Daily Sitka Sentinel

Sitka Exchange Student Relates Threat to Armenia

By GARLAND KENNEDY

Sentinel Staff Writer

Less than a year after leaving Sitka and returning home to Armenia, former Sitka High School exchange student Arman Mkrtchyan is concerned about the prospect of being drawn into the recently reignited war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Although they have yet to finish high school, Mkrtchyan is interested in public policy and plans to attend  a university in the United States or Europe.

“I am going to graduate in July 2023. I want to study either public (or) social policy or international relations for the bachelor’s to then further study human rights in my master’s degree,” Mkrtchyan told the Sentinel via email. The teenager was in Sitka until last spring for an exchange year sponsored by the American Field Service and U.S. State Department.

Arman Mkrtchyan during his Sitka exchange year. (Photo provided)

Mkrtchyan is concerned that the European Union is not condemning new Azerbaijani attacks on the borders of Armenia because the EU is depending on Azerbaijan gas to make up for Russia’s cut off of gas exports to Europe in retaliation for the EU’s support of Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression.

Earlier this month, Azerbaijan’s armed forces attacked Armenia’s eastern border along a wide front south of Lake Sevan, but a tenuous ceasefire has held for the last week, according to National Public Radio news reports.

Tension between the two countries in the Caucasus Mountains isn’t novel. In 2020, Azerbaijan attacked in the disputed, Armenian-held Nagorno-Karabakh, occupying much of the region after a month of fighting. A ceasefire negotiated by the Russian Federation – which maintains a military presence in the region and sells weapons to both sides – brought fighting to a halt, NPR repoprted.

The Azerbaijani army also has been supplied with manned and unmanned aircraft by Israel and nearby NATO member Turkey.

For Mkrtchyan, the wars have impacted their personal life, in particular because of Armenia’s policy of universal military conscription.

“Many of my friends now serve in the military and they were involved in these military actions. It is horrible to see your friends or even youth you do not know dying only two years after the 2020 war over Nagorno-Karabakh,” Mkrtchyan wrote. “I knew a lot of people who died during the 2020 war as well. My dad went to the war and luckily came back alive. But many others did not.”

During the six-week war in 2020, Armenia lost about 2,400 soldiers and Azerbaijan about 2,700, the BBC says.

The International Crisis Group, which tracks conflict worldwide, says the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the longest-running in post-Soviet Eurasia.

“In 1988, ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh demanded the transfer of what was then the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) from Soviet Azerbaijan to Armenia,” the ICG says. “As the Soviet Union collapsed, tensions grew into an outright war. When fighting ceased in 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts were wholly or partially controlled by Armenian forces.”

In the 2020 war, Azerbaijani troops seized the seven outlying districts and part of Nagorno-Karabakh itself.

Mkrtchyan lives in Hrazdan, Armenia, just west of Lake Sevan and only about 90 miles distant from the fighting that took place earlier in September. While the 2020 war was limited to Nagorno-Karabakh and nearby districts – which are internationally viewed as Azeri but contain an Armenian majority – this month Azeri forces have conducted strikes within Armenia’s internationally recognized territory.

Mkrtchyan said, “The biggest difference in comparison to the 2020 war itself is that this time Azerbaijan attacked Armenia’s internationally recognized borders. It is a direct threat to every Armenian, including me. What they want to achieve is political decisions in their favor by pushing on us militarily… The new conflict takes place on the entire border from Sotk (Gegharkunik) to Goris (Syunik) which are only 90 miles away from my hometown.”

Landlocked and mountainous, Armenia lies between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Iran.

After returning to Armenia in the spring, Mkrtchyan described a “reverse culture shock,” but said friends at home were curious about Alaskan.

“I did have a hard time adjusting to a more conservative majority opinion here, but everything else went easier than I expected. My family and friends were happy to hear about my Alaskan experience, in particular about the Sitka community, my host family, and high school,” they said.

When in Sitka, Mkrtchyan lived with Lynn and Zach Bastoky.

While the North Atlantic Treaty Organization reacted swiftly against Russia’s catastrophic invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Mkrtchyan expressed frustration with the lack of a response from NATO or the EU following Azeri attacks.

“The war in Ukraine, in Armenia, or anywhere else in the world is terrible, and the aggressors should be kept accountable for their actions,” Mkrtchyan said. “However, the international community is selective in its humanism, and does not support every country in a war, but rather the ones that it benefits the most from. For instance, the EU considers Azerbaijan a reliable source of gas and a substitute for Russian (gas), when both countries are aggressors in different conflicts.”

With Russian gas supplies cut off due to the war in Ukraine, the EU intends to double its Azerbaijani gas imports by 2027, the Reuters news service reported in July.

Mkrtchyan would like to see sanctions put in place against Azerbaijan and its de facto dictator, Ilham Aliyev.

“I hope people will realize that speaking up is vital to nations like Armenians and only by an international effort of sanctions can military conflicts stop and democracies rise once again,” the teen said. “I believe that is what the U.S. values correspond to, and that the U.S. government will take action in the support of Armenia and end military assistance to the dictatorship of Azerbaijan.”

Mkrtchyan hopes the international community supports Armenia’s young, post-Soviet democracy.

“It is not fair choosing gas over people’s lives. But it seems that even the EU could not care less about the continuous military aggression by Azerbaijan and the fact that it is led by a dictator in comparison to Armenia’s democracy,” Mkrtchyan said.

For the time being, reports on the conflict indicate that last week’s ceasefire is holding, and the EU import of Azeri gas continues.