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[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

 

Turkey, Azerbaijan openly threaten Armenia with war, occupation and genocide – Lemkin Institute

 

 

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 11:21, 4 January 2023

YEREVAN, JANUARY 4, ARMENPRESS. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention published a report at the end of 2022 to reflect on the events of the past year that, in one way or another, are related to genocide. The report also includes Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), particularly the Azeri attacks on Armenia, the Azeri ceasefire violations in Artsakh and the Azeri blockade of Lachin Corridor.

 

“In 2022 the small Republic of Armenia faced increasing threats to its territorial integrity from neighboring Azerbaijan and its ally, Turkey. On September 13, in violation of the 2020 Tripartite Ceasefire Agreement that ended the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani military launched an attack against several eastern Armenian towns, committing horrific atrocities against Armenian soldiers that were filmed and shared widely on Azeri social media. These atrocities, and their dissemination, followed patterns from the 2020 war, when Azerbaijan sought to take over the ethnic Armenian enclave of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Although the external world acted quickly to end Azerbaijani aggression in September, Azerbaijan still occupies 140km of sovereign Armenian territory as well as important parts of Artsakh, including the city of Shushi. Since December 12 it has also blockaded the only road linking Artsakh to the outside world, causing a humanitarian crisis that may quickly become a catastrophe. The regime of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev openly promotes violent anti-Armenianism at home, celebrating war crimes while representing itself as a bastion of tolerance to the outside world. Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has emboldened Turkey and Azerbaijan to aggressively push for a land corridor (the ‘Zangezur’ corridor) linking the two countries through the Armenian province of Syunik. They openly threaten the Armenian state with war, occupation, and genocide. While several organizations, including the Lemkin Institute, have called attention to the threat of genocide from Azerbaijan and Turkey, powerful states as well as the European Union, NATO and other bodies, continue to offer explicit support for these regimes.

Since the signing of the Tripartite Ceasefire Agreement of November 2020 that put an end to the 44 days war, Azerbaijan has systematically breached its ceasefire obligations. In violation of international law and of the ceasefire agreement, it has refused to return Armenian prisoners of war (POWs). As of July 2022 the regime in Baku still held in captivity 3 civilians and 35 POWs and subjected them to expedited and illegal criminal trials. On almost a daily basis Azerbaijan has opened fire against Armenian positions both in Armenia and Artsakh, creating a situation of constant terror and uncertainty due to the immanent threat that the conflict will escalate, which finally occurred on September 13, 2022. The humanitarian crisis in the region reached another level of concern when Azeris claiming to be environmentalists blocked the Lachin Corridor, the only road communicating the 120,000 Armenians of Artsakh to Armenia proper. The first blockade took place on December 3rd and lasted for a few hours. The second blockade started on December 12 and has increased the humanitarian crisis in Artsakh by isolating the entire Armenian population of the region and completely blocking its land access to food, medicine, and basic human needs. Although Azerbaijan restored the gas supply to Artsakh a few days after the December 12th blockade, the road from Stepanakert to Goris still remains closed at the time of publication of this report. Azerbaijan is ranked as one of the least free countries in the world by Freedom House. In the past years, it has stepped up its persecution of journalists, human rights workers, ethnic minorities, and civil society, using domestic as well as transnational repression to quash dissent,” The Lemkin Institute said in the report.

 

 

https://armenpress.a...1nNKCJVBAV10oVA

[Yervant1]

Jan 5 2023

 

The U.S. Needs to Stop Enabling Another Armenian Genocide

 

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Azerbaijan is starving and freezing thousands of Armenians through a blockade. And yet, the U.S. seems to care more about non-Russian energy options than human suffering.

Alex Galitsky

Thu, January 5, 2023 

The holiday season should have been a time of festivity—but for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (known as Artsakh in Armenian), each passing day is a fight for survival.

For nearly a month, Azerbaijan has enforced a blockade along the only road linking the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia—severing the region’s only lifeline to the outside world.

As a result, over 120,000 Armenians are now facing critical shortages of food, medical supplies, and fuel. Patients in critical care have been unable to be transported to Armenia for life-saving treatment, already resulting in one death. And for the first week of the blockade, Azerbaijan cut off the gas supply—leaving the region without its primary source of heating at the onset of winter.

 

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The blockade began on Dec. 12, 2022, when a group of self-described “eco-activists” staged a demonstration along the Lachin Corridor, claiming Artsakh’s government was “illegally” extracting gold and copper molybdenum and using the road to transport those minerals to Armenia.

But this farcical attempt by Azerbaijan to obscure its culpability for enforcing the blockade isn’t fooling anyone. Not only would this protest have the singular honor of being the first in Azerbaijan’s modern history that its kleptocratic authoritarian regime hasn’t sought to brutally suppress—the explicit links many of the so-called activists have with the ruling regime, the presence of military personnel in the crowds, and the overtly nationalist rallying cries of the demonstrators bely their purported objectives.

Azerbaijan’s goal is clear—to assert its control over the region by suffocating and starving the Armenian people to the brink of extinction. For the Armenians of Artsakh, this is nothing new.

 

Azerbaijani servicemen stand guard at a checkpoint at the Lachin corridor, the Armenian-populated breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region's only land link with Armenia, as Azerbaijani environmental activists protest against what they claim the illegal mining, on Dec. 27, 2022.

Tofi Babayev/AFP via Getty Images

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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan has been relentless in its attempts to subjugate the Armenian enclave. In the 1990s, the Armenians of Karabakh—then an autonomous oblast under Soviet Azerbaijan’s administrative control—declared their independence in response to Baku’s discriminatory policies and escalating anti-Armenian violence across the country. An ensuing war resulted in Artsakh securing its self-governance, and a ceasefire agreement that held until September 2020—when Azerbaijan abandoned decades of multilateral diplomacy and launched a war of territorial conquest.

After a barbaric campaign saw Azerbaijan’s systematic perpetration of war crimes and human rights abuses—including unlawful strikes against homes, schools, churches and hospitals, the execution of civilian captives, and the ethnic cleansing of over 70 percent of Artsakh’s territory—the war ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire agreement. But even since the end of active hostilities, Baku’s campaign of terror has been a daily reality for the Armenian people.

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Over 40,000 Armenians were forcibly displaced and are unable to return to their homes, while more than 100 Armenian prisoners of war remain in Azerbaijan’s illegal detention—where they have been subject to torture and psychological abuse. Armenian cultural heritage sites in areas captured by Azerbaijan have been systematically desecrated and destroyed. And just this past September, Azerbaijan launched an incursion into Armenia’s sovereign territory—perpetrating horrific war crimes, including the mutilation of female Armenian soldiers and the execution of several unarmed Armenian prisoners of war.

Not only has Azerbaijan not been held accountable for these unabated acts of aggression—it has been consistently rewarded by the international community in spite of its conduct.

This is because the U.S. and EU see Azerbaijan as a crucial partner in the diversification of Europe’s energy supply—a means to relieve the continent of its dependence on Russian energy after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

To induce Baku’s support, the Western powers have offered generous incentives. Earlier this year, Brussels committed to investing over 2 billion euros into Azerbaijan’s energy sector, and—against the backdrop of its blockade—recently facilitated a new regional energy deal with Baku.

The U.S., for its part, has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance to Azerbaijan. In the 1990s, Congress passed Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act which explicitly prohibited the provision of assistance to Azerbaijan over its aggression against Armenia and Artsakh, and its blockade of the region during the first Nagorno-Karabakh war. But in an attempt to enlist its support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan (and later, Iraq), an amendment was introduced that allowed the president to waive Section 907 restrictions when deemed in the U.S. national security interest.

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In the years immediately preceding the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, over $120 million in direct military assistance was allocated to Azerbaijan. And although that decision was strongly criticized by Joe Biden while on the campaign trail, his administration has twice since reauthorized military aid to Baku—despite the egregious war crimes and human rights abuses perpetrated during its assault on Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.

In the West’s calculation, Armenian lives are a fair price to pay for Azerbaijan’s energy.

But while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may have served as the impetus for this renewed investment in Azerbaijan, it’s also what makes the West’s support for Azerbaijan all the more unconscionable.

If the objective of U.S. policy in the region is to counter Russia’s capacity to wage its expansionist war against Ukraine, it’s hard to see how emboldening Azerbaijan amidst its expansionist assault on Armenia can achieve that.

 

Protesters hold a giant Armenian flag as they attend a rally in Stepanakert, capital of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, on Dec. 25, 2022.

