The Azerbaijani Community of Australia has written a letter to Federal MPs, and labelled an electronic petition calling for the recognition of so-called Republic of Artsakh a distorted biased text based on unfounded claims aimed at deceiving the members. An electronic petition calling for the Federal Parliament to recognise the so-called Republic of Artsakh received 3164 signatures during a period of almost two months and is now closed. “The text of the petition is full of distortions, unfounded claims and strong biased emotive language, aimed at skewing the reality of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” the Azerbaijani Community of Australia said in its letter. According to community leaders there are more than 50,000 Australians with Armenian heritage. The result of the petition amounts to only 6.3% of the community supporting the recognition of the so-called Republic. “If you consider the elders and children who cannot sign the petition, the support still amounts to less than 20% of the overall community. The path to a peaceful solution that’d benefit the peoples of the region is through dialogue, not through legitimization and enforcement of an illegal de facto situation. It is obvious that everyone sees this now more clearly. The people of Armenia want peace. They are the ones paying for the dreams of ultra-nationalist parties, who continuously refuse to understand the international rules of law,” said Baris Atayman, Executive Secretary of the Australian Turkish Advocacy Alliance. No sovereign nation in the world, including Armenia, officially recognises the so-called Republic because the territory lies within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 62/243 reaffirms that no State shall recognize as lawful the situation resulting from the occupation of the territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan, nor render aid or assistance in maintaining this situation. OSCE Helsinki Final Act 1975, also clearly outlines that people cannot practice ‘self-determination’ by practising ‘threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State’. Recently, the Canadian Senate refused a motion calling for the recognition of the so-called republic. In his speech against the motion, Senator Peter Boehm reiterated the fact that the region in question was called Nagorno-Karabakh, because it was, under international law, part of Azerbaijan. Senator Boehm, while praising the important contribution made by diaspora communities to the country, reminded the dangers of these communities importing their issues to a multicultural society like Canada. Canada cannot survive as a multicultural, diversity-valuing society if national, ethnic or religious groups import their conflicts into Canada. Diaspora politics is the tinder of a fire that could consume not just those who ignite it, but all of us Many Armenians criticised successive governments for failing to find a peaceful solution to the issue. Pashinyan, the Armenian Prime Minister elected in 2018, declared the occupied territories as Armenia proper and attempted to force Azerbaijan to accept local authorities as a third party to peace talks within OSCE Minsk Group’s Madrid Principles framework. Azerbaijan liberated its sovereign territory, Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenian occupation following a 44-day long operation that ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal, and began resettling one million people displaced as a result of the war in early 1990s. Online petitions can be signed with a valid email address, from anywhere in the world and by agreeing to standard terms and conditions displayed on the parliament website. “One can also question even the validity of those 3164 signatures, considering the lack of appropriate verifications for the identity of the signatories,” Baris Atayman from ATAA added. ENDSNagorno-Karabakh Petition "Full of Distortions"
Blog
OPINION:
by Huseyin Atayman, Executive Secretary, ATAA
No parent should be condemned to bury their own children. Today, many parents in Azerbaijan and Armenia are mourning for their kids, whose lives were cut short due to the latest conflict between the two countries.
While Azerbaijani mothers may find some solace in the “worthiness” of the death of their children as the country has freed its occupied lands after 28 years-long Armenian occupation, Armenian parents are bitter and angry at the humiliating defeat their leaders brought up on them. They feel their children died for nothing with their national pride bruised unequivocally.
Protesters in Yerevan, who were made to think that the Armenian army was undefeatable, did not believe that their frontline troops were actually suffering from a basic lack of food, dysentery and COVID19 with no means of replenishing them. They vandalised the nation’s parliament, and attempted to lynch politicians they elected only two years ago.
They have no one to blame but their own leaders for lying to them. One who lies all the time, ends up lying to himself. In Turkey, there is a saying, “The truth has a habit of eventually coming out.”.
Armenian adventurism began with a brutal claim over the lands of Azerbaijan in 1992, when Yerevan enforced this claim with a number of massacres resulting in the displacement of over 700,000 people from their homes.
The remaining 70,000 or so ethnic-Armenians purported to declare independence. These calls failed to garner any international support. The UN and other international bodies condemned the situation as an illegal occupation on numerous occasions, and the UN Security Council adopted resolution 822, 853, 874 and 884 calling for an end to the illegal occupation.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who went into hiding after his announcement of “the painful peace, he had no other option but to sign” sent thousands of angry Armenians into the streets.
Pashinyan had only a few months earlier boldly declared the occupied lands as part of the Armenia proper. Armenia under Pashinyan had changed its military doctrine from “land for peace” to “war for new territories”. He had pulled out of the OSCE Minsk Group Madrid Principles that were agreed upon in 2009 as a path for peace. As expected, Azerbaijan saw these developments as an end to potential diplomatic solution in the region. After Armenian instigated hostilities in July 2020, and following deaths on both sides, he signalled Armenia’s willingness to use military force to prosecute Pashinyan’s ‘war for new territories’ doctrine. This culminated in further hostilities instigated by Armenia in late September 2020. This time was different, Azerbaijan was determined to recover its territories and implement UN Security Council resolutions itself, by responding to Armenia’s aggression.
The realpolitiks of the Caucasus is not a child’s play, conflict cannot be won by posing for selfies with celebrities such as Kim Kardashian.
In line with Pashinyan’s expansionist ideals, he endorsed the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, which was to have given a big part of today’s Turkey to Armenia until Mustafa Kemal Ataturk forced all major powers to sign the superseding Lausanne Treaty in 1924. As expected, Turkey viewed this endorsement as a provocative and hostile move targeting its national security and sovereignty. These kinds of claims don’t only extend to Turkey, but also Georgia as well.
I will add that to ascribe the responsibility for the failure of negotiations on Azerbaijan and Turkey alone is denying our own mistakes, to which we just added the adoption of the Treaty of Sevres as the foundation of our relations with our neighbors. I am confident that we have not done everything to normalize those relations. The “Armenian Case” mentality and revanchism seem to ensure that the list of these mistakes will grow longer and that we will not be thinking seriously as to what we must say and do and what we must not say or do to preserve our people and our statehood.
Jirair Libaridian, American-Armenian Historian, September 1, 2020 Read more at: https://www.aravot-en.am/2020/09/01/263436/
It has clearly become obvious, that Pashinyan miscalculated the radical and aggressive diaspora groups’ influence in their respective countries as well. He must have thought that countries like France and the United States would step in to save Armenia, or possibly bet too much on his country’s friendship with Moscow.
Russian leader Putin is known for not favouring leaders in Russia’s backyard who cozy up to with global NGOs like the ones run by George Soros’.
Pashinyan aides and propagandists must have told him that they could mobilise international community with their so-called genocide story, which Armenia often wheels out to try and justify their aggression. They probably thought Kim Kardashian’s amazing business success would easily be translated into a global popular movement against Azerbaijan. It didn’t.
History is repeating itself. Once again, a nation has been robbed of its children and future due to its incompetent and over-zealous leaders who miscalculated every step they took since assuming office. The people of Armenia voted Pashinyan in with great hopes, and are today burying thousands of their children.
Nothing explains this self-delusion and over-confidence as anything other than hubris. The people of Armenia had been lied to over and over again.
The propaganda has resembled the Italian and German nationalist fascism of the 1930s.
It resulted in a similar tragedy for their people.
The people of Armenia now have a chance to see the truth for themselves. Armenia’s diaspora from California did flew to Armenia to defend the “homeland”. Kim Kardashian’s $1 million donation to the “cause,” amounts to %0.0013 of her net worth. No sovereign nation around the world actually wanted to be seen as one recognising an illegal occupation legal.
The people of Armenia will have to realise that they are the ones suffering for the mythical dreams of the rich Beverly Hills real estate agents.
