Author: Tambiyan Samvel

The return of 15 detainees to Armenia, following the handover of Armenian landmine maps to Azerbaijan, was one of the few pieces of good news to come out of the conflict in recent weeks. 

But coming as it did just a week before critical elections, many are asking: Was it a campaign ploy?

Azerbaijan has been demanding the mine maps from Armenia for months. In a surprise deal on the evening of June 12, the two sides announced an agreement: Armenia handed over maps from the Aghdam region in exchange for 15 of the detainees that Azerbaijan continues to hold (out of close to 200, according to Yerevan). 

The ongoing plight of the Armenians being held in Azerbaijan has been one of the most sensitive issues in Armenia, and has weakened the position of acting prime minister Nikol Pashinyan ahead of the June 20 elections. 

On the day the deal was announced Pashinyan celebrated it at a campaign rally in the Gegharkunik region, reading the names of the detainees one by one. He has continued to highlight the exchange at campaign events, calling it a “wonderful event.” 

In turn, opposition figures lined up to criticize Pashinyan for using the sensitive issue of detainees to gain electoral points. Former President Serzh Sargsyan, who supports one opposition coalition, “I have honor,” said the maps were too valuable to get only 15 detainees in return. “And if it was possible to bring back the detainees in exchange for the maps, why weren’t they doing it during these eight months [since the end of the war]?” Sargsyan asked, “Were they holding it for the pre-election show?” 

Artur Vanetsyan, the former head of the National Security Service and the prime minister candidate from the “I have honor” coalition, blamed Pashinyan for “cheap PR.” And Artur Ghazinyan, one candidate on the list of the “Armenia” coalition, led by former president Robert Kocharyan, wrote on Facebook that the handover of the maps amounted to treason: “The person who gave the maps to nikol [sic] committed a crime according to RA criminal code, article 299 (treason).”

Some analysts also were critical of the government’s deal-making abilities, for giving up the maps for relatively little in exchange. Political analyst Hrant Mikaelyan told local media that the maps indicated the location of about 97,000 mines: “Much more could have been obtained in exchange for these maps […]. Azerbaijan saved $100 million with these, and we received 15 detainees whom we would have received regardless.” 

Military analyst Leonid Nersisyan called the deal “insane”: “These maps were one of the main bargaining chips in the negotiations. But whatever it takes to win the elections,” Nersisyan wrote on Facebook.

The fact that the deal was brokered by the United States and Georgia, and not Russia – which usually mediates between Armenia and Azerbaijan – also was the source of some sniping.

At the Gegharkunik rally, Pashinyan said he received the offer to work on releasing the detainees from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and also thanked Georgian and EU partners for their efforts. Although he also pointed out Russia’s role as a mediator on other issues over the last months, some accused him of lying to the Russians about this deal. 

Some anti-Pashinyan activists suggested conspiracy theories about the PM flirting with the U.S. Boris Avagyan, a notorious former senior official in the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh government with a reputation for spreading disinformation, said that the Armenian government had lied to the Russian peacekeeping forces about the maps and claimed – without presenting evidence – that the maps could have gained more detainees than Pashinyan managed. 

But Pashinyan blamed the opposition for manipulating the topic: “It seems like there are forces which not only aren’t very happy, but are sad on this occasion,” he said during a rally in Ararat province. 

Pashinyan acknowledged that some mine maps had previously been given to Azerbaijan – Armenian officials had previously been coy about whether the maps even existed – and that other exchanges had been mediated by Russians.

“Whatever small mine maps we have transferred to Azerbaijan until now we did exclusively through our Russian Federation colleagues,” Pashinyan said. He added that Yerevan had informed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about the existence of the maps and sent examples to Baku.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan paid his first official visit to Karabakh eight months after Azerbaijan’s victory in the war against Armenia. He and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on June 15 signed a new agreement aimed at boosting cooperation between the two countries on defense and economic issues.

Erdogan was the first foreign leader to visit Karabakh following last year’s 44-day war, in which Turkish support proved critical to Azerbaijan’s victory.

