Right in front of the school in Syunik province Shurnukh village of Goris community there is an unlawful Azerbaijani armed location, where “Önce vatan” is written in big letters.

Arman Tatoyan, President of “Tatoyan” Foundation, wrote on his Facebook page.

“Önce vatan” is one of the fundamental Turkish nationalistic (and aggressive) slogans created during Ataturk’s rule in the 1930s. It means “Go Forward Homeland” or “Homeland First”.

This slogan is directly connected to pan-Turkism. It does not consider possible equality of representatives of non-Turkish ethnic groups or nations living in Turkey with Turks, because according to Turkish nationalism, the idea of ​​creating a nation, an ethnically Turkish homogenous nation, is equally important to the motherland. Moreover, this nationalism was based on the ideology of the Young Turks – pan-Turkism, and was essentially its continuation.

In this Azerbaijani position, that is immediately in front of the Shurnukh school, in front of children, servicemen are always on duty, armed and watching the school and the children. This armed position also has cameras that also track people’s movements, unlawfully collecting personal data.

We have fixed this during our joint mission to Syunik with Garo Ghazarian and Karnig Kerkonian. The studies were carried out by the Center for Law and Justice “Tatoyan” foundation.

Now a question:

What does this nationalistic slogan do at the Azerbaijani unlawful armed deployment right in front of the Shurnukh secondary school?

It is clear that even children are being targeted from this location, they are trying to intimidate and put pressure on our children. It is specially designed in big letters and in a way that is visible to children.

It is obvious, that this was done to illustrate aggression, to intimidate the civilian population.

All this once again means that Azerbaijani armed locations not only seriously endanger people’s physical safety and lives, but purposefully do everything to cause mental suffering to people, even children, and keep them in anxiety and tension.

Azerbaijani armed installations should be removed not only from the RA territories invaded by them, but also from places near the villages of RA and from the roads between the Armenian communities.

A demilitarized security zone must be created so that normal life of people is restored.