Azerbaijan Defends Attack On Nagorno-Karabakh That Killed 200
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
STEPANAKERT/BUDAPEST (Worthy News)— Azerbaijan’s president claimed late Wednesday that his Muslim nation “restored” its sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh, where Christian Armenians live, in a military offensive that may have killed hundreds of people.
Ilham Aliyev praised “the heroism” of Azerbaijan’s army hours after local Armenia-backed forces agreed to surrender. About 120,000 ethnic Armenians live in the disputed South Caucasus enclave. Azerbaijan now intends to bring the breakaway region under complete control, the president stressed.
His comments came while the ombudsman in Nagorno-Karabakh estimated that the death toll of Azerbaijan’s 24-hour military operation rose to at least 200 people. More than 400 others were wounded, the ombudsman’s office added.
Previously, authorities claimed at least 32 people were killed, and about 200 others were injured. It was difficult to verify these figures independently, but all sides agreed that many soldiers and civilians had been killed.
Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said Tuesday it had begun an “anti-terrorist” campaign in the region that both Azerbaijan and Armenia have claimed as their own territory.
The dispute has been the cause of two wars between the neighbors in the past three decades, most recently in 2020.
Christian aid workers active in the region told Worthy News, however, that since December 2022, “Muslim-majority Azerbaijan” has besieged Nagorno-Karabakh.
LACHIN CORRIDOR
They have been “blockading the Lachin Corridor, the only route into the enclave from Armenia,” noted Christian charity Barnabas Aid.
Senior church leaders warned last month that “mass starvation” was likely among the population, Worthy News learned. “Their concern was echoed in an emergency report published on September 5 that stated a new Armenian Genocide “may already be taking place” in the enclave, Barnabas Aid added.
Earlier Baroness Caroline Cox, a legislator of Britain’s House of Lords and patron of Barnabas Aid, described it as a “modern-day tragedy” unfolding.
While visiting the blockaded entrance to the Lachin Corridor, he said, “We are in a very sad place.” She made the published remarks “while looking at a convoy of trucks prevented from delivering much-needed humanitarian aid to Karabakh,” Barnabas Aid said.
In a letter shared with Worthy News, she warned that “grave suffering” was being inflicted on the civilians of Karabakh because of the “brutal blockade” by Azerbaijan.
Thirty thousand children were at risk of “irreversible physical and mental stunting” as a result of severe malnutrition, she warned.
Nagorno-Karabakh, known as Artsakh to Armenians, is a landlocked region in the Caucasus Mountains and internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
AZERBAIJANI RULE
However, Christians say it is mainly populated by the ethnic Armenians who turned to Christianity in 301 and rejected Azerbaijani rule.
Under Soviet Union rule, it was governed as an independent “oblast” or region within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. After the Moscow-led Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, it was effectively “incorporated into the Republic of Azerbaijan,” recalled Barnabas Aid.
Critical Christians view Azerbaijan as an Islamic dictatorship. Its President, Ilham Aliyev, took over from his father, Heydar, in 2003. He secured his latest term in 2018, but Western observers said the vote “fell short” of democratic standards.
In 2016, a referendum extended the president’s powers – including a controversial proposal to lower the age limit for presidential candidates.
Azerbaijan’s opposition said the move aimed to cement the rule of President Aliyev’s family, with his 19-year-old son as a potential heir of the oil and natural gas exporting nation of over 10 million people.
Analysts say the latest tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh could alter the geopolitical balance in the South Caucasus, where Azerbaijan is a significant energy producer.
The region, also known as Artsakh among Armenians, is crisscrossed with oil and natural gas pipelines, though none are near much of the enclave itself.
Ahead of the latest tensions, Azerbaijan planned to increase natural gas exports to the European Union, which is looking for alternative energy sources following energy-rich Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.