✞ The 2024 annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) underlined the ongoing Azerbaijani destruction of Armenian Christian heritage in Artsakh. This comes as USCIRF recommended that the State Department name Azerbaijan as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), a designation under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), which applies to “countries that commit systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.”
The USCIRF report cited three historic sites of Armenian heritage in the Shushi province of Artsakh, which has now been reintegrated into Azerbaijan. In October and November 2023, Azerbaijan damaged the archeological remains of the 1838 Meghretsots Holy Mother of God Church, the Yerevan Gate Cemetery, and the Ghazanchetsots cemetery, according to satellite imagery published by Caucasus Heritage Watch, an investigative institution supported by Cornell University. Likewise, International Christian Concern (ICC) recently reported on the Azerbaijani destruction of a church and an entire village also in the Shushi province of Artsakh.
This shows that Azerbaijan has continued its push to erase the presence of Armenian cultural and historical monuments. After the fall of Artsakh in September 2023, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention — a U.S.-based non-governmental organization (NGO) — denounced that Azerbaijan indicated it had “genocidal intent against Armenians and particularly against Armenians in Artsakh” and called the continuing destruction of Armenian churches and other historical monuments in Artsakh a “cultural genocide” intending “to erase the historical presence” of Armenian heritage in the region.
ICC published an analytical brief exposing the connection between the Azerbaijani campaign in Artsakh and the Ottoman policy to eradicate the Christian peoples within its empire more than a century ago. Further, it added that “the fall of Artsakh is another chapter in a long history of Islamic belligerence against Christianity, following centuries of Islamic persecution and dispossession of Armenian Christians.”
☪ The Union of Ishmael and Esau that is shaking the world continues!
Armenia must change its constitution in order to make peace with Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said stoking Armenian opposition claims that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has already agreed to make such a concession to Baku.
“In case of changing Armenia’s constitution and other documents, peace could be achieved,” Aliyev said. “Armenia’s Declaration of Independence contains direct call for uniting Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region to Armenia and infringing on Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. Armenia’s constitution cites that document.”
Pashinian stated on January 18 that Armenia must adopt a new constitution reflecting the “new geopolitical environment” in the region. Critics believe he first and foremost wants to get rid of the current constitution’s preamble that makes reference to the declaration cited by Aliyev.
The declaration adopted in 1990 in turn cites a 1989 unification act by the legislative bodies of Soviet Armenia and the then Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. It also calls for international recognition of the 1915 genocide of Armenians “in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia.”
Azerbaijan and Turkey are going to demand more concessions from Armenia allegedly needed for the signing of a peace deal, says Varuzhan Geghamyan, an expert on the Middle East and the South Caucasus.
In a social media post on Friday, he highlighted that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev set out two new demands in the past 10 days, saying Armenia had to recognize the so-called “Khojaly genocide” and change its constitution.
“The fulfillment of these demands will cause devastating consequences for all of us,” Geghamyan wrote.
“As I’ve repeatedly stated, Azerbaijan and Turkey have endless demands to impose on Armenia in return for the signing of a “peace treaty”. No deal will be concluded. Instead, new and more extreme demands will constantly be put forward,” the expert said.
Geghamyan urged all to join a rally in Yerevan on 9 June to stop Armenia’s policy of concessions.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhum Bayramov on Wednesday said those territorial claims contained within the Armenia’s Constitution were directly from Azerbaijan.
🔥 Azerbaijan is planning a “full-scale war” against Armenia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan warned Thursday, two days after a skirmish on their border left four Armenian troops dead.
Tensions between the two Caucasus neighbours have remained high since Baku re-captured the Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh last September in a lightning military offensive.
“Our analysis shows that Azerbaijan wants to launch military action in some parts of the border with the prospect of turning military escalation into a full-scale war against Armenia,” Pashinyan said at a government meeting.
“This intention can be read in all statements and actions of Azerbaijan,” he added.
Yerevan is concerned that Azerbaijan, emboldened by its success in Karabakh, could invade Armenian territory in order to create a land bridge to its exclave of Nakhchivan.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who won re-election this month, said in an inauguration speech Wednesday it was Armenia, not Azerbaijan, that had outstanding territorial claims.
“We have no territorial claims to Armenia. And they should give up their claims. Talking to us in the language of blackmail will cost them dearly,” he said.
Pashinyan and Aliyev previously said a peace agreement could have been signed by the end of last year, but internationally mediated peace talks have failed to yield a breakthrough.
On Tuesday, both sides accused each other of opening fire on their volatile border, in a skirmish Armenia said left four of its soldiers dead.
💭 Operation Nemesis was the code-name for a covert operation in 1920s to assassinate the Turkish masterminds of the Armenian Genocide. The secret operation was headed by Armen Garo, Aaron Sachaklian and Shahan Natalie
After the end of World War I, the Ottoman military tribunal condemned to death the principal Young Turk leaders responsible for planning and execution of the Armenian Genocide. However at the conclusion of the trials the condemned were freed. They fled to European capitals living under assumed names. In the early 1920s, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) at their 9th World Congress held in Yerevan approved a secret resolution2 called The Special Mission (Haduk Gordz) to punish the main perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. Between 1920-1922 the perpetrators were located and felled by the Armenian avengers.
🔥The Condemned Assassinated Were
👉 Fatali Khan Khoyski on June 19, 1920 in Tbilisi by Aram Yerganian3
👉 Talat Pasha on March 15, 1921 in Berlin by Soghomon Tehlirian4,5
👉 Bihbud Khan Jivanshir on July 18, 1921 in Constantinople by Misak Torlakian6
👉 Said Halim Pasha on December 5, 1921 in Rome by Arshavir Shiragian7
👉 Dr. Bahaddin Sakir on April 17, 1922 in Berlin by Aram Yerganian8
👉 Cemal (Jemal) Azmi on April 17, 1922 in Berlin by Arshavir Shiragian8
👉 Jemal Pasha on July 25, 1922 in Tbilisi by Stepan Dzaghigian9
👉 Enver Pasha in 1922 in Tajikistan by Hagop Melkumov an Armenian member of the Red Army10
🔥 The Traitors Assassinated Were
👉 Mgrditch Haroutounian in Constantinople in 1920 by Soghomon Tehlirian11,12
👉 Vahe Ihssan (Yessayan) in Constantinople on March 27, 1920 in Constantinople by Arshavir Shiragian13
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