Baku, September 9, AZERTAC

A number of influential media outlets around the world have published articles exposing the political manipulations of Armenia and the Karabakh Armenians’ lies about the "humanitarian disaster".

The article written by U.S. Marine veteran, political consultant, author of books, newspaper/magazine Opinion writer Raoul Contreras in the "Imperial Valley Press" features the provocative stories of the "The New York Times" newspaper about the dispatch of American soldiers to Vietnam in the background of the geopolitical struggle between the super powers - the U.S. and the USSR in the 60s of the last century, drawing a comparison between them and a biased article penned by Nicholas Kristof against Azerbaijan a few days ago.

“Disclaimer, I have no knowledge if Kristoff has ever been to Azerbaijan or its enemy Armenia. Kristoff cannot know what I know about Azerbaijan and its 30-years of war with next door aggressor Armenia. I have been there six times in the past eight years. I’ve written a book about Armenian war crimes and several articles about the country and its problems with Armenia.

I’ve also stood in the 500-yard-wide no man’s land between Armenian occupiers of Azerbaijani land and Azerbaijani troops on 24-hour alert.

Kristoff reveals his lack of knowledge by not reciting that the conflict started in the 1980’s with mass expulsions from Christian Armenia of multi-generational Azerbaijani Muslims that had lived in Armenia for decades.

Nor does he tell us that between 1988 and 1992, Armenia killed or expelled an estimated 200,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia proper. Moreover, when Armenia invaded Azerbaijan in 1992 and occupied 20% of Azerbaijan, including the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region, Armenians either killed or forced Azerbaijanis from their homes. They spared no one; men, women and children fled to Baku, the capital,” the author says.

“Apparently, Kristoff hasn’t seen United Nations official reports that show that close to a million Azerbaijanis were driven from their homes. Nor has he seen the huge destruction of Aghdam, a major Azerbaijani city that Armenians occupied in 1994. They destroyed the entire city of 50,000 by the simple expediency of sending in Armenian work crews to scrounge anything of value such as copper telephone lines, telephone poles, wood from dismantled houses, glass windows, street pavers, etcetera,” Contreras mentions.

“Kristoff relies on a report by a man he knows, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, who wrote “There is an ongoing genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh,” in a recent report.”

Raoul Contreras underlines that in fact, the current situation is due to the smuggling of weapons by Armenians through Lachin road. “Azerbaijan stopped them. Properly documented Armenians desiring to go to Armenia on this, the only road to Armenia, are allowed transit. However, the Azerbaijani government has allowed the Red Crescent Society (the Azerbaijani version of Red Cross International) to fill convoys of trucks with food and medical supplies for those people claiming they are being “starved to death,” he underscores.

“Did the Armenians gleefully welcome the convoys of 18-wheel trucks flying the Red Crescent flags? No. They blockaded the road from Aghdam with concrete barricades - Aghdam, the Armenian destroyed city of 50,000. They refused to allow the trucks into Azerbaijan’s own territory to feed their own Armenians they claim are “starving to death.”

As for former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the “expert” who “claims Armenians are being starved to death,” he would need an Azerbaijani entry visa issued by the Azerbaijanis to have ever visited the area since Azerbaijan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. There is no evidence he has ever been there,” Contreras emphasizes.

The Bulgarian internet portal "The Sofia Globe" also published an article by journalist Igor Chalenko headlined "European rabbis massively oppose Armenian propaganda and demonization of Azerbaijan".

The article says: “On September 6, fifty leading rabbis, representing the largest association of Jewish religious leaders (Rabbinical Center of Europe), signed an official joint letter addressed to the Prime Minister and the President of Armenia. They demanded to “immediately and completely” seize the use of the Holocaust theme by Armenian propaganda “for the sake of achieving any political goals.”

As the letter emphasizes, “this message should be taken into account by all relevant government bodies representing the Armenian people.” The European rabbis also expressed their deep disappointment regarding cooperation of the Armenian government with the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, “a country which incessantly openly and publicly calls for its destruction of the only Jewish country in the world”.

“Furthermore, Israel Heritage Foundation, the American association created by the Holocaust survivors, emphasized in its statement, that they “reject the loose usage of the word ‘Holocaust’ by officials in the Armenian government to discuss the situation in the Karabakh region, and firmly contend that any comparisons to the Holocaust are unwarranted and unjustified. Chabadinfo website, one of the main online platforms of the most influential movement of Judaism in the United States, Chabad, called the accusations against official Baku regarding the “genocide” of the Armenians in Azerbaijani Karabakh a “smear campaign.” Pan-European Jewish magazine Jüdisches Europa noted that drawing analogies between the Nazi policy of the “final solution to the Jewish question” and Azerbaijan’s attitude towards Armenians in Karabakh, as the Prime Minister of Armenia does, is completely unfounded.

“Iran-dependent Armenian leaders are already declaring “genocide by famine” at the UN, and social media replete with photos of bustling restaurants and lavish weddings in Karabakh with piles of roasted meat and cakes the size of man… there is no tangible evidence yet to support the claims of “starving population” “which should be quite an easy task in this age of global electronic media,” Jüdisches Europa stated,” the article underlines.

“I am shocked by the comments made by the Armenian political leader comparing the current situation with the extermination of Jews during the Shoah (Holocaust),” Bruno Fischzon, who is the Chief Rabbi of the Moselle department in northeastern France and the city of Metz, wrote on his personal Facebook page. Viennese Rabbi Arie Folger accused French municipal officials of politicizing humanitarian aid, who at the end of August tried to travel from Armenia to Azerbaijani Karabakh without the consent of official Baku.

Leading rabbis from countries such as France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom signed the appeal among nearly a hundred European Jewish spiritual authorities who spoke out against the methods of Armenian propaganda and demonisation of Azerbaijan. They were also supported by Bulgaria’s Chief Rabbi Yosef Salamon,” the article emphasizes.