Davit Ghahramanyan/AFP via Getty Images

While the EU and U.S. have been determined to portray Azerbaijan as a “trustworthy” energy partner, Baku’s actions tell a different story. Even with the inducements and impunity afforded by the West, Azerbaijan continues to expand its energy cooperation with Russia. Earlier this year, Moscow expanded its stake in Azerbaijan’s major gas fields to 20 percent—making it one of the single largest stakeholders (after British Petroleum) in Azerbaijan’s flagship project in the “diversification” of Europe’s energy supply. And earlier this month, Russia’s Gazprom committed to supply Azerbaijan with a billion cubic meters of natural gas in order to meet domestic demand.

Not only has this cast doubt over Azerbaijan’s ability to meet Europe’s needs, but also its commitment to cutting Moscow out of Europe’s energy supply chain. Azerbaijan’s duplicitous collusion with Russia demonstrates a point that should be self-evident—that it’s impossible to contain one expansionist authoritarian regime by empowering and enabling another.

While the U.S. may see the continued provision of military assistance to Azerbaijan as a small price to pay to secure its immediate support in the containment of Russia, the decision to embolden and enrich a belligerent authoritarian regime amidst its brazen assault on one of the region’s only democracies could not stand further at odds with Washington’s purported commitment to democracy and human rights.

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In order for the Biden administration to demonstrate consistency in its response to countering authoritarian expansionism, it must act to ensure urgent humanitarian assistance is provided to Artsakh’s besieged population—and impose material costs on Azerbaijan to deter its unabated aggression. This should include the enforcement of restrictions on the provision of military assistance to Azerbaijan, and the imposition of targeted sanctions on Azerbaijani officials involved in the commissioning of war crimes. The U.S. must make clear to Azerbaijan that its attempts to impose demands on Armenia through coercion, intimidation, and the use of force is unacceptable.

When President Biden recognized the Armenian Genocide in 2021, it came with a pledge to “renew our shared resolve to prevent future atrocities from occurring anywhere in the world”. Now, as the legacy of the Armenian Genocide once again rears its ugly head, the United States has an opportunity to live up to that promise, or risk “never again” becoming little more than an empty slogan.

The costs of inaction could not be higher. Not only would the failure to hold Azerbaijan accountable effectively greenlight this genocide of attrition against the Armenians of Artsakh—it would demonstrate the limits of Washington’s ability to keep its despotic allies in check, and signal its willingness to abandon at-risk communities to the whims of regional autocrats when geopolitically expedient.

 

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[Yervant1]

Jan 6 2023

 

 

'There Will Be Massacres': Armenian Christians Face Dire Circumstances Amid Nagorno-Karabakh Blockade

Billy Hallowell, Faithwire

There is no time to wait and to allow the next genocide because this is genocide."

That's how Dr. Biayna Sukhudyan describes the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, a small, landlocked region between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

For decades, deadly battles between Armenians and Azerbaijanis have raged there, and an ongoing blockade has reignited those tensions."There is no time to wait and to allow the next genocide because this is genocide."

That's how Dr. Biayna Sukhudyan describes the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, a small, landlocked region between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

For decades, deadly battles between Armenians and Azerbaijanis have raged there, and an ongoing blockade has reignited those tensions.

 

"The last big war in Karabakh happened in 2020 and, at that time, Azerbaijan conquered most of the territory all around the enclave," Joel Veldkamp, head of international communications at persecution watchdog Christian Solidarity International (CSI), told CBN's Faithwire. "And so there's only one road that connects the 120,000 Christians who live in this enclave to the rest of the world and it's protected by a Russian peacekeeping force."

On Dec. 12, Azerbaijani protestors reportedly blocked that road, known as the Lachin corridor, preventing food, medicine, and other basic transport in or out of Nagorno-Karabakh.

"I'm a pediatric neurologist. Together, with my colleague, we have so many children with epilepsy who have to take anti-seizure drugs to get free of seizures, but now there is shortage of these drugs," Sukhudyan said, noting baby formula, too, is in short supply. "And not only these drugs are not available, but also some painkillers and antibiotics as well as hormonal therapy, which is very important in acute situations."

 

The blockade sparked immediate condemnation, with critics calling on Azerbaijan to halt the obstruction. 

Ruben Vardanyan, minister of state for Nagorno-Karabakh, believes the region's most recent battle stems, in part, from a clash of worldviews.

"One conflict is a democratic country against the non-democratic, autocratic country because, in Azerbaijan, everybody knows we don't have a democratic system," Vardanyan said. "And we all know ... Azeris, they don't have rights, really human rights. 
With both Armenia and Azerbaijan laying claim to this land, the dynamic is complex. Armenia gained control in the early 1990s then a 2020 Russian-brokered ceasefire handed Azerbaijan newfound control. 

Veldkamp is among those who worry the worst is yet to come for Armenia, one of Christianity's oldest communities. 

"I think this is probably the prelude to an Azerbaijani armed attack on Nagorno-Karabakh, and if that happens and Russia does not step in, Armenia is probably not strong enough to stop them from conquering the whole region," he said. "There will be massacres. There will be civilians killed. There will be families killed, most likely."

Veldkamp continued, "This is what happened during the last war and the war before that. And at the end of it, this land which is the ancient homeland of the Armenian people — this is where their alphabet was designed, has some of the oldest churches in the world — {could} be completely destroyed."

This ongoing dispute — especially in light of the past genocidal horrors Armenians have faced — has human rights groups deeply concerned about what's to come. 

Read more about the history of Nagorno-Karabakh here. 

***As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for Faithwire’s daily newsletter and download the CBN News app, to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***

 

 

https://www1.cbn.com...rabakh-blockade

[Yervant1]

Jan 11 2023

 

 

Humanitarian disaster looming in the Caucasus

 

On Dec. 10, a group of Armenian schoolchildren from Nagorno-Karabakh (historical region of Artsakh) traveled to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, for the Junior Eurovision contest. Armenia hosted the European song-competition for teenagers as a country that won last year’s international song contest for juniors.  

The children and their supervisors traveled to Yerevan using the only road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) to the outside world – the Stepanakert-Goris highway. Little did they know that they would not be able to return to their families.  

 “After the Junior Eurovision was over, we tried to go back to our homes. But the Azerbaijani activists have blocked the road. Now we are stuck in Goris (a town in southern Armenia) and staying in a local hotel.,” said Aida Gyanjumian from Artsakh’s Ministry of Education, with whom I talked on the phone.  

 For more background information: about 100 years ago, when the Bolsheviks were coming to power in what later would become known as the Soviet Union, the region of Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) was severed from Armenian territorial administration and placed as Armenian autonomy under newly created Soviet Azerbaijan’s administration, against the will of its Armenian population. Dr. Audrey Altstadt, perhaps the most knowledgeable specialist on Azerbaijan in American academia, linked the decision to make NK part of Soviet Azerbaijan to the “ensuing backdoor tactics” of Stalin. 

 By 1923, the Bolsheviks transformed NK into what they called a self-governing autonomous region within the boundaries of Soviet Azerbaijan. In the late 1980s, when Armenians of NK, inspired with the democratization processes in the USSR, called for reunification with Armenia, the Azerbaijani authorities responded with violence attacking and killing hundreds of Armenians in cities located hundreds of miles away from  NK proper, including Sumgayit (1988 February), and capital Baku (1990 January).  

Recently, the U.S. National Security Archive of George Washington University has made public the diaries of Anatoliy Chernyaev, advisor to the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. In his January 1990 entry, Chernyaev admitted that “MS (stands for Mikhail Sergeevich [Gorbachev]) did not have a political solution for the NK problem, “except for the natural responsibility of protecting the people from pogroms, massacres, having Armenians burned in the streets, and the like.” 

 In 1991, based on the existing Soviet law and the international norm of self-determination (The same norm that paved the way to the decolonization of Africa), the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh proclaimed their independence from Azerbaijan. Moving forward, the Azeri attacks intensified, resulting in a full-scale war. For a while, Karabakh was under siege, totally cut from the outside world. On Dec. 19, 1992, the U.S. Department of State’s spokesperson, Joseph Snyder, said that “Armenia was facing a catastrophe.” 

By the early 1990s, Azerbaijan and its “cousin nation” Turkey (these two neighbors of Armenia share ethnic heritage) imposed blockades against Armenia – a landlocked country heavily dependent on land connections. “Armenia is not self-sufficient in grain and energy. We want to send aid, but how do you get the stuff in,” said Snyder at a press briefing. The U.S. administration, together with Russia and France, formed the so-called Minsk Group that would seek a solution to this conflict and decide the final political status of NK. Once a ceasefire was signed in 1994, relative peace came which ended in late 2020 when Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey and with the help of mercenaries from the Middle East, launched a full-scale offensive. By the time an agreement was reached in November 2020, they had occupied most of NK. Active hostilities stopped here with the deployment of Russian peacekeepers.  

Today, 30 years after the December days when the Department of State referred to the situation in Armenia as “catastrophic,” another humanitarian disaster is looming in the Caucasus. On December 12, under fabricated environmental pretext, Azerbaijani activists blocked the road connecting Artsakh and the world. With winter temperatures averaging between 38 and 56 Fahrenheit, the people of Artsakh have been left without outside connection. Artsakh’s Health Ministry has halted the planned surgeries, classes are disrupted, families are divided, and towns and villages paralyzed. “Supplies begin to run low,” Eurasianet reported. 

The blockade by Azerbaijan faces wide international condemnation. Ned Price, the U.S. Department of State spokesperson, at least twice has called on Azerbaijan “to restore free movement through the corridor,” describing the closure as an act with “severe humanitarian implications.” His Russian counterpart Maria Zakharova said: “We expect the restoration of a full-fledged transport link in the very near future.” Russia’s representative to the United Nations expressed similar hopes last Tuesday when the UN Security Council members discussed the humanitarian situation and urged an end to the blockade.  

The Dutch parliament adopted a resolution saying that “Russian peacekeepers do not intervene in that area and that this situation threatens to create a humanitarian emergency for the population of Nagorno-Karabakh.” Russia’s Foreign Ministry rebuffed the criticism of its peacekeepers. “The Russian Defense Ministry and the Russian peacekeeping contingent have been actively working all these days to de-escalate the situation,” Zakharova added at the press briefing. The Pope said he is “concerned about the situation created in the Lachin Corridor in the South Caucasus.” European authorities and elected officials from Netherlands, France and elsewhere made similar statements. But Azerbaijan’s position, emboldened by the support of Turkey, remains unchanged. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Cavusoglu reiterated the country’s support to Azerbaijan.  

With the international community’s attention more focused on what is currently happening in Ukraine, Azerbaijani autocrats stay largely unpunished for threatening the very existence of 120,000 people in Artsakh. Greek, Armenian, Kurdish, Christian solidarity, and other organizations expressed a Genocide-warning. “Conditions are present for genocide against the indigenous Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh),” is noted in their statement.  

The Armenian American community is expecting a statement from President Joe Biden. The United States is among the few powerful nations that can prevent the looming humanitarian disaster against the indigenous Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh. 

 

https://www.persecut...n-the-caucasus/ 

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

 

Yet another process of Armenian Genocide must be stopped. Caroline Cox

 

 

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 12:48, 14 January 2023

YEREVAN, JANUARY 14, ARMENPRESS. Baroness Caroline Cox, a member of the House of Lords of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, sent an urgent letter to the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the House of Commons regarding the blocking of the Lachine Corridor by Azerbaijan, calling for an investigation into the security situation in Nagorno Karabakh and an making an urgent report. He emphasized that yet another process of implementation of the Armenian Genocide should be prevented.

 

ARMENPRESS reports Baroness Caroline Cox emphasized in her letter that the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Armenia to Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh), has been blocked for more than a month by the so-called Azerbaijani eco-activists. 120,000 residents of the Republic of Artsakh are facing severe economic, humanitarian and health problems as a result of being cut off from the outside world.

She also emphasized on a number of problems, noting that only a small number of patients were allowed to be transported to Armenia through the mediation of the Red Cross, but there are many, including people with cancer, who need chemotherapy and cannot receive it.

 

"The Security Council of the Republic of Artsakh has issued a statement emphasizing the “imminenence of a new genocide” and calling on the international community to take responsibility for preventing terrorist acts carried out by Azerbaijan," Caroline Cox emphasized.

 

He mentioned the disconnection of families as a result of blocking the corridor, the damage to the electricity supply line from Armenia to Artsakh and Azerbaijan's obstruction of its restoration and its severe consequences.

She mentioned the division of families as a result of blocking the corridor, the damage to the electricity supply line from Armenia to Artsakh and Azerbaijan's obstruction of its restoration and its severe consequences.

 

"Although the United Kingdom Ambassador to Armenia John Gallagher denied allegations of UK culpability in the failure of the UN Security Council statement on the Lachin Corridor, Azerbaijan's Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg Vagif Sadigov "expressed gratitude" to Great Britain on December 31 thwarting this statement. This deepened the fear that our government's good relations with Azerbaijan, which are based on oil interests, will take precedence over the lives of the people of Nagorno Karabakh," she said.

Baroness Caroline Cox therefore asked the Foreign Affairs Committee to:

  Start an investigation of the security situation in Nagorno Karabakh

1. Urgently submit a report on its results to the Office of Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office,
2. To meet with representatives of the Armenian diaspora to assess the reality in the light of Azerbaijan's disinformation campaign

"The process of another Armenian Genocide must be stopped now," concluded Baroness Caroline Cox.

Since December 12, 2022 Azerbaiajn keeps the only highway connecting Artsakh to the world, the Lachin Corridor, closed, citing false environmental reasons. In addition, on January 9, an accident was recorded in the 33rd km of the only high-voltage line feeding Artsakh from Armenia. The accident occured in the Aghavno-Berdzor section. Azerbaijan does not allow restoration works to be carried out.

In Artsakh, internet connection supply was also interrupted from January 12. the cable was damaged in the very part of the Lachin Corridor, where the Azerbaijani pseudo-environmentalists are stationed. And only on January 13, thanks to the negotiations conducted by the Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in Artsakh, the technical specialists of "Karabakh Telecom" Company were able to go to the place of the accident and carry out appropriate work on the spot to restore the damaged part of the cable. Internet connection has been restored in the entire territory of the Republic of Artsakh.

 

 

https://armenpress.a...sAacntGZxEiUVgc

[Yervant1]

The Christian Post

Jan 18 2023

 

 

Human rights groups demand humanitarian airlift for Christian region Nagorno-Karabakh

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor

In a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden, John Eibner, the president of Christian Solidarity International, and the U.K.’s Baroness Caroline Cox have urged the United States to take action to end Azerbaijan's blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, home to 120,000 Armenian Christians.

The letter calls for a resolution at the United Nations Security Council that would authorize a humanitarian airlift into the region if Azerbaijan does not comply.

“You are the first American president to recognize the Armenian Genocide,” Eibner and Baroness Cox of Queensbury, a member of the U.K.’s House of Lords, wrote to Biden Tuesday. “We urge you not to allow another Armenian Genocide to occur on your watch.”

On Dec. 12, Azerbaijani activists and soldiers closed the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting the Armenian-majority region of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia, and thus to the outside world, CSI said, adding that Azerbaijan had also cut off electricity, gas and internet access to the region.

As a result, food, fuel and essential medicines are running out in Nagorno-Karabakh. Moreover, with electricity and fuel for heating increasingly scarce, many people, especially the poor and the elderly, are at risk of dying from cold in the freezing winter temperatures, added CSI, a Christian human rights organization that says it promotes religious liberty and human dignity.

It's all part of an “ongoing” genocide, according to the group.

“A process of genocide has been underway since the Ottoman massacres of Armenians in the late 19th century,” Eibner told The Christian Post.

“What is generally called the Armenian Genocide (1915-'18) was, in fact, a broader genocide of Christians, including the Syriacs/Assyrians/Aramaeans. It was the high point of a process that continues in waves until the present day,” the CSI president said.

He added, “It continued in the Caucasus after the end of the First World War and was only suspended by the imposition of Soviet rule. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the process resumed in the first Karabakh war, again two years ago in the second Karabakh war and now in the strangulation of Karabakh by means of blockade.”

The blockade shows Azerbaijan’s intention “to conquer Nagorno Karabakh by, in the words of the Genocide Convention, ‘deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the end of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group in whole or in part,’” Eibner and Cox wrote in the letter.

As the blockade began, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said, as quoted by CSI, “Today we see consistent actions which make more and more real the concern that Azerbaijan is indeed planning genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Issuing a genocide warning for Nagorno Karabakh with other human rights organizations last month, CSI said the actions of Azerbaijan toward the Armenians in the region aligned with a historical pattern of ethnic and religious cleansing by Azerbaijan, Turkey and the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, the warning read, all 14 indicators of potential atrocity crimes identified by the U.N. Secretary-General’s Office on Genocide Prevention were present.

The blockade follows an unprovoked attack by Azerbaijan on the Republic of Armenia last September, and another 44-day war of aggression by Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh in September-November 2020, CSI said in a statement to The Christian Post. In both wars, Azerbaijani forces committed well-documented war crimes against Armenians, and the 2020 war resulted in the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Armenians from their homes, it added.

Azerbaijan’s 1989-1994 ethnic cleansing campaign against Armenians also began with a blockade of the region.

