So much for mutual defense treaties, former Soviet Armenia was betrayed by 68-year-old Russian President Vladir Putin who dealt from the bottom of the deck, selling out Armenians in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Russia defended Armenia’s rights to their ancestral homeland in the Murovdag mountains dividing Azerbaijan and Armenia. When the Russian Empire crumbled in 1917 at the end of WW I, the territory of the Caucus states was seized by the newly formed Union of Soviet Social Republics [USSR] in 1922. But the Russian Tsar Nicholas II ceded the territory of Azerbajian in 1918, eventually annexed by the USSR by Lenin’s Red Army before formation of USSR in 1922. Whatever the history, Armenians lived in the mountainous Narono-Karabakh region since that time. Over long arc of history borders often change hands, creating territorial conflicts now seen in Nagorno-Karabakh.
When war broke out in 1982 between Azerbaijan and Armenia, they were both part of the USSR, forced by Soviet decree into a variety of ceasefires until the USSR disbanded Dec. 26, 1991. It didn’t take long for Azerbaijan and Armenia to resume fighting over Nagorno-Karaabakh, eventually ending in 1994, when the Russian Federation brokered a ceasefire, leaving ethnic Armenians in region. When fighting resumed in 2020, things were different this time around. While Russia has a joint-defense pact with Armenia, Putin stepped in to end the conflict, supplying Russian peacekeepers that essentially sold out Armenia. Now Armenians have been told the Azerbaijan will take control of the Nagorno-Karabakh territory after Armenians occupied the territory before the end on Tsarist Russia in 1918. Now the world watches Armenians displaced from their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Putin brokered a one-sided deal forcing Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh in one of the great political betrayals of the 21st century. With Azerbaijan an oil-rich country on the Caspian Sea, Armenia sits landlocked with no mineral wealth, one of the poorest countries in the region. Without Russian protection, Armenia looks to the United States for security assistance, where the largest Armenian diaspora resides since the Ottoman genocide of Armenians before the end of WW II, during the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. While denied by Turkey, the Ottoman Empire was largely responsible for the Armenian purges before WW II. If that weren’t tragic enough, 66-year-old Turkish President Reep Tayyip Erdogan sided with Azerbajian, largely over the oil-and-gas industry that built the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan [BTC] pipeline, running from Georgia, through Azerbaijan to Turkey.
Whatever the background and economics, the tragedy of watching Armenians displaced from their homes cannot be more tragic in today’s world. Nagorno-Karabakh had no strategic importance to Azerbaijan whatever, could have easily left Armenians to live peacefully in the region without any impact on Azerbaijan national security. But in another quick geopolitical land-grab by Putin, he saw the potential for the U.S. and NATO intervening on behalf of Armenia and decided to nip-it-in-the-bud, preempting any intervention at a time when the U.S. was consumed with a bigger election. Now the world watches poor Armenian families burn their homes down, packing up their possessions and heading back to Armenia or parts unknown. Whatever agreement existed at the end of the 1994 Nagorno-Karabakh War to let Armenians live in peace, it’s be ripped apart by Putin in 2020.
Erdogan decided that he would conspire with Azerbaijan to once-and-for-all rid the region of Armenians, something the Ottoman’s did during the historic Death Marches, when Armenians were purged from Instanbul in 1915-16. No matter what the conflict between Armenian and Arzerbaijan, Putin had no right to settle the conflict by brute force, forcing Armenians to flee the region after 100 years. When full-scale warfare broke out in September, it was driven by Turkey using its mercenary fighters returned off the Syrian battlefield. Seizing the city of Shusha, Azerbaijan captured back the strategic city with cultural significance to Azeri people. But watching the historic Armenian Orthodox Church forced to close down with its priest in despair mirrors the sickening tragedy that didn’t have to happen. Any reasonable peace talks could have resolved the division to both parties’ satisfaction.
Putin showed again his ruthless side, conspiring with Ergogan to sabotage Armenia when a more equitable solution could have been found. Azeris, who are Sunni Muslims, have little sympathy for age-old Christian traditions dating back to the origin of Western Civilization. “In the end, we will blow it up or set it on fire, in order not to leave anything to Muslims,” said Dadevusyan said about his home. “We are homeless now, do not know where to go and where to live. It is very hard,” said Dadvevusyan’s wife. “Why has Putin abandoned us?” Dadveusyan asked, not fully understanding the geopolitics of oil in the region. Putin likes to play all sides against each other but in the end sides with the money. Armenia has nothing but headaches to offer Putin. Azerbaijan is a regional player with the BTC pipeline, bringing oil to Europe via Turkey, leaving Armenia out in the cold.
