Will Azerbaijan accept ethnic Armenians' 'right to return' to Nagorno-Karabakh 'homeland'?

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00:00 Olesya Vartanyan is a senior analyst for the South Caucasus region for the International

00:04 Crisis Group.

00:05 She joins me now live from Tbilisi, Georgia.

00:08 Olesya, thanks for taking the time to speak to us.

00:10 Now, your work focuses on breakaway regions like Nagorno-Karabakh.

00:14 This is the second time the French foreign affairs minister is visiting the region.

00:19 What kind of support from France will she be bringing, do you think, to help the situation?

00:23 Well, French minister, she is coming from Kiev, that she visited Ukraine, and then she's

00:30 coming to Armenia that has just experienced with mass inflow of the people from Nagorno-Karabakh.

00:38 So we probably should expect her to raise some concerns about Russia's failure to protect

00:44 with people in Azerbaijan.

00:46 It's a peacekeeping mission that was deployed there, was standing by and watching how the

00:51 attack was taking place, and was not really helping the people who were trying to flee

00:56 the region.

00:57 There will be probably more and more questions and statements made about Russia's failure

01:03 in Nagorno-Karabakh that led to this catastrophic situation that your reporters saw on the ground

01:11 as well.

01:12 So, as you mentioned, the French foreign minister was in Ukraine just before this visit.

01:16 Russia has traditionally been an ally of Armenia.

01:20 How worried now do you think France is about Russia's influence in the region?

01:25 You know, there will be the meeting taking place between the Armenian and Azerbaijani

01:29 leaders at the upcoming EU summit, and the French president, he will be one of those

01:35 who will be mediating, who will be present at that meeting.

01:39 France is the one that has been traditionally very much involved in the topic, and probably

01:44 we should expect France to continue raising the issues about the longer-term stability

01:51 of the whole South Caucasus, but particularly about Armenia that feels so much vulnerable

01:56 and expects new attacks and new escalation at its own territory.

02:00 Yes, Catherine Colonna coming right before that meeting of European leaders that's going

02:05 to be taking place soon in Spain about Nagorno-Karabakh.

02:09 What do you think needs to come out of that meeting?

02:12 Well, we definitely need to see the continuation of the talks.

02:16 There should be some commitment from the Azerbaijani side that Azerbaijan will agree to continue

02:22 the peace talks with Armenia on good terms and also finding some solution to the standing

02:28 problems.

02:29 There will be also a need to hear about what will be happening to these people who came

02:33 to Armenia but who do reserve the right to return and also who believe that Nagorno-Karabakh

02:40 is their homeland.

02:42 So there definitely need to hear, first of all, some promise about the continuation of

02:49 the talks and the peace process, but also some promise for stability here in the region,

02:54 on the ground.

02:55 In the meantime, of course, almost all of these residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, we're

02:59 talking over 100,000 people, have fled the region.

03:02 What more do you know about their situation now in Armenia?

03:06 They are trying to settle.

03:07 There are many people who are trying to help them.

03:10 It will be a very difficult process, I should say, although with our ethnic Armenians coming

03:15 to Armenia, they are very different.

03:18 They have their own tradition, their own language.

03:21 It will be very long and difficult process to integrate them.

03:26 Some of the countries, including France, have already donated the funds.

03:29 There will be a need for more and also precise scrutiny of how this integration process will

03:35 be taking place.

03:37 But what's really very important is to keep the hope for these people that one day they

03:41 can go back home to Nagorno-Karabakh.

03:43 Well, Olesya, you've been studying this region for a very long time.

03:48 This surprise takeover came after decades of separatist struggle.

03:52 Do you really think there is a chance Nagorno-Karabakh will belong to the ethnic Armenians who left

03:57 it once again?

03:59 You know, this is not the issue of legalistic terms.

04:03 These people, they believe that this is where they belong and this is where they have been

04:07 living.

04:08 They have been living there for three decades since the beginning of this conflict, and

04:13 there was no international presence for a very long time.

04:16 They still continue living there.

04:17 There are some other places all around the world like this, but it's really very unfortunate

04:22 that in Nagorno-Karabakh there was no chance to keep these people on the ground and also

04:29 to prevent this military operation that we saw just days ago.

04:35 It's a failure that many, in fact, predicted and then saw coming, and it's really very

04:42 sad to see that there was no possibility to prevent it from happening.

04:48 The situation is relatively calm at the moment, but it could easily turn into a new escalation.

04:53 Just a quick word on the Armenian army.

04:55 Do you think that it's prepared to fight back?

04:58 It's, you know, right now all the eyes are, of course, at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border,

05:04 not Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone itself.

05:06 Again, people left Nagorno-Karabakh.

05:09 There is no one who will be fighting Azerbaijani forces there.

05:13 There are the problems at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, which stayed the deadly area since

05:18 the 2020 war for the last three years, which is actually the area where we have seen most

05:25 of the casualties.

05:26 In fact, the French minister, she visited that area just five months ago when she was

05:33 in the region last time, exactly because everyone understood that this is where Armenia is particularly

05:39 vulnerable, this is where this country will not be able to defend itself, and this is

05:45 probably where Azerbaijan could take over more territory.

05:50 We saw that it took Azerbaijani forces just several hours to take strategic control over

05:57 Nagorno-Karabakh.

05:58 It will be similar for Armenia if a new escalation is to start.

06:02 All right, Alessia.

06:03 Thanks so much for sharing your expertise with us.

06:05 Alessia Vartanian speaking to me there from Tbilisi in Georgia.

06:08 Thank you.

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