At Shusha, Azerbaijan's president talks embracing religious coexistence

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev believes the key to his country’s social harmony is that while Muslims are the vast majority of the population, Christians, Jews, and other minorities are considered “integral and equal” citizens coexisting in a multicultural society. “The most important thing is that multiculturalism is a gift we must embrace – embrace and kiss – and thank God that we received such a gift,” he said. “We must be thankful and preserve this, and that’s what we are doing.”

Aliyev made the comment during a three-hour meeting on July 20 with some 150 journalists from 50 countries, as well as dozens of local journalists at the opening of the second Shusha Global Media Forum titled “Unmasking False Narratives: Confronting Disinformation.” (The first forum was held in July 2023.)

The son of former president Heydar Aliyev (1923-2003), Aliyev, 62, became president shortly before his father’s death and is revered by the more than 10 million people who live in the country, which include an estimated 400,000 Christians and 40,000 Jews. He proudly believes that there has never been antisemitism in Azerbaijan. “Azerbaijan’s Jewish community, distinguished by its ethno-cultural diversity, has been living in the country for hundreds of years and considers Azerbaijan its homeland,” he wrote in a Rosh Hashanah message to Jews. “It has lived in peace and tranquility, has never been subjected to antisemitism and discrimination, and has become an integral part and an equal member of our society. It is noteworthy that our citizens of Jewish origin are closely involved in the public and political life of our country and spare no efforts for the development and progress of our common home, Azerbaijan.”

Addressing Azerbaijani issues in Shusha

At the forum held in a new boutique hotel in Shusha – the cultural capital of Azerbaijan – Aliyev addressed a range of issues, from the global media’s bias against Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia to COP29, the UN Climate Change Conference that Baku is scheduled to host in November. He was visibly moved when my Israeli colleague, Roman Gurevich – who grew up in Baku – asked him this question: “In the modern world, with rising xenophobia and antisemitism, everyone hates everyone. In Azerbaijan, people live together and celebrate together. Can Azerbaijan be an example of mutual acceptance? What is it about Azerbaijan, the nation and its leadership, that enables such coexistence?”

Gurevich translated Aliyev’s answer for me: “I think it’s a combination of all kinds of factors, each one being important, especially mutual respect and understanding. It’s impossible to do it in an artificial way, but it is possible to preserve the atmosphere that has existed here for hundreds of years, in which people of all religions have coexisted and contributed to making Azerbaijan the country it is today.”

To illustrate his point, Aliyev recalled that following Azerbaijan’s liberation of occupied lands from Armenia in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, he had orchestrated the Khari Bulbul Music Festival in Shusha to celebrate its victory. “I proposed dedicating this festival to all the communities living here,” he said. “It was my idea, and I think it was correct. All the communities who live here fought for the liberation of our occupied lands, without any concern for religion or nationality. Everyone contributed; many were killed and wounded, and some became heroes. It was a unification of us all. All this was expressed in the festival, and I don’t remember a more emotional moment in my life, which maybe I won’t experience again.”

Aliyev stressed that coexistence must be nurtured constantly, especially in education. “It’s very important. It’s the basis of everything,” he declared. “In a multicultural society like Azerbaijan, it is an essential part of education, at home and at school.” As an example, Aliyev noted that when Azerbaijan rebuilt mosques destroyed by the Armenians who occupied the territory in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1992, they always invited the spiritual leaders of the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities to the inauguration, together with regional heads. “They would see how Muslim, Christian, and Jewish leaders engaged in dialogue at the mosque, and they would return home and convey this message to their followers,” he said. “The government and society are part of this process.”

Following Aliyev’s remarks, Mikhail Gusman – a top official at Russia’s TASS news agency who is Jewish and also hails from Baku – stood up to offer a heartfelt message of gratitude to the president in Russian: “You answered a question from my friend from Israel and named two important components that have historically created a unique atmosphere in Azerbaijan – society and government. But being an Azerbaijani and president of all Azerbaijanis and a modest person, you did not mention the third factor, but maybe it is the main thing. This is the unique and fantastic tolerance of the Azerbaijani people. It was the Azerbaijani people, with their tolerance and openness, good-heartedness and hospitality, that allowed us the opportunity to create such a great atmosphere in Azerbaijan from time immemorial. As a person who has lived more than half of his life in Azerbaijan, I can testify to this. Therefore, our gratitude is not only to the government, not only to society, but also to the Azerbaijani people.”

LIKE ISRAELIS, Azerbaijanis believe that the international media are strongly biased against them. They accuse the media of siding with the Christian Armenians who have a powerful lobby in the United States and France and who accuse them of genocide and the expulsion of more than 100,000 Armenians from Karabakh – most recently on September 19, 2023, when Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive against the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic. A ceasefire was declared a day later, and Aliyev raised the national flag in Khojaly, where a gruesome massacre of Azerbaijanis had occurred in 1992. What the media don’t report, Azeri officials say, is that the Armenians expelled about a million Azerbaijanis from their homes.

The officials say that according to international law, 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory was occupied by Armenian troops or armed formations supported by Armenia since the early 1990s. Four UN Security Council resolutions were adopted demanding that the Armenians withdraw their troops from the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, but the Armenians ignored these resolutions and for almost 30 years, a fifth of Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory remained under Armenian occupation. In 2020, Azerbaijan, in compliance with UN Security Council resolutions and international law requirements, liberated its occupied lands.

Hikmet Hajiyev, the assistant to the president of Azerbaijan and head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, who officially opened the forum’s proceedings, said that “disinformation has become a tool of manipulation and psychological warfare against the Azerbaijani people.”

In a discussion with journalists moderated by Euronews host Rebecca McLaughlin-Eastham, Aliyev bemoaned the double standards of the global media regarding Azerbaijan. “False information, disinformation, manipulation of facts, and false narratives are all things we have faced for many, many years,” he said in English. “There are different reasons for that. One of them, of course, was the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the mobilization of all the Armenian diaspora structures, and pro-Armenian politicians and media representatives in attacking Azerbaijan, creating false narratives, and trying to present Azerbaijan as completely different from what it was and what it is.”

He said the media had swallowed the Armenian narrative without considering the Azeri side of the story. “We’ve been subject to ethnic cleansing and occupation for almost 30 years, but it was as if we were the aggressors – including in media coverage and also politically motivated messages and decisions. We became the subject of international sanctions.”

A year after Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union on August 30, 1991, the US imposed sanctions on Azerbaijan after it was attacked, and 20 percent of the country was under occupation, with a million Azerbaijanis banished from their homes and becoming refugees in their own country. “It is an absolutely absurd situation. The country is facing a humanitarian crisis, the deportation of a million people, total devastation of the occupied territories, and is being sanctioned because of that,” Aliyev recalled. “At that time, we didn’t have access to international media outlets. We were just a newly born, independent country. So we had to work very hard.”

When his advisers determined that they were not getting their message across effectively, Aliyev came up with a solution: a global media conference to counter the bad press they were getting. “The best way to deal with that for a country like Azerbaijan, which is only 30-plus years independent, is to invite people like you here to Baku, to other regions, to Karabakh and to see who we are, what our plans are, what our expectations are, what country we want to build, and whether we succeeded or not.”

I witnessed Aliyev’s charm offensive working wonders on the journalists attending the conference, as one after another thanked him profusely and praised Azerbaijan during a Q&A. In response to a question by Frank Kane, editor at large of Arabian Gulf Business Insight, about what his approach would be to a hostile Western media during COP29, Aliyev said: “We clearly realized that we would be the subject of attack. We could not predict what the topics of accusation would be, but we were sure there would be enough. But we started being accused of being a country rich with oil and gas.... At first, we were not prepared for that. We, of course, tried to explain that it is not our fault that we have oil and gas. You should not judge us by that. You should judge us by how we use the revenues, how we diversify our economy, how we tackle unemployment and poverty.”

In the last panel discussion in Shusha, Nigar Arpadarai, the charismatic UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP29, stressed Azerbaijan’s “openness” to the media. “We are waiting for countries to come to Baku and reach a consensus on climate finance issues,” she said. “The media often question why COP29 is being held in a country that produces hydrocarbons. We are ready to answer all these questions. We expect media, activists, and everyone who can contribute to climate financing issues at COP29. COP is a long process. Azerbaijan’s presidency of COP29 will not end in November. This is a global event, and there should be participants from different sides.”

I FELT the pervasive atmosphere of openness wherever we went during our five-day visit to Azerbaijan. After flying two hours and 40 minutes on an Azerbaijan Airlines flight from Ben-Gurion to Heydar Aliyev International Airport, we were warmly welcomed by everyone, from the president and his advisers to the savvy head of COP29, Elnur Soltanov. It created a climate conducive to open dialogue among the participants, who hailed from a range of countries in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia. I met colleagues from countries with which Israel doesn’t have relations, and a few fascinating personalities such as Azerbaijani photojournalist Reza Deghati, to whom Aliyev awarded the Dostlug Order of Friendship “for many years of productive work to bring the realities of Azerbaijan to the attention of the international community,” including the 1992 Khojaly massacre.

Azerbaijan itself manages to tread a diplomatic tightrope, maintaining close ties with Türkiye, Iran, and Russia, while at the same time engaging with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Ukraine. With regard to Armenia, Aliyev told us that the text of a peace treaty was almost complete but could not be signed until Yerevan amended its constitution to remove its claim over Karabakh. As a sign of goodwill, we were told later, Armenia had been invited to attend COP29.

In Baku, Gurevich showed me the graves of Azeri fighters in the Alley of Martyrs who had fallen in Azerbaijan’s wars against Armenia, one of whom was a Jewish national hero named Albert Agarunov, who received the country’s highest military honor.

Born in Baku to parents who were Mountain Jews from Quba, still known as the home of an exclusively Jewish community, Agarunov served in the Soviet Army before volunteering at the age of 23 as a tank commander for the Azerbaijani Army in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. During a battle against the Armenian Army on May 9, 1992, he heroically left his tank to collect bodies of Azerbaijani soldiers on the road from Shusha to Lachin when he was hit by sniper fire. He was posthumously named National Hero of Azerbaijan, the country’s highest military award, which was presented to his sister by President Aliyev.

At his funeral, prayers were read by a mullah and a rabbi. After Agarunov’s death, his name was inscribed on the barrel of his tank, and many Azerbaijani tankers subsequently named their combat tanks “Albert.” A monument in his honor was erected in the Narimanov district of Baku.

ON OUR way from Baku to Shusha and back, we saw evidence of the destruction of Azerbaijani homes, mosques, and even cemeteries by the Armenians, who also planted land mines across Karabakh that have killed more than 3,300 people in three decades. At the same time, we witnessed the mind-boggling construction – and reconstruction – that has taken place over the last four years under Azerbaijani rule, which includes roads, beautiful new homes, hotels, restaurants, mosques, and churches.

During our stay, we were given a bus tour of the lovely Lachin area, and a taste of Azerbaijan’s rich culture and cuisine, sampling fine local wine while being entertained by musicians and dancers. One evening we watched a new documentary, The Great Return: Karabakh, detailing the return of local families to their homes, which can be viewed on YouTube. It is co-produced by TRT World’s Oubai Shahbandar, a Syrian American journalist, and Adnan Huseyn, the Baku-based founder of re:Azerbaijan. “In Karabakh, we document how cities once turned into rubble because of years of neglect and purposeful destruction are now coming to life after three decades of occupation,” Shahbandar said. “Karabakh is being rebuilt as hundreds of displaced Azerbaijani families come back to homes they once thought lost as part of an ambitious Great Return campaign launched by the Azerbaijani government to bring life back to what was once a war zone.”

Huseyn told me what motivated them: “The main purpose of making this movie is to show the human side of the whole story. Every conflict of course has different sides, but I think the most important side that unfortunately usually gets overlooked is the human side of the story, the human suffering and healing, and we wanted to focus on that. We wanted to show that the human side of the story belongs to Azerbaijan and the people of Azerbaijan, people who for three decades were ethnically cleansed from their homes, whose homes were destroyed and who lost lives on the way, who were deprived from visiting their ancestral lands, their family cemeteries – some of them which by the way got completely destroyed during the period of occupation. We wanted the world to actually see these people, hear their voices, hear their stories and understand that this is not just about a piece of land. This is something much more than that.”

Asked why he thought the media got it wrong when reporting on Azerbaijan, Huseyn replied: “This might sound offensive to some, but mainly I think that most journalists are just lazy. They only report what they hear, but they do not put the extra effort and time into digging deeper into the topic. That’s also where all the fake news comes from, and where misinformation and disinformation come from. Also, most Western journalists are not brave enough to withstand the immediate harassment that comes from the Armenian diaspora, especially in the US, in California, because they launch campaigns targeting any foreign journalist who visits Azerbaijan, who reports about Azerbaijan, who even repeats the fact that Karabakh is recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan.”

What does Shusha mean to Azerbaijanis? “Shusha has a very sentimental meaning for all Azerbaijanis,” he said. “It was our cultural capital and is our cultural capital again today. Seeing Shusha being rebuilt, coming back to its former glory, is one of the happiest developments for us to see, and to come here and welcome guests. We are very proud of our Shusha, and I think you felt it during your stay here, both with the beauty of its nature and the special people born here. Some of the country’s most famous poets, composers, writers, and artists were raised in Shusha.”

Finally, I asked Huseyn how he explained the rare religious harmony in Azerbaijan. “When we interact with people, we look beyond their religion, race, and social status,” he replied, smiling. “We welcome anyone. If you come with a smile on your face to me, I will smile back. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, it’s about the human connection. That’s what really matters to us, and I think this is the foundation of human relations in Azerbaijan.”■

The writer was a guest of the Shusha Global Media Forum.