Humans dream of making Mars more like Earth, while we continue to make Earth more like Mars.

The West exported so much democracy to the Middle East, it ran out of it.

Qarabag could easily adopt Barcelona’s 'més que un club' motto, as they stand gallantly as the descendants of a great tragedy, simultaneously symbolising hope and pride. The club are a poignant reminder of how war torments and ravages civilisation but ceases to kill the spirit.

No aspect of life has gone untouched by the war in Azerbaijan’s west — not even football.

The Nagorno-Karabakh war transformed Aghdam from a vibrant city of 40,000 inhabitants with fancy teahouses and Soviet bloc high-rises to the world’s largest ghost town, with 6,000 people killed and many more lives ruined.

Western governments invaded Iraq, dismantled Libya, interfered without success in Yemen and Syria. Yet North Korea causes all the trouble?

I belong to the generation born during the Nagorno-Karabakh war. And for me, the recurring memory of injustice is not fading anytime soon.

Most of us today can trace genealogical records — things like birth certificates, census forms and immigration records — to learn about those who came before us. For an entire generation of Azerbaijanis, however, those searches usually yield absolutely nothing.

When I was a child, I watched in horror as TV screens in Azerbaijan showed the aftermath of a brutal event: dead women, children and elderly, mutilated bodies, frozen corpses scattered across the ground. This shocking footage was taken at the site of the Khojaly massacre. 613 Azerbaijani civilians, including up to 300 children, women and elderly, were ruthlessly murdered.