Please join the Office of Public Witness the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations and World Mission for a webinar
Nagorno-Karabakh: Context and Consequences Wednesday, November 4th, Noon ET
Click here to register Or join us on Facebook Live
Please join us to learn about the context and consequences of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabah. We will hear from an award-winning journalist and learn about the history of Presbyterian work with the Armenian community. Tune in to find out how you can help support our faith partners on the ground and press for a diplomatic solution to the conflict!
Speakers Lara Setrakian is a journalist and the CEO of News Deeply. She previously covered the Middle East as a foreign correspondent for ABC News and Bloomberg Television. She has since focused on the fusion of news and technology, advancing high-quality journalism on humanitarian issues. Lara is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Eliza Minasyan is a Coordinator of the Jinishian Memorial Program (JMP) USA since 2011. She came to the Jinishian/PCUSA office after having served the previous five years as the Executive Director of the Jinishian Memorial Foundation in the Republic of Armenia. Previously Ms. Minasyan was with Heifer International of Little Rock Arkansas, as Coordinator for Planning, Evaluation, and Training in the Heifer’s Central and Eastern European program which included offices in 10 countries, from Albania to Russia. For more than 20 years she directed and managed community-based projects and programs in civil society, community health development, education, and economic development throughout Armenia, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Background On the morning of the 27th of September, Azerbaijan began an unprovoked military attack on Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory whose population is 90 percent Armenian and supported by Armenia. The attack brought Armenia and Azerbaijan into a state of war, with shelling threatening civilians in cities and towns in Nagorno-Karabakh. Reports state that since the instigation of the conflict around 500 people, including at least 60 civilians, have been killed. Fighting has caused large-scale damage to civilian infrastructure in Nagorno-Karabakh and in urban areas in Azerbaijan. According to authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh, around 70,000- 75,000 civilians (nearly half of the region’s population) have been displaced by the violence, including 90 percent of women and children. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, along with other humanitarian organizations, have called for a ceasefire to distribute humanitarian aid, which has largely been restricted by ongoing fighting. Despite a cease-fire negotiated last week for humanitarian purposes, fighting continues to intensify. As it stands, this struggle is highly unbalanced. Azerbaijan receives military support from Turkey, which provides arms, assists in the training of Azeri forces, and has recruited mercenary soldiers from Syria to aid the Azeris. Azerbaijan is also a strategic ally of Israel, receiving the latest drone technology which it has deployed against Armenian forces. Though Armenia receives support from Russia, its status as a smaller country on the world stage renders it more vulnerable against Azerbaijan’s modernized military. The unbalanced nature of the conflict puts Armenia and the ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh at risk of domination by adversaries which, historically, called for their elimination. The Armenian people have historically faced repeated and continuous genocide and ethnic cleansing and have been targeted for their faith. Our faith partners in Armenia and Nagorno- Karabakh have suffered severe persecution, starvation, and the potential of genocide throughout their history, most recently in the 1990s. Now they face the threat of an expanding regional war against more powerful adversaries who continue to deny the fact of the Armenian genocide, and recently heightened their anti-Armenian rhetoric.
The PC(USA) highly values its partnership with the Church in Armenia, especially through the Jinishian Memorial Program, which was established in 1967. For decades, the PC(USA) has supported the program’s humanitarian relief efforts, community-based development, and peacebuilding in Armenia, Artsakh, Georgia and the Middle East.
Click here to read the Stated Clerk’s statement on the conflict and the responsibility of the United States to contribute to the efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully.