Hira Bahadur Thapa

Renewed conflict in South Caucasus is unraveling as Armenia and Azerbaijan have got engaged in fierce fighting. This is likely to escalate further owing to geopolitical compulsions. Both countries claim Nagorno-Karabakh as their contested territory.
The fighting is not normal. But this round of violence threatens to spill over into a full-blown war. There have been several military flare-ups over the years on the issue Armenian-majority enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. This is Azerbaijan’s territory legally. Inhabited by majority Armenians, this is at the centre of the most enduring and venomous of the frozen conflicts left by the collapse of Soviet Union.

Strategic location
This highland region plays a powerful role in the romantic imagination of both countries because of its natural beauty as well as strategic location. Nagorno-Karabakh means “mountainous black garden”. The region lies close to key pipelines that bring oil and gas from Azerbaijan to Turkey through Georgia. This makes the region strategically important for the countries in dispute as well as their neighbours.
Historically, Nagorno-Karabakh, as part of the Soviet takeover of Trans Caucasus in 1919-1920, was allocated to the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.
Notwithstanding the fact that Armenians are largely Christian orthodox and the population of Azerbaijan is predominantly Sunni Muslim, the disputed region was the territory of Azerbaijan. This religious difference was not a problem until the Soviet Socialist Republics were ruled by Soviet Union.

But the ethnic and religious freedom became the cause of wide protests once the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, the ramification of which was glaringly exhibited in South Caucasus. Armenians in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh raised their complaints. They demanded either the region’s union with Armenia or independence from Azerbaijan.
As demands for ethno-religious freedom became acceptable with Soviet Union’s disintegration, Armenian Christians in Nagorno-Karabakh continued complaining about their status. They insisted that they were concerned by the process of Azerification initiated by the authorities in Baku, which is Azerbaijan’s capital. Azeris living in the disputed region are in minority. Azerbaijan gives them all support for understandable reasons.
Armenians’ grievances and Azerbaijan’s attempt to retake control of the disputed territory exploded into violence in 1989-1990 prompting the Soviet military enforcement of martial law to suppress the violence. Nevertheless, the violence did not end for long.
Following the dismantling of the Soviet Union leading to the emergence of former Soviet Republics turning into new independent states, a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan erupted over Nagorno-Karabakh. As a result, the Armenians residing in the region declared unilateral independence from Azerbaijan, though not recognised internationally.
Nagorno-Karabakh is now the most perilous flashpoint across post-Soviet Eurasia.
Since September this year, fighting has resumed between Armenia and Azerbaijan and both sides blame each other for the violence. It seems that Azerbaijan had been preparing for an offensive to recover at least part of Nagorno-Karabakh for some time.

The recent fighting involving missiles and drones has awakened memories of the 1990s when some 30,000 people were killed and one million were displaced. In 1994, the Rusian intervention led to a cease-fire. Since then, Armenia has controlled the enclave.
Sadly, Armenia has accused Turkey, which has sided with Azerbaijan because of its ethnic solidarity, of even shooting down its warplane. Turkey has dismissed this accusation.
It’s unclear why the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a Minsk Group, has kept silence on the issue. OSCE is an internationally recognised mediator for the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Co-chaired by France, the US, and Russia, it aims to resolve the standoff.
Traditionally, Moscow has sided with Armenia in the war. Changed geopolitics in the region has prompted them to cultivate ties with Armenia’s rival. Azerbaijan’s deteriorating relations with the West has given an opportunity to Russia to forge partnership with the country.

Azeri leader’s authoritarian governance has irked the West. Additionally, the West has lost interest in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas reserves because of shale oil revolution in America. At a time of declining influence of the West in Azerbaijan, Russia tries to seize the chance to maintain its balancing role in resolving the territorial dispute between its neighbours.
Turkey is another powerful neighbour willing to exert its influence in the region. Ever since the war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s, Turkey has sided with Azeris. Turkey shares historical, ethnic, cultural ties with Azerbaijan. Turks describe their relationship with Azerbaijan as “one nation, two states” displaying their strong solidarity with Azeris.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared Turkey would “remain by the side of our friend and brother Azerbaijan”.
Turkish involvement could also transform the conflict into an existential one in the eyes of Armenia when judged against Armenians’ longstanding accusation of their World War I massacre by the Ottoman forces. Turkey, however, has continued rejecting this allegation till date.
The fighting does not seem to end quickly due stubbornness of both sides. With Russia, despite being the only outside player in a position to force the sides to negotiate, remaining reluctant to take sides or intervene directly, possibilities of intensified fighting and resultant instability are looming large.

Security guarantee
Moscow provides security guarantee to Armenia. It has military alliance with the country and Armenia hosts military base to Russia. Surprisingly, Russia supplies the same weapon system to Azerbaijan and Armenia.
In fact, the renewed conflict would be disastrous for both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Geopolitical status quo in South Caucasus is unraveling due to ambitions of Russia and Turkey, the powerful neighbours.
The conflict has clearly escalated beyond a local ethnic dispute into a bigger struggle as an increasingly assertive Turkey flexes its muscle in a region traditionally dominated by Russia.

(Thapa is a former foreign policy advisor to the Prime Minister from 2008 to 09. thapahira17@gmail.com)