Eastern approaches

Ex-communist Europe

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Still just about frozen

Mar 7th 2011, 17:00 by G.E. | TBILISI

COULD Azerbaijan and Armenia be on the verge of renewed war over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian-populated enclave inside Azerbaijan conquered and occupied by Armenia in 1994? On the face of it, no. On Saturday the presidents of the two countries met to discuss the issue in the southern Russian resort town of Sochi, with Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, acting as honest broker.

They made some pleasant noises. Both parties committed to resolve their differences peacefully, and to implement fully an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war made in October. They also agreed to investigate ceasefire violations, under the aegis of the OSCE.

Such measures could restore some confidence. But they will do little more. Often described as “frozen”, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been warming up. A recent report from the International Crisis Group says that ceasefire violations rose by 53% last year. At least 25 soldiers were killed in skirmishes. Hours before the Sochi talks began, reports emerged of the death of an Armenian soldier from Azerbaijani sniper bullets. In total, 3,000 people have been killed in skirmishes along the boundary line since the May 1994 ceasefire took effect.

Both countries have stepped up their bellicose rhetoric. Ilham Aliev, Azerbaijan's president, warned of war in at least nine separate speeches in 2010, and has shown no sign of letting up this year. His Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargysan, has strongly underlined his country’s readiness to repel any attacks. Recent military exercises in both countries suggest this is not empty bravado.

Moreover, both leaders are putting their money where their mouth is. In oil-wealthy Azerbaijan, defence spending has grown by an average of 50% every year since 2003. This year defence will account for one fifth of Azerbaijan's total public spending, and more than the entire Armenian budget. But Armenia too has increased its weaponry, with help from its Russian friends.

Popular attitudes in each country are unforgiving, with commemoration of past injustices at this time of year reinforcing hard-line attitudes. Azerbaijanis recently marked the 19th anniversary of the Khojali massacre, while Armenians mourned the 23rd anniversary of the anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait.

Neither leader appears minded to make concessions. Yet the status quo is unacceptable, particularly to Azerbaijan, which hosts over 580,000 displaced people and smarts at the occupation of 16% of its territory.

How much does it matter? As Thomas de Waal, a well-known commentator (and former contributor to The Economist) notes, Nagorno-Karabakh is hardly a foreign-policy priority for outsiders. But as the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia demonstrated, frozen conflicts can turn hot very quickly.

Beyond the human suffering that renewed conflict would entail, Azerbaijan is both a major supplier of, and transit route for, oil and gas. The south Caucasus is also a major supply route for western countries’ efforts in Afghanistan. Outside powers have many reasons to pay close attention.

The chances of pre-meditated war, the ICG argues, are slim. Both sides appear to believe that grandstanding is a useful negotiating tactic. The danger is that it increases the chances of front-line skirmishes provoking an accidental war.

At least key mediators are saying the right things. Matt Bryza, the American ambassador to Azerbaijan, recently said that resolving the conflict “is more important than any other issue in the region”. Last Thursday a Russian government spokesman said his country would be putting in “all its efforts”. But the fact that negotiations are still to progress beyond basic confidence-building measures shows how far there is to go.

Readers' comments

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mephistophel

1. armenia and azerbaijan both as other 11 countries of fsu (excl. russia) is artificial states, as russia they are fully corrupted by criminal neo-communist oligharhic-nomenclatural administrations; while these rejimes would not be destroyed they will have unclear future;
2. egzogeneous forces are interested in frozening this conflict, probably they have plans that different from mena events;
3. endogeneous forces also are intersted in frozening conflict because of both countries have controlled by corrupted rejimes that afraid to loss the power in the case of war;
4. armenians themselves have well-learned that they were resettled in the caucasus by russian colonial administration almost 200 years ago when azeris had live on modern armenian areas as khanates/malikiyats; since 1828 armenians become to expand own territories through time by time occupation of azeri lands;
5. if azerbaijan will begin war it should be accepted by international community as justified action of azerbaijan against agressor and international community must to keep neutrality in this matter.

