Talk:Nagorno-Karabakh/Archive 3

message: 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. 
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Before we start any problems with above text? --Cool Cat My Talk 07:48, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  CIA Factbook suggets 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Categories 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Initial assesments 

message: 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)
replies: text: Coolcat, I want to reiterate my earlier argument once again: "Starting from scratch" is out of question. I've spent too much time, efforts and nerves on this page, and starting from scratch would be a disrespect to me and also to other editors, who contributed so far to this discussion. Moreover, discarding all previous discussions would be a big mistake namely for the reasons I explained above (last paragraph). Unfortunately, no consensus was reached and could not be reached between me and Rovoam in previous discussions. But, I believe, eventually certain consensus was reached at least between me and other editors, who supported me in my struggle against Rovoam. Most importantly, we with User:Aramgutang both agree that the article as it is today is "acceptable to both sides", although not perfect). My suggestion to you Coolcat, would be to read through the earlier discussion to better understand the topic and the actions needed to be taken. You may also find it useful to look at the ArbCom evidences againts Rovoam to better understand how the conflict with Rovoam and me along with the rest of the editors started (). --Tabib 11:26, Mar 24, 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)
thread_title:  Starting from scratch. 

message: What's wrong with existing (current) version of the article: 
*The very first sentence states that Karabakh is the part of Azerbaijan. This is simply misleading and is not true. The status of Karabakh is not yet determined and it is the main subject of negotiation between Armenians and Azeri. As a matter of fact, Karabakh was only part of the Soviet Azerbaijan, but Soviet Azerbaijan no longer exists.
*The historical name is Artsakh (Armenian: Արցախ). This is the Armenian name, not just referred to by Armenians, as incorrectly stated in the article. Other names are  "Urtehke" or "Urtehini" (as in Urartianian cuneiform writings); Khachen, Small Suinik, etc., etc. The name Karabakh for the first time is mentioned in XIV century (in the Georgian annals of XIV century "Kartlis Tskhovreba" - Life of Georgians in Gergian).
*The history section is totally incorrect and needs to be re-written completely. Armenians can present impressing number of neutral sources which testify, that Armenians prevailed in region during more than millennia. However, the article incorrectly states that Nagorno-Karabakh was one of the historical parts of Aghbania, or Caucasian Albania. But Strabo (born 63 BC or 64 BC, died ca. 24 AD) mentions Orhistene among the Armenian provinces (as well as Phavneni and Kombiseni). Claudius Ptolemaeus (Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαίος; c. 85 – c. 165) in his "Geography" informs, that "Great Armenia is located from the north to a part of Colchida, Iberia and Albania alone the line, which goes through the river Kir (Kura)" (see: Ptolemaeus Claudius, "Geography", V, XII). Plinius Secundos (23–79 AD, better known as Pliny the Elder) writes, that "the tribe of Albanians settled on the Caucasian mountains, reaches … the river Kir making border of Armenia and Iberia" (see Plinius the Second, "The Natural history ", VI, 39). See, for example, Pliny the Elder, The Natural History (eds. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A.).
*The article states that the Albanian Church was under Gregorianization influence in the 7th and 8th centuries (during Arabian ruling). This is complete nonsense! The Albanians adapted Christianity due to the activity of St Gregory the Illuminator (just as Armenians), and for this reason they were called Gregorians and they were always very close to the Armenian Church (both Churches were non-Chalcedonian as they both refused to accept teaching of Council of Chalcedon). Contrary to what is stated in the article,  Albanian Church broke its relationship with Armenian Church when some Armenians bishops attempted (in 590 AD) to accept Council of Chalcedon... Later (in 704 AD ) similar attempt was made by Albanian bishop Nerses Bakur (688 — 704 AD), but that was not successful either.
*The article about Aghbania, or Caucasian Albania is also incorrect, as it was edited by pro-Azeri users, like User:Tabib. I don't care about pro-Azeri or pro-Armenian point of view, but I would like to avoid historically incorrect statements.
*And yes, it is also true, that there was a time when Artsakh became part of Caucasian Albania. After Armenia was devided between Rome and Iran (in 387 AD.) Artsakh (and also part of Paitakaran) has been attached to Aghbania (which itself became a Persian province). Since then this expanded Albania (known as Arran) came to existence (Persian and Arabian Arran, Georgian  Er-Ran), which included the major part of the territory of modern Azerbaijan Republic. However, the area was still rulled by local branch of Parphianian dynasty of Arshakids - the same dynasty, which also rulled in Armenia for centuries.
*The conflict itself is very well described (from the neutral point of view) in the Sovereignty after Empire Self-Determination Movements in the Former Soviet Union. Case Studies: Nagorno-Karabakh. -Publication of the United States Institute of Peace among other conflicts in the former Soviet Union (Osetia, Abhazia, etc.), and it needs to be referrenced as well. 
*Please see:
***Sovereignty after Empire Self-Determination Movements in the Former Soviet Union. Case Studies: Nagorno-Karabakh. -Publication of the United States Institute of Peace
***Pliny the Elder, The Natural History (eds. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A.)
Rovoam 07:13, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Whew!  I've just read through 3 pages of pettiness, because I was trying to find out information about this subject from the wikipedia!  I thought wikipedia existed for people like me, who wanted to find out facts!  All pettiness aside, the above list by Rovoam is a very good list of the problems that cause one side to have a dispute with this article.  I think we should deal with these points one by one and try to find out if either side has any merit.
* 1) Is it misleading to call N-K "part of Azerbaijan"?  In terms of international recognition, no.  In terms of majority population (culturally), perhaps.  In terms of de fact military presence, yes.  So the answer appears to be "yes and no".  I think the article as it stands now already does a fair job of making all this clear to a neophyte like myself.  So I wouldn't recommend any change on this point.
* 2) Everything listed here seems to be covered already in the present article (maybe it was added in since the 2nd April, when he wrote the above, but it's there now).
* 3) Both sides seem to agree that the area was part of Armenia as of 95 BC.  Who had it before that, and when, is really the factual history dispute about this page. (I know this is not directly relevant to the other dispute on the ground today).  One side alleges that it was populated by Albanian tribes prior to 95 BC.  The other side came up with a historical reference that it was Armenian from 600 BC, i.e. about as long as there has been an Armenia.  Armenia's indirect predecessor, Urartu, apparently did NOT control the region before that.  In fact, I have researched plenty of historical evidence that the Kura-Araxes valley was called Arran before that, and was probably the original homeland of the Medes and Indo-Aryans.  I would be very interested to know if anyone can tell us more specifically, what do the Urartean inscriptions say about "Urtehke" and "Urtehini"?  Was it used as the name of a neighboring country?  Was it a vassal paying tribute to Urartu?  Who can tell us?
* 4) On this point, I am inclined to agree with those who find it offensive to speak of "Gregorianization" of the Albanian Church by the Arabs or the Armenian Church, considering that St. Gregory founded both the Albanian and the Armenian Churches in the first place.  The term "Gregorianization" and such like should therefore be avoided and rejected on account of its offensive potential.  Rovoam's account above of how the Churches split and dyophysitism crept into each Church at various times but never prevailed, seems to be the truth.  So by the time the 2 Churches were reunited (evidently from Arab pressure), there was nothing seperating them doctrinally anyway, as both ended up remaining monophysite.
* 5) This should be discussed on the other talk pages for those articles
* 6) Rovoam here concedes that Artsakh was Albanian in 387 AD.  But in fairness, I think it has been amply demonstrated that the area was constantly reverting between Armenia and Albania, both before and after that time, probably going all the way to 600 BC.
* 7) Rovoam suggests an additional link he claims is NPOV; I haven't visted it, but as long as it really is NPOV, we may as well include it on the page if it isn't already there.
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)
thread_title:  The article should be correct regardless of what we agreed or disagreed 

message: Rovoam has gone beyond the pale and is reverting simply to make some kind of point .  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)
thread_title: Protected

