A Russian-brokered ceasefire for the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh hands victory to Azerbaijan and Turkey, while allowing President Vladimir Putin to destabilise an Armenian leader he never liked, analysts told the Daily Beast in an article published on Tuesday.
Six weeks of fighting between Armenian separatists and the Azeri military, which is backed by Turkey, represented the latest flare-up in a decades-long dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russia and the United States had previously brokered three failed truces to help end the clashes, with a death toll feared to be in the thousands. The initiatives failed and the battles threatened to spread beyond the de facto independent state, which is located within Azerbaijan’s borders but controlled by ethnic Armenians.
The latest ceasefire, signed early on Tuesday, allows Azerbaijan to keep the territory it captured in Nagorno-Karabakh including the region’s second city of Shusha, a historical and cultural centre. It also envisages the deployment of Russian peacekeeping troops in the region as observers.
“The agenda has totally changed overnight,” Arthur Pashinyan, a Moscow-based Armenian political analyst, told The Daily Beast. “If before the United States and France negotiated Karabakh’s peace with Moscow, today it is Russia and Turkey who are going to control the fulfilment of this fragile peace agreement.”
Russia has been the dominant player in the Caucasus region and maintains a defence pact with Armenia, a close ally. The agreement does not however cover Nagorno-Karabakh. Moscow has also cultivated warmer relations with Azerbaijan in recent years. It sells weapons to both sides.
“I cannot understand why Putin would give up Russia’s monopoly influence in the south Caucasus,” Pashinyan said.
“Is it an argument against the United States? Americans can put pressure on Russia by economic sanctions, but Turkey is building a powerful empire. It would not surprise me if we see the Turkish military in Central Asia in a few years.”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Monday that calling an end to the fighting was “extremely painful”, but the agreement followed “an in-depth analysis of the military situation” that has seen Azeri forces closing in on Stepanakert, the region’s capital.
The Daily Beast said Russia made a concession to Turkey, which declared firm support to Azerbaijan shortly after the clashes began, in exchange for control of Armenian domestic politics.
“From Putin’s point of view the current situation is a success all the way around: he strikes peace and gets rid of Pashinyan, whom he never liked,” Timur Olevsky, a political observer of the Current Time TV show, told The Daily Beast.
“Putin does not think of defending Christianity against Islam. On the contrary, as we can see in the Middle East, Putin seems more successful dealing with Muslim leaders,” he said.
Pashinyan rose to power on an anti-Russia platform following massive street demonstrations two years ago unseated the Moscow-friendly government.
The ceasefire for Nagorno-Karabakh has triggered unrest in Armenia by protesters labelling the prime minister as a ‘traitor’ and demanding his resignation.