Thomas de Waal’s book ‘Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War’ re-released

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) and the Media Center organized on Tuesday a joint press conference and discussion on a revised version of the book entitled “Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War” by Thomas de Waal, Senior Associate, Russia and Eurasia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The book is the result of 8-year-long study of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and 120 interviews obtained in the region, Moscow and Washington. The author used unique materials, including materials in the archives of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR.

The author of the book said that no book can tell the whole story of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. A new war is hardly possible, but any wrong steps can have disastrous consequences.

In this context, a new, more aggressive generation is growing in Azerbaijan. Armenian are aggressive as well, but they are passive.

With respect to the Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov, who murdered the Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan in Hungary, Thomas de Waal said that the Azerbaijani authorities are well aware that was a crime. Safarov is not a national hero for all Azerbaijanis, and some people were shocked by that crime.

Director of the Caucasus Institute Alexander Iskandaryan, who was present at the press conference, said that Thomas de Waal’s book is an exclusive work of literature. “We should speak of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and not all people are necessarily expected to be happy about it,” he said.

“The book is actually a work of history,” he said.