The 'Free Artsakh Welcomes You' Sign Was Not Just Ordinary Sheet Metal, Says Journalist

The sign 'Free Artsakh Welcomes You' has been dismantled by Azerbaijanis. Referring to the fallen sign, Artsakh journalist Tovinar Barkhudaryan wrote that this sign was not an ordinary plate.

“The words written on this sign were not ordinary words. Everyone and anyone standing by that sign felt emotional... stopping... taking pictures... A year ago, we publicly requested to remove it before handing over the road. Yes, with the dream of putting it back one day… with that aim… You say we lost because we had no National Idea, no National Goal… We did have one: Free Artsakh was the National Idea… And the devil is in the details… Yet we continue to tolerate the devil… Loving life this much, we do not fight for that life. And life is our Homeland, and it is in the Homeland… P.S. This sign should not have become waste,” she wrote.

Naïra Karapetyan, president of the 'European Integration' NGO, wrote on her Facebook page: “This was not just a sign for us… It was not an ordinary sign for anyone heading to Artsakh: and for Turks too, by the way. The Turk clearly knew the power, energy, and meaning of this sign… Couldn’t we have been a little more Armenian and dismantle it before handing over the road, with the expectation of reinstalling it later? I wonder what other 'oral agreements' have been promised…”