At the end of September this month, it will be one year since the exodus of the Armenian population expelled by the armed forces of Azerbaijan with the support of Turkey in Nagorno Karabakh (this is the mountainous region of the Caucasus with an area of 4,400 square kilometers). The region has been the subject of a conflict that has ethnic and religious roots and sees the interests of Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Republic of Artsakh (the name that had been defined for the territory of Nagorno Karabakh) opposing each other.
The autonomy of this territory has been the subject of bitter war disputes and debates because the issue has historical origins in the Persian, Turkish and Russian domains. Since the period of the ancient Transcaucasian culture, the Caucasian region of Nagorno Karabakh was represented as part of the territory of Armenia, the first document that describes this is: “The Geography of Strabo” (14-23 AD), in the work the author argues that the Armenian territory extended, at that time, from the south of the mountain range of the Lesser Caucasus, to the south of the region called Albania.
It dates back to 387 AD, the time when the Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire divided Armenia and in 405, Mesrop Mashtots, a monk and theologian invented Armenian and gave birth to the Armenian Apostolic Church. This is the past. For the recent, it is necessary, first of all, to remember what is known as the “Armenian Genocide” by the Turks. The defamation campaign against the Armenians had already begun in 1914 when the Ottoman authorities declared that Armenians living in the empire were a threat to national securityIt was irregular forces who began to commit mass murders in Armenian villages near the borders with Russia and in April 1915 the nightmare began for the Armenians.
The Turkish authorities took advantage of the large number of Armenians conscripted to turn them into soldiers/workers to build roads and railways while others were shot in trenches they had built themselves. In 1915 the Ottoman government authorized the deportation of anyone perceived as a threat to the security of the state. Under this law the Turkish authorities began mass deportations, followed by a systematic campaign of murder conducted by irregular forces. The survivors arrived in concentration camps located in the Syrian desert in pitiful conditions. Once there they could only wait to die of hunger or thirst, or fall under the bullets of Turkish rifles.
The massacres continued until 1916 and the most conservative estimates believe that at least one million Armenians were murdered during the great marches that the Ottoman government could not hide from the sight of journalists, missionaries, diplomats and foreign officials, who informed their respective countries. Turkey still today and incredibly, denies the evidence of the Armenian Genocide despite broad international recognition.
Armenians took over the Karabakh provinces from Muslims fleeing the Russian Empire when in November 1920 the territories of Nagorno Karabakh were considered as part of the Armenian Socialist Republic.
After a period of relative calm, the period leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union is the critical historical moment and this will lead in the following years to a real conflict between the Armenian and Azerbaijani republics.
Between April 30 and May 15, 1991, a military operation by Soviet and Azerbaijani troops was conducted, resulting in the forced expulsion of Armenians from villages in the regions near the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The operation only served to deepen ethnic divisions in the region, worsening the already problematic relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. On August 30, 1991, Azerbaijan declared its independence, and on September 2, 1991, Nagorno Karabakh also decided to embark on a process that would lead to the region gaining independence from the territory that was then Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast.
On March 4, 2008, after Kosovo gained independence, Azerbaijani President Aliyev decided to withdraw 33 Azerbaijani soldiers who had been supporting the NATO KFOR contingent since 1999.. This was due to the similarity of the position of the Nagorno Karabakh region and that of Kosovo, upon military withdrawal the Azerbaijani president declared that he was ready to restore the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan through the use of force, in order to discourage the separatist forces of Nagorno Karabakh, whose morale and right to exist had grown with the independence of Kosovo itself.
A new outbreak of conflict occurred between 1 and 5 April 2016, when the so-called Four-Day War took place along the northern border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The conflict ended with a ceasefire agreement that awarded the Republic of Azerbaijan modest but strategic territorial gains, confirming Russia's position as a central mediator in the dispute.
On February 20, 2017, a constitutional referendum took place in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, and the main name of the Republic became “Republic of Artsakh”.
The conflict remained in a state of stalemate until July 12, 2020 when there were four days of clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Turkey showed support for the Azerbaijani cause by coming out into the open and bringing back to the world's memory the aforementioned Armenian genocide (holocaust) perpetrated by the Turks between 1915 and 1916.
A real large-scale clash took place in the period between September 27 and November 10, 2020, a war scenario that lasted for forty-four days. In this juncture, the joint support of Turkey and Israel (for having supplied drones) was crucial. Russia had instead supplied armaments to both Armenia and Azerbaijan, but without actually being involved in the conflict as an ally of Armenia.
The end of the forty-four-day war came when Azerbaijani troops won the Battle of Shushi, once Artsakh's second city was captured, following a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
A Russian “peacemaker” group was also planned to be deployed along the Lachin corridor that connected Nagorno Karabakh to Armenia via Azerbaijan. The Russians reached the area in conjunction with the withdrawal of the two armies.
Turkey's involvement in this conflict was crucial, as the assistance given to the Republic of Azerbaijan highlighted Turkey's undoubted will to to impose oneself as actor and mediator of the dispute.
As for the territorial situation following the ceasefire, Azerbaijan had nevertheless regained the territories occupied by Armenia during the First Nagorno Karabakh War.
A number of major ceasefire violations occurred in 2022, as early as March 5 there were clashes between the Azerbaijani Army and the Artsakh Defense Army, and according to Armenia also the conflict in Ukraine and the resulting "distraction" Russia's efforts have facilitated the absence of consequences for Azerbaijani ceasefire violations.
The main event in violation of the agreements occurred on December 3, 2022, with a first Lachin Corridor Blockade by so-called Azerbaijani environmentalists, and later the escalation of the Azerbaijani protest materialized in a real blockade of the passage of vehicles in the corridor. In the following days, concerns were already created there about the shortage of basic necessities that were allowed to pass through the corridor, while the Republic of Azerbaijan maintained that the blockade of the corridor was a spontaneous protest by some environmentalists and that people were free to move in both directions.
The protest by fake environmental activists ended in late April 2023, and on September 19, 2023, the most serious violation of the brokered ceasefire in 2020 took place, the Republic of Azerbaijan launched an attack towards the Nagorno Karabakh region (this latest offensive was justified as anti-terrorist operation (from the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense). The local population was informed that the Lachin corridor had been reopened to facilitate the evacuation of the areas affected by the attacks and already during the first day of the conflict many of the military objectives belonging to the defense army of the small republic were destroyed. The Armenian army and the contingent of peacekeeping Russian were not involved in the conflict. The swift offensive of the Azerbaijani army, supported by Turkey and Israeli military advisors, then led to the defeat of the Artsakh Defense Army and the subsequent signing of a new ceasefire on September 20.
The ceasefire signed between representatives of the Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan was focused on the disarmament of the Artsakh Defense Army and the dissolution of the autonomous republic, with the subsequent reintegration of the region under the sovereignty of Azerbaijan (the dissolution of the Republic of Artsakh was decreed with effect from 1 January 2024).
The exodus of the ethnic Armenian population from Nagorno Karabakh took place from September 24, 2023 to October 3, 2024, eighty percent of the population, or more than one hundred thousand people, fled through the specially opened Lachin corridor, while in the meantime the Azerbaijani military and police forces established control over the entire region. It can therefore be said, without fear of contradiction, that it was a real ethnic cleansing of the region sponsored by the Turkish president Erdogan..
In April 2024, a multilateral meeting was held in Yerevan between the President of the European Commission Von Der Leyen, the US Secretary of State Blinken, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs Borrell, and the Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan. On that occasion, the EU confirmed its support for the Armenian economy and institutions: the EU itself and the US also expressed their support for Armenia in providing for the welfare of displaced Armenians and their reintegration (in Armenia).
The topic of the return and reintegration of displaced Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh has not been followed up. The issue seems to have been removed from the agenda of the EU and the US, the only international actors that could have put pressure on Azerbaijan in this regard. Moreover, even in the past, before the great exodus of 2023, they had not shown themselves to be particularly attentive to the possible fate of the Armenians of Karabakh. In early September 2023, for example, the United States declared that would not tolerate the “ethnic cleansing” of Karabakh Armenians. But, as noted, just a few days later, Azerbaijan's military operation led to the “ethnic cleansing” of Armenians from Karabakh, without Baku suffering any American repercussions.. The European Union, on the other hand, appears evidently more interested in importing further Azeri gas, to compensate for the decrease in Russian gas, rather than in the fate of the Armenians of Karabakh and even in Armenia many believe that the possibility of a return of displaced Armenians to Karabakh is unrealistic (if not non-existent).
As for our country, at the beginning of September, during a visit of Azerbaijani President Aliyev to Rome, after a cordial meeting with Prime Minister Meloni, he noted that relations between the two countries are excellent and that our country is Azerbaijan's first trading partner.
Aliyev was keen to confirm that Azerbaijan plays a fundamental role in the energy security of Europe and Italy. Let's not forget that Azeri gas arrives in Puglia and is then distributed in a good part of the "Old Continent".
Photo: Presidency of the Council of Ministers / web / official web-site of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan
