Is genuine peace possible in the South Caucasus?
The long road to peace

ANALYTICS  19 July 2023 - 15:15

For the past few centuries, regional and global powers have struggled to gain influence or maintain their hegemonic role over the South Caucasus. Considered as a gateway between Europe and Asia, the region has long been at the centre of regional and international interests. As a result, many external actors have been struggling to exert more influence over the region in the last few decades.

The region's access to the Caspian resource and energy-rich Central Asian region added a particular significance to the region. However, after three decades of status quo, regional order has undergone a profound and dynamic transformation in recent years.

These monumental shifts have resulted from, inter alia, the war in Karabakh, internal changes in Georgia, and, above all, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The first significant event in the region occurred in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgian South Ossetia and Abkhazia territories, thus causing another considerable security gap.

The security gap issue had been the main problem of the conflict-plagued region, namely due to the long-term territorial conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Karabakh region.

Despite its frozen status, the situation on the ground changed significantly after Azerbaijan’s 2020 military victory over Armenia, in which it reclaimed most of the territory it lost in a prior conflict over Karabakh more than two decades earlier. While Baku described its victory as a result of its strategic patience and maintaining good relations with nearly all geopolitical actors, the full-scale war explicitly shifted the long-term geopolitical landscape in the region.

Consistent with the strategic patience approach, in the post-2020 period, Baku sought to bolster its position in negotiations with Armenia through diplomatic engagement with Russia and Türkiye. Azerbaijan expected that Moscow, with the push of Ankara, would persuade Yerevan to comply with the terms of the peace negotiations and sign the final peace treaty ending the most protracted conflict of the post-Soviet region.

Russia acted as the sole mediator and arbiter regarding Azerbaijan-Armenian relations and deployed peacekeepers in Karabakh. Although Russia maintained the role of leading mediator, the European Union (EU) swiftly emerged as a competitor and successfully managed to arrange several ministerial and leader meetings since 2022.

Historically, the EU has mostly remained on the back burner in matters relating to conflict resolution in the South Caucasus, having left the initiative primarily to Russia to mediate between the parties in the most critical period of the (former) conflict.

However, a new trend is emerging with the EU attempting to raise its profile in the normalization of Armenia–Azerbaijan relations. After the meeting between Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders held in Sochi on November 26, 2021, the EU demonstrated increased interest in facilitating normalization between the two countries.

The EU's re-engagement with the process inevitably boosted the interest of other Western countries, including the US, as the Biden administration, with support from Congress, is actively engaged in a normalization process to avert the threat of a new war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Negotiations under the auspices of Secretary of State Antony Blinken have been going on for months, with the latest two rounds held in May and late June.

Although Azerbaijan prefers to keep balance with all actors above in terms of peace negotiations, it faced complex challenges following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The invasion attempt resulted in the imposition of harsh economic sanctions on Moscow while affecting its interlocutor efforts negatively. As a result, the partnership with internationally-isolated Russia became more complicated for Azerbaijan.

Nevertheless, Baku saw Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to gain the upper hand on the battlefield, push for a peace treaty on advantageous terms, and advance its efforts to gain Armenia's formal recognition of its sovereignty over territories, including Karabakh.

Simultaneously, Azerbaijan eyes the opportunity to diminish the role of Russia in the current negotiation process, given its informal communication with the de-facto separatist regime in Khankendi and continuous arms supply to the illegal armed groups.

In this regard, Baku relies mainly on Ankara as its natural ally and main security guarantor. Türkiye came out of the 2020 war significantly strengthened and exercised significant soft power, which Russia and the West quickly acknowledged.

Nonetheless, the region's situation is still fragile as fundamental tensions across the South Caucasus further crystallized and intensified because of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. In this regard, it seems reasonable for Azerbaijan to stick with the peace efforts to reach the final consensus with Armenia and thus eliminate the future potential trigger point.

Caliber.Az