Turkish Forum

Tag: Artsakh

  • Why Can’t Pashinyan Remember the Document He Signed at the End of the 2020 War?

    Why Can’t Pashinyan Remember the Document He Signed at the End of the 2020 War?

    It is incomprehensible that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan would forget important details of the document he signed with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, at the end of the 2020 Artsakh War.

    More incomprehensible is the fact that while Pashinyan is distorting some of the provisions of the 2020 agreement, he is blaming others for misrepresenting it. Shockingly, he then challenges them to read the text of the agreement, reminding them that it is publicly available.

    Pashinyan signed the 2020 agreement that called for the unblocking of “all economic and transport connections in the region,” specifically mentioning a road that will cross Armenia to link mainland Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhichevan. Since 2020 he has repeated dozens of times that Armenia is ready “this morning” to allow Azerbaijanis to travel to Nakhichevan through Armenia, not once mentioning, until his August 31, 2024 press conference, that Armenians also have the right to travel through Azerbaijan to Russia.

    Fortunately, Azerbaijan has undermined this provision of the 2020 agreement by insisting that the road that will cross Armenia should be a “corridor” which means that the Armenian territory that Azeris will pass through is to be under Azerbaijan’s control. This is contrary to the provisions of the 2020 agreement and a violation of Armenia’s sovereignty. If it were not for Aliyev’s obstruction, Azeris would have been traveling through Armenia to Nakhichevan for several years by now.

    To make matters worse, as a result of the dispute between Armenia and Russia resulting from Russian peacekeepers not carrying out their duties of protecting Artsakh Armenians and allowing Azerbaijan to completely occupy Artsakh on Sept. 19, 2023, Pashinyan has been wrongly insisting that Russia has no role to play in the Zangezur road. He is thus ignoring point 9 of the agreement he signed in 2020 which stated: “The Border Guard Service of the Russian Federal Security Service shall be responsible for overseeing the transport connections [between Armenia and Azerbaijan].”

    Pashinyan could have been justified in rejecting the Russian role if he had said that the 2020 agreement is no longer valid as both Russia and Azerbaijan have violated many of its provisions, such as the lack of the protection of Artsakh Armenians, completing the occupation of Artsakh, and not returning all the Armenian prisoners of war. However, Pashinyan insists that the Nov. 9, 2020 agreement is still valid, thus contradicting himself.

    Furthermore, Pashinyan wrongly insists that the Nov. 9, 2020 agreement does not mention any Russian role for the Zangezur road. He challenges everyone to read the text of the 2020 agreement and then quotes from its point 9, leaving out the sentence that calls for Russian border guards to oversee the road between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan.

    To add to the confusion, after insisting that Russia has no role in this road, Pashinyan contradicts himself once again by claiming that Russia is supposed to “monitor” the road, not “oversee” it. Making his argument more bizarre, Pashinyan says that Russian monitors don’t have to be physically present on Armenia’s border to monitor the Zangezur road and that they can monitor it remotely from anywhere else, like Moscow.

    In the meantime, the Zangezur road has become a political football between Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran, Russia, and the West. For a long time, Russia had been pushing for the opening of the Zangezur road so it can control this critical artery that will link the Central Asian Turkic states with Azerbaijan and Turkey, all the way to Europe. If the West, instead of Russia, oversees this key road, this would reduce Russia’s influence in the region.

    Pashinyan tried to appease all the sides involved in this controversy by suddenly announcing that an international organization could monitor the transit of Azeri goods and people. However, just as quickly, he withdrew his suggestion because Azerbaijan would have never accepted that the same third party would also monitor the transit of Armenian goods through Azerbaijan.

    Azerbaijan and Iran have come up with an alternative solution. They agreed to allow the movement of goods from mainland Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan through a road in Northern Iran. Even though Azerbaijan and Turkey had been pressuring Armenia to open “the Zangezur Corridor,” Armenia and Azerbaijan mysteriously decided to exclude the Zangezur issue from their peace treaty negotiations.

