Terrorism has always been a threat to human life, but nowadays its threat has even increased. Nevertheless, until recently the international community did not act jointly against terrorism. More often it were individual states that led the fight against terrorism on their own.

Terrorist acts of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington D.C., unprecedented by their scale, attracted the attention of the whole world community and resulted in the understanding of the necessity of a joint fight against this international evil. Since Azerbaijan has been the target of the Armenian terrorism, we deemed it necessary to touch upon this issue as a contribution to the joint fight.

Terrorism as a means of achievement of political goals is actively used by separatist groupings and countries, supporting them. One of these countries is the Republic of Armenia, which, using the situation of the Armenian minority as a pretext for the realization of its territorial claims to a number of states of the region (Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia) supports terrorist organizations all over the world, activities of which are directed against these countries.

1. Roots of the Armenian Terrorism

The history of the Armenian terrorism dates back to the end of the XIX century. In 1887 the first Armenian party "Hnchak" ("Bell") was organized in Geneva on the basis of Marxist principles. The members of that party were exclusively the Armenians of Russia, who brought in it the militant revolutionary spirit. In 1890 the Federation of Armenian Revolutionaries" - the "Dashnaktsutyun" party was established in Tiflis with the aim of uniting all small terrorist groups and revolutionary circles. "Both of these groups wanted an independent Turkish Armenia in the six eastern provinces so it would become a national socialist state"(6). But it was an intermediary aim.

The programme of the "Hnchak" party stated that "the first goal of the party is to obtain the political and national independence of Turkish Armenia. …The methods to be used to reach this goal are propaganda, provocation, terror, organization, and the peasants and worker movement. …A special branch will be formed to organize these terrorist activities. …After independence of Armenia of Turkey, the revolution will be extended to the Armenia of Russia, and Iran, and a Federative of Armenia will be established."

The programme of the "Dashnaktsutyun" party envisaged the establishment of fighter groups and carrying out of organizational and political terror(7). At the beginning of the century the party formed a terrorist system "Nemesis", the representatives of which committed a number of assassinations of the former members of the government of the Young Turks(8). The programme of the "Dashnaktsutyun" set forth the task "to stimulate fighting and to terrorize the government officials, informers, traitors, usurers, and every kind of exploiter. …The Revolutionary Armenian Federation was a terrorist organization from day one. This would be the organization that would take control of Armenia after the end of World War I; they have continued state-sponsored terrorism to the present day"(9).
In the 90s of the XIX century the dashnaks carried out terrorist acts in the Ottoman Empire to achieve their political goals. It was the objective to stir the Christian Armenians and to inflame the Muslim Turks to react, so Christian European powers would become involved and establish an Armenian state. Armenian terrorists would provoke Muslims by ongoing acts of violence. Where the Muslims would respond, Armenians would cry out that "the barbarous Muslim Turks were massacring the innocent Christian Armenians"(10).

In the first two decades of the XX century the Armenian terrorism outraged in Azerbaijan. The next stage was in the 70s-80s, when the Armenian terrorism acted on an international scale(11). Since the end of the 80s the Armenian terrorism has moved back to Azerbaijan.

S.Weems is quite right when he notes that "terror and violence have been official policy of Armenians since the beginning of their nationalistic movement"(12).

Still developing...