A Series of Historical Facts About Tigranashen by Arman Tatoyan

The former Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan has published a number of historical facts regarding Tigranashen. He wrote on his Facebook page: “The village has not had a status of an enclave; it is a historical Armenian village and has originally formed part of not only the First Republic of Armenia but also Soviet Armenia.

The village was originally named Karke (Karkik is Azerbaijani). In close proximity to Tigranashen, there is another Armenian village located deep into the Nakhchivan region called Genut, which derives its name from the evergreen tree of Gehenna, and it too was part of Soviet Armenia. Over the years, the village has been divided into two parts due to the settlement of the Turkic Jafarlu dynasty and received the names Jafarlu and Gyunut. For example, the village is included as part of Armenia on the 1926 map of the Armenian SSR.

If any of the settlements is populated by representatives of a particular nationality, it does not automatically imply that the area belongs to the state represented by that ethnicity. Similarly, the historical Armenian villages of Tavush, such as Voskepar, which belonged to the Barana region of the Ijevan district during both 1918-1920 and the Soviet period.

Distortions of historical facts, disregard for the rights and safety of border residents, and approaches that clearly fail to draw lessons from history and exhibit obvious unprofessionalism have deprived us for decades of legal grounds to protect the rights and interests of the Republic of Armenia and its citizens, putting our country's security at risk.”