After military defeat, what's next for Nagorno-Karabakh?
YEREVAN: Fighting has come to an end in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region a week after Armenia agreed to sign a Russian-brokered peace accord sealing its defeat to longtime rival Azerbaijan.
But
despite Armenia ceding swathes of territory and the deployment of a
Russian peacekeeping mission, a lasting solution to the decades-long
conflict remains elusive.
As part of the deal, Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh must return the Aghdam, Kalbajar and Lachin districts
to Azerbaijan starting on November 20, with a completion deadline of
December 1.
These districts and four others that Baku captured
during the six-week conflict between September 27 and November 9 had
been occupied by Armenia since a post-Soviet war in the 1990s. The
districts were not in Nagorno-Karabakh proper but formed a security belt
around the region.
Now tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians who
were encouraged to move into the region after the 1990s war are fleeing
as Azerbaijanis did some 30 years ago.
AFP journalists have
witnessed a mass exodus from the Kalbajar district, whose handover was
delayed until November 25 to allow the Armenians time to leave the
region.
Many set their homes alight to make them uninhabitable for the incoming Azerbaijanis.
An
influx of refugees is expected to result in an economic, social and
humanitarian challenge for Armenia, an impoverished country of three
million people.
Despite losing swathes of territory, including the
strategically vital second-largest town of Shusha, Nagorno-Karabakh will
see its existence guaranteed by some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to be
deployed for an initial period of five years.
"The presence of
Russian soldiers in the region will be one of the most important factors
in ensuring that a war does not start again," Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan has said.
The Russian mission will also guard the strategic Lachin corridor, the sole link between the region and Armenia.
Between
75,000 and 90,000 of the region's 150,000 inhabitants have already fled
the fighting, and local authorities have called on residents to return.
The first buses began arriving in Karabakh's main city Stepanakert at the weekend.
A long-term solution to the Karabakh conflict, which has plagued the South Caucasus since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, is not mooted in the peace accord ending the latest fighting.
Since
the mid-1990s, efforts by the co-chairs of the Minsk Group -- Russia,
France and the United States -- have not produced lasting results.
Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev has adopted a hard stance in victory,
backtracking on an earlier promise of autonomy for Nagorno-Karabakh.
"Karabakh will have no (autonomous) status as long as I am president," Aliyev has said.
Baku can also count on the unwavering support of Turkey, which after having armed and supported Azerbaijan in the latest war, has established itself as a key player in the region.
Ankara will also play a part in the peacekeeping operations, even if its role remains vague.
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