The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
The war in Georgia has further destabilised the Caucasus region, which had already experienced five wars since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. There is a risk that the Georgian war could stir up unresolved conflicts, the most dangerous of which would be that over Nagorno-Karabakh.
This conflict began in the final days of the Soviet Union when the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, then part of the Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) of Azerbaijan, tried to join the Armenian SSR. Azerbaijan objected, and Azeri–Armenian clashes spread into Azerbaijan and ignited a war inside Nagorno-Karabakh, in which some 30,000 people were killed and a million displaced.
A ceasefire was agreed in 1994, but the conflict remains unresolved. Azerbaijan claims that Armenia occupies around 18% of its territory and insists on its restoration. Meanwhile, Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto state, which has set up institutions, as in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Unlike those two regions, however, its residents do not hold Russian passports, nor are Russian peacekeepers stationed there.
For the US and Europe, Azerbaijan is strategically important: its oil and gas is exported to Europe in pipelines that bypass Russia. There are also plans for Azerbaijan to play a greater role in bringing Central Asian gas into Europe though the planned Nabucco pipeline. This is seen in Europe as a key project to ensure energy security.
It remains unclear which lessons the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have drawn from the recent war. Advocates of a military solution could be discouraged by the fact that Georgia’s effort to assert itself in South Ossetia backfired, provoking a military response and the loss of control over the two regions. Another lesson could be the inability of the West to deter Russian intervention. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan will therefore be seeking to get Russia on their side.
Russian–Azerbaijani relations have been improving, after several years of tension over pipelines and other energy issues. Immediately after his inauguration, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hosted a high-level Azerbaijani delegation and visited Baku.
Russia’s Gazprom has offered to buy part of the country’s gas, and Baku has indicated it might be willing to sell, in spite of opposition from the US and Europe. When US Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baku on 3 September, he was surprised to find that Azerbaijani leaders remained committed to developing closer energy ties with Moscow, despite recent events.
Armenia has been seeking to balance volatile relations with Moscow by developing closer ties with the EU and even NATO. Russia, in turn, has been irritated by Armenia’s refusal to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia on the basis that it could do so only after Moscow had recognised the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian position played an important role in preventing agreement on the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia at a summit of the CSTO on 5 September.
The Georgian crisis showed the potential for the rapid escalation of such disputes. No foreign peacekeepers are deployed along the ceasefire line that separates thousands of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, on which thousands have died in exchanges of fire or from mines. Only a few unarmed OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) monitors are allowed along that line. A larger international monitoring mission could be helpful, as well as an international plan to help prevent or contain escalation.
1. Ukraine | 2. Nagarno-Karabakh | 3. Central Asia
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