Situation on front line calms down – Artsakh President’s spokesperson
00:20,
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. The situation on Artsakh-Azerbaijan contact line has calmed down, ARMENPRESS reports Vahram Poghosyan, spokesperson of Artsakh’s President, wrote on his Facebook page.
”The situation on the front line calmed down”, Poghosyan wrote.
Armenia, Azerbaijan agreed on a humanitarian ceasefire starting from October 18 midnight.
01:11,
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 18, ARMENPRESS. Spokesperson of the Defense Ministry of Armenia Shushan Stepanyan responded to the announcement of the spokesperson of the Azerbaijani foreign ministry Leyla Abdullayeva, who said that the ceasefire agreement reached on October 17 does not mean end of war. Speaking with ARMENPRESS over the announcement of Abdullayeva , Shushan Stepanyan said,
‘’That’s what we wanted to hear’’.
A while ago spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia Anna Naghdalyan emphasized that the Foreign Ministry of Armenia highly appreciates the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs and the direct involvement of the French President for the achievement of the humanitarian ceasefire of October 17.
”We proceed from the perception that this agreement brings into effect the Moscow joint statement of October 10, which established a ceasefire and emphasized the need to introduce ceasefire parameters. The ceasefire must be stable and verifiable”, reads the statement.
01:24,
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 18, ARMENPRESS. The situation on Artsakh-Azerbaijan contact line is calm. The humanitarian ceasefire has entered into force, spokesperson of the Defense Ministry of Armenia Shushan Stepanyan announced in her Telegram channel.
Armenia, Azerbaijan agreed on a humanitarian ceasefire starting from October 18 midnight.
Azerbaijan violates ceasefire agreement
03:29,
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 18, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan once again violated the ceasefire regime during the period of 00:04-02:45, firing from artillery and gunfire weapons in the northern direction of the contact line, and fired rockets in the period of 02:20-02:45 in the southern direction, ARMENPRESS reports spokesperson of MoD Armenia Shushan Stepanyan wrote on her Facebook page.
Armenia, Azerbaijan agreed on a humanitarian ceasefire starting from October 18 midnight.
Earlier, on October 10, Armenia and Azerbaijan reached a similiar agreement, but Azerbaijan started to violate the agreement immediately after it entered into force.
The U.S. should halt military assistance to Azerbaijan and put more pressure on Turkey to stop its interference in the conflict with Armenia over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia’s ambassador to the U.S. said in an interview with The Hill.
Varuzhan Nersesyan, Yerevan’s representative in Washington, was speaking ahead of a summit expected to take place this month with Armenia’s Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The meeting, while occurring amid the annual strategic dialogue between the U.S. and Armenia, is taking on new urgency over efforts to secure a ceasefire and calm weeks of fierce fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan that has killed dozens of civilians, injured hundreds more and displaced tens of thousands.
Nersesyan said preparations are being made for the foreign minister’s visit ahead of an official announcement expected by Armenia’s Foreign Ministry and the State Department.
“We’re working on the preparation of the foreign minister’s visit to Washington,” Nersesyan said.
The outbreak of fighting last month, the fiercest in decades with heavy military firepower on both sides, has drawn renewed international attention to the more than 30-year stalemate of negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which falls within sovereign Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic-Armenians.
Armenians view the territory, which they call Artsakh, as part of their historic homeland while Azerbaijan says the area is under an illegal military occupation.
The arrival of Armenia’s foreign minister in the U.S. could signal a greater push by the Trump administration to engage itself in mediation and peace efforts following the quick unraveling of an attempted ceasefire negotiated by Russia on Oct. 10.
The international community has largely regarded the U.S. as absent from efforts to calm tensions between both sides, with little public comment from President Trump on the weeks-long fighting.
Yet the U.S. – along with France and Russia – is a co-chair of the Minsk group, which is tasked with mediating a political settlement to the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and has urged both sides to abide by the ceasefire earlier mediated by Moscow as the group works to reach a negotiated political settlement.
The ambassador said he would welcome Trump taking a more active role as a mediator in the Southern Caucasus in implementing a ceasefire and called for the U.S. to exercise more pressure on Turkey, which has put its support behind Azerbaijan, to stay out of the conflict.
“Secretary Pompeo made a comment which we appreciate, where he says that Turkey reinforces Azerbaijan in this war,” said Nersesyan, referring to remarks by the secretary saying Ankara is “increasing the risk” of the fighting by providing firepower and resources to Baku.
“However at this stage, what is needed is a robust action, not only statements but concrete steps,” he added. “First of all, put pressure over Turkey to immediately stop its aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Bipartisan lawmakers in the House and Senate Democrats have condemned Azerbaijan and Turkey as instigating the outbreak of fighting that began on Sept. 27, and have called on the administration to halt military assistance to Baku and Ankara.
Yet the international community has withheld from assigning blame to either side and has reiterated calls for a de-escalation of tensions and a return to the negotiating table.
