Artashes Geghamyan: They shoot at Armenia, but aim at Russia

Less than two weeks have passed from the day of establishing fragile truce on the line of confrontation between the defense army of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijani armed forces, when Turkey made new incitements.

On April 19 of this year, Prime Minister of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking at the PACE session in Strasbourg, called on the international community to warn Yerevan, saying: "The armed provocations and violations of the ceasefire regime by the Armenian side led to numerous casualties, including among the civilian population. Additional concern is raised by shooting from the Armenian side which also reaches the territory of Nakhijevan ... All these show once again the unacceptability of the status quo in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict." Such cynical hypocrisy by a proponent of modern neo-Ottomanism does not really fit in the statement by the head of the press service of Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan Vagif Dyargahly, who, on April 2 of this year, at the height of the fighting on the line of contact of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijani Armed Forces stated, inter alia, that the attack of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan was made on the targets at the front and behind the lines by defined in advance coordinates. As a result of clashes "a significant amount of manpower, military equipment and infrastructure units were made ineffective. (http://eadaily.com/ru/news/2016/04/02/voyna-v-karabahe-turciya-podstavila-ilhama-alieva). Moreover, Turkey's Prime Minister says this in Strasbourg at a time when PACE was adopting the Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (hereinafter Declaration). The Declaration, in opposition to the provocative statements made by Ahmet Davutoglu, in particular, states: "Convinced that the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has no alternative, PACE reaffirms its continued support to the efforts by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (hereinafter OSCE MG) - the only internationally agreed negotiating format, to find a lasting and fair solution to this conflict. Therefore, we urge to respect repeated calls of the OSCE Minsk Group not to undermine their mandate and not to complicate the negotiating process... Creation of a mechanism to investigate ceasefire violations, as well as a number of other recommendations of the Minsk Group on measures to build confidence in the Ceasefire Agreement of 1994 will help to reduce stress and create a more favorable atmosphere for the progress of the peace talks." Such a detailed summary of certain provisions of the Declaration is not fortuitous altogether. Any unbiased reader, after comparing the content of frills by Davutoglu-Dyargahly and provisions of the declaration will identify discrepancies and logical inconsistencies.

So if, as claimed by the Turkish Prime Minister, "armed provocations and ceasefire violations" were committed by the Armenian side, then how do you explain, that the proposal by Chairman of Committee on Foreign Relations of the House of Representatives of the US Congress Ed Royce and Congressman Eliot Engel and their 80 colleagues, aimed at easing tension and aggression on the contact line of NKR and Azerbaijani Armed Forces, was rejected by the Azerbaijani side. We should recall that in December 2015 the Royce-Engel offers were received in the US State Department. They stated the need to:

1. Withdrawal of snipers from the contact lines;

2. Installation of the latest control systems of the OSCE Minsk Group on the contact line, which will accurately identify which side attacked;

3. Deployment of a larger number of observers from the OSCE MG on the contact line, which will clearly fix the violations of the ceasefire.

Note that the congressmen, the authors of this statement stressed that Armenia and Karabakh agree to these terms, and Azerbaijan does not. Even if I.Aliyev agreed to these terms, which were approved by the US State Department, Davutoglu would not be able to fool PACE delegates on the "armed provocations". Moreover, the Declaration of the PACE says, "We share the concern about the rising tension in the conflict zone. The use of heavy weapons - howitzers and rocket launchers - is unacceptable and poses a serious threat to the civilian population. We deeply regret the deaths, including civilians." This timid statement by PACE is nonetheless valuable, because in an environment where Turkey fully blackmails Europe with a threat to cancel the immigration agreement with the European Union, PACE, the overwhelming majority of parliamentarians, who are well aware of unexploded ordnances launched by the Azerbaijani side from Smerch and other types of heavy weapons, nevertheless take the risk to hint about it in writing. This is certainly a step in the right direction, especially if we recall the shameful anti-Armenian, but rather anti-European draft resolution by infamous player of caviar diplomacy of Azerbaijan, the former British MP Robert Walter "The increase in violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and in other occupied territories of Azerbaijan", which was rejected on January 26 of this year at the PACE winter session. Now it becomes obvious that the zealous efforts by Robert Walter was one of the chains of the propaganda support to choked Azerbaijani blitzkrieg on 2-5 April 2016, the four-day Nagorno-Karabakh-Azerbaijani war. To complete the political portrait of our "hero", we will make one more quote from ideologist of neo-Ottomanism Ahmet Davutoglu. So, on February 29 of this year, during a reception organized in the city of Bingol Turkey's Prime Minister compared the events taking place today in the Kurdish-populated areas of the country with the events that took place in Western Armenia in the Armenian provinces of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. "Kurdish fighters today are similar to the Armenian bandits, who collaborated with the Russians. They (Kurds) even opened diplomatic representation in Moscow"- Davutoglu said in a rage. One is astounded by the duplicity of this neo-Ottomanist, who during a week first hypocritically states that, "I am confident that the Russians will find the opportunity to return to Turkey. And, of course, we want to improve relations with Russia” (http://expert.ru/2016/02/22/turtsiya/ ), and after 7 days reproaches the same Russia in patronage of "bandits". Let alone the fact, that on December 29, 2015, during the two-day visit to Serbia, as the press service of the Serbian President, the Prime Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu called on the President of Serbia Tomislav Nikolic to help improve relations with Russia (http://ria.ru/world/20151229/1351182325.html ).