“Failure to act will have world-historical consequences,” Cox and Eibner warned in their letter. “If Azerbaijan succeeds in conquering Nagorno-Karabakh, ethnic cleansing on a mass scale will take place, a priceless part of humanity’s common cultural heritage will be destroyed, and dictatorships everywhere will see that aggression is rewarded in today’s international order.”

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a long-standing dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is recognized internationally as part of Muslim-majority Azerbaijan even though it has a majority Armenian population and is controlled by ethnic Armenians.

The conflict has its roots in the early 20th century when the region, which has a majority Armenian population, was part of the Russian Empire and later, the Soviet Union.

In the 1920s, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin established the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within Soviet Azerbaijan. However, as the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late 1980s, ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh voted to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia. This led to a war between the two countries that lasted from 1988 to 1994, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the displacement of over 1 million.

A ceasefire was signed in 1994 but sporadic violence continued in the region.

In 2016, a four-day war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan, resulting in hundreds of deaths. In September 2020, the fighting broke out again, escalated rapidly and resulted in a large-scale military operation by Azerbaijan, with the support of Turkey, to retake the regions of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding areas under Armenian control.

A ceasefire was signed again in November 2020, but tensions remain high, with both sides accusing each other of ceasefire violations, and the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh remaining tense.

In an op-ed published by the Foreign Policy magazine last month, Armenian journalist Lara Setrakian explained that the Armenians residing in Karabakh view the prospect of complete integration into Azerbaijan without any guarantees for their security as a potential precursor to ethnic cleansing, whether through violent means or by exerting pressure for them to leave their homes.

Azerbaijan's promise to treat the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh as equals to its own citizens provides little assurance given Azerbaijan's history of human rights violations, wrote Setrakian, who's also the president of the Applied Policy Research Institute based in Yerevan.

Furthermore, she added, recent violent acts committed by Azerbaijani soldiers, such as the execution of Armenian prisoners of war, sexual abuse of female soldiers and the mutilation and beheading of Armenian civilians have only heightened the fear and concern of the Armenian community.

Biden became the first president since former President Ronald Reagan to recognize the Armenian genocide on its 106th anniversary in April 2021. Some historians see the Armenian genocide as a precursor of genocides the world witnessed later, including the Holocaust.

In October 2020, an estimated 100,000 people marched through the streets of Los Angeles, California, to call for an end to the fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

“We stand with our brothers and sisters in Armenia & Artsakh, & the diaspora in L.A.,” Eric Garcetti, who was Los Angeles Mayor at the time, tweeted. “We need our national leadership to step up & help bring peace to the region. Turkey must disengage.”

https://www.christia...o-karabakh.html

[Yervant1]

June 22 2023

 

 

Brownback Calls for Congress to Support Armenia

 

6/22/2023 United States (International Christian Concern) ––“This is the oldest Christian nation facing again for the second time in only about a century the possibility of a genocide,” project coordinator Robert Nicholson stated as he returned from his trip from Armenia.  

Nicholson is discussing the Armenian Christians who suffered up to 1.5 million deaths in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire that the U.S. now recognizes as a genocide.  

Former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback informs Congress about the ongoing crisis between Azerbaijan and Armenia as he returned from a fact-finding trip to the two countries Tuesday.  

Alongside the human rights group Philos Project, Brownback traveled to Armenia and Azerbaijan to learn more about the ongoing conflict between Muslims in Azerbaijan and Christians in Armenia. The conflict began after the dissolution of the Soviet Union when both countries claimed the land for themselves. The first Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994 ended with Armenia taking control of Nagorno –Karabakh. 

Conflict reemerged in 2020, with Azerbaijan taking control of large swaths of the region. Armenia’s only access to Nagorno-Karabakh is now through a thin strip of land called the “Lachin corridor.” 

In December, Azerbaijan established a blockade of the Lachin corridor which has resulted in a crippling of the Armenian infrastructure in Nagorno-Karabakh.  

Nicholson said that because of this blockade, “There has been no natural gas flowing since March, and other energy supplies, [such as] electricity, are spotty at best. Families have been separated. Surgeries have been canceled. The 120,000 people inside [Nagorno-Karabakh] are really desperate for help.” 

Coming back from his travels, Brownback has called for Congress to pass a Nagorno-Karabakh Human Rights Act to establish basic security guarantees for the Nagorno-Karabakh population. 

He also called on the U.S. to reinstate previously used sanctions on Azerbaijan should it continue its blockade. Many media outlets have characterized this conflict as a territorial dispute, but both Brownback and Nicholson have clarified that the conflict is more one of ideology and religion.  

With this striking call to action, Nicholson added, “There’s room for the United States to play a very constructive role in helping these different parties, both of which are our allies, to reach a peaceful and just solution to end the conflict.” 

https://www.persecut...rmenia-support/

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

 

Artsakh MFA calls on the international community to prevent Baku's war crimes and ethnic cleansing 

 

 19:52, 23 June 2023

YEREVAN, JUNE 23, ARMENPRESS. The Artsakh Foreign Ministry issued a statement about the ongoing complete blockade of the country, calling on the parties that signed the trilateral declaration of November 9, 2020, and first of all, the Russian Federation, to take all necessary measures to ensure the steady and full implementation of the assumed international obligations.

 

As ARMENPRESS was informed from MFA Artsakh, the statement reads as follows, “We draw the attention of the international community to the fact that for the 9th day in a row Azerbaijan continues the total illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor, control over which, as provided for by paragraph 6 of the Trilateral Statement of 9 November 2020, has been assigned to the Russian Federation Peacekeeping Contingent.

We recall that due to the provocative actions of the Azerbaijani side and the subsequent complete blocking of the road through the Lachin Corridor, starting from 15 June, all transportation of humanitarian cargo by the Russian Peacekeeping Contingent, in particular food and other essential supplies required for the survival of the 120,000 population of the Republic of Artsakh, has been stopped. The International Committee of the Red Cross is not able to carry out evacuation of seriously ill patients from Artsakh to medical institutions of Armenia, as well as deliver vital medicines to the republic. As a result, small domestic stocks of food and medicine are quickly running out, which threatens to turn the situation in the republic into a humanitarian catastrophe. 
     
Moreover, on 22 June, the Azerbaijani side installed concrete blocks on the Hakari bridge, completely blocking the driveway of the only Road of Life connecting Artsakh with Armenia, and making it technically impossible for vehicles to move along the road. Thus, in just a month, Azerbaijan turned its illegally installed and advertised checkpoint on the road within the Lachin Corridor into a military stronghold with armoured vehicles, engineering barriers and armed personnel. It once again demonstrates that all the actions of the Azerbaijani side, including the orchestrated protest of pseudo-activists, blocking of the Stepanakert-Goris road, cutting off gas and electricity supplies from Armenia to Artsakh, targeting of civilians and obstruction of agricultural work in the fields, have been deliberate and pre-planned and are aimed to make the life of Armenians in Artsakh impossible.

The authorities of the Republic of Artsakh have repeatedly warned about the negative consequences of the illegal establishment of an Azerbaijani checkpoint for the safe and unimpeded movement along the Lachin Corridor, which is now, in fact, completely stopped, and 120,000 people in Artsakh, including 30,000 children, are held hostage in their own homes. Under these circumstances, overlooking or ignoring the real state of affairs on the ground, untargeted statements and appeals, as well as the lack of specific and adequate measures on the part of the international community only encourage the Azerbaijani authorities to continue and intensify their illegal and aggressive actions.

We call on the signatories of the Trilateral Statement of 9 November 2020, primarily the Russian Federation, to take all necessary measures to ensure the strict and full implementation of their international obligations. We appeal to the UN Security Council, which bears the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, as well as to all responsible members of the international community, including the leadership of individual countries and international organisations, to move from words to action and, within the universal Responsibility to Protect, undertake all necessary measures to stop the war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity committed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh and its people”.

 

 

https://armenpress.a..._wZ9gRHLloACU9E

[Yervant1]

Aug 25 2023

 

 

Humanitarian Crisis Lingers for Armenian Christians

 

 

 

 

Christians Suffer under Blockade, ‘Genocide” in Artsakh

By Linda Burkle, Ph.D., ICC Fellow 

With many conflicts globally, most prominently the Russian war on Ukraine, there has been little attention given to the present plight of Armenian Christians living in a disputed region referred to as the Republic of Artsakh.  

Decades long fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan resulted in ethnic Armenians being in control of this breakaway region and seven surrounding districts within Azerbaijan. During the 2020 war, however, Azerbaijan regained control of all adjacent districts and territory within Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.  

In November 2020, Russia brokered a peace deal that included having 2,000 Russian peacekeepers patrolling the area, which is jointly monitored with Turkey, a longtime Azerbaijani ally. 

