“GEGHARD”
SCIENTIFIC ANALYTICAL
FOUNDATION
2025
2025
2025-12-26
President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev together with Mehriban Aliyeva took part in the opening of the so-called “Victory Park” in Stepanakert.
At the highest level, Baku continues to pursue its anti-Armenian policy. The process of erasing the Armenian identity and traces in Artsakh is once again evidenced by the “Victory Park.”
These belligerent actions by Baku, characterized by the post-2020 emphasis on military power, persistent anti-Armenian propaganda, the bellicose rhetoric of Ilham Aliyev, and a rise in military spending to nearly USD 5 billion, do not signal readiness for a “peace agenda.” On the contrary, they point to a deliberate effort to further inflame anti-Armenian sentiment.
Azerbaijan has made the number 44 to a “symbol of national pride” and continues to project a false “peace agenda” to the international audience, framing every day of the war as part of a “glorious history.”
What does this park in Stepanakert actually stand for? A 44-meter-high Victory arch, corresponding to the number of days of the 44-day Artsakh war; a structure consisting of ten floors and a platform, presented as a symbol of “Victory Day” and marked with the sign of eternity. On the ninth floor the “Victory gallery” is located, while the plaques bear inscriptions about the results of the military operations carried out in 2023 that were presented to the world as an “anti-terrorist operation.”
The 44 steps stretching from the entrance of the park to the Victory arch, the inscriptions on the memorial plaques installed in the central section, “tell” the story of the course of the 2020 war.
Through targeting Stepanakert, Baku is actively and unlawfully seizing the property and homes of the Armenian population, pursuing the Azerbaijanization of the city, and seeking to eliminate not only Armenian monuments and cultural landmarks but also the symbols of Artsakh’s statehood, deliberately destroying them.
Azerbaijan’s goal in Artsakh to cleanse the area of Armenian traces and heritage and re-presenting them as Azerbaijani. It is clear that Baku’s Armenophobic and intolerant policies toward everything Armenian are being implemented at the highest level, under the control of the authoritarian regime of Aliyev.