BAKUR KARAPETYAN: AZERBAIJANIS – WHERE FROM AND WHERE TO?

Information-Analytic Agency NEWS.am
Oct 19 2009
Armenia

"As never before, the Azerbaijanis need an answer to the question:
where do they come from, and where are they going? This is the reason
for serious discussions of the people’s origin organized by the
Azerbaijani TV channels," Bakur Karapetyan, Chairman of the Shuhsi
charity fund told reporters.

According to him, a people unaware of its own roots and lacking
a national ideology has no right to lay any serious claims in the
Nagorno-Karabakh process. This is the reason for Azerbaijan’s wish
to resolve the historical dilemma facing it now.

Early this year Bakur Karapetyan addressed an open letter to
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Abdullah Gul,
putting the following question: Who are you, and where are you going?

He stressed that, although his letter remained unanswered, it
was circulated round the world. The most deplorable fact is that
Azerbaijan’s political elite are deceiving their own people by
claiming the Turkic origin of the Azerbaijanis, whereas the residents
consider themselves mere Muslims, not even Azerbaijanis. "Present-day
Azerbaijan, its people and language are artificial. They have a
serious self-identification problem," Karapetyan said.