Slight Leaning Toward Support Of Armenia In Karabakh Conflict Observed In US Media - Study

While the United States is currently preoccupied with its internal troubles such as fighting the pandemic, dealing with the nationwide protests and preparing for the next week's presidential race, the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region did not go unnoticed in the US press, with some outlets openly expressing their support for Yerevan, according to a study conducted by the LexisNexis publishing corporation

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th October, 2020) While the United States is currently preoccupied with its internal troubles such as fighting the pandemic, dealing with the nationwide protests and preparing for the next week's presidential race, the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region did not go unnoticed in the US press, with some outlets openly expressing their support for Yerevan, according to a study conducted by the LexisNexis publishing corporation.

The study demonstrates coverage of the Karabakh conflict in 12 countries � China, France, Georgia, Germany, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom � over the one month period between September 20-October 20.

According to LexisNexis, there were more than 27,000 mentions of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the US media over this period, standing second to Russia with over 80,000 mentions.

As shown in the study's chart, zero percent of the US news articles on the issue assessed the Azerbaijani side to the conflict positively, 11 percent negatively and 89 percent were neutral. The assessment of Armenia in US media stands like this � 8 percent of articles positive, 1 percent negative and 91 percent neutral.

Notably, US President Donald Trump praised the Armenian nation during his campaign rally in Carson City, Nevada, earlier in October, in what became the first public comment on the Nagorno-Karabakh escalation. A few days later, Trump stressed that many Armenians live in the United States, whom he characterized as "great people," and said Washington would help them.

The Armenian community in the United States, second after the diaspora in Russia, amounts to somewhere between 800,000-1.5 million people. Thousands of Armenian-Americans have taken to the streets in Los Angeles and other large US cities in support of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

The US was among the first countries to call on the sides to the conflict to cease hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh. Washington has also brokered a humanitarian ceasefire, the third since the outbreak of hostilities last month, which entered into force on this past Monday.

Tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh originally began when the Armenian-populated region broke off from the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic in 1988.