Winning the Peace

The Karabakh conflict was not resolved peacefully. Decades of unfruitful negotiations held under the aus­pices of the Co‑chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (France, Russia, and the United States) produced no dip­lomatic solution. The 30‑year‑long stalemate ended when Azerbaijan re‑gained its occupied territories with a decisive military victory after 44 days of fighting. After the Second Karabakh War, Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity in conformity with four UN Security Council resolutions.

Formally, Azerbaijan’s sover­eignty over all Karabakh was re­stored through the signing of a tri­lateral settlement that was reached between Azerbaijan and Armenia on November 10th, 2010, with Russia being the facilitator and third signatory. The settlement, which is more than a conventional truce but less than a full peace agreement, ensured the return of the remaining five occupied Azerbaijani areas immediately. A five‑kilometer‑wide corridor con­necting Armenia to Karabakh was opened through Lachin, with con­trol granted to a newly‑established Russian peacekeeping force, which also took over control of Khan­kendi and some surrounding areas populated by ethnic‑Armenians. Despite some delays, the trilat­eral settlement is being enforced and the Armenian occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territo­ries came to an end in early 2021. Other provisions of the settlement, such as the establishment of the free movement of all Azerbaijani persons, services, and capital to the region, is to follow.

Winning the peace con­sists in ensuring the ter­ritorial, economic, social, and political reintegra­tion of Karabakh into Azerbaijan, while at the same time ensuring that regional peace and stabil­ity is kept intact.

After winning the war, Azerbaijan now faces another big task: winning the peace. This con­sists in ensuring the territorial, eco­nomic, social, and political reintegra­tion of Karabakh into Azerbaijan, while at the same time ensuring that regional peace and stability is kept intact. Peace and security in the re­gion would allow for the flourishing of much‑needed investments in infrastructure and the revitalization of Karabakh’s economy. And yet, this is a particularly challenging task, for Armenians continue to reject Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Karabakh. The presence of Russian peacekeepers is generally inter­preted by the Armenian leadership as a shield for the practical mainte­nance of their de facto control over the areas within the Russian peace­keeping zone, against Azerbaijan’s de jure authority in the region.

Breaking the Security Dilemma

In a 1996 International Security article entitled “Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict,” co‑authors David Lake and Donald Rothchild argue that “intense ethnic conflict is most often caused by collective fears of the future”—in particular, the prev­alence of fears that the physical secu­rity of a given ethnic group is threatened.

Fear of a lack of secure future in the South Caucasus is an extension of what the past has brought. As Stuart J. Kaufman observed in his book Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War (2001), the longstanding conflict over Karabakh represents a fundamental clash between the Arme­nian myth‑symbol complex fueled by historical fears and the corresponding Azerbaijani one that emphasizes a desire to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Consequently, containing fears with respect to Azer­baijan’s sovereignty and territorial in­tegrity is the crucial component for breaking the cycle of the security di­lemma in Karabakh, which requires both the effective management of in­formation and dealing with credible commitment problems.

For three decades, Baku had refused to negotiate with Karabakh Armenians, as it would have been interpreted as having granted quasi‑political recogni­tion to the breakaway entity, whose “independence” was both unilater­ally declared prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union and remained completely unrecognized interna­tionally in the subsequent decades. Even Armenia itself never formally recognized the entity proclaimed by the Karabakh Armenians.

The fact that Azerbaijan has en­sured its territorial integrity as a re­sult of the outcome of the Second Karabakh War suggests that Baku’s primary engaging party in the time ahead will now be the Karabakh Armenian community, whose members are citizens of Azerbaijan. Of course, crucial roles will also need to be played by Yerevan and other external stakeholders in terms of providing support in the man­agement of “ethnic fear,” to refer to Lake and Rothchild’s terminology.

Ancient hatreds spanning centu­ries, the traumas associated with the First Karabakh War, the effects of nearly three decades of occupa­tion, and the recent liberation of the occupied territories by a com­bination of the use of force and dip­lomatic brinksmanship make it ex­tremely difficult, in the immediate term, to expect that this ethnic fear (and the myriad problems derived from it) can be overcome. Still, the gradual reintegration of Karabakh into Azerbaijan is vital for pro­tecting Azerbaijan’s territorial integ­rity and reintegrating the country’s ethnic‑Armenian citizenry into the fabric of society while at the same time ensuring peace, security, and prosperity in the South Caucasus. As Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has stated on numerous oc­casions since the Second Karabakh War came to an end, the country aims to sustain peace in the region and is ready to normalize relations with Armenia. In other words, the peace can be won with hard work, expressions of mutual tolerance, and conciliatory steps.

