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Abstract by the author: This paper examines Azerbaijan's decision to go to war in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. It aims to unveil the lessons Azerbaijan learned from the reaction of major regional actors in the South Caucasus to rising tensions in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations from the mid-2000s to the 2020 July border crisis. The paper argues that the consistent unresponsiveness of the international community emboldened Azerbaijan to proceed with its war preparations. It shows that Azerbaijan perceived the attitude of regional powers as inability and/or reluctance to interfere in the conflict, and this created a permissive environment for an all-out war.
Abstract by the authors: The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began in 1988 after the regional Supreme Council declared the transfer of the region from the Azerbaijani SSR to the Armenian SSR. The full-scale war started in 1992 after the dissolution of the USSR and ended with the May 1994 armistice. In the following quarter century, a peaceful resolution of the conflict was mediated by OSCE’s Minsk Group in a form of facilitative mediation. The warring sides have never reached a final solution and a new war started in the autumn of 2020. This paper examines how facilitative mediation was conducted by the Minsk Group and why it eventually failed. The conclusion of this paper is that the combination of the weak mandate and the co-chairs’ separate and incongruous interests in the Caucasus resulted in the failure of the conflict resolution in Nagorno-Karabakh
Abstract by the author: The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has long troubled the European Union’s (EU’s) neighbourhood. As a latecomer to the region, the EU played no role in the conflict in the 1990s. The subsequent establishment of bilateral relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan, including a closer engagement through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) did not herald any significant changes in this respect. The bilateral relations with both countries advanced despite the military build-up, hostile rhetoric and periodic fighting. When another war erupted in September 2020, the EU was strikingly absent from the international scene in stark contrast to its rhetoric and pledges of the last two decades. Meanwhile, the Russian-brokered ceasefire did not resolve the conflict and led to further aggression demanding a more hands-on approach by the EU. In a welcome development, the EU undertook various efforts to engage the parties in a continuous dialogue for resolving the outstanding issues. In this context, the article argues for a more enhanced role of the EU in resolving this conflict based on a principled position in line with EU values and respect for international law.
Abstract by the author: Since April 2018, Armenia has gone through a series of dramatic events. Convinced of its 'democratic invincibility,' the regime that emerged after 'the Velvet Revolution' espoused the view that Armenia's new, democratic facade must secure increased support from Brussels and Washington and continued loyalty from its security provider - the Kremlin. Nevertheless, the perennial security issues, chief among them the unresolved Nagorno Karabakh conflict, were overlooked by the new elite. This article examines the sources of the foreign policy-making style of the populist regime in Armenia and explores the extent to which they have affected the decision-making process and its 'resultants.' The article argues that the incoherent and erratic nature of the new regime's policy formulation and enactment, which underestimated acute security challenges and degraded existing institutional checks and balances, caused unprecedented wreckage to Armenia's national security architecture.
Abstract by the authors: One of the most critical disputes in the Post-Soviet space is the long-lasting Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. While this issue has long been regarded as a land-based dispute to a large extent, it can also be stated from the securitization perspective that it is a conflict inherent in ethnic identity. The proposed way to solve a problem in the securitization approach is the desecuritization of the issue. However, negotiations conducted by the Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which were initiated within the framework of the OSCE, did not yield any results. In this context, the process of resolving the issue through negotiations, in other words, desecuritization, failed. This has led to the re-securitization of the problem and paved the way for taking extraordinary measures to come to a solution. The final military confrontation experienced in 2020 has also been triggered specifically by this approach.
Abstract by the authors: This article highlights the realities facing Azerbaijan’s internally displaced persons (IDPs), living in a state of protracted displacement. It argues that the World Bank’s development approach to the IDP population in Azerbaijan and to IDP populations elsewhere has likely done more for these populations’ long-term welfare and prospects than exclusively humanitarian approaches could have accomplished, even though displaced peoples have traditionally been presumed to be the responsibility of the humanitarian community. The article begins with a brief discussion of the differences between refugees and IDPs and between humanitarian and development approaches. It then outlines a history of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh which, in the early 1990s, produced upward of a half-million Azerbaijani IDPs. Next, the article discusses some of the realities (economic, social, and mental health, among others) that confronted Azerbaijan’s IDPs 15 years into their displacement. (…)
Abstract by the author: Analyses of the transformation and political change in Armenia pays noticeable attention to the dominant role of discourses of the Armenian Genocide and the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for nation and state-building processes. At the same time, the two issues usually are investigated separately. Attempts are rarely made to interpret the interrelation and connection between the two narratives. Nevertheless, the trauma-based discourse of memory is linking the two narratives as technology of power through discursive structures/mechanisms of analogy and continuity. Methods of discourse analysis combined with expert interviews, internet questionnaires and ethnographic field research aim to analyse the crucial discursive patterns and mechanisms. Hypothetically, instrumentalized and ideological usage of combined narratives are impacting the political changes, in Post-Soviet Armenia. The article touches upon only one aspect of the discursive interrelation between the Armenian Genocide and the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Thus, the subject under the question is the impact of theusage of historical analogy and the idea of continuity understand as technologies on contemporary Armenian politics of memory.
