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NAGORNO-KARABAKH: OLD CONFLICT IS NEITHER GONE NOR FORGOTTEN
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-global-focus-nagorno-karabakh-20130115,0,4875903.story
January 16, 2013, 2:00 a.m.
Armenian children play in the ruins of ancient Shusha, a village
destroyed during the 1991-94 war between Armenians and Azerbaijanis
for Nagorno-Karabakh. The remote mountain enclave remains in dispute
nearly two decades after a cease-fire froze fighting. (Yuri Kozyrev /
For The Times / January 16, 2013) By Carol J. Williams
Sporadic sniper fire over sandbagged trenches that separate Armenians
and Azerbaijanis across the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh
has been a routine feature of daily life throughout the 19 years that
the two sides have grudgingly observed a cease-fire.
But the harassing potshots and provocative power plays have taken
on a more ominous feel in recent weeks as pressure mounts on both
sides of the "frozen conflict" for uncompromised victory in one of
the world's most bitter armed standoffs.
It was 25 years ago next month that seething hatred boiled over
in Azerbaijan's second-largest city, Sumgait, and majority Azeri
nationalists slaughtered 31 Armenians in an outpouring of rage
against their dominance in remote and strategically insignificant
Nagorno-Karabakh.
The approaching anniversary, a coinciding presidential election in
Armenia and the resettling of Armenian refugees from Syria in the
disputed territory have stoked simmering resentment and spurred
concern that another deadly clash may be on the horizon.
A 1991-94 war took an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced more than a
million before the cease-fire was arranged. The United States, Russia
and France agreed to oversee negotiations on a permanent resolution.
The problem, those familiar with the obscure but virulently emotional
conflict explain, is that none of the parties is satisfied with the
status quo of international recognition that the enclave is Azerbaijani
territory but under Armenian control. Nor will either side make even
symbolic concessions to break the nearly two-decade impasse.
A look at the map of the Caucasus region provides insight into the
manipulations of Josef V. Stalin that nourished the roots of the
conflict. Although Armenians had managed to stave off aggressive
forays by the Persian, Ottoman and Russian empires for the better
part of two millennia, their autonomous enclave was made part of the
Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic after the Bolsheviks consolidated
control over the region in the early 1920s. Stalin served as commissar
of nationalities before ascending to the Kremlin, and he executed a
divide-and-conquer strategy to keep nationalism in check. The move
also was meant as a gesture to Turkey, awarding the enclave to its
Azeri allies instead of the Armenian targets of the 1915 genocide.
Ethnic resentment percolated under the lid of Communist repression
until the 1980s, when reform-minded Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev
opened Pandora's box with his campaigns for perestroika and glasnost
that encouraged confrontation of society's ills, not sweeping them
under the carpet.
Isolated, impoverished and far from the oil bonanza transforming
eastern Azerbaijan, one might wonder why Nagorno-Karabakh is so
fiercely coveted by either side.
"It's a fantastically important trade route, not only for energy but
for shipping and other issues," Lawrence Sheets, the International
Crisis Group's director for the South Caucasus, said of the strategic
territory where Europe and Asia meet. "Azerbaijan and Armenia have
been in a state of war for more than 20 years. There's a cease-fire,
but if the conflict were to re-erupt on a larger scale, you're talking
about possibly a regional war that could drag in very important
regional powers."
U.S. oil companies have significant investments in Azerbaijan, as well
as important emotional ties to Armenia, with as many Armenians living
in the United States as in the ancestral homeland. Russia also needs
peace to conduct its shipping and naval operations in the Caspian and
Black Seas that flank the region. The expanding economic ties between
Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, and Iran draw another influential iron
into the fire. And Turkey, finally willing to talk of restoring ties
with Armenia after a nearly century-long hiatus, insists that the
Armenians give up the disputed enclave as a precondition.
While sober-minded observers see nothing to be gained by either
Armenia or Azerbaijan from a rekindling of the conflict, that danger
persists in the absence of a negotiated end to a dispute that has
often bordered on the hysterical.
On Monday, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev
accused Armenia of "an act of provocation" in settling Armenian
refugees from the Syrian civil war in Nagorno-Karabakh in an attempt to
"change the demographic situation in the region."
Robert Avetisyan, permanent representative of Nagorno-Karabakh at the
enclave's diplomatic mission in Washington, denounced the claim as
Azerbaijan's attempt to politicize a humanitarian rescue of those
fleeing bombardment of Syria's main city, Aleppo, home to about
80,000 ethnic Armenians. Although thousands have turned to Armenia
for aid, only about 30 families have been settled in Nagorno-Karabakh,
Avetisyan said.
Added to the recent pressure rising in the enclave is a newly rebuilt
airport near the capital, Stepanakert, that Avetisyan said would be
put into operation soon, whether Azerbaijan backs down or not from
threats to deny use of Azerbaijani airspace.
Despite the mutually disadvantageous standoffs and steady gusher of
accusations, the stunted arbitration of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe is about all that stands between the rivals
and reignited fighting, said Olga Oliker, associate director of Rand
Corp.'s International Security and Defense Policy Center.
"Nobody likes the status quo" of Armenian occupation of territory
recognized as Azerbaijani, Oliker said. "But nobody can see any way
to resolve it."
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-global-focus-nagorno-karabakh-20130115,0,4875903.story
January 16, 2013, 2:00 a.m.
Armenian children play in the ruins of ancient Shusha, a village
destroyed during the 1991-94 war between Armenians and Azerbaijanis
for Nagorno-Karabakh. The remote mountain enclave remains in dispute
nearly two decades after a cease-fire froze fighting. (Yuri Kozyrev /
For The Times / January 16, 2013) By Carol J. Williams
Sporadic sniper fire over sandbagged trenches that separate Armenians
and Azerbaijanis across the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh
has been a routine feature of daily life throughout the 19 years that
the two sides have grudgingly observed a cease-fire.
But the harassing potshots and provocative power plays have taken
on a more ominous feel in recent weeks as pressure mounts on both
sides of the "frozen conflict" for uncompromised victory in one of
the world's most bitter armed standoffs.
It was 25 years ago next month that seething hatred boiled over
in Azerbaijan's second-largest city, Sumgait, and majority Azeri
nationalists slaughtered 31 Armenians in an outpouring of rage
against their dominance in remote and strategically insignificant
Nagorno-Karabakh.
The approaching anniversary, a coinciding presidential election in
Armenia and the resettling of Armenian refugees from Syria in the
disputed territory have stoked simmering resentment and spurred
concern that another deadly clash may be on the horizon.
A 1991-94 war took an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced more than a
million before the cease-fire was arranged. The United States, Russia
and France agreed to oversee negotiations on a permanent resolution.
The problem, those familiar with the obscure but virulently emotional
conflict explain, is that none of the parties is satisfied with the
status quo of international recognition that the enclave is Azerbaijani
territory but under Armenian control. Nor will either side make even
symbolic concessions to break the nearly two-decade impasse.
A look at the map of the Caucasus region provides insight into the
manipulations of Josef V. Stalin that nourished the roots of the
conflict. Although Armenians had managed to stave off aggressive
forays by the Persian, Ottoman and Russian empires for the better
part of two millennia, their autonomous enclave was made part of the
Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic after the Bolsheviks consolidated
control over the region in the early 1920s. Stalin served as commissar
of nationalities before ascending to the Kremlin, and he executed a
divide-and-conquer strategy to keep nationalism in check. The move
also was meant as a gesture to Turkey, awarding the enclave to its
Azeri allies instead of the Armenian targets of the 1915 genocide.
Ethnic resentment percolated under the lid of Communist repression
until the 1980s, when reform-minded Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev
opened Pandora's box with his campaigns for perestroika and glasnost
that encouraged confrontation of society's ills, not sweeping them
under the carpet.
Isolated, impoverished and far from the oil bonanza transforming
eastern Azerbaijan, one might wonder why Nagorno-Karabakh is so
fiercely coveted by either side.
"It's a fantastically important trade route, not only for energy but
for shipping and other issues," Lawrence Sheets, the International
Crisis Group's director for the South Caucasus, said of the strategic
territory where Europe and Asia meet. "Azerbaijan and Armenia have
been in a state of war for more than 20 years. There's a cease-fire,
but if the conflict were to re-erupt on a larger scale, you're talking
about possibly a regional war that could drag in very important
regional powers."
U.S. oil companies have significant investments in Azerbaijan, as well
as important emotional ties to Armenia, with as many Armenians living
in the United States as in the ancestral homeland. Russia also needs
peace to conduct its shipping and naval operations in the Caspian and
Black Seas that flank the region. The expanding economic ties between
Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, and Iran draw another influential iron
into the fire. And Turkey, finally willing to talk of restoring ties
with Armenia after a nearly century-long hiatus, insists that the
Armenians give up the disputed enclave as a precondition.
While sober-minded observers see nothing to be gained by either
Armenia or Azerbaijan from a rekindling of the conflict, that danger
persists in the absence of a negotiated end to a dispute that has
often bordered on the hysterical.
On Monday, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev
accused Armenia of "an act of provocation" in settling Armenian
refugees from the Syrian civil war in Nagorno-Karabakh in an attempt to
"change the demographic situation in the region."
Robert Avetisyan, permanent representative of Nagorno-Karabakh at the
enclave's diplomatic mission in Washington, denounced the claim as
Azerbaijan's attempt to politicize a humanitarian rescue of those
fleeing bombardment of Syria's main city, Aleppo, home to about
80,000 ethnic Armenians. Although thousands have turned to Armenia
for aid, only about 30 families have been settled in Nagorno-Karabakh,
Avetisyan said.
Added to the recent pressure rising in the enclave is a newly rebuilt
airport near the capital, Stepanakert, that Avetisyan said would be
put into operation soon, whether Azerbaijan backs down or not from
threats to deny use of Azerbaijani airspace.
Despite the mutually disadvantageous standoffs and steady gusher of
accusations, the stunted arbitration of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe is about all that stands between the rivals
and reignited fighting, said Olga Oliker, associate director of Rand
Corp.'s International Security and Defense Policy Center.
"Nobody likes the status quo" of Armenian occupation of territory
recognized as Azerbaijani, Oliker said. "But nobody can see any way
to resolve it."