12/15/2020 Azerbaijan (International Christian Concern) – Azerbaijan’s General Prosecutor has announced that four servicemen were arrested yesterday for insulting the bodies of Armenian servicemen and the desecration of Armenian gravestones. This announcement came just hours before the POW exchange between Azerbaijan and Armenia. It also came on the heels of international pressure on Azerbaijan regarding breaking the ceasefire in Hadrut District. For weeks preceding these events, Azerbaijan has also faced pressure for committing war crimes which includes mutilating Armenian bodies and gravestone desecration.
Azerbaijan’s actions have been emboldened and encouraged by Turkey, as the two countries share a “one nation, two states” ideology shaped around their common Turkish Islamic identity. The geographical area of Nagorno-Karabakh is predominately Armenian Christian, and was a geographical block preventing the unification of this pan-Turkic Islamic corridor. Both Turkey and Azerbaijan have made clear in comments that their current military actions and ambitions are being thought of in terms of the 1915 genocide against Armenian Christians. Language affirming this genocide and Islamic expansionism underscores much of their rhetoric. Furthermore, the mutilation of Armenian bodies (alive and dead) and the desecration of their graves was a common tactic used during the 1915 genocide.
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