(in Russian — https://miaban.ru/info/azerbaijan/talysh_3/)
Statement of the Talysh National Movement
On July 1, 2019, on behalf of the Talysh people, we addressed with an Open Letter to the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in connection with the intensification of the negotiation process around Nagorno-Karabakh, expressed readiness to participate in the Talysh peace conference, which will determine the fate of not only disputed territories, but also compact territories of indigenous peoples of Azerbaijan.
We also stressed the need for the immediate release of one of the leaders of the Talysh National Movement, a famous scientist and journalist Fakhraddin Aboszoda, illegally detained in the jail of the State Security service of Azerbaijan in Baku. A copy of the Letter was sent also for information to the Administration of the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and the Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.
In the Baku media controlled by the main ideologists of the Aliyev regime Ramiz Mehtiyev and Ali Gasanov, this caused a barely concealed panic and aggression with street abuse. By the personal decree of these officials, journalists subject to them for a long time published openly offensive texts to the Talysh National Movement and its leaders.
But, naturally, they could not and did not try to answer the questions raised in the Letter. Why is there still no school and higher education in Talysh language in the country? Why is there no TV and radio broadcasting in Talysh language? Why are the Talysh actually forbidden to unite in parties or public organizations? Why the number of Talysh population in official statistics continues to be underestimated by several times? Why any discussion of the Talysh problems is prohibited in Azerbaijan? Why do both the authorities and the opposition silence the problems of the Talysh population of the country? Why does the country continue the policy of assimilation of indigenous peoples? Why the media, depicting a commitment to democracy, or supposedly opposition parties, haven’t ever declared that this policy is unacceptable? Why is the word “Talysh” banned and replaced by the offensive name “Southern Region”? Why for almost 30 years of independence did not any party include in its program any points related to the intention to solve the Talysh Question?
At the same time, it is necessary to understand that the solution of the Talysh Question cannot simply be the granting of cultural rights. The solution can only be a political settlement of the problem — the revival of the statehood of Talyshistan!
The Baku mass media and their conductors R. Mehtiyev and A. Gasanov speculate on any Karabakh issue in any “convenient” case: they say the Talyshs fought in the war, many of them died. But this needs to be reminded not to us, but to the Azerbaijani authorities themselves. The Talyshs created one of the first volunteer battalions and, without waiting for the conscription, went to the front because they believed in the unity and brotherhood of the peoples of Azerbaijan. Even proclaiming the Talysh-Mugan Autonomous Republic, we left our armed forces in Karabakh, continuing to trust the rest of the country. At the same time Nakhichevan, led by G. Aliyev, signed a separate peace with Armenia at the height of the war in October 1992. So R. Mehtiyev, A. Gasanov, their sons and their confidants were hiding all time during the war in anticipation of the seizure of power. And after more than 25 years, they continue to lie, fool, rob and terrorize the population.
What did the Talysh people get in response to their selfless participation in that war? Not only did they not receive the “maximum level of autonomy”, which I. Aliyev, R. Mehtiyev, A. Gasanov and their other accomplices offer to Armenians and which their native Nakhchivan possesses, but also became the object of the toughest repressions. The Azerbaijani authorities, in the spirit of the Great Terror, arrest, persecute and destroy the elite of the Talysh intelligentsia. In 2007, a well-known linguist, specialist in Talysh studies and journalist Novruzali Mamedov was arrested, and in 2009 he was killed in a prison in Baku. In 2012, the authorities arrested Talysh human rights activist Gilal Mamedov. Also recently in 2019, the authorities extradited from Russia to jail in Baku another Talysh scholar and journalist, Fakhraddin Aboszoda. I. Aliyev, R. Mehtiyev and A. Gasanov try to keep Talyshs in fear and waiting for the next arrests.
Ramiz Mehtiyev and Ali Gasanov nominally have the degrees of doctors of science and should know that in despite how they would force journalists to write the fakes and lies, the history will remember them as they are — usurpers of power and persecutors of Talysh people.
But neither they nor their servants will succeed in either destroying the Talysh people or breaking Talysh spirit in the struggle for Freedom!
Freedom to Fahraddin Aboszoda! Freedom to the Talysh people! Freedom to Talyshistan!
Alakram Gummatzoda (Gummatov)
President of Talysh-Mugan Autonomous Republic,
Chairman of the Talysh National Movement,
The Hague, Kingdom of the Netherlands
Photo: political scientist, philologist, permanent author of the Caucasus Geopolitical Club web portal Fakhraddin Aboszoda