message: "...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 )
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..." ). 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,
:That Nagorno Karabakh was temporarily placed in the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan, there is no doubt was the result of the British wanting to maintain their hands on the oilfield in Baku.
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,
:Besides, can you be glad to show me any documents attesting that Nagorno Karabakh was recognized by the allies as a part of Azerbaijan(actually, it was quite the contrary), and not a temporary jurisdiction until there is a drawing of borders? And besides, when did the League of nations during that time, ever recognized it being part of Azerbaijan, in fact, they even refused to recognize it, did they change their mind later? If so, can you be glad to provide me any documents for that? 
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:
:Despite the fact that the Ottomans were defeated in the course of World War I, Karabakh's de facto ownership by Azerbaijan was recognized in 1919 by the Allies, who recognized Khosrov-bey Sultanov (appointed by the Azerbaijan government) as general-governor of Karabakh. Whereas Azerbaijan commended this decision as a recognition of its rights to the territory, the Armenian side criticized it, arguing that this decision was made because of the Allies' economic interests in the oil fields near Azerbaijan's capital, Baku.
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)
:Tabib, again, I repeat, can you be glad to show me ever where the allies have ever recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan in ANY drawn border(which is what recognition is all about)? Let me remind you Tabib, that the allies DID RECOGNIZE Armenia(de jure) before it was dissolved, the Eastern bordering was still pending, and Wilson has proposed borders, the Peace conference DID HAPPEN, neither the League of Nations, neither at the Peace conference was Karabakh recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Even Azerbaijan has redrawed its claim over it, before Armenian rebelled from the Bolshevics, as an answer the Bolshevics took it away.
:The same thing happened before Azerbaijan and Armenia became independent, because of the Armenian independence movement, the Soviet refused to respect the legal proceedings.
:In short, Karabakh was never recognized as part of Azerbaijan, by any treaties from the allies, the eastern zone was still pending, temporary accords until the peace conference are NOT recognition. What is recognition is treaties and bodies such as the Peace conference. 
:Having said that, 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.
:Now coming to the first part, Tabib, my comments about you are not ungrounded, while the positions against me comes generally from the genocide entry, because of national denialists, you had at least one person against your position, in each entries you have obsessionly taken over, besides probably the republic of Azerbaijan. You have edited the Armenian genocide entry, the World War I entry(because of course, it refers to the Armenian tragedy), you've been hijacking the Arran entry, and here I dare any Western Historian specializing to the history of Iran and the East, coming here and telling that your work there is true and not pure national propaganda. You've done the same at the Urartu entry, the same in many other entries. You are very badly placed to call me a POV pusher after everything you did, and you well know, as the reader will realize, that my accusation of you as being hypocrite, was rather dissolved, because I did not say you were a hypocrite, but that I find one of your actions rather hypocritic, which is far from being an attack. But yet, I have been accused from you of being a POV pusher(from the beginning), and you have even used my Armenian background to discredit me, and have even claimed I have fabricated a quote, which I did not fabricate.
:Those things are wide open for anyone to read. Oh, and I almost forgot the way you have tried to question my integrity, with your pathetic guilt by association attempt, but sorry, it did fail. Fadix 15:03, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  On [[User:Fadix]] and his accusations 

message: 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)
thread_title: Protecting again--and working copy set up

message: 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.” 
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)
:Tabib, there is a distinction between putting words in the mouth of someone, and reporting what is observed. There are hardly any articles like Karabakh, or those you got involved in. I have full access to http://www.questia.com/ and other libraries, I have full access to sciencedirect, and various other servers giving me access to abstracts, and their full texts. You come up with claims presented as facts, that are not found in other documents or works, other than few nationalist Azeris historians that write about it, and few authors that use them as references. But like this was not enough, you present them as facts and not as claims, without even indicating that the claim is probably as credible as Santa.
:Your behavior of extensively getting involved in Karabakh and delete and relativise Armenian presence from there is all much telling. More much telling is the Katchin dynasty allusion. Do you even know what Katchin means? K[h]tchin means in Armenian, “of the cross”... it is the dynasty of the Cross, an Armenia “satellite” Dynasty of Albania.
:Oh and, one has to read to see that you're the one getting always personal, while I write and develop, you answer on how I have attacked you. BTW, how many more requests you'll make to administrators everytime someone disagree with you? Fadix 15:19, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Request to Codex and to the admins

message: A totally uncontroversial change that needs to be made.  The link to Romans in the Origins section needs to be disambiguated. Romans should be sufficient.  04:15, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Romans