Current Blockade

Since December 12, 2022, government supported Azerbaijani protestors posing as environmentalists, have blocked the Lachin Corridor, the sole Nagorno-Karabakh land link vital to providing supplies to 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in the mountainous region.  

Only the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Russian peacekeepers have been allowed to pass. However, Azerbaijani has installed military checkpoints making it difficult for even the ICRC to transport patients needing medical care. 

The protestors, called “ecoactivists” include civilian workers, students, and disguised military. The Azerbaijani government supplies tents, food, and incentives for taking part in the blockade. Some are paid and flown from other areas. They contend that the Armenians are running “illegal” ore mines in Karabakh and demand access for inspection.  

The Armenian authorities “have rejected the protesters’ demands as a gross violation of the Russian-brokered agreement from November 2020 that suspended more than a month of intense fighting in the decades-old Armenian-Azerbaijani war over the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts”. 

The ongoing blockade has created a humanitarian crisis, denying basic needs such as food, energy, access to medical care, school, and internet services to the those living in the region. Grocery shelves are bare, food is rationed, and medical conditions are not being treated.  

In addition, since the blockade began, Azerbaijan has cut off the only gas supply intermittently and damaged infrastructure. Since March 22, 2023, Artsakh has been without a gas supply. The region has also been forced to rely on its own limited production of electricity. The only power line supplying Artsakh was damaged, and Azerbaijan has prevented its repair. Artsakh authorities have resorted to daily 6-hour blackouts to rationing the remaining supply of electricity production.  

As the months wear on, the Armenian government has accused the Azerbaijani government of genocide due to starvation. “Azerbaijan has now cut off all shipments of food, fuel, and other critical supplies to the breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia.” . . . “This genocide does not feature crematories or machete attacks. Rather, the blockade of food, oil, medicine, and other essential goods to a protected group should be considered a genocide under Article II © of the Genocide Convention, which addresses ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.” 

To end the blockade, Azerbaijan has presented two options to Artsakh: submit to Baku (Azerbaijan’s Capitol) government rule or the blockade continues, causing continued untold deprivation and suffering. The Armenians have flatly rejected the proposal. “How can we accept humanitarian aid from the country that has led us to this disaster? It is using one hand to strangle us and the other hand to feed us,” said the territory’s de facto president, Arayik Harutyunyan, in a July 24 live-streamed press conference. 

Threat of Genocide 

On July 28, 2023, Armenian Ambassador to the UN Mher Margaryan sent a letter to the UN Security Council asking for an emergency meeting, saying the situation was “on the verge of a full-fledged humanitarian catastrophe” and urging international intervention to prevent genocide. He accused Azerbaijan of blocking the Lachin Corridor where trucks carrying 400 tons of humanitarian aid were denied passage. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan leaders insist that the road is open for humanitarian cargo, emergency services, and peacekeepers.  

Thomas Becker, a Senior Clinical Supervisor at the University Network for Human Rights, has made three fact-finding trips to Armenia within the last year. He and his team from Yale and Harvard documented bombings of buildings, homes, and other sites. He said, “Perhaps most unsettling were the videos we were shown by a woman who fled her village of Azerbaijani soldiers beheading and mutilating the bodies of her neighbors. Azerbaijan’s preparation, persecution, dehumanization, and denial—each considered a “stage” of genocide—has prompted Genocide Watch to issue a genocide warning about Armenians under attack by Azerbaijan. Others in the global community, including the United States, have also expressed alarm.”  

Becker noted that the Armenians have endured “decapitations, sexual mutilation, cultural destruction, dehumanizing statements by authorities, and a constant threat of attacks—all coming from Azerbaijan, with direct military and economic support from Turkey, the successor nation of the Ottoman Empire”… “what concerned me most on my recent fact-finding trip to Armenia, my third in the last year, is that the rights abuses I had previously witnessed in Nagorno-Karabakh—including indiscriminate killings, torture, and arbitrary detention—are now being carried out by Azerbaijan in sovereign Armenian territory with impunity.” 

The threat of genocide is very real. “Over the past decade, Azerbaijani officials have invoked language used in the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust, referring to Armenians as a ‘cancer tumor’ and a ‘disease” to be “treated.’ More recently, the country’s authoritarian leader Ilham Aliyev has threatened to ‘drive [Armenians] away like’ dogs’ and ‘treat’ Armenians because they are ‘sick’ with ‘a virus’ [that] has permeated them.” The Baku government even issued a 2020 commemorative stamp depicting a person in a hazmat suit ‘cleansing’ Nagorno-Karabakh.” Furthermore, Aliyev said the goal is total elimination of Armenians in the region. 

International Response 

A group of non-governmental and humanitarian organizations, including International Christian Concern (ICC), issued an urgent plea to the international community saying that genocide is a present danger.  

“The current Azerbaijani aggression against the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh conforms to a long pattern of ethnic and religious cleansing of Armenian and other Christian communities in the region by the government of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, and their partisans.  We call on all contracting parties to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, particularly the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation, to fulfill their obligations, through the UN Security Council, to prevent another chapter of the Armenian Genocide.”  

On January 18, 2023, the European Parliament issued a resolution condemning the blockade and urging Azerbaijan at once “reopen the Lachin corridor to enable free movement and ensure access to essential goods and services, thus guaranteeing security in the region and safeguarding residents’ livelihoods.” The resolution also called for the unimpeded access of international organizations and the UN to assess the situation and supply necessary humanitarian aid. In addition, it asserted the need for a comprehensive peace agreement, as well as replacement of Russian peacekeepers with international peacekeepers under UN mandate, given the Russian peacekeepers cooperation with the protesters.  

The International Court of Justice and the U.S. Department of State also condemned the blockade. In a written statement, the U.S. diplomats warned that the Azerbaijani blockade “sets back the peace process and undermines international confidence” as well as creates “a grave humanitarian situation.” The United States has stopped, however, short of imposing any sanctions on Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is trying to address the needs of displaced Armenians.  

On June 29, 2023, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan to come to an agreement. The talks are to continue but have made little progress. 

On August 16, 2023, the UN Security Council met with representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Without issuing a formal statement, all 15 members called for the reopening of the Lachin Corridor. U.N. humanitarian coordinator Edem Wosornu reported to the council that the International Committee of the Red Cross, has been blocked from transporting food since June 14 and medicine since July 7, in violation of international humanitarian law, requiring all parties to rapidly deliver aid. 

Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan warned the council that starvation is imminent without “without immediate dramatic change this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.” He said it was the duty of the Security Council to prevent another genocide. Azerbaijan’s U.N. Ambassador Yashar Aliyev responded by “categorically rejecting all unfounded and groundless allegations on (a) blockade or humanitarian crisis propagated by Armenia against my country,” accusing the Armenians of provoking a political campaign to undermine Azerbaijan’s sovereignty.  

Conclusion 

Unless there is immediate reopening of the Lachin Corridor and restoration of essential goods and services, undoubtedly more Armenian Christians living in the Republic of Artsakh will die. This is a travesty that cannot be ignored. The international community must impose sanctions and treat this blockade as an act of genocide. Meanwhile, International Christian Concern implores all Christians to pray for those suffering and contact their respective government officials to urge action.  

 

https://www.persecut...ckade-genocide/

[Yervant1]

Sept 3 2023

 

 

Starvation: 'The Invisible Genocide Weapon'

 

by Raymond Ibrahim

September 3, 2023 at 5:00 am

 

 

 

• 
  

  Several watchdog organizations... are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. Historically known as Artsakh, this ancient Armenian region was brought under Azerbaijani rule in 2020.



• 
  

  Modern day hostilities between Armenia, an ancient nation and the first to adopt Christianity, and Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation that was created in 1918, began in September 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a war to capture Artsakh....



• 
  

  Once the September 2020 war began, Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists against Armenia, even though the dispute did not concern it.



• 
  

  These Muslim groups committed massive atrocities. One included raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging out her eyes, and sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.



• 
  

  The war ended in November 2020, with Azerbaijan gaining control of a significant portion of Artsakh.



• 
  

  "In the extreme southeastern part of Europe, known as the Caucasus, a silent genocide is looming. The Lachin Corridor that connects Armenia to Artsakh, the region in Azerbaijan where mainly Christian Armenians live, has been closed by the government for eight months. Supermarket shelves are empty; there is hardly any food, fuel, or medicine for the 120,000 Armenian Christians who live there, including 30,000 children and 20,000 seniors... a convoy of food and medicine has been standing in front of the border since July 25 [a month], but the International Red Cross is not allowed access to the inhabitants of Artsakh. According to journalists living in the area, most residents only get one meal a day. People in Artsakh queue for hours at night for bread, waiting for their daily rations. At the same time, sources within Artsakh report shooting at Armenians trying to harvest the land... in all probability bread will also soon be unavailable due to the shortage of fuel... Bakers can no longer heat their ovens." — Sonja Dahlmans, Dutch journalist, ongehoordnederland.tv, August 24, 2023.



