Fearing the violence will spiral out of control, the U. S. Secretary of State will not be able to do so. U. S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken recently took the step of trying to mediate the escalating standoff between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
One analyst has called the long-standing, confusing Eurasian conflict the most serious armed struggle many Americans have ever heard of.
The two former Soviet republics of the South Caucasus have long contested the landlocked region known as Nagorno-Karabakh. It is geographically located within the borders of Azerbaijan, but is basically populated by ethnic Armenians and controlled by pro-Armenian separatists, who call it Artsakh.
In some ways, this situation is notoriously familiar in many parts of the world, especially in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Other examples come with the Balkans when Yugoslavia was divided in the mid-1990s and the war in Ukraine today. .
The Nagorno-Karabakh clash is also a war in which each country’s alliances have changed shape, with Armenia and Azerbaijan subsidized through Russia, while Armenia has enjoyed greater help from the United States, especially among lawmakers who long sympathized with American Armenia. Voters.
However, Armenia also relies on Russia as an ally of the army, while the West relies on Azerbaijan’s energy materials as an alternative to Russian fuel.
History
Nagorno-Karabakh is traditionally a predominantly ethnic Armenian enclave, however, it has been identified worldwide as part of Azerbaijan since both countries gained their independence from the deposed Soviet Union.
The two nations at the crossroads of Asia and Europe clashed over the enclave until the 1990s, in a war that left 30,000 dead and millions more displaced. Armenians have seized Nagorno-Karabakh and several neighboring regions.
Tensions never abated and in 2020 a six-week war broke out in which another 6,600 people died.
This time, Azerbaijan, subsidized through Turkey, regained gigantic amounts of territory. The pro-Armenian government continued to administer part of the enclave, which patrolled through Russian peacekeepers. This made Armenia dependent on Moscow for protection.
Most battles
Last month, fighting broke out again. On Sept. 13, about two hundred infantrymen and others from both countries were killed within 48 hours, their governments said. A hasty ceasefire negotiated through Russia, with the main assistance of the UN, but remains fragile.
Each side accused the other of triggering “provocative” acts of violence, which report that fighting has spread from the disputed enclave beyond the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Azerbaijani forces of the Armenian Ministry of Defense had unleashed an artillery bombardment and drone strikes on Armenian territory. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan opposes Armenian troops laying mines and firing on Azerbaijani army positions.
If it was Azerbaijan that introduced this new attack circular, Baku might have taken credit for the fact that Russia was mired in Ukraine and less able or willing to protect Armenia.
The roles of Russia and the United States are more complicated, as are the clients of lasting peace.
Each of the fighting has strengthened Azerbaijan, analysts say. The country emerged “having strengthened its position and demonstrated its dominance on the battlefield,” the Intercountryal Crisis Group said in a report on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, its geopolitical position is also stronger, the report notes. Armenia’s main protector, Russia, has struggled to protect itself in Ukraine since it introduced its invasion in February, while European capitals are hungry for Azerbaijan’s energy exports, the organization said.
An emboldened Azerbaijan will be less likely to seek a diplomatic solution to a decades-long conflict. However, a war spreading to neighboring regions may also hurt economic customers that Baku could imagine.
U. S. Congress for Armenia remains unperturbed
In a sign that Armenia continues to rank in the U. S. Congress. Despite the conversion dynamic, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the capital, Yerevan, just days after the latest fighting.
She was accompanied by California representatives Jackie Speier and Anna G. Eshoo, welcomed with flowers through her Armenian counterpart upon arrival, met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and pledged “the strong and continued United States. “”Attacks.
Meanwhile, senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee demanded that Biden’s management halt security in Azerbaijan. In a bipartisan resolution, committee chairman Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N. J. ) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla. ) also criticized the “illegal and unprovoked attack on Armenian territory. “
Blinken’s efforts
The Biden administration, at least publicly, has tried to be more impartial.
On the sidelines of last month’s United Nations General Assembly, the grand annual gathering of top world leaders, Blinken added a query to his busy agenda on Sept. 19: a joint assembly with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov.
“A strong and sustained diplomatic engagement is the most productive path for everyone,” Blinken said before the meeting, sitting at a main table with sinister-faced Armenians and Azerbaijanis on both sides. “There is no military solution to the disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But there is, I believe, a path to lasting peace that resolves differences through diplomacy. The United States is in a position to do all it can for those efforts.
Although Azerbaijan’s Bayramov later sought to downplay the significance of the session, it is the first face-to-face meeting between officials from the two countries since the last round of clashes, and could mean deeper U. S. involvement in preventing rampant violence.
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Tracy Wilkinson covers the Los Angeles Times office in Washington, D. C.
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