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LAY TO REST GHOSTS OF WAR IN THE CAUCASUS
Thomas de Waal
FT
May 4 2009 19:29
While the rest of the world struggles with the first crisis of
globalisation, the Caucasus is still stuck in a pre-1914 age of
clashing Great Powers. As last August's conflict in Georgia painfully
showed, nowhere else in the wider Europe is war such a danger.
Yet this May could be a bright moment. Russia, the US, the European
Union and Turkey - the constellation of powers with an interest
in this unfortunate region - are in brief alignment. They have an
opportunity to begin to defuse what is the least visible and the
most dangerous threat to the region and its many energy pipelines:
the unresolved Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The moment follows the long-awaited announcement last month by Armenia
and Turkey, backed by the major powers, that they have drawn up a
plan to restore relations. This could see their border re-opened and
a commission formed to study the 1915 massacres of Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire.
That would be a great achievement, but there is a snag:
Nagorno-Karabakh, the unrecognised territory, legally part of
Azerbaijan, which is under Armenian control. While the Armenians
say the two issues should not be linked, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
the Turkish prime minister, mindful of his close ally Azerbaijan,
has said that there must be progress on the Karabakh issue before
the border re-opens.
Since it began in 1988, this tiny conflict, the first ethno-territorial
war in the former Soviet Union, has defeated many mediators, beginning
with Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1991 it escalated into a full-scale war,
with more than 20,000 deaths and 1m people losing their homes. The
Armenians won in 1994, gaining control not just of the disputed
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh itself but of a large "buffer zone"
around it that comprises about 8 per cent of the territory of
Azerbaijan. Today, their armies face each other across a ceasefire line
of trenches that cuts a scar across the entire South Caucasus. Snipers
kill several people a month, but mostly the ceasefire holds.
While the conflict has remained stuck, a major energy transit route
has grown up next door to it. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline,
built by BP to export 1m barrels of oil a day to western markets,
runs just 10 miles from the ceasefire line. Fattened by new revenues,
Azerbaijan has the fastest growing military budget in the world and
now spends more on weapons than Armenia spends on its entire state
budget. Some strident Azerbaijanis are calling for the army to prepare
for a "re-conquest" of Nagorno-Karabakh, summoning up the ghost of
a war that would be a nightmare for the entire region. But talks
drag on over a draft peace plan, with the Armenian and Azerbaijani
presidents due to discuss it =0 Aagain on Thursday in Prague.
Both leaders must make painful compromises. Azerbaijan needs to
concede that it has essentially lost the territory, for the foreseeable
future, but can recover its lost land around Karabakh. The Armenians
need to accept that they must give up the occupied territories and
postpone their hopes of independence for Nagorno-Karabakh in return
for self-rule and security.
The major powers have been reluctant to push hard on this
issue. Popular resistance to change has been too strong, and both
countries have powerful foreign friends. In the US, the Pentagon and
energy companies have close links to Azerbaijan. Congress's strong
Armenian lobby is holding up the confirmation of Philip Gordon as
assistant secretary of state, after he voiced caution over defining
the 1915 killings of Armenians as genocide.
An Armenian-Azerbaijani peace settlement will be costly. Reconstruction
of the devastated territories will have to be funded
internationally. The overriding concern of the Karabakh Armenians is
the military threat from Azerbaijan, and they will require a visible
and credible peacekeeping force before they sign up to a deal.
But the rewards would be huge, not just for Armenians and Azerbaijanis
but for everyone who has a stake in this region, from BP to the EU
to Iran. A stable settlement would also strongly boost the case for
the planned Nabucco gas pipeline to the west.
Peace will on ly work on the ground if Armenia and Azerbaijan drop
the language of nationalist hostility. Here Turkey and Armenia,
whose shared history is far more traumatic, have shown the way. If
those two nations can reach out to one another, then reconciliation
is well within the grasp of Armenians and Azerbaijanis.
