re: AZERBAIJAN 2014 - Dilara Kazimova
i totally agree with you...i really hope war will stop and we'll live together like we did(my entire family were born and lived there)...but it's been only 20 years and it's(war) not finished...so it's not the same with what you hade with turkey...it's gonna take loooong time to finally start thinking to live together...i personally think that we are very close nations....but we can't forget what happended either...i called it irevan bacause that's its historical name...
Good to know that you're not as hostile as most of your countrymen. Personally, I have nothing against you nor your country (although I hate your government). I don't mind patriotism, but many in Azerbaijan take it to a level of religious dogma and fanaticism, and discredit everything Armenian, making it seem like we're "guests" in our own homeland. I have no tolerance for historical revisionism, especially the kind spread by Aliyev that is designed to make hatred widespread and keep Azeris away from Armenians (and vice-versa).
I do think that we are more similar than different give or take a few things here and there, but surely Armenians have more in common with Azeris than, say, Russians. I do believe that war has negative and resonating consequences for everyone, and although I acknowledge that many Azeris and Armenians are suffering as a result of it, it's important to note that the suffering is not exclusive to Azerbaijanis. For every one displaced Azeri family from Armenia there is an equal Armenian family from Azerbaijan who has been displaced. Nobody wins in a war; even the "winners" suffer plenty of emotional and physical losses.
As far as the city name, Yerevan as a city is over 1,500 years old, and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It has changed ownership over 15 times, and many of its Armenian natives had been subject to mass deportation for refusing to convert to Islam. To say that only the Turkified variant of the city's name is its historical name is grossly inaccurate and overlooks its mostly-Armenian history and identity.