SHLOMO BEN-AMI
In the wake of Azerbaijan's dismantling of the "independent" ethnic-Armenian enclave in its midst, the US might be considering sanctioning the country, while working to deepen security and economic ties with Armenia. But loosening Russia's grip on the South Caucasus will be nearly impossible.
Like civil wars, ethnic and religious conflicts usually end one way: with the total defeat of one side. These clashes arouse such intense passions that peace agreements are extremely difficult to negotiate, and when they are reached, they are fundamentally fragile, virtually impossible to enforce, and highly likely to collapse. The war over Nagorno-Karabakh – an enclave of about 120,000 Christian Armenians within the territory of majority-Muslim Azerbaijan – is no exception.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh was the site of a bloody campaign of mutual ethnic cleansing. In the decades since, despite endless mediation and a string of peace proposals, tensions have simmered, intermittently boiling over into violence. In 2020, thousands of people were killed in six brutal weeks of fighting.
But in late September, Azerbaijan reclaimed control of the territory with a 24-hour military offensive, which drove the self-declared republic’s president, Samvel Shahramanyan, to sign a decree dissolving state institutions. As of next year, the decree affirms, the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh – known by Armenians as the Republic of Artsakh – will “cease to exist.” Already, virtually all the enclave’s inhabitants have fled to Armenia.
No comments:
Post a Comment