Category: 2023

More than 100,000 Armenians have been displaced from the region Nagorno-Karabakh.

Finland has sent an aid shipment destined for Armenia, according to the Finnish interior ministry.

Last month, Azerbaijan regained control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that had been under control of the majority ethnic Armenian population for the past three decades.

The situation prompted more than 100,000 Armenians to flee the region. Armenia has since requested assistance through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.

"The request for assistance includes necessities for young children aged 0 to 4, starting from beds, clothes and diapers. We deliver maternity packs and ready-made meals to meet the request for assistance," said Heikki Honkanen, Senior Coordinator at the Ministry of the Interior.

The ministry said the aid package had already left Finland and will arrive in Armenia next week. Austria is organising air transport for the aid shipment.

Well over a dozen European countries have also offered aid to Armenia, in addition to Finland and Austria.

Yerevan, Armenia, —  A month since the escalation of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh which forced almost the entire ethnic Armenian population to flee, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) calls on the sustained support for the over 100,000 displaced. According to reports, as few as 50 to 1,000 ethnic Armenians are now left in the region. Armenia, a nation with a population of 2.8 million and over 25% poverty rate, could encounter substantial difficulties in meeting the needs of the displaced individuals as winter approaches.

After meeting with displaced Armenians and local NGOs in Goris and Yerevan, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) will support four local partners in distributing essential winter items and ensuring the safety of women and girls. 

Kathryn Sokol, IRC’s Emergency Unit, said:
“Tens of thousands of people who fled Nagorno-Karabakh are currently being hosted in Armenian homes and collective shelters. The efforts from the government, local civil society, and neighbours has been astounding, but the displaced population will still need support to meet their immediate needs in the coming months.

“Most people fled very quickly, leaving everything behind. As the temperatures start to plummet, they now urgently need warm clothes for their children, bedding, means to heat their homes and to cook. Having experienced the emotional trauma of sudden displacement, they also require support to recover from the impact of the conflict.

“During our visit, we encountered a family of six staying in a rented apartment, relying on a single small electric heater that was insufficient to warm even one room in mid-October. In another shelter, seven people shared a single room equipped with only three twin-sized beds. The facility had only two showers and toilets to accommodate nearly seventy people, illustrative of the challenging living conditions faced by the displaced population.”

The IRC is working with the OxYGen Foundation for Protection of Youth and Women Rights, Women’s Resource Center, Partnership and Teaching Non-Governmental Organization and WINNET Goris Development Foundationto meet the needs of 1,700 people who have fled, providing people in need with blankets, warm clothes, heaters, and bedding to ensure they can keep warm, as well as creating safe spaces for women in collective shelters. Our partners will also distribute dignity kits and offer initial psychological and legal assistance.

Representatives of United Nations agencies based in Azerbaijan, acting on instructions from that government, hopped into their four-wheel drives on Oct. 1 and proceeded from Baku, the capital, to Stepanakert/Khandendi, the capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh region known to Armenians as Artsakh. They were joined by a senior official from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

The UN team was also accompanied by Azerbaijani government handlers who were meant to ensure that the UN personnel strictly adhered to the protocols agreed for the mission on where it could go, with whom it could speak and similar matters.

By the time the mission left for Nagorno-Karabakh, virtually all of the enclave’s estimated 120,000 ethnic Armenian population had fled to neighboring Armenia. The largest forced population displacement in the post-Soviet South Caucasus region came on the heels of Azerbaijan’s full-scale assault on the area on Sept. 19. The offensive was preceded by a nine-month blockade of the region through the Lachin Corridor, cutting its access to vital supplies, including food and medication. The restrictions were also accompanied by the severance of gas and electricity and frequent sniper shootings of farmers working their fields and bombings of towns.

On Oct. 1, the UN team arrived in a Stepanakert that had been nearly emptied, with the central square littered with the belongings of people who escaped for their lives. Television reports showed the eerie silence of a once-thriving city, now inhabited only by roaming packs of shell-shocked dogs and horses.

The following day, in a most efficient manner by UN standards, the team issued its assessment mission report. It may as well have been written by the Azerbaijani government officials who had laid out the terms of the visit. In essence, it was. Its author, a national communications officer working for the UN resident coordinator’s office in Baku, formerly worked for Azerbaijan’s state broadcaster, ATV.

While the author and his photo were initially featured in the report, they have since been removed from the UN Azerbaijan website. Posting the report on the social media platform X (Twitter), the UN in Azerbaijan promptly tagged Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its permanent mission to the UN in New York City and Hikmat Hajiyev, an assistant to the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, whose X handle says that a repost is an “endorsement.” No Armenian government officials were tagged.

It is not surprising that the short UN assessment mission wrote: “In parts of the city that the team visited, they saw no damage to civilian public infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and housing, or to cultural and religious structures.”

Although the report noted that “the team heard from interlocutors that between 50 and 1,000 ethnic Armenians remain in the Karabakh region,” this did not stop it from concluding that “the mission did not come across any reports . . . of incidences of violence against civilians following the latest ceasefire.”

Although “the mission was struck by the sudden manner in which the local population left their homes and the suffering the experience must have caused,” it saw no reason to elaborate on what had caused the “sudden” exodus of nearly the entire Armenian population in the city. Yet it gave assurances that the “UN in Azerbaijan plans to continue to regularly visit the region.”

The mission that produced the report was the first time the UN had accessed the region in 30 years from either Armenia or Azerbaijan. Repeated pleas for humanitarian aid by the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh during the nine-month starvation siege earlier this year had faced Azerbaijan’s refusal to allow any aid from entering the region, except sporadic deliveries by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Attempts by the UN during those three decades to access the region were unsuccessful, given the lack of agreement with all parties to the conflict. For 30 years, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh was the longest-running frozen conflict in the South Caucasus. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, about 80 percent of the region’s population were ethnic Armenians, with ethnic Azeris constituting the rest. Armenians of the region had called Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh home for millenniums. During the Soviet period, Nagorno-Karabakh had the status of an autonomous region, administered by Baku. With years of discriminatory laws imposed on Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians by Baku, the Armenians held two referendums: one in 1988 calling for unification with the Soviet Republic of Armenia and another in 1991 calling for independence from Azerbaijan.

In both instances, Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians voted overwhelmingly for the motions, and in both cases their will was crushed, first by Moscow, then by Baku. Two wars were fought over the enclave, in the early 1990s and 2020, with devastating death, destruction, human suffering and population displacements on both sides. While in the 1990s, Armenia emerged victorious, the 2020 war launched by Azerbaijan on the area witnessed the reversal of its territorial gains. The most recent military assault by Azerbaijan, on Sept. 19-20 this year, saw the final resolution of the Armenian question in Nagorno-Karabakh: the comprehensive elimination of the Armenian presence in the region through what can only be described as ethnic cleansing.

Until last year, I worked for the UN for 30 years and served in some of the most complex conflict zones in Cambodia, Tajikistan, Iraq and Somalia as well as for the UN envoy for Syria in Geneva. I was proud of the work the organization did in those countries and offices to alleviate human suffering and its efforts to mediate an end to conflicts. At no time had I witnessed the flouting of its principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence as was demonstrated in the recent sham assessment mission and statement by the UN Azerbaijan team on Nagorno-Karabakh.

It is difficult to compare the UN country team’s and OCHA’s compliance with Azerbaijani government demands with OCHA’s work in Syria earlier this year, without seeing different standards applied. When the UN Security Council failed in July to renew the UN cross-border humanitarian operation for Syria that had been in place since 2014, the Syrian government proposed that the UN continue cross-border humanitarian assistance “in full cooperation and coordination with the Syrian Government.”

The UN rejected this condition. In a note circulated to Security Council members, OCHA raised objections to Damascus’s control, arguing that the UN “must continue to engage with relevant state and non-state parties necessary to carry out safe and unimpeded humanitarian operations.”

Indeed, OCHA resumed its cross-border work only after its humanitarian principles were agreed on by Syria. So why didn’t the UN in Azerbaijan apply the same standards to its assessment of Nagorno-Karabakh? Instead, it appears to have complied with the demands of Baku, thus discarding core UN humanitarian principles and contributing to the whitewashing of Baku’s possible war crimes against the enclave’s ethnic Armenian population.

This stain on the UN’s reputation in Azerbaijan has a precedent, such as the 18-year tenure of Merhiban Aliyeva as a Unesco Goodwill Ambassador. Aliyeva is the spouse of Azerbaijan’s president, who not only inherited his office from his father but also created the post of vice president to appoint his wife to the job. The circumstances of her Unesco appointment in 2004 by a former Unesco executive director, Irina Bokova, were mired in scandal from the start and have been well documented. The goodwill ambassador resigned in late 2022, following international petitions calling for her dismissal.

