The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention expresses grave concern over recent remarks by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in which he compared Armenian political detainees and prisoners of war to Nazi leaders convicted at the Nuremberg trials. During a 13 February interview with France 24 TV channel, Aliyev stated: “[c]alling for the release of the former [Nagorno-]Karabakh leaders is the same thing, even worse. Their crimes are worse than what the Nazis did during World War II.” Aliyev then argued that requests that he release Armenian detainees are akin to asking the Allies to free Nazi officials before their sentences. This statement is particularly dangerous in the context of the Israel-U.S. war of aggression against Iran, which has catapulted Azerbaijan into a position as a critical wartime ally, granting President Aliyev even greater impunity than he has thus far enjoyed.

Aliyev’s comparison does not reflect historical reality. It distorts it. It weaponizes it.

Aliyev’s comments were made just a few days after his meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, in which Vance raised the issue of releasing Armenian hostages still being held by Baku. Aliyev’s comments demonstrate his ongoing disrespect for U.S. leadership, whose small requests on behalf of Armenians he routinely dismisses. His rhetoric is further a prime example of “mirroring,” a common tactic used by leaders accused of serious abuses of international law. While there is absolutely no credible evidence that any of the Armenians currently being held by Baku have committed any crimes, much less crimes against humanity and genocide (some of them are in fact POWs that Azerbaijan was supposed to return to Armenia in 2020), Aliyev and his government stand accused by credible observers and international legal experts, including at the Lemkin Institute, of genocide and crimes against humanity for conduct in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In September 2023, Azerbaijan’s military attacked and invaded the Republic of Artsakh, a de facto independent state with a population that was 99 percent Armenian, resulting in the forced displacement of the entire population of the region – more than 100,000 Armenians. Independent experts, including former International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, have determined that Azerbaijan’s prior 10-month blockade and the September military assault demonstrated genocidal intent. The Lemkin Institute’s 127-page report, Risk Factors and Indicators of the Crime of Genocide in the Republic of Artsakh: Applying the UN Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes to the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, published on 5 September 2023, discusses Azerbaijan’s genocidal intent towards Artsakh Armenians in detail. The International Association of Genocide Scholars later also found that Azerbaijan had committed acts of genocide against Armenians. As part of its attack, Azerbaijan took many officials in the Artsakh government hostage. They have since been subjected to inhumane conditions of detention and show trials.

The Lemkin Institute considers President Aliyev to be the leader of a genocidal state – a state whose institutions are suffused with genocidal ideology, whose policies are formed by genocidal agendas, and whose genocidal rhetoric serves as an important ballast for domestic legitimacy. President Aliyev has institutionalized genocidal Armenophobia across state agencies and public life. Before 2023, he frequently referred to Armenians as “dogs,” “jackals,” “rabbits,” and terrorists in public speeches. After the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, he built a “Trophy Park” in Baku to celebrate Azerbaijan’s supposed victory in the war, which included dehumanizing wax models of dead and dying Armenian soldiers with exaggerated, grotesque features that Azerbaijani visitors were encouraged to mock. Being one of the most openly and unapologetically racist acts of the 21st century, the Trophy Park garnered some attention and criticism in the Western world, and Azerbaijan was forced to remove the figures. However, the Trophy Park itself remains, as does the genocidal Armenophobia that informed it.

It appears that in exchange for a green light from the international community to invade Artsakh, the Azerbaijani President has had to tone down his Armenophobic rhetoric. Now, instead of shouting epithets, he pursues false charges against the Armenians still in his control and justifies his illegal actions by comparing them to Nazi war criminals and architects of genocide. The only “crime” committed by the Armenian representatives of the former Artsakh government being held in Baku is that they exercised their right to self-determination and sought to protect the Armenian residents of the enclave – whose presence dates back four thousand years – from Azerbaijani aggression. Unfortunately, the leaders of the world seem all too willing to countenance international crimes from the now respectable genocidal dictator whom their appeasement has enabled, even granting him the honor of hosting COP29 in 2024.

Beyond mirroring, President Aliyev’s remarks are illustrative of another common and very effective tactic employed by genocidal states – what psychologists call DARVO: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. Aliyev denies credible allegations of atrocity. He attacks Armenians as supposed war criminals. He then reverses reality by portraying Azerbaijan as the real victim and Armenians as existential threats. Such rhetoric does more than increase tensions. It encourages people to see genocide as justified.

Aliyev’s remarks constitute a dangerous form of genocide denial. In a few sentences that diminish the Holocaust, he simultaneously denies the destruction of Armenian life in Nagorno-Karabakh. He denies responsibility for the mass forced displacement his government engineered. And he inexcusably minimizes the Holocaust by abusing its memory as cover for his overall genocidal aims in the South Caucasus. The Holocaust, it must be remembered, was a systematic attempt to annihilate European Jewry and is one of the most comprehensive and all-encompassing genocides in human history. Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and millions more people were killed in the global war that the Nazis started. It is impossible for any international crime to be “worse than” the Holocaust, or, to quote Aliyev, “worse than what the Nazis did.” Invoking it to justify the continued detention of Armenian prisoners who were defending their homeland diminishes the Holocaust’s unique history and moral weight.

Genocide prevention requires accuracy. It does not allow leaders to use false comparisons to distract from present abuses. The international community must push back against President Aliyev’s ongoing genocidal rhetoric against Armenians and sovereign Armenian territory in order to support clarity within discussions of genocide. It must not tolerate his genocidal denial.

The continued detention and prosecution of Armenian prisoners in Azerbaijan raise serious concerns under international humanitarian law. The Third Geneva Convention requires humane treatment and prohibits coercive prosecutions of prisoners of war. Throughout the entire process of the trial, there has been evidence of torture of the Armenian prisoners by the relevant Azerbaijani agencies. Amnesty International and others have expressed concerns over the rights of the captured former leaders of Artsakh, particularly in terms of their right for fair trial. Azerbaijan must either release these detainees or provide transparent legal proceedings consistent with its international obligations.

History shows that perpetrators of atrocity often rely on extreme rhetoric to legitimize extraordinary measures. They cast targeted groups as criminals, terrorists, or existential enemies. They invoke past traumas to justify present repression. They frame collective punishment as a moral necessity. Such patterns function as early warning indicators of further abuse.

The Lemkin Institute calls on the Azerbaijani government to cease its dehumanizing, genocidal rhetoric against Armenians, to refrain from using the Holocaust to justify its crimes, and to release all Armenian prisoners immediately. Since President Aliyev has himself stated that he will not do this, the international community must pressure him to do so. Coordinated pressure must be placed specifically on the person of President Aliyev, who relies a great deal on the good graces of the Western world in particular for his continued power. If the Western world does not act and continues to embolden the Azerbaijani President, they will face even worse problems down the road. The greater the impunity extended to President Aliyev, the more he will seek to realize his dreams of a “Greater Azerbaijan” encompassing the current independent Republic of Armenia.

Genocide prevention requires clarity. Leaders who project their own actions onto victims promote mass atrocity rather than address it. They undermine justice rather than uphold it. The international community must not allow historical memory to be manipulated in service of ongoing genocidal agendas.