Author: Babken Chilingarian

Lara Setrakian is a journalist and the president of the Applied Policy Research Institute of Armenia. Benyamin Poghosyan is the co-rapporteur of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Joint Expert Group and a senior research fellow at the Applied Policy Research Institute of Armenia.

It’s been eight months since Azerbaijan launched its blockade of the Lachin corridor, isolating some 120,000 ethnic Armenians from the outside world — a move that has had devastating consequences for everyday life and regional stability, while eroding the trust needed to build long-term peace in the South Caucasus.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been barred from reaching the area since mid-June, access to food and medicine is deteriorating. Fruit, vegetables, dairy products and cereal are now beyond the reach of many residents, and a lack of transport fuel is restricting movement from village to village. All this is adding to the now chronic stress of 30,000 children and their families, with one local maternity clinic reporting a threefold jump in the rate of miscarriages.

As a recent statement by the European Union warned, the situation is having “dire consequences” for the local population. 

Still, led by the EU and the United States, peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan had been making headway during the first few months of the blockade. However, the new, broader choke hold on the Lachin corridor will almost certainly derail any agreement. Armenia’s leaders won’t be able to sign a deal in good faith while the Baku government effectively starves ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The conflict needs a negotiated solution — not a forced capitulation at the cost of civilian lives. If Europe wants to save the peace deal, it needs to end the blockade. If the international community can’t find a way to keep all parties civil, however, it then needs to launch an airlift and find as many alternative supply routes as possible. Otherwise, it’s simply validating the use of a blockade as a negotiating tactic, which will either crash talks entirely, or lead to a fragile deal made under duress.

“The starvation of the Armenian population will leave a new legacy of unforgiving distrust,” wrote Laurence Broers, a nonresident fellow at Chatham House. “Any negotiated outcomes risk being discredited as the results of coerced agreement.”

Meanwhile, officials in Baku have floated the idea of an alternate route for supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh, passing through the Azeri region of Aghdam instead. But as European Commission Vice President Josep Borrell pointed out, this doesn’t absolve Baku of its legal obligation to open the Lachin corridor — which has been the main route in and out of the region.

Moreover, after forcing eight months of hunger and deprivation, this offer seems disingenuous — less an act of compassion and more a cynical bid to increase the region’s dependence on Baku. It also coincides with Azerbaijan launching a series of military moves aimed at asserting greater control over the population, as documented by the International Crisis Group.

The EU needs to send a clear message to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev that the forced humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh will significantly damage his image as a reliable and responsible EU partner. Additionally, as facilitators of the peace deal, European leaders have a hand to play in keeping all parties on track for a good-faith agreement, and should be mobilizing the international community to convince Azerbaijan to lift the blockade. 

This is also where the energy trade between EU countries and Azerbaijan comes in. It should be used as a tool for human rights diplomacy — not a reason to duck responsibilities. Baku’s trade partners should be invited to integrate human rights into their bilateral dialogues, so as to not implicitly fund the starvation and potential ethnic cleansing of the 120,000 Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

This applies to both Europe and its partners too. For example, while the U.S. has undertaken vigorous diplomacy alongside its calls for an end to the blockade, the United Kingdom has so far been relatively silent. And as the largest foreign investor in Azerbaijan, the diplomatic weight of London, as well as energy giant BP, could play an important role.

Aligning human rights with trade policy in this manner is both good and moral long-term politics. It would also encourage Baku to fall in line with the EU’s foreign policy goal of achieving sustainable peace and stability in the South Caucasus, while helping calm interethnic tension.

The cycles of violence and retribution that have kept Armenia and Azerbaijan at war for so long are now playing out in plain sight once more. This can only be stopped by insisting that the norms and values Europe taught itself to observe after its own long and painful history of conflict must be upheld. It should encourage Armenia and Azerbaijan to join the nations that have learned to abide by principles of mutual respect, decency and humanitarianism in their interstate affairs. 

We believe Europe is genuinely interested in securing lasting peace and stability in the region — one that is based on the mutual recognition of territorial integrity by both Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is a noble foreign policy goal, which will have significant geopolitical and economic benefits for the Continent. However, for this to happen, it must emerge from a peace process that’s guided by a principled and long-term view — not the result of coercion by the stronger party.

UNO: Amid a mounting humanitarian crisis, the United Nations Security Council is slated to convene an emergency session on Wednesday, focusing on the dire conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh, ensnared in a debilitating blockade imposed by Azerbaijan.

Armenia has cast a stark accusation against Azerbaijan, alleging that since December, the solitary road linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia has been obstructed, significantly impeding the flow of vital necessities, including food and medical supplies, to the approximately 120,000 residents of the region.

Ambassador Mher Margaryan, Armenia's representative to the UN, articulated the grievousness of the situation in a missive to the Security Council. He asserted that the blockade has catalyzed a "full-fledged humanitarian catastrophe," teetering perilously on the precipice of an imminent disaster.

