Author: Frangulian Shushan

Oct 25 (Reuters) – Azerbaijan is no longer interested in securing a land corridor through Armenia to the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhichevan and will instead discuss the issue with its southern neighbour Iran, a senior Azerbaijani official said on Wednesday.

Routing a potential corridor through Iran, which borders both Armenia and Azerbaijan, could help reduce tensions around southern Armenia, which Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has in the past referred to as historically Azeri land.

"Azerbaijan had no plans to seize Zangezur," Hikmet Hajiyev, a top foreign policy adviser to Iliyev, told Reuters, referring to the putative corridor that would link Azerbaijan proper to its enclave of Nakhichevan bordering Turkey, Baku's close ally.

"After the two sides failed to agree on its opening, the project has lost its attractiveness for us — we can do this with Iran instead," he said.

Armenia had opposed such a corridor, fearing having to make further territorial concessions after Azerbaijan seized the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive in September.

Although internationally viewed as Azeri territory, Karabakh had been controlled by ethnic Armenians since the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The Azeri offensive prompted almost all the region's 120,000 ethnic Armenians to flee into Armenia.

Azerbaijan had in recent weeks called for its longstanding request for a transport corridor through southern Armenia to be included in ongoing talks on a peace treaty aimed at ending three decades of conflict between Baku and Yerevan.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/armenia-says-pashinyan-aliyev-talks-cancelled-after-baku-pulled-out-tass-2023-10-25/

The 35-year-old Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict could finally be coming to an end after last month's lighting offensive by Azerbaijan to retake Nagorno-Karabakh and the subsequent exodus of the region's Armenian population and dissolution of its de facto government. 

The fate of the Karabakh Armenians had long been the main sticking point in the peace talks underway since 2021. Now that that issue has been resolved, however crudely, and the sides have vowed to recognize one another's territorial integrity, it might seem that a conclusion could be at hand. 

But things aren't that simple. Apart from the actual content of a peace deal – chiefly border delimitation/demarcation and the opening of transit links – the sides are at odds over who should mediate.

Up to this point there have been two separate tracks of negotiations, one mediated by Russia and the other by the European Union with U.S. help.

Now, after Azerbaijan's takeover of Karabakh, Armenia is more dissatisfied than ever with its nominal strategic partner Russia and is increasingly positive on the West. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has been expressing distaste with Western mediation and calling for a regional solution to the conflict, one that could involve Russia, Turkey and Iran, or, perhaps, just Georgia. 

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had been due to meet in the presence of European mediators on the sidelines of the European Political Community Summit in Granada, Spain, on October 5.  

But Aliyev backed out. The presence of France, an ally of Armenia that has offered to sell it defensive weapons, and the exclusion of Azerbaijan's strategic partner Turkey were the reasons, his advisor later explained. 

Pashinyan went anyway, and talked Armenia-Azerbaijan peace with President Charles Michel of the European Council, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany. 

Those four released a joint statement afterwards expressing commitment to the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan, and the two countries' mutual respect for one another's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The statement also emphasized the importance of "strict adherence to the principle of non-use of force and threat of use of force." Concerns persist in Armenia that Azerbaijan could invade in order to force the establishment of a transit corridor, and the EU wants assurances from Baku that it won't do so.

A few days later, Armenia decided to skip a meeting of leaders and foreign ministers of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) members in Bishkek. Aliyev criticized the move, as supposedly a separate meeting was to be held between Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian foreign ministers on the sidelines of the event. 

"We perceive the mediation of the Russian Federation with gratitude because Russia is our neighbor and ally, as well as Armenia's ally. This country is located in our region, unlike those who are thousands of kilometers away. Naturally, the history of relations between our countries presupposes the mediation of the Russian side," Aliyev said while receiving security council heads of CIS state members. 

"Now, this invites the question: does Armenia want peace? I think not, because if it had wanted peace, it would not have missed this opportunity. The Armenian prime minister flies six hours to Granada and participates in an incomprehensible meeting there, where Azerbaijan is discussed without actually being present, but he cannot fly for two to three hours to Bishkek. He has other important things to do," Aliyev added.

After Aliyev met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bishkek on October 13, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed a similar view. "Baku has a very constructive position on this [signing a peace treaty], while Yerevan has not quite decided yet," he said.

The rift between Armenia and Russia further widened when Pashinyan told the European Parliament on October 17 that Russia was trying to topple him. 

"When the 100,000 Armenians were fleeing from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, our security allies not only failed to help us, but were publicly calling for a change of government, overthrowing the democratic government in Armenia," he said.

