Armenian Christmas falls on January 6. By then the humanitarian disaster could be immense, thanks to the Turkish-Azeri desire to establish a Turkish-dominated region from Central Asia to Anatolia. Armenia, and Artsakh, are in the way.
“A Wary Christmas Approaches In Artsakh,” by Alberto M. Fernandez, MEMRI, December 21, 2022:
They shiver in the cold while food supplies dwindle. The elderly deprived of medicine and children from emergency health care. They do not know if the electricity will remain on or when the next sniper bullet or missile will hit or where. But this is not Ukraine but rather the situation of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, known to the Armenians as Artsakh.
On December 12, Azerbaijani government-affiliated “environmental activists,” backed up by Azerbaijan police, blocked the road in the Lachin Corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, that region’s sole remaining lifeline to the outside world. Azerbaijan is a kleptocratic dictatorship where demonstrations and blocking of roads only occur if the regime says so. These were not so much activists but government employees bused in by the Baku regime. The oil-rich country has been ruled by the same Aliyev family since 1993, first the father, KGB General Heydar Aliyev, and then, since 2003, his son Ilham Aliyev. The younger Aliyev’s wife has been vice president of Azerbaijan since 2017.
The blockade of Artsakh by Azerbaijan has been criticized in the West, by the Biden Administration, and by Pope Francis. USAID Director Samantha Power on December 15 called on the Lachin Corridor to be re-opened immediately and warned of the potential of “a significant humanitarian crisis.” At the request of France and Armenia, the issue was to be raised at the UN Security Council on December 20. Perhaps by the time this article appears the siege will have ended. Or it may continue or stop and then start again at some future date. Rather than looking forward toward Armenian Christmas on January 6, the hardy inhabitants of Artsakh have to calculate carefully how to survive in the weeks ahead, how to feed themselves and keep themselves warm, and to be ready to defend themselves for an attack that could come at any time and that seeks to erase their existence. The people of Artsakh are steadfast but the objective is to shake that resolve over time.
The current situation is, of course, the result of Azerbaijan’s Turkish-orchestrated military victory in November 2020, which ended the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. The tripartite November 10 Ceasefire Agreement that ended that conflict mandates free passage in both directions through the Lachin Corridor (also the release of POWs, which Azerbaijan has failed to do). Per the Agreement, Russian Peacekeepers are deployed to maintain the status quo but the Azeris rightly perceive that Russia is weakened by the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Artsakh and Armenia – the latter paralyzed by the weak and incompetent government of Nikol Pashinyan – are mostly alone. Western apologists for Azerbaijan and Turkey, both emboldened by the Russia-Ukraine War, make much of Armenia’s ties with Russia and Iran but neither of those countries, beset by their own crises, can do much and neither is going to spend any real blood or treasure to “rescue” the Armenians of Artsakh anyway. The liberal Western countries of Western Europe and the United States, focused on crises like the Ukraine War and concerns about China, often seem to have limited bandwidth when it comes to a “complicated” crisis in the Caucasus region….
GreekEmpress says
This is just a continuing effort to complete the total annihilation of Armenians.
Yes, Armenia has had ties to Russia, mostly due to Russian support during the genocide. Many Armenians fled there and settled.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
It’s also interesting that the Turks are the only race not called out for racism over what’s perhaps the only international organization (aside from maybe the Arab League) that’s formed on the basis of race – the Turkic Council. And it’s an embarrassment that Hungary is an associate member, which could become a full member in the long run
And in order to make this Turkic empire contiguous – aside from the Caspian Sea that comes in b/w – they are wiping out the Armenians, and given a choice, would like Iran’s entire Caspian coast as a connecting corridor to Turkmenistan. Just that Iran, for all its woes, is powerful enough to put its foot down on Azeri ambitions
Russia has been a poor ‘supporter’ of Armenia, since it recognizes Artsakh as a part of Azerbaijan. Armenia has received military support for India, but India should escalate that into political support and just snap ties w/ Turkey, which is behind a lot of the jihad activities in India. Also, as Hindus become more aware of the Turkish genocide in India – both Ghorids to Timurides – they should increase pressure on their government to be more active against Turkic hegemony worldwide, instead of trying to create trade channels to the -stans
Samer says
I believe that Israel can stop the annilation of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh if it wanted to. The reason for this is that Israel is the main supplier of arms to the Republic of Azerbaijan, with which Azerbaijan was able to achieve a military victory in the recent war against Armenia. And if Israel did so, it would attone for the crime of participation of some Turkish Jews in the crime of genocide against the Armenians in 1915.
commonsense says
While your first point is arguably legitimate, you then blame Israel, which did not exist until 1948, for the putative actions of individual Jews occurring thirty years before Israel’s existence, in Turkey, which is hundreds of miles away. In fact,, there is no evidence that any Jews actively participated in the Armenian genocide,
although it is true that many of those Jews of Turkey who were aware of the situation chose to remain silent so as not to anger Mehmet Talaat, primary Pasha of Turkey,
See “Before the Holocaust, Ottoman Jews Supported the Armenian Genocide’s ‘Architect,'” by JP O’Malley
(The Times of Israel, 7 September 2018)
Samer says
It is difficult here to address all the details of this thorny subject, but if you want to know more information and facts on the subject, I suggest to you reading a book entitled “The Jewish Genocide of Armenian Christians.” You can get the book from Amazon.com. You can also get more information on this subject by writing ” The Jewish genocide of Armenian Christians”.on Google search engine. Best wishes..
Samer says
I believe that Israel can stop the annilation of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh if it wanted to. The reason for this is that Israel is the main supplier of arms to the Republic of Azerbaijan, with which Azerbaijan was able to achieve a military victory in the recent war against Armenia. And if Israel did so, it would atone for the crime of participation of some Turkish Jews in the crime of genocide against the Armenians in 1915.