This includes support for a Russian-mediated humanitarian ceasefire that fell apart “as its ink was drying,” the International Crisis Group wrote in a statement about the ongoing fighting.
“Both sides have since struck towns and villages, with enormous damage to lives and livelihoods,” the group said.
At least 34 civilians have been killed in Nagorno-Karabakh, Reuters reported, citing the territory’s ombudsman, along with 633 casualties of the Artsakh Defense Forces. Azerbaijan, which doesn’t disclose its military deaths, has said at least 42 Azeri civilians were killed as a result of the fighting.
Accusations of atrocities on both sides have driven Armenia and Azerbaijan farther away from the negotiating table. Armenia views Azerbaijan’s aggression as an existential threat to a nation and a people who have suffered genocide and massacres perpetrated by Baku’s close ally Turkey.
Yet Azerbaijan has reiterated its calls for Armenia’s full military withdrawal and says it has the backing of a handful of United Nations Security Council Resolutions from the 1990s, passed at the height of the conflict.
And the country’s President Ilham Aliyev has promised to take full control of the territory and claims to have “liberated from the occupiers” about 40 settlements, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
Nersesyan warned that Turkey’s involvement in the conflict could trigger a wider regional global confrontation. Russia, while maintaining relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan, has a mutual defense pact with Yerevan. The conflict has added another layer of tension between Moscow and Ankara, which are on opposite sides of wars in Syria and Libya.
“What we are hoping and we are expecting is that the [U.S.] administration takes steps to stop Turkey,” Nersesyan said. “Otherwise this conflict can spiral out into a much larger and regional global confrontation. And that is not an exaggeration.”
Azerbaijan has taken issue with Russia’s alliance with Armenia and denounced Moscow’s military sales to Yerevan.
Azerbaijan denies that Turkey is militarily involved in the conflict and asserts that it only provides diplomatic and political support, Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the U.S., Elin Suleymanov, told The Hill.
Noting an expected visit by the Armenian Foreign Minister, Suleymanov welcomed the role of the U.S. as a negotiator, but emphasized that the Trump administration “should maintain its neutrality and impartiality … to be an honest broker.”
“Azerbaijan welcomes every opportunity for substantive peace talks based on the basic principles and U.N. Security Council Resolutions,” he said. “If there is such an opportunity in Washington, D.C., of course that is a very welcome move. I don’t have an official confirmation yet from Azerbaijan as well, but I believe that such an initiative will be welcome.”
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/521521-armenian-foreign-minister-to-travel-to-washington-amid-fierce-fighting-with?amp&fbclid=IwAR0BSiVNkuP3PEtOrTislI5_C1QKJBbWyiJ3OPZBv8gzdKvGpKgFcmRZKak
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — As violence reignites between Caucasus countries Armenia and Azerbaijan, a group in Las Vegas came together Friday to push for peace across the region.
The sound of sadness echoed for 7,000 miles, as dozens of Armenian-Americans grieved for their homeland.
“The silence of the world to us is deafening,” Lenna Hovanessian, Nevada Co-Chair of the Armenian National Committee of America said.
The situation stems from decades of tensions, as both countries fight over control of Nagorno-Karabakh. The region lies in Azerbaijan, but has been under the control of indigenous Armenians since the end of a separatist war in the mid 1990s.
“They are bombing civilians, churches and schools,” local Armenian advocate Ani Gullickson explained. “And they need to be held accountable.”
Hundreds have died since the latest outburst began at the end of September, but Armenian-Americans in Nevada don’t just worry about the thousands of others in danger. They are also concerned about the threat of history repeating itself.
“For our community it is reminiscent of the genocide, Armenian genocide of 1915,” Hovanessian explained. “Committed by the Ottoman Turks.”
This is why they are speaking out, asking local and national governments to intervene.
“We want our senators, our congressmen to affect policy change,” Hovanessian said. “The White House and the State Department to stop what’s going on.”
They added that they will use their passion and power here at home to inspire change a world away.
“We’re stronger than Turkey, we’re stronger than Azerbaijan,” Gullickson concluded. “And together we can take a stand.”
The St. Geragos Armenian Apostolic Church has raised $600,000, which will go towards humanitarian efforts in Armenia.
For more information on the Armenian National Committee of America, CLICK HERE.
Over the next year, we’re hoping to hear your stories about how race and ethnicity shape your life and, hopefully, publish as many of these stories as we can, so that we can all keep on talking. We’re calling this effort Race in LA. Click here for more information and details on how to participate.
By Carene Rose Mekertichyan
My father and his family immigrated to the United States in 1991, in the chaos of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the last major war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
If my father had been drafted before our family’s immmigration paperwork was finalized, I would not be here. By the same token, if Armenia had been in a state of prosperous peace at the time, my family may never have emigrated.
