Category: 2023

The US Secretary of State hopes for a solution…

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's hope that his meeting with Pashinyan and Aliyev – "a historic opportunity to ensure lasting peace after more than 30 years of conflict" – would become a reality, it would seem, and instilled some cautious optimism in the progress of the negotiation process of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

This is especially the case since after the meeting he noted "significant the progress made by both sides over the past few months on the way to a peace agreement." However, he did not disclose what this "progress" is.

In addition, following the meeting, Ilham Aliyev said that "there is progress in Armenia's position, but it is not sufficient." It must be assumed that Azerbaijan intends to continue the pressure, including through the blockade of the Lachin corridor.

Long-term experience shows that the President of Azerbaijan almost never complied with the agreements – there is a lot of evidence for this: the 4-day war of 2016, Azerbaijan's attack on Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, as well as a large-scale attack on Armenia in September 2022. (Not counting the violation of the sovereign territory of Armenia in 2021 on the Sotk-Khoznavar line).

In addition, a map from the Azerbaijani military unit has recently appeared, according to which Azerbaijan plans to seize the Armenian regions of Syunik, Vayots Dzor, Tavush, half of Gegharkunik region and part of Ararat.

The blockade of the Lachin corridor…

During a panel discussion on security issues in the South Caucasus, Ilham Aliyev claimed that Azerbaijan is not blocking the Lachin humanitarian corridor. However, if Aliyev is telling the truth, then why does the European Parliament adopt a resolution demanding that Baku unblock it?

It will be said in place that dozens of Western countries are making similar demands, let's take the same Secretary of State Blinken, who at a meeting with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan stated the need for free and open commercial and private transit through the Lachin corridor.

"The President of Azerbaijan noted the statement of 2020, in which it is written that the Lachin corridor should operate under the control of Russia. Several children tried to drive along the Lachin corridor. They were stopped by masked Azerbaijani citizens, their bus was invaded, the children were scared, and this was the last time civilians tried to use the road," Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan recalled.

The Lachin corridor has remained blocked for more than 70 days, putting Nagorno-Karabakh in a humanitarian and energy crisis. The supply of electricity and gas is intermittent. During these days, the gas supply (via the Armenia-Nagorno-Karabakh gas pipeline) has been turned off at least 10 times, and the power grid cannot withstand loads, since the air temperature is below 0, and people are forced to heat their homes with electric stoves.

Moreover, it turned out that by resuming the activities of the gas pipeline, Azerbaijan, to put it politely, "borrows" gas intended for Nagorno-Karabakh.

The blockade itself means the conduct of military operations. Continuing the war, Baku is trying to get concessions from Yerevan on the regime of the road that will connect Azerbaijan with the exclave of Nakhichevan.

This theory is supported by the statements of Ilham Aliyev himself, who, at the end of the Pashinyan-Blinken-Aliyev meeting, said that it was necessary to establish a checkpoint.

"If we talk about the delimitation of the border, checkpoints should be installed both at both ends of the Zangezur corridor and on the border between Lachin and Armenia."

However, in the trilateral statement of the leaders of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan dated November 9, 2020, there is not a word about anything like this.

But it is noted: "The Lachin corridor (5 km wide), which will provide a link between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia and will not affect the city of Shusha, remains under the control of the peacekeeping contingent of the Russian Federation."

In this regard, a more prosaic question arises: what are the Azerbaijani military and pseudo-ecologists doing there for more than 70 days?

Moreover, today the International Court of Justice took interim measures against Azerbaijan, obliging it to provide all the means at its disposal to ensure the transportation of people and goods in two directions along the Lachin corridor.

At the same time, the same court rejected Azerbaijan's claims against Armenia.

Nagorno-Karabakh exists…

Another incident is that for more than 3 years, Ilham Aliyev has been trying to convince the world that "there is no Karabakh,""there is no Karabakh problem."

At various venues, the President of Azerbaijan pushes the thesis that he started the 2020 war against Nagorno-Karabakh "in compliance with UN Security Council resolutions"!

However, four UN Security Council resolutions demanded that Azerbaijan cease hostilities, but Azerbaijan itself continued the war. In addition, it is not entirely clear how the UN Security Council resolutions relate to periodic attacks on the sovereign territories of Armenia after 2020 and the blockade of the Lachin corridor.

And what about the statement of November 9, 2020? It mentions "Nagorno-Karabakh" as many as four times?!

