Caucasus War Worries: What Difference Will the Karabakh Ceasefires Make?
Despite the ceasefires issued by Azerbaijan, Armenia and Armenia-backed separatist forces on April 5, questions still persist within the South Caucasus about what happens if the resurge of violence over breakaway Nagorno Karabakh and surrounding Armenian-occupied territories gets completely out of hand.
Azerbaijan’s defense ministry described its own ceasefire, its second since hard-core fighting broke out on April 2, as “mutual” with Armenia’s military. Baku does not deal directly with Karabakh’s separatist government, but later in the day, an unidentified Karabakhi de facto official told Reuters that the region’s forces also had been ordered to stop firing.
How long these ceasefires will last is anyone’s guess. During Baku's earlier ceasefire, Azerbaijani bombardments of Armenian and Karabakhi positions continued nonetheless, local media reported.
With the risk that a continued Armenia-Azerbaijani confrontation could prove explosive in this strategic region, a vital oil-and-gas corridor, global powers have begun making moves to bring an end to the risk for what Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan terms “all-out war.” But with what result remains unclear.
Longtime mediators in the Karabakh conflict, Russia, the United States and France, convened for an ad-hoc meeting in Vienna on April 5. The group will visit Yerevan, Baku and Karabakh “in the near future,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced, Russia’s state-run TASS news service reported.
Yerevan already has fixed a date for these guests -- April 9, when the envoys will meet with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian.
The US, which had hosted Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev right before intensified fighting broke out on April 2, does not appear eager to assert itself beyond the Minsk Group. US Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the tensions with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on April 4, Moscow announced, but has not, a State Department spokesperson said, spoken yet with either Sargsyan or Aliyev.
News of the attempt at a breather, however, may not reassure everyone in the South Caucasus.
To Armenia and Azerbaijan’s north, Georgia is home to large ethnic Armenian and Azeri populations who coexist peacefully. But the intensified fighting over Karabakh led to some manifestations of across-the-border support from these communities for the conflicting sides. Save for a small rally by ethnic Azeris in Tbilisi on April 4, however, these expressions of support are essentially only online.
Georgian MPs Ruslan Poghosian and Ali Mamedov, one an ethnic Armenian and the other an ethnic Azeri, jointly called on the Georgian population, “especially our Armenian and Azerbaijani citizens,” not to take any action that may “jeopardize the long tradition of peaceful coexistence of these two ethnic groups on Georgian territory.”
Facing separatist problems of its own, both real and potential, Tbilisi is careful not to play favorites and is making general calls for calm. “I would like to urge our neighbors…to put more efforts into a peaceful solution of the tensions,” Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili said in a statement, emphasizing that the crisis is playing out not too far from Georgia’s borders – about a ten to 12-hour drive, to be precise.
While Georgian officials weigh their words, political wonks are weighing the risks Georgia may face. The worst-case scenario involves Turkey and Russia, which border Georgia, taking their row from Syria to the Caucasus, sending military aid to their respective allies, Azerbaijan and Armenia. In remarks disseminated by Georgian media, political analyst Sergi Kapanadze, a former deputy foreign minister, put the questions bluntly on his Facebook page:
“Do we let the Russian air force through our airspace to aid Armenia?
Do we let Russian troops through our territory to help reinforce [the Russian military base in the Armenian town of] Gyumri?
Do we let through Turkish troops or another type of aid to Azerbaijan?”
The chances of a proxy confrontation between Ankara and Moscow could depend on how bad things get in Karabakh. Turkey has made no secret of its support for its closest regional ally and cultural kin, Azerbaijan, but, so far, for this latest conflict, that support appears mostly verbal. “The whole world needs to know that Turkey will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Azerbaijan against Armenian aggression and the occupation [of breakaway Karabakh] until the end of time,” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu declared on April 5, Reuters reported.
Earlier on, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized Ankara for taking sides in the confrontation. Moscow avoided voicing direct support for its best friend in the region, Armenia, but Russian media coverage makes it quite clear where Moscow’s loyalties lie.
Azerbaijan even moved to evict a TV crew from Russia’s LifeNews, accusing reporters of the pro-Kremlin news channel of “provocative” and “biased” coverage of the Karabakh situation.
The conflict, though, could also have an impact outside the immediate region.
An area of northern Iran which borders on Azerbaijani-claimed Karabakh was reportedly hit by shells from the fighting this weekend and again on April 5, though no casualties were caused. As has Georgia, Tehran, which has warm ties with Yerevan and ties of varying temperatures with Baku, has proposed itself as a mediator in the conflict.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.