Azerbaijan Continues to Claim That Zangezur and Part of Gegharkunik Are Their Territories

The Human Rights Defender of Armenia, Arman Tatoyan, has published a video on his Facebook page stating, "Azerbaijani authorities continuously claim that Zangezur and part of Gegharkunik belong to them. Alongside this, they continue to speak with rhetoric directed at the entire population of Armenia regarding genocide and ethnic cleansing, with open hostility and derogatory language aimed at the Armenian people. Furthermore, their soldiers even possess such maps.

If that is the case, then we must also quote historical sources and facts that confirm not only that Zangezur and Gegharkunik are historical Armenian lands but also that, in order to separate Armenia from Artsakh and weaken the meliks of Artsakh, the artificial creation of the Red Kurdistan province in 1923 was initiated by Stalin starting in 1921. After that, in 1929-1930, this province was dissolved when the Kurdish Okrug was created for a few months (the okrugs were later abolished in Azerbaijan) and subsequently, the term 'Kurdistan' was removed.

The objective was to separate Artsakh from Armenia from Karvachar to the Iranian border by mainly uniting the territories that included Karvachar (Kelbajar), Berdzor (Lachin), Vorotan (Kubatlu), Kovsakan (Zangelan), and part of Jrakani (Jabrail). Moreover, the regions of Goris and Shushi are only conditionally divided from each other by the Hakari or Hagaru River. This can also be observed in maps from that era.

Historically, Armenians lived in these areas and only later were they populated by Kurds, which led to their eventual majority. In fact, from the 1920s until 1992, the Kurdish population in that area was significant; however, it has sharply declined due to Azerbaijan's policy of assimilation and the influence of shared religion.

Additionally, sources indicate that initially, the Kurds had no linguistic, genealogical, or anthropological affinity with the Caucasian Tatars (later known as Azerbaijanis)."