    After Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Armenia of undermining the Zangezur road, Iran issued a stern warning that it will not allow a “Zangezur corridor” through Armenia. Russia quickly patched up its differences with Iran and quieted down the dispute.

    This messy situation could have been avoided if Pashinyan had not suggested the inclusion of the Zangezur road in the 2020 agreement. This is what happens when Prime Minister Pashinyan, rather than solving Armenia’s problems, aggravates them because of his incompetence.

  • We Must Keep the Memory and Dream Alive To Recover Artsakh and Western Armenia

    We Must Keep the Memory and Dream Alive To Recover Artsakh and Western Armenia

    There is a dispute among those who want to struggle for the recovery of Artsakh and those who say that Artsakh is lost forever and that we should forget about it. The latter shameful position is promoted by the current regime in Armenia which is responsible for losing Artsakh and is now doing everything possible to bury its memory.

    I would like to share with the readers my decades-long view on the recovery of Western Armenia and its parallels to actions we need to take for Artsakh.

    After every lecture I have given around the world on the Armenian Genocide and Western Armenia, some of the attendees immediately ask: what is the point of pursuing such a lost cause, particularly since the powerful Turkish military is occupying our historic lands?

    I respond by saying that the worst thing Armenians can do now is to forget about Western Armenia. That is the surest way of losing forever our Armenian territories.

    In addition to doing everything possible now, Armenians need to transmit to the next generation our demands for Artsakh and Western Armenia in order to keep the dream alive. If we don’t, our future generations, not knowing anything about our historic lands, will have no idea that they belong to us. Consequently, even if someday the geostrategic situation on the ground changes and an opportunity arises to recover our lost lands, our future generations will not show any interest in them.

    Remember that for over 2,000 years, the Jewish people had lost their homeland and were dispersed throughout the world. The succeeding Jewish generations passed on the knowledge of their homeland to their offspring. For more than 2,000 years, parents transmitted the memory of Jerusalem and Israel to their children and they in turn passed it on to their children, and so on. They did not forget their roots and history while living in exile in Russia, Europe and elsewhere. They repeatedly told their children and grandchildren, ‘next year in Jerusalem!’ Two thousand years later, when the opportunity arose to recover their lands, they took advantage of it and realized their long-held dream. Palestinians, who were and still are forcefully displaced from their lands, are in a similar situation. They too are struggling to keep their dream alive and are proclaiming the right of return to their ancestral homes.

    If Jewish people can keep their dream of returning to their homeland for 2,000 years, why can’t Armenians keep their dream alive of returning to Artsakh and Western Armenia someday? Armenians should tell their children and grandchildren: ‘next year in Shushi’ and ‘next year in Van’.

    The question is: how can Armenians return to their lands someday if powerful enemies are occupying Artsakh and Western Armenia? We should not forget that nothing remains constant forever. There is not a single country in the world that has had the same boundaries since the beginning of history. Over the years, some countries have enlarged their borders, while others lost their territories. Some have become large empires, while others have disappeared from the face of the earth. But one thing is clear: No one can claim that today’s boundaries of Azerbaijan and Turkey will remain the same forever. Just 100 years ago, the vast and powerful Ottoman Empire was reduced to the much smaller territory of the Republic of Turkey. Even though it is not possible to predict the exact date when the boundaries of Azerbaijan and Turkey will change, they will certainly not remain the same. How will such changes come about? There are several scenarios, such as regional wars, even world war, civil war, and nuclear or other types of disasters. Such events have happened in the past and will surely happen again in the future.

    When changes on the ground do take place, will future generations of Armenians know and have the memory that Artsakh and Western Armenia are part of their historic homeland or will they be clueless, having never heard of Shushi and Van? If they are deprived of that knowledge, when opportunities arise in the future, even if an unlikely benevolent Azeri or Turkish leader returns those lands to our grandchildren, they will not be interested in them, since they had never heard of them.

    In conclusion, my advice is to keep the dream alive. While we are deprived of our lands due to the actions of our enemies, it is up to us not to lose the memory and dream of someday returning to our lands. Let’s pass on our demands to future generations. The enemy took away our lands, but did not and cannot take away our memory. By forgetting about our historic lands, we ourselves will be helping our enemies put the final stone on the grave of our cause!

  • Armenian Government Adds Unnecessary Burdens on Already Suffering Artsakhtsis

    Armenian Government Adds Unnecessary Burdens on Already Suffering Artsakhtsis

    As if the problems of displaced Artsakh Armenians were not bad enough, given their forced departure from their native land and the subsequent hardships faced by lack of housing, food, medicines and other essential items after their arrival in Armenia, the government is now creating more unnecessary difficulties for them.

    Artsakh Armenians, who have been citizens of Armenia for a long time, are suddenly told by the Armenian government that they are not citizens of Armenia, even though they possess passports issued by the Republic of Armenia. Many Artsakh Armenians have used their Armenian passports for years to travel to foreign countries without any problems, which means that the authorities in Armenia and other countries accepted their passports as genuine Armenian passports. How is it possible that Artsakhtsis were citizens of Armenia while living in Artsakh, but not after they arrived in Armenia?

    To make matters more confusing, the government of Armenia is now telling Artsakh Armenians that since they are not citizens of Armenia, they may apply for Armenian citizenship in the future. This is complete nonsense. How can a citizen of Armenia apply a second time for citizenship? If I, as a US citizen, apply for US citizenship for the second time, American government officials will treat me as a fool and show me the door.

    I believe that the Armenian government, led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, has a hidden agenda in treating Artsakh Armenians as non-citizens. He wants to make sure that during future elections in Armenia, Artsakh Armenians will be unable to vote, knowing that many of them will not vote for his political party’s candidates, since Pashinyan is the one who handed Artsakh to Azerbaijan. We now have the additional evidence that the country’s leader is not only incompetent, but also violates the country’s laws for political gain. This is confirmed by the Interior Ministry’s declaration: “A person with refugee status does not have the right to vote and be elected in national elections.”

    Last week, the Republic of Armenia’s Ministry of Interior issued a statement in the format of “answers to frequently asked questions by forcibly displaced citizens of the Republic of Artsakh.” In this first sentence, there is already an error. Artsakh Armenians are citizens of Armenia, not citizens of Artsakh or Azerbaijan.

    The Ministry tried to entice Artsakh Armenians to accept their refugee status, telling them that those who have the status of a refugee have no obligation to serve in the armed forces of Armenia. In other words, Artsakh Armenians, who must serve in Armenia’s armed forces as citizens of Armenia, are wrongly exempted from military service, in violation of Armenian law.

    The Ministry also stated that as refugees, Artsakh Armenians have no right to own agricultural land. This provision deprives them of the ability to grow food on their own plot of land, since they do not have the necessary funds to purchase food.

    The Ministry then stated that refugees cannot travel to a foreign country. This is also false, as Artsakh Armenians with their Armenian passports can travel to any country after obtaining a visa, if one is required. Some countries like Russia do not require a visa from Armenian citizens. Thousands of Artsakh Armenians have already left Armenia simply by showing their Armenian passports which means that both Armenia and other countries have recognized their passports as legitimate documents.

    The Ministry then contradicted itself by stating that “should a refugee’s passport expire, it can be renewed by presenting two photos and the expired passport.” How can Artsakh Armenians renew their passports in Armenia, if they are not Armenian citizens and do not hold Armenian passports?

    In a further contradiction, the Ministry stated that those Artsakh Armenians who become Armenian citizens do not lose their ability to benefit from social assistance programs for refugees. The only requirement is that they be classified as ‘displaced.’ If they do not jeopardize their right to receive assistance after becoming citizens of Armenia, why are they classified as refugees and not recognized as citizens?

    Incredibly, after giving away Artsakh and repressing the rights of Artsakh Armenians to pursue any political activity in Armenia on behalf of Artsakh, the Ministry of Interior stated that their losses of property in Artsakh “does not disappear or cease to exist as a result of a change in a person’s legal status,” meaning acquiring citizenship of Armenia. It remains to be seen if the Armenian government, beyond mere words, will be willing to file lawsuits in international courts to defend the property rights of Artsakh Armenians.

    Artsakh Armenians, who are citizens of Armenia, have suffered more than enough. They should not be burdened with such unnecessary bureaucratic nonsense.

  • After the Loss of Artsakh, Pashinyan Should Declare 2020 Agreement Null & Void

    After the Loss of Artsakh, Pashinyan Should Declare 2020 Agreement Null & Void

    On Nov. 10, 2020, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of Russia Vladimir Putin signed a ceasefire agreement in the Artsakh War.

    Ceasefires usually signify that the warring sides stop the fighting wherever they had reached until then. Oddly, in the case of the 2020 ceasefire agreement, Armenia surrendered to Azerbaijan large swaths of land where no Azeri soldier had set foot on, such as the Agdam, Kalbajar and Lachin districts, but not the Corridor.

    Therefore, the 2020 agreement was more of a capitulation than a ceasefire for Armenia. Here are the resulting problems:

    1) Prime Minister Pashinyan had no reason to sign a ceasefire agreement with Azerbaijan since the war was between Azerbaijan and Artsakh, not Armenia. Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan had declared war against each other.

    2) Pashinyan had no authorization to turn over to Azerbaijan territories that belonged to Artsakh, not Armenia.

    3) The 2020 agreement set deadlines for Armenia, but not for Azerbaijan, to carry out various obligations, such as the evacuation of territories and exchange of prisoners of war. Unwisely, the Armenian government handed over all the Azeri prisoners right away, while Azerbaijan released only a small number of Armenian prisoners. Three years later, dozens of Armenian prisoners are still languishing in Baku jails. Pashinyan is not only making no efforts to return these prisoners but does not even talk about them.

    4) Under the 2020 agreement, the Lachin Corridor — the only road that connected Artsakh to Armenia — was forcefully and illegally taken over by Azerbaijan on Dec. 12, 2022, even though Russian Peacekeepers were supposed to control it.

    5) The 2020 agreement mandated that “all economic and transport connections in the region shall be unblocked.” This means that both Armenia and Azerbaijan would be able to cross each other’s territories. Pashinyan expressed his readiness to allow Azeris to travel through Armenia from the eastern part of Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhichevan, but never mentioned that such access was to be reciprocal. Contrary to the 2020 agreement, Azerbaijan demanded not just a passage, but a ‘corridor’ which means that the road through Armenia would belong to Azerbaijan. Pres. Aliyev never once mentioned that he will in turn allow Armenians to cross Azerbaijan’s border. To make matters worse, Turkey has been falsely demanding that Armenia accept the ‘Zangezur Corridor’ before it would agree to open the Armenia-Turkey border.

    6) Pashinyan has repeatedly talked about his plan to sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan. There is no need to sign such a peace treaty since Armenia was not at war with Azerbaijan. Peace treaties are signed between warring parties. Azerbaijan was at war with Artsakh, not Armenia.

    7) Contrary to the 2020 agreement, which mandated that Russian Peacekeepers would remain in Artsakh until 2025, Azerbaijan violated that provision by invading and occupying the remainder of Artsakh last month, forcing its 120,000 inhabitants to flee to Armenia.

    8) Azerbaijan’s occupation of Artsakh in September 2023 made the role of the Russian Peacekeepers unnecessary, which means that the Russian soldiers would have to leave what is now Azeri territory.

    9) While there are good reasons to blame Russia for its inaction in protecting Artsakh Armenians, there is an equally good reason to blame Pashinyan for conceding that Artsakh is part of Azerbaijan. It is clear that despite Russia’s alliance with Armenia, given its involvement in the Ukraine War, Pres. Putin has decided that Turkey (the only NATO member that has not sanctioned Russia) and its junior brother Azerbaijan are much more important to Russia’s national interests than Armenia or Artsakh. Meanwhile, the West has not been of much help to Armenia either, except for issuing supportive statements, but no action.

    10) After the 2020 War, when Azerbaijan’s army entered and occupied the eastern territory of Armenia, Pashinyan not only makes no effort to dislodge the enemy from Armenia’s sovereign territory but does not even talk about Azerbaijan’s illegal presence there.

    11) Pashinyan’s long list of mistakes includes acknowledging that the Soviet-era Azeri inhabited enclaves inside Armenia are part of Azerbaijan. There was no reason for Pashinyan to offer to Azerbaijan these enclaves, especially since Aliyev had made no such demands.

    12) Pashinyan unilaterally recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity without any reciprocal recognition by Aliyev.

    Given Pashinyan’s mishandling of the above 12 critical issues, refusal to resign and turn over his seat to a competent leader, the only option left for him is to declare that the 2020 agreement is null and void since Azerbaijan has violated most of its provisions.

    Pashinyan should refuse to sit at the negotiating table with Aliyev until he releases all Armenian prisoners of war and withdraws his troops from Armenia’s territory. Aliyev should first honor his previous commitments before Armenians can trust him to abide by future agreements.

    Fortunately, the 2020 agreement can easily be discarded because it was not ratified by the Parliaments of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia as an international treaty. It was simply signed by Pashinyan without consulting anyone. The next leader of Armenia, on his first day in office, should nullify the 2020 agreement.

  • Biden’s Inaction on Artsakh Disappoints Armenian-Americans

    Biden’s Inaction on Artsakh Disappoints Armenian-Americans

    There are many justified complaints about Russia’s shameful role in the loss of Artsakh and inaction in coming to the defense of Armenia’s borders. However, there is also a lot to complain about the indifference by the international community, including the United States, about Azerbaijan’s aggression against Artsakh and Armenia.

    For 30 years, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, composed of the United States, France and Russia, the mediators in the Artsakh conflict, issued repeated statements about the unacceptability of the use of force, urging the settlement of the dispute through peaceful negotiations.

    However, contrary to such well-intentioned words, when Azerbaijan repeatedly attacked Artsakh and Armenia with frequent shootings at the border for three decades, the OSCE Minsk Group simply issued meaningless statements, urging both sides not to engage in violence. The OSCE, however, never bothered to point a finger at the guilty party — Azerbaijan — thus equating the victimizer with the victim.

    Such unjust statements encouraged Azerbaijan to brazenly continue its attacks, culminating in the unleashing of a massive war against Artsakh in 2020, followed by incursions into the territory of Armenia. Last month, Azerbaijan violated the agreement it signed in 2020 to allow Russian peacekeepers to protect the remnants of Artsakh’s population until 2025. Pres. Ilham Aliyev, knowing full well that no foreign country would intervene to stop his attacks, ethnically cleansed the 120,000 inhabitants of Artsakh and drove them out of their historical homeland.

    On Sept. 14, 2023, the Acting Assistant Secretary of State Yuri Kim testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “We will not tolerate any military action. We will not tolerate any attack on the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.” Days later, Azerbaijan attacked and occupied Artsakh confident that the U.S. government was bluffing.

    Naturally, no one expected the United States or another major power to send troops to defend Artsakh and Armenia, but merely urging Azerbaijan not to block the Lachin Corridor or refrain from the use of force is an exercise in futility. The international community did not even impose sanctions on Azerbaijan because its gas and oil was more valuable than Armenian blood.

    To make matters worse, after ignoring Azerbaijan’s repeated attacks on Artsakh and Armenia since the 2020 war, Samantha Power, the Administrator of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), finally arrived in Armenia last week, bringing along a letter from Pres. Joe Biden which contained a lot of sweet words for Armenians, but once again, no action.

