Armenia fingers over 4 villages to Azerbaijan – Geopolitics Snapshot #1

Welcome to the Geopolitics Snapshot! This time,we got very interesting news from the Caucasus: On April 19th, 2024, it was announcedthat an agreement was reached between Armenia and Azerbaijan on delineating asmall section of their Northern border. More specifically, four abandonedvillages close to the border with Georgia are supposed to be returned toAzerbaijani jurisdiction. These Azerbaijani villages were inhabited in Soviet times,but during the first Nagorno-Karabakh war, they were abandoned and thencontrolled by Armenian forces. We can see what areas are affected inthis tweet here by a spokesperson of the Azerbaijani foreign ministry. The regions nowmarked in red will return to Azerbaijani control,.

With some areas being controlled by them already.The Armenian military, which currently controls the remaining area, is poised to withdraw, andthe agreement must be ratified until May 15th. The agreement, however, did not includea solution for the Azerbaijani exclaves, which are the two areas in Green. They remainunder Armenian control for now, but the Armenian foreign ministry’s press release mentions that anext step would be resolving this problem as well. According to the office of Armenia’s primeminister, this transfer won’t impact Armenian villages aside from one road that will have to beshifted to not go through Azerbaijani territory. Now, this is a really significantdevelopment for the region. The delineation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani borderhas been a major condition for a formal peace.

Treaty set by the Azerbaijani leadership -and achieving a formal peace treaty seems to be the only way to ensure that there won’tbe another war between the two countries. Tensions have been extremely high, especiallysince Azerbaijan’s short 2023 offensive in Karabakh, which forced the last remainingArmenian separatist forces to surrender and brought the rest of the Karabakh region underAzerbaijani control and prompted a majority of the one hundred thousand Armenians living inNagorno-Karabakh to flee to Armenia proper. Unsurprisingly, there have been concernsthat another military escalation could occur ever since, especially if Armenia andAzerbaijan do not manage to agree on a number of issues. That includes delineating the entiretyof their border and finding some arrangement.

That will allow Azerbaijan to access its’Nakhchivan exclave through Armenian territory. Peace talks sponsored by the US and EU on oneside and Russia on the other were unsuccessful, and current negotiations between Armeniaand Azerbaijan are conducted on a bilateral level – which gives Azerbaijanmore leverage in the process. While some have called this agreement‘historic’, it's still unclear whether this is the first step towards a real peacedeal – or whether the border delineation could eventually fall apart. The delineationis unpopular in Armenia. It is seen to come at the expanse of Armenian territory withoutproviding any concrete security guarantees. The land that is now returned to Azerbaijanis considered strategically valuable,.

As one of the main roads that connects the regionwith Georgia runs through here, as well as a gas pipeline. But the main problem for Armenia is notthe transfer of these four villages, but rather the uncertainty of what the border delineationwill mean for the country down the line. As the delineation progresses, it's highlylikely that there will be more controversial demands made by the Azerbaijani side. Forexample, Azerbaijan could demand the transfer of a small land bridge connectingits exclaves to Azerbaijan proper. Then there is the whole border sectionwith Karabakh, whose delimitation is going to be a much more emotional processconsidering the events of 2020 and 2023. And then we have the most strategicallyimpactful issue: The Zangezur corridor.

Zangezur is a historic region in Armenia thatlies in between Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan region. This separation is a huge logisticalproblem for Baku, which seeks to solve it by establishing a corridor. What that wouldmean in practice is not entirely clear: Current Azerbaijani proposals envisioned thecorridor to remain as Armenian territory, but to be guarded by Russian peacekeepersand be accessible to Azerbaijan without any restrictions – which has beenrejected by Armenia thus far. Therefore, there are concerns that Azerbaijancould simply aim to annex at least part of the region, as some Azerbaijani policymakers believe it to be historic Azeri land and would consider it revenge forthe Armenian occupation of Karabakh.

Despite all of this, Armenia’s prime ministerNikol Pashinyan has been clear that he is willing to give into Azerbaijani demandsto a certain degree. His primary goal is preventing a full-scale war with Azerbaijan- and that is a daunting task. He not only has to balance Azerbaijan on one side,but also Armenian voters on the other. Researching this video was also a dauntingtask, because this story was not widely reported after it was announced. This is why before Icontinue talking about Armenia's situation, I want to quickly shout out this video’ssponsor, Ground News – which has been an incredibly useful resource in makingthis very video. Let me show you! With Ground News, I can search for a specificstory and get a comprehensive overview of all.

