INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY WITNESSES AZERBAIJAN’S UNDISGUISED PREPARATION FOR WAR

PanARMENIAN.Net
07.09.2007 12:20 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Democratic resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict is a priority for the South Caucasus and Armenia’s security,
director of the institute of national and strategic studies at the
RA defense ministry, adviser to the defense minister, political
scientist, senior expert of ethnic and national security political
sciences, major general Hayk Kotanjian said in an interview posted
at the defense ministry’s web site.

"When analyzing the position of Azeri authorities and Azeri president
first of all, international assessments of the democracy degree in the
country should be taken into account. Freedom House gave an exhaustive
estimation to Aliyev’s regime. According to the annual country report,
Azerbaijan is an "unfree" state," he said.

"Certainly, the things are not brilliant with Armenia and
Georgia. However, Freedom House rates these countries as "partly
free". Our western counterparts the position of the Azeri leader is
undemocratic in the core. This is first of all the dynastic inheritance
and despotic power as well as Aliyev junior’s totalitarian imposing
of his father’s cult on the Azeri people.

In case with the Karabakh settlement the Azeri president’s stance
demonstrates the colonizer’s attitude towards human rights and freedoms
of the native population, people of Nagorno Karabakh and ethnic
minorities. Baku’s refusal to pass a law "On national minorities"
as a commitment to the Council of Europe," he said.

When asked how the Azerbaijani president manifests his undemocratic
attitude towards the Karabakh people, Dr Kotanjian said, "First, it’s
the denial of the legal democratic end of administrative-hierarchic
relations between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan as parts of the
declined USSR. The matter concerns the denial of the political and
juridical fact of Nagorno Karabakh’s right to self-determination
exercised through the referendum in 1991. The law "On the order of
settlement of issues referring to secession from a soviet republic"
operated during the period preceding the Alma-Ata declaration on cease
of activities of the state structures of the former USSR. Second,
it’s the refusal to recognize the fact of aggression of the Azerbaijani
Republic against Nagorno Karabakh in 1991, Third, it’s the violation of
the UN fundamental principles: interdependency of peace, progress and
democracy in relations with other nations. Ignoring these principles,
Aliyev launched armament race.

Furthermore, he constantly calls on the public for return of Karabakh
by use of force. The international community witnesses undisguised
political, military and psychological preparation of Azerbaijan for
war against Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. Fourth, it’s the blocking and
distortion of true information accompanied by falsification of history
of Armenians and other peoples of the Eastern South Transcaucasia
in order to substantiate Aliyev’s territorial claims of Artsakh and
justify the repetition of aggression against Karabakh’s Armenianhood."