Armenia and Azerbaijan are accusing each other of targeting civilian populations in a dangerous flare-up over the disputed separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
As the newly reignited conflict intensifies in a second week of fighting diplomats from Moscow to Paris are scrambling to try to persuade the warring sides to agree a ceasefire. But missiles and rockets continue to rain down — despite a call, too, from the United States, for a halt to the fighting.
The enclave, which is inside Azerbaijan's borders but enjoys de facto independence and has an Armenian majority, has not seen such heavy clashes since the early 1990s, when as many as 30,000 people lost their lives before a ceasefire largely brokered by Moscow left the dispute frozen.
And fears are mounting that it will not be easy this time either to secure a rapid end to the hostilities, which has seen dozens already killed. Observers fear the clashes are one step away from a broader war in the Caucasus that risks embroiling Russia and Turkey on opposing sides in yet another conflict, adding Nagorno-Karabakh to the list comprising Syria and Libya as theaters of competition between Moscow and Ankara.
While Armenia has said it is ready to discuss a ceasefire, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has so far shrugged off talk of a truce and appears determined to press on with a military campaign involving heavy artillery, tanks and drones to wrest control of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other Armenian-controlled territories adjacent to the enclave.
Some analysts say Azerbaijan has been emboldened by its ally Turkey and fear his hardline position will make it much more difficult to negotiate a truce. Aliyev set uncompromising conditions Sunday for a halt to the fighting, saying Armenian forces “must leave our territories, not in words but in deeds,” apologize to the Azerbaijani people and recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
Armenia is not likely to accede to such conditions, say western diplomats.
The territorial dispute has its origins in the disintegration of the Soviet Union, when Nagorno Karabakh, encouraged by Armenia, declared independence from Azerbaijan, triggering a violent conflict which ended in the 1994 ceasefire. Since 1994, there have been episodic clashes with 300 border incidents in the past five years alone.
Long-running talks overseen by France, the US and Russia as co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, Minsk Group have stalemated.
Fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces, including Nagorno-Karabakh fighters, erupted on 27 September after months of smaller border clashes. The territory, which is crisscrossed by energy pipelines, is of strategic importance to Russia, Turkey and Iran.
While both sides blame the other for this latest blood-letting in one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, Azerbaijan appears to have been preparing an offensive for some time, aiming to reverse the territorial gains made by Armenia in the 1990s. “Baku may have chosen to advance now in the hope of recovering more territory in the face of an inert negotiating process and a distracted international community,” according to the International Crisis Group, a Brussels think tank.
“Russia, potentially with European support, probably stands the best chance of brokering a ceasefire,” ICG said in a statement. Moscow has a formal mutual defense pact with Armenia as well as an air base in the country, but it enjoys close ties with Baku, too.
Turkey has close ethnic, religious and linguistic ties to Azerbaijan. Ankara is suspected of supplying armed drones to Baku and has been accused by Armenia and western Europe governments of recruiting Syrian rebels to fight in Nagorno Karabakh, a charge the Turks have denied.
“While, as usual, most countries are calling for de-escalation and a ceasefire, for the first time, a major power and neighbor—Turkey—is openly backing one of the parties to the conflict, Azerbaijan,” according to Thomas de Waal, an analyst with the think tank Carnegie Europe. In the past Turkey has acted as a brake on Azerbaijan, he says. “Those days are now over, and the geopolitical equilibrium that prevailed around the conflict is broken,” de Waal adds.