Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is a failure of the West
The ongoing Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is a failure of the West: a failure of the United Nations, for not enforcing its four standing Resolutions regarding the conflict ( https:// bit.ly/2STuvtl); a failure of Western leadership for not doing the minimal amount of due diligence required of an unbiased mediator; and a failure of Western media for not performing the simplest of Internet searches like the one above to fact- check their stories. I should know — I acted just as blindly when I moved to the region to work on global health security issues in 2007.
I could barely find Azerbaijan or Armenia on a map, let alone know that they were at war. I just knew the region was geopolitically important — it bordered Russia to the north, Iran to the south, and the oil-rich Caspian Sea to the east. It was only when I arrived that I learned that while those were the borders most important to the US, clearly it was only the Armenia
Azerbaijan border that mattered to the locals.
Here are the facts:
• Nagorno-Karabakh is in Azerbaijan. One simply need view any map of the former Soviet Union on the day it dissolved to see the official border. Try this one — a 1991 CIA map maintained by the Library of Congress: https:// bit. ly/34Qa99O.
• At the time of the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Nagorno-Karabakh was populated by both ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis, with ethnic Armenians as the clear majority. For years these ethnic Armenians had wanted to join Armenia, but they did not have the legal authority to separate, which is why Nagorno-Karabakh remains internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan to this day.
• Bloody fighting ensued, resulting in atrocities on both sides and more than 600 thousand internally displaced Azerbaijanis ( https:// bit.ly/2ImTqn0), who took refuge anywhere they could — including in the many regional “Anti-Plague Station” laboratories with which I worked.
• In Resolution 822 adopted April 30, 1993, the UN “not with alarm … the latest invasion of the Kalbadjar district of the Republic of Azerbaijan by local Armenian forces,” and “demand the …immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from the Kalbadjar district and other recently occupied areas of Azerbaijan.”
• In three additional resolutions that same year (Resolutions 853, 874, 884), the UN reaffirmed and expanded upon Resolution 822.
• Resolution 853, adopted
July 29, 1993, “demand … the immediate, complete, and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces,” and “urge the Government of the Republic of Armenia to continue to exert its influence to achieve compliance by the Armenians of the Nagorny-Karabakh region of the Azerbaijani Republic with its resolution 822 (1993) and the present resolution.”
• Resolution 874, adopted 14 October 1993, “reaffirm the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Azerbaijani Republic and … the inviolability of international borders and the inadmissibility of the use of force for the acquisition of territory,” and further “express in particular its grave concern at the displacement of large numbers of civilians in the Azerbaijani Republic.”
• Resolution 884, adopted 12 November 1993, “condemn… attacks on civilians and bombardments of the territory of the Azerbaijani Republic” and “demand…the unilateral withdrawal of occupying forces from…occupied areas of the Azerbaijani Republic.”
No withdrawal of occupying forces ever occurred.
After 27 years of festering tension, we should not be surprised that the conflict has reached a breaking point during arguably the most volatile year in world history. I would venture that the US would not cede Miami to Cuba, despite Miami’s 1.2 million Cuban residents, for even a day. I would also venture that if Spain claimed the US belonged to them because they were here first, we would defend our borders. The world is governed by borders. While the integrity of every race and ethnicity must always be protected and preserved, so must the territories and sovereignty of the nations in which they reside. Armenians are great people! So are Azerbaijanis! I have had the privilege of working with them both.
Neither are religious zealots. Their Republics are secular. Both have forged relationships that bridge regional and religious divides. But the fact is that Azerbaijan is being occupied, and the West cannot continue to ignore the UN Resolutions that repeatedly make this clear, lest they be forgotten altogether.
Dr. Richard Pilch directs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He has lived and worked in the former Soviet Union, including the Russian Federation, Republic of Azerbaijan, and Republic of Kazakhstan, intermittently since 2004.