Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs is correcting itself – but toponyms are not everything

The Netherlands will allocate 14 million euros to support the Armenians who voluntarily left the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and settled in Armenia.

Dutch Foreign Minister David van Wil wrote about the plans of the Dutch government on the social network X after a meeting with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan. According to the post, the funds will be channeled through the Global Concessional Financing Fund to provide affordable housing for former Karabakh residents.

It seems that Mirzoyan informed his Dutch counterpart about the plans of the Armenian government, therefore, unlike in previous times, there was nothing about the "return of refugees" and "forced displacement" in the post of the Dutch Foreign Minister in X. Since September 2023, the diplomatic department of this country has operated only in these terms.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called the issue of the return of Armenians to Karabakh dangerous and called on the international community to help them "find their home in the Republic of Armenia, live, create and settle here as full-fledged citizens of Armenia." Simply put, he asked for money. And they heard it in the Netherlands.

Azerbaijan is not at all against financing housing for former Armenian residents of Karabakh. On the contrary, we're all for it. We did not expel them, and the separatist leaders, Armenian nationalists and those who supported them in the European expanses are responsible for their current situation. The same Netherlands. The large sums allocated by the Europeans are completely natural payments for what they have done together. So we are not at all opposed to people who have stupidly lost their homes buying apartments with EU money. We will not even be outraged by the fact that Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons have not received even a hundredth of the attention that Europe pays to generally prosperous, unharmed voluntary migrants in Armenia. Azerbaijan has dealt with this problem by itself, and we can be proud of the fact that we don't owe anyone anything and we don't owe anyone anything.

The entry of the Dutch Foreign Minister attracted our attention not by the amount of euros indicated in it, but by the fact that in his post he initially spoke about "Nagorno-Karabakh", and then changed this non-existent name to "Karabakh".

This is a very remarkable moment. He says that the realities established by Azerbaijan have begun to be accepted even by those who stood "to the last." The Netherlands has always been on the wrong side of history in the Karabakh issue. A year ago, there were demands from there to ensure a "dignified return" for the voluntary migrants. Now, the Foreign Minister of this country is correcting himself, removing a far-fetched, far-fetched definition from the name of the Karabakh region. Karabakh has never been divided into "mountainous" and "plain". The division followed the region's autonomy in order to further separate it from Azerbaijan. Having regained full control over Karabakh, Baku returned its historical name to it and legitimately demands that everyone apply it correctly.

Initially, the Azerbaijani side had to constantly point out to other countries the need to use the correct place names. Almost everyone has already accepted this rule, only people like the Netherlands did not want to accept the realities. But, as we can see, it's their turn.

The fact that the toponym has been corrected is a positive fact. They got to this point themselves, or someone suggested it, it doesn't matter. The main thing is that the error has been fixed. However, this, of course, does not mean that all problems have been solved. Some circles in the Netherlands will still need to get rid of the megalomania that pushes them to interfere in the internal affairs of other states. When the parliamentarians of this country stop talking about the "fate of the Armenian prisoners" and, contrary to international norms, try to interfere in the affairs of the judicial system of Azerbaijan, then we will be able to talk about serious amendments in the policy of the Netherlands towards the South Caucasus.

In the meantime...