Category: 2023

After Karabakh: Why peace in Azerbaijan could unsettle larger Russian sphere

Garo Vardanian
Oct 13 2023
  • By Fred Weir Special correspondent

|MOSCOW

When Azerbaijani forces, in a lightning assault, overwhelmed the self-declared Armenian-populated republic of Nagorno Karabakh late last month, forcing it to legally dissolve itself and most of its population to flee to nearby Armenia, it may have brought some peace to the long-troubled south Caucasus.

But observers warn the abrupt end to the seemingly intractable conflict may have also sown the seeds of future conflicts.

It comes at the cost of erasing the Armenian population of Karabakh from their ancestral homeland – if mostly bloodlessly. And it represents an unambiguous triumph of military force over diplomacy that will likely encourage hawks across Russia’s sphere of influence, from Moldova to the Caucasus. 

The most immediate effects are likely to be the realignment of the Southern Caucasus, says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a Moscow-based foreign policy journal. “We’re looking at a very significant shift in the balance of forces.”

Azerbaijan’s sponsor Turkey is emerging as the dominant power with major ambitions to project its influence, via Baku, into the heart of Turkic-speaking former Soviet central Asia. Russia’s days as key arbiter and peacekeeper in the region may be numbered, as Armenia turns away from its traditional protector in Moscow and seeks new sources of support to the West.

Meanwhile, Iran, largely on the sidelines of recent events, grows increasingly leery of expanding Turkish power, Azerbaijan’s close ties with Israel, and potential future territorial changes on its own northern flank.

“There is no doubt that Azerbaijan’s victory is also a major win for Turkey, and that has a lot of implications down the road,” says Mr. Lukyanov. “In Armenia, there’s disappointment with its ally Russia’s inability to play a significant role, especially in the security area, and they are looking for new partners in NATO and the West. Everything is in flux.”

Barely three years ago the picture looked very different.

Armenia occupied a vast swath of western Azerbaijan, including the self-declared independent state of Nagorno Karabakh, an enclave within Azerbaijan which it had won in a bitter post-Soviet war. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a speech about the crisis, decades of diplomatic efforts by the Minsk Group – led by Russia, France, and the United States – had repeatedly failed to reach a compromise that might preserve the ethnic autonomy of Armenian Karabakh while returning illegally-seized Azerbaijani lands to Baku.

In September 2020, Azerbaijan launched a well-planned blitzkrieg, using modern Turkish and Israeli weapons, that swept Armenian forces out of all the occupied territories except Karabakh, which was temporarily saved by a Moscow-brokered ceasefire and the insertion of Russian peacekeeping forces.

But Moscow’s regional influence suffered badly when it became embroiled in its war against Ukraine, while military victory made Azerbaijan less willing to compromise on its claims for full control over Karabakh. When Azerbaijan imposed a full blockade of Karabakh last December, Russian peacekeeping forces did nothing. Despite last-ditch diplomatic efforts to reach a settlement over beleaguered Karabakh, Azerbaijan again resorted to military force, seizing Karabakh in a rapid assault last month and triggering a mass exodus of Armenians – one that seems likely to be permanent – from the stricken territory.

Azerbaijani experts claim their state showed great patience for many years and only resorted to force when it was clear that Armenians would never compromise. Ilgar Velizade, an independent political expert in Baku, says that’s the end of the conflict and peace is now possible if Armenia wants it.

“All grounds for conflict have been eliminated,” he says. Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory, including Karabakh, have been fully restored. “Azerbaijan has no reasons to attack Armenia.”

As for any Armenians who choose to remain in Karabakh, they must accept Azerbaijani citizenship, which will henceforth be the sole source of their rights and freedoms, he says. “There is a plan under which they [Karabakh Armenians] may return to their homes and be re-integrated. But if they want to live in Azerbaijan, they must live as citizens of this country.”

For Armenia, the rapid reversal of battlefield fortunes and now the influx of over 100,000 refugees from Karabakh has aggravated political divisions. They could ultimately bring down the government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power following a peaceful pro-democracy revolution five years ago.

“The population of Armenia finds it very difficult to bear the loss of [Karabakh],” says Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan, head of the independent Voskanapat think tank in Yerevan. “We could see a fresh wave of protests, with a high probability of a change of power in the near future.”

Armenia faces hard geopolitical choices, none of them good, he says. Despite deep and longstanding ties to Russia, Moscow’s lack of support for Armenia in its crisis has been deeply disappointing for many.

But the West seems unlikely to serve as Armenia’s replacement for Russia, says Mr. Lukyanov, as the South Caucasus has never been a high priority for the West, and its fate has been largely left to the interplay of local powers. “With what’s happening in the Middle East right now, it seems less likely than ever that the U.S. or European Union are going to want to devote resources in this area,” he says. “That leaves Armenia with very few choices.”

“Unfortunately the alternative solutions offered by the West do not meet the main concerns of the Armenian side in any way. Especially in the realm of security,” says Mr. Melik-Shahnazaryan. “So, Armenia is presently facing existential challenges that it is not yet able to solve.”

The next crisis may well erupt over the Zangezur Corridor, a proposed transport route that would run from Turkey, through Armenian  territory, to create an unbroken and reliable land connection between Turkey and Azerbaijan for the first time. It would also link Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhichevan, greatly strengthening Azerbaijan and solidifying its links with Turkey. Turkey champions this route because it would provide open access to former Soviet Central Asian states, just across the Caspian Sea from the port city of Baku.

Russia and Iran are not pleased with the Zangezur Corridor project – largely because of the boost it would provide to Turkish influence – and might move to block it. Moscow and Teheran want to involve Azerbaijan in their own North-South Corridor transport route, which would run from Iranian ports on the Indian Ocean, through as-yet incomplete railways in Iran and Azerbaijan, to link up with Russia’s vast east-west rail network.

“The North-South Corridor is one possible reason behind Russia’s passive attitude toward Azerbaijan’s recent actions,” says Dmitry Suslov, an expert with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “As Russia reorients toward Asia and the Global South, this corridor has become extremely important, both politically and economically.”

If Azerbaijan’s military solution of the Karabakh issue has set the stage for a fresh round of international competition, and perhaps conflict in the south Caucasus, it may also hold implications for other frozen conflicts around the former Soviet Union. Rumblings out of Moldova suggest that some nationalist politicians see it as a model for dealing with their own breakaway region of Transnistria. One of Georgia’s two “independent” statelets, Abkhazia, is reportedly moving closer to Russia in hopes of forestalling any future attempt to force it back under Georgian rule.

“It was unthinkable, just a few years ago, that Karabakh would ever be taken back under Azerbaijani rule,” says Grigory Shvedov, editor of Caucasian Knot, an independent online news site that covers the Caucasian region. “But Azerbaijan broke the status quo through military force, and got everything it wanted. That will certainly be an inspiration for militarists everywhere who favor forceful solutions and don’t care about diplomatic ones.”

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2023/1013/After-Karabakh-Why-peace-in-Azerbaijan-could-unsettle-larger-Russian-sphere

Important for Armenia and Azerbaijan to stay committed to agreed agenda – EU Special Representative

Emil Lazarian

 14:23,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. European Union Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar has said that he has discussed next steps towards comprehensive normalization in Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“Back from Baku and Yerevan where I discussed next steps towards comprehensive normalisation. Important for Azerbaijan and Armenia to stay committed to a positive and agreed agenda. Expect that this engagement will be firmed up at a high level meeting in Brussels later this month,” Klaar said on X.

Armenian President signs into law Rome Statute ratification bill

Babken Chilingarian

 13:30,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. President Vahagn Khachaturyan has signed into law the bill on ratifying the Rome Statute (the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court), which was by parliament on October 3, the president's office said in a statement.

