The recent campaign by the MIAK party spreading background facts about Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) and the NK conflict may be motivated by party political reasoning targeting Armenia. I would also agree with those who say that the campaign should rather focus on more selected addressees than impress with large numbers. But just today, a contact from the European Parliament called me to ask for more background about this initiative and to verify some of the things in their document, promoted through the cryptic web address http://www.karabakh-truth.com/pdf/NK_Short_Version.pdf. 
 
My PR heart suggests that the communication strategy behind this might profit from some fine-tuning, but this also makes the whole thing appear more human and enthusiastic than a perfectionist US-style campaign. On the content side, there is little room for criticism. And that is why my political heart says that such initiatives are badly needed for the international community. People all around the world do not know enough about the NK conflict, not even some of those people who work on issues related to the South Caucasus. At best, people have a strange mosaic picture of the NK conflict, made of very few things they read in international media and a lot of things which they heard – even with disbelief – from Azerbaijani propaganda. Every few months, some largely innocent MEP or national parliamentarian in Europe hosts an event to commemorate war victims. With mostly good intentions, they often don’t even know that they are being instrumentalised. One day later, the Azerbaijani press generally writes something like “EU Parliament commemorates Khojaly Genocide”.
 
Whether you love or hate party politics, more education on NK is needed worldwide. People do not know about the anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Baku and other parts of Azerbaijan. They often believe that Armenian tanks have invaded a peaceful part of Azerbaijan to occupy territory, rather than to fight back the Azerbaijani Operation Circle and to save the largely ethnic Armenian NK population. They often do not know that NK has – in violation of international law – been allocated to Azerbaijan by Stalin. The same counts for more recent developments. It is still surprising to many, that Armenia accepted the so-called OSCE Madrid Principles as an integrated whole, while Azerbaijan publicly repeats never ever to agree to a legally binding referendum in NK providing a final status for NK. Few experts have noticed that in repeated attempts to remove snipers from the line of contact and install international observers, only Armenia agreed and Azerbaijan bluntly refused.
 
Armenia has many communicators for this topic. We need more initiatives to tell the story of NK – factual, focussed and courageous.

Dr Michael Kambeck is the Secretary General of European Friends of Armenia (EuFoA ). These views are his own.