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Azerbaijan: Karabakh Flare-Up Seen As Kremlin Mischief

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  • Azerbaijan: Karabakh Flare-Up Seen As Kremlin Mischief

    AZERBAIJAN: KARABAKH FLARE-UP SEEN AS KREMLIN MISCHIEF

    EurasiaNet.org
    Aug 14 2014

    August 15, 2014 - 1:18pm, by Shahin Abbasov

    Highlighting the challenge of forging a lasting political settlement
    to the 26-year-long conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over
    Nagorno-Karabakh, officials and experts in the two countries are
    offering starkly different views on the heavy fighting that erupted
    around the territory in late July and early August.

    Not surprisingly, everyone is convinced the other side started it. In
    Armenia, observers believe that Baku's frustration with the stalled
    Karabakh peace process boiled over, prompting the Azerbaijani military
    to launch an attack. Azerbaijani analysts scoff at such speculation.

    "Baku would not start active military actions because, at that
    particular moment, both President Ilham Aliyev and Defense Minister
    Zakir Hasanov were on holidays outside of Azerbaijan," Jasur Sumarinly,
    the head of the Baku-based Doctrina strategic affairs think tank,
    told EurasiaNet.org.

    An opinion shared by many in Baku is that Armenia, Russia's strategic
    ally in the Caucasus, started the late July clashes at Moscow's
    behest in an effort to help reset the Kremlin's international
    image. Russian leader Vladimir Putin is now widely regarded in the
    West as a mischief-maker and bully, and is now eager to change that
    perception, the thinking in Baku goes.

    Vafa Guluzade, a foreign affairs commentator and a former policy
    advisor to former president Heydar Aliyev, said the flare-up in
    Nagorno-Karabakh was directly related to Russia's predicament in the
    Ukrainian crisis, in which pro-Russian separatists are losing ground,
    and Western sanctions on Russia are beginning to bite. Putin, Guluzade
    added, used Armenia to stir the Karabakh pot in order to then intervene
    in an effort to boost his credentials as a statesman.

    Putin convened a snap summit August 10 with Azerbaijani President
    Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan in order
    to show the world his "peaceful, mediating face," Guluzade told
    EurasiaNet.org. "Putin [also] wanted to show that Russia still plays
    a decisive role in the South Caucasus," he added.

    Other analysts believe Russia is also trying to compel Azerbaijan to
    join the Kremlin-led Customs Union, an economic entity that Azerbaijani
    officials have thus far shown no interest in joining.

    "The Kremlin wants Yerevan to play a role in having Azerbaijan in the
    [Customs] Union. The escalation [of tension] at the front, the death
    of Azerbaijani soldiers and the [summit] meeting in Sochi is part
    of one scenario," suggested Arastun Orujlu, who heads the East-West
    think tank in Baku.

    Guluzade and Orujlu indicated that it is highly unlikely that the
    Aliyev administration's aversion to Customs Union membership will
    change in the foreseeable future. But Orujlu, citing the government's
    ongoing crackdown on internal dissent, cautioned that Baku was
    alienating Western governments, something that could invite Kremlin
    meddling in the future.

    "In the current situation, Baku urgently needs to improve its relations
    with Western powers. Those ties have been seriously damaged by the
    recent crackdown on non-governmental organizations and the arrests
    of civil society activists," Orujlu said.

    Publicly, Azerbaijani government officials have made only vague and
    non-committal statements concerning Putin's diplomacy. "We consider
    the initiative of the Russian president as an effort to restore a
    ceasefire in the region," Ali Hasanov, an influential presidential
    aide, was quoted as saying by the Turan news agency.

    A looming challenge for Azerbaijani authorities may be keeping the lid
    on patriotic fervor. In the wake of the late July/early August clashes,
    social networks in Azerbaijan buzzed with chest-thumping statements
    about the country's martial prowess, and a mass desire of young men to
    enlist in the army and go fight. Local media outlets also reported that
    veterans of the 1991-1994 Karabakh conflict expressed readiness to take
    up arms again. In response, Defense Ministry officials took steps to
    dampen enthusiasm for mass enlistments. In the aftermath of the August
    10 summit, Karabakh has remained quiet, and most experts in Baku do
    not expect recent events to prompt a resumption of an all-out conflict.

    "The big number of citizens' appeals we consider as a large show of
    support to the army. We are thankful to [the public] and believe that
    this patriotic initiative will raise moral spirit of our soldiers,"
    said a Defense Ministry statement.

    Editor's note: Shahin Abbasov is a freelance correspondent based
    in Baku.

    http://www.eurasianet.org/node/69566

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