    Even more shocking, Power offered the pitiful amount of $11.5 million in humanitarian aid to the 120,000 destitute Artsakh refugees. That’s almost $96 for each refugee, deprived of housing, food, medicines and other basic necessities. This is a shameful amount of money compared to the USAID’s annual budget of $50 billion. Her visit was too late and accomplished too little.

    Several other countries and international agencies also pledged assistance to the Artsakh Armenians: France ($7.4 million), Germany ($5.3 million), the European Union ($5.3 million), Sweden ($1.3 million), Canada ($1.85 million), Denmark ($140,000), United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR (amount unspecified), Japan (amount unspecified), Spain (amount unspecified). Armenia committed $25 million, plus $125 for rent and utilities per month for six months for each refugee. The government of Cyprus invited the Artsakh refugees to resettle in Cyprus. However, it is not a good idea to take these displaced Armenians out of Armenia.

    In addition, dozens of Armenian organizations throughout the Diaspora are raising funds to help the Artsakh refugees. There are also many charitable organizations and businesses in Armenia that are helping the Artsakh Armenians with funds, supplies or services. Armenia’s Ministry of Finance opened a bank account to receive donations from the public. There is also an office set up by the Armenian government to coordinate the distribution of the offered assistance.

    Just in case someone thinks that the pledged assistance is a lot of money, it is in fact a negligible amount compared to the vast needs of the refugees for the months and years to come. Ukraine, on the other hand, has received so far $80 billion from the United States for its military, financial and humanitarian needs. In addition, 41 other countries have contributed tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine.

    The lack of concrete action by the Biden Administration, aside from pledging $11.5 million to the Artsakh refugees, has highly disappointed many Armenian-Americans. It is surprising that Pres. Biden, an experienced politician and candidate for reelection next year, who has one of the lowest ratings in the history of the United States for an incumbent president, has not made more of an effort to win over Armenian-American voters. Even if Pres. Biden does not care about Armenia and Artsakh, he should have at least cared about his own self-interest, which is getting votes for his own re-election.

  • Artsakh is Lost After Being Abandoned  By Armenia, Russia and the West

    Artsakh is Lost After Being Abandoned  By Armenia, Russia and the West

    Last week, Armenians worldwide experienced one of the biggest tragedies of their lives after Azerbaijan occupied Artsakh.

    120,000 Artsakh Armenians — men, women and children — were attacked in their historic homeland by advanced weapons imported by oil-rich Azerbaijan from Israel, Russia, Pakistan and Eastern Europe.

    The main evil-doers are Azerbaijan and its partner Turkey which are guilty of committing mass crimes against the people of Artsakh.

    However, there is plenty of blame to go around. I want to start with the shameful role that Armenia’s Prime Minister has played in this disaster. Starting from 2001, while Pashinyan was an unknown journalist, he wrote in his Haykakan Jamanak newspaper that “through diplomacy, it is not possible not to return these [Artsakh] territories to Azerbaijan…. Having abandoned our own lands, we are trying to be the owners of someone else’s land.” After becoming Prime Minister, Pashinyan made numerous contradictory statements regarding Artsakh, first stating emphatically that “Artsakh is Armenia, that’s it,” and then, “Artsakh is part of Azerbaijan.” While the words of a journalist may not matter, his statements as Prime Minister cannot be dismissed. Game over! Artsakh is lost and nothing is expected to change that reality for a long time. As always, Pashinyan blames everyone else for his misdeeds, including the former leaders, the domestic opposition, and Russia.

    To make matters worse, Pashinyan washed his hands from Artsakh and urged its leaders to sort out their differences with Azerbaijan. Pashinyan basically threw 120,000 poorly-armed Artsakh Armenians to the big bad Azeri wolf. How can tiny Artsakh negotiate with powerful Azerbaijan? Pashinyan ignored the fact that since Artsakh Armenians are citizens of Armenia, it was his constitutional duty to protect them. For months, he made the laughable promise that the rights and security of Artsakh Armenians will be protected after they become citizens of Azerbaijan. Ridiculously, Pashinyan announced last week, a couple of hours before the UN Security Council meeting, that the lives of Armenian civilians in Artsakh were secure after Azerbaijan’s attack. Shortly thereafter Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told the Security Council that Azerbaijan is engaged in ethnic cleansing of Artsakh Armenians. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister immediately pointed out to the UN the contradictory statements by the two Armenian leaders, thus undermining Armenia’s credibility in front of the whole world. In the meantime, hundreds of Artsakh Armenians were killed and wounded, and thousands are missing as a result of Azerbaijan’s attack.

    Last week, when Azerbaijan’s strong military invaded what remained of Artsakh, Pashinyan announced that Armenia will not get involved in the conflict, thus giving the green light to Azerbaijan to commit all sorts of horrible crimes on the people of Artsakh. Pashinyan has held the mistaken notion that once Artsakh is returned to Azerbaijan, citizens of Armenia will live in peace. Regrettably, this is the farthest thing from the truth. Azerbaijan’s President, seeing in front of him a militarily weak Armenia and a leader who has no idea what he is doing, will not stop after his conquest of Artsakh. Aliyev will keep on demanding concessions from the weakling Pashinyan and occupy more and more territories of the Republic of Armenia. Aliyev has repeatedly and falsely claimed that all of Armenia is “Western Azerbaijan.” Since the 2020 war, Azerbaijan’s troops occupied portions of Armenia’s territory and have no intention of leaving. My fear is that Aliyev will continue making incursions into Armenia, until he takes over the whole country. Therefore, Pashinyan’s premise that Armenians in Armenia will leave in peace after abandoning Artsakh is absurd.

    Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev quickly capitalized on Pashinyan’s capitulation and repeatedly told the world that since Armenia’s Prime Minister admitted that Artsakh is part of Azerbaijan, that region is his country’s internal issue and no one has the right to intervene. Shortly thereafter, Russia’s leaders, including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, repeatedly stated that Pashinyan is the one who relinquished Artsakh.

    Nevertheless, Russia has its own share of guilt for what has been taking place in the last three years, and what happened in Artsakh last week. The Russian peacekeepers, who were mandated by the 2020 agreement to safeguard the population of Artsakh and keep the Lachin Corridor open until 2025, failed miserably to carry out their responsibilities. Russia did not even try to protect the borders of the Republic of Armenia, as required by the CSTO agreement signed between Armenia, Russia and several other former Soviet Republics. Russia’s inaction and Pashinyan’s relinquishment of Artsakh resulted in the massive human tragedy suffered by 120,000 Artsakh Armenians.

    The international community is also guilty of ignoring the suffering of Artsakh Armenians who lost their historic homeland after being starved for nine months due to the blockade of the Lachin Corridor by Azerbaijan. Other than saying a lot of useless words, no one in the world lifted a finger to rescue these people and defend their rights. All international laws, human rights, and notions of justice were a lot of hot air. Equally useless were the UN Security Council, the International Court of Justice, European Court of Human Rights, European Union, European Council, and statements by officials of many countries, including the United States. As we all know, might makes right. Nothing else matters.

    The top priority of Armenians worldwide now is seeking the immediate ouster of Pashinyan, since he is refusing to resign and digging a deeper hole for Armenia with every passing day. Unless Pashinyan is replaced soon by a competent and nationalistic Armenian who protects Armenia’s interests, Armenians may end up losing their homeland, this time for good!

    After Pashinyan is replaced, Armenia’s new leader has to put all other issues aside and immediately acquire a massive amount of advanced weapons to defend the country’s borders from further incursions.

    After vainly hoping and waiting for thousands of years for a foreign power to come and save Armenia, it is high time that Armenians finally realize that no one will ever come to rescue them. They need to save themselves!