International Crisis Group

A Leadership Opportunity | Huffington Post

By Nancy E. Soderberg

Recent unrest in the Middle East highlights the importance of our strategic relationships in the region. A steadfast ally of the United States is Azerbaijan, and the United States must redouble its efforts to promote peace in this critical but unstable South Caucasus region.

Bordered by both Iran and Russia, Azerbaijan has offered close logistical cooperation to our military commanders in Afghanistan. For instance, over-flight clearance from the Azerbaijan government alone reduces our Air Mobility Command medical evacuation flight times by nearly two hours, saving lives. Of course, this doesn’t endear Azerbaijan to its neighbor Iran, nor does its reliable support for Israel. Peace in this region is essential for regional energy security, especially for Europe. Azerbaijan itself provides about a million barrels of oil a day to the world market, including more than 40 percent of Israel’s oil.

But several factors threaten stability. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan has been locked in a bitter dispute with neighboring Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory. In the 1992-1994 conflict, ethnic Armenian forces took control of the area, along with considerable Azeri territory before a shaky peace took effect in 1994. Azerbaijan insists that the region is part of its territory, a position shared by the United Nations; Armenia argues that the Armenian majority living in Nagorno-Karabakh has the right to self-determination and independence.

FULL ARTICLE (Huffington Post)

Photo: Utah National Guard/Flickr

Armenia Accuses Neighbor of Stoking Conflict | Wall Street Journal

By Joe Parkinson

YEREVAN, Armenia—Armenia’s president is increasingly concerned about what he sees as neighboring Azerbaijan’s willingness to engage in armed conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, he said in an interview, warning that Armenian forces would deliver a disproportionate blow should conflict erupt between the neighbors.

FULL ARTICLE (Wall Street Journal)

Photo: Davit Hakobyan

Drone violence along Armenian-Azerbaijani border could lead to war | Global Post 

By Nicholas Clayton 

YEREVAN, Armenia — In a region where a fragile peace holds over three frozen conflicts, the nations of the South Caucasus are buzzing with drones they use to probe one another’s defenses and spy on disputed territories.

The region is also host to strategic oil and gas pipelines and a tangled web of alliances and precious resources that observers say threaten to quickly escalate the border skirmishes and airspace violations to a wider regional conflict triggered by Armenia and Azerbaijan that could potentially pull in Israel, Russia and Iran.

FULL ARTICLE (Global Post)

Photo: Defense Images/Flickr

Ax Killer’s Pardon Reignites War Fears in Oil-Rich Caucasus | Bloomberg

By Zulfugar Agayev and Henry Meye

Azerbaijan’s pardon of a convicted murderer who killed an Armenian army officer with an ax risks reigniting a 20-year-old war between the two foes in the energy- rich South Caucasus.

Ramil Safarov, who was serving a life sentence for slaying Gurgen Margaryan in Budapest in 2004, was pardoned by Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and promoted after Hungary transferred him home Aug. 31. Armenia’s parliament will hold an emergency session today, while Europe, the U.S. and Russia have expressed “deep concern” about regional stability.

FULL ARTICLE (Bloomberg)

Photo: Yerevanci/Wikimedia Commons

Ax murderer’s pardon stirs fears of war | CNN

By Joe Sterling

Armenia in the vice: Prisoner of history | The Economist

ARMENIA tends to feature in the news because of its problems (history, geography, demography and economics to name but a few. But a new report from the International Crisis Group (ICG) says not all is doom and gloom. The parliamentary elections in May showed significant improvement. Media coverage was more balanced, and the authorities permitted greater freedom of assembly, expression and movement than in previous years. Like Georgia, Armenia has a class of “30-something” technocrats, whose western education and global outlook means they are less rooted in the Soviet mentality than their elders. That bodes well for the future.

The economy is still recovering from the global financial crisis, which saw GDP contract by 14.2% in 2009. In the same period, the construction sector contracted by more than 40%. Remittances from the diaspora dropped by 30%. That led Forbes magazine to label Armenia the world’s second worst performing economy in 2011–much to Yerevan’s irritation. Although official statistics claim 8 percent unemployment, 48% of respondents told a recent survey they were looking for a job. Over one-third of the country lives below the poverty line. Complaints of corruption are widespread, and inflation is high.

FULL ARTICLE (The Economist)

Azeri-Armenia Clashes May Escalate Into War, Research Group Says | BusinessWeek

By Zulfugar Agayev

Clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia that killed at least ten soldiers this month risk escalating into all out war in a region where BP Plc and its partners have invested $35 billion in energy projects, an international research group said.

“There is a weak control of the cease-fire line by Azerbaijan and Armenia and almost no international monitoring,” Sabine Freizer, director of the Europe Program of the International Crisis Group, or ICG, said by phone from Istanbul today. “Large-scale hostilities can break out accidentally, as a result of tit-for-tat responses by the sides.”

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly ethnic-Armenian region that broke free of Baku’s control after the disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991. As as many as 30,000 people died in the war, which left Nagorno- Karabakh and seven adjacent Azeri districts under Armenian control. Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered cease-fire agreement in 1994, though the two sides have yet to sign a peace agreement.

FULL ARTICLE (BusinessWeek)

Photo: Andreas Kontokanis/Flickr