Over the past three days and counting, the government of Azerbaijan has ratcheted up its campaign to intimidate and target the Armenians of Artsakh in its ongoing effort to depopulate the centuries-old Armenian enclave and resolve its “Armenian Question.”
Cynically orchestrating a blockade of the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor by fake government-paid environmental “activists,” Azerbaijan has effectively isolated 120,000 Artsakh men, women and children from the rest of the world and facilitated conditions in Azerbaijan to inflame ethnic tension and hatred against Armenians.
Azerbaijan has chosen this reckless strategy because it has chosen to deny a path to freedom, safety and security for Artsakh’s Armenians. Nor have the world’s governments sufficiently challenged Azerbaijan to stop its past and ongoing human rights crimes against Artsakh’s Armenians.
As long as Azerbaijan can target the Armenians of Artsakh as it is today – by cutting natural gas access in the dead of winter and eliminating safe passage of people, food, and medicine through the Berdzor Corridor between Armenia and Artsakh – the Armenians of Artsakh can expect a repeat of Azerbaijan’s genocidal pogroms that occurred against Armenians in Sumgait and Kirovabad in 1988 and Baku in 1990.
All who have a role to play in stopping Azerbaijan’s crimes will be held accountable for the fate of the Armenians of Artsakh who continue to fight for self-determination, safety, and security in the face of threatened genocide by the Aliyev regime.
We thank those US officials who are already working to stop Azerbaijan’s dangerous actions and calling on the US government to protect the freedom-loving Armenians of Artsakh who find themselves at the mercy of an Azerbaijan regime that claims them as citizens even as it moves to eradicate their presence from their indigenous lands.
