Whose flag should be visible on the other side of the border

And indeed, whose flag should be visible on the other side of the border? I can say with confidence that any school student even one in the lower grades would answer: the flag of the country you share a border with.

In Armenia’s case, on the other side of the border you should see the flags of Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. It seems there is nothing strange here, but it only seems so, because for several days now a photo taken from Kapan has been circulating in the Armenian segment of the internet, in which the Azerbaijani flag is visible.

Those who spread the photo are writing lamentably that this is our reality, this is the real Armenia. They should simply be urged to look carefully at the map and see where the border of Armenia passes.

How long can one play on the people’s sensitive strings, how low can one sink, seeing an ambulance of the Red Cross and crescent in Yerevan and raising an uproar of alarm and lamentation?

We must either understand who our neighbors are and find a formula for living alongside them, or we simply will not exist. That is the truth. And if someone 1,597 years after the fall of Greater Armenia takes that fact heavily and cannot reconcile themselves to existence within the current borders with Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, then that is their personal problem and it should not be hung around the nation’s neck.

And if you want to look for someone to blame for why Armenia’s borders run exactly as they do, I assure you that neither Nikol Pashinyan, nor Serzh Sargsyan, nor Robert Kocharyan, nor Levon Ter-Petrosyan bears any responsibility here.

The culprits can be found at least 105 years ago: people who, for the sake of the victory of a world revolution, did not care where Armenia’s border would pass.

So calm down now and focus on developing the Armenian state. And those who are simply so ignorant that they do not understand that on the other side of the border one may see a neighboring country’s flag than at least they have nothing to do in the political and public arena. For example, they could make and sell pizza.

Vardan Harutyunyan