Nagorno Karabakh: Territorial Dispute or Turkey’s 2nd Attempt at Genocide?

In rush hour the streets of Yerevan look as if a gigantic broom has swept the cars: most drivers are no longer headed to work, they are headed to war.

Four days ago the neighboring Azerbaijani government toppled work and life off the agenda of Armenian men by a full-scale attack on the borders of Nagorno Kharabakh, a disputed region in Caucasus, inhabited and controlled by ethnic Armenians.

As Western media level NK conflict down to “territorial dispute,” the issue gets buried under a thick layer of cosmetic coverage, that is, in essence, the narrative of one of the parties — that of Azerbaijan and, more recently, Turkey.

Media reports unanimously trace the conflict down to the Soviet dissolution of NK territory that Yerevan and Baku disagree on. While to Baku territorial claim is certainly the case, to Yerevan the root of the matter lies with the Armenian genocide carried out by the Ottoman Turks in 1915.

The memory of the massacre by Turks is fresh in the memory of Armenians, and constantly livened up by the popular mantra “Two nations, one people” that Baku and Ankara use to describe the countries’ relationship.

In confirmation of a historic distaste for Armenians, Turkey has been actively stirring the pot in NK, vowing to back Azerbaijan with all means necessary as fighting entered a second day. Russia, popularly considered an ally of Armenia, is taking a “balanced” approach, maintaining the paw of the scale down on the Azerbaijani-Turkish side.