Yesterday, the Azerbaijani electronic media sources reported that the Washington, DC, in fact, presented to Azerbaijan a tough ultimatum: it made it clear that if the republic “attempts a military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, the United States will recognize its independence.” The source claims that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Tina Keydenau responded to the increasingly bellicose statements by officials of Baku on the decision of the Karabakh problem. Moreover, the Americans claim to have information about the secret preparations for war in Azerbaijan. The Armenian TV channels or in other words, the state propaganda presented this information with so much enthusiasm and interpretation that an impression was created that the international community led by the US have already recognized the independence of the NKR. Indeed for Armenia no better thing could happen and the stimulation and gladness of our state propaganda would be understandable and welcomed if this information had anything to do with the reality or the actual logical of politics. Even for an average citizen far from politics (even for somebody, who watches Armenian programs on TV) it was quite clear that the US State Department couldn’t possibly make such a statement regardless of the level of desirability for us. And, in fact yesterday the U.S. State Department flatly denied an Azerbaijani press report alleging that Washington has threatened to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state unless Baku commits to a peaceful resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute. “Tina Keydenau did speak at length about U.S. support for a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in an interview with ANS TV,” he added. “In that interview, she said ‘I think it’s important to say right away that the United States is very supportive of a peaceful and a just resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.’” The issue in this case is not how fair it would be if Mrs. Tina actually made such a statement or how unfair it is that the US connects the NKR conflict resolution with the belligerent statements of Azerbaijan (if such a statement was actually made). The problem is that that we too easily believe in such rumors (the authors of which can be Azerbaijani, Russians or Americans themselves). The most tragic thing is that this is the logic of our state propaganda.
