Nagorno-Karabakh: What are Azerbaijan's aims as first peace talks end?

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00 Reintegration talks between Azerbaijani officials and the delegation representing Armenian

00:04 separatists have come to an end.

00:07 The discussions came as part of a peace agreement which was clinched just yesterday and was

00:12 mediated by Russian peacekeepers.

00:14 It came after Azerbaijan launched a 24-hour military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh this

00:20 week.

00:21 The ceasefire agreement included Armenian separatists laying down their weapons and

00:25 handing them over to Azerbaijan.

00:27 We can now bring in France 24's international affairs commentator, Douglas Herbert.

00:32 Douglas, good afternoon.

00:33 Is it fair to say that Azerbaijan was the one calling the shots in these talks?

00:37 It's fair and it's factual.

00:40 Look Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, who I will call an authoritarian leader, he

00:45 made a nationally televised speech on Wednesday evening, that is last night, local time, in

00:52 which he basically said that local Karabakhs in Nagorno-Karabakh, that is the ethnic Armenians

00:58 living in that enclave, should not forget, and these were his words, that they live in

01:03 Azerbaijan.

01:04 This was a clear assertion that that enclave, which had been until a couple of days ago

01:09 an enclave with a separatist breakaway government with aspirations of having some sort of autonomy

01:16 of their own, is very much part of Azerbaijan.

01:20 Now let's be clear, Nagorno-Karabakh for decades has been recognized as part of Azerbaijan

01:28 internationally.

01:30 The international community has recognized it.

01:32 That said, the ethnic Armenians who led the separatist government in the enclave, which

01:37 was populated mostly by Armenians, they have always contended that they had a right to

01:43 their own autonomy, their own aspirations, to make a lot of their own local rules, and

01:49 they claimed that Nagorno-Karabakh is their ancestral homeland.

01:53 And since the first awful war that was waged between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which ended

01:58 in 1994, you had had essentially the Armenians in control of both Nagorno-Karabakh and several

02:05 territories that surrounded it.

02:07 The more recent war, one in 2020, it lasted 44 days, Azerbaijan recaptured all of those

02:13 territories plus parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, the enclave itself.

02:18 So this was a further, this 24-hour operation basically consolidated what Azerbaijan began

02:24 and almost accomplished in 2020, which was retaking for itself all of Azerbaijan.

02:30 And going into these talks, the tone was in this nationally televised speech, the strongman

02:35 Ilham Aliyev also said that they had restored sovereignty, quote, "with an iron fist."

02:42 That's all you need to know about how Azerbaijan approaches these talks.

02:46 It is coming into these talks, it's not a 50-50, one side says, the other side says,

02:50 it's not negotiations.

02:51 They are going in from the victors standpoint.

02:54 And the ethnic Armenian representatives in these talks are very much the vanquished party

02:59 that is now surrendering what had been essentially their aspirations for decades to limited autonomy

03:06 in Nagorno-Karabakh.

03:07 Let's talk about the ethnic Armenians, because there are frustrations amongst ethnic Armenians

03:13 living in Nagorno-Karabakh about their security and their future, because separatists have

03:18 been forced to lay down their weapons.

03:19 So what happens now?

03:21 No one knows.

03:22 A lot of uncertainty, but the fears are that this could lead to a real exodus.

03:25 And I'm not, that's not too big a word.

03:28 It's not too dramatic a word to use.

03:30 There had been 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.

03:33 There's still tens of thousands there.

03:35 Many, hundreds, if not thousands, have reportedly taken refuge at the airport.

03:41 They're trying to get out, trying to flee the enclave, the airport located next to the

03:45 Russian peacekeeping base.

03:47 And right now you have the European community and others out there saying really concerned

03:52 that Azerbaijan will respect and safeguard the rights of the ethnic Armenians who remain

03:59 in this enclave.

04:00 I want to just quickly show you a quote from the Armenian foreign minister.

04:05 Now this was at the UN General Assembly.

04:07 It was at a forum actually at the UN General Assembly, not to the whole assembly.

04:10 120,000 people, including women, children, elderly people, currently facing an existential

04:15 threat to their lives as Azerbaijan tries to, ready for this, ethnically cleanse and

04:20 deprive the people of Nagorno-Karabakh from their right to live in their homeland and

04:23 security, freedom, and dignity.

04:24 You see those words, ethnically cleanse.

04:26 Now you might raise your eyebrows and say those are fighting words.

04:29 Those are, wow, strong words, ethnically cleansing.

04:32 But this is a theme that rises time and time again.

04:36 Armenians bring it up both in Nagorno-Karabakh and outside in Armenia.

04:40 They see this as Azerbaijan essentially trying to drive them, to erase them, to drive them

04:46 from Nagorno-Karabakh.

04:48 There are parallels drawn as well with say what Russia has been trying to do with Ukraine.

04:53 People aren't perhaps using as much the word ethnic cleansing.

04:55 It's an extremely loaded and charged term.

04:57 But this sense of trying to drive out or reclaim with an iron fist sovereignty over a region.

05:04 Those are the fears now, despite Aliyev, the Azerbaijani president, saying he will safeguard

05:09 the rights of ethnic Armenians.

05:11 The Armenians there are not buying it and they are very fearful for their future.

05:15 Let's talk about Russia for a second because Vladimir Putin was a staunch ally of Armenia,

05:21 but many Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh feel like they've been left out to dry by Russia,

05:28 the West, and Armenia.

05:30 Absolutely.

05:32 You summed it up very well.

05:33 In fact, in the protests we've seen in Yerevan, in the Armenian capital, and remember the

05:37 prime minister there said that he had no role in the ceasefire negotiations, that Armenia

05:41 had no troops presence there in this conflict.

05:44 But protests in Yerevan, you've had people calling out Vladimir Putin, the Russian president,

05:50 and the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, calling them expletives that I will not repeat here.

05:56 But a real sense that Russia, a putative ally, right?

05:59 Russia basically was seen as a security guarantor for Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenians there.

06:03 It had the 2,000 peacekeepers there trying to sort of safeguard and protect their rights.

06:09 That since 2020 and the last war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

06:14 And at the same time, Russia has a military base in Armenia.

06:18 What's happened here, though, it's interesting, is some observers say, well, Russia is now

06:21 losing influence in its backyard.

06:23 It's slipping.

06:24 It no longer has the same control that this is also a defeat for Russia.

06:27 But you could look at it another way as well.

06:29 Russia lately had been pivoting more towards the West, leaning West, courting NATO, courting

06:35 Western allies.

06:36 The Armenian prime minister, his country recently conducted joint US joint exercises, military

06:42 exercises, which it unprecedented.

06:45 You can imagine, given the geopolitical context, this might have slightly irritated Vladimir

06:49 Putin.

06:50 And while he's not going to explicitly say so, and he's actually called Pashinyan, reportedly

06:54 is going to.

06:55 Yeah.

06:56 And basically wants to protect the rights of Armenians and is called on Azerbaijan to

07:00 do so and all of that.

07:01 At the same time, you could see that there's perhaps a little bit of that vindictiveness,

07:05 a little bit of a desire for vengeance there, given the fact that Armenia has been sort

07:10 of going the way, perhaps from Russia's perspective, of the color revolutions that we've seen,

07:15 leaning West rather than into Russia's orbit.

Category

Transcript

Recommended