Employee of Oxford University Museum of Natural History Dr. Adrian Pont wrote a letter to The Independent, telling about his visit to Armenia and about the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. He expressed hope, that at the end the democratic choice of the Karabakh nation will triumph.

“Amid the hysteria generated by the Eurovision Song Contest we must not neglect the aggressive attitude that Azerbaijan displays against his neighbor Armenia.

Last week, in the framework of a scientific collaboration with Armenian colleagues I was in the north of Armenia and visited various points very close to the border with Azerbaijan.  In one of the villages the inhabitants came out of their houses to warn us not to continue our way as the Azerbaijani snipers often shoot across the border. Several people peacefully working on the fields and even schoolchildren had been shot dead. Such incidents are widespread.

The goal of such killings can only be to provoke retaliation by Armenia, creating a ‘border incident’ and enabling Azerbaijan to annex yet another small mountainous enclave of Armenia.

This part of Armenia is ethnically Armenian, the inhabitants are Christians and speak Armenian. They would not like to be part of Islamic Azerbaijan, where they would suffer persecution or worse. Let us hope that democratic choice and the rule of law will prevail,” the British scientist wrote.