Trouble Brewing in the Caucasus

Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister has recently threatened to resume its war against Armenia, should they recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan may resume war against Armenia if the country recognizes the independence of the controversial Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, the Azeri Defense Minister said on Tuesday.At a meeting with the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Jim MacDougall, Safar Abiyev said the longstanding conflict over the enclave posed a threat to the security of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The pipeline is set to start delivering Caspian Sea oil to the Mediterranean.

Abiyev was quoted by AP as saying the Armenian leadership declared that it may recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. If it does, it could lead to the resumption of fighting, he said.Armenia said last month that it could officially recognize Nagorno-Karabakh if negotiations on its status reach a dead end.

Making such a bold statement is clearly meant to raise flags abroad. With the BTC pipline running a bit north of the enclave, the West would never allow the resumption of hostilities between the two. Armenia, who recently threatened to officially recognize the enclave’s independence, which not a single country has thusfar done, was surely counting on such a response, as little else could be expected. Considering negotiations between the two are not only ongoing, but going nowhere, this is likely a call for attention to bring the international community in in order to ensure a final settlement is reached, hopefully in Armenia’s favor by pushing the Azeris to up the rhetoric to the point of bringing in outsiders. Nothing gets attention like war in or around oil producing countries and pipelines.

Armenia, who has been left out of the BTC and almost all economic and political development in the region lately is the odd man out in the Caucasus, showing little sign of progress and going nowhere fast. As long as the NK conflict goes on, its isolation will continue. Armenia is no stranger to problems though as its border to Turkey has been closed for years also because of the NK dispute and on top of that, Turkey has imposed an economic blockade against Armenia for their occupation of what they consider parts of Azerbaijan, their ethnic and linguistics cousins. Thus, solving NK, is key to opening Armenia back up on both sides and in order to hop on the regional prosperity bandwagon. Azerbaijan, though shakey, has some future in its oil wealth and Georgia, since the rose revolution, has been the West’s new best friend even receiving a visit from President Bush. With a per-capita GDP of around 4,600 USD, 50% of the population below the poverty rate, 30% unemployment and the only thing keeping it afloat being money from abroad, this ploy had better work for Armenia’s sake.

More information can be found at Registan and Blogrel, both of whom are more knowledgable on this subject than me and of course at GlobalSecurity.org.