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The following are taken from [Ellen Ray & Bill Schapp, CovertAction, summer 1994, page 36] (Taking into account that our "civilized" friends don't take the "barbarian" turkic/muslim sources into account, we rely on western sources):
"For nearly seven years, a bitter and violent conflict has raged between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabagh, a district of Azerbaijan inhabited by a majority of ethnic Armenians. Contrary to the impression held by many Americans and Western Europeans, in this round of conflict, it is Armenia that has invaded Azerbaijan, Armenia that has occupied a fourth of Azeri territory, and Armenia that has been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations for unlawful aggression.(1) Nonetheless, while editorials in the U.S. and other Western press have deplored the violence on both sides, Armenia is generally depicted as the victim, Azerbaijan as the aggressor, even in news stories.(2) This portrayal, we believe, particularly in the past few years, has stood reality on its head. "
"As the U.S. Committee on Refugees notes "[a]lmost every 'fact' relating to this conflict is in dispute." A few, however, are incontrovertible:
- While Armenia invaded Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan has never invaded Armenian territory.
- Armenian (and some "Karabakh-Armenian") forces currently occupy not just Nagorno-Karabakh, but nearly one-fourth of Azerbaijan.(4)
- One million Azeris, now refugees, fled or were driven from that occupied territory.(5)
- Tens of thousands of Kurds, who have lived for centuries in the region, have also been made refugees. Since 1992, the Armenians have expelled virtually all the Kurds from Armenia,(6) and driven tens of thousands more from the areas of Azerbaijan where they had lived.
(1) Security Council Resolutions 822 (April 30, 1993), 853 (July 29, 1993), 874 (October 14, 1993), and 884 (November 12, 1993).
(2) See, for example, Carey Goldberg, "David and Goliath in the Caucasus," Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1994, p. A1; and Raymond Bonner, "War, Blockade, and Poverty 'Strangling' Armenia," New York Times, April 16, 1994, p. 3.
(4) Alexis Rowell, "U.S. Mercenaries Fight in Azerbaijan," CovertAction, Spring 1994, p. 26.
(5) U.S. Committee for Refugees, Faultlines of Nationality Conflict: Refugees and Displaced Persons From Armenia and Azerbaijan (Washington, D.C.: USCR, March 1994), hereafter USCR Report, also notes some 300,000 displaced Armenians. According to the U.N., in Azerbaijan as of May 1, 1994, there were: 215,000 refugees of Azeri origin from Armenia; 49,000 Turks-Meskhetians from Uzbekistan; 50,000 displaced persons from Nagorno-Karabakh; and 920,000 displaced persons from seven other occupied regions of Azerbaijan. In May, the Azeri government added another 50,000 Azeris.
(6) Kurds made up 1.7% of Armenia"s population. ("You Too, Armenia?" Kurdish Life, No. 9, Winter 1994, published by the Kurdish Library, Brooklyn, N.Y., pp. 1, 2.)"
Armenia and Azerbaijan began fighting over the area in 1988; the struggle escalated after both countries attained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. By May 1994, when a cease-fire took hold, Armenian forces held not only Nagorno-Karabakh but also a significant portion of Azerbaijan proper. The economies of both sides have been hurt by their inability to make substantial progress toward a peaceful resolution. Turkey imposed an economic blockade on Armenia and closed the common border because of the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.
Before we start any problems with above text? -- Cool Cat My Talk 07:48, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Categories are temporary, everything is more than likely to move around significantly. History category will probably be in a timeline format. -- Cool Cat My Talk 08:07, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I want to hear arguments. PLEASE summerise. I do not want to see 150 Kb posts, lets discuss slowly.
While my views are unimportant regarding the article, I placed comments places which I want you to start discussing the matter. -- Cool Cat My Talk 08:28, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Coolcat, thanks for your initiative. In principle, I do not mind you or any other third and neutral party mediating between parties in order to make the final Nagorno-Karabakh page as complete and neutral as possible. However, let me remind you that my earlier appeal to mediation was rejected by Rovoam (btw, in rather rude terms). ( [1]). So, if he didn't accept mediation then, I do not see a reason why he would accept mediation now.
Moreover, Rovoam's actions, his personal insults and vandalisms have created totally new circumstances, which convinced me that we cannot achieve any progress if we choose Rovoam as a party to mediation or discussion. My case against Rovoam is still being considered by the ArbCom ( [2]) but one thing is already clear: this person completely discredited himself by blatant vandalisms, personal attacks and threats. I do not expect anything positive from a person who vandalized many Azerbaijan-related pages and then said: "Try block my IP address! Try! I will get another one. Plus, I will bring here a hundred friends from all over the world. I will destroy the idea of Wikipedia!" ( [3]) And this is just only one example of his numerous outrageous words and deeds...
In short, I do not mind mediation in principle, but I do not accept Rovoam as a party to this mediation. I expect that ArbCom should block him for a long period of time as a punishment for his actions. In fact he was blocked, but then was unblocked to be able to present evidences in his defense (which he did not).
I would very much prefer to discuss the page content development with User:Aramgutang, an Armenian editor in Wikipedia, who unlike Rovoam is very moderate. I also welcome any other editors, whether Armenian, Azeri, pro-Armenian, pro-Azeri or neutral, who would demonstrate good will and intentions to proceed further. However, one important point that needs to be made here is that any subsequent discussion should not be started from scratch. This means that any subsequent discussion should take into consideration and benefit from previous 200-page-long discussions which contain lots of factual material and arguments from the various parties involved. If we do not keep up to this principle, we will get stuck in endless,fruitless and confusing discussions, which would provide excellent grounds for various propaganda pushing. -- Tabib 11:45, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
I picked him because his nick registered in the discussion, I welcome any parties who wants to get involved. I want to make both sides talk to each other and come up with common gorunds. If he learend his leson that vanalising is bad for health he is welcome to return, else I will handle him. -- Cool Cat My Talk 17:26, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just wanted to let you know that I would be quite willing to constructively debate the issue with Tabib or anyone else, however I have recently been finding myself very short of time I can allocate for Wikipedia, and I probably won't be able to contribute to this discussion much for at least a week or so. I'm happy to see that the debate is moving in a more organised and constructive fashion now, thanks to Coolcat, and the actual N-K article looks acceptable for Wikipedia, even if far from perfect. -- Aram գուտանգ 05:39, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Can you spit out already established concensious for me? The archives are a big mess... I prefer this format, also include who suggested the argumnent who supported who was against it. I also want your counterpart to confirm the concensius you suggested so as not to have a later conflict. -- Cool Cat My Talk 21:44, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
By starting from scratch I mean that you and old parties to forget older hostilities and dont refer back to those. vandalist people ofcourse is a different matter. Is there anything in the archives that needs to be added to the article? -- Cool Cat My Talk 07:15, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC) I was also asking this to make sure nothing was lost during the constant vandal attacks. -- Cool Cat My Talk 07:35, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Please use the folowing color code and indention, this will make it easier for all parties. Each argument should be a seperate category. User:Coolcat/mediat
I will not add anything on my own. How about either party present their case here? -- Cool Cat My Talk 01:08, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
What's wrong with existing (current) version of the article:
Rovoam 07:13, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm just a user trying to be impartial, please don't anyone get petty with me if you don't like something I said. But if you find merit in the above suggestions, I suggest they be implemented to resolve the edit dispute to everyone's satisfaction, or at least in such a way that anonymous parties don't keep reverting or vandalizing the page out of frustration. signed, Codex Sinaiticus 20:22, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
Dear fellow Wikipedians,
ArbCom's has finally issued its decision on two-months-long dispute between me and Rovoam, as well as me and Baku Ibne/Osmanoglou/LIGerasimova.
Please see, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Baku_Ibne,_et_al.#Final_decision -- Tabib 18:56, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
Tabib. Do you have a counterpart for this article? -- Cool Cat My Talk 01:58, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Peace and Greetings to all readers,
I formally object User:RaffiKojian’s recent edit [8] in which Raffi removed (commented out) a number of accurate historical facts and introduced some formulations which do not correspond to Wikipedia NPOV standarts.
Moreover, as stated above, this is a *controversial topic* and anyone should read the previous talks and discuss his proposed changes before introducing substantial changes.
Raffi has commented out (virtually deleted) the following paragraph
This paragraph is absolutely accurate and neutral and Raffi’s removal of this paragraph is unacceptable.
Before elaborating further on this, I want to inform you and everyone else, that the comment “Possible propaganda” was introduced by User:Coolcat (see, diff link here), who although had good intentions but unfortunately did not have enough knowledge of the issue. I regret that I did not address this erroneous comment then, because I refrained from unilateral un-agreed edits.
Anyway, now I think it is proper time to address the issue of Allies’ de-facto recognition of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan in 1919.
In order to make my arguments more evidently, I will rely mostly on what Armenian sources themselves say about this issue.
Below are excerpts from the Armenian [www.nkrusa.org "NKR Office in Washington, DC"] web-site:
And here’s another paragraph, which falsely depicts the history in such as way as if the British recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan only because of their oil (whereas it was much more complex than that):
The Armenian source above is certainly not a "pro-Azeri" by recognizing these facts. In fact it is evidently pro-Armenian and by its false formulations and interpretations, tries by all means possible to diminish the role of the historical fact that Allies in fact have recognized Karabakh as a de-facto part of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918-1920). Btw, this republic was one of the three republics (the other two being Armenian and Georgian Democratic Republics) which emerged following the collapse of the Russian Empire at the end of the World War I. These countries were never recognized de jure but they were recognized de facto by the Supreme Council of the League of Nations.
In short, the removal by User:RaffiKojian of the above mentioned paragraph was not only unexplained, but also unsubstantiated and erroneous. I call him and everyone else, not to introduce unilateral un-agreed and one-sided changes. Bearing in mind that this is a controversial topic, one should first read the talkpage, then make his case, and only after that introduce his edits. This is the only way which could bring to some positive results. I appeal to Raffi and everyone else, lets behave honestly and in a civilized manner and not allow vandals like Rovoam to poison the atmosphere of discussion here. -- Tabib 17:38, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
I had no idea the page was about to get suddenly locked, and it did while I was in the middle of playing around with the beginning and ending of the comment indicators. Raffi had commented out the entire provocative sentence and left it as a comment; if you look at the history you can see where he actually wrote a good deal more that was far less neutral, and I tried to put selected parts of it into the body of the actual article text, in order to work with it - then it inadvertently got frozen that way. So I apologize to all for any trouble I may have stirred up without meaning to. That should teach me not to mess with people's comments. Humbly yours, Codex Sinaiticus 03:24, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Rovoam has gone beyond the pale and is reverting simply to make some kind of point [9]. Because he is virtually unblockable and rather obsessive, I have protected this article and quite a few others. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 18:13, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
Tony, is there a way for you to restore the initial NPOV paragraph removed by User:RaffiKojian? I have explained my concerns about his edit above. Since the page was protected, I have restored this paragraph simultaneously keeping subsequent helpful edits by User:Codex Sinaiticus under User:Tabib/Nagorno-Karabakh. Please, see if you find my request to put that NPOV version appropriate/possible.
