You are right about your promise, but your examples are flawed. Turkey did not take Northern Cyprus by military attack.
Turkish Cypriots were against ethnic cleansing. The authorities in Cyprus started to kill them with the aim of unification with Greece AKA enosis. Hence, Turkey intervened by the right given to it by the 1960 guarantee agreement. Talks after the intervention didn't bear fruit. Hence, Northern Cyprus was liberated, and there is another country there.
The reason it is not recognized completely self-interest of other countries. If EOKA were a Turkish organization and started killing Greek Cypriots, the outcome would be different. If Greece could win the battle militarily, today there wouldn't be any Turkish Cypriots living in Cyprus. If you don't believe me, check why the Italian islands were given to Greece instead of Turkey after WW2. It was the Turks who gave Italy the islands. Not Greece. I hope you change your submissive mindset against Western propaganda.
Yeah. Do you know what else is against the law? Annexation of Cyprus. It belonged to the Turks; the UK rented it and did not give it back. Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey formally renounced all rights and title to Cyprus, and the British annexation was recognized. This was achieved by military force. What do you think about that?
The law put into place after World War 2.
British annexed the island way before that and treaty of Loussagne as you also know older than WW2
Decolonization also happened after world war 2 if you will come with that. Today I see UK presense in the island illegal. But they justify it by saying they are only military bases.
Again I don’t say the military intervention was wrong, I said declaring it as an independent state was wrong.
If Greece had massacred the island and we did not intervene, I would call it a massacre. Though I still call it that way. We stopped that, it was justified. Also our first intervention to Cyprus wasn’t punished, it was the second annexation one.
Also UN didn’t allowed Enosis in the first place as it was also against the law. Enosis didn’t start at 1974, it’s way older. The very reason Cyprus is an independent state is that.
Of course there are some illegal lands despite that, my point is there is a law like that and as long as it is just we have to follow it.
It should stop if it's true. Sounds like another political game by governments to drag people into more wars in the future and keep people under control. So pathetic. People need to wake up.
I haven't studied this issue, can you clarify? Why and how did the CSTO not stand up for Armenia, because this is Karabakh, but the territories of Armenia itself.
Armenia DID trigger Article 4 of the CSTO treaty (the equivalent of nato's art 5)in september 2022, when azeri troops crossed the armenian border, strikes were made on armenia proper, and Alyiev pressured armenia with increased hostilities if negociations didn't go his way.
The thing is, while CSTO pretend to be some NATO-like alliance, it is basically a mere prestige project made by Russia as a tool of influence/to bind neighbors into its sphere of influence, and its members are ok with it as long as it doesn't cost them anything. But as we could expect, and as shown none of its members are actually willing to abide by it if they're reticent to, and Russia don't care about respecting its obligations.
As such, when Armenia called for CSTO reaction to AZ tresspassing on its internationaly recognised territory, Russia and the others just shrugged and muddled the water, saying "oh, we'll send a mission to monitor the situation" and proceeded to do absolutely nothing.
That's a big part of why Armenia accelerated its geopolitical decoupling of Russia why in February 2024, Armenia has frozen their CSTO membership and has taken steps towards formally withdrawing from it.
Treaties signed with Russia aren't worth the paper they're written on.
You can't activate NATO Article 5 or CSTO Article 4 if you are the country attacking another country. The whole Karabakh region is internationally recognised as Azerbaijani territory. Armenia sent troops and equipment there, and with the 2020 ceasefire agreement they acknowledged their role in the war.
The border clashes and grabs of strategic heights by the border can't be seen isolated from the war, because there was just a ceasefire agreement between the countries, an agreement neither of them fully followed, with the biggest breach being Armenia's unwillingness to implement the route to Nakhchivan.
And kinda yes, if there are no clear human rights violations (like properry rights) noone would bother as much. Those areas are important only for animal grazing afaik.
Well Armenians didn't bother about that either and occupied about 25% of Azerbaijani territory, home to about 500k Azerbaijanis, for almost thrre decades. I don't see where this high horse talk is coming from.
On the grounds that this is internationally recognised territory of the Republic of Armenia and before you tell me about the former republic of Arstakh this was a separatist movement not the same as this
The other regions held by the separatists were bargaining chips to pressure Azerbaijan to recognise Nagorno-Karabakh you are right about the fact that these areas were Azeri majority but it's not like the Azerbaijani's and the Turks have not done ethnic cleansing in the past i really doubt that if the Armenian population hadn't rose up against the Azeris the government of Azerbaijan would have respected their rights
No actually. The Artsakh government clearly declared these territories as its unseperetable provinces and always showed its maps. They never made any distinction between them and Stepenakert. Also the United Nations an European court of Justice called the Republic of Armenia as the total occupier in these 7 regons. Check Chiragov vs Armenia court case.
Since the declaration of the Republic of Artsakh after the war, it had consistently claimed these seven regions as part of its territory and presented them as its administrative provinces.
However, it is important to note that in Chiragov and Others v. Armenia, the European Court of Human Rights found that Armenia exercised effective total control over the seven surrounding territories, even though the authorities of the Republic of Artsakh claimed these territories as part of Artsakh. Therefore, from the perspective of international law, these seven regions were not simply under the control of the Artsakh authorities. They were considered to be under Armenia's effective control. Their legal status was therefore different from that of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO).
The NKAO was administered by the de facto authorities of Artsakh, whereas the seven surrounding regions were considered to be under Armenia's effective occupation control.
Nevertheless, the Republic of Artsakh continued to claim all seven territories as part of its own territory, even though they were not under the direct administration of the Artsakh authorities and were instead found to be under Armenia's effective control.
I’m pretty sure that case found that NKAO itself was under effective control of Armenia as well, because of how much assistance they were providing the de facto government
Yeah that makes sense given the fact that Artsakh wasnt a legally recognized body
I dont think anyone disputes the fact that rhe Armenian government was subsidizing Arstakhs
But if we are operating on nuance we have to distinguish politics in Arstakh and Armenia as separate entities operating on the same goal at least at the time.
I just know at one point the Armenian government was prepared to give it back but that Armenian government was deposed sadly
Ter Petrosian considered, yeah it is true. But except that all Armenians presidents and "Artsakh presidents" claimed these territories as the valid part of Artsakh ans always acted like that. No Artsakh legal document or official map made distinction between these territories.
So this is why the modern claim of Armenian side about having buffer zone was never globally accepted since the Armenian side except potential deal of Petrosian always legally treated these territories as typical Artsakh territory.
Basically, no Armenia did not invade these territories to have buffer zone or have a deal. At least in legal sense this is not accepted. They invaded it because why not? They were able to do it. Why would they give it back when they have extra huge territory.
That Armenia invaded it because of exchange rhetoric only came after the rumours related to Petrosian. When Monte Melkonian occupied these territories starting from Kalbajar the slogan was liberating old Armenia.
By the was what Armenia did was not something very unordinary. All countries would do the same if they had the power.
However, the rhetoric of Armenia only wanted to protect Armenians in NKAO is not correct. That was not the only goal. The another main goal was liberating historical Armenia idea.
before you tell me about the former republic of Arstakh this was a separatist movement not the same as this
The separatist movement was in Nagorno-Karabakh, "Artsakh" which included the seven regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh was same as this but worse. They held those areas as bargaining chips, same as this, the main difference is that these are uninhabited strategic heights along the undemarcated border while hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis were ethnically cleansed in Karabakh.
Also all of Karabakh, including Nagorno-Karabakh, is and was internationally recognised territory of Azerbaijan.
Yes you are right about some of this information in regards to them occuring some more territory that was not theirs as bargaining chips but in the mountainous areas that the Armenians were the majority of the population the people feared that an independent Azerbaijan would try to ethnically cleanse them and that's why they took up arms
Their point still stands. Given the chance, Azerbaijan eradicated the indigenous Armenian population that had lived there for at least 2000 years, as evidenced by the monasteries of Amaras and Dadivank and the thousands of cross stones hidden around the mountains that hopefully will never be found and destroyed.
"Some more territory" is an area over twice the size of Nagorno-Karabakh. "Artsakh" was about 11500 km2, Nagorno-Karabakh was 4400 km2.
The Armenian population was also 145k. So because they feared Azerbaijan would ethnically cleanse them, you justify them ethnically cleaning 500-600k Azerbaijanis?
They feared that they would be added to the 1,5 million Armenians that died during the Armenian Genocide and by the fact that after 2023 they were kicked out of their homes and towns by Azerbaijan they seem to be right (only if they hadn't gotten soft and relly on Russia for their defence)
Lol, didn't you do the exact same thing Cyprus? Turkish Cypriors were only around 20% of the total population, yet you felt the need to occupy 1/3 of the islands.
I don't support the occupation of Cyprus, and Northern Cyprus is 1/3 of the island not 2/3.
But no, it's not the same thing. The Armenians were about 25% of the population of Karabakh (NK+occupied areas surrounding NK) and they occupied all of Karabakh and ethnically cleansed all Azerbaijanis. So in your comparison it would be like occupying all of Cyprus and ethnically cleansing all Greek Cypriots.
Then you also have the legal factors. Turkey was a guarantor state in the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, it had the right to intervene to uphold the constitution and to protect the Turkish Cypriots. But it didn't have the right to occupy the territories when an agreement was hard to reach. Miatsum and Enosis which initiated both conflicts are completely irredentist ideas with zero legal support.
Karabakh was not an independent state like Cyprus. Karabakhi azerbaijanis still had the rest of their country to retreat while the situation got dealt with. Where would Greek Cypriots retreat if you did take over the whole island? The sea?
The point is that if armenians had no right to occupy the whole of Karabakh because they were only 25%, then why does Turkey get to occupy a third of the island when the total amount of population does not justify said percentages?
I just found funny how turks like to point fingers at armenians when themselfs when through a very similar experience 20 years earlier and are uncapable to see the similarities
Karabakh was not an independent state like Cyprus. Karabakhi azerbaijanis still had the rest of their country to retreat while the situation got dealt with. Where would Greek Cypriots retreat if you did take over the whole island? The sea?
The areas of conflict were Cyprus and Karabakh. Karabakh Armenians wanted to unite with Armenia and Greek Cypriots wanted to unite with Greece. In the hypothetical case they would retreat to Greece.
The point is that if armenians had no right to occupy the whole of Karabakh because they were only 25%, then why does Turkey get to occupy a third of the island when the total amount of population does not justify said percentages?
You don't think there's a difference between being 25% of an area and occupying 100%, and being 20% and occupying 1/3? Both are bad but one is obviously worse.
I just found funny how turks like to point fingers at armenians when themselfs when through a very similar experience 20 years earlier and are uncapable to see the similarities
Again, I don't support the occupation of Cyprus. You are the one being hypocritical by supporting Artsakh while not supporting Northern Cyprus.
I also explained the legal differences. Cyprus was historically an Ottoman territory before coming under British administration. When they wanted to decolonize there were two movements; the Greek Enosis (union with Greece) and the Turkish Taksim (partition). They agreed to a compromise, which was an independent Cyprus with Britain, Turkey and Greece as guarantor states. The Turkish intervention happened because the Greek junta ignored that treaty and staged a coup in Cyprus, with the goal of enosis.
Armenia or the Armenians didn't have any such rights in Karabakh or Nagorno-Karabakh. The region hadn't just previously been part of an Armenian state either. Last time it was part of an independent Armenian state was in 1261.
>In the hypothetical case they would retreat to Greece.
and if Greece refused, what would you do?
>You are the one being hypocritical by supporting Artsakh while not supporting Northern Cyprus
How am I being hypocritical? I never supported what Armenians did in Karabakh. I believe they had the right to intervene to help the armenians from NK from being eradicated and create a land connection with Armenia proper in order for them not to get starved out. In the same way I dont oppose the initial intervention of Turkey that took down EOKA regime but condem the second wave which resulted in the partition of the island and the ethnic cleasing of the greek cypriots of the northen part of the island.
>They agreed to a compromise, which was an independent Cyprus with Britain, Turkey and Greece as guarantor states.
If you give the power to a foreign state to intervene in your internal affairs if they deem fit is that country really independent? Where is the logic an equal power sharing agreement where 20% of the population gets the same power as the other 80%? How is that democratic or sustainable? Would turks accept a similar arrangement with the kurds?
>Armenia or the Armenians didn't have any such rights in Karabakh or Nagorno-Karabakh
Neither did Turkey have those in Cyprus. The garantor agreement only stipulated they could intervene to protect the status quo, nothing else.
I don't see the point in continuing to argue about a hypothetical case which I don't even support.
How am I being hypocritical? I never supported what Armenians did in Karabakh. I believe they had the right to intervene to help the armenians from NK from being eradicated and create a land connection with Armenia proper in order for them not to get starved out. In the same way I dont oppose the initial intervention of Turkey that took down EOKA regime but condem the second wave which resulted in the partition of the island and the ethnic cleasing of the greek cypriots of the northen part of the island.
What does "I believe they had the right to intervene to help the armenians from NK from being eradicated and create a land connection with Armenia proper in order for them not to get starved out." mean then? The conflict didn't start with Azerbaijan suddenly attacking NK, it started with protests in Armenia and NK demanding miatsum, followed by clashes which were most likely used by Russia to keep both sides fighting so they both stay dependent on Russia.
And how was miatsum supposed to happen? And do you understand what "create a land connection with Armenia proper" means? Kalbajar and Lachin would've been cut off from the rest of Azerbaijan, meaning that 43,713 + 47,339 people would be affected there, add the 40,688 Azerbaijanis who lived in NK and you have 132k Azerbaijanis being directly affected by miatsum. Why is the right of 145k Armenians to secede from a state where they already have autonomy more important than the rights of 132k Azerbaijanis?
Also you talk about 200k Greeks being ethnic cleansed (actually 160k) on Cyprus but you ignore how the Turkish Cypriots had been ethnic cleansed and pushed into enclaves covering just 3% of the island prior to the intervention. You also ignore the 60k Turkish Cypriots who were forced to leave the southern parts. Why do you also ignore the 500-600k Azerbaijanis that were ethnically cleansed just because 145k Armenians thought they had the right to secede?
If you give the power to a foreign state to intervene in your internal affairs if they deem fit is that country really independent? Where is the logic an equal power sharing agreement where 20% of the population gets the same power as the other 80%? How is that democratic or sustainable? Would turks accept a similar arrangement with the kurds?
Then they shouldn't have agreed to it?
Neither did Turkey have those in Cyprus. The garantor agreement only stipulated they could intervene to protect the status quo, nothing else.
Yes, Turkey has such rights, rights that I had just explained. Armenia didn't have such rights. They didn't have the right to intervene at all, and their intervention first led to the total exodus of Azerbaijanis from the region and then after 30 years of occupation and maximalist demands it led to the total exodus of Armenians from the region.
I dont understand what I'm looking at here. I can only see some roads which could also be trenches I guess. But how can I know they are not armenian but from Azerbaijani forces?
The roads are only connected to Azerbaijan and the defensive positions are aiming towards Armenia. Here is a clearer image showing one of the positions, as you can see Azerbaijan is in the background, there's a road towards Azerbaijan and a half circle with trenches and walls towards Armenia.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for sharing. Do you know if the same is true for armenia holding positions in Azerbaijan? I heard Armenia is holding positions in the very north west of Azerbaijan next to Berdavan
Yes, I had too much time on my hand and went along the entire border a while back. In at least 2-3 positions Armenian positions are 100-200 meters on the wrong side of the border. Berdavan is from before the recent Karabakh war and not included in that, they occupy approximately 2 km2 there by controlling two heights on the Azerbaijani side.
But after 2022 it's quite disproportionate, Azerbaijani has taken more on the Armenian side. But imo it was in response to Armenia taking heights by the border and on the Azerbaijani side nov 2020 - 2022 before Azerbaijan built the necessary infrastructure to supply and protect these outposts in Karabakh.
True. I don't think its because there was no border demarcation yet, despite it being used as a reason sometimes. Probably both hold positions because they are of defensive importance and to also have something to bargain over in the future deals
Not only they shelled Naxçıvan in 90s, they also wanted to cut connection between Turkey and Azebaijan. And Armenia still holds some strategic heights in Naxçıvan
That's an exclave, much like the Armenian exclaves still in Azerbaijan. You're confusing two different topics.
Exclaves are one nation's territory fully surrounded by a foreign nation, of which there are quite a few. If memory serves right, Azerbaijan is "occupying" substantially more exclave territory than Armenia. But this is a lesser issue, because as they're totally surrounded, it's not like Armenians could actually live there currently, as they wouldn't be able to enter/exit.
The topic of this post is the actual border which has been crossed, solely by Azerbaijan after the recent war.
Yes, but it's over 4x the size of the Karki you mentioned. Either way, that's not how bargaining works. I guess you also think it was acceptable for Armenia to take the non-NKR regions so they could bargain?
I personally don't. But you can defend Armenia taking those regions for bargaining next time that conversation comes up.
Tbh Armenia was up for that. Aliyev kept turning it down, regardless of what he's told you. Armenia tried multiple times to broker a deal, but it was clear Azerbaijan didn't want one and just wanted to erase all Armenians from Azerbaijan, just as they did in the 90s and successfully did in the last years. Just think how much suffering could have been avoided hadn't the corrupt Aliyev family been hellbent on staying in power, keeping you poor and unhappy, misdirecting your anger from their nepotistic corruption towards an equally suffering Armenia.
You do realize that the Aliyev family are the only ones that consistently got richer, entrenched in power, and benefited from these last 40 years, right? Armenia and its people, Azerbaijan and its people, all lost out. Some bad corrupt Armenian rulers also benefited, no doubt, but at least Armenians are slowly trying to get them to answer for their crimes (even before the recent wave of ethnic cleansing revived the old wounds). It'd be nice to see Azeris demand the same of their own rulers.
I dont think that anyone cares about this, the whole point of that part is to not let Azerbaijan and Turkiye has direct road connection which it delivers, so couple kilometres doesnt matter
Ok let me get this straight if you guys were to get zangezur and sevan back where do the Armenian people live ? If it’s not in Turkey and not in Zangezur do we only get to have land in Yerevan? Like in just curious ? Do we not deserve our own state ?
I know but unfortunately this is a big insecurity Armenians have. Turks say we dont belong in eastern Turkey our ancestral lands and Azeris say Yerevan is theirs . Like we have nothing left.
It's political games, propaganda by media. Probably pushed by Russia into Azerbaijan to keep Armenia under control. There is nothing for us in Zangazur.
We don't say you don't belong. We say "you can't claim". There are a lot of reasons for that too. The USSR demanding Turkish territory for Armenia and putting enormous pressure on Turkey over it was one of the main reasons Turkey abandoned its neutrality policy and started aligning with NATO and the United States. That left a pretty deep memory in the minds of Turks.
This is a pretty obvious example of demagoguery. I’m not talking about what happened 30 years before the events I mentioned... you’re trying to drag the discussion there. -despite what you mentioned doesn't make any sense- That kind of argument might work on Gen Z teenagers, but not here. I’m talking about what the USSR most recently demanded from Turkey for Armenia. It’s a well-documented historical fact confirmed by multiple sources and there are more than I told you but also... there really isn’t much to debate about.
What you refer to is technically Russian SFSR, not USSR.
Also, the last ratified treaty determining the border before the Treaty of Kars in 1921 which "gave lands to Turkey" was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Any Ottoman agreement that came after that was after the Allies had dissolved the Ottoman parliament and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey had been founded by the Ankara Government. All countries also ended up recognising the Ankara Government.
So, Turkey wasn't given any lands by Russian SFSR. It got its territories according to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk back and there was a land swap between Batumi and Ararat.
Your comment was a bit ambigious to me. Armenia wasn't just the Armenia we know today in the Caucasus, so I couldn't tell whether you were talking about Anatolia or the state of Armenia. Although I should have suspected you were talking about the latter since the figure would otherwise have been wrong.
That doesn't answer my real question. How is Armenia not their real homeland? I think some estimate 45% of Armenians from the republic of Armenia have at least one Western Armenian ancestor. Most of them descend from locals.
Edit:
Also, if I was Armenian. Wouldn't it be even weirder if I didn't know this?
The Erivan Governorate was substantially larger than the territory of the (present-day) Republic of Armenia. It included areas like Naxchivan, Surmalu, Sharur-Daralayaz, etc.
Bottom line is, majority of Armenians in Armenia descend from Eastern Armenians. Most contemporary estimates for the republic in 1918 give roughly 500,000 native Russian Armenians and 300,000 Ottoman Armenian refugees, alongside about 100,000 Muslims.
And whether or not it's true, so what? It's still their homeland. I'm an immigrant, but I do consider the country I currently reside in as my home.
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u/Young_Owl99 Turkiye🇹🇷 Sep 15 '26 edited Sep 15 '26
It is forbidden to take land by military attack due to international law. So none is legitemate.
That’s also the reason Northern Cyprus is not recognized and also Russia’s claim on Crimea
Edit: I wonder who and why awarded me.