The Great Game - Artsakh, Armenia and the international powerplay.
- Mountain People
- Jan 24, 2023
- 16 min read
Updated: Jan 25, 2023
If you already know it is bad and do it, you commit a sin difficult to redress - G.I. Gurdieff
How the United Kingdom Government is actively participating in ethnic cleansing and supporting genocidal policies in the Caucasus.
There is every chance you have not heard of Nagorno Karabakh. Your reference points for Armenia maybe similarly slight other than some knowledge of American-Armenian rock band System Of A Down, the Kardashians or Armenian footballer Henrik Mkhitaryan. Azerbaijan might be slightly more familiar due to its forays into the sporting arena, an attempt to foist legitimacy upon a dictatorial regime with an appalling human rights record and well catalogued lack of freedoms. Yet right now there is a serious humanitarian crisis in the region of the Caucasus over a disputed territory founded upon disputed history and disputed population figures that could be catastrophic for the people living there and spells danger for the continued existence of Armenia.
Whilst the world is focused on the war that has erupted between Russia and Ukraine, the continued conflict in Nagorno Karabakh (known to Armenians as Artsakh - which this article will from now on refer to it as) has received little by way of media attention across the globe and yet it involves some surprising players other than Armenia and Azerbaijan who have long fought over this coveted territory. In particular the Government of the United Kingdom that continually claims to be horrified by "Putin's appalling war in Ukraine" and yet whose resolute silence on the issue in the Caucasus has made them at the very least bystanders to ethnic cleansing and genocide manoeuvres, and at worst, supporters.
As the map above illustrates, the Caucasus is situated to the east of Turkey, to the south of Russia and to the north of Iran. On December 12, a group of Azerbaijani government-backed protesters claiming to be eco-activists began a demonstration on the Lachin Corridor blockading the road connecting Artsakh and Armenia. Alongside this action, the Azerbaijani authorities cut off the gas and electricity supplies to Artsakh in the coldest months of the year in what can only be seen as a move to ethnically cleanse the region through genocidal policies - causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part - (Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide - https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml).
Azerbaijani officials have consistently drawn parallels between that road and the would-be Zangezur Corridor that is currently under negotiation, a route that would be situated on the border between Armenia and Iran. Those negotiations have not been publicised but Armenia rejects Azerbaijan's express request that the road should have no Armenian presence on it, not even passport or customs checks.
Needless to say, instability in the region is dangerous and all three of the surrounding major powers are in different ways involved in the current dispute.
Turkey is very much an ally of Azerbaijan whilst Iran has traditionally been an ally of Armenia. During Soviet times, Russia held sway over both and is currently attempting to utilise the situation to their advantage. Meanwhile the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States are all seeking political capital and seem wilfully ignorant over the scale of the humanitarian issue.
How the dispute was created - a brief modern history.
The region has long been in dispute but a suitable starting point for an understanding of how the current conflict has played out would be to look at the modern history and therefore begin following the Azerbaijan led Shushi massacre in March 1920 and the ensuing April 9th Congress of Karabakhi Armenians which proclaimed Artsakh as an essential part of Armenia. With the the Red Army in control this was not realised but at that point in time Artsakh consisted of around 90% Armenians, a sizeable majority. Once Soviet control of the region had been embedded, a fateful decision was made by Stalin that still reverberates today. The future leader of the USSR was the then Commissar of Nationalities and entrusted with drawing up boundaries in the region. In July 1921 the seven member People's Commissariat for Nationalities, the Kavburo voted 4–3 in favour of assigning Artsakh to the now Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia. However, within days the Kavburo reversed its decision and voted to leave the region within the Azerbaijan SSR, reportedly at Stalin's behest. It was a decision that most historians believe to be grounded in a desire to rule through 'divide and conquer' but it was a decision that still effects the people living there today.
