Il conflitto armato per la regione del Nagorno-Karabakh dalla prospettiva dell'Azerbaigian.

Abstract

At the end of the 1980s the territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan for the Nagorno-Karabakh region broke out. Located in the South Caucasus, this piece of mountainous land has been identified by scientists as part of the ancient Reign of Albània. The Albans, that over the years were "armenised" (although a part of them was also assimilated to the Turkish ethnic element), had inhabited this territory for centuries. It is certain that on that territory lived the meliks of Karabakh, descendants of the old impoverished Armenian aristocracy. However, the Armenians have lived in very close contact with the Tatars for a long time. The latter were Muslim shepherds that grazed their flock in the mountains and wintered on the plain lands. The mostly peaceful coexistence in the region of both Armenian and Tatar populations is indisputable, at least until the middle of the eighteenth century when a big number of Armenians was expelled from the Karabakh region, among them the Christian meliks. After the Tsarist conquest, the region saw a large increase in the Armenian population at the expense of the Muslims. The Armenians from Persia and the Ottoman Empire, loyal to the tsar, were encouraged to settle in the Russian empire after centuries of vexations. When the revolutionary uprisings happened in Russia, irredentist pushes brought to interethnic clashes between the two populations (1905). In the khanate of Karabakh, Armenians were stronger than Tatars: they managed to expel the ill-equipped Tatars from these lands as much as they could. As a result, the population of Karabakh returned to be mostly Armenian, as it is today. However, when the Soviets took the power, they put into practice a "divide and impera" policy. In 1921 the autonomous oblast’ of Nagorno-Karabakh was assigned to Soviet Azerbaijan for political and economic reasons. This recognition formally legitimates Azerbaijan to demand its territory back due to the "uti possidetis" principle. This is the reason why the current state of the conflict is about two important principles in international law: the rights of nations of self-determination and the territorial integrity. In December 1991 the armed conflict broke out: local paramilitary groupings, helped by the Armenian armed forces, occupied the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven Azerbaijani districts. These territories were claimed as part of the Karabakh region as well. The civil war within the Azerbaijani state could not prevent the better-organized Armenian occupation forces from surrounding those areas. The UN Security Council condemned the aggression with four resolutions and urged the warring parties to stop the hostilities and withdraw all occupation forces from the Azerbaijani lands, but leaving a door open for the self-determination of the region. After an upsurge of the conflict in May 1994, the Azerbaijani government decided to sign a ceasefire. In 1992 the OSCE Minsk Group became the chosen mediator among the different parties. Although the attempts within the framework of the Minsk Group brought to the challenging “Principles of Madrid”, no steps forward have been made in the peace process. The official position of Azerbaijan is very sharp: no concessions can be given to Armenia that must withdraw its armed forces from the Azerbaijani sovereign territories. On the other hand, Armenia has been demanding a piece of land considered part of its ancient reign since forever. In all of this, the economic factor plays a specific role. If on the one hand Armenia’s economy is weakening and the country seems to depend increasingly on the revenues from the expatriates in Russia and its big diaspora, on the other Azerbaijan seems to have found in the oil and gas market its rosy future. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan for the Nagorno-Karabakh region is only an evident signal of the great game played in the Caucasus.