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Twitter Removes Armenia-Backed Accounts Targeting Azerbaijan

By Nigar Bayramli February 25, 2021

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Twitter has permanently suspended 35 accounts associated with the government of Armenia for disseminating disinformation targeting Azerbaijan.

Twitter said this week it has removed hundreds of accounts, including those connected to Armenian government-backed actors disseminating disinformation and targeting Azerbaijan. 

The company said it has permanently suspended 35 accounts associated with the government of Armenia.

“These accounts were created in order to advance narratives that were targeting Azerbaijan and were geostrategically favorable to the Armenian government,” reads the statement issued by Twitter Safety. 

“In some cases, the fake accounts purported to represent government and political figures in Azerbaijan, as well as news entities claiming to operate in Azerbaijan. The accounts engaged in spammy activity to gain followers and further amplify this narrative.”

As a result of investigations, Twitter also removed approximately 338 accounts which it said had ties to Russia and Iran.

Yerevan launched an information war against Azerbaijan shortly after Armenia's armed forces deployed in the occupied Azerbaijani lands mounted a large-scale attack last September targeting Azerbaijani military and civilian settlements along the whole line of contact.

Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan go back decades, with anti-Azerbaijan sentiments in Armenia started growing in the late 1980s due to Armenia's illegal claims for the Nagorno-Karabakh (Daghlig Garabagh) region of Azerbaijan. Following the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991, Armenia launched a military campaign against Azerbaijan that lasted until a ceasefire deal was reached in 1994. As a result of this war, Armenia occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territories including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. Over 30,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and one million were expelled from those lands in a brutal ethnic cleansing policy conducted by Armenia. Although the UN Security Council adopted four resolutions in 1993 demanding the immediate withdrawal of the occupying forces from the Azerbaijani lands and the return of internally displaced Azerbaijanis to their native lands, Armenia failed to comply with all four legally binding documents.

The war initiated by Armenia last September, lasted 44 days and ended in a tripartite ceasefire statement signed on November 9 by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia. By this time, Azerbaijani forces liberated more than 300 settlements, including the cities of Jabrayil, Fuzuli, Zangilan, Gubadli, and Shusha, from Armenian occupation. Armenia returned the occupied Aghdam, Kalbajar, and Lachin districts to Azerbaijan by December 1 as part of the obligations it took under the ceasefire deal.

Currently, a Russian contingent of 1,960 peacekeepers oversees the peace and adherence to the ceasefire agreement in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region and the 5km-wide Lachin corridor.