All those, be they resisters, oppositionists, non-resisters, who want to be, if they say in the public arena that the “Western Azerbaijan” invasion concept was put into circulation by the leadership of Azerbaijan in response to the Artsakh issue, are either ignorant and have no knowledge about the topic, or are Azerbaijan’s advocates in our public arena.

This topic is already a matter of national security, its threats concern us all. The fact that the leader of Azerbaijan had an eye on the sovereign territories of the Republic of Armenia was evident from the study of Aliyev’s speeches in 2012-2013, where he announced: “Erivan Khanate, Zangezur, Goychan – these are all our historical lands.” As a result of the current government’s policy regarding Artsakh, Aliyev’s appetite increased, he decided to focus on the whole of Armenia, because Artsakh was only one of the problems in their policy. In order to know this, it was necessary to study the politics of that state, the dynamics of statements and actions, to find out the pattern, and everything would become very clear. We had and have a very predictable opponent.

The occupation concept of “West Azerbaijan” was put into circulation by the leadership of Azerbaijan in 2022, immediately after Prague recognized Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan. At the same time, the same Aliyev stated about it directly. “Now that the Karabakh conflict has been resolved, this is the problem on our agenda. Of course, it was premature to talk about it before the resolution of the Karabakh conflict. But we should not waste time.’

As a reminder, at that time the Armenians of Artsakh had not yet undergone ethnic cleansing, they were living in their homeland, and there was no question of the right of return, so it cannot be any “mirror” answer. Moreover, in the field of law, the international courts have rejected the applications of Azerbaijan, so that topic is closed in that domain. But because Azerbaijan is greedy, it sees the complete dependence of the RA authorities on it, it says: but why not, there is only one, there is no opposition, no rebuttal, instead it has many lawyers and psychologists in the government.

Anyway, let me repeat, this topic is clearly an invasive program, it can be neutralized by smart political, diplomatic and informational work. “Justifying” it, ignoring it is full of many dangers for our state. I would like to emphasize once again, do not use the term “return of Azerbaijanis”, it is an Azeri phrase and does not reflect the very dangerous concept of occupation.

Azerbaijani scholar Tatevik Hayrapetyan

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