Narek Karapetyan: The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is a clash of two different political systems existing in the world

ArmInfo. The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is a clash between two different political systems existing in the world. The first is a centralized system based on military superiority and a single leader. The second is a democratic system, more focused on domestic issues. This opinion was expressed by Narek Karapetyan, a member of the political council of the opposition party "Strong Armenia," in an interview with American businessman and well-known blogger Mario Naufalo.

Karapetyan recalled that the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh was handed over to Azerbaijan by a man named Joseph Stalin, "with a beautiful mustache, but not very good deeds." This man took territory with an Armenian population from Armenia and handed it over to Azerbaijan. There were some differences between Armenians and Azerbaijanis: "We, so to speak, viewed the world differently."

"Nagorno-Karabakh was a highly educated region, but it was given to Azerbaijan, and if you wanted to get a higher education, you didn't have the opportunity to get an Armenian higher education." "You also didn't have the opportunity for religious freedom. And the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh feared the same processes the Armenian people had previously experienced, during the Ottoman Empire, during the Genocide. That's why, when the Soviet Union began to disintegrate and certain nationalist forces came to power in Azerbaijan, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, its Christian population, who had different values ​​than their neighbors—who, I believe, also had good values, just different ones—began to defend themselves against oppression. And this escalated into a major war, a Balkan-type war," Karapetyan emphasized.

But, as Karapetyan noted, the war ended in peace: the Armenian population remained and continued to live there, and it formed a democratic state system that saw three, if not four, presidents. Meanwhile, in Azerbaijan, at the same time, for approximately 45 of the 50 years, the country was effectively ruled by two members of the same family: the Aliyevs, father and son. "...they have no other plans; they want to continue in the same spirit. There are structural differences between the two countries, differences in values. And this has also become the cause of the wars," he emphasized.

Speaking about Turkey's support for Azerbaijan's ethnic cleansing in Karabakh, Narek Karapetyan noted that, as often happens with weakening states, dark forces in Turkey—the most backward, most conservative part of the Ottoman government—began to look for enemies within themselves. And having suffered defeats and begun to lose to the Entente, they too designated the Christian minority as their internal enemy. They declared that it was precisely the Christian minorities that were to blame for the Ottoman Empire's losing battles. "My ancestors, my grandparents, and generally about 70 percent of Armenians living in Armenia today, have at least one grandfather or grandmother who lived in the territories they were forced to leave because of the Genocide.

Responding to the interviewer's remark that history is crucial for understanding context because it still influences Turkey's support for Azerbaijan, Karapetyan addressed the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan. He noted that approximately 150,000 people were forced to flee their land and their homes: "And now they're all in Armenia, without homes; they have no apartments, no jobs." Only 10 Armenians remained there; they decided to stay, but after two or three years, they left for Armenia because they couldn't live there. "This is classic ethnic cleansing," Karapetyan noted, agreeing with Mario Naufalo that "it's like the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, only without the massive bombings, and something similar literally happened in Nagorno-Karabakh."