Republic of Western Armenia State of Armenia Արևմտյան Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն Arevmtyan Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun Հայաստան պետության Hayasdan bedutʿyan | |
---|---|
Anthem: Zartnir Lao [1] [2] Զարթի՛ր, լաօ "Awake my son" | |
Capital | Karin [3] [4] (Erzurum) |
Government | |
• President | Lydia Margossian, [5] Radik Khamoyan, [6] and Martik Gasparyan [7] |
• Prime Minister | Seda Melikyan [8] and Tigran Pashabezyan [9] |
• President of the National Assembly | Nelly Harutyunyan [10] and Armen Ter-Sarkisyan [11] |
Legislature | National Assembly |
Establishment | |
860 BC–590 BC | |
321 BC–428 AD | |
880s–1045 | |
1080–1375 | |
1878 | |
1915–1917 | |
1915–1918 | |
1918 | |
1920 | |
1920 | |
• Beginning of the establishment process | 2011 |
Website parliament-wa.info |
The Republic of Western Armenia, also known as the State of Armenia, [12] [13] [14] is a government-in-exile claiming sovereignty over parts of the Armenian highlands including sections of Western Armenia as well as Nakhichevan, [c] and sometimes also Nagorno-Karabakh. [15] The self-declared country says it has its own presidency, government, parliament, constitution, national anthem, and coat of arms. [16]
The individuals of the Republic of Western Armenia claim to be the legal successor of the Armenian state recognised by international law in 1920, and therefore internationally recognised. [17] [18]
The presence of Armenians in Anatolia has been documented since the sixth century BCE, about 1,500 years before the arrival of Turkmens under the Seljuk dynasty. [19] [20]
In the 16th and 17th centuries, historical Armenia was divided between the Ottomans taking the West and the Safavids taking the East.
On the eve of World War I in 1914, around two million Armenians lived in Anatolia out of a total population of 15–17.5 million. [21] According to the Armenian Patriarchate's estimates for 1913–1914, there were 2,925 Armenian towns and villages in the Ottoman Empire, of which 2,084 were in the Armenian highlands in the vilayets of Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Erzerum, Harput, and Van. [22] Armenians were a minority in most places where they lived, alongside Turkish and Kurdish Muslim and Greek Orthodox Christian neighbors. [21] [22] According to the Patriarchate's figure, 215,131 Armenians lived in urban areas, especially Constantinople, Smyrna, and Eastern Thrace. [22] Although most Ottoman Armenians were peasant farmers, they were overrepresented in commerce. As minorities, despite the wealth of some Armenians, their overall political power was low, making them especially vulnerable. [23] The ethnic cleansing of Armenians during the final years of the Ottoman Empire is widely considered a genocide, The Ottoman Empire massacred approximately 600,000–1,500,000 Armenians. The first wave of persecution was in the years 1894 to 1896, the second one culminating in the events of the Armenian genocide in 1915 and 1916.
On 17 December 2004, the "Declaration of the right of self-determination of the Armenians from Western Armenia" was signed in Shushi; which by extension also established the National Council of Armenians from Western Armenia. [24] [25] [18]
On 4 February 2011, the establishment of the government-in-exile of Western Armenia was announced, and on 21 October 2011, the constitution, flag, coat of arms and anthem were all adopted. [18] In November 2013, the National Assembly of Western Armenia was formed; whose deputies at the first session of Parliament in Paris, on 20 January 2014, elected the President of Western Armenia. [24] [25]
The Declaration of the Formation of the National Assembly of Western Armenia states that Western Armenia's jurisdiction applies to the vilayets of Van, Bitlis, Erzurum (which Armenians call "Karin"), Trebizond, Sivas, Diyarbekir, Harput, Kars, Surmalu, Javakheti, and Nakhchivan, as well as the historical region of Cilicia. [c]
Artsakh is also sometimes claimed to be part of the Republic of Western Armenia. [26] [27]
Karin is claimed as the capital of Western Armenia. [28]
The "Western Armenia TV" newscaster also introduced cities such as Bitlis, Muş, Van, Mardin, Iğdır, Adana, Trabzon and Rize as "Western Armenia" in their news bulletins. [29] The broadcaster stated, "Western Armenia, which was declared an independent and sovereign state in 1920, is now occupied by Turkey. Sooner or later it will return to its true owners, the Armenians." [30]
Articles related to Armenia include:
The First Republic of Armenia, officially known at the time of its existence as the Republic of Armenia, was an independent Armenian state that existed from May 1918 to 2 December 1920 in the Armenian-populated territories of the former Russian Empire known as Eastern or Russian Armenia. The republic was established in May 1918, with its capital in the city of Yerevan, after the dissolution of the short-lived Transcaucasian Federation. It was the first Armenian state since the Middle Ages.
