Over the past month, the head of the Turkish collaborationist government in Yerevan, Nikol Pasha, has made numerous self-revealing statements. With his beard shaved off, he conveyed to his core constituency that the looming and long-awaited peace is in peril. This menace is called Armenia’s Declaration of Independence. This landmark document, which proclaims the establishment of an independent country and the principles guiding its value content, has long bedevilled two of Pashinyan’s key patrons, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish leader Recep Erdoğan. They recognise the necessity of completing the political arrangements to dismantle the vestiges of the Third Republic. Pashinyan is spinning Turkish fairy tales to the general Armenian public. He is describing the current Declaration as one that refers to an aggressive Armenia holding territorial claims against its ‘peace-loving’ neighbours. Turkish collaborationists seek to persuade us that this aggressive version of Armenia was shaped by inadequate nationalists who have stolen our children’s carefree and well-fed future, something that Azerbaijani manats can deliver. Now, it’s the time to get rid of it and build the ‘Real Armenia’.
In fact, the Declaration of Independence outlines the fundamental principles underpinning nation- and state-building. In our case, these are the three main pillars: the liberation of Artsakh, the remembrance of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923, and the pivotal role of the Armenian Apostolic Church in safeguarding the spiritual security of the Armenian people. Unlike the rulers of the Third Republic, the Turkish-Azerbaijani leadership is keenly aware of the collective Armenian potential. From 1988 to 1994, the Turkish world (represented by Azerbaijan in particular) faced off against the then partially mobilised Armenian world. The outcome of this confrontation is well-known. The Turkish defeat on behalf of Azerbaijan was so profoundly hurtful that it laid the very foundation for its future identity. Azerbaijan’s state ideology is driven by an animal hatred towards Armenians and all things Armenian. The annihilation of Armenia serves the raison d’être of its geopolitical existence.
This has been most vividly confirmed by the glorification of Ramil Safarov, who axed Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan to death while he was sleeping, in the course of the ‘Partnership for Peace’ North Atlantic Treaty Organisation exercise in Hungary. This case was of great importance not only to the Azerbaijani side, but the entire international community. At that moment, Baku, Ankara, and other capitals should have witnessed the strength, determination, and capabilities of Armenia and the Spyurk (overseas communities). Yet Safarov not only made it to trial, but stayed comfortably in a Hungarian prison with no fear for his safety, savouring food ordered from restaurants and enjoying satellite TV. Even then Aliyev had realised that Armenians were not so all- mighty if they could not protect the honour and dignity of an officer of their armed forces, upon which the Armenian state relies. Imagine a foreign military officer killing a sleeping Israeli officer during such an exercise simply due to his Jewish origin. We are more than certain that Israel wouldn’t even let him have his case brought to trial (well, or at the very least, wouldn’t let him safely hole up in jail).
Seen the toothlessness of the Armenian world, Aliyev pushed forward. In 2012, he ransomed his officer, who was jailed for cold-blooded murder, from the Hungarian government, which issued a statement declaring Safarov’s extradition to Azerbaijan. Thereby, Ramil Safarov only served less than six years out of his life sentence. The then Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan did nothing more than a lame act in front of the camera, addressing the National Security Service Director Gorik Hakobyan along the lines of ‘And you, Stirlitz, I’ll ask you to stay’. And all this helplessness was displayed amidst a nationwide celebration in Baku, where Safarov was greeted with full honours. Neither Armenia, nor Spyurk, nor the Armenian lobby managed to take any meaningful steps against Azerbaijan or the venal Hungarian government led by the Turkophile Viktor Orban. All they managed to do was to suspend diplomatic relations with Budapest and enforce Baku’s payment of £15,143 in legal costs to the injured party claimants. Speaking of which, Nikol Pashinyan restored diplomatic relations with Budapest in 2022. The Hungarian side offered no apology or regret in connection with Safarov’s extradition.
On 31 August 2012 (the day of Safarov’s extradition), Ilham Aliyev ascertained that the mobilised, formidable Armenian world, which only recently stood on the outskirts of Baku and called into question the very existence of Azerbaijan, has degenerated to a low-level amateur player. The entire international community watched this degradation unfold in real time and drew their own conclusions. In April 2016, Azerbaijan struck again. The four-day war was an act of aggression against Artsakh and, as a consequence it violated the basic principle of the negotiation process – of non-use of force or threat of use of force. At that historic moment, Armenia, as the guarantor of Artsakh’s security, had all the grounds for its official recognition. Nevertheless, Sargsyan’s government made a deadly strategic mistake when it initiated the process of discussing the recognition of Artsakh and then chose not to follow through, relying on the mediators’ assurances that Azerbaijan would be punished and such a thing would not happen again. The net result is that Baku got off scot-free. Furthermore, in 2016, Major Safarov, who was involved in Azerbaijan’s military aggression against Artsakh, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Further developments ranging from the ‘velvet coup’ and the humiliating surrender of Artsakh to the re-election of the state traitor Nikol Pashinyan and the ensuing deportation of Armenians from Artsakh point to a clear diagnosis – a nationwide immunodeficiency. But we must not be horrified by this diagnosis, on the contrary, we must accept it and embark on a systemic work on the mistakes. The path ahead is going to be long, perilous, and thorny.
Nikol Pasha, who is deliberately destroying the pillars of Armenian identity, is gearing up to renew his mandate. With a high probability he will announce early elections as soon as early next year. This is implicitly reflected in the personnel purges and reshuffles that have begun. If he wins, he will revise the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. His extreme cowardice ensures he will carry out these actions – and the revision of Declaration of Independence, which is high treason – by the hands of some of his ambitious subordinates. The most likely figures are Ararat Mirzoyan and Alen Simonyan, Young Janissaries who serve their Turkish commandant faithfully. After introducing the necessary changes to the Declaration, Pashinyan will launch a total redrafting of the Constitution. We believe that a transition from a parliamentary republic to a semi-parliamentary republic is quite possible. This would entail the reinforcement of the presidential institution, which currently has no powers whatsoever. Once the interim caretaker on behalf of one of the local janissaries has finished doing the dirty work, Pashinyan will be offered the presidency of a new country – ‘Real Armenia’. He is conceited and, being the first Prime Minister of ‘Velvet Armenia’, he will seize the opportunity to become the first President of the ‘Real Armenia’.
It will be a legalised Turkish colony, where the millennial history of the Armenian people will be reset and a new history of colonised Armenia will be inscribed on its ruins. The pre-planned Genocide of 1915 will be labelled a historical anachronism. The ‘Nemesis’ operation will be erased from history. Artsakh Armenians will be denounced as accomplices of third countries and perpetrators of the war with peace-loving Azerbaijan. Liberation heroes Vazgen Sargsyan, Monte Melkonian, Leonid Azgaldyan and others will be proclaimed barbarians and terrorists. The new generations will pursue higher education in Istanbul and Baku through Turkish government grants. The Azerbaijani oil company SOCAR will invite applications for scholarships from Armenians who will replenish the personnel reserve of the new ‘Real Armenia’. The religious and demographic picture of the country will shift over time, and as a consequence, the Armenian identity will fade into oblivion, dissolving into the Turkish world.
This is the ‘peace’ and ‘future’ that await us if we don’t fight back now. One of the crucial battles for Armenian Armenia will be fought to preserve and maintain the inviolability of the Declaration of Independence. We cannot let Turkish collaborationists trample the standards of our ancestors.
