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    Meline Chalian
  • 1 year ago
    • Categories: 2023

Armenians in Lebanon protest Azerbaijan’s offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh

Sept 29 2023
Demonstrators gathered outside the Azerbaijani embassy outside Beirut to protest the takeover of the majority Armenian enclave.
Beatrice Farhat

BEIRUT — Hundreds of Lebanese Armenians converged on Thursday outside the Azerbaijani embassy in Lebanon to protest the lighting military operation last week that resulted in Azerbaijan recapturing Nagorno-Karabakh from ethnic Armenians.

The protests quickly turned violent, with protesters hurling stones and fireworks at anti-riot police while attempting to storm the embassy in Ain Aar, east of Beirut. The security forces responded by firing tear gas to disperse the crowd. More than 20 protesters were injured in the melee, according to the official National News Agency (NNA).

Videos circulating online showed protesters burning photos of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan, who threw his support behind last week’s offensive.

Tashnag, an official Armenian political party in Lebanon, had called for Thursday’s protest. Lebanon is home to one of the largest Armenian populations outside Armenia. In May 2000, it became the first Arab country to recognize the Armenian genocide — the massacre of more than 1.5 million ethnic Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks in the early 20th century. The Armenians in Lebanon are estimated to number between 120,000 and 150,000.

Tashnag leader Hagop Pakradounian condemned the Azerbaijani offensive against Artsakh, what Armenians call Nagorno-Karabakh, accusing Azerbaijan and Turkey of carrying out a new “genocide” against the Armenian people.

“Today we were defeated in Artsakh, but we were not defeated as a people," the NNA quoted Pakradounian as saying in a speech during the protest. “We were not defeated as an Armenian nation.”

Last Tuesday, Azerbaijan launched what it described as an “anti-terror” operation against Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh. One day after the offensive began, a Russian-mediated cease-fire was announced, whereby Azerbaijan would take control of the enclave, and the Armenian separatists would surrender their weapons.

At least 200 people were killed in the fighting, and more than 88,000 people — 70% of Nagorno-Karabakh's estimated population of 120,000 — have since fled the territory, reported UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, on Friday.

Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked mountainous region, is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Armenians but is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Armenians took control of the territory following a bloody war against Azerbaijan in the 1990s and established a separatist government in the enclave in 1994.

On Thursday, the pro-Armenian separatist government of the breakaway region announced its own dissolution. A decree issued by the region’s president, Samvel Shahramanyan, said the self-declared Republic of Artsakh would cease to exist by Jan. 1, 2024.



 https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/09/armenians-lebanon-protest-azerbaijans-offensive-nagorno-karabakh#ixzz8Ep4I9Qrd

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