European Friends of Armenia strongly welcomes the unprecedented condemnations of Azerbaijan's anti-Armenian xenophobia by all European institutions and the international community. We are appalled that the open provocation and physical threat by Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev against Armenia and Armenians around the world has put the Karabakh conflict to the next level of escalation. This may be in the short term internal political interest of the President, who is facing "elections" in 2013. However, given his autocratic and so far unchallenged power base, the risk for him and his country and the damage caused stand in no relation to the short-lived political gain achieved through anti-Armenian nationalism and xenophobia. Read more