Nagorno-Karabakh rises again with Azerbaijan

Kahraman Halisçelik- Vice president of GJC

Saved from the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijan territory by Armenian forces occupying nearly 30 years in the illustrate made for the destruction of the Global Journalists Council (GJC) as the Nagorno-Karabakh region with the participation of representatives of the foreign media in Turkey, we have organized a media tour of some.

On the first day of the three-day tour, we headed to the city of Fuzuli, which was liberated from the occupation, accompanied by our mihmandars from the Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev Foundation. Our journey to the city of Fuzuli, located in the south-western region of Azerbaijan, took about five and a half hours. In every car we saw on the road, in taxis, in village houses, in grocery stores, in businesses, in short, we saw the flags of Azerbaijan and Turkey flying side by side on all sides. We have seen again how settled the poem of two states One Nation is between the fraternal people of two countries. More importantly, some journalist friends who had not previously made their way to Azerbaijan saw how close everything was between Turkey and Azerbaijan, except for the name of the country, and they had the opportunity to better understand Turkey’s support for brother Azerbaijan in the process of liberating Karabakh from occupation.

The return of civilians to areas liberated from the occupation of Armenia is not yet allowed. Armenian forces have been minefield throughout the nearly thirty-year occupation. Clearing the mines is estimated to take several years.

So we went through the checkpoint with special permission to enter the Fuzuli area. We made a journey that took about half an hour to get to the city center. On both sides of the road, we came across Armenian tanks, vehicles and weapons that the Azerbaijani army had neutralized. Before the occupation of Armenia, everything in the territory of Karabakh, where millions of Azerbaijanis lived, was destroyed by the Armenian occupying forces. Seeing this fact with our eyes in Fuzuli, we became more aware of the cultural genocide. Before arriving in the center of Fuzuli, we stood next to a ruined building that our hosts said was a mosque. The front door of the mosque, which has not yet been cleared of Mines, has been secured. When we entered the mosque, we saw Armenian vandalism in all its nakedness. They turned the one-story mosque, which people had previously used as a place of worship, into a shelter where they fed pigs. Armenian Orthodox signs were engraved in the middle of the hollow and recessed place in the middle of the wall in the direction of the Qibla, where the mihrab, that is, the Imam, stood in front of the congregation while praying. All over the mosque, where there were pig fences, smelled of pig shit. The only evidence that the ruined building was a mosque was the Arabic inscription besmele above the entrance door. Most of besmele was also destroyed.

When we arrived at Fuzuli city center, we felt among the ruins of an ancient city. Because all buildings, houses, nurseries, mosques, libraries, cultural centers and even trees were plundered and destroyed by the Armenian occupying forces. Even the area’s cemetery was razed to the ground. Inside the city there were still unexploded Armenian missiles and a large number of weapons and ammunition left behind by the occupying Armenian Armed Forces as they fled from the Azerbaijani army. Foreign journalist friends attending the media tour could not hide their surprise at what they saw. No one had predicted that the destruction of Armenia on the occupied territory of Azerbaijan would be so brutal.

After visiting the Fuzuli region and seeing the destruction done by the occupying Armenian army on the spot, we set out for the city of Imishli to stay the night. During our journey, which lasted about an hour and a half along the Aras River, we spoke with friends about the poem ‘they separated Aras’, which our President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the victory ceremony in Baku. Because part of the Aras River was Azerbaijani territory, and the other part was Iranian territory. However, Azerbaijani Turks live on both sides of Aras. In other words, the fact that the Aras River is actually an ancient Turkish River has once again come to the attention of the world public opinion.

By the time we got to the city of Imishli, it was dark. But we also saw in Imishli how beautifully the flags of Azerbaijan and Turkey fluctuate side by side on all sides. In the city, where 130 thousand Azerbaijani Turks lived, Korona virus measures were observed, and the people retreated to their homes in the evening.

