The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia pictured after their White House meeting. primeminister.am
It was touted as a meeting that might bring an end to 35 years of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But at the White House on August 8, a peace deal remained elusive. Instead, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Donald Trump made further concessions to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev while receiving nothing in return.
Trump waived legal restrictions on United States arms sales to Azerbaijan. And Pashinyan signed a joint appeal with Aliyev to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, calling on the regional security organization to end the peace process it has been leading since 1995 – thus fulfilling another demand from Azerbaijan.
The leaders of the two countries did initial a peace treaty that had been elaborated months before and signed a joint declaration on working towards peace. But Azerbaijan still refuses to sign the peace treaty. And the meeting singularly failed to address the return home of the 150,000 Christian Armenians forcibly expelled from their homes in Nagorno Karabakh by the Azerbaijani invasion in September 2023.
Plight of the displaced and imprisoned
As the meeting got underway, Christian Solidarity International (CSI) issued a media release calling for the safe, collective return of the displaced Karabakhi Armenians and the release of political prisoners.
CSI urged President Trump to support the Swiss Peace Initiative – the Swiss government’s effort to negotiate the safe return of displaced Armenians to their homes in Nagorno Karabakh – and work for the release of political prisoners.
The CSI statement specifically mentioned the 23 Armenian hostages held by Azerbaijan, the 80 Armenians forcibly disappeared by Azerbaijan, the numerous Azerbaijani journalists, academics, and human rights activists imprisoned and the dozens of Armenians, including clergy, imprisoned by Pashinyan’s government over the past few months for opposing its policies.
Meanwhile, CSI warned that concerns for the 23 hostages are growing as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) prepares to close its mission in Baku in early September after being ordered by Azerbaijan to leave the country. The ICRC is the only external organization granted access to the detainees. Its withdrawal means there will be no possibility to independently monitor the condition of the hostages in the future.
Ethnic cleansing in Nigeria
The current security crises in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, often described as banditry or ‘farmer-herder clashes,’ are not simply random acts of violence. In fact, they bear the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing, CSI told a UK parliamentary inquiry into the United Kingdom’s development partnership with Nigeria on August 25.
CSI-UK, the UK affiliate of Christian Solidarity International, said that the ethnic and sectarian violence “appears designed to reduce the number of indigenous Christians in the region.”
“We estimate more than 700 villages have been targeted by armed militias since 2009, resulting in over 20,000 killings and countless injuries,” CSI-UK wrote in its submission.
“Inasmuch as the attacks are intended to destroy ethno-religious communities, they may rise to the level of ethnic cleansing or even genocide.”
CSI raised concerns over the millions displaced by the violence, as well as the Nigerian government’s apparent inability or deliberate unwillingness to disarm the Islamist militias responsible.
Development assistance to displaced communities
It urged the UK to include in its Nigeria strategy development assistance to displaced populations in the Middle Belt, who are typically underserved compared to victims of Boko Haram terrorism in Borno State, in the north east.
“Aid should encompass support for people’s safe and dignified return to their farms and villages,” the submission concluded.
In a podcast on August 22, CSI explored why Nigeria is the deadliest country in the world for Christians. It delved into the country’s colonial past and history of ethnic hierarchies, and explored the different regional trends of violence in the north east and the Middle Belt. It also highlighted powerful stories of faith that inspire hope.
