Nagorno-Karabakh War - Post-ceasefire Violence and Mediation

Post-ceasefire Violence and Mediation

Today, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains one of several frozen conflicts in the former Soviet Union, alongside Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Moldova's troubles with Transnistria. Karabakh remains under the jurisdiction of the government of the unrecognized but de facto independent Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, which maintains its own uniformed military, the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army.

Contrary to media reports that nearly always mentioned the religions of the Armenians and Azeris religious aspects never gained significance as an additional casus belli, and the Karabakh conflict has remained primarily an issue of territory and the human rights of Armenians in Karabakh. Since 1995, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group has been mediating with the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan to settle for a new solution. Numerous proposals have been made which have primarily been based on both sides making several concessions. One such proposal stipulated that as Armenian forces withdrew from the seven regions surrounding Karabakh, Azerbaijan would share some of its economic assets including profits from an oil pipeline that would go from Baku through Armenia to Turkey. Other proposals also included that Azerbaijan would provide the broadest form of autonomy to the enclave next to granting it full independence. Armenia has also been pressured by being excluded from major economic projects throughout the region, including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway.

According to Armenia's former president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, by giving certain Karabakh territories to Azerbaijan, the Karabakh conflict would have been resolved in 1997. A peace agreement could have been concluded and a status for Nagorno-Karabakh would have been determined. Ter-Petrosyan noted years later that the Karabakh leadership approach was maximalist and "they thought they could get more." Most autonomy proposals have been rejected, however, by the Armenians, who consider it as a matter that is not negotiable. Likewise, Azerbaijan has also refused to let the matter subside and regularly threatens to resume hostilities. On 30 March 1998, Robert Kocharyan was elected President and continued to reject calls for making a deal to resolve the conflict. In 2001, Kocharyan and Aliyev met at Key West, Florida for peace talks sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. While several Western diplomats expressed optimism, failure to prepare the populations of either country for compromise reportedly thwarted hopes for a peaceful resolution.

Refugees displaced from the fighting account to nearly one million people. An estimated 400,000 Armenians living in Azerbaijan fled to Armenia or Russia and a further 30,000 came from Karabakh. Many of those who left Karabakh returned after the war ended. An estimated 800,000 Azeris were displaced from the fighting including those from both Armenia and the enclave. Various other ethnic groups living in Karabakh were also forced to live in refugee camps built by both the Azeri and Iranian governments. Although Azerbaijan has repeatedly claimed that 20% of its territory has fallen under Armenian control and other sources have given figures as high 40%, the actual percentage, taking into account the exclave of Nakhichevan, is estimated to be closer to 13.62% or 14% (the number comes down to 9% if Nagorno-Karabakh itself is excluded).

The ramifications of the war were said to have played a part in the February 2004 murder of Armenian Lieutenant Gurgen Markaryan who was hacked to death with an axe by his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ramil Safarov at a NATO training seminar in Budapest, Hungary. Azerbaijani enmity against anything Armenian led to the destruction of thousands of medieval Armenian gravestones, known as khachkars, at a massive cemetery in Julfa, Nakhichevan. This destruction was temporarily halted when first revealed in 1998, but then continued on to completion in 2005. Azerbaijan has likened Armenia's control of the region to the Nazi occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II.