The nagging Nagorno- Karabakh fray

“Two sides of the front – Jews in Azerbaijan” ( October 27) by Roman Gurevich about the Armenian- Azerbaijani conflict read like heartbreaking fiction that in no way reflects the reality of the hearts or minds of Armenians or Jews living in Armenia or abroad, or the social/ political practices or leanings of the country.

Armenia’s “mono- ethnicity” is a product of mutual ethnic exclusion with its hostile neighbors and, most notably, its shortage of economic/ financial prospects. Its ties with Iran are rooted not in shared religious, political, or social ideologies, but rather basic life- enabling trade needs that have been executed on a platform of mutual tolerance.

Gurevich distorts facts to demonize or diminish Armenians, but his greatest sin is his sin of omission, neglecting:

1) To describe the violent massacres that Azerbaijan pursued against Nagorno- Karabakh ( NK) region Armenians in the 1920s;

2) To mention that the territory ( 94% Armenian at the time) was carved out of Armenia SSR’s borders and gifted to Azerbaijan SSR as an autonomous oblast by Stalin and that the region made many legal attempts to peacefully join Armenia’s borders, less than 100 kilometers away;

3) To note that NK Armenians faced economic discrimination, gerrymandering, planned re- settlements to dilute their majority, and limited access to Armenianlanguage books under their Soviet Azeri stewardship; and

4) To admit that Azerbaijan illegally abolished NK’s autonomous status in 1988 and subjected Armenians in other regions to vicious pogroms and massacres at that time. The implication that Armenia, a nation of only three million, is trying to extend its borders from “seatosea” ( through 100 million Azeris and Turks) is absurd, as is the omission of pan- Turkism in the region.

I’m certain that many Jewish statesmen and intellectuals ( Lemkin, H. Morgenthau and countless others) would take exception to Gurevich’s analysis of this conflict on moral, historical and basic factual grounds.

Armenia has suffered immensely at the hands of Turkey, a German ally in WWII, who continues to pursue its genocidal aims with total impunity. Armenia’s will is simply the will for survival on her plot of land on planet Earth; she stands in constant fear of total annihilation. I’m afraid that Gurevich’s article has given more fodder to those seeking a non- diplomatic solution to the NK problem, one that breeds more enmity between these countries, costs more human lives, and fuels the expressed aims of her neighbors: the total elimination of the Armenian people and their nation.

I hope you can appreciate the complexity of this situation and the danger of publishing and perpetuating Gurevich’s line of thinking, which at its crux, holds that Armenians are an unimportant, racist people, resourceless and of no import or benefit to Israel, who can be expelled from their ancestral homelands and killed should they not succumb to their neighbor’s conquer/ kill/ deny policies.