The timing of the trip was somewhat of a surprise; when Erdogan’s visit to Azerbaijan was announced last week local media reported that he was going to first attend a Euro 2020 soccer match between Turkey and Wales on June 16 and then head to Karabakh. But Aliyev and Erdogan instead hit Karabakh before the soccer match.

The two presidents first visited Fuzuli, the capital city of one of the territories that Azerbaijan retook during the war. Aliyev formally greeted Erdogan and then accompanied him to Shusha, the city Azerbaijan considers its cultural capital of the region and which has been the focus of its reconstruction efforts in Karabakh so far.

En route, Aliyev briefed Erdogan on the reconstruction work that has taken place in the region so far, and the involvement of Turkish companies in the rebuilding.

In Shusha, the two met one on one and then emerged to sign a “Shusha Declaration on Allied Relations” between the two states. 

“The name of the declaration says it all,” Aliyev told press. “Today, we have established a qualitatively new relationship, and all provisions of this declaration are a guarantee of our future cooperation.” Aliyev said the agreement was the most significant treaty since the 1921 Treaty of Kars, which established the borders between Turkey and the three Caucasus Soviet republics. 

In their comments about the declaration, Aliyev and Erdogan emphasized the defense and economic elements. 

“Every issue has a great importance. I would especially like to note two of them. Firstly, cooperation, collaboration in the defense field, defense industry field, and mutual military assistance issues.” Aliyev said at a joint press event in Shusha. The second, he said, was the “Zangezur corridor,” the term Azerbaijan uses for a planned transportation link connecting Azerbaijan’s mainland to the exclave of Nakhchivan and onward to Turkey. 

“We consider Azerbaijan’s Zangezur corridor very important and support this,” Erdogan said. “This is the result of the new geopolitical situation after the Second Karabakh War,” Aliyev added.

Other elements of the agreement include a mutual defense pact, a plan to build Turkish drones in Azerbaijan, for Turkey to open a consulate in Shusha, and for Turkey’s government housing agency TOKI to help construct residences for former residents of the region who want to move back. More than 600,000 Azerbaijanis were displaced in the first war between the two sides in the 1990s. “Karabakh has been returned to its owners,” Erodgan said.

This is not the first time Azerbaijan and Turkey have signed a strategic partnership agreement. In 2010, Aliyev and then Turkish president Abdullah Gul signed a “Strategic Partnership and Mutual Aid Agreement,” which also includes a mutual defense agreement. 

“The main new thing in the agreement is that joint meetings of the Security Councils [of the two countries] will be held. That means policy on defense and security will be coordinated,” analyst Shahin Jafarli told the BBC Azerbaijani service.

Jafarli said the agreement was a message to both Armenia and Russia. “This means that Turkey openly declares that if any further attacks and provocations are carried out against Azerbaijan, Turkey will defend Azerbaijan,” he said. 

In Shusha, Erdogan did refer once to Russia: He called on Armenia to join a mooted regional structure, first proposed by Turkey, that would include the three Caucasus states plus Russia, Iran, and Turkey. “My brother [Aliyev] and I are ready to make any selflessness to take this step. Mr. Vladimir Putin is ready for such selflessness,” he said.

The agreement was broadly popular in Azerbaijan. A group of public figures, political parties and NGOs issued a statement welcoming the declaration, arguing that closer cooperation with Turkey would help the country deal with “threats against our country by foreign special services, especially Russian-Armenian intelligence.” 

Armenia, which considers Shusha to be occupied by Azerbaijan and has said it intends to return control of the town to the unrecognized, Armenia-backed Nagorno Karabakh Republic, condemned Erdogan’s visit, calling it “an outright provocation against regional peace and security.”

The agreement is a message “both to the countries of the region, and the revanchist forces of Armenia,” said Natig Jafarli, an economist and a cofounder of the political party ReAl, in an interview with independent media outlet Open Azerbaijan. “Given the presence of Russian peacekeepers there [in Karabakh], it was also a message to Moscow: The presence of Russian peacekeepers does not mean that Azerbaijan and Turkey may not have any say or role in these matters.”