Family friend Sarik, Carene’s dad, Uncle Mher, and Grandtatik Nvart (great-grandmother) pictured in Armenia in the 1980s. (Courtesy Carene Mekertichyan)
My mom had moved to Los Angeles a few years prior from Chicago for a job opportunity. She met my dad when they were working at what is now the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City. As the old Armenian proverb says, “Chakatagrits ches karogh khusapel,” or “You cannot escape destiny.” So here I am, after the stars aligned, allowing my passage into this world.
I am a proud Angeleno. I grew up in Silverlake, back when it was vibrant and diverse. Before I started kindergarten, I could speak basic Armenian because I spent my days at my Tatik and Papik’s (grandparents) apartment while my parents were working. Once I started school, however, I lost the words I had known and my understanding of the Armenian language is still remedial at best.
Carene’s dad pictured at the Marriott in Century City, when he first started working there in 1992. He met Carene’s mother here, who is pictured here working in the PBX department. (Courtesy Carene Mekertichyan)
Here in L.A., I’m surrounded by the largest diasporic Armenian population and yet I’ve struggled to feel connected to this community in which I felt I wasn’t seen or wanted. I remember walking through the Glendale Galleria holding hands with my parents and seeing the stares from other Armenians as they turned to whisper with each other.
‘BUT I’M BOTH!’
This was not the case with the Black community. I remember my first day at Ivanhoe Elementary School, when my soon-to-be friend Aliya came over to me and said, “We are the Black girls. We have to stick together.” This unconditional acceptance has remained true throughout my life.
Carene with her friend, Aliya, at Ivanhoe Elementary in 2002. (Courtesy Carene Mekertichyan)
When we would visit my mom’s side of the family on the South Side of Chicago, my light skin resulted in some hurtful taunts. There were girls on the playground who said they didn’t want to play with a “vanilla ice cream girl.” My cousin Ayanna set them straight as I left the park crying. I was called everything from “yellow” to “Lite-Brite.” Family members would playfully joke about my last name, calling me “McKetchup” because they couldn’t handle the pronunciation.
All those otherizing experiences aside, I navigated Black spaces with an ease I still don’t feel anywhere else.
Both my parents ensured I understood the history and the suffering of my ancestors. I remember my mother sitting me down one day when I must have been five years old or so and explaining the history of slavery in the United States and our continued struggle for justice. While I don’t remember what sparked that conversation, I remember it knocked me right out of my California bubble. The idea of someone hating me because of my skin and features was foreign to me.
Carene with her cousins, Imani and Ayanna, in Chicago. (Courtesy Carene Mekertichyan)
I first became aware of my Blackness around the same age. My Armenian cousin said, “Even if you have just one little drop of Black, the people, like at your school, will only see you as Black.”
“But I’m both!” I remembered saying, upset because I had no understanding of the “one-drop rule.” Although he didn’t fully understand the implications of what he had said, it still hurt.
It has always been a strange paradox to acknowledge the fact that the United States, a nation built by Black slaves on stolen indigenous land, has given my Armenian family freedoms and opportunities they never could imagine under the Soviet Union. I accept this truth while also understanding this country is steeped in systemic white supremacy.
Even with my light-skinned privilege, I myself have been subjected to racial slurs, followed in stores, unjustifiably pulled over by the police and endured countless microaggressions. The dismissal of these disparities by some Armenians, who boast that our community is “self-made,” is inherently racist and feeds into the flawed “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality glorified by so many immigrant communities.
I believe it is hard for many Armenians to understand that they, too, benefit from white supremacy, despite our indigeneity, genocide and the uniqueness of ethnic SWANA identity.
LEGACY OF THE GENOCIDE
I don’t know when I first learned about the Armenian Genocide, as it was always a topic of coversation among my family. I just knew the “Turks killed a lot of Armenians.” I remember studying World War I in high school and feeling my heart skip a beat when I saw Armenia mentioned in my textbook.
I quickly deflated, reading the “massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces.” Our ethnicity, our Genocide, was just one sentence in my history textbook. As the years went on, I learned more about my own family’s survival and the atrocities that occurred, so I pushed for Genocide recognition by means of constituent letters, protests and organizing the first Armenian Genocide vigil in Dartmouth College’s history.
Carene’s great-grandfather Garegin, his wife Nvart (center) and his cousin Zaro, who also survived the Genocide, with (left to right) aunts Armik and Knarik and Tatik Anahit (Grandmother Anahit).
Now, before I explain the current conflict, it is critical that I provide the full historical context that so much of today’s journalism sorely lacks. The Ancient Kingdom of Armenia (Urartu) has existed since about 900 BCE. Armenia was the first nation in the world to adopt Christianity and the full scope of Ancient Armenia’s territory can be found on numerous maps. Over time, Armenia was conquered and ruled by the Ottoman Turks, Persians and Russians, losing territory in the process.
For Armenians, we don’t have to go very far back into our family trees for evidence of our historical displacement and genocide. My great-grandparents come from Van, Nakhichevan and Ghars, all Armenian regions that are now part of Turkey and Azerbaijan. While the Armenian Genocide is perhaps Turkey’s most well-known atrocity, in which it is estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed under the cover of WWI, it is important to understand the full scope of terror caused by the Ottoman Empire at the time.
