Afeyan and Hajiyev talk about Armenian prisoners held in Baku during BBC Newshour Live

On BBC Newshour Live, Noubar Afeyan, Chair of Moderna and Co-Founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, talked about the Armenian prisoners held in Baku. Below is a shortened version of Noubar Afeyan’s interview.

“McGovern: Azerbaijan’s lightning military offensive in September brought an end to three decades of ethnic Armenian rule in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Most of its 120,000 ethnic Armenians fled to Armenia.

Last week, Nobel Prize laureates, business leaders, former heads of states, and humanitarians signed a letter calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the Armenian prisoners, including eight former leaders of the Nagorno Karabakh government. One of those is Armenian businessman Ruben Vardanyan. I spoke to his close friend, co-founder of Moderna, Noubar Afeyan, one of the signatories of the letter.

Noubar Afeyan: Ruben is primarily a philanthropist. We have worked together for nearly 23 years on a number of social and economic development projects in Armenia. He is one of the most well-known persons of Armenian citizenship in the world. And that makes it even worse for the Armenian nation, which, as you know, has gone through the genocide a century ago, when the Turks did exactly the same thing.

McGovern: Do you believe that a letter can really make a difference?

Noubar Afeyan: A letter is one of many, many actions that are being taken to achieve justice. Some of these actions are visible, others are not visible. I think that any peace predicated on injustice is a short-lived peace. So, I recognize that a letter alone is not sufficient, but at the same time, the letter indicates the number of folks who are paying attention to this and demand justice.”

During the same episode, McGovern also spoke with Hikmet Hajiyev, the Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Azerbaijan, asking him to respond to Noubar Afeyan’s claim that Vardanyan was wrongly detained. Below is an excerpt from the interview between McGovern and Hajiyev:

“Hajiyev: There is a due legal process. And the investigation is being conducted, and he should stand before the court and justice. It is the legal process itself.

McGovern: Of course, the Armenians’ point of view would be that there was no evidence to hold him in that way. They would also say that Armenians have the right to Nagorno-Karabakh and they feel that it was ethnic cleansing that took place when, indeed, people fled from the Azerbaijani onslaught. What would you respond to that allegation of ethnic cleansing?

Hajiyev: Allegations can be one thing, but reality is something different. The reality is that the Republic of Armenia, by supporting the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a separatist entity, occupied the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, and we did not conduct ethnic cleansing in any way. On the contrary, ethnic cleansing was conducted against millions of Azerbaijanis.”

McGovern: But what is the difference if a person is forced from their home, from their land? That can be considered ethnic cleansing, which, you say has happened to Azerbaijanis. Armenians say that this happened to them.

Hajiyev: No, but I think we should make a difference. From the Azerbaijani side, there was no forceful action and there was not a single case like this.”