Western Armenia is a term to refer to the western parts of the Armenian highlands located within Turkey that comprise the historical homeland of the Armenians. Western Armenia, also referred to as Byzantine Armenia, emerged following the division of Greater Armenia between the Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Persia in AD 387. Since the Armenian genocide, the Armenian diaspora as well as Armenians indigenous to modern Turkey have sought political representation in Western Armenia or reunification with the Republic of Armenia.
The Turkish–Armenian War, known in Turkey as the Eastern Front of the Turkish War of Independence, was a conflict between the First Republic of Armenia and the Turkish National Movement following the collapse of the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. After the provisional government of Ahmet Tevfik Pasha failed to win support for ratification of the treaty, remnants of the Ottoman Army's XV Corps under the command of Kâzım Karabekir attacked Armenian forces occupying the area surrounding Kars, eventually recapturing most of the territory in the South Caucasus that had been part of the Ottoman Empire prior to the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) and was subsequently ceded by Soviet Russia as part of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
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The occupation of Western Armenia by the Russian Empire during World War I began in 1915 and was formally ended by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It was sometimes referred to as the Republic of Van by Armenians. Aram Manukian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation was the de facto head until July 1915. It was briefly referred to as "Free Vaspurakan". After a setback beginning in August 1915, it was re-established in June 1916. The region was allocated to Russia by the Allies in April 1916 under the Sazonov–Paléologue Agreement.
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.
Diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey are officially non-existent and have historically been hostile. Whilst Turkey recognised Armenia shortly after the latter proclaimed independence in September 1991, the two countries have failed to establish diplomatic relations. In 1993, Turkey reacted to the war in Nagorno-Karabakh by closing its border with Armenia out of support for Azerbaijan.
The partition of the Ottoman Empire was a geopolitical event that occurred after World War I and the occupation of Constantinople by British, French, and Italian troops in November 1918. The partitioning was planned in several agreements made by the Allied Powers early in the course of World War I, notably the Sykes–Picot Agreement, after the Ottoman Empire had joined Germany to form the Ottoman–German alliance. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states. The Ottoman Empire had been the leading Islamic state in geopolitical, cultural, and ideological terms. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after the war led to the domination of the Middle East by Western powers such as Britain and France, and saw the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. Resistance to the influence of these powers came from the Turkish National Movement but did not become widespread in the other post-Ottoman states until the period of rapid decolonization after World War II.
United Armenia, also known as Greater Armenia or Great Armenia, is an Armenian ethno-nationalist irredentist concept referring to areas within the traditional Armenian homeland—the Armenian Highland—which are currently or have historically been mostly populated by Armenians. The idea of what Armenians see as unification of their historical lands was prevalent throughout the 20th century and has been advocated by individuals, various organizations and institutions, including the nationalist parties Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Heritage, the ASALA and others.
Mustafa Abdülhalik Renda was a Turkish civil servant and politician of Tosk Albanian descent who was acting President of Turkey for one day after Atatürk's death in November 1938.
The Erivan Governorate was a province (guberniya) of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, with its centеr in Erivan. Its area was 27,830 sq. kilometеrs, roughly corresponding to what is now most of central Armenia, the Iğdır Province of Turkey, and the Nakhchivan exclave of Azerbaijan. At the end of the 19th century, it bordered the Tiflis Governorate to the north, the Elizavetpol Governorate to the east, the Kars Oblast to the west, and Persia and the Ottoman Empire to the south. Mount Ararat and the fertile Ararat Valley were included in the center of the province.
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