Iran will not accept the creation of an Azeri land corridor through Armenia

[FfFfFfFF 58,060]

As Azerbaijan is testing Armenia (and Russia's response) to a potential incursion into Armenia proper - potentially for the creation of a land corridor between Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan exclave, Iran decisively announced it will not reconize any border changes.

NATO countries are split on the issue, as Western countries (depite being reliant on Azerbaijan for resources) are condemning Azerbaijan its actions, yet Turkey (the closest ally to Azerbaijan because of historical and ethnical reasons) is a strong supporter of Azerbaijan's case. Russian forces (the legal security providers for Armenia) are, on the other hand, fully distracted fighting in Ukraine.

The recent clashes prove just how volatile and unstable the Russo-Turkish friendship, as Russia and Turkey find themselves on the opposite sides of the conflict. 

 

[LilyLark 10,213]

Agree this shows the weirdness of the post Soviet countries...Armenia is more allied to Russia right now, but Azerbaijan also has ties...

Anyway, here's my hot, unpopular take, and I'm curious what your take is @FfFfFfFF

Azerbaijan is clearly in the wrong right now (they violated Armenia's internationally recognized border) and committed war crimes in 2020. They are instigating this. Aliyev is a dictator. There is a lot of disturbing genocidal rhetoric between Azerbaijan and Turkey aimed at Armenia.

I sympathize with Armenia. I also dislike how the media often ignores that Armenia has been occupying land that is internationally recognized as Azeri and that Armenia forcibly removed people of Azeri descent from Armenia in the late 80s/early 90s, and how Armenia ethnically cleansed (via displacement, but also murder) Nagorno-Karabakh of up to 800k Azeris. Stuff like the Khojaly massace, where Armenian soldiers straight up murdered women and children, and there's video evidence of this. This has been reported on by human rights organizations, and I feel like a lot of the lack of coverage of this is frankly due to the Armenians being Christian and the Azeris being Muslim and that it's...misleading...when people (including journalists) ignore this history to act like the Azeris are just trying to carry on the Turkish genocide of over 100 years ago and not that they are driven by recent crises.

That said, I am in no way negating that Azerbaijan ALSO committed war crimes in the late 80s and early 90s, although arguably not to the same degree as Armenia did. But I'm kind of annoyed with how this is being portrayed as 'this came out of nowhere, Armenia has never done anything wrong.'

TLDR: The Armenian Genocide is a historical fact as is Azerbaijan and Turkey's current genocidal rhetoric. As of now, Azerbaijan is far, far more in the wrong. That doesn't mean Armenia isn't also guilty of war crimes and ethnic cleansing against the Azeris, though that was 30 years ago. This is one of the rare times where 'both sides' is kind of applicable, although not in 2020.

[DesertWolf 55,111]

Can they kick Turkey out of NATO already?  Threatening another NATO member every 5 days (Greece) and now showing support to Azerbaijan as usual despite being the aggressor. 

[FfFfFfFF 58,060]

38 minutes ago, LilyLark said:

Agree this shows the weirdness of the post Soviet countries...Armenia is more allied to Russia right now, but Azerbaijan also has ties...

Anyway, here's my hot, unpopular take, and I'm curious what your take is @FfFfFfFF

Azerbaijan is clearly in the wrong right now (they violated Armenia's internationally recognized border) and committed war crimes in 2020. They are instigating this. Aliyev is a dictator. There is a lot of disturbing genocidal rhetoric between Azerbaijan and Turkey aimed at Armenia.

I sympathize with Armenia. I also dislike how the media often ignores that Armenia has been occupying land that is internationally recognized as Azeri and that Armenia forcibly removed people of Azeri descent from Armenia in the late 80s/early 90s, and how Armenia ethnically cleansed (via displacement, but also murder) Nagorno-Karabakh of up to 800k Azeris. Stuff like the Khojaly massace, where Armenian soldiers straight up murdered women and children, and there's video evidence of this. This has been reported on by human rights organizations, and I feel like a lot of the lack of coverage of this is frankly due to the Armenians being Christian and the Azeris being Muslim and that it's...misleading...when people (including journalists) ignore this history to act like the Azeris are just trying to carry on the Turkish genocide of over 100 years ago and not that they are driven by recent crises.

That said, I am in no way negating that Azerbaijan ALSO committed war crimes in the late 80s and early 90s, although arguably not to the same degree as Armenia did. But I'm kind of annoyed with how this is being portrayed as 'this came out of nowhere, Armenia has never done anything wrong.'

TLDR: The Armenian Genocide is a historical fact as is Azerbaijan and Turkey's current genocidal rhetoric. As of now, Azerbaijan is far, far more in the wrong. That doesn't mean Armenia isn't also guilty of war crimes and ethnic cleansing against the Azeris, though that was 30 years ago. This is one of the rare times where 'both sides' is kind of applicable, although not in 2020.

I generally believe among the same line as you, but I would say that even the 2020 war had no justification as it happened 3 decades after the creations of Artsak. This begs the general question when do we draw the line? If we go back in time every country's territory was illegally taken from another country, when do we think it becomes de facto an inalinable territory of said country? After 3 months, 3 years, 3 decades or 3 centuries? To a certain extend we are bound to give an arbitrary answer.

You wrote a very fair comment and balanced, though in context the squirmishes between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Turkey are centuries old. The southern Caucaus was historically a conglomeratiom of ethnic enclaves. Then URSS arbitrarily drawing borders on behalf of the nations living there is what planted the seed for the war the 90s as it assigned a significant ethnically Armenian land to Azerbaijan which naturally they didn't want to allow to sucede later. And here we ask ourselves how do we balance the ideas of self-governance and autodetermination with national integrity? (As a side note, we always hear about how the British and French drew innacurate borders which led to conflicts in the world, but I never hear this said in regards to URSS, which solidifies my view that most Westeners are simply informed about world history outside select bubbles).

An interesting point is also that Shia Muslim Iran is one of the strongest supporters of Armenia and the country which dislikes Azerbaijan the most - which is also a Shia Muslim nation, yet one of Azerbaijan's closest ally is Israel (the biggest enemy of Muslim Palestine and the pariah of the Middke East). As it relates to other European countries, the South-Eastern countries which suffered under the Ottomans are also more likely to be supportive of Armenia because they can see themselves in their shoes.

[FfFfFfFF 58,060]

Russia vs Ukraine, Armenia vs Azebaijan and now Kyrgyzstan vs Tajikistan.

The way URSS drew borders was awful.