Azat Artsakh Tert, Nagorno Karabakh Republic
Feb 15 2008

Commentaries of the NKR MFA Information and Analytical Department…

Question: Lately, it has become popular in Azerbaijan to look for
the Kurd Labor Party (KLP) militants in the NKR. Recently, Nizami
Bahmanov has joined the supporters of conducting an "antiterrorist
operation" against the KLP militants allegedly available in the NKR.
What are these modern tendencies in Azerbaijan’s policy aimed at?
Commentary: Due to the ethnic origin of the governing clan in
Baku, the "Kurd subjects" is one of the most sensible domestic policy
topics in modern Azerbaijan. The matter is not only in the fact that
representatives of the mentioned ethnic group occupy many high-level
key posts in Azerbaijan, but also in the role of the "Nakhichevan
clan" ancestor, former head of the AzSSR KGB Heydar Aliyev in
creating and training Turkey’s number one enemy – the Kurd Labor
Party (KLP). Researchers refer the Turkish leadership’s traditional
cool terms with late Aliyev-senior just to this circumstance. During
his visit to Baku in January 2003, former leader of the ruling Party
of Justice and Development in Turkey Radjep Erdogan stated that
sections of the Kurd Labor Party operated in Azerbaijan, screened by
cultural events. R. Erdogan’s statement caused such a violent
reaction in Azerbaijan that the then Minister of National Security of
the country Namik Abbasov had to make an official refutation. It is
notable that Namik Abbasov did not exclude that there might be such
persons in Azerbaijan supporting the KLP and rendering financial
assistance to it, but their activity, as Mr. Abbasov assured, was
"under the control of the Azerbaijani law enforcement bodies".
In this context, the immediate reaction of the Azerbaijani party
to the misinformation published in the Turkish press, as well as the
following attempts of its officials to get rid of the "Kurd problem"
in Azerbaijan and to transfer the focus of attention to the NKR are
not accidental. Meanwhile, according to the Azerbaijani mass media,
former Armenian villages of the Northern Karabakh were actively
populated with Kurds during the recent years.
Question: What aims does Baku pursue, spreading such
insinuations?
Commentary: If we set aside the peculiarity of the "Kurd
subject", then the matter is in Azerbaijan’s regular use of its
favorite propagandistic tactics of "tracing" urgent issues of
international policy and transferring them to the Karabakh conflict.
Thus, in different periods, depending on the political situation, the
Azerbaijani party stated that the Karabakh movement "was inspired by
the western secret services for undermining the communist system and
brotherhood of nations"; later, it noted that the Karabakh Armenians’
demand was initiated by the "imperial ambitions of the Kremlin
authorities, who had declared war on sovereign Azerbaijan". In the
framework of their informational-propagandistic war, the Azerbaijani
authorities and the structures, funded by them, stated on the
existence of Al-Qaida camps and a series of radical Islamic
organizations, laboratories for producing nuclear weapons, and
nuclear waste burial in the NKR. The Azerbaijani parliamentary
delegation at PACE distributed even a document on the Armenian
party’s use of nuclear weapons during the military activities in
1991-1994.
Depending on the international political situation, different
ways of resolving the Karabakh conflict were discussed in Azerbaijan,
which, having the same content, were different in their form. They
noted the necessity of holding a large-scale "passport regime
checkup", intensifying the Azeri OMON operations, conducting
anti-terroristic operations in Nagorno Karabakh, realizing pointed
bombing of the "terroristic infrastructure", carrying out
humanitarian intervention "for saving the Karabakh Armenians from
terrorists", initiating military-police operations for "restoring law
and order in Nagorno Karabakh", implementing corresponding
"operations on forcing for peace with Azerbaijan", etc.
So, the tradition of presenting itself as a victim of "local
demonstration of the international evil" is not new for Azerbaijan.
It fully corresponds to the tactics of solving the Karabakh problem
with cat’s paw, which Azerbaijan actively fulfills in the context of
its European, American, and Russian policy.
However, if previously similar statements were made on an
official level, currently, realizing their absurdity, official Baku
suggests Nizami Bahmanov for developing such topics. And it’s a pity
that Azerbaijan makes use of Nizami Bahmanov in its provocative
actions contradicting not only the letter and spirit of the
Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement process, but also the common
sense.

NKR NA deputy, "Through Baku’s fault the Karabakhi movement acquired
open confrontation character"

Nagorno-Karabakh Republic National Assembly deputy Maksim
Mirzoyan considers that February 12, 1988 is a starting point of the
modern stage of the Karabakhi national liberation movement.
"Namely events of this day predetermined the holding of the
historical session, which marked the success of the Movement in
general and the achievement of the long-expected freedom", the deputy
supposes.
According to Maksim Mirzoyan, "February 12 became an apogee in
the hidden confrontation between Baku’s wish to annihilate Karabakh
and Karabakh’s dream to be unyoked from Azerbaijan. The emotions,
which had been suppressed till then, were given vent to".
All the following events, according to the deputy, logically led
to the historical session of the NKAO Council of National Deputies
(February 20, 1988), which predetermined Nagorno Karabakh’s
self-determination.
"Through Baku’s fault the Karabakhi movement acquired open
confrontation character that soon developed into a long and bloody
armed confrontation. However, the fate itself was on the side of the
fare and final decision of the Karabakhi people, who, at the cost of
unprecedented heroism and firmness, were able to avert the threat of
their physical annihilation and be firm in realizing their original
right to self-determination in accordance with the fundamental
international norms", Maksim Mirzoyan noted.