KARABAKH REMAINS POWDERKEG 15 YEARS AFTER CEASEFIRE
Agence France Presse
May 13 2009
Fifteen years after Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a ceasefire in
their conflict over the Nagorny Karabakh region, the enclave remains
a powderkeg in the strategically important South Caucasus.
Despite internationally mediated talks inching forward, analysts say
a long-term solution remains distant.
Meanwhile the unresolved conflict and the threat of a new war are
casting shadows over attempts to diversify European energy supplies
and over US-backed efforts to reconcile Armenia and Turkey.
"Despite mediators’ optimism about a possible breakthrough, there is
a long-running stalemate on several issues," the International Crisis
Group wrote in a report last month.
"The real risk of renewed conflict continues to threaten Caucasus
stability and international access to Caspian energy," the
Brussels-based think tank said.
Backed by Armenia, ethnic Armenian separatists seized control of
Nagorny Karabakh from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s in a war that
killed nearly 30,000 people and forced two million to flee their homes.
A ceasefire was signed between the two former Soviet republics on
May 12, 1994 but the dispute is far from resolved.
Armenian and Azerbaijani forces are spread across a tense ceasefire
line and shootings are common. At least six people were killed in
the first three months of this year on or near the frontline.
Azerbaijan, which has vowed to retake control of the region by force
if necessary, is the hub for a Western-backed corridor of energy
pipelines delivering oil and gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe,
bypassing Russia.
Analysts say a fresh conflict over Karabakh would jeopardise supplies
and scuttle ambitious plans to further expand the energy network into
Central Asia.
The Karabakh dispute also threatens to derail efforts to reconcile
Armenia and Turkey, which US President Barack Obama encouraged during
a visit to Turkey last month.
Azerbaijan has reacted furiously to close ally Turkey’s moves to
establish diplomatic ties with Yerevan after decades of enmity over
Armenia’s efforts to have World War I-era massacres of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks recognised as genocide.
Baku has called for Ankara to make the Karabakh dispute a key issue
in talks with Armenia and has reportedly warned it could cut off gas
supplies to Turkey.
A recent upsurge in negotiations over Karabakh has raised some hopes
of progress.
International mediators said last week that "important and significant
progress" had been made during talks in Prague between Armenian
President Serzh Sarkisian and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham
Aliyev. More talks are expected to take place in Saint Petersburg in
early June.
But the Minsk Group of international mediators admits that even
after more than a decade, negotiations are still focused on simply
establishing the "basic principles" for resolving the conflict,
not on taking concrete steps.
Analysts in both countries say there is no doubt that some headway
has been made, however small.
"There has been progress in the negotiations and the settlement of
the conflict has moved beyond the zero point," Azerbaijani political
analyst Mubariz Akhmedoglu said.
"The fact that there is a negotiating process at all is progress,"
said Armenian analyst Alexander Iskandarian.
But as last summer’s war between Russia and Georgia over the rebel
South Ossetia region showed, there is always a danger that seemingly
frozen conflicts in the South Caucasus will flare up, they said.
"As long as the process drags on there is always a chance of a new
war breaking out," Akhmedoglu said.
Iskandarian said the threat of a new conflict appears low for now,
especially as both Armenia and Azerbaijan are struggling economically
due to the global economic slump.
"But no one can exclude the possible renewal of military actions in
the next few years," he said.