Another Day in The Caucasus : Azerbaijan-Armenia Border Conflicts

What happened recently?
Belligerent, hostility and animosity - such is the tale of the relations between Armenia and its neighbouring country, Azerbaijan. On 12 September 2021, the world’s attention turned to armed conflict broke out between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

Baku and Yerevan have traded accusations of starting the violence which caused the deaths of 105 Armenian soldiers and 50 Azerbaijani military and the evacuation of hundreds of Armenian civilians from their homes close to the border,

As a matter of fact, many observers were surprised by the serious escalation of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan that occurred on September 13–14 because it did so soon after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan met in Brussels for another round of peace talks under the supervision of the president of the European Council, Charles Michel.


Background
Did you know that Armenia and Azerbaijan have no diplomatic relations, due mainly to the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?  The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict dates back to the 1920s, when the Soviet Union annexed the present nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The majority of the local population was of Armenian descent, but the Azerbaijani government was handed administration of the area.

There was limited threat of conflict in the area while it was governed by the Soviet Union, but when the Bloc started to fall apart in the late 1980s, territorial issues surfaced. Despite being a region under Azerbaijani administration, Nagorno-regional Karabakh's parliament opted to join Armenia. The regional separatist movement clashed with Azerbaijani forces in the early 1990s, triggering a full-scale war. The movement was bolstered by the vote and supported by the Armenian government.

Without Soviet soldiers to restore order, ethnic cleansing killed tens of thousands of people and conflict extended into populated areas. Both sides carried out massacres, and as a result, about a million people were left homeless. Since the 1994 peace deal, escalation has flared up occasionally, but the year 2020 saw the worst wave of fighting since the 1990s. At least 6,500 people were killed during a two-month fight in November 2020, raising concerns that it was far from over.​

What’s Next For Both Countries?
Russia has historically served as a mediator in the dispute because it is the dominating force in the area. In 2020, when violence broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia assisted in negotiating a peace deal. It has been asserted that the Kremlin's sway in Eastern Europe has diminished as a result of Russia's present disengagement from a massive military counteroffensive by Ukraine.

On September 14, 2020, Armen Grigoryan, the secretary of Armenia's Security Council, made a televised announcement on the cease-fire. The Defense Ministry of Armenia stated that bombardment had stopped a few hours before to Grigoryan's speech, but it made no mention of the cease-fire agreement.

However, the government of Azerbaijan did not respond right away. The proclamation of a cease-fire came after two days of intense combat, which was the biggest escalation of hostilities between the two longstanding foes in almost two years.

Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, informed Putin that the escalation has subsided on September 16. The previous two days have seen a cease-fire, and Aliyev emphasised that Azerbaijan is dedicated to trilateral accords. Speaking on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Uzbekistan, the two leaders exchanged words.

According to Jeyhun Bayramov, the foreign minister of Azerbaijan, a proposal including five requirements for normalising relations with Armenia was sent in March. The demarcation of the borders between the two nations is one of the topics in the plan; Azerbaijan had previously presented a solution, but Armenia had repeatedly raised preconditions to address it.
Disclaimer: The article is merely an academic discussion to express the point of view towards the said 
issue.

 
Written by Secretariat of Current Affairs 2022/23 👉

Check out @umsupress to find out more. 👉 Follow @umsupress to get yourself updated with the latest
news


#umsu #kmum #umsupress #universitimalaya #Malaysia

  


References
https://neweasterneurope.eu/2022/09/20/armenia-azerbaijan-pelosi-russia-ukraine/ 
​https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220915-armenia-azerbaijan-agree-on-cease-fire-after-new-clashes 
https://en.as.com/latest_news/the-conflict-between-armenia-and-azerbaijan-explained-n/
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-azerbaijan-armenia-government-and-politics-bbf809ad3d368fa9c5c497a2d79e22d6
https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/azerbaijan-armenia-violence-stabilized-aliyev-tells-putin ​