Will Azerbaijan stop at Nagorno-Karabakh or go further: what the facts say

Few people know, but the desire to return Nagorno-Karabakh “to its native Azerbaijani harbor” was the secret goal of the entire period of Ilham Aliyev’s presidency. This revelation was voiced last week by his Ambassador-at-Large Elchin Amirbekov. However, a good half of international observers are not sure that this is where the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict ends...

Next goal: Syunik-Zangezur?

The leadership of Azerbaijan calls the return of this disputed territory nothing less than the restoration of historical justice and the acquisition of national pride. However, Tom de Waal, an analyst at the Carnegie Europe Center, warns that it is not so simple:




“Press” was used here for a reason. Negotiations are ongoing on a peace settlement that should demarcate the joint border and streamline logistics. Against this background, Baku is debating the issue of respecting the rights of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Armenia. We are talking about the Armenian region of Syunik, which in Azerbaijan is called Zangezur. Knowledgeable people argue that this is only a pretext for the start of new tension: the Azerbaijanis urgently need Zangezur strategically - it could potentially serve as a convenient corridor to Nakhichevan.

The scheme is this: it is necessary to achieve the return of ethnic Azerbaijanis to their historical small homeland - Syunik-Zangezur (as well as other border regions of Armenia) - from Azerbaijan and Iran, where they are supposedly in exile. And if Aliyev manages to do this under security guarantees, in the future it will be possible to blow up Armenia from the inside as a result of provocations. They say our people are being beaten! And quickly come to the aid of the oppressed brotherly people of Zangezur. Altay Goyushev, director of the analytical department of the sociological institute in Baku, believes:

The economical policy of Ilham Heydarovich

In the East they know how to wait, so this is more like a long-term task. But what is the Baku regime going to do in the west of the republic today and tomorrow? He is now satisfied with tactics that combine the arrangement and development of Karabakh, the escalation of the conflict into a long, sluggish phase like the endless Indo-Pakistani confrontation with the parallel strengthening of authoritarianism. How viable will such tactics be, given the public dissatisfaction with the ongoing social policies, unclear.

One should not discount the fact that the world community is wary of Azerbaijan’s position on Armenia. Since September 2022, international human rights organizations, as well as partly the UN, have been raising the topic that Azerbaijan, which initially sought to restore territorial integrity, is turning into a state essentially engaged in annexation.

Be that as it may, so far the popularity of the head of the Republic of Azerbaijan is at a fairly high level. Aliyev was even forgiven for the dynastic succession that questioned his legitimacy as president, because the victorious war of 2020 restored balance in the minds of citizens, providing this leader with mass support. There is a rebranding of power and the ruling elite.

The easiest way is to blame everything on the Armenians

According to the official propaganda version, with the hoisting of the banner in Khankendi, Azerbaijan became the Fourth Republic. Let us recall that, according to modern Azerbaijani historiography, the first three were the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic of 1918-1920, the AzSSR and sovereign Azerbaijan. But these are all paraphernalia, but what will really happen is the gradual return of the original Azerbaijani population to Karabakh.

At least 600 thousand people of Azerbaijani origin were at one time displaced from the regions occupied by the Armenians. The Azerbaijani government is spending billions of manats on mine clearance and restoration to pave the way for the return of former residents of this region. Who said it would be easy? And the older brother Erdogan is not very helpful - at the moment he himself needs the money. Representative of the President of Azerbaijan for special assignments Elchin Amirbekov states:


In this regard, on September 29, Aliyev delivered a keynote speech. He regards the relocation of refugees to their small homeland as task No. 1. In three years, the leader of the nation plans to resettle at least 100 thousand people. However, the guarantor devoted more than half of his monologue to voicing a long list of “Armenian crimes,” unable to resist making threats:

It was worth it?

However, as it turns out, they don’t want to go to an unsafe, ruined place. And, apparently, they won’t want to soon. The local press wrote: of the 1,2 thousand former inhabitants of the Lachin region who returned to the applause of officials, half left because of unacceptable living conditions. Altai Goyushev's opinion:


Meanwhile, a significant part of Armenian society is not going to accept defeat. Revanchism is quite common within the Armenian opposition, whose strength only grew stronger after the loss of Artsakh. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is playing along, disputing the outcome of the latest military campaign.