[29 November 1987]
Letter from Central Committee of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Organization (ALD) to General Secretary Gorbachev regarding Nakhichevan and Karabagh on his visit to the U.S.A. during November 1987. In addition, the ADL issued a statement of support for Armenian demonstrators in the U.S.S.R.
November 29, 1987
Dear Mr. General Secretary:
On behalf of the Armenians living around the world, the Central Committee of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Organization welcomes your visit to the United States and wishes you complete success in your endeavors to preserve world peace.
[…]
Since its inception the ADL has recognized Soviet Armenia as the sole homeland where Armenians could survive and preserve their national identity. Also, despite its difference in political ideology, the ADL has believed that Soviet Armenia remains the sole political base to help Armenians achieve the territorial integrity of their historic homeland.
Since 1921, the ADL has maintained spiritual and cultural relations with Soviet Armenia and hopes to further develop those relations in coming years.
Armenians living around the world maintain a deep interest in your policies of openness and restructuring whose goal is to improve the economic and political conditions in the Soviet Union, and consequently, in Soviet Armenia. They believe that those policies will also rectify historic errors which were committed during the formation of the Soviet state.
With the hope that those issues will be addressed by you in due course, as you vigorously pursue your new policies, we come to plead with you to consider the following unresolved questions which are of vital nature to all Armenians, within and without the borders of the U.S.S.R.
On October 13, 1921, the Treaty of Kars was signed between Turkey and the newly formed Soviet government which was concerned in maintaining regional peace with its neighbors. Implementing the 5th article of the said treaty, the historic Armenian region of Nakhichevan was annexed to Azerbaijan. Prior to that annexation the Armenian population of the region was massacred or deported to pave the way for a Pan-Turanist plan which Turkey pursued.
The Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan remains economically one of the more depressed areas in the Soviet Union. An area of 5,500 square kilometers of fertile land has been left uncultivated and sparsely populated in 1921, as a result of an impractical and abnormal situation, since Nakhichevan does not even have a common border with Azerbaijan, which administers the region.
The region of Nakhichevan is the natural extension of the Ararat Valley in Armenia, which, as you may know, enjoys a highly developed agriculture and economy.
Colonial Great Britain had created a similarly unjust situation in the Autonomous Region of Mountainous Karabagh. Armenians constitute 80% of the population in that region and through their culture, language and traditions are an integral part of the 3.5 million population of Soviet Armenia.
We are concerned with the fate of the Armenians in Karabagh who currently face the danger of assimilation.
It is worth reminding you here that on December 1, 1920, upon the establishment of Soviet rule in Armenia, Nariman Narimanov, chairman of the Baku Central Committee, had made the following declaration on behalf of Baku Soviet: “From this date on there will be no bloodshed over territorial disputes between Azerbaijan and Armenia, who have been neighbors for many centuries. The region of Zangezur and Nakhichevan constitute indivisible territories of Armenia and the working peasantry of Mountainous Karabagh will enjoy the opportunity of self-determination”. This declaration was made public, proclaimed and written up in Pravda, and Stalin himself called it an historic act of world significance, since it was the first time a people had given up territory willingly to another people. That was considered an example of Socialist brotherhood which the new system promised to the world. In this case, the promise remains unfulfilled to this date.
Soviet Armenia represents the sole homeland and the hope for Armenians living around the world. They all maintain strong emotional and cultural ties with the Republic whose future development will also guarantee the survival of the diaspora Armenians. Therefore, we are deeply concerned by the emigration of a segment of the population of Armenia. We understand and appreciate your compliance with the Helsinki accord which is meant to unify divided families and ease the repatriation of certain ethnic minorities to their ancestral homeland.
However, we do not believe the accord applies to the people living in the Armenian S.S.R., since in this case it contributes to the division of families and to the depopulation of our ancestral homeland; it also constitutes a brain drain, which you formulated in your recent interview with the NBC network so succinctly. If anything, emigration from Armenia violates the spirit of the Helsinki accord.
Based on the above fact, the Armenian Democratic Liberal Organization appeals to you to exercise your influence to eliminate all economic and social factors which encourage emigration from Armenia.
In the name of the entire Armenian nation, the ADL requests the return of the Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan and the Autonomous Region of Mountainous Karabagh to the Armenian S.S.R., to assure its territorial integrity: a) to rectify historical mistakes; b) to render Armenia as a bulwark against the expansion of the inhuman imperialism of the Pan-Turanist movement; c) to guarantee a broader economic growth to Armenia; d) to check the process of emigration; e) to allow any Armenian to return to his ancestral homeland; f) to create opportunities for the Diaspora Armenians to contribute to Armenia and to invest in its future, thereby assisting the U.S.S.R.
We hope that your kind attention will be focused on the above issues, which are of utmost importance to all Armenians.
Respectfully yours,
Central Committee of the
Armenian Democratic Liberal Organization
[The Armenian Mirror-Spectator, December 12, 1987]
The Karabagh File, Documents and Facts, 1918-1988, First Edition, Cambridge Toronto 1988, by the ZORYAN INSTITUTE, edited by: Gerard J. LIBARIDIAN, pp. 107-109.