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1121976.html?fbclid=IwAR21uoIXaQdk1v5EiIVbl6L56ZkWTUojirEkY3A8vN9sK2Ao9hBfU8E2F3w

Armenpress: Various countries, int’l organizations pledged additional €35 million for Armenia for crisis response measures

Jane Topchian

 17:18,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Various countries and international organizations have so far pledged a total of €35 million in assistance for Armenia through the ICRC to meet the needs of the forcibly displaced persons of Nagorno-Karabakh, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan has said.

Another €35 million has already been allocated, 15 million of which will be provided as budgetary support to the Armenian government. Development agencies will direct the rest of the funds through their representations to support the forcibly displaced persons.

Furthermore, over the course of the past two weeks Armenia received more than 100 tons of humanitarian aid for the forcibly displaced persons of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The government is monitoring the issues of the forcibly displaced persons and continues to develop support programs accordingly. The past two weeks were used to solve the primary issues, but it’s already time to clarify the further assistance programs in the direction of mid-term and long-term tasks. Soon these programs will be presented to get opinions and adjust the decisions more appropriately,” Khachatryan, who is in charge of the Humanitarian Center responding to the crisis, said at a press conference.

Local Armenians seek community, support in Redmond

Kajoyan Gevork
Cross Cut
Oct 11 2023

Allies in the Pacific Northwest gather to raise awareness and funds amid ongoing attacks in Artsakh, a region in Azerbaijan.

by 

  • Taija PerryCook

As a kid growing up in Seattle, David-Hayk Buniatyan believed he was Russian.

His first language was Russian and his friends were Russian, but he never quite fit the mold. As he grew older, he started to notice the differences: He did not look like his Russian friends, and his last name did not sound Russian. It wasn’t until he started to make friends who spoke Russian like he did and also looked like him that he understood: He was actually Armenian.

“Going back to Armenia was such a blessing, because for being such a small country with such a small population, when you go back, you feel like that’s your homeland,” the cybersecurity systems engineer said of a trip he took in 2013. “That’s where your roots are. That’s where the beginning of time for you as [an] Armenian has started.”

“The national and spiritual identity are mixed in Armenian blood,” said Reverend Father Vazgen Boyajyan, head of the Redmond church. “You can’t define which part is spiritual or religious and which part is traditional or national.”

Buniatyan and I are sitting in the pews of the Holy Resurrection Armenian Apostolic Church in Redmond. Above our heads, the arches of the domed ceiling soar and light filters through in every shade of the stained glass windows.

Over 6,000 miles away, their ancestral home of Armenia – a small, mountainous nation nestled between Europe and Asia – faces a mounting existential threat as neighboring Azerbaijan carries out an organized ethnic cleansing and more powerful nations have not stepped in to help.

Within the past few weeks, the nation of less than 3 million has been staggering as more than 100,000 Artsakhi-Armenian refugees are forced to seek safety as more land slips from Armenian hands.

On Sept. 19, Azerbaijan announced a new military operation in Artsakh (also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, a term originating from the Soviet era) – a region geographically located within the modern lines of Azerbaijan but whose population is ethnically Armenian – and the ensuing first attack resulted in 25 deaths with 128 wounded. The lines of this conflict are eerily similar to the situation in Ukraine, but that war has managed to capture international attention.

Within a few days, lines of cars packed with thousands of families and what few possessions they could bring with them stretched for miles, all attempting to get out of Artsakh before it was too late.

“There is going to be a small community of Armenians who will stay, a couple thousand, not more,” said Dr. Varuzhan Geghamyan, professor at Yerevan State University (in Armenia’s capital city) and an expert on the Middle East and South Caucasus, in a live video interview. “They will probably be incapable of moving and the Azerbaijani side is definitely going to use them as an example of reintegration.”

According to Geghamyan, factors that contributed to the ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Artsakh include “the absence of any international pressure on Azerbaijan.”

Last December, Azerbaijan established a blockade of the Lachin corridor, the only access point Artsakhi-Armenians had to Armenia. For the past nine months, Artsakhi-Armenians had very little access to essential goods like fuel, medical supplies or services.

The violence currently unfolding in Artsakh is not the first time Armenians have faced large-scale ethnic cleansing. Between 1915 and 1923, approximately 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire during World War I in a plan to crush any attempt at independence, and many more were made stateless refugees. And in 1988, stirrings of another ethnic cleansing began spreading across Azerbaijan.

“When spring ends and summer starts, we don’t notice how it started, right?” said Sergey Pogosyan, an Armenian man who found a second home in Washington after fleeing Azerbaijan as a young man. 

It’s late in the evening at a cafe in Seattle, and as we talk, Pogosyan’s wife, Tiruhi Abrahamyan, takes notes.

In late 1989, Pogosyan’s brother woke him in the middle of the night saying that a massacre of Armenians was unfolding about 40 minutes outside Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan where Pogosyan and his five siblings were born and raised. They decided quickly that they needed to sell their home and flee the country, as many Armenians had been doing since 1988 as the threat to their safety mounted.

Although he managed to secure his mother, brother and sister tickets on the last flight out of Baku to Armenia on New Year’s Eve 1989, he was forced to stay behind and try to sell their home. He did not succeed, as Azeris were not purchasing Armenian properties knowing that they would soon be abandoned. For the next three weeks, he lived in a constant state of fear, hidden away and ready to escape out a window by climbing down a tree should Azeri soldiers arrive at his door.

“Sometimes I wanted to run out and say, ‘I’m here!’ he said. “The pressure was too much.”

Armenian addresses were posted at the bus stations so that their homes could be vandalized and their inhabitants harassed or, in many cases, killed. Pogosyan’s own neighbor was thrown off his balcony.

“These guys knocked on our door and said we had three days to leave or they would kill us,” he said. “It was nice of them to give us a warning.”

Sergey Pogosyan, left, in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1986, where he worked as a mechanical engineer before fleeing to the United States in 1990. (Courtesy of the Pogosyan family)


Finally, on the night of Jan. 21, 1990, when he was 27, Pogosyan was preparing to board a ship carrying Armenians across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan. As his friends drove him to the docks, he steeled himself to be beaten by the Azeris while waiting to board the ship, as so many had been before. When he arrived, however, there were no soldiers, only one Azeri official.

It was bitterly cold, standing by the ship that January night. The night stretched on, but nobody was allowing them onto the ship. Suddenly, at midnight, a huge boom echoed across the city as red blazed across the sky.

“Can you imagine a thousand people crying?” he said, describing the confusion of the mostly elderly crowd of Armenians waiting to board the ship. “It was a scary noise.”

Although they didn’t realize it in that moment, the boom was the Soviets attacking the city, attempting to wrest control from Azeri hands.

At the gunpoint of a Soviet official, the Azeri official on the ship was forced to let the Armenian crowd board. It was the last ship carrying Armenians to leave Azerbaijan, as Azerbaijan won independence from the USSR shortly after.

After two years in Armenia during which Pogosyan was tearfully reunited with his family – who thought he had died – and completed his schooling, he began the arduous process of seeking refugee status in the U.S. He eventually made it to Florida, where he spent four long years in a state of depression before arriving in Seattle in 1996 to be near his cousin.

Upon seeing the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, he felt overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia for home.

He made a home for himself with the Redmond community of the Holy Resurrection Armenian Apostolic Church. Because he was young, single and had a car, he quickly earned a nickname: “911.” He gave people driving lessons, helped them with their green-card paperwork, and gave them rides to job interviews. Eventually, after Pogosyan met and married his wife upon returning to Armenia for a visit, the two chose to raise their family in this same community.

“My hope is that Armenia will survive,” Pogosyan said. “Russia didn’t want to help Armenia, they had deals with Turkey and Azerbaijan.”

Many Armenians have voiced frustration with the U.N.’s failure to intervene, almost exactly 30 years since their community arrived in the Pacific Northwest under similar circumstances.

Although President Biden sent a letter and an envoy to meet with Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan late last month, calls to the U.S. government to impose sanctions has so far seen no results.

“There's government officials saying things like, ‘Oh, we urge both sides to stop the conflict.’ If Armenia stops fighting, there’s going to be a genocide. If Azerbaijan stops fighting, there’s going to be peace,” said Elizabeth, an Armenian student at UW who was uncomfortable sharing her last name. “So when government officials make statements like that, it’s very dangerous for us, because when people read that … [they think] ‘This is just them going back and forth’ when it’s not, we’re being constantly attacked.”

Increasingly, major powers such as Russia – Armenia’s most significant ally – are interested in Azerbaijan’s economic prowess as an oil-rich country. Aligning with Turkey, Azerbaijan’s greatest ally, is also more profitable long-term than expending resources defending Armenians, especially given that the war in Ukraine is draining Russia’s resources and attention.

While Artsakh is small, the conflict has broader international implications. Without Turkey and Israel’s weapons, which are sent on a regular schedule to Azerbaijan, the attacks on Artsakh would not have been possible. As one Armenian community member described it, this is a proxy war between the East and the West.

Modern-day Armenia was once controlled by the Ottoman Empire, then Bolshevik Russia, before being incorporated into the USSR. In 1991, Armenia declared independence.

“When I look at the map, I don’t see the current map, I see the broad map that we used to have,” said Mher John Abramya, member of the Holy Resurrection Armenian Apostolic Church and former U.S. military personnel. “Most of Armenia right now is called Turkey.”

In a country that has undergone invasion after invasion throughout history, keeping history and culture alive both at home and abroad is how the community survives.

“We’re a strong community that we have … no matter what, never given up and always believed that our culture will still keep going. Even if our enemies, our neighbors try to remove us, no matter what, we’re always going to still be Armenian,” Buniatyan said.

The Armenian diaspora plays a vital role in the perseverance of cultural and ethnic heritage. Churches like the Holy Resurrection are centers of vibrant community life that help to keep Armenian traditions alive, such as by organizing concerts and exhibitions that celebrate Armenian artists in Seattle, celebrating traditional Armenian holidays as a community, and running the Holy Resurrection Armenian School, which has about 100 students enrolled.

The recent attacks on Armenians have spurred the members of the church into action, raising over $250,000 during 2020 and sending resources back to their homeland. They’re also working to raise awareness.

“In the end, the result is that innocent people are dying … as a priest, I am trying to do my best to open the hearts of the people, and also open their eyes to see what is happening,” Reverend Boyajyan said. “[In] being indifferent, indirectly we are encouraging it to happen again.”

Armenians in the Seattle area have found ways to garner more local support. For example, in 2020, the Armenian Assembly of Armenia caught the attention of Washington State Rep. Adam Smith, and with him in attendance at a large-scale rally held at Reverend Boyajyan’s church, they managed to raise about $70,000 directly to house displaced families and help with funeral costs. The Church is also engaged in current fundraising efforts for the recent displacement of Artsakhi-Armenians.

“I feel sad, I feel angry, I feel like I haven’t done enough,” Abramya said. “I feel like I have to teach my kids to do more than I did. We have to save what we have.”

This story has been updated to clarify that Pogosyan was not able to sell his family home.

 

Artsakh burns while Western leaders fiddle

Emil Lazarian
Sept 24 2023

By Susan Korah | Sep 24, 2023

Extermination by starvation is clearly Azerbaijan’s first weapon of choice for cleansing Artsakh of its Armenian population

In the pre-dawn hours of yet another tranquil Ottawa morning – Sept. 19 – my cell phone buzzed. With a sense of foreboding and apprehension, I speed-read the message that popped up.

“Azerbaijan is hitting Artsakh (as Nagorno-Karabakh is known in Armenian). It’s war again. Artillery in the capital (Stepanakert). Calls for Armenia to join. If war starts here too, it’s the end of Armenia. We are surrounded by enemies that are hundreds, if not thousands of times stronger than Armenia.”

Silent words on a small screen, but I could hear my Armenian friend’s panic-stricken voice from the countryside outside Yerevan, the country’s capital, echoing across the ocean and reverberating over the South Caucus mountains.

The notes of anguish and fear of impending doom seemed eerily audible in his panic-stricken message, like a piercing shriek that shattered the silence of that Ottawa morning.

Media reports confirmed the staccato sentences on my digital device.

Claiming it was an “anti-terrorism operation,” Azerbaijan had begun pounding Artsakh, with its majority Armenian population, with heavy artillery and drone strikes, shelling military and civilian targets and securing strategic mountain passes.

Like my friend, who broke the news to me, I was momentarily numb with shock.

This was despite the fact that as a journalist with an eye on Christian persecution around the world, I had followed the Artsakh story closely. I had reported on what several human rights watchdogs and senior ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo had confirmed as an unfolding genocide against Christian Armenians orchestrated by Azerbaijan and its allies.

The military assault had been hanging like a Damocles sword over the 120,000 Christian Armenians of Artsakh, who had been first subjected to a brutal nine-month-long blockade imposed by Azerbaijan. This was achieved by blocking the Lachin Corridor, the six-km mountain highway, land-locked Artsakh’s only supply route to food, medicine and life-sustaining supplies, all of which have to be imported from Armenia.

Extermination by starvation was clearly Azerbaijan’s first weapon of choice for cleansing the region of its Armenian population.

By Sept. 20, Azerbaijan’s military assault brought the starving people of Artsakh to their knees, and a ceasefire was declared on terms that spelled doom for the Armenian population.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Baku had restored its sovereignty (over Artsakh) “with an iron fist” in a 24-hour offensive.

It was mission accomplished for Azerbaijan, but for thousands of Artsakh Armenians, it was farewell to their ancient homeland, leaving behind their possessions, their ancient churches and monasteries and the graves of their loved ones who had fallen in battle.

Thousands are crowding the airport in Stepanakert, fleeing in terror before the “iron fist” strikes again.

“Tragic and barbaric,” another Canadian Armenian friend texted me from Yerevan.

It was indeed a catastrophe on par with two global tragedies of the last nine years. The first was the fall of Mosul on June 10, 2014, to ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) after the extremist organization had unleashed a genocidal campaign against Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac Christians. Two hundred thousand fled their ancient homeland in a panic-stricken exodus, leaving Mosul empty of Christians for the first time in two millennia.

The second was the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on Aug. 15, 2021, which launched a reign of terror for the Afghan population in general, but particularly for women and religious minorities such as Christians and Shia Muslims.

Betrayal in one form or another by Western powers is the common theme that runs through these epic tragedies.

Platitudes and statements of concern, accompanied by appeals to Azerbaijan and Armenia, two countries of vastly unequal military strength to settle their differences “peacefully,” proved to be the most ineffective strategies to counter Azerbaijan’s aggression. Indifference and lack of any decisive action to end the barbaric blockade that isolated, trapped and starved Artsakh residents for nine months was another fatal blow that led to the current humanitarian crisis and political imbroglio.

Perhaps the ultimate irony and most glaring example of Canada’s and the world’s blindness to the ongoing tragedy was the statement issued by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sept. 21, the date of Armenia’s 32nd anniversary of independence from Soviet rule.

“Today, we join Armenian communities in Canada and around the world to celebrate the 32nd anniversary of Armenia’s independence.

“The recent military actions in Nagorno-Karabakh exemplify the need for commitments and measures to stabilize the situation in the South Caucasus and encourage continued progress in the dialogue for durable peace in the region.

“The Canada-Armenia relationship is rooted in warm ties between our peoples. Almost 70,000 Canadians of Armenian descent call Canada home, and they are tightly woven into our national fabric.

“On behalf of the Government of Canada, I extend my best wishes to everyone celebrating Armenia’s Independence Day.”

Too late, Mr. Trudeau! Armenians are in no mood to celebrate.