Margaryan's letter further implored the Security Council to demand an immediate lifting of the blockade by Azerbaijan, advocating for unhindered access to deliver vital humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh.

In its defense, Azerbaijan contends that the blockade is a necessary measure to curb the transport of weaponry and natural resources to the region. However, this stance has drawn widespread condemnation from international bodies, including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

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Notably, the OSCE has explicitly called upon Azerbaijan to rescind the blockade and facilitate the unfettered transport of humanitarian assistance to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Anticipated to be an incendiary affair, the Security Council meeting is poised to witness a fiery exchange of accusations between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the contentious blockade. The session's outcome remains uncertain, particularly regarding the possibility of a unanimous resolution compelling Azerbaijan to dismantle the blockade.

Nonetheless, the convocation of this meeting underscores the global apprehension over the escalating humanitarian emergency in Nagorno-Karabakh and exerts substantial pressure on Azerbaijan to relent on its blockade.

Beyond exacerbating the humanitarian crisis, the blockade casts an ominous shadow over the peace process in Nagorno-Karabakh. The obstruction complicates the negotiation landscape for both parties, obstructing the pathway towards a sustainable and lasting peace agreement.

As Wednesday's Security Council meeting unfolds, the international community seizes an opportune moment to convey an unequivocal message to Azerbaijan: the blockade must be lifted. Should the Council rally around a resolution to enforce this demand, it would signify a momentous stride towards invigorating the prospects of peace in the embattled region.

https://english.newstracklive.com/news/emergency-un-meeting-to-be-held-regarding-azerbaijans-blockade-of-the-road-leading-from-armenia-to-nagornokarabakh-sc57-nu355-ta355-1292489-1.html

• Abby Sewell

The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court warned that Azerbaijan is preparing genocide against ethnic Armenians in its Nagorno-Karabakh region and called for the U.N. Security Council to bring the matter before the international tribunal.

A report by Luis Moreno Ocampo issued Tuesday said Azerbaijan's blockade of the only road leading from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh seriously impedes food, medical supplies and other essentials to the region of about 120,000 people.

"There is a reasonable basis to believe that a genocide is being committed," Ocampo's report said, noting that a U.N. convention defines genocide as including "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction."

"There are no crematories and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks," the report said.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region within Azerbaijan that came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. Armenian forces also took control of substantial territory around the region.

Azerbaijan regained control of the surrounding territory in a six-week war with Armenia in 2020. A Russia-brokered armistice that ended the war left the region's capital, Stepanakert, connected to Armenia only by a road known as the Lachin Corridor, along which Russian peacekeeping forces were supposed to ensure free movement.

A government representative in Azerbaijan dismissed the report from Ocampo, who was the ICC's first prosecutor, saying it "contains unsubstantiated allegations and accusations."

"It is biased and distorts the real situation on the ground and represents serious factual, legal and substantive errors," Hikmet Hajiyev, an assistant to Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, told The Associated Press, on Wednesday.

In December, crowds of demonstrators who claimed to be environmental activists blocked the Lachin Corrirdor. Azerbaijan later established a military checkpoint on the road, blocking traffic that it alleged was carrying weapons and other contraband.

In Kornidzor, near the Azerbaijan border, a line of 19 trucks loaded with some 360 tons of medicine and food supplies have been parked for two weeks waiting for permission to cross.

Vardan Sargsyan, a representative of a crisis management working group for Nagorno Karabakh set up by the Armenian government, told The Associated Press the Armenian government had asked for permission for the trucks to cross via Russian peacekeepers and provided details on their contents but so far received no response from Azerbaijan.

"Unfortunately, there have been many attempts from the Azerbaijani side to manipulate this situation," he said. "We just hope that this humanitarian initiative will be accepted as humanitarian and that it will be possible to transfer the goods."

The International Committee of the Red Cross has also complained of being unable to bring aid shipments into the isolated enclave during the blockade, although the organization was permitted to evacuate a limited number of patients to Armenia for medical care.

Ocampo said the U.N. Security Council should refer the situation to the International Criminal Court, a step that would be necessary for the ICC to take it up because Azerbaijan is not a signatory to the statute that created the court.

It is not clear if Russia would use its veto power on the Security Council against such a move. Russia has faced persistent criticism for its peacekeepers' inaction in the blockade.

"Russia, responsible for peacekeeping in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the US, promoting current negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, are state parties of the Genocide Convention. … They have a privileged position to prevent this genocide. Their intense confrontation due to the Ukrainian conflict should not transform the Armenians into collateral victims," Ocampo wrote.

——

Associated Press writers Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia, and Aida Sultanova in London contributed to this report.

BAKU—Israel is among Azerbaijan’s top 10 trading partners, with trade between the two countries reaching $1.7 billion last year, according to figures from the Azerbaijani Economy Ministry.

