Author: Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS

Tamil manuscripts from 18th Century found in Armenian monastery in Northern Italy

Emil Lazarian
The Hindu, India
Aug 5 2023

09:18 pm | Updated 09:18 pm IST – CHENNAI

THE HINDU BUREAU
Palm manuscripts from the 18th Century titled Gnanamuyarchi have been discovered in an Armenian monastery in Northern Itlay. Tamil Bharathan, a doctoral scholar of the Special Centre for Tamil Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), was allowed access to the manuscripts.

“I was only allowed to read the manuscripts after days of persuasion,” said Mr. Bharathan, who was invited to participate in a seminar on Greek Paleography at the headquarters of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice.

He sought the help of Margherita Trento, a professor who has studied the history of the literary and social techniques employed by Roman Catholics to localise Christianity in early modern Tamil Nadu. According to her, it could be a copy of the first translation of Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercise in Tamil.

“This translation is most likely by Michele Bertoldi, known in Tamil as Gnanaprakasasamy. This is a prose text from the early 18th Century (likely the 1720s) and has been printed several times in the 19th Century by the Mission Press in Puducherry,” said Ms. Margherita, who has written extensively about the text.

Mr. Bharathan said the library had categorised the manuscripts as ‘Indian Papyrus Lamulic Language–XIII Century’, and the authorities were not aware that it had been written in Tamil. Those in charge of the monastery are of the opinion that the Armenians in Chennai could have brought the manuscripts to Italy.

He has started cataloguing the manuscripts and also has plans to visit Roja Muthiah Library in Chennai since it also has a copy of the work in its possession. “Once I go through the manuscripts and make comparisons, I can get a clear picture,” he added.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/tamil-manuscripts-from-18th-century-found-in-armenian-monastery-in-northern-italy/article67162471.ece

Karabakh blockade reaches critical point as food supplies run low

Emil Lazarian
July 31 2023
By Neil Hauer in Yerevan July 31, 2023

It’s now been more than seven months since Azerbaijan closed off Nagorno-Karabakh’s only access to the outside world, and the smouldering humanitarian crisis there is now coming to a head.

As food supplies dwindle, the residents of the territory are now reduced to a single meal a day. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, appears only emboldened to take ever more escalatory measures to finally crush the region’s ethnic Armenian population — including, for the first time, removing and detaining them from International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) vehicles.

At a press conference on July 24, Arayik Harutyunyan, the president of the unrecognised Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), declared the territory a ‘disaster zone’. He said that the 120,000 residents there had ‘only days’ until they began to run out of food entirely.

“Under these conditions of impunity, Azerbaijan is tightening its policy of ethnic cleansing against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Harutyunyan said, speaking via video link from the center of Stepanakert, the region’s capital. “Azerbaijan has not only ignored court rulings and the demands of the international community, but has increasingly expanded the blockade. Azerbaijan seeks to violently subjugate the people of Artsakh, to subject them to psychological pressure, and to discredit the international community,” the president said.

That psychological pressure was only increased on July 29. On that day, Baku escalated measures yet again, this time on the Lachin road itself. Vagif Khachatryan, a 68-year-old local man who was being transported to Armenia for medical treatment in an ICRC vehicle, was removed from the vehicle and detained by Azerbaijani security forces. Khachatryan was taken to an unknown location, while Baku announced a few hours later that he was being charged with genocide in the 1991-94 First Karabakh War. The Red Cross announced that they had stopped all medical transfers as a result.

Khachatryan’s detention confirms the fears of many Karabakh Armenians that, if Azerbaijan assumes control over Karabakh, it will detain (and torture) them arbitrarily, using their participation in one or more of the wars as justification. This criteria extends to nearly every male resident of the small enclave. “Arrests with linkages to the past wars, local army or the [Karabakh] government …would quality almost all local men for detentions,” wrote Olesya Vartanyan, International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for the South Caucasus. The detainees can expect torture or worse, as the Armenian prisoners of war following the 2020 war conflict experienced: Human Rights Watch, in a report, detailed “cruel and degrading treatment and torture”, describing Azerbaijan’s treatment of them as “abhorrent and a war crime”. Given the complete lack of any prosecutions for the perpetrators of these abuses, and the Azerbaijani government’s continued violent rhetoric, it seems certain that Khachatryan and any future others like him are in for the same.

Meanwhile, the threat of mass hunger is only growing. The Red Cross confirmed on July 25 that they were completely unable to transport anything to Karabakh, stating that “people lack life-saving medication” and that most food products were either “scarce and costly” or “unavailable”. Most residents of Karabakh are down to just one meal a day, often consisting only of a piece or two of bread. Up to 90% of the region’s food had previously been imported from Armenia, according to Harutyunyan, all of which has now ceased. Local farmers have struggled to harvest their crops, with Azerbaijani troops shooting at them in their fields on a near-daily basis. Even if they overcome that, farmers can hardly get their wares to market: a near-complete lack of fuel means that no vehicle transport is available, and locals are now reduced to riding horses or walking many kilometres to Stepanakert and other population centres with whatever they can carry.