These atrocities include: The Hakkari massacres (1843), The Massacre of Aleppo (1850), The Batak massacre (1876), The Hamidian massacres (1894), The Diyarbakır massacres (1895), The Adana massacre (1909), The Greek Genocide (1913), The Assyrian Genocide (1914) and the famine of Mount Lebanon (1915). I believe that it is this genocidal legacy that Turkish President Erdogan emulates in his own quest for a fascist pan-Turkic state.
Carene’s Grandtatik Nvart (great-grandmother Nvart) on the shores of the Black Sea in Batumi. (Courtesy Carene Mekertichyan)
I am the direct descendant of Armenian Genocide survivors. We were lucky enough to have my grandtatik Nvart with us until 2017 and she helped keep our family history alive. Her husband Garegin, my Tatik’s father, was born in Van and survived the genocide. Garegin didn’t say much about that time, but there are some details our family has remembered and carried with us.
When Garegin was 8 or 9, he was chased into a river along with his little brother by Turkish soldiers and survived by holding onto the tail of an ox to get across safely. The last he saw of his little brother, he was carried away by a Turkish officer on horseback. At some point, Garegin made his way to the Echmiadzin Church. At the church wall, he found what remained of his family. There is uncertainty as to who was left, but he did see his mother, father and at least one sister. Apparently, upon first seeing his mother, he went to get her food and when he returned she had died. His father and sister died soon after, all stricken with cholera. Before or after this encounter, Garegin was placed in an American orphanage in Jerusalem.
My papik’s mother Ashken Mayasyan, who also survived the genocide, never knew her true age. One story from the genocide that she recounted with my papik and his brothers shared during the genocide has stuck with me over the years. Her mother Tamar was nicknamed “Sirun Tamar” because she was known for her beauty. When Turkish soldiers came looking for her, she smeared her face with dirt, tattered her clothes and told them “They took her already and went that way.”
Carene’s grandpapik (great-grandfather), Garegin Aslanyan. (Courtesy Carene Mekertichyan)
At some point, Ashken lost her father, mother and two other siblings, but those details have never been discussed in my family. Ashken, her sister Arus and brother Gurgen ended up in an American orphanage in Gyumri.
They were lucky to have each other. At that time many surviving Armenian girls were converted to Islam and forced into sex slavery and marriages. Some were tattooed on their faces and hands as a mark of their ownership. It is this understanding of my family history and our shared intergenerational trauma that tethers my spirit to my ancestors and our Armenian community.
THE CONFLICT
Following the Russian Revolution in 1918, Armenia (along with many other countries at the time) established the first Republic of Armenia, which existed briefly before being incorporated into what would become the USSR in 1920. It was then that Azerbaijan formed a republic for the first time for their ethnic group descended primarily from Albanian and Turkic ancestry (undoubtably Armenian ancestry as well).
Between 1918 and 1920, the Azeris perpetrated massacres of Armenians in Baku and Shushi. These were the first of many pogroms to push ethnic Armenians out of the region. When what would be the USSR was formed in 1921, Joseph Stalin, at the time a high-ranking government official, gave Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) to Azerbaijan, despite its predominantly Armenian population, to appease Turkey and incentivize its allyship.
Carene’s Aunt Armik and Tatik Anahit (grandmother Anahit) pictured in the 1950s. (Courtesy Carene Mekertichyan)
In 1988, the people of Artsakh voted to reunite with the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. As a result, the pogrom of Sumgait occurred in which hundreds of Armenians were murdered. There were gang rapes of Armenian women in the streets. Azeri allies hid their Armenian neighbors as they waited to leave the town safely. This pogrom was well-documented by the Soviet government officials who escorted surviving Armenians to safety. There was another pogrom in Kirovabad that year and a well known pogrom in Baku in 1990 and Maragha in 1992.
These tensions escalated into the Artsakh Liberation War, or Nagorno-Karabakh War, which resul
ted in an estimated 30,000 deaths on both sides. Armenia won the war and a ceasefire was declared. Artsakh has remained an autonomous republic under de facto Armenian control within Azerbaijan since 1994. There have been numerous violent clashes since.
Azerbaijan destroyed Armenian churches, gravestones and khachkars in what has been called the worst cultural genocide in history. In 2004, Ramil Safarov, an Azerbaijani Army officer, murdered Armenian officer Gurgen Margayarian with an axe while Margayarian was sleeping. Both men had been sent to a NATO training program by their respective governments. In 2005, the Mayor of Baku, Hajibala Abutalibov, said the following to a municipal delegation from Bavaria, Germany: “Our goal is the complete elimination of Armenians. You, Nazis, already eliminated the Jews in the 1930s and ’40s, right? You should be able to understand us.”
In 2016 there was the brutal Four-Days War between Azerbaijan and Armenia in which there were cases of Armenian civilians executed and mutilated, like the remaining residents of Talish. A number of Armenian soldiers were also beheaded.
