These women and their children are among the 120,000 Armenians displaced from their homes in Nagorno Karabakh. csi
The catalyst was a trip to Armenia in September 2024 and a moving encounter with refugees from Nagorno Karabakh – which Azerbaijan had invaded one year previously, expelling its 120,000-strong Armenian Christian population. “They asked me, please do something, so we can go back,” recalled Erich Vontobel, a member of the lower house of the Swiss parliament. “I promised to help and a week after returning home I brought the motion in parliament for a peace forum.”
Pushing a peace forum
Defying all expectations to the contrary, both houses of parliament went on to pass the motion. Switzerland is now committed to hosting a peace forum between representatives of Nagorno Karabakh and the aggressor, Azerbaijan, within one year.
To ensure the momentum is not lost, a cross-party committee of 19 Swiss parliamentarians launched the Swiss Peace Initiative for Nagorno Karabakh on May 26. The stated aim is to “facilitate an open dialogue between Azerbaijan and representatives of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian people,” to negotiate the safe and collective return of the Armenian population.
In the words of former Armenian foreign minister Vartan Oskanian, “this forum is not about taking sides; it’s about making space where silenced voices can be heard, to find a way forward.”
Speakers at the event in Bern agreed that Switzerland, with its long humanitarian tradition, was ideally placed to host the forum.
Situation in southern Caucasus “explosive”
Amid all the talk of peace, Vontobel warned that the situation in the southern Caucasus continued to be “explosive.” “The Armenians are afraid that after Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan will go on to conquer Armenia,” he said.
In a commentary on the CSI website, guest author Neil Hauer gave credence to these fears. Having emptied Nagorno Karabakh of its people, denied its Armenian history and destroyed its cultural heritage sites, Azerbaijan is now threatening the Republic of Armenia.
“Referring to the entirety of the modern-day Republic of Armenia as ‘historical Western Azerbaijan,’ Azerbaijan’s president and his officials have repeatedly laid claim to their neighbor as rightful Azerbaijani land,” wrote Hauer, a journalist based in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. Azerbaijan has launched repeated military incursions into Armenia proper since 2020, he points out.
“Azerbaijan is pursuing a policy of harassment and intimidation against Armenian border settlements,” said Hauer. “Having already been expelled from their original homes, Karabakh Armenian refugees now find that their lives and livelihoods are threatened once again.”
Armenian hostage Vicken Euljekjian goes on hunger strike
Karabakh’s Armenians have not just been expelled from their homes – at least 23, including current and former members of the Nagorno Karabakh government – have been taken captive by Azerbaijan since 2020. One of those detainees is Vicken Euljekjian, a Lebanese-Armenian dual national who was captured in 2020 and sentenced to 20 years’ jail for alleged mercenary activity.
At the beginning of May, Euljekjian’s wife, Linda, confirmed reports that he had staged a second, two-week, hunger strike after being denied the right to call her on the telephone. Until now the International Committee of the Red Cross has facilitated calls between detainees and their families, but this arrangement ended in early March when Azerbaijan banned the ICRC from operating there, meaning it could no longer visit prisoners.
Euljekjian, aged 45, is in deteriorating mental and physical health. “I can’t sleep at night when I think about the conditions in which Vicken is being held,” said Linda. CSI is campaigning for his release, and that of all the other Armenian detainees.
CSI welcomes the lifting of sanctions on Syria
On May 13, President Donald Trump announced his intention to lift the broad economic sanctions that the U.S. and its allies imposed on Syria in 2011 in a bid to hasten the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
In a statement by its International President, Dr. John Eibner, CSI welcomed this long overdue move. “In pushing millions of Syrians into hunger, illness and destitution, they [the sanctions] killed, maimed, and dehumanized civilians… just as surely as bombs and bullets throughout the country’s 14-year sectarian war,” Eibner pointed out.
“For this reason, and at the request of Syrian Christian leaders, CSI has been advocating since 2016 for the U.S. and its allies to remove their broad economic sector sanctions on Syria.”
But Eibner argues that while it is only right to end the collective punishment of the Syrian people, it is important to maintain individual sanctions on al Qaeda-linked leaders to protect religious minorities. Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is one of those subject to individual sanctions as a former al Qaeda leader.
On May 23, however, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a license exempting al-Sharaa (formerly known as Abu Muhammad al-Jolani) from the sanctions.
Syrian’s minorities under attack
Six months into his rule, the al-Sharaa government has already been implicated in mass atrocities against minorities. Following the massacre of thousands of Alawites in March, Syria’s Druze came under attack at the end of April. Over 100 people were killed in the fighting in the Druze-majority towns of Jaramana and Sahnaya on the outskirts of Damascus, and in the Druze-majority Suwayda province.
In a guest commentary, Sami Alkayial notes that since the collapse of the Assad regime on December 8, 2024, Western officials have been repeating the same line: “The new Syrian administration must protect Syrians of all religious and ethnic backgrounds, and establish a broad-based, inclusive government.” But this position is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the forces ruling the country, he argues.
Alkayial, a Syrian political analyst, notes that the militants who committed massacres on the coast and attacked Druze areas in southern Syria belong to the ministries of the interior and defense in the new administration. He describes the current model of Syrian government as a kind of “New Qaedism”, that maintains the goal of establishing an Islamic state and imposing an Islamic model on society.
Under the jihadist-led government, minorities “will always remain vulnerable to waves of violence and sectarian incitement,” according to Alkayial. “Expecting any real change in the behavior of those controlling Syria today is absurd and will only lead to more killing and oppression of minorities.”
In an interview, a Syrian Christian spoke of the Christian community’s fear that “We’ll be next,” after the attacks on the Alawites and Druze. “Ultimately, everything depends on the application of the law,” the Christian said, adding that incidents of harassment and discrimination “create an atmosphere of fear and mistrust.”
His message to the new government: “the inclusion of minorities is essential. Without it, fear will only grow.”
