Armenia and Azerbaijan still skirting war in Nagorno-Karabakh
Since the mid-1990s, the tiny territory of Nagorno-Karabakh with about
160,000 people has become a `frozen conflict’ zone despite rounds of
peace talks to settle its status.
Toronto Star
Wed Feb 20
2013
By: Olivia Ward, Foreign Affairs Reporter
In the 1990s, the aftershocks of the Soviet Union’s collapse kept on
coming in the fractious southern Caucasus.
Georgia fought two separatist wars. Russia battled Chechen rebels. And
the tiny disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh exploded into conflict
between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In the 21st century, two out of the three – Georgia and Chechnya –
went back to war. And this week – on the 25th anniversary of a vote
that launched two decades of unresolved ethnic strife in
Nagorno-Karabakh, a leading expert on the little known region says it
could be next.
`The risk may seem relatively low,’ said Thomas de Waal of the
Carnegie Endowment, `but the only thing that is stopping a war is the
leaders’ own calculation.’
Nagorno-Karabakh was shared for centuries by Muslim Azeris and
Christian Armenians. But after the First World War, the newly-formed
Soviet Union created a largely Armenian autonomous region of
Nagorno-Karabakh within the republic of Azerbaijan. In February 1988,
the local Soviet parliament for Karabakh voted to join Armenia,
touching off an inter-ethnic explosion.
Some 30,000 people died in conflicts that left ethnic Armenians as
victors, who occupied new territory in Azerbaijan to create a buffer
zone and corridor linking Karabakh and Armenia. The enclave was
declared an independent – but unrecognized – republic.
War broke out again, and pogroms of Armenians and Azeris forced both
groups to flee their homes. A Russian-brokered ceasefire ended the
fighting in 1994. But more than 1 million ethnic Azeris and Armenians
still cannot return home.
Since then, the tiny territory of about 160,000 people – one-fifth the
area of Nova Scotia – has become a `frozen conflict’ zone despite
rounds of peace talks to settle its status.
Meanwhile, said de Waal, Azerbaijan has become an economic oil giant
in the region, but with a democratic deficit. President Ilham Aliyev’s
regime is using its new-found wealth to equip and expand the army. It
is also ratcheting up tensions with anti-Armenian rhetoric.
In one of the most extreme cases, 75-year-old writer Akram Aylisli was
burnt in effigy for a book he wrote to heal relations between ethnic
Azerbaijanis and Armenians, and a pro-government party offered a
$13,000 bounty for cutting off his ear.
`Azerbaijan doesn’t want a compromise with people who `stole our
land,’ ‘ de Waal said last week at University of Toronto’s Munk
Centre. `It spends $4 billion a year on its army.’
As Karabakh Armenians see themselves losing the arms race, some favour
a `knockout blow’ against Azerbaijan before the point of no return is
reached.
`There’s also the possibility of an accidental war started along the
ceasefire line – one day someone could lob a mortar shell across it,’
said de Waal. In an uneasy neighbourhood that includes traditional
foes Iran, Turkey and Russia, a renewed conflict could have a ripple
effect.
Both sides routinely attend sporadic peace talks and say they want a
peace deal. But with Azerbaijan demanding a return of Karabakh, with
some autonomy, and Armenia insisting on independence, it’s unlikely to
happen soon.
`There are perfectly sensible plans for peace, but there have to be
basic levels of trust,’ de Waal said. `Now there’s a lack of both
trust and interaction.’