Nagorno Karabakh -=- ARTSAKH

[Yervant1]

Truth Dig

Nov 28 2023

There’s a Human Rights Tragedy in Asia, Too

Ethnic Armenians have fled a once-thriving democracy in Artsakh after an offensive by the authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan.

PAUL VON BLUM / TRUTHDIG

The continuing horrors of the war in the Middle East properly occupy the world’s attention. But they have obscured another recent human rights tragedy of the highest order. Beginning on Sept. 19, Azerbaijan unleashed a military offensive that routed the inferior forces of Artsakh, an ethnically Armenian region of Azerbaijan that residents claim as an independent autonomous republic commonly known as Nagorno-Karabakh. Virtually entirely Armenian, the region remained a culturally integral part of Armenia after Joseph Stalin ceded it to Soviet Azerbaijan in 1921. It has subsequently been recognized by most governments and the U.N. as part of Azerbaijan.

Before assuming full dictatorial powers, Stalin had been the Soviet Union’s commissioner of nationalities. In this role, he cultivated the USSR’s relationship with Turkey and other successor states following the collapse and breakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Delivering Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan was a calculated political move that discounted residents’ overwhelming desire for reunification with Armenia. Despite its semi-autonomous status within Azerbaijan, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were subject to routine discrimination and violence under Soviet rule.

Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost reforms catalyzed Armenian attempts to bring their persecution to wider attention. In 1991, as the Soviet empire was dissolving, Artsakh held an independence referendum in which the Armenian majority voted for independence; the democratically elected leaders soon thereafter declared the Republic of Artsakh. A six-year war launched by Azerbaijan in 1988 failed to curb the independence movement; in 2016, Azerbaijan attacked again, this time finally managing to shift the front lines in its favor. Casualties were high on both sides before Moscow brokered a ceasefire. But Russia proved a fickle guarantor, and tensions remained high until another round of conflict broke out in 2020.

Since September, the vast majority of ethnic Armenians have been forced to flee the region, and Nagorno-Karabakh’s Baku-backed government says the self-declared republic will cease to exist as an independent entity by January 2024.

In October of that year, Azerbaijan attacked Armenian villages in Artsakh with substantial military aid from its ally Turkey and weapons bought from Israel. The result was the destruction of many villages, thousands of deaths and the destruction of much property and major cultural artifacts. In December of 2022, Azerbaijan blockaded and closed the Lachin corridor, the only route for the Artsakh population to get essential food, water and medical supplies, leading to starvation and suffering. The events of 2020 and after were eerily reminiscent of the Ottoman genocide against the Armenian population that commenced in 1915. Despite these disturbing historical echoes, there was little coverage of this major human rights catastrophe in the South Caucasus.

This silence has persisted into this latest round of violence. Since September, the vast majority of ethnic Armenians have been forced to flee the region, and Nagorno-Karabakh’s Baku-backed government says the self-declared republic will cease to exist as an independent entity by January 2024. Roughly 100,000 Armenians from Artsakh have fled to Armenia. They have traveled on the Lachin corridor carrying as much as they can, leaving everything else behind, a journey tragically similar to the plight of Gazans seeking safety near the southern border with Egypt. The U.N. mission in Azerbaijan reports that people making this journey endure extremely challenging conditions, often finding shelter in caves. Malnutrition, especially among the sick and elderly, is rampant. Fortunately, U.N. observers have not found major physical damage in cities and infrastructure following the Azeri invasion. Distressingly, the U.N. Karabakh mission was also told that as few as 50 to 1,000 ethnic Armenians are reported to be left in the region.

The refugees have left behind homes, jobs, religious institutions, friendship and family relationships, educational activities and opportunities — in short, their entire lives. The museums, monasteries, historical monuments and every other facet of cultural life in the region will be obliterated by the new rulers blessed by Baku. The once-thriving economies in Stepanakert, Shushi and elsewhere in the small democratic enclave will have, for all intents and purposes, disappeared from the planet. Prisoners, including top government officials and ordinary foot soldiers, face uncertain fates, including long periods of incarceration and torture.

And yet, I’ve seen and heard almost nothing in mainstream or alternative outlets about the plight of the ethnic Armenian refugees from Artsakh. One is reminded of the grotesque words of Adolf Hitler. “Who, after all,” he asked rhetorically in 1939, “today remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?”

This is a personal tragedy for me. I have visited Artsakh once, and Armenia twice, on each occasion speaking extensively in universities, high schools and public settings. The fate of Artsakh was always a topic of concern. In Artsakh, I spoke with governmental officials, legislators, diplomats and former President Georgi Petrosyan, an engaging leader with a visionary commitment to educational, cultural and political reform. I also made presentations in governmental and university settings in which I gained a deep appreciation for the vibrant culture of the young nation. (The people of the region very much consider themselves a “nation.”)

I am especially haunted by memories of a presentation I made at Artsakh State University in 2018. The student audience was engaging, hopeful and optimistic about the future. Now, that institution is gone, at least in its former form in the capital city of Stepanakert. Beyond the interruption of their studies, the future of higher education in the region is now in doubt; perhaps it will be eliminated forever. Some of these intelligent and promising young women and men in Artsakh may reclaim their lives in Armenia. Many will not, if they survive at all. It is likely that some of them have died in the recent fighting, as members of the Artsakh armed forces or as civilian casualties. Their plight leaves me heartbroken and distraught.

The plight of Artsakh should matter to Americans, even as we are preoccupied with our own profoundly serious crisis of democracy.

By any reckoning, the takeover and sweeping out of Artsakh is a massive human tragedy with effects that will be felt for decades. Survivors will struggle to rebuild their shattered lives; many will require significant mental and physical health resources in the short and long term. It’s unclear where those resources will come from. It’s also extremely unlikely that any of the exiles will be able to return to their homes. As we mourn for the victims in Israel and Palestine, so should we also mourn for the human beings in Artsakh.

The plight of Artsakh should matter to Americans, even as we are preoccupied with our own profoundly serious crisis of democracy. Artsakh had a population of 150,000, roughly the same as Pomona, California. It was a democratic country, with free and open elections, certified as such by international observers. It was a country entirely consistent with American ideals, with its own strengths and flaws, living until very recently in a state of neither peace nor war, worthy of Washington’s recognition and support.

The conquering state is its antithesis. Azerbaijan is a deeply authoritarian nation ruled by a family dictatorship with a long history of corruption. The president, Ilham Aliyev, is the son of the former president Heydar Aliyev, who was a Soviet KGB operative before the independence of Azerbaijan. Reminiscent of regimes in North Korea and Syria, the Aliyev dynasty curries favor with others that have leaders of similar bent, including Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. “Israel is the Jewish state and Azerbaijan is a Muslim state with a large Muslim majority,” Netanyahu said after meeting with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev in 2016. “Here we have an example of Muslims and Jews working together to promise a better future for both of us.”

Turkey is Azerbaijan’s chief sponsor on the world stage, led by its authoritarian leader Recep Erdogan, a ruler that Donald Trump reportedly admires for his “strength” and “decisiveness” in imprisoning his opponents. Perhaps inspired by Erdogan, Aliyev has pursued an extensive crackdown of civil liberties — attacking journalists, human rights advocates and others deemed threatening to the government. These people routinely face harassment, violence and imprisonment. The prospects for Armenians in Baku-controlled Artsakh are grim, at best. Americans should be deeply concerned with all of this and take every step to ensure that a massive destruction of Armenian lives does not occur. Azerbaijan, like Turkey, continues to officially deny that 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Turks between of 1915 to 1923 in the first genocide of the 20th century.

Could history repeat? I do not doubt that both Erdogan and Aliyev would like to make further incursions into Armenia proper. This is certainly the fear of Armenians and diaspora communities throughout the world. I have heard it expressed in Armenia, in Artsakh and in the Armenian communities of Los Angeles and Prague (which is home to a small but vibrant Armenian community.)

Choosing democracy over authoritarians should be the easiest choice America can make in its foreign policy. That choice requires not only words, but action. As long as oil partnerships grease the cozy relationship between Washington and Baku, Americans should take to the streets and force attention to the matter. The embassies and consulates of Azerbaijan and Turkey should be regular targets of protest, and we should demand far more media coverage of our allies’ actions in the region. We should pressure our representatives to work more aggressively to help Armenia and ethnic Armenians. This includes making foreign and military aid to Turkey and Azerbaijan conditional, and pressuring Israel to rethink its own cozy and morally disheartening relationship with Azerbaijan. There must never be another Armenian genocide.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/theres-a-human-rights-tragedy-in-asia-too/

[MosJan]

Շահեն Բաբայանը 44-օրյա պատերազմից հետո

[Yervant1]

ArmenianWeekly.com

“No one did anything”

December 6, 2023 Lisa Gulesserian, PhD Opinion, Op-Eds 0

Lisa Gulesserian delivering her powerful remarks at the November 18 protest (Photo courtesy of Zoravik)

Note: This speech was delivered on behalf of Zoravik at the activists’ protest/vigil at the JFK Federal Building in Boston, Massachusetts on November 18, 2023.

We are here today because the international community, including our own United States Congress and State Department, failed to protect the lives and livelihoods of an indigenous people. The state of Massachusetts has failed not only the Massachusett people from whom land and resources were stolen in order for us to stand in front of this Federal Building today; Massachusetts and the United States have now failed the Armenians of Artsakh (also called “Nagorno-Karabakh”).

While the world watched and did nothing in the South Caucasus, a historically Armenian majority territory with a 4,000-year-old history was blockaded, gutted and depopulated of its indigenous Armenian population by a genocidal, authoritarian regime—Azerbaijan.

No one did anything when Azerbaijan attacked Armenians in Artsakh and bombed them for 44 days straight in 2020.

No one did anything while Azerbaijan captured, held and tortured Armenian prisoners of war, many of whom have been held captive for over three years since the end of the war in 2020.

No one did anything when authoritarian Azerbaijan challenged Armenia’s sovereignty and deployed troops into the fledgling democratic country.

No one did anything when Azerbaijan imposed an illegal blockade on Nagorno-Karabakh by closing the Lachin Corridor, the region’s lifeline to Armenia.

No one did anything when, for nine months of blockade, Azerbaijan starved and terrorized Armenians in Artsakh.

And no one did anything when on September 19 Azerbaijan launched another attack on the tired and malnourished civilian population of Artsakh. Emergency United Nations Security Council meetings did nothing.

Two separate Congressional hearings with the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission did nothing. Our Congress and State Department did nothing to stop Azerbaijan from seizing Artsakh and ethnically cleansing the region of over 100,000 of its Armenian inhabitants. 100,000 Armenians are now refugees who were forced to leave their ancestral home because they would never be safe under Azerbaijani rule, under the rule of a genocidal regime hellbent on destroying them.

We are horrified by what the world and our government have allowed to happen to the Armenians of Artsakh, despite years of warnings from almost all genocide prevention experts and NGOs who foresaw the disaster taking place amid the willful blindness of the international community.

World leaders and powerful stakeholders are complicit in Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Artsakh by providing diplomatic cover for and not intervening against Azerbaijan’s violent takeover of a region that had never been under Azerbaijani rule before Stalin placed it there in order to undermine Armenian security, a region that has seen millennia of Armenian culture and history, a region where the Armenian alphabet has been continuously taught since the fifth century.

Thumbing their noses at human decency, key world leaders traded import of oil and gas from Azerbaijan for complicity in the destruction of the Armenians of Artsakh. They show every sign of doing the same as Azerbaijan now looks to do the same to the Armenian Republic, starting with its southern area.

It is not just that the U.S. Congress and State Department have done nothing to protect Armenians. The United States actively built the military of Azerbaijan over decades with hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid. The U.S. thus had a direct role in helping Azerbaijan reach its genocidal goals.

Three decades ago, the U.S. Congress passed Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, which prohibits military assistance to Azerbaijan because of Azerbaijani aggression toward Armenia and Artsakh. Yet, successive U.S. administrations have used their waiver power to continue the immense military support of Azerbaijan.

This includes the Trump administration, which did so even as Azerbaijan launched a massive military invasion of Artsakh and Armenia in 2020, and the Biden administration, as Azerbaijan continued military operations against Armenia and Azerbaijan, imposed a military blockade to starve the Armenians of Artsakh out and, when that failed, launched another massive military operation to complete the ethnic cleansing of Armenians.

The U.S. administration and Congress should not stand idly by while Azerbaijan completes its genocidal goals. The United States can and should permanently cease all security assistance and weapons sales to Azerbaijan in light of its human rights violations and repeated hostilities. This is the least we can do, and we demand that our executive and congressional representatives do something: Enforce Section 907 and stop sending money and selling arms to a genocidal regime!

Along with ceasing all monetary and military aid to Azerbaijan, we also call on Congress and the administration to immediately sanction Azerbaijan for its crimes. We have used sanctions against Russia and Russian oligarchs for their aggression against Ukraine. It’s time to use the same strategy against another authoritarian, power-hungry leader and his family and cronies. We demand that our congressional representatives and administration do something: Sanction Ilham Aliyev and his family NOW!

With sanctions against the Aliyev clan and no more aid for Azerbaijan, Armenians might have a future. But the Armenians of Artsakh who fled Azerbaijani persecution need help NOW. The elderly sleeping in the streets and the malnourished children need immediate humanitarian assistance, and the paltry 11.5 million that USAID just promised to send to help ease the plight of Armenians is not enough. We demand that our congressional representatives do more: Send more humanitarian assistance to Armenia NOW! If we could give hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Azerbaijan to help cause this catastrophe, the least we can do is send adequate aid to save the lives of those directly victimized by it.

The U.S. Congress and State Department have the chance to right their wrongs. We demand that our congressional representatives and the administration do something to help the beleaguered Armenians of Artsakh and the besieged country of Armenia.

You can do something too: call your representatives and demand they support bipartisan HR 5686, which calls for sanctions against Azerbaijan and $30 million in humanitarian aid to Armenians.

Call your representatives to support HR 5683, which authorizes military financing for Armenia and repeals section 907, ending military aid to Azerbaijan.

To learn more ways to support Artsakh Armenians, visit ArtsakhSOS.com.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Lisa Gulesserian, PhD

Lisa Gulesserian is Preceptor on Armenian at Harvard, where she teaches three levels of Western Armenian and Armenian culture courses. She is the lead editor of Mayda: Echoes of Protest.

 

https://armenianweekly.com/2023/12/06/no-one-did-anything/?fbclid=IwAR2n4lC5pGi2KOtLE354hSY96Wrpti5RA79a918iDX0KrmMWdvL_A2OjmWU

[MosJan]

[Yervant1]

 

Rolling Stone

Dec 8 2023

 

System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi Team for New Charity Single

"Deconstruction," the brainchild of Gibson Brands' Cesar Gueikian, who rounds out the Gibson Band, will raise money for the Armenia Fund

BY KORY GROW

SYSTEM OF A Down frontman Serj Tankian and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, who recorded the song “Patterns” together in 2000, have reunited for a new song that will help raise money for imperiled Armenians.

The tune was the brainchild of Cesar Gueikian, CEO of Gibson Brands. Gueikian, an Argentine member of the Armenian diaspora, teamed with Tankian and Iommi on a new song, “Deconstruction,” that’s coming out under the banner of the Gibson Band via Gibson Records as a charity single. The tune is a six-minute descent into psychedelic doom metal that finds Tankian singing about “deconstruction of the human mind” while Gueikian plays meaty riffs and Iommi slices through it all with a wah-wah–inflected, bluesy solo. One hundred percent of the money the song makes will go to Armenia Fund’s Artsakh Refugee Initiative, which provides aid to Armenians displaced following Azerbaijan’s 2020 invasion.

“We asked ourselves how to use this song to bring awareness to Armenia and the Armenian situation and raise funds for Armenia,” Gueikian says via Zoom. “In addition to making music, Serj is an activist in service to Armenia, and Tony has ties to Armenia because many years ago, he was part of a group that funded a music school there. So the three of us have pledged any income the song makes to go to Armenia through the Armenia Fund.”

Gibson has also built a unique Les Paul Special that sports Tankian’s painting, Our Mountains, which depicts Armenia’s beloved Mount Ararat and is selling via Julien’s Auctions. Corporación América, owned by Argentine billionaire and Armenian diaspora member Eduardo Eurnekian, and the Eurnekian family are matching the funds the endeavor raises.

“Because it was Armenia Fund, I thought it appropriate to donate a painting called Our Mountains, which refers to the two mountains of Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark landed,” Tankian tells Rolling Stone over Zoom. “It’s one of the symbols of Armenia and our culture and history. … [Armenia Fund] is one of the recipients of System of a Down’s donations from the two songs we did in 2020 during the war with Azerbaijan. They help with the rehabilitation of veterans.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/serj-tankian-tony-iommi-cesar-gueikian-deconstruction-armenia-1234917320/

[Yervant1]

The Critic

Dec 9 2023

Do not forget Armenia

Why has an act of blatant ethnic cleansing been widely ignored?

ARTILLERY ROW

By

Brian Brivati

9 December, 2023

“Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”
— Adolf Hitler, 22 August 1939

December 9th is the International Day of the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. Article II of that Convention defines the crime of genocide as “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group”. Unfortunately, defining it has not prevented a single genocide since 1948.

The Article in international law that matters for current victims of genocidal projects in Europe (Armenia and Ukraine) is Article 5 of NATO membership — “each member state to consider an armed attack against one member state…to be an armed attack against them all” and not Article II of the Genocide Convention.

When Hitler evoked the memory of the Turkish “atrocities” against the Armenians in his 1939 speech (the word genocide was not coined until 1944), he was highlighting that massacres in the East in times of war could be committed with impunity and the perpetrators would escape justice.

Raphael Lemkin helped create the Genocide Convention to remove that impunity and so prevent acts of genocide. Since some hopeful developments at the turn of the 21st century, this legal project to end genocide has entirely failed. The only thing that prevents genocide is collective security.

The international human rights industry will use the 9th December to celebrate the elaborate legal processes that have grown up since 1948. There will rightly be much debate about if the Hamas attack on Israel was or was not part of an overall genocidal project: the annihilation of the state of Israel and the Jewish people that live from the River to the Sea. Short answer: it is and should be treated as such, but non-state actors are not covered by the Convention.

There will be even more focus on if Israel’s response constitutes a programme of genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza. Short answer: it doesn’t but the IDF is inevitably committing crimes against humanity and war crimes in the manner of its operations given the density of population and the way Hamas is embedded in civilian infrastructure, exactly as Hamas intended.

There will be little discussion of the most blatant genocidal acts committed over the last two years: the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the many crimes that occurred consequently, including the forced transferring of up to 20,000 Ukrainian Children to Russia from Ukraine, and the destruction “in whole or in part” of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh by the Azerbaijani state.

Given the Crime of Aggression perpetrated in the original 2014 invasion, repeated in February 2022, states that are party to the convention have clearly not done what they can to defend Ukraine from Russian genocide as it has unfolded over nine years. Moreover, these acts have been accompanied by actions that meet the 5 Ds framework of incitement to acts of genocide — dehumanisation, demonisation, delegitimisation, disinformation, and the denial of past atrocities perpetrated against the target.

A similar case can be made for Nagorno-Karabakh. It has been a project that has taken place in stages, with military dimensions, cultural dimensions and finally the ethnic cleansing of 120,000 Armenians from their homes in September 2023. It is a war against the Armenian people in revenge for Armenia’s original seizure of contested territory.

The origin of the conflict is hotly debated. There is little to debate about the actions of Azerbaijan in the war of 2020, the subsequent and previous destruction of Christian sites and the ethnic cleansing of 2023. Together they constitute genocide. The speeches of Aliyev and surrounding propaganda meet the test of the 5 Ds.

Armenia’s ratification of the Rome Statute demonstrates its intention to make a referral of Azerbaijan to the ICC. 39 states have made that referral on behalf of Ukraine against Putin. The ICC and the Convention on Genocide having done nothing to prevent Aliyev or Putin, the purpose must now be punishment. The chances of punishment are less than zero. The most that might be achieved is that judgment will provide some kind of symbolic justice.

Both the perpetrating states and their dictators must be found guilty of the Crime of Aggression (for stating wars) and the Crimes of Genocide (Article II and the 5 Ds) so that the international legal judgment is unambiguous. Judgment matters to history but also shapes that which is possible in terms of collective and individual redress, supports the enactment of the ICC files already open and provides ballast to international political support for judicial processes. It is not therefore irrelevant.

The recurrence of Genocide since 1948, with ever greater regularity, shows that the reality is that the Convention on the Prevention on Genocide does not prevent Genocide. The record of prosecution by courts and tribunals shows that it will not punish any sitting Head of State, though it might facilitate them being judged, and it will only ever bring to justice a fraction of the perpetrators who escape state level judicial processes.

The fact is: the only thing that can prevent Genocide is collective security. The only guarantee of collective security in Europe is full NATO membership. The only thing that can punish Heads of State that perpetrate wars of aggression accompanied by acts of Genocide, is defeat.

https://thecritic.co.uk/do-not-forget-armenia/

[Yervant1]

Dec 12 2023

Precedents for Europe on Azerbaijan’s Conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh

By David Davidian

Despite the seemingly never-ending classic debate between territorial integrity and national self-determination, international jurisprudence nevertheless accords all peoples the entitlement to self-determination.

The international community purportedly supports and gives attention to remedial secession. The international law doctrine of remedial secession grants to a group within a state the right to secede and form its own independent state in response to severe and ongoing human rights abuses or denial of fundamental rights by the central government. This idea challenges the traditional principles of state sovereignty and territorial integrity, suggesting that under certain circumstances, the international community may recognize the right of a specific group to secede from a state that is violating their basic rights.

A strong affirmative case existed for the remedial secession for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, considering the Soviet Red Army colonized the Southern Caucasus and its leadership transferred this region with a 95% Armenian population to Azerbaijani jurisdiction in 1921. Albeit with autonomous status, the Soviets placated Armenians, giving the illusion they would have their land in perpetuity. Other than a mechanism of Soviet control, why assign a nearly mono-ethnic region’s jurisdiction to a belligerent?

Demands for justice by survivors of the 1915 Turkish genocide of the Armenians needed to be suppressed by both the Soviets and Turkey, each synergistically fulfilling their interests. The engendering of a novel Turkic Azerbaijani national ethos and the reduction of territory under Armenian jurisdiction has as its basis the 1921 disposition of Nagorno-Karabakh. To this day, not only is the term Armenian a pejorative in Turkish society, but in Azerbaijan, the more anti-Armenian one is, the more one is considered an Azerbaijani patriot. This socialization is enshrined in the Azerbaijani educational system and is expressed today by Azerbaijani leaders who call for the complete elimination of Armenians.