Also, please, look at the Nagorno-Karabakh entry and you'll see that Raffi himself introduced his POV paragraph in such a way which even visually doesn't incorporate itself into the remaining text.
Just for records: Tony has protected a whole bunch of pages, which underwent Rovoam's vandalisms including Caucasian Albania, Artsakh, Azerbaijan, Arran (Azerbaijan), Safavids, Turkey, Urartu. This was definitely a needed action and has my full support.-- Tabib 19:08, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
"...My impression is that despite Fadix’s declaration that he is “done with this entry”, I will have to endure his continuous posts, whether relevant or irrelevant to the subject matter, for quite a long time. So, we will have time for further elaborations if needed.
(from my post dated Mar 12, 2005 [10])
Looks like I was not wrong in my guess. User:Fadix once again advances his ungrounded comments and accusations and definitely is not “done” with this entry.
As I have repeatedly insisted, I do not want to turn the talkpage into a personal discussion forum, any personal notes should be directed to user talkpages. But once again I have to respond to Fadix in order not to allow him to discredit me and convince others in his false accusations. Recently, I responded to User:Fadix in Talk:Safavids where he introduced a POV edit. Please, see Talk:Safavids#User:Fadix_POV_edit_and_groundless_accusation. To this I would only add that Fadix from his very first message attacked me calling me a “hypocrite” ("I find rather hypocritic from your part to tell us all here how you have proved this or that and how you are attacked..." [11]). Certainly, such a start and attitude does not allow for normal discussions to proceed. Then I have sufficiently responded to Fadix's allegations in my posts Talk:Nagorno-Karabakh/Archive2#Another_attempt_at_manipulation_with_the_historical_facts, Talk:Nagorno-Karabakh/Archive2#Serious_concern_about_User:Fadix.92s_latent_.28for_now.29_POV_pushing as well as Talk:Nagorno-Karabakh/Archive2#Deja_vue:_Fadix_and_Rovoam. That’s it about the history of my (unpleasant) experience with User:Fadix.
Now coming to his allegations regarding the content:
Fadix writes,
Whether it was a temporary decision and what were the intentions of the Allies, these are secondary details. The fact that matters now is that Karabakh was actually recognized as a de facto part of Azerbaijan by the Allies. And Fadix himself cannot escape from denying this fact. Certainly, this was a temporary decision, pending final solution in Peace Conference, as I have sufficiently demonstrated in my previous message. But I already said that the issue is not about de jure recognition but a de facto recognition. Moreover, I have to repeat again that the three Caucasus republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia themselves were not recognized de jure, only de facto by the Supreme Council of the League of Nations.
Fadix writes,
Again, we see a deliberate attempt at confusing people. Fadix tries to portray my position as if I was saying that Karabakh was recognized by the Allies as part of Azerbaijan de jure. Here I bring the initial paragraph which was deleted by Raffi again:
As you see, it’s talking only about de facto recognition. De jure is not mentioned because even Armenia and Azerbaijan themselves were not recognized de jure. Therefore, Fadix simply plays with words, and argues just for the sake of creating a mess and confusion and discrediting me in your eyes. Subsequently, it would be very easy for certain editors to use this confusion and advance their biased POVs.
Further down in Fadix’s post, we see lots of irrelevant to this talkpage comments like, “As for the temporary decision, those temporary decisions would never have been what they were, if the British were to know what was to happen in the future...” (very interesting comment indeed) or “What happened was that the British have redrawn from there, and America did not honor its promise to secure an Armenia.” (complaining about Allies "betraying" Armenia) or “...if the allies recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, the allies recognized many other lands as part of Armenia... and they were unlike Karabakh not temporary decisions, BUT final decisions.” (how so?..) "..many such distortions recycled by ultra nationalist so-called historians close to Aliev dictatorial propaganda machine..." (does it remind you something?..), "It seems as well, that you are a follower of Ziya Buniatov, that was the head of Azerbaijans Academy of sience, who has manipulated..." (talking about an Azeri historian), "...isn't it amazing that each time I visit entries you got involved, I read nonsense and historical manipulations?" (equalling my contributions to nonsense and manipulations) etc etc.
These comments have no relation to the particular issue in question (i.e. Allies’ de facto recognition of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan) and concern mostly the Armenian-Turkish issues, in which Fadix “specializes”.
In short, I ask User:Fadix once again to stop advancing ungrounded accusations on my address. I am prepared to discuss any question regarding this entry with him provided that he focuses not on personal issues but solely on concrete questions relevant to the Nagorno-Karabakh entry. I would also appreciate very much, if Fadix focuses on one issue in a time and do not try to embrace a wide range of issues. This would avoid confusion and facilitate more effective discussions.-- Tabib 06:24, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
De facto recognition doesn't mean the same as "temporary recognition". It means recognising something because it is already a fait accomplis (justly or unjustly) - as opposed to recognising something because it is lawfully accomplished through due process (de jure).
A helpful historical example is the Norman conquest of England in 1066. William, duke of Normandy, asserted his "right" to rule as King of England based on both arguments, that he claimed were equally valid. He claimed to be king de jure, because the crown had been promised to him by Edward the Confessor. He also claimed to be king de facto, by reason of military conquest. Regards, Codex Sinaiticus 17:08, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Which is what I've been saying. The British had a mandate in Karabakh, and were more interested to redraw their men from there, so they placed Karabakh temporarly in the juridiction of Azerbaijan until the peace conference(the only two reasonable reasons why it was not right away placed under the juriction of Armenia, was because they had to secure their oil interest, and because they could not manage a constant men power to secure it), since during that time, the Americans were discussing to replace the British to secure an Armenia. Wilsons proposition was to end up by the drawing of borders only once the Americans were to replace the British, this never happened. This means, that Karabakh was never recognized by the allies, in any possible way as being a part of Azerbaijan at that time. In fact, the decision of temporary measures was completly at the hand of the British, and there are no evidence what so ever, that it was supported by the rest of the allies, the League of Nations for example has completly refused the inclusion of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, and the allies beside the British plan to redraw, were just waiting, because the most possible scenario was self administration. Fadix 18:21, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Most of my comments are addressed to User:Fadix, who apparently hastily overreacted by passing off Codex’s comments as support for his POV. I think it is necessary to bring clarity to certain issues.
Codex wrote,
Right, it doesn’t mean the same. But please, pay attention to the formulation: “Karabakh's de facto ownership by Azerbaijan was recognized in 1919 by the Allies” This is a very accurate and balanced depiction indeed. It talks not about some vague recognition but *de facto ownership*.
Furthermore, Codex wrote,
Again, correct. But this is actually a comparison between de facto and de jure, whereas the real controversy is not on this point but on whether de facto may also mean “temporary”. My argument is that *de facto* may also mean *temporary* in cases when let’s say, some authority/organization adopts temporary decision supporting status quo (e.g. de facto ownership) while simultaneously, deciding to solve the issue in the (near) future. Thus, in our particular case, the Allies recognized that Azerbaijan holds de facto ownership/jurisdiction over Karabakh, they recognized the local general governor Khosrov-bek Sultanov, appointed by the Azerbaijan government and also decided that the final status issue will be solved in the Paris Peace Conference. These are the DRY FACTS. And I can’t understand, how Fadix contrives to deny these facts and manages to confuse you.
I think amidst these word games we get distracted from the essence of the problem. I want to remind everyone that the primary problem I raised was unsubstantiated removal of a paragraph, which was factually correct and rather neutral by User:RaffiKojian and its replacement with a obvious POV and factually inaccurate paragraph. Unfortunately, following Tony’s protection of the page from vandalisms by Rovoam, remained in the page content.
I have already explained in my post above why the paragraph introduced by Raffi was a POV and factually inaccurate. So, this paragraph should be removed in the first place.
As to the initial paragraph, it seems that Fadix himself does not reject the fact that Karabakh was provisionally considered as part of Azerbaijan by the Allies in 1919-1920. It seems that the source of dispute is formulation of the fact rather than the fact itself.
Let’s go step by step:
Fadix prefers the formulation “Nagorno-Karabakh was temporarily placed in the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan”. (at least, that's how he termed this in his post)
I prefer the formulation “Karabakh's de facto ownership by Azerbaijan was recognized in 1919 by the Allies”
Both Fadix and I agree on important issue: the Allies decided that the ultimate status of Karabakh was not determined and was pending final decision in Paris Peace Conference.
We disagree on formulations.
My argument is that de facto is the most correct term, whereas “temporary jurisdiction” is also correct to a certain degree, but also is misleading. Here I agree with Codex, that temporary is not quite the formulation to introduce here.
The problem here is essentially in semantics:
See, if we write, Nagorno-Karabakh was temporarily placed in the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan”, we imply that there was a special decision by the Allies about “placing” Karabakh within Azerbaijan. Whereas everyone, including Fadix, would agree that there was no such decision from the Allies. Allies, simply *recognized* the Azeri government as having de facto control/ownership over the territory. And they also recognized that general governor Khosrov bek Sultanov was the head of the local administration in Karabakh. And this is EXACTLY what the paragraph said when it stated that “Karabakh's de facto ownership by Azerbaijan was recognized in 1919 by the Allies”
Fadix wrote: ... the claim that the allies recognized (de facto for temporary doesn't apply, since de facto, there was other propositions recognizing it as part of Armenia as well) Karabakh is simply WRONG, and placing it in the article is simply the sort of lies that Azerbaijani Academia of science has forged, and you as their followers, you're good at propgandizing national myths.
Fadix, I am not going to respond to your false personal accusations here, but you are simply wrong. It is a fact, that neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan and Georgia were recognized de jure in the Versailles, as I said, these republics were recognized only de facto: a statement by the Supreme Council of the League of Nations on de facto recognition was issued in early 1920.
