TWO POSITIONS ON THE NAGORNO-KARABAKH WAR: RUSSIAN AND TURKISH (1990-1994)
Abstract
The winter months of 2011/2012 marked the 20th anniversary of the beginning of full-scale warfare in the highlands of Nagorno-Karabakh, de jure an Azerbaijani enclave inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians and controlled by the latter and an unrecognized republic that has essentially been claiming independence since the final days of the Soviet Union. The armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent are-as, which with various levels of intensity lasted from the end of the 1980s until 1994 when a ceasefire brokered by Moscow was signed, has greatly shaped the post-Soviet independence of Armenia and Azerbaijan, contributing to the long-term fragmentation of the Southern Caucasus and complicating its integration into world affairs. Indeed, the fundamentals of the regional power constellation that has endured since then were laid down at the beginning of the 1990s, with the Karabakh conflict playing a significant role in it.
As of yet, years after the end of the Karabakh war, a definite solution to the conflict still seems to be out of sight, with both the Azerbaijani and the Armenian governments occasionally making use of militarist rhetoric in order to either reverse the current status quo in their favor or ensure it, respectively.1 Small-scale fighting in the borderline areas of the disputed territory has never completely stopped, and every year hundreds of Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers fall victim to occasional positional warfare. Importantly, the foreign political agendas of Baku and Erevan have been heavily centered on the Karabakh issue, with Azerbaijan routinely investing billions of dollars of its oil and natural gas revenues in the improvement of its military capabilities and advocating on the international scene for regaining the territories lost in the conflict.2
Like other post-Soviet states, Armenia has also recently been experiencing what a number of commentators both inside and outside this South Caucasian country regard as a certain reduction in the nation’s economic independence in favor of Russia. Vis-à-vis Baku’s prospective attempts to restore its territorial integrity by launching a renewed war effort in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenians consider the rather significant concessions the Armenian Republic has made to its major ally north of the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range with respect to its economic and political autonomy to be instrumental in containing the Azerbaijani (and Turkish) threat. As a “lesser evil,” they are still being accepted by mainstream Armenian public opinion, even though opposition opinions are articulated from time to time by local intellectuals. Interestingly, many Armenian politicians tend to point at Moscow’s stance in the 2008 Russo-Georgian war over South Ossetia; according to the prevailing view, it indicated the Kremlin’s commitment to defend its remaining bastions in the Southern Caucasus providing full-scale support of its allies.
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References
In fact, merely a ceasefire, not a peace accord, was signed by Armenia and Azerbaijan back in 1994.
Along with the area of Nagorno-Karabakh, seven districts of the Azerbaijan Republic are controlled by Armenian forces.
D. Lynch, “Why Georgia Matters,” Chaillot Paper (Institute for Security Studies, Paris, February 2006), No. 86,p. 50.
From the east westwards, these ethnic republics comprise Daghestan, Chechnia, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabar-dino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, and the Adighe Republic, which until 1991 was formally within the administrative borders of the Krasnodar Territory.
D. Trenin, “Russia’s Security Interests and Policies in the Caucasus,” in: Contested Borders in the Caucasus, ed.
y B. Coppieters, Vrije Universiteit Press, Brussels, 1996, available at [http://poli.vub.ac.be/publi/ContBorders/eng/
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The Northern Caucasus, together with Tatarstan, have traditionally been among the Russian regions with the most pronounced tendency toward secession, but unlike Tatarstan, the Northern Caucasus is not in the middle of Russia, but in a strategically important border area that would enhance risks for Moscow in case of regional secessionism.
D. Lynch, op. cit.
During his only visit to Moscow in the course of his presidency in September 1992, Elchibey, being a former anti-Soviet dissident and university professor of Arabic philology, even refused to speak in Russian, requesting a personal Turk-ish-Russian interpreter.
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Cf. P. Kuchyòková, Utváøení ruské zahranièní politiky po roce 1991 v postsovìtském prostoru, in: Rusko jako geopolitický aktér v postsovìtském prostoru, ed. by P. Kuchyòková, T. míd, Mezinárodní politologický ústav, Brno, 2006,pp. 22-25. For a categorization of the particular phases of the foreign policy of post-Soviet Russia, see: N.J. Jackson, Rus-sian Foreign Policy and the CIS: Theories, Debates and Actions, Routledge, London, New York, 2003.
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For the text of the Tashkent Treaty that came into effect two years later, see [http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/cfe/
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For more detail on this matter, see: S.E. Cornell, “Undeclared War: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Reconsidered,”Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 20, No. 4, Fall 1997.
