Dr Mehmood-ul-Hassan Khan
DREAMS come true and a miracle happens in the South Caucasus. The Republic of Azerbaijan has now succeeded to liberate its illegally occupied territories from the aggressor Armenia. Fall of the strategic area of Shusha proved to be a terminal for Armenia which decided to sign a deal with Azerbaijan. It took almost 6 weeks to claim its grand victory after Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia signed an agreement on November 10 to end fierce fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh. Different moods experienced in Baku and Yerevan depicting conflicting bitter realities and centuries-old Armenian state sponsored genocide and discriminatory policies towards peaceful people of Azerbaijan. Great celebrations in Baku and incidents of violence in different parts of Armenian were reported. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan described it as “unspeakably painful” in a Facebook post. Whereas, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev termed it “historic” and “glorious” victory. This statement constitutes Armenia’s capitulation which puts an end to the years-long occupation he further added.
Under the deal, Russian President Putin said both Azerbaijan and Armenia will remain in the positions they control. There will be complete cessation of all hostilities in the occupied region. Armenia will vacate large parts of occupied Karabakh. Armenia will vacate areas of Aghdam, Kalbajar and Lachin districts in near future. Armenia will also guarantee transport from mainland Azerbaijan to the Nakhchivan Exclave (Nakhichevan-Azerbaijan transportation will be unblocked, the link will be controlled by Russia). Russian peacekeepers, who will be in the Lachin corridor for 5 years, will monitor the front line. Turkish peacekeepers will also join Russian to monitor the frontline. Internally displaced persons and refugees will return to Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions under the control of the UN Refugee Agency. Last but not the least, prisoners and bodies will be swapped. It is hoped that fourth truce/ceasefire deal will create the necessary conditions for a long-term and comprehensive solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis on a fair basis in line with the interests of all the stakeholders. Recent clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh started on 27 September. The Azerbaijani Army decided to respond to several Armenian provocations and consequently started its offensive ‘peace enforcement operation’. The aggressor Armenian escalated the situation and shelled the civilian population (Tovuz) and settlements during April 2020. Azerbaijan held a joint military exercise with Turkey. The extensive and systematic usage of drones by Azerbaijan has changed the outlook of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Israeli-made kamikaze drones IAI Harop, and Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 UCAVs gave the Azerbaijani side air superiority, which is critical in such mountainous terrain. Azerbaijan military drones softened Armenian targets and paved an easy landing of ground troops into the battlefield. It also preserved its armed forces and created a huge loss to Armenian forces.
To counter Azerbaijan’s superior drone war strategy, Armenia adopted a strategy consisting of spreading hostilities beyond the occupied region Nagorno-Karabakh to other Azerbaijani territories. While the Azerbaijani Army is successfully de-occupying major parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian forces wasted time and resources by using Soviet-made short and mid-range missiles to hit Azerbaijani towns such as Ganja, Tartar and Barda. It was deliberately aimed at inflicting massive civilian losses and raising the political and economic cost for Baku. According to Azerbaijan figures 4-5 big cities, one major settlement, one strategic mountain and 300 villages have been liberated from Armenian forces since September 27, 2020.
Fascist Armenia did not even care about strategic energy facilities, such as Mingachevir HPP and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and bombarded both. It demonstrated the Armenian frustration and ill designs to undermine the energy security and infrastructure of the entire region. Moreover, the targeting of the civil population of Azerbaijan and infrastructure was planned to try and draw Baku into attacking Armenia directly. Such a reaction would boost Yerevan’s propaganda and would offer Armenia a legitimate case to call the CSTO to send its troops to Armenia. Azerbaijan restrained from it and responded Armenia in the battlefield. Not a single civilian Armenian killed during the six-week long war. Not a single school, home, hospital or educational centre was put under fire from Azerbaijan which showed its international commitment having superior human values. The Karabakh conflict evolved from communal unrest in 1988-1990 and small scale civil war involving militias and irregular units in 1991 to an all-out war between two newly established states in 1992-1994. Loss of several territories left a deep wound in Azerbaijan’s common consciousness. Afterwards, Baku dealt with a massive humanitarian disaster as hundreds of thousands of displaced persons moved from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts to Azerbaijan.
With better leadership qualities having strategic vision, President Ilham Aliyev cemented relations with Turkey and both the states developed a strategic partnership. Azerbaijan President Aliyev also maintained a good relationship with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. He did not try to upset the Kremlin and understood Moscow’s red lines in the region. In the Karabakh conflict, Aliyev tried the diplomatic route for a long time and was open to compromise. On the other hand, Armenia’s Prime Minister, Pashinyan displeasured the Kremlin by attempting to insert pro-Western elements within Armenia’s bureaucracy and security services. His Administration also opened criminal cases against Russian companies. Moreover, Pashinyan multiplied the provocations and declared his inclination to annex the occupied territories, thereby dashing hopes for a negotiated settlement and paving the way for military escalation.
Turkey helped Azerbaijan modernize its Army. The Turkish Army trained the Azerbaijani Army, supplied Baku with some of the latest equipment in terms of electronic warfare and armed drones and helped design an efficient strategy that neutralized Armenia’s arsenal of armoured, mechanized, and motorized formations. Resultantly, Azerbaijan’s armed forces had the upper hand over the battle space. Armenia targeted Azerbaijan’s population centres with ballistic missiles to provoke retaliation, However, Baku remained focused on the Karabakh operations, thus neutralizing any possible Russian direct intervention. It is indeed a great geopolitical victory for Azerbaijan which further enhanced Turkish footprints in the region starting from Qatar in 2017, Libya in 2019 and Azerbaijan in 2020 all opted for Ankara as an ally. France openly supported aggressive policies of the Armenian government and did nothing to bring Armenia back to the negotiating table. Azerbaijan’s victory is an additional failure for Macron, who once more engaged in petty politicking at the expense of international peace.
Its victory has also opened the door for greater regional connectivity, socio-economic integration and food and energy cooperation. In this context, the opening of a land corridor connecting Turkey to Azerbaijan could enable more economic and cultural exchanges with other Turkic countries, namely Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. All in all, this is a big victory for Azerbaijan. It will certainly be written in golden letters in the history of the country. It is indeed victory of martyrdom embodied with superior human values against all aggressors, alien fascists, worshippers of genocide, blind followers of ethnic cleansing, enemies of humanity and attackers of survival and coexistence. Human spirits are always die-hard enterprises which never bowed against cruelty, conspiracy and bloodshed. Spirits of sacrifice, submission and service have now ousted Armenian ethnic groups and PKK franchises from Nagorno-Karabakh. ‘Karabakh is Azerbaijan’ has now become reality.
—The writer is Director, Geopolitics/Economics Member Board of Experts, CGSS.