Carene’s Uncle Rafik, Grandtatik Ashken (great-grandmother Ashken), a friend and Papik Ruben Mekertichyan (grandfather). (Courtesy Carene Mekertichyan)
In July of this year, Azerbaijan bombed the Tavush region of Armenia, shelling a PPE factory, schools, and threatening to bomb Armenia’s nuclear power plant. This was a clear violation of the U.N. pandemic ceasefire which Armenia had signed but Azerbaijan had not. Since the attack on Tavush, the Azeri and Turkish governments have been stirring up anti-Armenian sentiments and there has been a spike in hate crimes across our diaspora. Thousands of Azeris protested in Baku, demanding war with Armenia.
A few days before the fighting began on Sept. 27, a number of Armenians were engaging in a ridiculous and hurtful debate online about Armenian identity. Some argued that marrying and having children with non-Armenians will lead to the loss of our culture and identity.
Having to argue the validity of my existence was frustrating, but I found that most people engaging in the discussion were overwhelmingly supportive of multiracial Armenians. We carry our ancestors in our souls; no amount of cultural gatekeeping and adherence to “blood quantum” can ever take that away from us. Whenever Armenia is under attack, we stand united, no matter what our differences are. It is my sincere wish that this unity remains once we make it through this crisis.
Carene, age 4, dancing tash-toosh at her family friend’s Armenian-Mexican wedding. (Courtesy Carene Mekertichyan)
We see this genocidal war on Artsakh as an existential threat to the Armenian diaspora. Armenians have been indigenous to Artsakh for thousands of years and had no incentive to start a war over the small bit of land we already have. Why would Armenia, a nation of 3 million, start a war with Azerbaijan, a nation of 10 million, backed by Turkey, a nation of 85 million? President Erdogan of Turkey has cited Adolf Hitler’s Germany as an effective government and stated he planned to “fulfill the mission our grandfathers have carried out for centuries,” alluding to the Armenian Genocide.
Azerbaijan and Turkey had been holding military exercises on Armenia’s border as a means of intimidation since August; the conflict that was sparked on Sept. 27 should’ve come as no surprise to anyone paying attention. The Turkish government has paid and misled mercenaries from Syria who are being pushed to the front lines and are losing their lives. There are reports of refugees and jihadist rebels being conscripted into a fight that is not theirs, many of whom have requested to return home.
WHY WE ARE PROTESTING
The way Western media has been reporting this crisis is dangerous because there is no neutrality here. The focus of Azerbaijan and Turkey’s strikes has been civilian territory with the goal of exterminating as many Armenians as possible. They have targeted Armenia proper by shelling Vardenis and Artsvanik. They have shelled our iconic Ghazanchetsots Cathedral twice, killing civilians and injuring reporters. This conflict is bigger than Azerbaijan, with foreign superpowers involved on all sides. In addition to military support from Turkey, Israel supplies about 60% of Azerbaijan’s weapons. The Azeri military is currently using Israeli kamikaze drones to strike Armenia. Russia brokered a ceasefire for the purpose of recovering bodies that was immediately violated.
As those of us in the Armenian diaspora continue to collect donations and protest, we are also engaged in an information war on social media. Azerbaijan’s troll farm was recently exposed and the Azeri government continues to ban social media and foreign journalists from the region while questioning and arresting citizens who are calling for peace. The government of Azerbaijan has a well documented history of money laundering and lobbying of journalists. A number of celebrities who have come out in support of Armenia have also been bullied into silence by Azeri bots.
Armenians are shutting down your freeways and marching in your streets because we want your attention. We want as much coverage and visibility as possible. We know what happens when governments choose neutrality over people and we refuse to allow this attempt at ethnic cleansing to go unnoticed.
Family dinner with Carene’s Granny Rose on a visit from Chicago. (Courtesy Carene Mekertichyan)
Now, it doesn’t come as a surprise to me that people have no interest in engaging with what is happening in Armenia. The conflict seems distant, confusing, and it’s so much easier to focus on the election and pandemic instead.
When the movement for Black lives was reignited in June following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, I was amazed at the sheer number of “allies” who emerged among friends and communities that had stayed silent for so long.
I attended my first Black Lives Matter protest in 2014 after the killing of Michael Brown and, in the years since, we have lost and continue to lose countless Black lives to law enforcement and lynching. It hurt to see this sudden mobilization of allies because I understood that you all had the ability to fight alongside us this entire time, yet you chose the comfort of your privilege instead.
Whether it’s a selfie at a protest, an empty Black square or the continued meme-ification of Breonna Taylor, these actions are meaningless without substantive direct action to back them up. Performative activism is useless and oftentimes harmful. It is safe to say that this spike in activism we saw at the start of the summer has died down and people are returning to their natural state of apathy and privileged ignorance.