Now their most urgent need is humanitarian assistance, not best wishes and pious platitudes about “dialogue for durable peace.”

Susan Korah is an Ottawa-based journalist. This article was submitted by The Catholic Register.

For interview requests, click here.

The opinions expressed by our columnists and contributors are theirs alone and do not inherently or expressly reflect the views of our publication.

https://troymedia.com/world/artsakh-burns-while-western-leaders-fiddle/ 


By the same author, Sept 13:

The invisible genocide of Armenians in Artsakh


Origins of the Armenian Genocide trace back to the early 1900s

Aram Torosian
Oct 12 2023

By Gerry Chidiac | Oct 12, 2023

The deep-rooted history behind the Artsakh-Karabakh conflict and the Armenian Genocide

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

It would be difficult to argue that Azerbaijan is not now engaged in ethnic cleansing in the enclave Armenians call Artsakh and Azerbaijanis call Karabakh.

After a nine-month-long Medieval-style siege of this small part of the Caucasus, the Azerbaijani military launched an attack. Once a tentative truce was achieved, roughly 100,000 people, almost the entire region’s population, gathered what they could carry and left. The world is now dealing with yet another refugee crisis as Armenia, a country with a population of less than three million, is dealing with an influx of traumatized ethnic Armenians.

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

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

Today, educators typically present what happened to the Armenians as a case study to illustrate the meaning of the word genocide. In both Turkey and Azerbaijan, one would be criminally prosecuted for doing so. Taner Akçam, who is Turkish and is also considered the foremost authority on the Armenian Genocide, is living in exile and has even had his life threatened.

In the meantime, Azerbaijani and Turkish citizens are fed a revisionist history that demonizes Armenians and justifies crimes against humanity.

Before the current round of ethnic cleansing, the most recent armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan occurred over 44 days in 2020. Russia was the chief negotiator in a settlement between the two countries and agreed to keep peacekeepers in the region.

Azerbaijan, however, has taken advantage of Russia’s weakened status resulting from its invasion of Ukraine. Beginning in December 2022, it cut off the enclave of Artsakh/Karabakh from Armenia and the rest of the world. This siege stopped the flow of medical, fuel, and food supplies, thus weakening the population and resulting in the ethnic cleansing we now witness.

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

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

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

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

Gerry Chidiac specializes in languages, genocide studies and works with at-risk students. He is the recipient of an award from the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre for excellence in teaching about the Holocaust.

For interview requests, click here.

The opinions expressed by our columnists and contributors are theirs alone and do not inherently or expressly reflect the views of our publication.

© Troy Media

https://troymedia.com/lifestyle/origins-of-the-armenian-genocide-trace-back-to-the-early-1900s/

Absent Armenia remains elephant in room as Putin prepares for CIS summit in Kyrgyzstan

Garnik Tadevosian
Oct 13 2023

By bne IntelIiNews 

Absent Armenia will remain the elephant in the room as Vladimir Putin on October 13 completes his two-day visit to Kyrgyzstan with the main event on the agenda, a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the grouping of former Soviet republics.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan—who has questioned Russia’s worth as his country’s strategic ally and security guarantor since Moscow did nothing to stand in the way of the September military operation of Azerbaijan to retake the entirety of the Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway enclave—has refused to participate in the summit. He has also kept Armenia’s armed forces away from military drills currently taking place in Kyrgyzstan conducted by the Kremlin-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) defence bloc.

The operational name of those drills happens to be “Indestructible Brotherhood”. To Putin’s discomfort, the no-show of Armenian troops indicates the CSTO might be all too destructible.

Kyrgyzstan is a safe bet on the itinerary of Russia’s strongman, given that it’s not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which since March has been seeking Putin’s arrest for the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia amid the Ukraine war. Armenia, on the other hand, has just ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, meaning Yerevan would be obliged to arrest Putin should he set foot on Armenian soil. The trip to Kyrgyzstan is Putin's first known journey abroad since the ICC issued its international warrant for his arrest.

The first day of Putin’s trip to Kyrgyzstan brought talks with Kyrgyz counterpart Sadyr Japarov, lately accused by civil society leaders of building a highly authoritarian state that in some ways apes Putin’s Russia.

Putin also attended a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the founding of Russia's Kant military airbase outside Bishkek.

"This military outpost significantly contributes to boosting Kyrgyzstan's defensive power and ensuring security and stability in the whole region of Central Asia," said Putin, adding that he expected Moscow to expand its military and defence ties with Kyrgyzstan.

Putin, who will travel to China next week for the third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, puts in a considerable amount of effort reaffirming relations in Russia’s Central Asian “backyard”. He's no doubt well-informed on the renewed competition for influence in the region mounted by Russia, China and the Western powers since the Ukraine invasion shifted the geopolitical tectonic plates. Turkey also is looking to step up its presence in Central Asia.

At a meeting with Japarov, Putin underscored Russia's importance as the biggest investor in the Kyrgyz economy.

"Our country is the main supplier of oil products to Kyrgyzstan, we fully supply Kyrgyz consumers with gasoline [petrol] and diesel," Putin told a briefing, as reported by Reuters.

"Russia is one of the leading trade partners of Kyrgyzstan. Our trade turnover grew 37% last year to a record of nearly $3.5bn. In the first half of this year it grew a further 17.9%," Putin added.

"We very highly value the Kyrgyz-Russian strategic partnership and our relationship as allies," Japarov remarked.

Putin, in his comments, again returned to the fast growth in Russian-Kyrgyz trade. The difficulty with that, as far as the West is concerned, is the suspicion that much of it is based on Kyrgyz intermediaries providing sanctions-busting windows for Russian businesses, including, indirectly, defence contractors.

Putin proposes holding Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks in Moscow

Paul Hambardsumian
Oct 13 2023
Reuters | Bishkek
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Moscow was ready to help Armenia and Azerbaijan sign a peace deal and proposed holding talks in Moscow.

Azerbaijan restored control over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh last month with a 24-hour military operation which triggered the exodus of most of the territory's 120,000 ethnic Armenians to Armenia.

https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/law-order/2628681-putin-proposes-holding-armenia-azerbaijan-peace-talks-in-moscow

In Pictures: Why Yazidi herders still traverse Armenian mountains

Emil Lazarian
Oct 13 2023
  • By Avedis Hadjian Contributor

|MOUNT AZHDAHAK AND MOUNT ARAGATS, ARMENIA

As the winter snow melts, Yazidi herders lead sheep and cattle to Armenia’s highest pastures. Shepherds and their families spend spring, summer, and early autumn in tents and mobile homes atop the Aragats and Gegham mountains. The journey is one of the last vestiges of a nomadic past.  

The largely Kurdish-speaking Yazidi people are Armenia’s largest minority. They have been persecuted in countries such as Iran and Iraq, including a 2014 Islamic State attack that killed thousands.

In Armenia, however, the Yazidi community has parliamentary representation, their own schools, and the freedom to practice their religion, which draws from ancient Iranian traditions and shares elements with Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The country has also become a haven in recent weeks for ethnic Armenian refugees fleeing instability in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in neighboring Azerbaijan. 

The shepherds begin each day with prayer, a tribute to the rising sun. As they guide their animals across the volcanic landscape, a subtle hierarchy emerges: wandering goats in the lead, followed by sheep, with Armenian Gampr dogs and a watchful shepherd bringing up the rear. Birds of prey, including golden eagles, scan the procession from distant rocks for a potential meal, though such opportunities are rare. 

At day’s end, the animals are corralled, and a table is set with simple but plentiful dishes: cheese, yogurt, vegetables, and often meat. The shepherds will rise again at dawn, repeating the cycle until the first snows of fall. 

View the pics at the link below:

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2023/1012/In-Pictures-Why-Yazidi-herders-still-traverse-Armenian-mountains