YEREVAN, DECEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS. American-Armenian author Chris Bohjalian published an interesting article in The New York Times about his visit in Nagorno Karabakh in 2016 entitled “My Proud Pilgrimage to My Homeland”, reports “Armenpress”.

Bohjalian starts the article from the village of Talish that recalls him 100 years ago the Western Front of the First World War.

“On the first day of September, the sky cerulean, Capt. Gegham Grigoryan, 32, stood with me and pointed toward the northeast — toward Azerbaijan and the minefield and buffer zone less than a mile away.

“If you want peace, you should prepare for war,” he said, shrugging”, Bohjalian writes stating that in early April of this year Azerbaijan attacked across the eastern border, breaking the ceasefire that had largely held since 1994.

“Here in Talish, the 400-person village was so badly shelled that today it has been abandoned and the residents resettled in other parts of the country. Captain Grigoryan, a father of two girls, has a degree in international relations, but believes that Nagorno Karabakh needs him in the military”, Bohjalian says.

He said very few Americans can find Nagorno Karabakh on the map, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan. “I went there this summer for the same reason that I return every year to Armenia. This earth is in my blood, and my visits are a pilgrimage. I am an Armenian-American, but only at midlife did I understand the draw of this ancient land for me”, the author writes.

He says the line of contact between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan is strategically significant, and is one of those hot spots that can destabilize the Caucasus. Bohjalian writes that during the April clashes hundreds of soldiers died, the conflict involved tanks, artillery and drones.

“In the fighting in Talish, Azerbaijani soldiers executed and mutilated an elderly Armenian civilian couple and beheaded a captured Armenian soldier, leading a United States representative, Brad Sherman, Democrat of California and a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to call for an investigation into Azerbaijani war crimes. Although the Armenians are Christian and the Azerbaijanis are Muslim, the issue has little to do with religion. Azerbaijan insists it owns Nagorno Karabakh, citing its right to territorial integrity. Nagorno Karabakh argues that it is entitled to exist independently because of the right of all peoples to self-determination. Certainly there are analysts who argue that the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh are an occupying force. I don’t agree. But I don’t side with Nagorno Karabakh simply because of my DNA. I believe that history is on the Armenians’ side”, Bohjalian saying as quoted by The New York Times. He writes how in 1988 Nagorno Karabakh’s Armenian majority voted to become part of the Armenian Soviet Republic.

The author says Nagorno Karabakh is not largely recognized by the international community, though seven US states have adopted resolutions by calling the US Government to support the NKR’s independence. “The republic is a fledgling democracy of 140,000 people, facing off against an oil-rich dictatorship with a population of 9.5 million. Its only ally is Armenia”, he says.

The NKR Ombudsman Ruben Melikyan told Bohjalian that Azerbaijan has consistently shown that it is incapable of governing  Nagorno Karabakh. “It’s not merely an issue of a people’s right to self-determination. It’s a people’s right to self-determination who are in peril of extermination”, Melikyan told Bohjalian.

Bohjalian says Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has threatened to shoot down passenger planes that fly into the new Stepanakert airport, which is yet not open. Aliyev is the person who awarded the Azerbaijani officer who murdered an Armenian officer in his sleep during a peaceful, NATO-sponsored training seminar in Budapest.

“After spending time with people in Nagorno Karabakh, it’s clear to me that the only way the nation will ever again be a part of Azerbaijan is if Azerbaijan conquers it. And despite Azerbaijan’s being vastly larger, I can’t imagine that ever will happen. Armenians had lived on this land for centuries before it was incorporated into Azerbaijan”, Bohjalian writes adding that the people of Nagorno Karabakh are fiercely protecting their home.

“The fact is, the only dog Azerbaijan has in this fight is pride. It has the oil; Nagorno Karabakh has scrub brush and pomegranates. But for the Armenians it is a fight for survival. It is the retention of a part of our homeland. Yes, we were ethnically cleansed from Van and Anatolia and Cilicia — virtually all of Turkey but Istanbul — during the Armenian Genocide. Three out of every four of us there were systematically annihilated during World War I. And so Nagorno Karabakh is our line in the sand. It is why this small country, as tiny as it is, always has enough soldiers for the trenches”, Bohjalian concludes his article.