Ever since Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020 Karabakh War, the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh’s connection to the wider world has been tenuous. The November 2020 ceasefire agreement, signed between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, provided for a single road — the Lachin corridor, named after the town it passes through — to connect Karabakh to Armenia. Its open status was to be ensured by the Russian peacekeepers deployed to the region, an arrangement that largely functioned for the next two years.

That changed on December 11. On that day, a group of Azerbaijani demonstrators appeared on the road in front of Shusha, claiming to be protesting ‘ecological damage’ caused by mining activity in Karabakh. They promptly established a camp blocking the road, refusing to allow through any traffic except Red Cross trucks with humanitarian aid or the occasional Russian peacekeeping video. In April, Azerbaijan took the next step to make the blockade more permanent, establishing a checkpoint on the road on the Hakkari river near the Armenian border. Occasional ICRC and Russian traffic continued to pass until June 15, at which point Azerbaijan halted all humanitarian deliveries. No food, medicine or fuel has entered Nagorno-Karabakh since.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly refused to heed international calls to open the road. The US, EU and other countries have called multiple times since December for open traffic to be restored on the road. In February, the International Court of Justice issued a ruling ordering Azerbaijan to “take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles, and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.” For more than five months, that has gone ignored. As EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell noted on July 26, “movement through the Lachin corridor remains obstructed for more than seven months, despite Orders by the International Court of Justice to reopen it.”

Amidst all of this, Russia’s peacekeeping forces have been absent or complicit in each Azerbaijani move. The 2,000 servicemen Moscow stationed in the region following the 2020 trilateral ceasefire agreement were entrusted with maintaining the free movement of people and goods along the Lachin corridor. Instead, the Russian peacekeepers have appeared wilfully impotent at each stage of the blockade. Russian peacekeepers stood by as the original Azerbaijani ‘eco-activists’ blocked the road; they then took no measures as Azerbaijan established its checkpoint within metres of a Russian position in April. Nagorno-Karabakh authorities, who have thus far been largely deferent to the Russians who are all that stand between them and Azerbaijani forces, have become more outspoken against Moscow in recent weeks. “We are calling now for Russia specifically to fulfill its obligations [under the November 2020 agreement],” Harutyunyan said during the July 24 press conference. “We’ve always been cautious in our statements, expressed our gratitude to the Russian leadership for putting an end to the war, but [Azerbaijan] is shooting every day, firing at people in the fields. The [Russian] peacekeepers are responding [to this], but it doesn’t stop,” he added.

Against this backdrop, the thought of any genuine peace agreement being reached between Armenia and Azerbaijan seems absurd. With Azerbaijan now starving the 120,000 people it claims are its citizens, many observers now agree that the idea that Karabakh Armenians can live safely in Ilham Aliyev’s Azerbaijan is hardly credible. “The blockade renders irrelevant any talk of the civil integration of Karabakh Armenians,” wrote Laurence Broers, Caucasus programme director at Conciliation Resources. “It vindicates the worst fears of the Karabakh Armenian population vis-a-vis the Azerbaijani state… [and] will leave a new legacy of unforgiving distrust cancelling any hopes of reconstituting community relations,” Broers said.

The sense presently is that the crisis of the Karabakh blockade is coming to a head one way or another. With food running out and essential services breaking down, the Karabakh Armenian population will soon begin to succumb to mass hunger, famine and death. International pressure to force Azerbaijan to halt the blockade has so far been limited to statements and calls, but the US and EU will have to decide soon whether they can watch the slow starvation of tens of thousands without introducing harsher measures like a halt to US military aid to Azerbaijan or sanctions against leading members of the Aliyev regime. “[Nagorno-Karabakh] is the only area in the world which is under complete siege. It can now be considered a concentration camp,” said Harutyunyan. “The time has come [for the world] to take unilateral action as a last resort to prevent mass crimes.”

Baku to the Future?

Emil Lazarian
Aug 4 2023

Aug 4, 2023 | Amotz Asa-El

When the Soviet Union suddenly dissolved in 1991, the West responded by unanimously extending full and immediate diplomatic recognition to the 15 republics that had emerged from the ruins of the vanished empire. 

That included Israel, as one country on the Western side of the transition, and Azerbaijan as one of the new republics on the opposite side. Jerusalem recognised the Caucasian republic on Christmas Day, 1991. However, unlike the rest of the West, whose concerns at that time focused mainly on remaking the international system’s broader arrangements, Israel was particularly focused on retrieving the Jews of the former Eastern Bloc. 

Part of those efforts included the creation of a route for direct flights between Baku and Tel Aviv. This actually happened a full half-a-year before Azerbaijan’s formal independence, through a deal between its Soviet-era government and the Jewish state. 

It was the beginning of an improbable and elaborate relationship that, 32 years on, constitutes Israel’s strongest alliance anywhere across the Muslim world. 

Baku’s role ended up being relatively marginal to the process of bringing nearly 1 million former Soviet Jews to Israel between 1989 and 2004 – most boarded direct flights from Russia and Ukraine. 

Yet the Baku-Tel Aviv flights laid the foundations for a commercial arrangement that was begging to happen: Israel had no oil, and Azerbaijan had vast petroleum fields in the Caspian Sea, and along its shores. Moreover, the distance between the two countries is short, about the distance between Melbourne and Brisbane. Israel’s previous Middle Eastern oil supply had come from Iran, but this had ended abruptly in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution, forcing Israel to seek energy from distant, and thus costly, alternative suppliers, such as Mexico and Venezuela. 

During the Cold War, Azerbaijani supply and Israeli demand could not meet – but the new world order post-1991 made their encounter possible, not only because capitalism had suddenly become the international consensus, but because Azerbaijan sorely needed cash. Azerbaijani oil thus began reaching Israel, and Baku has been a steady, major supplier of Israeli energy ever since. 

Israel does not publish figures concerning its oil imports, but experts believe Azerbaijan is its largest supplier, averaging around 40% of the Jewish state’s crude imports annually. Traffic on this axis has been so lively that, in 2006, Israel’s then-infrastructure minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer attended the inauguration of the Azeri-Georgian-Turkish pipeline which has since brought Azerbaijani petroleum to fuel millions of Israel cars. 

The energy relationship paved the way for commercial traffic in the opposite direction. Israeli firms built Azerbaijan’s telephone system and Israeli consultants were hired to upgrade Azeribaijani agriculture. 

However, the main traffic would be in the military sphere. 

It was this aspect of the relationship that was most on show when Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant made a very high-profile visit to Baku on July 13-14, meeting President Ilham Aliyev, Defence Minister Zakir Hasanov and other senior defence officials. The defence and security relationship between Baku and Jerusalem is already long, broad and deep, and looks set to get even more intensive and extensive, reflecting both countries’ growing concerns about the behaviour of Azerbijan’s neighbour, Iran, and its proxies.

In 1991, compelled to build an army, an air force and a navy pretty much from scratch, Azerbaijan sorely needed both hardware and know-how – which Israel happily offered. Preliminary deals were struck quickly, and multi-billion-dollar purchases of Israeli defence products followed over subsequent years.

Israeli arms deals are not officially reported, but one particularly sizeable deal with Azerbaijan – US$1.6 billion (A$2.35b) worth of drones, missile interceptors and anti-missile systems – was confirmed by Israeli officials in 2012 in response to an Associated Press report. 

Another deal, whereby Israel Shipyards built 14 coastguard and assault vessels for Azerbaijan’s navy over the past decade, was reported by the website Israel Defense this July. 

In 2016, while hosting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Baku, President Ilham Aliyev said publicly that his country had signed US$5 billion (A$7.35b) worth of arms deals with Israel. The deals reportedly range from submachine guns and artillery barrels to radars and avionics.  

In early 2022, during a visit to Baku, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen confirmed reports that Israel Air Industries will supply Azerbaijan with two satellites. The deal is reportedly worth US$120 million (A$176.53m). 

Some of this vibrant activity involves the presence of Israeli experts in Azerbaijan, most notably on the naval vessels which were built in Azerbaijan under Israeli supervision. 

Overall, these deals reflect a unique geographic position and strategic predicament that both sets Azerbaijan apart from other post-Soviet republics, and drives its special relations with Israel. 

 

Straddling a 700-kilometre coastline along the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan is wedged between Russia and Iran, two historic powers which have, over the centuries, taken turns dominating the multi-ethnic Caucasus region, where Azeris are the single largest nationality. Suspicion of both Moscow and Teheran is therefore both a foundation of the Azeri worldview and a pillar of Baku’s foreign policy. 

Moscow’s shadow thickened in 2008, when the Russian army attacked Azerbaijan’s northwestern neighbor Georgia and occupied about a fifth of its land – land which it holds to this day. 

The Iranian threat stems from a mixture of ideological and ethnic differences. Most Azeris are Shi’ite Muslims, but they are generally secular and see their Shi’ite neighbour’s fundamentalism as a menace. 

While they have a common religious history, the two societies are racially unrelated – Iranians are primarily Persian while Azeris are a Turkic people. Azerbaijan’s secularist and Western outlook was made plain following its independence, when it chose to adopt the Latin script rather than the Persian-Arabic or Cyrillic alternatives. 

Moreover, an estimated one-quarter of Iranians are ethnic Azeris, constituting the country’s largest minority, and most are concentrated in northern Iran, and are thus contiguous with Azerbaijan. Although Iranian Azeris have never actively challenged the regime, the ayatollahs fear some kind of a future link-up between the two. 

A statement last November by Azerbaijan’s President concerning the Azeri minority in Iran, asserting that “their security, their rights and well-being are of the utmost importance to us,” and vowing “we will continue to do everything to help the Azerbaijanis who have found themselves cut off from our state,” only exacerbated Iranian fears. 

Iran is also suspicious of Azerbaijan due to its alliance with Turkey, which is ethnically and linguistically close to the Azeris, and has backed Azerbaijan throughout its ongoing three-decade conflict with Armenia. The prospect of a Turkic belt stretching from Istanbul to Central Asia is a major nightmare for Iran.

This, in brief, is the context in which Iran has taken sides against Azerbaijan in its ongoing territorial and ethnic conflict with its neighbour to the west, Armenia. Last year, responding to a Turkish-Azeri plan to establish a transport corridor that would bypass Armenian checkpoints, Iran opened a consulate in the southern Armenian town of Kapan, sparking Azeri protests. 

From Israel’s point of view, the Iranian aspect of Azerbaijan’s situation has turned a vibrant trade partnership into a major strategic asset. 

Azerbaijan has reportedly allowed Israel to use its territory for clandestine activity inside Iran, and potentially to use its airbases in case of a military confrontation between the Jewish state and Iran. Considering that Teheran is more than 1,500 kilometres away from Tel Aviv, Azerbaijan’s proximity to Iran would be invaluable in the event of a military clash between Israel and Iran. 

Over the years, the Azeris have become increasingly open about their special relationship with Israel – so much so that this past March, Baku opened an embassy in Tel Aviv, something it had previously avoided out of fear of a hostile response from parts of the Muslim world, most importantly, Iran. An Iranian rebuke of Baku indeed resulted, but Azerbaijan’s Government didn’t care. 

The relationship is a success story in many ways, yet Israel’s ties with Azerbaijan carry a price tag, and it’s hefty. 

First, the authoritarian government in Baku has been accused of broad human rights violations repeatedly over recent years. One Israeli critic, blogger Alexander Lapshin, was arrested in 2016 in Belarus, at Azerbaijan’s request, after writing critically about the regime following a visit to Azerbaijan. Lapshin was indeed extradited back to Azerbaijan, sentenced and jailed before receiving a presidential pardon the following year. 

Secondly, the alliance with Baku comes at the expense of Israel’s relationship with Armenia, especially after Israeli-supplied drones played a role in fighting last year that ended with an Armenian defeat. 

Israel has stopped short of taking a diplomatic side in the Azerbaijan-Armenia territorial dispute, but the deployment of Israeli hardware against Armenian troops has angered Armenians. Then again, as Iranian allies, the Armenians recognise that they are flying in the face of Israel’s interests, just as Israel’s relationship with Baku is negatively affecting Armenia’s interests. 

It’s been this way for centuries in the Caucasus, where myriad tribes and nations wrestled and traded with each other, while exploiting the rivalries of the surrounding powers to manoeuvre against their local enemies. For better and worse, Israel has found itself part of that long-standing Caucasian struggle. 


https://aijac.org.au/australia-israel-review/baku-to-the-future/?fbclid=IwAR0bPEHnk6ZQ2CZtzG-CGdPJYStm9UAhu74uIyz688H3y5W8teum9pBSxTU

xYervand Mkrtchyan wins Armenia’s first-ever medal in athletics at FISU World University Games

Emil Lazarian

 10:06, 4 August 2023

YEREVAN, AUGUST 4, ARMENPRESS. Armenian sprinter Yervand Mkrtchyan has become the first-ever Armenian athlete to win a medal in athletics at the FISU World University Games.

Mkrtchyan won bronze in the Men’s 1500 final with a mark of 3:40.68.

France’s Benoit Campion took gold with a mark of 3:38.61 and Algeria’s Oussama Cherrad took silver with 3:40.64.

Trump pleads not guilty to election charges

Emil Lazarian

 10:10, 4 August 2023

YEREVAN, AUGUST 4, ARMENPRESS. Former US President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to charges related to conspiring his 2020 election defeat, BBC reported.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 4 counts of indictment, among them conspiracy to defraud the US, tampering with a witness and conspiracy against the rights of citizens.

The former president was given several conditions, including not to communicate with anyone who is a witness in the given case or to communicate only through a lawyer.

The court hearings were held in the same court building where the cases of around 1000 defendants who participated in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 were examined.

During the hearing, a group of Trump supporters gathered in front of the courthouse, as well as those who protested against him.

The next court hearing of the former US President will take place on August 28.

After leaving the court, Trump described the case against him “persecution of a political opponent”. Donald Trump has nominated his candidacy to participate in the 2024 presidential elections, in which he may compete with his rival in the previous elections, the current US President Joe Biden.

The former US president is standing before the court for the third time in the last 4 months. In the other two cases, Trump is accused of violating the rules on handling classified documents and paying porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet and falsifying business reports because of it.

No Armenians among Georgia landslide victims according to latest data

Emil Lazarian

 18:22, 4 August 2023

YEREVAN, AUGUST 4, ARMENPRESS. There are no Armenians among the victims of the landslide in Georgia according to the latest information, the Armenian foreign ministry spokesperson Ani Badalyan told ARMENPRESS.

“There are no citizens of the Republic of Armenia in the list of victims officially published by the Georgian authorities as of this moment,” Badalian said.

At least six people died in Georgia in a landslide at the Shovi resort in the Racha area on August 3, RFE/RL’s Georgian Service reported citing the Georgian Internal Affairs Ministry. 140 people have been rescued so far, with 35 people still missing.

Asbarez: ANC-Rhode Island Secures Friendship City between North Providence and Artsakh’s Chartar

Emil Lazarian
by Contributor

 

 August 4, 2023

 

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Story, Latest, News, Top Stories

The Chartar Village in Artsakh


CRANSTON, RI – For the second time this summer, the Armenian National Committee of Rhode Island secured a Friendship City between North Providence, Rhode Island, and the village of Chartar, Republic of Artsakh. The North Providence Town Council issued the proclamation establishing the Friendship City with the goal of raising awareness of Artsakh – its people’s right to self-determination and the ability to live freely and not under the abhorrent genocidal regime of Azerbaijan. 

The Friendship City and proclamation were announced at the City Council meeting just weeks after the ANC of Rhode Island, which has historically engaged federal, state and city governments to advance the Armenian Cause for decades, secured a Friendship City between Stepanakert and Cranston. 

North Providence is home to multiple generations of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, during which survivors of the first major wave of anti-Armenian attacks that took place during the first World War led to thousands escaping to the United States for a new chance at life, many of whom found haven in Rhode Island, in particular North Providence. Over the past century, Rhode Island’s Armenian American community has established various churches, several educational and cultural institutions and organizations that have created a foundation for a flourishing community. North Providence and Chartar share a strong Armenian community, both of which are dedicated to human rights and dignity and are equally committed to preserving their Armenian identity.  

Both North Providence and Cranston have also hosted an Armenian flag raising ceremony annually honoring Armenian Americans from their city/town who have brought honor and pride to the Armenian community for close to a quarter century. 

North Providence spearheaded the first flag raising, and thanks to the work of the ANC-RI and its relationship with former North Providence Mayor A. Ralph Mollis, they laid the groundwork for advocacy and activism that continues to this day. 

“The Armenian National Committee would like to thank Mayor Charles Lombardi and the Town Council of North Providence for setting up a Friendship City agreement with Chartar, Artsakh. The ANC of RI has a long proud history of partnering with the Town of North Providence to raise the Armenian flag every April 24 to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, and we are happy to add North Providence to the list of governments who have established a relationship with a counterpart community in Artskah,” stated Steve Elmasian, chairman of the ANC of Rhode Island. 

“We are thrilled to have two cities and towns in Rhode Island establish Friendship City agreements with cities and towns in Artsakh with North Providence joining Cranston, Rhode Island, which established a Friendship City agreement with Stepanakert, Artsakh on April 24, 2023,” said ANC-RI co-chairman George Mangalo.

Friendship Cities with Artsakh have been established in the Eastern Region between Granite City, Illinois, and Ashan, Republic of Artsakh; Cranston, Rhode Island, and Stepanakert, Republic of Artsakh; and now North Providence and Chartar, Republic of Artsakh. 

“We have no doubt that with the continued support of our Armenian community in the Diaspora – specifically in Rhode Island – that we can continue to hope for relief and survival. Being under the blockade for more than 170 days is not only disheartening for our people but insulting to our natural rights. But we are used to hardship and we know that we will survive. Any effort to show the world that we are here and that we will remain here is most welcome. This is our land, our native land, we have nowhere else to go. The efforts of the ANC of Rhode Island show our people that we are not alone,” said Gev Iskajyan, Armenian National Committee of Artsakh executive director.

Bundestag Chair of Foreign Affairs Committee accuses Azerbaijan of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh

Emil Lazarian

 15:47, 31 July 2023

YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. The Chair of the German Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee Michael Roth has accused Azerbaijan of committing ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Azerbaijan blocks humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a violation of international law. Even if Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan, it doesn’t justify ethnic cleansings. The EU and US must state their positions clearly. Armenia must not become Russia’s prey,” the member of the Bundestag tweeted.

Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia and the rest of the world, has been blocked by Azerbaijan since late 2022. The Azerbaijani blockade constitutes a gross violation of the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh ceasefire agreement, which established that the 5km-wide Lachin Corridor shall be under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Furthermore, on February 22, 2023 the United Nations’ highest court – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – ordered Azerbaijan to “take all steps at its disposal” to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.  Azerbaijan has been ignoring the order ever since. Moreover, Azerbaijan then illegally installed a checkpoint on Lachin Corridor. The blockade has led to shortages of essential products such as food and medication. Azerbaijan has also cut off gas and power supply into Nagorno Karabakh, with officials warning that Baku seeks to commit ethnic cleansing against Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh. Hospitals have suspended normal operations and the Red Cross has been facilitating the medical evacuations of patients.

