Dispute over villages

Is the next war in the Caucasus imminent?

Are the peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia escalating so close to the finish line and is the next war in the Caucasus imminent?

Six months after the Armenian side lost control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region to Azerbaijan, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is warning of a new war with its neighbor. If Armenia does not also agree to the return of four Azerbaijani villages that it has controlled since the early 1990s, a war could break out "by the end of the week", the Russian state news agency TASS quoted him as saying on Tuesday.

According to the report, Pashinyan was speaking to residents of the border region where the villages, which have been uninhabited for more than 30 years, are located. Armenia suffered a bitter defeat last September when Azerbaijani troops took control of Nagorno-Karabakh in a second blitz offensive after 2020. The estimated 100,000 ethnic Armenians in the region then fled to Armenia.

Strategically important villages
Both neighbors subsequently expressed their willingness to sign an official peace treaty to settle the decades-long conflict. However, the talks stalled due to differences of opinion, such as the demarcation of the 1000-kilometer-long common border. Azerbaijan also insists on the return of the four villages and several small enclaves.

Azerbaijan: "Agreement closer than ever"
However, the villages in question are located on an important connecting road between the capital Yerevan and the Georgian border and are therefore also important for the Armenian side. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev recently declared that a peace agreement between the two neighbors was "closer than ever".