Armenians in Nakhchivan
In 1604, Shah Abbas I Safavi, concerned that the lands of Nakhchivan and the surrounding areas would pass into Ottoman hands, decided to institute a scorched earth policy.
He forced the entire local population, Armenians, Jews and Muslims alike, to leave their homes and move to the Persian provinces south of the Aras River.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, residents of 28 Armenian settlements in Nakhchivan converted to Roman Catholicism influenced by preachings of a Dominican priest from Bologna named Bartholomew.
According to official statistics of the Russian Empire, by the turn of the 20th century Azerbaijanis made up 57% of the uyezd's population, while Armenians constituted 42%.
At the same time in the Sharur-Daralayaz uezd, the territory of which would form the northern part of modern-day Nakhchivan, Azeris constituted 70.5% of the population, while Armenians made up 27.5%.
In the final year of World War I, Nakhchivan was the scene of more bloodshed between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, who both laid claim to the area.
Under the terms of the Armistice of Mudros, the Ottomans agreed to pull their troops out of the Transcaucasus to make way for the forthcoming British military presence.
In December 1918, with the support of Azerbaijan's Musavat Party, Jafargulu Khan Nakhchivanski declared the Republic of Aras in the Nakhchivan uezd of the former Erivan Governorate assigned to Armenia by Wardrop.
Meanwhile, feeling the situation to be hopeless and unable to maintain any control over the area, the British decided to withdraw from the region in mid-1919.
Still, fighting between Armenians and Azeris continued and after a series of skirmishes that took place throughout the Nakhchivan district, a cease-fire agreement was concluded.
According to the formal figures of this referendum, held at the beginning of 1921, 90% of Nakhchivan's population wanted to be included in the Azerbaijan SSR "with the rights of an autonomous republic.
The decision to make Nakhchivan a part of modern-day Azerbaijan was cemented March 16, 1921, in the Treaty of Moscow between Bolshevist Russia and Turkey.
The transferal of Nakhichevan from Armenia to Azerbaijan under the 1921 Treaty of Moscow enabled Azerbaijani authorities to gradually carry out ethnic cleansing of Armenians, including forced displacement and destruction of cultural monuments, within the region.
[23][24][25][26][27] Historian Christopher Walker states that Azeri authorities implemented policies aimed to "de-Armenize" the region.
[28][30] That Armenians were a demographic minority in the region was due to their forced deportation under Shah Abbas II in 1604, which according to certain historians, was also a form of ethnic cleansing.
[31][32] The complete elimination of all Armenians and their heritage from has been described in various ways, including "ethnic cleansing",[33] "white genocide"[34] and "Nakhchivanization.
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan claimed in december of 2006 that as the legal successor to the Armenian SSR, Armenia is loyal to the Treaty of Kars which created the Nakhchivan ASSR as part of the Azerbaijan SSR, however that Turkey's actions call into question the validity of the treaty.
