Armenia's "ethnic cleansing" stunt debacles as foreign reps detect no harm to Garabagh civilians

The Armenian public, including politicians and journalists, is peeved by the official statements of UN and US representatives regarding the events currently taking place in the Garabagh economic region of Azerbaijan.

"There are no more than 1,000 residents left in Garabagh, while no destruction has been detected in Khankendi and residents have not complained about incidents of violence after the ceasefire," the statement by the UN mission sent to Garabagh reads. The statement elicited the response of Ambassador-at-Large Edmond Marukyan posted on X: "The so-called UN mission to Garabagh has done everything possible to legitimise ethnic cleansing, arbitrary detentions, destruction of civilian infrastructure and other crimes committed by Azerbaijan. These people discredit the UN as an institution. I am waiting for the UN to investigate the activities of these 'representatives'".

I have few words for Marukyan personally: the UN discredited itself not now, but for 27 long years, when it made no effort to implement its four resolutions and practically gave Armenia carte blanche to occupy Azerbaijani land. This global organisation has now realised that it cannot indulge Armenian narratives against Azerbaijan's absolute rightness and is trying to be objective. So in this case the UN is not discrediting itself, but, if you like, rehabilitating itself.

It makes absolute sense regarding the United States issue as well. Head of the State Department press service Matthew Miller said: "We are communicating with contacts on the ground (in Garabagh) on this situation. But the decision on genocide or ethnic cleansing is based on a fact-based process."

So Armenians have no reason to be outraged. But Azerbaijanis have questions, both to the UN and the Americans. Why, for example, did they ignore the ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis in the late 1980s in Armenia and the first half of the 1990s in Garabagh? Why didn't they send commissions to the occupied Azerbaijani region to gather facts? Something suggests that both the UN and the State Department would gladly go against the facts, labelling the current events as purges, if they did not realise that they would be reminded of their inaction about acts of genocide against Azerbaijanis. Besides, it seems to me that the West does not want to actualize the issue of the return of refugees to Western Azerbaijan, so it tries to avoid any topic that produces a reaction.

But these are, so to speak, only assumptions about the world community's concern. Baku will raise the issue of the return of Western Azerbaijanis to their historical homeland regardless of the wishes of Armenia and its patrons.

As for ethnic cleansing, it should be noted that the reserve of pressure on Baku is not endless, and accusations of ethnic cleansing are too serious to manipulate unreliable evidence in conditions when Azerbaijan consistently and visibly reveals the true state of affairs to the world community. Besides, there would be something to be angry about. Armenian whining and mythology are not worth tarnishing one's reputation for.

If you think about it, the same Miller has done as much as possible for Yerevan. Let's look closer at his address: "We reiterate our call for an independent international monitoring mission that would ensure transparency and assure the people of Garabagh that the rights and security of ethnic Armenians who wish to return will be protected". In other words, he continues to peddle the old idea of international involvement.

It is still not quite clear in what capacity the UN and other international organisations will conduct further monitoring of the situation in Garabagh (if at all). In any case, the main danger for Baku has already passed. After all, the West wanted to implement some kind of mission before our troops entered the zone of temporary responsibility of Russian peacekeepers. They aimed to create a paramilitary structure there - akin to the EU civilian mission in Armenia - to replace RPC to prevent Azerbaijan from controlling this territory. In the future, they would seek some kind of special status for this zone. Baku has been destroying these plans step by step. And now, in particular, the Americans, on the one hand, trying to save face, and on the other hand, hoping for a miracle in the Armenian manner, continue to voice these absurd intentions. They can organise even five missions but Garabagh is and will be fully controlled by the Azerbaijani administration. It will not be possible to create an agent-paramilitary conglomerate on the territory of our country. Please do not confuse Azerbaijan with Armenia. Moreover, the format of international representation will be proposed solely by Baku and exclusively based on the interests of Azerbaijan's national sovereignty.