Achieving Full Resolution to the Karabakh Conflict

Azerbaijan’s decisive de­feat of Armenia in the Second Karabakh War is certainly cause for optimism that any remaining issues be­tween the two countries can be resolved through diplomacy rather than military might. After all, Azerbaijan managed to re­cover all the territories outside the Karabakh enclave captured and occupied by Armenia since the 1990s—as well as parts of the former Nagorno‑Karabakh Autonomous Oblast itself—in addition to forcing Armenia to withdraw all its troops from sovereign Azerbaijani terri­tory. However, past indisput­able successes in other conflicts indicate that Azerbaijan must be careful not to overestimate its capabilities to translate the recent military triumph into full resolution of the Nagorno‑ Karabakh conflict.

While it is tempting to declare the conflict over and to talk strictly of post‑conflict construction and development, a handful of coun­tries have painfully learned that such declarations can be prema­ture. For instance, in August 1982 Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin predicted that the immi­nent defeat of the Palestine Liber­ation Organization (PLO) in Leb­anon portended 40 years of peace; and in May 2003 U.S. President George W. Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” after ousting Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Both of these declarations came back to haunt the respective countries that had believed they had put behind them the conflict at issue.

The crucial element that both of the aforementioned leaders had missed was that they did not control completely the fate of the conflict they chose to treat as being resolved. In Israel’s case, the PLO relocated to Tunis, from where it was able to rebuild its power base and receive support from the Soviet Union, while Hezbollah—which didn’t even exist at the time of the defeat of the PLO in 1982—arose with the sup­port of Iran to become a much more formidable and menacing force in southern Lebanon than the PLO had been. In the case of America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the re­sulting power vacuum allowed nu­merous external forces to enter the picture and disrupt the plans of the United States. Moreover, corruption and disorganization within the gov­ernments established with American help contributed to the deterioration of stability in the region.

These failures provide a stern re­minder to be cautious about pre­maturely declaring a conflict to be over. Leaders still need to evaluate the post‑victory reality and all the geopolitical factors that could get in the way of translating their military accomplishments into permanent political gains. Then, based on the assessment of their means and alter­natives, they can plot out a strategy based on the options that are realis­tically in their power to control.

A note on language before pro­ceeding: language is symbol­ically powerful, particularly in so­cial and political conflicts in which words convey meanings and values. In the Israeli‑Palestinian conflict, for example, the territories cap­tured by Israel in 1967 are known alternately as Judea and Samaria, the West Bank and Gaza, or the Occupied Territories. Sometimes the preference of one term over an­other for the same geographic area implies partisanship, but at other times it is seen as a sign of neu­trality even at the risk of offending one side or another. In the case of the territory still under nominal ethnic‑Armenian control in Azer­baijan, it will be referred to here as Nagorno‑Karabakh, in line with the November 10th, 2020 statement by the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia.

And a caveat: as with any regime, we in civil society who are not privy to the inner‑workings and thinking of political leaders cannot know whether its leaders truly want peace or merely engage in rhetoric to cover up their true intentions to engage in military force to attain their goals. This paper takes at face value statements made by Azer­baijani President Ilham Aliyev at an April 2021 conference in Baku, co‑organized by ADA University and the Center of Analysis of In­ternational Relations (AIRCenter) under the banner “New Vision for South Caucasus: Post‑Conflict Development and Cooperation.”

Aliyev expressed there a commit­ment to resolve outstanding issues through negotiations and to reab­sorb the Armenians of Karabakh in a spirit of peace and reconcili­ation, reserving the military op­tion only in the eventuality that Armenia should signal preference for belligerency.

State of Play

Regarding Nagorno‑Karabakh, the interests of Azerbaijan are arguably simple and easily achiev­able: to reestablish full sovereignty over all of its internationally‑recognized territory, presumably once the Russian peacekeepers withdraw from the parts of the en­clave in which they are now present; to repopulate those lands; and to revi­talize the regional economy. How­ever, sovereignty is but one com­ponent. There is also the question of what will be the future of the resi­dents of Nagorno‑ Karabakh. Aliyev has stated that he considers Karabakh Armenians as Azerbaijani citizens. This is an important statement signaling that Azerbaijan does not wish to drive out ethnic‑Armenians from the region—a gesture that will require action in order to assuage a people traumatized by the recent fighting and steeped in a narrative of griev­ance that dates back decades.

The pursuit of Azerbaijan’s interests requires manag­ing its relationships with the Armenian residents of the rump Nagorno‑ Karabakh as well as Armenia and Russia.

Thus, the pursuit of Azerbaijan’s interests requires managing its relationships with the Armenian residents of the rump Nagorno‑ Karabakh as well as Armenia and Russia. Comparatively speaking, the latter two relationships are easier, as demonstrated by Pres­ident Aliyev’s participation in three‑way talks with Presi­dent Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Jan­uary and the establishment of a high‑level trilateral working group. Nagorno‑Karabakh is more chal­lenging because Azerbaijan, rea­sonably, does not recognize the legit­imacy of the self‑declared Republic of Artsakh that claims to represent the residents of the enclave, and also because this same enclave, protected by Russian peace­keepers, has declined to engage with Azerbaijan in any regard, even basic trade. Yet, the onus re­mains on Azerbaijan to make a convincing case that the enclaves’ present residents will be better off remaining and being reintegrated into Azerbaijan rather than aban­doning their homes and relocating to Armenia or elsewhere.

Armenia is less of a hindrance to Azerbaijan’s overall goals in the wake of its military defeat. The country is in political disarray (and this will unlikely come to an end in the wake of the June par­liamentary election). It has to di­gest the realization that it cannot compete militarily with Azerbaijan and has no prospects of regaining the territories it had seized in the 1990s. Moreover, it cannot com­pete economically with Azerbaijan. One hopes that Armenia would grasp that restoring diplomatic and economic relations best serves the long‑term interests of its people, but it will take some time to re­cover from the trauma of losing the Second Karabakh War. In the mean­time, Armenia is in no position to interfere with Azerbaijan’s plans to redevelop the liberated areas or to reassert in practice its claims over the remainder of Nagorno‑ Karabakh. Nor can it be expected to be particularly helpful with repairing relations between Azerbaijan and the Karabakh Armenians, since its interest con­sists in arguing a case on the in­ternational stage that Nagorno‑ Karabakh must remain outside direct Azerbaijani sovereignty.

In contrast, Russia is, at the very least, key to Azerbaijan reasserting full authority over the enclave— if not engendering a thawing of relations between Azerbaijan and the Karabakh Armenians. It should also be recognized that Russia has the capability of occu­pying Nagorno‑Karabakh beyond its five‑year mandate. While the November 10th, 2020, peace deal makes extension of Russia’s peacekeeping mission contingent on mutual agreement by both Azerbaijan and Armenia, Putin has a record of ignoring diplo­matic agreements in favor of ad­vancing Russia’s own interests. In 2008, Russia de‑recognized Georgia’s territorial integrity in order to justify its intervention in South Ossetia, and in 2014 Moscow de‑recognized Ukraine’s territorial integrity in order to justify its an­nexation of Crimea and its inter­vention in Donbass. If Russia de­cides to stay past the expiration of its peacekeeping mission, there is virtually nothing Azerbaijan can do to force it to leave.

Russia is already positioning itself as the patron of Nagorno‑Karabakh, which styles itself as the unrecognized Re­public of Artsakh. In March 2021, Duma parliamentarian Konstantin Zatulin, a member of the ruling United Russia party, met with two members of the unrecognized par­liament in Nagorno‑Karabakh in order to develop inter‑parliamen­tary relations, a step that could not have been taken without Pu­tin’s consent. Then, in April 2021, Moscow reportedly summoned Arayik Harutyunyan, the self‑de­clared president of Artsakh, for unofficial talks (Russia does not officially recognize the enclave) in order to scold him for being too subservient to Pashinyan because doing so does not serve the en­clave’s interests. And, in late April 2021, Russia donated 15,000 doses of its Sputnik V vaccine against COVID‑19 to the enclave. All these moves clearly position Russia as the protector of Nagorno‑Karabakh. Considering that Putin envisions Russia reasserting in some fashion the power it held when it formed the nucleus of the Soviet Union (and before that, imperial Russia), it stands to reason that just as Russia has reestablished a presence in the former Soviet Socialist Republics of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine without showing any signs of with­drawing, it will be reluctant to give up its foothold in Azerbaijan, no matter the reason for its initial re‑entry.

