Last week, Artsakh’s defenders and supporters in the US eastern region and around the world commemorated the 31st anniversary of the liberation of Shushi and honored the brave soldiers who sacrificed life and limb to pursue freedom and self-determination after years of living under Azerbaijan’s discriminatory and deadly rule. The Armenians of Artsakh also rallied last week against Azerbaijan’s campaign to ethnically cleanse them from their indigenous lands, putting the world on notice that only the people of Artsakh have the right to determine their destiny.
That is why recent meetings hosted in Washington, DC by US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov are ineffective and can have no meaningful impact on Artsakh’s citizens and their unshakable goal of self-determination. Diplomatic efforts that occur against the backdrop of Azerbaijan’s ongoing blockade of the only road between Artsakh and Armenia and its continuing provocations and killings of Armenians in Artsakh and Armenia are doomed to fail. No viable, lasting solution is possible as long as Azerbaijan is permitted to disregard the rights and security concerns of the Armenian population of Artsakh, the root causes of the conflict are not addressed, and the self-determination rights of Artsakh’s 120,000 citizens are not recognized.
Although the government of Azerbaijan continues its efforts to break the spirit of Artsakh’s people, last week’s rallies honoring the liberation of Shushi and against Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing efforts show that Artsakh’s Armenians cannot be dissuaded in their fight for freedom and justice.
On May 20, those defending the rights of Artsakh’s Armenians will travel from Yerevan to the border town of Kornidzor near the Hakari bridge occupied by Azerbaijan to continue to show Azerbaijan and the rest of the world that all efforts to relinquish the human rights of Artsakh’s 120,000 men, women and children will be resisted. The demand for Artsakh’s freedom will persist and only intensify until the inevitable recognition is secured that Artsakh is and shall always be Armenian.
ARF Eastern US Central Committee
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There is something wrong with the current Armenian parliamentary system that the Civil Contract party headed by Pashinyan can make momentous decisions about the future of Artsakh ( i.e that it is part of Azerbaijan) by a simple majority vote. There should be a requirement of at least a two thirds majority of the parliament voting on any agreements with Azerbaijan. Better still there should be a national referendum on issues that affect not only Armenia/Artsakh but the whole nation. Putting aside the arrogance and stupidity of Pashinyan to agree to hand over the whole of Artsakh, it defies even the seventy year history of Artsakh being an oblast in the USSR with self rule inside Azerbaijan, or the fact that it declared itself independent during the end of the USSR. It seems that the Russian proposal of putting off indefinitely the status of Artsakh is more in line with the interests of Artsakh. I appreciate the argument made by some that it is in Armenia’s interest to get out from under Russia to secure modern technology, investment capital and defense security with France/USA. So the answer to this conundrum maybe to adopt the Russian plan for Artsakh(thereby securing some Russian presence in the South Caucasus, as in Abkazia and Ossetia) , while Armenia makes some moves towards the West. It’s a very delicate balancing act. But Armenia needs a strong confident leader with military experience to pull off such a strategy
According to wiki, the President of Armenia is the head of state and the guarantor of independence and territorial integrity of Armenia.
It’s too late now. Armenians squandered the opportunity to settle the dispute over Artsakh in the 1990s. Yerevan needed to compromise from a position of strength. Armenians should have pulled back from at least the 5 of the 7 territories outside of the internationally recognized borders of Artsakh. We should have invited a Russian military presence inside Artsakh, making the territory strategically valuable for it. We needed to forge closer ties with Russia and Iran. We needed to turn Armenia into an indispensable nation for both Moscow and Tehrqn. It was not to be. Our arrogance, pride, materialism, tribalism, shortsightedness, cognitive dissonance and political illiteracy and our live of all things Western came into play. We thought we were invincible. We thought we could be maximalistic. We thought we could sit on two chairs. Armenians wasted 30 years on importing Western pop culture and NGOs, calling for revolutions and playing games with our closest and only ally, Russia. All the while, the Diaspora acted like a pack animal for all kinds of Western and Tukish agendas in Armenia. The accumulated toxicity then burst in 2018. The tragedy that followed, and still continuing today, is our collective fault. Ultimately, Nikol’s toxic regime is a by-product of the materialism, tribalism, shortsightedness, egotism, political illiteracy and cognitive dissonance that is so prevalent in modern Armenian society.
The only thing left to look firward to at this point in time is to see Armenia entering the Russian Federation in some form. That’s the only hope. Everything else is a pipe dream that will only prolong the misery.
Agree Armenia needs to enter the Russian Federation .Armenia needs new Prime MINISTER.
Irredentism is the backbone Armenian ultra-nationalism.
What you describe seems to be a repeat of events long time ago. Irredentist adventurers have dragged these people from one disaster to another last 150 years. At what point a lesson is learned?
Pashinyan must resign
The last 30 years proved that Armenians are kn no shape to maintain independence in a place like the south Caucasus. The sooner Armenia joins the Russian Federation the better it will be for Armenia. Period.
Neither Armenia nor Artsakh should ever join the Russian Federation! Russia is using Armenia & Artsakh as a bargaining chip as it has been doing for the past 100 years. I cannot believe that a member of the Dashnagtsutune would ever contemplate or utter the ideas proposed by some of the comments. Their ideas & credentials are very odd indeed. Armenia must demand & claim her de jure rights in the international courts, that is listen to Ara Papian & claim Pres. Woodrow Wilson’s Arbitral Award, regarding Armenia’s borders, which includes Karabakh. Armenia must do everything to keep her independence otherwise we will lose our history as well as our future.
Some would say Karabag is actually free.