Future peace should be based upon a sustainable agreement rooted in coexistence and cooperation. However, the main challenge is not the status of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, but the lack of will of Armenians to live with Azerbaijanis—either in Azerbaijan or even in Armenia.
While there has been a plethora of articles in the Western media about the geopolitical consequences of this conflict, mainly focusing on the roles of Russia and Turkey, the overwhelming majority of journalists and experts have concentrated on profiling the interests of the regional powers or the Western bloc, rather than discussing what might constitute a sustainable peace in the South Caucasus. To be overlooked—owing to religious and cultural bias, historical predispositions, and geopolitical interests—has been the fate of both the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples, who have suffered from ethnic cleansing and the losses of war.
The history of the conflict shows the pernicious influence of political elites and the expert community. When, in February 1988, Armenian nationalists for the first time chanted the slogan miatsum, demanding the unification of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomy of Azerbaijan with Armenia, they voiced a xenophobic project for the recreation of Great Armenia. Yet, through a network of Armenian lobbyists and influencers, this concept was presented as a fight for self-determination. Western policymakers and experts saw in this movement an opportunity to challenge the Soviet system. Without going into detail about the history of the conflict, which is closely related to the Russian imperial legacy of managing the peripheries—especially in what was regarded as the Muslim borderland—the West expressed sympathy for the Armenian project in the same way as, one hundred years ago, the Allied Powers (Britain, France, and Russia) promoted the Armenian Question to dismantle the Ottoman empire. Soviet authorities tended to support the Soviet Azerbaijani border to prevent the revision of other republics’ boundaries and thus maintain what the communist state had forged over its seventy-year rule. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Moscow chose to support its traditional ally, Armenia, to prevent Azerbaijan from leaning westward during 1992–93. This policy enabled Yerevan to occupy the ex-Nagorno-Karabakh autonomy and seven regions outside of it. However, to maintain its grip, Armenia became heavily dependent on Moscow’s political, military, and economic support. Overall, Russia’s strategy was to freeze the conflict in a state of limbo in order to exercise effective control over both countries.
The West realized that Russia’s policy in this and other conflicts during the post-Soviet era aimed at institutionalizing uncertainty. Western policymakers tried to convince Azerbaijani officials that they should yield Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. (I myself witnessed closed official meetings where Westerners spoke about the need to accept as a fait-accompli the results of the 1988–94 First Karabakh War). In their opinion, such a resolution would enable both countries to remove Moscow’s control, even though this proposal envisaged it at the expense of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory.
In 2007–9, France, Russia, and the United States proposed the so-called Madrid Principles, which recommended that the seven regions be returned to Azerbaijani control and that the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh be postponed to some later time when more reconciliatory conditions might enable the resolution of this issue through a “legally binding _expression_ of will.” Both Armenia and Azerbaijan accepted the Madrid Principles, but Yerevan received no international pressure to move forward with their implementation.
More recently, Moscow responded more favorably toward addressing Baku’s demands, perhaps in acknowledgment of Azerbaijan’s growing military and economic power. In the 2010s, Russia began reassessing its relations with Azerbaijan and Armenia as, in both countries, discontent toward Moscow became more visible, especially after the revolution in Armenia in 2018.
In 2011, Russia proposed the Kazan formula, which stipulated the immediate return of five occupied regions outside of Nagorno-Karabakh, thus excluding Lachin and Kelbajar, which lie between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. However, still shielded by Russia’s military and with international support from Western powers with influential Armenian diasporas such as in France and the United States, among others, Yerevan continued its policy of flouting international norms. Events in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, and developments around the independence of Kosovo, created a false perception that Armenia was winning by ignoring successive proposed settlements and international resolutions.
Azerbaijan’s incumbent president Ilham Aliyev, unlike many other post-Soviet leaders, managed to build a constructive relationship with Moscow and avoided antagonizing rhetoric. The result is that, during the Second Karabakh War, President Vladimir Putin repeatedly acknowledged that the occupied territories of Azerbaijan had straightforward, internationally recognized status and Russia’s obligation to Armenia did not extend beyond Armenia’s borders. In other conflicts, Moscow has not hesitated to interfere on foreign soil.