Armenia’s ability to achieve recognized self-rule over Nagorno-Karabakh and other regions extending south to the Iran border in the First Karabakh War (1988-1994) was never achieved, lacking the requisite diplomacy to gain “remedial secession.” The Alma-Ata Declaration formed the basis for international recognition of existing Soviet borders, which included Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan. Considering the significant number of ethnic groups demanding remedies for almost seventy years of Soviet gerrymandering, a failure to adopt this declaration would have created a horror show of precedent that could have extended across much of Europe. Even in the wake of today’s Russian special military operation in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and others have made claims against Ukrainian territory or at least made demands for cultural autonomy for their respective minorities. Alma-Ata thus codified the international recognition of existing Soviet republican borders, setting the precedent of restricting autonomy and any expectation of secessionist self-determination akin to state boundaries in the E.U.

As Azerbaijan seized control of Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall 2020 in the Second Karabakh War, international diplomatic verbal outrage ensued, but no state came to oppose Azerbaijani actions, however barbaric. No economic sanctions were placed on Azerbaijan. No country helped the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, who a generation earlier had declared themselves an independent self-ruling entity, albeit one lacking international recognition. Azerbaijan’s exports of its huge reserves of Caspian gas to Europe trumped any chance of economic sanctions against Baku.

Even though Armenia is a member of the CSTO, Russia offered no assistance to Armenia or the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, claiming the battle was on Azerbaijani sovereign territory. Beyond Azerbaijan’s usurping of Nagorno-Karabakh, by the summer of 2023, the Azerbaijani military had occupied nearly 150 sq km of territory inside the internationally recognized borders of Armenia proper, as outlined in the Alma-ATA Declaration. Subsequently, there were calls by major world powers for Azerbaijan to respect Armenian sovereignty. Those nations challenging Azerbaijan included, but were not limited to, nations in the EU, France, the USA, Iran, and China. In particular, France also called for the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from Armenia.

These declarations of support for Armenian sovereignty were merely reiterations of all currently recognized borders, that is, the official national borders absent regard for the international jurisprudence doctrine of the right to self-determination. The same nations who called for Azerbaijan to vacate sovereign Armenia were deafeningly silent regarding Nagorno-Karabakh. Those nations wanted to avoid setting a precedent for separatist movements and declarations of the right to self-determination by others. Europe has approximately one hundred twenty-five active, distinct separatist movements. This activity follows the approximately two hundred and fifty national border changes since WWI. National governments fear loss of control over territory, loss of access to mineral and natural resource rights, a weakening of military power and the ability to protect sovereign borders, and a host of other related concerns.

The prevalence of separatism and regionalism across Europe is extensive and multifaceted, as evidenced by Catalonia, the Basque regions along the borders of Spain and France, Scotland, Flanders, and others. Other movements actively pursue regional autonomy, notably in Italy’s Lombardy and Veneto, where demands to govern and administer the interests of the local people according to its own initiatives. Other separatist movements in recent years involved the creation of entities with a de facto status such as Kosovo (a creation of NATO) and Turkey’s expansive presence in North Cyprus.

National governments fear loss of control over territory, loss of access to mineral and natural resource rights, a weakening of military power and the ability to protect sovereign borders, and a host of other related concerns. It is clear that, in Europe, other than the forced creation of Kosovo by NATO as a way to degrade Serbia as a Russian ally, there is distinct pressure not to create the precedent of any successful separatist or re-integration movements. Thus, it should not be surprising that Europe not only didn’t pressure Azerbaijan to cease and desist in its 2020 war waged to integrate Nagorno-Karabakh into its ‘internationally recognized borders,’ but it didn’t blink an eye when 120,000 Armenians, were forcibly expelled by Azerbaijani forces in 2023.

Documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, used as one of the excuses for NATO ‘liberating’ Kosovo Albanians from ‘Serbian oppression,’ were seemingly irrelevant in September of 2023 when Azerbaijan forced the exodus of 120,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. The only thing worse would have been the wholesale extermination of the lives of the 120,000 Armenians of Artsakh. That forcible expulsion of 120,000 Armenians involved a full-scale physical blockade, starvation, shutting off of the water supply to the entire region, shutting off of all electricity and communications, and constant attacks against the civilian Armenians, which are all activities constituting genocide according to the definition in international law.

It was not in the interest of the existing world order for the Republic of Artsakh or Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh to be a successfully recognized entity — the abject lack of active or competent Armenian diplomacy notwithstanding. So, Russia, for its parochial interests, and the E.U. out of fear of setting any precedent, watched as Azerbaijan forced the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians. International geopolitical interests trump all else.

Despite the resistance to separatist movements, there is arguably another aspect to the aforementioned desire of nations. As nations vie for access to and control of the world’s natural resources, Europe in particular recognizes its vulnerability and dependence on the East for its energy.

As a result of Europe’s naïve and obsequious deference to the US’s instigation and machinations in Ukraine and its relentless beleaguering of Russia, Europe finds itself paying three or four times the cost of Russian energy that is now delivered via pipelines running through Azerbaijan and Turkey. Upsetting Azerbaijan would be a risky move for Europe

Baku, emboldened by the frozen inaction of the international community, and encouraged by Russia’s agreements of collaboration with Azerbaijan and Russia’s disparaging of Armenians, is amplifying its rhetoric and claims that the southern part of internationally-recognized Armenia proper is really part of an imaginary Azerbaijani state in the past.

Perhaps out of fear of regional instability that could mushroom into a far-reaching chaos that might descend into war across the Caucasus, South Caucasus and even the Middle East, the U.S. has begun pressuring Azerbaijan in the form of the Armenian Protection Act of 2023. Concomitantly, France and India have sold military equipment and training to Armenia. Baku has retaliated by closing the USAID operation in Azerbaijan. This pressure, perhaps, is to force Azerbaijan to sign a peace treaty with Armenia, considering Baku is hindering such efforts as a pretext for further aggression: a full-scale invasion of Armenia proper, further violating its recognized territorial integrity. Pressure on Azerbaijan and the apparent Western tilt toward Armenia encourages Armenia to pull away from its Russian orbit further.

It will be interesting to observe if the precedent of one state [Azerbaijan] claiming territory within another’s internationally-recognized borders [Armenia] will be as vigorously opposed as the destruction of Armenian civilization in Nagorno-Karabakh was silently endorsed. The former precedent will not be welcome anywhere, especially across Europe.

Author: David Davidian – Lecturer at the American University of Armenia. He has spent over a decade in technical intelligence analysis at major high technology firms. He resides in Yerevan, Armenia.

(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)

https://www.wgi.world/precedents-for-europe-on-azerbaijan-s-conquest-of-nagorno-karabakh/

[Yervant1]

The Gazelle

Dec 11 2023

World Court: Azerbaijan Must Let Ethnic Armenians Return To Nagorno-Karabakh

The International Court of Justice has issued a statement that Azerbaijan must let the ethnically-Armenian displaced civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh back into their home region, despite its official status as Azerbaijani territory.

• Yana Peeva

Dec 11, 2023

On Nov. 17, the World Court in The Hague issued a statement that Azerbaijan must let the Armenian population return to the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh has been mostly controlled by the Armenian majority living there, which has been the cause of ethnic tensions for years.

Previously, in Sept. 2021, the World Court had also ordered Azerbaijan to ensure the restoration of peace among the people within its territories regarding the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, at the beginning of 2023, tensions escalated and Baku held a nine-month blockade of essential supplies to the region, forcing over 120,000 of its inhabitants to migrate by Sept. 2023. Armenia accused Azerbaijan of ethnic cleansing and raised the issue to the International Court of Justice. Military action on Sept. 19 between the forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh only led to further risk for the civilians and expedited the migration.