Also, Fadix probably did not read my posts attentively if he continues to ask:
I believe, I have sufficiently addressed this issue by bringing namely Armenian sources which attested that Karabakh was recognized by the Allies as a de facto part of Azerbaijan, and I also clearly stated that this was a *temporary decision* pending final confirmation in Paris Peace Conference. Bringing same questions over and over again does not help the discussion an have a disruptive effect confusing other editors, and forcing me to repeat the same facts and arguments stated before.
Anyway, here's some additional evidence, this time maps:
http://www.hri.org/docs/sevres/map1.html - This is a map of Turkey after Treaty of Sevres (which Turkey never recognized). You can clearly see, that Karabakh area is indicated as part of Azerbaijan. However, most importantly, the map does not contain the border limitations. This makes on think that the borders were not determined de jure but Karabakh was considered as part of Azerbaijan de facto.
http://www.hri.org/docs/sevres/map3.html - Here’s another map concerning Sevres Treaty, which shows the territories “assigned” by President Woodrow Wilson to Armenia (the boundaries clearly exclude Karabakh, although include Nakhichevan)
http://www.atlas-of-conflicts.com/areas/armenia-and-karabakh/maps/armenia-and-turkey.jpg - Here’s another map from Atlas of Conflict web-site. It’s useful but not an academic source.
Also, http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/61_folder/61_articles/61_chronology.html chronology of major events in Azerbaijan in 1918-1920 which also contains a map showing the official borders of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
In short, I believe that it is enough to play with words. The facts are there and any attentive reader can make his/her conclusions. I request Tony to remove paragraph by RaffiKojian and restore the paragraph commented out by him.-- Tabib 00:22, May 12, 2005 (UTC)
Tabib: Beneath is the paragraph you want restored, with a couple of amendments I would submit, based on your above conversation. At one point you used the word 'provisionally' - much more apt here than 'temporarily' recognised, so I thought we'd give it a try.
Evidently, from listening to both 'sides', the recognition by the Allies was both provisional AND de facto, so why not spell this out with both terms in the sentence, since each construes a slightly different descriptor?
The second addition I would make is your word-for-word statement above, that you say both you and Fadix agree on: "the Allies decided that the ultimate status of Karabakh was not determined and was pending final decision in Paris Peace Conference" If you agree to this, it might provide some balance if we also spelled that out in the article. So I envisage something like this:
I've removed a section in which Fadix and Tabib once again engaged in mutual personal attacks, generating more heat than light, on the pretext of discussing the subject of this article.
Please, both of you, consider the aims of this project--to make a better encyclopedia. You must not use this discussion page for the purpose of casting doubt upon one another's good faith--if that is of so much interest to you I suggest you go to RFC or RFAR.
I consider the behavior of both of you to be at present actively detrimental to the project and am close to considering you to be at the point where someone else must take some action. This isn't the case at present. So please, don't let me (and Wikipedia) down. Tone down the rhetoric, show some respect for one another, and discuss the article and not one another.
I am not interested in your self-justifications. Please demonstrate that you can treat one another with respect. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 16:30, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Tony, most of the huge section you deleted was indeed, the same tiresome personal attacks on each other that we can do without. But I did notice some important relevant comments in the following little section, that are worth preserving from Fadix (addressed to Tabib):
Codex Sinaiticus 16:52, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Tabib, I wouldn't be so hasty in declaring it to be a "historical fact" from which there can be no deviation, that Armenia "never existed" until the 2nd C. BC. We are not a society of cadres you may be accustomed to, we just don't say things like 'there can be no diferent positions'... Especially when the different positions are literally, carved in stone:[ [13]]
respectfully, Codex Sinaiticus 21:23, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Codex, I want to clarify what I said once again: I did not say “Armenia never existed until 2nd c. BC”, I said “there was no Armenia [in 600 BC]” and that “the first Armenian kingdom was formed in 2nd c. BC”. I also argued that Karabakh was not part of Urartu neither in 600 BC, nor in 6th century BC. The factual accuracy of these facts are indisputable and only these facts directly relate to the subject matter of this talkpage.. Because, they clearly show that the factual accuracy of Fadix’s statements like ‘Karabakh [area] was part of Armenia in 600 BC [or 6th century]’ (which stirred up this whole new discussions) is highly questionable, to put it mildly.
Now, as to the the question of “different positions being carved in stone”. Unfortunately, the history of the region is so complex that for a person who doesn’t know the details and peculiarities, it’s very easy to be confused and misled. I want to undeline that I did not want to refer to those details in my earlier post, since these are not directly relevant to N-K entry, but *I actually expected* that there may arise this question of ‘Armenia’ and Behistun. So, if this question is raised, it needs further elaboration.
The key here is that Armenia, which is an exonym (Armenians themselves call their country ‘Hayastan’ and themselves ‘Hayk’) derives its name from Urartu. The Behistun inscriptions really included the name “Armenia” (or rather, “Armina”, to be more correct). But, however strange it may seem at first, this ‘Armina’ mentioned in Behistun inscriptions actually referred to Urartu and not to *Armenia* in its ethnic or political meaning. Thus, the trilingual Behistun inscription (521 BC) referred to what you named “Armenia” as ‘Armina’ in Old Persian and ‘Harminu’ in Elamite, AND as ‘Urashtu’ ( Urartu) in the Babylonian version. Being the first recorded mention of this name (Armina, Harminu --> Armenia), the Behistun inscription has perpetuated the equation of Urartu and Armenia for the posteriority.
So, as you see Codex, the “Armenia” mentioned in Behistun inscriptions is not quite the same Armenia that came into being later in 2nd century BC.
At the end, I would like to briefly restate that contrary to repeated claims, Karabakh area was never part of the ancient Urartu kingdom. All claims to the contrary are constructed based the cuneiform inscription found near Khojaly (N-K), which evidences that king Sardur II’s troops reached Urtekhini (possibly, the Urartian name for Artsakh). However, there is no evidence that this territory was secured under Urartu, because of its geographical distance and also because of constant wars between Urartu and Assyrians. During my previous communication with Rovoam, I have briefly addressed Urartu issue ( [14]) and have posted two maps of Urartu from independent web-sources, which clearly showed that Urartu’s borders did not include Karabakh area. Now I am posting yet another map, this time from an Armenian web-site ( [15], very nice web-site, btw), which once again clearly shows the borders of Urartu and clarifies once again whether these borders included Karabakh area. -- Tabib 14:46, May 13, 2005 (UTC)
Since there seems to be quite a lot of pressure to edit this article, I'm unprotecting it. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 11:28, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
As Rovoam seems to want the article protected on what he thinks of as "Tabib's version" I've done that and created a working copy of the article at Nagorno-Karabakh/Temp.
The rules for the working copy are slightly different from editing a normal article. Basically you should regard it as a sandbox. Don't worry if someone vandalizes it or whatever, just pick a starting version from the history and edit it however you like. Use it for trying out and demonstrating ideas. If there is reasonable support for an edit, ask an administrator to perform it on the main article.
Use this history link to select a version of the working article to start with. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 17:38, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Fadix, amidst these long and wordy messages, you still choose to focus on personalities (be it Tabib or “nationalist Turkish and Azeri historians”) and make allegations without actually bringing any single tangible reference when it comes to your arguments or any diff links when you accuse me in “propagandizing” and “manipulations” in some entry.
Once again I do ask you to leave personal remarks aside and to focus solely on subject matter of this entry (N-K content). Personal accusations and irrelevant comments distract this discussion even further, prolong the talkpage and make it even more confusing and harder to read and to analyze. This is not in my interest, and should not be in yours or anybody’s interest either if your intentions are good. I also do ask you not to *distort* my words and not to demand improper “explanations” from me regarding irrelevant things. For example, I did not say or even imply “The history of the region in BC, is not something that can be called indisputable”, and also, I am not “playing with Armenian history” and above all, I do not have to “explain” (?..) “why Armenian is classified as a Thraco-Phrygian subfamily by many scholars..”, at least because, it has nothing to do with the page content we’re dealing with here. I also ask you to stop your defamatory comments about Azeri and Turkish historians (“...Azerbaijani Academia of science would propagandize” “nationalist Azeris and Turkish historians”, “...type of things published in Turkish and Azeris literature that you try to sell to others.” etc etc. in just one last message of yours…). I want to warn you that such statements can be construed as personal attacks, indirectly and implicitly directed against me.
I have substantially addressed Urartu issue and have also posted maps, from neutral and even from Armenian sources, showing that Urartu’s borders did not include Karabakh area. Urartu’s troops reaching Artsakh is not the same as Artsakh being part of Urartu. Just read a bit about history of Urartu and you would see that after Sardur II (whose troops did reach Artsakh but did not stay there) Urartu was invaded by Assyrians and ever since it was on the fall getting smaller and smaller. Moreover, you cannot claim that Urartu was an *Armenian* state. It is certainly a part of ancient history of modern Armenia (because of the same geography) and also, ancient Armenians have inherited a lot from the Urartians both culturally and perhaps racially. However, these were completely two different ethnic-linguistic groups.
I think, the whole problem here when it comes to Urartu and its borders is that Urartu and Urartians are the same for contemporary Armenians as Caucasian Albania and Albanians for contemporary Azeris. Calling Urartu an “Armenian state” would be same as calling Caucasian Albania as an “Azeri state”. In the past, Fadix has also accused me in POV edits in Urartu entry. You can see my edit and make your judgment [18].
I am really tired of these whole pointless and ungrateful discussions. Fadix, in my last message addressed to you, I have already asked you to use working copy set up by Tony ( Nagorno-Karabakh/Temp) to introduce the changes you suggest to the entry so that we could discuss it point-by point. I believe this is the only way we can get rid of such counterproductive discussions and move forward. Hope you treat my suggestion positively.-- Tabib 15:39, May 14, 2005 (UTC)
Fadix, you just now wrote:
Now directly above that, you described "Urartu" as a multicultural "Empire", because it was really composed of numerous ethnicities, of whom the Armenian element were one.
It could similarly be said that "Albania" was a multicultural "Empire" on the same grounds, since it too was composed of numerous ethnicities [at least some of whom were surely related to Turks...]
The rise of the Armenian element to dominate within Urartu ( with more Phrygian cousins immigrating as well ) may even be directly compared to the rise of the Turkish element to dominate within Albania, a few centuries later (again, with more cousins immigrating)...
I think Tabib meant to show that he understands this, when he wrote:
Calling Urartu an “Armenian state” would be same as calling Caucasian Albania as an “Azeri state”.
To me, the evidence looks pretty good that the Armenian elements began to dominate the region of Urartu as early as 6th c. BC; also, that the Turkic elements began to dominate the region of Albania as early as 100 AD; but neither side seems to want to credit the other with having come to prominence quite so early as this... Both sides seem to want to minimize the historical existence of the other...
Another question: if the Armenians trace their ancestry to Tegaramah, wouldn't this make them originally Turks themselves?
Regards, Codex Sinaiticus 09:39, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
I thought the entry was about history and not mythologies regarding Noah, and his Sons. In that regard, the Albanians had even their Noah descents founding the Caucasian Albania land, inspired from Haiks story. Besides, Togarmah was an old testament term, and the misleading character with the Turks, is nothing surprising as any other such Biblical terms. I am an agnostic, so I expect Wikipedia to not become a myth whole.
“Atlas of the Bible” by L. H. Grollenberg, Joyce M. H. Reid, H. H. Rowley; Nelson, 1956
“Beth- togarmah, city or region which sold horses and mules to Tyre, Ezk 27:14; according to Ezk 38:6, sit. in the N; associated with Gomer, as in Gn 10:3 = 1 Ch 1:6 (Togarmah); ment. in Hittite texts.”
“Geographical Companion to the Bible” by Denis A. Baly; McGraw-Hill, 1963
“Beth- togarmah. Unknown.”
“Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric” by Stephen D. O'Leary; Oxford University Press, 1998
“Finally, Beth- togarmah, or Togarmah, is identified with the Cossacks of Southern Russia. Lindsey views this as significant since the Cossacks have historically been noted for their horsemanship, and Ezekiel refers specifically to the destruction of the horses of the invading army of the northern kingdom. "Today they [the Cossacks] are reported to have several divisions of cavalry. It is believed by some military men that cavalry will actually be used in the invasion of the Middle East just as Ezekiel and other prophets literally predicted."”
“The Old Testament: In the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia” by Theophilus G. Pinches; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1908
“714 B.C. saw the continuance of the war with Ararat and its allies, and seems to have resulted in its becoming an Assyrian province. In 713 expeditions were made, among other places, to west Media and Cilicia. In 712 B.C. he found himself obliged to proceed against Tarḫunazi of Meliddu, who, driven from his capital by the Assyrians, shut himself up in Tilgarimme, which had been identified with the Biblical Togarmah. This city, having been conquered, was repeopled with the nomad Sutî 2 and placed under Assyrian rule.”
“Rand McNally Bible Atlas” by Emil G. Kraeling; Rand McNally, 1956
“TOGARMAH. Tegarama in Hittite inscriptions, Tilgarimmu in Assyrian texts. City and principality in E. Cappadocia.”
“The Sermons, Epistles and Apocalypses of Israel's Prophets: From the Beginning of the Assyrian Period to the End of the Maccabean Struggle” by Charles Foster Kent; C. Scribner's Sons, 1910
“Togarmah is probably an Armenian name. Paras is very probably the Parsua of the Assyrian inscriptions, and Gomer has been very plausibly identified with a Cimmerian people near the Black Sea, designated on the inscriptions of Asshurbanipal, by the name! Gumur. Hence the wild barbarian host which Ezekiel here pictures represent in his thought the entire heathen world, and their overthrow marks the establishment of Jehovah's authority over the whole world to its uttermost bounds.”
“A History of Israel: From the Exodus to the Fall of Jerusalem, 586 B.C. Vol. 1” by Theodore H. Robinson; Clarendon Press, 1932
“...where Togarmah, in northern Syria, is named as a place from which the Israelites obtained their horses.”
I have various other examples of quotes. Togarmah, has been said to be nearly everything. Wikipedia can not be build on such speculative and Biblical references.
As for the History of Azerbaijan, call me what you want, that entry is a nationalistic whole with mythologies taken as facts. I will address that issue later, it is late right now, and I need some sleep. Fadix 04:07, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
Now, you state that Togarmah is an "Old Testament" term, and that is correct. But as your own sources stated, and as you should know, there was an ancient entity there known in Hittite as Tegarama (Assyrian Til-Garimmu). If anyone in the area would have observed and recorded traditions surviving connecting with various peoples at that time, it could have been the Armenians or the Kurds; so I feel it is essential not to summarily dismiss or brush off these local traditions. If Armenian historiographers in the year 200 AD recorded a legend that Haik was a son of Togarmah, for instance, that is precisely the kind of thing I would think highly significant.
Fadix, Note I am not accusing you personally of suppressing anything; in fact you just added some valuable quotes to the record that I may even be able to make some use of in my own research! Thanks! Codex Sinaiticus 13:52, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
Above, in his response to Codex Fadix wrote: “…This would be Tabib goal to go as far as one can go, just to say: “Looky, no Armenian back then.”
Interestingly, in one of the previous messages Fadix, when falsely accusing me in “putting words on [his] mouth” wrote, “…if you want to be respected by me, do not manipulate what I say and put words in my mouth, this is not a nice thing to do.” [19]
As I said earlier, I will try to ignore as much as I can personal attacks and provocative statements by Fadix aimed at discrediting me, and I expect that you will ignore such comments as well.
Codex, you had very good point on Togarmah, and I agree that certainly such mythological information even if their historical accuracy cannot be established, should be mentioned in various WP entries, including Armenia. But one thing I would like to ask you, is to try NOT to get *dragged* into long and unrelated disputes. This whole Togarmah discussion had nothing to do with N-K entry and as I said many times before, I am against unnecessarily dumping this talkpage with various personal and irrelevant discussions and eventually making it even more confusing and harder to read and to analyze. In normal discussion environment this Togarmah issue would not require that much prolonged discussions, but unfortunately there is no normal discussion environment and therefore, we should be very careful in not getting distracted, and try to be as much concrete and focused on the entry content as possible, because, I believe this is the only way we can discern true and good intentions from the false ones and prevent unnecessary personal conflicts.
At the end, I want to inform you about recent vandalisms by Rovoam this time in Nakhichevan, Karabakh, Kura-Araxes culture and large changes and POV edits in Azerbaijanis. I ask admins to keep thes pages under control and if necessary to protect them too. If he wants to play, we can play by his rules, no problem.-- Tabib 13:37, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
It's been protected for long enough. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 16:59, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
A totally uncontroversial change that needs to be made. The link to Romans in the Origins section needs to be disambiguated. [[ancient Rome|Romans]] should be sufficient. 04:15, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
The editors on the subject should bear in mind that while Armenia has been on the map for 2000 years, the Republic of Azerbaijan is a politically defined sovereign entity for less then 20 years. Azerbaijani Turcs can therefor not be regarded as decisive desisionmakers or fact-establishers , here.-- 我愛你 2 July 2005 08:57 (UTC)
I was expecting to be able to edit this article; since I'm not, I'm entrusting the following small item to someone who can. Someone wrote up a stub this morning reading:
and, in a spirit of neatness and accessibility of information (the actual subject matter itself, I couldn't care less about, nor the controversy), I was going to insert it, tighter and better Englished, somewhere in this article, as a sort of note on (strictly) proper usage, in the spirit in which it was written. To the original writer of the item, I point out that the redirect I created at his page is helpful to getting his point across, since people who use "Nagorno-" would never go to an article "Nagorny K"; if inserted here, it gives his grammatical point (which by the way I can confirm on my own) much greater visibility. — Bill 9 July 2005 10:06 (UTC)
If the scholarly community is to recognize Armenia's and Azerbaijan's declarations of independence from the Soviet Union under the right of self-determination, then why do some Azerbaijani apologists refuse to recognize the declared independence of Karabagh under that very same right of self-determination? In other words, if Azerbaijan itself secedes from the Soviet Union, then what ground does it have to stand on in denying the secession of Karabagh? Brute force? A double standard enforced by western oil interests? -- James, 7/29/2005
Then every region can declare independence and it should be accepted by all countries!!!!
if we concider such situation then number of world countries rise to a tousand in few years, azerbaijan and other soviet republics gained independence because they were recognized by other countries, and also the process of soviet break down was a natural way in the end of an impire break down, in other hand there r differences between independence and occupation, Karabakh is not independent, it is occupied by armenian troops, not by Karabakh people, is armenia allowed to invade and occupy other countries.
Karabakh can't do any thing without armenia, and armenia ca't do any thing without Russian help. armenia has only 3 million people but azerbaijan has more than 8 million population, why azerbaijan can't take its territories back from armenia? because russia helps armenia in many ways.
The recognition of other countries is an arbitrary, silly and insurmountable threshold for independence, and one that would directly nullify self-determination if allowed to stand. If a nation, people or sizeable ethnic group declares its independence from some larger political entity, who is to say that some other nation, power or group of nations should veto it? Here in the United States, for example, we celebrate July 4th as our national holiday, the day we DECLARED our independence -- not the day France recognized our independence, nor the day Cornwallis surrendered, nor the day that Great Britain agreed to U.S. independence -- we agree that the DECLARATION of Independence is the legal marking point of our independence. This is a crucial instance of the universal right of self-determination: independence is decided by the very people who seek it. Any ensuing struggle through war, diplomacy, finance, or international law is only the means by which to secure, protect and/or nurture an independence that already exists, ipso facto, by declaration. Any peoples who declare themselves free are free unless and until they give up that claim.
Some other points:
Yes, the right of self-determination is universal.
-- Posted by James, 8/31/2005
What's wrong with having thousands of countries in the world?!!! Hmmmm, it's very good for more pawerful countries to control the world , a world with tousands of countries is easier to control by U.S. than an united one. --Posted by Hamed 00:19, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Dear readers,
All topics in Wikipedia encyclopedia regarding Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh are bombarded with Azeri propaganda. If you would like to learn anything about Armeian history or Armenians, please use other sources, not Wikipedia. The reason for this is simple, there is an anti-Armenian hysteria in present day Azerbaijan and Wikipedia is a heaven for them to try to change anything Armenian to reflect their hateful point of view.
Dear anti-propaganda!!!!!
If u have a reasonable idea, Wikipedia is a very good place to talk about your ideas, any body can explain his opinions, and Wikipedia doesn't have a racistic filter...Wiki doesn't filter neither Azeris nor Armenians. IF u think here is a heaven for propaganda, then we should consider your opinions as propaganda, because u r now in Wiki!!! :) You can easily say that all other ideas are false, but u should prove ur ideas first. it's a heaven for u, and it's good, but when another idea wants to grow in this cyberspace, it is not good condition for u.
Treaty of Kars link in "See Also" gives background on closed Turkish-Armenian border. look at the borders between armenia and Azerbaijan in map ,given in this link.
