The Azerbaijani attack took place over a large territory stretching from east of Sevan Lake to Kapan in the south, near the border with Iran. The attack started with intense artillery shelling, followed by ground attacks on numerous axes. Azerbaijani marked territorial gains reaching 4kms to the east of Jermuk, a touristic resort town. The price of this attack was heavy: officially Armenia had 135 deaths, while Azerbaijan has 77 deaths, as of writing. An initial Russia mediated cease-fire did not hold. A second cease-fire arrangement negotiated by the Americans seems to hold for the moment. That is until the next Azerbaijani attack on Armenia, if not on the rest of Nagorno Karabakh.On September 12, Azerbaijan launched a massive attack along the eastern border of Armenia. This Azerbaijani attack has changed the geopolitical map of the South Caucasus, where great power competition will only be accentuated.
This unprecedented military escalation was not the result of border “incidents”, but the scale of the attack presupposes long preparation. Armenian sources were warning of such an attack already in April, which was thwarted thanks to external diplomatic pressures on Baku.
If we consider the political context, this violence seems surprising: only two weeks earlier, on August 26, the Armenian side evacuated the strategic town of Lachin as well as the villages of Zabukh and Sus, and the Azerbaijani forces entered those localities without a fight, without sacrificing young soldiers. Two years earlier, in the Second Karabakh War, launched by Azerbaijan on Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan achieved more than what it was asking for during the 26 years of negotiations: all the territories around the Soviet era Nagorno Karabakh that came under Armenian control during the first Karabakh war, plus the occupation of two regions of Nagorno Karabakh proper: Shushi and Hadrut.
The last attack was not the first on Armenia: six months after the November 9, 2020 ceasefire, Azerbaijan had once again chosen violence and invaded Armenia. Yet, those successes that were much more than Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev was demanding before September 2020, were not enough to end the 30-yearlong conflict. Azerbaijan is demanding that Armenia accepts the “territorial integrity” of Azerbaijan without guaranteeing the rights and security of Karabakh Armenians. Azerbaijan is also demanding a “corridor” in southern Armenia that would link Azerbaijan proper with Nakhichevan. Armenia, in return has expressed its readiness to sign a peace deal but is asking to also discuss the fate of Karabakh and its population. Moreover, Armenia is asking to open all transportation routes towards Azerbaijan and Turkey, two countries which impose a total blockade of Armenia since the 1990’s.
The continuous Azerbaijani aggression on Armenia where all pre-war Azerbaijani demands are met reinforce those pessimistic arguments that the conflict is not limited to the status of Nagorno Karabakh – which had an ethnic Armenian majority but placed under Azerbaijani rule in Soviet times - but that this is a primordial conflict between two ethnic groups.
Geopolitical Changes
Russia, which has two military bases in Armenia, and has forces deployed on Armenia-Azerbaijan border, but took the role of mediator between the two conflict parties, without much success. Recent Russian defeat in Ukraine have diminished Russian prestige, yet analysts attributing the most recent Azerbaijani attack with Russian weakness lacks context. Azerbaijan invaded Armenia back in May 2021, that is eight months before the war in Ukraine. Moreover, during the 2020 when Azerbaijan unleashed its offensive on Karabakh and Armenia, Russia again took the role of mediator rather than supporting its ally, Armenia.
The Russian paralysis is compared to that of the European Union. While the EU happily signed a new gas deal with Azerbaijan in July this year, the President of the EU Commission Ursula van der Leyen is silent about Azerbaijan’s invasion. Despite EU silence, it is evident that continuous Azerbaijani aggression will make it difficult to import Azerbaijani oil and gas, while the EU is boycotting Russian energy because of the Ukraine invasion.
Another country that looks concerned yet paralyzed, is Iran. The war in 2020 shocked Iranian leaders, as they had relied on Russia to preserve the status quo in the Caucasus. Yet, the war strengthened Azerbaijan which has irridentist claims towards Iran, strengthened Turkish as well as Israeli military presence in Iran’s northern border. The current fighting risks cutting Iranian road connections with the Armenian capital. Despite those dangerous changes, Iranian rulers seem unable to react.
Turkey, on the other hand, came out once again gave full political support to Azerbaijan. Military exercises including Azerbaijani and Turkish forces took place between September 5 and 9, few days before Azerbaijan started its latest attack, just like before the September 2020 attack on Karabakh. The hard-line Turkish position will question the on-going negotiations between Ankara and Yerevan supposedly to normalize diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The biggest surprise last week was the US active participation in reaching cease-fire agreement, in which US Secretary Antony Blinken played important role. The visit of a US delegation to Armenia headed by the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi came with a new promise of support to Armenia and its security. The US is showing a new geopolitical interest in the South Caucasus, while Russian influence is in free fall, Turkey continues to support Azerbaijan, and Iran observes developments warily.
Over the medium term, how those major powers will interact over the small yet geopolitically charged Caucasus remains to be seen.