Aghdam © Onnik James Krikorian 2001

Upon visiting Karabakh in 1994, there were two possible routes for my return to Yerevan. The first was the same way I arrived by military helicopter, and the second was by road. With no highway in place at the time, that would take longer and prove more challenging. Even if the helicopter on the way to Karabakh had to perform an evasive manoeuvre when the pilot was informed of Azerbaijani activity in the area, it was by far the quickest and made the journey in under 45 minutes rather than an estimated 12 hours by road. I had spent less than three hours in Yerevan upon arrival from London and over a week in Karabakh. A few days would barely be enough for meetings with Vazgen Sargsyan in Yerevan and the Locum Tenens Catholicos in Etchmiadzin. I also had to meet Seta Melkonian, then recently widowed wife of Monte, and two local journalists reporting on the conflict.

In retrospect, I regret not choosing making the journey by road which would have taken me through Lachin, the main Azerbaijani town outside the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) since emptied of its ethnic Azerbaijani and Kurdish population two years earlier. It wasn’t until my next visit to Karabakh in 1999 that I finally took the newly constructed highway that served as the vital link between Armenia and the breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh. I visited Lachin many times over the next decade, staying for a week at a time to document the Armenian settlers whose number always seemed to decline rather than increase. When Armenian forces set fire to parts of Lachin when they took it in 1992, it was always going to be difficult to inhabit the damage was that extensive.

 

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Throughout the early 2000s, similar sights were to await me in Kelbajar, Jabrail, Fuzuli, Gubadli, and Zangilan. Even despite four outstanding UN Security Council Resolutions calling for the return of the seven regions, there was never ever any real sign if that happening over the coming two decades. Instead, toponyms were changed, nationalists lobbied to have Armenian television show maps of the NKAO and surrounding regions in weather reports, and an amalgamated Artsakh entered the local imagination rather than the political entity itself. No matter that over 600,000 Azerbaijanis fled their homes, opening another tragic chapter in a conflict that had already seen 200,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis leave Armenia and 300,000 ethnic Armenians leave Azerbaijan proper.

 

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There are other cases too. While again accompanying Thomas de Waal on one of his visits to Karabakh in the early 2000s for Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through War and Peace, I told him about Mher Gabrielyan, a Karabakh Armenian who attempted to protect Azerbaijani cultural sites in Shusha when Armenian forces took it in 1992. He failed and Gabrielyan was eventually run out of Karabakh and moved to Armenia. Others have documented the village exchange between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in their rump countries. Both now care for the cemeteries of each other until better times. We seldom hear such stories. Some never do even if reconciliation will prove even more difficult without them..

The full piece is available here.

Even though many believed a second Trump presidency was unlikely or even impossible, his re-election last November demonstrated how many people prefer to favour dreams over reality, transforming fears into self-fulfilling prophecies. This is a situation that can best describe how Track II diplomacy in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict has been conducted over time. As a result, there is little to no agreement between the sides, the blatantly obvious is ignored, and meetings become performative at best or simply a continuation of the conflict at worst.

In many cases, participants are not even inclined to work towards solutions but to instead articulate partisan positions that shut down all possibility for real discussion. In the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, any resolution of the three-decades-long conflict thus remains the sole preserve of governments. Instead, what civil society initiatives exist simply regurgitate the same approaches of old even if they hardly succeeded then let alone would fare differently today. Few are willing to think out of the box or even ask the right questions.

 

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This is perilous and has proven counter-productive in the past. Since the November 2020 ceasefire agreement, both the region and the world have undergone significant changes. The return of Donald Trump to the U.S. highlights this perfectly, underscoring the need for more problem-solving and risk-aware approaches. Track II dialogue should focus on developing a range of short, medium, and long-term recommendations to decision makers taking into account potential challenges and scenarios along the way, allowing adaptability and scalability with that in mind.

 

Arguably, only this can arguably prevent continued disappointment and its likely consequences. Moreover, a genuine discussion that is public, transparent, and inclusive, including among the populations, must start. It is already late. 

The full piece is available here.