Henry Meyer
By Henry Meyer, Sara Khojoyan and Zulfugar Agayev
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan may meet this week in a bid to defuse escalating tensions between the two countries after at least 18 soldiers were killed in the worst clashes in two decades.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan will hold talks with his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi on August 8-9, Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said on the government’s website. Azerbaijan has yet to agree to the negotiations, ANS TV reported, citing Novruz Mammadov, deputy head of Aliyev’s office. President Vladimir Putin plans separate meetings with the two leaders at the end of the week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Itar-Tass.
The skirmishes between the South Caucasus countries, which border Turkey and Iran, flared amid the worst geopolitical standoff since the Cold War between Russia and the United States over the conflict in Ukraine. The fighting in the past week in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh has been the deadliest since the two former Soviet states signed a ceasefire in 1994.
“We hope that serious arrangements will be reached during the meeting,” Abrahamyan said. “We are not afraid of war, I just think it is not clever to solve problems with wars in the 21st century.”
A renewed war between Azerbaijan, an ally of the US and Turkey, and Russian-backed Armenia has the potential to put NATO directly at odds with the government in Moscow, according to Timothy Ash, a London-based economist for emerging markets at Standard Bank Group.
“Militarily, Armenia is still thought to have superiority, given Russian backing, but with its rising oil wealth, Azerbaijan has been re-arming rapidly,” Ash said Sunday by email.
With Azerbaijan’s forces restrained by the fear of Russian retaliation, the message is that “Russia is important in the region, and its views need to be taken account of everywhere in the post-Soviet space,” Ash said.
Facing off are 20,000 Armenian and Azeri troops, dug into World War I-style trenches sometimes only 100 meters apart, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The escalating death toll since July 31 has inflamed tensions between landlocked Armenia and its eastern neighbour Azerbaijan, the former Soviet Union’s third-largest oil producer and the only route for Caspian energy to Western markets that bypasses Russia.
Azeri fighter jets were seen in the region, the country’s APA news service reported. Vaqig Dargahli, head of the Defense Ministry’s press service, confirmed reports of aircraft flying near the frontline and said these were “pre-planned” flights.
The European Union is “very concerned” by the incidents, it said in a statement Sunday.
“We call on both sides to immediately respect the ceasefire, refrain from the use of force or any threat thereof, and continue efforts toward a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” it said.
Russia and its international partners are making “considerable efforts” to help the opposing sides reach an agreement on the political principles needed to settle the conflict, Lavrov said in an interview with Itar-Tass.
“Undoubtedly we are alarmed at what’s going on at the so-called contact line,” Lavrov said. “Both sides are very emotional in how they perceive the conflict.”
Armenia took over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave about the size of Rhode Island, and seven adjacent districts from Azerbaijan in a war after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. More than 30,000 people were killed and over a million displaced before Russia brokered a ceasefire in 1994.
With historical and cultural ties to both countries and demarcated as part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic by the Soviets as an Armenian-majority autonomous region, Nagorno-Karabakh remains internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. Four United Nations Security Council resolutions were passed demanding an Armenian withdrawal from Azeri territory adjoining Nagorno-Karabakh.
About 700,000 Azeris were forced to leave the districts in what Azerbaijan describes as ethnic cleansing. The two nations’ presidents met in November in Vienna for the first time in two years.
Azerbaijan has forged closer ties with Israel and NATO-member Turkey and increased defence spending 27-fold to $3.7bn a year in the past decade, outlays that exceed Armenia’s annual budget. Armenia hosts a Russian military base in its second-biggest town of Gyumri, near the Turkish border, and Russian troops guard Armenia’s borders with Iran and Turkey.
Azerbaijan, which signed a $45bn contract in December with a BP Plc-led group to pipe natural gas to Europe, has repeatedly threatened to use force to regain control of the territory should peace efforts fail. Aliyev said in January he had “no doubts” that Azerbaijan will “restore its territorial integrity.”
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry accused Armenia of “provocative” actions and said it “bears full responsibility for the evolving dangerous situation,” according to a statement on the ministry’s website.
WP-BLOOMBERG
By Henry Meyer, Sara Khojoyan and Zulfugar Agayev
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan may meet this week in a bid to defuse escalating tensions between the two countries after at least 18 soldiers were killed in the worst clashes in two decades.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan will hold talks with his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi on August 8-9, Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said on the government’s website. Azerbaijan has yet to agree to the negotiations, ANS TV reported, citing Novruz Mammadov, deputy head of Aliyev’s office. President Vladimir Putin plans separate meetings with the two leaders at the end of the week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Itar-Tass.
The skirmishes between the South Caucasus countries, which border Turkey and Iran, flared amid the worst geopolitical standoff since the Cold War between Russia and the United States over the conflict in Ukraine. The fighting in the past week in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh has been the deadliest since the two former Soviet states signed a ceasefire in 1994.
“We hope that serious arrangements will be reached during the meeting,” Abrahamyan said. “We are not afraid of war, I just think it is not clever to solve problems with wars in the 21st century.”
A renewed war between Azerbaijan, an ally of the US and Turkey, and Russian-backed Armenia has the potential to put NATO directly at odds with the government in Moscow, according to Timothy Ash, a London-based economist for emerging markets at Standard Bank Group.
“Militarily, Armenia is still thought to have superiority, given Russian backing, but with its rising oil wealth, Azerbaijan has been re-arming rapidly,” Ash said Sunday by email.
With Azerbaijan’s forces restrained by the fear of Russian retaliation, the message is that “Russia is important in the region, and its views need to be taken account of everywhere in the post-Soviet space,” Ash said.
Facing off are 20,000 Armenian and Azeri troops, dug into World War I-style trenches sometimes only 100 meters apart, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The escalating death toll since July 31 has inflamed tensions between landlocked Armenia and its eastern neighbour Azerbaijan, the former Soviet Union’s third-largest oil producer and the only route for Caspian energy to Western markets that bypasses Russia.
Azeri fighter jets were seen in the region, the country’s APA news service reported. Vaqig Dargahli, head of the Defense Ministry’s press service, confirmed reports of aircraft flying near the frontline and said these were “pre-planned” flights.
The European Union is “very concerned” by the incidents, it said in a statement Sunday.
“We call on both sides to immediately respect the ceasefire, refrain from the use of force or any threat thereof, and continue efforts toward a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” it said.
Russia and its international partners are making “considerable efforts” to help the opposing sides reach an agreement on the political principles needed to settle the conflict, Lavrov said in an interview with Itar-Tass.
“Undoubtedly we are alarmed at what’s going on at the so-called contact line,” Lavrov said. “Both sides are very emotional in how they perceive the conflict.”
Armenia took over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave about the size of Rhode Island, and seven adjacent districts from Azerbaijan in a war after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. More than 30,000 people were killed and over a million displaced before Russia brokered a ceasefire in 1994.
With historical and cultural ties to both countries and demarcated as part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic by the Soviets as an Armenian-majority autonomous region, Nagorno-Karabakh remains internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. Four United Nations Security Council resolutions were passed demanding an Armenian withdrawal from Azeri territory adjoining Nagorno-Karabakh.
About 700,000 Azeris were forced to leave the districts in what Azerbaijan describes as ethnic cleansing. The two nations’ presidents met in November in Vienna for the first time in two years.
Azerbaijan has forged closer ties with Israel and NATO-member Turkey and increased defence spending 27-fold to $3.7bn a year in the past decade, outlays that exceed Armenia’s annual budget. Armenia hosts a Russian military base in its second-biggest town of Gyumri, near the Turkish border, and Russian troops guard Armenia’s borders with Iran and Turkey.
Azerbaijan, which signed a $45bn contract in December with a BP Plc-led group to pipe natural gas to Europe, has repeatedly threatened to use force to regain control of the territory should peace efforts fail. Aliyev said in January he had “no doubts” that Azerbaijan will “restore its territorial integrity.”
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry accused Armenia of “provocative” actions and said it “bears full responsibility for the evolving dangerous situation,” according to a statement on the ministry’s website.
WP-BLOOMBERG