It is astounding, too, that only one day before the UN-Azerbaijan team conducted its mission to Nagorno-Karabakh, it announced a $1 million allocation by President Aliyev to UN-Habitat, to “support the expansion of beneficial cooperation towards the development of sustainable cities in the world,” the Azerbaijan state news agency reported.

I believe some of the reputation harm recently incurred by the UN in Azerbaijan can still be reduced. At a minimum, UN Secretary-General António Guterres should launch an immediate review as to how the assessment mission was carried out in clear violation of the organization’s core humanitarian principles. Guterres should also distance himself publicly from the UN Azerbaijan’s mission statement.

Without taking these steps, the UN will appear complicit in Azerbaijan’s whitewashing of its crime of forced population displacement.

OPED By Maj. Gen. (Dr) Ashok Kumar (Retd)

The world has been a place of unfair responses since time immemorial, and the current trend continues to date, albeit with more intense manifestations. When Russia commenced its special operations in Ukraine in the last week of February 2022, most countries supported Ukraine.

Even those countries in the world who supported Russia for reasons have also voiced concerns about the civil population of Ukraine, highlighting their displacement from their native location and the sufferings encountered in the process.

The nations and international organizations also rallied against Russia in support of Ukraine, so much so that the Human Rights Council of the United Nations voted to suspend Russia’s membership, with 93 countries supporting the suspension, only 24 voting against the suspension, while 58 countries abstained.

This was the action against a superpower like Russia, otherwise a permanent UN Security Council member.

Most nations and international organizations’ response to support the Ukrainian indigenous population is not a one-off event. Still, the same manifests in the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel.

While countries have taken their positions in favor of Israel or Hamas based on their national policies and interests, two things have emerged clearly. One is that Hamas terrorism unleashed on Israel has been condemned by most nations. Still, Gaza residents suffering significant casualties and forced evacuation have also drawn support from countries opposing Hamas.

The sufferings and migrations of the ethnic population from Gaza drew positive support from several quarters and have become an important discussion point on the geopolitical scan of the world. None of the above responses came up when close to 100,000 ethnic population of Nagorno-Karabakh was forced to migrate to Armenia due to offensive actions by Azerbaijan in September 2023.

Regional and other world countries did not respond at the level of their anticipated response on such a significant event in Nagorno-Karabakh, ethnic cleansing by all standards.

India can understand the pain of the ethnic population of Armenian people much better as it suffered significant pain related to the migration of large scale people at the time of partition between India and Pakistan when large scale population moved between both the nations.

It was not only a mere re-location of the people but also resulted in large-scale killings and suffering. India has, therefore, been supportive of Armenia and its native population, whether they are located in mainland Armenia or the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

There are historical, geographic, and ethnic reasons for this conflict, apart from the fight for rich mineral deposits.

The ethnic composition of Armenia is predominantly Christian, including those staying in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Contrary to this, the natives of Azerbaijan are primarily Muslims, including those staying in the Nakhchivan enclave of Azerbaijan.

While the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave is quite close to Armenia, it was not physically connected till Armenia won the first Nagorno-Karabakh war spanning from 1988 to 1994, during which Armenia won decisively, including capture of the mountain pass and creating the Lachin corridor for physical geographic connectivity between Armenia and its Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

Azerbaijan also has a similar geographic connectivity issue with its Nakhchivan enclave, which is physically located in the West of Armenia, with Iran in the south and southwest with a small boundary with Turkey.

Azerbaijan has failed to get the desired corridor through Armenia. Currently, Azerbaijan is trying to connect through Iran and Turkey, the outcome of which, along with implications, will be known later.

The geographic and ethnic complexity has to be resolved through politico-diplomatic discussions, keeping the interest of the ethnic population in mind.

Land border settlement between India and Bangladesh resulted in enclave exchanges between the two neighbors. Still, the people residing in these enclaves could either stay in India or Bangladesh.

The corridor of Teen Bigha was also given to Bangladesh on a long-term lease to address the concerns of its population.

If a political settlement or resolution of the issue is reached as a consequence of direct negotiation between both countries, it will be an ideal solution; however, given the distrust and continued background of the conflicts between both nations, support of regional and other countries of the world may need to be taken.

At the same time, it is a must for Armenia to build up its military strength. Armenia, having less than half the size of Azerbaijani defense forces, got the decisive win in the first Nagorno-Karabakh war spanning over six years from 1988 to 1994.

But it suffered reverses from 2008 in the military conflict, losing substantial geographic control to Azerbaijan in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war of 2020. Finally, almost the entire enclave was lost in September 2023, resulting in a mass exodus of the ethnic Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh.

A strong defense force is essential for Armenia should Azerbaijan thrust the war again to get the geographic connectivity with its Nakhchivan enclave, as the following fault lines may develop into a significant conflict.

At this juncture, India can help a lot for the Armenian resurgence. However, it faces Chinese transgressions on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh and collusive threats from China and Pakistan.

Despite this, India can strengthen the defense forces of Armenia to a large extent. Besides providing the warlike stores, which it is already doing, it can establish a ‘Training Team’ for empowering the Armenian defense forces.

It will, however, depend on the national interest of Armenia to go in for such an arrangement, given its domestic political compulsions and world views on the matter. The co-operation can be further expanded based on the mutual national interests of both countries.

• Major General (Dr) Ashok Kumar, VSM, (Retd), is a 1999 Kargil war veteran, visiting fellow of the New Delhi-based Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), and defense & strategic analyst with a special focus on China. He tweets @ChanakyaOracle. VIEWS PERSONAL OF THE AUTHOR

As night fell over the University chapel last Thursday, about 50 students, faculty, and community members gathered to commemorate the lives lost during the mass exodus of over 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the breakaway state of Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan’s recent invasion. Until this month, upwards of 120,000 Armenians lived in the contested region and their departure in the face of fears of ethnic cleansing has been referred to as a cultural genocide.

On Sept. 19, Azerbaijan launched a military attack into Nagorno-Karabakh, known by ethnic Armenians as Artsakh, and took control of the region, following three decades of territorial conflict and a months long Azerbaijani blockade. As of late September, over 80 percent of the region's inhabitants had fled their homes, and the government of Nagorno-Karabakh announced that it would dissolve itself by January 2024. While Azerbaijani officials have denied reprisal against Armenians, Armenians have fled in the face of longtime violent anti-Armenian rhetoric and policy from the Azerbaijani government.

The vigil was organized by the Princeton Armenian Society (PAS) “in remembrance of those who sacrificed their lives for the freedom and self-determination of the land’s Armenian population,” according to the flyer for the event. It marked an important moment in the relatively new society's efforts to serve Armenian interests on Princeton's campus.

At the event, PAS Co-President Hayk Yengibaryan ’26, spoke about the cultural importance of Artsakh. Yengibaryan shared that Artsakh was an Armenian cultural and religious hotbed, the site of the first Armenian school in the early 400s, and the birthplace of the Armenian alphabet.

“This vigil was to come and commemorate not only the rich history of this region, but also all the fallen soldiers, the innocent civilians, the women, the children, the fathers, the sons, the daughters, and everyone who passed away due to the attack,” he said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. 

Yengibaryan is an associate Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

Among the attendees to the event were University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, representatives who spoke on behalf of Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ-06) and Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ-04), and the University’s Orthodox Chaplain Father Daniel Skvir ’66 who led a closing prayer

PAS Co-President Katya Hovnanian ’25 said at the vigil that the seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh marks “the second darkest moment” in Armenian history, following the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire following World War I. 

“Our diaspora is bonded by this trauma — the Armenian Genocide — that happened over a century ago, and that was recognized just recently by the United States and 33 other countries,” she said. “That trauma brings us together, but it’s also such a tight knit community. It’s like this vast network, and we’re all truly brothers and sisters.”

Since 2015, the Princeton Armenian Society has represented the Armenian diaspora community on campus. After its founding, the PAS experienced a period of inactivity from 2018 to 2020. 

“When I was a freshman here in 2019, I thought I was the only Armenian student on campus, which wasn't true,” Lena Hoplamazian ’24 said. “It wasn't until [Hovnanian] came in 2021 and kind of rebooted the Armenian society that there actually was any type of student organizing or community on campus.” 

Born in New York City, Hovnanian grew up in Armenia and participated in the protests during the peaceful 2018 Velvet Revolution which displaced a longtime political leader, thus, in Hovnanian's opinion, bringing “democracy to Armenia.” In 2020, during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, a 44 day conflict in which Azerbaijan regained control of most of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven thousand soldiers and civilians were killed, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that Hovnanain ran delivered humanitarian aid to displaced Armenians, along with serving other global causes like helping survivors of a port blast in Lebanon. 

“Then I come to college, and I’m completely in a frenzy. I just witnessed the most atrocious event in Armenia’s history, and no one on campus seemed to be aware of it,” she said. “Very few [Armenians] were here, and we didn’t feel like our voice was supported just because we were so few.” 

Hovnanian said that PAS “tried [their] best to get dinners every week to talk about Armenia, its history, and its culture,” and brought the Ambassador of Armenia to the United States, Lilit Kamo Makunts, to speak on campus. Members attribute PAS’s growth to the leadership of Hovnanian and Yengibaryan in the past year. 

Yengibaryan was born in Armenia’s capital city but grew up in Los Angeles, home to the largest Armenian population in the United States.

“When I came in as a first year student, I was wanting to get involved right away because I was coming from a city where there were so many Armenians and there were constantly events and advocacy happening,” he said. 

In the month before Yengibaryan submitted his application to Princeton, the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia hosted a talk with Khazar Ibrahim, the Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the United States. 

“I immediately was outraged about this event happening at a campus that I wanted to attend,” Yengibaryan said. “[In my application], I wrote about how if I come to Princeton, I may even challenge the powers at Princeton and [use] my academic freedom of speech to challenge things that I don't necessarily agree with.” 

Yengibaryan said that the University admitted six Armenian students into the Class of 2026 which has enabled them to restart PAS.  

“We were able to figure out how to get funding, start an Instagram page, start outreaching to students and kind of being present and putting ourselves out on campus,” he said. “We’ve been able to grow tremendously, and an event like this [vigil] is a top reason why. It goes to show how much we’ve grown in the past year and two months.”

This year marks the first year the organization has formed an executive board with a vice-president, treasurer, marketing, social, and outreach positions.

“We want everyone to feel like they have a role in our society, that they're doing something for the good of the Armenian cause, and spreading our culture and our history and our roots to so many other people on such a diverse and beautiful campus,” Yengibaryan said.

With ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, the issue has been key in the organization's events. In September of last year, PAS collaborated with Armenian students from 15 other universities to write an open letter to “denounce Azerbaijan’s invasion of Armenia” in “defense of democracy.”  Since then, they’ve brought speakers on Armenian topics to campus, hosted an Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day Lecture in April, and have continued to collaborate with the University of Pennsylvania’s Armenian Students Association. 

“We have a lot of plans to continue to build off of this momentum, and one of the issues that we are trying to tackle as a society is actually within our Near Eastern Studies Department,” Yengibaryan said.

In their interviews with the ‘Prince,’ PAS members mentioned that Princeton’s Department of Near Eastern Studies has no courses, programs, or professors who specialized in Armenian studies, in contrast to other leading institutions such as Harvard University, Columbia University, and the University of Pennsylvania. 

In a guest contribution to the ‘Prince’ last year calling on Princeton to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide, Hovnanian described what she views as anti-Armenia bias in the history of Princeton’s Department of Near Eastern Studies: 

“Princeton’s Near Eastern Department is notorious among Armenians,” she wrote. “In 1996, a New York Times article exposed links between large payments of the Turkish Government and the appointment of Professor Emeritus Heath Lowry, a genocide denialist, as the Chair of Princeton’s Near Eastern Department. Professor Emeritus Bernard Lewis, another notable historian of Turkey and Middle Eastern Studies, and a peer of Lowry at Princeton’s Near Eastern Department, refused to call the atrocities a genocide — he said there was a lack of evidence in the Ottoman archives.”

“As a leading institution, we feel that the school needs to address its Armenian presence on campus, and rightfully, hire faculty and teach Armenian courses,” she said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’

PAS member Mikaela Avakian ’24 is pursuing a certificate in Near Eastern Studies.

“It’s important to fill these academic [gaps] in regard to Armenian studies so that people can know what Armenia is beyond the Armenian Genocide, that we are not a country that’s merely gone through trauma, but that we’ve made real-time contributions culturally, politically, literally,” she said. 

Avakian added that as “an ancient kingdom, a New Republic, the first Christian Nation, and one of the ex-Soviet Bloc countries, there’s various academic angles from which you can approach Armenian studies.”

In the absence of Armenian studies, Avakian said PAS creates “an environment where talking about Armenian politics, Armenian language, Armenian culture is prioritized.” She inherited most of her knowledge of Armenia through personal research and her family’s stories of Artsakh, which she recounted at Thursday’s vigil: 

“I always took pride in the fact that my family, my ancestors, had cultivated a heritage and an identity around their land, a land that existed outside of the political imagination,” she said. “I've never been to Artsakh, but my memory is veneered with… images, tales and stories that keep me oriented to this land, to my ancestors’ land.” 

Avakian concluded with her grandmother’s words: “My child, keep your head high, stand strong. Everything will be as it should.”

“I am heartbroken and I know that I'm not alone in this heartbreak as such is the burden that weighs on the hearts of all Armenians, on the hearts of all that are gathered here in solidarity today,” she said. “Even still, even in the most trying of times, we must live with hope and prayer.”

Elisabeth Stewart is a News contributor for the 'Prince.'

Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.

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/

On September 19th, Azerbaijan launched an attack on the Armenian-controlled territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The offensive ended within 24 hours, resulting in the capitulation of the breakaway republic, marking the end of Nagorno-Karabakh’s history as a de facto independent state (it will officially cease to exist at the end of this year). A mass exodus towards Armenia has begun for around 120,000 people. How is Armenia reacting to the events in Nagorno-Karabakh? What are the country’s future prospects? We discussed these questions in Yerevan with Arshaluys Mghdesyan, who is political commentator for the Armenian newspaper CivilNet Online TV.

MARTINA NAPOLITANO: How is the current situation in Nagorno-Karabakh being perceived in Yerevan and Armenia in comparison to the war and defeat in 2020? From an external perspective, there seems to be a prevailing sense of a climate of resignation, which emerged following the first hours of the Azerbaijani offensive on September 19th. Is this perception correct?

ARSHALUYS MGHDESYAN: It’s a hard question. I have the impression that we did not fully understand what happened in 2020, what kind of defeat it was, what Azerbaijan’s real goals were and with what methods Baku wanted to achieve them.

We seemingly regarded the defeat and the post-war status quo as something stable. We thought that the Russian military presence in Nagorno-Karabakh would be long term.

The political decisions were made with these assumptions, based on the condition of post-war Armenia, [specifically] the army, being in poor condition, as well as the internal political crisis and the 2021 elections. For at least six months after the war, Armenia went through an internal crisis. Then the difficult reform of the army and the war in Ukraine followed, and this changed the status quo.

We found ourselves in an ever-shifting environment that we thought would be stable, but we failed or didn’t have time to adapt. And this was the result.

Is there a sense of disappointment with Russia in Armenia?

In Armenia there is a sense of disappointment, a profound disappointment. But there were also unrealistic expectations. Already during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict there were signs that Russia never spoke out about the consequences of a possible attack on Armenia’s borders, which would have constituted an unacceptable violation.

It should have been recognised that the region was changing and Russia could act in its own interests. Therefore, yes, there is disappointment.

Can the European Union and the United States influence the situation?

We Armenians are always looking for a magic wand that can help us in times of need. But the safety of those who are sinking is first and foremost the responsibility of those who are sinking. There will be no saviours.

In this sense, we can say that the great powers act like deities. They may offer some kind of diplomatic assistance, but I have strong doubts whether they will take drastic measures against Azerbaijan or decide to resolutely support Armenia.

We failed to achieve what we wanted with Russia and we will not succeed with the United States or the European Union.

Here’s a recent example: US Congress Representative Samantha Power, who is now in Yerevan, previously stated that the United States would not tolerate another war against Nagorno-Karabakh. However, we saw that they easily tolerated it. They declare that a reaction is necessary, but they do not mention what exactly this reaction should be.

The fate of the world is not decided here, it is decided in Ukraine. That’s why there is such a severe conflict with Russia there. What happens here, fortunately or unfortunately, is not considered important.

So, we will not receive security guarantees from Europe.

The Nagorno-Karabakh issue has been discussed three times at the UN Security Council, yet there has not been a single statement from the member states regarding possible sanctions.

In Armenia, are there concerns that the conflict could escalate to involve the south of the country?

I believe that this is the most pressing issue right now. Attacking Armenia’s internationally recognised territories would be more complex. But there are many states in the world whose recognition hasn’t helped, from Syria to Ukraine.

Turkey and Azerbaijan will find all possible means to raise the issue concerning the road passing through Syunik province (which they refer to as the Zangezur corridor). They will try to force Yerevan’s hand through diplomatic channels or military actions, such as exercises and other types of manoeuvres near the border.

The Armenian province of Syunik, on the border with Iran, divides Azerbaijan from its exclave of Nakhchivan. Azerbaijan and Turkey have been pushing for the opening of an extraterritorial transport corridor through Armenia for some time. This corridor was also mentioned in the ceasefire agreement that ended the 2020 war.

We will observe the situation. Now it is difficult to say what will happen, but the possibility that they resolve the issue militarily cannot be excluded.

Iran and western countries could help us avoid such a scenario. On this issue, Tehran and the West have similar positions. The corridor is needed militarily and politically, first and foremost, for Azerbaijan and Turkey.

The road and, in particular, an extraterritorial corridor would be useful also to Russia. Since the 2020 peace agreement stipulated that this route of communication would be patrolled by Russian border guards, this would allow Moscow to maintain its presence in the region.

Iran fears losing its border with Armenia and consequently being surrounded by unfriendly countries. Last year, Iran opened a consulate in Kapan, southern Armenia, and the country’s authorities have repeatedly stated that Armenia’s security coincides with Iran’s security.

However, we should be cautious. Azerbaijan and Turkey could offer Iran something to change its stance.

Moving on to the internal political situation in Armenia, will Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan remain in power?

Yes, for now. In this period, many of the preconceptions we had before the 2020 war are disappearing. We used to think that if an Armenian leader had lost Nagorno-Karabakh or some other territory they would not have remained in power.

Despite the military defeat in 2020, Pashinyan not only remained in power, but he was also democratically re-elected in 2021. Even though now we have lost Nagorno-Karabakh, the government has not fallen.

This shows that the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh is not as influential in domestic politics as it was in the 1990s, when it was a sacred, untouchable issue, which decided the fate of those in power.

This is no longer the case. The perception of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue has changed in Armenian society.

People think it’s a closed matter, that it was just part of a propaganda narrative.

Armenians are reflecting on the fact that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue has been used to justify corruption in Armenia. There were discussions like, “Okay, we can have bad roads because we spend money to defend Nagorno-Karabakh.” People accepted poor living conditions and tolerated sending their children to do military service in Nagorno-Karabakh, while politicians lived in luxury.

All this lasted a long time. Dissatisfaction grew and was silenced with propaganda discourse. The first sign of discontent was the war of 2016, when Armenians realised that not everything was going well. That something was rotten in the state of Denmark. Many doubts arose about the army, that it was not well supplied despite all the sacrifices.

Fast forward to 2020. After the defeat, the Armenian authorities began to say that they would support Nagorno-Karabakh, but not at the cost of sacrifices and debts.

Well, in this way the topic has lost its relevance in the eyes of Armenian society and these are the results. Even if many opposition figures have not yet understood this.

Anecdotally, while traveling around Yerevan I had the chance to speak to many people with relatives in Nagorno-Karabakh. Statistically, do most Armenians have personal contacts in Artsakh? How important is Nagorno-Karabakh for the average Armenian citizen?

It is undoubtedly important. Post-Soviet Armenia was conceived around the topic of Nagorno-Karabakh, and there are really many people with relatives in the region. But the sacralisation of Nagorno-Karabakh had the consequence of making it an almost untouchable subject. A normal discussion about the region was not possible. It was the exclusive competence of the [political] elite. And those elites strengthened their power in every way, using the very theme of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nonetheless, getting into conflict on this issue now is madness. I understand those who say that Nagorno-Karabakh had to be defended. But the government acted with the understanding that any intervention could potentially provide Baku with a justification to attack Armenia.

There are several small protests in Yerevan. Are the opposition forces united?

Two dynamics can be observed. On the one hand, there are protests from the parliamentary opposition, who want Pashinyan to resign. On the other, there are the nationalists, who are few and marginal but very loud.

Arshaluys Mghdesyan is political commentator for the Armenian newspaper CivilNet Online TV.