Historical, ethnic, religious and political factors, succession of empires and invaders interacted in drawing the nature of the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. After the First World War and the first conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region in 1918, the Soviet era cast a shadow over the Caucasus region, and the Soviets adopted geographical and ethnic divisions that did not take into account demographic specifics. And nationalism, to tighten control over the vast space of the Union and its peoples.
The conflict lay behind the totalitarian sway of the Soviet Union for decades;
But its hanging remnants reignited the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan once the USSR collapsed in the late 1980s, and its rounds often ended in shaky truces.
The last war that erupted on September 27, 2020, lasted for about 6 weeks, during which the Azeri forces achieved significant and decisive military progress, and were now on the outskirts of the regional capital Stepanakert, with the facts on the ground leading to the signing of the November 10 agreement.
Considering the foundational factors of the conflict, the nature of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan - of which the Nagorno-Karabakh region is one of the most important factors - can be understood as essentially an ethnic conflict based on nationalist tendencies, and loaded with a legacy of hostility between Azerbaijanis, Armenians and Turks, as it was nourished by the Soviet totalitarian era through surgeries. Ethnicity, attempts at demographic change, and the manipulation of geography to establish control.
Over time, and especially in the past two decades, the conflict has become a regional and international conflict, an area of geopolitical competition related to interests, and a vital area for countries, especially between Russia, Turkey, the United States, Iran, the European Union and Israel.
Chronic conflict with regional and international dimensions
Nagorno-Karabakh..100 year conflict
Nagorno-Karabakh is one of the regions of Azerbaijan, and its capital is Stepanakert (after the Armenian Bolshevik leader Stepan Shahumyan), and it is a unilaterally declared republic that is not recognized internationally, under the name of the Republic (Artsakh).
Its current president is Arik Harutyunyan, and the region is located 270 km west of the Azerbaijani capital Baku.
It covers an area of about 4,400 square kilometers, and it is a region that is poor in resources, and is predominantly mountainous, and its population depends mainly on agriculture.
Nagorny is a Russian word that means heights or mountains, while Karabakh means in Turkish the black garden;
That is, Nagorno-Karabakh is a translation of the Black Garden Heights, and the Armenians living in the region call it "Artsakh".
As for the Azeris, they know him as "Yukhari Karabakh" or "Upper Karabakh".
The population (according to a census conducted by the Armenian authorities in January 2016) is 148,1 thousand people, representing the Armenians (the overwhelming majority of them follow the Armenian Orthodox Church), including about 95% of the population, and the region was the meeting point of several empires such as the Russian, Ottoman and Persian, which It made it the scene of several changes, especially in its demographics.
Nakhchivan region.. an Azerbaijani enclave inside Armenia
It is also called Nakhchivan, an autonomous region of Azerbaijan, with an area of about 5,363 square kilometers, and it is geographically separated from the rest of Azerbaijan, and is located southwest of Armenia, and crossing to it from Azerbaijan requires passing either through the Iranian province of West Azerbaijan or Armenia, and the region allows Azerbaijan, geographical contact with Turkey through a window width of only 8 km, its capital is the city of Nakhchivan.
The name of the province was the Soviet Socialist Republic, Nakhchivan since March 1921, then Nakhchivan Land from June 16, 1923, Nakhchivan Autonomous, Socialist, Soviet Republic from February 9, 1924, and finally, Nakhchivan, Autonomous Republic on November 17 November 1990.
The region, which is bordered by Iran in the south and Turkey in the west, is distinguished by its fertile lands and charming nature. It has been bombed in the ongoing battles. Among its most famous citizens are the current President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and his father, former President Heydar Aliyev (1923-2003).
Among the most important gains that Azerbaijan achieved within the November 10 ceasefire agreement is that it extracted the approval to open a corridor through Armenia between it and the region, which is a strategic shift in Baku's relationship with its administrative region.
Armenia and Azerbaijan.. Basic information
Military balances..Azerbaijan with a stronger arsenal
Changes in the field situation after the September war 2020
Azerbaijan launched a 6-week military campaign on the region in September 2020, as a result of which it was able to restore 5 Azerbaijani regions occupied by the Armenians in 1994 in the vicinity of Karabakh, and to restore the strategic city of Shusha within the region, and the agreement sponsored by Moscow on November 9-10 The second is the withdrawal of the Armenians from two other provinces that they had occupied in 1994.
Two leaders and a renewed struggle
Ilham Aliyev inherited the presidency of Azerbaijan from his father Heydar after his death in 2003, who ruled the country with iron and fire since 1969, as a representative of the Soviet Union, and then as president after its collapse.
Aliyev's human rights record is among the worst in the world, with him rigging elections, barring opponents from competing, and holding journalists, activists and human rights defenders in prisons.
However, he is Western in his whim, showing a style of Islam that is described as "moderate and modern" and the West reciprocates with him.
Aliyev, who was born in 1961, presents himself to his people as a cultured politician who speaks 5 languages, as an international leader with a large number of decorations and accolades, as an academic thinker honored by world universities, and even as a champion sportsman with many championships.
He worked to strengthen the strength of his army, and made his country among the most armed in comparison to the population. He did not see a country harboring hostility to his country like Armenia. Aliyev believes that Armenia occupies parts of his country in Nagorno-Karabakh, and he doubts the efficacy of negotiations;
But he wants Turkey, his regional ally, to be a party to it.
After signing the comprehensive ceasefire agreement under the auspices of Russia, Aliyev said that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a "capitulation document" under the weight of Azeri's military victories, considering that what happened was a "historic event" for his country.
It was not possible for Pashinyan to become the prime minister of Armenia until after a revolution like the one that the country witnessed in 2018. He began his political career as an activist while studying at Yerevan University, from which he was expelled due to his orientations in 1995. While studying, he worked as a journalist, a profession which he maintained , despite the trouble it brought, until 2012, when he was arrested in 2010, and after he was convicted of protesting and civil disobedience, he was sentenced to 7 years in prison, of which he spent less than two years before being released with a pardon from the authorities.
During his detention, his name emerged as one of the world-renowned prisoners of conscience.
After that, he participated in political work as a party leader, and then as a member of Parliament, until he led the movement that ignited the Velvet Revolution in April and May 2018.
Pashinyan's radical positions at home were reflected in his position on Nagorno-Karabakh. For 26 years, the issue was somewhat calm;
However, the situation deteriorated after statements by his defense minister in March 2019 to a crowd of his compatriots in New York, in which he said that Armenia might wage a new war to gain new land, as well as his statements in which he said, “Karabakh is Armenian, nothing more, nothing less.”
Pashinyan and his forces could not withstand in the last war in front of the Azeri superiority and the rapid advance of his army, which is now on the outskirts of the regional capital Stepanakert, which forced him to accept the ceasefire agreement, which he considered "indescribably painful for me personally and for our people." With his departure as a reaction to his signing of the agreement, the Armenian security services also announced that an attempt on his life had been thwarted by a number of opposition leaders.
The Minsk Group... an international framework that did not defuse the war
Meeting of the Minsk Group in Vienna on Karabakh (Reuters)
The OSCE Minsk Group was established in March 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the crisis that began with Armenia's occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and other Azeri provinces.
The group has 17 members, including Turkey;
But it was chaired by only 3 countries, namely France, Russia and the United States, and these countries were unable to resolve the crisis or activate Security Council resolutions, which stipulate an end to the Armenian occupation.
Minsk faced accusations of siding with the Armenia administration in the Karabakh conflict;
Because of the pressures exerted by the Armenian minorities in those countries, especially the United States and France, the game of interests, influence and political variables complicate the process of resolving the crisis.
The November 10 agreement .. Will it end the conflict?
Aliyev and Putin sign the November agreement via video link (European News Agency)
Since the outbreak of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1988, the battles have been ending with fragile truces and incomplete agreements, which are quickly broken, and the battles return without resolving the situation militarily in the region;
But the recent agreement, which was sponsored by Russia, and after negotiations with the Turkish side, resulted in new military facts on the ground, as the superiority of the Azeri side was clear, which liberated large areas of the region in lightning battles and reached the outskirts of its capital Stepanakert, which was evident from the inability of Armenia To withstand or a long military confrontation, and the entry of Turkey and Russia into the crisis line may contribute to making this agreement complete.
The terms of the agreement
In a private letter, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he and his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts signed a joint declaration on a comprehensive ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh region under Russian auspices. President Aliyev described it as “historic.” It came after negotiations in which Turkey participated. The following items:
- The declaration of a complete cease-fire as of midnight on November 10, Moscow time, and the armies of Azerbaijan and Armenia stopped in their positions, and the parties pledged to exchange prisoners of war.
Armenia will return the Kalbajar region to Azerbaijan by November 15, and the Lachin region by December 1, 2020, leaving under its control the 5 km wide Lachin Corridor, which will ensure the connection of Karabakh with Armenia. This point does not apply to the strategic city of Shusha, which Baku announced its liberation on 8 November.
- By November 20, 2020, Armenia will hand over to Azerbaijan the Aghdam region and part of the Azerbaijani occupied Gazakh region.
A 1960-strong Russian peacekeeping unit, with 90 armored personnel carriers and 380 pieces of special equipment, will be deployed along the line of contact in Karabakh and along the Lachin Pass in conjunction with the withdrawal of the Armenian army.
The duration of the stay of the Russian forces was set at 5 years, with automatic renewal for additional periods of 5 years, if none of the parties to the agreement decided to withdraw from it.
A plan is defined over the next three years to build a new traffic road along the Lachin Corridor, to provide and ensure the connection between Stepanakert and Armenia, with the subsequent redeployment of the Russian peacekeeping unit to protect this road.
Azerbaijan undertakes to ensure the safety of transport lines along the Lachin Corridor.
Ensure the return of displaced persons and refugees to Nagorno-Karabakh and its surrounding areas, under the supervision of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Abolition of the ban on all economic and transport links in the region. Armenia has undertaken to ensure transportation and communication between the western regions of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, and this will be subject to the control of the Russian border guards.
An Armenian sets his house on fire before leaving the village that will be retaken by the Azeris in Karabakh according to the new armistice agreement (Reuters)
Team
Editors: Zuhair Hamdani, Abd al-Rahman Ayyash, Muhammad al-Ali
Designed by: Media Team
Photographers: Ali Mortada, Khalil Mabrouk, Abdel Farhat