Azerbaijanis take dim view of international efforts to misidentify Karabakh Biased propaganda should not overwhelm facts

Against the backdrop of the global media's failure to cover impartially Azerbaijani eco-activists' protest against Armenia's extraction and pillage of the country's mineral resources in its internationally recognised territory of Karabakh, some international efforts are observed to present the region as Armenian territory despite all existing documents. 

For 36 days in a row, Azerbaijani activists and young volunteers have been peacefully protesting since December 12, 2022, the illegal mining, particularly in the Gizilbulag gold and Damirli copper-molybdenum deposits located in Azerbaijani territories where the Russian peacekeeping contingent is temporarily deployed.

In the face of the cold, protestors continue to chant various slogans in English and Russian, demanding an end to the ecocide against Azerbaijan and monitoring of Azerbaijan's mineral deposits in areas where the Russian peacekeeping contingent has been temporarily deployed. The passage of various vehicles, including ambulances and humanitarian convoys, is unimpeded, and the road is open for humanitarian purposes.

Despite the fake international outcry about the "blockade of Armenians" in Karabakh, Azerbaijan is set to continue the protest until its legitimate demands are met. To recap, amidst the ongoing protest, the management of Base Metals, a Swiss-based mining company that has been illegally extracting minerals in Karabakh, announced a temporary shutdown in late December 2022. The reason for the termination of the company’s activities in the region is reportedly “the desire to conduct some kind of expertise”. No details regarding the resumption of the Base Metals’ activities have been provided.

To get back to the abovementioned point and be more specific, in a recent Twitter post, influential Johns Hopkins University professor Steve Hanke misidentified Karabakh as Armenian territory, causing resentment among Azerbaijanis.

In this regard, Azerbaijani MP from Karabakh's Khankendi Tural Ganjaliyev urged the university to investigate Hanke's connections with the Armenian lobby organisations and possible "corruption ties" with them.

"A 'professor' of an esteemed Johns Hopkins University confuses the geography and tries to satisfy the wishes of the Armenian lobby by disgracing his scholarship. I call Johns Hopkins [University] to investigate Hanke's connections with Armenian lobby organisations and possible corruption ties with them," Ganjaliyev said.

Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani Community of California recalled Hanke that his "knowledge of applied economics is as good as your knowledge of basic geography, then your students are screwed". "Professor! Karabakh is in Azerbaijan, not Armenia!" the community said.

The Azeri Times Twitter page also questioned Hanke's post. "The Nagorno Karabakh, Armenia? Steve Hanke, did you bother to google before calling Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia? Calling yourself a professor of applied economics should come up with the responsibility of at least taking a few seconds to google before tweeting..."

Johns Hopkins, founded in 1876, is America's first research university and home to nine world-class academic divisions working together as one university.

In the meantime, Chairman of the Centre of Analysis of International Relations Farid Shafiyev spotted the same vein in The Economist. "Again factual error. The Economist might have consulted with both - international law and international relations terminology. Karabakh is not an enclave and definitely not Armenian," he tweeted.

Another similar case on CNN – the channel aired a video report about the "blockade" against the background of Russian peacekeeper cars driving down the Lachin road. The report refers to Karabakh as the “Armenian-majority Nagorno-Karabakh enclave”.

It is deeply regrettable that the Azerbaijanis' desire and determination to protect nature and ecology in their sovereign territory of Karabakh, which has been under Armenia's decades-long occupation and vandalism, has become a somber subject in the international media. Surprisingly, a portion of the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, which became a full UN member within its existing borders on March 2, 1992, is presented as part of Armenia. It is truly perplexing why the "neutrality" of the foreign media institutions, which present themselves as "impartial" outlets, does not work in the case of Azerbaijan. How does one explain the attitude toward Azerbaijan when compared to Ukraine, Spain, Moldova, and Georgia, all of which have the same desire regarding their natural rights in relation to their sovereign territories? Is it possible that these "heralds of truth" are powerless due to funds from the Armenian diaspora?

Earlier, Azerbaijan's Press Council also expressed its deep concern about how the action of Azerbaijani eco-activists on the Khankendi-Lachin road is being covered in the international media. The council described the international media coverage as an abuse of free speech, biased and partial.

"Azerbaijan's Press Council calls on the world's leading media to give an objective assessment of the action on the Khankendi-Lachin road, to take into account the real facts, not to be a tool of one-sided and biased propaganda. They should consider that the action is critical in terms of bringing the conflict situation between Azerbaijan and Armenia to the attention of the international community, as well as the formation of peace, trust, and peaceful coexistence in the geography of the South Caucasus," the council said.

In an interview with local TV channels on January 10, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that "separatists are busy transmitting completely false information to the world". "First, everyone has already seen that there is no talk of a blockade at all. About 4,000 trucks of peacekeepers have passed through there – in less than a month," he said. 

He described the biased international campaign as "another anti-Azerbaijan show" and added that "monitoring, inspection and an end to illegal exploitation are necessary, and we will achieve that. Therefore, it is simply unfair to call the events happening on the Lachin-Khankendi road a blockade".