Inglorious embargo: Case for revisitation

The archaic, yet currently enforced, 1992 OSCE request for its members to impose a voluntary embargo on arms exports to the conflicting sides in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, has long been viewed as a foundational tenet, forming the basis of a rationale for the arms sales policy of the US and Europe (comprising the EU and UK) in relation to Azerbaijan.

The embargo has, on the whole, failed to produce the desired effect. Such measures are usually taken with the purpose of ensuring neutrality, contributing to the peaceful solution of a given armed conflict. The OSCE-originated ban resulted in the pre-eminence of Russia, which refused to comply with the request and, in its self-declared attempt to maintain the military balance in the region by selling to both belligerents, favoured Yerevan, which received Russian armaments either free or on the basis of targeted loans. It also maintained two Russian military bases on Armenian territory.

The ban, by failing to distinguish between the aggressor and the victim, has not contributed to the peaceful resolution of the armed conflict. The sheer incompetence and lackadaisical nature of the OSCE Minsk Group, coupled with Armenia’s growing militarization and Azerbaijan’s disillusionment with the peace process, compelling the latter to expand its military capabilities, led to the Second Karabakh War, which necessitated a military solution.

Times change and we are changing with them. Since the 2020 trilateral ceasefire deal considerably altered the geopolitical exigencies of the time, rendering the original ill-conceived OSCE ban as archaic and largely irrelevant, with the crisis in Ukraine placing a special complexion on Russian imports, in view of the sanctions imposed, it seems high time to throw a fresh piercing glance at the whole subject and revise the policy of the de facto embargo on arms sales to Azerbaijan.

Legal basis

Strictly speaking, there is no and has never been a binding international legal instrument prohibiting arms sales to Azerbaijan. A wide range of justifications referenced by many international specialists, refer to the measure adopted by the OSCE at the height of the First Karabakh War, which requested all participating members to impose an embargo on "deliveries of weapons and munitions to forces engaged in combat in the Nagorno-Karabakh area". This was a voluntary measure with no legal force, but of great political import.

In 1993, this was followed by UN Security Council passing Resolution 853, which, inter alia, urged states to refrain from the supply of any weapons and munitions which might lead to an "intensification of the conflict" or the "continued occupation of the territory". The general view is that this resolution is no longer active, as the UNSC no longer listed it as "active" since 2002.

It also behoves one to acknowledge that the OSCE measure is a non-binding act which, under no circumstances, can outweigh the legality of Azerbaijani efforts to restore its territorial integrity, protected under international law.

Geopolitical ramifications

The embargo was not followed by Russia, an OSCE member, one of the three Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group, which acquired a uniquely advantageous position, tasking it both with a peaceful resolution of the conflict and supplying arms to the warring sides, against the backdrop of its past hegemony over the region. From 2011-20, Russian arms accounted for 94 per cent of Yerevan's imports and 60 per cent of Baku's, rendering the former entirely reliant on the Kremlin.

The Russian pre-eminence favoured Armenia, which received arms at reduced prices or in the form of military aid, whereas Azerbaijan paid the full price. Armenia was ranked the third-most militarized country in the world in 2018, according to the Global Militarization Index.

As a result of massive Russia-originated arm acquisition, Armenia, according to the candid contemporaneous admission by the former Defence Minister of Armenia, Vazgen Sargsyan, had tripled its arms capabilities since independence by 1996. Despite the OSCE ban, during the First Karabakh War, Russia supplied Armenia with 2K11 Krug surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems and 349 missiles, impacting the military outcome of the conflict. On the whole, Russia transferred $1 billion worth of military equipment from 1992 to 1996.

Needless to say, the military balance of the 90s did not translate into the next decades, as Azerbaijan was compelled to obviate the disparity engendered by the Kremlin’s policy. It turned to alternative arms exporters for advanced military systems, mainly to Turkey, Baku’s first-rate ally, and Israel. Baku also imported from Belarus and Ukraine, deliberately keeping its import sources more diversified.

The implications of the embargo do not merely extend to the countries that signed up to the voluntary measure. For instance, the US Defence Budget (NDAA) for 2020, contains the requirements for the White House to report on whether the Bayraktar deployed by Azerbaijan contains American-made details, and whether this violates the Law on the Control of the Export of Arms or US sanctions policy. No doubt, this investigation has been driven by the powerful Armenian-American diaspora.

Present juncture

Now, Baku considers the conflict that gave rise to the original OSCE ban to be over. But strengthening one's military capabilities is an ongoing necessity, and the post-ceasefire architecture of the region will require deterrents. Baku will continue to acquire arms to bolster itself, and it is vital that the Western policy of refraining from arms export does not limit import sources, as was previously the case.

Arms sales, as a legitimate tool for power projection, occupy a critical place in the warp and woof of world politics. Both a decision to sell and refrain from selling invariably entail a degree of responsibility. From what one can establish, the West has failed to judiciously recalibrate between its conflicting priorities.

Robert Cutler of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute believes that by refusing to reconsider arms sales to Azerbaijan, the US and Europe limited their influence and empowered Russia’s coercive diplomacy.

It is high time that the West re-evaluates certain forms of its outdated arms sales policy in relation to Azerbaijan. In fact, the original ban has always been subject to caveats, and been interpreted in a way that was not circumscribed to its pristine scope. In 2014, Britain, the world’s second-biggest arms exporter after the US, according to the UK's Department of International Trade, refined its policy by adding that restrictions extend to Nagorno-Karabakh and the Azerbaijan-Armenian border only.

Now further refinement may be required, in the form of removing the Nagorno-Karabakh element from the ban. Plus, lifting the embargo on sales of defensive armaments would be apt in the first instance. Since the original 1992 OSCE measure was of a non-mandatory nature, there is no need for it to be officially repealed before Western actors step in.

Orkhan Amashov