I am here to tell you that it is possible and necessary to care about more than one issue at a time. Your taxpayer dollars are funding Azerbaijan and President Trump has business interests in both Turkey and Azerbaijan, so this is your fight as well.
Just as I called on the Armenian community to stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, I am now pleading with everyone who takes the time to read this to fight for your Armenian friends while we are still here. At least 100,000 of your fellow Angelenos marched in the streets this past weekend demanding you listen to us. Like all Armenians, I had been a mess since the attack; alternating between frantic action and catatonic anxiety. It filled my spirit to see Black, Assyrian, Filipino and Mexican allies standing with us in solidarity. It is my sincere hope that you, my fellow Angelenos, join us in condemning this continued attempt to erase Armenians from this earth.
The Armenian diaspora is so vast, rich and diverse, in spite of the loss of much of our indigenous land and our continued struggle for survival. Like Garegin and Ashken, we persevere and thrive in the face of adversity. I always say that, as a Black Armenian woman, I am the proud legacy of two failed genocides. The failure of these genocides is dependent on our commitment to speaking truth and ensuring history doesn’t repeat itself. Our existence is resistance and we aren’t going anywhere.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Carene Mekertichyan is an actress, writer, singer, educator and proud Angelena. As a Black Armenian woman, she is drawn to storytelling that centers marginalized narratives and firmly believes that true art exists to create empathy and social change. Her identity and upbringing in Los Angeles informs both her art and intersectional activism. She serves as the Artistic Associate for Social Justice at Independent Shakespeare Co. and is also a teaching artist currently working with the Unusual Suspects and Creative Acts. She has most recently performed with Independent Shakespeare Co, Rogue Artists Ensemble, Palos Verdes Performing Arts, Hero Theatre and at the Getty Villa. Her plays have been produced by Company of Angels, MeetCute LA, Sacred Fools’ “We the People Theater Action,” and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She received her training from Dartmouth College and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).
On September 27, a century-old conflict reignited when Armenia’s Muslim-majority neighbor, Azerbaijan, launched an unprovoked military incursion into the ethnic, indigenous-Armenian populated enclave of Artsakh — better known by its Russian-Persian name of Nagorno-Karabakh. The coordinated attack, involving artillery and aerial strikes, targeted civilian settlements, placing the region’s capital Stepanakert in its crosshairs.
According to the latest report from the Defense Ministry of Artsakh, Armenia’s death toll continues to clime, exceeding 604 people. Azerbaijan has not reported on its casualties.
Shortly after the attack began, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey announced his full support of Azerbaijan and their campaign to conquer ethnic Armenian territory, calling for Armenia to withdraw from the disputed region.
Erdogan’s support for Azerbaijan’s attack goes beyond vocal enthusiasm. Since the fighting began, Turkey has armed and deployed Syrian mercenaries — including Islamic terrorists, actions which were confirmed by Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad. The Turkish state have denied such involvement, despite further photographic evidence of Turkey supplying Azerbaijan’s air force with F-16 Viper fighter jets.
In an interview with one Turkish news channel, Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliyev praised Turkish drone technology, stating, “Thanks to advanced Turkish drones owned by the Azerbaijan military, our casualties on the front shrunk… these drones show Turkey’s strength. It also empowers us.”
In order to better understand this eruption of violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and why it may present an existential threat for Armenia itself, it is important to understand the wider history of this conflict.
The origins of the Armenia-Azerbaijani conflict over Artsakh are rooted in Soviet history, tracing back to the dissolution of the Russian Monarchy in 1917. Shortly after the Bolshevik uprising that ousted the Tsar, Armenia and its neighbors in the Caucasus region – all of whom were previously part of the vast Russian Empire – attained collective independence as a single South Caucus state known as the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (TDFR). Due to inevitable internal conflicts, however, such independence was short-lived, with the TDFR soon divided into the Democratic Republic of Georgia, the Democratic Republic of Armenia, and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
Between 1918 and 1920, three historically Armenian regions in this area (which had also become home to large Turk populations following nomadic Turkic conquests of the Armenian homeland) — Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), Nakhichevan, and Zangezur — became battlegrounds in Armenia’s attempt to regain parts of its ancestral homeland from Azerbaijan’s expansionist grip.
In 1920, the Soviet Union shuffled the regional map yet again. Zangezur remained within Soviet Armenia, while Nakhichevan and Nagorno-Karabakh were placed under Soviet Azerbaijan as “autonomous oblasts.” Some say that this was part of Joseph Stalin’s divide and conquer strategy. However, other scholars claim that the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan to Soviet Azerbaijan recognized the political realities of the day. Turkey had committed the Armenian Genocide and were determined to further weaken what was left of Armenia, and were lobbying the Soviets for generosity in favor of a nation which shared with Turkey a common ethnicity and language, Azerbaijan. Then again, others say that the Soviets favored Azerbaijan’s oil reserves over Armenians’ ancient presence and rich history in the South Caucasus.
