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Escalation of Violence Between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Press Statement

Morgan Ortagus, Department Spokesperson

U.S. Department of State

https://www.state.gov/escalation-of-violence-between-armenia-and-azerbaijan/

September 27, 2020

The United States is alarmed by reports of large scale military action along the Line of Contact in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone that has resulted in significant casualties, including civilians. We extend our condolences to the families of those killed and injured.

The United States condemns in the strongest terms this escalation of violence.  Deputy Secretary Biegun called the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Jeyhun Bayramov, and the Foreign Minister of Armenia, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, to urge both sides to cease hostilities immediately, to use the existing direct communication links between them to avoid further escalation, and to avoid unhelpful rhetoric and actions that further raise tensions on the ground.

The United States believes participation in the escalating violence by external parties would be deeply unhelpful and only exacerbate regional tensions. We urge the sides to work with the Minsk Group Co-Chairs to return to substantive negotiations as soon as possible. As a Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, the United States remains committed to helping the sides achieve a peaceful and sustainable settlement to the conflict.

Reuters, read with appropriate grain of salt. From Task & Purpose, a military and veteran-focused digital media company … Task & Purpose provides authentic reporting and perspectives on the stories that matter to military members, veterans, and the broader American public.

Why Armenia and Azerbaijan are fighting each other and why it matters

Mark Trevelyan, Reuters

Sep 28, 2020 3:45 PM EDT

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/explain-armenia-azerbaijan-conflict

(Reuters) - Fierce fighting has broken out between Azerbaijan and its ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, a new and dangerous eruption of a decades-old conflict.

Where and what is Nagorno-Karabakh?

It's a mountainous, forested patch of land that sits inside the territory of ex-Soviet Azerbaijan and is recognized under international law as part of that country.

But the ethnic Armenians who make up the vast majority of the estimated 150,000 population reject Azeri rule. They have been running their own affairs, with support from Armenia, since Azerbaijan's troops were pushed out in a war in the 1990s.

A ceasefire was agreed in 1994 but at least 200 people were killed in a violent flare-up in 2016. Nagorno-Karabakh survives almost totally on budget support from Armenia and donations from the worldwide Armenian diaspora.

Why has fighting broken out now?

Tensions between the two sides have been building over the summer, and spilled into direct clashes on Sunday. The timing is significant because the outside powers that have mediated in the past - namely Russia, France and the United States - are distracted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the upcoming U.S. presidential election and a list of world crises from Lebanon to Belarus.

Lower-level clashes in July prompted only a muted international response. Turkey, which held large military exercises with Azerbaijan in July and August, has been even more conspicuous in its support compared with past crises.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Ankara would stand by Azerbaijan "with all its resources and heart". He did not directly address whether Turkey is supplying the Azeri side with military experts, drones and warplanes, as Armenia has alleged and Azerbaijan has denied.

What are the risks?

Past outbreaks of fighting have killed some 30,000 people since 1988. Already dozens have been killed and several hundred wounded in the latest flare-up.

Olesya Vartanyan, an analyst with Crisis Group, said Monday witnessed an increase in deployment of heavy weaponry such as rockets and artillery, bringing a higher risk of civilian casualties that would make it harder to pull the two sides back from all-out war.

That in turn could draw in other powers such as Turkey and Russia and destabilise the South Caucasus region, an important corridor for pipelines carrying oil and gas.

What could stop the fighting?

Several countries, including Russia and China, have called for a halt to hostilities but so far without any discernible impact. Russia potentially holds the key: it has a mutual defence pact with Armenia and a military base there, but also enjoys good relations with Azerbaijan and has no interest in the conflict spreading.

If its diplomacy succeeded, Moscow could earn kudos for ending the fighting at a time when it is under intense criticism on other fronts, including over its backing for Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko after a disputed election and over the poisoning of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in Siberia last month, which Germany says was carried out with a nerve agent.

President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Sunday but it is not yet clear if he has attempted to talk to Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev.

Explained: Armenia and Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

How did it start, what are the key dates and who is supporting who in the fighting?

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/armenia-azerbaijan-nagorno-karabakh-conflict-explained

By Sondos Asem

Published 30 September 2020

Last update: 2 days 3 hours ago

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in a deadly armed confrontation since Sunday over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting fears of an all-out war in a strategic international oil and gas corridor.

