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Forgotten and festering in the shadow of Russia’s invasion Journalist Neil Hauer says ‘muted great-power diplomacy’ is all that stands in the way of mass ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh

Source: Meduza

By Neil Hauer (@NeilPHauer)

This week, Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan plan to sit down during the Seventh Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok to review the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh — the disputed territory in Azerbaijan where thousands died in six weeks of fighting almost two years ago. Hushed diplomacy like this discussion on the sidelines could be the last obstacle to mass ethnic cleansing in the region, warns Neil Hauer, a journalist based in Armenia, in a guest essay for Meduza.

This article was originally published on September 6, 2022. Meduza is presenting it again as part of the background on Azerbaijan’s military strike on Nagorno-Karabakh, launched on September 19, 2023.

With the war in Ukraine raging, it’s easy to forget about the other conflicts on Europe’s periphery. As the Russian invasion hit the six-month mark on August 24, the largest land war in Europe since the Second World War showed no signs of abating.

Just one day later, there was another important milestone, albeit in a very different conflict. On August 25, Azerbaijani forces took control of the town of Lachin (Berdzor in Armenian) and the adjacent villages of Aghanvo and Nerkin Sus, astride the only road connecting Armenia to the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. This exchange came as ethnic Armenians in these communities were forced to leave, with several hundred people abandoning their homes. Along with the Russian peacekeepers who guard it, the route tying Armenia to Karabakh has now moved to an alternate road that passes through no settlements.

These events in Lachin were just the latest in the continued fallout from Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020 Second Karabakh War. The exodus was expected, but not so soon.

The November 2020 tripartite ceasefire agreement that ended the fighting stipulates in its sixth point the handover of the entire Lachin region by Armenian forces to Azerbaijan, as well as the construction of an alternate route to connect Armenia to the remainder of Nagorno-Karabakh. The ceasefire obligated Armenian forces to return the entirety of Azerbaijan’s seven occupied districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh proper (the Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast), all of which ethnic Armenian forces captured in the 1991–1994 First Karabakh War. Lachin/Berdzor, Aghavno, and Nerkin Sus were the last remnants of these lands.

In another reality, the transfer of these settlements could have paved the way for greater reconciliation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, redressing one of the main points of Azerbaijani aggrievement in the decades-long conflict. The seven districts fell outside of the primary point of contention (the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh proper), and the return of most or all of these territories was part of every feted peace plan between Yerevan, Baku, and Stepanakert since the first war ended.

There was no significant Armenian population in these areas during the Soviet period. The recently evicted Armenian inhabitants moved there after 1994.

But the victor in this conflict’s latest round has shown few signs of magnanimity or desire for anything but total control over all of Karabakh. Baku has used fear and force to pursue this goal. Under President Ilham Aliyev’s command, Azerbaijani forces breached the ceasefire agreement on August 3, killing two ethnic Armenian Karabakh soldiers and wounding 19 in the worst escalation since November 2020. The renewed violence included the use of drones and artillery.

The goal appears to have been to force the surrender of the Lachin road one year earlier than the three years stipulated in the 2020 agreement, and it worked. Baku’s claim that it simply retaliated against an Armenian soldier who fired on its troops holds little water considering that it initially billed the entire 2020 war as a “counteroffensive,” until quietly dropping this line months later, after it had served its purpose.

Baku has sought the slow-motion ethnic cleansing of what remains of Nagorno-Karabakh in order to eliminate it as a viable political-territorial unit. Officially, the Azerbaijani government says the Karabakh conflict has been “resolved,” though this is not the consensus in Russia, the U.S., France, or certainly in Armenia.

Within a month of the ceasefire agreement, in December 2020, Baku’s intentions became clear when Azerbaijani troops launched a new offensive in sight of Russian peacekeepers and occupied the villages of Hin Tagher and Khtsaberd. They have since squeezed the Armenian population of Karabakh ever harder, cutting off water and gas supplies to the territory, killing Karabakh civilians without provocation, and deploying trucks with loudspeakers to play the Islamic call to prayer outside Armenian villages (they also broadcast evacuation warnings). Where they are able, Azerbaijani forces continue to make advances on the ground, occupying the Karabakh village of Parukh in March and expelling its inhabitants.

Russia’s peacekeepers may have prevented a full-scale Azerbaijani push into Stepanakert, the enclave’s capital, but they have accomplished precious little else in dissuading Baku’s slow but steady use of force to encroach on the rump-Karabakh.

Aliyev’s regime continues to scorn any negotiations over either Karabakh’s status or the international auspices designed to facilitate a resolution (particularly the OSCE Minsk Group). In a speech just a day after the ceasefire was signed, Aliyev mocked the idea of Nagorno-Karabakh receiving any kind of status at all — a position he maintains to this day. Reprimanding the United States for its recent appointment of a new OSCE co-chair, Azerbaijani officials even made veiled threats about cutting Washington out of the diplomatic process between Baku and Yerevan.

Armenia, for its part, has suggested a raft of possibilities for advancing diplomacy, including normalized relations with Turkey (Baku’s primary ally) and a peace treaty that encompasses all but Karabakh’s final status.

But Aliyev has been steadfast in his demand for nothing short of total capitulation.

There is sadly little reason to think that Azerbaijan will change its behavior. The regime has even received signals that its actions are acceptable, with EU foreign policy chief Ursula von der Leyen visiting Baku in July to sign a new gas deal with Aliyev, whom she described as a “trustworthy” partner. Meanwhile, the virulent anti-Armenianism that has served as Azerbaijan’s state ideology — facilitating acts like the horrific executions of civilians during the 2020 war — leaves no doubt that there is no future for Karabakh’s Armenians if Azerbaijan takes control.

With the Ukraine war dominating international attention, this small corner of the world must hope that the muted great-power diplomacy now underway behind the scenes will be enough to prevent the mass ethnic cleansing that Azerbaijan seeks.