Do you consider Armenia to be a European, or Middle Eastern, country?
Like Turkey, it is both. I doubt the Armenians would particularly like that comparison, but it’s appropriate in this case.
I can’t see how there’s anything European about it at all. Same goes for Azerbaijan and Georgia. Europe stops at the Caucasus.
They are a Christian nation, and they do have some cultural similarities to ex-Soviet Eastern Europe, but then again there are Christian communities throughout the Middle East (Chaldeans, Levantine Christians etc.) as well and they are never considered European.
Eh, it could go either way. The Europe argument has less to do with religion or cultural affinities, but more the fact that it was once a S.S.R. in the U.S.S.R. and so didn’t fall under the traditional geopolitical definition of the ME. For that matter neither did Georgia or even Azerbaijan, even though the latter had been hacked off a chunk of old Persia. That Armenia and Georgia were once part of the Ottoman state doesn’t even signify much, as Turkey per se wasn’t ( and isn’t ) always included in definition of the ME either, though sometimes it was ( and is ).
But these days the term ME has become more loosely and broadly applied. You can probably go either way with the modern Caucasian states. IMHO it doesn’t make much difference.
Why can’t it be both?
Let’s say it’s a historically Christian nation in the ME, and culturally tends to go a little more with Europe than with the “Muslim states” these days, as does Azerbaijan.
Looking at Armenia on Google Maps… both it and its neighbours Azerbaijan and Georgia have European route numbering on their roads, so I’m willing to bet that they consider themselves European…
FWIW, in the crude racial generalizations of US culture, I think Armenian immigrants to the US were generally lumped into the same category as southern Europeans, i.e., darker-skinned but still white.
Neither. They’re Caucasian.
Neither. It’s in Western Asia.