Yerevan
The Moscow Kinotheatre dominates one of Yerevan’s sunny central squares. Outside, a giant chess board has been laid out in the shade of the grand Soviet-era building, with local children competing against each other to lift pieces half their size. Now, though, it is dawning on many in the Armenian capital that their country is at the centre of another strategic tussle, and Russia no longer seems to be watching over them.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Azerbaijan began a massive artillery barrage, striking targets well inside Armenian territory. Explosions rocked the city of Goris, close to the mountainous border, but shells also fell near towns like Vardenis, just 60 miles from Yerevan. According to Armenian officials, 105 people have already died with dozens more, including civilians, suffering injuries. As of Wednesday, the cannons and mortars are still firing, and reports indicate Azerbaijan is moving land forces in to take ground.
Azerbaijan accuses its neighbour of firing first, killing dozens of its troops, and insists it is only hitting military installations. “The issue is about our sovereignty and territorial integrity. All responsibility for the current provocations lies with the political-military leadership of Armenia,” Layla Abdullayeva, the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baku, tells UnHerd.
However, with satellite imagery appearing to show the tell-tale signs of wildfires triggered by shelling almost entirely on the Armenian side of the border, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, to insist on an “immediate halt to fighting.” By contrast, Blinken told Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, that there is a need for the “disengagement of military forces,” something Yerevan is already demanding.
The two former Soviet Republics have been locked in a bitter and often bloody dispute over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh for more than three decades. Inside Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognised borders, a stretch of land the size of Lebanon has been governed by the Armenians who call it home since a brutal war that followed the fall of the USSR. Over 250,000 Azerbaijanis who lived alongside them were evicted, and regaining their lost land became an all-encompassing national mission.
Then, in 2020, well-armed Azerbaijani troops, supported by advanced drones shipped over by its ally Turkey, rolled over the fortified front lines, taking back swathes of territory they lost thirty years prior. Only a Moscow-backed ceasefire put an end to the offensive, leaving the local Armenians — and their unrecognised breakaway republic of Artsakh — confined to their capital, Stepanakert and a small number of surrounding villages. Russian peacekeepers were deployed to enforce the agreement.
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SubscribeNext up, Georgia reclaiming it’s territory; and then Moldova reclaiming Transnistria. Glory be the genius of Putin.
Azeris using Israeli arms against Russian Armenian arms…. Where is Iran in all this? Where is Turkey? And Russia? Is Religion going to get things rolling more on top of the mess?
So the conflict in Ukraine – the one Boris and Biden and the MSM had to try to turn into a world war, seems to be adding more dominoes.
Today’s Daily Mail Front Page – anyone surprised?
”The REAL Axis of Evil: How nuclear-armed Russia, China and Iran are plotting to break up the West with a new world order”
Iran should have been our best friend – the Mossadeg thing from the Dulls Brothers aside (don’t you love the CIA?), the Iranians liked us. They really respected America. Our time there in WWII had been good, the time from then on when USA Engineers built the modern Iran till the 1970’s – they liked USA.
But then Regan used the 79 Embassy to win, and so to look strong made us the enemy – all for no reason but Cold War B.S. Then the Neo-Con Bush!!!!
All this mess, all of it – the bargaining table would have solved it.
But we gave China a seat at the top tables, all our industrial intellectual property then financed all their factories to take our jobs, and basically handed them the power they have now – gave them everything – but made enemies of Iran and Russia – DROVE them into China’s arms.
Neo-Cons…..love that Military Industrial Complex, love that investing in China….
Economic Sanctions……… the Neo-Con tool for getting everything messed up
I think you’ll find there was a small incident in 1979 in Iran prior to the embassy hostage that had an effect on the way Iran viewed the US. You are talking rubbish.
Yeah the Shah left Iran in 1979 and the new Islamic government was already anti west and anti America. Iran is now an oppressive country. Not so much a change of heart but a revolution. People have no choice but to hate the west under threat of death and imprisonment. That is where it remains today anti christian, anti Israel and anti west.
Religion has nothing to do with it. Men decide when to kill.
??????????????????
…and men created religion. Doh!
Are you serious? Do you enjoy writing about subjects about which you seem to be clueless (sic. Mosaddeg, Dulles…..)?
Iran was long under the unofficial tutelage of the Brits. During WW2 it was occupied by the UK and the USSR. Mosaddeg nationalised without compensation all British assets in the oil industry, allied with the Communists, threatened to deprive the UK of the oil products necessary for its fleet and ruled outside of democratic principles.
The Iranian nation never liked or respected the USoA, its soul is split between medieval theocracy (Ayatollah) and the nationalist (Melli) who are quite racist and expansionist; it is a revisionist, embittered polity that despises the rules-based world order and wants to reassemble a wider empire of centuries past.
The hostage taking at the US embassy was under Carter, Reagan became president in 1981 and very quickly improved relations (which can never be friendly, the Iranian Government is an ideologically driven, fanatical and implacable enemy of US society).
You don’t have to change prejudice, just change meds…..
I just cannot help suspecting that the US may have some hand in fomenting this.
To the naysayers who cannot possibly dream of such a possibility because, goodness me, the US has never done such a thing, for a review of US support for Azerbaijan see:
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/09/16/caucasus-conflict-highlights-us-hawks-reckless-support-for-azerbaijan/
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/97-522.html
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL30679.html
https://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/dem/release/sfrc-chairman-menendez-statement-on-biden-administrations-plans-to-provide-assistance-to-azerbaijan
https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/1929