As Armenia continues to advance a peace agenda with Azerbaijan, senior Azerbaijani officials renewed their push for the “return” of so-called “Western Azerbaijanis” to present-day Armenia on June 18, while President Ilham Aliyev again accused Armenia of occupation the same day, a day after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan dismissed any mass resettlement of Azerbaijanis as a fabrication, reports Zartonk Media.
The dual messaging came one day after Pashinyan, speaking in the National Assembly on June 17, called claims of any mass resettlement of Azerbaijanis “a fake, invented and fabricated topic,” underscoring the gap between Baku’s official peace-process posture and the grievance and “return” rhetoric advanced by its president and senior officials.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the annual meeting of the Islamic Development Bank Group in Baku, Aliyev vowed that Azerbaijan “will never forget what Armenian occupiers did to its people and cities,” referring to the destruction of “65 mosques” and claiming that “Armenians kept pigs and other animals in mosques.” He asserted that Azerbaijani territories had been “under occupation for 30 years,” accused the former OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, France, Russia, and the United States, of having failed to end it, and complained of “double standards” in that no sanctions were imposed on Armenia. Even as he revived these grievances, Aliyev said the two countries had “been living in peace for a year now.” It is Aliyev who has most prominently advanced the “Western Azerbaijan” concept, claiming that much of present-day Armenia is historically Azerbaijani land.
The third “Return to Western Azerbaijan” festival-forum opened the same day in the city of Ordubad, in Nakhichevan. It was organized by the Office of the Azerbaijani President’s Plenipotentiary Representative in the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Science and Education, and the “Western Azerbaijan Community” organization.
Speaking at the forum, Azerbaijani Parliament Deputy Speaker Ziyafat Asgarov said that “every Western Azerbaijani has the right to return to their ancestral lands.” “Return is the legitimate, historical and moral right of Western Azerbaijanis, because these lands are our ancient territories,” Asgarov said, according to Report.az. He also claimed that the “Western Azerbaijan” issue “is not a territorial claim against Armenia.”
Azerbaijan’s Minister of Science and Education Emin Amrullayev described the “Western Azerbaijan” topic as having “strategic importance.” “The return to Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur showed that historical justice, even after some time, inevitably prevails. The return of Azerbaijani citizens today is clear evidence that with purposeful and consistent efforts, any problem can be resolved,” Amrullayev said. According to the minister, the “Western Azerbaijan” issue plays a key role in shaping the national identity of Azerbaijanis.
Aziz Alakbarli, chairman of the council of the “Western Azerbaijan Community,” called on Armenia to create conditions for the safe return of “Western Azerbaijanis.” He said Nakhichevan had “also witnessed the tragedies suffered by Western Azerbaijanis,” adding that holding the event there carried special significance. He claimed that “the return of Western Azerbaijanis to their native lands corresponds to fundamental human rights and international law,” and that “the new realities that have emerged in the region demonstrate the inevitability of the return.” Alakbarli added that “Armenia must accept this reality and create conditions for the safe, dignified and peaceful return of Western Azerbaijanis.”
The “Return to Western Azerbaijan” initiative refers to Azerbaijan’s claims regarding the return of Azerbaijanis to territories in present-day Armenia, which Baku describes as “Western Azerbaijan.” Armenian authorities and experts have repeatedly rejected the terminology, viewing it as a territorial claim against Armenia.
The narrative has also surfaced inside Armenian domestic politics. During the recent parliamentary election campaign, Samvel Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia alliance and its representatives repeatedly claimed that 300,000 Azerbaijanis would come to live in Armenia if the governing Civil Contract party were re-elected, tying the claim to the “Western Azerbaijan” forums.
Responding on June 17 to a question about manipulative falsehoods spread during the campaign, Pashinyan said that “such a thing has not existed, does not exist and will not exist.” He argued that the narrative could be kept alive only through what he called the rhetoric of a “war party,” and that “the peace agenda and peace itself” had closed such issues.
