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"It is more than two weeks now that the "Voice of Talyshstana" radio is broadcasted from the Nagorno-Karabakh the in Talyshi. The target audience of the radio channel is the Talysh population of Azerbaijan. According to the assessments of the experts there are about 1.8 million people there. Talysh community now has the opportunity to listen to cultural and religious radio-broadcasts three hours a day from Shushi. Each day, the radio starts broadcasting with the phrase, "Amra Shushi" (in Talysh it means "Shushi speaks"), the article published at Bigcaucasus.com says.

The article says that the Karabakh town-fortress of Shushi was under the control of the Azerbaijani army up to May 8, 1992, when he was liberated by the Armenians. Today the city that was damaged in the course of the war is gradually recovering. Here rises the white stone architectural creation - the St. Ghazanchetsots Church. Every summer large-scale of cultural events enlivens Shushi. Now radio is broadcasted from here, which every day welcomes the Talysh of Azerbaijan, the article says.

"The new radio channel caused an agiotage in Azerbaijan in a short time. At first they did not believe in Baku that the broadcasting could be initiated by the Armenians, and blame Iran in it," but the Iranian Embassy in Azerbaijan rightly pointed out that Tehran has nothing to do with it, and that they should not look for the initiators in Iran.

The article says that in fact the project was launched by the support of “Modus Vivendi” center and the Department of Iranian Studies of Yerevan State University. Baku sees a threat in this initiation and considers the "Voice of Talyshstana" a provocation. According to some reports, Azerbaijani experts are now looking for some means to cut the radio waves from Karabakh (NKR). The situation is very similar to the Cold War, when the Soviet Union with the help of special devices was interfering the broadcast of the radio "Freedom" on its territory.

The initiators of the project believe that the radio is aimed at strengthening peace and stability in the region, through learning about each other. "All the rumors concerning the support shown to our project from the outside are absurd. Radio founded by us works on a voluntary basis, broadcasts only cultural programs, as well as puts Talysh national songs. This project is beyond the borders of policy. It aims to preserve the identity of the Talysh in Azerbaijan, the number of which reaches 1.8 million," said in an interview given to “BigCaucasus” one of the founders of the Talysh radio, the head of a chair of the Iranian Studies at Yerevan State University, Garnik Asatryan.

The article says that the radio channel that is being broadcasted from Shushi partially covers three states - the whole territory of Azerbaijan, northern Iran and neighboring areas of Azerbaijan with Russia. As the head of the center “Modus Vivendi” explained, the ex-Ambassador to Canada Ara Papian, Shushi was selected as a broadcast center not by chance, as this fortress-city was once the cultural center of the Caucasus. He stressed that the radio is also intended to safeguard the rights of national minorities in Azerbaijan.

According to him, Armenia has a mission in the region, which is the protection of the rights of all nations which do not have their own state. "By launching this project, we, as a nation and a state, have risen to new strata of thought. On the public level, we realize our mission in the region and we have started to think big. This will help to strengthen the peace in the region, and the people will be able to understand each other better," former diplomat noted.

"This is a significant innovation, especially for the Talysh people, as far as they have no chance to have their own TV and radio channels in Azerbaijan", Asatryan noted.

Not all the Talysh people of the two million noted by the experts are aware of their national identity and even more do not act in accordance with this recognition. However, they have the wish to preserve their identity, and the national spirit with a part of Talysh people is rather high.