Armenians, Azeris Try to Build Bridges

Young Armenians and Azeris are trying to build relations between their nations - cut off since the Karabakh war - outside their homelands.

Because they cannot visit each other's countries, meetings have to take place in Tbilisi, in Moscow, or even in Western Europe, but are marred by the same tensions that are preventing a resolution of the Karabakh conflict.

“This is the first time I am meeting Armenians in my life. But when I look at my father's photos I see that he used to have Armenian friends in Soviet times. I am his son. That means that I can also have an Armenian friend. Why not?” asked Ali Jafarov, a young Azeri student in London.

He had come with friends to a screening of Armenian and Azeri films organised in the British capital by the NGO Conciliation Resources, which wished to introduce young people from the two warring sides to each other.

The collapse in the neighbours' relations began in 1988 when Armenians living in Nagorny Karabakh, then an autonomous region within Soviet Azerbaijan, appealed for their homeland to be attached to Armenia. Ethnic violence and war followed, ending with a ceasefire in 1994. Nagorny Karabakh has declared independence, but that has not been recognised by other countries, which continue to consider it part of Azerbaijan.

“We tried to introduce young people who had aspirations to be journalists to some film-making ideas and to see if we could bring together young Azerbaijanis and Armenians from Karabakh to make some films, in a sense, to show one another in the first instance,” said Jonathan Cohen, Conciliation Resources’ programme director.

Under his programme, 20 films have been made portraying life in post-war Nagorny Karabakh and Azerbaijan, though none of them have been publicly screened in the region.

Azeri journalist Nailia Babaeva filmed an Armenian woman who still lives in Azerbaijan, and refused to join the flood of refugees that left the two countries, while Armenian Lusine Musaelyan filmed a mixed marriage. They both had warm memories of their time working with colleagues from the “enemy” nation.

“Of course we are having arguments with Armenian colleagues during the work process, but I am having similar issues with my Azerbaijani co-workers as well - it is normal. And we solve everything by being honest and telling each other what we do like and what we do not,” Babaeva said.

But attendees at the film screening revealed what a gap there is between Azeris and Armenians, even between ones living in Britain.

“I lived in Uzbekistan and I had a lot of Armenian classmates. I didn't have problems with them, but I never invited them to my house. It wouldn't be right. My parents used to live in Armenia and they were forced to leave their home. I thought it was not good to invite them,” said Seymur Niftaliyev, an Azeri student in the British capital.

When he began to speak about Armenia, he began to use the Azeri names for major landmarks - Lake Gyokcha instead of Lake Sevan, for example - starting an argument with the Armenians present. It was a reminder how far apart the two sides are.

“In today's discussion it has mainly been Azeris who have spoken and asked questions. Foreigners might think this shows that the Armenians don't have the nerve to speak, but that's not the case. We just do not want to draw attention to what they say and argue with them. We are confident we are right,” Hasmik Tamamyan, an Armenian present at the debate, said.

Her experience was one of many that show the ground Armenians and Azeris have to make up.

“One day a young couple walked into our department. They came up to me with a smile and I asked them how I could help. At that moment, the young man saw my badge with my surname. His face changed and he asked where I was from. I answered that I am from Armenia. They said something to each other in Azeri, turned round and walked out,” Hrant Sargsyan, an Armenian student who works at London University’s student union, said.

Mark Grigoryan, who works for the BBC's Russian Service in London, regularly attends such meetings. He insists that Armenians and Azeris have much in common if they could only find it.

“I've been seated on such panels many times. And each time I am looking into the faces of the audience trying to understand who is Azeri and who is Armenian. Putting aside the faces I know, I have never ever distinguished who was Armenian in the audience. And this shows that things go beyond politics,” he said.

During the discussion, Taleh Heydarov, president of the European Azerbaijan Society, said he was happy to work with any Armenian students who wanted to, but admitted that previous contacts with Armenians had not proved successful.

Lusine Grigoryan is a freelance reporter.