Azerbaijan must therefore tread carefully regarding Nagorno‑ Karabakh in order to advance its own interests there.

Preferences and Realities

President Aliyev has already expressed that his first pref­erence is to settle remaining issues through negotiations. While it seems at first glance that Azerbaijan holds all the cards and could finish the job, as it were, through mili­tary means as it started the job last year, the presence of Russian peace­keepers severely restricts this alter­native. Given the aforementioned moves Russia has made to posi­tion itself to make Nagorno‑Kara­bakh its political protectorate, it is reasonable to conclude that Moscow will not tolerate another military campaign the way it did in late 2020. This scenario has im­portant repercussions not only on Azerbaijan’s military prospects to reassert sovereignty in practice over the remainder of Karabakh but also its maneuverability in negotiations.

The reason for Azerbaijan’s bar­gaining position being weaker than it would seem to be at first glance can be found in crisis management theory. The premise of this theory is that one party to a conflict vio­lates the status quo in order to ad­vance its own interests. In the case of Nagorno‑Karabakh, the status quo of Azerbaijani sovereignty was violated. The aggrieved side then has a choice to respond diplo­matically or militarily. The policy dilemma is that seeking a purely diplomatic solution requires ac­cepting damage to one’s own inter­ests because one is choosing not to force the other side to back down, unless one can bluff well enough to convince the other side that the use of military force is imminent. If Russia communicates to the Armenians that it will not abandon them in the eventuality of a diplo­matic stalemate, then Azerbaijan will not be able to threaten cred­ibly military intervention and will thus have to accept some damage to its interests, which can be defined as reintegrating Na­gorno‑Karabakh fully into the Azer­baijani political system without any special privileges for the enclave.

Azerbaijan is attempting to be the first country to peacefully regain sover­eignty over rebel‑held ter­ritory that has acted as an unrecognized country for an extended period of time.

It may also help to remember that despite the international principle of the right of sover­eignty, Azerbaijan is attempting to enter into unchartered waters in the post‑World War II era: to be the first country to peacefully regain sovereignty over rebel‑held territory that has acted as an un­recognized country for an ex­tended period of time. Aside from Nagorno‑Karabakh, the list is longer than some may be aware: Taiwan, Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, Transnistria, Somaliland, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Kosovo. When the UN tried to broker talks between Serbia and the ethnic‑Albanian authorities in Kosovo, the youngest of the nine entities mentioned above, the Finnish mediator Martti Ahtisaari told the Serbian negotiators in 2006 that after being free of Serbian administration for seven years, there was no going back. If the idea of restoring Serbian rule over Kosovo seemed so daunting after just seven years, one could imagine the resistance of Karabakh Arme­nians must feel after living without Azerbaijani rule for 30 years.

With these challenges in mind, let us consider con­structive steps Azerbaijan can take on its own in order to bring the long‑term conflict to a satisfactory conclusion. Recall that it should not count on reciprocity from Yerevan, which is the least likely to make concessions but is also ultimately the least relevant to re­integrating Nagorno‑Karabakh into Azerbaijan. So, the focus will be on steps in communicating Azerbaijan’s intentions to the Karabakh Armenians and to Moscow. The less safe the en­clave’s ethnic‑Armenian residents feel about living again under Azerbaijani rule (in whatever form), the less likely Russia will be willing to agree to withdraw its peacekeepers. On the other hand, if Russia will be convinced that the security of Karabakh Armenians is guaranteed—and that it has nothing more to gain by an extended occupation—then it will be more likely to withdraw and allow Azerbaijan to reassert full control of the enclave.

The first priority should be to continue signaling Azerbaijan’s readiness to reengage with the Karabakh Armenians, which can be conducted unilaterally. How­ever, Azerbaijan has to consider how such messages would be in­terpreted on the Armenian side. Given the low level of trust, the Armenians are likely to reactively devalue Azerbaijani gestures. East Jerusalem Palestinians and Golan Druze living in the territories oc­cupied by Israel since 1967 have refused Israel’s offer to apply for citizenship as a diplomatic trap, because doing so would be con­ceding to Israel that it has the right of sovereignty over their respective areas. For Karabakh Armenians, Aliyev’s seemingly generous offer to receive Azerbaijani citizenship is likely to be interpreted as a similar trap. And, as many Pales­tinians refuse to do business with Israel as part of a greater anti‑normalization campaign, so it seems that Karabakh Armenians are avoiding normalization with Azerbaijan.

