“Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians Prefer Death to Submission”: New Statesman

Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians are fiercely determined to defend their independence and prefer death to submission. This is stated by Iranian-American columnist Sohrab Ahmari in an article published in the British magazine New Statesman.

The article mentions: “As we approach the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War, the war on terror has completely faded from public memory. It is difficult to blame ordinary people in the West for forgetting the ruins left by their leaders. But those affected by the war cannot afford such amnesia. Among the most affected are the Christians of the Middle East. As I write, around 120,000 Armenians, including 30,000 children, have spent nearly two months under the blockade imposed by Azerbaijan’s lifelong president Ilham Aliyev. Food, medicine, and other necessary items cannot be delivered to the Armenians, except for meager amounts provided by the Red Cross. In freezing conditions, the Baku regime periodically halts gas supplies, threatening to strike planes attempting to deliver humanitarian aid.

The affected are residents of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is here that the Armenian scripts were developed, and the ancient churches bear witness to the centuries-old presence of Armenians in the region.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Azerbaijani lobbyists and think tanks, such as the Hudson Institute, have doubled their efforts to portray the Baku regime as a pro-Israel stronghold against Iran. Democratic Armenia, however, in their eyes, is part of the “Russian bloc,” which, by the way, is not helping it. As a result, in 2020, when Azerbaijan began operations to expel Armenians from certain parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Trump administration remained unequivocally silent. Footage of Christians saying goodbye to their ancient churches has raised little sympathy from the White House; at the same time, Ursula von der Leyen was in Baku last summer, telling Aliyev that “you can always count on us.” After von der Leyen’s visit, Azerbaijan launched a military attack right on the territory of Armenia.

The blockade poses a very real risk of humanitarian disaster. Furthermore, the Armenians of Karabakh are fierce about their independence and prefer death to submission.

The Biden administration and the Democratic foreign policy establishment, to their credit, have shown that they possess a more balanced approach than the Trump administration. However, the West must change course if it wishes to prevent a potential catastrophe.”