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ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN TIME BOMB TICKS DOWN IN FIELDS OF KARABAKH
China Post
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/afp/2012/07/19/348139/Armenia-Azerbaijan-time.htm
July 18 2012
Taiwan
MARDAKERT, Azerbaijan -- The rusty sign reads: "this area is under
enemy fire."
Only the wind is heard rustling the wheat at the Karabakh front line,
but the silence is deceptive - the soldiers lined along the Mardakert
Heights know that shooting can start at any time.
Thirty meters divide Armenian and Azerbaijani troops in the fragile
cease-fire over Nagorny-Karabakh, the mountainous region that is home
to one of the world's most dangerous frozen conflicts and will hold
leadership elections Thursday.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a bitter dispute over
Nagorny-Karabakh, which Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized
from Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s that left some 30,000 people
dead but Baku wants to reclaim.
Despite years of internationally mediated negotiations since the 1994
cease-fire, the two sides have not yet signed a final peace deal and
the risk of a new conflict remains palpable.
There are still frequent exchanges of gunfire between the opposing
armies and energy-rich Azerbaijan has repeatedly vowed to retake the
region using its huge defense budget, a move that Armenia warns it
would crush.
Nagorny-Karabakh is still internationally recognized as part of
Azerbaijan but the Azerbaijani community - which before the war made
up around 25 percent of the population - no longer exists.
Almost all of the 145,000 population of Nagorny-Karabakh is Armenian
and the region declares itself as the Nagorny-Karabakh Republic. But
its existence as a state is recognized by no country in the world,
not even Armenia.
The breakaway region will on July 19 elect a new leader with security
dominating the campaign of the two main hopefuls, incumbent and
former Security Minister Bako Sahakyan and retired army General
Vitaliy Balasanyan.
"If Baku starts war, it will get a crushing rebuff from the Karabakh
army," said Sahakyan.
According to Svante Cornell, director of the Washington-based Central
Asia-Caucasus Institute, there is still no meaningful international
effort to solve the problem and domestic issues in the two countries
could tip the dispute into a full-blown conflict.
"This situation cannot continue forever and at some point something
has to break," he told AFP. "This is a time bomb. If nobody does
anything about it, I don't see how it could not at some point erupt
into a new armed conflict."
'The chance of war will increase'
>From his well-camouflaged observation point overlooking the vast
lowland on the Azerbaijani-controlled side of the front line, Karabakh
army colonel Jalal Harutyunyan can see the Azerbaijani fortifications
and the "enemy" village buried among the verdure of orchards.
"Azerbaijanis shoot every day. If it lasts for long, then we return
fire," he said.
Streets are deserted in the village as locals live in constant fear
of Armenian snipers. They have built a 4-meter-high fence around the
cemetery to safely bury their dead, but still funerals here are only
held at night.
War paused in a freeze-frame at the "line of contact" - the entire
frontier between Karabakh and Azerbaijan proper - stuffed with
landmines to avert infiltration of commandos.
Sometimes commandos manage to clean paths of landmines and approach
enemy positions under the dead of night.
"I was on duty when I saw three men speaking in Azerbaijani. I opened
fire, but they threw a grenade and wounded a friend of mine," said
Grigor Madatyan, a 19-year-old soldier with wide green eyes.
"We have found out that it was a group of 12 saboteurs. They managed
to escape, taking with them their wounded."
Increasing the stakes in the standoff, Azerbaijan is under increasing
domestic political pressure to restore the country's territorial
integrity with its budget bulging with the revenues from oil and
gas exports.
Baku is trying to win concessions from Yerevan by trapping it into
an arms race it cannot afford and excluding it from strategic energy
projects. Yet the military option remains very much on the table.
"Azerbaijan uses economic levers to force Armenia into peace -
through economic exhaustion of Armenia and its exclusion from important
regional projects," Mubariz Gurbanly, senior lawmaker from Azerbaijan's
ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party, told AFP in Baku.
"Azerbaijan's military budget is bigger than the entire state budget
of Armenia," he boasted, adding that "if talks do not bring results,
then the probability of war will increase."