Skofnung

The article is insidiously pro-Azeri. It is clearly Azerbaidjan and its dictator, backed by western oil firms (Ghadaffi, anyone), which is escalating the conflict, both in terms of verbal announcement, military spending and border incidents.

While the Economist is a supporter of an ethnic Albanian-ruled Kosovo or a Bosniak-dominated independent Bosnia it does not seem to apply the same principles to NK.

Phantomdissenter

Rick,

I don't think it could have been said any better than you just said it. I think they should replace original article with your post, because it reflects reality much more closely.

Rick Katz

- Historical debates about who was there first don't matter and are the stuff of books, forums, and comments on the web. 2 nations would not have gone to war for 20 years over such a dumb argument! Even if one side finds an irrefutable document proving beyond any doubt that they were in Karabakh first, it would mean nothing at the negotiating table!

- Yes, the conflict is between Armenia and Azerbaijan,
- Yes, Armenian forces massacred civilians in Khojaly in 1992 and this should be further investigated and the perpetrators punished,
- Yes, Armenia occupies 16% of Azeri land,

- If Armenians had not fought, there would be no Armenians left in Karabakh today, just as there are no Armenians left in Baku, Sumgait, Gyanja, Nakhjivan, eastern and central Anatolia, or south-central Turkey. For those puzzled by this statement, remember that a 100 years ago there was a nation that lived in all those places, and in some of them they were the majority. They were known as Armenians. Since some obscur events in 1915, and subsequently in 1988, they ended up moving to various cities in the world and became a diaspora! God knows why they left everything behind!

- What was the point of all this conflict and war in the caucasus for the past 20 years? The Karabakh Armenians decided to resist physical annihilation ... and it worked, at least until now!

- Had Armenians lost the war, Karabakh would have been a purely Azeri land now, and hundreds of books would have already been published detailing how genuinely and historically Azeri that land is, how all the churches there are Albanian and therefore Azeri, how small a number Armenians represented there throughout history, and how they left by their own will and for unknown reasons in the early 1990s!

- In other words, the point of the war for the Karabakh Armenians was to remain alive in their own land, and most of them did! It has nothing to do with territorial expansion!

To summarize: if Azerbaijan was well intentioned towards the Karabakh Armenians, the latter would have chosen an autonomy within Azerbaijan, rather than go through 20 years of unimaginable hardships and sufferings (Karabakh was also destroyed during the war BTW). If there was even a 1% chance that Armenians could be treated respectfully - as the Swedish minority is treated in Finland for example - then the conflict could be solved tomorrow morning! But Azerbaijan doesn't want that, it wishes to conquer Karabakh by force, smash the Armenians, and get rid of them once and for all in order to have peace of mind ... just like Turkey did and just like they have already done in all the rest of Azerbaijan!

And that's why there will be a war!

Roubik

You write that "both countries have stepped up their bellicose rhetoric" etc.

Unfortunately Azerbaijani rhetoric and threats are not limited to those mentioned our article. Since 1960s the Azeri authorities and so called "academicians" have published books and articles trying to prove that Armenians are newcomers to the area of South Caucasus and the ethnic population of Azerbiajan, a country born north of the Arax river only in 1918, who even by their owne admission are a mixture of islamised Albanians, Tatars, Turkic tribes, Mongols, Seljuks etc., have now become the indigenous population of the area.

These anti-Armenian propaganda and rhetoric has now been augmented by the poetrodollars filling the coffers of Heydar Aliyev Foundation, who has been responsible for publishing and distributing falsified and invented history books, articles and websites.

Theyir official pulications go so far as to name the territory of the present day Republic of Armenia as "Western Azerbaiajan" and have named all Christian Armenian monuments, churhces and monasteries as being Turkic-Christian, Azeri-turkic, Albano-Turkic etc.

Azeri falsifications and imaginations seem to have no bounds and transgress all boundaries of civilised nations.

Faced with direct threats and such propaganda machine what would you expect the Preseident of Armenia to declare? Should he not say that Armenians are prepared to stand up against the agressors in every way?

Roubik

Antonius Magnusen

To see all these one-sided comments is unsurprising and extremely tirsome.

