Following the brilliant anti-Ottoman campaign of 1603-5, Shah ʿAbbās resumed control over the provinces of Yerevan and Nakhchivan, which constituted the core settlement of Eastern Armenians. Yet, feeling that his grasp over the newly conquered territories was still insecure, ʿAbbās applied a scorched earth policy and undertook massive forced resettlements of the local population, especially Armenians, into central Iran. In 1604, the large Armenian community of the city of Julfa
on the River Araxes was forcibly resettled to Isfahan...