Audience Costs

Baku’s ultimate goal is to fully reintegrate Karabakh into the rest of Azerbaijan; yet this can only be done in stages and will take years to complete. Aside from material obstacles, the Azerbaijani leadership will likely face a situ­ation of complex “audience cost” with respect to the reintegration of Karabakh. (Generally speaking, audience costs in international re­lations theory are the costs that leaders pay from backing down be­fore their opponents in interstate disputes.) The leadership in Baku will need to balance domestic audi­ence costs against external audience costs; the latter further requires balancing Russia against the Western powers—most importantly, the United States and France. The two‑level game struc­ture of Azerbaijan’s future Karabakh policies, along with possible signaling problems towards the competing Minsk Group Co‑chairs, adds layers of com­plexity to the situation. Should the Azerbaijani leadership be seen to be backing down or even making com­promises, it will face domestic audi­ence costs; likewise with respect to increasing international pressure to have ethnic‑Armenians included in the governance of Karabakh, where it seems likely that Russia and the United States will have conflicting demands.

All these complex audience costs make it imperative for Baku to work on sustainable governance and power sharing structures for achieving peace and prosperity in the Karabakh of the future.

The reintegration of Karabakh into the rest of Azerbaijan requires a multi‑layer, sequential policy approach charac­terized by a high toler­ance for contingent and adaptive alternatives.

The reintegration of Karabakh into the rest of Azerbaijan, therefore, requires a multi‑layer, sequential policy approach charac­terized by a high tolerance for con­tingent and adaptive alternatives. There are multiple factors that set the context in which Azerbaijan’s au­thorities will have to operate. Each of these factors should be dealt with in two ways simultaneously: distinctly on their own and as part of an overall whole made up of the cumulation of all such factors and their effects.

Put succinctly, the territorial, social, economic, and political re­integration of Karabakh will re­quire controlling audience costs, both domestic and external. A whole‑of‑government, coordinated effort will obviously be required, necessitating the need for the emer­gence of a highly complex matrix for policy planning.

Property, Reconstruction, and Resettlement

Inevitably, the Azerbaijan gov­ernment will organize the re­turn of more than 600,000 internally displaced people to their homes. This is an evidently daunting task not only because of the sheer num­bers involved (the re‑mobilization of between 5 and 10 percent of the entire population of Azerbaijan is in and of itself a logistic nightmare), but also because many of these IDPs’ dwellings were destroyed by Armenian forces during the occu­pation.

Roughly speaking, the urban terrain of the occupied territories can be divided into three major clusters, when the pre‑1989 demo­graphics and the current situation are compared: (1) areas that had an ethnic‑Armenian majority and are still populated by Armenians (e.g., Khankendi, Khojavend, Ag­dere); (2) areas that had an eth­nic‑Azerbaijani majority and were populated by ethnic‑Armenians between the First and Second Kara­bakh Wars (e.g., Shusha, Kelbajar, Lachin, Kubatli, Zengilan, Jabrail); (3) areas that had an ethnic‑Azer­baijan majority but were uninhab­ited or became uninhabitable (e.g., Agdam, Fuzuli).

Agdam was the center of the Kara­bakh region until the early 1990s, with population of more than 130,000. Its current situation can only be compared to Hiroshima, Warsaw, or Dresden after the devas­tations of war. Similarly, Fuzuli—a settlement once home to nearly 90,000 people—is now a complete ghost town. Ethnic‑Armenians populated the Kelbajar district after the First Karabakh War but most of the dwellings formerly inhabited by ethnic‑Azerbaijanis were burned to the ground with contagious frenzy right before the district was trans­ferred back to Azerbaijan as a part of the November 10th, 2020, agree­ment. Moreover, virtually all of Karabakh’s cultural and religious sites, including the ones located in Azerbaijan’s cultural capital of Shusha, were destroyed during the occupation. While some of these monuments of world heritage can be rebuilt, many are beyond repair.

Due to this wholescale urbicide, most cities and towns in Karabakh will need to be built back up from scratch. This is obviously a long‑term and costly proposition that will pose significant economic and social challenges for Azerbaijan.

Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of anti‑personnel and anti‑tank mines, coupled with countless booby‑traps and pieces of unexploded ordnance, were laid in these districts by the forces of Armenian occupation. Like in Af­ghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and else­where, heavy mine contamination not only prevents the immediate return of civilians but poses a threat to the resumption of normalcy for a period of decades after the guns have been silenced. The case of Vietnam is illustrative: 20 percent of the country remains contam­inated by landmines and unex­ploded ordnance, and more than 100,000 people have been killed or injured due to contact with such ar­maments since 1975).

The return of IDPs to their homes will necessarily have to be a gradual and controlled process—one that can begin in earnest only after the cleaning of explosives has been completed and infrastructure has been rebuilt—both requiring heavy and sustained state investment.

Until then, most of the liberated Karabakh region will remain under the administration of Azerbaijani se­curity forces, as the regeneration of ci­vilian life may take considerable time. This may turn out to be a blessing in disguise from a public administration perspective. For instance, a new Im­movable Property Administration may be introduced (or the country’s existing one may be given a broader mandate) with objective of making a comprehensive assessment of as­sets in the Karabakh region. All the buildings must be counted and cate­gorized, and land and property titles must be re‑issued.

There will be tens of thousands of applications from Azerbaijan’s IDP community to reclaim lost property. In many instances, their property will have been destroyed either by neglect, purposefully de­molished by the forces and agents of the Armenian occupation, or resettled by ethnic‑Armenian oc­cupants. Categories need to be set carefully and cartographic invento­ries must be thoroughly prepared. In this context, certain decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) should be carefully examined. Its decisions in Demopoulos and Others v. Turkey (2010) may be of particular sig­nificance, as the rulings sought to balance between former and cur­rent property owners: the court indicated that returning properties to the old owners should not result in human right violations for the current owners. After a three‑de­cades long occupation, property issues have become very complex and therefore must be dealt with diligently.

In short, Karabakh today needs a massive infrastructure overhaul, but such an effort cannot be limited to the reconstruction of demolished homes and towns. Time has been frozen since the early 1990s in many parts of the liberated region. Power, water, and sewage systems are all outdated and damaged. Existing roads and railways require major repairs and new ones will need to be built. Construction of new air­ports has already begun. All these efforts also face problems related to minesweeping and funding. All told, all of Karabakh will become one giant construction site.

Minefield Maps as a Key to Peace

Unfortunately, Armenia has so far refused to pro­vide all the minefields maps in its possession. The welcome excep­tion, which took place as Baku Dialogues was going to press, was the surrender of maps for the Agdam district. But this represents only a “tiny part of the maps we have,” as the acting prime minister of Armenia, Nicol Pashinyan, ad­mitted soon thereafter.

The demining process would gain significant pace if full Armenian cooperation were to be secured for humanitarian purposes, as the untold number of remaining explosives pose a clear and present danger to civilian lives. Neither Azerbaijan nor Armenia is a party to the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stock­piling, Production and Transfer of Anti‑Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, which came into force in 1999. Thus, the issue requires bilateral negotiations. Georgia facilitated the handover of the Agdam maps (with the support of the United States, the European Union, the Swedish chairmanship of the OSCE, and perhaps Russia) but there is much more work still to be done. Moscow might step up on its own; or join hands with the other two Minsk Group Co‑chairs; or the actors involved in the Agdam arrangement could build on their success.

What is certain is that Yerevan did not give away these maps for nothing: they were essentially traded for 15 Armenian detainees in Azerbaijani custody. Its policy may become more flexible after the June 20th, 2021, parliamentary elections are held in Armenia. On the other hand, Yerevan’s reluc­tance to provide all the minefields maps it possesses may be consid­ered a purposeful delaying tactic for Azerbaijani resettlement. But such a tactic can only slow down this process, not prevent it from proceeding.

Whatever lies behind Yerevan’s reluctance to act, Armenia will be held responsible for all the human and material loss resulting from landmine explo­sions covering the areas where it has refused to hand over the maps: both Azerbaijan and Armenia have been parties to the European Con­vention on Human Rights since 2002, which gives the ECHR juris­diction. Other international courts can be petitioned, as well.

However that may be, providing the minefield maps to Azerbaijan would constitute an excellent gesture on the part of the Armenian side, sig­naling a willingness for cooperation. At the same time, of course, it could lead to considerable audience costs on the home front, making a uni­lateral handover nearly impossible. In this regard, some sort of bilat­eral Commission on Humanitarian Matters could be established under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the Minsk Group, or, as discussed above, the actors involved in facilitating the Agdam landmines map arrange­ment. Whatever the modality, the Azerbaijani side can expect to be presented with demands from the Armenian side—humanitarian or otherwise.

Revitalization and Reparations

Revitalizing the economy and putting on solid ground the public finances of the liberated areas constitute two other critical steps Azerbaijan can take to rein­tegrate the region successfully into the rest of the country as well as transform it into both a politically peaceful and economically gainful part of the South Caucasus.

Karabakh is rich in natural re­sources, including gold and coal reserves. Karabakh also contains an abundance of renewable en­ergy sources. The Azerbaijan Energy Regulatory Agency (AREA) reports that one quarter of Azerbaijan’s water resources—about 2,56 billion cubic meters of water per annum—is generated in the Karabakh region. AREA also indi­cates that Karabakh’s strong streams feed not only the Tartar, Khuda­farin, and Giz Galasi hydroelectric power plants but also the Sarsang/ Sugovushan water reservoir, which is one of Azerbaijan’s tallest dams. In short, AREA estimates that the occupied territories were contrib­uting as much as 30 percent to Armenia’s annual GDP.

While the Sugovushan water reservoir is likely to make a considerable contribution to Azerbaijan’s agricultural output in the time to come and the reinte­gration of Karabakh’s gold reserves promises to strengthen Azerbaijan’s currency, which was devaluated in 2016 due to low oil prices. And overall, the wholescale reconstruc­tion of the liberated areas will also make a significant contribution to the country’s economy.

This revitalization is good for the Karabakh Armenians as well, increasing the likelihood for the onset of sustainable prosperity— something that they never had during the period of occupation. Lastly, economic revitalization can establish a base for enduring peace between Karabakh Azerbaijanis and Karabakh Armenians. Like Alsace‑Lorraine or South Tyrol after World War II, Karabakh has the potential to turn into a signifier of peace and cooperation instead of remaining a synonym for conflict and division.

There are, however, some outstanding issues that need to be resolved urgently. First, Azerbaijan’s currency, the manat, should replace all foreign curren­cies in Karabakh even though for­eign ones such as the Russian ruble, the U.S. dollar, or the euro may be used in the Russian peacekeeping zone during the transition period established by the November 10th, 2021, trilateral statement.

While some tax exemptions may be provided for the liberated areas during this same transition pe­riod, Azerbaijani’s taxation regime should be introduced eventually in order to levy taxes on income and property. Customs should also be regulated in conformity with the rest of Azerbaijan’s international borders so as to avoid creating a quasi‑state within the state. A fur­ther important detail regarding the region’s financial reintegration into Azerbaijan is paying the sala­ries of state employees in Karabakh with the manat—especially those hired by the Armenian occupation forces (e.g., schoolteachers, med­ical doctors, nurses, police officers, local government employees, and so on). In short, regenerating local income streams and redistributing resources from the central budget in Baku require making serious public finance plans for Karabakh. The region’s financial reintegra­tion also requires reintroducing Azerbaijan’s banking system into the region. Thus, opening branches of the Azerbaijani Central Bank as well as Azerbaijani retail and com­mercial banks all over Karabakh, including in places like Khankendi, may become a priority for Baku in the near future. Such moves may be crucial to revitalizing Karabakh’s local economy through the provi­sion of loans and other services.

Azerbaijan suffered extensive losses to its national earn­ings potential during the period of the Armenian occupation: the uni­lateral seizure and exploitation of natural sources (mining, electrical production, etc.) clearly constituted a breach of international law. At the same time, the forests of Karabakh were devastated during occupation, such that senior Azerbaijani offi­cials have used the word “ecocide” to describe the plight of countless tress over the nearly 30‑year period.

All of these losses bring the ne­cessity of compensation to the forefront. Nevertheless, the ques­tion of war and occupation repa­rations is a bilateral issue between Armenia and Azerbaijan; it is not directly relevant to the issue of how to reintegrate Karabakh (and the Karabakh Armenians) into Azerbaijan. In fact, the reparations issue may serve the cause of jus­tice and satisfy the demands of the Azerbaijani public, but it may also impede the much‑needed process of reconciliation.

Dealing With Ancient Hatreds

One of the key distinctions to be made regarding the nature of the Karabakh conflict is that how to define and explain it. Partisans of the Armenian posi­tion tend to describe the nature of the Karabakh conflict as primor­dial and innate. This has even been reflected in Yerevan’s official pop­ulation policy, which sanctioned the expulsion of all non‑ethnic‑ Armenians from Armenia and the occupied areas as well as initiated forced assimilation programs such as the closing of schools that follow a Russian language curriculum.

In contrast, schools and uni­versities where the language of instruction is Azerbaijani, Rus­sian, Georgian, Turkish, and so on operate without hindrance in Azerbaijan. More broadly, Azerbaijan is a proudly multiethnic, multiconfessional, and multicultural society made up not only of ethnic‑Azerbaijanis but also many ethnic Russians, Lezgis, and Jews. There are nearly 100,000 ethnic‑ Armenians living in Azerbaijan. Thus, Azerbaijan is well equipped to reintegrate the Karabakh Arme­nians into its already diverse social, economic, and education system.

Karabakh Armenians had lived in an unrecognized entity for nearly three decades, which makes them, at best, reluctant to be reintegrated into the Republic of Azerbaijan. In this regard, reorienting the rhet­oric of the Armenian elite towards coexistence and cooperation is a vital condition for reconciliation to be able to move forward. The po­tential for reconciliation is high, if the sides demonstrate a genuine willingness to prioritize regional development—both economic and social.

Azerbaijan’s willingness to focus on the economic de­velopment of the region provides a unique opportunity for peace and prosperity for the entire South Caucasus to take hold. Neverthe­less, it requires two to tango, as the saying goes. Even though rec­onciliation and economic revital­ization would be beneficial for the Karabakh Armenians, more than seven months after the trilateral agree­ment came into force the rhetoric of the Armenian elite has shown virtu­ally no sign of reconciliatory or cooperative sentiments. Quite the contrary, for the most part it remains stuck in the past and continue to stumble into pitfalls of overextension by relying heavily on what Jack Snyder called “myths of empire” (the title of his 1993 book): an admixture of domestic poli­tics and expansionist ambitions.

Moreover, Armenia has yet to deal with its diaspora issue. No other na­tion has a greater disconnect between the power of its state and the power of its organized diaspora, as a result of which the latter plays a uniquely disproportionally strong role in de­signing the country’s policies. The organized Armenian diaspora—es­pecially those branches based in the United States and France—often im­pose their ultranationalist, even belli­cose rhetoric into the country’s public discourse and policymaking process, instead of leveraging their evident influence to help establish peace and prosperity in the South Caucasus.

The point here is that the steps various steps that Azerbaijan may take to reintegrate Karabakh Armenians through a complex in­stitutional design will likely face re­sistance by the organized Armenian diaspora. Baku will need to figure out how to overcome both the chal­lenge of its outreach initiatives being dismissed immediately and counter accusations of wanting to assimilate the Karabakh Armenian community.

Thus, the “ethnic outbidding” that Timothy D. Sisk defined in Power Sharing and International Me­diation in Ethnic Conflicts (1996) as “extremist ethnic group leaders who decry moderation with enemies as a sellout of group interest” presents a genuine threat to Baku’s reintegration plans. In fact, one could expect to see that the more successful these have a chance of becoming, the more likely it is that they will be rejected by both the government in Yerevan and the organized Armenian diaspora coming together to pressure the Karabakh Armenian leadership to retain an un­compromising, ultranationalist stance. Moreover, other external powers that have historically supported Armenian political causes are unlikely ever to be fully satisfied with Azerbai­jan’s reintegration plans to the point that—if past behavior can serve as a predictor of future action—demand after demand can be expected to be made until Baku’s effective sover­eignty over Karabakh is seen as being compromised.

Last but not least, Baku’s reintegration policies are likely to face domestic oppo­sition. Azerbaijani public opinion is also not immune to emotional stimuli: some circles are likely to attempt to frame the govern­ment’s reintegration plans as constituting concessions to the ‘enemy.’

All this carries with it the danger of turning mutual ethnic outbidding into a combative dialectic that turns into a pretext for the reemergence of yet another round of violent con­flict.

The process of ethnic conflict de‑escalation in Karabakh should begin with identifying par­ticular conflict triggers and precipitating events and their management through the implementa­tion of well‑designed and carefully implemented in­tegrative policies

Hence, the process of ethnic conflict de‑escalation in Karabakh should begin with identifying par­ticular conflict triggers and precipi­tating events and their management through the implementation of well‑designed and carefully imple­mented integrative policies.

