By Shoghik Galstyan
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has drawn strong condemnation from historians, opposition leaders and other critics after saying that Armenians should stop describing as “Western Armenia” parts of modern-day eastern Turkey populated by their ancestors until the 1915 genocide.
Those areas had for centuries accounted for most of the territory of ancient Armenian kingdoms before being incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. Their indigenous population was forcibly deported and/or massacred by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War.
In an interview with Armenian Public Television aired late on November 22, Pashinyan again criticized his country’s 1990 declaration of independence which calls for international recognition of the genocide of Armenians “in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia.” He drew parallels between that reference and the Azerbaijani government’s regular description of much of Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan.”
“We get so upset by … the fact that some people in some places use the term ‘Western Azerbaijan,’” said Pashinyan. “But when we say ‘Western Armenia,’ don’t we think that it irritates some people? Just like they irritate us by saying ‘Western Azerbaijan’ we irritate others by saying ‘Western Armenia.’”
The remarks sparked an uproar from Pashinyan’s political opponents who portrayed it as further proof that he has been kowtowing to Ankara and Baku and trampling on Armenian national interests and dignity in the process.
