Since fighting broke out between Armenian forces and Azerbaijan in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, other countries have been accused of fueling the conflict by supplying Baku with weapons. The leader of the enclave took things a bit further and accused Israel of supporting a “genocide” against his people.
In a speech last week, the ethnic Armenian leader of Nagorno-Karabakh, Arayik Harutyunyan, said Israel is “responsible for the genocide in Karabakh.” Israel and Azerbaijan are major trading partners, and it is estimated that Israel supplies Baku with 60 percent of its arms.
When the clashes first broke out, an assistant to the president of Azerbaijan said the Azeri military is using Israeli-made attack drones in Nagorno-Karabakh. Amnesty International identified Israeli-made cluster bombs in footage of Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital that appeared to be fired by Azerbaijan into residential areas.
Israeli officials have said they have no knowledge of or involvement in how Azerbaijan uses its weapons, but Harutyunyan dismissed those claims. “These statements are a mockery. Of course, they know and continue to supply weapons anyway. And the authorities of Israel, which itself survived the genocide, are also responsible for this genocide,” he said.
Since 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh has acted as a de facto independent state inside Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders, known as the Republic of Artsakh. Harutyunyan became the president of the Republic of Artsakh earlier this year.
“Israel” has been supporting genocide since its conception.
Israel hasn’t even recognized the Armenian genocide, nothing new here.
Yes it has.
Israel proclaims that genocide whenever it fights with Turkey over helping to the Palestinians, then it covers it back up again when it patches up a temporary deal with Turkey.
None of those discussing it care about Armenians or their genocide. They care about Israel and its genocide.
“fueling the conflict by supplying Baku with weapons”
At first glance, this is an obscure conflict between obscure little countries buried away in the Caucasus, on the landlocked Caspian Sea of all places.
But to those of us who’ve studied WW1&2, the name Baku means something more.
It was one of the first great oil ports, as oil became important to navies and then to armies. The Germans reached for it in both world wars.
It is also wedged between Russia and Iran, vital when in WW2 the Russians invaded northern Iran to keep open one of its windpipes to the West. (Britain invaded the south of Iran, and Britain and Russia met in the middle.)
It is vital now to the pipelines meant to defund Ukraine’s drive to be independent of Russia.
It is vital now once again to those with hostile intentions toward northern Iran, which now means Israel and the US seeking special forces jump off points and emergency divert air bases and likely drone bases and intelligence operations into Iran.
All of this is about oil, gas, and Iran. It has nothing to do with Azeri or Armenian people or their little enclaves/exclaves or ambitions. They are just being used in the game of great powers, like India’s northwest was used in the time of the British Empire’s struggles with Russia. Nobody cared about Afghans then, nor do they care about Armenians or Azeris now.