NAGORNO-KARABAKH: CRIMEA’S DOPPELGANGER
Open Democracy
June 13 2014
Thomas de Waal 13 June 2014
Crimea and Nagorno-Karabakh, two regions with similar histories,
took very different paths after the Soviet Union broke up; until now.
Parallel provinces
Crimea and Nagorno-Karabakh have shadowed each other for several
decades. In Soviet times they shared the curious status of both
being autonomous regions, which were each part of one of the 15 Union
Republics of the USSR, but shared a strong affiliation with another
Union Republic. Russian-majority Crimea, after 1954, belonged to
Ukraine while Armenian-majority Nagorno-Karabakh was situated inside
Azerbaijan.
Once the USSR began to split apart, that double allegiance was a
recipe for trouble. In 1988, the Armenians of Karabakh were the
first rebels to shake the architecture of the Soviet Union, when,
encouraged by their compatriots in Yerevan, they demanded unification
with Soviet Armenia. Then, in December 1989, the soviets of Azerbaijan
and Nagorno-Karabakh jointly declared unification. Following the
Armenian victory in that conflict, confirmed by the 1994 ceasefire,
Armenia has since carried out a de facto annexation of Karabakh,
Meanwhile, the territory sticks to a declaration of independence made
in 1991, but recognised by no one except its fellow de facto states
in the region – Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria.
In the early 1990s, there were fears that Crimea would follow the
example of Karabakh, Abkhazia or Chechnya, and seek secession,
thereby provoking yet another conflict. In Crimea, however, the
‘Karabakh precedent’ was a dog that didn’t bark. To general relief,
the peninsula proved to be a damp tinderbox. Either it was because
Russians and Ukrainians were too intermingled and too similar, or it
was that the Crimean Russian elite was too corrupt or too passive,
but Crimea avoided conflict even as other Soviet-era autonomous
regions were fought over.
Until 2014, that is. The bizarre chain of events in Ukraine, in
February and March, led to the Russian Federation annexing Crimea,
tearing up half a dozen international treaties, and creating a new
territorial dispute almost out of thin air. In this context, people
are wondering not about whether Karabakh creates a precedent for Crimea
but whether it works the other way round. The truth may be that Crimea
has placed Karabakh in a new vicious circle of destructive politics.
Russia’s role
Armenia immediately made its choice. David Babayan, adviser to the
Karabakh Armenian president, called Crimea’s vote in March a good
precedent for Nagorno-Karabakh.
‘You are now entering free Artsakh’ (Armenian for ‘Karabakh’), CC oDR
Hrant Apovian, one Armenian expert amongst many, wrote, ‘The Republic
of Nagorno-Karabakh is a full fledged democratic entity. It will
survive and will be recognized as such in time. The cases of Kosovo and
Crimea will reinforce and not hinder its march toward independence.’
Evidently under Russian pressure, Armenia was forced to abandon
its tradition of ‘complementarity,’ and was one of a very small (and
generally disreputable) group of 10 countries which supported Russia’s
capture of Crimea, at the United Nations, along with Belarus, Bolivia,
Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
Russia is an official mediator in the conflict and – in contrast
to its much more direct involvement in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and
Transnistria – has interests on both sides. Its only military base in
the South Caucasus (outside Abkhazia and South Ossetia) is in Armenia.
It has strengthened its economic and security relationship with
Armenia, which is now on course to join Russia’s Customs Union.
An Azerbaijani soldier keeps watch. Both sides are often only 100
metres from each other. CC Azerbaijan-irs.com
But Moscow also continues to build up its relationship with Azerbaijan,
the largest and by far the wealthiest country in the South Caucasus. In
May, Russia made a new weapons sale to Azerbaijan, which the Armenian
defence minister, through gritted teeth, called a normal development.
Sergei Markov, Kremlin adviser (one time US employee in Moscow, and now
Washington’s biggest bete noire), told Azerbaijan that only Russia, not
the United States, could guarantee Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.
This display of realpolitik and the on-going confrontation between
Russia and Western countries over Ukraine mean that it will be much
harder to see a concerted three-country push for a Karabakh peace
agreement, as happened in 2011.
Some Western commentators argue that Russia obstructs the resolution
of a Karabakh peace process.
Some Western commentators argue that Russia obstructs the resolution
of a Karabakh peace process. There is little evidence of this. In a
decade and a half following the conflict, I have known half a dozen
US mediators, representing the OSCE’s Minsk Group. Each of them has
said that the three co-chairs, France, Russia and the United States,
have worked in close coordination over that entire period. When
former president Dmitry Medvedev tried to forge a deal in a meeting
in Kazan in 2011, he did so with the full support of Barack Obama
and Nicholas Sarkozy.
Azerbaijani military parade. Azerbaijan’s military budget is now
exceeds Armenia’s total government budget. CC Sevda Babayeva
Yet Vladimir Putin, Medvedev’s patron, successor and predecessor,
has not continued the high-level diplomacy that ended in Kazan. The
failure there probably only confirmed the cynicism and indifference
with which he is said to regard the Karabakh peace process. This
cynicism, rather than active manipulation of the conflict, is Russia’s
main fault. But it should be said that Putin has reason to be cynical.
An enduring rivalry
Over the past two decades, both Armenia and Azerbaijan – and
particularly the latter – have grown much stronger as states. The two
presidents of each country, currently Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev,
have grown correspondingly more powerful vis-a-vis the mediators of
the Karabakh conflict, and now it is they who conduct the negotiation
process, seek to set its exceedingly slow tempo and, especially in
the case of Azerbaijan, blame the mediators for lack of progress.
The conflict between independent Armenia and Azerbaijan is similar
to that between India and Pakistan.
Laurence Broers has argued convincingly that the conflict is better
seen as one of ‘enduring rivalry’ between independent Armenia and
Azerbaijan, similar to that between India and Pakistan, than a
post-Soviet conflict about autonomy and self-determination.
The takeover of Crimea, the crisis in Ukraine, and the black-and-white
political realities that have resulted from them have only accentuated
difficulties that had already made the Karabakh conflict even more
intractable.
Nagorno-Karabakh troops clean their weapons in their trench on the
‘line of contact’ (c) RIA Novosti/Ilya Pitalev
One is the increased militarisation of the ‘line of contact,’
the ceasefire line of 180km that runs through de jure Azerbaijani
territory. On each side are 20,000 Armenian and Azerbaijani troops,
dug into first world war-style trenches sometimes only 100 metres
apart. Snipers with long-range rifles cause casualties a long way back
from the line. Heavy weaponry has built up, with the Azerbaijanis
now spending more than £1.8 billion a year on their military budget
on items such as drones, multiple-rocket launchers and attack aircraft.
Some military analysts say that this has created a deterrent effect,
but we can be certain that a new conflict, however small, would be
vastly more destructive than that of the 1990s.
There are 20,000 Armenian and Azerbaijani troops, dug into first
world war-style trenches sometimes only 100 metres apart.
Even if none of those new weapons are fired, the militarisation has
been accompanied by even more bellicose rhetoric from the losing
side, Azerbaijan. The rhetoric is, of course, a symptom of 20 years
of frustration, but it also erodes hopes of forging a relationship at
the negotiating table, which might produce a peace deal. In his recent
Independence Day speech President Aliyev declared: ‘Therefore, if the
Armenian people want to live in peace with neighbours they must first
of all get rid of their criminal, blood-thirsty and illegal regime
and send it to the annals of history.’ It was not a speech likely to
persuade President Sargsyan to engage in meaningful negotiations on
the surrender of captured territory.
A burned out APC on the road to Kelbajar in 2014. Twenty years since
the ceasefire, reminders of the conflict abound. CC oDR.
At the same time, in the last few months, the Azerbaijani Government
has cracked down even more severely on civil society organisations and
those few activists engaged in Track II dialogue with Armenians. In
April, Azerbaijani journalist Rauf Mirkadirov was arrested for alleged
espionage on behalf of Armenia, his crime being collaboration with
Armenian non-governmental colleagues. Last month, the country’s two
most prominent activists for human rights and dialogue with Armenians,
Arif and Leyla Yunus, were prevented from leaving the country, had
their passports confiscated, and are under similar threats.
Conflict management
In parallel, the international mediation efforts of the Minsk Group
have stayed at the same level. Although they do not say so out
loud, French, Russian and US diplomats send the signal that they
do not believe there is a chance of a peaceful breakthrough in the
negotiations, but that they will continue to manage the negotiations
and the ceasefire monitoring mission, while hoping for better times.
It is not so much conflict resolution as conflict management.
It is not so much conflict resolution as conflict management.
In his speech last month in Washington marking the 20th anniversary
of the ceasefire, US Minsk Group ambassador James Warlick, again set
out the fundamental rationale for a peaceful agreement. He more or
less hinted that if – and only if – the parties to the conflict are
serious about it, the United States government is prepared to commit
more resources to the peace process. ‘It is the presidents who must
take the bold steps needed to make peace,’ he reminded his audience.
Unfortunately, in the world that has been re-drawn following the
take-over of Crimea, the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia see even
fewer incentives to take those bold steps than before.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/thomas-de-waal/nagorno-karabakh-crimea-doppelganger-azerbaijan-armenia