Author: Hunanian Jack

The South Caucasus region is a geographic landmass plagued with perpetual conflicts throughout history. With one of the oldest cultures on Earth, Armenia has historically been sandwiched between various conflicting empires.

Armenia faces a humanitarian and cultural catastrophe, which has drawn the ire of the international community at Azerbaijan’s actions. France has taken a stand the most and is currently preparing a defense cooperation agreement with Armenia and building a new consulate in Syunik province. With Paris growing their relationship with Yerevan, it could lead to a domino effect of drawing Washington into the fold—something that is needed to stop the new potential conflicts and ethnic cleansing that could take place if new wars were to commence.

During the commencement of the United Nations General Assembly, Azerbaijan, to much dismay, conducted a military offensive in Karabakh between September 19th and 20th to destroy the remaining Armenian militias in the region. The Azerbaijani military, supplemented by renewed weapons shipments from Turkey and Israel, quickly capitulated the Artsakh Defense Forces. In the ensuing chaos, over 100,000 Armenians fled the region. In less than a week, most Armenians in Karabakh fled for fear of their safety.

Though Azerbaijan claims it was not ethnic cleansing and had no intentions of it, statements made by the European Union and the United States told a different story, with calls for sanctions and reviewing the Western partnership with Baku.

During the 2020 war and 2022 border invasion of Armenia, Azerbaijan committed many war crimes, such as beheadings of Armenian civilians and sexual assaults of female Armenian POWs—a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions.

War crimes were purposely uploaded to telegram channels, as the autocrat of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, rewards such actions. Ramil Safarov was pardoned and named a national hero to much international condemnation for hacking an Armenian officer to death in his sleep with an axe in Hungary.

Fearing they could suffer the same fate of previous appalling actions of the Azerbaijani military and the lack of enforcement or care by Russian peacekeepers, the Armenian community hastily fled—leaving a refugee crisis to much of the world’s dismay and lack of diplomacy.

The lack of response by the international community to Azerbaijan’s sudden military operation raised the eyes of the bureaucratic practices when dealing with autocrats. The European Union is an example of this as the ongoing gas deal with Aliyev to digress from Putin saw the bloc trade one tyrant with numerous human rights abuses for another.

While most of the West has stayed silent, France has become the country that has stepped up the most to Armenia’s aid. Paris has grown its relationship with Yerevan, one of the few countries to condemn and warn of Baku’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 war.

Russia, which has enacted information warfare against France in their former colonies, has also used similar hybrid warfare methods against Armenia—as Yerevan’s and Moscow’s relationship has drifted over the past several years. With a historical relation with the plight of Armenians stemming back to the rescues during the Armenian Genocide at Musa Dagh, France also sees an opportunity to reciprocate help for them against Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The French foreign minister and senate recently approved a military aid package and plan to create a consulate in Syunik as Azerbaijan and Turkey have stepped up warlike rhetoric against the Armenian province over the ‘Zangezur Corridor.’ France and Lithuania were also the most vocal in condemning Azerbaijan’s military aggression, as Baku promised “integration,” but used fear and intimidation against the Karabakh Armenians.

France’s drift to Armenia is opportunistic for both nations. Armenia is currently searching for a path of Western integration after multiple false promises and failures by Russia. At the same time, France looks to be the first NATO member to have an actual presence in a region that has been under the forceful eye of the Kremlin for hundreds of years.

By the time the last bus carrying ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh arrived in Goris, an Armenian city on the border with Azerbaijan, the scale of the tragedy had become clear.

The 19 September lightning offensive by Azerbaijan ended thirty years of self-rule in the breakaway region, located within its borders but – historically and as a result of the long-running conflict – inhabited almost exclusively by ethnic Armenians.

Over 100,000 people, almost the entirety of the region’s population, streamed through the border and sought shelter in Armenia, whose government – just like the rest of the world – never recognised what the refugees call the Republic of Artsakh, despite being its closest ally.

As a result of the offensive and under pressure from a stifling blockade in place for nearly a year, the government of Artsakh announced it would disband all its institutions by January next year.

"While Azerbaijan has stated it would 'guarantee the rights' of Armenians who want to return to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenians accuse it of ethnic cleansing"

The territory of Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh fought a war to secede from Azerbaijan, supported by Armenian forces.

The events of those years saw atrocities on both sides and resulted in the expulsion of more than 700,000 Azeris from Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the surrounding territories. An estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians were displaced from Azerbaijan.

Peace negotiations led by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group over the years failed to result in a settlement, and a low-intensity conflict continued.

All-out war flared up again in 2020, which saw Azerbaijan – backed by Turkey and strong from its oil boom – recover 80 percent of the territories previously lost, including one-third of Nagorno-Karabakh itself.

The rest of the territory was patrolled by a Russian 'peacekeeping' force following a Moscow-brokered ceasefire. Traditionally a close ally of Armenia, ties between the two countries have become strained over the last year.

Armenia's prime minister Nikol Pashinyan, a former journalist who came to power in 2018 after leading a protest movement against corrupt post-soviet elites, has made several moves, mostly symbolic, distancing his country from Russia.

That tension, as well as Russia's engagement in its war in Ukraine, could be the reason Russian forces on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh failed to prevent the closure of the Lachin corridor connecting the enclave to Armenia in December 2022.

For months, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh had been queueing in breadlines and struggling to procure medicine and other essential items. Malnutrition and exhaustion clearly marked many of the faces of the thousands that crossed into Goris every day.

While Azerbaijan has stated it would “guarantee the rights” of Armenians who want to return to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenians accuse it of ethnic cleansing.

“It was the latest in a larger escalation,” Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Centre in Yerevan, told The New Arab.

“So the fear in Armenia is Azerbaijan will not stop, will not be satisfied,” he added, explaining that the country is concerned about Russian “either complicity or incapacity”.

In the latest signal of its distancing from Russia, the Armenian parliament has voted to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), which binds the country to arrest Putin over war crimes in Ukraine should the Russian president set foot on its territory.

Yet Armenia remains a member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). It also imports over 80 percent of its gas from Russia.

“I think the Armenian government is cutting its losses in terms of Nagorno-Karabakh and challenging the relationship with Russia,” Giragosian said. “But we're smart enough here in Armenia not to see NATO membership as the answer to all of our problems.”

"'It's less about Armenia looking to the West, as the West looking to Armenia'"

Filling the void

After the Azerbaijani offensive, hundreds of opposition protesters rallied in Yerevan. They called on Armenian president Pashinyan to resign over the crisis, calling him a “traitor.”

“This government was actually re-elected despite losing the war in 2020,” Giragosian explained. He believes that frustration over the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh will not topple the government. “I expect much of the frustration to shift away from the government and to target Russia for its inability to defend the Armenians."

Washington and Brussels have been moving to fill the void left by Russia. In January 2023, the EU launched a civilian monitoring mission in Armenia. “It's less about Armenia looking to the West, as the West looking to Armenia,” Giragosian said.

During a visit to Yerevan on 3 October, French foreign minister Catherine Colonna promised to supply military equipment to Armenia.

In response, Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev said that France would be to blame for any new war in Armenia. Aliyev also boycotted a long-planned meeting with Pashinyan in Granada, Spain, in early October, which was attended by EU Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Olaf Scholz.

While some EU politicians have called for sanctions on Azerbaijan, Michel invited both Pashinyan and Aliyev to meet in Brussels by the end of October. On a visit to Tbilisi on 8 October, president Aliyev said Azerbaijan is ready to hold talks with Armenia, indicating Georgia as the preferred host for negotiations.

“This is the most promising moment there has ever been to get to a lasting peace,” said Matthew Bryza, an American diplomat and former co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, which included the US, France and Russia.

The Armenian side has also been signalling its willingness to sit down at the negotiating table. "Endless war is not beneficial for anyone," parliament speaker Alen Simonian told Armenian public television on 25 September.

“Armenia does not have any capacity to wage another war against Azerbaijan. Its military has been decimated in the last war,” said Bryza.

“If there were to be another flare-up of armed conflict, it wouldn't provide any hope to the Armenian side unless the Armenian military completely rebuilt itself. And that's not really something anyone's talking about,” he added.

Still, some analysts warn that disputes over border areas and trade routes could further prolong the conflict.

“The Azerbaijani strategy in this campaign is largely driven by domestic politics,” explained Giragosian.

“I see a father and son dynasty, authoritarian. A family ruling the country for over a quarter of a century, and needing conflict to distract the population from the lack of democracy and corruption.”

Ylenia Gostoli is a reporter currently based in Istanbul, Turkey. She has covered politics, social change, and conflict across the Middle East and Europe. Her work on refugees, migration and human trafficking has won awards and grants

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/how-nagorno-karabakh-shifted-regional-balance-power

United Nations (United States) (AFP) – Armenia on Saturday urged the United Nations to send a mission to ensure the safety of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh after the territory was seized back by Azerbaijan, which promised to respect minority rights.

For the second time since the swift Azerbaijani operation in the mountainous territory, the top diplomats of the adversaries clashed at the United Nations as Western powers voiced alarm.

Armenia — where memories remain vivid of mass killings in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire that Armenians, the United States and many historians consider genocide — has accused Turkish ally Azerbaijan of planning ethnic cleansing.

“After failure of preventing genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations managed to create mechanisms for prevention, thus making the ‘never again’ a meaningful pledge,” Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said.

“But today we are at the brink of another failure,” he said in a speech to the UN General Assembly.

He called for the United Nations to send a mission immediately to Nagorno-Karabakh to “monitor and assess the human rights, humanitarian and security situation on the ground.”

Azerbaijan’s foreign minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, had accused Armenia of disinformation when the two top diplomats joined a special Security Council session Thursday.

On Saturday, Bayramov also spoke at the General Assembly and said that Azerbaijan, which is mostly Muslim, would respect the Armenians, who are Christian.

“I wish to reiterate that Azerbaijan is determined to reintegrate ethnic Armenian residents of the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan as equal citizens,” Bayramov said.

“We continue to firmly believe that there is a historic opportunity for both Azerbaijan and Armenia to establish good neighborly relations and coexist side by side in peace,” Bayramov said.

Russia, which sent peacekeepers after earlier violence in 2020, on Saturday was supervising the disarmament of ethnic Armenian fighters.

If the surrender is completed, it could effectively end a conflict that has erupted periodically since the fall of the Soviet Union.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who had led three rounds of talks seeking a diplomatic solution, voiced “deep concern” for the ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh in a telephone call with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Blinken told him that the United States is pressing Azerbaijan “to protect civilians and uphold its obligations to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh and to ensure its forces comply with international humanitarian law,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

Azerbaijan’s swift offensive, which killed some 200 people, has sparked protests in Armenia against Russia, which had been tasked with guaranteeing the truce after the 2020 fighting.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking to reporters at the United Nations, accused Western powers of “pulling the strings” to undermine Moscow but also said, “Unfortunately, the leadership of Armenia from time to time adds fuel to the fire itself.”

Lavrov pointed to one senior Armenian politician who said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had handed Nagorno-Karabakh over to Azerbaijan.

“It is ludicrous to accuse us of this,” Lavrov said, while adding that he expected Armenians to maintain in Moscow’s orbit and not ally with “those who swoop in from abroad.”

A declaration signed in 1991 in Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty, then known as Alma-Ata, stated that existing borders of newly independent countries that had been Soviet republics were inviolable.

The declaration “meant that Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Azerbaijan — pure and simple as that,” Lavrov said.