No end in sight to travails of Nagorno-Karabakh

Vappala Balachandran

Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat

LAST week saw an abrupt end to a bitter, centuries-old land dispute, which also caused several wars. It virtually erased from the global map a small nation which had declared itself a republic after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. What was disquieting was the disinterest of major nations in these tragic developments.

Nagorno-Karabakh, or the Republic of Artsakh, is a disputed Christian-majority territory wedged between Armenia, an ancient Christian nation, and the predominantly Muslim (Shia) Azerbaijan in the Southern Caucasus region. It traces its history to the fifth century BCE. The area’s name originated from three languages: ‘Nagorno’ is from Russian, meaning a mountainous terrain; ‘Kara’ is black in Turkish; and ‘Bakh’ in Persian means garden (bag). Artsakh, which means ‘wood’, is the ancient Armenian name for this area. Its population in 2020 was 1,40,000.

In the past, this area was a battleground for the Russian, Ottoman and Persian empires. Persian emperor Nadir Shah, the ‘butcher’ of Delhi in 1739, captured it from the Ottomans in 1735. After his assassination in 1747, his empire split into different Khanates. Karabakh was ruled by a Turkish commander under Iran’s titular control. In 1813, Iran transferred Karabakh to Tsar Alexander I after the 1804-13 Russo-Persian war.

After the Soviet Union was formed, Josef Stalin placed the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (oblast) with an ethnic Armenian majority within the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan due to his suspicion that the latter was getting closer to Turkey.

That did not prevent Azerbaijan from subjecting Artsakh to ethno-religious discrimination to eliminate its Armenian Christian majority and replace it with Azerbaijani Muslim settlers. In 1991, Nagorno-Karabakh formed a new republic when the Soviet Union disintegrated and opened its Washington DC office as the “office of the land of Artsakh”.

Azerbaijan did not accept this and Armenian-Azeri clashes ensued. The first Karabakh war (1992-94) resulted in Azeris fleeing from Armenian-controlled territories and Armenians escaping from Azeri-dominated areas. In 1992, the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) set up the OSCE-Minsk Group, co-chaired by France, Russia and the US, to restore peace. A ceasefire was achieved in 1994 on Russian initiative, leaving the area under Armenian control; this facilitated a referendum in 2017, when Nagorno-Karabakh decided to proclaim itself as the Republic of Artsakh.

Bitter fighting erupted in 2020 during the second Karabakh war, in which 3,000 Azerbaijani and 4,000 Armenian soldiers were killed. A Russian-brokered peace followed. Armenia agreed to return all occupied territories around Nagorno-Karabakh enclave which it had captured from Azerbaijan.

Even this did not restore peace. Clashes that broke out on September 12, 2022, resulted in the deaths of 100 Armenians and 70 Azerbaijani soldiers. Again, a temporary ceasefire was achieved by Russia, which was already busy with the Ukraine war since February 24 last year. However, this time, Turkey was found to have aided Azerbaijan, which provoked Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to travel all the way to Armenia along with US Congressmen on September 19, 2022, and accuse Azerbaijan of being the aggressor.

The 2022 Nagorno-Karabakh war highlighted competing interests of various countries, like we have seen during the Russia-Ukraine war. Though Russia is a military ally of Armenia, it is also a major exporter of arms to Azerbaijan along with Turkey, a NATO member. Also, Azerbaijan is a major exporter of oil and gas to Europe, “where many countries are struggling with supply disruptions due to the war in Ukraine and are trying to reduce their reliance on Russian energy,” as the US National Public Radio put it on September 19, 2022.

The present clashes started on September 19 this year when Azeri forces launched an all-out offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh after tormenting the local population with a blockade of food and medicines. This was to suppress what they called Armenian ‘terrorist’ activities by way of planting landmines which had killed Azeri civilians and police officers. Azerbaijan claimed to have informed Russian peacekeeping forces in advance, but this was denied by Russia, which said the information came only a few minutes before the attack.

A ceasefire initiated by Russia was effective from September 20 on the condition that Nagorno-Karabakh would disarm its forces and hold talks to ‘reintegrate’ the territory with Azerbaijan. What created panic was the Azeri stipulation that the individuals listed by its government should be handed over to them for trial as ‘war criminals’. The exodus started on September 21. By October 2, more than 1 lakh people had fled the Artsakh region. Its capital, Stepanakert, which had a population of 50,000, looks like a ghost city. On September 28, Artsakh President Samvel Shahramanyan had signed a decree that all state institutions of the Artsakh republic would be dissolved by January 1, 2024.

Armenia was upset with Russia for letting down Artsakh people when they had all the while considered Moscow as a key ally and security guarantor. They had expected it to protect the status quo and prevent Azerbaijan from gobbling up that area. On October 3, Armenian Parliament voted to join the International Criminal Court; this annoyed Moscow as it would mean agreeing to arrest President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes.

However, what was not expected was Israel’s continued help to Azerbaijan. In 2020, Armenia withdrew its Ambassador in protest against Israeli supply of weapons to Azerbaijan. Israel considers Azerbaijan as a strategic ally, a critical source of oil and gas, a good market for its weapons and also to keep a watch on Iran.

Jerusalem Post (September 30) and AP News (October 5) reported airlifting of Israeli weapons. Arman Akopian, Armenian Ambassador to Israel, was quoted as saying: “For us, it is a major concern that Israeli weapons have been firing at our people.” He described what was happening as ‘ethnic cleansing’. People whose forefathers have lived there for 3,000 years are abandoning their spiritual and national heritage.

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