Newsweek: Trump has a unique opportunity to do what President Biden failed to do—hold Azerbaijan accountable
“Kamala Harris did nothing as 120,000 Armenian Christians were horrifically persecuted and forcibly displaced in Artsakh. Christians around the world will not be safe if Kamala Harris is President of the United States.”
This statement was made by Donald Trump on his Truth Social account last October during the heat of the U.S. presidential campaign. It was Trump’s attempt to curry favor with evangelicals.
“Unlike other statements made by Trump which can often defy logic and morality, his assessment of what is happening to the Armenian people is unequivocally true. The country of Azerbaijan has spent the last four years trying to wipe out Armenia and its existence in the South Caucasus,” Stephan Pechdimaldji, a communications strategist, wrote in Newsweek.
As noted, it started in the fall of 2020, when Azerbaijan launched an illegal and unprovoked war against Armenia and ended when it ethnically cleansed more than 120,000 Armenians from the region, making it the largest displacement of Armenians since the Armenian genocide of 1915. The author says Azerbaijan has embarked on an ongoing campaign of cultural erasure of Armenian churches, monasteries, khachkars (cross-stoned monuments), and other historical sites that have stood for thousands of years.
As mentioned, Azerbaijan has also tried to bully and threaten its way into disingenuous peace deals with Armenia while plotting with Turkey, a key ally, in taking sovereign lands away from Armenia including the “Zangezur Corridor”, a vital trade route located between the two countries. Even more alarming has been the type of language coming from Baku. In recent speeches, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev falsely claimed that Armenia is their historical land, while referring to Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan.” This follows a troubling pattern of hateful rhetoric in which the petro-dictator has made similar revanchist arguments and has even said that Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, belongs to Azerbaijan.
“We have seen this hate carried out through the mistreatment and torture of Armenian POWs and blatant execution of captured Armenian soldiers. And earlier this year, Azerbaijan began its sham trials of Armenian political prisoners, including philanthropist and former state minister of Nagorno-Karabakh Ruben Vardanyan, despite pleas of their innocence from human rights activists and legal scholars,” reads the article.
The author says former U.S. President Joe Biden’s inability to hold Azerbaijan responsible for its war crimes and atrocities will be a stain on his legacy. In many ways, his silence and apathy gave Azerbaijan the green light to act with impunity. “That is why President Trump has a unique opportunity to do what President Biden failed to do—hold Azerbaijan accountable. For starters, he can uphold Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which bans any kind of foreign aid to the Azerbaijani government, something Biden waived consistently during his administration despite ongoing Azeri aggression. He can continue U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide, which formally acknowledges the first genocide of the 20th century. He can demand the immediate release of all Armenian political prisoners who have been illegally and unjustly held without due process as well as the unconditional release of all Armenian POWs who currently sit in Azeri jails. Trump can bring more transparency and personal involvement into the peace-making process, which up until now has been a charade and essentially ignored by the White House. He can pressure Azerbaijan to stop its religious persecution of Armenian antiquities and holy sites in Artsakh as well as rebuke all forms of historical revisionism that can be used as a pretext for future attacks on Armenian sovereignty.
He can demand the removal of Azerbaijani forces from Armenia and the return of Armenians to Artsakh. President Trump said that he wants to be a peacemaker and stop all wars during his second administration. He can begin by honoring his campaign promise to hold Azerbaijan accountable and stop the violence directed toward the Armenian people. There can be no peace without accountability,” the author concludes.
