A house in ruins after a bombardment in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, on Saturday.

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SIPA

  • Armenia and Azerbaijan have, for several weeks, re-engaged in a latent conflict that has opposed them for thirty years around the Azeri region of Armenian majority Karabakh.

  • A humanitarian truce had been negotiated from Saturday noon, thanks to the intervention of Russia in particular, while the conflict is widely condemned across the world.

  • This truce is not respected, because for the geopolitician Frédéric Encel, Azerbaijan wants to have its acquired military superiority recognized because of its oil manna, which Armenia does not have.

It did not take long for the humanitarian truce that was to enter into force on Saturday at noon in the Caucasus to be violated.

The situation is, of course, still confused between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the two camps systematically denying what the other claims.

But bombs did fall in Nagorno-Karabakh (the Armenian-majority region in Azerbaijan) and around on the night of Saturday and Sunday.

The mediation, launched by Russia, France and the United States therefore has so far poor results.

20 Minutes

tried to understand why with the lecturer in international issues at Sciences Po, Frédéric Encel.

Do the two belligerents really want to discuss?

Fancy a cease-fire?

Basically, Azerbaijan does not want a ceasefire because Baku considers that the balance of military power has shifted in its favor in recent years.

Which is not wrong.

In particular thanks to the maintenance of the oil windfall.

Armenia absolutely does not have this manna, economically and financially.

In other words, since the so-called Four-Day War in 2016, Azerbaijan has not ceased to "test" Armenian defenses with each time increasingly sophisticated equipment, in particular drones, which Armenia does not have. .

Therefore, Baku has no interest in the truce since the military balance of power is increasingly favorable to it but also because Azerbaijan, unlike Armenia, is claiming territory.

As Azerbaijan had lost the war of 1991-1994, it is he who is the most demanding.

Officially, Armenia does not claim its sovereignty over Karabakh: Karabakh proclaimed its independence in the wake of this war but it is not recognized by anyone.

Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiated under the aegis of Russia but also of France and the United States.

Isn't the mistake not to have added Turkey?

I think there is no mistake: Turkey has nothing to do in this conflict, it is a totally partial country.

Turkey is unconditionally in favor of Azerbaijan, which it sees moreover as a sort of outgrowth of its historical territoriality.

This is assumed and claimed by Azerbaijan itself, whose leitmotif is "two states one nation" and whose language is Turkish [Azerbaijani is very, very close to Turkish].

But Russia has a defense agreement with Armenia ...

You are right, but this agreement does not include Karabakh.

It is fundamental.

This agreement, which was recently extended, only concerns the internationally recognized borders of Armenia.

In other words: neither Nagorno-Karabakh, nor the Azeri territories conquered in the wake of the victory of 1994, that is to say essentially mountainous territories which constitute the periphery of Karabakh.

You have just published

Les 100 mots de la guerre

, un Que sais-je, at PUF.

Can we talk about war here?

Not only can we but we must talk about it.

In 1994, there was a ceasefire, and a ceasefire is an act of war, by no means a political act.

The war has in fact never ceased from 1991 to the present day.

Simply the forehead was almost frozen.

We can also speak of very low intensity conflict from 1994 to the Four-Day War.

Today, we are still in a low intensity war, but not on a frozen front.

Armenia and Azerbaijan are of course officially at war.

You said that the Turks had nothing to do in this conflict and that Russia did not have, vis-à-vis Armenia, the same role as Turkey vis-à-vis Azerbaijan.

We cannot therefore speak of a proxy war between these two powers.

No.

On the other hand, we can speak, with the Caucasus, of a crippling blockage as to a possible alliance between Ankara and Moscow.

This alliance that we have been talking about for years but which, for me, does not exist.

There was occasionally in space and time, especially in Syria, a cordial understanding, the sole objective of which was to ensure the maintenance of Westerners out of the area.

But, when we talk about today's Syria, Libya today, we are talking about a Russian-Turkish condominium: this is not true!

It's wrong !

Each defends a camp that is perfectly antagonistic to the other.

This absence of alliance between Russia and Turkey has always known as the Gordian knot the Caucasus.

Russia will not abandon Armenia: for historical and religious reasons, linked to Russian public opinion very favorable to Armenia, linked to the Armenian diaspora power in Russia… And Turkey will not abandon Azerbaijan : for less religious reasons (we are Muslim on both sides but the Azeris are Shiites and very, very secular) but more historico-cultural or ethnocultural.

When we listen to you, we find it hard to see an end to this conflict which: at best the front will, again, freeze ...

I think that there will be no way out of this conflict until Azerbaijan resolves to recognize a form of Armenian sovereignty - I do not say which one - over Karabakh, which still has in it. Armenian summer history.

At the same time, I believe that there will be no solution to this conflict if Azerbaijan does not obtain some form of compensation: it may be the establishment of an autonomous territorial corridor that would allow it to join the main part of the country and Turkey, which does not exist.

And I do not see how these compensations could intervene because I do not see how Armenia could agree to sacrifice full and entire sovereignty over its internationally recognized territory.

So, yes, I think this conflict, for now is inextricable.

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Ceasefire enters into force in Karabakh, but new attacks denounced

  • World

  • Caucasus

  • War

  • Azerbaijan

  • Russia

  • Turkey

  • Armenia

  • Karabakh