The Armenian National Committee of Belgium (ANC) has sent a letter to Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sophie Wilmès, expressing complaint over the recent visit of Ambassadors accredited in Azerbaijan, including the Belgian Ambassador, to the “occupied territories of Artsakh”, in particular Shusha, Armenpress reports.

The Committee said the Armenian community strongly condemned that visit of the Belgian side.

“By accepting that invitation, the Belgian diplomacy, in fact, has participated in the propaganda of Azerbaijan’s dictatorial regime which aims at justifying ethnic cleansing and war crimes, as a result of which the ethnic Armenian population of Shushi and other settlements of Artsakh have suffered months ago,” reads the statement.

Let's start with the fact that there was no official or even unofficial English-language website that belongs to a political or public organization called the Armenian National Committee of Belgium. Even a search on social networks did not give the desired result. The pages of Armenian users with a similar agenda and similar names on Facebook - CDCA Belgique - Comité de Défense de la Cause Arménienne - Hay Tad Belgium and EAFJD and the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy, contained no open letter published by the Armenian edition. Search by keywords brings only one source - the same “Armenpress”, which published the “letter.”

An attempt to "tie" its text to the well-known Armenian lobbying organization of the United States, the Armenian National Committee of America, didn’t yield any results.

The text and even mention of such a letter was not found on the official website of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is called the Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs.

We ended up finding the text of the letter on the French-language Facebook page Comité des Arméniens de Belgique, which is listed as a “local company” on the platform. There is no word "national" in its name, either. The listed details, and most importantly, the absence of an official website, already casts doubt on any social and political significance of the Committee.

Nevertheless, for a better perception of the situation, our main topic is the visit to Shusha city on July 9 by more than 100 representatives of the diplomatic corps and international organizations accredited in Azerbaijan.

The trip was attended by the ambassadors of Turkey, Pakistan, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Poland, Israel, China, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Belarus, Ukraine, Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Algeria and a number of other countries, as well as representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Health Organization.

The purpose of the visit is to familiarize foreign diplomats with the reconstruction and restoration work carried out in Shusha, with the original architecture of this city and the national and cultural heritage of the Azerbaijani people.

Earlier such visits were organized to the territories liberated from the occupation, including the Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Zangilan, Gubadli and Lachin regions. Foreign diplomats got acquainted with the consequences of the Armenian vandalism, construction work in the region.

However, assume that the mentioned organization, that is, the Armenian National Committee of Belgium, not only exists, but also carries out more or less significant social and political activities.

What claims can it make to the Belgian Foreign Ministry - an executive body of a sovereign state whose functions are to form and conduct the foreign policy of its country within its national interests?

Indeed, by taking part in a group trip of foreign diplomats to Shusha, the Belgian ambassador to Azerbaijan, like all his predecessors, once again confirmed the position of his country, which unambiguously recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan within its internationally recognized borders.

Along with this, Armenian lobbying organizations are steadily making efforts to shake this position of the state in the Belgian parliament.

However, in December last year, the lower house of the country’s parliament adopted an extremely curtailed resolution of initially radically anti-Azerbaijani and anti-Turkish content, limiting itself to condemning the military actions in Karabakh and calling on the government to “rescue the population affected by the war”.

Nevertheless, Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, who is on a working visit to the Kingdom of Belgium to participate in a meeting of the Azerbaijan-EU Cooperation Council, met with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Affairs and Foreign Trade, and the Federal Cultural Institutions Sophie Wilmes. During the meeting, Minister Bayramov brought to the attention of the opposing side the protests and discontent of his country in connection with the adoption by the Belgian parliament of a resolution containing unfounded and biased claims against Azerbaijan and brotherly Turkey. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said the resolution of the parliament is deprived of any legal force.

In conclusion, the statements of a little-known Armenian organization operating in the territory of the Kingdom of Belgium that we have considered, even against the background of the subversive activities of the ubiquitous national lobby, cannot influence the official policy of this state, and they were not even intended for this. The only purpose of such a political demarche, like the aforementioned resolution of parliamentarians, may be an attempt to influence the public consciousness in the country and increase one’s prestige in the domestic political arena in the context of the imaginary ability to influence the country’s foreign policy.