The writer is author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through
Peace and War
Thomas de Waal
FT
May 4 2009 19:29
While the rest of the world struggles with the first crisis of
globalisation, the Caucasus is still stuck in a pre-1914 age of
clashing Great Powers. As last August's conflict in Georgia painfully
showed, nowhere else in the wider Europe is war such a danger.
Yet this May could be a bright moment. Russia, the US, the European
Union and Turkey - the constellation of powers with an interest
in this unfortunate region - are in brief alignment. They have an
opportunity to begin to defuse what is the least visible and the
most dangerous threat to the region and its many energy pipelines:
the unresolved Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The moment follows the long-awaited announcement last month by Armenia
and Turkey, backed by the major powers, that they have drawn up a
plan to restore relations. This could see their border re-opened and
a commission formed to study the 1915 massacres of Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire.
That would be a great achievement, but there is a snag:
Nagorno-Karabakh, the unrecognised territory, legally part of
Azerbaijan, which is under Armenian control. While the Armenians
say the two issues should not be linked, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
the Turkish prime minister, mindful of his close ally Azerbaijan,
has said that there must be progress on the Karabakh issue before
the border re-opens.
Since it began in 1988, this tiny conflict, the first ethno-territorial
war in the former Soviet Union, has defeated many mediators, beginning
with Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1991 it escalated into a full-scale war,
with more than 20,000 deaths and 1m people losing their homes. The
Armenians won in 1994, gaining control not just of the disputed
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh itself but of a large "buffer zone"
around it that comprises about 8 per cent of the territory of
Azerbaijan. Today, their armies face each other across a ceasefire line
of trenches that cuts a scar across the entire South Caucasus. Snipers
kill several people a month, but mostly the ceasefire holds.
While the conflict has remained stuck, a major energy transit route
has grown up next door to it. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline,
built by BP to export 1m barrels of oil a day to western markets,
runs just 10 miles from the ceasefire line. Fattened by new revenues,
Azerbaijan has the fastest growing military budget in the world and
now spends more on weapons than Armenia spends on its entire state
budget. Some strident Azerbaijanis are calling for the army to prepare
for a "re-conquest" of Nagorno-Karabakh, summoning up the ghost of
a war that would be a nightmare for the entire region. But talks
drag on over a draft peace plan, with the Armenian and Azerbaijani
presidents due to discuss it =0 Aagain on Thursday in Prague.
Both leaders must make painful compromises. Azerbaijan needs to
concede that it has essentially lost the territory, for the foreseeable
future, but can recover its lost land around Karabakh. The Armenians
need to accept that they must give up the occupied territories and
postpone their hopes of independence for Nagorno-Karabakh in return
for self-rule and security.
The major powers have been reluctant to push hard on this
issue. Popular resistance to change has been too strong, and both
countries have powerful foreign friends. In the US, the Pentagon and
energy companies have close links to Azerbaijan. Congress's strong
Armenian lobby is holding up the confirmation of Philip Gordon as
assistant secretary of state, after he voiced caution over defining
the 1915 killings of Armenians as genocide.
An Armenian-Azerbaijani peace settlement will be costly. Reconstruction
of the devastated territories will have to be funded
internationally. The overriding concern of the Karabakh Armenians is
the military threat from Azerbaijan, and they will require a visible
and credible peacekeeping force before they sign up to a deal.
But the rewards would be huge, not just for Armenians and Azerbaijanis
but for everyone who has a stake in this region, from BP to the EU
to Iran. A stable settlement would also strongly boost the case for
the planned Nabucco gas pipeline to the west.
Peace will on ly work on the ground if Armenia and Azerbaijan drop
the language of nationalist hostility. Here Turkey and Armenia,
whose shared history is far more traumatic, have shown the way. If
those two nations can reach out to one another, then reconciliation
is well within the grasp of Armenians and Azerbaijanis.
The writer is author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through
Peace and War