OPINION:
When President Trump unveiled his Board of Peace — a curated, invite-only group of nations promising to facilitate global stability — the irony was immediate. No inclusion is more profoundly hypocritical than that of Azerbaijan, a country that has spent years leveraging its vast natural resources to whitewash its dreadful record on human rights and suppression of the rule of law.
For those following the South Caucasus, the spectacle of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev being lauded for achieving peace in Washington during the recent inaugural Board of Peace summit is not a diplomatic triumph; it’s a moral failure of leadership from the international community.
After a 30-year conflict with Armenia, Azerbaijan did not achieve peace through dialogue, negotiations or diplomacy. It achieved its goals through a 2023 military offensive, starving an entire ethnic Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh through a monthslong blockade before forcing them to flee their homes. To label this peace is to redefine the word to mean the total submission of one’s support.
Since taking over Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan has not sounded or acted like a nation that wants peace. It appears more like a country that wants Armenia. Azerbaijan continues to hold Armenian political prisoners, including humanitarian Ruben Vardanyan, illegally without any due process.
It continues to destroy Armenian churches and other historical sites in an attempt to wipe out any existence of Armenians in the region and continues to call Armenia “Western Azerbaijan.”
In many ways, the Board of Peace is pure performative political theater designed to favor power over principles. By aligning himself with the board, Mr. Aliyev is continuing his efforts to ingratiate himself with Mr. Trump.
Allowing Azerbaijan to sit on the Board of Peace does not make it a country of peacemakers. It merely demonstrates how easily the concept of peace can be bought, sold and manipulated for authoritarian gain.
STEPHAN PECHDIMALDJI
San Ramon, California
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