Head of Karabakh's Azerbaijani community: Yerevan unfamiliar with notion of peace
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
Head of the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh Tural Ganjaliyev has said that the Armenian authorities are unfamiliar with the notions of peace and solidarity.
"The international community must recognize the true essence of Armenia and understand that such high values as peace and solidarity are alien to those in power in this country," Ganjaliyev said in statement made on December 12.
“Armenia, which holds 20 percent of Azerbaijani territories under occupation, has submitted a resolution to the UN General Assembly on the occasion of International Chess Day, including ‘Sport for peace and development: Building a peaceful and better world through sport and Olympic goal’ and ‘peace culture’ paragraphs in this resolution.
"The draft resolution aims to urge humanity to peace, intellectual and spiritual solidarity. Apparently, this time Armenia is also trying to present itself to the world as a ‘supporter of peace and solidarity’,” reads the statement.
Gancaliyev said that Yerevan’s move “speaks of the fake, two-faced essence of the Armenian government that is hiding under a veil of high values.”
“By what right Armenia, which is guilty in killings of thousands of our compatriots, the country that occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands, holding hundreds of our compatriots captive under terrible conditions, the country that expelled more than one million Azerbaijanis from their native lands and carried out ethnic cleansing, is speaking about peace and solidarity, and is trying to turn chess into a means of achieving its goals?” the statement reads.
Ganjaliyev recalled there were great chess traditions in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region that has been under occupation since 1990s.
“Thousands of youth representatives were learning this game in the chess schools in Kalbajar and Shusha regions, and I was one of them. As a result of the Armenian occupation, the building of the chess school in Shusha and other places in Karabakh were destroyed. Armenia’s reasoning about high values, when it broke not only the destinies of people but also destroyed wonderful traditions of sports, cultural centres, arouses a sense of disgust.” Ganjaliyev stated.
He said it was ridiculous that Armenia, caring nothing for the resolutions of such an authoritative organization as the UN Security Council, is now distributing a document in this organization on the occasion of International Chess Day.
“Unlike Armenia, Azerbaijani community of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, after returning to their native lands, in conditions of fair and permanent peaceful coexistence of two communities within Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders, will restore the destroyed chess traditions, and the whole world will witness this,” Ganjaliyev concluded.
Baku strengthens the role of the Azerbaijani Community of Nagorno-Karabakh in the negotiation process and wants to ensure equal access to negotiations of the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities in the region.
Karabakh’s Azerbaijani community which was subjected to ethnic cleansing and expulsion from their lands has the legal right to participate in determining the future legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijan’s breakaway region which along with seven surrounding regions came under occupation of Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. Armenia has not implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions since the cease-fire agreement was signed in 1994.
---
Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz