Author: Hovhannisian John

Nagorno-Karabakh disappeared in 24 hours (and the West let it happen)

Hovhannisian John
Oct 24 2023

By Ana Bodevan, — 

A century after being dubbed the powder keg of Europe, another violent conflict exploded in the Balkans. For the third time in three decades, the tensions between Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, and the government in Baku escalated to war — this time, short, decisive and an utter defeat for Armenians. According to CNN, two weeks after the first attack was launched on Sept. 19, 2023, over 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled and were trying to cross the border to Armenia. To put in perspective, 120,000 people were estimated to live in the enclave. The de facto government of Nagorno-Karabakh has been dissolved, and the former separatist region will cease to exist as of Jan. 1, 2024. 

Nagorno-Karabakh, situated at the convergence of Europe and Asia, has been a historical cauldron for centuries. Its intricate past, oscillating between the Kingdom of Armenia, Arab and Persian dominion, and eventual subjugation by the Russian Empire in 1813, laid the groundwork for the modern conflict. The roots of the dispute between Armenians and Azerbaijanis can be traced back to the Russian Revolution, leading to a Soviet-mediated arrangement where Nagorno-Karabakh retained autonomy under Azerbaijan. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered a violent war, culminating in a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Despite sporadic conflicts, the region maintained precarious stability until a new, 44-day war in 2020, ending in an Azerbaijani victory.

The echoes of history were evident in this year’s offensive, justified by Baku as a strategic move to sever ties between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. The warning signs were already there: the closure of the Lachin Corridor by Azerbaijani forces in December 2022 damaged the region’s food system, resulting in a humanitarian disaster. After nine months of deprivation, the Azerbaijani authorities declared an anti-terrorist operation resulting in the displacement of 100,000 ethnic Armenians.  

The geopolitical landscape surrounding this conflict is intricate and multifaceted. This conflict’s geopolitical terrain is complex and multifaceted. Azerbaijan, empowered by Turkey’s support, received substantial military supplies. The countries respective presidents even met, with Turkey’s Erdogan congratulating Azerbaijan on the offensive. Armenia, which has had long-standing ties with Russia, has experienced turbulent relations as a result of recent geopolitical shifts toward Ukraine. Iran, which shares borders with both nations, is treading carefully, leaning toward Armenia in order to avert unrest among its sizeable Azerbaijani community. To further complicate the situation, Iran’s long-time enemy, Israel, is one of the main weapon suppliers to Azerbaijan. Finally, the United States is also pressured into taking a stance, not only because of a geopolitical perspective but also because of the significant Armenian diaspora in the country. 

The escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh in September exposes the shortcomings of Western attempts to establish robust European security in the South Caucasus. Despite theoretical endorsements of international legal principles and a model akin to Balkan conflict resolutions, the practical application has failed. The envisioned Minsk conference inclusive of Nagorno-Karabakh representatives never materialized, leaving the region in a diplomatic void. 

However, despite all these intricate dynamics and the escalating crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh, the West’s response has been disappointingly passive. While Western powers have professed theoretical support for international legal principles and conflict resolution models, the practical application has been sorely lacking. The much-anticipated Minsk conference, which was intended to include Nagorno-Karabakh representatives, never materialized. This left a diplomatic void, and Azerbaijan displayed little enthusiasm for meaningful negotiations. Russia, leveraging its position as the peacekeeping force after the 2020 war, emerged as the dominant external player.

It is crucial to reflect on the broader implications of this tragedy. The swift demise of Nagorno-Karabakh not only signifies the collapse of a longstanding conflict but also exposes the shortcomings of Western attempts to establish a secure European presence in the South Caucasus. The West’s inability to prevent or mitigate the crisis raises questions about the effectiveness of its diplomatic strategies and its commitment to principles of international law.

As the world grapples with the aftermath of Nagorno-Karabakh’s disappearance, the West must confront its shortcomings and reevaluate its approach to prevent such tragedies in the future. The lessons learned from this episode should serve as a catalyst for a more robust and proactive Western diplomatic engagement, with a focus on preventing conflicts and protecting vulnerable regions from becoming pawns in geopolitical games. The tragedy of Nagorno-Karabakh should not be just a historical footnote but a stark reminder of the need for a more vigilant and effective global diplomatic apparatus.

This article is a part of our Opinions section and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Gauntlet editorial board.

https://thegauntlet.ca/2023/10/24/nagorno-karabakh-disappeared-in-24-hours-and-the-west-let-it-happen/

Pashinyan assumes the Brussels meeting won’t take place as Aliyev hasn’t confirmed his participation

Hovhannisian John

 18:05,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 25, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan assumes that the meeting  expected to take place in Brussels in late October will not take place as the President of Azerbaijan has not confirmed his participation.
The Prime Minister said during the question-and-answer session with members of the government in the National Assembly.

''Such a meeting is planned. But now the fact is that it will not happen in October. I suppose the reason is that the President of Azerbaijan has not confirmed his participation in the meeting. But there are also working details, regarding which we will try to get clarifications from the European Union partners in the coming days and understand further actions," said Pashinyan.

Although Armenia already has answers to some questions, the Prime Minister didn't make hasty assessments.
 Armenia has expressed readiness to take part in that meeting.



New Armenian Ethnic Cleansing Is Bad for the World

Hovhannisian John
Oct 20 2023
Azerbaijan has conducted ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Sadly, the world has ignored this act of resolving a frozen conflict by force. This damages the rules-based international order, sets a damaging precedent and makes the world a more dangerous place.
BY TIMUR NERSESOV

We are currently living in the most multipolar and unstable period the world has seen since August 1914.  It took two world wars to undo the consequences of the last period. The rules-based international order as we know it today is being challenged, and for the first time in the 80 years since the end of World War II, wars are being fought that take no notice and don’t bother with the pretense of that order. The events that began unfolding in the countries of Azerbaijan and Armenia in September 2020 were the first unvarnished challenge to the legitimacy of that world order, and the Western world has not answered that challenge. 

While the history of the conflict goes back for centuries, its relevance for the West begins in 1994 following the collapse of the Soviet Union what is now known as the first Karabakh war ended in April 1994 with a negotiated ceasefire between the Azeris and the indigenous ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.  The ceasefire was followed by commitment from all parties to a mediated settlement under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mink Group. The terms of that ceasefire were to freeze the line of contact that would leave just under 20% of what was Soviet Azerbaijan’s territory under control of the local Armenians who were supported by the Republic of Armenia, pending a negotiated settlement on self-governance status, resettlement of refugees, and any exchange of territories.

Within the OSCE framework, Azerbaijan and Armenia along with three mediators composed of the United States, France, and Russia, proceeded to conduct many rounds of negotiations over the next 27 years. The lack of substantive progress led the conflict to take on the ominous status of a “frozen conflict”, with occasional clashes along the line of contact.  In September 2020 the situation changed.  On September 27,2020 Azerbaijan launched a war to retake Karabakh in what became known as the 44-day war or the second Karabakh war.  

Russia negotiated a ceasefire in November 2020, which was followed by nearly three years of clashes and blockades and an ineffective Russian peace-keeping mission. Azerbaijan justified the war as a resolution to the frozen conflict. It completed its conquest to take over Karabakh with a week-long campaign beginning on September 19 this year. At the conclusion of this crusade, Azerbaijan had established total control of the region of Karabakh and the expulsion of the entire Armenian population of 120,000 people.

The immediate consequence of the failure to respond to Azerbaijan’s rejection of its international commitments with the support of Turkey, a NATO member, and Israel, a NATO partner, have been earth shattering. First, it is the complete eviction of all 120,000 remaining Armenians in the region that has been populated by ethnic Armenians for more than two millennia. Azerbaijan committed an ethnic cleansing within essentially one week. The speed of the events was such that the Western powers did not have time to issue reactions through their bureaucratic processes before the ethnic cleansing was complete. 

Moreover, the very public support of a NATO state and NATO partner made any Western intervention a minefield.  With Turkish troops directly involved and Israeli weapons on the front line, both of those states had the power to block most any coordinated effort from Western powers to react.  For the first time, Western-aligned states were explicitly on the side of undermining an international conflict resolution process. 

The consequences of this profound failure to protect the rules-based international order will reverberate in generations to come. The September 2020 Azerbaijani military offensive against ethnic Armenians was executed summarily. Azerbaijan made no effort to seek international legitimation or had any concern that an international reaction would follow. The lack of Western response emboldened Russia to leverage the same pseudo-legalistic language used by Azerbaijan to legitimize its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

Russia did not drum up support for Armenians through the UN. It did not activate Russia’s own alliance structure under the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). This alliance of six post-Soviet states — Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan — formed in 2002 proved to be useless for Armenians. Russia did not even make a serious propaganda effort focused on the international community to identify a clear casus belli. In essence, Russia did not bother with a single step to legitimize its invasion. Even in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was done under the auspices of an intervention in a civil war, like the justification used by the United States for its engagement in Vietnam.

Every setback to the legitimacy of the institutions the West relies upon to provide peace and order increases danger.  The biggest danger is that state actors start bypassing the international system to pursue their goals.  Rules-based orders give us predictability. They create a sandbox, which limits the realm of the possible. If things cannot be confined within that sandbox, then we are increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). This VUCA world is dangerous in the age of nuclear weapons. 

The rise of VUCA at a time globalized economies upon which billions depend for food, water, fuel and basic goods, such unpredictability is frightening. The ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh is a humanitarian disaster. The fact that it has gone completely unopposed is a terrible precedent. Azerbaijan’s decision to wage war to resolve the frozen conflict sets an example for others that it will be nearly impossible to walk back without a unified front from the West. This precedent will continually be used to embolden the use of violence to resolve conflict, without regard to international norms and will make the entire world worse off in the process.

[The views expressed in this article are the authors and do not represent the views of the US Government or any company.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

https://www.fairobserver.com/world-news/new-armenian-ethnic-cleansing-is-bad-for-the-world/

Armenpress: Armenia Human Rights Defender, USAID delegation discuss NK forcibly displaced persons rights

Hovhannisian John

 21:28,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS. On October 19, Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia Ms. Anahit Manasyan received the delegation of Melissa Hooper, a lawyer and rule of law expert of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Welcoming the guests, Anahit Manasyan presented the issues related to the protection of the rights of people of Nagorno- Karabakh forcibly displaced  as a result of the Azerbaijani aggression, which were recorded as a result of the fact-finding activities.

"The Defender specifically referred to the policy of ethnic cleansing carried out against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as other cases of torture, mutilation, and ill-treatment by the Azerbaijani forces prohibited by the international law.

The Defender also presented the results of the fact-finding work carried out by her and her staff, emphasizing the need to guarantee the rights of forcibly displaced persons continuously.

In this context, the reports submitted by the Defender, through which the results of the monitoring are documented, were emphasized," the message reads.

Within the framework of the meeting, Anahit Manasyan referred to the problems of human rights protection caused by the border security of the Republic of Armenia, noting that the presence of the Azerbaijani armed forces in the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia is very worrying from the point of view of the protection and guarantee of human rights. 

Possible directions for expanding cooperation between the US Agency for International Development and the Institute of the Human Rights Defender were also discussed.

Blinken warned lawmakers Azerbaijan may invade Armenia in coming weeks

Hovhannisian John
POLITICO
Oct 13 2023


FOREIGN RELATIONS

He also said State isn’t planning to renew a long-standing waiver that allows the U.S. to provide military assistance to Baku.

By ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL and GABRIEL GAVIN

10/13/2023 04:31 PM EDT

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned a small group of lawmakers last week that his department is tracking the possibility that Azerbaijan could soon invade Armenia, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

The call indicates the depth of concern in the administration about Azerbaijan’s operations against a breakaway region in the west of the country and the possibility of the conflict spreading.

Azerbaijiani President Ilham Aliyev has previously called on Armenia to open a “corridor” along its southern border, linking mainland Azerbaijan to an exclave that borders Turkey and Iran. Aliyev has threatened to solve the issue “by force.”

In an Oct. 3 phone call, lawmakers pressed Blinken on possible measures against Aliyev in response to his country’s invasion of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in September, the people said, who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive call.

Blinken responded that the State Department was looking at avenues to hold Azerbaijan accountable and isn’t planning to renew a long-standing waiver that allows the U.S. to provide military assistance to Baku. He added that State saw a possibility that Azerbaijan would invade southern Armenia in the coming weeks.

Still, Blinken expressed confidence about ongoing diplomatic talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan to the Democratic lawmakers, among them Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Anna Eshoo of California, and Frank Pallone of New Jersey.

Two additional people confirmed that a briefing happened on the situation in Azerbaijan, but did not provide details.

In a statement, the State Department declined to comment on the call, but emphasized the department’s commitment to “Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and resolving conflict through “direct talks.”

The decision to hold off on renewing the waiver is also telling. Every year since since 2002, the U.S. has issued the waiver, allowing it to sidestep a provision of the Freedom Support Act that bars the U.S. from providing military assistance to Azerbaijan in light of its ongoing territorial disputes with Armenia. The waiver lapsed in June and State had previously provided no explanation as to why it hadn’t yet requested a renewal

Since the briefing, Pallone has said publicly that he’s worried Azerbaijan could invade soon. “Aliyev is moving forward with his objective to take Southern Armenia,” Pallone tweeted Wednesday, arguing that “his regime is emboldened after facing little consequences” for invading Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan’s military incursion into that region last month prompted more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh to flee. Local leaders capitulated as part of a Russia-brokered surrender and agreed to dissolve their three-decades-old unrecognized state. Azerbaijani forces have since detained more than a dozen ex-leaders.

In a Sept. 20 statement, Blinken said he was “deeply concerned by Azerbaijan’s military actions” and declared that “the use of force to resolve disputes is unacceptable.”

But Nagorno-Karabakh is not the only territorial dispute between the two Caucasus countries. Baku has proposed a route to the Nakhichevan exclave that would cut through Armenia’s southern Syunik region, known in Azerbaijani as Zangezur, and enable road traffic to bypass Iran.

Aliyev has said “we will be implementing the Zangezur Corridor, whether Armenia wants it or not.”

“In Armenia, this is perceived as territorial claims and a demand for an extraterritorial corridor,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Wednesday, in response to growing calls from Ankara and Baku to come to an agreement.

There have long been tensions at the border: In September 2022, Azerbaijan launched an assault across the border to capture strategic high ground in the east and south of Armenia. More recently, on Sept. 1 of this year, three Armenian servicemen were killed after Azerbaijan launched “retaliatory measures” in response to an alleged drone attack.

In an interview on Wednesday, Hikmet Hajiyev, Aliyev’s senior foreign policy adviser, denied Azerbaijan has any claims on Armenian territory. He said that the risk of conflict was low because “the last two weeks had been the calmest weeks in the history of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations — there are no longer soldiers in the trenches staring at one another” in the wake of actions in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Azerbaijan restored what legally, historically and morally was ours” with its self-described “anti-terror” campaign in the region, and has no intention of pushing into de jure Armenian areas, he added.

Eric Bazail-Eimil reported from Washington. Gabriel Gavin reported from Baku, Azerbaijan.


 

Aid agencies rush to support Nagorno-Karabakh refugees

Hovhannisian John
The Lancet
Oct 13 2023



  • Sharmila Devi
100 000 ethnic Armenians have been displaced after a military offensive by Azerbaijan. Sharmila Devi reports.
Aid agencies say that Armenia will face tremendous challenges in expanding health and other services for the more than 100 000 ethnic Armenians who fled a lightning offensive launched by Azerbaijan on Sept 19, and which recaptured the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
The refugees had previously suffered more than 9 months of blockade by Azerbaijan after it closed off the main road to Armenia from the enclave, called Artsakh by ethnic Armenians, few of whom appeared to be left there. Aid agencies are now rushing to help Armenian authorities, who vowed to look after the refugees.
Many of the refugees without relatives in Armenia were provided with temporary accommodation in hotels, hostels, and social centres. The Armenian Government also committed to giving each refugee a one-off cash payment of US$250 for emergency supplies such as blankets and medication, and subsequent payments of $140 per month for 6 months for rent and utilities.
“It's a difficult and unpredictable situation after the displacement and attack on Nagorno-Karabakh”, Iren Sargsyan, Senior Humanitarian Education Adviser for Save the Children, who is Armenian, told The Lancet. “I’m resilient and have worked in many emergencies but it's really difficult when you’ve relocated back and live here. The Armenian government and society are welcoming and supporting people as much as they can but they will need help in the long-term especially for housing and employment”, she said.
Urgent needs among the new arrivals, besides shelter, include treatment for chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. WHO said it was providing urgent medical support including medicines for non-communicable diseases to cover 3 months of treatment for up to 50 000 people. It also dispatched burn kits after the explosion of a fuel depot on Sept 25 on the route taken by the refugees to Armenia that killed at least 170 people and injured 200 more. WHO said it would also support the Armenian Government to integrate more than 300 doctors and 1200 nurses who had fled the Karabakh region as of Sept 30 into the Armenian health system.
“At the first major town the refugees are fleeing to [Goris], I saw an immense outpouring of solidarity from the local Armenian community and volunteers, who are doing all they can to provide food, water and shelter”, Robb Butler, Special Envoy for WHO's Regional Director, said in a statement on Oct 1. “But you see the despair on many of the faces of the displaced. They have left everything behind, their homes, their belongings, the graves of their loved ones.”
Among the refugees were an estimated 2070 pregnant women and almost 700 were expected to give birth over the next 3 months, said the UN Population Fund, the UN's sexual and reproductive health agency. 66% of refugees said they had not had enough food in the last 3 months during the blockade of Nagorno–Karabakh, whereas 45% said they had reduced either the number of meals or portion size, Ketevan Khashidze, Chief Executive Officer of Care Caucasus, part of Care International, told The Lancet.
“The influx of people was very sudden and at the start, there was only sporadic distribution of winter clothes and mattresses”, she said. “Given the overwhelming crisis, the government is now managing but support will be needed for the long-term, including for host families. We know from our experience in Georgia and elsewhere in the region that these crises have a very long-term effect.”
Armenia had registered almost 86 000 of the refugees as of Oct 3. It was not known exactly how many ethnic Armenians had remained in Nagorno–Karabakh, which had been de facto separate since it fought a war to secede from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. Azerbaijan retook much of the area in 2020. The International Committee of the Red Cross said the Karabakh town of Khankendi, known as Stepanakert among Armenians, was close to empty and that its priority was to find those “extremely vulnerable cases, elderly, mentally disabled people, the people left without anybody”, said Marco Succi, Head of Rapid Deployment of the International Committee of the Red Cross, in a statement. “The medical personnel have left. The water board authorities left. The director of the morgue…the stakeholders we were working with before, have also left. This scene is quite surreal”, he said.
Russia had peacekeepers in the region, but it refused to intervene when Azerbaijan launched its offensive in Nagorno–Karabakh. On Oct 3, the Armenian Parliament voted to join the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Western countries have pledged to support Armenia.
Published:

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02275-4

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02275-4/fulltext

How a community fought for survival amid Azerbaijan’s bombs

Hovhannisian John
Open Democracy
Oct 12 2023

Azerbaijan said Armenians left Nagorno-Karabakh of their own accord. The story of one village proves otherwise

Olivia KatrandjianSiranush Sargsyan
  • Trigger warning: Contains descriptions of violence and death

It was the afternoon of 19 September on a late-summer school day for Gurgen that the carnage erupted with sudden ferocity. The seven-year-old had just returned from classes when explosions sounded in Sarnaghbyur, his small village in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus, known to Armenians as Artsakh.

Azerbaijan, which had blockaded Nagorno-Karabakh for over nine months, starving the 120,000 ethnic Armenian inhabitants, had launched a massive assault across the region, which lies just east of Armenia proper, within the official borders of Azerbaijan. After 100,000 people fled the attack, MEPs in the European Parliament have said the attack amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Garik Aleksanyan, the mayor of Sarnaghbyur, attempted to control the situation and prevent panic in the village, directing residents to what he thought was a safe place behind a hill in the hope of escaping the shelling from Azerbaijani positions a few kilometres away.

“Three very large shells exploded, throwing the whole earth from under our feet into the air,” Gurgen said from his hospital bed in the regional capital of Stepanakert, 30km away from his village. Speaking to openDemocracy with the permission of his mother, he was eerily calm as he gestured to demonstrate the bomb blast.

Shrapnel cut into Gurgen’s hand, leg, and forehead. Other children around him were even more severely wounded. His aunt was dead.

“Rozig’s cheeks were pierced by shrapnel, and Ashot’s eyes were damaged,” he said, speaking of two other children. “Mikael’s throat was severely damaged, and the son of the village mayor’s son had shrapnel piercing through his nose. Auntie Gohar’s nose was severely injured by shrapnel, she passed away.”

Aleksanyan, the mayor, had walked away from the group to try and find phone service – the shelling was relentless, and the villagers had no way to escape. He needed to ask officials in Stepanakert to send immediate help. But the phone lines had been cut.

“By the time I returned, the villagers had been shelled again. I found my son there, bleeding,” said Aleksanyan, who also discovered his mother-in-law and father dead and his wife and daughter wounded.

After nine months under siege from Azerbaijan, which surrounds the enclave, no one but the mayor had enough fuel to drive to the hospital. So Aleksanyan gathered his 15-year-old son and the other wounded children into his car.

Though he was injured, Gurgen helped his younger siblings into the car. “I took my sister first, and then my brother,” he said proudly.

The mayor’s son’s condition was so critical that there was no time to reach the largest hospital in Stepanakert. Instead, Aleksanyan took him to the nearest hospital in the town of Askeran along the border with Azerbaijan, hoping his son could be treated quickly at the understaffed, rundown facility.

“They promised me they would operate on my son and bring him back,” Aleksanyan said.

Leaving his son at the Askeran hospital, Aleksanyan proceeded through incessant bombing, past fires and burned vehicles, to a far more well-equipped children’s hospital in Stepanakert, about 20km to the east, where he handed over the wounded.

“In that moment, I received the news that my son was no more,” Aleksanyan said in shock, his voice empty.

The methods used to attack Sarnaghbyur also played out in other villages across Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous territory that had operated as a self-governing entity since Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over the region in the early 1990s. Azerbaijan captured part of the territory in a 44-day war in 2020, after which Russian peacekeepers were deployed in the area. But that didn’t stop occasional attacks by Azerbaijan.

Since December 2022, Azerbaijan has blockaded what remained of the autonomous enclave, cutting off the supply of food, medicine, fuel, and basic necessities. That action, designed to starve the population into submission or flight, drew charges of genocide from an array of international experts and watchdog groups.

On 19 September, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s defence minister had said in a statement that this so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’ targeted “only legitimate military installations and infrastructure” “using high-precision weapons.”

But according to eyewitness accounts by residents and officials to openDemocracy, Azerbaijan’s military attack included indiscriminate shelling not only along the line of contact, but also residential neighbourhoods in Stepanakert, as well as towns and villages throughout Nagorno-Karabakh.

Within a day, Azerbaijani forces quickly overwhelmed local defences, killing over 200 people, including civilians.

A ceasefire was signed in which Azerbaijan agreed to stop the bombing if the local unrecognised government surrendered and disarmed. Days later, without the intervention of any outside powers, Nagorno-Karabakh president Samvel Shahramanyan was forced to sign a decree dissolving state institutions by the end of the year. “The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) ceases its existence,” the declaration read.

According to local officials, of the 76 residents of Sarnaghbyur village, five were killed, including three children, and 15 more were injured in the attacks. Half of the six children who attended the village's elementary school died. Four people were also captured, three of whom are women.

Thousands of forcibly displaced people spent over a week on the streets of Stepanakert, transforming the city into an open-air refugee camp, where people wandered in obscurity like ghosts, desperately seeking food, medical aid and warm clothing. Without fuel, trucks were not able to collect rubbish, and the streets reeked of rotting garbage.

