Good Neighborly Relations Must Come from the People: Azerbaijani Activist on Relations with Armenia

The UN and the EU are making efforts to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, but they work at the diplomatic level. No one works directly with the people, and the authorities only stir up the situation, said Baku-based human rights activist and founder of the Association for the Protection of Women’s Rights named after D. Aliyeva (APRW) Novella Jafaroglu in an interview with Deutsche Welle radio. The NGO was founded in 1989, when the Nagorno Karabakh conflict was gaining momentum, and one of the organization’s main objectives is settling this conflict. 

Jafaroglu believes that the image of the enemy, cultivated by governments in the region over the past two decades, is the biggest obstacle in resolving the conflict. According to her, there needs to be awareness that the fight must be not for lands, but for good neighborly relations. 

“Think of the kind of relationship there used to be between Germany and Poland or between Germany and France. Now it’s different,” she said.

In the human rights defender’s opinion, only democracy can save the Caucasus. “In both Azerbaijan and Armenia there are political prisoners. In both countries, people’s rights are violated, there’s no freedom of the press, and the authorities do not possess a democratic way of thinking.” According to her, with the advent of democracy in the Caucasus, there will be peace in the region. 

“Armenians and Azerbaijanis, it’s the same, they have a place to live, the territorial issue will lose its acuteness,” she said.

Today, however, the authorities in Baku have too much influence. “If our government today says there will be war, the people will want war. And if they say it is necessary to establish peace, everyone will want peace. We want the public to say ‘no’ even when our government wants war.”

As for the mediators to the conflict, Jafaroglu doesn’t believe they’re effective. “The EU, the United States, and Russia have their interests in the region,” she said, adding that good neighborly relations must come from within, “from the people.”

At the same time, Jafaroglu believes that solving the problem of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem will be possible when “Azerbaijani refugees return [to Nagorno-Karabakh] and Armenians withdraw from the occupied area.”

After that, she believes, a referendum must take place in Nagorno-Karabakh. “Then it can be decided how they will live: separately or as part of Armenia or Azerbaijan. The Karabakh conflict must be resolved this way so no one will be belittled,” she said.