• 
  

  "There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians...[A] blockade... by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, © of the Genocide Convention: 'Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.'....Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks." — Luis Moreno Ocampo, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, August 7, 2023.



• 
  

  Muslim regimes regularly make life intolerable for Christian minorities, apparently to force them to abandon their properties and leave.



• 
  

  A few weeks ago, the president of Iraq revoked a decade-old decree that granted Chaldean Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako powers over Christian endowment affairs. "This is a political maneuver to seize the remainder of what Christians have left in Iraq and Baghdad and to expel them." — Diya Butrus Slewa, human rights activist from Ainkawa, aina.org, July 13, 2023.



• 
  

  Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback referred to the blockade as the latest attempt at "religious cleansing" of Christian Armenia... in his testimony, [he] said that this latest genocide is being "perpetrated with U.S.-supplied weaponry and backed by Turkey, a member of NATO." If the U.S. does not act, "we will see again another ancient Christian population forced out of its homeland." — catholicnewsagency.com, June 21, 2023.



• 
  

  Not only has U.S. diplomacy been ineffective for the besieged Armenians; it has actually exacerbated matters by allowing the aggressors to continue their atrocities.



• 
  

  "[T]he only thing the Washington-backed talks appear to have produced is the emboldenment of Azerbaijan's aggression.... For over eight months, the region's 120,000 Indigenous Armenians...have been deprived access to food, medicine, fuel, electricity, and water in what is nothing less than genocide by attrition.... When Washington-based talks resumed in June, Azerbaijan began shelling the region. In the months since, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied access to Karabakh—and later reported that an Armenian patient in its care had been abducted by Azerbaijani forces en route to Armenia for treatment. This is the predictable consequence of Washington's insistence on negotiations amid Azerbaijan's blockade of Artsakh and occupation of Armenian territory. It has signaled to Baku that its strategy of coercive diplomacy is working, disincentivizing de-escalation..." — Alex Galitsky and Gev Iskajyan, Armenian National Committee of America; Armenian National Committee of Artsakh, Newsweek, August 14, 2023.



• 
  

  Indeed, part of the façade of diplomacy is that Azerbaijan insists that the Christian Armenians of Artsakh are being treated no differently than Muslim Azerbaijanis—since all are citizens of Azerbaijan.



• 
  

  Clearly, negotiating simply bought the Azerbaijanis more time in which to starve the Armenians, and possibly another way for the United States to pretend it was "doing something" without actually doing anything --apart from allowing more savagery.



• 
  

  The results are clear: nearly every Armenian who fell into Azerbaijani captivity after the 2020 war has been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, mutilated, decapitated or murdered. None of these acts has ever been punished. To the contrary, those who kill Armenians receive medals and are glorified in Azerbaijan.



• 
  

  "The Western press rarely writes about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Most reactions follow the line that it is not a religious conflict, but a claim by two countries over a disputed territory. Given the many examples that exist in which precisely religious buildings, tombs and inscriptions are systematically destroyed, it is difficult to maintain that this is the case." — Sonja Dahlmans, ongehoordnederland.tv, August 24, 2023.



• 
  

  "Azerbaijan was able to impose this blockade because Russian peacekeepers allow them to do so.... Although Russia is often portrayed as Armenia's patron, the reality is more complicated. Russia's largest oil company owns a 19.99% share of Azerbaijan's largest natural gas field." — Associated Press, August 9, 2023.

 

The thousand-year-old genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level.

Several watchdog organizations — including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Genocide Watch, and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention — are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. Historically known as Artsakh, this ancient Armenian region was brought under Azerbaijani rule in 2020.

Modern day hostilities between Armenia, an ancient nation and the first to adopt Christianity, and Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation that was created in 1918, began in September 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a war to capture Artsakh. Although it had been Armenian for more than 2,000 years and its population still remains 90% Armenian, after the dissolution of the USSR, the "border makers" granted it to the Republic of Azerbaijan, hence the constant warring over this region.

Once the September 2020 war began, Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists against Armenia, even though the dispute did not concern it. It dispatched sharia-enforcing "jihadist groups" from Syria and Libya — including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division, which once kept naked women chained and imprisoned — to terrorize and slaughter Armenians.

One of these captured mercenaries later confessed that he was "promised a monthly $2,000 payment for fighting against 'kafirs' in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar[s] for each beheaded kafir." (Kafir, often translated as "infidel," is Arabic for any non-Muslim who fails to submit to Islam, which makes them de facto enemies.)

These Muslim groups committed massive atrocities (here and here). One included raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging out her eyes, and sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.

The war ended in November 2020, with Azerbaijan gaining control of a significant portion of Artsakh.

Then, on December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan sealed off the humanitarian Lachin Corridor — the only route between Artsakh and the outside world. A recent report by the Dutch journalist Sonja Dahlmans summarizes the current situation:

"In the extreme southeastern part of Europe, known as the Caucasus, a silent genocide is looming. The Lachin Corridor that connects Armenia to Artsakh, the region in Azerbaijan where mainly Christian Armenians live, has been closed by the government for eight months. Supermarket shelves are empty; there is hardly any food, fuel, or medicine for the 120,000 Armenian Christians who live there, including 30,000 children and 20,000 seniors.

"At the time of this writing [Aug. 24, 2023], a convoy of food and medicine has been standing in front of the border since July 25 [a month], but the International Red Cross is not allowed access to the inhabitants of Artsakh. According to journalists living in the area, most residents only get one meal a day. People in Artsakh queue for hours at night for bread, waiting for their daily rations. At the same time, sources within Artsakh report shooting at Armenians trying to harvest the land...

"[I]n all probability bread will also soon be unavailable due to the shortage of fuel... Bakers can no longer heat their ovens. Last week, a 40-year-old Armenian man died of malnutrition. A pregnant woman lost her child because there was no fuel for transport to the hospital."

Separate reports tell of 19 humanitarian trucks "loaded with some 360 tons of medicine and food supplies" that have been parked for weeks and prevented from crossing.

This is not the first time Turks starve Armenians to death (as this 1915 picture of a Turkish administrator taunting emaciated Armenian children with a piece of bread makes clear).

On August 7, 2023, Luis Moreno Ocampo, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, framed the situation:

"There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh.

"The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, © of the Genocide Convention: 'Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.'

"There are no crematories, and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.

"Starvation as a method to destroy people was neglected by the entire international community when it was used against Armenians in 1915, Jews and Poles in 1939, Russians in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1941, and Cambodians in 1975/1976."

Similarly, after going on a fact-finding mission to Armenia, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback referred to the blockade as the latest attempt at "religious cleansing" of Christian Armenia:

"Azerbaijan, with Turkey's backing, is really slowly strangling Nagorno-Karabakh. They're working to make it unlivable so that the region's Armenian-Christian population is forced to leave, that's what's happening on the ground."

Muslim regimes regularly make life intolerable for Christian minorities, apparently to force them to abandon their properties and leave. A few weeks ago, the president of Iraq revoked a decade-old decree that granted Chaldean Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako powers over Christian endowment affairs. "This is a political maneuver to seize the remainder of what Christians have left in Iraq and Baghdad and to expel them," said Diya Butrus Slewa, a human rights activist from Ainkawa. "Unfortunately, this is a blatant targeting of the Christians and a threat to their rights."

In Artsakh, the situation seems to be worse: just as no one can get in, apparently no one can get out. Azerbaijan is holding those 120,000 Armenians captive, starving and abusing them at will.

Brownback, in his testimony, said that this latest genocide is being "perpetrated with U.S.-supplied weaponry and backed by Turkey, a member of NATO." If the U.S. does not act, "we will see again another ancient Christian population forced out of its homeland."

Not only has U.S. diplomacy been ineffective for the besieged Armenians; it has actually exacerbated matters by allowing the Azerbaijanis to continue their atrocities. According to one report:

"[T]he only thing the Washington-backed talks appear to have produced is the emboldenment of Azerbaijan's aggression....

"For over eight months, the region's 120,000 Indigenous Armenians—who declared their independence in the early 1990s following escalating violence and ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan—have been deprived access to food, medicine, fuel, electricity, and water in what is nothing less than genocide by attrition....