Governance and Power Sharing

What Karabakh’s new governance structure will look like probably represents the single most speculated topic in the knot of issues that need to dealt with in order to achieve the full reintegration of the region into Azerbaijan.

The power sharing question— or, more broadly, the question of the political inclu­sion of Karabakh Armenians—may become an even more perplexing one should it be­come a pretext for external med­dling and, in turn, be seen as a chal­lenge to Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Even with no or at least limited outside interference, however, power sharing in a multi‑ethnic set­ting is an evidently thorny issue: it could lead to the fragmentation of a state (e.g., Yugoslavia) or nurture democratic secessionist aspirations (e.g., Quebec, Scotland, Catalonia). Either way, power sharing is an ex­tremely difficult but ultimately nec­essary subject to be discussed for ensuring the full reintegration of Karabakh into Azerbaijan.

It could be very well argued that the concern with respect to Karabakh is exclusively “gover­nance,” not “power sharing,” since even if the approxi­mately 100,000 eth­nic‑Armenians (no one really knows the exact popula­tion number) that resided in the re­gion during the occupation were all to return (or re­main, as the case may be) would not constitute a sufficiently sizeable minority in a country with a population of over 10 million.

Obviously, a minority population that makes up more or less 1 percent of a country’s total population is quite unlikely to warrant the granting of any serious form of power sharing at the central government level.

Obviously, a minority population that makes up more or less 1 percent of a country’s total population is quite unlikely to warrant the granting of any se­rious form of power sharing at the central government level, except perhaps the allocation of a guar­anteed number of seats to ethnic‑ Armenians in the country’s parliament.

Nevertheless, Karabakh’s partic­ular political history adds both com­plexity and context to the situation. In the wake of the Second Karabakh War, virtually the entire Karabakh Armenian population is now located in a small pocket of territory in and around the city of Khankendi. Still continuing their effective con­trol there thanks to the presence of Russian peacekeepers, the leader­ship of the Karabakh Armenian community would hardly accept any governance struc­ture that excludes their active par­ticipation in the local administrative bodies. There is no serious question that this position will be supported by all three Minsk Group Co‑chairs and other international actors like European Union.

In his aforementioned book, Timothy Sisk provides a ty­pology for conflict‑regulating prac­tices that may provide a starting point for thinking about this issue. He argues that “the consociational and integrative approaches can be fruitfully viewed as conceptual poles in a spectrum of specific conflict‑regulating institutions and practices that promote power sharing.”

Sisk goes on to provide five con­sociational conflict‑regulating practices: one, granting territorial autonomy and creating confed­eral arrangements; two, creating a polycommunal, or ethnic, feder­ation; three, adopting group pro­portional representation in admin­istration appointments, including consensus decision rules in the executive; four, adopting a highly proportional electoral system in a parliamentary framework; and five, acknowledging group rights or cor­porate (nonterritorial) federalism.

He also provides five integrative conflict‑regulating practices: one, creating a mixed, or nonethnic, fed­eral structure; two, establishing an inclusive, centralized unitary state; three, adopting majoritarian but ethnically neutral, or nonethnic, executive, legislative, and admin­istrative decision‑making bodies; four, adopting a semi‑majoritarian or semi‑proportional electoral system that encourages the forma­tion of pre‑election coalitions (vote pooling) across ethnic divides; and five, devising ethnicity‑blind public policies

While Sisk’s two approaches may provide a general conceptual frame­work for conflict‑regulating prac­tices, other particular factors ought to set more practical parameters for Karabakh’s political reintegration into Azerbaijan. These include: the political history of the Karabakh region, Soviet‑era administrative structure, comparative examples in the post‑Soviet space (especially Russia’s experience), and the cur­rent public administration struc­ture of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

A New Public Administration Structure

Azerbaijan needs to estab­lish a new political structure for Karabakh. The design of such a structure will necessarily have to be incorporated into the existing Azerbaijani political system. One al­ternative is to create a bicommunal public administration system in Karabakh based on the facts on the grounds, a component of which could involve the establishment of a distinct local ethnic‑Armenian representation schema. There are crucial components for such a bi­communal administration. An initial task is to define the bound­aries and population of Karabakh. If the boundaries of the Nagorno‑ Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) from the Soviet era may be taken as a starting point, then these consisted of five administrative dis­tricts (Askaran, Hadrut, Mardakert, Martuni, and Shusha) that, taken to­gether, correspond more or less to the operational area of the Russian peace­keeping contingent—the notable and highly symbolic exception being Shusha, which was regained by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces in the last days of the Second Karabakh War.