Nagorno-Karabakh is at the centre of an ethnic and territorial conflict between the two countries that dates back to the early 20th century.

A breakaway Armenian-majority region inside Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh has around 150,000 inhabitants.

Armenia is majority Christian, while Azerbaijan is majority Muslim.

Map of conflict

Though it is part of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh is run by seperatist Armenians supported by the Armenian government. They have sought for decades to split from Azerbaijan and become part of Armenia, though unsuccessfully.

In the 1990s, the region broke away from Azerbaijan, but has yet to be recognised by any country in the world.

Key dates in the conflict:

1920s: During Soviet rule in the south Caucasus, Nagorno-Karabakh became a semi-independent Soviet region within Azerbaijan.

1988: Nagorno-Karabakh voted to be part of Armenia, a decision opposed by both Baku and Moscow.

1990s: With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Soviet rule was transferred to Baku, but the majority Armenian population in the region resisted that decision.

1991: Armenian separatists seize Nagorno-Karabakh, along with seven adjacent Azeri districts, triggering a conflict that led to the death of at least 30,000 people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands.

1992: The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (now the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) created the Minsk Group to encourage a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Co-chaired by Russia, France and the United States, the Minsk Group was criticised by Azerbaijan as biased to Armenia.

1994: A ceasefire was signed, ushering in two decades of relative stability.

2016: Deadly fighting erupted, killing at least 200 people from both sides.

2018-2019: When the freely elected protest leader Nikol Pashinyan came to power in 2018, he took steps with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict, vowing in a joint-statement in 2019 to “take concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace".

July 2020: A flare-up of fighting between the two countries kills at least 17 combatants from both sides.

27 September 2020: Clashes erupted between Armenian and Azeri forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia declared martial law and mobilised its male population to join the fighting.

Geopolitics:

Russia

Russia has good relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan, but it also has a defence alliance with Armenia, as both are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and Russia has a military base in Armenia.

Moscow has acted as the main mediator between the two countries for years, with its attempts so far largely unsuccessful.

'All eyes are now on Moscow to see if it can again stop the fighting in the conflict zone'

- Olesya Vartanyan, International Crisis Group

After the deadly conflict in 2016, then Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited both Yerevan and Baku to broker peace, while his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, engaged in shuttle diplomacy between the two capitals.

In the weeks leading to the current escalation, however, Russia “did not pay the region the attention it received before,” Olesya Vartanyan, senior analyst for the South Caucasus region at the International Crisis Group, told Middle East Eye.

“It was precisely the lack of reaction to the July escalation that opened the way for large-scale hostilities,” she said.

“We have not seen attempts to bring the leaders to the negotiating table and have not seen visits by high-ranking officials. All eyes are now on Moscow to see if it can again stop the fighting in the conflict zone.”

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reportedly said on Tuesday that he was not considering asking for Moscow’s support, but also did not rule it out.

"Armenia will ensure its security, with the participation of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) or without it," he was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.

Iran

Shia-Muslim majority Iran shares its northern borders with Azerbaijan and Armenia.

While Azerbaijan has the same religious majority as Iran, the latter is reportedly backing Armenia due to trade ties with Yerevan as well as Tehran’s political alliance with Russia.

“Iran has always played a balancing role without taking a position on any of the sides,” said Vartanyan, the Crisis Group analyst.

“Tehran is currently concerned with the ongoing fighting, which takes place right next to its border with some reports of grenades and other projectiles reaching its territory,” she told MEE.

Vartanyan explained that during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s, Iran attempted but failed to bring about a ceasefire between the two sides.

Following Sunday’s clashes, Iran encouraged a halt to hostilities.

"Iran is closely monitoring the conflict with concern and calls for an immediate end to the conflict and the start of talks between the two countries," foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said.

On 30 September, the Armenian prime minister discussed the conflict with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in a phone call, according to Armenia's government press office.

"Iran's president expressed concerns on the tension between its two bordering countries and continuing military actions," the press statement said.

The two leaders also discussed Turkey's participation in the conflict, something Ankara's ally Azerbaijan has denied.

Turkey

Turkey supports Azerbaijan, not least because of cultural and linguistic ties between the two countries. Ankara was the first to recognise Azerbaijan after its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

On the other hand, Turkey has strained relations with Armenia, rooted in Armenian genocide accusations against the Ottoman empire. The two countries have no official diplomatic relations.