"The same week peace talks began in Washington, Baku [capital of Azerbaijan] tightened its blockade by establishing a military checkpoint at the Lachin Corridor. When Washington-based talks resumed in June, Azerbaijan began shelling the region. In the months since, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied access to Karabakh—and later reported that an Armenian patient in its care had been abducted by Azerbaijani forces en route to Armenia for treatment.

"This is the predictable consequence of Washington's insistence on negotiations amid Azerbaijan's blockade of Artsakh and occupation of Armenian territory. It has signaled to Baku that its strategy of coercive diplomacy is working, disincentivizing de-escalation, and forcing Armenia to negotiate with a gun to its head...

"Washington has also actively strengthened Azerbaijan's position by indicating support for Artsakh's integration into Azerbaijan. Given Azerbaijan's state-sponsored dehumanization of Armenians, the litany of human rights abuses perpetrated during and since the 2020 war, and its own disastrous domestic human rights record—it is impossible to imagine Armenians could ever live freely under Azerbaijan's rule.

"For Azerbaijan, this disingenuous participation in negotiations has allowed it to uphold the veneer of cooperation while engaging in conduct that has immeasurably set back the prospects of a durable peace."

Clearly, negotiating simply bought the Azerbaijanis more time in which to starve the Armenians, and possibly another way for the United States to pretend it was "doing something" without actually doing anything -- apart from allowing more savagery.

Indeed, part of the façade of diplomacy is that Azerbaijan insists that the Christian Armenians of Artsakh are being treated no differently than Muslim Azerbaijanis — since all are citizens of Azerbaijan. One report sheds light on this farce:

"Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other officials have declared that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are citizens of Azerbaijan, seeming to back prior statements of Azerbaijani authorities pledging to guarantee the rights and security of ethnic Armenians.

"But actions speak much louder. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War three decades ago arose following waves of anti-Armenian pogroms. Azerbaijan is now one of the most repressive and autocratic countries in the world, scoring among the lowest in the world on freedom and democracy indexes—in stark contrast to Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

"Aliyev (who inherited his post from his father) has confessed to having started the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, and proudly admitted that a generation of Azerbaijanis has been brought up to deeply despise Armenians (here and here). He denies the Armenian Genocide (alongside Turkey) and negates the existence of Armenians as a nation, including their history, culture, and right to be present anywhere in the region.

"No Armenian, not even a foreign national of ethnic Armenian descent or anyone with an Armenian sounding name, is allowed to enter Azerbaijan.

"The results are clear: nearly every Armenian who fell into Azerbaijani captivity after the 2020 war has been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, mutilated, decapitated or murdered. None of these acts has ever been punished. To the contrary, those who kill Armenians receive medals and are glorified in Azerbaijan. It is no wonder that Armenians are petrified and cannot fathom living under Azerbaijan's authority."

Aside from the Lachin Corridor crisis, a recent 12-page report documents the systematic destruction of ancient churches, crosses, Christian cemeteries, and other cultural landmarks on land — Artsakh — that historically belonged to the world's oldest Christian nation, Armenia.

One example is the Holy Savior Cathedral in Shushi, Artsakh. First, Azerbaijan bombed the church during the 2020 war, an act Human Rights Watch labeled a "possible war crime." Then, after the war, with Azerbaijan having seized the area, officials claimed to be "restoring" the church, when in fact its dome and cross were removed, making the building look less like a church. As one report notes:

"The 'case' of Shushi is indicative of the well-documented history of Armenian cultural and religious destruction by Azerbaijan. From 1997 to 2006, Azerbaijan systematically obliterated almost all traces of Armenian culture in the Nakhichevan area, which included the destruction of medieval churches, thousands of carved stone crosses ("khachkars"), and historical tombstones."

Dahlmans also reports:

"[A]n Armenian church in Artsakh... disappeared after Azerbaijan's victory in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war (2020). During the victory, Azerbaijani soldiers pose on top of the church shouting 'Allahu Akbar'... [T]he church has been completely wiped out and only a few stones remain as a reminder...

"The Western press rarely writes about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Most reactions follow the line that it is not a religious conflict, but a claim by two countries over a disputed territory. Given the many examples that exist in which precisely religious buildings, tombs and inscriptions are systematically destroyed, it is difficult to maintain that this is the case. "

One of the main reasons that Armenia finds itself standing alone against this genocidal onslaught is due to the West's "desire to maintain favorable relations with Azerbaijan given its role as a European energy partner [and this] has outweighed any purported commitment to upholding human rights—bolstering Azerbaijan's aggression."

It is these same priorities that have made Russia, once the defender of all Orthodox Christian nations in the East, more apathetic than might be expected. According to another report:

"Azerbaijan was able to impose this blockade because Russian peacekeepers allow them to do so. The Russians are there as part of a ceasefire agreement ending the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. The same agreement, inked by Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, guarantees access along that now-blocked road. Although Russia is often portrayed as Armenia's patron, the reality is more complicated. Russia's largest oil company owns a 19.99% share of Azerbaijan's largest natural gas field. It is not so surprising then that Armenians in Artsakh demonstrated against Russian inaction after the killings of their police officials."

Longtime Armenian-activist, Lucine Kasbarian, author of Armenia: A Rugged Land, an Enduring People, sums up the situation:

"We who are Armenian, Assyrian, Greek and Coptic bitterly know just how this will end. It's deja vu all over again. Again and again, we've seen the deceit and brutality, received the chilling reports, warnings, graphic videos, open letters and petitions from alarmed genocide scholars. But alas, NATO, Islamic supremacism, gas and oil are going to take precedence over life and liberty once again unless high-powered vigilantism can save the day."

Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, Sword and Scimitar, Crucified Again, and The Al Qaeda Reader, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

 

https://www.gateston...menians-artsakh

[Yervant1]

March 22 2024

 

 

Azerbaijani President Announces That Lasting Peace with Armenia Is Near

 

 

03/22/2024 Azerbaijan (International Christian Concern) – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated during a press conference that negotiations with Armenia are approaching a settlement. 

The remarks occurred after a meeting between President Aliyev and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. Secretary Stoltenberg began an official visit to the South Caucasus region, starting with Azerbaijan on March 17 and continuing to Georgia and Armenia on March 18 and 19, respectively. 

During the conference, Aliyev stated that Azerbaijan and Armenia are “closer to peace than ever before.” He credited the recent “restoration of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan” for the near breakthrough to achieving the “long-awaited peace” in the South Caucasus region. 

Stoltenberg highlighted the long-standing partnership between NATO and Azerbaijan and the current contributions of the latter to the greater regional issues, citing support for Ukraine and energy and environmental initiatives. Concerning negotiations with Armenia, Stoltenberg reiterated that both countries “now have an opportunity to achieve an enduring peace” and encouraged Aliyev to “seize this opportunity.” 

According to an official statement on “Relations with Azerbaijan,” “NATO has no direct role in negotiations aimed at resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. However, NATO encourages all sides to continue their efforts aimed at a peaceful resolution of the conflict.” 

Conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region (known to Armenians as Artsakh) has punctuated the decades since the Caucasian states first gained independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The Nagorno-Karabakh region is an enclave internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but inhabited by ethnic Armenians until October 2023, when the breakaway Republic of Artsakh surrendered to the Azerbaijani military. 

This comes on the heels of the re-election of Azerbaijani President Aliyev in February 2024, originally scheduled for October 2025 but suddenly rescheduled for December 2023. A report by International Christian Concern stated that “critics of the 2024 election have speculated that the early election date is due to Azerbaijan’s successful attack on Nagorno-Karabakh,” which “bolstered Aliyev’s popularity, initiating the urgent election.” 

https://www.persecut...rmenia-is-near/

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

 

Lemkin Institute Director urges to call Azerbaijan's actions in Karabakh as genocide and apply relevant convention

 

 15:28, 8 April 2024

YEREVAN, APRIL 8, ARMENPRESS. It is necessary for the international community to take clear steps against Azerbaijan, because dictators like its President Aliyev, who commits genocide, will not stop until someone forces them to stop.

Armenpress has interviewed the Executive Director of the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, covering the events which took place in Nagorno-Karabakh, the possibilities of the Armenian population to return to their homeland and other issues.

The interview is presented below:

- Doctor Elisa, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has always warned and expressed its concerns about the events taking place in Nagorno-Karabakh last year, calling them preparations for genocide committed by Azerbaijan. Now when all your warnings have come true and Nagorno Karabakh is completely without Armenian population, what do you  think the international community should have done to prevent the forced removal of ethnic Armenians from their homeland?

- There is so much that could have been done. Therefore, it is very frustrating. And it was frustrating and a little surprising for the Lemkin Institute that the international community did not do more beforehand. We called it a perfect storm for genocide prevention because of the way the situation was set up and because Azerbaijan has relations with the Western world, trade relations, economic relations, military relations, geostrategic relations, all sorts of diplomatic relations, so that they would have some leverage over Azerbaijan. And Azerbaijan also made it clear that the state had genocidal intent against Armenians and particularly against Armenians in Artsakh.

