Highlights:
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned a small group of lawmakers last week that his department is tracking the possibility that Azerbaijan could soon invade Armenia, according to two people familiar with the conversation.
Azerbaijiani President Ilham Aliyev has previously called on Armenia to open a “corridor” along its southern border, linking mainland Azerbaijan to an exclave that borders Turkey and Iran. Aliyev has threatened to solve the issue “by force.”
Oh boy, WW3 is really warming up huh? 😞
Nobody really cares about Armenia, so this issue has flown under the radar in the past month:
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 a 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,[6] had fled by the end of September 2023.[2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_Nagorno-Karabakh_Armenians
The West encourages ethnic cleansing because it helps to solidify the status quo. This is nothing new.
Azerbaijan is backed by Turkey, a NATO member, and gets much of their arms from Israel, a strong US ally.
It’s because Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Always has been.
Now, if Azerbaijan invades actual Armenia proper, then that’s a different story.
if Azerbaijan invades actual Armenia proper, then that’s a different story.
The possibility of that happening is literally the linked article.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Always has been.
Internationally recognized, fine. The population was about 120,000. 100,000 fled to Armenia after the attack. I’m sure they care about international lines on a map.
Always has been is categorically false. Armenia has been a country for about a thousand years before the ones who drew the lines on your map.
The possibility of that happening is literally the linked article.
I know, it’s the title of the article, but I’ve seen many comments in recent weeks suggesting it’s already happened.
Internationally recognized, fine. The population was about 120,000. 100,000 fled to Armenia after the attack. I’m sure they care about international lines on a map.
Azerbaijan assured them they did not need to flee (for what it’s worth).
Always has been is categorically false. Armenia has been a country for about a thousand years before the ones who drew the lines on your map.
This is true of almost every nation. Not excusing it, but nations get conquered and amalgamated. I hope we can stop doing that, but we can’t just magically reset things.
Now, when it comes to Armenia, I think the borders could have been drawn better than they were after soviet collapse.
Understand that Armenia is a Russian puppet state.
russian peacekeepers are letting it happen - they’ve been cooperating with Azerbaijan - so really the US and Russia are on the same side here (the side of “let the genocides rip”). Its probably worth noting Azerbaijan has oil and Armenia doesn’t.
They also have many of the pipelines that send oil/gas from that region to Europe. Hence the hand wringing and platitudes from the West rather than actual help. Aliyev knows this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Gas_Corridor
And when Armenia had the gall to even hint at trying to break from under Russia’s thumb to the West, Aliyev got the ok from Russia to teach them a lesson.
Azerbaijian took Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh 8 days later, in spite of a prior Russian security agreement to prevent exactly that.
Would you like Armenian genocide to go with your Palestinian genocide? We are having a 2-for-1 sale on classic Muslim genocides this month.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but Armenians aren’t muslims, they’re majority Christian.
Oh, I didn’t even know that. I assumed that they were Muslims from the region. Interesting that we haven’t heard anything from the “Christians are being persecuted” crowd about them.
The “Christians being persecuted” crowd only care about Target selling shirts with rainbows.
They were actually the first Christian nation in 301 AD/CE. Not that state religion is great, but it’s an interesting history given they were sandwiched between the Romans and the Parthians at the time and were pretty much a football between the Romans and whoever was nextdoor throughout the entirety of the Roman empire. If they aligned with “nextdoor” the Romans often ignored them as long as they didn’t allow armies from nextdoor through. And when the Romans had their own puppet king over there, well, bully for them.
Not much has changed. Now they’re sandwiched between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Georgia, with Georgia being a Russian conduit at least militarily if not politically. And Turkey and Azerbaijan are effectively one and the same with Azerbaijian having a dash of Russian influence. That’s not a great place to be if you’re a tiny country served as an appetizer to the surrounding powers.
Anyway, welcome to my TED Talk.
Just going to pass over the Ukrainian genocide?
Sure does seem like everyone’s trying to go to war at once.
Sorry, I haven’t finished following the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar yet. Can I pay in installments?
We’re really slow-rolling WWIII
Nah. After WW2, it’s all proxy battles now! Gotta let those developing nations duke it out for scraps while the war machine sell them weapons!