Over the next few decades, skirmishes between the Soviet states of Armenia and Azerbaijan stalled, shuddering to a standstill under Soviet rule. However, as the Iron Curtain began to decay in the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, the once frozen dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh began to thaw.
Fearing the fate of Nakhichevan’s Armenian residents — who, under aggressive Azeri rule, had been ethnically cleansed from their indigenous Christian-Armenian homeland — Nagorno-Karabakh pursued confederacy with Soviet Armenia in 1988. However, under Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s rigid policies, the region descended into chaos as war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
When the Soviet Union collapsed just three years later, Armenia and Azerbaijan emerged as newly independent states, with tensions rapidly escalating. Armenia-backed Nagorno-Karabakh (which the native Armenian inhabitants call Artsakh) faced an Azerbaijan aided by mercenaries and volunteers from its Muslim-majority compatriots, Afghanistan and Chechnya, and heavily supported by Turkey, which some believe had a plan of attacking Armenia in 1993.
After the death of tens of thousands of people, and the displacement of many more, Russia successfully mediated a cease-fire in May of 1994. Armenians miraculously won the war, with Artsakh becoming a de-facto republic while also gaining a large “buffer zone” territory which was not part of its Soviet boundaries.
A victim of its geography, Armenia remains nestled between, at best, apathetic neighbors to the North and South: Georgia, who even today refuse to support Armenia against the onslaught of Azeri aggression out of fear for its own sovereignty; and Iran: the Shia-Muslim theocracy which would be hard-pressed to rally behind a Christian nation against another Shia-Muslim state. To its East and West, Armenia lies sandwiched between enemies: Turkey — the nation directly responsible for carrying out a genocide against the Armenian people in 1915 — and Azerbaijan — a nation of indigenous Turks with the same genocidal ambitions.
Except for an unsuccessful attempt by Azerbaijan to enter the region in 2016, a nominal truce between Armenia and the Azeris had remained stable for decades — until now.
Despite fervent pleas from world powers in support of de-escalation or a cease-fire, Azerbaijan, with Turkey’s support and ardor, has been relentlessly pursuing their military campaign against Artsakh, and by extension, Armenia.
Turkey and Azerbaijan are waging their campaign against Artsakh and Armenia on two fronts. On one front, they attack Armenia militarily, seeking to destroy its people and raze its cities. On the second front, they seek to undermine and delegitimize the plight of the Armenian people through the dissemination of propaganda. While censoring social media within their own borders, Azerbaijan blurs reality, attempting to paint itself as a feeble victim against some supposed Armenian aggression. Funneling money and influence into the Western world, Azerbaijan and Turkey have succeeded in silencing celebrities such as Sir Elton John and Cardi B, both of whom had initially voiced their support for the Armenian people on social media, but later succumbed to surmounting pressure from Azerbaijan and withdrew their statements.
While reams of Turkish propaganda flood social media with misinformation, certain truths cannot be refuted. The indigenously Armenian enclave of Artsakh, with a population of just 150,000 and the Christian, democratic state of Armenia, with a population dwarfed by its diaspora, is outmanned and outgunned by the oil-rich and militarily advanced forces of Turkey and Azerbaijan, with a net population of over 100 million. It is an existential crisis for Armenia: one people descended from the survivors and victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide is facing annihilation at the hands of a people descended from the very perpetrators of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
Delivering a speech on the eve of the Second World War and the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler ruminated on the forgotten genocide of the Armenian people, invoking their neglected ruin under the fog of war before embarking on his own campaign of mass-slaughter. It is precisely because history callously forgot the Armenians that today, as the prospect of yet another genocide threatens Armenia, Turkey and their Azerbaijani proxy similarly ponder, “Who, after all, today speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
Harry Khachatrian is a Canadian computer engineer and a contributor at The Daily Wire. Find him on Twitter.
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As clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces continued for the third week, young men rode through the streets of Beirut’s largely Armenian Bourj Hammoud neighborhood waving Armenian flags. More than 7,000 miles away, Armenian Americans blocked roads and highways in Los Angeles; organized shipments of money, medicine, and food; and demanded action from the U.S. government. For the estimated 7 million Armenians flung to far corners of the globe, the latest conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is a nearly unprecedented impetus to mobilize and unify—with reports of young Armenians even going back to an ancestral homeland few have ever seen to do battle.
“Around the world, when there is war, people flee the country,” said Krikor Artenian, a Lebanese Armenian resident of Bourj Hammoud. “But not Armenians. Armenians from all around the world have flooded into Armenia and Artsakh,” he said, using the term that millions of Armenians employ for the enclave that is legally part of Azerbaijan but mostly inhabited by and governed by ethnic Armenians.
The conflict over the breakaway region has been simmering for years, with the last big outbreak of violence before the current fighting claiming some 30,000 lives in the early 1990s. Since hostilities erupted in late September, Armenia and Azerbaijan have ramped up military pressure on each other and blown up a tentative cease-fire. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described it as a “powder keg of a situation.”
