By AZE.US Editorial Team
The visit of Gor Azizyan, coach of UFC fighter Sharabutdin Magomedov, to Baku has triggered a familiar wave of emotion. Some welcomed it. Some saw it as a normal part of sport. Others reacted with anger, suspicion or pain.
Azizyan himself put it simply: the war is over, people must stop living inside the language of endless hostility, and those who want war can continue thinking about war. He said he had done nothing wrong and saw no reason to abandon his fighter simply because some people might call him a traitor.
That statement matters because it touches a question the South Caucasus can no longer avoid.
It is time for Armenians to visit Baku. It is time for Azerbaijanis to visit Yerevan.
Not for staged political theater. Not for empty photo opportunities. Not for forced smiles in front of cameras. But because two neighboring countries cannot build a real peace while their people are still treated as permanent strangers.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are not separated by oceans. They cannot move away from each other. Geography has already made the basic decision. These countries are neighbors. The only real choice is whether this neighborhood becomes a road, a market, a flight route, a cultural exchange and a normal human space, or whether it remains a trench filled with fear.
None of this means Azerbaijanis should forget the war, occupation, Khojaly, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed towns, lost lives and decades of trauma. They should not forget. No serious peace can be built by asking victims to erase memory.
But memory must not become a prison for the future.
If an Armenian comes to Baku in peace, as an athlete, coach, artist, journalist, tourist or former resident, that person should be met as a human being, not as a symbol of every wound in history. War criminals, extremists, separatists and provocateurs are a different matter. They must face law and accountability. But ordinary people cannot be sentenced forever by surname alone.
The same principle must apply in the other direction. An Azerbaijani who wants to visit Yerevan should not become a target for insults, threats or humiliation. He should be able to walk through the city, sit in a cafe, speak to people and see with his own eyes a country that has too often been reduced to an enemy image.
Real peace does not begin with documents alone. It begins when an Armenian in Baku is no longer treated as a sensation, and an Azerbaijani in Yerevan is no longer treated as a provocation.
Many people are still afraid even to say this aloud. Some immediately call it betrayal. Others turn every discussion about the future into a competition of historical pain. There are also those who behave as if the next war has already been scheduled and society must simply wait for it.
But the Caucasus cannot afford another generation raised only on fear.
For too long, both societies were taught to see not a person, but a nationality. Not a guest, but a threat. Not a neighbor, but an enemy. This logic may be useful for those who profit from conflict. For ordinary people, it means closed borders, lost markets, broken families, poverty and the constant expectation of another disaster.
Trust will not appear overnight. It cannot be ordered by governments or created by slogans. It grows slowly, when a person from Baku sees that he is not hated in Yerevan, and a person from Yerevan sees that he is not attacked in Baku.
That is why such visits matter. Athletes, trainers, artists, journalists, businesspeople, students and former residents of both cities can sometimes do what politics fails to do: return human language to the region.
Not the language of ultimatums. Not the language of revenge. Not the language of “never.” The language of normal life.
Peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia will not become real if it exists only in agreements and official statements. It must enter airports, streets, stadiums, universities, newsrooms, cafes and families.
Armenians should be able to come to Baku without every visit turning into a scandal. Azerbaijanis should be able to go to Yerevan without fear or humiliation.
This is not a betrayal of memory.
It is a victory of common sense.
The war has already taken too much. It should not be allowed to take the future as well.
AZE.US