Nikol Pashinyan lauds son’s decision to serve on the front line, declares Karabakh should be part of Armenia.
Nikol Pashinyan lauds son’s decision to serve on the front line, declares Karabakh should be part of Armenia.Nikol Pashinyan lauds son’s decision to serve on the front line, declares Karabakh should be part of Armenia.Nikol Pashinyan lauds son’s decision to serve on the front line, declares Karabakh should be part of Armenia.Nikol Pashinyan lauds son’s decision to serve on the front line, declares Karabakh should be part of Armenia.Nikol Pashinyan lauds son’s decision to serve on the front line, declares Karabakh should be part of Armenia.The son of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev has joined the armed forces, a rather unusual step for the offspring of senior officials, Eurasianet.org writes.
Coincidentally, or not, the son of enemy Armenia’s prime minister recently joined his country’s army too.
When Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced his 18-year-old son Ashot’s enlistment in May and said he would serve in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, Baku called the move “cheap populism,” Eurasianet says.
Ilham Aliev’s son Heydar was sworn in as a member of the State Security Service on 16 September in a ceremony attended by his parents and other family members.
Unlike the younger Pashinyan, Heydar Aliev will not be stationed in a conflict area. He will serve with a unit based in Baku, in what Eurasianet calls “an apparent exception to the usual rule that conscripts serve outside their home region.”
While some Azeris hail Heydar’s patriotic step, others say he is setting a bad example. Journalist Khadija Ismayilova – once jailed after exposing corruption in high places – wrote on Facebook: “The country is at war. The president is sending his son not to the army, but to the State Security Service. That is, he does not trust the army with his son,” JAMnews says.
· In July, Chief of the Armenian General Staff Artak Davtyan said 320 Armenian citizens had returned home since Prime Minister Pashinyan urged young Armenians who have gone abroad or otherwise skirted military service to come home and join the armed forces. Davtyan said 156 of the group had previously evaded their mandatory military service, JAMnews reported.
· Since taking office at the head of a reform movement, Pashinyan has kept Yerevan’s close relations with unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh and even broached the normally taboo subject of incorporating it into Armenia. “I see Karabakh as part of Armenia,” he recently told Russia’s Armenian business community. Karabakh has functioned practically as an Armenian protectorate since the war with Azerbaijan ended in 1994.
· A top aide to Ilham Aliev commented on Ashot Pashinyan’s deployment to the Karabakh region yesterday on Facebook. “It is necessary to ask the prime minister who says that the ‘NKR’ [Nagorno-Karabakh Republic] is an ‘independent state’ and about the need for Azerbaijan to negotiate with this ‘state’: why does your son serve in this ‘independent state’? Taking this step, he actually confirms not only the fact of occupation, but also recognizes that it is Armenia that is a party to the conflict,” Ali Hasanov wrote, as cited by Azernews.