Under Soviet control and all that entailed, the region remained relatively peaceful save for intermittent skirmishes in the 1960s and 1970s but following the collapse of the USSR, the issue of who should control the region became 'hot' again. By 1989 the Armenian population of Artsakh had decreased to 76% but still maintained a sizeable majority. As a result of Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika Armenians felt emboldened to voice their concerns about the relative 'Jim Crow' system in Artsakh under President Heydar Aliyev (1993 - 2003 - and father of current ruler Ilham - you might now guess just how democratic Azerbaijan is), a system that had favoured Azerbaijanis in the region and had contributed to the decrease in the Armenian population. The general chaos that resulted from Gorbachev's policies led to outbreaks of violence, most notably and tragically the 1988 pogrom of Armenians at Sumgait which led to a full blown war that lasted for six years with Armenia gaining full control of Artsakh and most importantly, and most relevant to the current crisis, control of the Lachin corridor connecting the two. As a result Artsakh became a de-facto independent State that was not internationally recognised. Since then the OSCE Minsk Group has been mediating with the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan but no concrete solution to the situation has been reached. Former Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan has suggested that had certain territories been ceded to Azerbaijan (and he is not alone in this consideration) a solution might have been realised, but successive Armenian governments, conscious that a large proportion of the voting public is stridently nationalistic, have remained resolute in not doing so. Meanwhile Azerbaijan has conducted a large scale policy of cultural genocide in Nakhchivan, and whilst there is no love lost on the Armenian side, it would seem anti-Armenianism is rife and codified in Azerbaijan and as such a vote winner... if there were such a thing as free elections in Azerbaijan.
Until 2020 the stalemate continued, isolated incidents not withstanding and the ambitions of the opposing countries was simplified by National Geographic in October of that year.
The map on the left was how National Geographic saw Artsakh in 2020, in the middle we see Armenia and an independent Artsakh (something that has been voted for on more than one occasion by Artsakh's inhabitants), and on the right was how Azerbaijan saw the region.
Following Azerbaijan's unprovoked invasion in October 2020 and the ensuing 44 day war, the region looked like the map below with Armenian territorial losses evident and the Lachin corridor clearly marked and still designated as Armenian but in effect is in the hands of Russian peacekeeping forces who control its usage. As the map demonstrates then, the connection between Armenia and Artsakh quite literally hangs by the thread that is the corridor and the current situation that is on the verge of causing a humanitarian crisis is centred upon this small but highly significant stretch of land.
The manoeuvres and motives of countries beyond the direct conflict are imbued with absolute self interest; players in a game of chess in which Armenia and the Armenians of Artsakh are vulnerable pawns.
The Players
Turkey
There is little doubt that Azerbaijan would not have moved against Artsakh without first seeking the thoughts/encouragement of Turkey's Erdogan. Their relationship is notoriously close and seldom with good intentions in mind. Erdogan is a well known and well proven anti-Semite, a dictator with a history of imprisoning journalists and a rabid anti-Armenian who throughout his career has made a number of inflammatory comments about Armenians alongside a consistent denial of the Armenian genocide, which is a given. It was he who introduced Article 301 into the Turkish penal code which made it a crime to insult Turkishness. One of the first high profile figures to fall foul of this law was celebrated author Orhan Pamuk who in an interview with a Swiss publication said "Thirty thousand Kurds have been killed here, and a million Armenians. And almost nobody dares to mention that. So I do." The charges were later dropped almost certainly because the Western media frenzy surrounding the case was becoming damaging. Erdogan has described Armenian survivors of the genocide as "Leftovers from the sword", has praised Enver Pasha one of the architects of the genocide and has threatened to expel the few Armenians left living inside Turkey's borders. Meanwhile, his willing executioner Aliyev has claimed following the 2020 war that Azerbaijan “ expelled them (Armenians) like dogs” and added: “We will continue to expel these liars. They now see who is who. They see that we have taught them a lesson they will never forget. (…) They have neither conscience nor morality. They don’t even have brains.”
Speaking of his long term ambitions he claimed “Yerevan (Armenia's capital on which Azerbaijan has no claim) is our historical land. We, the Azerbaijanis, will return to these historical lands. It is our political and strategic goal, and gradually we shall reach it.” This naturally would involve ethnic cleansing or genocide on a massive scale.
It is clear that Erdogan and Aliyev are soulmates in slaughter and both see Armenia and Armenians as an enemy that needs eradicating. This however does not stop other nations doing business with them.
