Guardian: Nagorno-Karabakh's fragile stalemate

Monday 17 May 2010

by Anna Matveeva

Last week, 12 May, marked 16 years since Russia mediated a ceasefire agreement that ended the Armenian-Azerbaijani war over Nagorno-Karabakh and started a long period of "no war, no peace" stagnation. Presently, there is a sense that things might be changing.

The territory of Karabakh is essentially a backwater for both countries. It had certain significance for Soviet military planners because of its proximity to Turkey, but otherwise has no prize assets. It is agricultural land, now sparsely populated because of the exodus of ethnic Azerbaijanis who fled the war, with roads leading to closed borders. Remote from Armenia's better-off areas around Yerevan, development in Nagorno-Karabakh is being propped up by the Armenian diaspora. It remains an isolated place that, unlike Abkhazia, has received little assistance from the international community.

Many Armenians who are currently in Karabakh fled from inter-ethnic violence in Azerbaijani cities, losing their good jobs and nice apartments, and continue to feel embittered. On the opposite side of the border, Azerbaijani farmers, displaced from the lands currently occupied by the Armenian forces, look up towards their former homes and think that they see the lights in them at night. If so, this must be the army using their houses as barracks.

Would the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, go to war for Karabakh? It is a big question. The defence minister, Safar Abiyev, spoke in February of the growing likelihood of a "great war" with Armenia. Azerbaijan has a lot to lose if it does so. It has got rich quick due to its energy resource development and is the only CIS country that sustained positive economic growth during the financial crisis.

The state started to build roads, rehabilitate schools and resettle its displaced people. The newly found prosperity conveyed a "feel-good" atmosphere, but it also brought a new confidence that finally "the game is ours". It cannot let 15% of its territory be lost for ever without making an earnest effort to win something back. Any leader with a sense of history would be mindful that future generations would not forgive him this.

So Azerbaijan builds up its military capabilities, procures modern weaponry and trains troops. It also unleashes bellicose rhetoric on Azerbaijani TV channels, both in the Azeri language and in Russian. Whether this propaganda is aimed at preparing society for war is unclear, but it certainly instils trepidation in the Armenian public of a threat of an imminent attack.

The military build-up and aggressive rhetoric is a pressure tactic of presenting a credible threat, if Armenia does not move. It is effective in projecting a fear that the war, fresh in the memory, can restart, but ineffective in forcing a will for concessions. The public attitude is that because so much has been sacrificed to gain these lands, giving them back would be a betrayal of the memory of heroes who died for them. Following this line of reasoning, the destiny is to continue to sacrifice development for the sake of defence, even if the price could be economic stagnation and social depression.

Encouragingly, Azerbaijan's leadership is risk-averse and not prone to impulsive moves to suit a nationalist agenda. It does not need a war to boost its popularity, because it is already popular. Rationally speaking, the war is unlikely. But military games and sabre-rattling have a tendency to get out of hand. Armenia's internal political problems can give rise to a "now or never" attitude: since the adversary appears weak, the time for a decisive push has arrived.

If it comes to it, the crucial issue is what Russia would do. There is a fashionable belief that Moscow holds the key to a Karabakh settlement, but a scenario in which Vladimir Putin calls the Armenian president, Serzh Sargsyan, and orders him to withdraw from Karabakh seems truly fantastic. In the current stalemate, Russia cannot do more than the US and France, the other Minsk group co-chairs. However, if fighting were to start, Moscow would be presented with an awkward choice as to whether it defends Armenia militarily.

On the one hand, Armenia is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, which, like Nato, operates on the collective defence principle: an attack against one member is regarded as an attack on all members. On the other hand, Moscow does not have the same problems with Baku as it has with Tbilisi: the political relationship is good, trade is rampant, Azerbaijan benefits from Russian investment and the two states co-operate in combating terrorism. In the case of deterioration, diplomatic rather than military pressure would be Moscow's most likely option.

In the meantime, people on both sides vote with their feet. Rural areas of Armenia, Karabakh and Azerbaijan are getting depopulated and aged, while younger men, and increasingly women, solve the poverty problem by labour migration to Russia. There are few signs that a political culture of compromise is emerging.

Voices of the Azerbaijani intelligentsia standing against the war are unpopular, as peacebuilding is equated in public wisdom with surrendering Karabakh to the Armenians. Those who advocate peace need to see a readiness from the Armenian side to make steps towards compromise – otherwise "peacebuilding" amounts to an acceptance of defeat. Such signs of compromise are yet to emerge. The danger is that it might be getting too late for them to be noticed.

LINK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/17/nagorno-karabakh-fragile-stalemate