Day 6: Armenian humanitarian convoy for Nagorno-Karabakh remains blocked by Azerbaijan

Emil Lazarian

 17:18, 31 July 2023

YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. An Armenian humanitarian convoy carrying emergency food and medical aid to Nagorno-Karabakh remains blocked by Azerbaijan at the entrance of Lachin Corridor for the sixth day.

Armenia’s request to Azerbaijan to let the goods through and to Russian peacekeepers to help deliver it have gone unanswered, said Vardan Sargsyan, an Armenian government official and member of the Deputy Prime Ministerial task force for responding to the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The convoy of trucks is stuck in the same area, in Kornidzor village.

The Azerbaijani government continues its illegal blockade of Lachin Corridor and doesn’t let the humanitarian aid through despite multiple calls from different countries and organizations.

Reporters from the United States, Russia, China and Argentina have covered the situation, Sargsyan said.

The official said that reporters from all media outlets and agencies are free to visit the area for coverage.

“We can see a growing interest from international news agencies. A France Press [AFP] reporter was here yesterday and witnessed the situation on the ground. The article was then published by France Press,” Sargsyan said.

Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia and the rest of the world, has been blocked by Azerbaijan since late 2022. The Azerbaijani blockade constitutes a gross violation of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement, which established that the 5km-wide Lachin Corridor shall be under the control of Russian peacekeepers. Furthermore, on February 22, 2023 the United Nations’ highest court – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – ordered Azerbaijan to “take all steps at its disposal” to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.  Azerbaijan has been ignoring the order ever since. Moreover, Azerbaijan then illegally installed a checkpoint on Lachin Corridor. The blockade has led to shortages of essential products such as food and medication. Azerbaijan has also cut off gas and power supply into Nagorno-Karabakh, with officials warning that Baku seeks to commit ethnic cleansing against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Hospitals have suspended normal operations.

On July 26, Armenia sent a humanitarian convoy carrying emergency food and medication for Nagorno-Karabakh, but Azerbaijan blocked the trucks at the entrance of Lachin Corridor.

Armenians of Artsakh: An Indigenous Nation Targeted by Genocidal Regional Powers

Emil Lazarian
modern diplomacy
Aug 3 2023

Published

 20 hours ago 

on

 August 3, 2023

By

 Uzay Bulut

Since 12 December 2022, Azerbaijan and its ally, Turkey, have blockaded the Armenian Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in an attempt to possess the region by forcing the Armenians to flee their native land. This blockade of the 120,000 Armenian Christians is reaching a critical juncture. Food and medicine are running out, and starvation is beginning to set in. Currently, there is no fuel — which has led to a complete transportation shutdown. The Armenians of Artsakh are thus being forced into submission to Azerbaijan through a policy of starvation.

Luis Moreno Ocampo, the founding prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has called the ongoing Azeri blockade against Artsakh “Armenian genocide 2023.”

Azerbaijan has a long history of ethnic cleansing Artsakh’s indigenous Armenian population.

In 1988, in response to self-determination requests by Artsakh’s Armenians, Soviet Azerbaijan conducted massacres and pogroms. In 1991, in response to Artsakh’s declaration of independence, Azerbaijan launched a violent war which carpet bombed Artsakh and destroyed much of Artsakh’s infrastructure. In 2020, Azerbaijan launched yet another attack against Artsakh in an attempt to seize the region, committing further war crimes by indiscriminately bombing civilian zones.

All of this genocidal violence is taking place, costing tens of thousands of lives, because of Azerbaijan’s obsessed hatred of Armenians and their regressive desire to possess Armenian lands.

Artsakh is located in the northeastern part of the Armenian highlands in the South Caucasus. Since ancient times, it has been a province of historical Armenia. Artsakh has never been part of independent Azerbaijan.

The Armenian sovereignty in Artsakh is historic and therefore legitimate. It should have international recognition and support in the face of ongoing Azeri genocidal violence.

The history of Artsakh as an Armenian entity dates back to approximately the 6th century B.C. Armenian King Tigran Mets (Tigran the Great) attached great significance to Artsakh and built the town of Tigranakert there. Artsakh was ruled under various Armenian monarchs, and even under Persian rulers. Nevertheless, Artsakh has always preserved its Armenian identity.

In the early 4th century A.D., Christianity spread in Artsakh. The creation of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop Mashtots in the early 5th century led to a tremendous rise of culture in both Armenia and Artsakh. Mashtots also founded the first Armenian school in the monastery of Amaras in Artsakh — a testament to the fact that Artsakh is incredibly important and inseparable to Armenian cultural identity. Artsakh has thus been Armenian for millennia, yet it has been subject to an increase of Turkish and Azeri violence in recent decades.

Today, Azerbaijan falsely claims Artsakh as Azeri land chiefly because Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, as part of the Soviet strategy of divide and conquer, decreed that Artsakh be part of Soviet Azerbaijan as an autonomous oblast although Armenia, one of the world’s first Christian countries, is incompatible with Azerbaijan, a nation of which the population is largely Muslim.

Not only are the two nations culturally incompatible, but they also have two distinct systems of governance — Artsakh being a democratic republic, which has had numerous leaders, free and fair elections, and respects the human rights of their citizenry — while Azerbaijan has been led by the same dictatorial family for 30 years, and boasts a notorious human rights record, even against their own citizens.

For the next 70 years, Soviet Azerbaijan exposed Artsakh to severe ethno-religious discrimination and economic persecution. These policies sought the elimination of the indigenous Armenian Christian majority and substituting it with Azerbaijani Muslim settlers.

The years 1918-1920 saw the Artsakh movement increasingly striving for independence. During this period, Armenians of Artsakh gathered nine national congresses to gain international recognition as a free, independent political entity.

On 22 July 1918, for instance, the first congress was summoned in Shoushi and proclaimed Artsakh an independent administrative-territorial entity and elected its national council. After the gathering of the Congress, however, Soviet Azerbaijan tried to seize Artsakh with the help of Turkish armed forces. 

Every time Armenians in Artsakh took a step or made a request to fulfill their right to self-determination, Soviet Azerbaijan (with the help of the Ottoman Turks and later the Turkish Republic) responded with military force and violence. On 15 September 1918, for instance, the Turkish armed forces entered Baku and massacred around 30,000 Armenians.

Massacres, blockades and ultimatums have for decades been used as tools by Azeri forces to try to subjugate Armenians and force them to accept Azeri sovereignty.

The aspiration of the Armenians of Artsakh to realize their right to self-determination was met with Azerbaijani pogroms which saw the brutal murder of Armenians and the plundering of their properties.

The objective of these pogroms was to terrorize the Armenians of Artsakh, forcing them to flee or submit although they had lived there for centuries and formed and constantly protected their national sovereignty essential to Armenian history.

The first victims of Azerbaijan’s policy to suppress the will of the people of Artsakh were the Armenians of the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait located several hundred kilometers away from Artsakh.

The pogroms in Sumgait lasted from 27-29 February 1988 in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. They took place during the early stages of the Artsakh independence movement. On 27 February 1988, Azeri mobs killed Armenians in the streets and even in their apartments, looting Armenian properties. A general lack of concern from Azeri police officers allowed the violence to continue for three days.

The second wave of the Armenian pogroms in Azerbaijan started in November 1988. The largest ones occurred in Kirovabad, Shamakhi, Shamkir, and Mingachevir. During the same period, in November and December 1988, Armenians were also displaced from the mountainous regions of Artsakh: Khanlar, Dashkesan, Shamkhor, Getabek and Kirovabad.

The pogroms, mass murders, looting, destruction of property and persecution of the Armenian population in Soviet Azerbaijan culminated with the eventual displacement of Armenians from Baku in January 1990. The pogroms against the Armenians in Baku were the last phase of a bloody ethnic cleansing campaign against Armenians.

The pogroms resulted in hundreds of deaths and the forced displacement of over 500,000 Armenians from Soviet Azerbaijan.

All this genocidal violence against Armenians was further justification for the independence of autonomous Artsakh from Soviet Azeri oppression.

After decades of the Armenian defense of their self-rule, the dissolution of the Soviet Union finally allowed Artsakh to break away from Baku’s oppression in 1988. And in 1991, Artsakh was able to re-establish itself as a free republic.

The referendum on Artsakh’s independence took place on 10 December 1991. Even on the day of the Referendum, however, Azeri forces fired at Stepanakert, the capital of Artsakh, and other Armenian locations. 10 civilians were killed and 11 were wounded.

Despite all the pressure, the Armenians of Artsakh voted with near-unanimous consent to declare their independence from Azerbaijan through the 1991 referendum.

The people of Artsakh thus declared their independence in 1991, consistent with their rights under the Declaration of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States (1970) in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. This was further verified in the legal system: in the same year (1991), two legally equal republics – Artsakh and Azerbaijan – were established as a result of the dissolution of the USSR (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).

Although Artsakh declared independence in line with international law, Azerbaijan launched a full-blown conflict against Artsakh, which came to be known as the “First Artsakh War”.  During the war, Azerbaijan committed many war crimes and abused human rights, including through the bombing and blockading of cities. Azeri forces targeted civilian populations and recruited terrorists from Chechnya and Afghanistan.

The war ended in 1994 with a cease-fire brokered by the newly formed Russian Federation. The ceasefire ensured Artsakh’s de facto independence from Azerbaijan and initiated a multilateral conflict resolution process under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) ‘‘Minsk Group’’ co-chaired by Russia, the United States, and France.

