Nagorno-Karabakh: a new peace deal goes into effect

Jack Losh and Andrew Roth report on a new peace deal just announced between Armeani and Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh peace deal brokered by Moscow prompts anger in Armenia Guardian 11/10/2020:

The truce, announced late on Monday night, calls for the deployment of nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to the disputed enclave, where Azerbaijan will receive significant territorial concessions from an Armenian-backed local government.

The ceasefire may end a six-week war in which Azerbaijan launched its largest offensive in a generation to retake Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions under Armenian control. Since fighting began in late September, thousands have been killed and more than 100,000 displaced in the worst fighting since the early 1990s.

The agreement confirmed the influence of Russia and Turkey in the region, while sidelining western powers. Russia on Tuesday denied that Turkish peacekeepers would be allowed to deploy to Nagorno-Karabakh despite claims that they would by Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev.

They turned to someone associated with Joe Biden's team for a comment. "Michael Carpenter, an adviser to the US president-elect, Joe Biden, described the deal as a geopolitical victory for Vladimir Putin."

The deal involves Russian peacekeepers to enforce new demarcation lines, "establishing Russia’s role as peacemaker in the region for the foreseeable future." But it's not clear that this is the victory to which Carpenter was referring. Although the disputed region belongs to Azerbaijan in international law, Russia has been more aligned with Armenia is this dispute. And this agreement concedes part of the disputed area to Azerbaijan.

Al Jazeera English reports on the new deal, Nagorno-Karabakh agreement: Azeris celebrate after peace deal 11/10/2020:

This is an early report on the deal from Euronews, Nagorno-Karabakh truce: Armenia, Azerbaijan & Russia sign peace deal over disputed enclave 11/10/2020:

BBC News provides this report, with maps, Nagorno-Karabakh: Russia deploys peacekeeping troops to region 11/10/2020. It notes, "The enclave [Nagorno-Karabakh] is internationally recognised as Azerbaijani but has been run by ethnic Armenians since 1994."

Andrew Roth and Michael Safi report on how various external powers are affected by the arrangement of a peace deal in Nagorno-Karabakh peace deal reshapes regional geopolitics Guardian 11/10/2020

Joshua Kucera wrote in In Nagorno-Karabakh, the Cycle of Ethnic Cleansing Continues Guardian 11/09/2020 about the emerging stakes in the war. He describes the legacy of the war of the early 1990s that was ended by a 1994 ceasefire this way:

The roots of the current fighting lie the ethnic cleansing that took place as a result of that first war. Then, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Armenians sought to take control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a majority-Armenian enclave within the borders of Azerbaijan, then a fellow Soviet republic. Azerbaijanis resisted, and ethnic tensions spiked. Ethnic Armenians living in Azerbaijan were targeted by pogroms, and hundreds of thousands of Armenians fled Azerbaijan, as did Azerbaijanis who had been living in Armenia. In the war that ensued, Armenians managed to take control not only of Nagorno-Karabakh, but of large parts of Azerbaijani territory surrounding it that had previously had a negligible Armenian population. More than 600,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were forced to flee their homes.

This is how he describes the emerging situation just prior to the new agreement:

Now that Azerbaijan has launched this offensive, with the aim of taking back at least some of its lost territories, Armenians’ worst fears have been realized. The way that Azerbaijan has been conducting the war has only confirmed Armenians’ fears that they now face a real threat of ethnic cleansing.

Azerbaijani forces have been indiscriminately bombarding Stepanakert, the de facto capital of Nagorno-Karabakh with a population of about 55,000, including with cluster bombs. (Armenia also has been documented as using cluster bombs.) They bombed a historic church. Tens of thousands of people have already fled Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijani forces have just retaken Shusha, the center of Azerbaijani history in Nagorno-Karabakh. They now have a clear firing line onto nearby, downhill Stepanakert. The last remaining journalists have been evacuated from Stepanakert, but as they were leaving they documented thousands more fleeing the city ahead of an expected Azerbaijani assault. It seems likely that the entire Armenian population may flee, and that the territory will again be ethnically cleansed.