Ceasefire in Artsakh

It should not come as a surprise that, in the recent armed exchanges between Azerbaijan and Armenia, I tend to take Armenia’s side. It is clear to me that the Azerbaijanis are being egged on by Turkey, which still sees the world’s first Christian kingdom as a thorn in its side and has not given up its project to wipe it off the map. In addition, Artsakh has been a territory inhabited by indigenous Armenian communities for centuries. It still is majority-Armenian, and home to numerous churches and priceless cultural treasures of the Armenian people – which are now in danger of attack. That said, I am thoroughly relieved that now the cooler heads in Russia and Iran have managed to put together a ceasefire – as Russia has now been calling for for weeks.

Armenia is, in addition to being the world’s first Christian kingdom, is also home to a community of people who have endured centuries of persecution in a fairly hostile neighbourhood. Surrounded by unfriendly countries – Georgia, Turkey and Azerbaijan all holding territorial claims against Armenia – historically Armenia has relied on Russia (a fellow Christian nation) and Iran (a nation which at least wasn’t Sunnî, which wasn’t Turkish and which was suspicious of the Ottomans) for security.

As an aside: it also seems that there is a significant fellowship of feeling between Armenia, and Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander descent. Some of Armenia’s most faithful friends in the US House of Representatives are our Chinese-American legislators – Reps. Judy Chu, Ted Lieu and Grace Meng – as well as other members of CAPAC such as Reps. Tulsi Gabbard, Ro Khanna and Barbara Lee. I do want to give CAPAC a much deserved shout-out for being so solid in their support of Armenia. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Asian-American community in the US knows very well what it is like to be a distrusted minority in a fairly hostile neighbourhood; it is not a surprise to me that there should be such a confluence of solidarity there.

The situation the Armenian nation has with Artsakh is tricky because, even though international law dictates that Artsakh is in fact an unalienable part of Azerbaijan, the majority population there is Armenian and Christian, and would in fact prefer to be part of Armenia. This presents a tricky problem, and Armenia understands perfectly well that an all-out war would be devastating to the ethnic Armenians that live in Artsakh. For the same reason, Turkey wants a war there. This is why Turkey has been deploying armaments (including drones) and irregular fighters from Syria – remember all those ‘moderate rebels’? – into Artsakh to undertake a guerrilla war and provoke Armenia into hitting back.

This is why it needs to be crystal clear. The idea that America shares any sort of common interest with Erdoğan’s Turkey – an increasingly intégriste state which has taken a hard turn away from Europe; which sponsors jihâdist terrorism; and which actively works to destabilise and invade its neighbours: including Greece, Cyprus, Syria and now Armenia – is a thoroughly disgusting pretense. Unfortunately, it’s a disgusting pretense that Turkey’s presence in NATO permits and compels our statesmen to uphold. In a sane world, Turkey’s membership in NATO would not only be brought into question by its behaviour over the last ten years. In a sane world, Turkey’s membership in NATO would call the continuing legitimacy of the entire alliance into question.

Unfortunately, we can’t bet on it. Turkey is too valuable a gæopolitical player in that area of the world, and the liberal American foreign policy establishment of course wants to keep using an increasingly-despotic and increasingly-maniacal Turkey as a vector against Russia. It’s also unfortunately crystal clear that the same American foreign policy establishment is licking its chops over this development – if they didn’t already help to orchestrate it behind the scenes. Having already orchestrated political brushfires in the Ukraine with the Maidan coup, in Syria with the same Turkish-backed ‘moderate rebels’, and most recently of course in the long-standing target of Belarus with an anti-government protest that quickly turned violent – the next logical step was always to set the Caucasus on fire.

This is why Orthodox Christians need to be petitioning not just Saint Gregory Photistēs, Saint Ephraim the Syrian and Saint James the Greatmartyr in our prayers for peace in the Caucasus, but also Saint Euphrosynē of Polotsk and Saints Boris and Gleb of Kiev. It would also be wise to pray to the Orthodox saints among the Turkish people, whom I’ve taken care to highlight on this blog over the past year. The latest bloodshed in Artsakh is part of a much larger game, and we need to be aware of both the target and the stakes.