NO END IN SIGHT TO FIGHTING IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH
National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: Weekend Edition Sunday 1200-1300
April 23, 2006 Sunday
Anchors: Jacki Lyden
Reporters: Ivan Watson
Jacki Lyden, Host:
A sputtering border conflict in the Caucasus continues to dog
relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There are daily skirmishes
around the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the leaders
of both sides have been ratcheting up the rhetoric. American and
Russian diplomats have tried to mediate between the two former Soviet
republics. Washington and Moscow agree the conflict is a major threat
to regional stability.
NPR’s Ivan Watson visited the frontlines on the Azerbaijani side and
filed this report.
IVAN WATSON reporting:
Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a cease-fire over Nagorno-Karabakh
more than a decade ago. That’s hard to believe though, if you look at
the bullet holes that riddle the front gate of Nashaba Sakurava’s(ph)
farmhouse.
Ms. NASHABA SAKURAVA (Azerbaijani Resident): (Speaking foreign
language)
WATSON: Sakurava says Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers blast away at
each other every day here. The woman’s house sits on the front lines
next to the trenches and fields of land mines that divide Azerbaijani
soldiers from Armenian troops dug in just a few dozen yards away.
Sakurava’s family erected concrete barriers in front of the ground
floor windows of her house and evacuated the second floor to avoid
the gunfire.
Nearby, Azerbaijani soldiers march in formation in a muddy field.
(Soundbite of Azerbaijani soldiers)
WATSON: Five men from this garrison were killed during an intense
month of skirmishes here last year. These conscripts say they’re
ready to fight to take back land in Nagorno-Karabakh that they claim
Armenia stole from Azerbaijan.
Mr. ELMAR MAMMADYAROV (Foreign Minister, Azerbaijan): The clashes
on the line of contact, as we say, we can hear it every day. The
shootings, the casualties, wounds, unfortunately that’s happened.
WATSON: Elmar Mammadyarov is the foreign minister of Azerbaijan. Last
month, after the failure of yet another round of peace talks with
Armenia, Azerbaijan’s president announced his government would
dramatically increase defense spending to exceed what Armenia spends
on its entire national budget. What makes that possible is a big jump
in Azerbaijan’s oil revenues.
Again, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.
Mr. MAMMADYAROV: The issue of the military development or increasing
the capacity of the armed forces, it’s always been (unintelligible)
on the table.
WATSON: Until the 1994 cease-fire, the war over Nagorno-Karabakh
killed more than 30,000 people and left more than a million homeless.
A Western diplomat in Baku says that if full-fledged hostilities
resumed, the death toll would likely be much higher, due to the much
larger number of troops now deployed along the front lines.
Mr. MATT BRYZA (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Caucasus Region):
Of course we’re worried about shooting across the line of contact
and we’re always worried about any belligerent rhetoric that could
come out of either capital.
WATSON: Matt Bryza is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
responsible for the Caucasus region. He says the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict also poses the largest potential threat to the security of a
new $4 billion U.S.-backed oil pipeline to the Mediterranean Sea, which
runs within a few dozen miles of the Nagorno-Karabakh front lines.
For years, Bryza says, the U.S. government has been working together
with Russia and France to broker a settlement.
Mr. BRYZA: And ultimately, it’s up to the two presidents, President
Aliyev of Azerbaijan, President Kocharian of Armenia, to make some
very tough political decisions, and again, prepare their populations
for compromise.
WATSON: Those most desperate for a solution are the hundreds of
thousands of displaced persons who still live in refugee camps more
than a decade after the war.
(Soundbite of people at refugee camp)
WATSON: At this camp several dozen miles east of Nagorno-Karabakh,
hundreds of Azerbaijani families live in clay houses, surviving on
food rations. The men are almost all unemployed and they say they
would prefer a peaceful solution, but add that they are ready to go
back to war with Armenia to get their homes back.
WATSON: Ivan Watson, NPR News.