Politicians around the world, including the US Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, need to understand that they are not helping the people of Armenia by giving them a wrong sense of confidence with a speech here and there, or meaningless resolutions in local councils. When it mattered, their actions meant nothing, and did not prevent the unnecessary loss of a single life. The sons and daughters of Armenia were betrayed by their so-called friends in the West, who care about nothing but to get political donations and support from wealthy Armenian diaspora communities.
The people of Armenia have a chance to build a prosperous and wealthy Armenia with opportunity for all but only if they can make peace with their Turkish neighbours.
We recommend aspiring Armenian political leaders read Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s political realism. The founder of the Turkish Republic avoided war against the British, Greeks and Armenians numerous times as he knew his nation’s rightful boundaries and capacity well. For this, even the Greek Prime Minister Venizelos, who fought against Ataturk, nominated him to the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934.
Yerevan’s adventurism based on mythical stories, paired with recklessness and inexperience, painfully brought Armenia back to reality. We hope the people of Armenia can first find peace in truth, then reconcile with their neighbours.
Now the war is over, we believe the Turkish people around the world should also extend their hands to their Armenian neighbours, and assist them to come back from this. Both peoples have no other choice but to learn to live together.
ENDS
Where government and the industry fails, community groups rise up to save the image of Australia’s multi-billion dollar international education sector.
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Gestures of compassion and goodwill are never forgotten.
Like the cross-trench aid exchange between the Turk and the ANZAC during the direst of all conditions in Gallipoli. Similarly we remember Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s letter to ANZAC mothers. His words are inscribed not only on monuments across Australia but also in our national psyche. Small gestures of goodwill towards the enemy dating back 100 years continue to bond the people of two countries 15,000 kilometres apart to this day.
People also tend to hold on to their disappointments. More than half a million international students who cannot return home and their families abroad feel nothing but disappointment after being left out of the government’s generous safety net packages.
They are also vulnerable to exploitation at the hands of unprofessional industry related service providers, landlords and employers.
Australia’s world class education institutions are being promoted heavily across the world, including Turkey, focusing on our lifestyle and welcoming nature of Australians. However the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has proven some of these claims wrong and have left students feeling left behind.
Shonky education institutions that are solely profit oriented sent letters to students threatening to report them to immigration if they fail to pay their fees. At a time when many students have lost their 40 hour per fortnight low paying jobs, mainly in the hospitality industry, and while Australian businesses are eligible for generous government support, these acts sound extremely greedy and unfair.
We are flooded with messages from Turkish students who fear not only for their current visa situation but also the negative impact this will have on their future travel record. Student agencies with questionable professionalism give confusing information to their customers and doggy service providers, such as shared accommodation companies, threaten to evict students who share over-crowded units in Sydney and Melbourne. Most of these students are vulnerable, as they neither know their rights in full nor have enough language skills to make complaints and defend their rights.
Furthermore the education provided is no longer in the classroom, hence is of lower value. Decent education institutions should make more effort to defer or freeze school payments, offer installments and make significant fee reductions for international students. After all, these students didn’t have to travel thousands of kilometres and live in one of the world’s most expensive cities to get their education online.
Every day we see numerous acts of generosity in Australia, and that generosity can easily be extended to the young people who chose to come here from all over the world to thrive in their education. Where the industry and government fail together in looking after the international students, community groups rise up to the challenge.
We, the Australian-Turkish community provide free meals, job opportunities and free accommodation to many of these students. We also raise funds to assist them in paying their school fees when they are unable to do so.
As Michelle Obama, former first lady of the United States of America says, “pandemics don’t make your character; they reveal your character.” This pandemic will also reveal whether Australia sees hundreds of thousands of students who pump billions of dollars in to its economy every year as guests or just as a source of disposable and replaceable income. The choice will identify the perception of Australia’s multi-billion dollar international education industry for decades to come.
We call on all levels of governments in Australia to show a gesture of goodwill during these hard times to these vulnerable people as much as they show it to all Australians and businesses.
Once this situation is over a serious review of the industry providers and their competency is also required.