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CANADIAN PAPER DUBS AZERBAIJAN "OIL GIANT WITH DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT"
February 21, 2013 - 18:21 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - In the 1990s, the aftershocks of the Soviet Union's
collapse kept on coming in the fractious southern Caucasus, with
Nagorno Karabakh exploding into conflict, an article published in
The Star Canadian news source said.
"In the 21st century, Georgia and Chechnya went back to war. And this
week - on the 25th anniversary of a vote that launched two decades
of unresolved ethnic strife in Nagorno Karabakh, a leading expert on
the region says it could be next," the article said.
"The risk may seem relatively low," said Thomas de Waal of the Carnegie
Endowment, "but the only thing that is stopping a war is the leaders'
own calculation."
"Nagorno-Karabakh was shared for centuries by Muslim Azeris and
Christian Armenians. But after the First World War, the newly-formed
Soviet Union created a largely Armenian autonomous region of Nagorno
Karabakh within the republic of Azerbaijan. In February 1988, the
local Soviet parliament for Karabakh voted to join Armenia, touching
off an inter-ethnic explosion.
Some 30,000 people died in conflicts that left ethnic Armenians as
victors. Karabakh was declared an independent - but unrecognized -
republic. A Russian-brokered ceasefire ended the fighting in 1994. But
more than 1 million ethnic Azeris and Armenians still cannot return
home," the article said.
Meanwhile, said de Waal, Azerbaijan has become an economic oil giant
in the region, but with a democratic deficit. President Ilham Aliyev's
regime is using its new-found wealth to equip and expand the army. It
is also ratcheting up tensions with anti-Armenian rhetoric.
"In one of the most extreme cases, 75-year-old writer Akram Aylisli
was burnt in effigy for a book he wrote to heal relations between
ethnic Azerbaijanis and Armenians, and a pro-government party offered
a $13,000 bounty for cutting off his ear. "Azerbaijan doesn't want a
compromise," de Waal said last week at University of Toronto's Munk
Centre. "It spends $4 billion a year on its army."
February 21, 2013 - 18:21 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - In the 1990s, the aftershocks of the Soviet Union's
collapse kept on coming in the fractious southern Caucasus, with
Nagorno Karabakh exploding into conflict, an article published in
The Star Canadian news source said.
"In the 21st century, Georgia and Chechnya went back to war. And this
week - on the 25th anniversary of a vote that launched two decades
of unresolved ethnic strife in Nagorno Karabakh, a leading expert on
the region says it could be next," the article said.
"The risk may seem relatively low," said Thomas de Waal of the Carnegie
Endowment, "but the only thing that is stopping a war is the leaders'
own calculation."
"Nagorno-Karabakh was shared for centuries by Muslim Azeris and
Christian Armenians. But after the First World War, the newly-formed
Soviet Union created a largely Armenian autonomous region of Nagorno
Karabakh within the republic of Azerbaijan. In February 1988, the
local Soviet parliament for Karabakh voted to join Armenia, touching
off an inter-ethnic explosion.
Some 30,000 people died in conflicts that left ethnic Armenians as
victors. Karabakh was declared an independent - but unrecognized -
republic. A Russian-brokered ceasefire ended the fighting in 1994. But
more than 1 million ethnic Azeris and Armenians still cannot return
home," the article said.
Meanwhile, said de Waal, Azerbaijan has become an economic oil giant
in the region, but with a democratic deficit. President Ilham Aliyev's
regime is using its new-found wealth to equip and expand the army. It
is also ratcheting up tensions with anti-Armenian rhetoric.
"In one of the most extreme cases, 75-year-old writer Akram Aylisli
was burnt in effigy for a book he wrote to heal relations between
ethnic Azerbaijanis and Armenians, and a pro-government party offered
a $13,000 bounty for cutting off his ear. "Azerbaijan doesn't want a
compromise," de Waal said last week at University of Toronto's Munk
Centre. "It spends $4 billion a year on its army."