The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention published its annual report on genocide-related events in 2022, which reflects also the situation in Armenia, Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) as well as in Azerbaijan.
The report says that in 2022 the Republic of Armenia faced increasing threats to its territorial integrity from neighboring Azerbaijan and its ally, Turkey. On September 13, in violation of the 2020 Tripartite Ceasefire Agreement that ended the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azerbaijani military launched an attack against several eastern Armenian towns, committing horrific atrocities against Armenian soldiers that were filmed and shared widely on Azeri social media.
These atrocities, and their dissemination, followed patterns from the 2020 war, when Azerbaijan sought to take over the ethnic Armenian enclave of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).
Although the external world acted quickly to end Azerbaijani aggression in September, Azerbaijan still occupies 140km of sovereign Armenian territory as well as important parts of Artsakh, including the city of Shushi.
Since December 12 it has also blockaded the only road linking Artsakh to the outside world, causing a humanitarian crisis that may quickly become a catastrophe. The regime of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev openly promotes violent anti-Armenianism at home, celebrating war crimes while representing itself as a bastion of tolerance to the outside world. Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has emboldened Turkey and Azerbaijan to aggressively push for a land corridor (the ‘Zangezur’ corridor) linking the two countries through the Armenian province of Syunik.
They openly threaten the Armenian state with war, occupation, and genocide. While several organizations, including the Lemkin Institute, have called attention to the threat of genocide from Azerbaijan and Turkey, powerful states as well as the European Union, NATO and other bodies, continue to offer explicit support for these regimes.