A single category of Azerbaijani citizenship is necessary to main­tain, although a special kind of residency status may be negotiated for those who choose to reside in (or return to) Karabakh. Soviet‑era census data may be taken as the principal basis for determining residency status. Soviet‑era sources indicate that around 145,000 eth­nic‑Armenians and nearly 41,000 ethnic‑Azerbaijanis lived on the territory of the NKAO in 1989. Azerbaijan may seek to pursue policies that could reverse the region’s ethnic osmosis. During the Soviet period, Karabakh was able to sustain an ethnically‑mixed population: ethnic‑Azerbaijanis and ethnic‑Armenians coexisted for decades in relative peace. Once Shusha is repopulated with re­turning ethnic‑Azerbaijanis, the population balance in Karabakh may be restored. In turn, ethnic‑ Armenians may expect to maintain ethnically‑Armenian homogenous towns in Karabakh.

A new census would need to be conducted in order to determine the exact number of ethnic‑Armenians still living in Karabakh—notwithstanding the risk of heightened tensions due to the fact that such a census would only include those ethnic‑Arme­nians eligible for citizenship of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It is a commonly known fact that Ye­revan pursued a settlement policy in the occupied territories: ethnic‑ Armenians from Armenia and other countries (including Syria) were moved to the region. Thus, ethnic‑Armenians ineligible for Azerbaijani citizenship may be asked to leave; yet this also requires a careful planning in order to pre­vent the onset of a new political crisis being generated on a human­itarian basis, which could serve as a pretext for foreign meddling.

In 2017, the secessionist regime operating in the occupied territo­ries enacted a new “constitution” for their unrecognized state. A “presi­dential” system was established and a 33‑seat unicameral “parliament” formed the legislative branch. These political bodies aimed to earn some legitimacy for the regime operating in Karabakh, notwithstanding their non‑recognition by Azerbaijan and the rest of the international com­munity. Declaring these to be illegal is one thing; abolishing them is another. Eventually, institutions formed within the constitutional and legal framework of the Republic of Azer­baijan must be established in Kara­bakh; in all probability, the new legal structures provided by Baku will try, as much as possible, to follow the footsteps of past and current practice by Karabakh Armenians.

Securing the consent of the Karabakh Armenians is desirable but at the same time very difficult, as ultranationalism still prevails among the ruling elite, which con­siders the Russian peacekeeper contingent as their community’s protector and guarantor of the status quo. Without the at least implicit consent of the Karabakh Armenians, however, peace and prosperity in the region—and in the South Caucasus in general—will be virtually impossible to achieve; its absence would increase the likeli­hood that bullets not ballots would again become the determining factor of political ends.

Three Keys to Karabakh’s Reintegration

In the Spring 2021 issue of Baku Dialogues, Laurence Broers argued that the Armenian‑ Azerbaijani conflict has yet to be resolved. Instead, he suggested it would be more accurate to state that it has been “repackaged and em­bedded in a new, highly complex, and unpredictable web of linkages.”

The present trajectory of the dispute is such that it may indeed come to be seen in retrospect as having constituted the continuation of the conflict, with new violent ad­ditional episodes taking place in the future. This would put the South Caucasus on a path similar to the one resulting from the protracted conflict between Israel and the Arab states. However, there is also a chance for reversing the tide and winning the peace. This depends on three major factors: the gover­nance and power sharing initiatives that Azerbaijan will take in the pro­cess of Karabakh’s reintegration; Armenian reactions to these initia­tives; and the role of, and relation­ship between, external actors in the overall context of determining the balance of power between Russia and the United States over the geo­politically pivotal South Caucasus region.

