Although there are frequent shooting incidents on the "line of control” surrounding Karabakh and across the Azerbaijani-Armenian state border, any more intense period of fighting necessarily raises fears of escalation, even a return to the full-scale conflict of the early 1990s. Each side blames the other for breaking the 1994 ceasefire that effectively froze the conflict without resolving it.

There were spikes in violence in July-August 2014 and again in January 2015. Renewed fighting in September this years was taken particularly seriously in Armenia because of allegations that the Azerbaijanis were using heavier weapons than usual – artillery, rockets and heavy mortars. Armenian officials said their forces responded using similar weapons.

Speakers at a debate which IWPR hosted in Yerevan on October 2 tried to unpick the reasons for the heightened levels of violence, and the possible implications. The debate was broadcast live on Armenia’s A1 television channel.

Joining the debate via a video link from London, Thomas de Waal, a leading expert and writer on the Caucasus with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, warned of the continuing risk of "war by accident”.

De Waal said that the status quo – with the Armenians exerting de facto control over Nagorny Karabakh and adjoining districts – did not favour Azerbaijan and would not encourage it to adopt a more conciliatory attitude. But that did not mean Azerbaijan was tilting towards war.

"Large-scale military operations remain a huge risk to Azerbaijan. It isn’t clear how that would end. I don’t think they have sufficient military capacity to start a war,” he said. "Nor is it clear how Russia would react in a situation like that.”

Russia’s regional intentions, in light of its actions in Ukraine and now Syria, naturally loomed large in the discussion.

Moscow is a historical ally of Armenia and continues to be that country’s major security and economic partner. But it also sells high-tech weaponry to Azerbaijan, an oil-rich country with far more spending power than Armenia.

Russia is at the same time one of the three co-chairs (with France and the United States) of the Minsk Group, the OSCE body that oversees the Karabakh talks process. Despite the obligation of diplomatic neutrality that this imposes, the Russians have recently caused a stir by offering – unilaterally – to send a peacekeeping force to patrol the Karabakh front lines.

While this proposal is still up in the air, some Armenian commentators are worried about the implications, especially since Azerbaijan now seems amenable to the idea after previous refusals to countenance it.

Agasi Yenokyan, who is director of the Armenian Centre for Political and International Studies, said that President Sargsyan had "effectively agreed” to a peacekeeping force. As for Azerbaijan, Yenokyan suspected it might be hoping to exploit the peacekeeping presence to "bite off a chunk of Karabakh” in the knowledge that the Russian troops would not stay long.

"We see how Russia has frozen the conflict in Donbass and is launching a major expansion in Syria, and potentially the South Caucasus, too,” he said. "Russian might therefore send in a limited peacekeeping force, which wouldn’t cost it a great deal but would bring immense political dividends.”

Sargsyan said recent developments had demonstrated that the Armenian government had adopted a new, more proactive stance to military operations, which might force Russia to abandon or rethink any plans to deploy in the region.

Another point on which the speakers agreed was that Western interest in the South Caucasus, including engagement in the Minsk Group process, was diminishing. This was not helped by the fact that the West was now at odds with Moscow.

"In the context of the Ukrainian conflict, we can see how countries are divided on how to achieve the objective. It’s the same with Karabakh – there is little mutual trust even though everyone wants to achieve peace,” De Waal said.

De Waal said the general contours of a peace deal were already apparent, but required mutual compromises.

"Unfortunately, we can see that the international community isn’t currently prepared to assume responsibility of Karabakh, and no one trusts Russia enough to hand it that responsibility,” he said. "Sadly, I fear that the situation will get worse. But the West is not yet paying enough attention to this.”

 

(IWPR)