Global Courant
In recent days there has been a steady stream of ethnic Armenians fleeing the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan launched a 24-hour attack on the Armenian enclave, which is surrounded by Azerbaijani territory, on September 19, and after a ceasefire brokered the next day, refugees were allowed to leave through the narrow Lachin corridor, which crosses the enclave with Armenia. .
On September 27, it was estimated that this was close 30,000 people had made the crossing since it opened on September 24. Many of the estimated 120,000 Karabakhi Armenians are expected to leave for Armenia. Meanwhile, at least 68 people were killed and about 350 were injured explosion at a gas station on the enclave’s main highway from Stepanakert, the capital.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has done so accused Azerbaijan of ethnic cleansing in the region – something Azerbaijan denied and described the conflict as a “anti-terror” operation and said that the majority of the Armenian population would be integrated into Azerbaijan and their rights would be respected.
But it appears that the exodus of dispossessed Armenians will continue and they are an angry population. They are angry with Azerbaijan for the shelling that forced them to flee. They are angry with Turkey for supporting and arming Azerbaijan.
Strangely, they are not angry with Russia, whose lack of attention prompted Azerbaijan to take action against them. It is even expected that some of the refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh will travel to Russia via Armenia.
Armenian anger
They are especially angry with the Armenian government, just like many of their compatriots in Armenia itself.
But the mass protests have been an expression of hopelessness rather than resistance. Nagorno-Karabakh – where there is an ethnic Armenian population since 200 BC – is lost and many people blame their leader. Witnessing the arrival of refugees has raised the emotional bar.
Anger: Protesters on the streets of Yerevan, Armenia, September 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE via The Conversation / Narek Aleksanyan
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s response was brutal. Up to 350 demonstrators were arrested and some were reportedly severely beaten by security forces.
Pashinyan has implied that it is the Kremlin that caused the riots. But even if Russian media coverage is hostile to Pashinyan, Armenians themselves have many grievances against their prime minister.
The unrest follows riots in 2020 about the loss of territory and prestige after the second Karabakh war. During the conflict, Azerbaijani forces reoccupied large parts of territory previously occupied by Armenia.
So Pashinyan was already unpopular even before the most recent military action in Azerbaijan – his approval ratings as of June 2023 were very low – only 14% expressed confidence in him and 72% gave his performance a negative assessment. But there is little cohesion between the opposition groups, apart from the desire for Pashinyan’s resignation.
Russian relations with Armenia have been shaky for some time. After the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow targeted Turkey, Azerbaijan’s sponsor, as the country considered the relationship more valuable in terms of mitigating the effects of Western sanctions.
To some extent this was a rational calculation, but there is also a personal element to it. Vladimir Putin has never warmed to Pashinyan, who came to power in 2018 after popular protests ousted Serzh Sargsyan’s Kremlin-friendly leadership. But Armenia’s close relationship with Russia goes back centuries, so the two leaders managed to get along.
Things between Russia and Armenia really started to deteriorate in 2023, when Armenia refused to host Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military exercises and instead invited the US military to train there.
The highly symbolic visit of the Armenian First Lady Anna Hakobyan to Ukraine at the beginning of September seems to have been the last straw. It seems that Armenia no longer regarded Russia as a friend or a force to be reckoned with.
What happens now
Azerbaijan has not yet achieved all its objectives. It aims to open direct ground connections with its enclave in Armenia, the Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan, which has just under 450,000 inhabitants. This would also give mainland Azerbaijan direct access to Turkey instead of transit through Iran.
Turbulent region: Azerbaijan and Armenia, with the territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhchivan. Map: Peter Hermes Furian / Shutterstock via The Conversation
Proposals for the “Zangezur corridor‘ are strongly opposed by Armenia, as this would effectively block the country’s border with Iran. The issue has been going on since the first war in Karabakh in 1991, after which the two population groups were only connected through air travel.
Part of the agreement that ended the second Karabakh war in 2020 included allowing free transit through Zangezur, but this was never implemented. Now the idea is back on the table, raised by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev during a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on September 25, when they met in Nakhchivan.
This will bring Iran into play as the route of any corridor between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan would pass along the border. Some kind of deal will have to be reached that addresses Iran’s security concerns – and that will most likely involve Moscow as one of Tehran’s close allies.
Moscow thus appears to have made a conscious decision to abandon Armenia for closer relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey and the opportunity to act as a power broker with Iran. In Putin’s eyes, Pashinyan is undoubtedly disposable. He can wait until another, more accommodating leader comes to power.
Armenia’s turn to the West now seems almost inevitable. The country will likely withdraw from the CSTO, apply to join NATO and apply for visa-free travel to the EU. But Pashinyan’s handling of the protests will make many potential allies in the West uneasy.
The situation is only made more complex by Europe dependence on Azerbaijan for gas and its strategically important location in the Middle corridor Eurasian trade route between China and Europe.
The West can still play a valuable role in brokering peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But for a lasting settlement to last, Russia and Turkey will have to be involved, rather than becoming its plunderers. This is a problem with many moving parts.
Anna Matveeva is a visiting Senior Research Fellow, King’s Russia Institute, King’s College London
This article is republished from The conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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