The OSCE Minsk Group process determined to ensure a final resolution to the conflict based on the Helsinki Final Act (1975) principles of non-use of force, territorial integrity, and self-determination. Azerbaijan has never truly honored these principles.

Artsakh gained international recognition for the basis of its independence from many institutions, as well. On 11 May 1999, for instance, the European Parliament adopted a resolution which stated that Nagorno-Karabakh declared its independence immediately after similar declarations by Soviet Republics. 

However, Azeri violence against Armenians has never ended.

During the Four-Day War of in April 2016, in flagrant violation of the 1994 ceasefire agreement, Azerbaijan undertook a large-scale offensive against Artsakh, committing war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law against civilians and soldiers of Artsakh.

The Azerbaijani army shelled a school in Martuni region, as a result of which 12-year-old Vagharshak Grigoryan was killed and two children injured.

In the village of Talish of the Martakert Region, the Azerbaijani troops murdered an elderly Armenian couple and mutilated their bodies when the troops entered and took control over the village. The ears of these civilians were cut off.

According to the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Artsakh, the bodies of over twenty soldiers of the Artsakh Defense Army were also abused: their heads, wrists, fingers and ears were cut off. At least four Armenian soldiers were tortured while still alive. Posing with cut-off heads, the Azerbaijani soldiers demonstrated them to the residents of the nearby villages of Azerbaijan.

The State Commission on POWs [Prisoners of War], Hostages, and Missing Persons of Nagorno Karabakh announced that all bodies which were transferred to the Armenian side had been mutilated and treated inhumanely by the Azerbaijani side.

On 4 April 2016, it was reported that Azerbaijani forces decapitated a soldier from Artsakh of Yazidi origin, Kyaram Sloyan, 19. The video and pictures of his severed head later appeared on social networks. Azeri soldiers and civilians were shown holding Sloyan’s head as a military trophy and a sign of victory. The Azerbaijani officer who decapitated Sloyan then became a national hero in Azerbaijan, after that country’s president, Ilham Aliyev, awarded him a medal.

Later, reports appeared about two other beheaded soldiers of the Artsakh defense army. In all three cases, families later lodged an application before the European Court of Human Rights.

From 27 September to 10 November 2020, Artsakh was exposed to yet another genocidal assault at the hands of Azerbaijan and Turkey. The entire world watched while the aggressors committed many crimes and indiscriminately shelled the indigenous lands of Armenians.

Turkey also sent Azerbaijan mercenaries from Syria with known affiliations to Islamic radical groups. This was confirmed by a recent United Nations report, as well as by the testimonies of many Syrian mercenaries and reports by international media outlets.

Azerbaijani military forces perpetrated war crimes against Armenians. They murdered civilians, injured journalists and targeted homes, forests, hospitals, churches and cultural centers, among other non-military targets. They used white phosphorus and cluster munitions in violation of international law. At least 90,000 Armenians were forced to abandon their ancestral lands in Artsakh as a result.

The war finally halted after 45 days as a result of the Russia-brokered agreement imposed on Armenia.

However, Azeri military violence against Armenians has not ended.

Since December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan and its ally, Turkey, have blockaded Artsakh. Arman Tatoyan, the former Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia, noted that since January 9 there has been no electricity in Artsakh. Since March 21, there has been no gas and since June 15, no humanitarian aid (including food).

The decades-long Azeri genocidal violence against Armenians is caused by two factors: Their hatred against Armenians in particular and against Christianity in general. And in an attempt to wipe out Armenians from the region, Azeri and Turkish forces committed pogroms, massacres, blockades, starvation and the 1915 Armenian genocide.

A second Armenian genocide is happening as we speak. We can see this reality play out even more so in the last 7 months as every day the Azerbaijani regime has gotten bolder — more brutal. They started the blockade under the guise of a protest, then installed a military checkpoint, then cut off all humanitarian aid, and now they have begun kidnapping Armenians. Their actions have only escalated because their barbarism has gone without response — leaving them with impunity to continue unimpeded as they try to ethnically cleanse the Armenian population of Artsakh out of existence.

Western governments who are purportedly committed to stopping crimes against humanity should urgently cut off their military aid to Azerbaijan, sanction Azeri political leaders and airlift aid over the blockade, because showing “deep concern” and “urging” Azerbaijan to stop, has not slowed them down. In fact, in the absence of punitive measures, it has only emboldened them.

*Gev Iskajyan is the Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of Artsakh.

Uzay Bulut

Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara. Her writings have appeared in The Washington Times, The American Conservative, The Christian Post, The Jerusalem Post, and Al-Ahram Weekly. Her work focuses mainly on human rights, Turkish politics and history, religious minorities in the Middle East, and antisemitism.

https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/08/03/armenians-of-artsakh-an-indigenous-nation-targeted-by-genocidal-regional-powers/