In Nagorno‑Karabakh, we are witnessing already negative at­titudes toward Azerbaijanis hard­ened over 30 years of occupation, a consequence of which is that, notwithstanding the outcome of the Second Karabakh War, very few ethnic‑Armenians consider friendship to be possible with Azerbaijanis or seem willing to do business with them. The departure of ethnic‑Armenians from the areas retaken by Azerbaijan during the fighting or ceded back to Azerbaijan through the agreement to end the war indicates the lack of trust they have in the Azerbaijani regime. Karabakh Armenians clearly suffer from a security dilemma, fearful of and opposed to a future in Azerbaijan because they appear to be unable to conceive how such a future would work.

However, Armenian intransi­gence need not deter Azerbaijan. As the official sovereign authority, breaking down that resistance is practically its duty if it wants the best chance of Karabakh Armenians to submit to Azerbaijani authority. Moreover, messaging is a neces­sary if not a sufficient condition for reconciliation.

Consistency is also crucial. The Palestinians have long undercut their own credibility by making pro‑peace pronouncements abroad in English but bellig­erent and antisemitic remarks in Arabic at home in public speeches, on local media, and in the school system. When preparing one’s people for potential war, as Azerbaijan did in recent years, such mixed messaging is more un­derstandable because the outcome of the conflict is uncertain. How­ever, in a post‑conflict environ­ment mixed messaging undercuts peace and reconciliation efforts whilst signaling that violence is still a preference despite protesta­tions to the contrary.

Azerbaijan is a case in point. In years past, even as Azerbaijan pursued the diplomatic route to resolving the conflict over Nagorno‑Karabakh, the coun­try’s leadership, including Presi­dent Aliyev, also engaged in anti‑ Armenian or belligerent messaging. Such examples include pardoning Ramil Safarov, who was convicted of axing to death an Armenian soldier with whom he was training as part of a NATO exercise and wel­coming him back as a national hero in 2012; referring to or likening Armenians to fascists, dogs, barbar­ians, or vandals; and calling for an active struggle with Armenia. The ubiquitous billboard campaign that Karabakh is Azerbaijan—albeit in response to Pashinyan’s statement that Karabakh is Armenia—was also a rallying cry for Azerbaijanis to back the campaign to regain ter­ritory that they otherwise may not have felt due to its geographic isola­tion. All these gestures and slogans served a purpose in unifying Azer­baijanis behind last year’s war, but they were also not lost on the Kara­bakh Armenians, who fear what the implications are for their long‑term well‑being should they be reinte­grated into Azerbaijan.

The starkness of the mixed messaging may have grown even greater in wake of the war. Azerbaijan seems to be doubling down on its messaging, in par­ticular with the War Trophies Museum. While the intent may be to glorify last year’s victory and reinforce support for the war itself in the Azerbaijani psyche, some outside observers have been shocked and disappointed by what they perceive as a dehumaniza­tion of Armenians. For Arme­nians, the public display provides further confirmation for their biases against Azerbaijan as a regime that cannot be trusted to resume rule over Nagorno‑Karabakh. Meanwhile, the continued “Karabakh is Azerbaijan” campaign also reinforces the percep­tion among Karabakh Armenians that they have no future in Azerbaijan.

What Can Baku Do?

What can be done to ease the anxiety of Karabakh Armenians and increase the confidence of Russia without compromising on Azerbaijani interests?

What can be done to ease the anxiety of Karabakh Armenians and increase the confi­dence of Russia without compro­mising on Azerbaijani interests? Doing so requires a multi‑step pro­cess that involves more than trying to convince Karabakh Armenians that they have nothing to fear but rather letting them know that they and their concerns are being heard and addressed. Messaging should focus on the no­tion that Karabakh Armenians will be able to maintain some measure of control over their lives, that they will be able to enjoy economic prosperity, and that they will enjoy political and civil rights.

It would be helpful for Azerbaijan to set up a team on reestablishing communication with Karabakh Armenians as part of a greater truth and reconciliation commission. It should be clear on the message that there will be no retribution for the events of the 1990s—if Azerbaijan is willing to make that concession—but also that it wants to hear from the Karabakh Armenians their grievances and ex­periences to understand what fears prevent them from being willing to live under Azerbaijani rule.

While it is reasonable to expect Azerbaijan to continue to be critical of the Armenian government, dis­tinction should be made between the regime and the people. Elimi­nating Armenophobic comments is a simple solution, especially for leaders so sensitive to the Turkophobia that prevails in Armenia. Going a step further would involve messaging that emphasizes Azerbaijan’s mul­ticulturalism and its commitment to finding a place for Karabakh Armenians in Azerbaijani society.

Such positive rhetoric needs practical reinforcement to be perceived as credible. This goal can be achieved by investing in Nagorno‑Karabakh’s microeco­nomy with Russia’s help. While Azerbaijan’s primary concern in the region must be and naturally is focused on the repop­ulation of its liberated lands, this process will take years. In the meantime, Azerbaijan can exploit its renewed access to Nagorno‑Karabakh by offering trade opportunities to its resi­dents, even though it is expected to be rebuffed in the near future.

Trade is one area in which Nagorno‑Karabakh may follow Armenia’s lead if Azerbaijan can make progress on that front with its neighbor. The further along plans to develop east‑west trade extending be­yond the Lachin corridor and north‑south trade based on the old Soviet‑era trade routes, the more tempted Karabakh Arme­nians will be to access these op­portunities, especially if Armenia is exploiting them.

Still, it must be recognized that trade on Azerbaijan’s terms can also be viewed by wary Kara­bakh Armenians as recognizing the legitimacy of Baku’s sover­eignty. Thus, they may see their interests in continued resistance and making the case to their Russian protectors that trade is a peace trap that fails to address their security dilemmas once they are at the mercy of Azerbaijani authorities.

The most effective strategy for Azerbaijan to make the case that Karabakh Armenians can feel safe and secure under its rule is to offer a form of local self‑gover­nance. However, Azerbaijan is hardly inclined to make such an offer. After all, Armenia rejected previous offers of autonomy for Nagorno ‑ Karabakh in the failed negotia­tions of the 2000s and 2010s. Azerbaijan is in a strong enough position to deny Nagorno‑ Karabakh self‑governance and no longer needs to make such a conces­sion to Armenia, which is powerless to stop it from imposing its own rule. Aliyev himself has ruled out such an arrangement in the wake of victory. The most he seems inclined to offer is cultural autonomy, which was mentioned during the war in October 2020. Besides, autonomy is often perceived as an invita­tion to secessionism, the last thing Azerbaijan would want to encourage.

However, fears of self‑gover­nance, which can run the gamut from granting limited local au­thority over schools and health services to full autonomy, are mis­guided.

The paradox of self‑rule is that the greater the com­petencies granted, the more levels are created for peaceful bargaining, the less likely a region is going to be secessionist.

In fact, the paradox of self‑rule is that the greater the compe­tencies granted, the more levels are created for peaceful bargaining, the less likely a region is going to be secessionist. Increased autonomy weakened the secessionist move­ment in Canada’s Quebec and the UK’s Scotland, while efforts to re­strict autonomy in Spain’s Catalonia and Yugoslavia’s Serbian province of Kosovo raised secessionist fervor in those coun­tries. States like Sri Lanka that denied minority calls for federalism or local autonomy faced greater civil unrest or even civil war.

Azerbaijanis might look at their So­viet past as an example of a federation that broke up, but federal arrange­ments like the ones in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia had been es­tablished without the consent of the leadership (and residents) of the indi­vidual federal and autonomous units. That is why these sham federations spurred grievances and separatism in places like Nagorno‑Karabakh.

While Nagorno‑Karabakh is too small and too weak to de­mand self‑governance, the issue remains on the table because its withholding will lead to one of two scenarios: either the Russians will refuse to withdraw from Nagorno‑ Karabakh or, if Baku can still pre­vail upon Moscow to pull out, the Armenians will empty out Nagorno‑ Karabakh. If Azerbaijan is fine with the prospect of a depopulated Nagorno‑Karabakh, that is its prerogative. This paper proceeds upon the presump­tion, based on President Aliyev’s recent statements, that he would prefer that they remain there, as Azerbaijani citi­zens, in which case he will need to offer some form of self‑governance.

What would be the ideal form of self‑governance, one that serves both the interests of the central government in Baku and the future residents of Nagorno‑Karabakh?