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
The following are taken from [Ellen Ray & Bill Schapp, CovertAction, summer 1994, page 36] (Taking into account that our "civilized" friends don't take the "barbarian" turkic/muslim sources into account, we rely on western sources):
"For nearly seven years, a bitter and violent conflict has raged between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabagh, a district of Azerbaijan inhabited by a majority of ethnic Armenians. Contrary to the impression held by many Americans and Western Europeans, in this round of conflict, it is Armenia that has invaded Azerbaijan, Armenia that has occupied a fourth of Azeri territory, and Armenia that has been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations for unlawful aggression.(1) Nonetheless, while editorials in the U.S. and other Western press have deplored the violence on both sides, Armenia is generally depicted as the victim, Azerbaijan as the aggressor, even in news stories.(2) This portrayal, we believe, particularly in the past few years, has stood reality on its head. "
"As the U.S. Committee on Refugees notes "[a]lmost every 'fact' relating to this conflict is in dispute." A few, however, are incontrovertible:
- While Armenia invaded Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan has never invaded Armenian territory.
- Armenian (and some "Karabakh-Armenian") forces currently occupy not just Nagorno-Karabakh, but nearly one-fourth of Azerbaijan.(4)
- One million Azeris, now refugees, fled or were driven from that occupied territory.(5)
- Tens of thousands of Kurds, who have lived for centuries in the region, have also been made refugees. Since 1992, the Armenians have expelled virtually all the Kurds from Armenia,(6) and driven tens of thousands more from the areas of Azerbaijan where they had lived.
(1) Security Council Resolutions 822 (April 30, 1993), 853 (July 29, 1993), 874 (October 14, 1993), and 884 (November 12, 1993).
(2) See, for example, Carey Goldberg, "David and Goliath in the Caucasus," Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1994, p. A1; and Raymond Bonner, "War, Blockade, and Poverty 'Strangling' Armenia," New York Times, April 16, 1994, p. 3.
(4) Alexis Rowell, "U.S. Mercenaries Fight in Azerbaijan," CovertAction, Spring 1994, p. 26.
(5) U.S. Committee for Refugees, Faultlines of Nationality Conflict: Refugees and Displaced Persons From Armenia and Azerbaijan (Washington, D.C.: USCR, March 1994), hereafter USCR Report, also notes some 300,000 displaced Armenians. According to the U.N., in Azerbaijan as of May 1, 1994, there were: 215,000 refugees of Azeri origin from Armenia; 49,000 Turks-Meskhetians from Uzbekistan; 50,000 displaced persons from Nagorno-Karabakh; and 920,000 displaced persons from seven other occupied regions of Azerbaijan. In May, the Azeri government added another 50,000 Azeris.
(6) Kurds made up 1.7% of Armenia"s population. ("You Too, Armenia?" Kurdish Life, No. 9, Winter 1994, published by the Kurdish Library, Brooklyn, N.Y., pp. 1, 2.)"
Armenia and Azerbaijan began fighting over the area in 1988; the struggle escalated after both countries attained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. By May 1994, when a cease-fire took hold, Armenian forces held not only Nagorno-Karabakh but also a significant portion of Azerbaijan proper. The economies of both sides have been hurt by their inability to make substantial progress toward a peaceful resolution. Turkey imposed an economic blockade on Armenia and closed the common border because of the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.
Before we start any problems with above text? -- Cool Cat My Talk 07:48, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Categories are temporary, everything is more than likely to move around significantly. History category will probably be in a timeline format. -- Cool Cat My Talk 08:07, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I want to hear arguments. PLEASE summerise. I do not want to see 150 Kb posts, lets discuss slowly.
While my views are unimportant regarding the article, I placed comments places which I want you to start discussing the matter. -- Cool Cat My Talk 08:28, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Coolcat, thanks for your initiative. In principle, I do not mind you or any other third and neutral party mediating between parties in order to make the final Nagorno-Karabakh page as complete and neutral as possible. However, let me remind you that my earlier appeal to mediation was rejected by Rovoam (btw, in rather rude terms). ( [1]). So, if he didn't accept mediation then, I do not see a reason why he would accept mediation now.
Moreover, Rovoam's actions, his personal insults and vandalisms have created totally new circumstances, which convinced me that we cannot achieve any progress if we choose Rovoam as a party to mediation or discussion. My case against Rovoam is still being considered by the ArbCom ( [2]) but one thing is already clear: this person completely discredited himself by blatant vandalisms, personal attacks and threats. I do not expect anything positive from a person who vandalized many Azerbaijan-related pages and then said: "Try block my IP address! Try! I will get another one. Plus, I will bring here a hundred friends from all over the world. I will destroy the idea of Wikipedia!" ( [3]) And this is just only one example of his numerous outrageous words and deeds...
In short, I do not mind mediation in principle, but I do not accept Rovoam as a party to this mediation. I expect that ArbCom should block him for a long period of time as a punishment for his actions. In fact he was blocked, but then was unblocked to be able to present evidences in his defense (which he did not).
I would very much prefer to discuss the page content development with User:Aramgutang, an Armenian editor in Wikipedia, who unlike Rovoam is very moderate. I also welcome any other editors, whether Armenian, Azeri, pro-Armenian, pro-Azeri or neutral, who would demonstrate good will and intentions to proceed further. However, one important point that needs to be made here is that any subsequent discussion should not be started from scratch. This means that any subsequent discussion should take into consideration and benefit from previous 200-page-long discussions which contain lots of factual material and arguments from the various parties involved. If we do not keep up to this principle, we will get stuck in endless,fruitless and confusing discussions, which would provide excellent grounds for various propaganda pushing. -- Tabib 11:45, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
I picked him because his nick registered in the discussion, I welcome any parties who wants to get involved. I want to make both sides talk to each other and come up with common gorunds. If he learend his leson that vanalising is bad for health he is welcome to return, else I will handle him. -- Cool Cat My Talk 17:26, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just wanted to let you know that I would be quite willing to constructively debate the issue with Tabib or anyone else, however I have recently been finding myself very short of time I can allocate for Wikipedia, and I probably won't be able to contribute to this discussion much for at least a week or so. I'm happy to see that the debate is moving in a more organised and constructive fashion now, thanks to Coolcat, and the actual N-K article looks acceptable for Wikipedia, even if far from perfect. -- Aram գուտանգ 05:39, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Can you spit out already established concensious for me? The archives are a big mess... I prefer this format, also include who suggested the argumnent who supported who was against it. I also want your counterpart to confirm the concensius you suggested so as not to have a later conflict. -- Cool Cat My Talk 21:44, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
By starting from scratch I mean that you and old parties to forget older hostilities and dont refer back to those. vandalist people ofcourse is a different matter. Is there anything in the archives that needs to be added to the article? -- Cool Cat My Talk 07:15, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC) I was also asking this to make sure nothing was lost during the constant vandal attacks. -- Cool Cat My Talk 07:35, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Please use the folowing color code and indention, this will make it easier for all parties. Each argument should be a seperate category. User:Coolcat/mediat
I will not add anything on my own. How about either party present their case here? -- Cool Cat My Talk 01:08, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
What's wrong with existing (current) version of the article:
Rovoam 07:13, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm just a user trying to be impartial, please don't anyone get petty with me if you don't like something I said. But if you find merit in the above suggestions, I suggest they be implemented to resolve the edit dispute to everyone's satisfaction, or at least in such a way that anonymous parties don't keep reverting or vandalizing the page out of frustration. signed, Codex Sinaiticus 20:22, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
Dear fellow Wikipedians,
ArbCom's has finally issued its decision on two-months-long dispute between me and Rovoam, as well as me and Baku Ibne/Osmanoglou/LIGerasimova.
Please see, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Baku_Ibne,_et_al.#Final_decision -- Tabib 18:56, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
Tabib. Do you have a counterpart for this article? -- Cool Cat My Talk 01:58, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Peace and Greetings to all readers,
I formally object User:RaffiKojian’s recent edit [8] in which Raffi removed (commented out) a number of accurate historical facts and introduced some formulations which do not correspond to Wikipedia NPOV standarts.
Moreover, as stated above, this is a *controversial topic* and anyone should read the previous talks and discuss his proposed changes before introducing substantial changes.
Raffi has commented out (virtually deleted) the following paragraph
This paragraph is absolutely accurate and neutral and Raffi’s removal of this paragraph is unacceptable.
Before elaborating further on this, I want to inform you and everyone else, that the comment “Possible propaganda” was introduced by User:Coolcat (see, diff link here), who although had good intentions but unfortunately did not have enough knowledge of the issue. I regret that I did not address this erroneous comment then, because I refrained from unilateral un-agreed edits.
Anyway, now I think it is proper time to address the issue of Allies’ de-facto recognition of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan in 1919.
In order to make my arguments more evidently, I will rely mostly on what Armenian sources themselves say about this issue.
Below are excerpts from the Armenian [www.nkrusa.org "NKR Office in Washington, DC"] web-site:
And here’s another paragraph, which falsely depicts the history in such as way as if the British recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan only because of their oil (whereas it was much more complex than that):
The Armenian source above is certainly not a "pro-Azeri" by recognizing these facts. In fact it is evidently pro-Armenian and by its false formulations and interpretations, tries by all means possible to diminish the role of the historical fact that Allies in fact have recognized Karabakh as a de-facto part of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918-1920). Btw, this republic was one of the three republics (the other two being Armenian and Georgian Democratic Republics) which emerged following the collapse of the Russian Empire at the end of the World War I. These countries were never recognized de jure but they were recognized de facto by the Supreme Council of the League of Nations.
In short, the removal by User:RaffiKojian of the above mentioned paragraph was not only unexplained, but also unsubstantiated and erroneous. I call him and everyone else, not to introduce unilateral un-agreed and one-sided changes. Bearing in mind that this is a controversial topic, one should first read the talkpage, then make his case, and only after that introduce his edits. This is the only way which could bring to some positive results. I appeal to Raffi and everyone else, lets behave honestly and in a civilized manner and not allow vandals like Rovoam to poison the atmosphere of discussion here. -- Tabib 17:38, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
I had no idea the page was about to get suddenly locked, and it did while I was in the middle of playing around with the beginning and ending of the comment indicators. Raffi had commented out the entire provocative sentence and left it as a comment; if you look at the history you can see where he actually wrote a good deal more that was far less neutral, and I tried to put selected parts of it into the body of the actual article text, in order to work with it - then it inadvertently got frozen that way. So I apologize to all for any trouble I may have stirred up without meaning to. That should teach me not to mess with people's comments. Humbly yours, Codex Sinaiticus 03:24, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Rovoam has gone beyond the pale and is reverting simply to make some kind of point [9]. Because he is virtually unblockable and rather obsessive, I have protected this article and quite a few others. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 18:13, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
Tony, is there a way for you to restore the initial NPOV paragraph removed by User:RaffiKojian? I have explained my concerns about his edit above. Since the page was protected, I have restored this paragraph simultaneously keeping subsequent helpful edits by User:Codex Sinaiticus under User:Tabib/Nagorno-Karabakh. Please, see if you find my request to put that NPOV version appropriate/possible.