During the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in 1993, Turkey closed its borders with Armenia in support for Baku.

Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan and senior officials in his government have expressed their country’s support for Baku following the recent escalation.

On Tuesday, MEE reported that hundreds of Syrian rebels and civilians are being sent by Turkey to Azerbaijan to guard Turkish troops and strategic assets there, with suspicions that they may soon find themselves in the frontline of the fighting.

However, Ankara has so far denied providing military support for Baku, and Yerevan has also denied using Syrian mercenaries.

It remains unclear whether Turkey will directly intervene in the fighting.

Other countries

Israel has been a longtime ally of Azerbaijan.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) - a leading conflict and armaments think-tank - has reported that Israel provided Azerbaijan with around $825m in weapons between 2006 and 2019.

On 30, September Azeri presidential aide Hikmat Hajiyev told Israel media that Azerbaijan was using "some" Israeli-made drones in fighting around Nagorno-Karabakh.

Israel's intervention has provoked anger in Armenia, who recalled their ambassador over the country's continuing arms sales to Azerbaijan.

Although France, along with Russia, officially supports a negotiated ceasefire, the country has accused Turkey of making "reckless and dangerous" statements in favour of Azerbaijan and of deploying Syrian fighters to Nagorno-Karabakh.

France's population includes about 600,000 people of Armenian origin, many of whom have been vocally supportive of Armenia in the conflict.

Partly reflecting the country's staunch opposition to Russia, the government of Ukraine has also announced its support for the "territorial integrity" of Azerbaijan.

A number of celebrities in the United States of Armenian origin have voiced support for Armenia in the conflict, including Kim Kardashian who called for the US to cut military aid to Azerbaijan and for "Baku to cease all offensive uses of force".

Metal band System of a Down said the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were under "existential threat" and that the world needed to "call out Azerbaijan on its war mongering, ethnic cleansing, and killing of innocent civilians".

Armenia vs Azerbaijan: An old regional conflict, interested neighbours

Military action claims 100 lives in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. What is the dispute, and how are other countries getting involved?

Written by Mehr Gill

October 4, 2020 8:02:53 am

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-the-geopolitics-of-the-conflict-between-azerbaijan-and-armenia-6663614/

Demonstrators wave flags of Azerbaijan and Turkey during a protest against Armenia in Istanbul, Turkey October 1, 2020. (Photo: REUTERS/Murad Sezer)

Over the last one week, military action in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, has resulted in the death of at least 100 civilians and Armenian combatants. While the two countries have fought over the region for decades, the current conflict is being seen as one of the most serious in recent years. Azerbaijan has not released information on its casualties.

What is Nagorno-Karabakh?

Straddling western Asia and Eastern Europe, Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but most of the region is controlled by Armenian separatists. Nagorno-Karabakh has been part of Azerbaijan territory since the Soviet era. When the Soviet Union began to collapse in the late 1980s, Armenia’s regional parliament voted for the region’s transfer to Armenia; the Soviet authorities turned down the demand.

Years of clashes followed between Azerbaijan forces and Armenian separatists. The violence lasted into the 1990s, leaving tens and thousands dead and displacing hundreds of thousands. In 1994, Russia brokered a ceasefire, by which time ethnic Armenians had taken control of the region.

While the area remains in Azerbaijan, it is today governed by separatist Armenians who have declared it a republic called the “Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast”. While the Armenian government does not recognise Nagorno-Karabakh as independent, it supports the region politically and militarily.

Even after the 1994 peace deal, the region has been marked by regular exchanges of fire. In 2016, it saw a Four-Day War before Russia mediated peace. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group, chaired by France, Russia and the US, has tried to get the two countries to reach a peace agreement for several years.

What is the fresh conflict about?

It began on the morning of September 27, since when each country has claimed to have inflicted serious loss on its opponent. What’s different about the current flare-up is that this is the first time that both countries have proclaimed martial law.

According to the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), the current escalation was “most likely” initiated by Azerbaijan. Media reports have noted that the clashes were possibly a fallout of Azerbaijan’s bid to reclaim some territories occupied by separatist Armenians.

The chairman of Azerbaijan’s National Council has said in a statement that the “military operation of the Azerbaijani army continues to clear the territories occupied by the enemy for almost 30 years”. He said September 27 was a “day of exhaustion” and alleged Armenia has occupied regions around Nagorono-Karabakh with the “direct support” of Russia to create a “security zone”.

