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Legal Spirits 070: Religion & Realism: The New US Role in Armenia

Map: The Conversation

In Episode 70 of Legal Spirits, Center Director Mark Movsesian speaks with Dan Harre, Deputy Director of Save Armenia, about a significant—and controversial—draft agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Brokered last month at the White House, the terms reflect a major realignment in the region: Armenia relinquishes any claim to Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan backs off earlier demands for extraterritorial control, and the United States gains a 99-year lease on a key new transit route.

The episode explores how U.S. foreign policy, Christian advocacy, and strategic infrastructure intersect in the South Caucasus. Dan offers a perspective from within the U.S. advocacy world—one shaped by a broader movement to defend Christian communities in places like Iraq and Syria. The episode also considers how groups like Save Armenia navigate diplomatic tensions between Armenia and Israel, and how this moment relates to past decisions about American involvement in Armenian affairs, including the post-WWI mandate the U.S. ultimately declined.

What role did American Christian organizations play in this deal? What’s in it for the United States? And is this a turning point in Armenia’s future? Listen in!

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Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A Draft Agreement in the Caucasus—and U.S. Engagement

Earlier this month, Armenia and Azerbaijan initialed a draft peace agreement at the White House. The agreement, brokered by the Trump administration, has not yet been signed or ratified, but its key terms are now public—and deeply controversial.

Under the deal, Armenia formally renounces its claims to Nagorno-Karabakh and grants the United States a 99-year lease on a new transit corridor through its southern border, part of what the administration is calling the TRIPP initiative. In return, Azerbaijan pledges to recognize Armenia’s current borders and allow reciprocal, unimpeded transit.

For Armenia, the concessions are painful—particularly after the ethnic cleansing of Karabakh’s Armenian population in 2023. But the deal may offer short-term stability and give Armenia time to rebuild. Christian advocacy groups in the U.S., long concerned about religious prisoners and displaced Christian communities in the region, played a notable role in urging American involvement. President Trump’s public reference to “Christian” detainees was no accident.

In a new piece for First Things, I explore what this draft agreement means for the region, why the U.S. chose to intervene now, and whether the engagement we’re seeing today signals a deeper and more lasting American commitment—or simply a pause before the next crisis.

You can read the full essay here.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

“Liberation” and Ethnic Cleansing

Following on yesterday’s Legal Spirits podcast, I was interviewed today by GB News on UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s appalling statement about Azerbaijan’s “liberation” last year of Nagorno-Karabakh. In fact, Baku ethnically cleansed Karabakh of its 120,000 Christian Armenian inhabitants a year ago, in violation of an order from the International Court of Justice, which ruled that Baku was violating the international anti-racism treaty, and in defiance of a statement from the US that ethnic cleansing would not be tolerated. Well, listeners to the podcast will know my skepticism about international human rights law, which seems to matter only when great powers think it’s in their interest. But statements like Lammy’s are outrageous and incomprehensible.

You can listen to the GB News report at the link below:

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Legal Spirits 063: Ethnic Cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh, One Year Later

Ganzdasar Monastery, a 13th Century Armenian Christian site in Nagorno-Karabakh (Wikipedia)

In September 2023, in violation of an order from the International Court of Justice, Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed the region of Nagorno-Karabakh of its 120,000 Christian Armenian inhabitants. In this episode, human-rights attorney Karnig Kerkonian describes the events of a year ago and efforts to hold Azerbaijan responsible in international forums. He also explains the role that religion, understood as a communal and cultural marker, has had in Azerbaijan’s campaign against Christian Armenians. Listen in.

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Posted on by Mark Movsesian

St. John’s University Panel on Karabakh Next Week

For anyone interested, I’ll be appearing (virtually) this coming Wednesday, November 1, on a panel St. John’s University is sponsoring on the ethnic cleansing of Armenian Christians from Karabakh: “Understanding theNagorno-Karabakh Conflict & Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis.” I’ll join Anna Hess Sargsyan of the Austrian Center for Peace and Artyom Tonoyan of Hamline University. Details below:

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

On Human Rights Hypocrisies

In a new podcast from Parallax Views, I discuss the situation in Karabakh right now. Not for the first time, great power rivalries and human rights hypocrisy have led to the destruction of a vulnerable religious minority–this time, Armenian Christians. The host, J.G. Michaels, and I spend a lot of time on Western hypocrisy, in particular, and how Mideast Christians fail to gain much traction in Western politics. Mideast Christians are too Mideast for the Right and too Christian for the Left. Listen in: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-vdntv-14ba395

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Ethnic Cleansing and the Rule of Law

In COMPACT Magazine today, I write about the ethnic cleansing of Armenian Christians now underway in Karabakh. Largely, what’s happening is the result of great powers looking the other way. Here’s an excerpt:

In fact, the ethnic cleansing of Karabakh probably serves many interests. For the Russians, it’s a way of pressuring Armenia to overthrow its pro-Western government. For the United States and Europe, it ends an embarrassing moral quandary and allows them to continue to curry favor with Azerbaijan and Turkey. Just as Moscow tries to pull Ankara to its side, Washington wants very much to keep Ankara in the NATO tent.

And for Turkey and Azerbaijan, it’s another victory in a plan to eliminate the Armenian Christian presence in the South Caucasus and create a pan-Turkic empire stretching from Istanbul to Central Asia, a dream that goes back to the time of the First Armenian Genocide a century ago, during which the Ottoman Empire killed up to 1.5 million Armenians in mass deportations. In fact, Baku already claims Armenia proper as “Western Azerbaijan”—a country that has never existed—and both it and Turkey insist on a sovereign corridor across Armenia to link Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan. Erdogan promises to “fulfill the mission of our grandfathers in the Caucasus.” Will the United States stop him? Will Russia?

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Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • In Spell v. Edwards, the 5th Circuit affirmed dismissal of a suit brought by Pastor Spell and his church in which they claimed that their First Amendment rights were infringed upon when COVID orders barred their holding of church services.
  • In Riley v. New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., the Southern District of New York dismissed, without prejudice, a suit brought by a Christian nurse who was denied a religious exemption from the COVID vaccine mandate. She alleged that the denial violated her rights under Title VII and the Free Exercise Clause.
  • In Barr v. Tucker, the Southern District of Georgia denied a preliminary injunction sought by a Christian teacher who claimed she was retaliated against when she was terminated allegedly for complaining about books that had illustrations of same-sex couples with children.
  • Suit was filed in the case of The Catholic Store, Inc. v. City of Jacksonville in the Middle District of Florida. Queen of Angels Catholic Bookstore brought the suit to challenge, on Free Speech and Free Exercise grounds, Jacksonville’s public accommodations law, which requires businesses to address customers using their preferred pronouns and titles regardless of a customer’s biological sex.
  • In Din v. State of Alaska, the Alaska Supreme Court reversed dismissal of a suit brought by a Muslim inmate who sued because his requests to pray five times per day using scented oils and to eat halal meat were denied. The court found that the restrictions placed a substantial burden on his free exercise of religion.
  • In Bierig-Kiejdan v. Kiejdan, a New Jersey state appeals court held that a family court judge could not order parties involved in a divorce to return to arbitration to solve issues regarding which religious tribunal should oversee the issuance of a get (Jewish divorce document).
  • The Department of Education (“DOE”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to rescind the Trump administration’s 2020 rules, which protected student religious groups at universities. The rules required public universities that receive DOE grants to grant religious groups all of the rights, benefits, and privileges that other student groups enjoy.
Posted on by Mark Movsesian

A New Book on Christian-Muslim Relations in Syria

With the news of this month’s devastating earthquake, the world is again turning its attention to Syria. The earthquake has deeply affected many of the world’s oldest Christian communities–as well as many of the world’s oldest Muslim communities. A timely book from Routledge, Christian-Muslim Relations in Syria: Historic and Contemporary Religious Dynamics in a Changing Context, explores the relationship between these two faith communities. The author is Andrew W.H. Ashdown, an Anglican priest with long experience in the country. Here’s the description from the publisher’s website:

Offering an authoritative study of the plural religious landscape in modern Syria and of the diverse Christian and Muslim communities that have cohabited the country for centuries, this volume considers a wide range of cultural, religious and political issues that have impacted the interreligious dynamic, putting them in their local and wider context.

Combining fieldwork undertaken within government-held areas during the Syrian conflict with critical historical and Christian theological reflection, this research makes a significant contribution to understanding Syria’s diverse religious landscape and the multi-layered expressions of Christian-Muslim relations. It discusses the concept of sectarianism and how communal dynamics are crucial to understanding Syrian society. The complex wider issues that underlie the relationship are examined, including the roles of culture and religious leadership; and it questions whether the analytical concept of sectarianism is adequate to describe the complex communal frameworks in the Middle Eastern context. Finally, the study examines the contributions of contemporary Eastern Christian leaders to interreligious discourse, concluding that the theology and spirituality of Eastern Christianity, inhabiting the same cultural environment as Islam, is uniquely placed to play a major role in interreligious dialogue and in peace-making.

The book offers an original contribution to knowledge and understanding of the changing Christian-Muslim dynamic in Syria and the region. It should be a key resource to students, scholars and readers interested in religion, current affairs and the Middle East.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Ethnic Cleaning Threatened in the South Caucasus

At First Things today, I have an essay on Azerbaijan’s blockade of Armenian Christians in the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh this Advent. Things look grim, but the Armenians of Karabakh vow to hold on, notwithstanding the real threat of ethnic cleansing.

Here’s an excerpt:

Christians around the world are marking Advent, the period in the church calendar that anticipates Christmas. People are decorating their homes and schoolkids are rehearsing their lines for annual Christmas pageants. It’s a happy, forward-looking time. 

In the South Caucasus this Advent, though, Christians face the threat of ethnic cleansing. Last week, the Azeri government blocked the road that links the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, home to 120,000 Armenian Christians, to the outside world. No supplies have reached Karabakh for days. The local government has rationed food and essential goods and services. Schools have closed. Hospitals warn that they will soon run out of critical medication, but Azerbaijan has indicated that it will shoot down any aircraft that attempt to deliver humanitarian aid. For good measure, Azerbaijan also temporarily cut off the only natural gas pipeline that supplies the region—in the middle of winter, when temperatures are below freezing.

Azerbaijan, which is Turkish in culture and 97 percent Muslim, wishes to end the Armenian Christian presence in Karabakh and force Armenians to cede territory in Armenia proper for a land bridge to Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhichevan on the Turkish border. Karabakh, which is home to centuries-old monasteries and churches, is one of the few places in the Middle East where indigenous Christians still comprise a majority of the population. But that may not be the case much longer. The conflict has the potential to become a serious humanitarian crisis. 

You can read the whole essay here.