Following Azerbaijan’s 48-hour military takeover of the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh in late September, new fears have arisen in Armenia as Azerbaijan eyes up a strategic strip of land at its southern border, which could see a further worrying escalation of conflict in an already volatile region.

Updates from Nagorno-Karabakh – A Scarred Region

There is anger in Yerevan, where protesters and riot squads alike have taken up residence on Republic Square, as Armenian citizens express their widespread resentment at the government’s refusal to come to the aid of the tens of thousands of Armenians residing in Nagorno Karabakh, who last month were forced to flee as Azerbaijan invaded the enclave. Recent UN estimates place the number of Armenians still residing in the Armenian enclave in the low hundreds, with Armenia claiming that up to 130,000 individuals have fled Artsakh into mainland Armenia to avoid the threat of death and persecution, in spite of Azerbaijan’s promise to respect their fundamental rights to remain in the region.

However, this comes as Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, paid a visit to the region over the weekend, raising the Azerbaijani flag over its capital Stepenakert in front of a meagre crowd of Azerbaijani military forces and the few dozen Armenians who chose to remain or who were unable to leave. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan claimed the large-scale forced evacuation amounted to “a direct act of ethnic cleansing and depriving people of their motherland”, in spite of claims by Aliyev that the mass migration of the region’s residents was a “personal and individual decision” that “had nothing to do with forced relocation”. But as anger remains in Yerevan, directed both at Azerbaijan and the Armenian government, there is growing concern that Aliyev has set his eyes on a new prize.

A New Frontier?

The town of Meghri in southern Armenia sits at a strategic crossing point, and has caught the eyes of several regional powers, including Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey and Russia, which all are competing for access. Located north of the Aras River and the Iranian border, Meghri lies west of the landlocked Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan, of which Baku has dreamt of connecting to its mainland and which also borders Turkey. To Azerbaijan, Meghri and the rest of Armenia’s Syunik province is better known as the Zangezur Corridor, with Aliyev describing the opening of this corridor as a top objective – one that has now been placed in the spotlight after Baku’s recapture of the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh.

For decades, Azerbaijan has been eyeing this piece of land as a broken link in what could potentially be a much more valuable east-west ‘Middle Corridor’ that would connect China and Central Asian countries to Turkey via Azerbaijan. Baku hopes that the completion of a railroad to Kars, Turkey, through the Zangezur Corridor from Horadiz, would allow greater economic access both for Azerbaijan, and for its allies, namely Turkey and Russia. An initial agreement had been reached to open transport routes to Baku as part of a 2020 ceasefire in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, with Armenia since backpedalling on this agreement given growing tensions with Azerbaijan. Feeling betrayed by Moscow, which failed to prevent Azerbaijan’s invasion of the region, Armenia announced full control of the route and does not want Moscow security forces involved, who have been administering security operations in the region since the 1970s.

Since Azerbaijan’s recent conquest of Nagorno Karabakh, concerns have greatly increased that Baku will take Meghri by force and given the international community’s preoccupation with the Israel-Palestine conflict, it seems much more likely that a further invasion in the region will not be met with an overwhelming international outcry. Last month, Aliyev met with the Turkish Prime Minister Recap Erdogan in Nakhchivan to discuss transport links through the Zanzegur corridor. Both Turkey and Russia have backed these plans, with Moscow yearning for the route as a means to circumvent Western sanctions which were imposed over the Ukraine conflict, using Azerbaijan to continue selling oil despite import bans and a price cap regime coordinated by the G7 in early 2022. Baku itself had previously signalled that it would use force to seize the corridor if the 2020 deal is not upheld, with Aliyev stating in 2021 that “we will implement the Zangezur corridor whether Armenia wants it or not”.

Given the recent military campaign in Nagorno Karabakh, Yerevan’s concerns seem valid. Faced with the dissolution of relative peace in the Middle East, the international community is far more preoccupied with bigger and badder threats, but the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia remains an important geopolitical issue given the involvement of several regional powers vying for a stake in the game. The Next Century Foundation strongly urges the international community to pay attention to Armenia and heed its call for help, to risk further escalation in this conflict.