CIA leaked almost one million declassified documents to the internet. Initial introduction shows that the vast archives of the CIA contain once secret documents relating to Soviet Azerbaijan.

One of the documents numbered CIA-RDP90G01353R001500220005-1 is dated June 16, 1988. This is a secret letter of CIA Director William Webster about the history of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, addressed to the Vice-President.

In the letter, the head of the CIA said that the conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis has its roots far back in history. It is associated with ethnic and religious factors. Thus, Armenians are Orthodox Christians and Azerbaijanis – the Turks, professing Shiism.

The head of the CIA writes to the US Vice-President that the Armenian and Azerbaijani lands had belonged to the Persian and Ottoman empires for centuries. When the Russian Empire in the beginning of the XIX century, invaded the Caucasus, it began to cause a clash of two ethnic groups, acting in their own interests.

The deportations of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 sowed hatred between these people and the Turks, which spread to the Azerbaijanis, who are also Turks. The collapse of the Tsarist Empire in 1917 led to the fact that Armenia and Azerbaijan gained independence for two years. But then, in 1920, both republics were again occupied by the Red Army and incorporated into the Soviet Union.

William Webster says that then Nagorno-Karabakh, where the Armenians lived well, remained a part of Azerbaijan, which angered Armenia. Since then, the Armenians have periodically raised the issue on including Nagorno-Karabakh in Armenia.

The head of the CIA reports to the Vice-President that in this campaign the active role was played by the representatives of the Armenian intelligentsia, including the Advisor of the Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev Abel Aghanbekyan, who is also an Armenian.

It should also be noted that the document was declassified only on August 21, 2012. It appeared a few hours ago in the public domain.

Source: haqqin.az