Some of the journalists representing the foreign media, who enjoyed Azerbaijani cuisine at dinner, said that the next time they would come back to Azerbaijan just to write articles on their delicious food. They were very impressed with the hospitality in Azerbaijan.

CULTURAL GENOCIDE IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH

The next day, in our program, we went to the city of Agdam, famous for its architecture and cultural heritage, before the invasion of Armenia. Aghdam, unlike Fuzuli, was liberated from the occupation of Armenia by agreement, without the need for any war. Therefore, the Armenian army’s defused weapons and ammunition were not present in Aghdam. But the destruction caused by the occupying Armenia was the same terrible dimension all over Nagorno-Karabakh. Cemeteries were plundered, no stone was left on top of them, and all cultural assets were destroyed. Armenia destroyed houses and buildings, stole everything from iron, metal and stone, and committed a complete architectural genocide. The only place that survived in Agdam was the famous Agdam mosque. It was not because the Armenians respected religious sites, but because they felt the need to use the minarets as watchtowers. The interior of the Agdam mosque was destroyed and turned into a pig shelter, just like the crimes against humanity committed in other mosques. Armenian vandalism also appeared in Aghdam with its shameful dimension.

In the Aghdam region, experts from the Azerbaijan National Mine Removal Agency (ANAMA) were seen clearing mines left behind by Armenia to slaughter civilians. ANAMA, one of the best demining agencies in the world, continues its work day and night to completely clear the Nagorno-Karabakh region from mines. Anama mine clearance experts collected and collectively destroyed the mines they had safely removed from the area near the road to Agdam. Friends, representatives of foreign media, witnessed the fact that Armenia not only committed cultural genocide in the region, but also mined all sides to slow reconstruction activities and kill civilians who could come to the region.

Friends of foreign journalists also had the opportunity to interview Azerbaijani asylum seekers who were brought to the region by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation at the request of journalists and who lived in Agdam before the Armenian occupation. Azerbaijani civilians named aide Huseynova, Isa Abdullayev and Mehemmed Mammadov Nezeroglu, who were forced to live away from the city where they were born and raised for almost thirty years, could not hold back tears in the face of the devastation they saw in Agdam.

THANKS TO GJC FROM HACIYEV

Members of the foreign media in Azerbaijan with the organization of the Global Journalists Council (GJC) were also received by Hikmet Hajiyev, the vice president of Azerbaijan and head of Foreign Policy Affairs, on the last day of the trip. Hikmet Hajiyev answered questions from journalists at the reception, which took place at the Presidential Palace.

In recognition that Mehmet Ali dim, the chairman of the GJC, was not found due to covid infection, Ismail Bayazit, the deputy chairman of the GJC, Kahraman Halischelik, and Elshad Eyvazli, the chairman of the assembly of foreign media of the GJC and the chairman of the Association of Jurnalists of the Parliament of Azerbaijan, were also present. “We thank the GJC, which has always given strong support to the Azerbaijani cause,” Hajiyev said, noting the terrible destruction caused by the Armenian occupation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Hajiyev emphasized that Armenia carried out systematic destruction and looting on the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, and noted that this was a clear cultural and architectural genocide. Hajiyev, who said that Azerbaijan is not obsessed with the past and will restore every land it has saved from occupation, said that if it wants to live in peace, it is not too late for Armenia to live smoothly with the states in the region in the coming period. Emphasizing that the Azerbaijani state has a deep culture of tolerance, Hajiyev noted that Armenians who have lived in Nagorno-Karabakh since time immemorial can also continue their lives as Azerbaijani citizens.

“Foreign journalists who came to our country with the organization of the ups went to the Karabakh region for the first time and saw what happened on the spot. The news that journalists will write is also very important for our righteous cause to be clearly perceived in the world. I would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the ups, which has always given strong support to the Azerbaijani cause. Once again, we thank the GJC and all the journalists who participated in this organization,” he said.