ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN: ON THE BRINK OF WAR?
National Interest
Aug 7 2014
Ariel Cohen
August 8, 2014
The messy business of post-imperial disintegration is not over. The
eruption of Russian-Ukrainian hostilities is not the only case in
point. The former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan are at it
again, too. And there may be a connection between the two conflicts,
experts say.
After fighting a bloody war in 1988-1994, followed by “secession”
of Nagorno-Karabakh (unrecognized by everyone, including Armenia),
the occupation of seven Azerbaijani districts, known as the Lachin
Corridor, and an uneasy cease-fire, the two countries have now been
exchanging fire for over about ten days.
In a news environment dominated by much bigger and bloodier conflicts,
such as the Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS), Syria, Gaza and
Ukraine, the deadly news from the Caucasus is barely noticed.
However, the killing of fifteen Azerbaijani soldiers along the “line
of contact” July 29-August 1 signified an escalation in hostilities.
Casualties from retaliatory action, Azeri multiple-rocket launcher
fire and overflights by the Azerbaijani air force, indicate that the
situation may deteriorate quickly.
While the United States and the EU “expressed concern”, Russia’s
Vladimir Putin decided to play peacemaker. He will meet with
Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and Armenian president Serzh
Sargsyan in Sochi August 8-9 for separate talks. Despite a meeting
between Aliyev and Sargsyan in Vienna in November of 2013, there is
no progress in getting a permanent settlement–nor should one hold
his breath over the Sochi summit.
UN resolutions and declarations to the contrary notwithstanding,
the Armenian position remains implacable: no territorial concessions
to Azerbaijan in Karabakh. Nor is Yerevan eager to return the seven
non-Karabakh districts back to Baku.
Thus, despite the mounting frustration, the current status quo
serves Armenia. Azerbaijan, flush with oil cash, has been building
its military forces for years. Yet it is still insecure after the
defeat twenty years ago.
With a $40 billion investment in onshore and offshore oil and gas,
including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline spanning the Caspian
and the Mediterranean, and the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline, which
will export over 30 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe, and will
become operational in 2018, Baku is not seeking a new war.
However, the hostilities may not be accidental. Armenia is a faithful
Russian ally. Recently, it rejected an Association Agreement with
the European Union it painstakingly negotiated for three years,
and signed up for membership in the Moscow-led Customs Union. In
the future, Armenia is likely to join the Eurasian Union. Russian
military bases remain on the Armenian territory through 2043, and
Russian troops guard Armenia’s borders with Iran and Turkey.
Moreover, Armenia voted in support of Russia in the UN General Assembly
regarding the annexation of Crimea. It may use Russia’s action
towards the peninsula as a model for occupation and annexation of
Karabakh. After all, Armenians may think, “if the Moscow metropolis
expands its network of unrecognized, secessionist satellites or
annexed territories (Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia–and now
the Crimea), why can’t Armenia annex Karabakh?”
Azerbaijan, on its part, cast its lot with the West–for now. Not
only has it allowed unprecedented access to its hydrocarbon resources
to BP and other Western energy companies, it has strong economic and
military ties with the United States.
Baku allowed its airport to become a massive trans-shipment point
in the Northern Distribution Network, which supplied Afghanistan,
and Azeri troops were deployed there side-by-side with NATO troops.
Azerbaijani soldiers also were deployed to Iraq. Azerbaijan, a secular,
majority-Shiite country, has close relations with the Sunni Turkey
and with Israel, and imports tens of billions of dollars’ and euros’
worth of Western goods, including Boeing airliners.
Yet, it is energy exporting that defines Azerbaijan’s geopolitical
importance. The border clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia
are likely to remind the West that Russia’s oil- and gas-sector
sanctions, imposed because of the occupation of Crimea and the
support of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, may have
“unintended consequences.” The distance from the Armenian border to
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline can be covered by a day or two
of a successful tank corps thrust. Even recurrent rocket and artillery
barrages can threaten the BTC and the TANAP gas-pipeline development.
The diplomatic tool to resolve the hostilities between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, the “Minsk Group,” which includes the United States,
Russia and France, is now obsolete. It was created in the 1990s,
when diplomatic cooperation between the United States and Russia
was a norm, not an exception. Alas, times have changed. Hostility
between Moscow and Washington, and for that matter, Russia and the EU,
unfortunately makes joint diplomacy all but impossible.
With U.S. attention split from China to Ukraine and between Al
Qaeda, Hamas, the Islamic State and Al Shabab, there is only so much
Washington has the bandwidth to do. Putin’s peacekeeping in Sochi is
likely to put a Band-Aid over the current hostilities, while it is not
in Russia’s interest to bring the sides to permanent resolution of the
conflict, pack up the military base in Gyumri and go home. Nor would
Armenia want that, facing Turkish hostility, the unacceptable Turkish
narrative over the 1915 tragedy and a closed border with Ankara.
The Obama administration, seeking a diplomatic achievement, may
decide to pursue a complex diplomatic scenario, in which Armenia
returns the seven occupied Azerbaijani districts to Baku. This can
be done in exchange for opening the blocked border for trade with
Turkey and the EU, and the regional infrastructure integration for
Yerevan, including connections of its energy and transportation grids
to Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey networks of pipelines and railroads.
Without trade and investment, Armenia is doomed to underdevelopment
and mass emigration to Russia, Europe and the United States.
Unfortunately, today, Russia is unlikely to approve such a win-win
solution, dooming the long-suffering neighbors to further strife.
Ariel Cohen, PhD, is Principal at International Market Analysis,
a Washington-DC based political risk, energy and natural resources
advisory firm
From: A. Papazian
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/armenia-azerbaijan-the-brink-war-11035