Once a region of conten­tion and ongoing wars be­tween Germany and France, today Alsace‑Lorraine is a home of the European Parliament and the Council of Europe—the region is now a symbol of conflict trans­formation and peacebuilding. Alsace‑Lorraine can become an inspiration for Karabakh. Aside from its practical effectiveness, as applied by visionary politicians like Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, and Konrad Adenauer, the European experience can also provide a theoretical alternative, namely Ernst B. Haas’s “neofunc­tionalism”—an eclectic yet highly influential approach to integra­tion that combined David Mi­trany’s functionalist insight and Monnet’s pragmatism. As pointed 90 91

out by Philippe C. Schmitter in a 2006 review article that appeared in the Journal of European Public Policy, Haas’s neofunctionalism ad­dresses how to use specialized ex­perts by focusing on economically fruitful topics at the sub‑national level as the basis for creating spill­over effect to gradually solve other politically charged issues. In short, neofunctionalism is a theory that suggests the possibility of creating collaborative atmosphere between former belligerents.

In this regard, starting from the efficient provision of the most basic services (e.g., postal de­livery, banking, electrification, gasification, potable water), an in­ter‑communal cooperative spirit may evolve, in turn producing a spillover pattern that would in­creasingly spread to other public services. Instead of trying to ac­complish everything at once, a step‑by‑step, sequential approach may be more advisable. Sensitivities to local reactions would be factored into policymaking; thus the model should be highly receptive and in­stitutionally capable of adapting to contingencies on the ground as well as external remonstrations.

A probably more realistic al­ternative to the idealism of the European neofunctionalist approach is to be found in the various writings of G. John Iken­berry, whose historically enlight­ened “strategic restraint” approach provides important insights applicable to winning the peace in Karabakh. In this regard, Azerbaijan, as the unequivocal victor of the Second Karabakh War, can nurture a constitutional order that “serves the weak as well as the powerful,” as Ikenberry put it in the revised edition of his book, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars (2019).

While taking into account the importance of ensuring a regional balance of power, the new institutional design for the Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan could adopt the main principles of multiethnic gover­nance and power sharing. Setting the administrative boundaries of the new public administration structure for Karabakh may rep­resent an initial step for ensuring the spatial component of the new public administration. Enshrining the protection of the rights of the ethnic‑Armenian population, with legal guarantees, would also consti­tute a crucial human component in this regard.

All told, a delicate balance be­tween political order (i.e., sus­taining Azerbaijan’s sovereignty) and securing the representation of ethnic‑Armenian citizens of Azerbaijan in Karabakh’s gover­nance and power sharing bodies needs to be established. As Iken­berry emphasizes, the basic problem of order formation is coping with the “asymmetries of power.” As the victorious side, Azerbaijan now has a better chance to break the security dilemma by taking concrete steps for including ethnic‑Armenians in a new gover­nance and power sharing regime in the process of the reintegration of Karabakh. Nevertheless, the eth­nic‑Armenian side also has to adopt a cooperative spirit for winning the peace in Karabakh.

Here it could be instructive to examine the example of Cyprus, whereby in 2004 the United Nations put forward a comprehensive peace proposal known as the Annan Plan in which thorny issues such as property, citizenship, residency, and identity were dealt with. Of course, from a legal stand­point, there is a crucial distinction between the status of the Turkish Cypriots and the Karabakh Arme­nians, as the former was a consti­tutive community of the Republic of Cyprus (along with the Greek Cypriots). Thus, the UN had to recognize their political equality even though sovereignty had been exercised exclusively by the Greek Cypriots since 1964 (or, as some argue, since 1974).

Still, the Annan Plan and its an­nexes—which was prepared by in­ternational experts in the context of bicommunal negotiations between Turkish and Greek Cypriots that had gone on for decades—includes many useful aspects for dealing with the present situation. So without losing sight of the sui generis nature of the Karabakh situation, casting a glance back at parts of the Annan Plan may still be helpful in devel­oping an integrative approach to governance and power sharing.

The first key element derived from the Annan Plan is in a way the most basic: recognizing ethnic‑Armenians’ right to exist in Karabakh—something that has al­ready been granted by Azerbaijan. Baku can turn this recognition into practice by including ethnic‑Ar­menians in Karabakh’s new gover­nance and power structure. In turn, and this is the second key element, the ethnic‑Armenian side needs to recognize Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Karabakh—which is some­thing that has not been acknowledged, yet.

Unfortunately, Yerevan has re­nounced neither its territorial claims over Karabakh nor the political identity built upon this refusal—what Broers calls “aug­mented Armenia.” All the major powers and international organiza­tions recognize Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan—and have done so since the country regained its inde­pendence in 1991. Thus, Armenia’s present attitude prevents it from benefiting from the main com­mitments of international society whilst further delaying the onset of a process to secure peace and pros­perity in the South Caucasus.