International Community Applies Double Standards In Nagorno-Karabakh

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY APPLIES DOUBLE STANDARDS IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH ISSUE, ARTSAKH PRESIDENT SAYS

by Ashot Safaryan

Friday, December 12, 00:31

Artsakh President Bako Sahakian, in an interview with Italian
publication Il Giorno, shared his insights about his country’s
challenges in light of the continuing dispute with Azerbaijan.

Asbarez reports that Sahakian said Azerbaijan’s oil exports encourage
Baku to eschew peace negotiations. “The more Azerbaijan exports
hydrocarbons, the tougher its stance on negotiations,” Sahakian said.

Thanks to high profits from oil, Azerbaijan’s military expenses have
increased by 2,500 percent in the past ten years, the President noted.

“But I believe that oil and military expenses are worth nothing
whenever we fight for freedom and the protection of fundamental human
rights,” Sahakian added. Sahakian stressed that the international
community can do much more to reign in Azerbaijan’s aggression,
especially in light of its rapidly worsening human rights situation.

“As for the international community, the process of our Republic’s
independence and our people’s right to self-determination – we,
unfortunately, witness double standards here. Kosovo and Sudan’s
recognition were glaring examples of that. But we never lose spirit.

Our state was founded at the moment when, like the world’s key
democracies, we too, reacted to the adversary’s transgressions,
exercising our right to rebel and [to protect] our self-determination,”
Sahakian explained.

“We were coerced into an unequal war and nevertheless won. There was
a disproportion between sets of values. We were leading a battle to
protect our homes and our fundamental rights, while the Azerbaijanis
preoccupied themselves with territorial invasions.” Sahakian also
rejected that the war had religious motivations, as so many in the
international media tried to portray it.

“The reasons were universal in terms of fundamental human rights. But
there were religious speculations by Azerbaijan during the war, with
the Azerbaijani front having Chechen jihadists and contract killers,”
the President said.

“All wars are tragedies. I share every individual’s grief, both on
the one side and the other,” Sahakian told Il Giorno. “The war was
imposed on us; we won and developed sensitivity; it is possible to
avoid new wars. What Baku obviously lacks is sensitivity, as certain
lessons have been forgotten.”

Asked by the Italian journalist what message he has to convey a
hundred years after the Armenian Genocide, Sahakian said, “We,
the descendants of that genocide’s survivors, committed ourselves
to prevent a new genocide as early as twenty years ago, and we will
do that again when necessary. The Armenophobia preached by Baku is,
of course, very precarious.”

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

http://www.arminfo.am/index.cfm?objectid=1CD713F0-817D-11E4-901D0EB7C0D21663

Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS