Forty-Four days of Mayhem in Nagorno Karabakh saw a skewed ceasefire with Armenia not only ceding the territory but also its political stability. Ankara backed Baku militarily out-maneuvered Moscow backed Yerevan by its drone power. However, Moscow won the battle in geo-politics by reinforcing its regional primacy that has been envied by the French, US and the Turks. As Russia finally brokered a ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia, it remains to be seen whether the deep distrust, due to the recently reignited war in Nagorno-Karabakh, could be transformed into sustainable peace. The final arrangement of the ceasefire has satisfied Azeri leadership and their backers, Turkey. However, it has left Armenian leaders in Yerevan discontented as they were forced to cede territories to the advantage of Azerbaijan in Karabakh. While facilitating the Treaty of Kars in 1921, Soviet Russia had played the same rule-book when it pressed Armenia to cede territory to Turkey in Eastern Anatolia. Unlike previous ceasefires, the present one has more probability of succeeding since Russian peacekeepers back it. The deal, signed on November 9, 2020, establishes Russian supremacy in the region and gives a rare opportunity to the two historically antagonistic nations, Armenia and Azerbaijan, to build mutual trust and move towards stability and prosperity.
The renewed conflict
In September 2020, the present conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan was reignited when the Azerbaijan military launched an offensive vis-à-vis Armenia with the key goal of recovering the territories that were lost in 1994. During the 1994 war, Armenia had occupied approximately 4,200 square miles of disputed territory and displaced over half a million Azerbaijanis. In the aftermath of the war, France, Russia, and the United States established the Minsk group to find a permanent and peaceful solution to the Conflict. In 2009, the Minsk group adopted the Madrid principles that call for Armenia to return the territories surrounding Karabakh to Azerbaijan in exchange for Baku accepting a referendum on Karabakh’s final political status. However, the effort never materialised into concrete peace. The failure to settle Conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has political ramifications as it has compromised the credibility of President Ilham Aliyev.
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