The current statement of the Court orders Azerbaijan to facilitate the return of the displaced Nagorno-Karabakh inhabitants and ensure that there are no tactics of intimidation or racial discrimination that force a mass migration in the future. In its response to the ICJ, Azerbaijan claims that they have been “committed to upholding the human rights of the Armenian residents of Karabakh on an equal basis with other citizens of Azerbaijan.”

As of now, no final ruling has been issued by the court and the main case is yet to be assigned a date. The issue remains ongoing, with no actions taken on either side since the statement from Nov. 17.

https://www.thegazelle.org/issue/254/azerbaijan-armenia-return

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

this beautiful song has changed.

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

32 are free at home

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

i think there still are many people left ion artsakh

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

[Yervant1]

 

The National Interest

Dec 17 2023

 

Nagorno-Karabakh: Eurasia’s Forgotten Conflict

With Azerbaijan’s establishment of control over Nagorno-Karabakh now complete, questions remain about refugees now settling in Armenia.

by Mark Temnycky

Last week, representatives from the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments met to discuss the delimitation of their borders, where they debated the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The event was the latest development in what appears to be the end of the over three-decade conflict between the two countries.

Since the late 1980s, Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. To date, thousands have died in the conflict, and many more have been injured. Over the past few decades, numerous ceasefires have been implemented, and negotiations between the two countries have been ongoing. But several ceasefire violations occurred, the fighting continued, and peace talks have constantly failed. More recently, the United States and the European Union attempted to de-escalate the conflict by providing humanitarian and financial assistance. This aid, however, came to no avail, and the conflict continued. Meanwhile, Russia and Turkey brokered a ceasefire in 2020 during a renewed skirmish between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Eventually, this ceasefire was also broken, and Russia and Turkey could not lead Armenian and Azerbaijani officials to new negotiations.

Given the international community’s continued inability to achieve a peaceful resolution, the Azerbaijanis finally took matters into their own hands. First, the Azerbaijani forces established a blockade over the Lachin corridor, a pathway that connects Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. For nearly a year, Armenians in the region had limited access to food, medicine, and fuel. There were also reports that there were shortages in the region and that Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were going hungry. Then, Azerbaijani forces launched a brutal attack on the region. After a brief period of fighting, the Azerbaijanis announced that they had taken control of the territory, and thousands of Armenians began to flee the region. Now, over 100,000 ethnic Armenians are displaced.

The Armenian state is attempting to help these displaced individuals. Recently, the Armenian government approved the “procedure for determining and issuing pensions to those from Nagorno-Karabakh.” The program will seek to help ethnic Armenians displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh due to Azerbaijan’s recent attack. The pension, however, will only apply to retirement-age individuals. In addition, this form of assistance will only last until June 2024, meaning individuals will only receive this aid for six months. Finally, the financial amount of the pension will be “calculated according to local legislation,” meaning it is unclear how much financial assistance these ethnic Armenians will actually receive.

There are also further complications. First, the pension will not apply to working-aged individuals. Second, over 100,000 ethnic Armenians have fled Nagorno-Karabakh. These refugees will need food, clothing, and shelter. They will also hope to join the workforce. Given this large influx of individuals entering Armenia, it is likely that the country could “encounter substantial difficulties in meeting the needs of the displaced individuals.” This may lead to additional problems for the Armenian government. Why might this be the case?

According to the World Bank, the unemployment rate in Armenia in 2022 was 12.6 percent. In addition, the World Food Programme reported that the poverty rate in Armenia in 2022 was 27 percent. Twenty-one percent of the population was also listed as food insecure. In other words, roughly one-fourth of the country lives below the poverty line, and one-fifth of Armenians do not have sufficient access to food to meet their basic needs. Given these challenges, and with the recent influx of Nagorno-Karabakh refugees, this will likely further complicate matters for the Armenian state. Nonetheless, the government is attempting to work through these challenges so that they can take care of these individuals.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijanis are now moving into Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani government is working to fully incorporate the region into its territory. It is unclear, however, what this reintegration effort will entail. The Azerbaijani government has also not specified how it will protect ethnic Armenians who did not flee the region during the recent onslaught. Finally, Azerbaijani officials have yet to negotiate the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh with the Armenians. In other words, while Azerbaijan declared that it has retaken the area, there are many uncertainties about what will happen next.

Overall, the situation in and around Nagorno-Karabakh remains tense. Azerbaijani officials have stated that they have reclaimed the territory and that reintegration efforts will begin, but there is little guidance on how this will occur. Meanwhile, Armenian officials have been faced with a refugee crisis, where they are attempting to help these individuals integrate into their country. At this time, these challenges remain unresolved, and they are being pressed for time as both Armenia and Azerbaijan prepare for what may be a brutal winter.

Time is running out to help the current and displaced citizens of Nagorno-Karabakh. With the unsuccessful attempts by the international community to try and resolve the conflict, individuals from the region have sadly become victims of this forgotten war. The international community has failed them, and this injustice should not be overlooked. Such inaction cannot happen again.

Mark Temnycky is an accredited freelance journalist covering Eurasian affairs and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He can be found on X @MTemnyck

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/nagorno-karabakh-eurasia%E2%80%99s-forgotten-conflict-208007

[Yervant1]

Dec 20 2023

The Fall Of The Republic Of Artsakh

• Timothy McGowan
  

On September 19th, Azerbaijan launched an intense military offensive in the contested Nagorno – Karabakh region, which killed over 200 ethnic Armenians and dozens of Azerbaijanis. After just 24 hours of fighting, a ceasefire was agreed upon between Armenian forces and the Azerbaijani military. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, separatist authorities announced that the break-away region would officially be incorporated into Azerbaijan on January 1st, 2024. After decades of Armenian defiance, the hopes for an independent Republic of Artsakh have finally ended. According to the BCC, approximately 100,000 Armenians have fled the region since the military operation and subsequent capitulation. While Baku has maintained that Armenians would be treated as equal citizens, the mass exodus indicates fears of ethnic cleansing.

Although Armenian and Azerbaijani ethnic tensions have persisted for centuries, the current Nagorno – Karabakh dispute is a relic of Soviet occupation. In 1923, the Soviet Union established that Nagorno – Karabakh should be an autonomous region within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, despite the population being roughly 95 percent Armenian at the time. Whether intentional or not, Stalin’s odd land distribution increased the potential for ethnic violence following Armenian and Azerbaijani independence. According to the Council of Foreign Relations, the Republic of Artsakh was declared following a referendum in the region in 1991, which ultimately led to a three year war. After the death of roughly 30,000 people, a bilateral ceasefire was signed in 1994 and officially remained in effect until 2020. Despite international recognition of Nagorno – Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Artsakh remained a breakaway region for several decades due to the military and economic support of both Armenia and Russia.

While Armenia initially gained territory in the 1991 conflict, the tide turned in Azerbaijan’s favor in the following decades. This was mainly driven by Azerbaijan’s superior alliances, largely created by their vast reserves of petroleum and liquified natural gas. One of Azerbaijan’s most important allies is Turkey, which has provided significant military and diplomatic support to the country. Azerbaijan’s supply of petroleum alongside their shared Turkic identity has solidified Turkey’s support for Baku. According to Reuters, 80 percent of Azerbaijan’s oil exports flow through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline to Turkey, which strategically circumvents Armenia by passing through Georgia. Furthermore, Armenia and Turkey were already geopolitical rivals due to Ankara’s denial of the Armenian genocide in 1915. Many European countries, alongside the United States and Israel, have benefitted from Azerbaijan’s exports as well, effectively isolating Armenia from the world.

Armenia’s main allies are limited to Russia and Iran, which both lack significant geopolitical clout at the moment. According to TRT World, Russia’s support for Armenia is derived from their shared Orthodox-Christian identity and Slavic heritage. Without Russia’s military and economic support, Armenia was unlikely to win the war in 1991. Armenia’s alliance with Iran is mainly derived from Tehran’s tensions with its Azerbaijani minority. Iran is home to over 12 million Azerbaijani’s, more than the population of Azerbaijan itself. Tehran does not want its own separatist movement, which is why it seeks to undermine Baku to decrease the probability of a unification movement of all Azerbaijani people. One way to do this is to support Armenia so that Baku’s attention is fixated on another matter. According to Modern Diplomacy, Iran has supplied Armenia with extensive weaponry, including 500 units of anti-tank missile systems. While these allies have been helpful to Armenia in the past, Russia and Iran have been more concerned with their own internal matters in recent years.

Following the 1994 ceasefire, the state of Nagorno – Karabakh remained fairly stable with infrequent clashes occurring over the subsequent decades. However, emboldened by significant weapon imports from Turkey, Israel, and Belarus, Azerbaijan has become increasingly aggressive in the last decade. According to the Center for Eastern Studies, Azerbaijan launched a military operation known as the four days war in 2016, in which Baku enjoyed miniscule territorial gains. In September 2020, fighting once again broke out along the Azerbaijan-Nagorno Karabakh border, which saw the most intense violence since 1994. Lasting roughly six weeks, the Second Nagorno Karabakh war claimed thousands of lives before a peace deal was finally brokered by Russia on November 9th. Azerbaijan reclaimed the majority of its lost territory and Armenia only retained a small portion of the Karabakh region. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the peace deal established the Lachin corridor, which was a designated passage protected by Russian peacekeepers connecting Armenia to Nagorno Karabakh.

In December 2022, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of using the Lachin Corridor to supply weapons to Nagorno Karabakh and subsequently blocked the transit line. Armenia denied the allegations and accused Azerbaijan of isolating the region for its own agenda. Whether the Armenians supplied weapons or not, the Lachin Corridor was a vital route for supplying essential resources such as food and medicine. According to the BBC, residents reported severe food shortages and human rights violations were thrown at Baku. However, Azerbaijan maintains that any supply shortages were the fault of the Armenians as they refused to accept Azerbaijani aid when offered. In any case, Nagorno Karabakh’s isolation combined with a weakened Russian ally meant the break-away region had little means of defending itself in the recent military operation.

Samvel Shahramanyan, the president of Nagorno-Karabakh, signed a decree to dissolve the Republic of Artsakh and all of its institutions on January 1st, 2024. While this specific territorial dispute seems to be resolved for now, it remains to be seen what these developments mean for the Armenian diaspora and Armenian – Azerbaijani relations. According to the AP, Jeyhun Bayramov, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister, reaffirmed that all ethnic Armenians will be guaranteed full rights and freedoms. While these statements cannot be confirmed, the reality of the situation will become more apparent in the coming weeks. According to Aljazeera, a UN team of approximately a dozen people recently arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh. Although the majority of its citizens have already fled the region, this team will be able to assess the claims of the Azerbaijani government.

While it is too early to assess the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, should the Azerbaijani government pursue a policy of ethnic cleansing there are various actions the international community could take. First, while Azerbaijan’s oil reserves gives it diplomatic leverage, it also makes its economy very dependent on exports. Should the international community want to retaliate against the Azerbaijani government for any reason, decreasing imports of Azerbaijan oil would greatly undermine Baku’s economy. Also, Azerbaijan relies completely on weapons imports from a few countries. This allows for significant leverage over the state should grave human rights atrocities be committed.

https://theowp.org/reports/the-fall-of-the-republic-of-artsakh/

[Yervant1]

CNN
Dec 27 2023

Why the Armenian exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh may not end Azerbaijan’s ambitions

By Christian Edwards, CNN

CNN —

Standing on the deserted streets of Nagorno-Karabakh on the 20th anniversary of his inauguration, Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev said he had achieved the “sacred goal” of his presidency: reclaiming the land taken from his father.

Azerbaijan had for decades been haunted by the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, a tiny Caucasian enclave home to one of the world’s most protracted conflicts. Armenians herald it as the cradle of their civilization, but it lies within Azerbaijan’s borders, like an island in unfriendly seas.

As separate Soviet republics, Azerbaijan and Armenia played nice under Moscow’s watchful eye. But as that empire crumbled, Armenia, then the ascendant power, seized Nagorno-Karabakh from its weaker neighbor in a bloody war in the 1990s.

The defeat became a “festering wound” Aliyev promised to heal. But he grew frustrated by diplomatic talks that he believed aimed only “to freeze the conflict.” After decades of “meaningless and fruitless” summits, from Minsk to Key West, he changed his tack.

Brute force stepped in where diplomacy had failed. While the conflict remained frozen, Azerbaijan had transformed. Now oil-rich, backed by Turkey and armed to the teeth, it reclaimed a third of Nagorno-Karabakh in a 44-day war in 2020, stopped only by a Russian-brokered ceasefire.

But the agreement proved brittle and, in September, Azerbaijan struck again. Unable to resist its military might, the Karabakh government surrendered in just 24 hours. The region’s ethnic Armenian population fled within a week, an exodus the European Parliament said amounted to ethnic cleansing – an allegation Azerbaijan denies. “We brought peace by war,” Aliyev told a forum this month.

Whether that peace will be a lasting one is unclear. In Azerbaijan, many fear that the ethnic nationalism and vow of territorial reunification on which Aliyev built his legitimacy is more likely to find new targets than to dissipate.

And in Armenia, which was left exposed by its weak military and absent allies, the state is struggling to absorb more than 100,000 Karabakh refugees, many of whom say they cannot adjust to their new lives.

Life in limbo

Nonna Poghosyan fled her home in Stepanakert, Karabakh’s capital, with her husband, twin children and elderly parents. They now rent a small apartment in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. But Poghosyan, who worked as the American University of Armenia’s program coordinator in Stepanakert, said her mind is still in Karabakh.

“I’m just dying to know what’s happening there in Stepanakert. What’s happening with my house? I envy everybody who breathes the air there,” she told CNN.

Aliyev said the abandoned houses had remained “untouched,” but videos on social media show Azerbaijani troops vandalizing homes.

“I don’t want to imagine it’s been taken by someone else. That’s the house we built for our kids,” said Poghosyan.

Her children were walking home from school when Azerbaijani rockets struck Stepanakert on September 19. Her husband found them on the roadside and took them to a bomb shelter. When they woke the next day, the government – the self-styled Republic of Artsakh – surrendered. Their lives had unraveled overnight.

They fled their home the next week, along with almost all of the population. By then they were starved and exhausted: Nagorno-Karabakh had been blockaded for 10 months after Azerbaijan cut off the Lachin corridor – the only road linking the enclave to Armenia proper – preventing the import of food, medicine and other supplies.

Now, the road along which necessities were stopped from entering was opened to allow the population to flood out. As tens of thousands fled at once, it took Poghosyan four days to drive from Stepanakert to Yerevan, she said – a journey that ordinarily took four hours.

As Armenian citizens, the government in Yerevan welcomed the refugees. But the support it can provide is meager. Poghosyan received a one-off payment of 100,000 Armenian dram (about $250), but she pays 300,000 dram (about $750) in rent. Her family lives off the savings they had put aside for their children’s education, money that will only last a few months.

The dissolution of the Karabakh government has left Poghosyan without child benefits, her parents without their pensions, her husband – a former soldier – without his salary. But she considers herself lucky to have an apartment. “There are people living in cars. There are people living in school basements, playgrounds,” she said.

‘We left our souls there’

Gayane Lalabekyan said she wakes every morning to her new apartment in Yerevan and asks herself if she did the right thing. Many Karabakh Armenians, struggling to come to terms with their new lives, wonder what, if anything, they could have done differently.

“I ask myself, ‘Was it the right move?’” Lalabekyan, an English teacher, told CNN. She is often overcome with guilt for abandoning her homeland, but then remembers the “primitive fear” she felt while fleeing.

“When I see my daughter, her little son; when I see my mother, she’s 72; when I see my son and his wife, they married in July; I see that, if we stayed there, maybe I wouldn’t have them,” she said.

Aliyev said Armenians wishing to remain in Karabakh would have to accept Azerbaijani citizenship. “They had two chances: Either to integrate with the rest of Azerbaijan or to go to history,” he said.

But, after generations of violence, few Armenians believed they could live safely in Azerbaijan and almost none would submit to rule by the government in Baku, despite Azerbaijan’s insistence that no civilians had been harmed in what it called its “anti-terror measures” in the territory.

“Aliyev isn’t a real man, he’s a devil. We can’t trust their promises,” said Lalabekyan. “We can’t live together.”

Karabakh Armenians were supposed to be protected by Russian peacekeepers, which deployed to the region under the terms of the Moscow-brokered ceasefire in 2020.

But the attack came on the heels of a rupture in Armenia’s relations with Russia, after Yerevan grew frustrated that its longtime ally was failing to defend it against Azerbaijani aggression. Feeling it had no choice but to diversify its security apparatus, Armenia began to forge fledgling partnerships with Western countries.

To Russia, the move was a betrayal. It used the opportunity to wash its hands of its needy neighbor. Unable to funnel resources from its military campaign in Ukraine, and unwilling to anger Azerbaijan and Turkey, Russia stood by as the ceasefire it negotiated was shattered – though the Kremlin later rejected criticism of its peacekeeping contingent.

With Russia’s protection absent and Western support merely rhetorical, Karabakh Armenians felt they had no choice but to flee. But accepting this offers scant consolation to Lalabekyan, who said she feels like a stranger in her own country.

“What will we do next? We don’t know who we are. Are we Artsakh citizens or Armenian citizens? We can’t answer this question. We left everything there. We left our souls there.”

The prospect of peace

Some cold-eyed observers argue the plight of the Karabakh refugees may be the tragic price of regional peace. As Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, Armenia’s relinquishment of the enclave was a prerequisite for reconciliation.

But Aliyev has shown little magnanimity in victory. On his first visit to the enclave, he trampled on the Karabakh flag and mocked the Karabakh politicians he had imprisoned as they attempted to flee.

Among those detained is Ruben Vardanyan, former State Minister of Artsakh. Vardanyan’s son, David, described to CNN the “opaque justice system” in which his father is now ensnarled, having been charged with “financing terrorism” and “illegal border crossings,” among other things. Azerbaijan and Armenia have no diplomatic relations, so Vardanyan has been denied consular access. David has only been able to speak to his father once since his arrest on September 27, via a prison phone. “He just said he might be there for a while,” David said.

“If we really want peace in the region between Azerbaijan and Armenia, you can’t have political prisoners still being in jail while a peace agreement is signed,” he said.

In the weeks after the reconquest of Karabakh, Baku canceled peace talks in Brussels and Washington, citing Western bias against Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, its rhetoric around its territorial ambitions has sharpened. Government documents have referred to Armenia as “western Azerbaijan,” a nationalist concept alleging Armenia is built on Azerbaijani land.

Some hope, however, came on December 7 when Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to a prisoner exchange – a deal brokered without Brussels or Washington, but which was welcomed by both. The US said it hoped the exchange would “lay the groundwork for a more peaceful and prosperous future.” Armenia also removed its block on Azerbaijan’s candidacy to host the COP29 climate conference next year.

Azerbaijan and Armenia agree to prisoner swap and to work towards peace deal

The biggest sticking point, however, will likely be Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave separated from the mainland by a sliver of southern Armenia. Aliyev hopes to build a “land corridor” that would slice through Armenia, connecting Nakhchivan to Azerbaijan proper.

Aliyev described the so-called “Zangezur” corridor as a “historical necessity” that “will happen whether Armenia wants it or not.”

Armenia is not wholly opposed to the idea, but is refusing to relinquish control over parts of its territory. Last month, it presented a plan to revive the region’s infrastructure, restoring derelict train lines to better connect Armenia with Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Iran and elsewhere. It hopes to benefit from trade that could not happen during the lengthy hostilities, calling the project the “Crossroads of Peace.”

But Armenia’s preferences may count for little. Aliyev said in December “there should be no customs duties, no checks, no border security, when it goes from mainland (Azerbaijan) to Nakhchivan,” adding that the Armenians should begin construction “immediately at their own expense.”

Aliyev said he had no plans to occupy Armenian territory, stressing “if we wanted, we would have done it.” But, at the same event, he said that the territory had been “taken” from Azerbaijan in 1920 under Soviet rule, and warned Armenia “we have more historical, political and legal rights to contest your territorial integrity.”

Anna Ohanyan, a senior scholar in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Aliyev’s rhetoric had been tempered since the announcement of the prisoner exchange, but “this is largely due to a strong pushback from the US.”

“His aims have not changed: He still needs a rivalry or conflict with Armenia, even after he recovered full control of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Ohanyan told CNN. “Hosting COP29 may keep Aliyev on his best behavior for perhaps a year, but this is not a guarantee that he will play by the international rules. Russia hosted the Winter Olympics in 2014, and annexed Crimea right after.”

Diplomacy may again prove fruitless. Analysts warn of Azerbaijan’s growing military presence around southern Armenia. Olesya Vartanyan, Crisis Group’s senior analyst for the South Caucasus, told CNN “in one of the areas where Azerbaijani forces are located along the border, it would take them very little to cut Armenia into pieces.”

Karabakh Armenians always knew they were caught in the crosshairs of great-power conflict. But, after 30 years of relative peace, they were not expecting things to fall apart so quickly. As a new year beckons, they look ahead to an uncertain future, bereft of homes, possessions, and livelihoods.

“I understand it’s a big game with big countries involved: Russia’s interests, Turkey’s interests, Azerbaijan being a player between all these, Armenia being too weak to withstand. I understand it globally,” said Poghosyan. “But on the level of 100,000 people, it’s a tragedy.”

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/12/27/asia/nagorno-karabakh-armenia-azerbaijan-exodus-peace-caucasus-region-intl/index.html?fbclid=IwAR1roaGnQHuNrcYchK7yXdqnoF04H3UB-sRW07NEE_cCepFXuMUAwX25zfc

[Yervant1]

Dec 27 2023

EDITOR'S PICK

Opinion: Frontline view of war in the South Caucasus by a Tulsan

• Skylar Yoder
  

Iknew Armenia had experienced on-again, off-again conflict with Azerbaijan, its neighbor to the east, over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. But I did not expect all hell to break loose precisely as I was packing to go there on a journalistic internship.

After some heated consultations I proceeded anyway, arriving in Yerevan at 3 a.m. on Sept. 24, bleary-eyed and not knowing what to expect from my time at the Civilnet news website, sponsored by The Armenia Project NGO.

Across the border, just a few hours’ drive away, a major drama was unfolding. Azerbaijan had attacked the autonomous, Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh days earlier, and in a shocking development, almost the entire population of 120,000 fled their homes for Armenia, a country of less than 3 million.

Within days, my host organization called to say a refugee family, outside sleeping in their car, would like to move in with me. It was an exhausted-looking couple in their 40s and their daughter, no more than 5 years old. She was very quiet for a small child.

I was eager to find out more, but they did not speak English. So, I took to bringing home coloring books and crayons and craft supplies for the girl by the door, hoping to make the family feel welcome. Eventually the girl became more animated; once I even heard her laughing.

One night, I heard a knock at my bedroom door. It was the mother and daughter, who had come to give me some bananas. “My baby wants to thank you,” said the mother. “Thank you!” I struggled to fathom how a family that had left everything behind and now had next to nothing went out of their way to give me something.

World Central Kitchen, in partnership with the Armenian General Benevolent Union, set up a food preparation and distribution site in our building, providing meals to refugees. The mother started to work there, and I stopped by.

There I met another woman named Emma who fled Nagorno-Karabakh with her 94-year-old mother, who died in Armenia immediately after the 30-plus hour journey. She said her mother died realizing she was never going home. The woman’s fervent wish was to bury her mother back there, next to her father.

The Yerablur Military Cemetery, the busiest I’ve ever seen, was thronged by the bereaved diligently cleaning graves. Most of the gravestones were for young men, and several were elaborately decorated for birthdays they would never celebrate. I watched them from a respectful distance.

In early October, I traveled to the border town of Goris, through which much of the mass displacement had passed. I was struck by the contrast between the landscape’s stunning beauty and the darkness of mood. That same week, colleagues from CivilNet’s office in Stepanakert, the capital of the enclave, had arrived safely in Yerevan. I’m proud to have worked alongside them to bring this important story to the world.

Friends from abroad would ask me, “How is Armenia?” I struggled to explain in a text message about living and working alongside people who have lost so much. How it is devastating, but also inspires hope.

I was amazed at how war can permeate all aspects of life. The experience has deepened my conviction that this is my calling: telling the untold story, giving voice to the voiceless and reporting on underreported events.

As a native of Tulsa, I know events in faraway places like Armenia can seem irrelevant to our lives, especially with so many conflicts competing for our attention today. But beyond the economic and security ripple effects of war, there is also our shared humanity. And in the case of Armenia, the first state to adopt Christianity in the 4th century, shared religion.

Skylar Yoder, a former political analyst for the U.S. Federal Government, is an aspiring foreign correspondent. She is a native of Tulsa.

https://tulsaworld.com/opinion/column/opinion-frontline-view-of-war-in-the-south-caucasus-by-a-tulsan/article_bf754a02-9c8d-11ee-a30a-5730026f2771.html

[Yervant1]

Asbarez.com

Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Calls on U.S. to Advance Self-Determination Rights of Artsakh Armenians

by Contributor

December 29, 2023

in Armenia, Artsakh, Featured Story, Latest, News, Top Stories

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running for president in 2024

 

“I want to commit this country to the restoration of the sovereignty of Armenia and Artsakh and to the restoration of its territory.” – Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

 

WASHINGTON – U.S. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. pledged that his administration would mobilize the international community to sanction Azerbaijan, secure the safe return of Armenians to their Artsakh homeland, and support their right to self-determination, reported the Armenian National Committee of America.

 

In a video statement titled “RFK Jr. On How to Avert War in Armenia,” the presidential candidate stressed, “I want to commit this country to the restoration of the sovereignty of Armenia and Artsakh, and to the restoration of its territory. Instead of starting another war somewhere, I want to stop one.”

“Empty condemnations of this ethnic cleansing campaign are not enough. Unlike the 1915 genocide, this one is reversible,” stressed RFK, Jr., who went on to note: “The U.S. government needs to organize and mobilize the global community to take action to ensure the safe return of Armenians to Artsakh and to defend their right to self-determination. This is a situation where peaceful sanctions could actually work. The U.S. still has leverage in that region, and it can use that power to mobilize all of the nations in that region to reverse this humanitarian tragedy. We should also seek the removal of the blockades in Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan. Armenia is a landlocked nation, and it needs access to ports and to the surrounding countries.”

 

“The ANCA welcomes Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s calls to sanction Azerbaijan and support the rights of Artsakh Armenians to self-determination and a safe return to their ancestral homeland,” said Aram Hamparian, Executive director of the ANCA. “More broadly, we value his emergence as a viable third 2024 option for Armenian American voters, especially given that two of the most likely major party candidates, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, both armed Azerbaijan’s genocide of Artsakh’s Christian Armenians.”

 

RFK Jr. is the latest 2024 U.S. presidential candidate to outline his position on Armenian American concerns dealing with Artsakh and Armenia. Last month, Republican presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley joined with Vivek Ramaswamy in forcefully condemning Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Artsakh at The FAMiLY Leader Thanksgiving candidate forum in Iowa. The high-profile program was co-sponsored by the 120,000 Reasons Coalition, supported by the ANCA, united in exerting pressure on the White House, Congress, and the 2024 Presidential candidates to break U.S. official silence on Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian aggression.

 

Ramaswamy has been especially outspoken in spotlighting Azerbaijan’s forced displacement of Artsakh’s Armenians on the campaign trail, discussing the matter with Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgan, and attending a 120,000 Reasons protest organized by the ANCA Eastern Region and AYF Eastern Region on the eve of the GOP presidential candidates’ debate in Miami, Florida. He recently attended an Armenian reception at Armenian Estates, in Genoa Township, OH, hosted by Tigran and Viola Safaryan and Steve and Erna Atikian. Longtime ANC-Ohio leader David Krikorian introduced Ramaswamy at the event, which was attended by Armenian Americans from across the Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland areas. RFK Jr. will join supporters of Armenia and Artsakh at a reception hosted by Mike Sarian on January 8th in California.

 

Transcript of “RFK Jr. on How to Avert War in Armenia” Video Statement Issued December 28, 2023

 

Over a hundred years ago, during World War I, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated the first genocide of the modern era, when it murdered a million and a half ethnic Armenians. That ethnic cleansing wiped out thousands of years of Armenian presence in Anatolia.

 

Today, the oldest of all Armenian territories is now the victim of an ethnic cleansing campaign. This time, it’s Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh.

 

During the Soviet era, the Kremlin forcibly incorporated this Christian territory into Muslim Azerbaijan. Artsakh had been Orthodox Christian and Armenian for over a thousand years. It has one of the oldest, most beautiful cathedrals in the world.

 

Beginning in 2020, Azerbaijan ruthlessly launched an ethnic cleansing campaign against this peaceful and peace-loving people. It systematically bombarded population centers with cluster bombs and missiles. And in September, Azerbaijan launched an unprovoked invasion and expelled all 120,000 ethnic Armenians.

 

While the world was focused on Gaza and Israel with indignation and outrage from every direction, we heard almost nothing about this mass expulsion of the entire population of one of the oldest Armenian states on the planet.

 

Empty condemnations of this ethnic cleansing campaign are not enough. Unlike the 1915 genocide, this one is reversible.

 

The U.S. government needs to organize and mobilize the global community to take action to ensure the safe return of Armenians to Artsakh and to defend their right to self-determination. This is a situation where peaceful sanctions could actually work. The U.S. still has leverage in that region, and it can use that power to mobilize all of the nations in that region to reverse this humanitarian tragedy. We should also seek the removal of the blockades in Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan. Armenia is a landlocked nation and it needs access to ports and to the surrounding countries.

 

As President of the United States, I will use diplomacy, our moral authority, our economic leverage, and sanctions to restore Armenia to a nation of peace and justice. I want to commit this country to the restoration of the sovereignty of Armenia and Artsakh and to the restoration of its territory. I want to do this peacefully. Instead of starting another war somewhere, I’d like to stop one.

https://asbarez.com/presidential-candidate-robert-f-kennedy-jr-calls-on-u-s-to-advance-self-determination-rights-of-artsakh-armenians/?fbclid=IwAR3wPMVuGzeEKVfKESbBlBXUmVuAJ2Wci2Zthi5BL-r5fihnA3StVwNxxGA

[MosJan]

lets see

[Yervant1]

lets see

It will be a long wait, elections are in the air. Just like the other politicians who are after the votes.