Video snapshot: An Azerbaijani truck dumps ancient Armenian gravestones, khachkars, into the River Arax in December 2005. The destruction ammounted to the complete annihilation of the world’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery, Djulfa. For more photos see www.djulfa.com/photos/

Armenia’s ex-presidential candidate Vahan Hovhannisian from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) has said that the December 2005 destruction of Djulfa (Jugha) cemetery by Azerbaijan should have been the point for Armenia to pull out of negotiations with Azerbaijan over the conflict of Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh).

Hovhannisian is quoted in ArmeniaNow as saying: “The day Azerbaijan began to barbarically destroy the monuments in Jugha, we had to leave the negotiation process. You would see what would happen: they would try to keep us, would seek our forgiveness.”

I am not sure whether I agree with Hovhannisyan or not. Although I have devoted the last two years working for Djulfa awareness (and today received my University’s Outstanding Undergraduate Award largely for my work on Djulfa) and am currently writing my honors thesis on its legal implications, Azerbaijan might be looking for an excuse to militarily attack Armenia. 

The deputy is correct in the sense that the destruction and its aftermath should be in the top list of Armenia’s ongoing talks with Azerbaijan.

A popular singer in Azerbaijan is no longer aired on radio or television in the ex-Soviet republic after returning from Israel where he performed on the day of a national Azerbaijani commemoration.

Image from Day.az:Azerbajani singer Nadir Gafardzadeh, de facto banned in his homeland for performing on a day of massacre commemoration

According to the Russian-language Day.az from Azerbaijan, singer Nadir Gafarzadeh “has been officially ‘prohibited’ [from appearing] in government events while citizens, shocked with the singer’s heartlessness and unprincipled [character], have stopped inviting him to [perform in] weddings.”

Gafarzadeh, on a February 2008 visit to Israel, had performed at a restaurant on the day when official Azerbaijan commemorates the 1990s killing of several hundred Azerbaijani civilians during the Armenian takeover of the town of Khojalu, Nagorno Karabakh.

Regarded as the “Khojalu Genocide” by official Azerbaijan, any challenge of the official account of the massacre has been violently suppressed in Azerbaijan. An independent Azerbaijani journalist who has suggested that Armenian forces left a humanitarian corridor for the civilians of Khojalu to leave, for example, is currently in jail with at least 10 more years to go.

Singer Nadir Gafarzadeh  has attempted to win back his audience amid the uproar. His effort to show good will by giving financial support to some Azerbaijani refugees from Khojalu, as reported by another Russian-language Azeri source, has apparently failed. Earlier, he was interviewed on a TV program in Azerbaijan in early March 2008 on his previous month’s performance in Israel, as seen in a YouTube video. During the short interview, the female host asks the singer about his performance on the anniversary of the “Khojalu genocide” to which Gafarzadeh passionately defends himself. After the host and the guest interrupt each other several times, the Azerbaijani journalist stands up and starts hysterically yelling at the singer.

At this time there are no criminal charges filed against Gafarzadeh.

Via ImagineDialogue:  

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Imagine 08
Azerbaijani and Armenian Student Retreat and Dialogue
June 3 – 11, 2008

If you are an Armenian or Azerbaijani student currently studying in the U.S. interested in engaging in a constructive dialogue with each other, please consider participating in the second Azerbaijani-Armenian Student Retreat and Dialogue program to be held in the United States from June 3-11, 2008 (specific location will be announced soon). Located in a serene natural setting the retreat employs a unique methodology that combines analytical dialogue and conflict resolution trainings with outdoor teambuilding and living together in a remote area.

The first Imagine Dialogue and Retreat program for Armenian and Azerbaijani students took place in May of 2007 with support from the US Department of State. The program brought together 12 young professionals from Azerbaijan and Armenia for a successful 8-day dialogue and retreat during which the participants explored their thoughts about the conflict and each other, as well as discussed the challenges Nagorno-Karabakh conflict poses for two societies. For more information on the program please visit Imagine website at http://www.imaginedialogue.com/

The aim of the Imagine Retreat and Dialogue is to lay a foundation for open communication by empowering Armenians and Azerbaijanis with conflict resolution skills. Though this experientially based retreat and dialogue focuses upon the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict, it will do so in a non-political manner that promotes no political agenda or particular position. The workshop will be led by a three-person team of co-facilitators (one American, one Armenian, and one Azerbaijani) with significant academic and practical experience in conflict resolution. The program will also include periodic follow-up activities during the 2008-2009 academic year.

Twelve scholarships are currently available for this year: Six for Azerbaijani students, and six for Armenian students. All winners will receive meals, round-trip travel support, and accommodations for the weeklong workshop.

Students interested in applying please fill out the enclosed program application and send it together with your CV to [email protected] by the closing date of Monday, March 30, 2008.

It is rare when France, the Russian Federation and the United States are part of a small group that vote the same way in the United Nations.

But today they joined the states of Angola, Armenia, India, and Vanuatu in voting against a General Assembly resolution by the Republic of Azerbaijan that calls on Armenian forces to withdraw from the Armenian indigenous region of Nagorno Karabakh – a de facto but internationally unrecognized republic in the ex-Soviet world.

According to Reuters:

The U.N. General Assembly on Friday demanded [on March 14, 2008] that Armenian forces withdraw from all occupied territories in Azerbaijan, but key mediators in the Azeri-Armenia dispute rejected the non-binding resolution.

[…]
There were 100 abstentions and many other countries chose not to participate in the vote, which Western diplomats said was a reflection of the fact that most people felt the Azeri resolution was not a balanced picture of the problem.

“This resolution was not helpful,” said a diplomat from one of the three co-chairs of the Minsk Group — Russia, the United States and France.

The Minsk Group is a committee of countries working to bring about a peaceful resolution of the disagreement over Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed Caucasus mountain enclave. The group was established by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 1992.

A U.S. statement on the resolution said the three Minsk Group co-chairs all voted against the resolution because they agreed it represented a “unilateral” view of the dispute.

[…]

Last week Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said Kosovo’s newly declared independence from Serbia had emboldened Armenian separatists in Azerbaijan’s mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have accused each other of stoking the recent violence there.

The resolution passed by 39 countries voting in favor of Azerbaijan’s ‘territorial integrity,’ while 100 states chose to abstain or not show up at all. The Azerbaijani resolution, which calls for “the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal from all the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan,” was largely voted for by Muslim countries including Armenia’s historic enemy Turkey (where the indigenous Armenian population was eliminated during WWI), Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Iraq, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and others. Among others, the ex-Soviet states of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine – all in somewhat similar situation like Azerbaijan with breakaway regions – supported the resolution. From other former Soviet “Turkic” countries only Uzbekistan supported the resolution while the rest of Central Asian countries voted abstain or were not present. Serbia, which is still protesting the U.S.-backed breakaway of Kosovo, joined Azerbaijan in defending the latter’s “territorial integrity.”

Announcing support for the resolution on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Pakistan’s representative quoted Azerbaijani allegations of “destruction of Azerbaijan’s cultural and historical heritage, including Islamic monuments.” Ironically, Azerbaijan has continuously denied the European Parliament investigation of material heritage destruction in the South Caucasus – raising questions of its sincerity in protecting heritage. And needless to say, Azerbaijan’s rhetoric of “Armenian vandalism” only started in late December of 2005 – after an eyewitness videotape from the Iranian-Azerbaijani border showed servicemen of Azerbaijan’s army reducing the world’s largest Armenian medieval cemetery to dust.

According to the official United Nations website, Armenia’s representative argued that the Azeri-drafted resolution would undermine the peace process and contribute to Azerbaijan’s militant position in dealing with the indigenous population of Nagorno Karabakh:

The representative of Armenia said it was unprecedented for a draft resolution to be put to the vote without there having been any consultations on it, in cynical disregard of the foundation of the United Nations and every other organization.  The purpose of the drafters had never been to encourage or facilitate discussion.  It was simply a way for Azerbaijan to list its wishes on a piece of paper.  If the intention had truly been to contribute to the success of ongoing negotiations, Azerbaijan would have put its energy into the existing Minsk Group negotiation format.

He said that, after Azerbaijan had militarized the conflict 20 years ago, there had been a full-scale war between Armenians of Nagorno Karabagh and Azerbaijan.  The result was thousands dead, nearly 1 million refugees and lost territories on both sides.  Today, there was a self-maintained ceasefire and negotiations under the auspices of the Minsk Group.  Despite that and attempts by Azerbaijan to divert from the peace process, the talks were indeed moving forward.  There was now a negotiating document on the table that addressed all fundamental issues, security being foremost among them.  The Minsk Group co-chairs had presented the latest version to the two sides at the OSCE Ministerial Meeting in Madrid.

Yet, Azerbaijan risked sabotaging that process by presenting a draft that ignored fundamental international norms and the real issues, which must be addressed, he continued.  In short, the draft was counterproductive.  It called for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of armed forces, while ignoring the security vacuum that would result.  Who would be responsible for the security of the population of Nagorno Karabagh, which was already vulnerable, in the absence of “international cover” safeguarded by those very armed forces?

The draft also called for self-governance within Azerbaijan, he noted.  That had become impossible 20 years ago and was not possible today, when the security of the Armenian minority was clearly endangered.  The international community had demonstrated that it understood that, in various conflicts around the world.  The Government of Azerbaijan had forfeited its right to govern people it considered its own citizens when it had unleashed a war against them 20 years ago.  Armenians would not return to such a situation.  Just as victims of domestic violence were not forced back into the custody of the abuser, the people of Nagorno Karabagh would not be forced back into the custody of a Government that sanctioned pogroms against them, and later sent its army against them.

Noting that the draft also asked for commitment by the parties to humanitarian law, he questioned their commitment to the non-use of force, the peaceful resolution of disputes and all the other provisions of the Helsinki Final Act.  The draft talked about territories and refugees, but not how the consequences of the conflict would be resolved if the original cause was not addressed.  Refugees and territories had been created by an Azerbaijan that had “unleashed a savage war against people it claims to be its own citizens”.  Only when the initial cause was resolved would the fate of all the territories and refugees in question be put right.

The draft was a “wasted attempt” to predetermine the outcome of the peace talks, he said.  That was not how responsible members of the international community conducted the difficult but rewarding mission of bringing peace and stability to peoples and regions.  The co-chairs had found that today’s text did not help the peace talks.  Armenia also knew it would undermine the peace process and asked other delegations not to support it.

The BBC reports on a skirmish in the indigenous Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, a de jureregion of Azerbaijan, that has left at least two Azeri soldiers dead after the latter, according to the Armenian side as reported by the Associated Press, captured an Armenian post and were soon kicked out.

Unfortunately, there is only one side of the story for the BBC which reports that “Azeri authorities told the BBC Armenia had provoked the clashes to divert attention from its domestic problems. ”

Whatever the case, there is no independent Azeri sources to read about the news – one of them, www.realazer.net being terminated and its editor sentenced to over ten years in jail, and most Armenian news websites still limited to providing official government information due to the temporary state of emergency.

Nonetheless, Day.az from Azerbaijan reports in Russian in its latest updateon the fight that Azeri authorities state they have “eliminated” 12 Armenian soldiers while only three Azeri soldiers became “martyrs.” The website of Armenia’s Foreign Ministry quotes Cabinet Minister Vartan Oskanyan as saying, “There are casualties. As of this moment, there is one injured from the Armenian side, and as the Azerbaijani press reported, two deaths from their side, and injuries too. These we can obviously not confirm.” Some Azeri users of a Day.az’s Russian-language Forum have suggested that Armenians may in fact have more casualties. Oskanyan, they suggest, may not release the information given the recent violent protests in the country.

Amnesty International has issued a press release on persecution of journalists in the ex-Soviet country of Azerbaijan drawing the story from the third anniversary of an outspoken journalist’s assassination by Azerbaijan’s regime.

Azerbaijani journalist Elmar Hüseynov was murdered outside his home in the capital Baku, three years ago on Sunday. His case has become a symbol of the continuing human rights abuses faced by journalists in the country.

The outspoken editor-in-chief of Azeri opposition magazine Monitor, Hüseynov was shot seven times walking out of a lift on 2 March 2005. Thought to be the victim of a contract killing, Hüseynov’s death is the most serious case in a continuing series of assaults on opposition journalists.

His colleagues and international press freedom organizations ascribed his murder to the political content of the newspaper, which closed following his death.

In July 2006, a former Ministry of Internal Affairs official, charged with kidnapping and murder, admitted to Hüseynov’s murder while testifying at his own trial. He claimed that he carried out the killing on behalf of the former Minister of Economic Development, himself on trial for plotting the overthrow of the government. So far no one has been prosecuted for Hüseynov’s murder. 

[…]

Several journalists in Azerbaijan are in jail, some of them for over a decade.

One of those still in prison is opposition newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev who, after years of harassment by the authorities, was tried twice in 2007. He was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment on charges of defamation, terrorism, incitement of ethnic hatred and tax evasion.

Eynulla Fatullayev worked on Monitor until it was closed. He then launched two popular opposition newspapers, Realny Azerbaydzhan (Real Azerbaijan) and Gündelik Azarbaycan (Azerbaijan Daily). Both newspapers closed in May 2007 after a series of inspections of their premises by the authorities.

Fatullayev has been one of the few to challenge official anti-Armenian xenophobia in Azerbaijan and his 2005 visit to Nagorno-Karabakh, a de facto independent Armenian region that broke away from Soviet Azerbaijan in the 1991, was crucial for the arrest. After returning from Karabakh to Azerbaijan, Fatullayev wrote a story on the killing of several hundred Azeris in the city of Khojalu during the war by Armenian soldiers raising the possibility that the Azeri militia in charge of Khojalu might have deliberately prohibited Khojalu residents from leaving despite Armenian leadership’s offer for a humanitarian corridor.

Azerbaijan’s regime is pulling its NATO troops from newly-independent Kosovo in apparent fears that the west’s recognition of the tiny state might serve as precedent for Nagorno-Karabakh independence.

Reuters reports:

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has asked parliament to vote to withdraw the ex-Soviet country’s peacekeepers from Kosovo, an Azeri official said on Thursday.

Aliyev submitted the initiative to a parliamentary committee this week, and the vote is expected on March 4. The proposal is expected to pass into law with little opposition.

Azerbaijan has had 33 soldiers serving in Kosovo since 1999 with a Turkish battalion under NATO command.

Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov said Kosovo’s recent declaration of independence from Serbia had “sharply changed the political scene”.

“Azerbaijan, as well as a host of other NATO partner-countries, is now re-examining the position of its peacekeeping platoon,” Azimov told reporters.

[…]

Karabakh, an indigenous Armenian enclave that Stalin annexed to Soviet Azerbaijan in the 1920s, is de facto independent from Azerbaijan after a war in the 1990s that killed thousands of people on both sides. Azerbaijan’s regime has said it will do everything to return its Soviet territory.

Since Turkey has hailed Kosovo’s independence, it will be interesting to see how fiercely Azerbaijan will deny Kosovo’s independence given Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s close relationship.

Having reduced every Armenian monument to dust in indigenous Armenian regions, Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev has now hired a world-known artist to design a center in honor of his father, former Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev. Both Aliyevs are believed to have ordered the destruction of the world’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery that was finalized in 2005.

According to the Scotsman:

AZERBAIJAN’S ruling elite has grown rich from oil and now it is to acquire the ultimate status symbol: a monument to the president’s father designed by one of the world’s most sought-after architects.

The Azeri government has commissioned Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi-born Briton best known for designing a cutting-edge plant for the carmaker BMW in Leipzig, to build a cultural centre in honour of Heydar Aliyev, the man who founded the ruling dynasty.

The undulating glass and aluminium structure will rise up alongside oil-blackened Soviet-era factories in the capital of a country that just a few years ago was in economic chaos and reeling from a war with its neighbour, Armenia.

It will also deepen the posthumous cult of personality around the former KGB officer who ran Azerbaijan for three decades before his death in 2003. His son, Ilham Aliyev, a reformed playboy, took over the presidency.

“This centre will be an example of respect for the legacy of Heydar Aliyev and become a symbol of Azerbaijan’s modern capital,” Ilham Aliyev said at a ceremony marking the start of work.

[…]

Eurasianet has a story on Azerbaijan’s arrogant war rhetoric and Armenia’s response.

EU officials touring the South Caucasus this week were confronted by heated words from President Ilham Aliyev, who told them Azerbaijan is ready to “wage war” with neighboring Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan’s recent windfall of oil and gas revenues appears to have persuaded Aliyev that he could turn the tables on Armenia, which has long held the military upper hand in the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic-Armenian territory located within Azerbaijan.

In talks on February 4 with Slovenian Foreign Minister Dmitrij Rupel, who was representing the current EU Presidency, Aliyev indicated Baku was contemplating waging war for control of the disputed territory, which together with a strip of adjacent Azerbaijani territory has been under Yerevan’s control since a 1988-94 war between the two countries.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU’s external relations commissioner, tells RFE/RL that Brussels firmly rejected Baku’s “inflammatory” rhetoric. “I clearly said, not only to the authorities, but also at the press conference, that I think it is highly important that they avoid any inflammatory speech at the moment of presidential elections,” she says.

Both countries are holding a presidential vote this year — Armenia on February 19, and Azerbaijan in October. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has spent more than 15 years mediating talks between the two sides, has indicated an election year is not likely to see major progress on the issue.

Baku, however, appears impatient. The Azerbaijani leadership, Rupel said, appears to feel that “time is not on Armenia’s side.” Nor is money. Azerbaijan’s defense budget this year will exceed $1 billion; Armenia’s is just one-third of that figure.

Azerbaijan has enjoyed spectacular economic growth over the past few years. The country’s GDP grew by 25 percent in 2007, almost exclusively on the strength of oil and gas exports.

Azerbaijan’s minister for economic development, Heydar Babayev, says he expects his government to generate upward of $150 billion in oil and gas revenues by 2015.

Armenia, meanwhile, has no lucrative natural resources. It is landlocked, blockaded by neighbors Turkey and Azerbaijan, and — at Baku’s behest — bypassed by oil and gas pipelines, as well as rail and road projects, which originate in Azerbaijan.

’Winning The Peace’

But, as Rupel notes, Armenia has “alliances that speak for it.” This is a reference to Russian backing. Throughout the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russia is rumored to have given Armenia military equipment worth $1 billion. Russia provides for most of Armenia’s energy needs and has bought up most of its energy infrastructure.

The Armenian government did not appeared cowed by Baku’s fighting words. Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian tells RFE/RL that Armenia is confident of its military capability. “No matter how strong the Azeris will be in the next 15 years, even with this kind of spending, even [if it] doubled every year, to catch up with Armenia’s commitment to defend itself and Karabakh, that will require [as a] minimum 15-20 years,” he says.

Oskanian says that Armenia would not be intimidated in any event. More importantly, he adds, he does not believe there can be a military solution to Nagorno-Karabakh. “We fought twice with the Azeris, we prevailed, but we never claimed that we won the war,” he says. “Unless we win the peace, we will never claim that we won the war.”

[…]

After closely watching the original tape of the December, 2005, destruction of the world’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery by Azerbaijan’s army, I was able to identify one – if not the only – participant of the destruction who wasn’t uniformed.

Taped on December 15, 2005, by members of the Armenian Church in Tabriz from Iran’s territory, the video showed a middle-age man – unlike the young soldiers – dress in a black suite and directly supervising the dumping of the Djulfa cross-stones to the River Araxes.

The same man was also taped on December 16, 2005, at the same location at this time avoiding directly looking toward the Iranian border. Several soldiers were spotted using binoculars to look toward the Iranian border – they had apparently noticed the film crew that was taping them from across the border.

The full post is available here.