This month marks the 30th Anniversary of the 1994 ceasefire agreement that put the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the then disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh on hold. The 5 May declaration, known as the Bishkek Protocol, instructed the sides to introduce a ceasefire on 9 May though slight delays followed. A formal cessation was signed by the Armenian, Azerbaijan, and Karabakh defence ministers days later, coming into effect just after midnight on 12 May 1994.
What followed in the coming years were various attempts to hammer out a lasting peace. Suffice to say, none were successful. Instead, and especially since 2011, signs were that a new war was coming, an inevitability that became a fact in September 2020. Up until that point, conventional wisdom had been that it would break out by accident – an escalation following a cross-border skirmish, for example – and also that it would last just a few days before the international community stepped in.
We now know that wasn’t the case. When the war did come, it lasted 44 days and broke out because the negotiation process had finally exhausted itself. Around 7,000 died on both sides in fighting that could have been avoided had mutual compromises been made earlier. They weren’t.
This year is also the 30th anniversary of my first visit to Karabakh. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians had already fled from other parts of Azerbaijan years earlier just as hundreds of thousands of ethnic Azerbaijanis had left Armenia. Hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis also fled en masse from the seven regions surrounding Karabakh. A tale of human tragedy on all sides that should have been reason alone for a negotiated settlement, but apparently not.
For three decades, generations of Armenians and Azerbaijanis were brought up in isolation from each other, save for a tiny cadre talking peace abroad but opposing it back home. For three decades, youth in Armenia were raised believing the seven formerly occupied regions were liberated territories and non-negotiable even if initially intended as a security buffer zone. For three decades, Azerbaijan warned that if negotiations failed then they would resolve the issue by force.
They did. And it was.
Despite the severity of the 44-day-war, another chance then emerged. The balance of power had been clarified and the November 2020 trilateral ceasefire statement could arguably have been the basis for finally hammering out a deal. But others had different ideas. The ceasefire statement was not a peace agreement, they charged, perhaps to simply oppose what they believed to be capitulation. The tables could be turned and the next war would be different, they argued.
As a result, last year, 100,000 Karabakh Armenians were the latest to flee their homes. They can now be added to a long list of those displaced before them. But with the most intractable issue between the sides removed from the equation, even if not as initially intended, bilateral talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan might now be progressing. Last December’s joint COP-29 statement and first steps taken to delimit and demarcate part of the Gazakh-Tavush border seem to suggest that.
Though Baku argues that it no longer needs an agreement as before, there is no doubt that it is preferable. As the years pass, Azerbaijani IDPs from the 1990s will return to those locations in regions adjacent to the border that were once under Yerevan's control. They will not want to rebuild their lives fearful of another war breaking out in the future. The same is true for those Armenian border communities soon to find themselves in close proximity to Azerbaijani communities. Regional integration can finally occur.
But many still insist on a comprehensive settlement, something difficult to achieve given that the process of demarcation will likely take years, as will the unblocking of regional economic and transportation connections. They talk of the need for a liberal peace without offering an example of where and when such an essentially conceptual approach has ever worked. Others favour the more realistic concept of functional coexistence and negative peace while complex issues are resolved over time.
But perhaps that misses the point. Whatever peace agreement is signed will be the one on the table. There is no point waiting for an elusive ideal seen subjectively as balanced by third parties watching from afar. Even then, there would be no guarantee it would last. Whatever the negotiated settlement, whether it holds or not will ultimately rely on what the governments decide themselves. Bottom up approaches will not work unless there is political will from above.
For much of the time since visiting Karabakh for the first time in 1994, it had seemed unlikely a peace deal would be signed in many of our lifetimes. Thirty years on, with the possibility of normalising relations greater than at anytime before, that opportunity exists again and should not be squandered. Only then can the long overdue and likely arduous but necessary task of reconciliation begin.
