At the beginning of the year I tried to be as unbiased towards the conflict as possible. I looked into the Armenian side of history as well. I wanted to learn about why Armenians consider Nagorno Karabakh as their land. I accepted that people from both sides died in the 90s. But

I tried to be as respectful as possible towards them by providing them with Azerbaijan’s side of the conflict because I thought, if I, an Indian girl that grew up in Baku, having Azerbaijani friends, can still acknowledge your pain, why can’t you acknowledge Azerbaijanis?

As I believe that not all Pakistanis are only out there to hurt Indians, I thought the same way about Armenians. However, even though my stance towards Pakistanis haven’t changed, my stance severely shifted towards a high majority of Armenians.

This is because whenever they are provided with facts about obliterating Azerbaijani civilian areas that are far from the war zone, they gaslight you and say “but attacked Stepanakert and other areas that belong to .”

Firstly, it’s Khankendi not Stepanakert. Secondly, Khankendi is amongst many of the Azerbaijani territories that were illegally occupied by Armenia hence, making it a part of the war zone. Lastly, civilians from Khankendi etc, were asked to evacuate prior to the war beginning.

People that were woken up by their ceilings falling on them in Ganja weren’t notified in advance. Armenia has made it so hard for me as a foreigner to sympathize with them because it feels like most of them seem to be in an abusive relationship with their government.

And keep defending their government regardless of the facts of their tactless attempts at retaliation being put before their eyes. I hope to someday meet some Armenians who acknowledge that their government has done huge damage and are the cause for us losing trust in them.