The current conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is not about ethnicity as much as three dictators attacking to destroy a thriving democracy in their midsts.
Despite having previously been pushed into the sphere of Russian influence, in 2018 the Armenian population rose up to end a corrupt regime, much like the population of Belarus is doing today, and since then Armenian democracy has been solidifying. It is no wonder then that three dictators, Putin, Erdogan, and Aliyev, who have basically eliminated democratic processes in their own countries, and who suppress minority peoples within their own territories, would collude together to undo a people’s movement for democracy founded in self-determination and human rights.
The history of the conflict is simple. In 1988, human rights dissident Andrei Sakharov stated publicly what everyone knew: that the internal Soviet borders divided nations in an imperialistic policy of divide and rule. The Armenians of Karabakh used both domestic and international legal process to reunify with Armenia proper, but the Communist Party blocked the first, and the international community failed to recognise the second. Germany reunified, but Armenia’s reunification, well founded in self-determination, isn’t recognised because bigger actors continue the same policy of divide and rule. As every state in the world is a manifestation of self-determination, it is impossible that any one state’s territorial claim can ever be superior to the self-determination principle. This is especially true of a territorial claim, like the Azeri one, based on internal Soviet borders which were specifically created to pursue divide and rule. Self-determination always trumps a territorial claim.
