Today, an Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor, in place since December, is crippling Armenian infrastructure in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“The situation is extremely urgent and existential,” Philos Project President Robert Nicholson said. “This is the oldest Christian nation facing again for the second time in only about a century the possibility of a genocide.” He was referring to the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians more than a century ago in waning years of the Ottoman Empire that the U.S. now recognizes as a genocide, a characterization that Turkey has sharply denounced.
According to Nicholson, there are 500 tons of humanitarian equipment “unable to get into Nagorno-Karabakh because of the blockade that Azerbaijan has placed upon that region.”
“There has been no natural gas flowing since March and other energy supplies, [such as] electricity, are spotty at best,” Nicholson added. “Families have been separated. Surgeries have been canceled. The 120,000 people inside [Nagorno-Karabakh] are really desperate for help.”
Though much of the media coverage about the Armenian-Azerbaijani war has characterized it as simply a territorial dispute, according to both Brownback and Nicholson, the conflict is more one of ideology and religion.
“This is in fact not just a territorial dispute,” Nicholson said. “While there are territorial questions, I see this dispute absolutely as one of values.”
According to Nicholson, “the Armenians are not asking for much.”
“The Armenians we met, and we met a lot of them, were quite minimal in their demands,” he said. “They want to live in their homeland, and they want to do so securely.”
Despite the dangers, Nicholson said that the Armenian Christian communities’ plight “is not a lost cause.”
“Shockingly, despite all the threats that they are facing, Armenia is actually quite vibrant,” Nicholson said.
“There’s room,” he added, “for the United States to play a very constructive role in helping these different parties, both of which are our allies, to reach a peaceful and just solution to end the conflict.”
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