Center Left Socialist/Nationalist anti-Communist party with operations and legislative seats in Lebanon (since 1943) and the Armenia-created and sustained Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) since 1995.
Party rose as an arch defender and unifier of Armenians persecuted in neighboring Muslim countries and Russia from the late 19th Century past the Armenian Genocide by Turkey.
Party was key to the birth in 1918 of the First Republic of Armenia (absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1920).
Upon Armenia's independence in 1991, the ARF and the Pan-Armenian National Movement (PANM) became the most active political parties.
The ARF was banned and its leaders arrested by the PANM's Levon Ter-Petrosyan in 1994 under trumped-up terrorism charges. Though the party was reinstated in 1999, it's failed to recover and presently has zero seats in the Armenian Assembly [Also known as ARF-Dashnaktsutyun].
