Nagorno-Karabakh: Historical grievances with dangerous potential

The winner in this war seemed so obvious – Azerbaijan, the oil-rich nation whose defence spending is much larger than the government budget of its impoverished adversary. But for three decades and against all odds, cash-strapped Armenia defended its unrecognised satellite, Nagorno-Karabakh, a South Caucasus territory north of Turkey and Iran. Dominated by ethnic Armenians, it violently broke away from Azerbaijan after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. How? “Because we’ve been fighting for our own land,” says Gagik, a 47-year-old schoolteacher who lives in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital that is plagued by blackouts and navigable only via seemingly impassable potholed roads. Gagik withheld his last name because he does not want “the other side” to know it. He calls his unrecognised, Dubai-sized statelet “Artsakh”, after a medieval Armenian kingdom. The statelet’s better-known name can explain a lot about the nature of the conflict. “Nagorno” means “mountainous” in Russian, the language of the last imperial master that conquered all of the South Caucasus two centuries ago and remains Armenia’s closest ally. Soviet leader Josef Stalin made Nagorno-Karabakh an autonomous region within Soviet Azerbaijan, surrounded by districts dominated by ethnic Azerbaijanis. During the perestroika reforms that eventually led to the Soviet collapse, Nagorno-Karabakh held a referendum, voting to secede from Azerbaijan and become part of Armenia. “Karabakh” means “black garden” in Turkish, the language of Azerbaijan’s closest ally that keeps its border with Armenia locked and its economy isolated. The two nations share historic and linguistic ties, and Turkey has vehemently supported Azerbaijan in years-long peace talks over Nagorno-Karabakh that have become the Gordian knot of post-Soviet politics. style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0; left: 0;">