So everything seemed quite clear. And yet there was this terrible silence about what was happening. And there was never any pushback against Aliyev's threats and genocidal Armeniaphobia, which is very public. So it's not as if that was not known, but there was a terrible conspiracy of silence about it. Right, it wasn't secret. It was obvious. He announced it and it was obvious. So what could the world have done? They could have sanctioned Azerbaijan. They could have spoken vociferously against his genocidal Arminaphobia. They could have threatened at the UN level to isolate Azerbaijan. They could have used legal mechanisms as well to pull Azerbaijan back.

And especially they could have used backroom diplomacy more than I think they did, part of diplomacy that we don’t see. I don’t perceive that there was a great deal of pressure on Azerbaijan to shift its ways to change course or face serious, serious punishment. Aliyev knew that he was living in a space of impunity. And, you know, like other genocidal dictators, he was testing the waters piece by piece. There was the war, first of all, in 2020 and then, of course, he was taking Armenian territory in the Republic of Armenia after 2020, then there was the war, the aggressive war by Azerbaijan in September, 2022. And then there was the blockade (Nagorno-Karabakh) in December, 2022.

And then there was the construction of the Hakari checkpoint in April 2023 and just he was pushing and pushing and each time he pushed the international community continued with peace negotiations continuing to humor him and the consequence of that is always genocide when you are dealing with a genocidal dictator and they should have seen that.

- Do you see any possibility for Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh to be able to return to their homeland in case of clear and strong international guarantees? In your opinion, what can or should the international community do in this matter?

- It's very, very difficult once a population is displaced, for them to go home. If you look at the Rohingya, if you look at Darfuris, if you look at Christians and Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq, even though ISIS isn't still in power, They still have not been able to fully return to their ancestral homes. So it's very hard, but at the Lemkin Institute, we see the fact that the majority, the vast majority of Artsakhis are still alive. It's a blessing. One rarely has the opportunity to undo parts of a genocide and here we do and we should take advantage of that to get them home and secure. Because this is a 4.000 year old civilization. In the Western world, I am not sure there is much appreciation for what that means to have a 4.000-year-old continuous civilization, but that is something you cannot replace.

Once it's gone, it's gone. It takes 4.000 years to build, and the world absolutely needs that diversity. Therefore, we cannot squander these ancient communities anymore. People need to have a right to live in their ancestral homes. It is hard for Armenia because Armenia is in such a difficult geostrategic position. So what you need is the Western world to push it because what is going to happen if this is allowed, to just have this type of genocide can just occur without any pushback and total impunity and Azerbaijan profits from it. It profits from genocide. Then everyone is going to be using genocide in the 21st century. Anyone who wants to use it is going to use it and they will do it in this way. They will use this pattern because it worked for Azerbaijan.

They see it works. It works and they win. So this is the thing, like one can, states can have differences of opinion about certain things, even about territory. But when you have a population like the Artsakh’s, who have such a good case for self-determination, they have always been there. In my understanding of the history they have never been under direct foreign domination without some level of autonomy and local control. Throughout all the empires that have governed Artsakh they demanded independence and autonomy before the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan were founded. They were an autonomous oblast in the Soviet Union. The minute the Soviet Union began to fall apart, Artsakh again demanded either independence or unity with Armenia.

This is a long-term claim that the Artsakhs are making, and the world needs to take those sorts of claims seriously. We are not in the colonial period anymore. Do you know where governments can simply move people away because they want the land. That's not how things work in a rule based order. If the Western world wants to live in a rule based order, they also have to find ways to impose that rule based order. And again, so the same things go now as they as the same things are relevant now as they were before September 19th, 2023, when Azerbaijan committed genocide.

And that is, Azerbaijan has to be brought to the negotiating table in a genuine fashion to work out some kind of solution with Artsakh’s Armenians, so they can live in their ancestral homes in peace and in security with self-governance and so I think the international community needs to press the issue of self-determination for the Artsakh people.

- After the deportation of Armenians in September 2023, Lemkin Institute also expressed its concern regarding the illegal arrests of the former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh alarming of the dangers to their lives. In this regard, what steps should be taken by the world to release them and what methods can be undertaken?

- I think we need to change the language. So the international world, and this is particularly true of diplomats at the UN, for example, they need to change the language that is being used here.  There is not enough pushback against Azerbaijan for the language it is using. So it is saying that these are legitimate prisoners because they are terrorists and separatists. This is very, very politicized language and it is simply not true.

Because of the reasons, I just outlined the history. The most of them are the democratically elected political figures in Artsakh that had, a really good democracy rating for this region from Freedom House, It had realy good freedom rating, much better. I think there was a 30 point difference, like Azerbaijan had nine. It's about democracy, yes, in a major way, because it's also about self-determination, national liberation, decolonization, all of those things. We have to change the language and let Azerbaijan know that these are not, these are hostages, these are captives, they are not somehow legitimate prisoners. And they're not really even accused of any realistic crimes, they are accused of wanting self-determination. What kind of a crime is that? All of this is a punishment for the fact that Armenians want sovereignty.

- Azerbaijani authorities continue to destroy and vandalize the Armenian historical heritage in Nagorno- Karabakh. Azerbaijani soldiers desecrate and annihilate both Armenian historical and cultural monuments even the Armenian cemeteries. The last action of vandalism was the destruction of the building of the National Assembly of Nagorno-Karabakh. Doctor Elisa, what kind of steps should the international community take for ending this violation and vandalism of Azerbaijan, because as we see this is a cultural genocide?

- Yes, absolutely, exactly. And I think the international community, you know, they use the term ethnic cleansing. And that works to a degree because it's a description of a process. But ethnic cleansing is just one form of genocide. Let's use the genocide term and let's activate the genocide convention. Some of the best evidence of genocide is this kind of cultural destruction, what's often called cultural genocide, but it's just genocide. Because what it shows is that the perpetrator was not just interested in moving people off of a territory.

The people are gone, so now why are they destroying these very symbolic buildings, churches, the National Parliament, I mean, that's a clear symbolic target. It's a way of cutting off the head of the Artsakh government, յust destroying the idea of Artsakh. I mean, all of this symbolic violence is just incredibly genocidal. You mentioned cemeteries. That's one of the most genocidal acts. Because what it seeks to do is to erase the historical presence and basically to kill memory, kill ancestry. It's an awful, awful crime. And the world needs to call it genocide.

The ICC could get involved. It's a difficult time for Armenia but a third country could also bring Azerbaijan in front of the ICJ. I would love to see something like that. Something major has to be done to stop Azerbaijan in its tracks because this isn't in the interest of the Azeri people, if I may say so, either. And Aliyev really relies on this Armenianphobia and these constant victories against the Armenian enemy for his own standing in Azerbaijan. His position, his power․ So this is just a terrible situation. I think Armenia is doing its best to deal with that. But I think the Western world needs to understand that genocidal dictators like Aliyev don't stop unless someone makes them stop.

- Taking into account the simple fact that genocides, in general, are carried out by states and their leaders, and at the same time considering the circumstance of existence of the imperative principle which does not allow to interfere in the internal affairs of states, how can we prevent genocides or hold accountable their perpetrators for their crimes and what tools do we have in this case?

- I think responsibility to protect comes into play here. If Azerbaijan is suggesting that Artsakhs were members of Azerbaijan somehow, so if they are going to suggest that, then they did a terrible, they're doing a terrible job, right, of protecting their own citizens. And that's the responsibility to protect external powers come into play when a state has demonstrated very clearly. We are in a very difficult time internationally. The world is changing very quickly. But I do think we need to keep using that language. And Azerbaijan doesn't serve its own citizens that well. So highlighting Azerbaijan's own human rights record, which isn't great, would also be helpful.

The problem in the West is that there is just this conspiracy of silence around Azerbaijan. They do not speak openly about Azerbaijan. If some other state that had less strategic importance to the West, had a leader that was saying the sorts of things that that Aliyev says or that the parliament says that “Armenians are the cancer of Europe”, there would be outrage in the international media and in international diplomatic circles. But Azerbaijan has a special status, unfortunately, It seems․ I think that has to end because we're not going to have peace in this region. It's too volatile with Azerbaijan acting the way it is. Aliyev will recognize that it's in his best interest to “shift gears” and to pursue a different sort of foreign policy towards Armenia, one that is based in equal sovereignty, respect for borders, right, and respect for the self-determination rights of the Artsakh people.

 Davit Mamyan

 

 

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