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German historian criticizes Western stereotypes about Azerbaijan
Michael Reinhard Hess, a German historian and Turkologist, made a post on his Facebook page on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The scientist referred to the approach of the German press to the events and emphasized that old clichés were used here. In this context, Reinhard Hess, who analyzed the sentences “The region of Nagorno-Karabakh, controlled by Armenia, belongs to Azerbaijan, a Muslim country, according to international law” and “Azerbaijan launched a military operation against Nagorno-Karabakh” in an article published by the leading Spiegel magazine, notes that the first sentence unnecessarily exaggerates the religious factor, and the second one creates the impression that Nagorno-Karabakh is a separate territory from Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan is an external actor attacking it. The historian says that Azerbaijan's use of the right of self-defense would be a more correct expression.
The historian said he believes that behind the use of similar expressions in the German press lies the image of an anti-Muslim enemy. He says that the Armenian side always encourages this image, thereby trying to portray the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and other territories of Azerbaijan and war crimes such as the Khojaly massacre as a Christian-Muslim conflict. Reinhard Hess states that the majority of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh was Muslim until the 1830s, and this demographic situation was changed as a result of the transfer of Armenians to the region after the 1828 Turkmenchay and 1829 Edirne peace treaties as a part of the occupation policy of Tsarist Russia.
The German historian also sees the crisis of the global political system as the main reason behind the failure to resolve the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict over the past 25 years.