On Monday, The Washington Post, an influential information resource, published an article by the world-famous international journalist David Ignatius about the ‘trial’ of Ruben Vardanyan. Before proceeding to a meaningful assessment of the article itself, it should be noted that David Ignatius is the son of Paul Robert Ignatius (Ignatosyan), a descendant of the victims of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923, who built an impressive career, becoming the highest-ranking minister of Armenian descent in the American armed forces. Paul Ignatius served as the Secretary of the United States Navy from 1967-1969 in the administration of President Lyndon Johnson at the height of the Vietnam War (the bloodiest in the Cold War era).
For his outstanding achievements, Paul Ignatius was awarded the Medal of Honour – the highest military award in the United States. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the George Marshall Fund – one of the most influential and oldest think tanks in the United States. In 2013, a fourth-generation guided missile destroyer was named after him. He made a career as a military man and politician during the most difficult and dangerous geopolitical period of confrontation between the global superpowers – the USA and the USSR, which speaks of his iron character, firmness and steadfastness. He is a professional and a realist.
His son, David Ignatius, has been involved in international relations for a long time and is undoubtedly considered one of the most knowledgeable experts on global politics. He has repeatedly held panel discussions with the heads of major powers at leading international platforms. Ignatius is an excellent journalist and an unquestionable professional in his field. In short, he is one of those rare experts in the field of international relations who does not need to be reminded that the word is a weapon, the power of which can hardly be overestimated. That is why his latest article raises many questions that Armenian Republic considers important to highlight, since in the current situation, when Armenians and Armenia are facing a real threat of annihilation, they are critical.
Thus, Mr. Ignatius writes that Karabakh (note that there is no word ‘Artsakh’ in his text) was a recognised territory of Azerbaijan. If you think so, what kind of complaints can there be about the actions of the Azerbaijani leadership? The logic of the Azerbaijani side is very simple: if Artsakh/Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan, so any non-Azerbaijani institutions on this territory and their leaders are separatists and criminals. Consequently, their arrest and further ‘trial’ is a purely internal matter of Azerbaijan, which has thus not violated any of the norms of international law. Therefore, any person, who says and writes that Artsakh/Karabakh legally and internationally constitutes or is recognised as a part of Azerbaijan, automatically supports the political and legal logic of actions of official Baku.
Many people will now wonder – is that not so? Was Artsakh/Karabakh not recognised as a part of Azerbaijan? The answer is unequivocally: no. None of the documents of the OSCE Minsk Group, the only structure authorised to deal with the peaceful settlement of the Artsakh/Karabakh conflict, which was established on 24 March 1992 under the co-chairmanship of the United States, Russia and France, indicates that the territory of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO) is part of Azerbaijan (not to be confused with the 7 territories surrounding NKAO). There is also no such wording in any of the UN Security Council resolutions (to which the Azerbaijani leadership refers). This is completely logical, because otherwise a legitimate question would arise – what are the negotiations about, why are the parties discussing the issue of the status of Artsakh/Karabakh and why did the Minsk Group Co-chairs visit official Stepanakert in addition to Yerevan and Baku? Even in Soviet times, having the status of autonomy, Artsakh/Karabakh was never an integral part of Azerbaijan. Ilham Aliyev himself has repeatedly stressed that the permanent Minsk Group co-chair countries (the United States, France and Russia) tried to ‘force recognition of Artsakh/Karabakh’s independence’ and, therefore, initially it was not considered a part of Azerbaijan.
In this regard, Mr. Ignatius, we hope that what you wrote is just a misunderstanding due to the fact that you simply did not have time to delve deeply into this issue. Anyway, because of this one sentence, your text will be used not for the benefit, but to the detriment of the person that you (like us) want to help. Moreover, this creates an extremely distorted view of the essence of the conflict, its root causes and the subsequent negotiation process. The thesis that Artsakh/Karabakh is an internationally recognised territory of Azerbaijan was promoted by official Baku and its lobbyists. Your main line of defence of Ruben Vardanyan is based on your personal friendly and emotional attachment. Of course, you describe him correctly as a philanthropist who has implemented many humanitarian projects around the world, including Armenia and Artsakh/Karabakh. But, frankly, this is a weak position for a number of reasons. To begin, we note that the overt political persecution and pressure on Ruben Vardanyan and other members of the leadership of Artsakh by the dynastic dictatorship of Aliyev family (responsible for the bloody dearmenisation of Nakhichevan, another Armenian-populated autonomy in Soviet Azerbaijan, where there is not a single Armenian left now, like in Artsakh) can be called anything but a trial. A trial is a bit different, and we have no doubt that Mr. Ignatius, who lives in the American legal system, knows this better than many others.
But, to play devil’s advocate, let’s assume that this is a honest legal trial where there is a fair contest between the defence and the prosecution. What is the vulnerability of your position as a defender, Mr. Ignatius? Firstly, humanitarian sentiments are alien to the current Azerbaijan and its leadership. On the contrary, they perceive such sentiments as a manifestation of weakness and vulnerability. After the scandalous case of the buyout from corrupt Hungary and the subsequent glorification of the cowardly murderer Ramil Safarov in Azerbaijan (who stabbed a sleeping Armenian officer that participated in joint NATO exercises and was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hungarian court), Baku realised that everything is for sale, since even the most ardent humanists who once tasted Caspian caviar are ready to turn a blind eye on many things. Secondly, this is a political matter for Baku, and any humanitarian arguments are not just pointless, but also counterproductive. They only demonstrate the desperation of the defence, which is incapable of anything but the uniform stories about a great humanist who is facing a trial for wanting to help people. Mr. Ignatius, Ruben Vardanyan was not a private person who imported food or a UNESCO goodwill ambassador, he held a political position in Artsakh/Karabakh (State Minister). Just like all other Armenians who are being ‘tried’ in Baku.
Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s. Either we accept the fact that a ruthless civilisational and political struggle is waged against us, and we respond to the enemy accordingly, or we admit our impotence and defeat. It is definitely impossible, dangerous and naive to expect mercy from anyone in this real world, where rules and norms are set by the strong and ruthless. Certainly not from dictator Aliyev and the court in his pocket. We dare to remind you that this has happened in our history. The absence of a national aristocracy, lack of unsentimental and pragmatic strategy and the inability to act pre-emptively resulted in your ancestors, Mr. Ignatius, being forced to flee their native Harberd to America in 1915. They were much more fortunate than the other 1.5 million Armenians who were cold-bloodedly slaughtered and raped on the orders of the rulers, who are still revered as heroes in Turkey and Azerbaijan. There is also a more recent example of 2020-2023, when 150,000 Armenians of Artsakh/Karabakh were driven out of the millennia -old land of their ancestors. Did anyone try to prevent this, or did any of the great humanists show mercy?
And lastly, Mr. Ignatius, we urge you to delve into the ongoing processes related to the Armenian nation and Armenia. We would like to believe that after that you will assess the real scale of the threats looming over Armenians worldwide. Since the moment of the arrest of our compatriots in September 2023, the Armenian government has not even protested – there is no Artsakh for them, there are no Artsakh refugees, there are no Armenian political prisoners. Just this week, in response to a question about the return of the residents of Artsakh/Karabakh to their homeland, the speaker of the Armenian National Assembly replied that ‘they could have stayed and fought to the end’. Strategic thinking assumes that it is necessary to protect the common wealth in order to minimise the risk of the need for desperate protection of the private. This is indisputable. We did not save Armenia and handed it over to corrupt impostors, whose policy over the course of just three decades of the Third Republic led desperate people to believe in ‘velvet reformers’. But in fact, they turned out to be banal Turkish collaborationists who surrendered Artsakh/Karabakh and then watched the exodus of 150,000 Armenians from their lands with a smile – whom, again, we failed to protect. It is the lack of understanding of the importance of the absolute priority of the common over the private that has led us to the fact that today we have to try to protect individual Armenians captured by the mortal enemy. And it is not the ‘trial’ in Baku that should frighten us, but the imminent trial of history, when we will have to explain why we keep making the same mistakes over and over again and why Her Majesty History should give us another chance.
