War in Caucasus: A chessboard of interests

War –  not unexpected, but surely a situation all sides of the conflict had tried to avoid. Another tragic war! I was going to write a long article showing all sides and aspects of the conflict. There are many more than the local ones. In fact very many: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Iran, Russia, US, Britain, China, and more! It would be close to a never ending story.

The story would be not about Azerbaijan, that wants to re-gain control over Armenia/ Russia occupied regions in and around Karabakh. It is not about Armenia, having thousands of refugees from the regions around Karabakh. Thousands fo refugess from the beginning of the occupation live in Azerbaijan. Both directly involved countries have their international backings, their allies, their strategically interested partners, their energy and oil- and gas-pipeline related issues and ties. Still, since 1994 there has been no active attempt to solve the long standing conflict over the regions around and in Karabakh. Experts with great expertise have their views on the situation, Prof. Otto Luchterhand seeing the right on one side, Prof. Hans-Joachim Heintze and several other experts for international law see it on the other. It is very clear that this urgently conflict needs a settlement by experts for law, and politics. The international community has not taken the situation serious enough to push for a diplomatic settlement. Now it has turned into a military conflict.

The seemingly small scale, but dangerous areana in Caucausus is linked to other conflicts: to the Krim, Eastern Ukraine occupation, and the war between Russia and Georgia, also ending in the occupation of 20% of Georgian territory: South Ossetia and Abkhazia. And it is linked to our European gas market.

A short analysis of the local situation I found here:
Existentielle Bedrohung
https://zeitung.faz.net/faz/politik/2020-10-22/e1ea81a600b688ca88c585400bbe0b17?GEPC=s9

A deep analysis of the situation between the Black Sea and the Caspian water can befound in the new Bertelsmann study/ Policy Paper by independent experts of the region. 201007_BSt_ID806_Schlüsselstaaten#3_Kaukasus_EN_layout_VFinal

The analysis should be an eye opener to all, who think that the present conflict is a local conflict.

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