Blogger: Azeri society suffers from Armenophobia

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenophobia became a uniting factor in the Azerbaijani society, Chairman of the Armenian Association of Intellectuals said..

“Regretfully, it is also observed in the more or less intellectual part of the society,” Tigran Kocharyan told a press conference in Yerevan, adding that Azeri society suffers from Armenophobia, as even intellectuals sink into primitive nationalism.

“We come for a game, but they come to solve their problems and complexes,” he said when commenting on the scandal with recent Batumi–hosted 13th South Caucasus Intellectual Games Championship.

He also noted that Azeris celebrate their victories as if they entered Stepanakert or Shushi.

“It is ridiculous. This is just a game. You won the game; well done! We ourselves will come up and congratulate you,” Kocharyan said.

“Armenian team did not yield in a ‘shirt war’. We played in the shirts, but they did not,” he said, touching upon the scandal with shirts and pointed out the state support in this issue, particularly, from the Foreign Ministry.

Kocharyan underscored that presently Azerbaijan makes essential input in What?Where?When? game, that is proved by representation of Azeri members in Intellectuals’ Elite Club.

“The goal N1 of Azerbaijani state is to change image of Azeris in Russian society. Roughly saying, so that to rise from the greengrocery salesmen to elite people. And they obtained serious progress in it,” the Association head said.

13th South Caucasus Intellectual Games Championship which was held in Batumi, Georgia, July 29-31, resulted in a scandal. When Azerbaijani delegation saw one of the Armenian teams, namely DAF, dressed in shirts with advertisement of a sponsor Artsakh-Alco, it started protesting from the very first day of the championship, demanding from the organizers to forbid the Armenian team to play in those shirts.

It should be noted that DAF wore those shirts during last-autumn World Championship in Israel, and no claims were put forward relating to the shirts then.

After the organizers of the contest offered delegations to stop politics and continue the game, a part of Azeri delegation headed by a well-known Balash Kasumov came at July 31 brain-ring game in provocative shirts, with the writing about “Republic of Armenia’s belonging to Azerbaijan”, the so called, “Erivan khanate”. As a result of protest on the part of Armenian delegation and following continuing talks between organizers and both countries delegations, the organizers were forced to cancel the brain-ring. Besides, the Armenian delegation on behalf of all 14 teams’ captains, participating in the championship, unanimously decided to leave the championship.