Expert on South Caucasus: The seeds of future conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan: There will be no peace without justice for Armenians
The government of Azerbaijan heralds a peace agreement normalizing relations with Armenia. But the deal is so one-sided it won’t create conditions for sustainable peace. By enshrining victor’s justice, the deal sows the seeds for resentment and future hostilities between the two Caucasus countries who have fought two bloody wars since 1992 and remain at odds over a number of unresolved issues. This was written by David Phillips, who was the chairman of the Turkey-Armenia Reconciliation Commission and specializes in issues related to the South Caucasus. David Phillips, who was the chairman of the Turkey-Armenia Reconciliation Commission and specializes in issues related to the South Caucasus, wrote this.
In an article published in the Mirror Spectator, he wrote that Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh, called “Artsakh” by Armenians, in a lightning military operation in September 2023. Up to 120,000 Armenians fled to Armenia abandoning their properties and churches to Azerbaijan’s armed forces.
Phillips writes that the government of Armenia had no choice but to acquiesce to Azerbaijan’s demands. “Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had a gun to his head in negotiations with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliev,” he wrote, adding that Azerbaijan spent its oil wealth on missiles and other sophisticated weapons giving it a decided advantage.
Turkey’s material and logistical assistance also tilted the battlefield. The author of the article noted that Moscow pledged to guarantee implementation of the 2022 agreement that established short-lived peace between the Caucasus countries.
“Russia was ineffective at best–duplicitous at worst,” Phillips noted. The deal also requires that Amenia abandon its legal claims at the International Court of Justice alleging Azerbaijan committed ethic cleaning and genocide, a touchy issue for Armenians who were victims of Turkey’s genocide in the early twentieth century when 1.5 million people were exiled and murdered. Azerbaijan also demands that Armenia’s constitution “eliminate the claims against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.”
In fact, Azerbaijan has made claims against Armenia’s sovereignty, demanding the opening of the “strategic Zangezur corridor.” The recent agreement is silent on the status of Armenians who are being held as prisoners of war in Azerbaijan. There is no provision for releasing them or arrangement for the International Committee of the Red Cross to monitor conditions of their detention. No provision in the agreement exists for the return of displaced people to Karabakh or the protection of Armenians churches and cultural monuments. The agreement is silent on compensation for Armenians whose properties were destroyed by invading Azerbaijani forces. No date has been set for an actual signing ceremony. It is unlikely that the agreement will actually be formalized. “Punitive peace agreements may temporarily stop a war, but risk sowing the seeds for future conflict. Active hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan may be in remission, but conflict will resurface unless Armenians are treated fairly, and reconciliation takes root between the people from both countries,” Phillips concludes.
