THE problem with all conflicts is that the fog of war conceals many truths. When such conflicts are in far flung locations, that fog is thicker and hugs the ground more confusingly. Within Azerbaijan there is an area called Nagorno-Karabakh. It was once a multiethnic region. Once it also had a large population of Azeris. But almost all of them have now fled. Thus Nagorno-Karabakh is generally referred to by the international media as ‘an Armenian enclave’.
Not surprisingly the present population of Nagorno-Karabakh is supported by the state of Armenia to the west. But the enmity between the Muslim Azeris and the Christian Armenians is deep-seated. In recent days it has erupted into the first serious fighting since a truce was agreed in 1994. The conflict began in earnest in 1988 with the rebellion of the Armenian Karabakh movement. The then-Soviet Union failed to quell the revolt. Even though a year later, Moscow tried to rule in favor of Azerbaijan, the local Armenian community pressed home their military protest with support from the main Soviet state of Armenia itself.
There followed a shameful period of ethnic cleansing as Azeri Muslims were driven from their historic homes. This crime was the more inexplicable because it has been a core tenet of modern Armenian history that their own people were driven from their ancestral homelands by the Ottoman Turks, most particularly the Kurds, before and during the First World War. But just as Zionists in Israel have been prepared to inflict on the Palestinians the same ghetto horrors that the Nazi Germans inflicted in Eastern and Central Europe, so the Armenians seem to have no compunction at meting out the same injustices to the Azeris in Nagorno-Karabakh as were inflicted on them.
It is important to remember that there is no more international recognition for the Armenian domination of this relatively small territory of 4,400 sq. kms than there is for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and vicious stranglehold on Gaza. Turkey has come down firmly on the side of Azerbaijan. The Azeris with their oil wealth have the means to counter 28 years of Armenian-backed aggression on its territory. But for their part the ethnic Armenians and the military support they receive from the Armenian government in Yerevan, present a formidable military challenge. Any attempt to restore Azeri rule to this territory of some 200,000 people is likely to add to the 30,000 death toll since the original insurrection.
It has rightly been warned that this confrontation has the potential to trigger a wider regional conflict. The law, and indeed the international community is on the side of the Azeris. However, important as this is, it is highly unlikely that any resolution can be achieved purely by force of arms. Hard though it may be to envisage, given the deep and bitter enmities involves, the only lasting solution can come through negotiation. It is clear that the Azeris and Armenians cannot achieve this by themselves. Moscow has failed in past attempts to achieve a successful compromise.
Therefore it falls to the wider international community to find a way forward. There are many other pressing problems in Africa and the Middle East that are absorbing the UN at this moment, but the organization cannot neglect its responsibilities in this crucial area of the southern Caucasus.