Russian state media the following day quoted a "high-ranking" Russian official as calling Pashinyan's statement "provocative" and suggesting Armenia could suffer the same fate as Ukraine, which Russia has waged full-scale war against for the past 18 months. 

"We see that there's an attempt to turn Armenia into a Ukraine number three. If we consider that Moldova is Ukraine number two, Pashinyan is going by leaps and bounds down the path of [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelensky," the unnamed official said.

Exclaves complicate border talks

When Armenia and Azerbaijan finally begin delimiting their common border, one of the more difficult issues is likely to be that of exclaves – the tiny islands of each country's territory that are surrounded entirely by the other's.

During the First Karabakh War in the 1990s all of these villages, most of which are actually far from Karabakh, were abandoned and taken over by the surrounding power. There are three Azerbaijani exclaves in Armenia and one Armenian exclave in Azerbaijan. There are also several bits of territory contiguous with contiguous with each country that the other sliced off during the first war.

After Pashinyan signed the statement affirming Azerbaijan's territorial integrity in Granada, Aliyev told European Council President Charles Michel by phone on October 7 that eight villages of Azerbaijan were "still under Armenian occupation, and stressed the importance of liberating these villages from occupation."  

Asked by Armenian Public TV about this claim in an interview on October 10, Pashinyan did not comment directly but said that Azerbaijan has likewise been occupying several Armenian villages since the 1990s.

"We proposed a solution to that issue back in 2021 and said let's decide what the delimitation map is, and pull back the troops simultaneously from the border line according to that map. These are very important nuances," he said.

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry in response said that Baku does not occupy any Armenian villages and suggested that Pashinyan was making that claim in order to justify Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijani villages. 

(In June Pashinyan appeared to acknowledge the validity of Azerbaijan's claims on at least one village currently controlled by Armenia.)

Another issue that will need to be addressed in the border talks is the presence of Azerbaijani troops deep inside what's generally regarded as Armenian territory. 

Azerbaijan made several incursions into Armenia since the 2020 war and currently holds an estimated 215 square kilometers of its land.

Armenia's ambassador to the European Union, Tigran Balayan, said in an interview published on October 6 that Azerbaijan was actively preparing an invasion within weeks.

But on October 11 Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told Armenian Public TV that that risk was "extremely low," and that there was no military buildup on either side of the border. 

The mixed messaging from Yerevan is puzzling, Balyan could be trying to create a sense of urgency, while Pashinyan tries to reduce tensions. 

The concern surrounds Azerbaijan's aim of realizing its "Zangezur Corridor" project to get land access to its exclave Nakhchivan through Armenian territory.

Famed Caucasus researcher Thomas de Waal recently described the corridor as the "next big issue," saying that Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkey all have their own interests in its creation – and that it may be taken by force. 

Armenia agreed to facilitate movement between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan when it signed the Russia-brokered ceasefire that ended the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War on November 10, 2020, whose ninth point reads: 

"All economic and transport connections in the region shall be unblocked. The Republic of Armenia shall guarantee the security of transport connections between the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in order to arrange unobstructed movement of persons, vehicles and cargo in both directions. The Border Guard Service of the Russian Federal Security Service [FSB] shall be responsible for overseeing the transport connections."

This language immediately gave rise to differing interpretations. For Armenia, it was a commitment to open up road and rail links. It also had implications for the Lachin corridor that connected Armenia with the then-Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh region. 

For Azerbaijan, at least at first, the demand was for a seamless corridor running through Armenia's southern Syunik Region that was beyond Armenian sovereignty. 

But Baku softened its stance this February, when President Ilham Aliyev suggested the establishment of Armenian checkpoints on either end of the would-be Zangezur Corridor, while Azerbaijan would set up a checkpoint on the Lachin road connecting Armenia to Karabakh.

It was widely seen as Azerbaijan deprioritizing the corridor in favor of its real strategic goal of establishing full control over Karabakh.

Two months later, Azerbaijan unilaterally set up a checkpoint at Lachin, effectively formalizing the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh that government-sponsored activists had been staging since December.

Then, last month, came Baku's lightning offensive to retake all of Nagorno-Karabakh and the consequent emptying of the region's 100,000-some Armenian population.

(Fin DePencier)

Now that the Karabakh issue is off the table, the question is, how much of a priority is the Zangezur corridor for Azerbaijan, and what is it willing to do to attain that goal? 

Recent moves by Azerbaijani leaders suggest it's not a matter of immediate concern. 

Baku is now pursuing an alternate corridor through Iran, whose territory has traditionally formed the main overland route from Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan. Prior to the 2020 war, the route started in eastern Azerbaijan, forcing Azerbaijanis to drive hundreds of kilometers through Iranian territory before reaching Nakhchivan. The new route will be considerably shorter, as it starts near the Armenian border, in Zangilan, a territory Azerbaijan recaptured in 2020.

Tehran has always vociferously opposed the Zangezur Corridor idea, repeatedly warning since the 2020 Karabakh war that it would not tolerate any changes to regional borders or the establishment of a "pan-Turkic" or "NATO" corridor along its northern frontier.

UK-based Azerbaijani analyst Fuad Shahbazov believes there has been a genuine policy shift from Baku.

"With the new transit route between Azerbaijan and Iran, the Zangezur Corridor project will shortly be implemented without Armenia's Syunik province," he wrote for BNE Intellinews, giving credence to Azerbaijani assurances that it respects Armenia's territorial integrity and does not plan to invade.

And some believe that, while the EU and U.S. did nothing to stop Azerbaijan from retaking Karabakh, an invasion of Armenia would jeopardize Baku's relations with the West. 

Nerses Kopalyan, an Armenian security analyst, told the EVN report podcast recently that the aim of the visit to Armenia by Samantha Power, the head of USAID, in the wake of Azerbaijan's takeover of Karabakh was "to make sure that Azerbaijan doesn't attack Armenia proper. This was the United States signaling to Azerbaijan."

But many in Armenia remain apprehensive. Azerbaijan made several incursions into Armenian territory since the 2020 war and currently holds an estimated 215 square kilometers of its territory. Azerbaijan has faced no consequences for these incursions, including the largest one, in September last year.

Baku continues to speak with strategic ambiguity about "Western Azerbaijan," the notion that all or some of the Republic of Armenia's territory is actually Azerbaijani. Baku has intermittently made explicit territorial claims, and at other times said that Azerbaijanis must be allowed to return to the land, regardless of who rules it.

And Yerevan similarly has reasons not to trust the intentions of two other regional players: its ostensible strategic ally, Russia, and Azerbaijan's strategic ally, Turkey. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in remarks to his cabinet early this week, said, "If Armenia honors its commitments, specifically the opening of the Zangezur corridor, then Turkey will step-by-step normalize relations."

That could be seen as an effort to tie the Armenia-Turkey normalization process to the opening of the Zangezur Corridor, but Ankara's exact position and understanding of the corridor are hard to discern, according to Benyamin Poghosyan, a senior research fellow at Applied Policy Research Institute of Armenia.

In an interview with Eurasianet, Poghosyan also spoke about Armenian-Russian relations in the context of the Zangezur Corridor issue.  

He noted that Armenia's position on the route has also evolved over time, and become less amenable to Russian involvement. 

Indeed, in a recent interview, Pashinyan said he was ready to open "roads for Azerbaijan and Turkey," but that Armenia's sovereignty should be maintained and that "no third power should have control over any territory of Armenia."

"We are told that in the tripartite statement it is written that security should be ensured by Russia; I say that such a thing is not written," Pashinyan said. 

Russia disagrees, and says that Armenia should abide by the terms of the trilateral agreement in 2020, which does state its border troops be involved in "overseeing" the transport connections. 

For the Azerbaijani side, ambiguity in the text does not change the fundamental nature of that provision in the 2020 agreement. "If Armenia does not want a Russian presence, Azerbaijan views that as an Armenian-Russian problem. But regardless, Armenia promised the establishment of this route," says Poghosyan.

Poghosyan speculates how a new conflict could theoretically play out: Azerbaijan initiates a conflict, and then Russia puts a stop to it. "And Russia would tell Armenia: if you want us to stop Azerbaijan, simply you should do what you agreed to do in 2020," he said. 

That could then produce an ambiguous situation. "Some people will say that Russia pushed Armenia to provide the corridor, but someone else could say there was no mention of a corridor in the November 2020 document. So if Armenia is simply realizing this November 2020 statement; it isn't a corridor."

Aliyev may then say that Azerbaijan forced Armenia to provide a corridor. But Pashinyan could say no: this is not a corridor, because it will be under sovereign Armenian control. 

"Or Pashinyan could say that Russia, Turkey and Azerbaijan jointly forced Armenia to provide a corridor, and this is more proof that Russia is not an ally of Armenia, Russia is Armenia's adversary," Pogoshyan said.