As a non-Armenian or Azeri national who works in the South Caucasus (incidentally, in Yerevan in Human Rights monitoring), I try to take an impartial stance. These comments just show how entrenched views have become, even among educated individuals. No side is willing to cede any ground, which proves how frozen the conflict has become. The lack of understanding and hurling of insults is hardly going to bring about any positive change, is it?

What one has to understand is that BOTH countries have atrocious human rights records and lack a pluralist, independent press (and are plagued by endemic corruption). This helps the Armenian and Azeri governments to expound their bellicose and hateful rhetoric. I constantly see news about problems in Azerbaijan and Turkey in the Armenian media and vice versa, but I see a complete lack of introspection. Both countries have an enormous amount of domestic problems, which they skate over by feeding their respective populations propaganda. Many investigative journalists who attempt to discuss domestic issues frequently end up in jail on trumped up charges. Both countries misunderstand the word 'patriotism': while I am proud of my own nationality I am able to criticise. Until both peoples learn to do this I fear resolution will not come.

The writer of this article could have arguably done a bit more homework, but the fact of the matter is that Armenia and Azerbaijan would benefit more from sorting out their domestic issues than playing constant the race/card.

Gianni

Lusy, can't you more simply, just answer posters like Bjornstein with rational, documented, respectful replies?
I'm interested in the TWO sides of this awful story, and very bored by the incessant repetitions, usually without reliable, that is uncontested, evidence from Armenian hypernationalist Diasporans who don't live in the area they harp on about in moral indignation and self-righteousness, all from their comfortable armchairs and to their expensive computers.

lusy

wow, what a sudden flurry of azeri comments - one can only wonder of how many physical people stand behind so many virtual identities. perhaps I am too idealistic, but it's just too hard for me to believe that so many people are suffering from having problems with facts on the ground. Azeris in Karabakh were discriminated during the Soviet era?! Perhaps that explains why indigenous Armeina population share went from 96% to 75% during the same period. The conflict is about Armenia "grabbing others land"?! An old saying - possibly Turkish - claims "no matter how often you repeat the word 'halva' - you won't have your mouth sweetened". It obviously is about the same old pattern of a minority being oppressed by the central government and which uses the opportunity of breaking away from it - how many such stories we saw in 90-ies? Kosovo has nothing to do with Albania trying to grab the part of Yugoslavia... Armenians settled there only in 19th sentury?! That one got me laughing.... Karabakh's Gandzasar was the residence of Armenian Church for several hundred years! Anybody who negates this is seriously delusional and perhaps makes little sense to argue with...

Tallinner

"Last Thursday a Russian government spokesman said his country would be putting in “all its efforts”

How can Russia bring peace to South Caucasus as it cannot stop the violence in North Caucasus that is (for the time being) under Russian jurisdiction. To say nothing about the recent invasion to Georgia.

Switzerland could be a good model for Caucasus. Different ethnic groups living side by side in a prosperous federation. In my opinion it is the only way in this mountainous area. But unfortunately it can take 100 years to get there. Or it can take even longer. And lots of blood will flow. So sad.

Bjornstein

For over two decades, the Armenian lobby and propaganda have been using Sumgait pogroms to lambast Azerbaijan and to justify occupation of Azerbaijan and genocide against Azeri, Turks and Kurds.

The chronology of Sumgait pogroms :

1985-1987. Azerbaijan has 11 000 Azerbaijani and Kurdish refugees from Armenia, some of them came to Sumgait and Baku.This was the beginning of Karabakhs war. It is funny how armenian lobby try to brainwash West by accusing Azerbaijan in starting the war.

the first victims of Karabakhs war were also azeri:On February 22, 1988, two Azerbaijani youths, Bakhtiyar Uliyev, 16, and Ali Hajiyev, 23, were shot and killed by armenian nationalists.

Then it was a Sumgait. According to court documents (USSR criminal case 18/55461-88, vol. 29, p. 260), among key ringleaders, arrested for killings in Sumgait of 7 of the 26 Armenians , were ethnically Armenians, Eduard Grigoryan and Zhirayr Azizbekian, as well as other Armenians. As a result of Sumgait pogroms 32 persons were dead (26 Armenians and 6 Azeris) for the three days.

