Azerbaijan’s “Azeri Press Agency” has posted an article, republished by Today.az, on the newly-opened Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum – that documents the deliberate destruction of the largest medieval Armenian cemetery in the world – stating that the project features “false reports and footages.”

It also quotes an Azerbaijani parliamentarian making a reference to my article on the Djulfa destruction in History Today which is widely featured in the Britannica Online Encyclopedia: “Armenians and their scientists posted articles covering these absurd and false claims against Azerbaijan in several encyclopedias, including Britanica (sic) encyclopedia.”

So, according to Azerbaijani nationalists, I have some sort of access to the Britannica website where I can post my “false” articles. Actually, I only found out that Britannica had republished my article after I did Google search on the History Today article. 

Here is the Azerbaijani reaction:

Armenians create website named Djulfa, Azerbaijani region and post false reports and footages (sic)

[ 18 Jan 2008 13:53  ]

“Website www.djulfa.com registered by Armenians falsifies the history of Nakhchivan, integral part of Azerbaijan, posts claims that this territory is an ancient Armenian land and false footages (sic) that Azerbaijanis destroy Armenian monuments in Djulfa,” parliamentarian Ganira Pashayeva told APA.

She said that the website named Djulfa is the next subversion of Armenians against Azerbaijan and added that all should worry about the fact that Armenians have squatted some of the domains connected with the names of Azerbaijan, Karabakh, Baku, Sumgayit, Nakhchivan and the occupied regions.
“The measurers (sic) should be accelerated for returning such domains, including www.djulfa.com to Azerbaijan and informing the world community about subversion against Azerbaijan. The relevant bodies should work out the process of registration of domains connected with the name of Azerbaijan in order to prevent such a problem in future. We should inform the world community on the level of media outlets, different embassies and Foreign Ministry that the materials posted on this website are false,” the parliamentarian said.
Ganira Pashayeva said that Armenians are anxious about our informing world community about vandalism acts of Armenia and their destructing cultural-historical monuments belonging to Azerbaijanis in occupied Azerbaijani regions including Nagorno Karabakh and historical lands of Azerbaijan and areas called Armenian Republic today and Armenians want to confuse international community.
“Not touching upon Armenian church in Baku is the indicator of the position of Azerbaijan in such issues. But all religious monuments belonging to Azerbaijan were destructed in Armenia today. This fact is enough for criticizing Armenians. To our regret, Armenians and their scientists posted articles covering these absurd and false claims against Azerbaijan in several encyclopedias, including Britanica (sic) encyclopedia,” she said.
MP stressed necessity of establishing body under one of the relevant state organizations for removing and observing this aggressive policy of Armenia against Azerbaijanis virtually.
“Especially, special measures should be taken for eliminating aggressive propaganda of Armenia against Azerbaijani monuments dating back to Christianity period. We should not allow Armenians to falsify history of Azerbaijan and present it to world community,” she said. /APA/

Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev’s recent statement that neighboring Armenia can’t give anything to the world “from the political, economic, transport or cultural points of view” has attracted little attention.

That’s because there is nothing new in a racist statement coming from official Azerbaijan that says Armenia has no cultural contributions to the world. In fact, Aliyev’s regime has done everything possible to prove that point: in December of 2005, the largest Armenian archaeological site in the world – the medieval cemetery of Djulfa – was reduced to dust by a contingent of Azerbaijan’s army. President Aliyev says the destruction never happened because there had never been any Armenia cultural monument in Djulfa in the first place.

And although the deliberate demolition of Djulfa has not attracted much concern from the international community – some suggest the oil factor – there is now a growing concern about Azerbaijan’s ambitions of “uniting Turkic countries” which is usually followed by statements against Armenia and primarily seeks a common identity with the Republic of Turkey.

Mathew Bryza, the Assistant U.S. Secretary of State, has said at a recent conference that “[t]he slogan ‘one nation, two states’ reigning in Turkey and Azerbaijan should be changed. “ Although Bryza’s statement at face is a reference to stopping the common hate toward Armenia it comes amid apparent concerns for growing Pan-Turkism in Eurasia and so creation of a “racial” and possibly Islamic unity.

A recent article in the Eurasia Daily Monitor, titled “The Rebirth of Pan-Turkism?” states:

As the USSR recedes further into history, the post-Soviet Turkic nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia are rediscovering their linguistic and cultural affinities with Turkey, and activists are promoting closer cultural, economic, and political ties.

Among the states of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, the pan-Turkic sentiment is most pronounced in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s most ardent support of closer Turkic ties is Nizami Jafarov, director of Baku’s Ataturk Center, a corresponding member of Azerbaijan’s Academy of Science, and head of the Azerbaijani Permanent Parliamentary Commission on the Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Jafarov’s latest project is setting up a new Turkish language TV channel in Azerbaijan to broadcast to the Turkish-speaking world and foster further integration in the Turkic world. “It is possible to say that this idea has become a reality,” Jafarov said during a recent interview. “The issues of the opportunities, main topics, and language of this TV channel have been defined after long discussions. No one is against the creation of such a channel.” According to Jafarov, the only thing currently lacking is money. “ The issue will be fully elaborated after one of the Turkic countries or any international company undertakes the financing of the TV channel,” but he added optimistically, “I think the issue of the channel opening will be settled this year.”

The concern for Pan-Turkism is not the cultural integration of countries with somewhat closer heritage but old ambitions for a Pan-Turkic “empire” that some scholars believe was the ideology behind eliminating the Armenian people from the Ottoman Empire. 

Jafarov is also chairman of the Turkish-Azerbaijani Parliamentary Friendship Group, which has been promoting the idea of closer Turkish-Azeri relations for some time. In 2006 Jafarov maintained, the idea of a Parliamentary Assembly of Turkish States began to gain serious traction, commenting, “Azerbaijan’s suggestion of establishing a Parliamentary Assembly of Turkish States has been approved by all. The format of the Assembly is to be discussed. Creation of this assembly is inevitable. The ongoing processes in the world make it necessary to set up an organization of Turkish states at least on parliament level” (Today.az, February 28, 2006). As envisaged, the Turkish States’ Parliamentary Assembly would consist of delegates from Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan.

Although the article fails to directly mention the “role” of Armenia in the Pan-Turkic ambition – that is Armenia would need to be physically annihilated because it is the only country that geographically seperates the Turkic nations –  it does reference the anti-Armenian rhetoric of the Pan-Turkic agenda:

An important element of Jafarov’s plan was Armenia’s reaction to such an assembly. The following month Jafarov said, “The Armenian media writes that Turk nations will create a Turanian State and claims that and this state will be against Armenians… The establishment of such an assembly is important for the maintenance of harmony in the world and is not in contradiction with the norms and principles of international law. On the other hand, Armenians are far fewer in number than Turks. There are 100 million Turks in the world and only about 10 million Armenians. Despite this we will discuss the ‘Armenian issue’ after the formation of the Assembly.”

Azerbaijan’s successful destruction of Armenian cultural heritage and an unprecended hate campaign – partially because of losing a recent war to Armenia – toward the people who, even after the Armenian Genocide – stand on the way of Pan-Turkism – has led to convinctions on the part of Azerbaijan’s officials that they should become the leader of the Turkic world:

But the concept has already brushed up against political reality, with both Turkey and Azerbaijan claiming credit for the concept and eventual leadership of the organization. For the Azeris, the recent Congress solidified Azerbaijan’s leadership. According to Nazim Ibrahimov, head of the State Committee on Work with Azerbaijanis Living Abroad, “This congress, which was held on the initiative of President Ilham Aliyev, brought new tone to the Turkish world. In the worldwide Turkish diaspora all Turks are speaking about the congress in Baku. They consider the Azerbaijani President as a new leader of Turkish world” (APA, December 30).

While Azerbaijan’s immense oil wealth gives it a rising presence in the Turkic world, it remains to be seen if that will translate into substantial political power in the Inter-Parliamentary Council and Advisory Council, proposed by Turkey, and whether the heads of the five former Soviet Turkic states will, in fact, be ready to surrender any national sovereignty to such a body. If Azerbaijan and Turkey cannot even agree regarding who provided the impetus for the idea, further integration of the Turkish-speaking world still seems a distant goal.

Armenia’s good relationship with some of the Central Asian “Turkic” countries may also be a factor to the thwart of the political aspect of the Pan-Turkist ambition. Armenian culture is widely spread in many of these former Soviet Union countries and most would disagree with Aliyev’s racist statement that Armenia culturally offers nothing to the world.  Moreover, Armenians and Azeris are genetically more related than Azeris and their “Turkic brothers” in Central Asia so hopes for Pan-Turkist racial unity are embedded in myths and prejudice.

Nonetheless, Azerbaijan’s ambitions for greater rule and influence are alarming, as the State Department has finally noticed, even if no one – including Turkey – refuse to participate in the Pan-Turkist agenda.  Azerbaijan’s militarization needs to be put to an end. And that must start with activating Section 907 of the Freedom of Support Act.

Two years and a month after the destruction of Djulfa, we are announcing the Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum.  Here is the first official press release with special thanks to Armen Hovhannisyan from www.Hayastan.com:  

Aimed at spreading awareness about cultural cleansing in the Republic of Azerbaijan, a project to document the deliberate destruction of the world’s largest medieval Armenian archaeological site has been launched online.

The Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum (www.djulfa.com), announced in January of 2008, claims to be the foremost online resource on the medieval cemetery in old Djulfa (Jugha in Armenian), which was reduced to dust in December of 2005 by a contingent of Azerbaijan’s army. The destruction, videotaped by a film crew at the Iranian-Azerbaijani border, and condemned by the European Parliament, has been denied as “slanderous information” by officials in Azerbaijan.

The newly launched project includes film and reference material on the history and destruction of the Djulfa cemetery. The Photo section features a number of previously unpublished images of the cemetery taken by French-Lithuanian art critique Jurgis Baltrusaitis, who visited the site in 1928. A publication co-authored by Baltrusaitis has also been digitalized and posted on the website.

The Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum is maintained by volunteer staff and an advisory board. Learn about the annihilated sacred stones at www.djulfa.com.

It is time for Armenian-American organizations to check with all the U.S. presidential candidates about their views on Armenian issues.  Some things can be negotiated but one thing cannot.

No, not the genocide resolution but Section 907 – the ban of U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan that G.W. Bush has been waiving since 2001.

According to Wikipedia:

Section 907 of the United States Freedom Support Act bans any kind of direct United States aid to the Azerbaijani government. This ban makes Azerbaijan the only exception to the countries of the former Soviet Union, to receive direct aid from United States government under the Freedom Support Act to facilitate economic and political stability.^[1].

The Act was strongly lobbied for by the Armenian American community in the US^[2], and was passed in response to Azerbaijan’s blockade of Armenia. which was at full scale war with Azerbaijan over the predominantly Armenian populated Nagorno Karabakhregion of Azerbaijan. Since 1994 cease-fire agreement Nagorno Karabakh has established a de-facto independent republic, which is not recognized by any country.

On October 24, 2001, the Senate adopted a waiver of section 907 that would provide the President with ability to waiver the Section 07^[3]. He has done so since then.

In a sense, American taxpayers have paid for the destruction of the largest medieval Armenian cemetery in the world.  The destruction of old Djulfa in December of 2005 was carried out by soldiers of the Azerbaijani army, as seen in film, using heavy technology.  This is the same army that the current American administration has been giving money since October of 2001.

Thus, the question posed to all U.S. presidential candidates should be:

Dear candidate, in December of 2005 Azerbaijan’s army reduced to dust world’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery.  Since 2001, the current administration has been waiving Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, legislation that bans military aid to the Republic of Azerbaijan.  If elected a president, will you or will you not waive Section 907?

Armenian-dominated Nagorno Karabakh is de facto independent from the Republic of Azerbaijan, but the infamous leader of the latter country has now said Karabakhis need to leave if they don’t want Azeri rule raising questions about the legitimacy of Azerbaijan’s claim to territorial integrity and supporting Armenian fears that Karabakh’s return to Azerbaijan would be suicidal.

According to Armenia Liberty, a news source funded by the United States government:

Azerbaijan’s tough-talking President Ilham Aliev has said that Nagorno-Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population must agree to return under Azerbaijani rule or emigrate from its homeland.

“We will never allow the creation of a second Armenian state on Azerbaijani soil,” Aliev said in his New Year’s address to the nation cited by Azerbaijani media. “If the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh want to self-determine, they should do that within the framework of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. If they don’t want that, they should leave Nagorno-Karabakh and create their second state elsewhere.”

Needles to say, this is the exact attitude that has made Karabakh Armenians’ mind up to never ever live under Azeri rule which basically says you like it or leave it. 

If Nagorno-Karabakh were returned to Azerbaijan under the current leadership and ideology full-scale genocide against the Armenian population would be inevitable.  Azerbaijan’s current regime is as cruel as any dictatorship is in the world punishing its own journalists for challenging any official line and destroying property of its own citizens so that the latter use the monopolized industries.  Along with Saudi Arabia and Dubai, Azerbaijan should be the third country in the true company of “evils,” but of course America’s foreign brown-nose policy would not consider even asking for restraint to a country that gives oil.

Mr. Aliev, as far as there is one Armenian alive in this world Nagorno-Karabakh will never become part of Azerbaijan.  No conscience person would volunteer for a murder experience.   On the other hand, you are not man enough to attack Armenia and you know that.  All you can do is to reduce to dust defenseless Armenian monuments in your territory and then retardedly deny that these monuments existed.  You are not even man enough – unlike the fucking Taliban – to say you destroy monuments out of hatred or beliefs. 

I wish that in 2008 your father’s grave, Mr. Aliev, is bulldozered and reduced to dust. Then maybe we will be on the same page about appreciating memory. 

Afghanistan’s famed Bamiyan Buddhas, reduced to dust by the Taliban in 2001, may be returning in a few years.

Japanese artist Hiro Yamagata, according to Bamiyan Laser, is working on a project that in June of 2012 will display Buddha images at the site where the sacred monuments were destroyed by Islamic militants.

According to Yamagata’s website:

Over 250 laser systems installed 500m,1km and 5km in distance from the Bamiyan hills will project multiple layers of original Yamagata Buddha images drawn in striking colors.
The laser images will be projected for 1 hour after sundown, 6 days without friday.
The laser systems built specifically for this installation will shoot long range green beams and short range multiple color beams, designed to create a striking contrast to the purplish red hue of the Bamiyan sunset and the black mountain shadows.

The energy used by the laser systems will be produced by environmental friendly windmills and solar power plants. The power produced is also meant to provide light and electricity for the people of Bamiyan.

Although the Buddhas will be visible only at certain times of the year, the project is said to be sustainable and permanent:

The original Bamiyan Buddhas were created approximately 1500 years ago, as one of the most significant historical monuments of mankind. 

My artistic concept is to create original images of Buddha and project them with the most unique,powerful and cutting edge laser technology of today onto the site where once the ancient Bamiyan Buddhas stood.  Thus we will be able to revive the great creative spirit of mankind which produced the Great Buddha of Bamiyan centuries ago. A collaboration of ancient and new art will become a cultural icon of revived civilization in Afghanistan.
By permanently creating an artwork of laser system installation in Bamiyan, we intend to stimulate both the land and the people of Bamiyan.

But instead of the handful Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban, the laser project will have 160-240 Buddhas.  The figure gives hope that destroyed historic sites with hundreds of monuments can be “recreated” through laser imaging as well.  A similar project could be put together to memorialize the largest medieval Armenian cemetery reduced to dust in Azerbaijan in 2005.

What about “recreating” the New York Twin Towers with laser?

Image: UNESCO delegates looking at a new Azerbaijani military camp in September of 2007 where the Djulfa cemetery existed before December of 2005.  This site could become the world’s largest laser-powered museum with thousands of recreated tombstones

The cemetery should be recreated – whether on Azeri or Armenian territory – before the 10th anniversary of the destruction of Djulfa.  So there is much work to do until 2015.  Interestingly, that is also the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.  History repeats?

In a post for the Djulfa blog, I raise the possibility that some monuments lacking inscriptions and Christian symbols from the famed Armenian cemetery of Djulfa – reduced to dust by Azerbaijan in December of 2005 – have been transferred to “The museum under opened heavens” in Nakhichevan City, Republic of Azerbaijan.

Hundreds of the Djulfa monuments were ram-shaped memorials that seem to originate in pagan Armenia.  Many of these didn’t have inscriptions on them, so it is likely that some of the Djulfa ram-shaped monuments have survived. 

In fact, the official website of Nakhichevan exclave’s Azerbaijani authorities mentionsthat in 2002, the year when Djulfa’s destruction was underway, a new museum was created where rock monuments were brought from different regions. 

The full post and a photograph from official Azerbaijani website of what appears to be a Djulfa monument is available here.

The selective Radio Free Europe report on a British Embassy-sponsored event called “Days of Azerbaijan” in Armenia has been brought upon fierce criticism from bloggers  after the U.S. State Department-sponsored news agency failed to mention that a group of bloggers in Armenia had protested the event by handing a soap to the Armenian organizers of “Days of Azerbaijan” as reported by sources such as PanArmenian.net and ArmeniaNow.

Giving the soap to the infamous organizers (some members of former president Ter-Petrosyan’s regime) of the event would be like giving a napkin to someone (in the United States culture) for cleaning a brown nose.  I wanted to emphasize this because one Armenian blogger has accused his colleagues of… homophobia for giving a soap (in the comments section of OneWorld Multimedia’s post).

Being one of the few bloggers that has spoken for Armenian and Azeri rehumanization, I still have to protest “Days of Azerbaijan” for my VERY PERSONAL reasons.

VERY PERSONAL, because I treat every medieval Armenian cross-stone that Azerbaijan reduced to dust two years ago as my own dead relative and I don’t want a group of idiots organizing “Days of Azerbaijan” in Armenia during the second anniversary of Djulfa cemetery’s destruction. 

And ironically, it doesn’t seem any Armenian blog commemorated the second anniversary of the loss of ancient Armenia’s largest historic artifact.  That includes me, but all I have been doing in the last 10 days is working on a project for Djulfa. 

If “Days of Azerbaijan” included commemoration and condemnation of Djulfa’s destruction I’d be for the event.  But since one of the organizers, Ashot Bleyan, has suggested in the past that Armenian students shouldn’t learn about the Armenian Genocide, one can’t expect much from morons like him. 

Work for peace, but don’t piss on the memory of the destruction of the world’s largest artifact of Armenian heritage.  And soap was good enough; I wouldn’t mind if the bloggers had used a sledgehammer-toy to “smash” the heads of the organizers like Azerbaijani soldiers reduced to dust thousands of sacred stones in Djulfa.  Maybe that would remind us all that this month is the commemoration of a vital loss of an ancient heritage.

A columnist in Lebanon calls for establishing Commemoration Day for the Destruction and Desecration of Nakhichevan’s Armenian Heritage in an article on  the eve of the second anniversary of the world’s largest ancient Armenian cemetery’s demolition by the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Writing for Lebanon’s largest Armenian-language daily newspaper, Azdag Daily, columnist Avo Katrjian recalls in his December 12, 2007 (received in e-mail as .pdf) piece that two years ago this month Azerbaijani servicemen were videotaped as destroying cemetery memorials in an ancient Armenian site that testified to the long presence of the Armenian people in Nakhichevan.

The article draws parallels of Turkey’s treatment to Armenian monuments to that of Azerbaijan’s and concludes that there are the same.  It would be fair, nonetheless, to note that there are many Armenian monuments that still stand in Turkey while in the Republic of Azerbaijan every single one of them have been reduced to dust.

As Azerbaijan has been denying the destruction by claiming that there have never been Armenian monuments in Nakhichevan because Armenians didn’t live there, Katrjian reminds that Nakhichevan’s flag adopted in 1937 – when Nakhichevan was already part of Soviet Azerbaijan – had the word “Nakhichevan” written in Armenian and Azerbaijani.

Wikipedia has the 1937 Nakhichevan flag (said to be Soviet Nakhichevan’s very first) posted in its short entry on Nakhichevan ASSR (or the Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic).

The full post is available at Djulfa Blog.

The Uncyclopedia.org joke that “no one knows anything about Azerbaijan other than that they love their minorities, especially the Azerbaijanis” has become quite ironic. While the satirical reference has meant to ridicule Azerbaijan’s official motto that the South Caucasus republic is a “heaven of tolerance for minorities,” disturbing news from Radio Free Europe gives examples of non-discriminatory human rights violations in Azerbaijan.

With 10 current journalists behind bars and a female political activist dead in prison, Azerbaijani officials haven’t fallen short of persecuting freedom of speech:

A series of abuses — some of them bizarre — have been documented in media reports.

According to the reports, local authorities have ordered state employees to perform manual labor on weekends as a condition for keeping their jobs. People who fail to pay utility bills have been seized and tied to trees outside police precincts until a family member or friend can come and settle the debt. Residents are forbidden from hanging laundry from their balconies and from baking bread at home. In a region where average salaries are approximately $130 per month, farmers are charged a steep tax for owning more than one cow or one sheep — $25 per cow, $10 per sheep.

The specific abuses mentioned above have taken place in Nakhichevan (Naxchivan), the Azerbaijani exclave where every single indigenous Armenian monument has been reduced to dust by the state authorities.

Azerbaijanis have started to refer to Nakhichevan as “Azerbaijan’s North Korea” with a reference to absence of recognition and protection of any rights in the region, reports Radio Free Europe.

The Azeri authorities of Nakhichevan have seemingly missed the not-so-old days of destroying Armenian monuments and having themselves left with none to demolish are now destroying Tea-houses (traditional cafes) in Nakhichevan, popular gathering places for Azerbaijanis:

“We hear a lot about arbitrariness on the part of the authorities, but this is nothing compared to what is happening in Naxchivan,” Samedbayli said. “Tea houses are being destroyed in the region’s villages, despite protests from the people. Other strange things are happening in Naxchivan. The authorities are destroying the ovens people use to bake bread in their homes because they say this harms the environment. They are forcing people to buy bread from shops owned by the state monopoly.”