Author: Babken Chilingarian

While there is no internationally agreed-upon definition of the term ethnic cleansing, a United Nations commission has described it as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”

It would be difficult to argue that Azerbaijan is not now engaged in ethnic cleansing in the enclave Armenians call Artsakh and Azerbaijanis call Karabakh.  After a nine-month-long Medieval-style siege of this small part of the Caucasus, the Azerbaijani military launched an attack. Once a tentative truce was achieved, roughly 100,000 people, almost the entire population of the region, gathered what they could carry and left.  The world is now dealing with yet another refugee crisis as Armenia, a country with a population of less than three million, is dealing with an influx of traumatized ethnic Armenians. 

The reasons for the tensions over Artsakh/Karabakh go back to the early 20th century, to the Ottoman and Russian empires, Josef Stalin, the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and regional and global tensions that have persisted since that time.  Ultimately, however, we need to look at the Armenian Genocide and the two countries that virtually surround the current Republic of Armenia.

World-renowned genocide expert Gregory Stanton has stated that genocide denial is “among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres.”  The Ottoman Empire, the remains of which formed the foundation of modern-day Turkey, systematically killed 1.5 million Armenians under the cover of the First World War. 

Today, educators typically present what happened to the Armenians as a case study to illustrate the meaning of the word genocide.  In both Turkey and Azerbaijan, one would be criminally prosecuted for doing so.  Taner Akçam, who is Turkish and is also considered the foremost authority on the Armenian Genocide, is therefore living in exile and has even had his life threatened.  In the meantime, Azerbaijani and Turkish citizens are fed a revisionist history that demonizes Armenians and justifies crimes against humanity.

Before the current round of ethnic cleansing, the most recent armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan occurred over 44 days in 2020.  Russia was the chief negotiator in a settlement between the two countries and agreed to keep peacekeepers in the region.  Azerbaijan, however, has taken advantage of Russia's weakened status resulting from its invasion of Ukraine.   Beginning in December 2022, they cut off the enclave of Artsakh/Karabakh from Armenia and the rest of the world.  This siege stopped the flow of medical, fuel, and food supplies, thus weakening the population and resulting in the ethnic cleansing we now witness.

To their credit, the Armenian population living in the global diaspora has persistently lobbied the governments of the territories where they now find themselves in order to get them to recognize the vulnerability of the ethnic Armenians who remain in the Caucuses.  As a result, countries like France and the United States have become more actively involved in the peace negotiation process and have worked to ensure that international aid is given to the newest refugees in the region.

For the time being, it will be necessary for UN peacekeepers to stabilize the region and prevent further aggression, as they have done successfully in Cyprus for the last 50 years. 

For a long-term solution, we need to look at countries that are healing and moving forward peacefully after ethnic cleansing and genocide.  Germany, Canada, and New Zealand, for example, have been transparent about the crimes they have committed, and all are now healthy democracies where the rights of minorities are protected. 

Nothing will be more effective in bringing about long-lasting peace in the Caucasus than unearthing and teaching the truth about the Armenian Genocide.  This therefore needs to be a central point of focus in all international interactions with both Turkey and Azerbaijan.  The safety of millions of people depends on it.

Gerry Chidiac is a Prince George writer.

https://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/opinion/opinion-ethnic-cleansing-latest-chapter-in-armenian-genocide-7662791

Armenia made submissions to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday. requesting provisional measures against Azerbaijan for what Armenia calls “ethnic cleansing” in the ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia requested that Azerbaijan refrain from any actions which might breach Azerbaijan’s obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Armenia also requested Azerbaijan refrain from any actions aimed at “displacing the remaining ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, or preventing the save and expeditious return to their homes of persons displaced in the course of the recent military attack.”

In addition, Armenia requested Azerbaijan withdraw its military personnel from Nagorno-Karabakh and refrain from altering or destroying any monument commemorating the 1915 Armenian genocide, or any other Armenian cultural artifact. Armenia also included a request for Azerbaijan to restore the supply of electricity and gas to the region.

In response, Azerbaijan asked the court to reject Armenia’s requests.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan within the ICJ dates back to at least 2021, when Armenia first requested provisional measures against Azerbaijan for alleged violations of CERD. Armenia’s most recent victory in the ICJ was an order in February 2023 which concluded that Azerbaijan needed to ensure “unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor.” The Lachin corridor is the only land route from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh and, according to the February order, is currently under the control of a Russian peacekeeping forces.

Armenia first requested ICJ action in Thursday’s matter in September, roughly 10 days after Azerbaijan launched a military operation in Nagorno-Karabak. Azerbaijan launched an attack on Nagorno-Karabak in mid-September, shortly after Armenia’s National Assembly considered ratifying the Rome Statute. Azerbaijan attacked the capital of Nagorno-Karabak under the pretext of an “anti-terrorist” operation on September 19. On September 20, Azerbaijan imposed a ceasefire. Nagorno-Karabak is internationally recognized as a part of Azerbaijan, but it is also home to an Armenian-aligned state known as Artsakh.

The European Parliament condemned Azerbaijan’s actions in Nargono-Karabakh in a resolution last week, calling abuses by Azerbaijani military forces “a gross violation of international law.” The US State Department also called upon Azerbaijan to end hostilities in September.

Israelis Advocate for Peace in the South Caucuses following ceasefire

By Rachel Avraham

As Azerbaijan and Armenia almost came to the brink of war, a petition calling for “world peace in the Caucuses” was signed to encourage both the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis to reach an understanding that will lead to peace.

“We don’t want bloodshed in any conflict, we don’t want to see an unresolved conflict. We call for a peaceful, diplomatic solution to any conflict. Those who are in favor of peace around the world should encourage other organizations to join the “World for Peace in the Caucasus” initiative,” the Head of the Young Ambassadors Organization of Zimbabwe Abiel Mawere stated.

In the period leading up to the ceasefire deal, the Azerbaijanis came under fire for an “alleged humanitarian crisis” due to an alleged blockade of the Lachin Corridor that blocked off access to the Armenians in Karabakh, even though the Azerbaijan government had repeatedly offered to supply the Armenians of Karabakh with food, medicine and more via roads that provide closer and faster passage than the Lachin Corridor. The land routes Azerbaijan offers are decent roads according to the European Union, the U.S. and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for the “immediate and simultaneous opening of both corridors.”

For Israelis, this has an uncanny resemblance to people who falsely claimed that the people of Gaza are starving due to the Gaza blockade. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Save the Children and others have accused the State of Israel of literally starving the people of Gaza under its blockade, even though the State of Israel regularly permits the flow of more than adequatehumanitarian assistance into the coastal strip. On a regular basis, these international organizations and NGOs overlook how rockets, incendiary balloons, mortars and other weapons have been fired out of the coastal strip utilizing stuff that was smuggled into Gaza, while accusing Israel of creating a humanitarian crisis.

Azerbaijan is a strong ally of Israel and thus often gets the Israel treatment in international media outlets. For close to thirty years, Armenia illegally occupied the Karabakh region in violation of four UN Security Council resolutions, ethnically cleansing close to one million Azerbaijanis from their homeland in the First Karabakh War. Following the Second Karabakh War, Azerbaijan reclaimed the Karabakh region and the seven Azerbaijani districts that were illegally occupied by Armenia, and permitted an Armenian settler community to remain in the region in the hopes that they would be able to live in peace with multi-cultural Azerbaijan, which already has a thriving community of 30,000 Jews, as well as a significant Russian Orthodox and Catholic community.

The Azerbaijanis believe that these Armenians can be re-incorporated into their country as citizens with equal rights, while the Armenian settlers and elements of the Armenian Diaspora vehemently oppose this move. After six Azerbaijanis were killed in landmine explosions, everything was derailed and the two countries came close to the brink on war. But now that the Armenians agreed to disarm, what happens next remains to be seen.

Ayoob Kara, who served as Israel’s Communication Minister and signed the petition, added in a recent video statement, “As a minister of communication, cyber and satellite and now as the president of the Economic Peace Center, I do my best to make peace in Karabakh and humanitarian aid is part of this process. Therefore, we must do everything that humanitarian aid is delivered to this area.”

Prominent Middle East scholar Dr. Mordechai Kedar, who also signed the petition, added that the issue is not really about delivering humanitarian aid to the Armenian population of Karabakh: “I think that the whole thing is about smuggling weapons to the area by the Armenians. Both sides should sit together like big kids and discuss what they could bring and what they could not, and this is my humble view. I support the idea both sides should come to an agreement and implement the agreement.”

It has been reported in the media that Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said that his country and Azerbaijan could reach a peace deal over the Karabakh region by the end of this year. Prior to the recent escalation, he claimed that he was doing everything possible to conclude a peace agreement. Progress had been made on opening up the roads into Karabakh and getting more supplies into Karabakh. Yet at the same time, in the period leading up to the operation, twenty-eight instances of provocation were reported in July and another 45 in August, alongside 61 in the first half of September. They included harassment by drones and fortifying work near Azerbaijani territory as well as acts of sabotage.

Despite all of this, Hikmet Hajiyev, the advisor to Azerbaijan’s President, recently wrote an article in Politico, where he proclaimed: “Azerbaijanis want peace. We want restitution, reconciliation and, perhaps, one day even friendship with our neighbor. Stories that claim otherwise don’t help establish peace, nor do they bring a deal to the table.”

South Caucuses has great strategic importance for the State of Israel. If peace is reached in the Caucuses, it will weaken the Islamic Republic of Iran, as an Armenia not in peace with its neighbors relies upon Iran for all of its needs and thus essentially becomes a proxy of Iran, which helps them to bypass sanctions and do other things that are against the interests of Israel and the free world. An Armenia that is at peace with its neighbors has no interest in an international pariah like Iran and this is why Iran is doing everything possible to sabotage a peace agreement between both peoples.

For this reason, we as Israelis should support this petition and any other measure that will lead to peace being established in the South Caucuses for the benefit of both people.

Israeli tourism writer Orly Spagnul, who partook in the Shusha Food Festival, proclaimed that both sides should “solve issues by speaking together and should try to achieve a common agreement that takes the other into consideration, and should be kind and considerate to each other. They should see the pain and needs of the other side. They should live one beside the other and respect the needs of the other as much as possible. It is very difficult to bridge, but it is the only way to live in peace, prosperity and well.”

Rachel Avraham is the CEO of the Dona Gracia Center for Diplomacy and an Israel-based journalist. She is the author of “Women and Jihad: Debating Palestinian Female Suicide Bombings in the American, Israeli and Arab Media.”