For many Armenians living in Lebanon, the conflict hits close to home, even if Armenia proper never was theirs. Most Armenians in Lebanon are descendants of the up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians inside the Ottoman Empire who were killed or forced to flee during World War I by Ottoman forces. Many fled into Syria’s eastern deserts or to Aleppo; others continued on to Lebanon, ending up in a refugee camp outside Beirut. A century later, that camp is now the densely populated, heavily Armenian neighborhood of Bourj Hammoud.
There, Armenian flags fly next to anti-Turkish graffiti; now, walls are spray-painted with “Azerbaijan is guilty” as the intensifying conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh occupies public attention. People, mostly chatting in Armenian with a bit of Arabic, gather to watch the latest news on the fighting on television; shopkeepers listen to patriotic Armenian songs. There are signs in Armenian, schools that teach in Armenian, and Armenian churches, too, and a deep collective memory of their historical trauma.
For all the differences among the Armenian diaspora—some are descendants of that first exodus, others from Soviet or even post-Soviet conflicts, each with different histories and relationships with modern-day Armenia—the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is mobilizing and unifying them in unprecedented ways. Across Europe, ethnic Armenians have also blocked highways and protested in capitals, many demanding recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as sovereign Artsakh.
“These differences are very clear during peacetime,” said Armenak Tokmajyan, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center. “Today, we don’t see these divisions. We see unity and mobilization.” Turkey’s role, as a major military backer of Azerbaijan, is reopening historical wounds, he said.
“It invokes certain memories, particularly for old-diaspora Armenians,” he said.
That sentiment is being translated into donations of money and aid—and plenty of talk, though less action, among young Armenians about going to fight for their country.
“Our people either give food, money, or their blood to the fight,” said Artenian, who is in his 60s and has never been to Armenia but says he’s willing to die for it.
One high-profile Armenian who’s willing to give money is Kim Kardashian West, who contributed $1 million. She’s not alone: the Hayastan All Armenian Fund, which offers the diaspora the chance to contribute in dollars, euros, rubles, or Armenian dram, has raised $126 million raised so far.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the brave men, women, and children,” said Kardashian in a video message to her 190 million Instagram followers. “I want everyone to remember that despite the distance that separates us, we are not limited by borders. We are one global Armenian nation together.”
Like Kardashian West, other Armenians in Los Angeles are rallying to the cause. Armenian Americans in southern California have sent heavy-duty generators, food, medicine, and volunteers, including ethnic Armenian doctors and nurses who traveled to Nagorno-Karabakh, said Sevak Khatchadorian, the chairman of the Armenian Council of America. (Not all the shipments are apparently arriving: Armenia complained this week that Turkey blocked the flight of one shipment of aid from Los Angeles.)
For Armenian Americans like Khatchadorian, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is a key political issue just weeks ahead of this year’s presidential election. The mayor of Los Angeles this month issued a statement supporting Armenia in the fight—a strange foray for a municipal official. Meanwhile, the United States has increased over the past two years its security funding for Azerbaijan by $100 million.
“It’s definitely a voting issue for us,” Khatchadorian said. “The Azeri government might be using my U.S. tax dollars to attack Armenians.” He calls what he sees as the Trump administration’s support for Azerbaijan “unforgivable.” The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate both passed resolutions recognizing the Armenian genocide between 1915 and 1923—but President Donald Trump, fearing a backlash from Turkey, has refused to sign it.
This week, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden weighed in as well, taking both countries and Turkey to task for their role in spreading the conflict. Khatchadorian says Biden’s position is better than Trump’s position but not enough.
But for all the boisterous talk and generous aid, one thing that few Armenians seem to be doing is going to the front lines to fight, unlike some of Turkey’s proxies. Some Lebanese say they have friends on the ground, but it’s hard to confirm. Artenian, sitting in a narrow alleyway of Bourj Hammoud, calls a friend he says is in the fighting. A photo of a man in fatigues pops up on the phone, but no one speaks on the other end. “They told him he’s not allowed,” Artenian said cryptically, putting away the phone.
Unlike the conflict in the early 1990s, Armenia doesn’t need foreign volunteers this time, even if seemingly every young man in Bourj Hammoud says they want to join the fight. Thirty years ago, Armenia’s military was less professional, while Lebanon was coming off years of civil war. Today, the fight is a high-tech war with drones and advanced battle tanks, leaving little room for volunteers.
“Regardless of how much you love this land and how much trauma you have, you can’t operate this equipment,” said Tokmajyan, the Carnegie expert.
But in a war that hinges just as much on the battle of international image, Armenia’s diaspora seems to give it an edge. Whether it’s Kardashian West and her fellow Armenian Americans in California or Lebanese Armenians lobbying their government and calling for cyberattacks on Azerbaijan, the usually well-off and well-educated diaspora is a strategic asset.
“This time, there is a feeling our main resource is not a country,” Tokmajyan said. “The main resource is the diaspora.”
Hassan Harfoush contributed reporting for this story.