Two weeks after the capitulation of Nagorno-Karabakh following a lightning offensive, Azerbaijan retransmitted, on Tuesday, the map of the capital of the former separatist Armenian enclave (Stepanakert in Armenian, Khankendi in Azeri), with the streets bearing names in the Azerbaijani language. One of the streets is named after one of the main instigators of the Armenian Genocide in 1915, the Turkish officer Enver Pasha, according to Le Mondequoted by Rador Radio Romania.
Armenians leave Nagorno-KarabakhPhoto: Sputnik / Profimedia Images
This map was first broadcast in August 2021. This rebroadcast comes at a time when Baku is stepping up statements aimed at reassuring the international community about its treatment of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians who want to stay and live in the enclave.
President Aliev promised their “peaceful reintegration” and the transformation of the region into a “paradise”. “Equal rights and freedoms for all, including security, are guaranteed regardless of ethnicity, religion or language,” Baku reiterated on October 2.
The start of the integration process was officially announced the day before, on October 1. Azerbaijani media widely circulated a video of two people posing as Armenians who want to stay and live in Nagorno-Karabakh while abiding by Azerbaijani laws. However, the true identity and background of these two people are unknown.
“How can we imagine living with them?”
If the Armenians were to remain in Nagorno-Karabakh, this would allow Azerbaijan to have a window exhibiting “peaceful reintegration”. This could also provide a pretext for Russia to maintain some two thousand peacekeeping troops – deployed in the region since the end of the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Of the refugees met by Le Monde in Armenia, none, however, believe in the possibility of “peaceful reintegration”, or even in the desire of some residents to remain living voluntarily in the enclave. “They kill and rape civilians. How can we imagine that we will live together with them?”, one of the Armenians asks rhetorically.
After the victory of the Baku troops in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, Ilham Aliev congratulated himself for driving out the Armenians “like dogs”. Frightened by the arrival of the Azeris after the September 19 lightning offensive that led to the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh, the enclave’s roughly 120,000 Armenians fled en masse to Armenia, fearing for their lives. The region, populated mainly by Armenians, is now almost deserted. Armenia denounces “ethnic cleansing”.
A United Nations mission was allowed to visit Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday for the first time in about three decades to assess the humanitarian needs there. Its members said they saw no destruction and reported no acts of violence against civilians after the ceasefire, sparking skepticism and outrage among Armenians who say otherwise.
Le Monde (Received by Rador Radio Romania)
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