Finally, on 24 September, Azerbaijan allowed the first group of refugees to enter Armenia, after they spent days camped outside Russian military bases. According to Armenian government officials, by 30 September, 100,417 forcibly displaced people – almost the entire population – had been evacuated to Armenia.

Aleksanyan was evacuated from Stepanakert to Goris, Armenia, with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), along with his wounded wife and daughter and the bodies of his mother-in-law, father and son.

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev has publicly promised to guarantee the rights and security of ethnic Armenians living in the region, claiming that those who fled did so of their own choosing. Yet international experts, including a former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, have said there is “reasonable basis to believe that a genocide is being committed” against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. Like many Karabakh Armenians, Gurgen said he desperately wants to return to his village, but cannot imagine living there safely under Azerbaijani rule.

After a 30-hour journey, Gurgen, his mother and four siblings, reached Goris as well, with only the clothes they were wearing when they fled the bombardment. As refugees, they have been given temporary housing at a hostel in a nearby town, having left behind everything in Sarnaghbyur.

AZERBAIJAN WAR ON ARMENIANS IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH FORCIBLY DISPLACED TENS OF THOUSANDS

Hovhannisian John
The Intercept
Oct 4 2023

Control over Nagorno-Karabakh sits at the center of a shifting geopolitical landscape and an emerging Cold War 2.0.

Intercepted

NEARLY THE ENTIRE population of 120,000 ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh has been forced to flee their homes after the latest Azerbaijani military assault, according to Armenian authorities and the U.N. This week on Intercepted, Maria Titizian, editor-in-chief of EVN Report, joins Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain to discuss the history leading up to the recent Azerbaijani offensive and mass exodus of civilians, the collapse of the Republic of Artsakh, and the emerging geopolitical alliances exploiting the protracted humanitarian crisis.

Transcript coming soon.

Listen to the report at https://theintercept.com/2023/10/04/intercepted-nagorno-karabakh-azerbaijan-armenians/

One of the world’s oldest Christian communities faces genocide. Where’s Biden?

Hovhannisian John
Washington Times
Sept 27 2023

By Billy Hallowell – – Wednesday, September 27, 2023

OPINION:

“One of the oldest Christian communities in the world is being destroyed.”.

It’s hard to imagine this dreadful truth unfolding in the 21st century, yet this is the situation happening right now in Nagorno-Karabakh, the small, landlocked region between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

“We are witnessing, in real time, the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh by the dictatorship of Azerbaijan and its partners,” Joel Veldkamp, head of international communications at persecution watchdog Christian Solidarity International, told me this week.

As I detailed earlier this year, Mr. Veldkamp and his organization have been at the forefront of the crisis, warning for months that a potential genocide was brewing and pleading with the West to take decisive action.

Tragically, the U.S. and other nations have, instead, aimlessly watched as Azerbaijan has steadily marched toward total dominance of a region that houses 120,000 ethnic and mostly Christian Armenians — a historic zone with some of the world’s oldest Christian churches and heritage.

In situations like these, there are defining moments along the way that set off alarm bells, but these clarion calls were left mostly unmet by a torpid international community. In December, one of those brazenly disturbing moments was Azerbaijan’s intentional blockage of the Lachin corridor, the only roadway connecting Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh.

This left Armenian residents in the region without food, resources, electricity, basic transport for surgery and other essentials. Residents, in-tune political leaders and human rights activists pleaded with the world to take notice, with relative silence reverberating.

That blockade culminated in a deadly attack last week, a forced decision by Nagorno-Karabakh to essentially dissolve its government, and a panicked quest by thousands of residents to collect everything they can take and flee the region they’ve called home for centuries.

“People are leaving not because they want to, but because Azerbaijan is refusing to let them return to their homes or to move past the siege lines, and refusing to guarantee their security,” Mr. Veldkamp explained. “These are de facto deportations.”

The horror of the situation for the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh is almost unimaginable. A woman named Nonna Poghosyan told CNN she and her family spent Monday assessing their home to see what could fit into suitcases as they prepared to flee.

“They cry for every toy,” she said of her 9-year-old twins, who must decide what to leave behind when they leave the home and life they’ve known.

