2. The Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh

The Nagorno-Karabakh crisis became the first conflict in which two non-Russian nations were involved.[24] The conflict had the roots as early as in the 1920s when the Bolsheviks took over in the Caucasus. Without going too far into the history of the region, we will just outline that Nagorno-Karabakh has always been a historical part of Azerbaijan.[25] A number of Russian and Western historians prove the fact of the Armenian immigration to Transcaucasia according to the provisions of the Russo-Persian Treaty of Turkmanchai of 1828. Alexander Griboedov, the Russian Ambassador to Persia in the 1820s who was in charge of the Armenian re-settlement in Transcaucasia, described the operation in his memoirs and expressed concern over the possible conflict that might have broken out between indigenous Muslims (Azeris) and the Armenian immigrants.[26] Another Russian author, N.I.Shavrov, pointed out in 1911 that “out of 1.3m Armenians in Transcaucasia 1m [were] not indigenous, but [were] settled there by us.”[27]

It was in Nagorno-Karabakh where the Bolsheviks laid one of the first ‘delayed-action mines’. Given the existence in each Transcaucasian country of considerable Azeri, Georgian and Armenian minorities, Moscow granted only Armenians in Azerbaijan autonomy in 1923. The Azeris in Armenia were not granted the same despite 1.5 times more Azeris lived there than Armenians in Azerbaijan[28], and the territory on which they lived was 1.5 times larger than the one of Armenian populated Nagorno-Karabakh.[29] Moreover, even the fact that Nagorno-Karabakh was in the middle of Azerbaijan and had no common border with Armenia, while the Azeri regions of Armenia (Zangezur, Geycebasar) were adjacent to Azerbaijan, was not taken into account by the Bolsheviks. Thus, having created Armenian autonomy in Azerbaijan without doing the same for the Azeris in Armenia, Moscow failed to act equally,[30] undermined balance in the region and shifted the centre of gravity in favour of Armenians, who had acquired now a republic and an autonomous region in neighbouring Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, it was the breach in the balance that laid the ground for the subsequent outbreak of the conflict. Had Moscow observed balance in the 1920s and granted both minorities autonomy, the two nations might have avoided the conflict nowadays, since the existence of Azeri autonomy in Armenia would contain secession of Nagorno-Karabakh.

In the late 1940s, Armenia using favourable terms of imbalance attempted to expand its territory by raising the question of Nagorno-Karabakh’s (NKAO) jurisdiction. The main argument behind Yerevan’s claims was Armenian majority there. Azerbaijan responded negatively and denied Armenia’s argument by drawing attention to the existence of even larger Azeri minority in Armenia. However, Baku did admit the possibility of the transfer in the event if the Azeri populated regions in Armenia were transferred to Azerbaijan.[31] Apparently the two might have avoided the conflict in the 1980s had Armenia accepted the Azerbaijani counter-initiative. Not surprisingly, Armenia rejected the idea of territorial exchange because it would, first, lose the favourable terms of imbalance, and second, it would transfer to Azerbaijan greater territory than the one it sought. Meanwhile, the Armenian claim coincided with the repatriation in the late 1940s of ethnic Armenians from the Middle East to the Armenian SSR. The repatriates were the descendants of the Ottoman Armenians who after the 1915 civil war in Eastern Anatolia were resettled to the Syrian Desert and therefore had strong anti-Turkish feelings. A decision was taken to settle the arriving Armenians primarily in the Azeri populated regions. As a result, clashes between the repatriates and the indigenous Azeris broke out and approximately 100,000 Azeri refugees left Armenia in 1948-49.[32]

The rise of nationalism during perestroika took different forms in the Soviet republics. In the Baltics it emerged as a popular movement for independence, whereas in Transcaucasia at first it served as an instrument of dealing with the neighbours. The February 1988 resolution of the NKAO Supreme Soviet to secede from Azerbaijan to Armenia had become a serious challenge to Gorbachev’s democratisation policy. The advocates of secession called Moscow to correct the ‘historical mistake’ made in 1921 when the Bolsheviks ‘transferred the historical part of Armenia’ to Azerbaijan. They spoke also about the bad socio-economic situation which was, consequently, the result of the Azerbaijani rule.

The myth of Nagorno-Karabakh as a historical part of Armenia was supposed to serve as an ideological background for the Armenian Karabakh movement. Although the imaginariness of the myth was obvious from the slight glance at the region’s history, it did however take roots in the certain political and even academic circles in Russia and the West.[33] In reality, when the Bolsheviks started territorial segregation after the Red Army’s occupation of Transcaucasia, the Kavburo resolved on 5 July 1921 to ‘preserve Karabakh’ within, but not to ‘transfer’ it (in Armenian words) to, Azerbaijan.[34] Anastas Mikoyan, originally Armenian, in his report to Lenin on 22 May 1919 pointed out: "The Dashnaks, the agents of the Armenian government, strive to join Karabakh to Armenia. This would deprive the population of Karabakh of the source of life in Baku and connect it with Erivan, with which it has never been connected before.”[35] As a result, on the referendum in August 1923 the population of the NKAO voted against secession to Armenia.[36] Moreover, the very notion of Nagorno-Karabakh (Mountainous Karabakh) did not exist prior to the creation of the NKAO in 1923. Throughout the history it had been the integral part of entire Karabakh where, according to the American scholar Tadeusz Swietochowski, the majority was Azeri.[37] It was not until the Kavburo’s resolution to preserve Karabakh within Azerbaijan and to create Armenian autonomy in the mountainous part, that the notion of Nagorno-Karabakh came to existence.

Along with the ‘historical mistake’, the myth included a story of the bad socio-economic situation and discrimination of the Armenians in the region . Contrary to those statements, people in the NKAO enjoyed better living standards than the rest of Azerbaijani population, and the statistical reports confirmed this point:

(There will be a chart here)

Armenians in the NKAO enjoyed the opportunity to study in vernacular, read local newspapers and watch television in Armenian. Moreover, in some of the region’s small towns (e.g., Leninavan, Agdara) with the mixed population, there were no Azerbaijani schools, and many local Azeris were compelled to study in Armenian whilst living in the homeland. Nagorno- Karabakh was the only Soviet autonomy where history of the parent republic (Azerbaijan) at the schools was replaced by the other republic’s history (Armenia).[38]

Despite the lack of the real ground, the myth of Nagorno-Karabakh proved extremely successful in the national mobilisation of the Armenians. Analysing prerequisites for the nation’s unity in the NKAO issue, one must bear in mind factors that shaped Armenian national psychology. The Armenian support of the advancing Russian Army during WWI, the inter-ethnic clashes between Armenians and Muslims in 1914-15 and the subsequent decision of the Young Turk government to resettle Armenians from Anatolia to Syria had deprived them of their homeland and had them spread throughout the world. This made them ‘landless’, ‘homeless’, ‘stateless’. The period before WWI was remembered with nostalgia as the time when the Armenians had been living in their lands. Wherever the colonies and communities, they had been perceived as ‘small Armenias’ and as pieces of the lost homeland. The loss of the homeland engendered a ‘complex of territorial inferiority’. After 1915, Transcaucasia had become the sole region where the Armenians, although not indigenous, continued to live in the rural areas. Having abandoned the hope ever to return to Anatolia, the Armenians strove to rebuild national territory on the lands where they were settled once by the Tsarist government.[39] Territorial insufficiency shaped greatly national psychology and caused the emergence of the myth of “The Greater Armenia from Sea to Sea”. The text-books of Armenian history included the maps of the mythological state dated as late as the eigtheenth century. Along with Eastern Anatolia, “The Greater Armenia” comprised central Turkey, entire Azerbaijan (both Iranian and Transcaucasian) and southern Georgia (including Tiflis, Batum, Akhaltsikh, Dmanisi, Akhalkalak), and was washed by the Caspian, Black and Mediterranean seas.[40] Territorial inferiority complex coupled with a sincere belief of the neighbours’ lands to be historically Armenian led to the popular support of the idea of ‘reunification’ with Nagorno- Karabakh in 1988.

