“GEGHARD”
SCIENTIFIC ANALYTICAL
FOUNDATION
2026
2026
2024-09-17
As a result of Azerbaijan's genocidal policy, Artsakh was completely ethnically cleansed about a year ago. Physical force is only one component of Azerbaijan's policy; it is also necessary to ‘legitimize’ what has been done. To this end, Azerbaijan has long been waging a propaganda campaign aimed at depriving Artsakh, Nakhijevan, and other Armenian territories of their identity and seizing their cultural and historical heritage, starting with UNESCO and extending to numerous other organizations.
The international community's response to Azerbaijan's aggressive actions has often been disproportionate. They have attempted to maintain a seemingly neutral stance, which has in reality benefited the aggressor. Calling for restraint to the aggressor and the victim of aggression creates an environment of impunity for the aggressor, freeing hands to proceed its policy. This phenomenon is known as 'bothsidesism,' which means blaming both sides equally, regardless of the circumstances.
While the political bothsidesism have always been visible and familiar to ordinary citizens, academic and expert bothsidesism is not always apparent to the public. Meanwhile, scientific and expert circles, when addressing the issue "neutrally," act in the same way, intentionally or unintentionally, encouraging the aggressor.
The consequence of academic and expert bothsidesism is not only freeing the aggressor's hands and mitigating their crimes. Often, those authors also brief the governments of their countries and various international organizations, which in turn affects the elaboration of relevant policies and contributes to the formation of distorted perceptions about the problem.
Recently, the prestigious academic journal 'Southeast European and Black Sea Studies' published an article by Arsène Saparov of the UAE's Rabdan Academy, dedicated to the study of manifestations of 'neutrality'. The article's title itself is very telling: 'Normalizing conflict - concealing genocide? Expert neutrality in the Armenian Azerbaijani conflict'.
The author has studied expert articles published on various international platforms regarding the Artsakh conflict, which claim to present the issue from neutral positions.
Saparov has drawn attention particularly to the expert publications by Thomas de Waal and Laurence Broers. These two authors are considered authoritative researchers on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict worldwide, and their works are widely cited in academic publications.
Arsen Saparov presents how these two authors, under the guise of neutrality and maintaining equal distance, actually distort the essence of the phenomena.
According to Saparov, such experts almost always ignore the broader context, which in analyses can negate the goal of maintaining equlibrium, and do not address facts that do not fit into bothsidesism. The author correctly points out that this approach normalizes the conflict for the international audience, creating a dangerous precedent, and successfully conceals the planned genocide from the attention of the international audience.
Broers wrote, 'Why would Azerbaijan, having positioned itself as a victim of irredentism for so long, replicate the very same politics so soon after its victory in 2020?'
Saparov notes that by this logic, since both sides have expressed irredentist desires, it equalizes them. However, this simple comparison hides a broader context. The fact is that Armenian claims have never aimed to eliminate the state of Azerbaijan, but have been limited only to the NKR (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic). Meanwhile, Azerbaijani claims envision the elimination of Armenia as a state, or, akin to the example of Gaza, turning it into a reservation.
Such a comparison devoid of context hides the long-term consequences of two military victories.
Another example of bothsidesism is finding "Azerbaijani suffering" as an equivalent to the torture of Armenian prisoners of war in Azerbaijani jails. Both Broers and de Waal do this with questionable similarity, noting the suffering caused to Azerbaijanis by mines in Artsakh. Saparov reminds that based on agreement reached, Armenian prisoners of war should have been released long ago, and as for the mines, Armenia has no possibility to do anything in areas that have come under Azerbaijani control.
The author then shows the gap that ‘neutral’ experts have omitted from the text, which reveals their bias and technique. For example, when addressing Azerbaijan's attacks on Armenia in September 2022, they talk about a new wave of violence but ‘forget’ to mention the war crimes of the Azerbaijani army documented in videos. In other cases, they also silence the horrendous treatment of Armenian prisoners of war and do not mention the authoritarian nature of Azerbaijani regime. When writing about the Azerbaijani attack on Artsakh in September 2023, the "neutral authors" persistently avoided using the phrase "ethnic cleansing". Instead of ethnic cleansing, Broers used the phrase ‘demographic attrition through intimidation.’
Thus, Saparov reveals three main techniques for achieving ‘neutrality’.
The author also notes that ‘neutral’ experts conceal the fact that after the 2020 war, no Armenians remained in the territories that came under Azerbaijani control, and that Azerbaijan has been systematically destroying Armenian cultural heritage for decades, and the same threatens to the Armenian heritage in Artsakh.
Achieving neutrality by equating both sides should be considered unacceptable. As Saparov notes, that ‘distorting the true picture can contribute to concealing genocidal policies and indirectly supporting the implementation of genocide’.
Photo by Sasun Danielyan