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Nagorno-Karabakh is a region located in the South Caucasus, covering the southeastern stretch of the Lesser Caucasus mountain range. Part of the greater region of Karabakh, it spans the area between Lower Karabakh and Syunik. Its terrain mostly consists of mountains and forestland.
Artsakh, officially the Republic of Artsakh or the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, was a breakaway state in the South Caucasus whose territory was internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. Between 1991 and 2023, Artsakh controlled parts of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, including its capital Stepanakert. It had been an enclave within Azerbaijan from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war until the 2023 Azerbaijani offensive, when the Azerbaijani military took control over the remaining territory controlled by Artsakh. Its only overland access route to Armenia after the 2020 war was via the 5 km (3.1 mi) wide Lachin corridor, which was placed under the supervision of Russian peacekeeping forces.
Shahumyan Province was a province of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, de jure part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The capital of the province was Karvachar. Shahumyan Province had 17 communities of which one is considered urban and 16 are rural. Its bordered Martakert Province to the east, Kashatagh Province to the south, Gegharkunik and Vayots Dzor provinces of Armenia to the west and Dashkasan, Goygol and Goranboy districts of Azerbaijan to the north.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians until 2023, and seven surrounding districts, inhabited mostly by Azerbaijanis until their expulsion during the 1990s. The Nagorno-Karabakh region has been entirely claimed by and partially controlled by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, but is recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan gradually re-established control over Nagorno-Karabakh region and the seven surrounding districts since 2020.
The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) was an autonomous oblast within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic that was created on July 7, 1923. Its capital was the city of Stepanakert. The leader of the oblast was the First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan. The majority of the population were ethnic Armenians.
Anti-Armenian sentiment, also known as anti-Armenianism and Armenophobia, is a diverse spectrum of negative feelings, dislikes, fears, aversion, racism, derision and/or prejudice towards Armenians, Armenia, and Armenian culture.
The Maraga massacre was the mass murder of Armenian civilians in the village of Maraga (Maragha) by Azerbaijani troops, which had captured the village on April 10, 1992, in the course of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The villagers, including men, women, children and elderly, were killed indiscriminately and deliberately, their houses were pillaged and burnt; the village was destroyed. Amnesty International reports that over 100 women, children and elderly were tortured and killed and a further 53 were taken hostage, 19 of whom were never returned.
This article focuses on ethnic minorities in the Republic of Azerbaijan.
United Nations Security Council resolution 822 was adopted unanimously on 30 April 1993. After expressing concern at the deterioration of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the subsequent escalation of armed hostilities and deterioration in the humanitarian situation in the region, the Council demanded the immediate cessation of hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of Armenian occupying forces in the Kalbajar district near Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
Dudukchu or Kyuratagh is a village in the Khojavend District of Azerbaijan, in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The village had an ethnic Armenian-majority population prior to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, and also had an Armenian majority in 1989.
The Law on Abolishment of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was a motion passed by the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Azerbaijan and signed into law by the President of Azerbaijan Ayaz Mutalibov on November 26, 1991. The law had been prompted by a vote in the National Assembly of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in favor of uniting itself with the Armenian SSR on 20 February 1988. The vote was followed by an independence referendum in 1991 which was boycotted by the Azerbaijani population of the Oblast; most voted in favor of independence. While these votes and elections had mainly been conducted in a relatively peaceful manner, in the following months, as the Soviet Union disintegrated, it gradually grew into an increasingly violent conflict between ethnic Armenians and ethnic Azerbaijanis. Both sides claimed that ethnic cleansing was being carried out. The declaration of secession from Azerbaijan was the final result of a territorial conflict regarding the land.
Mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia took place several times throughout the 20th century, and sometimes some of them have been described by some authors as acts of forced resettlement and ethnic cleansing.
John Eibner is an American Christian human rights activist. He served as the CEO of Christian Solidarity International-USA until 2021. He has also served on the board of the American Anti-Slavery Group, and was a member of the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London.
The political status of Nagorno-Karabakh remained unresolved from its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union on 10 December 1991, to its September 2023 collapse. During Soviet times, it had been an ethnic Armenian autonomous oblast of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a conflict arose between local Armenians who sought to have Nagorno-Karabakh join Armenia and local Azerbaijanis who opposed this.
Anti-Armenian sentiment or Armenophobia is widespread in Azerbaijan, mainly due to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), Armenians are "the most vulnerable group in Azerbaijan in the field of racism and racial discrimination." A 2012 opinion poll found that 91% of Azerbaijanis perceive Armenia as "the biggest enemy of Azerbaijan." The word "Armenian" (erməni) is widely used as an insult in Azerbaijan. Stereotypical opinions circulating in the mass media have their deep roots in the public consciousness.
The anti-Azerbaijani sentiment, or anti-Azerbaijanism has been mainly rooted in several countries, most notably in Armenia and Iran, where anti-Azerbaijani sentiment has sometimes led to violent ethnic incidents.
The bombardment of Martuni was the bombardment of the cities, towns, and villages in the Martuni Province of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, which is de jure a part of Azerbaijan. It was carried out by Azerbaijani Armed Forces during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. The city Martuni, along with the de facto capital Stepanakert, were badly damaged as a result of shelling. The shelling resulted in the deaths of five civilians. 1,203 buildings were damaged in the province as a result of the bombardment, according to Artsakh Urban Development Ministry. Victoria Gevorgyan, a resident of the Martuni Province of Nagorno-Karabakh, became the first child killed on the very first day of the war.
The blockade of the Nagorno-Karabakh is an ongoing event in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The region was disputed between Azerbaijan and the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, which has an ethnic Armenian population and was supported by neighbouring Armenia, until the dissolution of Republic of Artsakh on 28 September 2023.
Between 19 and 20 September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale military offensive against the self-declared breakaway state of Artsakh, a move seen as a violation of the 2020 ceasefire agreement. The offensive took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but populated by Armenians. The attacks occurred in the midst of an escalating crisis caused by Azerbaijan blockading Artsakh, which has resulted in significant scarcities of essential supplies such as food, medicine, and other goods in the affected region.
On 19–20 September 2023 Azerbaijan initiated a military offensive in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region which ended with the surrender of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh and the disbandment of its armed forces. Prior to this offensive, Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but governed and populated by ethnic Armenians, had an estimated population of nearly 120,000. Faced with threats of genocide and ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan, over 100,400 ethnic Armenians, nearly the entire current population of Nagorno-Karabakh, had fled by the end of September 2023. This mass displacement of people has been described by international experts as a war crime or crime against humanity. While the Azerbaijani government and its officials assured residents of their safety and emphasized their intent to reintegrate the Armenian population, skepticism surrounded these assurances, stemming from Azerbaijan's established track record of authoritarianism and repression of its Armenian population.
References
- ↑ Croft, Stuart (2006). Culture, Crisis and America's War on Terror. Cambridge University Press. p. 198. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511607356. ISBN 9780521867993 . Retrieved 2020-01-06.
- ↑ "Experts Michael Doran". Hudson Institute.
- ↑ Institute, Hudson. "Walter Russell Mead and Michael Doran Join Hudson Institute". www.prnewswire.com.
- ↑ "Why the U.S. Must Not Support Azerbaijan's War". The American Conservative. 6 November 2020. Retrieved 2021-10-05.
- ↑ Ahmari, Sohrab [@sohrabahmari] (September 27, 2023). "Mike: because I'm not a hack propagandist like you, I've written about both sides' brutalities during the 1988-94 war…Meanwhile you're playing down—no, cheering—an ongoing, current ethnic cleansing" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ↑ Rubin, Michael (2023-09-26). "Why Are Armenians Fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh?". American Enterprise Institute - AEI. Retrieved 2023-10-02.
- ↑ Deutsch, Anthony; van den Berg, Stephanie (29 September 2023). "Nagorno-Karabakh exodus amounts to a war crime, legal experts say". Reuters. Archived from the original on 30 September 2023. Retrieved 29 September 2023.
- ↑ Doran, Michael [@doranimated] (September 27, 2023). "I have seen no evidence that the Azerbaijanis are driving Armenians from Karabakh. This is a voluntary exodus of Armenians, not ethnic cleansing" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ↑ Michel, Casey [@cjcmichel] (November 6, 2020). "Yes, Azerbaijan is a "bastion of diversity and tolerance" under Aliyev in the same way that, say, Franco's Spain, Pinochet's Chile, and Mobutu's Zaire were also "bastions of diversity and tolerance." twitter.com/Doranimated/status/1324634494146650112" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
