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Armenia and Azerbaijan have signed a truce in the war for Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist territory located in Azerbaijan but controlled by Armenia. The truce, negotiated by Russia, which will use its troops for peacekeeping actions, reflects the conditions on the ground, after just under two months of war: Azerbaijan has conquered many territories previously occupied by Armenia, reaching a few kilometers from Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, while the Armenian army was forced to retreat somewhat on all fronts, giving up a lot of ground. The agreement forces Armenia to make tough territorial concessions and has already been described by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as a victory for his country.
The war started on September 27 and, although there is no certain information on who started the fighting, it is now clear that Azerbaijan took advantage of it. Azerbaijani President Aliyev sees the war as a reconquest operation to regain Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory that Azerbaijan lost in a war with Armenia in the early 1990s. The population of Nagorno-Karabakh is predominantly Armenian, but geographically the region is within Azerbaijan. Since the 1990s, after Armenia’s victory in the war, Nagorno-Karabakh has remained under Armenian influence: it proclaims itself an independent state, but no country in the world recognizes it, and it is in fact Armenian territory.
The turning point in the war came on Sunday, when Azerbaijani President Aliyev announced the conquest of Shusha, the second city of Nagorno-Karabakh, whose location is crucial for supplies from Armenia. This Sunday “will be remembered in history as the day of glorious victory,” Aliyev said, adding that he will continue to fight until all of Nagorno-Karabakh is conquered. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan congratulated Aliyev on the conquest shortly after: Turkey is the main ally, financial and military support of Azerbaijan in this war. The Armenian government, on the other hand, had denied having lost Shusha, who in Armenian is called Shushi: “Despite the heavy destruction, the city-fortress withstands the blows of the adversary,” said a statement from the Defense Ministry on Sunday, although later it became clear that the situation was not so stable.
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Shusha is important for two reasons: it is located on a mountain overlooking the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert, from which it is about twenty kilometers away; It also allows control of the main communication route between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the so-called “Lachin corridor”, which runs through a road that was built in the 1990s thanks, in part, to contributions from the Armenian diaspora to the ‘Foreign. This path is essential because Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh are not bordering: they are divided by a large area that officially belongs to Azerbaijan but was in fact also occupied by Armenians in the 1990s. The following map, produced by a foreign policy expert, is quite clear: Nagorno-Karabakh is in brown, the Lachin corridor in yellow, and the territories surrounding the region and occupied by Armenians in gray.
The yellow part of this map, the Lachin corridor, is central to the conflict between #Azerbaijan Y #Armenia.
The Lachin corridor links Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh and is a critical target for the Azerbaijani military forces.
Map credits @michaeltanchum pic.twitter.com/xNGxC2PNAs
– Samuel Ramani (@ SamRamani2) October 20, 2020
In recent weeks, Azerbaijan has made many conquests in these connected territories, especially in the south, in order to isolate Nagorno-Karabakh from the rest of Armenia. To do this, and then to launch the attack on Stepanakert, which is located a few kilometers away, it is first necessary to conquer Shusha (there is also another road that connects the two territories, secondary: that is also under attack). For the Armenians, after Shusha the war is practically lost, also because the Armenian army is less well armed and less trained.
For Azerbaijan, losing the war against Armenia in the 1990s was a trauma. Armenia is a relatively poor and landlocked country with one third of the population and one third of Azerbaijan’s gross domestic product. Back then, the Azeris were baffled by the victories of the Armenians. This time it is the other way around: Azerbaijan has received massive military aid from Turkey, its main ally in the region, and its army is equipped with top-notch weapons, especially Turkish and Israeli-made drones, which are very sophisticated. and the Armenian soldiers fail to shoot down. The Azerbaijani soldiers and officers were trained by the Turks according to the standards of NATO, of which Turkey is a member. Additionally, the Armenians accused Turkey and Azerbaijan of using mercenaries from Syria in combat.
Now unable to organize a counterattack, Armenia was forced to accept humiliating conditions for a ceasefire. Armenia is also facing a very serious refugee crisis: according to Armenian sources, 150,000 civilians have already fled from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia – this is a huge figure for a total population of less than three million people.
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Under the peace agreement, Russia will send 2,000 soldiers and 100 armored vehicles to Nagorno-Karabakh for peacekeeping operations. The soldiers will be deployed along the Nagorno-Karabakh borders and along a strip of land to allow connections between Armenia and the region. Nagorno-Karabakh itself will continue to be protected by Russian soldiers, while the rest of the areas occupied by Armenia will remain under the control of Azerbaijan: both the territories conquered so far, which the Azeris can keep, and other occupied territories, which must be returned gradually between now and December 1. Shusha will remain under the control of Azerbaijan. If you look at the map above, basically Azerbaijan will get all the gray-colored territories, plus other small areas north and east of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In addition, Armenia will have to grant Azerbaijan the creation of a second corridor to connect Azerbaijan with the Nakhcivan region, a part of Azerbaijani territory geographically separated from the rest of the country. The UN will monitor the operations of returning refugees to their territories: both Armenians who fled recently and Azeris who fled 30 years ago.
“This agreement ends a one-year occupation. This agreement is our glorious victory! Aliyev wrote on Twitter, adding that the war ended with the “defeat of Armenia.” Aliyev also spoke of the participation of the Turkish troops, but for now there is no news about it. Nikol Pashinyan, the prime minister of Armenia, wrote in a Facebook post that the signing of the peace agreement is an “incredibly painful act for me and for our people.”
This statement has a historical significance. This declaration constitutes the capitulation of Armenia. This declaration ends the occupation of many years. This declaration is our Glorious Victory!
– Ilham Aliyev (@presidentaz) November 10, 2020
Following the announcement of the terms of the truce, in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, groups of protesters occupied the Parliament building. Some videos posted on social media appear to show Ararat Mirzoyan, the Speaker of Parliament, being pulled from his car and beaten. It is not possible to confirm the authenticity of these videos, but the prime minister’s office let the Financial times that Mirzoyan is hospitalized. Other protesters entered the government building and broke Pashinyan’s name plate, calling him a traitor.
Protesters occupy the Armenian presidential palace in Yerevan, the capital. (AP Photo / Dmitri Lovetsky)
Before the agreement signed on Tuesday, three ceasefires had already been announced in recent weeks: two negotiations by Russia and one by the United States, all not respected. Each time, the fighting resumed within hours of the signing of the agreement. This time, however, there is a better chance that the agreement will stick, because it was publicly recognized by the leaders of the two countries and especially by the participation of the Russian peacekeepers. The agreement reshapes the map of the South Caucasus, an area very unstable for decades. Russian peacekeepers will remain in Nagorno-Karabakh for five years: this could guarantee a momentary tranquility, which may not last, especially after Azerbaijan has come very close to conquering all the territory it considers its own.
At least 1,000 people have died in the war since September, but some estimates go as high as 5,000. Among them are many civilians, because both the Armenian and Azerbaijani armies, although they deny it, have attacked cities and inhabited centers. 54 Armenian civilians and 91 Azerbaijanis died: never have there been so many non-military deaths in 25 years of fighting.
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