The ever-growing commercial ties come amid burgeoning relations between the Jewish state and the predominantly Shi’ite secular Muslim nation, that have developed from a centuries-long affinity into an unprecedented strategic partnership.

The trade figures for last year, the majority of which come from the oil sector, represent an 85% increase in trade turnover compared to 2021, according to ministry officials.

For Israel, ties with Azerbaijan—which shares a 428-mile border with Iran, a country home to tens of millions of Azerbaijanis—are of strategic importance, both as a conduit for reconnaissance and because it supplies an estimated 30% of the Jewish state’s oil. At the same time, Azerbaijan is a leading purchaser of Israeli military hardware, which helped Baku win its 2020 war with archrival Armenia.

More than 90 Israeli companies are currently operating in Azerbaijan, including in the agriculture and economic industries, with their investment totaling $30 million, according to the ministry.

“Our priority is to promote [trade in] the non-oil sector as part of an economic diversification plan,” said Guntakin Mirzayeva, head of the ministry’s Division of Intergovernmental Commissions and Bilateral Documents, in an interview with JNS.

Azerbaijan is especially interested in Israeli know-how in hi-tech, green energy and agriculture, officials said.  

Rebuilding Karabakh

About a dozen Israeli companies have also expressed interest in undertaking projects in the mountainous Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan won back from Armenia in the war, although agreements are still pending Azerbaijani approval, according to the ministry official.

The vast construction work underway in the region—which requires a special permit to enter—is currently being carried out by Azerbaijan and its historical ally Turkey.

The Azerbaijani government has allocated over $2 billion from the state budget for reconstruction in the area, which is slowly being demined and repopulated after more than three decades of conflict, the ministry official said. Two airports have already been constructed in the region over the last two years, although they are currently not in service. Construction cranes and bulldozers—as well multiple police checkpoints—are omnipresent in the region.

Decades of conflict and lingering tensions

Karabakh and seven surrounding districts, which are a six-hour drive from the capital Baku and snake around the border with Iran and Armenia on still unpaved roads, was the venue of three decades of conflict between the two former Soviet Republics, which have fought two wars since the end of Soviet rule. Three years after the 2020 war ended, a small mountain road that is the only route from Armenia to the territory remains the most immediate flashpoint of the unresolved conflict.

 An Azerbaijani checkpoint on the route, which Baku set up this spring, citing security considerations on its sovereign territory, including the transport of weapons, has impeded food supplies to the region and aggravated still-simmering tensions between the archrivals, drawing international condemnation. Azerbaijan rejects the criticism, and says that the situation at the border is being used as a PR exercise to divert public opinion from what is happening on the road. On-and-off European-, Russian- and American-brokered talks aim to resolve the latest dispute—whose underpinnings are based on the decades of mistrust, bitterness and rivalry.

Demining and rebuilding

In the meantime, Azerbaijani officials are busy at work in the area, removing the estimated one million mines left in the area from the three decades when Armenia held the territory. Only about 20% percent of the mines have been removed to date, with officials estimating that it will take decades to remove them all.

“The biggest obstacle for us is the demining,” said Mirzayeva.

According to Azerbaijani officials, approximately 2,000 landmines are being uncovered per square mile.

Once each area is cleared, building is permitted in the area. While only 1,000 Azerbaijanis are now back in the region—which was once home to hundreds of thousands of people—the government plans to repopulate it with some 140,000 in the next three years, including many whose families once lived there three decades ago, officials said. Tens of thousands of Armenians live in the area as well. In all, about 10 million people live in Azerbaijan.

Cooperation broadening

Israel’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan George Deek told JNS that cooperation between the two countries, once limited to the energy and defense sectors, is vastly broadening to economic and agricultural fields amid the flourishing ties, including what is expected to be the first Israeli desalination plant on the shorelines of the Caspian Sea, near Baku, which would be the second such plant in the country.

“We are certainly very willing and interested to further the presence of Israeli companies in Azerbaijan, and we are in constant dialogue with local officials to advance such cooperation,” said Deek.

https://www.jns.org/world-news/israel-azerbaijani-relations/23/8/7/308259/

Monitoring Desk:

As India is caught while delivering military weapons to Armenia via Iran, the Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev met with the Ambassador of India to the country Sridharan Madhusudhanan on Wednesday to get the explanation for this Indian move that would surely endanger the region.

Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan Hikmat Hajiyev called on the Indian ambassador to bring the serious concerns of the Azerbaijani side to the attention of official Delhi and to reconsider India’s decision regarding the delivery of lethal weapons to Armenia.

The Indian ambassador said that the question raised by the Azerbaijani side will be communicated accordingly and noted the significance of conducting a dialogue between the two countries to discuss issues of concern in bilateral relations. Hikmat Hajiyev mentioned that Azerbaijan is always open to a dialogue with India.