The conflict is getting worldwide attention because of the involvement of regional rivals Turkey and Russia. Muslim-majority Turkey backs Azerbaijan, and recently condemned Christian-majority Armenia for not resolving the issue through peaceful negotiations. Turkey recently declared unconditional support to Muslim-majority Azerbaijan.

Russia and Turkey also back opposite sides in the civil wars playing out in Syria and Libya and Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan may be seen as an attempt to counter Russia’s influence in the region of South Caucasus.

Russia’s role is somewhat opaque since it supplies arms to both countries and is in a military alliance with Armenia called the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. In a statement released on Monday, Dmitry Peskov, the Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, said Russia “has always taken a balanced position” on the matter and has “traditionally good relations” with both countries. He added that Russia is in contact with Turkey regarding the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Other countries, including the US, have limited their participation to appeals for maintaining peace so far. For all countries, the region is an important transit route for the supply of oil and natural gas to the European Union.

What next?

As of now, both sides are standing their ground. The Russian state news agency TASS quoted Azerbaijan President Ikhlam Aliyev as saying that for the fighting to stop, Armenia must unconditionally leave Nagorno-Karabakh.

On Monday, the Armenian government lodged a request with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for an interim measure (applicable only when there is imminent risk of irreparable harm) against Azerbaijan. It requested the court to indicate to the Azerbaijani government to “cease the military attacks towards the civilian settlements along the entire line of contact of the armed forces of Armenia and Artsakh”.

US wades in cautiously to Armenia-Azerbaijan peace effort

By MATTHEW LEE

https://apnews.com/article/mike-pompeo-azerbaijan-armenia-russia-25b1bf9009027c57d9127e8103c7ab13

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration waded cautiously Friday into international efforts to halt fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which are engaged in their worst conflict in more than 25 years.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met separately in Washington with the foreign ministers of both countries in a bid to promote a cease-fire in hostilities over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The State Department said Pompeo had emphasized to Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov the need “to end the violence and protect civilians.”

“Both must implement a ceasefire and return to substantive negotiations,” Pompeo said in a tweet after his talks.

Friday’s meetings followed failed Russian-led attempts to broker a truce and lower-profile U.S. intervention to promote an end to the fighting. U.S. officials, including Pompeo’s deputy, Stephen Biegun, have appealed for the countries to return to a dialogue over the territory.

Meanwhile, heavy fighting raged over Nagorno-Karabakh even as the discussions in Washington were taking place. The two sides traded accusations involving the shelling of residential areas, and authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said the town of Martakert and several villages in the Martuni region were struck by Azerbaijani rockets.

The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry denied the claim and accused Armenian forces of targeting the Terter, Agdam and Agjabedi regions of Azerbaijan overnight.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. The fighting that started Sept. 27 marks the worst escalation in the conflict since the war’s end.

According to Nagorno-Karabakh officials, 927 of their troops have been killed and more than 30 civilians also have died. Azerbaijan hasn’t disclosed its military losses, but says 63 civilians have been killed and 292 have been wounded. Armenia officially isn’t engaged in the fighting.

Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of targeting its towns and villages with artillery and missiles, which Armenian authorities have denied.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Moscow’s information indicated that the combined death toll from the nearly four weeks of fighting was approaching 5,000, a significantly higher number than officially reported by the warring parties.

Russia, along with the United States, has co-chaired the so-called Minsk Group set up by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to mediate in the conflict.

In his meetings, Pompeo “also stressed the importance of the sides entering substantive negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to resolve the conflict based on the Helsinki Final Act principles of the non-use or threat of force, territorial integrity, and the equal rights and self-determination of peoples,” the State Department said.

Putin said Russia is doing its best to negotiate a lasting truce. He voiced hope that the United States would work cooperatively to help end hostilities and mediate a political settlement.

Turkey has thrown its weight behind Azerbaijan, vowing to support its longtime ally “on the battlefield or the negotiating table.” It has trained Azerbaijani military and provided it with strike drones and long-range rocket systems that gave Azerbaijan a strong edge on the battlefield.

https://mobile.twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1323546317621202946

BREAKING - Armenia's Prime Minister responded to the terror attack in #Vienna: "The hybrid world war has begun. And Nagorny-Karabakh is frontline of this war."

Armenia Prime minister says Hybrid world war has begun