Nagorno-Karabakh: Conflict Cannot be Settled without Elimination of its Root Causes

Politique Internationale – Who started the last war in Nagorno-Karabakh?

Edward Nalbandian (1) – There is no doubt who started the last war against Nagorno-Karabakh. The first war in 1992-94 and the military aggression in April 2016 as well as the new war in September-November 2020  was launched by Azerbaijan. During the first war as well as in 2020 this country used mercenaries closely linked to notorious terrorist groups which was confirmed by high officials in Moscow, Paris, Washington and other capitals as well as several international organizations. It can be said that during the war of 1992-94 and military aggression in April 2016 Baku enjoyed moral and military support of Ankara, and it is no exaggeration to state that Turkey along with Azerbaijan was the initiator and actually also a direct participant of the last war.

    This large scale 44 days war with the use of all kinds of military weapons was a gross violation of the trilateral ceasefire agreements signed by Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia in 1994-95 that had been in force for 27 years and which have no time limitations. Since then Russia, the United States and France, the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, have been calling for the unequivocal implementation of these agreements.

The war was a gross violation of one of the Basic Principles for the settlement of the conflict proposed by the Co-Chairs, namely, the principle of non-use of force or the threat of force which during many years was included practically in all statements and documents on Nagorno-Karabakh adopted on the level of Ambassadors, Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Presidents of the Co-Chair countries.

The war was a gross disdain for the UN Secretary-General’s Appeal for Global ceasefire in the context of pandemic issued on the March 23, 2020 as well as a breach of correspondent consensual resolution N 2532 adopted by the UN SC on the July 1, 2020.

Therefore this war was not only an aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian people but also a direct act of defiance by Azerbaijan and Turkey against the Co-Chair countries, i.e. Russia, the United States and France, as well as the whole international community.

The Presidents of France, Russia and the United States have often emphasized that the conflict cannot be resolved by military means, but after the last war Aliyev has begun to assert that he showed them that the “law of force” prevails over the “force of law”.

Azerbaijan, unlike Armenia, has declined the proposals of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to confirm the obligation to achieve the settlement of the conflict exclusively by peaceful means. The Co-Chairs have offered more than once to enhance the capacities of the team of Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office in regard to monitoring the respect  of  the ceasefire regime. They offered to create a mechanism for investigation of violations of the ceasefire. On several occasions even agreements about these issues were achieved. Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to implement them. It was Azerbaijan that sabotaged …