Iran
Another of the big three bordering the Caucasus, Iran, is proving to be the most steadfast ally of Armenia. In September 2022 following further Azerbaijani aggression that resulted in the death of 49 Armenian soldiers, Iranian Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani was quoted by the official government news website IRNA as saying that Tehran was following “this issue carefully” and offered Iran’s help to resolve differences. Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned previously in October 2021 that Iran will not tolerate "geopolitical change" in the region and at the borders which was seen as a reference to the proposed link between Turkey and Azerbaijan via the Zangezur corridor. However, given the West and Russia's designs on that nation (Noam Chomsky suggesting the repeated claim of an 'Iranian threat' is inflated and aimed at instigating a conflict with one of the few remaining countries resistant to US dominance - Cuba being the other), an alliance with Iran is not one that promotes a feeling of security.
Russia
The final country of the big nation triumvirate encircling the conflict zone, Russia, has a more complicated relationship with the region. Armenia has traditionally benefitted from both Soviet and Russian protection in light of regular Turkish sabre-rattling from predominantly Turkey, but when Nikol Pashinyan gained power in Armenia following 2018's peaceful revolution and began looking Westwards, it appeared that relations between Yerevan and Moscow soured. When Azerbaijan invaded Artsakh in autumn 2020, Russia, having sold weapons to both sides in the conflict, was very slow in coming to Armenia's assistance. Putin's reticence is founded in the fact that he is no fan of Pashinyan and the more damaging the war the more likely the Armenian President would be ousted by his own people. When the Russian President eventually acted it was to send peacekeepers into the area (and thereby have a foothold closer to Iran) in an agreement with Turkey; that's right the President of whom considers Armenians enemies and who has praised the architects of the 1915 genocide, in order to monitor the ceasefire. As Mark Geragos attests, Russia is playing a cute game and using the presence of Turkish 'peacekeepers' and a new cosiness with Turkey along with threats of further incursions by Azerbaijan into Artsakh and its own sovereign territory in order to drive Armenia back into Russia's arms. However, Pashinyan favours falling under the protectorate of the United States of America, but history should tell him that is also not an entirely enviable place to be either.
United States of America
So what of the United States in this conflict? Well, when war broke out in 2020 Donald Trump was still the President and he made a few blithe statements but did very little by way of offering concrete assistance or solutions. Things looked more hopeful for Armenia when Biden became President because one of his first acts was to officially recognise the 1915 Armenian genocide. Needless to say, Armenians globally felt a sense of relief that the U.S., having previously promised and never acted had finally done the right thing. Biden explained that he had spoken to Erdogan about his intention and strangely, following the announcement, the response from Ankara was muted. Where fury was expected there was a half hearted rebuttal. One can only imagine that Turkey would have received some kind of quid pro quo deal and given Erdogan's constant and very recent rhetoric aimed at Armenians, Kurds and the status of the Greek islands it is incongruous to now see Biden willing to sell $20billion dollars worth of fighter jets to Turkey, alongside 900 air-to-air missiles and 800 bombs. Maybe this was it?
Meanwhile in September 2022, Armenia saw the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In-between Biden's recognition of the Armenian genocide and Pelosi's visit much had changed in the international political landscape, not least Russia's attack on Ukraine. What gets lost in the 'Putin's appalling attack on Ukraine' narrative is NATO's role in poking the Russian bear. Following the end of the Cold War US Secretary of State James Baker made assurances to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during a meeting on February 9, 1990 that NATO would not extend past the territory of East Germany, a promise repeated by NATO’s secretary general in a speech on May 17 of that year.
Russia and the West finally struck an agreement in September that would allow NATO to station its troops beyond the Iron Curtain. However, the deal only concerned a reunified Germany. Clearly NATO has reneged on that good faith agreement and in 2021 Ukraine was hosting military drills with US forces and NATO allies which would no doubt have alarmed Putin. Similarly, seeing the high profile visit of Nancy Pelosi to Armenia as a further sign of potential NATO expansion will have only served to concern Putin further, who happened to meet cordially with Erdogan that same week. Pelosi claimed on her visit that the US is a friend of Armenia yet aside from words there has been little to back up this pronouncement with concrete assistance or outright condemnation of Azerbaijan's aggression. So whilst Armenia antagonises its historical ally and flirts with a United States that is offering words and no action, Armenia is looking increasingly isolated and ripe for further attack at the hands of Azerbaijan/Turkey.
Europe
Another of Armenia's closest potential allies is the European Union. However, that body is proving as ineffectual and apathetic as most of the other potential saviours that Pashinyan might turn to. It is no coincidence that when President of the European Commission, Ursula von Leyen got into bed with the devil via the July 2022 memorandum of understanding with Azerbaijan to double imports of Azeri natural gas by 2027, it was followed less than two months later by Aliyev invading Armenia. It was the green light he had been waiting for. In signing that deal Von Leyen was signing up to a Chamberlain-esque appeasement policy and as such she has blood on her hands. Oil/gas diplomacy is serving Azerbaijan well and Aliyev is tying up any potential allies to Armenia with deals. At least the European Union's deal was pretty transparent. The same can't be said of the recently Brexited and pretty well friendless United Kingdom.
United Kingdom
When the United Kingdom committed the act of self harm that was Brexit, the country's standing on the world stage diminished rapidly; partly as a result of the catastrophic decision made by little Englanders founded predominantly in racism but also due to the untrustworthiness of the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The 'oven ready deal' was anything but. He lied to everyone from European politicians to his own public in order to force through a Brexit that he had campaigned both for and against (even on the same day). Needless to say politicians from Macron to Biden to Putin have given him and his country a wide berth. Yet, in Reycip Erdogan Johnson found a like mind and together they signed a free trade agreement in December 2020, despite Turkey's aggressive role in the region. The deal guaranteed the continuation of nearly £20 billion trade volume between the two countries. Johnson's great grandfather would no doubt be turning in his grave since Ali Kemal railed against exactly the kind of anti-Armenian sentiment that Erdogan disseminates, and it is almost certain that Kemal's protestations against the then government resulted in his death by lynching, his blood-covered body found hanging with the name 'Artin Kemal' across his chest, the bestowal of a fictitious Armenian first name. Those of us in the United Kingdom know full well that Johnson lacks any moral compass but he has made sure sure to surround himself with fellow travellers in the most venal government the country has seen. Since the 2020 war in Artsakh the Foreign Office has seen a succession of such examples at the helm, from Dominic Raab who has claimed "I don't support the Human Rights Act & I don't believe in economic & social rights" to the calamitous Liz Truss and now the vacuous and out of his depth James Cleverly. Other than one sole instance of "bothsidesism" vis a vis the Artsakh conflict, there has been silence from the U.K. Foreign Office on Artsakh and there is a simple reason for this; the U.K. is knee deep in connections with the corrupt Aliyevs (make of that what you will) and evidently complicit supporters of the murder and ethnic cleansing of Armenians from the region.
It was only with the release of the Pandora Papers in 2018 that much of this came to light. The Aliyev regime has acquired £429 million worth of property in London, a city that is considered the money laundering capital of Azerbaijan. On reporting the findings;
"the OCCRP uncovered 84 previously unknown offshore companies, registered in the British Virgin Islands, that the Aliyevs and their associates have owned since 2006. The companies appear to be managed as a closely knit system: Again and again, the leaked records show, groups of them filed paperwork or changed directors on the very same day. Their owners and directorships were also frequently shuffled among the same small group of people"
and it was many of these companies that held vast amounts of property across the British capital and beyond.
"While some of these offshore companies have been closed in recent years, and some of the properties they owned have been sold, as of 2017 the Aliyevs had transferred £125 million in real estate into a secretive trust that was established and controlled by the president’s father-in-law."
"In 2009, that Trident Trust appears to have commissioned a London-based due diligence firm to look into Arzu Aliyev's (his youngest daughter) background who at 19 years old was already the shareholder of offshore company Strahan Holding and Finance that acquired three apartments worth £5.1 million in the London district of Knightsbridge. A report by the firm that appears in the leaked data explains why any money connected to the young woman should be treated as potentially suspicious.
“We draw our client’s attention to the widespread and sustained allegations of corruption against the subject’s father, Ilham Aliyev, and the apparent widely held opinion that any funds held by President Aliyev and his family have been accumulated as a direct result of his position as president of Azerbaijan."
Furthermore the Pandora Papers leaked details of deals between Aliyev's corrupt regime and the Royal Family.
There will be enablers of all of this and they will undoubtedly be found in the upper echelons of British political life.
So far so murky.
British journalist Peter Oborne of the Byline Times investigated the British approach to the current issue of Artsakh, and discovered that the British and Russian Governments have made a "cynical pact" and are pursuing similar policies in the region (https://bylinetimes.com/2023/01/06/the-cynical-pact-between-russia-and-the-uk-over-azerbaijans-aggression-towards-armenia/) . The same Russia that everyone from Johnson to Truss to Sunak (have I missed any of 2022's UK Prime Ministers?)have railed against. In a clear case of judging by actions rather than their words the UK, whose UN ambassador James Kariuki initially called for “the immediate reopening of the corridor”. found themselves sharing a bed with Albania, Russia and the UAE in colluding to scupper a United Nations Security Council denunciation of Azerbaijan. This is little surprise given there are more than 450 UK companies doing business in Azerbaijan at present and the total total trade in goods and services between the UK and Azerbaijan was £1.1 billion between April 2021 and March 2022 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exporting-to-azerbaijan/exporting-to-azerbaijan) . This is quite staggering for a British Government claiming to take a moral stance on Russia.
Azerbaijan is not a free country (https://freedomhouse.org/country/azerbaijan) ranking below Qatar, Bahrain, Cuba and indeed Russia, yet the British Government actively encourages UK businesses to trade with them.
Amnesty International summaries Azerbaijan thus:
"There was no accountability for violations committed during the 2020 Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and its aftermath. Military hostilities negatively impacted the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights. Most Azerbaijanis displaced during that conflict returned, but ethnic Azerbaijanis displaced from within and near Nagorno-Karabakh during the 1990s did not. Persecution and harassment of government critics continued. Peaceful protests were violently broken up. Arbitrary restrictions continued to cripple the work of human rights defenders and NGOs. Gender-based violence and torture and other ill-treatment remained widespread".
Azerbaijan is a country responsible for military hostilities, harassment and persecution of government critics, widespread torture , gender based violence and more yet the UK Government actively encourages UK businesses to trade with them.
As late as September 2022 Azerbaijan was committing war crimes (https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/14/video-shows-azerbaijan-forces-executing-armenian-pows)
and yet the UK Government actively encourages UK businesses to trade with them.
James Cleverly is a prolific user of social media, posting frequently about Ukraine and making blusterous threats vis a vis Iran but has he has made no reference to Azerbaijani aggression and atrocities nor to current events that threaten a humanitarian catastrophe, ethnic cleansing and/or genocide.
On December 13th 2022 Tim Loughton M.P. questioned Cleverly on the issue his response was this:
"I spoke with the Azerbaijan ambassador yesterday on a range of issues and I will reiterate a point I have always called for: de-escalation in that area".
which is a convoluted way of saying "I will do nothing".
Azerbaijan has deep pockets and the current Government of the United Kingdom is avaricious in extremis, so should we have expected anything different?
Again, for a country, a Foreign Minister and a Foreign Office supposedly so appalled by "Putin's appalling war on Ukraine" they seem very blasé about the current actions in Artsakh that Genocide Watch felt obliged to flag up on 23 September 2022. They suggested;
"Due to its unprovoked attacks and genocidal rhetoric against ethnic Armenians, Genocide Watch considers Azerbaijan’s assault on Armenia and Artsakh to be at Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 7: Preparation, Stage 8: Persecution, and Stage 10: Denial."
Given they are continuing to encourage trading relations between the two countries and choosing not to sanction Aliyev, the United Kingdom is an active supporter of attacks that are verging on genocidal.
Remember this the next time James Cleverly tries to explain away the cost of living crisis that is hitting citizens of the U.K. hard by suggesting it a sacrifice worth making in the British Government's moral stance against Russia.
The Government of the United Kingdom is devoid of morals.
The Endgame?
Monte Melkonian, a national hero in Armenia and participant in the war with Azerbaijan that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, was also a historian with an acute understanding of international affairs. He suggested that Armenians should not "believe in benevolent friends, the inevitable triumph of justice, or covertly and cleverly manipulating the superpowers".
It seems he was correct but this seems to be the nightmare that the Armenian Government is stumbling towards.
He also believed that "If we lose (Artsakh), we turn the final page of Armenian history".
Today we could well be on those last few pages as the country and its people in Artsakh face a grave and serious existential crisis that the rest of the world seems ambivalent about.
Whilst Governments might not be helping the Armenians of Artsakh, individual citizens of the world can.
Write to your M.P. here. It will take only two minutes of your time but could help alter the UK Government's cynical position.
If you want to help the Armenians of Artsakh please follow the link below.
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