The following is a letter in reply to What about Armenia? published September 28. The Spectator Australia is not in a position to verify all the historical claims made in either article.

On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine, shocking everyone on the globe. 42 Council of Europe members voted to immediately suspend Russia’s right to vote in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the Committee of Ministers the day after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Armenia was the only nation besides Russia to vote against it.

A few months earlier, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) decided to keep the Ukrainian Crimea and Donbas (occupied by Russia) on the session’s agenda. Some 71 countries voted to support the motion, while 12 were against it. A further 45 abstained during a vote held on Thursday, September 9. Among those supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine was Azerbaijan. One of the 12 countries denying Ukraine’s territorial integrity was Armenia.

In fact, Armenia’s stance was consistent with its voting record at the UN and other international organisations. Yerevan has usually opposed measures critical of Russia. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was wholeheartedly welcomed by ordinary Armenians as well.

Multiple actions were conducted in Armenia and Karabakh, (which Armenians started to call ‘Artsakh’) the internationally recognised territory of Azerbaijan with a majority of the Armenian population residing in it.

This information is not surprising. Armenia is the only country in the former Soviet Union which never got rid of the Soviet Army. Immediately following the collapse of the USSR, Armenia signed a treaty with Russia in accordance with which Russian (formerly Soviet) border troops were supposed to be guarding Armenia’s borders with Iran and Turkey.

From around that time onward, Armenia (supported by Russia) invaded Azerbaijan, occupied 20 per cent of its territory, and committed the most horrendous ethnic cleansing where 700,000 (according to UNHCR data) Azerbaijanis (including those of Kurdish origin) were removed from their ancestral lands.

Armenian expansionism was justified by the idea of ‘protection’ of the Armenian population of the Upper Karabakh, an administrative unity within Azerbaijan with the majority of the Armenian population. Armenia occupied, not only Upper Karabakh, but also seven surrounding regions.

Four UN resolutions reaffirmed the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Armenia has been ignoring these resolutions for 30 years.

When it comes to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the violence was started by Armenia. According to the chronology of events registered by the Gorbachev Centre and cited by BBC Russia, in January 1988 a large number of Azerbaijanis were violently expelled from Gukark and Kafan – Armenian regions where large population groups of Azerbaijanis were living. As stated in the UNHCR report, more than 200,000 Azerbaijanis lived within the territory of modern-day Armenia. All the other acts of violence in the conflict resulted from this expulsion.

In the first Karabakh war, Armenians killed 20,000 Azerbaijanis (of which 16,000 were civilians) and lost 5,000 lives. As a result of the Armenian occupation, 3,890 Azeris, including 71 children, went missing. 29 children were reported to have been taken as hostages by Armenians. Armenia refuses, to this day, to give information about those children.

In 2020, following the counteroffensive operation, Azerbaijan restored 17 per cent of its territorial integrity. Currently, the remaining 3 per cent of the territory is under Russo-Armenian occupation. A Russian peacekeeping mission is monitoring the ceasefire regime in Karabakh.

In the second Karabakh conflict, more innocent Azeri civilians were killed than Armenian civilians. Armenians lost one child during the second Nagorno-Karabakh war but are reported to have killed twelve Azeri children. The 44-day war in 2020 resulted in the deaths of 60 Armenians and 100 Azerbaijani civilians. Also, 416 civilians from the Azerbaijani side and 165 civilians from the Armenian side were injured.

These facts of the war are ironic because the long-suffering victims of the conflict in all these 30-plus years were Azerbaijanis. Even now, two years after the liberation war, the IDPs cannot return to the rubble of their homes because vast areas of the formerly occupied territories are infested with deadly mines. Every day, those mines detonate on Azerbaijanis, both civilian and military. The most recent mine deaths occurred on September 30, when Amid Asadov (36-years-old) and Cherkez Guluzade (15-years-old) were killed in the village of Yukhary Dilagarda, Fuzuli. The mines were planted by Armenia.

Western media have been covering the events from a strictly Orientalist perspective, supporting and spreading pro-Armenian narratives and ignoring the sufferings and deaths of Azerbaijanis. During both the first and second Karabakh wars, there was speculation about a ‘new genocide against Armenians’ by Turks (this time, by Azerbaijani Turks). Apparently, the comparative numbers of civilian casualties in both wars suggest the opposite.

Two years ago, the Armenian Velvet Revolution brought to the official Democratic forces, which is wonderful, of course. But even the new government did not quit its territorial claims. The new Armenian narrative is trying to draw parallels between Ukraine and Armenia, which is also ironic because, in the conflict, Ukraine unequivocally supports Azerbaijan and its territorial integrity.

Azerbaijan might not be an exemplary democracy, but it is definitely multi-ethnic and all the ethnic minorities in Azerbaijan live the same post-Soviet life as the rest of the population. In both Karabakh wars, they fought and even got killed by representatives of ethnic minorities: Lezgis, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Talyshes, etc.

Armenia expelled its minorities and became a mono-ethnic state.

Armenia’s territorial claims to Azerbaijan turned Armenia into a vassal state to Russia. Russia owns Armenian railroads, airspace, and energy infrastructure. A few weeks days ago, America imposed ‘sanctions for supporting Russia’ against companies from Armenia (along with China and Belarus). Those claims created the leverage that allows Russia to control the region. Not a single former Soviet state supports Armenia, all of them recognise the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

South Caucasus is a multi-ethnic region. For centuries Azerbaijanis (Azerbaijani Turks, Kurds etc) and Armenians lived within each other’s communities. Across the last two centuries with the Russian Empire’s ‘divide and rule’ policy, Armenians and Azerbaijanis got involved in various bloody conflicts. Nevertheless, eventually they would manage to maintain peace and balance and coexist.

Azerbaijan does not have any territorial claims over Armenia. What the region needs is peace. If Armenia signs the Peace Treaty and quits its territorial claims to Azerbaijan, the region will blossom and thrive.

There is good news from Brussels. The statement following the quadrilateral meeting between President Aliyev, Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Macron, and President Michel, October 6, 2022 has been published. We are closer to peace. Fingers crossed.