How did #Armenia and #Azerbaijan get to this point? This thread brings together my short comments written April 2016-September 2020, mostly for @CHRussiaEurasia, but also @ips_journal, @OCMediaorg and @ValdaiClub. For a deeper background dive, see my book.
chathamhouse.org/expert/comment… The '4-day war' breaks out in April 2016.
chathamhouse.org/expert/comment… What needed to happen after April 2016 - and didn't.
chathamhouse.org/expert/comment… From 2017: how the "Vienna-St Petersburg-Geneva" agenda for confidence-building and substantive talks was left to drift - along with others, I was calling for the Minsk Conference, eternally deferred, to finally be convened.
chathamhouse.org/expert/comment… After Armenia's Velvet Revolution in April 2018, there were expectations of a reset and a new opening - but deep structural and political obstacles remained.
chathamhouse.org/expert/comment… In January 2019 it looked some movement was possible: some minimal hotline and humanitarian cooperation was agreed, and the phrase "preparing populations for peace" emerged.
chathamhouse.org/expert/comment… But by April 2019 it was clear that going beyond what I called "low-cost confidence building" to the more meaningful ceasefire support infrastructure and substantive political dialogue was not happening.
chathamhouse.org/expert/comment… By the middle of 2020 we were witnessing a new deterioration in relations, after a disastrous public debate between the leaders in Munich.
chathamhouse.org/expert/comment… In July 2020, what had been effectively a de facto truce since the latter half of 2017 came to an end with a significant escalation in the area of the #Armenia-#Azerbaijan border.
valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/j… My reflections on the July 2020 escalation as auguring an inflection point in the conflict: "OSCE mediation efforts... are now challenged by global multipolarity featuring global and regional powers practising very different models of conflict resolution."
ips-journal.eu/regions/europe… Published three weeks before war broke out, I, like many others, was concerned about the totalisation of the conflict and trying to see ways out.
oc-media.org/features/analy… I've already tweeted this out, but to bring us up to date here's my first analysis of the current war published 30/9. More to come. My thoughts are with all those in the line of fire today.
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