HistoryofTruth.com - Armenian Allegations

Q: Do you think that Azerbaijanii Diaspora of US is already strong enough to solve the problems of Azerbaijan in America?

A: First let’s define the problems of Azerbaijan in America. The most important problem has been the lack of awareness about Azerbaijan among Americans. We need to both introduce cultural and historical aspects of our country, as well socio-economic achievements and our problems. Every Azerbaijani living in U.S. must feel obliged to promote our culture and traditions. This is an on-going process and we can never say that we finished our job. Diaspora organizations need to provide our community with various platforms (virtual or real) to introduce our country. For example, USAN has done a tremendous job in connecting our community to US senators, congressmen and media through its web platforms. These organizations often release written statements about historical or cultural days and try to bring American and Azerbaijani communities together during these important events. Apart from organizations, our students from various universities host cultural events to access different layers of society. I would say we have been successful so far in this goal, however we need to work more organized around the country and use each others’ resources efficiently.

Second, it is essential to deliver the truth about Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (NK), as U.S. is taking an influential part in peace building process. Unfortunately, for many years Americans have learned only Armenian side of story. We have been literally re-educating Americans about the history of this conflict. However, we cannot expect an average American to learn everything about this or any other conflict taking place in Caucasus. Besides educating regular Americans, our Diaspora actively participated in or organized scholarly meetings and invited more American scholars to our events to discuss U.S. policy and NK conflict. Our community members have been actively sending letters about Khojaly, invasion of Shusha etc. to senators, congressmen or local media. Moreover, Turkish government’s stance in Turkey-Armenia rapprochement publicized our position as many newspaper articles explained concerns of Turkey and Azerbaijan laying down details about on-going negotiation process.

Third, we also need to ensure Americans that our nation values democratic principles and we are in the process of transition to a country where human rights, freedom of speech and other practices are preserved. This is very important for the sake of our country’s image which is, unfortunately, often deteriorated due to many reasons. I must confess that this also hurts our Diaspora’s efforts as a single op-ed in top newspaper criticizing the violation of human rights may easily damage the image gradually built through several events organized by our fellow members. Unfortunately, many domestic issues have negatively affected our community’s integrity, as well. AZAD has been a sole organization to emphasize democratic values and ensuring Americans that we still care about and pursue these values flagged by our fathers who founded ADR, the first democratic state in this region, back in 1918.

Another thing worth to mention is that we still need to be actively represented in national daily press by submitting op-ed articles on various issues from current administration policy to regional politics, to socio-economic issues. Our involvement in U.S. daily agenda must be multi-dimensional, only one of them being NK and our history. Therefore, we should not only respond to NK-related issues, but also to other issues that regular people are interested in. We should also get involved in local activities to expand our outreach and amplify our impact. We need to respond to daily newspaper articles more often by submitting our comments or letters to editors. Moreover, we need to improve our intra-community communication through establishing web resources where news about recent community related developments is published or where our leading community members publish their articles on various issues. We may also need to bring more students with journalism major and lead them to national media sources to expand our outreach in U.S. society.   

Q: Azerbaijan has been participating in Infowar with Armenia since the Karabagh conflict began. Can we say that Azerbaijan already has much more friends now among American political establishment?

A: Yes, indeed we were far behind Armenians when we started telling our side of story.  Our grassroots organizations, such as USAN, AAC and ASA along with scholars and students around the country have tried their best to balance the positions. I have already mentioned about participating at scholarly meetings. Pleasantly, Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus has grown to 50 members now and most of them support our positions when needed. Our diaspora leaders continuously meet officials from various states to deliver our position. We often contact local and federal officials to deliver the truth about NK conflict and asked them vote against Armenian-supported resolutions in state or federal legislature. We receive many letters from House or Senate members, as I personally did from senators of North Dakota.  But we need to work harder this year, as we are entering elections period and candidates are more responsive to their electorate.

Armenians have mostly concentrated on false “genocide” claims and reaped benefits by misinforming and affecting decisions of U.S. officials. However, we witnessed the strong results of efforts by Azerbaijani and Turkish organizations when House Committee for Foreign Affairs approved the “genocide” resolution only by a single vote. Even this fact shows how positions are balanced now.

Overall, I think we are in much better situation compared to 10 years ago but we need to diversify our efforts as I mentioned before to reach more layers of society.

Q: How would you estimate the current cooperation of Azeri Americans with Turkish and Jewish community?

A: Azerbaijani Americans have always acted together with Turkish community and I do not think this will change ever. There is no question that we are the closest communities and we both benefit from that. We always collaborate and contribute to the events organized by both communities. This is evident in all kinds of activities, from cultural events to politically oriented protests.  We have recently seen a tremendous joint-activity through newly established Pax Turcica, which gathers Turkic communities in both scholarly and cultural events several times a year. This April we again gathered our efforts during “genocide” campaign and I consider our efforts to be successful.

In regards to Jewish community, it has always stood in support of Azerbaijani or Turkish interests. This community is also one of our major supporters against anti-Turkish campaigns run by Armenians. Our organizations, such as ASA and AAC, along with Turkish Coalition of America cooperate with American Jewish Association and as a result of this collaboration they recently hosted Pax Turcica Jewish idendity symposium. No doubt that Jewish community is one of the most influential communities in U.S. political life and we should continue to cooperate with this community. 

Q: They say that there is a significant difference in views on Karabagh problem between Armenia Republic and Armenian Diaspora, and Diaspora put a huge pressure on Yerevan in this issue. Do you agree with that and how can you explain such a destructive role of Armenian Diaspora?

A: I agree that Armenian Diaspora has substantial impact on Armenian government but I would not specify it as a major driving force. Armenian Diaspora and Yerevan officials try to separately benefit from NK conflict and not to accept any resolution yet. Status-quo works for Yerevan as it expands their power and tools to rule the country. Armenian Diaspora leverages “genocide” claims more than NK conflict as they already have a well-established agenda around the former. Although they used NK issue early ‘90s to achieve Section 907, they would not like to draw attentions to NK conflict now, as they realize that Armenia needs to compromise for any solution in this conflict. I would say Yerevan and domestic nationalists has more destructive role than Diaspora. Yerevan is more vulnerable to domestic pressure as Yerevan realizes that any compromise may result in loss of power.

However, Armenians need to realize that status-quo will further deteriorate their already critical socio-economic conditions and impede any improvements in the country. Azerbaijan has expressed its partial agreement to neo-Madrid principles. Now Armenians need to realize the value of compromise and use this chance to reach a long-term solution as this may be their last opportunity. 

Q: Do you believe that public diplomacy between societies of Azerbaijan and Armenia can be useful in the Karabagh settlement?

A: Truly speaking, at this point I do not believe that we should put public diplomacy efforts forward as 20 percent of our lands are still under occupation. Under these premature circumstances we cannot reach a friendly environment by just bringing some people from these societies together. Armenia has not showed any signs of strong commitment in solution and I have no reason to believe that it is willing to live in peace with Azerbaijan. Only after they vacate 5+2 regions surrounding NK, we may start such efforts to start dialogue-building process. Meanwhile, we should bring forward Azerbaijani community leaders of NK and let them appear in international media to emphasize our needs and intentions.

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