Also, please, look at the Nagorno-Karabakh entry and you'll see that Raffi himself introduced his POV paragraph in such a way which even visually doesn't incorporate itself into the remaining text.
Just for records: Tony has protected a whole bunch of pages, which underwent Rovoam's vandalisms including Caucasian Albania, Artsakh, Azerbaijan, Arran (Azerbaijan), Safavids, Turkey, Urartu. This was definitely a needed action and has my full support.-- Tabib 19:08, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
"...My impression is that despite Fadix’s declaration that he is “done with this entry”, I will have to endure his continuous posts, whether relevant or irrelevant to the subject matter, for quite a long time. So, we will have time for further elaborations if needed.
(from my post dated Mar 12, 2005 [10])
Looks like I was not wrong in my guess. User:Fadix once again advances his ungrounded comments and accusations and definitely is not “done” with this entry.
As I have repeatedly insisted, I do not want to turn the talkpage into a personal discussion forum, any personal notes should be directed to user talkpages. But once again I have to respond to Fadix in order not to allow him to discredit me and convince others in his false accusations. Recently, I responded to User:Fadix in Talk:Safavids where he introduced a POV edit. Please, see Talk:Safavids#User:Fadix_POV_edit_and_groundless_accusation. To this I would only add that Fadix from his very first message attacked me calling me a “hypocrite” ("I find rather hypocritic from your part to tell us all here how you have proved this or that and how you are attacked..." [11]). Certainly, such a start and attitude does not allow for normal discussions to proceed. Then I have sufficiently responded to Fadix's allegations in my posts Talk:Nagorno-Karabakh/Archive2#Another_attempt_at_manipulation_with_the_historical_facts, Talk:Nagorno-Karabakh/Archive2#Serious_concern_about_User:Fadix.92s_latent_.28for_now.29_POV_pushing as well as Talk:Nagorno-Karabakh/Archive2#Deja_vue:_Fadix_and_Rovoam. That’s it about the history of my (unpleasant) experience with User:Fadix.
Now coming to his allegations regarding the content:
Fadix writes,
Whether it was a temporary decision and what were the intentions of the Allies, these are secondary details. The fact that matters now is that Karabakh was actually recognized as a de facto part of Azerbaijan by the Allies. And Fadix himself cannot escape from denying this fact. Certainly, this was a temporary decision, pending final solution in Peace Conference, as I have sufficiently demonstrated in my previous message. But I already said that the issue is not about de jure recognition but a de facto recognition. Moreover, I have to repeat again that the three Caucasus republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia themselves were not recognized de jure, only de facto by the Supreme Council of the League of Nations.
Fadix writes,
Again, we see a deliberate attempt at confusing people. Fadix tries to portray my position as if I was saying that Karabakh was recognized by the Allies as part of Azerbaijan de jure. Here I bring the initial paragraph which was deleted by Raffi again:
As you see, it’s talking only about de facto recognition. De jure is not mentioned because even Armenia and Azerbaijan themselves were not recognized de jure. Therefore, Fadix simply plays with words, and argues just for the sake of creating a mess and confusion and discrediting me in your eyes. Subsequently, it would be very easy for certain editors to use this confusion and advance their biased POVs.
Further down in Fadix’s post, we see lots of irrelevant to this talkpage comments like, “As for the temporary decision, those temporary decisions would never have been what they were, if the British were to know what was to happen in the future...” (very interesting comment indeed) or “What happened was that the British have redrawn from there, and America did not honor its promise to secure an Armenia.” (complaining about Allies "betraying" Armenia) or “...if the allies recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, the allies recognized many other lands as part of Armenia... and they were unlike Karabakh not temporary decisions, BUT final decisions.” (how so?..) "..many such distortions recycled by ultra nationalist so-called historians close to Aliev dictatorial propaganda machine..." (does it remind you something?..), "It seems as well, that you are a follower of Ziya Buniatov, that was the head of Azerbaijans Academy of sience, who has manipulated..." (talking about an Azeri historian), "...isn't it amazing that each time I visit entries you got involved, I read nonsense and historical manipulations?" (equalling my contributions to nonsense and manipulations) etc etc.
These comments have no relation to the particular issue in question (i.e. Allies’ de facto recognition of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan) and concern mostly the Armenian-Turkish issues, in which Fadix “specializes”.
In short, I ask User:Fadix once again to stop advancing ungrounded accusations on my address. I am prepared to discuss any question regarding this entry with him provided that he focuses not on personal issues but solely on concrete questions relevant to the Nagorno-Karabakh entry. I would also appreciate very much, if Fadix focuses on one issue in a time and do not try to embrace a wide range of issues. This would avoid confusion and facilitate more effective discussions.-- Tabib 06:24, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
De facto recognition doesn't mean the same as "temporary recognition". It means recognising something because it is already a fait accomplis (justly or unjustly) - as opposed to recognising something because it is lawfully accomplished through due process (de jure).
A helpful historical example is the Norman conquest of England in 1066. William, duke of Normandy, asserted his "right" to rule as King of England based on both arguments, that he claimed were equally valid. He claimed to be king de jure, because the crown had been promised to him by Edward the Confessor. He also claimed to be king de facto, by reason of military conquest. Regards, Codex Sinaiticus 17:08, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Which is what I've been saying. The British had a mandate in Karabakh, and were more interested to redraw their men from there, so they placed Karabakh temporarly in the juridiction of Azerbaijan until the peace conference(the only two reasonable reasons why it was not right away placed under the juriction of Armenia, was because they had to secure their oil interest, and because they could not manage a constant men power to secure it), since during that time, the Americans were discussing to replace the British to secure an Armenia. Wilsons proposition was to end up by the drawing of borders only once the Americans were to replace the British, this never happened. This means, that Karabakh was never recognized by the allies, in any possible way as being a part of Azerbaijan at that time. In fact, the decision of temporary measures was completly at the hand of the British, and there are no evidence what so ever, that it was supported by the rest of the allies, the League of Nations for example has completly refused the inclusion of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, and the allies beside the British plan to redraw, were just waiting, because the most possible scenario was self administration. Fadix 18:21, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Most of my comments are addressed to User:Fadix, who apparently hastily overreacted by passing off Codex’s comments as support for his POV. I think it is necessary to bring clarity to certain issues.
Codex wrote,
Right, it doesn’t mean the same. But please, pay attention to the formulation: “Karabakh's de facto ownership by Azerbaijan was recognized in 1919 by the Allies” This is a very accurate and balanced depiction indeed. It talks not about some vague recognition but *de facto ownership*.
Furthermore, Codex wrote,
Again, correct. But this is actually a comparison between de facto and de jure, whereas the real controversy is not on this point but on whether de facto may also mean “temporary”. My argument is that *de facto* may also mean *temporary* in cases when let’s say, some authority/organization adopts temporary decision supporting status quo (e.g. de facto ownership) while simultaneously, deciding to solve the issue in the (near) future. Thus, in our particular case, the Allies recognized that Azerbaijan holds de facto ownership/jurisdiction over Karabakh, they recognized the local general governor Khosrov-bek Sultanov, appointed by the Azerbaijan government and also decided that the final status issue will be solved in the Paris Peace Conference. These are the DRY FACTS. And I can’t understand, how Fadix contrives to deny these facts and manages to confuse you.
I think amidst these word games we get distracted from the essence of the problem. I want to remind everyone that the primary problem I raised was unsubstantiated removal of a paragraph, which was factually correct and rather neutral by User:RaffiKojian and its replacement with a obvious POV and factually inaccurate paragraph. Unfortunately, following Tony’s protection of the page from vandalisms by Rovoam, remained in the page content.
I have already explained in my post above why the paragraph introduced by Raffi was a POV and factually inaccurate. So, this paragraph should be removed in the first place.
As to the initial paragraph, it seems that Fadix himself does not reject the fact that Karabakh was provisionally considered as part of Azerbaijan by the Allies in 1919-1920. It seems that the source of dispute is formulation of the fact rather than the fact itself.
Let’s go step by step:
Fadix prefers the formulation “Nagorno-Karabakh was temporarily placed in the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan”. (at least, that's how he termed this in his post)
I prefer the formulation “Karabakh's de facto ownership by Azerbaijan was recognized in 1919 by the Allies”
Both Fadix and I agree on important issue: the Allies decided that the ultimate status of Karabakh was not determined and was pending final decision in Paris Peace Conference.
We disagree on formulations.
My argument is that de facto is the most correct term, whereas “temporary jurisdiction” is also correct to a certain degree, but also is misleading. Here I agree with Codex, that temporary is not quite the formulation to introduce here.
The problem here is essentially in semantics:
See, if we write, Nagorno-Karabakh was temporarily placed in the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan”, we imply that there was a special decision by the Allies about “placing” Karabakh within Azerbaijan. Whereas everyone, including Fadix, would agree that there was no such decision from the Allies. Allies, simply *recognized* the Azeri government as having de facto control/ownership over the territory. And they also recognized that general governor Khosrov bek Sultanov was the head of the local administration in Karabakh. And this is EXACTLY what the paragraph said when it stated that “Karabakh's de facto ownership by Azerbaijan was recognized in 1919 by the Allies”
Fadix wrote: ... the claim that the allies recognized (de facto for temporary doesn't apply, since de facto, there was other propositions recognizing it as part of Armenia as well) Karabakh is simply WRONG, and placing it in the article is simply the sort of lies that Azerbaijani Academia of science has forged, and you as their followers, you're good at propgandizing national myths.
Fadix, I am not going to respond to your false personal accusations here, but you are simply wrong. It is a fact, that neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan and Georgia were recognized de jure in the Versailles, as I said, these republics were recognized only de facto: a statement by the Supreme Council of the League of Nations on de facto recognition was issued in early 1920.
Also, Fadix probably did not read my posts attentively if he continues to ask:
I believe, I have sufficiently addressed this issue by bringing namely Armenian sources which attested that Karabakh was recognized by the Allies as a de facto part of Azerbaijan, and I also clearly stated that this was a *temporary decision* pending final confirmation in Paris Peace Conference. Bringing same questions over and over again does not help the discussion an have a disruptive effect confusing other editors, and forcing me to repeat the same facts and arguments stated before.
Anyway, here's some additional evidence, this time maps:
http://www.hri.org/docs/sevres/map1.html - This is a map of Turkey after Treaty of Sevres (which Turkey never recognized). You can clearly see, that Karabakh area is indicated as part of Azerbaijan. However, most importantly, the map does not contain the border limitations. This makes on think that the borders were not determined de jure but Karabakh was considered as part of Azerbaijan de facto.
http://www.hri.org/docs/sevres/map3.html - Here’s another map concerning Sevres Treaty, which shows the territories “assigned” by President Woodrow Wilson to Armenia (the boundaries clearly exclude Karabakh, although include Nakhichevan)
http://www.atlas-of-conflicts.com/areas/armenia-and-karabakh/maps/armenia-and-turkey.jpg - Here’s another map from Atlas of Conflict web-site. It’s useful but not an academic source.
Also, http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/61_folder/61_articles/61_chronology.html chronology of major events in Azerbaijan in 1918-1920 which also contains a map showing the official borders of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
In short, I believe that it is enough to play with words. The facts are there and any attentive reader can make his/her conclusions. I request Tony to remove paragraph by RaffiKojian and restore the paragraph commented out by him.-- Tabib 00:22, May 12, 2005 (UTC)
Tabib: Beneath is the paragraph you want restored, with a couple of amendments I would submit, based on your above conversation. At one point you used the word 'provisionally' - much more apt here than 'temporarily' recognised, so I thought we'd give it a try.
Evidently, from listening to both 'sides', the recognition by the Allies was both provisional AND de facto, so why not spell this out with both terms in the sentence, since each construes a slightly different descriptor?
The second addition I would make is your word-for-word statement above, that you say both you and Fadix agree on: "the Allies decided that the ultimate status of Karabakh was not determined and was pending final decision in Paris Peace Conference" If you agree to this, it might provide some balance if we also spelled that out in the article. So I envisage something like this:
I've removed a section in which Fadix and Tabib once again engaged in mutual personal attacks, generating more heat than light, on the pretext of discussing the subject of this article.
Please, both of you, consider the aims of this project--to make a better encyclopedia. You must not use this discussion page for the purpose of casting doubt upon one another's good faith--if that is of so much interest to you I suggest you go to RFC or RFAR.
I consider the behavior of both of you to be at present actively detrimental to the project and am close to considering you to be at the point where someone else must take some action. This isn't the case at present. So please, don't let me (and Wikipedia) down. Tone down the rhetoric, show some respect for one another, and discuss the article and not one another.
I am not interested in your self-justifications. Please demonstrate that you can treat one another with respect. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 16:30, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Tony, most of the huge section you deleted was indeed, the same tiresome personal attacks on each other that we can do without. But I did notice some important relevant comments in the following little section, that are worth preserving from Fadix (addressed to Tabib):
Codex Sinaiticus 16:52, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Tabib, I wouldn't be so hasty in declaring it to be a "historical fact" from which there can be no deviation, that Armenia "never existed" until the 2nd C. BC. We are not a society of cadres you may be accustomed to, we just don't say things like 'there can be no diferent positions'... Especially when the different positions are literally, carved in stone:[ [13]]
respectfully, Codex Sinaiticus 21:23, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Codex, I want to clarify what I said once again: I did not say “Armenia never existed until 2nd c. BC”, I said “there was no Armenia [in 600 BC]” and that “the first Armenian kingdom was formed in 2nd c. BC”. I also argued that Karabakh was not part of Urartu neither in 600 BC, nor in 6th century BC. The factual accuracy of these facts are indisputable and only these facts directly relate to the subject matter of this talkpage.. Because, they clearly show that the factual accuracy of Fadix’s statements like ‘Karabakh [area] was part of Armenia in 600 BC [or 6th century]’ (which stirred up this whole new discussions) is highly questionable, to put it mildly.
Now, as to the the question of “different positions being carved in stone”. Unfortunately, the history of the region is so complex that for a person who doesn’t know the details and peculiarities, it’s very easy to be confused and misled. I want to undeline that I did not want to refer to those details in my earlier post, since these are not directly relevant to N-K entry, but *I actually expected* that there may arise this question of ‘Armenia’ and Behistun. So, if this question is raised, it needs further elaboration.
The key here is that Armenia, which is an exonym (Armenians themselves call their country ‘Hayastan’ and themselves ‘Hayk’) derives its name from Urartu. The Behistun inscriptions really included the name “Armenia” (or rather, “Armina”, to be more correct). But, however strange it may seem at first, this ‘Armina’ mentioned in Behistun inscriptions actually referred to Urartu and not to *Armenia* in its ethnic or political meaning. Thus, the trilingual Behistun inscription (521 BC) referred to what you named “Armenia” as ‘Armina’ in Old Persian and ‘Harminu’ in Elamite, AND as ‘Urashtu’ ( Urartu) in the Babylonian version. Being the first recorded mention of this name (Armina, Harminu --> Armenia), the Behistun inscription has perpetuated the equation of Urartu and Armenia for the posteriority.
So, as you see Codex, the “Armenia” mentioned in Behistun inscriptions is not quite the same Armenia that came into being later in 2nd century BC.
At the end, I would like to briefly restate that contrary to repeated claims, Karabakh area was never part of the ancient Urartu kingdom. All claims to the contrary are constructed based the cuneiform inscription found near Khojaly (N-K), which evidences that king Sardur II’s troops reached Urtekhini (possibly, the Urartian name for Artsakh). However, there is no evidence that this territory was secured under Urartu, because of its geographical distance and also because of constant wars between Urartu and Assyrians. During my previous communication with Rovoam, I have briefly addressed Urartu issue ( [14]) and have posted two maps of Urartu from independent web-sources, which clearly showed that Urartu’s borders did not include Karabakh area. Now I am posting yet another map, this time from an Armenian web-site ( [15], very nice web-site, btw), which once again clearly shows the borders of Urartu and clarifies once again whether these borders included Karabakh area. -- Tabib 14:46, May 13, 2005 (UTC)
Since there seems to be quite a lot of pressure to edit this article, I'm unprotecting it. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 11:28, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
As Rovoam seems to want the article protected on what he thinks of as "Tabib's version" I've done that and created a working copy of the article at Nagorno-Karabakh/Temp.
The rules for the working copy are slightly different from editing a normal article. Basically you should regard it as a sandbox. Don't worry if someone vandalizes it or whatever, just pick a starting version from the history and edit it however you like. Use it for trying out and demonstrating ideas. If there is reasonable support for an edit, ask an administrator to perform it on the main article.
Use this history link to select a version of the working article to start with. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 17:38, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Fadix, amidst these long and wordy messages, you still choose to focus on personalities (be it Tabib or “nationalist Turkish and Azeri historians”) and make allegations without actually bringing any single tangible reference when it comes to your arguments or any diff links when you accuse me in “propagandizing” and “manipulations” in some entry.
Once again I do ask you to leave personal remarks aside and to focus solely on subject matter of this entry (N-K content). Personal accusations and irrelevant comments distract this discussion even further, prolong the talkpage and make it even more confusing and harder to read and to analyze. This is not in my interest, and should not be in yours or anybody’s interest either if your intentions are good. I also do ask you not to *distort* my words and not to demand improper “explanations” from me regarding irrelevant things. For example, I did not say or even imply “The history of the region in BC, is not something that can be called indisputable”, and also, I am not “playing with Armenian history” and above all, I do not have to “explain” (?..) “why Armenian is classified as a Thraco-Phrygian subfamily by many scholars..”, at least because, it has nothing to do with the page content we’re dealing with here. I also ask you to stop your defamatory comments about Azeri and Turkish historians (“...Azerbaijani Academia of science would propagandize” “nationalist Azeris and Turkish historians”, “...type of things published in Turkish and Azeris literature that you try to sell to others.” etc etc. in just one last message of yours…). I want to warn you that such statements can be construed as personal attacks, indirectly and implicitly directed against me.
I have substantially addressed Urartu issue and have also posted maps, from neutral and even from Armenian sources, showing that Urartu’s borders did not include Karabakh area. Urartu’s troops reaching Artsakh is not the same as Artsakh being part of Urartu. Just read a bit about history of Urartu and you would see that after Sardur II (whose troops did reach Artsakh but did not stay there) Urartu was invaded by Assyrians and ever since it was on the fall getting smaller and smaller. Moreover, you cannot claim that Urartu was an *Armenian* state. It is certainly a part of ancient history of modern Armenia (because of the same geography) and also, ancient Armenians have inherited a lot from the Urartians both culturally and perhaps racially. However, these were completely two different ethnic-linguistic groups.
I think, the whole problem here when it comes to Urartu and its borders is that Urartu and Urartians are the same for contemporary Armenians as Caucasian Albania and Albanians for contemporary Azeris. Calling Urartu an “Armenian state” would be same as calling Caucasian Albania as an “Azeri state”. In the past, Fadix has also accused me in POV edits in Urartu entry. You can see my edit and make your judgment [18].
I am really tired of these whole pointless and ungrateful discussions. Fadix, in my last message addressed to you, I have already asked you to use working copy set up by Tony ( Nagorno-Karabakh/Temp) to introduce the changes you suggest to the entry so that we could discuss it point-by point. I believe this is the only way we can get rid of such counterproductive discussions and move forward. Hope you treat my suggestion positively.-- Tabib 15:39, May 14, 2005 (UTC)
Fadix, you just now wrote:
Now directly above that, you described "Urartu" as a multicultural "Empire", because it was really composed of numerous ethnicities, of whom the Armenian element were one.
It could similarly be said that "Albania" was a multicultural "Empire" on the same grounds, since it too was composed of numerous ethnicities [at least some of whom were surely related to Turks...]
The rise of the Armenian element to dominate within Urartu ( with more Phrygian cousins immigrating as well ) may even be directly compared to the rise of the Turkish element to dominate within Albania, a few centuries later (again, with more cousins immigrating)...
I think Tabib meant to show that he understands this, when he wrote:
Calling Urartu an “Armenian state” would be same as calling Caucasian Albania as an “Azeri state”.
To me, the evidence looks pretty good that the Armenian elements began to dominate the region of Urartu as early as 6th c. BC; also, that the Turkic elements began to dominate the region of Albania as early as 100 AD; but neither side seems to want to credit the other with having come to prominence quite so early as this... Both sides seem to want to minimize the historical existence of the other...
Another question: if the Armenians trace their ancestry to Tegaramah, wouldn't this make them originally Turks themselves?
Regards, Codex Sinaiticus 09:39, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
I thought the entry was about history and not mythologies regarding Noah, and his Sons. In that regard, the Albanians had even their Noah descents founding the Caucasian Albania land, inspired from Haiks story. Besides, Togarmah was an old testament term, and the misleading character with the Turks, is nothing surprising as any other such Biblical terms. I am an agnostic, so I expect Wikipedia to not become a myth whole.
“Atlas of the Bible” by L. H. Grollenberg, Joyce M. H. Reid, H. H. Rowley; Nelson, 1956
“Beth- togarmah, city or region which sold horses and mules to Tyre, Ezk 27:14; according to Ezk 38:6, sit. in the N; associated with Gomer, as in Gn 10:3 = 1 Ch 1:6 (Togarmah); ment. in Hittite texts.”
“Geographical Companion to the Bible” by Denis A. Baly; McGraw-Hill, 1963
“Beth- togarmah. Unknown.”
“Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric” by Stephen D. O'Leary; Oxford University Press, 1998
“Finally, Beth- togarmah, or Togarmah, is identified with the Cossacks of Southern Russia. Lindsey views this as significant since the Cossacks have historically been noted for their horsemanship, and Ezekiel refers specifically to the destruction of the horses of the invading army of the northern kingdom. "Today they [the Cossacks] are reported to have several divisions of cavalry. It is believed by some military men that cavalry will actually be used in the invasion of the Middle East just as Ezekiel and other prophets literally predicted."”
“The Old Testament: In the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia” by Theophilus G. Pinches; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1908
“714 B.C. saw the continuance of the war with Ararat and its allies, and seems to have resulted in its becoming an Assyrian province. In 713 expeditions were made, among other places, to west Media and Cilicia. In 712 B.C. he found himself obliged to proceed against Tarḫunazi of Meliddu, who, driven from his capital by the Assyrians, shut himself up in Tilgarimme, which had been identified with the Biblical Togarmah. This city, having been conquered, was repeopled with the nomad Sutî 2 and placed under Assyrian rule.”
“Rand McNally Bible Atlas” by Emil G. Kraeling; Rand McNally, 1956
“TOGARMAH. Tegarama in Hittite inscriptions, Tilgarimmu in Assyrian texts. City and principality in E. Cappadocia.”
“The Sermons, Epistles and Apocalypses of Israel's Prophets: From the Beginning of the Assyrian Period to the End of the Maccabean Struggle” by Charles Foster Kent; C. Scribner's Sons, 1910
“Togarmah is probably an Armenian name. Paras is very probably the Parsua of the Assyrian inscriptions, and Gomer has been very plausibly identified with a Cimmerian people near the Black Sea, designated on the inscriptions of Asshurbanipal, by the name! Gumur. Hence the wild barbarian host which Ezekiel here pictures represent in his thought the entire heathen world, and their overthrow marks the establishment of Jehovah's authority over the whole world to its uttermost bounds.”
“A History of Israel: From the Exodus to the Fall of Jerusalem, 586 B.C. Vol. 1” by Theodore H. Robinson; Clarendon Press, 1932
“...where Togarmah, in northern Syria, is named as a place from which the Israelites obtained their horses.”
I have various other examples of quotes. Togarmah, has been said to be nearly everything. Wikipedia can not be build on such speculative and Biblical references.
As for the History of Azerbaijan, call me what you want, that entry is a nationalistic whole with mythologies taken as facts. I will address that issue later, it is late right now, and I need some sleep. Fadix 04:07, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
Now, you state that Togarmah is an "Old Testament" term, and that is correct. But as your own sources stated, and as you should know, there was an ancient entity there known in Hittite as Tegarama (Assyrian Til-Garimmu). If anyone in the area would have observed and recorded traditions surviving connecting with various peoples at that time, it could have been the Armenians or the Kurds; so I feel it is essential not to summarily dismiss or brush off these local traditions. If Armenian historiographers in the year 200 AD recorded a legend that Haik was a son of Togarmah, for instance, that is precisely the kind of thing I would think highly significant.
Fadix, Note I am not accusing you personally of suppressing anything; in fact you just added some valuable quotes to the record that I may even be able to make some use of in my own research! Thanks! Codex Sinaiticus 13:52, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
Above, in his response to Codex Fadix wrote: “…This would be Tabib goal to go as far as one can go, just to say: “Looky, no Armenian back then.”
Interestingly, in one of the previous messages Fadix, when falsely accusing me in “putting words on [his] mouth” wrote, “…if you want to be respected by me, do not manipulate what I say and put words in my mouth, this is not a nice thing to do.” [19]
As I said earlier, I will try to ignore as much as I can personal attacks and provocative statements by Fadix aimed at discrediting me, and I expect that you will ignore such comments as well.
Codex, you had very good point on Togarmah, and I agree that certainly such mythological information even if their historical accuracy cannot be established, should be mentioned in various WP entries, including Armenia. But one thing I would like to ask you, is to try NOT to get *dragged* into long and unrelated disputes. This whole Togarmah discussion had nothing to do with N-K entry and as I said many times before, I am against unnecessarily dumping this talkpage with various personal and irrelevant discussions and eventually making it even more confusing and harder to read and to analyze. In normal discussion environment this Togarmah issue would not require that much prolonged discussions, but unfortunately there is no normal discussion environment and therefore, we should be very careful in not getting distracted, and try to be as much concrete and focused on the entry content as possible, because, I believe this is the only way we can discern true and good intentions from the false ones and prevent unnecessary personal conflicts.
At the end, I want to inform you about recent vandalisms by Rovoam this time in Nakhichevan, Karabakh, Kura-Araxes culture and large changes and POV edits in Azerbaijanis. I ask admins to keep thes pages under control and if necessary to protect them too. If he wants to play, we can play by his rules, no problem.-- Tabib 13:37, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
It's been protected for long enough. -- Tony Sidaway| Talk 16:59, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
A totally uncontroversial change that needs to be made. The link to Romans in the Origins section needs to be disambiguated. [[ancient Rome|Romans]] should be sufficient. 04:15, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
The editors on the subject should bear in mind that while Armenia has been on the map for 2000 years, the Republic of Azerbaijan is a politically defined sovereign entity for less then 20 years. Azerbaijani Turcs can therefor not be regarded as decisive desisionmakers or fact-establishers , here.-- 我愛你 2 July 2005 08:57 (UTC)
I was expecting to be able to edit this article; since I'm not, I'm entrusting the following small item to someone who can. Someone wrote up a stub this morning reading:
and, in a spirit of neatness and accessibility of information (the actual subject matter itself, I couldn't care less about, nor the controversy), I was going to insert it, tighter and better Englished, somewhere in this article, as a sort of note on (strictly) proper usage, in the spirit in which it was written. To the original writer of the item, I point out that the redirect I created at his page is helpful to getting his point across, since people who use "Nagorno-" would never go to an article "Nagorny K"; if inserted here, it gives his grammatical point (which by the way I can confirm on my own) much greater visibility. — Bill 9 July 2005 10:06 (UTC)
If the scholarly community is to recognize Armenia's and Azerbaijan's declarations of independence from the Soviet Union under the right of self-determination, then why do some Azerbaijani apologists refuse to recognize the declared independence of Karabagh under that very same right of self-determination? In other words, if Azerbaijan itself secedes from the Soviet Union, then what ground does it have to stand on in denying the secession of Karabagh? Brute force? A double standard enforced by western oil interests? -- James, 7/29/2005
Then every region can declare independence and it should be accepted by all countries!!!!
if we concider such situation then number of world countries rise to a tousand in few years, azerbaijan and other soviet republics gained independence because they were recognized by other countries, and also the process of soviet break down was a natural way in the end of an impire break down, in other hand there r differences between independence and occupation, Karabakh is not independent, it is occupied by armenian troops, not by Karabakh people, is armenia allowed to invade and occupy other countries.
Karabakh can't do any thing without armenia, and armenia ca't do any thing without Russian help. armenia has only 3 million people but azerbaijan has more than 8 million population, why azerbaijan can't take its territories back from armenia? because russia helps armenia in many ways.
The recognition of other countries is an arbitrary, silly and insurmountable threshold for independence, and one that would directly nullify self-determination if allowed to stand. If a nation, people or sizeable ethnic group declares its independence from some larger political entity, who is to say that some other nation, power or group of nations should veto it? Here in the United States, for example, we celebrate July 4th as our national holiday, the day we DECLARED our independence -- not the day France recognized our independence, nor the day Cornwallis surrendered, nor the day that Great Britain agreed to U.S. independence -- we agree that the DECLARATION of Independence is the legal marking point of our independence. This is a crucial instance of the universal right of self-determination: independence is decided by the very people who seek it. Any ensuing struggle through war, diplomacy, finance, or international law is only the means by which to secure, protect and/or nurture an independence that already exists, ipso facto, by declaration. Any peoples who declare themselves free are free unless and until they give up that claim.
Some other points:
Yes, the right of self-determination is universal.
-- Posted by James, 8/31/2005
What's wrong with having thousands of countries in the world?!!! Hmmmm, it's very good for more pawerful countries to control the world , a world with tousands of countries is easier to control by U.S. than an united one. --Posted by Hamed 00:19, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Dear readers,
All topics in Wikipedia encyclopedia regarding Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh are bombarded with Azeri propaganda. If you would like to learn anything about Armeian history or Armenians, please use other sources, not Wikipedia. The reason for this is simple, there is an anti-Armenian hysteria in present day Azerbaijan and Wikipedia is a heaven for them to try to change anything Armenian to reflect their hateful point of view.
Dear anti-propaganda!!!!!
If u have a reasonable idea, Wikipedia is a very good place to talk about your ideas, any body can explain his opinions, and Wikipedia doesn't have a racistic filter...Wiki doesn't filter neither Azeris nor Armenians. IF u think here is a heaven for propaganda, then we should consider your opinions as propaganda, because u r now in Wiki!!! :) You can easily say that all other ideas are false, but u should prove ur ideas first. it's a heaven for u, and it's good, but when another idea wants to grow in this cyberspace, it is not good condition for u.
Treaty of Kars link in "See Also" gives background on closed Turkish-Armenian border. look at the borders between armenia and Azerbaijan in map ,given in this link.