Armenian lobby try to represent Sumgait as a genocide and their point is that "massacre is a masacre, no matter if it was in Sumgait or in Khojaly". Strangly, they do not aply to international court: they know that Sumgait pogroms was act of spontaneous non-controlled hooliganism of Azeri and Kurdish refugees and Armenian lobby was involved in organizing of those pogroms. Azerbaijani authorities did not organize Sumgait or Baku pogroms, while ethnical cleaning of Azeri and Kurds in Qafan and Megri was carefully planned by Armenian authorities, which was also the case during the massive and very well coordinated deportation in the end of 1988.

during the pogroms in Azerbaijan there were many well-recorded and officially documented cases when Azeris saved the lives of their Armenian neighbors, whereas not a single similar case was recorded in Armenia.
Azerbaijani citizens, its intellectual elite and government, condemned all the violence publicly. It was not done in Armenia. Armenian authorities spread propaganda about incompatibility of Armenians and Turks/Azeri to justify massacres of Azerbaijani civilians.

Also, after the pogroms MANY Armenians did return to Sumgait and Baku (especially between Fall 1988 and Fall 1989) to sell their propertis, while Azeris after having been deported were not allowed to return to Armenia at least to grab their belongings.
Today, up to 800 Armenians continue to live in Sumgait, and a total of up to 30,000 Armenians live in major cities of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, no Azerbaijanis are left in Armenia – all 194,000 were ethnically cleansed

Gianni

The real point to is that NO state in the world, not even the Armenian, recognises Artsakh as anything other than a part of sovereignly independent Azerbaijan, even if there are arguments over the degree of autonomy the self-proclaimed NKR should have.
(Nor do either Armenia or Azerbaijan recognise anything other that the territorial integrity of neighbouring Georgia. For them, there is NO independent Abkhazia or South Ossetia. They only exist as figments of Russian, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and Nauran policy it would seem).

Gianni

Send in Sarko.
He and his supporters think that he's great at solving this sort of thing.
After all, he 'solved' the Georgia/Russia problem over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, didn't he? Er..... in Russia's favour?
No doubt he can pull of similar brilliant tricks over a vodka or two with Vladimir? On behalf of Armenia perhaps?
And French right-wing diplomacy needs a 'victory' at this stage, to show the world that it is not as wholly incompetent, regardless and heedless of human lives and suffering, as Sarko's policy towards North Africa has recently illustrated, forgetting though all those dispossessed, or dead, through his approach to South Ossetia and Abkhazia

max2003

It looks like Armenians try to shamelessly distort the history of Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts again and again. I bet that no one who writes about "self-determination" of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh has ever been in this region before the start of the conflict. I did and I know that it were Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh, who were oppressed and discriminated in this region in Soviet times. Azerbaijan has provided a lot of freedom (apparently too much) to Karabakh Armenians to express themselves a long ago before perestroika. And Armenians blew it up. There is no question ever stood about who this region belongs to. This is an Azerbaijani land without any doubts, but this is not the point here. The point is that baseless accusation of Azerbaijan on the human right violation of Karabakhi Armenians is just rubbish and have never been substantiated or revealed. On the contrary, Azerbaijani former inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh, who were brutally expelled from this region, can provide a lot of evidence on unjust attitude of local Armenians towards them.

max2003

Good article.

It is funny though that some readers debate about the percentage of occupied Azerbaijani land. It is a good step that Armenian readers of this article accept that it is an occupation. Very positive step forward. It is obvious that it does not matter whether 20%, 16% or 1% is under occupation - it is still the occupation. Next step (a long overdue) would be declare Armenia as a country - aggressor. No one can tell the same about Azerbaijan. So, rhetoric about Azerbaijani hostility or on Azerbaijani military buildup is just baseless and waste of time. No country in the world could be blamed for extra protection of its territory from aggressive neighbors and fight for the liberation of its land. Azerbaijan has full and legitimate rights to kick out all Armenian forces off its land.

