The following several weeks are likely to determine the future course of the conflict that has plagued Armenia and Azerbaijan, two South Caucasus neighbors, for over three decades. A breakthrough in the peace talks hinges on a potential agreement, which would see the return of strategically important border villages to Azerbaijan.
In recent weeks, Armenian Prime-Minister Nikol Pashinyan has launched an unprecedented political campaign in his country’s modern history. In highly expressive meetings at the nation’s parliament and with the local constituencies, including in border areas, Pashinyan has signaled his readiness to return unconditionally four out of eight border villages claimed by Azerbaijan. These villages, now abandoned and in ruins, de jure belong to Azerbaijan but have been controlled by Armenia since early 1990s.
A common theme in all these meetings was a cutout map of Armenia, which Pashinyan brandished every time when arguing for relinquishing control over the disputed villages, – a performance aptly described by one regional commentator as “almost comical at first but also unexpectedly symbolic”.
That a prime-minister feels the need to accentuate on the legitimate boundaries of his own state to his domestic interlocutors is extraordinary, but not surprising considering the recent memories of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. Immediately after regaining independence following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the two neighbors found themselves locked in a brutal war, in which Armenia gained an upper hand, capturing nearly one-fifth of Azerbaijani territory. Over the decades since, a new perception of “augmented Armenia” (a term coined by scholar Laurence Broers), which included the Karabakh region and slivers of Azerbaijani territory along the border, has become deeply ingrained in the Armenian national psyche. Azerbaijan’s stunning victory in the 44-Day War in 2020 effectively put an end to any hopes for realizing this nationalist vision. Yet, coming to terms with a new reality has been emotionally painful for many Armenians.
Pashinyan’s latest political endeavor is an attempt, perhaps the most significant to date, to reconcile the Armenian society with the new post-war reality to enable signing a peace deal with Azerbaijan. Speaking on 23 March to his party members in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city, Pashinyan wielded the cutout map of his country and called for the Armenian society to “transition from historic [perception of] Armenia to real Armenia”. On 30 March, speaking in Artashat, 30 km southeast of capital Yerevan, he reiterated the message, while emotionally waving the same replica map of Armenia and lamenting that “many political forces [inside Armenia] themselves do not recognize Armenia’s territorial integrity.”
In a way, Pashinyan finds himself between a hammer of domestic radical opposition, resisting any territorial concessions, and an anvil of assertive Azerbaijan demanding a definitive conclusion to the conflict on its terms.
Avoiding the pre-2020 conflict patterns is crucial
Since the end of the 2020 war, both Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders expressed readiness to sign a peace deal based on mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity. Yet, the talks have been complicated by the fact that Armenia still occupies eight Azerbaijani border and exclave villages, while Azerbaijan occupies one Armenian exclave village.
What makes the dispute over these border villages particularly intriguing is that most of Armenia’s domestic and international passenger and freight transport is conducted using motorways that pass through or near the de jure Azerbaijani territories in these settlements. Thus, Armenia’s main north-south highway (M2) and its main trade route with Iran, an important trade partner for Armenia, passes through an Azerbaijani exclave village of Karki. Seven other villages are located on or just next to another major highway (M16/H26) linking Armenia’s capital Yerevan with Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.
While the legal belonging of the villages is not in doubt, broader disagreements over the border delimitation have added a layer of complexity to the dispute. Yerevan has accused Baku of occupying Armenian territory after the end of the 2020 war, apparently using this claim as a central argument in its effort to deflect from the Azerbaijani claims on the eight villages. Armenian officials and media have cited differing figures for the alleged occupied territory, ranging from “at least 215 square kilometers” to 170 and most recently, 83 square kilometers. These claims are not only self-contradictory but dubious, given that Yerevan appears to consider areas within a non-delineated mountainous border terrain – exposed to Azerbaijani forces’ visual observation and fire control – as being under occupation.
However, it should be noted that in the aftermath of the 2020 war, both Armenia and Azerbaijan rushed to capture commanding heights along their non-delineated border, digging trenches and installing fortifications along the way. Both countries have captured slivers of land just inside each other’s borders, the traces of which are easily observable using open access Satellite imagery. In the absence of tangible progress in the peace talks, disputes over factual delimitation of boundaries and border tensions escalated, leading to deadly border clashes, particularly in May 2021 and September 2022.
Armenia and Azerbaijan must avoid repeating the patterns of conflict behavior that existed before 2020, when both sides sought to expand and advance their military positions towards each other to gain tactical advantage, and periodically tested each other’s strength in localized skirmishes and tit-for-tat attacks. Such deterioration risks locking Armenia and Azerbaijan into a vicious circle of increased militarization of their de facto border and consequently, a higher risk of border clashes, further derailing the peace process.
