The term West Azerbaijan worries Armenians

Over the past year, the issue of West Azerbaijan has firmly and irrevocably established itself on Baku’s political agenda. Moreover, it has become an integral part of the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The term “West Azerbaijan” is increasingly gaining media attention as the Azerbaijani government strives to restore historical justice. This includes the return of the original population to their ancestral lands in what is now Armenia. For a long time, West Azerbaijan was hidden by misrepresentations and distorted historical facts spread by the Armenian government.

These efforts included the destruction of Azerbaijani heritage within the borders of modern Armenia – a state established on historical Azerbaijani territory. The Armenian government pursued a policy of Armenianization and systematically displaced Azerbaijanis. At various stages, this discrimination was exacerbated by a strict deportation policy. As a result, even the last Azerbaijani were expelled from their historical and geographical homeland, West Azerbaijan (today Armenia).

With the Sovietization of Armenia in November 1920, the deportation of Azerbaijanis became even more insidious. In the 1920s and 1930s, ideological concepts such as “proletarian internationalism” served as a pretext to intensify the oppression of Azerbaijanis in the Armenian SSR. At the same time, special privileges were demanded for Armenians in Azerbaijan and other Soviet republics. In 1923, the mountainous part of Karabakh, historically and geographically part of Azerbaijan, was separated and received the autonomous status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region.

The then-Azerbaijani leader, S.M. Kirov (1922-1926), did not advocate a similar status for Azerbaijanis living in the Armenian SSR. Therefore, they remained politically disadvantaged and without autonomy, which made their oppression possible. After World War II (November-December 1945), Armenian authorities demanded the cession of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, but this remained unanswered.

On December 23, 1947, Stalin signed a resolution ordering the resettlement of Azerbaijani collective farm members and other Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR to the lowlands of the Kur and Aras rivers. Another resolution with the same order followed on March 10, 1948. These measures, which affected the fate of over 10,000 people, were related to Armenia’s claims to the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region.

First, the Azerbaijanis were resettled, then the question of the fate of the Autonomous Region was addressed. The arbitrary actions of the Armenian authorities, hostile actions of the Armenians towards Azerbaijanis, mass use of violence and the wrong selection of resettlement sites in the Azerbaijan SSR during the deportation process led to the death of many innocent people.

The deportation of Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR in 1948-1953 was one of the most brutal episodes in the history of Soviet forced resettlements. These deportations join other forced resettlements of that period, such as the Koreans in 1937, the Germans in late 1941 and early 1942, the Poles in November 1942, the Crimean Tatars on May 18, 1944 and other
groups.

The Armenian government maintained its hostile policy towards Azerbaijan. In the 1960s, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, relations between the USSR and the USA deteriorated. Turkey, as a NATO member, became involved in the conflict, which led to a cooling of Soviet-Turkish relations. Armenia received permission to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1915 events in the Ottoman Empire in the mid-1960s.

These events were accompanied by massive violence against Azerbaijanis in the Armenian SSR, which was repeated every year. When the USSR Constitution was adopted in 1977, Armenia again failed in its claim to Nagorno-Karabakh, which increased tensions. With the support of the USSR leadership, the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh was put on the agenda in 1987.

In the early 1980s, further deportations of Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR occurred in order to assert territorial claims to Azerbaijan. The deportations reached a peak in 1988-1989, when more than 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled. The last Azerbaijani village, Nuvadi, was evacuated in August 1991, completing Armenia’s systematic deportation policy against Azerbaijanis.

According to various sources, Armenia is a country with a predominantly Armenian population, as reflected in a proportion of almost 99 percent. This homogeneity is often considered a source of pride by locals, as they see themselves as the original population of the South Caucasus. This attitude is often accompanied by low tolerance towards ethnic minorities. In August 2022, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern about Armenia’s mono-ethnic status.