It is noteworthy that the moderator of the panel discussion in Azerbaijan was accused of bias: "Aliyev said that there is no such thing as "Nagorno-Karabakh" and asked to respect the sovereignty and laws of Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan replied that Aliyev himself signed a document on November 9/10, which refers to "Nagorno-Karabakh". The moderator did not give the floor to Aliyev, but moved on to questions from the audience, and soon the broadcast was completely interrupted."

And the OSCE Minsk Group exists, no matter how Ilham Aliyev denies it and no matter how sad it may sound for those who want to bury it.

"The OSCE Minsk Group has not been dissolved yet, it exists, it does not work together, that is, the three Co-Chairs do not work together, but for us, as co-chairs of the Minsk Group, our mission always exists, which means to continue working on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue," said Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Armenia Anne Louillot.

Ilham Aliyev and his arithmetic…

Another strange statement by the President of Azerbaijan concerned the religious aspect, or rather the mosques in Nagorno-Karabakh.

"Armenians destroyed 67 mosques in Artsakh," Aliyev said in Munich.

But in November 2015, at the opening of the XII session of the ISESCO General Conference, he claimed that "Armenians destroyed 10 mosques."

Advisor to the State Minister of Artsakh Artak Beglaryan notes that the official documents of the Soviet-Azerbaijani government indicated that only 17 mosques were located in the territories under the control of Artsakh.

"We deliberately did not destroy a single mosque, even the Shusha Mosque was restored and, like the churches, preserved as much as we could," he said.

But mosques, churches, synagogues were destroyed by thousands during the Soviet era. Including Azerbaijan and including when Ilham Aliyev's father, Heydar Aliyev, was the head of the Azerbaijan SSR.

Another thing is that Aliyev Jr. is trying to give the Azerbaijani-Artsakh conflict a religious character and turn Muslim countries against the Armenian people. However, he did not particularly succeed in this, because his arguments are not supported by accurate factual evidence.

Democracy is like a nightmare

In conclusion, it should be noted that in addition to all this, the segment of Nikol Pashinyan's speech about democracy was a heavy blow for Ilham Aliyev. As soon as the Armenian Prime Minister started talking about democratic and open elections, Azerbaijan's state TV interrupted the broadcast from Munich, turning on a political talk show.

I wonder what Aliyev was more afraid of – that Azerbaijanis would find out that there are democratic elections in the world, or that the Armenian leader was calmly talking about this topic?

In this context, the phrase with which the host of the Azerbaijani talk show began his program is even more remarkable: "There was nothing new on the panel this year."

By Editor-in-Chief “Respublica Armenia” newspaper Ararat Petrosyan.

With Russia tied up in Ukraine, the West has stepped to mediate between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On February 18, Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev held talks at a meeting hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Both leaders took the opportunity to discuss a number of important issues: the draft peace treaty between the two states, the delimitation of inter-state borders, and the opening of transportation communications.

This, of course, was not the first time such a high-level meeting between the two leaders was mediated by a third party—what differed this time around however was who was meditating between the two.

For a long period of time, Russia was the principal mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, since 2021, this role has been contested by the European Union. Moreover, due to the war in Ukraine, the OSCE Minsk Group—which since the 1990s has held the mandate to assist in negotiating a peaceful settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan but was widely regarded as a failure—has effectively ceased to function.

Russia has not been receptive to this change: it has repeatedly criticized the EU’s mediation efforts, accusing the West of attempting “to hijack Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.” On February 17, the spokeswoman of the Russian foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova, expressed skepticism that U.S. mediation has “any added value.”

The change in meditator is important to consider, as Russia and the West have different motives to get involved in these peace talks—and these motives can shape negotiation outcomes in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. 

Russian Motives

As the traditional hegemonic power in the South Caucasus and arbiter in the decades-long Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, Russia is inclined to cling to preserving its regional dominance. At the moment, its primary mechanism for doing so is by trying to extend the presence of its peacekeeping contingent, deployed after the end of the Second Karabakh War in 2020. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, threatens its influence in the South Caucasus—the war is draining away Moscow’s military power and economic resources. Moscow worries that its declining influence will upset the region’s balance of power. The West, along with local middle-sized powers like Türkiye, have stepped into this breach and are seizing the opportunity to extend their influence in this strategically important region.  

