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While this is a good description of Armenian government’s general mismanagement, this article refers to this crucial bit of information far too deeply buried in

While this is a good description of Armenian government’s general mismanagement, this article refers to this crucial bit of information far too deeply buried in its narrative to the point it starts to make me doubt its impartiality: “Karabakh is an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, and Armenia is seen to have occupied the territory for over 30 years.” In other words, it appears the whole territory is Azerbaijan’s, and the whole planet, EU, US and the UN confirms that this is so. Turns out, Armenia had an 30-plus year invasion force holding Azerbaijani territory. That’s the kind of thing they should have put front and centre, because it completely changes the narrative.

bonzini 6y ago
The other missing part is that Nagorno-Karabakh was moved from Armenia to Azerbaijan by Stalin in order to mess up the region (reminding of Crimea) even though the population was massively of Armenian ethnicity. After the USSR dissolved Azerbaijan held pogroms in Baku (1990), pushed all the Armenians to NK (at which point the NK population was 98% Armenians) and started eradicating their culture. Armenia started occupying Nagorno-Karabakh in 1991 after these things happened. Add to this that Azeris are ethnically and historically related to the Turkish, who are responsible for genocide of Armenians in the early 20th century and have been denying it since, and you can see why Armenian occupation of NK deserves little more than a footnote.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  It was also an "autonomous oblast" under USSR
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
throwaway345349 6y ago
This region has Christian monasteries [1] all around it dating as far back as the 4th century. Unless Muslims started building churches at some point in their existence, I would really have to disagree that Armenia held this land hostage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Artsakh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Artsakh
cblconfederate 6y ago
It's a lot more complicated than that, that's why the UN supports the OSCE group. The pre-war consensus of the group was that a final solution would be an official status for NK, while armenia would return the surrounding territories that were occupied as buffer zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_Principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_Principles
gnomewascool 6y ago
> That’s the kind of thing they should have put front and centre, because it completely changes the narrative. Does it? I think that the heuristics about an occupier being bad are less useful than usual. The territory was occupied just after both countries gained independence from the USSR, because the arbitrarily drawn borders did not reflect the ethnic composition of the countries and there were worries among the Armenians about ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan. Obviously, it's important historical context, but there's a huge amount of important historical context, such as the Armenian genocide, atrocities committed by both sides in the 1990s etc., which they also don't put front and centre, because it's simply not an article about the historical context. If China invaded and occupied Taiwan, would you discount an article writing about the situation in Taiwan, just because it did not focus on the fact that officially Taiwan is not an independent country?

bonzini 6y ago

The other missing part is that Nagorno-Karabakh was moved from Armenia to Azerbaijan by Stalin in order to mess up the region (reminding of Crimea) even though the population was massively of Armenian ethnicity. After the USSR dissolved Azerbaijan held pogroms in Baku (1990), pushed all the Armenians to NK (at which point the NK population was 98% Armenians) and started eradicating their culture. Armenia started occupying Nagorno-Karabakh in 1991 after these things happened. Add to this that Azeris are ethnically and historically related to the Turkish, who are responsible for genocide of Armenians in the early 20th century and have been denying it since, and you can see why Armenian occupation of NK deserves little more than a footnote.

cblconfederate 6y ago
It was also an "autonomous oblast" under USSR
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

throwaway345349 6y ago

This region has Christian monasteries [1] all around it dating as far back as the 4th century. Unless Muslims started building churches at some point in their existence, I would really have to disagree that Armenia held this land hostage. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Artsakh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Artsakh

cblconfederate 6y ago

It's a lot more complicated than that, that's why the UN supports the OSCE group. The pre-war consensus of the group was that a final solution would be an official status for NK, while armenia would return the surrounding territories that were occupied as buffer zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_Principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_Principles

gnomewascool 6y ago

> That’s the kind of thing they should have put front and centre, because it completely changes the narrative. Does it? I think that the heuristics about an occupier being bad are less useful than usual. The territory was occupied just after both countries gained independence from the USSR, because the arbitrarily drawn borders did not reflect the ethnic composition of the countries and there were worries among the Armenians about ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan. Obviously, it's important historical context, but there's a huge amount of important historical context, such as the Armenian genocide, atrocities committed by both sides in the 1990s etc., which they also don't put front and centre, because it's simply not an article about the historical context. If China invaded and occupied Taiwan, would you discount an article writing about the situation in Taiwan, just because it did not focus on the fact that officially Taiwan is not an independent country?