AYF TO PROTEST AZERI CONSUL GENERAL AT WORLD AFFAIRS CONFERENCE ON MARCH 4

Asbarez
-consul-general-at-world-affairs-conference-on-mar ch-4/
Mar 3rd, 2010

GLENDALE-The Armenian Youth Federation will be protesting Azerbaijan’s
Consul General of Los Angeles, Elin Suleymanov, at the Pacific Club
(4110 Macarthur blvd. Newport Beach, CA) on Thursday, March 4 from
6-9pm. Suleymanov will be speaking about Azerbaijan’s role in the world
at an event sponsored by the World Affairs Council. The Azeri diplomat
will also be discussing Azerbaijan’s position on Nagorno-Karabakh
and Armenia.

"With this latest event, the Azerbaijani Government continues its
decades long campaign to deny self-determination to the people of
Nagorno Karabagh, undermining international peace talks with threats
of war and an ongoing blockade against neighboring Armenia," stated
protest organizer Caspar Jivalagian. "For this reason, we must stand
strong and demonstrate our resolve to stop the lies and propaganda
of the Azeri government and to support the peope of Artsakh."

The protest comes days after the 22nd anniversary of the deadly
pogroms of Sumgait on Feb. 27, 1988, which marked the beginning of
a systematic campaign by Azerbaijan’s OMON Special Forces to use
massacres and violence to forcefully uproot Armenians from Azerbaijan
and Nagorno-Karabakh.

The events in Sumgait, which came as a direct response to Armenians’
expression of their right to self-determination in 1988, were followed
by equally violent pogroms in the Azeri cities of Kirovabad, Baku and
later in the Northern Shahoumian district of Nagorno-Karabakh. The
violence against Armenians eventually escalated and Azerbaijan launched
a military invasion into Nagorno-Karabakh, sparking a devastating
war in the region that ended in 1994 with a ceasefire that left the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic free from Azeri rule.

Though a fragile state of "no peace, no war" has held over the years,
Azerbaijan has refused to cooperate in internationally mediated peace
talks with Armenia and has instead threatened to take Karabakh by
force. On February 25, Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister, Safar Abiyev,
stepped up Baku’s war rhetoric, this time threatening to launch an
inevitable "great war" against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

These remarks, explained Jivalagian, are part of a well-documented
pattern of threats and corresponding cease-fire violations initiated
by the Azerbaijani Government.

"Concerns regarding Azerbaijan’s destabilizing actions in the region
are compounded further when Azerbaijan’s grim human rights record is
taken into consideration," he said, adding that a country threatening
to wage war on a democratic neighbor should not be allowed a forum
in the United States. "Since Azerbaijan’s representative will be
speaking here, we feel it is our obligation as human rights activists
to inform the people attending the World Affairs Council event about
Azerbaijan’s growing war rhetoric and rampant disrespect of human
rights and democracy."