To move forward, Armenia and Azerbaijan must agree to return occupied border and exclave villages within the framework of mutual recognition of territorial integrity and sovereignty. Agreement on this point would pave the way for resolving all other outstanding issues, particularly the unblocking of regional communications, arguably the biggest obstacle to the signing of a peace deal.
Balancing transit needs with sovereignty claims
One of Azerbaijan’s key negotiation goals is securing a transit corridor allowing passage from mainland Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave through a 42 km-long stretch of Armenian territory, popularly dubbed as the “Zangezur Corridor”. To achieve this goal, Azerbaijan will likely leverage Armenia’s dependence on strategic transport routes that pass through its de jure territory in the border villages.
Unfortunately, Armenian political discourse needlessly politicized the term “Zangezur Corridor”, viewing it as threat to national sovereignty. Azerbaijan has consistently stated it has no claims to Armenian territory, insisting only on the physical absence of Armenian border and customs controls along the route for security and “unimpeded” movement of its citizens, vehicles, and goods between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan.
The 10 November 2020 armistice agreement, which ended the 44-Day War, stipulated “unimpeded movement of citizens, vehicles and goods” between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan under the supervision of the Russian border guards already stationed in Armenia. However, Armenia’s defeat in Karabakh led to massive frustration with its patron Russia, prompting it to look for security guarantees elsewhere. Under these circumstances, it is unlikely Armenia will agree to give Russia a perpetual control over a portion of its territory to secure Azerbaijan’s transit – notwithstanding its commitment to do so in the 2020 document. While Azerbaijan’s resistance to Armenian control over its domestic transit is understandable, insistence on Russian security presence would be ill-advised, as it would risk making Baku’s own legitimate demand for transit a hostage to unrelated problems between Armenia and Russia.
In December 2023, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, proposed a new “Kaliningrad model” for transit between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan. This new proposal indicates that Azerbaijan is looking to find a common ground with Armenia based on bilateral arrangements and without relying on perpetual guarantees from Russia or any other external actor.
The “Kaliningrad model” draws from visa-free transit for Russian citizens and a customs-free procedure for Russian goods moving between mainland Russia and its Kaliningrad exclave via Lithuanian territory, while respecting Lithuania’s sovereign control over the designated road and railway infrastructure. In effect since early 2000s, this arrangement survived Lithuania’s accession to the EU and even, with some hiccups, Russia’s brutal invasion in Ukraine.
Azerbaijan’s latest proposal also suggests a nuanced distinction between domestic and international movement. Armenia is offered to forego physical border and customs checks for the movement of citizens, vehicles, and cargo between mainland Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan exclave, while exercising full regulatory control for all other categories of movements where the origin or destination is a third country. This arrangement could entail simplified electronic border and customs clearance procedures, similar to the so-called “Facilitated Transit Document” and electronic customs clearance systems that exist between Lithuania and Russia concerning the transit to/from Kaliningrad.
In exchange, Azerbaijan is offering opening its borders with Armenia, granting Armenia access to all its road and rail infrastructure and based on the reciprocity principle, applying similar transit regulations for Armenia’s international transit through Azerbaijan as Armenia would apply for Azerbaijan’s international transit through Armenia. The opening of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border would also lead to the opening of Armenia’s borders with Türkiye, Azerbaijan’s closest ally, thus ending Armenia’s three-decade-long isolation from regional connectivity and economic initiatives.
Azerbaijan could go further by offering Armenia a perpetual, free, and unimpeded transit through segments of Armenia’s strategic M2 and M16/H26 highways that traverse its de jure territory. This gesture would help alleviate Armenia’s concerns over relinquishing control of the Azerbaijani border and exclave villages and the potential adverse impacts on its domestic and international transport communications.
In conclusion, achieving peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan depends on reaching an agreement to unblock regional communications, which, in turn, hinges upon the return of the border villages and the establishment of reciprocal mechanisms ensuring fair and unimpeded transit rights. A quid pro quo deal, emphasizing mutual respect for sovereignty and free passage rights, would bind the security and economic interests of Armenia and Azerbaijan, facilitate unblocking the regional communications, and improve security for border communities. Additionally, it would end Armenia’s three-decade-long regional isolation and reinforce South Caucasus region’s role as a potential strategic transit hub for the lucrative East-West and North-South trade.
Tabib Huseynov is an independent policy analyst and researcher based in Tbilisi, Georgia.
