Less than two years after Azerbaijan’s violent war against the Armenians of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, the military of Azerbaijan is now undertaking an illegal war of aggression against the Republic of Armenia, Uzay Bulut, Turkish journalist writes in Providence Magazine.
“Turkey will continue to stand by Azerbaijan and will always do so, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on the same day. Azerbaijan’s aggression against Armenians has caused massive destruction to civilian buildings and communities as well as horrific torture and murder of Armenians” she says. The journalist reports that Anush Apetyan, a 36-year-old Armenian soldier, for instance, was captured alive in the town of Jermuk in Armenia, and then raped, tortured, and dismembered by Azerbaijani soldiers. They put her severed fingers in her mouth and gouged out her eyes. The Azeri soldiers filmed those barbaric acts and uploaded the video on social media. Apetyan had three kids, ages 16, 15 and 4.
Armenians in Artsakh were also subject to a genocidal assault by Azerbaijan and Turkey during the 2020 war against Artsakh that lasted for 44 days, from September 27 to November 10. Turkish and Azerbaijani soldiers then participated in a military “victory parade” in Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku on December 10, 2020 The parade, organized to celebrate the countries’ joint “military victory” over Artsakh, was attended by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, she recalls.
During the “victory parade,” Erdogan delivered a speech in which he praised Enver Pasha, one of the planners of Ottoman Turkey’s 1913-1923 Christian genocide, which targeted Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks. The Ottoman military march was also played during the event.
Just as Turkey falsely claims that the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea and Cyprus are Turkish territory, Azerbaijan falsely claims that Artsakh and even Armenia, including its capital Yerevan are Azeri territory.
During his speech Aliyev said that the Armenian capital of Yerevan, Armenia’s Lake Sevan and the Syunik (Zangezur) region in southern Armenia are “historic lands of Azerbaijan.”
Turkey recently celebrated the 1922 Smyrna genocide against Greeks and Armenians, which, according to Turkish historiography, was just a “victory against Greek invaders”.
The Turkish aggression against Greeks and Armenians has a long history. Greece and Armenia are trying to preserve whatever is left of historical importance from Turkish aggressions – including their native lands, their cultural identity and patrimony. This history of Turkish violence against indigenous Christians – inspired by Islamic jihad and Turkist expansionism – started in the eleventh century with the invasion by Turkic armies from central Asia of eastern Anatolia (or Armenian highlands), which was then within the borders of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire.
Throughout history Turkish governments have had a policy of aggression and persecution against native Christians. The culmination of that persecution was the 1913-23 Greek, Armenian and Assyrian genocides by Ottoman Turkey, which the International Association of Genocide Scholars also recognizes as genocide.
Subsequent Turkish governments have honored the memory of genocide perpetrators as well as the organizers of the 1955 Istanbul pogrom that targeted Greeks, Armenians, and Jews of the city. As the international community’s response to Turkey’s genocide denial has been slow and ineffective, genocide denied means genocide continued. On August 17, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issued a “Red Flag Alert” warning of a possible genocide by the governments of Azerbaijan and Turkey against the Armenian population.
Turkey’s proud denial of these genocides and its continued aggressions against Greece, Armenia and Assyrians in Iraq and Syria are inter-connected. The same ideology that motivated the 1913-23 Christian genocide is today motivating Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s aggressions against Armenians, Greeks and other Christians.
