Western Azerbaijani Community condemns Armenian archbishop's racist remarks

The Western Azerbaijan Community has announced that Armenian Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who presents himself as the leader of the "Holy Struggle" movement in Armenia, made a racist and xenophobic statement regarding Western Azerbaijanis and their right to return.

“This amateur, whose role as a clergyman or politician remains unclear, expressed radical views about Azerbaijani compatriots, distorting the issue of the peaceful return of over 300,000 Western Azerbaijanis to their ancestral lands and attempting to frame it in political and xenophobic terms,” Caliber.Az reports citing the Western Azerbaijan Community.

The Western Azerbaijani Community condemns Galstanyan's statement and urges the archbishop to refrain from such racist approaches. Rather than promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation as a religious leader should, the archbishop's chauvinistic stance reveals that these racist attitudes are prevalent within the Armenian Gregorian Church and society. The Western Azerbaijani Community also calls on the Armenian government to prevent such racist tendencies within its territory, as they undermine the peace process.