Cornell said that the economic disparity between Azerbaijan and
resource-poor Armenia was widening very quickly. "You have weak
Armenia and probably revanchist Azerbaijan."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
China Post
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/afp/2012/07/19/348139/Armenia-Azerbaijan-time.htm
July 18 2012
Taiwan
MARDAKERT, Azerbaijan -- The rusty sign reads: "this area is under
enemy fire."
Only the wind is heard rustling the wheat at the Karabakh front line,
but the silence is deceptive - the soldiers lined along the Mardakert
Heights know that shooting can start at any time.
Thirty meters divide Armenian and Azerbaijani troops in the fragile
cease-fire over Nagorny-Karabakh, the mountainous region that is home
to one of the world's most dangerous frozen conflicts and will hold
leadership elections Thursday.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a bitter dispute over
Nagorny-Karabakh, which Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized
from Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s that left some 30,000 people
dead but Baku wants to reclaim.
Despite years of internationally mediated negotiations since the 1994
cease-fire, the two sides have not yet signed a final peace deal and
the risk of a new conflict remains palpable.
There are still frequent exchanges of gunfire between the opposing
armies and energy-rich Azerbaijan has repeatedly vowed to retake the
region using its huge defense budget, a move that Armenia warns it
would crush.
Nagorny-Karabakh is still internationally recognized as part of
Azerbaijan but the Azerbaijani community - which before the war made
up around 25 percent of the population - no longer exists.
Almost all of the 145,000 population of Nagorny-Karabakh is Armenian
and the region declares itself as the Nagorny-Karabakh Republic. But
its existence as a state is recognized by no country in the world,
not even Armenia.
The breakaway region will on July 19 elect a new leader with security
dominating the campaign of the two main hopefuls, incumbent and
former Security Minister Bako Sahakyan and retired army General
Vitaliy Balasanyan.
"If Baku starts war, it will get a crushing rebuff from the Karabakh
army," said Sahakyan.
According to Svante Cornell, director of the Washington-based Central
Asia-Caucasus Institute, there is still no meaningful international
effort to solve the problem and domestic issues in the two countries
could tip the dispute into a full-blown conflict.
"This situation cannot continue forever and at some point something
has to break," he told AFP. "This is a time bomb. If nobody does
anything about it, I don't see how it could not at some point erupt
into a new armed conflict."
'The chance of war will increase'
>From his well-camouflaged observation point overlooking the vast
lowland on the Azerbaijani-controlled side of the front line, Karabakh
army colonel Jalal Harutyunyan can see the Azerbaijani fortifications
and the "enemy" village buried among the verdure of orchards.
"Azerbaijanis shoot every day. If it lasts for long, then we return
fire," he said.
Streets are deserted in the village as locals live in constant fear
of Armenian snipers. They have built a 4-meter-high fence around the
cemetery to safely bury their dead, but still funerals here are only
held at night.
War paused in a freeze-frame at the "line of contact" - the entire
frontier between Karabakh and Azerbaijan proper - stuffed with
landmines to avert infiltration of commandos.
Sometimes commandos manage to clean paths of landmines and approach
enemy positions under the dead of night.
"I was on duty when I saw three men speaking in Azerbaijani. I opened
fire, but they threw a grenade and wounded a friend of mine," said
Grigor Madatyan, a 19-year-old soldier with wide green eyes.
"We have found out that it was a group of 12 saboteurs. They managed
to escape, taking with them their wounded."
Increasing the stakes in the standoff, Azerbaijan is under increasing
domestic political pressure to restore the country's territorial
integrity with its budget bulging with the revenues from oil and
gas exports.
Baku is trying to win concessions from Yerevan by trapping it into
an arms race it cannot afford and excluding it from strategic energy
projects. Yet the military option remains very much on the table.
"Azerbaijan uses economic levers to force Armenia into peace -
through economic exhaustion of Armenia and its exclusion from important
regional projects," Mubariz Gurbanly, senior lawmaker from Azerbaijan's
ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party, told AFP in Baku.
"Azerbaijan's military budget is bigger than the entire state budget
of Armenia," he boasted, adding that "if talks do not bring results,
then the probability of war will increase."
Cornell said that the economic disparity between Azerbaijan and
resource-poor Armenia was widening very quickly. "You have weak
Armenia and probably revanchist Azerbaijan."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress