Speaker Pelosi casts a long shadow on US's alleged "fair arbiter" role in Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict
By Sabina Mammadli
Come on the heels of the September 12-13 deadly clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, the visit of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Yerevan was clearly designed to show solidarity with Baku's blood-thirsty neighbor's militaristic and saber-rattling policies.
Blaming Azerbaijan for the recent deadly provocations on the border, she failed to observe interstate and diplomatic rules and rushed to state that US Congress “strongly condemns illegal and deadly attacks by Azerbaijan on Armenian territory”.
Pelosi has long been notorious for her pro-Armenian bias, and the presence of pro-Armenian Congressmen in her entourage was a foregone conclusion. Strictly driven by the Armenian agenda and heavily influenced by the Armenian lobby, the Speaker disregarded easily-attainable facts and stuck to a much narrower position in conformity with the Armenian lobby's anti-Azerbaijani policies.
Pelosi, who claims that Azerbaijan has initiated the attack, should be reminded that the incident that took place on the conditional, non-delimited border on the night of September 12-13 was a large-scale military provocation by Armenia against Azerbaijan and the latter’s armed forces took retaliatory actions to prevent further aggression. Notably, the Armenian sabotage groups mined the land there in the midst of Azerbaijan's hard work to demine the liberated lands, which were heavily mined during the 30-year-long occupation. The demining issue has been on the top of the Azerbaijani government agenda ever since the liberation as it stops the return of IDPs to their homes and frequently results in human casualties.
Somehow, Pelosi chose to disregard the nearly 30-year-long occupation, as well as numerous war crimes of Armenia, which was followed by ethnic cleansing, genocide, and forceful displacement of Azerbaijanis from their native lands. For someone, who claims to be a human rights advocate, Pelosi does not seem to act outside of her personal interests to take a more thorough look into decades of oppression.
It is noteworthy that the Speaker, who talks about the so-called Azerbaijani attacks on civilian targets, has not previously mentioned Armenian strikes on civilian Azerbaijani cities, far from the conflict zone. Pelosi’s hypocritical policy naturally raises a question of where she was and why she did not condemn Armenia’s launch of ballistic missiles at Ganja and other civilian targets in Mingachevir, Tartar, Shamkir, Naftalan, Agcabadi, Xizi, Beylagan, which resulted in deaths and injuries of hundreds of innocent civilians.
In her speech, Pelosi also addressed “Azerbaijan’s vandalism against historical monuments in Karabakh”, which is a complete distortion of reality.
Regrettably, fed by Armenia with distorted and unsubstantiated information, Nancy Pelosi failed to mention the disastrous impact of the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani lands, towns, villages, and historical monuments throughout the 30-year-long Armenian occupation. Driven by her desire to satisfy the ears and eyes of the Armenian lobbyists ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, she was not expected to mention the destroyed and looted 927 libraries with 4.6 million books, 700 historical monuments, 22 museums with 100,000 exhibits, to name a few.
During Armenia's nearly 30-year-long occupation, some 900 cemeteries with over a million graves were decimated. Azerbaijani gravestones were even used to build stairs to Armenian homes. Car plates of transport means of killed and displaced Azerbaijanis used to decorate public restrooms were also not mentioned by the US politician. Out of 67 mosques in the previously occupied Azerbaijani lands, 65 were desecrated and destroyed, which were turned into pigsties and cowsheds. And her failure to notice them was purposeful although the U.S. State Department reported that dozens of Azerbaijani cemeteries had been destroyed in Fuzuli, Aghdam, Zangilan, Kalbajar, and Jabrayil regions by Armenian separatists.
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has called Pelosi's remarks a serious blow to efforts to normalize relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
"Such unilateral steps and unfounded statements do not serve to strengthen the fragile peace in the region, but, on the contrary, escalate tension," the ministry said in a statement.
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Sabina Mammadli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SabinaMmdl
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