For more detail, see: Th. de Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War, New York University Press, New York, 2003, pp. 113-117.
Fears that Baku and Moscow would come to an agreement “behind their backs” and that the victim of that agreement would be Armenia continue to some degree in Armenian society to this day.
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See: S.E. Cornell, The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, Report No. 46, Department of East European Studies, Upp-sala University, 1999, p. 54.
In this regard, it is worth mentioning the case of former Soviet General Anatoly Zinevich, who was involved in planning and carrying out a number of important operations of the Armenian forces of Nagorno-Karabakh from 1992 un-til the end of the war. For more information on the matter, see, for instance: L. Chorbajian, P. Donabedian, C. Mutafian, The Caucasian Knot: The History and Geopolitics of Nagorno-Karabagh, Zed Books, London, 1994, pp. 17-18.
See: F. Hill, P. Jewett, Back in the USSR: Russia’s Intervention in the Internal Affairs of the Former Soviet Re-publics and the Implications for United States Policy toward Russia, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,1994, pp. 12-13.
See: V. Shorokhov, “Energy Resources of Azerbaijan: Political Stability and Regional Relations,” Caucasus Re-gional Studies, Issue 1, 1996, available at [http://poli.vub.ac.be/publi/crs/eng/0101-04.htm], 28 December, 2007.
See: F. Hill, P. Jewett, op. cit. (see also: St. Blank, “Russia’s Real Drive to the South,” Orbis, 39, Summer 1995,p. 371).
See: D. Trenin, op. cit.
See: E. Nuriev, The Southern Caucasus at the Crossroads. Conflicts, Caspian Oil and Great Power Politics, LIT,Berlin, 2007, pp. 226-227.
S.E. Cornell, The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, p. 56.
In 1999, however, Azerbaijan withdrew from it.
Quoted from: V. Shorokhov, op. cit.
See Jan Wanner’s article in: B. Litera, L. Švec, J. Wanner, B. Zilynskij, Rusko? Vzájemné Vztahy Postsovìtských Republik, Ústav Mezinárodních Vztahù, Praha, 1998, p. 120.
See: S.E. Cornell, The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, p. 56.
It should be added, however, that no document regarding this has yet been made public, and it is hard to say whether
one ever existed.
Jan Wanner points out in this connection Aliev’s unwillingness to accept the peace contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh that Moscow was pushing for in 1994-1995, more than a quarter of which would consist of Russian soldiers (see: B. Litera,L. Švec, J. Wanner, B. Zilynskij, op. cit., p. 114).
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See: F.S. Larrabee, “Turkish Foreign Policy in the Age of Uncertainty,” RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, 2003,p. 99.
See: B. Oran, op. cit., p. 458.
Zb. Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Basic Books, New York, 1998, pp. 46-47.
Türkeº, who had developed ties with Azerbaijan and Central Asian Soviet Republics, periodically made public speeches about the ethnic, cultural, and religious affinity between the Turks and other Turkic peoples living in the territo-ry of the U.S.S.R., encouraging warm, brotherly relations among them.
See: B. Oran, op. cit., p. 463.
The Azerbaijani people also, in general, had sympathy for Azerbaijani-speaking APF leaders, rather than Russian-speaking Vezirov and Mutallibov. The APF’s nationalist pro-Turkish ideas spoken in the mother tongue were much more acceptable and comprehensible to the Azeri people.
See: R. Bhatty, R. Bronson, “NATO’s Mixed Signals in the Caucasus and Central Asia”, Survival, Vol. 42, No. 3,Autumn 2000, p. 134.
See: Ibidem.
See: H. Demoyan, Karabakh Drama: Hidden Facts, Erevan, 2003, p. 6.
See: Yu.Z. Arpacýk, Kan Fýrtýnasý. Ýlteriþ Yayinlari. 4. Baski, 2005, pp. 89-95.
National Intelligence Organization.
Nationalist Movement Party.
See: H. Demoyan, op. cit., p. 19.
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See: H. Demoyan, op. cit., p. 20.
See: Milliyet, 21 Mayis, 1992.
Hürriyet, 23 Mayis, 1992.
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See: Hürriyet, 25 Ekim, 1993; Türkiye, 20 ªubat, 1994.
See: A. Avagian, “The Activities of the Turkish Nationalists in Azerbaijan from 1990 to 1994,” HaykakanBanak
(Armenian Army), Defense-Academic Journal, Vol. 3, No. 49, 2006, p. 54 (in Armenian).
See: Ibidem.
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