Throughout history, Caucasian geography has been very important on the Eurasian continent. Therefore, there was constantly conflict and domination struggle. In general, Vladikavkaz in the north and Iran in the south, the Caspian Sea in the east and the Black Sea and Turkey in the west are the most colourful, heterogeneously populated geography in the world. The North Caucasus begins from the Vladikavkaz and extends to the Darial strait, which provides an exit to Tbilisi then the south Caucasus or Transcaucasia starts from here and includes the countries of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. On the other hand, The Caspian Sea extends on the north-south line, forming the eastern border of Caucasus in the east.
At the end of the Tsarism period after Sheikh Shamil. The Eagle of Caucasian, (who fought in part of Dagestan and Karabakh) lost his power and surrendered to the Russians, Caucasus fell under Russian control. And this period has continued until end of the USSR.
Karabakh is very large and fertile area between Azerbaijan and Armenia. This area had been a very important target since 2500 years. For example Great Alexander had passed from this area in the Expedition Great Asia. In the following periods, parallel to the spread of Islam in the Caucasus, a large part of the Karabakh people became Muslims by the Azerbaijani Turks. Accordingly, 75% of the population of Karabakh has become a Muslim community. Only 10% of the remaining population was Armenians.
The Caucasus, which remained behind the walls during the USSR period, was governed by the Soviet system and demographically changed. During this period, some Armenians were immigrated to Karabakh in accordance with Armenia’s wishes. However, a change of at most 10% occurred in the overall demographic structure. Therefore, the Azerbaijani population superiority in Karabakh remained the same.
Thanks to the dominant influence of the Soviets during the Cold War period, the two different societies continued to coexist without causing confrontational problems. The bad days for The Muslim Azeris of Karabakh began just after 1990. With the disintegration of the USSR, Caucasus and Central Asian societies remained independent and each of them turned into independent states. However, only one of them has been unjustly attempted to extend its borders, Armenia!! Therefore, in this article, we will try to explain Armenians and the crimes against humanity created by Armenia throughout history and Azeri-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh problem.
Who are the Armenians and what do they claim?
Armenians, who lived in small tribes for centuries in the Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia geography, had simple tribal kingdoms. But during history there was no such kingdoms turning into states that can survive on their own. From the 11th century, Oghuz tribes began to enter Anatolia. In the 15th century, they continued living under Anatolian domination, which began with the conquering of Istanbul by the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II, as a minority like Greeks and Jews, on the basis of Ottoman protection. The Ottoman administration always supported different religious groups in cultural, religious and language aspects and it has not assimilated them. Armenians also faithfully pledged their loyalty to the Ottoman Empire until the 19th century so that the Ottoman Empire called the Ottoman Armenians living in their lands Millet-i-Sadika, “Faithful Nation”.
Over time, Armenians became a part of the Ottoman society. In general, they are scattered in all regions of ottoman lands spread over three continents. In the 19th century, when the Ottoman Empire conducted its first census, its total population was about 18 million, of which the Armenian population was around 1.2 million. In other words, it does not even constitute 1% of the Ottoman population! About 20% of 1.2 million Armenian population, lived in the seven major provinces of Eastern Anatolia. They made up only 10% of the population of each of these provinces.
Armenians are Orthodox. The Ottoman administration permitted Orthodox Armenian leaders to treat according to their culture. Thanks to this permission, Armenian leaders ruled his Ottoman Armenian community. However, the comfortable lives of Armenians that were founded in the 16th century started to deteriorate with the protection right of all Christians given to France by the Ottoman administration. Because French missionaries entered the Ottoman territory and penetrated every region and forced Orthodox Armenians to change their sects. They even took a large number of Armenian children to France to become Catholics. Over time, under pressure from Catholic missionaries, some Armenians also changed sects and Armenian groups emerged in two different Christian sects hostile to each other. Therefore, Armenians suffered great damage by French.
The last quarter of the 18th century was the period when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. Taking advantage of this weakening, minority groups rose up and started to pursue independence. Among them, Armenians were the group that resorted to the highest level of violence.
With the spread of the World War to the Ottoman geography, young people from all over Anatolia were recruited into the army and only the elderly, women and children remained in the cities and rural areas. Armenians began to slaughter defenceless innocent Turks by easily raiding vulnerable villages. Thereupon, Ottoman administration issued the “Deportation law / loi d’expulsion) that would have migrated Armenians to the south.
The first claims of the Armenians are related to this law. They claim that one million Armenians in Eastern Anatolia were slaughtered by this law referring to it as the “Turkish genocide”. However, this claim is extremely incorrect, both in terms of demographic, political and historical records. According to Armenian claims, in 1915, Turks massacred more than one million Armenians in eastern Anatolia. However, according to historical documents, during this period there were not such many Armenians left within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. Especially in Eastern Anatolia, their number is not even 100,000. On the other hand, thousands of Turkish villages in the same geography were massacred by the Armenian gang called ,”Taşnaksutyun” (The Armenian Revolutionary Federation), which was founded by the Armenians. All of these are archived with historical documents.
After 1990 , Armenians, who remained inactive during the Cold War period, started their second attempt to acquire land, when they declared their independence. This time, the target is Karabakh, which is Azeri territory. In the Soviet period, the Armenian population was increased by migration within the Karabakh demography and brought closer to the Azerbaijani population. This increase was easily achieved due to the Soviet support of them. However, after the collapse of the USSR, Armenians, by rigged elections in Karabakh, gained numerical superiority in the parliament and tended to take the decision to join Armenia. Azerbaijan refused to accept this situation that leaded to starting conflicts in Karabakh.
In this aspect year of 1992 is very important. Armed Armenian Karabakh gangs attacked Azeri cities starting to kill the people and force them to flee. They were also encouraged by the lack of a strong army of Azerbaijan enough to fight yet. Meanwhile, the Azeri city of Hocali, which controlled Karabakh, was surrounded. Russian military units, which were in Karabakh to control both sides, entered Hocali and declared that the next day ,Azerbaijanis would be taken to Azerbaijan, unarmed and under their own protection. The next day, the people of Hocali set out, but after a while the Russians left them unprotected. Taking advantage of this, Armenian military units attacked unarmed Hocali people and massacred three thousand people. The number of women and children more than half of those killed reveals how direful Armenian massacre was.
The next period has continued with conflicts. Turkey has provided all kinds of support to establish the Azerbaijani army. As a result, an Azerbaijani army emerged that would completely change the situation in Karabakh in a short time. However, by adherence to human values, Azerbaijan’s army did not attacked the Armenians living in Karabakh although it was much stronger than the Armenian army.
It has been 28 years since the massacre of Armenians in Hocali. The “Minsk Group”, consisting of the Russian Federation-France-Armenia and Azerbaijan, could not find a solution to solve the problem through dialogue in Karabakh, and it also failed to ensure the transfer of Azeri cities to Azerbaijan. Although the solution was necessary to extract the underground and aboveground wealth of Karabakh, Armenians secretly operated the rich gold mines in Karabakh region and the constant warnings of Azerbaijan could not stop it. Armenia has a barren land on its territory that does not run out of grass.
The population of 2.5 million is decreasing day by day. It is trying to maintain its existence with the help of Armenians in the diaspora. It provides very significant financial aid especially from France and USA. Since the 15th century, The fact that the French by Armenian origin, whose sects were changed and being brought to France by Catholic missionaries, have taken important positions, allowing these aid to be strong.
On the other hand, after the signing of the “Treaty of the Century” in 1996, Azeri oil started to flow to the world markets and Azerbaijan developed in a short time and had a strong army. However, due to the wrong attitude of the Russian Federation, there has been no development in favor of Azerbaijan in Karabakh.
On the new massacre by Armenians in 2020 at the Karabakh
History is full of mistakes made by leaders trying to run their country. For example, in the 19th century, Napoleon went on an unexpected Moscow campaign and 200,000 French soldiers died. Before the Great War, the Germans predicted they would be in Paris in five weeks. The British made a plan to cross Çanakkale in one day. Looking back recently, Massoud Barzani wanted to separate Northern Iraq and went to a regional referendum. However, there was strong reaction from Iraq, İran and Turkey, and ultimately Barzani lost the oil regions he held. The same thing happened in Armenia. Its elected prime minister, Sarkisian, incalculably attacked Azerbaijani towns in September 2020 to seize Karabakh. However, in the response, the modern and powerful Azerbaijani army easily captured a significant part of the Azerbaijani cities under Armenian control. The Armenian administration, which realizes that it could not respond to the Azerbaijani army, by resorting to its traditional habits clearly committed a massacre by making missile attacks on the civilians living in Azeri cities.
There are two main reasons why the rulers of Armenia have made this mistake. Firstly, the Minsk Group has remained passive until now and Armenia have condone Armenians’ illegal activities, especially in upside of Karabakh. Secondly, the main reason for Armenia to break the ceasefire in Karabakh is the incompatible and idle behavior of the military and political wing. Therefore, Armenia has clearly become a terrorist country, and even if peace has been achieved in Karabakh today, it should be subject to sanctions by the United Nations and all those responsible, especially Prime Minister Sarkisyan, should be put on trial for the innocent people massacred by Armenians in Karabakh in this war.
Armenian attacks in Karabakh should also be viewed in terms of global power struggles. Just before the attacks, there were significant developments in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey’s steps in extracting Mediterranean energy resources have worried the United States and EU countries, especially France. France considers it very dangerous for its Mediterranean interests to be an obstructive force for Turkey both in Libya, Syria and the Mediterranean.
During this period, Egypt began to press politically against Greece, Greek Cyprus Administration and Turkey. However, as a result of Turkey’s strong reaction to France, it tried to develop some kind of Ex-imperial Mediterranean strategy by understanding that its steps were inadequate. This was a strategy to surround Egypt, Greece and Turkey in the Mediterranean. It has also recently included Armenia in this strategy. By promising financial and political support, France asked Armenia to start a conflict in Karabakh and thus Turkey will be involved in the Karabakh problem.
This is actually the sessile and unstable strategy in the last century. Because the results of this initiative have been very bad for Armenia and France in four aspects. Fistly, France lost its influence in the Minsk group and also Turkish soldiers started to provide actual security in Karabakh with Russian soldiers. This has been a great opportunity for Turkey to physically exist in the Caucasus. Secondly, Armenia has reached to the point of losing all of its gains in Karabakh. Thirdly, Azerbaijan took back the historical Azerbaijani cities held by the Armenians. Fourthly, due to Armenia, The geographical link between Turkey and Azerbaijan was provided directly after the capture of the city of Laçin. Therefore, France suffered a great loss, its strategy collapsed and its potential in the Caucasus and the Mediterranean was down to zero.
The most important role in these developments belongs to the Russian Federation. Although President Putin did not want Armenia to leave its coordination, Armenia made this move to get closer to Europe. As a result, the political link between Armenia and the EU has been broken.
As a result; Armenia is a country that has been constantly attacking and committing war crimes over the last two centuries. It committed these crimes against innocent people. In the 20th century, the defenseless Turks in Anatolia,and in 1992, the unarmed Azerbaijani Karabakh people in Hocali and in the last year, the defenseless people in Karabakh by organizing missile attacks. For this reason, it is a terrorist country and its war crimes are as bad as the massacre of Jews in the Second World War, as it was after 1990 when Serbs massacred Bosniak people in the Balkans.
