‘We Are Our Mountains’ monument north of Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) Republic

ROME, Italy (News.am)—“Nagorno-Karabakh has never been part of independent Azerbaijan, thus two independent and legally equal subjects were formed at the moment of dissolution of the Soviet Union,” Armenia’s Ambassador to Italy Victoria Bagdassarian said to Italy’s Agenparl press agency.

“Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are fighting for their existence and right to live freely on their homeland,” Bagdassarian added. “[But] in modern Azerbaijan, killing an Armenian is a glory and it is being encouraged and promoted on the highest possible official level. It was the case when the Azeri officer Ramil Safarov axed the sleeping Armenian colleague Gurgen Margaryan during the NATO courses in Budapest.”

The Ambassador highlighted that the Four Day War in April 2016 unleashed by Azerbaijan was a part of their continuous bloodshed against Armenians. “The Azerbaijani offence…started with heavy shelling of civilian settlements and villages, schools and kindergartens,” said Bagdassarian.

“Those who committed these war crimes and crimes against humanity later were promoted and awarded by [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev personally. There is no single doubt that Azerbaijan has completely exhausted the confidence of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is clear that here will be no ‘back to the future,’ as it is an absolute nonsense to present the root causes of the conflict as a resolution to it.”

As for the ambassador of Azerbaijan’s statement about the four United Nations Security Council (SC) resolutions on the Karabakh conflict, Bagdassarian stressed that the Azerbaijani diplomat “fails to recall that those resolutions were adopted with a specific purpose to stop the violence.”

“It is important to underline that none of the UN SC Resolutions refers to Armenia as a party to the conflict,” added the Ambassador. “Armenia is only called upon ‘to continue to exert its influence’ over Nagorno-Karabakh and the latter is apparently recognized as a party to the conflict; something that Azerbaijan continuously tries to ignore.”

“Azerbaijan has also rejected the requirement of the Security Council resolutions on restoration of economic, transport, and energy ties in the region. Moreover, the resolutions of the UN Security Council urged to refrain from any action that would obstruct a peaceful solution to the conflict and to exert efforts to settle the conflict within the [OSCE] Minsk Group framework. And what has Azerbaijan done? Absolutely the opposite: it launched a new large-scale military attack after every resolution.”

It is the ultimate hypocrisy how Azerbaijani officials are abusing the human emotions with their propaganda and lies, Bagdassarian said.

“Ambassador of Azerbaijan, when speaking about Khojaly and the massacres of its population, fails to mention that the inhabitants of Khojaly became victims of criminal internal policy between the then Azeri authorities and National Front of Azerbaijan, an ultra-national movement which was striving for power,” noted the Armenian ambassador. “The Khojaly events were organized by the National Front of Azerbaijan to overthrow [then] President Ayaz Mutalibov, and to come to power. This was confirmed by President Mutalibov himself, a month after his resignation, in an interview to Czech journalist Dana Mazalova, which was published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta.”

“Unfortunately, the official [Azerbaijani] propaganda injects a new portion of hatred towards Armenians into the minds of its younger generation,” Badgasarian said. They also spread this mendacious information to try to divert the attention from the atrocities they have perpetrated in the Azerbaijani cities of Baku, Sumgait, Kirovabad and elsewhere against its Armenian citizens.”

“I very well know that the Azeri propaganda distorts those events as did the Ambassador of Azerbaijan in an interview to your agency. Moreover, if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”