Abstract by the author: This article is devoted to the relations of the European Union with Armenia and Azerbaijan based on the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership. Due to strategic location between Europe, the Middle East, as well as Central Asia the above mentioned instruments are very important for the European Union and its Member States, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan s rich resources of crude oil and natural gas combined with the dominant role of the Russian Federation in the region make these two countries geopolitically important. In the context of the diversification of fuels in the EU energy sector this situation poses challenges for Brussels. Russia is the main supplier for many EU countries (the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline shows that important EU members want to strengthen the observed realities, as does the Russian Federation) and the European diversification efforts are a threat to a stabilization of the energy dialogue with Moscow. The growing importance of the discussed countries of the South Caucasus has not caused significant interest among scholars in this issue. This is probably due to little interest in Armenia and Azerbaijan so far of major actors in the international political scene - with Russia as an exception. This text is an attempt to at least partially fill this gap.
Abstract by the authors: Tehran viewed the Russian-Turkish-brokered ceasefire of Nov 10, 2020, which ended the 45-day war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, with very mixed feelings. On the face of it, the cessation of hostilities on Iran's northern border, which attracted considerable foreign intervention at a time when the country is reeling from dire economic problems, the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and lingering domestic restiveness should not have been more welcome for the Iranian regime, not least since it represented the triumph of a Muslim state over its Christian, Washington-backed adversary. Yet, this victory was largely due to the military support provided both by Israel, which had been steadily rolling back Tehran's military presence in Syria and frustrating its progress toward nuclear weapons, and by Turkey, which has persistently sought to expand its foothold in the South Caucasus. Here, Khoshnood and Khoshnood discuss Tehran's new moderation in its hegemonic goals.
Abstract by the author: Located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Armenia and Turkey are two neighboring countries that share a 311 km of land border. Official relations between them, however, remain antagonistic as they never established diplomatic relations, and the land border remains closed. All the past efforts to normalize relations and eradicate the standoff have foundered. This article engages with several methodological problems and (mis)perceptions that persist in existing interpretations of Armenia–Turkey relations and examines their impact on the current deadlock. It particularly discusses the questions of the closed border, its relevance to the conflict in Karabakh, the importance of disentangling the process of normalization from reconciliation, and its impact on past normalization initiatives. The article argues that critical rethinking of several deep seated conceptions and approaches could expand our understanding about the roots of the present rift and propose avenues for resolving the impasse.
Abstract by the author: The article examines Turkey’s role in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh that erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia in September 2020. It analyses how changes and continuity in Turkey’s foreign policy have influenced the conflict’s outcome, as well as the extent to which it has been exploited to fulfil Turkey’s foreign policy objectives. Thus, unlike most research on Nagorno-Karabakh, this article focuses on the role of one external actor, and not on the conflict itself or possible hypotheses for its resolution. The article’s special focus was influenced by the fact that Turkey’s participation resulted in a change in the long-standing status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh, allowing the situation to turn dramatically in Baku’s favour. Turkey, along with Russia, has emerged as one of the most important regional players in this conflict. This is the result of Turkey’s emphasised foreign policy ambitions, which were influenced by changes in its international security environment as well as changes in the country’s domestic policy. In any case, with its role in the second conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Turkey has once again shown its determination to pursue its foreign, and especially regional, policy independently and in accordance with its national interests, despite being a member of NATO.
Abstract by the author: The paper discusses the effect of the 19th century rebirth of Armenian nationalism in the Ottoman or Western Armenia and Russian or Eastern Armenia and of Azeri nationalism in Russian Azerbaijan with its ramifications in Iran and Ottoman Turkey on the formation of Armenian and Azeri identity from the late 1800s to the present and the key role of Nagorno-Karabakh - called Artsakh by the Armenians- from the beginning of the 20th century, using the theories of Anthony D. Smith. At the time of the disintegration of the USSR, the reinforcement of Armenian and Azeri identity over Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian victory in the first war and the armed peace generated by the 1994 ceasefire made it inevitable that a second war would take place unless a political compromise – that never happened – was reached.
Abstract by the author: The 2020 war in Nagorny Karabakh brought not merely a shift in the actual borders in the southern Caucasus; it also led to a change in control over several religious buildings or places that had become sacralized as symbols for one or the other side. Using selected examples of sacred places associated with Armenian or Azerbaijani historical memory, this article seeks to cast light on the fate of cultural monuments in war and its aftermath. In connection with the long-lasting conflict, these monuments are forced to undergo a cycle of sacralization, desacralization and reinterpretation of their origins and functions, depending on the approach taken by the winning side. Churches, monasteries and mosques in Nagorny Karabakh thus serve as sad examples of unsuccessful conflict transformation.
Abstract by the authors: For the three countries of the South Caucasus region, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, linked to the EU through its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the Eastern Partnership (EaP) and a diverse set of Association, Cooperation and Partnership Agreements (Simão, 2018; van Gils, 2020), 2020 brought about three developments of supposedly seismic magnitude.(…) As will be discussed by this article, EU relations with the three countries of the South Caucasus remained largely unaffected by domestic crises and regional conflict, whereas EU responses variegated considerably. It is argued that variance is due to a mix of factors. On one hand, local and regional scope conditions and the role of other extra-regional actors provided differentiated opportunity structures for EU engagement. On the other hand, variegated responses are the result of intra-EU dynamics that oscillated between passivity, disinterest, go-alone attitudes of individual Member States, and consensus when action seemed needed and possible.(…)
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