How Azerbaijan Is Erasing Armenian Heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh

These efforts to rewrite history do not stop at Nagorno-Karabakh’s borders. In public addresses and official state media, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly referred to the sovereign Republic of Armenia itself as “Western Azerbaijan,” claiming that much of present-day Armenia was built on historically Azerbaijani land. This irredentist rhetoric signals that Baku is laying the ideological groundwork for territorial expansion. When a state claims that its neighbor’s history is a myth and its territory is rightfully theirs, it signals that it does not want peace with Armenia—it wants Armenia.

As the grandson of Armenian Genocide survivors, I understand the power of memory and the destructive consequences of its denial. History teaches us that peace is not built merely through temporary ceasefires, treaties, or staged diplomatic declarations. It is built through recognition of reality, including the history, culture, and humanity of neighboring peoples. When states seek to erase those realities, they destroy the very foundation on which lasting peace depends.

Supporters of normalization between Armenia and Azerbaijan often focus on border delimitation, transit corridors, security guarantees, and economic integration. Those issues are undeniably vital to regional stability. But a fundamental question remains unaddressed: How can two nations reconcile if one side is actively working to erase the other’s historical presence?

For centuries, sacred monasteries such as Gandzasar and Dadivank have been central to Armenian religious, artistic, and cultural life. Today, coordinated efforts are underway to strip these sites of their heritage and reassign them to a state-approved historical narrative.

Historical revisionism is rarely just about the past. It shapes current claims about who belongs, who has legitimate roots in a region, and who possesses the right to return. When the historical identity of a people’s holy sites is recast or wiped away, it creates a dangerous framework through which their very connection to the land, and their status as human beings, can be questioned and dismissed.

For displaced Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, this matters profoundly. If the physical history of a people is erased from a landscape, it becomes infinitely easier to argue that their connection to that place never existed in the first place.