The Black Garden

Nagorno-Karabakh’s history is a colorful one, and its Edenic setting in the heart of the Caucasus Mountains has made it the subject of literature and music among Armenians, Georgians, Azeris and Persians. Kurban Said’s book Ali and Nino, perhaps the best-known novel of modern Azerbaijan, takes the reader through Tbilisi, Baku, Persia, Dagestan and Karabakh, where the young hero Ali finds a magnificent horse which he rides to pursue the man who has insulted his wife’s honor – an Armenian, as it happens – whom Ali kills.

Karabakh means 'black garden,' a reference to the area’s lush, forested landscape, and the word 'Nagorno' is Russian for 'mountainous.' (Only recently has the region been known as 'Nagorno-Karabakh' instead of simply 'Karabakh.') Spellings vary, but 'Nagorno-Karabakh' is the usually accepted form in English.

'Ownership' of Karabakh is a matter of historical contention, but suffice it to say that control of the region has shifted in the last several centuries between the 15th century Turkmen leader Jahan Shah, various Armenian meliks (princes), the Karabakh Khanate, the Persian Safavid dynasty and the Russian empire. Control was contested between Azeris and Armenians in the early Soviet period, and toward the end of WWI, Turkish Ottoman troops entered Karabakh, followed by British forces after the war’s conclusion.

The USSR’s Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region was created in the early 1920s, and debate still rages today as to whether Joseph Stalin, then Commissar for Nationalities, 'gave' the largely Armenian Karabakh to the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic as part of a 'divide and conquer' strategy to keep ethnic minorities in check.

It was in 1989, during the eclipse of the Soviet empire, when the Armenian Supreme Soviet (legislature) voted to unify Armenia with Karabakh. This decision was rejected both by Moscow and the Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet, and after a series of violent episodes, the collapse of the USSR, and a referendum on independence held in Karabakh, war broke out in 1992.

At the conclusion of the brutal two-year war, Armenian forces had emerged victorious. But the cost was enormous, with 30,000 dead in total and hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced not only in Karabakh, but in the surrounding districts.

Today, the self-declared external page Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) is recognized by no other country, including Armenia. The land-locked NKR depends on a tenuous geographic connection to Armenia for its link to the outside world and is under the constant threat of attack from Azerbaijan. In the last few years, Azerbaijan’s defense expenditures have skyrocketed and President Ilham Aliyev has frequently threatened the use of force if negotiations fail to resolve the stalemate.

In support of Azerbaijan during the war, Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 and instituted an economic blockade. In April 2009, both external page Turkey and Armenia announced a 'road map' for normalizing relations and opening the border. The details are sketchy, but the road map in itself is a remarkable step forward for two countries with a history as polarized as theirs is.

According to the most recent census, the NKR’s population is roughly 138,000, with some 50,000 people living in Stepanakert, the capital. Karabakh proper consists of nearly 1,700 square miles of real estate, making it slightly larger than the US state of Rhode Island.

Official figures from the NKR government show that Karabakh’s GDP doubled from 2001 to 2005 (when it reached approximately $114 million). The government says that the most recent GDP growth rate was a very healthy 10.4 per cent, although that figure may not reflect the current situation since the global economic crisis.

Per capita GDP in 2007, according to the NKR government, was estimated at $1356 USD. The Armenia Fund USA has contributed $25 million for the new North-South Highway, which links roughly 150 cities and villages along Karabakh’s backbone.

Some 95 percent of Karabakh’s population are Armenian, with a smattering of Greeks, Assyrians, Kurds and others.

Agriculture and jewelry production are major sectors of Karabakh’s economy, and foreign investment includes telecoms and textiles. 

Complicated borders

In addition to Nagorno-Karabakh proper, Armenian forces occupy as a security buffer all or part of seven Azerbaijani districts abutting it. While Armenia has from time to time been flexible on returning five of the seven districts to Azerbaijan as part of an overall peace accord, both Kelbajar and the Lachin Corridor are considered especially important to the NKR due to their geographic positions between Karabakh and Armenia. Azerbaijan insists that 20 percent of its territory is occupied, while the US Central Intelligence Agency puts the external page figure at 16 percent.

One result of the war and its aftermath, now often external page described as a 'frozen conflict,' is that Armenia has found itself locked out of many of the region’s most ambitious economic development projects. Azerbaijan, blessed with oil and gas resources, has emerged as the dominant economic force in the South Caucasus, and its Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline doglegs around Armenia, running through Georgia on its way to Turkey.

Likewise, Armenia has been left on the sidelines in the construction of the new Baku-Tbilisi-Kars rail line. Azerbaijani authorities have long contended that once Karabakh is returned to Azerbaijan, Armenia will benefit from the economic rewards that will follow.

The OSCE external page Minsk Group, an ad hoc diplomatic body created in 1992 by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (formerly the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, or CSCE), has served as an impartial forum for Armenia and Azerbaijan to hold talks on reaching a final settlement. The NKR is not allowed to take part in negotiations, a condition mandated by the Azerbaijani side. The three 'co-chair' states (Russia, France and the US) sponsor the negotiations and report to the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna. Talks have dragged on since the end of the war in 1994, with little progress.

Major events in the continuing negotiations have included the Key West (Florida) summit in April of 2001, where the two sides were rumored to have been on the verge of an overall peace deal, despite denials since then by the Azerbaijani government. Subsequent high-level talks have failed to resolve the stalemate, notwithstanding the efforts of the Minsk Group.

The Minsk Group’s 'basic principles,' announced first in the summer of 2006, are considered by the co-chair states to represent the framework for any final settlement, and envision Armenian military withdrawal from the districts surrounding Karabakh, 'special modalities' for Kelbajar and the Lachin Corridor, repatriation of refugees, an international peacekeeping force, and an eventual referendum on Karabakh’s 'final status.'

The wording of the Minsk Group’s announcement at the time and subsequent comments by the American diplomat Matthew Bryza seemed to indicate that a vote on Karabakh’s future should take place in Karabakh onlyinstead of in all of Azerbaijan, an interpretation that clashes with views held by the Azerbaijani government.

There is little chance that a compromise solution would include the Karabakhi Armenians agreeing to even a loose form of Azerbaijani sovereignty or that Azerbaijan would agree to any kind of political independence for Karabakh.

Nevertheless, the recent summits in Prague and St Petersburg have generated unusually optimistic assessments from at least some of the participants.