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In an interview with News.Az Azerbaijani website, American-Israeli historian and past president of the Foreign Policy Section of the American Political Science Association, Brenda Shaffer, revealed her pro-Azerbaijani views and sentiments. Rouben Galichian Expert in Medieval maps and author living in London told in an open letter to news agency “News.az”.

As the letter says her supposedly “expertise” on the history of Azerbaijan is apparent in her book “The Azerbaijani Turks” where towing the line of the anti-Armenian Azerbaijani academician Zia M. Buniatov, she quotes from his works which claim: “The idea of Azerbaijan…. is correctly used in respect to the territories of Northern and Southern Azerbaijan beginning with the 6th century [BCE]…. According to Persian and Arabic sources…. From the 8th century both Northern and Southern Azerbaijan were understood by the name Azerbaijan.”

R. Galichian says that the above quotation from Buniatov is a complete distortion of history, since first – According to Greek geographer Strabo and others, the territory of Lesser Media (north-western Iran) was renamed in honour of the Median military leader who fought against Alexander’s army during the second century BCE. Athropatene After the Arab invasion this name gradually evolved to Adherbijan… Azerbaijan). Hence at the time mentioned by Shaffer/Buniatov no Azerbaijan existed anywhere, a fact confirmed by all ancient historians.

“Second, no Arab historic or geographic literature exists prior to the ninth and tenth centuries as put forward by Buniatov and certainly, no Arab or Persian literature ever mentions the invented terminology of Northern or Southern Azerbaijan. In all Islamic literature there is only one Azerbaijan, which is the north-western Iranian province of Azerbaijan, always located south of the Araxes River. Ms Shaffer should be well aware that the name “Azerbaijan” north of the Araxes for the first time appeared in 1918,” the scientist writes.

Galichian noted that an expert historian should be well aware of the above facts and not repeat other’s fabrications, using them for her own anti-Armenian and now anti-Iranian rhetoric. “It seems Ms Shaffer has now found another platform for distributing her views,” the letter reads.