Military Base, Armenian-Azerbaijani border, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1994

In an interesting analysis by Richard Giragosian, RFE/RL says that a U.S. military presence in the South Caucasus might be key to guaranteeing the implementation of a new peace plan to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict currently taking place between the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents in Paris. However, the idea of the U.S. securing stability in the South Caucasus goes a lot further than that, and is possibly a predictable step in defining the post-911 world.

Although Georgia is in many ways the “center of gravity” for the U.S. military in the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan offers unique considerations for America’s war on terrorism. Azerbaijan’s strategic importance has been redefined, far surpassing Washington’s earlier overemphasis on oil and gas pipelines to reflect a much more sophisticated agenda. It may also include greater American responsibility, however, as any progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh talks will most likely bring new demands and expectations from both sides.

The military architecture of the U.S. presence in Azerbaijan is also rooted in the new, post-11 September 2001 strategy of moving away from a large “footprint” and relying on formal military bases to smaller forward operating locations, or “lily pads.”

In Azerbaijan, the U.S. military favored the establishment of even smaller and less visible “cooperative security locations,” tactical facilities with pre-positioned stocks that provide contingency access. With such locations in place, U.S forces could achieve greater mobility and facilitate faster and more effective missions either along Azerbaijan’s southern border with Iran or its northern borders with Georgia and Daghestan.

In fact, it’s something that I touched upon in an article written for the UK-based Gemini News Service when the Armenian and Azerbaijani response to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States soon deteriorated into mutual mud slinging. Washington-based Regional Analyst Richard Giragosian was one of those I interviewed.

The long-standing conflict between the two neighboring republics resurfaced in 1988. More than 25,000 were killed in six years of fighting that ended with a ceasefire agreement signed in 1994.

With Armenia currently controlling more than 14 per cent of Azerbaijani territory including the disputed enclave of Nagorno Karabakh, there is widespread concern that war might break out again.

The conflict has already plunged both republics into poverty, prevented significant foreign investment and frustrated initiatives to exploit Azerbaijan’s oil reserves.

“Nagorno-Karabakh threatens to destabilise or at least hinder development on the other side of the Caspian basin,” says Richard Giragosian, a Washington-based regional analyst and former staff member of the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress.

“As Washington and Moscow want to utilise the Tengiz energy and bridge to Kazakhstan, the Caspian basin will need their joint attention.”

“After the Afghan scenario plays out, the new U.S. representative to the OSCE Minsk Group will re-launch an initiative on Nagorno Karabakh with the U.S.-Russian partnership adding new weight and incentives.”

Thomas de Waal, a British journalist currently writing a book on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, argues that Russians and Americans have already been working closely together for the past few years, and agrees that Russia will become more dominant in the Caucasus in exchange for US influence in Central Asia.

“Their positions aren’t really that different now that Russia wants to re-engage with Azerbaijan,” he explains. “Any big Western-Russian divide might come from disagreements over Georgia rather than Karabakh. Petty sniping between Armenia and Azerbaijan is pretty irrelevant. It’s the larger picture that matters.”

That larger picture is already snapping into focus.

Anyway, RFE/RL also reports on today’s meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents in what the international community considers an important step in resolving the conflict. So far, however, not many new details have emerged from the meeting, but one guesses something more concrete will emerge over the weekend or on Monday.

European diplomats suggest an end to the dispute, the biggest of the so-called “frozen conflicts” left over from the Soviet Union’s messy disintegration, could be in sight. “This is the most important meeting in at least five years regarding this conflict,” a senior U.S. State Department official said on Thursday. “We’re hopeful.”

[…]

Diplomats say any accord is likely to involve Armenian forces withdrawing from districts they control around Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange for keeping control of the territory itself pending a referendum on its status. It might also include foreign peacekeepers moving into the region.

Earlier today, as the two Presidents met separately with their French counterpart, RFE/RL reported that the talks were still surrounded by a feeling of optimism on the part of mediators and the international community.

European and U.S. diplomats have suggested that the talks represent one of the best chances in years to move toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mainly ethnic Armenian populated territory in Azerbaijan.

On Wednesday, RFE/RL also says that Kocharian hinted at the chances for a possible breakthrough while visiting the Swedish capital ahead of today’s meeting with Aliyev in Paris.

Armenian President Robert Kocharian said today he sees “some possibilities of a breakthrough” at the Armenian-Azerbaijan summit this week on the 18-year-old territorial dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Incidently, RFE/RL also has a useful chronology of events leading up to today’s meeting starting from 1988 when the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast appealed to the Supreme Soviet of the former USSR to be transferred to under the jurisdiction of the Armenian SSR.

In February 1988, the local assembly in Stepanakert, the local capital of the Azerbaijani region of NAGORNO-KARABAKH, passed a resolution calling for unification of the predominantly ethnic-Armenian region with Armenia. There were reports of violence against local Azeris, followed by attacks against Armenians in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait. In 1991-92, Azerbaijani forces occupied most of Nagorno-Karabakh, but the Armenians counterattacked and by 1993-94 had seized almost all of the region, as well as vast areas around it. About 600,000 Azeris were displaced and as many as 25,000 people were killed before a Russian-brokered cease-fire was imposed in May 1994.

Military Base, Stepanakert, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1994

Strange to think that in 2008 the conflict will be 20 years old. Depending on the outcome of the talks, I shall endeavor to post my own personal opinion on the latest move to resolve the conflict in the next few days. For now, what I will say is that some of us have been expecting a new push to resolve the conflict for the past year and a half, and even since 2001.

Certainly, we were expecting something to happen after elections and a referendum in both countries were held in November 2005.

Interestingly, civil society acts as if these talks in Paris are unexpected. Instead, reference to a new peace plan came up in an interview I held towards the end of 2004, and updates by RFE/RL’s Emil Danielyan that included quoting anonymous government sources prove once again that there are very few real journalists in Armenia. Emil is certainly one of the most important journalist-analysts in the region, and his reports from Armenia are a real eye-opener.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say if the media and civil society actually wanted to stay informed of what was going on in the country around them they should read RFE/RL’s ArmeniaLiberty site on a regular basis instead of spending most of their time writing funding proposals. Civil society in Armenia could have involved itself in the discussion over Karabakh as early (or should that be late?) as last January, but didn’t.

Despite taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in regional integration and conflict resolution grants from the same international donors that are behind the latest push to resolve a number of conflicts in the region, civil society in Armenia (and Azerbaijan) failed to do its job. And as it failed to push either republic along the path of democratization, both Presidents can get away with pretty much anything they like.

Me in Khrmort, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Unknown 1994