chobb

As long as Armenian lobby will refuse to stop their hateful biased propaganda; as long as they will not admit that because of their policy Armenia became a russian vassal; as long as they will not admit Armenia´s crimes against humanity in Azerbaijan, ethnic armenians will continue to live in misery. In wikileaks US ambassador described Erevan as a bandit city, he wrote that armenian kids go hungry to bed and armenian man send their daughter to Turket to prostitute (russian and english versions):
rusrep.ru/article/2011/02/08/crime_armenia
rusrep.ru/article/2011/02/07/ggc/
rusrep.ru/article/2011/02/07/trafficking

chobb

Armenian president Sarkisian hands are covered by blood of Khojaly civilians. He is dreaming to repeat it:here is example of Armenian´s president Sarkisian bellicose rethoric:
"What we have is enough to deal the potential enemy a lethal blow. However, we will not be complacent about that but will continue to constantly amplify capabilities, skills, and armaments of our Armed Forces"

"And to solve this issue, officers and soldiers, you always must be stronger, your combat readiness must intensify, your weapons must be faster, your willpower must prevail, your dedication must be boundless. I have no doubt that if the time comes, we will not only do again what we did in 1992-94, but will go even further and solve the issue once and for all; the issue will be closed for good"

"As commander-in-chief, as president of Armenia, officers and soldiers, I promise that you will have no need of anything. We will acquire modern gear, which we possess also today,""If the time comes again, this time our blow will be final and deadly."

See armenianweekly 2010/11/15

chobb

According to any US CRS (Congressional research study)related to this issue,Armenia has occcupied 20% of Azerbaijan and deported 1 mln Azeri and Kurds.
As the result of the aggression by the Republic of Armenia against the Republic of Azerbaijan, during 1988-1994, serious material damage has been inflicted, estimated to be at least $22 billion dollars.

Occupied regions of Azerbaijan has been totally destroyed and robed. The great economic damage has been inflicted also to 4 regions of Azerbaijan bordering with Armenia, 4 regions bordering with the Line of Contact and the territories of the administrative regions of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. From the beginning of the aggression against Azerbaijan, more than 877 settlements have been burned and destroyed.

UN Security Council passed four subsequent resolutions 822, 853, 874, 884 in April-November, 1993 expressing discontent and calling Armenian occupying forces to withdraw from occupied territories and allow return of Azerbaijani refugees. On March 14, 2008, the UN General Assembly reiterated its position on territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and illegal occupation on part of Armenia by adopting resolution A/62/L.42 calling for immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian forces "from all the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan."

Bjornstein

This is a good and impartial article.
Armenia will pay for all crimes against humanity in Karabakh and Khodjaly.
Most complete report about Khojaly massacre was done by Memorial, the Moscow-based human rights group, stated in their report that the mass killing of civilians in Khojaly could not be justified under any circumstances and that actions of Armenian militants were in gross violation of a number of basic international human rights conventions Report of Memorial Human rights center (In Russian) http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/karabah/Hojaly/index.htm.

The genocide was planned by Armenian military forces , the leader of this massacre was Armenia´s president S. Sarkisian:
"Before Khojali, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, they thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We were able to break that [stereotype]." "Sarkisian's account throws a different light on the worst massacre of the Karabakh war, suggesting that the killings may, at least in part, have been a deliberate act of mass killing as intimidation." (Thomas de Waal, "Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war", New York & London: New York University Press, 2003, pp. 169-172)

Fortunately, international media covered Khojaly massacre
http://justiceforkhojaly.org/site/?p=quotation

I hope Khojaly case will be soon in Haag and all those who commintted this crime against humanity wil be punished, starting with the Armenians president Sarkisian. All those members of Armenian lobby , which are spreading armenian propaganda on this site, are cordially invited to the court, they can represent their baseless lies. Though, I doubt someone will take it seriously.

About Eastern approaches

Eastern approaches deals with the economic, political, security and cultural aspects of the eastern half of the European continent. It incorporates the long-running "Europe.view" weekly column. The blog is named after the wartime memoirs of the British soldier Sir Fitzroy Maclean.

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