“There are no controlled or occupied territories in Karabagh. Karabagh has its borders and overall, it is integrity. We just have to realize that once and for all. As for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, I would like the Azerbaijani government to point out which territory they mean. There are three periods of the Azerbaijani-Karabagh relations-pre-revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet. Karabagh hasn’t been part of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity during the first and third periods. That was only part of the Soviet Union. So, this means that the people talking about Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity want to go back to the Soviet days. Back in 1988, when the Autonomous Region of Karabagh (ARK) was still part of Soviet Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani authorities organized the Sumgait, Baku massacres, as well as the massacres in other cities. They even made the “Koltso” (ring) operation a reality in ARK. That was a civil war. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan declared war on the newly independent Karabagh. The war was in Karabagh and we were forced to defend ourselves. Today, Azerbaijan is talking about starting a new war and the international community isn’t doing anything to stop this anti-Armenian propaganda. I truly think that the international community must evaluate the crimes committed by Azerbaijan. The people demanding the return of the Azerbaijani refugees must confess that it was Azerbaijan’s declaration of war that made the people take refuge,” said Mr. Balasanyan.
Just recently, former deputy defense minister of Karabagh and MP Vitali Balasanyan, along with other soldiers who have fought in the war, took the initiative of founding the “Havat” (Faith) NGO. According to Balasanyan, the aim is to disperse information regarding the current status of Karabagh and the historical facts, present the motives for the Azerbaijan-Karabagh war to the international community, etc.
“We have faced many hardships during a war which we were obligated to fight in. However, to this day, political parties still haven’t been able to give the Armenian citizens the real picture and the international community doesn’t know who started the war. So, our goal is to inform the international community about the historical facts, as well as who really declared war. If we achieve that, then the Karabagh conflict resolution will go on a different course,” says V. Balasanyan. He believes that the newly founded organization isn’t after politics and, although the members are participants of the war, however, they are bound to include youth too. With the participation of youth, the organization will be able to organize round table discussions frequently, meetings, television broadcasts and even publish a newspaper.
According to our sources, the “Havat” NGO plans on inviting 20-30 year old young people to participate in a round table discussion with the topic: “How involved is youth in politics and does politics really interest the youth of today?”