Nagorno-Karabakh: The conflict that won’t disappear on its own
April 14, 2016
Violent clashes ensued between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh, resulting in more than 30 deaths on April 2. The cause of this resurgence is unknown, as both countries have accused the other of initiating the violence. The fighting ended on April 5, when officials from Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic defense ministries met in Moscow to sign a ceasefire. This is not the first time that violence has erupted over this issue, and it certainly won’t be the last if the situation continues to be handled this way.
The Nagorno-Karabakh region is located within Azerbaijani borders and has historically been inhabited by both Armenians and Azerbaijanis. For the majority of its recent history, different powers controlling the South Caucasus region have considered Nagorno-Karabakh to be a semi-autonomous state, thereby minimizing conflict. The region was under Soviet control until the 1990s, when it became apparent that the collapse of the Soviet Union was imminent. As the end of the Soviet Union drew near, both sides wanted to control Nagorno-Karabakh and the dispute took a violent turn.
Although both Armenia and Azerbaijan gained independence in 1991, it was Azerbaijan who ended up controlling Nagorno-Karabakh. With the vacuum of power left by the Soviet Union, it wasn’t long before the ethnic Armenian majority in Nagorno-Karabakh began fighting with the Azerbaijani military, ultimately leading to a full-scale war. Armenia supported Nagorno-Karabakh in its fight and shortly thereafter directly joined the war as its ally. When the fighting officially ended via ceasefire in 1994, Armenia controlled most of the region along with surrounding Azerbaijani lands. The ceasefire neglected to end the disputes as a whole, as Armenia controlled a large portion of Azerbaijani lands and Nagorno-Karabakh was a de facto “independent” republic.
There is no difference between the events that occurred earlier last week and the war that took place in 1991. In both cases, conflict erupted and was suppressed by the signing of an all too simple ceasefire. The recent conflict illustrates the inefficacy of this approach, as the ceasefire was violated and lives were lost on both sides. In all likeliness, another ceasefire will be violated in the future. If a bilateral agreement isn’t enough to reconcile conflicts, the countries must take another approach.
There are countless multinational organizations which aim to do exactly this, but they’ve unfortunately experienced limited to no success. The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution in 2008 which called for “[the reaffirmation] of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan” by demanding the “withdrawal of all Armenian forces” from Azerbaijani lands. Like the majority of multinational organizations, the United Nations’ decisions do not effectively bind members. Even if they do on paper, no force is in place to actually stop countries from ignoring these decisions. Until multinational organizations discover a method of successfully incentivizing countries to cease warfare, violent issues such as the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute will continue to escalate.
Robert Ajemian • Apr 16, 2016 at 2:48 pm
to the Editor:
Mr. Oktay’s analysis of the events in Nagorno Karabagh couldn’t be more erroneous;
HIs opinion is misguided at best, butl it’s his opinion and he is entitled to it- in America anyway, certainly not in Azerbajian under the world’s most corrupt oil dictator or Turkey, where the dictator Erdogan is trying to reestablish the murderous Ottoman Empire sickman of Europe.
The war was indisputably initiated by Aliev corrupt president of Azerbaijan and the contributing reasons are clear: a distraction from the decline of revenues in his PetroState(currency devalued two times in one year- citizens really suffering) and a massive accumulation of weapons from oil profits.The only question is who gave him the go signal: Putin, Kerry, Biden, Erdogan or a combination of the above?
Nagorno- Karabagh was never populated with Azeri Turks, it was handed to Azerbaijan SSR by a despicable mass murderer Stalin to promote the animosity that exists between the Turks and Armenians. The residents of Karabagh legally applied for autonomy under the Soviet system but it was met with pogroms by the Azeri Turk in Sumgait and BAku.
This was not the first Bolshevik betrayal of the Christian Armenians to the Muslim Turk. In 1920 they illegally signed the Moscow treaty which gave Kemal Attarturk, the crytpo Jew Armenian lands awarded to the Republic of Armenia by the Arbitral award of Woodrow Wilson in 1920.ish Turkish general.
So as the trained jihadist ISIS terrorists ( which many believe to be a creation or neocon tool of the US, Israel and gulf states (28 pages anyone?) spread their killing web to caucusus, Europe and eventually our shores, Americans would be wise to learn the history of the Armenian Genocide and other telling chapters of barbarian muslin invaders from central Asia and not get deceived by political correctness and uncertainty over who started the war in Karabagh on April 2nd. The multilated bodies of civilians and returned soldiers corpses have all the earmarks of ISIS and Turkish Genocidal tendencies.
As an aside, I would be amiss to not also mention the current plight of the Kurds, who are not only the only effective force in fighting ISIS, but are currently undergoing genocide and extinction by Erdowo, Erdgowe, Erdowan or Turkey with the blessing of the US and NATO.