A 70-year-old teacher named Vera Petrosyan told Reuters Tuesday she has seen shootings, hunger and horror amid the chaos.

“I left everything behind. I don’t know what is in store for me. I have nothing. I don’t want anything,” Ms. Petrosyan said. “I would not want anybody to see what I have seen.”

More than 200 people died in last week’s Azerbaijani offensive, leaving families with another horrific conundrum: how to honor the dead.

“Families who lost loved ones in Azerbaijan’s attack are facing horrendous choices – should they bury them in their homeland, where they will no longer be able to visit their graves after they are deported in the coming days, and where their graves might be desecrated by Azerbaijani forces, or should they try to have them brought to Armenia by refrigerated car for burial, at great expense?” Mr. Veldkamp asked. “The thousands of years’ worth of Armenian graves and churches in Nagorno-Karabakh, of course, cannot be safeguarded at all.”

His conclusion that “this is a dark day” cannot be emphasized enough. And yet where is the West? Why has the Biden administration been so painfully silent on the matter? It’s true officials are currently visiting Armenia, but critics note it’s essentially too little, too late.

Since December, the Lachin corridor has been blockaded, with the situation intensifying every day since its inception. Plus, previous battles in 2020 helped set the stage for the current crisis; those Azerbaijani assaults, too, yielded very little international reaction.

The U.S. has no doubt been slow to take action, failing, until now, to consider pausing military aid to Azerbaijan, among other viable actions. Some critics want the Biden administration to call out the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh for what it is: a genocide.

According to the United Nations, the word is defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The specific deeds include: causing mental harm or “serious bodily” injury, taking actions against a group to create “physical destruction in whole or in part,” making moves to stop or prevent births within the group, or moving children of the group to another group.

We can debate the definition of “genocide” all day long, but one uncomfortable truth remains: If the U.S. and other Western nations exhibited strong leadership, the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh wouldn’t have reached this fever pitch.

Bad actors take terrible action when they know the forces of good are distracted, uninterested or unwilling to stop them. And that’s the tragedy we face right now, with Mr. Veldkamp warning the threat to Armenia itself could be nowhere near over.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Azerbaijan on Sept. 25 and openly praised the incursion. Let’s remember it was the Ottoman Empire — the previous iteration of modern-day Turkey — that was responsible for the Armenian Genocide, a campaign of mass deportation and murder that killed up to 1 million Armenians. Turkey, a nation remiss to admit its past horrors, is now openly praising another horror directed at the Armenians.

The U.S. and other Western nations should have taken up the mantle of leadership months ago but failed to do so. Had this crisis been an opportunity to warn about climate change, host a lecture on some outlandish social issue very few people care about, or implement another vapid pet project, the world would certainly know every detail of what was unfolding.

Sadly, ignorance and confusion abound, and evil, as always, never wastes an opportunity.

• Billy Hallowell is a digital TV host and interviewer for Faithwire and CBN News and the co-host of CBN’s “Quick Start Podcast.” Mr. Hallowell is the author of four books.  

 

Henrikh Mkhitaryan joins countrymen in demanding release of Ruben Vardanyan, all other Armenians detained in Azerbaijan

Hovhannisian John

 12:01,

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS. Armenian football star, Inter Milan midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan has joined his countrymen in demanding safe release of Ruben Vardanyan and all other Armenians detained in Azerbaijan.

“I join my fellow Armenians in demanding the safe release of Ruben Vardanyan and all other Armenians detained in Azerbaijan. As tens of thousands of families are fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh for safe refuge to Armenia, detention is becoming an alarming trend.

“Ruben Vardanyan stands out as an outspoken advocate for peace not only in our region but in the world. He is a world known philanthropist, businessman and co-founder of the Aurora Prize humanitarian initiative which advocates for peacebuilding and provides people around the world with education and healthcare,” Mkhitaryan said in a statement on Facebook.

Vardanyan, the co-founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and former State Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), was arrested by Azeri border guards on September 27 while trying to leave Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia along with tens of thousands of forcibly displaced persons.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has warned that Ruben Vardanyan’s detention by Azerbaijani authorities poses a very high risk of torture and extrajudicial execution or a show trial.