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“Azerbaijan implements the policy of assimilation of the ethnic minorities also due to the ambiguous use of the term “Azerbaijani”,” Chair of the Iranian Studies Department of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Yerevan State University Vardan Voskanyan noted the aforesaid during today’s round-table discussion titled “Xenophobia and its consequences from the human rights perspective”, Panorama.am reports.

He noted that the term “Azerbaijani” has ambiguous significance both in Armenian and in other languages, including in the Turkic language. It indicates citizenship and territorial identity, as the word “Armenian” meanwhile expressing ethnic overtone.

“Let’s say many Talysh people are willing to be called Azerbaijani on the assumption that it solely indicates the citizenship of a person. The ambiguity and the confusion of the terms create additional risks for the assimilation of those people. For many years a policy of assimilation has been run through such intrigues,” the expert of Iranian studies noted.

In his words, the situation regarding the assimilation policy in Azerbaijan is very difficult and out of logic. V. Voskanyan said that the Talysh Culture Centre NGO has taken efforts for more than a decade, however it would not be registered on the grounds that the name of the NGO has the word “Talish”.

“Through the internal leverages the people in charge are informed that if they remove the word Talysh, the organization will be registered,” he said.

In the words of V. Voskanyan, the Talysh activists face pressure in Azerbaijan even ending up in extreme cases of assassinations and detentions. In his words, in contrary to Talysh people, the policy of assimilation against Tats has taken more violent forms.

V. Voskanyan said that although during its membership of the Council of Europe, Azerbaijan has signed the Charter on preservation of languages of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, only a few textbooks were published in the country in 1990s. Some of those books have been burnt publically.