15 Years of Life Is Left For Azerbaijan As A State
Siranuysh Papyan, Interviewer
Interview – 20 September 2014, 15:54
Mr. Ter-Tadevosyan, Azerbaijan would not withdraw its snipers from the
border. Has the relative peace somehow changed over the recent months?
What is the current situation at the border?
The president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev intends to keep the tension
high. He will continue along this path. This is favorable for
Azerbaijan because, we can see, the defense capacity of the
Azerbaijani army is not high. Although Aliyev has created some
efficient detachments, those failed too and in order not to lose his
rating after such defeats, he launches the second stage of actions
aimed at boosting tension. In other words, Aliyev remains Aliyev and
is singing the same old song.
Recently Seiran Ohanyan has stated that violations by Azerbaijan pass
unheeded on the international arena. How do you assess the readiness
of our army, as well as our positions on the international arena?
I think we could have smashed them well. Our veterans have raised the
bar too high and the youth who know that their fathers, uncles and
grandfathers fought and won follow this benchmark. They are the
children of victory and though they are standing along the border and
feel fear and face difficulties, deep inside they have a winner’s
confidence. They know that we have won. They are facing the
Azerbaijani soldier whose uncle or grandfather has run away from the
battle.
The second important circumstance is that we are all Armenians whereas
there are a lot of peoples in Azerbaijan, such as Tats, Talish people
etc with language and cultural differences, as well as hostility among
themselves.
The U.S. CIA has forecast 15 years of life for the unified state of
Azerbaijan. The self-consciousness of the ethnic minorities of
Azerbaijan is growing, they want to speak their language, know their
past, preserve their customs and culture, so Aliyev is facing a big
issue. You know very well that reporters and NGOs undergo violence in
that country.
Believe me that Armenia with its army is well-protected. There are
shortcomings because if you work, you mke mistakes, if you work a lot,
you make many mistakes but we cannot refer to them and say that our
borders are not protected. Time showed that our defense capacity is
higher, and I agree that we should teach Azerbaijanis a good lesson.
Recently the U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick has
brought up the need for change of format of negotiations. What is your
opinion?
Warlick announced that Karabakh must take part in the negotiations.
Two months ago two important things happened in the United States.
First, the Armenian issue was discussed and voted down at the U.S.
Congress and one of the largest states of the United States,
California, recognized the independence of Karabakh. Now the race
between the United States and Russia for boosting their influence on
Karabakh will intensify. Karabakh is a Christian island amid Islamic
states which are borderless, and they also understand this because
they have to cope with the Islamic State.
At the CIA they say “we defeated Communism, now we need to defeat
Islamism”. Now Islamism is the most dangerous thing in the world.
In this race Karabakh is the center of the Christian world which must
be protected.
There was peace for some time after the tension in August, but two
days ago an Armenian soldier was killed by an Azerbaijani sniper. Was
it a temporary pause?
Azerbaijan will not give up on the thought of causing tension on the
border. The only way is to provoke tension artificially, from time to
time Azerbaijan tries to cause tension. Therefore, they take no step
towards tension. They do not withdraw snipers, participate in creation
of mechanisms for investigation of border incidents, they shoot during
the harvest season. They do not have water but they do not want to
accept water from Sarsang reservoir of Karabakh though the NKR
government is ready to give. They do not take any positive step
because they want to demonstrate that the Armenians are beasts. A lot
of people are disturbed by this but I am glad, let them be afraid of
us. It is the fear syndrome caused by the war, as the Turks, for
example, have always been afraid of the Russians. The Armenians also
had the syndrome of fear, I remember my grandfather say: “Behave
yourself or Turks will rip your ears off.” Now let the Azerbaijanis
frighten their children so. But on the other hand, as I talked to
people living in Azerbaijan, they believe it is not true. Many people
in Azerbaijan respect Armenians, they do not hate them. They cannot
hate the Armenian people because they know the Armenians have
developed their country.