By Stephan Pechdimaldji, Op-ed contributor Friday, February 21, 2025
“Kamala Harris did nothing as 120,000 Armenian Christians were horrifically persecuted and forcibly displaced in Artsakh. Christians around the sector might well now not be safe if Kamala Harris is President of the US. When I am President, I will give protection to persecuted Christians, I will work to discontinue the violence and ethnic detoxification, and we are going to have the option to restore peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
This assertion used to be made by Donald Trump on his Truth Social story closing October throughout the warmth of the U.S. presidential marketing and marketing campaign. It used to be Trump’s strive to curry prefer with Evangelicals while also distinguishing his foreign protection bona fides with the Biden/Harris administration. It also showed a side of him that the overall public now not normally sees. It showed that the president has empathy and cares. And unlike diversified statements made by Trump which might well in total defy good judgment and morality, his review of what is happening to the Armenian people is unequivocally factual.
The country of Azerbaijan has spent the closing four years making an strive to wipe out Armenia and its existence within the South Caucasus. It started within the topple of 2020, when it launched an unlawful and unprovoked war against Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) and ended when it ethnically cleansed extra than 120,000 Armenians from the shriek, making it the largest displacement of Armenians since the Armenian genocide of 1915. Since taking over the territory, Azerbaijan has launched into an ongoing marketing and marketing campaign of cultural erasure of Armenian church buildings, monasteries, khachkars (imperfect-stoned monuments), and diversified historical sites that delight in stood for thousands of years.
Azerbaijan has also tried to bully and threaten its intention into disingenuous peace deals with Armenia while plotting with Turkey, a key ally, in taking sovereign lands away from Armenia in conjunction with the Zangezur Hall, a predominant commerce route positioned between the two worldwide locations.
Even extra alarming has been the invent of language coming from Baku. In contemporary speeches, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev falsely claimed that Armenia is their historical land while relating to Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan.”
This follows a troubling sample of hateful rhetoric loyal by strategy of which the petro-dictator has made an analogous revanchist arguments and has even acknowledged that Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, belongs to Azerbaijan.
We delight in viewed this hate implemented by strategy of the mistreatment and torture of Armenian POWs and the blatant execution of captured Armenian troopers.
Earlier this year, Azerbaijan started its sham trials of Armenian political prisoners, in conjunction with philanthropist and outdated skool shriek minister of Nagorno-Karabakh Ruben Vardanyan, no topic pleas of their innocence from human rights activists and loyal students.
These crimes and total violations of human rights all took location on outdated skool President Joe Biden’s glimpse. He dropped the ball. For a president who came into location of commercial claiming that human rights would be on the crux of his foreign protection, Biden’s incapacity to preserve Azerbaijan guilty for its war crimes and atrocities will likely be a stain on his legacy. In many ways, his silence and apathy gave Azerbaijan the inexperienced gentle to behave with impunity.
This means that of this President Trump has a particular different to invent what President Biden didn’t invent — preserve Azerbaijan guilty.
For starters, he can uphold Piece 907 of the Freedom Toughen Act, which bans from now on or much less foreign abet to the Azerbaijani authorities, one thing Biden waived constantly throughout his administration no topic ongoing Azeri aggression.
He can proceed U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide, which formally acknowledges the major genocide of the Twentieth century, when extra than 1.5 million Armenians, moreover to Assyrians, Greeks, and others, were systemically exterminated by the Ottomans, an match Turkey and Azerbaijan easy enlighten to this issue day.
He can query the rapid commence of all Armenian political prisoners who were illegally and unjustly held without due process moreover to the unconditional commence of all Armenian POWs who currently sit down in Azeri jails.
Trump can verbalize extra transparency and non-public involvement into the peace-making process, which up till now has been a charade and in actuality skipped over by the White Apartment.
He can stress Azerbaijan to discontinue its spiritual persecution of Armenian antiquities and holy sites in Artsakh moreover to rebuke all varieties of historical revisionism that might well additionally be used as a pretext for future assaults on Armenian sovereignty.
He can query the eliminating of Azerbaijani forces from Armenia and the return of Armenians to Artsakh.
President Trump acknowledged that he needs to be a peacemaker and discontinue all wars throughout his 2nd administration. He can initiate by honoring his marketing and marketing campaign promise to preserve Azerbaijan guilty and discontinue the violence directed against the Armenian people. There might well additionally be no peace without accountability. The arena will likely be watching.
Within the origin printed at Newsweek.
Stephan Pechdimaldji is a communications strategist living within the San Francisco Bay Apartment. He is a first-know-how Armenian American and grandson of survivors of the Armenian genocide. That you might apply him on X at @spechdimaldji.
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