Then Azerbaijan, which had perhaps been too quiet in recent months, exploded. Baku was fuming over the fact that Turkey was apparently prepared to reopen the border with Armenia without having secured concessions from Yerevan over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In Azerbaijan Turkey has been portrayed as betraying the nation. Baku has threatened to pull out of the Nabucco gas pipeline project, apparently blocked Turkish television channels and run off to Moscow for discussions with the Kremlin -- clearly to signal that it has other options on the table. Although I would say that aligning itself increasingly with Moscow and turning its back on longtime friends is not in the real interests of Azerbaijan. What will happen next is anybody's guess.Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 following Armenia's occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh (an Azerbaijani province with a predominantly Armenian population) and seven surrounding districts (17 percent of Azerbaijan's territory). Ethnic Azerbaijanis were driven out of Karabakh and the conflict created a massive humanitarian crisis. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said that Azerbaijan has the fourth-largest number of displaced people in the world -- 570,000 people (15 percent of its 8-million-strong population). Today Nagorno-Karabakh is more or less an extension of Armenia (linked by the Lachin corridor), and its population of 130,000 is almost entirely ethnically Armenian. The territory is dependent on imports and exports from and through Armenia and uses the Armenian currency. The Nagorno-Karabakh budget is mainly funded by government loans from Armenia and the diaspora community, which is a big investor in the region, and around half the budget is spent on the army. There is considerable unemployment and many people depend on money sent home from abroad (almost all families have at least one family member working or studying overseas).
The 1994 cease-fire has remained mostly intact, although there continues to be sniper fire on an almost daily basis across a 175-meter "line of contact" with approximately 30,000 troops on each side. In 2008 over 30 people were killed. There are no international peacekeepers -- just a small group of six unarmed Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observers who monitor the line of contact on an irregular basis and cannot arrive unannounced.
Furthermore, both the Azerbaijani and Armenian governments have engaged in a serious arms race, making the Southern Caucasus the most heavily armed region in Europe. For the last 15 years, the OSCE Minsk Group, through its co-chairs, Russia, France and the US, has acted as the intermediary for peace talks. Progress has been slow and although there have been at least three peace plans, they were principally rejected because of failure on both sides to seriously engage in the talks. Furthermore, the political interests of the three co-chairs have also interfered in the process. The most recent proposal, known as "the basic principles," is a step-by-step approach that allows for the quick return of most of Azerbaijan's territory with international security guarantees and peacekeepers, and on many of the points the leaders have reached consensus. However, the eventual status of Nagorno-Karabakh still remains unresolved and continues to block the whole process. Therefore, making progress on Nagorno-Karabakh, unless there is sufficient outside pressure, will remain difficult.
In light of this, will Turkey really revert to its old policy of stating that the normalization of relations is conditional on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue -- a policy that has over the last 17 years had no effect whatsoever on Armenia's position and has only helped contribute to regional instability in the Southern Caucasus. I fear this would be a grave mistake. On the other hand, there is no doubt that Russia could push Armenia into making some concessions -- if the Kremlin so desired. Russia has shown signs that it wants to push for the resolution of this conflict, but clearly it would need to take into account its own interests in the region, including security concerns. In this respect the upcoming visit of the Armenian president to Moscow will be important, as will the meeting between the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents on the sidelines of the Eastern Partnership summit in Prague on May 7.
However, I fear that if there is no movement after these encounters, things will look rather bleak. Armenia will no doubt find it difficult dealing with an increasingly "we told you so" diaspora community and may be pressured to back out of further talks. It will also put increased pressure on US President Barack Obama, given that he was counting on Turkey to avoid having to deliver on his genocide pledge. Therefore, the fallout of Baku's objections could be huge. In this case, unless the Turkish government can convince Baku or take a leap of faith and move forward regardless, it seems it will be difficult to find a way through.
