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Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

> (most likely) massacred by our new ally

Why is that likely? (I'm not skeptical, I really don't know and this stuff is hard to google)

Azerbaijan has lots of oil money and purchases weapons from Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia, the likes of which Armenia cannot afford.

, and therefore they will kill all the Armenians?

I mean that's means, not motive. "They have weapons, and therefore they will kill everybody" makes no sense to me.

You don’t understand how deeply ingrained their hatred for Armenia goes. It’s literally what they spend surplus money on.

First, Turkey and Azerbaijan are effectively dictatorships flying under the radar using oil money and “west-friendly” trade policies.

Second, Armenia has been Christian for as long as Christianity has existed. Turkey and Azerbaijan are Muslim. There are millennia of wars and conflict over forced conversion that have resulted in “Armenia is the devil” propaganda making its way into the Turk cultures.

Third, in the Turk and Azeri mind, Armenia is the one threat to their “Turkic manifest destiny.” They believe the Caucus should be theirs in order to create a unified “great” Turkic civilization.

So yes, when these countries have the means to buy very efficient weapons, Armenian lives become at risk.

> You don’t understand how deeply ingrained their hatred for Armenia goes.

Correct, that's why I asked!

The core ideology of Azerbaijan is armenophoby, and they do not really hide the fact. Their claim is that Armenians are not native to the, eh, Armenian highlands, and thus should be expelled at the very least. During the 2020 war atrocities such as decapitation of soldiers and civilians were common, as well as cutting off and collecting ears of Armenian PoWs. There have been multiple reports of Armenian churches being demolished or having the Armenian inscriptions erased (talk about cultural expropriation). During the victory parade in 2020, Aliyev and Erdogan were praising Enver Pasha, who was the architect of the 1915 Armenian genocide. Also the very "peculiar" expo of the victory museum. Also the threats to take Armenian provinces by force, if political demands are not met. I believe this paints a more or less complete picture why I don't have any optimism regarding the fate of Armenian civilians should that country fall, although probably people who favor Azerbaijan in this conflict can come up with plausible explanations for every item in this list, including decapitations and tortures of civilians.

A complete picture would also mention that Artsakh obtained its de facto independence for 100,000 Armenians at the cost of ethnically cleansing 700,000 Azeris, Kurds and other ethnicities from the region.

It is also worth to mention that before that 300,000 Armenians were expelled from Azerbaijan, and people from the regions around Artsakh were expelled during a war which have started because Azerbaijan have attempted to deport the remaining 160,000 from Artsakh too.

it is safe to say that the world needs some history deleting virus. if we woke up with no knowledge of history and relations between nations, all this disputes would disappear over night.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

(do no further research before watching this movie, you will thank me)

I don't think the issue is only the history.

Surprisingly large number of people believe that if people in the neighbouring city vote to speak on their language and govern themselves locally, they deserve punishment up to death.

And there is similarly large number of people who believe that it is noble to die for a line on the map.

So forgetting history would have a very small effect only on a very small number of conflicts.

To complete the picture you might also mention that the vast majority of the displaced were not from the disputed region but from the surrounding Karabakh, which is where the fighting spilled once NKR forces pushed back the Azeri army after almost losing everything in 92.

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