AZE.US
Armenian politics is again using Azerbaijanis as a convenient object of fear.
Samvel Karapetyan, a candidate for Armenia’s premiership, has said that if he comes to power, he would introduce laws banning Azerbaijanis from buying homes and land in Armenia, as well as from receiving such property as gifts.
He claimed that 300,000 Azerbaijanis have already purchased homes and land in Armenia and are preparing to settle there. Karapetyan also alleged that some villages, schools and kindergartens are being emptied for that purpose.
No evidence for these claims was presented in the reported remarks. But the language itself is revealing. The issue of Western Azerbaijanis is being framed not as a question of rights, property, security and return, but as a tool of political fear.
For Baku, the issue has a very different logic. It is not about “buying up” someone else’s land or staging a demographic operation. It is about the right of people to return to places where they or their families once lived before being forced out.
That question cannot be resolved through slogans. It requires security guarantees, international monitoring, legal mechanisms and a serious discussion of property rights.
But when an Armenian politician promises in advance to ban Azerbaijanis from buying property or receiving it as a gift, he is not offering a legal solution. He is proposing an ethnic filter.
That is what makes Karapetyan’s statement dangerous. It shifts the conversation from law to collective fear. The Azerbaijani is presented not as a person with rights, history, property and memory, but as a threat that must be blocked by law before any dialogue can begin.
Inside Azerbaijan, views on the possible return of Western Azerbaijanis are also not simplistic. Some believe people have a clear moral and historical right to return to their former homes. Others warn that without reliable international guarantees, protection from discrimination and real security mechanisms, such a return could be extremely risky.
The central question, however, remains the same: is Armenia prepared to discuss the return of Azerbaijanis as a humanitarian and legal matter at all?
If Yerevan speaks about peace, international law and human rights, those principles cannot apply in only one direction. The right to home, property, movement and safety should not depend on ethnicity.
Claims about “300,000 Azerbaijanis” may be useful for election mobilization. But for the region, they send a troubling signal. Instead of a serious conversation about coexistence, former residents and security guarantees, the public is again being offered an old political formula: fear the Azerbaijani.
That is how election fear becomes a political slogan.
AZE.US