Expert: Armenia uses COVID-19 as political manipulation

By Azernews

By Akbar Mammadov

Armenia took advantage of the novel coronavirus pandemic to hold illegal elections in Azerbaijan’s occupied Nagorno-Karabkah region recently, expert from Bosnia and Herzegovina Sabahudin Hadzialich said in an interview with Day.az on 22 April.

"The crisis that the world is faced with due to the [coronavirus] pandemic, has enabled Armenia to use political manipulation with the help of the lie about the “elections” in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, which is a member of the UN", Hadzialich, Doctor of Science in Media and Communication in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said.

He stressed that Armenia seeks to “legalize the impossible, even with the help of illegitimate "elections" held on March 31st and on second round on April 14th, 2020 in Azerbaijan’s occupied lands.”

He further condemned the international community’s lack of response to the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan that has been going on for 30 years now.

“Armenia continues its evil intentions, realizing that there is no pressure... Inaction is complicity in a crime, no matter how much we keep silent about it… Today I want to warn world forces - your irresponsibility gives rise to doubts, doubts give rise to anger, and anger causes a reaction to your laziness and ignorance,” Hadzialich said.

The expert showed the example from the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992 to 1995) “that was not stopped by world powers that never opened their eyes to what was happening.”

Hadzialich also touched upon the resolutions of the international organizations, especially the UN Security Council.

The UN Security Council, like many other organizations, has repeatedly called on Armenia to reason, but the appeals of the world community were ignored by Armenia. “In turn, Azerbaijan seeks to build good neighborly and international relations with the help of a reasonable and well-grounded policy,” the expert said.

“The methodology of scientific research, which can geopolitically explain the desire to steal and control other people's things, is nothing more than an inferiority complex, which manifests itself in the international context in Armenia,” he went on saying.

He added that the only way to solve the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the recognition of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Group’s efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.