claimed that Azerbaijan- a predominantly Shiite Muslim
country – was one of the first Christian nations!
Having declared the worldwide Armenians Azerbaijan’s worst enemy,
Azerbaijan has in recent months imported its deceptive propaganda and
bellicose rhetoric to the US West Coast – home to one of the largest
Armenian Diasporas in the world. Thus far, this new effort by the
Azeri propaganda has only resulted in a number of embarrassing
situations and heavy blows to the country’s own standing, in addition
to strengthening the already overwhelming support of the global
Armenian community to the Republic of Artsakh.
There has been no response from the government of Azerbaijan.