NEW PHASE OF THE ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN INFORMATION WAR

-harutyunyan
06:15 pm | October 13, 2009

Politics

The latest developments in the Turkish-Armenian relations aroused
another new information war between Turkish and Azerbaijani mass
media outlets, says director of the "Noravank" Scientific-Educational
Foundation Gagik Harutyunyan who draws journalists’ attention to the
actions taken in Nakhijevan.

The Turks are holding a conference in Armenia (he considers
Nakhijevan as Armenia-ed.) where they announce that Zangezur is an
Azerbaijani territory. We had not seen such boldness yet and it is
very interesting," said Gagik Harutyunyan, adding that the Armenian
side did not give an adequate response to that.

He considers the information in Turkish and Azerbaijani presses as
an information war. According to him, the Azerbaijani presses are
trying to present the discrepancies between Turkey and Azerbaijan
very loyally, as if it is a internal game and there are no serious
discrepancies.

"In reality, Turkey is currently ignoring Azerbaijan’s interest,
but the Azerbaijani are trying to present it differently and we are
trying to present it in another way. The reality is that the Turkish
side always tries to spread different kinds of information and works
flexibly," says Harutyunyan.

So, according to Gagik Harutyunyan, Armenia has a rather
well-coordinated opponent that is putting its entire efforts into
action. Nevertheless, Harutyunyan adds: "I don’t want you to get
the impression that we are losing in that information war. What’s
more, I get the impression that in the past year, the Armenian
side has comparably been more active and has started working more
adequately. Perhaps it is because the president finally attached
importance to that and this became part of state policy."