Armenian military base on the border with Azerbaijan in 1994 © Onnik James Krikorian 1994
This month marks the 30th Anniversary of the 1994 ceasefire agreement that put the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the then disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh on hold. The 5 May declaration, known as the Bishkek Protocol, instructed the sides to introduce a ceasefire on 9 May though slight delays followed. A formal cessation was signed by the Armenian, Azerbaijan, and Karabakh defence ministers days later, coming into effect just after midnight on 12 May 1994.
What followed in the coming years were various attempts to hammer out a lasting peace. Suffice to say, none were successful. Instead, and especially since 2011, signs were that a new war was coming, an inevitability that became a fact in September 2020. Up until that point, conventional wisdom had been that it would break out by accident – an escalation following a cross-border skirmish, for example – and also that it would last just a few days before the international community stepped in.
We now know that wasn’t the case. When the war did come, it lasted 44 days and broke out because the negotiation process had finally exhausted itself. Around 7,000 died on both sides in fighting that could have been avoided had mutual compromises been made earlier. They weren’t.
This year is also the 30th anniversary of my first visit to Karabakh. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians had already fled from other parts of Azerbaijan years earlier just as hundreds of thousands of ethnic Azerbaijanis had left Armenia. Hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis also fled en masse from the seven regions surrounding Karabakh. A tale of human tragedy on all sides that should have been reason alone for a negotiated settlement, but apparently not.
[…]
For much of the time since visiting Karabakh for the first time in 1994, it had seemed unlikely a peace deal would be signed in many of our lifetimes. Thirty years on, with the possibility of normalising relations greater than at anytime before, that opportunity exists again and should not be squandered. Only then can the long overdue and likely arduous but necessary task of reconciliation begin.
The full opinion piece is available here.
