In the summer of 2020, the misery of Armenians was exacerbated beyond COVID-19. Armenian troops suffered a losing streak on the battlefields of Nagorno-Karabakh (also called Artsakh); a region home to both Azeris and Armenians and under de facto Armenian control. After the war ended with an Azeri victory, the international focus shifted from the COVID-19 to Nagorno-Karabakh under fire. It is surprising that there’s religious and ethnic disharmony between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the pluralistic era of the 21st century.

Many categorically believe that this disastrous conflict stems from a history of religious and ethnic differences between Christian Armenians and Muslim Azeris, which has festered into a long-term vendetta between the two groups. But we cannot simply account for this war by appealing to religious and ethnic differences; Tsarist Russia, Britain, and the Soviet Union are the real culprits behind this conflict as their ineffective governance sowed the seeds of turmoil throughout Nagorno-Karabakh from the 19th to 20th centuries.

Since the 19th century, the Russians have poorly managed the region under the reign of the Romanov Dynasty. After the collapse of the Russian Empire, the British nominated Sultanov, an Azerbaijani, to govern Karabakh. Aiming to expand their influence in Caucasus, they ignored Armenians’ reluctance to be ruled by foreigners, especially after the Armenian Genocide. The Soviet Union exacerbated the Karabakh situation and the influence of its mismanagement is still felt today. As the New York Times Editorial Board explained. “The conflict dates to the Soviet partitioning of its empire in 1923, which left Nagorno-Karabakh and its largely Christian Armenian population inside largely Muslim Azerbaijan.”[1]

It is never peaceful when you lock up two lions who want to be king into the same cage. This has been true of Azeris and Armenians for hundreds of years in Nagorno-Karabakh. Tsarist Russia, the British monarchy, and the Soviet Union initially all had chances to separate Armenians and Azerbaijanis. This could be done by abolishing the former administration model and establishing a new one, which would separate the two antagonistic ethnicities and demarcate them within their own home. Yet no one was proactive in creating regional political stability. Arsene Sarapov, a historian of Central Asia, writes, “Each of these actors pursued its own goals but usually possessed insufficient resources to impose its will in an unconditional manner.”[2] Those ‘Great Powers’ repaired nothing and only pursued their own profits: geopolitical merits such as plentiful oilfields in Azerbaijan, maritime domains along the Black Sea, and a harmonious relationship with the Turks. They avoided drastic reformations of territories that could’ve irritated the volatile nationalistic atmosphere.

When the third parties withdrew their power projections from Transcaucasia in the late 20th century, Nagorno-Karabakh became chaotized, and it is still in turmoil today partly due to the lack of delineated borders and property distribution. This has led to subsequent disputes and fights between Azeris and Armenians, such as the First and the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Even though the third parties have left the region, their consequences of their actions still reverberate in today’s conflicts.

The crux of the conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh is a long-term ethnic hatred. The conflict has been painted as a religious war between Muslims and Christians, but Jo Laycock has offered a different interpretation of events, portraying the war as a battle between nations. Laycock writes, “the Turkish government’s support to Azerbaijan during the current war heightened the connection between these events and the Armenian Genocide”[3]. However, the fierce religionism and nationalism are not impossible to be alleviated. What the Nagorno-Karabakh issue really needs is a truly responsible international community to create positive structure and procedures for defusing the internecine conflicts and hatred, not undying round table negotiations resulting in no progress.

Kosovo is one of the most expedient templates for the international community toemulate if they hope to solve the dilemma in Artsakh. Kosovo has also experienced long-time bloody, unfeeling, and mutinous insurrections with the Albanian Muslims and the Catholic Slavs. But after the Kosovo War, Kosovo gained its independence and the United Nations and NATO intervened where necessary to establish peace. This ensured a new administrative mechanism and that foreign interventions were erected to create a new peace-making system. In the current century, Kosovo is under a time of peaceful reconstruction.

Despite the fact that tsarist Russia, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union failed in mitigating the Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts, international-level' endeavors are still needed today. Besides the UN's peacekeeping forces, international organizations which concern youths such as the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) can also play pivotal roles. Representing the possibility of the future, the younger generation of these two nations is believed to be the cornerstone of creating an interactive atmosphere in the Transcaucasus where frequent cultural exchanges are expected to become normalized and fluid. The international community could sponsor and establish institutions such as the Azerbaijani youth organization LeftEast and Children of Armenia Fund to promote interactivity and facilitate more profound and comprehensive communication within each generation.

Although it is sagacious to allow for the influence of the international community, promoting revolutionary ethnic autonomy (achieving Artsakh independent or annexed by Armenia), in which Russia and Turkey could hold accountability for, is still a major imperative. An autonomic administration could thaw the direct tensions between the Armenians and Azeris, and Russia-Turkey interference could restrain the conflicts from outbreak. This is a hopeful solution, especially after the positive results of the Russia-Turkey partnership in Syria.[4] Carrying this point of hope into the present, an even brighter future of Artsakh seems to be on the horizon as the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan met in March 2020 for the first official sit-down talks since 2009, agreeing to form a formal diplomatic relationship and maintain the Transcaucasian stability.

References:
[1] The Editorial Board, ( Oct.8.2020), The Trouble in the South Caucasus Extends Far Beyond One Small Enclave---Hundreds of people have already died in the fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Bigger neighbors can help stop the bloodshed, (New York Times), 43-45
[2] Arsene Sarapov, (2015) From Conflict to Autonomy in the Caucasus---The Soviet Union and the making of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh, (Routledge), 122
[3] Jo Laycock, (Oct.8.2020), Nagorno-Karabakh’s Myth of Ancient Hatreds---The Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan is sometimes explained as a result of ‘ancient hatreds’. In reality, it is nothing of the sort, despite both sides using history to bolster their claims to the region, (History Today)
[4] Daria Isachenko, (Nov.11.2020), Turkey–Russia Partnership in the War over Nagorno-Karabakh---Militarised Peacebuilding with Implications for Conflict Transformation, (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik)