Romania’s Baia Mare has agreed with Azerbaijani representatives to move forward with a sister-city agreement with occupied Stepanakert, which Azerbaijani authorities now call “Khankendi.” The agreement followed an August 14 meeting between Mayor Ioan Doru Dancus and an Azerbaijani delegation headed by Ilham Aliyev’s representative in the occupied territories of Artsakh.
Baia Mare’s decision deserves condemnation. A Romanian city is choosing to establish an official relationship with the Azerbaijani administration imposed on Stepanakert after its Armenian population was forcibly displaced. Rather than standing with the victims and defending basic European principles of human rights and accountability, Baia Mare is helping Baku normalize the consequences of its military conquest of Artsakh.
More than 120,000 Artsakh Armenians were forcibly displaced in September 2023 after months of blockade followed by Azerbaijan’s military aggression. Stepanakert, once the capital and political and cultural center of the Republic of Artsakh, was emptied of virtually its entire Armenian population.
Baia Mare is therefore not establishing relations with the community that historically inhabited Stepanakert. That community was driven out. It is establishing relations with the authorities installed after Azerbaijan’s takeover.
For a municipality in a European Union member state, this is particularly disgraceful. Romania claims adherence to European principles of democracy and human rights, yet one of its cities is preparing to build a privileged relationship with an authoritarian state over a city whose Armenian residents were expelled only three years ago.
Calling this “cooperation” does not make it neutral. A sister-city agreement gives political and symbolic legitimacy to Azerbaijan’s efforts to consolidate the results of the 2023 displacement, erase Stepanakert’s Armenian identity and present a depopulated Armenian city as an ordinary Azerbaijani municipality.
Baia Mare had a choice. Instead of demanding accountability and recognizing the rights of Artsakh’s displaced Armenians, its leadership chose to help legitimize a reality created through blockade, military force and mass displacement.
