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CALIFORNIA COUNTY VENTURES INTO THE KARABAKH CONFLICT
EurasiaNet.org, NY
May 8 2013
May 8, 2013 - 11:03am, by Giorgi Lomsadze
California's Fresno County has become entangled in a conflict from
another world.
Late last month, on the eve of the April 24 anniversary of the 1915
slaughter of ethnic Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, the county government
felt the urge to weigh in on the decades-long dispute over the
predominantly ethnic-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region and recognize
Karabakh's independence from Azerbaijan. Soon enough, angry
Azerbaijan, which has vowed to reclaim the territory, came knocking on
the county's door.
The Fresno Bee has the story:"The resolution [supporting Karabakh's
independence], even if symbolic and from a seemingly irrelevant county
government, undermines Azerbaijan's sovereignty, wrote the nation's
officials in a recent letter to the county. The [county] supervisors'
support, they wrote, contradicts even the US government's official
position that Nagorno-Karabakh is rightfully part of Azerbaijan."
But Fresno has snapped its fingers back at Azerbaijan, saying the
energy power picked the wrong guy. "We will not be muscled by a
well-funded lobbying effort by the Azerbaijanis," Supervisor Andreas
Borgeas, who penned the Karabakh resolution, proudly commented to The
Fresno Bee.
Fresno's Karabakh demarche may sound straight out of the bizarre news
category, but despite more than an 8,000-mile distance, there is a
connection between the Californian county and the disputed Caucasus
region. California, and Fresno county in particular, is home to a
large Diaspora Armenian community. The city of Fresno even has an
Armenian deli called Gg Karabakh.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been courting support for their positions
on Karabakh around the world, including in the US, but it is the first
time that the lobbying has resulted in a decision by a state county.
Yet supervisor Borgeas believes this is just the beginning. First,
Fresno, then the state capital, Sacramento, and, eventually
Washington, DC, Borgeas said, according to the Asbarez news service.
Nonetheless, some supervisors now seem to be wondering why they did
what they did.
The board's chairperson, Henry Perea, has qualms about the county
making a foreign-policy decision. "What we are going to do next,
declare wars on nations?" he commented to The Fresno Bee.
Good question, as who knows how far the confrontation can go.
Azerbaijan is angry. Fresno's got attitude. Sounds like a recipe for
trouble. If only in words.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66944
EurasiaNet.org, NY
May 8 2013
May 8, 2013 - 11:03am, by Giorgi Lomsadze
California's Fresno County has become entangled in a conflict from
another world.
Late last month, on the eve of the April 24 anniversary of the 1915
slaughter of ethnic Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, the county government
felt the urge to weigh in on the decades-long dispute over the
predominantly ethnic-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region and recognize
Karabakh's independence from Azerbaijan. Soon enough, angry
Azerbaijan, which has vowed to reclaim the territory, came knocking on
the county's door.
The Fresno Bee has the story:"The resolution [supporting Karabakh's
independence], even if symbolic and from a seemingly irrelevant county
government, undermines Azerbaijan's sovereignty, wrote the nation's
officials in a recent letter to the county. The [county] supervisors'
support, they wrote, contradicts even the US government's official
position that Nagorno-Karabakh is rightfully part of Azerbaijan."
But Fresno has snapped its fingers back at Azerbaijan, saying the
energy power picked the wrong guy. "We will not be muscled by a
well-funded lobbying effort by the Azerbaijanis," Supervisor Andreas
Borgeas, who penned the Karabakh resolution, proudly commented to The
Fresno Bee.
Fresno's Karabakh demarche may sound straight out of the bizarre news
category, but despite more than an 8,000-mile distance, there is a
connection between the Californian county and the disputed Caucasus
region. California, and Fresno county in particular, is home to a
large Diaspora Armenian community. The city of Fresno even has an
Armenian deli called Gg Karabakh.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been courting support for their positions
on Karabakh around the world, including in the US, but it is the first
time that the lobbying has resulted in a decision by a state county.
Yet supervisor Borgeas believes this is just the beginning. First,
Fresno, then the state capital, Sacramento, and, eventually
Washington, DC, Borgeas said, according to the Asbarez news service.
Nonetheless, some supervisors now seem to be wondering why they did
what they did.
The board's chairperson, Henry Perea, has qualms about the county
making a foreign-policy decision. "What we are going to do next,
declare wars on nations?" he commented to The Fresno Bee.
Good question, as who knows how far the confrontation can go.
Azerbaijan is angry. Fresno's got attitude. Sounds like a recipe for
trouble. If only in words.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66944