The news sources that reported on it from acrossthe world. Here it tells me that until now, 33 news sources reported onthe village transfer in total. And I am able to easily compare internationalheadlines. This coverage from Turkey, for example, portraits the transfervery positively while this Serbian article focuses on the reaction by UNgeneral secretary Antonio Guterres. But that is far from the only thingGround News offers. It also gives me a lot of other useful informationwhen looking at international news, like how those news sources lean politically, howcredible their reporting is, and who owns them. This is important when looking at domesticnews as well: Whether you are from the US,.

Europe or from anywhere else, knowing whichside of the political spectrum reports on what issue in what way is crucial forunderstanding the world around us. And Ground News makes this a whole lot easierfor me, and can make it easier for you too! By going to ‘Ground dot News slash Paint’, youcan get 40% off the Ground News Vantage plan. Thanks to Ground News for sponsoring thisvideo, and now back to the topic at hand. To understand why Pashinyan is nonethelesswilling to go through with border delineation, we need to take a look at the very difficultsituation Armenia finds itself in. The country is confronted with a potential escalation with apowerful neighbor that has proven to be militarily and economically superior. And Azerbaijan hasmade it clear that it has no reservations about.

Taking military action against Armenia oncemore, if its political demands are not met. Not only that, but Azerbaijan can also count onsignificant support from its close ally Turkey, one of the region’s most powerful military powers.And to make matters even worse, Armenia itself cannot count on game-changing support fromany outside actor. Just look at its’ options: Firstly, we have Russia, which untilrecently has been Armenia’s closest military ally. But after the events of 2020 and2023, Russian-Armenian relations have worsened significantly because Russian peacekeeperswere unable or unwilling to intervene in Azerbaijan’s offensives in Karabakh, and inresponse, Armenia has stopped participating in meetings of the Russian-led CSTO allianceand sought closer relations with the West.

This alone would be enough to rule Russiaout, but then there is also the fact that Russia is completely preoccupiedwith its war in Ukraine. So even if Russia was willing to intervene onbehalf of Armenia, it simply could’t. Secondly, we have several Western actors, which have shown varying degrees of interestin helping Armenia. The European Union and the US tried to act as mediators multipletimes, but have conflicting interests. The EU, for instance, has launched a civilianmission to monitor the Armenian-Azerbaijani border at the invitation of Armenia, but alsoplans to double the amount of gas it buys from Azerbaijan. The US meanwhile does not want to pushAzerbaijan towards Russia. And on top of that,.

Both are completely preoccupied with whatis happening in Ukraine and the Middle-East. Another Western actor that deservesa special mention is France, which has historically had good relations withArmenia. Recently, France sold a significant quantity of military equipment to Armenia, withnegotiations being underway for the purchase of short range missiles as well. France recentlyeven recalled its ambassador from Azerbaijan, which shows how unhappy Franceis with the entire situation. Despite this, France seems to be an unlikelycandidate either: It too is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and its loss of influencein North Africa, and if push comes to shove, it will simply be too far away to make ameaningful difference, even if it wanted to..

That leaves Armenia with one last regionalpower that could get directly involved: Iran. Iran has had good relationswith Armenia and Iranian officials made several statements that theywould get directly involved in the conflict if Azerbaijan was to attackArmenia’s southern border region. Now I know that this might sound weird atfirst. Why would Iran, a Shia Muslim Theocracy, be interested in protecting Christian Armeniafrom Azerbaijan, which despite being secular, has a predominantly Shia Mulsim population that alsoshares deep historic and cultural ties with Iran? Well, the biggest reason is Iran’s concernsof separatism in its North-Western regions, which are predominantly inhabited by ethnicAzeris. A strengthened Azerbaijan could therefore.

Create nationalistic aspirations. And anotherfactor is Azerbaijan’s relationship with Israel. Now luckily for Armenia, there is currentlynothing going on that could possibly distract Iran from supporting it…oh. Well in that case,Iran is likely to be out of the picture as well. As you can see, the situation between Armenia andAzerbaijan continues to be extremely complicated, and we can only hope that compromises can beachieved to finally ensure peace in the region. Well, that’s it for the first ever GeopoliticsSnapshot! I will release more snapshots in between my regular explainer videos, which take muchmore time to produce. Tell me what you think of this new video format in the comments below!Thank you for watching, and until next time!

Sharing is caring!