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A senior Azerbaijani diplomat has said that regional stability can only come from a comprehensive peace deal with Armenia. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan clings to power amid angry protests sparked by Baku’s lightning victory in the latest conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory.

“They need to decide their prime minister. We can’t decide it for them,” Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the U.K. and its former representative in the U.S., told Newsweek of the turmoil roiling Yerevan.

“The only issue which matters for us is that whoever is in power understands that any attempt to occupy Azerbaijani land, to question the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan, will not end positively,” Suleymanov added.

“It is important for us to have a pragmatically thinking politician in Armenia. Who that person is is for them to decide… Let’s see what happens.”

Nikol Pashinyan sits during the Supreme Economic Eurasian Council at the Grand Kremlin Palace on May 25, 2023 in Moscow, Russia. The Armenian prime minister is facing down angry protests after the latest eruption of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Contributor/Getty Images

Peace talks between Azerbaijan and representatives of the ethnic Armenian, Yerevan-backed, self-declared Republic of Artsakh began on Thursday. Baku’s troops had earlier forced regular Armenian and local militia units into a quick ceasefire in this week’s anti-terrorist operation in the disputed region.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, but its 120,000 people are mostly ethnic Armenians. It has now been the subject of three conflicts since Armenia and Azerbaijan gained independence from the collapsing Soviet Union in the 1990s. This week’s rapid Azerbaijani victory looks set to mark the end of separatist Armenian control over the enclave.

As in 2020, the decisive Azerbaijani victory prompted angry protests in Yerevan. Protesters denounced Pashinyan as a traitor for his perceived failure to come to the aid of his Artsakh allies. Now, fears of ethnic cleansing abound among Nagorno-Karabakh civilians and their allies in Armenia and the West. Such fears, Baku says, are unfounded.

Armenia’s technologically inferior military, strategically weak position in Nagorno-Karabakh, and lack of international backing—especially with the prime minister’s public falling-out with historic backer Russia in recent months—left Pashinyan in a bind.

Azerbaijani victory appeared a foregone conclusion. “For the separatists, the balance of power has always been not in their favor; 2020 showed that,” Suleymanov said. “They’re living in the past… Now the reality has come home.

“Unfortunately, it took a military effort,” Suleymanov added. Though it was “limited in scope, but still, this is something that could, and should have been, avoided had the Armenian side actually acted rationally.”

Newsweek has contacted the Armenian Foreign Ministry by email to request comment.

Tense Talks

The first round of peace talks ended on Thursday in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh. Per the ceasefire agreement brokered by Russian peacekeepers, Artsakh authorities agreed to disarm local units and have all Armenian military forces leave the enclave. Azerbaijani officials are pursuing reintegration.

The first round, Suleymanov said, “was a good meeting. It was actually a very good atmosphere. I guess it’s probably too early to expect, from a first contact like that, a big political decision.

“In a way, it’s the first step towards normalcy in the region,” the diplomat added. “Think about it: for around 30 years, we have not had normal contact… Now people are meeting.”

People take part in an anti-government rally in downtown Yerevan, Armenia, on September 22, 2023, following Azerbaijani military operations against Armenian separatist forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is under renewed pressure to resign.
KAREN MINASYAN/AFP via Getty Images

“Overall, the ceasefire generally seems to be holding, which is the most important thing,” Suleymanov said, noting that the collapse of negotiations and return to conflict is always possible. So is the splintering of Artsakh forces and the beginning of a guerrilla conflict. Still, the diplomat said this was not likely.

“The overwhelming majority have agreed, we have seen the disarmament process begin,” Suleymanov added. “That is where the Russian peacekeeping force first plays a fundamental important role, because that’s who’s going to receive—at least an intermediary in the immediate future—the weapons and systems… Those kinds of minor hiccups are possible, but from now on, this becomes a criminal issue.”

Successful conclusion of Azerbaijani-Artsakh talks might open the way for a broader peace deal with Armenia, ending decades of fractious relations punctuated by open conflict. “The bigger issue is the peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Suleymanov said. “Those are the big talks.”

The Diplomatic Front

Pashinyan’s government has found itself caught between the Western and Russian camps. Moscow maintains several military bases on Armenian territory; counts Armenia among its Collective Security Treaty Organization allies; and is Yerevan’s main military supplier.

But Pashinyan has repeatedly accused the Kremlin of failing to protect Armenian interests in Nagorno-Karabakh, despite Moscow’s 2,000-strong peacekeeping contingent there.

The Armenian premier has responded by distancing himself from Moscow’s war on Ukraine; overseeing joint military drills with the U.S.; and declaring it a mistake to have relied on Russian protection.

Baku, meanwhile, has cultivated deeper ties with the European Union and NATO, all the while under the de-facto protection of its close cultural and linguistic counterparts in Turkey.

A couple walk past a patriotic poster in Baku, Azerbaijan, on September, 13, 2023. This week, Azerbaijani forces again entered the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh province and forced the surrender of Armenia-aligned separatist forces there.
TOFIK BABAYEV/AFP via Getty Images

Suleymanov called on Pashinyan and Yerevan to adopt a new approach. “You can say whatever you want. You can make all kinds of overtures—and it’s up to the Armenian government how they want to make those overtures, including their statements vis-à-vis Russia and Europe. But the reality on the ground is right there. It has to be taken into account.

“First, they ask CSTO; then, they ask NATO. They go to Paris, then they go to Washington; all those external institutions or nations are outside of our region,” Suleymanov said of Armenia’s diplomatic efforts. “What they need to do is find a common language with Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

“In order to not have this external influence, I think the most important thing is that we do work with Armenia, we do sign a peace agreement, and we have relationship based on bilateral normalization rather than someone else,” Suleymanov added.

“We cannot avoid it. This is a very geopolitically important region. It will always be affected by outside and global trends. But we need to minimize it.”

An Azerbaijani checkpoint is pictured at the entry of the Lachin Corridor, the Armenian-populated breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region’s only land link with Armenia, by a bridge across the Hakari river on May 2, 2023. This week, Baku’s forces entered the enclave in an “anti-terrorist” operation.
TOFIK BABAYEV/AFP via Getty Images

Suleymanov was dismissive of Western concerns about Azerbaijani conduct, whether related to the most-recent operation or its decision to block the Lachin Corridor—the only road linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabkh—for several months.

Baku said separatist forces were using the road to transfer weapons, soldiers, and plant landmines. Armenia and its local allies accused Azerbaijan of trying to precipitate humanitarian crisis and provoke a final showdown.

“We don’t need anybody,” Suleymanov said. “I know this may bother some of our Western friends who always want to insert themselves into the conversation. This ‘white man’s burden’ just doesn’t let them imagine that the Azerbaijanis and Armenians are mature enough to talk to each other without them. But we can and we should.”

As for calls in the European Parliament for sanctions on Baku, the diplomat added: “Sanctions for what? For acting within our own sovereign territory, on our own land which everyone recognizes? This is very counterintuitive behavior.”

Suleymanov accused Western lawmakers, media, and officials of double standards over Azerbaijani territorial integrity. Western governments, he said, consider the integrity of nations such as Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine as sacrosanct.

“When it comes to Azerbaijan, it’s not, whether it’s because we’re Muslims, or whether they don’t see us as equals,” Suleymanov said. “We’re used to the fact that our friends and partners outside the region do not see the reality and see their own perception.

“Some people may say things. But we need to move forward towards peace,” Suleymanov added.

After 32 years, the de facto independence of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh is reaching its end.

The tense and often-violated ceasefire that had governed the region since the end of the 2020 Second Karabakh War was overwhelmingly violated by Azerbaijan around 1pm local time on Tuesday. Azerbaijani military units, which had been gathering near the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the borders of Armenia for weeks, launched a massive assault across all areas of the Nagorno-Karabakh frontline.

Artillery, precision missile strikes and airstrikes struck the beleaguered units of the Artsakh Defence Army, as the breakaway region’s military forces are known, while Azerbaijani infantry launched an offensive on the ground.

24 hours later, it was all over. Weakened by nine months of siege and starvation, without any supply lines to the outside world and hopelessly outmatched by Azerbaijan’s modern military, the president of the Republic of Artsakh, Samvel Shahramanyan, announced that his government had accepted the demands of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The Artsakh Defence Army would be dissolved, its weapons would be handed over, and the region would, finally and definitively, come under Azerbaijani control.

In a sense, all of this was expected. Nagorno-Karabakh and its ally, Armenia, had suffered a devastating defeat in the 2020 war. Much of Nagorno-Karabakh had been captured – around 75% of the lands held by Karabakh Armenians before 2020 were conquered by Azerbaijan or ceded to them in the ceasefire agreement. The Armenian army, reeling from its losses, had been forced out of the conflict, left struggling to repel even the Azerbaijani incursions into Armenia itself.

The nine months of Azerbaijani blockade that began in December 2022 had been met with indifference from the international community, with ‘urges’ and ‘calls’ for Azerbaijan to reopen the Lachin Corridor – Nagorno-Karabakh’s single lifeline to the outside world – but no consequences when Azerbaijan refused to do so, ignoring even the International Court of Justice ruling on the matter.

The Russian peacekeeping mission, entrusted with ensuring that road remained open and active, similarly demurred from any real attempts to unblock it. Aliyev clearly read these signals – that there would be no consequences for violating yet another tenet of the 2020 ceasefire – and sent his army in for the kill.

Massive casualties

At the time of writing, so much is still unclear. The 24-hour war involved massive casualties: Nagorno-Karabakh’s authorities have confirmed over 200 dead and 400 wounded from their side, a number that is sure to rise as more bodies are found, while Azerbaijani social media reports place the number of Azerbaijan casualties at over 150.

What exactly happens next is anyone’s guess, including the people of Nagorno-Karabakh themselves. In the wake of the Azerbaijani assault and subsequent capture of numerous villages and key roads, tens of thousands of the region’s 120,000 inhabitants have been displaced. Stepanakert is overrun, with every public building hosting dozens of families; the city’s airport, the site of the main Russian peacekeeping base, is an even more dire site, with thousands of civilians now encamped there in the open air, having fled from the Azerbaijani soldiers who captured their villages.

Other areas are entirely isolated: the towns of Martuni and Martakert, Nagorno-Karabakh’s second- and third-largest settlements, are surrounded by Azerbaijani forces, their populations unable to escape and with little known about their condition. 

In this near-total information blackout, with no independent media access and limited internet connectivity, rumors of Azerbaijani atrocities have spread. One woman claimed that Azerbaijani troops had beheaded her three young children in front of her; another said that the same had happened to a Karabakh Armenian soldier. A woman named Sofik, from the Karabakh village of Sarnaghbyur, described in video testimony how Azerbaijani artillery bombardment of her village had killed at least five children and wounded 13 more.

There is little verification or ability to confirm these claims, but there is ample precedent for them: Azerbaijani troops have previously filmed themselves beheading elderly Karabakh Armenian civilians, have executed groups of POWs, and indiscriminately bombarded Karabakh settlements. In the coming days, videos of atrocities committed over the past few days are likely to come to light.

The ultimate fate of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh is similarly unclear. While Azerbaijani officials have said that civilians will be allowed to stay there unharmed, few, if any, of the locals believe them.

Armenian Prime Nikol Pashinyan stated in a speech on Thursday that a mass evacuation was “not plan A nor plan B,” and that he hoped the Karabakh Armenians would still be able to live a “safe and dignified” life there, but that Armenia was ready and able to accept 40,000 families if the need arose.

More despair than revolution

The view of Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents is a sharply different one. Ashot Gabrielyan, a local teacher who has documented life in Nagorno-Karabakh under the blockade, summed up the local community’s views in an Instagram post on Friday. “We, the people in Artsakh, need a humanitarian corridor to leave [to Armenia],” he wrote. “We are not ready to live with a country [Azerbaijan] which starved us, then killed us. We NEED to leave.”

The catastrophic situation has understandably led to political unrest in Armenia itself. On Tuesday night, as the Azerbaijani offensive into Nagorno-Karabakh was still going strong, thousands gathered in Yerevan’s Republic Square, a common spot for demonstrations in the capital. The clashes reached a rare level of violence, with police deploying stun grenades against the crowd at one point; 16 policemen and 18 civilians were wounded in the event.

But the mood was more despair than revolution. While many of those in attendance demanded the resignation of the government, few had any suggestions for what should be done differently.

“Nikol [Pashinyan] led us to this horrible situation, this catastrophe,” said Tigran, one of those in attendance. “He must resign.” Another attendee, Daniella, a 20-year old student from Nagorno-Karabakh, had a different take. “I don’t know what [the government] can even do [about this],” she said. “My family are still there [in Karabakh] and I’m very worried for them, but I don’t know that violence here [in Yerevan] will help anything,” she said.

The public paralysation is exacerbated by Russia, which has come out staunchly against the Armenian government and sought to pin the entire blame for the present tragedy in Nagorno-Karabakh on Pashinyan. A series of Kremlin media guidelines for Russian state media was leaked to the Russian opposition outlet Meduza, in which Russian government publications are instructed to blame the Azerbaijani assault on “Armenia and its Western partners”.

Mass public outrage at Russia and its absent peacekeepers in both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh has been fanned further by posts by top Russian propagandists such as Margarita Simonyan and Vladimir Solovyov, who shared identical Telegram posts suggesting that Armenians should overthrow the Pashinyan government.

Armenian journalist Samson Martirosyan summed up the mood succinctly in a Twitter post. “Most people in Armenia don’t know what to do, caught between Pashinyan and [the] opposition. By going to protests, you would stir up chaos, which serves Russia and Azerbaijan. Not going would mean silently agreeing with Pashinyan’s disastrous policies,” Martirosyan wrote.

Meanwhile, the 120,000 inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh await the outcome of the surrender negotiations currently taking place between their leadership and that of Azerbaijan in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh.

There are few reasons for optimism: Nagorno-Karabakh presidential advisor David Babayan said on Friday that there were “no concrete results” from Baku on either security guarantees for the population of Karabakh or regarding amnesty for its soldiers and leaders, all of whom Azerbaijan regards as criminals and terrorists.

The Azerbaijani army currently sits at the entrances to Stepanakert, poised to enter. It is difficult to imagine the scenes that will result when that happens.