Armenia-Azerbaijan Update

In A Nutshell - 20th Sept 2023

For many reasons, I hoped that a conflict would not develop over the long disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, but it seems that my hopes may have been dashed. An explanation of this conflict, including its history, would increase the reading time of my Ukraine Weekly Update beyond that which I find reasonable and tolerable for my readers. I have therefore decided to provide a special Update for the Armenian-Azerbaijani situation - even though it appears to have been resolved, for the moment. This potential conflict is important in the context of the Ukraine conflict (viewed in the wider sense) because it is possibly being stirred up by the West as a ‘second front’ in the war between the NATO and Russia.

For those who know little about this I should explain some of the important points and issues. First, Armenia’s president, Nikol Pashinyan, is pro-Western (so I am told) yet Armenia is friendly with its neighbour, Iran, which is not pro-Western. Russia is friendly with both Armenia and Azerbaijan but relationships between Russia and Armenia have suffered since Pashinyan came to power. Türkiye is also on friendly relations with Azerbaijan. Some say that Pashinyan has ambitions for his country to become part of the West, the EU and NATO.

Nagorno-Karabakh is also known as Artsakh for anyone, like myself, who is already confused.

History

In 1988, towards the end of the Soviet era, the ethnic Armenians wanted the Nagorno-Karabakh area where they lived to be transferred to the Soviet republic of Armenia. When the Soviet Union fell apart shortly afterwards, an ethnic conflict broke out in Azerbaijan and the Armenians created their own breakaway republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh). Two wars were fought over this republic by Azerbaijanis and Armenians in the ensuing years and in 2020 Russia intervened, forcing the two sides to the negotiating table and installing a peacekeeping force to keep the two combatants apart.

That’s it in a small nutshell.

A Question of Corridors

The distribution of nations in this area is a mess, to say the least. East Azerbaijan is separated from west Azerbaijan by Armenia and many Armenians living in Nagorno Karabakh still want to be part of Armenia. Their only connection with Armenia in this mountainous terrain is through the Lachin corridor. Azerbaijan has stationed troops along the corridor because it does not want military supplies to reach Armenian separatists in Nagorno Karabakh (or Artsakh). According to Azerbaijan, Armenia still has forces in Artsakh who did not leave when hostilities between the two countries ended in 2020 - but Pashinyan denies this. No peace treaty has ever been signed between the two countries and Armenia has never recognised Nagorno-Karabakh as a separate state.

To avoid the problems inherent in travel along the Lachin corridor, the Azerbaijanis pushed for a new corridor to be constructed to the south along the border with Iran (see map). The construction of this corridor, along with other conditions, would form part of a future peace agreement between the two countries. This was back in 2020. Since then, Azerbaijan has fulfilled its promise to begin road construction as part of the new corridor but Armenia has refused to cooperate for security reasons. For more detail have a look at this article from RT.

A good article on the corridors can be found here.

Recent Events (to cut a long story short)

The Azerbaijanis have been telling the Armenians in the unrecognised republic to either stay in Azerbaijan as one among many ethnic minorities or leave. Armenia has accused the Azerbaijan government of blocking supplies between it and the ‘republic’.

A top Armenian official recently asked the US to intervene and the EU may impose sanctions on Azerbaijan if the conflict continues - according to RT. Note the parallels with Ukraine here. A breakaway public, i.e. Nagorno-Karabakh, has declared independence (just as the LPR and the DPR did) and the West is supporting its right to do so. BUT it did not extend the same courtesy to the breakaway Donbass republics whose people were being persecuted and killed in huge numbers. Armenians who want their army to intervene in the conflict protested in Armenia’s capitol, Yerevan, where Pashinyan feared a coup against his government.

The West has long been courting Armenia to re-align with it: to turn it into another Ukraine. According to RT:

Armenia hosted US troops for a joint drill in the weeks before the current escalation. Earlier this month, Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, traveled to Kiev to deliver aid and was pictured shaking hands with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

Anyway, after 44 days of skirmishes between the two sides, on the 19th September, the Azerbaijani military announced the launch of “counter-terrorism measures of a local nature” in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in order to “thwart large-scale provocations” by the Armenians. The aim was to disable the positions of the Armenian armed forces and its military installations. Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of building up forces in Nagorno-Karabakh and of firing on its own forces (which Armenia denies). See RT article here.

But just when the crisis was getting out of control, Russian peacekeepers intervened and persuaded the combatants to adhere to a ceasefire - though this came at a time when the Nagorno-Karabakh forces were exhausted.

According to Geroman:

With the mediation of the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh, an agreement was reached on a complete cessation of hostilities starting at 13:00 on September 20, 2023.

This was also reported by Tass.

In the face of overwhelming odds the small Nagorno Karabakh army surrendered to Azerbaijan and dismisses its forces. In response Azerbaijan suspended all operations in Nagorno Karabakh.

The ceasefire agreement contained the following conditions:

• formations of the Armed Forces of Armenia in Karabakh must leave combat positions;

• they should completely disarm and leave the territory;

• illegal Armenian formations must be disbanded;

• they must hand over all weapons and heavy equipment.

RT reported that Russia has been critical of ceasefire violations by the Azerbaijanis in which they have taken control of large swathes of territory since the conflict flared up at the beginning of August. However, Russian spokesman, Dmitry Peskov supported Azerbaijan’s actions as within its right to counter terrorist activities. Peskov also rejected criticism from Armenia regarding the alleged ‘inaction’ of Russian peacemakers. More than 2000 civilians (including 1000 children) have been evacuated from the war zone by Russian peacekeepers. Many people have been killed or injured.

The Nagorno Karabakh army of 2,500 men lost almost half of its forces killed in a day. Azerbaijan started the operation with a group of 60,000 fighters and lost from 300 to 500 men. The Nagorno Karabakh army also ran out of ammunition.

Given these figures, I find it a little surprising that the Nagorno-Karabakh forces thought they stood a chance against the Azerbaijanis. Were they hoping for divine intervention, I wonder?

That’s all for now. If the conflict flares up again (and it could do so) I will provide a separate Update. If I get a good response to this, I could do more ‘In A Nutshell’ short articles - so that I can keep the Ukraine Update to 20 mins or less.

Best Rob