GREAT POWER RIVALRIES INFLAME NAGORNO-KARABAKH DISPUTE
By Niall Green

World Socialist Web Site
a-d23.shtml
Dec 23 2009

The scramble for control of the oil and natural gas riches of
Central Asia threatens to reanimate the conflict between the former
Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia over the province of
Nagorno-Karabakh. This dispute has already led to war between the
South Caucasus neighbors.

Since establishing independence upon the liquidation of the USSR
in 1991, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a dispute over
the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave surrounded
and claimed by Azerbaijan. Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, has been in
effective control of the territory since the 1990s, stationing its
troops there and backing the local ethnic Armenian government.

The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh has been made even more explosive
thanks to the machinations of the major powers, primarily the United
States and Russia, which seek control over the energy pipelines
that run close to the territory. The involvement of regional powers,
namely Turkey, in this scramble for resources is adding to the mix.

Earlier this year Turkey sought to improve relations with Armenia,
primarily in order to pressure the Armenian government to relinquish
its claim to Nagorno-Karabakh. In addition to hoping that better
ties between the two countries will smooth Turkey’s ascension to the
European Union, the Turkish elite is aiming to secure a resolution
to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh because this is key to its plans
to build a major new pipeline that will transport Central Asian
natural gas from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, through Georgia,
to Turkey’s energy hub at Erzurum. From there, the gas will be piped
to Western Europe in the new Nabucco pipeline. This plan, which is
supported by the United States, has the potential to greatly reduce
Russia’s share of natural gas exports to the EU.

The rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia follows a century of
hostility that included a genocidal campaign against the Armenian
people at the end of World War One by Turkey’s predecessor, the
Ottoman Empire. Since the 1920s, Ankara has opposed the incorporation
of Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia, fearing the prospect of a Greater
Armenia with territorial claims within its own territory.

Additionally, with the collapse of the USSR, Ankara has viewed
Azerbaijan as a regional ally whose cooperation is crucial to its
plans to become the alternative to Russia in the export of Central
Asian energy resources to Western Europe.

Both the planned Nabucco pipeline and a second, already-existing
oil pipeline–the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline–pass near
to Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian claims to Nagorno-Karabakh therefore
threaten to disrupt the US-backed Nabucco and BTC pipeline routes.

Should Armenia win control of the disputed territory, the position
of Turkey and Azerbaijan, which are closely tied to the US, would be
weakened and the hand of Moscow, which enjoys closer relations with
Armenia, strengthened.

As a condition for improved relations with Turkey, Ankara has pressured
Yerevan to drop its claim to Nagorno-Karabakh. Following the reopening
of the two countries’ border and the establishment of diplomatic ties
in October, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that
the Armenian claim over Nagorno-Karabakh must end.

"We want all conflicts to be resolved and we want all borders to be
opened at the same time," Erdogan said. "As long as Armenia does not
withdraw from occupied territories in Azerbaijan, Turkey cannot take
up a positive position."

However, Ankara’s intervention has only served to inflame the rival
claims to the territory, with the Armenian government rejecting
Turkish demands regarding Nagorno-Karabakh. "If Turkey wants the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to be settled, it should not interfere
in this process," Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan told
journalists December 19 during a trip to Turkey.

"The world community, including Armenia, say that there is no
link between the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and Turkey-Armenia
rapprochement," Nalbandyan continued.

While Turkish efforts to force Armenia to drop its claim to
Nagorno-Karabakh are in line with the aims of Azerbaijan, the Azeri
elite remain concerned that any rapprochement between Ankara and
Yerevan could weaken their position in the region. President Ilham
Aliyev of Azerbaijan reminded Ankara during a televised cabinet meeting
that his country sold natural gas to Turkey at one-third of the world
market price. In an effort to compel the Turkish government to ratchet
up the pressure on Armenia, Aliyev warned that any compromise over
the future of Nagorno-Karabakh could result in an increase in energy
prices, rendering the Nabucco pipeline uneconomical.

Aliyev also stated that Azerbaijan could export much of its natural
gas to Europe through Russia’s proposed new South Stream pipeline. In
October he signed a deal to export 500 million cubic meters of natural
gas to Russia’s Gazprom energy company.

The region has been an area of ongoing conflict between Armenia and
Azerbaijan since the final years of the Soviet Union. At that time,
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies promoting capitalist
restoration encouraged local bureaucrats and black-market businessmen
to carve out ethnic areas under their control through which they
could directly exploit the working class.

In 1988 a series of conflicts broke out between ethnic Azeris and
Armenians in the two republics. By the following year Moscow granted
the local Stalinist regime in Azerbaijan authority to directly clamp
down on Armenian separatists inside Nagorno-Karabakh.

This prompted the Soviet Armenian republic and the local government
in Nagorno-Karabakh to proclaim the province’s independence from
Azerbaijan and its succession to Armenia. In the last days of the
Soviet Union in December 1991, war broke out between Azerbaijan and
Nagorno-Karabakh, backed by Armenia. During the conflict, the armed
forces of Azerbaijan were reportedly aided by several hundred former
Afghan mujahadeen fighters, as well as Islamist Chechen separatist
fighters.

The war, which claimed the lives of several thousand people and made
tens of thousands more refugees, lasted until a formal cease-fire
in 1994. However, low-level fighting has continued since then, with
several fatal clashes between Azeri and ethnic Armenian soldiers
and militants, as well as frequent violence and intimidation against
civilians from both groups.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
has attempted to negotiate a peace settlement between Azerbaijan
and Armenia over the territory. The OSCE Minsk Group, led by the
United States, France and Russia, has been ineffectually proposing
a referendum to decide the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh since the early
1990s.

Russia and the United States have, however, been separately backing
their proxies in this conflict. Washington and the EU have given
large-scale development aid to Azerbaijan, which is also a member
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Partnership For
Peace initiative, recognized as a precursor to membership of the
US-led military alliance. Azerbaijan has also contributed forces to
the US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan.

Moscow has more closely backed Armenia, with which it has extensive
military ties. Considered the only ex-Soviet state in the South
Caucasus to be allied to Russia, Armenia is a member of the Russian-led
Collective Security Treaty Organization. It hosts a Russian army base
and air-defense installations.

Any attempts by Turkey, with the blessing of the US, to win influence
in Armenia will be opposed by Moscow. Efforts by the Kremlin to court
Azerbaijan will be met with hostility by Washington.

In a November 29 editorial, the British Telegraph newspaper commented
on the disputed territory: "The future of Nagorno-Karabakh carries
serious implications for Turkey’s role in the Caucasus, and, by
extension, its bid for EU membership, for the supply of oil and gas
to the West, and for Armenia’s crippled economy."

Comparing the situation in the enclave to the Schleswick Holstein
dispute between Prussia and Austria in the 19th Century, as an example
of how a seemingly obscure dispute could erupt into a major war,
the piece continued: "Finding a solution, based on Armenia’s ceding
of territory in exchange for an eventual referendum on the enclave’s
status, is daunting. But the stakes, in an area of great strategic
importance, are high."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress