While the Russo-Ukrainian war continues to grab headlines, geopolitical conflicts around the world have been shrugged off.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is within Russia's sphere of influence in the South Caucasus, is one example.
Since December 12, the Lachin Corridor (Lachin Corridor), the only channel between the Naka region and Armenia, which is protected by the Russian peacekeeping force under the terms of the truce in 2020, has been continuously occupied by demonstrators in Azerbaijan, causing Armenia, which accounts for the majority of the Naka region, to People cannot communicate with Armenia normally, there has been a shortage of supplies in Naka, and patients cannot be sent out.
On December 27, near the informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in St. Petersburg, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with his theoretical "protector", Russian President Vladimir Putin, hoping that the latter Efforts to stop the "virtual blockade" of the Lachin corridor by Azerbaijani demonstrators continue to miss the point.
As early as September this year, conflicts broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The latter requested CSTO, which was described as the "Russian version of NATO", to intervene in protection, but was declined by Russia, the leader of CSTO, and only wanted to send observers. .
In the end, the conflict ended with the deaths of 200 Armenians and 80 Azerbaijanis; afterwards, Pashinyan also claimed that Armenia lost some territory in the conflict.
On December 27, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met again with his theoretical "protector", Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the sidelines of an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in St. Petersburg.
(Reuters)
The Naka region is the territory of Azerbaijan, but it is inhabited by Armenians. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the local leaders are actually autonomous under the name of the "Republic of Artsakh".
In the late 1980s and early 1990s and in 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought two wars for this place respectively.
In the second war, Azerbaijan defeated Armenia, which was no longer under the protection of Russia at that time, with the support of Turkish and Israeli arms, and won a large area of land. At the same time, it made the Lachin Corridor the only transportation between Naka and Armenia The exit is protected by Russian peacekeeping forces.
The road closure started on December 12.
At that time, a group of Azerbaijanis launched a demonstration in the Lachin Corridor on the grounds that Armenians illegally stole mineral resources from Azerbaijani land in the Naka region hosted by Russia, demanding that Azerbaijani environmental observers be allowed to enter the country for surveillance.
The standoff between the two sides along the Lachin corridor left the road impassable after Russian peacekeepers rejected their request, allowing only a small number of humanitarian aid vehicles from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Russian military vehicles to pass.
Some children who left Naka before the demonstrations were suddenly separated from their families.
Naka's daily import of 400 tons of necessities and fuel from Armenia has been hindered.
The incident went up to the United Nations Security Council on December 20.
However, after showing off a bunch of commonplace diplomatic rhetoric, the representatives of various countries did not take any practical actions to make the incident easier to resolve.
Since the 2020 war, the status of Naka has been at the core of the dispute between Asia and Afghanistan.
Under the two-line mediation of Russia and the European Union, there have been sporadic deadly conflicts in Naka.
Armenia, which is inferior militarily, has accepted Azerbaijan's "territorial integrity" in principle, but hopes that the Armenians in the Naka region will be protected with a special status-the Naka issue has extremely high political importance in Armenia. Pashinyan almost lost his position as prime minister after he was defeated and handed over the land in 2020.
However, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has consistently denied such claims.
He said in August, "Armenians living in Naka must know that their future can only depend on their integration with Azerbaijani society. We live in reality. From a geographical, economic and historical point of view, Naka an inalienable part of Azerbaijan."
Although Armenia, regarded as "the world's first Christian country", is culturally incompatible with Azerbaijan, which believes in Islam, and Azerbaijan has always had a history of eradicating Armenian cultural relics in its country. This year, a special committee was established to delete them. The Armenian religious symbols on the Naka land won in 2020, but Aliyev has a tough attitude, indicating that the Armenians in Naka will not get any status, independence and advantages, and will be treated equally with other Azerbaijanis.
The Naka region began to experience shortages of supplies and insufficient bank cash.
(Screenshot of Human Rights Defenders of Armenia report)
Of course, this attitude is difficult to be accepted by the Armenian side.
The two sides have been unable to reach an agreement for a long time, and Azerbaijan seems to want to use force to create established facts—especially when Russia is trapped in the Russia-Ukraine war and has no time to look outside, and Europe is increasingly relying on Azerbaijan to supplement supplies in the "Euro-Russian Energy Brexit".
Regarding the demonstrations in the Lachin Corridor, Azerbaijan categorically denied that it was a blockade.
Its foreign minister quoted social media videos at the UN Security Council meeting, saying that the corridor traffic is unimpeded.
Demonstrators in the corridor also set up a "hotline" to allow Armenians in the Naka region to apply for passage.
However, the leader of the "Artakh Republic" in the Naka region believes that if this informal inspection is allowed to continue, it is tantamount to handing over control of the Lachin Corridor to Azerbaijan.
It seems that this is an established fact that Azerbaijan wants to create through this demonstration with official support to fight for the actual control of the Lachin Corridor.
Although Azerbaijan officially denied that the demonstrations were a blockade, its official media quoted expert analysis that it was necessary to set up Azerbaijani checkpoints in Lachin to combat illegal activities.
The blue area at the bottom of the picture is the land won by Azerbaijan after the conflict in 2020. The dark green is the land that Armenia handed over to Azerbaijan according to the ceasefire agreement. The orange is the Naka region that is still under the control of pro-Asian forces. The dark blue area in the picture It is the only passage from Armenia to the Naka region.
The lower left green area is Nakhchivan, an outclave of Azerbaijan.
(Wikimeadia Commons)
Although the loss of Lachin will further hand over the future of the Naka issue to Azerbaijan, objectively speaking, the skirmish in the Lachin Corridor is not a major geopolitical event.
What deserves attention in this matter is that if Azerbaijan succeeds in its small test, its next move may detonate another Asian-African war, and even pull neighboring countries into the conflict.
At present, one of Azerbaijan's major demands on Armenia is to build the Zangezur Corridor controlled by Azerbaijan on the border between Armenia and Iran. channel.
However, the construction of this channel will make Armenia surrounded by Turkey and Azerbaijan, which support Azerbaijan. 15 million people of Azerbaijani origin "eye-eyed" and allowed some of their voices fighting for independence to appear on Azerbaijan's official media. In October, Iran also opened a consulate in a border town between Armenia and Azerbaijan with a high profile, and in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military drills on the border.
If Azerbaijan's "demonstration-blockade-occupation" operation in the Lachin Corridor succeeds and creates the fact that the Naka Pass is controlled by Azerbaijan, President Aliyev may look at the Zangezur Corridor and cause more serious instability in the South Caucasus .
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