As to the disgusting in their cynicism open Nazi passages by Davutoglu on "Armenian bandits", we’ll make assessments of those tragic years. During the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1916 only, 1.5 million Armenians were barbarically slaughtered in their historic homeland. The responsibility for the genocide of the Armenian population lies with the leaders of the party "Ittihat ve Terakki" ("Unity and Progress"). Ahmet Davutoglu’s spiritual father Mehmed Talaat, then minister of interior, in his memoirs published in 1946, 25 years after his execution (Talaat was killed by an Armenian patriot Soghomon Tehlirian "pursuant to" the judgment of Extraordinary field Tribunal, held in 1919 in Constantinople, that sentenced in absentia to death for war crimes and for the "destruction of the Armenian population in the Empire"), stated that there was no more of the "Armenian question", since there were no Armenians, and that during three months he did more for solving the "Armenian question" than Sultan Abdul Hamid during 30 years of his reign. During the Armenian Genocide, more than 2 thousand Armenian villages were destroyed, the same number of churches and monasteries, and Armenian districts of more than 60 cities. The government of Young Turks, all sorts of bashi-bazouks, that robbed under the command of Turkish officers and officers from Turkey’s ally countries, pocketed from the Armenian population valuables ​​and contributions in the amount, according to the most modest estimates, exceeding more than $ 90 billion by current estimates. It is necessary to remind the readers that on June 10, 1915, a law was introduced in the Ottoman Empire that provided instructions on how to deal with "movable and real property left behind by the deported Armenians as a result of war and extreme political conditions." According to this law, all the Armenian property was declared "abandoned", and it was seized. They envisaged establishing special committees, which had the task to keep records of "abandoned" property and its reliable storage to the owners’ names. Livestock and other property not subject to conservation were to be sold at public auction and the proceeds – to be maintained at the owners’ records, allegedly to transfer to them upon their return. After all these, it is not difficult to guess who the real bandit is; similarly it is not that difficult to make sure who is the slanderer and advocate of highway robbers in the leadership of Turkey at sunset of the Ottoman Empire. I think, even admirers of the current Prime Minister of Turkey can guess all about this.

We could as well leave without response the statement by Ahmet Davutoglu, if a few days after it were not followed by another no less provocative statement, this time by President Ilham Aliyev. So, on April 14, 2016, speaking at the first session of the XIII Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, Azerbaijani President I.Aliyev, in particular, said: "The UN Security Council adopted 4 resolutions in connection with the conflict. These resolutions demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the Azerbaijani lands. Similar decisions and resolutions were adopted by the OSCE, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and other organizations. I would like once again to thank sincerely the OIC for fair resolutions supporting the normalization of the Armenian-Azerbaijani, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the framework of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. However, aggressive Armenia ignores these resolutions and regularly resorts to armed provocations to disrupt the negotiation process." What does the President of Azerbaijan count on when resorting to such blatant lies? Is he not familiar with the Helsinki Declaration adopted by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly at its twenty-fourth annual meeting, held on July 5-9 2015, in Helsinki? For example, in Chapter 1, “Political issues and Security" in black and white, on the six working languages ​​of the OSCE PA it is written: "The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly: 45. Stresses the need to respect the principles of inviolability of borders and territorial integrity, peaceful settlement of disputes, equal rights and self-determination of peoples, provided by the Helsinki final act, and urges the Russian Federation to cancel the annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol in Ukraine."

As can be seen from this document, there are no reservations regarding the unacceptability of the three principles of the Helsinki Final Act (the principles of inviolability of borders and territorial integrity, peaceful settlement of disputes, equal rights and self-determination of peoples) for the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in Helsinki (2015) Declaration of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. So, assertions by Aliyev about "fair resolutions confirming the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the scope of Azerbaijan's sovereignty and territorial integrity" are deliberately introduced in a truncated form and do not correspond to reality. Far from reality is also the assertion that the four Resolutions (UN Security Council on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 1993 - AG) demanded immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian "forces from the Azerbaijani land." This is a distorted interpretation of the essence of the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council. Their true meaning, in a high professional manner, is introduced in the article by V.N.Kazimirov "Karabakh and the UN Security Council resolution (http://Karabakhfactst/com/2004/12/). We should note that Vladimir Kazimirov is Ambassador, Head of intermediary mission of Russia in 1992-1996, Plenipotentiary representative of the President of RF in Nagorno-Karabakh, a member and co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group from Russia. Summing up the problems of implementing Karabakh resolutions by UN Security Council (№№ 822,853,874 and 884, adopted from April 30 to November 12, 1993), Kazimirov writes: "From the very beginning Azerbaijan, back in 1993-94, throughout a year, persistently failed to fulfill the most basic requirement of four resolutions - cease-fire, military operations and hostile acts, did not want to stop military operations, he continued to count on a military solution to the conflict. All these adversely affected the performance of other requirements, including by other parties. It does not want to comply with these resolutions now, either (the article was written in 2004 - AG) regarding the termination of hostilities and the restoration of economic, transport and energy links in the region, direct contacts with Nagorno-Karabakh, convening of the Minsk Conference of OSCE. In other words, in fact Azerbaijan did not remember and does not fulfill any of the requirements or calls of four UN Security Council resolutions. It does not fit into the performance and the requirements of Baku to Ankara to keep the blockade of Armenia, and the current sabre-rattling, regular calls by Azerbaijani officials to solve the conflict by force again." With this misinformation, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has misled the leaders of the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. However, his misinformation did not end with the above false allegations. Perhaps, the most adventurous statement, which fully discloses all the dangerous intention of the ​​President of Azerbaijan, is in something else. So, in the same speech at the first session of the XIII OIC Summit in Istanbul, in addition to the already debunked by us misinformation, Aliyev stated, "Today, one of the most serious threats in the world is Islamophobia. We strongly condemn this trend. In fact, Islam is a religion of peace, mercy, tolerance, justice. Equating Islam with terrorism is a malicious and wrong approach. Most of all Muslim countries suffer from the terrorism." Whom does he mean by speaking about islamophobia? The tolerant Europe? Europe, which has received more than one million Muslim refugees. Or maybe Russia? The country, whose leadership has especially cherished attitude to representatives of all religious confessions. Far Sight Aliyev simple as a tree stump: to give the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the nature of inter-religious conflict. Aliyev’s aiming too far is as plain as a day: to give the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the nature of inter-religious confrontation.

In response to this blasphemous assertion, I’ll introduce an excerpt from the speech of the President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan on April 22, 2015 at the Global Forum "Against the Crime of Genocide." "Armenian people do not forget and are grateful to the Kurds and the Turks, who at the time of the Armenian Genocide secretly saved the life of their neighbor-Armenians; grateful to the Arab people, who provided shelter to Armenians, who survived the scimitar; to Russian, American and European individuals, who organized the guardianship and other humanitarian activities."

So who was Ilham Aliyev referring to, warning of "one of the most serious threats in the world - Islamophobia"? Perhaps the heroic pilots of the Military Space Forces of Russia, who fractured the deadly threat to the Islamic world coming from the ISIS? Maybe I.Aliyev is referring to the coalition headed by the United States to combat the ISIS in Syria and Iraq, which also includes Muslim states, in particular Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Turkey? So against whom is acting I.Aliyev...

As reported by Azeri mass media, the "leaders" of the Crimean Tatars Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov met with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in Istanbul, at the session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Refat Chubarov posted the photo from the meeting on his Facebook page. " Liyada Madani, Secretary General of the OIC, finished his speech in which he listed the countries and regions, among them Crimea, on territory of which special attention should be paid to the protection of the rights of Muslims by the OIC (without reference to the Russian Federation) ... Members of the Russian delegation, sitting not far from me (Russia in the OIC is as a country-observer) nervously began to talk among themselves - Chubarov wrote. - The President of Turkey, the presiding country, finished his speech. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the OIC Member States to show solidarity with the State of Ukraine, with the "brother Muslims, the Crimean Tatars living in the occupied Crimea."

This is "touching" message by Erdogan involuntarily reminded the correspondence of Cossacks of Zaporozhye and the Ottoman sultan, who ruled from 1648 to 1687, and his "biggest fans" - Cossacks of Zaporozhye. During the correspondence with the Zaporozhye Cossacks, Mehmed IV wrote, "...I command you, Zaporozhye Cossacks, to surrender to me voluntary without any resistance and not make worry with your attacks." It did not take long for the Zaporozhye people to reply, "You, sultan, Turkish devil, and damned devil's brother and friend, the Secretary of Lucifer. What the hell of a knight you are, if you can’t kill a hedgehog with you bare ass. The devil poops and your army eat. You son of a bitch, you will never have Christians under your reign, and we are not afraid of your troops, we’ll fight you with soil and water..." It seems that now, this correspondence for presumptuous neo-Ottomans and their supporters may be quite relevant and instructive.

It is particularly noteworthy that immediately after the publication of this information, the press service of the President of Azerbaijan stated that as such, the meeting of the head of the state (Ilham Aliyev - AG) with the leaders of the association "Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people" on the sidelines of the summit of the OIC did not take place; they just came up to the President (Ilham Aliyev - AG), when he was drinking tea. It looks like in the miniature "Quite by chance" by Grigory Gorin and Arkady Arkanov. Remember, when the hero of this light verse pensioner Seryogin "by chance" carried the violin to the square and performed "Polonaise" by Oginski. Seeing this, the TV presenter, who was shooting a report about the daily life of the pensioners, exclaimed, “Excellent, bravo! You happen to be a talent!” Seryogin said, “Yes ... I play the piano as well! Here in the bushes there happens to be a piano "by chance", I can play ..."

Judging by the photos, Dzhemilev and Chubarov "by chance" came upon sitting alone Aliyev and Mammadyarov, who "by chance" turned out to be alone (judging by the photos the meeting carefully prepared, not to have any witnesses nearby) and drinking tea... Comparing even lying on the surface "random" coincidences set forth above, once again one gets convinced of the old as the hills truth: in the big politics there are no coincidences; if the event seems circumstantial, it just means that there is no information about its origins. In our case, there is information about the origins of the activities of the Turkish and Azerbaijani leadership in recent years. However, this is a topic for another analysis.

Instead of epilogue. On April 3, 2016, on the website Politikus.ru (http://politikus.ru/articles/73550-nagornyy-karabah-celyat-po-armenii-strelyayut-v-rossiyu.html), under the authorship of Gregory Ignatov, quite a keen journalist, graduate from the MSU after Lomonosov, an article was published under the heading “Nagorno Karabakh: aim at Armenia, shoot at Russia.” The author said: "What gives us grounds to agree with this statement (referring to the allegation that Turkey is backed-up aggression by Azerbaijan, on the contact line with the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army on the night of April 1 to 2 is Turkey - AG )? Facts six months ago - the fall of 2015, when at the end of September tension was observed on the border of Karabakh, like the present one, with the use of conventional artillery MLRS and mortars - the first since 1994. Then it all started with the downed Armenian helicopter, that is the culprit was again Azerbaijan. Let us draw on our memories and remember what interesting thing happened in late September 2015? ... During the whole September MSF forces augmented in Syria and a few days later, after the Karabakh tension, for the first time Russian aircrafts hit the ISIS. This leads to a simple conclusion. Turkey, covering their business partners in the ISIS, tried to shift Russia’s attention to another direction and thereby if not to cancel all then at least to delay the onset of the Russian anti-terrorist operation in Syria. It did not work. So, Azerbaijanis at Karabakh border immediately, as if by magic, became quiet and peaceful again. That was up to a certain time… Now we are observing something similar - Turkey provokes Russia through Azerbaijan. We should remind that the head of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, in mid-March, was in Ankara where he met with Erdogan ... What the two presidents consulted about behind the scenes - is unknown, but it seems to me, the subject of their conversation was Russia, which both heads of the "two states and one nation" do not like: one for support to Armenia, the other for the fight against ISIS. The next day, after the publication of this article by Gregory Ignatov, on April 4 of this year, on the ORT TV channel in the program "Time will tell" a very remarkable conversation took place (about which I have already written) between the host of the program Peter Tolstoy and Heydar Jemal, Chairman of Islamic Committee of Russia. So, Heydar Jemal said, "Since all the Russian in the overwhelming majority, obviously support the Armenian side, the intrigue itself, the spring of intrigue pops out because Armenia is the factor in the Russian politics." Peter Tolstoy said, "Azerbaijan is the factor of Turkish policy." Heydar Jemal said, "Now Azerbaijan is playing a complicated, the big game, manipulating, maneuvering..." Peter Tolstoy said, "Why specifically now the military operations began?" Heydar Jemal said, "Let me explain: because the Syrian front closed."

One cannot put it more eloquently. There is only one thing we cannot agree with distinguished Gregory Ignatov: Azerbaijani armed forces, more than one year being instructed by senior Turkish military, shoot at Armenia, destroy our villages, kill soldiers and civilians, and they aim straightly at Russia. I think I would agree with the author in his assertion that "the Azerbaijani attack on Karabakh might be a "trial ball", which was rolled with the aim to test the Russia’s determination, just in case, if it will fulfill its obligations under the Collective Security Treaty Organization."

Artashes Geghamyan,

Member of the Armenian National Assembly from the Republican party,

Head of the delegation of the RA National Assembly in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly,

Head of the Party “National Unity” and non-governmental organization “Northern perspective”