Nagorno-Karabakh: The Crisis in the Caucasus

November 3, 2005
Council on Foreign Relations
By Lionel Beehner

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Overall, time is not on Armenia’s side, given that Azerbaijan’s economy, due to its surge in oil exports, has outpaced Armenia’s, says Svante Cornell, deputy director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies. “[The Armenians] are realizing they may have to settle and sue for peace,” he says. “The fact is they do occupy this territory.” Because of Azerbaijan’s influx of petrodollars, it will soon be able to double the size of its military, Fuller says. “The question is: How good are [Azerbaijan’s] armed forces? Armenia’s is a very professional force,” she says.

Eventually, Cornell envisions that Nagorno-Karabakh will remain, at least on the map, a sovereign part of Azerbaijan but will retain de facto independence. He says the outcome of Azerbaijan’s parliamentary elections should have little effect on negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh. Bilateral talks are set to resume in December but no one expects a solution to the crisis anytime soon.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.