- Brian Brivati
On 19th September 2023, Azerbaijan finally took back the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, fully reversing its defeat in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War of the early 1990s. To mark the beginning of this new era in Azerbaijani history, the country’s elective dictator, Ilham Aliyev, announced snap Presidential “Elections” for 7th February 2024. Aliyev is seeking a new mandate after 20 years in power.
The result may be a foregone conclusion: the result of his 2013 election victory was accidently released the day before the polls opened. Elections in Azerbaijan are more coronation than competition, and after his military success and swaggering indifference to international law and human rights, he is more popular than ever at home. The question is why Aliyev feels he needs a new domestic mandate right now?
The answer was revealed in a rambling three-hour television interview with selected journalists in Baku on January 10th. There was a lot of self-aggrandisement in his answers to a string of fawning questions. (You cannot entirely blame the journalists for their submissiveness: eight have been arrested by the authorities in the last two months alone.)
Amid Aliyev’s celebration of the seizure and ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, there was a clear indication that he may not be finished in his ambition “to fully restore the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan”. He made calculated attacks on Armenia, France, the UN, EU and anyone else not signed up to his historic mission to achieve “justice”, or who might oppose his ambitions for “waging”, as he put it, “political and diplomatic war at the international level.”
Geography is the key to why Aliyev has not finished “waging war”. His country remains split, with the large enclave of Nakhichevan separated from the main part of Azerbaijan by a 35km wide strip of Armenia. At present, the Azeris can only reach Nakhichevan over ground via Iran. There are also eight border villages to which the Azeris lay claim.
Aliyev himself has formally agreed on several occasions that the demarcation and delimitation of borders between Azerbaijan and Armenia should be based on the 1991 December Alma-Ata Declaration (in Prague in October 2022, for example, and then again in Sochi in October 2022 and Brussels in July 2023).
Now, following military success, he is making outlandish demands to go back to maps from 1918 when the Soviet Union drew the borders between its Socialist Republics.
“It is no secret that in the 20th century the lands of Azerbaijan were given to Armenia in parts”, he stated ominously on 10th January; “The city of Yerevan was handed over to Armenia […] But it was actually an Azerbaijani city, which was demolished and destroyed.”. This was “a huge historical crime”, he added. This was followed by more and more land being given by the Soviet government to Armenia. The implication is clear: he wants this territory “returned” to Azerbaijan.
There is also unfinished business is the Zangezur Corridor which is a transport link demanded by Baku between the main part of Azerbaijan and the autonomous region of Nakhichevan. One of those gifts of land was the ceding of West Zangezur to Armenia. If you take the 1918 or pre-World War One maps as the basis for future negotiations, then the President is claiming not just a corridor but the region to be historically part of Azerbaijan. That is also why he does not want the technical process of delimiting the border, i.e. agreeing the precise position of the border line, to be completed before a peace treaty, many of these “historic” claims would not stand up to scrutiny.
In positioning Azerbaijan for the maximum land grab possible, Aliyev also disregards his obligation to honour the tripartite agreement brokered by Russia that ended the fighting in the Second Nagorno Karabakh war in 2020. Russia was meant to provide security guarantees for that agreement and has failed to do so.
The government of Azerbaijan undertook to agree a ceasefire and cessation of all hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone; guarantee the safety of traffic along the Lachin corridor for citizens, vehicles, and goods in both directions. Azerbaijan ended the ceasefire in April and closed the Lachin corridor in September 2023, after ethnically cleansing Nagorno Karabakh of over 100,000 Armenians.
The Azeris now want Russian FSB protection for the route Zanzegur Corridor and no border checks for Azeri citizens entering Armenian territory, a clear violation of Armenian sovereignty and international law. Only the weakest of the three signatories to the agreement, Armenia, has attempted to keep to its terms and uphold international law.
Aliyev’s 10th January interview made clear that the President’s view of international law informs the Azerbaijan government’s attitude to the existing peace deal and will inform their approach to future negotiations: “If you look at my speeches, I have repeatedly said that international law does not work. These mechanisms are deployed only for the weaker countries. Bigger states ignore them. Under such circumstances, countries that demand justice, and rightly so, must secure this justice themselves.”
He speaks from a position of strength. Russia is keeping out of the conflict, with some commentators suspecting an energy deal with Baku as Armenia reorients itself to the West. Turkey stands squarely behind Aliyev. The UK issued strong words but remains an ally of the regime in Baku.
After Macron failed to get sanctions against Baku through the UN, Aliyev attacked French Imperialism in Algeria and revelling in the speed of the military operation in September, stated that: “I think this should be a lesson not only for Armenia, but also for those standing behind it [ie the French]– that we do not tolerate a language of threats and being treated with arrogance”. The EU is divided and its most effective negotiator, Council President Charles Michel, is standing down early.
Our current age is one in which dictators act with impunity, and do not hide the fact. They boast about the irrelevance of international law while seeking endorsement for their regimes in elaborate electoral farces. After Aliyev secures victory on 7th February, he will be at his most dangerous, with a mobilised and heavily-equipped military and a geopolitical situation conducive to the realisation of his remaining territorial ambitions through force.
For its part, Armenia is trying to sound the alarm: its Ambassador to the UK briefed the House of Lords on the risks this week. Aliyev claims the conflict between the two states is not a geopolitical issue, but it is one. The trade routes that cross the region and the spillover of the Ukraine war make it the crucible of the Eastern flank of the unfolding war between Russia and NATO.
Professor Brian Brivati is a Senior Honorary Policy Fellow at Centre for Public Understanding of Defence and Security, Exeter University
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