The Kremlin realizes that, once the conflict’s two belligerents come to a basic agreement, Moscow’s involvement will become redundant. The Russian peacekeeping troops deployed in 2020 have a fixed term ending in 2025—though an extension is theoretically possible. Baku, however, has made it clear that it considers the presence of these peacekeepers on its internationally recognized territory to be a temporary affair, and will not endorse an extension beyond 2025.

In other words, if Armenia and Azerbaijan reach an agreement under Western auspices, Russia’s influence in the region would be significantly degraded. For that reason, Moscow seeks to preserve its influence in the following ways:

First, Moscow seeks a long-term military presence on the ground. For that, it requires the occasional flare-up of inter-ethnic tensions in order to justify maintaining Russian peacekeepers in the Karabakh region. 

Second, Moscow can further justify its presence by dividing Armenian political unity. It is conceivable, for example, that the Kremlin-orchestrated arrival of the Russian oligarch Ruben Vardanyan (who is of Armenia origin) is part of a scheme to only inflame tensions between local Armenians and Azerbaijan, but also to drive a wedge between Karabakh Armenians and the Western-leaning government in Yerevan. Vardanyan’s arrival caused a major standoff on the Lachin road between Azerbaijani government-backed activists and Karabakh Armenians—which only serves to further justify the presence of Russian peacekeepers.  

Third, Moscow’s plan for a peace treaty contains a provision postponing resolving the status of Karabakh. In the words of the Russian envoy to Yerevan, “the status of Nagorno-Karabakh is an issue that should be left to the next generation.” This ambiguity provides Moscow with additional leverage in future bargaining with Baku.

Western Mediation

Since 2021, there have been complementary efforts by the Biden administration in the United States and European Council president Charles Michel to play an increasingly active role in mediating between Baku and Yerevan.

Both the United States and the EU are interested in ending the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, as its unresolved status has been a major stumbling block in the South Caucasus’ emancipation from Russia’s imperial projections of power. If the conflict were to be partly or fully resolved, it would undermine Moscow by removing the underlying source of Russian leverage in the region. 

Additionally, the West is also pursuing its own interests by seeking to extend its influence in this traditionally Russia-linked sub-region. Due to geographic location and historic ties, Russia views this region as a key element of its strategy to avoid complete isolation. The West wants to reverse this by turning both Armenia and Azerbaijan away from Russia’s sphere of influence. 

Finally, both the United States and EU believe that the normalization of ties between Baku and Yerevan depends upon the mutual recognition of territorial integrity and emphasizing the rights and security of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Western mediators are concerned about the fate of this Armenian population once it is fully re-integrated into Azerbaijan proper. Therefore, since mid-2022, both Washington and Brussels have proposed direct talks between Baku and representatives of the Armenian community in Xankəndi—which local Armenians call by its Soviet name, Stepanakert—with the intention of establishing credible guarantees. Promisingly, at this year’s Munich Security Conference, Aliyev stated that “it was agreed with our international partners that there will be discussions on the rights and security of the Armenian minority in Karabakh.”

What’s Next?

Which peace treaty proposal will prevail hinges upon what is acceptable to both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the capacity of the mediator in being able to support a peace deal. So far, the EU and the United States seem to be outcompeting Russia in this regard. Azerbaijan will definitely favor the West’s proposal, which calls upon both sides to respect each other’s territorial integrity, and rejects the Russian proposal that risks delaying the status issue. Armenia, on the other hand, prefers the Russian proposal, though the Pashinyan government is cognizant of the risks associated with tying its future security with Russia. Despite its bilateral security alliance with Russia and its membership in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the CSTO proved to be unreliable when Armenian troops clashed with the Azerbaijani military along the inter-state border—and the latter reportedly captured some strategic heights inside the Armenian territory—in September last year. This triggered the search for alternative security allies, and ultimately the establishment of a new two-year EU Mission in Armenia (EUMA). While the mission raised eyebrows in Russia and Azerbaijan, it could actually incentivize Yerevan to pursue a peace proposal offered by the West.  

The competing logics of third-party interests will interfere and might complicate the process of reaching a final agreement unless Russia is completely exhausted by its war efforts in Ukraine. Once Russia stops scheming against a peace treaty, the chances are that the sides will finally agree on a lasting peace.

Farid Guliyev, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science and Philosophy at Khazar University in Baku. The views expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the author.