In recent days, clashes have resumed between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. They follow a long series of conflicts in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2016, 2018 and more recently in July 2020.
They began in the late 1980s when the USSR started to break up. Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous province attached to Azerbaijan and populated mainly by Armenians (around 150,000 inhabitants), unilaterally proclaimed its independence in 1991. This independence has not been recognized by any state in the world. In 1994, Armenian forces and militiamen from the Nagorno-Karabakh region carried out an offensive aimed at conquering the Azeri territories which still separated Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh. This successful offensive led to an ethnic cleansing expelling from these territories nearly a million Azeri citizens who are now living as refugees in Azerbaijan. It lost Azerbaijan about 15% of its territory. In May 1994, a ceasefire was signed and negotiations were organized within the framework of the Minsk Group under the responsibility of France, Russia and the USA. While the conflict is "frozen," no significant progress has been made since the signing of the ceasefire.
The post-Soviet history of the Caucasus is marked by numerous territorial conflicts whose origin is most often attributed to religious and / or ethnic groups disputes. Although this approach accounts for the complexity of human populations in this region, it does not take sufficient account of its strategic positioning as a place of transition and passage between Asia and Europe, the Middle East and Central and Northern Europe. As such, it has always been at the center of conflicts between the dominant powers that surround it. Here come to mind, in particular, the rivalries between Czarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire, the rivalries involving the United Kingdom over Baku's oil wealth. In more recent times, this southern flank of the USSR was a zone of contact with NATO, of which Turkey is an important member. The destabilization of this region is therefore a thorn in the side of post-Soviet Russia and especially through Georgia which has sided with the United States.
The reactivation of this "frozen" conflict today is no accident. While Armenia and Azerbaijan may find there patriotic diversions for their peoples in a situation of deep economic and social crisis, this is not the main reason for the conflict. Its deep roots are to be found a few thousand kilometers away in the ongoing clashes between imperialist and regional powers in the Near and Middle East.
We cannot fail to notice that three of the many protagonists of the wars in Syria, Libya... surround this area: Russia, Turkey and Iran. Russia, which arms the two belligerents, is bound by defense agreements with Armenia and maintains close relations with Azerbaijan; it does not have any interest in the extension of the conflict, neither does Iran. Turkey can find in it a diversion from the difficulties that its expansionist policy entails owing to the Eastern and Mediterranean conflicts in which it is increasingly involved. Should this new point of conflict gain momentum, it could constitute a serious danger for peace. The peoples of the region have no benefit to derive from this by following the bellicose trail of their respective governments. Putting an end to the escalation of the conflict and searching for its negotiated settlement is what must prevail. But do the main protagonists – the imperialist countries and their local allies who pull the strings, have an interest in this since the status quo, like in other regions of the world, offers them opportunities to pressure their competitors within the imperialist system?
As we express our demand for an end to the fighting and for a negotiated solution, we denounce imperialism and our own in particular.