Azerbaijan perceived Armenian claims as a threat to its territorial integrity. To contain the NKAO’s secession and to restore regional balance, Baku appealed to Moscow to grant the Azeris in Armenia an equal autonomy. As soon as the question was arisen, the entire Azeri minority (200,000) was violently expelled from Armenia within a week. In 1989, Azerbaijan suggested an exchange of population, which implied repatriation of the Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh to the freed villages in Armenia and the settlement of Azeri refugees in Nagorno-Karabakh. Had this proposal been accepted, there might have been no further escalation of the conflict since there would be no Azeri and Armenian minorities in the two republics. Obviously, once Armenians expelled the Azeris, they had no intention to leave the NKAO, hence the rejection of the proposal.

In 1991, Armenians declared an independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and included in its auspices Azerbaijani regions which had never been a part of Nagorno-Karabakh (Shaumian and southern Khanlar). Azerbaijan responded by abandoning the NKAO. The Armenian move was a tactical change: the failed territorial claims were replaced by the “self-determination” notion. The population of the region had been called the “people of Nagorno- Karabakh” who strove for independence. Armenia withdrew territorial claims and called the dispute to be between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh. Meanwhile, the following outbreak of an open war resulted in Armenian occupation of 20% of Azerbaijan’s territory and in 1.1m Azeri refugees (every seventh person in Azerbaijan).[41]

It is appropriate to note that the notion of “self-determination” was introduced by Wilson and Lenin with regard to colonial peoples in the aftermath of WWI. It applied to the entire nation but not to a part of it, particularly if the nation had already acquired statehood. The Armenians in Azerbaijan are certainly not a separate identity but the part of the Armenian nation, which has already realised its right to self-determination in the form of an independent Armenian state.[42] The critics of Yerevan’s speculation around the so-called self-determination of Nagorno-Karabakh was most laconically summarised by the President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov: “there cannot be two Armenian states in the Caucasus.”[43]

The very notion of self-determination remains vague and the limits of the term need to be clearly defined by the IR theory. International organisations, which deal with the conflict resolution, often use the mutually ruling-out principles of ‘self-determination’ and ‘territorial integrity’ together. In this respect, the United Nations should develop a concept of correlation between the right to secede and the state. As Giorgi Gachechiladze vividly pointed out, “nobody in the USA would look kindly on, say, Texas seceding to unite with Mexico, or Florida with Cuba, in the basis of the large population of Mexican and Cuban descent in these respective territories.”[44] The Azeris, who traditionally regard their soil as hole, will hardly accept the separation of their historical land where the Armenians once found refuge.

Furthermore, the Armenians employ the self-determination card in a ‘double standard’ way by having the Azeris expelled from their country for just a demand to grant autonomy. They rule out the return of Azeri refugees, since this would de jure extend the force of self-determination to the latter and lead to the emergence of an Azeri ‘Karabakh’ in their own country. Obviously, self-determination serves as a screen for the Armenian territorial intentions, and the use of a liberal- democratic terminology aims to attract the West’s sympathy. Thus, the notion of “self-determination” cannot be applied to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Today, Azerbaijan demands Armenia to withdraw its armed forces from the occupied territories and to return refugees back to homes. The Armenian government claims that the conflict is between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan. At the same time, Armenia remains the only OSCE member-state which refuses to recognise Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. The self-declared NKR, in turn, desperately has tried to gain third-party status and has sought international recognition, yet without success. Meanwhile, Russia continues to supply its traditional Armenian ally with heavy weapons.[45]

There can be no doubt that a solution to the conflict must be found. Whilst developing the peace process, the OSCE Minsk Group for Nagorno-Karabakh must not perceive the conflict as a separate dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh and thus limit the solution to the breakaway region only, but it has to consider it within the general framework of Azeri-Armenian relations including the issue of Azeri refugees. The withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, the renunciation of territorial claims, the recognition of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, the return of all the refugees to their homes and respect of the national minorities’ and human rights in both countries would re-establish traditional balance and lead to a stable peace in the region.