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NAGORNO-KARBAKH: CONFLICT ON ICE - THE ECONOMIST
Tert.am
12.11.11
"I am almost full for next summer", boasts Mike Aghjayan, an Armenian
from Lebanon who is managing a new hotel in the town Azeris call
Shusha and Armenians Shushi.
Visitors, mostly diaspora Armenians, will come from the United States,
Canada, France, Russia, Lebanon and Iran.
In 1988 this was a pleasant hilltop town, home to 15,000. Today barely
4,000 live on amid the ruins of war. His guests, Mr Aghjayan explains,
"want to see the land people gave their blood for."
Nagorno-Karabakh is often described as one of several post-Soviet
"frozen conflicts". However, as the war in 2008 between Russia and
Georgia over the breakaway territory of South Ossetia showed, ice
can melt quickly.
In Soviet times Nagorno-Karabakh was a mostly Armenian-populated
autonomous enclave inside Azerbaijan, some 4,000 square kilometres
(1,540 square miles) big. Conflict erupted in 1988 as the territory's
Armenians sought to secede from Azerbaijan.
By the time the war ended in 1994, the victorious Armenians had
doubled the enclave's size and carved out a land corridor to Armenia
proper. Between 1988 and 1994 more than 1m Armenians and Azeris fled
from both countries and Nagorno-Karabakh. Azeri-populated towns in
the region were left devastated.
Outsiders have worked on peace plans since 1995 but none has stuck.
Yet the outline of a deal seems clear. Nagorno-Karabakh, which declared
independence in 1991, will return to Azerbaijan much of the land it
won in the war. Then, after an "interim" period, the people of the
territory, including Azeri refugees living outside, will vote on its
final status.
Officials in Nagorno-Karabakh say there can be no deal without their
agreement. This is not bravado. The president of Armenia and his
predecessor are from the region. Ara Haratyunyan, Nagorno-Karabakh's
prime minister, says he doubts Azerbaijan will ever accept his
territory's independence. Still, he cheerfully points out, GDP has
doubled in the past four years (largely thanks to transfers from
Armenia and the diaspora).
In contrast to the war years, Azerbaijan is flush with cash from
oil and gas. This year 16.5% of its budget has been set aside
for military spending: this is roughly equivalent to the entire
budgets of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh combined. Yet officials in
Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh's capital, seem relaxed. Russia is
committed to Armenia's defence. And a strategic pipeline pumping
oil to the West from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan passes just 12 miles
from Nagorno-Karabakh-controlled territory. Shelling could quickly
cripple it.
This article is re-published from The Economist
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Tert.am
12.11.11
"I am almost full for next summer", boasts Mike Aghjayan, an Armenian
from Lebanon who is managing a new hotel in the town Azeris call
Shusha and Armenians Shushi.
Visitors, mostly diaspora Armenians, will come from the United States,
Canada, France, Russia, Lebanon and Iran.
In 1988 this was a pleasant hilltop town, home to 15,000. Today barely
4,000 live on amid the ruins of war. His guests, Mr Aghjayan explains,
"want to see the land people gave their blood for."
Nagorno-Karabakh is often described as one of several post-Soviet
"frozen conflicts". However, as the war in 2008 between Russia and
Georgia over the breakaway territory of South Ossetia showed, ice
can melt quickly.
In Soviet times Nagorno-Karabakh was a mostly Armenian-populated
autonomous enclave inside Azerbaijan, some 4,000 square kilometres
(1,540 square miles) big. Conflict erupted in 1988 as the territory's
Armenians sought to secede from Azerbaijan.
By the time the war ended in 1994, the victorious Armenians had
doubled the enclave's size and carved out a land corridor to Armenia
proper. Between 1988 and 1994 more than 1m Armenians and Azeris fled
from both countries and Nagorno-Karabakh. Azeri-populated towns in
the region were left devastated.
Outsiders have worked on peace plans since 1995 but none has stuck.
Yet the outline of a deal seems clear. Nagorno-Karabakh, which declared
independence in 1991, will return to Azerbaijan much of the land it
won in the war. Then, after an "interim" period, the people of the
territory, including Azeri refugees living outside, will vote on its
final status.
Officials in Nagorno-Karabakh say there can be no deal without their
agreement. This is not bravado. The president of Armenia and his
predecessor are from the region. Ara Haratyunyan, Nagorno-Karabakh's
prime minister, says he doubts Azerbaijan will ever accept his
territory's independence. Still, he cheerfully points out, GDP has
doubled in the past four years (largely thanks to transfers from
Armenia and the diaspora).
In contrast to the war years, Azerbaijan is flush with cash from
oil and gas. This year 16.5% of its budget has been set aside
for military spending: this is roughly equivalent to the entire
budgets of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh combined. Yet officials in
Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh's capital, seem relaxed. Russia is
committed to Armenia's defence. And a strategic pipeline pumping
oil to the West from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan passes just 12 miles
from Nagorno-Karabakh-controlled territory. Shelling could quickly
cripple it.
This article is re-published from The Economist
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress